The following is a transcript of a speech given by the author at the First Anniversary of the NJTPC on 4/15/2010 at 4:30 pm on the Hackensack Green, Hackensack, NJ.
Good day.
I’d like to begin by pointing out that you people are idiots. And by that I mean stupid, since I am assuming, as idiots, your vocabulary is limited. Please forgive me if you are not an idiot or by chance you are an idiot but not so much as to need the “stupid” qualifier. It’s just that my only exposure to Tea Party enthusiasts and their paid speakers and media sounding boards are usually manipulated by mainstream corporate news organizations; and I have to tell you this half-assed “movement” of yours is very often displayed as an agonizingly long line of inarticulate goobers with little to no grasp of the King’s English or of the nation in which they are trying to reconstruct. Seriously. I have abused my fair share of narcotics in the past and basically mainline French absinthe on weekends, but it is difficult for me to reconcile this kind of behavior to the appropriate chemical stimuli.
Please keep your boos and caterwauling until I am finished. We have a lot to get to before we bring out the usual parade of slobbering slogan jockeys. But don’t panic; in order to make the reality medicine go down smoother, I have agreed to throw in the occasional fist-pumper every paragraph or so, like “Death to the Weird!” and “Go George Washington!”
Now at this point you might rightfully ask yourself; why would the NJTPC invite this asshole to deride us so viciously before uttering a single word that soothes our sense of isolation and fabricated angst against a massive and uncaring government that wishes to steal our hard-earned money and control everything we do? Fear not! What stands before you is a tried-and-true rebel. I have fought this battle in a dark vacuum of spite without all the flavor-of-the-month fanfare you posers enjoy.
You see, long before you decided what level of government over-reach would motivate you to waste a perfectly good workday waving grammatically-challenged signs dressed in American Revolution regalia, I was the founder and chief officer of the AAPGF, or as it is known in the fringe group industry; Artists Against Puritan Goat Fuckers.
The AAPGF, to which a fancy logo and a detailed manifesto have been available for over a decade on-line, is a turn-of-the-century brainchild of great independent thinkers, whose ranks today number in the thousands. We believe without compromise, that the authority and power of our governing bodies have gone far enough. Many Republicans here today who are ironically tying to piggyback this “movement” actually fought against its unyielding principle of individual liberty by using bullshit arguments about children, obscenity, God, the greater good of society and other tyrannical gibberish.
Ah, thank you. I see I’ve hit upon your buzzword. Good to see some of you are still awake. The special Kool-Aid will be administered shortly.
“Up with people!”
My founding of the AAPGF aside, what ultimately garnered my invite to your gathering today is my repeated and thus far thwarted attempt to secede my meager stretch of land from the Union, much of my tribulation is well documented on my web site, so I shan’t belabor it here.
But believe me when I tell you; I’m a lifer. This is not a hobby for me, nor is it a calculated attempt at politics or middle-aged outrage, as what appears to be the case for an overwhelming number of you soft-bellied small-timers. I’ve been to the edge and back with government; federal, local, you name it. And I’m here to say the entire thing is fucked and must be broken down and rebuilt from scratch. It is flawed and screwed, and its atavistic foundation, cobbled haphazardly as it was under cannon fire during a heat wave two hundred and forty or so years ago, while still the best example of governance in the history of human civilization, is nothing more than out-dated Euro-Trash.
I’m talking about heavy lifting people. Voting another group in over the group that came before has kept The System growing and its expansion widening for most of these two hundred years. This is why I’ll assume you guys are waving the “Don’t Tread On Me” flag. I’ve proudly unfurled one of those on every property I’ve inhabited for three decades. It is the only flag that should fly. The American version is tainted and besmirched and until there is justice for all should be our pariah.
“No more free lunch!”
So what are we trying to accomplish; you know beyond the awkward social ineptitude and yelling?
Well, I decided, that instead of sharing my fairly radical and somewhat scarily reasoned ideas today, I wish only to breakdown what it is your aim and to point out as succinctly as possible its utterly ill-conceived and badly fostered platform.
I have in my hand the NJTPC’s Core Principles. It’s Mission Statement, and I paraphrase, is “to restore and protect the founding principles of our nation”, which, as already stated, for a “movement” is silly. You’re supposed to reject a system that isn’t working, not make specious claims that its origins were bastardized. What is this; the Russian Revolution meets the dawning of Christianity? All philosophies are bastardized.
“Down with pie charts!”
Okay, now onto your thirteen principles, and by the way; nice under-grad symbolism with the original thirteen colonies. I dig that.
1. Rights are endowed by God. Governments are instituted by men.
The musket and the sword endow rights. The people choose democratic governments. And while I understand this mocks the very notion of a Tea Party in the sense that our present construct provides taxation with representation, these are the facts; and although you are entitled to your opinion, not so much the facts.
2. Support for U.S. Constitution.
The original or the amended version? If it is the former, then all women and minorities will be asked to please leave; along with those with limited land ownership. You’re all excluded. These are your principles, not mine. I only wish to deconstruct them.
3. Support of the Tenth Amendment – state sovereignty.
If we are going to adhere to the original founding principles, then there are no states. Therefore these “principles” – which are defined as immutable and handed down by an invisible deity – are rendered null and void.
4. Rejection of global governance and the ignoring of the laws bound by the Constitution are punishable as treason.
Who are you guys going to elect that will not be bound by global governance and won’t challenge the authority of the constitution, because you can not name one president and hardly any single legislative branch member who hasn’t engaged in this activity.
5. Only the founding fathers original interpretation of the constitutional is valid.
Once again, women, minorities and lower middle classes, exit stage left.
6. Rejection of all tax laws.
Any group that considers taxes as a form of slavery really wouldn’t embrace prison. I would wipe this off the list myself, but that’s just me.
7. Free Market over any government regulation.
For more information on how this has been an abject failure and led to the most socialist laws known to this republic, please see the Roaring Twenties. When you have sufficiently been educated on the recorded disasters of an unchecked Free Market, then we can talk. Until then, please stop giving me the finger. You need to blame your parents and the shitty school system for your frightening level of ignorance.
8. Rejection of tyranny.
Agreed, but most of the language in your principles sound a bit authoritative, like “We only accept the original form of the constitution.”
9. Rejection of usurping the checks-and-balances of governance.
I will respectfully leave this alone, for its populist sentiment is at its basest form a “All puppies are cute” kind of thing.
10. The government is at service to the people.
Well, I thought we were Free Market. There is no government service without the people, and if the people are going to “be” as opposed to “being represented by” the government, then Principle #10 directly refutes Principle #7 and turns this thing into a pseudo-Bolshevik rally, and I did not bring my notes for that one.
11. Reserve the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
What the hell are you doing in Hackensack?
12. Reserve the right to remove our consent to be governed.
Please see an earlier principle for the jail solution. I think many of you would likely benefit from incarceration of some kind, but again, I wouldn’t recommend it.
13. We only support candidates from whatever party that adheres to these principles.
Good luck.
Okay, so in conclusion, I offer my sincerest wishes of fortune on your meaningless journey to nowhere, as I will conclude with the same slice of wisdom I offered to an anti-war rally four years ago, when similar mud-brains thought by electing new guys to the same System would end the fifteen wars we’ve got going.
Do yourselves a favor; ignore the ugliness of the big picture; get laid and have a beer. Better people than you have given up far more for less. Write it off as a loss and try and be happy. It could be worse, you could be gay and pay all the taxes for half the rights.
Thank you and God bless me and everything I stand for, and god damn the rest of it.
“Happy Tax Day!”
James Campion is the Managing Editor of The Reality Check News & Information Desk and the author of Deep Tank Jersey, Fear No Art, Trailing Jesus, and Midnight For Cinderella. His work is archived at jamescampion.com.
