Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

GOOD FRIDAY NEW YORK CITY SKYLINE - 1956

Buildings with lighted crosses to honor Good Friday in April 1956. Left to right: 60 Wall Tower, 20 Exchange Place (formerly known as City Bank Farmers Trust Co.) and 40 Wall Street. Photo taken on April 5, 1956.  (Ed Peters/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

Last month, a poll from The Wall Street Journal found that just 39% of Americans say their religious faith is very important to them, compared with 62% as recently as 1998.   You won't see these buildings up with crosses in 2023.  Times have changed big time and not for the better.

MELANIE PHILLIPS: AMERICA, THE NATION STATE, THE JEWS AND THE BIBLE

I have deep respect for the UK author and columnist Melanie Phillips.   Her book published a few years ago, The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle Over God, Truth, and Power, offers her characteristically astute analysis.

In a recent illuminating essay  she rightly points out that "The core of the left’s agenda is to remake the Western world; and the agenda of Obama and the American left is to remake America."

Since this means that the nation state must be abolished, Israel, she says, is a sticking point.

       The nation, its specific attributes and the borders that define its territory must instead give way to a Kumbaya vision of the brotherhood of man expressed through transnational institutions and laws.

Phillips notes that:

       The principal target of liberal universalism is the Western nation-state, which was supposedly brought into being in 17th-century Europe. The belief, however, that the nation was essential to safeguard life and liberty was pioneered thousands of years ago by the Jews.

Her following point is absolutely true,  and far too little noted:

       The template for the nation-state was the ancient kingdom of Israel, composed of a particular people in their own land bound by their own laws, which expressed the history, traditions and principles that formed their shared identity and purpose.

       As Yoram Hazony observes in his book "The Virtue of Nationalism," ancient Israel, which formed a nation out of the unification of tribes, laid down a formula for national unity that created England in the ninth century, the Dutch Republic in the 16th century and, in the 18th century, the United States of America.

Melanie Phillips continues:

        The profound influence of the Hebrew Bible on America has been dwelt upon at length by the New York Rabbi Meir Soloveichik. In his preface to the book he helped edit, "Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land", he records how the founders of the United States constantly turned to the Hebrew Bible as their shared heritage and foundational text.  

Soloveichik writes:

       “From the Puritan fathers to the American Framers, from slavery to abolition, from the Liberty Bell to America’s celebration of national Thanksgiving, the Hebrew Bible is one of America’s formative books, reflecting in the new continent, in the new nation, in America’s rebirth of freedom, the moral and narrative inspiration of ancient Israel

        A nation, however, ceases to exist as such if it cannot defend itself within its own borders. One reason why Israel falls foul of the Western left is that it is single-mindedly determined to defend itself as a nation.

Victor Davis Hanson - The Urban-Rural Divide in America

**  Victor Davis Hanson - On the urban/rural divide in the United States.

Excerpts:

. . . . The media figures who report on the election are urban denizens. Few have any idea of why half the country votes as it does. So they just assume that pollsters, like themselves, are better educated, smarter, and of greater value to society than those whom they often to fail to find in their surveys. . . 

That fact of the rural/urban dichotomy is underappreciated, but it remains at the heart of the Constitution — to the continuing chagrin of our globalist coastal elite who wish to wipe it out. The Electoral College and the quite antithetical makeup of the Senate and the House keep a Montana, Utah, or Wyoming from being politically neutered by California and New York. The idea, deemed outrageously “unfair” by academics and the media, is that a Wyoming rancher might have as much of a say in the direction of the country as thousands of more redundant city dwellers. Yet the classical idea of federal republicanism was to save democracy by not allowing 51 percent (of an increasingly urban population) to create laws on any given day at any given hour.

So the originalist theories of the Founders — nursed on classical tropes found in bucolic, pastoral, and agrarian romance, and on the skepticism of human nature conveyed throughout classical political philosophy — was that in a republic, real diversity is needed to offset sheer numbers. That is, rural voices, always to be in a minority, provided checks on the exuberance and occasional danger of the volatile cities, prone to fads that could devolve into hysteria and worse.

ERIC METAXAS INTERVIEWS DR. OS GUINNESS ON THE CULTURAL MOMENT UPON US

This interview starts out talking about Os Guinness' 1973 book, The Dust of Death: The Sixties Counterculture and How it Changed America Forever which IVP has just reissued in its "Signature Collection series.  Guinness goes on to discuss with insight and clarity our cultural historical moment today.  An article summarizing Guinness' points may be found in this Washington Times piece published just two days ago. 

 

"VERDICT WITH TED CRUZ" - ERIC METAXAS INTERVIEWS SEN. TED CRUZ & MICHAEL KNOWLES

I found this interview vastly entertaining.  It's a great introduction to the Cruz/Knowles podcast.  It lasts only 17 minutes.    

"Verdict with Ted Cruz" on YouTube

BOLTON: TRUMP'S BOLD RECOGNITION OF JRUSALEM AS ISRAEL'S CAPITAL MARKS HIM AS A VERY DIFFERENT CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN LEADER

Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton declared President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was “exactly the right move to make.”  Following are quotes from an interview Bolton gave to Breitbart SeriusXM radio interviewer Raheem Kassam:  

“Israel is one of the very few, maybe the only country in the world where the American embassy is not in its capital city,” Bolton pointed out. “From the American point of view, let’s start with us, it only makes sense to put our embassy where the institutions of government are located, in the country to which our diplomats are accredited. If we found, for whatever reason we came across a European country we didn’t have an embassy in – a new country was created, for example – we wouldn’t put our embassy in a city 50 miles away from the capital.”

“Why Israel should be different than any other country in the world, no one has been able to explain. What Trump has done is not extraordinary. It simply conforms Israel to the other 190 or so countries that we have diplomatic relations with. It is, from an efficiency and an effectiveness point of view, good for the United States,” he said.

President Trump was very careful yesterday to say that that obviously the embassy is going to be in West Jerusalem, which nobody has ever claimed would go back to Palestinians under any conceivable settlement, so it doesn’t prejudice the final status of Jerusalem,” he noted.

 Bolton said recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel “breaks so many illusions that people have been holding.”  [bolding is mine]

JAY NORDLINGER INTERVIEWS VICTOR DAVIS HANSON ON WORLD WAR II

There's hardly a commentator who I respect more than Victor Davis Hanson, the great Classics professor and military historian.  His latest book, published less than a month and a half ago, is The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won. 

In introducing his podcast interview with VDH, Nordlinger says:

I take the opportunity to ask some fundamental questions: What if Hitler hadn’t declared war on us? Would we have gotten into the war — the European theater? What if Japan hadn’t attacked us? Could they have triumphed in the Pacific?

What were the causes of the war?

Was Hitler a little nuts — did that save our bacon? If he had been saner, could he have pulled it off?

How was FDR as wartime leader? And Truman? Were we right to drop the A-bomb(s)? What about Yalta? Was FDR, were we, guilty there? What about the Holocaust and the war? Could the Holocaust have been carried out without the war? Would it have?

Who are some unsung heroes of the war?

And more. Victor Davis Hanson knows the answers, I can tell you. Knows them cold. This podcast with him is both an education and a pleasure. Again, here. 

COUNTRY MUSIC -- THE SOUTH AS A SHAME-HONOR CULTURE

Rod Dreher wrote an illuminating column today which I continue to think about. He titled his column, "Sad Songs and the South."     

He concludes his article with the following rendition of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,"  but you've got to read the article (below) to understand how it fits into the article's thesis.

Dreher wrote:

. . . ..I was thinking the other day about the Confederate controversy, in light of the fact that the South is a shame-honor culture, and one where people are deeply rooted in a sense of family and place — for better or for worse. Might it be that non-Southerners, for cultural reasons, simply cannot understand why it’s difficult for Southerners to execrate their ancestors, even if their ancestors did bad things?

That thought came back to me after listening to this amazing episode of Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast. It’s about country music, and what sets it apart from other American musical genres. Malcolm Gladwell is not the first person I would go to for insight into how country music works, but boy, was this great.  

On the podcast, Gladwell explores why country music has so many sad songs, but rock music does not. After listening to Vince Gill’s “Go Rest High On That Mountain,” which is about the death of country singer Keith Whitley, who drank himself to death, as well as Gill’s own brother, who died young of a heart attack, Gladwell says:

SEN. TED CRUZ RIPS OBAMA JUSTICE DEPARTMENT IN CONFIRMATION HEARING FOR SEN. JEFF SESSIONS

Senator Ted Cruz in his questioning of Sen. Jeff Sessions for Attorney General of the United States provided a litany of the lawlessness practiced by President Obama and his Department of Justice during the past eght years.  This video should be referred to again and again as an accurate historical record of a particularly disgraceful (and dangerous) period of American history which hopefully no future generation will experience again. 

PRAGER U - "WHAT MAKES AMERICA DIFFERENT?"

 

RABIDLY ANTI-CHRISTIAN LEFT ATTACKS HEIDI CRUZ

Heidi Cruz, wife of GOP Presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz, made statements today regarding the Judeo-Christian foundation of this country that rankled the militant secularists.

David French writes:

The scandal du jour, from the ignorant, anti-Christian sectors of the Left, comes courtesy of a brief excerpt of a radio interview with Heidi Cruz, Ted Cruz’s wife:

For those who don’t have 92 seconds to listen, here are the quotes that caused Ken Meyer at Mediaite to call Cruz’s statements a bizarre rant:

We are at a cultural crossroads in our country, and if we can be in this race to show this country the face of the God that we serve — this Christian God that we serve is the foundation of our country, our country was built on Judeo-Christian values, we are a nation of freedom of religion, but the God of Christianity is the God of freedom, of individual liberty, of choice and of consequence.

Jon Green, a regional field director for Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign, also found this excerpt offensive:

I think that’s something that this country really needs to be reminded of, is that Christians are loving people, are nonjudgmental people, but there is right and wrong, we have a country of law and order, there are consequences to actions and we must all live peaceably in our own faiths under the Constitution. And Ted is uniquely able to deliver on that combination of the law and religion.

Green comments:

Thomas Jefferson envisioned a wall of separation between Church and State. Ted Cruz envisions that wall being torn down entirely. He’s not judging, he just thinks people who disagree are wrong and bad.

In reality, Heidi Cruz’s comment represents a standard (and accurate) expression not just of Evangelical beliefs, but also of American history. Christians aspire to “show the face of God” in all that we do — by imitating as much as we can our Savior, Jesus Christ. We fail often, but we’re better for the effort. As for Cruz’s statement that our nation was built on “Judeo-Christian values,”

 

WORLD MAGAZINE ANNOUNCES 2015 BOOKS OF THE YEAR

World Magazine selected the following as their 2015 books of the year:

To be eligible for consideration for this year’s awards, books must have been published between May 1, 2014, and April 30, 2015.  

[Note: I highly recommend visiting World Magazine's article for more extensive descriptions not only of the winners but also the "runners up," many of which I can easily envision beating the winners.]

Fiction WINNER: The Book of Strange New Things, by Michael Faber

These days, in books from secular publishers, we expect to see pastors depicted as hypocrites and missionaries as agents of exploitation. Instead we find empathy and splendid writing in this poignant work from Michael Faber.

Accessible Theology WINNER: enGendered: God’s Gift of Gender Difference in Relationship, by Sam Andreades

In this insightful work, Andreades skillfully and truthfully guides readers through at least three crucial cultural debates: Are men and women different? How should husbands and wives help each other? What about same-sex marriage?

Current Events/Public Affairs WINNER: America in Retreat, by Bret Stephens

Stephens shows how isolationist rhetoric is on the rise in America along with balance-of-power appeasement. The consequence may be more disorder than we bargained for, including world war and the avoidable sacrifice of countless lives.  (Short audio talk)

History/Biography WINNER: Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, by Erik Larson

Larson masterfully tells the story of those responsible for the sinking of the Lusitania and makes us empathize with the ordinary men, women, and children who were war’s collateral damage. The appeal to emotion as well as intellect makes Dead Wake our history/biography book of the year

A NEW LEFTIST ASSAULT ON AMERICAN EDUCATION

Stanley Kurtz, writing in National Review Online Corner, points out a new development that should be a concern to everyone, and especially to those who have seen Dinesh D'Souza's new film, America: Imagine the World Without Her. Kurtz writes:

. . .  It turns out that D’Souza’s film could not be better timed. Although it has barely registered yet in our public debates, the teaching of American history in our high schools has just been seized in what a few sharp-eyed critics rightly call a “curricular coup.” The College Board, the private company that creates the SAT test and the various Advance Placement tests, has issued a new set of guidelines that is about to turn the teaching of American history into exactly the sort of grievance-based pedagogy that D’Souza decries in his film.

Leftist academics have finally figured out a way to circumvent state and local control over America’s schools and effectively impose progressive political indoctrination on the entire country. Once the AP U.S. History test demands blame-America-first answers, public and private schools alike will be forced to construct an American history curriculum that “teaches to the test.”

Up until the last few months, the College Board has provided high school teachers with only a brief topical outline for the AP U.S. History test. The brevity of this outline has permitted states, school districts, and teachers across the country to approach American history in their own way.  Now, however, the College Board has created a lengthy and detailed “framework” for their AP U.S. History test.  That framework effectively forces teachers to adopt an ideologically left-leaning approach to American history, heavily emphasizing our country’s failings while giving short shrift to our founding principles.  [more . . .]

AMERICA'S HISTORIC ROLE IN SUSTAINING WORLD STABILITY

I hope people in the White House and State Department pause to take in Victor Davis Hanson's recital of the historical and current role the United States plays in keeping the world stable and relatively peaceful.  He titles his piece "Obama's World Disorder."   We in America generally have no idea how utterly strategic America  has been and remains in protecting nations, keeping aggressors at bay, and shaping world history for good.   Millions and millions of people depend on us.  Panic and fear now grip nations because their trust and reliance on American protection now looks misplaced and tenuous.  I prayBarack Obama reads Hanson's piece.  Obama's policies are creating world chaos that will doom many small nations and invite the destruction and enslaving of billions of people.   We live in a time of grave historical ignorance and miscalculation.  

Hanson's piece treats of Europe, Russia, China and the East and the stability the United States has fostered. The following short excerpt does not begin to do justice to the full piece..

The United States offered resistance to illiberal and autocratic regional powers that have at time challenged the protocols of the postwar order. And that pushback has allowed weaker nations—such as Poland or the Baltic States—to escape the orbit of post-Soviet Russia, while in the Pacific ensuring that an Australia, New Zealand, or the Philippines is not bullied into subservience by China

This strange postwar world ushered in the greatest advancement in prosperity amid the general absence of a cataclysmic world conflagration or continental war since the dawn of civilization. For the first time since the rise of the Greek city-state, most nations have been able both to prosper and to assume that their boundaries were inviolate and their populations mostly free from attack. A system of international communications, travel, commerce, and trade is predicated on the assumption that pirates cannot seize cargo ships, terrorists cannot hijack planes, and rogue nations cannot let off atomic bombs without a U.S. led coalition to stop them from threatening the international order.

For the U.S. to continue this exceptional role of preserving the postwar system in times of economic weakness and spiritual exhaustion, it is critical for the Obama administration to articulate to the American people exactly what the United States has accomplished, how the postwar order arose, and what precisely are the benefits that justify such enormous sacrifices in blood and treasure. . . 

Hanson notes at the end of his piece the following:

The Obama administration declares climate change the chief global threat. That new inanimate target is welcome news to aggressive nations that had once feared that their own reckless behavior might have been so singled out.

Americans did not fully appreciate the costly postwar global order that the United States had established over the last seventy years. Maybe they will start to as they witness it vanish.

BRUCE THORNTON ON "ILLIBERAL LIBERALISM" HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED

Bruce Thornton of the Hoover Institute reviews Fred Siegel's Revolt Against the Masses: How Liberalism Has Undermined the Middle Class which uncovers the deep historical roots of the left's disdain for ordinary Americans.  Siegel writes of H.G. Wells, Mencken, Sinclair Lewis, Philip Roth, Arthur Schlesinger and others. Thornton has this to say of the famous Scopes trial:

The 1925 Scopes “Monkey” Trial, a “contrivance from the start,” as Siegel writes, and immortalized in the historically challenged 1955 Broadway hit Inherit the Wind, established the meme of the brave and noble man of “science” battling slack-jawed, oppressive Christian fundamentalists. This cliché predictably surfaces in liberal commentary on issues ranging from teaching Darwinian evolution, to the validity of global warming. In the 1930s idolizing the Soviet Union and communism, a reflex of liberal disdain for capitalism and its déclassé obsession with getting and spending, began its long march through American culture and education.

There's much more. . .  all of it enlightening.

SAM WATERSTON READS THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS

I have always felt a special relationship to the Gettysburg Address, since as a 5th grader I played the part of Lincoln in a grade school assembly and recited the Gettysburg Address by memory complete with top hat perched on my head.  It's marvelous lines have stayed with me through the years.

Here is Sam Waterston reading the Gettysburg Address which Lincoln delivered 150 years ago today. (HT: Justin Taylor)

 

DENNIS PRAGER - "NOVEMBER IS A PLEBISCITE ON THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION"

I urge you to click through to read Prager's entire article.  He lays out the crucial issue that Americans need to understand: this election is a vote for or against the American revolution.  Prager writes:

Election Day 2012 will not be a presidential election. It will be a plebiscite.

Americans will not only be voting for a president (and a House and a third of the Senate). They will be participating in a plebiscite on the definition of America.

If Americans reelect the Democrat, Barack Obama, they will have announced that America should be like Western European countries — governed by left-wing values. Americans will have decided that America’s value system — “Liberty,” “In God We Trust,” “E Pluribus Unum” — should be replaced.

The election in November is therefore a plebiscite on the American Revolution. The usual description of presidential elections — “the most important in our lifetime” — is true this time. In fact, it may be the most important election since the Civil War, and possibly since America’s founding.

A SURPRISING RENDITION OF THE 2nd VERSE OF THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER

A friend sent an email with a link to this YouTube video from a Herman Cain rally long ago.  It's timeless.  Surprising everyone, a gentleman concluded his comment with a beautiful rendition of the often neglected 2nd verse of the Star Spangled Banner.  The beauty of his rendition, plus the patriotism of the crowd, moved me.  Even if you've seen it before, it's worth another look.

 

MARK LEVIN'S NEW BOOK - "AMERITOPIA: THE UNMAKING OF AMERICA"

Obama's on-going determination to "transform America" (requiring ignoring,  by-passing, and trashing the U.S. Constitution) is laid bear in Mark Levin's new book, "Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America."   Terence P. Jeffrey chronicles an in-depth interview with Levin that is MUST READING.

The book, released Monday, compares the Utopian and unworkable schemes laid out by political philosophers from Plato to Thomas Hobbes with the vision of natural law, God-given rights, and individual liberty that inspired the Founding Fathers when they wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

“Utopianism is not new,” Levin writes in “Ameritopia.” “It has been repackaged countless times—since Plato and before. It is as old as tyranny itself.  In democracies, its practitioners legislate without end.  In America, law is piled upon law in contravention and contradiction of the governing law—the Constitution.”

Levin’s verdict: Barack Obama and modern American liberals are firmly in the Utopian camp—pursuing a vision fundamentally at odds with limited government and human freedom.

“I believe to a great extent we now live in a post-constitutional country, where much of the Constitution is ignored or evaded,” Levin told CNSNews.com.

“What I want the readers to understand, what I want the public to understand is, this is not new and it’s going to destroy us,” said Levin. “It’s going to destroy us because it is an attack on the individual. It is an attack on the nature of human beings.”

MORE . . .

I am grateful for Levin's book.  Obama's agenda will indeed destroy America.  And that's not hyperbole.

GEORGE W. BUSH FLIGHT 93 MEMORIAL SPEECH, SEPTEMBER 10, 2011

I find former President George W. Bush a man of deep feeling, genuine care and concern, in many ways a heroic man, who led this nation in the aftermath of 9/11 with exceptional competence and devotion.   (Ht: Gateway Pundit)

Former U.S. president George W. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush bow their heads during ceremonies marking the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attack in Shanksville, Pennsylvania September 10, 2011. (REUTERS/Jason Cohn)

Here is the speech:

 

From his speech today:  (HT: Gateway Pundit)

On 9-11, “The most lives lost on American soil on a single day since the Battle of Antietam.”

“One of the lessons of 9-11 is that evil is real and so is courage.”

“At the moment American democracy was under attack our citizens defied their captors by holding a vote. The choice they made would cost them their lives. And they knew it. Many passengers called their loved ones to say good-bye. Then hung up to perform their final act.”

“The Flight 93 heroes led the first counter attack in the WAR ON TERROR.”

“The temptation of isolation is deadly wrong.”

Bush receives a standing ovation.

DAVID McCULLOUGH ON THE SAD STATE OF TEACHING HISTORY IN AMERICA TODAY

Terrific interview.  Click here.   Excerpts:

'We're raising young people who are, by and large, historically illiterate. . .  I know how much these young people—even at the most esteemed institutions of higher learning—don't know." Slowly, he shakes his head in dismay. "It's shocking." . . .

Mr. McCullough began worrying about the history gap some 20 years ago, when a college sophomore approached him after an appearance at "a very good university in the Midwest." She thanked him for coming and admitted, "Until I heard your talk this morning, I never realized the original 13 colonies were all on the East Coast." Remembering the incident, Mr. McCullough's snow-white eyebrows curl in pain. "I thought, 'What have we been doing so wrong that this obviously bright young woman could get this far and not know that?'" . . .

One problem is personnel. "People who come out of college with a degree in education and not a degree in a subject are severely handicapped in their capacity to teach effectively," Mr. McCullough argues. "Because they're often assigned to teach subjects about which they know little or nothing." The great teachers love what they're teaching, he says, and "you can't love something you don't know anymore than you can love someone you don't know."

Another problem is method. "History is often taught in categories—women's history, African American history, environmental history—so that many of the students have no sense of chronology. They have no idea what followed what."

What's more, many textbooks have become "so politically correct as to be comic. Very minor characters that are currently fashionable are given considerable space, whereas people of major consequence farther back"—such as, say, Thomas Edison—"are given very little space or none at all."   [more ...] 

REMEMBERING PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN

Today is the 100th birthday of Ronald Reagan.  Alan Sears describes the time and the man well:

Time gets away from all of us, and it’s hard, sometimes, to remember what a pall lay over the United States 30 years ago. The economy was in near ruins. Our enemies abroad had been emboldened to increasing aggressions by the passive “tsk-tsk-tsks” of a president who chided his own people for their moral “malaise.” Even amid celebrations of its 200^th year of liberty, the country seemed downcast and disenchanted at the prospects of a bleak and listless future.

Then he walked in.

“It’s morning in America,” he said, with a smile like the rising of the sun.  He embraced his nation and its destiny, unfazed by the waning economic indicators and the rattling sabers of Communist armies and insurgents around the globe.  He exuded joy and hope and confidence … and looking on themselves through his warm gaze, Americans began to share his belief that this nation’s best years might still lie ahead. . .

It will go down as one of the great marvels of history that President Reagan, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II all achieved positions of crucial leadership at almost exactly the same moment.  Together, by the grace of a merciful God, that extraordinary trio accomplished what seemed impossible: the thwarting of the Communists’ global agenda, and the toppling of the theretofore impregnable Soviet government.

THOMAS KIDD - "A RELIGIOUS HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION"

Justin Taylor posts a number of positive short reviews of  God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution.  Samples:

“This deeply researched, clearly organized, and well written book illuminates a complex and often controversial history. The Revolutionary and Constitutional periods were neither ‘Christian’ nor ‘godless’ as these terms are used in modern polemics. Instead, patriots and leaders of the early United States united to support disestablishment and common principles about the need for virtue to insure republican freedoms, despite holding different personal beliefs. Thomas Kidd is a remarkably sure-footed guide through this treacherous historical terrain.”—Mark Noll

“A truly ‘revolutionary’ book, in all the right ways.”—Rodney Stark

 Taylor links to a 10-minute introduction to the book by Dr. Kidd on C-Span’s BookTV.

WHAT KEEPS THE LEFT FROM UNDERSTANDING THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT?

Education.  Or the lack thereof.  Peter Berkowitz makes important points:

[...]  "Leading history departments have emphasized social history and issues of race, class and gender at the expense of constitutional history, diplomatic history and military history.

Neither professors of political science nor of history have made a priority of instructing students in the founding principles of American constitutional government. Nor have they taught about the contest between the progressive vision and the conservative vision that has characterized American politics since Woodrow Wilson (then a political scientist at Princeton) helped launch the progressive movement in the late 19th century by arguing that the Constitution had become obsolete and hindered democratic reform.

Then there are the proliferating classes in practical ethics and moral reasoning. These expose students to hypothetical conundrums involving individuals in surreal circumstances suddenly facing life and death decisions, or present contentious public policy questions and explore the range of respectable progressive opinions for resolving them. Such exercises may sharpen students' ability to argue. They do little to teach about self-government.

They certainly do not teach about the virtues, or qualities of mind and character, that enable citizens to shoulder their political responsibilities and prosper amidst the opportunities and uncertainties that freedom brings. Nor do they teach the beliefs, practices and associations that foster such virtues and those that endanger them.

Those who doubt that the failings of higher education in America have political consequences need only reflect on the quality of progressive commentary on the tea party movement. Our universities have produced two generations of highly educated people who seem unable to recognize the spirited defense of fundamental American principles, even when it takes place for more than a year and a half right in front of their noses.

Me:  The failure of higher education is mind-bending.  If anyone sought to strategize on how to destroy a nation, one could hardly produce a more negative effect than the teaching of the past two generations.  I'll have to return to this subject another time.

MORE NOTABLE POSTS FROM WINTERY KNIGHT

I am late in putting up posts honoring the 4th of July and America's founding.  From Wintery Knight's website:

-- The Declaration of Independence written and spoken

-- Dinesh D'Souza - What's Great About America  (An immigrant's perspective; video) 

-- Fox News documentary by John Stoessel on what's great about America

FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC - ROUGH AND TUMBLE POLITICS

Ron Chernow, writing of "The Feuding Fathers," in the Wall Street Journal, says

 . . . there was nothing genteel about politics at the nation's outset. For sheer verbal savagery, the founding era may have surpassed anything seen today. Despite their erudition, integrity, and philosophical genius, the founders were fiery men who expressed their beliefs with unusual vehemence. . .   People who spearhead revolutions tend to be outspoken and courageous, spurred on by a keen taste for combat. After sharpening their verbal skills hurling polemics against the British Crown, the founding generation then directed those energies against each other during the tumultuous first decade of the federal government. The passions of a revolution cannot simply be turned off like a spigot.

In a sidebar, Chernow gives some examples:

Alexander Hamilton on Thomas Jefferson:  - "He is not scrupulous about the means of success, nor very mindful of truth, and... he is a contemptible hypocrite." 

John Adams on Alexander Hamilton: "The bastard brat of a Scotch pedlar." 

Read the article for the horrible things said about President George Washington.  Historical perspective deepens our understanding of human behavior and political passions.  

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO GET HISTORY RIGHT?

Mighty important.  According to Burton Folsom, Jr., professor of history at Hillsdale College (and author of New Deal or Raw Deal?), President Obama has a seriously deformed understanding of American history and economics.   This has enormous repercussions and leaves him with a skewed ideological perspective.  Folsom writes:

“What bothers me,” President Obama told the graduating class at the University of Michigan last month, “is when I hear people say that all of government is inherently bad.”

Folsom reponds:

Only anarchists think all of government is inherently bad. Government has a useful constitutional function in protecting contracts and providing for the national defense. We need a government strong enough to protect our private property.

The problem is when government oversteps its constitutional limits and politicians try to micromanage the economy. That is where President Obama and the Founders disagree. President Obama in his speech defended the government’s interference in railroad building and in the Great Depression. “When we needed a

TEA PARTY MEMBER STUNS CROWD

(HT: The Right Scoop)

4th verse of the Star Spangled Banner:

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

JONAH GOLDBERG - "WE AIN'T EUROPE"

- Update 2/23/10 - Victor Davis Hanson offers additional thoughts on American exceptionalism.

- Update #2 - Jonah Goldberg calls attention to what he calls the "Cliffs Notes" on his book, Liberal Fascism, mentioned (and linked) below.

- (Original Post) - I agree with Goldberg when he says that the uniqueness of America versus Europe "is probably where the intellectual debate is going."  It was the substance of his remarks on a CPAC panel last weekend [begin at the 4 minute video spot].

Goldberg says, 

It's been percolating for a good long while, obviously.  Charles Murray's fantastic Kristol Award speech and Jim Manzi's widely discussed America's edge essay were both recent harbingers of what's to come.  I've always been deeply interested in the subject of American exceptionalism and the left's attempt to "Europeanize America."  Some may recall that it's a major sub-theme of my book.  [Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning]

Anyway, I bring this up because the best primer on the subject of American exceptionalism and conservatism can be found in the Rich and Ramesh's cover story of the latest issue. It's really just a great piece of work and very much worth reading for the arguments to come.

Me:  I posted this primarily because of the links.  I remember reading Charles Murray's speech when it was first published.  It is full of unusual insight and needs to be bookmarked.   It may be I'll need to bookmark the other readings as well.

TODAY WOULD BE RONALD REAGAN'S 99TH BIRTHDAY

Paul Kengor, who has written much about Reagan, has a great anecdote to share.  Tucked into his post is this sentence:

Reagan was just plain likable. Of all the subjects I’ve studied, few were as universally liked. . . Central to that likability was Reagan’s humility. The word “I” didn’t dominate his conversation, unless he was poking fun at himself.  He was no narcissist.  Ronald Reagan was not full of pride; he was thoroughly unpossessed of self-love.

LECH WALESA, FAMED FORMER PRESIDENT OF POLAND, SAYS THE WORLD NO LONGER LOOKS TO AMERICA FOR HOPE

Ann Kane writes in the American Thinker:

From the Gdansk Lenin Shipyards to the city of the Back of the Yards, Lech Walesa, former President of Poland, and preeminent community organizer, attended a fundraiser on Friday, January 29, to endorse Adam Andrzejewski (an gee eff skie) who is one of six Republicans seeking the nomination of his party for Governor of Illinois.

Kane's article is fascinating, but the centerpiece of her article is Walesa's judgment on America in relationship to the rest of the world:

The U.S. is a superpower.  Nobody doubts that.  Today they lead the world-militarily.  They also lead economically, but they are weak.

 They don't lead morally and politically any more.  The world has no leadership.  The U.S. was the last resort and hope for all the nations.  Today we have lost the hope.

Me:  It is so sad to see America on the skids.  Some of us have witnessed the decline for decades.  Most of us never foresaw a manifestly incompetent President as a major means to hasten its decline.

WILLIAM BENNETT & ERGUN CANER -- TWO OUTSTANDING SPEECHES FROM THE "VALUES VOTER SUMMIT"

Last weekend I was able to watch a few of the "Values Voter Summit" speeches "live" via streaming internet, but not all.  Now the Family Research Council has made them available as webcasts for leisurely viewing.   Of those I saw, I found William Bennett's comments on his two-volume textbook, America: the Last Best Hope, both entertaining and instructive.  He makes history "live" and made me want to go out and buy his two books.

A far different talk was given by Dr. Ergun Caner, the President of Liberty Theological Seminary, and a man who was raised a Muslim.  If you don't watch any other speech, this would probably be the one to see, especially if you have an interest in Islam and would like to hear the story of how one Muslim became a follower of Jesus.  Caner's talk is powerful, personal, insightful, and entertaining, and well worth the 25 minutes it takes to watch it. 

You can find these two speeches, and many more, here.

WE REMEMBER 9/11

Hugh Hewitt expresses my sentiments exactly:

Thanks to the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, coast guard, counter-terrorism and public safety professionals who have prevented a second attack for eight years.

The enormous cost of the battles in Afghanistan, Iraq and around the world have been made so that there have not had to be more pictures like this one.  We remember the victims of 9/11 today, but we also need to salute the thousands killed and tens of thousands wounded in the war with the Islamists, fanatics who would gladly see a 9/11 every day in their war with the West.

"THE SHAME OF ACADEME AND FASCISM, THEN AND NOW"

That's the title of Carlin Romano's Chronicle of Higher Education article that takes a look at Stephen H. Norwood's just-published, "brilliantly researched, utterly thorough and morally upsetting The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower: Complicity and Conflict on American Campuses (Cambridge University Press). 

The book, Romano says, shows how academic leaders got it wrong in the 1930s.

 A chilling chronicle of pro-Nazi enthusiasm, shabby indifference, and amoral tolerance toward Hitler in elite American academe of the 1930s, this book should exert direct impact in this season of cracking heads and bones in Tehran. It relentlessly names names, depositing fact after sordid fact before the reader in a way that leaves its implications for then and today overwhelming.

The book chronicles how Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and university after university failed utterly to respond appropriately to Nazi Germany.  Quite the opposite. 

In one remarkable chapter, Norwood exposes how "many administrators, faculty, and students at the elite women's colleges known as the Seven Sisters—Vassar, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Radcliffe, and Barnard—shared a sanguine view of Nazi Germany and enthusiastically participated in academic and cultural exchanges with the Third Reich."

Writer Romano asks if academic leaders will get it right regarding Iran today.  I would be very surprised.  More here...  (HT: Jonah Goldberg at the Corner)

OBAMA REWRITES THE COLD WAR

Liz Cheney does a commendable job skewing the narrative President Obama continues to set forth regarding American history and exceptionalism.  The man's mind is loaded with the left wing rewriting of history.  Being a postmodernist, facts are not required in the telling of a story.  Create the story out of thin air, whatever you want to say, and tell it loudly, often enough, and in enough venues, and you have succeeded (so it is believed) in imposing a new reality without the inconvenient necessity of building on facts.   Cheney writes:

There are two different versions of the story of the end of the Cold War: the Russian version, and the truth. President Barack Obama endorsed the Russian version in Moscow last week. . .

It is irresponsible for an American president to go to Moscow and tell a room full of young Russians less than the truth about how the Cold War ended. One wonders whether this was just an attempt to push "reset" -- or maybe to curry favor. Perhaps, most concerning of all, Mr. Obama believes what he said.

Mr. Obama's method for pushing reset around the world is becoming clearer with each foreign trip. He proclaims moral equivalence between the U.S. and our adversaries, he readily accepts a false historical narrative, and he refuses to stand up against anti-American lies.  [more . .]

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!

The Declaration of Independence can be found here.  I very much like Rich Lowry's testimony to the realism and wisdom of our founders. 

Peggy Noonan recalls a conversation she had with David McCullough, the great historian, when both were visiting Mount Vernon.

At the bottom of a stairway leading to the second floor, we chatted for a moment, and I asked him how he accounted in his imagination for the amazing fact of the genius cluster that founded our nation. How did so many gifted men, true geniuses, walk into history at the same time, in the same place, and come together to pursue so brilliantly a common endeavor? "I think it was providential," he said, simply.

Well, so do I. If you do too, it's part of what you're celebrating today.

Me: I agree entrely.

NEWSWEEK'S COVER: "THE DECLINE AND FALL OF CHRISTIAN AMERICA"

Justin Taylor links to Dr. Albert Mohler's response to Jon Meacham's cover story.

Update 4/15/09:  Maggie Gallagher offers major corrections to the impression Meacham's article leaves.  The big jump of those who declare "no religion" took place from 1990-2001:

In that last seven years the number of Americans who say they have no religion barely inched up from 14.2 percent to 15 percent.

She says further,

Far more significant (by far) in recent years than any shift away from Christianity have been the shifts within Christianity. . .  Overall Christianity has been holding its own in recent years. But since 2001, the liberal mainline Protestants have lost a third of their adherents. 

"It looks like the two-party system of American Protestantism -- mainline versus evangelical -- is collapsing," said Mark Silk, director of the Public Values Program. "A generic form of evangelicalism is emerging as the normative form of non-Catholic Christianity in the United States."

Further:

The most amusing thing, if it weren't so sad, is to watch the pundits prophesy that abortion and gay marriage and evangelical boogeymen in general are turning off people from religion. When the reality is that the only Christian denominations declining in recent years are those which have surrendered core Christian teaching on sex, marriage and the dignity of every human life.

What we have all learned over the last two decades is this: A religion that caves in to pressure from sexual liberalism is a dead end. Surrender Christian teachings to appease the secular princes and Christianity dies. If faith leaders had any doubts about that strategy, we now know where it leads.

DO AMERICANS WANT THE UNITED STATES TO BE LIKE EUROPE?

Many do.  Clifford D. May objects (as well he should!), but he recognizes that Europeanization is the direction in which we are headed.  He quotes Charles Murray:

"It [the drift towards being like Europe] is going to be stopped only when we are all talking again about why America is exceptional, and why it is so important that America remain exceptional. That requires once again seeing the American project for what it is: a different way for people to live together, unique among the nations of the Earth, and immeasurably precious.”

May asks:

Do a sufficient number of Americans still believe that? Given the failures of America’s educational system, do most people even understand the choice that is about to be made? And, even if they do, how many are willing to fight to prevent such a counter-revolution? There may be no questions of greater consequence asked and answered over the years ahead.   (More . .  )

HOW THE UNITED STATES HAS CHANGED WITH RESPECT TO CHRISTIANITY IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE

Dr. James C. Dobson notes, "How different was the world when President Harry Truman addressed the American people from the lawn of the White House on the occasion of the lighting of the National Community Christmas Tree":

""Through Jesus Christ the world will yet be a better and a fairer place. This faith sustains us today as it has sustained mankind for centuries past. This is why the Christmas story, with the bright stars shining and the angels singing, moves us to wonder and stirs our hearts to praise. Now, my fellow countrymen, I wish for all of you a Christmas filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit, and many years of future happiness with the peace of God reigning upon this earth."

DISTORTING AMERICAN HISTORY TO PRODUCE SELF-HATERS

Mona Charen's article, "Giving Thanks for Genocide," laments "the current pedagogical fashion is to distort American history into something like a war crime."  She draws on Michael Medved's new book, The 10 Big Lies About America, in setting the record straight.

Me:  This anti-American phenomenon promotes national suicide, and it has been doing so for years.  It now takes determination (and often extra-curricular specialized reading) for a young person to retain -- or attain -- a positive opinion of the United States.

Update - Mark Steyn offers a few choice comments on a related subject,  "warts-only education."  Excerpt:

IS AMERICA SUFFERING AN IDENTITY CRISIS?

We are what we teach," so reads an alternative title to Colleen Carroll Campbell's reflections on the state of our nation today. Campbell, associated with the Ethics and Public Policy Center, writes of "our increasingly tenuous grasp of the ideals that define us as Americans."  Consider:

The 2006 National Assessment of Educational Progress Civics Test found that most American eighth graders could not explain the purpose of the Declaration of Independence. Only five percent of high school seniors could describe how presidential power is limited by Congress and the Supreme Court. [Pretty shocking!!]

College students did not fare much better: A study by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni and the University of Connecticut's Center for Survey Research and Analysis found 99 percent of seniors in top-ranked schools could identify Beavis and Butthead, but most did not know the purpose of the Emancipation Proclamation.  [Unbelievable!]    

Such ignorance poses serious dangers. As a nation founded on shared ideals rather than ethnic ties, our democracy's survival depends on each new crop of citizens understanding and assimilating our commitment to freedom, equality and the rule of law. A generation of "world citizens" who do not know the story of America's founding or the origins of American ideals cannot effectively serve their nation. Students and immigrants schooled only in America's flaws and divisions cannot convince fellow citizens to correct injustices if they lack the shared values and common moral language that have allowed previous generations to do the same. [my underlining throughout]

Ms. Campbell is the author of The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy (Loyola Press, 2002), which explores the appeal of traditional religion and morality to a growing number of young Americans.  I'm impressed with her bio.  Her website is here.

Comparing the Effects of the Internet with the Invention of the Telegraph (1844)

John J. Miller interviews Daniel Walker Howe, author of  What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848.       

MILLER: Was the invention of the telegraph in 1844 more significant than the spread of the Internet today?

HOWE: The electric telegraph probably lowered the costs of business transactions even more than did the Internet, and it certainly seemed to contemporaries an even more dramatic innovation. For thousands of years messages had been limited by the speed with which messengers could travel and the distance eyes could see signals like flags or smoke. Neither Alexander the Great nor Benjamin Franklin (America’s first postmaster-general) knew anything faster than a galloping horse. With the electric telegraph, instant long-distance communication became possible for

Archbishop of Canterbury Calls America "Imperialist"

Never underestimate the folly of supposed "leaders."  Take Rowan Williams, for example, the current Archbishop of Canterbury.  An article in the Times of London reports:

THE Archbishop of Canterbury has said that the United States wields its power in a way that is worse than Britain during its imperial heyday.

According to the article,

Williams suggested American leadership had broken down: “We have only one global hegemonic power. It is not accumulating territory: it is trying to accumulate influence and control. That’s not working.”

He contrasted it unfavourably with how the British Empire governed India. “It is one thing to take over a territory and then pour energy and resources into administering it and normalising it. Rightly or wrongly, that’s what the British Empire did — in India, for example.

And how about this?  The interview was given to a Muslim magazine.

In the interview in Emel, a Muslim lifestyle magazine, Williams makes only mild criticisms of the Islamic world. He said the Muslim world must acknowledge that its “political solutions were not the most impressive”.

All of which led the historian Victor Davis Hanson to respond in a classic, must-read rebuttal:

I suggest that the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams read a little history about the British experience in India before he offers politically-correct but historically laughable

Happy Thanksgiving!- Mark Steyn Contrasts America with Europe

Steyn, as is his wont, has produced another unique article that probably no one else could write, at least certainly not so wittily and engagingly.  In the process he awakens readers to the exceptional nature of America in the course of world history.  Consider:

“The New World” is one of the oldest settled constitutional democracies on earth, to a degree “the Old World” can barely comprehend. Where it counts, Americans are traditionalists. We know Eastern Europe was a totalitarian prison until the Nineties, but we forget that Mediterranean Europe (Greece, Spain, Portugal) has democratic roots going all the way back until, oh, the mid-Seventies; France and Germany’s constitutions date back barely half a century, Italy’s only to the 1940s, and Belgium’s goes back about 20 minutes, and currently it’s not clear whether even that latest rewrite remains operative. The U.S. Constitution is not only older than France’s, Germany’s, Italy’s or Spain’s constitution, it’s older than all of them put together.

He goes on:

Americans think of Europe as Goethe and Mozart and 12th century castles and 6th century churches, but the Continent’s governing mechanisms are no more ancient than the Partridge Family. Aside from the Anglophone democracies, most of “the west’”s nation states have been conspicuous failure at

Bill Bennett - Failure to Teach American History Is Resulting in National Amnesia

There are so many things wrong with American education that one hardly knows where to begin.  But the failure to teach American history must rank near the top. In an important article, Bill Bennett points out that our children do worse in American history than they do in reading or math.  That strikes me as pretty amazing, and depressing.  Bennett gives examples of what textbooks teach (usually in a boring manner) and don't teach.

Who knows that America’s war against Islamist terror did not begin on September 11, 2001, but that Thomas Jefferson fought our first war on terror, against Muslim slave traders in North Africa who had enslaved some 1.25 million Europeans some 200 years earlier? Children are not taught this.

To remedy our huge knowledge-of-history deficiency, he suggests:

Let us call for a renewal. Begin with the texts. Let us have a national contest sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities or the Department of Education for better history textbooks, and grant the

Don Feder on America's Debt to The Jews and Obligation to Stand With Israel

Feder writes on the ties Americans have with Israel and why it is natural for her to receive American support.  He concludes his article with these words:

We might say that no man can call himself a patriot who would seek to sever America’s ties to the source of Western religion and morality.

Our history, our heritage, our faith and our national interest all mandate American support for the Jewish state --  the land where (in a real sense) America began. A patriot who doesn’t understand this is no patriot at all.

Michael Barone Dissects the "Blame America First Crowd"

Michael Barone, arguably one of the sharpest commentators writing today, does a good job dissecting the "Blame-America-First Crowd." 

They always blame America first." That was Jeane Kirkpatrick, describing the "San Francisco Democrats" in 1984. But it could be said about a lot of Americans, especially highly educated Americans, today.

In their assessment of what is going on in the world, they seem to start off with a default assumption that we are in the wrong. The "we" can take different forms: the United States government, the vast mass of middle-class Americans, white people, affluent people, churchgoing people or the advanced English-speaking countries. Such people are seen as privileged and selfish, greedy and

Is Jimmy Carter the Worst Ex-President We've Ever Had?

Joshua Muravchek, answering in the affirmative, offers a major assesment in the February, 2007 Commentary Magazine. 

BISHOP CHARLES MASON'S FAMOUS PRAYER

Update 7/3/2014 - A reader commented that the links below have gone dead.  You can hear Bishop Mason praying at a number of YouTube sites.

(Original Post): A Black friend of mine has taught me a great deal about Black American culture .  He has also been a helpful tutor in bringing me up to speed (I still have a long way to go) on the history of the Black Church in America.   Recently he sent me an e-mail with a web address to an audio recording of a famous prayer within Black American Pentecostal circles.  It is a prayer by Bishop Charles Harrison Mason, the founder of the Church of God in Christ.   Bishop Mason offered this prayer at St. Paul's Church of God in Christ in 1948 when he was 82 years old.  To hear the prayer, click here, and then click on the link to the "Bishop's Prayer Part 1" and advance it to 10:33 on the clip.  I found the prayer instructive, full of interest and inspiration.  It's just under 12 minutes long.

THE RELIGION OF AMERICA'S FOUNDERS: ALEXANDER HAMILTON

From Bench Memos:

An Afterthought on Religion and the Founders
[Matthew J. Franck 10/23 04:50 PM]

One of the most annoying things about George Will’s review of Brooke Allen’s Moral Minority (discussed yesterday below, and quite a bit over in The Corner) was this bit.  Remarking that “the Constitution made no mention of God” (not so, actually: see here, with thanks to Ramesh Ponnuru for the reminder), Will writes: “When Hamilton was asked why, he jauntily said, ‘We forgot.’”

I presume this is Allen’s story, accepted by Will, rather than Will’s own.  But it struck me as having a false ring right away.  I doubt very much that Alexander