Personal Terrorism

Is anarchy the best way to change things? I can only imagine the possibilities, their outcomes, the functional and dysfunctional rationales that lead to unnecessary violence, oppression, and hierarchal discountenance, but does it work?

Consider for a moment the rationale of the Jihad, the Holy War, against the infidels. Muslim extremism that takes a core belief from a fairly small apparatus of a vastly larger and wholly moral religion. Do these people accomplish anything in their acts of terrorism? Their martyrdom? Their acts of murder to gain a place in heaven? In what sense does the rights of the people really matter and the right to safety take over?

In my last year in High School I had turned eighteen. I was an adult, legally speaking, and contemptuous at best. This same year, as it so happens, the school district decided to ban hats and coats in the hallways and classrooms because they supposedly "distracted and impeded learning". I being the rebellious newly crowned adult, having lived with being able to wear a hat for the prior three years said neigh to the restriction and wore my hat anyways. It probably didn't help that I had just gone through the offered class "Introduction to the Justice System" which consisted of a total review of one's constitutional rights and the differences between children and adults.

First amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Interestingly congress here does not just apply to the Federal Congress, it applies to the State Congress, the City Board, and the School Board, or so I thought. Thus I continued on my quiet rebellion. Some teachers disliked the fact I disobeyed the school's new rule, most of whom were not my teachers but teachers who saw me as just another student in the halls. One such incident was surprising. I was wondering in my study hall period, something I had a habit of since it was always right before or after lunch and I hated just waiting in the auditorium for an hour without anything better to do other than homework I'd already done. The teacher was monitoring the hall and yelled at me to stop.

Maybe I should be a bit more candid here as to exactly which hat I was wearing. You see I decided my protest would be best served by garnishing my head with the red and white fluff Santa Clause hat several months prior to Christmas. I figured that if I couldn't get by on the grounds of being an adult I could certainly get by on the grounds of religious connotation and expression.

"You, there, take off that hat, where are you supposed to be, you can't just wonder the halls between classes!"

"You, There, I don't care what you think, the hat is going to stay on my head, and I'll wonder where I like."

"I could give you detention."

"I could complain about discrimination based on my age."

"What of your age?"

"I'm an adult, eighteen since August first."

"I!" he reached out to grab my hat, "Don't!" I moved and his hand swiped through the air, "Care!" I moved again and he caught the ball off of my hat. "If you're eighteen or not. You're not permitted to wear hats on school property!"

"I would very much suggest you give it back."

"You mean this?" He dangled the hat in front of my face, "You'll get it back once we've had a talk with Mr. Leibham."

The funny thing about this school, is I was as familiar with every inch of that school as Tim Leibham the Principal at the time was of my little private protest. We found ourselves outside the Principal's office almost like a cordial couple waiting in silence at the prom for our picture to be taken. I of course was jovial, he was steaming pissed. It wasn't long before the boy in the office prior to us exited, he had a rather sullen stricken face. The teacher barged in.

"I caught this boy, who refuses to give me his name, wearing this..." he produced the hat and handed it to Leibham.

I smirked, defiant as always, "Can I have my hat back now."

"Uh," he pursed his lips and let out a sigh, "Yes, just don't wonder around the halls too much." He gave me my hat and I placed it back on my head. The teacher stood in stunned silence, before turning to the Principal.

"Look," he said to the teacher, "Krist here as described a need to protest in a peaceful way the school's decision to change the rules. He already came to me and I gave him permission. And so long as the hat doesn't interfere with his classmates or classes, there is no reason why he can't protest in this manner."

My day ended well, but this is only an example of ironic civil unrest. What if everyone would protest this way, by simply defying the unjust laws that we see being put up every day? And isn't that our prerogative, isn't that what the founding fathers told us to do.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, - That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government (Declaration of Independence)

I find it funny how often I am accused of being a progressive or being a liberal, when our very history shows the framers of this country to be just that, progressives, liberals (liberators). Really, maybe, those people who accuse me of my sentiments relegate progress as anarchism, as personal terrorism. Of course to me the hat was a symbol of unjust changes made arbitrarily by the school board, who were all too keen on looking past the real problem, that our school in the last two years nearly doubled in population because of the short comings in rural high schools and lack of funding. The congestion they were trying to curtail wasn't caused by the backpacks or the coats or the hats, it was caused by there being too many people in that high school.

And maybe that is the point of this-that those in charge maintain their charge by forcing solutions that don't work to make it look as though they are doing their jobs. Maybe the Jihad sentiment is right, only the infidels are those too racked by their jobs and their monies to see the good that needs to be done. Rather than those who don't believe in god and rely upon the religious crutch to get them by while their lives progressively worsen until nothing is left.

And wasn't pursuit of happiness, life, and liberty, what I was protesting for? The simple symbol of insubordination, of not following the rules?

Right now many people are acting in accordance to personal terrorism, refusing to leave their homes after being evicted, protesting Dead Peasant life insurance policies that make companies rich off of their dying employees. Fighting against Capitol Hill and Wall Street for the financial debauchery, the porn that is exhibiting the raping of this country, wall street the brawny beefy man's man, and our government the plastic surgeried artificial woman bent over a table naked except for her five inch high heels. And we educated few who sit back and examine the philosophical meaning of the Muslim religion and the Christian faiths and the holy-antiterrorism-racist-capital gain-war now being waged make, the rich richer, the poor poorer, just by sitting idly by.

Maybe, just maybe, that is why I am prone to ask why not Anarchy? Why not throw off the shackles of our failing government and start anew, fix the constitution, evolve it, change it, affect terrorism on those who aren't afraid but instead feed off of the fear of the people?

An answer: Our government is as good as it is going to get. In simple terms that is the truth. The fact is for all of the technology and money and "political evolution" since the seventeen hundreds, there are too many people, most of them too stupid to know what is what, wanting to put their two cents into how the government should be run. We have people who are prejudice and would love to ban homosexuality and force all gay people to go to straight camp. There are the KKK who'd like to see all the black people chained together and brought back to slavery. There are the Mormons/Protestants/Catholics/Pentecost/Any other Christian Denomination/Muslim sentiment of recruitment and forced religious zealotry, and the list goes on. The reason why our government was able to be formed 250 some odd years ago was out of simplicity. Simplicity, we could look at the process back then as we are now, find every nuance, every character and letter and look at its complexity, but imagine that complexity amplified, multiplied, to what it would be today. By the time the Constitution was ratified the US pop was maybe eighteen million people, spread over thirteen states no less. Voices could be heard, ideas defined, and often it was left to those of the highest station. Even then it took some fifty people to refine and define the constitution and how the government should be run, and it took leaders from all of the states to put it into affect.

The fact is we could never really over turn the government today. There are too many opinions, too many radicallists (extremists) and everyone would attempt to change the nature of everyone else's lives.

And how do we fix a broken system? There are no vaccines for stupidity, no antibodies to fight cruelty and corruption. The minute small man has no real voice in the government. And even the concept of anarchy, the concept of progression and liberalism, liberation, flaunted to its highest regard is only reserved to meet the name of terrorist. Terrorist to those in power, those scared to lose that power.

Am I a liberal, yes, am I a progressive, yes, is there a damned thing I can do to actually change the government and the depraved accepted idiocy of the country. No.

The Declaration of Independence claims that the government maintains its right to power and control through the "consent of the governed", how many of you have consented to the government as it is? Or have you blindly pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all? What liberty? What justice?