I really need to make sure I never get divorced.

I just realized that, since my wife is sick and didn't make me supper tonight, I've eaten a half a box of Girl Scout cookies, half a pot of coffee and three slices of bologna. Not a sandwich; I just pulled out three slices from the package and ate them plain.

Probably turkey bologna, too. I have no idea.

Speaking of books... Well, some of us were, not just me... I got my copy of Brian Doherty's Radicals for Capitalism the other day.

Chapter 1, p. 21, begins:

The libertarian vision is all in Jefferson. Read your Declaration of Independence: We are all created equal; no one ought to have any special rights and privileges in social relations with other men. We have, inherently certain rights--to our life, to our freedom, to do what we please in order to find happiness. Government has one purpose: to help us protect those rights. And if it doesn't do that, then it has to go, by any means necessary.

Jefferson, did recommend taking a cleansing breath, though:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.

I recite that like a mantra while I'm listening to talk radio. That and the 23rd Psalm.

Doherty quotes Lysander Spooner - I believe from No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority, though his footnote cites The Spooner Reader - to show why we libertarians love the guy so (I'll dispense with Doherty's elipses and brackets for the sake of easy reading, but I'll keep his choices of what to include, because they make it even easier reading), p. 51:

The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: Your money or your life. But the highwayman does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your benefit. He has not aquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a "protector." Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful "sovereign" on account of the "protection" he affords you. He does not keep "protecting" you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest and pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villainies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

You want to know why I'm writing in this kinda folksy style today? Read some of this, The Book of Daniel Drew, and see if you don't take up the habit.

I'm sure it's only temporary. The habit of talking and writing folksy, I mean.

Daniel Drew was a partner of Jay Gould and James Fisk in many of their undertakings during the Gilded Age. It's the inside story of the Robber Barons!

They should have been prosecuted for fraud. Instead, they got away with their schemes [because the law is a game for shysters] and Anti-Trust laws were passed [so now we have ten times as many shysters - per capita, I mean].

But, what a character!

What time is it? 1:11!!!

Oh, crap...