“Guy comes to me, his liver’s shot, his wife left him, he’s broke, I think his dog might have died, too,” John Hemlock said to general laughter. “He says, ‘Why would God do this to me?’ The thing is, I said, God didn’t do anything to you, son, he’s only honoring the choices you made over the years. Your life is the product of the choices you make, moment by moment. You can hang on tight, or you can relax and turn the controls over to Jesus.”
Now, everyone knew where Johnny would be coming from, so those who chose to think about the religious themes took them seriously, and those who were not so sure took what he had to say that they could apply to their lives and left the rest to simmer. That’s what I mean when I say maybe Sirians are a special breed where this could work – most of us learned early to live and let live. We have no special need to convert other people to our way of thinking, as long as they don’t try to convert us to theirs. And in that way, John Hemlock is the perfect preacher for our planet. He does his share of converting but he doesn’t fuss for the lost souls who choose to stay lost – or those who get themselves found by other means.
My half of the talking didn’t touch on the supernatural, although once I added John’s “Love your neighbor as yourself” verbiage I guess it did have that undercurrent. I was not trying to win souls as much as minds when I said it: It simply makes sense looking at human nature that the way you treat others is reflected in the way they treat you.
“When you overthrow a violent regime violently, you only replace one violence with another,” I’d say. “If you want fundamental change, you must make fundamental changes in the way you approach the problem. A government or a society that solves its problems by killing or maiming its adversaries is not going to change minds – and changing minds is the only way to achieve the real goal: ending tyranny.”
The audiences had been growing, but they dropped off again after armed soldiers began to patrol the streets. One thing that can be said about violence is that it’s quicker, although not at all effective in the long run as we learned. Ramsey Sardonicus proved in Colorado that you can take a regime down in a hurry by ignoring it, but the people of Sirius 4 wanted to try taking the tyrants on their own terms first. The only time I resented that approach was when Lt. Joshua True tried turning my resistance to violence on its head.
Entry 63
Showing posts with label Ramsey Sardonicus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ramsey Sardonicus. Show all posts
Monday, September 17, 2012
Monday, August 13, 2012
Entry 54. The assassin comes calling
Mahatma Gandhi, who freed his nation with nonviolent civil disobedience, died Jan. 30, 1948, shortly after being shot in the chest while walking onto the prayer grounds at his home in New Delhi.
A few days before his death, the 78-year-old Gandhi said, “Should I die by the bullet of a madman, I have to do so with a smile. There must be no anger in me. God must be in my heart and on my lips, and you must promise me one thing: Should such a thing happen, do not shed a tear. I have done my deeds for humanity not requested by any human and I cannot stop on request of anybody. I am like God wanted me and I do as he advises me to do. Let him do with me as he pleases. If he wants to, he may kill me. I believe that I do as he orders.”
Martin Luther King, who used Gandhi as a model in his efforts to free his people, died April 4, 1968, shortly after being shot as he stood on the balcony of a hotel in Memphis.
The night before he died, King concluded his last speech by saying, “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!”
Ramsey Sardonicus was shot by a sniper during the inaugural ball marking his second term as president of the free nation of Colorado; he was 41 years old. Jesus was crucified at age 33. Real life is not so gentle with those of us who seek to lead nonviolent revolution.
It gave me little comfort to know Henry David Thoreau died at home in bed, seeing as Thoreau first contracted tuberculosis when he was 18 years old in 1835 and spent the next 27 years suffering from it on and off before the damn bug finally killed him at age 44. I figured I had a four-out-of-five chance of dying a violent death and a four-out-of-five chance of dying before I hit 45.
And since Thoreau was not an especially public figure until years after he died, I figured the main reason old Henry David wasn’t shot was because he wasn’t famous enough to kill. It was only a matter of time, I figured, before some nutbag came calling at the door. I only hoped I had a chance to talk to the guy before he pulled the trigger.
So, yes, it’s true that when Frederick Miles Masterson stepped in front of me that day as John Hemlock and I strolled along my familiar beach on Lake Ptolemy, I raised my eyebrows and told the stranger with a smile and just the slightest gasp of recognition, “Oh! It’s you.”
Oh, dear, I think I’ve gotten ahead of myself again.
Entry 55
A few days before his death, the 78-year-old Gandhi said, “Should I die by the bullet of a madman, I have to do so with a smile. There must be no anger in me. God must be in my heart and on my lips, and you must promise me one thing: Should such a thing happen, do not shed a tear. I have done my deeds for humanity not requested by any human and I cannot stop on request of anybody. I am like God wanted me and I do as he advises me to do. Let him do with me as he pleases. If he wants to, he may kill me. I believe that I do as he orders.”
Martin Luther King, who used Gandhi as a model in his efforts to free his people, died April 4, 1968, shortly after being shot as he stood on the balcony of a hotel in Memphis.
The night before he died, King concluded his last speech by saying, “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!”
Ramsey Sardonicus was shot by a sniper during the inaugural ball marking his second term as president of the free nation of Colorado; he was 41 years old. Jesus was crucified at age 33. Real life is not so gentle with those of us who seek to lead nonviolent revolution.
It gave me little comfort to know Henry David Thoreau died at home in bed, seeing as Thoreau first contracted tuberculosis when he was 18 years old in 1835 and spent the next 27 years suffering from it on and off before the damn bug finally killed him at age 44. I figured I had a four-out-of-five chance of dying a violent death and a four-out-of-five chance of dying before I hit 45.
And since Thoreau was not an especially public figure until years after he died, I figured the main reason old Henry David wasn’t shot was because he wasn’t famous enough to kill. It was only a matter of time, I figured, before some nutbag came calling at the door. I only hoped I had a chance to talk to the guy before he pulled the trigger.
So, yes, it’s true that when Frederick Miles Masterson stepped in front of me that day as John Hemlock and I strolled along my familiar beach on Lake Ptolemy, I raised my eyebrows and told the stranger with a smile and just the slightest gasp of recognition, “Oh! It’s you.”
Oh, dear, I think I’ve gotten ahead of myself again.
Entry 55
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Entry 37. The man from Greeley
The Republic of Texas was an Earthian confederation of a half-dozen regions that had once been part of a much larger alliance. Ramsey Sardonicus, a business owner from a town on the edge of the confederation – Greeley, Colorado – had had enough of sending his proceeds to the capital city nearly 1,000 miles away in the confiscatory system called taxation.
But Sardonicus was a gentle man, and while his employees, friends and colleagues all grumbled about shooting their way to freedom one day, he believed there must be a better way.
His idea was to combine Thoreau’s refusal to pay taxes, King’s direct action to force a tension that leads to negotiation, and Gandhi’s gathering of thousands of supporters simply to ignore the law.
The plan was noncooperation on a massive scale. The people of Colorado – including, eventually, most of its public officials – just stopped cooperating with the central government. They didn’t just stop paying their taxes. Builders built houses without government-issued permits. Couples got married without government licenses. People wouldn’t show up when called to jury duty. Department of Vehicles offices were empty because operators stopped registering their vehicles. They just stopped paying attention to the government.
When the capital city sent troops to enforce the laws and regulations, they were greeted by 150,000 people surrounding the Colorado governor’s mansion, calmly standing with their hands folded. The only way the troops could get inside would be to shoot their way through the crowd.
And the president and legislature of Texas blinked. After a process of negotiation, Colorado was given permission to secede without firing a shot.
Ramsey Sardonicus declined the offer to become the first president of the Republic of Colorado, but he gave me the best example I had to inspire a peaceful separation between Sirius 4 and Earth. I did not convince my president and legislature to follow Colorado’s example, but when the time came to defy our president and legislature, the people of Sirius 4 were ready.
And I had a different thought about life after the revolution. John Hemlock and his Nazarene helped me complete that thought.
Entry 38. The Nazarene
But Sardonicus was a gentle man, and while his employees, friends and colleagues all grumbled about shooting their way to freedom one day, he believed there must be a better way.
His idea was to combine Thoreau’s refusal to pay taxes, King’s direct action to force a tension that leads to negotiation, and Gandhi’s gathering of thousands of supporters simply to ignore the law.
The plan was noncooperation on a massive scale. The people of Colorado – including, eventually, most of its public officials – just stopped cooperating with the central government. They didn’t just stop paying their taxes. Builders built houses without government-issued permits. Couples got married without government licenses. People wouldn’t show up when called to jury duty. Department of Vehicles offices were empty because operators stopped registering their vehicles. They just stopped paying attention to the government.
When the capital city sent troops to enforce the laws and regulations, they were greeted by 150,000 people surrounding the Colorado governor’s mansion, calmly standing with their hands folded. The only way the troops could get inside would be to shoot their way through the crowd.
And the president and legislature of Texas blinked. After a process of negotiation, Colorado was given permission to secede without firing a shot.
Ramsey Sardonicus declined the offer to become the first president of the Republic of Colorado, but he gave me the best example I had to inspire a peaceful separation between Sirius 4 and Earth. I did not convince my president and legislature to follow Colorado’s example, but when the time came to defy our president and legislature, the people of Sirius 4 were ready.
And I had a different thought about life after the revolution. John Hemlock and his Nazarene helped me complete that thought.
Entry 38. The Nazarene
Friday, June 22, 2012
Entry 16. The kid senator
So. Badiah Sinclair. What an incredible mixture of contradictions. The heroic champion for freedom. The tyrant who was worse than the one he replaced, because he pledged that he would not be. The eloquent orator. The tongue-tied miscreant.
I love that man for where he led us. I believed he hated where he tried to take us after our triumph, but he had no faith in the alternative. When all you know is one way, it’s hard – perhaps impossible – to embrace another.
Let’s talk about the hero first – the boy senator, elected at age 19 with a wisdom beyond his years, president at 25.
My friend. One night Badi and I rode through a particularly rainy night mostly in silence while he stewed about the girl who had broken up with him because he was too intense too soon, and two years later he was Senator Sinclair. That made me a bit of a celebrity among my fellow sophomores at the University of Sirius 4 – the pacifist wacko whose best friend was the kid senator.
He shook up some of the older and more established senators with the fire of his belief in Sirian independence. It wasn’t the angry flame you might expect in someone our age, just a confident optimism that the people of Sirius 4 were best equipped to determine the course that Sirius 4 should be following. We all shared the same frustration in the intrusive, parent-like government of Earth, whose representatives seemed to believe that the descendants of space pioneers – and the thousands who were emigrating to settle on Sirius 4 every year – were somehow not ready to make grownup choices.
(We had some interesting conversations as my training as a historian began to reveal to me that this smarter-than-you attitude was not just a trait of Earth’s government regarding Sirius 4; it’s an occupational hazard common through the ages to most who choose government as a career.)
Within months (weeks, really) of his entry into the Senate, Badiah had assembled a coalition of lawmakers who pressed the governor for negotiations intended to lead to greater autonomy – and eventually independence – for Sirius 4.
In hindsight it’s pretty clear that Mommy Earth was patronizing the coalition, sitting down with pretty words and a few simple reforms that gave our legislature a comfortable illusion of progress. The governor was still an appointee of Earth with veto power and a security force as backup.
But Badiah and his colleagues believed they had Earth’s ear. They believed that would be enough to make us free someday, and without the “need” for bloodshed.
I was all for that, of course. The focus of my studies had been on people who had made a difference on history without the use of violence. In recent Earth history Ramsey Sardonicus had won independence for a small landlocked nation called Colorado with his synthesis of the teachings of King, Thoreau and Gandhi. A campaign of noncooperation succeeded in gaining Colorado’s right to secede from Texas in a bloodless revolution. It was my hope that Badiah’s coalition would be able to do the same for an entire planet.
He certainly projected the confidence that it could be done, with his youthful good looks, that big confident smile, and the persuasiveness of his call to freedom. At least he persuaded many people on Sirius 4. It wasn’t until the Simmons incident that we understood how fully he had failed to persuade Mommy Earth.
Entry 17. First casualty
I love that man for where he led us. I believed he hated where he tried to take us after our triumph, but he had no faith in the alternative. When all you know is one way, it’s hard – perhaps impossible – to embrace another.
Let’s talk about the hero first – the boy senator, elected at age 19 with a wisdom beyond his years, president at 25.
My friend. One night Badi and I rode through a particularly rainy night mostly in silence while he stewed about the girl who had broken up with him because he was too intense too soon, and two years later he was Senator Sinclair. That made me a bit of a celebrity among my fellow sophomores at the University of Sirius 4 – the pacifist wacko whose best friend was the kid senator.
He shook up some of the older and more established senators with the fire of his belief in Sirian independence. It wasn’t the angry flame you might expect in someone our age, just a confident optimism that the people of Sirius 4 were best equipped to determine the course that Sirius 4 should be following. We all shared the same frustration in the intrusive, parent-like government of Earth, whose representatives seemed to believe that the descendants of space pioneers – and the thousands who were emigrating to settle on Sirius 4 every year – were somehow not ready to make grownup choices.
(We had some interesting conversations as my training as a historian began to reveal to me that this smarter-than-you attitude was not just a trait of Earth’s government regarding Sirius 4; it’s an occupational hazard common through the ages to most who choose government as a career.)
Within months (weeks, really) of his entry into the Senate, Badiah had assembled a coalition of lawmakers who pressed the governor for negotiations intended to lead to greater autonomy – and eventually independence – for Sirius 4.
In hindsight it’s pretty clear that Mommy Earth was patronizing the coalition, sitting down with pretty words and a few simple reforms that gave our legislature a comfortable illusion of progress. The governor was still an appointee of Earth with veto power and a security force as backup.
But Badiah and his colleagues believed they had Earth’s ear. They believed that would be enough to make us free someday, and without the “need” for bloodshed.
I was all for that, of course. The focus of my studies had been on people who had made a difference on history without the use of violence. In recent Earth history Ramsey Sardonicus had won independence for a small landlocked nation called Colorado with his synthesis of the teachings of King, Thoreau and Gandhi. A campaign of noncooperation succeeded in gaining Colorado’s right to secede from Texas in a bloodless revolution. It was my hope that Badiah’s coalition would be able to do the same for an entire planet.
He certainly projected the confidence that it could be done, with his youthful good looks, that big confident smile, and the persuasiveness of his call to freedom. At least he persuaded many people on Sirius 4. It wasn’t until the Simmons incident that we understood how fully he had failed to persuade Mommy Earth.
Entry 17. First casualty
Monday, June 18, 2012
Entry 12. They all ended up dead
I was between my sophomore and junior years in college, and my childhood friend Badiah Sinclair had already begun to make his name as one of the youngest people ever to be elected to the legislature. He had won on the strength of his persuasive passion for an independent Sirius 4, and his faction succeeded in getting a meeting with the governor and a representative of Earth to negotiate the possibilities.
As college friends do, a group of us were debating the issues of the day while well stocked with beer. And as college students, we were filled not just with brewskis but with ourselves, confident that we were the most insightful observers of the human condition ever to connect two dots.
The independence talks were the main news of the day, and we naturally all had opinions about it. Ralph Emerson was sure they would fail and glad of it – he thought we were still too small a colony to survive as a unified people. Nate Maples was for independence but convinced it could not be won without a war. I was knee-deep in my studies of nonviolence and believed lasting freedom could be won without bloodshed. Ed Raven didn’t believe much of anything; he got his pleasure in finding the flaws to shoot down everyone’s beliefs.
“What, you never heard of Liechtenstein? or Andorra? They did OK,” Ed teased Ralph in one of his weaker efforts.
“Those are little countries on Earth, moron,” Ralph replied. “I’m talking about a whole planet with barely more than a half-million million people trying to stand on their own against the universe.”
“Why does it have to be ‘against’ the universe?” I jumped in. “Civilization advances faster and farther when we’re not blowing each other up or slicing and dicing people.”
“You really think Earth is going to give up Sirius 4 without a fight?” Nate said. “We have the natural resources to sustain ourselves, including every scarce and precious commodity that Earth is afraid will run out soon. They’re not going to let go unless we cut off their grabby little hands and make it deadly to challenge us.”
“I thought I wasn’t free because I had no gloves, so I beat up a guy who had no hands,” Ed intoned as if he was quoting some famous proverb. Clearly the beer was winning its war against his brain cells.
“Violence just begets violence,” I said. “The best way to win a battle is by using your mind and soul, not your fists. Look at people like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jesus, Ramsey Sardonicus –”
“They all got a lot of people killed,” Nate snapped back. “Oh, and one more little problem, Mr. Let’s Have Peace – they all ended up DEAD. All those people who said ‘I want to talk this out, I’m unarmed’? Somebody said ‘Good!’ and blew them away.”
For some reason everyone else found that hysterical. Even I had to laugh, although I don’t know why – must have been the brew.
“But they all won, Nate. Don’t you see that? Gandhi and Sardonicus won lasting independence for their countries, King got equality for his people, Jesus founded a whole religion –”
“More people have been killed in Jesus’ name than just about anyone in history,” Ralph said. I had no real answer for that one; I hadn’t met John Hemlock yet.
“Hey, it’s brilliant if you want to try winning wars without hurting anyone,” Nate said with a conciliatory tone. “I’m just saying don’t be surprised if somebody decides to blow you away for it.”
It was kind of a grim thought. Like Moses and the promised land, the leaders who led their people to a nonviolent solution often didn’t live to see their goal achieved.
“I guess that’s the price I’d have to pay,” I said as confidently as I could. I admit I wasn’t eager to march into martyrdom, but there was one positive about the idea. “It would be worth it.”
Entry 13. After class
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)