Might Is Right Read online

  Both ancient and modern Christianism and all that has its root therein, is the negation of everything grand, noble, generous, heroic, and the glorification of everything feeble, atrocious, dishonorable, dastardly. The cross is now, and ever has been, an escutcheon of shame. It represents a gallows, and a Semite slave swinging thereon. For two thousand years it has absolutely overturned human reason, overthrown common sense, infected the world with madness, submissiveness, degeneracy.

  Truly, there is a way which seemeth right unto a people, but the ends thereof are the ways of death.

  Sound the loud timbrel,

  O’er lands and o’er waves;

  The Israelite triumphs!

  The nations are — graves!

  3

  Is the Golden Rule a rational rule? — Is it not rather a menial rule — a coward rule — a best-policy rule? Why is it ‘right’ for one man to do unto others as he would have others do to him and, what is right? If ‘others’ are unable to injure him or ‘do good’ to him, why should he consider them at all? Why should he take any more notice of them than of so many worms? If they are endeavoring to injure him, and able to do it, why should he refrain from returning the compliment? Should he not combat them, does not that give them carte-blanche to injure and destroy him? May it not be ‘doing good’ to others, to war against them, to annihilate them? May it not also be ‘good’ for them to war against others? (Again, what is ‘good’?)

  Is it reasonable to ask preying animals, to do unto others as they would be done by? — If they acted accordingly would they, could they survive? If some only accepted the Golden Rule as their guiding moral maxim, would they not become a prey to those who refused to abide thereby?

  Upon what reasonable and abiding sanction does this ‘Rule’ rest? — Has it ever been in actual operation among men? — Can it ever be successfully practiced on earth — or anywhere else? — Did Jesus Christ practice it himself upon all occasions? — Did His apostles, his ‘sons of thunder’ practice it? — Did Peter the boaster do so, when he ‘denied Him’ for fear of arrest at the camp-fire? — Did Judas the financier, when he sold him for net cash? Also, how many of his modern lip-servants actually practice it in their daily business intercourse with each other? How Many?

  These questions require no formal answering. They answer themselves in the asking. And here it must be remembered that the best test of a witness, is cross-examination. ‘Do unto others as you would have others do to you.’ No baser precept ever fell from the lips of a feeble Jew.

  It is from alleged moralisms of this sort, and fabulous ‘principles’ that our mob orators, our communards, revivalists, anarchists, red-republicans, democrats, and other mob-worshippers in general derive the infernal inspiration that they are perpetually hissing forth. Even the subversive pyrotechnic watchwords of their mephisto-millennium, are to be found in the ‘holy gospels.’ Is it not written, ‘and God sendeth angels to destroy the people?’ — Behold! these men are the ‘angels’ that He sends: — politicians and reformers!

  4

  ‘Love one another’ you say is the supreme law, but what power made it so? — Upon what rational authority does the Gospel of Love rest? — Is it even possible to practice, and what would result from its universal application to active affairs? Why should I not hate mine enemies, and hunt them down like the wild beasts that they are? Again I ask, why? If I ‘love’ them does that not place me at their mercy? Is it natural for enemies to ‘do good’ unto each other and, what is ‘good’? Can the torn and bloody victim ‘love’ the blood-splashed jaws that rend it limb from limb? Are we not all predatory animals by instinct? If humans ceased wholly from preying upon each other, could they continue to exist?

  ‘Love your enemies and do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you,’ is the despicable philosophy of the spaniel that rolls upon its back, when kicked. Obey it, O! reader, and you and all your posterity to the tenth generation shall be irretrievably and literally damned. They shall be hewers of wood, and carriers of water, degenerates, Gibeonites. But hate your enemies with a whole heart, and if a man smite you on one cheek, smash him down; smite him hip and thigh, for self-preservation is the highest law.

  He who turns the ‘other cheek’ is a cowardly dog — a Christian dog.

  Give blow for blow, scorn for scorn, doom for doom, with compound interest liberally added thereunto. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, aye four-fold, a hundredfold. Make yourself a Terror to your adversary and when he goeth his way, he will possess much additional wisdom to ruminate over. Thus shall you make yourself respected in all the walks of life, and your spirit — your immortal spirit — shall live, not in an intangible paradise, but in the brains and thews of your aggressive and unconquerable sons. After all, the true proof of manhood is a splendid progeny; and it is a scientific axiom that the timid animal transmits timidity to its descendents.

  If men lived ‘like brothers’ and had no powerful enemies (neighbors) to contend with and surpass, they would rapidly lose all their best qualities; like certain oceanic birds that lose the use of their wings, because they do not have to fly from pursuing beasts of prey. If all men had treated each other with brotherly love since the beginning, what would have been the result now? If there had been no wars, no rivalry, no competition, no kingship, no slavery, no survival of the Toughest, no racial extermination, truly what a festering ‘hell fenced in’ this old globe would be?

  5

  Reverend Ferdinand M. Sprague, of Chicago (who may be taken as a common specimen of the priest-politician), in a little pamphlet lately published, entitled ‘The Laws of Social Evolution,’ writes thus: — “The sheet anchor of Socialism according to its ablest exponents, is the Holy Christian religion. Its motto founded on the precept ‘love thy neighbor as thyself’ is — ‘each for all, and all for each.’ Its working principle for the present is altruism.”[3]

  Nearly all the canonized ‘Fathers’ of the early Roman propaganda (most of whom, by the way, were slaves, freedmen, or eunuchs) advocated similar Ideals. Even now, the anointed and sanctified head of the Catholic Church resurrects the same hoary old utopianism, in a Jesuitic encyclical addressed to his flock. (How suggestive of being shorn and skinned, is that word ‘flock.’)

  Again, the Epistle of James, who is known to have been Christ’s full brother killed by a special policeman’s club, in a street riot has been reprinted and widely circulated by Socialists, in order to sow and broadcast their illogical theories of a universal brotherhood, founded upon enforced labor, regimentation of the herd, and majority votes.

  Many modern cities are also infested with plausible epileptoid priestlings of unreason, like Dr. McGlynn, Professor Bemis, Hugh Price Hughes, W. T. Stead, Myron Reed, and Professor Herron of California. All these men are unrivalled masters in the art of persuasive declamation. They accept the New Testament as their text book and preach therefrom to morbid multitudes the atrocious and shallow gospel of equal rights, equal liberty, equal brotherhood, as the veritable omnific word, the newly discovered emancipating protocol of the Crucified (yet all-mighty) Don Quixote — the Saviour-god of Asia Minor — he who was born in a cattle-shed and died on a gallows.

  6

  A god begging his bread from door to door! — A god without a place to lay his head! — A god spiked to two pieces of crossed scantling! — A god stabbed to death by an hired officer! — A god executed by order of a stipendiary magistrate! — What an insane Idea — Is it an Idea, or rather a wasting cranial disease? Talk about ‘the heathen in his blindness’ and superstitious madness in past ages! Why it is as childplay to the hysteric Idolatry of to-day — the deification of a Jew. The ‘Divine Democrat’ was executed upon a government gibbet, because the Rulers of Imperial Rome were more powerful men than he was. His strength, and that of his followers, was not equal to theirs.

  He died an abysmal failure — a Redeemer who did not redeem — a Saviour who did not save — a Messiah whipped like a calf — a slave-agitator deservedly d
estroyed for preaching a Falsehood — the monstrous gospel of Love, Brotherhood, Equality.

  Even from the spiritual point of view, there is nothing whatever in his life or its after effects to show that ‘The pale man upon the cross,’ when he moaned and wept so bitterly, ‘beheld any further down the Void, than those who gathered round to see him die.’

  Of what use was that ‘pale dreamer’ to the iron-conditions that existed in the conquered and garrisoned Fortress of Jerusalem? For once the city mob were on the right trail, when they petitioned for the release of Bar Abbas, rather than the supple singer of a ‘Sweet bye and bye.’ Bar Abbas is described in ‘the Scriptures’ as a petty thief. He was really an armed insurgent leader — the slayer of Roman tax-gatherers — a guerilla chief (like Rob Roy, Robin Hood, William Wallace, William Tell) who levied toll upon opulent Hebrews for patriotic purposes.

  Had I been there that day, I also would have joined in the demand: — ‘Release Bar Abbas unto us.’ — Better one Bar Abbas than a thousand Christs.

  Alas! Alas! O Galilean! Thou art neither the Way, the Truth, nor the Light!

  7

  Reverting, however, to Chicago’s reverend Utopia-constructor, thus waileth he with cajoling crudity: “The laws of social evolution, far from being the blind, barbarous, and brutal struggle for organic existence, consists in the physical, intellectual and moral well being of all the members of society, so constituted that the politico-ethical principles of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity shall have the largest possible realization throughout the social organism. The main features of the condition of progress are christian churches, christian schools, christian governments, christian ethics and economics.”

  Another seductive but most malignant State Socialist (Henry George) roundly proclaims that ‘The salvation of society, the hope of the free, and full development of Humanity, is in the gospel of brotherhood, the gospel of Christ,’ and thereupon he proposes to make politicians the national rent-tax collectors, Administrators of everything in general, and all-round Distributors of State Pensions to ‘the poor and needy.’ Has not mankind had sufficient experience of what politicians are? — Those black-hearted creeping thieves and frauds. Their sting is deadlier than the bite of a cobra, and in the breath of their mouth there is — death. Curses be upon ye, O! ye Politicians, and upon all who advocate increasing your prerogatives!

  Presidential candidates, from Jefferson, to Lincoln, (also their apish imitators) have generally indulged in equally shallow rhodomontade, because it means votes, and for votes, office-seekers would dress up in glowing language, and ray forth any devilish deception.

  For two thousand years these effeminate superlatives have been trumpeted to the remotest corner of every Christian land, and yet (while enervating the morale of people) they have dismally failed to inaugurate the much foretold Earthly Paradise. They were preached by bare-foot monks at the inauguration of the Dark Ages, in order that those saintly lovers of the common people might creep into the administration of co-operative wealth and power. Now, the same general ideas are revived and dressed up (this time in politico-economic garb) by the eloquent agitator, in order that he may rule and plunder in the future, through the agency of the State; just as the priest once ruled and plundered through the equally rapacious agency of the Church.

  When the Church triumphed, the Dark Ages began, and when it is finally rooted out (together with all its social antenæ) the Heroic Age dawns once more. True heroes shall be born again as of old, for our women may yet be something more than rickety perambulating dolls and drug-stores in spectacles.

  The ‘Church’ is the idol of the priestly parasite — The ‘State’ is the idol of the political parasite. Beware, O, America! that in escaping from the holy trickery of the monk, you fall not an easy prey to ‘the loving kindness’ of the politician. Even if the ‘reformer’ succeeds in re-establishing upon majority-votes, the dark tyranny o£ the ‘greatest number;’ we have this consolation to fall back upon, such organization must ultimately tumble down of its own weight, and then re-divide up into warring fragments. Nothing that is unnatural can last for long.

  The Universal Church is no more; all we see of it now is jealous remnants. And the Universal State, the Social Democracy, the Economic Republic, the Brotherhood of Man, should they take practical form, are pre-ordained to similar failure. All they could do, would be to postpone the operation of the survival of the fittest — drugging nations in temporary sedatives.

  No matter how eagerly madmen may try to do it, there is no known process whereby they can jump out of their own skins. Christian or socialist churches, paternalisms, schools, governments, administrations, ethics, and moralisms (even if genuinely Christian and Fraternal) would be wholly impotent to change the natural course of things and therefore powerless to command the survival of mental and physical cripples; even although those cripples were as canonized saints for ‘goodness,’ and as the sands of the sea shore for number. Shrieking sentimentalism is indeed a feeble lever wherewith to overturn the immutable order of the Universe. It cannot do it. No! not if it were whooped till the crack of doom! Not even if it had a Lamb of God in every city, ready to be butchered each Friday afternoon, in order to make a Christian Holiday.

  8

  ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,’ those three great lights of Modern Democracies are three colossal Falsehoods, ignoble slave-shibboleths; impossible of actualization even if proclaimed by some superhuman Satan, followed by armed hosts of un-killable demons, all armed to the teeth with flaming swords, Greek-fire, and dynamite cannon.

  You may trace Equality in letters of silver on tablets of burnished gold, but without engineering a perpetual miracle, you cannot make it — true.

  You may write Fraternity in blazing diamonds on walls of enduring granite, but without reversing the mechanism of the Universe, you cannot make it a fact.

  And, though you enscroll Freedom on countless sheepskins and rivet statues of Liberty on every harbor-rock, yet with ‘all the kings horses and all the kings men’ one being born to be a hireling and a subordinate — no power can free.

  Can you build up a marble palace with mud and slime O! ye drivelling bedlamites? Can you raise up a conqueror from the dunghill, or make the stupid great? Can you manufacture heroes out of hogs O! ye snuffling ‘Educated’ swine?

  ‘We can! We can! We can!’ shrieketh the raging rhetoricians of the market place and the editorial mill. ‘We can! We can!’ bellows the herd as it stupidly pours through the slip-rails to the pithing pen. ‘Yes, O! Yes! with the love of Jesus and our collection plate, whines the soft-skinned preacher as he turns over the sibylline leaves of his Black-Art. ‘Of a certainty, we can,’ hisseth the plastic politician, the rattlesnake! — the hungry basilisk! — whose law making is more blighting than the breath of a simoom.

  Thereupon, toward you, O! America! they, one and all, point the finger of pride! Towards you!

  America! Where the politicians rage and the people imagine vain things! — and the dogs in the alleys are — baying at the moon!

  Then, turn I away! Sadly! Sadly! Sadly! And I brush against a slave in copper-riveted overalls, hurrying to his mill; and against another in gold chain and silken hat, hasting to his money-changing — and a lean woman in sordid rags, with a pile of lumber balanced upon her crown; and a splendid harlot in diamonds and brilliant plumage rideth slowly by.

  And the cattle in the slaughter-yard are lowing for their hay; and a draught mare, with a galled shoulder, lieth swollen and dead on the frozen paving blocks. How nauseous it all is?

  Loathsome! Loathsome! O, how loathsome?

  9

  Man is part and parcel of the animal kingdom and (not withstanding Jefferson, Franklin, and Lincoln — Karl Marx, La Salle, and Liebknecht — Christ, Robespierre, and Rousseau — Hyndman, Tennyson, and Mazzini — Dr. Adler, Bebel, George and Isaiah — Bellamy, Gronlund, and W. T. Stead) he cannot escape from the draconic ordinances that despotically govern that kingdom and envir
on his being like an atmosphere on every side.

  Altruism, meek and lowly self-abnegation, upon any extended scale is among predatory organisms (and all organisms are predatory) impossible of practice on pain of wholesale felo-de-se.

  Every man is under an obligation to fight and bear his own burden. If he cannot do so, others cannot do his fighting or his burden-bearing and their own at the same time with reasonable safety to themselves. He therefore who finds it impossible to carry his own burden, had better sink down and die in his tracks than impose an additional load upon the shoulders of his kind-hearted fellow strugglers. For then, they would be overloaded and consequently unable to fight successfully; so all might perish together.

  Practical fraternal sympathy (upon any universal scale) has always had in the end a most destructive effect upon the internal structure of communities. Men will always love and cherish those that are near and dear to them; but when it is proposed to extend the circle of their ‘near and dear ones’ to all mankind, that is going rather too far. Indeed all must perish ignominiously if that foolish idea prevails. ‘All’ are even now enervating themselves, undermining their strength, by futile overexertion in that very direction. They are straining themselves to death, by endeavoring to carry an impossible load. The majority of men are born far too weak constitutionally for their conditions; and the few who do possess the necessary stamina and grit, will have quite enough to do in proving by deeds their fitness to survive, propagate, and possess. Many are projected — few are selected.

  Yet altruism, wholesale self-renunciation — wholesale burden-bearing, for the sake of ‘Outraged and Suffering Humanity,’ is the maddening basis upon which ‘our good Lord Jesus,’ and his demented imitators have erected their sporadic sociology — their Magnificent Satanism.