Life, Love, and Liberty

Arthur Silber is in very deep trouble. I strongly urge people to read his writings and donate to his continued existence. His latest post reminds me that he may very well die before I get a chance to meet him.

Click on his name above to visit the post on his website, but I have excerpted it below:

P.S. Hey, y’all. Next week, I may tell you a bit more about what happened this summer, and why I was absent from these parts for so long. Basically, it was an unrelievedly awful time. For over a month, I wasn’t certain I would ever get back to writing, or to anything else at all. Yes, it was that bad. And yet, here I am. I’m not in good shape exactly; in fact, I still feel pretty lousy, but at least it’s not as bad as it was. And I am enjoying the writing I’m doing now, and I hope you are, too.

Thanks to some very kind donors — and thanks to several donors who have been outlandishly generous — I was able to survive the summer even though I was immobilized most of the time. And thanks to some donations just this week, I can still eat and I have part of the September rent. Which is due next week. Ackety ack. I’m still short of about two-thirds of the rent, and I need to pay some overdue bills. And the cats need to eat too, of course. People sometimes tell me I should post pictures of my beautiful children, and then you’d all shower me with lots and lots of donations. Cat pity, ya know. Hard to resist. And I’d do it — but I am very, very, very poor. No “luxuries” of any kind — like teevee — so I don’t have a camera. Haven’t had one for years. So no pictures. But my cats are the most gorgeous, the funniest, and the sweetest cats in the entire world. But you probably knew that.

So, if you have some money you’d care to throw in this direction, I would be deeply grateful as always. And Cyrano and Wendy say thanks, too. Given my health, I can’t predict what next week might bring, but I’ll keep up this writing streak as long as I can. I much prefer life when I’m able to write regularly, although that reality tends to fade away almost completely during the worst times. I hope this comparatively good time will be here for a minimum of several months, at least through the election. Who would want to miss all this fun and frivolity?!?

As always, many, many thanks for your time and consideration, and for your extraordinary generosity. Okay, Wendy, I’m almost done, so you can write to your friends in a few minutes. (They both write a lot of email. You wouldn’t believe the friends they have, all over the world. It’s true, I can show you emails they’ve written. A few of you out there have even received some of them. It’s a battle for the computer every day. We need a mediator.) All right, finishing up right now, Wendy. Kids.

Arthur; you’ve always been a source of inspiration to me. And it makes me so angry to see you wasting away like this. If there was ever a justification for a social safety net, then what you have written above is it. You’re an amazingly creative writer who produces original material. I just wish the rest of the world could see you the way I do. I wish they could understand why it’s a crime that you have to suffer like this, while a Bill Kristol gets a spot on the New York Times editorial page.

To borrow and modify the end of your Maria Callas essay: for you, truly and incomparably Arthur: now and always. If you ever read this post, I hope you will view my adoption of it as a fitting tribute to you.

A California judge made my argument on government schooling for me:

“A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare,” the judge wrote, quoting from a 1961 case on a similar issue.”

~ From “Rad Geek’s” blog

Dear Americans,

Don’t you dare educate children in a way that would cause them to question the state or not contribute towards the “public welfare” — whatever the hell that means.

Me thinks “public welfare” is a vacuous term that disguises the fact that people are being oppressed.

Last time I checked, my welfare was not at all dependent on the success of the government schooling system. Does this mean I am not a member of the public? I’ll be waiting for an answer from the relevant authorities.

One of Roderick Long’s recent posts reminded me of Emma Goldman’s essay titled The Failure of Christianity.

Obama clearly hasn’t read it yet.

You can tell the difference between two different senses of life by looking at what imagery evokes moral horror in people who hold one of the two. This point was violently driven home to me by the backlash to the California Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay marriage.

Who was celebrating? Not the social conservatives. In fact, the specter of gay couples with government issued marriage licenses, and the benefits that come with them motivated social conservatives to put the question to the vote. These miscreants rushed to acquire the signatures necessary to put the proposal that the California constitution be amended to stipulate that marriage is only between a man and a woman on the November ballot.

And this tells me a lot about their sense of life. It tells me that they prefer misery to joy when their god demands it. It tells me that they cannot truly understand the joy of liberty, because their entire perspective on the world is motivated by fear and obedience to a conservative god.

How can a person who believes the good is achieved via obedience understand the beauty of romantic love outside of narrowly circumscribed limits?

They just can’t do it very easily.

Every time you hear somebody preach about the “evil” of government recognized same sex marriage, you should watch this video.

And be reminded that what you’re watching is what they say is immoral.

Contrast this spirit with that of the couples enjoying their romance and marriage in the video.

It’s the difference between a morality of joy and a morality of misery.

Update: A wise friend of mine has pointed out that I should be careful about making sweeping generalizations pertaining to the sense of life that people holding certain explicit philosophical or ideological convictions hold.

I accidentally marked a legitimate comment as spam…

It makes me sad.