This is what I will never bow down to:

Canceling the right of a writer to make a living from his words.

In this so-called age of information, there are people who claim all information should be free.

How do THOSE people make their living? How would they like it if others came into their workplace and said they should donate their services for nothing?

Further, what pathetic level of intelligence is operating when information is equated with writing?

Because, you see, these are also the people who believe articles should be boiled down to data points. Just present the bare bones of the information and be done with it.

And if in some cases it took the writer time to find the information and dig it out, that’s also of no concern. It should be made free anyway.

We are talking about a form of tyranny here. Well, joke-tyranny.

You could say the cancelers want writers to “make a sacrifice on behalf of humanity,” but that would be giving these dullards too much credit. They’re not thinking that far. They just want FREE FREEBIES.

My suggestion is, try a library. I believe they still exist.

Writers are doing a number of things. For instance, when they really want to deliver a point of information to the reader, they clarify it. They put it several different ways. They deploy images (in words). Metaphors. Analogies. They explain logical connections and inferences.

But beyond that, they also WRITE. The sky is the limit. Imagination has no boundaries. Absolutely NOTHING can be boiled down. The whole idea is PROLIFERATION.

In the age of information, people who believe they are literate are making the egregious mistake of equating information, words, and WRITING. They think they’re all one thing. They couldn’t be more wrong.

This is on the level of saying, “I see this painting of a woman, but why didn’t the artist just go out on the street and take a photograph of a woman?”

And the answer is, because he’s a painter.

Why didn’t Shakespeare just explain the mess Hamlet was in and comment on his options?

In addition to being a writer (and offering thousands of articles at no charge over the past 22 years), I’m also what economists would describe as a free-market capitalist.

Meaning I sell my writing. I offer value for value.

I believe in that simple arrangement. And not just for writers and other artists. For anyone.

Just in case there is confusion, you can find all sorts of groups who appear to “give information away,” but finance their operations through donations. Or they’re funded by investors and advertisers. They’re making money in less direct ways.

You’ll notice non-profit organizations pay their employees salaries. And sometimes own subsidiary profit-making operations.

I prefer to go at things in a simpler fashion.

I think simpler is better.

But there are those who don’t want to know simple things. They don’t want to admit they’re paying for something straight out. They would prefer “making a donation.” It sounds better. They think “it’s cleaner.” It’s more in the “spirit of giving,” and that’s what we should all be doing. Giving, giving, giving, to make a better world.

My suggestion: join a group that believes in universal guaranteed income.

And wait for the social credit score system to kick in, for the sake of behavioral control.

While I’m at it, let me take all this horrid capitalism a step further.

Suppose the inventor of a vaccine technology owned outright the patent on his invention. Instead of a corporation he worked for, or the government, owning it.

So this inventor comes up with a dozen new vaccines. He finds investors in the private sector. He offers the public six free vaccinations and six for a fee. A low fee, because hundreds of millions of people want vaccines. So the inventor can make a handsome profit.

He’s offering value for value. Straight out. HE is. Personally. Because he owns his company.

He’s not backed up by a massive media/government/public health propaganda apparatus. He just saying, “My vaccines are good. Take these for free, pay for these others.”

Simple. Direct.

The questions are stark. Do the vaccines work? Are they safe?

The consumers decide. The buyers decide.

Do customers buy, or do they stay away?

If people start dying like flies, the inventor is responsible. He’s visible. He’s the one.

If the vaccines work, if they’re a miracle, he wins.

He has no bullshit liability shield. He has no army of sold out researchers lying through their teeth. He has no politicians laying on mandates and laws forcing people to take his products.

He’s the one. The naked capitalist.

Which will surely give him pause for thought, when he claims he’s made a breakthrough in the field of medical science.

If he’s right, he’s the big winner. If he’s wrong, he’s on the hook. And it’s quite a hook.

I’m not selling a vaccine. I’m selling WRITING. My own.

It doesn’t go into your arm. It doesn’t automatically make changes in your brain. I’m not a martyr sacrificing my ability to make a living and going on starvation for anyone’s sake, for the sake of humanity, for the future, for an abstract idea.

Does that make me a hard-nosed realist? A man with his own home factory manufacturing words? Hell no.

If you read my work, you’ll agree.

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I believe in the power of imagination beyond ANY AND ALL so-called realism.

But I’m not a priest who seems to be giving it away up on stage while my minions are working the collection plates in the background.

Here’s a newsflash. Selling something doesn’t automatically debase what it is. Selling is a separate activity from the thing that is sold.

Beyond any $$ selling I’m doing, I’m doing something else. As I once told an audience at a conference in California, I’M SELLING YOU TO YOU.

You as you REALLY are. That’s my conceit.

How am I selling you to you? In writing. Because my conceit is, when you read my work, it can hit you in the REALLY ARE place.

That’s not what I’m thinking about when I sit down at the keyboard. That’s not my conscious goal. That’s not what gets me out of bed in the morning.

But it’s there.

I give my writing all I can give it. Because I want to. Because that’s what I always do. Because I find it exciting and more than exciting.

And, incidentally, I think that if you read enough of what I write, you’ll start thinking along new and unexpected and spontaneous channels. Of your own. Not mine.

But again, that’s not why I write. I’m not out to save you the way a preacher is out to save you.

Here’s another newsflash. If I sell more of my writing on Wednesday than I did on Tuesday, I’m happier on Wednesday. But that happiness is separate from how I feel about my writing. How I feel about my writing depends on WRITING and me READING WHAT I WROTE.

And guess what? I put no ceiling on how much money I can make writing. No ceiling at all. I don’t believe as I writer I’m compelled to eke out a living, because that’s the assigned fate of writers. I don’t believe writers are supposed to limit what they make because they’re missionaries serving humanity.

That was probably the tactic of a publisher back in 5000BC, who was trying to con an author with a contract.

On the other hand, I’m not tailoring my writing to make the most money possible. I’m not tailoring it all.

As I’ve written and said many times, EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING is a swindle. It salves the conscience of people who need to feel the marching music of a cause. And not a good one.

They simply can’t or won’t think it through. They won’t spell out what an EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING world would look like.

They attack the World Economic Forum and similar groups, without realizing their very own EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING crusade is exactly what the WEF is shepherding.

Completely destroying the free market does create a nothing. It’s what people are left with, in the ruins.

But who cares? What’s important is APPEARING TO BE a deputy assistant trainee messiah.

So yes, I sell what I write. Above and beyond that, I’ve expressed, in many words, on many occasions, what I believe writing is and can be. And what art and imagination can be. All of THAT sustains me in a way money never can.

It’s like flying. You can take passengers for a ride and charge them $$, but when you designed and built the plane yourself and then you’re piloting it, too, you’re launched, on all sorts of levels.

No limit.

-- Jon Rappoport

Jon Rappoport

This is what I will never do