Frederick R. Smith Speaks: Biography

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Saturday, March 27, 2021

Notable and Wonderful Noah Webster

Frederick R Smith has moved to Frederick R. Smith Speaks (substack.com)

Noah Webster (1758-1843) was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and grew up in an average colonial family. His father was a farmer, a justice of the peace, and a deacon of a Congregational church. Noah’s sisters Mercy (1749 – 1820) and Jerusha (1756 – 1831) worked with their mother to keep house and to make food and clothing for the family. His two brothers, Charles (1762 – 1817) and Abraham (1751 – 1831) helped their father with the farm work.

During the colonial period, few people went to college, but Noah loved to learn, and his parents let him go to Connecticut’s only college, Yale. To make this happen, his father mortgaged the farm, and in 1774, at 16 years of age, Noah left home for Yale. Noah graduated in 1778 at the height of the Revolutionary War and he wanted to study law, but his parents were unable to provide him with any more money. So, to earn a living, Noah taught school in Glastonbury, Hartford, and West Hartford. Later he studied law under several lawyers. In 1781, the bar in Hartford admitted Webster.

Noah did not like the conditions in American schools because many children of all ages were crammed into one-room schoolhouses with no desks, poor books, and untrained teachers. Schoolbooks came from England and Noah believed that Americans should learn from American books. As such, in 1783 Noah wrote his textbook: “A Grammatical Institute of the English Language” which was called by most people the “Blue-backed Speller” because of its blue cover. For 100 years, this book taught children how to read, spell, and pronounce words. Ben Franklin used it to teach his granddaughter to read.

In 1784, Webster also wrote a grammar book and in 1785 a reader book. The speller, grammar, and reader were published beginning in 1785 as a three-volume set. Around 1836, William Holmes McGuffey published the McGuffey Readers to include a grammar book and a reader book. McGuffey intended to use Webster’s “Blue Back” as a supplement along with the McGuffey Readers.

Beginning in 1785, Webster began delivering a series of public lectures that promoted a more uniform language and education. One little-known and overlooked but important fact is the significant role that Webster played in the development of the American Constitution. In 1785, he wrote a pamphlet called “Sketches of American Policy.” Read by educated Americans, most of the principles in that pamphlet were incorporated into the Constitution as well as into the essays in the Federalist Papers. While the principles themselves were not Webster’s, he was the first to publish them in the form of specific proposals for a new Constitution.

In 1786, Noah met Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia where they discussed their favorite subject — simplified spelling. It was during this time that Noah coined the terms “fœderal” and “anti-fœderal” to describe the sides for and against a strong national government.

In 1787, he briefly lived in New York to edit the American Magazine, but this venture failed. After the Constitutional Convention in 1787, he anonymously wrote an “Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution,” an easy-to-read pamphlet that was influential among the citizens. He also wrote a number of articles promoting the new Constitution under the pseudonyms “America,” Giles Hickory,” and “A Citizen of America.” He moved back to Hartford in 1788 and practiced law there until 1793.

It was also during his travels that Noah experienced difficulties in obtaining copyright for his works in each state. As such, he was at the forefront of the establishment of a national copyright system.

In 1789, Noah married Rebecca Greenleaf in Boston and they had eight children. In 1793, a prominent Federalist convinced him to move back to New York to edit a daily newspaper “The Minerva” (later the Commercial Advertiser) and the semi-weekly “The Herald” (later the Spectator).

In 1803, Webster moved to New Haven to work on his dictionary. In 1812 the Websters moved to Amherst, Massachusetts and Noah helped to start Amherst College (1821). He served in the Massachusetts legislature in 1815 and 1819. In 1822 the Webster’s moved back to New Haven. Noah traveled to France and England in 1824-25 to research lexicography (the practice of compiling dictionaries).

When Noah was 43, he started writing the first American dictionary. He did this because Americans in various parts of the country used words differently. Noah thought that all Americans should speak the same way. He also thought that Americans should not speak and spell just like the English. For example, Noah used American spellings like “color” instead of the English “colour.” He also added American words that were not in English dictionaries. His early success in 1782 with the blue-backed spelling book earned him a steady income and the wherewithal to devote his life to the first American dictionary, published in 1806. In 1828 after 27 years of work and at 70 years of age, Noah’s second edition dictionary had 70,000 words in it.

Noah Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language was produced during the years when the American home, church, and school were set up on a Biblical and patriotic basis. Webster descended on his mother’s side from Pilgrim Governor William Bradford of Plymouth Plantation who made important contributions to an American educational system, which kept the nation on a Christian family base and a Constitutional course for many years. The famous “blue-backed Speller,” his “Grammars,” and his “Reader,” all had Biblical and patriotic themes. Webster championed the flood of educational volumes emphasizing Christian Constitutional values for more than a century.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the 1828 American Dictionary should have the greatest number of Biblical definitions given in any reference volume. For a salient example of the different worldview that Webster had in mind in 1828 compared to today, look at the definition of the word “law.” The New Collegiate Dictionary:

LAW: a binding custom or practice of a community; a rule of conduct or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority. (This definition continues for two inches of one column of space.)

The American Dictionary of the English Language with pronouncing vocabularies of Scripture, classical and geographical names (1828):

LAW: A rule, particularly an established or permanent rule, prescribed by the supreme power of a state to its subjects, for regulating their actions, particularly their social actions. Laws are imperative or mandatory, commanding what shall be done; prohibitory, restraining from what is to be forborne; or permissive, declaring what may be done without incurring a penalty. The laws which enjoin the duties of piety and morality, are prescribed by God and found in the Scriptures…

It appears that Christianity in the form of Calvinism was important to Webster, but he was not always consistent with it in his thinking. For instance, for a period in his early life, he believed in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s social contract theory. [1] He later turned away from the social contract theory when he began to see the dangers of what today we would call “mobocracy” or “woke.”

Late in life, Webster was critical of the politics of dependency. [2] He set himself with the founders who believed that if a person depended financially on someone, they could not serve the public good, but would only be concerned about his dependent relationship. It was only a man who had no economic interests and sought no economic advantage who could serve well.

If there is any doubt to the veracity of Noah’s Christianity, the following from the preface to the 1828 edition of his “An American Dictionary of the English Language — with pronouncing vocabularies of Scripture, classical and geographical names:”

In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed . . . No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.

This above is just one of many examples of Webster’s Christian worldview expressed in his many works. It is curious but understandable why there is little about Webster in modern history (cough cough) books. What scant information that may be around is devoid of any Christian references. While the name Webster may still be known because of the modern namesake dictionary, Noah carried out many more wonderful things throughout his life.

Noah Webster and Daniel Webster are familiar names from history. While they lived during the founding of the United States and were from the same area, there is no known family relationship. Daniel Webster (1782-1852) was an American politician who twice served in the United States House of Representatives, representing New Hampshire (1813-1817) and Massachusetts (1823 -1827), served as a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts (1827-1841) and 1845-1850) and was twice the United States Secretary of State, under Presidents William Henry Harrison and John Tyler (1841-1843) and Millard Fillmore (1850-1852). He was a Dartmouth graduate.

Major sources for this paper:

The Debate on the Constitution, Volume One and Two, Library of America; (July 1993)
America’s God and Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations, by William J. Federer (Editor), Amerisearch, Inc. (2000)

Notes:

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was a French philosopher and political theorist and considered the father of modern democratic ideals. He believed in “popular sovereignty” and free will whose idea influenced the godless French Revolution. Rousseau held that laws must be solely the creation of man, not handed down by God. His “Social Contract” (1762) proclaimed that civil order would be a product of “general will,” a mystical thought that civic responsibility is inclined towards the good of all and not each person’s particular will. Rousseau believed in the perfectibility of man. His novel Émile (1762) outlined an education system with self-expression encouraged and rote learning eliminated (does this not sound like today’s school system?).
Now we know why the debased woke commie gang loves the Caustic Cancel Culture Pogrom — it relegates the history of hard work to the dustbin.

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Cogent Author and Publisher, Frederick R. Smith
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Sunday, March 14, 2021

Elia Kazan the Great

Frederick R Smith has moved to Frederick R. Smith Speaks (substack.com)

Elia Kazan (1909 – 2003) was born in Constantinople (now Istanbul). In 1913, Kazan along with his Greek parents came to the United States and they settled in New York City. Kazan’s father, George Kazanjoglous, worked as a rug merchant and expected his son to follow him. However, Kazan’s mother, Athena, encouraged her son to make his own decisions.

Kazan attended public schools in the New York City area and graduated from Williams College in Massachusetts. Thereafter, he studied drama at Yale. In the 1930s, Kazan took part in New York’s Group Theater and it was during this acting stint that he worked with well-known actor Lee Strasberg. In 1935, he directed his first stage production and by the 1940s he was known to be one of the great Broadway actor/producers. He also was one of the founders of the “Actor’s Studio” in 1947. The more notable achievements were his direction of the plays “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1947) by Tennessee Williams and “Death of a Salesman” (1948) by Arthur Miller. After Streetcar Named Desire, Kazan also took part in the development of William’s scripts. In 1955, William’s felt that Kazan had taken over his authority as the writer of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”

Kazan also started to work on films during this period and his first feature film was “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” (1945). In 1947, he won the Academy Award for the film “Gentleman’s Agreement” in which Gregory Peck portrayed a reporter investigating Anti-Semitism. Kazan worked with Marlon Brando during the Broadway production of “A Streetcar Named Desire” and in 1951 it was made into a screenplay. The movie adaptation starred Kim Hunter and Karl Malden. Brando said that “Kazan is the best actor’s director you could ever want… because he was an actor himself, but a special kind of actor. He understands things that other directors do not. He also inspired you. Most actors are expected to come with their parts in their pockets and their emotions spring-loaded, when the director says, ‘Okay, hit it,’ they go into a time-slip. But Kazan brought a lot of things to the actor and he invited you to argue with him. He is one of the few directors creative and understanding enough to know where the actor's trying to go. He’d let you play a scene almost any way you’d want.” [1]

Brando’s key role in “VIVA ZAPATA!” (1952) and “On the Waterfront” (1954) won him eight Oscars. Budd Schulberg's account of corruption in NYC harbor unions was the basis of “On the Waterfront.” Schulberg knew his subject as he testified as a friendly witness before a Congressional committee looking into the corruption of longshoreman. In this film, there were depictions of conflicting loyalties that paralleled Kazan’s own life.

On April 10, 1952, Kazan testified at the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA) hearings and admitted past membership in the Communist party. It was there that he committed the secular sin that certain people from the debased left have never forgotten — he named others in his former secret Communist group. Kazan not only admitted that he had been a Communist member for 18 months (1934-36), but he named eight people who had been in the party with him. He did not denounce them, as some newspapers erroneously reported. The unreported truth: Kazan felt that they joined for the same reasons he did, anger against Hitler and sympathy for the poor. Just two days after his appearance, Kazan placed an ad in the New York Times urging others who knew about this “dangerous and alien conspiracy” to inform the public or “the appropriate government agency.” Many with a debased leftist worldview were ballistic, as they could not stand such “betrayal” from one of their own.

Other former party members had appeared before the HCUA and spoke of ex-comrades. However, the debased lamestream media vilified Elia to the hilt because he was the most well-known former Communist from the entertainment industry to have cooperated with the HCUA. As an insult to the lamestream, even more, Kazan had become an anti-Communist. While he was initially reluctant, he thought that cooperating with HCUA was a justifiable position because of the menace that Communism posed to world stability. Kazan also supplied information on how key Communist leaders would show his Red Cell how to assist the party’s front organizations and how to make Group Theatre a Communist organ. Other debased leftist publications, including The Nation (still an open Commie rag) and the New York Post (then a far-left newspaper), went after Kazan. Playwright Arthur Miller (his longtime friend and collaborator) and Stalinist/writer Lillian Hellman joined in the assault. Even today, the lamestream will portray the “Kazan affair” as an illustration of “McCarthyism” but never mention the salient facts. The most outstanding item to consider is the fact that HCUA was a project of the House of Representatives; McCarthy was a senator.

Even today, people will invoke the “terror” of the “blacklist.” Kazan’s exposure that peeled open the Communist infiltration was the reason for the blacklist (supposedly). Hogwash and balderdash! The blacklist would have occurred even without Kazan’s exposure. On their own, after the HCUA hearings, Hollywood executives felt compelled to deny jobs to about three hundred Communists in Hollywood. About 150 more people were denied jobs in television and radio. [2] Nevertheless, the reporters who do not know history will spout off that “thousands” of people (Communist or not) had their careers ruined because of Kazan and others such as McCarthy. Nonsense! What is not reported are the correct numbers (as supplied above). Furthermore, a number of those blacklisted could continue to work under assumed names. The above illustrates why the McCarthyism mantra continues to this day — people are unaware of the facts at best or at worst they are in sympathy with Communism (debased woke folk). [3] Today, the Caustic Cancel Culture Pogrom, managed by the same Commie crowd and their puppets (useful debased woke folk), have the upper hand terminating the jobs of many people who dare question the new Communist woke worldview.

Just two years after his testimony, Kazan directed “On the Water Front,” which he considered an allegory about his life. The brave Budd Schulberg, who also turned against Communism in 1951, wrote the script. This work by these two brave former Communists inspired the public and Hollywood. Kazan forged ahead to produce many more wholesome movies. Other well-known actors that stared in his movies included Montgomery Cliff, Lee Remick, Natalie Wood, Warren Beatty, and Kirk Douglas. In the 1970s, Kazan devoted more of his time to writing.

In his autobiography “Elia Kazan: A Life,” he wrote “No one who did what I did, whatever his reasons, came out of it undamaged… I did not. Here I am, thirty-five years later, still worrying over it. I knew what it would cost me. Do I now feel ashamed of what I did? ... The truth is that within a year I’d stopped feeling guilty or even embarrassed about what I’d done...”

The measure of the success of Communist infiltration in Hollywood is the virtually total absence of movies to this day that chronicle the primary drama of the last century: the struggle for freedom against totalitarian communism. There are just a few exceptions with the motion picture Dr. Zhivago being one notable example. Nevertheless, not one Hollywood film has ever depicted the horrors of the Soviet-induced famine in Ukraine, the Gulags, the Moscow show trials, or the Hungarian uprising against the Soviet military. For the cogent un-woke folk reader, this sure proves the salient point. Specifically, the debased lamestream media and Hollywood were, and are, indeed Communist fronts.

In 1983, Kazan was honored with a Life Achievement award at a Kennedy Center ceremony. In 1999, he received an Honorary Oscar, and your author can clearly remember the television footage showing Warren Beatty applauding while Nick Nolte remained seated with his arms folded in his lap. This award was due in part to the persistent lobbying by Karl Malden and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (sponsor of the Oscar night). Sad to say, the announcement of this event gave birth to some bitter protests, and right on cue the debased lamestream media made much of Kazan’s supposed “betrayal” of old friends. What a bunch of debased Communist creeps.

In 1932, Kazan married playwright Molly Day Thatcher and they had four children. She passed away in 1963. In 1967, he married the actress/writer Barbara Loden and she passed away in 1980. In 1982, Kazan married Frances Rudge.

On September 28, 2003, Elia Kazan passed away, in his Manhattan home. The debased lamestream media gave just a fleeting mention of the passing of this wonderful 94-year-old man. Films directed by Kazan garnered 22 Academy Awards, 62 nominations, and two Directing Oscars. Kazan had a liberal worldview, but he would be “moderate” by today’s standards. He gave us wonderful memories of the once upon a time decent entertainment industry.

Notes:

Conversations with Marlon Brando by Lawrence Grobel, 1991
The “Hollywood Ten” were in this “list.” These were the unfriendly Communist witnesses who refused to cooperate with HCUA. While it is not illegal to be a member of the Communist Party, each of the Hollywood Ten served time for contempt of Congress.
“Debased woke folk” is Fred’s term for those who have lost critical thinking skills (debased) and have a programed mind (woke) because of the psychological operations of the media and education systems. The opposite: cogent non-woke folk.

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Cogent Author and Publisher, Frederick R. Smith
Cogent Editor, Sean Tinney

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Monday, February 15, 2021

Awful Aleister Crowley

Frederick R Smith has moved to Frederick R. Smith Speaks (substack.com)

Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) was a person of wealth who pursued demonic greatness. Most notably, he claimed to be the “Great Beast 666” and he was the leader of a very obscure German cult called the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO). [1] Crowley owed his fortunes to being born into a religious and wealthy family from England.

Crowley was born in England and named Edward Alexander Crowley. However, he despised and rebelled against his family and he renamed himself “Aleister” because his father had the same first name. Aleister was beyond the typical shenanigans of the boys during that era. For example, he almost killed himself making homemade fireworks and at 17 years of age, he contracted gonorrhea from a prostitute.

Despite his crude behavior, Crowley attended Cambridge University where some writings suggest that he had copious sex trysts with men and women. At age 23, he joined the secret society known as the “Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.” That group expelled Crowley in just two years, as the order did not approve of his magical methods.

It was in 1904, while in Egypt, that Crowley reported that he had the most important experience of his life. It was while trying to contact his “guardian angel” that Crowley finally encountered an entity he claimed to be known as “Aiwass.” In 1907, he formed the “Order of the Silver Star,” a magical organization.

In 1909, Crowley divorced his first wife because he claimed she was an alcoholic. This made it easy for him to indulge in his passion for drugs, magic, and women. It was at this point that Crowley claimed to be the reincarnation of some of the more notorious occultists from the past. In 1910, OTO contacted Crowley and after some initial disagreement with the "order" he joined. In 1912 he became the head of the English-speaking branch.

Crowley came to the United States sometime between 1912 and 1916 and took up residence near Bristol, New Hampshire. It was here that he promoted himself to the OTO rank of “Magus.” Crowley came to the United States to avoid the First World War and it was here that he wrote Anti-British propaganda. In 1920 he went to Sicily to set up the “Thelema Abbey.” It was here that he also fathered a daughter named “Poupée.” [2]

The Abbey was unsanitary and drug addiction raged out of control. This was was the setting for Crowley’s novel “Diary of a Drug Fiend.” Poupée died in 1920 and then one of Crowley’s “students” perished from drinking impure water. This sealed the Abbey’s fate. The student’s wife went back to England and sold her story, which told the fate of the notorious Abbey. Reports like this came during the same time as the rise of the Mussolini regime and in 1923, Sicily expelled Crowley. In 1925 the OTO chose Crowley to be their “World Head.” In 1929 he published his major work, “Magick: In Theory and in Practice.” Today, reprints of this book are extremely popular.

After expulsion from Italy, Crowley became known as “The Wickedest Man in the World” and he was unable to find a reliable publisher. He also was unable to find a place of residence for obvious reasons and spent the rest of his life as a wanderer. The following tidbits about Crowley send shivers down the spine of cogent non-woke people:

Crowley’s two wives went insane and five mistresses committed suicide.
One of Crowley’s more significant contribution (for lack of a better word) is the notion of putting backward messages into musical recordings. The occultist guitarist for Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page, owns an enormous collection of Crowley memorabilia and bought Crowley’s mansion, Boleskine House, near Foyers, Scotland. Supposedly, Page placed backward-satanic messages into recordings such as “Stairway to Heaven.”
Crowley’s face is on the album cover of the Beatles’ “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”
Crowley was named “Prophet of a New Aeon” which would end the “Age of Osiris” and usher in the “Age of Horus” (a new era had begun for humanity and the old religions were to be swept aside).

Many writings suggest that Crowley joined many different “Masonic” lodges and rose to high-ranking levels. However, these lodges were Masonic in name only and not a part of the society. As such, the true Masonic orders did not and do not recognize Crowley’s membership.

Although impoverished, disgraced, and a near-skeletal heroin addict, Crowley never lacked followers. He fathered several children, most of them illegitimately, and was still in demand as a medium and a magus to the end, designing a new sequence of tarot cards and commentating on it at some length in his Book of Thoth of 1944. He died, in Hastings, in 1947. [3] The video “Aleister Crowley - The Great Beast 666” provides additional details about him.

The letters O. T. O. stand for Ordo Templi Orientis, the Order of the Oriental Templars, or the Order of the Temple of the East. The O. T. O. claims to be “in sympathy with the traditional ideals of Freemasonry.”
Poupée in French usually means doll.
The Great Beast 666: who was Aleister Crowley? | National Trust

Major printed source for this blog, Hope of the Wicked by Ted Flynn, 2000

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Cogent Author and Publisher, Frederick R. Smith
Cogent Editor, Sean Tinney

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Wednesday, December 16, 2020

The Law and Socialism

Frederick R Smith has moved to Frederick R. Smith Speaks (substack.com)

Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) was a French economist, political leader [1], and author. He did most of his writing before and following the February 1848 Revolution. It was during this time that France was evolving into full-scale socialism. As a Deputy to the Legislative Assembly, Bastiat was studying and explaining collectivist ideas. He explained how socialism would degenerate into what we now know as Communism. His compatriots chose to ignore his logic. Like today’s brainwashed people and Woke folk – socialism sounds like a soothing sonata.

Bastiat’s1850 treatise “The Law” is a seminal work that spells out the true principles that are necessary for a free society. Like our Founding Fathers, he shows us the greatest threat to true liberty is too much government. Unfortunately, most people from all “wings” do not grasp the concepts found in The Law. For example, in the days before the start of the Iraq War in March 2003, former Ohio Democrat Representative Dennis Kucinich teamed up with the now-defunct Global Renaissance Alliance (GRA). The goal, to establish a Cabinet-level “Department of Peace.” Rest assured the GRA would have introduced more socialist programs in the United States. Among the goals for the proposed GRA would be the development of “... new programs that relate to the societal challenges of school violence, guns, racial or ethnic violence, violence against gays and lesbians, and police-community relations disputes.”

Kucinich’s argument is typical — let us react to the symptom and not the root cause of the problem. Like gun safety (translation — gun control/elimination), more laws will take “care of the problem.” Guns alone kill people while automobile deaths are an “accident.” In other words, automobile accidents are acceptable, but gun accidents (rare) are unacceptable. These controls do not and never will address the root issues. This is the opposite of true classical liberalism. There, religion and civic associations form a just society. No matter how much the liberals and neo-conservatives say otherwise, the big government never was and never will be the answer.

If we do indeed get a Peace Department, where will the money come from? You got it, from the taxpayers by direct taxation and an indirect tax called inflation. [2] The good congressman from Ohio desired the elimination of the Department of mis-Education to replace it with the Peace Department. The elimination of the Department of mis-Education has merit!

While the reality is an illusion today, those who can see through the haze know in fact that we have vestiges of a free-market country. We can no longer even pretend that we have a limited government as required under the Constitution. The veneer is wearing thin. The average person is lucky to keep 50% of his or her earnings. Open and hidden taxes feed the appetite of federal, state, and local governments. Yes, the government is a necessity, but the best government is a limited affair. The defund the police trolls might have a free market idea! Of course, this is in jest.

Given the above modern considerations, it is necessary to take a quick journey into a few salient points from The Law. Bastiat invokes the most important truth at the very beginning:

We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life -- physical, intellectual, and moral life. . . Life, faculties, production -- in other words, individuality, liberty, property -- this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it.

Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.

There have been more than 50,000 laws placed on the books during the last half of the 20th century alone. A moral nation would need minimal laws and police itself.

The forced “contribution” called Social Security is an example of plunder. If we kept our money and spent it in a wise manner, we would have plenty to live through tough times (e.g., Covid-1984) and enjoy retirement. If people do not lead moral and frugal lives, they will not be able to save for the future. Socialists never promoted solid morals, values, and principles, and they never will. They look at people as raw material formed into a certain mold. But, we have the right to defend our property from plunder and to protect ourselves:

Each of us has a natural right -- from God -- to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. . . If every person has the right to defend -- even by force -- his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right -- its reason for existing, its lawfulness -- is based on individual right.

Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces?

While socialists have promoted the concept of a “Utopia,” such a notion is a bankrupt idea, even with the moral citizenry. Nevertheless, what would be the best society?

Under such an administration, everyone would understand that he possessed all the privileges as well as all the responsibilities of his existence. No one would have any argument with government, provided that his person was respected, his labor was free, and the fruits of his labor were protected against all unjust attack. When successful, we would not have to thank the state for our success. And, conversely, when unsuccessful, we would no more think of blaming the state for our misfortune than would the farmers blame the state because of hail or frost. The state would be felt only by the invaluable blessings of safety provided by this concept of government.

As we know, one of the most important building blocks of a society is the concept of property or wealth obtained through challenging work. This is what makes a sound economic system while reducing poverty. Through a desire to succeed, the individuals build a society, which in turn supports a monetary system that has true wealth, a sound backing. Such a free-market economy was the natural result of liberty, carried out in the economic aspect of society. This concept works to enhance individual freedom and not to restrict or reduce the individual right to make economic choices. Individuals were to succeed or fail based on those choices. So, property is the target of the plunderers:

Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor; by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources. . . . But it is also true that a man may live and satisfy his wants by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of others. This process is the origin of plunder. . . When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor. It is evident, then, that the proper purpose of law is to use the power of its collective force to stop this fatal tendency to plunder instead of to work. . . But, generally, the law is made by one man or one class of men. . .This force must be entrusted to those who make the laws. . . . Thus it is easy to understand how law, instead of checking injustice, becomes the invincible weapon of injustice.

As society sheds its morals, values, and principles, a resulting cancer of complacency spreads throughout. With people taking less and less responsibility for their actions and fewer people working hard, the government steps in to take care of the masses. This inevitably causes the redistribution of wealth and a reduced desire to work. A poignant example, as a teen, this author had industrious ambitions during snowstorms. Indeed, snow was money. Joyful work to clear the driveways of my neighbors landed a handsome reward. As an adult, I can think of few occasions in 45 years that a teenager came to my house to offer their services to shovel snow. But we know this “protestant work ethic” today is an anti-Woke poke.

As the government becomes larger and larger, there is an increased opportunity for people to take advantage of the system. Furthermore, there is increased opportunity for people to take advantage from within the government as greed and corruption takes the form of legal plunder:

Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter -- by peaceful or revolutionary means -- into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.

Woe to the nation when this latter purpose prevails among the mass victims of lawful plunder when they, in turn, seize the power to make laws!

One can argue that socialism is good because it takes care of the people. A good society should take care of those who cannot take part and pick the fruits of their demanding work. However, as society debases itself in moral depravity (e.g., values clarification and relativism) it takes from those who continue to work. It supplies incentives for many to no longer produce. It becomes necessary to plunder from those who continue to labor. What are these programs called? Bastiat says it best:

Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole --with their common aim of legal plunder -- constitute socialism.

The institution of legal plunder is like malignant cancer, once it starts it never stops. The slightest attempt to stop any socialist program, no matter how wasteful or destructive brings on the howls of the few who profit. The majority who do not even have any perceived stake in a program simply remain silent. As the old saying goes, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. Legal plunder (socialism) is like a monopoly, but it has a certain advantage:

Socialists desire to practice legal plunder, not illegal plunder. Socialists, like all other monopolists, desire to make the law their own weapon. And when once the law is on the side of socialism, how can it be used against socialism? For when plunder is abetted by the law, it does not fear your courts, your gendarmes, and your prisons. Rather, it may call upon them for help.

Socialism has a seductive lure with its warping in a humanitarian guise. We hear many mantras such as “it’s all about the children,” “compassionate conservatism,” and “sustainable development.” Sounds nice, but Bastiat writes:

Here I encounter the most popular fallacy of our times. It is not considered sufficient that the law should be just; it must be philanthropic. Nor is it sufficient that the law should guarantee to every citizen the free and inoffensive use of his faculties for physical, intellectual, and moral self-improvement. Instead, it is demanded that the law should directly extend welfare, education, and morality throughout the nation. This is the seductive lure of socialism.

I cannot possibly understand how fraternity can be legally enforced without liberty being legally destroyed, and thus justice being legally trampled underfoot. Legal plunder has two roots: One of them, as I have said before, is in human greed; the other is in false philanthropy.

The person who honestly believes that socialism is goodwill reject any argument made by this author or Bastiat. This is unfortunate because the precept of a truly moral society with a desire and a drive to succeed will simply produce on its own momentum. There will be less poverty and those who succeed will have more to give to the poor. The more socialism, the less the people must give which in turn reduces the resources available to the truly needy. Specifically, the otherwise unnecessary bureaucracy that is in place to redistribute the wealth absorbs resources. Once again, Bastiat says it best:

You say: “There are persons who have no money,” and you turn to the law. But the law is not a breast that fills itself with milk. Nor are the lacteal veins of the law supplied with milk from a source outside the society. Nothing can enter the public treasury for the benefit of one citizen or one class unless other citizens and other classes have been forced to send it in. If every person draws from the treasury the amount that he has put in it, it is true that the law then plunders nobody. But this procedure does nothing for the persons who have no money. It does not promote equality of income. The law can be an instrument of equalization only as it takes from some persons and gives to other persons. When the law does this, it is an instrument of plunder.

With this in mind, examine the protective tariffs, subsidies, guaranteed profits, guaranteed jobs, relief and welfare schemes, public education, progressive taxation, free credit, and public works. You will find that they are always based on legal plunder, organized injustice.

“The Law,” written over 150 years ago, has eternal truth as the precepts are the same. Despite what our postmodern secular Darwinist friends may say, today we have the same needs, desires, and temptations that existed thousands of years ago. Like many other important writings, academia long forgot and banished Bastiat’s treatise. For sure it would be anti-Woke and incite the clarion call of racism. Nevertheless, one can in one sitting read The Law. You will conclude that this literature is even more applicable to today’s world than to that in which it was originally written. All the above aside, if one is a hard-core Darwinist Bastait’s writing means nothing, like our “living breathing Constitution.”

For balance in writing, the other big brother deserves a mention. Like the leviathan government, big business has its problems too. Crony capitalism can crush the lifeblood of society — small business. Powerful people seek favors from the government. Thus, they make more money creating extreme inequality. The politicians and government officials use state power for “legal” privileges in return for financial and political support. The huge rewards reaped upon by the super-rich during the Covid-1984 events are legend. Think about how many super-rich proclaim to be “liberal.” Enough said.

In closing, it is prudent to mention that Bastiat writes negatively about Montesquieu: [3]

Those who are subject to vulgar infatuation may exclaim: “Montesquieu has said this! So it's magnificent! It's sublime!” As for me, I have the courage of my own opinion. I say: What! You have the nerve to call that fine? It is frightful! It is abominable! These random selections from the writings of Montesquieu show that he considers persons, liberties, property -- mankind itself -- to be nothing but materials for legislators to exercise their wisdom upon.

Notes:

The computer application used to write this blog suggests a more inclusive term. It is Woke!
For more information about the hidden tax called inflation check out Creature From Jekyll Island.
Charles Louis Joseph de Secondat, the Baron of Montesquieu of France (1689 – 1755) was often cited by the Founding Fathers from his best-known work, “The Sprit of Laws.” He taught in French universities during the time of enlightenment and because of this many writers say he was a Deist. However, Montesquieu was born a Catholic and died a Catholic. In his works, Montesquieu showed that he believed that all law has its source in God. In The Spirit of Laws, he declared that “. . . a modern government is most agreeable to the Christian Religion, and a despotic Government to the Mahommedan.” James Madison often referenced Montesquieu in his many contributions to the Federalist Papers.

Author and Publisher, Frederick R. Smith

Editor, Sean Tinney

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Thursday, November 26, 2020

Wonderful Whittaker Chambers

Frederick R Smith has moved to Frederick R. Smith Speaks (substack.com)

Whittaker Chambers [1] (1901 – 1961) was a Soviet spy for a brief period of his life but realized his error and fought to expose the evils of Communism. He was one of the more influential figures of the last century, but few history books give the credit due to this man. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and early on his family moved to the New York City area taking up residence in Brooklyn and Long Island, New York. At South Side High School, he excelled at English and language studies. Upon graduation from high school in 1919, Chambers worked as a laborer and bank clerk. In 1921 he entered Columbia University where he took part in the school’s literary activities. He wrote for the undergraduate magazine “Varsity,” and edited the literary journal The Morningside. While considered one of the best undergraduate students, Chambers’ attendance record was poor. It was a new interest that prevented him from going to class and graduating – Communism.

It was from 1925 to 1937 that Chambers ensconced himself in the Communist movement. During this phase of his life, he graduated from a simple activist to an underground espionage agent. After Stalin’s purges in 1937, Chambers became disillusioned and broke with the Communists, and became a staunch Christian. He became senior editor of Time, heading its foreign news section in 1944. He evolved into an ardent anti-Communist and was acutely aware of the struggle between the Godless system of Communism and Christianity. In his wonderful 1952 autobiography, Witness, he provided this stirring account of the great struggle:

“The communist vision is the vision of man without God. It is the vision of man’s mind displacing God as the creative intelligence of the world. It is the vision of man’s liberated mind, by the sole force of its rational intelligence, redirecting man’s destiny and reorganizing man’s life and the world. It is the vision of man, once more the central figure of the Creation, not because God made man in His image, but because man’s mind makes him the most intelligent of the animals.”

In 1948, Chambers testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA). It was here that Chambers bravely identified several members of a secret Communist cabal that had burrowed into United States government in the 1930s and 1940s. Chambers identified Alger Hiss as one of the principal players of this network. Hiss was a high-level Department of State official who had advised President Roosevelt at the wartime Yalta Conference and was a key figure in the negotiations that led to the formation of the United Nations. Hiss was also the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.

As a spy courier, Chambers hid documents and notes in Hiss’ handwriting in a hollowed-out pumpkin on his Maryland farm. It was these “Pumpkin Papers” that Chambers produced almost sealed the case. As a result of the HCUA hearings, Hiss faced conviction for lying under oath. A five-year sentence included 44 months at the federal penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, before building the full espionage case, the three-year statute of limitations prevented the filing of that charge.

Not only did the press vilify Chambers during the HCUA hearings professionals also attacked him. For example, during testimony, a psychiatrist took the stand to say that Chambers was a psychopath. Never mind the fact that the good doctor never examined Chambers.

In 1995, the military released years of work that decoded secret Soviet messages that proved without a doubt the Communist infiltration of the government during the 1940s. Called the Venona Project, [2] this effort confirmed much of what Chambers, Elizabeth Bentley, and other ex-Communists told HCUA and other congressional committees (e.g., the McCarthy Senate investigation). Despite this proof and copious other documentation and analysis, many people reject Chambers, vilify McCarthy and still come to the defense of Hiss.

There seems to be an epidemic of amnesia among baby boomers with respect to the fact that much of the “Red Scare” mantra crystallized from the HCUA, a committee of the House, not the Senate where McCarthy held office. As such, most liberals and some conservatives sadly react to the discussion of Chambers is proof of the terrible “McCarthy witch hunt.” The truth is McCarthy was trying to expose a terrible menace that drove him to an early grave at 48 years of age. While he was not a perfect man, like all of us, the falsehoods perpetrated against him sent him to the grave. For example, conventional wisdom says that McCarthy ruined the lives of those whom he was investigating. McCarthy did not want to release the names of the people he was investigating until convictions occurred. He did not want to jeopardize those who may have been innocent. It was the media who leaked names to the media, not McCarthy. To be fair and open, there are writings that suggest Chambers was a private critic of McCarthy. This is understandable based on the hysteria and lies propagated by the media during his lifetime.

When Chambers broke with Communism in 1937, he told his wife that they were joining the “losing side” and two years later he tried to warn the Roosevelt Administration about Communist infiltration. Specifically, Adolf Berle (Assistant Secretary of State) took Chambers’ information directly to Roosevelt. The lack of response was typical which makes sense because FDR had an infatuation with “Uncle Joe” (Stalin). After his failed attempt to fully expose the Communist menace to FDR, Chambers used his position as a Time magazine writer and editor to warn the American people that Stalin’s regime was every bit as dangerous as Nazi Germany. Much to the displeasure of Time reporters, he would rewrite articles that he believed were too slanted in favor of communist causes. Chambers’ best works of that period have been compiled into a book titled Ghosts on the Roof.

When Chambers passed in 1961, the Associated Press waged a sad war of words against the man. In protest, the Sentinel Star of Orlando, Florida published a dissenting editorial:

The staid, powerful Associated Press handled the news of Whittaker Chambers in a peculiar way. Chambers, you may remember was a $30,000 a year senior editor of Time who, in 1948, put the finger on Alger Hiss, the State Department spy, and lost his job, his reputation and his health. The only reason we can think of is patriotism. He made a clean breast of everything; he wanted to atone for his mistake by warning of the US of its danger.

The AP’s handling tends to indict him for being loyal to the US. The AP calls him a “turncoat Communist.” Turncoat is a despised appellation and the inference is that anyone who turns from Communism should be despised. The AP says Chambers “tattled.” Telling the truth is honorable, but, from childhood, we are taught that tattling is unworthy. The AP says Chambers “recited” to a “Congressional spy-hunting committee.” Here the inference is that he repeated a cooked-up story and that spy-hunting is not a serious matter.

Whereas the AP calls Hiss “brilliant,” it kisses off Chambers as being “pudgy, short and fat” and says, “he lived with a woman outside marriage.” This was before he married a woman to whom he was devoted for 30 years until his death…

We are living in peculiar times, gentlemen of the Associated Press, when patriots are maligned.

In 1984, the late President Ronald Regan posthumously awarded Chambers the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Medal’s citation reads:

At a critical moment in our Nation’s history, Whittaker Chambers stood alone against the brooding terrors of our age. Consummate intellectual, writer of moving majestic prose, and witness to the truth, he became the focus of a momentous controversy in American history that symbolized our century’s epic struggle between freedom and totalitarianism, a controversy in which the solitary figure of Whittaker Chambers personified the mystery of human redemption in the face of evil and suffering. As long as humanity speaks of virtue and dreams of freedom, the life and writings of Whittaker Chambers will ennoble and inspire. The words of Arthur Koestler are his epitaph: “The witness is gone; the testimony will stand.”

It is fitting to close this paper with a small sampling of the more stirring quotes by Chambers:

Statement before the House Un-American Activities Committee, August 3, 1948:

I know that I am leaving the winning side for the losing side, but it is better to die on the losing side than to live under Communism.

“Foreword in the Form of a Letter to my Children,” Witness, 1952:

A man is not primarily a witness against something. That is only incidental to the fact that he is a witness for something.

Religion and freedom are indivisible. Without freedom the soul dies. Without the soul there is no justification for freedom.

The Communist vision is the vision of Man without God.

The crisis of the Western world exists to the degree in which it is indifferent to God.

Communism is the central experience of the first half of the 20th century, and may be its final experience--will be, unless the free world, in the agony of its struggle with Communism, overcomes its crisis by discovering, in suffering and pain, a power of faith which will provide man’s mind, at the same intensity, with the same two certainties: a reason to live and a reason to die.

In closing, it is sad to say that as a nation we have relegated great people like Chambers to the dustbin of history. Meanwhile, a considerable number of people today believe that personalities like Michael Moore and George Soros are “patriots.”

Major printed sources for this paper include:

The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors by Herbert Romerstein, Eric Breindel, Regnery Publishing (October 2001).
None Dare Call It Treason - 25 Years Later by John A. Stormer Liberty Bell Press; (May 1999). Stormer exposes many of the treasonous historical facts and he supplies copious referenced details. This is the book to read to fully understand the depth of the treason that has occurred throughout the 20^th Century (and today!).

Notes:

His birth name was Jay Vivian Chambers and he assumed his mother’s maiden name, Whittaker, in the 1920s, and he subsequently used a number of aliases.
The book Venona Secrets details the information compiled from the namesake military project. This book provides concrete evidence that American Communists successfully infiltrated the State Department, Treasury Department, Office of Strategic Services (OSS), Justice Department, Agricultural Department, Commerce Department, the Office of War Information, the War Production Board, the Board of Economic Warfare, the Civil Service Commission, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), the army, the navy, Congress, the Manhattan Project, the United Nations, and the White House.

Author and Publisher, Frederick R. Smith

Editor, Sean Tinney

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