A Fourth of July Message

What people believe about the existence of their gods is less important than whether they believe that it is ethical to fight, kill and die for their freedom. That is why someone who believes in an aggressive god that may not actually exist can be more effective sometimes than someone whose pacifist upbringing prevents him from fighting for freedom.

Audible Vacuum County is Out

Order Here

The Audible Edition of Vacuum County, read by Kelly Clear, is now available. It came out yesterday, at the same time as the article linked below in the Licking News.

http://www.thelickingnews.com/in-this-edition/vacuum-county-releasing-an-audible-edition/

You can get a free copy of the audiobook if you have never used Audible before. We want you to get that free copy, because there is a bounty paid to both Kelly and to me every time someone new joins Audible because of us.

If you do get the free book, this will also unlock the further opportunity to win a free Vacuum County T-shirt. All you have to do is listen closely, answer seven magical questions about the story, and submit your answers to Julia Hanna of Artshirt Designs, here:

http://artshirtdesigns.com/2017/11/24/seven-trivia-questions-to-win-a-vacuum-county-t-shirt-of-your-choice/

There will be a drawing from those who got the answers right. Not everyone will get a free shirt, but the odds are in your favor. It costs nothing to get the book if you are new to Audible, and it costs nothing to enter the trivia contest.  If you like getting things for free, and are also interested in books about freedom, this is an offer you won't want to pass up.

Self Determination versus Freedom

When there is a war, everybody -- on either side -- will tell you that they are fighting for freedom. In a way, that is true by definition. Each side is fighting for freedom from the other side. That is traditionally what war is all about -- who gets to rule whom.

But there are also internal wars that are less about freedom from invaders as freedom from tyranny. Those are the wars that are not about national freedom, but rather personal freedom. People rarely address this distinction clearly, so it is refreshing to find any writer who can conceptualize and articulate the difference. One such writer was Lord Byron, in his poem "The Isles of Greece", a serious lyrical piece within the larger satirical work Don Juan.

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
We will not think of themes like these!
It made Anacreon’s song divine:
He served—but served Polycrates—
A tyrant; but our masters then	65
Were still, at least, our countrymen.

 Inspired by this during the heyday of my Blake's Seven fandom, I wrote the following filk:

Star One is found in The Blake Bunch, a filkbook by Aya Katz based on Blake's Seven

Whenever we go to war with a foreign country, one argument that is made fairly explicitly is this: "The bondage that we like the best, may yet be be ours. It could be less!" People fight to keep foreign powers from ruling them. They will support tyrants on their own side, rather than falling to the enemy.

During World War II, socialism was a very popular philosophy, and people on different sides of the war all had one form or another of it in force under the authority that ruled their country. The Soviets had communism, which is a kind of socialism. The Germans had national socialism. The Italians had fascism, which is also a kind of altruistic philosophy in which people sacrifice all for the homeland. The Japanese have always been very communitarian. The British had their own empire where people were expected to serve the interests of others overseas, for the good of the many. And the Americans had socialism under FDR, which included many programs under the New Deal, as well as price fixing and rationing of staple foods during the war. 

When the leaders of these countries told their citizens they were fighting for freedom, they meant freedom from being conquered by the other side -- not personal freedom. Not freedom of contract. Not economic freedom. And not the freedom to express an opinion that was not supportive of the war effort.

After the war, Britain's Empire collapsed under the extreme effort of paying for the fighting, even though the British were ostensibly on the winning side. The United States was in better shape, but things never really went back to the freedoms that were taken for granted before the two world wars.

Self-determination is something that many of the old colonies gained, not by outfighting the British, but simply because the British no longer could afford to keep them. It was the same kind of  "you are free to go" freedom that slaves of bankrupt masters sometimes win.

In the Weihsien Internment camp in China, self-determination was always allowed to the internees. They governed themselves under the Japanese rule. Their day to day life was a hell of their own making, because they voted on practically everything.

You don't automatically get personal freedom by being self-governing and self-determined. When your neighbor gets to vote on what you have, that is the least free form of government that there is. But the internees did not seem to realize this, because everybody in those days believed in absolute democracy. They were all socialist, each in his own way. 

The Price of a Free Press -- Or A Free Anything

There are two views of freedom. One is that freedom is a matter of choice, and not being coerced is what it consists of. The other is that freedom means getting all your needs met at someone else's expense. The founding fathers of the American revolution had the first view in mind, but fairly early on in the history of the republic, the second one was already insinuating itself into American politics.

The price of freedom is that someone free has to defend it. If it is paid for by the government, then the government gets to determine what freedom means, using funds coercively taken from individuals. If it is paid for by individuals, such as citizens and free militias, then it is they who will ultimately decide on the meaning of their own freedom. That's why Jean Laffite's contribution in the War of 1812 was so important to the definition of American liberty. This is also why the end of privateering meant the beginning of tyranny.

"If this is a free country, then shouldn't everything be free?" This question was placed into the mouth of Francie in the book A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Her father answered: "If everything were free, it wouldn't be a free country." Then he proceeded to help her steal a better education than she was legally entitled to by pretending to live in a wealthier neighborhood than he could afford.

The American educational system has been a confusing mess for a very long time, Partly based on taxation of local property, and hence indirectly on the wealth of residents, and partly based on Federal funding, it serves no one and everyone, because no one and everyone pays for it.

The price of a free education is that the people who use it must pay for it. Unless it is paid for by students and their families, then the content of the education will be determined by someone else. The price of free healthcare is that the people who use it have to pay for it. If it is paid for by someone else, then someone else will determine what treatment will be given and what priorities will apply. If the government pays for medical care, then the government can determine who will live and who will die.

What about a free press? Who should pay for that? And in fact, who did pay for it early in the 19th century, after the War of 1812?

I have two mastheads at my disposal, thanks to Pam Keyes. One is the Weekly Aurora, a political paper espousing "Jeffersonian" views. There is no advertising, and the subscription is listed as three dollars per year.The issue I have is from October of 1815.

The second is the Southern Patriot and Commercial Advertiser. The subscription cost is ten dollars per year, but there is also advertising. The date of this issue is July 21, 1824. It does appear that the Southern Patriot came out more frequently than the Aurora, which might account for the great difference in the subscription price.

Advertisements in the Southern Patriot

Interestingly, the advertisements are of all sorts, with no particular type overshadowing others. "For Philadelphia. The New Packet Ship, Langdon Cheves, John Baker, Master; will sail on Thursday next, the 22nd instant. For freight or passage apply to Captain Baker, on Board at Edmonston's Wharf, or to Fleming  & Ross. For Sale on Board, Half Barrels Philadelphia Marker Beef, Barrels and boxes, choice cyder, barrels fresh rye flour, Hay in bundles, 500  bushels white gourd seed corn, 20 hogsheads rye whiskey. July 17." Just in this one ad, we can see that the public had access to transportation, freight and goods on board a private vessel belonging to a private person. Since there was no public road built at public expense, private enterprise was supplying all that people needed on board ships that were owned by individuals, not corporations.

Another ad, quite different in tenor and content that particularly caught my eye ran like this: "Mrs. Eliza Schroder hereby gives public notice, that it is her intention to become a freedealer in 30 days after this date, agreeably to the act of the legislature. m4 July 12."

I am not sure what being a freedealer means, but I did look up freed slaves in South Carolina, and I found out that after 1820 it became possible for a slave in South Catolina  to be freed only by an act of the legislature. Could this be an announcement by Mrs. Eliza Schroder that in thirty days time she was freeing herself? Did Mrs. Eliza Schroder save up the money to buy her own freedom? How many of us today could do the same? Why was an act of the legislature required?

Feel free to look over all the ads I have displayed above. Some are announcements for funerals, one is for a private lottery to support a school of fine arts, but we learn that the week before there was another lottery to support a different cause. It seems there was no state monopoly on lotteries and anyone could run one.

The Superintendent of Indian Affairs and the Governor of Florida Territory was buying up food to to "furnish to Florida emigrant Indians" and was soliciting contracts from suppliers.

The Treasury Department ran several ads, but so did booksellers, including one about a polar expedition in 1819 with information about the Aurora Borealis. There were meetings announced, houses for rent, and even a reward for a lost gold watch. What is remarkable is the wide variety of personal ads, side by side with those from commercial ventures and government entities.

While this period of American history was full of injustices and unfairness of many kinds, from slaves to be sold to native Americans who were clearly being dispossessed and interned, what is remarkable about the advertisements in this paper is that there are no large ads by more important people or entities overshadowing the smaller, more personal ads. It seemed as if each ad was given equal space and each person advertising had an equal say.

For there to be a free press, the press should be paid for by private people. This can happen in the form of subscriptions or advertising. We learn a lot about the press in the early nineteenth century by seeing how it was paid for and by reading both the editorials and the ads.