Wolfe's Lodge - Friends

HAVE A SEAT

A Letter to the Complacent Cattle (aka "Citizens") of America

By Barry Costello

I wish I could literally break the necks of everyone in this country who rolls over and shrugs when I try and tell you how much liberty and rights you've lost over the last several decades. Now, before all you complacent cattle who allow the federal government (even your state and local governments) to piss all over your constitutional rights get your blasted panties all wadded up over that first statement, allow me to tell you a story.

I used to be a registered Independent. I guess when I turned 18 and registered to vote, I was already saying, "I don't LIKE either major party's bullshit!" I had no idea, really, of how wise -- or was it just nonconformist? -- I already was by then as to how much I was being lied to, being manipulated, being bullshitted. My first Presidential vote went for John Anderson, and I laughed as I pulled his lever at the polls. Not that I had any idea of what his planks and ideas were, but I KNEW he'd lose so I pulled his lever.

Let me skip ahead to 1982 at my then-ripe young age of 22. I'd passed the ASVAB exam with a 97% and was about to go to Groton, CT for submarine warfare training, but I told my recruuiting ensign that I was going to take a week's time and go to Ocean City, MD and get my last bit of carefree partying done before I committed six years of my life (and probably an entire career) to the U.S. Navy.

A funny thing happened on the way to Groton: I dove through an oncoming wave in Ocean City and hit my head on a sandbar, bursting my 5th cervical vertebra, instantly paralyzing myself. I was pulled from the waves by a friend I'd gone with to "O.C.", as we Marylanders call it, and I knew IMMEDIATELY just what a bleak situation the future held for me. I cussed the paramedics who flew me to MD's Shock Trauma Center here in Baltimore; I cursed the doctors who told me I'd be lucky to even FEED myself; I even cursed God Himself!

I worked my way through a 6-8 month physical rehab center in 3 months. I cursed the P.T.'s, the O.T.'s the nurses. Then a funnier thing happened: I quit asking,"Why ME?" The cussing and cursing stopped, and some kind of eerie, deafening yet silent calm came over me. I had learned already that there were no "free lunches" in life and that I'd have to bust my ass and get back to work somehow.

I did -- computer programming -- and I started jumping online to CompuServe even before the Web was an idea. I'd also begun dialing up local BBSes and jumping in on debates of all sorts.

I ran across a guy who was a registered Republican and was pushing for NAFTA. I RAILED against it...Cussed his stupidity, but finally caved in enough to say, "OK. Let's wait and see a few years from now since it'll likely pass..."

In the course of our hot debate, he pulled me into a private chat and asked me that, since I was an Independent, had I ever heard of the Libertarians? I told him that I thought they were some anarchy-loving nutcases, as far as I knew.

Cut to 1996...

Now I was ready to sit and read the Libertarian Platform since I smacked right on Libertarian in the Nolan test. Forget Ayn Rand - I'd heard of her books, but I wasn't going to let any one author sway my independent thinking! So I read and I thought...and I read and thought some more. Finally, I attended a local meeting after joining and came away thinking that I'd FOUND the free-thinkers I'd never even knew I'd been searching for all those years.

It wasn't the reading, it was the EQUATING that saved me from becoming another complacent bovine. Equating? Yup. Equating, and if you'll bear with me a little longer, I'll tell you why.

If you, Jane and Joe Bovine Americana, could only break your damn necks, lose 99 percent of your FREEDOMS -- physical freedoms especially -- you'd be better able to look back over a couple decades and realize how your government has become a tyrannical monster. A usurper of its own governing law -- the Constitution. An enslaver of its citizens. A self-serving institution ever so adept at shackling and yoking you even more subtly than Hitler's Socialists did in the 1930's. A group of pigs who see fit to slowwwwly, ever so slowwwwly, paralyze your thoughts first, then your movements, then you're theirs to be prodded and pushed as they see fit.

What will it take you to see that you HAVE NO RIGHTS in their eyes any longer? A broken neck? Hey, free your minds and YOUR asses will follow! It took an enslaved BODY to enable me to free MY mind.

The fact is that THEY HAVE NO RIGHT to make you do a damn THING anymore since they've LONG passed that pivotal point of a long train of usurpations that Jefferson delineated in the DofI. And what then are the rights, the DUTIES of the citizens once these pigs crossed into a design of tyranny and despotism? You need reminding? You want to tell me what you'd do if you had the chance to kill Hitler in 1932? You know you'd SHOOT THE BASTARD and all his SS henchmen.

Well, I'm not afraid any longer. See, I had three of what people call "NDE's" or Near Death Experiences. I know there's a place on that other side that awaits me where my aging, paralyzed body doesn't matter...Doesn't even exist.

Now that I can grin and scorn the government; piss off the congress-swines I taunt with my writing; defy their instituions such as Social Security by rescinding my number; ADVOCATE people to view "Waco"The Rules Of Engagement" and get pissed off enough to arm themselves while helping them TELL their congress-pigs they've had enough...In fact, even hack their computer systems and show my friends how all the cards will tumble if we simultaneously nail their systems as the Y2K (Year 2000) time bomb explodes...

Oh, MY days of worry and fear are long over, Joe and Jane Bovine. YOUR days are numbered...Hell, they're GONE already, yet you just don''t realize how DEAD you already ARE yet. See, I'm the government's WORST NIGHTMARE: I'm a state government worker with access to what they know and what they think you and I DON'T know. Even the LAN I'm hacking this in on goes unchecked as to the e-mail - I KNOW because I help ADMINISTRATE IT. I even code their Y2K messes on their mainframe IBM ES-9021. (You wanna know how much code is "fixed"?)

Crazy, you say? Oh yeah...Crazy like a damn fox in a proverbial henhouse! I'd be crazy NOT to do damage come December 31, 1999 - The shit's gonna hit the fan, believe me. They have it coming, and so do you cattle. I guess that makes ME some kind of cattle-IST! Sorry, I couldn't help that pun...

I'LL be ready, Joe and Jane. Will YOU? Or would you like me to show you the long route to freeing your minds by showing you how to break your necks? So, have a SEAT and look back over the years...After all, "It's a free country..." ISN'T IT?

(c) 1998 Barry Costello

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25 February, 1998