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It's a cold day in the small Saskatchewan town of Pumphandle.

Streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and
everybody is living on credit.

A traveller comes to town and lays a $100 bill on the hotel desk saying he
wants to inspect the rooms upstairs to pick one for the night.

As soon as he walks upstairs, the hotel owner grabs the bill and runs next
door to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to
the pig farmer.

The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill to his supplier,
the Co-op.

The guy at the Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local
prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her
"services" on credit.

The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel
owner.

The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the
traveller will not suspect anything.

At that moment the traveller comes down the stairs, states that the rooms
are not satisfactory,picks up the $100 bill and leaves.

No one produced anything. No one earned anything...
However, the whole town is now out of debt and now looks to the future
with a lot more optimism.

Don't Forget to Send a Letter to Your MP to Urge Support for Bill C-304 -- A Bill to

Written by Paul Fromm

Saturday, 12 November 2011 21:28

Hip, Hip, Hooray, It's Rhodesia Independence Day!

Written by Paul Fromm

Saturday, 12 November 2011 07:24

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HIP, HIP, HOORAY, IT'S RHODESIA INDEPENDENCE DAY! (
HTTP://SPECTATOR.ORG/ARCHIVES/2011/11/11/HIP-HIP-HOORAY-ITS-RHODESIA-IN
)

By H. W. Crocker, III ( http://spectator.org/people/h-w-crocker-ii )
on 11.11.11 @ 6:08AM

Ian Smith lived to see all his worst predictions come true.
On 11 November 1965, Ian Smith, prime minister of the British colony
of Rhodesia, signed his country's unilateral declaration of
independence, giving birth to a new nation that would, rather
heroically, seek to maintain its way of life for the next fifteen
years. That way of life was not -- as critics will be quick to allege
-- based on racism, but on freedom, the freedom that was vouchsafed
Rhodesia by the British Empire. It was the freedom and the rule of law
that was lost by Rhodesia's transformation into Robert Mugabe's
Zimbabwe. It's a transformation from which even we, as American, have
something to learn.

The Rhodesians, in fact, based their declaration of independence on
our own, though they charmingly reaffirmed their allegiance to the
queen. Thinking themselves "more British than the British," they
announced their independence on Remembrance Day, marking the end of
World War I (what we mark as Veterans' Day), to remind Britain that
when she fought at great cost to defend freedom, the rule of law, and
the rights of small nations, Rhodesia had been at her side. In the
Second World War, indeed, Ian Smith himself had flown Hawker
Hurricanes and Spitfires for the RAF. A flight accident had smashed up
his face (which required extensive plastic surgery) and left him with
numerous serious injuries that took months to heal. He returned to
duty, was shot down over Italy, and eventually made his escape back to
Allied lines.

More than that, though, the Rhodesians had done what is the measure of
a man -- they had gone into the wilderness and been able to re-create
their civilization. While they had a reputation as outdoorsy,
beer-swilling hearties, the great Rhodesian writer (and liberal) Peter
Godwin and Ian Hancock estimated in their classic study of Rhodesia,
'Rhodesians Never Die,' "that probably no other transplanted
English-speakers had done more -- with similar resources -- to
reproduce and practice the parent culture."

It is a question worth asking ourselves: how many of us could hack our
way into the jungle and re-create the United States? The more
culturally pessimistic, or multiculturally inclined, might even wonder
whether that would be a good thing anyway.

The Rhodesians had no doubts -- or few. They were so confident in
their civilization that they were willing to endure international
ostracism. They were so certain they were on the right side of
history, and certain of their martial valor, that they volunteered to
send troops to Vietnam (an offer that the embarrassed Lyndon Johnson
administration declined to accept). They were so certain that they
stood athwart tyranny, that they sacrificed their sons and fortified
their farms in an African bush war that thrilled the armchair
adventurers among the readers of Soldier of Fortune magazine, which
sold "Be A Man Among Men, Rhodesian Army" t-shirts, based on a
Rhodesian recruiting poster.

Smith believed that one-man, one-vote in Africa meant free elections
once as the dominate tribe would consolidate control. He was loath to
submit his country to the chaos, socialism, violence, and dictatorship
that he was certain would follow elections based on a universal
franchise (which, as he pointed out, had difficulties that Western
critics were not likely to consider: for instance, how to accurately
register voters when most rural-born black Africans had no birth
certificates). Smith was careful to gain the support of the country's
tribal chiefs, he stated that his goal was evolution not revolution on
the way to expanding the franchise (which was tied to income and
property qualifications), and he affirmed that he would not risk
Rhodesia's multi-party elections, free press, independent judiciary,
and free economy with a mass electorate that might be inclined to do
away with them.

In the end, of course, the British brokered a deal. Lord Carrington
and almost all the other delegates to the so-called Lancaster House
Agreement of 1979 were convinced that Robert Mugabe, regarded as the
most radical of the Communist-backed insurgents, would be defeated in
the elections arranged for 1980. Ian Smith thought otherwise. He was
certain Mugabe would win because he belonged to the Shona tribe, which
represented eighty percent of Rhodesia's population, and because
Mugabe would be the most effective at voter intimidation. Smith was
proved right, as he usually was -- though he got no credit for it.

Smith lived to see all his worst predictions come true; had he been
able to read his obituaries he would have seen that liberal opinion
blamed him for it. Smith's solace in his declining years was the
popularity he had among black Zimbabweans who saw him as a symbol of
unbreakable resistance to Mugabe. If you want to see the Rhodesia
Smith defended, you can watch a video or two on YouTube and see black
soldiers (most of the Rhodesian army was black) marching on parade
past mostly white civilians, including an official dressed like an
18th-century town crier; you can see the sons of productive farmers
and businessmen, who made Rhodesia an economic success, shouldering
rifles to defend their homes and their liberties.

And if you want to see the tribute that vice pays to virtue -- or that
Zimbabwe pays to Rhodesia and the British Empire -- just note how
Zimbabwe's judges still wear white wigs, how Mugabe's henchmen make a
show of owning farms (taken from white farmers who once produced
plenty, and whose fields now lie barren while Zimbabweans starve), and
how Mugabe still goes thorough the formality of having elections (as
long as his goons ensure that he wins). Zimbabweans think of British
institutions as having legitimacy, even if they are deployed as part
of Robert Mugabe's charades.

So what can America learn from gallant Rhodesia? For one thing, we can
learn to judge nations by the values they uphold, not the electoral
processes they observe. We can see why Western "colonialism" was
oftentimes better than the alternative. And most of all, perhaps, we
might learn not to take our own liberties for granted. In every
generation, they are only a demagogue away from being taken from us.
Letter to the Editor (
mailto:%22Letter%20to%20the%20Editor%22%20%3Ceditor%40spectator.org%3E?subject=READER%20MAIL%3A%20Hip%2C%20Hip%2C%20Hooray%2C%20It%26%23039%3Bs%20Rhodesia%20Independence%20Day%21
)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

H. W. Crocker, III is a bestselling author. His most recent book is
The Politically Incorrect Guide to the British Empire (
http://www.amazon.com/Politically-Incorrect-British-Empire-Guides/dp/1596986298
).

_____________________________
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