Filed under: Capitalism, Education, Election 2020, Politics, Progressivism, Socialism, The United States | Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Education, History
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s student government recently approved a resolution that calls for the removal of a statue on campus of Abraham Lincoln. The resolution claims that the statue is “a racist remnant of white supremacy.”
Have you looked recently at the cost of a four year college education? I just did and I was shocked. College professors often express the claim that they should be getting the same amount in wages as corporate CEOs. After all, most CEOs don’t have doctoral degrees!
“In order to create an inclusive and safe environment for all students, campus fixtures with racist remnants should be reevaluated and then removed and/or replaced on inputs from BIPOC students”
Well, most corporate CEOs make lots of money for their shareholders, which usually makes shareholders feel kindly towards CEOs. College students are presumably mostly over 18 years of age. and they have learned absolutely noting about one of our most famous and revered presidents.
Why is he revered, and why is he famous? No, he never owned a single slave. He was Commander in Chief of the Civil War, which was won by the Union, defeating the slave-holding South. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. Racist indeed! These 18 to 20 year old students don’t even know who he was. That speaks volumes about the state of American education.
That should send every parent to every school conference and every school board meeting and throw in a few letters to your State education secretary. By the time they reach college level, they should have some basic facts of history down. You can’t expect even the doctoral level professors to go back and fill in what the should have absorbed in their past 12 years of American education.
Filed under: Capitalism, Communism, Economics, Economy, Free Markets, Freedom, History | Tags: Capitalism, Communism, History
Historians inescapably both write with the benefit of hindsight and shape the stories they tell. So history always appears much tidier and more dramatic to the reader than the events depicted seemed to those who lived through them day by day. Human beings have to live with a future that is always unknown while enveloped in the fog of mere existence that can be as hard to penetrate as the far better recognized fog of war.
……………………………………………………………………..John Steele Gordon
……………………………………………………………………..An Empire of Wealth
In sum, Communism failed and is bound to fail for at least two reasons: one, that to enforce equality, it’s principal objective, it is necessary to create a coercive apparatus that demands privileges and thereby negates equality; and two, that ethnic and territorial loyalties, when in conflict with class allegiances, everywhere and at all times overwhelm them, dissolving Communism in nationalism, which is why socialism so easily combined with “Fascism.” In recognition of this reality, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union abandoned the slogan, calling on all proletarians to unite.
………………………………………………………………………Richard Pipes
………………………………………………………………………Communism, a History
We don’t have a “profit system” – we have a profit and loss system, and the loss is the important part because it is a signal that company is badly managed and needs to do something about it.
………………………………………………………………………Milton Friedman
Filed under: Domestic Policy, Free Markets, Free Speech, Freedom, History, Military, Politics, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: Business & Invention, Economics & Incentive, History
Historians inescapably both write with the benefit of hindsight and shape the stories they tell. So history always appears much tidier and more dramatic to the reader than the events depicted seemed to those who lived through them day by day. Human beings have to live with a future that is always unknown while enveloped in the fog of mere existence that can be as hard to penetrate as the far better recognized fog of war.
…………………………………………………………………John Steele Gordon
…………………………………………………………………An Empire of Wealth
Filed under: History, Latin America, Mexico | Tags: California, Early Cartography, History
I thought you might be interested in these historic maps showing California as an island, off the coast of Nova Mexico. I don’t know the year, but they are writing in Spanish, rather than Aztec symbols, You can see notations for Apaches, Zunis, and Navajos so some exploration had been done. I don’t see any prominent illustration of the Missions, but I can’t read the small print.
I have resisted any snarky comments. You probably should too. :>)
Filed under: Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economics, Free Markets, Free Speech, Freedom, History, Law, Regulation, The United States | Tags: Big-Tent Conservatism, History, The Founding Fathers
From the archives 2008
The brilliant Mark Levin lays out the bedrock principles of conservatism using the founders’ own words. It is no coincidence that they are the exact same principles our nation was built upon. These are the exact same principles that made America great, they are the exact same principles that liberty depends upon, and they are the exact same principles that liberalism seeks to destroy:
“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”
~ Thomas Jefferson“Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but only those specifically enumerated.”
~ Thomas Jefferson“[T]he powers of the federal government are enumerated; it can only operate in certain cases; it has legislative powers on defined and limited objects, beyond which it cannot extend its jurisdiction.”
~ James Madison“…[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”
~ James Madison“…the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.”
~ Thomas Jefferson“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
~ Benjamin Franklin“No nation was ever ruined by trade, even seemingly the most disadvantageous.”
~ Benjamin Franklin“Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread.”
~ Thomas Jefferson“Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.”
~ Thomas Paine“They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
~ Benjamin Franklin“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.”
~ Thomas Paine“The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If ‘Thou shalt not covet’ and ‘Thou shalt not steal’ were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.”
~ John Adams“To be prepared for war, is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.”
~ George Washington“One single object. . . [will merit] the endless gratitude of the society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation.”
~ Thomas Jefferson“Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
~ John Adams“To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.”
~ Thomas Jefferson” I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.”
~ Benjamin Franklin“The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.”
~ Thomas Jefferson“[The purpose of a written constitution is] to bind up the several branches of government by certain laws, which, when they transgress, their acts shall become nullities; to render unnecessary an appeal to the people, or in other words a rebellion, on every infraction of their rights, on the peril that their acquiescence shall be construed into an intention to surrender those rights.”
~ Thomas Jefferson
Filed under: Economics, Free Markets, Freedom, History, Immigration, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: Freedom, History, Thought for the Day
Daniel Hannan, Member of the European Parliament:
I have struggled for years to explain that politicians who cant about fairness don’t mean equal treatment or justice, or indeed, any practical outcome whatsoever. What they really mean is that they’re nice people. and they’re prepared to prove how nice they are with your money.
John Steele Gordon: An Empire of Wealth
This willingness to accept present discomfort and risk for the hope of future riches that so characterized these immigrants, and the millions who would follow over the next two centuries, has made a profound, if immeasurable effect on the history of the American economy. Just as those who saw no conflict between worshiping God and seeking earthly success in the seventeenth century, those who sought economic independence in the eighteenth had a powerful impact on the emerging American culture.
John Steele Gordon: ibid
Masterpieces created by a committee are notably few in number, but the United States Constitution is certainly one of them. Amended only twenty-seven times in 215 years, it came into being just as the world was about to undergo the most profound—and continuing—period of economic change the human race has known. The locus of power in the American economy has shifted from sector to sector as that economy has developed. Whole sections of the country have risen and fallen in economic importance. New methods of doing business and economic institutions undreamed of by the Founding Fathers have come into existence in that time, while others have vanished. Fortunes beyond the imagination of anyone living in the pre-industrial world have been built and destroyed. And yet the Constitution endures, and the country continues to flourish under it.
Filed under: Education, Foreign Policy, Freedom, Heartwarming, History, National Security | Tags: Francine Christophe, History, Memories
Born in August, 1933, Francine Christophe was deported with her mother to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1944. Released the following year, she continues to share her experience and memories with the younger generation.
(h/t: Maggie’s Farm)
Filed under: Freedom, History, Military, National Security, The United States, United Kingdom | Tags: George Washington, History, The Constitution
Reposted from 2010.
When George Washington was elected President, there were so many questions. A Republic was something completely new to the Americans. What they knew was monarchy, and a very opulent monarchy at that. They definitely didn’t want to go back to the pomp and circumstance of England. The new office of the President of the United States needed importance, respect, dignity and what exactly? The people did not rebel against a King in order to establish a new monarchy.Congress insisted on a salary of $25,000, a huge sum for the time. Washington accepted it reluctantly, but he spent nearly $2,000 of it on liquor and wine for entertaining. He had, of course managed an army and a plantation. In fact, Mount Vernon had more staff than his presidency did.
“Washington was keenly aware that whatever he did would become a precedent for the future. How often should he meet with the public? How accessible should he be? Could he have private dinners with friends? Should he make a tour of the new states?” He sought advice from those closest to him, including his vice-president, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, his Secretary of the Treasury. The only state occasions that any of them were familiar with were those of European monarchies.
“Hamilton thought that most people were ‘prepared for a pretty high tone in the demeanor of the Executive,’ but they probably would not accept as high a tone as was desirable. “Notions of equality,” he said, were “yet…too general and too strong” for the president to be properly distanced from the other branches of the government.” Gordon Wood tells of the dilemmas.
“When Washington appeared in public, bands sometimes played “God Save the King.” In his public pronouncements the president referred to himself in the third person. His dozens of state portraits were all modeled on those of European monarchs.”
We can be truly grateful that Washington was so aware that he was establishing precedent, and so careful of what he said and did. He was setting an example, and everything he did was intended to hold the new nation together, to form a more perfect union.
One simple problem was what to call the president. John Adams had discussed the problem with his colleagues in Massachusetts. They called their governor “His Excellency”: should not the president have a higher title? Adams thought only something like ‘His Highness’ or ‘His Most Benign Highness’ would answer. Washington was said to have initially favored “His High Mightiness, the President of the United States and Protector of Their Liberties.” The Dutch leaders of the States-General of the United Provinces called themselves “Their High Mightinesses” and they were leaders of a Republic.” Madison managed to get his fellow congressmen to vote for the simple republican title “President of the United States.” And that was that.
Washington was relieved when the title question was settled. But “he still was faced with making the institution of the presidency strong and energetic.” In fact, said Gordon Wood, “the presidency is the powerful office it is in large part because of Washington’s initial behavior.”
Gordon S. Wood: Empire of Liberty; A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Environment, Global Warming, History, Junk Science, Media Bias, Politics | Tags: Economics, Environment, History
Why are lists of ten popular? Some factoids to keep one sensible.
- “Global Warming” hysteria was born and has its entire existence in predictions of future temperatures by computer models; models that have been unable to predict current temperature.
- Al Gore and the IPCC were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize, but it was not a science prize, it was the peace prize.
- There are no requirements whatsoever to be an ‘environmentalist’. There are more requirements to be a leaf blower or a dishwasher.
- Increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere follow increases in temperature, sometimes by as much as 500 or 600 years. Cause must precede the event.
- ‘Organic’ is a special term that may be used only for produce that is grown with manure as a fertilizer, and poisonous pyrethrums as a pesticide. It is a marketing ploy, not a guide to health or nutrition.
- The rich may get richer, as when Bill Gates or Warren Buffet earn more; but the poor do not get poorer. Zero remains zero.
- “The poor”may always be with us, but over time, they are not the same people.
- Ignorance of the past leaves one open to complete deception in the present and the future.
- The world takes particular notice of the flaws of America because we hang them out in public for all to see and comment on.
- History clearly teaches us that individual liberty, the essence of America, must be constantly defended from the encroachment of the state.
Filed under: Freedom, History, Israel, Middle East, United Nations | Tags: History, The State of Israel, There Is No State of Palestine
Filed under: Environment, Junk Science | Tags: Climate Change, History, The Little Ice Age
Have you ever heard of The Great Frost? In France they called it Le Grande Hiver. On the 6th of January in 1709 people across Europe awoke to find that the temperature had plummeted. The temperature stayed down for three long weeks, there was a brief thaw, and then the temperature went down again, and stayed there.
From Scandinavia to Italy, everything turned to ice. Lakes and rivers froze, the sea froze. The soil froze to a depth of a meter or more. Livestock died in their barns from the cold. Chickens’ combs froze and fell off. Trees exploded. Travelers froze to death on the roads.
The painting above, by Gabriele Bella (1733-99) is of a portion of a lagoon in Venice, frozen over, with Venetians unsure of how to cope with this remarkable event.
Three months of deadly cold meant a year of famine and food riots. In Switzerland hungry wolves came right into the villages. The Baltic froze so completely that people could walk across the ice as late as April. In the Mediterranean, sailors died from the cold aboard English men-of-war.
In France, bread froze so hard it took an axe to cut it. According to a canon from Beaune in Burgundy, “travelers died in the countryside, livestock in the stables, wild animals in the woods. Nearly all the birds died, wine froze in barrels and public fires were lit to warm the poor.”
In the spring the cold was replaced by worsening food shortages. Authorities forced the rich to provide soup kitchens. By the summer, there were reports of starving people in the fields “eating grass like sheep.” More than a million died from cold or starvation.
Then there was “eighteen-hundred and froze-to-death.” That was the “year without summer” in America, or 1816. Severe summer climate abnormalities destroyed crops in Northern Europe, Eastern Canada and the Northeast United States. It is attributed to low solar activity combined with the a series of volcanic eruptions from 1812 to 1814, capped by a huge eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia. There was widespread famine in China.
In America farmers, wiped out in New England, struck out for the richer soils of the Midwest. The “Year Without a Summer” accounted for much of the settlement of the Upper Midwest — which was then the Northwest Territory — but the effects of the cold were far more widespread than that.
If you remember Dr. Michael Mann’s “hockey-stick” graph that has caused so much trouble, you will remember that it was given that name because the record of temperatures moved along in a pretty steady state like the handle of a hockey stick before suddenly shooting up in drastic warming in the 20th century. I say “trouble” because the UN’s IPCC based much of its assessment of the climate on that particular graph. And that is part of what proved to be so fraudulent in the climate scandal called “ClimateGate.”
The hockey-stick graph had already been completely discredited when mathematician Stephen McIntyre demonstrated that the math didn’t work; but until the exposure of the ClimateGate emails and code fraud no one was admitting that it was hooey. The culprits at Hadley CRU were trying to eliminate the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age from history, and profiting professionally and monetarily at the expense of science, their peers, the world’s governments and the world’s taxpayers. Governments have a lot invested in the income that might be incoming from cap-and-trade schemes and fees and taxes. They will not give up easily.
Science students who spend all their time in the lab, may be unaware of Viking settlements in Greenland — beginning around 972 AD — or be unfamiliar with the Norse Eddas or Chaucer or the writings of someone like William Derham, the Rector of Upminster— a short ride north-east of London — who had been checking his thermometer and barometer three times a day since 1687. Others in Europe recorded their observations. Ships captains documented the weather in their logs on a daily basis, and those logs are proving to be an amazing resource for scientists who are looking for more detail of the history of climate.
Al Gore might take note that cold is far, far worse than hot weather.
American Elephants 