Human Desire for Freedom:
“…for Adam had his title by the appointment of God, says our author in another place. Then bare creation gave him not dominion, and one might have supposed mankind free without the denying the creation of Adam, since it was God’s appointment made him monarch.” vii
-John Locke (First Treatise of Government)
If any person could truly subvert the natural laws, he could achieve absolute positive freedom; though gravity would not hold him to the ground and render him incapable of action. These laws cannot be subverted by any man, but only exploited for the use of human kind. The human body, perception, thought and behavior are all bound by a law more inevitable, more comprehensive and more absolute than any law given by any government; and all people are subject. Not one can be liberated: why would he try?
Senator Hardin walked out from the conference and across the street to his vehicle. He was not known as an aggressive politico, but neither was he a pushover. He told the truth and stood on certain moral principles, but he did not make waves. This senator was not a threat to the political lobbying of others. In fact, he was not known to speak badly of anyone, not even in his campaigns; but he did vote according to his convictions.
There were gunshots followed almost immediately by chaos. Hardin’s body dropped, as did the gun that was used in his murder. First responders secured the scene and the investigating team arrived. Death was inevitable, the natural law demanded that much; but it seemed Hardin’s death came prematurely. No one knew what that meant exactly, but they all said it.
Detectives Casey and Daniels arrived, looked at the scene and logged evidence, including both Zack’s handgun and the casings found at the scene. “What do you think?” he asked one of the first responding officers.
“Well, it seems pretty cut and dry to me, sir. Someone got angry with the Senator, pulled the trigger and left enough evidence here for a conviction. Can’t be anything more than that, can it? Senator Hardin didn’t have any enemies.”
As Melissa passed them in order to question another officer, she called this one a rookie under her breath. He leered at her as Casey asked if he could offer the young officer some advice.
“Sure,” the officer replied knowing that the advice would come despite his disinterest.
“Good,” Casey began, “Do you know why I find it difficult to believe most of the claims that people make?”
“No,” answered the officer.
Casey continued, “It’s because everybody has an agenda. For instance, our agenda is to get a conviction, so we chase that agenda even if sometimes it means misinterpreting evidence.”
“Dark matter!” Melissa yelled from a few feet away. “What?” the officer felt disconnected from the conversation.
Melissa turned around and sprayed some of her perfume into the air, “What happened to that spray of perfume?”
She smiled and Casey walked away shaking his head.
The officer wasn’t sure why this was relevant, “Um, it dispersed?”
“That’s right,” Melissa continued, “Have you ever wondered why all of the matter and energy in the universe didn’t simply disperse after the big bang? Why didn’t it just spread out evenly through space? Why did it collect into planets and stars and space stuff?”
If the officer wasn’t lost before, he certainly was now. Not because the topic was confusing, but because he did not know where Detective Daniels was directing it. He guessed, “Dark matter?” That was what she already said.
“Yes!” exclaimed Melissa, “Dark matter! No one has ever seen it, yet many speculatively say that it is the only way that matter and energy would have been able to collect as it did.viii Some even claim that the reason it may be unobservable is because it exists in a dimension that people cannot perceive. They’ve drawn a conclusion based on speculation, not on observation. Too many detectives do the same.”
Casey returned, “Got a hit on the gun. Belongs to a guy named Zack Bellicosus.” He motioned toward the officer, “Why don’t you guys go check him out? Here’s his address.
Remember, innocent until proven guilty.”
“Did you bring what you promised?” Zack asked from the bench.
Detective Casey walked to the small folder that he brought into the courtroom before the proceedings, picked it up and handed it to Zack.
“Thank you,” Zack folded open the front cover, “Mr. Billings, please take the stand.”
A man toward the front looked around, but did not stand.
“Mr. Billings, I would prefer that these people stayed alive. Please take the stand.”
An older man stood up and began walking forward. Zack smiled, “Sir, I have a photo here and you are not Allen Billings. I appreciate your sacrifice, though. Please have a seat.”
As he sat back down, Casey went to Billings and forced him to the stand. He then walked by Melissa and whispered, “You’re gonna like this one.”
“Wh.. what do you want from me?” asked Billings.
Zack asked his first question, “Dr. Billings, did you know Senator Gary Hardin?
Billings answered, “I only knew that he served on the U.S. Senate. Aren’t you the one who shot him?”
“Careful with those accusations, Dr.” Zack continued his line of questioning, “Is it true that you serve as the chair for the National Education Council?”
“Yes…” the witness did not know his intention. “What exactly does this council do, Dr. Billings?”
The doctor was very cooperative, “It measures the worth of current secondary and post-secondary curriculums and reports findings to the government.”
Zack thanked him and continued, “Why do we need this sort of council in our government?”
The doctor was quiet. “Let me word the question another way,” Zack insisted from the bench, “Does the government feel a need to regulate what is being taught in the classroom?”
The doctor laughed, “I don’t think this council or the Department of Education would exist if the government did not feel a need to regulate education in some way. A certain standard is desired for the students in this nation.”ix
Zack probed further, “Why do you think the government feels it necessary to regulate education?”
Billings thought the question was odd, “Why would it not? We don’t want our youth to be perpetually naïve about the world. If there were no standards, teachers could teach as little as they wanted and the children would suffer.”
“Why do you laugh?” Zack responded, “Because of regulations and national standards, many teachers are not free to teach what they see as necessary in their particular contexts. Children are on a national curriculum that ignores individual need. As a result, children are uninterested in learning and teachers are worried more about curriculum than lasting instruction. They are paid less because the only requirement is the curriculum, and they pay higher taxes so that their government can pay people like you who mandate to them what they should teach and how they should teach it, making their expertise null and void. I don’t see your argument as a positive one, doctor. Why does the government feel need to regulate education?”
“I told you,” Billings’ hostility grew, “We want to make good Americans!”
The courtroom was silent.
At this point, Zack was already in custody and being interrogated by a go-getter detective named Melissa Daniels.
Casey walked quickly through the precinct and into the forensic lab they had set up, “What did you find?”
“Well sir,” the woman in the white coat replied as she held Zack’s gun, “I am glad I’m not the detective on this one. There are some inconsistencies here.”
“Like what?”
“Well, Zack’s fingerprints are all over the gun, but his name is on the purchase agreement so no surprises there. The bullets inside, though, don’t have any prints on them, and there were no slugs found at the scene.”
Casey stroked his chin, “So either Zack forgot to wipe the gun, or his gun was used intentionally by someone else… Thanks, Beth.”
Casey immediately left to halt the interrogation, and then to visit Hardin’s office in D.C.
“Good Americans?” Zack questioned again, “What does that even mean?”
Billings did not answer, so Zack continued, “Does it mean that the government will mandate instruction if it serves the current regime’s agenda? Or that it will prohibit instruction that does not?”
Billings hesitated, “Why would we do that?”
Zack calmed himself, “The point I wish to make is this: Mandatory curriculum is the first stepping stone to absolute information control. In it, there is no liberty for the teacher, and there is certainly no liberty for the student. As far as I know this nation was founded by free-thinkers, not by those who had been indoctrinated. To raise good Americans would be to raise free thinkers.”
“Is that what Hardin thought?” Billings asked, “Are people actually capable of free thought? You said yourself that there was no such thing as absolute negative liberty. We are all bound… What is your purpose for having me here, if I might ask?”
Zack replied, “You work with Elliot.”
Detectives Casey and Daniels walked into Hardin’s office. The place was orderly.
“Wow, either this guy was really organized or someone had organized his office while he was on leave,” Casey went out to the secretary’s desk and asked, “How organized was the Senator?”
“As organized as anyone else I imagine.”
Casey continued, “Has anyone gone into his office in his absence?”
The secretary answered, “No. There would be no reason. Senator Hardin liked to keep his work right where it was so he didn’t lose his place, and he didn’t like anyone in his office while he wasn’t.”
“Thanks,” Casey went back into the Senator’s office to keep looking. He noticed right away that there was not even a paper on his desk.
“Hey, come here,” Detective Daniels said as she shuffled through a filing cabinet. “Does this look strange to you, like something’s missing?”
There were several manila filing folders with tabs on the right, in the center and on the left in that order from the front of each drawer to the back. In the “E” section, the tab sequence skipped one as though a folder had been removed and not returned. There was nothing more in the Senator’s office. There was not enough evidence here to even question Zack’s guilt.
On the way out, the detectives stopped again at the secretary’s desk. “What was the senator working on most recently?”
The secretary browsed through some files on here computer, “He was working on a rebuttal to Senator Elliot’s new education bill.”
“Is Senator Elliot in?” Daniels asked.
“Let me check,” the secretary picked up the phone, pushed one button, asked whoever picked up the phone if Senator Elliot was available then hung up. “Yes, he is in his office just down the hall.”
After pleasantries, Casey asked Senator Elliot to describe the bill that he was about to propose.
Elliot replied, “It’s simple. The bill would reform standards in high school curriculums across the U.S.”
“What problems did Senator Hardin have with the bill?”
“He believes that schools ought to be autonomous; that government control of curriculum leads directly to indoctrination.” Elliot continued, “The more specific problems he has with the bill are related to sexual education and science. His claim was that there is an absence of fact and an overabundance of what he called moral manipulation. He said that this would keep students from making their own decisions about morality. He also claimed it would destroy their creative and critical thinking facilities.”
Casey paused for a moment, “Were his claims legitimate?”
“There were a few people that were siding with him” answered the Senator.
“That doesn’t really answer my question…”
Elliot smiled, “That’s the best answer I can give right now. Gary opposed government control, he was a real Libertarian.” The detectives noticed a degree of angst in his voice.
Casey asked if they could get a copy of the bill. “Not without a warrant. Sorry.” Elliot asked them to leave.
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. All people were subject to the natural laws that be and, more than anything else, that is what was most prominent about following evidence. Senator Elliot had access to Gary Hardin’s office after hours. Despite having no visitors, an office that was usually a holding place for the work of the senator was spick and span. There was also a missing file.
Elliot also had motive because Hardin was leading opposition to his bill, but this was all speculative. Detective Casey needed hard evidence. There was more to this case than Zack, for an unknown reason, getting angry with Senator Hardin. The very laws of nature, to which all were enslaved, made that very evident.
“Are you talking about Senator John Elliot?” Billings sounded surprised, “What does that have to do with this?”
Zack looked at Detective Casey and nodded. Casey explained, “As I investigated Senator Hardin’s murder, I discovered two things. The first was that Zack was innocent, but all the physical evidence we had led to him. It was planted by the schemes of Senator Elliot. Anything that would connect Elliot and Hardin was missing.”
“That’s worth all of this?” Billings elevated his voice from the stand.
Zack answered his question, “No, but bringing down the most powerful corrupt political machine in Washington is… See this list that I have?”
Billings nodded.
“This list contains the names of all the people in Elliot’s machine, and your name is on the list.”
“Wait!” Billings interrupted, “Is the list not hard physical evidence that could clear your name? Why not just play it?”
“Detective?” Zack wanted Casey to answer the question, and he did:
“Because of the machine’s power, we could not get a single judge to grant us a warrant for Senator Elliot’s files and computer, so we had to resort to other methods to gain the file. It is not admissible in court.”
“You broke the law?” Billings accused Detective Casey.
“That is a question I won’t answer, but I will say that I would rather that be done than send an innocent man to prison.”
Billings laughed, “It looks like you are all going to prison anyway.”
Zack got up and stood in front of Billings. In anger, he pointed his handgun at Billings’ chest and yelled, “Not before we protect the liberties of the American people.”
Zack squeezed his finger around the trigger, closed his eyes, and was interrupted by the phone as it rang; everyone in the courtroom jumped. Still pointing the gun at Billings, he answered, “I hope this is Senator John Elliot.”
It was not. The negotiator’s too familiar voice came through, “Sorry to disappoint you, son. I just wanted to tell you that we are flying John Elliot in from D.C.”
Zack was furious. The anger he already had was multiplied exponentially, “I really hoped you would follow my instruction.”
Boom! The gun went off and echoed in the courtroom causing momentary deafness to everyone present. As everyone’s ears rang, Zack’s heart sank into the pit of his stomach and Billings’ body was limp and lifeless. Zack’s throat was dry and his hands began to tremble, “I wish there was another way.”
The other hostages watched in shock as the other man in the room, the one that had been standing guard, took Billings’ body out of the courtroom, violently like he wasn’t even bothered by it.
On the outside, police watched as the big wooden door of the courthouse was propped open, and the body was thrown out.
Zack then took the stand, and his unnamed partner took the folder that had the list. Zack was making himself the next witness.
“Zack,” he said, “please explain what is happening to the court.”
He began by saying, “Cause and effect.”