THE ONLY SALVATION FOR A WRITER September 22, 2009
It has been an odd couple of weeks.
In the course of preparing a pair of new nonfiction books, I’ve
spent several days gathering up everything I’ve written for public
consumption since September 11, 2001. (My first nonfiction book,
_Lever Action_, was published just before that date, and consisted of
stuff I’d written over the previous 30 years.) That means every
article, essay, column, blog entry, longish letter to the editor,
publisher’s note, and significant response to comments on both of my
blogs.
In that time, I’ve written for _The Libertarian Enterprise_, of
course, for Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, _Sierra
Times_, _Rational Review_, various Ernie Hancock publications, even
_V-Dare_. I was astonished to find that in eight years, I’d generated
616 pieces. (By comparison, there are 87 articles in _Lever Action_.)
Averaging 1000 words per article, that’s 616,000 words; the average
paperback (like _The Probability Broach_) runs from 60,000 to 80,000
words.
That’s only an article and a half a week — of course I also wrote
a number of novels during the same period — but over time, things add
up.
The two new volumes I have had in mind are _Where We Stand_, a
libertarian policy book I’m writing with my daughter, and something I
generally think of — sort of Black Lagoonishly — as “Son of Lever
Action” or “Lever Action’s Revenge” or “Lever Action Walks Among Us”.
Given the material I have to work with, it may turn out to be all
three.
I have no idea what kind of market there will be for books like
this. I’m deeply ashamed to say that _Lever Action_ hasn’t sold very
well. Still, as conditions change and circumstances become more and
more desperate, what I write may seem more relevant to Americans
trapped by socialism. They may pass my yellow, tattered pages around a
guttering candle in the cellar as they dream of revolution. If that
doesn’t happen, then the sapient insectoids who inherit the planet
from us after we’ve let ourselves be destroyed may find my writings
interesting.
For me, it’s already served its purpose. Just like you, whenever
the political news is bad, I want to scream and run around in circles
and tear my hair out. Suffering from high blood pressure as I do, and
having already had two heart attacks, and believing that cancer can be
caused by stress, I’ve found that writing about whatever’s bugging me
(no offense to any of my future insectoid readers) deceives the fight
or flight lobe of my brain into believing that I’ve done something
significant. I can sleep at night and don’t yell at my family quite so
much.
Which may or may not be what Raymond Chandler was thinking about
when he famously wrote that “The only salvation for a writer is to
write”.
Most of my political writing seems to consist of ideas I have for
regaining lost liberties or better yet, expanding on freedoms the
people of this country started out with. Given what is — with some
rare and notable exceptions — an almost perfect lack of constructive
response (by which I mean something more than blathering) to any of
these ideas, the past several years have almost convinced me that
nobody out there is really interested in regaining or expanding
freedom.
But I’m still teetering on the fence.
The only thing still propping me up — and I’m sorry to have to
say it — are the so-called tea parties occurring across the nation in
protest of various government policies, and the misnamed town hall
meetings that Democrats found so painful to their dewicate wittow
psyches. The battering Obama himself has received in the process has
tarnished his godhood, and that can only be good for what’s left of
America.
Then why am I sorry to say it?
For nearly half a century, I have looked forward to seeing this
country — and perhaps the world — eventually freed, in my lifetime,
not so much by libertarians, as by libertarianism, which is to say, by
a comprehensive, systematic, internally consistent philosophy of
individual liberty, rooted in sound premises, and headed in a rational
direction.
I had hoped to have a part in it.
But while libertarians undeniably make up a fraction of the ad hoc
movement presently making life miserable for the left, and credibly
promising to throw Obama onto the ash heap of history where he, his
orcish hordes, and their outmoded Marxist aspirations belong, it’s
only a tiny fraction, and the rest appears to be composed of right
wing collectivists like the followers of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hanity,
and displaced stalwarts of the insanity that was the George W. Bush
Administration.
A crusade, in short, to state it charitably, as philosophically
comprehensive, systematic, internally consistent, sound, and rational
as a tin of fancy cookies someone has thrown down a flight of concrete
stairs.
Whatever they may gain for us in 2010 and 2012 cannot reasonably
be expected to last beyond the next “emergency” Republicans contrive.
We will soon find ourselves facing the same threats — be it forcible
vaccination, mass disarmament, or land “clearances” — that we face
under the Democrats. No one has managed to convince me — huffing and
puffing indignantly is not an argument — that the attack on the World
Trade Center wasn’t initiated, or at least permitted, by the previous
regime. In either case, the FEMA camps were first established under
Bush.
And never forget it was Republicans who destroyed the Libertarian
Party.
Left wing socialism or right wing socialism? Are those the only
choices that we have? We have been systematically denied any genuine
alternative through the conventional electoral process. There are ways
left to manipulate the political system, but it would appear that too
few of us are sophisticated enough to understand that, let alone to do
it.
Yeah, you know who you are.
So here I sit, 47 years, 616 plus 87 essays (and more I didn’t use
in _Lever Action_) down the path, getting ready to publish more books
I’m unsure anyone will ever read, in the somewhat forlorn hope that
somehow I can make individuals understand that there’s an important
difference between swapping the dog collar Democrats have around our
necks for the collar Republicans have ready for us — and truly being
free.
Now that I’ve written about it, I’ll feel better and push on.
The only salvation for a writer is to write.
- Posted in : Politics
- Author :Administrator
Comments»
A prophet is unappreciated in his own time, but not completely. I deeply appreciate you and all you have done and written. And, if it hadn’t been for _Lever Action_ I would still be completely confused about what it is that I had always believed, and would still think I was alone in my beliefs.
Thank you for putting it all down in writing, and I look forward to more.
Well you’re certainly one of the exceptions I had in mind, Kent. If you’ve learned anything from me, you’ve certainly done a hell of a lot with it, and I’m proud of you.
I just thought it was a strange reaction on my part that when I saw how much I’d written in the last eight years, I wasn’t particularly happy or proud, but felt frustrated, instead. I’ve practically written a manual over the years on guerilla politics, and nobody seems to be using it.
The National Recall Coordinating Committees alone is worth the effort. A time could come when the very mention of it could chill any socialist politician who had drawn its attention to himself.
Instead, what have we got? Bob Barr stuck to the bottom of our metaphorical foot like a really nasty wad of chewing gum we picked up on the sidewalk. I got an “invitation” today to some kind of phony firearms leadership conference where that right wing socialist scumbag is the principal speaker.
Think I’ll write a little about the organization that hired him.
First, Lever Action Round 2
it’s a multi-level play on words and concept, see?
And I hate to sound like a broken record, I strongly urge you read up on the Progressive movment. They are the true villains, and it’s not a Left or Right thing, it’s a control thing, which is exactly what we’re seeing. They won’t be happy until we’re all living in huts while they drive past in their SUVs.
Swear to God, it sometimes feels like it’s RAH’s ‘The Puppet Masters’ and nobody dares to talk about the slugs on the backs of people.
We cut off water to farmers to protect a fish. We have enough oil to be totally independent yet we don’t drill. The lack of REASON is making me crazy.
Write some more books, OK? I need something to keep my spirits up.
Thanks, Steve.
I’m very well aware of the Progressive movement; it was a major part of my history studies in college. And you’re right, it doesn’t really break down along party lines. Teddy Roosevelt was one, and so was Woody Wilson. That was the era that gave rise to the “efficiency expert” and other vile distortions of human existence, World War I serving as a major justification for “rationalizing” everything that couldn’t run away fast enough.
Your remark about huts and SUVs is congruent with what I said about the “clearances” in Scotland in the 18th and 19th centuries. Look it up and be appalled. Under the UN’s “Agenda 21″, I’m sure our would-be masters are greatly looking forward to crowding us all into mile-high concrete tenements, leaving the countryside clear so that they can “ride to hounds”, attended only by the youngest and most attractive peasant conscripts.
I can hear Barney Frank now, saying, “And dwug him weww — I don’t feew wike westwing.”
Just as “taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed”, socialism has never had anything to do with the good of the people, but everything to do with giving advantages to the _nomenklatura_.
It’s time for them to hear, “Serfs’ up!”
P.S. I believe that whoever made the fish versus farmers decision in California seriously deserves some old-fashioned San Francisco justice.
Neil-WELCOME BACK. I, for one, have been pushing back the walls of right and left wing totalitarianism by putting 2 names out ther to explain my views better-RAH and The Moon, AND an author you may have heard of, L. Neil Smith. Yeah, he’s a loon, but he’s OUR kind of loon. And I have had people quote from his TPB, Lever action, and Venus Belt, and one guy recommended The Mitzvah. So, if we ever huddle around the campfires, yearning for freedom, your works will stand tall in our hearts. And, while I ain’t rich, I have bought every used copy of TPB and VB I find, and have passed them on, with the only caveat being that they must be returned or passed on. None have returned, although one copy I passed on came back to me three years later from a guy who heard me run my mouth, so he tried to loan it to me to “Help you say it better” I thanked him, pointed out my name in the cover, and asked him to gift it to someone else. VIVA LA REVOLUTION!!!
This is the one thing that gives me some odd hope, that some of the central…spark? that makes Americans somewhat different from the rest of the world will create a war within the Progressives and the whole World Socialism/UN movement.
Because the ‘names’ here in the U.S. (say, Al Gore, just for fun) clearly expect to be among the elite, exempt. But the World Socialists want America GONE, and Gore might have a penthouse in one of the ‘beehives’ but he’s not going to have the grand housing he enjoys now.
And there’s the conflict. American Progressives want us back to the village level. small rude houses, local stores (or STORE) and Soviet-style lines for stuff. You have to buy your food every day because you don’t have a Fridge anymore. You can’t buy in bulk. Make sure you always have your hemp shopping bag with you because you never know, they might have Toilet Paper this week! You’re born, you live and you die in your ‘community’ because travel is all but impossible.
and suddenly, with each passing day, it feels more like Soylent Green. We won’t BAN books, we’ll just make making paper so expensive (pollution control, chemicals, can’t cut down trees) nobody can afford them. We won’t BAN fast food, we’ll just impose ‘carbon fees’ on cattle farmers that puts them out of business. White Bread? why, yes, we have that but we only get 2 loaves a week, don’t you want Whole Wheat? it’s SO much better for you!
(a true thing in practice if not stated like that. My Walmart has this bread section for the brand I like, and it’s 85% wheat and other ‘healthy’ breads, and the plain old everyday white bread is about 6 loaves on the bottom shelf. Social Engineering in practice!)
and I’m ranting, and teaching my gran to suck eggs, huh?
Tyrannical statists have been doing their thing for some 6000 years.
the current struggle to free human minds and the humans that go with them has really only caught on since the 1776 rebellion along the east coast of the North American temperate zone.
all things considered we’re doing pretty good.
Neil, here are some excerpts for your psychological wellbeing-
“Well, I was vastly amused by that site. Great cover art on his tomes. Here is one Leftneck who’s down with the Atlanta Declaration. Thumbs up”
“For laughs, go to lneilsmith.org and read the Atlanta Declaration”
“Neale,
The Probability Broach is what turned me on to libertarianism in the first place. Heinlein is my favorite SF writer, so I was probably well primed for the ideas in The Probability Broach. I first read it sometime in the early ’80s. ”
“Siting L. Neal Smith. I think I like you to Neale. Have you visited FR33Agents.com”
These are just a few of the comments posted by me, and others in various spots on newsvine over the last 3 days, but there are many others from the last few months. Cheer up and get to writing. Later, Neale.
How depressing. Now I need cheering up. If anyone here has some time on their hands, go read the first 9 1/2 chapters of my story here:
http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2598052/1/Incomparable
and tell me if it is worth finishing at all. Or what you think of it. Or whatever.
OK, on my way.
Ann, I read Ch 1+2. Not bad. Not entirely to my tastes, but not bad. I might make some changes, but then again, I haven’t written a book, myself. I hate cliffhangers, so, as with Ceres, I will not read more until it is done, or at least a rough draft. You finish it, and I will read it. Keep it up.
How frigging, no, HOW FUCKING EMBARRASSING. I just noticed that somehow, an extra “e” was added to my name for the last few posts. No one but the older of my two sisters calls me Nealee and lives, and here, somehow, I DID IT. Sorry, I have to go kill myself. BANG….Bang…… RATATATATATATATAT. Oh shit, I missed. Oh well, I guess I’ll just correct the spelling.
Neil, I know what you mean. Sometimes it’s like trying to piss up a rope. But then, we really have no choice but to keep doing what we do and hope it does some good.
Or at least gives some control-freak heartburn!
Time to redirect a little here, friends. It wasn’t my intention to start myself a pity party, but simply to vent some of my feelings of frustration and futility with regard to my work having the effects I desire.
I’m not really worried about my novels not being read by anyone. Aside from receiving plenty of testimony over the years via e-mail, social networks, snail mail, and the phone, I’ve reached a point now where hoary graybeards gather
around my table at conventions (actually, it’s BigHeadPress’s table) to tell me how, back in the Paleolithic Era, the earliest stone slabs I chiseled changed their lives in junior high school.
You gotta admit, it is something of a mixed message.
I was surprised, a decade or two ago, to learn that there are lots of readers out there who know me only from my non-fiction writing, essays and articles, although I think of myself primarily as a novelist. My one and only concern in this connection is that not enough people are reading me — my fiction or my non-fiction — to make a significant difference.
And that’s another problem altogether.
I greatly appreciate all your kindly remarks more than you can ever possibly know, and I apologize if I made anyone here unhappy or depressed. There are a number of “on the other hand” observations that I could have made and will right now. Thanks in no small way to my readers — that is, to you — I lead a very comfortable, interesting, and satisfying life. The only things that tend to spoil it (I’m sure I’m no different from anybody else in this respect) are the disgusting political situation all around us, and discovering that I’m getting
old.
That I’ve _gotten_ old.
My dad hated this last one, too, and became increasingly indignant about it the last few years of his life. My never-aging mind has a lot left to do that a gradually disintegrating body seriously interferes with.
Interestingly, we — by which I mean the Baby Boomers — are the first of thousands of generations of our species who have a real chance of actually doing something about aging and death. It was amusing to hear Rush Limbaugh talking about that very subject just the other day. He had brought up a news story in which somebody (I can’t remember who) was predicting nanotechnology, coming as soon as 20 years from now, that will not only scour our clogged arteries and lungs out, but will also assume the functions of various organs that have begun to fail us.
I immediately had visions — among other things — of little pumping stations scattered out along your circulatory system in such a way that you could take a bullet through the heart and still draw, return fire, let the hammer down easy, and help identify your assailant’s body. But then, my mind is open on the subject. My life has already been extended, several times, beginning in the 1950s, by advancing technology.
I’ll tell you about it sometime.
It was pretty clear to me that the formerly fat flumpus’s intention had been to make fun of the story and the concept behind it, but as he talked, he was thinking about it — you could hear the gears grind — and didn’t quite get to whatever punchline he’d had in mind. Limbaugh is an anti-intellectual and a scientific ignoramus, but he’s also a technophile, lives a highly enjoyable life, and isn’t getting any younger.
Ironically, this is exactly the sort of progress that is bound to be sabotaged or outlawed in some way by the current administration. We already know about the “death panels” they’re planning for us, and the concentration camps they’re desperately looking for excuses to fill. True, it was apparently the previous administration that planned and built those camps, but their replacements show no sign of unplanning or unbuilding them.
Somebody — Ron Paul, Sarah Palin — needs to make a high-profile speech demanding that “Mr. Obama, tear down these camps!”
While the previous administration banned government-funded stem cell research (another possible path to biological immortality) out of “love” — a deeply confused desire to protect the lives of unborn babies — those presently in power suffer a sick, psychopathological loathing of their fellow human beings that arises, like the fetid stench over a swamp, from a profound and bitterly churning hatred of themselves.
They no more desire to extend human lives than any sane individual today desires a second term for Barack Obama. “Progressives” they like to call themselves: it was a former Democratic governor of Colorado, I’m ashamed to say, who first asserted that it is the duty of old people to die and get out of the way; it is a byword of the current regime — one that they mistakenly believe has been safely buried in their past — that what the world really needs most is another Black Plague.
So it seems that the solution to one of our problems — getting old and dying — depends on finding a solution to our other problem: a gang of Cambodian-style collectivists who want us dead, along with our convictions, which they find inconvenient, so we can be replaced with younger generations they have carefully brought up to have no such convictions.
Thanks to tea parties and town hall meetings, things don’t seem to be running quite as smoothly for the enemies of freedom as they thought they would. But we can’t afford to risk waiting until 2012 — or even 2010 — for a solution to be found and applied. It’s time to move on two fronts, getting rid of socialist politicians now, before they do more harm, or at least chilling their enthusiasm for controlling our lives.
I know that one of the participants on this blog lives in southwest Texas. Another is from upstate New York, and yet another is from New Jersey. I’m in Colorado. Where are you? I’d like very much to establish chapters of the National Recall Coordinating Committees, beginning in every state, and working up to every county. I’ll write about operating details later. Right now, I want some real, live assistance.
I also want to piggyback the Moratorium effort on the NRCC, so that the two can be offered to the public together. Present: recall the bastards. Future: no more new laws, and a century of repealing the old ones. Long before we achieve any concrete goals, the buzz we generate — providing that it’s loud
enough — will begin to have the desired effect.
90% to pass a law, 10% to repeal one. Count me in. E-mail me the info, Brother Neil, and I will start tomorrow.
Mr. Smith,
My beard isn’t gray yet, but my first reading of The Probability Broach helped direct my thoughts and philosophy in a greatly worthwhile direction, and I consider your works some of the larger influences on my life.
That said… my philosophy has developed since then, to the point where I discovered that there are certain aspects of your philosophy I actually disagree with. (The short version could be “Libertarianism is not the goal in and of itself, but a method /to/ the goal of extreme-long-term survival of free sapience (preferably my own sapience), and is not necessarily the only one, or even the best one in all circumstances.”) But I find reading your continuing exploration of your philosophy to be worthwhile for me to read, and I do my best to read whatever you write. Sometimes you convince me to change my mind about one aspect or another; sometimes you don’t, but I do my best to continue to remain open to the possibility that you will /continue/ to persuade me.
In case you’re wondering, I’m in Canada, near Niagara Falls.
Thank you for your time.
Thank your for your note, DPR (if I may) –
You’ll have to tell me sometime what aspects of my philosophy you’ve come to disagree with. If you believe you own your own life, and I own mine, that’s half of what I believe right there. If you’ve come to believe there are times or circumstances in which you have the right to initiate force, we have a problem — or rather you have. If not, then all the rest is the kind of detail over which libertarians argue all the time — mostly amiably.
I agree with you very strongly about one thing, although I’ve given it a slightly different emphasis. I’ve been saying for decades that following the Zero Aggression Principle is the only way that billions of killer apes can live and work together every day without murdering each other.
And being Canadian is an unfortunate handicap that almost anyone can overcome if they’re simply willing to try hard enough.
Right, Dave?
(My goodness, I’ve actually entered into a conversation with one of my favourite SF authours. As my brother loves to say, “We live in the future!”; I like to add, “And things are going to /keep/ getting cooler!”.
)
Mr. Smith,
After considering the matter for a few moments, as best as I can tell, the root of difference between what you write and what I currently think seems to lie in my assumption that I require society to live in - a complex, high-tech society, at that. Should technology advance to the point where I can provide for my own basic necessities of life, and only engage in commerce and transactions with others when I choose to, then I would find more of your philosophy applicable; but, as things stand, I have to be more like Heinlein’s Professer de la Paz, trying to be “a perfect anarchist living in an imperfect world”. It may, in fact, be entirely immoral for me to pay into my country’s tax system and use the social services provided by my government… but, at present, I have no other realistic option. I am, however, working to improve things, wherever I believe my contribution would make a difference - most recently, by assisting in the creation of the “Pirate Party of Canada” to try to help steer my government towards the maximization of civil rights.
As for who owns what, just today I’ve read an essay about what ownership actually /means/, which has given me some food for thought, at http://www.positiveliberty.com/2009/09/property-and-people-who-dont-get-it.html .
As for overcoming my nationality, the only reason I haven’t joined one of the local gun clubs, started learning how to use a firearm, and acquiring one, is purely financial. After expenses, I currently have about $100 a month to spend on personal items, entertainment, books, and the like; while becoming a member of the only shooting range I can get to with my transportation (which is, as best I can tell, a prerequisite of owning a firearm) requires a membership fee and building fee - over the first three years, $810 (~$25/month), plus, of course, there’s the cost of the handgun itself, and ammo, and I haven’t even looked at the cost of training courses yet…
… so, put another way, if I want to become a recreational shooter, that would pretty much /be/ my recreation. And it would be at that one single indoor pistol shooting range. So, short of a Gunny God-Parent intervening on my behalf, I’m going to remain firearms-free for the foreseeable future. Unless you want to count that slingshot and pack of ball-bearings I’ve got squirrelled away, which, in extremis, might be potentially usable in the same fashion as the FP-45 Liberator or the Deer gun…
Once again, thank you for your time.
Try harvesting some decent yew for a bow and ash for arrows. Also makes decent spears and quarter staffs. Find sparring parrtners.
brush clearing and forestry tools also have value for self defense.
Please remember that up until perfection of rifled .44 caliber Colt revolver long bow was better weapon than most firearms (except maybe Kentucky long rifle at long range) available.
Did require more strength and practice but had more range and accuracy than smoothbores and a faster rate of fire.
DPR- Neil puts on his holster one belt loop at a time, just like the rest of us. If you ever get to Fort Collins, Co, USA, look him up, he’s in the book. But then got to the house and knock, cause he NEVER checks the landline, he only uses cells for a telephone. But, if he is home, he will answer the door, drag you in, and offer coffe, gun talk, and BS until you decide to leave. I know, because THAT is how I met him 21 years ago (FUCK ME, that’s farther back than I remember it, I might be getting older, myself). Back to you and guns- How are Canada’s rules on BLACKPOWDER guns? Here, you can pick up a cheap (under $100usd) .44 revolver. And blackpowder here is nearly completely un-regulated. If it is the same there, skimp on the entertainment for a few months, pick one up, cast your own slugs, Buy bulk powder and caps, and start from there. REMEMBER- “An armed man is a citizen, an an-armed man is a slave” Good luck, whatever you decide. If you are willing, I am sure there is a place for you and yours on the other side of the border, as another option.
That’s UN- armed man. Typo alert!!!!
Neale, a quick Google turns up http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/fs-fd/powder-poudre-eng.htm , which seems to imply that unless the weapon is an antique, even a black powder weapon requires the same sorts of licensing and registration as any other firearm. Black powder itself seems a bit harder to find the rules upon, but unless I’m toting a pre-1898 muzzleloading musket, or a flintlock longarm, or the like, those rules seem a bit moot.
Well, while there were cartridge guns made pre-1898, the price would be, to say the least, exhorbitant. Well, I tried to come up with a workable suggestion. The only other thing I can suggest is build a hot air ballon, and escape to a country where you will have more freedom. In many states (Colorado among them last I checked) you can still buy rifles AND pistols at garage sales. And join a range and shoot without a license. And there are even places, MANY OF THEM, where you can shoot without even joining a range. It is called PRIVATE PROPERTY. Wishing you the best, Neale.
I met El Neil first through a snail-mail letter I sent him about TPB, (this was before the Internet was anything like as big as it is now) and, later, through e-mails, a long time before we met in meatspace. I’ve had the privilege of visiting him a couple of times, and was sorry that, when he was travelling through Iowa and having trouble finding a place to stay, it didn’t occur to him to call me—I could have easily found him somewhere to sleep.
I believe it was Isaac Asimov who was accused of needing to write ten thousand words a day or so or go nuts’
I don’t know if you’ll match the good doctor, but I’ll read it if you write it.
Might even inform my converse with others with whom I commune. (if Heinlein could do it in Number of the Beast…).
Thank Ghu puns and inside literary are protected by the First Amendment. Nobody invent a wayback machine to fix that fault.
That’s “inside literary jokes” in that last post. Xin loi.
Burning up the atmospheric envelope around Ceres!? Yikes! Not good!
El Neil,
I finished Ceres a few weeks ago…just a marvelous book.
Your writing has had a major effect on me. I went from thinking about guns just on a practical level to thinking about them on a philosophical level.
I had always thought “If the government has ‘em I’m going to have ‘em.” But I had never thought about the ideology behind gun control.
That is, what it means when someone wants people disarmed. What they think of people in general and what they want to do specifically and what that MEANS.
That was huge and I’ve passed that onto my wife and kids and I start there in discussions with the “unconvinced.”
So that’s four people right there. Plus what ever effect we’ve had on folks, which, unfortunately, is not as easily measured.
So in baseball terms, you’ve gotten some hits and picked up a few RBIs. And you can’t win without scoring runs.
Joss Whedon’s characters and story lines have become more libertarian over the years ( compare early Buffy to last year’s Dollhouse).
Sons of Anarchy includes the classic line “we’re all free men protected by the Constitution.
The Brit SF series Primeval keeps bringing up the need to show due regard for people’s civil liberties (usually while violating them but at least they admit there’s an issue).
The Torchwood Children of Earth miniseries clearly challenges governments’ misuse of power.
Barack Obama of all people has admitted that challenges to his plans on the basis of preventing the government from becoming too powerful and must be addressed, whether to be refuted or whether to modify his program to meet them isn’t quite clear, but at least he’s not simply blowing them off.
These may only be slight victories, a sprouting verbena seed in a crack in the cement. But a verbena’s finger shaped leaves trap dirt and plant detritus to create a soil for more verbena, grass, some clover and next thing you know the cement is buried under a section of lawn and garden.
We may be winning small but I think it’s just the first iterations of a geometric progression trying to become a factoral progression. thanks Neil for what you’ve done to make this happen.
Meant to say “challenges to his plans …are valid and must be addressed. ” Sorry about typo.
Admittedly this admission may be pure boilerplate, but since when did we get strong enough that paying lip service to libertarian concerns was obligatory rhetorical boiler plate. Is that an earthworm chewing through the dead leafe our verbena caught?
Neil, I have been reading your fiction since 1982. You are , in my opinion, the most eloquent proponent for individual liberty I have ever read. Your prose had inspired me to become active in the LPNH in the early 90’s (Miriam Luce campaign). Unfortunately what happened to the LPNH shortly afterwards caused me to leave the party. No need to show that “dirty laundry” here, suffice to say that many of the issues you have mentioned that you have had with the LP, I had then with the NHLP as well. Like Heinlein, your stories cause one to think, your characters would be fit to associate with if they existed in real life, your prose has given many a sense of hope and joy concerning the potential of the human animal. That alone is an immense accomplishment.
I have decided. The time has come. Let all good Libertarians run the right man for the Oval Office. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you President L. Neil Smith. Today, President Smith fired the secret service, saying “Any idiot who initiates force against me will be dealt with appropriately BY me.” But seriously, folks, wouldn’t it be great to actually DO IT!. The only thing in our way, besides the votes, is that Neil doesn’t know how to spell our name correctly. But I, for one, would overlook that for an 8 yr run of political intelligence.
Neale, it’d be damned nice to see a President stepping out in public properly dressed for once - with a “life preserver” strapped openly and conveniently at his side, exercising as a private citizen his right (and as a public servant his DUTY) to go about equipped to defend the liberties and property of everyone around him.
Better that the agents of the Secret Service be put to the job of investigating and arresting counterfeiters.
Hey, aren’t the headquarters of the Federal Reserve only a few blocks down the avenue from the White House? Talk about your “target-rich environment”….
Pertinent to another subject entirely, I’ve been following _Phoebus Krumm_ since it began to be published on the Big Head Press site.
This work is a collaboration between our Adminstrator and cartoonist Scott Bieser, and I’ve lately twigged to the pleasure of reading the page source material, in which we see intact the instructions of the writer and can compare them against the work of the artist to see how they combine to create each image displayed.
And that’s enlightening. Neil’s descriptions of settings and action are not _precisely_ or slavishly followed by Mr. Bieser, but the quality of communication between these two creators is impressive. The writer knows (and trusts) the graphic artist, and the artist is confident in his own vision. That shows, and combines to produce a genuinely additive effect that’s not a bit short of wonderful.
This leads me to speculate on Mr. Smith’s potential as a screenplay scenarist or script writer. Neil, have you ever thought to do such stuff? If not, why not?
RD- the Secret Service CANNOT arrest counterfeiters, that would mean arresting their bosses.
OKAY, the real reason I am here tonight. I think that we have assembled here one of the finest collections of minds full of miscellaneous (and often useless) knowledge on a wide series of oddball things, and I need your help. A few nights ago, as I fell asleep, a short story I read AT LEAST 15 years ago, but it could have been as long ago as 30 years ago popped into my mind. I don’t remember the author, title, or whether it was in a collection by an author, in a magazine, or in a compendium. So here goes the description. It is about gov’t enforced equality. But, since the gov’t knows that they can’t raise others up in intelligence, skills, or remove physical infirmities, they install devices, make people wear blurring glasses, and wear weights, crippling shoes, and straps to shorten them in order to reduce everyone to a level playing field. I only remember the man wore the glasses, his wife wore a “hearing aid” that blasted hypersonic pulses to interrupt her thought patterns, and their child had to wear leadden weights so that she couldn’t dance any better than the worst member of her dance class. I THINK they finally revolted and took off the “equalizers”, but I don’t know. I NEED to re-read it, and soon. SO HELP ME!!!.
Next, I want to find a book I read in 1980-82 in high school. It was the textbook for the class “Introduction to Science Fiction”, (I shit you not, that was only the second class in high school I liked). The book had, in the first section, a story called “X marks the PEDWALK”. Again, I don’t know the author of the book, the author of the story, or anything from the story except the title, and one character bitching after a pedestrian shot his passenger that “Little old ladies oughtn’t to be allowed to carry magnums.” So, since we have all been recalling when and where we first read NEil’s works, and talking about things we’ve read, I decided that SOMEONE here can help me find these two things. Thanks in advance, and remember, write in Neil’s name on every ballot you can, maybe we can get the right man into office.
I want to say that the story was written by Phillip K. dick but can’t remember title. Know it was in HBO anthology series of speculative middle of 1990’s.
Then again I want to say BO is shaping up to be a better president than Dubya.
Hope this helps a little.
El Neil: I hate to say this, but I am going to have to disagree with you on a few statements you have made recently in your articles in the TLE.
First of all, you stated that the fact that teachers and students alike have been disarmed is the ’cause’ of the recent school shootings. I disagree with this. It is undoubtedly the cause of the shooters being able to kill so many people without getting shot themselves, however IMHO, the cause of the school shooting is the fact that the scum who are laughably referred to as ‘teachers’ both tacitly consent to and actively encourage the systematic psychological destruction (via verbal harrassment, physical torture, and sexual abuse) of the brightest minds from the slave (err, taxpayer) class. There is a limit to the amount of abuse people can bear.
Secondly, in your article about religion, you said that all religions are based on guilt. I disagree with this. The vast *majority* of religions are based on guilt, but there are some few religions based on other principals. Not very large religions, I admit, expiating guilt is hugely profitable, and the large guilt-based religions have tended until fairly recently to be rather ruthless in quashing any of the non-guilt based religions.
Also, guilt based religions tend to create a curious sort of fanaticism. Once a person has spent too much of their time making either themselves or others suffer (which is pretty much inevitable with guilt based religions), they get into a mindset where they are utterly determined that their religion HAS to be right. Because if it isn’t right, then rather than making themselves and others suffer to follow the will of God, what alternative are they left with? That they have made themselves and others suffer at the behest of their own evil whims, or the whims of a madman, or con artist, or even the will of the devil. That they have, as CS Lewis put it, spent their lives doing neither what they ought, NOR what they liked. Rather than swallow a bitter pill like that, they instead become fanatics, utterly determined that their particular religion is THE one and only TRUE word of GOD. And the more suffering inflicted on themselves and others, the worse this mindset is, of course.
Politically powerful and state sponsored churches are always about guilt as it is useful in controlling people politically.
Accidentally or not I learned that God intended me to for example enjoy the taste of cigars, but that if I smoked so many of them that it interfered with me taking care of my family (from money spent scoring stogies or lost income from health problems) or set other people’s property on fire by improperly disposing of lit butts, then I had sinned.
The belief that God intends one to enjoy the pleasures of the Earth as long as one does not harm oneself or others s alien to both socialist and fascist false prophets.
Unfortunately guess who controls the churches.
Neale, I’m pretty sure the short story that you read awhile back was written by Kurt Vonnegut. I seem to recall that it was in an anthology of short stories written by him titled “Welcome to the Monkey House’.
ken’s right, I’m wrong. So sorry, hope didn’t confuse too much.
The name of the story is “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut.
Thanks ALL, I will go get a copy and re-read it.
Er, Neale? See my post above. “Harrison Bergeron” is available in its entirety online.
Er, RD? Obviously I have missed something, but it is very late, and I’ll figure it out tomorrow. Or else, you can help the mentally challenged and elaborate on #44 if you feel generous. HAHA.
Neale, in post #38 above, I’d written that the full story of Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” is reproduced online at:
http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/hb.html
If the link is “clickable,” you’ll be able to read it entire.
Sorry, Rich. #38 is Ann’s post. In fact, your first post after my question is #44, at least on the computer I am using. But thanks for the link. I’ll see if my anti-technology fingers can make it work.
Yup, RD, that was the one. That story was the one that truly began the opening of my eyes to the ridiculosity of trying to “level the playing field” in sports, and “grading on the curve” in education. It was the true, first, step towards my political awakening. Neil came years later, and Heinlein was always there, but this one said “You are different, and you know it. Now, go figure out how, and why.” Thanks to you all for your help. The only bad part is I had forgotten that the status quo doesn’t alter at the end. I read that story a longer time ago than I had thought, because after re-reading it, I remember how much trouble I got in for writing a term paper proving that the teacher’s pet theory about _The Heart Of Darkness_ was pure bullshit. I failed the class, fought her at the superintendants office, and finally got the grade changed to an A. Now, to find that anthology that contains “X Marks The Pedwalk”
Neale, don’t knock “grading on the curve” too readily. When you’re teaching a class, part of what you’re doing with testing is determining how effectively you’re getting the content hammered into the heads of your pupils. It’s a measure of the instructor’s effectiveness as much as it is an assessment of how the people participating in the program are performing. You want to test retention and comprehension in ways so rigorous that - ideally - NOBODY can get the answers 100% of the time, while at the same time there’s a baseline threshold below which you have to say “this particular guy ain’t getting it, and I’ve got to work on him enough to make sure he won’t go out there in the real world and screw up.”
One of the nice things about teaching in areas where there’s a real causative link between what you suck up in training and how you perform when you’re up against it (think “cardiopulmonary resuscitation,” f’rinstance) is that the real purpose of letter grades is feedback. They let the student get a quick appreciation of whether or not he’s doing things right, and they enable the instructor to concentrate effort on the guys who need the most attention.
In my line of work, if the overwhelming majority of the people I’m responsible for teaching are not able to gain something useful from the material I’m presenting (and in the way I’m presenting it), that’s most definitely MY problem, and its my job to fix whatever is wrong.
What kids get from the ex-Education majors in the government gulags is not instruction aimed at inculcating competence, and grading on the curve for these gomers is nothing more than a way of simulating something they do not - through lack of competence and wrong-headedness of methodology - really do, and that’s educate people.
The ex-Education majors (for whom I have never honestly felt anything other than contempt, no matter how vigorously they strive) need to be assessed much more rigorously on the basis of their students’ cognitive function and appreciation of concepts, and while standardized testing is useful in checking their pupils’ retention of knowledge bits, I don’t credit the forms of testing presently in use as being of much value in determining whether or not the schools are doing as well as people like you and your wife are doing - home schooling your kids - to hit Heinlein’s criteria, as follows:
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
When I used to teach, I was never trying for the whole megillah, but I was damned well determined that if I was going to train somebody to “set a bone,” I’d make sure that the guy could do it right.
In each particular, that’s the job of the true educator, and “grading on the curve” - in such a context - is really quite useful.
“Harrison Bergeron” was also part of the PBS adaption incorporating a number of Vonnegut’s stories “Between Time and Timbuktu” in the early ’70s. Avoid the Showtime movie loosely based on it a few years ago, it completely reversed the story.
RD- I was referring to regular, pre-college schooling. I was in the first generation (I think) where the idea of failure became politically incorrect. And, being from a liberal east coast town, we lead the way. It pissed me off when I would ace a test, and the guy next to me would get 10%, and he would pass, too. Now, as a homeschooler, my kids work their asses off or they do it over. If you feel good about it doesn’t cut the mustard. My sister’s kid just found out that if you think 2+2=5 is correct, and you feel good with that, then it is alright. I am not pro public schools, but that is truly ridiculous. We cannot make it to the stars on “If it feels good, it is good enough”
just remember 1+1=3, sometimes 4 if we’re talking twins.
616 essays. That is a lot of writing. Very productive.
Are you editing this vast volume of writing on spec, or have you talked a publisher into printing it? If you are doing it on spec, you may find it more efficient to put ‘em up as the “El Neil Archive” and put up a “tip jar” button.
OTOH I do like having dead tree editions of stuff I’ve really liked when I’ve read it on line. I’ve gotten all the BHP books which have come out since I’ve been reading ‘em on line. . . The local comic store can’t get the older stuff like TPB.
It has occurred to me that the Internet is killing the middle men, the people who have made their living by marketing the creative efforts of others.
With the Internet the centralized print-publicize-distribute-sell chain has been in large part broken.
Creators, be they authors, composers, musicians or even filmmakers can now access their audience directly, without the intervention of publishers, record companies and studios.
At least they can access ‘em if the readers/listeners/viewers can find their work. Publicity, there’s the rub. How do you get your work to show up on search engines?
On the other hand, how many “best sellers” would have become such if it hadn’t been for the publisher’s publicity machine running in high gear? I expect if your publisher had given TPB (novel version) the publicity treatment say, a James Michner or Tom Wolfe book gets, I expect you would have sold as many copies and actually been read by far more.
Hello all. “X marks the Pedwalk” was by Fritz Leiber, 1963. Lots of amazon books that refer to it, but I didn’t see any that listed story as part of anthology.
Dear Mr. Smith,
I wrote you years ago to thank you for TPB, which made me happy. It’s never been far from my mind, nor my reading chair. I just last week realized why I love it so much. The world you’ve created is SIMPLE. No interlocking bureaucracy of politicians and “capitalist” thieves.
I’d love to read a story where a land-ownership dispute is resolved, or fraud is discovered by one of the Bears, and what happens to the perp.
I fully believe that any stealing steals part of a life, and I don’t believe we can always, in good conscience, always shoot the b*tard.
So, what about the grey cases in the Confederation?
Your work has been on my “buy everything he writes” list for a decade or two.
Thanks very, very much!
Bill Cox
Do not enough money to buy some real estate? Do not worry, because that’s achievable to take the loans to work out such kind of problems. Therefore get a small business loan to buy all you need.
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It has been an odd couple of weeks…..