Jefferson believed that the only real wealth was land and that the only true occupation of virtuous and independent citizens in a republic was farming. “Those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people,” Jefferson wrote. He despised “the selfish spirit of commerce” for feeling “no passion or principle but that of gain.” And he regarded banks with special suspicion as the source of all commercial evil. “Banks may be considered as the primary source” of “paper speculation,” and only foster “the spirit of gambling in paper, in lands, in canal schemes, town lot schemes, manufacturing schemes and whatever could hit the madness of the day.”
.. “I was once a slave,” he remarked, “but now I am so free that they let me practice law.”
.. As a lawyer, according to colleagues, Lincoln was never “unwilling to appear in behalf of a great soulless corporation” — especially railroads — and had no compunction about recommending the eviction of squatters who farmed railroad-owned land.
As president, he put into place a national banking system, protective tariffs for American manufacturing and government guarantees for building a transcontinental railroad. Lincoln was Jefferson’s nightmare.
.. Patriotism without criticism has no head; criticism without patriotism has no heart.
Nicholas Winton, Rescuer of 669 Children From Holocaust, Dies at 106
Nicholas Winton, a Briton who said nothing for a half-century about his role in organizing the escape of 669 mostly Jewish children from Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II, a righteous deed like those of Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg, died on Wednesday in Maidenhead, England. He was 106.
.. Why did he do it?
He never really explained, though he offered a bare rationale in an interview with The New York Times in 2001: “One saw the problem there, that a lot of these children were in danger, and you had to get them to what was called a safe haven, and there was no organization to do that. Why did I do it? Why do people do different things? Some people revel in taking risks, and some go through life taking no risks at all.”
The War that Haunts Iran’s Negotiators
The historic nuclear diplomacy taking place in Vienna’s elegant Coburg Palace has roots in a gritty war between Iran and Iraq that ended more than a quarter of a century ago. Iran suffered more than a hundred and fifty thousand dead between 1980 and 1988. In Tehran, it’s called the Sacred Defense. In the final stages, U.S. aid to Iraq contributed to Iran’s decision to pursue nuclear capability—the very program that six world powers are now negotiating to contain.
.. Iraq also used U.S. intelligence to unleash chemical weapons against the Iranians in Faw. U.N. weapons inspectors documented Iraq’s repeated use of both mustard gas and nerve agents between 1983 and 1988. Washington opted to ignore it.
The End of the Modern World, by Romano Guardini
Guardini’s vision of the present and the future is bracing stuff, going beyond optimism and pessimism into the prophetic wilderness where the difficult truth can be proclaimed. The truth, in his view, is that man has lost his place in the universe–and he has not lost it because God no longer has a place there. Guardini sees a new age coming, however, in which the fight between Christianity and secularism will be sharpened and in which it will be possible, if we have the nerve for it, to restore man’s dignity and his sense of place…. It is a urgent call to holiness, and inspiring challenge, and an exceptionally important book for a new millennium. — First Things, January 1999
.. He contends that the wellsprings of the Modern World have run dry. A new age is being born, the outlines of which are still very indistinct. The new age will foster a more frugal personality; it will view nature more from a distance and as something which man is called to master; the culture will be defined less by artistic expression than by the use of the enormous power over nature made possible by technology.