 | As the legislature continues their junior high games, the courts play gotcha, and the governor has completely lost touch with her subjects; the anger of the commoners is reaching a boiling point. When we take a branding iron to every twelfth adult and burn their foreheads "FELON"; When we watch pretentious senators tell us that we were too stupid to pass ballot initiatives.... We are ready to gather and occupy. There are good people working the halls of the legislature. There are dedicated and humane state workers. There are commoners with more sense than the bosses who run this state. We stand by while you do nothing about the pirates with badges who shake down travelers, confiscating booty with the claim that "it coulda come from selling drugs". Liberty is a principle deeply engrained in the gospel message, but the folks who bear the title of "Honorable" seem to have forgotten it. We are a people yearning to live free. We want the oppressors of the state off our backs. We are willing to endure some danger from our neighbors in exchange for that precious liberty. We are sick of the nanny state telling us what is good for us and ruining our lives under the pretense of saving us from ourselves. Our lawmakers have brought us shame. But there remains little that will restore that former trust until the politicians quit playing their little power trips, manipulating the system, and start letting representative democracy take it's course. |
| I'm talking to you, Anthony Sykes! Bobby Cleveland has a solid legislative proposal for rewarding convicts who work ernestly to improve their lives. You gathered dictatorial power to kill any judicial legislation and you refused to let that bill get a vote of your colleagues. How insulting to your fellow senators! How insulting to your fellow Oklahomans! It is a disgrace to the very senate chamber that you shut down the deliberative process on a bill which already passed the house chamber. You also did this same shameful practice to asset forfeiture reform, letting pirates in badges pillage the people. It is the intervention of the almighty, that your plan to be Attorney General has been thwarted by Scott Pruitt's early exit. Yes, we're mad as hell! This is devolving into a state which would make Inspector Javert** blush. Our courts are running debtors' prisons. Some bands of cops have become "The Sheriff of Nottingham". Peace officers are now revenue agents; pressured to help the big-spending city councils balance their irresponsible budgets. We commoners are going to be avenged. We are witnessing the divine judgment upon your colleagues and we trust in an omnipotent God who will rescue us, but we had hoped that you'd be a part of that redemption. LIBERTY. | If we don't have the honesty to see that we've lost our heritage, we owe King George an apology, while we put forth our hands, to be cuffed once again, into his less hideous bondage, to a system without any meaningful representation. LES MISERABLES Epilogue Do you hear the people sing Lost in the valley of the night It is the music of a people Who are climbing to the light For the wretched of the earth There is a flame that never dies Even the darkest night will end And the sun will rise. They will live again in freedom In the garden of the Lord They will walk behind the plough-share They will put away the sword The chain will be broken And all men will have their reward! Will you join in our crusade? Who will be strong and stand with me? Somewhere beyond the barricade Is there a world you long to see? Do you hear the people sing Say, do you hear the distant drums? It is the future that they bring When tomorrow comes! Will you join in our crusade? Who will be strong and stand with me? Somewhere beyond the barricade Is there a world you long to see? Do you hear the people sing Say, do you hear the distant drums? It is the future that they bring When tomorrow comes! Tomorrow comes! Tomorrow comes! |
** In his classic novel, Les Miserables'; Victor Hugo depicts Javert as a character who is not simply villainous, but rather tragic in his misguided and self-destructive pursuit of justice. "[Javert] was a compound," Hugo writes, "of two sentiments, simple and good in themselves, but he made them almost evil by his exaggeration of them: respect for authority and hatred of rebellion." He is "absolute", a "fanatic". This fanatical absolutism allows him to divine a "straight path through all that is most tortuous in the world".
Javert is moderately educated; Hugo observes: "In his leisure moments... although he hated books, he would read." Reflective thought is "an uncommon thing for him, and singularly painful"; this is due to the fact that thought inevitably contains "a certain amount of internal rebellion", which Javert dislikes.
He is without vices, but upon occasion will take a pinch of snuff. His life is one "of privations, isolation, self-denial, and chastity. Never any amusement".
Javert has been described as a legalist, in that his "moral foundation ... is built strictly on legalism". He is "one of the most tragic legalists in Western literature" and "the consummate legalist".
Javert is moderately educated; Hugo observes: "In his leisure moments... although he hated books, he would read." Reflective thought is "an uncommon thing for him, and singularly painful"; this is due to the fact that thought inevitably contains "a certain amount of internal rebellion", which Javert dislikes.
He is without vices, but upon occasion will take a pinch of snuff. His life is one "of privations, isolation, self-denial, and chastity. Never any amusement".
Javert has been described as a legalist, in that his "moral foundation ... is built strictly on legalism". He is "one of the most tragic legalists in Western literature" and "the consummate legalist".
