On December 23, 1783, George Washington resigned as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, at the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Maryland.
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Washington Resigns
Author: Redactor
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Henry David Thoreau
“The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.”
Henry David Thoreau, “Resistance to Civil Government,” Aesthetic Papers, 1849 (republished in a variety of titles, including On the Duty of Civil Disobedience).
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Arthur Latham Perry
“By far the most important of all the conditions, under which the production of material commodities goes broadly forward, is liberty of action on the part of the individual; because, wherever such liberty is conceded, association and invention and all other needful conditions follow right along by laws of natural sequence.”
Arthur Latham Perry, Principles of Political Economy, 1891.
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Dictator Overthrown
On December 22, 1989, Communist President of Romania Nicolae Ceaușescu was overthrown by Ion Iliescu after days of bloody confrontations. The deposed dictator and his wife fled Bucharest with a helicopter as protesters erupted in cheers.
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Rock and Rebellion
On December 21, 1620, William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims landed on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
American settlers in Nacogdoches, Mexican Texas, declared their independence on December 21, 1826, starting the Fredonian Rebellion.
Avant-garde rock ‘n’ roll guitarist, band leader, and composer Frank Zappa was born on this date in 1940. In 1985, Zappa testified before the United States Senate Commerce, Technology, and Transportation committee, attacking the Parents Music Resource Center or PMRC, a music organization co-founded by Tipper Gore, wife of then-senator Al Gore. Zappa was a passionate advocate for freedom of speech, self-education, political participation and the abolition of censorship. Describing his political views, Frank Zappa categorized himself as a “practical conservative,” or “independent.” He died in 1993.
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Arthur Lee
“The right of property is the guardian of every other right, and to deprive the people of this, is in fact to deprive them of their liberty.”
Arthur Lee, brother of Richard Henry, Francis Lightfoot and William Lee.
Fixing the welfare state, for everybody’s benefit, should be high on the political agenda. But if a fix isn’t possible, maybe we should be thinking more radically about its very real problems.
Click on over to Townhall.com, for Paul Jacob’s December 20, 2015, column. Then come back here, for more information.
- Cato: “Finland to Break New Ground with Basic Income Experiment,” by Charles Hughes
- Independent Institute: “Property Rights, Coercion, and the Welfare State: The Libertarian Case for a Basic Income for All,” by Matt Zwolinski
- Independent Institute: “A Philosophical Economist’s Case against a Government-Guaranteed Basic Income,” by David R. Henderson
- The Tom Woods Show: “Should Libertarians Support a Basic Income Guarantee?,” Tom Woods interviewing Matt Zwolinski
- The Foundation for Law, Justice and Society: “Guaranteed Income as a Replacement for the Welfare State,” by Charles Murray
- The Atlantic: “The Conservative Case for a Guaranteed Basic Income,” by Noah Gordon
- Cato: “Tangled Web of Welfare Programs Creates High Tax Rates on Participants,” by Charles Hughes
- Congressional Budget Office: “Effective Marginal Tax Rates for Low- and Moderate-Income Workers in 2016”
- The Guardian: “Even in Finland, universal basic income is too good to be true,” by Declan Gaffney
- Adam Smith Institute: “Will the Finns be the first to introduce a basic income?” by Mikko I Arevuo
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Diplomat and Spy
On December 20, 1740, Arthur Lee — Revolutionary Era diplomat, spy, and Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress — was born. He practiced law in London from 1770 to 1776, where he wrote polemics against slavery and in defense of the American colonies’ resistance to the Townshend acts and other tyrannical British policies.
He was brother to Richard Henry Lee and Francis Lightfoot Lee.
A clever and timely explanation, featuring robots and politicians:
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American Crises
On December 19, 1776, Tom Paine published one of a series of pamphlets in the Pennsylvania Journal titled The American Crisis. Exactly one year later, George Washington’s Continental Army went into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
On December 19, 1828, Vice President of the United States John C. Calhoun penned the South Carolina Exposition and Protest, protesting the Tariff of 1828, a key moment in what became known as the Nullification Crisis.