Exclusive Excerpt: 'A Man with Three Great German Shepherds'

Ed. Note: This is the second part of two of excerpts. You can read part one here.

During his Navy service, Dan Martin bought gold coins to be his life savings, and while working under the table in Sacramento for Developer and fellow gold bug, Bill Murphy, he was paid in more gold coins, but IRS gunsels (Tweedledum and Tweedledee) visit and put pressure on Dan to inform on his boss; thus, he soliloquizes about his situation.

It’s funny, sometimes I’ll read about a politician giving a speech at a Memorial Day event honoring the extraordinary combat heroism of some man, and he’ll often conclude by asking, “where do we get such men?”

He means men like me. A swab jockey who just might, in the right time and place, act bravely, and do something great.

I haven’t done something great, of course, but he means that guy who decided to up and join the armed forces from Podunkville, USA, and ended up with a Congressional Medal of Honor.

“Where do we get such men?” Indeed.

Because I’m also wondering where do we get such men as just left my house? Men who are drawn to authority, to policing, to hunting and punishing fellow citizens. Men who adopt an attitude, a personality, a culture of contempt for everyone outside their circle, who find it easy to abuse reason, common sense, common decency, common rights, and common morals.

Oddly enough, just as I might have been that “where do we find such men” heroic guy, I’m just as much that “who do they think they are” fellow in authority.

Okay, I’m guilty. I know it. You know it. I cheated on my taxes. But what was cheating? I simply kept my own, hard earned money out of the hands of thieves — greedy, vile, sickening, never satiated thieves, who steal it to buy votes so they can keep stealing my money.

In all of human history, I don’t think any people have been so thoroughly fleeced by their rulers. I could be wrong.

But what’s the crime of IRS Tweedledum and Tweedledee? These instruments of the State are equally robbed by the system they work for, and yet, who can feel sorry for them?

Just following orders. It’s my job. If I didn’t do it, someone else would.

I’m that guy, too. Or I was. Twenty-five years of following orders, giving orders, noting infractions, except I wasn’t such a hard ass. I was a technical expert. I wasn’t the guy who gave you a $150 ticket for going 43 in a 40 mile per hour zone. I’m the guy who said, look, this wiring panel has a lot of sloppy work in it, fix it up properly.

I don’t know. I’m trying to make sense of what we do because a bunch of jerks made a rule or a regulation, and we’re all supposed to act like it came from God, or the country will fall apart if it isn’t enforced, and God help the man who knows it’s a bunch of bull, and won’t abide it.

I don’t want to fight anybody. I just want to be left alone. Why the hell can’t people leave each other alone?

And just think, imagine if you buttonholed the President of the United States and said, “Look, I work hard for this money. It doesn’t come easy. You have to sweat for it. Eight, sometimes ten or more hours a day, five or six days a week I go someplace I don’t really want to go, and do things I’d prefer not to, and when I finally get some coinage after feeling a little like a slave, you come along and snatch almost all of it out my hands. You take your gun and point it at my head, and you take most of what cost me pounds of flesh. Just like that. Snap! And it’s all gone. Do you have any idea what I could have done with that money? Maybe fix up my house, landscape my yard so it was pleasing to look at after a day at work. Maybe buy a sporty car so I could enjoy driving through Nevada or Montana. Or maybe I could invest it, nurse it along, start my own business, help the starving children of Africa, get a cabin by a lake, afford to take more days off from work, or help to build a hospital to take care of life’s hard cases. But that money’s all gone. I could’ve done so much with just what my own sweat was worth, but you steal it away. You never quit.”

And he’d say, “F U, Jack. Get this loser away from me. Eat crap and die.”

Because Caesar is Caesar is Caesar.

What would Jesus do?

Just let it go, man. Let it go. That’s what he’d probably say. You can’t change the world. I tried and look where it got me. And if they won’t listen to me, what makes you think anyone’ll listen to you?

I’m not a pie in the sky kind of guy, though. I want to fight back. I’d rather be left alone, but when they get my hackles up, damned if I don’t want to fight all the bastards.

You can purchase “A Man with Three Great German Shepherds” at Amazon.