Last month I lambasted the Moore Method of math teaching, after seeing that my old calc teacher was famous for advocating it. The Moore Method was just a stricter version of normal American math teaching, which starts and ends with axioms and theorems.
Today somebody is praising the 1776 gang for using strict Euclidean thinking in the Constitution. In politics as in math, Euclid is a SIN, not a VIRTUE.
“We hold these truths” lays out an axiom, and the rest supposedly “proves” the axiom. Logic by itself can “prove” anything. Logic can “build” a structure that does nothing. Non-euclidean geometries are also logical. Euclid’s diagrams are somewhat helpful for students because he wasn’t starting from raw imagination. He was formalizing the rules already established by surveyors and stonemasons. Surveyors and masons didn’t need Euclid. They already knew that their methods and math worked because maps and buildings worked. American math teachers ignore the underlying reality and teach only the theorems.
When you check the constitution’s axioms against reality, every one of them is DEMONSTRABLY FALSE.
Axiom 1: People are equal. This was known to be false then, and 250 years of biology has proved it infinitely false. Even identical twins start out with different settings of their epigenes.
Axiom 2: God endowed us with “rights”. We can’t email God, but we can ask the various scriptures and documents written about God, or inspired by God. Those documents are generally described as covenants or contracts between God and believers. You won’t find anything REMOTELY RESEMBLING RIGHTS in any of those contracts. God lays out our DUTIES and OBLIGATIONS, and says nothing at all about rights.
Both of the axioms are nonsense, so the rest of the constitution is nonsense.
= = = = =
If we approach 1776 from a business or industrial perspective we might get a better result. What was the problem this group of rich men wanted to solve? They laid out their grievances in the latter part of the declaration. Essentially this group was tired of paying taxes to the British government and wanted to be in charge. That’s all. They ran a revolution to gain power for themselves and avoid paying for the general welfare. They weren’t trying to solve problems for the mob.
Gouvernour Morris saw it clearly. Here’s part of a letter he wrote to William Penn.
= = = = = START MORRIS:
It is the interest of all men, therefore, to seek for reunion with the parent state. A safe compact seems in my poor opinion to be now tendered.
Internal taxation to be left with ourselves. The right of regulating trade to be vested in Britain, where alone is found the power of protecting it. I trust you will agree with me, that this is the only possible mode of union.
Men by nature are free as the air. When they enter into society, there is, there must be, an implied compact (for there never yet was an express one) that a part of this freedom shall be given up for the security of the remainder.
But what part? The answer is plain. The least possible, considering the circumstances of the society, which constitute what may be called its political necessity. And what does this political necessity require in the present instance?
Not that Britain should lay imposts upon us for the support of government, nor for its defence. Not that she should regulate our internal police. These things affect us only. She can have no right to interfere.
To these things we ourselves are competent. But can it be said, that we are competent to the regulating of trade? The position is absurd, for this affects every part of the British Empire, every part of the habitable earth. If Great Britain, if Ireland, if America, if all of them, are to make laws of trade, there must be a collision of these different authorities, and then who is to decide? This is the greatest of all great absurdities.
Political necessity therefore requires, that this power should be placed in the hands of one part of the empire. Which part of the empire protects trade? Which part of the empire receives immense sums to guard the rest? And what danger is in the trust? Some men object, that England will draw all the profits of our trade into her coffers. All that she can, undoubtedly.
= = = = = END MORRIS.
He didn’t think tax evasion was a good reason to run a violent revolution. Time has proved him right. Ever since then (except from 1933 to 1945) we have been ruled by tax evaders who accumulate vast wealth by giving peasants the “right” to starve, and reserving for themselves the “right” to steal.
Polistra's Mill 