Category Archives: History

Dick Cheney and the American System of War

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Former Vice President Richard “Dick” Cheney died on November 3, 2025 at the age of 84.  As secretary of Defense under President George H.W. Bush, Cheney was the architect of the 1991 Persian Gulf War and later, as vice president under George W. Bush, he was instrumental in the invasion and eventual conquest of Iraq.

Brown University’s Cost of War Project has modestly estimated that the “wars on terror” have resulted in the deaths of more than 940,000 people including 432,000 civilians and a monetary cost to the United States of about $8 trillion. 

Of course, Brown University’s study calls the post 9/11 U.S. military operations in the Middle East “wars on terror” when, in reality, they have been fought for the benefit of Israel and its Greater Israel Project, which has decimated the Arab world and has accomplished almost all of its objectives.

Cheney’s nefarious activities were not confined to mass murdering peoples that posed no threat to America’s national security.  He was a force behind the U.S. policy of torture (waterboarding), and nearly unlimited domestic surveillance (the Orwellian-labeled Patriot Act).

According to an article on the news and commentary website “Antiwar,” headlined “Dick Cheney: The Dark Legacy of a War Criminal,” Cheney suggested U.S. intelligence agencies must: [O]perate on the ‘dark side,’ spend time in the shadows, and use ‘any means at our disposal’ to achieve its objectives.” 

As if the U.S. Presidency was not unrestrained enough, Cheney advocated a “unitary executive” theory that the “president alone decides matters within the executive branch” without input from opposition voices within the government’s foreign policy agencies. 

The response by libertarian and alternative media outlets to Cheney’s demise were universal in their denunciation of the former vice president, calling him a “war criminal” and that he left this world with a “dark legacy.” 

It should be noted that a number of alternative media’s podcasters who have criticized Cheney regularly host guests and speakers who are former U.S. military and diplomatic personnel, ex-CIA agents and intelligence operatives, a number of whom participated in the Iraq wars and other American covert operations themselves.

Few, if any, who condemned the former vice president for his criminality mentioned or questioned why it was, and still is today, that monsters like Cheney were able to inflict so much death and destruction on peoples and nations across the globe who posed no threat to America. 

Could it be that the political system that Cheney operated under was the problem?  And, what is to be done to prevent future Cheneys from committing similar atrocities?

Unfortunately, “democratic” wars are paid for “by the people” and the costs are socialized among the population through taxation, inflation (money printing), and deficit financing.  Since warmongering politicians do not have to directly pay for conflicts, there will be a tendency for them to be more bellicose.  Moreover, democratic wars are collective enterprises where elected officials are not personally responsible for the actions of the government but are agents of the voters.   

Nor have the supposed checks and balances of constitutional government, so often touted by admirers of the U.S. Constitution, been able to prevent conflicts, as the horrific record of American warmaking sadly proves.

The passage of the U.S. Constitution established a powerful central state which could (and did) tap the resources and men of the individual states to conduct wars which eventually took place the world over. 

A weak national government, like that under the Articles of Confederation, or no central state at all, but instead a political order of numerous sovereigns (a world full of Switzerlands, Liechtensteins, etc.) would make warfare on a massive scale impossible.

Chip Gibbons, writing in the Jacobin magazine, called Cheney an “enemy of democracy whose agenda included war, indefinite detention, warrantless surveillance, and torture,” according to Alan Mosley. *

Cheney was not an enemy of democracy, but the product of a system that enables evil men to carry out the most heinous acts with little consequence, at least in this life. 

Labeling Dick Cheney a war criminal will tarnish his legacy, but it will not alter America’s murderous foreign policy course.  That will only come about when there is a recognition that the governing system itself needs to be abandoned and a decentralized political arrangement adopted.    

*Alan Mosely, “Dick Cheney (1941-2025): The Dark Legacy of a War Criminal,” Antiwar.com, 5 November 2025.  https://original.antiwar.com/Alan_Mosley/2025/11/04/dick-cheney-1941-2025-the-dark-legacy-of-a-war-criminal/

Antonius Aquinas@antoniusaquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

International Affairs Analyst Says Putin’s Time May Be Winding Down

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Vladimir Putin has sky-high presidential approval ratings among Russians (the envy, no doubt, of every Western chief executive).  He recently triumphed at the Alaska summit, where he got President Donald Trump to back off of his demand for a cease fire in Ukraine.  The Russian president’s participation at the 2025 China Victory Day parade further cemented Russo-Chinese relations, and he has been credited with a reproachment between China and India.  So, why is at least one prominent analyst predicting Putin’s time is coming to an end? 

It seems that, after all of these achievements, Putin’s handling of the Ukraine war is coming under growing criticism – not so much from the populace, but from elements within the Russian “thinking class.”  They want an end to the conflict and the punishment and/or elimination of the Western-backed Volodymyr Zelensky regime.

Thus, Putin’s political exit has been predicted by American historian and longtime Russian affairs analyst Prof. Gilbert Doctorow, the author of War Diaries. Vol. 1: The Russian-Ukraine War, 2022-2023. Doctorow now believes that Putin’s slow, methodical war of attrition against Ukraine has taken too long and, if continued, could lead to the regional conflict spinning out of control and igniting a nuclear conflagration. 

Doctorow has also criticized Putin’s lenient attitude toward the many Western provocations taken against Russia, with the latest talk of the U.S. supplying Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, which could be fitted with nuclear warheads.  The issuance of Tomahawks is on top of the massive aid – military, strategic, intelligence, and financial – that the West has provided without which Ukraine would completely collapse.

While Doctorow advises that Putin end the war as quickly as possible, it must be noted that the perspicacious Paul Craig Roberts has been one of the few, from almost the start of the war, who called for Putin to take decisive action to end what the Russians call a “special military operation.”

Roberts believes that the West is using the conflict as a means to ultimately collapse Russia, divide it politically, and plunder its resources. A fragmented Russia will provide no opposition to a unipolar world dominated by the United States.     

In his latest article, Roberts asks:

    Will he again be ‘Putin-the-Unready’ as he was in

South Ossetia in 2008, in Ukraine in 2014, in 2022

when Russia was forced to intervene in Donbas,

and when the Russian strategic bomber force was

attacked on June 1. *  

In recent podcasts and essays, Doctorow has broken from most of the foreign policy analysts of the alternative media who continue to speak in positive terms of Putin’s deliberate, painstaking approach of slow attrition in Ukraine and his continuing leniency to hostile Western action toward Russia, with now demeaning talk from U.S. politicians including President Donald Trump that call Russia a “paper tiger.” 

Doctorow believes that Putin’s reign has run its course:

                                    I am suggesting that the era of Vladimir Putin is coming to

                                a close.  . . . He no longer has the courage of his convictions,

                                that his threats meant to deter Western enemies are empty

                                verbiage.  . . . He has pulled up the red lines

                                he clearly set out one year ago with respect to long range

                                missiles being supplied to Ukraine, and that he is drawing

                                out the war in Ukraine by not using . . . hypersonic missiles to

                                end the war now. **

Whether such a seemingly implausible scenario comes about or that Russia eventually attains its goals with Putin in charge, the West will continue to escalate.  One bright spot, however, is that the current leadership of Europe’s most war-like states – Keir Starmer of Great Britain, Friedrich Merz of Germany and Emmanuel Macron of France – are widely unpopular and most likely do not have a long political shelf life.  Hopefully, their respective replacements will focus on the monumental economic and social problems that confront each nation and the Ukraine war will be put on the back burner.

One theme sometimes heard by alternative media commentators is that the Russian economy has improved since the start of the special military operation. While Western sanctions have proved to be mostly ineffectual, wars are always a detriment to economic life except, of course, to the arms makers and their bought politicians. 

The opportunity cost of producing guns, bullets, and missiles is the loss of the production of consumer goods – refrigerators, cars, computers, etc.  While it might not be directly seen, Putin’s slow march through Ukraine is taking a toll on the Russian economy.

More important than the economic degradation of society is that the war is being fought between two largely white populations.  The slaughter of whites will mean a decline in birth rates.  This unspoken aspect of the war, no doubt, has always been a policy of the enemies of the Occidental peoples.

While a certain segment of the Russian political elite may want to replace Putin, the ultimate responsibility for the Ukraine war and (God forbid) a possible nuclear exchange is with the collective West, in particular the United States. 

If President Trump really wanted to stop the killing, he merely has to cut off financial aid, end the considerable U.S. military and intelligence assistance to the Zelensky regime, and the war would be over in days.

If these ominous trends continue, it appears that only an act of Divine intervention can avoid a nuclear disaster. 

*https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2025/10/03/putin-the-unready/

**https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2025/10/04/conversation-with-professor-glenn-diesen-restoring-russias-deterrent-or-emboldening-nato/

Antonius Aquinas@antoniusaquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

Venezuela Next on Trump Hit List for Regime-Change Operation

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While it appears that the United States has finally realized that it has little leverage over Russia in the Ukraine war either to halt hostilities or alter battlefield conditions, it has, for now, begun to disengage from the contest despite the desperate pleas from Ukraine and its European backers.  President Donald Trump has said that he will no longer provide the besieged Eastern European country with aid, but will sell weapons to NATO nations who will then give them to the Volodymyr Zelensky regime.

As an aside, that there has been little criticism of Trump’s arms sales, which will be used for mass slaughter, the destruction of private property, and the enrichment of the military industrial complex, is a sad commentary on the ethical standing of the Western world.  At one time, there was an adherence to the concept of a “just war” and the protection of the lives of non-combatants and their property. These topics have, however, long since perished into the Orwellian memory hole.

Trump’s decision to abandon his demand for a ceasefire and begin shifting the burden for the war to Europe was, no doubt, influenced by the MAGA supporters who were pushing him to fulfill his campaign promise of ending the war or, at least, America’s involvement in it.  While some analysts have called the Alaska summit only a “tactical retreat” for the U.S. Empire, it was enough of a gesture to assuage MAGA that the president was going to at last put America first in foreign policy.

These hopes, however, have been dashed with Trump’s recent actions toward Latin America. 

Earlier this month, Trump reignited hostilities with Venezuela and its president, Nicolas Maduro.  It must not be forgotten that, in his first term, Trump supported efforts to overthrow Maduro in a failed coup led by then Venezuela National Assembly president Juan Guaido.  

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that the U.S. would double the reward (now $50 million) for information that would lead to the arrest of Maduro, who the Trump administration has accused of being “one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world.”

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil dismissed Bondi charge, calling it “pathetic” and a “desperate distraction” from her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case and Trump’s refusal to release the files pertaining to his former close friend’s heinous crimes according to the BBC.*

On Aug. 19, the United States escalated matters further by deploying three Navy destroyers, accompanied by 4,000 troops, off the Venezuelan coast.  Not only was the move aimed at combatting Maduro’s supposed drug ties – denied by him and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum – but the action appears to be another attempt at regime change. According to the Trump administration, it does not consider Maduro a legitimate president. This opinion was seconded by White House Press Secretary Karolin Leavitt:

The Maduro regime is not the legitimate government of

                                Venezuela. It is a narco-terror cartel, and Maduro, it is the

                                view of this administration, is not a legitimate president.

                                He is a fugitive head of this cartel, he has been indicted in

                                the United States for trafficking drugs into the country. **

That’s funny. When Russian President Vladimir Putin makes similar claims about the legitimacy of the Zelensky regime in Ukraine, they are dismissed by the United States and its European partners even though Zelensky has suspended democratic elections and locked up regime critics. 

If Trump believes his bellicose actions in the Caribbean, which also includes talk of attacking Mexican drug cartels, will stop the flow of illicit drugs to the United States, he is delusional.  The war on drugs in the 1980s, Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty, the war on alcohol in the 1920s (Prohibition), and all of America’s overseas wars have made the problems they intended to solve that much worse.  The only constant from these follies has been the expansion of state power.

Drug addiction and alcohol abuse are vices that should be handled by families, churches, organizations, and,when necessary, professional medical personnel.  The government cannot fix such problems nor is it constituted to do so.  Even if Trump were to reduce the flow of narcotics, it may simply drive domestic illicit drug prices up, which will entice more sinister criminal elements into the trade.

Despite Trump’s campaign rhetoric, he is once again meddling in the affairs of another sovereign nation with threats of armed intervention if there is not regime change.  While Venezuela has taken no military action against the United States.S. nor is it likely that a conflict between the two could lead to a nuclear conflagration like in Eastern Europe, Trump’s actions demonstrate that he has no intention of pursuing an America-first foreign policy.

Unfortunately for Venezuela – and whoever is next on Trump’s list for aggression – until America cannot financially afford to police the world, the United States it will continue its hegemonic path.   

*Sean Seddon, “US Offers $50m reward for arrest of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro,” BBC, 7 August 2025,  https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy1wn1x521o

** Dave DeCamp, “Trump Administration Deploys Three US Navy Destroyers and 4,000 Troops Near Venezuela,” Antiwar.com, 19 August 2025.   https://news.antiwar.com/2025/08/19/trump-administration-deploys-three-us-navy-destroyers-and-4000-troops-near-venezuela/

Antonius Aquinas@antoniusaquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

Trump’s Grandiose Political Centralization Scheme Not America-First in Spirit

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Colorful houses of the coastal town of Ilulissat in western Greenland.

Although Donald Trump is now in office, his statements since the election indicated he has forgotten his pledge to follow an “America first” foreign policy. This is what he promised during the recent presidential contest and what he pledged in the 2016 campaign, but failed to deliver during his first term.  While domestic issues are what a president is mostly concerned with, the most important decisions surround foreign affairs, since they often involve war.

Since his lopsided victory over the hapless Kamala Harris, Trump has made few references about reigning in the murderous U.S. Empire, but instead has talked about buying or invading Greenland, seizing the Panama Canal, and making Canada an American state.  After the resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump said that “many people in Canada love being the 51st state,” according to The New York Times, Jan. 7.*

If Joe Biden or Kamala Harris said such things, the MAGA crowd would be up in arms and accuse them of moving the country in the direction of the New World Order.

Whether Trump follows through with such fanciful plans, it shows that he does not understand what lies at the heart of the social and economic problems that America and the Western world face.  Trump’s ideas would create greater political centralization, as an American-Canadian or American-Canadian-Mexican-Greenland union would create a gigantic North American state.

For anyone concerned with individual liberty, prosperity, and the No. 1 social issue that confronts the U.S. – illegal immigration – a North American superstate would be a nightmare. Gone would be the vital ability of “dissenters” to “vote with their feet” and move to less burdensome political jurisdictions.

In the United States, one can see this taking place on a daily basis as Americans move from high-tax and high regulatory states to those less onerous.  Of course, citizens cannot escape the federal government’s dictates unless one decides to expatriate. Students of the nation’s history know the often-overlooked Anti-federalists made this argument in their opposition to the Constitution which has, over time, proven to be quite prescient.

The idea that more political entities lead to greater freedom has been proven by history.  The best example of this is pre-modern Europe which was made up of a host of kingdoms, duchies, and free states with no dominant central government that could tax without impunity.  It is well accepted by historians that Europe’s rise in its standard of living was the result of its political decentralization that resulted in low levels of taxation.

A multitude of nation states allows for “competition,” where if one government becomes too tyrannical, people have an opportunity to flee to another land.  In recent U.S. history, a number of draft-aged men fled to Canada instead of being sent off to Vietnam to fight in what they considered an immoral war.  A colossal North American state would have ended such an option.

Although not explicitly discussed by Trump, a North American Union would more than likely mean the creation of a new monetary unit as was done with the euro when the European Union was formed.  Despite the warnings of some economists, price inflation in Europe escalated for countries like Germany once they relinquished their monetary autonomy. 

Currently, national currencies “float” against one another in terms of exchange rates. If one central bank inflates its currency too much, its money will lose purchasing power to less inflationary nations.  While not nearly as good as a gold standard, there is a sort of a “check and balance” on central bank monetary debasement with floating exchange rates.

A single North American monetary unit would not face the kind of limit that now exists, where the Canadian dollar, Mexican peso and U.S. dollar vie against each other.  A North American currency would be another ominous step to a one-world currency – a dream of New World Order proponents. 

While Trump’s disappointing talk about political centralization looks like a betrayal of the principles of America first principles, there may be a glimmer of hope.  In a recent Truth Social post, Trump reposted a video of Prof. Jeffery Sachs, a longtime critic of American foreign policy, criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocidal actions in Gaza and throughout the Middle East calling him a “deep, dark SOB.”

Since the video has been posted, Netanyahu has canceled his plans to attend Trump’s inauguration, the implication being the Israeli leader was offended by the comment.

Only time will tell if Trump will abandon his promised America-first policies or pursue a drive to a New World Order.

*David E. Sanger and Michael D. Shear, “Trump Floats Using Force to Take Greenland and the Panama Canal,”  The New York Times, 7 January 2025. 

Antonius Aquinas@antoniusaquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

What Tucker Carlson and the Pro-Life Movement Miss about Abortion

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In a recent talk to the Center for Christian Virtue, Tucker Carlson railed against abortion asserting that it is “no benefit to society” and “it erode[s] its very foundation.”*  The former Fox News anchor called the battle over infanticide not a “political debate,” but a “spiritual battle.”**  The speech comes as the issue of abortion has heated up in the Republican presidential campaign.

Carlson is certainly correct in his assessment that the fight over abortion is a spiritual struggle, but he, like most of the pro-life movement, does not understand the larger tragedy of abortion.  The failure of the pro-life movement to stress this fundamental aspect, and to see abortion in the light of eternity, is one of the reasons why the evil is still a legalized part of the so-called civilized world.

While the killing of the unborn is a crime, a greater injustice of that heinous offense is committed.  Most Christians, including presumably Tucker Carlson (who was brought up Episcopalian) and the Center for Christian Virtue, would agree that one must be baptized to have a chance at salvation.  Abortion denies that opportunity.  Unbaptized infants neither go to heaven or hell, but to the “limbo of the children” where they do not suffer the pains of hell, but neither can they receive the beatific vision.

Abortion is not only the killing of the unborn, which is heinous in its own right, but it denies one from entering heaven.  If this aspect had been emphasized from the start, it may have mobilized even greater public and judicial support to outlaw the abominable practice.

Tucker Carlson’s Christian priorities are also skewed as he states:

The point of life is to have children and to watch

them have grandchildren.  Nothing will bring you

joy like that will.  Nothing comes close.  Would

trade your job for your children?  Would you trade                                                

anything for your children?  Of course not.***

The point of life is to save one’s soul and, as the Divine Savior taught, this is done by loving God with “thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind” and loving “thy neighbor as thyself.”

Christ is very clear about those who put either parents or children above Him:

He that loveth father or mother more than

me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth

son or daughter more than me, is not worthy                                                

of me.  [Matthew 10: 37]

Of course, children are precious gifts from God who add enjoyment and fulfillment to one’s life for those who can have them.  Children, however, are sinners and are in need of nurturing and instruction in how to live a moral life.  Sadly, despite the efforts and best intentions of parents, some children turn out badly. 

The fact that abortion is now a part of the political discourse demonstrates just how far the natural authority figures and institutions of society have failed in fulfilling their roles as moral guideposts.  Yet, this was bound to happen with the increased power of the state in all aspects of society, usurping the role that the family (and its extension – uncles, aunts, grandparents), churches, ministers, arbitrators, employers, philanthropists and scholars once held.  Where at one time ethical matters were discussed and decided outside of the state apparatus, now nearly every personal decision is subjected to government interference which has become the supreme arbitrator of what is moral and what is not.

That society’s non-governmental authority elements have little clout is also a factor in why most young people do not have much of a moral compass in how to conduct their lives and are susceptible to support the most debauched aspects of society. 

The left has long recognized this and has used the state to push through their agenda on all sorts of social and economic issues.  Using the levers of the state, a small, determined minority can impose its will on an unorganized majority.  This is another argument as to why pro-lifers should be for radical political de-centralization and the restoration of natural authority in society.    

Ultimately, the eradication of legalized abortion will not come via politics.  Instead of political wrangling, what should be made clear to the pro-abortion crowd is the real eternal consequences of their actions where the Divine Judge, who is not subject to legislative interference or some perverted, phony “right to choose” nonsense, will deliver perfect justice.

*https://www.zerohedge.com/political/watch-tucker-carlson-spits-fire-anti-abortion-speech

**https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/09/26/tucker-carlson-abortion-not-political-debate-spiritual-battle/

***Ibid.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

President Trump’s Role in the Ukraine War

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With his usual braggadocio, former President Donald Trump has promised that if returned to the White House he would end the Ukraine conflict within hours and claims, as many of his supporters do, that the war would never have taken place had he been in office.  Like most of his campaign promises during his 2016 presidential run – drain the swamp, pull troops out of Afghanistan, build a wall – very few were accomplished, despite the fact that the former president had a Republican House and Senate at the start of his first term.

Listening to Trump’s often incoherent statements on the Ukrainian imbroglio shows that the ex-chief executive has learned little from his four years in the Oval Office.  While talk of ending wars in a few hours may garner popular support, translating them into actual results is a far different and, to say the least, difficult matter, as Trump should now realize after his fruitless years as president.

Trump had a chance to de-escalate tensions in the Ukraine that had been building especially after the Western-inspired coup of February, 2014 which replaced the democratically-elected government of Viktor Yanukovych.  Yet, the former president did nothing to remedy the situation and, in fact, worsened matters by providing military hardware to the Ukraine, which the Obama Administration had denied.

Demonstrating a lack of understanding of the region’s geo-political realities, Trump decided to provide the Ukraine with military equipment.  In December, 2017 the U.S. shipped, among other weaponry, Javelin anti-tank missile systems, with the first sale completed in March of the following year to the sum of $47 million.  Reportedly, the former president was convinced by his advisors that the military aid would be “good for U.S. business.” 

If one considers the military industrial complex a vibrant part of the U.S. economy and not a parasitical drain that redistributes scarce resources away from the production of useful consumer goods into the creation of destabilizing and murderous weapons of war, then – “yes” – military spending is good for business.  For those, like Trump, who support such an idea are apparently unfamiliar with Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler who rightly called “defense spending” a racket:

I spent 33 years in the Marines, most of my time being a high-class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and the bankers.  In short, I was a racketeer for Capitalism.*

After the provocative action of supplying the Ukraine with military hardware, the Trump Administration inflamed relations further by pulling out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) which was agreed to by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. The landmark treaty banned missiles with range between 500 and 5,500 km (310-3,400 miles).**

The U.S. accused Russia of non-compliance to the terms of the treaty, a charge that the Russians and many military analysts denied.  This, of course, led to a greater level of distrust between the two nations and went against candidate Trump’s aims of lessening tensions between the two powers.

Trump, as with the pro-war Western media, is ignorant of the historical context that played into Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade the Ukraine.  It is a well-established fact that the U.S. and Western powers gave assurances to Russia as far back as when the Berlin Wall came down that NATO would not expand eastward.  That promise has been repeatedly broken as NATO now includes 31 nations with Sweden set to come on board in 2024.***

Making matters worse, the Biden Administration, the war mongers in Congress, and the U.S.’s NATO lapdogs have escalated matters with tremendous financial and military assistance, which has done little to stop the Russians, but has resulted in the needless slaughter of thousands and the wholesale destruction of Ukrainian territory.  The introduction of cluster bombs into the fray and the promise of F-16 fighter-jets capable of carrying nuclear war heads has heightened the possibility of a general conflagration. 

 None of the declared Republican presidential contenders have critiqued the former president’s reckless Ukrainian policy.  Some of the candidates (Chris Christie, Nikki Haley) have instead insanely called for greater support of the Zelensky regime!    

The American involvement in the Ukrainian War has nothing to do with its national security, but with the interests of the U.S. Empire.  The tragedy of the Trump Presidency is that things were supposed to be different.  Instead of non-intervention, the Administration armed Ukraine, stationed troops in Syria, assassinated an Iranian general on a Middle East peace mission, and committed a host of other head scratching acts which went against candidate Trump’s pledge of an “America First” foreign policy that propelled him to victory in 2016.

To think that things will be different in a second go-around is clearly delusional, as the former president is now campaigning with never-ending war proponent Senator Lindsey Graham.   

*See War is a Racket, Port Townsend, WA.: Feral House, 2003; 1935.

**“INF Nuclear Treaty: US Pulls Out of Cold War-Era Pact With Russia,” BBC, 2 August 2019.   https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49198565

***Patrick Wintour, The Guardian, 22 January 2022 ttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/12/russias-belief-in-nato-betrayal-and-why-it-matters-today

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

The Convention of States Project: A Bad Idea

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Similar to Patrick Buchanan’s campaigns, Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America,” the Tea Party, and to some extent Donald Trump’s presidency, the Convention of States Project* will not solve the crises that America faces.  It will, undoubtedly, like most of the previous reform and populist movements be sabotaged by the ruling class if it ever gets close to accomplishing its goals.

The Project’s rhetoric is “old-style” conservative/populist-speak which seeks to “[propose] amendments that impose fiscal restraint on the federal government, limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, and limit the terms of office for its officials and for members of Congress.”** Some of the proposed amendments include:

  • Congressional term limits
  • Requiring a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate to increase the public debt
  • Restoring the Commerce Clause to its original intent and scope
  • Repeal of the 16th Amendment, which gave us the income tax
  • Giving states, by a three-fifths vote, the power to negate any federal law, regulation or executive order giving Congress an easy means of overriding regulation

So far, 19 state legislatures have called for a constitutional convention, 34 states are needed for a convention to be called and, for an amendment to be passed, it must be approved by three quarters of state legislatures. 

The state legislatures who have signed on have realized that the federal government has become omnipotent and the individual states are now merely appendages to Washington.  “The states,” said South Carolina state representative Bill Taylor, “have sort of lost their voice, and all we can do now is beg from the cheap seats and say, ‘Hey, don’t do that.’”***

After the totalitarian and draconian efforts of the U.S. government and those around the world the past two years in response to the “pandemic,” Mr. Taylor’s sentiment is, to say the least, an understatement!

The fundamental problem with efforts such as the Convention of States Project is that they do not understand the nature of the crises that both America and most of the world face.  For America, its current malaise can be traced shortly after its independence with the adoption of the Constitution itself. 

While it has long been touted as a great document of freedom and liberty, it is anything but.  The “founding fathers” knowingly created a powerful central government and decreased the sovereignty of the individual state governments which had existed under the Articles of Confederation. 

In the words of Murry Rothbard, the Constitution was a coup that, for the most part, was the antithesis of the spirit and drive of the American Revolution which was a movement against political centralization and empire:

It was a bloodless coup d’etat against an unresisting

Confederation Congress. . . . .  The Federalists, by use

of propaganda, chicanery, fraud, malapportionment of

delegates, blackmail threats of secession and even

coercive laws, had managed to sustain enough delegates

to defy the wishes of the majority of the American people

and create a new Constitution.****

Worse than the power grab was the establishment of an omnipotent state as Rothbard incisively continues:

The drive [for ratification] was managed by a

corps of brilliant members and representatives

of the financial and landed oligarchy.  These

wealthy merchants and large landowners were

joined by the urban artisans of the large cities in

their drive to create a strong overriding central

government – a supreme government with its

own absolute power to tax, regulate commerce,

and raise armies.*****

410jXD-zO+L

 

The celebrated “separation of powers,” and “checks and balances” within the federal system and even the Bill of Rights, so often lauded by conservative and populist commentators, have proven from the very start to be ineffectual in stopping the expansion of state power. 

The Constitution itself declares that it is the ultimate authority as Article VI states:

This Constitution and the laws of the United States which

shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made,

or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States,

shall be the supreme law of the land. . . . [Italics mine.]

The massive and now unresolvable social, economic and political troubles both in the U.S. and around the world stems from a concentration of political power that is inherent in the nature of constitutional government.  This power is augmented and sustained by a system of central banking which provides the nation state with seemingly unlimited financial power to implement its various social engineering schemes, conduct continuous warfare, and has the ability to crush any opposition to its hegemony. 

The solution, which is all too obvious, but not attainable in the current ideological atmosphere dominated by statist thinking, is political decentralization.

The smaller political alignments under decentralization would probably coalesce around peoples with similar economic, social and religious affiliations and status and those with similar ethnic and racial backgrounds.  Such a system would be truly diverse and undoubtedly lower social tensions which derive from the central state’s forced integration polices. 

Once political decentralization became a reality, the natural and mutually beneficial relationships and interactions between peoples would emerge.  The immense advantage of free trade – the widening of the division of labor and specialization – would be the norm between societies since smaller countries could not afford to restrict trade since doing so would lead to autarky and the resultant fall in standards of living to primitive levels. 

Likewise, a universal monetary standard, most likely based on gold and silver, would arise among differing communities since a multitude of currencies would lead to monetary chaos and render economic calculation an impossibility.  Since no central state could impose its currency, the only honest and sound money – gold/silver – would be quickly adopted by all.

The mass invasion of the U.S. taking place under the negligence and encouragement of the Biden Administration could also be thwarted through political decentralization.  Areas where the lives and property of people are threatened by invaders have more of an incentive to effectively deal with unwanted groups than bureaucrats living often times thousands of miles away. 

Each jurisdiction would make its own policies on who or how many it wanted in its territory.  Moreover, each community could expel undesirables without interference from those who are not property owners or members of such communities.

While those behind the Convention of States Project and the state legislatures which have called for a constitutional convention may be well meaning, they will ultimately fail.  Such efforts are a wrongheaded approach to address the myriad of problems that plague the U.S. and, for that matter, the entire world.

Instead of attempts to amend the Constitution or though the electoral process by finding the “right candidate,” the very viable and historically proven alternative of de-centralization through secession is the only pathway to ultimate success.  Until the break-up of the nation state is accomplished, America and the world’s future will be considerably bleak.

*https://conventionofstates.com/

**https://starkrealities.substack.com/p/activists-more-than-halfway-to-forcing

***Ibid

**** Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty. Vol. 5, The New Republic, 1784-1791, ed., Patrick Newman.  Auburn, AL.: Mises Institute, 2019, p. 306.

*****Ibid.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

 

 

The January 6th “Insurrection” and the Epiphany

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One year ago a haphazard and foolish attempt was made by supporters of former President Donald Trump to disrupt a joint session of Congress which had assembled to formalize the victory of then president-elect Joseph Biden.  Some Congressional offices were vandalized while Congress had to halt proceedings as representatives were evacuated and the Capitol building was put under a lockdown.

A number of the participants in the ransacking were arrested and even those who did not take an active part have been imprisoned and remain there to this day.  Some of the right-wing groups, such as Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, have been fined and face further legal persecution.

The ease that protesters were able to gain access to the Capitol building, the lack of police response, and the number of agent provocateurs among the Trump supporters makes it hard not to believe that the entire affair was a sting operation. Trump played right into the scheme by calling for the rally on December 18, four days after the Electoral College had voted, “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th.  Be there, will be wild.”  The build-up and encouragement by Trump and others gave U.S. intelligence agencies plenty of time to orchestrate a false flag.

What has been forgotten since the calling of the “Save America” rally by Trump and the government’s response to the ‘insurrection” has been that January 6th is an important date in human history.  January 6th is the feast day of the Epiphany, the date that it was revealed to the gentile nations that the Messias had been born.  “Epiphany” in Greek signifies “appearance” or “manifestation.”

The Magi – guided by the Star of Bethlehem – were led to Bethlehem to adore the Savior, bearing with them precious gifts.  In fact, Epiphany has been traditionally a higher class of feast than the Nativity. 

That Trump and his supporters most of whom consider themselves Christians decided to make their futile protests on the Epiphany instead of celebrating the day for its importance demonstrates why the world is in its present deplorable condition.

Until those who seek to halt the neo-leftist assault on what is left of Western culture which began in earnest with the election of President Trump in 2016 get their priorities straight, they will have little success against the forces that seek to destroy them. 

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

A Warning of Economic Collapse

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Eleison Comments by His Excellency Bishop Richard Williamson

Traditional Catholic Bishop Richard Williamson’s latest missive should be a wake- up call for those who naively believe that the worst is behind for the US and Western economies after the March financial sell off and the long-anticipated implosion of the bubble economy.  His Excellency asserts that the US and much of the world are on a financial precipice:

At this moment the United States has been brought to the brink of a tremendous

economic crisis, and with the USA, the rest of the world.*

Bishop Williamson contends that it has not only been the response to the virus, but more importantly, the response to the bursting of the financial bubble, created by the Fed, which will ultimately lead to a cataclysmic collapse:

By 2019 as the public was more and more hooked on fantasy money, the

Fed’s public balance sheet took off into complete unreality, seven trillion dollars

and counting, and it is now crashing the real economy with the corona-panic,

then ‘paying’ the crash debts that everybody gets into with its unreal trillions, but

turning the whole world into real slaves.

The bishop’s brief analysis of the history of the Fed is right on as he explains that the central bank has been the engine of monetary mischief since its inception:

These money men had promised that the Fed . . . would solve the problem

of reoccurring economic crises. . . .  It did nothing of the kind.  On the contrary,

it made them even worse, like the Great Depression of 1929 and the years following,

and now the Depression of the 2020s which risks making 1929 look like a picnic, and

risks stripping the United States of its prosperity and enslaving its liberty by making all

American citizens into debt-slaves. The middle class will soon be no more.

One quibble: Bishop Williamson rightly sees the problem of the money supply controlled by “private individuals” (central banksters):

It is not normal for private citizens to control their State’s money because they risk

doing so in their own interests, and not for the common good.

Yet, the alternative – State control – is no better and, under “democratic conditions,” maybe even worse considering the State’s horrific record in the debasement of money, the creation of booms and busts, hyperinflations, the destruction of savings, etc.

The only economically sound, morally defensible monetary system is one based on gold/silver where money and credit cannot be created “out of thin air” and where competing gold and silver producers vie with one another to produce the “best money.”  Such a system requires no central bank while fractional-reserve banking is prosecuted as fraud.  The creation of money is what is mined out of the earth not government and central bank fiat.

America’s current financial condition has ominous parallels to ancient Jerusalem before its destruction by the forces of Vespasian and Titus.  A couple of years before its final destruction, a Roman army, under Cestius Gallus, had stationed troops under the walls of Jerusalem posed to launch an assault.  Yet, Gallus did not attack and ultimately pulled back.  This was a clear fulfillment of Christ’s prophecy about the city’s destruction:

And when you shall hear of wars and seditions, be not terrified: these things must first

come to pass, but the end is not yet immediately.  [St. Luke Ch. XXI; vs. 9]

 

And when you shall see Jerusalem compassed about with an army: then know that

the desolations thereof is at hand. [Ibid., vs. 20]

Rome’s hesitation – a clear result of Divine intervention – gave Christians a chance to escape the coming conflagration which many wisely took advantage of:

Then let them that are in Judea, flee to the mountains: and let them that

are in the midst thereof depart out: and let not them that are in the

countries, enter into it. [Ibid., vs. 21]

Destruction of Jerusalem

50. The First Jewish-Roman War; the destruction of the ...

Since the March lows, Americans have been in a situation not unlike the denizens of ancient Jerusalem.  The relief programs and bailouts of businesses (mostly large corporations and banks) has staved off an even greater downturn, however, this has come at a tremendous cost as the Fed has had to print trillions, the consequence of which will mean either a collapse of the dollar or, at the very least, a dramatic loss in its purchasing power.      

At present, it does not appear that the US has much time before the final unraveling of the economy takes place.  The current debt levels and the new debt that will have to be created to maintain the status quo will lead to a monumental monetary crisis.    

Many have interpreted Jerusalem’s fall as a punishment for its sins.  Likewise, the coming collapse can also be seen as retribution for the US’s crazed monetary and fiscal policies which have bankrupted the nation while enriching the few at the expense of the many. 

While Jerusalem’s destruction had little reverberations on the wider Roman Empire at the time, the demise of the dollar will have global implications since it is the world’s reserve currency.  Like those who heeded the Divine prophecy two millennium ago the present generation should take Bishop Williamson’s words to heart and prepare for the coming financial storm.

*His Excellency Richard Williamson, “Economic Reality,” Eleison Comments, 12 September 2020.  https://stmarcelinitiative.com/eleison-comments/

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

 

Pope Francis the Taxman

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Bergoglio Marxist

 

On the heels of calling for a Marxist economic conference this coming March (“Economy of Francesco”), Jorge Bergoglio (a.k.a. “Pope Francis”) has once again opined on financial matters.  The purported head of the Catholic Church has now designated “tax cuts” as sinful behavior on a par, apparently, with stealing, lying, and adultery:

Today’s structures of sin include repeated tax cuts for the richest people,

often justified in the name of investment and development.*

Bergoglio did not mention what category of sin advocacy for tax cuts falls under – venial or mortal.  Maybe the details of how such a policy ranks in offending Divine Justice will be hammered out at the upcoming Economy of Francesco Commie confab!

In Bergoglio’s collectivist mind, those who try and keep their wealth from the ravenous demands of the State are somehow denying the poor their just due:

Every year hundreds of billions of dollars, which should be paid in taxes to

fund health care and education accumulate in tax haven accounts, thus

impeding the possibility of the dignified and sustained development of all

social agents.

What Bergoglio and his fellow socialists do not understand is that tax cuts lead to economic growth, whether they are for higher or lower income groups.  The less wealth that the State confiscates, the more is available to be used for saving and investment – two keys to economic growth.  The rich do not horde their money but expand and create businesses which leads to more and better paying jobs for lower income groups who supposedly Bergoglio wants to help.

The poor will only be uplifted by greater production where more goods and services are available at lower prices.  Redistribution of income via taxation does not create new wealth, but simply transfers existing wealth from the productive class.  Moreover, taxation has the deleterious effect of making individuals produce less since their efforts are siphoned off at the point of a gun.  More taxation means less production and, thus, less and more expensive goods for the poor.

Of course, this is basic economic theory that any sane person can understand unless one has matriculated to a Western university or college or pays attention to economic ignoramuses like Jorge Bergoglio!

Bergoglio’s constant attention to the plight of the poor along with other social issues (“climate change,” the environment, immigration) does not align with the vision that the Entity, which created the office that Bergoglio currently holds, had in mind.  On at least two occasions, He counseled His followers to focus their attention on spreading the “good news” instead of earthly concerns:

For the poor you have always with you:  but me you have not always.  [Mt. 26:11]

 

Let the dead bury their dead, but go thou, and preach the kingdom of

God.  [Lk. 9: 60]

While the Church has always sought to protect and help the poor, widows, orphans, and the downtrodden, its primary mission is to preach the Gospel.  Since the time of the Second Vatican Anti-Council, 1962-65, and especially during the “reign” of Pope Francis, evangelization has been condemned and, like tax cuts, is now considered sinful activity.

Bergoglio’s criticism of tax reduction is, no doubt, aimed at the Trump Administration’s plan for an additional round of tax cuts.  Tax reduction, however, without cuts in government spending will further explode budget deficits which are now even beyond sustainable.

Without corresponding spending reduction, tax cuts will mean that the Federal Reserve will have to make up for the short fall with further money printing.  One cannot have Big Government and tax cuts simultaneously.  The inevitable monetary crisis will, unfortunately, be blamed on tax cuts and will play into the hands of Bergoglio and his fellow travelers.

That Bergoglio spends most of his time as a social justice warrior instead of the supposed “vicar of Christ” on earth shows the state of the modern Church.  Worse, when he does speak on matters of faith, his words and actions are riddled with heresy.

For all those concerned, it is best that “Pope Francis” should be ignored not only for the falsehoods he spreads about Christianity, but also as a social theorist.  His pronouncements on the latter will only lead to further impoverishment of the poor and the rest of society while inciting class conflict between those who seek to keep their wealth and those who want to confiscate more of it.

 

*https://www.teaparty.org/tax-the-rich-pope-francis-calls-for-global-wealth-redistribution-427517/

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com