Might Is Right Read online

  Does not simple business acumen whisper to us that every man’s chief occupation upon earth is to sustain himself. ‘I mean subsist at any cost; you shall want ere I shall — business is business.’ If men had sufficient personal initiative to think along these stern lines, there would be little use on earth for the theologian and ‘the reformer;’ those twin Mephistos who find their renown and grandeur, in the abasement of mankind. The battle of life would then be so grim, terrible, and realistic; (so Trojan in fact) that those holy dissimulators and crafty deceivers, would rapidly die off, or be eaten off; for in the clash of naked interests, the Best and Bravest only could possibly survive; and no one would ever dream of including them among the Best or Bravest.

  10

  Count Leo Tolstoi, undoubtedly the ablest modern expounder of primitive Christliness, in a much translated volume, entitled: — “Work While Ye Have Light,” writes thus: — ‘Our Faith tells us that bliss is to be found, not in resistance, but in submission; not in riches, but in giving everything away; we have not quite succeeded in casting off every habit of violence and property.”

  To the most inept understanding, could any proposition be placed in a clearer light? Is it not as simple as ‘rolling off a log,’ that the individual who even attempts to become a true and honest Christian must become like unto a tame sheep? What a sublime Ideal? How heroic?

  The bliss of a sheep! How superlatively delightful? How divinely glorious? And a Jew as the Good Shepherd, who leadeth his lambs “to green pastures, and quiet resting places, the pleasant waters by.” For two thousand years, or so, His fleecy flocks have been fattening themselves up with commendable diligence — for the shearing-shed and the butchers-block.

  Let any nation throw away all ‘habits of violence,’ and before long it must cease to exist as a nation. It will be laid under tribute — it will become a province, a satrapy. It will be taxed and looted in a thousand different ways.

  Let any man abandon all property, also all overt resistance to aggression and behold, the first sun will scarcely have sunk down in the west, before he is a bondservant, a tributary, a beggar, or — a corpse.

  Property is necessary to the complete and free development of personality, and therefore human animals should somehow obtain a full and fair proportion thereof at any cost — or perish in the attempt; for he who cannot possess himself of property is much better buried out of sight. Our cities are literally honeycombed ‘with treasure caverns, heaped up with gold, title-deeds, silver, and instruments of credit: our valleys and our mountains are

  bubbling with wealth untold; and yet, poor miserable ‘servants of Christ’ pass idly by. Men, they call themselves! I call them — castrates.

  If Tolstoi’s obsequious principles are derived from the Sermon on the Mount, then who can deny but that the Sermon on the Mount is a sermon unto decay and slavery? If they are derived from the Golden Rule and if the Golden Rule is the word of God, then can it be doubted that the word of God is the word of Fraud. There is far too much of this ghastly ‘goodness’ in the nation, far and away too much. It is time men who can think began to emancipate themselves, and consider the fact that: — Morals, laws and decalogues were made by liars, thieves and rogues.

  All good citizens however are hereby warned and solemnly advised, not to smash-up the Ten Commandments — not to burn up the Golden Rule — not to break-up the Moral Law — for that would be terribly wicked! terribly! On the other hand they must obey all Law implicitly (no matter how it originated) and be sure (above everything) to order themselves lowly and reverently before executive officers of the Law; even if in doing so, they are deprived of their Property, and their Liberty for ever. Obedience, you see, is of God ‘who so loveth the world’ but Disobedience is horrible and of the Devil, and the Devil is a frightful rascal, who has not the slightest respect for anybody or anything: not even the American Constitution. Let us curse the Devil then and obey — the Law.

  Liberty is honestly definable, as a state of complete bodily and mental self-mastership (which includeth the possession of property; also defensive weapons) and thorough-going Independence from all official coercion or restraint. Liberty in the conventional sense is a miserable Lie.

  To be independent is synonymous with proprietorship. To be property-less, and unarmed, is the condition of actual dependence and servitude. Unarmed citizens are always enslaved citizens, always. Liberty without Property is a myth, a nursery tale, believable only by babbling babies and ‘fools-in-th’-forest’ — fools in th’ city also. “Liberty regulated by Law” is, in practice, tyranny of the darkest and foulest description; because so impersonal. There are numerous worthy, reasonable, and practical methods whereby individual tyrants may be removed; but a tyranny ‘regulated by Law’ is only removable by one method — the sword in the hands of men who are not afraid to use it, or to have it used against them: that is to say — the Sword in the hands of the Strongest.

  During the whole course of human history, there is not upon record, one authentic instance wherein a subjugated people has ever regained property-holding Liberty, without first butchering its tyrants (or its tyrants’ armed slaves in battle) thereafter confiscating to its own use, the lands and realized property that previously had been in the possession of its defeated foes and masters. This statement is made with cool deliberation and aforethought. Let it be disproved by any one creditable example to the contrary, and the Author is prepared to forfeit 50,000 ounces of pure gold and enough ‘dimes and dollars’ to erect in Chicago, a bronze statue of ‘Our Blest Redeemer’ (crown of thorns and all) 100 cubits higher than the Masonic Temple. This offer is strictly bona-fide and shall remain open till 1906, so that philosophers, editors, statesmen, divines (and other accomplished liars) may have enough time to blind themselves, wading through National Archives, and the putrid rubbish heaps that men call Public Libraries. Should some or all of said Mutual Admiration Society maniac-geniuses go blind, also deaf, dumb, and silly: this wicked old world may probably whoop with delight — should it happen to hear of the fact.

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  During the three years of Christ Jesus’s peripatetic trampings, he never said anything that had not been better said a thousand times before, by Dervishes, Spellbinders and Mahatmas. Neither did he do anything that had not previously been better done, by the jugglers and wonder-workers of Egypt, India and Assyria. Not a few of his ‘miracles’ are to this day, part of the ordinary stock-in-trade of fortune-telling gypsies, third-class strolling players, and charlatans in general.

  The very phrase that He uses to sum-up and memorize His patent Cure-all, was undoubtedly stolen (directly or indirectly) from Plato, the Rig Veda, or Confucius. The Golden Rule is not only a snare and a tangle, but it also is — a literary piracy.

  ‘He raised the dead,’ you indignantly protest: and even supposing that he did, wherein is the positive advantage? What is gained by restoring vitality to the decomposing corpse of an animal that may be so easily duplicated — an animal that is a positive nuisance, numerically. What is the “good” of breathing the ‘breath of life’ into an odorous winding-sheet-full of maggots and mouldy bones? Are there not plenty of animalcula on earth, without dragging them out of tombs? (Especially are there not plenty of leprous Asiatics?) Death and destruction are necessary to the health of this world and therefore as natural, and lovable, as birth and life. Only priests and born cowards moan and weep over dying. Brave men face it with approving nonchalance.

  “Come lovely and soothing Death, undulate around the world. Serenely Arriving! Arriving! In the day, in the night; to all, to each. Sooner or later, delicate Death.”[4]

  He fed the hungry — but to what end, I say? Why should a famishing multitude be fed by a god? And that too, in a land said to be flowing with milk and honey! Would not such a mob be far better dead? Would not Napoleon with his cosmic ‘whiff of grape-shot’ be just the right man for such an occasion? From the harmonious nature of things, it is clear that men were intended to feed themse
lves by their own personal exertions or perish like dogs. He therefore who ‘feeds the hungry’ is really encouraging poltroonery (which includeth all other crimes) for men ‘who quietly starve within reach of abounding plenty are — all poltroons.

  ‘He clothed the naked,’ you shriek; and why it may be asked should ‘the naked’ be clothed — they being able bodied? What right have they to broadcloth and fine linen? If men possess not enough sense to clothe themselves (in a literal Weaving Mill of inexhaustible looms) why should a ‘God’ — the son of a ghost, come down from Cloudland (via a Jewess maiden’s womb) to robe such groveling, miserable hounds in swaddling cloths, made of cotton or wool? ‘Clothing the naked’ is purely — a business affair.

  Here, it may be suggested en-passant — is the wearing of garments, in itself, a natural and necessary condition of adult existence? It certainly does not render the ‘human form divine’ more healthy or more beautiful to gaze upon (although it may prevent Tenderlings from perishing of cold). Was it really intended that the man-animal only, should wrap itself up, from birth to death in layer over layer of disease-breeding rags? Was there not a secret vital strength in the wind and rain and storms that ‘whirled around our forefathers’ giant limbs and shaggy brows? All ethnic legends tell us that our first parents were most elegantly attired in glorious sunshine and gaudy fresh air. Who ever saw a Cherubim painted in pointed shoes, pantaloons, cuffs, collars and overcoat; or a smirking angel in bloomers, steel-ribbed corsets and a delicate little ‘O! dear me! how awfully awful!’ style? Clothing serves most effectively to hide the abominable physical deformity of modern men and women, just as superficial educationalisms serve to hide their dwarfed minds. If they were to perambulate around in the nude, even the street curs would bark at them out of sheer terror. Indeed, they would be more hideous to the eye than the stuffed scarecrow that adorns a relative’s harrowed field: and at which our old dog “Danger” generally barks himself into hysterics over, whenever he gets off the chain.

  What a horrible sight a crowd of free and independent electors would be, all sitting in solemn conclave, sucking their thumbs, absorbing political opiates and divine euthanasia? Just think of it! (Even Carlyle the dyspeptic would faint at the sight.) The very conception of such a saddening horror makes one ill. It would be as if they all had just emerged from a tomb — a tomb of wool and cotton and leather.

  Physical distortion and mental malformation, are the direct result of two thousand years of bad-breeding: that is to say, of Mongrelism, of Democracy, of Equality, of Moody-and-Sankeyism. Christian-ism, originating in the despairful and fallacious philosophy of a Crucified Wanderer (suffering from acute morbus sacer) is now developed into an organized and world-wide conspiracy of Clericals, Politicals and Decadents directed en-masse; with Jesuitic cunning against all the primitive and Heroic Virtues.

  Our clean-skinned ‘heathenish’ ancestors with all their vital forces unimpaired, were really the nobler type of animal. We on the other hand, with our corrupt, irresolute, civilized hearts, our trembling nerves, our fragile anæmic constitutions, are actually the lower, the viler type — notwithstanding the baseless optimism that courtly rhymers drivel into their “Heirs of all the ages,” etc., etc.

  No People can long retain hardihood and independence, whose minds become submissive to a False Ideal.

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  Blessed are the Strong for they shall possess the earth — Cursed are the weak for they shall inherit the yoke. Blessed are the Powerful for they shall be reverenced among men — Cursed are the Feeble for they shall be blotted out.

  Blessed are the Bold for they shall be masters of the world — Cursed are the Humble for they shall be trodden under hoofs. Blessed are the Victorious for victory is the basis of Right — Cursed are the vanquished for they shall be vassals for ever.

  Blessed are the battle-blooded, Beauty shall smile upon them — Cursed are the Poor-in-Spirit, they shall be spat upon. Blessed are the Audacious for they have imbibed true wisdom — Cursed are the Obedient for they shall breed Creeplings.

  Blessed are the iron-handed, the unfit shall flee before them — Cursed are the haters of battle, subjugation is their portion. Blessed are the Death-defiant, their days shall be long in the land — Cursed are the Feeble-brained, for they shall perish amidst plenty.

  Blessed are the destroyers of False-hope, they are true Messiahs — Cursed are the God-adorers, they shall be as shorn sheep. Blessed are the Valiant for they shall obtain great treasure — Cursed are the believers in Good and Evil for they are frightened by shadows.

  Blessed are they who believe in Nothing — never shall it terrorize their minds — Cursed are the ‘lambs of God,’ they shall be bled ‘whiter than snow’. Blessed is the man who hath powerful enemies, they shall make him a hero — Cursed is he who “doeth good” unto others, he shall be despised.

  Blessed is the man whose foot is swift to serve a friend, he is a friend indeed — Cursed are the organizers of Charities, they are propagators of plagues. Blessed are the Wise and Brave for in the Struggle they shall win — Cursed are the Unfit for they shall be righteously exterminated.

  Blessed are the sires of Noble maidens, they are the salt of the earth — Cursed the mothers of strumous Tenderlings for they shall be shamed. Blessed are the mighty-minded for they shall ride the whirl-winds — Cursed are they who teach Lies for Truth, and Truth for Lies, for they are — abomination.

  Blessed are the unmerciful, their posterity shall own the world — Cursed are the Pitiful for they shall receive no pity. Blessed are the destroyers of Idols, for they shall be feared by tyrants — Cursed are the famous Wiselings, their seed shall perish off the earth. Thrice cursed are the Vile for they shall serve and suffer.

  Contrast this with an orthodox Sermonette — one that is repeated every seventh day, in thousands of sacred sanctuaries by consecrated black-robed clericals, who have been specially trained from boyhood to weepfully, unctuously rehearse the same “with upturned eyes and skillful snuffle or in classic diction, sounding, sonorous, nay! Sublime — as suits the occasion.

  Dearly Beloved Brethren!!!

  — Gawd answers all who kneel and pray, is a Trewth accepted day by day. Behold! their bright and joyful lot, who’ve faith in what Christ Jesu taught!

  If you’ve empty pockets and tables bare, demand ye not your natural share; that would be wrong; but, creep and sigh and ‘you’ll go to heaven when you die’.

  For the meek and humble who obey, there’s a happy land, far, far away; but a fearsome, fiery, brimstone pit, shall melt their marrow, who won’t — submit.

  If foemen smite you on one cheek, turn round the other, tearful, meek; if perjured knaves your votes betray: come ‘wicked sinners’ kneel and — pray.

  If Hebrews fleece and flay your hide, heaven’s gates for you, shall open wide; Christ your Shepherd, won’t lead astray, O! lambs of Gawd! come bleat and pray.

  If bruised and beaten, shorn and sold, you’re sure of stalls in your Father’s fold; but — robbers rob, or rulers slay! Hell roast your souls for ever and aye.

  If elected persons invade your wealth, with bribes and lies or deadly stealth, and threat your bones with a bannered host: Christ is your refuge and the Holy Ghost.

  You’ll triumph thus ‘in the dawning years’ hope on! toil on! in this vale of tears — sing, “Rock of Ages cleft for me, O! let me hide myself in thee.”

  BOLDLY STAND ERECT

  Jewish books are for the Jews,

  And Jew Messiahs too.

  But if you’re not of Jewish blood,

  How can they be for you?

  To make an Idol of a book,

  Is poison for the brain;

  A dying God upon a cross

  Is reason gone insane.

  Beware of all the Holy books

  And all the creeds and schools,

  And every law that man has made

  And all the golden rules.

  “Laws” and “rules” imposed on you

&nbs
p; From days of old renown,

  Are not intended for your “good”

  But for your crushing down.

  Then dare to rend the chains that bind

  And to yourself be true.

  Dare to liberate your mind,

  From all things, old and new.

  Always think your own thought,

  All other thoughts reject;

  Learn to use your own brain

  And boldly stand erect.

  CHAPTER III: THE SPINNING-OF-THE-WEB!

  Just as the spider weaves his silky web, to lure flies into the larder of his banqueting hall in order that he may at his leisure, pick the flesh off their bones, so deceitful Ideals are cunningly woven by dexterous, political spiders, to capture and exploit Swarms of human flies.

  What are the grandiose paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence, but the weft and woof of a dazing spider-web? And what are the American People but the flies that have been cleverly entangled in its gossamer meshes? For over a century this ‘Declaration’ has been the parchment divinity or all public orators, from the curbstone dervish at the street corner, to our Elective Monarch in the White House. Every 4th of July, Americans habitually scream themselves hoarse over its sounding generalities: making the welkin ring with tin-horns, giant fire-crackers, flag-idolatry, brass bands, toy pistols and herd-bellowing generally. Although the great majority of them are mental and physical dwindlings, poverty-stricken, and property-less yet how insanely they delight in amusing a sardonic world with their loquacious flamboyant charlatanry. ‘We are sovereigns and equals’ is their everlasting Barmecide chorus. ‘Sovereigns and Equals!’

  In all lunatic asylums may be found inmates who fancy themselves kings and queens, and lords of the earth. These sorrowful creatures, if only permitted to wear imaginary crowns and issue imaginary commands, are the most docile and harmless of all maniacs.