#born to early for government to be abolished

[blushouyo]

i've come to the conclusion that jobs are fake

[bet-on-me-13]

Amanda Waller is the Daughter of Tucker Folley

So! Amanda Waller has always been an interesting person.

She was born the daughter of Tucker Foley, one of the world's most intelligent men, and had high expectations her entire life (though her father never pressured her)

She was raised in Amity Park, a town that existed on the borders of the Living and Undead Realms, alongside the Ghosts of the dead children and children that never got born at all.

She was told stories of the corrupt government agency that terrorised the town in its early days. Of how her Father and his friends managed to push them out of town and get the Acts that empowered them abolished.

She was raised by one of the men who paved the way for the Metahuman Protections Act to be implemented. She was raised alongside metahumans and non-humans. She was raised on stories of Heroes and Villains. She grew up not trusting the Government for the crimes it committed to her Family and Friends.

So how did she ever end up like this?

How did she end up as the Leader of one of the Government's most shady and unethical branches? How did she end up being known as an enemy of Metahumans everywhere? How did she end up so far from how she started?

Well that's a question only one man could ever answer. Her father, Tucker Foley.

[whencyclopedia]

John Locke

John Locke (1632-1704) was an English philosopher responsible for laying the foundation of the European Enlightenment. Locke believed that each branch of government should have separate powers, that liberty must be protected from state interference, and that the state must protect the private property of its citizens. These ideas greatly influenced the Founding Fathers of the United States. Locke also proposed a new theory of knowledge acquisition based entirely on experience and reflection.

Early Life

John Locke was born on 29 August 1632 in Wrington, in the county of Somerset, England, into a modest Puritan family of traders. In the troubled times of the English Civil Wars (1642-1651), John's father had fought in the army of the Parliamentarians, the ultimate victors who abolished the monarchy. John was educated at the Westminster School, then the best school in England. In 1652, he enrolled at the University of Oxford, with his father ambitious that he join the Church. As it turned out, although John maintained a life-long interest in ecclesiastical matters, he much preferred to study medicine. Other knowledge areas that piqued Locke's interest included meteorology – he meticulously kept a weather diary – and practical experiments such as using air pumps with the renowned scientist Robert Boyle (1627-1691). Locke became a member of London's Royal Society in 1668.

Locke's big break came in 1667 when he became the personal physician and secretary to Anthony Ashley Cooper, who later became the Earl of Shaftesbury. The earl's policies would influence Locke's thinking since Shaftesbury was a staunch believer in restoring Catholicism as England's main religion and that the powers of the monarchy should be checked by those of Parliament. Locke resided in London and remained with the earl until 1683. Locke also spent time in France between 1675 and 1679, studying the work of philosophers like René Descartes (1596-1650).

Isaiah Berlin gives the following summary of Locke's character:

He was a man of gentle, shy and amiable disposition, widely liked and esteemed, without enemies, and endowed with an astonishing capacity for absorbing and interpreting in simple language some of the original and revolutionary ideas in which his time was singularly rich. (30)

Continue reading...

[scotianostra]

On November 25th 1897, Helen Duncan, the noted Scottish medium, was born in Callander.

Helen Duncan, dubbed Scotland’s last witch, was jailed for revealing war secrets

Reminders such as Maggie’s Wall in Perth testify to the witch hunts that saw thousands jailed and put to death over two centuries. Janet Horne, of Dornoch, was the last woman in Britain executed for witchcraft in 1727 but the Witchcraft Act wasn’t abolished until the 1950s.

Another Scottish woman was the last “witch” imprisoned in the UK – the government fearing she might reveal military secrets during the Second World War. Growing up in Callander, Helen Duncan’s dark prophecies to classmates earned her the nickname “Hellish Nell”.

She worked at Dundee Royal Infirmary and married war veteran Henry, who supported her psychic endeavours. In the 1920s she began holding séances for extra money to feed their six children. Aided by her spirit guide, Peggy, spirits manifested as ectoplasm spewing from Helen’s mouth.

The London Spiritualist Alliance investigated in 1931 and found the ectoplasm to be made of paper, cheesecloth and egg. Some apparitions had faces fashioned from magazine covers.

In 1933, police were called to a séance when it was discovered “Peggy” was a white vest. Helen was fined £10 for fraud. Despite this, the war was a busy time for her. Families of soldiers killed in battle attended her séances in the hope of contact.

At one meeting in Portsmouth in 1941, she claimed to have spoken to a sailor named Sid who drowned when HMS Barham sank in the Mediterranean. The Navy were alarmed – the sinking of HMS Barham hadn’t been announced. 862 men perished, but relatives were asked to keep quiet to help morale.

From then on, Helen was on the radar. A lieutenant attending a séance in 1944 was outraged when she conjured up the spirits of his “dead” aunt and sister. Helen was arrested. The trial of the “Blitz Witch” caused a stir in London.

She was sentenced to nine months in Holloway under the Witchcraft Act of 1735, where she became popular for séances in her cell. Her sentence was harsh, due perhaps to wartime paranoia; even Winston Churchill sent a memo to the Home Secretary calling her charge “obsolete tomfoolery”.

It’s a tale that’s more heretic than heroic, but her case undoubtedly led to the abolition of the Witchcraft Act in 1951. Campaigners are still calling for Scotland’s “last witch” to be posthumously pardoned.

She died at her home in Edinburgh, on 6th December 1956, a short time after another séance. Contrary to what some spiritualists have written, there was nothing strange or unusual about Duncan's death; nor was it caused by the police disturbing her "trance” Duncan's medical records indicated that she had a long history of poor health, and as early as 1944 she was described as an obese woman who could move only slowly as she suffered from heart trouble.

[mmavey]

c!Technoblade- a What If take on his backstory.

Technoblade, for many, both as a cc! and a character has always been enigmatic and someone we are drawn to. In contrast to this, many people fail to understand fundamental parts of his character as well as his motives.

I feel, personally, the reason many people do not fully understand him is because we do not have a solid backstory for him. It is common knowledge that the Antarctic Empire was canon, that he and Phil are old immortals with a long history, but what about before? What came before his days as a conqueror, his days as an emperor, and, of course, his days as an anarchist? When did he become associated with the Blood God? Surely one could not be born with a connection such as that. Unless... No, aus are for another day- this is about headcanon, not aus! (I'll talk about Blood Demigod Techno another day, promise /j)

I remember reading a post by @becauseplot that questioned what made c!Philza and c!Techno go from being emperors, kings, conquerors with power beyond our imagination, to anarchists. The points in that post were incredibly well thought out and I thought about it for quite a long time, scoured Techno's dynamics and even went back to watch a few EarthSMP episodes to get a better view on Emerald Duo as a whole. The notion that they fell so far from that had always been shocking to me, someone who favored them as characters, but hadn't been around to see the Earth SMP.

Now? It's not so hard to believe.

Sometimes, when I think about this post, I also think of Passerine.

Yes, the fic- but what occurs in this fic? Philza and Techno, as they had on SMPE, were at one time co-leading an empire. One thing that I often associate with Philza is that with such a long life, with no death in sight, he often loses track of time- any mortal love hes had is a mere blip in his timeline and his children aren't any different. One day, the Angel of Death vanishes from their kingdom, and never returns. Technoblade is left to himself, stumbling in this similar feeling of Philza being gone as suddenly as he arrived. What if something of this volume had occurred? Or, perhaps, even something worse. Betrayal? Bloody wars bringing loss of people important to him?

Whatever ended the Antarctic Empire is up to interpretation. I'm not especially interested on touching that- I have my personal headcanons about that, but it's really what comes before and after SMPE that really counts. There's unaccounted time in both periods, depending on how long the time between SMPE and DSMP is. (Keep in mind, SMPE isn't considered canon to a lot of character's stories- but it IS canon for Philza and Techno. This is IMPORTANT and I will die on this hill.)

Let's start from the beginning of my headcanon for c!Techno.

He is old- as immortals are- old enough to have seen a world that was calm, peaceful, before governments. As a child, or a teen, or whatever he happened to be- in his early years, Techno got the grand privilege of enjoying a world with little conflict, full of cooperation and kindness. Over time, though, of course, human error comes into play. There are no perfect people, and so, anarchy in its purest form becomes chaos.

(The factual definition of anarchy: the organization of society on the basis of voluntary cooperation, without political institutions or hierarchical government; anarchism.

NOWHERE does this say that anarchism is about chaos. C!Techno's goal isn't chaos, it isn't to kill everyone on the server, it is to BRING COOPERATION WITHOUT CONTROL. His ideals are based upon the factual definition of anarchy, as are Phil's. In their eyes, the things that they did in Man vs. Pog, Doomsday, etc- they're just forms of revolution. They're not revolting to create their own government like the L'Manbergians. They're revolting to abolish them.)

Lighthearted anarchy is the optimal condition for humanity. But, human error naturally creates people who desire control, and all it likely took was one person for things to begin to snowball. Conflict sparks, the world begins to tear apart- his strength, the fact that something is different about him (his immortality, given later, will set him even further apart), it makes him someone the people of this old and fresh out of the schism world want on their side. They want him as a weapon. And, so, the Blade is born, figuratively. As time goes on, government solidifies, this condition of desiring control, power, death, blood- whatever it happens to be- it spreads, becomes commonplace. Techno is pulled along for the entire ride, his views, as everyone else's were, becoming warped as he is compelled to fight and conform to the more popularly accepted norms.

With that out of the way, let's talk about the Blood God.

Technoblade fights, he fights for everyone, a weapon of human error's creation, a solider (a true conqueror) that only continues to douse his hands, his blade, his arrows in blood as he moves forward, becoming a figure so haunted by death that voices of those he'd bloodied begin to fight for his attention within the confines of his brain.

Such a daunting man, hoglin, pigman- whatever your personal headcanon of Techno and his species happen to be- would not escape the notice of the Gods, and especially not one so engraved with war. The Blood God, reaching down from wherever the gods happen to be at, has to meet this conqueror that has been bathed in his favorite substance.

At first, as anyone would be, Technoblade, still young in his long, endless life, was unnerved, bothered by this deity coming specifically to him. But, perhaps, he realizes, it's not so hard to believe. He's infamous, a conqueror so powerful and renowned that he is on the same level as the Greek hero Achilles, or even Hercules, to be more accurate. It's natural for him to feel prideful about that, at the time, when he considers being a conqueror a good thing, and it's natural for a God to take notice of his abilities and seek him out.

Essentially, where this headcanon ends up going is as follows:

The Blood God, impressed by Techno's abilities, makes him immortal. Immortality comes at a dire price, and Technoblade must take the god as his patron deity for as long as he walks the earth, and he adopts both the phrasing "Technoblade never dies" and "Blood for the Blood God". This gift, his immortality, floods him with more pride, more dedication- and it also quadruples his value to any rulers that could have him in their army. A warrior beyond death, with more knowledge and intellect than any architect, philosopher, or strategist in any land. As time passes, progressing quickly, endlessly for Technoblade, he learns of the way people view him as a weapon, something to use to further their reach and power.

In retaliation, he begins to take his title as a conqueror very literally.

And, so, the reputation of Technoblade being a noble, grand soldier of the old times twists into him being a man capable of butchering entire armies, strolling through towns and cities and leaving wreckage claimed in his name behind. Technoblade is no longer a tool, a weapon, yes, but only for himself and for the God of Blood. He becomes an Emperor, a conquerer comparable to those we know such as Alexander the Great, or any others that have managed to spread an empire across a vast amount of land and still maintain control of it.

Surely, before the schism of the world, when everything was peaceful, early on, he had a family- mother, father, siblings, grandparents, even- but over the centuries he begins to forget, the memories of things before the deity granting him immortality becoming a grey sludge, fading further and further into nothingness.

He loses himself in human error, in leadership, in the blood-

The Blade is solidified as a legend, a legend of death, blood, war, and conquerors. His name is whispered across the old world, known truly, by some, but feared by all.

There is only one who is equally as feared as he, in this early time of conflict- The Angel of Death. Rumors and whispers he has heard are quite similar to those about he, himself, and this is both intriguing and threatening.

One day, they meet.

And the rest is history. ...Literally, they're old LMAO

THAT WRAPS IT UP FOR TONIGHT

this headcanon is based around the thoughts of @becauseplot , but it also takes some ground from the Passerine fic by blujamas and thcscus.

(heres a link if you havent read passerine, gogoggogoggogo!!!! ^^)

i didnt end up having the energy to finish the bit thats gonna elaborate on the time between SMPE and DSMP so if youre interested on further elaborations of my headcanons lmk!!!!!

(i say this like anyone will read it)

this is going out to like. hardly anyone but I FELT THE NEED TO RANT OKAY SO ENJOY IT /j

some thigns may be mildly innacurate but i wrote this wild tired and its been fueled by two cans of orange fanta. read /j

edit because i missed something: the primary idea of this hc is that the reason technoblade ends up becoming a total anarchist after the failure of the antarctic empire (for whatever reason it ended- this also contributes to his reasoning obviously) is that he vaguely remembers a time before governments, before conflict and war- peace through the dictionary definition of anarchy, not chaos. hes old enough to have seen a world before all of these things, and he ends up wanting it back after everythign goes so horribly wrong.

and hes not afraid, and hasnt ever been, to use force /j

THE ACTUAL END NOW- /j

[pigeontakeover]

They're starting immigration raids literally the day after inauguration.

You have to ask. Who is making money from these raids? What happens to the "illegals' property? What happens to their money and US citizen children? Who is getting rich from these raids?

The 13th Amendment didn't abolish slavery. It turned the government into the only legal slave owner. Incarcerated criminals and illegals are property of the state. Where will these "criminals" get sent?

Copy pasted most relevant paragraphs:

The incoming Trump administration intends to carry out “post-inauguration” immigration raids in Chicago next week, according to two people familiar with the planning and correspondence reviewed by The New York Times, an opening step in President-elect Donald J. Trump’s goal to oversee the largest deportation operation in American history.

The plan, called “Operation Safeguard” by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, would start on Tuesday, the day after Mr. Trump is inaugurated, and last until the following Monday, according to the people familiar with it and the correspondence. The dates were still being finalized, however, and could change.

Hundreds of agents were asked to volunteer and participate in the “post-inauguration” operation targeting immigrants in the United States illegally. ICE is planning on sending roughly 150 agents to Chicago for the raids.

Tom Homan, Mr. Trump’s pick to oversee his promised mass deportations, has said the public should expect immigration action in the early days of the Trump presidency that creates “shock and awe.”

In an interview on Fox News, when asked if there would be a big raid in Chicago on Tuesday, Mr. Homan said, “There’s going to be a big raid all across the country. Chicago is just one of many places.”

Mr. Trump has promised to carry out mass deportations that would target millions of unauthorized immigrants in the United States. Mr. Homan has said the administration will not hesitate to deport parents who are in the country illegally but have U.S.-born children.

Mr. Trump’s team also plans to reassign other federal agents and deputize local police officers and members of the National Guard voluntarily contributed by Republican-run states to help with the deportation efforts.

[theroyalsims]

KENJI AND ALICE'S SILENT BATTLE FOR PRINCESS HANNA FINALLY PAYS OFF - YOUNG PRINCESS NOW OFFICIALLY "PRINCESS ROYAL"

Princess Hanna just landed a massive history-making victory today.

The Shang Simlan Imperial Family, with the concurrence of the government, released a new Imperial decree that guarantees equal rights for both male and female royal heirs, finally ridding itself of agnatic primogeniture, the system which provides that only male heirs may ascend the throne.

After hundreds of years and many generations, Shang Simla now follows absolute primogeniture - meaning all the Emperor's legitimate children, regardless of gender, are now entitled to inherit the throne. The decree, however, will not be given retroactive application, but special considerations have been made for the Princess; which means while she may not be "Crown Princess," she is now afforded several rights with her new position as Princess Royal.

For starters, she is now included in the line of succession, and is officially third in line to the throne following her twin brothers. Her cousin, Prince Akira, has moved down to the fourth spot. She will also not lose her place in the line of succession even if she will later have more younger male siblings.

The newly-minted Princess Royal will also no longer lose her place in succession and removed from the Imperial Family should she marry a commoner. Under the old Imperial Code, royal princesses who marry commoners will lose their royal titles and royal stipend. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, when she comes of age, she will be able to "work" as an official royal, and represent the Emperor by taking on engagements in Shang Simla and abroad. Princess Hanna is the first Shang Simlan Princess to be given said rights, and everyone couldn't be happier!

The drastic changes come after both Kenji and Alice waged a "war" for the Princess, which reportedly started long before the royal twins' arrival. A Shang Simla source shares:

"Really, the conversation - perhaps the more correct term would be the war - about giving Hanna a place in court started well before their wedding, and certainly well before the twins were born. One of the issues that plagued Shang Simla's Imperial Family is their lack of male heirs, and a very slim line of succession, which got Alice and Kenji talking: Brindleton doesn't have that problem. Selvadorada, Tartosa, Rennaux - all these kingdoms do not have that problem because they abolished agnatic primogeniture early on. Women can lead kingdoms, and Queens throughout history are a testament to that. If Shang Simla's Imperial House wishes to survive, it must adapt and acknowledge that changes have to be made."

The Imperial Couple's courage to fight harder for Hanna's cause was bolstered when Alice - an "old" foreign Princess, was warmly received by the country as their Empress and later, when the surrogate-born twins were named heirs to the throne. The source further reveals:

"These convinced Kenji that Shang Simla is open to change, and these changes to modernise the monarchy are definitely a step in the right direction. Especially when the twins were made heirs, Kenji and Alice put their feet down and stressed that Hanna is every bit Kenji's child as the twins."

So why "just" "Princess Royal" and not "Crown Princess"? As it turns out, this had to do with Hanna's own choice. The source continues:

"Kenji wanted Hanna to be first in line to the throne, and Alice, too, thought she would make a wonderful and capable future Empress, but ultimately, they asked Hanna what she wanted. She's growing up so fast, and Kenji realised that his daughter's life has been dictated upon from the very beginning - so he gave Hanna a chance to use her voice. It was Hanna who decided that she didn't want to be 'Crown Princess.' She's a brilliant young girl and she wants to study abroad, take up medicine and explore being able to work in the field. She realises that she would not have the freedom to do so if she were to be named her father's heir. She would very much like to help her father with official duties, and finally 'belong' as a 'real' member of the Imperial Family, but she also wants to dream and live life the way she pleases. Personally, I think it's a great choice, a fantastic outcome for Hanna."

Congratulations to Her Royal Highness Hanna, Princess Royal! We can't wait to see you grow into your new role!

[arkham-dossiers]

Patient File: Edelgard von Hresvelg

This is a patient whose life has multiple outcomes, but only one root.

The root in question is that she is one of many children borne by Ionus von Hresvelg IX, the Emperor of Fodlan's Adrestrian Empire. During the first few years of Edelgard's life, she was instilled with a sense of imperial pride...and imperial responsibility. This on its own would be unremarkable given her circumstances, but said circumstances soon changed drastically. After an internal coup effectively removed Emperor Ionus from power beyond that of a figurehead, Edelgard and her siblings were locked in the palace dungeon and experimented upon by a shadowy collective of mages.

The cruelty of the experiments, which turned Edelgard's hair white and cut her natural lifespan in half, also caused her great psychological and emotional trauma, as did the suffering and eventual deaths of her siblings around her. As the only one to achieve the desired result of the mages' experiments, the ability to bear two Crests rather than just one, Edelgard holds massive survivor's guilt. All of this - in tandem with one of the few childhood memories prior to the experiments that she vaguely retained, where she was gifted a dagger by a relative and told to cut out her own path in life beyond what's expected of her - is what shaped Edelgard into who she is now and influenced the extreme actions she took.

In several timeline branches, Edelgard allies herself with the mages in order to serve their purpose while also scheming to betray them once she has obtained the requisite power and knowledge to efficiently do so. Living a double life as a student at the Garreg Mach Monastery's Officers Academy and as a masked terrorist known as the Flame Emperor, Edelgard manipulated her classmates and cut deals with criminals in order to bring instability to Fodlan, particularly the Church of Seiros that runs Garreg Mach and holds sway over most of Fodlan's society and governing bodies, with the end result being her as the newly crowned Emperor of Adrestria declaring war on the Church and its allies so that Fodlan may be united under the Adrestrian banner. In one timeline, she prevailed, while in others she was defeated and slain, although the results of the war still led to a changed Fodlan and a united government full of societal reforms.

In other timeline branches, however, Edelgard was able to betray the mages early on. As a result, she dropped the Flame Emperor guise and was instead able to manipulate the Church into acting as the aggressor toward Adrestria, now justifying a war in retaliation. Sometimes she prevailed, sometimes she didn't, and sometimes a compromise was reached, but in all cases she was able to survive.

What all of these timelines share in common is Edelgard's almost monomaniacal focus on her end goal: destroying both the Church of Seiros and the mages, and unifying Fodlan under the Adrestrian Empire so that it can be completely restructured for the better, abolishing the nobility and Crest system in favor of a meritocracy. In contrast to most warmongers, Edelgard has no intention of holding onto power. Once her end goal has been achieved, she plans on appointing a successor and stepping down to live out whatever years remain in her shortened life in peace. It's a peculiarly selfish brand of selflessness she has: ruthlessly forcing her will and ideals upon the population of Fodlan all so that they and future generations can reap the benefits rather than herself. She similarly rationalizes all the deaths her war causes this way: many will die, but if her reforms to Fodlan are put in place many more will live. There will be little chance of anyone else having to suffer the way she and her siblings did.

That is ultimately what Edelgard's motives boil down to: the desire to prevent future victims of what she was put through, by eliminating every factor that led to her suffering. The Church of Seiros, the system favoring bloodlines and the power of Crests that it perpetuates through its false gospel, the corrupt nobles, and of course the mages...Edelgard hates them all for what happened to her and her siblings, but she does not seek their demise out of a desire for vengeance. Having accepted what is done cannot be undone, Edelgard instead focuses on the future, with the past and even the present firmly pushed behind her. This is what grants her the ability to emotionally detach and repress even her own moral compass to an almost sociopathic degree in order to do what she believes is necessary. As she herself puts it: "My regret. My grief. My whole life. I've thrown it all away...into the darkness..." She is fully aware that others will see her as a villain for this, but she is willing to embrace that label so long as she can change Fodlan for the better.

Edelgard's greatest fear is forging personal attachments to others. Not only does she fear losing people she grows close to like she lost her siblings, but she fears being close to people will be a greater burden on her conscience, making her hesitate and second-guess the path she's taking even when she whole-heartedly feels it's a path she needs to stick to. In the worst case scenario, Edelgard isolates herself so much that she is consumed by her lack of self-love and her need to prevail by any means necessary, transforming herself into an inhuman monstrosity as a result. Conversely, in the best case scenarios, Edelgard discovers that being close to people willing to share her path with her and taking input from them even if it goes against what she believes is achievable and healthy, leading to her showing more emotion and vulnerability rather than stoically take on every burden by herself. This usually comes about through Byleth, the human avatar of the reincarnated Nabatean goddess Sothis.

Diagnosis: Taken on the whole, Edelgard appears to suffer from a frighteningly potent combination of post-traumatic stress disorder, high-functioning avoidant personality disorder, and mild dissociative tendencies. Her past is both everything and nothing to her simultaneously, having shaped her psychology even as said psychology centers around fixating upon the future at the expense of all else. Depending on what point of her life she's at, treatment and improvement is possible, although victims tragically unpreventable.

This patient is not dangerous if approached in peace.

[metamatar]

In English translations of the early nineteenth-century writings of German idealist G. W. F. Hegel, Aufhebung is sometimes translated as “positive supersession,” and intriguingly, this rather stiff bit of jargon unites the ideas of lifting up, destroying, preserving, and radically transforming, all at once. These four components can be illustrated with reference to slavery, the earliest example of a radical cause calling itself “abolitionist” in history. The successful global fight for the abolition of slavery meant that the noble ideal of humanism, trumpeted in the French Revolution, was simultaneously lifted up (vindicated), destroyed (exposed as white), preserved (made tenable for the future) and transformed beyond recognition (forced to incorporate those it had originally excluded). Slavery was overturned in law and eventually more or less done away with in practice. What we must understand, however, is that our very capacity to understand these events was generated by them. In the “before” times, the ideals that governed slave-trading societies really were human rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The world manifested those ideas as they existed then, until, at the end of an enslaved person’s rifle, the self-styled inventors of “freedom” in these societies learned at last what real freedom (a more real freedom, for the time being) looked like. Humanism: negated, remade, born, buried, prolonged. By winning the struggle against slavers, abolition gave the lie to those societies, and supplied those brave ideals with their first-ever shot at becoming more than words.

Sophie Lewis in Abolish the Family

[nicklloydnow]

Michelle Manhart

“Was the American Revolution Radical?

Especially since the early 1950s, America has been concerned with opposing revolutions throughout the world; in the process, it has generated a historiography that denies its own revolutionary past. This neoconservative view of the American Revolution, echoing the reactionary writer in the pay of the Austrian and English governments of the early nineteenth century, Friedrich von Gentz, tries to isolate the American Revolution from all the revolutions in the western world that preceded it and followed it. The American Revolution, this view holds, was unique; it alone of all modern revolutions was not really revolutionary; instead, it was moderate, conservative, dedicated only to preserving existing institutions from British aggrandizement. Furthermore, like all else in America, it was marvelously harmonious and consensual. Unlike the wicked French and other revolutions in Europe, the American Revolution, then, did not upset or change anything. It was therefore not really a revolution at all; certainly, it was not radical.

Now this view, in the first place, displays an extreme naiveté on the nature of revolution. No revolution has ever sprung forth, fully blown and fully armed like Athena, from the brow of existing society; no revolution has ever emerged from a vacuum. No revolution has ever been born out of ideas alone, but only from a long chain of abuses and a long history of preparation, ideological and institutional. And no revolution, even the most radical, from the English Revolution of the seventeenth century to the many Third World revolutions of the twentieth, has ever come into being except in reaction to increased oppression by the existing State apparatus. All revolution is in that sense a reaction against worsening oppression; and in that sense, all revolutions may be called "conservative"; but that would make hash out of the meaning of ideological concepts. If the French and Russian revolutions may be called "conservative" then so might the American. This same process was at work in Bacon's Rebellion of the late seventeenth century and the American Revolution of the late eighteenth. As the Declaration of Independence (a good source for understanding the Revolution) rightly emphasized:

Prudence indeed will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, 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 . . . evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government.

It takes such a long train of abuses to persuade the mass of people to throw off their habitual customs and loyalties and to make revolution; hence the absurdity of singling out the American Revolution as "conservative" in that sense. Indeed, this very breakthrough against existing habits, the very act of revolution, is therefore ipso facto an extraordinarily radical act. All mass revolutions, indeed all revolutions as distinguished from mere coup d'états, by bringing the masses into violent action are therefore per se highly radical events. All revolutions are therefore radical.

But the deep-seated radicalism of the American Revolution goes far beyond this. It was inextricably linked both to the radical revolutions that went before and to the ones, particularly the French, that succeeded it. From the researches of Caroline Robbins and Bernard Bailyn, we have come to see the indispensable linkage of radical ideology in a straight line from the English republican revolutionaries of the seventeenth century through the commonwealthmen of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, to the French and to the American revolutionaries. And this ideology of natural rights and individual liberty was to its very marrow revolutionary. As Lord Acton stressed of radical liberalism, in setting up "what ought to be" as a rigorous guidepost for judging "what is," it virtually raised thereby a standard of revolution.

The Americans had always been intractable, rebellious, impatient of oppression, as witness the numerous rebellions of the late seventeenth century; they also had their own individualist and libertarian heritage, their Ann Hutchinsons and Rhode Island quasi anarchists, some directly linked with the left wing of the English Revolution. Now, strengthened and guided by the developed libertarian natural rights ideology of the eighteenth century, and reacting to aggrandizement of the British imperial state in the economic, constitutional, and religious spheres, the Americans, in escalated and radicalized confrontations with Great Britain, had made and won their Revolution. By doing so, this revolution, based on the growing libertarian idea pervading enlightened opinion in Europe, itself gave immeasurable impetus to the liberal revolutionary movement throughout the Old World, for here was a living example of a liberal revolution that had taken its daring chance, against all odds and against the mightiest state in the world, and had actually succeeded. Here, indeed, was a beacon light to all the oppressed peoples of the world!

The American Revolution was radical in many other ways as well. It was the first successful war of national liberation against western imperialism. A people's war, waged by the majority of Americans having the courage and the zeal to rise up against constituted "legitimate" government, actually threw off their "sovereign." A revolutionary war led by "fanatics" and zealots rejected the siren calls of compromise and easy adjustment to the existing system. As a people's war, it was victorious to the extent that guerrilla strategy and tactics were employed against the far more heavily armed and better trained British army—a strategy and tactics of protracted conflict resting precisely on mass support. The tactics of harassment, mobility, surprise, and the wearing down and cutting off of supplies finally resulted in the encirclement of the enemy. Considering that the theory of guerrilla revolution had not yet been developed, it was remarkable that the Americans had the courage and initiative to employ it. As it was, all their victories were based on guerrilla-type concepts of revolutionary war, while all the American defeats came from stubborn insistence by such men as Washington on a conventional European type of open military confrontation.

Also, as in any people's war, the American Revolution did inevitably rend society in two. The Revolution was not a peaceful emanation of an American "consensus"; on the contrary, as we have seen, it was a civil war resulting in permanent expulsion of 100,000 Tories from the United States. Tories were hunted, persecuted, their property confiscated, and themselves sometimes killed; what could be more radical than that? Thus, the French Revolution was, as in so many other things, foreshadowed by the American. The inner contradiction of the goal of liberty and the struggle against the Tories during the Revolution showed that revolutions will be tempted to betray their own principles in the heat of battle. The American Revolution also prefigured the misguided use of paper money inflation, and of severe price and wage controls which proved equally unworkable in America and in France. And, as constituted government was either ignored or overthrown, Americans found recourse in new quasi-anarchistic forms of government: spontaneous local committees. In-deed, the new state and eventual federal governments often emerged out of federations and alliances of local and county committees. Here again, "committees of inspection," "committees of public safety," etc., prefigured the French and other revolutionary paths. What this meant, as was most clearly illustrated in Pennsylvania, was the revolutionary innovation of parallel institutions, of dual power, that challenged and eventually simply replaced old and established governmental forms. Nothing in all of this picture of the American Revolution could have been more radical, more truly revolutionary.

But, it may be claimed, this was after all only an external revolution; even if the American Revolution was radical, it was only a radicalism directed against Great Britain. There was no radical upheaval at home, no "internal revolution." Again, this view betrays a highly naive concept of revolution and of wars of national liberation. While the focus of the upheaval was, of course, Great Britain, the inevitable indirect consequence was radical change within the United States. In the first and most obvious place, the success of the revolution meant inevitably the overturn and displacement of the Tory elites, particularly of those internal oligarchs and members of governors' councils who had been created and propped up by the British government. The freeing of trade and manufacture from British imperial shackles again meant a displacement of Tory favorites from positions of economic privilege. The confiscation of Tory estates, especially in feudalism-ridden New York state, had a sharply democratizing and liberalizing effect on the structure of land tenure in the United States. This process was also greatly advanced by the inevitable dispossession of the vast British proprietary landed estates in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. The freakish acquisition of the territory west of the Appalachians by the peace treaty also opened vast quantities of virgin land to further liberalize the land structure, provided that the speculative land companies, as it increasingly appeared, would be kept at bay. Revolution also brought an inevitable upsurge of religious liberty with the freeing of many of the states, especially in the South, from the British-imposed Anglican establishment.

With these radical internal processes inevitably launched by the fact of revolution against Great Britain, it is also not surprising that this internal revolutionary course would go further. To the attack on feudalism was added a drive against the remnants of entail and primogeniture; from the ideology of individual liberty—and from British participation in the slave trade—came a general attack on that trade, and, in the North, a successful governmental drive against slavery itself.

Another inevitable corollary of the Revolution, and one easily over-looked, was that the very fact of revolution—aside from Connecticut and Rhode Island where no British government had existed before—necessarily dispossessed existing internal rule. Hence the sudden smashing of that rule inevitably threw government back into a fragmented, local, quasi-anarchistic form. When we consider also that the Revolution was consciously and radically directed against taxes and against central government power, the inevitable thrust of the Revolution for a radical transformation toward liberty becomes crystal clear. It is then not surprising that the thirteen revolted colonies were separate and decentralized, and that for several years even the separate state governments could not dare to impose taxes upon the populace. Furthermore, since royal control in the colonies had meant executive, judicial, and upper house control by royal appointees, the libertarian thrust of the Revolution was inevitably against these instruments of oligarchy and in favor of democratic forms responsive to, and easily checked by, the people. It is not a coincidence that the states where this type of internal revolution against oligarchy proceeded the furthest were the ones where the oligarchy was most reluctant to break with Great Britain. Hence, in Pennsylvania, the radical drive for independence meant that the reluctant oligarchy had to be pushed aside, and the process of that pushing led to the most liberal and most democratic constitution of all the states. (A highly liberal and democratic constitution also resulted from Vermont's necessity for rebelling internally against New York and New Hampshire's imperialism over Vermont's land.) On the other hand, Rhode Island and Connecticut, where no internal British rule existed, experienced no such internal cataclysm. Internal revolution was therefore a derivative of the external, but it happened nevertheless. Because of these inevitable internal libertarian effects, the drive for restoration of central government through taxation and mercantilism had to be a conscious and determined project on the part of conservatives a drive against the natural consequences of the Revolution.

Since the Revolution was a people's war, the extent of mass participation in the militia and committees led necessarily to a democratizing of suffrage in the new governments. Furthermore, the principle of "no taxation without representation" could readily be applied internally as could British restrictions upon the principle of one man, one vote. While recent researches have shown that colonial suffrage requirements were far more liberal than had been realized, it is still true that suffrage was significantly widened by the Revolution in half the states. This widening was helped everywhere by the depreciation of the monetary unit (and hence of existing property requirements) entailed by the inflation that helped finance the war. Chilton Williamson, the most thorough and judicious of recent historians of American suffrage, has concluded that

the Revolution probably operated to increase the size of that majority of adult males which had, generally speaking, been able to meet the old property and freehold tests before 1776. . . . The increase in the number of voters was probably not so significant as the fact that the Revolution had made explicit the basic idea that voting had little or nothing to do with real property and that this idea should be reflected accurately in the law. . . . The changes in suffrage made during the Revolution were the most important in the entire history of American suffrage reform. In retrospect it is clear that they committed the country to a democratic suffrage.

While many of the state constitutions, under the influence of conservative theorists, turned out to be conservative reactions against initial revolutionary conditions, the very act of making them was radical and revolutionary, for they meant that what the radical and Enlightenment thinkers had said was really true: men did not have to submit blindly to habit, to custom, to irrational "prescription." After violently throwing off their prescribed government, they could sit down and consciously make over their polity by the use of reason. Here was radicalism indeed. Furthermore, in the Bills of Rights, the framers added a significant and consciously libertarian attempt to prevent government from invading the natural rights of the individual, rights which they had learned about from the great English libertarian tradition of the past century.

For all these reasons, for its mass violence, and for its libertarian goals, the American Revolution was ineluctably radical. Not the least demonstration of its radicalism was the impact of this revolution in inspiring and generating the admittedly radical revolutions in Europe, an international impact that has been most thoroughly studied by Robert Palmer and Jacques Godechot. Palmer has eloquently summed up the meaning that the American Revolution had for Europe:

The American Revolution coincided with the climax of the Age of Enlightenment. It was itself, in some degree, the product of this age. There were many in Europe, as there were in America, who saw in the American Revolution a lesson and an encouragement for mankind. It proved that the liberal ideas of the Enlightenment might be put into practice. It showed, or was assumed to show, that ideas of the rights of man and the social contract, of liberty and equality, of responsible citizenship and popular sovereignty, of religious freedom, freedom of thought and speech, separation of powers and deliberately contrived written constitutions, need not remain in the realm of speculation, among the writers of books; but could be made the actual fabric of public life among real people, in this world, now.” - Murray Rothbard, ‘Conceived in Liberty, Volume IV: The Revolutionary War, 1775-1784’ (1975) [p. 441 - 446]

[fromgreecetoanarchy]

[Video] Rare footage of anarchist Pyotr Kropotkin in 1917 at the age of 74

Peter Alekseyevich Kropotkin, (born December 9, 1842, Moscow, Russia—died February 8, 1921, Dmitrov, near Moscow), Russian revolutionary and geographer, the foremost theorist of the anarchist movement. Although he achieved renown in a number of different fields, ranging from geography and zoology to sociology and history, he was eternalized for the life of a revolutionist.

Early life and conversion to anarchism

The son of Prince Aleksey Petrovich Kropotkin, Peter Kropotkin was educated in the exclusive Corps of Pages in St. Petersburg. For a year he served as an aide to Tsar Alexander II and, from 1862 to 1867, as an army officer in Siberia, where, apart from his military duties, he studied animal life and engaged in geographic exploration.

Kropotkin’s findings won him immediate recognition and opened the way to a distinguished scientific career. But in 1871 he refused the secretaryship of the Russian Geographical Society and, renouncing his aristocratic heritage, dedicated his life to the cause of social justice. During his Siberian service he already had begun his conversion to anarchism—the doctrine that all forms of government should be abolished—and in 1872 a visit to the Swiss watchmakers of the Jura Mountains, whose voluntary associations of mutual support won his admiration, reinforced his beliefs. On his return to Russia he joined a revolutionary group, the Chaiykovsky Circle, that disseminated propaganda among the workers and peasants of St. Petersburg and Moscow. At this time he wrote “Must We Occupy Ourselves with an Examination of the Ideal of a Future System?,” an anarchist analysis of a postrevolutionary order in which decentralized cooperative organizations would take over the functions normally performed by governments.

He was imprisoned in 1874 for his ideas but was freed by his comrades in a sensational escape 2 years later, fleeing to western Europe, where his name soon became revered in radical circles. The next few years were spent mostly in Switzerland until he was expelled at the demand of the Russian government after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II by revolutionaries in 1881. He moved to France but was arrested and imprisoned for 3 years on trumped-up charges of sedition. Released in 1886, he settled in England, where he remained until the Russian Revolution of 1917 allowed him to return to his native country.

Philosopher of revolution

Kropotkin’s aim, as he often remarked, was to provide anarchism with a scientific basis. In Mutual Aid, which is widely regarded as his masterpiece, he argued that, despite the Darwinian concept of the survival of the fittest, cooperation rather than conflict is the chief factor in the evolution of species. Providing abundant examples, he showed that sociability is a dominant feature at every level of the animal world. Among humans, too, he found that mutual aid has been the rule rather than the exception. He traced the evolution of voluntary cooperation from the primitive tribe, peasant village, and medieval commune to a variety of modern associations—trade unions, learned societies, the Red Cross—that have continued to practice mutual support despite the rise of the coercive bureaucratic state. The trend of modern history, he believed, was pointing back toward decentralized, nonpolitical, cooperative societies in which people could develop their creative faculties without interference from rulers, clerics, or soldiers.

In his theory of “anarchist communism,” according to which private property and unequal incomes would be replaced by the free distribution of goods and services, Kropotkin took a major step in the development of anarchist economic thought. Kropotkin envisioned a society in which people would do both manual and mental work, both in industry and in agriculture. Members of each cooperative community would work from their 20s to their 40s, four or five hours a day sufficing for a comfortable life, and the division of labour would yield a variety of pleasant jobs, resulting in the sort of integrated, organic existence.

To prepare people for this happier life, Kropotkin pinned his hopes on the education of the young. To achieve an integrated society, he called for education that would cultivate both mental and manual skills. Due emphasis was to be placed on the humanities and on mathematics and science, but, instead of being taught from books alone, children were to receive an active outdoor education and to learn by doing and observing firsthand, a recommendation that has been widely endorsed by modern educational theorists. Drawing on his own experience of prison life, Kropotkin also advocated a thorough modification of the penal system. Prisons, he said, were “schools of crime” that, far from reforming the offender, subjected him to brutalizing punishments and hardened him in his criminal ways. In the future anarchist world, antisocial behaviour would be dealt with not by laws and prisons but by human understanding and the moral pressure of the community.

Kropotkin combined the qualities of a scientist and moralist with those of a revolutionary organizer and propagandist. For all his mild benevolence, he condoned the use of violence in the struggle for freedom and equality, and, during his early years as an anarchist militant, he was among the most vigorous supporters of “propaganda by the deed”—acts of insurrection that would supplement oral and written propaganda and help to awaken the rebellious instincts of the people. He was the principal founder of both the English and Russian anarchist movements and exerted a strong influence on the movements in France, Belgium, and Switzerland.

Return to Russia of Peter Alekseyevich Kropotkin

Events took an unexpected turn with the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917. Kropotkin, by this time age 74, hastened to return to his homeland. When he arrived in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) in June 1917 after 40 years in exile, he was greeted warmly and offered the ministry of education in the provisional government, a post he brusquely declined. Yet his hopes for the future were never brighter, because in 1917 the organizations that he thought might form the basis of a stateless society—the communes and soviets, or soldiers’ and workers’ councils—suddenly began to appear in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

With the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917, however, his earlier enthusiasm turned to bitter disappointment. “This buries the revolution,” he remarked to a friend. The Bolsheviks, he said, have shown how the revolution was not to be made—that is, by authoritarian rather than libertarian methods. Kropotkin’s last years were devoted chiefly to writing a history of ethics, one volume of which was completed. He also fostered an anarchist cooperative in the village of Dmitrov, north of Moscow, where he died in 1921. His funeral, attended by tens of thousands of admirers, was the last occasion in the Soviet era when the black flag of anarchism was paraded through the Russian capital.

Kropotkin’s life exemplified the high ethical standard and the combination of thought and action that he preached throughout his writings. He displayed none of the egotism, duplicity, or lust for power that marred the image of so many other revolutionaries. Because of this he was admired not only by his own comrades but by many for whom the label of anarchist meant little more than the dagger and the bomb. The French writer Romain Rolland said that Kropotkin lived what Leo Tolstoy only advocated, and Oscar Wilde called him one of the two really happy men he had known.

[wyrmfedgrave]

Pic: Trying something new here - a focused overview.

In 2014, Governor Rick Snyder was accused of criminally mishandling the Flint Water Crisis.

A 2020 Vice article revealed his (& others) corruption & a subsequent cover-up attempt.

In early 2021, Snyder & others were all formally charged for the crisis.

But, late in 2022, a Democratic judge let Snyder off the hook...

His "Reinvention of Michigan" was a "shared sacrifice" of taxing workers's pensions - while abolishing the higher business tax & replacing it with a low, flat rate...

Snyder passed a law to prevent same sex partners (of public workers) from receiving health benefits.

This law was later struck down by a federal judge.

But, he helped pass a bipartisan state tax on online purchases.

Then, Snyder got an anti-union bill - thru both Houses & without public hearings or committee votes!

This made it illegal for union dues to be required for employment.

But, worse, the Employee Free Choice Act can't be repealed via referendum...

President Obama stated that this law was about the "right to work - for less money..."

Snyder made abortion clinics pay for a state license, unnecessarily increasing costs for such facilities.

Worse was to come.

Detroit was declared to be under a financial emergency & was placed under the power of an emergency manager.

This made Detroit part of group of such emergency appointments.

Over half of Michigan's black folks ended up in places where 'their' local government wasn't voted in by the locals...

Then, Snyder helped strike down a bill that affirmed the government's & military's 'right' to lock up anybody - without trial & for as long as wanted.

Perhaps the best of his few 'good' deeds.

He also offered visas to 50,000 immigrant workers - with advanced degrees - to help jumpstart Detroit's economy.

But then, Snyder had Flint's water source changed to the polluted Flint River.

This water was so corrosive that it leached lead out of the old water pipes - poisoning the city's children most!!

Worse, it turned out that Snyder knew about the dangers of the Flint River - 6 months after Flint began using river water - to save money...

So, Flint born Michael Moore called for the governor's arrest & started an online petition.

But, as is usual in such situations, it took a class action lawsuit to finally get things moving.

A state of emergency was finally declared - by Snyder himself.

But, it was, as also usual - too little & too late...

The damage had been done.

And the criminal behind it walked free.

End.

[lboogie1906]

William P. Stewart (December 9, 1839 - December 11, 1907) a Civil War veteran, was an early Black settler in Snohomish County, Washington. He was born as a free person of color to Walden and Henrietta Stewart in Sangamon County, Illinois. He had five other siblings, four brothers and one sister, and was living in Forest, Wisconsin.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, President Abraham Lincoln resisted the idea of African Americans serving in the military. By 1862, however, he was convinced that to militarily weaken the Confederacy, slavery had to be abolished in those states of rebellion (Emancipation Proclamation) and that the recruitment of Black men into the Union Army was necessary. He enlisted into the 29th U.S. Colored Infantry Regiment on February 1, 1865, at the age of twenty-five. He served for less than a year in the Union Army fighting for the unity of the nation and the freedom of nearly four million enslaved Blacks.

He and his comrades fought in the Appomattox Campaign in Virginia. He suffered severe diarrhea in the trenches, which excused him from active duty. He served as a mess cook assistant. The regiment was sent to a final assignment in Texas along the Rio Grande River as part of the XXV Corps, an all-black unit stationed along the border with Mexico. Some Black soldiers crossed the Rio Grande to fight with troops loyal to Mexican President Benito Juarez. He contracted rheumatism, a fate many soldiers experienced.

He moved to Wisconsin and married Elizabeth “Eliza” Thornton (1868). They had one son, Vay. He lived and worked as a lumber laborer until he and his family relocated to Washington State. He purchased a farm one mile east of the city and became a well-respected citizen. He became a member of the Grand Army of the Republic.

He suffered debilitating bouts of stomach illness and rheumatism due to the time he served in the military. He was receiving $8 per month from the government’s disability pension. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[scarletlich]

tldr: Yes and no, Confucius and Confucianism was and still is hugely influential in Chinese culture and intellectual tradition and was the dominant "canonized" intellectual tradition for centuries or millennia depending on how you count it. So there are many sayings that do not come from Confucius, obviously, but there are a lot that did and those tend to be widely known.

Long post incoming with a brief overview of Confucianism and its history in China based on how I learned it, anyone who actually studies this is welcome to add on I am just an engineering student who likes Chinese history and culture and learns it on the side.

During the Spring and Autumn period (770 BCE to 221 BCE) China was split between warring states, and the entire country was in constant turmoil. It was also a time rich in philosophy, with many different intellectual traditions being born (诸子百家) most of which had different perspectives on how to end the conflict and reunite the nation. (Examples: Confucianism 儒家, specifically of the Kong-Meng Confucius and Mencius variety although there were others like 荀子 Xunzi who weren't canonized, Legalism 法家, Moism 墨家, and Daoism 道家 the philosophy, not the religion that spun out of it) It can't really be said that Confucianism "won" this early because the Qin Dynasty that reunited China in 221 BCE was actually very legalist heavy. The succeeding dynasty, the Han Dynasty, was when the term 五经 Five Classics, referring to the texts 诗经 Book of Poetry，尚书 Book of Documents，礼记 Book of Rites，周易 Book of Changes，春秋 Spring and Autumn Annals, was coined. These are an important part of the later Confucian classics that were essential components of the imperial exams (ever since the Sui Dynasty in the late 500s China has used an exam system to select bureaucrats to serve in government).

In later centuries Buddhism entered the landscape and Daoism the religion was born (during another period of division Northern/Southern Wei was when they took hold and reached a peak during the height of the Tang Dynasty in the early 700s 开元盛世). Early to mid Tang was a very cosmopolitan society but after the An Lushan Rebellion that constituted a major blow and caused the Tang to start going downhill, xenophobic and reactionary sentiment began to arise. A famous writing from this time is Han Yu 韩愈, an official of the later Tang, who wrote 《原道: Original Path》 in which he criticized Buddhism and Daoism, and declared that society should return to the original path, the "native" intellectual tradition of Confucianism from the past. This didn't really take hold during his lifetime, but later thinkers built greatly upon his work.

Specifically, during the Song a new intellectual movement began known as 程朱理学 or Neo-Confucianism in English, and the most important figure of this was Zhu Xi 朱子（朱熹）who wrote extensive annotations and interpretations for all of the Five Classics, and the Four Books 四书 which were officially defined as Confucian classics that all scholars must learn at this time. The four books are 大学 Great Learning, 中庸 Doctrine of the Mean, 论语 The Analects (compilation of speeches by Confucius to his students), and 孟子 Mencius (compilation of conversations between Mencius and various rulers of his time). In the Yuan Dynasty, Neo-Confucianism was made the official state philosophy and Zhu Xi's interpretations of the classics were made the correct answers for the imperial exams, which lasted through the Qing Dynasty until the abolishment of the imperial exams near the end of the dynasty. The imperial exams, especially the early to mid stages not the palace exam, consisted of being presented with quotes from the classics, and exam-takers would have to make connections between the quotes provided and write an essay demonstrating both that they understood the origins of the quotes, and how the philosophy behind the quote (as interpreted by Zhu Xi) could be used towards governance of the nation.

Hence for many centuries, every single educated scholar in China had essentially fully memorized the Confucian classics, of which Confucius and Mencius's attributed quotes were a core component. (At least they would have the four books fully memorized, and one specific one of the five classics which was the one they studied.) Even nowadays the most famous quotes from these texts are well known among Chinese as they are part of primary school curriculum. I was born and raised in the US but I still learned some of these quotes as a child, and non-Chinese friends who take Chinese often learn them in their higher level classes.

Nowadays we recognize a lot of the negative influences that Confucianism, especially the Neo-Confucian currents of the late empire, had, but personally I do think that many Chinese still believe that Confucianism is an important part of our culture and history, and we must 取其精华，去其糟粕 take the best parts and remove the negative aspects. The cultural belief in education as a way to improve oneself and change ones status and path in life is something that we see in writings from millennia ago, and is still a core component of Chinese culture today, for instance.

OP: In diplomatic and business situations, when we interpreters translate the chinese meaning to non-chinese-speaking guests, we are most terrified of hearing the chinese side say “There is an old Chinese saying ……”

Cnetizens comment: Yes endless funny shit

[wikiuntamed]

On this day in Wikipedia: Sunday, 3rd March

Welcome, velkomin, willkommen, fáilte 🤗 What does @Wikipedia say about 3rd March through the years 🏛️📜🗓️?

3rd March 2023 🗓️ : Death - Kenzaburō Ōe Kenzaburō Ōe, Japanese novelist, 1994 Nobel Prize laureate in Literature (b. 1935) "Kenzaburō Ōe (大江 健三郎, Ōe Kenzaburō, 31 January 1935 – 3 March 2023) was a Japanese writer and a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature. His novels, short stories and essays, strongly influenced by French and American literature and literary theory, deal with political, social and..."

Image licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0? by Thesupermat

3rd March 2019 🗓️ : Death - Peter Hurford Peter Hurford OBE, British organist and composer (b. 1930) "Peter John Hurford OBE (22 November 1930 – 3 March 2019) was a British organist and composer...."

3rd March 2014 🗓️ : Death - William Pogue William R. Pogue, American colonel, pilot, and astronaut (b. 1930) "William Reid "Bill" Pogue (January 23, 1930 – March 3, 2014) was an American astronaut and pilot who served in the United States Air Force (USAF) as a fighter pilot and test pilot, and reached the rank of colonel. He was also a teacher, public speaker and author. Born and educated in Oklahoma, Pogue..."

Image by NASA

3rd March 1974 🗓️ : Event - Turkish Airlines Flight 981 Turkish Airlines Flight 981 crashes at Ermenonville near Paris, France killing all 346 aboard. "Turkish Airlines Flight 981 (TK981/THY981) was a scheduled flight from Istanbul Yeşilköy Airport to London Heathrow Airport, with an intermediate stop at Orly Airport in Paris. On 3 March 1974, the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 operating the flight crashed into the Ermenonville Forest, (23.46 mi) (37.76..."

Image licensed under GFDL 1.2? by

Steve Fitzgerald

3rd March 1924 🗓️ : Event - Ottoman Caliphate The Ottoman Caliphate, the world's last widely recognized caliphate, was abolished. "The caliphate of the Ottoman Empire (Ottoman Turkish: خلافت مقامى, romanized: hilâfet makamı, lit. 'office of the caliphate') was the claim of the heads of the Turkish Ottoman dynasty to be the caliphs of Islam in the late medieval and early modern era. During the period of Ottoman expansion,..."

Image by TRAJAN 117

3rd March 1820 🗓️ : Event - United States Congress The U.S. Congress passed the Missouri Compromise, which balanced the admission of Missouri as a slave state with that of Maine as a free state. "The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Senators and representatives are chosen through..."

Image by Ipankonin

3rd March 🗓️ : Holiday - Christian feast day: Winwaloe "Winwaloe (Breton: Gwenole; French: Guénolé; Latin: Winwallus or Winwalœus; c. 460 – 3 March 532) was the founder and first abbot of Landévennec Abbey (literally "Lann of Venec"), also known as the Monastery of Winwaloe. It was just south of Brest in Brittany, now part of France. ..."

Image by Abgrall Jean-Marie (1846-1926)

[stackumbrellayamini]

Maharana Pratap : The Story of India’s Bravest Son

Maharana Pratap : The Story of India’s Bravest Son

Rajputana history is filled with so much fearlessness and bravery, making it fascinating to study. Many fierce and holy warriors like Bappa Rawal, Rana Sangha, and Rana Hamir were born in the land of Mewar and were given the title ‘Rana’ but there was one holiest of the holy king who was bestowed with the title of ‘Maharana’.

And, that valiant, valorous, and chivalrous king was Pratap Singh or Rana Pratap. A renowned history professor in the book ‘Maharana Pratap’ has written a spirited account of Pratap Singh in which he glorified the undaunted king.

He said, “if courage was the distinguishing badge of the Rajputs, Pratap had more than his share of it; if the unflinching resolution and indomitable will ever be made a hero of a man, Pratap was one. If ever a man fought against fearful odds and pulled through them, it was he.” 

Early Life and Accession to Throne

The Greatest King of Mewar Maharana Pratap was born on May 9, 1540, in Kumbhalgarh Fort of Rajasthan. He was the son of Rana Udai Singh and Rani Jeevant Kanwar. Husband of twenty-five royal consorts, Rana Udai Singh was the father of 25 legitimate sons.

Maharana Pratap was the eldest among twenty-five sons. Maharana Pratap was said to be 7 feet 5 inches tall, and weighing more than 110 kilograms. Udai Singh willed that Jagmal, his second son, from his favorite wife should succeed him. Jagmal was not known to possess any overwhelming merits. Udai Singh’s death had to be followed immediately by his successor.

The decision of Rana Udai Singh to allow Jagmal to succeed him came as a thunderbolt to the chiefs of the Mewar. Some of the chiefs resented it as an insult as they were not consulted. The followers of Mewar’s chief were with Maharana Pratap.

Maharana Pratap’s maternal uncle, Rao Akhai, Raja of Jhalor took the lead and after consulting Rawat Kishan Daas, Rawat Sangha, and Raja Ram Parshad, the deposed ruler of Gwalior made Jagmat vacate his royal seat.

Jagmal had not dared to disobey all these irreversible demands. The throne was now vacant and Pratap was proclaimed Rana. The chiefs paid in their customary ‘nasrana’ and the royal court resounded with cries of ‘Pratap Ro Jai’.

The accession to the throne of Mewar was not a bed of roses for Maharana Pratap. At that time, it was hard and stern responsibility upon the shoulders of Pratap.

Also Read : Contribution Made by Ancient Indian to Science and Technology You Never Knew !

The Trial

At that time Akbar became the Emperor of India. For Akbar, the problem of governing India was twofold:

First, the question of conquering the larger part of India and consolidating those conquests

Second, the method of governing India

Though, Akbar soon found the solution. He abolished the humiliating distinctions between his Hindu and Mohammedan subjects. His system of Mansabdars included Hindus also. Raja Todar Mal was one of the nine ratnas.

Raja Bhagwan Dass, Raja Man Singh, and Raja Ratan Singh of Bikaner were Akbar’s famous Generals. By offering lenient terms to the conquered and by allowing the Rajputs to retain their territories as fiefs from the Imperial government and by other generous measures, Akbar made it easier for the opponents to submit to him. But Akbar’s desire to expand imperialism came in a clash with Pratap’s firm decision not to submit before the Emporer. Maharana Pratap’s accession to the throne gave a tough challenge to Akbar’s expansionist ambitions. By 1572, Akbar had conquered a large part of India.

The defeat of Sikandar Shah had given him Punjab alone.  

The battle of Panipat in 1556 put the Doab at his disposal.

Mewat and Alwar fell in 1557.

Jammu was also conquered and occupied in 1558.

Raja Ram Shah of Gwalior was dispossessed in 1559.

The first to submit to the Emperor was Raja Bhar Mal of Amber. In 1562 Raja Bhar Mal married his daughter, Jodha to Akbar. Jodha was the mother of Salim.In November 1570, Rao Chander Sen of Jodhpur, Rao Kalyan Mal of Bikaner, and Rao Udai Singh Rathor confirmed their submission by matrimonial alliances with Akbar. Of the Rajput rulers, the Rathors of Jodhpur and Bikaner, the Bhatis of Jesalmer, the Kachhwahas of Jaipur, the Deoras of Sarohi, the Hadas of Bundi, the Sisodias of Mewar had all been made the presence of the Great Ruler on the throne of Delhi.All these states except, Mewar, Bundi, and Sarohi confirmed their submission to the Emporer by matrimonial alliances. Rao Chander Sen of Jodhpur and Rao Surtan of Sarohi who were against Akbar at that time were dwindled down by the Imperial forces.

The Battle of HaldiGhati

On 18 June 1576, the Historic Battle of Haldighati was fought between Maharana Pratap and Akbar forces. Akbar’s army led by Man Singh was 2,00,000 soldiers while Pratap’s army was only 22,000 soldiers.

The presence of Maharana Pratap was a great encouragement to his soldiers and his heroic acts on that day were their inspiration. Maharana Pratap and his soldiers concentrated all their energies on the battle. They began to ply their swords and were using their spears as well.

Chetak’s Profound Loyalty

Maharana Pratap with his sword and spears had made a glorious day of it. One thing in the entire battle that had so much heart was when Rana Pratap’s horse Chetak jumped on the head of the elephant, mounted by Man Singh, and Pratap delivered his full blow.

However, Man Singh managed to save himself but his Mahaut (elephant) fell down dead. The small spear in the long trunk of the Mahuat pierced one foot of the Chetak.

The advantage of a number made the Mughals decidedly at a better stand. Maharana Pratap stood surrounded by all sides and was in no small danger. Pratap cut his way through and managed to leave the battlefield safely.

Chetak was also tired out and was all bruised. A 28 feet-long-running stream came in the way and Chetak crossed it over. After some time, Chetak fell down dead at his feet. This made Pratap weep like a young child.

Later, A beautiful garden was constructed by him in memory of Chetak.

The Death of Maharana Pratap

Maharana Pratap took his last breath on 29th January 1597 at the age of 56. He died of hunting after being hit by the lion on his chest due to which he was badly hurt and the wound inside his chest increased which gradually deteriorated his health. Men have shrunk back from the very thought of adversity; Maharana Pratap, a Prince among men, invited it. Comfort and luxury have been accepted by thousands of this world’s heroes, but Pratap scorned them when they had to be bought at the cost of his independence.

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