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Today

Good Sailing

On May 6, 1862, American author, philosopher and abolitionist Henry David Thoreau died, after many years of tuberculosis. 

Aware he was dying, Thoreau’s last words were “Now comes good sailing,” followed by two lone words, “moose” and “Indian.” Bronson Alcott planned the service and read selections from Thoreau’s works, and Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote the eulogy spoken at his funeral. 

His remains, as well as those of members of his immediate family, were eventually moved to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts.

His most famous works are An Essay on Civil Disobedience (1849) and Walden (1854).

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Update

The Covidocene in Its Latter Days?

Covid, fascism, vaccination

As Covid becomes normalized as a disease . . .

  1. “Moderna posted a $1.2 billion loss in the first quarter of 2024, with the drugmaker blaming crashing sales of its COVID-19 vaccine,” explains an Epoch Times article. “This decline aligns with the anticipated transition to a seasonal COVID-19 vaccine market,” Moderna said.
  2. We reminisce how we navigated the worst period: “In December 2021, visitors weren’t allowed in the hospital, so Amy Williams had to find another way to get the medicine to her father,” another Epoch Times piece tells us.
  3. “I believe that the truth about the COVID vaccines is starting to come out,” says Dr. John Campbell:
Categories
Thought

Ludwig von Mises

Socialism is not in the least what it pretends to be. It is not the pioneer of a better and finer world, but the spoiler of what thousands of years of civilization have created. It does not build; it destroys. For destruction is the essence of it. It produces nothing, it only consumes what the social order based on private ownership in the means of production has created.

Ludwig von Mises, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis (1922), Part V.
Categories
Today

Cinco de Mayo

In 1862, troops led by Ignacio Zaragoza stopped a French invasion in the Battle of Puebla in Mexico — an event leading to the popular “Cinco de Mayo” celebration.

No cause for celebration, however, is the anniversary of Karl Marx’s birth on May 5, 1818.

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FYI

Something Fishy

“The Chinese government has repeatedly denied any mismanagement in response to the accusations of illegal and unregulated fishing,” explains an article on DW News. Indeed, a “2023 government white paper on the development of distant-water fisheries said China holds a ‘zero tolerance’ attitude towards illegal fishing. . . .”

But can we believe China? The China run by the Chinese Communist Party?

The article is titled “Chinese fishing fleets in Indian Ocean accused of abuses” and is written by Yuchen Li and Chia-Chun Yeh, both from Taipei. The accusations are familiar — and not just for readers of this website, or of StoptheChinazis.org. Accusations against Chinese poaching are decades old.

“As a leading fishing nation, China’s distant water fishing (DWF) industry is the world’s largest in both catch volume and fleet size. And according to the Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing Index, China ranks as the worst offender among 152 countries worldwide,” explain Li and Yeh. They quote a senior researcher from the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), who says “This isn’t a handful of bad actors or captains. What we’re seeing is a fleet-wide issue on the Chinese distant-water fleet.”

One of the more gruesome practices is the harvesting of shark fins: the fins are cut off and the rest of the shark carcasses are disposed of immediately, back into the ocean. And this is not just the South China Sea or the Pacific Ocean. This includes the Indian Ocean, says a new report from the EJF.

The report charges that China’s poaching is “systematic.”

 

Categories
Thought

Hugo Grotius

A man cannot govern a nation if he cannot govern a city; he cannot govern a city if he cannot govern a family; he cannot govern a family unless he can govern himself; and he cannot govern himself unless his passions are subject to reason.

Categories
Today

Prescott, Tiananmen & the Freedom Riders

On May 4, 1796, American historian William H. Prescott was born. Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico and his Conquest of Peru remain classic works of well-researched, “scientific history.” Prescott, Arizona, was named in his honor.

The May Fourth Movement began on May 4, in 1919: Student demonstrations took place in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, protesting the Treaty of Versailles, which transferred Chinese territory to Japan.

In 1961 on May 4, the “Freedom Riders” began a bus trip through the South.

Categories
ideological culture partisanship political challengers

Among the Ungovernable

What is the Libertarian Party up to in inviting former President Donald John Trump to address the party’s upcoming national convention?

The goal of this “third party” may be crystalline in its clarity — a free society as understood by Libertarians — but how this can be achieved by running candidates for office in Partisan Duopoly America is murky at best. The number of self-identified libertarians in the country is small, though polling in the 1990s suggested that about a quarter of the population is of a general libertarian mindset: minimal government; private property; personal freedom as the tolerant community’s ideal; individual responsibility as the chief form of social regulation.

The difference between a self-identified Libertarian and a libertarian-ish citizen at large can be huge, in some ways: no taxes versus lower taxes, for example. These positions play dramatically differently, of course, in elections where most voters are not libertarian at all.

The 2024 convention will be held May 23–26 in Washington, D.C. (of all places). And Donald Trump (of all people) has accepted the invitation to speak (offered to both he and President Biden). The party is shilling registrations for the event by telling prospects that only registered attendees will be able to cast their votes to establish “the topics President Trump will address during his time at the podium.”* 

As a newsworthy event, this is one of the party’s best stunts. The very idea of inviting the presumptive Republican nominee to speak is . . . weird. And, therefore, newsworthy. It might make for an apocalyptic event — encompassing every meaning of “apocalyptic.”

The convention itself is titled, in traditionally flagrant Libertarian fashion, “Become Ungovernable.” While Libertarians mean this slogan in a good (and peaceful) way, its ambiguity and alarming nature is one of many reasons Libertarians get low vote totals. 

Trump addressing Libertarians could suggest a more negative interpretation of “ungovernable.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Good luck with that.

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Thought

Mary Wollstonecraft

Surely there can be but one rule of right, if morality has an eternal foundation, and whoever sacrifices virtue, strictly so called, to present convenience, or whose duty is to act in such a manner, lives only for the passing day, and cannot be an accountable creature.

Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792).
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Today

Between the crosses

https://flic.kr/p/MwgUv

In 1791, the Constitution of May 3, the first modern constitution in Europe, was proclaimed by the Sejm of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

On May 3 in 1915, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae composed the poem “In Flanders Fields,” the most famous poem of World War I. The Canadian physician wrote it after presiding over the funeral of friend and fellow soldier Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, who died in the Second Battle of Ypres. It is in the form of a rondeau.