TREASON THROUGH INVASION: LOUIS XVI TO OBAMA I

If the Obama Administration in January was preparing for an invasion of 65,000 unaccompanied children, and did not close the border, but instead had the Dept. of Homeland Security advertise for escorts for the massive invasion, then Obama and company are guilty of not enforcing American laws about illegal crossing into the US, and are probably guilty of treason.  Not only did he do nothing to prevent the invasion, by closing the borders to the invaders, but he was in a conspiracy to encourage the invasion.

In the early days of the French Revolution, King Louis XVI though he might have his powers restored by getting other kingly regimes to help; invading France and restoring him so he could then ignore the French parliament.  Louis was conspiring so others could invade France.  When news of his treason got out, King Louis was arrested.  And what of Obama I?  Of course, my comparison of Obama I to Louis XVI is not complete.  Though the wives of Louis and Obama both enjoying spending lavishly, still it is difficult to imagine Obama's wife repeating the words of Marie Antoinette.  The health-food advocate Michelle Obama would never say, "Let them eat cake!"  Obama I knew of a possible invasion, and instead of trying to stop it, he has sought to accommodate the invaders.  This is treason.  Obama should be impeached and then tried for treason.

See the story below from Glenn Beck's website The Blaze, and it's on other sites too.

GOVERNMENT

Gov’t Confirms Authenticity of Contract Request for ‘Escort Services for Unaccompanied Alien Children’ at the Border

Jun. 20, 2014 11:32am Sara Carter

3.6K

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A recently discovered government request for “escort services for unaccompanied alien children” dating back to January is raising questions about whether the government was planning for a surge of illegal immigrants this year as amnesty talks heated up in the United States.

The request specifically says it was preparing for 65,000 undocumented children.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed the request to TheBlaze, which is for transportation companies to escort children from the U.S.-Mexico border to relocation facilities throughout the United States. The conservative website Weasel Zippers was among the first to notice it.

Image source: fbo.gov

The application, dated Jan. 29, is posted on Federal Business Opportunities, a website that advertises government contract openings.

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has a continuing and mission critical responsibility for accepting custody of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) from U.S. Border Patrol and other Federal agencies and transporting these juveniles to Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) shelters located throughout the continental United States,” a description of the request reads.

It goes on to add specifics, including how many minors the agency is expecting:

Transport will be required for either category of [Unaccompanied Minors] or individual juveniles, to include both male and female juveniles. There will be approximately 65,000 UAC in total: 25 percent local ground transport, 25 percent via ICE charter and 50 percent via commercial air. Escort services include, but are not limited to, assisting with: transferring physical custody of UAC  [Unaccompanied Alien Children] from DHS to Health and Human Services (HHS) care via ground or air methods of transportation (charter or commercial carrier).

Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez confirmed the authenticity of the document to TheBlaze but could not immediately respond to detailed questions. ICE officials said they would contact TheBlaze with more information as it becomes available.

According to the document, ICE was “seeking the services of a responsible vendor that shares the philosophy of treating all UAC with dignity and respect, while adhering to standard operating procedures and policies that allow for an effective, efficient, and incident free transport.”
Follow Sara A. Carter (@SaraCarterDC) on Twitter.

SCIENCE & REASON - & THEIR LIMITS

Warning: This is not a typical post for this site.----Hugh Murray

PRAISE FOR SCIENCE AND REASON, BUT

AWARE OF THEIR LIMITATIONS

Hugh Murray

            In my previous posting about “Cosmos,” the new series’ first program, I expressed my disappointment in the TV presentation.  I found it unconvincing.  Though written to demonstrate the bigotry of various Christian leaders in condemning a scientist to loss of employment and finally death by burning at the stake, in the end the program merely sought to replace the authority of holy books and the priests with the new authority, the narrator- scientist.  But why should one switch from traditional authority and the words of holy scriptures to the words of the television scientist, Neil de Grasse Tyson?  He assures us that the universe is old and began with a Big Bang and the universe continues to expand.  How does the scientist really know this?  He tells us it is so.  Yet, a century ago other leading scientists might have given a very different age to the cosmos, and they may have known nothing of any Big Bang.  I suspect a century hence, future scientists may posit yet another date with a different version for the inception of the universe.  Indeed, just last week (that of 15 July 2014) a science report declared that the general scientific estimated age of the earth was off by 60 million years!  That is way off!  And what will be their calculations next year?  Scientific “truths” change.

            I complained that absent from the program was experiment and suggested discussion of experiment in the ancient world that might have provided examples of the scientific approach, rather than merely urging viewers to believe the scientists instead of the priests.  Tyson seems to think that scientists are the new priests.

            Here I want to elaborate on the difficulty.  Why do people often reject science and prefer instead religious holy books?  First, and this is far more evident today than several thousand years ago – the holy books generally do not change.  But the answers of science often do over time.  When I was young and had a small globe-bank, it appeared to me that South America and Africa fit together like parts of a jig-saw puzzle.  However, prevalent science of the time denied this.  It was all a coincidence that they were such a snug fit.  True, a German several decades prior had proposed the theory of tectonic plates, but most scientists still rejected that theory when I was young.  Today, most now accept the tectonic plate theory.

            When I was young, we were encouraged to eat eggs, milk, butter, salt, and smoke tobacco cigarettes – it was all good for us, but lifting weights would make a guy clumsy.  Then in mid-life, eggs, milk, butter, salt and cigs were all considered unhealthy while Billy Cannon from LSU and later Arnold Schwarzenegger were proving the advantages of weight-lifting.   Today, eggs, milk, and butter are judged healthy, but avoid salt - and cigarettes are viewed as deadly (unless you smoke marijuana).  Today, I eat what tastes good, and usually ignore the so-called health scientists.

            In the early 1970s there was fear of the oncoming Ice Age.  By the 1980s, the alarm was  “global warming.”  And after several decades, when the earth did not warm measurable, and did not even achieve the high temperatures of the era a thousand years ago when cold Canada was Vinland (grape land?) and Greenland was green, so politicized scientists offered a new pet phrase to frighten the populace and keep the grants coming in to their laboratories – “climate change.”  Climate change is the new danger, we are warned.  This may have been a public relations ploy to steal the thunder from the skeptics who denied global warming by maintaining that there has always been climate change.  Were there no climate change, the planet would be dead.  What we know is that in historic times, the earth has been both considerably warmer and colder than it is now.

            Scientific truths change, sometimes because the methods of collecting data improve, measurements improve, and so there is a good reason to revise the scientific conclusions.   Sometimes, science changes for reasons that have nothing to do with science.  My main point, however, science changes.  By contrast, holy books do not.  They can be reinterpreted, but their words can be restated as true over decades, centuries, millennia.

            Scientific experiments are often of a limited nature.  Use of a geometry experiment in the ancient world to determine the size of the earth by measuring shadows at different places in Egypt provided results that would take centuries to confirm and modify.  Determining whether a substance is acidic or alkaline is not usually the highest priority.  Holy books that speak of the earth as round had no problem; references to the 4 corners of the earth were eventually interpreted as literary rather than literal truth.

            Often ignored is the overlap of science and religion (ideology).  Science is not as self evident as it first appears.  What is science?  What is not science?  I read somewhere that in a part of China one might order in a restaurant cooked aborted fetuses.  Should science and chefs experiment to determine the best cooking temperature?  Boiled or fried or baked?  And what about eating people?  Surely, cannibalism is not limited to plane-crashed soccer players in the Andes, or 19^th century Americans crossing the Rockies in winter.  Jeffrey Dahmer in Milwaukee apparently acquired the taste.  One of the Rockefellers in New Guinea on a scientific mission was the special guest at dinner for the natives.  And there are reports of African dictators placing parts of their political enemies in their refrigerators.  Should scientists test to determine the best temperature for storing such meats?  Should colleges add courses on how to preserve and cook humans in the nutrition departments?  Why not?  The Nazis performed some gruesome experiments on Jews in concentration camps during WWII.  How much sea (salt) water could one consume before dying?  How long can one endure icy cold before dying?  I think, some of the results of these experiments were published in Western scientific journals.  And the Japanese in WWII performed similar, horrible experiments on Chinese and even American POWs.  There results were used after the war by American scientists.  And one can assume kindly Stalin has his scientists using the results also.  The experiments were scientific and they brought results.  The victims either died, or suffered horribly (or both).  Yet, their deaths provided enlightenment.  Today, we generally reject these methods of scientific advance.

            Science and reason can ask the question, what is the best way to kill my father?  And some mentally disturbed teens ask that question about their friends, teachers, relatives.  These are reasonable questions with scientific answers.  Or, why are they not?

            Recall the stories of Robert Louis Stevenson about grave robbers stealing bodies to be taken to the medical school at the University of Edinburgh, so doctors might experiment on them.  This was a crime.  In the ancient world, doctors could use the dead humans to learn about the living.  But with the growth of Christianity, doctors took a back seat, and such experiments were often forbidden.  Now, the attitudes have changed, and slicing up a corpse for an autopsy to discover scientifically the cause of death is considered quite normal and not a sacrilege.  And in the West in the last century there have been experiments on the living, and not just those in concentration or POW camps.  In the 1930s in Alabama there began experiments on Blacks with syphilis, and no anti-biotics were given the patients even after the discovery of cures of the disease.  In the 1950s the CIA sponsored LSD experiments in the subways of New York to unknowing human guinea pigs.  One might contend that requiring army enlistees to attend A-bomb explosions a given distance from Ground 0 was another devious experiment using humans.  Drug companies may ask patients to partake in controlled experiments.  And there may be ads to pay those willing to volunteer for such activities.  In prisons, inmates may also volunteer, and receive some kind of compensation. While some will point the finger at cruel science and reason for these experiments, many will justify them on the possible positive results for humanity.  Furthermore, what about some of the religious practices?  Some religions promote genital mutilation in girls (many Muslims), or genital mutilation in boys (Jews and Muslims with circumcision), or cruelty to animals by slaughtering them without knocking them out first so that they are aware as the blood flows from their slit throats to make meat kosher or hallal.  Should the animals first be made unconscious?  Yet, others would maintain it is always cruel and wrong to kill animals for human food.

            And this raises the questions not of human guinea pigs, but guinea pigs.  Should humans infect monkeys, dogs, guinea pigs, with viruses to seek a cure for humans?  Science can try to answer the question of which animals might best provide results for humans with a given disease, but science cannot answer the question of if there should be such experiments on animals.  Debate continues on these issues with some determined to ban such experiments on animals.  The appeal is not to science, or to reason, but to emotion and various interpretations of ethics.

            My general point here is that “science” is not “pure” – it is a part of the social whole, a part of society, influenced by and restricted by the religious and ideological views dominant in society.  Society, through laws or social pressures, will determine what is allowed in science and what is tabu.  As in the old movies, “Dr. Frankenstein, you are not going to resume your experiments on that monster, are you?”

            Stalin’s support of Lysenko and his theory that characteristics adapted can be passed on to the next generation led a uniformity of science in the old Soviet Union.  Those who opposed Lysenko were purged from their profession, and some were purged from the earth.  Science would investigate what the leaders of the Soviet Union determined science to be.  Around the same time, there was the attempt to stimulate science for the nation in Germany.  German scientists should develop German scientific approaches to benefit the German people.  Jews, who had been so prominent in German science prior to Hitler, were suddenly condemned as parasites who used and misused science for their own crass advancement.  So under the Nazis, not only were Jews banned from teaching at universities, but the theories of Einstein and Freud and others were dismissed as Jewish science, un-German science, and thus no science at all.

            It is not only totalitarian states that restrict scientific enquiry.  Because of a whistle-blower’s release of documents, we know that a group of scientists sought to blacklist other scientists who were skeptical of the global warming thesis.  The in-group sought to prevent skeptics from being hired, prevent publication of their scientific papers, and smear them so that the public would only hear of the theory that human caused global warming is a great danger to the planet.  But that is not the only field with a tabu.  Try to get a grant in the US to study racial differences in intelligence.  Even to apply for such a grant might make the applicant suspect, and open to boycott.  The Left wing, which dominates universities, not only demands conformity to the global warming thesis, it is even more adamant that all large groups (races, whether they use the term or not) are equally intelligent and equally talented in all fields.  It is upon this unproven hypothesis that the entire structure of affirmative action and proportional representation in the workforce is built.  It is not proof; it is faith.  But it is the faith of the Left, so it goes unchallenged.  Those who challenge it have received physical pies in the face, protests on campus, threats, firings, etc.  Similar queries into race and crime will be suspect unless one posits the Left faith and its corollaries; all races are equal in all fields; if they appear unequal it is due to environmental distortions like poverty, racism, poor schools; and then offer the Left solution – more tax money for schools, to end poverty, and to counter racism.  Even to mention the statistics on how interracial crime is overwhelmingly Black perpetrators against white victims, even to state that can bring down accusations of “white racism.”  And in America today, on the Left, and in the academedia complex, Black racism simply does not exist, and if Blacks physically attack whites, the fault lies with the whites and “good” (Left-wing) scientific researchers will ultimately prove that point.  These attempts to prove what is politically correct by distorting statistics and never asking obvious questions do prove what is commanded.  But this is not science; it is faith – Left wing faith.

            Scientists in the USSR who stuck to their research findings and disputed Lysenko, were clearly undermining the authority of the Communist Party, and thus borderline traitors.  Scientists in the Third Reich who sought to promote Einstein’s relativity theory were undermining the efforts to develop German science, cleansed of the rubbish of the parasites.  And in America, those who challenge global warming, or the  notion that all races are intellectually equal, are clearly red necks who should be barred from universities, and in time from all life in the New America.

            The definition of science; the promotion of some scientific branches and the criminalization of others is all a reflection of the general ideology/religion of the culture.  (For more on this, available on the net, see my “Nazi Science: Review Article.”)

            Another important point concerning science, experimentation, and holy books: we can take a simple experiment from a high-school chemistry class to discover if a liquid is acidic or alkaline.  But for most people, the results of that experiment seem far removed from their everyday life.  Far more important, for most people, are the experiments of a personal nature.  For example, we now know that prayer can make the individual calmer, reducing tension, which may have general health benefits.  The benefits probably rise no matter which god one prays to.

Moreover, if one prays, asking god for this or that, sometimes the wish is fulfilled, and the experiment proves the holy book to be correct.  If the wish is not granted, sometimes a similar, or even better alternative occurs.  Again, a personal experiment proved the holy book correct.  And if the request is denied, then there are myriad “explanations” for the failure.  One did not pray hard enough; one had “sinned” in some manner so that the god rightly ignored the request; others had sinned in the family, the city, the nation, so until those groups are cleansed and purified, the god will turn a deaf ear.  If one believes in a polytheistic system, the problem is different.  If the request is denied, the problem may be that the individual prayed to the wrong god, or a weaker god, or angered a stronger god.  So then, the problem is how to determine which of the many should receive the individual’s beseeching?  Some will reply, that this is not a scientific experiment because it cannot be proven to be false.  These are not experiments in the lab that can be readily replicated, true.  But if the wish is granted, it seems to prove to the individual, that the prayer was worth it.  The fulfillment may have had no measurable connection to the prayer.  But each person makes these experiments, personal, even to the Humeian faith that the sun will rise tomorrow.  Humans gamble on all kinds of things, and prayer is one of the beliefs, and the outcome often reinforces the beliefs of the individual.  These are NOT laboratory experiments.  But they may affect the individual far more.

            For most people, the personal experiments of prayer, (or horoscopes, or fortune telling) all tend to reinforce various holy books of one kind or another.  The contrast of the more objective, distant, and seemingly inconsequential school experiments pale before the real emotional impact of the prayer – horoscope – fortunetelling episodes.

            Finally, there is the question of justice and revenge.  Voodoo was also meant to punish those who had offended the individual.  Sometimes, it was merely an expression of jealousy.  Make that beauty pay for rejecting ME!  But sometimes the desire for revenge is really the demand for justice.  They did this terrible thing; should they not pay for it?  This is not simply limited to voodoo, for even a national slogan during the Great War was “Gott streife
“England,” (God punish England).  In wars, most nations indulge in this revenge/justice emotionalism.  As revenge is often a form of justice, it is not surprising that the two requests are often combined in prayer.

            And another problem, more for reason this time than for the holy books or science, - if there is no hell of some kind, if there is no punishment for those who have clearly committed evil, then why do good?  Most humans desire that evil be punished (unless they themselves were the perpetrators, and even then, they may prefer punishment as in a Dostoievsky novel), if not in this life, then at least in another later on.

            Think of all the suffering inflicted by the Hitlers, the Stalins, Maos, Pol Pots, surely they ought to be punished for their cruelty, even if one can maintain that, each of them when in power, each of these dictators also accomplished enormous change and some good, and each was worshipped by millions of his contemporaries and compatriots.

            However, if the dictators are to be punished in a just universe because of the suffering they inflicted on millions, then another problem rises.  According to many holy books, there is only one god, who is all powerful.  If he (or she, or whatever) is omnipotent, why did this god not prevent the suffering imposed by Hitler, Stalin, et al?  If the god stood idly by while there was such cruelty imposed by the dictators, then is not the god as guilty, nay more guilty, than the dictators?  The god was more powerful, but allowed the evil to occur.  And then, it is not only dictators.  What about the omnipotent god that permits storms, hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts to kill so many of the innocent?  Is the omnipotent god not more destructive and more evil than the dictators?  Is the cosmos just?  Should one seek justice in the world?  What is the relationship of the universe to justice?  Can science answer this important question?  Can it even attempt to do so?

            In the end, the defense of science and reason must rest upon its success in providing a richer, materialistic existence.  The material experiments provided the basis for electricity, drilling for oil, refrigerators, using gas to light buildings and later electricity to waken the night, providing power for elevators so sky scrapers might reach the clouds, planes fly through them, and internet calls link to satellites above them.  These miracles provided by science saved lives and lengthened the years of living and provided comforts to the general public beyond the reach of former kings and emperors (like TV, running water, automobiles, etc.).  Science has granted us these luxuries.  It cannot give us happiness.  For that we must look elsewhere.  Nor can it grant us justice.  But it can make us comfortable in heated homes in winter and airconed ones in summer; it can feed us and reduce once widespread bouts of starvation; it can cure us from once deadly diseases, and it can give us pleasures on the internet, in the Multiplex theaters, on the river cruise, and in the pub for karaoke.

For people to appreciate science fully, show them some of its experiments and how they changed our material lives for the better.  Admittedly, some scientific discoveries may have made life worse – thus, one can kill more, faster, and with certain bombs, kill massively.  Yet, overall, science has made life longer and easier for the vast majority of earth’s humans.  Are there limitations to science?  Yes.  What are they?  Some questions seem to be simply beyond the realm of science, and concern ethics.  Other questions are merely politically incorrect in any given society, and these may have ethical overtones, and conflicting views of morality.   Science might provide the “wrong” answer to those in power.  So about such questions, should science make the elite uncomfortable, should we use reason and science to research those “sensitive” topics?  That is for us to determine and possibly pay the heavy price by threatening the powerful and their ideology.

(Will the evil be punished for their cruel deeds?  Does justice reside in the cosmos?  Is there a reason not to perform evil?  I seem to be repeating some of the questions asked by Plato at the beginnings of Western civilization.  I am sorry not to have an answer to those big questions.  This is not one of my typical posts.  It is a rambling attempt to confront some major questions.  I retain faith in science and reason, but I am aware of the limits of both.---HM)

WORLD CUP: AMERICAN FOOTBALL VS. SOCCER

WORLD CUP: AMERICAN FOOTBALL IS A SIGN OF NATION'S DECLINE
by MIKE FLYNN 14 Jun 2014, 12:00 PM PDT

Every four years, large swaths of the world pause to enjoy the World Cup, a tournament of the 32 best national teams in soccer. Like clockwork, American sports writers and fans mark the occasion with loud commentary about how "stupid" they find the sport. Barrels of ink are spilled and vocal cords strained assuring everyone that our "football" is better than soccer and, more American. Project much?

Setting aside whatever Freudian motivations necessitate such screeds, perhaps the question merits consideration. Is our "football" more American? I wish it weren't true, but, sadly, I'm afraid these writers and fans are probably right. 

Professional football in the US is, after all, a government-protected monopoly. A rapidly growing city can't just field its own team, but must first get approval from the cartel of football team owners. These cartel members can also usually count on taxpayers to foot the bill for building their stadiums. This cartel also ensures that teams can enjoy staying in the league regardless of performance. In the English Premier League (soccer) and most other leagues, the worst performing teams get thrown out of the league every year, until they can earn their place back. Americans of an older generation will remember this concept as a meritocracy. 

Professional athletes in this country, since this is America, are also represented by labor unions. Players of certain sports will occasionally go on strike due to wage and benefit concerns. Much of this strife arises because most American sports operate with "salary caps," limiting how much each team can pay its players. It is telling that this is a uniquely American concept, along with "revenue sharing" that is increasingly creeping into the soccer world. 

The oddness of American football is not simply confined to its organizational structure, i.e. its status as a government-protected cartel, reliant on taxpayer funding and relations with labor unions. The playing of the game itself is, sadly, unique to America. 

Every athlete has a clearly defined and limited "position." Teams run pre-set "plays" which are memorized by players and dictated by coaches on the sidelines. In football, coaches determine every play and the athletes just execute the plays. Individual players can execute these plays brilliantly, but they rarely have the opportunity to seize the initiative and execute a new pattern based on situations on the field.  

Even accounting for these particular anachronisms, I used to enjoy watched the NFL and I still enjoy watching college football. Unfortunately, both are becoming 4+ hour commercial loops, broken up by short-films of padded men throwing or running with a ball. 

I love watching soccer, and I love the World Cup, but I get that one's mileage may vary. To me, there is no greater display of individual initiative and excellence combined with great team play. Players on the field have to make their own, quick decisions based on real-time changes in the play. They don't rely on coaches to dictate their play and they can't take "time-outs" if their play starts to suffer. Even if injured, the clock keeps ticking down. 

I understand the easy, superficial complaints about soccer. I also find many American fans of soccer obnoxious in their self-professed love of the game. Any American using the word "pitch" to describe a soccer field is a person I don't want to know, for example. 

What I don't understand is the vitriol with which sport's commentators and writers feel the need to use when discussing soccer. The oft-repeated observation that football is "American" or "red-blooded" because of all the tackling reminds me of a short guy driving a Hummer. Have these people heard of rugby? France, of all places, after all, is a powerhouse of a sport which is American football without the pads. 

If sports writers can square that knot, then perhaps I'll listen to their criticisms about soccer. 

So, by all means, yell and scream how much more "American" football is today than soccer. Mostly, we soccer fans don't care. Deep down, though, as Americans, we're also afraid you might be right.  

[I found the above article on Breitbart.com.  There were many comments. usually critical of the international game and defending American football.  My comment follows:]

humura • 2 minutes ago

Soccer allows more to participate. Poor people with a ball can play. You need not invest in layers of padding, helmets, shoulder pads, etc. You don't have to be a Schwartzenegger, or super muscular, or super tall (as in basketball). You simply have to be good at the sport, and of average size or above. It is called football in most nations because it is a sport where you use your feet, unlike American football for most of the game. Indeed, calling the American game football is a case of false advertising.  Soccer is popular with most average people throughout the world because it is a sport that average people can, and many have, played. In both American and international football one can find corruption, bribes, and other problems. Sports are a part of life with many of life's usual temptations. However, Manchester United, Arsenal, Real Madrid, Barca, these are known like Coca Cola, around the world, so it is big business as well as sport. And if I say pitch for field or penal for penalty, so what, it is because in America I must often watch the sport on TV where AmerEnglish is less spoken. But when I travel in other countries, I need not understand their language when I tune in their sports channel to watch soccer, fussball, futball, football, or whatever you call it. It is the international sport whose popularity dwarfs that of American football. 

TEACH IN AMERICA! 200.000 REASONS WHY

Student Attacks on Teachers Up 34.5%; Record 209,800 in 2011-12 School Year

June 10, 2014 - 4:00 PM

---

By Lauretta Brown

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Philip Chism, 15, is accused of raping and murdering his Danvers, Mass. high school math teacher, 24-year-old Colleen Ritzer, last October. (AP photo)

(CNSNews.com) - A record 209,800 primary and secondary school teachers reported being physically attacked by a student during the 2011-2012 school year, according to new data released Tuesday by the federal government.

That was up 34.5 percent from the previous record of 156,000 teachers who were attacked by students in the 2007-2008 school year.

The data was published in "Indicators of School Crime and Safety," which was released yesterday by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics.

The 209,800 teachers who were attacked by students in 2011-2012 outnumber the population of Salt Lake City, Utah, which is 189,384.

On average, 1,175 teachers were physically attacked each day of the school year, according to data, which is derived from the NCES' Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS).

197,400 of the teachers who were physically attacked by a student worked in public schools. 12,400 worked in private schools.

Overall, 5.8 percent of public school teachers reported being physically attacked by a student during the year, and 2.7 percent of private school teachers reported being physically attacked by a student.

Female teachers were more likely to report being attacked by a student (6.0 percent) than male teachers (3.5 percent).

SASS is “a set of related questionnaires that collect descriptive data on the context of public and private elementary and secondary education,” according to the Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2013, the joint report from the NCES and Bureau of Justice Statistics.

In 2011–12 SASS collected the responses of about 51,100 public school teachers and 7,100 private school teachers from across the U.S. to a questionnaire which asked teachers: “Has a student from this school ever physically attacked you?”

The survey defined a physical attack as “an actual and intentional touching or striking of another person against his or her will, or the intentional causing of bodily harm to an individual.”

[Of course, this does not include other crimes in the schools, as when principals and teachers collude to change wrong answers that their pupils have marked on standard exams.  In the US, the pupil is less likely to cheat than the teacher.  Unfortunately, the reason may be, the pupil does not care if he passes or fails.----Hugh Murray]

INVENTING, TENDING, SENDING, AND DEFENDING FREEDOM

INVENTING FREEDOM: HOW THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES MADE THE MODERN WORLD (New York: Harper Collins, 2013) by DANIEL HANNAN

Rev. by Hugh Murray

            Hannan has written a provocative analysis of the origins of freedom in the modern world – wide ranging over time and territory.  My task here is to challenge some of his assumptions and assertions.  Hannan clearly believes English common law is one of the reasons freedom developed and expanded in the “Anglosphere,” with its basis in precedent, past cases, and empirical adjustments, as opposed to the Roman or Napoleonic coded laws which are deductive and based upon theoretical concepts.  Moreover, the codes originate at the top of power and can be easily changed by the rulers; whereas common law is the search for justice through accretions of decisions, and once discovered through particular instances and cases, then all, including the king, must abide.

            Supporters of the supremacy of the common law could emphasize what occurred in 1655 when Cromwell permitted Jews to return to reside in England (they had been expelled from the kingdom in 1290).  So Hannan (on p. 181) follows historian Paul Johnson to conclude:  “… England was, before the United States, the best place to live and practice as a Jew.  The reason …, elsewhere, Jews had been placed in a separate legal category in the days when ecclesiastical courts claimed no jurisdiction over non-Christians.  The separate status made Jews vulnerable down the centuries to all manner of discrimination and persecution.  In England, by contrast, Jews were subject only to the relatively mild restrictions placed on all non-Anglicans..”(Hannan, p. 181)

            Then, there is something almost deceptive in Hannan’s use of “common law.”  On p. 255 he rhapsodizes about the Acts of Union – how the Welsh, English, and Scots were proud in their Britishness, and proud of the British Empire.  “Britishness,…, is a political and constitutional construct based primarily on shared political values and institutions.”  Later, on the same page, Hannan continues:  “The British saw themselves as being set apart by unique institutions: a sovereign parliament, the common law, secure property rights, an independent judiciary, armed forces that were subordinate to the civil authorities, Protestantism, and above all, personal freedom.”(255)

            Yet, not until p. 328 (of a 377 page book) does Hannon let slip an important fact.  “[Foreigners] were astonished-… by the miracle of the common law.  In their countries, laws were drafted by the government and then applied to particular cases.  But in the Anglosphere (except Scotland), laws emerged case by case…”  Only in this parenthesis does Hannan, who extols the union of England and Scotland, concede that the miraculous common law was not authoritative in Scotland.  That kingdom retained a Roman-type Codified law.

            And if not deception, surely clarification is lacking elsewhere.  When revealing the origin of the phrase from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Hannan notes “But the words were not Lincoln’s.  Most of his hearers would have recognized the source, as our generation does not.  They came from the prologue to what was probably the earliest translation of the Holy Scripture in the English language: ‘This Bible is for the government of the people, for the people and by the people.’  The author was the theologian John Wycliffe…the words had first appeared in 1384.”(Hannan, pp. 32-33)  However, googling, one source attributed the phrase to Wycliffe’s assistant, John Purvey for the prologue to the editions of 1388 and/or 1395, after the death of Wycliffe.  But it does not end there.  In 2009 Eugene Volokh on his web site concluded that the claim for Wycliffe and company was apocryphal and that those phrases do not exist in the prologues to Wycliffe’s Bible.  Another website, for Hoyle’s New Cyclopedia of 1922 thought the phrase may have come from the Hereford Bible or a pamphlet from that era.  My question, if Hannan’s claim that Americans of the 19^th century would have recognized Lincoln’s source as Wycliffe, why did they not comment upon it?  Surely, much has been written about Lincoln and that speech.  Hannan, who graduated with a double first in history from Oxford should have provided a proper reference, especially as Volokh, several years prior to Hannan’s book being published, had already disputed the claim.

            On the larger point, I agree with Hannan that Protestantism, especially where the congregations chose the ministers of the church, was more democratic in process and practice, than Roman Catholicism, where priests were assigned by higher church authorities.  Whether Wycliffe is or is not the source of Lincoln’s phrase in the Gettysburg Address, there was a democratic, populist impulse in the Protestant Revolution.

            Hannan rightly points out that one neglected aspect of the American Revolution was its anti-Catholicism.  There was a feeling my many that the Quebec Act of 1774 enraged the American colonists because they believed that that act, and the Proclamation Line of 1763, which denied colonists access to lands west of the Allegheny Mountains.  These British measures thus deprived the colonists of their fruits of victory.  Together, the British and colonials had defeated their enemies in North America during the French and Indian War.  Yet, suddenly King George was robbing the colonists of their victory by granting so much to the French of Quebec and the Indians of the West.  Indeed, Hannan rightly reminds readers that one section of the Declaration of Independence contained a specific complaint about the Quebec Act, though the legislation was not mentioned by name.  In the Declaration, the act was listed as one of the grievances that led the colonists to declare their independence.

            Hannan quotes both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson where they display their anti-Catholic beliefs.  But Hannan is silent on another important point.  In 1803 when the Jefferson Administration bought the huge Louisiana Territory from Napoleon, America pledged not to interfere with the religion of the inhabitants.  Because under the French and Spanish, only the Roman Catholic Church was permitted, most settlers were Roman.  Of course, henceforth, under the Americans, there would be religious freedom.  But when Louisiana entered the union as a state in 1812, the boundary had been drawn so that only a small portion of the Louisiana Territory would enter as that state – and this is where most of the Catholics were.  Catholics would not be persecuted, but their influence would be restricted because their state would be only the boot of the massive territory.  Louisiana became the first state with a majority Roman Catholic population.  And midway in the 19^th century, Louisiana would become the first state to send to the US Senate a professing Jew.  Indeed, Sen. Judah Benjamin would later enter the Cabinet holding several posts during the Administration of Pres. Jefferson Davis of the CSA.   And like other southern states after the Civil War, several Blacks held high office in Louisiana during Reconstruction.  Louisiana is the only state in the US to have laws based on Spanish and the Napoleonic Codes rather than English common law.

            Of course, with its Spanish and Napoleonic Codes, Catholic Louisiana retained slavery until it was abolished at the end of the American Civil War.  But slavery also existed in all the southern states, most of which were not merely Protestant, but so fervently Protestant that they are still referred to as “the Bible belt.”  They all had English common law, but it did not free, or even help the slaves on those states.  In the North and South there were some who sought to reduce or end slavery through colonization – sending slaves to Africa or elsewhere.  These efforts led to the foundation of Liberia and its capital, Monrovia, named after a slave-holding American president.  The Abolitionists helped form the Republican Party, but their support was almost exclusively in the North.  In 1860 the Republican candidate won the national Presidency with only 40% of the vote, and not a single vote counted for Lincoln in the South.  Bottom line, and again I must agree with Hannan, though some Protestants defended slavery in Biblical terms, even fighting a war with massive casualties to retain the institution, other Protestants, also using the Bible, demanded the abolition of slavery.  They too fought, and died, to end slavery.  They won the Civil War.

            Hannan writes that the “custom” of primogeniture – giving all the inheritance to the eldest male heir, provided stability of inheritance and property and a stimulus for early capitalism.  His contrasts of the English countryside with those of the European continent makes a powerful visual argument.  Yet, Hannan relates that second sons in America, like Thomas Jefferson, were adamant in their opposition to the custom and determined to prevent primogeniture from monopolizing rural America.  Small farms were his ideal and he had laws enacted to prevent primogeniture.  By contrast, in the Napoleonic Code, all children, including females, become heirs, and they cannot be totally disinherited.

            Hannan contends that the American Revolution was a continuance of the British struggles that had culminated in the Glorious Revolution, which deposed James II in favor of William and Mary.  Hannan argues that the British learnt from their failure in dealing with America.  Thereafter, the objective of the British Empire was to treat its colonies so as to prepare them for eventual self-government and independence.  The British imperial mission was to provide colonies with British customs, the English language, common law, sanctity of property, etc.  He is aware that British imperialism now has a bad rep, but it was the empire that stopped the international slave trade and later abolished slavery in its dominions.  And unlike French, Belgian, or German colonies, under the British native peoples often achieved independence without much bloodshed (though he acknowledges Kenya as an exception).

            As proof of the success of the British Empire, Hannan cites statistics on India during WWII:  “Whereas the Japanese-backed Indian National Army numbered forty thousand, nearly 2.5 million Indians fought for the Anglosphere in Europe, Asia, and Africa: the largest volunteer army in history.”(297)  This is surely a powerful statistic supporting Hannan’s thesis; however, it does not tell the entire story.  Subhas Chandra Bose, elected mayor of Calcutta, was President of the Indian National Congress, but in disputes with Gandhi in 1938-39, Bose lost his Congress Party post.   With the outbreak of war, the British placed him under house arrest.  Bose escaped with the aid of the German Abwehr, which got him to Afghanistan, then flew him to Moscow (Stalin and Hitler were allies at that time), and finally to Berlin.  Bose broadcast on German shortwave nightly as Free India Radio.  He recruited from Indian POWs who had for Britain against the Rommel campaign in Africa so that so that 3,000 Indians formed the Free India Legion in the Wehrmacht.   Bose even met Hitler.  In March 1943 Bose traveled by German U-boat to waters off Madagascar, where the German sub met one from Japan.  Bose transferred to the Asian vessel.  In May 1943 he landed in Japanese occupied Indonesia; Bose proclaimed the Provisional Government of the Republic of India, declared war on Britain and the United States, and began recruiting his Indian National Army from among Indian POWs of Japan.  Remember, these were men who had sworn to fight for the British King – now they would break their oath and fight for the Axis and a free India.  Finally, his troops were ready, but in Burma in 1944, they suffered defeat.  Still, there was great shock and fear among the Raj in India.  How could their soldiers defect, and then fight against them?  “The Jewel in the Crown” provides a fictional glimpse of the angst caused by Bose and the fear of an Axis Indian army invading India.  Hannan hoists the numbers 2.5 million to 40,000.  I think it was a much closer call.  And while almost all Indians regard Gandhi as a father of independent India, many see two fathers – the other being Chandra Bose.  Bottom line, India remained British during WWII.  On that Hannan is correct.  But I think it was a much closer call than the stats indicate.

            And when crunch time came in WWII, even Canada was not as solid as Hannan’s book implies.  There was no draft in French Canada.  Why were the French in Canada less enthusiastic about defending Britain during time of threat?  Perhaps, events in France had something to do with Canada’s reaction.

            Jews had been expelled from parts of, but not all of France around the same time they were exiled from England in the late 1200s.  In those parts where Jews remained in France, they were subject to separate laws, but they could still live in various sections of France, and these areas grew as France annexed new lands as Alsace and Lorraine.  With the French Revolution, more changes occurred than the mere measure by the king’s foot.  The metric system replaced the older weights and measures to provide a “reasonable” system.  In addition, the promotion of reason led to the onslaught against “superstition,” i.e. clericalism and Christianity.  Even the Christian calendar was abolished and replaced with Year I of the French Revolution and a (metric) 10-day week.  The Cathedral of Notre Dame was converted into the Temple of the Goddess of Reason.  And in accord with these changes, in 1791 Louis Peletier “presented a new criminal code to the Constituent Assembly.  He explained that it outlawed only ‘true crimes,’ and not phony offenses created by superstition, feudalism, the tax system, and [royal] despotism.’  He did not list the crimes ‘created by superstition,’ but these certainly included, blasphemy, heresy, sacrilege, witchcraft and homosexuality.  All these former offenses were swiftly decriminalized.  In 1810 a new criminal code was issued under Napoleon.  As with the Penal Code of 1791 it did not contain provision against religious crimes.”(Wikipedia. Napoleonic Code)

            Where Napoleon’s troops conquered, and his Code often imposed, there was also a liberating result.  Jews who had been proscribed to reside only in ghettos, could leave; gays might not be prosecuted.  There were major critics of these changes, from the outside, Metternich to the Russian Czar, and on the inside, not all reforms were implemented in all French satellites, as Poland was also unhappy with some.  So, many could view Napoleon as a great liberator when he conquered.  However, if the initial Jacobin radicalism of equality and the Rights of Man may have helped stir events in Haiti, Napoleon sent troops to the island not to aid in liberation, but to quell the slave rebellion and reinstitute slavery.  Thus, the contrast.  While many hailed his liberating victories in the Rhineland and the Papal states of Italy, in Haiti the freed slaves cheered the defeat of Napoleon’s quest for empire in the New World.

            Hannan emphasizes the common law, the rule of law, primogeniture, and Protestantism as elements in the growth of capitalism and the subsequent prosperity of the modern world.  Yet, the European continent had no English common law, yet it certainly had capitalism.  And though Max Weber and other sociologists associate Protestantism with capitalism on the continent, as in the Netherlands and the Huguenots of France, still what group was most associated with the bourgeoisie and capitalism on the continent?  Though the Rothschild banks may have preceded the Napoleonic Code, most of his sons, and their banks were located on the continent.  They did not enjoy the miraculous features of common law.  And surely, Rothschild did not believe in primogeniture.  He sent his sons from Frankfurt to Vienna, Naples, Paris, and London to found similar banks.  Nevertheless, most would consider the Rothschilds to be successful.

            (Despite the liberating influence of Napoleon on Jews in Europe, curiously, Rothschild’s bank did much to supply funds for Wellington and the British in its wars against the French Emperor.  I am unsure if that was only the London branch.  Might the others have supported Napoleon?)  Napoleon eventually lost, and many Jews in Italy had to return to the ghettos.  Nevertheless, but the 1850s the Rothschilds were possibly the richest family on earth.  Jews, without the “aid” of the English common law, were becoming the capitalists, par excellence of Europe, sponsoring railroads and later oil development throughout the globe.  And it was not simply the Rothschilds.  Google various countries to discover the statistics of Jewish overrepresentation in the professions, in industry, in commerce, in wealth, in France, Germany, AustroHungary, etc. and this overrepresentation increased after WWI.  There was growing jealousy.  And with the growth of socialism in various forms, there were demands to kerb the 1%, kerb the elite, kerb the capitalists, kerb the Jews.  Communism seized power in Russia, but in Italy, Portugal, Hungary, ever more European nations were turning to anti-communism, and fascism.  The most important of these would be when the National Socialists of Adolf Hitler ascended to power in Germany.

            Some early attempts by the Nazis to restrict Jews were to reduce their activities to their % of the general population in professions, business, etc. and thus allow gentiles to achieve their “rightful” percentage of the pie of wealth – (similar to affirmative action in modern America).  When restrictions failed to contain Jewish success, other measures, culminating with their elimination, were often deemed necessary and accomplished legally.

War began in September 1939 and by summer 1940, following the Sitzkrieg on the western from, German armies swept through.  While the British planned to enter Norway, the Germans beat them to the punch, quickly going through Denmark, and then taking Norway.  Then Netherlands and Belgium.  And almost as quickly, France crumbled.  The French Republic was replaced by a hero of the First World War, a man who now gave himself to the nation as Chief of State, Marshal Philippe Petain.  The Marshal acknowledged the defeat of France but hoped to save its empire by cooperating with the German victors.  Collaboration was the word.  The new British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, fearing France’s fleet would fall to Hitler, (and when combined with Axis sea power, be able to challenge the British Navy), Churchill chose to act quickly and decisively.  His ships cornered the French fleet on 3 July 1940 in the Algerian port of Mers-el-Kebir, and the British demanded surrender within an hour.  In effect, it was a surprise attack.  The British destroyed most of the French ships and killed 1.300 French seamen.  Britain, ally of France in April 1940, turned on the French in July to kill 1,300 seamen at Mers-el-Kebir.  To put thing in perspective: in December 1941 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, they killed 2,400 American servicemen.  Americans were incensed and demanded war with the antagonist, Japan.  In 1940 many in France wanted to declare war against Britain, the ally who had killed so many Frenchmen.  But Petain believed France too weak to fight Britain after losing to Germany.  So, no war with Britain, but collaborate with Germany.  Petain scrapped the French Revolution, trashed the old trinity of liberty, equality, and fraternity, and established a new trinity for the new era – work, family, country.  The Napoleonic Code crumbled too.  Jews were rounded up, homosexuals declared criminals, Masonic lodges closed and confiscated, etc.  France was to find its new place in Neuropa, Neurope, as the continent would be led from Berlin.

            In the 1920s and 30s one European nation after another rejected democracy for fascism.  Communism dominated the many nations that composed the Soviet Union.  By 1941 there was little left of the Napoleonic Code, even in France.  Does Hannan think that the common law could have prevented the collapse and catastrophe in Europe?  Had Hitler’s forces captured London, does he think the common law would have spared England the atrocities of fascism?

            I do not have time to discuss some of Hannan’s other thought-provoking points.  Royal power was restricted in England because England is an island, without need of a standing army.  For the king to get one, he had to ask for the money and goods from the people’s representatives.  But clearly just being an island need not result in a restricted monarchy.  Japan’s emperor was so elevated, he was deemed a god.  Hannan makes a case that the British Empire was neither racial nor ethnic.  It was open to all willing to accept the culture and values.  But there were anti-Chinese laws in Hong Kong.  I suspect there were racial laws in many parts of the empire.  And in the Anglosphere in the US slavery existed.  The same Protestants who promoted rebellion against King George had their sons lead a rebellion against Lincoln and the North, and surely defense of slavery was one major issue.  Hannan is courageous enough to quote former MP Enoch Powell, who is reviled by the politically correct.  And unlike the Napoleonic Code, the English common law retained the crime of blasphemy.  In 1988 when author Salman Rushdie published The Satanic Verses, Muslim fanatics in the UK marched demanding he be charged with blasphemy.  But the common law only protected Christianity, so Muslims protested and burned copies of the book.  It was soon banned in many countries, including India, which maintained the residue of common law.  In 1989 a fatwa was pronounced against Rushdie by the spiritual leader of Iran, who asked zealous Muslims to take his blood.

            Though I quibble with some of his points, Hannan has written a provocative book that forces readers to ponder many issues.  Clearly, the Anglosphere has brought freedom and prosperity to millions.  But are the sources of those freedoms primogeniture?  The common law?  What are the sources?  The book is a good read.

GIRLS PLAN MURDER! WHO IS TO BLAME?

(The following comes from the blog rightwisconsin conducted by Charlie Sykes, a Milwaukee author and radio talk-show host.  The topic is the reason two 12-year-old girls tried to kill a friend, another young girl. One held down the other, while another stabbed the victim 19 times, nearly killing her.  This happened in a well-off Milwaukee suburb.   Immediately, most of the media, local and national, blamed the near killing on a website that includes horror stories.  Slender Man made them do it.  This piece takes a more reasonable approach to crime and murder.  Hugh Murray)

Hello, my name is Evil.  I know I am not a welcome guest at your societal garden party.  I know most of you like to ignore me or pretend I simply do not exist.  I know acknowledging me makes a lot of you queasy because it runs counter to the polite, oh-so-politically-correct, anti-absolutist, relativistic fantasy world you have created for yourselves. 

But let me warn you, and state this unequivocally:  I will not be ignored.

Oh, I know you’ve tried.  I concocted shootings and drugs and gang violence.  You relegated these occurrences to “news in brief” or ignored them completely as if I didn’t even exist that these were just normal byproducts of urban life and not clear evidence of my presence.   How rude of you.

Since you callously wouldn’t acknowledge my presence when the killings and shootings were merely one thug on another, I upped the ante and brought an innocent 10-year old on a playground into the mix.  Surely that would get me noticed.

Instead, you gave the credit to others.   You blamed the gun used.  You blamed poverty.  You blamed race.  You blamed Scott Walker.   (Seriously, isn’t that becoming a little cliché?  What, George W. Bush wasn’t available?  You’re embarrassing yourselves.)

But as I noted, I WILL NOT be ignored.   And so now I give you the Slender Man stabbings.   Who or what are you going to try to blame this time?

Race?  Ha!   Whites

Urban male culture?  Try again.  12 year old girls.

Guns?  Nope, A knife.

Gangs?  Don’t insult me!  A pajama party sleepover.

Poverty?  Better luck next time:  Middle class.

Milwaukee?  Try Waukesha.

Poor, underfunded, failing schools?  Not a chance.   Just to drive that point home a little more clearly I even used the modern-day mark of an affluent school – the school-issued iPad for every kid - as part of my play on this one.

And yet you continue to resist admitting my tangible existence.  You cling doggedly to your relativistic claptrap.  You live in a constant state of denial concerning the state of human nature.   You try to wish away the Hobbesian reality, even after I give you example after nasty, brutish and short example of unfettered individuals living in their own state of nature.  You believe that trying to constrain behavior by declaring the existence of any absolute of right or wrong makes you “intolerant,” something that you seem to believe is literally a fate worse than death.  You believe that your children are blank slates of creative virtue and it is society’s role not to besmirch them with judgment, rules or absolutes instead of realizing that from birth they are self-centered bundles of depravity for whom virtue is an inherently unnatural act that can only be instilled in them intentionally over time by patience, persistence, and discipline. 

In short: you have become frustratingly expert at finding other things to blame my acts on.  But I hope these last few weeks have shown you that for every denial or diversion tactic you employ, I will come up with something mind-blowingly new and shocking to prove I am real.   Now, will you please give me my name tag and my drink tickets and admit that I am here?     

You see, the real danger you face is not the Slender Man.  It is the hollow men and women that you are churning out with an assembly line level efficiency in your values-bereft society.   If you make ‘em, I’ll fill ‘em.   Because all of nature – even human nature – abhors a vacuum.

Hello.  My name is Evil.  I will not be ignored.