My Quest for Truth and Liberty
Savannah
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Posts by Savannah
Path of Grass Video
Jul 20th
I meant to post this sooner, but things prevented me. Here’s the video that my friend, Luke Bessey, made for Path of Grass:
What the 4th of July Should Be
Jul 4th
I need to preface this with a confession, taken from my latest Facebook status. “I’m afraid I’m a hopeless introvert.” It is true. Probably part of my aversion to 4th of July parades, county fairs, and all those fun American things is that I just don’t like people much. I mean, there are particular people I like, and some I like very much, but I find the general population to be so insipid, close-minded, self-centered, and utterly boring that I don’t really care much for being around people. Under certain circumstances, I enjoy watching people, but I find it hard to interact with them. Anyways…I’m sure some people get a warm, fuzzy feeling when they attend a 4th of July parade, it just doesn’t happen for me.
So, today I was attending the 4th of July parade in a small town nearby, rather reluctantly. I think my mother worries about me sitting at home alone, happily reading a book while everyone else enjoys the festivities of the day; consequently, I was persuaded to attend. I got the most pleasure out of seeing my baby brother become overwhelmed with excitement at seeing so many tractors, trucks, and other loud motor vehicles. As in any small Midwest town, we had a super-abundance of tractors in the parade. Of course the parade started with the police. We got a lot of fire engines too. And some politicians. And several military/veteran groups. Eventually the businesses came around (and they threw more candy than any gov’t participant, I might add) and then the tractors and so forth.
I really think that the 4th of July parade should be made up entirely of tractors, businesses, and other forms of free market contributions. Instead of the 4th being a celebration of our government, it should be a celebration of our culture and our heritage. Having just finished a book that took place partially in the Midwest, it was very inspiring for me to see the antique tractors and farm equipment that has shaped our community. The technology and resources are all a result of voluntary interactions of the free market. We should celebrate those who sacrificed present consumption so we might enjoy better farm machinery and therefore cheaper, more abundant food. We should honor those who risked their fortunes and life to improve society with a more efficient method of planting, harvesting, or processing crops. We should celebrate those who instead of sitting back and collecting unemployment, toiled long hours in hot, dusty fields to earn an honest living. Such was my great-grandfather and great-grandmother, who even after their children were grown and married, moved to the Rockford area and bought a farm. My great-grandfather had a manufacturing job, and my great-grandmother spent her days working the 160 acres of our farm…only to come inside in the evenings to lay the beautiful hardwood floors that are still in our house today. And this was in the midst of WWII, with all the uncertainty and fear surrounding it. So many Americans just plodded on, growing food, raising animals, and keeping the lifeblood of the country flowing.
This morning we had a discussion about patriotism. I was explaining to my sisters that patriotism implies loyalty to and love of your government. That’s why I don’t like the word patriotism. I wish there was a good English word for loyalty to and love for your society, your culture, your community, your heritage. We could only come up with, “I love the geographical area of North America known as the Midwest,” which is, admittedly, very clumsy. But that’s what we should celebrate and appreciate, not the acts of violence, aggression, and force which our government has been committing since 1789.
Path of Grass is Released!
Jun 21st
So uber-excited….here’s the online store for purchasing Path of Grass! So for my loyal followers who didn’t sign up to read it for free online but preferred to wait and buy a copy, now is your time! To get to the store, you can also click the button at right.
Path of Grass will be on Amazon in 5-7 days, but the royalties are higher for me at Createspace (the link posted above) so I’d prefer that you buy through that. I need to live up to my reputation as a greedy capitalist exploiting the people 
This is really amazing, I just realized this. So my previous button said, “coming Spring 2011″ so I figured I should get it out by the first day of Summer so that the planned release date would be accurate. And it actually was released today, the first day of Summer! That’s pretty nice too.
So stop at Createspace to buy a copy of Path of Grass, and you can also enter the giveaway for a free copy, here. Hey, you can buy a copy for yourself and maybe win a copy to share with a friend!
The Reality of the Market
Jun 18th
I really enjoy my job, for several reasons. One reason is that my company is the perfect real-life example of many concepts I learned in economics. I have to get my boss credit, he is sometimes a very quotable person and says things just like I’ve heard in my econ books…except he really is an entrepreneur who is dealing with very real customers (believe me…I have to talk to them every day…).
First example illustrates consumer sovereignty. He said, “A lot of people think that business-owners run their company. That’s not true. The customer runs the business. The customers decide what happens under this roof, not me.” If only Marx had talked to a real, live capitalist, he would have discovered that consumers aren’t being exploited… and if you must have some exploiting going on, it is probably the consumers exploiting the producers. At my workplace we make capital goods. Lots of little metal parts for all sorts of things, from airplanes to Caterpillars. So our customers aren’t even the consumers; they just take our parts, add some more, and send it on to another capital goods company. But can you imagine the pressure of the customers in a consumer goods business?
Second example illustrates what Jeffrey Tucker mentioned a couple months ago in an article. He said something like, “businesses are future-oriented. They don’t care what happened yesterday. They may be having a really bad today. But they’re always looking towards to tomorrow.” I’ve observed that in my workplace, and I certainly think like that as well sometimes. But yesterday my boss and I were talking and he said, “If I think about today, it makes me want to jump in my grave. But if I think about the future, I get all excited.” Isn’t that great? Jeffrey Tucker was so spot-on with what he said, that’s exactly how businesses go.
On a related topic, there’s been some discussion on the Mises blog about how fastidious Austrians should be. Should we condemn McDonalds because of the gov’t food subsidies it receives? The list goes on, for the leviathan has tainted every aspect of our lives. Some go the negative way and reject anything in the market which has anything to do with government. Jeffrey Tucker, and others, have argued that we should enjoy and appreciate the aspects of the market which are more free. Sure, we can complain about food subsidies. But let’s also marvel (as Jeffrey Tucker has done) at the efficiency of McDonalds at satisfying the consumer demand for cheap, convenient food. In the same way, I know that eventually the parts my company makes will be used by the government in the ambiguous ”defense” of this country. I don’t like to say I work in the defense industry because 1) I don’t really and 2) the sort of defense our government engages in isn’t the kind of defense I’m proud of. Instead I like to say I work in the areospace industry which is more accurate and something I’m happy about. So although down the line our parts are used for immoral actions, I can marvel at the market tendencies all around me.
The Unpredictability of God
Jun 15th
This is something I’ve been mulling over for some time, and felt like posting it tonight.
There are have been a few incidences recently that have reminded me of this idea. God is so much bigger than we can imagine. He doesn’t fit into our neat compartments. He is like Aslan, we can’t keep God in our wallet or beckon like a genie at our whim.
The story that comes to mind first is the water from a rock in the Old Testament. The Hebrews were wandering in the desert, complaining and rising up against Moses because they were so thirsty. So what does God do? What would we do? What would I do? I shout down from the heavens, “you ingrates! I brought you out of Egypt! I rescued you from the hand of Pharaoh! I parted the Red Sea for you! You’ve been slaves for 400 years and you’re free now! Isn’t that enough? Can’t you endure a little pain and inconvenience? Don’t you think I’ll save you from death by dehydration, I’ve saved you from a thousand deaths already.” But that’s not what God did. He commanded Moses to strike a rock and suddenly water came pouring out, enough water for all the people and all their animals.
There are two aspects to this whole thing.
First, what I’ve been marveling about is God’s creativity. His imagination is so much greater than our feeble minds. I mean, if I were going to give a million people water, I would not have it come from a rock. That would have been the last thing I would have imagined. Water coming from rocks just doesn’t fit what we know. Obvious examples of this is all around us. Why would God make certain birds pink? And how in the world (I should say, universe) did He think of making penguins? Or the myriads of other wonderful, crazy animals? Or the sky. I would have made the sky some pale whitish color, so it wouldn’t distract our eyes from the other sights of the planet. No, God makes it a brilliant blue. Of course there are scientific reasons for the sky being blue, but I rather think that He first decided to make it blue, and then designed the system of science and colors and all that around His choice. Look at all the other examples in the Bible. Elijah flees to an isolated cave so the king won’t kill him. How does God keep him alive? He sends ravens to feed him. Ha! Ravens! Why ravens? Why not just make the food appear for him? Why not have some kindly person (who happens to have a good supply of food) stumble upon him? If I were writing a book, I would not have ravens come feed him. There are so many examples of God doing such unexpected things, it is really incredible.
On a more practical note, we can apply this to our lives. For instance, considering my current interests and passions, I’d like to find a position where I can teach economics. But God doesn’t do things neatly. He doesn’t use Hollywood plots. His stories have lots of twists and turns, you never know quite where things are going. So I’m just going to hold on and see where God wants me to be. Drinking water from a rock would be far more exciting than drinking from a stream. I’m not saying we should just trust God and our lives are going to be far better than we can imagine. Instead of getting one job teaching econ, I might get three! No, I don’t think so. For example, instead of being an econ tutor, I’m an office manager at an aerospace factory. Haha, there’s an interesting surprise, never would have expected it. But that’s because God isn’t like us. He doesn’t think like us. I can’t tell you how He thinks because I’m one of us. But I think He does things that we’ll eventually appreciate. We may not realize that the bitter water we are drinking is water from the rock of God’s grace.
Secondly, the other aspect of this is God’s character, for lack of a better word. We like things to be neat and tidy. We like things that go with our preconceived notions. Nice people go to heaven. Bad people go to hell. It is that easy. Haha, actually not. All through the Old Testament you can see God overthrowing our neat notions, and the apex of this is the incarnation of His Son as a carpenter’s son. Esau was the oldest. Jacob got the birthright. And not only that, God didn’t just speak from Heaven and announce His toppling of human traditions, He used the deceit and sin of Jacob to accomplish His plans. He rejected Saul and chose David the shepherd boy to be the king of Israel. He sent glorious Nebuchadnezzar to the meadows like a beast of the field. He didn’t invite King Herod to His Son’s birth, but the shepherds got an invitation from the angels. Christ called the tax collectors and sinners. A tidy Savior would have refused to speak to the woman at the well. But Jesus offered her Living Water. A predictable God would have struck Saul dead on the Road to Damascus, instead Saul was struck blind for three days and given eternal life.
It seems ironic: God gives grace when we want justice, but yet when He metes out justice, we call for mercy.
We don’t like thinking of the thousands of people the Israelites slaughtered when they entered the Holy Land. We don’t like thinking about Uzzah who was just trying to keep the Ark of the Covenant from touching the ground and was killed for his audacity. This kind of God scares us. We want a God who will rain down judgement and grace when we decide. But that’s not how it works, God makes the choice.
That is what confuses me, if Christianity is the opiate of masses, why are the masses afraid of God? If religion was invented by people to comfort themselves in the midset of a vast, silent, random, cruel, mysterious universe, why is the God they created so vast, mysterious, and seemingly cruel? Why is it that in the Bible, whenever anyone comes near to approaching the presence of God, they fall to pieces? Isaiah cried, “woe to me, for I am undone!” He could not stand whole before God. His being trembled before the Almighty God. Moses was allowed only to see the backside of God. The God of the Bible isn’t a gushy, smiley grandfather who never gets cross and lets you eat as many cookies as you’d like. No, the God of the Bible struck Nadab and Abihu dead because they offered “strange fire” on the alter.
You see, we are surprised when God doesn’t offer everyone a free pass to Heaven, but when He sacrifices His Son to satisfy His perfect and inflexible justice, we are surprised that He offers this extraordinary mercy to common sinners.
No matter how you look at it, we’re going to be surprised by God so we might as well appreciate the unpredictability of our God.
Lines of Phreedom
Jun 13th
Thanks to a friend, I stumbled upon this website, Lines of Phreedom, last week and it was very encouraging. Encouraging because it means I’m not the only young person who sees the importance of literature in introducing people to liberty. From the About page,
Guns will put you in a position of power for a limited time, and rhetoric will get you fame for a while, but what is written will last forever.
I’m probably a bit biased because Lines of Phreedom is helping to promote Path of Grass, but even before the webmaster, K.J. Herr, kindly did so, I was impressed by the website. This is what we need. We need a place where young people can freely share their works. No, we’re aren’t all Ayn Rands right now, but if we keep writing and keep trying and keep practicing, someday there might be that one work which will become a common title in every household, as 1984 is, or the phrase “Who is John Galt?”
So go check out Lines of Phreedom, browse the works posted so far, and share some of your own lines for liberty.
Path of Grass: Coming Soon to a Bookshelf Near You
Jun 6th
I think the first day of summer is June 21st. I wanted to have Path of Grass published in the spring. So if I get it published on June 20th, that still counts as the spring. 
And it might end up being June 20th, I’m not sure.
I’m so ready to get this book out there…it is becoming very exciting! Much of the delay in publishing has been the time it takes to get the book from one person or one step to the next. My copy to the typesetter. The typesetter mails it to me. I give it to the proof-reader. My proof-reader returns it. I look it over again and send it back, and so it goes…Just a lot of steps that can’t be hurried.
Let me share with you one of my favorite parts from Path of Grass. This is also one of the oldest sections, I probably wrote it when I was 13 or so. It was the very first section I wrote that in the series of stories that became Path of Grass. There’s something about it that always surprises me, something that always delights me, and I’m left wondering how I could have written something that lovely.
My name is Adele. But the other sisters call me Catherine, so I do not know who I am. My mother was French; my father was German. My father’s family was angry because he married a foolish French woman. After my parents died I was given to a convent and have lived there ever since. I remember the day when I was four years old. My Aunt Matilda pulled me impatiently through the streets and stopped at the nunnery door. She crossly straightened my little brown dress and tied the old shoes that were too big for me, and then a nun opened the door. My aunt at once became grown up and wouldn’t look at me anymore.
“This is an orphan; her name is Catherine. Will you take her and bring her up to be a good girl?”
“Please come in. I will go ask the mother superior.”
I was confused that my aunt lied about my name, but she gave me a sharp glance that made me afraid to protest.
We were led into a hollow-sounding, dark courtyard and made to wait a great while, it seemed to me. My aunt amused herself by rummaging through her small purse and looking at relics of the past stashed in it. She would not allow me the privilege of touching anything, so I wandered around the room and stared at the strange pictures of a woman holding a child, angels, and a man wrapped in sheets floating on clouds. At last another nun came in and spoke to my aunt for a few minutes. My aunt sounded angry and, after shouting a little, became satisfied. As I look back, perhaps she did not shout, but the vastness and emptiness of the room made her voice louder than it really was. My aunt smiled too sweetly at me and walked out. The nun took my hand gently and led me into another place. It was a long hallway, and I was afraid it would never end. We at last reached the last door, and the nun slowly opened it. It was a sort of chapel with candles lining the walls. At the very front of it was a statue of that same woman I saw in the courtyard pictures, smiling down at her baby. The nun paused where we stood.
“This is where we worship God,” she said softly. I didn’t want to speak; the lady with the child seemed to be telling us to be quiet and just look at her. “This is where you will come also, to worship God with us. Do you know who that lady there is? It is the mother of Jesus Christ. He delivered His people from their sins by dying for them. He was perfect. He never sinned, but He bore our sins for us. We now pray to Him and His Father because His Father is now our Father. You used to have a father, didn’t you?”
I nodded.
“But he died. Christ’s Father never died and never will. He is in Heaven, and he listens when we speak to him. Now, enough of that.” She turned around suddenly, as if remembering her real duty. “My name is Sister Clotilde. Let me show you where you are to sleep.”
She took me out of the chapel and down the hall about halfway. She opened another door that led into a very small room that had a little bed in the corner, a window, and a shelf next to the window. The walls were brick. I felt them, and they were cold.
What the Market Requires
May 27th
I’m actually getting to the point where I enjoy my job. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never not liked it, and from Day One I’ve appreciated the challenge it has been. But there were several weeks where I’d come home every day exhausted and wondering when the chaos and madness would end. And I’m happy to say it is improving. There’s still a very long way to go, but I feel better about what I do.
I worked full time for a couple weeks in order to straighten things out. I’ve actually gotten to the point where I can do everything absolutely necessary from noon to 5, instead of having to drop things or come in early because I don’t have enough time. That’s a really good feeling! While there’s a lot that I can yet improve in the conditions around me and the flow of work, I’ve improved my own efficiency so much that I truly believe I cannot accomplish any more work in the time that I’m given each day without changing processes, moving files, etc…
It occurred to me this week, as I was talking to my boss about some issues that weren’t being taken care of, that the market is driving me to ultimate efficiency. Being super-good at shipping, for instance, isn’t good enough. I have to become super-good at processing orders. Or whatever the examples might be. The market demands that I be my absolute best at everything that is my responsibility.
For a few minutes this seemed like a discouraging idea, “no matter how much I work, I’ll have more to do…” but I eventually rose to the challenge. I love challenges. I live on challenges. Seriously. I get bored and restless when I don’t have several enormously large projects to conquer.
It is an exciting idea to me now. How good can I become? And more importantly, is my very best enough? This probably proves I’m an utter econ geek, but I really do stop during my work and think, “I wonder if my marginal utility is equal to or greater than my marginal cost to the company.” And that’s my goal. I want to contribute at least as much to the business as I’m being paid for. And I know that there are some things I could do my best at that my marginal utility simply wouldn’t equal the cost. So that’s why we have to find the position where we can offer the very best to society.
So as a young person, and as an economics student, I find the market demanding and exhilarating. As Jeffrey Tucker (I think) said in a recent article, the market is about the future. Today might be a bad day. But in business, we just get some sleep and wake up with plans to make tomorrow better. The past has little relevance, the market can shift and demand in change in a matter of hours, and your business can go from the bottom to the top, or the other way round, in the same amount of time. Combine this crazy, ever-hopeful, uncertain, infinitely optimistic outlook with the demand for only the very best, most efficient work and you get the free market. And it is a wonderful thing.
Yes, I’m Alive
May 20th
Sorry folks, I’ve been rather non-existent the last few days/weeks. I was asked to work overtime, so I was working all day almost every day. Obviously that didn’t leave much time to do fun things like blogging. But now I’m back to normal hour, starting Monday, so I’m looking forward to having time for blogging, studying, teaching, and stuff like that.
I got my sisters hooked on Khan Academy, and they are having so much fun with Khan math that I decided to switch from chemistry to geometry so I could do exercises and earn badges and things like that. Can you believe I actually spent a whole hour last night doing geometry problems? I wish I had Khan math when I was little, I can just imagine how much fun it would be to go from 2 +2 to algebra with Sal Khan. As it is, I just have time for geometry.
I’m getting very close to having Path of Grass published, my typesetter is mailing a hard copy of the finished typeset version, I should be ready to send it to Amazon within a couple weeks. How exciting!!
More later…
Our Mutual Friend
May 7th
No, I’m not talking about mutual friends on Facebook. I’m talking about a book by Dickens that was recently made into a movie by the BBC. It is in 4 episodes and each episode is about an hour and a half…typical Dickens length. I was a little skeptical because there are some really bad movies out there based on Dickens. I’ve always maintained that Dickens is just not meant for movies. You simply can’t make a good movie out of Great Expectations. His characters are meant for the page, not for the screen. But Our Mutual Friend proved me wrong on this point.
So, very much like Bleak House, there are about a 100 plots (well…maybe more like 8 or 10) and it was much easier in the movie to keep track of the plots than reading the book; I can’t imagine reading Our Mutual Friend. Some of the plots were quite funny, in a very tragic way. Tragic because they revealed the utter misery and baseness of humanity; they showed how low men will stoop and how we will deceive ourselves into satisfaction, even in the most deplorable conditions. The seller of human and animal bones is proud of his “noble” business and his fine collection of skeletons. He woos a young lady into marriage with the promise that he will only sell the bones of “men, children, and lower animals” because she does not want to be regarded in a “bony” perspective. Yet there is a redeeming quality to these people. I can’t explain it…but I felt a sense of sympathy for them. Perhaps this is because there is this conflict within us all: Everything we do is touched by the noble because we were made in the image of God. Everything we do is tainted by the ugly because we are fallen images of God.
Overall, the plots were very good. I know a movie is good when I can’t predict the ending. I was trying to guess what Dickens would do. There’s a poor, beautiful, and good woman…and of course a rich man has fallen in love with her. There’s a violently jealous other man who ends up attacking this rich man after he visited the woman. The episode left off with the woman rowing the mangled and bloody body of her lover to the town (his body was deposited on the banks of a stream). And so for a few days I wondered. Would Dickens have this man live? Would he live for just a little while? Would he die at once? Perhaps he was already dead? And I couldn’t really decide what to predict, and I’m not going to spoil the plot, but this is why it was a good movie: I wanted him to live. I wanted him to live happily ever after with his beloved. In most movies when a crisis like this comes up, I want someone to die just to spite the boring, stereotyped lovers. I want them to suffer because they never do any other time and it seems so unrealistic and fake for everyone to live happily ever after. But in Our Mutual Friend, there had been so much real, deep, unending suffering on the part of this woman that I really did want her to be happy at last.
There were a couple themes I picked up throughout the movie: money vs. happiness and water. First, the movie portrayed different relationships and couples in different stages of this money vs. happiness thing. First the poor, but deeply contended Boffins. Then Bella (no, there aren’t any vampire lovers…) who declares she wants money above all things. John Harmon (the rich heir come back from some foreign land who was supposed to marry Bella, according to his father’s will) in disguise, trying to find out if Bella will love him and trust him without any money. The couple who get married on the assumption that the other party is wealthy…when in reality neither of them have any money and yet must maintain a pretense of splendor and money. The man who loves this poor girl and will rebel against the constraints of society to marry her. It is really quite interesting.
And the second theme, I confess I picked up only at the very end: water. The movie started with a view of the river. The movie ended with a view of the river. Some of the characters made their living by pulling dead bodies out of the river (my first thought: “were there that many dead bodies in the river that you could live off it?”). I already mentioned the scene with the mangled man’s body found in the river, and the girl rowing him to shore. Two very troubled characters found their demise in the river. I haven’t really figured out what all this means, but if you watch the movie, try to notice how Dickens uses water and what he might be trying to say.
While there were a few scenes that were very gory and disgusting, it was very good. It took a little while to get used to the very heavy accents and because of this I can’t say if there was much bad language because it was so hard to understand them anyways, lol.
