This is a recent post from my friend Bob Clapp's blog. It's excellent, but at the same time very sad.
Everyone should listen to its message.
LANGUAGE PROSTITUTES AND THEIR SYMBOLS
(Flag of Tyranny)
When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, it means what I choose it to mean. The question is, said Alice, whether you can make words mean so many things. The question said Humpty Dumpty, who is Master -- that’s all!
Lewis Carroll
The task and intent of this essay is to engage an investigation into words as sensitive instruments for the pursuit of truth, the defense of reality and as an exposé of how words are used for sustaining lies and fictionalizing reality. Its concept building is restricted by and to the dictionary definition of words, the academic rules of the use of logic and the laws and theories of science.
Therefore, I intend to offer such a preponderance of evidence for this essay’s positions and indictments that it cannot be refuted, but by bigots, zealots, fanatics, fools and just plain old liars.
Further, any hyperbole, satire, sarcasm, irony, metaphor, etc., which is used on my part finds its genesis in the mass of evidence to be presented. Unlike the people I indict in the essay as language prostitutes, my name-calling is at least accurate.
From here on, and throughout the essay, I itemize important words and their definitions. It leaves the graduates of Humpty Dumpty U. less wiggle room.
Definitions, Webster’s New World Dictionary
1. prostitute, “a person, as a writer, artist, etc., who sells his or her services for low or unworthy purposes.”
2. mysticism, “the doctrine that it is possible to achieve communion with God -- asserts the possibility of attaining intuitive knowledge.”
3.superstition, “any belief or attitude based on fear or ignorance that is inconsistent with what is considered -- as true and rational.”
4. axiom, “a statement universally accepted as true.”
5. symbol, “something that stands for or suggests another thing; an object to represent something abstract.”
6. desecrate, “to take away the sacredness of; treat as not sacred.”
7. sacrilege, “the act of -- violating what is consecrated to God.”
8. fanatic, “a person whose extreme zeal, piety, etc., goes beyond what is reasonable.”
Annually, Congress with the salivating support of media and most Americans spews renewed demands for the imprisonment of anyone who desecrates the U.S. flag, and at precisely the same moment and with equal vigor, they worship their Constitution and its Bill of Rights.
If, unlike the visceral responses of the language prostitutes, you use the neo-cortex for thinking and reacting, take a moment, read the definitions of the preceding words, juxtapose them with the Constitution, especially the laws governing speech and religion; then ask yourself, “How is it any way possible (except by despotic brute force) to imprison any one for an thing he or she wishes to do to any red, white and blue cloth of his or her ownership?”
It’s not possible! Any pretext to reason, logic and honest language is annihilated by their blatant contradiction. Simply and logically put:
The flag is their symbol. The Constitution is their axiom. Therefore, irrefutably, any law to imprison me or anyone for destroying my own or his or her own flag is fanaticism pure and simple!
Their distorted use of language is nothing more than the language prostitution of wounded fanatics.
While this was an extremely easy intellectual defeat of fanaticism and superstition, it means very little. As this essay intends to prove over and over again statists, fanatics, mystics and their ilk only use language as a gun; if it does not work for them, they simply get the real thing and kill you!
Definitions required for the remainder of the essay -- Webster’s New World Dictionary:
9. metaphysics, “the branch of philosophy that deals with first principles and axioms that explain the nature of being reality.” (Emphasis mine.)
10. prime, “first in time; first in importance; first in value; first in quality.” (Emphasis mine.)
11. epistemology, “the study of the nature and sources of knowledge.”
12. etymology, “the origin and development of a word --”
13. live, “to be alive; have life.”
14. life, “that property and quality of plants and animals that distinguishes them from inorganic matter --”
15. barbarianism, “a people or group with a civilization regarded as primitive --”
16. barbarous, “characterized by substandard usages in speaking and writing.”
17. tribalism, “a strong sense of identifying with and loyal to one’s tribe, group, etc.”
18. savagery, “condition of being wild, without civilization.”
19. civilization, “social organization of high order, development and use of written language, to be out of the barbarianistic and savage condition.”
20. reason, “the ability to think from judgments, draw conclusions, think logically, etc.”
21.statist, “the doctrine or practice of vesting economic planning and social control, etc. in a centralized state government.”
I now engage all statists, their past and present mentors, their infinite doctrinaire forms, their sycophantic supporters and apologists everywhere. They will not; they cannot survive a war of words or a clash of ideas on the battlefield of reason, logic and science. But, as I wrote earlier, they can kill me or again imprison me.
I take up such a challenge not for glory or the gratification of their destruction, but in honor of my magnificent, brilliant, loving and courageous family who have suffered terror, violence, theft and imprisonment from the greatest statist evil to date -- the U.S. Government.
At this time in human history, all available epistemology and science prove, with metaphysical certitude that only individual human beings live and reason. The same epistemology and science prove, also with metaphysical certitude, that ALL precepts, referents and symbols subsumed to conceptualize life-like rights, powers and “living” existence to collectives such as: state, government, public, community, nation, etc., are reality denied and truth fictionalized.
The institutionalized etymological symbols of this perversion and fiction: flags, laws, crowns, crosses, ballots, constitutions, commandments, ad nauseum, are vacuous constructs of Humpty Dumpty semantics, “to be Master -- that’s all!”
But, say my critics and mortal enemies, they do exist! Absolutely not, I prove; they are enforced! What EXISTS is the individual human being and the inanimate object the GUN! Here, in a wild chance that some reader might get it! The ballot represents a bullet or it represents nothing at all!
As I’m fully developing in my book, this is the boundary and stalemate of individual human evolution to date -- The Darwinian nature of that evolution is either just past tribal savagery or still mired in tribal barbarianism where individual human survival is still dependent upon group ritual, group mysticism, group obedience, collective force and delimited and shallow interest in the primacy of the individual human being.
It is hotly debated as to the length of time that the individual human being has been in any of these anthropological periods. Suffice it to say for this essay, it is my hypothesis that while a relative small number of them may, in some ways be classified as “civilized” (for example in the sciences and mathematics), virtually all still depend on the tribal paradigm for socialization and social order. The primacy of the individual human being is mostly ignored; in fact, it is vastly disdained, and its brilliant proponents, like Ayn Rand, held in contempt.
Today, that tribal paradigm is formed by the state, and to a lesser degree, the church. The sometimes-thinking individual human being discovers that these paradigms consist of everyone but him or her. In reality, the individual human being is coerced, often violently forced, to fit and obey the paradigm. Though these paradigms neither breathe nor bleed, like the tribal savages that gave such “living” attributes to volcanoes and gods, modern individual human beings give those, same “living” attributes to the state and its symbols -- such as flags.
So, as the savages would throw maidens into volcanoes to appease the gods and calm the fears of the tribe, neo-Nazi, John McCain, and his peers would throw flag burners in prison to appease the state and calm the fears of a “public.” Given this reality, I’ll be damned if I can see how we can lay claim to civility no matter how many times we land on the moon!
Science shows that Homo erectus had a brain capacity of about 800 cc. From that time to the emergence of Homo sapiens the brain’s capacity bifurcated to about 1500 cc. This afforded individual human beings the opportunity to develop language and eventually, conceptual reasoning. Due to this development, there is vague sense and limited understanding of the primacy of individual human existence.
This cerebrally under developed primacy of the individual human being as the ONLY reality is frequently visible, but infrequently and poorly used. For example, John Locke, then Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence verbalized it; then more tribal thinkers -- Madison, Hamilton, et al. nullified it in the Constitution .
Consequently, the modern ethics of this statist paradigm go something like this: Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon are “bad” guys, but the office of the President and the flag are sacrosanct. You must sit at the Mad Hatter’s tea party to believe that slavery, Trail of Tears, Hiroshima, Mai Lai, WACO, Ruby Ridge, Rodney King, Kent State or a baton up the rectum could happen without the statist color of authority!
This virtually unused axiom of the primacy of individual human existence is not due to degrees of intelligence. In fact, it is rarely demonstrated among the brightest and most educated minds. Even Ayn Rand (the greatest philosophical mind so far) could not get fully beyond primacy of existence to the individual human being. She and most objectivists, even today, are still mired in the primacy of existence -- period! Thus no identifiable concrete validated by the senses.
This Achilles heel of what that concrete is absolutely leaves all objectivists, Randians and Aristotelians vulnerable to their mortal enemies: Kantiana, Marxists, all subjectivists, all theists, utilitarians, pragmatists, and statists -- the list is endless. Concretely put, it invites all of them to place, to vote, to ordain, to empower something as prime over the individual human being.
The only philosophy, such as it is a philosophy, that avoids such suicide, is anarchism. This, also, I’m fully exploring in my book, but space limits no more that a mention in this essay. This, however, I will ask you “thinking” readers, please inform this poor, confused writer, “What else can your senses offer as prime to existence but you? What primacy can you pinpoint when you sleep? When you are under anesthesia? Or the coup de grace, when you are dead?
Where Rand lost it is when she chose to pick a fight between consciousness and existence for primacy. She split hairs and created a dichotomy, thus a contradiction, sending her enemies orgasmic with glee! For some reason, that I cannot absorb, her massive intellect could not leave such arguments to college classrooms. Nevertheless, what is omnisciently clear, the debate is moot for every dead individual human being. Which in its finality proves where primacy lies!
Please, if you must disagree or debate with me, do it with reason and science and stick faith somewhere else.
This catastrophic failure of objectivists-libertarians leaves anything and everything as a candidate for PRIME. Even if every single and solitary individual human being were dead, congressional pipe dreams could have left earth with “living” flags as prime; they might even share such false primacy with the ten commandments gracing walls everywhere!
In my book, I hypothesize in detail that this failure is due to the lack of further evolutionary bifurcation of the brain’s size. Such Darwinian natural selection cannot yet be predicted let alone rushed. If the individual human being is to at least outlast the dinosaurs, its existence can no longer depend upon the passage of millions of years of evolution. The individual genius of a few must intervene through bio-chemical advances.
It will require the rapid development of the neophyte fields of genetic engineering, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence. Without such massive and accelerated efforts the extinction of the individual human being is certain.
But until such efforts are underway and cognitive capacity again begins to improve, even the most intelligent of “civilized” individual human beings will live crushed under the heel of the modern tribal state. Existence and language will be mostly a mystical and superstitious heritage.
A hodge-podge of dogmas and symbols will be memorized, pledged to and enforced at the end of a gun. Today, existence, due to science, technology and capitalism, is only marginally better than that of the past primitive savage or brute.
We are still at the mercy of witch doctors, medicine men and fanatics. Today, they are called presidents, senators, czars, prosecutors, police chiefs, etc. They will not throw you to the lions or down a volcano, but they will imprison you, behead you or assassinate you for what you do with your own body or your own red, white and blue cloth. They are fully assisted by their amen corner: media, educators, theists, etc.
To this point with the use of reason, logic, science and reality-based etymology, I have, as the young athletes I train say, -- “Kicked Butt!”
So for a time, I choose to turn to the personal and the passionate. This territory is not a comfort zone for me. The world of reason, science and honest language is like my old exercise shoes -- real comfy! But for reasons already made clear the personal and the passionate might better reach the mind of anyone who reads this essay.
For an opening statement to the personal and the passionate, I quote an acquaintance, Fred Woodsworth, editor and publisher of The Match! He expresses it so smashingly that I can almost hear the lockstep of goons at the door and feel the cold steel of guns against my skin:
For my part, I loathe the American flag (I don’t think much of any other flag either) -- hate it so passionately and thoroughly that, in complete and honest truth, I think -- or hope -- that every word, every sentence, that I have during my lifetime has in some way or another discredited or insulted that putrid symbol.
His seething passion offers me an opportunity to personally and passionately express what the evil behind that putrid symbol had done to a beautiful family.
The U.S. Government armed to the teeth broke down the doors of the homes of the Clapp family twice -- once in 1988 and again in 1991. A dozen men with weapons drawn slammed men, women and children whom they absolutely knew posed no threat nor ever even owned a gun, to the floor. They placed deadly weapons to their heads while screaming obscenities for 2-3 minutes. Then, like a demolition crew and ravaging plunderers, ransacked the homes, stole cash, property and cars from the Clapp family.
Agents of that government harassed the Clapp family from 1988-1995 when that government finally put Della Clapp in house arrest for 8 months and 2 years probation; put Steve Clapp in prison for 14 months and 3 years probation; put Robert Clapp in prison for 27 months and 2 years probation; and forever scarred the minds of three young boys ages 10, 8 and 4.
Sadistic, psychopathic prison guards beat Steven and Robert Clapp while they were in prison. All the while that putrid symbol flew above. If you have an iota of respect for the individual human being over an inanimate symbol, you should be ashamed and angered by the evil done to the Clapp family, especially when given the reason for such terror:
HOW THE CLAPP FAMILY CHOSE TO BUILD MUSCLES, STRENGTH, HEALTH AND IMPROVE ATHLETIC ABILITY.
Definitions required for the conclusion of this essay, Webster’s New World Dictionary:
22. body, “the whole physical structure of a human being --”
23. sovereignty, “above or superior to all others.” (Emphasis mine.)
24. birthright*, “a right or rights that a person has because of being born --” (Emphasis mine.)
*My note: This right is synonymous with the definition of PRIME.
I must put those “comfy old shoes” of reason, logic, science and reality based language back on for the moment. With my birthright of bodily sovereignty, a right subsumed conceptually by the first axiom of existence: The primacy of the individual human being’s existence, I used my mind and body to build an unparalleled system for increasing muscle size, strength, improving health and enhancing athletic performance.
The mind of the individual human being can prove few things with the absolute certitude of bodily sovereignty: The axiomatic statement, “Your body belongs to only you!” should stand above the universe. Man made “rights and laws” with no roots to the primacy of the existence of the individual human being are an abomination and evil of unequalled proportions! Like all atrocity, it explodes from the end of a gun.
The lex mulla, lex nulla legislation that brutalized the Clapp family for their sovereign right to use anabolic steroids anyway they chose originated in the bowels of puritanical Luddites, cancerously grew from the superstition, fanaticism and hysteria of the War on Drugs. All obediently supported by language prostitutes of the media.
Now for a return to the personal and the passionate. If an honest and rational human being were to listen to me, view my incredible physical appearance, review my medical examination reports, observe my athletic ability -- all at 65 years old! -- that individual would know who the liars are, and as frequently happens hire me as a personal trainer.
More passion! Some of the atrocities that I witnessed in that Federal Gulag, mostly done to Mexican men imprisoned for some marijuana offense made the recent batons up the rectum news seem like a Rolfer’s massage! Amnesty International and America Watch don’t know the half of it -- or fear to exposé it! All done while that putrid symbol flew above.
For the tribal herd not to give one damn, I accept. But the toadyism with which the media kowtows to that putrid symbol makes them as culpable, perhaps more so, than those sadistic guards. The media’s mandate to tell the truth, exposé evil and give voice to individual human beings leaves them no time for personal fetish over red, white and blue cloth!
The essay will close with an examination of how that above fetish finds media support from the editorial board of The Arizona Republic. In an editorial: Our View 4/13/99, “Respect the Flag, Kill Amendment.” The board in an outburst of patriotic claptrap and juvenile name-calling, wrote the following sentence,
There is no denying that watching ignorant rabble destroy that which brave Americans have died to protect is galling.
Because of the Clapp family’s philosophy and reality-based experience, we have no option but to receive those words as personally insulting and hate-filled. So, more to release my anger than to enlighten the “minds” that wrote that sentence, I introduce Della Clapp, 65 year old super wife of 42 years, loving mother of three outstanding children, adored grandmother of five magnificent grandsons, respected teacher, college graduate and flag burner.
If the “minds” that wrote that sentence really knew her, they would beg her forgiveness. Unlike her husband, daughter, two sons and five grandsons, she would give it. Most importantly she is a brilliant woman who recognizes and suffered first hand the evil behind that putrid symbol.
As for the daughter and two sons, they have college degrees, successful careers, have beautiful families and are burners of that putrid symbol. They, too, know and suffered the evil behind that flag.
As for the five grandsons, three are just little boys enjoying life and the loving attention of their grandmother. The oldest two (18 & 20) attend universities where they excel as student athletes. They also adore their grandmother, but unlike the older members of the Clapp family, they do no yet have the cognitive experience nor the discipline to intellectually deal with “minds” that would imply that their grandmother is ignorant rabble.
They would much prefer to invite such cowards to their football practice for blocking and tackling drills; as one of them remarks, “There are never enough tackling dummies around.”
As for me, I’m convinced, that intellectually I’ve already “Kicked Butt!” on such dummies. But here’s a brief résumé -- I have advanced degrees in English, Secondary Education and Physical Education. I’ve passed the test for membership in the I.Q. Club, MENSA. I coached and taught young people 10-18 years old for over 20 years. I’ve taught Randian and Objectivism seminars. And, yes, I’m a proud flag burner! I’ve burned all symbols of the brute and of the gun: flags, swastikas, crowns, crosses, hammer and sickle insignias, even election ballots, etc.
In The Arizona Republic , 8/25/99, on page A13, appears the article on the House passage of the flag desecration amendment. In lockstep with The Republic name-calling, Barney Frank calls us “obnoxious jerks.” The damn fool doesn’t even care that the evil behind that putrid symbol would have imprisoned him (still will in some states) for his sexual preference!
People like The Republic’s editorial board and Frank have such a powerful addiction to that icon, it simply could not occur to them that individual human beings could be smarter than they, hold respected jobs, give time and money to charities, raise beautiful families and burn a flag. Their fetish is too consuming for them to imagine attending a meeting of brilliant objectivists or libertarians where you would run into many burners of that putrid symbol.
No, like all barbarous fanatics, they must demonize such individual human beings; they must be longhaired hippies, crazed druggies, ignorant rabble, obnoxious jerks, etc. Take a moment, think (a tough one) then ask yourself, “Where do I fit in that progression of evolution presented earlier?”
Until just moments ago when it hit me like a swat team’s stun gun, I could not for the life of me figure out who might be the real ignorant rabble. ZAP! It hit; all I have to do is patiently wait for an invitation to The Republic’s editorial board meeting to sit among them.
It further dawned on me where else the Clapp family has been among their peers -- it happens at every high school/college sporting event that we attend to watch our grandsons play ball. When they play and sing that putrid song, display that putrid symbol; we remain seated, holding hands, with eyes downcast.
But if the eyes upon us, seldom with comment, could fire bullets, the slaughter of the Clapp family would make Columbine look like a student food fight!
I mentioned that seldom are there comments, but that is when my sons and I are there. But when only the Clapp women are there, sitting in defiance of those putrid symbols, those comments of “brave Americans” I believe you called them become many, vulgar and threatening. Yet, when these (you call them people willing to die for that flag) cowards I call them, are confronted by a Clapp man, they mostly wet their pants!
Here’s a tough one for you language prostitutes: The reality and irony is that I would die to defend their individual human birthright of free speech to call me anything they wanted. But they (the patriots) want free speech and me dead! Such “ignorant rabble” business gets a little messy doesn’t it?
In a world where the evolution of the individual human behavior and thought finds 95-99% of its individual human beings in Pavlovian lockstep with some form of statist dogma, mysticism and superstition, your editorial is fitting.
But, when you pass that editorial off as reality rooted and supported by reason, logic and science, you are truly having a Humpty Dumpty day. You need to remember the choir you preach to -- your peers, the ignorant rabble.
July 4th is near and the Clapp family will gather in celebration of family, the spark of individual human life, hope for the future and our struggle to stay free. That symbolic flame shall be ignited in our barbecue pit with charcoal, lighter fluid and that putrid symbol.
Related Posts (created by Arizona Atheist):
1. Roid Rave: Steroids, They Do A Body Good? by Jordan Heller
2. The Tyranny of the State, Part 3
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