The Iron Rod Podcast

Joseph and Isaac are utterly disappointed

In which Joseph and Isic describe and discuss the unprecedented, brutal attack by the Hamas terrorist organization against Israeli civilians and citizens of at least 7 other nations.

Dedication: This episode is dedicated to the Memory of Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. A Sovereign Lady of the United Kingdom and of the British Commonwealth, a worthy successor to her royal forefathers and a great servant of country, her free people and their laws.   We are all familiar with the Fall of the Roman Republic by the hands of Caesar in 49 BC. But few people are aware of an earlier attempt to overthrow the Republic in 62 BC, known as the Catiline Plot.  In this episode we will observe the career of Marcus Tulius Cicero and how he saved the late Roman Republic and secured a modicum of Liberty in the Empire.  Art: Cicero denounces Catilina, Caesar Maccari, 1889, Fresco. Out of Frame: Catilina sitting isolated.   

To most Americans he is remembered as the Great Liberator who had wiped away the blot of Slavery from America's "Pure Republican Robe". Nevertheless, many in his own time decried his actions during the Civil War as tyrannical. Today we are honored to discuss emergencies, the Fighting Democracy, Habeas Corpus and the relative merits of Kentucky and Virginia with Mr. Jeffrey Tyler Syck of the University of Virginia.  Episode Art: "Extremes Meet" a Cartoon comparing Lincoln and Czar Alexander II of Russia, claiming both are autocrats. British "Punch" Magazine, Oct. 24th, 1863

Welcome to the SECOND season! This episode one to deal with current issues, this week: Cults of Personality and Fact Based Debate, the Two Tyrants of Asia and the Future of Liberty in a turbulent world, and more. This episode is dedicated to the memory of Premier Shinzo Abe, a true Japanese Patriot and a stalwart friend of the United States of America. Our new theme is "Fair Thee Well Ye Sweathearts" a Revolutionary War song calling for the common people yo sacrifice their comfort and leisure in the cause of Liberty and Love. It can be found in the Smithsonian's collection of Folkways Recording here: https://folkways.si.edu/the-committee-of-correspondence/fare-thee-well-ye-sweethearts/historical-song/music/track/smithsonian

Aelfred, Charlemagne and the Budding Medieval State

Prof. Julian Boyd's 1950 Reconstruction of Thomas Jefferson's Original Rough Draft of the Declaration of Independence.

At the start of this episode, we return to the Bronze Age State and see how it was broken on the back of recalcitrant slaves worshipping a mysterious Deity, Lord of High and low places, who is revealed in fog, darkness and who wished to be honored in hard to reach places.  We would see how these people have clung to their God and how they withstood all the states and tyrants of the world with a simple idea: That their Liberty was not their own to give away.  Corrections: Thomas Hobbes (not Sowell) said life is nasty Briutish and short. Ahab lived approximately 100 years not 200 after Solomon. Art: The year of Jubilee. Henry le Jeune. C. 1909

Continuing our theme from the last episode, Isaac and Joseph attempts to crack a wider window into the heart of what the Ancient Germanics meant to the Imperial civilization they conquered and what they still mean to us. We would explore the complexity of the Germanic World of late Antiquity and the early Dark Ages.

The Germans enter history just as the Roman Republic starts its decline. They come to dominance by destorying the Westeren Empire, their descendants would, centuries later, deal the death blow to the Easteren Empire. In this episode we will see why these people terrified the Mediterranean peoples and their empire and may be responsible to many of the institutions we deem as essential to modern Liberty. Art: An Anglo-Saxon depiction of a Royal Wittangemot, or a Council of the Wits of the Realm, from the Anglo-Saxon Hexateauch, 11th Century.

In the second installment of the Roots of Liberty miniseries, Joseph and Isaac explore how the Greeks invented the concept of measurable human excellence. Art: Nike, goddess of victory, crowns the winner of a boxing match. Panathenaic prize amphora with lid (detail), 363–362 B.C., attributed to the Painter of the Wedding Procession. Terracotta, 35 1/4 in. high. The J. Paul Getty Museum, 93.AE.55. THIS EPISODE IS DEDICATED TO THE BRAVE MEN AND WOMEN DEFENDING LIBERTY EVRRYWHERE. TO THE FREE PEOPLE OF UKRAINE, GLORY IN LIBERTY. TO TYRANTS, ONLY THE GRAVE.

Around the late Fourth and early Third millennium BC a new invention, the Bronze Age State, was created simultaneously in Egypt, Mesopotamia, China and the Aegean Sea. These social, political and economic mammoths forever changed the life of Mankind.  Join us in this first episode of our miniseries "The Roots of Liberty - The Three Civilizations that Unshackled Man" as we observe the birthplace Bronze Age State - Mesopotamia. (Art: Ishtar, goddess of warfare and love, an Akkadian seal. Date and artist unknown)

Introduction to our newest miniseries- The Roots of Liberty

After discussing the modern models for Tyranny, Joseph and Isaac go back to the myths that shaped the Western concepts of Liberty and Tyranny as opposed to each other, how order can be maintained and why the West is the most unsafe place to practice politics in. (Art: Fall of the Titans, Cornellis van Haarlem, Haarlem, Netherlands, 1580)

He has the accent, he has the name, he has the style and even the dates. There is just one problem- he isn't his uncle. In this episode Joseph and Isaac would discuss the reign of Napoleon III, the first truly modern dictator and the one that all 20th century tyrants imitated, even in their delusion that it is the other Bonaparte that they are emulating. (Image: Paul Delaroche, Est-elle bien morte?, Le Charivari 1851). CORRECTIONS: Napoleon III couldn't, according to the Constitution of the 2nd Republic stand for re-election, his coup came after he failed to secure a Constitutional amendment that would allow him to do just that. The transportation of Napoleon I's remains to Paris and the failed coup in Boulogne took place in 1840. The battle where Napoleon, as enshrined by myth, directed his cannon to blow up the icy ponds so as to cause the retreating Russian troops to drown was Austerlitz, not Friedland.

What is the mindset that leads someone to try and topple the French Government with nothing but some drunk refugees, a flag and a well-trained vulture?! Find out in the next installment of The Iron Rod!!

Isaac and Joseph, dismantle and re-mantle Liberty, Tyranny and their representation in Art and Literature. Mort aux tyrants!

In which Joseph and Isaac debate a certain sort-of-French, sort-of-short, sort-of-tyrant and the Revolution that bred him. Was he a tyrant? and are guillotines pointless? What are the dangers of Public Safety? (Art: Napoleon Crossing the Alps, Paul Delaroch, 1850). CORRECTION of a significant chronological misrepresentation. After Napoleon's invasion of Spain, he was forced to fight the 5th coalition which culminated in his victory over the Austrians at Wagram in 1809. It was mistakenly said that he fought the Ulm and Austerlitz battles, which was in fact earlier, in 1805, during the events of the third coalition.

In which Isaac and Joseph discuss tyranny, thuggery and everything in between the Brown Bess musket and the 1964 film Zulu.