There were a couple of really nice days in Ohio during the normally cold month of December where many of my peers went out for a few rounds of golf. I was invited to more than one of these games—but I declined because I had a different game that I wanted to play—one that I am thoroughly obsessed with. During this past week The Old Republic released it’s most recent release to their MMO game which my wife and I play together and that update was a space combat simulator featuring PVP action called simply enough Galactic Starfighter. Since it came out on Tuesday–by Saturday I had shot down hundreds of opponents in dog fights through floating ship yards in a capture the flag type of game scenario—and I have been having a blast with it. It is full of detailed attributes which are boundlessly applied to multiple strategic circumstances and is a lot more fun than chasing a white ball around on a golf course with the object to knock it into a hole. To begin to get a grasp of the level of detail, and learning curve needed to play the game have a look at the link below which features some of the basic weapons, upgrades and ship types utilized within the environment.
http://dulfy.net/2013/11/11/swtor-galactic-starfighter-ships-and-components-guide/ When I play these kinds of things with hundreds of other real players I can’t help but make some basic observations about those players which sustain many of the comments I make in political and economic articles of a serious nature that are worth noting. Galactic Starfighter for me is a well executed science experiment confirming the merits of capitalism and why nations should support that system of economical means as opposed to socialism. The answer is clearly exhibited in the popular BioWare game.
I was amazed while playing that during the queue up screen where live players sign up for a mission to fly against opposing players, I would have thought that it would take a while to find 12 real life players from each faction to load up. There are two factions in The Old Republic, those of the Republic and those of the Empire. The Empire are statist types who are big government advocates and love the power of collective force to impose their will upon everyone else. Think of the Nazi regime, Stalin from the U.S.S.R. or the Obama administration—they are very much like the Empire in the game The Old Republic. The Republic of course is very similar to the original idea of a Roman Republic most currently experimented with in The United States. In the game scenario of The Old Republic the Republic are the good guys and are part of a rebellion to stop the rise of the Empire who are the unequivocal bad guys. I of course play as a Republic player. My wife and I won’t even consider playing story lines in the game that involve the Empire. We are clearly aligned with the Republic faction ideologically. If something like the Republic was not an option—it is likely that I wouldn’t enjoy the game so much—but because it is, and reflects my thoughts about things in the real world, it is immensely exciting for me to fight on behalf of the Republic in a space dog fight scenario meant to capture and maintain control of specific strategic targets. I would think that there would be lots of people who want to play as Republic players as they are the good guys, but that such a flight simulator would struggle to find Empire players—NO—the average queue up time was about two minutes. Of course there were lots of Republic players lining up to fly, but there were equal numbers of Empire players as well. In fact, sometimes it appeared that the Empire side had more pilots than the Republic side. For this to happen there would have to be thousands and thousands of people online across over six servers wanting to play the game at all hours of the day. The queue up time was the same at 3 AM in the morning as it was at 9 PM, or noon. And of those players, they were equally split under their own free will right down the middle ideologically. There were thousands of people who were attracted to the role of the Empire. They willingly wanted to play the bad guy—which was interesting in and of itself.
When I was a kid and we’d play cops and robbers, or cowboys and Indians, or any game of good guys against bad guys—all of which public schools are trying to outlaw these days—there were fights with my friends over who would be the good guy. Everyone wanted to play the hero and nobody wanted to be the villain—very few did anyway. The people who did find themselves wanting to play the bad role were often the kind of kids who came from broken homes, had troubled childhoods and lived in homes where their mother worked and were often home by themselves a lot. They couldn’t identify with the kids who had mothers who were always home, were generally loved by their parents and knew it. The bad guys had power to impose themselves on others and that was attractive option to kids who had daddy issues—mommy issues—and genuine social insecurities. I never played a bad guy. I can’t even think in such terms in a role play scenario either as a kid or a grown up adult playing The Old Republic. So it was rather stunning to see so many players who not only wanted to play for the Empire, but they were proud of it. The funny thing about the whole experience is that Galactic Starfighter treats players who struggle through the dogfights—which are often very intense—with two forms of currency—requisition, and fleet requisition. With that currency upgrades for pilot’s ships can be purchased and this incentive is enough to send most of those pilots into countless hours of combat so that they can get paid the requisition currency they have coming to them. I found myself playing the game for an extra two or three hours finally turning the game off around 4 AM last night just so I could earn enough requisition to purchase concussion missiles with long-range target lock for 10,000 req. And I wasn’t alone—there were hundreds of people doing the same thing who had played for 10 to 12 hours straight just to earn some virtual shielding, proton torpedoes, engine boosts, and armor increases. The reason that the BioWare game of The Old Republic is successful and MMO games like it is because they offer “rewards.” The game designers know that the human being will do just about anything for the prospect of profit, and when they have to earn it—they value it. Galactic Starfighter would not be a fun game if everyone received the same currency no matter if they won or lost their engagements. And if the game did not offer incentives for players to purchase ship upgrades so that they could have an advantage over another player—the game would fall flat on its face with boredom. It’s likely that nobody would want to play, and the few who did would not be renewing the queue every two minutes with fresh players spontaneously wanting to dog fight opponents all over the world.
The game environment as I’ve pointed out many times of a MMO based endeavor is a microcosm of capitalism. The more rewards offered, the harder people are willing to work to get them. In the real world women get their nails done for the same reason that pilots in Galactic Starfighter paint their ships different colors—to show that they worked hard and have achieved some level of success. When a young home owner buys a lawn mower and spends all day of a summer Saturday working on their yard, they are caring for the product of their hard work. They worked hard to purchase a home, and they want to show it off to others. That is the power behind capitalism. If Galactic Starfighter were a socialist game, all the ships would be the same, none would be better than another. All players would be forced to be equal. Players also wouldn’t be able to win—so there would essentially be no point in even playing. Since there is nothing to work toward, there would be no reason to risk anything and try to pit your skills up against another person. There would be no conflict, no violence, but there would also be no activity to generate any production. The game would be boring and uneventful. Lucky for me, Galactic Starfighter is a wonderful celebration of capitalism in the most pure form of the word. If any economist of the typical Keynesian school of thought wants proof of how flawed their socialist theories are, check out Galactic Starfighter at 3 AM in the morning anywhere in the world—and the evidence of capitalism’s superiority will be clear. When Keynesian economists decided to tamper with the economy artificially with regulation, they discovered that there were fewer incentives for people to try to produce anything. In the game environment of Galactic Starfighter the production is a vibrant world where combatants try to kill each other with specially designed ships and augmented modifications looking for a competitive advantage. The result is activity—in the case of Electronic Arts and BioWare—money spent on their product so players can experience such a thing. The fact that there were so many Empire players and Republic players wanting to play against each other every two minutes is a testament to the economic activity generated in the game. As to the Republic and Empire players, one craves freedom and liberty, the other tyranny and terror, they seem to represent the same kind of voting preferences currently at play in politics where half the country voted for Obama, the other half against him, or half the voters support school levies, the other half does not—the demographic of the game between good guys and bad guys is clearly evenly balanced—startlingly so. The Old Republic is not struggling to attract players to the Empire faction, and in my opinion if all was right in the world, it would be. So it has been easy for me to fly against the Empire players and yell at my monitor in joy when I blast them out of the sky. It has been tremendously fun to tear the crap out of them with my Strike Fighter and long-range concussion missiles. As I tore through the fuselage of hundreds of enemy craft, I thought of Lakota levy supporters, Obamacare, and labor unions—and my score increased dramatically.
I had lunch with a few of those golf friends who took advantage of the nice weather on Wednesday to play and I ribbed them about how less dramatic it was to knock a ball in from 15 feet for Birdie, than shooting down 50 enemy craft during several hours of play on the video game Galactic Starfighter. Those same friends questioned why I had no Fantasy Football picks for the last several months, and the answer was that I didn’t find it interesting to randomly pick players from different NFL teams and hope they do well to provide me with points. I like to provide my own points—not to passively rely on somebody else to provide them, so I don’t enjoy Fantasy Football even as a recreational sport that wastes too much of my time and thought paying attention to whether a player from a team that is not the Buccaneers had a good day on the football field. They gave me a quizzical look as our food arrived at Bravo! Cucina Italiana–the Lobster Ravioli Alla Vodka as the weather outside had changed from spring like weather to a dramatic snow storm. “So what do you think about while you play that game of yours,” one of them asked genuinely. I replied that it was a more active endeavor than passive ones where other people determined your outcome, like a football game, or gambling, which many people tend to consider entertainment. I added that when I play Galactic Starfighter not only do I scratch the itch of a time gone by where I would have loved to have been a fighter pilot during World War II, before all the stupid rules the FFA has today, and that game gives me a feel for that kind of activity. It also makes me wonder why we don’t have shipyards in space, similar to what we have in Norfolk, Virginia building battleships and carriers, or the Boeing facility in Washington making airplanes—in space creating space stations, and deep space transports. One of the battle zones in Galactic Republic takes place in a Kuat shipyard and there are several half-built Star Destroyers floating around in various states of construction. Just the previous night I chased a poor soul into the superstructure of one of these things and blasted him with so much fire that he turned out of my targeting reticule right into a giant support beam ending in a fiery crash. You don’t get that playing Fantasy Football.
By the end of our meal all the guys swore to me they were going to go home and log on to play. I gave them the login information and how to find me there—but nobody showed up. The snow came down intensely and everyone went their separate ways after that. Once they returned home, away from my “vivid imagination” as they call it—everyone snapped back into their usual mode of thinking. They planned their next golf games in preferably warmer climates and got ready for their Fantasy Football picks on Sunday, and I spent the rest of Friday well into the early Saturday morning playing The Old Republic: Galactic Starfighter. The game is a perfect representation of why capitalism works over Keynesian economics and degrees of socialism. The pilots playing Galactic Starfighter with me have as little interest in the terms of modern politics as I do in Fantasy Football. They only know that they want to shoot and kill someone and earn requisition for the ships in their possession. But the comparisons are unmistakable, and the explanations are valid—Galactic Starfighter is a game that proves how effective capitalism is over all other forms though valid experiments. The current MMO marketplace is the finest modern example of capitalism anywhere in the world—and I say this on the eve of the big Pratt & Whitney machinist strike in Hartford, Connecticut—which will happen on Sunday after this writing. America still builds airplanes better than any manufacturer in the entire world—but the socialism of labor unions is threatening that domination—purposely as the international unions behind these strikes truly want to bring progressive reform to America and end United States domination of aircraft manufacture. Knowing those kinds of things, it is quite delightful to attack the Empire in the fictional Old Republic and take out my wrath there while the snow falls in abundance outside of Bravo! Cucina Italiana and Fantasy Football is on everyone’s mind—as the world spins helplessly out of control toward an abyss that could have been avoided—if only people opened their eyes to see it coming. To cope with that frustration I play Galactic Starfighter.
The excessive arrogance and result of the public education monopoly can best be summed up with the Fairfield City Schools bond issue which just failed recently in the November 2013 election. The vote was close, but after a recount it held and the tax increase was defeated. But the school simply declared that they would put the issue on another ballot six months later in May of 2014, when fewer people were thinking about elections. Their not so subtle message to the tax payers of Fairfield City Schools is that they can get their money from the tax payers, and will eventually no matter how many times they must put the issue on the ballot. State run schools like Fairfield, Lakota, and Little Miami operate as a monopoly so tax payers have no choice but to put up with the antics—and lack of respect that these administrations have for the communities they reside in. In the case of Fairfield—“they” want new school buildings and have already made plans for the money they don’t yet have.
The school district was pushing a 2.62-mill bond issue so it could move forward with construction plans on those buildings. The bond issue was designed to pull $19 million from the state of Ohio to help with construction of new schools. The bond issue was intended to generate $61 million for the project. Most of the media covering the issue simply covers the symptom of the problem, but avoids the problem because of the controversial nature of doing so. The 61 million pound elephant in the room is the source of that controversy—that voters turned down the tax, the “state” is ignoring those results and is imposing upon the residents of Fairfield another vote—then another—then another—then another until it passes. This happens because Fairfield City Schools is a government monopoly no different from a license bureau, the IRS, the NSA, or the Executive Branch in WashingtonD.C. The State acknowledges that the administration at Fairfield wants new school buildings, so the government monopoly has set up a system to implement the acquisition of the needed funds by hook or crook. One way or another—the voters will be defeated eventually and the school will gain the ability to rob their desired money from the community they reside in—by legal means ordained by the “STATE.”
Channel 9 at least covers the stories. If they hit any harder they would be black listed by the institutions in covering the feel good stories that make people happy—and view the local news, like the story of the Lakota band performing in the Macy’s Parade on Thanksgiving. Or the Fairfield football games which tend to unite a community behind the common cause of public education. It is too difficult for them to do a report about how the schools are using the poor children as public relations chess pieces for the ultimate goal of raising taxes and imposing themselves upon the communities that are forced through monopoly rule to support them. The implications of such admissions require courage, and a change in how society educates its children—and nobody is ready to deal with that. So the crimes continue to be committed, and voters are ignored, abused, and disrespected in every way possible.
For Fairfield schools to propose before the official count was even final from the previous election that they will pursue another tax increase in May of 2014 is an arrogance that can only come out of a monopoly that views the tax payers as their personal slaves. There is no gentler way to put the issue. It’s not slavery in the classic sense with plantation owners and human beings placed in literal chains—but the same basic ideal is at play here—property owners are chained to inefficient government schools by law, and beaten financially not with whips—but elections until the product of their labor is forcefully confiscated for the benefit of the State. The tax payers who voted NO in the last election—will be ignored and forced to the voting booth until they give up—which is no different from beating another human being with a whip on a plantation until they comply to the master holding the whip. If any reporters reading this disagree—explain the difference other than the typical progressive framing of the slavery argument to advance discrepancies of race relations. Slavery isn’t about the color of a human being’s skin—it’s about what kind of shackles control the behavior of other human beings. In the classic case it was actual shackles—in the modern sense it is virtual ones—those owned by banks, politics, and the collective will of democracy.
Is it any wonder that voter turn out is so low? People see how the game is played. During the last Lakota election, it was a numbers game. No Lakota Levy had defeated three previous attempts, but eventually people just stopped showing up. Most people figured—“what the heck. If we vote it down, they’ll just come back in May with another attempt—or August, or next November. They’ll never stop until we give them the money—so why even show up to vote?”
That is exactly what the “State” wants people to feel. “They” want their subservients—the tax payer—to know their place—to know that the beatings will come until they submit because there is no place else for them to go. If Fairfield residents decide to move from their homes to Lakota, Mt Healthy, Mason, Lebanon or anywhere in Ohio, they will be greeted with the same oppressive system of public school financing—the same limited choices—and the same beat downs during every election. So the only option available to tax payers is to submit to the authority of the State and the whims of the school board backed by radical unionized government employees.
If it’s not slavery—then what is it? What better way is there to describe such a system? There isn’t one, and the mainstream media really doesn’t have an answer to the problem either. Since children are used as extortion pieces, the media compromises and focuses on the feel good aspects of public education instead of the root of the problem which is the slave-like relationship the tax payer has with public schools like Fairfield. The intention of an election is to let the majority determine the shape of their community through a democracy. When the tax payers voted NO on the 2013 levy, they indicated that they rejected the proposed 2.62-mill bond issue. They decided through an election that they did not want new school buildings. Yet, Fairfield, since they didn’t get the money decided that they’d simply put the issue on the ballot a few months later and try again rather than revise their plans. The will of the voter was ignored and the State backed school imposed themselves upon those tax payers with the gentle reminder that the tax payer works for the school; it is not the school that works for the tax payer. The relationship is one of slavery where the tax payer is forced to provide the effort of their labor to the school regardless of whether they want to or not. When a vote is ignored—which is what is happening—the indication from Fairfield and the state of Ohio which supports that public institution is that the institution is the master—as the tax payer is the subservient. There is no other way to view the situation. It’s as bad as it sounds because the literal meaning of elections that are manipulated or ignored is that the State is in charge of every life that feeds it—and that relationship is best explained as a master living off the effort of its slaves. Everyone who pretends otherwise is helping the system continue to abuse the people suffering under the tyranny of injustice known throughout the public education industry monopoly represented here by Fairfield City Schools.
Reliable sources state that the Millennium Falcon has been sighted on the outskirts of Pinewood Studios in England, built at a secret location for the upcoming filming of Star Wars Episode 7. This is exciting news for people like me who have been following the construction of an actual full-scale Falcon outside of Nashville, Tennessee by Chris Lee and his team of devoted model builders. The sources are reliable because many of the production team on this latest Star Wars film, unlike those from the past, are Star Wars fans, and their excitement seeing the actual Falcon has been too much to keep quiet about. As I’ve covered here many times, The Millennium Falcon is one of the greatest symbols of freedom that the modern human race has. I would say that the time I saw the actual model of it at a Smithsonian exhibit years ago was nearly a religious experience for me. I took hundreds of pictures of it at a time before there was digital photography. It is one of the most recognizable images in the entire world, and that status will be solidified over the next decade. The Millennium Falcon is currently the most photographed fictional item anywhere; it also appears in the most fictional literature being written about in over 200 novels and countless comic books. It is an icon of the Star Wars franchise and it appears that Lucasfilm in close association with the Disney Company has built a full-scale Falcon to film with a seamless tracking shot where the characters can actually walk onto the ship from the exterior with a steady cam rig and up into the interior in one take—just to show off that they can execute such an ambitious task. The Falcon can then be taken to a Disney Park to be placed on permanent display with a similar strategy as Disney has used on The Black Pearl from the Pirate of the Caribbean films. The Millennium Falcon is similar to The Black Pearl in that they are both pirate vessels from their respected franchises.
There are a lot of very real things to worry about in the world such as the debt ceiling issues, the funding of the government, Obamacare, the collapsing Social Security situation, declining wages, a wrecked moral compass on the world stage, but it’s time every now and again to enjoy the things that are good. For me, the release of The Old Republic’s Galactic Starfighter game has been a long time and coming and is something I deeply cherish. The news about the Falcon hit the news wire about the same time as Galactic Starfighter was uploaded onto The Old Republic servers and has given me over the last 24 hours countless pleasure. It is a wonderful game, which is rather complicated and takes some getting used to. But it is the best of the best in my opinion, a nice tribute to my favorite space simulator of all time in X-Wing Fighter from way back in the 90s, and the more modern Xbox version of Star Wars: Battlefront.Galactic Starfighter plays very slick, has lots of things going on the HUD display, and is fast—which is just how I like things.
In my 2004 novel The Symposium of Justice one of the subplots was a story called “The Return of the Flying Tigers” where a group of air combat simulator enthusiasts took to the skies in converted M400 Skycars to attack a Washington D.C. taken over by the United Nations causing a second Civil War in America. The video game players went up against Apache helicopters and other military vessels during raids over the beleaguered American capital. Playing Galactic Starfighter with a host of other live players who are quite good gives the sense that such a thing is very possible. The skills that must be established to be good at the game are fundamental combat strategies that would be taught in any military academy, and it is fun to see that out of all the entertainment options available to the players of the game, that they prefer to fight it out with other pilots in a free world where rewards are granted for heroics, bravery, and daring.
In the real world the attributes that make people good at Galactic Starfighter are penalized, so it should come as no surprise that so many people are fleeing the real world to live in a fantasy one—so to preserve their concept of valor. Galactic Starfighter only opened on December 3, 2013 to subscribers. The game goes live to everyone else in February—so I feel privileged to be able to fly with so many people on a game that has so much early interest, and enthusiasm. It gives me hope for tomorrow to see so many people at least in their minds yearning for the nobility of aerial combat.
It is nice to take a break from the world’s problems and sign in to a place where things make much more sense—a world where risk still earns rewards and everyone doesn’t live in a padded room for fear of becoming hurt. The action in Galactic Starfighter is fast and furious—and highly addictive. I am hooked. It is the perfect homage to the kind of stories that have spawn off a saga born from The Millennium Falcon. It is also why when the next Star Wars film is finished, that millions upon millions of fans will flock from the far reaches of the world to see it in person when Disney places the vintage ship into one of its parks. I’ll be one of those millions, because of what it means to those who find games like Galactic Starfighter to be as essential as food, water and sleep.
In preparation for the start of the new flight simulator on The Old Republic I ran one of the very hard rail missions—the Heroic level 7 runs with my XS-Freighter. Those runs are nearly impossible requiring a pilot to take out several scout ships, run a mine field, and take out a capital ship while navigating an asteroid field at a very high-speed. I can’t recall a time when my heart has beat so hard as it did during this mission, and when I cleared it with a perfect score, I was ready to burst with excitement. That’s how much fun these flight simulators are, and now with Galactic Starfighter how much better a great game like The Old Republic is with the new addition. The very first thing I did on the morning of December 3, 2013 was upload the new addition. And the game hasn’t been turned off since……………
Here is the official press release from BioWare:
12.03.2013
Early Access to Galactic Starfighter Digital Expansion Available to Star Wars: The OldRepublic Subscribers Today
AUSTIN, Texas – Dec. 3, 2013 – The journey to become a legendary Starfighter pilot begins now! Today, BioWare™ a division of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA), and LucasArts granted early access for current subscribers to the new Free-to-Play Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Digital Expansion, Galactic Starfighter. The second Digital Expansion introduces 12v12 intense Player-vs-Player (PvP) free-flight dogfighting and fierce factional battles as the war between the Sith Empire and the Galactic Republic explodes into space. Players will compete and advance to earn experience, in the form of “requisition” to unlock awesome new weapons, powers and abilities to customize their ultimate Starfighter.
“We are so excited for players to experience all the incredible new content in Galactic Starfighter, while still gaining additional XP and credits to give their ground game characters a boost,” said Jeff Hickman, Vice President, General Manager of BioWare Austin. “Free-flight space combat is a feature the fans have been asking for, and Galactic Starfighter really delivers on that feeling of heart-pounding fast-paced dogfighting action that you expect in a Star Wars™ game.”
Anyone who becomes a subscriber will be able to jump right into Galactic Starfighter and become part of the factional combat and free flight PvP experience (no minimum character level requirements apply). In addition to gaining early access to Galactic Starfighter, subscribers will receive exclusive rewards, including custom paint jobs, two pilot suits and two titles (“Test Pilot” and “First Galactic Starfighter”). Preferred Status Players* will be granted access to Galactic Starfighter on January 14, before the Digital Expansion becomes available to the public beginning on February 4.
Star Wars: The OldRepublic is a Free-to-Play, award-winning MMO set thousands of years before the classic Star Wars movies. Players team up with friends online to fight in heroic battles between the Republic and Empire, exploring a galaxy of vibrant planets and experiencing visceral Star Wars combat. Now players can experience the complete storylines of the eight iconic Star Wars classes, all the way to Level 50 without having to pay a monthly fee. The Free-to-Play option complements the existing subscription offering, providing greater flexibility in how to experience Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Galactic Starfighter is a 12v12 PvP free flight space shooter. At its core, it is all about coming as close as we can to recreating the incredible experience of space combat as seen in the Star Wars™ movies. It is fast, furious dogfighting action where you get to choose your style of play by selecting the Starfighter that is right for you, be it Scout, Strike Fighter or Gunship (or all of the above!), blowing up your enemies, and then using Requisition (experience) to upgrade and customize your ships.
From the start, we wanted to make sure that we nailed the feel of “free flight” Star Wars space combat, so we’ve taken great pains to get the controls just right. It is flat-out fun to simply fly your ship through the battle zones we’ve created. The Scout feels zippy and maneuverable, the Strike Fighter nails the all-purpose combat role, and the Gunship is really, really good at picking off targets from long-range then relocating to the next cover point to keep out of harm’s way.
Finally, there are a TON of options for customization. And I’m not just talking about re-painting your ship (though I recommend that you do!). I mean swapping out your weapons and engines and SEEING the actual ship change shape, while altering your stats and abilities. I’m talking about equipping Treek as your co-pilot and hearing her chirp at you when an enemy is locking onto you with missiles. PLUS repainting your ship, recoloring your paint job, customizing the color of your blaster bolts and your engine trails. Beyond the visual and audio customizations, Major and Minor components plus Crew equal a HUGE number of stat and ability changes that allow you to tweak your Starfighter to your heart’s content and the Major and Minor components all have full upgrade paths as well.
This is a HUGE update to the game and we expect you’ll be playing and enjoying Galactic Starfighter for years to come.
But Wait, There’s More!
I want to take a moment to point out that this feature is just getting started. What do I mean by that? Well, for Early Access we will have two very distinct battle zones and one game mode plus fourteen unique Starfighters with all of the customizations mentioned above, but that’s not even our full Launch content! Galactic Starfighter is much more than that. In February for our full Launch, we add a new role (the Bomber) plus 10 more Starfighters for a grand total of 24 ships to customize and take into battle. Add to that an incredible new dynamic Flashpoint that is level and role neutral called Kuat Driveyards which ties our ground game story directly into the space PvP action with a new Starfighter area on the fleet and you begin to see that full scope of what we’re delivering.
Taking it one step beyond, we have already laid out significant plans for Space PvP to support it far into the future, so there will be regular releases of content to keep our Starfighters happy for a good long time to come. As with everything in our game, we will be listening raptly on all available channels for YOUR input to shape what Starfighter becomes as it evolves. Thank you for your ongoing support. It means the world to us.
It is no longer the Tea Party which is the issue, or school levies aligned with cheating politicians. It has been determined that much of the modern sicknesses surrounding our American culture is self-inflicted by philosophical suicide and there is no changing that in the short run. Many of today’s Tea Party patriots supporting Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and many other traditional conservatives will see Social Security collapse, Medicare costs sky-rocket into bankruptcy, and the years of socialism they said yes to bring the greatest economy and country on earth to the brink—and we’ll be lucky to survive. The process is already starting, but their years of spineless conviction will come raining upon their lives when Obamacare takes full hold in their families and the next decade will be shoveling ourselves out of the mess. I’ve spent roughly 2 million words warning people how to avoid this fate, but it’s now too late, so my direction is no longer focused on those of today—but those of tomorrow—the next generation who has to deal with all these mistakes. Those young people are now aware of the failed society that has been given to them, and they aren’t happy about it. This is the cause of the sudden rise of the libertarian movement on college campuses which appears to be as robust as the socialist movements that took place in the same colleges during the 1960s. These modern libertarians are the antithesis to those collectivists of yester-year, who currently sit as approval editors for all television, magazines, and newspapers. These libertarians are socially liberal but fiscally conservative, and they don’t like much of anything that is political—leaving machine politics in serious, serious trouble. This was the topic of Matt Clark ‘s recent radio broadcast as he sat down with the president of the Young Americans for Liberty at the University of Michigan and talked about the libertarian movement, freedom, and his student group’s activism.
I am a social and fiscal conservative—so much so that I make Rush Limbaugh look like a bleeding heart liberal. I have no tolerance for drugs or sexual promiscuity in the party scene. Nothing good comes from those activities—but a lot of bad does. So I do not like much about how this new generation of young people spend their time. But as they learn in their colleges that much of what they are paying a lot of money to learn, and realize that the debt placed around their heads just in student loans is intentionally self-destructive, their fiscal conservatism is blooming. At that point I find I have a lot in common with those libertarian millennials. It is at this common bond that I intended to refocus my energy—toward them.
I will be there to explain to them that the health care industry used to be the best in the world, that the sustainable wages for liberal teaching at colleges was intentionally self-defeating. I will remind them that light bulbs used to come on bright, and that global warming mysticisms taught to them in public and college institutions was created by second-handers to gain political power, and nothing more. I will tell them about people like John Hutchinson who could give young people the kind of world they are playing in their video games, as opposed to the village hut mentality of the current political belt way of Washington who wants to shut down Hutchinson as a freak living on the fringe of society.
I will remind them of who lied to them, who cheated them, and how it came about—throwing many logs on the fire in the coming years till the world created by second-handers which we see today is up in flames—and their influence with it. I don’t want those second-handers in my life, and the millennials don’t either—which is why they are turning toward libertarianism for relief, and a crack at a decent life away from the mistakes of their parents and grandparents who spent twenty years voting for stupid liberal school levies only to get programmed robots as children wanting nothing to do with Republicans or Democrats now that they are of voting age.
Out of the thousands of articles I have written the two that are still the most popular are Successful People Who Did Not Go to College, and Giants in Ohio. Those can both be seen on my sidebar to the right. They are consistently among my top viewed articles day in and day out as they are circulated around Facebook to young people contemplating paying for another semester of socialist programming from their college, or the science that those institutions have deliberately lied to them about, which has been exposed on popular History Channel episodes like Ancient Aliens. Behind those articles is the one I did about Malden Island and the giant statues of Easter Island. Each article acts like a log on a fire that these young libertarians come to learning that they suspected something wasn’t quite right, and my words confirm it for them—causing them to take action.
One thing that is sure is that the world of Karl Rove, Mitt Romney and even Hillary Clinton won’t cut it. We are not living in the 60s anymore and the Beatles are no longer popular. The entertainment of these millennials is angry—rightfully so, and their indignant nature is a rising tide of a movement that traditional politics will not be able to hold back. Republicans could go a long way to capturing some of that momentum if they put their effort behind Rand Paul during the next election, but they won’t do that, because most of them are second-handers, and the betting money is to put another out-of-touch New Englander like Chris Christie up for nomination, or even the very safe bet of Jeb Bush. In so doing, Republicans will only solidify the commitment from young people to get behind a third-party candidate—as those types of people do not represent their concerns.
Democrats are trying to appeal to these millennials by giving them free stuff, but the illusion is not lost on the young libertarians. They know that Obamacare needs their money and support to care for the elderly and sick with a massive wealth-redistribution scam rooted in socialism—and even if they did want to play the game out of empathy, they can’t because premiums are way too high because of the government created oligopoly. By the time millennials pay their Social Security that they’ll never collect, their other taxes for 1960s War on Poverty programs which haven’t worked, and pay their student loan payments for their useless college degrees giving them no job making over 35K per year unless they work for government somewhere—there isn’t any money for Obamacare after they pay for their cell phone bills, their cable, their online game subscriptions, and their tendency to eat out all the time because the entire generation has forgotten how to cook.
The second-handers in government have purposely avoided this topic because they don’t have an answer for it. But I will be sure to recite the memory of all these faux pas for these young libertarians looking for a direction to vent their anger. I fully intend to be there to point the way directing their angry mobs, and loose lips with nothing to lose from their actions. And when those mobs arrive at the door of the current second-handers, they have good reason to be afraid. The day of reckoning is coming down upon them and there is no way to stop it now. They didn’t listen in the past, and will now have to pay a heavy price—and it won’t be my fault or the rising tide of libertarians pissed off at politics as usual. They will be the first generation to get openly screwed over by all these stupid policies done in America against the Constitution, and their compliance is just not in the cards. They have nothing to lose, and that makes them dangerous—and I intend to put my skills to work on their behalf.
Since I was about 19 I have kept volumes and volumes of notes about my observations regarding life as it truly is. I have done that for over 25 years now and the process has migrated from little notebooks that family members would buy my for Christmas and birthdays, to loose-leaf notebook paper in binders written upon front and back and down across the margins haphazardly in some situations to complete a thought without having to turn the paper over. That process has evolved of course into what I share daily here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom. Of course to outsiders—people who do not know me, they continue to be baffled as to why I do all this. After the Lakota election many of the unionized workers happy to have been given a tax increase by the community sent me a barrage of comments letting me know that all my work over the last three years has been fruitless—since they won the money anyway. This is because of their small mindedness that they think this way, and points to a resolution which will be concluded at the climax of this article. A written body of work such as what I publish here may only have a 1% chance of changing an election. That falls within the margin of victory for a candidate like Mark Welsh and Cathy Stoker in West Chester, or the Lakota levy which was a few hundred votes short out of thousands going up against an energized group of levy addicts. The number goes up to perhaps 5% if the media type is popular and well-received such as The National Enquirer, People Magazine, or some other populous enterprise. On the night of the election, Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom saw 2000 hits that evening above the daily normal of 400 to 500. The spike was because the normally placid intellectual thinkers wanted somebody to tell them how to vote—so they looked to my blog to help them make a decision. In an election that had about 26,000 votes cast, my blog probably changed the vote of about 300 people, most of the rest of that 2000 were from the other side nervous about their results and wondering what I was saying.
My entire adult life I have yearned to observe, think, and to write these things down in the solitude of my own mind. Most of the notes I made over the years repeat themselves over and over again—or they lack proper conclusions. This is because I was working things out. By the time I started this blog, I had most of the answers to everything in life—because I had spent a quarter century getting those answers. My personal education could not come from orthodox sources but came from a mind on fire not looking for a way to douse the flames, but to throw more logs on to make it roar. During my orthodox education, which was as extensive as anyone’s, I noticed and wrote about as a young twenty year old, that education institutions seemed more intent to put out the fire of my mind, than to feed it, so I rebelled against that notion with a fury. Even back then while most people my age were focused on getting drunk and “partying” I was sitting late at night at Waffle Houses and Perkins restaurants with my notebooks open writing till four and five in the morning.
My Cliffhanger character from my novel The Symposium of Justice was autobiographical, just for the record. The character I created for Tail of the Dragon was a version of that which had accepted a degree of submission in his life until he reached a breaking point. Cliffhanger never reached a point like that—which many publishers and book review professionals have told me is “unrelateable” to the general public. Cliffhanger is intellectually unreachable for most people, and I know that—I know why, how, and for how long and I’m OK with it—because it’s autobiographical. I wrote Tail of the Dragon to show that I could come off my personal mountain and speak the language of everyone else, but even then, Fletcher Finnegan was beyond the reach of most. Not because he wasn’t a compelling character full of motivation, but it’s what drives that motivation that begins the difficulty.
If over the last year you invited me for a drink and I went, I must really, really like you—and for the record one person asked me about 6 times and I did go twice—and they know who they are. I struggle to find time to be with all the people who want some of my attention. I simply can’t do it—I don’t have the time. I reflected at my mother’s Thanksgiving Day meal that they only live about 2 miles from my home, yet I only saw them 3 times the entire duration of 2013. The reason is not that I don’t care about them, but they are on a different set of tracks that don’t intersect with mine very often. Typically, I read, write, and think for 19-20 hours per day, every day. Thinking is my hobby, and is as important to me as breathing. Climates where people are busy trying to forget are not conducive to the thinking I enjoy doing, so I turn down social invitations nearly 95% of the time. Out of all the invites, I give in one or two times a year just to show people who I respect their friendships—but at home are my stacks and stacks of books, notes and a view of the woods that is the focus of much contemplation—and there’s no place else that I’d rather be.
One of my favorite all time movies is The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and in that film Clint Eastwood says, “In this world there are two kinds of people my friend, those with loaded guns, and those who dig—you dig.” There is a truth to that statement that extends to a logic bedded deep in our human hearts and minds—it permeates time and space through many cultural manifestations and made that movie not just a good one—but a great one. But why, and how—it was a question that started me on this quest beginning at age 19. Instead of learning to shoot like Clint Eastwood did in that film, the quest became an intellectual one leading to hours and hours of solitary confinement—hours of practicing bullwhips in my back yard putting out candles with a crack, and thinking about why some men have guns while others are always carrying shovels. In that answer was the solution as to why communism will never work, why economies rise and fall, and why some people are smart while others are stupid.
My purpose for writing this blog is not for those who carry shovels and dig—the media types who do what their editors tell them to, or to the public education employees who have had their intellectual curiosity extinguished in exchange for a stolen pay check paid for by tax payers. I don’t write it for the typical Entertainment Tonight viewer who is only concerned about gossip and nonsense. I don’t even write it to win elections—although I often have my hopes and endorse candidates and ideals occasionally. I share my notes with the general public now instead of scattered notes written down everywhere just to capture thoughts as I think them—because I am intellectually reloading the guns of those who have them—metaphorically speaking. I know who reads here, and most of them are leaders in powerful places who shape policy. Some of them are Supreme Court members—you know who you are, they are powerful national politicians, they are local politicians they are leaders of political activism, they run business, they run media and all of them are shackled by their social roles to express the things I do, which they also feel. What they all share in common is that they tend to be leaders—not followers—they carry guns, not shovels.
Clint Eastwood’s line in that famous movie is another way of articulating Pirsig’s train theory—there are some people who are on the cutting edge, and some who are content to remain in the caboose. CLICK HERE TO REVIEW. But to say things another way—a more appropriate way is to say that some people are meant to be leaders and are others second-handers leading democracies to always fail as a stable form of government always slipping into an abyss of collectivism if allowed to evolve on their own. My character of Cliffhanger from The Symposium of Justice is named as such because he is always on the cutting edge, he is at the front of Pirsig’s train. He pulls society along—they feed off him and his strength. The conflict occurs when they (society) wish to believe that they guide the train, which they do not. They are only passengers—or otherwise “second-handers” the way Ayn Rand defined them in her 1943 novel The Fountainhead. “Whether explicitly or otherwise, the independent man grasps the distinction between the metaphysical and the man-made. Conformity to the metaphysically given, he understands, is essential to successful action; the man-made may be accepted only if and when it achieves or flows from such conformity. This kind of individual fulfills the basic requirement of human survival: he knows how–by reference to what absolute—to form his ideas and choose his actions.
“To the second-hander, by contrast, the man-made—whether rational or irrational, true or false, good or evil—becomes the equivalent of realty. This kind of individual, having detached himself from the realm of existence, has no standard by which to judge others; he has no way to know whose ideas to follow, whose behavior to copy, whose favor to curry. Such a person reduces himself to helplessness, the fundamental helplessness of having left his life to the mercy of blind chance. The result is most people’s desperate need for an authority, religious or secular, who will take over their lives, make their value-judgments, and tell them what to do. The independent man will refuse any such role, but the worst second-hander of all, the power luster is eager to accept it. Thereafter, he destroys everyone, including himself. In other words, people at the back of Pirsig’s train are second-handers and unfit to make leadership decisions because the point of decision-making is at the front of the train where the leaders reside. And society does not have an abundance of leaders at the front to make decisions. We do not produce enough of them—and this is a major problem. The second-hander is the person who spends their lives digging under the threat of those with metaphorical guns.
Barack Obama is a second-hander because he is clearly in the back of the decision-making train and always has been. His power comes second-hand, through lies, manipulation, coercion and political help. By the time the train passes a spot of decision-making, it has passed a point where Obama could ever make a correct decision. Lakota schools and the employees of the last tax increase are second-handers in that they believe that what they instruct in the back of the train can influence the direction of society. But it is impossible because they are at the back well behind the point of decision-making and can only react to the fate of the train on the track wherever it may go. Most of the media are second-handers because they build their lives around people like Barack Obama, or public schools like Lakota—so they lack any real authority to report how decisions should be made, they can only report what they observe as the train moves down the tracks unable to lead society in any proper direction. No amount of study can change this nature—no doctorate degree, no level of government sanctioned authority can change these metaphysical laws, they are what they are. When society holds elections in a democracy, the ballots are cast at the back of the train, not the front—the perception of the elections are shaped entirely by second-handers. Leaders are not miraculously produced as a result—which is why people are nearly always disappointed by-election results, even if their candidate wins.
What I write here and share as my personal notes in blog form are intended for the type of people who wish to be at the front of the train, and that is typically who reads most often and diligently. Decisions are made at this point, not in the democracy at the back where those with shovels “dig.” Those with guns and not afraid to use them have to know where to shoot, and at what—so they must be at the front of the train where they can see. Everyone else digs in the back letting others make decisions for their lives because they fear the responsibility to do it on their own.
I have never had any desire to be at the back of the train—never one day in my entire life. I’ve went back there a few times just to see what all the fuss is about only to return to the front out of sheer disgust. When people provide invites to socialize—those events are always in the back of the train and while there, I cannot see what’s coming down the tracks—and I don’t enjoy that position. I like to be not just on the front of the train, but hanging over the edge of the front watching the moving tracks rolling by underneath. I like to be at the furthest point forward that is humanly possible and it doesn’t come from conversations with second-handers. I do not write these millions upon millions of words to get rich off of appealing to the masses—the second-handers. The intent is to share my notes with the leaders-the people inclined to sit at the front and make decisions well before anyone else is aware that a decision needs to be made. Like Clint Eastwood said about guns and digging—the proper way to explain the same metaphor is to state that there are two kinds of people, those who sit at the front of the train and are leaders, and those who simply ride that train, the second-handers. In a society it takes both to make things work, but it is important to understand that democracy does not work—a society cannot survive if it is run by second-handers. It must be run by leaders—and this is the point of my many words, notes and future articles. Second-handers will call these words rants, they will call them “attention grabbers,” they will call them “politically threatening” but they will all be wrong. They are simply revealing their motives for doing things second-handed, and cannot understand life at the front of the train. Their opinions do not matter because by the time they make a decision the ability to change directions has already passed—so all their statements constitute noise and nothing more. I am not concerned about their noise. I am concerned with what’s coming down the tracks and conversing with those who crave the front of the train away from the second-handers at the back.
With that in mind, I think it is time to start talking more about what’s coming down the tracks instead of all the stupid decisions that weren’t made at important junctures because second-handers through democratic authority gained the ability to lead—to their own peril and many others. In the future, this will be the direction taken at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom. We know now how we arrived at where we are. We know who made the dumb decisions and why. Now we have to distinguish ourselves from them and divide the train up properly into who has the guns and who has the shovels—or more philosophically proper—who has leadership and who are the second-handers. It is time to let the second-handers know what they are and to shove them out-of-the-way so that we can right our train back on the correct track and get moving in the proper direction. And that job requires an understanding of what’s coming—which is the summation of my twenty-five years of notes which has given me a map of where we need to go. So it’s time to use it. I do not care about the squawks of the second-handers, their protests, their opinions, their cries for help, or their desire for comfort. Nothing they say will help—it’s just noise in the background as the train barrels down the tracks. I don’t even care to sell them souvenirs on the journey because that requires interaction with them, and I can’t stand these days to do even that. Leadership is all that matters and seeing what’s coming before we get to a point of being beyond where decisions no longer matter. That is where all the notes, the reading, and writing are intended to go, and where my focus will reside. If it makes the second-handers angry, so be it. Instead of calling them all the names which is the result of their social position, like Marxists, socialists, progressives, communists, school teachers—etc, I think it’s time to let them know their true place on the train—and the proper name of their kind. As Clint Eastwood said, there are those with guns and those who dig. Rich Hoffman says, “there are those who are “cliffhanger’s” hanging over the front of the train on its perilous journey, and those who are second-handers who sit in the back and are victims to wherever the train goes.” My effort goes to those at the front of the train—as those in the back are only capable of observing the world as it goes by.
If anyone were to wonder what the Founding Fathers would think of America today, people might have had a glimpse when Ernie Tertelgte, age 52, represented himself in court against misdemeanor charges of obstructing a peace officer and resisting arrest relating to an Aug. 31 incident where he was cited for fishing without a license, according to KBZK. He argued that “universal law” allows him to hunt for food to feed himself.
Tertelgte then proceeded to continue talking and was asked again to remain silent as a dumb founded judge sat helplessly in her chair bewildered as to how to proceed. The court room employees who process daily dozens of cases and over the course of a year, thousands—purely for the revenue that is brought to the courts through guilty pleas was uncertain how to proceed against Tertelgte’s statements which were as close to what might have been heard from 1776 to 1791 in America as anyone living today could hope to encounter.
“I cannot ma’am in honor of the Constitution of the United States,” he said. “I can’t allow a man who carries British recognition for the purposes of British ministerial law to continue to persecute me.”
“I cannot ma’am,” Tertelgte continued. “I have to honor the founder’s ma’am. I honor the memory of those who fought and died that we can be free of this type of thing.”
There were of course snickers from those who have become used to blind compliance at Tertelgte’s naiveté. After all the Montana man was failing to recognize over 200 years of progressive legal manipulation, feel good policies, and the minds of many academic scholars who have added their own words to The United States Constitution over the years—the case law from many attorneys, the decisions of Supreme Courts, and the stump speeches and laws created by many Presidents. Tertelgte simply wanted to be left alone to fish, but even the remote state of Montana had imposed itself into the basic food gathering activity demanding that those who wished to participate pay them a fee. Most Americans have been broken like a beaten horse to do as they are told, to speak when they are told to speak, and to think what they are told to think—so Tertelgte’s words seem alien to them, spoken from a different time by a different people.
The argument that Tertelgte cited in court is essentially the same type of thing that the plot to my 2012 novel Tail of the Dragon was all about—a rural personality colliding with the statists of a court room and refusing to acknowledge their power over individuals. That novel was based on my personal experiences in court which were so numerous that they nearly number the stars in the sky on a cold cloudless winter night. Starting at about the age of 25, I stopped hiring lawyers and just did the job myself which really angered judges—because they expect their victims to pay the proper lawyer fees and to respect the game they are playing. But when lives and fortunes are at stake, it is foolish to leave freedom to chance letting some snot-nosed lawyer who golf’s with the judge a few times a year to throw you to the wolves with politeness—or some invisible courtroom etiquette that is made up of legal tradition vacant of respect for individual rights.
To the 30-year-old millennial who spent the night before the recent Thanksgiving thinking about their drunken college days in intoxicated bliss, but proudly displaying their teaching certificate from those days on a wall at their home, or a law degree over their office desk, the words of Ernie Tertelgte might as well have come from E.T. The Extraterrestrial. Tertelgte is a dinosaur from another time and another place—a Constitutional purist that naively failed to give the modern minds of statism the time of day. Those same millennial’s drinking heavily on the Thanksgiving’s Holiday watching YouTube clips of Tertelgte on their iPhones with upturned pinkies and giggling tirades lack a mind to even understand that it was Tertelgte who was right and they who were on the path to extinction. As remote and distant as Ernie Tertelgte might seem to the modern human being, it is Tertelgte’s position which is sustainable, not the modern statist who accepts the fines of the court blindly without question and the authority of a judge to rule over their lives with an ignorance bred in Europe.
Tertelgte was right when he stated that the American court system was British ministerial law. In the years after the formation of the Constitution—beyond 1791, the American people a little homesick from mother Europe bounced back into the mentality of their former rulers. They did this by default—because freedom is hard, and requires people to be self-reliant. Freedom requires gumption, and intelligence—aspects of modern life that are grossly missing. Governments through their control of the school systems, the national park system, taxes, regulation, and virtually every facet of modern life have taught people not to think—to just turn up their pinkies around a beer glass and chug—then make fun of people like Ernie Tertelgte so to discourage others from following his example.
Europe and its policies of kingdoms, statism, princes, princesses, peasants and all the hierarchies of obedience was rejected in America for a brief time in human history, and The American Constitution captured that philosophy in a bottle to preserve for all time. It didn’t take long for European loving lawyers, judges, and homesick settlers who knew of nothing else to snap back into the mentality of their homeland, and attempt to reshape the Constitution into a document that reminded them of home through case-law. That is what the judge sitting helplessly upon her throne facing down Ernie Tertelgte in her court room—paid for by the subjects of her little kingdom–was measuring the bearded man in the tri-cornered hat against. She wasn’t judging him by the American Constitution, but against 200 years of progressive erosion of that same document. Tertelgte simply rejected that progressive erosion and insisted on the original interpretation of the American Constitution.
Of course Tertelgte was found guilty and fined $150, which he responded, “you are trying to create a fictitious, fraudulent action, I am the living man, protected by natural law.” He then yelled, “Do not tell me to shut up! I am the living, natural man, and my voice will be heard!” The only thing that Tertelgte said in all his utterances that was wrong was that the judge had already played her part in creating that fictitious and fraudulent action—and for many years had done the same to thousands of others. Thousands of other judges just like her had done the same to millions, and millions of other people over the course of their lifetimes. Out of all those people only Tertelgte and a handful of others have taken the time to challenge that fictitiousness with solid fact based on the actual Constitution. The fiction is the judge and all the years of case-law generated through years of many people believing that through consensus belief trumps the original law of the American Constitution. Then those illusionists insist that the participants of the legal system also take part in that chimera because the laws of democracy demand that majority will rules, and so long as the majority wishes to participate in a fiction, then that fiction becomes their reality. Under that mentality people like Erne Tertelgte are the ones accused of not having his feet in reality, and are snickered at for not having a realistic understanding of modern law and its protocols. But in actuality, the only one living by the Constitution is Tertelgte with a bold authenticity that deserves respect—even if it did cost him $150 bucks of stolen money from the court to justify their jobs for the entertainment of an epic American fiction called the court system.
In the recording below from 700 WLW Bill Cunningham found himself in the middle of Butler County Republican politics when Commissioner Cindy Carpenter was engaged in yet another debacle on his show. Cunningham joked to Cindy who was on the radio to defend accusations and possible indictments against her–that Butler County does not have any Democrats so Republicans have taken to fighting each other as Carpenter was at odds with the county prosecutor. I think it was lost to Cunningham that what he said was actually quite wrong. A lot, (too many) politicians in Butler County like Commissioner Don Dixon are former Democrats just like Cunningham used to be—they are the epitome of the whole RINO accusation—“Republican In Name Only.” Dixon used to lead the Democrats in Butler County in the 90’s and only changed parties when he realized that it would be easier to win elections if he called himself a Republican. During the last trustee race in the very conservative West Chester Township, Cathy Stoker was a Democrat but she didn’t dare put that information on her campaign literature. Instead she put “fiscal conservative,” so to give the impression that she was a conservative. Her running mate, Lee Wong—who is a functional socialist literally called himself a Republican—complete with the little elephant on his yard signs. Later during the Cunningham broadcast with Commissioner Carpenter their mutual friend Sheriff Jones came on and essentially called Carpenter a liar. Jones thinks of himself as a Republican, yet he supports labor unions and votes for school levies. His social behavior is quite liberal, yet he is considered a staunch Republican, just like his friend the radio host Cunningham. A lot of these people put on the mask of conservativism to win audience approval, but they legislate like bleeding heart liberals and are directly responsible for spreading the expansion of government. Because most of the world sees and hears these kinds of people as the faces of Republicanism, real conservatives who live as traditional Americans, and are actually philosophically conservative seem as though they are extremists. Meanwhile, these mask wearing conservatives get themselves involved in so many different aspects of politics that they lose track of what they said to whom and when they said it. This is apparently what has happened to Cindy Carpenter who came on the Bill Cunningham Show to dispel the perception of her political blunders. At the end of the broadcast she was dismissed by her Republican buddy and political fundraiser Sheriff Jones who sided with the prosecutor over the controversial incident. CLICK TO REVIEW.
Many of the problems that Cindy has had during her tenure as Commissioner has been her tendency to abuse her office for little things like free baby sitting services and intimidating others with a lot of yelling and screaming. I might be inclined to admire Cindy’s combativeness if she didn’t have elements of big government expansion about her—which comes out in conversations like what she had on 700 WLW. She was quick to point out in her interview that she was a conservative, as though she needed to explain her actions to confirm it. However, the troubling aspect of her discussion is that she declared Sheriff Jones had told her he’d back her over her confrontation with the Butler Country Prosecutor, which was the theme of her latest trouble.
This behavior from Cindy is not new; it has gone on for a long time and seems to be part of the way she operates. Former Commissioner Chuck Furman addressed his concerns regarding Cindy Carpenter’s temper tantrums and emotional tirades in the Commissioner’s office not that long ago. If I were in Cindy’s position, it is likely that many people would be intimidated and frightened also and often, so I don’t begrudge her of that. I understand dropping the “F” bomb in meetings and harassing people who are standing in the way of justice—but whose justice? That is the million dollar question. As a conservative, I know where the line is, but for someone who is a wanna-be conservative– a RINO—their opinions are likely shaped by liberal politics dressed behind a conservative mask—and that is not OK.
Below is a letter from Commissioner Furman to Carpenter which reflects accurately the current trouble that Cindy is having—yet this letter is over a year and a half old as of this writing. It shows a pattern of behavior that is quite destructive. Cindy’s response to the letter can be seen by clicking on the hot link attached to the letter.
Cindy’s response to Furman was similar to what was heard on Cunningham’s show. She presented a logical explanation for everything which sounded good and makes you want to shake your head in acknowledgment—but something isn’t quite right about it. Someone isn’t telling the truth……….either Furman wasn’t being truthful or Carpenter wasn’t. I know Chuck a bit, and I doubt it’s him. Cindy I wasn’t so sure about, although the time or two that I met her she seemed like a nice stable person. She certainly didn’t seem like such a Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality which has persistently followed her antics as an elected representative since 2010.
Yet during the Cunningham interview the Mr. Hyde personality was exposed toward the end. Sheriff Jones is too politically astute to lie on 50,000 watts of AM radio to hundreds of thousands of people all over Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. Sheriff Jones might be walking the line between Republicans and Democrats with the skill of a circus act, but he’s not a liar. So that leaves Carpenter rather exposed in an uncomfortable way that deserves consideration.
I admire about Cindy her fight, her drive, and her pursuit of justice. Yet, her beliefs are way too liberal for me—she is a big government mind pretending to be a conservative. She is at best a moderate Republican and if Butler County were a different kind of place where liberal politics were tolerated, I suspect she would be a Democrat similar to the kind of man Todd Portune is in Hamilton County. I have a history with Todd as well, and I know his politics well—and Cindy is far closer to someone like him ideologically than she is a Republican like T.C. Rogers, the commissioner who took Chuck Furman’s seat during the 2012 election. Many believe that Butler County has three conservative Republican commissioners, but really they have only one in T.C. Don Dixon is a former head of the Democratic Party and is Republican in name only. He is a RINO without question. And not far to the right of the political spectrum of Don is Cindy Carpenter. Under a real tally of values Butler County is currently being led by two Democrats and one Republican—which is a deception that is not forgivable.
When people live their lives around lies, they force themselves to become a schizophrenic type of personality—a Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in real life. Cindy’s three year history shows that to the public she can display Doctor Jekyll—who is mild-mannered and articulate personality that is Republican. But in the halls of the commissioner’s office screaming at people for strange reasons, forcing security to baby sit her kids while she attends meetings, and running around playing a bleeding heart liberal as a social service worker using the power of her office to impose her will—she shows the Mr. Hyde—and that person is a Democrat. It’s often not easy to see until provoked, but eventually the monster comes out and shows itself—and that’s what happened during the interview Carpenter gave to Bill Cunningham.
I don’t mind if people stand by what they are and believe what they believe. I admire it in fact, and I will fight for those people to maintain that right. I believe in the marketplace of ideals fighting it out for the betterment of everyone. But that process doesn’t work if people hide what they really are and attempt to pull a blanket of deception over the actual monsters that drive them as people. For that reason alone I won’t support Cindy Carpenter in the next election—because it is obvious she has not been completely honest about what she is, and what she believes. Politicians who are RINO’s because they know they cannot be elected into office any other way are worse than Democrats because they are attempting to deceive the public at the very start of their public service—and that makes them unqualified of an office of any kind—and untrustworthy of tax payer dollars.
Most of the socialists and hard-core communists functioning in America today do not call themselves by those names. They call themselves, Democrats, progressives, or even anarchists. They do not declare what they are—and in many cases they do not know where their thoughts came from. If someone believes that corporations must “share” their profits, and that capitalism is bad, which is the theme in virtually every public school in America—those beliefs come from socialism—a European concept imported to America like a bad beer covered in rat piss.
Most school boards, most city councils, all labor unions, most politicians at the state and federal level have accepted elements of socialism into their thought processes. But occasionally one gets elected into office on a platform without the mask of the Democratic Party—who runs as a socialist and wins. This is the case of Seattle’s newly elected Socialist councilwoman Kshama Sawant who recently accused aerospace and defense giant Boeing on Monday of “economic terrorism” and told Boeing machinists “The workers should take over the factories, and shut down Boeing’s profit-making machine.” Sawant’s comments were made at a rally organized by machinists after they rejected a deal that would reduce pensions for union members in return for guaranteed jobs in Everett, Wash., building 777X Boeing airliners for eight years.
Now Boeing is considering taking those jobs elsewhere.
“That will be nothing short of economic terrorism because it’s going to devastate the state’s economy,” Sawant told the crowd.
Sawant was born to Vasundhara and H. T. Ramanujam in Pune, India in a middle class family of the Brahmin caste.[5][7][8] Sawant’s mother is a retired principal and her father, a civil engineer, was killed by a drunk driver when she was 13.[9] Sawant’s observations of poverty in her native country and her unhappiness with the Indian caste system helped shape her political views before her adoption of socialism.[8][10] Sawant grew up in Mumbai where she later studied computer science and graduated with a B.Sc from the University of Mumbai in 1994. Sawant married her husband Vivek, an engineer at Microsoft, and moved to the United States.[11] After moving to the United States Sawant decided to abandon the computer engineering field. She began to pursue study in economics due to what she described as her own “questions of economic inequality.”[12] She entered the economics program at North Carolina State University where she earned a PhD. Her dissertation was titled Elderly Labor Supply in a Rural, Less Developed Economy.[5][13] Sawant moved to Seattle in 2006 and, after hearing a speech by a Socialist Alternative organizer, became a socialist. She became a United States citizen in 2010.[14] Sawant and her husband Vivek are separated.[7]
After losing her run for the House Sawant entered the race for Seattle City Council with a campaign organized by Socialist Alternative.[12] She won 35% of the vote in the August primary election, and advanced into the general election for the at-large council position 2[21] against incumbent Richard Conlin, making her the first socialist to advance to a general election in Seattle since 1991.[22] Conlin’s fundraising was double that of Sawant’s,[23] and on election night Sawant was down by 6,193 votes[2] but refused to concede.[24] Late ballots consistently favored Sawant[25] and on Novemeber 15, 2013, Conlin conceded to Sawant after late returns showed him down by 1,640 votes or approximately 1% of the vote.[2][26]
The last socialist on the city council was A. W. Piper, who served 1877-1879,[27][28] notwithstanding RepresentativeHugh De Lacy, a Democrat whom historian Harvey Klehr said was secretly a communist when elected to the city council in 1937.[29]
After her victory Sawant cautioned supporters that, going forward, her opponents would attempt to marginalize her and create both confusion and division among her supporters.[30]
America doesn’t have a caste system like Sawant experienced in India, yet she came to the States and studied under our universities by socialist professors and found herself pulled into socialist circles in Seattle. She became a citizen so she can run for office and the guy who brought her to America is no longer in the picture and now she’s a loose cannon from some far away land that functioned under socialism, communism, and various forms of collectivism. Now she is bringing that mentality to American business. And here is why Sawant is out of her mind crazy—because Boeing like all the large American aerospace manufacturers have discovered that they have to move their operations to right-to-work states in order to stay relevant—economically viable. The competition against America is places like Asia where the ideal of personal sacrifice is expected, so long hours, torturous work, and round the clock service is the norm, not the exception. Boeing cannot hold its own if a labor union can shut down its doors every couple of years with the threat of a strike, or wages that are too high. Or work hours too short where Boeing must pay $30 to $50 dollars an hour for work performed over 40 hours per week, or even over 8 hours per day. The Asian markets are not held to those standards and will out-perform American aviation if left under the leadership of the socialist labor unions and council women like Sawant.
Socialists like Kshama Sawant do not understand a basic premise of economics even though she holds a PhD. Her socialist professors during their studies of Marx, Lenin, and the European Union neglected the basic concept of American gumption—the thrill of achieving a task if profit is on the horizon. When she stated to the machinists that they should take over the factory because they owned the machines, the plant, and the work force, and the management does nothing to make the whole enterprise tick, she is displaying her vast ignorance of capitalism, and manufacturing in America—and advocating outright theft of capital investment.
What the management does at Boeing is secure the contracts for the workers. They attend the trade shows which sell the airplanes; they engineer the planes, and the set up the supply chain which delivers all the parts for assembly. Boeing invests in the capital equipment and takes all the risks in anticipation of a profit. If there is no profit, there is no reason to fly all over the world making deals to sell airplanes, there is no reason to struggle with FFA regulations, or the threat of law suits if something goes wrong with one of their products. Without profit, there is no reason to perform any level of activity that promotes the growth of the company. Without the management, the machinists would show up at Boeing every day to work and would stand at their machines waiting for someone to drop off a part for them to process. But nothing would come and the machinists would all stand around waiting for something to happen. After a short time, the business would die, and the plant would be shut down because nobody sold anything, nobody designed anything, and nobody would deliver anything because all those things are done by management. Kshama Sawant believes that the body of Boeing can exist without the head of management to direct it—and it never works. Never. Workers never become the head in labor unions. Their socialist culture prevents it—so nobody ever picks up the baton and does the work of management on behalf of a labor union. So they always fail without management to guide them. The only unions that succeed under this arrangement are public sector unions who steal tax money to exist given to them by politicians too weak to question the socialism involved.
Boeing has a right and obligation to protect its shareholders and move its business if shown that they can no longer be productive, and having a lecherous workforce of union staff that won’t negotiate on reduced pensions to become more economically viable is a good indication that it’s time to move away from communities like Settle where the people elected a socialist like Sawant to offices of power. Such an election is reckless and shows that the left leaning liberals of Washington State haven’t a clue as to where their economic power comes from. Their ignorance is hurting Boeing as a company of great American significance with imposing anti-capitalist mechanisms that destroy production.
I have yet to see a unionized work force that produces effectively without management. If left to the workers, part rate drops per hour of production, quality drops dramatically, delivery times are nonexistent, attendance is horrendous, and nothing works. If the workers of Boeing in Washington took over the machining facilities and the management of Boeing moved to South Carolina or even Texas where right-to-work exists, Boeing could buy new plants, new machines, and pay for new employees. But the employees in the current machining facility would have their machines but a building empty of product because nobody in management would bring it to their door.
It is astonishing that someone like Kshama Sawant could have a PHD from an American college and be a socialist—believing the things she does. What she believes creates poverty similar to where she came from in India where the union stewards become the caste system she ran from, and politicians become the kings. She simply brought India to America and the end result is destroyed jobs, economic misery, and the migration of America into a third world country. Nobody should leave an American school or a college with the idiotic notion that socialism is anything but destructive, and a failed philosophy that has no place in any company in The United States, especially the aviation industry.
Kshama Sawant is not alone—there are millions just like her, just savvier at hiding their real beliefs from the public. Anyone who believes that it is greed that drives business, or uses terminology like—the “people should unite” are socialists and they need to be dealt with accordingly. There are no labor unions in America who do not support that basic premise—and that includes police, fire, and teacher unions. They are all founded on concepts of socialism which is blatantly exhibited by Kshama Sawant—ignorance into the way the world really works with an assumption that profit is evil. It is the unionized workers that are all about economic terrorism with strikes, wage demands, and stifled productivity. The radicals are the advocates of socialism who pretend to be capitalists. At least Kshama Sawant says what she is. Most of them don’t.
For me the situation is clear, I’ll support J.D. Winteregg to run against John Boehner in the primary coming up as opposed to the other challenger who spoke at the West Chester Tea Party in a short introduction and debate against my neighbor Eric Gurr—a very nice guy, smart man, but too much of a political insider. J.D. has a new penny feel about him, and after hearing him speak, I believe he is incorruptible. I’ve known a few people over the years that can walk through the valley of sin without falling to temptation, and Eric has that presence about him. It will take that kind of person to knock off Boehner, and do what is required in Washington D.C. in the seat that Boehner vacates. But don’t just take my word for it, watch the debate for yourself—where both J.D. Winteregg and Eric Gurr introduce their basic platforms and do a bit of Q & A at the end through debate fashion. Both guys did a pretty good job at this early stage. Neither are slick politicians—but that’s a good thing when it is considered that the task at hand is to knock off the Speaker of the House—the third most powerful job in the entire world.
John Boehner has been in Congress representing the 8th District since 1990. He’s been in that position my children’s entire life, and they are now both married and having kids of their own. He’s been in Washington too long. I know he’s a nice guy, but I’m sure the same could be said of Obama privately. Boehner is just bad for the job. It became clear to me that Boehner had fallen in love with Washington D.C. when he was caught on a hot mike talking to Joe Biden about golf before the President addressed the nation with a yearly speech. Obama obviously has intentions to grossly expand government which is a real and serious threat to everyone’s livelihoods who actually work at real jobs—and hob knobbing with the powerful elite while they do it is just neglectful. It has become obvious that Obama and John Boehner are not that far apart on many issues. Boehner plays the Republican act for the cameras, and fundraising speeches, but it is obvious he doesn’t believe what he says because he doesn’t act on his promises—such as someone’s going to “jail over the IRS.” Boehner like Obama just delivers lines of dialogue and seems to believe in nothing.
When a politician like John Boehner “compromises” he’s done, not because compromise is a dirty word, but because the implication of that task states clearly that a person is willing to yield their values for the collective good of democracy. The trouble with that is the other side does not function from a value system, so compromise to them costs nothing—because they have nothing to yield. The compromise exclusively comes from those who do have value—people like Boehner—and he has for over twenty years compromised, and compromised, and compromised until he has allowed the Republican right to be pulled so far to the political left that he could likely hold a job right now in the Clinton White House of the 1990s.
Boehner plays too many Washington games, and he loses most of them. Whether it’s the government shut down, the debt ceiling, Health Care which was rammed through Congress on his watch, his failure to go after Obama on several potentially impeachable offenses—Benghazi, the IRS, the NSA, the political appointments, Boehner has shown that he’s comfortable in Washington. He likes it and for a representative from Ohio, he is not representing it in the Belt Way—giving politicians like Obama leverage in all negotiations. It is obvious that in the poker games of Washington, John doesn’t know what he’s doing, or what his opponents are doing to him. Boehner is continuously out-maneuvered by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid for God’s sake—and those people are complete idiots. I am convinced that Boehner was elected Speaker of the House not for his skill as a Speaker, but for his naive complacency—his aloofness toward the crimes going on in the House under his nose which is enriching its members. Boehner is Speaker of the House to keep the status quo functioning with excuses and promises while the trio of Reid, Pelosi, and Obama run him down over and over like Enos on the old television show, The Dukes of Hazzard.
On a rainy January in 2011 I went down to John’s office during lunch to speak to his “people,” the same guys who were in the audience scouting the competition trying to knock off their boss in the video above. I wanted to give Boehner a formal letter, and actually hoped to catch him in town, as I knew he was back home at the time. When I got to the office, they hadn’t seen Boehner even though he lives right down the road—and that little aspect of Boehner’s management style spoke volumes about the current Speaker of the House—he’s out of touch. Boehner after 20 years in Congress has been out-witted one too many times and the way he attempts to overcome his intellectual naiveté is to play golf with his enemies and compromise. When Boehner compromises with Obama it is always the GOP which gives up something because Obama is a classic thief—a looter who gains everything he has in life by taking from others. Obama never gives up anything because he never earned anything. John Boehner on the other hand has always done for himself—but he gives Obama equal value at the bargaining table with a compromise. It’s like going to a garage sale and buying a new television in exchange for a pack of stolen laundry plucked off a neighbor’s cloths line. Boehner has the television; Obama has the bag of laundry. Boehner gives Obama the television, and Boehner gets a bag of laundry that the owner eventually comes looking for and thinks that it was Boehner who stole it in the first place, because it’s in his hands. Obama goes home and watches football on the television while Boehner defends himself in court for stealing laundry from people’s back yards. That is what Democrats call “compromise.”
The Speaker of the House should know how to defend himself from those types of political games, but Boehner clearly doesn’t. Like Enos in The Dukes of Hazzard, John Boehner is a good man pushed around constantly by the Boss Hoggs of Capital Hill, and he falls for just about every scheme imaginable. He has been kept as Speaker because the thieves, looters and barons know that they can continue their crimes against the tax payer so long as John Boehner is in charge—and that is just an insult to the people of the 8th District, and to himself. It is painful to watch Boehner struggle through all the various controversies that the Obama administration has served up to him, and he misses again and again the opportunity to deliver a spike. It’s like watching a child in tee-ball who can’t swing a bat and hit the ball set up on a tee. It’s just pathetic.
So it’s time for Boehner to go and send a message to Washington that an established (powerful) Republican can be knocked out of his seat by someone new—someone like J.D. Winteregg. If the Republicans fail to gain seats in the House after the Obamacare debacle, then they are complete idiots anyway—and hopeless beyond repair. Obamacare is not just a ball placed on a tee for the GOP to hit, but it’s already been knocked out into the field for them. All they have to do is run the bases. So losing Boehner in the primary is of little consequence to the GOP. We can afford it as an investment into a new kind of government where the Speaker is actually in his office when he’s in town, and doesn’t think first of playing golf while the other side is pulling his underwear up over his head like a Three Stooges skit. It’s time for someone else to take John’s seat, and for me it would be J.D. Winteregg.
It is such a pleasure in a world that has seemingly gone mad politically, philosophically, and economically to see the glorious gumption of Chris Lee and his entourage of dedicated Millennium Falcon builders. I have covered the exploits of Full Scale Falcon.com before—but that was upon the original announcement that Chris and company had dedicated themselves to building a full sized Millennium Falcon on an 80 acre lot outside of Nashville, Tennessee. CLICK HERE FOR REVIEW. For me and millions of other Star Wars fans the Millennium Falcon represents rebellion, freedom, and hope. It is impossible to step into my home and not see something relevant to Star Wars—but in my bedroom there are Millennium Falcons everywhere. For me it represents more than just a nice plot point from a cool movie—the roots of the Falcon represent far more—and those roots are obviously driving Chris and many others to spend their own time, money, and effort on making a real Falcon that people can see and touch—and walk through. The Millennium Falcon is about more than just escapist fantasy—I would argue it is the direct result of laissez-faire capitalism, and people deep down inside know it—which is why they love the iconic space ship. It was because of laissez-faire capitalism that The Millennium Falcon was able to nearly single-handedly beat a galactic empire with speedy modifications, powerful weapons and raw guts born out of a Star Wars invention called the Corporate Sector.
When I was in the fifth grade my mother used to put together a gift bag of goodies to play with and read while taking long vacations that required many hours in the car. That year my family went to Myrtle Beach and inside my gift bag was a novel just published by Del Rey called Han Solo at Star’s End. It was the first book published after the 1977 release of the first Star Wars film and it featured my favorite character and I couldn’t wait to read it. My mom purposely kept the book on top of the refrigerator out of my reach but positioned it so that I could see it. I was salivating for weeks to read it. I was looking forward to our family vacation not for the opportunity to go to the beach, but to read that book.
Finally on a hot summer morning after a devastating thunderstorm that nearly delayed our trip, we left. The moment we were on I-75 south, my mother gave me the carefully constructed gift bag with all the goodies in it to keep me occupied for the long drive. There were lots of neat things in the bag, but only one thing I wanted and the moment I put my fingers on it, I was in love for life. I devoured Han Solo at Star’s End. I read the book all the way to Myrtle Beach, at every restaurant we stopped at, on the beach, at the hotel room, everywhere that I could hold a book. When I finished I read it again, then again, then again. I lost count of how many times I read that book. I was in love with the Millennium Falcon not because of the movie—which was great, but for deeper reason that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It was the Corporate Sector and specifically a guy named Doc Vandangante who could have only been employed by such an experiment of laissez-faire capitalism that had sent my mind ablaze for some unknown reason.
On my family’s Myrtle Beach vacation I read in Han Solo at Star’s End that while in the Corporate Sector, the Falcon was damaged after Solo and Chewbacca attempted smuggling weapons to insurgents on Duroon. They did collect payment from the insurgents and went to pay off Ploovo Two-For-One, but in a rather creative manner. Given the prickly relationship and even outright disgust they had for each other, Han bought a foul, irritable, putrid dinko, attached the payment to it, and unleashed it on the unfortunate employer. Although Corporate Sector Security arrived at the establishment where they were, Han and Chewbacca escaped their grasp relatively unscathed. Payment completed, they went off to find the outlaw tech “Doc” Vandangante‘s hideout, only to discover he had been taken to the Corporate Sector Authority prison at Stars’ End. Doc’s daughter Jessa offered upgrades and repairs to Han’s ship, and a Corporate Sector waiver, in exchange for Han helping rescue Doc and the other prisoners. Before Han could take off, the outlaw techs were attacked by IRD-A Fighters. Piloting a Z-95 Headhunter, Han led the other techs and Jessa in defense of the base. Despite heavy losses, they were successful. To complete their rescue mission for Jessa, Solo and Chewbacca were given two droids, Bollux and Blue Max, and went to the agriworldOrron III to meet up with a group led by Rekkon planning the prison rescue. Though Solo was initially only interested in getting the repairs for his ship, his motives became personal when Chewbacca was captured. After dealing with a traitor in the group, Solo and the others arrived at Stars’ End. In order to gain entry, Han, Atuarre, Pakka, Bollux and Blue Max posed as a troupe of entertainers. The rescue proved successful; freeing Chewbacca, Doc, and the other prisoners and destroying the Stars’ End in the process. After the Falcon was repaired, Solo and Chewbacca left the Corporate Sector for a time, taking Bollux and Blue Max with them in future books…….all of which I read with the same enthusiasm.[18]
The Corporate Sector was formed in 490 BBY[9] to free the Republic lawmakers and the Corporate moneymakers from their differences, after being exiled from the Inner Rim to the Tingel Arm. The Corporate Sector originally had a few hundred systems all devoid of intelligent life. Its creation came in the aftermath of the disastrous experiment with corporate control in the Outer Expansion Zone. The new experiment was tried under more careful supervision, the Republic sent the equivalent of a full subsector’s worth of ships to protect the rights of the workers in the sector and to ensure the companies preserved the basic integrity of the environment on the planets in the sector. The corporations were allowed to operate in the sector and could purchase entire regions of space, but were supervised by the Galactic Republic. A general tax was paid directly to the Republic government which enabled the companies to avoid the morass of sector, system, planetary and local taxes found on most worlds in the Republic. The Corporate Sector thrived because of deregulation and low taxes.
Doc was born on Coruscant to Carmilla Vandangante, a corporate viceprex and widow who doted on her only son. He rebelled against his life of luxury and privilege at the age of seven, reprogramming his droid nanny to discard such unpalatable foods as kibla greens, flangth, and stewed gwouch into a living room vase. This demonstrated his technical gifts to his tutors, who soon tailored their lessons to these skills.[1]
Upon graduation, Doc accepted a position at Alkherrodyne Propulsions as design systems team leader. He soon became disenchanted with the corporation’s shoddy workmanship covered with flashy marketing, but swallowed his pride and remained with the company. However, when the Azaria 66 began exploding in minor accidents, Alkherrodyne’s slicers framed Doc. The countless lawsuits wiped out the multi-billion credit Vandangante fortune, and left the name slandered.[1]
Doc became a drifter, eventually making his way into the Corporate Sector, where he met an outlaw tech by the name of Shardra. They immediately fell in love, and when introduced to her profession, Doc found his calling, repairing smuggling ships and souping them up to be some of the fastest in the Corporate Sector. Shardra bore the couple a daughter, Jessa Vandangante, but soon died in an unfortunate fuel dump explosion. Doc found raising a daughter to be a difficult task, especially as the free-spirited woman grew older and started catching the eye of younger smugglers like Han Solo.[1]
The Millennium Falcon was a direct result of very creative free enterprise by a number of previous owners but culminating in the exploits of Han Solo who ran into Doc Vandagante. In a very large galaxy of ideals, some parts of it ruled by peace-loving pacifists, some ruled by ruthless crime lords, some ruled by sinister agents of tyranny, some just trying to preserve their heritage among the intermingling of many races and species—it was the Corporate Sector that made The Millennium Falcon such a special starship. Much like today’s world in real life, government and business could not get along—so government gave business free rein on the outer edge of the galaxy away from their control in exchange for the benefits. The equivalent in the real world might be the Caribbean, Las Vegas, Gatlinburg, Tennessee, Hong Kong, or even Disney World where politics leaves the areas alone with their overly intrusive rules and regulations. The direct benefit is the vibrant economic activity of creative minds such as the fictional Doc Vandagante. My question as a young fifth grader on Myrtle Beach was why wasn’t the rest of the galaxy the way the Corporate Sector was? Why would the government within the core worlds want the benefits of the Corporate Sector not on the outer rim of the galaxy, but within the core near the capital planets? Well, the sad answer was power.
Star Wars is of course a fictional story, but it has so many references to our current life that the mythology accurately reflects many competing ideals that are in actual conflict. The concepts introduced through the story are familiar to us all. The Imperials love statism, the Rebels love freedom, and then there are those who might otherwise find sanction in the Corporate Sector with all the good and bad that comes with it. Some of the planets in the Corporate Sector are ravaged with pollution, and corrupt board of directors just out trying to make money at the expense of others. It’s not all good in the Corporate Sector—it’s not safe—fair, or even remotely nice. But, the Corporate Sector was responsible for much of the technological innovation that the rest of the galaxy enjoyed and there is a philosophical argument there worth noting.
The Millennium Falcon is a direct product of the laissez-faire capitalism of the Star Wars universe. When I returned back to the real world after reading Han Solo at Star’s End it was clear that my public school was intent to teach the politics of the core worlds, what we might call in the real world—socialism. The public schools were intent to preach the merits of statism—rules and regulations, federal control of everything. Not me. I wanted a Millennium Falcon—I wanted something like it in my lifetime, and it quickly became clear to me that the kind of education that the public schools were offering would not take the world where I wanted to go. When John F Kennedy dared America to go to the moon, he tossed at NASA a bit of laissez-faire capitalism to make it happen—and beat the Russians to space. Stanley Kubrick watched this progress and built is movie 2001: A Space Odyssey around that type of progress. But once the Berlin Wall came crashing down in 1989, America took its foot off the gas and started over regulating everything once again to give politicians something to do—and that space race progress came to a halt. Now there has been over 20 years of blatant and gradually increasing socialism coming out of WashingtonD.C. because that’s what everyone was taught in their public schools, and there are no real plans for space under the Obama administration going forward. They are instead focused on solar panels, street cars, public transit, and a communist care health system.
NASA if turned loose with laissez-faire capitalism could likely build a real functional Millennium Falcon within a decade. The technology is close enough that at least a vessel that could take off and fly into space with artificial gravity, ion propulsion, life support and other forms of sustainability could be achieved quickly if the real life Doc Vandagantes were turned loose of government regulation. I know a few of them, I know people who have invented flying cars that could take off from one driveway and land in another half a world away, but has no real interest from large aerospace companies facing gigantic liability concerns, and mountains of paperwork in compliance to purchase—and advance. I know of people who have cured most cancers, but the FDA has tried to throw them in jail to keep the technology off the market so pharmaceutical companies can continue keeping people sick and addicted to their products. I know of scientists who have started the process of regenerative growth—who can re-grow fingers lost, or legs amputated. They are solving the problem of aging and whether or not human beings actually have to die. They are a threat to the companies who make prosthetic limbs, and ADA legislation that wants more ramps for wheel chairs, elevators for the disabled, and generally more handicapped people to use for political advancement in the here and now. Those types of people will gladly sacrifice the opportunities of tomorrow for power today.
Statists inside the beltway of Washington D.C. are the first to say that if people never got sick, never died, and had unlimited freedom of transportation, then the world would become over polluted, over populated, and a menace to itself. They are still thinking small, because they obviously never read anything like Han Solo at Star’s End as kids—an act I’m sure Chris Lee shares with me. People like Chris and I ask ourselves why can’t I have my own Millennium Falcon to take off and go to work in orbit around earth where all the pollution and byproduct of production could be dumped into space preserving planet earth forever. When work was completed at the end of the day, we would just fly home and land in our back yards with our Millennium Falcons. Why can’t we have it–because we live on earth with restrictive governments that hate laissez-faire capitalism?
I’ve read many of the European classics and compared to Star Wars, they are boring. I love Shakespeare, but I would take any Star Wars book over William Shakespeare any day of the week. Shakespeare was a better writer than Brian Daley who wrote Han Solo at Star’s End without question. But Daley is much more positive as a thinker than Shakespeare, and that optimism about what’s possible is what Star Wars is all about. Yet much of the modern statism that is infecting the world is because of European culture, Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain, Dante’s Inferno, or the master himself James Joyce of Finnegan’s Wake fame, which I have read and understand. Give me Star Wars over Finnegan’s Wake and give me the Millennium Falcon over a fu**ing street car. Give me a manufacturing plant floating around earth dumping its garbage into space or on the surface of the moon as opposed to the socialism of Brazil where everyone lives in a card board hut. Give me a Corporate Sector that can build a Millennium Falcon in America so that I can have one as opposed to the dying towns of Detroit choking on socialism and feel-good progressivism.
What Chris Lee is attempting to do is no different from what Doc Vandagantes did in the book Han Solo at Star’s End for TheMillennium Falcon. Chris isn’t working for NASA, or some other group building Falcons for the general population. Government will not get behind such an effort, so Chris is doing it on his own. I was a bit skeptical at first even though I wanted to see the results. But after Chris showed off the latest cockpit construction after many months of meticulous effort, I can see clearly that he will be successful so long as he can continue to fund the project. It is for that reason that I am starting an icon on my side bar here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom encouraging my readers here to help Chris with his project. I think it’s important. Is it as important as sex trafficking in the world, or the sad state of current politics———-no, but yes. Yes because Chris’s Millennium Falcon project is about the most important ingredient to human society—imagination—and the gumption to make things happen. Chris wants like I do to walk inside a real life Millennium Falcon—and he’s making it happen on his dime, with his time, and his effort. And now that I’ve seen it, I can’t help but wonder what our world would be like if government simply got behind people like Chris and allowed them to function in a Corporate Sector of America where inventions like the Falcon could flourish, instead of trying to heard people into cities through progressive politics and force them onto government sponsored mass transit. The Millennium Falcon is a larger symbol than that—it is the result of laissez-faire capitalism and a hope for mankind that resides in the spirit of ideals and innovation—and a lot of perspiration.
That old Han Solo at Star’s End novel still sits near my reading chair. It’s now torn, and very worn out from years of handling—but it still evokes in me boundless imagination opportunities and optimism. Many people look at what Chris is doing in Nashville and read what I have said here and think that we are grown up kids who love the escapism of cinema, or fantasy which has a grain of truth to it. But what do we want to escape from—and to what. Speaking for myself, I wish to escape from the clutches of those with undeveloped imaginations—people who avoid thinking rather than thriving from it. For me, a personal Millennium Falcon would allow me to leave those sluggish minds behind in a flight for the stars and the endless possibilities available outside of the laws comb-over politicians have constructed just to increase their power base. My wife has read Han Solo at Star’s End—in fact she’s read every Star Wars book ever written up to this point which is in the hundreds—and she understands why there are Millennium Falcon’s all over our bedroom. Many don’t because they failed to let novels like Han Solo at Star’s End capture their imaginations at a young age, or failed to enjoy a film like Star Wars for whatever reason. They lack the mechanism to enjoy those kinds of things and it is they who are weights on minds like mine. I want to escape from their limitations, their restrictions, and their lives stuck in quicksand of self-construction. The Millennium Falcon to me is freedom from all that, and a symbol against restriction because TheFalcon is a pirate vessel built by illegal components that’s faster than anything regulations in the Republic or Empire would allow. And that’s why I love it, and why people like Chris are dedicating their lives to see a real life Millennium Falcon—even if they have to build the damn thing themselves. I sleep better at night knowing that there are people like Chris and his friends out there—beyond the reaches of those who use rules and regulations to mask the lack of imagination that plagues their thoughts like a cancer—and the democracies of tyranny that they create with good intentions imposed from faulty thinking. The Millennium Falcon is an escape from those who don’t understand and a celebration by those who do.
