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The following first appeared in the private email list IVy-subscribers,
which is available to all those who subscribe to the
printed magazine, International Viewpoints.
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Well, for gosh sakes!
by Phil Spickler
20 May 1999

Well, I've had just about enough out of that fellow that calls himself Phil
Something-or-other!  I don't know who he thinks he is, to go ahead and
suggest that my two favorite subjects, religion and politics, ain't fit for
the likes of this-here list.  Boy, he's got some nerve, ain't he?

To begin with, he ain't even the real Phil Spickler.  That guy is just some
high-powered stray entity who occasionally muscles his way into this-here
composite, grabs the motor controls of the body, and before you know it, he
gets hold of that laptop and starts coming up with some of the most
gosh-awful drivel anybody's ever heard.  Why, if it was up to that character,
nobody'd ever have anything to say on the IVy list, and he'd have everybody
so concerned with unimportant things like acknowledgment and appreciation and
encouragement for those who do communicate that, why, it'd be no fun at all!

But I'm here to tell you that he isn't the real Phil, but I am, and I zapped
that character out of this location and I want to let everybody out there
know that I'm the only one entitled to the use of that name, Phil (tm).

Now down here in Cornpone, California, where I live, folks spend quite a bit
of time talking about religion and politics, and after a few cross-burnings
and some other stuff we did in the heat of the night, we finally got a town
where there's a real consensus regarding the one true religion and the one
kind of politics that have historically made great nations great.  And we
know how to handle anybody that disagrees with these essentially and solely
true ideas.

Why, that other character that uses my name occasionally would try to call to
your attention the idea that the history of religion and politics has just
been one continuous bloodbath, and that people that get swept up in the ideas
of a given religion or a given political system really know, deep in their
bones, that they're absolutely right in their convictions, and if the rest of
those idjits of the world would just see that, you wouldn't have to knock so
many heads together in an effort to get your point across.

Well, anyway, that other Phil doesn't seem to know about this-here First
Amendment that we've got here in the United States, that gives everybody the
freedom to speak, no matter how bad it makes them or others look -- and it
doesn't say anything in that amendment about having to be nice to other
people that speak, and to show some appreciation for their hallucinations,
delusions, fixed ideas, and all the other claptrap that makes up what some of
these characters call a viewpoint.

Heck, like Mark Twain said, once you realize that everyone around here is
nuts (crazy, that is), you know exactly how to treat people in such a
condition: namely, humor 'em, jolly 'em along, tell 'em how wonderful they
are and for gosh sakes don't stir them up by disagreeing with them and trying
to show them how much brighter you are, thus making them wrong, 'cause gee
whiz, that'll only make 'em crazier.

Some of them, who've never been around so-called Clears very much, imagine
that if the whole world were clear, everything would be just as right as
rain.  Well, let me tell you that if the whole world were clear, it would
mean that half the danged population would have to be set up in some giant
series of organizations that spent all their time engaging in repair actions
on the other fifty percent who will be reporting in regularly with the
complaint "I don't feel Clear anymore!"

Now let me tell you, that's no way to run a planet; it's not half as much fun
as only having a few loonies running around wanting or claiming to be a
Clear, so that instead of getting on with the business of living, they can
continuously be harassing themselves and others to make sure that they're
feeling Clear each day and not being able to do anything or decide anything
or engage in anything if there's the slightest doubt if it's right according
to the way a Clear would see it.

As far as a Clear Earth, if you want to take the meaning of that to be the
planet Earth itself and its own great soul, well, I was talking to Dolly (of
course, that's the name the planet really likes to be called), and asked her
about this Clear business.  She got one of those giant grins of hers that
stretches about halfway around the planet, said some things like "Mu," and
"Forget that stuff," and "Kick back and relax," and just check out the
morning star and spend some time looking at one of her beautiful lotus
blossoms. and make sure that you're eating a good diet and get plenty of
sleep, and learn to enjoy being nuts, 'cause for this species that's normal.

Anyhow, in spite of any proposals by that numbskull using the name "Phil"
illegally to prohibit discussion of religion and politics, I'm here to say
I'd like that we should talk more about religion and politics on this-here
list.  And although I don't have a lot of time to do that right now, since
I'm part of a vigilante team that we're organizing down here in Cornpone to
get some people out of this town that disagree with some of our local
ordinances, in further postings to this-here fun festival I'll have a lot to
say about politics -- I might even mention that fellow Plato, who I think was
one of them there idiot savants.  He may have been pretty bright in
philosophizing, but I'll bet he couldn't even balance his checkbook right
down to the last drachma.

So folks, the sky's the limit -- let's hear all about politics and religion,
and 'course when you're all through lettin' one another's blood on this
subject, I hope to step into the political and religious vacuum that will be
left and introduce what that loony of loonies L. Ron Hubbard would call a
stable datum, which will allow me to take the high ground and get total
control of this-here list.

And that's all from Cornpone, California -- all the best from the Real Phil
(tm)