Those Ignorant Churchmen

Hardly a week goes by that you can't find an article somewhere on the web, the gist of which is how fortunate moderns are to be free of the superstition and ignorance of religion, especially Christian religion and Catholicism in particular. The only thing worse than Bible-thumping Fundamentalists is the Catholic Church.

Anyone reading the comments following an article on the teaching of evolution or almost any other topic centering or bordering on science will notice lots of idiotic comments about how science has disproved religion or how religion persecuted scientists, with the obligatory comment(s) about Galileo by someone who knows nothing about the actual Galileo case. Many times there are comments by people who think the "Big Bang" theory disproves religion.

I read an interview a year or so ago with a scientist who thought that Galileo was arguing that the earth is round and the churchmen were arguing that it is flat. There is an interview of David Koch here, in which he tells Suzan Mazur that "Galileo was imprisoned for years for saying the world was round. " He would be hard pressed to find any pronouncements by the church or anybody else that the earth is flat. This is a myth that was concocted by Washington Irving for his biography of Christopher Columbus.

Prior to Galileo, the German Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa had a heliocentric theory as did - as everybody knows - Copernicus, who was a cleric and a canon lawyer, which most people don't know.

If the Church is as hostile to science as it is believed to be, one would expect to find no serious scientists anywhere near it, but is that the case? If you know who Georges Lemaitre is and what he is known for raise your hand. Don't know? Monsignor Lemaitre is the Belgian priest who formulated the theory that came to be   called - pejoratively - The Big Bang. His own term for the theory was "Primeval Atom" or Day without a yesterday.

Msgr. Georges Lemaitre

Gregor Mendel, another ignoramus who was an Augustinian friar founded the science of genetics, and the Austrian Meteorological Society; the laws of Mendelian inheritance get their name from him.

The Society of Jesus (Jesuits) has long been involved in seismology and astronomy, so much so that seismology is called "The Jesuit Science."

Giovanni Battista Riccioli S.J. was the first person to accurately measure the rate of acceleration of a free falling body. He also developed extremely accurate pendulums with which to time his experiments. His mammoth book, the Almagestum Novum took up 1500 folio pages and was still being cited over 100 years after publication. In it, he discusses among other things, 126 arguments concerning the motion - or lack thereof - of the earth; 49 for motion, 77 against. A few hundred years before him, the Franciscan Roger Bacon was fooling around with philosophy, optics, gunpowder, and criticizing the Julian calendar.

If you drive a car or ride the bus, you might be indebted to Fr. Eugenio Barsanti, the probable inventor of the internal combustion engine. If you use a refrigerator, you can thank G.E. and Abbe Marcel Audiffren, a French Cistercian monk from whom G.E. bought the license to manufacture the first home refrigerator in either 1905 or 1911; that date is disputed.

In their book Hurricane Watch: Forecasting the Deadliest Storms on Earth, Bob Sheets and Jack Williams tell of Fr. Benito Viñes, S.J. and his development of hurricane forecasting.

"The [Jesuit] order's long tradition of scientific education and research had made seismology something of a specialty, but Cuba's problem was hurricanes, not earthquakes. It and all the other islands of the Caribbean and the eastern Atlantic Ocean had been periodically, tragically devastated by the great storms arriving almost unannounced on their shorelines. Within just a few years, Viñes more or less singlehandedly evened the playing field, and by the end of the [19th] century he and his fellow Jesuit Fr. Fedorico Faura, who was based in Manila, the Philippines, were the most proficient and best-known cyclone forecasters in the world."

Considering that they did this by observation, without radio reports from ships at sea, airplanes or satellites their accomplishments are astounding.

It is not just the physical sciences that the churchmen have shown an interest in. Raymond de Roover, Joseph Schumpeter, Murray Rothbard, Tom Woods, et al. have written about the school of Salamanca and the Late Scholastics, who were way ahead of Adam Smith in their economic ideas. Many of these men were moral or dogmatic theologians who had an interest in economic questions.

Luis de Molina, 1535 - 1600, One of the Late Scholastics

It was the school of Salamanca that Samuel Johnson said:

“I love the University of Salamanca, for when the Spaniards were in doubt as to the lawfulness of their conquering America, the University of Salamanca gave it as their opinion that it was not lawful.”

One of the reasons that people believe such nonsense about a supposed conflict between science and religion is because of the government school system. If you attended the government schools like I mostly did, the rest of your life is spent in an effort to overcome the induced blindness that is brought about - purposely, I think - by a constant exposure to error. The private schools are subject to the same danger through their use of the same textbooks.

In the United States we supposedly have a separation of church and state, but actually the state is the church.
Private religion is fine as long as its doctrines are not put before those of the state; the state will have no strange gods before it, hence it is necessary to denigrate those who believe in an eternal God who is greater than the state - the true Law Giver instead of a legislator.

There are plenty of Protestants who were religious men and scientists such as Sir Isaac Newton who wrote more on religion than on science, and Wernher von Braun who saw no conflict between science and religion, but Protestantism doesn't attract as great enmity as Catholicism. Protestantism also does not provide its detractors with a large single target of great antiquity, but thousands of different groups which are not hurt collectively through the injury of one or a few.  For a fairly long list of scientists who were Christian, go here, here and  here

We The People

One of the greatest myths -  if not the greatest - that Americans are taught is that the government expresses the will of the people. Is this really the case or is it a mechanism of psychological control?

I think it is obvious to anyone who drives a car that the vast majority of people think speed limits are too low, particularly on limited access highways. It appears that at least 90% of the people are speeding - at least in Georgia - but the speed limits remain artificially low. A couple of years ago some college students drove around  I-285 all abreast at the speed limit (55 MPH) causing a huge traffic jam and nearly causing multiple wrecks. Instead of raising the speed limit in response to speeding by virtually everybody, the state recently passed a "Super Speeder" law that tacks on something like 200 extra dollars to the fine for anybody exceeding 74 MPH on two lanes or 84 MPH anywhere. If the government reflected the people's will, the speed limits would all be raised.

Drugs are another example of the government thwarting the will of a large proportion of the population. Ron Paul has been criticized for wanting to "legalize" drugs when actually all he has advocated is obeying the constitution and abolishing federal laws against drug prohibition in various forms. States can make any laws they please, but the federal government has no enumerated power to make such laws. Obviously there is a huge demand for recreational drugs, but in this instance the will of the people doesn't matter.

What about low-flow shower heads and toilets? Was there a popular clamor to outlaw the old (better) higher flow varieties? I never heard a single person say, "Gee, I sure wish they would reduce the flow of these shower heads." Once again the will of the controllers is imposed on "The People."

The same thing applies to light bulbs. If the people preferred fluorescent bulbs to incandescent they would buy them and there would be no need to force them on the people.

Was there a groundswell of opposition anywhere to unpasteurized milk? Your omniscient Uncle Sam in DC thinks it's naughty for his subjects to have it and will send out hordes of armed stooges to prevent you from getting it and hurting yourself.

Everywhere there are those in government who think they know best. There are movements in various places to outlaw too much salt, fat or sugar in foods regardless of what the citizens want. Many places outlaw smoking in restaurants whether the proprietor thinks it desirable or not.

There was overwhelming opposition to Bush's Billionaire Bailout, but the will of the pols trumped the will of the people. The same was true - and still is - about Obamacare, but the obedient servants of Mammon imposed it against the people's will.

Was there any popular movement to outlaw gold ownership in 1933?  Was there popular support for Mr. Lincoln's draft? The New York Times of August 25, 1864 had this to say about the draft:

"To the alarmist[sic] who are concerned lest the draft cannot be enforced without resistance and insurrection, his reply is that, if it has come to this, the quicker the Government proves its power to maintain its laws, the better....It is not a question whether the draft is an evil. No sane man denies it. The only question is, whether it is or is not a less evil than national ruin, which can be prevented by it alone."

It appears from this editorial that the draft might not have been pushed through by the people.

Most states - maybe all - have laws requiring the wearing of seat belts even though there was no demand for such laws. They've even come up with really clever slogans such as "Click It Or Ticket" to remind you to fasten your seat belt.

The nature of the law makes no difference. Regardless of how stupid, evil, onerous or intrusive the edict, a sufficient number of people can be found to enforce it. If it were decreed that no one shall breathe through his left nostril and a visible plug shall be worn in it, there would be no trouble finding police to enforce the new "law."

Many people like to prattle on about how "we" are the government, but relish turning in their neighbor for building a deck - or any imaginary crime - without a permit. It isn't the deck that they object to, it's that the neighbor had the audacity to proceed without government approval.

Convincing the populace that they are the government is somewhat analogous to a voluntary fast vis a vis an imposed fast or any voluntary mortification. If you decide to fast for health or spiritual or any other reason it is much different from being told by someone else that you may not eat, talk, read or watch TV. Anything done voluntarily is more bearable than having it imposed. This is the genius of convincing people that "we did it to ourselves."

Reality Dawning

Many years ago, a group of disgruntled patriots, nationalists or terrorists - depending on your perspective - went into the Capitol building in D.C. and shot five congressmen. The assailants were four Puerto Rican nationalists who unfurled a flag of Puerto Rico and then fired thirty shots into the floor of the chamber. This incident happened on March 1, 1954.

As far as I know, nobody tried to claim that these people committed this act for anything other than political reasons or that "they hate us for our freedom."  One of the shooters supposedly shouted "Free Puerto Rico."
There was no talk of "3/1 changed everything." Everybody probably understood that the shooters wanted the US out of Puerto Rico. If someone had inquired as to why the assailants shot the congressmen, they wouldn't have been accused of "trying to justify the terrorists," it would have been recognized as a simple inquiry as to motive.

The same thing is true of the World Trade Center/Pentagon caper, but the public is discouraged from believing the perpetrators. Soon after the attack, Osama Bin Laden appeared in a video tape wearing his US issued Goretex camouflage jacket saying that he had nothing to do with the attack, but that he approved of it and congratulated the ones who pulled it off. He said (paraphrasing) that if the US continued to aid Israel and occupy "Holy lands,"  "I swear to God" it will happen again. After this the government made sure that the people weren't going to hear any more grievances from Mr. Bin Laden by prohibiting the showing of any more videos from him with the excuse that he "might be sending coded messages."

The video is probably on YouTube if it hasn't gone down the memory hole.

Immediately there was a propaganda campaign to assure the public that the attacks had nothing to do with American actions in the Middle East. All of a sudden it was discovered that these people hate us because we are good or because we are free. Has there ever been another case in history of one group being so resentful of another group that has not harmed them in any way that they are willing to kill themselves to inflict harm on the objects of their resentment? Would it be rational for someone to say to himself, "I'm barely eking out a living and my neighbor has millions of dollars and lives in a mansion. I think I'll crash a plane into his house to kill myself and perhaps kill him too?" The question answers itself.

If this were motivated by the Islamic religion, it would seem that all the disgruntled practitioners would not be concentrated in one area as I wrote about here.

Fortunately, there is a slow movement toward reality and now 43% of Americans believe that the attacks might have been motivated by something the US government did, according to this article about a poll by Pew Research Centre. According to the article:

"The shift, however, was mainly confined to self-described Democrats and independents, half of whom now believe US policies may have motivated Al Qaeda.

Republicans, on the other hand, remained steadfast, as on a number of other key issues, in their view that the attacks were not motivated by anything the US had done.

The survey also found major differences between age groups on this question. More than half (52 percent) of respondents under 30 said US actions may have motivated the attacks, while only 20 percent of respondents 65 and older were open to that explanation."

This might help explain why Rick Santorum and Rudy Giuliani claim to believe the party line. It's doubtful that anybody who has spent time in government would believe the "official" story. If these two are regular church-goers, they would have recited thousands of times the part of the Confiteor that says "...I have sinned through my own fault,... in what I have done and what I have failed to do..." i.e. taking responsibility for one's own actions. Why would governments be any different from individuals since people in the upper echelons of government are many times some of the worst people? The principle seems to be that whatever "we" do is fine and everybody had better like it.

Imposing sanctions and no-fly zones, supporting dictators, occupying territory, aiding one's enemies, toppling elected officials, etc, generates ill will from the victims of such actions. This is probably a universal rule.

When little Johnny keeps poking the rattlesnake with a smoldering stick we shouldn't be too perplexed as to why the rattlesnake bites little Johnny. It isn't because of Johnny's freedom or because he is good or any other kooky explanation. Sending out hordes of people to fight the rattlesnakes over there so we don't have to fight them over here is not the solution. The solution is to leave them alone and reprimand Johnny, although the latter would probably not be necessary since he has learned a valuable lesson on his own,

Trying to impose your will on another people is a sure-fire way to make enemies. Even if you have a benevolent intention - rarely the case - sending lots of armed men (usually boys) into another country is sure to cause trouble. Boys will be boys, and when they start drinking and fighting and whoring, the locals take a disliking to them and all who sent them.

Almost 2000 years ago, the Jews were preparing to celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread in Jerusalem when a smart-alecky Roman soldier mooned them and uttered some insulting remark which resulted in a riot. Soon after the "mooning" episode, another soldier tore up the Jewish Books Of The Law and threw them in the fire. As everybody knows, things went down hill from there with the Temple eventually being destroyed.

The lesson from this - or one of the lessons - is that people don't like foreigners coming into their country and pushing them around. This is something that Rick and Rudy and all others "in denial" should ponder.

SWAT Team Raids: Overkill Fit Only for a Police State

"Back in the heyday of Stalin’s USSR, the very hallmark of its totalitarianism was the dreaded “midnight knock on the door,” in which the police simply hauled people away, sometimes never to be seen again and often for reasons unrevealed to relatives and acquaintances of the person abducted. To this terrifying scenario, the American state has added the excitement of flash grenades, broken windows, battered doors, and often unnecessary gunfire."

Read full article.

Walking Into Tyranny

Mendax News Service

Lawmakers in West Dakota are floating a trial balloon to license travel by foot. Senator Joseph Ambulabis (D 84) came up with the idea after a constituent complained to him about having to obtain a driver's license to operate a vehicle on the public roads.  Ambulabis said he was unaware that anyone could drive a car without a license in most states until the 1940's.

The idea came to him almost as an inspiration he told Mendax News Service. If the states could turn what had theretofore been a right into a privilege, why not license walking also? One would not need a license to walk on his own property or any privately owned property (such as shopping centers) as long as they had the owner's consent. Ambulabis has received an avalanche of outraged calls about his proposal, but he has also garnered substantial support.

Briefly his proposal is this:

1. All people, regardless of age would have to obtain a license to walk or operate a wheel chair on any publicly owned property.

2. A minimal fee would be charged for the license ($10.00 proposed) which would be good for five years.

3. All money from the licenses would go toward installing sidewalks where there are none and maintaining those that currently exist.

4. Any surplus funds from the licenses would be allocated to hiring more police and street sweepers.

5. In order to obtain the license, applicants would provide their name, social security number,

date of birth, height, weight etc. and fingerprint or retina scan (to prevent fraud) and submit to

a drug test.

6. Anyone caught walking without a license would be subject to fine and/or imprisonment and have their walking privileges revoked for 6 months on first offense, five years on the second offense.

7. The license would be a waiver of rights as regards search, sobriety and drug testing.

Police officials hailed the idea as a way to catch criminals and terrorists. Police could set up license check points and catch public drunks and drug-crazed criminals much the same as they do at driver's license check points. 

"We've needed a law like this for a long time," said Keith David of the Elkhead Coalition. Mr. David has lobbied hard to get speed breakers and stop signs installed throughout the Elkhead area and says he's delighted that someone has finally realized that neighborhoods need a revenue source to maintain their sidewalks and streets. "Non-drivers have been given a free ride as far as infrastructure maintenance, this makes them pay their fair share, it only makes sense," said David.

Civil libertarians have protested the proposal as a police state idea, and sarcastically called it a "your papers please" proposal. Ambulabis is not deterred however, and believes that if his bill doesn't pass this session, it will in the next one or the one after that. He says many of his constituents are tired of not having sidewalks and having to roll their children's strollers in the street, creating a hazard for them and motorists. He also argues that it would give police a way of identifying people who walk their dogs and let them tear up other people's property. As the situation now stands, there is no way to identify the offenders since they can refuse to give their names and claim that they have no driver's license or none with them.

Ambulabis is encouraged that the governor and many mayors back his proposal. He sees it as a way to protect a free society while maintaining order. Ambulabis says his proposal is an idea whose time has come.

Representative Arnold Benedict (R 42) of the Conservative Republicans Against Paternalism has proposed a compromise. His bill would require a license only for those walking more than one mile from home. "Most of my constituents don't travel by foot for more than a mile anyway so they won't be affected," Benedict told critics of his bill. Benedict told cheering supporters at the capitol that the Republican party would continue to be "the most vigilant of watchdogs against government encroachment of liberty."

Meanwhile, George Mason of the Libertarian party, a perennial candidate for office has denounced Benedict's proposal as an abandonment of principle. "Once you admit the principle that pedestrians can be licensed by the state you have given up your right to walk" thundered Mason to a handful of supporters at a downtown motel. Benedict, when questioned about Mason's opposition told Mendax News that he "didn't want to get bogged down in an argument over principle. We have been elected to make government work for the people; that's what I'm trying to do; we've got to work out some kind of reasonable compromise" said Benedict.

Critics say that once a right has been turned into a privilege the state can raise the price of exercising the privilege so high as to be unaffordable. Ambulabis counters by pointing out that no one would be forced to obtain a license as long as they stayed off of public property and asks how his proposal differs from licensing drivers.

Whatever the outcome, this promises to liven up this legislative session.

Jona's Job

Seventy-five years ago, Albert Jay Nock wrote a column called Isaiah's Job that was published in The Atlantic Monthly. It advanced the idea that there is in any society a "Remnant" of people who are interested in the truth and in doing the right thing by their fellow man, but who are pretty much isolated from each other and go about their business without ever knowing how many others there are like themselves, if any.

The people of the Remnant can spot a phony immediately and will pay them no mind, but they can spot the purveyor of the genuine article or "true faith" just as easily. Isaiah is preaching to this Remnant and to everybody else that wants to listen, but he has no way of knowing who they are and they have no way of identifying each other.

I have thought about this essay many times over the years in relation to some of the modern Isaiahs such as Nock himself, but also people like Leonard Read, Frank Chodorov, Lew Rockwell, Murray Rothbard, Joseph Sobran, Jacob Hornberger and Ron Paul. These people disseminated their ideas, but had no effective way to reach a mass audience. You almost had to be in a clique to find out about The Freeman, The Rothbard Rockwell Report, analysis or Sobran's. Most of the publications were preaching to the choir for the simple reason that you had to be in the choir to even find out about them.

Ron Paul is probably the most visible Isaiah of modern times, at least in the political realm because he had a little bit of a forum by virtue of his congressional office.

The efforts of the Remnant have always been unorganized or disjointed because it had no effective way of recognizing and communicating with its members over a large area until the last fifteen years or so.

In Nock's day, if you wanted to make others aware of his Isaiah article, you would have to read it to them, buy multiple copies of the magazine or perhaps mimeograph copies of it, since nobody had copying machines or FAX machines or computers, and most people didn't own a newspaper.

This has all changed with the advent of the internet. Now anybody can alert all their friends in Botswana, Lichtenstein or the Azores about anything they wish. This allows the message to get out quickly and without a middle man "filtering" or censoring it, which of course leads me to Jonah.

For most of his congressional career, Ron Paul has been an Isaiah, but now he seems to be turning into a Jonah. When Jonah told the people of Nineveh that in forty days the city would be destroyed, they repented and took remedial action, thus averting disaster. Paul has been saying the same thing for years, but now it is becoming obvious that what he was saying is true, and the people - still a small percentage - are ready to put on sackcloth and ashes. Much of this is because of his unrelenting fidelity to the message, but a greater part is probably because the message can't be suppressed like in the recent old days.

News stories in the old-time news organs still try to ignore or minimize his accomplishments, but they are becoming less relevant by the day. With email, blogs, YouTube, world-wide access to unfiltered news and opinion sites, social networking etc., it's as though a hydra-headed genie has escaped the bottle.

Four years ago, many of the comments about news articles concerning Ron Paul would refer to him as "moonbat," "wingnut," "kook," "lunatic," or some other derisive term. Now almost all the comments are in support of his ideas. It's as though the people have heard the modern Jonah and are ready to put on the sackcloth - figuratively - and ashes.

There is something about truth that makes it recognized when heard - not always, but more often than not. When somebody has demonstrably been speaking the truth his entire public life without apology and can finally be heard, he will eventually be believed over the equivocators and apostles of mendacity.

Here is a man who said that the housing market is a bubble, we shouldn't go to war with Iraq, and the Fed is an engine of inflation. Is he a kook or a modern Jonah? Many people are starting to see him as the latter.

David Hume and the Republican Tradition of Human Scale

This is a fairly long essay, but well worth reading.

"Third, with the collapse of the landed gentry and nobility, a traditional order rooted in land and place would collapse in favor of rule by a new rootless class of stockjobbers and paper money men. “These men,” Hume writes, having “no connections with the state...can enjoy their revenue in any part of the globe in which they chuse to reside, who will naturally bury themselves in the capital or great cities, and who will sink into the lethargy of a stupid and pampered luxury, without spirit, ambition, or enjoyment. Adieu to all ideas of nobility, gentry, and family” (E, 353). Hume’s criticism of public credit mirrors exactly Jefferson’s criticism of the public debt system proposed by Alexander Hamilton...."

"And elsewhere he describes them as a “middle power between King and people” (E, 358).With their elimination, a pure Hobbesian state would emerge with a centralized authority ruling directly over an aggregate of millions of individuals. In this condition, “every man in authority derives his influence from the commission alone of the sovereign.” And “the whole income of every individual in the state must lie entirely at the mercy of the sovereign” (E, 358-59). Hume thinks this form of despotism intimated in eighteenth century centralized states, if realized, would be “a degree of despotism, which no oriental monarchy has ever yet attained” (E, 359). What Hume considered despotism is viewed as normal today. A European monarch in Hume’s day could not order military conscription nor impose an income tax, which would have been viewed as a form of forced labor."

Read the full essay here