The woman who was shot to death after a high-speed car chase through the streets between the White House and Capitol Hill was still in her car, snagged on the curb of a grass-covered median, when the police fired at her, a Senate official said Friday.

Well, let me modify my advice: don’t speed and don’t stop near federal buildings.

Questions were also being raised about whether she posed enough of a threat during the fast-moving sequence of events that the police needed to shoot her.

I don’t understand why such questions are being raised.  She was speeding and stopping near federal buildings.

Initially, law enforcement officials said Carey had gotten out of the car when she was shot Thursday afternoon.

At least Ms. Carey didn’t get out of her car near federal buildings – on top of speeding and stopping near federal buildings.  Of course, her murderers already had two reasons to kill her, so the third was not really necessary.

Early accounts of such events are often inaccurate, however…

Of course, especially anywhere near any federal buildings.

Most police departments discourage or prohibit opening fire on vehicles.

I guess most police departments don’t have to worry about speeding or stopping near federal buildings.

With responsibility for safeguarding two of the county’s most significant landmarks, however, the Capitol Police and the Secret Service are particularly attuned to potential terrorist threats.

And you thought I was just being silly about the speeding and stopping near federal buildings stuff.

Car bombs are one concern, as evidenced by the restrictions on vehicles around the Capitol complex, and officials said that by remaining in the car, Carey might have heightened fears that the car was an explosive threat.

Wait a minute.  I must modify my advice once again.  Don’t speed or stop or get out of your car or stay in your car near federal buildings.

Investigators were looking into reports from her boyfriend that she had been delusional and believed she was a prophet and under electronic surveillance by President Barack Obama.

They probably don’t need to spend a lot of government resources during the government shutdown on looking into that “electronic surveillance by President Barack Obama” thing. That one is known by the entire world to be a fact.

Another man who knew her, Majestic Steele, who is a neighbor of Carey’s mother, Idella Carey, said that a few years ago he saw Carey poised outside her mother’s Brooklyn apartment, clutching a Bible and wailing at the sky. “She was saying, ‘Help me,’ and ‘I need you,’ and she was quoting Scripture,” Steele said.

So don’t speed or stop or get out of your car or stay in your car or quote Scripture, and you should be safe from federal murder…maybe.

Law enforcement experts outside of Washington said the shooting raised significant issues about the use of deadly force to stop Carey’s car as it traveled along one of the nation’s best-known routes, Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the Capitol.

This is because these doubting-Thomas law enforcement officials don’t have any federal buildings within their respective jurisdictions.

The episode occurred just weeks after a mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard and in the midst of a partial government shutdown.

This is getting difficult: don’t speed or stop or get out of your car or stay in your car near federal buildings; don’t quote Scripture; finally don’t do anything whatsoever within weeks of any mass shooting.

“The question should be, what was the threat that justified deadly force?” said Geoffrey Alpert, a criminologist at the University of South Carolina.

Yes.  And the answer lies in the proximity to federal buildings.

Others who study law enforcement said the rules might legitimately be different for officials in Washington.

Of course, just as I have been saying – it is because there are countless federal buildings there.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., defended the officers in a speech on the Senate floor Friday. He said the decision to shoot Carey was “understandable” because the Capitol and the White House were often targets of attacks.

See!  It is the federal buildings.

Reprinted with permission from the Bionic Mosquito.

(Page references are to Stead’s book.)

According to Stead, who can be considered to reflect the elite thinking of his time, the world needs a supreme earthly power, and an English-speaking union is the proper entity to exercise such power.  This alliance, torn apart during the American Revolution and injured again in 1812, came together again toward the latter part of the nineteenth century, in what is known as the Great Rapprochement – just beginning as Stead wrote.  As a brief summary of previous work I have done through this book: this reunion, of a type, did not happen by a fortuitous set of random events, but seems to have been deliberately planned by those for whom maintaining control and expanding global reach was of primary importance. (For more extensive treatment, see here and here.)

Stead cites many who hold similar views regarding this apparent need for a supreme earthly power, all justifying this need in order to bring about a certain world peace:

The world [a foreign observer wrote in the Fortnightly Review in 1894] could well afford “to place its confidence in the integrity and fairness of the Anglo-Saxon race.  For the sake of peace and disarmament it seems necessary that some superior power should be created. (Page 432, emphasis added)

Once a central bank was established in the US, along with the income tax and (to a far lesser, but not unimportant extent) the direct election of Senators – amazingly all occurring in 1913 – the stage was set for the creation of just such a “superior power.” Such tools are necessary if state actors (or those behind it) want to display military power globally for purposes of control.

“For the sake of peace and disarmament,” of course, a few eggs had to be broken first.  It didn’t take long.  World War I – a war fought over the assassination of one man, if you believe the narrative – introduced the US onto the European stage for the first time. Obviously a necessary step if one had global control via an Anglo-American union in mind.

Mr. A.W. Tourgée, writing in the Contemporary Review two years prior to Stead’s work, wrote:

An alliance between the great branches of the Anglo-Saxon family means the creation of a world-power against which it is not only impossible that any European combination should make headway, but it will have such control of the commercial and economic resources of the world as to enable them to put an end to war between the Continental Powers themselves without mustering an army or firing a gun…. They are the peacemakers of the Twentieth Century…. (Page 433, emphasis added)

With a hat tip to The Daily Bell, I have come to the view that the wars fought by the west over the last century have been for one reason: control.  Not control over oil or gas or other natural resources.  Control over people.  People are the single-most valuable “commercial and economic” resource on the planet.  Talk about a renewable resource!  People are the best wealth-creating-renewable-resource ever devised.

Of course, Mr. Tourgée cannot be blamed for not seeing the horrors to come between and amongst the “Continental Powers” over the next 50 years, horrors aided and abetted by the “great branches of the Anglo-Saxon family,” can he?  On the other hand, the wars of those 50 years were likely necessary to bring this Anglo-American dream to fruition.

Sir Walter Besant, in his book “Rise of the Empire,” wrote:

We want an everlasting alliance, offensive and defensive, such an alliance as may make us absolutely free from the fear of any other alliance which could crush us. (Page 433)

Besant went on, in speaking of a great alliance of six nations – Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa:

They would be an immense Federation, free, law-abiding, peaceful, yet ready to fight…. (Page 437)

Well, at least the “ready to fight” part came true.

Thomas Chandler Haliburton of the British colony of Nova Scotia, through his fictional character Sam Slick, wrote in 1853:

We are two great nations, the greatest by a long chalk of any in the world…. We ought to draw closer than we do. (Page 434)

Sir George Grey of New Zealand wrote if the reunion were but attained:

…it would mean the triumph of Christianity, the highest moral system man in all his history has known…. The adoption of a universal code of morals and a universal tongue would pave the way for the last great federation – the brotherhood of man.

As its result war would by degrees die out from the face of the earth.  If you had the Anglo-Saxon race acting on a common ground, they could determine the balance of power for a fully peopled earth.

…whenever any subject affecting us both arises, or when there is any question affecting the well-being of the world generally, we shall meet in Conference and decide upon common action. (Page 434, 435)

The benefits to all mankind are overwhelming, it seems.  Citing Sir Harrington, from “Oceana”:

What can you think but, if the world should see the Roman Eagle again, she would renew her age and her flight?  If you add to the propagation of civil liberty, the propagation of liberty of conscience, this empire, this patronage of the world, is the Kingdom of Christ.  The Commonwealth of this make is a minister of God upon earth, for which cause the orders last rehearsed are buds of empire, such as that the blessing of God may spread the arms of your Commonwealth like a holy asylum to the distressed world, and give the earth her Sabbath of years or rest from her labors under the shadow of your wings.  (Page 438)

Well, it is some kind of asylum, but not necessarily “holy.”  Christianity has been wrongly used to justify war since the time of Rome.  It is a good thing Laurence Vance has God on his side in this battle.

Not to be left out, Cecil Rhodes throws his hat into the ring:

How often have I not heard [Rhodes] deplore the insensate folly which robbed the world of its one great hope of universal peace.  Only this year he inveighed, as is his wont, against the madness of the monarch which had wrecked the fairest prospect of international peace which had ever dawned upon the world.

“If only we had held together,” he remarked, “there would have been no need for another cannon to be cast in the whole world.  The Federation of the English-speaking world would be strong enough in its command of all the material resources of the planet to compel the decision of all international quarrels by a more rational means than war.”

Nor has he abandoned the hope that even yet that great Federation may be brought about. (Page 403, 404)

The “insensate folly” was King George’s treatment and subsequent loss of the American colonies, leading to a large rupture in the dreams of empire.

Andrew Carnegie added that such a reunion would be “for the good of the world, for the English-speaking race has always stood first among races for peace, plenty, liberty, justice and law…. (Page 436)

Through much of the history of the existence of an English-speaking race there are many of a different skin color or religion or tongue that might take exception to Mr. Carnegie’s statement.  He adds:

If England and America were one they would be able to maintain the peace of the world and general disarmament. (Page 409)

Carnegie wrote about such a union, in an article entitled “A Look Ahead,” published in the North American Review.  In discussing the article, Carnegie states:

Turn up my “Look Ahead” which I published in the North American Review eight years ago, and you will find every forecast I made then is coming true…. We are heading straight to the Re-United States.  Everything is telling that way…. It is coming, coming faster than you people in the Old World realize. (Page 406, emphasis added)

Carnegie cites the overwhelming benefits and strength in such a race confederation:

The new nation would dominate the world and banish from the earth its greatest stain – the murder of men by men.  It would be the arbiter between nations, and enforce the peaceful settlement of all quarrels….

He sees for Britain (and therefore for the elite that use Britain as a tool) that there is no choice but re-union:

The only course for Britain seems to be reunion with her giant child, or sure decline to a secondary place, and then to comparative insignificance in the future annals of the English-speaking race, which is to increase so rapidly in America.

Carnegie concludes the article with the following “declaration of faith”:

Let men say what they will, therefore, I say as surely as the sun in the heavens once shone upon Britain and America united, so surely is it one morning to rise, shine upon, and greet again the reunited state of “The British-American Union.”

The elite were, of course, successful in bringing about this reunion and turning it to their purposes: not a formal political union, but a union sufficient to maintain and expand elite control.  In Britain, political leaders knew they would have to take a back seat to the inevitable outcome of superior US economic power.  In the US, political leaders had to agree to allow the US to be co-opted as the tool of the elite. Fame, power, glory and riches came to those who played along.

For those with an interest in the thinking behind such actions, Stead offers a nice peek behind the curtain.

Those advocating for a smaller state suggest that this need not be so, instead offering private and decentralized arbitration as an alternative.  Such suggestions are often deemed to be rather naïve by those who can only see resolution through a monopoly force over a geographic area and the threat of military engagement if the dispute involves another state.

Well, not so fast.  There was a time, throughout the nineteenth century, when countries in the west often turned to arbitration for the successful resolution of international disputes.  The United States and Great Britain, not on friendly terms throughout much of the century, on several occasions turned to international arbitration as a means of resolving conflict.  While obviously not a perfect example of private governance methods, this historic reality offers some possibilities of importance to those who favor both decentralized government and peace.

Not surprisingly, this history of successful arbitration via decentralized systems in diffusing international disputes is lost in modern thinking, where centralizing national and international structures are looked to for salvation in such disputes, and – like central banks are to bankers – such agencies offer an oversized opportunity for influence to lawyers who would otherwise have to compete in a less politicized structure.  From “International Law and the Nineteenth Century: History of an Illusion,” by David Kennedy:

I have asked numerous international lawyers what the nineteenth century means to them, what were its contributions, which of its insights and contributions remain relevant, and how did that discipline differ from our own.  For today’s international lawyer, the nineteenth century seems long ago and far away, in many ways more distant from current problems and reflections that the great publicists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries….

The system is forgotten – in a way, as if it was the “Dark Ages” of the legal profession.  It also seems to have been a system more effective at keeping peace:

To understand the nineteenth century’s contributions to the field, we must start with this gap, this forgetfulness, and with the thin factual and doctrinal traces which remain from what was a comparatively peaceful and law abiding century when compared to our own. (emphasis added)

W.T. Stead touches on this issue in a few short pages in his book, The Americanization of the World.  I will supplement his comments with other sources in order to paint a more complete picture of this supposedly naïve solution.

Stead offers several examples of disputes between the United States and Britain that were resolved by third-party arbitration.  All page references are to Stead’s book.

Disputed Boundaries

The first arbitration between the [United States and Great Britain] took place in 1816, when a dispute arose about the St. Croix River, and the Lake boundaries. (Page 249) In 1827 a question about the northeastern boundary of the United States was referred to the arbitration of the King of the Netherlands. (Page 250)

Three Commissions were established pursuant to the Treaty of Ghent – the treaty that brought to close the War of 1812 – to include resolution of the above-mentioned boundary disputes:

One commission tried to determine boundaries between British territory and the United States from the St. Lawrence River to the Lake of the Woods; it agreed upon a boundary through the Great Lakes but failed to determine the line from Lake Superior to the Lake of the Woods. The third commission was supposed to decide the boundary from the St. Croix to the St. Lawrence, but it failed to reach accord.

As a means to resolve the disputes, the matters were referred to arbitration:

The two governments thereupon referred the dispute to William I of the Netherlands. That monarch failed to find a clear basis for a decision but in 1831 made an award anyway, giving the United States and Britain what he believed to be equitable shares of a wilderness. The United States refused to accept this award, protesting that the king had not acted in accord with the agreement referring the controversy to him. While arbitration had failed in this instance, the case was of considerable importance, for it clearly established the principle that arbitrators should abide by the terms of a compromis or other preliminary agreements.

The matter was later resolved via the Webster-Ashburton Treaty in 1842.

Property to be Returned After the War of 1812

…a question arising out of the Treaty of Ghent was referred to the arbitration of the Emperor of Russia. (Page 249)

What was the dispute?

The United States and Britain meanwhile had one other arbitration in connection with the Treaty of Ghent. The two powers were supposed to restore all property, both public and private, that they had seized from each other during the War of 1812. The treaty specifically mentioned slaves, but the British failed to return all American slaves under their jurisdiction at the close of hostilities. After many protests from Washington, British leaders agreed that an arbitrator should deal with the matter, and the two governments referred their dispute to Alexander I of Russia. The czar decided that Britain had failed to meet its obligations and should pay an indemnity. Upon his recommendation the United States and Britain concluded a convention setting up a commission to decide the amount due the United States. After elaborate proceedings, the commissioners decided that the indemnity should be $1,204,960, and, in a convention concluded 13 November 1826, the British government accepted this decision.

Liberated Slaves

In 1853 a dispute about some liberated slaves was settled by arbitration…. (Page 250)

This dispute is known as the Creole Case:

The Creole case was the result of an American slave revolt in November 1841 on board the Creole, a ship involved in the United States coastwise slave trade. As 128 slaves gained freedom after the rebels ordered the ship sailed to Nassau, it has been termed the “most successful slave revolt in US history”. Two persons died as a result of the revolt, a black slave and a white slave trader.

Great Britain had abolished slavery effective 1834; its officials in the Bahamas ruled that most of the slaves on the Creole were freed after arrival there, if they chose to stay. Officials detained the 19 men who rebelled on ship until the Admiralty Court of Nassau held a special session in April 1842 to consider charges of piracy against them. The Court ruled that the men had been illegally held in slavery and had the right to use force to gain freedom; they were not seeking private gain. The 17 survivors were also released to freedom (two had died in the interval).

When the Creole reached New Orleans in December 1841 with three women and two child slaves aboard, Southerners were outraged about the loss of “property.” Relations between the United States and Britain were strained for a time. The incident occurred during negotiations for the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 but was not directly addressed. The parties settled on seven crimes qualifying for extradition in the treaty; they did not include slave revolts. Eventually claims from the Creole case and two other US ships were covered in a claims treaty of 1853 between the US and UK, for which an arbitration commission awarded settlements in 1855 against each nation, dating to 1814.

The Claims of the Hudson’s Bay and Puget’s Sound Agricultural Companies

…in 1863 a difference that arose between the Hudson’s Bay and the Puget Sound Company was also settled in the same way. (Page 250)

These companies were ostensibly established to promote British settlement in the subject territories:

The Puget Sound Agricultural Company (PSAC), commonly referred to with variations of the name using Puget Sound or Puget’s Sound, was a joint stock company formed around 1840 as a subsidiary of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC).

In 1863, Great Britain and the United States agreed to arbitrate the disposition of the PSAC properties in US territory. The PSAC was awarded $200,000 in compensation in 1869 for all of its properties south of the Canadian-US border as spelled out in the Oregon Treaty.

The Alabama Claims and the San Juan Boundary

…the Alabama Claims under the Treaty of Washington of 1871 were referred to the Geneva Tribunal. …the disputed San Juan boundary was referred to the arbitration of the German Emperor, and a further dispute about the Nova Scotia fishery was also settled amicably. (Page 250)

Two issues were referred to two different arbitrators: the Alabama Claims, and the San Juan boundary dispute.

What were the Alabama Claims?

The Alabama Claims were a series of claims for damages by the U.S. government against the government of the United Kingdom for the assistance given to the Confederate cause during the American Civil War.

The British built several warships for the Confederate States during the war.  These ships caused significant damage, and the United States government wanted restitution.

The Treaty of Washington was negotiated by a commission of twelve representatives – six each from the US and British Empire.

The treaty included the settlement process for the Alabama Claims, settled disputed Atlantic fisheries and the San Juan Boundary (concerning the Oregon boundary line).

The method chosen to settle the Alabama Claims was via an international tribunal, made up of members from the US, Britain, Italy, Switzerland and Brazil.  The tribunal met in Geneva.

After international arbitration endorsed the American position in 1872, Britain settled the matter by paying the United States $15.5 million for damages done by several warships built in Britain and sold to the Confederacy, thus ending the dispute and ensuring friendly relations.

As mentioned, the treaty also included a provision to resolve disputes about the Oregon boundary line (the San Juan boundary).  This was also resolved via arbitration:

Finally, provision was made for submitting to the arbitration by William I, German Emperor, of the Pig War dispute concerning the maritime boundary in Puget Sound.

The Pig War was a confrontation between the United States and the British Empire over the San Juan Islands:

The territory in dispute was the San Juan Islands, which lie between Vancouver Island and the North American mainland.

This treaty formed the initial foundation for the Great Rapprochement, which would take full root by the turn of the century.

The Bering Sea Arbitration

In 1891 the question of the seal fisheries in the Bering Sea was referred to a Court of Arbitration in Paris…. (Page 250)

The roots of this dispute extend from the US purchase from Russia of Alaskan territories.  Congress passed laws regarding the killing of seals on the Pribiloff islands and in “the waters adjacent thereto.”

In the summer of 1886, three British Columbian sealers, the Carolena, Onward, and Thornton, were captured by an American revenue cutter 60 miles from land. They were condemned by the district judge because they had been sealing within the limits of Alaska territory and owed a pro tanto obligation to respect the sovereign laws of the Territory of Alaska.

Negotiations to resolve the issue of sealing in the open seas proved fruitless, and the matter was referred to international arbitration:

On February 29, 1892, a definitive treaty was signed at Washington, D.C. Each power was to name two arbitrators, and the president of the French Republic, the king of Italy, the king of Norway and Sweden were each to name one.

The award, which was signed and published on 15 August 1893, was in favour of Great Britain on all points. The question of damages, which had been reserved, was ultimately settled by a mixed commission appointed by the two powers in February 1896, the total amount awarded to the British sealers being $473,151.26 – in excess of US$10 million in present-day inflation-adjusted dollars.

Venezuela Crisis of 1895

Finally, regarding a border dispute between Venezuela and Great Britain, arbitration was proposed by President Cleveland; his demand was greeted by a “storm of enthusiastic approval.” (Page 250, 251)

You rightly ask: what business is this of the United States?

The dispute had become a diplomatic crisis in 1895 when Venezuela’s lobbyist William L. Scruggs sought to argue that British behaviour over the issue violated the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, and used his influence in Washington, D.C. to pursue the matter. Then US President Grover Cleveland adopted a broad interpretation of the Doctrine that did not just forbid new European colonies but declared an American interest in any matter within the hemisphere.

The subject of the dispute was the border between Venezuela and British Guiana:

The Venezuela Crisis of 1895 occurred over Venezuela’s longstanding dispute with the United Kingdom about the territory of Essequibo and Guayana Esequiba, which Britain claimed as part of British Guiana and Venezuela saw as Venezuelan territory. As the dispute became a crisis, the key issue became Britain’s refusal to include in the proposed international arbitration the territory east of the “Schomburgk Line”, which a surveyor had drawn half a century earlier as a boundary between Venezuela and the former Dutch territory of British Guiana. The crisis ultimately saw Britain accept the United States’ intervention in the dispute to force arbitration of the entire disputed territory, and tacitly accept the United States’ right to intervene under the Monroe Doctrine.

The parties agreed to arbitration:

The agreement provided for a Tribunal with two members representing Venezuela (but chosen by the US Supreme Court), two members chosen by the British government, and fifth member chosen by these four, who would preside. Venezuelan President Joaquín Crespo referred to a sense of “national humiliation”, and the treaty was modified so that the Venezuelan President would nominate a Tribunal member. However it was understood that his choice would not be a Venezuelan, and in fact he nominated the Chief Justice of the United States. Ultimately, on 2 February 1897, the Treaty of Washington between Venezuela and the United Kingdom was signed, and ratified several months later.

The final decision was to award the bulk of the disputed territory to British Guiana.

National and International Support

The concept of arbitration to resolve international disputes had some high-powered support:

Mr. Carnegie, the most peaceful of men, declared that arbitration was the one thing in the world for which he was willing to fight. (Page 251)

The United States Congress also passed resolutions in support of referring disputes to arbitration in order to avoid war.  Stead cites a resolution passed by both Houses of Congress in 1874:

…whereby matters in dispute between different Governments agreeing thereto may be adjusted by Arbitration, and if possible without recourse to war. (Page 250)

In fact, Britain passed a similar resolution in the House of Commons one year earlier:

The idea for a treaty which would place most, if not all, disputes between nations into a legal arbitration process – an idea described by Nelson M. Blake as “a typical product of nineteenth century liberalism” – developed both in Europe and America in the latter decades of the 19^th Century. It had particular support in Great Britain and the United States with the House of Commons passing a resolution in favour of the principle of international arbitration in 1873 and Congress doing likewise in 1874. (emphasis in original)

Again in 1890, both Houses of Congress passed similar language:

…any differences or disputes arising between [the United States and any other government with which it has diplomatic relations] which cannot be adjusted by diplomatic agency, may be referred to Arbitration, and be peaceably adjusted by such means. (Page 251)

Additionally in 1890, the representatives of seventeen American republics, meeting in Washington, issued a resolution committing to arbitration as settlement for all disputes of any type that may arise between them, except in the case where national independence is in peril.  Sixteen signed the resolution. (Page 252)

The resolution for arbitration appears to be watered down from that desired by the United States, due to mistrust of the United States by several of the other representatives.  Nonetheless, the United States proposed and ultimately secured arbitration as a means for resolving international disputes throughout much of the Western Hemisphere.

Summary and Conclusion

Stead summarizes the century of arbitration:

Up to the year 1895 the Government of the United States had entered into forty-seven agreements for referring matters to arbitration. (Page 253)

Up until this time, it seems, this was all accomplished without a centralized, global agent or arbitration panel – cases were taken in front of various and different trusted, qualified individuals outside of formal national or international structures.  The advantages of such a system seem obvious – the disputing parties are each free to nominate arbitrators, reducing the concerns of capture of the arbitrating body by the more powerful state/party to the arbitration.

Unfortunately, the United States and the western world couldn’t leave well enough alone – nor did the world learn from the successes of the past.  At the Peace Conference at The Hague in 1899, the establishment of a permanent International Tribunal was promoted. (Page 253)

Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes: This convention included the creation of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, which exists to this day. The section was ratified by all major powers, including United States, Great Britain, Austria-Hungary, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Russia, Japan, and China. (emphasis added)

Correlation is not causation; however the previous system of ad-hoc tribunals seemed to work reasonably well in what was a relatively peaceful century, whereas the aftermath of The Hague Conventions, including a permanent international panel, are not so encouraging – including two world wars involving the same countries that ratified the arbitration convention.

From this examination, I draw certain conclusions:

1) Counter to the practice of the last 100 years, it is not necessary – and in fact harmful – that a formal, centralized agency holds a monopoly position on adjudicating disputes, such as the United Nations or League of Nations.

2) Even the most powerful state can use arbitration as opposed to war to settle disputes.  Great Britain was the super-power of this time, yet did not always resort to violence to solve disputes.  The United States was the growing power of the same age, and also made liberal use of international arbitration to resolve disputes.

3) Not all manners need be concluded by treaty – especially in politically charged situations, a lesson that was forgotten by the victorious powers in the aftermath of World War I.

4) The US and Britain were in regular conflict throughout the period in question – these two states were not on otherwise friendly terms – yet utilized this most civilized manner to resolve conflict.

5) All parties recognized the legitimacy and authority of the process.

6) The nineteenth century of decentralized arbitration was one of relative peace – infinitely more so than the twentieth century, which was governed internationally by structures that were more permanent.

Finally, all of this provides a real-world example of the possibility of adjudicating disputes in a private and contractual manner.  It does not take a huge leap of faith to conclude that a decentralized arbitration system could be extended to smaller and smaller segments of the population, ultimately leading to a private security environment.

If it can be done between states, why not between individuals (or private insurance / security companies) in a world without states as we currently use the term?  Why limit the possibilities by geographical boundaries – some form of panarchy, if you will?

In other words, decentralized dispute resolution services can be provided privately between individuals or freely-contracting groups of individuals just as was successfully done between states more than a century ago.

With this post, I will begin a review of the above titled book, written in 1902.  In order to provide context as to my purpose for and approach in this review, I will begin by re-introducing and expanding upon my working hypothesis under which I have been considering various events over the last century and more.

1) There is a group of elite that operate above politicians and national governments, working through think-tanks and other global foundations and institutions.

2) The elite are not all of one mind, although in many ways their interests are aligned and the tools through which they leverage control are equally beneficial to all.

3) Until the turn of the 20^th century, much of this control was exercised through the British government and other British-based institutions.

4) Beginning as early as the late 19^th century (and perhaps the mid-nineteenth century), two things were becoming clear to this group:

a.The ability of Great Britain to be an effective tool for global reach would soon reach its limits.

b.The potential reach through the United States was untapped and, relatively speaking, unlimited.

5) The commonality in philosophical heritage and language of the people in Great Britain and the United States made the US population susceptible to similar tools of control – tools already established and proven effective.

6) Actions were taken beginning in the late 19^th century to effect the transition of this tool for global control from Great Britain to the United States.

7) These actions, through two World Wars, culminated in the United States moving to the position as the primary tool for control by the elite.

8) Winston Churchill – worshiped despite being the leading political figure during the entire span of the demise of the British Empire – played the key role in supporting this transition: both the decline of Great Britain and the ascendency of the United States as leader of this broader, English-speaking, elite controlled empire.

9) As opposed to looking elsewhere for world government, the United States has been the tool to implement world government – taking a leadership position in establishing the UN, IMF, World Bank, NATO, etc.

10) The good news?  Decentralization will win out: witness the break-up of the artificial conglomerations of the USSR, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia.  Witness similar events unfolding in Iraq, the inability to consolidate in Afghanistan.  Witness tiny Belgium, divided in two – yet somehow the entirety of Europe is going to meld into one?  Much more capable thinkers than I am write of the coming of the end of the nation-state (see especially the sections on Barzun and van Creveld).

Some of the visible actions taken to move the US into this leadership position include:

1) The creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913

2) The engagement of the US into the Great War, despite overwhelming public opinion against getting involved in this European conflict

3) The engagement of the US into the Second World War, again despite overwhelming public opinion against getting involved in this conflict.

4) Various purposeful actions taken by the British government to a) overcome the historical animosities between the two countries, and b) move the US toward the position of global primacy.

If you find this too tin-foil-hat for you, there is little reason to continue reading this post (if you haven’t stopped already).

While reading 1939 – The War That Had Many Fathers, I came across another event that seems to have helped move the US into a position to take the hand-off from Great Britain: the assassination of President McKinley in 1901.  As I explain here, this event helped to move the US from a negative or neutral posture toward Great Britain (and even somewhat favorable to Germany) toward a much more positive relationship with Great Britain through the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.

This transition was but one step in what is known as the Great Rapprochement, the turning of US policy toward Great Britain in the period 1895 – 1915.

Also while reading the above-mentioned book I came across the name William Thomas Stead, and his book “The Americanization of the World.”  Given the title and description of the book, and that this book was initially published in 1902 (precisely at the beginning of this changing relationship), it seemed to me a worthwhile read given the hypothesis I identify above.

With that lengthy preamble out of the way, I offer an even lengthier introduction of Mr. Stead….

Who was Stead?  “William Thomas Stead (5 July 1849 – 15 April 1912) was an English newspaper editor….”

If his date of death seems familiar, it is because Stead died aboard the Titanic. Before this, he was a tremendously influential newspaper editor and author:

In 1880, Stead went to London to be assistant editor of the Liberal Pall Mall Gazette (a forerunner of the London Evening Standard), where he set about revolutionizing a traditionally conservative newspaper “written by gentlemen for gentlemen”.

Stead early on learned the power that the press could project over government action:

Stead’s first sensational campaign was based on a Nonconformist pamphlet, The Bitter Cry of Outcast London. His lurid stories of squalid life in the slums had a wholly beneficial effect on the capital. A Royal Commission recommended that the government should clear the slums and encourage low-cost housing in their place. It was Stead’s first success.

Despite being able to successfully move government to action, not every endeavor ended well; still, his reach and magnitude knew few limits:

In 1884, Stead pressured the government to send his friend General Gordon into Sudan to protect British interests in Khartoum. The eccentric Gordon disobeyed orders, and the siege of Khartoum, Gordon’s death, and the failure of the hugely expensive Gordon Relief Expedition was one of the great imperial disasters of the period.

Gordon was sent to evacuate British citizens from a troubled region and to otherwise abandon Sudan.  Once Gordon arrived, he apparently pursued a different course: he decided it was best to crush the Muslim uprising for fear that it would eventually spread to Egypt as well.  Gordon, with 6,000 men, began a defense of Khartoum.

On March 18, 1884, the Mahdist army laid siege to the city. The rebels stopped river traffic and cut the telegraph line to Cairo. Khartoum was cut off from resupply, which led to food shortages, but could still communicate with the outside world by using messengers. Under pressure from the public, in August 1884, the British government decided to reverse its policy and send a relief force to Khartoum.

“Under pressure from the public” a relief expedition force was sent, but failed to arrive in time to save Gordon and his men:

On January 26, 1885, Khartoum fell to the Mahdist army of 50,000 men. At that time of year the Nile was shallow enough to cross by wading and the Mahdists were able to breach the city’s defenses by attacking the poorly-defended approaches from the river. The entire garrison was slaughtered, including General Gordon. His head was cut off and delivered to the Mahdi. Two days later the relief expedition entered the city to find that they were too late.

Lord Kitchener later reconquered Sudan.

Forgive my diversion into this tale of late nineteenth century British imperialism; however it serves to demonstrate the power and influence that Stead possessed.  As cited above, “In 1884, Stead pressured the government to send his friend General Gordon into Sudan….”  It seems reasonable that he also was the one to apply pressure to send aid to “his friend” Gordon.

More on Stead and his influence:

1885 saw him force the British government to supply an additional £5.5million to bolster weakening naval defenses, after which he published a series of articles.  Stead was no hawk however; instead he believed Britain’s strong navy was necessary to maintain world peace.

Stead saw peace through war.  He saw the British Navy as a global force for good.  Consider how the tools used by the elite have not had to change a bit over the 125 years since Stead’s time, as the same tools used by Stead to help usurp wealth from the British middle class remain completely effective in the propaganda campaigns designed to usurp wealth from the middle class of the US today.

…he is also credited as originating the modern journalistic technique of creating a news event rather than just reporting it, as his most famous “investigation”, the Eliza Armstrong case, was to demonstrate.

Stead had other passions, showing an ability to understand future global consolidation well before any generally visible steps:

Stead was a pacifist and a campaigner for peace, who favored a “United States of Europe” and a “High Court of Justice among the nations”….

Stead held court in high places:

[Stead] was an early imperialist dreamer, whose influence on Cecil Rhodes in South Africa remained of primary importance; and many politicians and statesmen, who on most subjects were completely at variance with his ideas, nevertheless owed something to them. Rhodes made him his confidant….

Rhodes, of course, cornered the South African diamond market with the help of rather influential friends – call them the elite of the elite.  Rhodes was also quite influential regarding British Imperial policy:

Historian Richard A. McFarlane has called Rhodes “as integral a participant in southern African and British imperial history as George Washington or Abraham Lincoln are in their respective eras in United States history…

And Rhodes was influenced by Stead.

Stead found his influence ever-growing:

The number of his publications gradually became very large, as he wrote with facility and sensational fervor on all sorts of subjects, from The Truth about Russia (1888) to If Christ Came to Chicago! (Laird & Lee, 1894), and from Mrs Booth (1900) to The Americanisation of the World (1902).

And finally, to show the well-rounded character of the man:

Stead claimed to be in receipt of messages from the spirit world, and, in 1892, to be able to produce automatic writing.  His spirit contact was alleged to be the departed Julia Ames, an American temperance reformer and journalist whom he met in 1890 shortly before her death.  In 1909 he established Julia’s Bureau where inquirers could obtain information about the spirit world from a group of resident mediums.

As mentioned, Stead died on the Titanic.  His reputation survived:

Following his death, Stead was widely hailed as the greatest newspaperman of his age…. Like many journalists, he was a curious mixture of conviction, opportunism and sheer humbug. According to his biographer W. Sydney Robinson, “He twisted facts, invented stories, lied, betrayed confidences, but always with a genuine desire to reform the world – and himself.”

Why all of this background on Stead?  Well, it seems he was a rather influential fellow within the British elite at precisely the time when the United States began its turn toward Great Britain: an empire which (to say nothing of the spat in 1776) less than a century before burned the White House and much of the capitol, and only a few decades before, while officially neutral, aided the South in their war for independence – guilty enough to ultimately pay restitution of $15.5 million for building war ships for the Confederacy.

Great Britain was officially neutral throughout the American Civil War, 1861–65. Elite opinion tended to favor the Confederacy, while public opinion tended to favor the United States.

I will suggest it is elite opinion that counts when it comes to matters of politics, for example:

Diplomatic observers were suspicious of British motives. The Russian Minister in Washington Eduard de Stoeckl noted, “The Cabinet of London is watching attentively the internal dissensions of the Union and awaits the result with an impatience which it has difficulty in disguising.” De Stoeckl advised his government that Britain would recognize the Confederate States at its earliest opportunity. Cassius Clay, the United States Minister in Russia, stated, “I saw at a glance where the feeling of England was. They hoped for our ruin! They are jealous of our power. They care neither for the South nor the North. They hate both.”

Yet as early as 1895 – only 30 years after the end of the war – the US and Britain began their courtship.  And in the background was William Thomas Stead.

Finally, on to his book and the first chapter:

As it was through the Christian Church that the monotheism of the Jew conquered the world, so it may be through the Americans that the English ideals expressed in the English language may make a tour of the planet. (Page 3)

Setting aside the exaggeration of the claim, given the religion of statolatry (to borrow a phrase from Charles Burris), the comparison seems quite appropriate.

Stead saw the inevitability of the United States taking the preeminent position among the English-speaking nations.  He looked at population growth over the preceding 100 years (including empire), but also at differentiating the white population from the non-white (a recurring theme in his writing); he felt strongly that it was the white population that was of importance.

We are comparing the English-speaking communities.  The right of leadership does not depend upon how many millions, more or less, of colored people we have compelled to pay us taxes. (Page 5)

Stead, not shy, makes plain one purpose of colonizing people of color – compelling tax payments.  Stead also discounts the millions of British subjects in, for example, India, Africa, and the West Indies when it comes to considering the trends of population and future supremacy.

Population should be weighed as well as counted.  In a census return a Hottentot counts for as much as a Cecil Rhodes; a mean white on a southern swamp is the census equivalent for a Mr. J.P. Morgan or Mr. Edison.

A nation which has no illiterates can hardly be counted off against the Russians, only three per cent of whom can read or write. (Page 9)

He also sees no hope for reversal of this trend in favor of the US and to the detriment of Great Britain – not only in population but also industrial production and therefore capability of global reach.

Having presented this case, he suggests Britain embraces this inevitable change, restoring old bonds:

The philosophy of common sense teaches us that, seeing we can never again be the first, standing alone, we should lose no time in uniting our fortunes with those who have passed us in the race. Has the time not come when we should make a resolute effort to realize the unity of the English-speaking race?  …while if we remain outside, nursing our Imperial insularity on monarchical lines, we are doomed to play second fiddle for the rest of our existence.  Why not finally recognize the truth and act upon it?  What sacrifices are there which can be regarded as too great to achieve the realization of the ideal of the unity of the English-speaking race? (Page 6)

Stead sees continuous contention between the United States and Great Britain for control of global trade, with Britain eventually and ultimately the loser.  Stead is writing during the very early phases of the Great Rapprochement.  As regarding great sacrifices, considering the tremendous work done by Great Britain behind the scenes to create the propaganda in the US necessary to drag the American people into two world wars (as I view these wars as key to formalizing the transition of power), it seems reasonable to conclude that Stead’s suggestion that no sacrifices should be considered too great was taken quite seriously.

Stead goes on to outline the power and control available through a united US and British front: population, land mass, control of the seas and most navigable rivers.  And gold: “With the exception of Siberia they have seized all the best goldmines of the world.” (Page 7) Not a barbarous relic, apparently.

Between the two, they have seized the dominions of Spain, despoiled the Portuguese, the French and the Dutch, and left nothing but scraps to Italy and the Germans. (Page 7)  The only statistic in which these non-English-speaking nations hold the lead is in the amount of national debt! (Page 11)

Stead is looking for a savior, someone to lead in bringing these two – the US and Britain – into one, with the US taking the leading position:

The question arises whether this gigantic aggregate can be pooled.  We live in the day of combinations.  Is there no Morgan who will undertake to bring about the greatest combination of all – a combination of the whole English Speaking race?

The same motive which has led to the building up of the Trust in the industrial world may bring about this great combination in the world of politics.  (Page 12)

Presumably he is writing here of the work done by Morgan in consolidating the US steel industry.  Of course, Morgan also had connections with the same elite family that assisted Rhodes with diamonds in South Africa:

In 1895, at the depths of the Panic of 1893, the Federal Treasury was nearly out of gold.  President Grover Cleveland accepted Morgan’s offer to join with the Rothschilds and supply the U.S. Treasury with 3.5 million ounces of gold to restore the treasury surplus in exchange for a 30-year bond issue.

It should also be kept in mind: McKinley was a Rockefeller man; Rockefeller had ties to Germany.  Teddy Roosevelt, beneficiary of McKinley’s assassination, was a Morgan man; Morgan was a strong friend of Britain.  It seems the “Morgan” that Stead was looking for in the political combination was the same “Morgan” that he was referring to in the industrial combination.

Stead sees the impossibility of the American people accepting a combination where those in America would accept being subservient again to the crown:

It is, of course, manifestly impossible, even if it were desirable, for the Americans to come back within the pale of the British Empire. (Page 15)

Instead, he suggests Britain should accept reunion “on whatever terms may be arrived at.” (Page 15)

While not an overt political reunion, it certainly seems that a reunion was accepted by the British – and ultimately the U.S.  If one visible actor can be placed at the center of this “success,” I will suggest it is Winston Churchill.  For much of the first half of the 20^th century, Churchill played a leading role in British politics; even when not in an official position, he was communicating directly with Roosevelt behind the scenes in order to facilitate America’s entry into the Second World War – the final event in ensuring the transition.

During this time, Britain (or more precisely, the British population) certainly paid the price of reunion – “whatever terms necessary,” as Stead suggested in 1902: the terms for the British population can be seen in the blood of two world wars, inflation, a depression, a loss of manufacture and industry.  This price was paid over the next 50 years.  In the end, the United States clearly stood on top of the English-speaking world.

One politician, more than any other, stood in a position of leadership and influence while Britain was economically and physically bled: Winston Churchill.  Presiding (in various roles) over such a massive loss of Empire would normally result in the derision of the leader.  Yet Churchill is exalted.  Perhaps it has little to do with his role in the death of the British Empire, but because of his role in the birth of the larger, Anglo Empire.  For this reason, the gatekeepers of mainstream history frame Churchill in a praiseworthy manner.

And one writer, a man who traveled within and influenced the highest circles of the elite, wrote the book before the events even occurred: William Thomas Stead.

I will continue with further posts regarding this book as I find comments of import.  In the meantime, the examination of this one life and this first chapter has provided insights supportive of my working hypothesis regarding the transition of elite power and control from Great Britain to the United States.

There was no military reason for these acts of state sponsored terrorism.  This military myth has been exposed for the lie that it is.  Don’t take my word for it: ask Admiral Leahy and General Eisenhower.  That the myth persists, even after such voices as these expose the lie, is a testament to the expert capabilities of the indoctrination schemes of public education and mainstream media.

I have previously written about an eyewitness account to this devastation.  Technically, I guess I didn’t write much of my own material – primarily I cited the testimony of Dr. Shuntaro Hida, a medical officer that survived the crime.  His words add feeling to the pictures.

The prosecution rests its case.

I will take a similar approach here.  I offer, without comment, the words from three sources: first, the editors of Commonweal, writing just a few short days after the bombing (note the mocking tone of this editorial); second, Paul Boyer, writing for the minority voice – those voices not cheering the act of terrorism.  Finally, a succinct comment from Albert Camus, nicely summarizing this criminality.  All three selections are from the volume “Hiroshima’s Shadow.”

I will caution: take note how many times the word “we” is used when describing the act, the guilt, and the shame.  Sadly, even in the righteous work of these courageous critics in condemning this state sponsored terrorism, they have contributed to the state-legitimizing language of collective responsibility.

The Horror and the Shame, The Editors of Commonweal

August 24, 1945

Two months ago (June 22) we were writing about poison gas.  We said: “To the Orient we are bringing the latest inventions of our civilization.  There is only one we have not brought.  It is gas.  If we use that we will have brought them all.  Gas is no worse than the flame.  It is only that it is one more weapon.  The last one we have to use.  Until we invent a new one.”  And then we said: “The time has come when nothing more can be added to the horror if we wish to keep our coming victory something we can use – or that humanity can use.”

Well, it seems that we were ridiculous writing that sort of thing.  We will not have to write that sort of thing any more.  Certainly, like everyone else, we will have to write a great deal about the future of humanity and the atomic bomb.  But we will not have to worry any more about keeping our victory clean.  It is defiled.

The war against Japan was nearly won.  Our fleet and Britain’s fleet stood off Japan’s coast and shelled Japan’s cities.  There was no opposition…. Then, without warning, an American plane dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Russia entered the war.  There was no doubt before or after Russia entered the war that the war against Japan was won.  An American plane dropped the second bomb on Nagasaki.

And then we said that this bomb could mean the end of civilization if we ever got into a war and everyone started to use it.  So that we must keep it a secret.  We must keep it a sole property of people who know how to use it.  We must keep it the property of a peace-loving nation….that is what we said about it, after we had used it ourselves.  To secure peace, of course.  To save lives, of course.  After we had brought indescribable death to a few hundred thousand men, women, and children, we said that this bomb must remain always in the hand of peace-loving peoples.  For our war, for our purposes, to save American lives we have reached the point where we say that anything goes.  That is what the Germans said at the beginning of the war.  Once we have won our war we say that there must be international law.  Undoubtedly.

“Victory For What?” – The Voice of the Minority, Paul Boyer.

It was a few days after the war’s end, and the victory celebration that had surged through downtown Chicago was still a fresh memory.  But Fred Eastman of the Chicago Theological Seminary was not in a celebratory mood.  “King Herod’s slaughter of the innocents – an atrocity committed in the name of defense – destroyed no more than a few hundred children,” he wrote bitterly to Christian Century; “Today, a single atomic bomb slaughters tens of thousands of children and their mothers and fathers.  Newspapers and radio acclaim it a great victory.  Victory for what?”  The poet Randall Jarrell, stationed at an air force base in Arizona, had a similar reaction: “I feel so rotten about the country’s response to the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” he wrote a friend in September 1945, “that I wish I could become a naturalized dog or cat.”

Socialist Norman Thomas deplored the “pious satisfaction” of most commentators – including those on the left – at Truman’s announcement.  The atomic destruction of a second city, Thomas wrote, was “the greatest single atrocity of a very cruel war.”

Surely, [Stuart] Chase insisted, Washington could have found a way to achieve its objectives “without this appalling slaughter of school children.”

The New York Herald Tribune found “no satisfaction in…the greatest simultaneous slaughter in the whole history of mankind….”

The Omaha World Herald criticized as “almost sacrilegious” the unctuous tone of Truman’s announcement “in using the name of a merciful God in connection with so Satanic a device.”

“Surely we cannot be proud of what we have done,” wrote David Lawrence in the U.S. News and World Report.  “If we state our inner thoughts honestly, we are ashamed of it.”

Newspapers all over the country…were receiving letters “protesting the killing of the non-combatant civilians in Japan, calling it inhuman, and protesting our disregard of moral values.”  One called the bombing a “stain upon our national life”; another said it was “simply mass murder, sheer terrorism.”

An appalled reader of Time wrote: “The United States of America has this day become the new master of brutality, infamy, atrocity.  Bataan, Buchenwald, Dachau, Coventry, Lidice were tea parties compared with the horror which we…have dumped on the world…. No peacetime applications of this Frankenstein monster can ever erase the crime we have committed.”

Two weeks after Hiroshima, thirty-four prominent Protestant clergymen, including several well-known pacifists, addressed a letter to President Truman condemning the decision.  One of the signers, Harry Emerson Fosdick of New York’s Riverside Church, was particularly outspoken. In an early post-war sermon broadcast nationally, Fosdick declared: “When our self-justifications are all in, every one of us is nonetheless horrified at the implications of what we did.  Saying that Japan was guilty and deserved it gets us nowhere.  The mothers and babies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not deserve it.”  To argue that the “mass murder of whole metropolitan populations is right if it is effective,” Fosdick went on, was to abandon “every moral standard the best conscience of the race ever has set up.”

Another independent religious voice of protest was that of John Haynes Holmes of the nonsectarian Community Church of New York.  The atomic bomb, wrote Holmes in the September 1945 issue of his magazine Unity, was “the supreme atrocity of the ages; …a crime which we would instantly have recognized as such had Germany and not our own country been guilty of the act.”

[From “Atomic Warfare and the Christian Faith,” a report to the Federal Council of Churches in March 1946]: “We are agreed that, whatever…one’s judgment of the ethics of war in principle, the surprise bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are morally indefensible.”

Catholic World, the voice of the Paulist Fathers, called the surprise use of the atomic bomb against civilians “atrocious and abominable” and “the most powerful blow ever delivered against Christian civilization and the moral law.”  All “civilized people,” this September 1945 editorial continued, should “reprobate and anathematize” this “horrible deed.”  Of the argument that the two doomed cities had been given sufficient advance warning, Catholic World said: “Let us not combine cruelty with hypocrisy, and attempt to justify wholesale slaughter with a lie.”

Between Hell and Reason, Albert Camus

August 6, 1945

We can sum up in one sentence: technological civilization has just reached its final degree of savagery.

The neocons are still punch drunk, in other words, from how the Ron Paul phenomenon, during the congressman’s two attempts at securing the Republican Party presidential nomination, captured the imaginations of millions of young people and continues to do so.

 Many will remember Ron Paul’s visit to “Meet the Press” during his presidential run in 2007.  This was just after the two large money bombs, but before any primaries were held.

Russert’s purpose in this interview was the “gotcha,” throwing out statements and questions that were unquestioned in the mainstream – the various myths that prop up the American religion.  Russert’s task was obvious from his method – make it clear to so-called serious voters that Ron Paul is a flake.

Most memorable was the exchange regarding Lincoln:

MR. RUSSERT:  I was intrigued by your comments about Abe Lincoln.  “According to Paul, Abe Lincoln should never have gone to war; there were better ways of getting rid of slavery.”

REP. PAUL:  Absolutely.  Six hundred thousand Americans died in a senseless civil war.  No, he shouldn’t have gone, gone to war.  He did this just to enhance and get rid of the original intent of the republic.  I mean, it was the–that iron, iron fist.

MR. RUSSERT:  We’d still have slavery.

REP. PAUL:  Oh, come on, Tim.  Slavery was phased out in every other country of the world.  And the way I’m advising that it should have been done is do like the British empire did.  You, you buy the slaves and release them.  How much would that cost compared to killing 600,000 Americans and where it lingered for 100 years?  I mean, the hatred and all that existed.  So every other major country in the world got rid of slavery without a civil war.  I mean, that doesn’t sound too radical to me.  That sounds like a pretty reasonable approach.

I am certain that after the interview, Russert got one big bro hug from his fellow gatekeepers.  They felt certain they had buried the man.  There is no doubt that every effort was taken to do just this, both in 2008 and 2012.  However, instead of burying Dr. Paul, I suggest that what Russert and his cohorts did was to make him eternal.

The video of this interview was viewed hundreds of thousands of times.  My guess is that 1% of these views were by Oligarchic, Loudmouth, Despicable Friends and Acquaintances of Russert, Tim (OLD FARTS).  The remaining 99% of these views were by young people and others who either supported or at least were open to Ron Paul and his message.

What do you think that 99% did?  Probably many of them first said to themselves “the Lincoln that Ron Paul describes isn’t the one that I know.  I wasn’t taught this in school.”  After some reflection, and considering that many of the odd things Ron Paul said certainly held truth when examined, they then thought, “Maybe I will look into this.”

So they did.  They found books by DiLorenzo: “The Real Lincoln” and “Lincoln Unmasked.”  After reading these, they concluded that maybe Ron was onto something, and the Old Farts were lying to them.  “If they are lying about Lincoln, what else are they lying about?”

For many, this interview with Russert likely caused a desire to explore other deceptions and myths behind the American religion.  More from DiLorenzo’s article at LRC:

In his essay on “The Nature of the State” Murray Rothbard pointed out that all states, no matter how tyrannical they may be, rely crucially on inculcating in the minds of the public the alleged grandiosity of the state and the alleged failures of private enterprise and the civil society.

Such propaganda is essential to statism, said Rothbard, because it is essentially an economical way to get the public to acquiesce in being enslaved by the state.

The neocons are becoming unglued and freaked out because they no longer control the culture of ideas among “conservatives”…

I can thank Russert because he certainly helped to contribute to this loss of faith.  Had he not tried his “gotcha” approach with Ron Paul, it is likely that many of the 99% would have never looked into the Lincoln myth, and thus might not have found reason to begin to question the myriad of other myths.

The myths, as Rothbard suggests, provide economical leverage for those who would control us.  Russert, so caught up in the mainstream, had no idea what he helped to unleash – and leverage, after all, works both ways.

A prerequisite for the final collapse of the Soviet Union was the widespread disbelief in all the lies, myths and superstitions about socialism that the people of the Soviet empire had been brainwashed into accepting.

I am sure the interview was uncomfortable for Dr. Paul, despite the man being more courageous than all other members of political office combined.  Yet, just like the Rudy Giuliani moment, in the most uncomfortable of situations, Dr. Paul likely prompted many people to say to themselves “I will look into that.”

I still look back fondly on that Tim Russert moment.  He certainly helped to bring on the destruction of one of the most valuable myths supporting the American religion.

Reprinted with permission from the Bionic Mosquito.

Apparently, members of the house of representatives in the US are considering a new national park:

On Monday, Representatives Donna Edwards (D-MD) and Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) – both members of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee – proposed new legislation that would declare the lunar landing sites of Apollo missions 11 through 17 as a National Historical Park.

Was this a spoof? Perhaps a story from “The Onion”? No. A quick search resulted in dozens of hits from multiple sources.  So, I will try to take this story seriously….

National Historical Parks, like the related National Historic Sites, are areas deemed to deserve “special recognition and protection” by the US government, including the conservation of scenery and historic objects “to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

The members of the house of representatives want to protect a garbage dump, a place where US astronauts disturbed the natural surface of a place previously untouched by man.  My guess is that is a violation of some EPA code.  Perhaps the EPA will also have jurisdiction?  Oh, forgive me – I said I would try to take this story seriously.

“As commercial enterprises and foreign nations acquire the ability to land on the Moon it is necessary to protect the Apollo lunar landing sites for posterity,” the Representatives’ proposed bill reads in part.

They want to protect the landing sites?  Perhaps they could propose a companion bill to send the US military to the moon at the same time.  All of it. Wait, there I go again.

The park would be jointly managed by the Department of the Interior and NASA, which together would monitor the Apollo landing sites, catalog the items found there, and coordinate with other “spacefaring nations and entities” to manage access to the sites.

The sites are on the moon.  I know that most members of congress don’t know the location of the countries that they are bombing…but this is the moon we are talking about.  It isn’t located between Kansas and Missouri…oh, sorry; I can’t seem to stay on a serious note….I will try harder.

In addition, the bill would have the US government submit the landing site of Apollo 11, the first manned Moon mission, to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for designation as a World Heritage Site.

A “World Heritage Site.”  On the moon.  What is this, the United Inter-galactic Nations?  Perhaps The Federation?  Shall we ask Spock to be the first ambassador? Or perhaps these guys?  Oh, I give up….

I guess now that the US government has made obvious what many already suspected – that much of the world, including many world leaders, are under its authority – why not start thinking in universal terms?

Copyright © 2013 Bionic Mosquito

Schultze-Rhonhof continues with an examination of the factors that a) led to the Great War, b) came due to the Peace Treaty at Versailles.  These factors were key in the run-up to the Second World War.  I will not go through these in detail; it has been well documented elsewhere a) that – unlike the propaganda of the time – Germany and Austria were not the only instigators of the war, and b) Versailles was instrumental in generating a volatile political climate in post-war Germany.

Actions of the British and French especially were instrumental in bringing on the conflict; at the same time, the Kaiser offered proposals that could avoid the coming calamity.  Of course, the Kaiser also took actions – by design or by blunder – that helped to move events toward war.

What I find of interest is the author’s focus on the propaganda used in the democracies to motivate the populations toward war.  In this, he provides a real-world example of Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s work, for example from “Democracy: The god That Failed.”  Contrasting monarchical wars with democratic wars:

In contrast, democratic wars tend to be total wars.  In blurring the distinction between the rulers and the ruled, a democratic republic strengthens the identification of the public with a particular state.  …democratic republicanism inevitably leads to nationalism, i.e., the emotional identification of the public with large, anonymous groups of people…. Interstate wars are thus transformed into national wars.  (Page 36-37)

Today, this is readily apparent in the language used by common citizens: “our war,” “our troops,” “we sent them to fight.”  Such language would be foreign to the population under a traditional monarch.

Hoppe, citing Michael Howard:

Once the state ceased to be regarded as ‘property’ of dynastic princes, and became instead the instrument of powerful forces dedicated to such abstract concepts as Liberty, or Nationality, or Revolution, which enabled large numbers of the population to see in that state the embodiment of some absolute Good for which no price was too high, no sacrifice too great to pay; then the “temperate and indecisive contests” of the rococo age appeared as absurd anachronisms. (Page 37)

Further, citing J.F.C. Fuller:

The influence of the spirit of nationality, that is of democracy, on wars was profound… [it] emotionalized war and consequently brutalized it….  National armies fight nations, royal armies fight their like, the first obey a mob – always demented, the second a king – generally sane…. (Page 38n)

How does Hoppe’s work apply?  In order to mobilize an entire nation into war – not just for the objective of gaining volunteers and legitimizing conscription, but also for a complete takeover of the home economy – a frenzy must be created.

From “Monarchy and War,” by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn – taken from the volume edited by Hoppe, “The Myth of National Defense”:  in a democracy, as recruits are taken from a general population – a population that believes it has some say in its political dealings:

…the people itself has to be indoctrinated, in other words, made to hate the enemy collectively.  For this purpose governments invoke in modern times the support of the mass media, which will inform the people about the evil of the enemy – with little or no regard for the truth.

In World War I, the Western Allies, being more democratic, were also more skilled in organizing collective hatreds. (Page 97)

Further, from the volume edited by Hoppe:  “Is a Democracy More Peaceful than Other Forms of Government?” by Gerard Radnitzky, writing on the toolbox of tricks and deceit of a bellicose president:

Rule #1: First, get control over the media: they are indispensable as means of propaganda.  A democratic president has to sell a “war,” embarking on the mass marketing of the war that he has in mind. (Page 177)

Turning the enemy into something not human, into a population bent on world conquest, via relentless propaganda, is a method first significantly deployed in the west in the run-up to the Great War.

Schultze-Rhonhof explores this propaganda and the effect it had on generating a war climate in Britain, France, and the US; the effects of this climate were also felt when it came time for the peace conference after the war, held in Paris with the German signing at Versailles:

…the peace negotiations which now follow stand under still another burden (lit. “mortgage”).  The governments and the media in England, France, and the USA had run a public relations campaign to convince their voters and soldiers of the point of the war and to urge them to endure – when the war became hard.  The arguments with which the masses in France, Great Britain, and America “learn” that they stand for justice and goodness against injustice and bad men are of quite different sorts. (Page 79)

The Germans were portrayed as not human: for example, stories of babies’ arms or hands being cut off, nuns being raped, and the like.  Such stories are followed by increasing, and similar propaganda that…bring British, French, and Americans into a rage against the German “Huns” and “Teutons.”

After the war, such reports were investigated, and found to be false.  Further, in a book written four years after the war by Francesco Nitti, Prime Minister of Italy in 1919-1920:

We had to win, to win at all costs…. In order to win, it is necessary before all else to hate, and to hate we must impute to the enemy all that is hateful…. At that time, one portrayed the Germans as cultural barbarians, as the root of all that is evil in mankind.  There was no cruelty which one did not attribute to them, and if they shot no defenseless women to death, they did chop off children’s hands.  Above all, the legend of the chopped-off hands of children was exploited during the war as irrefutable proof of the Germans’ Hun-like nature…. (Page 79-80)

A brief statement on this “atrocity propaganda” from Wikipedia:

Atrocity propaganda, which aimed to mobilise hatred of the German enemy by spreading details of their atrocities, real or alleged, was used extensively by Britain in the First World War. It reached its peak in 1915, with much of the atrocities related to Germany’s invasion of Belgium. Newspaper accounts of “Terrible Vengeance” first used the word “Hun” to describe the Germans in view of atrocities in Belgium.  A continuous stream of stories ensued, painting the Germans as destructive barbarians, and many of the atrocities being reported were entirely fictitious.

The practice continues to be employed even today – it works well; one of the more infamous examples can be found here.

The British, having cut the communication cable between Germany and America, ensured only one version of the story would be told.  Further, Lord Northcliffe, the previously mentioned editor of several London daily newspapers (where he ensured that nothing bad would be written about the French and nothing good about the Germans), extended his reach into America as well.  Through a foundation in the USA named after him, he operated 4500 “publicity agents,” to influence the story told in America regarding the Germans. (Page 81)

The religious calling was made complete in the US when Wilson invoked one of the deadliest phrases unleashed in man’s history, when he said “The world must be made safe for democracy.”

It is a regular feature of war since this time that the enemy must be demonized.  This is absolutely required under democracies in order to get the support of the population – support not required in wars between kings and nobles.

Through film the propaganda is also spread:

The film “The Prussian Cur,” for example, shows a scene in which German soldiers crucify a captured Canadian to a courtyard door. (Page 82)

The best that can be said of this event is that details are either conflicting or historical impossibilities.  At worst, it was complete fiction.

Finally, a prayer by Rev. William Sunday, offered in Congress on 10 January 1918, including:

…Thou knowest, O Lord, that we are in a life-and-death struggle with one of the most infamous, vile, greedy, avaricious, bloodthirsty, sensual, and vicious nations that has ever disgraced the pages of history. (Page 82)

The rage resulting from the propaganda used to motivate the population in a democracy to total war cannot be immediately calmed when it comes time for the peace.  In Paris, in 1919, the blood-lust that the politicians created could not now be ignored in revenge – and in much of the population, revenge was expected.  Versailles, if it was nothing else, was a treaty greatly influenced by the considerations of the political climate at home – a climate beneficial to entering the war, but with long-lasting consequences when it came time for a reasonably just peace.

From “Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World,” by Margaret MacMillan:

Public opinion, that new and troubling element, was no help.  There was a widespread feeling that someone must pay for such a dreadful war; but there was an equally strong longing for peace. (Page 162)

It rapidly became clear that the electorate preferred talk of hanging the Kaiser. (Page 163)

Lloyd George, prime minister of the United Kingdom during the war, at one point during the negotiations had some of his colleagues act out roles of the various parties in regards to the treaty discussions.  Henry Wilson, playing the role of a French woman,

…the significant factor, he said, in shaping French opinion.  He painted a moving picture of “the losses of so many of their husbands, sons and men folk, the unbearable anxiety and long separations, the financial losses, and the desperate struggle and overwork to keep their homes going.”  Of course they wanted revenge and restitution from Germany, and they wanted assurance that Germany could never hurt them again. (Page 196)

For centuries, a monarch – not having to generate a mob of opinion in order to support his war – did not have to show results to the same mob after the victory.  With the democracies, this was no longer possible.

This all played out in the treaty negotiations between the Allies and the Germans – although to use the term “negotiations” is a complete stretch.  I do not intend to go into the details of the treaty.  This has been covered well elsewhere, and there is little that the author offers that is new in this volume.  The fundamental issue is not the terms – onerous as these are – but the double-cross that the German people feel: the language of the treaty – not negotiated language but an ultimatum imposed under the blackmail of a food blockade – is diametrically opposed to Wilson’s Fourteen Points.  The burdens placed on the Germans were far more restrictive than those placed on any previous loser in conflict.

Many involved in the treaty negotiations at the time (1919 – 1920) expressed concern (from Schultze-Rhonhof, Pages 104 – 105):

From the first German post-war Chancellor: “From such a peace must…new slaughter come.”

US Foreign Secretary Lansing: “We will have a peace treaty, but it will bring no lasting peace.”

British Prime Minister Lloyd George: “I can hardly envision a greater cause for a future war.”

Dutch Envoy Swinderen: “The peace terms of Versailles contain all the seeds for a just and lengthy war.”

English delegate Kneeshow: “Were we the defeated people and had such conditions imposed upon us, we would…have begun in our schools and homes to prepare our children for a retaliatory war.”

MacMillan offers similar comments (Page 467 – 468):

Herbert Hoover, summarizing a conversation he had with Jan Smuts and J.M. Keynes: “We agreed that the consequences of many parts of the proposed Treaty would ultimately bring destruction.”

Also from Lansing, left on the sidelines by Wilson while Wilson took charge of the negotiations: “The terms of the peace appear immeasurably harsh and humiliating, while many of them are incapable of performance.”

From the British delegation, Nicolson: “We came to Paris confident that the new order was about to be established; we left convinced that the new order had merely fouled the old.”

In France most criticisms were that the treaty with the Germans was too weak….

The Germans, unfortunately having taken Wilson’s Fourteen Points to heart, were left with the ultimatum.  The delegation hopelessly offered detailed counterproposals (again, from MacMillan):

Henry Wilson, no friend of the Germans, wrote in his diary: “The Boches have done exactly what I forecast – they have driven a coach and four through our Terms, and then have submitted a complete set of their own, based on the 14 points, which are much more coherent than ours.” (Page 468)

The deputy prime minister, Bonar Law, found the German objections “in many particulars very difficult to answer.”  Lloyd George agreed.  The Germans were in effect saying to the Allies: “You have a set of principles which, when they suit you, you apply, but which, when they suit us, you put by.” (Page 468 – 469)

President Wilson could not let the double-talk go easily, however, and rightly pointed out to actors like Lloyd George that they were involved in each step, and only now – when the time has come to put the treaty before the Germans – complain that the terms are too harsh.

As has been written many times by many historians, Versailles was a major contributing factor to political discontent in German, and with this discontent came the flowering of National Socialism – one more example of political discontent in a democracy resulting in atrocities far greater than seen under virtually any previous European monarchy.

And at the root was the propaganda required to bring the population in the democracies to war.

And it isn’t the one that you are thinking of….

1939 – The War That Had Many Fathers, by Gerd Schultze-Rhonhof.

As mentioned in my first post on this book, the author has been dismissed in Germany regarding his historical views on the beginnings of the Second World War. From what I read in the preface, I found no reason to dismiss his views – and in any case, one can hold wrong views on certain subjects while providing valuable insights in others. It is for these hidden gems that I am reading the book. So, I continue.

I found one of those hidden gems in the first few pages – or is it a wacky assertion from a wrong-headed revisionist? If his point is valid, it provides a valuable insight – at least to me – into the manipulations by the elite at the turn of the last century and leading to the century of war.

The British – German Rivalry

The author begins by pointing to two mistakes by the German politicians prior to 1914 that led to the Great War:

They fail to extend the German – Russian Mutual Protection Pact, and they give to the economic upswing in Germany a maritime component.

The author sees in the first the opening for Russia to be drawn to France, and in the second a challenge to Britain on the seas. There is nothing terribly controversial here – many historians, mainstream and revisionist, have pointed to one or both of these factors.

From Britain’s view, Germany – post unification – was becoming the power on the continent with which it should have concern – replacing France. In various measures, Germany was growing into an economic powerhouse – the production of coal, iron, steel, etc. In 1887 in London, the “Merchandise Marks Act” was introduced, with the hope to attach stigma to products thereafter labeled “Made in Germany.”

Britain viewed it as good policy to keep a balance of power on the continent, thus freeing its hand elsewhere. Germany threatened not only that balance, but now could even threaten Britain itself. Britain’s views changed from seeing France as the primary continental threat to seeing this in in Germany:

On 1 January 1907 a top official of the British Foreign Ministry, Sir Eyre Crowe, drafts “an analysis of British Relations with France and Germany for his King.” … Now and in the future, Crowe concludes, Germany counts as England’s only opponent. (Page 22)

The British will therefore work to isolate Germany in the field of foreign policy, and the author suggests that German blunders provide the opportunity for this.

As mentioned, England previously saw France as its biggest competitor in the colonies; it now reached agreements with France on such matters. A 1904 treaty would coordinate colonial interests. In 1911, the British military promises France the support of six army divisions in the event of war with Germany. And without a proper treaty with Russia, this would one day place Germany in a strong vice.

Germaniam esse delendam to Protect Trade and Transport

Schultze-Rhonhof identifies comments coming out of England and against Germany almost immediately upon the formation of the German Reich in 1871. For example, he quotes Prime Minister Disraeli in a speech before the Lower House:

“The balance of power has been completely destroyed, and the country which suffers the most from this and feels the effect of this change most strongly, is England.” (Page 33)

Deputy Robert Peel adds that Germany has been united under a military “despotism.” (Page 33)

The author laments: “So Germany – just because unified – has already become a danger, and indeed for all of Europe.” (Page 34)

The press gets in on the act:

The London Saturday Review, an upper class journal, writes on 24 August 1895:

“We English have always waged war against our competitors in trade and transport. Our main competitor today is no longer France, but Germany…. In a war against Germany we would be in a position to win a lot and to lose nothing.” (Page 34)

On 1 February 1896 the same journal writes:

“If tomorrow every German were eliminated, there would be no British business nor any English enterprise which would not profit (lit “grow”). If every Englishman were to vanish tomorrow, the Germans would reap gains…. One of the two must quit the field. Get ready for the fight with Germany, for Germaniam esse delendam.” (Page 34)

Germany must be destroyed….

And again on 11 September 1897:

“Everywhere where the English flag has followed the Bible, and trade [has followed] the flag…the German trader fights the English…. States have waged wars for years over a town or rights to a throne; and should we not wage war when an annual trade of five billion is at stake?” (Page 34)

From the Belgian Ambassador in London to his ministry in Brussels on 24 May 1907, quoting Mr. Harmsworth (Lord Northcliffe), publisher of several daily papers in London:

“Yes we hate the Germans and that from the heart…. I will not allow my newspapers to print even the slightest thing that could hurt France. But I would not want them to carry anything at all that could be pleasant to the Germans.” (Page 38)

Is it a surprise to see the press doing the state’s bidding and leading the drumbeats to war?

Finally, Balfour is quoted, in response to the immorality of going to war for the purpose of protecting trade. It is suggested to Balfour: if Britain wants to keep up, work harder!

“That would mean we would have to lower our standard of living. Maybe a war would be easier for us.” (Page 38)

War is most certainly a racket! It is refreshing to know that there was a time when the politicians were more honest about this.

Why Not a British – US Rivalry?

Schultze-Rhonhof also examines the growth of production, trade, and naval resources of several other government powers. He concludes by asking: why does Britain fear Germany, when an even stronger opponent on the other side of the Atlantic, with far greater potential, was beginning to show its fangs?

Thus, the British fears of a threat could just as well have been ignited by North America’s fleet. The USA in regard to its industry and trade is also on track to overhaul England. And since 1898 it is acquiring colonies: Cuba, the Philippines, and Hawaii. (Page 31)

Yes, what gives? Schultze-Rhonhof provides his answer, and in it he identifies the assassination that helped to ensure the upcoming wars would be world wars – meaning the intervention of the United States.

Another reason lies in America’s apparent turning toward England. (Page 32)

By “apparent turning,” Schultze-Rhonhof here is describing what is called The Great Rapprochement:

The Great Rapprochement, according to historians including Bradford Perkins, describes the convergence of diplomatic, political, military and economic objectives between the United States and Great Britain in 1895-1915, the two decades before World War I.

This push for “convergence” was given widespread coverage on both sides of the Atlantic, influencing decision makers in both Britain and the United States.

At the turn of the last century, there was a powerful and well-known book, The Americanization of the World: The Trend of the Twentieth Century, by British celebrity journalist and editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, William T. Stead. In it, he predicted America’s inevitable – and providential – domination of the world.

From a conference paper outlining the book:

Stead, a tireless champion of Anglo-Saxon expansion, offered his prediction not in fear but in hope. Together, the United States and Britain would rule the world.

A century ago, Stead’s name was known to the public on both side of the Atlantic and to every prominent official in Europe and America.

As early as about 1870, in the immediate context of German unification, Stead advocated union between the British empire and the United States and came to defend what he called a “true Imperialism” aimed at the peace, security, unity, and humanitarian uplift of the world. In 1884 he campaigned for a larger Royal Navy. He wrote an article for the Pall Mall Gazette entitled “The Truth about the Navy,” attempting to provoke enough alarm over Britain’s vulnerability and Germany’s growing navy and colonial adventures to get Parliament to appropriate the necessary funds for a modern navy. Reading Sir John Seeley’s Expansion of England (1883) about this time inspired him with the idea of imperial federation. The scheme further expanded in his mind to bring the United States into an Anglo-Saxon union, reversing the blunder of George III. This proposal was similar to the campaign for Anglo-Saxon unification (or re-unification) waged by Stead’s friend Cecil Rhodes who famously said that he wanted to “paint the map red” with Britain’s empire. Other sympathizers included the industrialist Andrew Carnegie.

Given the determinism of history, Britain and Europe could either cooperate with the inevitable or wage a losing battle and end up Americanized against their will and without their consent. Germany and the Papacy seemed the most resistant to the Americanization of Europe. But the Kaiser’s bluster was as pointless as Canute’s command to the tide.

Stead saw war by the righteous as a means to bring about global peace.

The Assassination

Back to Schultze-Rhonhof:

Until McKinley’s presidency, the relations of the USA with the German Reich were always friendly and balanced. The English-American relationship, on the other hand, up to then is still burdened by the former British Colonial rule and England’s colonial wars in America.

With the assassination of McKinley in 1901 and the change to the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt a new kind of thinking arises in the USA. (Page 32)

Now this is where I struggled. Schultze-Rhonhof suggests that the change in US policy occurred after McKinley, not before. Yet all of the history I read suggests that McKinley is more like his successors than his predecessors – imperialism and all that. To further make this opaque, the Great Rapprochement is commonly dated as beginning in 1895.

Yet, Schultze-Rhonhof suggests this assassination was a turning point for US-German relations and US-British relations. Counter to McKinley:

Roosevelt and his successor Wilson are clearly anglophiles. They seek partnership with Great Britain. (Page 32)

So what gives? At this point, I had to go fishing.

McKinley vs. Roosevelt: What’s the Difference?

My first clue came here: Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy, by Murray Rothbard

William McKinley reflected the dominance of the Republican Party by the Rockefeller/Standard Oil interests. Standard Oil was originally headquartered at Rockefeller’s home in Cleveland, and the oil magnate had long had a commanding influence in Ohio Republican politics. In the early 1890s, Marcus Hanna, industrialist and high school chum of John D. Rockefeller, banded together with Rockefeller and other financiers to save McKinley from bankruptcy, and Hanna became McKinley’s top political adviser and chairman of the Republican National Committee. As a consolation prize to the Morgan interests for McKinley’s capture of the Republican nomination, Morgan man Garret A. Hobart, director of various Morgan companies, including the Liberty National Bank of New York City, became Vice-President.

The death of Hobart in 1899 left a “Morgan vacancy” in the Vice-Presidential spot, as McKinley walked into the nomination. McKinley and Hanna were both hostile to Roosevelt, considering him “erratic” and a “Madman,” but after several Morgan men turned down the nomination, and after the intensive lobbying of Morgan partner George W. Perkins, Teddy Roosevelt at last received the Vice-Presidential nomination. It is not surprising that virtually Teddy’s first act after the election of 1900 was to throw a lavish dinner in honor of J.P. Morgan.

So McKinley was a Rockefeller man, and Roosevelt (McKinley’s vice-president) represented the House of Morgan. This, at least, is one bit of information that differentiates McKinley from Roosevelt. Of course, it would be somewhat irrelevant had not McKinley met his fate on September 6, 1901 (surviving, and believed to be improving, for eight more days). He was assassinated by a lone gunman; a nut, an “anarchist.”

Here again, I turn to Rothbard: “Investigate the Vice President First”

Next president to die in office was William McKinley of Ohio, long-time Rockefeller tool. Another lone nut was responsible, the “anarchist” Leon Czolgosz, who, like Guiteau, was quickly tried and executed by the Establishment. Even though Czolgosz was considered a flake and was not a member of any organized anarchist group, the assassination was used by the Establishment to smear anarchism and to outlaw anarchist ideas and agitation. Various obscure anti-sedition and anti-conspiracy laws trotted out from time to time by the Establishment were passed during this post-McKinley assassination hysteria. Beneficiary? The vaulting to power of Teddy Roosevelt, longtime tool of the competing Morgan (as opposed to Rockefeller) wing of the Republican Party. Teddy immediately started using the anti-trust weapon to try to destroy Rockefeller’s Standard Oil and Harriman’s Northern Securities, both bitter enemies of the Morgan world empire. Exhume McKinley, and also start a deep investigation of the possible role of Teddy and the Morgans. Was Czolgosz only a lone nut?

Perhaps something bigger was afoot…. But I still did not find the connection to this changing attitude toward Britain.

Surprise, surprise. Rothbard provides the answer here as well, from A History of Money and Banking in the United States:

As the nations moved toward World War II, the Morgans, who had long been closely connected with Britain and France, rose in importance in American foreign policy, while the Rockefellers, who had little connection with Britain and France and had patent agreements with I.G. Farben in Germany, fell in relative strength. Secretary of State Cordell Hull, a close longtime friend of FDR’s roving ambassador and Morgan man Norman H. Davis, took the lead in exerting pressure against Germany for its bilateral rather than multilateral trade agreements and for its exchange controls, all put in place to defend a chronically overvalued mark. (Page 344)

Rothbard is speaking here of World War II, but the relationships fit the scenario suggested by Schultze-Rhonhof.

The assassination of McKinley – a Rockefeller man favorable toward Germany – ensured the replacement by Teddy Roosevelt, a Morgan man. Morgan, favorably disposed toward Britain, had his man in place – a move that would ensure the US moves closer to Britain.

This one action helped to ensure a transition of the tool of global power projection, from Britain to the United States – as I have previously describedhere (in the context of the Second World War). Of course, the roots of World War Two are many and deep – including the Great War, and perhaps including McKinley’s assassination.

This transition from Britain to the US is explored further in “The Peaceful Transition of Power from the UK to the US,” by Feng Yongping. In this, there is also further exploration of the evolving relationships amongst and between the United States, Great Britain, and Germany:

With regard to Great Britain, binding itself in friendship with the United States and avoiding the towering costs of conflict also stands out as extremely significant in preserving the nation’s colonial power, which was seemingly on the verge of decline. Germans were predicting during the 1880s or 1890s that the United States would be drawn into war, with Bismark confidently predicting that Great Britain would confront the American navy in the Atlantic Ocean, generating a British – German alliance with a union of naval and land powers of strategic political benefit. In contrast, Great Britain chose reconciliation with the United States.

In 1905, US President Roosevelt told a British diplomat not to let the nightmare of war between English-speaking democracies keep him up at night. Roosevelt said that in preparing for potential outbreaks of war, a fight against Great Britain was not an issue, since it was an impossibility.

The US also provided similar assistance for the British in the Boer War. After conflict broke out there, Theodore Roosevelt promptly expressed his position of support, saying the war completely aligned the interests of the two English-speaking democracies and in turn, the interests of the civilized world, and that English should become the language of southern Zambezia. During the war, the United States presented Great Britain with great amounts of military supplies and extended credit for about 20% of Great Britain’s war expenses.

Selborne, British Lord of the Admiralty, commented that all subjects of the British Empire knew that war with America would be a colossal failure of British diplomacy. Home Secretary A.H. Lee said that he could not even fathom the possibility of the US and Great Britain actually fighting a war. The US President Theodore Roosevelt spoke nearly the same words in 1905, when he stated his belief that the danger of another British – US dispute had not only passed, but was gone forever. Compared with other large nations, he believed the feeling of friendship to be more genuine with England than with any other.

As previously mentioned, Schultze-Rhonhof’s work was dismissed in Germany. Yet, so far, I am finding that he points to events that have import – events not even found in other revisionist works. This connection – McKinley’s assassination as one of the roots of the Great War – is one that I have not read elsewhere.

It is a connection that is supported by Rothbard’s work. Schultze-Rhonhof seems to keep good company. If he is dismissed for reasons similar to those offered to dismiss Rothbard, I certainly will continue with an open mind.

(I thank Charles Burris for being generous with his comments toward one aspect of this post. Any errors in interpretation or historical fact are completely my own.)

Reprinted with permission from the Bionic Mosquito.

The Best of Jonathan Goodwin

The Medieval Machine, by Jean Gimpel

Introduction

With this post, I return to the history of the Middle Ages. I have previously reviewed kingship and law, the advancement of traditionally liberal causes, and what can be legitimately called a period of functional anarchical living – all from this time period.

As I have previously written, the Middle Ages were anything but dark. Politically, there was decentralization and multiple sources for appeal. Law was defined by custom, individualized: one could say by contract, but not quite – more by sacred oath. The king’s role was to uphold the law, not to declare it.

In such an environment, as one might expect, creative and productive life flourished. There were advances in artistic and literary life; slavery was significantly reduced when compared to Roman times before (and European life thereafter); women achieved rights and status not seen again until very recent history; and there was a high level of religious tolerance and tolerance for new ideas. Such is what one would expect in a decentralized society where law and property was held in respect, and this was found to be true during the Middle Ages.

One would also expect to find technological advancements. This is the subject I will explore in this post. Through Gimpel’s book, I will present the remarkable advances in industrial development during this time period. Page references are from the 2003 edition.

Let’s begin with the author, Jean Gimpel:

Jean Gimpel (1918–1996) was a French historian and medievalist…. In 1987 he was a founding vice-president of the Society for the History of Mediaeval Technology and Science, the British affiliate of AVISTA and the Association de Villard de Honnecourt.

Gimpel introduces his work:

The Middle Ages was one of the great inventive eras of mankind. It should be known as the first industrial revolution of Europe…. Capitalist companies were formed and their shares bought and sold. (Page viii)

Industry and inventiveness did not take a 1000 year pause, but continued from the collapse of Rome until the Renaissance. For example, Leonardo da Vinci did not invent from whole cloth:

Leonardo had borrowed a great many of his inventions from technological treatises by engineers of previous generations. (Page x)

Energy and Mechanization

The medieval period witnessed one of the more rapid advances in the introduction of machinery in European history. This could not be accomplished without the effective taming of energy. The most common method was the mill – primarily water but also wind. These mills would grind corn, crush olives, tan leather, make paper, etc. While the Romans utilized the mill, it was not nearly to the extent utilized in these later periods. The relationship is inverse to the use of slaves in the economy – the increasing use of the mill corresponded with the drastic reduction of slavery during the Middle Ages.

Cistercian monasteries offered one such example:

Monasteries built in countries separated by thousands of miles – Portugal, Sweden, Scotland, Hungary – all had very similar waterpowered systems within almost universally similar plans for the monasteries themselves…. In certain ways the discipline imposed bySaint Bernard on his monks – the rigid timetable, the impossibility of deviating from the Rule without facing punishment – brings to mind the work regulations that Henry Ford imposed on his assembly lines. (Page 5)

Despite this near-uniformity in design, the mills were capable of processing various commodities – depending on the region: olives in one region, grapes in another, beer in a third. An example of the complexity to be found in one location is offered in Clairvaux, where waterpower was used for…

…crushing wheat, sieving flour, fulling cloth, and tanning. It is possible that waterpower also activated bellows for the flames that heated the vats in which beer for the monks was produced. (Page 5)

Running water was used extensively for many purposes:

It was carried in lead or wooden pipes to the kitchen for cooking and washing and to the gardens for watering. It was also used to clean out the drains…and to carry away the waste so as to “leave everywhere spotless.” (Page 5)

The utilization of water mills, and the rate of expansion, increased dramatically beginning in the ninth century. For example, in the department of l’Aube, fourteen mills are mentioned in the eleventh century, 60 in the twelfth, and over 200 in the thirteenth. (Page 10) When William the Conqueror set out on his survey in 1086, he recorded 9,250 manors, with one-third of these having one mill or more. Many of these mills were still in use in the eighteenth century.

Many of these mills were owned via shares – by as many as five parties. The share price was subject to fluctuation, and shares could be regularly bought and sold. The shareholders were not always millers – the division of capital and labor was in evidence from the thirteenth century, if not earlier. Eventually, multiple dams, useful in improving the efficiency of the mills, were combined into one limited company – with the shareholders spreading the risk of profits and losses across multiple properties. Such companies would hold annual general meetings of the shareholders, with a review of the accounts from the prior year and the election of managers for the upcoming year.

The Société du Bazacle may well be the oldest capitalistic company in the world. It survived into the middle of the twentieth century when it was nationalized by the Électricité de France.

Many examples of taming water for energy are offered: cams, driven by water power, were developed to mimic the motion of the smith. Paper, despite being invented more than one thousand years earlier by the Chinese, was still manufactured by hand and foot. Once paper was introduced to Europe, the manufacture was almost immediately mechanized. (Page 14)

Mills were introduced under the arches that spanned the rivers. By doing so, the efficiency of the mills was increased due to the increased flow of the water through the narrower passages. (Page 17)

Dams were built to add height to the water level prior to the flow through the mill – again to increase mill efficiency. Of course, the height of the downstream dam also was important, and sometime the cause of dispute – as the owner of the downstream dam, by raising his dam, would lower the fall of the upstream dam.

Where geography and climate was favorable, tidal mills and wind mills were also developed. Tidal mills were unknown in classical times – an example of the medieval urge to discover new sources of energy.

Mining

Mining was an important aspect of the medieval economy. The most important subset was stone quarrying, which the author suggests was more important possibly than all other forms of mining combined.

There was significant mining for building stone in France:

…during her age of expansion from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries more stone was quarried in France than had been mined throughout the whole history of ancient Egypt. (Page 59)

Initially this struck me as a tremendous claim – given the stone in pyramids of Egypt. However, when considering the significant building of cathedrals throughout Europe in this time, the statement certainly seems reasonable. Additionally, France exported significant amounts of stone. William the Conqueror imported stone from France when building the Battle Abbey.

Mining was also important to the development and use of iron. The use of iron was increased greatly during the medieval period, replacing bronze which was more heavily used during Roman times. Every medieval village had its iron smith – it was common practice for every horse and plough animal to be shod.

The adaption of water power contributed to the high standard of metallurgy in this time:

…the most significant hydraulic invention was waterpowered bellows, which could produce a draft powerful enough to raise the temperature of the furnaces to some 1500 degrees C, hot enough to liquefy iron ore. (Page 66-67)

Finally, the mining of silver contributed to the progress of mining techniques. Certainly silver, and also gold, played a driving force in the development of mining, however there was interest in other minerals as well – lead, copper, tin, and zinc. German miners played a leading role in the expansion of these techniques throughout Europe.

In the German movement into eastern and southeastern Europe, miners emigrated with other emigrants into regions held by the Slavs and the Magyars. Colonizing and mining went hand in hand…. They moved into Iglau and then into the Hungarian mines of Zips, Schemnitz, and Kremnitz…. German miners in the twelfth century were called in by the rulers of Transylvania, and in the thirteenth century by the rulers of Serbia.

In this lies, perhaps, one source of the German minority communities of central and eastern Europe – communities that continued to thrive for centuries until their final forced relocation and decimation by the victors after the Second World War.

The Pre-Renaissance Renaissance Man

One of the more highly valued professions in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was that of the architect-engineers, so-called, as there was no real distinction at the time between what are today multiple professions.

An individual in this field would have the skills of the architect, structural engineer, various specialties of mechanical engineering, and the general contractor. He was considered the master of all phases of the construction project.

Gimpel offers brief glimpses into several examples of this and other types of highly skilled individuals. Most notable of these examples is Roger Bacon. Among many other accomplishments, Bacon wrote of great ships and flying machines – not unlike the letter from Leonardo to the Duke of Milan. Bacon is referred to specifically in one of Leonardo’s notebooks.

Gimpel spends a considerable amount of time regarding the work of Villard de Honnecourt. He is relatively well known because a sketch book of his has survived through the centuries – a sketchbook composed of thirty-three parchment leaves.

Villard sketched buildings, for example modernizing the appearance of a window at Reims and the Tower of Laon. He had drawings of a perpetual motion machine – of course, not possible; however, it is remarkable that men of the time explored the possibilities for further energy development.

His design for this machine involved a wheel with seven evenly-spaced mallets or bags around the circumference – attached to swing freely as the wheel turned. In this way, he anticipated that there would always be four on the downward side of the turning wheel.

The idea, like many in medieval Europe, had previously been explored in India and the Arab world. However, it is one example to demonstrate that the medieval world was not in the dark during this time.

On one parchment, he demonstrated five mechanisms, four of which have technological interest. In one corner he drew a water-powered saw. Beneath this is what is thought to be the earliest representation of clockwork, used to “make an angel” placed on a church roof “keep pointing his finger toward the sun.” In a third corner is an eagle stuffed with ropes and pulleys – and a caption: “How to make the eagle face the Deacon while the Gospel is read.”

The eagle was a gadget – Villard appeared fond of gadgets; for example, on another parchment he sketched a hand warmer: a ball with various pivots inside, designed to keep the lump of warm coal from falling out. This system was later adapted to keep mariners’ compasses level and barometers vertical.

He also sketched a military catapult, with detailed instructions; a complex mechanism for sawing timber under water – useful for cutting “off the tops of piles under water so as to set a pier on them”; various hoisting machines and water driven apparatus.

Further, he was an observer of nature and animals. In his sketchbook were drawings of various insects, a snail, birds, different wild animals, and domestic animals. He wrote of various medicinal techniques – including a treatment for wounds that included hempseed.

There are sketches of geometrical shapes superimposed on drawings of men and animals. He wrote of geometry, explaining various calculations: how to measure the diameter of a column, only part of which was visible; how to find themed-point of a drawn circle; how to measure the width of a distant window; and many others.

All of this was 250 years before Leonardo’s famous notebooks. And Villard was not unique; the author suggests more than 150 manuscripts of this type were produced before the sixteenth century – men like Konrad Kyeser, Roberto Valturio, and Francesco di Giorgio.

Time Waits for the Medieval Man

The medieval mind was inventive and mechanically minded, as has been demonstrated by various examples throughout this book. Gimpel attributes this to the medieval belief in progress, “a concept unknown to the classical world.” He quotes Bernard of Chartres:

“We are as dwarfs mounted on the shoulders of giants, so that although we perceive many more things than they, it is not because our vision is more piercing or our stature higher, but because we are carried and elevated higher thanks to their gigantic size.” (Page 147-148)

Such attitudes led men to accept inventions as normal, and to assume that new inventions would continue to come forth. Priests would sing the praises of inventions in church.

One invention stands out above the rest, that of the mechanical clock. The Near East and Far East previously knew of sun dials and water-driven clocks. While it is often considered a fool’s errand to identify in history the first inventor of something, there is much that points to the (non-water-driven) mechanical clock having been invented in the monasteries of the Middle Ages.

Gimpel cites Lewis Mumford, who sees in the mechanical clock the key invention of the entire industrial revolution:

“The clock, not the steam engine, is the key machine of the modern industrial age…. In its relationship to determinable quantities of energy, to standardization, to automatic action, and finally to its own special product, the clock has been the foremost machine in modern technics….” (Page 149)

The astronomical water-driven clock built by Su Sung in China (an even earlier renaissance man) in the eleventh century (and based on a mechanism invented by a Buddhist Monk more than 300 years before this) was considered, in its time and for centuries to come, the most advanced machine known. The same can be said of Giovanni di Dondi’s mechanical clock, built in Italy in the fourteenth century. These machines were so complex that later generations found them difficult to keep in repair.

As an example of the complexity, Dondi’s clock was able to maintain the calendar of the moving feasts. Such a feat was not again duplicated until the nineteenth century (although the change in the interim from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar made this more complicated). Dondi’s drawings were so detailed and precise that an exact duplicate of his clock was manufactured six hundred years later by Alan Lloyd.

Whereas in China, the art of the clock was kept as an imperial secret with only a handful of scientists and engineers privy to the details, in Europe the technology spread relatively quickly – as one might expect without the state intervening in the enforcement of intellectual property.

Europe did not offer state protection for intellectual property until much later in its development. Such flourishing of technologies, as demonstrated in this book, occurred without patent or copyright laws. Patent law gained its first significant foothold in Europe in the Republic of Venice in 1474, with some evidence for the issuance of patents in England during the fourteenth century. (There are also instances in ancient Greece, 2000 years prior.)Copyright law has an even later start, in 1710 with the British Statute of Anne.

By the fourteenth century, the weight-driven mechanical clock was quite common in Europe – the technology spread fairly rapidly. There is evidence to suggest that the mechanical clock was invented in the late thirteenth century – Robert the Englishman’s text of 1271 shows clockmakers at that time making great efforts to solve the various mechanical problems involved.

Of course, along with the blessings of the clock came some curses – as all technological leaps tend to offer. Life became more regimented; every hour the bells would ring. Time did not follow cycles of sunrise and sunset, but of hours and minutes.

There were further developments, in magnets and compasses for example – in some cases, developments not surpassed for centuries. Gimpel credits the perfection of the compass for Europe’s conquest of the seas. While Gimpel does not mention this, there was, of course, the development of movable type by Johannes Gutenberg in around 1439.

The “Dark” in the Dark Ages

There is a stereotype of the Middle Ages, encompassed in the term “Dark Ages.” While the term has fallen out of favor with scholars, “Dark Ages” still paints a picture within the mainstream community: war, famine, plague, and religious intolerance including witch hunts.

This stereotype finds its roots in the fourteenth century – toward the end of the period of the Middle Ages. Gimpel describes the Condemnation of 1277 as the beginning of the end for technological advancement and intellectual questioning that marked the Middle Ages. Bishop Tempier condemned “219 execrable errors which certain students of the Faculty of the Arts have the temerity to study and discuss in the schools.” (Page 182-183)

In so doing he slowed the progress of science and reason in Paris – the Athens of the thirteenth century. (Page 183)

With the condemnation, Gimpel describes the beginning of witch hunts and burnings – something unknown to Europe for much of the preceding centuries. Obviously, the exploration of new ideas would be relatively subdued in such an environment.

Additional major shocks occurred: a devastating famine in 1315 – 1317; the Hundred Years’ War began in 1337 (a war between the by now centralized kingdoms of England and France – and not involving the still relatively decentralized central and eastern European lands); and the Black Death, from 1347 – 1350.

Most interesting is Gimpel’s description of currency devaluation by Philip the Fair of France, beginning in 1294. Philip was instrumental in turning France from a feudal society to a centralized state (apparently he felt that William’s descendants needed a proper enemy).

After first devaluing in 1294-95, Philip announced a thirty-nine percent devaluation in 1306. This did not go over well with the people, first going after Etienne Barbette, thought to be the instigator of the devaluation. The demonstrators then went after the king, who – ultimately successful in putting down the protest – beheaded one leading representative from each of 28 trades!

Devaluations continued, and more blood was spilled. Pop culture was on the side of the people, with a song written after the devaluation of 1313:

It seems the king enchants us,For at first sixty made twenty for usThen twenty made four and thirty made tenGold and silver all is lostNone of it ever to be returned. (Page 221)

Conclusion

Gimpel offers a wide-spanning view of technological development during the Middle Ages. As opposed to commonly-held fallacies, it was a time of significant industrialization and scientific development. Advancements in energy, mechanization, mining, and development of precision instruments all were evident during this period.

Consistent with my previous work regarding this era, I continue to be fascinated by the light afforded to us by those who lived during the Dark Ages.

Reprinted with permission from the Bionic Mosquito.

The Best of Jonathan Goodwin

You all know the tale by Hans Christian Anderson. I have recently discovered the lost chapter and conclusion to this tale. It always seemed to be missing something, as the tale ended with the emperor behaving as if no betrayal had occurred. This is not possible, of course. It is to be expected that when a subject points out something the emperor wants hidden – even if it is something hidden in plain sight – punishment is swift, and sure to follow.

Before I get to the lost chapter, perhaps a few highlights from the original story are in order – just for a refresher. We all know that this famous emperor loved his clothes very much. He would have a new coat for every hour of the day. He was so enamored with his appearance that he was easy prey for two swindlers who came to town:

They let it be known they were weavers, and they said they could weave the most magnificent fabrics imaginable. Not only were their colors and patterns uncommonly fine, but clothes made of this cloth had a wonderful way of becoming invisible to anyone who was unfit for his office, or who was unusually stupid.

“Those would be just the clothes for me,” thought the Emperor. “If I wore them I would be able to discover which men in my empire are unfit for their posts. And I could tell the wise men from the fools.

The swindlers, after receiving a substantial down-payment, went to work. They stuffed the fabric they bought into their bag, and went to work on the looms…without fabric.

The emperor, wanting to know how things were coming along, sent his most honest minister to check on the progress:

So the honest old minister went to the room where the two swindlers sat working away at their empty looms. “Heaven help me,” he thought as his eyes flew wide open, “I can’t see anything at all”. But he did not say so.

Of course, he did not want to admit this as he might then be thought unfit for office. The swindlers, knowing this would be the reaction, worked to reinforce the minister’s blindness:

“Don’t hesitate to tell us what you think of it,” said one of the weavers. “Oh, it’s beautiful – it’s enchanting.” The old minister peered through his spectacles. “Such a pattern, what colors!” I’ll be sure to tell the Emperor how delighted I am with it.”

The minister dutifully reported to the emperor, who was delighted. More funds were advanced, as the work was progressing wonderfully.

After some time, the emperor sent another minister in order to check the further progress:

The same thing happened to him that had happened to the minister. He looked and he looked, but as there was nothing to see in the looms he couldn’t see anything.

Of course, not wanting to admit that he saw nothing and might therefor be deemed unworthy of office, he could not admit this:

He declared he was delighted with the beautiful colors and the exquisite pattern. To the Emperor he said, “It held me spellbound.”

By this time, the new clothes were the talk of the town – everyone just knew that the new coat would be the most splendid coat ever made. They also knew that only the unfit could not see it, due to the special fabric from which the coat was made.

The emperor next went to see the progress, along with his two ministers and a host of other advisors:

He found them weaving with might and main, but without a thread in their looms. “Magnificent,” said the two officials already duped. “Just look, Your Majesty, what colors! What a design!” They pointed to the empty looms, each supposing that the others could see the stuff.

“What’s this?” thought the Emperor. “I can’t see anything. This is terrible! Am I a fool? Am I unfit to be the Emperor? What a thing to happen to me of all people! – Oh! It’s very pretty,” he said. “It has my highest approval.” And he nodded approbation at the empty loom. Nothing could make him say that he couldn’t see anything.

His whole retinue stared and stared. One saw no more than another, but they all joined the Emperor in exclaiming, “Oh! It’s very pretty,” and they advised him to wear clothes made of this wonderful cloth especially for the great procession he was soon to lead.

Finally, the clothes were finished. The swindlers dressed the emperor, in preparation for the procession through town:

The noblemen who were to carry his train stooped low and reached for the floor as if they were picking up his mantle. Then they pretended to lift and hold it high. They didn’t dare admit they had nothing to hold.

Even the townspeople were afraid to admit they could not see the clothes:

Everyone in the streets and the windows said, “Oh, how fine are the Emperor’s new clothes! Don’t they fit him to perfection? And see his long train!” Nobody would confess that he couldn’t see anything, for that would prove him either unfit for his position, or a fool.

Until, one boy, with courage, spoke out:

“But he hasn’t got anything on,” a little child said. “Did you ever hear such innocent prattle?” said its father. And one person whispered to another what the child had said, “He hasn’t anything on. A child says he hasn’t anything on.”

The townspeople joined in chorus:

“But he hasn’t got anything on!” the whole town cried out at last.

This did not stop the emperor:

The Emperor shivered, for he suspected they were right. But he thought, “This procession has got to go on.” So he walked more proudly than ever, as his noblemen held high the train that wasn’t there at all.

And so ends the known portion of the tale by Hans Christian Anderson. I must say, this ending is not believable. Please consider: the emperor, his ministers, other trusted advisors, townspeople including shopkeepers and the local newsmen and many in the general public, all privately and publicly went along with the fiction of the invisible clothes. They then had to suffer humiliation at the hands of one little boy who said no – it is a lie.

Would the emperor really go on as if nothing happened – no condemnation or punishment for the swindlers? No beating for the boy? Would the ministers and the rest just sit back calmly, as if to say “well, the boy is right. Let’s go have a beer.”?

No, I could never believe this. And now I have evidence – the lost chapter:

After the procession, the emperor called the ministers for a meeting. “It cannot stand that we remain so embarrassed.” I said I was clothed; you all said I was clothed; my best advisors said I was clothed; the weavers said I was clothed. Now here comes a boy, saying I was naked! We must make an example of him.

Of course, the emperor hardly had to give any instruction – every member of his staff as well as the key shopkeepers and newsmen also shared in the lie, and therefore in the embarrassment. Once word went out that the emperor was upset, they all went to work.

The so-called wise men were exposed as the fools that they were. Hell hath no fury like a gatekeeper scorned. Every possible means was found to discredit the boy. The anger was palpable. The entire community rose up against the boy, because they knew that it wasn’t only the emperor that was naked – every minister, advisor, shopkeeper, newsman, and even common citizen was exposed for the lying degenerate that he was.

They could not allow themselves to be buried with their lie. So they decided to bury the boy.

The boy’s name was Edward Snowden.

Inspired by “The Sickening Snowden Backlash,” by Kirsten Powers

The Best of Jonathan Goodwin

Taken from Hiroshima’s Shadow.

Following are some of the recollections of Dr. Shuntaro Hida, a medical officer stationed in Hiroshima at the time of the bomb. By fate, he happened to be outside of the city when the bomb was dropped, sparing his life. This did not spare his memory.

I have two purposes with this post. One is to examine the results of the atomic bomb dropped on this city at a time when the war was won, when no invasion was necessary, when Japan was already signaling its surrender. The bombing did not end the war sooner than otherwise – in fact, Truman delayed the end of the war in the hopes that the bomb would be ready to use before it was all over.

The second is as a continuation of my recent narrative – my examination of the issue of nuclear deterrence. This picture painted by Dr. Hida is just a small glimpse of the result of the game being played.

I will offer his statements without further commentary, except where context might be helpful. It will not be a pleasant read, however in order to comprehend the immorality of Truman’s decision and the immorality of deterrence, perhaps it must be read.

It was strange to us that Hiroshima had never been bombed despite the fact that the B-29 bombers flew over the city every day. Only after the war did I come to know that Hiroshima, according to American archives, had been kept untouched in order to preserve it as a target for the use of nuclear weapons.

After the success of the first atomic bomb explosion, code named “Trinity,” in Alamogordo, New Mexico, no animal experiments related to the great danger of radioactivity on human beings had been done….the American authorities might never have used such a weapon against the 750,000 Japanese who ultimately became its victims.

[Hida was 1.5 miles away at the time of the bombing] At that very moment a tremendous flash struck my face and a penetrating light entered my eyes. All of a sudden my face and arms were engulfed by an intense heat.

It was extraordinarily quiet. “Might it only be a dream?” I thought. And then I looked toward the city of Hiroshima.

My whole heart trembled at what I saw. There was a great fire ring floating over the city. Within a moment, a massive deep white cloud grew out of the center of the ring…. At the same time I could see a long black cloud as it spread over the entire width of the city…. What I saw was the beginning of an enormous storm created by the blast as it gathered up the mud and sand of the city and rolled it into a huge wave.

Before I could think about taking cover my whole body flew up in the air…. Then I was lifted by the wave, carried ten meters across two rooms, and thrown against a large Buddhist altar.

“Look! A blazing column is shooting up,” I said to myself. A scarlet column of fire disguising its head as a huge cloud was climbing higher and higher into the sky as if it intended to break through to the heavens.

[Now, hurriedly riding his bicycle back to the city] I sped down at top speed toward the curve when suddenly something came into my view…. It was anything but “a man.”…. It surely seemed like the form of a man but it was completely naked, bloody, and covered with mud. The body was completely swollen….what I took to be rags were in fact pieces of human skin, and the water drops were human blood…. It had a curiously large head, swollen eyelids….

I looked at the road before me. Denuded, burnt and bloody, numberless survivors stood in my path…. Not one showed any sign which forced me to recognize him or her as a human being….

The burning wind blew against my face and hot smoke choked my lungs. I realized that the furious wind was coming from the fire in the city.

I saw that the long bank of the river at Choju-En was filled with a large number of burned human beings. They occupied the bank as far as the eye could see. The greatest number lay in the water rolling slowly at the mercy of the waves….many flesh-like creatures moved slowly across the bridge at a snail’s pace.

Whenever I saw a little innocent baby among them, I looked up to the sky and bit my lip hoping to control myself from crying.

Two important roads met at a “I” junction in the village…. As far as the eye could see, victims filled the road, the school grounds, and all the other open places in the village.

[By evening, a makeshift field hospital was arranged]

…the stretcher groups…carried bodies out of the village one by one. A fire was going in the makeshift crematorium…

…looking up I saw what had once been Hiroshima. There was no city but only a burnt field. The entire town had been reduced to ashes in a single day.

…at that time no one knew that many of those who came to the city that day in search of tohers would themselves be killed by residual radiation.

There were many bodies whose intestines had been forced out of their rectums.

He had no clothes on except for a pair of short pants. His bare skin was strangely white. I realized immediately that he was a foreign prisoner. He must have been a crew member of a plane which had been shot down during the past several months. [The prisoner was still bound, and Dr. Hida cut his ropes to free him] Although I had no intention of feeling guilty, it still pricked my conscience that I had freed a prisoner without permission.

[Having finally returned to the hospital where he would have been at the time of the bombing] If I remember correctly, the full complement of staff and patients at the Hiroshima Hospital prior to the attack had been approximately 1,500. When I arrived, there were only seventeen confirmed to be alive.

I believe it was about a week after the bombing that an unexpected event happened. Unusual symptoms began to appear in the survivors at Hesaka…. It was just at the point when we thought we were beginning to make some headway that the unusual development occurred…. The nurse described how some patients had experienced sudden attacks of high fever which had risen above forty degrees Celsius….then they began to bleed from their mucous membranes and soon spat up quantities of blood.

The bleeding was sudden and violent…. All at once the new symptoms took hold of entire groups of survivors…. Very few patients who came down with these sudden symptoms escaped death despite all our efforts with Riger’s solution and even blood transfusions.

Although the survivors escaped an early death, the approach of death from atomic illness was not slowed. The fire which burned in the crematorium day and night could not keep pace with the number of bodies, which steadily increased.

The Best of Jonathan Goodwin

I will begin where I left off on my previous post about nuclear deterrence, with Rothbard:

This is why the old cliché no longer holds that it is not the arms but the will to use them that is significant in judging matters of war and peace. For it is precisely the characteristic of modern weapons that they cannot be used selectively, cannot be used in a libertarian manner.

I conclude that nuclear weapons, along with other such weapons of mass destruction, hold a place different than weapons such as firearms and knives. In the case of nuclear weapons, the immorality is in the existence, not only in the use.

This also applies to the use as deterrent, because in the end, deterrence means destroying countless millions of non-combatants. This is a direct violation of both the non-aggression principle as well as common morality.

It seems easy to speak almost casually about nuclear weapons and deterrence. As a society, we have gone decades without the use of such weapons in war – and the one time such weapons were used…well many people delude themselves by believing the use was necessary to bring a swift and efficient end to the war.

However, the subject is not casual. The weaponry available today makes the bombs used against Japan seem like a child’s firecracker in comparison. The issue of the true meaning of deterrence – that of placing at risk countless millions of current and future generations – is an issue I will explore further, beginning with this post.

To learn what the deterrent actually is: that is the first responsibility of moralists and religious leaders who wish to talk about the deterrent. Not to talk in ignorance of the facts; not to substitute wishes for facts; above all, not to pretend that it is something other than it is, or, worse, connive with government officials to obtain fresh descriptions of the deterrent threat, so that an unqualified moral condemnation of it can be avoided.

~ Nuclear Deterrence, Morality and Realism, by John Finnis, Joseph M. Boyle, Jr., and Germain Grisez; Chapter XIV, Section 6

I don’t know a better place to start than at the beginning – at the time and place that the first nuclear bomb was used against a civilian population – Hiroshima. Hiroshima offers a microcosm of the death and destruction that undergirds the concept of nuclear deterrence. As my guide, I will work through “Hiroshima’s Shadow,” a volume edited by Kai Bird and Lawrence Lifschultz.

The subtitle of the book is “Writings on the Denial of History and the Smithsonian Controversy.” What was this controversy?

Fifty years after the B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay was used to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the decision that ushered in the nuclear age is still the subject of fierce historical debate.

In the latest clash, the Smithsonian Institution, attacked by veterans groups and members of Congress for a World War II exhibit that they said was overly solicitous of Japan, has decided to drastically scale back the display: The narrative, already revised five times, will be dropped, and visitors will see only part of the Enola Gay’s fuselage, along with a small commemorative plaque.

A small commemorative plaque….

The book, published in 1998, is a compilation of dozens of articles and commentaries regarding the development and use of the nuclear bomb in Japan – including first-person recollections of individuals on the scene in Hiroshima.

On the occasion of the opening ceremony of the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, the runner selected as the final torch-bearer was a young man born in Hiroshima on the day the bomb was dropped. Although this runner was fortunate – he carried no physical deformation from this tragedy – there were many who complained that this symbol would be a reminder of that which many Americans would prefer not to have remembered. This brought a negative reaction from many, including an American journalist:

…this was an unhappy choice because it reminded the Americans of the atomic bomb.

[The journalist] preferred to erase all traces of Hiroshima from the American memory. Worse still, this preference occurs not only to the American mind. Do not all leaders and peoples who at present possess nuclear weapons also wish to erase Hiroshima from their memories?

Kenzaburō Ōe, On Human Dignity (opening page, prior to table of contents)

It is memory that must not be erased. We live in a world that has grown cold to the risks of such an indescribable weapon. We live in a world where many have grown indifferent to the use of weapons that kill indiscriminately. As stated by Finnis, Boyle, Jr., and Grisez, this is an issue the horrors of which must be faced directly if one has design to weigh in on deterrence.

At the same time, we live in a world where the death of a few thousand people and destruction of a few buildings in lower Manhattan has resulted in more than a decade of war and an unsurpassed level of surveillance by the government of the United States. Yet this event on September 11, tragic as it was, resulted in perhaps one one-millionth of the size and scope of the devastation of a potential nuclear holocaust.

Surely if we mourn this relatively minor event, it is appropriate to stare reality in the face when it comes to nuclear weapons and the risks brought on even by claiming that these are for deterrence.

I begin with the preface, written by Joseph Rotblat. It is from this preface where I took the title of this post – a quote from Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell:

Remember your humanity… (xvii)

The issue of nuclear weapons – even as deterrent – cannot be addressed without understanding the risks and consequences. As outlined in my previous post, what is it that is being deterred? In simple terms, is it better dead than red?

If I may hark back to those charming debates of the 1950s, it has always seemed to me that red is better than dead because the red can choose to be dead but the dead cannot choose to be anything at all.

With this, let’s begin. Rotblat was a scientist on the Manhattan Project. He begins his story:

The British and American scientists feared that German scientists would develop the bomb. When our calculations had shown that an atom bomb was feasible, it was natural for us to assume that the German scientists had reached the same conclusion. (xviii)

Rotblat explains the purpose (at least for him and many of the scientists involved) behind development for the bomb was the same as offered today – deterrence:

We needed the bomb so that it would not be used. But as it turned out, we were wrong: the bomb was used; it was used as soon as it was made; it was used against the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (xviii)

Five years later, the scientists learned that the Germans were nowhere near this far along, having ended the quest as early as 1942.

He goes on to address the myth that has built up regarding the use of the bomb, first describing the mainstream story before moving to the reality:

However, there is another version of the events. It is a version which makes people in the West very uncomfortable, so much so that it is being suppressed. When, in preparation for the fiftieth anniversary of the bomb, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington attempted to raise this question, it was met with such a vicious onslaught that the project had to be abandoned. (xviii)

He offers another example of the suppression, this during the height of the Cold War:

…I came across documents showing that the British Government had issued a secret directive to the BBC to play down the effects of nuclear weapons. (xxv)

He addresses the whole-cloth fabrication of the number of lives saved due to the bomb making unnecessary a military invasion of Japan. He recognizes that the end of the war was delayed by Truman in order to hold open the possibility of displaying this awesome weapon. He quotes Eisenhower and Leahy – both opposed at the time to the use of and military necessity for the bomb.

Why did Truman choose to extend the war?

There are solid grounds for the belief that the reason was not military but political, namely, that the bomb was from the beginning seen as a powerful instrument in the ideological struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Among the political leaders who advised President Truman to keep the war going until the bomb was ready was Secretary of State James Byrnes, who said that our possessing and demonstrating the bomb would make Russia more manageable. (xix)

Of course, it was more than a demonstration – a demonstration could have been done over the open ocean or in the desert. It was purposeful destruction of human life. It would seem that the US wanted not only a demonstration for Russia, but to also put the fear into Russia of the insanity of US political leaders – as if to say “we are serious when we tell you we will wipe out your entire population.”

Rotblat goes on to encourage scientists to take responsibility for their work – to consider not just the work but is potential uses.

Should any scientist work on the development of weapons of mass destruction? A clear “no” was the answer given by Hans Bethe…. On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Hiroshima, Dr. Bethe issued a clear and categorical statement in this regard…. (xxii)

Dr. Bethe was one of the few surviving senior managers of the Manhattan Project, 88 years old at the time of the statement. Quoting Dr. Bethe:

…individual scientists can still influence this process by withholding their skills. Accordingly, I call on all scientists in all countries to cease and desist from work creating, developing, improving, and manufacturing further nuclear weapons – and, for that matter, other weapons of potential mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons. (xxii)

Some have taken a stand: for example, Bertrand Russell, Andrei Sakharov, Vil Mirzayanov, and Mordechai Vanunu – this last one having disclosed that Israel has built up a nuclear arsenal.

Although Rotblat initially believed that his work in the development of the bomb was for a good purpose – deterrence of the Germans – he has since come to conclude that even this purpose is not acceptable:

Many of us have since come to the conclusion that the whole concept of nuclear deterrence is flawed. (xxii)

He sees that it is during wartime that an individual acts in the most abnormal manner – what was deemed unacceptable suddenly becomes acceptable, followed by normal, and then expected. Therefore, he fears, the question of the widespread use of nuclear weapons (even by mistake or confusion) is only a matter of if, not when. He cites Einstein and Russell:

Here then is the problem we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race, or shall mankind renounce war? (xxvi)

The book was compiled (and Rotblat wrote the preface) after the fall of the Soviet Union. He recognizes that this diminishes the threat of annihilation, but does not eliminate it:

The nuclear states still adhere to the deterrence policy, which is bound to lead to more countries seeking the security which the nuclear weapons states say that the possession of nuclear weapons provides…. The present basic philosophy is nuclear deterrence…. Nuclear weapons are kept as a hedge against some unspecified dangers.

If the militarily most powerful and least threatened states need nuclear weapons for their security, how can one deny such securities to countries that are truly insecure? (xxvii)

I do not intend to review every commentary and article in this volume. I will spend some time on those commentaries from several notable individuals included in this work. Most importantly, I am most interested in the view from the side of the victim – those who witnessed the destruction in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and who saw the after-effects. This is what must not be forgotten, because this is the game being played when it comes to nuclear deterrence.

The Best of Jonathan Goodwin

Nuclear Deterrence, Morality, and Realism, by John Finnis, Joseph M. Boyle, Jr., and Germain Grisez

Many say that a weapon cannot, in and of itself, be judged morally. The weapon is merely an object, incapable of action without human intervention. The morality is in the use – therefore what is to be judged is the purpose of the deployment. In other words, the weapon cannot be judged, however the use to which it is deployed can.

For a typical firearm, knife, or bow and arrow, I find this reasonable. However, what of a weapon that cannot be so specifically aimed? Whereas a firearm can be deployed in a manner such that it harms only the intended target, something like a nuclear bomb cannot – it kills innocent as well as guilty, indiscriminately. In other words, weapons of mass destruction, by their very design – when used as directed – will kill many besides the targets engaged in combat.

On this I am greatly influenced by Rothbard and his view:

This is why the old cliché no longer holds that it is not the arms but the will to use them that is significant in judging matters of war and peace. For it is precisely the characteristic of modern weapons that they cannot be used selectively, cannot be used in a libertarian manner.

While some will agree with the above sentiment, there is even a further step to explore: is it appropriate to have such weapons for use as a deterrent? In other words, while it is immoral to deploy such weapons (as these will kill combatants and non-combatants alike), is it proper to utilize such weapons as deterrent – as useful in stopping an attack before it starts due to the horrendous threat posed by the potential retaliation?

Rothbard comments on this as well:

Therefore, their very existence must be condemned, and nuclear disarmament becomes a good to be pursued for its own sake. And if we will indeed use our strategic intelligence, we will see that such disarmament is not only a good, but the highest political good that we can pursue in the modern world. For just as murder is a more heinous crime against another man than larceny, so mass murder – indeed murder so widespread as to threaten human civilization and human survival itself – is the worst crime that any man could possibly commit. And that crime is now imminent. And the forestalling of massive annihilation is far more important, in truth, than the demunicipalization of garbage disposal, as worthwhile as that may be. Or are libertarians going to wax properly indignant about price control or the income tax, and yet shrug their shoulders at or even positively advocate the ultimate crime of mass murder?

Under libertarian thinking and common morality, Rothbard finds no reason for the existence of such weapons –presumably include for the purpose of deterrence. (As is often the case, I am certain I have not read everything that Rothbard has written on this subject.) It is the issue of deterrence that I would like to explore, and for this reason I explore the above-mentioned book.

I had originally intended to write several posts on this subject, as I have with other books. I initially believed that the material to be covered would require such a detailed commentary.

I was wrong – the material covered is so thorough, so detailed, and so complete; I can only do it justice by outlining the topics covered, highlighting a few passages, and offering some relatively superficial commentary. The authors have done a remarkable job, and for me to try to capture the work in a meaningful way is impossible. If you want more detail, I can only suggest that you read the book! Every angle is covered by the authors.

The book was written during the Cold War – the Wall was still a reality. The references are in this context of the Cold War and the Soviet Union; however the issues are still relevant as the weapons are still with us. I make no attempt to clean up the Cold War references; my purpose is not to examine these weapons only in the context of a particular time. Even today, the weapons exist, and pose the same threat as they did during the Cold War. It seems to me the issues are the same as always.

The authors have background in law, philosophy and ethics respectively. The book brings together these disciplines when addressing the issues. References are to chapter.section from the book.

The authors consider the entire issue from the point of view of the West, and look at the root – what, exactly, is it that the West is intending to protect? They operate with a worldview that suggests it is right for political leaders to look after the security of the subject population. What is being protected and defended is a Western way of life different than that in the totalitarian Soviet Union.

This way of life has at its foundation certain Judeo-Christian principles. By implication, if the West does not live by these principles, the authors suggest that there is little reason to protect the population from an aggressor that also does not live by those same principles. In other words, from the point of view of the people, one ruler not ruling with common morality is not much different than the next.

What is deterrence?

One acts to deter when one threatens to do something which another wants one not to do, so the other will not do something one wants to prevent. (I.1)

The authors explore the language of deterrence used by political leaders of the west during the Cold War. The language spoken was the language of city-swapping – you destroy some of our cities, we will destroy an equal number of yours. The intent was to make the losses severe enough that there would be no net gain from any such nuclear attack. Further, in the event that all else failed and all was lost, the possibility of a final retribution – an unleashing of a total retaliatory strike – was left open. Mutually Assured Destruction.

The authors provide many quotes and examples of this political posture. They quote several leaders from France, Britain, and the United States all supportive of the possibility of city-swapping. City-swapping, of course, means death and destruction brought upon the civilian population. In the case of the United States, for several years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no statements were even necessary – actions spoke louder than words on the willingness to use nuclear weapons to kill non-combatants.

The authors go on to describe the destructive capability of the weapons on both sides – weapons hundreds of times more powerful than those deployed against Japan. Of such weapons, there are thousands on each side, all aimed against the other. If launched, as intended under the thinking of the time, it would be certain that the casualties would include countless tens of millions of non-combatants.

The authors next look at the duty to deter.

The vast deterrent system is maintained by governments and citizens who regard it as a practical necessity. And there are good reasons for judging that deterrence is necessary to maintain peace and protect the independence of the Western democracies.

…we consider in turn what the goals of the deterrent actually are, whether they are morally legitimate, whether the values the deterrent protects are threatened, and why nuclear deterrence is probably the only practical way of meeting the threat. (III.1)

The authors clarify that even though such deterrence might be a practically necessary means to a legitimate goal, they leave for later the examination of the legitimacy of the means. In this chapter, the authors consider that the means is necessary:

…we conclude that no non-nuclear defence could adequately replace nuclear deterrence if the Western nations renounce it unilaterally. (III.5)

I am not convinced that there is no other means by which deterrence can be adequately achieved. There is evidence to at least question this: in support of the authors’ view, North Korea (with a nuclear capability), despite being on the radar as part of the evil axis, has not been invaded, while other so-called rogue nations such as Libya, Iraq, and others without the capability have been overrun. Conversely, Pakistan – a nuclear nation – is today a victim of undeclared war. Their nuclear weapons have not deterred this. Switzerland, and dozens of other nations not armed in this way, at the same time appear to be reasonably safe from harm.

In any case, even accepting the authors’ position that there is a practical benefit to deterrence that cannot be achieved any other way, does this justify the making of such threats?

We hold, therefore, that at present, and for the foreseeable future, the West’s moral responsibility to preserve its independence against Soviet power almost certainly cannot be fulfilled without the deterrent. It does not follow, however, that the deterrent is morally justified.

For even if one has a serious moral responsibility, one can be morally barred from using the only available means to fulfill it…. If one finds oneself in circumstances such that there is no moral way to discharge one’s positive duties, then one should not discharge them. (III.5)

Therefore, accepting the premise that government has such a responsibility, if the only means by which to discharge it is immoral, the responsibility should not be discharged. So the question is asked, is the means immoral?

Must not the deterrent be rejected because, though a necessary means for fulfilling a grave responsibility, it violates the stringent moral norm which excludes intentional killing of the innocent.

According to common morality, even a grave responsibility does not justify the means necessary to fulfill it if choosing that means is something one must never do. Duties must be carried out by every legitimate means, but may and must remain unfulfilled when it is impossible to fulfill them. (IV.1)

Such morality is captured in statements such as: the end does not justify the means; evil may not be done that good may come. Killing the innocent violates these moral sentiments.

It is always wrong to deliberately kill the innocent. (IV.1)

The authors conclude this based on traditional Judeo-Christian principles. The conclusion is certainly consistent with the non-aggression principle.

In this, I don’t mean to suggest that every individual in the West is or must attend either a synagogue or church. Nor do I suggest that those of a faith outside of these two (or of no faith, if such is possible) have no place in Western society. However, there are principles that undergird any society. Principles in the West can be traced back to a Biblical understanding of morals. If these principles aren’t respected in the means of defense, then what is the point? Certainly this doesn’t hinge on defending the right to vote!

The authors demonstrate that by applying this moral standard, at least two components of the deterrent must be excluded: that of city-swapping, and that of the final retaliation – mutually assured destruction.

The authors begin by examining intent – the intent of the individuals behind the threat and subsequent act.

What matters is the relationship between the moral agent’s will and the death brought about, and that relationship is specified by the agent’s intention. (IV.2)

The authors conclude that the death of innocent persons (or non-combatants) is precisely what is intended by those who make the threat – by innocent, those not involved in the combat and war-making business (including logistics support, manufacturing of arms, etc.).

…whoever chooses to make the deterrent threat intends, conditionally but really, what is threatened. If what is threatened includes the killing of innocent persons, the threat includes an intention prohibited by common morality. (IV.3)

…it is clear that many (at least) of the deaths intended in the threats of city swapping and final retaliation are not intended as the killing of combatants, and are thus intended as the killing of innocents…. Massive destruction of people including non-combatants is part of what Western leaders desire the Soviet leadership to fear and take steps to make it fear. (IV.5, emphasis in text)

As to final retaliation, the authors note that this is an option only deployed when the war is already lost. To this, the authors suggest there are no longer combatants – the war is over. In other words, all killed are non-combatants because there is no more cause for war-making.

The authors further examine other possibilities, for example: 1) that the door remains open for the actors to change their minds, or 2) it is all a bluff. The authors conclude that neither is realistic – too many people are involved.

In the case of actors changing their mind: even if the small handful of individuals who have the authority to unleash such weapons know in the back of their mind that they can change course, not all actors in the chain do. There is a pluralism of command, necessary to deter a decapitating strike. What of the lone submarine commander, as one such example?

In the case of this being a bluff – it isn’t a bluff to everyone. For many on the sending end and for all on the potential receiving end, the threat is real. Therefore, they will act as if it is real, and in a highly volatile situation one of these actors outside of those who are bluffing might choose to act (or react) as he was trained to do.

Given the callous disregard for life shown by those states with the preponderance of nuclear weapons, on what rational basis could one conclude that the mass killing of non-combatants is a bluff?

The proposal embodied in the deterrent policy is not some secret known only to a few well-informed officials. The content of the proposal is evident. For it is a public proposal, understood and taken seriously by citizens just as it is by adversaries…. Reflections on the content of this public proposal, and on the social act which defines it, shows that readiness to inflict unacceptable losses necessarily involves the conditional intent to kill the innocent. (V.7)

The authors go on to examine if the nuclear deterrent must threaten innocents – in other words, can the deterrent exist without threatening innocents. They look at this through the possibility of “war-winning” and alternatively of “victory denying.” The authors believe that inherent in the deterrent is a threat to innocent individuals:

…the route to a morally legitimate deterrent consisting in such a capability is barred by insurmountable obstacles – technological, strategic, political, and moral. (VI.4)

Some suggest that any action taken (including a nuclear deterrent) in legitimate self-defense must be morally acceptable – even if the action is immoral. In reply, the authors offer a statement that is clearly consistent with the non-aggression principle:

…the use of deadly military force against those not involved in the unjust use of force cannot be justified, since the use of deadly force is justified only to counter force unjustly used. (VII.3)

Having reviewed arguments based on morality, the authors turn to arguments based on consequences – arguments both for and against deterrent. Which option brings about the greater good or lesser evil? In other words, is the evil of nuclear deterrence necessary because the consequences of being overrun are even worse?

This is defended by some on the basis that nothing bad has happened yet – the strategy has not been deployed. It may be wrong to make good on the threat, but there is no wrong in making the threat. Of course, the authors have addressed this issue earlier in the book – that the leadership might have a change of mind at the last minute, or know that they are operating under a bluff. Neither is likely possible.

Others offer that the probability of deploying the deterrent option is so minimal that to consider the moral question is almost irrelevant. The authors offer analysis that suggests the probability is not as minimal as one might like; in any case there are known events in the past that have come dangerously close to putting the entire process in motion.

Add to this the facts of nuclear devastation. Many studies have been done, and the devastation is not minimal. It is widespread, it is uncontrollable, and it is lingering.

The authors look at the alternative: dead is better than red. This is simply not so, as it certainly cannot be true for every individual potential casualty of a nuclear holocaust. Citing Lackey:

If I may hark back to those charming debates of the 1950s, it has always seemed to me that red is better than dead because the red can choose to be dead but the dead cannot choose to be anything at all.

Alternatively, some who propose consequentialist arguments offer that unilateral disarmament would reduce the likelihood of nuclear war, while not increasing the likelihood of Soviet domination. Again, referring to examples cited earlier of real-life situations today, this point is at least plausible.

For the authors, ultimately the question is a moral one – not based on consequences:

Anyone who accepts the norms (often called precepts) of common morality should judge the nuclear deterrent immoral…. (X.1)

The book ends with the authors examining disarmament, individual responsibilities, and finally a chapter entitled “Concluding Christian Thoughts.”

To learn what the deterrent actually is: that is the first responsibility of moralists and religious leaders who wish to talk about the deterrent. Not to talk in ignorance of the facts; not to substitute wishes for facts; above all, not to pretend that it is something other than it is, or, worse, connive with government officials to obtain fresh descriptions of the deterrent threat, so that an unqualified moral condemnation of it can be avoided. (XIV.6)

The deterrent consists of the threat, deployable on command, of the destruction of life on earth. Countless billions of people today, who – regardless of the political tyranny under which they suffer – choose “red” (or today’s equivalent of any less-than-free state) as opposed to “dead” are given no choice but “dead” if the threat is made good. Future generations will be recipients of untold misery. The reality of the deterrent cannot be avoided. It must be faced for what it is – after which one might continue to argue that this reality of threatening nuclear holocaust and the risks and consequences that come with this threat is better than that which is being deterred.

So: anyone who discerns the immorality of the deterrent should at once repent. Having repented, responsible citizens will try to help their nations escape from the slavery of the balance of terror. (XIV.6)

Perhaps the language of repentance will turn some off. However, the non-aggression principle and Christian morality dovetail nicely on this issue. The conclusion is the same using either set of principles as the foundation, I believe: even for purposes of deterrence, such weapons of mass destruction are inherently immoral – not in use, but in existence.

For this, I return again to Rothbard, as previously cited:

This is why the old cliché no longer holds that it is not the arms but the will to use them that is significant in judging matters of war and peace. For it is precisely the characteristic of modern weapons that they cannot be used selectively, cannot be used in a libertarian manner.

If one equates the libertarian term “non-aggression principle” and the authors’ use of the term “common morality” (reasonable, given the context), these three authors come to the same conclusion.

The Best of Jonathan Goodwin

Psychosis: a serious mental disorder (as schizophrenia) characterized by defective or lost contact with reality often with hallucinations or delusions

I have recently come across a children’s tale, The Monster Who Grew Small, by Joan Grant. This is a story about a young boy, Miobi, who was thought a coward by his uncle. The uncle regularly would frighten the boy by telling him tales of terrible monsters that lived in the forest. The boy, being a boy and trusting what his elders told him, believed the uncle’s horror stories.

Whenever the boy had to go down to the river he thought that crocodiles would eat him, and when he went into the forest he thought the shadows concealed snakes and that hairy spiders waited under the leaves to pounce on him. The place that always felt specially dangerous was on the path down to the village, and whenever he had to go along it he used to run.

Miobi’s uncle has succeeded in creating a boy fearful of what might be under every rock. A fear so penetrating that he could not walk to the village without being consumed. However, one day while walking on the path, Miobi – hearing a voice crying out from the forest – decides that he must investigate, as the owner of the voice might be more frightened than he is.

The voice belongs to a hare, tangled up by the leg. Miobi explains his constant fear to the hare, and the hare offers to grant Miobi that which he most desires – courage. But the hare cannot simply give courage to Miobi; instead he shows Miobi how to find it.

Miobi began the journey according the hare’s instruction. He first crossed a river of crocodiles. A few days later, he used his wit to pass by two snakes, each large enough to swallow Miobi whole had the boy not been so verbally creative.

Eventually he comes in sight of a village. Everyone in the village is sad and frightened. They fear a monster, one that they believe would eat every living being in the village – human and animal.

Miobi asks the village Headman, “There seem to be a quite lot of people in your village. Couldn’t you kill the Monster if you all helped?”

“Impossible!” came the reply. “Too big, too fierce, too terrible. We are all agreed on that.”

Could it be that such a terrible monster exists? One that threatens an entire village – threatens the very existence of village life? With a threat so incredible that it scares even the will to fight back out of the community? The villagers certainly think so.

Miobi volunteered to go kill the monster if the Headman would only tell him where it lived. The Headman replied, “Perhaps you are wise, for then you will be eaten first and won’t have so long to think about it.” The headman then gave Miobi the directions to the monster’s cave.

Off Miobi went. When he first saw the monster in the distance it looked very large, fire breathing out of its nostrils. Miobi continued his climb up to the cave. After a long climb, he looked again and the monster looked much smaller. This was confusing to the young boy. The monster snorted, and Miobi ran off a ways down the hill. When he turned to look back at the monster, it now seemed larger than ever.

Miobi said to himself, “This is very curious indeed. The farther I run away from the Monster, the larger it seems, and the nearer I am to it, the smaller it seems. Perhaps if I was very close it might be a reasonable size for me to kill with my dagger.”

Miobi went back up the hill, all the way inside the cave. When he arrived, he found nothing that needed killing. Did he run to the wrong cave? He felt something touch his foot. It was the monster, no bigger than a frog. He picked it up; it was comfortable to hold.

Miobi returned to the village. The village acclaimed him a hero, believing he had slain the monster. Miobi showed them the monster, held in his hand. A little girl asked the monster’s name. Miobi did not know, but the monster answered in his stead:

I have many names. Some call me Famine, and some Pestilence, but the most pitiable of humans give me their own names….But most people call me What-Might-Happen.

From what I gather, this short story is adapted from an Egyptian folk tale. Joan Brook wrote it as an illustrative way for children to deal with and confront their fears.

However I found in this story the possibility for a much broader target market, significantly larger than the frightened childhood population. The target audience should be most of the adult population in the United States.

The government has done a tremendous job of frightening Americans – around every corner is a potential monster.

Hitler is going to take over the world. The communists are coming, the communists are coming. We must stop them in Viet Nam, or the dominoes will fall all the way to California. The Soviets will destroy us all.

Watch out, the Arabs are coming. Every Arab is a potential threat to our freedom. The Muslims want to force us to live under Sharia law. Ragheads in caves half-way around the world want to bomb us because we are free. Every passenger at the airport is a potential risk. Check the grandmothers and the infants. Virtual strip searches must be conducted for our own safety.

It’s the Chinese. They want to extend their sphere of influence all the way to the Western Pacific – Taiwan, if you can imagine this. The nerve of those Chinese.

We need a missile defense shield against Iran, who one day, maybe, might have one bomb. Saddam Hussein is the next Hitler. Gadhafi is the next Hitler. Ahmadinejad is the next Hitler. Bashar al-Assad is the next Hitler.

If we don’t fight them over there we will have to fight them here. The only way to win this war is to kill all the terrorists.

I haven’t even listed one of the economic horror stories told by the government to the frightened children. These are legion. Food? Most apparently wouldn’t know what to eat without a government seal of approval. Medical care? Too complicated to be left to free choice.

The United States lives under a national psychosis. Miobi conquered his. When he did, the “monster” made no attempt to play the part. The monster knew he wasn’t a monster – once Miobi understood this, the monster did not fight back. The monster spoke quite clearly – you fear that which you yourself create in your own mind. It is not real. In fact, confront your fear and you will find comfort.

I remember watching a wonderful Rick Steves‘ documentary on Iran. After watching it, I thought (sarcastically) to myself: “Wow! They walk on two legs, just like we do. Look, on Sunday afternoon they take their family for a picnic. What! They ski? On white snow?”

The pictures would be the same if taken anywhere else in the world. These are the so-called monsters.

Are there monsters in the world? Certainly. Yet, we are brainwashed to overly fear monsters that would harm us illegally, so we allow others to harm us legally instead. It is sick.

A national psychosis.

The Best of Jonathan Goodwin

The Birth of Western Economy, Robert Latouche

Based on this book by Robert Latouche, I have previously written about the fall of Rome and thebeginnings of medieval society. Latouche next moves on to various aspects of the decentralized monetary and economic system of Merovingian society (described as “anarchy” by Latouche), and the transition toward centralization attempted by Charlemagne – a transition that, fortunately for those who favor decentralization, did not last for long after his death.

This story is a shining light on a successful period of anarchy – not Rothbard’s anarchy, but certainly the absence of a centralized state acting as sovereign. This possibility was realized as Rome fell, and was reborn after the attempts toward centralization of Charlemagne and the Carolingian Empire.

Merovingian Decentralization

As previously noted, Latouche is favorable toward state-centralization – both regarding Rome and later Charlemagne. Although I disagree with his conclusions, I find his approach helpful; he has clearly distinguished periods of state-governance from decentralized governance. In any case, his factual observations of the economic landscape are priceless.

In the Merovingian period that came after Rome and that preceded Charlemagne, Latouche notes changes in the monetary systems. During this time, money for daily use moved from gold toward silver:

The theory that the Merovingians kept to the gold standard and that the Carolingians replaced it by an exclusively silver coinage is incorrect and altogether too flattering to the Merovingians. The reality was less simple.

It seems to me that the issue has nothing to do with flattery, but recognition of market forces at work in a less developed economy, as was the case after Rome. During Merovingian time, silver became more prominent as the money metal. Most important, this was not by decree of any king – the Merovingian currency was not controlled by public authorities. Latouche describes this lack of central control as negligence – in reality it was something more like an open market.

Through the negligence of the kings, coining in the Frankish kingdom became the monopoly of coiners.

There were multiple coiners; how could this be a monopoly? It is the fact that coinage was by non-state actors that concerns the author. Latouche recognizes no government authority outside of state authority. The Merovingian period was a time of individual and community governance, based on sacred oath and with the Church as a constant backdrop. There was government; it just wasn’t government by a state.

After listing the several areas where the Merovingian kings did not exercise sovereign authority, instead granting “the privilege of immunity” to “influential laymen,” the author laments…

Never in our history has the conception of the state known so complete an eclipse. Numerous churches obtained privileges of immunity; many enjoyed that of minting money….

That first sentence brings such a smile to my face! Latouche goes on to identify several churches that held such a privilege of immunity.

What is meant by “immunity”? Gary North recently wrote on this subject:

The issue is immunity from state sovereignty. A declaration of such immunity is a declaration of legitimate sovereignty.

North cites Robert Nisbet:

So-called diplomatic immunities are but the last manifestation of a larger complex of immunities which once involved a large number of internal religious, economic, and kinship authorities.

This was a normal feature of political life in the Middle Ages. Again, from North:

Which rights were protected by medieval institutions, and which were not? Remember, “rights” mean “legal immunities from governments.” It means the right of self-government.

The people of the Early Middle Ages before and after Charlemagne recognized and enjoyed such rights.

Returning to Latouche: he decries the varying weights and quality of the coinage produced by these multiple Churches – but isn’t this an expected and natural process of a market? Multiple producers compete on price and quality. Further, isn’t this to be expected in a market that, at the time, was quite local – with little need for commonality from region to region? Eventually, it seems to me, the market would move naturally toward commonality for the sake of efficiency as markets developed.

The author describes the evolution from gold coinage to silver that occurred under the Merovingians:

Under the Merovingians, silver was minted earlier and on a larger scale than has previously been thought; nor was it the shortage of gold which finally established its supremacy, but the preferences of the northern peoples and the requirements of internal trade.

Gold was hoarded. Given the relatively low value of the traded goods, this would seem to be reasonable. Silver sufficed for the trade of the time. It appears the transition was driven by the market.

This liking for silver coinage marks an evolution which was taking place during the late seventh century. The gold solidus and even thetriens were on the way out.

Charlemagne and the Push Toward Centralization

Charlemagne, unlike his Merovingian predecessors, had a powerful desire to unite an empire. The author praises the centralizing and law-giving activities of the Carolingian kings.

Pepin the Short, then Charlemagne, and their counselors, must be given credit for their efforts to reform the economy at its roots by starting with a purification of the coinage. …the Carolingian monetary system…was monometallic, the silver denier, of good weight and alloy…. This reform was not empirical but systematic and the rulers imposed it on their peoples by a series of hard-hitting Capitularies.

The system was “imposed” by “hard-hitting Capitularies.” This seems rather coercive….

The basic and most vital feature of these reforms was the generalization of the silver standard which was made compulsory.

It is interesting to note: Charlemagne attempted to take advantage of the consolidation toward silver that was already occurring naturally in the marketplace. The market was moving in this direction anyway:

In actual fact things had been moving in that direction for more than a century past, for the percentage of gold in the solidus and thetriens had become so insignificant that these coins were discredited and almost wholly supplanted in circulation by the Merovingian denier.

The state only took over what the market had previously created.

Charlemagne’s great merit lay in legalizing the existing situation and giving it his blessing….

The market seemed to be doing just fine, without the “blessing” of a usurper. What glory can be rightly claimed in a transition that was already occurring? The market was not developed sufficiently to require gold as money.

…it would have been absurd to put large quantities, or even quite a small amount, of gold into circulation to supply markets which were essentially agrarian and handled only modest transactions.

But of course the market figured this out already. Charlemagne’s coercion in the coin was not necessary, at least not for market reasons.

The Carolingians strove to maintain its legal weight and percentage of pure silver in order to prevent it from becoming a mere token money, a coinage of inflation, and took vigorous, even unpopular, steps to impose it on their subjects and encourage its circulation.

If the Carolingian coin was superior (not “mere token money”), why did Charlemagne have to “impose” this on the people? Why was the coinage unpopular? Is it possible that these people of the Middle Ages understood the danger of sovereign control over the coin?

Further Capitularies were issued in the period 794 to 864 (extending past Charlemagne’s reign); these forced subjects to accept payment in the state’s coinage – legal tender laws. However, offenders were numerous, as evidenced by the multitude of instructions given to the public in hope of breaking down the resistance to the coinage. Of course, state violence for violations was introduced:

If the offender was a free man, the fine was 15 solidi; the fine was a beating if the offender was a serf.

Nothing changes – the powerful get a slap on the wrist, the meek get many slaps.

This lamentable reversion [after the demise of the Carolingian Empire] to the mistakes of the Merovingian era were all the easier since both Charlemagne, with all his prestige, and also his immediate successors, had great difficulty in getting these currency reforms accepted. The unpopularity of the measures showed itself in an obdurate suspicion and refusal to accept the new coins put into circulation.

But if the measures were so great, why weren’t these embraced? Why would the people choose to revert to so-called “mistakes”? Were they merely ignorant barbarians? Or did they know to hide from the state?

Charlemagne was determined to keep the monopoly of coining exclusively for the Palace Mint and right up to his death persisted in his resolve…. He failed in his aim, and his successors were too weak to follow up his plan successfully.

A market-derived and accepted system will survive any one individual’s demise – the market is far greater than any one man. It does not require force. It does not require strong political leaders. It merely requires a market.

More Central Planning

Charlemagne’s attempts at control through coercion were not limited to the coin. In 789, Charlemagne published the Admonitia generalis, of which Clause 81 offers further economic controls:

It concerns the Sabbath rest and gives a list of menial tasks forbidden on Sundays….Nor are women to do any work connected with cloth….The list is significant….

He was determined to have an inventory of the assets owned by the many great estates (the better to tax you with, my dear):

On several occasions he ordered an inventory to be made of these estates, and the Capitulary known as the Brevium exempla, only a fragment of which has been preserved, shows us how personal property and real estate were to be catalogued.

Further centralization and control was attempted in other areas of economic life:

‘Throughout the whole of the realm’ [Charlemagne] wrote, ‘weights and measures must be identical and accurate.’

The aim was ambitious; different provinces had different measures. Why would uniformity across an entire empire be necessary in an agrarian, localized economy? The author provides his answer:

…the human reason which lay behind this decree [was] to prevent those who sold from cheating or robbing those who bought.

Is this really so? The economy was primarily local – everyone knew each other in the local trade, neighbor knew neighbor. If an individual cheated, sanction was sure to follow, up to and including expulsion from the community – tantamount to a death warrant in that society.

It is doubtful Charlemagne was concerned about cheating. It is more likely he wanted uniformity to make taxing easier. In any case, the people did not easily submit.

Wait, There is More

For those who call for a banning of interest, you will find in Charlemagne a hero:

Christian and even clerical inspiration are plainly discernible in the rigorous measures taken by Charlemagne and his successors to forbid the lending of money at interest. It had been practiced in the Merovingian period.

The banning of interest: one of many monetary crank theories only possible through the power of state coercion. The Biblical basis for the banning of interest was not (and most certainly is not) a settled matter; Gary North, to name the one person who has more thoroughly studied the Bible for economic principles, proposes no such ban (see chapter 7). The Bishop of Verdun, apparently, saw no problem with interest either:

This bishop regarded the payment of interest as the natural accomplishment of the loan, and as an ordinary transaction which was obviously fair and above-board.

The Church forbade clerics to engage in the practice, however Charlemagne was the first ruler to extend the practice to laymen. Such a change could only be implement by degrees: first that the ban should apply to laymen, but with no punishment attached; then, a short time later, and in a time of famine, the term usury was defined in significant detail, through the Capitulary of Nijmegen in 806; and further tightened the clauses in a famine of 809. Finally, in an undated Capitulary (presumably written after these others), a heavy fine is outlined:

‘We wish no one’, he declares, ‘to exact any further interest in any circumstance whatever. Anyone who does so will be made to pay the fine laid down for breaking the ban.’ This fine amounted to 60 salidi.

While not a good reason to disallow a private transaction for charging interest, it should be kept in mind that in the time of the Early Middle Ages, there was no heavy industry or large-scale trade – lending was not typically for the purpose of large capital formation. Primarily, lending occurred in the need of purchasing current foodstuffs – the borrower was starving and without alternatives for survival.

In addition to making illegal the means by which a starving man might be able to acquire foodstuffs, Charlemagne enacted price controls in an attempt to keep prices at lower levels (note, price controls came coincident with the issue of his new coins):

That was why, at the Synod of Frankfurt in 794, Charlemagne, who had just issued his new deniers, fixed in agreement with the Fathers of the Council the maximum retail price for the main corn crops.

These price controls covered crops such as oats, barley, rye, and wheat – eventually on bread as well. Charlemagne, in an act described as kindness and as setting a good example, sold his crop at prices even lower than the maximum price. Of course, another way to look at this is that he was bankrupting the competition, something he could afford to do given the control he had over the economy….

The price controls were in place both in ‘normal’ times and in times of famine. You can imagine the result.

On the pretense of ensuring that transactions were carried out in an honest manner, Charlemagne, in the Capitulary of 803…

…forbids the sale of gold vases, silver, slaves, pearls, horses, and other animals at night-time and insists on such purchases being made in public.

One might view this as an attempt to kill the black (night-time) market.

It’s ALWAYS About War

The author suggests the reason behind Charlemagne’s actions – the Church!

In the sphere of economics, as in all others, his line of conduct was determined by the Holy Scripture and of the Church Fathers…. It would therefore be pointless to look for an original economic or political programme in his Capitularies.

But would it be “pointless” to look beyond the Church for a reason behind Charlemagne’s actions? Well, no; it isn’t pointless. The author himself spills the beans, making irrelevant his comment about being pointless to look for a program:

Side by side with the requirements of Christian morality went military necessities.

Whoops! Did the author really mean to write this? Where’s Laurence Vance? The church and the military, side by side!

The Carolingian economy was a war economy. Each year of Charlemagne’s reign was marked by a campaign the preparations for which made heavy demands on the imperial economy…. It is interesting to note that many of the Capitularies were introduced in the Spring, obviously with an eye to the summer campaign, and they were intended partly to put the inhabitants of the Empire into a state of readiness.

North, quoting Nisbet:

If there is any single origin of the institutional State, it is in the circumstances and relationships of war. The connection between kinship and family, between religion and the Church, is no closer than that between war and the state in history.

War. It’s always about war.

After the Fall: The Return of Anarchy

This story comes with a happy ending. Carolingian control over markets died, thankfully, not long after Charlemagne died – his Empire broke up less than a half a century after its creation. The author lauds the intent and accomplishments of this Emperor:

The experiment was in fact an interesting one…a reorganization based on sound Christian morals and not altogether divorced from military considerations, an economy which was clerical in inspiration, a war economy from which capitalism was quite deliberately banished by the general veto on lending at interest.

Sound Christian morals in concert with military considerations. I really, really need to find Laurence Vance!

Latouche bemoans this anarchic quality of the period before and after Charlemagne. He describes the term “anarchy,” and explains his view of the time:

The word anarchy is here used in its strict etymological sense: absence of authority and the bankruptcy of the sovereign state. It was an evil which had been undermining Gaul and Western Europe ever since the Great Invasions, and which Charlemagne and the early Carolingians did not succeed in curing. The responsibility for it must be placed fairly and squarely on the Merovingian rulers.

As regards the bankruptcy of the sovereign state, Latouche is quite correct. However, is the sovereign state the only source for governance? Referring again to North:

Is civil government the only true government? Does it alone possess legitimate sovereignty? Defenders of the modern state insist that this is the case, and that it should be the case.

Latouche is one of these defenders, answering affirmatively. He does not recognize the sovereignty as exercised during the Merovingian period before and (through its close relative) after the fall of Charlemagne – a sovereignty exercised at decentralized levels of society, but not a sovereignty that would look completely familiar to advocates of free-market anarchy today. For example, there was little concern of individual rights. Again, from North:

Then what of individual rights? This was not a major concern in the medieval era. Why not? Because the individual’s rights were defended by institutions other than the civil government.

Then, quoting Nisbet:

In the medieval world there was relatively little concern with positive, discrete rights of individuals, largely because of the differences of political power and the reality of innumerable group authorities. But when the consolidation of national political power brought with it a destruction of many of the social bodies within which individuals had immemorially lived in taken refuge, when, in sum, law became a more centralized and impersonal structure, with the individual as its unit, the concern for positive, constitutionally guaranteed rights of individuals became urgent. European governments may have sought often, and successfully prolonged periods, to resist claims of individual right, but it is hard to miss the fact that states (England, for example) which became the most successful, economically as well as politically, had the earliest constitutional recognition of individual rights, especially property. In retrospect, however, we see that it was the sheer impact of the State upon medieval custom and tradition, with the consequent atomizing and liberating effects, that, more than anything else, precipitated the modern concern with positive individual rights.

Today we look back to the political philosophies underpinning written constitutions as liberating, when in fact these were the result of – and ensured the longevity of – the state as the sole sovereign entity to which man, on earth, could appeal. The Magna Carta is heralded as a milestone toward liberal society, when in fact it represented the loss of the limited sovereignty of other, competing institutions.

When there is only the individual against the state, individual rights become paramount. However, in an environment of multiple and competing sovereignties the need is not so great.

Latouche looks at the issue of immunities granted by the king – immunities that captured this diverse, decentralized sovereignty, represented by these competing institutions:

The practice of immunity, the essential aim of which was exemption from taxation, became widespread and this serious abdication of responsibility reached such vast proportions that it soon went far beyond the realm of finance. Vast tracts of the kingdom were completely outside the jurisdiction of the central authority, since the king expressly forbade his officials to enter the immunists’ domains for the purposes of carrying out their administrative duties.

Did the king grant immunity against his well-being? Not likely. In many ways, the king was equal to the nobles – the king had no higher position in the law than did the nobles. The basis for society was individual, based on sacred oath and grounded in the teaching of the Church. There was respect for property. Rights were defined and respected based on this. The king had no power to act outside of the old, good law. He was king of a decentralized society, one not governed solely by a state but by entities based on family, community, and Church.

Again, from North:

What is the meaning of sovereignty? It is the lawful, legitimate authority to invade all rival institutions, and to be immune to invasion by them. In modern thought, it is possessed only by the State. In this sense, the state possesses what in earlier eras in the West would have been identified with God. But God’s sovereignty was assumed to be delegated to legitimate institutions: the family and the church. It is also delegated to the individual. The state’s sovereignty is not delegated, except under stress.

The people of the Early Middle Ages, both before and after Charlemagne, understood this. They would cringe in horror at the barbarity of the modern state. From North again, citing Walter Lippmann, who wrote in 1929:

A state is absolute in the sense which I have in mind when it claims the right to a monopoly of all the force within the community, to make war, to make peace, to conscript life, to tax, to establish and disestablish property, to define crime, to punish disobedience, to control education, to supervise the family, to regulate personal habits, and to censor opinions. The modern state claims all of these powers, and, in the matter of theory, there is no real difference in the size of the claim between communists, fascists, and Democrats.

This definition, so true today, is completely alien to the world of the Middle Ages – the so-called Dark Ages. For those looking for an example in history where state sovereignty was minimal to non-existent, and where life functioned well and in many cases in a more classically-liberal fashion(including attitudes toward women and slavery) than in almost any period under state control, the Merovingians of the so-called Dark Ages and their post-Carolingian philosophical descendants offer a shining example.

I return to the period of the Middle Ages, having previously written about kingship and law andsocietal relationships. I will turn now to the economy of the time, based on the book The Birth of Western Economy, by Robert Latouche.

Having described the fall of Rome in the first chapters, Latouche turns to the earliest beginning of medieval society and economy. He describes several aspects of this period of transition.

The Migrations

He begins with the earliest migrations:

The Roman Empire recognized two great Germanic families: the Western Germans who for long centuries had been settled in continental Europe, and the Northern and Eastern Germans who had emerged in more recent times from Scandinavia.

There were mentions of immigration into the Roman Empire by Germanic people as early as the late first / early second century.

…the Germans then gradually and by progressive stages penetrated into the Empire along the entire length of the limes in ever-increasing numbers….

Eventually, the numbers were significant enough that treaties were negotiated with Rome, recognizing the various tribes as “federates.”

…most of the barbarians who penetrated into the Western Empire came not as conquerors, but exactly as in our own day…to look for work.

The conquest was not so much a military one; Rome fell as much due to the apathy of the productive caused by the economic policies of the state as it did from anything else. What did the barbarians conquer? They came to an undeveloped land. The forest was their enemy; the bogs were their subjects:

He had to wrest from virgin forest, from moorland and sometimes from bog, the land on which he settled, and the task of bringing Central Europe into cultivation was a slow and unremitting process of land clearance which went on until late into the Middle Ages.

Private Property

These migrants apparently did not make the same mistake as did the Pilgrims of New England. Counter to the views of some – and built on a faulty reading of historical (but not more contemporary) sources – the cleared land was not held in community ownership, but in private ownership.

The historian Fustel de Coulanges set out to demolish this edifice built on sand….the Franks and other Germanic peoples from very ancient times practiced individual ownership, and that the alodis frequently referred to in barbarian laws is the equivalent of the Latin hereditas, and is none other than the hereditary estate.

There was some land common to the community, primarily forest land. This demonstrates a rather sophisticated view of private property – that of homestead. The cleared land was viewed as private property; the land in an unimproved state was not. This concept of individual ownership was captured, for instance, in the Salic Law:

What a study of the Salic Law does bring out…is the strong preference of the Franks for individual ownership…. One single word, which has had an extraordinary history, symbolizes the sacrosanctity of hereditary property – it is the word ‘alleu’ [freehold] (alodis). In the very beginning this word stood for the ancestral home and its appendages. Subsequently it was extended to include the arable lands.

This freehold of property was an important feature throughout the Middle Ages, first coming up against resistance in England in the time of William the Conqueror in the eleventh century, when he claimed all land as his own, with the nobles as his tenants.

The Birth of the Nobles

The armies of Rome as well as those of the tribes consisted fundamentally of foot soldiers. This came to an end when the tribes were faced with enemy horsemen from the Far East.

A horse cannot be equipped or a horseman armed without money, and the men destined to serve in the king’s host were expected to possess a certain fortune…. One of the most lasting results of this revolution in the art of war was that whilst compulsory military service was not abolished, it no longer applied to everyone…. No longer were all free men soldiers, but only the richest of them….

These horsemen, these new soldiers, were gradually to turn into the nobility.

You Can’t Replace Something with Nothing

Rome was no longer able to govern. The tribes were free from centralized state control, but this does not mean to suggest that there was no organizing body – only that is was not a body of coercive state force.

The Church contributed in large measure to the rescue of town life by fitting her temporal government into the framework bequeathed her by the Roman Empire, and it will soon become evident that the cities survived by what amounted to a process of substitution. On rural life too, though for quite different reasons, her influence made itself felt, and in a manner no less unexpected.

The Church then became a great administrative body, with divisions based closely on those of the state…. The Church became a moral entity endowed with juridical power.

As such, the Church was to reap financial benefit, as this position stimulated the generosity of the faithful. “The goods bequeathed consisted chiefly of country estates,” and such wealth accumulated toward the benefit of monasteries, many founded as poverty-stricken establishments. Yet over the course of time – and in the early Middle Ages – many monasteries had accumulated prodigious wealth.

…kings and nobles lavishly endowed them with huge tracts of cultivable land in a passion of generosity which verged on the reckless….

The wealthy donors previously had received from Rome, as part of the treaties established while Rome still had marginal power, vast swaths of land – land that proved too large to manage. It was from such sources that the donations were made. Often, the land was fallow or forests previously used for hunting. Credit is due the monks for turning such land into productive ground.

The author attributes this generosity to the guilt of the wealthy – a hope to buy salvation, to avoid eternal punishment. Whatever the reason, the payment was voluntary. “Thus the institution of monasticism acquired in less than two centuries a vast number of estates….” With this wealth, and with the infrastructure provided by the Church…

…the bishops [took] on a host of varied responsibilities which in normal times would be assumed by the public services of the state…

This included the building of aqueducts, assistance to the poor, and hospitality to travelers and the sick. Notably, the Church did not provide for a standing army, monopoly over coinage, or monopoly over law and justice.

Religious and ecclesiastical activity saved the lives of a host of Gallo-Roman cities, the existence of which was threatened by Merovingian apathy…. The presence of a religious element ensured the survival of old urban centres threatened with slow decay, and even brought others into existence.

I mentioned previously this author’s favorable view of state institutions. A flavor of this is found in the above statement – regarding the so-called “Merovingian apathy.” It is true that Merovingian society was not centrally controlled and directed via a coercive state. Where the author views this as a detriment, it strikes me as a blessed gift.

That the Church (in the context of the times; else other voluntary institutions) took the place of several state functions should be expected in a land without a state. You can’t replace something with nothing (h/t Dr. North). Individuals within communities will organize towards outcomes that are found to be beneficial. When done in a voluntary manner, this is the most glorious of outcomes.

Towns sprung up adjacent to the monasteries; not surprising given the wealth of the monasteries and the work available to the population. This development was ongoing, continuing even during the time of the Viking invasions and prior to the reopening of Mediterranean trade.

From Slave to Serf

Under the Roman Empire the ground had usually been cultivated by gangs of slaves under the supervision of the master himself or of a bailiff (villicus). In each villa there was a familia rustica or band of slaves responsible for the farm work.

Coincident with the decay of Rome, side by side with these slaves were free workers: some as a result of migration from the failing Roman cities, some as a result of smaller farms forming together one large farm, and some set free by will of the owner.

While in some cases these free men still carried the stigma of the slave, the life was much different – they led a family life, living with wife and children. Of course, the free man will work harder than the slave, and such an example is offered by the author: Saint Martin riding on his donkey, looking for a suitable bishop for the diocese of Le Mans, noticed…

…a clerk named Victor working in his own vineyard (in vinea sua laborans) with great zest and vigour, turning it over with his spade, and covered in dust from head to foot.

In this milieu comprised of freemen and slaves, the transition was occurring:

…all in fact lived on the land they farmed, and without actually owning it thought of it as their land, and handed it down to their children.

Along with the development of the Noble class, there was an increase in small farms and small farm holdings held by relatively free men:

…the Merovingian age saw an increase in the number of small farms and small holdings, and that these fulfilled, though still imperfectly it is true, the secret longing of every peasant – to have a plot of land big enough to support a family and which can be handed down to his descendants.

I have learned that the concept of “ownership” and “property” can mean different things in different times and places. The characteristic of being able to pass along property to heirs certainly is fundamental to the concept of “own.”

Summary

The transition from Rome to the Early Middle Ages was not a sudden change, but occurred over time. It was not due solely or even primarily to attacking, warring hordes of barbarians, but driven by the decay of an extended empire, with citizens accustomed to living from the sweat of conquered slaves. The Romans attempted to prolong the Empire via inflation, price controls, work rules, and taxation. As the citizens could – and in order to survive – they left, withdrawing their consent. They found better prospects outside of the protection of the centralized state.

At the same time, individuals from the Germanic tribes were migrating closer to Roman territory, and even within it. Rome negotiated treaties with these tribes in an effort to maintain some control over the territory. Eventually, the decay of Rome overcame the value of the treaties.

Via a firm belief in private property and the role of the Church in a more voluntary form of organization, the roots of the Middle Ages were formed. The so-called apathy of the Merovingians was, in fact, the victory of a decentralized, voluntary society.

We will next see Charlemagne’s attempts to centralize this world. Fortunately, his successes will not last.

I have previously written about the political and legal framework of the Middle Ages, for me an eye-opening view into a decentralized society, where law was based on custom and agreements bound by oath; where the king was not superior to the law, but servant to it – with standing no higher than the lords; where each lord had veto power.

In this post, I will look at various aspects of social life in the Middle Ages. These include arts and letters, serfdom, women in society, religious tolerance, and finally, some additional aspects of the role of the king. For this, I will use excerpts from a wonderful book by Régine Pernoud, entitledThose Terrible Middle Ages: Debunking the Myths. The book was originally written in French, published in 1977.

Régine Pernoud (17 June 1909 in Château-Chinon, Nièvre – 22 April 1998 in Paris) was a historian and medievalist. She received an award from the Académie française. She is known for writing extensively about Joan of Arc.

The book is an easy read; Pernoud does not exhaust the reader with significant details and footnotes. This is not to suggest that there is no depth – her target audience is not the academic community. She writes here with a view toward busting the prevailing myths about the Middle Ages – myths that circulate in both professional and lay circles. I find in this work a good amount that confirms my earlier reading in this time period, as well as new insights that are presented credibly.

Pernoud has written this book in a tongue-in-cheek manner – the each chapter title is in the form of a myth regarding the Middle Ages, for example: “Clumsy and Awkward,” “Crude and Ignorant,” and “Women without Souls.” In the course of each chapter, she describes and then debunks each of these myths.

Through my earlier work on the subject of the Middle Ages, I gained an appreciation of the development of a decentralized society, with decentralized law and political power. Pernoud, in this book, adds color to my view: the result of decentralization, as one should expect, was a flowering of liberal attitudes towards many subjects – in most ways more liberal than the Rome that preceded it, and the Renaissance that followed it.

I begin with a comment from the forward, written by Cornelius Michael Buckley:

The Middle Ages – those one thousand years of Western history between 500 and 1500 A.D. – witnessed the abolition of slavery, the liberation of women, checks and balances on absolutism, artistic achievements of medieval cathedrals, inventions of the book, the musical scale, and the mechanical clock. Why is it then that the very term Middle Ages is equated, even in the minds of so-called educated people, with such ideas as feudal servitude, cultural darkness, massacres, famines, and plagues?

Pernoud attributes such ignorance in part to classicism, which became predominant in the sixteenth century…. The revival of Roman law brought about legal standardization in the interest of centralized nation states. The Roman notion of the jus utendi et abutendi, the unrestricted rights of property, put an end to the legal rights enjoyed by medieval serfs and feudal lords. The result was the reintroduction of slavery, the subjection of women, the exploitation of the worker, and the rise of the absolutist state.

Several of these points raised by Buckley I had not previously considered. I will touch on only one now, as it is a notion that runs counter to my free-market and property-rights views.

JUS ABUTENDI. The right to abuse. By this phrase is understood the right to abuse property, or having full dominion over property.

Jus utendi fruendi et abutendi (d. civ.): Facoltà del proprietario di usare la cosa in modo pieno ed esclusivo (art. 832 c.c.), il che implica anche la possibilità di decidere se e come usarla, di trasformarla e, al limite, di distruggerla.

Roughly translated, courtesy of Google:

Right of the owner to use it in a full and exclusive manner (art. 832 cc), which also implies the ability to decide whether and how to use it, transform it and, ultimately, to destroy it.

This topic will be explored further, however it seems medieval law regarding property placed limits on the use of the property – the property owner did not have the right to destroy his property. The property-rights purist in me asks, why not?

It seems, the lack of the ability to destroy tied the lord to the land to the same extent as the serf was tied to the land – in other words, there was something about this concept (which at the moment I don’t fully grasp, and may never fully grasp) that leveled the playing field between lord and serf – both were tied to the land, albeit at quite different levels.

In any case, Pernoud’s book raises the curtain on this and many additional topics. Throughout this post, I include many links (primarily to Wikipedia entries). There are many characters introduced by Pernoud; I personally found it helpful to gain additional background for context and I thought it appropriate to include these links for this purpose.

Middle Ages: Fallacies and Myth

Pernoud begins by describing some of the countless false and mythical ideas she encounters regarding the Middle Ages:

I had recently been put in charge of the museum of French history in the National Archives when a letter was sent to me requesting: “Could you tell me the exact date of the treaty that officially put an end to the Middle Ages?…In what city were the plenipotentiaries gathered who prepared this treaty?”

Of course, no such treaty was signed; no such event occurred – were the people conscious that they lived in some “Middle Age”? There was, however, one event of transformation described in the book: “the Council of Trent (1547 – 1563), which can justly be regarded as the demarcation between the medieval Church and the Church of classical times.”

The Council issued condemnations on what it defined as Protestant heresies at the time of the Reformation and defined Church teachings in the areas of Scripture and Tradition, Original Sin, Justification, Sacraments, the Eucharist in Holy Mass and the veneration of saints. It issued numerous reform decrees. By specifying Catholic doctrine on salvation, the sacraments, and the Biblical canon, the Council was answering Protestant disputes…. The Council of Trent, delayed and interrupted several times because of political or religious disagreements, was a major reform council; it was an embodiment of the ideals of the Counter-Reformation.

I do not understand enough of this history to suggest the effect of society on this Council, or the effect of this Council on society – as is almost always the case, societal transformation is not demarcated by such obvious, singular events. In any case, there is no declaration from this Council that claimed the end of the Middle Ages!

Pernoud further sets the stage by highlighting common, everyday sayings that use the term “Middle Ages” or “medieval” in some derogatory, backward sense: “We aren’t in the Middle Ages anymore”; “That’s a return to the Middle Ages”; “That’s a medieval mentality.”

I suspect in these few short phrases, Pernoud has captured well the prevailing view about this dark period, the one thousand years in between the demise of Roman law and the re-emergence of Roman law. It is interesting: Roman law – the law of a most centralized state – is prevalent during the periods we are led to believe are “light.” It is not in use during the period of “dark.” Yet, from my earlier work on this topic, there is much to recommend from this so-called dark, or middle age.

Perhaps the terms “light” and “dark” in the context are accurate only from the point of view of centralized power!

A sense of Pernoud’s style of writing in this book is well-captured here:

The Middle Ages still signifies: a period of ignorance, mindlessness, or generalized under development, even if this was the only period of underdevelopment during which cathedrals were built!

Artistic and Literary Achievements

Pernoud begins by addressing the myths regarding the supposed lack of arts and letters during the medieval times, with man’s creative mind only to re-appear with the Renaissance:

“Arts and Letters, which appeared to have perished in the same shipwreck as Roman society, seemed to flourish again and, after ten centuries of shadows, to burn with a new brilliance.” That is how it was put in 1872 by the Dictionairre général des letteres….

Such is the marker of ignorance that Pernoud attacks within the first two chapters. There were two periods of light – the classic time of antiquity, and the Renaissance. In between were these terrible Dark Ages, with no light.

Pernoud suggests otherwise: Latin and Greek authors were known during the Middle Ages – these were not lost. How on earth could the Renaissance have occurred had these texts been lost, had the manuscripts not been painstakingly copied and safeguarded, she asks?

Such texts were not hidden in Constantinople, only to be found with the subsequent flight to Europe by the Byzantines. Such misperception overlooks the libraries of Europe, for example the library of Mont-Saint-Michael which, in the twelfth century, contained texts of Cato, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Virgil and Horace.

What changed with the Renaissance was not that these ancient texts were found, but that through these texts the work of the ancients should be models to be imitated. Not so during the Middle Ages. Roman law and the philosophies of the ancients were not looked at as the pinnacle of man’s achievement:

Bernard of Chartres, in the twelfth century, had exclaimed: “We are dwarfs who have climbed on the shoulders of giants.” He nonetheless concluded that, thus carried by the Ancients, he could “see farther than they could”.

Pernoud suggests that Middle Age thinking looked forward, building on the past; the Renaissance brought a time when Europe looked backward, longing for an ancient past. In both the ancient times of Rome as well as the classical times of the Renaissance, through Roman law the state was made paramount. Might we not find, in this reality, a clue of the desire for the period to be labeled “dark”?

Pernoud touches on a theme that I first came across in my earlier work – the conformity of architecture throughout the Roman Empire, suggesting the control Rome held throughout the land. This conformity offers one small glimpse of the extent of centralization under the most centralizing power of the expanded Mediterranean and European region.

The conformity of architecture ranged from the “most humble” little country churches and Knights Templar chapels to the enormous pilgrimage church. This is contrasted to the varying design found throughout Europe during the Middle Ages:

How is it that the abbey of Fontenay is so different from that of Thoronet, when in both instances we are dealing with Cistercian abbeys responding to the same original necessities, to the same traditional norms, to the same design? How can these nuances be so marked that we cannot confuse three sister abbeys belonging to the same region, like Thoronet, Silvacane, and Sénanque?

As to literature, the subject is taught in France today (1977), according to Pernoud, as if it did not exist in France prior to the sixteenth century.

Is it conceivable that there were a thousand years without any poetic or literary production worthy of the name? A thousand years lived by man without his having expressed anything beautiful, profound, or great about himself? Who could believe this?

It seems only the lack of curiosity or an attempt to hide history could explain this.

…the High Middle Ages saw the book begin to spread in the form in which it still occurs today, the codex, the instrument of culture if there ever was one, which henceforth replaces the volumen the ancient scroll; printing would not have been able to render the services it did without this invention of the book.

Of course, the Gutenberg press itself is a product of the latter Middle Ages, its developer, Johannes Gutenberg, a child of the times. But even before this, the codex was developed. This form, developed in the Middle Ages, made possible the efficient use of movable type in a mechanical press.

Pernoud moves on to music:

It was also in this period that musical language was worked out that would be used everywhere in the West up to our times.

She identifies the hymns and liturgical chants rooted in this dark time; authors such as Virgil the Grammarian or Isadore of Seville in the sixth century,Aldhelm in the seventh, Bede the Venerable in the eighth.

Those who have studied these works, written in a difficult Latin, of course, but much less difficult for us than classical Latin, have appreciated their intense richness of thought and poetry, their striking freedom of expression.

Serfdom and Slavery

Slavery is probably the one thing about civilization that most profoundly marks ancient societies…. If one amuses oneself, as I have done, by going through school textbooks for high school classes, one observes that none of them points out the progressive disappearance of slavery from the fourth century on. They mention medieval serfdom in very severe terms but pass over in silence the rather paradoxical return of slavery in the sixteenth century.

Prior to looking into this period of the Middle Ages, I had not considered this one simple (and what should have been obvious) point: for all of the wailing and gnashing of teeth about serfdom, it wasn’t slavery. Even further, I had little understanding about the institution of serfdom, at most accepting of the stereotype. Pernoud sheds light on the fallacy of my thinking:

The fact is, there is no comparison between the ancient servus, the slave, and the medieval servus, the serf. Because the one was a thing and the other a man…. The substitution of serfdom for slavery is without a doubt the social fact that best emphasizes the disappearance of the influence of Roman law, of Roman mentality, in Western societies from the fifth and sixth centuries on.

The serf had rights, the slave had none. The serf’s rights were different in magnitude to that of his lord, but directionally similar:

…the medieval serf was indeed a person and treated as such; his master did not have over him the right of life and death that the Roman law recognized. Besides, far more than a determined juridical category, serfdom was a state, tied to an essentially rural and land-based mode of life….the lord of the domain could not expel him anymore than the serf could “clear out.” It was this intimate connection between man and the soil on which he lived that constituted serfdom, for in all other respects, the serf had all the rights of the free man: he could marry, establish a family, his land as well as the goods he was able to acquire, would pass on to his children after death. The lord, let us note, had, although obviously on a totally different scale, the same obligations as the serf, for he could neither sell nor give up his land nor desert it.

The lord could not expel the serf – the serf had a right to be on the land. The lord was also equally tied to the land – he could not even sell it! This last point is a complete revelation to me, and one that, as mentioned, runs counter to all I accept regarding property rights.

The serf was most definitely not a slave:

The situation of the serf, as we shall see, was radically different and in no way comparable to that of the slave, who did not have the right to marry or establish a family or to avail himself in any way of the dignity of a human person: he was an object that could be bought and sold and over which the power of another man, his master, was unlimited.

Pernoud goes on to describe the life of one particular serf, Constant Le Roux, serf of the lord of Chantoceaux in Anjou. This Constant, a serf, was able to amass land, was granted the custody of a storeroom near a monastery church, and put in charge of various assets belonging to the nuns of Ronceray “as a life income….” Constant was then able to pass these holdings along to his nephew, being without a son himself. He was most definitely not a slave! Pernoud suggests that anyone willing to study the documents would find many like Constant Le Roux.

Of course, while being a serf was preferable when the reciprocal arrangement was imposed by vital necessities – security being primary – it became intolerable once the serf reached some level of independence, being able to assure his living on his own. For this, there was the work of freeing serfs – with many recorded acts of emancipation.

Pernoud examines the situation of a recently retired farm worker from our time, living in the poorhouse with nothing to call his own. This in contrast to the serf, who at the end of his productive working days would have been entitled to live on the lord’s domain peacefully:

…nothing would have belonged to him as his own, but the use of it could not have been withdrawn from him.

Pernoud explains that the serf and the lord had a similar relationship to the land, despite the fact that the lord “owned” the land – each had a right to use the property. Even the lord only had right of usage over his principle domain:

And, from this point of view, the serf had the same relation to the land as the lord himself: the latter never possessed it in full ownership as we understand it today; ownership belonged to his descendants: he could sell or alienate only the secondary belongings that came to him through personal inheritance, but over the principle domain he had only a right of usage.

Pernoud expands on this limitation on the property owner. Whereas, under Roman law (and today), the property owner has the right to destroy his property if he chooses, this was not the case in Medieval times:

This is the specific characteristic of the period, this particular conception of the relations of man and earth, into which the notion of full and complete ownership did not enter. A characteristic of Roman law, ownership, the right to “use” and “abuse”, did not exist in our medieval customs, which knew only usage; and usage moreover that was most of the time burdened with multiple easements: the right of the peasant of the place to pasture his animals in the forest of the domain, the right to take wood from it for building or his fireplace, and so on.

There are remnants of this in parts of Europe today, where private owners of open or forested areas are required to maintain these and allow for others the possibility of hiking and other recreational activities. The land is privately owned, yet available for public use.

Whatever might have been the advantages and the drawbacks, there was a great distance between medieval serfdom and the renaissance of slavery that was abruptly produced in the sixteenth century in the colonies of America…it seems unquestionable that the renewed influences of antiquity played a part in justifying this unjustifiable commerce.

The serf, while not free, was no slave. He had rights. He was able to build his own property and wealth. He was able to live like a man, owing to his lord a portion of the harvest in exchange for protection.

Women Were Human, Too

Pernoud describes the position of women in medieval society, a position that would not again be fully achieved in the West until just the last several decades. She begins with an example that is not generally applicable to modern times, but telling nonetheless:

It is not surprising, in fact, to think that in feudal times the queen was crowned just like the king, generally in Reims…. [A]s much importance was attributed to the crowning of the queen as to that of the king.

This as opposed to the position of the queen both before and in the centuries immediately following the period:

…it was only in the seventeenth century that the queen literally disappeared from the scene in favor of the “favorite”.

While women like Eleanor of Aquitaine and Blanche of Castile readily dominated their century, while they unquestionably exercised power when the king was absent…the woman in classical times was relegated to the background; she exercised power only in a hidden way….

It was the reintroduction of Roman law, again beginning to have some influence as early as the fourteenth century, which – in addition to the benefits of centralization – also returned women to a secondary status.

Now Roman law is no more favorable to the woman than it is to the child. It is a monarchical law, which allows only one single end. It is the law of pater familias, father, proprietor, and, in his own home, high priest, the head of the family with sacred, in any case unlimited power in what concerns his children: he has the right of life and death over them – it is the same for his wife, despite some limitation belatedly introduced during the Byzantine Empire.

It was by relying on Roman law that jurists like Dumoulin, through their treatises and their teaching, contributed both to extending the power of the centralized state and also – what interests us here – to restricting the freedom of women and their capacity for action, particularly in marriage.

As an aside, apparently Dumoulin prophesied the fall of the Roman Catholic Church in 2015!

According to Pernoud, there is a myth that it was only in the fifteenth century, at the beginning of the Renaissance, that the Church admitted that women had a soul. Pernoud attacks this in her usual manner, highlighting several examples of women who took action for their faith:

So, for centuries, soul-less beings were baptized, confessed, and admitted into the Eucharist! How strange that the first martyrs honored as saints were women and not men: Saint Agnes, Saint Cecilia, Saint Agatha…. How truly sad that Saint Blandine and Saint Genevievewere deprived of immortal souls.

Women occupied positions of high learning and scholarship…

It is surprising, also, to note that the best-known encyclopedia of the twelfth century came from a woman religious [presumably "religious woman"], the abbess Herrad of Landsberg. It was the famous Hortus deliciarum, Garden of Delights, in which scholars draw the most reliable information about the state of technical knowledge of that time.

…and held positions of leadership over men:

…Robert d’Arbrissel decided to found two convents, one for men and the other for women….this double monastery was placed under the authority, not of an abbot, but of an abbess….the first abbess, Petronilla of Chemillé …was twenty-two years old…. during the whole feudal period, the place of women in the Church was certainly different from that of men…but it was an eminent place….

What of women in everyday life, “peasants and townswomen, mothers of families and women practicing a trade”? Through the recorded notarial acts, legal documents, and even the “inquiries ordered by Saint Louis…”

…we find there, taken from everyday life, thousands of small details…here the complaint of a woman hairdresser, there of a woman salt merchant (trading in salt), of a woman miller, of the widow of a farmer, of a chatelaine, of a woman Crusader, and so on.

…the tax rolls…show a host of women plying trades: schoolmistress, doctor, apothecary, plasterer, dyer, copyist, miniaturist, binder, and so on.

Women owned and ran businesses and shops. Further, they voted!

The picture that comes into focus from the whole of these documents presents for us more than one surprising trait, since one sees, for example, women voting like men in urban assemblies or those of rural parishes….When texts allow us to differentiate the origin of the votes…women are explicitly named among the voters, without anything being said to imply it was a usage particular to the locality.

Married women were not held in a position of acting in businesses matters only with the husband’s permission:

In notarial acts, it is very common to see a married woman act by herself, in opening, for example, a shop or a trade, and she did so without having to produce her husband’s authorization.

Finally, women had access to fulfilling state functions (arguably not a worthy goal, from my viewpoint, nevertheless…):

It was only at the end of the sixteenth century, through a parliamentary decree dated 1593, that women would be explicitly excluded from all state functions.

Access to official royal duties, religious duties, scholarship, business and entrepreneurial roles, suffrage, and state functions: one can argue that women in the Middle Ages had more relative equality than at any time until only quite recently.

Religious Tolerance

Believe it or not, the world was round as early as the thirteenth century, according to Brunetto Latini. Latini, who understood this well before Columbus, also understood much more than this. From the Wikipedia source:

While in France, he wrote his Italian Tesoretto and in French his prose Li Livres dou Trésor, both summaries of the encyclopaedic knowledge of the day. The latter is regarded as the first encyclopedia in a modern European language.

He died in 1294, leaving a daughter Bianca Latini who had married Guido Di Filippo De’ Castiglionchi in 1284. His tomb can be found in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, Florence, to the left of the high altar.

Latini was afforded a burial in a most holy place in the church. This in contrast to the treatment of Galileo during the enlightening period of the renaissance, where he was denounced a heretic and lived under house arrest until his death in 1642.

The sentence of the Inquisition was delivered on June 22 [1633]. It was in three essential parts:

Galileo was found “vehemently suspect of heresy”, namely of having held the opinions that the Sun lies motionless at the centre of the universe, that the Earth is not at its centre and moves, and that one may hold and defend an opinion as probable after it has been declared contrary to Holy Scripture. He was required to “abjure, curse and detest” those opinions.

He was sentenced to formal imprisonment at the pleasure of the Inquisition. On the following day this was commuted to house arrest, which he remained under for the rest of his life.

His offending Dialogue was banned; and in an action not announced at the trial, publication of any of his works was forbidden, including any he might write in the future.

Upon his death, an most honorable burial was denied:

The Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando II, wished to bury him in the main body of the Basilica of Santa Croce, next to the tombs of his father and other ancestors, and to erect a marble mausoleum in his honour. These plans were scrapped, however, after Pope Urban VIII and his nephew, Cardinal Francesco Barberini, protested, because Galileo was condemned by the Catholic Church for “vehement suspicion of heresy”.

Galileo was not alone. During this time began the great age of witchcraft trials. The first trials explicitly mentioned in the texts were in the fourteenth century in the Toulouse region. These trials became more intense in the second half of the fifteenth century. By the sixteenth century, we are presented with such characters as Nicolas Rémy, judge and general prosecutor for Lorraine, who sent to the stake, according to Pernoud, some three thousand witches and sorcerers. There is more:

…in fact, with the seventeenth century – the age of reason – the number of witchcraft trials swelled to insane proportions. There was scarcely a region that cannot call to mind famous trials, whether Loudun, Louviers, Nancy, the Méautis affair in Normandy, and so on.

This age of reason, this enlightenment, was in contrast to the view taken by the church in the medieval world (NB: the Wikipedia entry is cautioned):

The Councils of Elvira (306), Ancyra (314) and in Trullo (692) imposed certain ecclesiastical penances for devil-worship and this mild approach represented the view of the Church for many centuries.

The general desire of the Catholic Church’s clergy to check fanaticism about witchcraft and necromancy is shown in the decrees of the Council of Paderborn which in 785 explicitly outlawed condemning people as witches, and condemned to death anyone who burnt a witch. Emperor Charlemagne later confirmed the law. The Council of Frankfurt in 794, called by Charlemagne, was also very explicit in condemning “the persecution of alleged witches and wizards”, calling the belief in witchcraft “superstitious”, and ordering the death penalty for those who presumed to burn witches.

Similarly, the Lombard code of 643 states:

“Let nobody presume to kill a foreign serving maid or female servant as a witch, for it is not possible, nor ought to be believed by Christian minds.”

This conforms to the teachings of the Canon Episcopi of circa 900 AD (alleged to date from 314 AD), following the thoughts of St Augustine of Hippo which stated that witchcraft did not exist and that to teach that it was a reality was, itself, false and heterodox teaching.

The Church of the time, rather than punishing witchcraft, opposed what it saw as the foolish and backward belief in witchcraft itself, which it saw as superstitious folly.

According to John of Salisbury, bishop of Chartres in the twelfth century:

“The best remedy against this sickness is to cling firmly to the faith, refuse to listen to those lies, and never to give one’s attention to such pitiable follies.”

Which period might be labeled enlightened, and which period labeled dark?

It’s (Not Necessarily So) Good to be King!

This topic was extensively covered in my earlier post. I touch on it here to demonstrate the breadth of Pernoud’s work, but also because she brings some additional views on the subject, especially the utility of Roman law in enabling centralizing power.

Today it is generally accepted that only centralized power, promulgating generalized laws offers the most efficient and fair legal system. It was not always so. There was a time when “relations between men were capable of being established on bases other than that of a centralized administration, that authority was able to reside elsewhere than in a city…”

The feudal order, in fact, was very different from the monarchical order that replaced it and to which succeeded, in a still more centralized form, the order of state control that is found today in various European nations.

Pernoud goes on to give a brief review of how this decentralized system came about:

A centralized power in the extreme, that of the Roman Empire, collapsed in the course of the fifth century. In the disarray that followed, local powers arose; this was sometimes the head of a band of fellow adventurers grouped around him; sometimes, too, the master of an estate trying to assure for those around him as well as for himself a security no longer guaranteed by the state.

This can help us understand what happened at that time: some little farmer, powerless by himself to assure his security and that of his family, applied to a powerful neighbor who had the possibility of maintaining armed men; the latter consented to protect the farmer in exchange for which the farmer would give him a part of his harvest.

This was a voluntary action, a trade. It was based on an oath, a sacramentum. The act had religious value. Such was the basis for societal relationships beginning in the fifth and sixth centuries. It is important to note the moral and religious tone of the relationship – the oath was sacred.

Law was not uniform. This did not present a problem for the individual, but for the jurist – the law followed the individual! When someone was arrested for a crime, the first question asked was “What is your law?” He was tried according to his own law, and not the law of the region where he was arrested. It was truly a case where ignorance of the law was no excuse, because the law followed the man!

What was his law? Law was custom, particular to a community or region. Law was old and good.

Custom, usage that was lived and tacitly approved, governed the life of the human group and constituted obstacles to individual caprices.

As to offenders:

…if no public power to sanction offenders existed, the latter were rejected by the group, which amounted to the same thing, especially in a time when life was difficult for an isolated person.

The entire relationship was governed by community, not by state, actions. A common set of moral and ethical values within the community were necessary to ensure that such a system would survive and thrive.

What if satisfaction could not be achieved by such relatively peaceful means – trials, verdicts, and the like? There was the possibility of private war: “…the right for the group to avenge and offence suffered by one of its members and to obtain reparation.”

This sounds so…barbaric; yet, is it? The system inherently kept conflicts to a relatively low level, neighbor against neighbor, lord against lord. The idea of a continental or world war seemed unimaginable, and certainly unnecessary, when differences could be resolved locally.

But what of the feudal king? What was his position relative to society? Was not the king empowered to resolve every conflict, enact necessary law, etc.? It is incorrect to view the feudal king in the same manner as the monarch of more recent history. Pernoud describes this briefly, yet thoroughly:

…if we consider royalty with respect to its political, military, administrative role, how can we see in Louis XIV the successor of Saint Louis? That the terms are the same is, then, in itself, a historical error; in reality, the evolution of the royal function has been so profound that the use of a different terminology should be imperative. The feudal king was one lord among other lords; like the others, he administered a personal fief, in which he rendered justice, defended those who populated his domain, and collected rent in kind or in money. Beyond this domain, there was the king, the one who had been marked by holy oil; he was the designated arbiter in conflicts, the suzerain of suzerains, the one who assumed defense of the kingdom and to whom, for that reason, the other lords owed military aid….his title of king did not signify that his economic or military power was greater than that of some particular vassal….

Whatever his authority might have been, the feudal king possessed none of the attributes recognized as those of a sovereign power; he could neither decree general laws nor collect taxes on the whole of his kingdom nor levy an army.

There was nothing terribly special about being king throughout much of this period. As previously discussed, he was under the law just as the lords were under the law. The lords had duty to the law, even if it meant defying the king – and the king understood this. Sadly, the renaissance marked the end of this relationship:

But the evolution about to begin, notably in the fifteenth century, ended in precisely conferring these powers on him; it was the direct consequence of the renaissance of Roman law, to which it would be impossible to impute too much importance.

If one interested in the possibility of a greatly decentralized society takes away nothing more regarding this period of the Middle Ages, it should be this concept that the law was different. The law did not empower the sovereign – there was no concept of sovereign. The law was supreme, and each king and lord was subject to uphold the law.

Summary

In my previous work, I found a concept of law and king in the Middle Ages quite different than our own, resulting in a decentralized society – one in which a man was bound to law based on custom, not based on sovereign power.

In this work, based on Pernoud’s book, I have found in the same time and place a liberal society – certainly liberal when compared to the Rome that preceded it and the monarchs and state that followed it. Arts and letters were not neglected, but thrived; serfdom, while not freedom in the sense we understand today, was not serfdom in the way typically understood today – and it certainly was not slavery which dominated the centuries before and after this period; women, while not holding equal roles in society, held prominent roles with many opportunities for personal expression; and tolerance for views outside of traditionally accepted Church doctrine existed, certainly when compared to the witch trials that followed.

None of this should be terribly surprising: in a society that is politically decentralized, one would expect to see more freedom generally. This certainly seems to be the case in the Middle Ages.

Recently by Jonathan Goodwin: Decentralization Hidden in the DarkAges

DB: Is Brussels backing away from austerity? …We are being informed that a decision may have been made by the Brussels crowd to monetize their dilemma. When in doubt … print.

BM: This is quite interesting, and has given me reason to revisit some of my thoughts on this subject of Europe and the Euro. Start with the premise that for the elites, control is the most important objective….

I believe it is safe to assume that the elite knew in 1914 (with all major currencies leaning more on central banking than on gold), or in 1945 (with the doomed-to-fail Bretton Woods agreement), or 1971 (when Nixon said no mas)…that the current system would not last forever. However, it was certainly a system designed to skim wealth from the middle class – something that was done quite effectively for a century.

The elite have used this time to consolidate – the USSR, the UN, NATO, the World Bank, the IMF, and the EU; all steps toward consolidation. They have since seen setbacks – the USSR, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia: all decentralized. And now, visible to a minority of the masses but likely understood by the elite decades ago, the loss of the USD-based global money system. Oh well, that chapter is closed….

In the meantime, the elite have had plenty of time to do the skimming and to consolidate wealth in real stuff – physical assets, productive businesses, and gold.

So, back to Europe. The technocrats have tried so-called austerity (save the banks on the backs of the people). They find that the people aren’t going along – and that continuation of this path will result in the loss of legitimacy for regulatory democracy in the people’s eyes. Now the technocrats will try inflation. This will buy some time, but eventually cannot work either.

Note that I say “technocrats.” Is it possible that the elite are now sitting back, biding their time? They know there is no hope to save the current system in the manners in which the technocrats have been taught over the decades to believe. The elite also know the technocrats will do everything they can to preserve and build on the status quo. All of this might be just fine for the elites, as long as one very important tool for control is not lost.

So what’s next? So-called austerity hasn’t worked. Inflation won’t work. I keep in mind, for the elite control is the most important – control is best exercised through regulatory democracy. The worst thing that can happen to the elite is for the people to lose faith in this system – a system designed to sheer the sheep with the sheep’s blessing. Regulatory democracy is the best thing going for the elites to work through in exercising control.

The only way this will be possible is through sovereign default, I believe. The people will cheer – “our government stuck it to the rapacious banksters. Praise be to the state.” In no time, the elite will ensure that lending to the state begins anew – the best creditor is one with no debt, after all.

Sure, many banks will go belly up. But this seems to be the only path for the elite to maintain control (I don’t believe worldwide coercion will work). They cannot allow a situation where the people lose faith in government as currently constituted. The elite have their financial assets in safe places – real assets, gold, productive businesses.

The most important asset is regulatory democracy – this cannot be lost. Sovereign default can ensure the same game can be continued.

Reprinted with permission from the Bionic Mosquito.

The Best of Jonathan Goodwin

Recently by Jonathan Goodwin: Ron Paul Dot Com

For longtime readers, this is a condensed version of the several posts I have made on this subject. I have also added a minor amount of new material.

Examples of decentralized society in history are often hidden. They are hidden because those in decentralized societies never bothered to keep records. They are also hidden for the purposes of the current state. I have previously written about anarchy in the Southeast Asian Highlands as one example. Here, I will present the time of the Middle Ages as another.

This time offered a system of private law. A law not based on the edicts of the king, but based on local tradition and culture. The king was not above the law, but equally subject to it. For law to be law, it must be both old and good. Each lord had a veto power over the king and over each other law (I will use the term "lord" for those landed free men. Even the serfs could not be denied their right without adjudication. Land was not held as a favor from the king; title was allodial. A man's home truly was his castle.

Although the term has fallen out of use in the academic community, for many this period is known as the Dark Ages — with all of the associated stereotypes: barbarians, boorish behavior, and the uncivilized society that came to Europe with the fall of the much more civilized Rome.

From Wikipedia:

The Dark Ages is a historical period used for the first part of the Middle Ages. The term emphasizes the cultural and economic deterioration that supposedly occurred in Europe following the decline of the Roman Empire. The label employs traditional light-versus-darkness imagery to contrast the “darkness” of the period with earlier and later periods of “light”.

The (Not So) Dark Ages

How did people live absent a strong central power (Rome)? In what manners was governance achieved? How did such a society evolve over the centuries into the nation-states of Europe? From whose perspective were these ages "dark"?

Hans-Hermann Hoppe, in his essay entitled "On the Impossibility of Limited Government and the Prospects for a Second American Revolution," makes reference to certain aspects of this time period in history:

Feudal lords and kings did not typically fulfill the requirements of a state; they could only “tax” with the consent of the taxed, and on his own land every free man was as much a sovereign (ultimate decision maker) as the feudal king was on his.

Tax payments were voluntary. On his land, each free man was as sovereign as the king. This doesn't seem so "dark."

Hoppe quotes Robert Nisbet:

The subordination of king to law was one of the most important of principles under feudalism.

The king was below the law. This might be one factor as to why the time period is kept "dark."

Hoppe references a book by Fritz Kern, Kingship and Law in the Middle Ages. The book was originally written in German in 1914, and is a thorough and eye-opening examination of the relationship of king and lord during this time period, as well as the relationship of both king and lord to the law. I will rely upon, and will quote extensively, from this book throughout this essay. Except as noted, all quoted items will be from this book.

During the early Middle Ages, there was no concept of a Divine Right of Kings, nor did the earlier period hold to the idea of kingship by birthright. These ideas developed over the centuries and only took shape in the late Middle Ages. Contrary to these, in the early Middle Ages…

…an act of popular will was an essential element in the foundation of government….

To become king required consent of those doing the choosing. Additionally, the king did not hold absolute power:

…even the rudiments of an absolutist doctrine had scarcely appeared.

Both the king and the people were subservient to the law — and not an arbitrary law, but a law based on custom, "the laws of one's fathers."

All well-founded private rights were protected from arbitrary change….

Germanic and ecclesiastical opinion were firmly agreed on the principle, which met with no opposition until the age of Machiavelli, that the State exists for the realization of the Law; the power of the State is the means, the Law is the end-in-itself; the monarch is dependent on the Law, which is superior to him, and upon which his own existence is based.

The king and the people were not bound to each other, but each was bound to the Law, giving all parties responsibility to see that the integrity of the Law is maintained. A breech by one imposed an obligation on the other to correct the breech. The relationship of each party (king and lord) was to the Law, not to the other party, and each had duty to protect it.

Contrast this to the situation today: whereas today it is an illegal act for the people to resist the government authority, during this period after the fall of Rome the lords had a duty to resist the king who overstepped his authority. This is not to say that such challenges went unopposed by the king –physical enforcement by the lords was occasionally required — however, the act of resistance in and of itself was not considered illegal. It was a duty respected by king and people alike.

A Decentralized Society: Church Towers Bear Witness

The variety and conformity, through different times and in different places, of church towers throughout Europe and European history bear witness to first the centralizing control of Rome, and then the decentralization of the Germanic period. Here I make reference to A History of Medieval Europe: From Constantine to Saint Louis (3rd Edition), by R.H.C. Davis

Davis uses the architectural styling of various church towers built throughout Europe to illustrate the decentralization of society that began with the decrease in Roman influence. He begins with a review of monumental architecture during the time of general Roman rule, preceding the early Middle Ages:

Under Roman rule the general style of monumental architecture had been recognizably uniform in all the provinces of the Empire, from Britain to Africa and from Spain to Syria. In the Dark Ages, something of that uniformity had been maintained…the buildings of the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Lombards, and Franks were built as imitations (though sometimes poor imitations) of the Roman or Byzantine style. But in the period from 900 to 1250 this uniformity ceased completely…in the Latin West there was a whole medley of different styles.

Davis then goes on to describe the differences: from Saxony, to the Rhineland, to Lombardy, to Rome, and France:

They stand as monuments to the intense localism of the High Middle Ages, when every man's u2018country' (patria) was not the kingdom, duchy, or county in which he lived, but his own town or village. An echo of this sentiment may still be caught by the French peasant who refers to his village as mon pays [my country], but in the Middle Ages it was all pervading.

The distinctions, region by region, extending to the area of law:

Even the law might change from village to village; a thirteenth-century judge pointed out that in the various counties, cities, boroughs, and townships of England he had always to ask what was the local customary law and how it was employed before he could successfully try a case. The legal uniformity of the Roman Empire had disappeared completely, and law, like the architectural style of the church-towers, varied from parish to parish.

Davis describes medieval civilization as "firmly rooted. It grew out of the earth, as it were."

The Road from Serfdom

Before going further into Kern's work, it might be worthwhile to spend a few minutes on the topic of serfdom. Kern spends much time on the relationship between the lords and the king, what about those on the lower rungs of society's ladder?

The term serfdom comes with a tremendously negative connotation. However, when considering this institution of social structure it might be good to keep in mind:

Taxes levied by the state took the place of labour dues levied by the lord….Serfdom is an institution that has always been commonplace for human society; however, it has not always been of the same nature.

I mention this not to justify, compare, or romanticize. However it might be beneficial to start with a cleaner sheet of mental paper when considering historical serfdom. The serfs paid a tax in labor. Today we pay a tax in currency units usually earned by our labor, and at rates often far higher than the rates experienced by the serfs. At least the serfs had no misplaced views about their lot in life.

Serfs who occupied a plot of land were required to work for the Lord of the Manor who owned that land, and in return were entitled to protection, justice and the right to exploit certain fields within the manor to maintain their own subsistence. Serfs were often required not only to work on the lord’s fields, but also his mines, forests and roads. The manor formed the basic unit of feudal society and the Lord of the Manor and his serfs were bound legally, economically, and socially. Serfs formed the lowest social class of feudal society.

Other than the constraints on the serf regarding relocation, what about the above paragraph is not applicable to today?

A hint at the relationship between serf and lord is offered in the following 7th century Anglo Saxon “Oath of Fealty”:

“By the Lord before whom this sanctuary is holy, I will to N. be true and faithful, and love all which he loves and shun all which he shuns, according to the laws of God and the order of the world. Nor will I ever with will or action, through word or deed, do anything which is unpleasing to him, on condition that he will hold to me as I shall deserve it, and that he will perform everything as it was in our agreement when I submitted myself to him and chose his will.”

The serf pledged his loyalty to a lord who acted "according to the laws of God and the order of the world." His loyalty was conditional: as long as the lord acted in accordance with "our agreement when I submitted myself to him," the serf was obliged to remain loyal to his oath.

There were remedies if the lord did not keep up his end of the bargain. A serf was afforded several social and legal protections:

The landlord could not dispossess his serfs without legal cause and was supposed to protect them from the depredations of robbers or other lords, and he was expected to support them by charity in times of famine. Many such rights were enforceable by the serf in the manorial court.

Presumably being a serf was better than many other alternatives available at the time — why would a serf insist on "legal cause" before being dispossessed by the lord? Why not simply rejoice at being set free?

The Law (No, Not THAT One)

Here I do not refer to Frederic Bastiat's classic work, but the law as understood in mediaeval times after and absent Rome, and before development of anything even modestly resembling today's nation-state.

Kern contrasts this mediaeval law with what is referred to as law today:

For us law needs only one attribute in order to give it validity; it must, directly or indirectly, be sanctioned by the State. But in the Middle Ages, different attributes altogether were essential; mediaeval law must be "old" law and must be "good" law….If law were not old and good law, it was not law at all, even though it were formally enacted by the State.

Consider how pathetic our society would seem to someone coming from this past time that Kern describes. He comes from a place that held that law was grounded in something more than the whims of the king. He comes to a place where law is defined as anything goes as long as the state says it does. And he sees a society beholden to this.

This mediaeval time traveler looks back to his time, and considers that for law to be law, it must be "old":

Law was in fact custom. Immemorial usage, testified to by the eldest and most credible people; the leges patrum, sometime but not necessarily proven by external aids to memory, such as charters, boundaries, law-books, or anything else that outlived human beings: this was objective law. And if any particular subjective right was in dispute, the fact that it was in harmony with an ancient custom had much the same importance as would be given today to the fact that it was derived from a valid law of the State.

Further, he considers that the law to be law must be "good":

Where we moderns have erected three separate alters, to Law, to Politics, and to Conscience, and have sacrificed to each of them as sovereign godheads, for the mediaeval mind the goddess of Justice is enthroned, with only God and Faith above her, and no one beside her.

The mediaeval mind did not separate justice from law — the law was to serve no other purpose, no other objective, no other god.

The monarch remained free to bestow privileges…

…so long as no one thereby suffers wrong. He can, for example, make grants from his own possessions, so long as the community does not thereby suffer.

Consider the simplicity and justice of this, and how foreign and corrupt today's law would appear to our time traveler.

The law was always there, either discovered or waiting to be discovered. That bad practice at times overtook the law did not change or replace the underlying "good" law. This did not require passing another, new law. It only required the discovery of the old law — discovery in its most simple and direct sense; something that previously existed, waiting to be found. "The old law is the true law, and the true law is the old law." One cannot be separated from the other.

But not today. Kern offers further views on today's law:

For us, the actually valid or positive law is not immoral but amoral; its origin is not in conscience, God, nature, ideals, ideas, equity or the like, but simply in the will of the State, and its sanction is the coercive power of the State. On the other hand, the State for us is something holier than for mediaeval people….

What a miserable concept we live under. Imagine our poor time traveler, the pity he feels for this miserable lot.

For us, the heirs of scholastic jurisprudence, law is only secondary; the State is primary. To the Middle Ages, law was an end in itself, because the term "law" stood at one and the same time for moral sentiment, the spiritual basis of human society, for the Good, and therefore for the axiomatic basis of the State. For the Middle Ages, therefore, the law is primary, and the State only secondary….the State exists for the law and through the law, not the law through the State.

By this time, our time traveler must be rolling his eyes, wondering what mysterious potion has overtaken this pathetic society. He is not naïve — he knows that the law was not held perfectly in his time, that there were abuses and attempted abuses that required a man to stand.

In that regard, Kern offers an example of a lord standing for the law and in opposition to the king. King Clovis wished to retain a costly vase over and above his due, in order to donate it to the church. All agreed to this except one, who ended up enforcing his objection by smashing the vase. Certainly, the king was not pleased. As neither the king nor the majority had authority to punish this act directly, the king found an indirect manner to exact revenge; this had to wait one year, and was based on an equally exaggerated instance where the king's opponent stumbled in his duty and obligation.

Where was this old and good law to be found?

It will be found, in the first place, where all morality resides — in Conscience. And, indeed, since all law comprises all the rights of the community, it will be found in the common conscience of the people….

…in the second place, the law will be found in old tradition.

The people themselves hold the law. They know the good law because it is in their conscience — the keeper of their moral sense. They know the old law, because it is passed down to them. These two are combined, always tested and testing. Each individual had a duty to this.

The moral tone of the Middle Ages scorned considerations of expediency, and always took right and wrong seriously, no matter how big or small the question at issue.

The idea of destroying a village to save it, or abrogating property rights to preserve them, or stealing from one to help another in more need would be quite foreign to the mediaeval mind — or to our poor time traveler, who would likely have a reaction to this sad tale similar to this.

Kern summarizes what has been gained and what has been lost via this transition from customary law to statutory law.

For a simple person, in whom something of the mediaeval spirit survives, it is a strange thing that all law should exist in books, and not where God has planted it…. The positive written law brings with it learned lawyers and scholars, cut off from the people. Although in fact statute law is more accurate and certain, unlearned persons become less and less sure what the law is.

How often are we reminded: ignorance of the law is no excuse? This saying probably has roots in the concept of law as understood in the Middle Ages — law based on conscious, law based on a common understanding of justice. Today, that saying is useless, given the thousands of miniscule yet intrusive laws and regulations passed every year by various government agencies.

But it is in technical progress alone, not in progress in ideals, that the modern concept of law is superior to the mediaeval.

Our time traveler would certainly agree, as do I.

Every Individual Vested with Veto Power

Imagine the liberty in such a world if every individual, or even legislator, had such power. Imagine no more: there was a time and place where this was quite true! And no, the outcome was not chaos, but a true check on kingly abuse. Kern explores this further:

The relationship between monarch and subject in all Germanic communities was expressed by the idea of mutual fealty, not by that of unilateral obedience.

Especially in the time of the early Middle Ages, there was no concept of the king as sovereign. There was also no concept of each individual as sovereign.

The king is below the law….if the monarch failed in these duties [to the law] — and the decision of this question rested with the conscience of every individual member of the community — then every subject, every section of the people, and even the whole community was free to resist him, to abandon him, and to seek out a new monarch.

As time passed, the right of each individual to veto evolved into the right of the community. But in no way did this change the fact that the king was held to be below the law. Imagine if a single congressional representative (for example Ron Paul) had the authority to stop any proposed legislation! While not the authority of the individual, still the idea that it takes complete unanimity for the state to act is a powerful idea.

There was no final arbiter other than the law. Both king and community owed a duty to respect and defend the law:

To the early mediaeval mind, king and people together, welded into a unity which theoretical analysis can scarcely divide, formed the State. Sovereignty, if it existed at all, resided in the law which ruled over both king and community. But any description of the law as sovereign is useful only because it emphasizes the contrast with later political ideas; otherwise it is better avoided. The blunt "either-or" of later times — either the king is unlimited or the people is sovereign — is an impossible dilemma from the standpoint of the early Middle Ages.

The Power of the Oath

A significant ceremony was performed in 842, cementing the bonds between the brothers Louis the German and Charles the Bald (sons of Louis the Pious) and against their oldest brother, Lothar. Of importance, this oath demonstrates the power of the lords and the power of the oath. Each brother took a solemn oath in front of the army of the other, and in the language of the other's army — Louis, giving his oath in Old French, and Charles giving his oath in Old High German. The text of the oath is quite revealing (from A History of Medieval Europe: From Constantine to Saint Louis (3rd Edition), by R.H.C. Davis.):

For the love of God and for the Christian people and for our common salvation, from this day forward, so long as God give me knowledge and power, I will help this my brother [both with my aid and everything] as by right one ought to help one's brother, on condition that he does the same for me, and I will not hold any court with Lothar, which, of my own will, might cause [my brother] harm.

Then, the people of both armies took an oath:

If Louis [or Charles] observes the oath which he has sworn to his brother Charles [or Louis] and if Charles [or Louis], my lord on his part does not keep it, if I cannot turn him away (from his wickedness), neither I nor any of those whom I will have been able to turn away, will give him any help against Louis [or Charles].

The lords of Louis pledged to Charles that they will not support Louis if he breaks his oath (an act of "wickedness") to Charles (and the other way around, of course)! The kings had no power absent their lords. And it was the oath given by the lords that bound, not a decree by the king.

A Written Constitution: Protecting the State from the People

Kern examines the impact of a written constitution on the relationship of state, people and law:

In modern usage we mean by the term "Constitution" that part of the general legal order of a State which controls the powers of government and the mutual relations between the government and the subjects.

Was there such a thing as a "constitution" in the early Middle Ages?

The monarch was subject not to a specific constitutional check, but to the law in general, which is all-powerful and almost boundless in its lack of definition; he is limited by this law and bound to this law.

In mediaeval law, the law was above both king and people. Both were subordinate to it, and all (king and people) were bound to protect it. Such an environment (without a written constitution), while somewhat unstable for the people, was even more unstable for the king. He was one man, equal to the others under the law. He was controlled by the law, not controller of it:

From the point of view of constitutional machinery, the control exercised in this way by the law will presumably be very incomplete and insecure — the very breadth of the mediaeval idea of law allows us to guess this. But in theory there resulted a complete control of the monarch, a subjection to law so thorough that political considerations and reason of State were excluded and out of the question.

That the monarch faced an equal insecurity and instability in the law as did the people was the most remarkable check on any potential abuse. As opposed to modern, constitutionally defined states where it evolves that it is only the people that have to fear the law, in the mediaeval time all were equally subject to and therefore controlled by the law.

The Magna Carta stands as the shining example in western history. From Wikipedia:

The 1215 charter required King John of England to proclaim certain liberties and accept that his will was not arbitrary, for example by explicitly accepting that no “freeman” (in the sense of non-serf) could be punished except through the law of the land, a right which is still in existence today.

Magna Carta was the first document forced onto a King of England by a group of his subjects, the feudal barons, in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their privileges. It was preceded and directly influenced by the Charter of Liberties in 1100, in which King Henry I had specified particular areas wherein his powers would be limited.

Given my understanding based on Kern's scholarship, I don't believe this document represented a step forward for liberty, but a step back — at least when compared to the early Middle Ages, when the king's powers did not have to be limited, as his powers under the law were no greater than those held by the lords.

The constitutional form has protected the monarch from the people much more than it has protected the people from the monarch — certainly when compared to earlier mediaeval times. At the same time, the constitutional form has provided virtually no protection of limiting the actions of the monarch — even for those constitutions with some form of rights embedded — for example, the U.S. Constitution with its Bill of Rights.

It seems, instead of the pinnacle of governance and protection of liberty, the constitutional form represents a significant step back from the liberties afforded to even the lowliest members of early mediaeval society.

For this reason the modern state feels free to create laws that run roughshod over private rights. No list need be created to demonstrate this reality of every modern state. This was not possible in the Germanic tradition of the Middle Ages: "Nieman ist so here, so daz reht zware," or "No one is so much lord that he may coerce the law."

The limitations thus placed on the mediaeval prince were, in theory, much greater than limitations placed on any constitutionally-enabled monarch or president:

For the latter can establish new law in conjunction with the other supreme constitutional organs, but the mediaeval monarch existed for the purpose of applying and protecting the good old law in the strictest imaginable sense.

No one was "legislating" in the sense we understand that term today.

The mediaeval State, as a mere institution for the preservation of the law, is not allowed to interfere for the benefit of the community with private rights.

There was no concept of the public good.

The State itself had no rights….It can, for example, raise no taxes, for according to the mediaeval view, taxation is a sequestration of property.

It was only by preserving this good, old law that the king guaranteed security in his position and dominion.

The written constitution has placed the state above the law — the state self-defines and self-interprets the constitution; the state has a monopoly on the adjudication of its dictates. This places the state in a position to decide what law is, and how law is applied. The only hope one has to influence this is to turn a minority into a majority. Such a concept was unknown to the mediaeval mind — each individual held a form of veto. No majority was necessary, and minority rights were fully protected — even for the minority of one.

The Beginning of the End

What changed, that brought man from an unwritten law, one that kept the king in check, to a written law, captured in a constitution? I do not know with certainty, however I present the following for thought: the change was grounded in the change from allodial land title to fee simple title. This happened in England first, and preceded the much-heralded written constitution, the Magna Carta, by 150 years.

This change occurred as a result of William the Conqueror's defeat of Harold Godwinsson at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. As a result of this, William claimed that he had won the whole country by right of conquest. Every inch of land was to be his, and he would dispose of it as he thought fit.

All land was thereafter owned by the crown. Perhaps in this can be found the seeds of the desire by the lords for the Magna Carta.

Conclusion

The Dark Ages were not so dark. In this time, law was custom. King and lord were under the law and were bound to serve and defend the law. Each individual had veto power if he could demonstrate the validity of his veto in the law, the old and good law. That the law was not written was not a detriment to the people, but a check on the king. The king was as uncertain in the law as were the lords.

The early Middle Ages offer an example in history of political organization different than what we today understand as government, or the state. One need not romanticize the period to take away from it valuable examples of how life might function in a more decentralized condition.

Reprinted with permission from the Bionic Mosquito.

The Best of Jonathan Goodwin

Recently by Jonathan Goodwin: A Strategy for Liberty

This is a revised and extended version of my earlier post in this subject. I now have a better (call it an "educated layman's") understanding of the required procedures to resolve such disputes and have incorporate these into this post.

I don't believe this subject needs introduction, however this is posted at the site in question, ronpaul.com:

Earlier today, Ron Paul filed an international UDRP complaint against RonPaul.com and RonPaul.org with WIPO, a global governing body that is an agency of the United Nations. The complaint calls on the agency to expropriate the two domain names from his supporters without compensation and hand them over to Ron Paul.

My immediate reaction to this was…unsettled: United Nations, expropriate the property of the current owners, without compensation….

Ron Paul has earned enough goodwill with me to last nine lifetimes — unless he joins the Fed Board of Governors or the Board of Directors of one of the merchants of death, I am not sure he can spend even a few drops of the goodwill I have toward him. I do not worship him as perfect; I just respect the significance of what he has accomplished over his lifetime.

But even with this, the action by Dr. Paul initially didn't sit well.

I do not have specialized knowledge about the procedures and processes involved in this process. So it would seem helpful to first understand a few basics:

What us a UDRP Complaint?

The UDRP (Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy) is the original domain name dispute policy. It was adopted by ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) on August 26, 1999. The UDRP applies to domain names ending in the following extensions: .biz, .cat, .cc, .com, .info, .mobi, .net, .org, .ro, .tel, .travel, .tv, .web, .ws

What is the purpose of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy?

This Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the “Policy”) has been adopted by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (“ICANN”), is incorporated by reference into your Registration Agreement, and sets forth the terms and conditions in connection with a dispute between you and any party other than us (the registrar) over the registration and use of an Internet domain name registered by you.

It is the registrant (current registrant of ronpaul.com) that has agreed to this process. The claimant (Ron Paul) is following the process that the registrant accepted at the time of registration.

What representations are made by the registration applicant?

By applying to register a domain name, or by asking us to maintain or renew a domain name registration, you hereby represent and warrant to us that (a) the statements that you made in your Registration Agreement are complete and accurate; (b) to your knowledge, the registration of the domain name will not infringe upon or otherwise violate the rights of any third party; (c) you are not registering the domain name for an unlawful purpose; and (d) you will not knowingly use the domain name in violation of any applicable laws or regulations. It is your responsibility to determine whether your domain name registration infringes or violates someone else’s rights.

The Policy goes on to outline the circumstances under which a change or transfer to a domain name will be effected and the requirement of submission to a Mandatory Administrative Proceeding. Even though submitting to an administrative proceeding is mandatory, this does not preclude the possibility of additionally submitting to court proceedings.

The mandatory administrative proceeding requirements set forth in Paragraph 4 shall not prevent either you or the complainant from submitting the dispute to a court of competent jurisdiction for independent resolution before such mandatory administrative proceeding is commenced or after such proceeding is concluded.

From Wikipedia:

One of ICANN’s first steps was to commission the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) to produce a report on the conflict between trademarks and domain names. Published on 30 April 1999, the WIPO Report[4] recommended the establishment of a “mandatory administrative procedure concerning abusive registrations”, which would allow for a “neutral venue in the context of disputes that are often international in nature.” The procedure was not intended to deal with cases with competing rights, nor would it exclude the jurisdiction of the courts. It would, however, be mandatory in the sense that “each domain name application would, in the domain name agreement, be required to submit to the procedure if a claim was initiated against it by a third party[5]

Following adoption by ICANN, the UDRP was launched on 1 December 1999, and the first case determined under it by WIPO was World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc v. Michael Bosman, involving the domain name worldwrestlingfederation.com[6]

It was ICANN that introduced the UN into the process, or more accurately an arbitration service (WIPO) housed within the UN.

So, what is ICANN?

ICANN: Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

To reach another person on the Internet you have to type an address into your computer — a name or a number. That address must be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN coordinates these unique identifiers across the world.

From Wikipedia:

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN, /ˈaɪkæn/ EYE-kan) is a nonprofit private organization headquartered in Los Angeles, California, United States, that was created on September 18, 1998, and incorporated on September 30, 1998[1] to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly on behalf of the U.S. government by other organizations, notably the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which ICANN now operates.

Before the establishment of ICANN, the Government of the United States controlled the domain name system of the Internet.

ICANN is a private organization.

And what of WIPO, the UN agency introduced by ICANN?

Our mission is to promote innovation and creativity for the economic, social and cultural development of all countries, through a balanced and effective international intellectual property system.

Specifically regarding domain name disputes:

Domain Name Dispute Resolution: This area is dedicated to the services established by the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center for the resolution of domain name disputes.

From the above, I conclude the following:

1. ICANN is a private, non-profit corporation, established for the purpose (among others) of assigning domain names.
2. ICANN adopted The UDRP (Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy), a policy designed to adjudicate domain name disputes. All registration agreements incorporate this policy by reference, and all registrants agree to this policy.
3. ICANN has chosen WIPO as the entity to arbitrate and mediate such disputes.
4. WIPO is a UN agency.
5. In addition to (but not in place of) the mandatory administrative proceeding, court proceedings are possible.

So now, back to Ron Paul.

I read the complaint. It reads just like a typical legal complaint.

This Complaint is hereby submitted for decision in accordance with the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the Policy), approved by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) on October 24, 1999, the Rules for Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the Rules), approved by ICANN on October 30, 2009, and the WIPO Supplemental Rules for Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the Supplemental Rules).

This really got me to thinking….

If I felt wronged in some manner, I would first attempt to work out a resolution with the other party. As long as this was proceeding in a timely manner, with the other party negotiating in good faith, I would continue in this course. Ultimately, if I felt appropriate resolution through this approach was not likely, I would pursue recourse in the appropriate venue. This might be arbitration, or it might be a court — oftentimes contractual and licensing agreements stipulate the avenue of dispute resolution procedure.

What is the dispute here? In a gross oversimplification, Ron Paul claims his name and that the current registrant is not meeting the terms of the registration agreement. This claim therefore extends to specific domain names that incorporate his name. I do not intend to get into the particulars or details of this claim. I don't know enough either about the facts or the law to do this in any case. This will be decided in the manner that was agreed to at the time the domain name was registered by people competent to decide such matters.

In the case of domain name disputes, the procedures for resolution are spelled out in detail — procedures to which the registrant must agree to at the time of domain name registration. These procedures are developed by a private organization, ICANN; ICANN has chosen WIPO, a UN agency, to arbitrate and mediate such disputes. The requirement to follow these procedures for dispute resolution is mandatory once one chooses to register a domain name.

Ron Paul did not choose the UN. The current registrant agreed to these procedures at the time of registration.

But it is coercion! It is force! Certainly a court decision or arbitration requires the losing party to act in a manner not of his choosing — the party on the losing end is required to act in a certain manner. However, such force (in a very loose application of the term) is not in violation of the non-aggression principle — technically, the objective of the adjudication is to correct a previous violation. In other words, force is applied in defense — a perfectly legitimate application of force. It is the result of a decision by a competent adjudicator.

Even the most libertarian of societies must develop some form of dispute resolution. That in today's world the procedures of dispute resolution often involve government or government-sanctioned entities is irrelevant — non-violent dispute resolution is a legitimate function in any society. If government entities (or the UN) are the only (or the prescribed) avenues through which one can gain relief in a dispute, it is appropriate that these avenues are utilized.

In this type of situation, there isn't even a government entity involved; only an entity housed within the UN, brought in at the request of a private organization to adjudicate the dispute. That WIPO is housed within the UN is secondary to its legitimate purpose of dispute resolution.

None of this precludes an advocate of the NAP from utilizing the process, an inherently legitimate function of non-violent dispute resolution, made no less legitimate by its tangential UN connection.

I now return to the description of this action, from the subject site (ronpaul.com):

Earlier today, Ron Paul filed an international UDRP complaint against RonPaul.com and RonPaul.org with WIPO, a global governing body that is an agency of the United Nations. The complaint calls on the agency to expropriate the two domain names from his supporters without compensation and hand them over to Ron Paul.

There is a self-serving intent behind the language of this opening paragraph: international, a global governing body, agency of the United Nations, expropriate, without compensation, hand them over. Taken in a vacuum and independently, there is a varying level of truth to each of these terms.

It is, however, language meant to incite a negative emotional reaction. The reality of this situation is that this is the means, the mandatory means, by which such disputes will be resolved. The registrant knew this process and agreed to this at the time the site names were registered. Emotionally charged words like "United Nations" and "expropriate" are irrelevant in this situation. There is no alternative, and the facts relevant to compliance with the terms in the registration agreement will determine the outcome — this is not expropriation, it is justice.

To offer that Ron Paul is attempting to use the UN to achieve his ends, besides clouding the reality of the situation, is irrelevant. To the extent that 1) he is acting in good faith to attempt to recover something that he believes rightly belongs to him, and 2) that the only available means to achieve this end (after good-faith attempts with the other party have failed) is to use the process as defined in the registration documents, Ron Paul is following the process as agreed to by the registrant.

In this case, ICANN (a private organization) is the entity that both assigns domain names and has developed the procedures for dispute resolution. ICANN has chosen WIPO to adjudicate such disputes. That WIPO happens to be housed within the UN is irrelevant; where else can Ron Paul go? It isn't by Ron Paul's doing that the jurisdiction and procedures are established in this manner. In fact, the registrants agreed to these procedures at the time of registration.

So here is where I am at the moment:

1. It seems clear that Ron Paul believes he is attempting to recover something that rightly belongs to him.
2. I can only assume that good-faith attempts were made to negotiate and resolve this dispute. I have read some of what has become public on this. It is not enough to determine (nor, in any case, is anyone not directly privy to all of the details of the discussions able to determine) the extent of efforts made to resolve this privately.
3. In every society — including a libertarian society — there is and would be some means of non-violent dispute resolution. That we currently live in a society where oftentimes a state agency provides this service should not preclude a libertarian from using these means — although the issue of a state agency is not even applicable here.
4. To resolve this dispute, Ron Paul must follow a specifically outlined set of procedures. These procedures were agreed to by the registrant before the registration of the domain name could be complete.
5. Have I mentioned it enough? The registrant agreed to these procedures in case of domain name dispute.

Being libertarian or a proponent of the non-aggression principle does not mean that two such parties will never have disputes. Disputes will occur. The possibility of resolution of disputes via a third party would certainly exist in a libertarian community. Therefore taking such an action is appropriate for one who feels wronged. This is how I see this issue and Ron Paul's actions.

More importantly, the registrant of ronpaul.com agreed to these procedures at the time of the registration of the domain name. To complain now that Ron Paul is using these procedures seem disingenuous.

I am certain there are many details of the regulatory procedures that I have not captured for instance, see here). Even with this, I don't believe these details will lead me to a different conclusion. I am open to further understanding on this issue. However, from what I currently understand and what is currently public, it seems to me that there is nothing inappropriate in Ron Paul's action.

Reprinted with permission from the Bionic Mosquito.

The Best of Jonathan Goodwin

The title of this post is taken from chapter 15 of Murray Rothbard’s “For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto.” Throughout the book, Rothbard has laid out the case for the libertarian solution to the problems of politics and government. In this chapter, he suggests how to get from here to there. He also deals with some of the common objections to the idea of liberty and to the approach taken by some. For these reasons, I found this chapter to be most valuable.

Education: Theory and Movement

We face the great strategic problem of all “radical” creeds throughout history: How can we get from here to there, from our current State-ridden and imperfect world to the great goal of liberty?

On one point there can scarcely be disagreement: a prime and necessary condition for libertarian victory (or, indeed, for victory for any social movement, from Buddhism to vegetarianism) is education: the persuasion and conversion of large numbers of people to the cause.

Sadly, this point is missed by many. Without education — “the persuasion and conversion of large numbers of people” — there is no hope ever to see a movement toward liberty take hold. This was the benefit of Ron Paul’s two recent presidential campaigns — through his efforts, countless millions have had the scales lifted from their eyes.

Many individuals and organizations contribute today to this education. Two of the most prominent are The Mises Institute and LewRockwell.com. There are many others that contribute as well: The Daily Bell, Justin Raimondo, Economic Policy Journal, and the Future of Freedom Foundation to name a few. I certainly am leaving off many. Each one speaks to people in different ways, yet each makes a valuable contribution to the education of liberty.

Rothbard deals with one criticism often heard — “we” are only talking to ourselves:

Furthermore, one often hears libertarians (as well as members of other social movements) bewail that they are “only talking to themselves” with their books and journals and conferences; that few people of the “outside world” are listening.

Keep in mind that Rothbard wrote this book more than two decades before there was even a semblance of a user-friendly internet — a world of mimeo-graphs and snail-mail lists. With the internet, the possibility of reaching out to others has increased exponentially — and the facts have proven this out. It is still amazing to see this in tangible results — twenty-four years ago Ron Paul received less than 1% of the vote as the Libertarian Party candidate for President. He might draw dozens to an event. The difference today is like night and day. Yet, the charge is often made today, as if nothing has changed — as if all the libertarians could fit in a phone booth or something.

Rothbard finds fault in this charge; he sees value in such internal dialogue:

But this frequent charge gravely misconceives the many-sided purpose of “education” in the broadest sense. It is not only necessary to educate others; continual self-education is also (and equally) necessary….Education of “ourselves” accomplishes two vital goals. One is the refining and advancing of the libertarian “theory….” Libertarianism… must be a living theory, advancing through writing and discussion, and through refuting and combatting errors as they arise.

This charge is often made — why get into debates about oftentimes minor issues when all that this does is divide an already small movement? Rothbard makes clear why this is helpful. There is continual education needed amongst even those who have embraced the political ideas of libertarians.

But there is another critical reason for “talking to ourselves,” even if that were all the talking that was going on. And that is reinforcement—the psychologically necessary knowledge that there are other people of like mind to talk to, argue with, and generally communicate and interact with….A flourishing movement with a sense of community and esprit de corps is the best antidote for giving up liberty as a hopeless or “impractical” cause.

How true this is. There is a remnant, and to know and be reminded that there are others of like-mind offers hope and encouragement.

Are We “Utopians”?

This comes up regularly — it has never worked, who will control the bad guys, you have to believe man is perfect if you advocate this, etc. Libertarians are utopians.

Every “radical” creed has been subjected to the charge of being “utopian,” and the libertarian movement is no exception.

Some libertarians themselves maintain that we should not frighten people off by being “too radical,” and that therefore the full libertarian ideology and program should be kept hidden from view.

This is suggested by many as the right approach for seemingly libertarian-leaning politicians — hide your true feelings, and then spring it on the government once you are elected. If only Ron Paul wouldn’t say that. Or so-and-so-pseudo-libertarian-candidate is only talking this way to get elected.

The major problem with the opportunists is that by confining themselves strictly to gradual and “practical” programs, programs that stand a good chance of immediate adoption, they are in grave danger of completely losing sight of the ultimate objective, the libertarian goal….If libertarians refuse to hold aloft the banner of the pure principle, of the ultimate goal, who will?

This is why I support taking the approach to aim small. Those who advocate the non-aggression principle will never come close to hitting the target if they aren’t aiming for the target.

The free-market economist F. A. Hayek, himself in no sense an extremist,” has written eloquently of the vital importance for the success of liberty of holding the pure and “extreme” ideology aloft as a never-to-be-forgotten creed.

We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage….We need intellectual leaders who are prepared to resist the blandishments of power and influence and who are willing to work for an ideal, however small may be the prospects of its early realization.

How true, and in different ways demonstrated by many of the organizations and individuals I have cited above.

They must be men who are willing to stick to principles and to fight for their full realization, however remote…Free trade and freedom of opportunity are ideals which still may rouse the imaginations of large numbers, but a mere “reasonable freedom of trade” or a mere “relaxation of controls” is neither intellectually respectable nor likely to inspire any enthusiasm. The main lesson which the true liberal must learn from the success of the socialists is that it was their courage to be Utopian which gained them the support of the intellectuals and thereby an influence on public opinion which is daily making possible what only recently seemed utterly remote.

How many times are libertarians blasted with the idea to be gradual: don’t eliminate all foreign aid, just eliminate it from our enemies; we should remove US troops from foreign zones where there is no identifiable strategic interest; let’s eliminate all of the government waste before we worry about reducing the scope of government; don’t end the Fed, let’s just make sure that they stick to rules for inflation; we need to devise a fair taxation scheme, but we cannot just eliminate income taxes. The list is long.

The problem is no one will get excited about these proposals. They are all versions of what every politician through time has ever proposed. Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, and countless others could be behind many of these statements. These statements fully support the status quo as these statements accept the terms of the debate. The general policies are philosophically acceptable; it is only the details or the magnitude that must be tweaked. It continues the desired conversation: policy debate instead of debate regarding fundamental principles.

There is nothing in this approach that will inspire. There is nothing here to draw people to a different, all-encompassing world-view.

In short, the libertarian must never advocate or prefer a gradual, as opposed to an immediate and rapid, approach to his goal. For by doing so, he undercuts the overriding importance of his own goals and principles. And if he himself values his own goals so lightly, how highly will others value them?

Brilliant.

Such an “abolitionist” perspective does not mean, again, that the libertarian has an unrealistic assessment of how rapidly his goal will, in fact, be achieved. Thus, the libertarian abolitionist of slavery, William Lloyd Garrison, was not being “unrealistic” when in the 1830s he first raised the glorious standard of immediate emancipation of the slaves. His goal was the morally proper one, and his strategic realism came in the fact that he did not expect his goal to be quickly reached….Garrison himself distinguished: “Urge immediate abolition as earnestly as we may, it will, alas! be gradual abolition in the end. We have never said that slavery would be overthrown by a single blow; that it ought to be, we shall always contend.” Otherwise, as Garrison trenchantly warned, “Gradualism in theory is perpetuity in practice.”

Unless someone is holding tight to the objective and regularly speaking forcefully for its implementation — the abolition of slavery or the abolition of coercion in relationships — no one will ever take the objective seriously. Why would the objective be taken seriously if no one cares enough to defend and advocate for it? How can one come close to hitting the target if he isn’t even aiming for it?

Rothbard then comes to identify the “true utopian” system:

The true utopian is one who advocates a system that is contrary to the natural law of human beings and of the real world. A utopian system is one that could not work even if everyone were persuaded to try to put it into practice. The utopian system could not work, i.e., could not sustain itself in operation. The utopian goal of the left: communism—the abolition of specialization and the adoption of uniformity—could not work even if everyone were willing to adopt it immediately. It could not work because it violates the very nature of man and the world, especially the uniqueness and individuality of every person, of his abilities and interests, and because it would mean a drastic decline in the production of wealth, so much so as to doom the great bulk of the human race to rapid starvation and extinction.

Is it utopian to recognize that every individual is an individual, with a desire to acquire and enjoy his possessions (not only material) in quiet comfort, each individual with different preferences and values? Is it utopian to understand that certain men (and the ones most apt to use it abusively), when offered the possibility of monopoly power, will do whatever is necessary to grab those reins and then use the power to their own advantage?

Rothbard sees that there are two issues when it comes to the idea of “utopian” and these must each be identified and dealt with separately:

In short, the term “utopian” in popular parlance confuses two kinds of obstacles in the path of a program radically different from the status quo. One is that it violates the nature of man and of the world and therefore could not work once it was put into effect. This is the utopianism of communism. The second is the difficulty in convincing enough people that the program should be adopted. The former is a bad theory because it violates the nature of man; the latter is simply a problem of human will, of convincing enough people of the rightness of the doctrine.

I have already mentioned the work of many who are providing the latter: education. As to the former: the communist ideology, for example, like all coercive and controlling ideologies behind state power, holds to the implicit assumption that such centralized power can be kept in check. What is true for communism is equally true for any form of centralized, monopolized, state power. In other words, equally true for virtually every state in the world today.

But such power cannot be kept in check. To believe otherwise is quite utopian. It is utopian to believe that man can fundamentally change the nature of his fellow man. That somehow monopoly power will not attract those to whom monopoly power is attractive; that once in control, those in power will keep themselves in check.

The libertarian is also eminently realistic because he alone understands fully the nature of the State and its thrust for power. In contrast, it is the seemingly far more realistic conservative believer in “limited government” who is the truly impractical utopian. This conservative keeps repeating the litany that the central government should be severely limited by a constitution….The idea of a strictly limited constitutional State was a noble experiment that failed, even under the most favorable and propitious circumstances….No, it is the conservative laissez- fairist, the man who puts all the guns and all the decision-making power into the hands of the central government and then says, “Limit yourself”; it is he who is truly the impractical utopian.

The difficulty of limited government: the governed and the governors won’t agree on the definition of “limited.” And as it is the governors to whom monopoly power is granted, guess who will win that debate?

Rothbard leaves open the possibility for transitional steps, but only with certain objectives kept at the forefront:

If, then, the libertarian must advocate the immediate attainment of liberty and abolition of statism, and if gradualism in theory is contradictory to this overriding end, what further strategic stance may a libertarian take in today’s world? Must he necessarily confine himself to advocating immediate abolition? Are “transitional demands,” steps toward liberty in practice, necessarily illegitimate? No…

How, then, can we know whether any halfway measure or transitional demand should be hailed as a step forward or condemned as an opportunistic betrayal? There are two vitally important criteria for answering this crucial question: (1) that, whatever the transitional demands, the ultimate end of liberty be always held aloft as the desired goal; and (2) that no steps or means ever explicitly or implicitly contradict the ultimate goal.

Always a reminder of the ultimate objective; only movement toward the ultimate objective is acceptable.

An example of such counterproductive and opportunistic strategy may be taken from the tax system. The libertarian looks forward to eventual abolition of taxes. It is perfectly legitimate for him, as a strategic measure in that desired direction, to push for a drastic reduction or repeal of the income tax. But the libertarian must never support any new tax or tax increase. For example, he must not, while advocating a large cut in income taxes, also call for its replacement by a sales or other form of tax.

Again, such arguments only play into the hands of those who desire to control the dialogue. Instead of always moving toward the elimination of taxes (as in this example), it turns into a discussion of which taxes, some are better than others, some are more “efficient” than others, one should replace another, etc.

Why Liberty Will Win

The case for libertarian optimism can be made in a series of what might be called concentric circles, beginning with the broadest and longest-run considerations and moving to the sharpest focus on short-run trends. In the broadest and longest-run sense, libertarianism will win eventually because it and only it is compatible with the nature of ma n and of the world. Only liberty can achieve man’s prosperity, fulfillment, and happiness. In short, libertarianism will win because it is true, because it is the correct policy for mankind, and truth will eventually out.

I will add that it is not only the only system compatible with man’s nature and desire for prosperity and happiness. It is also the only system that recognizes the dark side of man and therefore disallows the concentration of political power.

But such long-run considerations may be very long indeed, and waiting many centuries for truth to prevail may be small consolation for those of us living at any particular moment in history. Fortunately, there is a shorter-run reason for hope….

Hooray, I hope.

The clock cannot be turned back to a preindustrial age….We are stuck with the industrial age, whether we like it or not.

But if that is true, then the cause of liberty is secured. For economic science has shown, as we have partially demonstrated in this book, that only freedom and a free market can run an industrial economy. In short…in an industrial world it is also a vital necessity. For, as Ludwig von Mises and other economists have shown, in an industrial economy statism simply does not work.

This is an interesting observation. Drastic interruptions to the free-market can only occur for a (relatively) short period without risking civilization.

In the twentieth century, Mises demonstrated (a) that all statist intervention distorts and cripples the market and leads, if not reversed, to socialism; and (b) that socialism is a disaster because it cannot plan an industrial economy for lack of profit-and-loss incentives, and for lack of a genuine price system or property rights in capital, land, and other means of production.

We do not have to prophesy the ruinous effects of statism; they are here at every hand.

Significant interruption to the free-market will end up in destruction. Without relatively free prices and the discipline of profit-and-loss, resources are wasted. Are we currently passing through the final convulsions? Is this the root of the calamity we are seeing — the protests and revolts due to high double-digit unemployment throughout much of the developed world? The high unemployment brought on by the disruptive policies of the state?

But now statism has advanced so far and been in power so long that the cushion is worn thin; as Mises pointed out as long ago as the 1940s, the “reserve fund” created by laissez- faire has been “exhausted.”

It is interesting to note: this observation from Mises was seven decades ago. Yet here we are, continuing in the convulsions.

Indeed, we can confidently say that the United States has now entered a permanent crisis situation, and we can even pinpoint the years of origin of that crisis: 1973–1975. Happily for the cause of liberty, not only has a crisis of statism arrived in the United States, but it has fortuitously struck across the board of society, in many different spheres of life at about the same time.

Rothbard goes on to list the many economic and social problems of the 1970s.

Rothbard’s observations are almost four decades old, yet the convulsions continue — still no final collapse. Perhaps this serves to demonstrate the vast amount of wealth in reserve available to be destroyed (see here and here). The west had behind it centuries of wealth (not only or even primarily financial, but cultural and intellectual) — see “From Dawn to Decadence” by Jacques Barzun.

Conclusion

There is no magic formula for strategy; any strategy for social change, resting as it does on persuasion and conversion, can only be an art rather than an exact science. But having said this, we are still not bereft of wisdom in the pursuit of our goals. There can be a fruitful theory, or at the very least, theoretical discussion, of the proper strategy for change.

Rothbard does this wonderfully well. Throughout this book and especially in this chapter he gives much to those who remain open to consider that there can be success in achieving this “radical creed” of libertarianism.

Reprinted with permission from the Bionic Mosquito.

Jonathan Goodwin [send him mail] is a retired attorney in the rural Southwest. He blogs at Bionic Mosquito.

The Best of Jonathan Goodwin

Religion (noun)

1. A set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.

In this article, I intend to explore the legends underlying the American religion. By American religion, I mean to suggest the belief by a large segment of the population in the structures and institutions of government, and the belief that these structures and institutions are used for purposes beneficial to the people. In other words, the religion is belief in the benevolence of the state and the goodness of the political leaders.

Legend (noun)

1. A non-historical or unverifiable story handed down by tradition from earlier times and popularly accepted as historical.

2. The body of stories of this kind, especially as they relate to a particular people, group, or clan….

There are several American legends that either support this religious belief directly, or otherwise contribute to the deification of the state and those who act through it. Such legends, taught in the public schools and perpetuated through various mainstream media outlets — movies, books, and magazines, as well as mainstream web-sites — create a common foundation as the basis for the desired religious belief: belief in the state.

Legends are material to be moulded, and not facts to be recorded. ~ Hervey Allen

Many have done valuable to work toward the shattering of one or more of the key legends, thereby contributing to the loss of faith in the religion. These efforts can only be beneficial to freedom. The work of shattering these legends is the work of revisionist historians, although not all revisionists support the idea of shattering the religion of state. Such historians have toiled tirelessly from the inception of each legend, yet many worked in relative obscurity. Certainly the internet has made their work easily available to any who care to look.

Legends die hard. They survive as truth rarely does. ~ Helen Hayes

There are many such legends in American history. I will explore three of these, and suggest that these three may be the most foundational due to the magnitude of awareness in and acceptance by the population at large — most importantly, due to the importance of these legends to the foundation of the American religion. Proximity in time, I suggest, is not the key criteria — one event occurred 150 years ago, while the most recent is only ten years old. But what these three cases hold in common is the level to which the legends have been internalized by large portions of the population.

Sometimes legends make reality, and become more useful than the facts. ~ Salman Rushdie

A major impediment to shattering the legends is that such action runs full-force into a brick wall of “we the people.” Too many accept the idea that “they” are the government; that the people are in charge; that the government and the country are the same; that I vote, so I have control. As opposed to control through dictators and kings (where the self-interest of the rulers at the expense of the people was never in question), representative democracy has done a wonderful job of convincing the people that they are the rulers, choosing politicians to work on their behalf for their good.

Because they have been taught to believe that they and the government are one-and-the-same, they cannot accept that the legends are not only false but shed light on the murderous actions of government. They cannot damn themselves. Additionally, they cannot accept that the legends are false, because to do so will suggest that they have been dupes.

When the legends die, the dreams end; there is no more greatness. ~ Tecumseh

I do not intend to refute each legend in detail in this post — I am not qualified to do so, even if I chose to. My purpose is to suggest the three that I view as the more important legends to burst, specifically because they are so deeply ingrained and hold significant sway as basis for the religion.

Lincoln and his War

The first such legend is Lincoln’s war, commonly (and inaccurately) referred to as the Civil War. One legend holds that Lincoln fought to free the slaves and give them equality. While it is certainly true that the war ended slavery in the United States, this was not Lincoln’s objective: the truth is that Lincoln didn’t care one bit about the slaves, other than proposing to send them back to Africa.

Lerone Bennett, Jr. captures the lie behind the legend in his book “Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln’s White Dream.”

I was a child in whitest Mississippi, reading for my life, when I discovered that everything I had been told about Abraham Lincoln was a lie….for I discovered that I lived in an Orwellian world where scholars with all the degrees the schools could give could say in all seriousness that a separatist was an integrationist and that a White supremacist was the ultimate symbol of race relations and the American Dream.

Lincoln or somebody said once that you can’t fool all of the people all the time. By turning a racist who wanted to deport all Blacks into a national symbol of integration and brotherhood, the Lincoln mythmakers have managed to prove Lincoln or whoever said it wrong. This is the story of how they fooled all of the people all the time and why.

Another legend from this war was that Lincoln fought it to preserve the union. Of course, Lincoln did not preserve the union, but instead transformed it into that which opponents of the Constitution most feared — from a confederacy of states with a limited central government to an all-powerful central government to which state government would become increasingly subservient. From “The Founding Fathers’ Guide to the Constitution,” by Brion McClanahan:

…Who authorized them to speak in the language of We, the people, instead of We, the states? States are the characteristics and the soul of a confederation. If the states be not the agents of this compact, it must be one great, consolidated national government of the people of all the states.

~ Patrick Henry

We the People of the United States is a sentence that evidently shows the old foundation of the Union is destroyed, the principle of confederation excluded, and a new system of consolidated empire is set upon the ruins of the present compact between the states. ~ Robert Whitehill

Any assurances to the contrary offered by supporters to the Constitution were killed during this war, along with 700,000 or more victims of Lincoln’s needless aggression.

Tom DiLorenzo has done significant work regarding the myth of Lincoln. One of his books is “Lincoln Unmasked: What You’re Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe.”

From the Amazon description:

What if you were told that the revered leader Abraham Lincoln was actually a political tyrant who stifled his opponents by suppressing their civil rights? What if you learned that the man so affectionately referred to as the “Great Emancipator” supported white supremacy and pledged not to interfere with slavery in the South? Would you suddenly start to question everything you thought you knew about Lincoln and his presidency?

You should.

Thomas J. DiLorenzo, who ignited a fierce debate about Lincoln’s legacy with his book The Real Lincoln, now presents a litany of stunning new revelations that explode the most enduring (and pernicious) myths about our sixteenth president. Marshaling an astonishing amount of new evidence, Lincoln Unmasked offers an alarming portrait of a political manipulator and opportunist who bears little resemblance to the heroic, stoic, and principled figure of mainstream history.

Did you know that Lincoln . . .

• did NOT save the union? In fact, Lincoln did more than any other individual to destroy the voluntary union the Founding Fathers recognized.

• did NOT want to free the slaves? Lincoln, who did not believe in equality of the races, wanted the Constitution to make slavery “irrevocable.”

• was NOT a champion of the Constitution? Contrary to his high-minded rhetoric, Lincoln repeatedly trampled on the Constitution—and even issued an arrest warrant for the chief justice of the United States!

• was NOT a great statesman? Lincoln was actually a warmonger who manipulated his own people into a civil war.

• did NOT utter many of his most admired quotations? DiLorenzo exposes a legion of statements that have been falsely attributed to Lincoln for generations—usually to enhance his image.

Lincoln is memorialized via his own temple in Washington, DC. The design echoes a classic Greek temple, “structures built to house deity statues….” It is ironic that the site has become an almost sacred venue for those advocating civil rights.

For those interested, I have written a review of Bennett’s book; this can be found here.

World War Two

It can be suggested that a discussion of the legend of World War Two without first exploring America’s entry into and subsequent impact upon the First World War would render such discussion incomplete. For purposes of historical accuracy and understanding, this is certainly correct. However, for purpose of legend — legend behind religion — this is not necessary. Most Americans don’t make the connection, and the connection isn’t necessary to the belief of the legend.

The images of World War Two stand alone, and stand vividly in the minds of every American. The attack on Pearl Harbor; the concentration camps; evil Japs / nips and evil Huns / krauts; Hitler as the ultimate evil; the D-Day invasion; naval battles; island-hopping marines and soldiers across the Pacific. We have seen these images countless times — in newsreel and on the silver screen.

World War Two stands out for most Americans as the Good War, the one case where there can be no doubt that America was in the right: subject to an unprovoked attack; fighting on the side of freedom and against tyranny — the tyranny of the Nazis and Hitler, and the tyranny of the Japan and Hirohito; where the two bombs were dropped, thus avoiding the need for a direct invasion of Japan and thereby saving a million American lives while bringing the war to a sooner end.

All myths. All legends. Even supporters of Roosevelt admit that he did all he could to enter the war — first by attempting to provoke Germany, then later Japan, into attacking the United States — while all the while telling the American people that he was doing all he could to stay out of the war. One very good book in this regard is “The Pearl Harbor Myth: Rethinking the Unthinkable,” by George Victor (a supporter of Roosevelt’s actions):

Events are poorly explained by making assumptions that crucial acts by competent, conscientious leaders were capricious, careless, or negligent. And U.S. leaders who figured in the Pearl Harbor disaster were highly competent and conscientious.

After Roosevelt stationed the fleet at Pearl Harbor, Commander McCollum wrote a memo for him, recommending its use as a lure. Roosevelt implemented the recommendation. Admiral Richardson concluded the administration use of the fleet endangered it gravely, and he argued the point over and over with his superiors. When he took measures to protect his fleet, Roosevelt relieved him. Stark then kept Kimmel uninformed of Japan’s plans to attack it at Pearl Harbor. And Marshall kept Short uninformed.

To most Americans, manipulating one’s nation into war is something done by foreign tyrants — not our own leaders. Since 1942 U.S. history has been distorted by the idea that presidents simply do not do what Roosevelt’s enemies said he did.

As to fighting against tyranny, this seems hardly plausible given that the Americans sided with Stalin, who at the beginning of the war had far more blood on his hands than did Hitler. From Herbert Hoover’s “Freedom Betrayed”:

No longer was the world conflict an unambiguous struggle “between tyranny and freedom….The alliance of the British with the Russians against Germany destroyed “that illusion.”

“Western civilization has consecrated itself to making the world safe for Stalin.”

Freedom Betrayed is a significant volume by Hoover, examining the foreign policy of Roosevelt (and then Truman) from the period 1933 through the end of the war. It is a remarkable account, not because he breaks any significant new ground (at least not by the time it was published, fifty years after his death), but because he was a former president. I am aware of no other volume of comparable significance where one president so directly criticizes the foreign policy of another — especially one as revered as FDR. For example, no president has written a comparable, critical account of Lincoln.

Meanwhile, the legend of the atomic bomb lives on, unquestioned in the mind of the general public. Here I suggest “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb,” by Gar Alperovitz. He presents convincing evidence that the bombs were unnecessary toward the objective of ending the war sooner (in fact, delaying the end of the war); that the bombs did not save Americans from an invasion of Japan — no invasion was necessary in any case.

This view is not merely hindsight, fifty years after the fact. This was certainly the view of key military leaders at the time:

Admiral William D. Leahy:

“It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons… My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make wars in that fashion, and that wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”

General Dwight D. Eisenhower:

“Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. …the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.

“During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude…”

Alperovitz also documents the significant myth-making machine activated after the war regarding the atomic bombings.

I have written numerous articles regarding Hoover’s work. I have also written reviews on the books by Victor (regarding Pearl Harbor) and Alperovitz (regarding the atomic bomb). Additionally, I have covered other aspects of this war. All can be found via the search engine on this site, for those interested.

September 11

This event is terribly important as it has ushered in a change to the country no less drastic than that brought on by Lincoln’s victory over the southern states. It is also an instant legend — here the images are even more vivid and real than those from the Second World War — and this without the overt help of Hollywood.

The revisionist history here is not nearly as well developed. If for no other reason, this can be attributed to time — we stand only ten years removed from the event. I am not aware of any credible and verifiable descriptions of the truth of what happened that day; however, there are certainly many credible questions about the official explanation — these questions remain unanswered. An internet search for “September 11” + questions returned 2 million hits. A search through these will serve better than any incomplete list I could provide.

A starting point could be “Architects and Engineers for 9/11Truth.”

Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911Truth) is a non-profit corporation. We are a non-partisan association of architects, engineers and affiliates dedicated to exposing the falsehoods and to revealing truths about the “collapses” of the 3 World Trade Center high-rises on September 11, 2001.

We call upon Congress for a truly independent investigation with subpoena power. We believe that there is sufficient evidence to conclude that three World Trade Center buildings #1 (North Tower), #2 (South Tower), and #7 (the 47-story high-rise across Vesey St.) were destroyed not by jet impact and fires but by controlled demolition with explosives.

More than 1,750 architects and engineers have publicly signed the following petition:

Please Take Notice That:

On Behalf of the People of the United States of America, the undersigned Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth and affiliates hereby petition for, and demand, a truly independent investigation with subpoena power in order to uncover the full truth surrounding the events of 9/11/01 — specifically the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers and Building 7. We believe there is sufficient doubt about the official story to justify re-opening the 9/11 investigation. The new investigation must include a full inquiry into the possible use of explosives that might have been the actual cause of the destruction of the World Trade Center Twin Towers and Building 7.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

I suggest this not because I know it to be more credible than any other effort — I have no reason to believe this one way or another. However, I find it credible if for no other reason than the fact that almost two-thousand (inherently) well-educated architects and engineers have decided to put their names and reputations on the line firmly questioning the official story of the legend.

While we don’t know the truth about what happened, we do know for certain that members of the official government-appointed commission have doubts about the story they were told by various government officials:

Months after the commission had officially issued its report and ceased its functions, Chairman Kean and other commissioners toured the country to draw attention to the recommendations of the commission for reducing the terror risk, claiming that some of their recommendations were being ignored. Co-chairs Kean and Hamilton wrote a book about the constraints they faced as commissioners titled Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission.

The book was released on August 15, 2006 and chronicles the work of Kean (Commission Chairman) and Hamilton (Commission Vice-Chairman) of the 9/11 Commission. In the book, Kean and Hamilton charge that the 9/11 Commission was “set up to fail,” and write that the commission was so frustrated with repeated misstatements by officials from The Pentagon and the Federal Aviation Administration during the investigation that it considered a separate investigation into possible obstruction of justice by Pentagon and FAA officials.

John Farmer, Jr., senior counsel to the Commission stated that the Commission “discovered that…what government and military officials had told Congress, the Commission, the media, and the public about who knew what when — was almost entirely, and inexplicably, untrue.” Farmer continues: “At some level of the government, at some point in time … there was a decision not to tell the truth about what happened…The (NORAD) tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public.”[22] Thomas Kean, the head of the 9/11 Commission, concurred: “We to this day don’t know why NORAD told us what they told us, it was just so far from the truth.”

Summary

I have selected three of the major legends underlying the American Religion. I can think of others, but to my mind they do not affect the emotion and psyche of the average American as these three do. Two of the three have already been exposed with well-documented research. One is still awaiting such treatment — not due to a lack of effort on the part of revisionists, but perhaps because time has not yet allowed the erosion of the secrecy.

Any efforts to broaden awareness of the fallacies behind these legends can only serve to undermine the religion, and therefore ultimately help de-legitimize the state.

As with all attacks on faith, the faithful can and do respond with aggression and abuse. But time and effort opens more eyes. Once the scales are lifted, the sighted do not voluntarily return to blindness.

Reprinted with permission from the Bionic Mosquito.

From the most mainstream of the mainstream — USA Today! It is an opinion piece written by Glenn Harlan Reynolds.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds is professor of law at the University of Tennessee. He blogs at InstaPundit.com.

Before I get to the opinion piece, who is Professor Reynolds? From Wikipedia:

Reynolds is often described as conservative, but he holds “liberal” views on social issues such as abortion, the War on Drugs and gay marriage. He describes himself as a libertarian and more specifically a libertarian transhumanist. He customarily illustrates his combination of views by stating: “I’d be delighted to live in a country where happily married gay couples had closets full of assault weapons.”

Reynolds criticized government subsidies to the middle class such as college loans and mortgage subsidies on the basis that they undermine the middle class. According to Reynolds, college education and homeownership are merely markers of an achieved middle class status, rather than ingredients needed for people to enter the middle class. He explained:

The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay in, the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them. One might as well try to promote basketball skills by distributing expensive sneakers.

—Glenn Reynolds in the D.C. Examiner.

Reynolds is a former member of the Libertarian Party.

This highlighted portion offers a profound insight (emphasis added).

Back to his editorial on Newtown. Right off the bat, he caught my attention with a comment rarely admitted in the mainstream:

According to the CNN timeline for the Sandy Hook tragedy, “Police and other first responders arrived on scene about 20 minutes after the first calls.” Twenty minutes. Five minutes is forever when violence is underway, but 20 minutes – a third of an hour – means that the “first responders” aren’t likely to do much more than clean up the mess.

The so-called “first responders” cannot respond before those who are actually on the scene can respond. Why aren’t those on the scene in a position to effectively respond? Reynolds suggests:

This has led to calls – in Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, St. Louis – for armed officers or staff at schools. Some object. But we have people with guns protecting airports, hospitals and politicians. And leading anti-gun crusaders like New York’s billionaire Mayor Mike Bloomberg and press lord Rupert Murdoch are protected by armed security teams that could probably topple some third-world governments. Why are our children less worthy of protection?

Ron Paul rightly suggests that any top-down “solution” will certainly be a bad one. Meanwhile, the hypocrites demand that regular citizens remain at the mercy of those who cannot respond in time, while they remain in a position to have true first-responders on standby, within touching distance, twenty-four hours a day.

Rothbard comments on the idea of gun control in his book “For a New Liberty.” In his comments, he quotes Don B. Kates, Jr., also reflecting on relatively wealthy, white liberals and their views of private security:

Gun prohibition is the brainchild of white middle-class liberals who are oblivious to the situation of poor and minority people living in areas where the police have given up on crime control…. Secure in well-policed suburbs or high security apartments guarded by Pinkertons (whom no one proposes to disarm), the oblivious liberal derides gun ownership as “an anachronism from the Old West.”

Rothbard continues:

…the 1975 national survey of handgun owners by the Decision Making Information organization found that the leading subgroups who own a gun only for self-defense include blacks, the lowest income groups, and senior citizens. “These are the people, “Kates eloquently warns, “it is proposed we jail [via further gun control laws] because they insist on keeping the only protection available for their families in areas in which the police have given up.”

Professor Reynolds goes on to ask if “hate” is a liberal value:

A 20-year-old lunatic stole some guns and killed people. Who’s to blame? According to a lot of our supposedly rational and tolerant opinion leaders, it’s . . . the NRA, a civil-rights organization whose only crime was to oppose laws banning guns.

The hatred was intense. One Rhode Island professor issued a call – later deleted – for NRA head Wayne LaPierre’s “head on a stick.” People like author Joyce Carol Oates and actress Marg Helgenberger wished for NRA members to be shot. So did Texas Democratic Party official John Cobarruvias, who also called the NRA a “terrorist organization,” and Texas Republican congressman Louis Gohmert a “terror baby.”

Calling people murderers and wishing them to be shot sits oddly with claims to be against violence.

He notes that while gun ownership is up, crime is down:

In general, crime in the United States has been declining for two decades. That’s good news and shouldn’t be lost in all the hype.

He ends with another (previously) mainstream untouchable, the war on drugs:

The drug war, according to many experts such as Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron, is a major driver of violence in America. When you leave out suicides (which make up more than half of gun deaths) most actual murders in this country are criminals killing other criminals….As The Atlantic noted this week, the single best anti-gun-death policy would be ending the drug war. It would save money, too, at a time when the government is broke.

Ah, yes, the government is broke. And nobody seems to have a plan to deal with it. No wonder they’d rather have us talking about gun control.

Yes, a diversion.

Rightly or wrongly, many people have been on edge about a second term for Obama (as if this was to be more feared than a first term for Romney). One of the concerns often raised was that he would take the guns from the people.

Too many are concerned about this, and too many are aware of the points raised in this column by Reynolds; because of this, I don’t anticipate much of substance will come from Biden’s task team (and, sadly, none of the appropriate steps as outlined by Reynolds in this editorial or by me here).

The uproar from mainstream Americans if significant government restrictions are proposed will be overwhelming, and will overwhelm the so-called opinion leaders.

In the meantime, I am happy to have met Professor Reynolds.

Reprinted with permission from the Bionic Mosquito.

What do I care about the terms and methods of elections, the rules that are supposed to be held between the general government and the states, the supposed separation of powers?  Of what use is any of this to me if protection of my property is not part of the deal?

For the purpose of the protection of my property, I will freely and gladly make pact with my neighbors, and fund that which is necessary to achieve this objective.  Call this government, or any other name you choose.  But if the Constitution is to be useful to me for anything, it would have been this.

Yet, there is not one single statement about this in the Constitution.  And this is the fatal flaw.  The flaw that exposes the document as one devised to enable the usurpation that has occurred from the beginning.

Reprinted with permission from the Bionic Mosquito.

Reprinted with permission from the Bionic Mosquito.

The title is taken from Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451. Unless otherwise noted, all identified quotations are sourced from here.

Here is the majority in action:

Taxing the rich remains a popular policy with the American people, according to a new poll by The Washington Post and ABC News.

Because it is determined by majority, this makes it appropriate? It seems at least one authority thinks not:

Exodus 20:17: You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Recently, Ron Paul identified the issue of envy as one of the two key human emotions that must be overcome if we are to have any sense of liberty and peace on this earth:

To achieve liberty and peace, two powerful human emotions have to be overcome. Number one is “envy” which leads to hate and class warfare.

― Ron Paul

Why speak of coveting and envy in a commentary about tyranny? It is because envy is the root, the seed that gives life to the tyranny of the majority. Democracy satisfies this covetous nature while sanitizing the evil — creating a false legitimacy to the end result of envy, that being theft and destruction.

Envy: a feeling of discontent or covetousness with regard to another’s advantages, success, possessions, etc.

Covet: to desire wrongfully, inordinately, or without due regard for the rights of others: to covet another’s property.

One cannot speak of “the rights of others” absent the rule of law. The concept of “rule of law” is meaningless unless at its root is property rights. Without protection of private property, what is the point of any formal structure known as government? It can only otherwise be theft and destruction, driven by envy and covetousness.

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

~ Thomas Jefferson

There is no rule of law in democracy — it ends up as rule of the majority against the minority. Consider this desire to tax the “rich.” What if the majority had other objectives in mind?

Sixty percent of poll respondents said they supported higher taxes on annual incomes above $250,000, with 37 percent opposed.

Sixty percent of poll respondents said they supported disallowing medical care on people over 68 years old, with 37 percent opposed.

Why not?

Policymakers in Washington are locked in a debate over weather [SIC] to increase the top marginal tax rate on incomes above $250,000, with President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats insisting the rate return to 39 percent and Republicans saying it should stay at 35 percent.

Policymakers in Washington are locked in a debate over whether to increase the age where health care will be disallowed, with President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats insisting on the age of 69 and Republicans saying it should be at 65 years of age.

Or 58, maybe?

Of course, the aim of a constitutional democracy is to safeguard the rights of the minority and avoid the tyranny of the majority. (p. 102)

~ Cornel West, Race Matters

I expect the advocates of minority rights to speak loudly and strongly against the abuse of the minority by the majority in this case of taxation. I’m still waiting….

People use democracy as a free-floating abstraction disconnected from reality. Democracy in and of itself is not necessarily good. Gang rape, after all, is democracy in action.

All men have the right to live their own life. Democracy must be rooted in a rational philosophy that first and foremost recognizes the right of an individual. A few million Imperial Order men screaming for the lives of a much smaller number of people in the New World may win a democratic vote, but it does not give them the right to those lives, or make their calls for such killing right.

Democracy is not a synonym for justice or for freedom. Democracy is not a sacred right sanctifying mob rule. Democracy is a principle that is subordinate to the inalienable rights of the individual.

~ Terry Goodkind, Naked Empire

Well said, Mr. Goodkind.

Reprinted with permission from the Bionic Mosquito.

In the early part of the 19th century Germany was still very much an agriculturally based and rural society, while England was well on its way to complete industrialization.

Höffner has researched that early heyday of printed material in Germany and reached a surprising conclusion – unlike neighboring England and France, Germany experienced an unparalleled explosion of knowledge in the 19th century.

German authors during this period wrote ceaselessly. Around 14,000 new publications appeared in a single year in 1843. Measured against population numbers at the time, this reaches nearly today’s level. And although novels were published as well, the majority of the works were academic papers.

Much of what was published in Germany during this time was technical, for example:

Sigismund Hermbstädt…a chemistry and pharmacy professor in Berlin, who has long since disappeared into the oblivion of history, earned more royalties for his "Principles of Leather Tanning" published in 1806 than British author Mary Shelley did for her horror novel "Frankenstein," which is still famous today.

In contrast to the situation in Germany, the volume of works published in England was rather miniscule:

Indeed, only 1,000 new works appeared annually in England at that time – 10 times fewer than in Germany – and this was not without consequences. Höffner believes it was the chronically weak book market that caused England, the colonial power, to fritter away its head start within the span of a century, while the underdeveloped agrarian state of Germany caught up rapidly, becoming an equally developed industrial nation by 1900.

England, which had almost a one century head start in industrialization, and a centuries-long advantage in international trade, was unable to maintain it superior industrial position as compared to Germany.

But it is the reason behind this, according to Höffner, that is the most interesting:

Authors, now guaranteed the rights to their own works, were often annoyed by this development. Heinrich Heine, for example, wrote to his publisher Julius Campe on October 24, 1854, in a rather acerbic mood: "Due to the tremendously high prices you have established, I will hardly see a second edition of the book anytime soon. But you must set lower prices, dear Campe, for otherwise I really don’t see why I was so lenient with my material interests."

As to the remuneration to authors for their work, Höffner indicates that authors in Germany enjoyed a higher relative income than did authors in England:

Germany: The average payment for a book was about a quarter up to an half of the yearly income of an academic member of the middle class. Many books on any topics were written, published and paid.

Reprinted with permission from the Bionic Mosquito.

Tom DiLorenzo is a well-known author for, among other things, his work regarding Abraham Lincoln. I have read and can highly recommend his two books regarding Lincoln, The Real Lincoln and Lincoln Unmasked.

This review is about neither of those fine books. The first book I read on the real Lincoln was written by Lerone Bennett, Jr., entitled Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln’s White Dream.

Lerone Bennett, Jr. (born 17 October 1928) is an African-American scholar, author and social historian, known for his revisionist analysis of race relations in the United States. His best-known works include Before the Mayflower and Forced into Glory.

He is most notable for his decades as executive editor for Ebony Magazine, to which he was promoted in 1958. It has served as his base for the publication of a steady stream of articles on African-American history, some of them collected into books.

Whereas DiLorenzo looks at a very broad view of Lincoln – issues regarding the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln’s purpose for the war, his views toward the slaves, violations of numerous Constitutional provisions, etc. – Bennett focuses on a small subset of these issues, primarily regarding Lincoln’s actions regarding the slaves. I will cover two of these: that of the Emancipation Proclamation, and that of Lincoln’s dream to deport the former slaves to a colony somewhere well away from the United States.

I was a child in whitest Mississippi, reading for my life, when I discovered that everything I had been told about Abraham Lincoln was a lie….for I discovered that I lived in an Orwellian world where scholars with all the degrees the schools could give could say in all seriousness that a separatist was an integrationist and that a White supremacist was the ultimate symbol of race relations and the American Dream.

Lincoln or somebody said once that you can’t fool all of the people all the time. By turning a racist who wanted to deport all Blacks into a national symbol of integration and brotherhood, the Lincoln mythmakers have managed to prove Lincoln or whoever said it wrong. This is the story of how they fooled all of the people all the time and why.

These excerpts from the preface to the original version give some idea of the passion that Bennett brings to this subject. It is not a blind passion, as he has provided footnotes and cited dozens of works as support for his positions.

The Most Famous Act in U.S. History Never Happened

This is how Bennett introduces his readers to the Emancipation Proclamation. He describes the “mythology” of this act.

The testimony of sixteen thousand books and monographs to the contrary notwithstanding, Lincoln did not emancipate the slave, greatly or otherwise…. John Hume, the Missouri anti-slavery leader…said the Proclamation “did not…whatever it may have otherwise accomplished at the time it was issued, liberate a single slave.”

…Lincoln himself knew that his most famous act would not of itself free a single Negro. The second and most damaging point is that “the great emancipator” did not intend for it to free a single Negro, for he carefully, deliberately, studiously excluded all Negroes within “our military reach.”

What Lincoln did – and it was so clever that we ought to stop calling him honest Abe – was to “free” slaves in Confederate-held territory where he couldn’t free them and to leave them in slavery in Union-held territory where he could have freed them.

Bennett points out that the wording and intent of the proclamation was crafted to keep as many slaves as possible in slavery until he could mobilize support for his plan to ship Blacks out of the country. The Proclamation wasn’t the end, but the means to an end – that of freeing the United States of the Negro.

Lincoln’s proclamation did not go as far as the Second Confiscation Act, passed by Congress in July, 1862 – several months before the famous proclamation. One day before Congress’s Act was to go into effect, Lincoln signed the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, effectively nullifying Congress’s Act.

In the spring of 1862, Lincoln sat on the District of Columbia emancipation bill for two nights, in order that his friend would have time to leave town with two of his slaves. Lincoln lamented the emancipation of District slaves, at it would deprive families of cooks and stable boys.

Such were the actions of the great emancipator.

Linconia: The Fantasy Plan for Banishing Blacks

In five major policy declarations, including two State of the Union addresses and the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, the sixteenth president of the United States publicly and officially called for the deportation of Blacks….it was, in fact, the only racial solution he ever had….

Navy Secretary Gideon Welles recounts the pressure Lincoln brought from the beginning of his Administration regarding developing plans to deport the to-be-freed slaves: “Almost from the beginning of this administration the subject of deporting the colored race has been discussed.”

In his first State of the Union Message, Lincoln didn’t mention emancipation, but he mentioned Negro removal and urged that steps be taken for colonizing Blacks freed by Congress or acts of war “at some place, or places, in a climate congenial to them.”

Bennett demonstrates where Lincoln’s priorities were regarding the question of Blacks and slaves in the United States. Additionally, it should be noted that Lincoln believed Blacks had to live only in tropical climates….

Welles was pressured to enter into a coal contract to mine coal in the Panamanian Isthmus – a contract that would provide work for the Negroes Lincoln hoped to deport.

We all know of the Thirteenth Amendment, officially outlawing slavery and involuntary servitude. Bennett recounts two earlier Thirteenth amendments, both supported by Lincoln, neither of which (obviously) successfully amended the Constitution.

The first of these was passed by Congress and sent to the states – ratified by Ohio and Maryland before the process was short-circuited by the firing at Fort Sumter. This amendment would have permanently made America half slave and half free.

I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution….has passed Congress, to the effect that the federal government, shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the states, including that of persons held to service…. I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.

The second Thirteenth amendment, proposed by Lincoln but never approved by Congress, was the first of three amendments Lincoln proposed for buying and deporting native-born African-Americans.

Bennett provides so much more in this book of over 600 pages – all of it focused on exploding the myth that Lincoln was the friend of the slave, the great emancipator, and the champion of equal rights. It is difficult to read Bennett’s volume and not come away feeling that Bennett was successful in his task.

Reprinted with permission from the Bionic Mosquito.