6.  Mountain of Lies
    by William Stone, III
    mailto:wrs{at}0ap.org

Exclusive to TLE

As one might conclude from two weeks of utter silence from me, my family
has been on a much-needed vacation.

We spent the better part of the first week at my grandmother's cabin in
rural South Dakota near the former town of Pedro.  Ultimately, however, the
heat got to be so bad (typically 105 or greater) that we were forced to
retreat to the Black Hills.  We hoped that the greater altitude would bring
relief, but were disappointed.  For the first time, the Celsius scale in my
gas-guzzling SUV rose to an even forty degrees.  My family and I resorted
to the many Black Hills caves to keep cool:  Wind Cave, Jewel Cave,
Rushmore Cave.  When the temperature dropped to below eighty, we'd return
to our campsite at Palmer Gulch to sleep.

The second week was positively beautiful.  One couldn't have asked for
better camping weather, conducive to rock-climbing, hiking, and horseback
riding.

Palmer Gulch is mere minutes' drive from Mount Rushmore.  For the
uninitiated, Mount Rushmore is a granite rock formation into which is
carved the likeness of four American Presidents:  George Washington, Thomas
Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.

According to myth, these four individuals brought greatness and power to
the United States, which is now more free than it has ever been.

Unfortunately, even a cursory glance at historical fact conclusively shows
that "myth" of Rushmore is more correctly a mountain of lies.

I make a point of visiting Mount Rushmore's evening lighting ceremony about
every ten years or so.  Last time, my eldest daughter was in a stroller,
and the celluloid film shown as introduction to the ceremony was narrated
by the late, great Burgess Meredith.  While it certainly skirted the truth
in favor of legend, it was a reasonably inoffensive twenty-minute reel.

Today, my oldest daughter is ten, the high-definition, Panavision DVD
that's displayed is narrated by Avery Brooks of _Deep Space Nine_ fame, and
to a freedom-lover like myself, the entire affair is offensive from
beginning to end.

First, you're subjected to a Park Ranger with delusions of grandeur.  In
somber tones, he waxes eloquent for five or ten minutes on the moving
experience he had in Washington, DC that taught him how people have to
sacrifice to maintain their freedom.

"Sacrifice" is just Governmentese for "give up your rights."
 
The ranger repeatedly proselytized us that now is a time of sacrifice to be
free.  He even went so far as to quote JFK's timeless Statism: "Ask
not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your
country."

Since when was maintaining your freedom a daily sacrifice?  It requires
daily vigilance against government's encroachments, certainly.  One needs
to be ready to fight government's incessant interference with your life.
But constant and unceasing sacrifice, up to and including dying on the
battlefield?

I assume that the Ranger was referring to the Unconstitutional abuse of
Federal power called the "Iraq War," and the daily victims
offered up on the altar of "sacrifice" in the name of increasing
Federal power.

Let's be clear and direct:  the "Iraq War" was blatantly
Unconstitutional and illegal because the President is prohibited from
prosecuting a war in absence of a Declaration by Congress.  Congress has
made no such Declaration since December of 1941, and the
"authorization to use military force" cited as the Declaration
was no such thing.  Just compare the wording of the two sometime, and
you'll instantly discern the difference.

And yes, I'm aware that Congress Unconstitutionally passed something called
the War Powers Act in 1973.  I submit that the intent and clear wording of
the Constitution is specifically intended to prohibit precisely what the
War Powers Act cedes to the Presidency.

In a Constitutional America, no single branch of government has the power
to make war.  Had the Constitution been followed with respect to the Iraq
Non-War, the President would have been required to produce enough proof of
Iraq's danger to the United States to garner a Declaration of War.  In
Unconstitutionally delegating this authority, Congress CREATED the mess we
have now.

But I digress.  The Constitution is dead and has been so for a very long time.

In any case, at what point did the "Iraq Non-War" become about
American Freedom?  The last I knew, Americans were dying every day
supposedly to secure the freedom of Iraqis.  All the claims about Iraq
having terrorist designs or connections that would impact the United States
have yet to be borne out by concrete evidence, nor does anyone in
government harbor any illusions that these claims were ever true.

When the Park Ranger was finished with his diatribe, the DVD started. Avery
Brooks is the modern answer to James Earl Jones, and his beautiful baritone
voice resonated lies and half-truths throughout the amphitheater beneath
the carvings.

Let me be clear again:  there's only one individual carved into Mount
Rushmore who actually deserves to be there.  In a Constitutional America,
the others would be dynamited to make way for completion of a full bust of
Thomas Jefferson.

George Washington -- for all his military prowess as the General who led
the American Revolution to victory -- was a horrid President.  He became
such after the hijacking of the Constitutional Convention that was intended
to revise the Articles of Confederation, but instead forced the
Constitution down the throats of every American since.  This paved the way
for today's enormous central government, in which States -- as opposed to
being a collection of sovereign nations -- are nothing more than minor
geographic boundaries.

Worse, George Washington brought taxation to America.  As seminal
libertarian author L. Neil Smith has so brilliantly documented in his novel
_The Gallatin Divergence_, Washington oversaw the conversion of private
theft into public virtue, and America has been suffering the consequences
ever since.  Modern readers may find this hard to believe, but until
Washington imposed a tax on Pennsylvania farmers who manufactured corn
whiskey, there was no taxation in America as we think of it.

Now -- thanks to the precedent set by Washington -- taxation at every level
adds some 800% to the cost of every good and service on every shelf in
America while simultaneously stealing half of what every American earns.

George Washington doesn't deserve to have his likeness carved into a
mountain:  he deserves to be burned in effigy.

It's hard to even know where to begin with Abraham Lincoln.  Apparently a
wife-beater whose mind was impaired by Syphilis, Lincoln was called
"Honest Abe" by his contemporaries with the same disgust that
modern Americans call Bill Clinton "Slick Willy."  One shudders
at the thought that in 150 years, that appellation may be applied with
pride to Bill Clinton.  No doubt one of Lincoln's peers would be horrified
to learn modern Americans are so poorly-educated that they use "Honest
Abe" as an honorific.

Acclaimed as the "Great Emancipator," Lincoln is credited with
freeing the slaves.  In fact he freed absolutely none.  The Emancipation
Proclamation held no more sway than if George Bush were to proclaim Muslim
women were now free to remove their burqas and go to work alongside their
husbands.

Lincoln was in many ways comparable to Lenin.  He was the first great
violator of the Constitution, serving as a role model for all Presidents
who followed -- up to and including George W. Bush.  Lincoln destroyed the
presses of Northern newspapers whose editors disagreed with his handling of
the War Between the States.  He imprisoned his political enemies.  He
brought the concept of the midnight knock at the door and political
prisoners to North America.

Lincoln was a despot in the truest sense of the word.  In a Constitutional
America, Booth's cry of, "Sic semper tyrannis!" would ring in the ears of
every American President as a warning to curb their antisocial tendencies.

Lincoln doesn't deserved a gigantic carving in a rock, nor a Memorial in
Washington, D.C.  His bust on Mount Rushmore should be dynamited, the
Memorial destroyed by an angry mob, all five-dollar bills burned in a blaze
to light the sky, and the presses that print them smashed beyond repair.

Teddy Roosevelt, in addition to being a political successor to Lincoln, is
a political predecessor to Clinton.  He is documented to have been one of
the worst shots to ever safari in Africa, yet there are books on the
subject that bear his name.  He was heir to the same fortune that later
brought his relative and political successor, Franklin Roosevelt, to power.

Teddy Roosevelt was a self-aggrandizing liar who fabricated all kinds of
information about himself -- up to and including his famous charge up San
Juan Hill.  He was a firm believer in American military might and
interventionism, and brought the country to several unnecessary conflicts.

Perhaps most damaging was Roosevelt's violations of the Constitution in the
name of "conservationism."  Having at one time been a South
Dakota cattle rancher and observing that the free range cowboy was a
vanishing breed, Roosevelt was inspired to use Federal force to
"conserve" that which no one at the time wished to conserve.  He
violated the Constitution by adding to the Federal coffers millions of
acres of land for a National Park system.  These included (among hundreds
of other locations) the Black Hills in which his face is carved.

There is absolutely no provision in the Constitution for the Federal
Government to establish a park system.  Roosevelt's success in doing so has
made possible every Federal environmental agency that came into existence
since.

Small wonder that sculptor Gutson Borglum would include Teddy's bust on
Mount Rushmore at a time when Roosevelt was still in office.  His inclusion
is nothing more than a gigantic political payoff.  Imagine a sculptor
offering to put President Bush's face on a mountain, if only Bush will help
get Federal funding for the project.

Roosevelt does not deserve a bust on Mount Rushmore.  It should be
dynamited into oblivion to the cheering of crowds.  The land his
Unconstitutional departments stole should be immediately sold to the
highest bidder as the final act of those agencies.

What President remains?  Thomas Jefferson -- the only individual on Mount
Rushmore who truly deserves to be carved into a mountain.

Jefferson -- the author of the Declaration of Independence -- was in
today's parlance a geek.  He was a thinker, an author, and utterly
dedicated to the cause of individual liberty, often in sharp contrast to
many of his contemporaries.

However, even Jefferson had his faults and made political mistakes.  He
kept slaves during his lifetime, clearly in violation of the principles of
freedom that he expounded for white men.  If it were possible, many
libertarians would ask Jefferson how he could carry on such a hypocrisy.

Perhaps the most dramatic long-term negative impact of his Presidency was
the Louisiana Purchase.  While at first glance purchasing the land from
France for a song looked like an unbelievable opportunity, even Jefferson
admitted that the transaction "strained the Constitution to the
breaking point."

Jefferson was conflicted for good reason:  there are no provisions in the
Constitution for adding territory to the United States.  The document
defines the limited powers of the Federal Government, but never takes into
account that there might be additional territories or States.  There is
literally no provision for dealing with adding them.

This might seem trivial, but consider:  under the Constitution, the States
are sovereign.  They must defer to the Federal Government in certain
limited circumstances -- most of which are intended to maintain the rights
of the even more sovereign individual.  States are otherwise free to make
their own laws, customs, and governments.  The laws of these governments
need not conform to the laws of States.

This is a far cry from the way those in power today treat the Federal
Government.  They believe Federal power to be an all-encompassing
bureaucracy, and that States are simply geographical boundaries.

This was not the case in Jefferson's day.  There was no provision for
adding territory, for creating and colonizing additional lands.  By making
the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson established a precedent for the Federal
Government to be superior to the State Governments.  This began the erosion
of State sovereignty that created the massive Federal Government we have
today.

Regardless, Jefferson is still the only individual who deserves to have his
bust on Mount Rushmore.  We should immediately destroy the others in order
to finish his.

That's right:  FINISH his bust.  Mount Rushmore was never actually finished.

Legend holds that after Lincoln's head was carved, the statue was finished
and everyone congratulated themselves on a job well done.  In reality,
Congress simply decided to stop funding the program.  A glance at the
studio models used to guide the mountain work shows that all four
Presidents were intended to be sculpted to the waist, and that the sudden
halt at Lincoln's face represents a half-finished work.  Indeed, when
comparing the detail of Lincoln's face with that of Washington, it's quite
obvious that Lincoln was barely complete.

Mount Rushmore will never be completed -- but that's fine, because a
half-hour's drive away is a TRUE monument to the principles of individual
liberty:  the Crazy Horse Memorial.

Crazy Horse was a legendary Oglala Sioux leader who led his people to
victory against the American FedGov before finally being forced to
surrender at Fort Robinson, Nebraska.  When asked on his surrender where
his lands were now, Crazy Horse replied, "My lands are where my people
lie buried."

The carving at Crazy Horse Mountain (http://www.crazyhorse.org) is a
three-dimensional, as opposed to Mount Rushmore's single face.  When
finished, it will be visible on all four sides.  It is physically enormous:
 all of Mount Rushmore will fit into Crazy Horse's head.

The sculpture is an artist's conception, as it depicts Chief Crazy Horse
astride his mount, left arm outstretched over the horse's head, pointing
out across the southern Black Hills.  The sculptors admit that no one knows
what Crazy Horse looked like, nor that he ever pointed across his horse
when answering, "My lands are where my people lie buried." 
However, as a monument to the American FedGov's massive initiation of force
against the natives of North America, it's an astounding, moving
undertaking.

Of particular interest to philosophers of the Zero Aggression Principle and
to libertarians is that since its undertaking in 1948, the Crazy Horse
sculptors have never accepted government funding.

The importance of this fact is obvious:  unlike Mount Rushmore -- a
memorial to three of the worst Statists in American history -- Crazy Horse
is being sculpted without resorting to theft.  All funds are garnered from
private donation, entrance, and tour fees.

Secondly, by only accepting private donation, Crazy Horse will ultimately
be completed.  Mount Rushmore was a public project that owed its continence
to a capricious Congress.  By remaining a private concern, Crazy Horse is
assured of its ultimate completion.

Crazy Horse isn't finished, nor is it likely to be in my lifetime.  Work
proceeds apace, but it is a gigantic undertaking.  Following completion of
the sculpture, there are plans to develop the adjacent property into a
University, Medical Center, and Cultural Center for the American Indian.
It's a massive project already spanning several generations of sculptor
Korczak Ziolkowski's family.  It's still a family business, with the
majority of his large family having chosen to continue his work.  If need
be, it would outlive them and be carried on by other free individuals,
working from monies voluntarily accepted from visitors and donors.

When I was a child, Crazy Horse's face was a shapeless mass of granite.
Today, it is a recognizable Sioux warrior.  Consider, however, that this
represents the same amount of work necessary to bring Mount Rushmore to its
present state, and that Mount Rushmore was never finished.

If you visit South Dakota's beautiful Black Hills, I would urge you to
admire Mount Rushmore from the road.  Take your pictures, but don't
encourage the Federal Government by paying to approach its base.  Rather,
drive another half-hour to the much larger Crazy Horse and be inspired by
what free individuals accomplish every day.

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William Stone, III is a computer nerd (RHCE, CCNP, CISSP) and Executive
Director of the Zero Aggression Institute (http://www.0ap.org).  He seeks
the
Libertarian Party's nomination for the 2004 Senate race in South Dakota.

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