Why Government?

If we ask ourselves, what is the purpose of Government? the ready answer is - to serve the people. But that isn't it. A government that serves the people would need to provide jobs for people, ensure they have adequate housing and wages and healthcare and education and toilet paper. But that isn't the function of government.

The Founders wrestled with these ideas and came up with a purpose for establishing a government. They wrote it into the Preamble of the Constitution. The purpose is - union justice tranquility defense welfare liberty. That is, a unified country, a just legal system, peace & harmony, safety & security, the well-being of citizens, and continuous personal freedom.

Nowhere did the Founders mention providing jobs, housing, wages, healthcare, or education. We can assume these things from "promote the general welfare" but we could assume that means anything we want it to. It could just as easily mean "see that river - catch fish, cook 'em & eat 'em, and you won't be hungry no more." So we can't just assume that the Founders meant for government to take care of people like a foster parent. Likely they didn't intend any of that.

Likely, they meant a unified country where people would take care of their own needs; while government would provide legal justice, law & order, and defense from foreign attack. As die-hard Republicans say "build roads, secure the borders, and leave us alone."

So which is it? A government that takes care of our needs; or just provides basic minimums so people can take care of themselves? Well, before ratifying the Constitution, the Founders had to come up with a Bill of Rights to clarify what government could & couldn't do. But mostly it aims limit to government overreach. Which tells us that government intervention should be minimal rather than inclusive.

So what changed? Obviously, in an elected government, vote seekers promise all sorts of new benefits if people vote for them. This is an obvious flaw of elected governance, but so it is. Hardly anyone is smart enough to turn down free stuff in the belief that it'll just make you lazy or dependent on gift-givers. But the more free stuff we get, the lazier and more dependent we become. And if we do that for any length of time, we convince ourselves that free stuff is actually a right that government owes us.

Hence any free stuff we got, quickly becomes "hey, you owed us that because it was our right to have it" followed by "now we want more, because that's also our right." So anything we don't have is considered something the stingy government is depriving us of because all they'd have to do is tax the rich and give stuff to everybody else - in short, the platform of Progressive politics.

So what would a happy medium be? Well, theoretically, there'd be no medium - we'd simply adhere to the minimalist governance of the Founders. But theory isn't practice. When the government asks its men and heads of families to fight & die in wars, or send their sons to do that - then people are going to want compensation for that. At the very least, they'll want free college education and subsidized loans to buy houses. Which is clearly a small price for government to pay for the soldiers who fought in global wars.

But the next round of demands is even steeper. Enlightened thinkers will insist that "we aren't going to risk our lives to fight in your wars, but we still want more and more benefits." And enlightened vote seekers will run on those issues, disguising them as "the people's rights." Otherwise known as the welfare state. Which benefits everyone in the short term, and no one in the long run.

Todd Among the Nightingales

Todd meanders down the street, scrawny, pot-bellied; I see he’s lost most of his hair now. Comes over to the guys outside the halfway house with a big smile on his face. They’re sitting there smoking cigarettes watching the grass grow, whatever. Friends of his, I guess.

I’m making a delivery, dropping off a package. “He was one of the Chicago Seven” I tell ‘em. Todd smiles, starts recounting the names “Abby Hoffman, Jerry Rubin...” Yeah, and Todd Obermeyer.  

We used to talk about it, back when I was his caseworker, as if that’s all there was. Paging through the high school yearbook, pictures in black and white. Pretty girls in pep club outfits, Pierpoint Rustlerettes 1967.

Todd looks at the pictures objectively, distantly; tells me how shy and dysfunctional he was in school; even though his folks had money. A scrawny little mouse with droopy eyes and big ears, short hair cut. Like none of that ever mattered anyway. “I’m forty-eight years old y’know.”

Then in college, somehow in a fraternity, in with the bright young going somewhere crowd. The cusp of future leaders. Chicago ’68, when he had the breakdown. They brought him back from Canada, put him in the hospital for twenty years. Ten more after that on the outside, still that’s all there ever was.

Lives alone in a spotlessly clean apartment, government funded. Everything neat and orderly, very nice. “I got no food” he says, objectively, not that it matters. Just something to talk about, making conversation. We have to meet, we have to talk. What else is there to say.

First of the month his check comes in. The vultures swoop down and take it away. Tougher needier mental patients who prey on the weaker ones. Borrow things, like your money. “They talk me into it” he says “what can I do? He says he’ll pay me back, and he never does. Next time I’m gonna just tell him no.”

Aint gonna happen. I’d like to see Todd get really angry about it, just to see how far he’d go before he’d back down. Like a couple of Pomeranians fighting each other. Or maybe that’s how we all are when you think about it.

Take him to the food pantry where people donate food so that others who don’t have any can come get some. Todd’s very picky. “Do you have...” this, that, the other, like we’re at the supermarket, anything you want. I’m embarrassed. This is free food Todd, just take what the lady gives you, okay? Asks if he can come back every month, his problems would be solved.

I like Todd, he’s so different from what you’d think a schizophrenic would be. So quiet calm peaceful. That slight smile, like things are amusing to him, or beyond his control. Always so friendly, gentle, dignified in his own way. A pleasure to visit with him, to escape from the constant tension and stress of the job. Just to sit here in this spotlessly clean apartment, reminisce about old days.

When I get to know him better, he confides in me a bit. The color coded signals God uses to tell him things. He saw a man on tv wearing a blue suit. Blue means royalty, that was a good man. Something yellow in a magazine would be a warning. Don’t go out today. Orange is even more dangerous.

That was years ago. I’m surprised he’s made it this far. But I like Todd, I’m happy to see him. Later run across him meandering down the street, big fleshy bulge on the side of his neck. “Todd, how you doing?” “Well...I got cancer. Of the lymph nodes, I guess. They’re giving me chemo... I’m fifty-eight years old, y’know.”

 After the Nam 

Everybody changes and gets somewhere. Everybody grows, but not me. I'm inverting, like a child now. Movies make me cry, the Olympics make me cry. 

I'm over at Five Points with Cap'n and Deke, and then Cap'n goes home. We'll catch a ride later, we say, after some more pool, a few more beers, but we don't.

And what the hell, nice night, all starry and wide open sky, a little cold in the fall, so what. We got Jack in the Bottle, and that's warm. We choose: the dirt road sees a car not very often this late; the tracks cut angle across to Sutterville. We take the tracks, what the hell, seven miles, Jack in the Bottle, what the hell. We talk, old friends, old dreams, all of them broken.

Deke wanted to join the Army, shoots straight and true at rabbits, at pool, at targets at the fair, ever since he's a kid. Deke, a big heavy guy. They won't take him now - he's overweight and there's no war, no need. He tells me his sad life story like it's over, like can't I feel his pain, his quaking voice, this great big man with hands like turtle shells.

I take a drink and speak of that little Russian girl who won gold in gymnastics; such a cute little kid, so proud and tough and alone. It makes me want to cry, so happy it worked out right for her, so fretful it would not. Deke drinks and yells at the black of the sky, and agrees. He saw that too. He felt that too. She won, and almost our victory with her. And that's all we ever won.

The Life and Times of Bill Ectric

Stokey - somewhere in the Midwest. After the war and the flood had changed everything, it was decided that President Azcroft should become the supreme allied commander of the world. He had pressed for power over the whole universe but Congressman Shabazz of Detroit balked at this, and with an impassioned speech, convinced enough of his fellow left-wingers not to go along with it. After that, Azcroft abolished Congress for good.

Then he came after me. Azcroft wasn’t all that bright or anything but his handlers got him to appoint young Lenny Lassiter as chief of the cyber detection agency (the CDA). And since we all lived on the internet, nobody was safe. But it wasn’t even my fault, in fact it was all just an accident. I’d sent Bill Eccentric an email about stuff I was working on. You know, asking for advice, input, maybe some encouragement, the usual. And no answer of course. So I waited, waited, waited. No answer. What could I do? Sent another email; nothing.

Later we found out that Bill’s ‘puter had crashed and the emails instead of going to him were bouncing off Mt. Everest and heading out into space. No problem, except that Igor Kartoffsky, long lost Russian cosmonaut was intercepting those emails on the far side of Andromeda. Now Kartoffsky had been lost for a long time but at the speed he was going, time didn’t mean much. He’d have said its all relative; we’d say he had a lot of time on his hands. Sure, he’d already made himself a cosmonette, first thing. And wired his bodily functions to the Soyuz so he didn’t need much food or anything.

But now…he’s discovered the Net. Right off he gets ahold of Putin’s credit card number, so he gots Serious radio, dish TV, the Cowboys and Yankees on demand. And he’s thinking “yeah, REM’s cool... How’d Brooke Shields age so quickly And who’s this guy Stokey sendin me these emails?” But then he starts to insert his own code into our web traffic, starts to make us do things…

Bill - in northeast Florida. Monday morning back at the office; that sucks. Holiday season, desk piled to the ceiling with paperwork. You don’t know what it’s like trying to sell vacuum cleaners on the internet. It’s tough, hard on a fellow, damn. Can’t even call in sick. After that incident with the Scotch and the baboon, they… Well, that’s another story. Heck, lemme check my emails, get to work later.

Hmm…message from Stokey “hey Bill, never got that book you we’re gonna email me.” Crap, AOL, what the heck…

Message from Kartoffsky “Bill, love the book, thanks.” Jeez, what’s goin on here?

Message from Lenny Lassiter, CDA “Dear Mr. Eccentric, aka Electric, aka Burroughs; have detected ‘cookie’ at Chase Manhattan Bank, International Transfers, with your address. Suggest you sit tight. We’ll contact you.”

Oh crap…this aint good; not good, not good. Quickly check my account with the downtown bank. Jayz! A hundred million deposited in my name. Then withdrawn soon after and cashed someplace in…Brooklyn. Oh man…

I been siphoning a grand a week, for years now. You know; just enough to keep me in spending money. Hell, they’d never miss it, never even bother to check. But this! Oh God…

Quickly reach into the bottom drawer and grab the Jim Beam. Well, now what…might as well check the snail mail. Special delivery letter on top the stack. “Congratulations, your dreams have come true! You have been chosen to participate in our civilians in space program.”

Hey, that’s alright. Never thought that contest would amount to anything. After all, I cut it off the back of a cereal box, but you never know. The letter includes a first class ticket to Cape Canaveral, leaving…in a couple of hours. Damn. What should I do. Sit and wait for Lassiter and the Treasury guys, or…

The heck with it, I’m outta here. Call home, leave a message saying I’ll be out of town for a few days. Then run down to the parking garage and hop in the old beat-up Honda hatchback.

Doesn’t seem right, not even my car. Feels like…I’m being pulled along, on a string or something. Ah heck, first class ticket, might as well see if it’s for real. Get to the airport, but there’s no flight. Instead they direct me to a small private charter. Well, maybe this is better. After all, I’m goin up in space…

Inside the little jet I meet my fellow travelers, a bit of a surprise. Sasha Cohen, Rachel Ray, and…Stephen Hawking. Jeez, seems like an odd group. Maybe we all eat the same cereal.

There’re only four seats in the little jet, the rest is taken up with cargo. Boxes and boxes of frozen steaks, cases of Smirnoff vodka and a big box of Russian caviar. Well, at least we’re gonna eat well. The jet takes off, then levels out. A stewardess comes by handing out drinks. I gulp mine down and look around at the other passengers.

“Hi” says a beaming little brunette “I’m Sasha, I’m a skater.” “Hi” I respond, shaking her hand “I’m Bill, I’m…a writer.” “Really?" she says, "me too.” 

Seems I recall we exchanged books a while back, but I never bothered to read hers. Damn.

“Hey, I’ve written some books too” says Rachel “but…don’t know if I’ve read yours.” 

“I read it” says Hawking “damn good book. Used your idea for my space-time continuum theory.” He laughs, then takes a big drink.

Seems like they been at it for a while, maybe waitin for me to get to the plane. I grab another one and slosh it down, a little miffed by that crack by Hawking. Used my idea to win the Nobel Prize? Gee thanks Steve. Plus the fact that everbody’s gotta be a goddamned writer. Just because you’re a skater girl, or some cook, or a son of bitchin astro-physicist. I write literature, damnit! Art…not all this other bunk. Jeez.

Cohen gets up to look around, then stumbles and falls on top of me. “Thorry. I don’ uthully drink thith much.” “Ah well, it’s good for you. Steadies the nerves.” “Wha’s that thupposed to mean!” she fires back. “Nothin” I tell her “nothin at all.” (Shit…did I miss something at the Olympics?)

She just smiles and gives me a big slap on the back “is okay Billy boy…I like you. Even if I didn’t read yer damn book.”

Well, at least Hawking read it, son of a bitch. I’m about to ask him, but looks likes he’s gettin pretty droopy-eyed from the whiskey. Rachel and Sasha are prattling away about recipes. How you can put Bourbon in custards and tarts and stuff. I lean back, close my eyes. Seems like no time that we’re at the Cape and they’re suiting us up and walking up to the shuttle.

Then it’s all too much. The jet lag, the booze, man...the liftoff! Last thing I remember is something Vonnegut said about your testicles retracting up. Goddamn right up to your eyeballs, Kurt!

Wake up sometime later with Cohen whacking me upside the helmet. “Wake up Billy! Yer missin the show.”

“What the fuh..” Look around and see that we’re zipping like mad into outer space. Earth, my home and all that, is retreating rapidly behind us. Rachel’s cooking up a breakfast. At this hour? Well, I suppose time doesn’t mean anything. All black outside anyway.

Hawking’s busy with the instruments on the control panel. Looks over at me. “We’re way off course. Never gonna intersect with the space station...the way we’re going.” 

“Is that bad?” asks Cohen. “Well, we’ll run out of fuel. Gradually drift back to Earth. Then burn up in the atmosphere like a falling satellite.”

“Lemme see.” I look down at Hawking’s projections. He’s got our course marked out in heavy dotted lines dropping downward on a chart. Then a colorful red fireball and the word ‘blazoomey’ underscored twice. 

“Hmm...” doesn’t look good. Maybe I shoulda stayed home. “What’s NASA think?” 

“No contact” says Hawking “nothing since liftoff.” 

“Well...what if we, turn around. Head straight for Earth’s atmosphere, at full speed. Try to...bounce off, ricochet out to a higher orbit?”

“Ah yes” says Hawking. “Chapter seven of your book, The Doomsday Gambit.” He looks up at me, like an old school teacher I once had. “You really don’t know a damned thing about space flight, do you Bill?”

Then a voice comes over the intercom “fellow Airth Min.” The voice pauses...then starts again. “And Airth girlz... Thees is Starship Command. No worry, hokey dokey?”

The shuttles makes a wide loop, turning around and heading directly toward Earth at a maddening speed. We all brace for the impact, then hit the atmosphere and bounce off, like a high speed rubber ball.

“Well I’ll be damned” says Hawking. Apparently he didn’t read my footnotes. But it’s mostly dry technical stuff. So...

Rachel’s got breakfast ready. “Scrambled eggs okay?” 

                                           Joe Biden, 50 years ago

Age of wisdom

We learn over time - through our mistakes, through trial & error, and by witnessing what works and what fails. The more time, the more knowledge. If used to our benefit, we call it the wisdom of elders.

Joe Biden was born in '42 during World War II. His father is the same age as my father, meaning - he grew up in the Depression and witnessed the misery of hunger & despair, and how close America and the world came to a Communist and/or Fascist take-over of the planet.

But growing up with these stories, these points of reference, Biden knew what to do when pandemic could've meant global panic and chaos - get America back on track, whatever it takes. Because as goes America, so goes the free world. And if people can't work, can't pay bills, can't pay rent - give them the means to keep going. Give them hope, give them whatever they need to stay afloat.

And it worked. As it worked for FDR in the thirties. We survived the crisis, like it was just a bad cold (that killed a million people in the US and six million across the world). And if we had any grasp of what it means to come out of a global crisis, and get back to normal, and have life be good again, Biden would just say "you're welcome." Because the whole world would be saying "thank you."

 

Kat Rosenfield's novel "No One Will Miss Her" was fun reading. I enjoyed it. Which is perhaps the best thing you can say about a book.

The writing is very good, and the story is well-told. Plus, it has some meaningfulness that matters. So, what more could you want?

Well, a couple of things. Rosenfield's book isn't just a clever mystery. The intrigue is more about identity than detective work. And while the crime-solving adds tension & suspense to the telling, it isn't the driving force of the story. Which is the fun part, for me.

The key is an examination of identity - who we are as individuals, in an age where anyone can be anything they want to be - except themselves.

Rosenfield's maneuver is to posit a fake, Adrienne Richards, who is the composite of what she's supposed to be. She's the rich young beautiful trophy wife of a highly successful financial swindler. But since her husband got caught - exposed and societally condemned - she's adrift of the phony world that was their upscale paradise. They've avoided jail, as filthy rich people do. And kept most of their ill-gotten gains, as clever crooks also do.

But in the sham world of glam, they're socially ostracized, which is a fate worse than death when your whole life is make believe. So naturally, they end up in the middle of nowhere - the backwoods of Maine. 

In normal circumstance, we'd see the cottage on the lake where there's no one around to bother you; surrounded by trees, sunshine, squirrels and deers, as an idyllic escape from the hectic crush of the city. But in our upside down point of view, country charm is just a place to hide when no one wants to be seen with you. And the villagers who live there aren't real people anyway, just clowns and bumpkins to poke fun at, or not even notice at all.

So when one of the bumpkins is murdered in a grizzly horrible way, it seems almost inevitable. Even the locals aren't surprised. Because they'd long since figured out that the dead girl, Lizzie Ouelette, was the person least likely to succeed, even in a small town full of losers.

The only thing no one figured on was that Lizzie wanted to live too. But in a world of fake identities, anyone can take a life and nobody cares. It's not even sad, in a strange way. The trick is to kill someone that nobody would miss. The tragedy and the horror is, when no one is real, that could be anybody. 

The dead girl's revenge is in the hands of a dogged state cop, who's over-worked and too long on the road. The question is, does he alone care enough to get at truth for a girl who just doesn't matter. The answer is as plain as...

 

Race Fact & Fiction

Three white men murdered a black man in Brunswick. And three black kids murdered a white girl in New York. Are either of these because of the race of the people killed or doing the killing?

Are black kids taught from childhood that "white people hate you" just look at history. 

If so, why would anyone want to work for people who hate you. And why would anyone want to hire people who believe that you hate them? Or more specifically, why would anyone want to teach kids that they are hated?

You can't have any respect for a society that doesn't value your life. And you can't possibly respect the law, if you think "law and order" is how society keeps you oppressed. So if Bell and Crenshaw are correct, laws are the enemy of black people in America. 

One solution is to admit that America is an evil racist country built on the oppression of black people through slavery and Jim Crow laws; and the systematic killing of Native people so their land could be stolen and given to white colonizers. 

Then we could start dismantling this "systemic oppression" of "white supremacy" by teaching children the evil truth of America so that everyone's aware of what this nation really is. And we can all be "Woke" to what "whiteness" really means.

We could teach school kids that Lincoln didn't free the slaves, Frederick Douglass did that. And that the Civil War was won when black soldiers led by Shaka Zulu defeated the evil Southern slave holders.

We could teach kids that Native Americans never enslaved people; and Native tribes never fought each other for control of the land. And once we've convinced people (since childhood) that these are facts, we can then replace all white business executives with black people (preferably women), and all elected officials with black people (preferably women). Then defund the police and do away with all jails and prisons.

But of course, there're obstacles to this approach. For one, nearly 90% of Americans aren't black. So it's a hard sell to suggest that the concerns of this small minority should be the focus of American life. And for another, it's simply not true: Lincoln actually did "free the slaves" and white Yankee soldiers actually did win the Civil War. And while Jim Crow laws oppressed black people for a century, it was white US Congressmen who passed Civil Rights laws to end Jim Crow.

And the most basic of lies is that "all white people hate blacks." Because factual history (and everyday experience) prove otherwise.