The Crusades were called in self-defense

Due to a public education system which now deliberately omits the truth regarding our religious history, a complicit entertainment industry that deliberately seeks to mislead the populace about such, and a church egregiously derelict in rectifying such ignorance, proper edification of those near me becomes incumbent upon my person. It is a common, fallacious assertion from secularists and Muslims, that the Crusades were a Christian war of aggression waged against Islamic victims. Nothing could be further from the truth. Since the days of Muhammad, a murderer who raided caravans slaying and robbing those he found, Islam has been expanding through assiduous brutality.

Contrary to the Crusades being called to forcibly convert Muslim lands to Christianity (which is precisely what Islam had done to get them), it was a war of self-defense in response to centuries of Muslim aggression. The first time European Christians had any significant exposure to Islam was some three hundred years prior to the first Crusade; when Muslims invaded Christian Spain and France (about 711 A.D.). This was the true beginning of the war on terror, which has been ongoing ever since. They were halted in France, but Spain would spend many centuries (until 1492) repelling Muslim invaders.

Long before the first Crusade Muhammad had demanded conversion from the Christian Byzantine Empire (the eastern remnants of the Roman Empire) as the price of safety (i.e. not being attacked). The result of the Byzantine's declination was centuries of attack from Muslim armies (to compel conversion), until a beleaguered Byzantine Emperor finally appealed to the Pope for help. This, was the cause of the first Crusade; the first of numerous efforts to repel Muslim invaders and reclaim Christian lands lost to Islamic conquest.

"For your brethren who live in the east are in urgent need of your help, and you must hasten to give them the aid which has often been promised them. For, as the most of you have heard, the Turks and Arabs have attacked them and have conquered the territory of Romania as far west as the shore of the Mediterranean and the Hellespont, which is called the Arm of St. George. They have occupied more and more of the lands of those Christians, and have overcome them in seven battles. They have killed and captured many, and have destroyed the churches and devastated the empire. If you permit them to continue thus for awhile with impurity, the faithful of God will be much more widely attacked by them." - Pope Urban II, Calling the first Crusade, 1095 A.D.

Notice Pope Urban states that the consequence of deference in the face of Islamic aggression is more Islamic aggression.

The whole notion that Christianity was the aggressor against Islam, which did not exist until well over 500 years after Christ walked the earth, is absurd. Damascus, a once mostly Christian city in Syria, to which Paul was heading when he encountered Christ, was conquered by Muslim invaders who demolished the Basilica of Saint John the Baptist and built a mosque upon it. Damascus is unsafe for "infidels" like Paul today.

"The armed Islamist Opposition in Syria has murdered more than 200 Christians in the city of Homs, including entire families with young children. These Islamic gangs kidnapped Christians and demanded high ransoms. In two cases, after the ransoms were paid, the men's bodies were found." - Arabisouri.wordpress.com, Syria: Armed gangs of mercenaries kill Christians, February 9, 2012.

All the lands now held by Muslims in the middle east are lands they stole from other peoples, which they subsequently eradicated, if not by force, then by imposition of the "dhimmitude;" measures which render "kafirs" (non-Muslims) second class citizens, impose a tax upon kafirs, and enact rigid statutes which proscribe kafirs from disseminating their faith to others (even their own children). Intended to compel the conversion of conquered subjects, who ultimately acquiesce to escape the onerous conditions of life as a dhimmi, it gradually extirpates different faiths from lands conquered by Islam.

Getting back to Pope Urban's call to arms. The Byzantine Empire ultimately fell to Muslim forces, and the Hagia Sophia, a beautiful church in the Byzantine capital of Constantinople (much like the Byzantine Basilica in Damascus), was converted into a mosque by the invading Muslims. (Supplanting a conquered peoples' houses of worship with mosques is an expression of dominance over the vanquished foe.) With this a large portion of once Christian land became Islamic; and is erroneously viewed, along with many others, as always having been such by most today.

Every Christian in America needs to understand some things.

• If not for the crusades which impeded islamic expansion across Europe, there would be no Europe, nor consequently America as we know it. Period. (One need simply observe the condition of islamic states, which are spectacles of barbarism and oppression, to see how much we owe to the Crusades.)

• Our conflict with Islam is not the result of any thing we do, per se, or any "foreign policy" we currently have. It is the result of Islamic dictum, from Muhammad, which states "I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshiped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's Apostle,... so if they perform that, then they save their lives and property from me." (1)

• The only thing your well intended "civility" will accomplish is the facilitation of the Islamic conquest of the west, with far less trouble than those middle eastern lands they took only after violent resistance, and the negation of the sacrifice of countless lives lost in defense of Christian civilization against centuries of Islamic aggression.

The notion that groups like ISIS are something new, the worst manifestation of Islamic aggression or violence ever seen, or a byproduct of American foreign policy is a result of profound historical ignorance. The conduct of groups like ISIS literally stems back to Muhammad himself, and history is replete with similar examples of such from that time unto the present day. The town of Otranto (Italy) for example, was invaded and conquered by Muslims in 1480, and over 800 men were massacred for refusing to convert to Islam. The archbishop was decapitated at the alter, two Bishops were sawn in half while still alive, the hundreds of remaining men were likewise decapitated and the women and children enslaved. The remains of those murdered are ensconced within the walls of the town cathedral.

Much like Islam began attacking the Christian Byzantine Empire without provocation, Muslims also began attacking the Untied States without provocation during the administration of its first president, when the still infant nation had no substantial foreign policy and long before it ever dropped bombs on or "invaded" Muslim lands. We didn't even have a navy at the time. George Washington laments our nation's inability to defend itself from this Islamic aggression in a letter to Lafayette.

"How is it possible the great maritime powers of Europe should submit to pay an annual tribute to the little piratical States of Barbary? Would to heaven we had a navy able to reform those enemies to mankind, or crush them into non-existence." - George Washington, to Marquis de Lafayette, August 15, 1786. 

This Islamic aggression was a primary catalyst for the reestablishment of the United States Navy (which had been disbanded after the Revolutionary War) via the Naval Act of 1794.

The "annual tribute" to which Washington alludes was basically a system of widespread extortion being perpetrated by Muslim pirates operating under the auspices of Islamic states such as Tripoli, Algiers, Morocco, et al., who were attacking European and eventually American vessels, and capturing the crews and selling them into slavery. The Islamic states demanded large sums of money, and various other forms of "tribute" (e.g., ships), to halt this practice. This was a very lucrative arrangement for the Muslim perpetrators. In 1795 at least 16% of the United States federal budget was allocated to extortion fees to Islamic terrorist states. By 1800 20% (one fifth) of the United States federal budget was dedicated to these extortion fees, which had no discernible point of cessation and would conceivably need to be paid forever, proving that peace with Islamic terrorist states is arguably more expensive than warfare.

It cannot be emphasized enough that people who believe and claim that Islamic aggression today is a result of invasive European and American foreign policy or military action are simply clueless. Indeed, these things are the only reason Islam didn't conquer the entire world. To allow Islam to subsume the west today is an abject betrayal of your faith and the sacrifice of your ancestors. So stop being manipulated into feeling guilty for your faith, and be grateful for those Christian warriors who saved the western world from Islamic tyranny. They're the only reason your way of life exists. And they're needed now as much as ever.

(Originally posted 2012.)

1. Hadith

Republicanism, democracy, and anarchy

It's a common occurrence to hear leftists referring to our "democracy" and the danger posed to such by Conservatives.

The problem with this notion is the United States was not Founded as, and was never intended to be, a democracy. The United States was Founded as, and always intended to be, a Republic. There's no disputing this. As Madison states in Federalist #39.

"The first question that offers itself is, whether the general form and aspect of the government be strictly republican. It is evident that no other form would be reconcilable with the genius of the people of America; with the fundamental principles of the Revolution; or with that honorable determination which animates every votary of freedom, to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government. If the plan of the convention, therefore, be found to depart from the republican character, its advocates must abandon it as no longer defensible."

The United States Constitution in Article 4 Section 4 explicitly states.

"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government."

Similarly, the Ordinance of 1787 explicitly states that all territories seeking admission into the Union will be admitted.

"Provided, the constitution and government so to be formed, shall be republican."

Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, appointed by James Madison, explains the meaning of Article 4 Section 4 above thus.

"If any of the States were to be at liberty to adopt any other form of Government, than a republican form, it would necessarily endanger, and might destroy, the safety of the Union. [....] They shall not exchange republican for anti-republican Constitutions." - Joseph Story, A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, Guarantee of Republican Government, 1840. 

"We are all Republicans," declares Thomas Jefferson in his first inaugural address. "Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and Republican principles." The United States government was unequivocally republican. Not democratic. Because as explicitly stated by James Madison in Federalist #10, and John Adams to John Taylor, in 1814.

"Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." 

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."

Much contemplation was given to what form of government the United States should have.

"There is a state of society in which a republican government is the best, and, in America, the only one which ought to be adopted or thought of, because the morals of the people, and the circumstances of the country, not only can bear it, but require it." - John Adams, May 6, 1778. 

The Founders wanted America to be a republic because a republic preserves the popular element of democratic governance on a small scale, which Jefferson states in 1816 is "impracticable beyond the limits of a town," while impeding the tendency for mob rule endemic to democracies by conferring legislative power to elected representatives on a large scale.

"The causes of faction cannot be removed, and [...] relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its effects. [...] When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government [...] enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed. [....] A pure democracy [...] can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. [....] Hence, it clearly appears, that the same advantage which a republic has over a democracy, in controlling the effects of faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small republic, --is enjoyed by the Union over the States composing it." - James Madison, Federalist #10.

It should be noted the democracy of which the Founders spoke, in reference to the United States, was not the democracy promoted by modern leftists.

"Our ideal should be a strong federal government powered by a proportionally elected unicameral legislature. But intermediary steps toward that vision can be taken by abolishing the filibuster, establishing federal control over elections and developing a simpler way to amend the Constitution through national referendum." - Meagan Day and Bhaskar Sunkara, staff writer and editor at Jacobin (a Socialist magazine), writing for the New York Times.

What the Jacobin Socialists above seek, as always, is the complete converse of that sought by the Founders.

"It is wise, therefore, in every government, and especially in a republic, to provide peaceable means for altering and improving the structure, as time and experience shall show it necessary, for the public safety and happiness. But, at the same time, it is equally important to guard against too easy and frequent changes; to secure due deliberation and caution in making them; and to follow experience, rather than speculation and theory. A government, which is always changing and changeable, is in a perpetual state of internal agitation, and incapable of any steady and permanent operations. It has a constant tendency to confusion and anarchy." - Joseph Story, A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, Mode of making Amendments, 1833.

A government "incapable of any steady and permanent operations" should concern you, being that purpose of our government as explicitly stated by the U.S. Constitution, is to "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." Basically, Socialists want to break down all of the boundaries against democracy established by the Founders, because it's a precursor and intermediary stage in the transition to a Socialist oligarchy or autocracy. As Founder Morris observed regarding the French Revolution.

"We have seen the tumults of democracy terminate, in France, as they have everywhere terminated, in despotism." - Gouverneur Morris, An Oration Delivered on Wednesday, June 29, 1814.

Democracies are inherently capricious and facile. And through a majority whose opinions are formed and directed by an education system, entertainment industry, and media apparatus controlled nigh exclusively by the left, they will procure a "democratically" established tyrannical state. (Not unlike the Bolsheviks in Russia, the National Socialists in Germany, etc.) Through strategic and selective media coverage, assiduous brainwashing through entertainment and education, the "majority" of the people will incrementally cede ever more of their liberty to the state in perpetuity. Until words like "democratic" and "republic," become no less meaningless and representative of our form of government, than they are in "the Democratic People's Republic of Korea."

The Amendment process was not intended to be "simple," at least not so simple as leftists would like. (The Founders thought it quite simple and more than adequate.) It requires super majorities for a reason; to compel thorough deliberation and unanimous consent among the people. Conversely under a democratic government which allows for "simple" changes to the Constitution through "national referendum," changes to the most fundamental aspects of our government, like its form and structure, its protections for our liberties, etc., could be proposed and passed quickly and often precluding thorough deliberation or even cognition among the people. (It cannot be emphasized enough that this is how the Nazis came to dominate Germany. In essentially a few years, through rapid changes, they fundamentally altered the form of the German government.) Protections established by a republic and a constitution, for rights like property, would essentially evaporate. They could be altered or outright revoked overnight by a mere referendum. Those who own no land, for example, vastly outnumber those that do. And if given the chance would, through referendum, redistribute the property of the latter to themselves. John Adams specifically addresses this in his writings.

"Suppose a nation, rich and poor, high and low, ten millions in number, all assembled together; not more than one or two millions will have lands, houses, or any personal property. [...], A great majority of every nation is wholly destitute of property, except a small quantity of clothes, and a few trifles of other movables. [...] If all were to be decided by a vote of the majority, the eight or nine millions who have no property, would not think of usurping over the rights of the one or two millions who have? - John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851), Vol. VI, p. 9.

The ostentatious goal of all Socialists is to do precisely what Adams describes. To use the state to redistribute property from others to themselves.

"One of the first decrees of the Soviet Power in Russia was the decree concerning the separation of the church from the State. All its landed estates were taken away from the church and handed over to the working population. All the capital of the church became the property of the workers." - The ABC of Communism, Why religion and communism are incompatible, Separation of the church from the state, Separation of the school from the church, Struggle with the religious prejudice of the masses, 1920.

Democracy, as such, is a de facto abolition of inalienable rights. Your rights are whatever a fickle "majority" deems them to be at any given time.

"Under the confusion of names," said Madison, "it has been an easy task to transfer to a republic observations applicable to a democracy only." This confusion has plainly persisted to the present day, as leftists (and modern dictionaries) often attempt to obfuscate the difference between these two forms of government, and even conflate them. The perhaps easiest way to remember the fundamental difference between the two, is that in a democracy everyone is a legislator, whereas in a republic the power of legislation is consigned to representatives exclusively.

Noah Webster defines "republic" in his 1828 dictionary thus.

"A state in which the exercise of the sovereign power is lodged in representatives elected by the people. In modern usage, it differs from a democracy or democratic state, in which the people exercise the powers of sovereignty in person." 

 And "democracy" as.

"A form of government, in which the supreme power is lodged in the hands of the people collectively, or in which the people exercise the powers of legislation. Such was the government of Athens."

Madison mirrors this distinction in Federalist #14.

"In a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents."

Speaking of Greece, modern "secular" Socialists will often suggest or argue that the American Republic was merely a copy of the licentious pagan Greco-Roman Republics. But Franklin, during his motion (which directly references the Bible multiple times) for the Continental Congress to be opened with prayer in 1787, gives a very different account of its basis.

"We have gone back to ancient history for models of government, and examined the different forms of those Republics which having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution now no longer exist. And we have viewed Modern States all round Europe, but find none of their constitutions suitable to our circumstances. [...] I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth- that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that 'except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel. [...] I therefore beg leave to move, that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of the City be requested to officiate in that service." (Contains references to Mat 10:29, Psa 127:1, and Gen 11:9.)

As Alexis De Tocqueville, a Frenchman who visited the United States and traveled the country, subsequently writing a book about his observations states.

"In the United States [...] the mass of the institutions of the country is essentially republican; and in order permanently to destroy the laws which form the basis of the republic, it would be necessary to abolish all the laws at once." - Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Of the Republican Institutions of The United States, and What Their Chances of Duration Are.

In a republic the elected legislators are intended to serve as a check upon the caprice of a potentially less informed, misinformed, or wayward populace, whereas a democracy is mob rule and consequently one of the easiest types of government to subvert and manipulate. If you own the education system, media, and entertainment industry in a democracy (i.e., all of the things that form and influence public opinion), you effectively own the democracy.  Hence why Socialists have spent decades infiltrating and subverting these institutions.

The Founders deliberately put checks in place, e.g., the electoral college (which leftists naturally want removed), to prevent the United States from degrading into a democracy.

"The great object, then, of political wisdom in framing our Constitution, was to guard against licentiousness, that inbred malady of democracies." - Fisher Ames, Framer of the First Amendment, Works of Fisher Ames, 1809. 

So in a sense leftists are right when they make the allegation that Conservatives, institutions like the electoral college, and enfranchised middle Americans are a "threat to democracy." Socialists want America to be a Democracy, and those who adhere to traditional values and originalist/republican Constitutional precepts, are a direct impediment and threat to that agenda.

As the Socialist Party Platform 2015-17 plainly states.

"We call for the elimination of the Electoral College and support instant run-off voting of all elected officials."

All of the major population centers in America are inveterate Socialist enclaves that consistently swing representative and gubernatorial races over to the Democratic party in state elections. And if not for the electoral college a Democrat victory would essentially be guaranteed in every future presidential election. (Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, which is what Socialists want to determine the outcome of presidential elections, not the electoral college.) Likewise representation being based purely upon population would give heavily populated Socialist meccas, like New York and California, vastly more political power than more Conservative central states like Oklahoma in the legislative branch at the federal level.

The left controlling the education system, media, and entertainment to a significant degree allows them to control the narrative of the coverage of political candidates, and how they're perceived by the public at large (i.e, influence the outcome of elections). As such it behooves them for elections to be decided quickly, by simple referendum, as opposed to electors who place obligation to principle, protocols, or party over subjective preference, and for representation to be predicated purely upon population as opposed to each state having equal representation in the senate, which was originally intended to serve the interests of the states, and be a check upon federal encroachment by having the state legislatures (and not the general populace) appoint federal senators.

Simply put, without the electoral college a few counties, or even the populous cities (depicted in blue above), would decide the outcome of presidential elections, disenfranchising the vast preponderance of the geographical United States (in red), and lunging the entire country profoundly left, as winning the presidency would require winning the nations large metropolitan enters like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, et al., and consequently catering to the political sensibilities of their overwhelmingly radical leftist inhabitants. John Doe farmer in rural Oklahoma would become politically nugatory in regard to presidential aspirations. Joy Reid criticizes this as rural Americans having a "disproportionate power over the urban majority" when in reality this is the inversion of truth. These systems were implemented by the Founders precisely to prevent the "urban majority" from being able to completely nullify the political will of the "rural minority," and to protect smaller, less wealthy and powerful states, from exploitation, depredation, and subjugation by larger, wealthier, more powerful states.

Joy Reid's sentiments are the utter antithesis of the republic our Founders established, and the explicit declaration in the Ordinance of 1787, that new states "shall be admitted [...] on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever." In Joy Reid's mind, the interests of the state of Oklahoma, and Kansas, and Arkansas are subordinate to the interests of New York, California, and Massachusetts, and the latter should dictate policy for the former. The paradigmatic, and abject leftist hypocrisy on display, is as always nauseating. Here's someone from the party incessantly whining about "disenfranchisement," seeking to disenfranchise the voters of 35 states, that the interests of 15 be served. The reason the Founders chose a republic over a democracy was precisely to prevent those 15 states from dictating policy for the other 35.

Perhaps the second most vocal, and no less ill informed, contingent I encounter in my interactions with others seems to be anarchists (or anarcho-Libertarians) who argue the Founders were anarchists, that essentially any degree of government is unjust and oppressive, and that all taxation is "theft." During my last dialogue on the topic, one such person actually said to me:

As I explained to this gentleman, that's actually exactly what it means. The definition of anarchy is literally "a state of society without government or law."

The problem with these lot is their inability to understand it's impossible to enter a confederation without the constituent members forfeiting a portion of their autonomy. 100% liberty means being 100% autonomous. The moment you enter into a compact with others for mutual benefit, you're trading a portion of your liberties for the benefit that mutual arrangement provides. Marriage, for example, serves as a reductionistic illustration of this. Once you enter into a marriage compact, for the mutual benefit of you and your spouse, you surrender your liberty to go bar hopping like a single, fully autonomous person. You both surrender a small portion of your liberties for the benefits provided to you, your children, etc., by the union of marriage. 

This is no less true on a collective level. There is no way around this. No person or society is exempt from it. No social compact can exist without this occurring. Any time you entire into a social compact (like the Constitution), you are by default conferring to some other person or parties (e.g., congress), the power to make decisions and policies to which you will be subordinated to some degree. As James Bayard states in 1833 regarding the adoption of the United States Constitution.  

"They were about to surrender a portion of their civil rights, for the security of the remainder." 

The federal government is explicitly conferred the power to "to regulate Commerce [...] among the several States," for example, which means the states have necessarily forfeited a portion of their rights in that regard. 

The notion that any and all taxation is illegitimate and the Founders were anarchists is rather farcical, given that the Constitution they devised specifically empowers the federal government to impose taxes "to establish post offices and post roads," for example, and that the impetus behind the creation of the Constitution in the first place was to prevent anarchy. 

"It must in truth be acknowledged [...] that there are material imperfections in our national system, and that something is necessary to be done to rescue us from impending anarchy." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #15.

Which its principle advocates repeatedly unequivocally denounce in their work urging its adoption by the country. 

"The citizens of America have too much discernment to be argued into anarchy. And I am much mistaken, if experience has not wrought a deep and solemn conviction in the public mind, that greater energy of government is essential to the welfare and prosperity of the community." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #26. 

"If mankind were to resolve to agree in no institution of government, until every part of it had been adjusted to the most exact standard of perfection, society would soon become a general scene of anarchy, and the world a desert." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #65.

What is most paradoxical thing about anarchists however, is that the natural culmination of their belief that government should be involved in nothing, results in the very thing they dread; too little government results in excessive government. 

"In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, Anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradually induced, by a like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful." - James Madison, Federalist #51.

The natural product of democracy is anarchy, the diminution if not loss of personal security and property rights, and the natural product of this anarchy is tyranny, as a populace seeking respite from insecurity, uncertainty, and depredation, ultimately supports a powerful government, perhaps under an autocrat, that promises to restore order and provide safety and security. As Jonathan Smith, a farmer, stated when recounting his experience during Shay's Rebellion before the Massachusetts Ratification Convention in 1788.

"I have lived in a part of the country where I have known the worth of a good government by the want of it. [....] (People) would rob you of your property, threaten to burn your houses; oblige you to be on your guard night and day. [...] Our distress was so great that we should have been glad to snatch at anything that looked like a government. Had any person that was able to protect us come and set up his standard, we should all have flocked to it, even if it had been a monarch, and that monarch might have proved a tyrant. So that you see that anarchy leads to tyranny; and better have one tyrant than so many at once."

And so there was no "democracy" of the variety espoused by Socialists, nor anarchy, in mind when the Founders established the United States.

"From the day of the Declaration, the people of the North American union, and of its constituent states, were associated bodies of civilized men and Christians, in a state of nature, but not of anarchy. They were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of the gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledged as the rules of their conduct." - John Quincy Adams, An Address Delivered at the Request of the Committee of Arrangements for the Celebrating the Anniversary of Independence at the City of Washington on the Fourth of July 1821 upon the Occasion of Reading The Declaration of Independence.

And thus anarchists, who believe themselves the opposite of Socialists, are in reality oblivious proponents of the same thing. Socialism? Anarchy? The culmination of either is the same, and as such, our only concern as Constitutional patriots is opposing both.

In closing, I leave you with Joseph Story and Alexis De Tocqueville's admonitions, which have never been more relevant than they are right now.

"Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them." - Joseph Story, A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, Concluding Remarks, 1840.

"When the Americans lose their republican institutions they will speedily arrive at a despotic government. [...] Nothing is more absolute than the authority of a prince who immediately succeeds a republic, since the powers which had been fearlessly entrusted to an elected magistrate, are then transferred to a [...] sovereign." - Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Of the Republican Institutions of The United States, and What Their Chances of Duration Are.

The origin and nature of the American secular movement

"If a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was & never will be." - Thomas Jefferson, Jan 6, 1816.

One of my biggest grievances with the right for many years, has been their abject inability to recognize things for what they are, and label them accordingly. Stop calling Socialists "liberals." Thomas Jefferson was a Liberal. Hillary Clinton is not. 

Washington provides us with insight into the nature of true "liberalism" in his response to American Catholics in 1790.

"As mankind become more liberal they will be more apt to allow, that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the Community are equally entitled to the protection of civil Government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations in examples of justice and liberality. And I presume that your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic part which you took in the accomplishment of their Revolution, and the establishment of their Government: or the important assistance which they received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic faith is professed." 

And likewise to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport in 1790.

The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy — a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

It cannot be emphasized enough that, though those who call themselves liberals today share this (use identical) rhetoric, they do not share the values of Washington or early (genuine) American liberals. Neither Washington, any other Founder, or government at any level during the establishment would have even conceived, much less conceded, this notion of equality under the law was applicable to the practice of sodomy, or transvestism for example; Jefferson personally authored a Virginian bill that punished sodomy with castration. In this same letter just prior Washington explicitly states that America, "under the smiles of Divine Providence (God)" and through the cultivation of "morals and piety," would become more liberal and flourish. The Founder's liberalism was achieved through Christian principle, whereas the modern left's faux liberalism is achieved through the extirpation of such. The former sought greater freedom through a limited government. The latter seeks greater licentiousness, under the pretext of freedom, as a means of facilitating a centralized totalitarian government. Civil rights were superseded by natural rights with the former. Natural rights are superseded, if not effaced, by civil rights with the latter. They're utterly antithetical to one another. 

People often respond that it's no big deal; it's only words. Words have meaning however. The diagnosis determines the treatment. So when you refer to Socialist subversives, who want to supplant our Constitutional Republican form of government (treason) with a secular democracy as "liberals," it significantly impacts how they're perceived and treated by others. It's a political misdiagnosis with pernicious socio-political ramifications.

Why leftists do this should be obvious (even had they not explained it in the past).

"The American People will take Socialism, but they won’t take the label. I certainly proved it. [...] Running on the Socialist ticket I got 60,000 votes, and running on the slogan to ‘End Poverty in California’ I got 879,000. [...] There is no use attacking [...] by a front attack, it is much better to out-flank them." - Upton Sinclair, a congressional and gubernatorial candidate, recounting in 1951 how he garnered more support by changing his rhetoric and party affiliation from Socialist to Democrat.

Something that immediately struck me when I began studying history so many years ago, was the conspicuous similarities between Socialist/Marxist ideology, and the values professed by modern "liberals." 

"The struggle against religion is a struggle for Socialism." - Slogan of the League of the Militant Godless (an anti-religious organization of the Soviet Communist Party).

Soviet and Nazi rhetoric from decades ago, even Bolshevik rhetoric from a century ago, was at times indistinguishable from modern liberal rhetoric. If you didn't know it was from the past you'd not be skeptical at all if it was misattributed to a present day American leftist.

The rise of secular Socialism in Russia:

"One of the first decrees of the Soviet Power in Russia was the decree concerning the separation of the church from the State. All its landed estates were taken away from the church and handed over to the working population. All the capital of the church became the property of the workers. [...] The Soviet Power rejects all thoughts of using the church in any way whatever as a means for strengthening the proletarian State. 

The separation of the school from the church aroused and continues to arouse protest from the backward elements among the workers and peasants. Many of the older generation persist in demanding that religion should still be taught in the schools as an optional subject. The Communist Party fights resolutely against all such attempts to turn back. [....] The decree whereby the school is separated from the church must be rigidly enforced, and the proletarian State must not make the slightest concession to medievalism. What has already been done to throw off the yoke of religion is all too little, for it still remains within the power of ignorant parents to cripple the minds of their children by teaching them religious fables.  

One of the most important tasks of the proletarian State is to liberate children from the reactionary influence exercised by their parents. The really radical way of doing this is the social education of the children, carried to its logical conclusion. As far as the immediate future is concerned, we must not rest content with the expulsion of religious propaganda from the school. We must see to it that the school assumes the offensive against religious propaganda in the home, so that from the very outset the children's minds shall be rendered immune to all those religious fairy tales which many grown-ups continue to regard as truth. It has been comparatively easy for the proletarian authority to effect the separation of the church from the State and of the school from the church, and these changes have been almost painlessly achieved. 

The organization and strengthening of the socialist system, will deal religion an irrecoverable blow. The transition from Socialism to Communism, the transition from the society which makes an end of capitalism to the society which is completely freed from all traces of class division and class struggle, will bring about the natural death of all religion and superstition. But this must by no means be taken to imply that we can sit down at our ease, satisfied with having prophesied the decay of religion at some future date. It is essential at the present time to wage with the utmost vigour the war against religious prejudices, for the church has now definitely become a counter-revolutionary organization, and endeavours to use its religious influence over the masses in order to marshal them for the political struggle against the dictatorship of the proletariat. 

But the campaign against the backwardness of the masses in this matter of religion, must be conducted with patience and considerateness, as well as with energy and perseverance." - The ABC of Communism, Why religion and communism are incompatible, Separation of the church from the state, Separation of the school from the church, Struggle with the religious prejudice of the masses, 1920.

 The rise of secular Socialism in Germany:

"National Socialism by its very nature was hostile to Christianity and the Christian churches. The purpose of the National Socialist movement was to convert the German people into a homogeneous racial group united in all its energies for [the] prosecution of aggressive warfare. Innumerable indications of this fact are to be found in the speeches and writing[s] of Hitler and other responsible Nazi leaders…

Although the principal Christian Churches of Germany had long been associated with conservative ways of thought, which meant that they tended to agree with the National Socialists in their authoritarianism, in their attacks on Socialism and Communism, and in their campaign against the Versailles treaty, their doctrinal commitments could not be reconciled with the principle of racism, with a foreign policy of unlimited aggressive warfare, or with a domestic policy involving the complete subservience of Church to State. Since these are fundamental elements of the National Socialist program, conflict was inevitable. 

Important leaders of the National Socialist party would have liked to meet this situation by a complete extirpation of Christianity and the substitution of a purely racial religion tailored to fit the needs of National Socialist policy. [....] Considerations of expediency made it impossible, however, for the National Socialist movement to adopt this radical anti-Christian policy officially. Thus the policy actually adopted was to reduce the influence of the Christian Churches as far as possible through the use of every available means, without provoking the difficulties of an open war of extermination. 

The Nazi plan was to show first that they were no foes of the Church, that they were indeed interested in ‘Positive Christianity’, were very good friends of the Churches and did not at all want to interfere in religious matters or with the internal affairs of the different denominations. Then under the pretext that the Churches themselves were interfering in political and state matters, they would deprive the Churches, step by step, of all opportunity to affect German public life. The Nazis believed that the Churches could be starved and strangled spiritually in a relatively short time when they were deprived of all means of communication with the faithful beyond the Church building[s] themselves, and terrorized in such a manner that no Churchman would dare to speak out openly against Nazi policies.The main assault, however, started in 1936. Attacks were concentrated against the many schools which were directed by religious orders, especially in the field of secondary education. The Catholic orders and congregations had altogether 12 secondary schools for boys and 188 for girls. Sixty-four per cent of the Catholic girls attending secondary schools were studying at private Catholic institutions. Gradually these schools were eliminated. Nazi authorities exerted strong pressure on the Reich, state and municipal officials to send their children only to public schools. 

The purpose of the Nazis was indicated on 14 June 1939 in a statement by Bauer, Munich city school inspector, who declared: ‘religious instruction must disappear from the schools. We make our demand: instruction in the German faith by German teachers in German schools. Implementation of this objective started with the curtailment of religious instruction in the primary and secondary schools, with the squeezing of the religious periods into inconvenient hours, with Nazi propaganda among the teachers in order to induce them to refuse the teaching of religion, with vetoing of Catholic religious textbooks, and finally with substituting Nazi Weltanschauung and ‘German Faith’ for Christian religious denominational instructions. The name ‘religious instruction’ was maintained, but its aims were completely altered. At the time of the outbreak of war denominational religious instruction had practically disappeared from Germany’s primary schools." - Office of Strategic Services, The Nazi Master Plan, The Persecution Of The Christian Churches, July 6, 1945.

In these excerpts are conveyed the fervently anti-religious ethos inherent to Socialism. And this "struggle against religion" and zealous pursuit of the secularization of society, is no less prominently on display and even openly asserted by present day Socialists, with the Socialist Party USA declaring in it's current platform "We support secular democratic states." It is a common thing to hear an American leftist assert the belief that religion and government must be kept entirely separate, and that the former should not guide the latter to any degree, just as the Bolsheviks and Nazis believed. 

There are a disturbing number of ignoramuses that will argue, when such conspicuous parallels are cited, that Hitler and the Nazis weren't Socialists in an effort to divest Socialism of any culpability for, or even association with, Nazi tyranny. But the fact is Hitler was the leader of the "National Socialist German Workers' Party."

In a mass pamphlet issued by the Nazis during the 1932 presidential campaign, Hitler is credited as saying "You cannot be a true nationalist without also being a Socialist." The pamphlet further exposits:

"To be a nationalist means loving one's own people more than all others, and worker to be sure that it can hold its own among them. If this people (is) to hold its own against the rest of the world, I must wish and work for the health of each member, to see that things go as well as possible for each individual, and therefore the whole. But then I am a socialist! And I cannot be a socialist without working to be sure that my people can defend itself from attacks by other peoples, and to secure its foundations for life, without working for the greatness of my people, thereby also being a nationalist."

To the Nazis Socialism and nationalism weren't two separate things, so much as two things inherently working in reciprocity, amalgamated even, making them one and the same thing; true Socialism.

"We are Socialists, enemies, mortal enemies of the present capitalist economic system with its exploitation of the economically weak, with its injustice in wages, with its immoral evaluation of individuals according to wealth and money instead of responsibility and achievement, and we are determined under all circumstances to abolish this system!" - Gregor Strasser, Nazi ideologue and politician, June 15, 1926.

The discerning reader will immediately recognize that the abject antipathy for religion, the purging of religious instruction and values from the government and schools, the assiduous efforts to diminish the influence of the church and religion on all aspects of American life, and the belief that religion is rooted in prejudice and inferior to science above, are all on constant display in present day American leftists. You will constantly hear leftists calling Republicans or Conservatives "fascists," yet it is they more than anyone plainly seeking a centralized authoritarian government, and following the model of the Russian and German Socialists illustrated above to achieve it.

The rise of a people with utter loyalty to their party, who place their utter faith in science, and the believe the duty of the party is to mitigate or eradicate religious "bigotry" and "prejudice" is nothing new.

"The Party cannot be neutral towards religion and does conduct anti-religious propaganda... because it (the party) stands for science, while religious prejudices run counter to science, because all religion is something opposite to science." - Joseph Stalin, September 15, 1927. 

"I saw Eisenstein's film, "Ten Days That Shook The World." [...] We can learn a lot from these Bolsheviks; most of all from their use of propaganda. [....] What does Christianity mean today? National Socialism is a religion. All we lack is a religious genius, capable of uprooting outmoded religious practices, and putting new ones in their place. We lack traditions and ritual. One day soon, National Socialism will be the religion of all Germans. My party is my church, and I believe I serve the lord best if I do his will, and liberate my oppressed people from the fetters of slavery. That is my gospel." - Joseph Goebbels, Reichsminister of Propaganda, entries in personal diary on April 26, and October 16, 1928.

Indeed, atheists are so consistently Socialists, and Socialists so consistently atheists, whenever you encounter a person who is one, you may with great confidence assume they are the other as well.

When speaking of the ways modern leftists mirror the Socialist worldview, Hillary Clinton's caucus victory speech in which she espouses significant portions of the Socialist party's platform, always comes to mind.

• "Universal Health Care."

"The Socialist Party stands for a socialized health care system based on universal coverage." - Socialist Party USA, National Socialist platform 2015-2017.

• "Climate Change."

The U.S. must immediately return to participation in international agreements, such as the Kyoto Protocol, limiting carbon emissions, and accept a major role in worldwide efforts to control global warming. - Socialist Party USA, National Socialist platform 2015-2017.

• "College affordable" and eliminate "student debt." 

"We demand equal access to higher education for all people and support publicly funded higher education. We call for the forgiveness of all outstanding federal student loans and believe that students should not be saddled with decades of debt simply because they pursue higher education." - Socialist Party USA, National Socialist platform 2015-2017.

• "Womens' rights."

"The Socialist Party is a socialist feminist organization that recognizes that a struggle against habitual male dominance and patriarchy must go hand in hand with any struggle against capitalism. Therefore, we pledge our opposition to all forms of sexism, and demand equality in all aspects of life." - Socialist Party USA, National Socialist platform 2015-2017.

• "Gay rights."

"The Socialist Party recognizes the human and civil rights of all, without regard to sexual orientation. We call for the end of all anti-gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBTQ) restrictions in law and the work place, the repeal of all sodomy laws, and the legalization of same-sex marriage." - Socialist Party USA, National Socialist platform 2015-2017.

• "Voting rights." (Who's being denied the right to vote exactly?)

"We call for full funding for a network of support for people with physical, mental, and developmental disabilities, including home assistance, recreation centers, guaranteed income, voting access, and quality control in residential facilities; and for the inclusion of people with disabilities on all local and state governing boards and commissions. [....] We call for the lowering of the voting age to 15. [....] We call for the elimination of the Electoral College and support instant run-off voting of all elected officials. [....] We call for the automatic restoration of voting rights for current convicted felons, end the revocation of civil rights for anyone convicted of a felony." - Socialist Party USA, National Socialist platform 2015-2017.

• "Immigrant rights."

"The Socialist Party works to build a world in which everyone will be able to freely move across borders, to visit and to live wherever they choose. [...] We defend the rights of all immigrants to education, health care, and full civil and legal rights and call for an unconditional amnesty program for all undocumented people. [...] We call for... a ban on all immigration detentions, and... an end to police raids in areas where immigrants congregate." - Socialist Party USA, National Socialist platform 2015-2017.

• "Workers' rights."

"The Socialist Party stands for the right of all workers to organize, for worker control of industry through the democratic organization of the workplace, for the social ownership of the means of production and distribution." - Socialist Party USA, National Socialist platform 2015-2017.

The pursuit of "workers' rights" is a traditional staple of Socialist rhetoric, and the term "worker" in reference to the proletariat, is still a fixture of Socialist rhetoric to this day.

While there's nothing wrong with supporting "workers," the tell tale sign of the Socialist is ostensibly seeking to support one group (conveyed as disadvantaged) at the expense of another (portrayed as "privileged), e.g., the working class (proletariat) at the expense of the rich (bourgeois) which they relentlessly vilify (as people who don't pay their "fair share" for example).

• Common sense gun safety measures."

"We support federal buyout programs for arms, (and) federal safety standards and licensing for arms." - Socialist Party USA, National Socialist platform 2015-2017.

Her post caucus speech may as well have been written by a member of the Socialist party, because it proclaims their platform with a conspicuous conformity, and makes no substantive effort to conceal that whatsoever. She would go on to specifically pledge the Democrat party's commitment to advancing the rights of all these proletarian groups again in her concession speech.

As illustrated in a previous installment the Founders believed that the only way for American liberty to be sustained was to root it in the unchanging morality of God.

"The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence, were [...] the general principles of Christianity. [...] I will avow, that I then believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God." - John Adams, to Thomas Jefferson on June 28, 1813.

Socialists do not share this belief.

"From the moment when private ownership of movable property developed, all societies in which this private ownership existed had to have this moral injunction in common: Thou shalt not steal. Does this injunction thereby become an eternal moral injunction? By no means. In a society in which all motives for stealing have been done away with, in which therefore at the very most only lunatics would ever steal, how the preacher of morals would be laughed at who tried solemnly to proclaim the eternal truth: Thou shalt not steal! We therefore reject every attempt to impose on us any moral dogma whatsoever as an eternal, ultimate and for ever immutable ethical law on the pretext that the moral world, too, has its permanent principles which stand above history and the differences between nations. We maintain on the contrary that all moral theories have been hitherto the product, in the last analysis, of the economic conditions of society obtaining at the time." - Friedrich Engels, Co-Author of the Communist Manifesto, Anti-Duhring, 1878.

Socialists believe they can eliminate the motivation to steal through wealth redistribution, i.e., the equal division of property, which would abolish "all traces of class division and class struggle" and therefore any desire for one person to steal from another. This is why you consistently see leftists in America attacking "economic inequality" and calling for "equal pay," etc. By redistributing wealth from one person/entity (the rich, large corporations, etc.) to another, they believe a society can be created that's free of hunger or the need to steal, etc. This is of course a psychotic fantasy utterly antithetical to the pragmatic (religiously derived) principles upon which America was Founded.

"Suppose a nation, rich and poor, high and low, ten millions in number, all assembled together; not more than one or two millions will have lands, houses, or any personal property; if we take into the account the women and children, or even if we leave them out of the question, a great majority of every nation is wholly destitute of property, except a small quantity of clothes, and a few trifles of other movables. [...] If all were to be decided by a vote of the majority, the eight or nine millions who have no property, would not think of usurping over the rights of the one or two millions who have? Property is surely a right of mankind as really as liberty. Perhaps, at first, prejudice, habit, shame or fear, principle or religion, would restrain the poor from attacking the rich, and the idle from usurping on the industrious; but the time would not be long before courage and enterprise would come, and pretexts be invented by degrees, to countenance the majority in dividing all the property among them, or at least, in sharing it equally with its present possessors. Debts would be abolished first; taxes laid heavy on the rich, and not at all on the others; and at last a downright equal division of every thing be demanded, and voted. What would be the consequence of this? The idle, the vicious, the intemperate, would rush into the utmost extravagance of debauchery, sell and spend all their share, and then demand a new division of those who purchased from them. The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If "Thou shalt not covet," and "Thou shalt not steal," were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free." - John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851), Vol. VI, p. 9.

Madison likewise denounces the foundational precepts of Socialism.  

"Theoretic politicians [...] have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions." - James Madison, Federalist #10.

Madison subsequently calls "a rage for an abolition of debts" and "equal division of property" an "improper" and "wicked project." Socialism isn't just wrong, it's anti-American, as are the feminist, "LGBQT," and speciously "anti-racist/fascist" "rights" movements that stem from it.

"There is no country in the whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America, and there can be no greater proof of its utility, and of its conformity to human nature, than that its influence is most powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth. [...] The revolutionists of America are obliged to profess an ostensible respect for Christian morality and equity. [...] They (Americans) hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or to a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank of society. The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other." - Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Principal Causes Which Tend To Maintain The Democratic Republic In The United States.

It must be understood that one cannot be both a Christian and a Socialist. As the sentiments of Adams and Engels illustrate, Christianity and American liberty are based upon the belief that private property is an "inviolable" right derived from God, whereas Socialism is a relativistic secular ideology that denies any moral precept is inviolable, seeks the abolition of private property, and is in fact the sin of covetousness masquerading as altruism. Socialism is the renunciation of the Judeo-Christian ethos.

"Many weak-kneed communists reason as follows: 'Religion does not prevent my being a communist. I believe both in God and in communism. My faith in God does not hinder me from fighting for the cause of the proletarian revolution.' This train of thought is radically false. Religion and communism are incompatible, both theoretically and practically. [....] In practice, no less than in theory, communism is incompatible with religious faith. [....] In most cases there is an irreconcilable conflict between the principles of communist tactics and the commandments of religion. A communist who rejects the commandments of religion and acts in accordance with the directions of the party, ceases to be one of the faithful. On the other hand, one who, while calling himself a communist, continues to cling to his religious faith, one who in the name of religious commandments infringes the prescriptions of the party, ceases thereby to be a communist." - The ABC of Communism, Why religion and communism are incompatible, 1920.

It simply cannot be emphasized enough that Socialists are profoundly devious or deluded human beings. There are two kinds of Socialist. The lucid subversive that knows Socialism is organized theft and exploits it to his advantage. And the gullible halfwit true believer, who takes the rhetoric at face value and actually believes that if you just steal enough money from one group of people and give it to another group of people, the latter will be transformed into angels who no longer have any impulse to exploit or abuse their fellow man.

"The living standards of workers and the natural environment on which life depends are under constant attack due to the drive for maximum profits inherent in capitalism. Our party fights for jobs and economic security, a decent and rising standard of living, peace, justice, equality, a sustainable environment, gay rights, health care, education, affordable housing, the needs of seniors, democracy, and a fulfilling life for everyone, with socialism as our goal. Only through the abolition of the capitalist system and the socialist reorganization of society can exploitation of human beings by others, and the evils of oppression, war, racism, environmental degradation, and poverty be ended. We seek to build a socialist society which puts people and nature before profits." - Communist Party USA, 2001.

The marriage of anti-Capitalist rhetoric with womens' rights, opposition to racism, etc., is a staple of the Socialist platform, and flagrant indication you're a dealing with a Socialist.

Anyone whose head isn't buried in the sand will have noticed a sharply increasing instance of "feminist/black," "anti-misogyny/racism" activists, blaming "capitalism" for "patriarchy" and the oppression of ethnic minorities in America.

It's becoming more and more pervasive with each passing day it seems.

I've even seen leftists blaming capitalism for white supremacy and slavery, which is both ridiculous and false. (Never mind that white supremacist Germans were Socialists.) Slavery and racism were state imposed and perpetuated practices in the United States. Capitalism was one of the major driving forces working against the perpetuation of slavery. Alexis De Tocqueville described in detail his observations upon the Ohio river in the 1830s, on which one side existed a free state and on the other side a slave state. The free state he observed was a spectacle of industry, while on the slave side he saw but sparse and lethargic labor, as the latter had no personal incentive to labor harder or better (and were a perpetual expense to their owner).

"On the left the state that follows the thousand curves made by the Ohio in its course is called Kentucky; the other borrowed the name of the river itself. The two states differ only on one single point: Kentucky allowed slaves, the state of Ohio cast all of them out. 

So the traveler who, placed in the middle of the Ohio, allows himself to be carried along by the current until the river flows [...] between liberty and servitude; and he has only to glance around him to judge in an instant which one is most favorable to humanity. 

On the left bank of the river, the population is scattered; from time to time you see a gang of slaves with a carefree air crossing fields half deserted; the primeval forest constantly reappears; you would say that society is asleep; man seems idle; it is nature that offers the image of activity and life. 

From the right bank arises, in contrast, a confused murmur that proclaims from afar the presence of industry; rich crops cover the fields; elegant dwellings announce the taste and the attentions of the plowman; on all sides comfort is revealed; man seems rich and content: he is working." - Democracy in America.

There's also the clenched fist salute that's a common feature of leftist "rights" activists in America. This is likewise nothing new. The clenched fist salute was given by Socialist Lee Harvey Oswald after being arrested for the murder of JFK.

"I was looking for a key to my environment, and then I discovered socialist literature. [....] I am a true Karl Marxist. I've read just about everything by or about Karl Marx." - Lee Harvey Oswald, entry in personal diary, followed by response during interrogation (Four Days in November: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy).

This salute is a Socialist tradition and racist black activist groups like the Black Panthers, for example, were Founded by Socialists. 

"The clenched-fist salute has been used among revolutionaries for many centuries as a symbol of defiance, comradeship, and solidarity. [....] Since the Third International, the Comintern begun at Moscow in 1919, it has been the official salute of all Communist Parties throughout the world." - John Lautner, Communist Party USA, 1970.

What the falsely labeled "progressive" left in America represents must be recognized and addressed. The pervasive, intentionally induced ignorance, among the general populace must be remedied lest we lose everything our Forefathers established.