Who I Remember on Memorial Day

I refuse to glorify the vicious and destructive nature of the state by honoring those who allowed themselves to get caught up in the war system. Instead, I will remember my ancestors who managed to avoid what is blatantly evil to human life, but essential to the well-being of the state. I have calculated that, in just 67 generations — roughly 2,000 years — I have had precisely 147,573,952,589,676,412,928 direct ancestors (i.e., parents, grandparents, great-grandparents . . . the “but for” people without whom I would not be here). That these people were able to produce their descendants without the presence and oversight of numerous governmental agencies — including the FDA, Consumer Protection Agency, social workers, TSA and Border Patrol forces to control their movements, Homeland Security,  Social Security and Medicare systems, “child protective services,” et al. — is a testament to their determination and capacity to effectively control their own lives in a world too complex for anyone to predict outcomes.

More so, these men and women were either adept — or just lucky — at avoiding the institutionalized slaughter that it has always been the purpose of the state [and its adherents]  to promote. This fact is particularly brought home to me in that my paternal grandfather and his three brothers fought in the American Civil War, and that my grandfather was the only one of the four siblings who survived and produced descendants.

If you wish to do the math — which amounts to 2 to the 67th power — you can confirm the above number of direct ancestors. You will discover that you, also, have precisely the same number of predecessors. As this number represents many billions of times the number of humans who have ever lived on this planet, you will also become aware that almost all of our ancestors are the same people! Think about that, and put aside all the John Wayne films that glorify the war system. Join with me in celebrating our quadrillions of common ancestors whose lives were such that they were able to create you and me!

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5:27 pm on May 26, 2012