Private government

In the first, fundamental sense of the term, private government describes the power of each individual to control the conduct of his or her life, whether right or wrong, in sickness and in health, for better or worse, courageously, cowardly, or cooperatively with others. In America, toleration of differences and separation of church and state were a precondition for national union, and it resulted in a widely understood right of individuation legally protected by the First Amendment. The state cannot compel a citizen to attend a church or be taxed to support a religious sect. Individual decisions concerning education, career, marriage, and finance are largely unregulated, despite a mountain of legislation and administrative rules imposed to limit individual choice. Liberty stubbornly persists as a matter of personal aspiration or folly, contrary to the best efforts of family, neighbors, and politicians to induce conformity.

That, however, is not the topic I wish to discuss. Private government has another meaning pertaining to constitutional law, not in the present, but the future. In tempestuous infancy and adolescence, the U.S. Constitution was a legalized tug of war with periodic explosions. Colonial frontier pioneers did not perceive an obligation to be stewards of the planet. The Federal Convention of 1787 did not debate LGBTQ or transgender privileges, and the Civil War was not fought to give birthright citizenship to foreign anchor babies.

American constitutional thumb wrestling was a brief struggle in the sweep of human history, even if we graft it to the dead root of English common law. Some historians point to ancient Rome as a source for concepts like contract, or Bible stories as the source of all law. Athenian aristocrats experimented with democracy and trial by jury. The Code of Hammurabi is taught in U.S. law schools as the ancient basis of equity and criminal law, improved incrementally by thousands of years of judicial and legislative thought.

Wait a minute. Spaceflight was derived from rock throwing?

Obviously not. The American Experiment was a clean break with all previous governments, and it was totally rewritten twice, by Civil War and by 20th Century Supreme Court decisions. If the Founding Fathers knew what we've done to their Constitution, they'd shout from their graves to damn us. Everything in law today is a radical break from its original intent, no better than juvenile delinquency, defying Madison and Franklin and Otis. You don't know who Otis was. Nor do you know why Franklin proposed that judges should be elected by lawyers, or why Madison opposed a Bill of Rights. Without Madison, Franklin, and Otis, there would be no Constitution to reinterpret and coin gay marriage rights.

Be that as it may, I'm not interested in political footstamping or current notions of political rights. What matters is the future, and I'd like to return to the idea of private government. Let's suppose that the public tussel of democracy is arbitrary and unpredictable. The United States is a bankrupt nonprofit corporation, a global welfare fountain that no one owns.

Private government is totally different. Instead of voting, free of charge, expecting the U.S. to hand you a pile of benefits, in a private government there are joint venturers (partners) who pony up "cash calls" to retain their right to elect a board of directors. There are no taxes, no regulation of commerce, no social benefits. The sole function of a private government is national defense, funded by insurance companies, banks, and wealthy individual citizens who can afford to buy a vote to determine the scale and scope of national defense. It's less nutty than it sounds. The American Revolution was funded entirely by private backers and fought by volunteer civilians.

I wrote a short story and recorded a lecture to explicate the idea.

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Tough little predator

Seven days a week I'm as pliable as clay, easily chumped, a softy who cries if I see something innocent, e.g., Ingrid Bergman in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, especially the third act when she leads 150 orphans through Japanese lines across the mountains to safety, or when Jane says to Michael: "It's her, it's the person!" in Mary Poppins. Break out the Kleenex. It happens when I feel my way through a page of my own writing, when he loves her and she loves him. I'm a sucker for love and lovers, Jimmy Stewart nervously rotating his hat in his hands while talking to a girlfriend's mom (a terrific Capra insert in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) or Greer Garson holding a wounded Nazi pilot at gunpoint, and allowing him to eat, in Mrs. Miniver.

I like writing comedy, and I might be pretty good at it. I laugh easily. I shot G-rated comedy and goofball satire. I laughed on the set, silly unscripted improv that cracked me up. I talk to dogs and cats and cows, little birds nesting in the barn, neighbors and strangers, cops and crazy Vietnam vets. I'm a good listener and a good audience, happy as heck when I hear my daughter sing. I loved a thousand musicians and vocalists and dancers and actors in England and Australia and Holland and two dozen U.S. cities and villages, coast to coast.

So, who is that evil-looking character in the photo? Hard as nails. Armed and dangerous in a previous life, a daredevil who challenged pirates and prosecutors. I was an umpire who called balls and strikes in a prison baseball game played by killers and bank robbers, because no one else wanted to. That hard face is adamant about justice. It's impersonal, and it doesn't matter that I've been ignored and ridiculed and threatened. Justice matters.

That's all well and good, no regrets, but I have a problem. I've written everything I know and every story I could imagine. Something happened with my last novel, Chiseltown, the story of a fictional filmmaker and a low-budget movie. He has six weeks to organize it, six weeks to shoot everything, and six weeks for post production, working at lightning speed, no room for error, and every conceivable obstacle thrown in his way. It was a fun project for me, a goofy situation comedy with enough drama and verisimilitude to make it real.

I doubt that Chiseltown will earn two cents in royalties. My third wife slammed it, said it was beneath me to write about a B movie. It was published at Lulu because I didn't have $5 in the bank to buy a proof copy, a precondition for global distribution via Amazon.

That, in itself, doesn't bother me. None of my books sold more than a handful of copies, and I'm more obscure than ever as an intellectual or storyteller. Perhaps that's how it should be. The difficult problem I have is nothing further to say.

In a couple of days I will be 69 years old. I can take a lot of punishment, if there's a story to tell, but I'm empty, nothing left to explore or express. Poor old warrior, toothless and sick, kaput creatively. When I look at that photo, taken a year ago, I see a hard old midget inured to hardship. No mortal can do that perpetually. I should take up golf or ping pong.

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The Woman In My Dreams

It's impossible. She belongs to someone else. She's beautiful, intuitive, healthy, my equal in every way, and she comes because she cares about me. I beg her to go away and she ignores me, stays for inexplicable reasons of her own. I'm old and ugly, don't want her to touch me, and her presence is painful because I need her so much.

It's a damn dream, so stop it, just stop it. Every moment is golden and warm. Her clothing is expensive and casual and simple, office attire that fits her comfortably and slips as silently as water on her thigh. She knows me, and it tugs at her conscience, doesn't want to be here.

So, go. Just go. I can't please you, can't smile, can't stand straight and tall as a man, too late in life for romance, no matter how much I want it again, haunting me while I sleep at night. I'm helpless when I dream. The truth does whatever it will.

You know what's funny? I write in my dreams, whole stories, polished phrases and scenes that I remember a few minutes when I awaken and then forget when I get out of bed to free the dog, wash my face, brush my teeth. Betty reported that carpenters build in their sleep. Do priests pray and Democrats concoct lies when they dream, or is it vice versa?

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Four Best Books by Wolf DeVoon

These four books are certainly representative, three novels and a volume of short stories, written during the past few years. There are many more that I care about, but these four in particular were mature and deliberate, as if each might be the last.

Chiseltown is my most recent, the story of a fictional filmmaker and a feature film. There's quite a lot of humor, some mildly adult intimacy, and an accessible narrative of how a "low budget" movie is created and completed, almost always a question of Who Knows Who.

Charity was part of a series (The Case Files of Cable & Blount) told in first person, a parable of privilege, discovery, black ops, and a cryptocurrency caper that destabilizes global banking. I like it because it deals with an important truth, that love is unchosen destiny.

Partners is set in 1975, an icy Wisconsin winter, an intimate struggle of triangles and tragedy. Men are killed. The stakes are as high as humanly imaginable in a war of innocent romance and steely determination.

Four Strange Stories is a collection of dreams, truths, seduction, and a complex portrait of a free society in the future, the widest possible mirror of what I think and feel as a man.

It cost quite a lot to create those works, plus twenty other self-published books, a half dozen screenplays, and thirty or forty miles of film and video. I started as a teenage filmmaker, learned to write along the way. My first job in Hollywood was an original screenplay. The last one was a cubicle at Disney, spending six figures of Mickey's money. I felt it was time to quit the "fillum" business. There are a couple recent video lectures, if you care to see what I look and sound like at age 69.

It stuns me when I apprehend that there's another story to tell, doubting my ability to write another full length novel -- however I am certain of this much: I cannot disown my literary legacy, nor the ideas that I endeavored to communicate, right wrong or purple. Like Popeye the Sailor, I am what I am and that's all what I am.

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Just so you know

'Chiseltown' is completed. It is an intensely personal story, although it has nothing to do with me personally, as odd as that may sound. It's about a fictional filmmaker and a movie, from the first phone call to the last. That's how movies are made. I suppose it's not so different in other walks of life. Somebody calls, you do something, there's another phone call to find out if they liked whatever it was that you did. A producer calls, a movie is made, and then there's another phone call from a preview screening to report average Jane and John Doe audience response, in Fresno traditionally. Audience cards don't matter. What matters is whether the movie made them laugh and gasp and cry real tears, because movies should do that.

Along the way, 'Chiseltown' presents a detailed, accessible education in filmmaking, how a script is written and funded and translated into actors and location shoots and sound stages with forced perspective to create a convincing night exterior scene, or an apartment, or a repair shop. Bruno Heckmeier is making a low-budget movie. There are severe obstacles to overcome. He has an unusual home life. There's an enormous amount of comedy for light entertainment purposes. Some of the story is serious literature. Some is slightly adult.

I found that I cared very deeply about the 7 or 8 principal players in this story. There are many more bit players, and if it seems unusual to have so many characters, please consider that the movie Bruno makes involves a production company of fifty skilled professionals, stunt men, two very capable stars, and an unusual supporting cast. It's a very short schedule, six weeks to organize it, six weeks to shoot everything, and six weeks of post production. Trust me, that's working at lightning speed.

It's a personal story in two respects. I had to write the movie for Bruno to make. And I had to live in Bruno's shoes (and those of all the other characters) with honesty, humor, drama, and a deep understanding of the men and women who call themselves "show people," no matter what their specialty or contribution to a motion picture is. Camera grip, driver, bookkeeper, electrician, set decorator, or seamstress -- they are people who sacrifice much to work a few weeks on a movie, a collaborative art that cannot be created without them. I've done many "below the line" production jobs for an hourly wage, in addition to "above the line" writing, producing, and directing.  You have to take my word for it. Directing is a high privilege.

It's done by lots of different men and women. 'Chiseltown' is directed by a talented, goofy, warmhearted, intelligent middle aged guy who got stuck on Poverty Row doing low-budget movies, while others did studio pictures with an average budget of $75 million. Bruno has to conceive and execute a feature film on 1/5 as much money, and he wants it to succeed, not only at the box office, but critically as well. Being an "indie" confers a great deal of freedom. No studio moguls, Teamsters, or IATSE work rules. The whole of Los Angeles as a locale, in a "period" setting that's fun to shoot.

I always experience emotional awe when I've finished a story. 'Chiseltown' is in a class of its own, among all the stories I've written, among all the fictional characters that I loved and still love, of course. The story of making a movie is a personal confession of my lifelong passion.  'Chiseltown' is a movie I didn't get to make, and it's deeply gratifying to have directed its fictional creation. Many of the characters are based on people who I knew and worked with and loved.

Please buy a copy (less than $5 at Lulu) and review it. Thanks.

http://www.lulu.com/shop/wolf-devoon/chiseltown/paperback/product-24225665.html

Attn Salem radio host Eric Metaxas

I have a dog. If the sun is too hot, he sits in the shade. When he hears or smells something that constitutes a challenge to his safety, he barks. When he tires, he snoozes. When he's thirsty, he drinks, and when he's hungry, he eats. He's independent, affectionate, playful, obedient, knows his name and listens to me, because he knows I can help him. Some of the procedures are uncomfortable, like removing a tick. He's a rational animal in many respects. He likes friendly people and friendly dogs, especially females of his own breed.

Simple facts. It does not matter where the Universe came from. It has no bearing on our life. Physical principles like gravity, propagation of heat and light, phases and chemical properties of certain elements and molecules, radioactive isotopes, density, electromagnetism, cosmic rays, and numerous other objectively observable and measurable aspects of the Universe are rational subjects of study. Tall tales concocted by ancients are not. Eyewitness statements concerning "miracles" and alleged "resurrection" of a charismatic rabbi who was put to death are irrelevant to the study of reality. Biologically, when an animal dies, it is dead. There is no life after death, an impossible contradiction in terms. Magic words and rituals can't influence industry or agriculture, except as psychological assaults, no different than false advertising, arbitrary constructs of political obligation, wishful thinking, or idleness, none of which are beneficial. Proper nutrition, reality-oriented cognitive development, and work to provide for the future matters. Medical knowledge matters. Hygiene matters. Capital and durable goods like structures, roads, utilities, and machines extend life and health. Science and math are the keys to success. Prayer and worship achieve nothing in physical reality. Without physical equipment, you would have no radio show, no books, no food or water or medical care.

There is abundant geologic evidence of erosion, deposition, subsidence, tectonic shifts, and extinction events in the rock record to prove that the Earth is billions of years old. Your ability to travel on aircraft resulted from applied science and math, unrelated to claims of faith in supernatural guidance. The entire historical record of religion has been dubious conjectures,  opposition to science, and misdirection of resources. Evil is willful evasion of knowledge. Fantasies of "divine right" to conquer and rule were bloodthirsty evil wrought by mysticism, whether Jewish, Catholic, Anglican, Masonic, Hindu, Apache, Islamic, Mau Mau, or Nazi.

Effusive praise for homosexual Elton John is idolatry, sir.

I think you're an honest guy, no cruelty in you, and very funny. Comedy requires enormous courage and cleverness, which I know from associating with other talented comedians. So, I salute you personally despite epistemological and ethical differences. It would be a strange world if everyone agreed. New ideas emerge from time to time in human history. I think it's accurate to say that you are happy with the Bible, a collection of ancient tales, correct?

www.wolfdevoon.net

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The paradox of achievement

Do you know the story of Thomas Alvah Edison? Uneducated, impoverished, got a job tossing bags in an express car, taught himself Morse Code and worked as a night operator. An idea occurred to him. Duplex telegraphy would double the traffic on a circuit. Then he showed bankers how to speed up stock tickers. Then voice recording, evolved into a wax dictaphone. Then practical electric light and the fixtures required for illumination. We still call modern lamp bases "Edison" sockets. Then a motion picture camera, one of the first in history. Edison was a terrible husband and neglectful father, went on road trips with Firestone and Ford.

No comparison of stature intended, but that's how I lived my life. I was kicked out of school at age 14. I worked in a shoe factory. I learned to smoke cigarettes, pot, and opium in cheap nightclubs and hippie crash pads. Then I discovered 16mm and began a lifelong romance with making films. Thousands of feet rushed through the gate, ran through projectors. I pioneered a burst-frame technique, cutting in the camera, multimedia shows, trick handheld shots.

All this would have been fine, except that I read Atlas Shrugged at age 22. Two years later, I defended myself in Federal Court, appealed to the Seventh Circuit, and went to prison. The experience damaged my moral character profoundly, which was never glued on very well in the first place as a libertine hippie, inflamed by the ideals of Objectivism. To make matters worse, I moved to Hollywood, determined to succeed as a filmmaker, a far more ambitious plunge into vanity and temptation. There were loves, losses, seductions, music clips, and movies as a brash young film director who wrecked everything he touched. At age 40, I had one last shot at success in London. Good show, an A-List cast and crew. No sales. It doesn't matter how the next ten years played out. There was a misfire at Columbia Tri-Star and little video projects, exile on a ranch, a year at Disney pushing paper, a nightclub in Nevada, and another assault on New York. I lived in Holland a couple years and Scotland a couple years, unable to earn a living no matter what I did. And then a funny thing happened. I started to write. My essays caught the attention of an editor.

Remember Edison? -- uneducated and impoverished, ultimately a successful inventor. I was similarly situated, with the additional handicap of radical Objectivism. A stint of publicity and privilege in Costa Rica challenged and freed me. I hit upon an idea, then another. Years flew by, probing the depths of a new career, convinced that I could succeed intellectually.

Cut to the present. Grinding poverty, real hardship, at all points of the human compass a life of constant humiliation, including colossal failure as a husband and father, unread and zero expectation of being noticed. When one is self-published, it kills any hope of being agented or published or selling film rights. Worse, my books are politically verboten, a neanderthal sense of life, irredeemably white male. At age 69, it's doubtful that I can continue. My life is ebbing away, and it's easy to conclude that I failed in every conceivable way. I will be buried in a pauper's grave, no one to mourn my death, no Wikipedia page.

And yet, the body of literary work is immense and original. Some of the fiction is excellent, and the ideas I propounded will survive and triumph. The paradox of achievement is strange indeed. If I had a conventional path, higher ed, and a prosperous career, I would have never conceived The Freeman's Constitution or defacto anarchy. Feeling the approach of a final season or two, I recorded a series of videos. Whenever I doubt my success as an inventor, I replay 'Abbreviated Wolf DeVoon: Part One, Part Two' and rejoice at its clarity, complexity, scholarship, and dignity. It was a life well spent.

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