Ray Bradbury

Cancel Culture

Summary

Mr. William Stendahl has his architect build a house on Mars reminiscent of American writer Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Stendahl explains Poe’s works were burned in the Great Fire of 1975 back on Earth, victim of a law to ban “all the beautiful literary lies and flights of fancy.” These laws have now been transported to Mars.

Garrett, Investigator of Moral Climates, comes to inspect the house and declares his intention to raze it to the ground. He comes inside and a robot ape kills him. Stendahl’s henchman, Pikes, creates a robot version of Garrett and burns the body.

Stendahl throws a party and invites all of his former rivals. The real Garrett shows up, after having sent a robot originally. Garrett observes as each guest is murdered in ways that mirror murders in Poe’s stories; a robot version of each guest watches its double’s murder. Then, Stendahl chains Garrett up and bricks him in before escaping with Pikes and blowing up the whole house.

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By Chris Sullivan

ChrisSullivan.com

APRIL 9, 1865

This is the date when General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. Regardless of where one comes down on the subject of the War Between the States, one fact is undeniable: Abraham Lincoln seriously dismantled the Jeffersonian model of federalism in America.

Lincoln ignored the concept of ‘free & independent states’ when he declared war on a nation that seceded from the Union.  The newly formed Confederate States of America had lawfully separated from the United States in accord with the Constitution of 1789. That mattered not to Lincoln, for he ordered an invasion and destruction of this new country under the guise of ‘preserving the union.’   It was not Lincoln’s job to preserve the union – that job belonged to the states.

Ever since Lincoln’s presidency, virtually every battle that free men have fought for the principles of limited government, State sovereignty, personal liberty, etc., has stemmed directly from Lincoln’s usurpation of power and subjugation and forced union of what used to be “Free and Independent States” (the Declaration of Independence). In fact, the philosophical battles being waged today regarding every encroachment upon liberty and State autonomy by our federal government have their roots in Lincoln’s autocracy.

July 9, 1868

This is the date when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified. This amendment codified into law what Lincoln had forced at bayonet point from 1861-1865. Until then, people were deemed citizens of their respective states. The Constitution nowhere referred to people as “U.S. citizens.” It only recognized “the Citizens of each State.” Notice also that citizenship was only recognized among the “several States,” not among people living in non-State territories. Until the Fourteenth Amendment, people were “Citizens of each State.” (Article. IV. Section. 2. Paragraph. 1.) The Fourteenth Amendment created a whole new class of persons: “citizens of the United States.” This false notion of “one nation” overturned the Jeffersonian principle that America was a confederated republic, a voluntary union of states.

February 3, 1913

This is the date when the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified and the personal income tax and IRS were instituted. This was a flagrant repudiation of freedom principles. What began as a temporary measure to support the War of Northern Aggression became a permanent income revenue stream for an unconstitutional–and ever-growing–central government, and the financial basis for future government spending.

April 8, 1913

This is the date when the Seventeenth Amendment was ratified. This amendment overturned the right of the State legislatures to elect their own senators and replaced it with a direct, popular vote. This was another serious blow against State sovereignty. The framers of the Constitution desired that the influence and power in Washington, D.C., be kept as close to the people and states as possible. For example, the number of representatives in the House of Representatives was to be decided by a limited number of voters. In the original Constitution, the ratio of “people of the several States” deciding their House member could not exceed “one for every thirty thousand.” (Article. I. Section. 2. Paragraph. 3.) And when it came to the US Senate, the framers recognized the authority of each State legislature to select its own senators, thereby keeping power and influence from aggregating in Washington, D.C.

The Seventeenth Amendment seriously damaged the influence and power of the states by forcing them to elect their U.S. senators by popular vote. Senators who answered to State legislators, each answering to a limited number of voters, were much more accountable to the “citizens of the several States” than those who are elected by a large number (most states now numbering into the millions) of people. For all intents and purposes, U.S. senators are more like “mini-presidents” than representatives of sovereign states. Senators today are less representatives of the people and more representatives of Washington D.C.

December 23, 1913

This is the date when the Federal Reserve Act was passed. This Act placed oversight of America’s financial matters into the hands of a cabal of private international bankers who have completely destroyed the constitutional principles of sound money and (for the most part) free enterprise. No longer would the marketplace (private consumption, thrift, growth, etc.) be the determinant of the U.S. economy and a currency backed by actual gold–which is what freedom is all about. But now a private, unaccountable, international banking cartel would have total power and authority to micromanage (for their own private, parochial purposes) America’s financial sector. Virtually every recession, depression, and downturn this country has ever had (including the Great Depression) was the direct result of the Fed’s manipulation of the financial markets. They’re doing it again today.

1913 was not a good year for the United States or for freedom.

June 26, 1945

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