NOMADS The world is not so kind to nomads any more. Too bad. It seems a natural urge, residing deep inside the human breast, to travel, to roam about, exploring, tasting the world. Nowadays, it's difficult to find a single place on the entire planet that isn't owned by someone. I once heard (a very likely apocryphal anecdote) that the Indians who were already living on the North American continent when the first Euro-trash arrived were somewhat nonplussed by the idea of owning land. To their way of thinking, land was like the sky and water, something you simply used. After their little transaction with the Euros, in which they accepted about twenty-five dollars worth of trinkets for all of Manhattan Island, they more or less walked away from the deal muttering something like, "What a bunch of morons. They want to trade some bullshit trinkets for some land? What the fuck, dude. Maybe we should come back in a few weeks and sell them some air." Like I said, this is probably an apocryphal musing, but I like to think there's some truth in it. I have always been opposed to the idea of buying and selling houses. There is something sacred about a person's home. Putting it on the market to sell it (and make a profit off of it) seems somehow a violation of that sacredness. A home is a need, one of the big three; you know, food, clothing and shelter. I know it sounds naive, but on some level of my soul, it feels like needs should not be exploited in the marketplace. Somehow, it seems like the marketplace should be for extra stuff, stuff that you may want, but don't necessarily need, like drugs and whores maybe. But not food, clothing and shelter (especially food and shelter). I mean, come on. Everybody needs a place to live. Just ask the sometime citizens of New Orleans. Having a home should not be a matter of what kind of degree you have, or whether or not you had a really good idea about a movie or book or computer software or just happen to be able to throw or catch or run with a ball of some kind. All that stuff should not matter one whit when it comes to having a place to live. Like I said, a home should be viewed as a sacred right, not a market commodity. Whores should be market commodities, not homes. It's like it's ass backwards. The stuff that should be on the market isn't, and the stuff that shouldn't be is. Who the hell is running this place? We should also have a right to be nomadic if we want. And I mean really nomadic, none of this riding around in a Winnebago. Screw that. I'm talking about wandering around on your own two feet, somewhat like the homeless people do. But not having to compete with the suburbs and the cities. There should be some land set aside specifically for nomads, like maybe a whole state, say Texas, for example. Hell yes, Texas, that piece-of-shit state that gave us that piece-of-shit that's sitting in the White House. We could declare Texas a nomad land, a completely lawless territory, where people could wander around doing whatever they pleased. Criminals should be allowed to go there if they wanted to, in lieu of spending time in a prison. Like I said, it would be lawless. Anybody could go there and do anything they wanted. The redneck types could go there and hunt criminals like animals, and the criminals could do the same to the rednecks. If criminals consigned to nomad land decided to leave it, they could be legally executed by anybody who had a mind to. I honestly think that such a venture could be wildly successful, and I mean economically. The criminals would figure out a way to make the rednecks pay for their hunting privileges. They'd run some sort of scam on them, like convince them that a particular criminal was worth more than another one, and so on. And gambling and prostitution and drugs would be going on 24/7. People would be lined up at the borders to get in. You know why? Because it would truly be a land of opportunity, one completely devoid of written laws. Which means that it would thrive on unwritten laws. I think we just might be surprised at how well people would behave under such circumstances. Everyone would be fully aware of what could happen to them in such a place. So they would probably be extra careful not to piss anyone off. If a guy raped a girl, he would do it with the full knowledge that her father, brother or husband could blow his brains without bothering with any due process. Vengeance would be a firm, and very effective, law of the land.
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