The Political Page, T+299 -- November 16, 2017

I don't watch network nightly news. Let me know if any of the networks a) report this story; b) show this photograph. My hunch: if you are a sitting US senator, you get a pass.

It should be noted that this photograph was said to have been taken after the actress explicitly told him to never touch her again (paraphrasing) -- according to the actress, herself.

******************** 

On Property

The founding fathers were truly geniuses. From: A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1787, John Adams.

The proposition of our author, then, should be reversed, and it should have been said, that they mind so much their own, that they never think enough of others.

Suppose a nation, rich and poor, high and low, ten millions in number, all assembled together; not more than one or two millions will have lands, houses, or any personal property; if we take into the account the women and children, or even if we leave them out of the question, a great majority of every nation is wholly destitute of property, except a small quantity of clothes, and a few trifles of other movables.

Would Mr. Nedham be responsible that, if all were to be decided by a vote of the majority, the eight or nine millions who have no property, would not think of usurping over the rights of the one or two millions who have?

Property is surely a right of mankind as really as liberty. Perhaps, at first, prejudice, habit, shame or fear, principle or religion, would restrain the poor from attacking the rich, and the idle from usurping on the industrious; but the time would not be long before courage and enterprise would come, and pretexts be invented by degrees, to countenance the majority in dividing all the property among them, or at least, in sharing it equally with its present possessors.

Debts would be abolished first; taxes laid heavy on the rich, and not at all on the others; and at last a downright equal division of every thing be demanded, and voted.

What would be the consequence of this? The idle, the vicious, the intemperate, would rush into the utmost extravagance of debauchery, sell and spend all their share, and then demand a new division of those who purchased from them.

The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.

If “Thou shalt not covet,” and “Thou shalt not steal,” were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free.

-- John Adams,  John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1787

50% of US millennials do not understand this; they say they want to adopt the socialism of North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela.