An Interview With Dirk Spruyt
To Dirk Spruyt, a Chapel Hill physician, there’s no medical danger greater than the threat of nuclear war. Thus, he reasons, it makes no sense to give the government money to support the arms race. He’s a tax resister.
I heartily accept the motto, “That government is best which governs least,” and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe — “That government is best which governs not at all” — and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure.
I would like to speak more precisely than I have before of the connections that join people, land, and community — to describe, for example, the best human use of a problematical hillside farm. In a healthy culture, these connections are complex. The industrial economy breaks them down by over-simplifying them, and in the process raises obstacles that make it hard for us to see what the connections are or ought to be.
April had been chilly and stormy this year, so on the first day that truly felt like spring, I was happy to go outdoors in the gentle sunshine to work in my garden. After a long winter under my low, dark roof, it lightened me to see young leaves arching in airy layers overhead. I often paused in my digging to look up through them to the newborn blue sky beyond.
*NOTE: Original copies of this issue are no longer available. Unbound, laser-printed copies will be provided for print orders.
It seemed so corny: love at first sight. Well, it was corny; when I first saw him, a halo appeared about his head. Even though in the sometimes hazy daze of the new age such manifeStationS of light are called auras, it was no such thing. It was a halo. My prince had come, although I didn’t believe in the romance of fairy tale aristocracy and still don’t. This meeting, though, was beyond belief systems, however deeply ingrained and feminist-oriented they were. This man glowed and he glowed for me. The healthy shine of his prematurely gray hair probably helped focus my attention but it was much more than that. It was beyond lust at first sight which I’ve experienced many times before as a sensation more sharply centered in the nether regions of my body, i.e. between my navel and my crotch. When I walked into the room full of people unknown to me, everyone disappeared from my perception except him and I felt his presence in every cell of my being but especially in my heart. Luckily, though not actively seeking a new love, I was unattached and open to it and so was he.
Trouble is a part of your life, and if you don’t share it, you don’t give the person who loves you enough chance to love you enough.
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