Excerpts from "The
Place to Stand"
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*****
With only two
or three hours of poor quality, intermittent sleep, he could only hope that he
wouldn't have to make any critical decisions today. But he could hardly
speculate on that, could he? After all, he hadn't the slightest idea why he was
going to Spain, or what to expect when he got there.
***
“The men who
started America were brilliant; their intentions were honorable; and their
effort was valiant-the best ever made, in spite of their errors. Since no men
had ever been truly free, they had nothing to guide them except their vision and
their intellect. Unfortunately, they grossly underestimated the ferocity, the
tenacity, and the ingenuity of government; and they overestimated the
responsibility, vigilance, and concern of the citizens.
***
Police cars
poured into the front yard. The killer came over to the window, just as the
police were getting out of their cars. The killer looked down, and [through the
telescopic sight,] Adams could
see the shock on his face. If he only knew, thought Adams, as he pulled the
trigger. Too bad he doesn't know.
***
"Some
government is a necessary evil," said Randolph, "necessary to protect
the citizens from each other and from outside attack, and evil because its very
existence endangers our liberty. It's like living on an island with no water,
and having a nuclear-powered plant to convert seawater to drinking water.
Without the nuclear plant you die. Without constant vigilance, the plant that
keeps you alive can kill you. It's the same with government.”
***
'I felt it would go that way,' said Dolores
Alvarez, as he walked through the door. 'Every time you pick up the paper, there
are outrageous decisions in lawsuits.'
'I really
thought she didn't have the chance of a snowball in Hell,' he told his wife.
'With all the government push for racial integration, it seemed impossible.'
He walked into
the kitchen to get a glass of water. The radio was on.
'This just in,'
said the news announcer. 'In Los Angeles Circuit Court, today, Constance Connors
was awarded five million dollars and granted permanent disability status, in a
lawsuit against her employer, Alvarez Assemblers, an electronic assembly
contractor. Connors claimed and the court agreed that her employer should have
provided her with a segregated workplace, due to her fear of blacks.' The
announcer looked stunned for an instant, then added, 'Go figure.'
***
“It's of
little consequence to fear such conspiracies, if they don't exist; but it's
suicidal not to be aware of them, if they do exist. It's like looking for cars
before you cross the street. If you look and no cars are coming, you have lost
little. If you don't look, you might be okay a lot of the time; but there are occasions when it can be fatal. People who look for conspiracies that would
take away their wealth and their freedom are no more frivolous than those who
look for oncoming cars before crossing the street are.”
***
Bob Adams
opened his eyes and saw a man standing at the foot of the bed. The man had a
gold ring in his left nostril and another in his ear; it was the man he had seen
driving the blue van. Bob Adams sprang from the bed. There was an explosion, and
he was hit in the chest and knocked backwards. He heard Betty screaming, and he
realized he had been shot, but he didn't feel it. He started to get up again.
There was another shot and the feeling of being struck a terrible blow to the
head. Adams felt a blackness collapse upon him, shutting out the world around
him, mercifully sparing him any awareness of the grisly events that took place
thereafter.
***
"I thought
the Civil War was over slavery."
"The
conventional wisdom about the War Between the States has little or no basis in
fact. Strictly speaking, it wasn't a civil war either. A civil war exists when
two or more factions fight over who is going to control a country. The War
Between the States was the northern states wanting to conquer the sovereign
southern states, which they did. Until that war, every state was sovereign. The
Union was, to the states, more or less what the European Community is to its
member nations. If France, Spain, and Italy should decide they want out of the
EC, and the rest of the nations were to attack them, conquer them and occupy
them, you would have the equivalent of our War Between the States. After a
hundred and forty years of adulterated history, the people can be convinced that
it was over anything you wish. But the War Between the States had precious
little to do with slavery.”
***
After sixteen
years in the CIA, he knew that loyalty was a one-way street. He was expected to
be loyal to them, but he could never expect any loyalty from them. If he became
a target, the entire agency would be against him. He knew that he was good-one
of the best, if not the best in the agency. But he was only one person. He had
to make a decision very quickly; and if he were going to vanish, he would have
to do an extraordinary job. Fortunately, last night and today, he'd done a lot
of thinking about different ways to escape.
***
"And,
lastly, for all my black viewers, and especially for BAAL and Reverend
Washington, the words of William Raspberry: 'There is another minority whose
situation may be more instructive. I refer to Asian-Americans. Neither the newly
arrived Southeast Asians nor the earlier arriving Japanese-Americans,
Chinese-Americans, and Korean-Americans are loved by white people. But these
groups spent little time and energy proving that white people don't love them.
While our myth is that racism accounts for our shortcomings, their belief is
that their own efforts can make the difference, no matter what white people
think.'”
***
The streets
around the White House were blocked off, and hundreds of military personnel
moved in to surround the grounds; they were equipped for gas and chemical
attack. Weapons carriers arrived, armed with a variety of surface-to-air
missiles. Sophisticated radar, capable of seeing even most stealth planes, was
setup nearby. Reconnaissance aircraft flew over the area continuously, on the
lookout for anything unusual. Four heavily armed fighter planes were in the air,
circling the White House, at all times. Dozens more were standing by, ready to
take to the air on a moment's notice. Dulles airport was shut down. No civilian
aircraft were allowed in the air over Washington.
Darkness came,
and everyone stood at alert, waiting for something to happen. By midnight, they
were beginning to believe it was all a hoax, when a loud noise was heard and
smoke began to rise from the roof of the White House.
***
"Alvin
must be getting pretty powerful, if he's got those pecker-heads running scared.
You know that's why they want to shut him up. They're afraid blacks will get
tired of being treated like they can never accomplish anything on their own,
like they can be domesticated but not educated. I think they have good reason to
be scared. A lot of black people are sick and tired of singing 'Tote that food
stamp, and lift that welfare check.' More and more blacks are fast becoming the
ones that won't leave home without their American Express card. We don't want to
elect a new 'massa,' every four years, to take care of us poor 'ole darkies.' We
want to elect public servants, and we want them to be just that-servants, not
masters-and we want them to keep out of our way. We don't want Black History; we
want plain truthful history, because that includes black, white, red, yellow,
and everything in between. Nor do we want promises to help 'our' people; just promises to help people, because we think that includes us. The people that say,
'All you people got rhythm' are no worse than those who say, ‘All you people
need help.’”
***
"Are you
implying, Mr. Randolph, that you think people fail because they choose to?"
"It would be more accurate to say they fail
because they do not choose to succeed. They fail by default. Success doesn't
just happen to you, with no effort on your part. You have to decide to take a
bath, and then take it. You don't just get lucky and get clean. Every time you
see someone clean, you don't say, 'Gee, isn't he lucky to be so clean.' You
assume he is clean by choice and as the result of some effort on his part. Being
successful is just more involved, but it is something you have to choose to do.
It usually isn't a question of luck. Likewise, failure usually isn't due to bad
luck, any more than smelling bad would be. It is a matter of choice."
"Can't
success be more difficult for some than for others?"
"Success
may be more difficult for some, but failure is hardly a picnic, for anyone. Yes,
success can be difficult. Life itself can be difficult at times. Would you say
that justifies suicide?"
***
“Were you,
sir, in the military?
"Yes, I
was in the Army."
"Did the
government give you a gun when you were in the Army?"
"Of
course."
"How old
were you, when they gave you a gun?"
"Eighteen."
"The
government doesn't mind giving eighteen year olds all sorts of guns when it is
convenient for them, when they want you to go and shoot people, even if it's
only for an economic reason. They gave me a gun too. They put me in Vietnam and
did everything they could to make sure we didn't win the war. Then when I came
home, I couldn't get a gun to protect my wife and child. Now I have no wife and
no child."
He pointed to a
portly man to his right.
"What
about all the people who are killed by guns each year?"
"As far as
those who are killed by criminals are concerned, gun control would make no
difference. As to those who are killed accidentally, accidents happen in all
areas, especially to people who fail to use any common sense, or normal caution.
People are electrocuted every year, yet the government doesn't propose to
eliminate electricity. People fall from high stories of buildings every year,
yet the government doesn't propose to limit buildings to one story. People are
killed with knives each year, but the government doesn't suggest outlawing
knives. Old and sick people are smothered with pillows, yet the government
doesn't suggest outlawing pillows. An estimated hundred and sixty thousand
people die each year from some form of medical malpractice, yet the government
doesn't outlaw doctors. Automobiles kill fifty thousand people a year. Yet the
government doesn't suggest outlawing cars. The government usurpation of power
isn't threatened by electricity, buildings, knives, pillows, doctors or cars. It
is, however, threatened by guns.”
***
"We are
the producers. We create the jobs, create the wealth, produce the goods, and
provide the services. We advance the state of the art in industry and
technology, enabling everyone to live better with less effort. For all this, do
we receive accolades and honors? Hardly. We are forced to support the indolent
and the corrupt. Were we to resist, we would be thrown in prison. One way or
another, the government takes most of our money, giving a little bit of it to
the poor, to induce them to vote their approval of the confiscation of our
money. They call it fighting poverty. The government actually thrives on
poverty, depends on poverty, and must have poverty in order to have a poor
majority voting to savage the producers. We are the ones who truly fight
poverty; we fight it with jobs and payrolls.”
***
In Beijing, at
the Ministry of War, at ten minutes after three, people began to collapse. Five
minutes later, of the two hundred and twelve people in the building, only eight
were alive. The minister, his deputies, and several generals, all of whom had
been meeting to discuss the failure of their missile attack on Taiwan, were
among the dead.
***
"Greatness
takes too long in an era obsessed with instant gratification, and it is far
easier to write advertising copy to make mediocrity sound great. So that is what
is done, at every level in our civilization, from fast foods, to presidential
candidates. But, no amount of words, regardless of the sophisticated and
eloquent rhetoric with which they might be written or spoken, can make great a
nation, a state, a city, a community, a family, or a person-only great
individuals can do any of those things. Moreover, the habitual use of words of
praise, to describe mediocrity, so perverts the meanings of these words, that
eventually there is no way to describe anything truly worthy of praise.”
***
"You
aren't proposing white slavery, are you?" She smiled.
"I'm not
exactly proposing anything. I'm asking something. You are a strong and brilliant
woman, and a beautiful one, as well. I always feel better when you're around.
You brighten everything. I like feeling better and having things brighter. You
are essential in my life. As the mathematicians put it, you are necessary and
sufficient for my happiness."
"Believe
it or not, Clint, but no one has ever said those things to me. Certainly not
that way, anyway."
"I suppose
I am a little awkward at this sort of thing," he said. "I'm sorry, if
I go about it the wrong way."
"You go
about it in a charming way," she said. "You just need to be a little
more kinesthetic." She took his face in her hands and kissed him warmly.
When they separated, she asked, "Isn't that the proper word,
kinesthetic?"
"I don't
think an adequate word exists for that," he said.
***
"I won't
be able to come and visit your grave, after I move over there, Daddy. But, I
know you're not really here in the ground. I don't know if you're really
anywhere, except in our hearts. You are in my heart, Daddy, along with Mom and
Troy, and the shipyard, and now Clint. That means you go wherever I go, Daddy,
and I can talk to you whenever and wherever I need to. So, I've come to say
good-bye to your grave, not to you."
She got up to
go. She stood and looked long and hard at the grave. Then she turned and said,
"Come on, Daddy. Let's go."
***
There was an
envelope with the roses. She opened the envelope, and on the card inside, she
read:
As smoke resists the wind
Or night, the radiant dawn,
So I resist loving you.
There was no
signature, and none was required.
***
“For
centuries, there has been no progress in man's intrapersonal or interpersonal
relationships. If you read Plato's descriptions of social problems, they are
indistinguishable from current problems. In the twentieth century, man went from
horses and buggies to cars, to planes, and to spacecraft. He harnessed the
electron and the atom, but, in individual maturity, as human beings, I fear he
may have regressed. Certainly there has been scant progress in that area for
centuries, if not millennia. Today, there are no philosophers worthy of the
title. Ethics and morality are virtually nonexistent, except in perverted,
subjective, self-serving codes, subject to change by popular demand and
acceptable only to the mindless, or the larger group: the thoughtless. It's
about time man was pushed from the nest. It's time man learned to stand on his
own two feet. Only then can he hope to master the problems of multiples of two
feet.”
***
“They have
selected the battleground and the weapons. We need to oppose them, fighting them
with their own weapons. They have promoted a dominant philosophy that suppresses
thought, creativity, ambition, morality, judgment, and reason. We must promote a
philosophy that glorifies all these. Where they seek to enslave men, we will
liberate men. Where they seek to keep people ignorant, we must enlighten people.
Where they seek to keep people dependent, we must labor to make people
independent and self-reliant. Where they seek to prevent people from realizing
their potential as human beings, we must encourage and foster the realization of
that potential, by every person on the face of the earth. Where they seek to
take the fruit of everyone's labor, we must seek to prevent the taking of the
fruit of anyone's labor. They are anti-thought; we are pro-thought. They are
anti-human; we are pro-human. They profess to help people, by turning them into
domestic animals. We profess to do nothing at all for people, except to work to
guarantee their infinite, inalienable rights, allowing them to do all that they
are capable of doing, be all they are capable of being, and having all that they
are capable of having.”
***
[He]
looked
languidly into the camera, paused, and said, "You poor fools; you haven't a
clue, and you never will."
Then he reached
down and grabbed his briefcase, from beneath the table, set it on the table,
opened it, took out a .32 caliber revolver, put it to his temple, and, on
national television, he blew his brains out.
***
“If a given
conspiracy theory were truly without basis, few people would waste time or money
refuting it. For instance, who would waste time or money refuting the arguments
of the Flat Earth Society? The mere fact that people bother to refute a
conspiracy theory at all lends credence to it. If they make a major effort to
refute one, they essentially verify its existence.”
***
Just as the car
started to back out of the parking space, Lincoln came from behind a concrete
column and fell noisily against the rear of the car, in a way to make it look
like the car had backed into him.
"Jesus
Christ, man," yelled Lincoln. He limped toward the driver's door. "I
think you broke my leg."
The driver
opened the door and started to get out. Lincoln leaned on the side of the
limousine.
"I don't
feel so good," he said with his voice trailing off. Then he slumped against
the limousine and fell to the floor.
"He's
passed out," cried the chauffeur.
Goerstein got
out and walked around the back of the car.
"He's
breathing okay," said the chauffeur. "I think he just fainted."
Just then,
Wilson came from the front of the car and Matthews from the rear. Wilson struck
a blow to the chauffeur's neck with the edge of his hand. The chauffeur went
down like a rock.
***
Minutes later,
the Space Plane touched down at Andrews Air Force Base and came to a halt less
than three hundred feet from the end of the runway. It could have stopped two
thousand feet before the end, but the pilot wanted to make it look as though he
had been telling the truth about needing an eight thousand-foot runway. They
were escorted to a hangar. The craft was towed into the hangar, and the giant
doors were closed behind it.
"Open the
door," ordered Forrest. "Then get over there, and be quiet.
Keeping his
pistol on the pilot and co-pilot, Forrest went over to the open door and looked
out. There were at least fifty rifle barrels pointed at him.
"I'm Agent
Doyle," he called out. "CIA. The pilot and the co-pilot are my
prisoners, and I'm sending them out, ahead of me. I'll come down behind them,
with my hands up. Just detain them."
The pilot and
co-pilot were hustled into a van with no rear windows and taken away.
"You can
put your hands down, Agent Doyle," said a Major. "We know who you are.
Some people from Langley are already on their way here. Come along with
me."
***
“Americans
are exhorted to ask what they can do for their country, as if the country were
some deity over them. Kennedy didn't say 'ask what you can do for the sovereign
individuals that comprise your country', and you can be damned sure he didn't
mean that either. You know that he meant 'ask what you can do for your
government.' It has been common throughout history for totalitarian governments
to equate the terms 'government' and 'country' or 'state' and to consider the
citizens as property of the state. If you analyze the implications of Kennedy's
famous statement, you can see that a true American, few of which remain, would
take it as an affront. He's saying, 'don't think that the government exists to
satisfy your needs, think that you exist to satisfy the government's needs.'
What does it say about a nation when her citizens can hear a remark like that,
from a president, and take it as a call to patriotism?”
***
"As for
taking your place in the world, I don't think the phrase is apt. You are going
out to live your lives, and perhaps to make your place in the world.
Shakespeare said, 'All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely
players.' That's a useful metaphor. Unlike the lower animals, we get to write
our own scripts. The world is a stage, and once you reach out and take your
diploma, you're on that stage. You'll be on stage, as long as you live. How you
perform and even the role you play are chiefly up to you. You may be helped or
hindered by others, but others can't perform for you. Your performance is what
you and you alone do throughout your life.”
***
"When I
went back to the States, I could feel the difference," said Wilson.
"It's like living on a pig farm: if you move away for a few years, you
can't believe how bad it smells when you go back. It never seemed to smell that
bad when you lived there."
***
"That
won't be necessary," said the Minister of Defense. He stood up and raised
his hand. On his signal, two soldiers moved quickly to press their pistols into
the ribs of President Black's bodyguards. The rest of the armed guard, which,
until now, had been standing against the back wall, stepped forward and lowered
their weapons. "We will not be accepting your offer, after all, President
Black," continued the Minister of Defense. "There will be no
plebiscite. In fact there will be no elections at all. Besides the soldiers in
this chamber, there are many more outside. We are taking over. Unfortunately,
there is no other way to prevent this unacceptable change to our way of
life."
***
“We know,
with certainty, of several instances of the leading western governments
instigating terrorist attacks on their own citizens, with the loss of thousands
of lives. We strongly suspect a dozen other terrorist incidents were either
instigated or actually perpetrated by the government. The reason for
slaughtering their own people: to justify actions that would be difficult, if
not impossible, to get away with, without such incidents. These governments
continue to decry the threat of new terrorist attacks, indicating that they may
be preparing more. The shutting down of small tax-free or low tax nations to
which productive citizens may flee was a major reason for such slaughter.”
***
He fired, and
the man went down. Wilson went slowly toward him. The man was in a lighted area
and Wilson could see that he had his hand in the bag. Wilson trained the rifle
on the man's head.
"Get your
hand out of the bag," said Wilson, "Or I'll put a bullet between your
eyes."
The man took
his hand from the bag. He clutched a small box with a stubby antenna protruding
from it. Wilson assumed it was to detonate the explosives. "Drop it."
The man was
fumbling to reach a switch. Wilson fired. A hole appeared in the man's
forehead, and he went limp.
***
"US is
gradually being transformed to read 'UN.' The Biodiversity Treaty, touted as
merely an environmental agreement, would turn control of the United States over
to the UN, the same UN that, in the early nineties, forced gun control on
Rwanda, leaving the citizens helpless and enabling the genocide that took the
lives of three hundred thousand people not friendly to the UN. The Biodiversity
Treaty allows-actually requires-the UN to impose gun control on the United
States. And a treaty takes precedence over the Constitution! Bye-bye,
Constitution. Hello, Big UN Brother. Every legislator in Washington knows that.
Have any of them, Democrat or Republican, mentioned it to their constituents? Of
course not. Why do you suppose that is?”
***
"What ever
happened to government of the people, for the people, and by the people?
Whatever happened to the concept of the politician as a public servant? What
ever happened to the liberty and justice for all, mentioned in the Pledge of
Allegiance? Remember the Pledge of Allegiance. Can't say that any more. 'One
nation under God' is a forbidden phrase. Are all these concepts, once purely
American, now un-American and restricted to countries in the Alliance of Free
Nations? Are the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence un-American as
well? Are the old virtues of honesty, loyalty, hard work, and self-reliance no
longer valid? What then is American? Are the new American values, lying,
stealing, adultery, betrayal, ignorance, apathy, and jealousy? So it would seem,
if our leaders are any indication.”
***
In Britain, a
virtual uprising occurred. The public was upset that it's government would
participate in an unprovoked atomic attack; but it was furious that the Gulf
Stream, to which they owed their moderate climate, was now a source of
radioactivity that could reduce their life span and give them cancer. A small,
but vocal group arranged demonstrations in all the major cities. They carried
placards and banners and distributed flyers. They claimed that British policy
was no longer created in Britain, but in New York, at the UN; and that, in
trying to destroy a freedom movement that had begun in England with the Magna
Carta, the UN had ended up killing British citizens and deforming British babies
for generations to come.
***
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