Molon Labe!

by Boston T. Party

  Some relocators liked the quaint little town of Buffalo, some chose Hot Springs and its therapeutic waters, while others preferred the quiet wooded terrain of Crook county. Some relocators even liked the wind-swept desolation of Niobrara.

  Their mosaic answers formed the initial rough image of what Preston and his team had to work with. Naturally, not every relocator preference could be met (e.g., far too many wanted to live in Sheridan or Casper), but probably 70% of a relocator's overall desire was assuaged.

  Business owners were given first priority, then those with large families or contingencies, and then those who were financially independent.

  Single employees had the least bargaining power, which was fair as they had the least to offer. Those who preferred a rural life had more clout over urbanites, as filling up the county around the larger cities of Gillette, Casper, Sheridan, Riverton, and Lander (all of which comprised at least one House District) was more difficult than relocating people to those cities.

  Granted, any-liberty minded American was free to move to Wyoming whenever and wherever he wanted, and thus not be subject to any relocation restrictions. However, he would be outside the "fraternity" and thus not privy to the many co-ops and business opportunities available to those within the project.

  Intrastate relocation flexibility was somewhat limited. The issue was not just to get relocators to Wyoming, but to place them within the proper counties and legislative districts needed to progressively win the state. For example, it would accomplish little to install 2,000 relocators in Weston county in 2010, only for most of them to move to Sheridan and Cody the next year. They needed to stay in Weston county long enough to keep it under political control until a statewide victory was won.

  Relocators voluntarily obliged themselves to being "posted" (almost like being in the military) and they had to commit themselves to at least two election cycles — meaning, a minimum 25 month "enlistment." After that, they could relocate elsewhere in Wyoming, or even leave the state. For example, one could arrive in October 2006 just in time to register for the November election, and move after voting in the November 2008 election.

  People differ wildly in their personalities. Some can "delay gratification" in exchange for a larger payoff later (in business this is called the "back end"), while most others must Enjoy Now/Pay Later ("front end"). Still others will exchange a theoretical ideal for the security of the middle. So, for their 25 month hitch, several arrangements were offered:

  1) Guaranteed arrival in one of your top 3 counties/cities, but only if you agreed to move (if deemed necessary) after 12 months to wherever posted (including one of your 3 least favorite choices). Thus, you could arrive in Jackson and be posted to Lusk the next year, but it was also possible that you might not be reposted anywhere, much less to one of your bottom 3 choices. This appealed to 30% of relocators. Gamblers.

  2) Guaranteed later posting to one of your top 3 choices of coun ties/cities after your first 12 months, but only if you agreed to arrive wherever posted (including one of your least 3 favorite choices). Many single relocators chose this option, likening their first year as a sort of "boot camp." After that, they'd be living in a preferred area and ready to start a family there. 40% chose this Pay Once Now/Enjoy Later Forever option.

  3) Guaranteed not to be reposted within your 25 months in exchange for not arriving in one of your least 3 favorite counties/cities. Thus, you arrived somewhere in the middle of relocation choices and never had to move. 30% of relocators chose the security of the middle.

  The relocators' picks for/against certain counties/cities were on file before they were told of Options 1 3. That way, they could not skew relocation to their advantage by fudging on their choices.

  Options #1 and #2 (mirror images of each other) comprised 70% of relocators, all of whom were available for the less popular areas. Thus, they experienced the highs and lows of Wyoming life.

  Option #3 comprised 30% of relocators, who "fattened the middle" of the county/city choice. They wouldn't enjoy the Big Horn or Teton mountains, but they also wouldn't have to endure the Thunder Basin National Grassland of Campbell and Converse counties, either.

  Every relocator "paid their dues," whether by cover charge, balloon payment or monthly installments. It was at least tolerable to everyone.

  Not all of the counties were included in the project. It had been decided at the outset that such would be a pointless attempt to saturate the staunchly democratic counties of Sweetwater, Carbon, Albany, and Laramie. Uinta was still up in the air until after the 2010 election.

  Those remaining counties (i.e., those as much or more Republican than the state average) are available for relocation only on a staggered schedule. The project goal was not simply to move a bunch of people into Wyoming, but to fill up particular counties in a particular order. In 2006, just five counties could be saturated with the number of available relocators: Niobrara, Hot Springs, Sublette, Crook, and Johnson. Relocators wanting to end up in Jackson, Cody, or Sheridan had to bide their time as the respective counties of Teton, Park, and Sheridan were not available until 2010 and 2014.

  The smart relocators chose Option #2 and moved to Wyoming early, thus assuring their place in a top location when the time came later. This incentive to early migration was built into the plan by Preston and his team. The more relocators who arrived early, the better chance of success the project would have. Early relocators also made data projection much easier.

  Preston continues with the business at hand. "Now, let's talk about Phase 1b in 2008 and Phase 2a in 2010. With our five counties, we have, as planned, checkerboarded the counties of Fremont, Washakie, Campbell, and Weston. They are next for 'contagion' in 2010."

  Preston often employed viral metaphors, and emphasized the value of picking counties for their "opportunistic infections" of neighboring counties. Although a low population base was critical, the number of contiguous counties with a high Republican percentage was a vital criterion. Once a particular county had been taken in 2006, holding it in 2010 under an incumbent government would not require as many voters (because many of the indigenous voters would support reelection). So, for example, Crook County could spare in 2010 some of its relocators to neighboring Weston.

  The notion was military in theory: holding a hill required fewer soldiers than taking it in the first place. Fight, win, hold, move to the next hill.

  Repeat until victory.

  "In the 2008 elections, we plan to win Senate Districts 2, 18, 20, and 22, as well as House Districts 1, 26, 27, 28, 30, and 50. Such will prepare us for winning the related counties of Weston, Big Horn, Washakie, Park, Converse, and Lincoln in 2010.

  "A successful election sweep in 2008 will give us a running total of 5 Senators and 10 Congressmen a 16.7% block in the legislature. Then we can control most swing vote issues. That will very likely wake up the powers that be, even though the counties and districts of capital and minerals are still in their hands. So, from November 2008 on, we should expect increased scrutiny. It may get a little dicey after that."

  "You never promised us green lights and blue skies, Jim," says a hand-some woman in her fifties.

  Preston smiles. "Just remember that in about four years, Margaret."

  A balding accountant-type asks, "What about the districts in 2010?"

  Preston replies, "Ah, Phase 2a. In the 2010 elections, we plan to take Senate Districts 3, 16, 19, and 23, as well as House Districts 4, 6, 21, 24, 25, 51, and 54. A successful 2010 election will give us a total of 9 Senators and 17 Congressmen — a near 30% block in the legislature. We will also have 11 of the 23 counties, which will then include Weston, Big Horn, Washakie, Park, and Converse. Goshen may also be within our grasp by 2010. At that point, having doubled our geographical and political power since 2006, we will have become an entrenched force in Wyoming.

  "This is when the political climb grows increasingly uphill. From 2011 on, we will need to court national capital and expertise to see us to 2014. Remember your
Revolutionary War history? Louis XVI let the Continental Army fight on its own for nearly three years before deciding that they had proven themselves worthy of support. Only after they had defeated Burgoyne at Saratoga in October 1777, taking 3,000 prisoners, did the French sign a pact with them the next February. So, ladies and gentlemen, for the first half of this struggle we're mostly on our own. After the 2010 elections, however, we'll need some OPM.

  "Capital is the biggest skeptic and the petroleum and cattle money will need convincing that we are here to stay. Only then can we take on Sheridan, Campbell, and Natrona counties in order to win the state in 2014.

  "Nevertheless, by 2010 we expect to have the upper half of Wyoming. Geographically and politically, that will be quite a stronghold. Even if we cannot take the state in 2014, we will be able to significantly direct, if not control, its politics.

  "Personally, however, I believe that we'll pull it off."

  2007 USA political news

  [T]he (Supreme) Court is the battering ram of revolution.

  — Pat Buchanan, The Death of the West (2002), p.253

  When words lose their meaning, people lose their liberty.

  — Confucius

  The famous 2nd Amendment case Stanley v. US is at last heard by the US Supreme Court, which in a 7-2 decision partially affirms the 2002 5th Circuit Court ruling that to keep and bear arms is indeed an individual right, but not a fundamental one because of modern police protection and the national guards. Justices Scalia and Thomas bitterly dissent, arguing that the 2nd Amendment is a fundamental right. All nine Justices, however, ignore the pesky "shall not be infringed" verbiage.

  Once alienated, an "unalienable right" is apt to be forever lost, in which case we are no longer even remotely the last best hope of earth but merely a seedy imperial state whose citizens are kept in line by SWAT teams and whose way of death, not life, is universally imitated.

  — Gore Vidal, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace (2002), p.20

  Reaction from gunowners is resoundingly acrimonious. "The gloves are off!" is the common sentiment in the Rural South and Inland West.

  Perhaps an elected official will one day simply refuse to comply with a Supreme Court decision.

  That suggestion will be regarded as shocking, but it should not be. To the objection that a rejection of a court's authority would be civil disobedience, the answer is that a Supreme Court that issues orders without authority engages in an equally dangerous form of civil disobedience.

  — Robert Bork, 1997

  Congress and President immediately reply with the Dangerous Weapons Act of 2007, which requires the federal registration of all currently owned center-fire, semiautomatic rifles and their ammunition. (Handguns, shotguns, and rimfires are, for the moment, exempt.) The NICS apparatus is modified to act as the registry. Again, the amnesty period is just 90 days. Failure to register affected firearms means an automatic 5-year felony prison term.

  It has, after all, been explained to us that the heart of the matter is not personal guilt, but social danger. One can imprison an innocent person if he is socially hostile. And one can release a guilty man if he is socially friendly....

  And it must be kept in mind that it was not what he had done that constituted the defendant's burden, but what he might do if he were not shot now. "We protect ourselves not only against the past but also against the future." (quoting the organizer of the Department of Exceptional Courts of the People's Commissariat of Justice, N.V. Krylenko)

  — Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, Vol. 1

  Plumbing supply houses are within a week cleaned out of large diameter (8"+) PVC pipe and end caps, purchased mostly with cash. Enrollment in the shooting academies plummets as students don't want to risk travelling with unregistered firearms.

  President Bush insists that the DWA is not a stepping stone to confiscation, that handguns and sporting long guns are not next, and that lawful owners should have no qualms about mere registration. Gunowners do not believe him. Even the NRA joins in the hoots and hollers.

  To implement a popular (i.e., not actively resisted) tyranny, discover through constant polling the general shape and dimension of your target people's activities and simply erect your wall just slightly outside such. A wall is not a wall if one never bumps into it...

  For those who do encounter the regulatory boundary, their first reaction is to retract, rather than to circumvent or smash through. This retraction readjusts their active area to that of the masses, which is precisely the point. De Tocqueville's term "compresses" is particularly apt here. Circumferential regulation compresses those who otherwise would "live large outside the box" or "color outside the lines."

  Often, in moments of waggish humor, our legislators have proscribed many harmless activities, for the simple reason that they could do so without fear of consequence. For example, the 1994 prohibition of bayonet lugs on assault weapons. There had hardly been an historic criminal issue of bayonets, much less a recent rash of drive-by bayonetings — but that was not the point, obviously. Watching the henceforth frantic removal by gun importers of tiny bits of steel from rifle barrels was responsible for gales of laughter within many marbled halls.

  If such mocking legislation can compress even an armed and informed citizenry, then it can compress anyone. We have built a wall around the very people most equipped (both psychologically and materially) to reduce it to rubble. Their lack of resistance has served to embolden our more craven colleagues, and thus has increased general regulatory velocity.

  What are holistic healthnuts and privacy paranoids to gunowners? If riflemen ranchers did not dare open fire, then what will homeschoolers do — pelt us with their phonics workbooks?

  The war has been won. All that remains is the mopping up. By the 2020 we will declare as felonious contraband all semi-automatic rifles and shotguns and require their confiscation. (Superposed shotguns will not be affected, so as not to alienate the cultured man with a Perazzi.) Lines will form around the block as assault weapons owners queue for their own castration.

  What is vital to apprehend is that this castration is merely a formality, for we have long ago castrated that most important organ. Their spirit.

  We may have to throw them a bit of constitutional "just compensation" in order to appease the Republicans and the NRA, but this nominal sum will easily be absorbed by the federal budget.

  — Julius N. Harquist, The Gaian Convergence, p.89

  River Lethe Press (2007)

  To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.

  — Thomas Jefferson

  Les tyrannies d'aujourd' hui

  Today's tyrannies

  se sont perfectionnées;

  have perfected themselves:

  Elles n'admettent plus

  they tolerate neither

  le silence, ni la neutralité.

  silence nor neutrality.

  Il faut se prononcer,

  One must proclaim oneself,

  être pour ou contre.

  For or against.

  Bon, dans ce cas,

  Well, in that case,

  Je suis contre.

  I am against.

  — Camus

  2007 USA social news

  The summer's record heat and drought sparks racial tensions in several metro areas. L.A. experiences riots more intense than in 1992, and this time white neighborhoods suffer widespread damage. It takes National Guard troops a week of fighting to quell the disturbances. 386 people are killed, and property damage is in the tens of billions of dollars. Martial law is kept in force until November.

  A multi-drug resistant (MDR) strain of Salmonella typhi sweeps southern California. The etiologic agent (i.e., origin) is illegal aliens from Mexico. L.A. County (with a population greater than Georgia) is particularly hard hit. The percentage of Hispanics in southern California exceeds 50%, r
esulting in a stampede of white flight to Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado. Property values crash in L.A. Rural mountain properties in the Rockies increase by 40% in value within a year.

  2007 USA economic news

  Gold is $1,429/ounce. The stock market, at 4,823, is in its seventh year of decline. Bonds have been performing well, however, inflation is beginning to take off.

  Virginia

  Summer 2007

  Katherine Jessup was a cancer patient on a heavy regimen of chemotherapy. The powerful drug Cis-Plat nauseated her and she couldn't keep it down. She needed another drug to relieve the nausea so that she could tolerate her chemo. This other drug, tetrahydrocannabinol, was very affordable, easy to administer, and had decades of clinical trials and common usage with few or no side effects.

  It was, however, illegal.

  C21H30O2 Cor THCC is a phenol derived from hemp resin. It is more commonly known as cannabis. Marijuana.

  While prohibiting marijuana, the federal government allows the pharmaceutical industry to sell a synthesized form of THC as an oral medication — Marinol. Real genius at work here. Since the issue is nausea, patients can't keep oral medication — including Marinol — in their stomachs long enough to work. That is why THC must be ingested through the lungs.

  Katherine Jessup had never been a drug user. She had never smoked marijuana, or even cigarettes. Only after lengthy studying which proved the medicinal value of marijuana for alleviating severe nausea did she try it. It worked very well, and reduced some of the pain from cancer. Since she and her husband did not want to buy marijuana on the retail market and support a criminal drug culture, they decided to grow what she needed in their basement. The process was surprisingly easy, just like the instructional YouTube video promised. A few grow lights on a timer and some fertilizer were the basic supplies. After seven months of homegrown medical marijuana, Katherine Jessup began to recover. She and Tom even resumed their lovemaking. Her doctors thought that she would go into remission soon.