The Catholic Populist

The Real Architect of the Sexual Revolution

You have seen the talking heads on Cable Television when the culture war comes up:

“These social conservative people again!  Can’t they go back and stop resurrecting a war that they have been fighting ever since the Sexual Revolution!  If they don’t like the Sexual Revolution and the new, enlightened age it ushered in, they don’t have to be a part of it!”

The general thrust is that essentially social conservative ideology repressed the way people really wanted to act.  From the moment the Pill was approved by the FDA as a contraceptive device in 1960, the Sexual Revolution was spontaneous and inevitable.   The Left won the battle so decisively that social conservatives could merely make inconsequential objections to the fact that the tide of history had washed over them.

So simple.  So elegant.  The people themselves had had enough.

How big government and hypocritical of conservatives to wish to promote their defunct ideology by the mechanism of government since they lost so decisively in the culture!  If government did not create the Sexual Revolution how could it undo it without elitist policy?

This narrative of a popular revolt against an elite-led authoritarianism seems very convincing.  There is, however, one enormous problem:

The date of 1960 is not the real date for the beginning of the culture war.

The truth is that the seeds of the Sexual Revolution were sown by the most influential philosopher of the 20th Century — Professor of Education at Teacher’s College, Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, President of the American Philosophical Association, President of the American Psychological Association, Founder of the New School, Honorary President of the National Education Association, President of the Progressive Education Association, and the publisher of countless works on education and philosophy.  The man’s titles help to demonstrate his influence but it took decades to accomplish his goals.  And he never lived to see the Sexual Revolution for which he had so effectively the groundwork.

I am speaking of John Dewey (hired by Columbia in 1904; died in 1952).

Mr. Dewey is perhaps most famous for being the architect of the modern public school system.  Over decades of lobbying, coalition building, and law passing, by the 1940s every state had passed laws that required that anyone who taught in the public school system had to have an Education Degree or certification.  State schools had universally instituted an Education Department.  And every private College or University that wished to have graduates teaching in the public school system (the vast majority) were required to get their Education Department certified by the state.  The Education Departments and Teachers Colleges thus set up and accredited were very loyal to John Dewey’s philosophy of education.  His “child-centric” model holds that:  “What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children.”

Of course, the obvious question arises:

If the rights of parents to manage the moral upbringing of their children are going to be disregarded, what philosophy do the ‘best parents’ adhere to?

The answer: John Dewey’s philosophy, of course.

Utilitarianism: “The ends justifies the means only when the means used are such as actually bring about the desired and desirable end.”

Secularism: “It [modern philosophy] certainly exacts a surrender of all supernaturalism and fixed dogma and rigid institutionalism with which Christianity has been historically associated.“

Revolution: “The path of least resistance and least trouble is a mental rut already made.  It requires troublesome work to undertake the alternation of old beliefs.“

Ignorance: “Genuine ignorance is … profitable because it is likely to be accompanied by humility, because it is likely to be accompanied by humility, curiosity, and open-mindedness; whereas ability to repeat catch-phrases, cant terms, familiar propositions, gives the conceit of learning and coats the mind with varnish waterproof to new ideas.“

The fostering of ignorance recommended by John Dewey was accomplished within the Education Departments and Teachers Colleges themselves.  Education Majors easily bright enough to learn History, Mathematics, and the other subjects they will be teaching children are loaded up instead with college-level courses focused on process and kept away from the disciplines they will be teaching the children — especially at the Elementary School level.  They are instead told to focus on creating a “learning environment” and rely on textbooks.  Liberal arts majors are prohibited from teaching without the requisite certifications.

The idea that parents were responsible for the moral upbringing of their children (how to think morally) while schools focused on content (what to know) was inverted:

“The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think — rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with the thoughts of other men.”

The generation that came of age in the 60s was the very first generation that had been deliberately exposed to public school indoctrination of the kind John Dewey recommended.  He predicted that the very first generation exposed to his method of teaching would manifest a Progressive Revolution.

He was right.

Which means that the narrative has it backwards.  Elitists thrust themselves into the American family dynamic and damaged the moral fabric of our country.

Which is why populists are determined to fight back.

Henry VIII created the debtor's prison -- blind, self-destructive justice

Have you ever been to a Debtor’s Prison?

I have.

Charles Dickens transported many of his readers (including me) to the appalling inhumanity of the Debtor’s Prison.  In these English prisons, debtors were locked up until their debt was paid.  If their family was too poor or indifferent to come up with the money to free them, they could remain locked up a long, long time.  Charles Dickens wrote from experience as his own father had been thrown into a Debtor’s Prison when he was a boy.

Where did the Debtor’s Prison originate?

In medieval times, it was commonly believed that the state was responsible exclusively for the administration of justice.  The Church was responsible for granting mercy — both to sinners and to debtors.  Oftentimes, a debtor unable to pay his debt to a creditor would plead his case to an Ecclesiastical Court administered by the Catholic Church.  The Ecclesiastical Court would typically absolve the debtor and make some level of reparation to the creditor out of the funds allocated to the assistance of the poor.  These lost funds were in turn replenished when the wealthy tithed to the Church.  The State recognized this form of clemency from the Church much like it recognized marriage in the Church.

When Henry VIII abolished the Catholic Church in England and founded Anglicanism in order to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boelyn, he essentially made the Anglican Church into a department of the state.  Among many problems that this action caused, one of the more technical was the question of what to do with the debtors.  The wealth of the Church had been seized by powerful nobles and the tithe was ended so reparation was out of the question.  But the more fundamental problem was philosophical.

Wasn’t the state responsible for the administration of justice exclusively?

So Henry VIII (who clearly had not read Matthew 18:30 – 31 very carefully) came up with the idea of debtor’s prison.  The debtor ends up in prison where he cannot earn a living to repay his debt; the creditor loses his money; and the state has to maintain a costly debtor’s prison system.  But, by golly, Henry VIII certainly made sure that justice would be served!

Debtor’s prisons came over to the United States, where they ended up housing some prominent signers of the Declaration of Independence after the Revolutionary War.  They were abolished by federal law in 1833.  The bankruptcy court system was set up as a separate and subservient court system to the Federal Courts.  American scholars modeled it primarily on the Ecclesiastical Court system of medieval Europe.  The Federal Courts (which are tasked with the administration of justice, after all) funnels bankruptcy cases over to the bankruptcy court system.  And the bankruptcy court allows debtors to declare bankruptcy, ruin their credit, and start afresh while the creditors get what they can.

Which brings me to a fundamental principle of governance: when blind justice hurts everyone involved, the government should create (or recognize) a legal pathway to mercy.

It is clear that the demand for young immigrants has been caused by the injustice of abortion.  The American economy is blessed to have young workers from other countries — both legal and illegal — come to the US to fill the shoes of the young men and women who would be with us today if not for abortion.  Many fled to the US illegally because their own countries had been torn apart by Civil Wars, famines, or drug cartel strife.  They simply wanted a way to feed their family.  They found that here in the United States.

There are (no one knows for certain) about 20 million illegal immigrants in the United States.  Most of these people are hard-working, honest, and good for the economy.

There are three possible policies that could be taken.  They could be forcibly deported.  We could continue to not enforce our own laws.  They could be given a path to citizenship.

Forcible deportation is a blind justice that would tear apart their families (some of whom have American citizens as children) and sap the youth from our economy.  Additionally, the cost of that much tracking down and deporting would be unimaginable.  No go.

We could continue to not enforce our own laws.  This creates a mockery of the rule of law.  It also allows gang members to use the illegal immigrant community’s distrust of the police as a way to entrench themselves in those communities without being reported.  No go.

They can be given an earned path to citizenship accompanied by the implementation of market-based immigration policy and border control that would end illegal immigration.  We should require that they have patriotic assimilation — learn English, pay any unpaid back taxes, pay a fine (illegal entry is a misdemeanor so a fine is a typical punishment), and have them learn American history and the Declaration of Independence.

This legal form of mercy restores the rule of law.  It benefits us and them.

To anyone who maintains that legal forms of mercy are unacceptable, I have one question:

Should we bring back the debtor’s prisons?

It is easy to become afraid.

Someone can become afraid that free trade will ship their jobs overseas.  Someone can become afraid that market-based immigration policies will cause someone else to take their job.  Someone can become afraid that overpopulation will destroy the environment.  Someone can become afraid that an unplanned pregnancy will ruin their lives.

It’s hard when afraid to remember that if a business is allowed to hire young immigrants, import cost-effective goods and services, operate without overburdening environmental regulations, and have access to a growing population of consumers representing an expanding market share, enormous wealth is created.  This wealth turns into more investment, more expansion, more hiring, and a better economy.  Protecting the right to Life and Liberty is not only the right thing to do.  It also happens to be the best thing to do.

Unfortunately, there are four huge organizations built to perpetuate and stoke those fears.  The AFL-CIO opposes free trade, market-based immigration, and guest worker passes.  The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) fights against market-based immigration and guest worker passes.  The Sierra Club promotes an environmentalist agenda making it difficult for businesses to create wealth and families to afford babies.  Planned Parenthood promotes comprehensive sexual education for children, distributes contraception, and performs more abortions than any other organization in the nation.  All four of these organizations promote ending Life or restricting Liberty.  As a result, it is fair to consider their ideology anti-American — opponents of the Declaration of Independence.

Three of these organizations (AFL-CIO, the Sierra Club, and Planned Parenthood) are staples of the Left.  FAIR and its two largest affiliates — NumbersUSA and the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) — are all allegedly part of the conservative movement.

It is time to expose the wolf in sheep’s clothing.

In May of this year, the New York Times wrote a hit piece on John Tanton, who founded FAIR — “the most influential unknown man in America” — in which the Times smeared Mr. Tanton as a racist.  Unsurprisingly, the New York Times missed the point.

Who is John Tanton?

John Tanton was an opthamologist in Michigan with a passion for environmentalism.  He was deeply concerned there were just too many people in the United States to allow nature to flourish properly.  But how to reduce the numbers of people in the US?

John Tanton then founded and organized the Northern Michigan Planned Parenthood Association for the ascendant organization in 1965.  He founded the Mackinack Chapter Population Committee for the Sierra Club in 1969.  By 1971, he had been promoted to the Chairman of the Great Lakes Public Affairs Committee for Planned Parenthood and the National Long-Range Planning Committee for the Sierra Club.  By 1975, Dr. Tanton had been promoted to the President of Zero Population Growth, a Planned Parenthood and Sierra Club allied think tank that helps to coordinate anti-population activities.

By 1979, Ronald Reagan was ascendant.  He advocated refashioning the Republican Party to be pro-immigration and socially conservative (both reversals).  He was appealing to the pro-immigrant and socially conservative Catholic vote and looked well positioned to found a politically dominant Republican Party.  If his coalition clicked, the Democrats might have to move to the right on social issues to be competitive.  Prominent social conservative Democrats such as Governor Bob Casey of Pennsylvania stood ready to lead such a charge.

For ZPG, it looked like a developing nightmare scenario.  Two pro-immigration & socially conservative parties competing primarily over the economy and foreign policy!  Two parties that believed in the Declaration of Independence (that inconvenient document)!

The solution, however, was obvious.  Found an organization — led by Leftists — to gin up Nativist fear inside the Republican electorate.  That way anti-immigrant rhetoric in the GOP would alienate the Catholic vote (many of whom were fresh immigrants anyway).  Then, a Leftist Democratic Party could capture Catholic votes while still promoting abortion.  A Nativist Republican Party could focus on limiting legal immigration instead of social issues while avoiding the chance to capitalize on the 60% majority that think elective abortions (which excludes rape or incest) should be illegal.  They believed that the result was achievable — low immigration, high abortion — in short, Zero Population Growth.

So John Tanton founded FAIR, CIS, and NumbersUSA.  He stuffed their Board of Directors almost exclusively full of Leftists (phrases like “works on women’s issues,” “passionate about the environment,” and “address population issues” abound on their website).  The influential groups now stoke fear among Republicans to drive the GOP towards Nativism.

It’s time for Republicans to look in the mirror and ask themselves:

Do we want to be the GOP envisioned by John Tanton or Ronald Reagan?