The Christian Label

As is often the case around Easter, in between the debate about whether Jesus came out of an egg when he was resurrected, or the bunnies announcing the good news....there are several misconceptions I keep seeing about Christians and Christianity.
People seem to mean "right wing evangelical Christianity" when they say Christian. That kinda sucks, because mainstream Christians aren't all that conservative, and there are even a decent amount of moderate and progressive evangelicals.

Religious labels are hard -- maybe harder than political labels -- and there are progressives, liberals, libertarians, liberaltarians, conservatives, conservatarians, anarchists, and whateverists, in just about every denomination, and non-denominations as well.
All, that, plus just about every denomination has members who are ready to split over some issue they dissent on. The melting pots bubble over and form new soups and stews of ideas and spiritualities. It's actually quite beautiful.

Anyway, I think it's good to remember we are in weedy territory, and to be careful with sweeping generalizations. I know I have to remind myself a million times a day about this.

The Case is Clear

The case for liberty has never been more clear. There are now about a hundred countries that are (true, flawed, and hybrid) democracies with (overly) regulated capitalist economies with safety nets. Actual socialism is a dead issue. The new game is social democracy.


Are these countries perfect? No. Are they better than what they had a century ago, or even fifty years ago? Heck, yeah.

Each one of these countries -- from New Zealand, to Denmark, to Singapore and Hong Kong -- each place makes a separate case for economic and personal liberty, and the more deeply we look at each one, the more we see that it does.


I think it behooves us to study these places, and learn from their failures and successes. Libertarians have the ability to go beyond left and right here, and look at actual liberty in these places, so we can make our case to Americans even more. The world has changed, and the facts are with us.

https://www.cato.org/human-freedom-index

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2017

Buyer's Remorse, Trumpers?

To all those folks having buyer's remorse for Trump, to those who really want to work for freedom, prosperity, and a more Constitutional government, the Libertarian Party is accepting members.

Basically, if you want more freedom, or less government, you should be with us. If you want less war, you should be with us. Less selling of your data, that's us. More rights respected -- us again.

If you want the cost of living to go down, and the standard of living to go up, you should join us, because economic freedom has been shown time and again to be the road there, and that's the only road we wanna build.

https://www.lp.org/

My Globalism

My globalism -- or, the word I prefer, internationalism -- assumes everyone follows their own interest. It doesn't discount nationalism....it just creates a transnational superstructure for transnational interests.
It just means you want universal rights, slavery outlawed everywhere, global protection of the global environment, freedom of the seas, universal trade, open currency exchange, and rule of law between nations instead of the current anarchy and semi-belligerence.
It means pressuring China through economic means to stop treating their workers like crap, in exchange for greater net growth. Other, smaller countries as well.
I don't know anyone anywhere who is seriously pushing for global tyranny. There are no Lex Luthors.
I don't know anyone serious who is seriously pushing for global socialism. Liberal democracy and capitalism are really the only games in town, now.
My internationalism is really just a continuation of how I see the challenge begun by people like Madison, Jefferson, and Paine.

(Art by Alex Ross)

Happy Birthday, F.A. Hayek! (8 May 1899 – 23 March 1992)

Happy Birthday, Friedrich August von Hayek! Here's a video profiling the great classical liberal political economist and philosopher.

Then there's this great one from EconStories:

And the follow-up:

And of course last, but not least, "I'm in Love with Friedrich Hayek," by Dorian Elektra:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek

The Ride - Paul Revere short educational film piece

From wikipedia:


Between 9 and 10 p.m. on the night of April 18, 1775, Joseph Warren told Revere and William Dawes that the king's troops were about to embark in boats from Boston bound for Cambridge and the road to Lexington and Concord. Warren's intelligence suggested that the most likely objectives of the regulars' movements later that night would be the capture of Adams and Hancock. They did not worry about the possibility of regulars marching to Concord, since the supplies at Concord were safe, but they did think their leaders in Lexington were unaware of the potential danger that night. Revere and Dawes were sent out to warn them and to alert colonial militias in nearby towns.
In the days before April 18, Revere had instructed Robert Newman, the sexton of the North Church, to send a signal by lantern to alert colonists in Charlestown as to the movements of the troops when the information became known. In what is well known today by the phrase "one if by land, two if by sea", one lantern in the steeple would signal the army's choice of the land route while two lanterns would signal the route "by water" across the Charles River. Revere first gave instructions to send the signal to Charlestown. He then crossed the Charles River by rowboat, slipping past the British warship HMS Somerset at anchor. Crossings were banned at that hour, but Revere safely landed in Charlestown and rode to Lexington, avoiding a British patrol and later warning almost every house along the route. The Charlestown colonists dispatched additional riders to the north.^[41][43]
Riding through present-day Somerville, Medford, and Arlington, Revere warned patriots along his route, many of whom set out on horseback to deliver warnings of their own. By the end of the night there were probably as many as 40 riders throughout Middlesex County carrying the news of the army's advance. Revere did not shout the phrase later attributed to him ("The British are coming!"): His mission depended on secrecy, the countryside was filled with British army patrols, and most of the Massachusetts colonists (who were predominantly English in ethnic origin) still considered themselves British. Revere's warning, according to eyewitness accounts of the ride and Revere's own descriptions, was "The Regulars are coming out.^" Revere arrived in Lexington around midnight, with Dawes arriving about a half hour later. They met with Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who were spending the night with Hancock's relatives (in what is now called the Hancock-Clarke House), and they spent a great deal of time discussing plans of action upon receiving the news. They believed that the forces leaving the city were too large for the sole task of arresting two men and that Concord was the main target. The Lexington men dispatched riders to the surrounding towns, and Revere and Dawes continued along the road to Concord accompanied by Samuel Prescott, a doctor who happened to be in Lexington "returning from a lady friend's house at the awkward hour of 1 a.m."
Revere, Dawes, and Prescott were detained by a British Army patrol in Lincoln at a roadblock on the way to Concord. Prescott jumped his horse over a wall and escaped into the woods; he eventually reached Concord. Dawes also escaped, though he fell off his horse not long after and did not complete the ride.

Revere was captured and questioned by the British soldiers at gunpoint. He told them of the army's movement from Boston, and that British army troops would be in some danger if they approached Lexington, because of the large number of hostile militia gathered there. He and other captives taken by the patrol were still escorted east toward Lexington, until about a half mile from Lexington they heard a gunshot. The British major demanded Revere explain the gunfire, and Revere replied it was a signal to "alarm the country". As the group drew closer to Lexington, the town bell began to clang rapidly, upon which one of the captives proclaimed to the British soldiers "The bell's a'ringing! The town's alarmed, and you're all dead men!"^[51] The British soldiers gathered and decided not to press further towards Lexington but instead to free the prisoners and head back to warn their commanders. The British confiscated Revere's horse and rode off to warn the approaching army column. Revere walked to Rev. Jonas Clarke's house, where Hancock and Adams were staying. As the battle on Lexington Green unfolded, Revere assisted Hancock and his family in their escape from Lexington, helping to carry a trunk of Hancock's papers.

The ride of the three men triggered a flexible system of "alarm and muster" that had been carefully developed months before, in reaction to the colonists' impotent response to the Powder Alarm of September 1774. This system was an improved version of an old network of widespread notification and fast deployment of local militia forces in times of emergency. The colonists had periodically used this system all the way back to the early years of Indian wars in the colony, before it fell into disuse in the French and Indian War. In addition to other express riders delivering messages, bells, drums, alarm guns, bonfires, and a trumpet were used for rapid communication from town to town, notifying the rebels in dozens of eastern Massachusetts villages that they should muster their militias because the regulars in numbers greater than 500 were leaving Boston with possible hostile intentions. This system was so effective that people in towns 25 miles (40 km) from Boston were aware of the army's movements while they were still unloading boats in Cambridge.
Unlike in the Powder Alarm, the alarm raised by the three riders successfully allowed the militia to confront the British troops in Concord, and then harry them all the way back to Boston.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Revere#.22Midnight_Ride.22

This is a short visualization of Paul Revere's famous ride. It was shot at Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, MA with an almost entirely volunteer cast and crew. It has been freely given to schools throughout the world to use in classrooms. The British dialogue was taken directly from Revere depositions. Revere's first warnings in the video were in Medford and Menotomy (now Arlington, MA) before he was able to reach Hancock and Adams in Lexington. Neither Revere nor Dawes made it to Concord that night. Fortunately, Dr. Samuel Prescott was successful in warning them.

Great Freemasons: James Mercer (February 26, 1736 – October 31, 1793)

James Mercer (February 26, 1736 – October 31, 1793), also known as William James Mercer, was an American soldier, jurist and political figure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Mercer_%28jurist%29

(He not only served Fredericksburg Lodge No. 4 as Worshipful Master in 1777, but he went on to become the second Grand Master of Masons in Virginia from 1784 to 1786)

Great Freemasons: Jean Baptiste Marie Ragon (February 25, 1781 - 1862)

Jean Baptiste Marie Ragon (February 25, 1781 - 1862)
(Known as "The most learned ‪#‎Freemason‬ of the 19th century")

Great Freemasons: Frank Parks Briggs (February 25, 1894 – September 23, 1992)

Frank Parks Briggs (February 25, 1894 – September 23, 1992) was a United States Senator from Missouri. Born in Armstrong, Missouri, he attended Armstrong and Fayette schools and Central College at Fayette from 1911 to 1914. He graduated from the University of Missouri in Columbia in 1915, engaged in the newspaper business that year, and in the publishing business at Macon, Missouri in 1925. He was mayor of Macon from 1930 to 1932 and a member of the Missouri Senate from 1933 to 1944.

Briggs was appointed, on January 18, 1945, as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Harry S. Truman and served from January 18, 1945, to January 3, 1947; he was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the full term in 1946. He resumed the newspaper publishing business and was chairman of the Missouri State Conservation Commission in 1955-1956; from 1961 to 1965 he was Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish and Wildlife. He was a resident of Macon until his death in 1992; interment was in Walnut Ridge Cemetery, Fayette.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_P._Briggs

[Grand Master of Missouri (1957), Fayette Lodge 47]

Great Freemasons: Antonio López de Santa Anna (24 February 1794 – 21 June 1876)

 

 My actions at the Alamo are justified as is my participation in them!

Antonio López de Santa Anna

Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón (Spanish pronunciation: [anˈtonjo ˈlopez ðe sant(a)ˈana]; 24 February 1794 – 21 June 1876), often known as Santa Anna or López de Santa Anna and sometimes called "the Napoleon of the West", was a Mexican politician and Mr. Fermin's songeneral who greatly influenced early Mexican politics and government. Santa Anna first opposed the movement for Mexican independence from Spain, but then fought in support of it. Though not the first caudillo (military leader) of modern Mexico, he was among the earliest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wi…/Antonio_L%C3%B3pez_de_Santa_Anna

(While I can not determine his Lodge affiliation, it has been confirmed by Texas Scottish Right that he was a Scottish Right Freemason in Mexico. Mexico's rules in this are the same as the Southern and Northern Jurisdictions. Only Master Masons can become Scottish Rite Masons)
http://texashistoricalfoundation.org/santa-annas-masonic-m…/