A nation of bad citizens
Wednesday, January 9th, 2013A loooong time ago the pseudonymous Jefferson Mack (a person so secretive about his identity that even though he (or she?) knew me, I never knew him (or her?)) wrote a book for Paladin Press called The Secret Freedom Fighter.
I found a chapter of it online last night and thought it might make a nice bit of inspiration in these dark times. The person who posted it headed it “A Good Citizen in a Bad Country.”
The examples are dated now. The book was written when there was no Internet. And even the cynical Mack now seems sweetly trusting about the Constitution and the ideals of democracy. But the spirit of the bad citizen (or better yet, the more conscious, deliberate Freedom Outlaw) is alive and well.
A smart bad citizen won’t let himself get caught being bad. He won’t brag to his friends and neighbors about what a bad citizen he is. He won’t tell the local commissar how proud he is of being a bad citizen. He won’t even tell his kids he enjoys being a bad citizen. He wants it kept a secret.
In a free democratic society, we don’t have much use for bad citizens. They endanger Our highways, litter our public parks, embarrass our womenfolk, and make us mad. A free society is supposed to be made up of good citizens who take their share of the burdens of taxes and social duties and get their share of the benefits of living free.
That’s a true free and democratic society, the kind the people who wrote our constitution wanted to give us. In every other kind of society, good citizens are suckers. They never get back what they put into it. So, if the government is interfering with your freedom to do whatever you want to do with your time and money, don’t be a sucker. Learn to be a bad citizen.
The more bad citizens there are, the harder it is going to be for the people who stole freedom to stay in power. The tyrant’s problem is that he is always outnumbered. He can get the guns and the thugs to use them. He can build concentration camps and forced labor camps. He’ll have spies and prison gulags. But he can’t put everybody in jail. He has to have people to till the fields, drive the trucks, work in the factories, and staff his bureaucracy.
So he has got to convince most of the people that life isn’t all that bad and that there is hope of a better future.
Jefferson Mack — whoever and wherever you are, I salute you!
January 9th, 2013
Good one. So true. I hit on some of these points in my novel.
January 9th, 2013
Breaking news on sky Obama going to us executive or for gun laws in wake of sandy hook shootings. Looks like your going to need a lot more bad citizens soon……
January 9th, 2013
We’ve been needing “bad citizens” since the time of, at least, Lincoln.
January 9th, 2013
Mack’s “Invisible Resistance to Tyranny” is another great book that has given me tremendous direction and advice.
January 9th, 2013
JS — I always liked that one, also, and find it still very much worth learning from.
January 9th, 2013
I started noticing several years ago just how dependent bullies are on their victims.
“Wait, what?”
Think about it. The kid who can beat up his classmate and steal his lunch. Could he beat up 10 classmates at once? Or, what if there was more than peanut butter in that sandwich? What if there was a little something interesting sprinkled on the part of the kid’s shirt that the bully always grabbed? How miserable could you make that bully before he figured out you were more trouble than you were worth?
If you’ve ever seen “The Seven Samurai”, think about the beginning, where the panicky farmer overheard the bandits. If they know beforehand what the bandits will take, and they’ve seen how the bandits behave while raiding, how hard would it have been to make sure it was the last sake those thugs ever drank?
A housewife has a thousand different ways to kill somebody, and they would never see it coming. Do you think an abusive husband would still beat her if he understood that?
Bullies depend on their victims behaving like victims.
There’s a book called “Wicked Plants” that would be worth reading. I’d rather not get any more specific than that.
January 9th, 2013
I just realised, I can be creepy sometimes.
January 9th, 2013
“I just realised, I can be creepy sometimes.”
Creepy is so endearing! And educational. ;-)
January 9th, 2013
Thought of a non-creepy way to still throw the bullies off-balance. When the SWAT team bursts into your house, they’re expecting you to be scared and protesting. They’re prepared for you to try and fight them. What are they not ready for? To find you sitting on the floor, finger painting and singing “Hakuna Matata” at the top of your lungs, pretending they aren’t even there.
(Even funnier if you’re a big burly-looking guy)
If you don’t have finger paint, Barbie dolls would work.
January 9th, 2013
When I was a kid I was targeted by bullies more than once. I took some beatings because I didn’t want to be. Bullied. Eventually they left me alone. They just got tired of the effort it took to beat me down. Resistance works.
January 9th, 2013
“Think about it. The kid who can beat up his classmate and steal his lunch. Could he beat up 10 classmates at once? Or, what if there was more than peanut butter in that sandwich?”
You mean something like this? Little background: the kid actually likes to eat that kind of stuff, has pretty much a cast iron stomach.
http://tmi-comic.com/comic/tmi-kids-lil-pepper/
January 10th, 2013
A little hot sesame oil spread into the peanut butter right at the top where most people start eating a sandwich… Holy moly, the bully would be in agony.
Actually, might not be a good idea, however. I tried things like that when I was a kid, and it was always me that got in trouble with the school. My mother just told them to “stuff it” when they compalined to her. These days the consequences could be dire. But then, it was VERY entertaining to watch the bully, at least for a while. :)
January 10th, 2013
I was thinking something a little slower-acting, like laxatives or poison ivy, but those work too :)
The longer it takes for something to kick in, the harder it would be to prove it was you.
January 15th, 2013
Claire, you are aware that Mack published an updated revision of his book, aren’t you?
January 15th, 2013
Eric, I sorta remembered that, yeah. But the old one was the one whose chapter was online for EZ reading.