As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.
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Proverbs 26: 11
Author: Redactor
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Leo Tolstoy
On September 9, 1828, Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was born. Known best as Leo Tolstoy, he became the celebrated author of the novels Anna Karenina and War and Peace, as well as the novellas and short stories entitled “Family Happiness,” “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” and “The Kreutzer Sonata.” His political and religious ideas heavily influenced Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tolstoy died in 1910.
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David Stockman
[T]he only consistent way forward for America at this late stage of the game is a return to free markets, fiscal rectitude, sound money, constitutional liberty, non-intervention abroad, minimalist government at home and decentralized political rule. Unfortunately, that is not about to happen anytime soon — even if by some miracle Donald Trump is elected President. But . . . the tide is turning against the failed Wall Street/Washington bipartisan consensus. I call this insurrection the ‘revolt of the rubes’ in Flyover America.
This uprising against the rule of the financial and political elites has counterparts abroad among those who voted for Brexit in the UK, against Merkel in the recent German elections in her home state, and among the growing tide of anti-Brussels sentiment reflected in polls throughout the EC.
Needless to say, the political upheaval now underway is largely an inchoate reaction to the policy failures and arrogant pretensions of the establishment rulers. Like Donald Trump himself, it does not reflect a coherent programmatic alternative.
But my contention is that liberation from our current ruinous policy regime has to start somewhere — and that’s why the Trump candidacy is so important. He represents a raw insurgency of attack, derision, impertinence, and repudiation.
If that leads to throwing out the beltway careerists, pettifoggers, hypocrites, ideologues, racketeers, power seekers and snobs who have brought about the current ruin then at least the decks will be cleared.
David Stockman, “It Won’t Be Long Now — The End Game of Central Banking Is Nigh,” 2016/09/08. Image: detail of his forthcoming book.
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Statute of Kalisz
On September 8, 1264, Boleslaus the Pious, Duke of Greater Poland, promulgated the Statute of Kalisz, guaranteeing Jews safety and personal liberties and giving battei din jurisdiction over Jewish matters.
On the same date in 1883, former U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant drove in the final “golden spike” completing the Northern Pacific Railway in a ceremony at Gold Creek, Montana.
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Ernest Bramah
However deep you dig a well it affords no refuge in the time of flood.
Ernest Bramah, “The Story of Tong So, the Averter of Calamities,” Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat (1928). Pictured: detail of the cover of the 1974 Ballantine edition of the quoted book.
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Fannie and Freddie
On September 7, 2008, the US Government “took control” of the two largest mortgage financing companies in the United States, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Both of these had been created by Congress as part of a concerted plan to make home ownership easier, and both had gotten completely out of hand during the many years of their existence, especially under new rules established by politicians in the 1990s. The after-market that they helped create — the packaged mortgage market — was what imploded in 2008, leading to the current economic slump.
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J. H. Levy
Socialism is essentially inimical to family life, which it regards as a bourgeois institution — to use its own favorite anathema. Socialism would make motherhood a State business or profession, would pay women for this sexual function, and deprive fathers of all status or recognition.
J. H. Levy, The Outcome of Individualism, Third Edition (1892); detail of a portrait, above, courtesy (by Creative Commons license) of the National Portrait Gallery, London, after a portrait by Joseph Solomon (photograph, 1901), © National Portrait Gallery, London.
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Yves Guyot
On September 6, 1843, Yves Guyot was born. A journalist, economist, and political activist, he once endured a six-month prison term for his campaign against the prefecture of police. He served as minister of public works under the premiership of P.E. Tirard in 1889, retaining his portfolio in the cabinet of Charles de Freycinet until 1892. A free-trade liberal, he lost his seat in the election of 1893 owing to his militant attitude against socialism. His many books included The Principles of Social Economy (1892), The Tyranny of Socialism (1894), The Comedy of Protection (1906), Socialistic Fallacies (1910), and Where and why Public Ownership Has Failed (1914). He served as editor of Journal des Économistes, following the Belgian economist Gustave de Molinari.
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Dr. Johnson
Example is always more efficacious than precept.
Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Chapter 29.
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Thomas Jefferson and Peyton Randolph
This House, being deeply impressed with apprehension of the great dangers, to be derived to British America, from the hostile Invasion of the City of Boston, in our Sister Colony of Massachusetts bay, whose commerce and harbor are, on the first Day of June next, to be stopped by an Armed force, deem it highly necessary that the said f first day of June be set apart, by the Members of this House, as a day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer, devoutly to implore the divine interposition for averting the heavy Calamity which threatens destruction to our Civil Rights, and the Evils of civil War; to give us one heart and one Mind to firmly oppose, by all just and proper means, every injury to American Rights; and that the Minds of his Majesty and his Parliament, may be inspired from above with Wisdom, Moderation, and Justice, to remove from the loyal People of America, all cause of danger, from a continued pursuit of Measure, pregnant with their ruin.
Thomas Jefferson’s Fast Day Resolution, as passed by the Colony of Virginia’s House of Burgesses, Peyton Reynolds presiding, May 24th, 1774.