Be Angry At The Sun

That public men publish falsehoods
Is nothing new. That America must accept
Like the historical republics corruption and empire
Has been known for years.

Be angry at the sun for setting
If these things anger you. Watch the wheel slope and turn,
They are all bound on the wheel, these people, those warriors.
This republic, Europe, Asia.

Observe them gesticulating,
Observe them going down. The gang serves lies, the passionate
Man plays his part; the cold passion for truth
Hunts in no pack.

You are not Catullus, you know,
To lampoon these crude sketches of Caesar. You are far
From Dante's feet, but even farther from his dirty
Political hatreds.

Let boys want pleasure, and men
Struggle for power, and women perhaps for fame,
And the servile to serve a Leader and the dupes to be duped.
Yours is not theirs.

Robinson Jeffers

I Believe In Liberty

H.L. Mencken wrote in 1927:

I believe in liberty. In any dispute between a citizen and the government, it is my instinct to side with the citizen. I am against bureaucrats, policemen, wowsers, snouters, smellers, uplifters, lawyers, bishops and all other sworn enemies of the free man. I am against all efforts to make men virtuous by law. I believe that the government, practically considered, is simply a camorra of incompetent and mainly dishonest men, transiently licensed to live by the labor of the rest of us. I am thus in favor of limiting its powers as much as possible, even at the cost of considerable inconvenience, and of giving every citizen, wise or foolish, right or wrong, the right to criticize it freely, and to advocate changes in its constitution and personnel. In brief, the concept of American "ideals, morals, hopes and institutions" that I subscribe to is substatially the concept that Thomas Jefferson subscribed to. I do not share his confidence in the wisdom and rectitude of the common man, but I go with him in his belief that the very commonest of common men has certain inalienable rights.

Advice to Pilgrims

That our senses lie and our minds trick us is true, but in general
They are honest rustics; trust them a little;
The senses more than the mind, and your own mind more than another man's.
As to the mind's plot, intuition, --
Catch him clean and stark naked he is first of truth-tellers; dream-clothed, or dirty
With fears and wishes, he is prince of liars.
The first fear is of death: trust no immortalist. The first desire is to be loved: trust no mother's son.
Finally I say, let demagogues and world-redeemers babble their emptiness
To empty ears; twice duped is too much.
Walk on gaunt shores and avoid the people; rock and wave are good prophets;
Wise are the wings of the gull, pleasant her song.

Robinson Jeffers, 1942

A Little Stirner, if You Please

Why do these blogs exist? To edify? To entertain. If anyone peruses this, or any other weblog, let the reader understand that 99 percent of what they see is an exercise in pure self-indulgence. So long as we understand each other...

Whether what I think and do is Christian, what do I care? Whether it is human, liberal, humane, whether unhuman, illiberal, inhumane, what do I ask about that? If it only accomplishes what I want, if only I satisfy myself in it, then overlay it with predicates as you will; it is all alike to me. Perhaps I too, in the very next moment, will defend myself against my former thoughts; I too may well change suddenly my mode of action; but not because it does not correspond to Christianity, not because it runs counter to the enternal rights of man, not because it flies in the face of mankind, humanity, and humanitarianism, but -- because I am no longer all in it -- because it no longer furnishes me a full enjoyment, because I doubt the earlier thought or no longer please myself in the mode of action just now practiced...

...No thought is sacred. --Max Stirner, The Ego and Its Own