I Voted For Obama Care For You Not Me!

One Democratic congressman, who has now discovered that congressmen are also subject to Obamacare provisions like everyone else, has said in so many words. All I can say is this, progressivism is a bitch sometimes isn't it Congressman Larson?

Investors Asking For Obamacare For 401ks Even If They Don't Realize It

The results from a Wells Fargo/Gallup pull, I see potential conflict of interests, a few months back that investors want governments to 'enhance' 401k accounts isn't surprising. Over sxity nine percent of those polls wanted the president and congress to find ways to every company to offer a 401k plan as well as encourage every American to invest into their company 401k. I can think of one way the government could 'encourage' 401k investment, and that would be to simply create laws and regulations requiring companies over a certain size to offer them.  Investors, businessmen and liberty minded individuals would balk at the suggesting of forcing companies to offer 401ks, however, considering what happened with health care, what else are we to expect?

Eventually the government is going to come after our 401k, I am fully convinced of this. In fact, when the government finally does I wouldn't be at all surprised if it were at the behest of the public.  The poll results simply illustrate that the trend has already started but it simply confirms that many investors don't think about the long term. So here is what I wonder.  How long until companies are effectively required to offer 401ks, or until the public is forced to contribute to retirement accounts, lest they incur fines and penalties à la Obamacare?

New York Is At It Again

New York, it appears, looks determined to be nominated the shittiest city in America to live.  The Bloombergian do gooders want to focus their nanny state mentality to cigarettes. You would think that with cigarette consumption has more than halved since 1965, when cigarette consumption per capita was at it's peak, and with the CDC reporting that cigarette consumption declined by 40% from 2000 that individuals would be content with what has been done. After all the data strongly suggests, I cannot say prove without running some sort of regressive analysis, that all the media and public awareness campaigns have worked.  Smoking is down and it continues to drop.  At this point the idea, and rhetoric, that tobacco companies are duping people into smoking or that they have co opted congress is hard to believe.

My generation has been inundated with the dangers of smoking since birth via D.A.R.E and rather ghastly commercials and videos. At this point if people under the age of 21 choose to smoke then they do so knowing fully well what they risk. If some 17 year old kid gets hooked on cigarettes then I don't see how we can say society has not done enough. But not according to Mayor Bloomberg! Oh no, he has said that he wants New York to raise the minimum age to buy tobacco to 21.  It looks like this asshole politician doesn't think we are doing enough and wants to protect the children, who are old enough to vote, be tried as adults, have sex and be drafted for war, from the mean retailers forcing those nasty cigarettes down their throat. 

I love this quote by the Mayor

"These laws would protect New Yorkers, especially young and impressionable New Yorkers," Bloomberg said at a Queens hospital.
 

 I can't disagree with using the adjective impressionable for young individuals, after all they voted for progressive policies based on their feelings, but how exactly is a law going to protect them?  We have laws against domestic abuse and hate crimes yet this still hasn't stopped man from wailing on his wife, or from a man suffering from deserved mental torment from a militant feminist she-beast, and we also have laws against racially motivated crimes, that too hasn't been prevented. But most importantly, given that alcohol is officially unavailable to most frat boys in America how do you explain the preponderance of drunken idiots at universities at various colleges around the country? Oh that's right, the laws don't do anything!  They are there to make you feel good, or in the case of the unscrupulous.

Make no mistake even when Mayor Bloomberg was a 'Republican' he was never a Republican.  He was only as Republican as he needed to be to serve his image as a tough on crime competent administrator with extensive business experience.  Now that he doesn't need those credentials, or has seen the way the political wind is blowing, he can fully engage in his nanny state progressive nanny statism.

Given many 'liberal' Americans preoccupation with gay rights, and just to be clear I have no dog in this fight and could care less if a dude and a dude marry, you'd think that they would realize that they are slowly sowing the seeds of their own ruination. Fundamentally, in regards to individual liberty and statism, there isn't a difference between using government force from preventing a gay person from creating a marriage contract with another gay person and using government force to prevent people from smoking. In both instances it accomplishes nothing. Gays will still live together and have children via adoption or some other method, once again not that I care, and 18 year old kids will still find ways to smoke a 'cig'.


I'm not a smoker, I light up a cigar at weddings and New Years, and I don't really care for the habit, however, if given the chance to meet the man, I would light up in front of him and blow the fattiest smoke puff I could.  This guy seriously needs to be brought down a peg or two.

*UPDATE*

Looks like Mayor Bloomberg isn't the only crusader on this cause in New York. Reason says Christine Quinn wants to do the same.

The Rewards of Progressivism: Kudokushi

Joel Kotkin writes about the growing trend amongst SWPL urbanites to forgo having children all together.  America has been atypical compared to much of the west insofar as demographic population growth.  While birthrates had dropped in America like everywhere else in the west the replacement rate has remained positive.  But as it stands now, outside of population migration into the cities, urban Americans are not having families, and they don't seem to mind.

Many of us how absolutely foolish the urban cohorts flippant attitude towards having families are. Demographic decline is not a pretty sight and many of these individuals who are eschewing children now will regret it in old age.  Japan, which in many ways has been the canary in the coal mine, is a perfect example of the most personal impacts of demographic decline.  And that is the every growing instance of individuals dying alone and their bodies being found days if not months later.  The Japanese call it Kudokushi, the lonely death, and it has been a growing issue in Japan.

So in the end, not only is progressivism demographically unsustainable, but their most ardent cohorts will find themselves personally betrayed by it in the end. You don't destroy the familial bond and not suffer unfortunate consequences, and for many those consequences mean Kudokushi.

Arbitrary And Capricious

Says a judge to Mayor Bloomberg concerning his soda pop ban.

Progressive Societies Are Not Really All That Liberal

Iceland has a pretty progressive society by all accounts yet they are planning a pretty illiberal law.  Color me unsurprised, progressive societies are terribly illiberal by virtue of the tenant equalism. You can't have a free society when everyone is supposed to be the same not only under the law, which is a tenant of real liberalism, but economically and socially as well. Because in a free society some individuals are going to do better than others and any attempt to try and erase this reality requires the dismantling of a free society.

The Temperance Movement Was A Progressive Movement

Good to see that crusaders looked
the same then as they do today.

If you ask the American progressive what exactly do they mean when they call themselves a progressive you will get a variety of answers.  The truth is, that the label progressive is wonderfully opaque in it's actual meaning, though at the same time appears to be narrow in it's definition.  Suffice it to say that most progressives don't know what progressivism is outside of what they wish it to be, and the most concrete answer you will get if you press is that progressives are about 'progess'.

The reason why they will focus on progress is because, naturally, progress is the root word of progressivism after all. The only pitfall is when a person correctly observes that  'progress' is a very nebulous definition. After all, the ethnic cleansing of National Socialists, the murdering of landowners by the Bolshevik, or even eugenics were all considered 'progress' at one point.  One man's progress is another man's shallow grave. But I wager that far too few individuals who identifity as progressive have ruminated on that paticular fact.

If you press a progressive long enough on what they mean by progress you will get an definition along the lines of world with more income/gender/racial/class equality, with a little enviromentalism thrown in if they are enviromentally minded, in a nutshell a more perfect and just society. Now this society is going to require government coercion, but if you illustrate that fact, you will probably be meet with some resistance or rationalization. Many progressives don't like to think that their vaunted policies are being forced on individuals that might not want the same things they want. These individuals are lower level progerssives as in that they allegiance to progressivism is out of an emotional attachment to the concept of bettering society, and the warm and fuzzies that result, rather than out of intellectual agreement with their policies. Others, the ones who are intellectually/ego invested in their ideology will justify government coercion as being forced on individuals who are backwards. In a sense it's the 21st century version of the white man's burden concept without the outright overtones of race.

Now how does prohibition or the temperance movement factor into all this? The temperance movement is indeed a progerssive movement according to the metrics that make a movement progressive. Given the hostility of many progressives to real religion, by real I mean a religion that hasn't been water down into nothingness, you will see an outright rejection of anything that even remotely hints of 'religion' as something that could possibly be progressive. But the temperance movement, and the 18th amendment, was very much a progerssive brainchild.

While progressivism today is a very secular movement, this wasn't always the case, and the definition I outlined before will help illustrate why the temperance movement is indeed progressive.  The temperance movement was a collection of groups, many of them religious, that wanted to deter alcohol comsumption. It was their belief that the consumption of alcohol was the root of many of our societal ills.  One of the justifications of prohibition was that excess consumption of alcohol was the reason for instances of spousal abuse and that banning the consumption of alcohol would protect the unfortunate women married top brutish men. It is here that we see the common strains of 'minority' protection laws that we see passed today. It's the same justification with just more protected groups and more activities that need to be 'regulated'.

The fact that most progressives will be unaware of this 'inconvenient truth', to borrow a phrase, is not surprising. Like I said area, while not all progessives are going to be hostile towards religion, a large contingent of progessivism is for the simple fact that many of the standards and mores of religion run counter to their desired goals and ends. If you want to live in a hedonistic consequence free world, well, the person warning you of the ill consequences, and who expects you to adhere to real standards, isn't going to be persona non grata. Many a-religious progressives have a kneejerk reaction too anything that can be remotely considered religious, and the fact that a very deservedly maligned law was both progressive and religious in nature, will be almost too much for them to handle.

Pointing out the temperance movement is a wonderful way to expose, not only, the utter absurdity about the concept of progress in the progessive sense, but also, the reality of unintended consequences. Few today would think that the prohibition of spirits would be progress, we like alcohol, and the idea of telling someone 'don't drink' seems excessively puritanical, yet at one point, temperance was very much invogue with progressives. There are a lot of reaons for this ranging from, misguided but well intentioned individuals who think they are actually going to help someone, to those who simply want to use force to enforce their worldview and dictate how others should live their lives. Seperate out acohol for any one of the prohibitory movementss of progressivism today, smoking or fire arm ownership being the most prominent in my mind, and take out the religiocity that surrounded the temperance movement, and you see that little has really changed with progressivism.

And this begs the question, if the temperance movements efforts to curb societal violence by ending consumption of acohol resulted in the exact opposite of their intenions; prohibition was a very bloody period in American history. Then how can we expect this next go around to be any different today?

The Lesson Continually Never Learned

Chicago has reached a grim milestone this year with only 12 less murders than the entire year of 2008; which was a record I believe.  Now many will mention that Chicago has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country, yet it has had no affect on crime. This is true though more liberal, looser, gun control laws allowing more citizens to own firearms wouldn't make a difference.

This isn't to say that I am not for more liberal gun control laws, I very much am, but you have to recognize the root cause for Chicago's problems.  The inability for citizens to own firearms legally for their protection isn't the root cause for Chicago's problem, though it certainly doesn't help, it is corruption, economic stagnation, and ineffectual enforcement.  The simple truth is that Chicago has high crime because Chicago is rotting from the inside. It's institutions, its ethics, the police, and civil ethics have all degrading tremendously.

 The lack of focus on the root causes of crime is were gun control efforts get it wrong, and were gun rights advocates should start their arguments from.  My opinion, after reading many studies on gun violence, is that looser firearm laws won't necessarily have any impact towards decreasing crime, gun violence, or violence in general. More firearms in the hands of law abiding citizens won't necessarily reduce crime, but that is irrelevant. The fact is that it is societal decay this is the cause of violence and crime in America. It is also a fact that firearms in the hands of law abiding citizens absolutely does not increase crime, and that it gives would be victims of crime a fighting chance.  The argument for firearms, comes down to two simple arguments.

The first argument is do you want citizens to be able to defend themselves or not? It is that simple, doesn't matter if we are talking about crimminals, corrupt government, or foreign invaders, it is all a matter of defense. Those who argue for complete firearm prohibition do not want people to defend themselves; they want the government to do it. Now many will call my comments unfair, that they are not arguing for people not to defend their lives and property from aggressors. Here is the simple truth, telling someone that they cannot be equally armed to their would be aggressors might as well be arguing for them to not be armed at all. If an assailant was coming after you with a firearm would you want your fists, a bat, a knife, pepper spray, a taser, or a gun? I think we know the answer. Let me reiterate, in principle, asking an individual to be less armed than the person assaulting them is akin to asking them to not be armed at all. Or to use a more graphic example, to ask those being raped to not resist the person raping them.

You will have some individuals that do not argue for complete prohibition, but do not want individuals to be armed with 'miltiary style' weapons.  They will give you all sorts of reasons why Americans shouldn't have, or don't need, them (assault weapons) but that simply leads me to my next argument. Argument number two is this, do you or do you not believe in liberty? American society was founded on the concept that someone should be able to do something unless there is absolute proof that what they do will harm others, and even then there must be compelling evidence that restricting that action or item would provide a demonstrable good to society.  If you cannot provide definitive proof that certain actions do harm to others, and if you cannot demonstrably prove that laws against such actions will do any good, then you cannot in good conscious advocate laws restricting someones liberty and still consider yourself a lover of liberty.  You cannot  equivocate this, it is a simple truth, any excuses you make will ring hollow. Is the act of owning an assault rifle harmful to society? And would preventing that act actually benefit society?

So let us examine assault rifles. Now I could go on and argue how there is no definitive proof that legal assault rifle ownership is detrimental to society, but that is a futile argument to make to gun control proponents. So let us assume, for the sake of the argument, that assault rifle crime is a problem and that limiting legal weapons is a realistic option to stifle that social ill. Senator Fienstein claims based off a study on her website, which I will not link, that from 1994 to 2004 crimes committed with assault rifles fell by around 6% and that this is evidence that the ban was effective in reducing gun crime. Ipso facto the assault weapons ban is a boon to society and a morally justifiable limitation of a person liberty.

This claim is weak, and frankly, absurd considering the myriad of items that would factor into crime with assault weapons. There is no way any person can say in all seriousness that we can construct a model that would accurately show us the effect that legal assault rifles would have on assault rifle crime, it is an impossibility. There is no such thing as Hari Sheldon's psychohistory and there never will be. All we can do is infer, and the greater the shift in movement the more likely our inference will be correct.  Given that this is the case, a 6% drop in ten years means absolutely nothing because a whole host of other items, prison sentences, convictions, economic growth, so on and so forth, could have played into that rather small drop. Remember a 6% drop is about a six tenths of a percentage point each year, absolutely minuscule. If there were say 30% drop in assault rifle crime, then her claims would have some credibility, but there wasn't, so her claim doesn't.

Given that we cannot definitely say that assault rifle crimes will be impacted by an assault rifle ban, then you cannot argue for additional restrictions for them and call yourself a lover of liberty. But wait, someone might, this is about stopping gang bangers from killing each other with AKs, this is about preventing horrible atrocities like the one in Connecticut or Colorado. OK fine, let us examine this.

First off, as terrible as these acts are, they are anomalies, and history is replete with events like this.  Here is something for you to ponder. What is the difference between a mass killer, who kills a bunch of people at once, and a serial killer, who kills a bunch of people over time? The only difference I can think of is that one type of killer emphasises the statement that his actions makes, while the other just may like killing individuals, psychologically there probably isn't a big difference between them. And are serial killers somehow less terrible than mass killers? The answer is no of course.

Now, the claim that banning assault rifles would prevent these atrocities is rather weak. First off, even if we assume that it would have a measurable effect on mass killings, there is no promise that the mass killer won't simply opt to go the route of the serial killer. Secondly, while someone might be able to make an argument that this last shooting would be prevented by an assault weapons ban. The idea that it would prevent other mass shootings, or mass violence in general, is completely unfounded. Colombine happened in the middle of an assault rifle ban. The Oklahoma city bombing was done without an assault rifle. Gun free Japan experienced a mass killing via Sarine gas. And the worst mass killing at an American school was done with dynamite. You will never entirely prevent these events from happening, it is an impossibility. Evil exits, and as sad as it is, we must accept that.

So we come to the conclusion, and that conclusion, assuming that you are being intellectually honest, is given that an assault weapons ban does not have any measurable affect on assault rifle crime as far as we know. And given that we cannot prevent mass killings. Then the only reason why someone continues to argue for an assault weapons ban on legally acquired assault rifles is because it would make them feel better.  Feeling better is not a good reason for policy, and it is not an acceptable reason for restrictions of individual liverty for those that love, and understand, liberty. There are people who would feel better about America if there was no interracial or gay marriage, or if gays couldn't adopt, or if we taxed the rich at 100%, if we completely outlawed religion, or if we forcibly deported anyone who wasn't a white protestant from England, Scandinavia, or Germany; yet we don't enact laws based on those individuals feelings, because we as a society recognize them for the absurdity that it would be to do so.

Someone who wants to say that they love freedom and liberty, or even that they respect peoples fundamental rights, cannot in good conscious argue for an assault weapons ban. Even if you do not like assault rifles, can't understand why someone would want them, or dislike guns in general, the fact is, you cannot support this ban simply because of your feelings about guns and how nasty and icky they are. You need to look at the issue rationally. And someone, who actually uses rational and not emotive reasoning, will be forced to draw the conclusion that this ban serves no good purpose.

Roman Progressiveness: Tiberius Gracchus

As I mentioned in a recent post, I was planning on expanding upon the arguments I made before about America being in a very similar situation to Rome during the late years of its republic.  While not every event that happened in Rome's history can be correlated directly to the America, the fact is that the similarities between Rome and America are hard to deny.  There are also a great many similarities between the late republic and America today. So while we cannot with absolute certainty that something will happen, we can make reasonable guesses.

One of the most important, but surprisingly little known, events in Romes history is the rise of the Grachhi brothers.  While class struggle had always existed in Rome and political games had always been played by politicians; their careers marked the beginning of militant populism, violent class warfare, bloody political intrigue, and the dismantling of the Roman constitution.

Many histories paint the Gracchi brothers as revolutionaries, reformers, and good men.  This is all too simplistic view of these men and their actions. If you want a pretty balanced historical account of both men then I recommend listening this podcast for Tiberius, and this one for Gaius. 

Tiberius Semporius Gracchus was born to similar conditions that so many activists were, privilege.  His father was Tiberius the Elder, a prestigious states man who had held the office of tribune, consul, and censor, and also a member of the plebian class. His mother was Cornelia Africana, daughter of the famed Scipio Africanus the general and later statesman who defeated Hannibal, and a cross between Eisenhower's brilliance with the vanity of McArthur.

Now just because history mentions that his father was a plebeian it often causes individuals to stop right there in ascertaining why he became a ancient Roman progressive. The fact is that you can not divide patricians and plebeians into the wealthy and poor classes that so many individuals do. Plebeians could be incredibly wealthy, and powerful, and patricians could become impoverished.  What patricians had over the plebeians was blood line. Patrician families were direct descendants of the founders of the Roman republic, and political privilege.

In America today the equivalent patrician class would be members the Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Bush and Kennedy families. Families that do have a lot of wealth, but more importantly have a highly regarded pedigree.  Individuals like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, the late Steve Jobs, and Donald Trump would be plebeian, incredibly wealthy and influential yes, but plebeian non the less.  The best description of Tiberius mother and father would be likening Tiberius the Elder to Arnold Schwarzenegger and his mother Cornelia to Maria Shriver. It isn't the best comparison, but it is the closest one I can think of off of the top of my head.

Now unlike many children born to wealthy and powerful parents, he wasn't drawn to activism out of a sense of crusaderism. Roman cultures culture largely made this an impossibility, and crusaderism for crusaderism sake is very much a recent phenomena. No, he had much more personal, and Machiavellian reasons. Like many young Romans he served a stint in the military, during the 3rd Punic war, and served with distinction, though  the story about him being the first soldier over the walls of Carthage is most likely a political fabrication by his political supporters.  During the Numantine war he had the misfortune to being assigned to an army that was horribly defeated.  In efforts to spare more bloodshed he brokered peace with the Numantines, using his family name and their respect for his father as leverage; unfortunately for Tiberius he broke Roman law, the first of many laws he would break in the future.

Only a legate, the equivalent to a modern day general, and his brokering of peace with the Numantines was a serious break of protocol. Even more horrifying to the patrician senators though was that the kind of peace he brokered, in their minds, made Rome look weak and losers of the war. Tiberius was called back to Rome, and the treaty he brokered never ratified. This was a major humiliation for Tiberius, and probably the impetus for his populism. Prior to the war he was a staunch supporter of the patrician class privilege, it was only after his recall from Spain that his politics took a populist bent.

At this point in time there was very many things wrong with the Roman empire. Much like today select patricians benefited greatly, acquiring more and more property, while most other plebeians suffered.  There was a real need for land reform the economic situation for the common Roman was becoming increasingly dire, fewer manual  labor jobs were available for non-land owners due to the influx of slaves after Romes victories over Greece and Carthage. Much of the recently acquired land, which was supposed to be rented to members of the populace, instead went to relatively few set of connected patricians.  Adding salt on the wound, many of plebeians who had smaller land holdings, off fighting Romes numerous wars, . Add in the burdens of ever increasing taxation and you had a society that was on the brink of major civil unrest.

The bankruptcy of the Roman soldiers, and the subsequent loss of land, was the biggest potential problem. It was twofold issue. One was that eligibility for military service required that a person be a landholder. The idea in ancient Rome was that only those that had something to lose would fight to their fullest to protect Rome. There was some merit to that line of thinking as the professional soldiers of the later republic and empire had no compunction on turning their arms against their own, something that was much rarer in the early and middle republic. The shrinking size of the landholding class of Romans severely threatened Romes ability to muster the military that it required to defend its territories. The more immediate threat though was that instead of the mere rabble agitating against the patricians, you now had members of proper society baying for blood; and they knew how to fight.

It was under these conditions that Tibreius was elected as tribune to the people (Tribunis Plebis), a position that granted him with much power.  The Tribune to the People was a position that was created after the conclusion of the many political battles between the plebeians and the patricians of Rome.  Outside the consuls, the two executives of Rome and had executive power throughout the empire where the tribune of the people only had power within Rome itself, the tribune to the people enjoyed great power within Rome. They could summon the senate, propose laws, overrule magistrates, veto, and perhaps most important, he was sacrosanct. Which meant that laying hands on a tribune of the people was sacrilegious and the tribune could have the person executed.

Tiberius used the powers granted to him by his position decisively and aggressively. He proposed a land reform law known as the Lex Sempronia Agria, which aimed to strengthen previously ignored land reform laws that had been passed to ensure that public lands, lands conquered by the Roman state, did not end up in the hands of a few rich patricians. What made the law particularly controversial, is that it sought to confiscate the land of wealthy men who owned more than what was specified with in the various laws that had been passed through the centuries, though Tiberius did offer exceptions to allow for families with a lot of sons to own more than the legal limit as well as promises of payment to landowners that saw their property taken.

If Tiberius had simply tried to ensure that land distribution had gone out impartially, and in accordance with previous laws, then the law would not have been as controversial as it was. However, as controversial as his redistribution proposals were, it was how he pushed the law through that truly angered the Senate, and began the eventual dissolution of the Republic itself.

Laws were typically announced and passed within the senate halls. But Tiberius, knowing that the senate would never agree to his proposed law, decided to circumvent them altogether. He went to the plebeian council and proposed his bill. It was received enthusiastically. Now the ancient Roman republic had a myriad of legislative councils with varying degrees of authority and power, they had the senate, the plebeian council, century assembly, and the tribal assembly, but to keep things simple, the law was now about to be passed it the senate would be unable to overrule it. 

What Tiberius did was not against any law, or even against any custom. But it did insult the senate, and potentially alienate what senate support he did have. Think of someone being elected president and then refusing to appoint certain cabinet positions because he felt that those particular departments should exist. There is nothing legally requiring the president to appoint those positions, but tradition has made such appointments a certainty.

 Now the senate was not without a back up plan. Tiberius wasn't the only tribune to the people, and the senate was able to persuade Marcus Octavius, according to Plutarch Augustus was one of his direct descendants, to use his tribunal powers to veto the bill.  Tiberius was incensed and moved to have Octavius deposed by popular vote. He argued that Octavius had violated his oath to be a representative of the people and therefore was unfit to be a tribune to the people.  However, Octavius, using his tribunal power, vetoed the vote itself.  There was nothing Tiberius could do legally, he had been out maneuvered by the senate.  It is here that Tiberius crosses the point of no return. He had his supporters forcibly remove Octavius from the building and then called the vote to have him deposed.

It is here that the first major fissure that would eventually tore the republic apart appeared. Tiberius had violated the Roman constitution and had committed sacrilege, tribunes were sacrosanct, and he had just violated their sacrosanctity.  Tiberius justified his

 Now many of Tiberius supporters were fearful of what had just transpired and refused to vote on the deposition of Octavius. They had already broken Roman constitution and any further action would only be more outrageous. Instead, they convinced Tiberius to use his veto power to bring Rome to a halt. Every bill, proposal, or item, no matter how trivial  was vetoed by Tiberius.  This brought the civic, commercial, and even religious items that required passage by the assembly, to a complete halt. Tiberius was playing a game of chicken, one that he won.

The passage of the law made Tiberius a hero, however, the manner with which it was passed made him a hated man to many other Romans.  This was not lost on Tiberius and his supporters as they formed a protective guard to escort him to and from the chambers of the Senate. Perhaps even worse was that there was no real working relationship between Tiberius and the Senate, each one taking every opportunity to antagonize the other.  But it wasn't until the passing of Attlas of Pergamum, modern day western Turkey, that events boiled over.

King Attlas of Pergamum had been a long standing ally of Rome during his reign. He had no heirs, and sensing the risk of that his kingdom would be torn apart by civil war, so he willed his kingdom to the people of the republic of Rome. This would be the event that would lead to Tiberius downfall.  When the will stipulated that the kingdom go to the people of Rome it wasn't all that entirely clear what he meant.  Did he mean the actual people of Rome? Or did he simply mean the republic of Rome?  The word republic is from the word res public, which translates to thing of the people, so the literal translation of res publica roma is the thing of the people of Rome. Tiberus and the Senates differing views on what Attlas intended lead to their final show down.

Tiberius saw the gifting of Pergamum to Rome as a literal gift of land to the Roman people.  This meant, in his mind that the land should be distributed people of Rome.  And using his tribunal power he tried to allocate the newly gifted land to fund his agrarian law. But this proved to be the last straw for the senate as this was a direct attack on powers reserved to the Senate, and moreover, outside the bounds of imperium for the Tribunis Plebis.

Traditionally the Senate had jurisdiction over the Roman treasury, which had caused Tiberius no small headache as this meant that the senate could fund his agrarian commission with as much, or as little, money as the senate wished. Because of Tiberius previous actions, circumvention constitutional law, and because of the many enemies he had made, the senate crippled his bill. Tiberius move to use the lands of Pergamum to fund his commission was a direct move against powers reserved for the Senate; however that is not what incensed them the most.

The Tribunis Plebis had many powers within the city of Rome, however, they only existed within the city of Rome. Tribunes were not consuls, who held executive authority over all the empire, and his decrees had no legal weight, or power, unless backed by senatorial mandates. His action had no legal legitimacy, both Tiberius and the Senate knew this. But Tiberius was counting on popular support to win him the day. But Tiberius had a problem, his term as tribune was coming to an end.

Tiberius had violated the sacrosanctness of a fellow tribune, aggravated the senate, and exceeded the bounds of his power.  Despite his previous actions violating sacrosanctness of an elected tribune,  which the senate had already publicly declared illegal, he was safe from prosecution as long as he held his office. Moreover, Tiberius realized that it was not just the senate he had angered. He had also alienated some of the plebeians as well by his actions.  Senators publicly denounced Tiberius as a man who wished to reinstate himself as a king of Rome, and this left many Romans uneasy. And given the long line of men who would bring charges against him, and he current attitude many Romans had about him, he knew that he was in a precarious position

So Tiberius did the only thing that he could do to ensure his safety and avoid disgrace, he violating another Roman tradition and re-ran for a consecutive term.  Tiberius won his second term, promising to shorten military service requirements for citizens, abolish the exclusive right of senators to act as jurors, and increase the ranks of Roman citizenship with the allies of Rome. His latest victory would be his last.

The political situation of Rome had deteriorated drastically. The two political groups of Rome, the populares lead by Tiberius and the optimates lead by the senate leaders, were openly coming to blows in the streets of Rome. In a preview of the later years of the republic and early empire riots were becoming more frequent.  One day when Tiberius was traveling the Senate chambers, along with 300 of his supporters who acted as his body guard, were slain by a mob of senators and their supporters in the ensuing riot. A deadly preview of the murder of Caesar almost a century later.

It is tough to say whether Tiberius was simply a Machiavellian figure willing to grab the reigns of power through whatever medium was most available or if he truly believed in his populist causes and thought they would better Rome; it may have been a bit of both. But one thing is certain, the actions that he undertook, despite whatever intentions he had, were highly damaging to the Republic.

Tiberius, like many progressives, correctly identified many social ills that needed to be remedied. However, his proposed cures were worse than the ills he sought to solve. I wonder that if Tiberius had, instead of trying to take the lands of the wealthy patricians, had instead simply tried to ensure that future allotments would be distributed honorably and justly, that when he called for Pergamum to be distributed to the people of Rome that he wouldn't have been stymied by the senators. Not every patrician who possessed massive land holdings had earned through nefarious methods. But ultimately it wasn't the laws he tried to pass that hurt the republic, it was how he tried to pass them.

Tiberius had acted aggressively when pushing his agenda, so aggressive in fact, that he ended up circumventing the very laws that made republic, a republic.  It is one of the reasons why I, unlike so many other students of history, have a rather dim view of the man. Like so many progressive he justifies his actions because, while breaking the very foundation laws of Rome, he sought to improve the lives of the people.  Also like so many progressives, he arrogantly claimed that his actions were the will of the people he supported. Here is Tiberius, in a history written by Plutarch, justifying his actions of violating sacrosanctness.

"because he (Octavius) was consecrated to the people and was a champion of the people... If, then he should change about, wrong the people, maim its power, and rob it of the privilege of voting, he has by his own acts deprived himself of his honourable office by not fulfilling the conditions on which he received it; for otherwise there would be no interference with a tribune even though he should try to demolish the Capitol or set fire to the naval arsenal. If a tribune does these things, he is a bad tribune; but if he annuls the power of the people, he is no tribune at all... And surely, if it is right for him to be made tribune by a majority of the votes of the tribes, it must be even more right for him to be deprived of his tribuneship by a unanimous vote."

Here, if these words are remotely true, we see the true arrogance and naivete of Tiberius, and progressiveness  laid bare before us. The arrogance is shown  from Tiberius argument that he represented the will of the people while his opponent, Octavius, did not. This is dangerous because even if Tiberius is right, it doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to realize how this concept could be abused. What happens if there is opposition to Tiberius, or any populist politician for that matter, purely on the grounds of principal? Is a man acting in accordance with what he believes is right, and within the bounds of societies laws, and votes against popular will, is he truly an enemy of the people? Just because a law is popular doesn't mean its prudent or just.

The naivete is from the inability of many progressives, or perhaps the utter lack of concern, about how dangerous such precedents are.  Twisting the meaning of the constitution, from a sacred and eternal written laws to a base fluid living document opens up many terrible doors.  The tactics used by the progressives in their fight for a more egalitarian and equal society can be used against them by men of great greed and little principal. Every time you give more power to government, and its agents, to try and create a just society you also give them the power to do exactly the opposite. I highly doubt progressives ever imagined that their actions would help create a state that would waste its resources busting groceries that sold unpasteurized dairy.

Lastly Tiberius, if he were a true reformer, did great damage to his cause because of the actions he took. Even if he were acting in the interest of the people, by violating Romes sacred laws he lost moral authority.  You cannot say you act in the interest of the people, when you very actions lay those same people open to abuse by future despots.  This is were progressiveness really loses itself.  While preventing environmental degradation, abuse of the poor, and other causes of progressives are not inherently wrong, the actions they undertake are. What good is the victory if it only sets one up for greater defeat down the road?

This is why I have a rather dim view of Tiberius, as whatever his intentions were, they are overshadowed by his actions and the results of them. Tiberius alone wasn't the cause of the fall of the republic, the senate, patricians, and other politicians deserve their share of the blame as well. But if it were not for his actions, then his brother might not have even further eroded republicanism in Rome, and the crossing of the Rubicon may never have happened.

Crusaders, activists, progressives, and reformers take note. The beast that consumes our republic may be the beast that you unleash.

The Malthusian Lie

This is an 'issue' that has been raised countless times since it was first conceptualized almost three centuries ago. One that has recently been adopted by academics and green-minded individuals around the world, but particularly in the gilded halls of American academia. It's the concept of the Malthusian catastrophe, colloquially known as over population, that some say is so immanent that it will spell doom for the world.  It's is one of the worst misconceptions perpetuated today.  The science its based on is outmoded, and history itself has proven time and again that the concept is a falsehood.  It is perhaps one of the most powerful tools in the leftist playbook with which the cause of statism has been advanced.

But before I get into why overpopulation is nothing more than a bunch of hot air; let me talk a little about how it came into being. In waining century of that great economist Adam Smith, the 19th century, an economist by the name of Thomas Robert Malthus an essay on the principal of population; in which he wrote that a societies population was checked by famine, disease, and war. He was a contrarian as such as that, unlike many economists, he did not see society as inherently perfectible.  Perhaps the most important statement he made in his essay was this little quotation:

The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.

 It is essentially a summary of his belief that eventually man's ability to provide himself would not be able to meet demands of growth.  He pointed to the fact that even with all the technological achievements by mankind over the past centuries that those technological achievements did little to improve mankind's ability to feed and sustain himself.  He was wrong, but he can be forgiven being wrong because the phenomenon known as the Industrial Revolution still had as yet not yielded any major improvements in the field of agriculture. Man had plowed the fields in 1798 much the same way he had done so in 3000 BC.  The tools had gotten a bit better, but the yields had not gone up, or not to the degree that they were about to.  But as we know now, agricultural yields did improve, for example, today American famers feed 6 times more people than they could only forty years ago.

Moreover many Malthusian proponents forget just how large the earth is, much of it is entirely empty. The most dense city in the world by population is Manila, with over 110,000 souls for every square mile.  By contrast, using my calculations, if you took the entire world's population and fit it an area the size of Texas you would have a population density of 26,000 people per square mile, or around the size of New York City.  Expand that area to include the entire Mississippi River Basin (which covers all or some portion of 26 states in this great nation) and the population density drops to a little over 6,000 people per square mile, or a around a fourth of New York City.  Expand that area to include the United States and your population density drops down to being equivalent to Taiwan. Double the world's population and the US density would only rise to equivalence to the island of Malta.

However, the counter the Malthusian proponents will make is that it is not the number of individuals living, but the resources they consume and the pollution they create.  Using the metrics from before lets look at water, arguably the most precious resource in the world outside of oxygen consumption.  Human beings need about eight liters of water a day to maintain adequate bodily health.  Simply multiplying this number by the worlds population and you we get to a global demand for water at around 56 billion liters a day. That is a lot of water, but considering that most people in the world aren't dying of thirst we already know that the world produces at least that much water.  However, what is interesting is that even if we located all of humanity in a single location, there are places in the world that could provide more than enough water for humanity to survive.

The Mississippi River Basin, which covers 26 states in the United States, has an average discharge of three million cubic feet per second, which is 84 million liters per second.  This means that in a singe hour the river basin discharges more than 305 billion liters of water, about five and a half times more than what human beings need to survive.  In my mind that is more than enough water for humanity to not only survive, but use for agriculture and any other use we could think of.

Now this isn't to make light of the problems of pollution or environmental degradation of the surrounding area, the great garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean is a visual illustration that human beings do have an impact on the environment.  However, despite the fact that many Malthusians are often major proponents of recycling, they forget that humanity has become much more efficient with the use of the resources available than in the past.  Solar power, via satellites, offers a nearly unlimited power source, offering the benefit of mobility if transported via laser or microwaves for humanity. And we are already well underway in hydroponics and areoponics, which uses a tenth of the water needed to grow crops and has the advantage of being able to make use of the height in addition to area. In my mind this means that an area used for a sporting event, such as a football stadium, could conceivably provide enough food to feed millions if not tens of millions of people a year.  Coupled with the in-vitro (lab) grown meat and the idea that some how human beings will not be able to feed one another is exposed as nothing more than an absurd alarmist fantasy.

But all this doesn't matter.  The fact is that statistics have shown us that its not overpopulation, but population degradation, that we face in the near future. Just play around with google statistiscs and you will see that the global fertility rate has halved in forty years, with many developed, and some developing nations, falling below replacement rate levels.  Many population alarmists, invariably progressive, champion this as good news for the earth. However, they fail to realize that the falling population assures that the socialist dream will never come to fruition. The socialist experiment relies on there being more people paying into the system than taking out of it. And unless a society is producing slightly more than 2.1 people, which replaces the parents and offers marginal population growth to counter act premature death, then you are left with a shrinking population.  We are seeing this system collapse in Europe simply because productive individuals are throwing their hands in the air and saying screw it.  Europe could easily solve this problem by adopting a more capitalistic friendly system. The solution to solving dropping fertility isn't so simple, as Japan has learned .

This is precisely why China will not surpass the US. Their communist leaders committed demographic suicide and have assured that even if they can defy economic history, history showing us that governments cannot manage economies well, that they will succumb to demographics.  The population fertility rate phenomena isn't limited to developed countries, but developing ones as well.  There isn't a nation on earth that hasn't experienced a drop in their fertility rate, and it is estimated that sometime by the end of this century the global fertility rate will drop below the replacement rate. This will have a major impact for an economy that has been based on ever growing populations for the last 400 years. Barring a complete usurpation of most activities by robots and computers, not unrealistic, then there will be a minor economic crisis.  Developed societies are going to need funds to pay for their generous and well established social safety net and there will not be enough young workers to pay for the elderly.  It isn't inconceivable that nations would start competing very aggressively for skilled or unskilled individuals from overseas.

The greatest danger though is population bust.  A population bust would be an explosive contraction of population that far outstrips any way for societies to cope.  This is why Japan has become so desperate because they face the very real possibility of seeing their civilization disappearing.  This doesn't have to mean that one day there simply aren't any Japanese left in the world, though this has happened in the past.  But it can mean that a population is unable to maintain its sovereignty and becomes subsumed in a larger stronger polity, something that Russia fears given their demographics.  Don't believe me? Then tell me, who has heard of the Etruscans? Hyskos? Hittittes? Philistines? or the  Sabini? (I am willing to wager that anyone who bothers to read this blog actually gives a damn about real history and not the bastard brother that is taught in schools today.) The Ainu, a people who live in Japan, and are slowly disappearing, are a modern day example of this.  Why is it that you think the Jews throughout history kept to themselves and tried very hard to maintain their identity? It's not only human beings that have an imperative to try and pass on its seed, civilizations and societies do as well. It's the reasons why much of the world resents globalization, which they think will further westernize their civilizations.

So the question is why, given the obvious dangers that are inherent in population collapse, that so many individuals, and progressives being chief among them, hem and haw so hard about the threats of over population?  Well 95% of individuals who worry about overpopulation don't know any of these statistics, or if they are presented this information they shut their eyes, its the other 5% who should know better. I am talking about the politicians and academia.  And I think it largely has to due with academia's unwillingness to come to terms with the truth.  You see, if they admit that there is no threat of overpopulation, and in fact a dire threat of population reversal, then many of the actions they have taken this last century are not only wrong, such as feminism being a prime example, but criminal, other ideas that I need not mention.  Also, many other of their pet ideological holding points suddenly become untenable when that reality is accepted. It also makes religion, which too many left leaning academics sneer at, look less backward and more wise.


There is a reason why the bible says go forth and multiply. The ancients understood something that we modern folk have forgotten.  Even if you aren't a religious individual, but you are an intellectually honest one, you will see that religion came into being partially to help counteract the negative aspects of human nature, cuckoldry, adultery, violence, slothfulness etc, and to ensure a societies survival.  If you look at it from a secular perspective, then you will see that the ten commandments was a survival guide for the Hebrew people while they wandered through the desert as a people without a home, and it seems to have worked, since the Jews are still around while many of their societal peers are nothing more than dust in the ruins of history. And the sooner the Malthusian Lie becomes dust the better.