Midnight History Thieves

Notice how all of the jurisdictions removing Confederate statues are doing this in the middle of the night, when on one is around to protest?

Yet they are so sure of themselves with their announcement the next day about removing the “hurtful” statue. (Hey, removing them is ‘hurtful’ to me but I guess I don’t count.)

Sometimes they act like the statue magically materialized in the public square or it’s three-dimensinal graffiti. No one put it there. No one ever had any reason to put it there, beyond hatefulness of course.

Yeah, those people “back then,” put it there. They were evil and crazy people. They only hated. Luckily, we’ve progressed so much since then.

So much so that we can simply erase that bad history. Just like it never happened, except in so far as it can be used guilt Americans (especially white males and Southerners) and condemn America.

That’s part of the left’s plan — to detach people from their traditions and history. By doing that, people become rootless, easily manipulated. Deep down most people want and need some kind of traditions and history to guide them — either through what to do or what not to do (Santayana).

Eliminate the past or rewrite it to your content and the present is far more controllable by those in charge. Heads can be filled with propaganda and mush while entertained with new traditions such as Earth Day, MLK Day (no store sales, please), Giving Tuesday and Kwanzaa.

Best Legs – Journalism-wise That Is

When I first heard about the mess down in Charlottesville, I said to myself, I bet this story has better legs than the attempted mass murder of Republican politicians and their staffers several weeks ago.

So far doesn’t look like I’ll lose my money.

A few thoughts…

Funny how quickly this story was labeled “terrorism” (8.6 seconds by my watch) but a guy shooting people or wielding a knife, yelling “Allahu akbar!” somehow must require months of deep investigation before it can be considered “terrorism.” And in the end it still might be dismissed as “workplace” violence. (How often do you see crimes categorized by the local rather than the nature of the act? Only when it suits lefties…)

It seems that the Charlottesville town government tried to prevent the “Alt-Right” from having their protest but may have approved the counterprotest. This sounds strange to normal people – a counterprotest without the protest it is countering – but in the liberal mind it makes perfect sense. It’s a warped form of virtue signaling. Liberals are often against things that don’t exist… but a great effort needs to be mustered to stamp them out!

Interestingly we’re now hearing that the local and state authorities, including our execrable governor former Clinton bagman Terry McAwful, were ordered to stay put as the bused in professional protesters, anarchists and the fascist “Anti-Fa” movement, and a few local provocateurs, made their move to create a story about violent right-wingers.

And, to some extent, that’s how the story has been played: Violent right-wingers attacking harmless counterprotesters though none of the videos posted so far show anything but lefties instigating conflict with the dimwitted “Alt-Right” meatheads.

“Alt-Right” is heard more about on the left than the “right.”

Lessee, it took about 20 minutes (by my watch) before the Dept. of Justice decided it needed to get a piece of the action and investigate “Civil Rights Violations.” By the way they were describing, they weren’t referring to the civil rights of the original protesters, whose rights were slightly violated, but rather those of the counterprotesters. I guess it is like someone demanding satisfaction after breaking their hand while breaking the jaw of someone else with their fist.

And that brings us to the “car attack,” a newly minted phrase from the MSM. So a knucklehead may have run someone over on purpose. Okee-doke, try him and let’s move on. We don’t need some kind of national spectacle where the left does nothing but beat its moral breast and a few Republicans try to hop on-board and share some of the limelight.

Martin Cothran makes some excellent observations in “Why Liberals Need David Duke.”

Cothran is especially pointed on the bizarre Cultural Revolution Theatre of liberal complaints that Trump didn’t tweet fast enough nor voice sufficient condemnation of the original protesters for exercising their rights.

The watching Republicans scurry to try to get on the right side of the cameras was embarrassing.

I don’t remember anyone getting the same treatment when Republicans were shot.

You do remember that story, don’t you? You better remember it since the MSM has already forgotten it and won’t remind anyone of that embarrassing incident…

One final note – history.

This whole frewfraw started over the proposed removal of a Robert E. Lee statue that’s been in a Charlottesville park for, well, seemingly forever.

It’s part of the left’s campaign to expunge or rewrite parts of history of which it disapproves of. To the left history is a tool, rather a club, to be used to get its way, support its climb to totalitarian power.

To most everyone else history is agnostic. It is what it is, but not the left. For them it has to politicized, as everything else is politicized for deployment in service of its mission.

Recently, also in Virginia, practically down the street from me, Jeb Stuart High School was suddenly renamed by the school board. Well, not actually renamed yet, the board didn’t have another name handy. This happened after some liberals squawked, one complaining that her property values were plummeting were brought down by the name (this in an area that has seen asset appreciation drive homes to some of the highest in the United States). The board turned on a dime though the increasingly liberal area still had enough old-timers to keep the issue evenly divided.

No surprise that the board is packed with professional educational and community types, few of whom have ever been employed in the private sector, and those that have been are inevitably lawyers, activists or contractors/consultants to the federal government.

They are the creatures of the ever-expanding swamp that will consume us all.

The question becomes, under the coming liberal dictatorship, will it be possible to teach any history at all. Or will their be spots where no-longer-existing people and historical characters, erased from history, exist as phantoms that heroic folks battle and overcome.

In such a time will copies of Panzer General be hunted down? In such war sims will it any longer be possible to play as Confederates, Germans, Japanese or even, Mongolians, Romans or Crusaders? Any grouping disfavored by the cultural commissars?

History Is Written By…

The famous saying of the smug, especially liberal college types, is that history is written by the victors.

<sarc>That explains all those books written by various conquering barbarians, Mongols, et al. And that explains why we have all those modern history books cataloguing the various grievances of allegedly historically oppressed and ignored minorities.</sarc>

The truth is that history is written by those who can write (or, these days, get hired to teach and/or snag a book contract).

Must Read: How We Got to Today

One of the most important moves in reclaiming America from those who wish it harm is to understand exactly what the left is doing and how they are doing it.

I don’t often tag things as “Must Reads” but here’s one at American Thinker by Scott S. Powell, “The Quiet Revolution: How the Left Took Over the Democratic Party.”

It’s an accessible article, great for the reader that might not instantly recognize names like “Frankfurt School,” “Herbert Marcuse,” “Antonio Gramsci” or “Saul Alinsky,” but really should. Articles of this caliber usually are difficult reads and make/keep things far more complicated than they need be. Highly recommended.

A great takeaway is his quick summation of Edward Gibbon from “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”: “Gibbon described six attributes that Rome embodied at its end: first, an overwhelming love of show and luxury; second, a widening gap between the rich and the poor; third, an obsession with sports and a freakishness in the arts, masquerading as creativity and originality; fourth, a decline in morals, increase in divorce and decline in the institution of the family; fifth, economic deterioration resulting from debasement of the currency, inflation, excessive taxation, and overregulation; and sixth, an increased desire by the citizenry to live off the state.”

Sound disturbingly like America today?

I recently read Philip Freeman’s “Julius Caesar.” It’s remarkable how the late Roman republic seemed to lose its ability to govern itself, allowing for the rise of of the emperors. Many of the symptoms Freeman describes look familiar to things that happen today, often, though not exclusively, at the behest of liberals.

Elizabeth’s Women Followup

I’ve finished “Elizabeth’s Women” by Tracy Borman. Very enjoyable. It’s not a substitute for a solid Elizabeth I biography but it could be considered required supplemental material for anyone wanting to know more about Elizabeth and her times. It delves into an area not often covered in traditional biographies or standard Elizabethan histories.

Just one note, and most Elizabeth books and movies, carry the same feminist whine that Elizabeth was pressured to marry because she was a woman. This is simply untrue. A king would have been under similar pressure to marry as quickly as possible to produce an heir. How many bachelor kings can you name?

The one main suggestion I’d make is to add a genealogical table. Much of the book covers Elizabeth’s prospective rivals or threats to her crown but without being able to track them back, it’s hard to remember (or understand) why the Grey sisters, the Seymours, Stuarts, et al, received so much attention.

Riddle Me This

Riddle me this — if, according to Lincoln, et al, the Confederate states never seceded but were just rebelling against the central government, then why did they have to apply for readmission to the union after the war? If you never leave, how can you be readmitted? Why would you need readmission?

Oh, and for the public school- and elite school-educated folks: Tennessee was readmitted in 1866 (sorry, Andrew Glass at Politico, Arkansas wasn’t the first); Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina and South Carolina in 1868 (not all the same day but mostly in the summer); and Georgia, Mississippi, Texas and Virginia followed in 1870 (there’s some confusion as to which days they were let back in). Georgia was actually readmitted in 1868 or 1869 but kicked back out in 1869 before finally being allowed to stay in 1870.

You know, self-righteous, supersmart SJWs  and others (wearing your Che Guevara t-shirts), sometimes history can be a bit more complicated than it appears in a PSA, NPR story or on a recyclable paper coffee cup.

Paging Carl Clausewitz…

I really wish someone would track down historian Michael Beschloss and ask him whether he sticks by his c.2008 claim that Barack Obama was probably the smartest president evuh!

If this tidbit at Hot Air is not taken out of context, this has to be the dumbest, most soporific, most infantile thing a sitting president has ever publicly uttered – “Ideologies are not defeated with guns, they are defeated by better ideas.”

A mildly intelligent fourth or fifth grader could poke so many holes in that one. Any serious reader of history could possibly laugh so hard they might rupture something.

Oh, and King Barry had the nerve to utter that specious silliness at a Pentagon press conference, in front of actual soldiers.

Of course, Dear Leader would probably respond after he had been brutally mocked and even late night comics began to make fun of him, with, “Well, one of those better ideas would be to have a better army! So there! I’m right! Nah-nah!”

A Lost Thought (Because We Constantly Need Reminding)

“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”

Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775

Tracy Borman’s “Elizabeth’s Women”

I’m currently reading Tracy Borman’s “Elizabeth’s Women,” chronicling Queen Elizabeth I and the women around her throughout her life. Great stuff. Yes, the endless references to poor, oppressed women not properly recognized for the abilities gets old but it’s a small price to pay.

I have an error correction – on page 139, she means Margaret of Anjou was Henry VI’s wife not Henry IV’s wife.

And I have a suggestion, note Kat Champernowne/Astley’s marriage earlier. The name Astley suddenly appears on page 92 while the noting of the marriage comes much later. It could be easily handled with a quick parenthetical without having to move the details from where they are now.

Happy Birthday, Magna Carta!

What’s the proper gift for an 800-year birthday?

I was remiss in not noting earlier that today is the 800th birthday of Magna Carta.

The Great Charter is not taught much in school these days. And, frankly, its points are usually wasted on children, especially modern children. They cannot conceive of why it was ever needed. Also, to be honest, much of it is a little squirrelly (fish wiers?) and not particularly relevant to us sophisticated moderns.

The debt of gratitude we owe the English medieval barons and the members of the clergy, particularly Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton, for getting together to pull it off can never be paid. (And tip of the hat to King Henry I and his Charter of Liberties.)

Sure, King John abrogated the charter as soon as he could (within days) and it can be argued that most subsequent kings and queens ignored it at their pleasure. I wouldn’t be the first to note that Magna Carta is probably more revered in the United States than in England or the U.K. It and its concepts were very important to the Founding Fathers.

That a king (or a government) could be compelled to serve his people rather than the people serving the government was a concept unseen across most of the planet and throughout history.

Sadly, in our modern times, the people (especially in the view of liberals and progressives) are seen as serving the government.

Out on cable these days is a movie called “Ironclad,” which is set during the times immediately after the signing of Magna Carta, when King John was on a rampage and trying to put the barons in their place. It’s not bad on its history, though many of the dramatic details are inaccurate. But it’s better than nothing.

I recently read Frank McLynn’s “Richard and John Kings at War” – far better. The half on John really brings one to understand the need for Magna Carta. Yes, most of the barons were really in it to improve their position and secure their lots in life but the fact that they did conceive of themselves as needing and deserving of protection from a capricious, greedy tyrant cannot be discounted and that such protections should be held in inviolable law set a precedent. Once even the king was subject to law, the path to our rights and democracy was set.