We certainly live in a post-truth age. This term, post-truth, apparently came to the fore during Brexit and Trump, presumably describing how these two episodes succeeded, via “post” truth. We can basically see that the West – and most significantly, the US – is divided in two camps that clearly believe the other is living in a world of post-truth. Call these lies.
Russia gate, Ukraine, impeachment, Biden laptop computers, Covid, Clinton Foundation, voting machines, 4 AM vanloads of ballots. This is just the last four years. We each have a truth about each one of these; we cannot all be right.
Certain episodes are investigated, others are not. Why?
Was the US election clean?
Is the US and UK getting their COVID response right?
How should we regard climate change?
How can we know?
I responded:
Simple: Cui Bono. Who benefits? Centralized power and authority or decentralized power and authority? Those in power want more power; those in control want more control. This is one way to know the truth on each of these subjects.
Those who want more power and control aren’t after more power and control for my benefit or the benefit of anyone listening to these videos or commenting here.
Political leaders and business leaders prefer centralized power. Truth is irrelevant in this pursuit. If lies are necessary in this pursuit, they will lie. We see the marriage of these two in this cause.
But lies are always necessary in this pursuit of centralizing power. Insufficient numbers will allow increased authoritarianism without being fed lies.
Neither the media nor the Department of Justice are acting in their appropriate role – pursuing truth in pursuit of justice.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, it did so relatively peacefully. Perhaps most people in the Soviet Union knew that they were being fed lies, hence, no conflict.
I don’t think the West will be as fortunate. Each side is convinced the other is lying. Neither is able to let go of this.
Twitter, Google, Facebook, and others are frequently guilty of leftwing bias in their treatment of comments, internet searches, and publication of content in general, for which behavior they are frequently denounced as guilty of “censorship.”
Actually, while private individuals and companies can do intellectually detestable things, they cannot commit censorship.
Censorship is possible only when a writer or speaker has the agreement of the owner of a publishing venue to present his ideas. If he has that agreement and is stopped from presenting his ideas by the government, or by private individuals acting with the sanction of the government, such as disrupters whom the police refuse to arrest preventing him from being heard, then there is censorship.
To make the same point in different words, if the detestable New York Times refuses to publish me, or even acknowledge my existence, that is not censorship. Censorship exists if they were willing to publish me but were stopped by the government or a government-sanctioned gang.
The way to deal with Twitter et al. is by means of one or more counter websites that are willing to publish what Twitter et al. hide. This would both deprive them of any ability to block content and also seriously tarnish their reputations if they did not change their behavior.
There are many concrete problems that would need to be worked out in launching such a website. But here’s a possible name and a slogan for one such site: “Can’t find what you’re looking for in Google? Try ‘Second Search.’ We feature what Google hides.”
The problems in starting such a website are numerous and large. But they do not include having to compete across the board with the leftist sites. The area of competition is only where the leftist sites are guilty of intellectual dishonesty.
And then it is essentially just a matter of showing what they’ve tried to hide.
Editor’s Note: Alternatives to Google are Duck Duck Go, and to Twitter, there is now Parler.If you found value from this article please share it on social media.
Decisive (but not widespread) election fraud occurred on November 3:
Starting in 1997, Smartmatic systems were developed in Venezuela with porous security and built-in functionality permitting precinct administrators to override security features it appeared to incorporate. Among the extraordinary privileges it gave administrators were abilities:
to shave votes continuously from one candidate to another;
to batch ballots for later “adjudication” but whichinstead became a pool of votes that the administrator could simply assign to the candidate of choice;
to generate blank ballots.
Through a series of licensing agreements, bankruptcies, and corporate mergers and acquisitions, that code ended up in various US election systems (e.g., Dominion, ES&S) which (branding aside) still derive from Smartmatic (a.k.a. Sequoia). Thus, they brought to US elections not only the generous functionalities permitting manipulation by administrators, but porous security, extending such powers to those abroad.[i]
Since 2006 the fact that systems developed for Hugo Chavez were managing any US elections began striking some prescient Americans as unfortunate.[ii] Their trepidation was well-placed: on November 3, 2020 those systems were used strategically & aggressively to rig our election.
It was strategic in that it was not “widespread” but targeted at six locations[iii] which, if flipped, also would flip the swing states in which they are found (and thus, the electoral college);
It was aggressive for the simple reason that Trump broke their algorithm, because he was on his way to a win that exceeded their ability to overcome through minor cheats alone. It is for that reason that in those six locations the bad guys went full-on-goon (e.g., thugs intimidating observers, newspapers taped over windows, “water main breaks” shutting down counting then immediately reopened once Republican observers had departed, etc.)
The evidence[iv] backing these claims is found in three forms that dovetail perfectly;
Documentation of the extraordinary privileges Dominion provides administrators;
Affidavits describing voters’ and workers’ experiences that match exactly what they would experience in precincts being gooned by the measures I describe;[v]
Data (such as that below) expressing outrageous statistical oddities (e.g., strings of thousands of sequential Biden votes that occur with quadrillion-to-1 improbability, ballot processing spikes at velocities that were physically impossible given available site equipment) that coincide with windows of intense intimidation of and interference with those observing the voting and counting.
In each of several swing states Biden achieved a come-from-behind victory with a margin in the tens-of-thousands of votes thanks to getting hundreds of thousands of votes through these measures.
Conclusion: Election 2020 was badly compromised: it is an egg that can’t be unscrambled.
Dominions machines have glaring design flaws making them vulnerable to hacking. The machines have a slot on their motherboards that should be sealed with glue, but instead is left open: anyone with physical access to the machines can slide in the right chip for a few seconds, and that machine is thereafter completely compromised. In addition, there are R232 ports which would allow someone who accesses that port to connect and get root-level access to the machine without a password.
Dominion’s servers are widely infected with QSnatch malware (see “CISA says 62,000 QNAP NAS devices have been infected with the QSnatch malware”, ZDNet, July 27, 2020). As poll-workers (e.g., administrators) log-in, QSnatch steals their credentials. Thus not only can administrators override (with no audit trail) election security in a precinct, so can anyone who steals those credentials (which, given the ubiquity of QSnatch on Dominion servers, happens everywhere). Dominion sends out software patches that continuously (deliberately?) allow QSnatch to beat their patches.
[ii] In a 2006 New York Times article (“U.S. Investigates Voting Machines’ Venezuela Ties”), Brad Golden wrote:
“The federal government is investigating the takeover last year of a leading American manufacturer of electronic voting systems by a small software company that has been linked to the leftist Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chávez. The inquiry is focusing on the Venezuelan owners of the software company, the Smartmatic Corporation, and is trying to determine whether the government in Caracas has any control or influence over the firm’s operations…”
In 2008, VoterAction (an activist group based in Massachusetts and Washington State) issued a public report (“SEQUOIA VOTING SYSTEMS, INC. USES VOTE-COUNTING SOFTWARE DEVELOPED, OWNED, AND LICENSED BY FOREIGN-OWNED SMARTMATIC, A COMPANY LINKED TO THE VENEZUELAN GOVERNMENT OF HUGO CHÁVEZ”) where they noted:
“U.S. national security is potentially at risk because software used to count votes in 20% of the country during U.S. elections is owned and controlled by a Venezuelan-run company with ties to the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chávez,1 which has been described as ‘the foremost meddler in foreign elections in the Western hemisphere.’2 Foreign-owned and foreign-run Smartmatic’s control over vote counting software used in the voting machines of Sequoia Voting Systems… presents a potential national security risk now just as it did in 2006 when the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS”) opened an investigation of Smartmatic’s ownership of Sequoia.3 CFIUS is a U.S. government inter-agency committee led by the U.S. Department of Treasury that addresses national security risks posed by foreign ownership of or influence over U.S. business, including companies providing the means by which voters in the U.S. elect their President and Congressional Representatives.4 Rather than answer to CFIUS regarding the ultimate owners of the Smartmatic conglomerate5 and its ties to the Chávez government, an investment group led by Sequoia management reportedly bought Sequoia from Smartmatic in late 2007 under terms that were not made public.6 Since then, however, it has come to light that Smartmatic continues to own the software that counts the votes on Sequoia voting machines and licenses to Sequoia that software, which Smartmatic develops in Venezuela.7 Concern, now, is that Smartmatic’s sale of Sequoia “was fraudulent”,8 “a sham transaction designed to fool regulators.”9 Efforts to date have not succeeded in determining the ultimate owners of Smartmatic or the extent to which Smartmatic and the Chávez government of Venezuela have influence over U.S. elections through Smartmatic’s control of the software that counts votes for Sequoia voting machines…”
[iii] Atlanta, Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee, Maricopa County Arizona (Greater Phoenix), Clark County Nevada (Greater Las Vegas).
[iv] Due to my impatience waiting for these facts to bubble up through legal proceedings, and due to the extraordinary nature of the circumstances, I felt it was appropriate to create on article and get it live as soon as possible in order to make the Big Picture available to the public, then add charts and links and other evidence as time and opportunity allowed. As a result, I first posted this essay on the evening of Monday, November 23 and since then have been adducing further evidence since then. That way there will be one article that both tells the story succinctly, yet also gathers in one place much detail backing my claims.
[v] By way of example: Sharpie/Bic switcheroos experienced in Maricopa precincts reflect a wish to generate a large pool of “adjudicated ballots” for administrators, who could drag-and-drop them later to Candidate Biden.
Thanksgiving celebrates man’s ability to produce. The cornucopia filled with exotic flowers and delicious fruits, the savory turkey with aromatic trimmings, the mouth-watering pies, the colorful decorations — it’s all a testament to the creation of wealth.
Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday, because this country was the first to create and to value material abundance. It is America that has been the beacon for anyone wanting to escape from poverty and misery. It is America that generated the unprecedented flood of goods that washed away centuries of privation. It is America, by establishing the precondition of production — political freedom — that was able to unleash the dynamic, productive energy of its citizens.
This should be a source of pride to every self-supporting individual. It is what Thanksgiving is designed to commemorate. But there are those, motivated by hatred for human comfort and happiness, who want to make Thanksgiving into a day of national guilt. We should be ashamed, they say, for consuming a disproportionate share of the world’s food supply. Our affluence, they say, constitutes a depletion of the “planet’s resources.” The building of dams, the use of fossil fuels, the driving of sports utility vehicles — they insist — are cause, not for celebration, but for atonement. What if, they all wail, the rest of the world consumed the way Americans do?
If only that were to happen — we would have an Atlantis. For it would mean that the production of wealth would have multiplied. Man can consume only what he first produces. All production is an act of creation. It is the creation of wealth where nothing before existed — nothing useful to man. America transformed a once-desolate wilderness into farms, supermarkets and air-conditioned houses, not by taking those goods away from some have-nots, nor by “consuming” the “world’s resources” — but by reshaping valueless elements of nature into a form beneficial to human beings.
Since human survival is not automatic, man’s life depends on successful production. From food and clothing to science and art, every act of production requires thought. And the greater the creation, the greater is the required thinking.
This virtue of productiveness is what Thanksgiving is supposed to recognize. Sadly, this is a virtue rejected not only by the attackers of this holiday, but by its alleged defenders as well.
Many Americans make Thanksgiving into a religious festival. They agree with Lincoln, who, upon declaring Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, said that “we have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven.” They ascribe our material abundance to God’s efforts, not man’s.
That view is a slap in the face of any person who has worked an honest day in his life. The appropriate values for this holiday are not faith and charity, but thought and production. The proper thanks for one’s wealth goes not to some mystical deity but to oneself, if one has earned that wealth.
The liberal tells us that the food on our Thanksgiving plate is the result of mindless, meaningless labor. The conservative tells us that it is the result of supernatural grace. Neither believes that it represents an individual’s achievement.
But wealth is not generated by sheer muscle; India, for example, has far more manual laborers than does the United States. Nor is it generated by praying for God’s blessing; Iran, for example, is far more religious. If the liberal and conservative views of wealth are correct, why aren’t those countries awash in riches?
Wealth is the result of individual thought and effort. And each individual is morally entitled to keep, and enjoy, the consequences of such thought and effort. He should not feel guilty for his own success, or for the failures of others.
There is a spiritual need fed by the elaborate meal, fine china and crystal, and the presence of cherished guests. It is the self-esteem that a productive person feels at the realization that his thinking and energy have made consumption possible.
Come Thanksgiving Day, when some success-hating commentator condemns America for being the world’s leading consumer, tell him that he is evading the underlying fact: that this country is the world’s leading producer. And then, as you sit down to dinner, celebrate the spiritual significance of the holiday by raising a toast to the virtue of your own productive ability and to America’s productive giants, past and present.
There is one light shining through the darkness of the ever-increasing tyranny under which we live. That light is libertarianism. We must continue doing everything we can not only to keep that light lit, but also to increase its intensity and brightness. That’s what we are doing at The Future of Freedom Foundation. I am writing to seek your generous end-of-year donation to assist us in this endeavor and especially in our efforts to advance liberty in the coming year.
Libertarianism is the grandest, most glorious, and most noble political and economic philosophy in history. It enables people to live their lives the way they want, so long as their conduct is peaceful. It raises people’s standards of living. It harmonizes people’s interests and activities. It enables people to pursue happiness, each in his own way. It is a philosophy of private property, free markets, economic liberty, sound money, civil liberties, gun rights, and limited government. Libertarianism raises the consciousness of a society through voluntary charity. It strengthens family values.
Compare libertarianism to the welfare-warfare statism that has besieged America for more than a century. Operating through the IRS, one of the most tyrannical agencies in U.S. history, the government plunders the citizenry and doles out the loot to others. It makes people hopelessly dependent on government largess. The government punishes people for ingesting unapproved substances, oftentimes through racially bigoted enforcement. It jails people who travel to unapproved places and spend their own money in unapproved ways. It controls their economic activity. It prohibits people from freely trading with others. It incarcerates people for associating with unapproved people. It detains people indefinitely and kidnaps, tortures, assassinates, and executes some, all without due process of law and trial by jury. It invades, bombs, and engages in political bribery. It imposes mass secret surveillance on the citizenry. There is also the ever-growing debt and debasement of the currency to consider. Moreover, all this tyranny was occurring before the coronavirus crisis, which has only magnified the oppression under which we live.
This is not what America is supposed to be all about. It’s not what freedom is all about. The good news is that the worse things get, the more people begin to think, ponder, and reflect on whether there is a better way. That’s where we libertarians come into play. We have the solution to this entire statist morass. We are an exciting movement and a growing one. We just need to keep seeking a critical mass of people who understand and desire freedom in order to bring the paradigm shift toward liberty for which we long. When that day comes, the statist establishment will be unable to do anything to stop it.
As Victor Hugo put it, “There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” Thirty years after founding of FFF, we are more determined than ever to continue striving to achieve liberty. You have my pledge that we will continue presenting the principled case for liberty to ensure that the light of libertarianism continues to shine ever brighter. We can lead America out of this darkness and on to the greatest heights of liberty, peace, prosperity, and harmony the world has ever seen. Will you entrust us with your generous support to help us in the coming year?
There has been a lot of talk among campus progressives in recent years about the need to “decolonize” Thanksgiving. For example, the University of Oregon held an event titled “Thanks, but No Thanks-giving,” the description of which read in part: “Thanksgiving is, foundationally speaking, a celebration of the ongoing genocide against native peoples and cultures across the globe.” Sure. Show me a family that doesn’t gather around the dining room table with bowed heads, saying, “We thank Thee for the ongoing genocide against native peoples and cultures across the globe. Let us celebrate!”
The Huffington Post recently suggested that Thanksgiving be canceled due to its large carbon footprint.
Ironically, the coddled and entitled, like many students and professors on college campuses, are often the least grateful. Those who seem to have everything are often the least thankful. Rich, spoiled Hollywood types foam at the mouth (when they’re not stuffing it with caviar and expensive champagne), railing against Trump and his supporters and a laundry list of supposed “systemic” injustices inherent to the country that has allowed them to get rich pretending to be someone they’re not. Meanwhile, those in “flyover country” with comparatively little are often deeply thankful for what they do have, and grateful to be living in the United States of America.
Leftists in entertainment and media tend to angrily rant. Democratic-socialists demonize America, her founding principles, her traditions, and her success. Antifa and BLM thugs take to the streets to loot and destroy. They, literally, trash the country. Meanwhile, conservatives tend to devoutly appreciate much of what came before them — as well as what they have now. And they pick up the trash — their own and what progressives leave behind.
Many tenured professors at “elite” universities and so-called “journalists” at “elite” media outlets smugly denigrate the very society that afforded them the platform to reflexively denounce it…while many military veterans past and present were and are thankful for the freedoms — and the nation — they fought for despite the immense sacrifices they made.
Decade after decade, it seems as though the better off we’ve gotten, the less religious and appreciative we’ve become. Our material wealth has not led to spiritual wealth. In fact, it appears to have led to a certain Sodom and Gomorrah–like moral poverty. Memo to elites: This is not “sophistication,” but ennui, a sad and ironic sickness of the soul. And it has ultimately led us to where we are now: the most powerful nation on Earth appears to have lost its soul. It is said that Rome finally fell when its citizens forgot what it meant to be Roman. Too many of us residing in this country have forgotten what it means to be an American.
The smartest people realize how little they know. (This makes clear the ignorance of many of our arrogant elites.) However, the luckiest people realize how lucky they are.
Though times are tough at the moment, in large part due to our power-hungry elitist leaders, perhaps we should look around, bow our heads, and give thanks that we have anything at all.
And rededicate ourselves to saving the last, best hope of Earth…no matter what it takes to do so.
Thanksgiving Day, November 26th this year, is an annual holiday in which we thank God for our blessings. It’s a source of nostalgic family memories of past Thanksgiving dinners, as well as remembering those who have passed away.
This year, 2020, is the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ arrival to Plymouth Rock. Remember the song, “The year 1620 the Pilgrims came over …”?
Well, 1620 was 400 years ago.
Who were the Pilgrims? They called themselves the “Saints,” not the Pilgrims, but I’m going to use the term “Pilgrims” in this blog post.
They were English Separatists who had separated from the Church of England to form their own group.
They became shareholders for the Council for New England, a joint stock company with the goal of financing English colonies. The colonists had to earn enough in the colony to pay back their voyage and make a profit for the company.
They were joined by other English people who weren’t part of their sect (the “Strangers”). Myles Standish, the colony’s military commander, was in this group.
Crossing the Atlantic on the Mayflower, they sighted land in early November and explored the coast until choosing a location for their colony, embarking at Plymouth Rock, now in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, on December 21st.
The first winter was extremely difficult and about half of the colonists perished.
“The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth”
With the arrival of spring, and with the help of some friendly Indians, they had greatly improved their situation enough to celebrate the famous Thanksgiving feast in November of 1621.
And, note, there are immigration lessons to be learned from the Pilgrims.
In 1621, another ship arrived to the Plymouth colony bringing new settlers (called the “Particulars”). But the Plymouth Rock colony wasn’t ready to absorb them, and their arrival resulted in a scarcity of resources, causing the colony to go on half-rations for a few years thereafter.
Remember the controversy over the Trump Administration’s enforcement of the public charge rule?
Well, it was the Plymouth Colony that established America’s first public charge law. (As reported by Mary Grace Patterson: “In 1639 the Pilgrims of Plymouth passed a law for the removal of foreign paupers.” Sister Mary Grace Patterson, The Ethical Aspects of the National Origins Act, Loyola University, 1944, page six.)
That put the onus on ship captains who could be fined for bringing paupers and criminals to the Plymouth colony.
So, there’s nothing new about a public charge rule, and it’s not un-American!
Did you know the Pilgrims dressed more colorfully than usually portrayed? Since their garments were recorded in probate documents, there is much that is known about this fashion footnote. (Click here and here.)
It’s estimated that about 35 million people (mostly but not entirely in the U.S.) are direct genetic descendants of the Mayflower colonists.
Nine U.S. presidents are Mayflower descendants: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, James Abram Garfield, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush.
Other famous Americans who are Mayflower descendants include politicians Jeb Bush and Sarah Palin; actors Clint Eastwood, Richard Gere, Sally Field, Marilyn Monroe, and Humphrey Bogart; the first American in space Alan Shepard; George Eastman (Eastman Kodak Company founder); Dr. Spock; singer Bing Crosby; aviatrix Amelia Earhart, generals George McClellan and Leonard Wood; literary giants Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; and Noah Webster of Webster’s Dictionary fame.
We’re not all genetic Mayflower descendants. The Wall family lived farther south in colonial Virginia. But all Americans are their heirs.
The Pilgrims brought with them their Christian faith, their English culture, and their will to work hard and build a new society. We learn from them, and, rightly, honor them as among the first founders of our nation.
In the words of Jane E. Groves Riddell Hurt, Governor General of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, “Members take pride in our family, but the truth is, the Pilgrims belong to all of us.”
Catholic economist slams idea as ‘radical innovation in Church teaching’
VATICAN CITY (ChurchMilitant.com) – Pope Francis is calling for a universal basic income (UBI) — a proposal denounced by a top Catholic economist as “a radical innovation in Catholic teaching without any obvious roots.”
In an extended interview barely mentioning persecuted Uighurs, Rohingya and Yazidi peoples, the pontiff attacks populist leaders and coronavirus lockdown demonstrators while voicing his support for George Floyd Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests.
Francis’ controversial reflections, published in a new book Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future, records exchanges between the pope and his hagiographer Austen Ivereigh.
The 150-page book, to be published Dec. 1, closes with Francis pushing UBI in a post-Wuhan pandemic world as the means to a more equitable economy.
“I believe it is time to explore concepts like the universal basic income (UBI), also known as ‘the negative income tax’: an unconditional flat payment to all citizens, which could be dispersed through the tax system,” Francis asserts.
Francis urges governments to hand out “an unconditional lump-sum payment to all citizens, which could be paid through the tax system” while criticizing “the false assumption of the infamous trickle-down theory that a growing economy will make us all richer.”
“Universal basic income could reshape labor market relations by guaranteeing people the dignity to refuse employment conditions that lock them into poverty,” the pope insists.
Economists: ‘Misguided Ideals’
However, secular and Catholic economists have derided the pontiff’s pursuit of “misguided ideals … as idealistic as they are simplistic.”
“Of course, needless to say, this is just an awful idea by Francis, at once impractical and impossible,” political theorist Paul Kengor told Church Militant. “It betrays a fundamental ignorance of basic economics and how economies function.”
Emphasizing this is “not how to best help the poor, quite the contrary,” Professor Kengor, a distinguished papal biographer and expert on communism, labeled Francis’ proposal “quite embarrassing.”
“It will again put us Catholics in the bind of trying to explain to non-Catholics another ridiculously bad idea from a pope who’s again speaking way outside of his expertise and purpose,” Kengor comments. “It most certainly will further fuel the perception that Francis is a socialist.”
What we need right now, desperately, is a pope who can courageously and eloquently speak to the world about timeless truths involving the family, marriage, gender, sexuality and unborn human life — i.e., the enduring moral order — not a pope who engages in class-based sophistry about “universal basic income.” I’m so sorry if this sounds disrespectful, but I am enormously frustrated and disheartened by repeated statements like this from this pope. I’m worn out.
Francis argues UBI will compensate unpaid caretakers and “informal workers,” allow people to refuse undignified work and so reshape labor relations, remove “the stigma of welfarism” while allowing people to combine work with community service.
I’m so sorry if this sounds disrespectful, but I am enormously frustrated and disheartened by repeated statements like this from this pope. I’m worn out.Tweet
However, Philip Booth, senior academic fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs and professor of Finance, Public Policy and Ethics at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, writes: “It is difficult to square this with Catholic social teaching on the importance of work.”
Responding to Francis’ previous pontifical letter calling for UBI, Booth says the idea has its origins in “Robespierre, Montesquieu, Thomas Paine and Thomas Spence, none of whom were exactly friends of organized religion. In the modern era, Bertrand Russell popularized the concept.”
Pope Francis hosts at the Vatican BLM-supporting NBA players
In April, Francis said it “may be the time to consider a universal basic wage,” but the Vatican clarified that the pope did not mean “universal basic income.”
In the tradition of Catholic social teaching, “the starting point should be that those earning money within the household share their resources with family members who are not earning,” writes Booth.
Those on the Left who support a basic income are keen to pursue a cultural agenda which removes the family from public discourse and social policy.Tweet
“A universal basic income does interfere in the family by taxing some families who may not be well off in order to provide an income to individuals who may have no market income but who may live in well-off families,” Booth explains.
Citing Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum on capital and labor and warning against Francis’ “radical innovation,” Booth argues that “Catholic social teaching has never suggested that the state should go beyond providing contingent help to families in need or beyond supporting welfare institutions within civil society that do the same.”
Economists warn that the UBI destroys the incentive to work.
Catholic scholars also quote St. Paul’s “command” from 2 Thessalonians 3:10: “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.”
Booth warns:
It can reasonably be suspected that those on the Left who support a basic income are keen to pursue a cultural agenda which removes the family from public discourse and social policy. They also seek another cultural change. If everybody receives an income from the state, we are all, to some extent, reliant upon the state. People will come to see the state as the first provider rather than as the last resort.
Meanwhile, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, said Francis’ remarks on the persecution of Uighur Muslims had “no factual basis at all.”
“People of all ethnic groups enjoy the full rights of survival, development and freedom of religious belief,” Lijian said at a Tuesday briefing.
Francis fleetingly mentions the persecuted Muslim minority in his interview: “I think often of persecuted peoples: the Rohingya, the poor Uighurs, the Yazidi.”
Francis Swipes at Lockdown Protestors
The pontiff, however, speaks at length about anti-lockdown protestors, calling them “victims only in their own imagination — those who claim, for example, that being forced to wear a mask is an unwarranted imposition by the State, yet who forget or do not care about those who cannot rely, for example, on social security or who have lost their jobs.”
“You’ll never find such people protesting the death of George Floyd, or joining a demonstration because there are shantytowns where children lack water or education, or because there are whole families who have lost their income,” Francis rails, calling anti-lockdown protestors “incapable of moving outside of their own little world of interests.”
On Monday, Pope Francis hosted a delegation of five National Basketball Association (NBA) players — nearly all BLM supporters — and several officials from the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) to discuss their work on racial and social justice issues.
The following essay is part of The Federalist’s 1620 Project, a symposium exploring the connections and contributions of the early Pilgrim and Puritan settlers in New England to the uniquely American synthesis of faith, family, freedom, and self-government.
The Pilgrims who came ashore at Plymouth Rock in 1620 were followed by their theological cousins, the Puritans, who established Massachusetts Bay in 1630. They were not the first Europeans, not even the first Englishmen, to settle in North America. Yet they, more than any others, defined an American national identity and laid the foundations for an American political tradition committed to the rule of law and constitutionalism.null
The Pilgrims were religious dissenters — theological separatists — who reluctantly concluded that the Protestant Church of England from which they separated themselves was irredeemably corrupt, whereas the Puritans, as their name suggests, held out hope that the church could still be purified. Both were profoundly religious people who had experienced oppression in England at the hands of authorities in church and state, and they crossed the Atlantic Ocean’s treacherous waters to escape religious persecution in the Old World and to seek religious liberty in the New World.
They were on a mission to establish Bible commonwealths grounded on biblical principles and laws as they understood them. These would be political communities devoted to their God and committed to the rule of law. Their bold experiments in self-government produced a constitutional tradition that blended biblical law interpreted through the lens of their Protestant theology, English common law adapted to the needs of their communities, and developing local customs. Key features of that tradition persist to the present day.
The First Foundation of Their Government
The Pilgrims’ condemnation of the established Church of England won them few friends in positions of power and influence in England. English authorities harassed them, fined them, and even threw them in jail. Their religious beliefs counseled that fleeing the persecution was preferable to fighting those who persecuted them. In 1608, members of their religious community went into exile in the Netherlands to escape oppression in their homeland.
After a decade or so in the Netherlands, the Pilgrims began to hear about opportunities in North America. So, a small group decided to leave Europe for America, arriving in New England in 1620.null
Before leaving Europe, they made arrangements with the Virginia Company to settle in Virginia, but their tiny ship, the Mayflower, was blown off course by fierce storms crossing the North Atlantic, and they made landfall off Cape Cod, far north of their intended destination.
Their arrival in New England raised the thorny political question of whether they were subject to English authority — specifically, the Virginia Company — as they would have been had they arrived in Virginia as planned. There were mutinous murmurings among the non-Pilgrims aboard ship that their agreement with the Virginia Company was void, and they were at liberty to do as they willed. To erase any doubts about governing authority, the adult men aboard the Mayflower (both Pilgrims and non-Pilgrims) entered into a social contract with each other, with God as their witness, as they prepared to come ashore in New England.
This agreement has come to be known as the Plymouth Combination or, more famously, the Mayflower Compact. It was designed to nurture unity among the settlers and facilitate a future civil government. In the tradition of Old Testament covenants between God and His people, the agreement was made, the Pilgrims believed, “in the presence of God.” Underscoring the document’s sacred character, it began with an invocation: “In the Name of God, Amen.”
Remarkably, at a moment when the Pilgrims could have considered declaring their independence from English authorities, which might have been expected given their unhappy experiences in England, they instead made a covenant — a constitution of sorts — acknowledging their obligations to God, king, and country.null
They were not a lawless or anarchic people. On the contrary, their agreement in November 1620 demonstrated a commitment to the rule of law and constitutionalism. William Bradford, one of their leaders, described the Compact in his journal as “the first foundation of their government in this place.”
A constitution is a political community’s expression of its fundamental, authoritative law, setting out the basic principles, substantive components, and procedural rules by which government power may be legitimately exercised. Scholars debate whether the Compact is a fully formed constitution; it is at least a proto-constitution committing its signatories to create a “Civil Body Politick” and to frame, enact, and obey “such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Officers” deemed necessary for the common good.
The very act and the manner of framing this agreement affirmed government based on the consent of the governed, the most cherished of American political ideals. The Compact, it has been claimed, is the oldest surviving declaration in the modern world asserting a people’s right to self-government.
The making of this Compact was, arguably, the most formative event in the New World in the development of an American constitutional tradition. Although a remarkably brief document, in its simple structure and form is a pattern evident in all subsequent American constitutions, including the national Constitution written in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787, which remains “the supreme Law of the Land.”null
The Mayflower Compact, Willmoore Kendall and George W. Carey argue in “The Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition,” set a template for written constitutions, and the same basic outline would be used by subsequent constitutional framers in North America. It begins with a clear identification of those for whom the document was created: “We whose Names are underwritten.” A similar statement of identity is expressed in the U.S. Constitution in the immortal words: “We the People.”
This is followed by a statement of the purposes for their political society: “for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country.” A corresponding statement of purposes for the national charter of 1787 is found in the noble aspirations of the Preamble:
… in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity …
The framers then entered into a solemn covenant to create a “Civil Body Politick” and the attendant “just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Officers … thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony.” “We … do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America,” followed by six articles defining the structures, institutions, officers, and processes of the new constitutional regime, is the equivalent declaration in the U.S. Constitution. What’s missing from the Compact, that one might expect in a fully formed constitution, are the specific nuts and bolts of governance — this was left to be worked out in the future.
Then, in identical language — “In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our Names” — both the Mayflower Compact and the U.S. Constitution conclude with the signatures of its framers, indicating their pledge of mutual commitment and obligation to each other and to the common good. Finally, both documents are dated with reference to the birth of Jesus Christ.
Thus, the framers of and signatories to the Mayflower Compact established an outline and form for future American constitutions.
A City Upon a Hill
A decade later, John Winthrop, a lawyer and the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony, led a community of Puritans across the Atlantic to build a Bible commonwealth in New England. The Puritans, like the Pilgrims, left a legacy affirming the rule of law and liberty that to this day informs the American constitutional tradition.
Winthrop likely wrote “A Model of Christian Charity” — arguably the most influential “sermon” in American history — aboard the ship Arabella en route to New England. It outlined a visionary mission statement for a new community.
“Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck and to provide for our posterity,” Winthrop wrote, “is to follow the counsel of [the prophet] Micah: to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God [Micah 6:8]. For this end, we must be knit together in this work as one man [Judges 20:11]. We must entertain each other in brotherly affection [cf. Romans 12:10].”
In rhetoric that still inspires centuries later, Winthrop concluded his charge to fellow immigrants with a phrase borrowed from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount: “For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill [Matthew 5:14]; the eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world [2 Chronicles 7:20; Deuteronomy 28:37].”
Drawing deeply on scripture, Winthrop struck the major themes that would define the identity, mission, and political aspirations of his small Puritan commonwealth and the nation that later emerged on the American continent — a special calling and mission, the direction of an overruling Providence, a peculiar people in a covenant relationship with their God and with each other, a political commitment to virtue and justice, and a duty to be a beacon and model polity for the world.
Like the Pilgrims, the Puritans drew on their faith tradition, especially the Bible, in writing their laws because they feared that relying on the mind of man alone to frame their laws, given humankind’s fallen, sinful nature, would unavoidably taint their legal codes. The Puritan divine John Cotton remarked that “[t]he more any Law smells of man the more unprofitable.” The Puritans believed that the Bible, by contrast, was the revealed, perfect Word of God and authority in all matters of faith and practice.
Thus, biblical precepts, especially Mosaic laws, were woven into the fabric of early New England legal codes. And lest there be any doubt about the source, these written laws often included references to specific biblical authority for provisions contained in them. (The settlers, to be sure, did not adopt all aspects of biblical law, and the Bible was not the sole source of their laws.)
A decade after the Puritans had arrived in Massachusetts Bay, and after several failed attempts to frame a body of laws, the Massachusetts General Court approved the “Body of Liberties” in 1641, which was revised and expanded in the colony’s subsequent laws. It was to be a bulwark against the arbitrary and capricious exercise of government power. A seminal statement of Massachusetts law, it has been described as the first legal code in New England and the first colonial bill of rights.
Compiled by the Reverend Nathaniel Ward, the “Body of Liberties” borrowed from a draft code known as “Moses His Judicials” framed in 1636 by the Reverend John Cotton, the colony’s leading clergyman, which, in turn, was based largely on Mosaic principles. Cotton wanted to demonstrate the supremacy and sufficiency of God’s revealed Word for guiding a godly commonwealth in legal concerns.
Ward’s version drew on both English common law and Mosaic law with which he was familiar as a Cambridge-educated barrister and a Puritan minister. The final document contained familiar — sometimes harsh — features of Mosaic law, many of which had long before been incorporated into western legal traditions.
Like the Mayflower Compact, the “Body of Liberties” set out fundamental constitutional principles that would be emulated by other colonies and embraced by succeeding generations of Americans as essential to a regime of ordered liberty devoted to the rule of law. These liberties, Kendall and Carey observed, “have a familiar sound for our ears and would not at first glance seem to be out of place in a modern Bill of Rights.” Indeed, a half dozen or more liberties outlined in the document found expression in the national Bill of Rights written in 1789 and added to the Constitution in 1791.
The “liberties, immunities, and privileges … due to every man in his place and proportion,” the “Body of Liberties” began, are essential to social “tranquility and stability.” Accordingly, Massachusetts thought it necessary for the establishment of their civil government “to collect and express all such freedoms as for present we foresee may concern us, and our posterity after us, and to ratify them with our solemn consent.” Moreover, these “rights, liberties, and privileges” must be “impartially and inviolably enjoyed and observed throughout our jurisdiction forever.”
Massachusetts then demonstrated its commitment to these ideals by robustly affirming in articles 1 and 2 respectively the rights of due process of law in the protection of life, liberty, and property and equal protection under the law.
In subsequent sections, it recognized a right to trial by jury (art. 29), a right to a speedy trial (arts. 2, 41), a right to bail (arts. 18, 41), the protection of private property from a taking for public use without reasonable compensation (art. 8), a prohibition on double jeopardy (art. 42), a privilege against self-incrimination (art. 45), a prohibition on “inhumane, barbarous or cruel” punishments (arts. 43, 46), and a requirement that capital cases be supported by “the testimony of two or three witnesses” (art. 47). In discrete sections, it specifically recognized the liberties of women, children, servants, “foreigners and strangers,” and “brute creatures.”
Puritan conceptions of these rights, to be sure, are not the same as these rights are understood today. These rights would be developed and refined over the centuries. Nonetheless, the “Body of Liberties” planted the seeds of specific rights and liberties that would, over time, flourish on American soil.
Creating a Constitutional Tradition
The U.S. Constitution is a product of an American constitutional tradition that was, in significant respects, founded on New England’s Bible commonwealths. The national Constitution hammered out in Independence Hall in 1787 includes many features in design and content that would have been familiar to New England’s Bible-reading people. This is evident in the document’s covenantal character, like the Old Testament covenants and the Mayflower Compact.
Consider also the Constitution’s basic design, defined by the separation of powers and checks and balances. This reflected an awareness of original sin (Genesis 3) and the necessity to guard against the concentration or abuse of government powers vested in fallen human actors. This biblical anthropology, emphasized in the Protestant theology espoused by the Pilgrims and the Puritans, was expressed in the Constitutional Convention.
During debate on July 11, 1787, for example, James Madison acknowledged a fellow delegate’s strong view regarding “the political depravity of men, and the necessity of checking one vice and interest by opposing to them another vice & interest. . . . The truth was,” Madison concurred, “that all men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.”
Other measures in the U.S. Constitution reflect biblical influences filtered through earlier expressions of law, including English common law and colonial codes and charters (such as those in Massachusetts). Among them are provisions recognizing “Sundays” in a clause on the president’s veto power, governing oaths and affirmations, requiring “the testimony of two witnesses” for conviction of treason, and promoting due process principles prohibiting double jeopardy and cruel and unusual punishments.
More generally, the influence of the Mayflower Compact and “Body of Liberties” on the U.S. Constitution are evident in its form, which follows that of the Compact; its affirmation of civil government by consent of the governed; and its protection of rights and liberties, including those enshrined in the “Body of Liberties.”
The U.S. Constitution and the constitutional tradition from which it emerged are, in no small part, a living legacy of a bold and innovative project in political self-government and liberty under law that began on New England’s rocky coasts 400 years ago and flourished in the years that followed.
Governor Bradford’s First Thanksgiving Proclamation!
Governor Bradford of Massachusetts made this first Thanksgiving Proclamation three years after the Pilgrims settled at Plymouth:
“Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as He has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience.
In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you! 1 Thes. 5:18
Now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the daytime, on Thursday, November 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty three and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings.”
