Category: History

The Tyranny of ‘Good’ Intentions

Posted on by Jeff Cassman

For Statists, whether Left or Right:

“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.

The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult.

To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.” {C.S. Lewis} H/T Eric S. Giunta… Read the rest

The Shroud of Turin Seen in 3D

Posted on by Jeff Cassman

A professor at the University of Padua has created a sculpture of Christ based on a 3D rendering of the Shroud of Turin:

The sculpture is based on precise measurements taken from the Shroud.  Christ is depicted as being 5’11”, with a distended right shoulder and more than 300 wounds on his back and legs consistent with the flagellum.

 

 … Read the rest

Rob a Man of Everything and You’ve Lost All Power Over Him

Posted on by Jeff Cassman

It’s the birthday of Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, born in Kislovodsk, Russia in 1918 who was thrown into the gulag as a young man for saying that Stalin wasn’t Marxist enough in one of his personal letters. But the Gulag changed his life, because in a strange way, it was only in the Gulag that Russians spoke freely about their political beliefs. Solzhenitsyn later wrote, “You can have power over people as long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything, he’s no longer in your power.” (Writer’s Almanac)… Read the rest

The Falling Man

Posted on by Jeff Cassman

Whatever your conclusions about the events of September 11th, 2001, I suspect you will find this article of interest.

In the picture, he departs from this earth like an arrow. Although he has not chosen his fate, he appears to have, in his last instants of life, embraced it. If he were not falling, he might very well be flying. He appears relaxed, hurtling through the air. He appears comfortable in the grip of unimaginable motion. He does not appear intimidated by gravity’s divine suction or by what awaits him. His arms are by his side, only slightly outriggered. His left leg is bent at the knee, almost casually. His white shirt, or jacket, or frock, is billowing free of his black pants. His black high-tops are still on his feet.

In all the other pictures, the people who did what he did—who jumped—appear to be struggling against horrific discrepancies of scale. They are made puny by the backdrop of the towers, which loom like colossi, and then by the event itself. Some of them are shirtless; their shoes fly off as they flail and fall; they look confused, as though trying to swim down the side of a mountain. The man in the picture, by contrast, is perfectly vertical, and so is in accord with the lines of the buildings behind him. He splits them, bisects them: Everything to the left of him in the picture is the North Tower; everything to the right, the South. Though oblivious to

… Read the rest

Celebrating Labor Day? Don’t

Posted on by Jeff Cassman

President Cleveland created Labor Day on June 28, 1894 in an attempt to quell a strike by 150,000 railroad workers that had crippled the country’s economy.  The striking laborers refused to go back to work and eventually clashed with federal troops. Their leader, Eugene Debs, was sent to prison, where he eventually became a Marxist.

The common ideology of the unions and the socialists made for a profitable long-term alliance.  Each sought to overthrow the existing order, each proclaimed an entitlement to the property of others, and each was quick to resort to violence when lawful means were unproductive.  Within two years of the institution of Labor Day, a quarter of a million workers in Chicago walked off their jobs, demanding a shorter work week (but the same pay).  As so many strikes do, this one resulted in violence when police attempting to disperse the crowd at the Haymarket Square were attacked with a dynamite bomb.  Seven police officers were killed.  They would be the first victims of the new century of union, socialist violence.

The unions have long cultivated the myth that their reason for existence is the promotion of workers’ rights, but from their earliest days the opposite has been true.  Shortly after the Civil War, as black Americans flooded northern industrial areas in search of jobs, labor unions such as The Brotherhood of Railroad Firemen and Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen prohibited the admission of black members.  They also banned Catholics.  Consequently, the railroads employed almost exclusively white … Read the rest