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THE NECESSITY OF THINGS
BY TIM SIEWERT

Webster’s dictionary of the English language defines the word “necessary” as an adjective used to describe something as being essential, indispensable, or requisite.  The word “necessity” is the noun root.

There are certain things that are necessary for a society to thrive.  One thing is freedom.  Without freedom there will be no innovation.  Without innovation there can be no progress.  The powers that be would like everyone to believe that growth and progress is necessary to sustain the economy.  Yet “they” continually limit freedom more and more.  So how do “they” expect to sustain the economy?  I have not figured that one out yet.

One thing I have figured out is that a certain amount of continuity is necessary for a society to thrive;  continuity in that certain traditions and values are passed from generation to generation.  Continuity of values is the glue that binds a society.  Without this glue, people have nothing to hold on to.  It is a fact of human nature that people need this glue for direction.  Without this glue the society will disintegrate.  One of these fundamental traditions is the family unit.  Even with all the dysfunctional problems that many families have, the vast majority of people become productive assets of society.  The family unit satisfies a child’s basic needs of shelter and love.  Without these needs being met a child can not grow to be a productive asset.  The traditional family unit has been destroyed by liberal progressivism in our society.  It is no wonder to me that there are so many dysfunctional people today.

Another thing necessary for a society to thrive is a standardized form of communication; this facilitates the sharing of information and ideas.  A good illustration of what happens when people cannot communicate with each other is the story of the tower of Babel told of in God’s Word.  According to the story, the people started to build a tower to reach heaven so they could see God.  When they started, all the people involved in this project spoke the same language.  The story goes that God sent a spirit of confusion so that all the people started to speak different languages.  The project was then abandoned because the people could not communicate with each other any longer.  An English teacher told me once when I was in school that if a person does not learn how to communicate proficiently, then no one will ever take that person seriously; that was an epiphany for me.  It was at that moment in my life that I truly started to take my education seriously along with my knowledge of the English language.  I have continued to educate myself about a plethora of topics ever since.

There has been a trend in our society for some time to take short cuts when it comes to communication.  People no longer use capital letters and punctuation, and even grammar has totally gone out the window when writing formal communiqués not to mention the informal e-mail or ubiquitous text message.  Pick up a newspaper and read a few articles for an illustration of this.  I view these habits as nothing more than pure laziness.  The incessant use of nonsensical abbreviations also serves to deteriorate ones ability to properly communicate; a habit that I absolutely refuse to practice.  I predict that if the trend continues, within twenty years people will even stop inserting spaces between words, and their writings will be just one big string of incoherent letters.

I would venture to say that the vast majority of people under the age of thirty do not even know what words which contain over 5 letters mean, let alone know how to properly use them. And, if that weren't bad enough, there is the issue of penmanship. Most people’s hand-written messages that I have had the dubious fortune of seeing lately have been indecipherable because of atrocious penmanship.  It has been a wonder to me that the authors of these chicken scrawlings can even understand what they have written.  My father was a registered land surveyor.  He became a surveyor long before the proliferation of computers and cad-cam. Consequently, it was my father’s custom to print everything that he hand wrote; this was customary for all plats of survey which in my father’s time and before were hand-drawn and written.  Ironically, I have continued this practice because it is my desire that anyone who may see what I have written be able to read and understand what I have written.

Along with communication, education is necessary for a society to perpetuate itself.  Many alleged “thinkers” over the years have postulated what sets man apart from other mammals.  Some have tried to say that what sets us apart is our thumb, the “opposing digit”.  This is not true.  All primates have opposing digits and so do Raccoons.  Speaking of Raccoons, many people are of the misconception that they are clean because they wash their food before they eat it.  If you have ever smelled a Raccoon you will know that they are not clean.  They wash their food because they do not have salivary glands.  I think the fact that Raccoons wash their food so they can eat it is a clear indication of problem-solving ability.   Some have said that it is man’s ability to reason (the ability to solve problems) that sets us apart.  Also not true.  Other mammals aside from Raccoons have been shown to be able to solve problems.  Still others have gone so far as to say that man’s ability to make tools is the deciding factor.  Again, equally not true.  A number of different species have been observed using simple tools; for example the sea otter uses rocks to open shell fish.  I know that there may be some that do not think of a rock as a tool, but by definition a tool is anything that can be used to create a mechanical advantage.  So what does set man apart from other mammals?

I believe that there are two things that set us apart from all other species.  One thing I am not going to go into in this article; possibly in the future.  The other thing is man’s invention known as the written word.  While it is true that other species communicate with other members of their species, man is the only species that communicates in ways that are neither physical nor verbal.  I am not talking about electronic communication either.  Researchers have identified and cataloged over 300 different, distinct sounds used by Dolphins.  Man is the only one that has bothered to write them down.  Education is what perpetuates the written word.  Man is capable of learning what is necessary to survive without education.  But education and written communication is necessary for a society to flourish.

Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the unanimous Declaration of 4 July 1776 and the first Surgeon General of the Continental Army, wrote that education is a necessary virtue for liberty, and that liberty is the origin and life of all republican societies.

A note about education:  While I firmly believe in the necessity of education, there is no provision for public education in the Constitution.  A thorough read of that document with particular attention to Article 1, Section 8 (duties & responsibilities of Congress) will show this to be true.  The U.S. Department of Education spends 100 billion dollars per year and has been the driving force behind the evisceration of the public school system in this country which did not exist until the administration of FDR.  Education of children is the sole responsibility of the parents of the children.

The quality of education in this country has been eviscerated by liberal progressivism.  The “no child left behind” paradigm (which I wrote about in a separate recent article) has become an excuse for ineffectual teaching.  It has turned our Republic into a third rate has-been that is the laughing stock of the world.  And it has created a cavalier attitude about everything in our society.  If everyone is equally rewarded for mediocre performance, why bother to excel?  It is much easier to be average.  The problem now is that average has devolved to substandard.  Soon, at the present rate of things, no performance at all will be universally rewarded.  Many people today expect to be paid by their employer just because they are present at their place of employment.  This is the result of the “no child left behind” mentality.  The U.S. of A. now ranks 53rd in the world for overall quality of education.  When I was a lad, we were #1.

I have been a voracious reader all of my life.  I truly enjoy reading.  I believe that reading is THE most valuable skill a person can have.  One of my favorite authors is Louis L’Amour (1910-1988).  He is possibly the most prolific author of the 20th century.  It is estimated that over 200 million copies of his books have been printed.  He wrote more than 80 novels and 200 short stories.  Louis L’Amour had a tenth grade education.  That was when a tenth grade education meant something.  Even though he never went farther in school, in his biography he wrote that he never stopped learning.  He continued to educate himself about a wide variety of subjects until the day he passed.  Some may ask, “What purpose does continuing to educate yourself serve?”  I believe that this life is a preparation for the life to come.  I also believe that there are only two things that a person can take into the next life; what knowledge they have acquired and their honor.  This is my motivation for learning.

Another thing necessary for a society to thrive is a stable medium of exchange.  For millennia now this has been money.  Without stable money, an economy, and the people that make it up, will be continually playing “catch-up”.  The idea that a continually growing supply of money is an indicator of growth is an illusion.  In reality a continually increasing supply of money is nothing more than a result of greed; greed on the part of those causing the increase.  A continually increasing supply of money destabilizes the medium of exchange and causes the prices of goods and services to constantly increase which causes people to need more and more money to obtain the same things.  Eventually, the prices of essential goods and services make these goods and services unobtainable for more and more people.  This is what we are experiencing today.  This has always been the result of fiat money.  Fiat money is money that has no intrinsic value.  The paper currency that is called the dollar has been fiat money since 1935 and our coins have been fiat money since 1965.  Fiat money is never a stable medium of exchange.  Therefore, fiat money is counterproductive to a thriving society.  The men who founded our Republic knew this.

It has been said that a thing is only worth what someone else is willing to pay in money for that thing.  This can be applied to everything whether it is a commodity, product, a person’s labor, or one’s time.  Time is the most precious of commodities.  Once a minute has elapsed, it can never be relived.  I think that this concept has been lost on most people.

Clearly life is necessary for a society to thrive yet life is not valued much either anymore.  The proliferation of wars around the globe by agents of governments illustrates this.  These ignoble agents seem to be of the notion that some life, specifically theirs, is more valuable than other life.  All life is equally valuable except for vermin.  I despise vermin.  I view the despicable people that foment wars as vermin.  Disposing of vermin is another necessary thing.  Without disposing of vermin, life will deteriorate because vermin carry disease.  The disease that these ignoble vermin carry is that of greed and arrogance.  Unfortunately, the vermin of governments seem to create another class of vermin also. With all of their illegal laws, they create criminals.  I believe that these vermin create criminals because by doing so it creates more revenue sources.  But by definition greed is insatiable; hence even more laws, and more criminals.  It is a vicious cycle.

Now I want everyone to know that I am not some type of anarchist.  There are legitimate reasons for government.  There are legitimate reasons for taking life also.  My point is that it appears to me that what is necessary for a society to thrive has been obfuscated by a very small group of vermin.  This small group is of the opinion that they have the right to do whatever they deem necessary or appropriate to further their agenda of greed and control.  I believe that it has become necessary to deal with this small group of vermin.  I also believe that the fate of our Republic and possibly of mankind is dependent on this.  How this can be accomplished though I will admit I am unsure of.  I will also admit that I have been experiencing a considerable amount of personal turmoil lately concerning this issue.  I believe that my reticence about this is not unique.  Furthermore I believe that is the reason why we have reached the point in history that we find ourselves at.  I am sure that many of the men who founded our Republic had similar misgivings.  I do not claim to have all of the answers.  I do know a few things though.  I do know that some times in life unsavory things are necessary.

As I stated, there are legitimate reasons for government.  A quote that I am fond of repeating from Thomas Jefferson is, “The best government is no government at all, but considering the failings of men, that government which governs the best governs the least.”  While I agree with this I would like to illuminate something that I learned sometime ago.  In 1869 a man named Lysander Spooner wrote a book entitled “No Treason”.  Lysander Spooner was a well educated man and a lawyer.  His book is available on line.  In his book, Mr. Spooner maintains that the men who wrote the Constitution had no right to indenture their “posterity”, or any other inhabitant of this country, to be subjected to the Constitution.  He points out from a lawyer’s perspective that the Constitution is nothing more than a contract; a contract that was entered into by the men who wrote it, and as such is in no way binding to successive generations.  I have read his book and he goes into much more detail validating his standpoint of this.  If Lysander Spooner’s hypothesis is correct, then everyone in this country is under no obligation to follow any of the laws that we are allegedly under obligation to follow.  I believe that his hypothesis is correct because the most fundamental precept of contract law is this: a contract entered into unknowingly is not a valid contract and as such is null and void from its inception.  Considering this the real question is, “If so what then?”  I do not have an answer to that question yet.  The only thing I do know is that the system of government originally set forth by the Constitution was the most equitable in history to be developed by man to date.  And I must stress originally.

Yet another necessity that I would like to mention is honor.  Honor is not a thing though; it is an attitude, a belief, a way of life.  Honor is a rare commodity today.  The men who signed the unanimous Declaration of 4 July 1776 understood what honor is.  As a matter of fact, they wrote as much into that document.  They pledged their “sacred honor” to form a new Republic.  A Republic based on the sanctity of individual liberty.  Without honor there can be only chaos.  If you have chaos there is no society.  Without a society to protect the rights of the individual, there is no true freedom.  Because in reality, it is not governments or laws or force or anything else that keeps men from doing evil.  It is honor and honorable men that do so.  Honor is the most necessary of things in my opinion yet it is the scarcest of things.

A necessary thing that goes hand in hand with honor is truth.  Today, the truth is not only obfuscated but even denigrated.  Most everyone is of the opinion that “little white lies” are O.K.  “Little white lies” are still lies as much as “the lesser of two evils” is still evil.  This virtually universal mind-set that accepts these sayings as being the norm is the reason for honor being such a rare commodity today.  The problem of today is that the little lies of become full blown big ones and very few seem to even notice let alone care.

The final thing that I would like to add may or may not be a necessary thing in all societies.  It is a necessary thing in an industrialized society like ours though.  That necessary thing is the people that actually do the work.  There was a book written in the 1940s.  This book is having a resurgence in popularity lately.  The book I refer to is Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.  The whole premise of this book is what happens when the people that actually do the work “check out” from society.  In a word, the whole system collapses.  This book does serve to illustrate one of the major problems with our society and that is there are a whole lot of people that are being carried on the backs of the ones that are actually doing the work that needs to be done.  The biggest problem is that these true “useless eaters” are the ones that expect to make the “big bucks” off of the labor of others.  These leeches also deride the workers.  They have positioned themselves as overlords to perpetuate the illusion of the system.  Now I want everyone to understand that I am not some communist (like Ayn Rand).  I am fully aware of the necessity of supervision in a manufacturing environment and I believe in entrepreneurial ventures; an individual having their own business is the true American dream.  This is the dream that built this country into what it once was.  Having employees is part of entrepreneurship.  As long as the employees are not taken advantage of and are well compensated for their efforts; they share in the dream.  The leeches I refer to are the politicians, lawyers, bankers, stock and commodity brokers, all of the parasitic filth in the real estate “industry”, and all of the other middle level scum that feed off of the legitimate efforts of the entrepreneurs and the “worker bees”.  It is high time to rid ourselves of these parasites permanently.

Others may argue that there are other necessary things.  Some may even argue that there are more important necessary things; more important than what I have covered here.  That may be.  The question is, “Do these other things benefit everyone in society equally?”  I think that the society that exists today is an illusion based on lies promoted by charlatans who are the real useless eaters of the world that we all live in.  This whole system that we find ourselves ensconced in is totally askew from what really matters.

So it comes down to this, the question that you have to ask yourself, “Do I want to take the red pill or the blue pill?​​​​

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