Where is the wall of separation when the courthouse is approved for the common temple?

Those of you who have read The 5000 year leap will recognize the question. :-) (Page 71)

I read the following news article and I about had a cow, but my outlook on things it to be proactive - so I recorded this. These progressives will not stop assaulting our society until we force them to do so. And the worst part is, they "use Jefferson's words" to launch their assault. The best way to stop them is to correct the record. Mr "wall of separation" is who they would have you believe that Jefferson was. Jefferson also wrote this, regarding the place he lived:

"In our village of Charlottesville, there is a good degree of religion, with a small spice only of fanaticism. We have four sects, but without either church or meeting-house. The court-house is the common temple, one Sunday in the month to each. Here, Episcopalian and Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist, meet together, join in hymning their Maker, listen with attention and devotion to each others’ preachers, and all mix in society with perfect harmony."

This comment is consistent with the way he wrote legislation, see "Draft For A Bill For Establishing Religious Freedom, 1779". Everything we've been taught about this so-called "wall of separation" is wrong. Here is how dishonest the people behind this lawsuit are being: (from the story above)

"The court found that religious institutions in the town of just under 100,000 people are primarily Christian, and even Galloway and Stephens testified they knew of no non-Christian places of worship there," reported the AP.

These people dishonor the great Thomas Jefferson by using any issue they can get their hands on to drive free religious expression out of the public square - something Jefferson expressly approved of. Nobody's group is being favored over another, in Jefferson's words "ambition and tyranny". The ambitious and tyrannical here in this story are Galloway, Stephens, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

The minimum wage and eugenics, 2

Continuing what I wrote yesterday, Alfred Benedict Wolfe, a professor at Oberlin college, wrote the following: (Page 278)

But if you wish to reduce the marriage rate, give young women economic independence, so that they will not be tempted to marry simply to escape long hours of hard work at low pay, which has to be turned into the family coffers.

Progressive contempt for the family unit goes back well over a century. Wrapped up in discussions of eugenics and the minimum wage is this. He's only speaking theoretically, but these people have known for a long time that the way to empower government is to assault families through devious means. He continues:

Humanitarian consideration aside, the strongest argument for minimum wage legislation for women, is that it will help them toward economic independence, and be one element in the reduction of the birth rate.
The general toning up of industry that would result from universal minimum wage legislation would be noteworthy. If the inefficient entrepreneurs would be eliminated so would the ineffective workers. I am not disposed to waste much sympathy upon either class. The elimination of the inefficient is in line with our traditional emphasis on free competition, and also with the spirit and trend of modern social economics. There is no panacea that can "save" the incompetents except at the expense of the normal people. They are a burden on society and on the producers wherever they are. The real question is whether the inefficient are less burden if we permit them to be employed at low wages and thus tend to fix the wages of the normal workers at the same low level, or whether they would be less burden if we definitely prohibit the employment in industry of any person who can not earn a standard wage, and set such persons aside for special treatment much as we do backward children and subnormls in the schools. 4

Footnote 4 is interesting: he cites Fabian socialist Sidney Webb. The effect that Fabianism has on liberal minded people is rather obvious once considered. Unless A.B. Wolfe was an actual Fabian, that might be considered as well.

But this is important, particularly when it can be shown to be a pattern among academics, because academics is who in a lot of ways drive the thought of the country. Now, Wolf may be forgotten in the history books, but note the journal. The AEA is still with us today. In the day this was written, it carried weight.

http://tinyurl.com/86c92ls

The minimum wage and eugenics

I've seen plenty written about how minimum wage laws were a tool of progressives and believers in eugenics 100 years ago, but far too often we are left hanging without direct quotes. Written by Henry R Seager in 1913, "The Minimum Wage as Part of a Program for Social Reform" will have a certain familiarity, if you have read up on eugenics in America. It starts on page 3, ends on page 12. For those who may not be aware of it, Seager is who wrote the book that laid the groundwork for social security. Cute, eh? Here's what he wrote in the essay:

More important, however, than these immediate benefits would be the long run influence of the change on the ability of wage-earners to secure better conditions through their own efforts. Protected from the wearing competition of the casual worker and the drifter, wage-earners in every industry would find it easier to organize to demand better conditions. The greater health and vigor of the whole wage-earning population would lead to more persistent and more intelligent participation in all the movements of the day. The tone of our political life would be elevated and invigorated and we should be better able to grapple with those great economic and social problems that concern not only wage earners but all of us. This is the answer to critics of the minimum wage who object that it is merely negative and that it does not go far enough. If it goes far enough to contribute to the health and vigor of the masses of our citizenship, it must react beneficially upon all the important movements of the day.

Oh, it goes far enough. If you happen to be a regular reader, you're probably sick(as I am) of hearing this repeated slogan from progressives regarding what does or does not "go far enough". Enough is never enough for these people, keep "it doesn't go far enough" in mind as you read. Above, is the closing of the essay, the content is much more specific:(Page 9)

Just as there are special schools in the public school system for children who are backward with their books, so there must be developed industrial and trade schools for young persons who are so backward in their work that they cannot command even the minimum wages which the law prescribes. And it will not be enough to provide such schools. Young persons incapable of adequate self support and without independent resources will have to be assisted while they are taking advantage of them. Moreover, if on completing the course they are still unable to earn an adequate living, they will have to be treated as defectives for whom still further measures must be taken. If their defects are of a sort that render them entirely harmless members of the community they may be given licenses to work for less than the minimum wage required for normal persons. If there are reasons for isolating them from contact with others then they must be sent to farm or industrial colonies where they will be considerately and humanely cared for but under conditions that prevent them from inflicting injury on others. Critics of the minimum wage sometimes speak of this necessity which the plan presents of making special provision for the unemployable as if it were a new problem. It is not a new problem

Of course, all of this will require a huge massive government. New licences, schools, and isolation camps are not something that families do. And of course, we can't leave out the usual call for sterilization: (Page 10)

One important part of the program with reference to those who are defective from birth is to prevent that monstrous crime against future generations involved in permitting them to become the fathers and mothers of children who must suffer under the same handicap. If we are to maintain a race that is to be made up of capable, efficient, and independent individuals and family groups we must courageously cut off lines of heredity that have been proved to be undesirable by isolation or sterilization of the congenitally defective.

And with respect to putting together minimum wage laws and eugenics, he does this himself:

Michigan has just passed an act requiring the sterilization of congenital idiots. This may seem somewhat remote from the minimum wage but such a policy judiciously extended should make easier the task of each on-coming generation which insists that every individual who is regularly employed in the competitive labor market shall receive at least a living wage for his work. We cannot continue to increase the sums we spend for the care of congenital defectives in consequence of our failure to prevent them from becoming the parents of more congenital defectives without encroaching on the expenditures we ought to make for the better education and training of the normal children of normal citizens.

Doesn't go far enough? Progressives always go too far. Government must always remain limited, so that the people can always be free.

http://tinyurl.com/7jeb6xt

What should we do with the unemployable? Kill them. Obviously.

On page 300 of the book Fundamentals of Economics, Volume 2, Frank William Taussig writes the following :

A more fundamental question, yet still not one of an essentially novel sort, would be, how to deal with the unemployable. There would unfailingly be a certain number not capable of earning the minimum, - the aged, feeble, maimed, the dissolute or half dissolute. It would be impossible to compel employers to pay the minimum to those whose services were not worth it. But it is a fair question whether it is not a merit in the proposal, rather than a defect, that the community would be compelled to face squarely the problems of decrepitude and degeneration.

Who would do said compelling? The State - this is the chapter on "Labor Legislation".

Among those who are incapable of work or but half capable of it, two classes may be distinguished: those who are helpless from cases irremediable for the individual, yet not cumulative as regards society, such as old age, infirmity, disabling accident; and those helpless from causes that tend to be cumulative, such as congenital feebleness of body and character, alcoholism, dissolute living. The first class may be dealt with charitably, or provided for by some system of insurance. The second class should be simply stamped out. Neither the feeble minded, nor those saturated by alcohol or tainted with hereditary disease, nor the irretrievable criminals and tramps, should be allowed at large, still less should be allowed to breed. We have not reached the stage where we can proceed to chloroform them once for all; but at least they can be segregated, shut up in refuges and asylums, and prevented from propagating their kind. The opinion of civilized mankind is rapidly moving to the conclusion that so far at least we may apply the principle of eugenics, and thus dispose of what is the simplest phase of the problem of the unemployable.

Well thankfully, he didn't mince his words.

I have heard sentiments like this before. More than just once. When progressives start devaluing human life, you always seem to end up with the same result, now don't you?

http://tinyurl.com/bu22jgm

What if Communism really hasn't been tried? Marx did outline very specific conditions

I recently posted the article from the Founder of Fabian Socialism in America titled Where Socialism Was Tried and I got to thinking, what about Communism? Well, here's what he's written:

In broad outlines Asiatic, ancient, feudal, and modern bourgeois modes of production can be designated as progressive epochs in the economic formation of society. The bourgeois relations of production are the last antagonistic form of the social process of production — antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonisms, but of one arising from the social conditions of life of the individuals; at the same time the productive forces developing in the womb of bourgeois society create the material conditions for the solution of that antagonism.

And we know what Marx considers to be the solution to this 'antagonism' - the dictatorship of the proletariat. Communism can't just be formed anywhere. It has to be done with the right conditions, the right way and in the right country. In short, the United States. Because of the specificity of conditions, Communism is probably the most utopian of all the ideologies of centralized planning. Here's a brief outline:

At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or — what is but a legal expression for the same thing — with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters.

Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed.

I hear Obama in that, particularly the last line. But nonetheless, if it's seemed to you that communists have had their eye on the USA the way a wolf looks at a lamb, then this may explain it for you. It's because we have that superstructure, we are a 'capitalist' country. The ideal country, the one that will prove Marx right, is the United States. A little bit more:

Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering such transformations a distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic — in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out.

When our massive 'capitalist' country implodes and goes into revolution, then they can start their "fundamental transformation" of everything, not just the modes of production. That's what he's saying. But society has to go through all of the various stages of development and reach 'antagonism'(free markets) before it can be done the right way and go into Communism. America is realistically the only one that ever has reached this stage following the "correct" evolution.

Here's how I think this works: (1)Economies go up and down, that's normal. (2)A believer in some form of planning takes advantage of a down, and makes it worse as centralized planning has disastrous effects upon economies(such as the housing bust, or the Carter years) and you end up in a true economic crisis. (3)Then, a strong-man comes in(who happens to be a hard core communist) and proposes to save the day. A "rising star" like Van Jones.

I say all of that because Marx' theory misses the boat: Free markets don't implode, the built in corrective mechanisms work. Free markets have to be forced by government to implode. If they can force it to implode(as Obama is clearly doing) then we can reach the worker's paradise.

http://tinyurl.com/6vzjtp6

Journalists, Muckrakers, and the Committee on Public Information: Right from the beginning they failed us

Journalism has a very long history of betraying the constitution and the United States of America. You can see just how traitorous this group of people have been by tracking down members of America's first domestic propaganda mill, the Committee on Public Information. The CPI was around during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. Most of these are in no particular order, also, some were life long journalists, others only spent part of their time as journalists before(or after) doing other things.

When Wilson created the CPI, George Creel, a journalist is who he tapped to lead the organization. Creel states one of the goals of the CPI was to make 'associates' out of journalists.

Edward Berhays, whose propaganda writings were used by Joseph Goebbels to exterminate Jews in Germany (see autobiography) was a member and a journalist.

Heber Blankenhorn was a member of CPI. Another journalist, he headed what appears to be a sub-group of the CPI known as G-2-D, which is giving me problems finding out more. But this is important because Blankenhorn worked with Lippmann in this organization.

The Father of Modern Journalism, Walter Lippmann, who initially worked for the Inter-Allied Propaganda Board overseas, was a member of CPI

Charles Merz, a journalist who co-authored "A test of the news" with Lippmann, was a member of CPI.(This is a direct CPI publication)

Ray Stannard Baker, was a journalist and CPI member.

Wallace Irwin and William Henry Irwin were both journalists and CPI members.

Ernest Poole was a member of CPI, and a journalist.

Edgar Sisson was a journalist and a member of CPI.

Carl Byoir was a journalist and was Creel's deputy.

Kenneth Durant, a CPI member and journalist, who went on to work for the Russian news agency TASS. Now having established these things, I'll note that Wikipedia rounds it out the same way as well.

William L Chenery was the publisher of Collier's, and a CPI member.

Ida Tarbell headed up the Women's Division of War-Work within the CPI along with Carrie Chapman Catt. Catt was a journalist, and Tarbell is remembered as one of the most influential muckrakers.

Clara Sears Taylor was a reporter and CPI member.

Paul Kennaday was a journalist, and CPI member.

Walter Prichard Eaton was a journalist and member of CPI.

William Dean Howells was a journalist and member of CPI.

William Allen White is considered one of the greatest journalists of all time. Member of CPI.

L. Ames Brown(Philadelphia Record), J W McConaughy(NY Evening Mail), Leigh Reilly(Chicago Herald),and Edward S Rochester(Washington Post) were all plucked from various places within the media and became members of the CPI.

There were plenty of other names which I couldn't find anything online about, so there could be more. The internet does have limits in this respect. There are also others who were writers of various things, and other activist types within CPI. But with respect to those who are supposed to be looking out for us, this betrayal that we live with today is nothing new. It's always been a widespread problem of reporters choosing to help and protect the powers that be, instead of questioning those they should be questioning.

Journalists being associated with propaganda is hardly an American phenomena either. Karl Marx was a journalist. Who was Joseph Goebbels before he became Joseph Goebbels?(everybody knows of him only as a nazi propagandist) Before this most infamous work, he was a journalist. All of these people knew how powerful the written(and now spoken) word is. Hey, could I interest you in an audiobook?

http://tinyurl.com/cey2gyo

Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and modern American imperialism

One thing I find to be very ironic is how modern progressives will decry evil "American imperialism", yet even a cursory view of the history of the 20th century progressive era will expose the obvious: Progressives own it. It is progressives who own modern American imperialism. They're upset about what it is that their own forefathers began! On page 18 of the book "Public Opinion", Walter Lippmann quotes Senator McCormick stating the following:

Mr. Knox, interested in the question, forgets that he asked for an inquiry, and replies. If American marines had been killed, it would be war. The mood of the debate is still conditional. Debate proceeds. Mr. McCormick of Illinois reminds the Senate that the Wilson administration is prone to the waging of small unauthorized wars. He repeats Theodore Roosevelt's quip about "waging peace."

This may be a bit anecdotal, but it still applies and does carry weight given that it's coming from a sitting senator. Even the term "Wilsonianism"(as in Woodrow Wilson) is still in some quarters in use to this day. It's a term that is specifically used to describe interventionist policies in foreign affairs. As Conservapedia points out, and Wikipedia largely says the same thing about Wilsonianism. It's not 'isolationist', it's 'interventionist'.

Enter Theodore Roosevelt. For all that can be said about how awful that Wilson was(which is all true and perhaps even understated) and how he can be pointed to as the center point of progressivism during those days, Theodore Roosevelt is really the grandfather of progressivism. How much of what Wilson did was merely an extension of Roosevelt's grandiose anti-constitutional schemes? In a speech titled "True Americanism and Expansion" on December 21st, 1898 Roosevelt said the following:

No; the tasks are difficult, and all the more for that reason let us gird up our loins and go out to do them. But let us meet them, realizing their difficulty; not in a spirit of levity, but in a spirit of sincere and earnest desire to do our duty as it is given us to see our duty. Let us not do it in the spirit of sentimentality, not saying we must at once give universal suffrage to the people of the Philippines - they are unfit for it. Do not let us mistake the shadow for the substance. We have got to show the practical common sense which was combined with the fervent religion of the Puritan; the combination which gave him the chance to establish here that little group of commonwealths which more than any others have shaped the spirit and destiny of this nation; we must show both qualities.

Gentlemen, if one of the islands which we have acquired is not fit to govern itself, then we must govern it until it is fit. If you cannot govern it according to the principles of the New England town meeting - because the Philippine Islander is not a New Englander - if you cannot govern it according to these principles, then find out the principles upon which you can govern it and apply those principles. Fortunately, while we can and ought with wisdom to look abroad for examples, and to profit by the experience of other nations, we are already producing, even in this brief period, material of the proper character within our own border, men of our own people, who are showing us what to do with these islands.

This arrogance from progressives, I don't care who they are or what party they were in, is beyond infuriating. First off, note how at the very beginning of the speech, it began with a toast from Charles B Davenport - the eugenicist. It seems that Roosevelt is at his worst when Davenport is around. Second, we can't just go around taking everything over and being a bully - There are large sections of the world that hate America because of how progressives have abused the power we have built for ourselves. If we have to go in and make a mess for whatever reason, then we have to. Contrast Roosevelt with Jefferson, who got involved with the Barbary Pirates, did what needed to be done, then left. George Washington, who in his farewell address (audio direct download mp3) stated the following:

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government. the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?

There is a bit more of this address that applies, but that makes it clear. Our founders intended us to be a lot more like Switzerland than the intrigues of progressivism demand. There are, naturally, times when you have to get involved - and afterward it makes sense to help with rebuilding. But the act of long term foreign governing is not the role of the US. We can't police the world. Even though that's what it appears that Roosevelt wanted. From his 1904 address (What we would recognize as a SOTU):

All that this country desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous. Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.

This is the Roosevelt Corollary. This is the road to bankruptcy. This is a road to serfdom. Nations that become empires inevitably place themselves into the ash heap of history. I don't want to live in the post-constitutional empire of progressivism. I want my constitutional republic back. On getting involved in foreign intrigues, the progressives have it wrong and the Founders (as usual) provide the correct model. Only when necessary.

http://tinyurl.com/c2xgnwh