To those familiar with constitutional history, it may seem trite to observe that the meaning of the Constitution is contested. Yet many contemporary political commentators treat the Constitution as a document whose meaning is plain and obvious. An op-ed in the New York Times, criticizing President Donald Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship, informs us that “Trump doesn’t get to decide what the Constitution means.” The writer argues that the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment is plain: “Virtually everyone born in America would be an American, end of story.” In his view, by stating that children born to illegal immigrants are not US citizens, “The Trump administration is wrong.” After setting out the terms of Trump’s Executive Order, the writer asks “How could this be possible, given the plain text of the amendment?” He adds that “every plain reading of the amendment comes to the same conclusion,” namely his own conclusion.

The aim of this article is not to settle the contested meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, but to highlight a different problem: the fact that both sides of the debate view the matter as so clear as to be beyond debate. The argument advanced here is that where the meaning of the Constitution is contested, as it often is, the readiness of both parties to deny that the meaning is contested is a problem in itself. A contested issue cannot be resolved when the protagonists deny that there is anything that needs to be resolved in the first place.

Some of the federal judges who have issued temporary injunctions against the Executive Order seem to regard the issue as clear beyond the scope of doubt or debate. A federal judge in Seattle described the Executive Order as “blatantly unconstitutional,” observing for good measure that “I’ve been on the bench for over four decades. I can’t remember another case where the question presented was as clear as this one is.” He put it to the Department of Justice attorney that, “I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar could state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order” to which counsel’s response was that he “absolutely” viewed the order as constitutional. Many people who support the Executive Order have argued that the federal courts issuing these injunctions are quite obviously reading the Constitution “wrong”—perhaps, it is often suggested, they are Democrat appointees and therefore reading everything wrong. If read “correctly,” so the argument goes, the opposite meaning is “absolutely” plain to see.

To the NYT claim that, “Virtually everyone born in America would be an American, end of story,” one could respond in the same dismissive terms that “anchor babies are not Americans, end of story.” But this is a childish way to approach interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Those who approach the debate in that way have failed to acknowledge that there is a serious dispute as to the “correct” meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, including a fundamental dispute over whether this is a valid constitutional amendment in the first place as it was only ratified by the Southern States at the point of the bayonet. In an article titled “Was the Fourteenth Amendment Constitutionally Adopted?” Forrest McDonald cites a very good point put forward by Walter J. Suthon, Jr.—that “the intent of the framers was irrelevant, for the whole proceeding, start to finish, was unconstitutional.” Indeed, going back into the earlier history, the war of 1861-1865 was in very large part a war over the “correct” meaning of the Constitution.

Those who argue that the meaning of the Constitution is plain on any honest reading of it are merely begging the question: after all, the meaning seems “plain” to all the feuding parties. This is a case of all warring factions denying that there is anything to war about. By contrast, most philosophical discussions of constructive disagreement and fruitful debate presume that both parties are at least aware of the existence of a disagreement. They contemplate cases where neither party to the disagreement denies that there is a disagreement. For example, the Stanford Encyclopedia entry on disagreement opens as follows:

We often find ourselves in disagreement with others. You may think nuclear energy is so volatile that no nuclear energy plants should be built anytime soon. But you are aware that there are many people who disagree with you on that very question. (emphasis added)

In such cases the premise is that there is a disagreement. Neither party claims that there is no debate; on the contrary, the formal set up of any debate inherently makes it clear that there is an opposing view. They are debating who has the better arguments, or whose view should prevail. In the typical example, neither party sets up their own view as “plainly correct,” and it is clear that each party sees his or her own subjective view of the matter as one that requires substantiation or explanation in order to persuade the opposing party to acquiesce. This example is given in the article “Argumentation and Persistent Disagreement”:

(1) Gina: “John, I really don’t want to invite Thomas to the party; you know how much I dislike his girlfriend.”

(2) John: “But Thomas is one of my best friends! Is it so hard to tolerate his girlfriend for a couple of hours?”

This typical example implicitly acknowledges that there is a contested issue to be debated in the first place: neither side claims there is nothing to debate as that would amount to rejecting the very premise of how they frame the debate. To illustrate this, we could amend the given example to read:

(1) Gina: “John, you must not invite Thomas to the party; I forbid it.

(2) John: I will invite whomever I decree, end of story.

In the amended example, where Gina and John are issuing orders and decrees to each other, that cannot reasonably be described as a “debate.” There may sometimes be good reasons to reject the notion of debate altogether, a good example being when courts in South Africa invited Boers to “debate” with those chanting “Kill the Boer” as to the pros and cons of such death chants. The premise to be “debated” is so outrageous that it is easy to see why such “debates” are rejected out of hand.

Debating the Constitution

Matters are different when it comes to the Constitution. Even in the context of deep disagreement such as that preceding the war of 1861-1865, the protagonists joined issue on the debates as questions important enough to debate. Leaving aside those who reject the Constitution altogether, anyone who acknowledges the importance of a constitution should recognize that its meaning is contested and is therefore the appropriate subject of debate. If each side of a constitutional debate supposes that there is nothing to debate, merely an “obviously correct” position and troublemakers rejecting the “obviously correct” position for nefarious reasons, there can be no peaceful resolution of any constitutional debate.

To argue that “everyone who disagrees with my obviously correct reading of the Constitution is simply being dishonest” or “everyone who is honest must agree with my obviously correct reading of the Constitution” would itself be a dishonest position to take in a formal debate because it rejects the very premise of the word “debate.” It amounts to each side saying that nothing is contested, everything is as each faction declares it to be, and there are no arguments on the other side other than perhaps sham arguments. But the fact that each faction is absolutely convinced of the correctness of its own constitutional interpretation does not mean there is no dispute—on the contrary, that is precisely why the matter is in dispute.

In the debate over the birthright citizenship clause, the dispute concerns what each side of the debate describes as the “plain meaning” of the phrase, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Some argue that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” plainly means only legal immigrants, while others, for example, the NYT article cited above, rely on the 1898 Supreme Court case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark which held that birthright citizenship includes “all children here born of resident aliens” and only excludes,

…children of foreign sovereign or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes.

The court went on to rule that, “The amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States” (emphasis added).

One could respond by arguing that the case of Wong Kim Ark was “plainly” wrongly decided, or that it can “plainly” be distinguished on its facts, or that there are other important aspects of the case to consider—but to mount such arguments is necessarily to acknowledge that the meaning of the contested provision is not “plain.” The meaning is contested.

Leaving aside those who argue that the Supreme Court should simply be ignored when it gets things “plainly wrong,” debating what is meant by a Supreme Court case, whether it was correctly decided, and whether it applies to the current situation is precisely what is meant by describing an issue as contested. That raises further constitutional questions as to whether the courts have jurisdiction to injunct the government merely because an issue is contested.

In an era governed largely by false and confected “consensus,” it is paradoxical that many people think that if the meaning of a disputed issue seems plain to them and their political friends, it follows that the issue is not disputed. On the contrary, two opposing and mutually exclusive “plain” views of any matter (i.e., each view is plainly correct to those who hold that view and plainly wrong to those who reject that view) signify precisely the opposite—that the matter is in dispute. A society addicted to “consensus” seemingly finds it hard to grasp the concept of an issue being contested, and responds by declaring that there is no contested issue. We are now in a situation where the meaning of complex legal issues is always stated by all warring factions to be “plain”—which is precisely what has happened in all the Fourteenth Amendment debates.

Murray Rothbard argues that ambiguity in constitutional provisions is a weakness inherent in the Constitution as written, due to “its inherently broad powers and elastic clauses.” As Rothbard also points out, the Constitution establishes the Supreme Court as the final arbiter of such disputes, but there we come upon the same problem – judges who disagree as to the plain meaning of the Constitution. Rothbard explains:

It is true that, in the United States, at least, we have a constitution that imposes strict limits on some powers of government. But, as we have discovered in the past century, no constitution can interpret or enforce itself; it must be interpreted by men. And if the ultimate power to interpret a constitution is given to the government’s own Supreme Court, then the inevitable tendency is for the Court to continue to place its imprimatur on ever-broader powers for its own government. (emphasis added)

Ultimately, two warring parties who have both arrived at the conclusion that they are not warring at all, while each is convinced of the plain correctness of his position, are left with only one recourse, and that is endless warring (unless they wish to separate). Resolving a dispute requires, at the very minimum, that both sides acknowledge that there is in fact a dispute that needs to be resolved.

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At dinner with my mom on Monday, she mentioned that she’d recently watched the new Bob Dylan movie, A Complete Unknown. A bit of the film takes place during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. She confessed that she, who was born in 1946, had largely forgotten how frightened people were at the time, with many people leaving large cities (potential targets) in a state of panic.

Our conversation reminded me of a question I’ve been turning over in my head since 2022—namely, why has the risk of nuclear war apparently been completely dismissed by much of humanity, including our so-called leaders?

I grew up reading Cold War history that told of near misses, mishaps, and miscalculations in the business of maintaining the Mutually Assured Destruction nuclear doctrine. On a few occasions, the world came very close to annihilation.

Stanley Kubrick’s Doctor Strangelove left an indelible impression on my mind, as did the 2000 film Thirteen Days and the 2002 film The Sum of All Fears.

In the genre of science fiction, I remember innumerable terrifying stories and films set in a dystopian, post-apocalyptic world that has been devastated by nuclear war, with the survivors trying to eke out an existence.

The Road Warrior and Blade Runner were two of my favorite films in this genre. The Dead Zone, directed by David Cronenberg and released in 1983, tells the story of a man who has a nightmarish vision that a charismatic politician aspires to start a nuclear war.

I’ve heard cognitive psychologists say that forgetfulness is the mind’s way of protecting us from the traumatic experiences of the past. The trouble with this, it seems to me, is that there are critically important lessons that we should NOT forget. I have a good memory and I am often struck by the thought that a large swath of humanity seems to be suffering from some bizarre amnesia. Matters of concern just a few years ago are seemingly forgotten in the way that teenagers forget last year’s boy band or fashion style.

Why has much of humanity—and apparently most of our so-called leadership class—apparently dismissed the risk of nuclear war with Russia?

On the one hand, many of these people say that Vladimir Putin is an unhinged tyrant bent on the domination of Europe. On the other hand, when asked if he might be tempted to use nuclear weapons—starting with tactical nukes on the battlefield—the invariable reply is that such fears are unfounded. Why?

The Russians perceived an existential threat when the U.S.—and especially the CIA—moved into Ukraine. The Russians took military action to stop it—exactly as the U.S. government would have done if Russian military and intelligence people had made similar moves in Mexico or Cuba. Now the Russians have apparently lost hundreds of thousands of young soldiers. Obviously, they are not going to pack it up and go home without a major fight.

Yesterday I saw a story headlined Ukraine has secret nuclear doomsday plan, according to former Zelensky adviser. The witness interviewed for the report—purportedly a former Zelensky advisor—claims that “Ukraine’s leadership would rather destroy the entire country and the Russians with it than accept defeat.” The plan involves blowing up Ukraine’s nuclear power plants to create multiple Chernobyl-like disasters at once.

Naturally people are inclined to dismiss such claims as fanciful, but it’s far from clear to me WHY this claim should be dismissed out of hand. Zelensky—a former actor who shows signs of having a cocaine habit—does not strike me as particularly stable or prudent. Would Americans be concerned if Charlie Sheen became a wartime president of the United States?

History is littered with examples of men in positions of power who do incredibly destructive things after it becomes evident that they are about to lose power. In 1945, with the Red Army closing on Berlin, Hitler apparently pondered the sublime glory of Wagner’s opera Götterdämmerung that ends with Valhalla—the home of the gods—going up in flames.

As Mattias Desmet pointed out in a recent essay, it is extremely conspicuous and disturbing that the exact same hysterical gang who lost their minds during the Covid Pandemic lost their minds for Ukraine with equal fervor. As he eerily puts it:

It is an illusion to think that a looming nuclear inferno, which threatens to wipe out all life on this planet, will wake the masses up from their mass formation. The mass is an organism that thrives on death drive. Its ultimate goal is self-destruction. The person who slides into mass formation has already chosen death; the death of all others and their own death.

A friend who grew up in Cuba told me that the main reason why Castro’s clique insists on keeping the entire country and its talented people in a state of poverty is that they are afraid what will happen to them if they relinquish power. They are particularly frightened of their vengeful Cuban cousins who live in Florida and would like to see all of them hang.

Both Anthony Blinken and Victoria Nuland struck me as extremely sinister people. Now, as far as I can tell, London, Paris, and Berlin are led by raving imbeciles. To be sure, they may be intelligent people, and they may know something that I don’t, but to date, I have seen no evidence of this.

Why is the risk of nuclear war now being widely dismissed?

We hope that President Trump will now take vigorous action to stop the war in Ukraine. The fate of the human race may now depend on him doing this.

This originally appeared on Courageous Discourse.

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The thing about abuse is you get used to it. Eventually, it becomes normal – having been normalized. For instance, this business of the president starting wars. Just deciding it’s time to lob bombs on other countries.

This is not the president’s constitutional prerogative, which is the relevant point. Not whether the country on the receiving end of the bombs – and sometimes, troops – perhaps deserves to have bombs lobbed on it or American troops sent to it. Those are considerations used to manipulate public support, especially when it is lacking in Congress – which is supposed to have the power to declare war.

Well, the work-around – used by American presidents since at least the time of FDR – is to just wage it without actually declaring it.

FDR waged war against both Germany and Japan years before the war (the second one) was declared. German ships – including the battleship Bismarck, for those interested in an interesting bit of history – were shadowed by American ships and their location transmitted to the British, who were at war with Germany. In some cases, German sips (subs) were even fired upon by American ships in neutral Atlantic waters. American pilots flew British airplanes in the European war zone before America was formally at war with Germany. And as most people know, America – that is, FDR – provided Britain with destroyers and other war materiel which coud be construed as an act of war against Germany.

Similarly as regards Japan.

Now – mind – it isn’t the issue at hand whether the National Socialist (always important to spell it out) regime that ruled Germany or Imperial Japan were baddies. What’s relevant – in terms of the document that is technically the law of this land – is that Congress (and Congress alone) has lawful authority to start wars. The implicit corollary of this being that any act of war engaged unilaterally by the president is illegal and even treasonous.

But presidents have gotten way with starting wars for generations, from FDR to the present one. The Korean War was never declared – by Congress. Nor the Vietnam War. Nor the War on Trrrrrr declared by The Chimp. The war the latter began in Afghanistan lasted almost 20 years. Now America is at war with Yemen – and perhaps soon Iran – because President Trump so decided. Once again, it is important to return to the point that it is beside the point whether going to war with Yemen – and potentially, Iran – is a good or a terrible idea. The point at hand is whether our having gotten used to the president – whoever that may be – starting and waging wars on his own say-so is a good or terrible idea.

The old powdered wig wearers who wrote the “goddamn piece of paper,” as The Chimp is said to have referred to it – thought it was a terrible idea to empower the president to start wars because that is a terrible power to allow any one person to possess. Their idea was to empower a body of the people’s representatives – Congress – to declare war when necessary, which they imposed a majority assent requirement upon. This being a pretty high bar for declaring war, which seems like a very good idea, given that war is serious business that can become existential business. If two-thirds of a large body of the people’s representatives agree that there is justification for war sufficient to declare it, then they will declare it. But what does it tell us when the president decides to ignore the Constitution and engages in war without a declaration from Congress?

Obviously, it suggests there isn’t sufficient – majority – public support for the war. Which strongly suggests the war isn’t necessary, as regards the people of this country.

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While studying scholastic theology when I was preparing for the priesthood, St. John Henry Newman inspired me to examine early apostolic Catholic spirituality. Then, over 35 years ago now, I sought out a life of semi-solitude to intensify this search and practice contemplation, and I rediscovered the sublime spirituality that we have so recently lost.

By we, I mean more specifically born Catholics, for whom the faith has become little more than a philosophy of life since the heretical Quietism of the 17th century nearly succeeded in removing contemplative prayer from Catholic spirituality, leaving us with dry moralism.

After a very long life teaching, preaching, and writing about early apostolic spirituality that was, incidentally, first lived and practiced by converts to Christianity, I have seen that it is not new converts, but born Catholics who have let our side down. And their failure has dangerous consequences for converts.

When genuine new converts join the Church, it is only to have their first enthusiasm boiled down to nominalism, externalism, moralism, and relativism, rather than having it raised to the contemplative heights that galvanised the first Catholic converts in apostolic times. I can point to certain modern converts wreaking some havoc in the Church, but this would not, could not have happened if those born Catholics who received them had embodied fully and deeply the new faith to which the converts felt drawn by God.

After nearly 10 years as a weekly columnist, I resigned from a national Catholic newspaper because a recent clerical convert, bristling with Protestant qualifications, was leading the readers astray, and my orthodoxy was an embarrassment to him.

Another convert put me through the third degree to test my orthodoxy before I was allowed to use his website, yet his own, self-taught and deficient spiritual theology has been misdirecting serious seekers for years; his “half knowledge is a dangerous thing.”

Even though my book The Primacy of Loving was originally accepted by a major American Catholic publisher, I spent more than three months trying and failing to convince a senior editor—again a convert who was received into the Church without adequate preparation—that what I had written was true Catholic orthodoxy. His ignorance has been depriving Catholic readers for years of the deeper dimensions of Catholic spirituality, of which he is quite ignorant. In the end I chose to withdraw my book.

Such things could only happen because the born Catholics who welcomed these converts into the faith were even more ignorant than they about the mystical theology that, although it has been largely cast aside, should permeate our faith and certainly was its bulwark for the great saints who came before us.

Once I heard a talk given by a convert on the conversion of St. Paul. Unfortunately it focused exclusively on St. Paul’s brilliant mind; there was no mention of the fact that after his conversion St. Paul went into the desert for three years, nor that he spent double that time in semi-solitude near his own home of Tarsus, to complete what the great historian Monsignor Philip Hughes called his “novitiate.” If St. Barnabas had not insisted that it was time for his apostolate to the Gentiles to begin, he would have spent longer.

At the end of St. Paul’s “novitiate,” he had profound mystical experiences; like the novitiate itself, these also were not mentioned by the speaker. Yet these experiences are clear evidence that St. Paul passed through a prolonged purification, similar to that described by St. John of the Cross. If so, he received in abundance the fruits of contemplation, namely all the infused theological, cardinal and moral virtues. This then—not his brilliant mind—was the source of the divine wisdom that suffused and brought his human wisdom to perfection just as it did for the other apostles, who completed their “novitiate” in Jerusalem.

In early Christianity a minimum of two years of ascetical and spiritual training was necessary before reception into the Church. Then new Christians had to learn how to be further purified in a second “baptism of fire” after the baptism of water. But now that Catholicism is seen as a philosophy of life rather than a call to ongoing spiritual transformation, a simple intellectual reorientation seems to suffice as initiation for new members. Even the preparatory courses for new converts, primarily intellectual in content, are easily bypassed if you are a highflying academic.

When I was a young man a convert had to wait two years before he was admitted to train for the priesthood or religious life. Then it would be six or more years before he could begin, as a junior and supervised member of the hierarchy, to preach to the faithful.

To be clear, in my experience the vast majority of converts come home to the Catholic Church for the right reasons. But many then find the sublime spirituality they had every right to expect in the Catholic Faith has long since been lost to sight, misunderstood, or squandered by born Catholics.

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For more than 60 years, U.S. officials have claimed that to release their secret JFK-assassination-related records would threaten “national security.” That was their position during the Warren Commission hearings in 1964 and during the House Select Committee hearings in the 1970s. That’s what they told the Assassination Records Review Board in the 1990s. That’s what they told President Trump during his first term in office. That’s how they got President Biden to order the continued secrecy of the records essentially into perpetuity.

It was all a lie. There was never any threat to “national security” whatsoever.

How do we know this? Because many, but certainly not all, of those long secret records have now been revealed to the public. And guess what! The United States has not fallen into the ocean and the U.S. government has not been taken over by the Reds, terrorists, Muslims, Taliban, Russia, China, North Korea, North Vietnam, Cuba, Iran, or Venezuela. The federal government and the nation are still standing!

Of course, it’s true that any of those scary things could still happen if and when the rest of the long-secret records are released. But I wouldn’t bet on it.

So, why would the U.S. national-security establishment lie about so-called threats to “national-security” that would supposedly arise if those records were to be released?

Immediately after the recent initial release of records, the mainstream press declared that there were no “smoking guns,” as in the nature of an official confession to the assassination. But that’s a patently ridiculous assertion. Assassination researchers were always certain that the secrecy was not intended to hide a confession. Don’t forget, after all, that these are all records that the national-security establishment knowingly delivered to the National Archives in the 1990s, where they were then kept secret. What are the chances they would have delivered a confession to the National Archives? No chance at all. Nobody would be that dumb. And there is no doubt that the high officials who worked in the CIA were not dumb people. On the contrary, they were extremely smart people.

Moreover, it was standard practice within the national-security establishment to never put any reference to a covert state-sponsored assassination into writing. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, that policy would have been especially followed in the state-sponsored assassination of a U.S. president.

So, then why fight so fiercely to keep the records secret for so long?

The JFK assassination is like a gigantic jig-saw puzzle with lots of tiny pieces. Let’s estimate that about 80 percent of the pieces have been put together. Most of the other pieces — such as the identities of the shooters — are gone forever. But it is still possible to see the overall picture of what the jigsaw puzzle depicts — a regime-change operation on the part of the U.S. national-security establishment arising out of a war between Kennedy and the national-security establishment over the future direction of America.

Thus, as I have long maintained, the probability is that these long-secret records contain small pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that further fill out the mosaic of a regime-change operation, which is why they would want them to be kept secret. The national-security establishment knows that the assassination researchers are a very sharp group of people who can recognize those tiny puzzle pieces and see how they fit into the overall regime-change mosaic. That’s what assassination researchers are doing right now as they study the documents.

For example, consider a memorandum by close Kennedy advisor Arthur Schlesinger Jr. that was among the long-secret records. It recommended a major reform of the CIA that would have drastically reduced its power.

Why would the CIA want to keep such a memorandum secret? The mainstream press would see such a memorandum and would certainly exclaim, “No smoking gun here.” But when one considers the CIA’s motive in assassinating Kennedy, it becomes clear why the CIA would want to keep that small puzzle piece secret. After the Bay of Pigs disaster, Kennedy was so angry over the CIA’s lies that he vowed to tear the agency into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds. That was the beginning of the war between JFK and the CIA that would culminate in Dallas two years later. The Schlesinger memo demonstrates that even if Kennedy wasn’t going to go all the way and abolish the CIA, he was going to radically reduce its power. The CIA, on the other hand, was not going to permit that to happen, on grounds of “national security.” It’s not difficult to see why the CIA would want to keep that small puzzle piece secret from the American people.

Or consider what Jefferson Morley, the head of JFK Facts, has discovered within the long-secret records. For decades, the CIA has claimed that Lee Harvey Oswald was just a “lone nut.” As Morley has recently detailed, the long-secret records demonstrate that the CIA was lying the entire time. In fact, as the records detail, the CIA was keeping close track of Oswald prior to the assassination.

So, why would they want to keep that secret? The mainstream press would undoubtedly say it was because they were embarrassed at their “incompetence” in having failed to avert the assassination. But there is another explanation: That Oswald was a U.S. intelligence agent who had been recruited while serving in the U.S. Marines (Semper Fi!) and was later unwittingly groomed to take the fall in the Kennedy assassination. Such being the case, it would have been necessary to watch him closely as he was being maneuvered into position — such as having him publicly pose as a communist provocateur in New Orleans or have him make a big hullabaloo at the Cuban and Soviet embassies in Mexico City. The close surveillance of him would have been needed to ensure that he hadn’t caught onto what they were doing to make him a “patsy” in the assassination.

One of the most revealing aspects of the records controversy are the files relating to CIA operative George Joannides. The CIA was funding an organization called the DRE in New Orleans prior to the assassination. The DRE was the first entity to issue a press release telling the nation that Oswald was a communist. It turns out that the DRE was a secret front organization for the CIA, one that the CIA was secretly funding. The CIA kept secret from the House Select Committee and the ARRB that Joannides was the liaison between the CIA and the DRE.

Thus, there is no question but that Joannides’s CIA files are JFK-assassination-related records. Yet, they weren’t included in this first batch of long-secret records. In fact, it’s possible, if not probable, that they won’t be part of the rest of the records still slated to be released. In other words, it’s possible that the CIA’s Joannides files were never turned over to the National Archives at all in the 1990s, notwithstanding the fact that they obviously relate to the assassination. Why not? Why the steadfast insistence on keeping them separate and secret? For the complete Joannides story, see FFF’s book Morley v. CIA by Jefferson Morley. Also, see FFF’s other book by Morley: CIA & JFK: The Secret Assassination Files.

Reprinted with permission from Future of Freedom Foundation.

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Happy Liberation Day!

Aside from our senses, what are we being freed from?

A properly functioning market? The greatest quality and quantity of goods sold at competitive rates? Producers having to innovate to excel? The ability to buy what we want without giving government a bigger cut?

Whatever deliverance we’re promised was postponed by a day, so Americans wouldn’t think the jokers in charge were playing them for fools.

But this afternoon, at long last, our president will unshackle us from foreign “unfairness”… by building a bigger blockade around ourselves.

Seriously, not Literally

What are the components of today’s Emancipation Proclamation?

Tho’ plans could change before lunch, and be revised again until (or after) details are announced, the Trump Administration will ostensibly impose 25% import taxes on cars and parts… atop the same percentage already applied to steel and aluminum… with comparable duties on countries buying oil and gas from Venezuela.

The president has also intimated he’ll impose tariffs on certain agricultural imports. Specific products and rates remain unclear (of course), but this could tie to the broader notion of reciprocal tariffs.

As of now, these are anticipated for all trading partners. If taken literally (they shouldn’t be, tho’ they should be taken seriously), this would entail reducing taxes the U.S. currently imposes on most countries’ imports. But it’s probably safe to assume that “reciprocal” runs only one direction.

Sector-specific taxes on imports such as pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, microchips, lumber, and copper have also been bandied. But recent reports suggest they might not be part of today’s rollout, with some (or all) delayed indefinitely or excluded entirely.

Other last minute changes may be in the works. Apparently, the Trump team was scrambling into the small hours this morning to concoct new medicine, to make the potion more palatable to Congressmen and executives whose stock portfolios are making them sick.

What ailment is this elixir supposed to cure? Is it more deadly than the assortment of diseases it’s bound to cause? We don’t know. Nor does anyone else, especially the quacks who are selling this snake oil.

The idea that other countries are “ripping us off” simply isn’t true. The 300% Canadian tariffs on US dairy and Japan’s 700% imposts on American rice take effect only above export thresholds that are rarely reached.

David Stockman, Ronald Reagan’s budget director, explains one example that’s indicative of many:

“In 2024 Canada did not collect one single Canadian dollar or US dollar or even plug nickel of tariff revenue from US dairy exporters of the four leading dairy export products—fluid milk, butter, cheese and skim milk powder….

And the reason for that lies in the so-called TRQs (tariff rate quota) that the Donald himself negotiated with the Canadians in the course of attaining his ballyhooed USMCA deal in 2020.

[In 2024] US export volumes did not reach the quota level in any of them. Therefore, no tariff was applied to nearly 71 million pounds of US dairy exports to Canada last year, meaning that the Donald keeps ranting about a problem that he had already fixed himself!”

Economics and Politics

Most economic debates are really political squabbles. We’ve been conditioned to think of economics and politics are two sides of the same coin. In reality, economics is the gold and politics an alloy… if not outright rust.

“Economists” who advocate tariffs… like those who urge a minimum wage or centrally managed money… are akin to “scientists” who pushed lockdowns to contain a respiratory virus. They almost certainly know better. But they definitely know what’s best… for themselves.

As with any government “authority” or corporate “expert”, they’re extremely knowledgeable in what they are paid to say. They’re compensated to promote particular politics under the guise of economics. It’s a cloak that gets a lot of wear.

Economics is the study of purposeful human behavior under conditions of scarcity. Politics is forcibly shifting wealth from one pocket to another. As with any taxes, tariffs are terrific for doing that.

Economically, tariffs don’t make sense. But politically, they can be potent. As in most political battles, beneficiaries are concentrated and vocal, while victims are usually indifferent and diffuse.

During the most recent campaign, Trump tried to soothe them too. On several occasions, he suggested tariffs could replace the income tax.

That’d be great.

But since the election, it looks like we’re getting one and keeping the other. In a shocking development, repealing the income tax is no longer discussed. Probably because the idea was never practical with our gargantuan government.

From the founding to the “progressive” era, tariffs were the main source of government funds. That worked well when the federal budget was only $715M (as it was in 1913). In today’s dollars (based on gold), that’s about the size of the Department of Energy (among many that shouldn’t exist).

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Martial Law is by far one of the greatest nightmares we might face, one that leaves many preppers up at night.

This is because it can occur in the midst of any natural or man-made disasters.

The march into Martial Law is frequently overlooked by the general population, often branded as nonsense or something belonging to conspiratorial websites. Yet what’s going on in this country is just what our founders have warned us of, and Martial Law is something they’ve taken very, very seriously.

When Martial Law is going on, the world is in so much trouble that even the government won’t be able to handle it. Now I’m assuming Martial Law hasn’t happened yet.

Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been able to read this. This means that you have the opportunity to prepare for it, and I hope, for your sake, that you will do it fast.

What is Martial Law

Martial Law has no established definition, so if you’re looking for a general definition of Martial Law, then Martial Law essentially means using state or national military power to impose the government’s will on the citizens.

Soldiers, rather than city police, execute the law. Military officers make strategic decisions rather than elected officials. People convicted of offenses are taken to military courts rather than regular civil courts. In short, the army is in charge.

Under Martial Law, fundamental liberties and freedoms are abolished and citizens are no longer entitled to their constitutional rights. It effectively helps the army, or a tyrannical politician, to break the Constitution and enforce its will by military force.

The History of Martial Law in U.S. History

In one way or another, tyrants have often used political authority to suppress and influence the people. Although if we’re searching for specific instances of Martial Law being used within the United States, we don’t have to search too hard or deep to find them.

Using the strictest meaning of the word, we can see the origins of Martial Law taking place in America during the time leading up to the Revolutionary War. While there were many motives for the war, including opposition to taxation levied by the British Parliament, the primary cause for England was the use of armed powers to enact the daily rule in the colonies.

Many of the most striking examples of this can be seen in the civil war. Although the history books of today largely neglect the true motives for the war or the several crimes committed by President Lincoln, the reality of what actually happened cannot be denied.

As an example, On 15 September 1863, President Lincoln imposed Martial Law by Congress. In fact, Lincoln had never had a top priority to eradicate slavery. In fact, Lincoln had never wanted to eliminate slavery. His primary interest was to centralize political authority and use the federal government to exercise full control over all residents.

The abolition of slavery was merely a by-product of the war. It actually took the thirteenth amendment to bring an end to slavery, as Lincoln really only liberated Southern slaves, not slaves, in states loyal to the Union.

Lincoln suspended the writing of Habeas Corpus without the consent of Congress. Lincoln put down or spoke against, publications whose authors expressed some dissension to the position of the Union.

Lincoln raised his forces without the approval of Congress. Lincoln closed the courts by force of statute. And eventually, without cause or trial, he too arrested residents, newspaper owners, and public officials

What Will Happen When Martial Law Takes Place

I’m pretty confident that the term “Martial Law” will never be seen. The word ” state of emergency” would undoubtedly take its place first. Martial Law can easily be accomplished globally, in situations of conflict, major terrorist threats, or locally, as observed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Examples of what has occurred in modern years include Martial Law in New Orleans, August 2005. New Orleans has been declared a disaster area, and the governor has declared a state of emergency.

This allowed state officials to order evacuations and forcibly evict people from their residences, suspend some rules, confiscate weapons and suspend selling products such as liquor, firearms, and ammunition.

In the following of hurricane Katrina, New Orleans Police Department, U.S. Marshals, and the Louisiana National Guard illegally seized more than 1,000 lawful weapons from law-abiding civilians.

During Martial Law, you will probably see:

• The suspension of the Constitution is likely to persist with the first amendment.
• Detainment of firearms; it has happened in history, and it may happen again.
• Suspension of Habeas corpus: Jail without due process and without trial.
• Travel limits, including road closures and likely quarantine areas.
• Obligatory Curfews and Required Identification.
• Automatic search and seize without a warrant.

When Likely is Martial Law in the U.S.

Let’s address it now. The nation is a complete mess. From massive civil strife, crime, and violence to the rising national debt, which comprises a whole segment of our society that relies on government aid to survive, the writing is on the wall: Trouble is coming.

In my view, we are now in the preliminary form of Martial Law. The founders never expected standing armies to police the United States’ people; unfortunately, that’s just what we have. Drones, armored vehicles with high-powered guns, tanks, and fighting helicopters are no longer something you can find on an overseas battlefield; they are all normal operating practices at police stations across the country.

Our federal government has invested billions of dollars into militarizing and taking over our country’s municipal police departments in what can only be characterized as a domestic military force or a standing army equipped to enforce federal law.

So what exactly do I mean that this has already started?

On 29 September 2006, President George W. Bush signed the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year 2007 (H.R. 5122).

The legislation increased the power of the President to declare Martial Law in the form of amendments to the Rebellion Act. In fact, it allowed the President to take command of the National Guard forces without the consent of the state governors.

Although several parts of the bill were rolled back in 2008, President Obama used the 2012 NDAA to further expand the Executive Office’s right to declare Martial Law and introduced clauses that would allow U.S. armed forces to arrest U.S. civilians without trial.

In March 2015, the Obama administration set up a task force detailing our nation’s police rules. In his Task Force on the 21st-century Police Report, he proposed the establishment of the National Police Standards and Oversight Division of the federal government.

The study went on to explain how the Department of Homeland Security should be used to “ensure that community police tactics in the state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies are incorporated into their role in homeland security.”

The last and most troubling example is the growing number of Combined Police/Military Practices that view American citizens as theoretical risks.

From the Jade Helm military drills that identified Texas and Utah as dangerous areas to the California National Guard, using crisis actors to represent “right” U.S. civilians in their training exercises, there is an increasing number of military-style drills that portray American citizens as seen as a threat.

Back in 2012, the Army’s study on the military’s potential utilization as a U.S. police force aimed into possible scenarios that the U.S. did. The army may be used against Tea Party “insurgents” that take over U.S. cities.

Over the same time frame, the Department of Homeland Security issued a study entitled “Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States,” in which it claimed that the federal government considered the country’s greatest terrorist danger – the threat to U.S. people of radical “right-wing” views.

The United States of America that our Fathers have created is gone; it has been replaced by a system that has become so strong that most people do not even know that they have been enslaved by that same system.

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SANA’A, Yemen – No wonder the Roman Empire called it Arabia Felix.

It’s 3 pm in Al-Sabeen square in the Haddah neighborhood of Sana’a on Friday, March 28, Al Quds Day, at Ramadan, only two days before Eid al-Fikr, and the crowd of over one million Yemenis stretches to the horizon, gently surrounded by naked hills in the distance and with the grand Al-Saleh mosque framing the foreground.

The foreign pilgrim climbs to a small stage and after all his pilgrimages across the world and the lands of Islam, he knows that in one fleeting minute he must essentially thank the crowd – and this nation – for being so noble, so upright, so fearless, bearers of so much moral clarity and purpose. They should know that the whole Global Majority instinctively gets it – and stands with them.

This is not so much about support for Palestine, which they have been showcasing in this same vast square for 17 months, non-stop – as shown all over global social media – but most of all about the inner strength of Arabia Felix. Free Palestine rhymes – and echoes – in eternity with Freedom of Yemen. They can be heroes not just for one day – as Bowie the Western Chameleon immortalized it: they are heroes for posterity.

One week immersed in deep Yemen is untranslatable in mere words. I was privileged to be part of a small group – from East to West – that actually broke the blockade on Yemen, as our gracious hosts never ceased to remind us. We were primarily guests in a wide-ranging conference on Palestine titled, most appropriately, “You Are Not Alone”.

What strikes us like lightning, right away, is the unbounded Yemeni generosity and their naturally aristocratic-cum-debonair allure. They are the epitome of chic not only sartorially but spiritually. Nearly every night last week I was trying to convey this magic across several podcasts, such as this one and this one. As much as the conversations with towering academics, diplomats and top members of the High Political Council, the real delight in Yemen is the famous – Xi Jinping-style – “people to people’s exchanges”, particularly at night time in the mesmerizing souks of Saada in the northwest and the Old City in Sana’a.

This is the true soul of Arabia, its secrets perfuming the air like the incense a Purifier dressed in white spreads around the al-Kabir mosque in the Old City, blind men crouching at the entrance chewing qat and absorbed in meditation. This magic is what Allah himself characterizes in the Holy Book in several verses and chapters – a generosity only bestowed to Yemenis.

Fighting a “coalition” of willing vassals

Amidst a cornucopia of meetings and cups of the best coffee on the planet, a convoy of decoy SUVs slicing the raw landscape from Sana’a to Saada, non-stop pledges of solidary with Palestine and instances of cowardly CENTCOM bombing – from several civilian, residential buildings to an in-progress cancer hospital in Saada – soon it becomes clear that Yemen is fighting yet another lethal chapter, now against the Trump 2.0-led CENTCOM, of what is a 10-year war, initiated in March 26, 2015.

That was the first war in History, as defined by the masterful Undeterred: Yemen In The Face of Decisive Storm, by Prof. Dr. Abdulaziz Saleh bin Habtoor – which I had the honor to meet in Sana’a – “in which all the rich Arab countries” (with the exception of Oman) stood “under the cloak of the most powerful imperialist country in an unsacred coalition against the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula”.

A trademark “coalition” of willing vassals, led by Saudi Arabia and for a stretch also the UAE, with the U.S. under the Obama-Biden racket “leading from behind” and providing the weapons alongside the British, not only bombed Yemen indiscriminately but also imposed a devastating blockade of air, land and sea, preventing the arrival of medicine, fuel and food, and generating at least 2.4 million displaced people and a cholera epidemic.

It’s hardly an accident that the upstart, tawdry, bling bling Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia hate Yemen with a vengeance. War on Yemen, virtually for decades, as Prof. bin Habtoor noted in our meeting, has been the Enterprise Weapon of Choice for a family scam set up by the British Empire in the 1920s to extract the wealth of Arabia.

Obviously no one across the – now fractured – collective West remembers that Yemen later became “Crown Prince” MbS’s war. The existence of his regime – now a darling of Trump 2.0 – was leveraged from the start on winning this war, until MbS was forced to realize he could never make it: only in 2017 the war was costing him more than $300 billion. He had to accept an armistice.

No “victory”: not against these unconquerable heroes.

The memory-impaired, fractured collective West also has no recollection that Britannia Rules the Waves was forced to surrender its self-imagined global dominatrix role to the Americans after it could not subdue extremely fierce resistance in – where else – South Yemen in the 1960s.

That opened the way to Saudi-led dementia – even as the pattern remained the same: Yemenis simply won’t surrender their homeland’s fabulous natural wealth to subsidize the Empire of Chaos, Lies and Plunder’s chronic need for liquidity, collateral for new cash manipulations, and most of all the commodities that lie under Yemen’s rich soil.

And that brings us to the current, relentless CENTCOM bombing of civilian (italics mine) buildings and infrastructure from Sana’a to Saada and the port of Hodeidah – which we could not visit because it’s being bombed virtually every day. As much as we detailed to our Yemeni interlocutors how worried we are with the Empire unleashing its fury, they invariably answered with a smile: We Will Win. That may come from Yahya Saree, the military spokesman of the Yemeni armed forces – who against all security odds visited us in our hotel – or from a drop dead cool camel biker in the souk in Saada.

Extra mischief against Yemen comes from the UAE, a privileged partner of Trump 2.0 in Persian Gulf business, which has primacy over Yemen’s oil assets and access to much of Yemen’s supremely strategic southern coastline, investing heavily in colonizing the island of Socotra. And then there are the “unofficial” proxies, on and off, of Saudis and Emiratis: al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and ISIS/Daesh – weapons of choice for selected factions of the Empire of Chaos, Lies and Plunder.

Meanwhile, Ansarallah won’t back down, staring down the Empire in the Red Sea: “When American soldiers are killed in the Red Sea, what will they say to their people and families? Will they claim they were killed for the liberation of their country, or will they say they were killed to protect the Zionist terrorists?”

Unconquerable.

The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.

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Last week I was one of the featured speakers at a conference in Texas hosted by the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. Ron Paul himself hosted the events. He will be 90 years old later this year and is still speaking out through a daily TV show and a weekly column.

The other main speakers were David Stockman, who was President Reagan’s budget director; Tom Woods, host of a leading national podcast; Jeff Deist, head of a company called Monetary Metals; and Daniel McAdams, a foreign policy expert.

Many of my Focus columns have been picked up and re-published on several popular national websites, and I was honored to be asked to speak at this conference, which had attendees from all over the country.

Stockman was elected to Congress from Michigan and served just four years before being asked to join Reagan’s cabinet. He has been a very successful financial advisor over the years and has authored several books.

He told the conference that he has just written a new book giving specific details on how to cut more than two trillion dollars from the federal budget.

He said the trendlines show we will double our $37 trillion national debt in ten years or less. If we let that happen, social security payments and other incomes will buy very little.

Tom Woods is a Harvard graduate with a Ph.D. from Columbia. He has one of the nation’s most popular podcasts, and he has had both me and Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs on his show several times. In his speech, he told how he and millions of others, especially young people, have been inspired by Ron Paul’s message and campaigns in favor of economic freedom, limited government, and especially opposition to unnecessary wars.

Jeff Deist formerly headed the Ludwig von Mises Institute at Auburn University, working with students and scholars on economics education. Now he is with Monetary Metals, a company that pays interest on gold its clients own.

Deist is also a political historian and he gave an interesting talk on how most of Donald Trump’s conservative populism and anti-war views came out of what is sometimes called the Old Right of the 1930s and 40s on up to the America First books, speeches, and television campaigns of Pat Buchanan in the 1990s.

Daniel McAdams, the foreign policy expert, gave a talk about the good, the bad and the ugly of President Trump’s actions so far. He applauded the efforts of the president toward ceasefires in Israel and Ukraine.

He expressed great concern about sending more bombs to Israel, the ending of the ceasefire there, the bombing of civilians in Yemen, and the actions against free speech for peaceful pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

In my presentation at the conference, I quoted the popular Jewish podcaster Dave Smith, who said Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians was “horrific and inexcusable,” and that going to war in Iran would be “insane.”

The so-called neo-conservatives like Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz – neither of whom ever served in the military – were the leading cheerleaders for the war in Iraq.

Now, neo-cons want us to join Israel in a war against Iran. The conservative columnist George Will once wrote that neo-cons were “magnificently misnamed” and that they were really “the most radical people in this city,” meaning Washington, D.C.

Libertarian conservatives are afraid that Trump might go along with Netanyahu in a war against Iran because Miriam Adelson supposedly gave $100 million to the Trump campaign and several other Jewish billionaires also gave millions in return for promises to support Israel in any and every way.

In 1956, Israel demanded that the U.S. join it in a war against Egypt over the Suez Canal. Mitchell Bard wrote in The Times of Israel in 2014: “Eisenhower went on television to criticize Israel’s failure to withdraw from Egypt and warned that he would impose sanctions if it failed to comply. Eisenhower was prepared to cut off all economic aid, to lift the tax-exempt status of the United Jewish Appeal, and to apply sanctions on Israel.”

Eisenhower did this only a week before the 1956 election.

We have not had a president with the courage to stand up to Israel since then. In fact, our foreign policy in the Middle East today is Israel First, and has created much animosity and even hatred for the U.S. I said in my talk that our Congress would have condemned any other country if it had killed as many thousands of little children as Israel has in the last year and a half.

Also in my presentation, I explained my vote against going to war in Iraq despite tremendous pressure to vote for it. I wish I had mentioned that I also voted to get out of Afghanistan many years before we did. If we had gotten out many years earlier, the 13 U.S. soldiers, including a young man from Gibbs, who were killed at the end might still be alive today.

This originally appeared on The Knoxville Focus.

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The county of Burma or Myanmar has seen its share of natural disasters. A devasting cyclone in 2008 killed tens of thousands of people and left hundreds of thousands more homeless. To make things worse, the country has suffered from internal conflict for 50 years, and is currently in the midst of a civil war.

Last month it was a devasting 7.7 earthquake that hit Myanmar. Over 2,000 people are confirmed dead, thousands are injured, and countless numbers of people are still buried.

The United States has pledged $2 million in aid. The Trump administration has been criticized for not responding fast enough because of cuts to USAID. Meanwhile, China has scored a public relations win by sending 400 Chinese personnel and providing $14 million in aid.

Just what does this mean that the United States has pledged $2 million in aid? I don’t recall pledging to send money to Myanmar, and neither do any of my family or friends. I also don’t recall pledging to send money to the federal government to send to Myanmar, and neither do any of my family or friends.

It is the U.S. government that has pledged the $2 million. And where did the U.S. government get the $2 million it will send to Myanmar? There are only two possibilities. The federal government can simply print the money or it can take the money out of the wallets, pockets, and purses of Americans in the form of taxes. There are no other options. The federal government has no money of its own unless it sells some of the land or assets it owns.

But without U.S. aid, won’t more people fail to be rescued in Myanmar? Won’t more people be homeless? Won’t more people suffer? Won’t more children get sick or starve? Won’t more people die?

Perhaps.

But that is not the point. The point is simply this: Should the U.S. government be taking money from Americans and using it for relief efforts in Myanmar?

Of course not. Disaster relief is just as Illegitimate as foreign aid.

There was a time in this country when it was recognized to be improper for the federal government to provide humanitarian relief even within the United States.

In 1887, President Grover Cleveland vetoed the Texas Seed Bill to appropriate $10,000 for the purchase of seed grain for some farmers in Texas who had lost their crops due to a drought. Cleveland stated in his veto message:

 I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution; and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadily resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that, though the people support the Government, the Government should not support the people.

When Congress appropriated $15,000 to assist some French refugees, Congressman (and future president) James Madison objected, saying: “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”

Congressman Davy Crockett explained his opposition to a congressional attempt to help the widow of a naval officer: “We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money.”

If it is unconstitutional for the federal government to provide disaster relief to Americans, then it is certainly even more unconstitutional for the federal government to provide disaster relief to foreigners or their governments. Although domestic relief is clearly an illegitimate purpose of the federal government, foreign relief is even more so. I would certainly rather see American taxpayer money go to Americans than to foreigners. After all, Americans are the ones paying the taxes.

This doesn’t mean that I dislike foreigners or wish them ill will. It just means that I believe in the Constitution, limited government, federalism, property rights, and individual freedom.

The case of Myanmar is actually a test of one’s commitment to the freedom philosophy. A free society includes the freedom to be unconcerned, insensitive, or stingy.

Although any American is certainly welcome to contribute to the relief effort in Myanmar, no one should be forced to do so via his taxes or otherwise. There is no doubt in my mind that Americans would give liberally to alleviate the suffering of the people of Myanmar if the federal government just did nothing. But whether Americans give or don’t give, it is still the case that it should be the decision of each individual American. All charity and relief—domestic or foreign—should be private and voluntary.

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