Part I:
A saint said "Let the perfect city rise.
Here needs no long debate on subtleties,
Means, end,
Let us intend
That all be clothed and fed; while one remains
Hungry our quarreling but mocks his pains.
So all will labor to the good
In one phalanx of brotherhood."
A
man cried out "I know the truth, I, I,
Perfect and whole. He who denies
My vision is a madman or a fool
Or seeks some base advantage in his lies.
All peoples are a tool that fits my hand
Cutting you each and all
Into my plan."
They were one man.
This man I never saw before
At 3 a.m. breaks down the door
To tell me my aspirin is LSD.
"It says right there on the bottle, Acetylsalicylic Acid."
I
tell you doctor, honestly,
It seems like someone's after me.
I
don't think fighting
is what I'm made for
But this lottery ticket I never paid for
Sold by a pusher known as Sam
Has won me a ticket to Vietnam,
A
twelve months, expenses
paid, tropical vacation
With a funeral, free, from a grateful nation.
But the doctor says I need therapy
For thinking someone is after me.
And then there are things I just can't ignore
Like the little man in our bedroom door
Says we'll be in jail by the end of the night
Unless we turn over and do it right.
Doctor, Doctor, come and see
There's really someone after me.
Then he asks, as he rips off the sheet,
For our marriage license
and tax receipt;
Says "you need a license to shoot at a duck
How come you think that it's free to ... "
Who so blind as will not see;
The state, the state, is after me.
Anarchy, n. 4. a theory which regards the union of order with the absence of all direct or coercive government as the political
ideal. 5. confusion
in general; disorder.
THE AMERICAN
COLLEGE DICTIONARY
Government produces
all order.
Under
anarchy there is no government.
Therefore anarchy
is chaos.
Q.E.D.
In Washington there isn't any plan
With "feeding David" on page sixty-four;
It must be accidental that the milk man
Leaves a bottle at my door.
It must be accidental that the butcher
Has carcasses arriving at his shop
The very place where, when I need some
meat,
I
accidentally stop.
My life is chaos turned miraculous;
I
speak a word and people understand
Although it must be gibberish since words
Are not produced by governmental plan.
Now law and order, on the other hand,
The state provides us for the public good;
That's why there's instant justice on demand
And safety in every neighborhood.
Don't write a book; my friends on either hand
Know more than I about my deepest views.
Van den Haag believes it's simply grand
I'm a utilitarian. That's news;
I
didn't know I was. Some libertairs
Can spot sheep's clothing
at a thousand yards.
I
do not use right arguments
(read 'theirs')
Nor cheer them loudly as they stack the cards.
Assuming your conclusions is a game
That
two can play at. So's a bomb or gun.
Preaching to the converted
leads to fame
In narrow circles. I've found better fun
In search of something
that might change a mind;
The stake's my own—and yours if so inclined.
“In such condition,
there is no
place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and
consequently no
Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities
that may be
imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving,
and removing
such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the
Earth; no
account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is
worst of all,
continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of
man, solitary,
poore, nasty, brutish, and short." Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan.
Hobbes
had a vision, certain, crystal clear,
Through
logic’s lens alone he clearly saw
The
state of nature, red in tooth and claw
And
sword and axe, where each man lives in fear,
A nightmare world
unless a king
appear
Equipped with force
enough to
overawe
All powers else and
bend them to
his law,
A monarch absolute,
without a
peer.
One question yet
remains: In
many lands
Men lived and
fathered
children, planted grain,
Slept soundly
through the night,
worked with their hands,
Together or
apart, for love or
gain.
How is it that
the human race
survived
Through the long
years before
the king arrived?
A doctor synthesized
the perfect
cure
For a disease that he
was certain
sure
Mankind without his
aid could not
endure
His flawless logic
with no doubt
implied
That the disease
existed, so he
tried,
To offer up the cure
on every side
And many patients
took the cure
And died.
“In
total, during the first eighty-eight years of this century,
almost 170,000,000
men, women, and children have been shot, beaten, tortured,
knifed, burned,
starved, frozen, crushed, or worked to death; or buried alive,
drowned, hung,
bombed, or killed in any other of the myriad ways governments
have inflicted
death on unarmed, helpless citizens or foreigners.” R.J. Rummel,
Death by Government
The Poverty of our
Circumstances
In sharp edged lands where many dwell
All things are true or false, and if you try,
A little thought will be enough to tell
My truth from your illusion or your lie.
From which it follows, as the night the day,
Since all of us have use of reason’s tools
That all who disagree with what I say
With certainty are either rogues or fools.
I have not found it so; the world I see
Has honest men with minds as good as mine;
I can find reasons that seem good to me
But proofs beyond dispute are hard to find.