Thanksgiving - Celebrating Private Property's Triumph Over Collectivism

By Tom Rhodes, 11/22/2018
I doubt anybody will notice but this as a repeat of my 2010 Thanksgiving article

As you know the original colony to Plymouth celebrated thanksgiving with the Indians in November of 1623. The Pilgrims arrived in December of 1621, and began their colony as a commune, and organized their farm economy along communal lines. The goal was to share the work and produce equally. This experiment again proved what the ancient Greeks observed eons before. As Aristotle wrote, "That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it."



The Pilgrims faked illness rather than working the common property. Some even stole, despite their Puritan convictions. The result was as winter of 1622 set in, they did not have enough food and provisions set for the winter and famine and privation ran rampant by the spring of 1623 only 5 women had survived. Gov. William Bradford wrote in his diary, "So as it well appeared that famine must still ensue the next year also, if not some way prevented.

The problem is that when people can get the same return with less effort, most people make less effort. This was an early harsh and historically repeated lesson that socialism and communism result in less production even to the point of starvation. Thus again proving that the rules set to us by God are best to live by. 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15

Later of the colonists, Bradford said, they "began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length after much debate of things, (I with the advice of the chiefest among them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land. . . This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been. By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine, now God gave them plenty, and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many."

Because of the change, the first Thanksgiving could be held in November 1623. Because of the abundance the Pilgrims not only were able to feed themselves, but to take care of those among them who try as they might failed to do so. It was private charity that took care of those less fortunate.

Thanksgiving is clear proof and evidence of the triumph of private property, connecting effort to reward, demonstrating that when everything is “shared equally” it incentivizes each person to contribute as little as possible to get their “equal” share. Whereas with every pilgrim given private property produced abundance which they could then trade with others for things they lacked. The free mutual exchange for mutual benefit makes the entire community richer.

We should all be thankful that we do not have to learn the lessons of protecting private property in the same deadly way that the pilgrims. Thanksgiving is the quintessential American holiday, copied by many other countries; it is a polar opposite of May Day. On Thanksgiving, we celebrate the fall of communism and are thankful for the abundance God provides through the free market.

July 4, 1776

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.


He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.


The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

Is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a Fringe Whackjob

by Tom Rhodes, 2/15/2019

Is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a fringe Whackjob, or is she just bringing the Democrat party out of the closet?

Clearly the Democrat party has abandoned liberalism for authoritarian principles. They clearly recognize that they cannot reach their Utopian dreams if they continue to embrace liberal principles. The Democrats are now an authoritarian socialist party. There is no way that the Democrat party can claim to be liberal.

Liberals used to be defined as people who believed in Liberalism, which is a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality.

Classical liberalism, a political or social philosophy advocating the freedom of the individual, where the governments purpose is to insure and protect individual rights and civil liberties of all equally, guaranteeing the rule of law, and equality under the law.

Economic liberalism, the ideological belief in organizing the economy on individualist lines, such that the greatest possible number of economic decisions are made by private individuals and not by collective institutions.

The Democrats have and are rejecting the will of the people, they commonly refer to the masses as “flyover country,” deplorables, etc. The current Democrat positions:

Reject Religious Liberty

Legalize Infanticide

End the Second Amendment and Your Right to Self Defense

End Free Speech through “hate speech” laws

Anti-Semitism

End Due Process

Different rules for Elite than Masses

Green New Deal(GND)

Force Home Reconstruction

Outlaw 99% of Private Vehicles

Eliminate Nuclear Energy

Ban Affordable Energy

End most Air Travel

Forced Government Healthcare

Nationalize Banks

End right to spend money on speech

Replace Republic of USA with Democracy

Abolish Electoral College

Establish Federal Control of heat, electricity, phone, internet, and public transportation

Ban Meat

Provide Income to those Unwilling to Work
The GND is supposedly about Climate Change, but most of the proposed ideas in the GND have nothing to to do with Climate Change, the proposal is instead an authoritarian wish list to end the Constitution.

None of the current policies and objectives of the Democrat party are liberal. They are even openly racist calling for segregation on our college campuses. I cannot find anywhere Democrats want to protect or increase individual liberty, economic freedom, or civil rights. Clearly today’s Democrats want to eliminate the Bill of Rights. Other than the Third Amendment all of the Bill of Rights is getting in the way of how the Democrats want the power to control all aspects of how all Americans life. They are openly calling to end our Constitutional Republic and replace it with some oligarchy not bound by any of the restrictions that, We The People, placed on them. Democrats clearly chafe at the idea that the mere masses, don’t accept their superiority, and that the will of the people should be ignored because the ruling elites know best how everybody should live. The Democrats are clearly Authoritarian.

Ocasio-Cortez Occasional-Cortex is not a fringe fruitcake of the Democrat party, she and all those who support the GND, are the reality of what the Democrats believe. It is not liberal, or conservative, but leftist authoritarianism. Occasional-Cortex in a recent interview came out and said that to enact the GND there would necessarily be some totalitarian actions by government.

Psychology Today lists What You Can Expect From an Authoritarian. Clearly the actions and attitude of today’s Democrat party reject liberalism and embrace all the top 10 traits of Authoritarians:

Hatred.

Punishment and Cruelty.

Violence, Aggression, and Assaultive Behavior.

Threats and Scare Tactics.

Quixotic, Unclear Rules.

Paranoia and Enemies’ Lists.

Truth Held as Enemy.

Shaming Efforts, Derision, and Ridicule.

Rigidity and Obsession with Control.

Intrusiveness.

We Live in a Neo-Fuedal Society

By Tom Rhodes, 1/23/2019

We Live in a Neo-Fuedal Society, where the ruling class is urban elites. Urban elites somehow believe that the fact that they are rich, live in a big city, that they know best how others should live. They refer to people not in the big cities and rubes, hillbillies, deplorables, etc., and rather than listen to what the people say are the problems, and have to deal with them voting, the new elite class in DC/NY/Paris/Berlin/Brussels/other big city, want to dictate to the masses how they must live, and what they are allowed to learn/own/do.

The idea that Brits would vote to leave the EU, or that the USA would elect Trump, or the people would revolt in Paris over their taxes, all indicate to them that the problem is that the masses don't recognize their "clearly superior understanding of what's best." Because not recognizing the elites superiority is unfathomable, they conclude that the masses are too dumb, ignorant, religious, uneducated, or whatever, to be allowed decisions in how they are governed.

Neo-feudalists are easy to identify, by their smug certainty that they know better what ought to be done with and for you than you yourself do. And they are accountable to nobody, and are guided by nothing except their doctrinaire beliefs in what might charitably be called academic Marxism, and might more aptly be called simple totalitarianism. They are globalists, and don't believe local people at the city, state, or even national level should be allowed to govern themselves.

Angela Merkel being a prime example, saying that sovereign nation states must not listen to the will of their citizens when it comes to questions of immigration, borders, or even sovereignty. The her, and elitists everywhere, shock and dismay, the people booted her, and suddenly the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was a significant force. Her citizens chose the “wrong” answer, and the elitist international press was quick to scold the masses. The neo-feudal state at work.

The ruling class is openly attacking freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and especially the USA's right to keep and bear arms, because those liberties severely restrict neo-feudal ability it impose there will on the masses.

The neo-feudal state, is globalist. Rather than the unified body politic of the liberal republic, the neo-feudal state slices and dices its residents into discrete subsets, each with its own unique rights and responsibilities. Solid economic and social divisions were a key part of feudal society, and they also play a role in present-day neo-feudalism.

Neo-feudalism is the contemporary rebirth of policies of governance, economy, and public life reminiscent of those present in many feudal societies, such as unequal rights and different legal protections for common people then for nobility. It is clear to see, Hillary can and has gotten away with breaking the law concerning handling of state secrets. Comey, then head of the FBI, noted that she broke the law but would not be arrested, but woe to any not of the ruling elite, you would be jailed if you did the same thing. They are open about the fact that the laws apply to you not them. In 2013 demographer Joel Kotkin defined the neo-feudal classes as: the oligarchs (the super-wealthy, especially in tech and finance), the clerisy (government regulators, the media elite, and the academy), the yeomanry (the middle class and small-business owners), and the serfs (the working poor and government dependents).

Elites made a degree the passport to success, then raised college prices to keep out the riffraff. The reason is power, it appears planned. Now only the rich elite can afford to go, and if you go and are not part of the elite, you will have crushing debt for the rest of your life, so you can be more easily controlled. Neo-Fuedalism at work. I don't buy into a big conspiracy, the reality is neo-feudalism as reality but clearly there is no single cabal working to impose a new feudal regime. Neo-feudalism is a result of the confluence of a number of forces: technological advances, a large welfare state, financialization, offshoring, and an influx of illegal laborers. Much of what drives neo-feudalism is unintentional, but the new-elite are taking advantage of it.

Today's ruling elite, want neo-feudalism as the way of the future but call it "democratic socialism." Where the ruling elite dictate who gets what, and controls everything. They seek to control bureaucracies and NGO's without having to go through the mess of winning elections. They have privatized governance to multi-national companies like Capital-one, Alphabet, FB, Twitter, etc, as the means to control the people by limiting speech and ideas that reduce their ability to govern. Banks now dictate how you can spend your money, restricting you from using your debit or credit cards for arms. The elite through banks want the ability to dictate who can't and cannot use banking services and what people who use debit or credit cards are allowed to purchase. No laws, just get your fellow elites on wall street stop them.

You don't get to vote for how the bank is run, you must use a bank, as your employer pays you with a check or direct deposit, the laws won't let you have meaningful amounts of cash, and you it's almost impossible to trading in any exchange medium not controlled by the banks. The ruling elite don't want you to have the ability to purchase anything without them knowing (and controlling) what you spend your money on. They are going after Bitcoin and other ways people can do business outside the control of our neo-feudal masters. We live by the golden rule, "those who control the gold control the rules."

The only solution, is unfortunately the same one our founding fathers had to take to end feudalism in 1776. There will be war.


Post Script: One way to beat the banking elite and revenuer: Buy old "junk silver coins" and use them as legal tender as a purchase, but trade on their value. Take 50 silver dollars (minted before 1965, with 90% silver content), and offer them to you local gun shop, for a new Springfield 1911 pistol (list price over $800 but sells for less). Legal tender valued at $50 but worth over $700 for it's silver content. Depending on model of pistol a fair trade. As legal tender the licensed gun dealer could agree to the sale, and take a loss on his taxes, only collect sales tax on $50, then take $50 of petty cash from the till and go buy pizza's for his employees weekly pizza party. Nothing illegal about paying for the pizza with paper bank notes or his personal "debit card" instead of the exact currency taken from petty cash (the $50 in silver coins in his pocket). All nice and legal.

Democrats Declare Constitution to be Alt-Right

On Friday Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii Doubles Down on her SJW narrative declaring The Constitution is an "Alt-Right" document, saying, “If my colleague, the junior Senator from Nebraska, wants to embrace the alt-right’s position by offering this resolution, that is his business,”

Hirono apparently thinks the concept of religious tests for office being unconstitutional is somehow an alt-right position. I guess the Founders were alt-right characters also. I mean, it’s only printed out in completely unambiguous terms right in the Constitution.

Article VI of the constitution clearly states "... no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

Confirming Link

Libertarianism 101: Your Speech Rights

By Tom Rhodes, 1/4/2018

As long as speech doesn't specifically call for violence, is legally libel, etc. except in exceptional circumstances, as in a state of war, your speech is protected. Prior restraint is an attempt to prevent publication or broadcast of any statement. The Supreme Court consistently rules that prior restraint is unconstitutional. According to multiple Supreme Court rulings, the following are all considered protected speech:

Writing is protected speech.

Speaking is protected speech.

Spending Money is protected speech.

Speaking anonymously is protected speech.

Offensive and hateful words are protected speech.

Joining a group of other Americans to petition the government is also protected speech.

There are no rulings or laws or amendments that say speech must be fair, nice, or approved by society at large. Speech is protected not your feelings, not your ideas, as such:

You have no right to not be offended.

You have no right to be protected from ideas you don't like.

You have no right to have your speech funded by others.

You have no right to stop funding by others of speech you don't approve.

You have no right to silence speech you feel should be classified as "hate speech."

You have no right to initiate violence against others who say things you don't like.

You have no right to shut down or stop others from speaking.

You have no right to force others to stay and listen to your speech.

Your only right to not hear "hate speech," or any other "speech" you don't like, is to walk away, turn the channel, close the web page, etc.