The transformation of Robin Hood during the French Revolution

In modern times, "Robin Hood" is synonymous with robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. But originally, that's not what he stood for. Ironically, in general he stood for the opposite, as the mode and method by which the "rich" got that way was excessive taxation primarily through the oppression of King John. This transformation took place right at the end of the 1700s in the middle of the French Revolution, through the work of one man: Joseph Ritson. Dr. Matthew PhillPott, a researcher at the University of London in the Institute of Historical Research, asks the question "When did Robin Hood start giving to the poor?" and goes on to explain:

One man in particular can be credited with drawing out this moral aspect to Robin’s tales. That man is Joseph Ritson (1752-1803), a Jacobin from Stockton-on-Tees, who collected together all of the remaining extent materials relating to the Robin Hood legend and published them in two volumes in 1795.

Dr. Phillpott quotes from Ritson then explains:

Ritson’s interest in Robin Hood stemmed from his political opinions and fitted into the context of his times.

And "fitted into the context of his times". There's a word for this. That's called revisionism - historical revisionism. That's what Ritson engaged in, in order to release the focus from how the rich got that way - taxation - to merely a focus on their greed and simple size of their monetary holdings.

Historian Stephanie Barczewski, a professor of History now at the University of Clemson agrees, writing:

Not surprisingly, Ritson issued his collection of Robin Hood ballads with a polemical introduction which used the legend as a vessel for expressing his political ideas.

Professor Barczewski highlights a letter of Ritson's where he explains why Robin Hood could be empowered to rob from the rich and give to the poor. Ritson wrote that it was:

That same power which authorises kings to take it where it can be worst spared, and give it where it is least wanted.

In other words, Joseph Ritson saw that the kings were redistributing wealth upward, and thought that it ought to be redistributed the other way. True to the nature of revolutionaries, Ritson wanted revenge. Robin Hood was his vessel to achieve that revenge.

J.C. Holt, a professor of history at the University of Cambridge, wrote an exhaustive study of Robin Hood in 1982 in which he observed the following:

With [Martin] Parker, Robin's Gifts to the poor illustrate Christian charity and penitence for crime rather than any deliberately conceived social policy.

This is critical to understanding the entire Robin Hood lore as it evolved, in particular how it became a point on the political map. Not too much is known about Martin Parker, but professor Holt has one very succinct thing to say about him: "Parker was no revolutionary" It doesn't get any more plain than that. According to Holt, Parker's ballad expansions that stress kindness to poor people were unmoving which "failed to spread into the popular tales which became its common jargon." Again, quoting Holt: "He [Ritson] certainly reconstructed him[Robin Hood] in the image of a radical".

Holt concludes with the following comparative observation about Parker and Ritson:

He became an ardent royalist, best remembered for his When the King Enjoys His Own Again. Ritson was different. Politically, in different circumstances a century and a half later, he went the other way, and transformed Robin into a social rebel.

Three historians, and Ritson himself explaining why he transformed Robin Hood.

Since Ritson, Robin Hood has lost much of his government-oriented connection; that is in relation to specifically government-oriented enemies. The King. The Sheriff, and later officials from the established state-church. These days it could be Robin Hood stealing from Big Oil, from bankers, from pretty much any corporate entity you could name. Robin Hood the social rebel begins with Joseph Ritson. Not with the original lore.

With fake history, as it is with fake news, truth is not the truth

In understanding the fake news that pervades every day life, it is important to understand the fake history which is fueling it. The problem here, is the mistaken belief that all fake history can be sourced back to Howard Zinn's publication of A People's History of the United States.

The critical flaw with this is that Zinn's book was published in 1980, and even those who claim that all of our ills can be traced back to the 1960's can't make this timeline work. The progressives, however, have been manipulating the historical record in a major way since 1913. Preceding Zinn's book by 67 years, Charles Beard practically admits to his scheme with the title of his most well known work An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. "An economic interpretation" is in actuality a re-interpretation - the first of its kind for Americans - under the sole basis that money rules all. A People's History, it can be truthfully stated, is nothing more than the offspring of a much earlier progenitor.

Early in its pages (page 90) A People's History embraces its heritage, quoting directly from the economic re-interpretation. On page 13 of An Economic Interpretation,(as quoted in People's) Beard wrote the following:

Inasmuch as the primary object of a government, beyond the mere repression of physical violence, is the making of the rules which determine the property relations of members of society, the dominant classes whose rights are thus to be determined must perforce obtain from the government such rules as are consonant with the larger interests necessary to the continuance of their economic processes, or they must themselves control the organs of government.

Progressives just cannot handle the concept that government's job is to protect our liberties. It just can't be that, because in the progressive view all rights come from government anyways. It all has to be about money, right, this is a capitalist society, after all. Such flaws in the progressive reasoning. Such profound, staggering flaws.

Reading the introductory pages of Beard's work is very illuminating, as is the rest of the work, because while the arguments we face today have reached their maturity you can see those very same arguments in a more juvenile form right there on his pages.

The most interesting part of Beard's book is that as he introduces three theories of history, his being the third, he can't even give it a name. It's that new. Today we would know it under the name of Critical Theory, but back then it was something..... something, anything we can get onto paper, anything we can grow with, make progress with. Something that can be a brand new beacon with which to remake the very historical record itself. Taken in full, Zinn's book is quite insignificant by comparison.

The progressives knew: We can't make progress until the American people forget about the founding - and the people can't forget it until we force them to forget it. This won't be forgotten, it must be maliciously erased.

And starting with Beard, they did just that. What makes it so devious is the patient and surreptitious nature of how they set out - and achieved their purpose. The most dangerous aspect of progressivism is their patience. They make plans that outlive their human lifespans.

The time is long overdue to abolish the FDA.

In the last several days I've had four different people in discussions about what is going on with cigar regulations. For whatever reason, this story has people talking. On the surface, that's great. The devastation that government regulation wreaks upon our society normally goes unnoticed.

But my answer to solve the problem is one that nobody ever considers: Abolish the Food and Drug Administration. And I know what thoughts people have in their minds because I can see the look of surprise on their faces: "But what about our food?" "what about drug safety?" These and other questions just like them only prove just how well progressives have embedded themselves within our culture. We simply do not need government controlling every aspect of our lives.

Yes, I said control, because that's the real reason why the FDA was invented in the first place. The early progressives are just like today's progressives. They didn't care about our food. What they saw was an opportunity. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. They even admit it. All of this government usurpation of our food arguably got started with the book "The Jungle", by Upton Sinclair. Sinclair famously stated that "I aimed for the public's heart, and hit it in the stomach". Translation: I was malcontenting for ways to make government bigger and help out my union thug friends, and ended up creating a new kind of opportunity in the process. So I really don't need to hear from anybody that the progressives are oh-so-caring and just had our best interests at heart with their creation of the FDA.

And even if you're the kind of person who refuses to look at ideology, acknowledge the motivation that ideology has in people's lives - even if you would rather play hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil about progressivism, the results of the FDA are just as obvious.

To the progressives, attacking industry is all that matters. That's why they use an organization originally put together for FOOD as a weapon against a non food maker. When is the last time you saw someone eating a cigar? Well the FDA doesn't care about that. They just care about their power. The FDA has proven to be untrustworthy.

And it's not like this is some lone isolated case. Cases like this happen routinely in whatever form they manifest themselves. And then there's the arbitrary roadblocks for experimental medicine. But these one-off examples are actually a distraction. If the progressives couldn't use the FDA for their attacks, they would probably use the ATF to get it done. For them, it's a big fat whatever. They know the media will cover for them anyways.

"But can't we just fix the FDA instead of some extreme measure like abolishing it?" What's broken about it, exactly? The FDA is doing exactly what the progressives designed it for in the first place. It's putting controls into society for the purposes of whatever goals the progressives have in any given month or decade. Oh you meant just fixing the FDA so that it only actually focuses in on Food and Drugs and nothing else? But that's not its true purpose. We have over 100 years of progressivism now to prove this. We have their words to prove it, in book after book after book. Progressives have only ever cared about control and the proof is also everywhere you look.

I would argue that the FDA was the progressive movement's first step toward government control of healthcare in the United States. When did we get the FDA? 1906. When did the progressives start calling for government healthcare? 1912. Anybody who understands progressivism knows that's not a coincidence. It only took them six years to "make progress" and move on to their next goal of usurpation. What about the D in FDA? Does that have anything to do with health or healthcare?

The FDA and the long road to government control of healthcare is actually a tale of progressive greed. Enough is never enough with these people. They simply check off a box, and move on to the next thing hoping to gain more control. They don't just say "We want to control your food, but just your food. After that we're done! We swear! Honest! We won't ask to control anything else, never dream of it! We honestly do not have any other ambitions in your private life." The fact is that the progressives just keep on plotting and scheming and intriguing over the next target.

You want to put a significant crater in the move toward socialized medicine? Then your top priority is the abolition of the FDA. Go right for the source, the foundation. Go for the jugular.

Benjamin Franklin was not referring to the Patriot Act, he was referring to Obamacare

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"

What does this quote mean? It doesn't mean anything, when it is disconnected with the full of its author's words. Franklin wrote this in his Reply to the Governor in 1755, but how many people even know that? His letter is less than 2000 words, so it is not a long read. I recommend everybody read the full letter, because that is to the detriment of progressivism.

So, what does this quote mean? It only, only means what Franklin himself meant at the time he wrote it. It does not mean anything else. Here is a large part of what Franklin wrote to the Governor, in 1755:

Our Assemblies have of late had so many Supply Bills, and of such different Kinds, rejected on various Pretences; Some for not complying with obsolete occasional Instructions (tho’ other Acts exactly of the same Tenor had been past since those Instructions, and received the Royal Assent;) Some for being inconsistent with the supposed Spirit of an Act of Parliament, when the Act itself did not any way affect us, being made expresly for other Colonies; Some for being, as the Governor was pleased to say, “of an extraordinary Nature,” without informing us wherein that extraordinary Nature consisted; and others for disagreeing with new discovered Meanings, and forced Constructions of a Clause in the Proprietary Commission; that we are now really at a Loss to divine what Bill can possibly pass. The proprietary Instructions are Secrets to us; and we may spend much Time, and much of the Publick Money, in preparing and framing Bills for Supply, which, after all, must, from those Instructions, prove abortive. If we are thus to be driven from Bill to Bill, without one solid Reason afforded us; and can raise no Money for the King’s Service, and Relief or Security of our Country, till we fortunately hit on the only Bill the Governor is allowed to pass, or till we consent to make such as the Governor or Proprietaries direct us to make, we see little Use of Assemblies in this Particular; and think we might as well leave it to the Governor or Proprietaries to make for us what Supply Laws they please, and save ourselves and the Country the Expence and Trouble. All Debates and all Reasonings are vain, where Proprietary Instructions, just or unjust, right or wrong, must inviolably be observed. We have only to find out, if we can, what they are, and then submit and obey. But surely the Proprietaries Conduct, whether as Fathers of their Country, or Subjects to their King, must appear extraordinary, when it is considered that they have not only formally refused to bear any Part of our yearly heavy Expences in cultivating and maintaining Friendship with the Indians, tho’ they reap such immense Advantages by that Friendship; but they now, by their Lieutenant, refuse to contribute any Part towards resisting an Invasion of the King’s Colony, committed to their Care; or to submit their Claim of Exemption to the Decision of their Sovereign.

In fine, we have the most sensible Concern for the poor distressed Inhabitants of the Frontiers. We have taken every Step in our Power, consistent with the just Rights of the Freemen of Pennsylvania, for their Relief, and we have Reason to believe, that in the Midst of their Distresses they themselves do not wish us to go farther. Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Such as were inclined to defend themselves, but unable to purchase Arms and Ammunition, have, as we are informed, been supplied with both, as far as Arms could be procured, out of Monies given by the last Assembly for the King’s Use; and the large Supply of Money offered by this Bill, might enable the Governor to do every Thing else that should be judged necessary for their farther Security, if he shall think fit to accept it.

So, what is he talking about?

He is talking about wealth redistribution, in the context of the legislation itself. What was the Pennsylvania legislature doing at the time? Franklin describes how they were putting together "Supply bills". Supplying what, exactly? It was appropriating money and handing out guns to people who seemingly needed them to fight against the invading British French and Indians. But as Franklin made clear, the people in question not only left the responsibility to others to procure their guns, but they also left the responsibility of actively defending themselves to others.

Now I know a lot of you are going to be shocked to learn that an American government was using wealth redistribution as a means to hand out guns to some of the citizens, but Franklin makes it clear that they were not exactly bitter clingers here. They weren't interested in lifting a finger for themselves in this context. And we shouldn't have a government that redistributes money for guns. Franklin is correct here. Wealth redistribution is evil, and the object sought is completely irrelevant.

He does have a different context for this quote as well, it should be stated. He also means a reference to these people who were beneficiaries of the new colonies, but would not help defend those colonies. They sought safety and security instead with the British crown. But because the King did not represent Liberty and was not offering it either, these people deserved neither safety nor liberty. In this context its actually quite brilliant. To use a word, these people were punks. But I digress.

Let's compare the Patriot Act with Obamacare.

Does the Patriot Act redistribute wealth? No, it does not.

Does Obamacare redistribute wealth? Yes, it does.

Not only that, but a large portion of the arguments surrounding Obamacare are rooted in safety and security. The arguments sound a little like this:

"My family ...... safety and security ...... in times of job loss ...... "

"The evil corporations ........ keep raising their prices ...... we need to be safe from them ......"

We have heard them all and we have heard others as well. There's the constant caterwauling about people who can never afford any kind of healthcare, and are thus insecure. And then there's this: Gallup and other polling agencies are out there running polls from time to time about "healthcare insecurity"!

Well guess what Gallup. Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

So then at the end of the day, by definition, Franklin could not have been referring to something like the Patriot Act. To claim as such, is taking him out of context.

Herbert Hoover and the largest tax increase in American History

I like how the constant harping and carping about tariffs these days gets invoked together with fearmongering about Smoot Hawley and the Great Depression. What is missing? The Revenue Act of 1932. After the 1929 crash there was a small tax cut, but this was overshadowed by Smoot Hawley just months later. In the middle of bad economic times, you simply don't raise taxes, and yes, a tariff is a tax. But let's get to the meat of the numbers, shall we?

The Revenue Acts of 1918 and 1921 had a top tax rate of 73%.

The Revenue Act of 1924 reduced this to a top tax rate of 46%.

The Revenue Act of 1926 reduced this again to a top tax rate of 25%.

It was not raised from this number until The Revenue Act of 1932, which had a top tax rate of 63%. This was lower than the ninteen-teens tax rates of 73%, but considering the jump of 25% to 63%, this is over a 100% increase and it indeed was at the time the largest peacetime tax increase in American history.

But that is not what we received in 2017. For all its flaws, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act does a reverse-Hoover by lowering taxes. I can explain; there is a certain formula here:

1929: poor economy, raising tariffs, largest tax increase in American history. (From what I can tell, they were not lowering burdensome regulations in 1929 either)

2017/2018: decent economy, raising tariffs, lowering taxes as well as lowering regulation.

See the stark differences here? Most of the time we hear that these tariffs should not exist and they will only lead to trade wars and other issues. But in reality it is the 16th amendment which should be repealed. The only thing they get correct when talking about this issue is that a mixture of income taxes and tariffs is a deadly combo. They should not be mixed. But it isn't the tariffs which should be eliminated, it is the income tax which should die a horrible and bloody death.

The Founding Fathers used tariffs as the only (or at least main) form of taxation, and that is probably the most proper way of taxation. The irony of tariffs is that they are in general taxes only on the rich - the problem is that it does not grant the kind of authoritarian domestic controls that income taxes bring, which is really what the progressives love and seek.

Even with taxes, the issue is not actually the issue. For progressives, control is the issue and control is always the real issue. Everything else is merely window dressing. It's always been about control and it has been this way going back to 1906 when income taxes were first proposed by the president in his SOTU that year. It's all about control.

Who was the first President to implement price controls?

The more I research progressivism to discover ways to use their history against them, the more I understand why nobody's ever really done this before. Nobody actually wants the answer to the question because it always leads back to Theodore Roosevelt.

In today's episode of erased history, or how American progressive historians have turned TR's legacy into the American version of a picture missing Nikolai Yezhov, we examine how price controls, contrary to popular belief, was not first implemented by Nixon, or Franklin Roosevelt, or even Woodrow Wilson as a part of the effort for World War I. But it was, naturally, the offspring of authoritarian progressivism. The first progressive is the one who gave us this nonsense. These progressives, they just couldn't wait to take control of everything.

You see, price controls were first implemented in the mix of Theodore Roosevelt's anti-capitalist efforts. Specifically, the war on railroads. The year was 1906. The act was the Hepburn Act. Judge Napolitano, a brave man for taking on TR's legacy and doing the job that most mainstream historians just do not want to do, describes it thusly:

The Hepburn Act gave the Interstate Commerce Commission(ICC) the power to set maximum rates for railroads

In other words, price controls. Which have never worked btw. Price controls are a guaranteed 100% failure of a policy and it was also a failure for TR. In the end, the railroad companies were so damaged by the totality of Hepburn that it gave rise to the modern trucking industry as we know it today.(I wrote about this about a year and a half ago, here) The FTC is quite proud of this legacy of price fixing, as they write here in a suspicious little footnote: (p. 19)

Most significantly, the 1906 Hepburn Act (different from the 1908 Hepburn Bill, discussed infra) empowered the ICC to replace existing rates, upon complaint, with “reasonable” maxima

Yeah right. If you like your railroad rates, you can keep your railroad rates. We know what the progressives consider to be "reasonable" and its never reasonable. But notice their play on words. To "replace existing rates". They could have just said price controls. Theodore Roosevelt even wrote in his own Autobiography, the following: (page 560)

I have always believed that it would also be necessary to give the National Government complete power over the organization and capitalization of all business concerns engaged in inter-State commerce.

Go ahead and show me any big time TR historian who has collected this information and presented the big-government progressive side of our 26th president. I've never seen it. The world has never seen this. We have been lied to on a grand scale by progressives.

As far as the progressive historians are concerned, Theodore Roosevelt was just a great guy. He was just an outdoorsman. Isn't that great? He was just almost assassinated, but nothing more. He even kept speaking! Wasn't he great? Strenuous lifestyle! Strenuous lifestyle! Strenuous lifestyle! In no way shape or form should you ever examine his substantive political record, in no way should you ever examine big government. Shame on you.

Well, shame on me anyways. And it's a shame I proudly wear. Sunlight is the best disinfectant and we've got ourselves a century's old outbreak of progressive bacteria to cleanse. You don't just mow a stubborn garden weed and then hope it goes away. You have to destroy the roots.

Constitution? Not important.

In his book "Progressive Democracy" (1914), Herbert Croly wrote the following: (page 29)

As in the case of every great political edifice, the materials composing the American system are derived from many different sources, and are characterized by unequal values, both as to endurance and as to latent possibilities. The appearance of definiteness and finality which it derives from its embodiment in specific constitutional documents and other authoritative words is to a large extent illusory. Its real origin and meaning are very much more doubtful and complex than these words intimate. Historians are no more agreed as to the former than political theorists are to the latter.

So what do we take from this? The Constitution, well that's not important. It cannot be, if its authority is largely illusory. Additionally, the rise of the professional (progressive) historian brought disagreement, because they too didn't see anything worthy in the Constitution. This benefits political authors and journalists who also have a similar mindset, because now they don't have to point to a friend they work with, they can point to some "distant" "expert" who by only a surface-level examination appears to be unbiased. So wink wink, nod nod over here, wink wink nod nod over there, everybody is in agreement - the Constitution sucks. These are old, outmoded ideals and we should progress toward something which is clearly better. We should progress toward something which is more concrete and not an illusion. Three pages in, Croly clarifies:

Emphatic, however, as was this assertion of its direct control over its own political institutions by the primitive American democracy, its willingness to restrict its own effective political power was no less definite and insistent. It did not show the slightest disposition to translate this supposedly effective popular control over the institutes of government into active popular control over governmental behavior. The democracy abdicated the continuing active exercise of effective power in the very act of affirming the reality of its own ultimate legal authority.

So you see, the illusion is the contradictory assertion of direct control, but yet a restriction on its own power. You need full total control, nothing less! Without full total control, that's the illusion. It's an abdication of effective power, that's what he's saying. The Constitution is, in his view, not important because it's a joke.

People with a mindset such as this cannot understand governmental limitations. Government is force, and these were the people, these progressives, who were born to be our masters. Government should be big, it should be unlimited, and of course! it should be the progressives who are in power until eternity.

https://tinyurl.com/y9rhxxsa

They're still lying and calling us anti-government. But we are Tea Partiers, and we love government

If you love the United States Constitution, then by definition you love government. That's what the Constitution does. It creates a government.

What we as Tea Partiers do not love is progressivism or any other movement and/or ideology that seeks to pervert the Constitution and build government that will control every aspect of our lives.

Loving government doesn't mean loving big government. We do not love big out of control bloated disrespectful government. But anti-government means anarchy, and Tea Partiers are not anarchists. Anarchists do not love the United States Constitution. This is ground where we cannot under any circumstances find a place to compromise. The Constitution is a hill worth fighting on, it is a hill worth dying on.

See the first ten words of this article. Garbage in, garbage out.

We are Tea Partiers, and we love the United States Constitution. It cannot, therefore, be stated otherwise: We love government.

The constitution and the second amendment: "It always has been up for reinterpretation"

Has it? In case you didn't notice, Representative Bill Foster believes in word substitution and the living and breathing constitutional doctrine. He said:

It always has been up for reinterpretation. The technology changes, and the weapons thought to be too dangerous to be in private hands change. A civil war cannon is frankly much less dangerous than weapons we are allowed to carry on the streets in many of the states and cities in our country today. This is something where technology changes and public attitude changes and both are important in each of the generations.

Of course, if one part of the Constitution is up for reinterpretation, the whole thing is. But that's less important than the fact that Representative Foster is disagreeing with his own forefathers here. He would have you believe that the Constitution has always been living and breathing - this is a common refrain with progressives. They want to push this ideal that what they believe, the progressives, that's how it has always been. Well, a historian worth his salt would see through this. His own founding fathers, in the early 1900s, sung a very different tune. As I pointed out in January, in 1912, the constitution was not "living and breathing". Here is a brief snippet of what the progressives' own founding fathers were saying:

Can a practically unamendable constitution, adopted in the conditions and under the influences of the political thought prevailing at the end of the eighteenth century, be adapted by judicial interpretation to the needs and thought of the twentieth century without causing us to lose the advantages which are commonly regarded as attached to a written constitution?

That's Frank Johnson Goodnow, who was at one point President of John's Hopkins University. Walter Weyl, who quotes (agreeing with) Goodnow in a different writing: (page 111)

According to Prof. Frank J. Goodnow, there are some measures " which many believe to be absolutely necessary either now or in the future . . . which we in the United States are probably precluded from adopting because of the attitude now taken by the courts towards our practically unamendable federal constitution."

Charles Beard, one of the first revisionist historians of progressivism, wrote the following: (page 56)

The new Constitution bound every state to an amendment, in case it was approved bv two-thirds of both houses of Congress and ratified by three-fourths of the states. Even this system, as events have proved, has required such extraordinary majorities as to make amendments by regular process well-nigh impossible.

The Progressive(Bull Moose) Party platform of 1912 laid out in its platform the necessity of easier amendment - the first plank! Additionally, Roosevelt talked about the importance of this, such as:

We propose to make the process of Constitutional amendment far easier, speedier, and simpler than at present.

Bill Foster believes it was always open to reinterpretation and change.

The original progressives did not believe it was always open to reinterpretation and whined that it was impossible to change.

Both cannot be correct.

https://tinyurl.com/yc827nq5

What would Patrick Henry's opinion of the Incorporation Doctrine be?

Founding Father Patrick Henry famously proclaimed "I smell a rat!"

What did it smell like? What was that rat's name? What was the rat's color: brown or grey? What was the rat's purpose? The rat's purpose really is the only important question here. I asked the other questions mainly in jest.

Welcome to the 6th and final posting in this series examining the claims that progressives make in regard to Marbury vs Madison. In parts 1 through 5, I mainly examined some of the inconsistencies relating to the progressives' claims. Here in part 6 I highlight where the problem actually exists. To put it simply: It's not Marbury that's the problem, it's the Incorporation Doctrine.

So, let's start here: what was the rat's purpose? In 1789, not everybody was so willing to trust the newly formed Constitution that had just been forged in Philadelphia. The rat, Henry believed, was a move toward tyrannical government. This post directly relates to the last posting in this series, in that the purpose of a bill of rights is central, and its purpose is as a limitation.

Why did Patrick Henry and others demand a bill of rights? In Patrick Henry's view, the Bill of Rights was necessary because it's function, it's only function, was to limit the power of the general government about to be established. Henry believed the Bill of Rights to be rat poison.

But wait a second. The courts tell us that because of the Incorporation Doctrine, the Bill of Rights UNLIMITS the government's power to command the states? What would Patrick Henry think of that? What would Patrick Henry say about the courts invention, this Incorporation Doctrine, which they claim is related to the 14th amendment,(but in reality is not, read the debate notes when they created the 14th amendment) and now the Bill of Rights is being used as a weapon against the very states he wanted to protect, with the very same Bill of Rights!

Think of that. Patrick Henry must be rolling over in his grave in the context of the notion of this Incorporation Doctrine. So for those who may not know, what is this Incorporation Doctrine anyways? Here is how the lawyers at the American Bar Association describe Incorporation:

“Since the Fourth Amendment’s right of privacy has been declared enforceable against the States through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth, it is enforceable against them by the same sanction of exclusion as is used against the Federal Government,” wrote the Court.

Emanations and penumbras, my friend, emanations and penumbras. Notice the slimy language of this quote? It says "enforceable against them" ("them" being the states) and also "against the Federal Government". Now I may have been born last week, but I'm not a fool. Which court wrote this anyways? Oh yeah, the Supreme court. That's from the case Mapp v. Ohio. But there's just one problem with this. This is a Federal court saying this. So no, the Bill of Rights in the Federal Constitution is not being used both ways, it's expressly being used as a weapon against the states and only the states. Don't think I'm stating my case properly?

What's the most notorious incorporation case in U.S. history? If you said Roe v. Wade, you are correct. A cursory examination of the effects of Roe lead to an undeniable truth: Roe has placed no limitations upon the federal government. The feds have found nearly unlimited powers at the expense of the states and localities. There's nothing limiting the feds here, they are unlimited!

The point is this. The progressives are fantastic liars. They have many people hating on a case, Marbury v. Madison, that is (if you read the text of Marbury) not in any way related to the judicial problems we currently have. Judge Marshall specifically states just the opposite: We judges do not have the power to make law as we choose. What that means is that America would be a great place if we lived in a Marbury world, but we don't. We live in an Incorporation world.

The Bill of Rights exists expressly and solely to limit the power of the federal government and allow the states to flourish. But since the creation of the Incorporation Doctrine, the Bill of Rights exists expressly and solely to steamroll the state governments. Take a look at another Incorporation case, Everson v. Board of Education with its misquoted "Wall of Separation". How would Patrick Henry, a deeply Christian citizen, how would he respond to not only the perversion of the Bill of Rights into a weapon against his state and other states, but used expressly as a weapon against the faithful? When the Bill of Rights was first submitted to the states, there were 12 recommendations. But it wasn't just a randomized list of 12. It also had a preamble. That preamble states:

The conventions of a number of the states having, at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added; and as extending the ground of public confidence in the government will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution; (source)

Did you notice that the only capitalized word is "Constitution"? Read the source, that's not my work.

The problem we have is not Marbury. It's incorporation. The Incorporation Doctrine takes the 14th amendment out of context, it takes the Bill of Rights out of context, it completely ignores the original stated purpose of the Bill of Rights per this preamble, and it takes most of our other Founders' writings out of context as well. Consider this: When the Supreme Court cited Jefferson's Danbury letter in the 1878 Reynolds case, how many words did they quote? One hundred and thirty five. How many words of Jefferson's Danbury letter were used in the Everson case? Eight. That's all, just eight. They will take whatever out of context that they have to if it justifies their social justice cause.

With the Incorporation Doctrine, the Bill of Rights gives the federal government unlimited powers to lord over the states and ultimately, to lord over you. That's not what the Founders intended. That's not what the preamble indicates. That is more than anything else, was what Patrick Henry feared. Henry's proclamation may be the most visible personal example of the fears our Founders truely felt, but not a single one of the Founders had it in mind for the Bill of Rights to be used to squelch the states. The Bill of Rights was invented was to squelch the general government.

As I stated toward the beginning, Henry found a rat, and he believed the Bill of Rights to be rat poison. But because of the Incorporation Doctrine, the Bill of Rights is now poison for the states and food for the rat.

https://tinyurl.com/y9z4zu3h

What is the purpose of a bill of rights anyways? To expand government? Or to limit it?

In parts 1 through 4 of this series (Scroll to the bottom for more detail about the parts) I have been examining progressivism and its relation (or lack therof) to the 1803 court ruling Marbury vs Madison.

Here in part 5, I just want to ask two questions. First, what is the purpose of a bill of rights? We could be talking about the Bill of Rights of the Federal Constitution, or the Bill of Rights that exists in your State constitution. It doesn't matter really, where that bill of rights happens to exist.

What is it for: Is it there to expand the power of government and give them more power over jurisdictions which more local than itself? Or is said bill of rights there so that the people know what they should expect, and therefore to limit the power of government?

I'll state it plainly what I believe: I believe that a bill of rights exists for the purpose of setting limits to the government to which it is attached.

My follow up question is this: If a bill of rights, intended to limit government authority, is perverted into becoming an object that expands governmental power, is it no longer a bill of rights for the people? Does it then become a bill of rights for the government? As we come to the conclusion of this series, this is a very important question to cover.

In part 1 of this series, I asked one very simple question: Are progressives telling the truth about Marbury?

In part 2, I examined the gap between the activist cases of the early-mid 1900s and the 1803 ruling.

In part 3, the negative and positive aspects of how the Marbury ruling functioned were examined.

In part 4, the constitutionality of the judiciary act was examined.

Yes, this series is getting rather long, but I assure you it is going somewhere.

https://tinyurl.com/y89d4a5z

The Origin of Progressive Hostility

There's an article recently written on a website Quillette titled The Psychology of Progressive Hostility which is very well written, I highly recommend it. One part of the article asks the following question: "So how and why have these activists become so intolerant and horrible to deal with?"

It is questions like that that this blog are built around. Due to the progressives' complete dominance of academia(history) and media(journalism), I think it is safe to say that progressivism is the least understood ideology of modern history.

For what the article is and how it is set out to examine what it examines, I could not have written it this well. That simple, I could not even have come close. That's not to say it isn't without fault, for example, when I see someone quote Mill I immediately roll my eyes. However, my main goal is to highlight the origin of progressive history, which is conspicuously absent from the article.

In short, the origin of progressive history can be summed up into one single word: rejection. That is the origin of progressive hostility.

That's it. Rejection. Before being rejected, progressives loved and I mean LOVED America - at least, loved its government and what they could do with it. Read speeches from Woodrow Wilson or Theodore Roosevelt, there is no bitterness whatsoever to be found. Progressive ideology was at its height, they were open about being progressive, and nobody could stop them, and their tone reflects this.

That came to an end in the election of 1920. There is so, so much to learn from the election of 1920. The progressives were beaten so badly, that the only way progressives could become viable again is to put on a mask and usurp the word "Liberalism" as their new home. This happened by 1932.

Think about that. Who is your worst arch-nemesis? What if Rand Paul had to wear a mask of that guy - his next door neighbor who put him in the hospital, or if Steve Scalise had to wear a mask of James Hodgkinson? What if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had to wear a Benjamin Netanyahu mask? What if Donald Trump had to wear a Hillary mask?

You get the idea. Your rejection is so complete that you had to look like the exact opposite, otherwise face extinction. Yeah, that would piss you off too. That's what the progressives have had to deal with since the 1930s. That is the origin of progressive hostility.

And to top it all off? The progressives first time in 90 something years that the they start to take their "liberal" masks off and start calling themselves progressive again, as represented by the Hillary campaign. And they lost again. To Donald Trump of all people! (Who in the progressives' minds, is the lowest of the low)

Yeah. You'd be hostile too. This must mean that you need to wear a mask again for yet another 90 years. Who WOULDN'T be pissed and hostile about that? This is why their pitch gets so much worse after 2016. It's 1920 all over again! I challenge anybody, ANYBODY, go read Wilson's or TR's speeches, read their books. You will not find any bitterness. Contrast that with the progressives of today, and the comparison could not be more stark.

There's a strong link between rejection, bitterness, and ultimately hostility. And this is their history. The progressives own it.

https://tinyurl.com/ybdf3mnw

Marbury v. Madison: Was the 1789 Judiciary act actually unconstitutional?

In part 1 of this series, I asked one very simple question: Are progressives telling the truth about Marbury?

In part 2, I examined the gap between the activist cases of the early-mid 1900s and the 1803 ruling.

In part 3, the negative and positive aspects of how the Marbury ruling functioned were examined.

Here in part 4, we will look at the constitution and look at the judiciary act.

Since we know that progressives don't tell the truth about anything, then we have to start from square one. Why this is important, is progressives have long linked judicial activism to Marbury as the home of every scheme they've devised, but the more I look into it, the less I can see this is true. I'm quite certain you won't conclude that the progressives are being honest either. Why would anybody ever conclude that?

There are three major pieces here. First, here is section 13 of the judiciary act:

SEC . 13. And be it further enacted, That the Supreme Court shall have exclusive jurisdiction of all controversies of a civil nature, where a state is a party, except between a state and its citizens; and except also between a state and citizens of other states, or aliens, in which latter case it shall have original but not exclusive jurisdiction. And shall have exclusively all such jurisdiction of suits or proceedings against ambassadors, or other public ministers, or their domestics, or domestic servants, as a court of law can have or exercise consistently with the law of nations; and original, but not exclusive jurisdiction of all suits brought by ambassadors, or other public ministers, or in which a consul, or vice consul, shall be a party. And the trial of issues in fact in the Supreme Court, in all actions at law against citizens of the United States, shall be by jury. The Supreme Court shall also have appellate jurisdiction from the circuit courts and courts of the several states, in the cases herein after specially provided for; and shall have power to issue writs of prohibition to the district courts, when proceeding as courts of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, and writs of mandamus, in cases warranted by the principles and usages of law, to any courts appointed, or persons holding office, under the authority of the United States.

Then, here is a portion of article III, Sec. 2:

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

Finally, William Marbury filed his claim straight to the Supreme Court under section 13.

It does appear to me that the 1789 act grants extra-constitutional powers in regard to mandamus. That puts congress in the wrong here. It does not benefit the liberty of the people to have any branch of government stepping outside of its constitutional bounds, be it the courts, congress, or the president.

Understanding the constitution as well as the judiciary act itself does not vindicate judge Marshall. Maybe to you it does, but that's not why I'm doing this. Progressives use the courts to create new legislation in a positive way, wheras Marshall did no such thing. The constitution does not, in fact, give the legislature the right to say that the courts can originate mandamus.

That would require an amendment. Congress does not have the ability to amend the constitution on its own by simple legislation and neither do the courts. Looking at the text of what Marshall actually wrote, that was not his intent nor his result. The progressives have indeed pulled a fast one here.

https://tinyurl.com/yacezj9h

Is "Judicial Review" a negative power or a positive power?

In part 1 of this series, I asked one very simple question: "Are progressives telling the truth about Marbury?"

In part 2, I examined the gap between the activist cases of the early-mid 1900s and the 1803 ruling.

Here in part 3, the negative and positive aspects are examined.

The negative power to say something is unconstitutional is clearly a different animal than the positive power of cooking up whole new legislation. It is not uncommon to read or hear judicial review cast as a veto or a nullification - a negative - and with a view on Marbury veto and nullify are two words which are both fairly accurate terms to use.

I'm not saying that I wholly agree with judicial nullification of laws, however, we have yet another huge gap to examine. That gap is the gap between negative judicial vetos, as exists with Marbury, and positive judicial law creations, such as Miranda v. Arizona. Is that a bad example? How about Roe v. Wade? I'm sure I could find others where "the law of the land" has absolutely zero legislation backing it.

The point is this: We have three separate terms which I will examine here. Those terms are

1) Judicial Review

2) Judicial Activism

3) Judicial Supremacy

There is a huge difference between a case that is horrible and rotten such as Dredd Scott and a case like Miranda. Dredd Scott, while one of if not perhaps the worst case to ever come out of the court, is not a judicial review case.(or more precisely, I have not found any source which calls Dredd Scott a judicial review case) It is, at the end of the day, "simply" horrible judicial outcome. Miranda, on the other hand, is an affront to the constitution. Ironically, it's actually also an affront to Marbury.

Can anybody point to me the new law that was manufactured out of Marbury? Because I can't find any. I can find, however, a law that was negatived by Marbury on the grounds that said law was unconstitutional.

This is a negative vs a positive. This is important to understand, because Judicial Supremacy means that the judiciary is the most supreme, even more supreme than the constitution itself. If a judicial body has the ability create new legislation and to re-write the constitution any time it sees fit, then it is practicing judicial supremacy. The constitution is not supreme here, the court is supreme.

The concept of judicial activism really has no definition and for many, the term is thrown around based on if one does or does not like the results of any particular case. Anything can be activist, regardless of the constitutional aspect.

Finally, the concept of judicial review. Let's be real, not only did the Founders discuss it at the Convention, it also existed prior to Marbury.(See the Hylton case) At the end of the day, Marbury manufactured no new laws out of whole cloth. The power to negative is clearly and plainly different than the power to positive.

Miranda created new law. Roe created new law. Obergefell created new law. There are dozens of others.

Let's cite a little bit of Marbury here. Marshall wrote:

The Constitution is either a superior, paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and, like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it. If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act contrary to the Constitution is not law; if the latter part be true, then written Constitutions are absurd attempts on the part of the people to limit a power in its own nature illimitable.

Please note, that Marshall does not say "You congressmen do not have the power to positively create new constitutional statutes without amendments, but we judges do!" "You congressmen do not have the power to place yourselves above the constitution" "BUT WE DO!!!" He never says that, and he deliberately says the opposite. Here is more Marshall:

It is also not entirely unworthy of observation that, in declaring what shall be the supreme law of the land, the Constitution itself is first mentioned, and not the laws of the United States generally, but those only which shall be made in pursuance of the Constitution, have that rank.

This is the supremacy clause of the constitution that he is referencing here. Note that in the supremacy clause, the laws(meaning the legislature) and treaties are mentioned second. The courts are mentioned last.

These are not insignificant things to ponder when you consider how progressives position themselves. We have a big gap between Marbury and when the courts started, consistently started, creating new laws of the land.(as a non-legislative body) Judicial review may be a problem we need to solve and dial back, but clearly what the courts are doing today in the 21st century and what they started doing in the early-mid 1900s is not in any way because of the events that transpired during the course of Marbury v. Madison, no matter how many times progressives may loudly shout as to its affirmative.

https://tinyurl.com/ybcm5bn3

When did the courts stop looking at Marbury v. Madison as "that mandamus case"

In part 1 of this series, I asked one very simple question: "Are progressives telling the truth about Marbury?"

Since we know that progressives don't tell the truth about anything, then we have to start from square one. Why this is important, is progressives have long linked judicial activism to Marbury as the home of every scheme they've devised, but the more I look into it, the less I can see this is true. And if Marbury is not the source of the problem, then we need to identify the real cause. You don't stop cancers with flu medicines and bandaids.

An interesting thing occurs if you look into some of the past court rulings and how/why they either reference or cite Marbury. For clarity, I use "reference" to mean that the judges are aware of Marbury, they are talking about Marbury, but it doesn't necessarily have any direct bearing and its not being used to move the ball down the field. I use "cite", on the other hand, in the context as how Marbury is used in the case Cooper v. Aaron: they cited Marbury as a direct order of precedent for their current action in the case.(My use of cite/reference may or may not be how it is legally used)

Now, progressives tell us today that Marbury is so important, it's such a pinnacle, it granted all of these wondrous powers and it even delivered a new loaf of bread to boot. But then why did the courts for so many years merely look at it as some compartmentalized mandamus case with no other real context? Take for example the 1838 case of Kendall v. United States and others; Mississippi v. Johnson (1866), Ex Parte Bollman and Ex Parte Swartwout (1807), Kendall v. Stokes (1838), United States v. Schurz (1880), and Poindexter v. Greenhow (1885). In some cases, such as Insurance Company v. Comstock (1872) and Reeside v. Walker (1850), Marbury is nothing more than a footnote at the end of the decision, as opposed to a more central part of the opinion/dissent reasoning.

You will notice by the dates above, that I focused in on cases that existed prior to the perversion of progressivism. Prior to basically 1900. I am sure there are other court cases, but you get the point.

I do want to make it plainly explicit here, I am only taking a cursory look into cases which are coming into contact with Marbury, and looking at what these cases are saying and the context of how they are saying it. Some of these cases are thousands and taken together tens of thousands of words long - I haven't read all of these word for word. However, it does stand to reason that we have a huge gap between 1803 and the 1930s before the courts truely start becoming this out of control monstrosity. Well Marbury wasn't decided in 1929!! So why the gap? Why does this over 100 year gap exist between when the courts supposedly went out of control, to when they finally decided to go out of control? Shouldn't this big black hole gravity-well be nonexistent? Shouldn't it be 1805 and 1809 when all of this is occurring, and not 1958? None of what the progressives assert makes any sense at all when closely examined, particularly with a calendar in hand.

Now in most instances, a mandamus case that is about mandamuses is going to cite Marbury in the context of mandamuses. But outside of the context of mandamuses, it appears to me that the first case that actually cites Marbury in some meaningful manner is the case Mugler v. Kansas. (1887) So you mean to tell me that Marbury was stuck in the mandamus box for 84 years? Yes, Mr. Progressive, that Marbury case is such a pinnacle of judicial activism!

The Bollman Swartout case is a particularly amusing read, at least a line like this:

The original jurisdiction of this Court is restricted to cases affecting ambassadors or other public ministers and consuls and those in which a state shall be a party. In all other cases within the judicial powers of the union, it can exercise only an appellate jurisdiction. The former it possesses independently of the will of any other constituent branch of the general government. Without a violation of the Constitution, that division of our jurisdiction can neither be restricted or extended. In the latter, its powers are subjected to the will of the legislature of the union, and it can exercise appellate jurisdiction in no case, unless expressly authorized to do so by the laws of Congress. If I understand the case of Marbury v. Madison, it maintains this doctrine in its full extent. I cannot see how it could ever have been controverted.

Because, clearly, the courts looked at Marbury as a limiting factor, and not one that grants all of these wondrous powers and a loaf of bread. This is also the case where I got the line "the mandamus case" from, as if Marbury wasn't viewed to be all that consequential at all to prior courts. "Oh that was just that mandamus case, that was no big deal. Moving along." And just the fact that it was viewed as a mandamus case only, also brings its own limitations. Kendall uses similar language:

On the legislature was imposed the duty to give it effect; it was wide as the land, and extended to every portion of it, and by the Judiciary Act of 1789, section 13, Congress attempted to invest the Supreme Court of the United States with the power to issue writs of mandamus to persons holding office under the authority of the United States. But the Constitution having restricted this Court to the exercise of certain original powers, and this not being amongst them, it was holden in Marbury v. Madison, l Cranch 137, so much of the act was void.

Isn't it interesting? Everybody wants to be limited by and to the Constitution in the earlier years.

Now I can only imagine that some will reply "Yes, but, that's only because the courts did not at first realize what they truely had on their hands." Is that so? Or is it that the progressives went on a treasure hunt way after the fact for anything that they could take out of context, to justify their usurpations?

I lean strongly toward the second.

https://tinyurl.com/yc3oc9vs

Marbury v. Madison: The one place progressives are telling the truth?

Progressives claim that judicial activism was born with John Marshall's most well know ruling.

But we all know that progressives don't tell the truth. So then what actually is Marbury all about, and what are its true results?

Since progressives are not honest, where did judicial activism truely get established? What is the difference between judicial activism and judicial review?

https://tinyurl.com/y79yux8w

See. Progressives do not separate "society" and "government"

This is progressive ideology 101 here.

Forget that this is gun grabbing. Forget that this is running to the camera seeking the spotlight.

Kamala Harris, who is working very hard to position herself as a future presidential candidate, recently said the following:

When you see the effect of this extreme violence on a human body, and especially the body of a child, maybe it will shock some people into understanding this cannot be a political issue. We have to be practical. I support the Second Amendment, but we have to have smart gun safety laws. We cannot tolerate a society and live in a country with any level of pride when our babies are being slaughtered.

Yes, it 100% can be a non-political issue.

Our United States Constitution starts out with the phrase "We the People" - and then it sets out to limit government any way it sensibly can. This is an indictment of government. This is a call to action for people to act outside of the governmental sphere. In saying "We the People", it means "not them, the government". Get up off your couch and go do it yourself.

But progressives do not or are physically incapable of understanding this. I am not a progressive, so I ultimately cannot say for certain if their brains are incapable of it or if this is a bit of propaganda on their part in order to confuse others and promote the sanctity of big national government. However, the end result is the same.

For a progressive, government is society and society is government. There is no distinction, there is no difference, there is no separation. In the dictionary of progressivism, the words "government" and "society" have the exact, word-for-word entry.

We conservatives, however, understand that government is a sinister foreign entity in the mix of society.

There is also a part of me who thinks that this is sheer laziness. When some progressive be it Kamala Harris or any other starts some phrase with "I cannot..... a society that..." or "We deserve...... better society than....." and then immediately they leave society and start talking about laws and government instead, it's because they themselves do not want to be involved. They don't want to get their hands dirty. They don't want to do heavy lifting and hard work.

We the people be damned, the progressive says. I'm not lifting a finger here. That's someone else's job. That's not my job! "Somebody should do something!" - just not me.

Ideologically, this very is important to understand. Progressives do not or cannot separate government and society. However, to me that's a foreign concept - they are clearly two different things.

https://tinyurl.com/y7oqmq3b

Progressivism = Henry George. Not Karl Marx.

In the past, I have speculated heavily (based on deeply rooted and provable cultural origins that the original progressives called themselves "progressive" based directly upon the title of Henry George's book Progress and Poverty. (see also 1, 2, and 3)

I speculate no longer. In the Quarterly Register for 1893, the following is written:

The discontent of the workingmen and the mercantile classes in London against the wealthy titled landlords, has been increasing for several years. The latter have always succeeded in the past in minimizing the taxes on their own property, throwing a large part of the burden upon their tenants. The landlord element style themselves "Moderates," and the tenant element are known as " Progressives." The latter claimed that public improvements should be paid for by the land-owners; and the issue was joined on that as well as other points. The triennial election for "the new London County Council on March 6, resulted in the triumph of the Progressives, who elected 83, while the Moderates elected only 35 . The Progressives had formed an alliance with the trades-unions, and nominated labor candidates, including John Burns, the great agitator. The believers in the Henry George theory, claim the election as a decided triumph for the underlying principles of the Single Tax.

I have long stated that I believe progressivism to be worse than communism, and just because I can now verify this direct root does not change that belief. Just because Marx was relatively bad and George was relatively not, does not change what the progressives themselves did with the information.

This timeline is so critical to get nailed down. Yes, the progressives became communists - in the 1960's. All of that is true and its crucial in the later parts of the timeline. But by not nailing down this timeline properly from front to back, we give them an easy escape route, a place to hide and come back later.

We need to eliminate all the shadows, like sunlight to a vampire.

These people are cockroaches. They were cockroaches in the 1890s and 1900s, they were cockroaches in the 1930s, and also in the 1960s. But if we cannot accurately call them out in 1905, then they win. If we cannot accurately call them out in 1924, they win. I'll state this conversely: If the only time we can accurately call them out is in the 1960's or beyond, they win. By not nailing down the beginning, we lose the end.

The onus of proof is on us. Just how bad do you want to save your country from the progressives?

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle - Sun Tzu (Art of War, Chapter 3)

Anybody who simply states that all progressives always = communism, they do not know/understand the enemy. They need to spend more time with Sun Tzu.

https://tinyurl.com/ybjdydn7

In 1912, the United States Constitution was not "living and breathing"

Timelines are devastating to progressivism.

Over the years, progressive historians have done a good job of insulating their ideology from the question of "when did this happen", by taking quotes out of context, using the power of omission, and other trickery, in order to retroactively cook the books and make some things seem older than they actually are.

The theory of the living and breathing constitution falls under this umbrella. Yet if you examine the history of progressivism itself, you once again see all of their lies on full display.

You needn't look any further than the platform of the Progressive Party. That's right. The progressives were so fed up with how difficult it was to pass amendments that the concept was embedded into their own party platform. That platform says:

AMENDMENT OF CONSTITUTION

The Progressive party, believing that a free people should have the power from time to time to amend their fundamental law so as to adapt it progressively to the changing needs of the people, pledges itself to provide a more easy and expeditious method of amending the Federal Constitution.

Not living and breathing. All of this is very important to understand. The progressives don't want it to be more widely known that this is a doctrine that they themselves cooked up out of whole cloth. They need it to seem as if it simply "just always was".

Now, here is what former president Roosevelt wrote in explaining this:

We propose to make the process of Constitutional amendment far easier, speedier, and simpler than at present.

But this is unnecessary with a living document. No amendment is needed, that whole process can simply be circumvented with judges. He even admits this. He says:

We do not confine ourselves to mere scolding. We do not merely denounce what we do not like. We have a definite plan which has been outlined above. The courts are continuously by their decisions annulling laws which the people desire to have enacted. They are in effect continually amending the Constitution against the deliberate intent of the people who made the Constitution. Judicial amendment to the Constitution is fatally easy. Popular amendment is so difficult that at best it needs ten or fifteen years to put it through. The theory of the Constitution against which we protest takes away from the people as a whole their sovereign right to govern themselves. It deposits this right to govern the people in the hands of well meaning men who either are not elected by the people, or at least are not elected for any such purpose, who cannot be removed by the people, and who too often perversely pride themselves on having no direct responsibility to the people.

Mmmm, give me more of that propaganda. Now, many people who can't stand progressivism could find themselves sucked into this, because on the surface it sounds like really good candy. But the context is so, so important here.

Former president Roosevelt is BITCHING about the fact that as the progressives were proposing and attempting unconstitutional, totalitarian legislative BS: the courts put a halt to it. That's right! The courts in his day stood against progressivism and stood for Liberty and the Constitution. Imagine that! Courts that actually honored and respected the Constitution. Now, suddenly, that paragraph looks just as poisonous to you as it does to me. It's a paragraph that only a dictator could love.

How much better would America be if we had our courts from 100 years ago. It would be great. Constitution up! Liberty up! Tyranny down, down, down. Put it on the ash heap of history.

Now, don't think I'm only saying that it was just the Bull Moosers who put a target upon the Constitution as the finest toilet paper that money cannot buy. Frank Johnson Goodnow, a man whose ideas were highly regarded by Woodrow Wilson, who served as President of Johns Hopkins, wrote the following: (alternate)

The question which has been chosen for discussion this morning is: Can a practically unamendable constitution, adopted in the conditions and under the influences of the political thought prevailing at the end of the eighteenth century, be adapted by judicial interpretation to the needs and thought of the twentieth century without causing us to lose the advantages which are commonly regarded as attached to a written constitution?

So you see, this debate was raging amongst progressives and they increasingly came to believe that the courts were their best course for amending the constitution without ever amending it. It's devilishly, deviously brilliant. No really. How do you do something without doing it? Progressives ask this question of themselves all the time whenever they seek to impose their authority over you and your family, no matter how much you try to prevent it's happening.

Just to show that it wasn't just the high profile progressives, don't forget about Herbert Quick. Quick, who was a supporter of Wilson, also sought a way to get around that pesky, unamendable, not-living constitution. And again, in my last post I discussed Rexford Guy Tugwell, another very important progressive, who also was upset about how immovable the Constitution was.

Now, last but not least, the most important one to consider is the words of Woodrow Wilson. In 1908, when the concept of the living constitution was first introduced, Wilson pointed out the following:

The trouble with the theory is that government is not a machine, but a living thing. It falls, not under the theory of the universe, but under the theory of organic life. It is accountable to Darwin, not to Newton. It is modified by its environment, necessitated by its tasks, shaped to its functions by the sheer pressure of life. No living thing can have its organs offset against each other as checks, and live. On the contrary, its life is dependent upon their quick cooperation, their ready response to the commands of instinct or intelligence, their amicable community of purpose. Government is not a body of blind forces; it is a body of men, with highly differentiated functions, no doubt, in our modern day of specialization, but with a common task and purpose. Their cooperation is indispensable, their warfare fatal. There can be no successful government without leadership or without the intimate, almost instinctive coordination of the organs of life and action. This is not theory, but fact, and displays its force as fact, whatever theories may be thrown across its track. Living political constitutions must be Darwinian in structure and in practice.

During the 1912 campaign, Wilson refined his beliefs. If you contrast his book to this speech, there are only merely subtle differences. But one difference is so important:

Government is not a body of blind forces; it is a body of men, with highly differentiated functions, no doubt, in our modern day, of specialization, with a common task and purpose. Their cooperation is indispensable, their warfare fatal. There can be no successful government without the intimate, instinctive coordination of the organs of life and action. This is not theory, but fact, and displays its force as fact, whatever theories may be thrown across its track. Living political constitutions must be Darwinian in structure and in practice. Society is a living organism and must obey the laws of life, not of mechanics; it must develop.

All that progressives ask or desire is permission — in an era when “development” “evolution,” is the scientific word — to interpret the Constitution according to the Darwinian principle; all they ask is recognition of the fact that a nation is a living thing and not a machine.

You notice how in the beginning, he kind of just throws the idea out there about a living constitution based on Darwinian thought instead of that of Newton? He has a lot to say about it in the abstract, but in the second instance he is forceful. Full of conviction. The nation will die unless the constitution is living and breathing, there is no doubt about it that Wilson believes this fully in 1912. But note the contrast between the two. They've made progress, but the question is, progress from what? If the constitution was already living and breathing right from the start, why would so many progressives have been harping and carping to begin with? That, right there, their whining is the point.

I've spent a lot of this writing putting together a contrast of before and after, but actually, Wilson does it far better. He does so the best. Wilson, in admitting that the Constitution is actually Newtonian as originally formulated, is stating that the Constitution is not living and breathing. A machine cannot just change it's shape and form,(Maybe they will one day, but they do not now) you have to "revise" it somehow, by bolting on a new piece. You have to work on it, amend it, by having something mechanically changed, such as the mechanics of a Constitutional Revision Committee; such as an amendment process.

This is why we need to know the history of progressivism, because it is quite distinctly to our advantage. You can tell both in reading these short clips, and even moreso if you opened the links and read additional words, that the progressives knew right from the beginning how they would implement their idea of the living constitution. They just needed to get into office for enough years to nominate enough judges to see it through.

https://tinyurl.com/yb8dgksn

Listen to this progressive whine about how bad the 14th amendment is

From a Constitutional and therefore conservative(as in modern conservatism) point of view, the 14th amendment is a fantastic bit of work. I don't bring this up too often, because the 14th amendment didn't become a weapon of progressivism until somewhere in the 1950's(and it is thus generally outside of the scope of my focus), but the 14th amendment takes plenty of attacks from many who are not actually attacking that amendment, but rather, the courts' misuse of it.

But they don't know that, which is sad. Most conservatives, if they knew the timeline, would be ardent, ardent defenders of the 14th amendment.(the more I read about it, the more I'm convinced of this) Far too many conservatives think the 14th amendment authorizes all of these christmas tree goodies for progressivism, so therefore the 14th amendment must be the worst on the docket.

In reality, the men who stood together in the mid 1800s and framed it did a masterful work, as is illustrated by the recorded debates for that amendment. (see here) They specifically had as a goal NOT to re-write what the Founding Fathers did, and specifically built the 14th amendment to NOT rock the boat.

The 14th amendment wasn't always a treasure chest for the progressives to continually pull gold doubloons out of, and they knew it.

Rexford Guy Tugwell, who remains to this day an extremely consequential progressive, and probably the main architect of the New Deal, wrote this in 1928:

The grain of grace is familiarly furnished, as in other cases, by the dissent of Justices Stone, Brandeis, and Holmes. The minority opinions of these three are coming to be legal classics. They may in time become the rule of law. But so long as legalists so downright as Justice Sutherland are dominant, progress is definitely blocked. The decision could not be clearer:

An employment agency is essentially a private business. True, it deals with the public, but so does the druggist, the butcher, the baker, the grocer...Of course, anything which substantially interferes with employment is a matter of public concern, but in the same sense that interference with the procurement of food and housing and fuel are of public concern. The public is deeply interested in all these things. The welfare of its constituent members depends upon them...but in none of them is the interest that "public interest" which the law contemplates as the basis for legislative price control. Under the decisions of this Court it is no longer fairly open to question that, at least in the absence of a grave emergency, the fixing of prices for food or clothing, of house rental or of wages to be paid, whether minimum or maximum, is beyond the legislative power. (RIBNIK v. MCBRIDE, (1928))

Freedom of contract and the due-process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment have again been made to serve the cause of reaction. Contrariwise, however, the dissenting opinion of Justice is much the clearest analysis ever made of that shadowy legal area within which economic compulsions are disputed. The majority makes no attempt to meet the theoretical objections to its position; its statement is pure and unreasoned dogma, its use of "public interest" an obvious statement of prejudice and dislike for bureaucratic meddling.

Would you listen to that!!! It's the tool of reaction! The 14th amendment in his view is a bomb because of all of you reactionaries out there. But you wouldn't know that today, nearly a century later. The 14th amendment is constantly used as a weapon against "reactionaries".

I sincerely urge all of you to read the debates from the framers of the 14th amendment. There's not one item that progressives claim, that was discussed at the time.

At least, I haven't found one yet. I bet you won't either.

Don't give up on the 14th amendment. It isn't what the progressives claim that it is. As always, progressives are liars.

https://tinyurl.com/ycwpj2wt