How could I have almost let this day go by without celebrating the birthdays of two historic rebels?

MJR writes to inform me that on this day in 1570, Guy Fawkes was born. Never mind that he was merely a Catholic monarchist; he’s the inspiration for much marvelously modern mayhem. Not to mention well, you know.

And of course April 13, 1743, is the date our own Thomas Jefferson entered the world. Not only was he the grandest writer among all our revolutionaries (Thomas Paine being his only rival), but he’s also,according to Charles Curley, the Patron Saint of the Internet.

So to celebrate, hoist a Samuel Adams brew or the beverage of your choice and enjoy some art:

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• That waitress who naively turned her $12k tip over to the cops? She’s getting her money back despite police claims that the cash … um, yeah, um … “smells like marijuana so we have to keep it, you know, for your own good.” (Amazing how self-congratulatory the jerks manage to be even after the whole country beat up on them for stealing from the poor woman.)
• Oh, Arizona, the silliness of your legislators never ends, does it? Now they’re trying to declare that you can be pregnant up to two weeks before having sex.
• Too late! Too late! You missed your chance to buy Buford, Wyoming.
• Did you know that (among other things) inability to think is now a federally protected disability? And it just gets weirder and weirder.
• If you liked Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games or Winter’s Bone you might like her even better in real life. :-) (Tip o’ hat to EN.)
• TaxKilla and Occupy the IRS. The aim: to teach the 99% how to use one of the tax advantages of the 1%. It’s just using Schedule C, which all us self-employed types already know. But it’s using it with Attitude. (You have to have JavaScript enabled to read the manifesto. Wish they wouldn’t do that, but it’s worth it.)
• I’m sorry the man’s dead. But he really was the George W. Bush of art.

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Last June, I posted about a Southern California county’s all-out war on the little guy — and the little guy’s property rights.

At the time, nobody was really sure why thuggish “code enforcement” teams were rampaging across the Antelope Valley, evicting homeowners and demanding that people tear down their homes.

But we shouldn’t be surprised to learn that it turns out to be yet another post-Kelo landgrab by a government on behalf of government cronies. (H/T to S for the update.)

This time it’s the so-called green energy industry. And how can you blame them? After they get billions in subsidies from the fedgov and customized regulations from the state, they naturally assume it’s their right to have local governments steal the land for them.

In the wake of Kelo, 40 states changed their “takings” laws to be more favorable to private property owners. That was supposed to halt “public” land grabs for private use. But governments, being the gangster mobs they are, simply came up with an even more profitable form of robbery.

Instead of paying homeowners before giving their homes to crony businesses, cities and counties now declare the homes to be so substandard, so hazardous, and in violation of so many bureaucratic regulations that they have to be torn down. At the owners’ expense. The people are kicked out and all that’s left is the value of the empty lot.

Such a racket, eh? Mafia dons must be green with envy.

In sending the new link, S (who knows about as much as anybody about the energy industry) wrote:

[T]his episode illustrates the personal savagery and barbarism that energy policy at gunpoint requires. Desert rats were the victims this time, but make no mistake, these thugs will rob and kill anyone who gets in their way.

The “Nuisance Abatement Teams” almost certainly never knew what master they served. That’s how our society works. To quote Father Zebelka, these grotesque acts of depravity “are carried out by a long chain of individuals, each doing his or her job meticulously while simultaneously refusing to look at the end results of his or her work.”

Subsidies to solar and wind power are incredibly destructive on both large impersonal scales and to selected individuals. No intelligent person working within these “industries” dares contemplate the totality of the system. The immorality would drive them insane in short order. Instead, they do their little part, and avert their eyes as people’s homes and lives are destroyed.

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The Tireless Agorist looks at the burgeoning underground economy in Greece.

And Forbes asks if Bitcoin might become the favored currency of an international System D.

I’m as skeptical of Bitcoin as I am of every cyber currency (once burned …). And my first thought on reading the Forbes piece was, “What will the USA fedgov’s 900-pound gorilla do?” But one of these days, the flailing arms of that monster gorilla will be able to do … nothing. Some innovation in free-market money will defeat it. If it’s Bitcoin, good for Bitcoin.

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• Legally blind and a successful photographer.
• Now here’s a growing profession for you: consultants who coach white-collar criminals on how to get along in prison.
• The sagebrush rebellion rises again.
• Brothels. They’re now legal in Ontario, Canada. And for some pretty good reasons.
• “When we were making V we thought the mask might be popular at parties.”

And yet another intriguing trailer for Silver Circle. The coins are real; you can buy them from the movie’s store and Ron Paul was photographed last month using one to make a point.

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Have you seen the wonderful animated feature Bolt?

It’s about a dog who has no idea he isn’t the superdog he plays on TV. He dearly loves his girl Penny who stars in the show with him. But because he views himself as her sole protection against ever-threatening evil, he’s forever tense, forever on guard. Never, but ever, does he relax, play, and just enjoy life.

Only when fate leaves him lost on the streets (far from Penny and without his special-effects superpowers) does he learn to be himself, love life — and become a real hero.

Yeah, it’s just a movie and Bolt is just a cartoon dog. But recent blog comments and email exchanges with a reader make me think some of us could learn from him.

Why do we choose — and it is a choice — to be so freaking grim? Why do so many of us feel that if we’re not at some psychological watch-post 24 hours a day we’re somehow failing in our duty to Penny freedom?

Yes, our freedom is imperiled. Every person reading this is well aware of that. We could all list hundreds of threats to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And of course, if we actually cherish freedom, we’ll be doing something(s) to keep it.

But if we actually cherish freedom, we’ll also enjoy what we have of it. And what we have of life. And we’ll balance the “fighting” side of our lives with the “living” side.

Right now. Not in some imaginary future when all the politicians and bureaucrats have gotten out of our way and the handful of remaining laws (if any) are to our personal satisfaction.

But NOW. Because if we can’t embrace our freedom now, when can we?

—–

Saturday the New York Times had a wonderful commentary, “The Brain on Love.” I hope everybody will read it — even those of you who balk at registration.

While the piece focuses on personal relationships, family and romantic, the underlying truth of it is way bigger.

Scientists now know that the brain not only re-programs itself constantly, but physically changes in response to information and emotions we “feed” it. Years ago, the Mankato Nun Study revealed that old ladies who had lively minds and set themselves new challenges went right on functioning, even when autopsies eventually showed they had Alzheimers. Their brains were actually growing around the damage. Their Alzheimer-afflicted counterparts who didn’t “grow their brains” showed more effects of the disease. It was big psychological and physiological news.

Today we know much more — including the fact that our emotions shape our brain, which in turn shapes our emotions.

In other words, if we keep ourselves bundled up in anxiety and watchfulness, anxiety and watchfulness is what we reinforce. It’s what we program — and build — our brains to do. And you know what? If we’re like that, we’d just continue being like that even if freedom dropped on us from outer space.

On the other hand, even if we have a negative tendency born or programmed into us by our past, we have the power not only to change it, but in doing so, to reinforce and “grow” the new positive.

Thousands of activists have discovered that their best, most effective activism comes only after they’re forced to be idle for a while (e.g. they’re sent to jail or prison). Millions of creative people have had the experience of getting the Big Great Idea only after they stop beating their brains on something and take a walk or go to sleep or play with the dog. They change the pattern, begin the rebuild. By turning away.

Enjoying life is not a sin. Blowing off the responsibilities of freedom now and then is not a crime. Ignoring the news is not a dereliction of duty. Failing to duck and cover every time some Internet ranter screams that the sky is falling is not irresponsible or foolish.

Very, very much to the contrary, loving life, keeping a balanced perspective, and enjoying what we have is a means of cherishing freedom, understanding freedom — and building our brains to be better “freedom machines.”

Can it be overdone? Of course, there are millions who live in a rosy oblivion, never seeing the scary stuff and never doing anything to preserve the good they have. Maybe they need to reprogram for the opposite traits.

But we’re not them. If you’re here reading this, you’re not them.

Too many of us are more like Bolt. If we don’t reprogram ourselves to be less grim, less reactive, and lighter in our lives, we’ll go to our graves as nervous — and unfree — wrecks.

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The movie The Hunger Games comes out this Friday. If you’ve read the books(s) you know this isn’t going to be the Twilight-style teen flick that’s being marketed.

Can’t blame Lionsgate for the marketing; they want to make money and the Katniss-Peeta-Gale triangle offers a hook to the silly-but-moneymaking Bella-Edward-Jacob triangle that no marketer could resist. At least they’ve been doing their marketing very, very well; it’s been an elegantly teasing campaign. Have you noticed that, never once during all the buildup, have they actually showed the Hunger Games part of The Hunger Games?

Marketing aside, it looks like Lionsgate has made a damnfine movie. I’ll be headed to the Big City to see it soon as I can.

But the point is that this isn’t just a good-looking or entertaining movie. This is a meme, building on other memes, and this is about freedom.

Or at least, as John Tamny notes, it’s about the horrors of big government.

If you’re old enough, you remember when movies and TV shows never, ever, but never said a bad thing about government or its agents. The Soviet government or the Nazis, yes. But the U.S. government was always the Noble Protector. Its agents never lied, never cheated, never raped, never murdered, were never more violent than absolutely required. Government was approachable, responsive, humane, and preternaturally wise.

Then there came a few movies (e.g. Serpico) that showed something like a good cop crusading against bad cops. But that, of course, supported the “only a few bad apples” meme.

The first movie I ever recall showing a U.S. government agent being just plain bad, stupid, and destructive with no caveats was — oddly enough — Ghostbusters. Remember, it’s the Environmental Protection Agency man who pulls the switch that releases mayhem on the city while the unabashedly free-market Ghostbusters try to stop him.

I remember seeing that and being happily shocked. One of the most popular movies of all time said government could be arrogant, stupid, and destructive.

Well … gone are the days when government on the screen was all-holy. Now we see plenty of bad government actors. But only recently is cinema (does that sound like a hoity-toity term? I just don’t want to keep repeating the words movie, film, and flick) beginning to go into deeper territory: government — and specifically a U.S. government — as pure, unadulterated evil in its very essence.

V for Vendetta did it. But the government was English and the movie a cult hit more than a mainstream blockbuster.

Now The Hunger Games has dared to say it straight out. The country may be called Panem (“bread”), but the place is a recognizable future America. And its government is pure, stripped-down evil. It exists for its own sake and holds power by starving, terrorizing, and murdering its own citizens — even by forcing its young to murder each other.

Here’s the best review I’ve seen so far. It’s not a political review. It’s just one that says this is a big, good, important movie and not only for teens.

I’m not going to print any spoilers here. But if you haven’t yet read the books and are curious about this very anti-government movie, just know that in book three (and presumably movie three four), the message that free people don’t submit to government gets driven home even more … shall we say, pointedly.

The real point is that this is a meme building on other memes. We hear about the latest evil executive order or spy “enhancement” and we despair. But look around. A major studio makes a major film in which a government ruling over Americans is depicted as utterly, irredeemably evil.

That counts for a lot more than whatever bad news just flickered or twittered past our eyes today. Mindset is 90 percent of the battle — and mindset is changing right before our well-entertained eyes.

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Well, while we’re having an “oldies and goldies” day, how about a re-visit to “Twelve Tips for Toppling Tyrants”?

It was the Hardyville column that directly followed “Reactive Ralphie” and is an answer to him and others who believe that a constant frenzy will lead us to freedom.

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