Tag: history

The Conspiracy Theory of History

What is the conspiracy theory of history? Is it true? In this week’s column, I’m going to discuss the great Murray Rothbard’s analysis of the subject. As always, he is our best guide. Then, I’ll give examples of what Murray calls “good” conspiracy theories.

Murray begins his analysis by noting that the Establishment attacks the conspiracy theory: “Anytime that a hard-nosed analysis is put forth of who our rulers are, of how their political and economic interests interlock, it is invariably denounced by Establishment liberals and conservatives (and even by many libertarians) as a ‘conspiracy theory of history,’ ‘paranoid,’ ‘economic determinist,’ and even ‘Marxist.’ These smear labels are applied across the board, even though such realistic analyses can be, and have been, made from any and all parts of the economic spectrum, from the John Birch Society to the Communist Party. The most common label is ‘conspiracy theorist,’ almost always leveled as a hostile epithet rather than adopted by the ‘conspiracy theorist’ himself.”

Murray next points out that it is natural that the Establishment attack the conspiracy theory because it has an interest in saying that that the Deep State isn’t a plot to hold power but an inevitable development that it is futile to resist: “It is no wonder that usually these realistic analyses are spelled out by various ‘extremists’ who are outside the Establishment consensus. For it is vital to the continued rule of the State apparatus that it have legitimacy and even sanctity in the eyes of the public, and it is vital to that sanctity that our politicians and bureaucrats be deemed to be disembodied spirits solely devoted to the ‘public good.’ Once let the cat out of the bag that these spirits are all too often grounded in the solid earth of advancing a set of economic interests through use of the State, and the basic mystique of government begins to collapse.”

Murray was a great teacher, and he gives us some simple example to show how to use conspiracy theories: “Let us take an easy example. Suppose we find that Congress has passed a law raising the steel tariff or imposing import quotas on steel? Surely only a moron will fail to realize that the tariff or quota was passed at the behest of lobbyists from the domestic steel industry, anxious to keep out efficient foreign competitors. No one would level a charge of ‘conspiracy theorist’ against such a conclusion. But what the conspiracy theorist is doing is simply to extend his analysis to more complex measures of government: say, to public works projects, the establishment of the ICC, the creation of the Federal Reserve System, or the entry of the United States into a war. In each of these cases, the conspiracy theorist asks himself the question cui bono? Who benefits from this measure? If he finds that Measure A benefits X and Y, his next step is to investigate the hypothesis: did X and Y in fact lobby or exert pressure for the passage of Measure A? In short, did X and Y realize that they would benefit and act accordingly?”

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After All is Said and Done, American History is Human

The New York Time’s 1619 Project, a series of essays launched on August 18, 2019, sought to “reframe the country’s history” by placing slavery and the later prejudice that was indeed experienced by black Americans “at the very center of our national narrative.” Not electing our own leaders, not the Bill of Rights, not separation of powers. Racism, according to the 1619 Project authors and proponents, defines America’s origins.

In less than a year, the 1619 Project materials were transformed into a curriculum that was taught in 4,500 schools across the country. Since then, there have been national arguments over Critical Race Theory and DEI in schools. One group of professors conducted a survey in which they asked high school students how often they had heard certain phrases from their teachers. The study found that 36% of respondents said they heard the argument that “America is a fundamentally racist nation” often or almost daily.

This “America is fundamentally racist” view, in and of itself, is prejudiced. It labels our entire country because of the actions of a subgroup of people. So, should we wrap ourselves in the flag and avoid acknowledging the darker side of our history? Of course not. But the healthy response is not eternal and unending guilt; self-hate will not bring us any closer together as Americans.

The healthy response is to remind ourselves that we are human; some Americans humans held slaves and some freed slaves. Healing the nation is not about seeing only one side or the other, it is about seeing ourselves in our basic humanity. Author Jacob Needleman put it well in his book, The American Soul: Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Founders:

Like unregenerate man himself, America is both good and evil at the same time…When the real feeling, the deep sensing and pondering of each side of this contradiction begins to appear in us, something entirely new may be glimpsed in our hearts and in our actions. But, for that to happen, we first need to stand in front of each side of the contradiction without impatience and without helpless reactions of guilt or pride. We need to apprehend what is good in America, but without self-inflation, and what is evil in America, but without self-flagellation.

There is currently tremendous focus on the sins of slavery, so let’s ponder the other side, as Needleman suggests. Here are three early voices for the abolition of slavery, a very small sample of good people in colonial America.

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A Brief, Bloody History of All the Times the U.S. Caused Chaos in the Middle East

If at first you don’t succeed, make more problems for yourself. That seems to be the mantra in Washington when it comes to the Middle East. Every few years, a U.S. president asks Americans to go along with a small military commitment in the region—or starts one without asking the public. Almost inevitably, it causes bigger problems than promised.

Friends turn into enemies. The chaos allows bad actors to grow, or creates new factions with a reason to resent America. The political goalposts shift; the U.S. government discovers that a problem it didn’t care about before is actually a “vital interest.” And time after time, politicians promise that all these problems can go away with just one more decisive strike against the real cause of conflict in the region. No forever war is ever advertised that way from the beginning.

President Donald Trump is speedrunning this whole problem. Just a month ago, he was promising the end of “nation building” and grandiose “neocon” schemes. Now, he’s directly entered the Israeli-Iranian war by bombing Iran. While Vice President J.D. Vance tried to claim that “we’re not at war with Iran” and the attack would be a one-off incident, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump himself have both hinted that the U.S. will escalate to regime change if Iran does not surrender. Here’s how we got to this point—and some of the times we’ve seen this movie before.

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Harvard hired a researcher to uncover its ties to slavery. He says the results cost him his job: ‘We found too many slaves’

Jordan Lloyd had been praying for something big to happen. The 35-year-old screenwriter was quarantining in her apartment in North Hollywood in June 2020. Without any work projects to fill her days, she picked up the novel Roots, by Alex Haley, to reread.

The novel tells the story of Kunta Kinte, Haley’s ancestor, who is captured and sold into slavery in the Gambia and then brought to Virginia, where he is forced to labor on a plantation. It was adapted into an Emmy-award winning television series in the 1970s, and while reading it again, Lloyd thought to herself, “Wouldn’t it be nice if they could make another Roots?”

A few days later, out of the blue, she received an email from an undergraduate student at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The email was short. The woman introduced herself as Carissa Chen, a junior at the college studying history. She was working on an independent research project to find descendants of enslaved people connected to the university. By using historical records and modern genealogy tools, she had found Lloyd.

“I have reason to believe through archival research that you could be the descendant of Tony and Cuba Vassall, two slaves taken from Antigua by a founding member connected to Harvard University,” the email read. “Are you available anytime for a call?”

The note linked to a website containing a family tree that Chen had created, tracing the lineage of people enslaved by Isaac Royall Jr, an Antiguan planter and businessman whose endowment would eventually create Harvard Law School.

Chen hadn’t expected to find any living descendants, she told the Guardian, but through dogged research, she managed to uncover 50 names and found Lloyd through an old website she had made when she had first moved to Los Angeles.

“It all felt too specific to be a scam,” Lloyd recounted, so she agreed to a call that would eventually blow open everything she thought she knew about her family history, linking her with one of the nation’s most prestigious institutions and launching a phase in her life that would be colored with equal parts joy and pain.

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Happy Holiday! Here Is What They Won’t Tell You About Democrats and Juneteenth…

Happy Juneteenth!

Today is the day the United States celebrates Juneteenth, a little-known date that was recently dug up to divert attention from the real civil rights achievements by brave Republicans who fought to free the slaves.

Here is more background.

When the Civil War ended, and after Republican President Abraham Lincoln liberated the slaves, Democrats initiated Jim Crow laws to punish blacks. Democrats discriminated against blacks. In fact, the KKK was founded as the terrorist wing of the Democratic Party.

The Ku Klux Klan assassinated many Republicans, including Republican Representative James M. Hinds (December 5, 1833—October 22, 1868) of Little Rock. Hinds represented Arkansas in the United States Congress from June 24, 1868, through October 22, 1868, before his violent death.

The Ku Klux Klan was founded as the activist wing of the Democratic Party.

On September 28, 1868, a mob of Democrats massacred nearly 300 African-American Republicans in Opelousas, Louisiana. The savagery began when racist Democrats attacked a newspaper editor, a white Republican and schoolteacher for ex-slaves. Several African-Americans rushed to the assistance of their friend, and in response, Democrats went on a “Negro hunt,” killing every African-American (all of whom were Republicans) in the area they could find. (Via Grand Old Partisan)

Democrats in hoods slaughtered hundreds of Republicans and blacks across the country.
They beat and threatened and murdered Republicans for standing with the black man.

On April 20, 1871 the Republicans passed the anti-Ku Klux Klan Act outlawing Democratic terrorist groups.

The last KKK official to serve in Washington, DC was former Senator Robert Byrd, a KKK kleagle. Byrd was a top Democrat and friend of Joe Biden.

In fact, throughout the Civil Rights era of the 19th and 20th centuries, Democrats fought against freedom and rights for the black man.

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The Claim That America ‘Stole’ California From Mexico Is An Ignorant Lie

Recently, Katy Perry claimed on her Instagram page that California has always belonged to Mexico and is another example of U.S. racism and bigotry. 

That’s not quite … right. California, like most of the world, has a history that’s slightly more complex than will fit an average bumper sticker.

Prior to the Spanish arrival in 1542, there were more than 100 different tribes inhabiting modern-day California. Most were small, and the total population of the area is estimated to be approximately 300,000. 

Although there were some minor explorations and small settlements, Spain left California largely unexplored and unsettled for nearly the next 200 years. This was due to a combination of factors such as distance from Spain, the strained Spanish finances, and also because there were no pack animals, little agricultural tradition, and a food supply that was less than appealing to Spanish palates. 

By the late 18th century, however, the Spanish decided they needed to better organize their North American territories to preempt incursions from other European powers, particularly the French and Russians. As a result, Spain began a more robust exploration of the state and would slowly colonize it, setting up missions along the vast coastal areas. 

By the early part of the 19th century, however, Spain’s fortunes were changing, the empire was stretched too thin, and after a decade of fighting, Mexico gained its independence in 1821. The new nation included what is today Mexico, as well as California and much of the American Southwest, stretching east to Texas and north to Colorado. Here’s where the rub in the argument that the United States stole California begins.

The population of California in 1800 was approximately 300,000 — almost all natives — essentially the same as it had been for centuries. By 1848, however, it had dropped to half of that due to disease, which was responsible for 60-80 percent of the decline, and the Spanish working to death or killing the natives.

California, at the time of Mexico’s independence, was sparsely populated, with just 200,000 people, and that number was rapidly shrinking. For perspective, that’s 0.5 percent of today’s 40 million inhabitants. Add to that the fact that Mexico could barely be called a functioning country, as in the 27 years from 1821 to 1848, it had literally 40 heads of government. As would seem obvious, the governments were dysfunctional, had an incredibly large land mass to govern, little tax revenue coming in, and very limited finances with which to field an army to secure it, never mind to carry out the minimum responsibilities of a government. 

To better understand how dysfunctional and empty Mexico was, consider Texas. In 1835, Texas had a population of less than 45,000 people, 30,000 of whom were Anglo settlers who’d been given permission to settle the lands by the Mexican government. The remainder included approximately 7,000 Mexicans and 5,000 black slaves. Because of conflict with the Mexican government on issues from slavery to religion, in October of that year, Texas started a war for independence. By March 1836, it had declared itself the Republic of Texas. That could never have happened had Mexico been able to populate the area on its own or keep it from breaking away. But it couldn’t, so Texas was born. 

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Historically Ignorant Chicago Mayor Says Trump is What Country Would Look Like if the Confederacy Had Won the Civil War

If you need further proof that many of our cities and states are being run by first-class morons, look no further than Chicago’s Democrat Mayor Brandon Johnson.

While offering some recent comments about the Trump administration and the actions being carried out by ICE, Johnson suggested that this is what the country would look like if the Confederacy had won the American Civil War.

The mayor is apparently unaware that the Confederacy was a creation of members of his party and that the Republican party was founded to end the practice of slavery in the United States. Is he even aware that President Abraham Lincoln and General Ulysses S. Grant were Republicans?

Breitbart News reports:

Chicago Mayor: Trump Is ‘What U.S. Would Have Looked Like if the Confederacy Won’

Chicago’s radical, progressive, Democrat Mayor Brandon Johnson told the media on Wednesday that the Trump administration is “what our country would look like had the Confederacy won.”

The race-obsessed, left-wing mayor railed against the Trump administration after hundreds of protesters flooded the streets of the Windy City in opposition to the president’s lawful immigration enforcement policies. Johnson by turns called Trump a “terrorist” and a “racist” in his comments to the press.

The mayor with the single worst approval rating in the entire country also reminded the media that he recently said that Trump’s immigration policy is “what terrorism looks like.”

Earlier, Johnson said, “Federal agents should never be allowed to come into our city and assault elected officials or any Chicagoan. All residents have the right to due process under the Constitution, any action to the contrary is unconscionable,” in a statement after an ICE raid was protested last week.

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1775: Putting Tyrants on the Run

April 19 was the 250th anniversary of American militiamen routing the best army in the world. Seven hundred British troops arrogantly came out of Boston early that day in 1775 to seize firearms and gunpowder in Concord, Massachusetts. By the time the tattered remnants of that force escaped back to Boston, hundreds of British troops were left dead, wounded, or captured along the road. The “shot heard around the world” became one of the most dramatic blows against tyranny in modern history.

But the hard truths of the American Revolution are being obscured by Leviathan-loving pundits. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.—President John F. Kennedy’s court historian and a revered liberal intellectual—declared in 2004, “Historians today conclude that the colonists were driven to revolt in 1776 because of a false conviction that they faced a British conspiracy to destroy their freedom.”

The colonists revolted because they were being bayoneted down the road to serfdom. The British parliament passed law after law trumpeting Americans’ legal inferiority to their foreign masters. The Sugar Act of 1764 resulted in British officials confiscating hundreds of American ships, based on mere allegations that the shipowners or captains were involved in smuggling. To retain their ships, Americans had to somehow prove that they had never been involved in smuggling—a near-impossible burden.

The Declaratory Act of 1766 announced that Parliament “had, hath, and of right ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America, subjects of the crown of Great Britain, in all cases whatsoever.” That meant Parliament could never do an injustice to the Americans, since Parliament had the right to use and abuse colonists as it pleased. That law was modeled after an earlier British dictate—the Irish Declaratory Act of 1719. The British were notorious for treating the Irish as bad or worse than slaves. Perhaps the most influential political philosopher in America in the pre-Revolution times was John Locke, who warned in his Second Treatise on Government in 1690: “He who attempts to get another man into his Absolute Power, does thereby put himself into a State of War with him.” Colonists paid fierce attention to Locke’s warning: “Tyranny is the exercise of Power beyond Right.”

Americans felt like they were being hit by a British blockade even before the Brits forcibly shut down the Boston harbor. Britain imposed heavy taxes on imports and prohibited Americans from erecting any mill for rolling or slitting iron; British statesman William Pitt exclaimed, “It is forbidden to make even a nail for a horseshoe.” The Declaration of Independence denounced King George for “cutting off our trade with all parts of the world.”

To enforce heavy tariffs on tea and other items, King George issued “writs of assistance” that let British soldiers “search settlers’ belongings at random to find out who was evading import taxes by smuggling whiskey or tea.” These writs empowered “a civil officer [to] search any house, shop, warehouse, etc.; break open doors, chests, packages… and remove any prohibited or uncustomed goods or merchandise.” James Otis—a lawyer arguing against the writs in a Boston court in 1761—denounced them as “the worst instrument of arbitrary power, the most destructive of English liberty, and the fundamental principles of law” and declared the writs conferred “a power that places the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer.” In 1772, the Massachusetts Committee of Correspondence described the writs’ effects: “Thus our houses and even our bedchambers are exposed to be ransacked and plundered by wretches, whom no prudent man would venture to employ even as menial servants…. By this we are cut off from the domestic security which renders the lives of the most unhappy in some measure agreeable.” Colonial opposition against writs, according to John Adams, ignited the flame that led to American independence.

Vermont patriots marched in 1775 against the British Army under a flag depicting a pine tree—a symbol of British tyranny. Because pine was an excellent material for building ships, Parliament banned cutting down any white pine trees—claiming them all for the British crown without compensation. Historian Jonathan Sewall, writing in 1846, claimed that the conflict with Britain “began in the forests of Maine in the contests of her lumbermen with the King’s surveyor, as to the right to cut, and the property in white pine trees.” Historian Robert Albion wrote in 1926: “The royal interpretation of ‘private property’ practically rendered that term nugatory, so…the pines were virtually being commandeered by the Navy.”

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A Brief History of the Freedom of Speech

“I disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it.”
— Voltaire (1694-1778)

When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he included in it a list of the colonists’ grievances with the British government. Notably absent were any complaints about infringement upon speech.

In those days, speech was as acerbic as it is today. If words were aimed at Parliament, all words were lawful. If they were aimed directly and personally at the king — as Jefferson’s were in the Declaration — they constituted treason.

Needless to say, Jefferson and his 55 colleagues who signed the Declaration would all have been hanged for treasonous speech had the British prevailed.

Of course, the colonists won the war, and, six years afterward, the 13 states voluntarily ratified the Constitution. Two years after ratification, the Constitution was amended by adding the Bill of Rights.

James Madison, who drafted the Bill of Rights, insisted upon referring to speech as “the” freedom of speech, so as to emphasize that it preexisted the government. He believed the freedom of speech was one of the inalienable rights Jefferson wrote about in the Declaration.

Stated differently, each of the ratifiers of the Bill of Rights manifested in writing their unambiguous understanding that the freedom of speech is a natural right — personal to every human. It does not come from the government. It comes from within us. It cannot be taken away by legislation or executive command. It does not require a permission slip.

Yet, a mere seven years later, during the presidency of John Adams, Congress enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts, which punished speech critical of the government.

How could the same generation — in some cases, the same human beings — that prohibited congressional infringement upon speech have enacted a statute that punished speech?

To some of the framers — the Federalists, who wanted a leviathan central government as we have today — infringing upon the freedom of speech meant only silencing it before it was uttered. Today, this is called prior restraint, and the Supreme Court has essentially outlawed it.

To the anti-federalists — who believed the central government was a limited voluntary compact of states — the First Amendment prohibited Congress from interfering with or punishing any speech.

The Adams administration indicted, prosecuted and convicted anti-federalists — among them a congressman — for their critical speech.

When Jefferson won the presidency and the anti-federalists won control of Congress, the Federalists repealed three of the four Alien and Sedition Acts on the eve of their departure from congressional control, lest any be used against them.

During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln locked up hundreds of journalists in the North — including a congressman — who were critical of his war efforts. During World War I, President Woodrow Wilson arrested students for reading the Declaration of Independence aloud at draft offices or singing German beer hall songs.

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Who Really Provoked the Ukraine War? Was It Russia?

Ukrainian “president” Vladimir Zelensky lied when he called Russia the aggressor. Since 2014 his military forces have been shelling their own civilians in the east of Ukraine, killing at least 14,000 people and arresting thousands more with the SBU, the Ukrainian secret police, a de facto Gestapo-like terror organization.

Zelensky’s regime prohibited the Russian language in schools, political opposition was outlawed, the Orthodox church was banned, and all Russian shows and programs from TV were removed. Russian websites were blocked from the internet. Zelensky called Ukrainian Russians in the east a “species”, as if he were referring not to his fellow countrymen, but to animals. Yet he speaks and behaves as if none of this ever happened.

He portrays himself as a victim and a hero and ungratefully expects more money ($350 billion sent already!), some of which he and his fellow cronies have been found to spend on luxury cars, large fancy villas, and skiing resorts in Europe. It’s an open secret!

Russia simply stepped up for Russian people in Ukraine after eight years of doing nothing in the face of this injustice. Clearly Russia didn’t start it. They didn’t want this war. Period.

And fundamentally speaking, Zelensky’s presidential term ran out in May 2024. He blocked new elections, apparently because polling showed his approval rating at four percent, so he’s not even the legitimate president of Ukraine anymore – not even on paper as a puppet. Clearly he is in no position to negotiate anything now.

There is so much more that Vice President Vance and President Trump could have said to Zelensky in that historic and heated exchange before the cameras in the Oval Office. It was he, Zelensky, who initialled and then reneged on the peace agreement after Russian forces withdrew from around Kiev and other parts. And Zelensky walked out on the peace deal early on in March and April 2022, not Putin.

Although it was Zelensky’s regime which from 2014 to 2022 was bombing the Donbas and killing the 14,000 Ukrainian Russians, Zelensky turns around and hypocritically blames Putin for everything that he, Zelensky, did.

And Crimea? Crimea is Russian, historically speaking, and 75 percent of the population is ethnically Russian. Relatively few Ukrainians live there. It was always the southern jewel of Russia but was unlawfully ”gifted” to Ukraine in the 1950s by the Soviet dictator Khruschev, who was also leader of the Ukrainian Communist Party at the time.

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