Category Archives: History

NEW ESSAY: The Anti-Federalists Were Right

Constitution, Federalism, Founding Fathers, History, Individual Rights, States' Rights

“The Anti-Federalists Were Right,” is now on Mises Wire. Excerpt:

On the eve of the federal convention, and following its adjournment in September of 1787, the Anti-Federalists made the case that the Constitution makers in Philadelphia had exceeded the mandate they were given to amend the Articles of Confederation, and nothing more.

The Federal Constitution augured ill for freedom, argued the Anti-Federalists. These unsung heroes had warned early Americans of the “ropes and chains of consolidation,” in Patrick Henry’s magnificent words, inherent in the new dispensation.

At the very least, and after 230 years of just such “consolidation,” it’s safe to say that the original Constitution is a dead letter.

The natural- and common law traditions, once lodestars for lawmakers, have been buried under the rubble of legislation and statute. However much one shovels the muck of lawmaking aside, natural justice and the Founders’ original intent remain buried too deep to exhume.

Consider: America’s Constitution makers bequeathed a central government of delegated and enumerated powers. The Constitution gives Congress only some eighteen specific legislative powers. Nowhere among these powers is Social Security, civil rights (predicated as they are on grotesque violations of property rights), Medicare, Medicaid, and the elaborate public works sprung from the General Welfare and Interstate Commerce Clauses.

There is simply no warrant in the Constitution for most of what the Federal Frankenstein does. …

… READ THE REST. “The Anti-Federalists Were Right” is now on Mises Wire.

Milton Friedman Understood Rhodesia In 1976

Africa, Britain, Colonialism, Communism, History, Race, Racism, South-Africa

VIA AFRICA UNAUTHORIZED:

“Of the 49 countries in Africa, fifteen are under direct military rule and 29 have one-party civilian governments. Only five have multiparty political systems. I have just returned from visiting two of these five—the Republic of South Africa and Rhodesia (the other three, for Africa buffs, are Botswana, Gambia and Mauritius). If this way of putting it produces a double take, that is its purpose. The actual situation in both South Africa and Rhodesia is very different from and very much more complex than the black-white stereotypes presented by both our government and the press. And the situation in Rhodesia is very different from that in South Africa.

Neither country is an ideal democracy—just as we are not. Both have serious racial problems— just as we have. Both can be justly criticized for not moving faster to eliminate discrimination— just as we can. But both provide a larger measure of freedom and affluence for all their residents—black and white—than most other countries of Africa.

Both would be great prizes for the Soviets—and our official policy appears well designed to assure that the Soviets succeed in following up their victory in Angola through the use of Cuban troops by similar take-overs in Rhodesia and South Africa.

The United Nations recently renewed and strengthened its sanctions against Rhodesia. The U.S. regrettably concurred. We have, however, had enough sense to continue buying chrome from Rhodesia under the Byrd amendment, rather than, as we did for a time, in effect forcing Rhodesia to sell its chrome to Russia (also technically a party to the sanctions) which promptly sold us chrome at double the price.

Rhodesia was opened up to the rest of the world less than a century ago by British pioneers. Since then, Rhodesia has developed rapidly, primarily through its mineral production—gold, copper, chrome and such—and through highly productive agriculture.

In the past two decades alone, the “African” (i.e., black) population has more than doubled, to 6 million, while the “European” population (i.e., white) has less than doubled, from about 180,000 to less than 300,000. As Rhodesia has developed, more and more Africans have been drawn from their traditional barter economy into the modern market sector. For example, from 1958 to 1975, the total earnings of African employees quadrupled, while those of European employees a little more than tripled. Even so, perhaps more than half of all Africans are still living in the traditional subsistence sector. …”

… READ THE REST: “Rhodesia in 1976. A fascinating view from a famous economist.”

Military Goes From Gender Neutrality To Gender Fluidity

Cultural Marxism, Feminism, Gender, History, Military

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IN A NEW ESSAY, I argue that the entire debate about LGBTQ (“Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Questioning”) in the military is a fig leaf, camouflaging that the Army was neutered in the 1990s. The military is now making the transition from gender neutrality to gender fluidity. It’s a Brave New World.

The backdrop to these ideas is in “An X-Rated Conversation About LGBTQ & XX (Women) In The Military.” It’s on The Unz Review, America’s smartest webzine. An excerpt:

PREDICTABLY, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have already pooh-poohed President Trump’s July 26th LGBTQ directives, banning the politicized transgender production from the theater of war. …

… LGBTQ is a political program why? Central to the concept of “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Questioning” in the military is the idea of a group whose members have chosen to identify not as Private X or Private Y, but as a party to a political fraternity that promises and delivers an aggressive, noisy, sexual identity politics.

Evangelizing for the cause is implicit in the introduction of this political production into the military. Ditto payment for drastic elective medical procedures and the attendant hormonal maintenance. In other words, LGBTQ in the military isn’t about enhancing a fighting force, it’s about introducing another state-driven reformation program. Egalitarian access here aims, inadvertently (as always), to grow an arm of government and, at the same time, “re-educate” the country.

Moreover, LGBTQ in the military is but another “Draconian social policy [enforced] without showing any interest in—and in many cases actively suppressing—good-faith information about how those policies [are] playing out at ground level,” in the prescient words of Stephanie Gutmann, author of “The Kinder, Gentler Military: Can America’s Gender-Neutral Fighting Force Still Win Wars?”

Girls: It was about their presence in the military that Gutmann was warning, circa 2000, not “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Questioning.” As trailblazing as Ms. Gutmann’s shoe-leather investigation was, back then, into the way women had transformed the military, its morale and readiness—never could this author have imagined that from gender neutrality, the military would move into the even Braver New World of gender fluidity.

Gutmann saddled “Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton, Secretaries of Defense Richard Cheney, Les Aspin, and William Cohen, the Congresses who wrote and passed the bills they signed, and the Pentagon leadership who just grinned nervously and sat on their hands while all of this was going on.”

What were the fatal conceits of these leaders and their legislation?

“One of the projects mesmerizing the brass throughout the nineties was the integration of women. … [T]he nineties were a decade in which the brass handed over their soldiers to social planners in love with an unworkable (and in many senses undesirable) vision of a politically correct utopia, one in which men and women toil side by side, equally good at the same tasks, interchangeable, and, of course, utterly undistracted by sexual interest.”

…  READ THE REST.  “An X-Rated Conversation About LGBTQ & XX (Women) In The Military” is on The Unz Review.

This column can generally be read also on Townhall.com, Daily Caller, American Thinker, and others, where The Mercer Column usually appears. And it’s always posted, eventually, on IlanaMercer.com, under Articles.

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NEW COLUMN (UPDATE @7/23): Truman Would Have Agreed With Trump On The CIA In Syria

Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, History, Middle East, Russia, The State

“Truman Would Have Agreed With Trump On The CIA In Syria” is the current column, now on Townhall.com. An excerpt:

Said the president: “For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and, at times, a policy-making arm of the Government. … [T]his quiet intelligence arm of the President has been so removed from its intended role that it is being interpreted as a symbol of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigue.”

This dire warning about the propensity of the Central Intelligence Agency to go rogue came from Harry S. Truman.

Truman’s call to “limit the CIA role to intelligence” was published in December 22, 1963, by the Washington Post (WaPo). The same newspaper is now decrying Presidents Trump’s decision to “end the CIA’s covert program to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels battling the government of Bashar al-Assad, a move long sought by Russia, according to U.S. officials.”

The move is a good one. The WaPo threw Russia into the reportorial mix purely to sully President Trump (and due to the intellectual deficiencies of correspondents incapable of teasing apart policy from political intrigue).

The 33rd U.S. president, a Democrat before the great deformation of that party, was first to issue the warning against the agency he had established. Not only was the newly founded intelligence arm of President Truman mutating into “a policy-making arm of government,” but it was “a subverting influence in the affairs of other people,” he cautioned.

In 1963, Truman was meditating on restoring the monster he had created “to its original assignment” of intelligence gathering in the raw. The CIA’s sole purpose was to keep the president apprised of information unfiltered, un-politicized.

In 2017, Trump is dealing with a genie too powerful to beat back into the bottle: a mutated swamp creature.

So, is this a screeching U-turn in Trump’s foreign policy? Who know, but in Syria, at least, President Trump is inching closer to delivering on a campaign promise. …

… READ THE REST. “Truman Would Have Agreed With Trump On The CIA In Syria” is now on Townhall.com.

For those who missed the latest column, first on American Thinker; the Mercer Column can be read on Townhall.com, the Unz Review, a little later on Daily Caller, Liberty Conservative, and others. And it’s always posted eventually on IlanaMercer.com.

UPDATE I (Facebook):  “What a superb angle, Ilana! Invoking Truman’s warning about ‘The Company’ is brilliant,” writes author Bill Scott.

UPDATE II (7/23):
John McCain: