So, smart moms in two homeschool social-media groups of which I’m a member are super-excited about Hillsdale College’s free “Constitution 101” course. “Hillsdale’s conservative, so it must be teaching Christian-centered history,” they say.
“Hillsdale doesn’t accept grants from the federal government or participate in federal financial-aid or student-loan programs. How principled,” they opine. “Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levine both endorse Hillsdale as being an ‘authority on the Constitution’, so it must be quality curriculum,” they hope.
Hey now, not so fast. Let’s not take all these assumptions on face value.
For years, I’ve been receiving and reading Hillsdale’s monthly mailed newsletter Imprimus, which highlights guest lectures, speeches by visiting professors, and articles by intellectuals associated with the college. It sometimes features valuable articles by modern thinkers I respect and offers up opinions that are not status quo. But not always.
In fact, Hillsdale as a place of learning is overall a neocon institution. Sure, there are exceptions to the rule, like history professor Brad Birzer, and his wife and history lecturer Dedra Birzer.
Much has been written and discussed about neoconservatism. In short, they were ex-Trotskyites who abandoned the left decades ago, and they and their descendants have been pushing for foreign interventionism, open borders, and giving up on the culture war, all while claiming to be for “Founding principles.” These wolves in sheep’s clothing pretend to be patriotic, yet undergird the very ideologies that are tearing America apart.
“… With the modern displacement by the Neocons of the traditional (and Southern) conservatives and their opposition to the growth in government and to the destruction of those bonds and traditions that characterized the country for centuries, the results we observe around us do not augur well for the future.”
Larry P. Arnn, who delivers the first video lecture, is president of Hillsdale and also on the Board of Trustees of the Heritage Foundation – a neocon think-tank that alleges to advocate for limited government and fiscal responsibility, but simultaneously lobbies for foreign entanglements and “spreading democracy” through bombing campaigns. In other words: globalism a la the military-industrial complex while America burns.
This isn’t guilt by association. Rather, it’s just connecting the dots. So, is it any wonder that I’m skeptical of this free Constitution course? Therefore, I signed up to see what all the fuss is about.
One need look no further than the welcome email. The “about” section describes how the course will dive into “the Declaration of Independence and The Federalist Papers,” yet no mention of The Anti-Federalist Papers.
So, already we know that the curriculum is slanted toward the Hamiltonian view of America, and not the decentralized view of Founders like Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, Sam Adams, Richard Henry Lee, and James Monroe. Thus, Hillsdale is planting their flag on the hill of empire, not that of states’ rights. THIS is a problem, my friends.
With the most charitable view possible, I understand that this could be an oversight. After all, many learned people don’t even know that there’s a collection of writings called The Anti-Federalist Papers, which argued that the U.S. Constitution would grow the federal government and eventually lead to an all-powerful executive branch akin to monarchy. Prescient, wouldn’t you say?
In fact, if it wasn’t for the anti-federalists, we wouldn’t even have a Bill of Rights – the only fleeting safeguard against federal overreach and the complete eradication of our God-given liberties. These amendments sure ain’t a cure, but can you just imagine how even more embroiled in tyranny our lives would be without it?
Okay, this was probably just an innocent mistake, you say. So then, let’s take a gander at the “overview” portion of the email. Hillsdale faculty who teach the lecture series tell us that “American political history is defined by three great crises.”
Number One: the American Revolution. No duh.
Number Three: progressivism. Yep, couldn’t agree more.
But Number Two? Hmm. Here’s what they say.
“The second crisis was the crisis over slavery that culminated in the Civil War. While the Founders had opposed slavery in principle, but had been forced to compromise with the institution in practice for the sake of the Union, the rise of the ‘positive good’ school of slavery in the South marked a turn away from the Founders’ principles, and their practice. In response, Abraham Lincoln explained and defended the Founder’s approach.”
No, no, no. This is complete historical revisionism. It’s the stuff of Marxist Eric Foner, Straussian Harry Jaffa, and plagiarist and “Lincoln idolater” Doris Kearns Goodwin, whose wont is to demonize Robert E. Lee as a foot fetishist. Yet, these snake-oil salesmen are all lauded as the popular “historians” of the Washington elite.
Why? Because they and their self-righteous ilk, like Victor Davis Hanson, Dinesh D’Souza, Jonah Goldberg, Ben Shapiro, and all the talking heads at Fox News (save Tucker Carlson), use this misinformation to construct a narrative of America as an “idea” that wasn’t realized until St. Lincoln “freed the slaves” and smashed those evil racists below the Mason-Dixon Line.
America must be cleansed of her “original sin” of slavery. It’s all presentist rubbish. Lincoln was no friend of the black man and certainly no freedom fighter.
In fact, no American’s ideology has ever been more contrary to Founding principles than was Dishonest Abe’s. Because of his totalitarianism and subsequent worship, we now have a federal government that micromanages every aspect of our lives, as well as increased social division. We have lost states’ rights and voluntary association, which were cornerstones of America’s founding. We have attained the “idea,” and people couldn’t be any unhappier. Kinda makes Number Three seem silly, now don’t it?!
We are living in the Hamiltonian vision of America, which metastasized into the cancer known as Lincolnian nationalism throughout the 20th century and has devolved into today’s “managerial state” (as the late Sam Francis called it). Out with the voluntary compact of sovereign states. In with the cult of Unionism and pegging Confederates as the heretics.
It is this “propositional nation” mythos which is the basis for all this “reform” we’re drowning in today. It has opened the door for secular-humanism, radical egalitarianism, and universalism. It has smashed localism for centralization; destroyed equal justice under the law for the evils of “equality;” routed traditionalism for post-modernism; and annihilated self-determination for statism. The tale is how the neocons and their uber-leftist cohorts push for “permanent revolution.”
And to do this, they must incessantly tear down the traditions that rooted Jeffersonian America up until 1861. Since the progressive notion of “exceptionalism” was fashionably spreading across the growing 19th-century landscape, the remnants of subsidiarity that survived only in the South had to be extinguished to attain the nation-state. And because it is still the only place where this Jeffersonian ideal exists, her people must be maligned and their culture razed.
In the name of “progress,” the South must continually be demonized and distorted in order to “deify the idea of America.” To attain this new world order, the “pogrom against Southern history and symbols,” as historian Clyde Wilson describes it, must carry forward. It is the linchpin for the con.
Today, the invasion (Third-World socialists, instead of Yankee soldiers and carpet-baggers) and total war (political correctness, cultural genocide, and anarcho-tyranny, instead of amassed Federal armies invading, killing, raping, pillaging, and burning cities to the sea) may look different. But make no mistake, puritanical-progressive conquest and Reconstruction still roll on. There may not have been 700,000 deaths … yet, but the goal is nonetheless the same.
“The agents of Big Conservatism are just as responsible as are their leftist counterparts of seeking to fundamentally transform America by radically rewriting its history.”
If Americans get this wrong (meaning, the real crisis that occurred from 1861-1865 and the ensuing cultural Marxist “remaking” of America that has followed unabated), we cannot fully understand any history, much less have a firm grasp on current events, keen eyes for charlatans, or an understanding of modern threats which imperil any shreds of liberty that may be salvaged from the Lincolnian wreckage.
Like all good propaganda, the Hillsdale hearsay is peppered with grains of truth, giving it the illusion of fact. Christian homeschoolers, please do your homework before buying into this dangerous paradigm. Don’t get conned. After all, there’s nothing more important than truth.
Just because something’s free doesn’t mean it’s worth your time or money … or soul. In fact, it will end up costing your children (and their posterity) way more in the long run.
• For more on neoconservatism, dig into the voluminous writings of American sage Patrick J. Buchanan, historian Boyd Cathey, and retired humanities professor and author Paul Gottfried.
• For the truth about the War Between the States, check out the work of stalwarts the Kennedy Brothers, historian Clyde Wilson and professor Thomas DiLorenzo, the blogs of yours truly (many of which are linked within this story), and articles and podcasts by historian Brion McClanahan and the indispensable Abbeville Institute.
• And for politically incorrect curriculum, please consider purchasing real history courses at Liberty Classroom and McClanahan Academy. I promise: they’re worth every dirty Lincoln penny.
Comments
Obviously, Number 2 will refer to the Anti-Federalist perspective in the context of the “peculiar institution”, i.e. slavery, so your screeching is unwarranted here. The historians you refer are other than “snake-oil salesmen”–they are offering their cogent analysis of events in a similar fashion like Cathey and his ilk. Each has a distinct bias or slant, hence the arguments given by the opposition are meant to maximize their weaknesses and minimize their own flaws.
America has always been an idea. The Founding Fathers granted Congress the authority to create immigration laws, with their posterity (future generations) to be able to change or amend that legislation. The nation was founded for the people, whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed. Congress was given the green light by the Founding Fathers as to determine who were those people. At the time, it was Europeans. Later on, it incorporated non-Europeans. The people through Congress had the liberty to include other peoples.
“Lincoln was no friend of the black man and certainly no freedom fighter.”
He was a product of the times. Lincoln was opposed to social equality for whites and blacks, but not for political equality. And, indeed, he was a freedom fighter, as he ultimately preserved the Union. Remember, there were also southern Unionists who believed secession was illegal and slavery was immoral. You really need to get out of your Vox Dayian bubble.
“Because of his totalitarianism and subsequent worship, we now have a federal government that micromanages every aspect of our lives, as well as increased social division”
That would be Fake News.
“It is this “propositional nation” mythos which is the basis for all this “reform” we’re drowning in today.”
Clearly you need a history lesson.
Preserving rights “for one’s posterity” was legal repudiation of feudalism, which stated liberties were a grant from a monarch and the State, and reverted upon his/her death. That is, fundamental freedoms were NOT passed to future generations. The Declaration and the Federalist Papers in particular destroys that feudalist notion. More importantly, Article I, Section 8, Clause 4, as a component of our Constitution and reflects original intent, granted Congress and NOT the States the authority to establish uniform rules of naturalization. By definition, naturalization extends citizenship, and the liberties related to it, to an “outsider”.
So, the drafters of our Constitution and the adopting state s fully comprehended the new Congress would have to power to receive immigrants and set forth the standards under which they are naturalized. Citizenship therefore is NOT exclusively confined to the British. This means this argument that the franchise of citizenship is meant to be confined solely to the British children of rebel British subjects is not reflected in the clear meaning of the document. Since immigration was allowed to the United States, at first to Europeans but later extended to non-Europeans, the “posterity” includes more than the actual descendants of residents of our great nation at that time.
But, but, but “[the Constitution] did allow for the possibility of change. But change, by definition, is not the previous state. And the original purpose of the Constitution cannot change, obviously.” Well, a contract, which essentially is what is our Constitution, that has an amendment process is NOT meant to remain constant. It has no original purpose but to establish exactly what the Preamble states. Posterity does not refer to the progeny of the founders but of the People as a whole. While this population was primarily of British descent, the Dutch, Germans, Irish, Scots, French, Africans, and Native Americans ALL fought to remove the shackles of tyranny from Great Britain.
Posterity is synonymous with “legacy”–what we leave behind. Indeed, few, if any, had imagined when the Constitution was created that anyone BUT a white European had the intellectual capacity to embrace Republican principles of government…YET the criterion of commitment to those ideas is NOT itself racial or ethnic specific. Of course, that does NOT mean foreigners have the right to enter our shores, and it is legitimate, although in my opinion unreasonable, to doubt that non-white groups are equal to the task to embrace such principles. Of course, in the past foreigners have ben excluded on racial and religious grounds.
“But make no mistake, puritanical-progressive conquest and Reconstruction still roll on”.
Dear, that is not even remotely the case. I completely get it, you long for a return to the southern glory days. Sweetie, it is not going to happen.
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Cornivus, you are obviously a graduate of the presentist Hillsdale Constitution course. Hand clap. Your coercive and imperial Unionism enslaves me. And don’t be such a misogynist: I’m not anyone’s “sweetie” but my husband’s.
Larry Arnn Quote: “…look at the platform of Donald Trump is these main things – control immigration and build a wall. I support that. “
https://www.hughhewitt.com/dr-larry-arnn-totalitarianism-courts/
Doesn’t sound like open borders to me…
Lincoln fan bois to be sure, but you seem to be serving half truths here.
Author
Kwon Mega, your missing the big picture. Neocons exercise wiggle room on a few issues, sure, but their overall position is statism at home and empire abroad. That is a very Lincolian thing. If you don’t believe me, listen to Arrn on another Hewitt episode for yourself or waxing philosophical about Lincoln over Calhoun. Gag! Arnn’s the one pushing for half truths. Hamilton also gave “red meat” talking points that were palatable to the audience to whom he was speaking, but then did very different things in reality. Point is, if you get Number Two wrong, you simply cannot be taken seriously from a limited government, Jeffersonian, live-and-let-live perspective. Wake up, dude … neocons suck!
A corrosive rant to be sure. Sounds like something Omar Ilhan would say.
Author
I’m beginning to think by the commenters’ names (Kwon Mega and Wan Wei Lin) I’m being infiltrated by cuckservative trolls, who are just as – if not more – disingenuous than the left. Difference between Omar and me is I won’t go on an apology tour.
Just keep on truckin’ Dissident Mama, and leave the worthless neocons in your dust. The faster the right gets rid of these snakes in the grass the better.
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Thanks, LAP! Funny that I’ve never gotten as much push-back from self-proclaimed leftists as I have from these triggered neocons. Just proves that Lincolnianism is a cult. Anyhoo, your words of encouragement mean a lot to me. Please keep reading and commenting. Cheers!
It is exceedingly difficult to rid one of what one is continuously adding to one’s organization.
Trump would be better off leaving positions empty than filling them with the likes of Bolton, Pompeo, and Abrams.
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Vanvonu, agreed 100%. Surrounding oneself with neocons (especially neocons on the never-Trump train) seems quite a strange thing for a Make-America-Great-Again and Build-the-Wall president named Trump to do. Puzzling for sure. When it comes to governance, smaller is always better, as is a shallower Deep State.
You have no idea what I believe or who I am. No troll I can assure you. It seems in recent weeks I’m seeing more ‘hate America’ Christians. I’m certainly no supporter of the bureaucratic oppressive state, but if you think it’s so bad in America you might try China instead.
Author
Wow, I’ve never heard the “If you don’t love it, leave it” mantra before. How original. I’ve been to China and sadly, this country is becoming more and more like it every day due to neocon charlatans who abhor First Principles. Nah, I think I’ll stick here in my home, the South … not the amorphous nation-state you call “America.” Plus, who will trigger folks like you if I’m gone? Hugs! 🙂
I’ve been to China multiple times from villages to Beijing sleeping in homes of Chinese friends eating whatever was put before me. I’m also in the South for whatever that’s worth. Hopefully the Declaration and Constitution will prevail in time. There will always be America haters across the political spectrum to trigger those who love liberty.
There is a big difference between hating America and hating the government. Unfortunately, too many people conflate government with country. One can love the country (the land and its peoples) and the original ideas of liberty, and hate the current government and the destruction it has created to the original concepts of liberty that this country was founded on. Worshiping the State and the people that run it places blinders on those people to what has happened to this country. I prefer to be suspicious of any group that has power over the people and the media.
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An Old One, this is precisely why I respect the anti-federalists. They didn’t laud government; they lauded the principles behind a government that was supposed to protect people’s God-given rights. It’s the brilliance of subsidiarity which is comprised of a *confederation* of States. People within those States could do as they saw fit, and then people who didn’t like it could either change it by virtue of the ballot box (since representative government is much more realistic within smaller populations) or vote with their feet. It was an idea that was supposed to be filled with choice. And self-determination. And competition. And free trade. And no entangling alliances. But … that’s not how it panned out, as you well know.
That is precisely why my kids and I don’t recite the Pledge. It’s similar to the realization that Francis Scott Key’s grandson had during the occupation of his beloved Maryland and his subsequent imprisonment by federal troops during the War Between the States: the US flag that his grandfather saw as a symbol of freedom, tattered but resilient in Baltimore Harbor during the War of 1812, he “saw waving at the same place over the victims as vulgar and brutal a despotism as modern times have witnessed.” Liberty isn’t a flag or a government. It is an idea. And a fleeting one for sure.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. Hope you have a blessed Easter!
Something like what she said when she spoke truth to Elliot Abrams in congressional committee?
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Yep Vanvonu, even a broken clock is correct twice a day. What I think WanWeiLin doesn’t get is that there would be no U.S. Congresswoman Omar without centralization and the Lincolnian fetish of “equality” (which was Hillsdale’s crises #2). It is precisely those two things together that have foisted upon America as a whole the “reforms” that led to Omar, which were born of such progressive gems as the 19th Amendment, government-funded feminism (from K-12, through higher ed, and now beyond into the corporate world), the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Immigration Act, Reagan’s Amnesty, etc. Simply put, when you believe in the altruism and benevolence of the nation-state, there is no escape from the tyranny.
I’m a Hillsdale student who is all too aware of everything that you are saying in this essay. In fact, what you’ve wrote sounds almost exactly like the sentiments that I have expressed on numerous occasions. I’m a rare Anti-Federalist, Jeffersonian Paleoconservative who attends here and diverges from the Hamilton-Madison-Lincoln cultism that reigns.
I will say, however, that there are a lot of people who are in the West Coast Straussian, Hillsdalian movement who are still our “allies” in our immediate battles against the Left. It is quite rare that I diverge with someone on public policy issues (I have not met a student in the politics grad program who embraces open borders, for example), though sadly my historical and philosophical disagreement with them is quite profound at times. I’d call most people here well-meaning, if misguided, conservatives whose worship of Lincoln and Enlightenment Lockean social contract theory makes them ill-equipped to really counter the constant growth of the state.
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SolaFide, I think Cornvius’ vitriol is proof positive that some neocons are just lost causes. First of all, he didn’t get my jab at his obvious statism, which is exemplified in rule by Victim Inc., part of which is the unhinged feminists, as you know. If he’s going to go around calling people “sweetie,” he’s not going to make it very far in the progressive circles in which he apparently prances.
Second, it’ll be neocons like him first calling to put people like me and you in a gulag. This is what’s so concerning about the Hillsdale school of thought: MANY are not allies. They spend so much of their precious time attacking “the right” and distancing themselves from the bogeyman of “white supremacy” and going on apology tours to appease the anarcho-tyrants that I rarely see them effectively resisting the left. UnReconstructed folk like us are also easy targets. It’s fashionable and cool to attack us; it takes no balls at all. But I doubt Cornivus goes much after anti-male blue-haired chicks, cultural-Marxist POC, nihilist LGBTs, or anti-Christian Jews or Muslims with the fervor he spews at us.
Plus, I don’t think he realizes that once you take the nation-state pill, you gotta play by all of its ever-changing rules, such as not using the word “shill.” Doesn’t he know the keepers of acceptable opinion say that’s code for anti-Semitism?! Sheesh, what rock has he been hiding under. I suppose when you’re busy allying with big-government pretend patriots, giving leftists cover, and cucking on real liberty and self-determination, who has the time or inclination to notice the whole damn world burning around you. Pathetic.
Thank God for thoughtful words such as yours, SolaFide. They really do give me hope that not all is lost in this decaying culture of ours, and that there is indeed a remnant of clear-headed, bighearted, well-spoken, and truly open-minded people out there. We aren’t the majority, of course. But we are there. And if we can keep speaking truth, triggering all the neocons and leftists, and sticking together, we’re doing something right. And maybe, just maybe, some of these “lost causes” will one day break free of their Lincolnian chains, as I did. I mean, I am a recovering atheist-socialist-feminist, so perhaps there is hope for ol’ Cornivus after all. 😉
Hope to hear from you again, good sir. Keep fightin’ the good fight. I pray you have a blessed Holy Week!
Undoubtedly, SolaFide is a made up shill.
At least try next time to actually address my points, dear, rather than skirt the issues.
Misogynist? There is no such thing. Just strong men and weak women.
Corvinus: the founders most assuredly did not grant Congress authority to create immigration laws. My goodness, must I take you through my “Constitution 101” course? Welp, wouldn’t be the first time. Hint: naturalization is not the same thing as immigration. Check your terms. Beyond that,…
I am wondering why Dissident Mama refers to the Federalist Papers as “Hamiltonian.” Can one not say with equal validity that they are in fact “Madisonian?” And didn’t even Mr. Jefferson refer to them as the ‘greatest commentary on government ever written?’
Credit where credit is due, Mr. Hamilton foresaw (speaking of the prescience attributed to the anti-federalist writers) that the vaunted Bill of Rights would ultimately be used by persons “so disposed” to turn the whole Constitution on its head.
Madison is not on any Federal Reserve Note. Hamilton is on the 10 dollar note, as a reward for throwing the new republic under the the central banking bus.
The Bill of Rights is nothing more than a reminder to Congress that there are rights pre-existing the republic that they are not to violate. They of course made all haste in doing so anyway.
Author
T. Morris, I used Hamiltonian as a shorthand, but yes, the Fed Papers were indeed Madisonian, as well. But that was Madison in 1787. What about the Principles of ’98, when Madison and Jefferson penned the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions respectively? Madison had seen the light by then, that Hamilton was a nationalist pure and simple and never had the intention of promoting a decentralized general government with each state having its own sovereignty. Hamilton’s financial schemes and the Alien and Sedition Acts were enough to push Madison and Jefferson to forge a constitutional barrier to federal usurpations. As secretary of the treasury, he whispered in Washington’s ear, urging the federal executive to interfere in the Whiskey Rebellion, thus, helping create a blueprint for nationalism. And with the help of John Marshall, he pushed for federal empowerment through the courts to secure a top-down, one-size-fits-all, Marbury v. Madison approach.
Vanvonu, well said. There are few 19th-century Yankees and abolitionists I respect, but Lysander Spooner nailed it when he said, “Whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.” Without the Bill of Rights and the tireless efforts of the anti-federalists, that ‘Murica dog won’t hunt.
Bravo, Dissident Mama! I was briefly taken in by Hillsdale, until I watched one of its videos and saw Dr. Will Morrissey insist it was the people of the United States, not the individual States, that ratified the Constitution. Since then, I’ve discovered many more issues with Hillsdale’s teachings. And, I’m glad to note from the comments that not all of Hillsdale’s students are drinking its Kool-Aid.
Author
I appreciate your words of encouragement, Harry, and welcome to my little dissident-thought experiment, in which you will apparently be maligned more viciously by fellow “conservatives” than you may ever be by a leftist. Sure, Antifa could throw urine on you, or douse your eyeballs with bear pepper-spray, but at least they don’t pretend to love free speech. Or the Founders. Or rule of law. Or live and let live. Or smaller government. Or peace. It’s the wolves in sheep’s clothing that really scare me. Anyhoo, thanks for having my back, good sir!
Great article. So on-point. What disturbed me long ago about Hillsdale is Arnn’s declaration that States do not possess the authority to nullify. Mark Levin is another neo-Conservative show voiced the same belief. That kinda’ placed these guys in a clearer light for me. Been circumspect ever since.
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Jim, you’re speaking my language. Indeed, the list of nationalist war-mongers is quite lengthy, and includes the Neocon Godfather’s son, Bill Kristol, certainly Levine, basically anyone at PragerU, of course, National Review, and lots of writers at the once-great The Federalist. I could go on, but the saddest thing to me is that they are devastatingly right on so many issues. But like I said in the blog, if we get the states’ rights and true federalism position wrong, everything that springs forth from this faulty foundation is simply built upon sand. No onslaught from the left can be resisted politically if we don’t have the rock of Jeffersonianism. Stay radical, my friend!
Thanks, Mama. Appreciate your clear-eyed critique of Hillsdale.
The problem is that Hillsdale is just the tip of the iceberg–fake “conservative” posers, mostly neocons, control pretty much the entire “conservative” narrative.
Keep up the good work.
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Kent, you are right. The neocon rabbit hole is a deep one for sure. Thanks so much for your encouragement!
First time appreciative reader from Canada. Cannot provide comment
on this.
But, will say that I jest got for meself a summer T shirt made up message::: HONOR STUPIDITY this is 2019
The next one will be DIVERSITY UNLEASHED 2+2 =5
In Canada, that could be enough to be hate crime gaol bound.
Author
Welcome, neighbor to the north! Whenever I don a politically incorrect shirt, I’m always glad to be packing heat. I’m pretty sure conceal-carrying a gun is not option for you all up yonder, so be careful up there, where the unhinged level of the leftists really is quite unbelievable. Then again, so is most every place in the whole of the Western hemisphere, so I say, keep triggering ’em, Joey!
P.S. This’d make a cool tee: “Hate crimes = Truth in 2019” 🙂
“neocons suck!” (April 15). Rather, they help suckers by calling them “gay.” We should not be afraid to describe sexual perversion in plain graphic detail. Being overly sensitive to queers’ feelings helps them advance their sick lifestyle, even to helpless school children
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Bill, it is not verifiable that neocons like little Marco Rubio and light-in-the-loafers Lindsey Graham actually “suck” in a homosexual way (like the Log Cabin Republicans), but my guess is they do. But what we do know is that ALL neocons “suck” in the general sense.
Also, I’ve been reading a bunch of classic works of lit with my kids, and I’m totally bringing back the words “gay” and “queer” to their original meanings. Why should the LGBTs get to steal entire words, much less their true meanings?
And yes, let’s call your stance “sodomy realism,” which may also be a very effective approach, in the same way that describing physically what an abortion is can often soften some people’s hearts to life. Facts is facts.
Your article is spot on Dissident Mama. It appears from your quotes from the course material that Hillsdale wants to push a Hamiltonian/Lincolnian view of the constitution. During the Constitutional Convention Hamilton proposed a government structure that would include one legislative branch and the Chief Executive be for a term of life as long as long as good behavior was maintained. He wanted more power to reside toward the general government. What actually came out of the convention was a federal republic, a structure where the states retained their sovereignty and only delegated a few defined powers to the general government; the tenth amendment was added to emphasize the point. The most important branch of the structure was to be the states. The U.S. senators were to be selected by the state legislatures. Even the most populous states would have but two senators. The President would be selected using the electoral college, not by popular vote. The whole idea of this system was to NOT concentrate power in the general government. Note that the states did not transfer power, they DELEGATED it.
This structure was effectively abolished during the War Against Southern Independence (the term “civil war” to describe the conflict was a misnomer. A civil war is when two or more factions are fighting to control the same government. The South had already formed a separate government). Lincoln put forth the Emancipation Proclamation as a war tactic. It did not free a single slave as it only applied to territory not under Lincoln’s control. Lincoln did not have a complimentary view of the slaves and thought they were inferior. Unfortunately, this was true of the vast majority of Americans at the time. Today, we would consider most people in the North and South at that time to be white supremacists. This was the mainstream view at that time. Before the war Lincoln said he supported the Corwin amendment. This amendment would have made slavery in the states where it already existed legal FOREVER. Slavery was not being challenged where it already existed. Lincoln himself said the reason for the war was to preserve the union- not to free slaves.
However, it would end slavery in the end and that was a great side effect of the war. The terrible side effect of the war, other than death and destruction, was that it centralized power in Washington and put the U.S. on a path towards empire and fiscal disaster. We are now engaged in constant warfare and our CIA has overthrown many democratically elected governments around the world. Our leaders suffer from megalomania and the democrats and republicans are both fine with it. So are institutions like the Heritage Foundation and chicken hawks like Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro.
Our freedoms are being slowly eroded by the warfare and welfare state. Our state run schools and mainstream media make sure we are too dumb and distracted to see it. Most of the pundits on CNBC AND Fox news are just fine with big government with few exceptions; they just differ on who they want to control it.
My solution, which the haters of freedom from the left and right side of the political spectrum will mock, is a constitutional amendment to make all taxation voluntary. That’s right, until we are allowed to treat government like a charity it will continue to take our money without our consent and to spend it on their friends or to buy votes. If government really is necessary won’t people be willing to support it? Does any organization deserve your donation if they have to coerce it from you? This is the only way we can truly return the power to the people. Several of the richest counties in the U.S. are clustered around Washington D.C. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Stop the theft. Support the idea of voluntary taxation.
Author
Liberty Man Van, thanks for your encouragement and your precise historical comments. I’ll give ya a hardy “amen” to all your points and will firmly support your voluntary taxation platform. Sure, I’d rather have decentralization via a return to subsidiarity and/or through secession, but whatever train is moving us down the track toward liberty and away from tyranny is a preferred course to what we have now: totalitarianism.
Look forward to your future comments, sir. Cheers!
Thanks for your reply. I enjoyed your article. It is good to see others that “get it.” Occasionally, I will listen to the Mark Levin podcast to remind myself of how wrong the neocons are about foreign policy. One of his podcast sponsors is Hillsdale College. It is no shock to learn their free course about the Constitution pushes the Nationalist rather than the Federalist perspective.
I am a big fan of Murray Rothbard and he supported anarchism and I do believe it could work. However, you would still need a way to make collective decisions- a quasi-government. I believe anarchists main objection to government is its coercive nature. Voluntary taxation would remove the coercion. In addition, the idea of voluntarism is an easier political sell than anarchism. Unfortunately, many people mistakenly equate anarchism with chaos; they just can’t see life without government.
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I too am a fan of Rothbard. And I also agree with you: “rules” would be required to make voluntarism work, namely those surrounding non-aggression and private property. Private courts and private security and private arbiters of all sorts would be part of the ancap system, and would require people within it to agree upon certain terms and conditions of said society. Sure, it’d be small and localized systems, not the ever-hungry nation-state, but directives, standards, social mores or whatever you want to call it (maybe a “blueprint”?) would be necessary. That’s what makes tried-and-true traditions and customs so great: they are our guides and help sustain and advance man in a truly noble way. I think that’s what a lot of libertarians don’t understand. They think an ancap society would be free from rules, but it simply wouldn’t work otherwise. They don’t give credence to the fact that it’d be comprised of humans, who very much require guidelines and parameters for thriving, or else chaos ensues. Even radical individualists have to have a meeting of the minds with other radical individualists. Without some kind of order, there can be no “society.”
G.K. Chesterton says it well: “When he drops one doctrine after another in a refined skepticism, when he declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality, when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass. Trees have no dogmas. Turnips are singularly broad-minded.”
Great insight on the ‘withholding tax” tyranny, DH. Any wonder I still sport the “Secession Sounds Better Every Day” sticker on the rear window of my car? Realistically, this “voluntary union of sovereign States” is a terrible farce; it’s nothing more than a robotically compliant matrix of vassal states ruled by a federal gov’t which has also lost sight of our republic’s foundational first principles. Well past time for the big fix. It’s do-able and can be accomplished peacefully. Sure beats bloody, armed insurrection which appears more and more inevitable..
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Jim, well said. Yep, Appomattox proved “voluntary” is no part of this thing called ‘Murica. I too am a secessionist ’cause the nation-state sucks. Bigly. But what concerns me is (a) that the South is now brimming with progressives, both homegrown and transplanted, (b) progressives don’t like people who think and want to live differently than them even existing, (c) the Empire needs to suck off the labor and ingenuity of the productive and prosperous (1861-1865 proved that … as Omar said, “It’s all about the Benjamins, baby!”), and (d) the “multi-cultural” makeup of both the US population and increasingly the US military will make it even easier to foster armed conflict. It’s a lot less of struggle of conscience to quell dissent and secession through force when it’s not a struggle of “brother against brother,” as it was in the fight for Southern independence. So, I think it’s going to get very bloody no matter what. However, like you said, the house of cards will crumble eventually, as they always do.
“Sodomy realism” is acceptable. But I think of myself as a natural sexuality advocate. If we don’t cling firmly to the facts of life, LBQ-etc. mobs will continue shuffling hormones to infinite combinations.
And with respect to Liberty Man Van — isn’t “voluntary taxation” an oxymoron? The purpose of government is to take money from people who earn it and however much we give our rulers, they will always want more. Taxation was originally called tribute extorted from conquered tribes by armed force. So what has changed?
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Sure, it’s an oxymoron, and I think that’s kinda the point. No one would voluntarily pay, not even bleeding-heart lefties (who are typically the least charitable people around), which is why taxation has to be at the point of a gun. I suppose what has changed is the withholding tax – truly a velvet-gloved tyranny that props up the Leviathan and placates the masses into submission.
Sorry I didn’t get the subtle sarcasm. And isn’t “withholding tax” another oxymoron? When earnings are taken before we even see them, how can we pay tax on them?
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Indeed, that’s why they call it a “withholding.” Sounds better than “stealing the fruits of your labor” or just plain ol’ “theft tax.” Kinda like the Affordable Care Act or the Patriot Act: they sound warm and fuzzy, but they’re anything but.
Well said, ma’am.
I clued in on “Imprimus” years ago but it wasn’t until they published an article by Tom Cotton that I used their reply form to tell them how off base they were and to please remove me from their list. It worked.
The government formed by that heralded Constitution, good or bad, (a supposed republic) was dead and laid to rest when the emerging oligarchy decided to declare itself supreme, making war on its creators and short-circuiting, usurping, the supremacy of the individual and his appointed representative entities.
Supreme centralized authority has and forever will be mutually exclusive with liberty. There is no compromise in this. And we have experienced 159 years of increasing oppression purely as a result of that centralized authority, the incessant appeal to higher authority, and the emerging collectivist authoritarian culture we live in.
You said it, Joe! Thanks for commenting, and I hope to hear from you again on some of my newer blog posts. 🙂