Vote Like an Egyptian

By L. Neil Smith
[email protected]

Exclusive to The Libertarian Enterprise

         A long time ago in a dynasty far, far away, there reigned in ancient Egypt a Pharoah, Akenaton, and his Pharie princess, the lovely Nefertiti.
         People these days are inclined to think well of Akenaton and his bride -- the world's original supermodel -- mainly because he was the first guy, apparently, ever to think of the idea that there's only one god, and also the first guy with the political and military power to cram that idea down everybody else's throats whether they liked it or not.
         It seems that, until Akenaton and his sweetie Nefertiti came along, folks were perfectly content believing there were hundreds -- maybe even thousands -- of gods, celestial bureaucrats in a manner of speaking, each with his, hers, or its separate responsibility, such as looking out for all the hippopotamuses, making sure this year's batch of baby cockroaches got off to a good start, or keeping the Plague in tune.
         For each divine department, there were hundreds -- maybe even thousands -- of perfectly human priests, priestesses, and acolytes, employing architects, builders, artisans, artists, and caterers too numerous to count, all of them busy making sure the gods were happy, the Nile overflowed its banks now and again fertilizing all the farm acreage, and that individuals who died got properly routed to the afterlife.
         Akenaton and Never-say-nevertiti changed all that -- or at least they tried to, reinventing Egyptian religion overnight, moving the nation's capital upriver, creating a brand new art style, and building temples, shrines, obelisks, and whatnot to their new sun-god Ra, demolishing as much of the real estate and construction dedicated to the old gods as they could manage, while replacing it with their own stuff.
         Akenaton: Man of Stele.
         Naturally, none of this went down well with the hundreds -- maybe even thousands -- of priests, priestesses, and acolytes of the old religion, although it's safe to assume that Egyptian architects, builders, artisans, artists, and caterers were fairly happy with all the new jobs that the Pharoah and his sculptogenic spouse were busy creating.
         As I say, the modern world celebrates Akenaton as some kind of theological genius, centuries ahead of his time. But in his own time, he and his wife were a couple of typical southern California-type nut cases, full of crazy ideas -- with the power to back them up by force -- ruling against the grain of Egyptian tradition and the will of the people.
         In short, Ak and Nef were exactly like our current southern California-type nut case rulers, Bladdernose Bill and the Thing with One Eyebrow.
         It's enlightening to discover what Egyptian civilization did once Akenaton's term of office, er ... expired. (Nobody's quite sure what happened to him; he apparently had physical deformities that may have contributed to an early natural demise; once he was gone, Nefertiti disappeared from history with breathtaking alacrity and thoroughness.) Free of what must have seemed a reign of terror, those who still revered the old gods erased every trace of Akenaton and Nefertiti, moving the capital back to where it had been, and destroying every building, statue, obelisk, painting, carving, and graffito they had produced.
         We wouldn't even know about this pair of long-ago loonies, except that some of those buildings supplied material for new buildings, with all the Akenaton/Nefertiti propaganda tastefully turned to the inside of the structure (where it was presumably concealed by inner walls), leaving only the former backsides of the stones to moon the world. When this fact was discovered, archaeologists started looking in other out-of-the way places and reconstructed the entire dreadful Akenaton Administration.
         Too bad.
         But it sort of makes you think, doesn't it?
         These last six years, from 1992 to the present, have been the worst the nation has had to endure since the War between the States. The current Bubba/Bubbette Administration has displayed all of the respect for this country, its people, its libertarian traditions, and its highest law -- the Bill of Rights --as the average rustic does for the Sears Roebuck catalog hanging in the little house behind the big house.
         But one way or another, by democratic rotation in office or impeachment, the Never-Inhaled/Never-Swallowed Administration can't last forever. It has to end someday, when Bill slimes his way back to Darkest Arkansas and Hillary mounts her broom for Nevada and a quickie divorce.
         At that point, I recommend a Constitutional Amendment, forever erasing these two boils on the derriere of the body politic from history. Every likeness of them would be smashed or burned. All of the official record books would show (from the viewpoint of future archaeologists) a baffling gap between George Bush and whoever gets elected next. Most importantly, every law passed, every regulation promulgated, every executive order written, would be declared null and void. No more Deedee, Stephie, Lanny, or Eleanor. And everybody jailed during this never-to-be-sufficiently-cursed era would be set free.
         It would be exactly as if the Bozo/Evita Administration had never existed.
         This won't restore the republic altogether -- RICO and the War on Drugs were both Republican ideas -- we have plenty of elbow-grease- consuming work in front of us, consisting, for the most part, of the draconian enforcement of the Bill of Rights, before we've accomplished that.
         Nor will it save the precious lives of thousands of victims of Clinton's murderous tyranny, here and overseas. But it may let them rest easier -- as they wait for Bill and Hillary in the Land of the Dead.

Novelist and political essayist L. Neil Smith is the only Libertarian ever to be called a "thug" within the pages of the Libertarian Party News. He has also been characterized by one disgruntled reader as having written the "single most repugnant ... piece of tripe ... ever seen in an American newspaper." In his spare time, he's the award- winning author of The Probability Broach, Pallas, Henry Martyn, and Bretta Martyn and 15 other novels, as well as publisher of The Libertarian Enterprise http://www.webleyweb.com/tle/index.html. Order his books from Amazon.com at his home site "The Webley Page" at http://www.lneilsmith.org//index.html, from Laissez Faire Books at http://www.laissezfaire.com or call toll-free at 1-800-326-0996.

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