On August 22, 1952, France closed its penal colony on Devil’s Island.
At first a leper colony, it had been transformed by the end of the 19th century into a prison tasked primarily with housing enemies of the French state.
Every one who has taken the trouble to inquire into the actual state of society a few centuries ago knows that the condition of the laborer was about this: He lived in a hovel with hardly any thing which we would call a window, with the fire (if he ever had any) in the middle of the building, or perhaps in a chimney-piece at one end. This hovel he occupied in common with the pigs and poultry. His staple article of food was a kind of black bread which a negro of to-day would hardly offer his dog, with a few vegetables from the neighboring garden. The clothing of himself and wife was coarse, scanty, and dirty almost in the same proportion.
Simon Newcomb, Principles of Political Economy (1886), p. 514.
We know that progressives will allow all sorts of enormities to be committed just so they get their precious programs. High taxes? No matter — someone else will pay! Continued wars? Well — at least we’ve got Obamacare! And rape? Well — that was long ago, and in another state. Besides, the victim is over 70! And she says bad things about our guy!!!
Click on over to Townhall.com. And come back here. And ask yourself: do feminists make sense any more? Or is the problem just partisanship?
On August 21, 1831, Nat Turner led slaves and freed black Americans in a rebellion that was quickly suppressed.
This is a very interesting encounter:
https://youtu.be/11Wb1QCSuMg
One could write several books just to cover what is raised in these few minutes. In fact, there are many such books! We here at ThisIsCommonSense.com think Mr. Shapiro does a great job. What do you think?
Note: a key concept not mentioned is freedom of association.
Discuss.
On August 20, 1991, Estonia issued a decision to re-establish independence on the basis of historical continuity of the Baltic country’s pre-World War II statehood, sloughing off Soviet rule since 1940.
On August 20, 1935, Ron Paul was born. Paul is now famous for his heroic congressional record, his several presidential campaigns, and for books such as End the Fed and Liberty Defined.
“The movements of a race horse afford a better model of improving exercise than those of the ox in a tread-mill.”
Simon Newcomb, Henry Burchard Fine, Florian Cajori et al. Report of the Committee [of Ten on Secondary School Studies Appointed at the Meeting of the National Educational Association July 9, 1892: With the Reports of the Conferences Arranged by this Committee and Held December 28-30, 1892]. p. 108.
On August 19, 1919, Afghanistan gained full independence from Great Britain. The British attempts to maintain an imperial presence in this region elicited an earlier, infamous essay in protest by English sociologist and anti-imperialist Herbert Spencer, “Patriotism” (Facts and Comments, 1902).
On this day in 1991, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was placed under house arrest, a crucial event leading to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
In 1999, a mass rally of Serbians demanded the resignation of Slobodon Milosevic.
Thou shalt prove how salt is the taste of another’s bread and how hard is the way up and down another man’s stairs.
Tu proverai sì come sa di sale
lo pane altrui, e come è duro calle
lo scendere e ‘l salir per l’altrui scale.
Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, Canto XVII, lines 58-60
“Man seeks his ends, not necessarily in that way which is absolutely the easiest, but in the easiest way he knows. As his knowledge increases he discovers ways of increasing his power which he did not before know; and so important is this knowledge that it has been more instrumental in enabling him to improve his condition than his labor has. Thus, our knowledge of the expansive power of steam has caused the labor spent in making engines to be almost infinitely more efficient than would have been the same amount of labor without that knowledge.”
Simon Newcomb, Principles of Political Economy, 1886, p. 27.