Socialism ad nauseam ad hominem

It's been a few months, so we were certainly due for more Mike Jones. Even without reading it, you know what you're going to get: a history lesson, some pro-Christian cheerleading, and a rant against socialism. This is EVERY FUCKING LETTER he writes.

As our Founding Fathers tried to write a constitution, disagreements were so strong that the convention almost broke up. Members took a break and met to pray for God’s guidance. When they came back, the difference was extraordinary, and they designed a government that acknowledged the Bible’s revelation that man’s basic nature was not good but was self-centered.

I guess I should have put history lesson in scare quotes, because nothing he ever relates is actual history. So, the history of the formation of the Constitution is long and complex, with various political leaders proposing their own ideas for how the government of the new nation should look. But when you read the history, you never find some time where people literally "met to pray for God's guidance" at all. Indeed, as noted, "With the oratory degenerating into threats and accusations, Benjamin Franklin appealed for daily prayers... Franklin's appeal for prayers was never fulfilled; the convention, as Hugh Williamson noted, had no funds to pay a preacher."

There is no record of some sort of revelation moment where everyone just decided to get along thanks to prayer. Unless, perhaps, counting slaves as 3/5ths of a person was part of God's plan? I don't know.

What we do know is that Jones' theology is pretty clear that humans are not inherently good, but are self-centered. He trashed Anne Frank for thinking otherwise, after all, and says so here, too. It's odd that a man who so hates government and regulation in favor of free markets also admits that humans are just selfish assholes. Without regulations, a truly free market allows people to engaged in that selfishness and pursue riches at the expense of everyone else-- polluting, swindling, cheating, and harming others to get to the top. It's an odd set of beliefs to hold onto.

Anyhow...

They therefore inserted 'checks and balances' so none of the three branches could gain control of the people. By limiting the power of government, the Founders provided citizens with freedoms that 95 percent of the world’s peoples had never known.

Odd phrasing-- "so none of the three branches could gain control of the people." Mike Jones truly has a warped sense of what "governance" is. And where is this "95%" thing from? I would bet a good sum of money that he just made it up.

In 1831, French historian Alexis de Tocqueville visited the United States and was so impressed with the unity and prosperity of the young country that he began researching for the causes. He immediately noticed two: The people fervently practiced Christianity and they had tremendous freedoms. The government had kept itself out of the affairs of the people except for a few constitutionally defined areas.

This is a pretty shitty summary of de Tocqueville's assessment. Yes, he saw a lot of value in the whole "Puritan" thing, but he also saw that its strength was that it was separated from government. Thus, Jones' whole dream of a giant Christian Theocracy is NOT what de Tocqueville had in mind-- he sort of hated the whole connection of (Catholic) church and state in France. And let's be clear it's 1831. It's not like the government could really do much to insert itself into the affairs of people. Record-keeping was difficult and thus kept to a minimum by nature. The notion that workers might need protections hadn't emerged yet (we know that Jones prefers Sam Seller to Wally Worker), and things like cars, electricity, airplanes, efficacious medicine, indoor plumbing, and the like weren't a regular part of the American experience. So what's there to regular in 1831? Weights and measures, I guess. Currency? Maybe. It's pretty weak to dream about the good ol' days of 1831 and imagine the world is anywhere near the same almost 200 years later.

America continued to increase in prosperity until the 1930s when the economically naive Franklin Roosevelt tried Socialism, which turned a temporary recession into the Great Depression. Who are the culprits today?

HAHAHAHAHA! This has to be the most revisionist history piece of shit Mike Jones has ever written-- and that's saying something!! Jones is clearly following the Friedman "monetarist" school of thought here, even though there are serious arguments against it. To state so frankly a statement that is questionable at best and outright false at worst is totally irresponsible. But that's par for the course with the Oklahoman. And worse still is that Roosevelt's ideas of "Socialism" have nothing to do with the what the Milton Friedman crowd say spurred on the Great Depression.

And, for the record, the Keynesian crowd was right and Roosevelt's biggest problem was not spending enough on public works programs. So Mike Jones and suck it.

Which takes us to his final, very predictable point:

This 1944 quote from Socialist Norman Thomas is pretty plain. "The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of 'liberalism' they will adopt every fragment … I no longer need to run as a presidential candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democrat Party has adopted our platform."

HAHAHA! So, use a made-up quote, attribute it to a "socialist" and try to paint the Democratic Party as socialists. How totally irresponsible! And how totally Oklahoman! What a shitty newspaper we have.