The best posts of the week of June 28, 2026
The Agrarian week.
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Protest by non observance, that's what I intend to do.
Or it's what I intended to do.
My attitude, which is quite pronounced on this, is already getting me in some trouble around the house, but I won't be "that guy" who has to answer why they didn't do anything at all when a tyrant was on the rise.
Everyone always imagines themselves on the side of right. "If I'd lived in Nazi Germany, I wouldn't have gone along. . ." Well, bull. If recent history has shown us anything, it's that people will continue to travel along a path well after its obvious that they're being lead by a disaster. People stampeded into voting for the NSDAP in 1932 were still supporting them in 1936, and if disquieted by September 1939, they went along still.
That's exactly what's going on now. Trump's administration is authoritarian to the core and has people in it who hold shockingly racist views. Just this past week there were cries to sterilize foreigners if they entered the US.
"Oh, they don't really mean that. . .they won't execute the Jews".
When the United States declared independence 250 years ago, it claimed, amongst its justifications, the following:
ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE LEO XIVACCEPTANCE OF THE LIBERTY MEDAL OFTHE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION CENTER (USA)Friday, 3 July 2026Dear friends,I am honored to accept the Liberty Medal of the National Constitution Center in this year that marks the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America with the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. On the eve of this momentous occasion, I offer a warm greeting to all those assembled at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. As a son of this great country, founded by courageous men and women who dreamed of liberty and of a better life for themselves and for their children, I join you in asking God’s blessings upon America’s future, that the lofty ideals enshrined at the beginning of the Declaration of Independence may continue to guide the flourishing of the nation in unity, justice and peace.From our youth, most of us have admired the eloquence of those words, with their resounding appeal to the law of nature and to nature’s God as the basis of their assertion that all men and women are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, including the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. While couched in the language of the Enlightenment, that claim is ultimately grounded in an understanding of the human person inspired by the great biblical vision of man and woman being created in the divine image. It is indeed here that we discover the basis of human dignity; dignity which precedes the establishment of any State, and whose custody constitutes its very purpose.In these past two-hundred and fifty years, for so many peoples throughout the world, it was the firm resolve to achieve the noble vision of the nation’s founders that made America a byword for freedom, as the country opened its doors to successive waves of immigrants, enabling them and their children to play their part in shaping the future of the nation. It was this same love of freedom that inspired the United States, in the darkest hours of the last century, at the time of the two world wars, to look beyond itself and, at great sacrifice, to champion the cause of freedom beyond its own borders.As every American knows, however, the path to building a society that would embody those high ideals of liberty and justice for all was not always easy and, in many respects, is still a work in progress. Indeed, the effort to realize this vision is one that must be taken up anew in each generation and in the face of ever new challenges. Today, as we look to the future, this historic anniversary presents us with the opportunity to reflect once again on the nation’s founding principles in the hope that America will remain ever true to the dream that has earned it the title of land of the free and home of the brave.The first right enshrined by the nation’s founders was the right to life, for no one who is deprived of life can enjoy liberty or pursue happiness. A country’s vitality is deeply tied to the value it affords to human life in every form and condition, acknowledging the dignity endowed upon every human person by virtue of their very existence. The inherent worth of every human life has led the noble hearts of generations to praise the marvelous works of the Creator (cf. Ps 139:14) and stand in reverence before so precious a gift. Indeed, it is precisely this reverence that we must continue to cultivate — one that sways the hearts of individuals and inspires laws that recognize and safeguard the gift from the moment of conception to natural death. Reverence, too, will aid us in discovering that we are guardians and stewards of those entrusted to our care. In this regard, the moral greatness of a nation is manifested, above all, in its capacity to support, protect and cherish the lives of all, especially the most vulnerable and those whose worth is questioned.Following the right to life, liberty was and is preeminent among the principles revered by the men and women who have sought within this nation’s borders a new beginning, often equating it with previously undreamed-of hope. Though frequently understood as the ability to act as one would like, authentic freedom runs much deeper. It is founded upon the human person’s capacity to know the truth and adhere to what is good, even at great cost — a sacrifice well known to many who have labored to shape this country. The desire for truth and freedom, as well as the very pursuit of happiness, continues to inspire people of all generations to ask fundamental questions regarding the meaning of life, our ultimate purpose, and indeed about God, and it is proper for magnanimous hearts to endeavor to answer these questions with sincerity. These answers inevitably determine the direction which we seek to give to our lives, and America has long championed the religious freedom necessary to follow responsibly the dictates of conscience in this regard, free from fear and coercion, as enshrined in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.It is this freedom that holds sacred the inner sphere of the person where convictions are formed and where conscience can guide the decisions made in the intimacy of the human heart. This same freedom also ensures the right of every person to worship according to one’s own belief, and of individuals, communities and associations to give public expression to their faith. In fact, religious freedom gave rise to the American tradition of allowing for interfaith dialogue and interreligious cooperation in promoting the public good and enriching the debates on the great moral and ethical issues that have faced the nation and shaped the course of its history. It is my hope that this tradition will continue to bear fruit in a public discourse marked by moderation, respect for the views of others and an ongoing effort to find common ground in promoting the cause of peace and reconciliation, at home and abroad.The forbearers of this country, men and women of diverse backgrounds, religions and languages, were able to find that common ground and the strength necessary to pursue a better future. The principles that inspired America’s founders, rooted as they are in the truth of the human person, brought them together in a single cause, a common dream. Unity lent strength to that dream, giving rise, under God, to the United States of America. E pluribus unum — out of many, one. In order for a nation to flourish, it must be truly united; united not by goals bound to momentary endeavors, but by ideals that do not fade with the passing of time. May the principles we have reflected upon today — a shared human dignity, equality and the rights laid out in the Declaration of Independence — ever be a source of such unity and a guiding light for the present moment and for the years to come.In accepting this award, I therefore pray that this, the 250th anniversary of the founding of this great nation, may be the occasion of a solemn recommitment to these ideals that have made America a country that values peace and prosperity, a country characterized by generosity and nobility of heart. I commend all of you, as well as the future of the Nation, to the One who is himself the source of true freedom and lasting peace, the One whose very name is Peace.May God bless America! Thank you!
This is, I'd note, copyrighted, but I'm claiming the fair use exception here.
Pope Leo has really been a shining light for Americans who are horrified by Donald Trump. He's particularly a shining light for people like me, who are conservatives horrified by Donald Trump. He's proof to the world that not all Americans are some sort of strange Dixiecrat vandals.
It was the Bicentennial of American Independence and I was 13 years old
There's been some recent focus on people like me who were young during the Bicentennial and who can recall it. Many of us have real mixed feelings about today, the 250th Anniversary.
The celebrations for the Bicentennial were really a big deal. Students, like me, who were in school at the time had been studying the Revolution in anticipation of it. There were events everywhere. State and local governments were very active in promoting it. The Federal government issued a special series of coins.
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The US recognized the independence of the Republic of the Philippines.
An armed uprising sparked by rent issues occured in Kadavendi, India.
The Kielce pogrom took place in Poland in which 40 Jews were murdered by a mob in Kielce, Poland. The police did not intervene. The event, in which soldiers and police participated, was sparked by a false accusation of kidnapping.
Female Stutthof Concentration Camp Guards Elisabeth Becker, Wanda Klaff was hung for war crimes.
Stutthhof is unusual in that the majority of the inmates there were Catholic Poles, many of whom were ethnic Germans.
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Casper was celebrating the Fourth.
Tourism was being boosted.
The Nazi Party staged its 2nd Party Congress in Weimar. The Grossdeutsche Jugendbewegung (Greater German Youth Movement) was renamed Hitler Jugend Bund der deutschen Arbeiterjugend (Hitler Youth League of German Worker Youth.
I'm quite confident that if Pete Hegseth proposed renaming the Boy Scouts the Greater Trump Loving Boy's Movement, the current GOP would demand it.
Torrential rains hit the country on the same day.
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July 4, 1826 was the fiftieth anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence, of course. By that time the country had not only achieved independence, but it had also survived a second war with Britain, one which the United States provoked and which nearly caused New England to succeed from the union. And it had grown from 13 states, to 24.
It's probably best remembered in the United States for being the date on which both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died. What's even more peculiar about that, however, is that while 90 year old John Adams was living in Quincy, Massachusetts and 83 year old Thomas Jefferson was in Monticello, Virginian, Adams knew when Jefferson died, and commented on it.
The two men were not very much alike temperamentally. Adams was a lawyer and a farmer who first entered the public's consciousness when he defended British troops in court following the Boston Massacre. He was truly one of those rare characters who loved the law, something made even better for him as he was a circuit riding lawyer who also loved horses. Active in farming his entire life, he was more closely matched Jefferson's yeoman ideal than Jefferson. Somewhat taciturn, he dreamed of being a soldier at the beginning of the Revolution, but his talents lay elsewhere and he never was.
His place in history is secure due to his being the second President of the United States, but by the 20th Century he was one who was very little focused on. His popularity enjoyed a resurgence, however, due to David McCullough 2001 book which is somewhat of a hagiography.
During his lifetime he had a falling out with Jefferson, who served as his Vice President, but they repaired their rift in later years.
If Adams was well known during his lifetime and the somewhat placed on the shelf, Thomas Jefferson has never been out of the public imagination. At the same time, probably no American President has had his character analyzed and reanalyzed as much.
From a Puritan background, Adams is problematic for modern American far right-wing Evangelist in that his religious views were unconventional. While a Congregationalist, he tended towards Universalist views and did not regard the Trinity as well founded. While we have argued here that the United States is a Protestant nation, figures like Adams cut against that argument. Adams was very much opposed to state established churches, for instance.
Like Adams, Jefferson was also a lawyer by training but what he really was by temperament and occupation was a planter. An absolute renaissance mind he dabbled in everything, including engineering and agronomy. One of the most influential figures of the founding generation, he served as the country's third President and was the first American President to engage in an undeclared war.
Regarded as a founding member of the Democratic Party, it was Jefferson's foresight that caused the U.S. to purchase Louisiana, converting the country from an Atlantic maritime power to a continental power. Arguably, no President is more responsible for what the US became than Jefferson, even though he did not see it becoming what it became. An Agrarian philosopher, he thought that it would take Americans 1,000 years to spread across the continent and that gave the country a 1,000 year chance at remaining a democracy.
Historians have been tortured by trying to define Jefferson's character ever since he died. He was clearly a genius but his personal life was often in grave conflict with his stated beliefs. Once hugely adored, in recent years his relationship with his sister in law and slave, Sally Hemings, has caused a great deal of debate on his personal morality.
That the country had survived fifty years was somewhat amazing. The War of 1812, not well remembered in the United States, had been a US war of choice that had not been supported by New England and which the United States, in spite of what is commonly claimed, lost. The central seaboard South, which had favored the war, proved to retain a sizable population that retained strong sympathies with the United Kingdom. The US Army was twice very badly defeated by Canadian militias which gained ground in the Midwest, something also rarely noted. Only the logistical difficulties faced by the British and a high desertion rate of its troops kept the country from returning to British possession.
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In Congress, July 4, 1776The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.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. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
The act was bold as it was clearly treasonous and therefore the signatories stood a real chance of being executed if the effort failed. It was additionally bold as it represented a minority opinion. Only 1/3d of the residents of the colonies, at best, supported independence, while at least 1/3d opposed it. While declaring all men to be equal, it came about with a large number of men and women being held in slavery, which was legal in all thirteen colonies at the time.
It's often been noted that its high principals have often failed to be realized and in fact they are not being realized right now. Several of the "intolerable acts" are presently afflicted upon the country by the illegitimate occupant of the White House, Donald Trump, including, in part or in whole;
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us,
Given that there is really not much to celebrate on this, our 250th year of independence, and I don't intend to. It would make a complete mockery of what the Continental Congress declared 250 years ago.
We've surrendered our liberties to an old, demented, king.
A food item:
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