Billy Lee is a former machine design engineer, career Navy kid, anti-War activist, Francophile, amateur Egyptologist, math/physics hobbyist, and university grad.
Whenever possible, he fights the good fight to not consume mass quantities of Kroger cherry pies or their chocolate chip cookies; Philadelphia cream cheese glop-spread on any crackers he can find; Little Caesar’s $6 pizzas—slathered with Crazy Sauce; also, Crazy Richard’s nutty peanut butter on brown bread soaked in Bonne Maman cherry preserves; and low-fat cottage cheese made crunchy with lightly-salted Lay’s Potato Chips smashed in.
Married to Bevy Mae, Billy Lee is father to six adult children—three bio and three in-grafted—and grandpa to thirteen grandkids, including two born in Ethiopia.
Billy Lee is a Christian who loves Joe, Hillary, and Brittney.
Billy Lee was young once. Believe it.
Billy Lee is a lifelong pontificator who believes that civilization’s biggest problem is lack of caps on income. No-limits—established in the 1980s by tax codes passed by and for our elites—tempt money-lovers to band together to loot corporations and public institutions. The prospect of unlimited wealth lures business owners to squeegee wages so they can sequester excess for themselves.
Billy Lee believes the possession of excessive wealth by individuals anywhere in the world should be a felony enforced by international courts.
Some readers noticed that Billy Lee shares his name with the much-admired manservant (slave) of our first president, George Washington.
Billy Lee was the only slave of the 277 owned by George and his wife Martha who the president freed in his will after he died in 1799.
Billy Lee was a renown equestrian and foxhunter who, during Washington’s military campaigns, rode beside the General on a magnificent jumper named Chinkling—according to memoirs of the president’s step-grandson, Custis.
Asource has claimed that Custis’s memory was in error; Billy Lee in fact called his horse Clackling—after the sound made by his steed when it pranced on the president’s paving-stone carriageway before a hunt.
In any event, the revolutionary officers and enlisted men who served General Washington treated the Negro freedom fighter (and his horse) with affection, admiration, and respect. The father of our country would want it no other way.
Some say that Confederate General Robert E. Lee might have been a distant relative—a descendant possibly—of Billy Lee; or it could be true that an ancestor of the South’s most loved General owned Billy Lee before George Washington purchased the 16-year-old to serve as houseboy at his Mount Vernon estate. In those days, slaves sometimes took the last names of their original masters.
In the rare instances before the Civil War when a slave was set free (called manumission), some—after their emancipation—changed their last names to better hide from former owners. Sometimes they tacked on the name of a favorite horse or pet. Billy Lee may have done the same.
Today, some of Billy Lee’s progeny are thought to live in Detroit under such a name. At least two are believed by one researcher to have played pro football.
Our own Pontificator’s father, US Navy Captain Bryce Lee, (read Billy Lee’s poem, Warrior) was himself an accomplished equestrian and foxhunter—like the first president’s houseboy—though no evidence of a genetic-link to the president’s battlefield confidante and best friend has yet been established. Research by a family genealogist continues.
In 1780, portrait artist John Trumbull painted Billy Lee straddling his horse while the first president stood absent-mindedly in the foreground. Find the famous painting and links to articles about the two men elsewhere on this page.
Whatever the truth about any familial-connection, Billy Lee (the Pontificator) admires Billy Lee (the freed houseboy) and bears his name with pride and affection. Billy Lee knows in his heart of hearts that Billy Lee is an early, unrecognized hero of the USA’s ongoing wars against tyrants.
Due to the posthumous generosity of President George Washington, Billy Lee enjoyed his last years on Earth a free man—reunited in marriage with the woman he first loved and living large on one of America’s grandest estates—located at 3200 Mount Vernon Hwy, Mt Vernon, VA 22121. Click the link above and enter Billy Lee in the site’s search box to learn more.
The Editorial Board
Billy Lee sailed across the Pacific Ocean twice before his 7th birthday. He crossed the world’s largest ocean with his mother and brother on the USA troop carrier General Mann, which delivered hundreds, perhaps thousands, of American soldiers to Korea and Japan. Down deep, he’s an old salt who’s traveled some and learnt more than a few stories along the way.
Click links below to understand more about the Billy Lee Pontificator Philosophy.
“…the smartest thinkers seem to agree that nothing can exist apart from a conscious observer. People like Erwin Schrodinger and John Von Neumann have written that consciousness is fundamental and exists outside the brain.” Remember writing this on Quora? You hit on one of the most profound facts of the world — mind precedes matter. Isn’t it amazing that intelligent scientists can believe the world as we know it is the result of a contingent, mysterious explosion billions of years ago, resulting in a fortuitous combining of hydrogen atoms — and now, here we all are.
Great to discover you, a brother, a kindred. I just got back from my 5th trip to Cuba and found you after googling “origin of the statue of Jesus Christ in Havana harbor.” I’m a follower of Jesus, but I hesitate identifying as a Christian because of the horrible religious baggage. Acts 4 is about sharing, a lovely and godly socialist idea and practice, rather than about capitalism, on which the US likes to put a Christian badge. Nice to know you are out there, sharing truth. Your overview of Cuban history is excellent. I forwarded it. It will save me a lot of time when doing my Cuba Talks.
geri
Bill,
I’m interested in how your Dad reacted towards your anti-war activism. I totally went along with concept of the Domino Theory at the time, mostly because I admired my dad and was very pro-military. When I went off to college and was introduced to liberal viewpoints of our national foreign policy, I would come home on a visit and make my dad apoplectic when I spouted off some of the stuff I had heard or read in government and history classes. It took me years to realize all the mistakes we made in Vietnam and how devisive that war was. I never did ask my dad whether he thought Vietnam was a mistake. He was subjected to much protest because he was Professor of Naval Science at ISU from 1968 through 1971.
One other question: How are you going to decide what is excessive salary? And how in the world could you make your restrictions world-wide? Just wondering.
Look for an upcoming blog on income inequality. In the meantime, I can say that I think the maximum income from all sources should be a multiple of the minimum wage. It would be set by law.
Let’s say the multiple is set to 1,000. Then, if the minimum wage is $20,000 per year, the maximum income from all sources would be 1,000 times that or $20 million.
In the same way, the maximum size of an estate would be set at some multiple of the maximum income. Let’s say the multiple is set by law at 20. Then the maximum size of an estate would be $400 million.
Of course, concentrations of wealth are necessary for economic development. This is where public corporations come into play. Corporations would be made truly public and be regulated like public utilities.
A problem with this idea is it should be international in scope to be effective, so it would involve a body like the United Nations and a world court. Another problem is that although it puts limits on only a few tens of thousands of people in the world, these are the people who actually run the world. So it might be hard to get them to go along. But we should try for reasons that will be explained in a future blog post.
As for my Dad, I don’t remember him ever mentioning my activism to me. My anti-war activity never came up in conversation as far as I can remember. Maybe he thought if he ignored it, it would go away!
Your idea reminds me of the Beatles song “Imagine a World without Religion.”–it is not practical because it goes against human nature. The 1% Super Rich who run the world are not going to allow anybody to take their money from them. Just isn’t going to happen. Now, perhaps if you could coerce a majority of the super rich to share their wealth out of a sense of right and wrong, you could manage a more equitable distribution.
The way to do it is through income and estate taxes. We did it after the Great Depression. The International part is important to protect our population from the overseas cartels. If we can get an international statute, then we can get a handle on things. Difficult, not necessarily impossible.
“…the smartest thinkers seem to agree that nothing can exist apart from a conscious observer. People like Erwin Schrodinger and John Von Neumann have written that consciousness is fundamental and exists outside the brain.” Remember writing this on Quora? You hit on one of the most profound facts of the world — mind precedes matter. Isn’t it amazing that intelligent scientists can believe the world as we know it is the result of a contingent, mysterious explosion billions of years ago, resulting in a fortuitous combining of hydrogen atoms — and now, here we all are.
Great to discover you, a brother, a kindred. I just got back from my 5th trip to Cuba and found you after googling “origin of the statue of Jesus Christ in Havana harbor.” I’m a follower of Jesus, but I hesitate identifying as a Christian because of the horrible religious baggage. Acts 4 is about sharing, a lovely and godly socialist idea and practice, rather than about capitalism, on which the US likes to put a Christian badge. Nice to know you are out there, sharing truth. Your overview of Cuban history is excellent. I forwarded it. It will save me a lot of time when doing my Cuba Talks.
geri
It is a pleasure to meet you, Geri. Thank you for your kind comment. May you have success in all you do. My apologies for the delayed reply.
Bill,
I’m interested in how your Dad reacted towards your anti-war activism. I totally went along with concept of the Domino Theory at the time, mostly because I admired my dad and was very pro-military. When I went off to college and was introduced to liberal viewpoints of our national foreign policy, I would come home on a visit and make my dad apoplectic when I spouted off some of the stuff I had heard or read in government and history classes. It took me years to realize all the mistakes we made in Vietnam and how devisive that war was. I never did ask my dad whether he thought Vietnam was a mistake. He was subjected to much protest because he was Professor of Naval Science at ISU from 1968 through 1971.
One other question: How are you going to decide what is excessive salary? And how in the world could you make your restrictions world-wide? Just wondering.
Molly
Look for an upcoming blog on income inequality. In the meantime, I can say that I think the maximum income from all sources should be a multiple of the minimum wage. It would be set by law.
Let’s say the multiple is set to 1,000. Then, if the minimum wage is $20,000 per year, the maximum income from all sources would be 1,000 times that or $20 million.
In the same way, the maximum size of an estate would be set at some multiple of the maximum income. Let’s say the multiple is set by law at 20. Then the maximum size of an estate would be $400 million.
Of course, concentrations of wealth are necessary for economic development. This is where public corporations come into play. Corporations would be made truly public and be regulated like public utilities.
A problem with this idea is it should be international in scope to be effective, so it would involve a body like the United Nations and a world court. Another problem is that although it puts limits on only a few tens of thousands of people in the world, these are the people who actually run the world. So it might be hard to get them to go along. But we should try for reasons that will be explained in a future blog post.
As for my Dad, I don’t remember him ever mentioning my activism to me. My anti-war activity never came up in conversation as far as I can remember. Maybe he thought if he ignored it, it would go away!
Your idea reminds me of the Beatles song “Imagine a World without Religion.”–it is not practical because it goes against human nature. The 1% Super Rich who run the world are not going to allow anybody to take their money from them. Just isn’t going to happen. Now, perhaps if you could coerce a majority of the super rich to share their wealth out of a sense of right and wrong, you could manage a more equitable distribution.
The way to do it is through income and estate taxes. We did it after the Great Depression. The International part is important to protect our population from the overseas cartels. If we can get an international statute, then we can get a handle on things. Difficult, not necessarily impossible.
–so now you have 3 followers on your site—keep it lively, ok?!!
Lee… A name to live up to. One of the best men I have ever known who passed his high sense of honor to all his children.
Semper Fi. Kind words indeed.
Oh, Bill!