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On the Road Again, Part 1

Submitted by Staff on Fri, 2005-04-29 12:06.


Driving for golf, sun, and just the holy helluvit in Middle America

- 4/29/05  (Read:  Part 1  Part 2)

Part 1: Getting Started

In these days of the American national security state's (NSS's) multicolored alerts, the idea of road travel as a single man across state lines can take on an increasingly revolutionary hue  Plus, I have to ask myself, "Why am I taking a road trip to Texas from Michigan?"  Well:

  • It's there.
  • My fabled 2002 Audi A4 1.8L turbo has nomadic tendencies.  Wanderlust.

Not all who wander are lost.

— J.R. Tolkien

. . . (or lust for that matter)

  • The goober goonies of the government's TSA (Transportation Security Administration), make flying a major pain in the ass (I particularly resent having to remember to stash my Swiss Army penknife and my cigarette lighter, as well as to wrack my brain over which piece of jewelry I forgot to put in the tray.)

Note  -  If you fly, dress like a beach bum, wear sandals, and don't say anything.

But mainly, adulthood hasn't shaken this wanderlust, probably bred of my days as an eight-year-old watching Route 66.  Remember ol' Tod (Martin Milner) and Buz (George Maharis, 1960-63) or, later, Tod and Linc (Glenn Corbett, 1963-64) going from town to town in their Corvette convertible, seeking adventure and romance?  This was my dream.

Also, The Fugitive, Run for Your Life, and a lot of Westerns had the theme of solitary man driven by integrity to the outskirts of society.  His simple pleasure to "ride a good horse into new country."  (The Audi makes a good metaphor.)

The idealism was strengthened during my Oklahoma City junior-high days, where I attended a school separated by a fence and 20 feet of turf from the actual Route 66!  I felt the cage of government schools in those moments when I gazed wistfully out at the trucks, cars, and motorcycles going by.  On my side of the fence, I was stuck forever with dimwitted teacher-wardens trying to manage a bunch of illiterate gym-class hoodlums in progress.

The plan is easy:

Day 1) - Detroit area to southern Illinois

M14 W out of the city then on top of Ann Arbor to I-94 Westbound to I-69.  69 is the dropdown highway getting me to Indianoplace (sorry, Indy), where I'll pick up I-70 the crossover superslab into central Illinois.  A few more miles south along I-57 gets me southern IL.

Day 2) - Southern Illinois to Tyler, Texas

An hour down I-57, then across the Mississippi, into Missouri for half an hour to I-55 southbound.  I-55 follows the Mississippi down to Memphis.  You cross into Arkansas, then at roughly the Memphis point, you bottom at I-40 which heads westbound across AR.  In Little Rock pick up I-30, then cross into Texas at Texarkana, US 59 south, Texas 155 west to capital of the 30s Oil Boom, Tyler.

Day 3) - Tyler to Austin

This is the planned "Driver Day."  When we get there, I'll lay out the route.

Remaining Days: Wing it.

Off to a good start following a normally invigorating massage from Molly, an underappreciated travel-launch resource if ever one there were.

After an hour on the road alone, one's mind starts to wander—at least mine does—as if you pressed the clutch pedal and let the engine rev without load.  Nature abhors a vacuum, and what's entering my mind, aside from the awareness that most men, certainly most men my age, never do this (and the government may soon clamp down on it), is naturally political.

The Oakland County (Michigan) sheriff wants to buy six more drug sniffing dogs; people in Michigan are seriously considering sobriety checklanes again—it was shot down once by the Michigan Supremes, but the federal Supremes give it thumbs up—; bills are afoot to ban smoking on private property; mandatory seatbelt law enforcement proceeds; girl governor, Jennifer Granholm, will probably veto helmet law repeal.  Everywhere you look, the state is closing in.  And the feds are going to require passports to go back and forth to Canada!

How long before we need passports for Ohio?!

How do we stop the new tyranny?

Amazing the number of people who want to be good little Nazis: do what the government says, accept what the government tells them is true.  Even some of my friends and relatives who read and speak in complete sentences.  How do they become BOA (blind obedience to authority) drones?  Is it religious faith?  Tainted ice cream?

The thought that pops up is, "Hey, what about the Bill of Rights (BOR)?"  The program of Rational Review is to insist upon the BOR as citizens, refusing to recognize the validity of any law or statute that violates these Constitutional foundations of our country.  All right then, we have something here.  The RR political program is perfectly conceived.

How about an extragovernmental citizens "tribunal" to hasten things along?  Indeed, the acronym ACT presents itself as a perfect verbal mechanism: Michigan-ACT, Texas-ACT, USA-ACT, etc.  ACT = American Citizens' Tribunal… perhaps less harshly, American Citizens' Taskforce or American Citizens' Therapy?

The idea is first to compile the stats on all the government personnel engaged in violation of the Bill of Rights, then publicize it—encouraging appropriate legal action against the violators.  Concurrently, insist on immediate release and record-expungement of all citizens prosecuted for non-BOR "crimes."  "Freedom: It's the Law!"

Essentially, we're going for Bill of Rights Enforcement (BORE), which, to my knowledge, was first announced by the esteemed author L. Neil Smith on a site that relates to the above RR political program.

Initiate BORE-ACT, state by state, through a widely publicized general assembly, the stated purposes being those of the RR program.

In the long run, the tribunal would be charged with replacing the existing state apparatus with a legitimate government.  BORE-ACT is radical; it explicitly upholds the nonaggression principle.  It appeals to all varieties of libertarian, and it's active.  It has prospects of achieving its ends rapidly, with a minimum of bloodshed or aggression backlash from the existing government.  Many of the government's minions will turn to our common cause.

Underlying the project is an excellent education opportunity for the compulsorily school-damaged youth of the country: what better notion than to broadly reach American young people with the Bill of Rights in all its wondrous libertarian splendor!  The notions will naturally spread (notably without military force) to other countries.

I see a sign, Surgical Vasectomy Reversal.  Indeed, I'll see them in almost every state along the way.  I suspect the hidden message is don't have nonprocreative sex.  I.e., if you're a good Christian American, you will have children until your woman's seeds wear out.  But think about it, would you really want to have your vasectomy "fixed" by an outfit that advertises on cheap billboards on the Eway?!  If so, here's the site for you.

Political action via the LP and related freedom-fighting organizations would not cease.  We still go forward with the Free State Project.  For states that have Progressive-era tools of initiative and referendum(1), implementation of BORE-ACT can occur through an issue petition that amends the state constitution to authorize the orderly removal of statist (BOR-nonconforming) laws and programs.

General note on road construction: Does it seem to any of my fellow drivers that a lot of work is performed on road sections that least need it?  Section of I-94 east of I-69 always looked pretty good to me, but the orange people are out there fixing the median or something.  Maybe the rule is if it's flat and easy to work on, we'll get to it first and take a long time to finish.  Or maybe the work is Congressional-district related?

The remainder of day 1 and day 2 consist of a number of observations that feed the idling mind as time goes by.  None of them is as revolutionary as the above narrative developed for the Bill of Rights initiative, or whatever it comes to be called.  Reason to Freedom will have more on this direct freedom-recovery project as time goes by.

Table 1: Road-Warrior Observation Gems (arguable), First Two Days

Gem #

What it is

1

Some asshole in a BMW M3, has a very expensive car that will no doubt be crashing and burning in a field near someone's innocent children, very soon.  He almost loses control passing me coming out of the cloverleaf southbound on I-69 from I-94.  We really need IQ tests and mental stability checks for people driving sports cars.
2

If often seems the only people you see speeding are black people, usually in nondescript older cars.  Is it because they feel they'll get pulled over anyway, so why not get there as fast as possible?  Also I make the sociological note that there really aren't too many black drivers on the Eways.
3

Young woman DJ on this kickass classic-Rock station, didn't get to sleep last night, not because she was doing it—you listeners keep your minds right—but because a couple of ducks were doing it!  Out on her patio.  They made the most God-awful racket, she said, like they were dying in agony.  Shut the windows, turned the fan on.  Didn't help.  What a racket.
4

Why do people tailgate as they form a line of cars particularly in the high-speed lane?  The rule is from the time a car in front of you passes a point on the side of the road to the time your car passes the same point should be minimally two seconds.  But most people get less than a fraction of a second behind the car in front of them when traveling in the fast lane.  How about tickets for that?
5

Many people are ordinary, especially if they hold political office.
6

Loop I465 around Indianoplace has a 55 mph speed limit.  Absolutely no one goes 55 mph, and it would be dangerous if they did.  65 would be more intelligent.  You can see how the loop cuts right through some older neighborhoods, the highway splits them in two.  Eminent domain = imminent domain.
7

Rain in Terre Haute, Santana's Greatest Hits, accompanied by a pothole at 70 mph.  Sacrilege.  Terre Haute is traditionally where the timeline changes to CST going west.  Indiana has not gone to daylight savings, or at least some counties haven't.  This proves to be a contentious issue among Indianans.  Terre Haute also seems to send up a bad smell, is it from the River?
8

Trucks kick up gushers of rain.  In Illinois the favorite sign is "Hit a Worker: $10,000 and 14 Years"  Where do they get these numbers?  In Michigan it's "Injure or Kill a Highway Worker: $7500 and 15 Years."  Leading one to ask the Illinois government what constitutes "a hit?"  If you injure or kill without "hitting" the worker, do you get off scot free?  Does this mean workers at Walmart, too?
9

Almost Heaven: Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto, Helene Grimaud with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Kurt Masur conducting, 85 mph Audi A4, perfect spring twilight, not a popo in sight.
10

Rest stops with surveillance cameras and short stall doors make it embarrassing to do your business.  Reminds me of the Harris County Hilton.  Maybe it moves queer behavior to the picnic tables.
11

Finally arrive at the motel in Marion, in the rain.  "How many times do I have to tell you, Logan: Don't drink Jack Daniels after beer and before sleeping if you want to get up and drive any time in the next week!"  But JD seemed to fit with the complimentary popcorn and the Chris Rock HBO Special.
12

Man, I'm getting old.  Friend of mine refers to old people as "shrivs," because of how the skin shrivels up; well, I'm entering shrivdom—I'm sure he is, too—judging by the harsh fluorescent lighting.  I got to remember to write that letter to Drury to put some dimmers on the bathroom lights.  It's allright though, rejuvenation therapies are going to arrive in the nick of time, maybe by the end of this decade.  Won't that be great, feeling your organs getting physically younger every day! 

13

Back on the road.  Here's a good one: After reduced speed in the construction zone—no construction apparent—and shortly following the "Minimum Fine $375 For Looking Weird Or Scratching Yourself In The Zone," there's a sign that states "Resume Normal Speed" posted approximately 100 feet in front of the normal speed limit sign.  "Hey, Joe, what do you want me to do with these extra signs?"
14

"Welcome to Missouri, home of former attorney general nutcase, John Ashcroft, and center of the Bible Belt, where men are men and sheep are nervous."  At least the speed limit goes back to 70 mph, so I can get through the state quicker.
15

Wandering thoughts on a previous infatuation affect me here.  Speaking of Bible Belt, this girl wasn't the right one by any stretch of the theological fabric.  Doesn't matter, does it.  Still hurts to be rejected by someone you have the hots for.  Time heals all wounds, though, and it's been a long time.
16

The philosophy according to Grandpa John solves the anger issue by throwing love at it.  This is a good thing to discover while one is still able to spawn some creative energy.  Anger stifles the flow, while love frees the flow.  Love is conducive to the emerging reason-liberty culture and vice-versa.
17

My "Rider Theory" applies to rest areas.  Rider Theory is the idea that no matter how strung out you are on the road, when you need to stop and replenish, the oasis appears.
18

This Mississippi bottoms country could be a Shangri La if they just abandon cotton and cultivate hemp.  So much wealth potentially is ours with the potential for scrubbing up the planet and overcoming global warming.  Hemp planet, hemp nation, hemp future.  Think and grow rich.  The billboard says 11,500 new jobs with casinos, how about 10 times that with agricultural hemp.
19

Systematic destruction of human intelligence, or at least the capacity for independent thought, by the government school systems.  Kids make great cannon fodder, even good burger flippers when pressed, but lousy skilled workers.  Who's going to maintain the highways when the current generation is gone?  We'll be longing for the good old days when we had orange barrels every other mile.
20

11.22.97, I traveled from SE Tyler, Texas, to SE Battle Creek, MI, in 14.75 hours.  1065.7 miles.  => 72.25 mph.  This must be a world record; couldn't do it now because of the construction.
21

Got to give the construction guys their due.  Consider how good they are, really: the roads, the cars, the bridges.  Even if you just go back to the 50s.  A lot of technology we take for granted.
22

Are birds on the top of the food chain?  Anything prey on owls, hawks, or eagles?
23

License plate: Arkansas SPRKLES.  Must be a different part of the state than this one.
24

I look around me and I don't see any real criminals.  What's all the government for?
25

The stretch of I 30 west of Little Rock is inimitable from all my travels on the Eways.  It's as if a convention of local business owners met and agreed to lay down an interminable line of strip malls, to go with the gas stations, cheap hotels, bowling alleys, self-storage facilities, fading industrial parks, two-story office buildings, car dealerships, and an occasional greasy spoon.  Yikes.
26

Through east Texas, I notice how many little one-room "Holy Moley Tabernacles" dot the landscape; sometimes the places of worship doubling as living rooms in actual homes.  Further, on a weeknight, dozens of cars surround these dwellings!  Reminds me of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
27

East Texas is rugged territory.  Hot in the summer, dense gnarly trees.  Dirt reddish, not great topsoil.  Fire ants. Take it up a hostility notch when you go to west Texas.  Nasty Indians there, once, too.  But it brings back memories driving thru here, where once I'd visited mama who moved to Tyler for a few years because the people were so friendly… someone said hi at the 1995 Rose Festival.
28

Something else about East Texas: the pine forests and ranches.  Some beautiful country.
29

Getting dark, using the bright lights with the low beam toggle.  I recall how my dad, who was the best general car driver I ever knew, would constantly use the dimmer, which during those days was on the floorboard.  He would never forget to dim.  I forget all the time, even with the Audi where the switch is right up on the steering column for easy access of the left hand.
30

What I thought was the Holiday Inn is the Ramada Inn.  So I continue late-hour to the correct HI.  Tyler is in dry county, but exceptions.  Hotel barmaid unfriendly, bar smoky but not in a good way.

Consistent with the big thought on the Bill of Rights project, another idea comes unbidden into my tiny little mind: namely, we should consider statism, coercive government, a public health issue.  Probably the best illuminator of toxic government and its remediation is Mary Ruwart, with her latest edition of Healing Our World.(2)

The notion that the coercive power of the state reflects unhealthy living is apt.  The origins of state power undoubtedly lie in desires of immature people to wield that power over others.  This domination tendency contrasts with the normal, healthy methods of creative-class people who seek freedom from others, to fulfill their dreams.

Thus, freedom people seek only to trade with others, not to force them.  Wealth-generation is a natural process that rewards individuals in proportion to their creativity; creativity here meaning "capable of supplying the voluntary desires of the market."  So as we remedy the society in which toxic power has ascended, we need to emphasize the compassion and love that drives the cure.  As Russell Means put it, "Freedom is (Healthy) for Everyone."

Tomorrow, looking forward to the many winding, isolated roads of East Texas as I follow the old settler trails down to the state capitol.

Continued in Part 2

(Read:  Part 1  Part 2)


  1. Please refer to American Citizens in Charge and my good friend, Paul Jacob, for a discussion of the tools required for giving citizens direct control over legislation. back to text
  2. Ruwart, Mary. Healing Our World: In an Age of Aggression, Sunstar Press, 2003. back to text
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