My Mythical Independence Hall Speech

 (Note: The following is transcribed from an alternate universe where Michael S. Alford, common guy extraordinaire, ascended to the Presidency of the United States in the 2020 election--an election billed as 'the freest and safest election ever'. The speech was made from inside Independence Hall in Philadelphia Pennsylvania, and was not accompanied by scary lights,)

  My fellow Americans, I am honored to be here tonight in a room where history literally was made. In this room better men than I--better men than most, took ideas that had existed in part for centuries and forged them into the first halting steps of a great ongoing experiment in human liberty.  The time was right, and the requisite characters were available on history's stage to answer a burning question; can a people govern themselves?  Can a people create and sustain a society without the meddling of kings and potentates?  Can a people handle their own affairs better than some far-flung elite can?  It turns out they can.  The ideals enshrined in this room have benefitted--even blessed , me.  These ideals have blessed you. These ideals have blessed the world.  My goodness, do you ever just stop and think about it?

  The men in this room had their flaws, and their blind spots.  They couldn't fix every societal problem any more than you or I can. But what was begun here has flung light and liberty into so many corners of the world.  Men breathe free on entire continents because of what happened right here in this room. It's remarkable, and I am not ashamed of it.

  For decades, our nation was involved in a 'Cold War'. It was a time marked by suspicion and distrust where the two most powerful nations bristled towards each other, fought proxy wars and threatened each other with weapons capable of destroying all human life. What finally brought that terrible period to an end wasn't  armies marching through the streets, but rather ideas marching into the hearts of men. Ideas of liberty and freedom brought down tyranny where weaponry could not. That is also remarkable, and I am not ashamed of it.

In this nation we don't have an all-powerful federal machine or an all-knowing executive branch. Instead we have fifty independent sovereign states held together in a loose alliance towards their mutual benefit. Within those states we have thousands of counties --or parishes , and tens of thousands of individual communities; functional real-world, boots on the ground laboratories where the ongoing experiment in human liberty can continue to be carried out.  This experiment may be fraught with mis-steps and course corrections, but its still an experiment worth continuing. Its remarkable, and I am not ashamed of it.

  When I first decided to enter public office, I took inspiration from a great man of my time, Dr. Ron Paul, and my burning desire was to see a rebirth of human liberty in my country.  For decades  the shining gem of freedom had become overgrown with overreach, and it needed to be be cut back. That has been the focus of my administration. I aspire to have less power than my predecessors and to leave office with less power than what I came in with.  Presidents typically begin speeches with the phrase 'my fellow Americas'.  It's a tradition , but its a tradition that means something.  We don't address you as  subjects, but as equals, and it is my intention that when my contribution towards this experiment is over, to take a cue from another great, though oft-neglected President Calvin Coolidge and melt back into obscurity.

  In the meantime my goals are to get off your back and out of your pocket.  The actual Constitutional duties of a President are surprisingly sparse, and I'm certain that the states have both better ideas and the actual authority to implement them. Don't look to Washington ; look to yourselves, and look to your neighbors.  That's the real spirit that was birthed in this room, and if we lose that, we lose everything.

  On a more personal note, I'd like to speak for just a moment not as the head of the executive branch, but as a fellow American.  Liberty in scripture is always tied to personal righteousness.  A man who cannot control himself will find himself controlled by something or someone else, and the God who grants liberty can withdraw it if a free people use their liberty as a cloak for maliciousness..  Over reach doesn't happen in a vacuum. What I need to do, what we all need to do, is look within ourselves and ask am I the sort of person who deserves to be free?  Am I part of the problem?

  Nobody is going to enforce anything that I just said. Nobody is going to come to your house to see if you are doing right. That would be un-American.  But its worth considering--the actions our lives have on the state of our community and the state of our country. Part of the responsibility of self-governance is actually being responsible and actually governing yourself.

  Friends, fellow citizens. I stand here in a remarkable room in a remarkable country with a remarkable history. None of us need to be ashamed of any of that.  Thank you for your time, and good night.

Mark Twain Loves Ron Paul

 

The Bible says "There is nothing new under the sun" and   over a hundred years ago before a soft-spoken Texas Congressman was making waves in the GOP because of his non-interventionist ideas, it turns out the most celebrated American author in history was saying the exact same thing.
  Samuel Clemens, or as he was better known, Mark Twain, had  enjoyed the  success and fame of his literary achievements. By the late 1800's, he had circled the globe giving speeches and readings from his books.  By his own admission, visiting   almost every continent on earth, and seeing  first hand the effects of an increasingly belligerent  foreign policy changed his mind on how the  American government should treat its neighbor nations.  Since he had the ability to speak his mind and be applauded for it , and the skill to illustrate absurdity while doing so, he spent the last years of his life speaking out against  interventionism, or, as it was known back then 'imperialism'.
  He arrived back in America after a 9 year abscence just as the Philippine-American war was cresting. The  American government had commited  itself to liberating the Philippine Islands from the Spanish, and  had committed troops to the same.  As Mark Twain stepped off the boat in 1900, the  press was anxious to know his thoughts on the events of the day.  He told the New York Herald:

   "I left these shores, at Vancouver, a red-hot imperialist. I wanted the American eagle to go screaming into the Pacific. It seemed tiresome and tame for it to content itself with the Rockies. Why not spread its wings over the Philippines, I asked myself? And I thought it would be a real good thing to do.
I said to myself, here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which we had addressed ourselves.
But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the treaty of Paris, and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem.
We have also pledged the power of this country to maintain and protect the abominable system established in the Philippines by the Friars.
It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land."

  He was  quoted in the  Chicago Tribune as saying, when asked if he was an anti-imperialist:

"Well, I am. A year ago I wasn't. I thought it would be a great thing to give a whole lot of freedom to the Filipinos, but I guess now that it's better to let them give it to themselves. Besides, on looking over the treaty I see we've got to saddle the friars and their churches. I guess we don't want to."

 The Missourian who wrote Huckleberry Finn had seen up-close and personal what this particular export of American interventionism was doing to  the world opinion of the United States.  A year later, at a meeting of the Anti-Imperialist league of New York, Mr. Twain referred to  the 'uncivilized' people of the world and what they thought of our 'freedoms' exported at the point of a gun.  Mark Twain  had figured out early on that war is a racket;

The Blessings-of-Civilization Trust, wisely and cautiously administered, is a Daisy. There is more money in it, more territory, more sovereignty, and other kinds of emolument, than there is in any other game that is played. But Christendom has been playing it badly of late years, and must certainly suffer by it, in my opinion. She has been so eager to get every stake that appeared on the green cloth, that the People who Sit in Darkness have noticed it -- they have noticed it, and have begun to show alarm. They have become suspicious of the Blessings of Civilization. More -- they have begun to examine them. This is not well. The Blessings of Civilization are all right, and a good commercial property; there could not be a better, in a dim light.

  Mr. Twain cited a specific example where the slaughter of  some missionaries had given the  Kaiser an excuse to interfere in Chinese politics.

He lost a couple of missionaries in a riot in Shantung, and in his account he made an overcharge for them. China had to pay a hundred thousand dollars apiece for them, in money; twelve miles of territory, containing several millions of inhabitants and worth twenty million dollars; and to build a monument, and also a Christian church; whereas the people of China could have been depended upon to remember the missionaries without the help of these expensive memorials. This was all bad play. Bad, because it would not, and could not, and will not now or ever, deceive the Person Sitting in Darkness. He knows that it was an overcharge. He knows that a missionary is like any other man: he is worth merely what you can supply his place for, and no more. He is useful, but so is a doctor, so is a sheriff, so is an editor; but a just Emperor does not charge war-prices for such. A diligent, intelligent, but obscure missionary, and a diligent, intelligent country editor are worth much, and we know it; but they are not worth the earth.

  Over a century before Dr. Paul made his historic "Armed Chinese Troops in Texas " speech, Mark Twain  put forth a  similar scenario for his audience.:

Would Germany charge America two hundred thousand dollars for two missionaries, and shake the mailed fist in her face, and send warships, and send soldiers, and say: 'Seize twelve miles of territory, worth twenty millions of dollars, as additional pay for the missionaries; and make those peasants build a monument to the missionaries, and a costly Christian church to remember them by?' And later would Germany say to her soldiers: 'March through America and slay, giving no quarter; make the German face there, as has been our Hun-face here, a terror for a thousand years; march through the Great Republic and slay, slay, slay, carving a road for our offended religion through its heart and bowels?' Would Germany do like this to America, to England, to France, to Russia? Or only to China the helpless -- imitating the elephant's assault upon the field-mice? Had we better invest in this Civilization -- this Civilization which called Napoleon a buccaneer for carrying off Venice's bronze horses, but which steals our ancient astronomical instruments from our walls, and goes looting like common bandits -- that is, all the alien soldiers except America's; and (Americans again excepted) storms frightened villages and cables the result to glad journals at home every day: 'Chinese losses, 450 killed; ours, one officer and two men wounded. Shall proceed against neighboring village to-morrow, where a massacre is reported.' Can we afford Civilization?"

  As a parting shot towards America policy,  Twain put forth  words that sting almost as if they were written yesterday.:

The Person Sitting in Darkness is almost sure to say: "There is something curious about this -- curious and unaccountable. There must be two Americas: one that sets the captive free, and one that takes a once-captive's new freedom away from him, and picks a quarrel with him with nothing to found it on; then kills him to get his land."

  Mark Twain's anti-imperialist sentiments were  suppressed a bit by the inheritors of his estate, who  wanted the world to remember the  clever, witty bard of the Mississippi in light of his less controversial  works.  Recent years and fresh scholarship have revealed  more of the whole man though, including the introduction Mark Twain gave to a young Winston Churchill in 1900 when  Churchill was to speak before a group of New York businessmen.  No doubt Twain had been brought in to lionize the younger man, but Twain was old enough, rich enough and  opinionated enough to take this opportunity to address what he saw as  poor British foreign policy that was being emulated by the United States. He told the assembled crowd;

For years I have been a self-appointed missionary, and have wrought zealously for my cause--the joining together of America and the motherland in bonds of friendship, esteem and affection--an alliance of the heart which should permanently and beneficently influence the political relations of the two countries. Wherever I have stood before a gathering of Americans or Englishmen, in England, India, Australia or elsewhere, I have urged my mission, and warmed it up with compliments to both countries and pointed out how nearly alike the two peoples are in character and spirit. They ought to be united....

...yet I think England sinned in getting into a war in South Africa which she could have avoided without loss of credit or dignity--just as I think we have sinned in crowding ourselves into a war in the Philippines on the same terms.

Mr. Churchill will tell you about the war in South Africa, and he is competent--he fought and wrote through it himself. And he made a record there which would be a proud one for a man twice his age. By his father he is English, by his mother he is American--to my mind the blend which makes the perfect man. We are now on the friendliest terms with England. Mainly through my missionary efforts I suppose; and I am glad. We have always been kin: kin in blood, kin in religion, kin in representative government, kin in ideals, kin in just and lofty purposes; and now we are kin in sin, the harmony is complete, the blend is perfect, like Mr. Churchill himself, whom I now have the honor to present to you.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Why Nothing Has Changed for the GOP

  When I wrote the  book SWINDLED, I made the case that the GOP wasn't the party of freedom that it claimed to be , but rather a loose coalition of power brokers and money movers that, although ostensibly committed to slightly less government, where so terrified by the  candidacy of Ron Paul that they committed a whole slew of atrocities to  block his nomination. These  atrocities included voter fraud, financial shenanigans, and  the skirting of federal election laws.  Over and over again in primary after primary I showed that a handful of people flipped switches and pulled levers in an attempt to derail the  most serious liberty  element the Republican Party has seen in decades from  establishing any  real presence under the tent. One such individual is a man named Reince Priebus.
 Once upon a time, Priebus, but the general counsel for the national Republican Party, but Priebus's real skill seems to be  fund raising. In December of 2010, he stepped down as general counsel for the RNC so he could run for chariman.  In a letter to the delegates he said "I will keep expenses low. I will put in strong and serious controls. We will raise the necessary funds to make sure we are successful. We will work to regain the confidence of our donor base and I will personally call our major donors to ask them to rejoin our efforts at the RNC."  Having secured the job, Priebus was true to his goal, cutting the  party debt by almost half, raising over $50 million dollars. He brought some high level donors on board,  was praised by Ed Gillispie as being "on message" and having done "a great job at raising money, which is the principal  role of the RNC chairman."
  Deep pocket donors  give money to political campaigns for one of three  reasons.  One reason is  protection money, which is why  large corporations routinely finance both sides of the aisle.  No matter which  stooge wins, he's  less likely to bite the hand that has been feeding him. The other two reasons are closely related; access and influence. You pay a candidate so that when he wins, he will take your phone calls and then listen to you.  As  Louisiana governor Earl K. Long famously said " I don't buy senators, I rent them. It's cheaper." Very rarely are deep pocket donors  motivated by  principal or  genuine excitement  over a cause.  Men like Priebus understand this, and court these tendencies. The last thing  Priebus needs is an actual grassroots  movement that  is spontaneous, and can't be either controlled, steered, or tapped for large donations.  Enter the Ron Paul Revolution.


  As the  preparations began for the 2012 election,  Priebus is the individual who  pushed for Nevada to move their caucus date  from  January to February. Nevada has always been a  place sympathetic to the liberty message, and even with a large Nevada Mormon population that  would tend to tilt towards Romney, Ron Paul campaign organizers had reason to  expect great things.  But the GOP  machinery, headed by  Priebus engaged in all sorts of monkey business, including changing the times the polls were open and announcing a Romney victory when only 5% of the vote had been counted and several counties ( including Paul stronghold Clark County) still hadn't reported in. The state GOP chairperson  resigned in the middle of the night while the vote was still going on. The hour-by-hour account makes for compelling reading. Despite all this Paul wound up finishing  2nd behind Romney, and later  snagged the majority of delegates at the state convention, effectively winning the state.
  Oh, but dear friends, the last chapter had not been written yet, because Mr. Priebus ,being the money man that he is,  formed a thing called 'Team Nevada'. Priebus even  wrote their press release saying "
“Nevada is a critical state in the upcoming elections, and that is why the Republican Party is expanding our voter contact and volunteer programs across the state,” The purported purpose of Team Nevada was to expand  RNC outreach in the state.  The real reason  was to funnel money away from the Nevada Republican Party, with its Paulian sympathies, into the coffers of the Romney campaign.  Paul might have won the state, but the money  was going to Romney.
  Rolling into the Tampa convention, the national party was  struggling with impromptu and  possibly illegal rule changes that   finally managed to successfully block Paul's nomination.  One of the men most opposed to the  procedural  malfeasance going on was  Morton Blackwell. Blackwell was actually a Romney supporter, but felt that the rule changed behind closed doors the night before the convention at the behest of Romney s lawyer were  sinister and  'un-Republcian'. He was blocked, delayed, and stuck on a bus for 3 hours while John Sununu went  into hiding, lest anyone present him with a minority report challenging these new rules.  The end result was the nomination of Mitt "I am not a robot" Romney , who was  easily trounced by Barack Obama.
 
  The reason I  go briefly through all this history is this; 2016 will soon be here, and like the battering husband that swears he'll never hit you again, the GOP will  try to convince you they have changed.  They have not . In fact, they have changed so little that  Priebus and  Blackwell are facing off over yet another round of rule changes. Priebus has been making the talk-show rounds denouncing  convenient GOP boogey-man ( boogey-woman?) Hilary Clinton for everything  that could possibly be wrong with the world in an attempt to pre-empt her political ambitions.  This is  vastly more pragamtic than focusing on  the 'nar-a-dimes-worth-of-difference' between the two parties.  He is  flipping switches and pulling levers as  we speak, and those  GOP 2016 hopefuls  who want access to the war chest of funds have to court him, and have to say the right things. They will have to  either endorse the  warfare state or soften their opposition to it.  They will have to agree to long-standing  state pillaging programs like Social Security, and be willing to  blur the  numbers on issues like immigration.  The staus quo will not be challenged, only nibbled at the edges with  convoluted solutions that only merely shift inappropriate state power from  one pocket to another.  They will do all this while men like Priebus try to convince you that there is an Islamicist under every bush and only a robot with an 'R' after his name can  save you.  They will claim tea party roots while they pocket  vast rivers of money from  corporate donors who then will expect sympathy at best, and corporate welfare at worst.
  The same people are still in charge of the GOP machinery as were in charge of the machinery in 2012.  Don't be fooled.

Lesson Learned

  When I first published SWINDLED, and was beginning to get some recognition, I was approached by a well-known author.  This well-known author was actually a key component in my economic re-education, and he had an idea.  Several of us had written books along a similar theme, and he thought it would be mutually beneficial if we reviewed and promoted each other’s books.  I agreed , and a couple of other people agreed.  We all exchanged copies, virtual and otherwise of each other’s work.

  I was pretty excited to be working with and receiving help from somebody who I looked up to in certain areas. I told this story to a friend of mine and she warned me not to get my hopes up. She said that when she had first started out she had been similarly solicited, and in the middle of her flattery of being noticed and taken seriously, she agreed to a great deal of work that was never reciprocated.  She reminded me that the author in particular that had arranged this deal was an atheist with some pretty horrible opinions on the issue of abortion.  Her parting advice on this was “I hope it works out, but remember that he isn’t in the business of helping you, he’s in the business of selling books, and if you help him do that, he’ll use it.”

  Regardless of her advice, I took my end of the commitment very seriously, and I  plowed into the books. I took notes, and within a few days began compiling my review.  I tried to be honest, but fair. I finished all the reviews within weeks of receiving the books, and posted them everywhere I could. I sent links to the reviews to the other authors, and got busy with the rest of my life.

  As of the time of this writing, I am the only one of that group to keep their commitment.  A few months went by and I contacted the   ‘idea man’ for this venture and tried to gently remind him of what the arrangement had been. He assured me that his review of my work was coming out any day now.  I am still waiting.  I spoke to one of the other authors over the phone and he told me that he didn’t know if he would actually get around to what he had committed to. He apologized in advance if it didn’t happen.

  So what are the lessons here?  One lesson is that you should do the right thing, and keep your commitments not because of what it will earn you in return, but because it is simply the right thing to do. I cannot control the actions or work habit of anyone else, and if they  entered into a deal with no intent on following through, that is a reflection on their character, not mine.  This famous author continues to write and lecture, receiving accolades for his smartness. At the end of the day, I got a couple of free books out of it, and an invaluable education.

 I also reaffirmed within myself that if I ever make it ‘big’, I’m going to bring as many people with me as a I can. My inspiration from this is director Sam Raimi who made movies and let all his friends be in them, plus his car. Danny Dileo did the same thing. Make a note of this; the time to be nice to me is now.

  This incident confirmed yet again that Mrs. Becky Akers, in addition to being a great writer with amazing hair, probably gets migraines from being so brilliant.

Rand is not Ron

  I was doing a radio interview recently regarding SWINDLED, and the host asked me what my impression was of  Rand Paul, the  junior Senator from Kentucky and heir-apparent to his father's philosophical empire. My response was simple , "I have Rand issues."
  Trust me, I've heard all the arguments in favor of the Rand Paul "libertarian when I need to be" philosophy. I've heard how he needs to "play the game" in order to "get anything done". Well that certainly implies that we need government to get anything done, doesn't it? I thought we  held that  liberty and freedom and individuals were the solutions, not partisan politics. I don't 'need ' Washington. All I 'need' them to do is leave me alone, a simple task they seem incapable of doing. Compromise  is what  got us where we are now, isn't it?
  I've  been pointed towards some of the  brave stands he has taken, such as his  drone filibuster. That's all  fine and good, but I would like to see a little more consistency in the man. He  has supported sanctions against Iran, which his father  claimed was an act of war.  Since Iran seems to be the new neocon litmus test, Rand's willingness to play  political games with the lives of other people's children seems to me to be  at odds with his  libertarian soundness in other areas. His last name isn't enough for me to give him carte blanche enough to hide in his father's shadow.
  A perfect example of my Rand issues came to light   in the Senates  recent unanaimous vote to  push us one step closer to war with Iran. The media has already started to portray the regime as Enemy of the Month, and already the  average amn on the street  is being programmed to think "We gotta do soemthign about those guys".  Trust me, unless something drastically changes, I  completely see us  parking  ourselves in yet another  country, toppling the regime, and   spilling  precious blood and  squandering  precious treasure in an attempt to control what happens afterwards.  This apparently is what we do now.
  I assume Mr. Paul ( the younger) has presidential aspirations, and maybe he saw how his father was shut out by the  establishment and he seeks to  endear himself   to the establishment while keeping his liberty  street cred.  But I  submit to you that such a tightrope act is not only impossible, but unwise, and won't win him any points with me.
  Rand, its not too late to  change course. Some of us are still watching to see how you turn out.

Where Are They Now?

( Note:  This is satire, people. Well, mostly)

With the 2012 campaign but a distant memory, we caught up with former Massachusetts governor and GOP nominee Mitt Romney at his family’s residence to find out what he’d been up to since November.

  “Man that was bad. That was a dark time for me, really for everybody.”  Gov.  Romney told us while sitting in a room with the shades drawn. Even in the dim light we could see that he had put on a bit of weight since his defeat at the hands of Barack Obama.  “ I just came home that night and crawled underneath the covers and ….hey,  does it look like my hair is falling out?”

 The candidate has been a virtual recluse since the election, even to his 1.6 million Twitter followers who have heard absolutely nothing from him since election night. A few days later a haggard looking Romney was spotted at a gas station pumping his own gas.  The website from his campaign still bears the image of an optimistic looking candidate and a cheerful blurb  about  having hopes for the future, but to those close to the former GOP nominee, it’s a different situation altogether.

Romney pumping gas

  “It was crazy” said a cashier at the local grocery store speaking on condition of anonymity. “ I mean  he always had somebody do the grocery shopping for him. You know, a service. But the day after the election he comes in here big as life and buys every tube of chocolate chip cookie dough in the entire store, plus a big spoon.  I told him I voted for him, but he wouldn’t look me in the eye.”

  A source close to the family reported he fell into a sobbing fit when his book wound up on the discount rack at his local bookstore. Witnesses report that he began to rant about how he had ‘the perfect hair, a gorgeous tan’, and had taken ‘every position on every issue at least once. What do you people want from me?’

  By contrast Congressman Ron Paul of Texas has been busier than at any time in his life.  He retired from Congress , giving one of the great political speeches of all time, and since retiring has  written  yet another  best selling book, launched a home school curriculum,  opened the doors to the Ron Paul Peace Institute, and given speeches  to  ever-growing crowds all over the globe.  During one particularly energetic rally, the normally soft-spoken Dr. Paul challenged some members of the college-age audience to “Punch me in the stomach. Come on, I can take it!” and unconfirmed reports claim he has taken up the hobby of jumping over cars and through flaming hoops on a motorcycle.  An eyewitness at a state fair told the Associated Press that the regularly scheduled daredevil had fallen ill, but Dr. Paul just happened to be  in the area and   strapped on the colorful costume, revving the motor and calling out to the crowd “Who’s the boss? You the boss!”” before zipping the bike towards the ramp and easily clearing the obstacles.  Paul staffers would neither confirm nor deny the incident, but merely commented that, “Dr. Paul is enjoying the newfound liberty he has as a private citizen. There’s lots of thing he couldn’t do as a Congressman.”

Probably not Ron Paul

 Reports that he  has challenged Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke  to an ‘Indian leg wrestling match’ were flatly denied.