Lyrics of the Month: "When The President Talks To God"

dmoney, originally uploaded by TheCowstalker.

"When The President Talks To God"
By Bright Eyes

When the president talks to God
Are the conversations brief or long?
Does he ask to rape our women’s' rights
And send poor farm kids off to die?
Does God suggest an oil hike
When the president talks to God?

When the president talks to God
Are the consonants all hard or soft?
Is he resolute all down the line?
Is every issue black or white?
Does what God say ever change his mind
When the president talks to God?

When the president talks to God
Does he fake that drawl or merely nod?
Agree which convicts should be killed?
Where prisons should be built and filled?
Which voter fraud must be concealed
When the president talks to God?

When the president talks to God
I wonder which one plays the better cop
We should find some jobs. the ghetto's broke
No, they're lazy, George, I say we don't
Just give 'em more liquor stores and dirty coke
That's what God recommends

When the president talks to God
Do they drink near beer and go play golf
While they pick which countries to invade
Which Muslim souls still can be saved?
I guess god just calls a spade a spade
When the president talks to God

When the president talks to God
Does he ever think that maybe he's not?
That that voice is just inside his head
When he kneels next to the presidential bed
Does he ever smell his own bullshit
When the president talks to God?

I doubt it

I doubt it

Thomas Jefferson Warned This Could Happen...

declaration, originally uploaded by TheCowstalker.

Natural and Artificial Aristocracy
Thomas Jefferson to John Adams • October 28, 1813

DEAR SIR:
According to the reservation between us, of taking up one of the subjects of our correspondence at a time, I turn to your letters of Aug. 16th and Sep. 2nd.

The passage you quote from Theognis, I think has an Ethical, rather than a political object. The whole piece is a moral "exhortation", {parainesis}, and this passage particularly seems to be a reproof to man, who, while with his domestic animals he is curious to improve the race by employing always the finest male, pays no attention to the improvement of his own race, but intermarries with the vicious, the ugly, or the old, for considerations of wealth or ambition. It is in conformity with the principle adopted afterwards by the Pythagoreans, and expressed by Ocellus in another form. {Peri de tes ek ton allelon anthropon geneseos} etc. — {oych edones eneka e} {mixis}. Which, as literally as intelligibility will admit, may be thus translated:

Concerning the interprocreation of men, how, and of whom it shall be, in a perfect manner, and according to the laws of modesty and sanctity, conjointly, this is what I think right. First to lay it down that we do not commix for the sake of pleasure, but of the procreation of children. For the powers, the organs and desires for coition have not been given by god to man for the sake of pleasure, but for the procreation of the race. For as it were incongruous for a mortal born to partake of divine life, the immortality of the race being taken away, god fulfilled the purpose by making the generations uninterrupted and continuous. This therefore we are especially to lay down as a principle, that coition is not for the sake of pleasure.

But Nature, not trusting to this moral and abstract motive, seems to have provided more securely for the perpetuation of the species by making it the effect of the oestrum implanted in the constitution of both sexes. And not only has the commerce of love been indulged on this unhallowed impulse, but made subservient also to wealth and ambition by marriages without regard to the beauty, the healthiness, the understanding, or virtue of the subject from which we are to breed. The selecting the best male for a Harem of well chosen females also, which Theognis seems to recommend from the example of our sheep and asses, would doubtless improve the human, as it does the brute animal, and produce a race of veritable {aristoi} ["aristocrats"]. For experience proves that the moral and physical qualities of man, whether good or evil, are transmissible in a certain degree from father to son. But I suspect that the equal rights of men will rise up against this privileged Solomon, and oblige us to continue acquiescence under the {'Amayrosis geneos aston} ["the degeneration of the race of men"] which Theognis complains of, and to content ourselves with the accidental aristoi produced by the fortuitous concourse of breeders. For I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. Formerly bodily powers gave place among the aristoi. But since the invention of gunpowder has armed the weak as well as the strong with missile death, bodily strength, like beauty, good humor, politeness and other accomplishments, has become but an auxiliary ground of distinction. There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first class. The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of the society. May we not even say that that form of government is the best which provides the most effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government? The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent it's ascendancy. On the question, What is the best provision, you and I differ; but we differ as rational friends, using the free exercise of our own reason, and mutually indulging it's errors.

You think it best to put the Pseudo-aristoi into a separate chamber of legislation where they may be hindered from doing mischief by their coordinate branches, and where also they may be a protection to wealth against the Agrarian and plundering enterprises of the Majority of the people. I think that to give them power in order to prevent them from doing mischief, is arming them for it, and increasing instead of remedying the evil. For if the coordinate branches can arrest their action, so may they that of the coordinates. Mischief may be done negatively as well as positively.
Of this a cabal in the Senate of the U.S. has furnished many proofs.

Nor do I believe them necessary to protect the wealthy; because enough of these will find their way into every branch of the legislation to protect themselves. From 15 to 20 legislatures of our own, in action for 30 years past, have proved that no fears of an equalisation of property are to be apprehended from them.

I think the best remedy is exactly that provided by all our constitutions, to leave to the citizens the free election and separation of the aristoi from the pseudo-aristoi, of the wheat from the chaff. In general they will elect the real good and wise. In some instances, wealth may corrupt, and birth blind them; but not in sufficient degree to endanger the society.

It is probable that our difference of opinion may in some measure be produced by a difference of character in those among whom we live. From what I have seen of Massachusets and Connecticut myself, and still more from what I have heard, and the character given of the former by yourself, [vol. 1. pa. 111.] who know them so much better, there seems to be in those two states a traditionary reverence for certain families, which has rendered the offices of the government nearly hereditary in those families. I presume that from an early period of your history, members of these families happening to possess virtue and talents, have honestly exercised them for the good of the people, and by their services have endeared their names to them.

In coupling Connecticut with you, I mean it politically only, not morally. For having made the Bible the Common law of their land they seem to have modelled their morality on the story of Jacob and Laban. But although this hereditary succession to office with you may in some degree be founded in real family merit, yet in a much higher degree it has proceeded from your strict alliance of church and state. These families are canonised in the eyes of the people on the common principle `you tickle me, and I will tickle you.' In Virginia we have nothing of this. Our clergy, before the revolution, having been secured against rivalship by fixed salaries, did not give themselves the trouble of acquiring influence over the people. Of wealth, there were great accumulations in particular families, handed down from generation to generation under the English law of entails.

But the only object of ambition for the wealthy was a seat in the king's council. All their court then was paid to the crown and it's creatures; and they Philipised in all collisions between the king and people. Hence they were unpopular; and that unpopularity continues attached to their names. A Randolph, a Carter, or a Burwell must have great personal superiority over a common competitor to be elected by the people, even at this day.

At the first session of our legislature after the Declaration of Independence, we passed a law abolishing entails. And this was followed by one abolishing the privilege of Primogeniture, and dividing the lands of intestates equally among all their children, or other representatives. These laws, drawn by myself, laid the axe to the root of Pseudo-aristocracy. And had another which I prepared been adopted by the legislature, our work would have been complete.

It was a Bill for the more general diffusion of learning. This proposed to divide every county into wards of 5 or 6 miles square, like your townships; to establish in each ward a free school for reading, writing and common arithmetic; to provide for the annual selection of the best subjects from these schools who might recieve at the public expence a higher degree of education at a district school; and from these district schools to select a certain number of the most promising subjects to be completed at an University, where all the useful sciences should be taught. Worth and genius would thus have been sought out from every condition of life, and completly prepared by education for defeating the competition of wealth and birth for public trusts.

My proposition had for a further object to impart to these wards those portions of self-government for which they are best qualified, by confiding to them the care of their poor, their roads, police, elections, the nomination of jurors, administration of justice in small cases, elementary exercises of militia, in short, to have made them little republics, with a Warden at the head of each, for all those concerns which, being under their eye, they would better manage than the larger republics of the county or state. A general call of ward-meetings by their Wardens on the same day through the state would at any time produce the genuine sense of the people on any required point, and would enable the state to act in mass, as your people have so often done, and with so much effect, by their town meetings. The law for religious freedom, which made a part of this system, having put down the aristocracy of the clergy, and restored to the citizen the freedom of the mind, and those of entails and descents nurturing an equality of condition among them, this on Education would have raised the mass of the people to the high ground of moral respectability necessary to their own safety, and to orderly government; and would have completed the great object of qualifying them to select the veritable aristoi, for the trusts of government, to the exclusion of the Pseudalists: and the same Theognis who has furnished the epigraphs of your two letters assures us that {`oydemian po Kyrn agathoi polin olesan andres} ["Curnis, good men have never harmed any city"]'. Although this law has not yet been acted on but in a small and inefficient degree, it is still considered as before the legislature, with other bills of the revised code, not yet taken up, and I have great hope that some patriotic spirit will, at a favorable moment, call it up, and make it the key-stone of the arch of our government.

With respect to Aristocracy, we should further consider that, before the establishment of the American states, nothing was known to History but the Man of the old world, crowded within limits either small or overcharged, and steeped in the vices which that situation generates. A government adapted to such men would be one thing; but a very different one that for the Man of these states. Here every one may have land to labor for himself if he chooses; or, preferring the exercise of any other industry, may exact for it such compensation as not only to afford a comfortable subsistence, but where-with to provide for a cessation from labor in old age. Every one, by his property, or by his satisfactory situation, is interested in the support of law and order. And such men maysafely and advantageously reserve to themselves a wholesome control over their public affairs, and a degree of freedom, which in the hands of the Canaille of the cities of Europe, would be instantly perverted to the demolition and destruction of every thing public and private. The history of the last 25 years of France, and of the last 40. years in America, nay of it's last 200 years, proves the truth of both parts of this observation.
But even in Europe a change has sensibly taken place in the mind of Man. Science had liberated the ideas of those who read and reflect, and the American example had kindled feelings of right in the people. An insurrection has consequently begun, of science, talents and courage against rank and birth, which have fallen into contempt. It has failed in it's first effort, because the mobs of the cities, the instrument used for it's accomplishment, debased by ignorance, poverty and vice, could not be restrained to rational action. But the world will recover from the panic of this first catastrophe. Science is progressive, and talents and enterprize on the alert. Resort may be had to the people of the country, a more governable power from their principles and subordination; and rank, and birth, and tinsel-aristocracy will finally shrink into insignificance, even there. This however we have no right to meddle with. It suffices for us, if the moral and physical condition of our own citizens qualifies them to select the able and good for the direction of their government, with a recurrence of elections at such short periods as will enable them to displace an unfaithful servant before the mischief he meditates may be irremediable.

I have thus stated my opinion on a point on which we differ, not with a view to controversy, for we are both too old to change opinions which are the result of a long life of inquiry and reflection; but on the suggestion of a former letter of yours, that we ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other.

We acted in perfect harmony through a long and perilous contest for our liberty and independence. A constitution has been acquired which, though neither of us think perfect, yet both consider as competent to render our fellow-citizens the happiest and the securest on whom the sun has ever shone. If we do not think exactly alike as to it's imperfections, it matters little to our country which, after devoting to it long lives of disinterested labor, we have delivered over to our successors in life, who will be able to take care of it, and of themselves.

Of the pamphlet on aristocracy which has been sent to you, or who may be it's author, I have heard nothing but through your letter. If the person you suspect it may be known from the quaint, mystical and hyperbolical ideas, involved in affected, new-fangled and pedantic terms, which stamp his writings. Whatever it be, I hope your quiet is not to be affected at this day by the rudeness of intemperance of scribblers; but that you may continue in tranquility to live and to rejoice in the prosperity of our country until it shall be your own wish to take your seat among the Aristoi who have gone before you.

Ever and affectionately yours,

Thomas Jefferson

Hillbillies Gave 'Em Hell

bushwackers, originally uploaded by TheCowstalker.

Hidden History:
The Battle of Athens, Tennessee

As Recently As 1946, American Citizens Were Forced To Take Up Arms As A Last Resort Against Corrupt Government Officials.

On August 1-2, 1946, some Americans, brutalized by their county government, used armed force as a last resort to overturn it. These Americans wanted honest open elections. For years they had asked for state or federal election monitors to prevent vote fraud (forged ballots, secret ballot counts and intimidation by armed sheriff's deputies) by the local political boss. They got no help.

These Americans' absolute refusal to knuckle under had been hardened by service in World War II. Having fought to free other countries from murderous regimes, they rejected vicious abuse by their county government.

These Americans had a choice. Their state's Constitution -- Article 1, Section 26 -- recorded their right to keep and bear arms for the common defense. Few "gun control" laws had been enacted.

These Americans were residents of McMinn County, which is located between Chattanooga and Knoxville in Eastern Tennessee. The two main towns were Athens and Etowah. McMinn County residents had long been independent political thinkers. For a long time they also had: accepted bribe-taking by politicians and/or the sheriff to overlook illicit whiskey-making and ; financed the sheriff's department from fines-usually for speeding or public drunkenness which promoted false arrests; and put up with voting fraud by both Democrats and Republicans.

continued here: http://www.jpfo.org/athens.htm

Dr. Gonzo and the Big Spit

hunter
Originally uploaded by TheCowstalker.

An unusual warm wind blows over the Rockies this morning, perhaps blowback from global warming and the lecherous bastards behind the engines that run the mouse that spins the wheel, or perhaps something else. Somewhere in a dark valley, on a bed of Kentucky bluegrass, a banjo plucks for a fallen son. A hillbilly without regard for diversions of the mind-over-matter, instead focusing on the matters to keep in mind.

How does one eulogize Hunter S. Thompson? Certainly not with the written word. None could match his beat. It was his beat that drove the writing; the jaded rants that slid off the page like bebop and bluegrass and the clinking of mason jars full of hooch. Finger pointing at the finer folk and their treachery, their naivete, their obvious foolishness when walking the hallowed halls of power. The hillbilly beat that showed the shit along the walls and the stench of corruption; the depths of the casm between the doomed and the greedheads. No, the written will do no good.

The action might, instead, suffice. Grabbing the bull's horns and teabagging the bastard into certain submission and humiliation. Holding the mirror of history to the faces of the reptiles who disrespect the future and piss on the present. The certain uncertainty that at any moment, the most normal of sheep can strip down to a pair of conventionally uneducated overalls, sit at a typewriter and pull the wool from the wolves. Let the good times roll...gnaw on their skulls...

No, Hunter led by example, as his upbringing surely exposed. And his example is where his true strength lives on, well after the ring of a .45 (or a silenced assassin's weapon, who is to say). At once when this author was mired in juvenile delinquency and a future of hate, Hunter was there to provide a path or recovery. Not in person, but in word and tone and obvious counsel that it was ok to be wild and free, as long as you fought for the rights of others to be wild and free. It was Hunter who saved this author from a life of pointless watching, providing instead a silent encouragement to walk the hallowed and shit-lined halls of journalism as an education, career, and ultimately, a pathway to a certain freedom of the soul. Words will never do, but actions might.

Nevermind the critics, so loud and vocal now that the man is gone. They eat shit sandwiches for a living, cashing checks written on the backs of their rubbery spines. Given riches for lies or starving for truth, I'll take the latter. Granted, I'm just another hillbilly, treading softly in a world of greedheads and their smarmy, witless offspring. Common sense evades these people in spades. So be it.

If the mad doctor left one legacy to burn in the corner of the fireplace, it is this: Do not let the carnival go by without pausing now and then to piss in the mouth of the clown. The clowns, hidden behind their agenda of painted smiles and hidden hate, cannot stand the taste of hillbilly piss. It rankles their souls, ruins the taste of their fine cigars, and washes away the thin layer of bile that hides their lies. Piss away ye followers of the rocky road, confessers of love for a hillbilly not soon forgotten, and ride the flood that follows until the dam breaks. Let the good times roll.

Homestead Act Attack?

lcabin
Originally uploaded by TheCowstalker.

"In America's ideal of freedom, citizens find the dignity and security of economic independence, instead of labouring on the edge of subsistence.

This is the broader definition of liberty that motivated the Homestead Act, the Social Security Act, and the GI Bill of Rights."- United States President George Walker Bush, January 20, 2005.
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Down at the cabin, we found it real interesting that the President (or at least the speechwriter for the President), singled-out the Homestead Act during the most recent Inagural. (For those of you who suffered through public school, the Homestead Act forced a bit of liberty and freedom, right here across the good ole' USA back in 1863.)

Lincoln's Homestead Act opened the floodgates to the West for hundreds of thousands of early Americans, from all cultures (but rarely classes), with the guarantee of 160 acres of land for the meager fee of $18, if the "homesteader" were willing to make the land productive, wooded, and livible for future generations. All it took was some hard work. You don't get many deals like that anymore.

Of course, at the time, big, eastern corporate interests hated the idea and fought it quite fiercely. Why should those with nothing...power, money, influence...be allowed so much for so little, when so little can be exploited for so much more? (There's less to share that way, ya see). Fortunately, Lincoln, having grown up in a log cabin and worked his lanky ass up the ladder the hard way, did the right thing.

What if Grant had said, "Hey, here's an idea: I'll take what is owed to you, then hand it back to you under the stipulation that you have to give it to my friends to 'invest' for you, with no guarantee that you will ever see it again, even though they get a commission no matter what. Sound good? Ok, now get out there and fight those Indians."

Actually, he kind of did. But it still sounds like a bad carnival scam, and reckon for fact that homesteaders of old (or their progeny) sould be hard pressed to fall for such bullhockey over and over again.

Agree that freedom truly is an enlightened state, where one is at liberty to create their own opportunities, to create solutions and inventions or perhaps just sit under a tree and watch progress take it's course. You have the right to be a captain of industry or a hobo, as long as you follow the law. When law fails, you should be guaranteed justice. Liberty should also come with guarantees, such as the "social security" that you will have the means to be treated as if you were created equal. Or, that if you defend your nation, a land of the free, you will be guaranteed the means to better yourself and perhaps compete with those who are seemingly guaranteed at birth. From this definition of freedom, one of apparently many, comes unimaginable creativity, humanity, and ultimately, a respect for the capabilities of one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

New Billy the Kid Photo?

globeface
Originally uploaded by TheCowstalker.

For all you outlaw fans out there...putting a more realistic face on a legend known as "the Kid".

To view the whole image, go to:
www.hipbilly.com/billyandjoe.html

Kinda hard to outsource good BBQ sauce...

(link in title)

If more store managers thought like the Montana grocery wrangler in this story, we wouldn't be in such a pickle with all the outsourcing, offshoring, job-dropping, and flat-out rampant money grubbing con jobs.

Remember, buy American or it's Bye Bye America.

(Of course, don't tell that to a certain fake cowboy and his posse. They think the current mass dumping os stocks by cash strapped Amercians is a "good economic indicator" during the holidaze.)

Pass the jug, and Merry Christmas to y'all. Here's to just enough coal in your stocking to fire the forge.

HiPBilly Hero # 15: Jimmy Miller

(link in title)

excerpt:
"The Marlboro man was angry: He has a war to fight, and he's running out of smokes.

'If you want to write something,' he tells an intruding reporter, 'tell Marlboro I'm down to four packs, and I'm here in Fallujah till who knows when. Maybe they can send some. And they can bring down the price a bit.'

Those are the unfettered sentiments of Marine Lance Cpl. James Blake Miller, 20, a country boy from Kentucky who has been thrust unwittingly and somewhat unwillingly into the role of poster boy for a war on the other side of the world from his home on the farm."
--

This is the best story of the year to come out of Iraq. Nothing quite like hillbilly wisdom in the middle of a war zone. Kids like this are the reason our military has (Valley Forge), did (Omaha Beach) and will persevere (Iraq), no matter the course or path to war. Get 'er done! Hooyah!

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