Chrisforliberty's Blog

“Be always sure you are right, then go ahead.” Davey Crockett

I’ve had a certain fascination with Texas and the Alamo in particular since boyhood. That is what happens when you grow up hearing stories of Davy (actually he went by David ) Crockett as well as Daniel Boone and Alvin York. Finally in 2011, I made the long-awaited trip to the Lone Star State. Before then, I had never been further west than Nashville.

The current complex is not nearly as large as the original, so don’t be overly disappointed. What exists is mostly the Long Barracks on the east end, the chapel and some modern structures on the property such as the library. The north and west wall are gone (mostly due to structural damage from the siege and passage of time as well as the main entrance and gate structure on the south end.

It is thought that William Barrett Travis was commanding his final post on the far end of the north wall while Davy Crockett and about a dozen volunteers from Tennessee defended the weakest point at the south end between the chapel and main entrance.

Overall it was a trip worth taking.

“NO PUBLIC OFFICIAL WHO CONSCIENTIOUSLY DISCHARGES HIS DUTY WILL DESIRE TO DENY THOSE WHOM HE SERVES THE RIGHT TO DISCUSS HIS OFFICIAL CONDUCT.” William Jennings Bryan, from New York World, 13 August, 1896

It is interesting that the history books either misrepresent the period between 1890-1940 in terms of its socio-economic context or ignore it completely.

Most of our problems on the national scene can be traced to the misdeeds during this period. We can’t hit our opponent if we don’t understand who or what our opponent is.

I’ve written extensively about many of the subtopics connected to this period such as The Federal Reserve’s connection to the The Great Depression, and outlined why it doesn’t matter which party is technically in power. Yes, the Federal Reserve even had a hand in the World Wars and the rise of dictators like Hitler and Stalin. While we are at it, let’s not forget the Rothschild’s connection to all this too.

One of the main opponents to the agenda of John Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan was William Jennings Bryan.  In our modern times, we think of Bryan as only being some sort of right-wing religious zealot (which couldn’t be further from the truth).

Keep in mind that many of the big city newspapers were owned by the same elite cartel that were advocating for an increased role for the Federal government in the daily affairs of the average American. Of course, they were going to commit libel against the most public opponent of the Progressive agenda. It wasn’t the residents of the big cities that Jennings was at odds with, but certain individuals and various special interest groups who just happened to choose the big cities as gathering places.

“I shall not slander the inhabitants of the fair state of Massachusetts nor the inhabitants of the state of New York by saying that, when they are confronted with the proposition, they will declare that this nation is not able to attend to its own business. It is the issue of 1776 over again. Our ancestors, when but three million in number, had the courage to declare their political independence of every other nation; shall we, their descendants, when we have grown to seventy millions, declare that we are less independent than our forefathers?”                                                                                                                             as quoted from the Democratic Convention in Harper’s Weekly, 18 July, 1896

It should be obvious the Rockefeller-Morgan connections throughout this whole Progressive Movement. What had happened was business had become increasingly competitive in the late 19^th-early 20^th century. Morgan and Rockefeller beginning with railroads and oil attempted to establish cartels. But the free-market spirit and public distrust of monopolies in addition to central banking fouled up these attempts. So they managed to hoodwink the masses using the same language of opposition to monopoly as a way to put over monopoly.

Even the Pure Food and Drug Act signed into law by Theodore Roosevelt (a Morgan crony) was done to put mom and pop food operations out of business and enable the further cartelization of the food industry. Do I really need to elaborate on the consequences of this?

The 1896 presidential election while rarely mentioned today was perhaps in its historical perspective the most important election in U.S. history.

One of Morgan’s protégés was Henry Cabot Lodge.  Lodge basically acted as a middle man for Morgan as backstage negotiations were being conducted with the Rockefeller political machine operating out of Ohio. The main contact for the Rockefeller camp was William McKinley’s campaign manager Mark Hanna.

The basic agreement was that Morgan would throw his support to William McKinley in exchange for certain concessions on establishing a central banking structure in the future.

This pooling of votes would neutralize the support that Bryan had amongst certain elements in the Democratic Party who were opposed to central banking, Silver Republicans and various populist elements in the South and Rocky Mountain states.

The Rockfeller and Morgan camps would often be at odds not so much on the overall goal of implementing statism on the free market, but mostly such differences were simply disputes in the overall jockeying of power; basically a clash of egos and wills.  But certainly when it came to the establishment of a central bank, they were literally walking arm in arm.

Shortly after the 1896 election, the Indianapolis Monetary Commission convened for the purpose of discussing and issuing a report on “currency reform”.

This meeting was publicized as business people getting together for a convention. But it was in fact individuals from the Morgan and Rockefeller camps meeting for the purpose of laying the groundwork for a central bank. They met in Indianapolis so as to create the impression that surely nothing bad would ever come out of America’s Heartland as opposed to the image that the public had of evil bankers meeting in New York City or Washington, D.C.

The go-to-man in Congress for both Morgan and Rockefeller was senator Nelson Aldrich.  While Aldrich may have been the congressional connection, the process that it took to implement both the Federal Reserve Act and the 16^th Amendment was to say the least complex.

Which brings us to our current times. Needless to say, while the specific individuals have since long passed away (and are in hell), their work continues today through the system they left behind and gets ever larger.

So do you know who your enemy is?

“Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions . . . .  Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the ‘new, wonderful good society’ which shall now be Rome’s, interpreted to mean ‘more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious.’ Julius was always an ambitious villain, but he is only one man.” Marcus Tullius Cicero

 

 

The political entity known as the United States of America is due for a breakup. Why? Because that is what history tells us. Basically this breakup is going to be akin to a divorce from Washington, D.C. and the stranglehold that it has on current domestic and foreign affairs. It is in its early stages in Europe and the Middle East.

 

To cite one historical example among many, as Roman agricultural output slowly declined and population increased, this led to food shortages. The Romans “solved” this problem by conquering their neighbours taking in loot in the form of metals, grain, slaves, etc… All the while, the elites kept the masses distracted and dumbed down with “entertainment”, fear mongering about invasions from the North and free bread.

 

However, as the Empire grew, the cost of maintaining administration, communications, garrisons, etc. grew with it. Eventually, this cost grew so great that any new challenges such as invasions and crop failures could not be solved by the acquisition of more territory. Intense, authoritarian efforts to maintain cohesion by Domitian, Hadrian and Diocletian in particular only led to an ever greater strain on the population. The empire was split into two halves, of which the western soon fragmented into smaller units. The eastern half, being wealthier, was able to survive longer, and did not collapse but instead succumbed slowly and piecemeal, because unlike the western empire it had powerful neighbors able to take advantage of its weakness.

 

Human societies exist to solve problems. As these societies solved problems – food production, security, public works – they became increasingly complex. Complexity however carries with it overhead costs, e.g. administration, maintaining an army, tax collection, infrastructure maintenance, etc. As the society confronts new problems additional complexity is required to solve them. Eventually a point is reached where the overhead costs that are generated result in diminishing returns in terms of effectiveness. The society wastefully expends its resources trying to maintain its bloated condition until it finally collapses into smaller, simpler, more efficient units.

 

This has been the cycle going back thousands upon thousands of years. Indeed an eventual breakup of the political entity known as the United States is inevitable.  Alaska may form a union with Yukon or something along those lines.  Hawaii was once its own kingdom until the U.S. government overthrew it and installed a puppet government.  Canada is due for a similar breakup.  I could see a mass migration northwards or eastwards from California in a similar yet reversal of the Okie trend in the 1930′s. 

 

One thing is for sure: We are living in interesting times.

I took a three hour round trip (over Memorial Day weekend) to Pall Mall (pronounced /ˈpæl ˈmæl/ pal mal by residents) in order to a pay visit to the Sgt. York Historic Park. It was long overdue.

Most people are already generally familiar with York’s exploits during World War I in large part due to the movie plus some general readings here and there. To get more in-depth about his life, I suggest checking out “Sgt York: His Life, Legend & Legacy“.

Much of his later life was spent seeking to improve the welfare of his fellow beings through improved education, economic opportunities and sharing the gospel of Christ. He stated once “When I die, I had rather it be said about me that I gave my life toward aiding my fellow man than for to be said that I became a millionaire, through capitalizing on my fame as a fighter. I do not care to be remembered as a warrior, but one who helped others to Christ”.

“You know, George, you’d have made a great Marshal for Napoleon, if you’d lived in the 18th Century.”

“Oh, but I did, Sir Alex, I did.”

(Based on a dream)

I’ve known for quite some time that I am not of the 21st century. My body is here, but my mind and spirit are elsewhere. I would have been a farmer/frontiersman in the 18th century. Otherwise, I would be working as a newspaper reporter during the Roaring 20′s reporting on the exploits of the New York Yankees, Red Grange and Al Capone. When the night rolled around, I would have put on my hat and three pieced suit, hit the speakeasies and kissed away. Given that I would have been a reporter with my nose to the ground, I would known of every nook, cranny and password in town. Then I would have moved to Hollywood where I would have worked for the next 40 or 50 years. On top of that, I would have married Barbara Stanwyck and probably had affairs with Ginger Rogers, Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr and/or Joan Leslie. If you are going to cheat on your spouse (in my case, we could talk it over), you had better make it worth your while. I probably would have been making films for the war effort or traveling in order to document the war while passing around copies of “War is a Racket”.

The following is a partial conversation I would have had if we had that moment in time when we could have met. The setting is a cafe/tavern in Casablanca. George would have be smoking a cigar and enjoying brandy.          I would have been a non-smoker (rare in the 1940′s) and carrying around a bottle of Old No. 7.

“George. Congratulations on your speech this morning. Do you really think we can win this war. I mean, those Germans are not to be messed with.”

“Well, Chris. In our present state of being and mind, no! But God have it, I will whip these boys into the finest son of a bitches God has ever known. By God, I will.”

“I wish you the best. If anyone in this army can do it, it is you. Granted, I don’t care for your profanity and I hate war. But I appreciate your tactfulness and outright display of honesty. I can tell you don’t walk around with a fashion consultant and speech writer.”

“I am my own man. How’s life with Barbara?”

“It is good all things considered. We still get the same love bugs and twinkle eyes even after knowing each other for almost 15 years. I will never forget laying eyes on her the first time when “The Locked Door” came out. Little did I know that within a few months, I would be heading to Hollywood and the rest is history. I was fired from my job all because I expressed interest in writing a series of articles on what was causing the Stock Market crash. Apparently, economics is a subject matter that only experts should know about. I mean who gets excited about fractional reserve banking, interest rates or manipulation of gold prices?”

“Gold! I love Gold! What’s Barbara doing nowadays?”

“She has recently accepted a part, something to do with insurance. It isn’t titled yet. Given the average timetable for movies, it should be out in another year or so.

“Insurance? Yeah the stuff people get excited about. I’m sure she will make people get excited about insurance.”

“George, when do you think the war will be over?”

“I don’t have a crystal ball, but if we get our act together given what potential we can muster from our industrial might, discipline and duty, we could finish before the decade is out. Speaking of time, I need to check on the barracks very soon. Those boys shouldn’t be getting too excited about their posters. Because they won’t be around if I find them.”

“Forgive them for being young. You only live once.”

“You live forever. I was alive in the 1st century before Christ, the 9th, the 16th, 18th and fought alongside Stonewall Jackson too.”

“I need to leave now. My boss is expecting my script by tomorrow afternoon and you have barracks duty. So I will let you go.”

“It was good to meet you and sleep well. I won’t if the boys aren’t asleep by midnight.”

According to some, banks only loan out depositors’ money. But, in fact, they create what they loan out, based on a system known as ‘fractional reserve banking’. This is explained quite succinctly in the following excerpt from the January 1993 edition of National Geographic Magazine, entitled, The Power of Money by Peter T. White, Assistant Editor. (Pages 83-86)

Bills and coins make up about 8 percent of the U.S. money supply — the rest is in bank accounts, including checkbook money; at this writing the sum total is 3.5 trillion dollars, says the Fed — the Federal Reserve System, which is the central bank of the government of the United States — and that is three billion more than a month ago. This is how that happens. Every business day, after a telephone conference call at 11:15 a.m., the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, acting on directives from the Federal Open Market Committee at Fed headquarters in Washington, buys U.S. government securities from major banks and brokerage houses, or sells some — usually U.S. Treasury bills, which in effect are government promissory notes.

Say today the Fed buys a hundred million dollars in Treasury bills from those big securities dealers, who keep a stock of them to trade with the public. When the Fed pays the dealers, a hundred million dollars will thereby be added to the country’s money supply, because the dealers will be credited that amount by their banks, which now have that much more on deposit. But where did the Fed get that hundred million dollars ? “We created it,” a Fed official tells me. He means that anytime the central bank writes a check, so to speak, it creates money. “It’s money that didn’t exist before,” he says. Is there any limit on that ? “No limit. Only the good judgement and the conscience of the responsible Federal Reserve people.” And where did they get this vast authority? “It was delegated to them in the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, based on the Constitution, Article I, Section 8. ‘Congress shall have the power .. to coin money, regulate the value thereof …’

Now watch how that Fed-created money lets our commercial banking system create even more. The Fed requires banks to put aside a portion of their depositors’ funds as reserves. Say this reserve ratio is set at 10 percent — then for every $1,000 in new deposits, a bank must keep at least $100 in reserves but can loan out the rest, namely $900. On the bank’s books this loan remains as an asset, earning interest until it is paid off. The customer who got the loan is likely to spend it right away, say for a used car. The car dealer deposits the $900 check in his bank, which then has an additional $900 in reserves and can in turn loan out 90 percent of that — $810. And so on and on, until the original $1,000 put into one bank may enable dozens of banks to issue a total of $9,000 in new loans.

Thus a hundred million dollars injected by the Fed into the commercial banking system could theoretically stimulate the appearance of 900 million dollars in new checkbook money — money that didn’t exist before. And it’s all built on the assumption that the system is sound.

“Examining the organization and function of the Federal Reserve Banks, and applying the relevant factors, we conclude that the Reserve Banks are not federal instrumentalities for purposes of the FTCA, but are independent, privately owned and locally controlled corporations.” Lewis v. U.S., 680 F.2d 1239; 1982 U.S.

“The financial elites of this country, notably the Morgan, Rockefeller, and Kuhn, Loeb interests, were responsible for putting through the Federal Reserve System, as a governmentally created and sanctioned cartel device to enable the nation’s banks to inflate the money supply in a coordinated fashion, without suffering quick retribution from depositors or noteholders demanding cash. Recent researchers, however, have also highlighted the vital supporting role of the growing number of technocratic experts and academics, who were happy to lend the patina of their allegedly scientific expertise to the elite’s drive for a central bank. To achieve a regime of big government and government control, power elites cannot achieve their goal of privilege through statism without the vital legitimizing support of the supposedly disinterested experts and the professoriat. To achieve the Leviathan State, interests seeking special privilege, and intellectuals offering scholarship and ideology, must work hand in hand.” Murray Rothbard, Origins of the Federal Reserve

“A flourishing libertarian movement, a lifelong dedication to liberty can only be grounded on a passion for justice.”
Murray Rothbard, Egalitarianism As a Revolt Against Nature

For those who have been at this political stuff for a while, you already know what I’m talking about. Chances are that you are reading this because you want to change unfair drug laws, be part of that “reform movement” you’ve heard about, reduce property taxes, etc…, but you are unsure how to begin. Chances are you or either someone you know was affected in some manner and it made you realize that something wasn’t right and it inspired you to get involved.

My own experiences have taught me three important lessons: First, real change begins with you.

Be your own leader. Be yourself even as you work with like-minded people or work to hash out differences that you have. I’m a Christian who is single, has no kids, and a college student to put it in a nutshell. Yet I have worked with atheists, Jews, homosexuals, democrats, republicans, blacks, women to name a few where we had an issue or several issues in common. My way of looking at it is that it won’t make much of a difference what your label is when in the end, we are rounded up and sent to a death camp. Some people prefer the terms concentration camp or reservation. It is merely a matter of semantics. Just as real change for the better doesn’t happen all at once, tyranny doesn’t come in a single night either.

Second Think Globally, Act Locally!

Today, it is easier to find people with common interests all over the world and locally to get involved by simply joining a social networking site like Facebook or Meetup. It is very much the technology of our time much like the telegraph and printing press were in another era. Through the use of these technologies which are more cost-effective and easier to operate, it enables the average person on the street to get more involved in the process whereas creating and owning a television network, a newspaper company or radio station generally takes a bit more investment and capitol which may not be readily available.

Thirdly, understand what we are going up against.

We are literally going up against a system, an entrenched bureaucracy that is hell-bent on complete and utter control of the entire planet. The people who run the system are unlimited in their desire for power. When it becomes necessary to shoot and slash in order to defend ourselves against death squads or armed mercenaries such as Xe (formerly Blackwater), we will have plenty of opportunities.

As Ludwig von Mises put it:

“In America there were no such remnants of the Dark Ages. It was in this sense a young country, and it was a free country. Here were neither industrial codes nor guilds. Thomas Alva Edison and Henry Ford did not have to overcome any obstacles erected by shortsighted governments and a narrow-minded public opinion.

But it is quite a different thing under the rising tide of bureaucratization. Government jobs offer no opportunity for the display of personal talents and gifts. Regimentation spells the doom of initiative. The young man has no illusions about his future. He knows what is in store for him. He will get a job with one of the innumerable bureaus, he will be but a cog in a huge machine the working of which is more or less mechanical. The routine of a bureaucratic technique will cripple his mind and tie his hands. He will enjoy security. But this security will be rather of the kind that the convict enjoys within the prison walls. He will never be free to make decisions and to shape his own fate. He will forever be a man taken care of by other people. He will never be a real man relying on his own strength. He shudders at the sight of the huge office buildings in which he will bury himself.”

We can find even disgruntled government workers to spread the message of liberty too. They see themselves as just doing a job for a paycheck. They have no moral compunction when they file papers.

We tread lightly and distribute literature to them including at post offices, county commission meetings, police stations, etc… You won’t get the majority of them, but even if you can get 1% to rethink their position or to resign from their cushy government job, that is a start.

What we are dealing with is the old order of elites that date back 5,000 years. They just rearranged the chairs on the decks from kings, emperors and religious advisors to bankers, bureaucrats and “economic” advisors. The Classical liberalism of the 16th-19th century no longer made rule by kings and emperors fashionable. So they had to change the melodies while keeping the lyrics.

(Submitted as a research project for a college liberal arts class)

December 8, 2009

The Scopes Evolution Trial better known as the “Scopes Monkey Trial” which took place from July 10-21, 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee was held in regard to the teaching of evolution per the Butler Act.  It is regarded as one of the most famous trials in American history and many people are familiar with the name of the case itself.  But beyond that, very little factual information is available about the trial and what facts are generally public knowledge are often misconstrued due to false impressions.

The conventional view is that in the wake of the Scopes trial, a humiliated fundamentalist movement retreated into the political and cultural background, a viewpoint evidenced in the movie “Inherit the Wind” and the majority of contemporary historical accounts. “Inherit the Wind” itself while on the surface was about the Scopes Trial, it was in actuality a commentary on McCarthyism.

The Scopes Trial neither fully settled the issue of evolution nor creation.  However, the true purpose of the trial wasn’t even for the purpose of settling the issue, but merely to generate publicity and tourism dollars.  It speaks to how news is often generated for such purposes and not merely to inform the public.

The Butler Act which passed on March 13, 1925 read:

AN ACT prohibiting the teaching of the Evolution Theory in all the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of Tennessee, which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, and to provide penalties for the violations thereof.

Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee, That it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of the State which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.

Section 2. Be it further enacted, That any teacher found guilty of the violation of this Act, Shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction, shall be fined not less than One Hundred $ (100.00) Dollars nor more than Five Hundred ($ 500.00) Dollars for each offense.

Section 3. Be it further enacted, That this Act take effect from and after its passage, the public welfare requiring it.1

By the terms of the statute, it was not illegal to teach that apes descended from a previous species, to teach the mechanisms of natural selection, or to teach the prevailing scientific theories of the age of the Earth. It did not even require that the Genesis story be taught.   It prohibited only the teaching that man evolved, or any other theory denying that man was created by God as recorded in Genesis.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) offered to defend anyone accused of teaching the theory of evolution in defiance of the Butler Act.  They placed an ad in a Chattanooga area newspaper that George Rappleyea, a Dayton businessman and mine owner was reading.  He convinced a group of businessmen in Dayton, Tennessee that the controversy of such a trial would give Dayton much needed publicity. With their agreement, he called in his friend, 24-year-old John T. Scopes, who was Clark County High School’s football coach and had substituted for Principal Ferguson in a science class. Rappleyea asked Scopes to teach the theory of evolution.  Rappleyea pointed out that while the Butler Act prohibited the teaching of the theory of evolution, the state required teachers to use a textbook, which explicitly described and endorsed the theory of evolution, and that teachers were therefore effectively required to break the law.  Scopes mentioned that while he couldn’t remember if he actually taught evolution in class, he did however go through the evolution chart and chapter with the class. Scopes added to the group “If you can prove that I’ve taught evolution and that I can qualify as a defendant, then I’ll be willing to stand trial.”2

While the trial has been portrayed as a victory for teaching of evolution and a defeat of fundamentalism, the cause of fundamentalism’s retreat was the death of its leader, William Jennings Bryan.  In fact, most fundamentalists saw the trial as a victory and not a defeat, but Bryan’s death soon after created a leadership void that no other fundamentalist leader could fill. Bryan, unlike the other leaders, brought name recognition, respectability, and the ability to forge a broad-based coalition of fundamentalist and mainline religious groups to argue for the anti-evolutionist position.3 Several magazines of the time such as the New Republic and Life took a very low view of Williams Jennings Bryan and Tennessee in particular stating that the state was “not up to date in its attitude to such things as evolution.”4 H. L. Mencken, whose syndicated columns from Dayton for the Baltimore Sun drew vivid caricatures of the “backward” local populace apparently were very effective in negatively portraying the residents of Dayton and Tennessee.5

Since William Jennings Bryan, the prosecutor in the case died just five days after the trial ended, there wasn’t much of a chance to get his perspective on the trial or why he decided to take the case.  Perhaps one reason for taking the case was that he worried that Darwin’s theories were being used by supporters of a growing eugenics movement that was advocating Social Darwinism.6  More likely, the “Great Commoner” came to view his participation in the trial both out of concern that the teaching of evolution would undermine traditional values as well as the view that eugenics if allowed to go unchallenged would be used to eliminate “inferior stock” which was a buzz word for the types of people he had long supported such as the poor and outcasts in society.

The highlight of the trial was Clarence Darrow questioning Bryan on the stand on the seventh day. A number of questions were posed by Darrow to Bryan such as how Eve was created, how old the Earth was and the population of Egypt in ancient times.  Ultimately, Scopes never testified since there was never a factual issue as to whether he had taught evolution. Scopes later admitted that, in reality, he was unsure of whether he had taught evolution (another reason the defense did not want him to testify), but the point was not contested at the trial.

After eight days of trial, it took the jury only nine minutes to deliberate. Scopes was found guilty on July 21 and ordered to pay $100.00 fine (approximately $1,150 when adjusted for inflation). Judge Raulston imposed the fine before Scopes was given an opportunity to say anything about why the court should not impose punishment upon him and after Neal brought the error to the judge’s attention. The case was overturned by the Tennessee Supreme Court due to this technicality since only juries can levy fines.7

The trial escalated the political and legal struggles between strict creationists and evolutionists to influence the extent to which evolution would be taught as science in Arizona and California schools. Before the Dayton trial, South Carolina, Oklahoma, and Kentucky had dealt with anti-evolution laws or riders to educational appropriations bills.

After Scopes was convicted,creationists throughout the United States sought similar anti-evolution laws for their states.8

By 1927, there were 13 states that considered some form of anti-evolution law. At least 41 bills or resolutions were introduced into the state legislatures, with some states facing the issue repeatedly. While most of these efforts were rejected, both Mississippi and Arkansas put anti-evolution laws on the books after the Scopes trial that would outlive the Butler Act.  The Butler Act ended up serving as a model for the anti-evolution crusade, and the ACLU could not find a teacher to volunteer for another test case.  The Butler Act itself remained on the books until 1967 until it was repealed by an act of the Tennessee legislature. 9

It read: Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee:

Section 1. Section 49 – 1922,Tennessee Code Annotated, is repealed.

Section 2. This Act shall take effect September 1, 1967.

Passed : May 13, 1967.

Works Cited

1. Tennessee Evolution Statutes: PUBLIC ACTS OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE

PASSED BY THE SIXTY – FOURTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1925 CHAPTERNO. 27 House Bill No. 185

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/tennstat.htm

Accessed October 15, 2009

2. Linder, Douglas O. Statev. John Scopes (“The Monkey Trial”)

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/SCO_RAPP.htm

Accessed October 15, 2009

3. Cornelius, R.M. Bryan and the Scopes Trail, http://www.bryan.edu/803.html

Accessed October 15, 2009

4. Hollister, Howard K. “TennesseeGoes Fundamentalist,” New Republic 42 (April 29, 1925): 258–60

5. Mecklen, H.L. “A Religious Orgy in Tennessee A Reporter’s Account of the Scopes Monkey Trial”, 2006

6. Coletta, Paolo E., William Jennings, Bryan 3rdvolume, 1964

7. Decision on Scopes’ Appeal to the Supreme Court of Tennessee

JOHN THOMAS SCOPES v. THE STATE

Opinion filed January 17, 1927

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/statcase.htm

8. Anti-Evolution and the Lawhttp://www.antievolution.org/topics/law/

Accessed November 30, 2009

9. PUBLIC ACTS OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEEPASSED BY THE EIGHTY – FIFTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1967, CHAPTER NO. 237, House BillNo. 48 http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/tennstat.htm

Accessed November 30, 2009

(I’ve known since childhood that the official history as portrayed in the school textbooks was false.)

November 09, 2003
By Edwin Black

Hitler and his henchmen victimized an entire continent and exterminated millions in his quest for a so-called Master Race.

But the concept of a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed master Nordic race didn’t originate with Hitler. The idea was created in the United States, and cultivated in California, decades before Hitler came to power. California eugenicists played an important, although little-known, role in the American eugenics movement’s campaign for ethnic cleansing.

Eugenics was the pseudoscience aimed at “improving” the human race. In its extreme, racist form, this meant wiping away all human beings deemed “unfit,” preserving only those who conformed to a Nordic stereotype. Elements of the philosophy were enshrined as national policy by forced sterilization and segregation laws, as well as marriage restrictions, enacted in 27 states. In 1909, California became the third state to adopt such laws. Ultimately, eugenics practitioners coercively sterilized some 60,000 Americans, barred the marriage of thousands, forcibly segregated thousands in “colonies,” and persecuted untold numbers in ways we are just learning. Before World War II, nearly half of coercive sterilizations were done in California, and even after the war, the state accounted for a third of all such surgeries.

California was considered an epicenter of the American eugenics movement. During the 20th century’s first decades, California’s eugenicists included potent but little-known race scientists, such as Army venereal disease specialist Dr. Paul Popenoe, citrus magnate Paul Gosney, Sacramento banker Charles Goethe, as well as members of the California state Board of Charities and Corrections and the University of California Board of Regents.

Eugenics would have been so much bizarre parlor talk had it not been for extensive financing by corporate philanthropies, specifically the Carnegie Institution, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harriman railroad fortune. They were all in league with some of America’s most respected scientists from such prestigious universities as Stanford, Yale, Harvard and Princeton. These academicians espoused race theory and race science, and then faked and twisted data to serve eugenics’ racist aims.

Stanford President David Starr Jordan originated the notion of “race and blood” in his 1902 racial epistle “Blood of a Nation,” in which the university scholar declared that human qualities and conditions such as talent and poverty were passed through the blood.

In 1904, the Carnegie Institution established a laboratory complex at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island that stockpiled millions of index cards on ordinary Americans, as researchers carefully plotted the removal of families, bloodlines and whole peoples. From Cold Spring Harbor, eugenics advocates agitated in the legislatures of America, as well as the nation’s social service agencies and associations.

The Harriman railroad fortune paid local charities, such as the New York Bureau of Industries and Immigration, to seek out Jewish, Italian and other immigrants in New York and other crowded cities and subject them to deportation, confinement or forced sterilization.

The Rockefeller Foundation helped found the German eugenics program and even funded the program that Josef Mengele worked in before he went to Auschwitz.

Much of the spiritual guidance and political agitation for the American eugenics movement came from California’s quasi-autonomous eugenic societies, such as Pasadena’s Human Betterment Foundation and the California branch of the American Eugenics Society, which coordinated much of their activity with the Eugenics Research Society in Long Island. These organizations — which functioned as part of a closely-knit network — published racist eugenic newsletters and pseudoscientific journals, such as Eugenical News and Eugenics, and propagandized for the Nazis.

Eugenics was born as a scientific curiosity in the Victorian age. In 1863, Sir Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, theorized that if talented people married only other talented people, the result would be measurably better offspring. At the turn of the last century, Galton’s ideas were imported to the United States just as Gregor Mendel’s principles of heredity were rediscovered. American eugenics advocates believed with religious fervor that the same Mendelian concepts determining the color and size of peas, corn and cattle also governed the social and intellectual character of man.

In a United States demographically reeling from immigration upheaval and torn by post-Reconstruction chaos, race conflict was everywhere in the early 20th century. Elitists, utopians and so-called progressives fused their smoldering race fears and class bias with their desire to make a better world. They reinvented Galton’s eugenics into a repressive and racist ideology. The intent: Populate the Earth with vastly more of their own socioeconomic and biological kind — and less or none of everyone else.

The superior species the eugenics movement sought was populated not merely by tall, strong, talented people. Eugenicists craved blond, blue-eyed Nordic types. This group alone, they believed, was fit to inherit the Earth. In the process, the movement intended to subtract emancipated Negroes, immigrant Asian laborers, Indians, Hispanics, East Europeans, Jews, dark- haired hill folk, poor people, the infirm and anyone classified outside the gentrified genetic lines drawn up by American raceologists.

How? By identifying so-called defective family trees and subjecting them to lifelong segregation and sterilization programs to kill their bloodlines. The grand plan was to literally wipe away the reproductive capability of those deemed weak and inferior — the so-called unfit. The eugenicists hoped to neutralize the viability of 10 percent of the population at a sweep, until none were left except themselves.

Eighteen solutions were explored in a Carnegie-supported 1911 “Preliminary Report of the Committee of the Eugenic Section of the American Breeder’s Association to Study and to Report on the Best Practical Means for Cutting Off the Defective Germ-Plasm in the Human Population.” Point No. 8 was euthanasia.

The most commonly suggested method of eugenicide in the United States was a “lethal chamber” or public, locally operated gas chambers. In 1918, Popenoe, the Army venereal disease specialist during World War I, co-wrote the widely used textbook, “Applied Eugenics,” which argued, “From an historical point of view, the first method which presents itself is execution . . . Its value in keeping up the standard of the race should not be underestimated.” “Applied Eugenics” also devoted a chapter to “Lethal Selection,” which operated “through the destruction of the individual by some adverse feature of the environment, such as excessive cold, or bacteria, or by bodily deficiency.”

Eugenic breeders believed American society was not ready to implement an organized lethal solution. But many mental institutions and doctors practiced improvised medical lethality and passive euthanasia on their own. One institution in Lincoln, Ill., fed its incoming patients milk from tubercular cows believing a eugenically strong individual would be immune. Thirty to 40 percent annual death rates resulted at Lincoln. Some doctors practiced passive eugenicide one newborn infant at a time. Others doctors at mental institutions engaged in lethal neglect.

Nonetheless, with eugenicide marginalized, the main solution for eugenicists was the rapid expansion of forced segregation and sterilization, as well as more marriage restrictions. California led the nation, performing nearly all sterilization procedures with little or no due process. In its first 25 years of eugenics legislation, California sterilized 9,782 individuals, mostly women. Many were classified as “bad girls,” diagnosed as “passionate,” “oversexed” or “sexually wayward.” At the Sonoma State Home, some women were sterilized because of what was deemed an abnormally large clitoris or labia.

In 1933 alone, at least 1,278 coercive sterilizations were performed, 700 on women. The state’s two leading sterilization mills in 1933 were Sonoma State Home with 388 operations and Patton State Hospital with 363 operations. Other sterilization centers included Agnews, Mendocino, Napa, Norwalk, Stockton and Pacific Colony state hospitals.

Even the U.S. Supreme Court endorsed aspects of eugenics. In its infamous 1927 decision, Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, “It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind . . . Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” This decision opened the floodgates for thousands to be coercively sterilized or otherwise persecuted as subhuman. Years later, the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials quoted Holmes’ words in their own defense.

Only after eugenics became entrenched in the United States was the campaign transplanted into Germany, in no small measure through the efforts of California eugenicists, who published booklets idealizing sterilization and circulated them to German officials and scientists.

Hitler studied American eugenics laws. He tried to legitimize his anti- Semitism by medicalizing it, and wrapping it in the more palatable pseudoscientific facade of eugenics. Hitler was able to recruit more followers among reasonable Germans by claiming that science was on his side. Hitler’s race hatred sprung from his own mind, but the intellectual outlines of the eugenics Hitler adopted in 1924 were made in America.

During the ’20s, Carnegie Institution eugenic scientists cultivated deep personal and professional relationships with Germany’s fascist eugenicists. In “Mein Kampf,” published in 1924, Hitler quoted American eugenic ideology and openly displayed a thorough knowledge of American eugenics. “There is today one state,” wrote Hitler, “in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception (of immigration) are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the United States.”

Hitler proudly told his comrades just how closely he followed the progress of the American eugenics movement. “I have studied with great interest,” he told a fellow Nazi, “the laws of several American states concerning prevention of reproduction by people whose progeny would, in all probability, be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock.”

Hitler even wrote a fan letter to American eugenics leader Madison Grant, calling his race-based eugenics book, “The Passing of the Great Race,” his “bible.”

Now, the American term “Nordic” was freely exchanged with “Germanic” or “Aryan.” Race science, racial purity and racial dominance became the driving force behind Hitler’s Nazism. Nazi eugenics would ultimately dictate who would be persecuted in a Reich-dominated Europe, how people would live, and how they would die. Nazi doctors would become the unseen generals in Hitler’s war against the Jews and other Europeans deemed inferior. Doctors would create the science, devise the eugenic formulas, and hand-select the victims for sterilization, euthanasia and mass extermination.

During the Reich’s early years, eugenicists across America welcomed Hitler’s plans as the logical fulfillment of their own decades of research and effort. California eugenicists republished Nazi propaganda for American consumption. They also arranged for Nazi scientific exhibits, such as an August 1934 display at the L.A. County Museum, for the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association.

In 1934, as Germany’s sterilizations were accelerating beyond 5,000 per month, the California eugenics leader C. M. Goethe, upon returning from Germany, ebulliently bragged to a colleague, “You will be interested to know that your work has played a powerful part in shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are behind Hitler in this epoch-making program. Everywhere I sensed that their opinions have been tremendously stimulated by American thought . . . I want you, my dear friend, to carry this thought with you for the rest of your life, that you have really jolted into action a great government of 60 million people.”

That same year, 10 years after Virginia passed its sterilization act, Joseph DeJarnette, superintendent of Virginia’s Western State Hospital, observed in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, “The Germans are beating us at our own game.”

More than just providing the scientific roadmap, America funded Germany’s eugenic institutions.

By 1926, Rockefeller had donated some $410,000 — almost $4 million in today’s money — to hundreds of German researchers. In May 1926, Rockefeller awarded $250,000 toward creation of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Psychiatry. Among the leading psychiatrists at the German Psychiatric Institute was Ernst Rüdin, who became director and eventually an architect of Hitler’s systematic medical repression.

Another in the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute’s complex of eugenics institutions was the Institute for Brain Research. Since 1915, it had operated out of a single room. Everything changed when Rockefeller money arrived in 1929. A grant of $317,000 allowed the institute to construct a major building and take center stage in German race biology. The institute received additional grants from the Rockefeller Foundation during the next several years. Leading the institute, once again, was Hitler’s medical henchman Ernst Rüdin. Rüdin’s organization became a prime director and recipient of the murderous experimentation and research conducted on Jews, Gypsies and others.

Beginning in 1940, thousands of Germans taken from old age homes, mental institutions and other custodial facilities were systematically gassed. Between 50,000 and 100,000 were eventually killed.

Leon Whitney, executive secretary of the American Eugenics Society, declared of Nazism, “While we were pussy-footing around … the Germans were calling a spade a spade.”

A special recipient of Rockefeller funding was the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics in Berlin. For decades,

American eugenicists had craved twins to advance their research into heredity.

The Institute was now prepared to undertake such research on an unprecedented level. On May 13, 1932, the Rockefeller Foundation in New York dispatched a radiogram to its Paris office: JUNE MEETING EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE NINE THOUSAND
DOLLARS OVER THREE YEAR PERIOD TO KWG INSTITUTE ANTHROPOLOGY FOR RESEARCH ON
TWINS AND EFFECTS ON LATER GENERATIONS OF SUBSTANCES TOXIC FOR GERM PLASM.

At the time of Rockefeller’s endowment, Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, a hero in American eugenics circles, functioned as a head of the Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics. Rockefeller funding of that institute continued both directly and through other research conduits during Verschuer’s early tenure. In 1935, Verschuer left the institute to form a rival eugenics facility in Frankfurt that was much heralded in the American eugenics press. Research on twins in the Third Reich exploded, backed by government decrees. Verschuer wrote in Der Erbarzt, a eugenics doctor’s journal he edited, that Germany’s war would yield a “total solution to the Jewish problem.”

Verschuer had a longtime assistant. His name was Josef Mengele.

On May 30, 1943, Mengele arrived at Auschwitz. Verschuer notified the German Research Society, “My assistant, Dr. Josef Mengele (M.D., Ph.D.) joined me in this branch of research. He is presently employed as Hauptsturmführer (captain) and camp physician in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Anthropological testing of the most diverse racial groups in this concentration camp is being carried out with permission of the SS Reichsführer (Himmler).”

Mengele began searching the boxcar arrivals for twins. When he found them,

he performed beastly experiments, scrupulously wrote up the reports and sent the paperwork back to Verschuer’s institute for evaluation. Often, cadavers, eyes and other body parts were also dispatched to Berlin’s eugenic institutes.

Rockefeller executives never knew of Mengele. With few exceptions, the foundation had ceased all eugenics studies in Nazi-occupied Europe before the war erupted in 1939. But by that time the die had been cast. The talented men Rockefeller and Carnegie financed, the great institutions they helped found, and the science they helped create took on a scientific momentum of their own.

After the war, eugenics was declared a crime against humanity — an act of genocide. Germans were tried and they cited the California statutes in their defense — to no avail. They were found guilty.

However, Mengele’s boss Verschuer escaped prosecution. Verschuer re- established his connections with California eugenicists who had gone underground and renamed their crusade “human genetics.” Typical was an exchange July 25, 1946, when Popenoe wrote Verschuer, “It was indeed a pleasure to hear from you again. I have been very anxious about my colleagues in Germany . . . I suppose sterilization has been discontinued in Germany?” Popenoe offered tidbits about various American eugenics luminaries and then sent various eugenics publications. In a separate package, Popenoe sent some cocoa, coffee and other goodies.

Verschuer wrote back, “Your very friendly letter of 7/25 gave me a great deal of pleasure and you have my heartfelt thanks for it. The letter builds another bridge between your and my scientific work; I hope that this bridge will never again collapse but rather make possible valuable mutual enrichment and stimulation.”

Soon, Verschuer again became a respected scientist in Germany and around the world. In 1949, he became a corresponding member of the newly formed American Society of Human Genetics, organized by American eugenicists and geneticists.

In the fall of 1950, the University of Münster offered Verschuer a position at its new Institute of Human Genetics, where he later became a dean. In the early and mid-1950s, Verschuer became an honorary member of numerous prestigious societies, including the Italian Society of Genetics, the Anthropological Society of Vienna, and the Japanese Society for Human Genetics.

Human genetics’ genocidal roots in eugenics were ignored by a victorious generation that refused to link itself to the crimes of Nazism and by succeeding generations that never knew the truth of the years leading up to war. Now governors of five states, including California, have issued public apologies to their citizens, past and present, for sterilization and other abuses spawned by the eugenics movement.

Human genetics became an enlightened endeavor in the late 20th century. Hard-working, devoted scientists finally cracked the human code through the Human Genome Project. Now, every individual can be biologically identified and classified by trait and ancestry. Yet even now, some leading voices in the genetic world are calling for a cleansing of the unwanted among us, and even a master human species.

There is understandable wariness about more ordinary forms of abuse, for example, in denying insurance or employment based on genetic tests. On Oct. 14, the United States’ first genetic anti-discrimination legislation passed the Senate by unanimous vote. Yet because genetics research is global, no single nation’s law can stop the threats.

Edwin Black is author of the award-winning “IBM and the Holocaust” and the recently released “War Against the Weak” (published by Four Walls Eight Windows), from which this article is adapted.

“They don’t really love Jewish people. They love us as characters in their story, in their play, and that is not who we are.” Gershom Gorenberg

If you are trying to make sense of the events that have transpired in the Middle East over the past 100 years or so, don’t feel alone. What is driving the conflicts in the Middle East isn’t due to any prophecy from the Bible as some people have claimed. John of Patmos was writing about his own time and the past, not what was going on 2,000 years later. Prophecy does not mean that someone is predicting the future.

A major movement that is obviously affecting the events in the Middle East is called dispensationalism. John Nelson Darby was an evangelist who read an account of a girl by the name of Margaret MacDonald having visions of Jesus in a two-stage return and basically added his interpretation to the event stating that Jesus would return not once, but twice. While Jesus returning is a central tenet of Christianity, returning twice has no biblical basis. It is false gospel. Nonetheless, it is a heavy influence in many of the churches and synagogues which while wearing the skin of a lamb, underneath lies a wolf. Much of what we THINK we know about the Bible doesn’t come from the Bible, but from modern culture shaped along with our own political and personal belief systems. Jesus rose on Saturday fulfilling the sign of Jonah, not on Sunday as our culture claims. Eve and Adam were together when Eve was approached by the serpent (very carefully read Genesis Chapter 3) and no, Jesus wasn’t born in a Holiday Inn.

Modern day proponents of this movement are Hal Lindsay, John Hagee, Pat Robertson to name a few. People just assume that if they see it on TV, well it must be true. If an “authority figure” says it, it must be true. This gives people an excuse to not take responsibility for their lives. A genuine faith in Christ is an active faith. Allowing others to do the thinking for you so you don’t have to think for yourself or take responsibility for your life is quite contrary to ‘The one who is righteous will live by faith.’

Taken to its logical conclusion, dispensationalism would mean that its followers need to commit suicide like the Heaven’s Gate cult did. Yet they won’t. It goes to show that despite their claims that God is on their side, they actually don’t believe in God’s promise to Abraham about being a blessing to all nations. Dispensationalism denies Jesus as Messiah and it denies God’s sovereignty.

The notion of being raptured up to heaven is dependent on destruction whether natural or man-made for it to work. So they go about trying to make it work by supporting war, persecutions, animal sacrifices among other things. Quite contrary to the doctrine that God so loved the world that he sent his only son to save us.

What was the point of cursing a fig tree for not bearing fruit when it was not even in season? See Matthew 21 particularly versus 18–22; Luke 13:6–9 and Mark 11:12–21.  Pay attention to how the parable of the fig tree is bracketed with the cursing of the temple. That was done so that the reader would not miss the point of cursing the fig tree in the first place. If something is broken, you replace it. Jesus is the new temple (albeit spiritual temple in a spiritual kingdom).

More to the point, Matthew re-orients eschatological expectations away from the earthly city and temple and onto the resurrected Jesus. This theological shift away from the earthly city is painted literarily by the evangelist who concludes his Gospel with Jesus appearing to the disciples on another mountain, a nondescript location in Galilee (Matt 28:16). The exact geographical region is irrelevant; the significance is not on the place but on the person of Jesus. The ingathering of “all nations” will indeed take place, not through an earthly restoration but through the apostles’ ministry of baptism, through which the disciples will experience in the presence of Jesus, so that in being regathered, the restoration at the new temple is realized.

The Jews expected a messiah that was similar to King David or the Macabees. Something along the lines of a warrior king or politician driving out the Roman Empire. Instead, he come to us born, living and dying in poverty. Jesus lived amongst us, the blind, the loss, the oppressed, etc… Instead of driving out the Roman armies, he drove out the religious frauds who had occupied the Temple and lead people astray with their false teachings and empty motions of religion. This messiah had to bring himself to the lowest levels in order for us to have the chance of experiencing God’s redeeming grace. This speaks to the nature of who God is. This is a far cry from the portrayal of a God that is only interested in death and destruction.