In my second country of Malta, which I visit regularly, it is hard to miss the fact that the island’s national flag bears the George Cross. The GC was awarded, collectively, to the island during the Second World War by the British government because of how Malta had withstood the bombardments of Italian and German air forces. The bombing of the island from 1941-43 was greater in total than the ordnance hurled at London during the Blitz. Malta was a major British naval base: it was able to intercept and destroy Axis shipping to North Africa and hence was key in tipping the scales against Rommel’s Afrika Korps in its attempted invasion of Egypt. Malta mattered.
It appears today, in these “decolonisation” times, that some of the citizens of Malta – a country sadly tainted by issues such as corruption and the murder of an investigative journalist in 2017 – want the GC symbol to be removed.
On a Facebook page that I follow, a person (who will remain nameless), put up this comment:
If we really and truly want to celebrate this important milestone [Maltese independence], all we need to do is remove that stain from our national flag and send that bloodstained cross to Buckingham Palace. I will volunteer to act as a courier pro bono.
I was glad to see that the vast majority of responses from the locals were hostile to this person, if not enlightening.
I tried to raise the tone a bit, because the person concerned might be stupid as a bag of rocks, but it is good to put these points into places where someone might pick up on them:
I sort of understand why people who live in Malta today think that a British person (although with scores of Maltese relatives, British navy ancestors, and the rest of it) should not be talking about these things. People can be prickly about someone from abroad talking about their country.
But history is what it is: Malta was a naval and military base coveted by great powers from the dawn of time. Hitler and Mussolini would have tried to take it over and subdue it; neutrality on the Swiss model wasn’t likely and even the Swiss would have been forced to go along with terrible things eventually as a price. (And the Swiss, to their shame, later became known for shielding money looted from Jewish people.) Malta’s position in the central Med was vital for control of the sea. A successful Allied liberation of Italy/southern Europe, launched from the sea, would have required a base such as that of Malta to be in friendly hands. We can see what happens when a place chooses neutrality as in the case of the Republic of Ireland. It massively hampered the ability of the British to counter German U-boat attacks in the eastern Atlantic shipping lanes, costing thousands of lives and loss of material.
What sort of things about the war are taught in Malta today, if at all? As a journalist of 36 years’ professional experience, working around the world, and a student of history, it strikes me as interesting to know how many people think that the symbol of the George’s Cross is somehow a stain on the Maltese flag, rather than a symbol of honour and supreme courage.
I can recommend Sir Max Hastings’ book about the Operation Pedestal convoy as a good study about what was at stake in the Mediterranean campaign.
Here is a decent history of Malta for those who are interested.
Some people would complain if you hanged them with a new rope. If the cross wasn’t on the flag, no doubt the same guy would complain about how the Maltese bravery was overlooked or something. A simple “shut up and go die in a house fire” is all the retort that is needed.
There was a referendum in 1956 in Malta or Malta to integrate into the UK politically, which won easily. The UK government did not want to entertain the idea, and thus Malta eventually became an independent republic. A missed opportunity
“There was a referendum in 1956 in Malta or Malta to integrate into the UK politically, which won easily. The UK government did not want to entertain the idea, and thus Malta eventually became an independent republic. A missed opportunity”
The French seem more adept at this sort of thing. Which is why the EU has a 1200 km border with Brazil and Suriname.
And you can visit France from Canada just by taking a 20 km ferry ride from Newfoundland.
George Cross, not George’s.
The George Cross.
Both a Christian (a cross) and a British symbol – so the left would hate it on those grounds.
And a symbol of courage against tyranny – which, privately (they would not admit it), the left would also hate.
Everything that is loyal, true and beautiful, the left will try and corrupt and destroy.
If Malta hates its past colonizers, it must hate most of the world. Seems everyone has had at least some time in charge.
An even better book about Operation Pedestal than the book by Hastings (which was indeed very good) is At All Costs by Sam Moses. Also available on Amazon Audible.
Also check out Empires of the Sea by Roger Cowley, featuring a lengthy account of the Great Siege of Malta in 1571.
Sorry to be going off at a bit of a tangent but the mention of an island people having a Referendum reminded me of something that I came across pretty much by accident on a You Tube video about the 1970s The Isle of Man was, at that time, a last bastion of judicial birching in the western world. I’m old enough to remember this issue being in the news. What I didn’t know was that the islanders had a Referendum on the issue and the result was almost unanimously in favour of retaining it.
This raised all kinds of questions in my brain. I don’t think that I am in favour of barbaric physical punishments but I would be interested to see the numbers regarding crime rates in Singapore. The bigger issue I think was the will of the people being overridden by those who think that they know better.
Another thought. Back in the 1970s it might have been possible to believe that our elected rulers knew better what was best for us. In 2024 we have put imbeciles into positions of power, how is that going to work out?
Or, in that case, overridden by the terms of the European Commission on Human Rights.
The anti-democratic measures of the EU started long before today.
I have been to Malta. I have very fond meories of that trip.
My Grandmother, on my mother’s side, lost a very good friend near Valletta harbour. Fred was a Chief Petty Officer on a RN sub that was sunk in a “blue on blue”. I never met anyone there who was anything less than proud (rightly so) of the pivotal role Malta played in WWII and the Cross they earned. I felt this little Island at the other end of Europe and my country shared a lot of history. I felt that because it is true. Maybe that is why they tend to vote for us in Eurovision.
Oh, and (I am told it is different now – I was there a few years ago), the buses and bus drivers were something else. Old 1950s things in great condition, dirt cheap and the drivers were local stars.
Great place to visit. And if you wanna see serious battlements Valletta is the place.
Maltese is also a very unusual language. Look it up!
@Stonyground
The bigger issue I think was the will of the people being overridden by those who think that they know better.
I’m not sure I agree. There are some things that should not be subject to democracy, in fact, in many respects that is the genius of the US Constitution which is a distinctly undemocratic document. If we set up such a thing as “human rights”, such as the right to freedom of speech or the right to keep and bear arms, or a right to a fair trial and so forth, or, in this case, the right to be free from cruel or unusual punishment, then it should be very hard for the baying masses to allow those things. Americans can, if they wish, make hate speech illegal. They just have to change the constitution, which is extremely hard to do. As it should be.
I’m not saying I agree with every decision of the European Court of Human Rights. They often confuse what the word “right” means. But I do think that there are some things that should be largely beyond the normal democratic process.
As to our terrible politicians, I agree absolutely. However, it is worth remembering that we vote for these people. America is about to make the dumbest, most reptilian, most dishonest person ever President, after just having made a man who clearly didn’t have all his mental faculties, was the zenith of corruption and didn’t ever answer any press questions president last time around. The fact that Americans don’t care to see past her utter mendacity with abundant sources of information available to them beyond our perfidious press is a national disgrace. We had other choices, many of them were pretty good. Desantis and Ramaswamy are both decent, honorable guys who would have made great presidents. We just didn’t choose them.
Yep. I’d go so far as to call it an anti-democratic document, which is its strength and purpose.
“There are some things that should not be subject to democracy…”
I think you may be right. Was it Churchill who said that the best argument against democracy was a five minute conversation with the average voter? I think it was him who said that democracy was the worst type of government except from all the others.
It was Governor John Jay in New York who replaced corporal punishment with prison – with hindsight the idea that prisons (where rape and other abuse has become normal) would be “more humane” than a beating, or would “rehabilitate” or “reform” criminals seems utterly absurd – but in the early 19th century the idea was a fairly new one and a lot of people believed it.
Governor Jay also believed that a system of State schools (not really “achieved” in New York State till long after his death – Massachusetts was the first State to have such a “free and compulsory” system in 1852, Horace Mann copied the system in the Kingdom of Prussia, which had been famous for its state worship since the time of Frederick the Great in the late 1700s), would make people more moral and religious – again this seems absurd (indeed demented) today, but in the late 19th century a lot of people believed it.
In reality such systems of state indoctrination, naturally enough, make people servile to the state – Frederick the Great was not a nice man, but he was a highly intelligent one and he understood this – which is why he created the first free-and-compulsory system of state education in the world (the Prussian system of the late 1700s) and it had exactly the effect he hoped it would – make the people look to the state for everything, and to place nothing above the state. When Horace Mann of Massachusetts copied the Prussian system in 1852 (breaking the idea that churches and other non state organisations should control schools) it is hard to believe he did not know what the Prussian system was for – or that he did not have the same intention for America.
Imagine, for example, if the American government had tried to steal all privately owned monetary gold in the 1830s not the 1930s – they would never have got away with it, Franklin Roosevelt would have dragged from the Whitehouse and tarred and feathered – if he had not been hung from the nearest tree.
YES the Great Depression terrified people (perhaps that is what it was for – just perhaps), but there was a lot more than the Great Depression that made people so statist in the 1930s – many decades of “education”, statist indoctrination, had done this.
Even the “Pledge of Allegiance”, back then, recited by American school children every morning – with saluting right arms raised to the flag, was written by a SOCIALIST, Francis Bellamy (of Massachusetts – the cousin and comrade of Edward Bellamy, the author of “Looking Backward” in 1887 – a book about how America would be, he hoped, a socialist tyranny by the year 2000) – why do you think the Pledge of Allegiance contains nothing about the Constitution of the United States?
Nothing, nothing at all, about the Bill of Rights in the Pledge of Allegiance – it is all about the “flag” (and undefined platitudes about “liberty and justice” – by which the Bellamy cousins meant Social Justice and government liberty) – the flag companies liked that (oh yes the flag making companies backed the Bellamy cousins because they planned to sell a flag to every school).
By the 1930s if the government said “jump” – most (not all – but most) people said “how high?”
And that was the result of many decades of “education”.
There are other forms of democracy besides universal suffrage, which is probably the worst, in addition to being the most recently instituted.
Back in the day the Isle of Man was a lot less “advanced” in leftist indoctrination than Britain was – hence the support for Corporal Punishment and so on.
But even then it did not take the necessary step – the necessary step of telling London to Go-To-Hell and to take the “European Convention on Human Rights” (adopted by the E.U. – but long predating the E.U.) with it – to Hell.
These days “liberal” indoctrination in both the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands is more advanced – as it may be in Malta as well (I do NOT know about Malta – and, I note, they are still opposed to baby killing, which has become a key “liberal” objective).
There is no reason, other than indoctrination, why either the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands should follow the insane ravings of London – but as my learned friend Mr Ed has pointed out, modern legislation in these places seems to follow London on everything (from Gun Control to “Diversity”) – even down the bullying Blarite tone of the legislation.
As for the effects of “education” in the United States – I remember when unelected judges, yes judges (people in funny robes – elected by no one) massively increased Property Taxes in New Hampshire.
People grumbled about this, but they OBEYED – “some things are more important than democracy” and it turns out that one of these things is the “right” of judges to impose higher taxes to provide more money for the government indoctrination centres.
So much for “Live Free or Die”. But then, more than 70 years ago, the State even repealed its Right to Work law (i.e. right not to be FORCED to join a union) only a couple of years after it passed it – and it was a “Republican” Governor who supported that repeal.
Once, I repeat, the people would have just laughed if judges tried to increase their taxes – no one would have paid up. And if the judges had tried to use violence to enforce their judgment – the people (as with someone who tried to steal their gold or void their contracts) would have got those men in funny robes, stripped them, tarred and feathered them, and hung them from the nearest tree.
People only remain free if they are prepared to defeat those, including those in funny robes, who would use violence to take their freedom from them.
No one should be the first to use violence – but if enemies (including a tyrannical government) use violence (“I am here to take your gold – and give you these bits of paper in return, and if you say no I am going to drag you to prison or shoot you”) then the people must be strong enough (in spirit, COURAGE, as well as arms) and organised enough, to defeat their enemies – including, if need be, the government (all branches of government – Executive, Legislative, and Judicial).
Article Ten of the New Hampshire Constitution – 1784.
Article Seven of the first part of the New Hampshire Constitution (1784) is also worth reading.
The Federal Government only has powers that have been “expressly” delegated it to it.
If the Federal Government violates that, does things it is not expressly allowed to do (say create paper money – rather than coin money) then the State, if the people so wish, has the right to leave the Union.
Several New England States threated to leave the Union in the early 1800s (Hartford Convention and so on) – and, people please note, this was nothing to do with slavery.
A Union that does not allow States to leave is not a free Union – it is an Empire and the people are not free. Again this is NOTHING to do with black people being held in slavery. This is about New England States who reserved the right to leave the Union if they believed the Federal Government was getting too big or to interventionist in its regulations.
The attempted secessions of 1861 were indeed about slavery (and it was the SLAVERY that put the Confederates in-the-wrong) – but this is long before that and had nothing to do with black people being held as slaves.
Someone who says, for example, that Texas can not secede in 2024 (or 2026-7) because there were people who were enslaved in Texas in 1865, is out of their mind – they are crazy.
No one would join a Union they are not allowed to leave – that would be like going into the “Hotel California” – “you can check out – but you can never leave”.
Just as Scotland can, if the people wish it, leave the United Kingdom, so an American State, if the people wish it, can leave the United States – whose Federal Government long ago ripped up (ripped up – did NOT repeal by Constitutional Amendment) the limits on its size and powers.
This is, now in 2024, nothing whatever to do with the terrible evil of black people being held as slaves till 1865 – which is an effort to change the subject.
Whether States do leave the Union in 2026-7 most likely depends on whether Harris/Walz are declared the winners of the election of 2024.
The economy (the Dollar and so on) will collapse in 2025 – regardless of who is elected (or declared elected) in 2024, but how that collapse will be responded to will be quite different.
Harris/Walz would clearly support an international Digital Currency and general international “governance”, the World Health Organisation and many other international bodies.
The United States of America would, in practice, no longer really exist anyway.
So the choice before the people of the various States would be – submit to international governance (by international government bodies – and their partners the international corporations) or go for independence.
To go for Independence would require great courage.
Let us hope it does NOT come to this – we shall see in November.
@Stonyground
I think it was him who said that democracy was the worst type of government except from all the others.
I’ve heard that too, but I don’t think it is true. There is a better form of government, and that is freedom where we are left the hell alone to make our own private arrangements. We do need some government but the best form of government is where we barely even notice it. Again this is the genius of the US Constitution where the natural tyrannical urges of people who “want to be in charge” are tempered by creating an arena where they are forced to compete against each other. Whether by the separation of powers or the fracturing of government through federalism. Things that make it more likely that the government will be too busy competing with themselves than bothering us.
BTW, this is the reason political parties are a bad, if inevitable, thing. They allow horizontal integration across separation of powers and vertically across federalism. Political parties are kind of like unions for politicians where they can 80/20 their political goals and reduce the impact of the political hurdles put in place by the constitution. Unfortunately, just like unions, as soon as the structure is in place the members of the “union” are utterly emasculated as all the power is sucked up to the top, and so we end up being ruled by an oligarchy.
Case in point? What is going on in the United States right now is quite horrifying. Our next president has, to all intents and purposes, been selected by Nancy Pelosi — a viler creature you could not imagine. She might be the only person on the planet more loathsome than Hilary Clinton.
She reminds me a lot of Delores Umbridge, for those of you familiar with that book series. Sickly sweet on the outside, but raw hardcore evil on the inside. She is also one of the most inarticulate people in politics. I often wonder how she became so powerful. She is self evidently not smart, can barely string two sentences together and on the surface seems quite politically unsavvy. She is, after all the one who spoke the words “you can read the bill after you vote for it”. One has to image she literally knows where the bodies are buried.
Democracy is not the problem.
The people who voted for Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 thought they were voting for a SMALLLER government – after all that is what the Democrat Platform at the Chicago Convention promised. They did not think they were voting for all their gold to be stolen and all contracts (public and private) to be violated.
By 1936 the people had had four years of intense radio propaganda (thanks to FCC pressure on the radio companies) to back up their statist education.
The people on the radio either supported Roosevelt – or said he was not going far enough, that he should be MORE criminal, not less criminal.
It was the same in Britain – every increase in statism was NOT a response to demands from the people, it was an idea of the elite that the people were, eventually, “educated” to accept.
So those who claim that the people are the problem, that democracy is the problem, are mistaken.
The problem is the elite.
@Paul Marks
So those who claim that the people are the problem, that democracy is the problem, are mistaken.
The expression that comes to mind is “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” And the excuse that the government controlled the news media is well past its prime. There are abundant sources of information in your pocket if you are willing to look. The excuse that we were taught bad stuff in school reminds me of people who blame all their problems on their mama being mean to them. The excuse that “we only get two bad candidates to choose from” is also not valid — you Brits can get involved in the local parties to select better candidates, we Americans do get to vote in the primaries (well, except if you are a democrat) and Americans did have much better choices than the two ones we have now. Both DeSantis and Ramaswamy would have been vastly better presidents than either Trump of Harris.
Every day Americans go to the grocery store and are shocked by the price of groceries, or the gas station and can’t afford to fill their tank, or try to buy a house and are gobsmacked at the price of the most meager residence. The effects of terrible government policy are with them every single day, they can know why if they take a moment on YouTube or Rumble, they had much better options. Yet despite all that they are going to vote into office an ignoramus, who refuses to talk to the press, whose instincts are crazy far left and whose record is so utterly shocking she has to constantly lie to cover it up. And, insofar as it matters, she is a horrible person, an insufferable bore and who seems incapable of stringing together two coherent sentences.
Xi and Putin are smacking their lips. They will eat Harris for breakfast.
The world is full of evil megalomaniacs, that is just human nature. Voting them into power is just plain stupidity.
Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice shame on you.
This is just standard iron law of oligarchy stuff that Robert Michels observed in 1913. ‘Who says organization, says oligarchy’. I don’t think the US constitution protects against this. Maybe it delayed it once but certainly not anymore. Once you peel away the democratic and constitutional dressing and rhetoric, America is quite clearly an oligarchy.
We always seem to ignore that the average IQ here is 100. The average. One half of us are stupider than that.
So saying that we all have the freedom to look deeper and draw more intelligent conclusions, while true, is without real meaning.
“Stop being fooled” becomes impractical in a world of fools. Perhaps condemnation of the foolers isn’t without merit. Moral pressure to speak clearly and truthfully – without reward to the cunning con by saying we deserve what we accept – would be a better way to run our governments.
Not ever going to happen, of course. But idiots seeing through cunning persuasion isn’t going to happen either. And idiots get the same vote I get.
@Paul Marks @ 11.01, 22/9/24
No, you are incorrect. It is a lie that has been peddled since 1861 and now so firmly embedded in everyone’s psyche that “everyone knows ..” but it isn’t true.
You may not have heard of the Corwin Amendment which the Government was willing to ratify as the 13th Amendment and make slavery permanent:
https://gettysburgcompiler.org/2017/04/10/the-corwin-amendment-the-last-last-minute-attempt-to-save-the-union/
The North was using the South as a cash cow and imposed tariffs and taxes to favour the Northern factory owners. The South could have bought the machinery and goods from Britain much more cheaply than from the North but tariffs to favour and grow the Northern industries plus export tariffs on their agricultural produce were the reason the Southern states wanted no part of the Union – that plus their diminishing influence as more new states were added to the union. Political lobbying and protection of big business is nothing new.
If it WAS about slavery, then can anyone reading this answer these questions?
Why did Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri (all slave owning states) side with the North against their own comercial self interest?
Why did the Northerners call the Southerners “Rebels” not slave owning bar stewards?
Why did Robert E. Lee, when offered the command of the Northern armies say that he was fighting for his State (i.e. Virginia) as he considered himself a Virginian, NOT an American.
Why did Lincoln form West Virginia contrary to the principle that a State could not be divided to generate more representatives and contrary to the constitution? Something that the Southern states objected to – i.e. the Government acting arbitrarily and contrary to all agreements.
Why does the famed Gettysburg address state that “our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation” and “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived” and not “We formed this nation from a collection of states and the Constitution gives the states primacy in self government, only delegating limited and specific powers to a centralised government”?
Why was there two emancipation proclamations? The first applying to the slaves ONLY in the Confederacy, when the tide of public opinion was turning against the war and a new cause was needed, the second on 1st January 1863 and not at the beginning of the war in 1861?
Why was a general emancipation not made until 1 January 1866 as the 13th Amendment (odd that the Corwin Amendment, establishing permanent slavery was slated to be the 13th, not the abolition of slavery)over 9 months after Lee surrendered and ended the Civil War on 9th April 1865?
Why did Lincoln say, after he learned of the Confederate surrender, “Now we are one nation” and not “all those poor slaves are now free” if slavery was the be-all and end-all reason?
Why did Lincoln wish to return all slaves to Africa if he considered them as free Americans? (Of course the events of 14th April 1865 interrupted that plan. It is a pity that John Wilkes Booth succeeded).
Interested people would like to know, you know
Oops! The FIRST emancipation of slaves in the Confederacy was made on 1st January 1863, the second, general emancipation of all slaves took effect in December 1865 when the 13th Amendment was ratified – again, not all states would have ratified it, another example of the Government over reach.
@bobby b
We always seem to ignore that the average IQ here is 100. The average. One half of us are stupider than that.
So I’d say a few things about that. First, it doesn’t seem to me that IQ is a good measure of common sense when it comes to these matters. After all, if you have a PhD you are probably voting for Harris.
Second, if my statistics is correct, 84% of the population has an IQ of 90 or above, and that is perfectly sufficient to read and judge these things. Moreover, people with IQs below that really don’t tend to vote, so don’t impact the result much.
And finally, what you are saying in a sense demonstrates my point. We are in this pickle not because of our horrible politicians, but because of the people who voted for them. Whatever the reason, it is still the people’s poor choices that is the problem.
”No, you are incorrect. It is a lie that has been peddled since 1861 and now so firmly embedded in everyone’s psyche that ‘everyone knows ..’ but it isn’t true.”
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
And the leader of the Southern secessionist movement, South Carolina, did just that, as did Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas. South Carolina’s secession declaration states that the primary reason is
”A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery.”
And far from being a declaration of states’ rights, the document declares that the other reason for secession was that the federal government wasn’t doing enough to force the Northern states to enforce the federal Fugitive Slave Act against their will.
”The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations…”
Taxes and tariffs aren’t mentioned at all.
So you don’t have to take my word for it. You can read the words that the people of South Carolina and the other secessionist states wrote through their elected representatives just four days after they seceded. Reasons: slavery and the failure to enforce the fugitive slave law. Not reasons: taxes, tariffs, and states’ rights.
Frasor Orr.
The Labour Party got less support in 2024 than it did in 2019. Conservative minded either stayed at home (because of the terrible weakness of the last Conservative Party government), or the got split between the Conservatives and the Reform Party.
Blaming the people for what happened in the last election in Britain does not stand up to examination (see above) and we both know that the 2020 United States Presidential Election was RIGGED (the media know that as well – but they pretend they do not know, indeed they viciously attack people who tell the truth).
So blaming democracy does not stand up – vast numbers of fake “mail-in ballots” is not democracy.
Mr Biden certainly got “81 million votes” – but certainly NOT from 81 million voters. 81 million Americans did not vote for someone who supports “Trans rights” for eight year old children.
One does not have to use “alternative media” – Mr Biden said it in one of the few campaign events he held in 2020 (he spent most of the time being hidden away) – in a televised “Town Hall” on network television.
When I watched him say that (and it was obviously a pre scripted reply to a “question”) I realised that the election was going to be rigged.
The establishment were blatantly proclaiming that they were going to rig the election – otherwise they would never have written the trans for children stuff for Mr Biden to say.
The establishment were making a point “we are going to make this senile wreak President – and there is nothing you can do about it, because we are going to engage in massive election fraud”, therefore they had him say the trans for children stuff (most likely he had no idea what it meant).
Mr Biden could have killed, and eaten, a baby – live on television. And he would still have got “81 million votes” – that was the point the establishment were making “the fix is in”.
By the way – check out how many Press Conferences K. Harris has held since her “campaign” started.
It has been more than two months now – and there has not been one press conference.
For the problems of the United States to be caused by “democracy”, by the people, it would first actually have to have honest elections.
In real election campaigns the candidates have press conferences.
mkent.
Correct – in 1861 all the States that tried to secede were slave States.
It the tariff was the issue (there were no other Federal taxes in 1860) then States like Iowa, which had little industry (it was a farming State) would have seceded – they did not.
Indeed no State that was not a Slave State could even join the Confederacy – the Constitution of the Confederacy makes that clear.
If a State tried to secede NOW (or, more likely, in 2026-2027) the issue would NOT be slavery – because there are no Slave States now.
Just as we must not read the past into the present (“X State wants to secede now – because it had slavery till 1865”) so we must not read the present into the past – there was no massive Federal Government in 1860, the Federal Government was tiny in 1860 – indeed it was very small indeed right up to 1928 (only about 3% of the economy).
People who say that slavery is the issue now are not telling the truth – Big Government is the issue now, and (also) people who say that Big Government was the issue in 1860 are not telling the truth.
People like Senator Roscoe Conkling (Republican New York – the classic Republican “boss” of a the most important State in the late 19th century) were not Big Government people (quite the contrary) and President Harding and President Coolidge were not Big Government people either.
By the way, the only areas of the South that supported Alfred Landon in 1936 (i.e. voted against Franklin Roosevelt – who had used the Constitution of the United States for toilet paper) were areas of the South that OPPOSED secession in 1861.
1936 was the classic test – foreign policy was not an issue (unlike 1964 when the statist establishment told the people that Goldwater would blow up the world with thermonuclear war) the issue was “do you approve of the Big Government policies of Franklin Roosevelt” (the stealing of all privately owned monetary gold, like an insane Roman Emperor, the violating of all contracts, public and private, and so on) – and 60% of the voters, in effect, said “yes”.
If people want to attack democracy it is the election of 1936 they should use an example.
Yes the people were terrified by the Depression – they were told that the they would starve to death without the Feds (the same Feds who were busy killing farm animals and destroying crops – to the disgust of President Carter’s father – Congressman Carter, a Democrat who voted for Alfred Landon) – and yes there had been intense brainwashing by the education system and the mainstream media – but 60% of the people still did a very bad thing, only a liar can really deny that.
If you see someone stealing all privately owned monetary gold and violating all contracts, public and private, to prop up his Credit Bubble Banker friends (and Credit Bubble Banker backers) you are NOT to blame for voting for him in 1932 – because he did not say he was going to be a criminal. But if you vote to re elect a criminal (and 60% did in 1936) then you to blame.
As a defender of democracy I still have to admit the above.
By the way – before idiots appear, American banking was not “dominated by Jews” in the 1930s – the big American Credit Bubble Bankers were NOT Jewish.
The gold was not stolen to benefit Jews, and all contracts, public and private, were not violated to benefit Jews.
By the way – I doubt Alfred Landon would have reversed the crimes had he become President, not returned the gold, not stopped violating contracts, not got rid of “Social Security” (which is Unconstitutional – regardless of men in funny robes saying that black is white and water is dry, and, please remember, in 1836 it had only just started, people had NOT yet been “promised it all their lives” as they have been now – abolishing it now would be a nightmare of suffering), not done anything.
However, if you have an election between a man who may not reverse crimes, and a criminal who has committed terrible crimes – you do not vote for the criminal. People who do terrible things should be voted out of office – unless the alternative is clearly worse.
I used the word “criminal” very deliberately – “FDR” was not an ideological person, many of his advisers were believers in various totalitarian systems (Marxism or Fascism – for example the National Industrial Recovery Act and its National Recovery Administration, the Blue Eagle thugs, were an effort to establish Mussolini style Fascism in the United States – even the Supreme Court woke up at that, and all nine Justices voted it down – it was a nine to zero judgement).
His advisers may have been Fascists or Marxists – but he himself was NOT, the man appears to have had no belief system.
Although from a wealthy and cultivated background – he is best seen as a thief (a criminal) rather than an ideological dictator – which he was NOT.
I am reminded of various Democrat Party “City Bosses” – Mayor Curley (Boston) and so on.
Franklin Roosevelt was from a very different family background – and he laid on the “I am a Gentleman” stuff (learned at his expensive school) very hard indeed – but he behaved like Curley and the others.
Still there are worse things – the last of the Big City Bosses, Mayor Daley of Chicago (the first Mayor Daley – his son had less power) was a lot better than the Marxist (or semi Marxist) clowns in charge of Chicago now – they are so besotted by their own “Progressive” doctrines that they do not understand that stealing is stealing (they really believe it is “Social Justice”).
Mayor Daley kept the government stealing under control – steal too much and you “kill the goose that lays the golden eggs” as business and taxpayers will flee the city, as they are now (and have been since he died).
Under the first Mayor Daley Chicago was still “the city that worked” – he would never increase city spending and regulations to the point were lots of business enterprises and taxpayers fled the city.
Would it be true to say that countries sometimes get a brief window of small government just after losing a war? I was thinking maybe Japan and Germany in the aftermath of WWII. Both countries seemed to recover rather better than the ones that won, in Europe at least, the US had a bit of a post war boom I believe.
Stonyground.
After World War II there was a brief understanding that Big Government had failed – in Japan, Germany and (yes) in the United States (hence the Congressional elections of 1946 – and the roll back of a lot of the “New Deal” by the Republican Congress, including the ending of free food – that imitation of Ancient Rome that returned in 1961 – Jack Kennedy playing Roman Emperor).
It took time for the education system and the media to brainwash people into thinking that such things as government price controls and production regulations had been a success.
When the memories of people were still fresh they remembered it had been an utter mess – only later (with the brainwashing of the education system and the media) were many people convinced that “fair shares” (rationing), “fair prices”, and “planning of production” had been a success.
Britain seems to have been an exception to all this – perhaps because of American subsidies (paid for by selling out British investments and interests around the world) there was a fake “prosperity” in Britain – which about half the population attributed to wise and benevolent statism.
The worship of the state in Britain baffles even Russians – for example the Soviet health system (“free at the point of use” and all that) was created more than 20 years before the British NHS – it is the Soviet (now Russian) system that was the “first in the world” – but no one in Russia worships it, it is seen (correctly) as a mess, and it was an even worse mess in Soviet times.
In Britain any failure of the NHS is blamed on “Tory Cuts” – totally mythical “Tory Cuts” as the budget of the NHS was massively increased.
Among the elite faith in the state can be traced back all the way to the 1830s – with, for example, a state education system and a system of Poor Law taxation being forced on Ireland simply on the whims of British lords.
Specifically Lord Stanley (later the Earl of Derby) and Lord Russell (an ancestor of the socialist philosopher Bertrand Russell).
Forced – the Irish taxpayers did not get to decide, Lords in London made the decisions.
Over time the British people, or some of them, also became convinced of the Hegelian case that the-state-is-God.