Misc

Study claims Jamestown colonists resorted to cannibalism to survive.

Maybe in response to Spielberg's lying Lincoln movie, somebody has produced a movie about the persecuted Copperhead northern peace movement during the Civil War.

In another expose on the maligned Middle Ages, author shows private property rights go back to the Germanic tribes even before the fall of the Roman Empire.

"This freehold of property was an important feature throughout the Middle Ages, first coming up against resistance in England in the time of William the Conqueror in the eleventh century, when he claimed all land as his own, with the nobles as his tenants."

It's interesting that we're taught that the English exported property rights and the rule of law all over the world, but it seems the reality was English kings were the perverters of that law.

"The armies of Rome as well as those of the tribes consisted fundamentally of foot soldiers. This came to an end when the tribes were faced with enemy horsemen from the Far East.

A horse cannot be equipped or a horseman armed without money, and the men destined to serve in the king’s host were expected to possess a certain fortune…. One of the most lasting results of this revolution in the art of war was that whilst compulsory military service was not abolished, it no longer applied to everyone…. No longer were all free men soldiers, but only the richest of them….

These horsemen, these new soldiers, were gradually to turn into the nobility."

That makes a lot of sense.

"I have learned that the concept of “ownership” and “property” can mean different things in different times and places. The characteristic of being able to pass along property to heirs certainly is fundamental to the concept of “own.”"

I had never thought of that aspect of the Democrats' death tax.

"Via a firm belief in private property and the role of the Church in a more voluntary form of organization, the roots of the Middle Ages were formed. The so-called apathy of the Merovingians was, in fact, the victory of a decentralized, voluntary society."

Nice.