From The Ashes: America Reborn Read online

  • Arrogant people always think they’re much smarter than they really are.

  • Ben had forgotten all about the fury raised from academia-ville during his short stay as president. He had been trying to put the country back together and those yo-yos were resorting to sixties tactics, trying to burn it down again.

  ON MORALITY

  • There are no gentleman’s wars, Thermopolis. As far as I’m concerned, there never has been one. There is a winner and a loser in war. And taking into consideration what is at stake here, I, for one, don’t intend to be a loser.

  • One can train a dog to obey simple rules. Now if a dog can be taught the difference between right and wrong, it should be very simple to train a human.

  • Aberrant sexual behavior between consenting adults was bad enough, but when children became a part of it . . . no punishment was too great for those adults involved.

  • Our kids grew up with a different set of values. We stressed order and discipline and obeying the laws of our Tri-States.

  ON RACE AND RACISM

  • But thousands of men and women came together, we erased bigotry and prejudice and most other man-made sins, and proved it could be done.

  • If you look closely at most people, you’ll find some good in them. Maybe not much but some.

  • If this nation was ever to climb out of the ashes of war and destruction and disease, it would have to be done without bigotry. . . .

  • Tri-States . . . A society where people of all races could live and work and be content.

  • We don’t distrust or dislike people because of race. It’s concepts and ideas that contradict ours that we’re wary of.

  • “You see, Mr. Raines,” he said, “here’s the way it is. You got black people, you got colored people, and you got niggers. You got white people, you got rednecks, and you got trash. Blacks and whites never have had any trouble.” “Well, I’ll be damned!” I said.

  • I am prejudiced against anyone, of any color, who wants acceptance but refuses to conform.

  • Hate will inevitably explode into violence.

  ON REDNECKS AND PUNKS

  • I have hated punks and thugs and trash all my life. They come rich and poor, they come educated and illiterate.

  • Ben had suggested an open season on rednecks. Then you could shoot one, strap it to the hood of your car or truck, and ride around town, showing off your kill.

  • Ben believed, along with a growing number of people, before and after the Great War, that the time was coming when the nation as a whole would be forced to see that redneck types, regardless of color, could no longer be tolerated, socially, morally, economically, and probably most important, intellectually.

  ON RELIGION

  • Varying religions are now almost nonexistent especially in Tri-States. But anyone can believe what they want as long as the society continues to function.

  ON ROOT CAUSE

  • Root cause. Ignorance, prejudice, thoughtlessness, all those things will never be stamped out unless and until we attack the root cause. And that’s in the home.

  ON THE BILL OF RIGHTS

  • Many people do not realize just how precious the Bill of Rights is . . . until they no longer have it.

  • Too many wanted too much from the central government—and they wanted it for nothing.

  • The Romans had great, unworkable, and expensive social programs. So did we. The Romans built superhighways. So did we. The Romans began to scoff at great teachers, philosophers. So did we. They had social unrest. So did we. They built great arenas so the citizens could go on weekends and watch sporting events. So did we. The Roman government became top-heavy with bureaucracy. So did ours. The Roman government became corrupt. So did ours. And theirs came to an end. So did ours.

  • For far too long the government, from the mouths of federal judges, had overruled the wishes of the majority of the population of the United States in so many areas to list them would be a book in itself . . . That was not what our forefathers had in mind.

  • In all my years, I’ve never been afraid of cops. If one obeys the law, there is no need to be fearful of authority.

  • Look, the Rebel way is this: If a person puts a fence around their property, and posts No Trespassing signs, that person is telling everybody to stay the hell off and out. And it doesn’t make any difference if the gates are opened or closed. You walk on that property and get hurt, that’s your problem.

  The United States government couldn’t stand our success. They destroyed the Tri-States, but they couldn’t kill the dream. We just fought on.

  • Our United Nations was nothing more than a cancerous wart sitting in New York City.

  ON THE ENVIRONMENT

  • Domesticated animals have rights. Anyone who would poison a dog should be forced to eat the same poison.

  • Ben Raines felt that animals had rights. To Hiram’s thinking, that was nonsense: animals didn’t have rights a-tall.

  • If one tree was cut down, another was planted. Land could not be cleared without providing windbreaks of timber to prevent the top-soil from blowing away.

  • There was no litter. If one littered and was caught, and the offender almost always was, the culprit spent a week, seven days, eight hours a day, doing community-service work, usually cleaning out septic tanks, digging ditches, or some other unenviable type of work.

  • Ben felt that wilderness areas and the forests and streams were for the enjoyment of every citizen.

  • This planet was in serious trouble. We were deliberately destroying it because of man’s greed and stupidity. Some scientists predicted that by the year twenty-one hundred, the Earth would have been almost uninhabitable.

  • That’s why in a few years, Base Camp One will be a model town, using solar energy to heat—among other things—and very nearly pollution-free.

  ON THE HUMAN SPIRIT

  • Americans will only take so much pushing before they start shoving back.

  • Perspectives got all out of order, not only in America, but around the world. People demand freedom, and if they have to do it, they’ll fight for freedom taken from them—real or imagined.

  • . . . the human spirit is difficult, if not impossible to crush, and many more people than first thought survived the devastation.

  • Americans have always been stubborn types, slow to anger, but when angered, many Americans have a tendency to shove back when shoved; to reach for a gun when all else fails—or sometimes before anything else is tried.

  • In the end, I believe that good will defeat evil.

  • How does one kill a dream, an idea, whose time has come?

  ON THE MEDIA

  • Most of the comedians I enjoyed never used one word of profanity in their routines. A good comic doesn’t have to. Just like a good actor doesn’t have to rely on gimmicks. Their very presence emanates talent. And dancing should be graceful. Not leaping about like a pack of savages in the throes of a pre-sexual orgy.

  • We didn’t stifle free speech or forbid a free press—as a lot of people accused us of doing. Instead we simply imposed a new set of guidelines. If a newspaper in the Tri-States printed something about somebody, you can bet they researched their facts very carefully. Sly innuendo and half-truths and protected sources were not allowed.

  • Beginning about 1970, Ben had refused to listen to commercial radio, except for news and weather when traveling. As far as he was concerned, what passed for music—except for classical—from that period up to the Great War, had gone from bad to worse to the pits.

  • Thank God the mindless inanity of much of prime-time TV is gone. The only good thing to come out of being nuked.

  • Those who knew Ben doubted the man would ever request that television be reintroduced to what remained of the population. If he did, those close to him knew the format would be on the order of the old PBS.

  • I used to enjoy watching good news reporting. My favorite programs on TV were well prod
uced and reported documentaries. That does not include the innuendos, supposition, biased left-leaning commentators, and nonobjective reporting.

  ON THE MILITARY AND WAR

  • The Great War had accomplished one good thing, anyway: it had gotten rid of a lot of human crud.

  ON THE MILITARY AND WAR

  • If you ever fail to shoot, and that action results in our position being overrun, I will find the time, believe me, to put a bullet in your head.

  • Ninety percent of the American citizens have been so mentally conditioned as to the dire consequences that will befall them should they take a human life—even if their own life is threatened—they can’t do it.

  ON THE MILITARY AND WAR

  • Do I enjoy killing? Not particularly. But when I’m dealing with sub-humans such as these night crawlers, it doesn’t bother me . . .

  • Bear this in mind: these bogies are aligned with the Night People. They’re the ones kidnapping human beings for the feeding and breeding farms. That should tell you all you need to know about them. No quarter, no pity, no prisoners. Move out.

  • I insisted that all my people be a part of the armed forces, with all the training and discipline contained therein. And we survived the holocaust, came through it, due in no small part to the fact the people were armed and trained and disciplined. That should tell the world something.

  • Don’t ever look over the top of an object—look around it from either end carefully.

  • People are tougher than even they suspect. I think we all have a hidden reserve in us; a well of strength that only surfaces in some sort of catastrophe.

  • I want you all to understand the Rebel philosophy; let there be no misunderstandings concerning what we do and how we do it. We don’t take prisoners, people. We do not take prisoners. Ever.

  • It takes Americans a while to get going. Always has. But once they get going . . . look out, for any combat veteran will attest that there is no more savage fighting man than the American soldier.

  • All the nice pretty people want a nice pretty society. But they won’t fight for it. The Soldier Syndrome. You go fight my battles for me; and then, when you’ve done it . . . go away ’cause we don’t want your kind.

  • . . . I resisted it for years. And perhaps I was wrong in doing so. The cost of Rebel lives in combating this vermin was what convinced me to change my mind. We just can’t afford unnecessarily to lose good, decent people fighting crud.

  • Warriors are seldom understood. But they are much maligned. Warriors are not only molded, they have to be born with that streak within them. Either one has it or one does not.

  ON THE POSTWAR WORLD

  • Since the Great War, no country had been able to pull itself out of the rubble and form even a semblance of workable government.

  • Good tobacco, if there ever was such a thing, was no more. Like coffee, a free ride, welfare, Legal Aid, the ACLU, unions, the stock market, General Motors, apple pie, and the girl next door—all gone.

  • Let the young people try; maybe they can build a better world from out of the ashes. God knows the last two generations sure fucked this one up.

  • Now is when the true worth of men and women comes to the fore. Now is when you can see what a person is really made of. Now, more than ever before, there is only black and white and no in between. Now, when everybody has the opportunity to start fresh, can one truly see what a person is worth.

  ON THE PREWAR WORLD

  • The philosophy of many was: Give me more money for less work. I want everything my neighbor has. Many companies literally priced themselves out of existence while the quality of their merchandise went to hell in a bucket.

  • Our society became the most materialistic society on earth. Many of our elderly died alone and afraid, hungry and cold; the young could not receive proper medical care; victims of crime were ignored while we sobbed and moaned over the poor criminal, and endangered species of animals were slaughtered into extinction, while a good fifty percent of Americans spent literally billions of dollars pleasuring themselves with the most idiotic and meaningless of games or events.

  • Our welfare system was a disgrace, public housing was a profane joke, our highways and bridges were falling apart, the hands of the police were tied, the cops and schoolteachers were underpaid—the cops couldn’t enforce the law because of judges, and teachers couldn’t teach or maintain discipline for fear of lawsuits—drug dealers were peddling death on the street corners and killing innocent people who got in their way and the government was sending out agents to disarm law-abiding citizens.

  • The whole damn world was going to hell in a handbasket.

  ON THE REBELS

  • What you really haven’t grasped is that all that stands between anarchy and order is a very thin line of men and women called the Rebels.

  • We are going to free the world from savagery and oppression and fear.

  • There were no free rides in any of the Rebels’ communities. If a person was able to work, they worked, or they were kicked out.

  • It was not a society that everyone could live in. Those who kept statistics on such matters agreed that perhaps one in five could live in a Rebel-controlled zone.

  • . . . if respecting the rights of other law-abiding citizens, being good caretakers of the land, and seeing to it that entire species of animals are not wiped out due to man’s greed and ignorance is brainwashing, I’ll accept that accusation.

  • The Rebel dream is to rebuild this nation. To have schools and hospitals and churches and libraries. To once more be able to produce. To build something for future generations. Outlaws and warlords and roaming gangs of thugs and punks and dickheads have no place in that society we dream of. None at all. We didn’t tolerate them in the old Tri-States, and I will not tolerate them now.

  ON THE TRI-STATES

  • Our system of justice was harsh. It was a one-mistake society. But no one went hungry in the Tri-States. Not one person. No one was denied proper medical care. Everybody had a job. The taxes were fair. We didn’t allow huge corporations to swallow up the smaller farmer. We had damn few complaints from the people who chose to live in the Tri-States.

  • No one went hungry, no one was homeless, everybody had a job, no one was denied medical care, every child got a good education, and the life expectancy of thieves and punks and thugs and rapists and murderers was about fifteen minutes.

  PART THREE

  The Tri-States

  White Paper

  A Rebel Manifesto

  For a Free and Vital

  America

  For some time I have had this theory that we should start from scratch. Gather up a group of people who are color blind and as free of hate and prejudices as possible and say, All right, folks, here it is:

  —We are going to wash everything clean and begin anew.

  —We will create a simple, easily understood system of laws.

  —We will live by the letter of these laws.—We will enforce these laws equally, to the letter!

  Those of you who feel you can live in a society that eradicates prejudices, hatred, hunger, bad housing, bad laws, and will not tolerate crime, please stay. Those of you who don’t feel you could live under such a system—get the hell out!

  –Ben Raines

  THE TRI-STATE MANIFESTO

  AS ADVOCATES AND SUPPORTERS OF THE TRI-STATE PHILOSOPHY, WE BELIEVE:

  • THAT FREEDOM, LIKE RESPECT, IS EARNED AND MUST BE CONSTANTLY NURTURED AND PROTECTED FROM THOSE WHO WOULD TAKE IT AWAY

  • IN THE RIGHT OF EVERY LAW-ABIDING CITIZEN TO PROTECT HIS OR HER LIFE, LIBERTY, AND PERSONAL PROPERTY BY ANY MEANS AT HAND WITHOUT FEAR OF ARREST, CRIMINAL PROSECUTION, OR LAWSUIT. THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS IS CENTRAL TO MAINTAINING TRUE PERSONAL FREEDOM

  • THAT LIBERAL POLITICIANS, THEORISTS, AND SOCIALISTS ARE THE GREATEST THREAT TO FREEDOM-LOVING AMERICANS AND THAT THEIR MISGUIDED EFFORTS HAVE CAUSED GRAVE INJUSTICES IN THE FIELDS OF CRIMINAL LAW, EDUCAT
ION, AND PUBLIC WELFARE:

  THEREFORE IN RESPECT TO CRIMINAL LAW:

  AN EFFECTIVE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM SHOULD BE GUIDED BY THESE BASIC TENETS:

  —OUR COURTS MUST STOP PAMPERING CRIMINALS

  —THE PUNISHMENT MUST FIT THE CRIME

  —JUSTICE MUST FAIR BUT ALSO BE SWIFT AND, IF NECESSARY, HARSH

  —THERE IS NO PERFECT SOCIETY ONLY A FAIR ONE

  THEREFORE IN RESPECT TO EDUCATION: EDUCATION IS THE KEY TO SOLVING PROBLEMS IN THE SOCIETY AND THE LACK OF IT IS THE ROOT CAUSE OF AMERICA’S DECLINE.

  AN EFFECTIVE SYSTEM OF EDUCATION:

  —MUST STRESS HARD DISCIPLINE ALONG WITH THE ARTS, SCIENCES, FINE MUSIC, AND BASIC SKILLS IN READING, WRITING, AND MATHEMATICS

  —MUST TEACH FAIRNESS AND RESPECT

  —MUST TEACH MORALS, THE DIGNITY OF LABOR, AND THE VALUE OF FAMILY

  THEREFORE IN RESPECT TO WELFARE:

  WELFARE (WE PREFER WORKFARE) IS RESERVED ONLY FOR THE ELDERLY, INFIRM, AND THOSE WHO NEED A TEMPORARY HELPING HAND AND THE WELFARE SYSTEM MUST ALSO:

  —INSTILL THE CONCEPT OF HONEST WORK FOR HONEST PAY

  —INSTILL THE CONCEPT THAT EVERYONE WHO CAN WORK MUST WORK AND BE FORCED TO WORK IF NECESSARY

  —INSTILL THE CONCEPT THAT THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH AND THAT BEING PRODUCTIVE CITIZENS IN A FREE SOCIETY IS THE ONLY HONORABLE PATH TO TAKE

  • THAT RACIAL PREJUDICE AND BIGOTRY ARE INTOLERABLE IN A FREE AND VITAL SOCIETY

  —NO ONE IS WORTHY OF RESPECT SIMPLY BECAUSE OF THE COLOR OF THEIR SKIN.