Entry 85. The Trial: Choices

The Sirius 4 courtroom was a carryover from Earthian customs and, specifically, the courts of the Europe and North American continents. Presided over by a judge in black robe, tables in front for the prosecutor and defense attorney, stern bailiffs by the door, clerical staff seated in front of – but below – the judge.

An area along the side held 14 comfortable-looking chairs for the 12-person jury and two alternates. At the end of the trial, two people who had listened to all of the testimony would be thanked for their efforts and dismissed. Or, if for some reason as many as two jurors were unable to continue, they had backup.

It appeared to me that almost no one in the room wanted to be there. As prospective jurors trickled into the gallery behind us, they spoke in hushed tones with one another and any laughter sounded to be of an ironic or grim humor. The bailiffs looked around the room with baleful eyes, and the clerks rarely looked up from their clerking.

I put on as friendly a face as I could muster, but none of the government workers made eye contact with me. The prospective jurors, on the other hand, looked me straight in the eye. Their expressions held mixed messages: encouragement, sadness, defiance, anger, embarrassment.

The murmuring undercurrent whispered into silence when the white-haired judge in his black robes appeared from behind a door no one had noticed near his high desk at the front of the room.

“All stand,” said the bailiff, and launched into a chant that has echoed down the centuries and across the stars: “Hear ye, hear ye, Public Court No. 17 is now in session, the Honorable Chandler Pearson presiding – silence is commanded.”

“Be seated,” muttered the Honorable Chandler Pearson. “This is the State of Sirius 4 versus Raymond Douglas Kaliber, case number 145-CF-389. The state is represented by Prosecuting Attorney Sandra Kim, and the defendant is present without legal counsel. Are we ready to proceed with the selection of the jury?”

“Yes, your honor,” Kim said.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I said, fully aware that the proper response was “Yes, your honor.” The judge scowled at my breach of the ancient chant protocol.

“I thought I asked for a jury pool of 100,” Pearson said, scanning the gallery. “I see about 50 people here, if that many.”

“Notices were sent; we received a number of – objections – but they don’t account for this turnout. A number of jurors are simply not here.

“Objections? What do you mean by objections?”

“I’ll send them to your screens,” Kim said.

I scrolled the messages from jurors refusing to appear for jury duty. I saw with grim delight that all of them contained the words, “I choose not to participate,” or some variation.

The judge did not change his expression, but I noticed a flush to his cheeks.

“Let’s get on with it, then,” Pearson said. “The bailiff will draw the first name.”

The bailiff punched his screen and a number appeared at random.

“Juror number 31,” he intoned.

An older woman, white-haired, a little stooped, rose near the front row, steadying herself with a cane.

“Step forward and be sworn,” the judge said.

“No, your honor,” she said loudly and deliberately, leaning forward with both hands on the cane. “I was going to send a note, but I decided I wanted to come here and tell you in person: I choose not to participate.”

And with that she stepped into the aisle and began to walk to the back of the room.

One step. Two steps. Three.

“Guard, that woman is in contempt of court. Please arrest her and remove her from the courtroom pending further action.”

The guard nearest to the woman looked at her, winked – winked! – and called to the judge, “No, your honor. I choose not to participate.”

The guard opened the door for the woman, and they walked out together.

“Hank, go after them,” Pearson said. “Arrest them both.”

But Hank said, “I’m sorry, your honor, but I’m not going to participate, either.” And he started out of the room.

“I refuse to participate!” This was a young man who stood in the gallery and began to make his way toward the aisle.

“I choose not to participate!” This was a middle-aged woman whose voice broke on the word “participate.”

From all over the room came the call: “I choose not to participate!” Respectful and orderly, they rose and started going toward the door.

Pearson slammed his gavel and called for the doors to be locked and the courtroom sealed. One by one, each of the bailiffs and guards and clerks turned to the judge and said, “I choose not to participate,” and left the room. Some of them helped escort older prospective jurors out the door.

The judge turned red in the face and banged his gavel repeatedly, calling on his interlink for more guards. But the only response he got was “I choose not to participate,” over and over from different voices and different places. The prosecutor turned pale. Buffalo Springsteen grinned and held my hand. John Hemlock giggled like a little boy.

At last the three of us, Sandra Kim and the Honorable Chandler Pearson were the only ones left in the courtroom.

“It appears,” said the judge, “that the jury has chosen to nullify the charges against you, Mr. Kaliber. You’re free to go.”

“Your Honor?!”

“You saw what happened, Ms. Kim. Every one of the jury pool and most of my staff refused to participate. A jury is not going to convict this man. Case dismissed.”

Entry 83. And afterward

Editor's note: As with all of these posts, this is from the upcoming publication The Imaginary Revolution: Memoirs of Raymond Douglas Kaliber, Founder of the Commonwealth of Sirius 4. This excerpt was chosen in observance of Election Day 2012. The book is scheduled for release Dec. 15, 2012.

With the toppling of Badiah Sinclair and the reigning council, the question – seemingly inevitably – became: What sort of government will we have now?

I hoped my grin did not look too mischievous as I answered the question with my own question.

“Why do we need a government at all?”

Entry 73. Rendering with John Hemlock

After one of my talks about anarkhia and noncooperation, I turned to my friend and bodyguard.

“This must make you a little uncomfortable, when I say we don’t need a state to live our lives well, given what your Nazarene said about ‘render unto Caesar,’” I said.

John Hemlock looked puzzled, and then he burst out laughing. I have to say that John’s laugh is one of the most delightful sounds in the universe; he is one joyful man.

“Oh my man, you’ve been fooled by one of the all-time great misdirection plays,” he said, in what I believe was a football reference (I really should learn that game to understand my friend better). “‘Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what is God’s – Is that the quote you mean?”

“Yes,” I said. “He said pay your taxes and acknowledge the state’s authority.”

Another full-throated, full-body roar of laughter.

“Jesus said that when some political types were trying to trap him,” John said once he caught his breath. “They wanted to get him to say something subversive, so they asked him if it’s right for his followers to pay taxes. He knew they wanted to trip him up and catch him telling people to revolt. So he had them show him a coin, and sure enough Caesar’s picture was on it. And then he said – listen up now – ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God what is God’s.’”

Then he spread his arms wide with a huge grin, as if the punch line was obvious.

“Don’t you get it? This is the guy who said sell all your belongings and follow me – follow God,” he laughed. “Give to God what is God’s – Everything is God’s! Caesar is just a pretty, shiny picture.

“You just keep talking about your anarkhia, Ray. My Nazarene is smiling and thinking, ‘Finally, someone gets what I was saying.’”

Entry 74

Entry 53. The exception or the rule

Freedom not being a topic the Earthian government has much use for, I imagine those last three entries did not go over well on our beloved “home planet.”

Let me be clear: There’s a good reason I put “home planet” between quotation marks. I was born on Sirius 4 and consider this my home planet. I owe Earth no allegiance, nor do I expect anything of Earth except that you let me go my way unimpeded. And more important, if Earthians are content with their system, it is none of my business as long as they no longer attempt to impose it on our planet.

Back to the story of my life.

I suspect those who view Sirius 4 as a special case may have a good point. The independent pioneer spirit of so many of our planet’s people may not be unique in the universe, but it certainly is unusual.

The mentality that drove thousands to emigrate from Earth and seek a place where you can make your own decisions and take responsibility for your own life takes a special kind of person. Such people chafe among those comfortable with being told how to behave and expecting that government meet their every need.

By the time I was born, a number of generations had passed, but they had passed the value of independence and autonomy to their children, along with the sense that we are responsible for our own lives and choices. The planet remained largely untamed, as well, in the sense that people had to build their own lives to be secure. As much as some in government and other far-away venues might want to believe otherwise, if we wanted a certain life we had to make it ourselves, with the help of family, neighbors and friends. By the time we severed our formal ties to the Earthian rulers’ whims, we were quite ready to make our own lives with neither help nor interference from “above.”

The first century and a quarter before the key events of my lifetime, then, were a setting of the stage. In another land, in another world, with another set of pioneers, perhaps our commonwealth might be impossible. Perhaps.

But you will likely never convince me that the instinct to be free, the heady thrill of living the life you created out of your own passion, is not a universal instinct. As I said yesterday and the day before, Sirians and Earthians have the same root genes. We can’t be so very different.

Entry 54

Entry 48. Dinner and premonitions

“So how goes the historic independence talks?” I asked Senator Badiah Sinclair as I poured myself another glass of water. The restaurant had the best panned-fried marleye anywhere, captured fresh from Lake Ptolemy, and a good seafood meal always left me relaxed and satisfied.

From the look on Badi’s face I could tell my question was not unexpected but also not terribly welcome. I saw a mixture of frustration and annoyance and even a little embarrassment.

“I’m not sure anymore that these negotiations will bring us independence in our lifetime,” he said bitterly. “The Earthians are playing games with us. They like collecting our taxes enough to placate us with nice words about freedom, but they don’t actually trust us with the tools of freedom and self-determination.”

“That’s what all governments are about in the end, treading that fine line between making people feel free enough but not so free that they actually have control of their own lives,” I suggested.

“Oh, you’ll always need governments to achieve justice and keep the peace,” Badi said. “But Sirius 4 needs to have our own government. I’m beginning to despair we’ll get that without guns and lasers and bombs, though.”

I let him stew a moment to make sure I phrased my response precisely.

“Badi,” I said, “In the end a just society can only be built on voluntary interactions between peaceful people.”

I didn’t think the statement was particularly funny or ignorant, but Badiah snorted dismissively.

“Come on, Ray,” he said. “while we’re at it let’s purge humanity of greed and ambition and, I don’t know, pure evil. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Earthians conjure up some sort of phony incident as an excuse to kill someone, punish us for daring to think we could survive without them.”

“I think almost everyone’s primary motivation is to lead the best life possible and be left alone,” I insisted.

“Almost everyone, that’s right,” Badi said. “You’re always going to need a government for no other reason than to keep the greedy and the selfish from preying on the rest of us.”

“You might be right,” I said, “but wouldn’t it be fun to try? And who better to try it than the pioneer stock we have here on Sirius 4?”

He looked at me as if he had accidentally stumbled into a psychiatric ward occupied by the harmless but completely daft.

“Nice dream, professor,” he said. “But it’s not a theory that would get very far in the real world.”

“Assistant professor,” I said with a grin, and we moved on to less weighty subjects, unaware that we had just roughly outlined the next nine years of our lives.

Entry 49. Like hell

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

Entry 36. March to the sea

Tyranny often manifests itself in silly ways. Laws against dark-skinned people using the same facilities as light-skinned people are somewhat nonsensical, for example. Another silly law prohibited the people of a land called India from making their own salt. Really.

The remote government, based several thousand miles away on a different continent, passed a law that prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt. The idea was to force people to buy their salt from businesses sanctioned by the government, which also levied a heavy salt tax on the purchases.

Mohandas Gandhi, who had studied Thoreau, reasoned that defying the silly Salt Act would be an ideal way to fight the government in nonviolent fashion. In EY 1930, tens of thousands of people led by Gandhi gathered on the shore of the Arabian Sea to make their own salt from the salty ocean water.

The act of defiance set off a wave of mostly nonviolent demonstrations, and the remote government arrested 60,000 people, including Gandhi – a healthy start on Thoreau’s goal of crowding the jails to the point of jamming the wheels of government.

I said “mostly nonviolent.” The violence, however, was initiated by the government.

Gandhi had feared what eventually happened, warning his followers that they must be prepared for the worst, even death, in their effort to throw off the salt tax – just as Thoreau in his much milder protest was prepared to go to jail for his belief.

While he was in jail, a group of 2,500 peaceful marchers outside a salt factory allowed themselves to be brutally beaten by a group of police officers acting under government instructions.

A reporter who observed the “raid” on the salt factory recorded what happened after the marchers refused to obey a police order to disperse:

Police charged, swinging their clubs and belaboring the raiders on all sides. The volunteers made no resistance. As the police swung hastily with their sticks, the natives simply dropped in their tracks.

Less than 100 yards away I could hear the dull impact of clubs against bodies. The watching crowds gasped, or sometimes cheered as the volunteers crumpled before the police without even raising their arms to ward off the blows. With almost unbelievable meekness they submitted to the clubbing and were carried away by their comrades who had collected a score of stretchers.

As the attacks continued, stretcher bearers were overworked. Other volunteers joined, using blankets as stretchers for the injured who were falling so fast that the volunteers established a clearing station a hundred yards from the pans.

I counted 42 injured lying on the muddy ground and a few others who were unconscious and writhing in pain.

After police had driven the raiders back, leaders altered their tactics and started stretching themselves on the ground or sitting in front of the police as closely as they could press to the entanglements. They were warned repeatedly by police, who then struck the men sitting in front of them. The volunteers who were hit simply reeled over on the ground – without making a cry or an effort to defend themselves.

The incident caused a worldwide outcry against the government’s actions, and although it would be more than a decade before India became free, Gandhi showed how effective nonviolent protest could be in shaming the tyrant into ending the tyranny – assuming of course that the tyrant is capable of shame.

But it must be said that India remained independent for many years after that, while violent regimes came and went in surrounding countries. To me it was a demonstration that violence begets violence, while freedom won without violence seemed more lasting.

Entry 37. The man from Greeley

Entry 35. The man in the jail cell

It’s a little hard to believe, but once upon a time a person’s worth was measured by the tint of his skin color. A little more than 100 years after Thoreau, a man led nonviolent protests against laws that prohibited dark-skinned people from sitting in the same restaurant seats or bus benches as lighter-skinned people.

His revolution, as a darker-skinned man, consisted one day of sitting in a chair reserved for lighter-skinned people in an Earth city called Birmingham. He actually was thrown into jail for this act, and while sitting in his cell, he wrote about the value of taking direct action in a nonviolent fashion:

Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. 

Martin Luther King Jr. was successful in shining light on how silly the laws were, and it wasn’t long before dark- and light-skinned people were sitting together in the same places. It was many years, however, before some people got over that weird prejudice. In fact King was murdered by someone who thought he was taking people too far too fast.

He had addressed that issue, too, in the Birmingham jail, because some of his critics argued that the protests came at the wrong time and he would have done better to wait.

“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed,” he wrote. “Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was ‘well timed’ in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.’”

Dark-skinned people had to wait literal centuries to achieve justice; the people of Sirius 4 found their freedom in a matter of decades. The reason, in part, was that resisters like King had demonstrated the path to liberty.

Entry 36. March to the sea

Entry 28. Licenses and fees

Ah yes, ImagCorp.

There are two ways to make a living, and one of them is the honest way: Make something or do something that benefits others to the level where they’re willing to pay you for it.

You can also force others to buy your product or service by convincing a government either to buy or to require citizens to buy. Or you can create an artifical shortage with government’s help – perhaps by taxing your product, or by making it illegal to perform your service without a government-issued license, for example.

ImagCorp’s leaders were geniuses at this. Once their researchers began to unlock the secrets of imaginary power – developing spaceships that traveled far faster than light, creating machines that could transform a cube of protein into a delicious meal – they worked hard to protect the technology from pesky entrepreneurs who might improve on their work and compete with them.

Hand in hand with the Earthian government, they manufactured reasons – usually for the sake of planetary security – why imaginary technology could not be shared with just anyone. If you wanted to make something or perform a service powered by the imagination, first you needed a license from the company, and then you needed a permit from the government – perhaps several licenses and permits the more complicated your project.

This ensured that the first beneficiaries of your labors were ImagCorp and the government, and it discouraged the most promising potential competitors by making it prohibitively expensive to develop their goods – all in the name of planetary security, of course.

When Imaginary Structures Inc. made plans to open a research, development and manufacturing facility in a small city called Ganges Pass, the Earthian government imposed the usual permits and ImagCorp sought the usual licenses. Because these expenses ate up fully two-thirds of the initial investment, Imaginary Structures could not build a structure, let alone open its doors. Oh, it had plenty of capital to get started – if only it didn’t have to pay the exhorbitant fees for the “right” to get started.

Shortly after Sirius 4 declared its independence, President Badiah Sinclair made a fateful decision.

“After more than a century and a half, imaginary technology is public knowledge and belongs in the public domain,” Sinclair declared. His government would not demand the onerous and expensive permits, and ImagCorp had no right to charge a fee for common technology. Not on free Sirius 4.

Imaginary Structures was making product within a month. In hindsight it’s probably surprising that Earth waited another 19 months to send an occupational force. No doubt ImagCorp was agitating for the invasion all that time.

Lt. Joshua True’s second act, after first securing the offices of Sirian government, was to lock down the Imaginary Structures complex. Ganges Pass was fated to become a symbol of both of our revolutions.

Entry 29. Change the question

Special entry: Independence Day

EDITOR’S NOTE: On this anniversary of an important Earthian event involving liberty, we present Ray Kaliber’s most famous speech, delivered in S4Y 147 on the occasion of the formal dissolution of the Sirian government and the establishment of the Commonwealth of Sirius 4. Kaliber’s memoirs, presented in the order in which he wrote them, will resume Thursday.

It is customary on giving a speech to open by listing all of the titles in the audience. You know, “Friends, Romans, countrymen,” or “members of Congress, senators, Supreme Court justices, distinguished guests and last but not least, citizens of this great nation.” Or some such.

And so let me begin with the only title that makes sense in this new commonwealth adventure that we embark upon today:

Friends.

Our planet has been through a few changes since it was first colonized these 147 years ago. The encampment became a settlement, and the settlement became an important base of operations for humanity’s exploration of the stars.

With the importance of the colony came a certain desire to control the colonists. But colonists by nature contain a certain will and independence, and we strained at the bit of governance. Just shy of a decade ago, long after the control became a tyranny too much to bear, the free and independent state of Sirius IV was declared, and we were forced into a revolution of blood to secure that freedom. My lifelong friend Badiah Sinclair was the leader of that revolution, and he was the natural choice to lead our new civilization.

However. A wise and ancient song about revolution concludes with the ominous words, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” As glorious and welcome as our newfound freedom was, the truth about violence is that it can only beget violence. Badi Sinclair led our new government the only way he understood how to govern: by force. An all-too-familiar pattern emerged: For the greater good, liberty had to be restrained. Somehow the fruits of those who rule for the greater good are not always, well, very good.

It was an imaginary revolution. All we had succeeded in doing was to install a new boss who was, in too many ways, the same as the old boss. We soon needed a new revolution, a revolution befitting the reality of Sirius IV: We are 8.6 light years away from the governments that rule Earth, and we need to be light years away from the violent tyrannies that have dominated over the centuries 8.6 light years away.

We had a chance to re-establish the ways that human beings interact, reflecting the independent and pioneering spirit that brought us here. We depend upon each other, but we respect and trust each other, too. The creed that I suggested has served us well so far — it led us to this moment, today — although I must concede that we have only just begun.

But let us embark on a bold experiment in humanity based on these tenets: Love your neighbor as yourself. Interact with love, not force or violence. Give more than you receive.

Love your neighbor. A simple concept that somehow remains revolutionary millenia after it was first said. Perhaps it’s because of the first corrolary of that concept: The person you consider your enemy is also your neighbor.

Way back on planet Earth, in the year 1886, a very wise man named Benjamin Tucker put it this way: “It is because peaceful agitation and passive resistance are, in Liberty’s hands, weapons more deadly to tyranny than any others that I uphold them, and it is because brute force strengthens tyranny that I condemn it. War and authority are companions; peace and liberty are companions. The methods and necessities of war involve arbitrary discipline and dictatorship. So-called ‘war measures’ are almost always violations of rights. Even war for liberty is sure to breed the spirit of authority, with aftereffects unforeseen and incalculable.” And we saw that barely a year after our imaginary revolution was won.

So I suggest, in our new world, we throw off the shackles of war and authority over our neighbors. I propose we offer each other only love, peace and the liberty to be different from one another — making this offer even to our adversaries, even to those we have considered or may still consider to be our enemies.

If returning hatred with kindness still makes you uneasy even after the victory we won with our nonviolent revolution, think of what an ancient writer suggested: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals [of shame] on his head.” Your love will pain him more than your hatred ever would.

Don’t waste time rewarding hate with hate. If someone  wants to hate you, well, fine, you have no control over that anyway — but you do have control over how you react to that hate. If you choose love, you shame your enemy and perhaps, perhaps, you turn an enemy into a friend someday.

Interact with love, not force or violence. You make no friends by force or violence; coercion can only silence your enemies, it will not convert them. A dead enemy, or a vanquished enemy staring at you with pure hatred and waiting for a chance to return violence with violence, is still an enemy. Only love can make a friend; it is that much more powerful than hate.

Give more than you receive. Bakers have always understood this. When someone asks for a dozen, the baker gives 13. When someone asks you for a favor, give two. The more you give, the more you will receive back, because it’s basic to our nature to want to return a kindness. But don’t give more because you expect something back; give more than you receive because you love your neighbor.

Love your neighbor as yourself. Interact with love, not force or violence. Give more than you receive.

I’m not telling you to do this. If I force you to abide by these tenets but you don’t believe them, it is just another imaginary revolution. I propose no new government to enforce these principles, because government is an instrument of force (the word is “enforce,” after all, isn’t it?)

Let’s build a world on these principles. I firmly believe this is the best and most proper way to ensure our common wealth in this incredible place where our great-grandparents sought to start a new corner of civilization in the universe.

This is the place where the great political orators would say something like “History will say this is the day when the Commonwealth of Sirius 4 took its first great step forward.” But although I am a historian by profession, I’m not terribly interested in history except not repeat its worst mistakes. I know I can’t control what future historians will say about this day, although I do hope they take note that it was a beautiful day filled with sunshine.

All that I can control are my own actions right here, and right now. And right here and now, I pledge that I will continue to live by these tenets. As sure as the three tenets of imaginary physics enabled us to travel vast distances faster than we ever believed possible, I think these three tenets will enable us to live and thrive more quickly than we imagined.

So I pledge I will love my neighbor as myself. I will interact with love. And I will give more than I receive. Let’s make that the foundation of our commonwealth.

Entry 28. Licenses and fees

Entry 27. Buffalo on the beach

I wrote two days ago of walking along the beach where Buffalo and I first kissed and spent many wonderful days together. I am aware that I haven’t yet recorded the circumstances of that first kiss.

It’s an odd tradition, this writing of memoirs. My public actions comprise the reason why anyone might care that I tell my life story, and yet the reader feels cheated if the memoir doesn’t delve into my private life.

Not that I don’t understand or acknowledge the connection. We are not compartmentalized machines; we are unique and whole individuals. The face we present in public is the same face that stares us in the mirror in the privacy of our homes; our soul does not change between public arena and private quarters.

I, Raymond Douglas Kaliber, would not be “The” Raymond Douglas Kaliber without the remarkable human being named Buffalo Springsteen, her insights and encouragement – as well as the many ways she touched my heart that will always remain private, obligation to the reader be damned, thank you.

But there came a time when the need to kiss those beautiful lips could no longer remain unfulfilled, and I love to share this part of our story, so:

A few weeks had gone by since the day she first said, “I’d love to,” before I’d had a chance to invite her out. Our times together had been stimulating and fun and challenging. This was not even the first time we had walked along that beach, but something felt different this day – different, and yet as familiar as my very life.

I often feel a special sense of peace along that beach near the oxygen generator. A vast machine designed to create just the right mix of oxygen and nitrogen to sustain human life, the imagination-fueled generator can have an intoxicating effect if you wander too close. Perhaps that is the biochemical explanation why I felt an inordinate joy walking next to this woman: The additional jolt of oxygen simply made me more receptive to the pheromones she was discharging in my direction.

Or perhaps it was the visual clues of the spark in her eyes or the glint of the red shining sun off her scarlet-tinged hair. Or the way she laughed at my feeble attempts at humor. Or the part of her lips.

Oh, we had kissed before – a little peck at the end of a day or evening together. But this moment, we wanted to drink of that wine more deeply. Something in the moment, the look in her eyes, what we had been saying to each other, just said, “Now.”

I’d love to tell you exactly what clever things we had been saying to each other that made the moment right. I’d love to explain how the tilt of her head gave me permission to let my lips linger and press harder against hers. Truth be told, the only thing I remember about the moment is the sense of certainty that this was the time when we were to become something other than teacher and student, something other than friends or colleagues, something more like one soul, one flesh.

And so it was. Everything changed in that moment, and yet everything had always been this way. I have no memory of living apart from Buffalo Springsteen, and yet I have plenty of memories from a time before that moment. It’s just I can no longer imagine a time when I was not a part of her, and she a part of me.

I never again needed to imagine what freedom feels like.

Special entry: Independence Day

Entry 26. The peacekeepers settle in

The ImagDrive enabled the colonization of Sirius 4 by making the voyage last not much longer than a summer day trip. You load up the kids and the car, drive for a few hours, and it seems like you’re in a whole different world. Same concept, only literally true.

Unfortunately, it also proved very convenient for sending an occupational force: Pack up the troops, the guns and enough ImagPro to manufacture a few meals, and you’ll be on Sirius 4 before the least patient soldier starts wondering, “Are we there yet?” From a tactical point of view, it’s the closest thing you can get to an element of surprise in this era of instant communication.

The people of Sirius 4 were caught completely off guard by the arrival of peacekeepers from Earth. I’m told President Badiah Sinclair stood proud and defiant as the command ship eased into its landing bay at the Sirius 4 airport.

And he stood in the way of the tall, compactly built soldier with steel-colored hair who was first to emerge from the ship.

“What is the meaning of this?” Badiah said with all of the outrage he could muster – and my old friend could muster quite a lot of outrage. “Who are you? Why are you here?”

“Lt. Joshua True,” the tall, compactly built soldier said by way of introduction. His eyes pierced Sinclair’s matching intensity with intensity. “We are here to keep the peace. And I am here, specifically, to place you under arrest, Senator Sinclair.”

“His title is President Sinclair,” an aide blustered behind Badiah.

“There are no presidents here; the president of Sirius 4 is safe on Earth,” True snapped. “Your little game of independence is at an end.”

The steely voice matched the silver hair. True had been a cruelly efficient but anonymous Special Forces lieutenant who got the job done quietly and without fanfare. Now he was the well-known leader of the squad that had failed to stop the terrorists in time to save the moon from being dissolved.

That experience had made the man even more ruthless. At first we wondered why someone who had failed so spectacularly would immediately be put to work leading the occupation. We did not wonder long.

Lt. True would address the planet later that evening. Earth wished it had other alternatives than to send a military presence, but people were just not being reasonable these days. Light years away from Earth, from the roots of civilization, human beings needed a link to the traditional authority on which we depended to maintain order. The alternative was anarchy and chaos. This was not the American Wild West of Earth history; this was an outpost of humanity.

And from that moment on, Sirius 4 would resume its place as a proud outpost of the Earthian government.

At least, that was the plan.

Entry 27. Buffalo on the beach

Entry 18. A call to unarmed revolution

This is the statement I read and released after Badiah Sinclair began to implement the Austerity Initiative in S4Y 144. Badi was not happy with me, but the concept started to resonate with people.


The trouble with killing people to make your point is that the argument that started the fight is still breathing.

The Earthians who invaded us were doing the will of people who sincerely believed Sirius 4 was Earth's property. They killed some of us to make their point, but that only made us believe more fervently in our independence. We killed more of them to drive them away, but that only made them want our world even more.

No, not until we sat down and talked – setting aside our weapons but with the threat of more violence as the alternative – did Earth agree to let our experiment in freedom continue.

But now that freedom won with violence is being stripped with violence – oh, perhaps not literally, but with the same old threat of force that governments have always hung over us. What if we struck back in a way that does not meet violence with violence? What if we simply choose to live free, simply ignoring these onerous attempts to curb our liberty, promising not to kill our oppressors but to love them, to return force with a smile, violence with nonviolence, simply refusing to follow their unjust rules? What if we just stopped cooperating?

Using violence we won an imaginary victory over a violent tyranny, and knowing only violence, that which replaced the foreign tyrant has become a domestic tyrant. Now we need a second revolution – a rebellion over our violent nature – to secure our freedom for a much longer term.

I have no illusion that such a revolution would still carry the threat of violence in the background. Taking back what rightfully belongs to us by force is always an option, but that would merely prolong the cycle of violence. True security only comes when we appeal to our better angels, when we take the alternative of violence off the table, when we agree to the principle that no one has a right of aggression over others.

Only when that principle prevails above all others will the cycle of violence be broken and will we be able to enjoy this common wealth of Sirius 4 in peace and prosperity.

Entry 19. Basics of imaginary physics

Entry 17. First casualty

The Imaginary Revolution began in a small town called Fillmore, when a farmer named Jim Simmons had a disagreement with a state inspector. Miles away at the capital, the independence coalition (led by now by Senator Badiah Sinclair) was in its third year of talks with Earth about how our planet could manage its own affairs.

Simmons had built a new pole building on his property, and the inspector measured the building as 2.9 meters from the property line.

“The setback’s 3 meters,” the inspector said. You’ll have to take down the building or move it.”

“Like hell,” said Jim Simmons.

“Move it or we’ll move it for you,” the inspector said.

“Like hell,” repeated Jim Simmons, this time drawing a rifle from behind the front seat of his truck. “Now get off my land.”

“It won’t be your land for long if you won’t follow the codes,” the inspector said, beating a strategic retreat.

The inspector returned with three workers prepared with the equipment necessary to raze the pole building. As soon as they stepped on his property, Jim Simmons approached them with his rifle and warned them to leave.

At this point the squad of Earth soldiers, which the inspector had brought along in case of contingency, stepped forward and shot Jim Simmons stone dead. Then they razed the building.

When word of the incident spread, the revolution was on.

No, it wasn’t about a persnickety building inspector who called in the army to back him up, although that was a symptom of a bigger problem, the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Years of Earthian agents acting as if Sirius 4 was Earth, as if the same rules were relevant here, as if rules were needed in the first place when we had the tapestry of an entire planet to weave with, had built up a resentment and then a seething hatred of what was described as our local government but what felt like an occupation force, even though at the time the troop level was relatively low.

One might expect that armed citizens would have risen up against Jim Simmons’ killers after all that. In fact, another two years would pass before things got really violent, because the independence coalition had the good sense immediately to react to the Simmons incident not with a call to arms, but with a parliamentary move that unilaterally declared Sirius 4 an independent planet, removed the Earthian governor, ordered him back to his homeward and insisted that he bring his “security force” with him.

It happened so peacefully that I believed my entreaties to Badiah Sinclair had had some impact. What really had happened was that the Earthians were a bit embarrassed by the Simmons incident and retreated to regroup. The Imaginary Bomb incident was considered a wakeup call to prepare for a less cordial response from Earth, so the invasion of S4Y 140 was not exactly a complete surprise.

Entry 18. A call to unarmed revolution

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

Entry 15. A man and a thinker

Life. death. Violence. Peace. My mind seems to bounce back and forth from one to the other as I struggle to put my life story into words. One day I remember a charming anecdote from my journey with precious Buffalo, the next the horror of sending three dozen souls to their deaths.

The only way a person can travel through the valley of the shadow of death is if they understand there is always a mountain peak on the other side, a place worth going. The incident at Ganges Pass would have crushed us forever, and we would be today still grumbling about the tyrant Sinclair, if there was no vision of a better way of life. Hundreds that day envisioned that better way; many perished in its name; by insisting they would not die in vain, we persevered.

I have lived an interesting life; I have lived a routine and uninspired life. I have seen and performed amazing acts that still astonish me to think I was the one who saw and performed them. I have seen and performed despicable acts that defy common sense. I am, in short, no better and no different from anyone else.

I’m just a man and a thinker. I am surprised every time a woman or a man takes my hand and looks into my eyes to tell me how I have inspired them and what a great man I am. I know much good has happened in the name of freedom because I offered my little insights, but those people who heard those thoughts and took them to heart and acted – they are where the greatness lies. The first person who held back the urge to beat his neighbor over the head and take his corn crop, who instead offered to trade his beans, or to repair his neighbor’s tractor, in exchange for some corn – that is the hero. The first person who held up his shield to defend himself against the killing blow, and responded not with a killing blow of his own, but with love – that is the greatness. Those people who refused to participate in the tyranny and were cut down like slaughtered sheep – they paved the way for those of us who refused to participate in the tyranny and, in so doing, drained the tyrant of his power.

Maybe it makes sense for the remembered joy to compete with the memory of agony for my attention as I compose this. I love my wife with an intensity as bright and as deep as the pain of losing friends – and strangers – whose passions my words ignited. A life well lived has much pain and much joy, apparently in equal measures.

As I take my red-haired companion in my arms and we shelter each other from the night, I imagine demons whispering, “You don’t deserve  this,” and the spirits of the 35 whispering, “This serenity we purchased for you; savor it.”

Entry 16. The kid senator

Entry 13. After class

I don’t remember much of the rest of the roll call from the day Buffalo Springsteen first appeared in my class, except that the boy who made fun of Buffalo’s name turned out to be named Carson McGillicudy, so I guess he knew something about lightening up over his parents’ naming decisions. In fact the laugh over his name was bigger than the one over hers, given the circumstances.

The dustup between Carson and Buffalo gave me a good opportunity to segue into the class themes.

“Now we had a little incident here a minute ago, and before I get into the syllabus, I’m going to use it as what we educator types like to call a teaching moment,” I told the class. “Buffalo here had a difference of opinion with young Mr. McGillicudy, and she chose not to use diplomacy in resolving those differences.

“I’m going to make the proposition that Buffalo Springsteen accomplished nothing by going after poor Carson here physically. No, actually, I’m going to say that she produced exactly the opposite of what she hoped to accomplish. What do you think, McGillicudy?”

“I don’t know, Dr. Kaliber,” Carson replied ruefully. “I don’t think I’m ever going to call her Buffy again.” We all laughed at that.

“Yes, but here’s the most important thing about that — did she change your mind about whether ‘Buffy’ is an appropriate nickname for someone named Buffalo?”

“No, of course not.”

“You’ve got it precisely correct,” I said. “She didn’t change your beliefs in any way, shape or form — in fact, I believe even after she did her best to persuade you, you used the word ‘psycho.’” Even she smiled.

I went on to mention a quote from Thoreau's Resistance to Civil Government — the one about how the state “is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior strength.” I outlined my core belief that people will use force to win an argument, especially when they have a government at their command, but they don’t actually ever win the argument.

“My point is that violence might force people to change their behavior, but it can’t change their minds,” he said. “The most brutal regimes in the history of humanity have all faded to dust eventually, because you can’t brutalize an idea out of existence.”

“Hang on a second,” McGillicudy persisted. “A lot of those brutal regimes were overthrown violently. I mean, how else do you get rid of violent oppression if not by violence?”

“Good question. That’s a big chunk of the syllabus, and we’ll get into that in depth as we go along. For now, let me suggest that you recognize the names of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King faster than the names of Nathuram Godse or James Earl Ray. The names of the men who fought for freedom without raising a hand in violence live on in our memories more than the names of their assassins.”

“We remember Hitler and Raynoldizon, too,” Buffalo interjected.

“True,” I sighed, “but we sure don’t admire them the way we do Gandhi or King or Thoreau. No one wants a Hitler or Raynoldizon in charge — in fact, the nastiest insults politicians usually throw at each other are comparisons to tyrants like that. They never shake their fist and say, ‘My opponent is just like Gandhi.’ Tyrants are the bad example; nonviolent resistance is the good example.

“I’m off on a tangent. My point is simply that you can force Carson not to call you by a nickname, but you can’t force him to change his mind. Changing minds is a more complicated process. That’s why so often you’ll find that a violent revolution only results in a new violent regime, sometimes more violent than the old one.”

I’d like to say I was bold enough to stop Buffalo Springsteen after class that first day and launch into what now seems to be an inevitable courtship, but truth be known, it was a week or two into the semester that I caught up with her as she walked purposefully across the campus – she always walked as if she knew exactly where she was going.

We exchanged greetings and small pleasantries, and then I came to the point.

“Buffalo, it’s extremely inappropriate for me to ask given our teacher-student relationship, but –”

“I’d love to.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re asking me out, right?” she said with the hint of a smile, a shake of her flaming red hair and a twinkle in those remarkable sea-green eyes. “I’d love to.”

We worked out a time and place to meet for coffee the next afternoon, then she leaned up, brushed my cheek with her lips, said “See you then,” and glided away, looking back once more to share that knee-buckling twinkle.

Entry 14

Entry 12. They all ended up dead

The first time I ever suggested passive resistance as a solution, I was prepared to be mocked, and I wasn’t disappointed.

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

Entry 11. Preface

I've asked my editors to post this quote in the very front of the book when it finally gets published. Hopefully the reason will be obvious. — RDK

It is because peaceful agitation and passive resistance are, in Liberty’s hands, weapons more deadly to tyranny than any others that I uphold them, and it is because brute force strengthens tyranny that I condemn it.

War and authority are companions; peace and liberty are companions.

The methods and necessities of war involve arbitrary discipline and dictatorship. So-called “war measures” are almost always violations of rights.

Even war for liberty is sure to breed the spirit of authority, with aftereffects unforeseen and incalculable.

Benjamin R. Tucker
Liberty, Vol. IV, No. 7
July 31, 1886

Entry 12. They all ended up dead

Entry 10

I’ve been told time and again that our nonviolent revolution could not, would not have succeeded under other circumstances. I remain convinced that it is the only form of revolution with any chance of permanent success.

Yes, some regimes are so brutal that passive resistance would take years to succeed, in places where to resist means to risk one’s life. Sadly, we learned that even in comparatively civilized places nonviolent civil disobedience can get you killed.

Everyone agreed that life was not the way it ought to be under our old governor.

The fruits of our labor were seized and much of them were sent back to Earth or mined for other colonies in other solar systems.

Rules that had been developed to ensure survival in a primitive environment were never relaxed after the environment had been civilized and we knew we were going to live.

Regulations were piled upon regulations until we had no right to make any use of our own property without the approval of some representative of Earth government.

The taxes we paid to the governor’s office amounted to more than the measure of our compensation left over for our own needs and wants.

Yes, we all agreed that we were in a state of slavery to a government far, far away. Where we disagreed was in how to throw off the shackles.

Once I had had a taste of blood, I never went back. That’s my whole story. If I had never been exposed to the thinking of Mohandas Gandhi, Henry David Thoreau, Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr. or Ramsey Sardonicus, I would have spent the rest of my life developing my own philosophy of solving challenges without forcing other people to do my will.

Insisting that coercion not be part of the equation is not easy. Insisting that in a kill-or-be-killed situation there must be a third alternative is downright dangerous. Insisting that your mortal enemy must live is very hard. But the alternative is the endless cycle of death and destruction that has plagued humanity from its earliest days.

The good news is that I was indeed exposed to the thinking of those masters of nonviolence and passive resistance, so I didn’t have to make up the idea from scratch. Who is Ray Kaliber, after all? If I could quote wisdom from 200, 400 or 2,500 years ago, my suggestions would have more weight.

Entry 11. Preface