As a true man of the Enlightenment, in his parlor at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson had portraits of the men whom he considered the three greatest men who had ever lived: Sir Francis Bacon, Sir Issac Newton, and John Locke.

There is a vast amount of specialized interdisciplinary academic studies on the origins of modern science, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and their roots in esoteric knowledge and occult traditions with the religious, philosophical and political implications which are largely unknown to the general public. These scholarly works have revolutionized and transformed how we view the history of the past 500 years and the beginnings of the Modern Age to the present.

LRC readers should begin with the magisterial works of Dame Frances Yates, followed by this powerful volume by D.P. Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic: From Ficino to Campanella.

Next I recommend these four illuminating books by Stephen McKnight: Sacralizing the Secular: The Renaissance Origins of Modernity; The Modern Age and the Recovery of Ancient Wisdom: A Reconsideration of Historical Consciousness, 1450-1650; The Religious Foundations of Francis Bacon’s Thought; and Science, Pseudo-Science, and Utopianism in Early Modern Thought. 

Then consult this controversial work exposing centuries of Neoplatonic-Hermetic intrigue, The Occult Renaissance Church of Rome, by revisionist historian Michael Hoffman.

The essential, authoritative book in understanding how these ideas impacted political revolutions, from the French Revolution in 1789 to the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, is Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith.  It was written by James H. Billington, the former Librarian of Congress, and is truly one of the great scholarly works of the 20th Century. Here is an introduction and overview of the book by the author, and here it is in .pdf format.

Sir Francis Bacon

“The status and reputation of Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626) is one of the great puzzles in the history of social thought. What had he actually accomplished to warrant all the accolades? Essentially, he was the metaempiricist, the head coach and cheerleader of fact grubbing, exhorting other people to gather all the facts,” writes Murray N. Rothbard. (audio version).

Bacon Masonry, by George V. Tudhope 

“Francis Bacon’s God,” by Stephen McKnight

Sir Issac Newton

Religious views of Isaac Newton (like Thomas Jefferson, Newton was not a Trinitarian, but essentially an Arian or Unitarian).

(Murray Rothbard’s father David, named him after the great scientist Sir Issac Newton)

John Locke

Liberty and Property: the Levellers and Locke, by Murray Newton Rothbard

“John Locke: Deist or Theologian?”

Finally let us turn to the United States and the ideological or intellectual background to its Founding.

One of the most important books written on the American Revolution in the last century is The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn. (.pdf format) It won both the Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize. Through its focus on the transatlantic influence of republican ideology, Ideological Origins put ideas back at the center of the revolutionary narrative. In doing so, it helped spark an unprecedented burst of scholarship on the intellectual history of the origins of the Revolution that lasted for nearly two decades and whose influence lives on.

One cannot fully study the American Founding and the Founding Fathers without examining the arcane subject of Freemasonry and its substantial impact upon these men and events. The place to begin is CONSPIRACY IN PHILADELPHIA: Origins of the United States Constitution, by Dr. Gary North, followed by Revolutionary Brotherhood: Freemasonry and the Transformation of the American Social Order, 1730-1840, by Steven C. Bullock; Living the Enlightenment: Freemasonry and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Europe, and The Radical Enlightenment – Pantheists, Freemasons and Republicans, by Margaret C. Jacob; and The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook, by Niall Ferguson.

Highly recommended is the outstanding volume, Gnostic America: A Reading of Contemporary American Culture & Religion according to Christianity’s Oldest Heresy, by Peter M Burfeind. The author’s acquaintance with the scholarship of Murray N. Rothbard is both very refreshing and commendable.

Election day is fast approaching. Most conservative Christians think it is their civic duty to vote. Voter guides are being distributed at churches and congregations are being urged to “vote right,” meaning, “vote correctly.” What no one says, but everyone means, is “vote Republican.” The 11th commandment, according to most conservative Christians, is “Thou shalt not vote for a Democrat.” Although I am a conservative Christian, I dissent. Why? Because I have actually examined the Republican record. My conclusion? The Republicans are just as evil as the Democrats. Actually, they are worse because they talk about the Constitution, the free market, and limited government while believing nothing of the kind.

So, Mr. Conservative Christian, before you vote Republican on Nov. 6th to keep those evil Democrats out of office or because, God forbid, you actually think the Republicans are going to do something good for a change, then at least read my many articles on the Republican Party before you waste your time.

Opening statement:
The Saudis have been murdering journalists, murdering dissents for decades. They’ve been doing it at a heightened rate for the last two years…The Obama administration was arming the Saudis in order to create the worst humanitarian crisis in Yemen by slaughtering civilians by the thousands and imposing famine conditions on millions. The Trump administration has done the same.

The reason people in Washington suddenly decided they’re angry about Saudi Arabia is because this time their victim is somebody who they ran into in Washington restaurants and who was popular in Washington social circles. That’s the reality. They didn’t care at all when the victims of Saudi Arabia by the hundreds of thousands were people that they didn’t like or care (about). This time they killed one of their friends.

Yes, it is a horrible thing that the Saudis killed that journalist. I keep hearing people talk about how his family must be grieving over his death. Yet, hardly anyone gets upset when the Saudis execute drug dealers or kill people in Yemen. And no one gets upset when the U.S. kills people all over the world via drone, bombs, or bullets. They have grieving families too you know.

Democrats are once again calling for the abolition of the Electoral College. Doing so would be to their advantage during presidential elections. Republicans are generally opposing this scheme. But knowing Republicans as we do, never forget that if abolishing the Electoral College would favor the Republicans in presidential elections, they would be the ones calling for its abolition and Democrats would be the defenders of the Constitution.

By referring to Nimrata Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, as “the next president of the United States” at the Al Smith dinner in NYC.  Because her rhetoric  is even more unhinged and bloodthirsty than even John McCain’s, she is naturally the heartthrob of neocon warmongering imperialists everywhere.

For 25 years in my high school Economics classes we have focused upon the heroic stories of dozens of American entrepreneurs and how they transformed society. Here is an amazing article from The Washington Post, “Sears’s ‘radical’ past: How mail-order catalogues subverted the racial hierarchy of Jim Crow,” which will provide LRC readers with even further historical evidence of how capitalism fosters a more harmonious, pluralistic society based upon free exchange; while statism engenders racial and ethnocultural division, hostility, animosity, and intolerance.

Each year my students view a wonderful six part series of documentary films, The Entrepreneurs: An American Adventure, hosted by Robert Mitchum, which brings a living history into the classroom and creates a visual journey to educate and inspire a new generation of entrepreneurs. (Unfortunately this series is not available online.) In addition we focus upon other innovators and entrepreneurs who dramatically impacted the information and communications industries such as Mary Pickford, Lucille Ball, David Sarnoff, Ted Turner, Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

HT to my colleague Ryan C. Underwood for making me aware of this powerful article on Sears.

August 15, 1971 marked the ominous day when economic fascism formally came to the United States. It was for these draconian actions that the bastard Richard Nixon should have been impeached, not the trumped up charges relating to Watergate.

Economist Murray N. Rothbard lays out the prophetic devastating consequences of Nixon’s fascistic policies implemented on that day in breaking the last ties to the gold standard sustaining the American dollar, initiating decades of a destructive fiat paper currency without any backing except the duplicitous promises of politicians regarding the full faith and credit of the US welfare-warfare State. Wage and price controls were also implemented breaking all semblance with a free market pricing system in favor of centralized collectivist management of the economy.

But on that day there were two little known unforeseen consequences that later had significant impact.

A young Texas OB/GYN physician watched in horror Nixon’s speech on television. This prompted his entrance into politics, becoming the most outstanding congressional figure in American history in defense of individual liberty, the Constitution’s rights and safeguards of the people, a non-interventionist foreign policy of prudential diplomacy and the avoidance of divisive conflicts of unconstitutional wars of aggression. His name is Ron Paul.

In another locale in the US, a group of young Colorado citizens also viewed Nixon’s speech. Their determined reaction, spearheaded by one of them, David F. Nolan, led to the formation of the Libertarian Party, which later under the impetus of Murray Rothbard, Ron Paul, and millions of dedicated supporters and acolytes created a vast nation-wide movement for the restoration of freedom, justice, human rights and dignity for the individual, which continues to this day.

This website is also a product of the fall-out and wake of that dark day, and the reaction Nixon let loose upon the world.

Joe Martino’s article today publicizes a very important fact: The Atlantic Council is influencing Facebook’s censorship targets.

Facebook joined up with the Atlantic Council [AC] in May of this year:

“Experts from their [AC’s] Digital Forensic Research Lab will work closely with our [Facebook’s] security, policy and product teams to get Facebook real-time insights and updates on emerging threats and disinformation campaigns from around the world.”

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Remember Rachel Dolezal, the young white girl who claimed to be black because she had a bit of a suntan and curly brown hair, an African cornrow hairdo, and was employed by a local NAACP organization?  Her gig was up when both of her white parents outed her as a white girl.  She and Elizabeth Warren are ideological soul sisters in that they both repudiate Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous admonition that he hoped his children and grandchildren would be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.  Not for Warren and Dolezol. No sir.  Like all other American socialists today they believe that character, behavior, and merit are nothing compared to being associated with one of the Left’s Official Victim Groups.  Warren apparently believes that this is so important that the fact that there may be a one-in-a-million chance that one of her ancesters six, seven, or ten generations ago may have copulated with and American Indian — and not anything she has done in her life — establishes her as a legitimate candidate for the job of president of the United States.

Year-end data from the September 2018 Monthly Treasury Statement of Receipts and Outlays of the U.S. Government show that the deficit for fiscal year 2018 was $779 billion. The federal government spent $4,107.7 billion in fiscal year 2018 (which ended on Sept. 30, 2018), including $600 billion for defense offense (which is actually much higher if all “defense”-related spending is counted). The Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House. They are 100% to blame for the profligate spending. Republicans are big spenders just like Democrats. The only limited government they seek is a government limited to control by Republicans.

Assume that the 1/512 number is accurate as to Warren’s American Indian (also called Native American) genetic inheritance. Percentage-wise, this is 0.001953 or 0.1953 percent or almost 0.2 of 1 percent. That’s two-tenths of one percent, or one-fifth of one percent. This, however, is almost exactly what the average is for European-Americans.

Let’s compare that to the Native American percent found in other Americans. Ballpark figures will do. All data can be criticized, and we have no need for exactitude here.

An article in Science from 2014 tells us that Latinos “carry an average of 18% Native American ancestry”. The average African-American genome contains 0.8 percent Native American ancestry.

The Science article summarizes a technical study. From the latter, we find the average Native American ancestry of European-Americans. There are two estimates, based upon “genome-wide” and “X chromosome”. These are 0.18 percent and 0.22 percent, respectively. Their average is 0.2 percent, which is, for all our practical purposes, precisely what has been reported of Elizabeth Warren.

Therefore, Warren cannot even claim that her tiny Native American ancestry is anything special or exceptional. If we chose a random sample of Americans of European ancestry, we would find the same result as long as the sample was large enough to reduce sampling error.

“Mohammed bin Salman, who seems to be running Saudi Arabia these days, is one of the bad guys. If he were a good guy, he wouldn’t have attacked his neighboring country, Yemen. He wouldn’t be committing war crimes there in conjunction with vital U.S. support. If he were a good guy, he’d respect not only the rights of females but also the rights of everyone else.” (November 24, 2017)

“In his tour of America, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) has started to do some real damage to truth and us, as he shapes public opinion. His weapon is the rhetoric of falsehood. He has come here with antagonism in his heart and war-making on his mind. He has come to knot the U.S. government even more firmly to Saudi Arabia than it already is. Who will counter the falsehoods he has begun to spread?” (April 3, 2018)

The Establishment media refused to call Salman a bad guy. For example, see Thomas Friedman in the New York Times. His piece, filled with effusive praise of Salman’s reforms, relegated criticism of his Yemen war crimes to a passing phrase “a humanitarian nightmare”, in the 28th paragraph down. And that paragraph has Salman celebrating 85% Saudi-backed control with Friedman calling for 100%.

Salman’s image was built up through a public relations and propaganda campaign. He was sold as a good guy, which he is not. Most Americans who care about these things are not buying. They associate Saudi Arabia with 9/11, as well they should. Powerful allegations accuse the CIA of not having prevented 9/11 even though they could have.

The murder of Jamal Kashoggi is now generating commentary that’s highly critical of bin Salman. This assassination damages the propaganda campaign that’s been supporting an Israeli-Saudi-American axis against Iran. Perhaps disaffection with the Saudis will hasten the time when U.S. politicians find the conditions right to take on the CIA and bring to light the 9/11 coverup.

Unbelievable, but that’s the actual title.  Here’s the opening:

I yelled at my husband last night. Not pick-up-your-socks yell. Not how-could-you-ignore-that-red-light yell. This was real yelling. This was 30 minutes of from-the-gut yelling. Triggered by a small, thoughtless, dismissive, annoyed, patronizing comment. Really small. A micro-wave that triggered a hurricane. I blew. Hard and fast…I announced that I hate all men and wish all men were dead.

Once could guess that bigoted generalizations are a positive iteration in the evolution of progressives, at least since they eugenocided 65,000 Americans, targeting mostly women, last century in their sterilization program that inspired the German National Socialists who copied and implemented it big time.

One of the most interesting aspects of a second term of Donald Trump (if it happens) will be seeing the level of hysteria to which these people will be driven.  Imagine them after two more Supreme Court vacancies. 🙂

Chris, I reviewed Nancy McLean’s grossly dishonest, sloppy, left-wing temper tantrum disguised as “meticulous scholarship” (as the Marxist reviewer you cite calls it) in the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics.

As a graduate student of James Buchanan’s at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in the ’70s I am rather uniquely qualified to sift through this mountain of falsehoods, deceptions, and downright silliness.

Libertarians deplore Antifa, as it is an organization wedded to violent tactics. Antifa’s violence strengthens the State and police forces, whom the people, rightfully fearful of disorder, turn to for security and stability, there being no other established institutions to insure them.

Anti-state or Antista must be sharply distinguished from Antifa. Antista looks toward the diminishment of the State’s powers, accomplished by peaceful means. There is to be no violent revolution. Murray Rothbard stressed the educational focus of the libertarian:

“It becomes, therefore, a prime libertarian task to discover, coalesce, nurture, and advance its cadre — a task of which all too many libertarians remain completely ignorant. For no amount of oppression or misery will lead to a successful movement for freedom unless such a cadre exists and is able to educate and rally the intellectuals and the general public.”

Antifa consists of branches scattered geographically whose adherents decide on their own actions. The objective connecting their supporters is anti-fascism. The tactics connecting their participants are violent. The Wikipedia description (footnotes omitted) gets us in the ballpark:

“The Antifa movement is a conglomeration of left wing autonomous, self-styled anti-fascist militant groups in the United States. The principal feature of antifa groups is their use of direct action, harassing those whom they identify as fascists, racists or right wing extremists. Conflicts are both online and in real life.

“They engage in varied protest tactics, which include digital activism, property damage and physical violence. They tend to be anti-capitalist and they are predominantly far-left and militant left, which includes anarchists, communists and socialists. Their stated focus is on fighting far-right and white supremacist ideologies directly, rather than politically.”

Antifa members recently vandalized the Metropolitan Republican Club in Manhattan. They left behind a one-page manifesto, available at the linked Breitbart report, that strongly attacks the U.S. government, the Republican Party and “The Democrats”. In some instances, the charges in this brief indictment coincide with those leveled by libertarians. They mention the “war machine”, “incarceration rates”, police brutality, the private prison industry, and government terror activities.

The Antifa objective that’s stated in this letter is an end to “American barbarism”. What should replace the state is not spelled out. If we could delve into the predominant political philosophy of Antifa adherents, it would probably be socialist/communist anarchism. This philosophy is completely unworkable. It falls apart even on a small scale.

The violent tactics of Antifa will surely elicit repression by existing state authorities; and their violence will alienate vast numbers of Americans, the very people whose eventual support is needed to change America’s political system. Sadly, Antifa is finding acceptance, even support, at university campuses. Antifa’s violence against the right-wing is being reinforced by an outpouring of violent anti-Trump exhortations from Hollywood and entertainment notables. Lately, a handful of black Democratic politicians has raised the level of their rhetoric. Hillary Clinton is the latest Democrat to board this bandwagon.

Anti-statist intellectuals and libertarians may agree with Antifa members on some counts of the indictment against our government. The reasons for our condemnation, the intellectual grounds, differ radically from those of communist anarchists. Our reasons are rooted in principles of self-ownership, homesteading and property rights that are completely alien to the very opposite communist anarchist ideas. Libertarian principles condemn using violent tactics, except under conditions of self-defense. The latter requirements are stringent. Libertarians do not promote taking the law into one’s own hands.

Within the array of libertarian organizations and among the thousands of articles penned over the past 50 years or so, one would be hard put to find any prominent case being made in support of violent tactics.

Any coincidence of the libertarian critique of government with that of Antifa does not imply a coincidence in the philosophies of the two: Antista is not Antifa.

He’s “the Economist Behind the One Percent’s Stealth Takeover of America.”

Buchanan observes that public servants have the same nasty self-interest that Marxists insist belong only to the Capitalist class. Shame on him for broadcasting such sinful propaganda about Party members! He thinks that people should pay for things we would give them for free, if we could only come  to power!

The American Left has become increasingly violent.  It has already shot  Republican congressman Steve Scalise at a baseball game and nearly killed Rand Paul with a blindsided physical attack, bludgeoned peaceful Trump supporters, vandalized buildings, set public buildings on fire, thrown bricks and bottles filled with urine at police (the Hitler Youth wing of the Democrat Party, mostly), sent death threats to Republican congressmen and their spouses, threatened the president’s young son, called for the assassination of the president, and more.

AOL News added fuel to the flames of leftist nutjob violence this morning by publishing an article complaining that too much money is being spent on security for the president.  I suppose it would make AOL executives (including former Clinton and Obama political hacks) happy if, as a cost-saving measure, the president rides around in an open-air convertable from Hertz Rent-a-Car the next time he visits Dallas.

Nikki Haley has resigned. You could not find a more extreme, abrasive, undiplomatic, dangerous Trump appointment, unless it be John Bolton.

Yet the media commentators, many of them, characterize her as moderate and think she’s done a great job. For an opposing view, see today’s article on LRC by Caitlin Johnstone.

Haley’s resignation is not at all unusual for UN ambassadors from the U.S. Of the 29 ambassadors so far, 21 occupied the post for about 2 years or less.
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Believe it or not, some people in Paris are questioning the All-Cultures-Are-Created-Equal mantra of cultural Marxism.

First, congratulations to Professor Walter Block of Loyola University New Orleans upon publishing his 100th peer-reviewed article with a student (or students) coauthor.  It’s unlikely that any other faculty member at that university has published 50 articles in his or her entire career, let alone just with student coauthors.

Second, congratulations also, Walter, on the apparent boycott of your classes by the dumbest of the dumb among the student body who have been instructed by Marxist faculty there, including the university president, that free-market economics, libertarianism, and freedom in general are “racist” and “sexist,” the mating call of brainless campus Marxists everywhere.  You now do not need to waste your time on these young dimwits who have been swindled out of their education by conniving faculty and administrators who have convinced them to be “protesters” and left-wing loudmouths (like themselves) instead of students.  You can now devote more time and energy to the genuine students who are eager to learn from you, to co-author more articles in the future, and to not waste their parents’ money.

Walter Block has reached an amazing milestone. He is dedicated to his students, and I have often marveled at the way students throng around him whenever he is at Mises University. He is also one of the most prolific economists of our time. He often co-authors papers with students, and these now number 100 peer-reviewed contributions. For anyone else, to publish 100 peer-reviewed articles would be the achievement of a lifetime, but for him, this is only the number he has co-authored with students.  Congratulations to this great champion of liberty.