Your tax dollars at play

"Brothers Kissing":
One of the "Masterpieces of American Portraiture"
from the National Portrait Gallery

Freeze federal salaries? It may be the first sensible words ever spoken from Barack Kenyatta's throne. What do you think the odds are? I foresee a huge protest in Washington, federal spongers marching on their own offices. Maybe a sit-down strike or work-to-the-rule, in public rather than as usual in their cubicles.

No, stronger medicine is needed. The nations of the world agree about very little, but they would probably put carbon emissions to the side and join together as the 180 Musketeers, one for all and all for one, to declare the U.S. government officially bankrupt.

The assets of the federal government should be placed in receivership. The government should be allowed to keep one house — the Capitol — and a car. No credit for seven years.

Nothing else will work. The government is incapable of self-control, even as it closes in on its ultimate goal of controlling the citizens it allegedly serves.

Not a day goes by without dozens of media pundits sharing their visions of financial apocalypse. Politicians declare total war on deficits. The spending goes on.

 

Guidebooks for tourists in Washington love to gush about the wonderful "free" Smithsonian Institution museums. Wonderful some of them are; free, they are not. In today's Leftspeak, "free" means "subsidized by the government." Subsidized by the government means you're helping pay for it, if you're foolish enough to be gainfully employed at some boring job, rather than a transgressive artist. Sixty-five percent of the Smithsonian budget comes from the federales.

Planning to take the kiddies to the National Portrait Gallery, one of the Smithsonian's museums, maybe to see paintings of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson? Well, the NPG has a special surprise for you and your nippers: an exhibit of homoerotic art. Merry Winter Holiday.

Meanwhile, the Congress that can't do a thing about its own bloat wants to de-obesify the youngsters after they've had their gawk at an ant-covered Jesus on the cross. Hand in hand with the National Wildlife Federation, the corrupt Sierra Club, and the YMCA (YMA?), our legislators are deeply involved with the issue of how the kids play. It's about encouraging outdoor activity, and (by the way) boosting the Washington State budget, "where the economy is so tied to the Great Outdoors."

The federal government never met a program it didn't like, as long as Congress figured they could buy a few votes with it and add more bodies to the federal payroll. You can donate to these and other projects; just make sure your contribution is postmarked by April 15.

C.W. Leadbeater: The Inner Life

 

I put off reading Charles W. Leadbeater's The Inner Life for quite a  while -- it has the stamp and bar code of the Tucson Public Library, where I bought it at a book sale, and it's getting on for nine years since I lived in Tucson.

Why the hesitation? The Inner Life consists of transcriptions of lectures given by Leadbeater at the Theosophical Society headquarters in Adhyar, India, around a century ago. I was afraid that the book would exhibit the excess verbosity of some of the writing at the time; I'm a busy person and both in my own work and in reading I prefer a leaner style. As it turned out, that was no problem. Although some of it is hard to understand -- see below -- its discussion, although the language is a little dated, flows smoothly enough without rhetorical overload.

The second reason why I'd put the book aside was my own ambivalence about Theosophy. Leadbeater was, after Helena P. Blavatsky and Annie Besant, perhaps the most significant figure in the Theosophical Society. I've read a little of the Theosophical literature -- dabbled in it, to be honest -- and don't know whether "HPB" and her followers had the inside track on secret spiritual wisdom, were self-deceived, or were frauds. I suspect some of each.

Richard Hodgson, an investigator for the Society for Psychical Research, went to Adhyar to observe HPB at work and report on claims that she was a fake extraordinaire. His report published in 1885 (as his own opinion; the SPR had and has no corporate views on any paranormal issue) found HPB guilty as charged. Much more recently, another SPR researcher, Vernon Harrison, reviewed the Hodgson report and concluded that it was biased. The whole controversy will make fascinating reading some day when I have time to read both Hodgson's and Vernon's full accounts, but for the moment, I'll admit that descriptions of Hodgson's report and other stories about HPB probably prejudiced me against Theosophy.

Whatever; Leadbeater was not Blavatsky, and deserves to be read for himself. If he has a claim to our attention, it is because (if you accept what he says) he was the most talented clairvoyant of all time, or at least the most talented who ever left extensive writings. In his books (e.g., Man Visible and Invisible) he minutely described the geography of the higher planes of existence, including the astral (where many spirits dwell), the mental, the etheric, and the buddhic. While the lectures edited and published in The Inner Life may not contain the detail he provides about the spiritual realm in the books, they still offer a glimpse of the big picture and the phenomena within it -- not only the planes but the human aura, thought forms, the chakras, and beings on a non-human evolutionary path such as devas and nature spirits.

Here and there, my misgivings about theosophical doctrines seemed to be borne out; come on, "Lords of Karma"? "The Great White Lodge"? But while I reserve my right to be skeptical of some of the terminology and supposed facts, I'm also conscious that words change over time, and what might have seemed an appropriate term a hundred years ago can sound ridiculous now. And the phenomena of the higher planes simply don't fit well into language designed for ordinary sense perception.

Other parts of Leadbeater's lectures that I find obscure may be baloney, or may be true and I simply lack the necessary intuitive or spiritual development to process them.

At many points, though, he has a knack for clarifying aspects of the hidden side of life through analogy and explanations which are both precise and open ended. Take this, on the Buddhist concept of nirvana, which is superficially understood by Westerners as extinction of the individual, or even non-existence:

It is quite true that the attaining of nirvana does involve the utter annihilation of that lower side of man which is in truth all that we know of him at the present time. The personality, like everything connected with the lower vehicles [i.e., bodies], is impermanent and will disappear. If we endeavor to realize what man would be when deprived of all which is included under these terms we shall see that for us at our present stage it would be difficult to comprehend that anything remained, and yet the truth is that everything remains -- that in the glorified spirit which them exists, all the essence of all the qualities which have been developed through the centuries of strife and stress in earthly incarnation [i.e., multiple incarnations] will inhere to the fullest possible degree. The man has become more than man, since he is now on the threshold of Divinity; yet he is still himself, even though it be a so much wider self.

The Inner Life is probably not recommendable for anyone just setting out on a study of the mysteries of existence. It is something of an advanced textbook (and like any textbook, not to be accepted uncritically). But for those with a background of knowledge of spiritual traditions, particularly Hinduism and Buddhism -- Theosophy was among the first of their transmission lines to the West -- it is likely to be, at the very least, stimulating and at best, inspiring. We who are far from the threshold of Divinity can still benefit from reading about the much wider self that we truly are.

As the Theosophist Hugh Shearman has written, "The truth about things beyond the separate details of our material existence comes to us more through the liberating emergence from within us of a unitive awareness or perception of ourselves and our world rather than through the occasional revelations handed down to us by sages and seers, valuable though these can sometimes. The best that the sages and seers give us is not so much authoritative and definitive information as evocations addressed by implication to a concealed potential which, collectively, we carry within us."

Yet another blog post about the TSA group grope

After a few more days of outrage, the agency will dial back the searches somewhat. They'll offer a token concession: no gloves inside the clothing, or some such meaningless distinction.

It will not be a victory for the resistance against a government agency that has abandoned decency and common sense, that puts you through the wringer because they can.

Sovereign Man spells it out well. I don't like his site much — he's a rich jet setter without a trace of patriotism who constantly bops from one country to another to write about where other rich people can find a haven outside the United States. His tone of smug superiority rubs me the wrong way, even though I think it's smart to consider what you would do in a worst-case scenario in the U.S., and have contingency plans that might include financial and legal bases in other countries.

But I agree with this:

Passengers who show up to an airport in the United States are now given two options: (a) go through the radiation bath [don't worry, the government says it's safe...] and let the TSA see you naked, or (b) let the TSA thugs grope you and fondle your children’s genitals.

This is not enhanced security protocol, this is a systematic desensitization to government intrusion. The idea is to get people used to new procedures, then continue to add more layers of government control.

I'm afraid so. No one can be so stupid as to imagine that the present security burlesque is going to make passengers safer. There has to be an ulterior motive — not necessarily within the TSA itself, but within the power centers that issue the policies that TSA managers must implement.

To be clear, some of the tactics are designed to be scaled back as concessions. It’s like turning up the volume from 0 to 10… everyone starts screaming that it’s too loud, so the government turns it down to 8. People think, “ah, that’s not as bad…” and eventually become accustomed to the noise.

In time, the government turns it up from 8 to 20. People pour into the streets again, protesting until the government turns it down from 20 to 15. People once again become accustomed to the noise as the new normal. This cycle escalates until no one can remember the sound of silence any longer.

I believe Sovereign Man is mistaken about this, though:

The fact is that body scanners are as ineffective at threat detection as metal detectors. Furthermore, the government has ruled out the idea of scanning air or seaborne cargo… because, clearly, cargo would never be a target. The little old lady with the prosthetic hip? Definitely. Cargo? No chance.

Neither body scanners nor metal detectors are necessarily ineffective. We haven't had any hijackers waving guns around in airliner cabins since the advent of metal detectors. The body scanners probably "work" in the sense of adding another, and different, kind of detection — although it would be foolish to imagine they are infallible. The lunacy is using them on every passenger, but that's what you get when your front-line employees are largely drawn from the underclass and don't have what it takes to use professional discernment: all you can expect from them is to follow a single ironclad procedure.

Where does he get the idea that "the government has ruled out the idea of scanning air or seaborne cargo"? I have never heard or read of any such refusal. Cargo scanning is probably far less efficient than it should be, and doubtless some baggage goes unscanned, but that's not a policy decision. It's likely that the massive manpower needed for grotesque passenger searches wastes resources that could better be used on cargo. (Frankly, I'd rather board a plane knowing every single checked bag has been X-rayed and otherwise tested than that every passenger has.)

Anyway, Sovereign Man adds:

These tactics are not about security… they’re about submission, obedience, and cultivating the slave mentality– that people should be afraid of their government and happily yield to authority without question or hesitation. 

I wish I could say he's wrong about that. I can only hope he is.

Meet me in St. Louis, and bring a gun

And now, the award for the United States's most dangerous city goes to … the envelope, please … St. Louis!

Take that, Camden, New Jersey. In your face, Baltimore. Up yours, Detroit.

The AP story says, "Some criminologists question the findings, saying the methodology is unfair." Okay, what criminologists question the findings? Why do they think the methodology is unfair? The AP doesn't bother to tell us. The AP says so! What else do you need to know?

I'd bet a dollar to a dime that the reporter didn't talk to one single criminologist about this particular study. Since the study's findings are politically incorrect — one more city with a high minority population wins the gong for crime — doubt must be cast on the result.

This is the kind of shoddy journalism we have come to expect from the mainstream media. Look, I don't know anything about the study (no link to it is provided, so we can't judge for ourselves) or whether its methodology is valid. And a news report should try to give both sides, or many sides, of the story. But casting doubt on the integrity of researchers by reference to unnamed sources with no corroborating evidence or explanation is not balance.

I'm loving it that St. Louis's mayor is named Francis Slay. Absolutely Dickensian.

And then there's this nugget of wisdom from a police spokeswoman: "Crime is based on a variety of factors. It's based on geography, it's based on poverty, it's based on the economy."

I couldn't help myself, Your Honor. Those 14 people I shot, it was down to my geography. If I'd grown up in a better geography, I'd be wearing your robes, Judge.

What geography led you to a life of crime?

Being in St. Louis, Your Honor.

How comforting it must be to believe that a bad economy causes crime. Then again, considering the actions of certain highly placed financial players, crime may well contribute to a bad economy.

A no-tax society

The phrase sounds absurd. We have become accustomed to being taxed at almost every level of government: federal, most states, and some cities. Add property taxes, school taxes, sales taxes, gasoline taxes, and various stealth taxes in the form of fines.

We can hardly imagine otherwise anymore. We've agreed with Benjamin Franklin's witticism that nothing is certain except death and taxes. (But the great man was mistaken: death is an illusion.)

Yet only a century ago, Americans paid no income tax. But hold on. That was just before we got the Federal Reserve, Woodrow Wilson's progressive vapors, and an income tax.

Back in our colonial days, taxlessness was almost normal. In his A History of the American People, Paul Johnson says that America was "the closest the world has ever come to a no-tax society."

... the American mainland colonies were the least taxed territories on earth. Indeed, it is probably true to say that colonial America was the least taxed country in recorded history. Government was extremely small, limited in its powers, and cheap. Often it could be paid for by court fines, revenue from loan offices, or sale of lands.

New Jersey and Pennsylvania governments collected no statutory taxes at all for several decades. One reason why American living standards were so high was that people could dispose of virtually all their income. Money was raised by fees, in some cases by primitive forms of poll-tax, by export duties, paid by merchants, or import duties, reflected in the comparatively high price of some imported goods. But these were fleabites.

Even so, there was resentment. The men of the frontier claimed that they should pay no tax at all, since they bore the burden of defense on behalf of everyone. But this argument was a self-righteous justification of the fact that it was hard if not impossible to get them to pay any tax at all. Until the 1760s at any rate, most mainland colonists were rarely, if ever, conscious of a tax-burden. It is the closest the world has ever come to a no-tax society.

This was a tremendous benefit which America carried with it into Independence and helps to explain why the United States remained a low-tax society until the second half of the twentieth century.

The taxes the British government eventually did try to impose -- the Stamp Tax, the Tea Tax, &c. -- strike us today as minuscule; it's hard to understand why they were anything to get fussed about. Revisionist historians like to claim that the colonists' claimed resistance to "taxation without representation" was no more than rhetoric and that they just didn't like paying taxes, full stop.

There is probably some truth to that, but it doesn't necessarily mean that 18th century Americans were only greedy. They or their ancestors had emigrated from Europe where taxation often was a form of tyranny and control. They understood from experience Chief Justice John Marshall's famous later dictum, "The power to tax is the power to destroy."

In the past century, the relation between the central government of the United States and its people has changed drastically. The Constitution had as one central idea that the federal government was only responsible for things that individuals or smaller government units couldn't effectively do, such as waging war or "to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States ... ." The 10th amendment, passed as part of the Bill of Rights shortly after the adoption of the original Constitution, explicitly states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

If the first citizens of the United States could see how the 10th amendment has been virtually obliterated in practice, they would be astounded and very likely appalled. We've gone from a federal government that provides for "the common defence," &c. to one that hectors you about how much salt is in your diet.

The inspiring anti-slavery slogan, "Am I not a man and a brother?" has been turned upside down: "Are you not my keeper?"

To keep 300 million Americans requires a hell of a lot of tax revenue. And as we are constantly told, it still isn't enough to keep us out of debt, $13 trillion and counting, or untold trillions more if you include all the entitlements our vote-buying politicos have lavished on us.

Some taxes are a necessary evil. But we can appreciate why early Americans had such a deep distrust, verging on loathing, of them. Despite the past century, that distrust hasn't been bred out of us yet. We have been anesthetized to taxation through artificial prosperity and socialist propaganda, but the anesthetic is wearing off and no more is left. Only the pain, and another chance perhaps to stop the cause of it.

The airport body snatchers

 

TSA beta test of new passenger screening device.

(Source: Salem Stock Photo Service, Inc.)

This weekend I took my first flights under the new TSA program that allows them to view your naked bod in all its glory or lack thereof, or alternatively, enjoy a taxpayer-supported massage, including areas that are out of bounds for most masseurs.

My own security screening was the same as usual: flight bag, shoes, belt, keys in the tray; a walk through the metal detector. It probably wasn't because I had an honest face or radiated goodwill, more likely that "the Treatment" is administered randomly (except for Muslims, who are no doubt unofficially exempt) and my number didn't come up.

I had thought beforehand about what I would do if given a choice between the body x-ray and — as the TSA notice at the entrance to the security lines put it — a "thorough" hand search. Reluctantly, I put aside any notion of staging a protest, knowing that the penalty would be severe and would probably prevent me from reaching my destination.

But I did see others given "the Treatment" by our TSA guardians:

A middle-aged woman, who happened to be behind me in the queue, was ordered into the peek-a-boo scanner, which had plexiglass sides; it reminded me of the booth in the photographs of Adolf Eichmann on trial in Israel.

A man and a young woman were given the super frisking. I was careful not to appear to be paying too much attention lest I attract suspicion, but it was "thorough," all right, although you would have to ask one of them exactly how thorough. The passengers' arms were spread horizontally during the feel-up, like martyrs about to be crucified. Both smiled while being palpated, which annoyed me, but I suppose they, like me, just wanted to avoid trouble.

Has the airport security farce finally gone far enough to provoke a serious reaction?

Frankly, I wouldn't bet on it. Not many chumps actually believe these enhanced searches make them any safer, and lots of people are angry, but people are angry about all kinds of things and all their steaming does is cook their insides. The TSA is widely viewed as a dole for bureaucrats and a jobs program for the underclass, but it's far from unique as such, and the public puts up with the others. 

There are calls to abolish the TSA. I don't think disconnecting the agency and turning its functions over to private companies would solve the basic problem, which isn't inefficiency but a screwy, politically correct concept of security.

Aviation security shouldn't be a game of find-the-needle-in-the-haystack, looking for dangerous objects on every passenger. Real security is a matter of intelligence, in both senses of the word. While there is no absolute way of neutralizing every threat, we could do a damn sight better at it if we concentrated on the kind of people who are most likely to be terrorist threats. Everyone, including TSA management, knows perfectly well who they are. But we must pretend that terrorists are found equally among all demographics, as likely to be a 75-year-old man from Iowa as a Sudanese Muslim. So we're "sensitive" to the feelings of the Muslim, but parents of a five-year-old American who don't want his genes subjected to God knows how much radiation have to turn him over to a TSA functionary for a spot of child molestation.

The strategists of al Qaeda must be laughing till tears run down their faces at how easily they've tangled the world's superpower in knots, making it treat its own citizens as war criminals until the TSA decides they are innocent. After all, the alternative of profiling and discrimination is a Forbidden Thought, but looking at you through your underwear is the price we have to pay so Dar al Islam won't be offended.