Well folks, the Supreme Court has been in the news a lot recently. Now it appears we are bracing for another major battle in the near future between the federal government and the individual states.
Why should we care? Look at our history. The very issue of state’s rights was at the core of the conflict leading to the American Civil War.
So, what exactly is going on? I found two great articles addressing the current conflict.
By Bethany Blankley | The Center Square contributor
On the same day the U.S. Department of Justice filed a civil complaint against Texas over a floating barrier of buoys strung together in the Rio Grande River, Gov. Greg Abbott sent a letter to President Joe Biden saying that Texas has a right to defend its border.
The Department of Justice said the floating barrier was constructed without federal authorization as required under the Rivers and Harbors Act and creates a humanitarian threat. The complaint seeks to stop construction of the barrier and to require Texas to remove it.
But Abbott is having none of it.
The Texas governor’s formal letter sent Monday is a follow up to the notice he gave on Friday in response to the DOJ saying its civil action was coming. DOJ’s lawsuit also was filed Monday.
Abbott’s two-page letter copies Attorney General Merrick Garland and three Texas officials: the provisional attorney general and heads of the Texas Military Department and Department of Public Safety.
He also includes copies of two letters he previously sent to the president, the first of which was sent last November explaining Texas’ constitutional right to secure its border.
The second he hand delivered on Jan. 8, 2023, outlining solutions the president could take immediately to secure the border.
Abbott, a former Texas Supreme Court justice, wrote, “In accordance with Article I, § 10, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution, I have asserted Texas’s “sovereign interest in protecting [her] borders,” citing Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent in the 2012 U.S. Supreme Court case, Arizona v. United States.
“I have done so in my role as the commander-in-chief of our State’s militia under Article IV, § 7 of the Texas Constitution,” citing a ruling in the 2023 case, Abbott v. Biden, when the federal judge in this case held that “the Constitution forbids President Biden from bypassing the States [and] stepping into Governor Abbott’s shoes.”
Abbott also states that the president’s “ongoing violation of Article IV, § 4 of the U.S. Constitution has left me no other choice” than to secure the Texas border and block illegal entry.
He also points to arguments he made in the letters he previously sent and reiterates what he told the president in El Paso, Texas, on Jan. 8: “All of this is happening because you have violated your constitutional obligation to defend the States against invasion through faithful execution of federal laws.”
So basically, the federal government has threatened to sue the state of Texas for overstepping its authority when it comes to enforcing the border between Texas and Mexico. The Governor has told Biden that he isn’t doing his job, so Texas will.
Now we see allegations from both sides and of course, legal arguments that will eventually wind up before the US Supreme Court.
As the ongoing humanitarian and security crisis continues unabated along the U.S. southern border, states are looking for new ways to take the lead to stop this invasion in lieu of both Washington’s inaction and willful negligence.
Among the remedies available is the Constitution’s “self-help” provision for states to defend themselves from threats outside their respective territories. Below are various claims and responses made in consideration of whether states can bring an end to the crisis along the U.S. southern border:
Claim: Federal law is explicit that the responsibility for securing the U.S. border falls to the federal government. States attempting to secure the border do so without legal authority.
Response: The authority for states to secure the border does not rest on federal immigration law, but the Constitution’s war-making authorities that states retain in certain circumstances. Specifically, the Constitution provides a clear and firm foundation for states to act decisively should the federal government fail to uphold its obligations.
Among these obligations are those found in Article IV, Section 4, the “Guarantee Clause” of the Constitution.
That clause specifies, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them from Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.”
The guarantee against invasion is unconditional and fundamental, extending to all forms of invasion. The federal government is currently in violation of its duties under the Guarantee Clause. Therefore, states are currently within their rights to act using their Article I authority – not immigration authority – to defend themselves.
Claim: The Constitution does not list border security in the list of authorities states may employ in certain circumstances under Article I.
Response: Article I, Section 10, Clause 3 explicitly permits state war powers to be exercised if a state is invaded. The clause says, “No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit delay.”
There is no limitation within the text of what constitutes an “invasion.” The Framers were keenly aware that the threats to the states were not limited to foreign armies from Great Britain or Spain, but also “some nation of Indians,” “pirates,” and other external lawless groups intent on inflicting harm or seeking their own ends at the expense of Americans.
Therefore, the original meaning of the word “invasion” contained in Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution encompasses all such external threats to the safety, security, or well-being of the states and their citizens.
Claim: The mere migration of many destitute immigrants does not constitute an invasion, and the assertion that it does is simply designed to invoke these authorities.
Response: Over two million illegal immigrants were apprehended at the southern border last year, with over another half a million escaping apprehension.
Border agents seized enough fentanyl to potentially kill 2.5 billion people. These sophisticated human smuggling and drug trafficking efforts are spearheaded by violent international drug cartels with operational control over our southern border.
The external threat to the states posed by the invasion of people, drugs, and crime, facilitated by these deadly organizations, is both an imminent and ongoing danger.
Claim: There is no case law regarding the invasion question. States attempting to utilize this provision to act unilaterally to secure the border are doing so without legal precedent.
Response: It is true that there is no existing case law with regard to the invasion question of the “Guarantee Clause.” However, there is a Supreme Court case from 1849 (Luther v. Borden) that deals specifically with the republican form of government provision within Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution.
The Supreme Court in Luther held the matter non-justiciable as an inherently political question. In other words, applying the Luther case holding to the invasion provision of the Guarantee Clause leads to the conclusion that states themselves maintain the discretion to determine whether or not they are being invaded.
Well folks, there it is in a nutshell. This will be a very interesting case when it finally reaches the Supreme Court. I have no idea how the justices will rule. However, based on history, I fear how the states will react if the Supreme Court fails to rule in favor of the border states.
Only time will tell, and this is a case we should all be following.
The proposal might be the biggest attempted power grab in the history of the United Nations. If approved, the United States as we know it could cease to exist.
In September 2024, less than two months before the next U.S. presidential election, the United Nations will host a landmark “Summit of the Future,” where member nations will adopt a Pact for the Future. The agreement will solidify numerous policy reforms offered by the U.N. over the past two years as part of its sweeping Our Common Agenda platform.
Although there are numerous radical proposals included in the agenda, perhaps none are more important than the U.N. plan for a new “emergency platform,” a stunning proposal to give the U.N. significant powers in the event of future “global shocks,” such as another worldwide pandemic.
Many of the details of the U.N. emergency platform were laid out in a March 2023 policy paper titled “Strengthening the International Response to Complex Global Shocks — An Emergency Platform.” In the paper, the U.N. secretary-general writes, “I propose that the General Assembly provide the Secretary-General and the United Nations system with a standing authority to convene and operationalize automatically an Emergency Platform in the event of a future complex global shock of sufficient scale, severity and reach.”
Once triggered, the emergency platform would give the U.N. the ability to “actively promote and drive an international response that places the principles of equity and solidarity at the centre of its work.” The U.N. would bring together the “stakeholders” of the world, including academics, governments, private sector actors, and “international financial institutions” to ensure there is a unified, global response to the crisis.
The emergency platform would also give the United Nations the power to “Ensure that all participating actors make commitments that can contribute meaningfully to the response and that they are held to account for delivery on those commitments.”
In other words, the United Nations would be given unprecedented authority over the public and private sectors of huge swaths of the world, all in the name of battling a yet unknown crisis.
It Gets Worse
As difficult as it might be to believe, the story gets even worse from here. Although the duration of the emergency platform would initially be set for a “finite period,” at “the end of that period, the Secretary-General could extend the work of an Emergency Platform if required,” according to the United Nations’ own policy proposal.
That means the secretary-general would have the authority to keep the emergency platform in place indefinitely, all without reauthorization from member nations.
What kind of “global shock” would trigger the emergency platform? The U.N. provides several possible examples in its formal proposal, including a “major climatic event,” “future pandemic risks,” a “global digital connectivity disruption,” “major event in outer space,” and, my personal favorite, “unforeseen risks, (‘black swan’ events).”
This isn’t to say that these incredibly broad categories would be the only potential justifications allowed to trigger the emergency platform. The proposal makes clear that it “would allow the convening role of the United Nations to be maximized in the face of crises with global reach and should be ‘agnostic as to the type of crisis,’ as we do not know what type of global shock we may face in the future.”
Further, “The Secretary-General would decide when to convene an Emergency Platform in response to a complex global shock.”
Or, put in simpler terms, a “global shock” is whatever the U.N.’s leadership says it is, triggered whenever the U.N. desires.
Biden Admin Supports the Proposal
The emergency platform proposal might be the biggest attempted power grab in the history of the United Nations, but as shocking as it is, it pales in comparison to the Biden administration’s treatment of this extremist proposal.
Rather than assert America’s independence and sovereignty, the White House has expressed its support for the emergency platform. U.S. Ambassador Chris Lu noted in at least two March 2022 speeches that the Biden administration backs the emergency platform, along with numerous other proposals included in “Our Common Agenda.”
The emergency platform would centralize an immense amount of power and influence, giving the United Nations greater control over the lives of Americans than it has ever had before. And rather than stand up for Americans’ rights, President Biden has already agreed to sell us out.
If the emergency platform is approved, the United States as we know it could cease to exist. That sounds dire, but it’s true. We either stand for freedom now or risk everything come September 2024.
Now folks, I cannot help but see the comparison to this mess as being the same as what our country went through at the end of WWI.
At that time, the President of the US was none other than Woodrow Wilson, the father of progressivism in our country.
On July 10, 1919, the president of the United States, for the first time since 1789, personally delivered a treaty to the Senate. This was no ordinary treaty; it was the Treaty of Versailles, ending World War I and establishing the League of Nations (forerunner to NATO).
As Secret Service agents and Capitol Police officers sealed off the Senate wing to everyone without a special pass, President Woodrow Wilson walked into the chamber lugging the oversized document under his right arm.
Recently returned from Paris and his unprecedented self-assigned role as leader of the American negotiating team, Wilson hoped for prompt Senate approval but feared trouble from Republicans, newly restored as the chamber’s majority party.
The president’s address set his ratification campaign off to a stumbling start, as he strained to read from typewritten notes on small index cards. Perhaps suffering from the effects of a small stroke, Wilson inadvertently omitted words as he proceeded. Realizing this, he stopped and repeated the garbled sentence, only to drop more words and repeat more sentences.
So, we have a radical President, doing his own thing, speaking for our entire nation without the buy in of Congress.
Then, when he comes home to sell his plan to a Senate dominated by the opposition party, he stumbles through his speech and leaves key parts out.
Bear in mind, he has negotiated the US terms of the Treaty without the opposition party’s input. He basically just it home, dropped it in front of them, and told them to sign it.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Only near the end of his 40-minute address did Wilson approach eloquence. Setting aside his cards, the president turned to the Republican side of the chamber, where members sat in sullen hostility. He declared that treaty approval was their only option. “The stage is set, the destiny disclosed. It has come about by no plan of our conceiving, but by the hand of God. We cannot turn back. The light streams on the path ahead, and nowhere else.” His conclusion evoked only scattered applause.
Wilson’s worsening medical condition, including a major stroke the following October, robbed him of the resiliency that had brought significant legislative victories earlier in his presidency.
Now folks, I know you think things are bad between our current President and the Republican Party but think about this. When Wilson died, the Republicans didn’t even attend the funeral!
When members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee learned of former president Woodrow Wilson’s death in 1924, they asked their chairman, Henry Cabot Lodge, to represent them at the funeral. Learning of this plan, the president’s widow sent Lodge the following note: “Realizing that your presence would be embarrassing to you and unwelcome to me, I write to request that you do not attend.”
Democrat Wilson and Republican Lodge had disliked each other for years. Among the first to earn doctoral degrees from the nation’s newly established graduate schools, each man considered himself the country’s preeminent scholar in politics and scorned the other.
The emergence of World War I intensified their rivalry. By 1918, Wilson had been president for nearly six years, while Lodge had represented Massachusetts in the Senate for a quarter century. Both considered themselves experts in international affairs. In setting policy for ending the war, Wilson, the idealist, sought a “peace without victory,” while Lodge, the realist, demanded Germany’s unconditional surrender.
When the 1918 midterm congressional elections transferred control of the Senate from the Democrats to the Republicans, Lodge became both majority leader and Foreign Relations Committee chairman. Whether Wilson liked it or not, he needed Lodge’s active support to ensure Senate approval of the Treaty of Versailles and its provision for a League of Nations on which he had staked so much of his political prestige.
Wilson chose to ignore Lodge. He offended the Senate by refusing to include senators among the negotiators accompanying him to the Paris Peace Conference and by making conference results public before discussing them with committee members.
Again, this is exactly what Biden is currently doing with the United Nations and the Emergency Powers Act.
Bear in mind, our Constitution gives the power to declare war and make treaties to Congress, NOT THE PRESIDENT!
In a flash of anger against what he considered Senate interference, Wilson denounced Lodge and his allies as “contemptible, narrow, selfish, poor little minds that never get anywhere but run around in a circle and think they are going somewhere.”
After Lodge’s committee added numerous “reservations” and amendments to the treaty, the frustrated president took his campaign to the nation. During a cross-country tour in October 1919, he suffered a physical collapse that further clouded his political judgment.
In November Lodge sent to the Senate floor a treaty with 14 reservations, but no amendments. In the face of Wilson’s continued unwillingness to negotiate, the Senate on November 19, 1919, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HISTORY, REJECTED THE PEACE TREATY.
Again, the President does not have the power to make treaties. At the end of WWI, Wilson was forced to go back to Europe with his tail tucked between his legs and tell them the US had rejected the treaty and would not be signing it.
As a result. Congress passed separate Congressional resolutions with Germany and Austria-Hungary ending our participation in WWI.
Will the United Nations Emergency Powers Act become a reality? Based on our history, I would say it will never happen without a major fight between the President and Congress.
Statue of Liberty on the background of flag usa, sunrise and fireworks
The Fourth of July—also known as Independence Day or July 4th—has been a federal holiday in the United States since 1941, but the tradition of Independence Day celebrations goes back to the 18th century and the American Revolution.
On July 2nd, 1776, the Continental Congress voted in favor of independence, and two days later delegates from the 13 colonies adopted the Declaration of Independence, a historic document drafted by Thomas Jefferson. From 1776 to the present day, July 4th has been celebrated as the birth of American independence, with festivities ranging from fireworks, parades and concerts to more casual family gatherings and barbecues.
The Birth of Independence Day
When the initial battles in the Revolutionary War broke out in April 1775, few colonists desired complete independence from Great Britain, and those who did were considered radical.
By the middle of the following year, however, many more colonists had come to favor independence, thanks to growing hostility against Britain and the spread of revolutionary sentiments such as those expressed in the bestselling pamphlet “Common Sense,” published by Thomas Paine in early 1776.
On June 7, when the Continental Congress met at the Pennsylvania State House (later Independence Hall) in Philadelphia, the Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee introduced a motion calling for the colonies’ independence.
Amid heated debate, Congress postponed the vote on Lee’s resolution, but appointed a five-man committee—including Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and Robert R. Livingston of New York—to draft a formal statement justifying the break with Great Britain.
John Adams believed that July 2nd was the correct date on which to celebrate the birth of American independence, and would reportedly turn down invitations to appear at July 4th events in protest.
Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826—the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.
On July 2nd, the Continental Congress voted in favor of Lee’s resolution for independence in a near-unanimous vote (the New York delegation abstained, but later voted affirmatively). On that day, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail that July 2 “will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival” and that the celebration should include “Pomp and Parade…Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other.”
John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress, signed the Declaration of Independence. It is said that John Hancock’s signed his name “with a great flourish” so England’s “King George can read that without spectacles!”
On July 4th, the Continental Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence, which had been written largely by Jefferson. Though the vote for actual independence took place on July 2nd, from then on the 4th became the day that was celebrated as the birth of American independence.
Early Fourth of July Celebrations
In the pre-Revolutionary years, colonists had held annual celebrations of the king’s birthday, which traditionally included the ringing of bells, bonfires, processions and speechmaking.
By contrast, during the summer of 1776 some colonists celebrated the birth of independence by holding mock funerals for King George III, as a way of symbolizing the end of the monarchy’s hold on America and the triumph of liberty.
Festivities including concerts, bonfires, parades and the firing of cannons and muskets usually accompanied the first public readings of the Declaration of Independence, beginning immediately after its adoption. Philadelphia held the first annual commemoration of independence on July 4, 1777, while Congress was still occupied with the ongoing war.
George Washington issued double rations of rum to all his soldiers to mark the anniversary of independence in 1778, and in 1781, several months before the key American victory at Yorktown, Massachusetts became the first state to make July 4th an official state holiday.
On July 8, 1776, the first public readings of the Declaration were held in Philadelphia’s Independence Square to the ringing of bells and band music. One year later, on July 4, 1777, Philadelphia marked Independence Day by adjourning Congress and celebrating with bonfires, bells and fireworks.
The custom eventually spread to other towns, both large and small, where the day was marked with processions, oratory, picnics, contests, games, military displays and fireworks.
In June of 1826, Thomas Jefferson sent a letter to Roger C. Weightman, declining an invitation to come to Washington, D.C. to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It was the last letter that Jefferson, who was gravely ill, ever wrote. In it, Jefferson says of the document:
“May it be to the world, what I believe it will be … the signal of arousing men to burst the chains … and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form, which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. …For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.”
– Thomas Jefferson June 24, 1826 Monticello
After the Revolutionary War, Americans continued to commemorate Independence Day every year, in celebrations that allowed the new nation’s emerging political leaders to address citizens and create a feeling of unity.
By the last decade of the 18th century, the two major political parties—Federalists and Democratic-Republicans—that had arisen began holding separate Fourth of July celebrations in many large cities.
The tradition of patriotic celebration became even more widespread after the War of 1812, in which the United States again faced Great Britain. In 1870, the U.S. Congress made July 4th a federal holiday; in 1941, the provision was expanded to grant a paid holiday to all federal employees.
Over the years, the political importance of the holiday would decline, but Independence Day remained an important national holiday and a symbol of patriotism.
Falling in mid-summer, the Fourth of July has since the late 19th century become a major focus of leisure activities and a common occasion for family get-togethers, often involving fireworks and outdoor barbecues.
The most common symbol of the holiday is the American flag, and a common musical accompaniment is “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the national anthem of the United States.
Today, the original copy of the Declaration is housed in the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and July 4 has been designated a national holiday to commemorate the day the United States laid down its claim to be a free and independent nation.
One final note: These men knew what they risked. The penalty for treason was death by hanging.
Of those 56 who signed the Declaration of Independence, nine died of wounds or hardships during the war. Five were captured and imprisoned, in each case with brutal treatment. Several lost wives, sons or entire families. One lost his 13 children. Two wives were brutally treated. All were at one time or another the victims of manhunts and driven from their homes. Twelve signers had their homes completely burned. Seventeen lost everything they owned. Yet not one defected or went back on his pledged word. Their honor, and the nation they sacrificed so much to create, is still intact.
Below is the Declaration of Independence. Read it and then reflect on where we are today. I wonder how many people have actually read it and what their thoughts would be if they did so and truly understood it.
Action of Second Continental 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 pre-tended 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 and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy of 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 British 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.
In 1917 two revolutions occurred in Russia. The first in March overthrew Czar Nicholas 2nd and established a provisional government. The second took place in November, which brought the Bolsheviks to power under Lenin.
Even before the war, economic, social and cultural developments were in decline. Nicholas 2nd lacked the strength, flexibility, and wisdom to maintain rule of Russia. After his fall, the provisional government’s powers were restricted by the Petrograd Soviets, which was represented by workers, soldiers, and leftist intellectuals. The new government was crippled by its own efforts because it continued to participate in WW1.
First, what is a Soviet? Quite simple, the word “Soviet” in Russian translates to the word “Council”. So, the Petrograd Soviet is the city council of the town of Petrograd.
Second, just like today, Vladimir Putin is in big trouble because he refuses to pull out of the war in Ukraine which is very unpopular with the Russian people. Why is it unpopular? The same issue Czar Nicholas faced in WWI. The kids of the Russian people are being sent off to war and being slaughtered. Although the Russian losses in Ukraine are nothing like the Russian losses in WWI (Russia lost 6 million soldiers), the people have grown tired of the war and the mounting casualties.
So, in 1917, the Russian people revolted and overthrew Czar Nicholas whose family had ruled Russia for the past 300 years.
Can you see the similarities here?
Once the provisional government was in power, they called for elections, but the Bolsheviks (the political party of Lenin) working through the Petrograd Soviets and other Soviets, seized power before the elections could take place.
Lenin returned from Switzerland in April 1917 preaching his own brand of Marxism He had been in exile as a political dissident since 1900. He told the people what they wanted to hear; I will give you peace, land and bread along with all power to the Soviets.
What the people failed to understand was that Lenin and his party were much less democratic than they claimed to be.
This is very similar to what Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group that just tried to overthrow Putin, told the Russian people. Support him, and he will end the slaughter in Ukraine. Again, see the similarities?
Now here is the problem. When Czar Nicholas was overthrown and forced to step down, the people chose a fellow by the name of Alexander Kerensky to take over.
Kerensky was a Russian lawyer and revolutionary who led the Russian Provisional Government and the short-lived Russian Republic for three months from late July to early November 1917.
My fear is that should Prigozhin eventually succeed in overthrow Putin, are the Russian trading one problem for another? That is what happened in 1917. What did Kerensky in was that he kept Russia in the war (WWI). He said they owed it to the dead (again, 6 million soldiers). This was not a good move. Bear in mind, Lenin is out there telling the people that he would pull Russia out of the war.
Would Prigozhin pull Russia out of the Ukraine, or would he continue the war?
While the revolution of March is taking place, the Bolshevik leader, 46 year old Vladimir Lenin, was still living in Switzerland. Lenin contacted the Germans and told them if they would get him across Germany and into Russia he would launch a revolution, and if he was successful, he would immediately pull Russia out of the war.
On the night of April 16 along with a number of other prominent Bolsheviks, he arrived at Petrograd’s Finland Station. In speeches that night and the next day, April 17, Lenin proclaimed his agenda. He opposed the Soviets policy of revolutionary support for the ongoing war and guarded support for the Provisional government.
On April 17 Lenin also called for establishment of a republic of soviets of workers, he called for the confiscation of all land and the nationalization of all land.
He wanted government control over banking, production, and distribution and the abolition of the police, army, and bureaucracy. He now changed his party’s name from Bolshevik to Communist Party.
Lenin called for a revolution of the Proletariat, the middle class, and he concluded: under the firm guidance of the party the poor peasants could also play a major part in the revolution.
In his April thesis Lenin wrote of a two stage Russian revolution. In the first, the Bourgeoisie (the middle class), gained power. In the second, the Proletariat (the working class) and the poor peasants were to take it from them.
Although he had earlier accepted the classic Marx’s belief, that a substantial period of time would separate the Bourgeoisie and the Proletarian Revolutions, the war convinced him the only way to move to communism was through radical revolution.
Lenin believed that establishment in Russia of a dictatorship Proletariat could be the spark for a world-wide socialist revolution. Lenin believed that his party spoke for the true interest of the workers. He believed that his party should be run through a strongly centralized, super-national party looking out for the welfare and equal treatment of all people.
Does that sound familiar folks?
On July 16, soldiers of the Petrograd machine gun regiment, fearful of being sent to the front, helped incite large demonstrations of soldiers and workers in the capital against the war.
This is exactly what we saw this weekend when Prigozhin and his soldiers pulled from the Ukrainian front and headed toward Moscow.
The Provisional Government now accused Lenin of being a German agent. Lenin, fearing for his life, soon fled the capital, many of his followers were arrested.
Is that what we just saw with Prigozhin and his followers stopping their advance toward Moscow?
Key to the success of Lenin’s party was the support of the workers. As the war progressed, Russia’s economic problems grew worse.
Coal, metal and other resources became harder to obtain. Inflation spiraled upward. Business leaders became increasingly resentful of the Provisional Government. The workers were also dissatisfied, the wages were not keeping up with inflation, their jobs were insecure and their bosses frequently resisted implementing new workplace concessions. The split between the employers and the employees only got worse. Not only in factories but also in white-collar jobs. Postal and telegraph workers, office workers and sales clerks, cashiers and bookkeepers all demanded better treatment as well.
Again, exactly what we see in Russia today.
When an all-Russian conference of factory workers met about a week before the November Revolution, 96 of 167 delegates were members of the Lenin’s Bolshevik party.
Also key to the success of Lenin’s party was the support of soldiers. Soldiers did not immediately desert the war effort, but many backed the Soviets call for a negotiated peace.
General Kornilov’s attempts to restore military discipline, all helped the Bolsheviks when over the growing number of soldiers who wanted to give up fighting in the war.
1917, as Lenin said, many soldiers voted for peace with their feet. More than 1 million troops deserted the front. Most soldiers were peasants, so naturally they supported Lenin’s party.
Lenin called for peasant land seizures. He wanted to take the land from the state and the Nobles and provide land to the poor people. Small village assemblies now formed known as soviets.
As the central government lost its authority these peasant soviets and their members became the chief centers of local power. Lenin’s party now tarnished the other socialist parties by criticizing them for supporting the Provisional Government. Most important in all of this was Lenin’s call for peace. Despite the support of the masses, most professional and upper class people continued to oppose Lenin’s party.
By October 1917, Lenin’s party had gained a majority of both the Petrograd and the Moscow Soviets.
Leon Trotsky, who had returned to Russia in 1917 and joined the Bolshevik party, now became the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet.
Late in October, Lenin returned to Petrograd from Finland where had been in hiding.
Lenin and Trotsky now traveled to the countryside speaking of the glory and the honor of becoming a member of the communist party.
Is that what Prigozhin will try to do in Belarus?
The all-Russian Congress of Soviets was scheduled to meet in early November.
On November 6, the day before the congress was to meet, Kerensky sparked a Communist Coup by ordering the closing of the Bolshevik Press. Troops under the direction of Trotsky and the Petrograd Soviet military revolutionary committee took up positions to prevent any counter-revolutionary moves and almost immediately assumed the offensive.
On November 7, meeting little resistance, they took control of the vital buildings of St. Petersburg. Kerensky, escaped in an automobile and sought loyal troops outside the city. Other members of his cabinet remained in the palace and weakly defended it utilizing cadets and a women’s battalion. The palace takeover in the early morning hours of November 8, after surprising little blood shed, completed the Coup.
Opposition parties within the Russian congress strongly objected to the Coup but were outnumbered by the Bolsheviks.
Finally in frustration, they stormed out in protest.
Trotsky cried out to them as they left, “You are bankrupt, your role is played out, go where you belong, into the dust bin of history.”
Shortly after, a message from Lenin was presented to the remaining delegates. It stated the congress of soviets would be assuming governmental powers from the deposed Provisional Government and they proposed a democratic peace to all nations and overseeing the transfer of landlord, imperial and monastery land to the peasants.
He then stated he would establish worker control over production, secure the right to self-determination of all nationalities of the country and ensure that a Constitutional Assembly be formed.
Again, he told the people what they wanted to hear.
The message was overwhelmingly approved by the 100’s of the remaining deputies. Later that night, Lenin presented a decree on peace.
Lenin stated they had overthrown the government of the bankers and he immediately called for an armistice ending Russia’s participation in WWI.
Shortly thereafter he introduced a decree on land. The decree proposed abolishing all state and private land and making it available to those who worked it. The Congress endorsed both decrees.
In the early hours of November 9, Congress approved a new government. Lenin was made chairman of the Council of Peoples Commissars. Among the most significant of the Commissars was Trotsky who was to oversee foreign affairs and Stalin, who became Commissar of Nationalities.
The Bolsheviks success in coming to power was due to their rivals’ failures and own abilities. An unsuccessful war, breakdown in government authority, class rivalries, and peasant hunger. All contributed to the fall of the Provisional Government.
Bottom Line: The Provisional Government continued in an increasingly unpopular war and failed to give the people what they wanted….land. The Bolsheviks were successful because they promised the people what they wanted, land and peace.
Can you see now why the people of Russia are willing to back someone like Prigozhin over Vladimir Putin?
So, what happens next folks? Well, if history continues to repeat itself, we could be looking at a Civil War in Russia.
Back to our story.
Lenin was now in power, but maintaining power was another task. Lenin’s new government became increasingly undemocratic and authoritarian.
From mid 1918 to 1921 a civil war raged in Russia. This war was a war between the Bolsheviks forces (Lenin’s party) known as the Reds and all those people opposed to Lenin, known as the Whites. Lenin won the civil war but the human and economic costs were huge.
Although full-scale civil war did not break out until 1918, opposition to Lenin’s government appeared in the first week after the November Revolution.
In Petrograd, opposition Socialists Kadets and other disgruntled elements formed an all-Russian committee for the salvation of the mother land and the revolution.
It called for the people to withhold support for the new government. This group was made up of primarily professionals and intellectuals. Many white-collar workers (including government employees) now refused to work. Military cadets seized some buildings in the capital. All of this opposition was poorly led.
Outside Petrograd, it was more difficult to maintain control. In Moscow, opposition forces held off Bolsheviks forces in bloody battles for a week before finally surrendering to the Reds.
In most Great Russian Cities, Bolshevik dominated soviets now came to power. Lenin’s power now limited civil liberties.
During its first two months in power it shut down opposition newspapers, replaced old courts with new ones and established the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage (we know it as Cheka, the modern KGB).
This new group’s sole purpose was to find and eliminate opponents to the new regime. The Cheka was supposed to try people on charges of revolution. But almost always just simply grabbed the people and shot them in the streets. Thousands of people were killed without trials.
From the beginning Lenin insisted he had to use violence and was not squeamish if the violence seemed excessive.
Lenin’s government also issued decrees to create a new order and abolish Russia’s old patriarchal society. The land decree of November 8 attacked Noble land interests. Soon afterward the state abolished all class distinctions, titles and ranks (including military ranks).
A new voluntary citizen’s militia replaced the old army. The government now broke ties with the Orthodox Church and confiscated church property and prohibited religious instruction in schools.
Lenin’s party also took over the banks, the insurance companies, and the means of communication and confiscated the assets of Russia’s wealthy citizens.
The Petrograd Soviet ordered those that they declared rich, to donate blankets and clothing for soldiers. That same winter, the government forced many members of the Bourgeois (middle class) to perform compulsory menial labor, including digging ditches.
In the cities, Soviets seized buildings and gave more living space to Soviet officials and workers. Former upper class families were fortunate if they were left with a few simple rooms and not kicked out entirely.
When communist officials rationed food and other goods during the civil war, the upper class received little or none. The upper class was also denied voting. Just looking like a member of the wealthy class during this period could mean trouble. In early 1918 a Bolshevik was killed for wearing a fashionable suit. He was mistaken for a member of the upper class. Glasses also made a person suspect, clean fingernails and uncalloused hands got some people shot by the Reds during the civil war.
The Bolsheviks had agreed on the necessity of forming a Constituent Assembly to decide Russia’s political fate. Despite some Bolshevik intimidation, elections were planned and allowed to proceed on November 25.
Men and women turned out in huge numbers to cast their votes in the freest most democratic election Russia had ever had.
The result was a victory for the social revolutionaries. The social revolutionaries gained 370 delegates, the Bolsheviks 175.
Wait, what?
The social revolutionaries were the party of Kerensky, the guy they had just overthrown!
In other words, when the people saw what life under Lenin’s communist rule was like, they said the heck with this, we want Kerensky back!
When the Constituent Assembly (Russian Parliament) met on January 18. It became clear the assembly was not willing to follow the Bolshevik government.
Lenin heard this and simply called out Red troops to force an end to the assembly. Upon Lenin’s orders they prevented the assembly from ever meeting again.
Lenin said this was in keeping with his platform. He stressed class struggle between the Proletariat and the Bourgeois, he said there was no place for democratic elections in his form of government.
In February of 1918 Lenin and the party leaders now sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk which was finalized on March 3, 1918. Russia, as a result of this treaty, gave up 1/3 of its former cultivated lands and population. As much as people hated the treaty there was no revolution. Lenin was making good on his promise to bring peace to the people and as a result of the treaty, Russia withdrew from WW1 and turned their land over to the Germans.
In addition to the millions who died in the civil war, Russia lost nearly 2 million people who fled Russia. Most who fled were the educated elite. The civil war also contributed to a huge number of homeless children which by 1921 reached into the millions. By the civil wars’ end the country’s industrial labor force and the combined populations of Petrograd and Moscow were less than half of what they were in 1917.
So, one must ask. If people were willing to fall under Lenin’s communist rule in order to get out of WWI, are they now willing to accept any form of government to end the war in Ukraine?
I recently found two great articles posted on The American Thinker. Both authors do an excellent job of comparing what happened in the past, to where we are today.
Now before we dive in, I want you to know, that I do not think the Democratic Party is the same as the Nazi Party. Far from it. What I do believe is that people are easily deceived into believing that what they are doing is what is best for the country.
I also believe that people will blindly follow the crowd to be accepted in society (check out “The Crowd” by Gustav Lebon). Unfortunately, we have become a nation of followers because it feels good to be part of the latest trends.
We see it around us every day. We eat at certain restaurants, wear the latest fashion trends, socialize in certain circles of people, etc.
That, my friends can be dangerous. Especially when people of power know this and use it to manipulate the masses.
That is exactly what Hitler did. Hitler had the complete support of his people. So, were all Germans evil Nazis? Of course not.
They saw Hitler as their salvation from the devastating effects of Germany’s loss in WWI. He gave them hope.
People were starving and freezing to death in the streets of Germany following WWI. The country suffered $trillion mark to the US dollar inflation.
Think of it this way. Prior to WWI you had 4 German marks to the dollar. Like our quarter. Two years after the war, it took one trillion quarters to equal one dollar.
10,000 marks worth $2,500 in 1922 by the end of 1923 were worth one millionth of a penny!
Life savings were completely wiped out.
A 100 billion mark note which would have bought the whole Rhineland the year before now was barely enough for a loaf of bread.
This is the environment in which we saw Hitler and the Nazi party rise to power.
Bottom line is, Hitler told the people what they wanted to hear. I will put food on your table, provide jobs for everyone, and bring Germany back to it’s former days of glory.
Even I would have flowed him if I was unable to care for my family.
So, take the article with a grain of salt when democrats are compared to Nazis. The important lesson is, how Hitler did it.
…….The Democrat party’s two most exalted figureheads are the fervently racist Woodrow Wilson who set the Party on the path of undermining the Constitution in order to remold the United States into a “modern administrative state” (i.e., socialist) and Franklin Roosevelt who was enamored with and utilized Fascist principles in his “New Deal” thus permanently embedding them in the Party’s psyche.
An unemotional examination of the underlying philosophies and the tactics the Nazi Party used to gain and maintain power reveals not just the common impulse to weaponize the judiciary to eradicate one’s political opponents (e.g., Donald Trump) but numerous other similarities between the Nazis and the Democrat party that cannot be ignored. Here are eight uncomfortable dimensions of that resemblance.
First, racial and ethnic division was a central component of Nazi political strategy and philosophy. The Nazi Party was the most racially obsessed political party in human history. Today’s Democrat party is second only to the Nazi Party in their racial obsession. Every piece of legislation, every accusation against their opponents, every aspect of American society, even weather and climate are framed in imaginary racism.
The Nazi Party’s obsession focused on their perverted belief in the inferiority and superiority of the races or ethnicities. This opened the door for blaming a specific ethnic group for all the problems facing their country.
The Democrat party is claiming the root cause of virtually all problems facing this nation is “systemic racism” as theoretically instigated by one particular race.
The Nazis used “fake news,” as does the Democrat party, in order to slice and dice the populace into identity groups and then promulgate grievance-riddled policies aimed at these manufactured factions in order to foment anger at a previously isolated group. Which for the Nazis were the Jews; and for the Democrat party, white heterosexual Christians and Jews.
Think about that folks. First we had the Black Lives Matter movement then, quickly followed our new “Woke” society.
Second, In the 1920s and early 1930s, the Nazi Party relied on street riots, property damage and gratuitous violence utilizing their militant cadre, the Sturmabteilung (SA), to project power through intimidation while blaming others for the violence. Their ability to terrorize the citizenry and national political leadership played a major role in their ascendance to power as they promised peace and impartial justice if elected. Almost immediately upon assuming the reins of government, they transformed the judicial system into a vehicle of oppression directed their political foes and the Jews while their allies were not prosecuted for any criminal activity.
The Democrat party revealed in the summer of 2020 that they, too, have the wherewithal and inclination to acquiesce to street riots, property damage and gratuitous violence utilizing their militant cadre, Antifa and Black Lives Matter, to project power through intimidation while blaming white supremacy and police brutality for the violence.
In the presidential campaign of 2020, the Democrat party implicitly promised peace and impartial justice if elected. Almost immediately upon assuming the reins of government, they transformed the Justice Department into a vehicle of oppression directed at their political foes, Donald Trump and all Constitutional conservatives, while their allies were either not prosecuted or treated extraordinarily leniently.
With the news this week that Hunter Biden will get off with nothing more than a slap on the wrist, it certainly raises a lot of questions.
Third, in January 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. Within four weeks a mysterious, and in all likelihood staged, fire broke out in the Reichstag (Congress) Building which the Nazis blamed on Communist agitators as their opening salvo in a violent coup. Using this pretext, the Nazis rushed to arrest and harshly prosecute selected elements of their political adversaries, thus intimidating the balance. They also forced through the Reichstag the Enabling Act of 1933 in March of the same year. This law embedded the Nazis as the sole dominant political party and ensured that only the Nazis could win future elections.
The Democrat party seized upon in all likelihood a setup disturbance at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 to proclaim that it was an “armed insurrection” and the opening salvo in a violent coup attempt by Trump, his supporters and white supremacists. Using this pretext, the Democrats rushed to arrest and harshly prosecute those in attendance in order to intimidate their political enemies.
Now I fully admit I don’t know all the details of the January 6th incident. But I do find it interesting that the federal government is still holding participants in jail without providing them with their day in court.
In the footsteps of the Nazi Party, the Democrats immediately pushed to pass the For The People Act, which would have overturned virtually all existing voter laws, embedded the Democrats as the sole dominant political party and ensured that only the Democrats could win future elections.
Fourth, antisemitism was a foundational principle of Nazism. Antisemitism, through the Democrats’ nine-decade alliance with the Ku Klux Klan, has long been foundational in the Democrat party.
Today, many elected Democrats openly denigrate the state of Israel, glorify the Palestinian terrorists, and claim that Jews are disloyal. Thus, fomenting an exponential increase in anti-Jewish attacks in America’s major cities.
Meanwhile, virtually the entire Democrat hierarchy bows at the feet of America’s most virulent antisemite, Louis Farrakhan, who has referred to Judaism as the “religion of Satan” and Adolf Hitler as “a very great man.” This obeisance to Farrakhan and his ilk is concordant with the mindless acceptance of unbridled antisemitism by the hierarchy of the Nazi Party in the mid-to-late 1920’s.
She represents Michigan’s 13th Congressional District, and was the first Muslim woman to serve in the Michigan state Legislature.
Hours after being sworn into Congress, Tlaib grabbed headlines when she told the audience at a progressive event, “We’re gonna go in there and we’re going to impeach the motherf****r” in reference to Trump.
Tlaib aligned herself with a political cause far outside the Democratic mainstream when she said that she supports the controversial Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel.
Fifth, the Nazi Party was fixated on censorship and eliminating any cultural institution, publication or speech that did not fully support them. Further, per socialist dogma, they were determined to destroy the family structure, replacing it with the state. The Nazis were notorious for book-burning rituals to intimidate and send the message that they would shut down anyone and anything that did not align with their ideology. Once in control of the national levers of powers, they did so with impunity particularly in the education sector whose revised primary purpose was to brainwash the youth.
The Democrat Party is figuratively burning books as it uses social media mobs as the vehicle to send the message that they will shut down anyone or anything that does not align with their ideology.
Further, they, in league with the teachers’ unions, are hellbent on programming America’s youth and destroying the family structure replacing it with the state.
Sixth, the Nazis perfected the art of indoctrinating the citizenry through propaganda and “fake news.” Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda, is credited with saying: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
This strategy has been and continues to be used to great success by the Democrat party and their fellow travelers in the so-called mainstream media. Whether it is the Russian collusion hoax, the so-called armed insurrection on January 6, 2021, climate change as an existential threat to mankind, suppression of voting rights, white supremacy running rampant, the necessity of lockdowns for the Covid pandemic or a myriad of other fabrications, the Party hierarchy lies with impunity as a means to their ends… as did the Nazis.
Seventh, the Nazis, true to socialist ideology, preyed on class envy to stoke tensions and resentment as they blamed the Jews and wealthy capitalists for their nation’s economic woes.
The Democrat party hierarchy began in 2009 blaming so-called “white supremacy” together with their century-old tactic of blaming wealthy capitalists for income and economic inequality in order to foment class envy and resentment.
But the similarity does not end there. In an extraordinary juxtaposition, the Nazis were able to vilify the wealthy and the industrialists while the subjects of their vitriol financed the Nazi Party.
Hitler assured the German corporate titans that, despite their rhetoric, the Nazis would leave them alone and award them lucrative contracts if they sustained the Party through massive financial support.
The Democrat Party has established a similar rapport with the corporate establishment, in particular the finance and tech sectors. In the belief that they will be left alone by the Democrat party, the American corporate elites have financed the party out to destroy capitalism.
Let’s also not forget that the majority of our products now come from China. Have deals been made?
Eighth, Hitler, after serving in World War I, was an avowed communist who eventually joined the National Socialist Party, later renamed the National Socialist Workers (NAZI) Party. He did so because it was larger and also espoused Marxism/socialism.
Influenced by Mussolini and his Fascist Party, in the 1920s the National Socialist Party adopted extreme nationalism and government-controlled capitalism as a part of their foundational Marxist/socialist underpinning.
While flirting with it for a number of decades, in the latter half of the Twentieth Century the Democrat party began to fully embrace an American version of the Marxism/socialism that underpinned the NAZI Party. Mark Levin in his seminal work American Marxism, lays out in detail this metamorphosis. For all intents and purposes, the Democrat party could easily be renamed: The National Marxist/Socialist Party.
The greatest threat to the survival of United States as founded is not offshore but within its borders: the Democrat party.
In closing, I once again want to emphasize that in order for Hitler to have succeeded he had to have the support of the people. The trick was getting good people to follow bad leaders.
So, let’s looks at the second article I found. You will see that it points out the same common thread. Get the people behind you by convincing them they are doing the right thing for their country.
The fascist far left have always had to lie to survive. They’ve always been on the wrong side of history, and the only way they can remain viable is by gaslighting people on a full-time basis.
For decades, their biggest lie has been that the supposedly pro-freedom side of the political spectrum, imbued in the precepts of individual liberty and limited government, is somehow connected to totalitarian collectivist regimes that displayed the exact opposite of those values.
Anyone who has debated leftists for the past few decades has been subjected to the same bluff abuse in their trying to maintain that nonsensical lie. But the close similarities between fascism and communism have been obvious for at least 75 years:
“In certain basic respects — a totalitarian state structure, a single party, a leader, a secret police, a hatred of political, cultural and intellectual freedom — fascism and communism are clearly more like each other than they are like anything in between”.
—Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Associate Professor of History at Harvard, New York Times Magazine, Sunday, April 4, 1948
Even if you set aside the preposterous argument that totalitarians would also be proponents of liberty and limited government, there are still a myriad of parallel characteristics between the Democrat party and the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party. That’s what was so startling about the first eight ways.
Our follow-up along those lines will make the case even more.
1. Democrats and the Nazis were/are obsessed with gun confiscation.
We’ll start with the one issue the fascist far left never bring up when they try to make their absurd claims: that the Democrats and the Nazis were obsessed with gun confiscation. You will never hear them try to make this accusation of the pro-freedom right because even they know that their lies can only carry them so far. This obvious common collectivist trait also destroys the far leftist mythology of the “party switch,” which supposedly took place sometime in the late ’60s. This was one glaring item that didn’t switch, so they avoid mentioning it.
Anyone who has been paying attention for the past few years knows that saying that the Democrats are obsessed with gun confiscation is an understatement of massive proportions. Every day, it seems they’ve come out with a new scheme on the national, state, and local levels to deprive the people of their commonsense civil rights.
Bear in mind that it was just yesterday that President Biden stated, “Made it harder for people buy stabilized brief— braces. Put a pistol on a brace, it turns into a gun, makes it more, you can have a higher-caliber weapon, higher-caliber bullet coming out of that gun.”
Good Grief.
2. Democrats and Nazis are collectivists.
There are essentially two political philosophies: individualism and collectivism. The fact is that all academic disciplines are based on foundational principles, and this is an ironclad rule that separates the two sides of the political spectrum and also eviscerates the fascist far left’s biggest lie.
According to F.A. Hayek, students today are often taught that on the imaginary “political spectrum,” socialism and communism are “left of center,” and capitalism and fascism are “right of center.” This is frightfully misleading. Socialism, communism and fascism are all peas in the same collectivist pod. Hayek held that they all despised both competition and the individual, and he was precisely right.
3. The overarching philosophy of both Democrats and Nazis is centralized control.
The individualists on the pro-freedom side of the political spectrum favor liberty and limited government. The collectivists of the anti-liberty side of the political spectrum favor control and unlimited government. This can easily be seen in the Democrat’s obsession with controlling not only basic liberties, but also gas stoves, dishwashers, and air-conditioners.
In the case of the German National Socialist Labor Party, this was set out as point 25 in their 25-point program:
25. In order to carry out this program we demand: the creation of a strong central authority in the State, the unconditional authority by the political central parliament of the whole State and all its organizations.
4. The centralized collectivist control philosophy of the Democrat and Nazi parties is epitomized in the phrase “the Common Good” (Gemeinnutz vor Eigennutz in the original German).
How many times have you heard the fascists of the far left parrot the phrase “the Common Good” when trying to shove a draconian, authoritarian rule down our throats? The COVID crisis was particularly egregious in this regard, exemplified by this piece in USA Today: “The COVID culture war: At what point should personal freedom yield to the common good?”
5. Far-left fascists of the Democrat and Nazi parties see force as means to their political power.
While the German national socialist party exploited force, Democrats started the practice with the KKK and perfected it with the Burning, Looting, and Murder riots during the summer of 2020, making it clear to everyone that if they didn’t get their way, the BLM violence would continue.
The tradition continues with Mr. Liberty Control himself, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), threatening a “popular revolt” if they don’t get their way in ramming the pre-stages of gun confiscation down our throats.
6. Democrats and Nazis are proponents of single-party systems.
It should also be obvious that the authoritarians of the far left would love to keep everything nice and simple with a single party — theirs. This is why the Nazis attacked the rival collectivists of the communist party. Just like the rival factions of Islam, they had the same ideology; it’s just that they wanted to be the people in control.
This was exemplified in a piece from the New Republic, “The Constitution Is the Crisis,” with this lovely quotation: “We’ve seen multiple periods of one-party dominance in our history; we’ve also seen defeated political parties wither and die. Why shouldn’t the Republican Party join them?”
7. Democrats and Nazis are fascistic.
You can always tell when a leftist defines fascism, because aside from the inevitable circular logic that supposedly prevents them from being fascist, such as oh, so cleverly labeling themselves as “anti-fascist,” they will define the term based on an arbitrary set of subjective (and thus meaningless) criteria.
In present-day parlance, it’s a “Public/Private” partnership, combining the worst aspects of unlimited governmental rule and corporate oligarchy, with the latter answering to the government instead of the customer. The Bud Light debacle is a prime example.
When the Italian far left originally developed this reprehensible ideology 96 years ago, it was based on La Carta del Lavoro, translated as the Charter of Labor. The New York Timesenthused:
FASCISTI PROCLAIM ‘CHARTER OF LABOR’; Mussolini Is Hailed as Prophet of Cooperative Industrial Peace Under the State. LABOR AND CAPITAL JOINED Document Declaring Rights and Duties Is Presented at Climax of Rome’s 2,681st Birthday.
ROME, April 21. — The Fascist “Charter of Labor,” embodying the fundamental principles of the Fascist-Syndicalist State, which is based primarily upon the theory of replacing the class struggle by a fruitful cooperation between capital and labor under direct State control, was promulgated tonight by Premier Mussolini at a special meeting of the Fascist Grand Council.
Strangely enough, Democrats never refer to this founding document of their base ideology. If you study any of their “academic” work on the subject, they tend to ignore these facts.
8. Democrats are striving for a totalitarian state structure and a single party like the Nazis.
So, there you have it folks. Regardless of your political persuasion, it is hard to deny that we, as a people, are following down a dangerous path that has been tread before.
Are all Democrats evil? No
Are all Republicans evil? Again no.
Are “We the people” stupid? Absolutely not. We are simply wanting what people in our past have wanted. The question is, will we follow along blindly and repeat our previous mistakes, or will we stop, look at what history can tell us, and choose a better path?
What if I told you that the current scandal accusing the federal government of weaponizing the Department of Justice was nothing new? Guess what. History is once again repeating itself. Don’t believe me? Check this out.
Last month, a House subcommittee chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) convened to investigate the alleged “weaponization of the federal government.” Witnesses, including two former F.B.I. special agents, testified to their belief that the U.S. Department of Justice and its Federal Bureau of Investigation have been targeting political opponents of the Biden administration. No bombshells dropped, but Jordan promises more to come.
If you doubt him, suspend your disbelief for a moment and suppose that Jordan’s subcommittee does produce convincing evidence of “weaponization.” Imagine further that F.B.I. agents, acting under direct orders from a vengeful Attorney General Merrick Garland, fan out across Jordan’s home state of Ohio, looking into the congressman’s past. Finally, envision that Justice Department prosecutors then indict Jordan on trumped-up charges, threatening to put the congressman behind bars.
Far-fetched? In 2023, almost certainly. But as I recount in my new book, Crooked: The Roaring ’20s Tale of a Corrupt Attorney General, a Crusading Senator, and the Birth of the American Political Scandal, a similar scenario played out nearly one hundred years ago.
At the center of the storm was a firebrand senator and former U.S. attorney from Montana, Burton K. Wheeler, a Democrat, who was convinced that Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty, a Republican, was abusing his role as the nation’s top law enforcement officer. (Sound familiar folks?) In March 1924, Wheeler took charge of a select committee especially set up to investigate the attorney general.
As a parade of colorful witnesses, including detectives, boxing promoters, and convicted felons, testified, Daugherty was perhaps the most unscrupulous person ever to head the Department of Justice. To cite just the most egregious example, Daugherty allegedly accepted $250,000 in protection money from America’s so-called bootleg king, George Remus.
More to the point, Wheeler’s investigation established that Daugherty had “weaponized” his department’s Bureau of Investigation, the forerunner to the FBI, to protect his friends, persecute his enemies, and settle political scores.
Founded in 1908 by executive fiat of President Theodore Roosevelt and his attorney general, Charles Joseph Bonaparte (grandnephew of Napoleon I), the Bureau of Investigation initially elicited howls of protest from Capitol Hill.
Some raised the specter of the Okhrana, the tsar’s notorious secret police force. Others more pointedly invoked “Foucheism”—a reference to Napoleon’s ruthlessly effective police chief, Joseph Fouché, who, one critic recalled, “grew so powerful that he intimidated the emperor himself by reasons of the state secrets he held.” To these critics, nothing less than the independence of Congress was at stake.
What would stop these government sleuths, they asked, from gathering kompromat on congressmen who refused to do the president’s bidding? Or from framing senators who pried too indelicately into executive branch affairs? They warned that the Bureau would inevitably devolve into a tool of political surveillance and repression. Government by blackmail seemed assured. (Did these guys have a crystal ball that allowed them to see where we are today?)
Under Daugherty’s handpicked director and friend of forty years, William J. Burns, a legendary detective with a well-earned reputation for dirty tricks, the Bureau seemingly proved these early detractors right.
It refused to even open a case file on the brewing Teapot Dome scandal, and it harassed anyone who dared to peek under the rug of the Harding administration—even its own special agents.
One was fired when his investigation into an interstate fight-film distribution scheme (in violation of federal law) led to some of the attorney general’s closest friends. Another was dismissed when his inquiry into Prohibition violations along the U.S.-Mexican border implicated a U.S. marshal who happened to be Daugherty’s brother-in-law.
The most damning testimony against Daugherty came from Gaston Bullock Means, a notorious sleuth who spied for Germany during World War I, bragged that he’d been accused of “every crime in the catalogue,” and nevertheless found an undercover job working for Burns at the Bureau of Investigation.
Means confirmed what the Harding administration’s congressional critics already suspected—that the Bureau had been carrying out black-bag jobs to silence them.
When one senator introduced a resolution to investigate Teapot Dome, for instance, Means ransacked his Capitol Hill office in search of compromising information. When another shared sharp words about Daugherty on the floor of the Senate, Means assembled a spy ring that infiltrated the senator’s inner circle and confirmed rumors that he’d fathered a child with his secretary.
“How it was going to be used, I don’t know,” Means said of the intelligence he gathered, “except this way, I would interpret it. If you found something damaging on a man you would quietly get word to him through some of his friends, or otherwise, that he had better put the soft pedal on the situation.”
Surely this isn’t happening today!
And so, when Sen. Wheeler started hearing from his own friends that Bureau agents were snooping around his home state of Montana, combing over his past, he knew he was in the crosshairs himself.
On March 28, mounting evidence of malfeasance forced Daugherty’s resignation. Eleven days later, in an apparent act of retaliation, federal prosecutors indicted Wheeler on trumped-up charges of accepting legal fees from an oil company while serving as a U.S. senator, in violation of a longstanding statute. Although a dramatic trial eventually cleared the senator of all charges, such a nakedly vindictive prosecution undermined the rule of law and shattered Americans’ confidence in the federal government’s law enforcement bureaucracy.
Wait a minute. Is he saying that the federal government trumped up fake charges as a political weapon and used the DOJ? The result being that people lost confidence in the federal Department of Justice? There it is folks. History truly does repeat itself. We are right back where we were 100 years ago!
Still not convinced the federal government can be used as a weapon against its political opposition? Let me share another, even more horrible example.
Scholars Timothy Ryback, Wendy Lower, Jonathan Petropoulos, Michael Berenbaum, and Peter Hayes discuss Adolf Hitler’s final steps in securing total power in Germany.
Outlawing the Opposition
While the Nazis were focusing on putting Germans back to work in the midst of the Great Depression, they also unleashed attacks on their political opposition as soon as Hitler became chancellor.
On the evening of February 27, 1933, alarms suddenly rang out in the Reichstag as fire destroyed the building’s main chamber. Within 20 minutes, Hitler was on the scene to declare: “This is a God-given signal! If this fire, as I believe, turns out to be the handiwork of Communists, then there is nothing that shall stop us now from crushing out this murderous pest with an iron fist.”
Marinus van der Lubbe was the man the Nazis captured that night. He confessed to setting the building ablaze but repeatedly insisted that he had acted alone. Adolf Hitler paid no attention to the confession. He saw a chance to get rid of what he considered the Nazis’ most immediate rival—the Communists—so he ordered the arrest of anyone with ties to the Communist Party.
Within days, the Nazis had thrown 4,000 Communists and their leaders into hastily created prisons and concentration camps. By the end of March, 20,000 Communists had been arrested, and by the end of that summer more than 100,000 Communists, Social Democrats, union officials, and other “radicals” were imprisoned.
Were any of them responsible for the fire? The question was irrelevant to the Nazis. They had been given an opportunity to get rid of their enemies, and they took it.
After the Reichstag fire on February 27, 1933, Hitler ordered the arrest of anyone with ties to the Communist Party. By the end of March, approximately 20,000 people had been arrested.
OK, let’s stop here for a moment and think about this. Let’s just say. Someone sets fire to the US Capitol tomorrow. When the smoke clears, Biden accuses the Republican Party of setting the fire. He then immediately calls for the arrest of Jim Jordan and Mitch McConnell. Needless to say, the conservative party would throw a fit. The response Hitler took was to hunt down all of those followers, arrest them, and ship them off to concentration camps. That’s right folks, Hitler’s concentration camps were originally built for political opponents not the Jewish population of Germany.
The day after the fire, February 28, 1933, President Hindenburg, at Hitler’s urging, issued two emergency decrees designed to make such arrests legal, even those that had already taken place.
Their titles—“For the Defense of Nation and State” and “To Combat Treason against the German Nation and Treasonable Activities”—reveal how Hitler used the fire to further his own goals.
The two decrees suspended, until further notice, every part of the constitution that protected personal freedoms. The Nazis claimed that the decrees were necessary to protect the nation from the “Communist menace.”
On March 5, 1933, the government held an election for control of the Reichstag. The Nazis won 288 seats (43.9% of the vote). The Communists won 81 seats (12.3%), even though their representatives were unable to claim those seats—if they appeared in public, they faced immediate arrest.
Other opposition parties also won significant numbers of seats. The Social Democrats captured 119 seats (18.3%), and the Catholic Center Party won 73 seats (11.2%). Together, the Communist, Social Democratic, and Catholic Center Parties won nearly as many seats as the Nazis. But their members distrusted one another almost as much as they feared the Nazis. As a result, these parties were unable to mount a unified opposition to the Nazi Party.
So, look out Bernie Sanders and any Libertarians out there thinking about running for President. Hitler eliminated ALL opposition. Not just the communist party officials.
Still under Nazi control, the Reichstag passed a new law on March 21, 1933, that made it a crime to speak out against the new government or criticize its leaders. Known as the Malicious Practices Act, the law made even the smallest expression of dissent a crime. Those who were accused of “gossiping” or “making fun” of government officials could be arrested and sent to prison or a concentration camp.
(Can you say Twitter and Facebook recent revelations concerning DOJ censorship?)
Then, on March 24, 1933, the Reichstag passed what became known as the Enabling Act by a vote of 141 to 94. It “enabled” the chancellor of Germany to punish anyone he considered an “enemy of the state.” The act allowed “laws passed by the government” to override the constitution. Only the 94 Social Democrats voted against the law. Most of the other deputies who opposed it were in hiding, in prison, or in exile.
The Enabling Act was Hitler’s final step in taking complete control.
Throughout the spring and early summer of 1933, the Nazis used the new laws to frighten and intimidate Germans. By May, they forced all trade labor unions to dissolve. Instead, workers could only belong to a Nazi-approved union called the German Labor Front.
Then, in June, Hitler outlawed the Social Democratic Party. The German Nationalist Party, which was part of Hitler’s coalition government, dissolved after its deputies were told to resign or become the next target.
By the end of the month, German concentration camps held 27,000 people. By mid-July, the Nazi Party was the only political party allowed in the country.
So, there you have it folks. Two examples of what can happen when the federal government is weaponized as a tool to be used against the people. Can it happen here? As I have shown, it already has 100 years ago. The big question is. Will we allow history to repeat itself having learned nothing from our past?
Folks, have we lost control of our federal government? It seems that the recent passing of the federal budget bill took into consideration the wants and needs of everyone except for the American people.
The last time I checked, that is our money they are spending.
It seems like almost every decision coming out of Washington these days totally ignores the views and concerns of “we the people”.
In their attempt to balance order with liberty, the Founders identified several reasons for creating a federalist government:
to avoid tyranny
to allow more participation in politics
to use the states as “laboratories” for new ideas and programs.
As James Madison pointed out in The Federalist, No. 10, If “factious leaders kindle a flame within their particular states,” national leaders can check the spread of the “conflagration through the other states.”
So, federalism prevents a person that takes control of a state from easily taking control of the federal governments as well.
Electing both state and national OFFICIALS also increases the input of citizens into their government. And if a state adopts a disastrous new policy, at least it would not be a catastrophe for everyone. On the other hand, if a state’s new programs work well, other states can adopt their ideas and adjust them to their own needs.
So, in other words, federalism was seen as another check and balance to control government at both the state and the federal levels.
The Constitution gives three types of power to the national government:
DELEGATED (sometimes called enumerated or expressed) powers are specifically granted to the federal government in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. This includes the power to coin money, to regulate commerce, to declare war, to raise and maintain armed forces, and to establish a Post Office. In all, the Constitution delegates 27 powers specifically to the federal government.
Woah! Wait a minute. Only 27 powers? Are you kidding me? We currently have 438 federal agencies and 2.25 million employees working for the federal government to take care of 27 tasks? Good grief! How does that happen? Simple, implied powers.
IMPLIED POWERS are not specifically stated in the Constitution, but may be inferred from the elastic (or “necessary and proper”) clause (Article I, Section 8). This provision gives Congress the right “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and other powers vested in the government of the United States.” Since these powers are not explicit, the courts are often left to decide what constitutes an implied power.
Yes folks, this is where we started down the slippery slope that got us where we are today. There is nothing in the US Constitution about the EPA, Education, Welfare, etc. This leads us to the 3rd type of federal power. Inherent powers.
3. INHERENT POWERS are not specifically listed in the Constitution, but they grow out of the very existence of the national government. For example, the United States has the power to acquire territory by exploration and/or occupancy, primarily because most governments in general claim that right.
Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution authorizes the federal government to issue a central currency for all states. The form of this currency has changed many times through the years.
Now our founding fathers could see that there needed to be a way to control this all powerful central government. This brings us to Reserved powers. This is where we seem to have lost our way when it comes to controlling our federal government.
The Constitution also identifies RESERVED POWERS, which are set aside for the states. Unlike delegated powers, they are not listed specifically, but are guaranteed by the TENTH AMENDMENT: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, not prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Some traditional reserved powers include regulating trade within a state, establishing local government, and conducting elections.
Hold on there. That’s right. If it is not in the US Constitution, the power belongs to the states. It is system that defines us as a Federal Republic. We are NOT a democracy. Federalism sets up a system of shared powers between the states and the federal government. A democracy is a system wherein the simple majority rules. In other words, mob rule.
Some powers of federal and state governments overlap. For example, both may — and do — levy taxes, make and enforce laws, and borrow money. These concurrent powers are not granted exclusively to the national government, nor are they denied the states.
Prohibited powers are denied either to the national government, state governments, or both (Article I, Section 9.) For example, the national government cannot exercise its powers in such a way as to interfere with the states’ abilities to perform their responsibilities. States cannot tax imports or exports, nor can they coin money or issue bills of credit.
States also have responsibilities to one another, as explained in Article IV of the Constitution. One provision is that each state must give “FULL FAITH AND CREDIT” to the public acts, records, and civil judicial proceedings of every other state. Business contracts, then, are recognized by all states, as are marriages. Extradition, the legal process in which an accused criminal is returned to the state where the crime was committed, is also required by Article IV.
The founders very carefully divided powers between federal and state governments. They were responding to both the colonial aversion to the tyranny of King George III. Their careful separating and blending of state and national powers guarded against tyranny, allowed for more citizen participation in government, and provided a mechanism for incorporating new policies and programs.
So, what were our forefathers thinking when they sat down to establish our federal government? Bear in mind, we had just won a war against England and now had to start from scratch. The one thing they all agreed upon was that they didn’t want to create another monarchy with an all-powerful king.
When the 13 United States of America declared independence from the United Kingdom in 1776, the founders were attempting to break free from the tyranny of Britain’s top-down centralized government.
But the first constitution the founders created, the Articles of Confederation, vested almost all power in individual state legislatures and practically nothing in the national government. The result—political chaos and crippling debt—almost sunk the fledgling nation before it left the harbor.
Failures of the Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation were written and ratified while the Revolutionary War was still raging. The document is less of a unifying constitution than a loose pact between 13 sovereign states intending to enter into “a firm league of friendship.” Absent from the Articles of Confederation were the Executive or Judicial branches, and the national congress had only the power to declare war and sign treaties, but no authority to directly levy taxes.
Basically, the Articles of Confederation was our first written constitution. It was an attempt to have the states (13 former colonies) rule. Each state got a vote. All votes had to be unanimous. Can you imagine, today, being led solely by Congress with no President and no Judiciary Branch and all parties having to agree on any issue? No wonder it failed! Think about it.
No central leadership (executive branch)
Congress had no power to enforce its laws.
Congress had no power to tax.
Congress had no power to regulate trade.
No national court system (judicial branch)
Changes to the Articles required unanimous consent of all 13 states.
As a result, the newly independent United States was buried in debt by 1786 and unable to pay the long-overdue wages of Revolutionary soldiers. The U.S. economy sunk into a deep depression and struggling citizens lost their farms and homes. In Massachusetts, angry farmers joined Shays’ Rebellion to seize courthouses and block foreclosures, and a toothless congress was powerless to put it down.
George Washington, temporarily retired from government service, lamented to John Jay, “What a triumph for the advocates of despotism to find that we are incapable of governing ourselves, and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely ideal & fallacious!”
Alexander Hamilton called for a new Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 where the Articles of Confederation were ultimately thrown out in favor of an entirely new form of government.
The Middle Road of Federalism
When the United States cut ties with Britain, the founders wanted nothing to do with the British form of government known as “unitary.” Under a unitary regime, all power originates from a centralized national government (Parliament) and is delegated to local governments. That’s still the way the government operates in the UK.
I personally think that we are fast approaching that same system. It seems like everywhere you turn, the federal government is mandating what states can and cannot do. How are they enforcing this? By withholding federal funding. Where does the federal funding come from? That’s right. You and me, the taxpaying citizens.
So, the founders initially chose the opposite form of government, a confederation. In a confederation, all power originates at the local level in the individual states and is only delegated to a weak central government at the states’ discretion.
When the founders met in Philadelphia, it was clear that a confederation wasn’t enough to hold the young nation together. States were scuffling over borders and minting their own money. Massachusetts had to hire its own army to put down Shays’ Rebellion.
The solution was to find a middle way, a blueprint of government in which the powers were shared and balanced between the states and national interests. That compromise, woven into the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, became known as federalism.
The Constitution and the Bill of Rights created two different kinds of separation of powers, both designed to act as critical checks and balances.
The first and best-known of the separation of powers is between the three branches of government: Executive, Legislative and the Judiciary. If the president acts against the best interests of the country, he or she can be impeached by Congress.
If Congress passes an unjust law, the president can veto it. And if any law or public institution infringes on the constitutional rights of the people, the Supreme Court can remedy it.
But the second type of separation of powers is equally important, the granting of separate powers to the federal and state governments.
Under the Constitution, the state legislatures retain much of their sovereignty to pass laws as they see fit, but the federal government also has the power to intervene when it suits the national interest. And under the “supremacy clause” found in Article VI, federal laws and statutes supersede state law.
Federalism, or the separation of powers between the state and federal government, was entirely new when the founders baked it into the Constitution. And while it functions as an important check, it’s also been a continual source of contention between the two levels of government.
According to James Madison, a committed federalist, the Constitution maintains the sovereignty of states by enumerating very few express powers to the federal government, while “[t]hose which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.”
Article I Section 8 contains a list of all of the “enumerated” powers that are exclusively delegated to the federal government.
But that very same Section 8 also includes the so-called “Elastic Clause” that authorizes Congress to write and pass any laws that are “necessary and proper” to carry out its enumerated powers. These powers are known collectively as “implied powers” and have been used by Congress to create a national bank, to collect a federal income tax, to institute the draft, to pass gun control laws and to set a federal minimum wage, among others.
Other than that, the Constitution grants almost all other power and authority to the individual states, as Madison said. While the Constitution doesn’t explicitly list the powers retained by the states, the founders included a catch-all in the 10th Amendment, ratified in 1791:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Those so-called “reserved” powers include all authority and functions of local and state governments, policing, education, the regulation of trade within a state, the running of elections and many more.
In the United States, federalism has proven a successful experiment in shared governance since 1787 and provided the model for similar federalist systems in Australia, Canada, India, Germany and several other nations.
I will close with a quote from none other than Benjamin Franklin.
On September 18, 1787, “A lady asked Dr. Franklin, Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy – A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it.”
Adidas could be facing its ‘Bud Light moment’ as calls to boycott the brand continue in a row over its use of a biologically male model to promote a women’s swimsuit in its ‘Pride 2023’ collection.
The sportswear giant provoked fury from fans who accused it of making a ‘mockery’ of women when it unveiled an advertisement for the swimsuit which forms part of its campaign to ‘uphold inclusive values’.
But disenfranchised fans continued to slam the ‘woke‘ firm today, with some encouraging customers to ‘burn’ their Adidas Gazelle trainers in protest.
Sales of the beer plummeted following the backlash and its parent company Anheuser-Busch saw $3 billion wiped from its market cap value after its paid partnership with Dylan Mulvaney was revealed at the beginning of April.
Others warned firms who use similar ‘woke’ marketing tactics could be next to face the wrath of consumers.
Mulvaney had been paid to promote a challenge in which people could win $15,000 from Bud Light by sending in videos of themselves with the brand’s beers.
But the campaign sparked outrage among conservative social media personalities, who attacked the firm for turning to ‘woke’ advertising.
That followed a separate boycott of Nike earlier in April over its partnership with Mulvaney to promote its female sports clothing range.
Mulvaney posed for a series of pictures and videos promoting the brand’s sports bra and leggings. Mulvaney identifies as a woman and uses the pronouns ‘she/they’ but has not had gender reassignment surgery.
In the latest controversy over so-called ‘woke marketing’, the Adidas swimsuit is modelled by an unidentified model who is described as being 6ft 2in and with a 34inch chest.
A ‘Boycott Adidas’ hashtag began trending after the campaign launched on Monday in what has become the latest backlash against so-called ‘woke marketing’.
Adidas and Bud Light aren’t the only firms facing backlash over their woke agendas.
Target has also faced the consequences of their actions.
Target has lost $10 billion in market valuation over the last 10 days as the popular retailer continues to face backlash over its Pride-themed clothing line for children.
A week ago Wednesday, Target enjoyed its stock value at $160.96 a share, but following the calls to boycott the Minneapolis-based retailer over its “PRIDE” collection, the value plummeted and closed Friday at $138.93 a share.
The nearly 14% drop in value for the blue chip stock roughly translates to a $10.1 billion loss in valuation to just $64.2 billion for Target, which has nearly 2,000 stores nationwide.
The plummet stands as the retailer’s lowest stock price in nearly three years.
Target, which has been caught in the middle of America’s culture wars over gender, moved its Pride section in some Southern stores away from the front last week after it said displays were knocked over by protesters, who also confronted workers.
The retailer also said it would remove items from the collection but did not specify which ones.
Among the ones that garnered the most attention were “tuck-friendly” women’s swimsuits that allow trans women who have not had gender-affirming operations to conceal their genitalia, as well as rainbow-themed children’s clothing.
So, as we see the far left pushing their liberal agenda, it appears the opposition has found a new weapon, the boycott.
But guess what? It isn’t new at all. It has been used before here in the US and it was tremendously effective.
How about a little history?
Now believe it or not, our forefathers did not immediately take up guns to fight the King. They were much smarter than that. They knew there was no way a handful of colonists could defeat the largest military force in the world at the time.
Yet, they came up with an amazing method of resistance that got the immediate attention of England and the British Parliament and forced the King and his Prime Minister to back off.
What was their secret weapon?
For that answer, we need a little history.
In 1651, the British Parliament, in the first of what became known as the Navigation Acts, declared that only English ships would be allowed to bring goods into England, and that the North American colonies could only export its commodities, such as tobacco and sugar, to England.
This effectively prevented the colonies from trading with other European countries. The act was followed by several others that imposed additional limitations on colonial trade and increased customs duties. Now came the secret weapon.
They called them Nonimportation Agreements, today, we call them boycotts.
Nonimportation Agreements, (1765–75), were a way to force British recognition of political rights through the application of economic pressure.
At the time, the colonists had suffered under the Navigation Acts, The Stamp Act of 1765 (a tax on cards, dice, newspapers and legal documents), and the Townshend Acts 1767, (a tax on paper, paint, lead, glass, and tea). C
Colonial nonimportation associations were now organized to boycott all English goods.
In each case, British merchants and manufacturers suffered huge reductions in trade with the colonies and they now put pressure on Parliament to lift the restrictions on the colonies.
Guess what folks? It worked! The British businessmen marched on Parliament and said, “You idiots are costing us a fortune!”
Parliament, facing a hostile electorate, repealed the acts.
Now, where did we get this term boycott?
Simply put, a boycott is a protest where the protesters do not buy a product or give money to a company.
Instead of buying a certain product, they might also buy another, very similar product from a different company.
The word boycott comes from the name of English Captain Charles Boycott.
In 1880, the Irish tenants (those who rented) wanted their rent lowered.
Boycott refused, and threw them out of the land they had rented.
The Irish Land League then proposed that instead of becoming violent, everyone in the community should stop doing business with Captain Boycott. The captain was soon isolated.
No one helped him with the harvest, no one worked in his stables or his house. Local businessmen no longer traded with him, even the postman no longer delivered his mail.
The Boycott affair was big news in Ireland, England, and elsewhere in the English-speaking world.
His name’s transformation into a common term is attributed to a local priest, who suggested using “boycott” to describe what was happening because “ostracize” was too complicated a word for the local peasantry.
Boycotting spread across Ireland. The word was adopted elsewhere, including non English-speaking countries.
The new word was included in the first edition of A New English Dictionary Based on Historical Principles (1888), later known as the Oxford English Dictionary.
And so, Captain Boycott lives on, having unwillingly lent his name to a time-honored tactic.
So, let’s go back to our story:
American cities in the colonies, now implemented boycotts to resist unpopular British policies.
The use of raw materials, goods produced in the colonies, and Yankee ingenuity were the order of the day.
It was during this time the American colonies experimented with the notion of being self-sufficient and not relying on the mother country.
The merchants and traders agreed to boycott British goods until the taxes on those goods were repealed. Some critical goods were exempt from the boycott such as salt, and hemp and duck canvases. Smuggling was widespread.
This was in direct violation of the Navigation Acts. Almost every American community benefited from or participated in the smuggling of illegal goods obtained from Dutch, French, and Spanish merchants.
Smuggling was not only a cheaper alternative to taxed British goods, but also served as an effective means to resist and undermine British policies. Boston was rife with smuggled goods and smugglers.
Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Paul Revere were all known as notorious Boston Patriot smugglers and were all proponents of the use of non-importation agreements and similar boycott tactics.
The Stamp Act was repealed because of joint boycotts by American colonies.
New York merchants first implemented the boycott to protest the Stamp Act and they were able to persuade the merchants of other cities to do the same.
Boston was one of the cities New York merchants persuaded to participate in the boycott agreement to combat the Stamp Act.
As a result of the successful boycott and pressure from British merchants who were losing a fortune, Britain gave in and finally repealed the Stamp Act.
The impact of the Boston boycotts, and all similar agreements, were significant.
Approximately sixty merchants and traders signed the agreement on August 1, 1768, and within two weeks, all but sixteen of Boston’s merchants, traders, and business owners had joined the boycott.
Boston tradesmen, artisans, and other business owners happily signed the agreement in hopes the boycott would generate business for them.
Within months, almost every port and region within the Thirteen Colonies adopted similar boycotts to protest and undermine the Townshend Revenue Act, although many Southern merchants and traders with Loyalist leanings refused to cooperate.
Smuggling was rampant throughout the colonies. The effects felt by British merchants who traded with the American colonies were alarming.
Merchants lost money shipping their goods to the colonies where they would not be received.
More often than not the goods were never allowed ashore. If they were, they rotted on docks or in warehouses or were looted by the colonists.
The situation was a nightmare for customs officials who could not collect taxes on goods that were either not allowed ashore or were never sold.
In response to the Boston boycotts, Parliament ultimately repealed the Townshend Revenue Act taxes on all commodities except tea.
The King insisted Parliament keep at least one tax to prove the colonists had not completely won.
The Boston boycotts of 1768 and the subsequent repeal of the Townshend Revenue Act taxes on all commodities except tea was a major cause leading to the December 16, 1773 Boston Tea Party.
With the passing of the Tea Act in May of 1773, the tea tax under the Townshend Revenue Act was still in effect.
The tea tax which was not repealed, like the other taxes under the 1767 Townshend Revenue Act repealed in 1770, was one of the fundamental reasons why the Tea Act angered and mobilized colonists to protest and boycott the shipments of British East India Company tea.
If the tea tax would have been repealed in 1770 with all of the other taxes, in all probability the Boston Tea Party would have never happened.
So folks, the boycott agreements in the years prior to the American Revolution were a very effective tactic to protest British policies and demonstrated to other colonies the potential for united action.
As a result of the successful boycott, Boston started with the 1768 Boston Non-Importation Agreement, the First Continental Congress in 1774 would pass a colony-wide prohibition against any trade with Britain.
Now I have to admit, the colonists did have a major problem.
During this period, 1/3 of the colonists supported King George, 1/3 Supported George Washington and the patriots, and finally 1/3 didn’t care one way or the other.
That is very similar to what we are facing today.
I would say that fully 1/3 of the people support the liberal agenda being pushed in our current marketing campaigns, our schools, and our society.
I/3 support the conservative agenda and are pushing the boycotts we are seeing.
Finally, I/3 of Americans don’t care one way or the other. They just want to left alone.
Our forefathers relied on economic networks that included farmers, traders, artisans, working men, and women to create a new political movement.
The nature of the movement seemed to show that ordinary free people were capable of having a stronger voice in politics.
So, there you have it folks. When faced with a government completely out of control, our forefathers turned to boycotts and it worked.
Would the same tactic work today? What if everyone refused to simply not watch certain news channels, or patronize a certain brand of beer, or eat a certain brand of ice cream?
It worked in the 1700’s, would it work now? Think about it.
Is this the answer to combatting the “Woke Agenda?”
Last year, Forbes concluded that “only 16% of adults in the U.S. say they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in newspapers, and just 11% said the same for television news.” Anyone confronting these stats must conclude that our media are deeply incompetent or crooked or both.
The New York Times announced a few years ago that defeating Trump was the important thing. They gave themselves a free pass to lie all they wanted. How can they now reclaim their honor or their usefulness?
Real journalists, when they hear an assertion, immediately try to determine whether the assertion is true or false. This is also what scientists do. It’s honest, valuable work.
Unfortunately, our liberal journalists do not care about true or false. When they hear an assertion, they try to determine whether it will help their agenda…their narrative.
If it won’t help, they know they must attack the assertion, typically by declaring it debunked, fake news, or misinformation.
Let’s try to recapture what the Founding Fathers imagined when they put freedom of press at a high place in the national plan. Ideally, we could always assume that major media were telling us the truth as honestly as they could. But nothing can be assumed anymore.
Novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) and Czech statesman Václav Havel (1936–2011), having lived under communist dictatorships, knew what hell on earth looks like.
They ended up with the same obsession that, before all else, we must “live in truth.” Conversely, they figured out that societies start to crumble when the leaders are concerned primarily with their own ambitions, their own realities. (Sound familiar folks?)
George Orwell was also obsessed with the necessity of living in truth. His novel 1984 is full of references to truth, freedom, slavery, power, manipulation, and warping reality.
Once you’re separated from truth, everything becomes a cruel game; ordinary citizens don’t have a chance. Lies and bad government go together. That was the point of 1984.
The USA is now sinking into near-1984 reality. Almost every day, the White House lies, the CDC lies, the FBI lies, the CIA lies, the DOJ lies, and famous media giants lie, blatantly and clumsily.
At this point, doesn’t the whole world know that the Biden family took lots of money from foreign governments? How is he able to run for a second term?
Indeed, of a Great Reset, we watched a Great Convergence of dishonest media and disingenuous education. Schools won’t teach truth, and media won’t report truth. If students don’t know any history, they are not surprised that our president takes millions from foreign countries. Probably it was always like that.
Václav Havel, in The Power of the Powerless, concludes, “Life in the system is so thoroughly permeated with hypocrisy and lies. … Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics.”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, in The Gulag Archipelago, said, “And the lie has, in fact, led us so far away from a normal society that you cannot even orient yourself any longer; in its dense, gray fog not even one pillar can be seen.”
Many people might think the distinguishing characteristic of communism is cruelty. But before you get to that point, the distinguishing trait is cynicism. Recall Lenin promising bread, peace, and land if the Russian people joined his revolution. The Russian people got none of the above, but then it was too late.
The shocking thing that Biden’s presidency has given us is that more than 100 people are in jail several years after they are alleged to have committed misdemeanors, even as Democrats are letting murderers out as fast as possible. So much violates what Western civilization is supposedly devoted to: the rights of the accused.
Look how far we have fallen. Journalists should be like referees in a football game. They must not belong to political parties or factions. They must not, in effect, be secret agents working against this country.
That is when the Fourth Estate (press) becomes a Fifth Column (traitors), in both media and schools.
Biden needs a crooked press to keep him and his family out of jail, even if it’s going to kill the rest of us.
Orwell supposedly said that in a dishonest age, telling the truth is a revolutionary action. Many sources say this line is not by Orwell.
Now that I look at it closely, I don’t know why that’s so important. It does not capture the essential problem with pervasive dishonesty — namely, that everything becomes soft and vague.
Sometimes, political lies corrupt all aspects of life and infect every corner of society. This occurrence reveals that totalitarianism is winning.
As the political philosopher Hannah Arendt noted, totalitarianism, at its essence, is an attempt at “transforming reality into fiction.” Fiction, of course, can be written and rewritten as you please.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, towards the end of his life, expressed political salvation in these simple terms, “Our way must be: never knowingly support lies.”
So how do we as citizens do that? Simple.
Critical Thinking
What is the hardest task in the world? To think. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few engage in it. – Henry Ford
Critical thinking is just deliberately and systematically processing information so that you can make better decisions and generally understand things better.
So, the next time the national media attempts to feed you their misinformation and outright lies, here are methods you can use to help you find the truth.
1. Don’t Take Anything at Face Value
The first step to thinking critically is to learn to evaluate what you hear, what you read, and what you decide to do. So, rather than doing something because it’s what you’ve always done or accepting what you’ve heard as the truth, spend some time just thinking. What’s the problem? What are the possible solutions? What are the pros and cons of each? If you really evaluate things, you’re likely to make a better, more reasoned choice.
As the saying goes, “When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me.” It’s quite easy to make an ass of yourself simply by failing to question your basic assumptions.
Some of the greatest innovators in human history were those who simply looked up for a moment and wondered if one of everyone’s general assumptions was wrong. From Newton to Einstein, questioning assumptions is where innovation happens.
If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking. – George S. Patton
2. Consider Motive
Where information is coming from is a key part of thinking critically about it. Everyone has a motive and a bias. Sometimes, it’s pretty obvious; other times, it’s a lot harder to detect. Just know that where any information comes from should affect how you evaluate it — and whether you decide to act on it.
3. Do Your Research
All the information that gets thrown at us on a daily basis can be overwhelming, but if you decide to take matters into your own hands, it can also be a very powerful tool. If you have a problem to solve, a decision to make, or a perspective to evaluate, get onto Google and start reading about it. The more information you have, the better prepared you’ll be to think things through and come up with a reasonable answer to your query.
I have a personal library of over 3500 books and I use them all the time for research. You have access to your local library and an unlimited amount of good info on the net.
Don’t rely solely on Google. The Library of Congress online is a great source of information. Another search engine I use a lot is called Refseek (www.refseek.com) It contains over a billion books, documents, journals and newspapers.
When you’re trying to solve a problem, it’s always helpful to look at other work that has been done in the same area.
It’s important, however, to evaluate this information critically, or else you can easily reach the wrong conclusion. Ask the following questions of any evidence you encounter:
How was it gathered, by whom, and why?
4. Ask Questions
I sometimes find myself shying away from questions. They can make me feel a little stupid. But mostly, I can’t help myself. I just need to know! And once you go down that rabbit hole, you not only learn more, but often discover whole new ways of thinking about things. I tell people all the time, there are no stupid questions. That is how you learn.
Sometimes an explanation becomes so complex that the basic, original questions get lost. To avoid this, continually go back to the basic questions you asked when you set out to solve the problem. What do you already know? How do you know that? What are you trying to prove, disprove, demonstrated, critique, etc.?
5. Don’t always assume You’re Right
I know it’s hard. I struggle with the hard-headed desire to be right as much as the next person. Because being right feels great. But assuming you’re right will often put you on the wrong track when it comes to thinking critically. Because if you don’t take in other perspectives and points of view, and think them over, and compare them to your own, you really aren’t doing much thinking at all — and certainly not the critical kind.
Human thought is amazing, but the speed and automation with which it happens can be a disadvantage when we’re trying to think critically. Our brains naturally use mental shortcuts to explain what’s happening around us.
This was beneficial to humans when we were hunting large game and fighting off wild animals, but it can be disastrous when we try to decide who to vote for.
A critical thinker is aware of their biases and personal prejudices and how they influence seemingly “objective” decisions and solutions.
All of us have biases in our thinking–it’s awareness of them that makes thought critical.
6. Break It Down
Being able to see the big picture is often touted as a great quality, but I’d wager that being able to see that picture for all its components is even better.
After all, most problems are too big to solve all at once, but they can be broken down into smaller parts. The smaller the parts, the easier it’ll be to evaluate them individually and arrive at a solution. This is essentially what scientists do; before they can figure out how a bigger system — such as our bodies or an ecosystem — works, they have to understand all the parts of that system, how they work, and how they relate to each other.
7. Keep It Simple
In the scientific community, a line of reasoning called Occam’s razor is often used to decide which hypothesis is most likely to be true. This means finding the simplest explanation that fits all facts. This is what you would call the most obvious explanation, at least until it’s proven wrong. Often, Occam’s razor is just plain common sense. When you do your research and finally lay out what you believe to be the facts, you’ll probably be surprised by what you uncover. It might not be what you were expecting, but chances are it’ll be closer to the truth.
Some of the most amazing solutions to problems are astounding not because of their complexity, but because of their elegant simplicity. Look for the simple solution first.
Conclusion:
Critical thinking is not an easy topic to understand or explain, but the benefits of learning it and incorporating it into your life are huge.
Remember :
1. Don’t Take Anything at Face Value
2. Consider the Motive
3. Do Your Research
4. Ask Questions
5. Don’t always assume You’re Right
6. Break It Down
7. Keep It Simple
I will close with one final quote:
Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. – Henry Ford
What do you think? Can you adopt critical thinking in your life? Better yet, can you pass it on to those who refuse to use it?
Whatever your view of immigration, there can be no doubt that the Biden administration’s border policies have been an miserable failure.
This is especially true of Title 42, the pandemic-era public health order that for the last three years, under both the Trump and Biden administrations, allowed border officials to expel illegal immigrants quickly back to Mexico.
Title 42 came to an end last Thursday, May 11th when the Covid public health emergency officially ended, and its ending has coincided with what can only be described as absolute chaos along the U.S.-Mexico border this past week.
Border Patrol agents are now arresting more than 10,000 illegal immigrants every day. If you have no context for that figure, consider that in March 2019, at the onset of the last border crisis, Border Patrol was arresting 4,000 illegal immigrants a day.
At the time, President Obama’s Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson said, “I know that 1,000 [apprehensions] overwhelms the system and I cannot begin to imagine what 4,000 a day looks like.”
What 10,000 a day looks like is a humanitarian catastrophe. Put bluntly, Border Patrol has nowhere to put these people.
If it keeps up for much longer, we’ll see a string of what amount to massive migrant camps appear across south Texas — think of the encampment of 15,000 Haitians under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, in September 2021, multiplied many times over all up and down the border.
What 10,000 a day means is that our southwest border is collapsing. The Texas cities of Laredo, El Paso, and Brownsville have issued emergency declarations, as has New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who still refuses to order state law enforcement and military units to arrest and deport illegal immigrants caught crossing the Rio Grande, has deployed a new National Guard unit, the Texas Tactical Border Force, to try to “deter” illegal crossings.
It’s unclear what this will entail, but video circulating on Twitter this week taken by Todd Bensman of the Center for Immigration Studies showed Texas DPS troopers blocking a group of migrants along the north bank of the Rio Grande.
That’s a step in the right direction, but as a long-term strategy, rolling out razor wire along stretches of the Rio Grande isn’t going to cut it.
Neither is the Biden administration’s plan to send hundreds more U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) personnel to the border as part of a just-finalized new policy to process migrants within days of their arrival and deport them if they fail an initial screening. The USCIS agents will be joined in this effort by some 1,500 military troops — not to enforce the border but to do data entry, mostly.
But the new Biden policy amounts to little more than a slap-dash propaganda campaign to make it look like the administration is doing something about the crisis.
It might result in fewer illegal immigrants ultimately being granted asylum, but it does nothing to reduce the use of catch-and-release as America’s de facto border policy, because it allows anyone who is denied a credible fear claim to appeal to an immigration judge — a process that takes years to complete thanks to the growing backlog of asylum cases in the system.
And since Biden’s new rule does nothing to speed up the adjudication process, it just means this backlog will grow faster than it was before, providing an even greater incentive for illegal immigrants to cross the border and file bogus asylum claims, knowing they will be released with work authorizations as their cases wind their way through the system.
On some level, even Biden knows this, which is perhaps why he said this week that the border was going to be “chaotic for a while.”
Well folks, how about a little history to explain how we got into this mess and steps we have taken to fix it in the past.
On August 4, 1942, the United States and Mexico signed the Mexican Farm Labor Agreement, creating what is known as the “Bracero Program.” The program, which lasted until 1964, was the largest guest-worker program in U.S. history.
Throughout its existence, the Bracero Program benefited both farmers and laborers but also gave rise to numerous labor disputes, abuses of workers and other problems that have long characterized the history of farm labor in the Southwestern United States.
The program was born from necessity, as the federal government worried that American entry into World War II would sap the Southwest of much of its farm labor.
Manual laborers (braceros in Spanish) from Mexico became an important part of the region’s economy, and the program outlasted the war.
The program guaranteed workers a number of basic protections, including a minimum wage, insurance and safe, free housing; however, farm owners frequently failed to live up to these requirements.
Housing and food routinely proved to be well below standards, and wages were not only low but also frequently paid late or not at all.
Years after the program ended, many braceros were still fighting to receive the money that had been deducted from their salaries and allegedly put into savings accounts. Due to these broken promises, strikes were a common occurrence throughout this period.
Over 4.6 million contracts were issued over the 22 years of the Bracero Program.
Though Congress let the program expire in 1964, it set the stage for decades of labor disputes and a dynamic of migrant labor that still exists today.
The 60s and 70s saw the rise of the United Farm Workers, a union composed largely of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, which continued fighting many of the same inequalities that faced the braceros. To this day, migrant labor from Mexico continues to be a vital part of the Southwestern economy as well as a source of political and racial tension.
Having created a monster with the Bracero Program, the federal government created a new program to “fix” their previous mess.
…..As many as 1.3 million people may have been swept up in the Eisenhower-era campaign with a racist name, which was designed to root out undocumented Mexicans from American society.
The short-lived operation used military-style tactics to remove Mexican immigrants—some of them American citizens—from the United States. Though millions of Mexicans had legally entered the country through joint immigration programs in the first half of the 20th century, Operation Wetback was designed to send them back to Mexico.
With the help of the Mexican government, which sought the return of Mexican nationals to alleviate a labor shortage, Border Patrol agents and local officials used military techniques and engaged in a coordinated, tactical operation to remove the immigrants.
Along the way, they used widespread racial stereotypes to justify their sometimes brutal treatment of immigrants.
Inside the United States, anti-Mexican sentiment was pervasive, and harsh portrayals of Mexican immigrants as dirty, disease-bearing and irresponsible were the norm.
During Operation Wetback, tens of thousands of immigrants were shoved into buses, boats and planes and sent to often-unfamiliar parts of Mexico, where they struggled to rebuild their lives.
In Chicago, three planes a week were filled with immigrants and flown to Mexico. In Texas, 25 percent of all of the immigrants deported were crammed onto boats later compared to slave ships, while others died of sunstroke, disease and other causes while in custody.
It’s not clear how many American citizens were swept up in Operation Wetback, but the United States later claimed that 1.3 million people total were deported.
However, some historians dispute that claim. Though hundreds of thousands of people were ensnared, says historian Kelly Lytle Hernandez, the number of deportees was drastically lower than the United States reported—likely closer to 300,000. Due to immigrants who were caught, deported, and captured again after re-emigrating, it’s impossible to estimate the total number of people deported under the program.
Mass deportations of Mexican immigrants from the U.S. date to the Great Depression, when the federal government began a wave of deportations rather than include Mexican-born workers in New Deal welfare programs.
According to historian Francisco Balderrama, the U.S. deported over 1 million Mexican nationals, 60 percent of whom were U.S. citizens of Mexican descent, during the 1930s.
Balderrama stated that the program was referred to as “repatriation” to give it the sense of being voluntary. In reality, though, it was anything but.
Despite a widespread belief among native-born Americans that Mexicans came to the United States to steal jobs from American workers, many were invited to the country to work in its fields.
In 1942, as I stated earlier, the U.S. Mexican Farm Labor Program, also known as Operation Bracero after the Spanish term for “manual laborer,” began.
The program funneled Mexicans into the United States on a legal, temporary basis in exchange for guaranteed wages and humane treatment—an attempt by the Mexican government to stave off the discrimination faced by earlier immigrants.
However, not all employers wanted to follow the guidelines or pay the thirty-cent-an-hour guaranteed wage (about $4.51 in modern dollars). Nor did the Mexican government want Mexicans to work in Texas, which continued its discrimination against Mexican people, and the state was excluded from the program between 1942 and 1947.
That’s where “wetbacks” came in. The racial epithet was used to describe Mexicans who illegally entered Texas by crossing the Rio Grande River. The government turned a blind eye to Texans’ employment of these undocumented immigrants, even after hiring undocumented workers was declared illegal.
An estimated 4.6 million Mexicans entered the country legally through the Bracero Program between 1942 and 1964, and states like California soon became dependent on bracero workers. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of Mexican workers crossed the border without permission and found jobs on the farms of employers willing to flout the law.
In 1953, the government decided it had had enough. By refusing to participate in the Bracero Program, South Texas farmers essentially received their labor for less money than farmers who complied.
And Border Patrol head Harlon B. Carter—a convicted murderer who killed a Latino as a teenager in 1931 and who later headed the National Rifle Association (NRA)—was frustrated by the sheer numbers of Mexican immigrants, both legal and undocumented, in the United States. He convinced President Eisenhower to ramp up immigration enforcement efforts.
In 1953, Carter tried to get the National Guard involved in a forerunner of Operation Wetback,, but since the U.S. military is not supposed to be used to enforce domestic laws, he couldn’t gain authorization to do so. Instead, in 1954, the government introduced Operation Wetback, which used Border Patrol resources instead.
Operation Wetback may not have had troops, but it used military tactics and propaganda to achieve its goals. It was headed in part by General Joseph Swing, head of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and was planned like a war strike.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Carter promised sweeps of factories, farms and other workplaces, ending with the detention of undocumented workers in holding facilities to await deportation. It would be “the biggest drive against illegal aliens in history,” Carter told the paper.
News of the raids terrified Latinos in the United States, many of whom remembered the wave of forced deportations in the 1930s.
Historians have documented the behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing that the United States participated in during Operation Wetback—deals that were not publicized at the time.
Immigration officials threatened South Texas employers, some of whom had resorted to hiring armed guards to fend off Border Patrol officers, with stepped-up raids and offered them watered-down versions of the Bracero Program that let them get papers for their workers without committing to all of the program’s strenuous requirements.
As a result, the number of immigrants in the Bracero Program grew as undocumented workers were deported.
Operation Wetback was lawless; it was arbitrary; it was based on a lot of xenophobia, and it resulted in sizable large-scale violations of people’s rights, including the forced deportation of U.S. citizens.
Within a few months, Operation Wetback’s funding ran out and the program ended. The Bracero Program continued until 1964, when Congress terminated it against farmers’ complaints in an attempt to preserve jobs for American citizens.
By then, the program had created an ongoing thirst for cheap farm labor and cheap food—and a corresponding thirst for Mexican nationals to seek out their fortunes in the United States. Ironically, the program bred even more illegal immigration.
So, there you have it folks.
I know it is hard to believe, but the mess we are in today is a direct result of two federal programs in our past.
The Bracero Program to recruit Mexican workers, and the Wetback Program to send them back.
This begs the question. Based on our government’s past track record in dealing with immigration on our southern border, do you really think that they can come up with a solution to fix the chaos we are witnessing today?
