On January 25, 1787, Shays’s Rebellion experienced its largest confrontation, outside the Springfield Armory, with four of the rebels dead, 20 wounded.
The rebellion was a key moment in United States history. Daniel Shays and his followers objected to Massachussetts’s high taxes and rampant cronyism. The revolt, which was completely suppressed, led to the adoption of the U.S. Constitution and drawing George Washington from his retirement.
Paul Jacob on the rise of Biden:
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.
Philip K. Dick, speech, “How To Build A Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later” (1978).
On January 24, 1732, French playwright, watchmaker, inventor, musician, diplomat, fugitive, spy, publisher, horticulturalist, arms dealer, satirist, financier, and revolutionary (both French and American) Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais was born. He proved instrumental in securing armaments for the America Revolution, but remains best known for his three “Figaro” plays, Le Barbier de Séville, Le Mariage de Figaro and La Mère coupable. The plays remain memorable today chiefly for their operatic settings by Mozart and Rossini.
Beaumarchais died May 18, 1799.
New President, new podcast episode:
On January 23, 1783, journalist and novelist Marie-Henri Beyle, known by his pen name Stendhal (pictured above), was born. Stendhal was a follower of Destutt de Tracy and an attendant at the count’s salons. His most famous works include the novel The Red and the Black and a treatise on romantic love.
Stendhal died March 22, 1842.
On January 23, 1860, the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty was signed between France and Great Britain. The treaty was named after the two main proponents of the agreement, Richard Cobden (in England) and economist Michel Chevalier (in France). The treaty had been suggested the year earlier, in British Parliament, by Cobden’s colleague John Bright, who saw the measure as a peace measure, and an alternate to a military build-up.
How far will the enemies of liberty go?
Well, almost all the way to armed robbery, for the latest outrage by foes of individual rights looks an awful lot like just that, plain armed robbery.
The victims?
The owners and staff of Atilis Gym in Bellmawr, New Jersey.
On January 13, at the behest of Governor Phil Murphy, state officials seized the assets of the gym. These assets included $165,000 in the business’s bank account, all of which, says co-owner Ian Smith, had come from donations and online sales of T-shirts and other apparel.
For months, the owners of Atilis have been involved in a pitched battle with the state of New Jersey over orders to shut down the gym, which they have kept open despite those orders (for which disobedience they were arrested in July). Atilis has been pursuing litigation to overturn the order, revocation of its license, and fines ($15,000+ per day) that the state has imposed to punish the defiance.
Smith is asking for our help as he and his business partner confront Leviathan.
“This was never about protection, it was always about control,” he says. “Please continue to support us in any way possible. Please share as much as you possibly can this story and help us continue our fight.”
Visit the Atilis Gym website to buy merchandise, and visit the gym’s GoFundMe page to “support the efforts to reopen and stay open” and to help staff and members cope with the financial hardships imposed by the shutdown order.
And subsequent armed robbery.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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The first qualification for a historian is to have no ability to invent.
On January 22, 1920, American neoconservative pundit and author Irving Kristol was born.
Desperate times call up desperate politicians who demand desperate measures which require desperate counter-measures.
But while you might be thinking of Donald Trump, COVID, riots, and Biden-Harris, desperation isn’t just an American problem.
“Italy Government on Verge of Collapse as Renzi Party Quits,” Bloomberg informed us last week. What precipitated Renzi’s exit from the coalition government? The persistence in that government of an anti-immigrant party. Sounds familiar.
In Estonia, “Prime Minister Juri Ratas resigned over an inquiry into a property development,” according to U.S. News & World Report. In the 2019 elections, the Reform Party had won a plurality of seats, but Ratas had to put together a coalition with other parties to form a government. Now Reform will lead a coalition, but, we are told the new coalition will not likely “include the far-right EKRE party, whose leaders denounced the U.S. election result as rigged and called President-elect Joe Biden ‘corrupt.’”
In the Netherlands, the whole government resigned because of a scandal involving government-provided child-care funds. Bureaucrats had “wrongly accused thousands of working families of fraud and ordered them to repay childcare benefits between 2013 and 2019.” But the resignation is somewhat hollow, since officials still hold a “caretaker status” while the country goes through another lockdown.
To cause even more chaos, here’s a fourth example: Belarus. The International Ice Hockey Federation just stripped the nation from hosting its world championship because, as Politico reports, “Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has used the country’s security forces to violently oppress protesters since his disputed election victory in August last year.”*
The crisis appears worldwide. And the answer in each case — including in the USA — is for citizens to have to more constitutional and democratic checks on government.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* In a leaked audio tape to Radio Free Europe, a senior government official can be heard discussing “plans to build an internment camp — complete with barbed wire — for political prisoners.”
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