excerpted from: Whole Number 59 - December 1992
Drawing The Line
excerpted from: Whole Number 59 - December 1992
Drawing The Line
It certainly appears, on the surface and in the short run, easier to come to some sort of compromise with the State and allow it to have some say in the education of our children. Yet such a compromise can only feebly palliate our position for that day when the State comes and insists that we must teach what we conscientiously oppose. Minimum Requirements do indeed appear reasonable. And probably few Christian parents or schools fail to teach their children the basic subjects that the proponents of this view include in their list of prescribed courses. ... This is quite different, however, from acknowledging that the State has the right to compel us to teach our children these things, particularly when the State has so miserably failed in teaching "its" own children these very requirements.
Moreover, once we grant this principle, where can we possibly draw the line? If we agree that the State has the legitimate authority to mandate the teaching of that which society generally agrees as essential to social communication and good citizenship because we may agree with those basic requirements today, what if tomorrow the consensus of an increasingly corrupt society (as in Nazi Germany) goes beyond our prior agreement? If tomorrow we say that we cannot agree to the State's requirements, then we can only in good conscience refuse to submit to those requirements if we deny that the State ever had that rightful authority in the first place. If the State has legitimate power to control education, then obviously that control cannot be defined by those over whom it is to be exercised. Either the State has the legitimate power or it does not. If we accept any governmental authority in this area today, we greatly weaken and compromise our position for the battles that will inevitably come tomorrow. Unless we confess now that absolute, given limits prevent us from submitting in good conscience to any governmental control of education, we shall have compromised our position for the future.
by Mark Moyers, D.C.
The word "immunization" is used to describe an injection of a substance which is intended to make a person free from the necessity of fighting a disease. "Immune" was borrowed by the scientific community from the political community. A Latin word, derived some 4000 years ago, immune meant "free from obligation or duty to the city or public". "Immune" was a political word used to describe a particular status of an individual.
When the scientific community began to use it, it had a similar basis with regard to disease, yet no thought of a political reference was apparent. Within a hundred years after the development of immunizations, they became compulsory (as a matter of law) for all children attending public schools. Here was "compulsory freedom" long before Orwell ever thought of mind control.
As in many cases, the State has successfully obtained the sanction of the victim. The most sacred of all ownership rights is your freely granted permission to do to your body or your property what someone else wishes to do with it. By discouraging a person to reflectively think about, and therefore understand, the meaning of compulsory immunization laws, the State has kept from that person (better known as the victim) the simple fact that this form of "freedom" — compulsory immunization — will be done to him over his objection and against his will. In other words, it will be done whether he likes it or not. Moreover, the State has so arranged circumstances that nearly none of the victims object. Ninety-eight percent of all persons immunized under compulsory immunization laws never object! They don't know how! They don't know that they can! They don't know that they might want to, or why!
When people object you need to have policemen there to force them and/or build jails to coerce them. Hence, obtaining the voluntary sanction of the victim through proper psychological warfare techniques is by far the most cost-effective method of controlling people or, as the State likes to refer to them, "political animals."
There rages in the medical community controversy over the effectiveness of vaccines, yet they are still compulsory. The argument of compulsion saving any life, anywhere, ever, can be nullified with the same simple fact that it was not the medical community with its state-of-the-art technologies, medicines, or vaccines which has made a significant difference in the lives of mankind as a whole. It was not even the advent of chiropractic or any of the other alternatives which mankind has found to help, that have made the greatest difference. All of these things help individuals, and therefore mankind as a whole, when needed, to some degree or another.
These accomplishments, while very important to the affected individual, pale when viewed first from a global perspective, and second when viewed in comparison to what has been done for individuals and mankind as a whole by the free market. Only once in recorded history have men tried to live free and for only a short time at that. But when they did and to the degree that they did, their standard of living skyrocketed, concomitantly so did their health, life span and numbers (population).
In the words of a noted scientist and developer of one of the vaccines in question, Dr. Albert Sabin is quoted as follows:
While there are often paradoxes within the paradigms which are presented in order that the universe be understood, this is not such a case. Either men will live better and longer through compulsory vaccination programs or they won't. Conversely stated either men will live better and longer as a result of freedom and liberty or they won't. No room for paradoxes here: men live and die as a result of which philosophy they choose, the correct one leads to all the wonders of human life, the incorrect one leads to all the pain, suffering and ugliness of dead and dying humans.
Guest Columnist
by Kevin Cullinane
Then that silent but baleful, uncompromising pile of half-finished projects on my desk pushed my pragmatic button, and the pleasant moment passed. "Besides," the pile seemed to whisper, "You are a bit too vituperative, or sensational in style, to appeal to a thoughtful journal." In self-defense I muttered that I wasn't either, I'm a, uh, well .... an iconoclast! I write and lecture in an effort to discredit icons which need clasting, and that requires that sparks should fly off the paper — but, at heart I'm just a sweet, lovable guy who can't get any respect. (The unfinished projects seemed singularly unimpressed.)
Most of us can remember the imagery of a "spark igniting a powder keg" somewhere within the stale, dead pages of the state-approved history books, force-fed us during adolescence. The hopeful phrase was a five-word promise of something exciting about to happen: KA-BOOM! (Subliminally, we hoped the explosion might actually leap from the pages to shatter the classroom's catatonic ambience. — Maybe even blow a hole in the wall through which we could escape for the rest of the day!) The anticipation invariably fizzled out; the sterilized writers of approved histories having acquired the talent to distill even the most dramatic gore into "lite" history. But for a moment the powder-keg analogy would have sparked (?) a certain attentive anticipation.
As we all did, I survived the ordeal of state-fed history, "written by the winning side." But my heart was always with those little "sparks" which, from time to time shook things up for a page or two of wearying world history. Perhaps that attraction was what steered me — during my criminal past — into a brief career as a Marine Corps insurgent and counterinsurgent "expert." (it certainly was what attracted me, in more innocent days, to admiration of Robin Hood — bane of the sheriffs and bishops surrounding Nottingham Forrest.)
Any who have ever camped out, beyond reach of propane campstoves, know from frustrating experience, that most sparks die without having ignited anything. But, is it the job of a spark to succeed, or is its job merely to provide the potential for ignition? I've muttered imprecations at sparks for dying on me without getting my fire started, and I've sworn at them for igniting unwanted brushfires. The poor spark! As with Kipling's generic infantryman, Tommy Atkins, it is shot at if it does, and damned if it doesn't.
John Barrington observed that, if a spark (always termed, "treason" by the Establishment of its day), manages to touch off a significant reaction, it undergoes a certain identity crisis. He wrote:
The inflammatory's words, enshrined for a brief season, are referred to as, "the sweet light of reason." Of course, for every Tom Paine who succeeds in touching off a sheet-flame of revolutionary passion, a hundred others are rounded up by the thought-police or, (even worse!), ignored by one and all during their lifetime.
But, as Albert Nock pointed out in his MEMOIRS OF A SUPERFLUOUS MAN, (or was it in his essay, "Isaiah's Job"?), trying to second-guess the reception which it will receive, is counter-productive to the spark's mission. It is not the job of the spark to know where the powder lies, or how much of it there is, Nock observed. Nor does the job entail knowing whether the powder is dry enough to ignite, or if, having sat overlong in an unfriendly climate, it has become degraded into a lump of nitrate fertilizer.
Good point. Any one spark has its brief season, then extinguishes; what it accomplishes during its time depends, to important degree, upon the situation in which it flares. But then, if the spark were to take the time to carefully analyze the situation, before touching its tiny fire to it, the spark would surely come to naught. (-rather than only, quite possibly. ... This may be the place to observe that, given the unhappy odds facing an iconoclast, it is always well for him to have some other form of livelihood than the largess of a grateful populace! ) In the face of such somber telefinalism, I suppose that it's best that I speak and write-away; and let the sparks fall where they may.
There will always be those who counsel a "spoonful of honey," and in most cases they will be correct. The impassive dignity of diplomacy, and dispassionate phraseology of academic respectability, almost always impress, even when they fail to persuade, or even motivate, don't they? But there remains a place for "vinegar" within the intellectual affairs of passionate folks. It could be that, at present, the time has passed a point where politically-debased language is even capable of communicating genuine freedom consciousness to any significant number — but history comforts us that better times will dawn.
In the meantime, there is that all-precious Remnant whose unquenchable spirit should be fed. "Feed it to them straight" , Nock advised, "100-proof, and don't be concerned about those who gag or turn away." So, if there be a journal, here or there, still open to a bit of irreverent and rather highly seasoned commentary, perhaps its time to bring the flint and the steel together.
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Drawing The Line
By the time that the year 1984 came and went, the powers that be had convinced the "masses" that George Orwell's prediction of "Big Brother" had been nothing but fantasy. Orwell had said that the State would control people by controlling their thoughts-by way of language destruction, language pollution, and word-meaning reversals. Orwell painted the future with definition changes such as "Ignorance is strength," and "Freedom is slavery." I don't believe he ever focused on the contradictions inherent in compulsory immunization, so I would like to do so now.
"Life expectancy at birth jumped from 36 years in 1776 to 72-plus in 1976. Most of the change has occurred since 1900. We have determined that medical advances have not really caused this great change," he remarked. "It's the tremendous advance in our standard of living in the United States which has improved housing conditions, sanitation, hygiene, diet and agricultural production. Give me a choice between providing everybody with sufficient nutritious food and giving them fancy medicines and vaccines, and I would take the sufficient food."
Flint and Steel
The Memoirs of a Superfluous Spark
The other day I received an intellectual newsletter, of the small "l" (i.e. traditional) libertarian persuasion, in which the publisher invited subscribers to submit occasional columns. The invitation pushed my vanity button; I began to daydream: "Yes they say that this year's Nobel selection was first published as a guest editorial in a small, libertarian newsletter. Really! How interesting... "
What's the reason?
For if it doth prosper,
None dare call it treason."
Kevin Cullinane teaches Freedom School in Spartanburg, SC.
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