Deuter, "Endless Horizon"
About Deutur:
So, we rise from the rubble...
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Saturday, July 4, 2026
"A Look to the Heavens With Chet Raymo"
“Like Rubies Ringed With Gold”
by Chet Raymo
“Here’s a Hubble Space Telescope composite photograph of two colliding galaxies in the constellation Corvus.
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Each of the three books of Dante’s “Divine Comedy” ends with the same words: “the stars.” The Inferno concludes with distant stars glimpsed through the narrow exit of hell. “We emerged,” says the poet, “and saw the stars.” The poet’s journey through Purgatory ends on Earth’s highest mountain, with the heavens seemingly not so far away. He is “ready to ascend to the stars.” Finally, Dante looks down upon the stars from above, from the luminous realm of Paradise. He has experienced “the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.” The beauty of that final destination, the Empyrean Sphere that encloses the created universe in divine brilliance, taxes the poet’s powers of description:
“I saw light in the shape of a river
Flashing golden between two banks
Tinted in colors of marvelous spring.
Out of the stream came living sparks
Which settled on the flowers on every side
Like rubies ringed with gold…”
Nothing in Dante’s experience could have prepared him for the splendors of the heavens as revealed by the Hubble. The photograph of colliding galaxies in Corvus is a work of genius in the tradition of the “Divine Comedy” – imagination in service to humankind’s loftiest aspirations and longings.
In Dante’s time, astronomy was one of the seven liberal arts – with grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, and music – required of every student who aspired to a university degree. Of all the secular sciences, astronomy was deemed most likely to lead one to the contemplation of things divine. Yesterday’s Hubble pic made the hair stand up on the back of my neck, which is about as close to the divine as I ever get. Dante’s “Divine Comedy” is based on the medieval astronomical conception of the world – a system of concentric spheres centered on the Earth and bounded just up there by the Empyrean.
In the Hubble photograph of colliding galaxies we see something akin to Dante’s paradisal vision, but it is not a cosmos centered on the Earth. Here are other Suns and other Earths being born, in prodigious numbers, massive stars destined to die soon as supernovas, and other less massive stars that will live long lives, perhaps evolving life or consciousness on their planets. We see in the Hubble photograph a universe of a fullness and dimension that makes Dante’s human-centered cosmos of concentric spheres seem like a dust mote in an immense cathedral.
Astronomy is no longer a required course of study in our universities, and it’s something of a shame. Who can look at the photograph of colliding galaxies and not be moved to rapture? An understanding of the size, age, and prodigality of the universe should be part of every liberal arts graduate’s intellectual furniture.”
o
Freely download "The Divine Comedy", by Dante Alighieri, here:
The Poet: Fernando Pessoa, “I Don’t Know If The Stars Rule The World”
“I Don’t Know If The Stars Rule The World”
“I don’t know if the stars rule the world,
Or if Tarot or playing cards
Can reveal anything.
I don’t know if the rolling of dice
Can lead to any conclusion.
But I also don’t know
If anything is attained
By living the way most people do.
Yes, I don’t know
If I should believe in this daily rising sun
Whose authenticity no one can guarantee me,
Or if it would be better (because better or more convenient)
To believe in some other sun,
One that shines even at night,
Some profound incandescence of things,
Surpassing my understanding.
For now...
(Let’s take it slow)
For now
I have an absolutely secure grip on the stair-rail,
I secure it with my hand –
This rail that doesn’t belong to me
And that I lean on as I ascend...
Yes... I ascend...
I ascend to this:
I don’t know if the stars rule the world.”
- Fernando Pessoa
"People Are Losing Their Minds In Public - And It's Insane"
Full screen recommended.
"People Are Losing Their Minds In Public - And It's Insane"
"Public breakdowns are happening more often, and this video shows what that looks like in the ordinary places we all share. You will see confrontations in parking lots, stores, airports, and neighborhoods, alongside the numbers behind the trend. The government's health agency counted more than sixty-one million American adults living with mental illness in a single year, and most were never treated. Watch how small the trigger has become and why these moments keep surfacing in public. What this video covers:
• Public confrontations over parking spaces, driveways, and everyday disputes.
• A locksmith staying calm while a stranger escalates at an airport.
• A store standoff over an item and a refused sale.
• Neighborhood arguments filmed and narrated in real time.
• The data on adults reporting a recent mental health crisis.
• How platforms profit from moments of public distress.
If this video gave you something to think about, subscribe to see more compilations that look at what is happening in shared public spaces. Leave a comment with your own take on why these moments are becoming so common, and share the video with someone who would find the discussion worthwhile.
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Dan, I Allegedly, "America Was Cheaper... Or Was It?"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 7/4/26
"America Was Cheaper... Or Was It?"
"Today America celebrates its 250th birthday, but one question stands out above all the others: was life actually more affordable in 1776? In this video, I compare what it cost to buy land, build a home, own transportation, feed a family, and achieve the American Dream from the founding of the United States to today. Some prices seem unbelievably cheap, but when you compare them to wages, debt, and the cost of living, the story becomes much more complicated. We'll also discuss how wealth has changed over the last 250 years, why so many Americans feel financially stretched despite incredible technological progress, and what today's economy says about the future of the middle class. If you enjoy business news, personal finance, economic history, real estate, investing, and practical money discussions, this video is packed with surprising facts and perspective that every American should see. Happy 250th Birthday, America!"
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"Decline of Empire: Parallels Between the U.S. and Rome, Part I"
"Decline of Empire:
Parallels Between the U.S. and Rome, Part I"
By Doug Casey
"As some of you know, I’m an aficionado of ancient history. I thought it might be worthwhile to discuss what happened to Rome and based on that, what’s likely to happen to the U.S. Spoiler alert: There are some similarities between the U.S. and Rome. But before continuing, please seat yourself comfortably. This article will necessarily cover exactly those things you’re never supposed to talk about - religion and politics - and do what you’re never supposed to do, namely, bad-mouth the military.
There are good reasons for looking to Rome rather than any other civilization when trying to see where the U.S. is headed. Everyone knows Rome declined, but few people understand why. And, I think, even fewer realize that the U.S. is now well along the same path for pretty much the same reasons, which I’ll explore shortly.
Rome reached its peak of military power around the year 107, when Trajan completed the conquest of Dacia (the territory of modern Romania). With Dacia, the empire peaked in size, but I’d argue it was already past its peak by almost every other measure.
The U.S. reached its peak relative to the world, and in some ways its absolute peak, as early as the 1950s. In 1950 this country produced 50% of the world’s GNP and 80% of its vehicles. Now it’s about 21% of world GNP and 5% of its vehicles. It owned two-thirds of the world’s gold reserves; now it holds one-fourth. It was, by a huge margin, the world’s biggest creditor, whereas now it’s the biggest debtor by a huge margin. The income of the average American was by far the highest in the world; today it ranks about eighth, and it’s slipping.
But it’s not just the U.S. - it’s Western civilization that’s in decline. In 1910 Europe controlled almost the whole world - politically, financially, and militarily. Now it’s becoming a Disneyland with real buildings and a petting zoo for the Chinese. It’s even further down the slippery slope than the U.S.
Like America, Rome was founded by refugees - from Troy, at least in myth. Like America, it was ruled by kings in its early history. Later, Romans became self-governing, with several Assemblies and a Senate. Later still, power devolved to the executive, which was likely not an accident.
U.S. founders modeled the country on Rome, all the way down to the architecture of government buildings, the use of the eagle as the national bird, the use of Latin mottos, and the unfortunate use of the fasces - the axe surrounded by rods - as a symbol of state power. Publius, the pseudonymous author of "The Federalist Papers," took his name from one of Rome’s first consuls. As it was in Rome, military prowess is at the center of the national identity of the U.S. When you adopt a model in earnest, you grow to resemble it.
A considerable cottage industry has developed comparing ancient and modern times since Edward Gibbon published "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" in 1776 - the same year as Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and the U.S. Declaration of Independence were written. I’m a big fan of all three, but D&F is not only a great history, it’s very elegant and readable literature. And it’s actually a laugh riot; Gibbon had a subtle wit.
There have been huge advances in our understanding of Rome since Gibbon’s time, driven by archeological discoveries. There were many things he just didn’t know, because he was as much a philologist as an historian, and he based his writing on what the ancients said about themselves.
There was no real science of archeology when Gibbon wrote; little had been done even to correlate the surviving ancient texts with what was on the surviving monuments - even the well-known monuments - and on the coins. Not to mention scientists digging around in the provinces for what was left of Roman villas, battle sites, and that sort of thing. So Gibbon, like most historians, was to a degree a collector of hearsay.
And how could he know whom to believe among the ancient sources? It’s as though William F. Buckley, Gore Vidal, H. L. Mencken, Norman Mailer, and George Carlin all wrote about the same event, and you were left to figure out whose story was true. That would make it tough to tell what really happened just a few years ago… forget about ancient history. That’s why the study of history is so tendentious; so much of it is “he said/she said.” In any event, perhaps you don’t want a lecture on ancient history. You’d probably be more entertained by some guesses about what’s likely to happen to the U.S. I’ve got some.
Let me start by saying that I’m not sure the collapse of Rome wasn’t a good thing. There were many positive aspects to Rome - as there are to most civilizations. But there was much else to Rome of which I disapprove, such as its anti-commercialism, its militarism and, post-Caesar, its centralized and increasingly totalitarian government. In that light, it’s worth considering whether the collapse of the U.S. might not be a good thing.
So why did Rome fall? In 1985, a German named Demandt assembled 210 reasons. I find some of them silly - like racial degeneration, homosexuality, and excessive freedom. Most are redundant. Some are just common sense - like bankruptcy, loss of moral fiber, and corruption.
Gibbon’s list is much shorter. Although it’s pretty hard to summarize his six fat volumes in a single sentence, he attributed the fall of Rome to just two causes, one internal and one external: Christianity and barbarian invasions, respectively. I think Gibbon was essentially right about both. Because of the sensibilities of his era, however, he probed at early Christianity (i.e., from its founding to the mid-4th century) very gently; I’ve decided to deal with it less delicately. Hopefully neither my analysis of religion nor of barbarian invasions (then and now) will disturb too many readers.
In any event, while accepting Gibbon’s basic ideas on Christians and barbarians, I decided to break down the reasons for Rome’s decline further, into 10 categories: political, legal, social, demographic, ecological, military, psychological, intellectual, religious, and economic—all of which I’ll touch on. And, as a bonus, toward the end of this article, I’ll give you another, completely unrelated, and extremely important reason for the collapse of both Rome and the U.S.
You don’t have to agree with my interpretation, but let’s see what lessons are on offer from the history of Rome, from its semi-mythical founding by Romulus and Remus in 753 BCE (a story that conflicts with Virgil’s tale of Aeneas and the refugee Trojans) to what’s conventionally designated as the end of the Western empire in 476 AD, when the child-emperor Romulus Augustulus was deposed by Odoacer (a Germanic general who was in charge of what passed for the Roman army—which by then was staffed almost entirely with Germanic mercenaries who had no loyalty to the idea of Rome). It looks a lot like the American experience over the last couple of hundred years. First conquest and expansion, then global dominance, and then slippage into decline.
Political: It’s somewhat misleading, however, to talk about a simple fall of Rome, and much more accurate to talk about its gradual transformation, with episodes of what paleontologists describe as “punctuated disequilibrium.” There were many falls.
Republican Rome fell in 31 BCE with the accession of Augustus and the start of what’s called the Principate. It almost disintegrated in the 50 years of the mid-3rd century, a time of constant civil war, the start of serious barbarian incursions, and the destruction of Rome’s silver currency, the denarius.
Rome as anything resembling a free society fell in the 290s and then changed radically again, with Diocletian and the Dominate period (more on this shortly). Maybe the end came in 378, when the Goths destroyed a Roman army at Adrianople and wholesale invasions began. Maybe we should call 410 the end, when Alaric - a Goth who was actually a Roman general -conducted the first sacking of Rome.
It might be said the civilization didn’t really collapse until the late 600s, when Islam conquered the Middle East and North Africa and cut off Mediterranean commerce. Maybe we should use 1453, when Constantinople and the Eastern Empire fell. Maybe the Empire is still alive today in the form of the Catholic Church—the Pope is the Pontifex Maximus wearing red slippers, as did Julius Caesar when he held that position.
One certain reflection in the distant mirror is that beginning with the Principate period, Rome underwent an accelerating trend toward absolutism, centralization, totalitarianism, and bureaucracy. I think we can argue America entered its Principate with the accession of Roosevelt in 1933; since then, the president has reigned supreme over the Congress, as Augustus did over the Senate. Pretenses fell off increasingly over time in Rome, just as they have in the U.S.
After the third century, with constant civil war and the destruction of the currency, the Principate (when the emperor, at least in theory, was just the first among equals) gave way to the Dominate period (from the word “dominus,” or lord, referring to a master of slaves), when the emperor became an absolute monarch. This happened with the ascension of Diocletian in 284 and then, after another civil war, Constantine in 306. From that point forward, the emperor no longer even pretended to be the first among equals and was treated as an oriental potentate. The same trend is in motion in the U.S, but we’re still a ways from reaching its endpoint - although it has to be noted that the president is now protected by hundreds, even thousands, of bodyguards. Harry Truman was the last president who actually dared to go out and informally stroll about DC, like a common citizen, while in office.
In any event, just as the Senate, the consuls, and the tribunes with their vetoes became impotent anachronisms, so have U.S. institutions. Early on, starting with the fourth emperor, Claudius, in 41 AD, the Praetorians (who had been set up by Augustus) showed they could designate the emperor. And today in the U.S., that’s probably true of its praetorians - the NSA, CIA, and FBI, among others - and of course the military. We’ll see how the next hanging-chad presidential election dispute gets settled.
My guess is that the booboisie (the Romans called them the capite censi, or head count) will demand a strong leader as the Greater Depression evolves, the dollar is destroyed, and a serious war gets underway. You have to remember that war has always been the health of the state. The Roman emperors were expected, not least by their soldiers, to always be engaged in war. And it’s no accident that the so-called greatest U.S. presidents were war presidents -Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR. We can humorously add the self-proclaimed war president Baby Bush. Military heroes - like Washington, Andrew Jackson, Ulysses Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, and Eisenhower - are always easy to elect.
It’s wise to keep Gibbon’s words about the military in mind: “Any order of men accustomed to violence and slavery make for very poor guardians of a civil constitution.”
One additional political parallel with the U.S.: up to Trajan in 100 AD, all the emperors were culturally Roman from old, noble families. After that, few were. The U.S. now has already had its first Kenyan president - just kidding, of course."
"Still Walking Beside You…"
Full screen recommended.
oltsev art,
"Still Walking Beside You…"
"There's something nobody tells you about a long love. It doesn't live in the moments you planned for. Not the anniversaries, not the milestones. It lives in the walk you took without thinking about it. The hand reached for in the dark. The silence on a long drive that needed no words at all. A whole life together can look quiet from the outside. That's usually when it's everything. I hope this finds you on a day when you can still reach over. And I hope you do."
"When Life Hurts – Watch This and Keep Going"
Legacy Builders,
"When Life Hurts –
Watch This and Keep Going"
'There are moments in life when the pain feels unbearable.When everything seems to fall apart. When you feel alone… broken… exhausted. This video is for those moments. “When Life Hurts” is a powerful motivational speech designed to remind you that pain is not the end of your story - it’s the beginning of your transformation. Hard times don’t last. But strong people do. If you're going through heartbreak, failure, depression, rejection, or setbacks - don’t quit. The struggle you’re facing today is building the strength you’ll need tomorrow. Use the pain. Grow from it."
"They Were Gone, But Everything They Touched Remained"
Full screen recommended.
"They Were Gone,
But Everything They Touched Remained"
"Some things are kept because letting them go would feel too much like saying goodbye again. In quiet rooms, old hands touch the objects left behind by people they loved: a coat that still remembers a shoulder, a watch that still keeps time, a pair of glasses, a cane by the door, an unfinished sweater waiting in a basket. For a while, these things only hold sorrow. Then family returns. Stories are told. Young hands receive what old hands have protected. The forgotten cup is filled again, the old instrument sings again, and the things left behind become part of a life still moving forward. A quiet story about memory becoming warmth. A quiet story from Three-Quarter Town."
Native Elder, "How to Survive the Loneliness That Comes With Old Age"
Full screen recommended.
Native Elder,
"How to Survive the Loneliness
That Comes With Old Age"
Comments here:
"I Went To The Grocery Store Today, Can't Believe A Bag Of Chips Is Now $7.29"
Full screen recommended
Jeremiah Babe, 7/4/26
"I Went To The Grocery Store Today,
Can't Believe A Bag Of Chips Is Now $7.29"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Delta King's Blues,
"Ain’t Nothing Cheap No More"
“Ain’t Nothing Cheap No More” is a gritty, real-life Delta King’s Blues tune about rising costs, hard days, and stretching every dollar till it begs for mercy. A dusty, no-frills acoustic guitar grinds out a slow groove like counting coins on a worn kitchen table. The harmonica sighs low and tired, echoing the weight of every bill that won’t wait. The rhythm stays steady and grounded, built for folks who know what it means to make do. This is blues about everyday struggle. For anyone who’s watched the world get expensive… while life stayed just as hard. It ain’t that we got less… it’s just everything costs more."
"Something Is Falling Apart in the American Economy… And Regular People Are Paying For It"
Full screen recommended.
Across The States, 7/4/26
"Something Is Falling Apart in the American Economy…
And Regular People Are Paying For It"
"Why does America feel more expensive even when the economy looks strong? Millions of people are earning more than ever - yet saving less, delaying life plans, and feeling financially trapped. In this video, we connect the hidden economic trends reshaping everyday life across the United States. Here’s the thing… this isn't just about inflation anymore. The real pressure has shifted to rising insurance premiums, housing costs, healthcare, and everyday essentials that quietly drain household budgets. We break down why grocery bills, shrinking purchasing power, mortgage rates, and record consumer debt are creating a financial squeeze for working Americans.
What most people don't realize is that wage growth alone doesn't guarantee a better life. We also explore the housing affordability crisis, AI's growing impact on hiring, the changing job market, and why many families are relying on credit cards and installment payments simply to cover basic expenses. The reality is that today's economic challenge is bigger than one statistic. Watch till the end for a fact-based analysis of what's changing, why millions feel left behind, and what it could mean for America's future."
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"The Amendment That Changed America: How the Sixteenth Amendment Broke the Constitution"
by Dr, Robert W. Malone
"The Story in Brief: The Missing Half of Federalism: A companion essay to this one, published earlier this week, showed how the founders restrained government by dividing power, and how those restraints were dismantled between 1868 and 1913. This essay expounds on one thread from that: The story of money and taxation.
The founders expected each state to raise its own taxes. They also understood that a state that taxed too aggressively would lose people, businesses, and investment to its neighbors. Competition among the states was not a flaw in the system. It was one of its safeguards.
That principle runs through the American founding. Adam Smith explained it in The Wealth of Nations, published the same year as the Declaration of Independence. Brutus saw where it led and warned what would happen if the federal government ever gained the upper hand. Economists spent the twentieth century proving what Smith had observed and Brutus had predicted.
The Constitution gave both the states and the federal government the power to tax within a single national market where Americans, their businesses, and their capital could move freely. Then came 1913. The Seventeenth Amendment stripped the states of their direct voice in the Senate. The Sixteenth Amendment gave Washington an unlimited claim on Americans’ incomes. The political half of American federalism and the financial half were dismantled in the same year. This is the story of the money half. It is also the story of one forgotten Anti-Federalist who predicted almost exactly how it would end.
Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists in Plain English: The Federalists wanted a stronger national government. They believed the Articles of Confederation had left Congress too weak to govern effectively. The Anti-Federalists agreed the Articles had problems but worried about something else: that a stronger federal government, once created, would never stop growing. They argued that Washington would eventually drain power, money, and authority away from the states. The Constitution was largely the Federalists’ victory. The last two centuries have been, in many ways, a test of the Anti-Federalists’ prediction.
The idea itself was hardly revolutionary in 1776. Adam Smith observed that land cannot move, so governments can tax it almost at will. Money is different. The owner of capital, he wrote, is “properly a citizen of the world, and is not necessarily attached to any particular country.” Tax him too heavily and “he would remove his stock to some other country” where he could conduct his business in peace.
That is the entire principle in two sentences. Governments tax what cannot escape. They bargain with what can. The founders did not invent that insight. They built a constitutional system that put it to work. Fifty states competing for citizens and businesses would discipline one another in ways no law or politician ever could.
The Citizen of the World: The principle is simple. What limits a tax is not the wording of the law. It is whether the thing being taxed can leave. Land cannot move. Buildings cannot move. Governments can tax them almost at will. People can move. Businesses can move. Investment can move even faster. Tax them too heavily, and they begin looking for the exit.
That possibility alone disciplines government. Every business owner understands the principle. Raise prices too much and customers walk across the street. Governments are no different. Raise taxes too much, and taxpayers walk across a state line.
What the Founders Built: The founders built a system that put this principle to work. First, the states kept their own power to tax. The Constitution gave the new federal government a taxing power, but it did not take that authority away from the states. As Hamilton explained in Federalist No. 32, taxation remained “a concurrent and coequal authority” shared by both governments. The states retained that authority “in the most absolute and unqualified sense.” Think of it this way. Two tax collectors stood beside the same taxpayer. Both reached into the same wallet. Neither could ignore what the other was doing.
One point is often misunderstood. The founders did not want Washington living on money handed up by the states. They had already tried that under the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, which took effect in 1781. Congress had no independent power to tax. It passed the hat, and the states decided whether to contribute. Too often they did not. The result was a national government that was chronically broke, unable to pay its debts, and too weak to carry out many of its basic responsibilities. Fixing that failure was one of the principal reasons delegates met in Philadelphia in 1787. They were sent to amend the Articles, but they ended up writing an entirely new Constitution.
The solution was not dependence. It was competition. Each government would raise its own revenue from the same citizens, forcing both to remain accountable to the same taxpayers.
Second, the founders tied Washington’s hands on the most dangerous tax of all. The Constitution required any “direct” tax to be apportioned among the states by population, a rule so cumbersome that a national income or wealth tax was practically impossible. For more than a century, the federal government lived mostly on tariffs and excise taxes on goods such as whiskey. The one tax that could grow almost without limit, a direct claim on what Americans earned, was deliberately kept out of Washington’s reach. That constitutional ceiling held until 1913.
Finally, the founders made sure Americans could vote with their feet. Citizens and businesses were free to cross state lines, taking their property, investments, and livelihoods with them. A tax you cannot escape disciplines no one. A tax you can escape by moving to the next state disciplines every legislature - each state was in competition with the other states, to keep businesses in their state by maintaining a low tax rate.
Whether the founders fully appreciated the economic consequences is impossible to know. But they built a constitutional system in which governments competed for citizens instead of citizens competing for the favor of government.
Brutus Saw Where It Led: The clearest warning came from the men who lost the fight over the Constitution. Writing under the name Brutus, most likely New York judge Robert Yates, one Anti-Federalist focused on a danger almost everyone else overlooked: the federal power to tax. Once Washington could tax “in all its parts,” he warned, the states would “find it impossible to raise monies to support their governments.” Deprived of revenue, their powers would eventually be “absorbed in that of the general government.”
His point was simple. Governments without money are governments without power. If Washington collected most of the revenue, the states would eventually become dependent on Washington to survive. Brutus matters not because he opposed the Constitution. He matters because he described the system exactly as it was built, then predicted how it would fail. Two governments would reach into the same taxpayer’s wallet. One of them would eventually win.
Hamilton never really disputed the danger. In Federalist No. 31, he openly acknowledged that an unlimited federal taxing power “might, and probably would in time,” strip the states of the resources needed to govern themselves and leave them “entirely at the mercy of the national legislature.”
Hamilton did not dispute the danger. He disputed the outcome. He believed Congress would answer to the same voters as the states, and Americans would remain loyal enough to their state governments that Washington would never push matters that far. It was a political solution rather than a structural one. In effect, he bet that political restraint would succeed where constitutional restraint did not.
Brutus was not convinced. He believed power would follow the money, regardless of anyone's intentions. Brutus made the opposite bet. Everything after 1913 is simply evidence that Brutus was right. I think that's the line readers should remember. One hundred and twenty-five years later, history declared a winner (hint: and it wasn’t the people).
The Founders Built It. Economists Explained It. They gave the states their own taxing power. They created a single national market where Americans, businesses, and investment could move freely. What they did not do was sit down and write a formal theory explaining why that arrangement would restrain government. Later generations would do that for them.
Adam Smith supplied the first piece in 1776. In "The Wealth of Nations," he observed that governments can easily tax what cannot move. They have far less power over people, businesses, and capital that can simply leave. He called the owner of capital "a citizen of the world" because money has no permanent home. It flows toward places where it is treated well and away from places where it is punished.
Capital can move. Governments that tax it too aggressively lose it. More than a century later, the economist Friedrich Hayek explained why the principle worked inside a federal system. Where people, businesses, and money are free to move, no state can tax too heavily or regulate too aggressively without paying a price. Its taxpayers simply leave.
Ludwig von Mises carried the idea even further. The freedom to walk away, he argued, is one of the strongest checks on government ever devised. It is difficult to abuse people who always have another place to go.
Then came Murray Rothbard. He tied the economics back to the Constitution. Government, he argued, is a monopoly on force, and taxation is its principal means of exercising that force. Like any monopoly, it expands until something stops it. The strongest restraint is competition. If citizens and their money can leave, government has to behave.
In his history "Conceived in Liberty," Rothbard also reached a conclusion that would have pleased Brutus. The Anti-Federalists, he argued, had correctly foreseen the long-term danger of an expanding national government.
The economists who followed simply put equations around the same idea. James Buchanan and Geoffrey Brennan described governments as institutions that naturally seek more revenue unless checked by competition. Charles Tiebout showed how people “vote with their feet,” choosing communities based on taxes and services. Barry Weingast called the arrangement “market-preserving federalism,” a system in which governments compete instead of simply extracting wealth from captive taxpayers.
None of these economists invented the principle. Smith conceived of what was to come. The founders built it. Brutus warned what would happen if it failed. The economists simply explained why the system worked, and why dismantling it changed the balance of power in America.
1913: The Year the Balance Broke: In the end, every government is limited by one thing: how much money it can collect. For more than a century, Washington lived under two financial restraints. The Constitution made a federal income tax so difficult that it was practically impossible, and tariffs could only be pushed so far before they became politically and economically self-defeating. Then, in 1913, Congress and the states ratified the Sixteenth Amendment.
The Sixteenth Amendment (1913): "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”
Twenty-seven words fundamentally changed American federalism. Before 1913, the Constitution required any direct tax to be apportioned among the states according to population. That made a national income tax so cumbersome that it could never become the federal government’s principal source of revenue.
The Sixteenth Amendment swept away that obstacle. Washington could now tax income directly, from whatever source it came. As the economy grew, so did the federal government’s revenue. The amendment did far more than authorize an income tax. It opened the largest and fastest-growing tax base in the country to the federal government and permanently shifted the financial balance between Washington and the states.
The founders had deliberately kept that power out of Washington’s hands. With a single constitutional amendment, that restraint disappeared. The Sixteenth Amendment is usually taught as a tax story. The Seventeenth Amendment is usually taught as an election story. They are really the same story. One gave Washington the money. The other took the states’ seats away from the table. One removed the financial restraint on federal power. The other weakened one of the Constitution’s principal political restraints. Together, they changed the balance the founders had built.
What followed looked remarkably like Brutus’s prediction. Federal revenues eventually dwarfed those of the states, and money became the lever by which Washington expanded its authority. It rarely needed to command the states. It simply offered money, attached conditions to it, and waited. States that depended on federal dollars gradually found themselves carrying out federal priorities instead of their own.
Hamilton expected the states and the federal government to compete as equal taxing partners, each collecting its own revenue and neither dependent on the other. By the twentieth century, that relationship had largely been turned on its head. Instead of competing with Washington, the states increasingly administered programs that Washington designed, funded, and often dictated.
Brutus had predicted that two governments drawing from the same taxpayers could not remain equals forever. One would eventually dominate the other. He was wrong about only one thing. It did not happen immediately. It took one hundred and twenty-five years.
Switzerland: The System That Survived: If America wants to see what this system looks like today, it need only look at Switzerland. The Swiss never abandoned the financial half of federalism. Their cantons still collect most taxes, and they compete openly for residents, businesses, and investment. A canton that taxes too heavily or regulates too aggressively risks watching taxpayers move to the next canton.
Adam Smith would have recognized the system immediately. His “citizen of the world” is alive and well in Switzerland. Competition still disciplines government because governments know taxpayers have real choices. It is the same competitive pressure Hamilton described, the same force Brutus feared Washington would eventually destroy, and the same constitutional balance America began dismantling in 1913.
That does not mean every Swiss canton is left to fend for itself. Wealthier cantons, together with the federal government, help support poorer ones through a system of fiscal equalization. But the goal is not to make every canton financially dependent on Bern. It is to ensure that every canton can remain self-governing while preserving competition among them. That is the crucial difference. Switzerland uses cooperation to preserve federalism. America increasingly used federal money to weaken it.
The founders wanted states that could stand on their own feet, compete for citizens and businesses, and answer primarily to their own taxpayers. Switzerland largely kept that model. America gradually replaced it with one in which states became increasingly dependent on programs designed, funded, and often directed from Washington.
Brutus Was Right: The companion essay ended with politics. America steadily removed the institutions that could check Washington, while Switzerland added more and locked them into place. This essay tells the same story through money.
The founders created two sovereign taxing authorities operating within a single national market. Citizens, businesses, and capital were free to move, forcing both state and federal governments to compete for the same taxpayers. Adam Smith explained why that competition would restrain government. Brutus warned that if Washington ever gained the financial upper hand, the states would slowly lose both their revenue and their independence. Hamilton believed political restraint and Americans’ loyalty to their states would prevent it.
In 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment removed the founders’ financial restraint on federal power. In the same year, the Seventeenth Amendment weakened one of the principal political restraints. Together, they altered the balance that the founders had carefully constructed. Washington gained both the money and, over time, the leverage that money inevitably brings. What followed was not inevitable because it was planned. It was inevitable because incentives changed. Money flowed to Washington. Power followed the money.
That does not mean the story is over. The states still possess broad taxing authority. They can still compete for citizens, businesses, and investment. They can still resist becoming mere administrators of federal programs. Federalism is not dead. It has been weakened, and what has been weakened can be strengthened.
The first step is simply to recognize what was lost. In 1787, a New York judge named Robert Yates, who wrote under the alias “Brutus,” saw it coming. His prediction took 125 years to come true. It arrived, fittingly enough, as a constitutional amendment. End."
"The American Soul"
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, - That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
Read this, share this, put it on your wall, work it into your soul.
Believe this.
Happy 4th of July!
Have a safe and happy 4th of July folks!
Full screen recommended.
John Philip Sousa, "The Stars And Stripes Forever"
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Ray Charles, "America The Beautiful"
"Of The People, By The People, For The People"
Battle of Chancellorsville, 1863
"Of The People, By The People, For The People"
by Bill Bonner
"General, I have been a soldier all my life. I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, divisions, and armies, and should know, as well as any one, what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men ever arrayed for battle can take that position."
- General Longstreet to General Lee on the eve of Pickett’s Charge
"It’s July the 4th…it is also the 163rd anniversary of the most decisive battle in the War Between the States. It is usually called the “Civil War” but a civil war is one where two groups fight for control of one government, like the English civil war, or the Irish civil war or the many civil wars in China.
The War Between the States was a war with two groups, each with its own government. The southern states wanted to go their own way – much like the Donbas and Luhansk areas of Eastern Ukraine today, who sought their independence after the Maidan coup d’etat in 2014. And like the Kyiv government today, Washington wanted to take the breakaway states back…by force.
The war began when Southerners tried to take possession of a Union-held fort built on an artificial island to protect Charleston, SC. – Fort Sumter. When the Union commander refused to give it up, the Confederates lobbed artillery shells into the fort, until the Yankees surrendered. That incident was probably not significant enough to set off a real war. But war was in the ‘air du temps’ and both sides were ‘gunning up.’ By July, 1861, hotheads on both sides were ready for action. The Northerners invaded Virginia, expecting an easy victory. Washingtonians drove out to Bull Run in their carriages, with picnic baskets, to watch the anticipated rout of the “Johnny Rebs.” It didn’t work out as planned and the gawkers soon hastened back across the Potomac.
But once underway – like an empire, inflation or a love affair – war takes on a life of its own. People lose sight of what they are fighting for and concern themselves only with winning. They use “any means necessary” – murder, mayhem, deceit, invention, starvation, poison…whatever they can come up with – to beat their opponents. Ultimately, the goal is to inflict so much pain on the enemy that he calls it quits. That is why Richard Nixon tried to bomb North Vietnam ‘back to the stone age.’ And it is why George W. Bush hit Iraq with a campaign of ‘shock and awe.’
In order to win the war, the Yankees had to conquer the South. The Confederates would win by not being conquered. But the Yankees had decisive advantages. They had industries that could make weapons and supply their armies. They had a navy that could blockade Southern ports and cripple the Confederate economy. And they had thousands of immigrants—many of them Irishmen who had come to Boston, New York and Philadelphia to escape the famine – whom they could draft into the army.
After two years of warfare, the Confederates had proved their fighting elan. They won battles, often against much superior forces. But each victory brought them closer to defeat. Because the South could not readily replace its fallen soldiers or its lost supplies.
The Battle of Chancellorsville showed Robert E. Lee’s skill as a commander. Military historians call it a ‘perfect battle.’ Union general Joseph Hooker tried to take on Lee’s army from the front and the rear in a ‘double envelopment.’ Lee, outnumbered more than two to one, managed to defeat both of Hooker’s armies. But in the battle, Lee lost his ‘right arm’ – Gen. Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson -- who was accidentally shot by his own troops in the half light of evening.
Lee won a great victory at Chancellorsville. ‘Many more victories like that,’ said an astute observer on his staff, ‘and we will lose the war.’ It was then, in the spring of 1863, that the Confederates decided on a different strategy. They needed some ‘shock and awe’ of their own to bring the Yankees to the bargaining table. And they badly needed supplies. So, they invaded Maryland and Pennsylvania, leading to the Battle of Gettysburg.
What the Confederates really needed was Stonewall Jackson. He had spent 10 years teaching tactics at the Virginia Military Institute. He had studied Napoleon’s campaigns, in detail. He had watched, too, as his own troops were able to beat back more powerful Union assaults by taking protected positions and letting the enemy come to them. He had understood how, with improvements in riflery, it was almost impossible for the attacker to dislodge a well-positioned defender.
And yet, at Gettysburg, that is what Lee’s Army tried to do. By July 3rd, the battle had already been going on for three days. The Union army held the high ground. Now, on its own ground, it was the defender, not the attacker. And in the center of its main line was a low stone wall at a place aptly named, “Cemetery Ridge.”
Lee’s most trusted subordinate, Jackson, was dead. General Longstreet argued against attacking the ridge. But he couldn’t dissuade Lee. So, after noon on the 3rd, some 12,500 Confederate soldiers, under General George Pickett tried to take the ridge. They had to cross a large, mostly open area, where they were hit by artillery and rifle fire from several directions. Only a handful of them reached the stone wall, but were soon beaten back. Half of the attackers lay dead on the field. Lee retreated back to Virginia. The war went on for nearly two years more, before the the South, exhausted, finally gave up.
As Lincoln put it, the war was fought so that ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.’ But by 1865, the people of the South were ruled by Lincoln’s armies."
"A Patriotism of the Heart"
"A Patriotism of the Heart"
by Brian Maher
"Here is the trouble with America’s jingos, warhawks, drum-beaters, glory hounds, world-improvers, do-gooders and idealists: They are not patriotic. A jolting, nearly scandalous claim, it is true. Do these Americans not cry tears red, white and blue? Do they not yell about American “greatness”... American “exceptionalism”... the “shining city” atop the hill? That and more they do, yes. Yet they are not patriotic. That is the curious case we haul before the jury today.
Yes, we are stepping away from our normal beat of manna and markets… and reflecting upon the virtue of patriotism. (We first doff our cap to the late writer Joseph Sobran, upon whose insights we rely today).
Country or Empire: Famed English writer G.K. Chesterton once denounced Rudyard Kipling’s “lack of patriotism.” The fellow’s lack of patriotism? What did Chesterton mean? Kipling was chief rah-rah man for the British Empire, its loudest bugler. English civilization overtopped all rival powers, he believed - as Everest overtops all rival peaks. And as was proper… Great Britain gave the law in all four corners of Earth.
From Kipling’s story "Regulus", citing Virgil’s "Aeneid": “Roman! let this be your care, this your art; to rule over the nations and impose the ways of peace…” Substitute Britain for Rome, and you have Kipling. Why then did Chesterton deny his patriotism? The reason is subtle. Subtle… yet critical.
“He Admires England, But He Does Not Love Her” Chesterton argued that Kipling admired England because she was powerful. He did not love her because she was England: "He admires England, but he does not love her; for we admire things with reasons, but love them without reasons. He admires England because she is strong, not because she is English."
Now Chesterton. He loved England as England — its customs, its eccentricities, its people. Even, if you can believe it, its “food.” A man loves his mother. It is a wordless love, wide and deep. He requires no reason. He requires no justification. And as he loves his mother, so he loves his country. Be it China, be it Russia, be it Chile, be it Romania… it is all one.
Sobran: "Of course Chesterton was right. You love your country as you love your mother - simply because it is yours, not because of its superiority to others, particularly superiority of power."
A Spacious Patriotism: Does the other fellow believe his own mother towers high over all others? Well, friends, maybe he does believe it. But that in no way irritates, annoys or threatens the other fellow. No harm flows from it. After all... Adults allow children to cherish the fiction that reindeer fly and round men descend chimneys... A husband allows his wife to cherish the fiction that she is a superior cook or automobilist… as a wife allows her husband to cherish the fiction that he is a skillful and formidable lover... or that his bald head is actually ennobling.
These are benevolent fictions conducive to the domestic peace and happiness. In that spirit, the patriot’s attitude toward the foreigner is relaxed. It is accommodative. It is spacious. He understands this fellow’s affection for his country is essentially the affection for his mother. But a Kipling does not love his country as a man loves his mother. His country must show all others its dust. It must outrace them all… else he feels diminished.
The Patriot Loves His Country Regardless: The United States of America stables many such gentlemen. They are dizzied, wobbled, staggered by a higher American vision. Their eyes roll perpetually heavenward. To these fellows, America must always be up to something big in this world.
She must be forever charging up San Juan Hill, going over the top, storming Omaha beach, bearing any burden, paying any price... She must be beating the Russians to the moon, beating the world at basketball, beating democracy into someone’s head. Tall deeds, some of these, and fantastic attainments.
But would the patriot love America less if she fell short of the glory… if her history was a page mostly blank? He would not. It is - after all - his country. And he loves her as he loves his mother. But to that certain species of American, America must dazzle and glitter upon the world’s stage. She must be the “indispensable nation.” If not indispensable… then dispensable. If dispensable, then unworthy of his love. Hence his lack of patriotism. He is Kipling.
The Difference Between the Patriot and the Nationalist: Sobran takes their measure: "Many Americans admire America for being strong, not for being American. For them America has to be “the greatest country on Earth” in order to be worthy of their devotion. If it were only the second greatest, or the 19th greatest, or, heaven forbid, “a third-rate power,” it would be virtually worthless… Maybe the poor Finns or Peruvians love their countries too, but heaven knows why - they have so little to be proud of, so few “reasons.”
And so Sobran trains his cannons on the nationalist ideologue: "The nationalist, who identifies America with abstractions like freedom and democracy, may think it’s precisely America’s mission to spread those abstractions around the world - to impose them by force, if necessary. In his mind, those abstractions are universal ideals... the world must be made “safe for democracy” by “a war to end all wars”... Any country that refuses to Americanize is “anti-American” - or a “rogue nation.” For the nationalist, war is a welcome opportunity to change the world."
We might list some names in point... but our legal counsel is wagging his finger and shaking his head. The patriot and the nationalist babble the same American tongue. The one is therefore mistaken for the other. Yet lean in. Listen closer. You will find they speak alien languages: "Because the patriot and the nationalist often use the same words, they may not realize that they use those words in very different senses. The American patriot assumes that the nationalist loves this country with an affection like his own, failing to perceive that what the nationalist really loves is an abstraction - “national greatness,” or something like that. The American nationalist, on the other hand, is apt to be suspicious of the patriot, accusing him of insufficient zeal, or even “anti-Americanism.”
A Patriotism of the Heart: The patriotism Sobran hymns is a relaxed, natural, healthful patriotism. It is a patriotism of the heart. This patriotism flies no ideological flag, hauls no missionary cargo, steers by no heavenly star. It is the patriotism of the prairie, of the plain, of the lonely jackrabbit crossroad, of the greasy spoon, of the truckstop, of the front porch, of the pool hall... of Main Street. And his fellow countrymen? The patriot takes them as he finds them.
Might they sometimes neglect to wash behind the ears? Might they mistake the salad fork for the dinner fork? Well, sometimes they may. But they are his countrymen… and that is enough. The patriot allows himself to laugh - not at his fellow Americans - but with them.
The nationalist, meantime, does not laugh. He hectors. He preaches. He scolds.
“Patriotism Is Relaxed. Nationalism Is Rigid.” “Patriotism is relaxed,” as Sobran concludes. “Nationalism is rigid.”
We in turn conclude, paraphrasing Chesterton: "The relaxed patriot, the average American, the American who tends to his own business and sweeps his own stoop, the American who loves his country as he loves his mother - this fellow is all right. But the rigid American, the uber American, the zealous American, the American nationalist hot to put the world to rights - the American who admires America for her strength - but fails to love her as herself? This fellow... he’s all wrong."
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