Protestant "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God" gets a hearing in Roman Catholic/Jewish dominated National Review

From the story, which draws a straight line from the human equality and freedom in Christ taught in St. Paul's Letter to the Romans right on through St. Augustine and Martin Luther to the American Revolution:

 

In the years leading up to the American Revolution, Jonathan Mayhew preached a widely disseminated sermon justifying rebellion against tyranny. His text was Romans, Chapter 13 — Paul’s instruction to believers to submit to political authorities: 

 

Thus, upon a careful review of the apostle’s reasoning in this passage, it appears that his arguments to enforce submission, are of such a nature, as to conclude only in favor of submission to such rulers as he himself describes, i.e., such as rule for the good of society, which is the only end of their institution. Common tyrants, and public oppressors, are not entitled to obedience from their subjects, by virtue of anything here laid down by the inspired apostle.

 

John Adams, reflecting on the origins of the Revolution years later, cited Mayhew’s sermon as a factor in persuading pious believers of the legitimacy of political resistance. Mayhew may also have persuaded the more secular-minded Ben Franklin, whose proposed motto for the American seal was “rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”

 

Penn appoints America's dumbest VP ever to Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professorship

Keep practicing Joe, for all the good it'll do ya.

Story here.

The rapid rise of income inequality in the US dates from the close of the gold window

From The New York Sun, here:

The top decile's share of income went from something like 33% in 1971 to above 47% by 2010.

Hmmm. What could account for that? ...

Before this date, unemployment was, by today’s standards, low. ... From 1947 to 1971, unemployment in America ran at the average rate of 4.7%; since 1971 the average unemployment rate has averaged 6.4%. Could this have been a factor in the soaring income inequality that also emerged in the age of fiat money? ...

It doesn’t take a Ph.D. from MIT or Princeton, however, to imagine that in an age of fiat money, the top decile would have an easier time making hay than would the denizens of the other nine deciles, who aren’t trained in the art of swaps and derivatives. ...

[H]onest money ... works out better for more people. And there is a moral dimension to the question of honest money. This was a matter that was understood — and keenly felt — by the Founders of America, who almost to a man (Benjamin Franklin, a printer of paper notes, was a holdout), cringed with humiliation at the thought of fiat paper money. They’d tried it in the revolution, and it had been the one embarrassment of the struggle. They eventually gave us a Constitution that they hoped would bar us from ever making the same mistake.

Scanners and Gropes are Beneath You, America

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

-- Benjamin Franklin, 1755

Santelli's Rant, One Year Later

A year after Rick Santelli's heated objections in February 2009 to the moral hazard posed by government efforts to bail out troubled mortgagers with $75 billion from the taxpayers, the foreclosure crisis only continues to worsen. Foreclosures have steadily increased in number from 1.3 million in 2007, to 2.3 million in 2008, to 2.8 million in 2009. An additional 3 to 3.5 million are expected in 2010.

At the time, Santelli intended to take a little time off in July for a tea party on Lake Michigan:

SANTELLI: We’re thinking of having a Chicago tea party in July. All you capitalists that want to show up to Lake Michigan, I’m gonna start organizing.

The people of the country didn't wait for July to organize, however, and by April 15th last year hundreds of tea party protests had already materialized all across the country, and their influence has been felt in elections in New York, New Jersey, Virginia and most of all Massachusetts.

Today, tea partiers everywhere stand poised to throw their weight behind candidates in the November elections who oppose everything that's happened under Pelosi, Reid, and Obama to interfere with the operations of free markets and the aspirations of free peoples. They understand that government isn't a magic money machine, churning out a buck and a half for every buck they put in. They understand with Santelli the threat left-wing Democrats represent to the very meaning of America, and who the real subversives are:

SANTELLI: You know, they’re pretty much of the notion that you can’t buy your way into prosperity, and if the multiplier that all of these Washington economists are selling us is over 1, then we never have to worry about the economy again. The government should spend a trillion dollars an hour because we’ll get 1.5 trillion back.

QUICK: Wilbur?

WILBUR ROSS (chairman, W.L. Ross & Co.): Rick, I congratulate you on your new incarnation as a revolutionary leader.

SANTELLI: Somebody needs one. I’ll tell you what, if you read our Founding Fathers, people like Benjamin Franklin and Jefferson, what we’re doing in this country now is making them roll over in their graves.

When the tea parties succeed at the polls, the Founders will stop their spinning and return to their rest, and we to our labors rebuilding our broken country.