By John Galt
June 18, 2011
On Sunday, June 19, 2011, millions of American families will celebrate Father’s Day, a contrived Hallmark holiday developed to sell more cards and allow middle aged working class men one more opportunity for a rare day off to drink beer and watch sports. The family of Tom Ball will be recovering from the shock of a divorced man who apparently, based on the reporting to date, did nothing wrong beyond one mistake in a domestic spat which was escalated by zealous bureaucrats to the point where Mr. Ba;il’s legacy can be displayed in the photograph above. On June 15, 2011, Tom Ball engaged in an act similar to that of Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor who after years of frustration with a corrupt government bureaucracy and legal system self-immolated on the streets of the city of Tunis. The resulting revolution still reverberates through the streets of Arab nations to this day under the guise of clever media labels like “Arab Spring” and “People’s Revolution,” yet the true underlying causes of the overseas discontent are glossed over by the same media in our own nation.
Tom Ball could quite possibly change the direction of that discussion, but I doubt it.
For decades American citizens have been forced by a myriad of regulatory whims and bureaucratic megalomaniacs to engage in acts and abide by rules which have been outside of the scope of the Constitution of the United States. Citizens are forced to surrender their Bill of Rights to fly within our own nation; to surrender Second Amendment rights because they live in or visit a state, county, or city managed by individuals who usurp their legal authority on a regular basis; and to surrender all rights in the name of the Patriot Act, a vile violation of Constitutional principles endorsed by all political parties to increase their stranglehold on the throats of the knaves while ignoring the larger threats by actual terrorist organizations operating within and outside of our own borders because of “political correctness” principles.
Yet Tom Ball will simply be declared by the state, like Bouazizi, as a rogue discontent with an insane streak.
The difference will be that one will go down in history as an Arab hero, the other a freaking loon. I do not know Mr. Ball and since I am not a father, I do not feel it is my place to speak to the incident he outlined in his fifteen page missive published on June Friday, June 17, 2011 by the New Hampshire Sentinel Source (see “Last Statement sent to Sentinel from self-immolation victim“). This particular editorial in these pages is neither to glorify his family problems or his actions, as he deserves neither, but the most poignant observation I can ascertain from the individual’s perspective is that of one man facing the State. Mr. Ball’s missive does justice to the perceptions of the average man facing the might of the State threatening to put its boot on an individual’s soul, refusing to listen to the pleas of sanity and moving full speed ahead not based on the rule of law, but based on the feelings and directives of faceless cowards residing in bureaucratic castles immune from reality and obedience to the Constitution because after all, they know better.
Bouazizi in New Hampshire, Illinois, or any other U.S. state would be branded by the media as a loon, a nut, and insane; is Tom Ball any different?
From the perspective of the average American, the answer to the question above is “no.” By the time the mainstream media and talk show circuit gets finished with this story, if it gains any traction, the “victim,” the words of the Sentinel not my own, will be painted as one who regularly beat his wife, abused small animals, and probably violated dozens of EPA regulations that killed rare cockroaches in several states. The Psychiatric practitioners will crawl out from under their rocks proclaiming that his profile is consistent with delusional and psychopathic personalities, thus his actions should be dismissed as those of an irrelevant creature and not the norm. Yet it is their influence in the realm of family law and mental health which has lead to the crisis America now faces where raising a child has been delegated by bureaucrats and Psychiatric experts to the be the State’s responsibility, not the parents. Since they live in a protected world divorced from the reality of the average American versus the State the consequences of their influence are largely considered as “collateral damage” and so what if a man burns himself to death, overall “their” ideals are best for our citizenry, the Constitution be damned.
It is a dangerous path for any nation when the bureaucrats rule the law instead of abide by the rule of law.
This is the path we have chosen as a nation. Can’t deal with your children or spouse? Invite the State into your home to manage the situation. Can’t deal with planning your retirement? Demand the State steal from others who did to guarantee your subsistence. Your neighbor has a better medical care than you do? Demand a State managed system which penalizes those who work, plan, and shop for the best care within their budget so you can leech off of them. Don’t want your neighbor to own firearms or display a Nativity scene in their front yard on their own property? Demand the State remove their 1st and 2nd Amendment rights so you can sleep better at night.
That is the nation we live in today and very few people understand the might, furor, and strength of a State empowered by the lazy, slovenly, and evil.
So here we are once again, a nation at a crossroads which shall be ignored by the complicit. A man with some apparent issues of self-preservation and survival took his own life in a dramatic fashion and left a quasi-rational dissertation on the conflict he endured with the State. Any American engaged in legal conflict with any government agency probably read his lengthy piece and substituted the alphabet state or Federal agency of their own choice while nodding their heads in agreement as they read the story in disgust. Susan Kelo did not self-immolate even though she lost to the State despite the clarity of the intent of the Constitution regarding Eminent Domain. Unborn children can not speak out nor self-immolate because the State elected to interpret a non-existent right in the Constitution to commit murder. In the end Thomas Bail pointed out with his actions the only method to bring attention to the plight of the powerless in the face of the usurpers and for that his legacy is a black mark on the pavement and a permanent eulogy from the masses of “lunatic” because they would rather enjoy the fruits of State control rather than be responsible for their own actions.
The same terminology and application of derisive comments were reflected by the government of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali shortly after the incident in Tunis yet because the masses recognized the oppression, they reacted quite differently. In America, the land of reality television and slothfulness, until the State gores the masses self-interests, the headstone of those who have fought the State and lost shall remain that of “lunatic” no matter how correct those who struggled were with regards to the Constitutionality of their actions. By the time the State commits such malfeasance recognized by the complicit on a massive scale, it could be too late.
Keene, New Hampshire and Tunis, Tunisia are a culture and world away from each other but once again a single man has created an intersecting reality in both places highlighting the true conflict of our times:
The individual versus the State.
Sadly with the cowardly cooperation of the masses, the State almost always wins; if don’t believe me, ask or read the words from any Ukrainian survivor of Stalin’s 1930′s starvation purges.
Tom Bail was a “normal” man. He wasn’t crazy (or any more “mentally ill” than the witch doctors consider everyone with an ability to pay or bill the State for). He did have the disadvantage of having spent most of his life inside the US Military system which does actually host the last remnant of Rule of Law available to US Citizens. The UCMJ is harsh, but internally consistent and mostly does promote order (rather than allow for a lot of freedom).
He had had enough. His wife /ex-wife had taken his most important thing: the ability to see and raise his children. The State had taken his money and living situation, keeping him from supporting his family. The State Child “services” (which make children into economic commodities for the benefit of State Dept.’ s and if they happen to be White infants in good health, are worth at least $40K) threatened his wife with criminal prosecution and never seeing children again (not a bluff, they do this often even if you fully-comply with their unlawful demands).
Unfortunately, after Tom was completely screwed and cut off from everything he loved, he took out his rage on himself. Quote from another site was “do your homework and use your violence well”, meaning (I assume) that finding those who have put the laws in place or are implementing those laws to the full extent against people who have only technically violated the statute will provide some worthwhile vengeance. Of course, the revenge won’t make you feel better about what happened to you, but it may put some fear in the hearts of the unrestrained. Honorable men might consider it a tribal obligation. IMHO, Death Row in NH (do they even have executions? A lifetime of feminist daytime TV?) is not a worse fate than burning alive.
Cheers.