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The Freedom Files |
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Winner of the Advocates for Self-Government Lights of Liberty Award!
The Freedom Files
"Laissez-faire, laissez-passer, le monde va de lui-meme."
DIY since 2001…
Hello Freedomphiles! So I was standing there at Shell – a place I vowed to
never go to again after someone ripped off my debit card number and fucked me
over – trying to exchange a carton of Camel Turkish Jade Lights for a carton
of regular old Camel lights, and telling the girl behind the bullet-proof
glass what had brought me there.
You see, I had gone to the 7-11 on Pine Street downtown (for the last time) to
get a nice, delicious, nutrition-free lunch – chips, dip, soda, and smokes. It
was hot out, and a bit of a walk, so I just hung out at the magazine rack,
thumbing through all the rags that wished they were
Maxim, cooling off in the
conditioned air.
That’s when I heard it – a really pissed off black woman berating the
Bernie
Mac-looking clerk – in the beautiful way only black women can – for being rude
to her. Now, pay attention, kids – this is foreshadowing. She was basically
verbally sticking it in and breaking it off, when a cop came out from the back
and yelled at her for yelling. I guess they had the cops stationed there so
that the clerks could be as rude as they wanted to be without getting shot.
Well, the cop threw his authority all over the place like it was confetti and
he was Rip Taylor, and eventually the woman calmed down and left.
Meanwhile, I’m doing my shopping: Doctor Pepper, Doritos, Rold Gold’s, more
Doritos, dip, counter. I asked for a carton of Camel lights in the box. She
went in the back for awhile, and came out empty-handed, saying that all the
cartons were locked up in back. I wondered if that was the best place to keep
something you were hoping to sell, but said, “Well, just give me ten packs,
then.”
“I’ll have to charge you for the packs individually.” Those of you who smoke
understand what this means. Those that don’t, imagine you’re at White Castle
trying to get a crave case, and just because they are out of the actual crave
cases, they are going to charge you full price for each individual hamburger,
effectively doubling the price. The bitch of it is, though, that cigarettes
come in cartons that they have to rip apart to sell them separately.
So I said, “Can’t you just charge for the carton and give me the cigarettes?”
“No.”
“Well, what do you do when a carton is damaged and you can’t scan it – throw
it away?”
“I can sell you this carton of Turkish Jade.”
“Can you scan that carton but give me the others?”
“No.” Apparently, their inventory is so meticulous that they can distinguish
between identical items. Maybe they name them. Maybe she was just so attached
to Stewie, the carton that I wanted to buy, that she just couldn’t bear to
part with it.
“Alright, I guess I’ll take that one,” I said, thinking they were those
bizarre Kamel Reds cigarettes that have no discernable difference from any
other. I paid for them, and turned to leave, when a line from
Big Trouble in
Little China just blinked into my head like The Great Gazoo: Beautiful green
eyes, like creamy jade. Jade. Green. “Are these menthol?”
“No.”
“Can you check?”
“Fine.” She spent a moment examining a pack from the racks. “Yes.”
“Aw, man, I can’t smoke menthols.” Then, thinking I was cute: “Can I exchange
these for a carton of Camel lights?”
“You’ll have to get a refund.”
“There’s no way to do this?”
“No.”
“You don’t have an empty, torn-up carton in the trash you could scan?”
Okay, here it comes.
“If you notice I’m not talking to you anymore, it’s because I’m ignoring you.”
You dirty fucking rotter.
I have to admit, it was a pretty clever way of being rude, and if I had been
on the other side of the counter with her, there would be no way to hide my
smile of appreciation. But I was on my side of the counter, where all the
righteous indignation lives, and said, “Well, fuck you, you stupid bitch.”
Through a flurry of unheard insults, I stormed out of the store, deafened by
inconceivable rage. Halfway across the parking lot, a persistent voice did
finally make it through the furious fog. “Turn around, now!”
It was that cop. What did he want?
“What do you want?”
“I could arrest you.”
This pissed me off, so I started storming back toward him, saying, “Since when
is it against the law to say fuck?” And then to stress my point, I continued
walking toward him, saying, “Fuck-fuck-fuckedy-fuck-fucking-fuck-fuck” and as
a final punctuation, arms spread
Shawshank-style, at the top of my lungs:
“FUCK!”
“Do you want me to take you in for disturbing the peace?”
Disturbing the peace? It was already over. I had been walking home. He stopped
me. He antagonized me. If he hadn’t come along, I would have been still
walking home, bothering no one, except my wife when she saw the Turkish Jades.
If anything, he was disturbing my peace. This really pissed me off. This
pissed me off more than the
disco version of Anarchy in the UK.
Certainly, saying fuck in public – even screaming fuck in public – could not
be disturbing the peace. If it were, I think the ACLU would have something to
say about that. Actually, they did. Last year in Denver, they sued on behalf
of Flying Dog Brewery and Pub over a law preventing bar owners from allowing
profanity that “might lead to an altercation,” and won. In fact, this year in
April, after an ACLU battle, the Michigan court of Appeals overturned the $75
judgment against Timothy Boomer for swearing in front of women and children,
saying, “allowing prosecution where one utters ‘insulting’ language could
possibly subject a vast percentage of the populace to a misdemeanor
conviction.” They were both great victories for the First Amendment.
Now, if I had been cussing up a storm and refused to leave, I could see being
arrested for trespassing, disturbing the peace, and whatever else. But I said
my peace and left. It was over. If that’s all it took, everyone in the country
that owns a hammer would have a criminal record. So no, I did nothing illegal.
Keeping all this in mind, I attempted to make my case to the officer: “Aw,
fuck off,” I said, turning on my heels and storming away.
Back in that 7-11, I may have been right. Hell, I may have even been wrong.
Regardless, it is not, and should not be, against the law to be an asshole,
right or wrong. But we are creeping toward that every day. The thought police
are all around us. People are ever more frequently being persecuted for their
ugly thoughts or words.
One of the more extreme examples of this phenomenon is a man named C. Rodney
Yoder, who has been rotting in a mental institution for over ten years for
nothing worse than being a world-class prick.
Rodney Yoder has been to jail twice in his life. The first time was in 1979
for punching his girlfriend in the face. He got sent to prison for four years
for felony battery, apparently having given the girl facial fractures. It
wasn’t until he was already in prison that he discovered the prosecutor on the
case had lied about the fractures, a fact that would have dropped his offense
down to a misdemeanor.
He represented himself, fighting for his release, which drew the attention of
his warden, Stephen L. Hardy. According to Yoder, Hardy threatened to keep him
imprisoned by having him committed to Chester Mental Health Center. Chester,
Illinois, incidentally, is the birthplace of the creator of
Popeye the Sailor
Man, and there is a giant bronze statue of the freaky-forearmed flake, a sight
that makes me a little crazy when I pass by it in my armored car.
Well, whether Hardy threatened Yoder or not, Yoder certainly did end up in the
institution at Hardy’s request. He stayed there for almost three months and
was released.
Yoder’s second run-in with the law was in 1989. Just recently divorced and
even more recently drunk, he hit his ex-wife with a chair and was again
arrested, this time for aggravated battery. I never said this guy was a
prince. Neither did anyone else, and he found himself in Menard Correctional
Center.
When his sentence was up, you’d think Yoder would, having paid his debt to
society, be released to try and do better, but when he left there, he went
right back to Chester Mental Health Center, where he has been ever since.
Curiously, CMHC is now being run by his old warden, Stephen L. Hardy.
This entire time, Yoder has practiced civil disobedience, refusing to take any
medication they don’t force into a vein, and mounting a defense – a task
doubly hard since there is no law library and the only writing instrument he
is allowed is a two-inch, unsharpened golf pencil.
According to the Saint Louis Post Dispatch, only one doctor has represented
the state in all the hearings during Yoder’s battle for release. “Daniel J.
Cuneo, a psychologist and clinical director at the center, has performed all
but one of Yoder’s evaluations.”
On the other hand, many psychologists, lawyers, and doctors – including silly,
sort-of doc
Patch Adams, who will be testifying on Yoder’s behalf at the next
hearing. Also included is Doctor Loren Mosher, a California psychiatrist, who
says, “He seems to be quite rational. I don’t get it. He served time and
instead of being let out, he’s sent to a psychiatric institution. This country
does not allow preventative detention.”
Ah, but they do. Ask a drug warrior why we put drug users in jail, and the
frequent answer will be because of what they perceive the offender might do to
get drugs – kill a drug dealer, do a drive-by, rob a home. Ask a state
psychiatrist why they lock away some psychotics – they might be a danger to
themselves or others.
I have no problems with mental hospitals in general, but I have a big problem
with locking someone away for something they haven’t yet done, and against
their will. I was really pissed off – I might’ve jumped the counter and
strangled that bitch at 7-11, but I didn’t. The future is unwritten.
You don’t lock up someone who hasn’t done anything.
Yes, Yoder did assault two women, but so do countless dirty bastards every
day. They commit the crime, they do their time, and then they try to sort out
their life – they don’t get thrown in mental institutions.
There are assholes in the world. They make life interesting. They make the
nice people seem even nicer. They provide an example of how not to be. Without
racists, how could we have beautiful people like Martin Luther King or
wonderful things like the
two-tone movement?
The point is that we do not have the right to not be offended in this country,
but there are those that would abrogate my right to be a prick. There are
people who would use the strong-arm of the government to change a persons
attitude and prejudice, and if you think that’s okay, I hope you never realize
you’re on the wrong side of an issue. Legs McNeil, writer for Punk Magazine
and the man who named the whole scene punk, very astutely said political
correctness is
“just fascism to us. Real fascism.”
So, I told my whole sordid story to the cute, dusky-hued clerk at Shell, and
she traded my carton of Turkish Jades for ten loose packs of Camel lights,
asking, “What if you had been arrested? What then?”
“Then I would have calmly been arrested, and all the way to the station, at
the top of my lungs,
‘Fuck-shit-piss-cunt-motherfucker-dick-cock-fart-ass-damn-hell-fuck…’”
Until next time, make every day a good one...
-Rick
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