Man learns from history that man never learns from history

 

Your weekend read:  Victor Davis Hanson points out the alarming parallels between the collapse of the Byzantines and the collapse of America.  He begins:

When Constantinople finally fell to the Ottomans on Tuesday, May 29, 1453, the Byzantine Empire and its capital had survived for 1,000 years beyond the fall of the Western Empire at Rome.

Always outnumbered in a sea of enemies, the Byzantines’ survival had depended on its realist diplomacy of dividing its enemies, avoiding military quagmires, and ensuring constant deterrence.

Generations of self-sacrifice ensured ample investment for infrastructure. Each generation inherited and improved on singular aqueducts and cisterns, sewer systems, and the most complex and formidable city fortifications in the world.

Brilliant scientific advancement and engineering gave the empire advantages like swift galleys and flame throwers—an ancient precursor to napalm.

The law reigned supreme for nearly a millennium after the emperor Justinian codified a prior thousand years of Roman jurisprudence.

Yet this millennium-old crown jewel of the ancient world that once was home to 800,000 citizens had only 50,000 inhabitants left when it fell.  . . .

And he concludes:

Like Byzantines, Americans have become snarky iconoclasts, more eager to tear down art and sculpture that they no longer have the talent to create. 

Current woke dogma, obscure word fights, and sanctimonious cancel culture are as antithetical to the past generations of World War II as the last generation of Constantinople was to the former great eras of the emperors Constantine, Justinian, Heraclius, and Leo.

The Byzantines never woke up in time to understand what they had become.

So far neither have Americans.

VDH’s full column at American Greatness is here.

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New World Order or Freedom?

 

In his America First column, J B Shurk gives us reasons for optimism.  Here’s an extract:

Has the Great Reset Reminded Us
Why Freedom’s Worth the Fight?

. . .

Only when the U.S. government accused half the American population of being “domestic terrorists” for their political beliefs did many finally understand how dangerous the national security surveillance state had become.  Only when it became clear that Big Tech and Big Government were actively working together to censor Americans’ free speech and punish certain points of view did many finally grasp how serious the threats to liberty now are.  Like some weary beast waking up from a deep slumber, the American people have begun stretching, looking around, and rejecting a lot of what they see.  A growing contingent even realizes that the freedoms they hold most dear have been under attack for quite some time.

Now, I wish that none of this discomfort were necessary in the struggle for human liberty.  I wish most people would permit history to be such a stinging reminder of how difficult it is to achieve and maintain freedom that they would never carelessly let it slip from their grasp.  I wish that humans were impervious to smooth-talking politicians who promise gifts in exchange for servitude.  I wish that Memorial Day, Veterans’ Day, and Independence Day were sufficient to remind those who have benefited from the comforts of freedom without risking anything for its blessings not to throw away carelessly what they have yet to defend.  Alas, it does seem as if human nature demands a little self-inflicted misery from time to time so that those who have not suffered can learn the costs of ensuring that liberty lasts.

The battles taking shape today, after all, involve nothing less than what it means to be human.  On one side sit the oligarchs, communists, and New World Order globalist types who think of human beings as nothing more than cogs or inputs to be used, manipulated, and discarded.  On the other side are those of us who understand life and liberty as precious, sacred gifts that deserve enduring respect.  The Great Resetters and Build Back Better enthusiasts see people as digital ones and zeroes that can be made to obey society’s programming codes.  Friends of freedom, on the other hand, understand both free will and moral intuition as the hallmarks of human existence.  Communism and its global government derivatives seek to deny individual choice.  Liberty-lovers know that without individual choice, there can be no real life. . . .

Read the rest here.  I just hope Mr Shurk is correct -- that there are now enough Americans who see what's happening in Biden's Build Back Better administration. 

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Today is Flag Day

 

From History.com:

On June 14, 1777, the Second Continental Congress took a break from writing the Articles of Confederation and passed a resolution stating that “the flag of the United States be 13 stripes, alternate red and white,” and that “the union be 13 stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”

Over 100 years later, in 1916, President Woodrow Wilson marked the anniversary of that decree by officially establishing June 14 as Flag Day. 

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Sports Illustrated goes “woke”

 

Eric Utter published a piece about Sports Illustrated over the weekend at American Thinker.  I am not much of a sports fan, but his opening paragraphs offer a good summary of the cultural decline in America.  And his article is a good follow-up to my blog yesterday on the future of arts communities – if there is a future.  Mr. Utter begins:

The Left ruins everything. Television. Movies. Economies. Cities. Lives. Religion. Comedy. Sports. Everything. Literally everything.

It does so in many insidious ways. It divides us with multiculturalism and critical race theory. It makes some groups bitter, envious, and indolent by telling them they are victims of other groups’ bigotry…and that there is nothing any of the groups can do about it. It revises history, changes language, and restricts speech, all in an effort to restrict thought. It brandishes “wokeism” as a weapon and “cancels” those it dislikes. All of this has led to a more ignorant—and less fun—America.

The left has recently rendered sports less a form of entertainment that can bring all of us together and more of a vehicle to lecture and hector fans, in an attempt to hammer them into strict conformity of thought. We have all seen this with anthem protests, BLM messages, boycotts, etc., etc.

And now, even a once nearly-revered sports publication, Sports Illustrated, has completely given in to the mendacious minority mob that demands all things be seen exclusively through the prism of race/class/gender/politics. Sports Illustrated, like nearly all mainstream media, has leaned left for many years but has just recently completely abandoned all balance and objectivity in an apparently desperate—if puzzling­—attempt at virtue-signaling.

. . .

Mr. Utter then goes into specifics based on the latest issue.  Read the rest of Mr. Utter’s piece here.

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Precedents in SCOTUS nominations

 

Instapundit has the goods (click to embiggen if necessary):

DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY: But the important thing to Alyssa Milano is that someone is paying attention to Alyssa Milano.

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Another bad idea: renaming Columbus Day

Robert Higgs at cleveland.com reports:

A typically united City Council divided Monday night over a non-binding resolution calling for the city to recognize the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples’ Day rather than Columbus Day.

Councilman Basheer Jones proposed the resolution, saying he wished to recognize that a culture already existed in North America when Italian explorer Christopher Columbus arrived in Oct. 12, 1492.

Council approves most proposed resolutions with little or no comment, but Jones’ proposal struck a nerve with colleagues Matt Zone, a second-generation Italian American, and Mike Polensek, who also is of Italian descent.

Zone spoke for several minutes in opposition to the resolution. He said that he grew up celebrating Columbus Day as a proud symbol of immigration to the United States. And it was a day important to Italian Americans who themselves had to endure bigotry in this country.

“It now is a universal theme with all people who come into this country,” Zone said. “One of the highest honors I ever had was in 2015 when I was the grand marshal in the Columbus Day parade.”

Zone said he had no problem doing something to honor indigenous people, but not at the expense of Columbus Day.

. . .

(Full report is here.) But it’s not about identity politics, in this case Native Americans vs Italians. It’s about using identity politics to push another attempt to erase the history of America. Yes, of course, Native Americans were here before Columbus, but it was the Old World coming to the New World that marked the inception of the early European settlements that led to the founding of the United States.

If you live in Cleveland, find your councilman here. The general phone number for council members is 216.664.2840. Give ‘em a call.

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Teaching history in England and America

art credit: indianexpress.com

  

James Delingpole’s “History Teaching Has a Dangerous Left-Wing Bias” is mostly about teaching the history of England, but he references NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s put-down of the USA from a day or two ago: “We’re not going to make America great again. It was never that great.” 

The teaching of history in America more and more shares Gov. Cuomo’s guilt-ridden perspective. And I am thinking of all the Confederate and Founding Father statues and plaques that are being torn down, which will ultimately result in history text books filled with blank pages and lies. Delingpole concludes his article:

Apart from being objectively untrue – the historical achievements of the Anglophone empires and their various scientists, inventors, writers, painters, explorers and warriors far, far outweigh their defects – this approach is also insidiously dangerous.

There’s a reason why young Victorians were raised on GA Henty novels with titles like Under Drake’s Flag and Winning His Spurs. The narrative of national pride filled young men and women with the confidence to go out and achieve extraordinary things on behalf of their great nation.

There’s a reason, too, why young Americans used to pledge allegiance to the flag.

We’re encouraged by the modern left to pour scorn on such outmoded jingoism. But it was nothing of the kind: just people uniting in love of their country and recognising that it was a cause worth fighting and dying for. The less you value your nation’s history and traditions, the less you feel they are worth defending. Such negativity is a recipe for decay and defeat. It’s so obvious, so well-documented that only a left wing historian could be deluded enough to imagine otherwise.

The full article is on Breitbart here.

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Columbus Day vs Indigenous People Day

Photo credit: Chicago Sun-Times

Tomorrow is Columbus Day. From the federal website:

Columbus Day commemorates the arrival of the Christopher Columbus in the Americas. It is celebrated every second Monday of October, and has been a federal holiday since 1937.

An editorial from the Denver Post (from about 10 years ago!) makes some excellent points about why Americans celebrate Columbus Day:

Columbus Day has been a federal holiday since President Franklin D. Roosevelt first proclaimed it such in 1934. One hundred years ago this month, Colorado Sen. Casimo Barela’s bill was signed into law, designating Oct. 12 of each year as a public holiday known as Columbus Day. Roosevelt and Barela recognized the significant achievements of Christopher Columbus, and rightly chose, with millions of other Americans, to honor him.

Columbus possessed admirable qualities, of which all Americans can be proud. Even by his detractors, he is seen as a skilled sea captain of the highest order. He challenged the conventional thought that the Earth was flat, seeking to “reach the east by going west,” an idea to which the scientists of the day were forcibly opposed. He challenged the Aristotelian philosophy of science that had guided scientists for centuries in favor of the newer philosophy of science that placed observation in a primary role of analysis. He supported the heliocentric concept of the solar system with Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler before it became known by that name. In capitalistic spirit (admirable in the eyes of most Americans), he sought glory, wealth and a title of nobility by opening new trade routes to China and Japan.

Most importantly, though, Columbus discovered the American continental coast and recorded the voyage in a way that enabled others to repeat the feat. The real achievement worthy of holidays, monuments and namesake cities is that he opened a route that could be sailed again by himself and others. It is Columbus’ method of discovery and record-keeping that distinguishes him from other explorers who may previously have “discovered” the New World. He opened the door to further discovery by explorers like Magellan, Cooke, Drake and Hudson. His discovery led to the creation of the greatest nation on Earth, the United States of America.

Unfortunately, Columbus Day has become controversial, and Social Justice Warriors have been claiming the day instead for “Indigenous People.” If there have been widespread panel discussions, debates, symposiums, and hearings at local City Halls about making this change, I have not found the reports.[UPDATE: Lawmaker takes first step to remove Columbus Day in NYC.] Why not? Initiating a tribute to indigenous people need not involve erasing a significant part of our country’s history.

Too bad. Instead, like the destruction of or defacement to statues of, say Confederate General Robert E. Lee (see also here), we are witnessing more erosion and erasure of our historical and cultural heritage (report from Time.com):

Each year, more cities, states and universities opt to celebrate an alternative to Columbus Day: Indigenous Peoples' Day.

Instead of honoring Christopher Columbus, the Indigenous Peoples' Day recognizes Native Americans, who were the first inhabitants of the land that later became the United States of America. Advocates for the switch to Indigenous Peoples Day argue that Columbus did not "discover" America in 1492 but instead began the colonization of it. For decades, Native American activists have advocated abolishing Columbus Day, which became a federal holiday in 1937.

This year, both Indigenous Peoples' Day and Columbus Day are on Monday, Oct. 9.

While the United Nations declared August 9 as International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples in late 1994, Berkeley, Calif., had already become the first city in the U.S. to replace Columbus Day itself. The city's decision was influenced by the First Continental Conference on 500 Years of Indian Resistance in Quito, Ecuador, in 1990, which spurred another Northern California conference that discussed similar issues and brought them to the Berkeley City Council, TIME has reported.

With the exception of Santa Cruz, Calif., and the state of South Dakota, which adopted the similar Native American Day in place of Columbus Day in 1990, the cities, states and universities that have chosen to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day instead have done so only recently, with cities like Minneapolis and Seattle voting to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day instead in 2014.

Not surprisingly, the only Ohio city or town on Time's list is Oberlin. But at our house, we’ll be toasting Christopher Columbus.

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By the Book: The Strange Death of Europe

Amazon cover

Just finished Douglas Murray’s frightening must-read The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam. If America needed another wake-up call, this is it.  This book examines the paramount problem of today: uncontrolled immigration. And from all angles, based on his research and his extensive travels, particularly in Europe. 

Murray covers history, philosophy and religion, Islam and Christianity, demographics, cultural suicide, political correctness, ideologies, political landscapes, corruption, voter preferences vs government “leaders”, humanity, immigration pros and cons, good stories, bad stories, as well as the what-do-we-do-now and current dilemma scenarios. His conclusions about Europe are a preview of coming attractions here in the USA. 

And it's cheap on Kindle.

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Fascism: redefining the word

woody.typepad via Steven Crowder/Twitter

  

If you managed to wade through Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism, you already know that the term “fascism” has been misappropriated by Communists, Progressives, and other left-of-center isms to mean the opposite of its original far left definition. Several online dictionaries today reflect the switch in meaning, and even the Wikipedia entry shows the difficulty of navigating the origins of the term and its current usage by the political Left as a pejorative.

Today Bookworm (of the Bookworm Room blog) has a piece at American Thinker that summarizes the origin of the left/right nomenclature and the sleight-of-hand in redefining “fascism” – all in the context of a short history lesson. The entire article is here. Below are a couple of extracts:

For months now, the Democrat-Progressive fever swamps have been using the word “fascist” in connection with Donald Trump and those who voted for him. It took Michael Kinsley to elevate this shoddy claim onto pages of the Washington Post: Trump, he asserts, is a fascist.

. . .

Given that conservatives Republicans, including the majority of Trump supporters, are on the liberty side of the spectrum, far from the world’s most brutal tyrants, what gave rise to the glaringly false syllogism that “Republicans are right-wing fascists and Hitler was a right-win fascist, so all Republicans are Hitler”? 

You can blame it on a nasty little historic and linguistic trick American communists pulled, which was to make “fascism” synonymous with the political “right.” Once having done that, they could claim that American conservatives, being “right wing,” are therefore fascist. This is pure disinformation.

. . .

“Fascism,” another historic term, is one that American statists embraced until Hitler tainted it. It first gained political traction in Italy in the 1920s. Mussolini defined it to mean “All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” In other words, fascism is purely on the statist side of the continuum.

Savvy readers will have noticed that fascism sounds remarkably like communism: It’s all about concentrating all power in the state, leaving the individual entirely subordinate to the state. The primary difference between the two ideologies is that in communism the government nationalizes private property, whereas in fascism the government does not nationalize it but nevertheless completely controls — as is the case, for example, with Obamacare, which saw the government establish the rules for the private insurance market and mandate that Americans buy the product.

. . .

One more thing: Obama said that the biggest disappointment of his presidency was his failure to grab more guns from American hands.  Statists always grab guns because their regimes are fundamentally hostile to the citizens they control, making it impossible for those citizens to defend themselves against tyrannical government. Trump’s promise to protect the Second Amendment is the antithesis of a statist, especially a “fascist,” regime.

Read the rest here. 

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