We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of this publication:

Dear Blogger—

I am 18 years old. Some of my voting friends say there is no Leviathan. Papa says, “If you see it in Blunt Object, it’s so (or at least sarcastic).” Please tell me the truth, is the State evil?

Virginia O’Voter

Virginia, your voting friends are wrong. They have been affected by the jingoism of a jingoistic age. They believe precisely what they are told. They think that nothing can be which is not issued from government. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are wonderful. In this great universe of ours, we are mere insects, merely ants, but our intellects have mastered this boundless world around us, our individual reason capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Leviathan State. It exists as certainly as avarice and envy and lust for power exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its darkest suffering and helplessness. Alas! How beautiful would be the world if there were no Statists! It would be as beautiful as if there were no Presidents! There would be no lock-stepping party politics then, no legislation, no gunpoint taxation to sap the fruits of this existence. We should have but liberty, in thought and deed. The baleful fire with which arbitrary authority scorches this world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Leviathan! You might as well believe in fairies. You might get the government to hire men to watch all the folk in town to catch the terrorists, but even if they did not see a wolf in the fold, what would they claim? “No-one sees the terr’ists, but that is no sign that there are no terr’ists.” The most costly things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that does not mean that the Federal budget does not provide for them. Nobody can conceive or imagine all of the wonders that are procured by the tax dollars with which your papa cannot buy you Christmas gifts.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the government’s doings which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only those that love and abide by liberty, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the basest hate and avarice that lie beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Leviathan! O Woe! he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to strike terror in the hearts of the free.

(– fuck Santa Claus)