Billy Beck (writer)
| Billy Beck | |
|---|---|
| Occupation | musician, writer |
Billy Beck (William J. Beck III) is an individualist and anarcho-capitalist polymath notably misquoted by Bill Clinton in 2010.[1][2]
Contents
"All politics in this country now is just dress rehearsal for civil war."
(Original quote, August 7, 2009.[1]) Since inception, the line "All politics in this country now is just dress rehearsal for civil war" has been listed on or near the mastheads of a number of politically-oriented websites, among them Sipsey Street Irregulars and Western Rifle Shooters Association, as well as a popular signature phrase in the posts of Usenet newsgroup participants at the time. (The quote was later cited in HL Goodall's 2010 book, Counter-Narrative: How Progressive Academics Can Challenge Extremism and Promote Social Justice.[2])
Clinton's mangle, in a speech to the Center for American Progress, April 6, 2010:
- "...One of these guys the other day said that all politics is just a prelude to the ultimate and inevitable civil war. You know, I’m a southerner. I know what happened. We were still paying for that 100 years later when I was a kid growing up, in ways large and small. It doesn’t take many people to take something like that seriously. So I don’t want the whole story of this retrospective just to be about this, and trying to turn everything into politics...." [3] (paragraph 1, page 11)
Beck's response:
- Here is my conjecture: the ex-president either briefly eyeballed that blog himself, or accepted a memo from one of his flunkies which included the line that I wrote.
- I have made up my mind that I would be no more interested in hearing his apology than I am offended by his presumption. It is simply a matter of note that The Lying Bastard of The Ozark Long March knows nothing of which he speaks, amid his insinuations that I advocate violence in this poor country's current straits.
- Here is a word for that despicable person: I am "a Southerner", too, you strutting ignoramus. I was born in Little Rock, and my mother graduated Central High School six years before Eisenhower finally saw fit to roll out the National Guard. Don't even try to hand me your threadbare sanctimony about "paying" for the Civil War. For many reasons which I will not attempt to relate to you, I am quite beyond your ex cathedra pose in the matter. You have nothing to say to me. Sit down and shut your insipid mouth."—Billy Beck, April 21, 2010
"To even submit the matter to a vote represents a grievous assault on the very idea of rights."
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"You are at war, and your government cannot protect you."
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Quotations
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Die, dinosaurs. Gently lay down your sleepy heads and die. (frequent preface regarding declining bastions of Marxist unions)
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Start with the non-fiction. “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal” will clarify one of the enormous and terrible misapprehensions of the twentieth century, which is that capitalism is all about money. It’s not. The economic aspects of capitalism are only consequential to the moral system. “The Virtue of Selfishness” can, if you take it honestly and think about it, teach you that you are not evil just because you exist. These two books are article anthologies completely exemplary of Rand’s ability to distill fact and truth to essentials with amazing intellectual horsepower. They’re the short-course, in which essentials are rendered without the very large-scale integrations presented in the two big novels.
External links
- Billy Beck on Facebook Facebook
- Two--four.net (web archive)
