It Can’t Be Repeated Too Often (Until It Sinks In), Again
by Clyde N. Wilson
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“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” —Orwell
(Things that are known but which Americans do not acknowledge or discuss.)
Ruby Ridge. Your President George H.W. Bush sent a foreign assassin to murder (from hiding) an American woman standing in the door of her own home holding her baby.
Waco. Your President Clinton sent a military expedition to incinerate children who were unfortunate enough to be in company of adults who had offended the federal police apparatus.
9/11. Your federal government, with a $30 billion intelligence budget, could not prevent a bunch of unarmed felaheen (who should not even have been in the country to begin with) from killing over 3,000 people in our economic capital and destroying part of the military headquarters of our vaunted global empire.
Iraq. Your President Bush Minor lied to justify a failed war of agression. He sent the forces into an unnecessary war with inadequate equipment, despite a multibillion-dollar “defense” budget, and without a viable plan.
Many American citizens, probably in the thousands, have been murdered and otherwise victimised by illegal aliens because of your presidents’ deliberate decision not to enforce the laws, in order to put the interests of foreign politicians and domestic rich people over the welfare of citizens.
The Supreme Court and the federal bench for more than a half-century now have been dominated by evil people, unscrupulous petty tyrants, who have subverted the Constitution and laws, protected criminals from punishment, interfered in countless matters that are none of their business, overturned solemn decisions of the majority, and placed unjust burdens upon the people.
Nobody has ever been reprimanded (as far as I know), much less fired or punished for the above.
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1 Comment by Shawn Emmons on 12 March 2009:
To this list I add the killing of John Singer in 1979.
A brief description is contained in the piquantly titled “Who controls the children?” source:www.voluntaryist.com/articles/059d.php
Futhermore, in a 2006 report, a subcommittee of the house of representatives indicated the following:
The Violent Crimes Institute conducted a 12 month in-depth study of illegal immigrants who committed sex crimes and murders for the time period of January 1999 through April 2006. This study makes it clear that the U.S. faces a dangerous threat from sexual predators that cross the U.S. borders illegally.
The Institute analyzed 1,500 cases in depth, including serial rapes, serial murders, sexual homicides, and child molestation committed by illegal immigrants. Police reports, public records, interviews with police, and media accounts were all included. Offenders were located in thirty-six states, with the most of the offenders were located in States with the highest numbers of illegal immigrants. California was ranked first, followed by Texas,
Arizona, New Jersey, New York, and Florida.
Based on an estimated illegal immigrant population of 12,000,000 and the fact that young males make up more of this population than the general U.S. population, the Institute concluded that sex offenders in the illegal immigrant group make up a higher percentage. ICE reports and public records show sex offenders comprising 2% of illegals apprehended. Based on this 2% figure, which is conservative, the Institute estimates that there are approximately 240,000 illegal immigrant sex offenders in the United States.
The study concluded, when applied to ongoing illegal immigration at the borders, these estimates translate to 93 sex offenders and twelve serial sexual offenders coming across U.S. borders illegally per day. The 1,500 offenders in this study had a total of 5,999
victims. Each sex offender averaged four victims. This puts the estimate for victimization numbers around 960,000 for the 88 months examined in this study.
A LINE IN THE SAND: Confronting the Threat at the Southwest Border
source:www.house.gov/mccaul/pdf/Investigaions-Border-Report.pdf
2 Comment by Tom Ridenour on 12 March 2009:
Nobody has ever been reprimanded (as far as I know), much less fired or punished for the above.
Actually, I think there have been several promotions associated with these events. I think the FBI team leader at Ruby Ridge was promoted after the fact. Reminds me of the Yankee generals who committed war crimes and atrocities in the field and were greeted as heros in the northern cities and given promotions by Lincoln. So, by that, the modern Yankee presidents are just following precedent.
3 Comment by Derek Leaberry on 12 March 2009:
Latin Americans don’t always abide by American statutory rape laws. Although it might be argued by some that statutory rape laws have an age of consent that has been needlessly raised over the years (Loretta (Webb) Lynn was fourteen when she wed in Kentucky in the late 1940s and was married for fifty years), every state in the union has them and they don’t conform to Latin America social norms. Just today, the Washington Post informed that a 26 year old Mexican living in Virginia had been arrested for having sexual relations with a 12 year old, a definite no-no in the Old Dominion.
4 Comment by Josh Cooney on 12 March 2009:
It will never sink in. When I look at this society I can’t think of anything more profound to say than “I can’t believe people are this stupid.” “The people,” even in “these tough economic times” will continue to crave the therapeutic powers of welfare, television, sports, gadgets, sex, fast food and drugs, rather than do anything proactive or productive. They will not rethink their values, learn history, or go to church (I mean a real church). The party is over. We should all go home, lock the door, load our guns, make the sign of the cross, and wait for the bastards to come get us.
5 Comment by robert on 12 March 2009:
Dr. Wilson,
I read also that one of the banks being helped to the tune of 40 billion of “TARP” (Taxed Americana Retarded Programa)funds has decided to use 8 billion of the tapayers bailout to invest in a Chines concrete factory located in China. Nothing like stimulating the public for more “foreign affairs.”
6 Comment by william ridenour on 12 March 2009:
This sorry list, just a fraction of what has gone on, tells only one plain and obvious tale: our general government has utterly failed us, while recruiting our willing ignorant state and local leaders and rendering the unwilling and unwitting ones feckless.
They’re either evil or too stupid to know what is going on. Either way, they’re out!
Evil times have upon us, ALL due to the combined domestic and foreign policies of the two shams posing as “parties of the people”–––tweedledum and tweedleevil.
Yet, despite all this flagrant, brazen betrayal, the people not only continue to have this insane belief in government–– they even elect a devoted, brainwashed statist, like Abeoma, who brazenly said he was here to show us once again that “government is cool.”
GAWD! The one thing we learn from observing all this is the people learn nothing. Like the Jews in fascist/socialist Germany, maybe a glimmer of enlightenment will come to them just as the cyanide is dropped. Naw…most Americans are not as smart as the Jews. They’ll just die like dogs, without any idea of how this all came about. Like Curly Joe, my favorite Stooge, they’ll be blind to their own compliance, sloth and passivity that permitted all this.
No, it couldn’t be anything they’ve done, so they will think, like Curly, they’re “victims of soikumstances.”
7 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 12 March 2009:
Felaheen? I believe you mean “sayanim.” The first tip-off that the Mossad was involved came when the MSM announced that the Arabs had Canadian passports. Victor Ostrovsky mentioned in his book, By Way Of Decpetion, that a printer in Canada had been duped into running 10,000 extra fake passports for use by the Israeli secret police. The Israelis knew about 9/11 and never let the FBI in on what was aboutt to happen. Then there was the arrest of “middle-easterners” who cheered from a park in Hoboken as the planes slammed into the WTC, and who then proclained that we’re all Israelis now.
The wbsite Judicila Inc has done a good job chronicling the shenanigans of the Chosen Race.
8 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 12 March 2009:
*Judicial Inc
9 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 12 March 2009:
@1 Shawn
Many illegals are here precisely because they are one step ahead of kinfolk in the hollows of deepest, darkest Central America are seeking blood for sex crimes with their sisters and nieces back in the old country.
10 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 12 March 2009:
Many American citizens have been victimised by illegal aliens because of your presidents’ deliberate decision not to enforce the laws, in order to put the interests of foreign politicians and domestic rich people over the welfare of citizens.
And so the vile crook Bernard Madoff will be placed in a federal prison where, hopefully, he will be placed in the White Power wing to be victimized by other criminals with a deep respect for zionist scum.
11 Comment by Jon I. on 12 March 2009:
@ #10
Why would you wish violence on someone who swindled billions from the elites or the “connected” of this nation?
12 Comment by william ridenour on 13 March 2009:
Why would you wish violence on someone who swindled billions from the elites or the “connected” of this nation?
The short answer is: Because he also swindled many worthy charities, truly philanthropic institutions and others who weren’t rich at all.
But it is still not decent or justifiable to rejoice in seeing the wealthy suffer loss just because they are wealthy. This kind of ressentiment, this shadenfreude, is immoral. In addition, to do so is the make the common liberal assumption; the rich are only rich because they are crooks.
This is not a good assumption.
First, because many who are rich or wealthy as a common man accounts monetary wealth did not start out rich; and most of them earned their wealth by hard work, study and perseverance. Second, because anyone who has ever built a business knows that dishonesty is the worst policy if you want sustained, long-term success. No industry a man participates in will keep a man impeccable, but the market keeps a man a lot more honest than politics or education, and if you screw up you are fired or suffer serious loss–––at least, that’s the way it was until politicians began to interfere in business, buttressed with academic economic/social theories—but then, when that happens business is no longer business, is it? I think it’s morphed into fascism.
13 Comment by Leo on 13 March 2009:
It’s going on 75 years since the Supreme Court used the Constitution as a text instead of a palette.The last truly great Court from the early 30s that overturned much of New Deal has yet to get its popularizer. One of us should consider the task.If illegal immigration was only a labor problem,it would be manageable.Illegal laborers can be deported…or if you will imported and exported.Ranchers and farmers have been doing this for over a hundred years…wealthy people,too.The post-1960s rush to confer citizenship and voting rights on the huddled masses of the world is a liberal disorder.
14 Comment by Kirt Higdon on 13 March 2009:
#s 10, 11, & 12 I don’t wish violence on Bernie Madoff. I have a certain warmth in my heart for the man who bankrupted two pro-abortion foundations, helping to force nearly a 20% cutback by Planned Parenthood. On a higher financial level, Madoff reminds me of an ex-con who used to work with my son. He once admitted to my son that he had robbed a church, to which my son responded, “You robbed a church? You’ll go to hell!” And the former robber replied, “But I made up for it; I robbed an abortion clinic.”
15 Comment by D Simmons on 13 March 2009:
Respectable conservatism attempted to make “liberalism” coherent, hence making itself irrelevant. We have a thinner ruling consensus these days than the Soviets circa 1990, but it is propped up by the false opposition that debates “liberalism” is if it makes sense. No liberal can explain liberalism in exact detail, it being mostly a product of Ego and wishful thinking of the childlike. But conservatives are trapped in the system where at best they can make their “points” before they are shuffled out the door till they moderate themselves into respectability. All the while if they actually questioned liberalism and asked for an explanation it would collapse rather quickly.
16 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 13 March 2009:
15. Yes, remember the headway made against the Establishment by George Wallace,the only man with a national audience who faced down the liberal consensus forthrightly. But then his message was co-opted and neutered by Republican “conservatives.”
17 Comment by Josh Cooney on 13 March 2009:
Dr. Wilson lists only a handful of examples that ought to prove the wickedness of the American government. I am increasingly inclined to believe the Rothbardian thesis that all government is a racket, run by a gang of thugs and thieves. There has been too much bloodshed and misery from war and state sponsored social engineering in recent centuries for a sane person to continue to believe that government is tolerable let alone benevolent.
I have come to this conclusion only recently. I, like most everyone in this country, have been programmed to think government was merely imperfect and not inherently evil. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming, however. If the 20th century cannot convince people of the satanic nature of the state, then I do not think the lesson can be learned. I am no prophet, but I do not see a bright, happy future for Americans or the world.
There is one good thing about our current condition, however. It forces one to take very seriously the great questions of religion, namely, is there a God? And if so, is it the Christian God of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost? I admit to a constant struggle over the first question–though I still consider myself a Christian. If the answer to that question is yes, then the second question is affirmed. In other words, the only possibilities that make sense are Atheism and Christianity. Obvioiusly, one must be true and one must be false.
I apologize for getting way off target but every article I read in the magazine and on the website leads me to the very same place. To paraphrase Dr. Fleming from memory, the City of Man is crumbling, so it forces one to seek the City of God. Perhaps St. Augustine best reflects my own mood, and I suspect others as well. When asked what he wished to know, Augustine responed: God and the Soul, nothing more.
18 Comment by robert on 13 March 2009:
“But then his message was co-opted and neutered by Republican “conservatives.”
Yes, just like they have co-opted and neutered the earnest Christians who joined them since Reagan,with that Republican false promise of being pro-life. Very similar to the way democrats took Catholics and turned the main attraction into Pelosis and Kennedys, while keeping a peep hole to look at the old mummies like Casey and Wallace. “T’is all in pieces.”
19 Comment by Derek Leaberry on 13 March 2009:
The establishment was not as discredited in 1968 as it is now and is about to be. That, and the dominant liberal media, kept Wallace down. The beauty of the “Perfect Storm” that David Hartman wrote about in the recent issue of Chronicles is that the whole dry-rotted establishment is either discredited (Wall Street, Congress and the Republican Party, the Big 3 automakers, Big Labor for instance), or will be(the Democratic Party, the Welfare State). Who knows what will follow?
20 Comment by william ridenour on 13 March 2009:
#16:
But then his message was co-opted and neutered by Republican “conservatives.”
Neutered––good term. Both parties fighting for power reminds me of two geldings battling over siring rights.
21 Comment by Leo on 13 March 2009:
George Wallace never imagined he would be elected President in 1968;he hoped at best to throw the election into the House of Representatives.Although he never left a Democratic Party that despised and betrayed him,virtually 90% of Southern whites re-registered and have consistently voted Republican.I,unlike some of you,do not consider these folks to be “deluded”.The Southern Republican is generally not “co-opted” or “neutered” or whatever insult you think is appropriate.For his part,Nixon ended forced bussing and openly tried to put Southern conservatives on the Supreme Court.Most Southerners were pretty damn satisfied.Any questions?
22 Comment by Brock H. on 13 March 2009:
Leo,
I read about that in a book once. Clement Haynesworth and G. Harrold Carswell were the names of the conservative Southerners Nixon tried to get onto the court. The senate, of course, knew that those two would not accept their precious imperial federal government they had proudly built, so they forced Nixon to name the impressionable Harry Blackmun – author of Roe v. Wade.
But don’t be seduced by juicy red meat, for that is all the GOP has ever done for the South, throw slices of red meat to the hungry wolfpacks. You know, Nixon was the one who started the process we now know today as affirmative action – not a bleeding-heart Great Society leftist Democrat, but a Republican. Go to Wikipedia and look up “Philadelphia Plan.”
23 Comment by R. McCabe on 13 March 2009:
Can I ask a question that I came across while reading about the details of Ruby Ridge? It appears to me that the sniper, Lon Horiuchi, who killed Mrs. Wallace broke at least two common sense laws. I don’t know the law that well, but the charges of manslaughter were thrown out against the sniper on the grounds of the “supremecy clause” in the Constitution.
I looked that up, but as it stood alone, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense. It certainly didn’t seem written to get a sniper, who took a blind shot through a door at a man who was far away and posed no immediate threat, off the hook.
So, does anyone know about this supremecy clause? And how come the radical independence of a person is used to dismantle public outrage over such an injustice?
At least the people of Los Angeles had enough outrage to riot over Rodney King. And he was just a doped up guy.
24 Comment by Allen Wilson on 13 March 2009:
Leo, I can attest from day to day experience that Southern Republicans are some of the most deluded people in the world. They are as deluded as any black Democrat. Also, the Southern Republican of today is not the same as the Southern Democrats who re-registered as Republicans after the failure of the Wallace campaign. Times have changed and they are almost a completely different breed. They are co-opted and neutered and dont even know it, and Nixon was one of the first co-opters.
25 Comment by robert m. peters on 13 March 2009:
Mr. Wilson @ 24
I agree. My father and mother were Wallace supporters. They found themselves ever more alienated from the Democratic Party. My father remained a registered Democrat all of his life. My mother still is. Yet, she usually votes “Republican” when one is on the ticket. My voted for Eisenhower in 1952 because he loathed Truman, seeing him, rightly or wrongly, as an extension of FDR whom he could not stand. He voted for Eisenhower again in 1956 but regretted a year later with Little Rock.
In one of the last political discussion we had, a couple of months before his death, he stated that conservative Southerns turning away from the Democratic Party and to the Republican Party had been a mistake. His view was that if we had held to our conservative principles, we Southerners would have continued to elect Democrats beholden to a conservative constituency. (Daddy knew, of course, that politicians are never really anything, but they instinctively know, like rats recognizing carrion, where the power it) These conservative Southern Democrats, although a minority in their party, would have kept the party from radicalizing to the left as it has done. That would have left the Republicans weak but seeking alliances with Southern Democrats where there was a nexus. He might well have been wrong on all of this, but his instincts told him not to trust the Republicans even as his disappointment with the Democrats grew.
26 Comment by David on 14 March 2009:
McCabe @ 23…
The name is/was Vicky Weaver. And I have no idea if anyone is hunting Horiuchi. What I find fascinating is that the caliber of the weapons carried by Sammy Weaver and his friend (can’t recall this name)did not match the caliber of the bullets that killed the Deputy US Marshal. So I can only conclude that the dead Marshal was shot in the back by his fellow Marshal or Marshals. If I was a sporting man, I should wager some money with a FOIA request to get the serial numbers of all the weapons carried by that group of Marshals. I would love to see a legit ballestics (sp) test of all of their weapons and compare the rounds with the rounds that killed Marshall Dugan. Each one of the weapons was signed out to a specific Marshal. The only conclusion one could reach is that the Feds were willing to murder one of their own men to get the whole thing kicked off. A new reason, this number 1,700,829,321, for not working for the Yankee government.
27 Comment by David on 14 March 2009:
Append to #26…
Poor dead, dumb Dugan. He cast his lot with Harlots, and look what it got him.
28 Comment by PaleoPat on 14 March 2009:
Very true.
….and worth a mention on my Blog.
Well Put, Mr. Wilson, Well put.
Quite sad, Quite sobering….But quite true.
29 Comment by Robert on 14 March 2009:
Mr. Peters@25 “his instincts told him not to trust the Republicans even as his disappointment with the Democrats grew.”
Yes, this has been the reality for Southerners and politics.Encroachment from the outside and betrayal from within. From demanding the feds to stay out of their own State Supreme Court rulings to being satisfied if they could have one or two of their own on the Federal Supreme Court. Or as Mr. Wilson observes:
“the Southern Republican of today is not the same as the Southern Democrats who re-registered as Republicans after Wallace.” Ralph Reed is exhibit #1.
30 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 14 March 2009:
Ralph Reed; and not to mention Newt Gingrich, Linsey Grahamesty, the Bushes, Elizabeth Dole, etc, etc, etc
31 Comment by R. McCabe on 14 March 2009:
26, David. I apologize for getting Mrs. Weaver’s name wrong — trying to do too many things at the same time too quickly.
Um, not sure where your hunting comment comes from.
My comment though is more along the lines of Dr. Wilson’s motivation. Why was there not more outrage over this when it happened? Was their outrage? Were the Weavers slandered as outlaws by the media? What prevents such outrage from manifesting in our country? Because it happened far away in Idaho?
The supremecy clause was just a detail that I was interested in if any legal minds haunt this site.
32 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 14 March 2009:
@11 Jon
So crimes committed against the rich are not crimes in your opinion? I don’t wish violence on him, I wish justice. Violence is what happens when you get tossed into the slammer. Madoff got a judge named Chin, so he would definitely do time behind bars. Had he got a judge from his own ethnic group, he might have been able to stay in his luxury digs until his natural expiration. No, jail time is what the anti-social of his ilk deserve and what goes on behind bars is none of my business, but it will not be pleasant. If the WP crowd takes a dislike to him, then Madoff will have to befriend the JBs or the PRs — jungle bunnies or Puerto Ricans. If he can’t do the time, then he should not have done the crime.
A fellow named Merkle had followed Madoff’s scam during the early 90s, and notiifed the SEC about the swindle which was only a billion or so back then. The federal regulators need to be rounded up and thrown into the slammer, too.
33 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 14 March 2009:
Re: Southern republicans. I’m thinking in terms of Texas Democrat turncoat Phil Gramm, who, when it became clear he was on the losing side of history, switched parties. Then he raised a ton of dough for his campaign war chest, and ran for president in 1992, but was defeated early on in the cauci by an upstart called Pat Buchanan. Pat’s people could spot a McCain type a mile away. Oh boohoo sob weep! Good riddance to bad rubbish. Death to RINOs!
34 Comment by Valerie Protopapas on 14 March 2009:
The same sniper who shot Vickie Weaver was also in the “blue” sniping team that killed several Branch Davidians in Waco who were trying to leave the compound probably to surrender to authorities. With Horiuchi was the whole sniper team that was with him at Ruby Ridge. The government swore that no one fired on their side, but empty shell casings were found were the blue team were hiding – so much for “truth in government”.
The Republic was gravely wounded in the Mexican-American war which was – as U.S. Grant proclaimed – a war of Empire. It died in 1861 – as did the Constitution – when Abraham Lincoln used subversive tactics to force South Carolina to fire upon the ships that were trying to reinforce Ft. Sumter and then upon the fort itself when it refused to do as the United States government had agreed; that is, remove federal troops from the soil of South Carolina.
Lincoln acted throughout his presidency in ways that were illegal, unconstitutional and tyrannical. He used federal troops to wage war on various states in the Union and out of the Union including their use to affect election results in 1864 in his favor. He discarded habeas corpus and the constitutional requirement of the Congress to declare war. He marginalized the Supreme Court with threats of such a nature as to insure that no Justice would interfere with his actions. He waged inhuman war upon helpless civilians. He encouraged and permitted the torture and murder of Confederate prisoners of war and refused all efforts by the Confederacy to render aid to Union prisoners of war, even so far as to refuse to accept their return without any quid pro quo in order to keep them from dying. He rejoiced in the suffering of the people of the South according to General Sherman who delighted in recounting their sufferings to Lincoln who, the General reported laughed at the tales. He participated in a treasonous and illicit trade between the two sections: cotton, resin and turpentine from the South for food, medicine and ARMS from the North, which resulted in huge profits for elites on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line!
Today, of course, Lincoln is a martyr and a saint and no one wants to hear or know of these facts of history. Yet, as time goes on, we see Lincoln’s likeness in every succeeding excess of tyranny by the federal government and soon even the most blind will realize that the boys in gray were right! Jefferson Davis warned that the time would come when the cause for which the South fought – to restrain the federal government – would rise again. That time has come, but one has to wonder if there are any left of the likes of Davis and Lee and Jackson to fight it anew.
35 Comment by Robert on 14 March 2009:
“That time has come, but one has to wonder if there are any left of the likes of Davis and Lee and Jackson to fight it anew.”
Well, I doubt that there are any left of the likes of these. Moderns like to drone on about the “greatest generation” and maybe WWII was a “great” War in terms of magnitude. But there is a difference, seen most clearly in women, between magnitude and greatness. For me, the civil war participants were truly America’s greatest generation. Unfortunately so many of America’s finest were killed or decimated in the war (over a million) and we have never recovered from their loss. And as a result of such permanent losses, we shall never see their kind again. Nathan Bedford Forrest was to Tennessee what Will Rogers was to Oklahoma, Lee and Jackson were to Virginia –they were the thing itself, for their love had made it so. You can no more create a lover out of nothing than you can create a tree or a monkey from common clay, although listening to todays High Priests in Science, Medicine, Law and Psycho-Therapy –one might wonder why not? It is like creating democracy in Iraq or trustiing Republicans and Democrats to expand our “freedoms” at home: One simply cannot give what one does not possess.
36 Comment by J Meng on 14 March 2009:
Welcome to the decline of the United States of America….the FALL will not be far behind.
37 Comment by william ridenour on 14 March 2009:
Nathan Bedford Forrest was to Tennessee what Will Rogers was to Oklahoma, Lee and Jackson were to Virginia –they were the thing itself, for their love had made it so.
Well said. G.K. Chesterton opined that men did not love Rome because it was great, but that Rome was great because men loved her.
How often in modern times is the cause confused for the effect! But since modern man spends almost all his time looking at reality precariously balanced on his head the confusion is easily understandable––though not forgivable.
38 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 15 March 2009:
#29 addendum: Warner, Hutchinson, Martinez, Gramm, Vitter, Lott, McConell,Frist, Allen, etc, etc, etc
39 Comment by John Willson on 15 March 2009:
Dear Clyde,
You are much too honest to be taken seriously. God bless you.
Although this may not be exactly on your point, let me give some prescriptive credit to my New England ancestors on the larger point. This is also historically relevant. On March 17th, 1776, the British army and administration pulled out of Boston. That was 109 days before the southern ideologue Jefferson’s Declaration was signed by the Continental Congress. The “revolution” was over in New England before it began anyplace else. In fact, over 50,000 men arose from their homes on the night of April 19th, 1775, to expel the invaders of their towns. I’m proud to say that many of my ancestors were among them. George Washington’s camp password on March 17, 1776 was “Saint Patrick.”
Best, John
40 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 15 March 2009:
Decline and fall? Worse things have happened. The Russian foreign policy crew are predicting the balkanization of North America along the lines of the book Nine Nations. The Breadbasket midwestern regions, and the Energy producing Rockies the (Empty Quarter) will do fine. Start packing and head for Idaho because the Chosen Race is scared to death of the place. New England and Quebec are too left-wing to survive. MexAmerica and the Caribbean Islands are a complete political and cultural write-off. Rust Belt and Dixie will need a lot of change, and Ecotopia is nothing more than an acid trip on a pipe dream.
It takes an outsider to explain America to Americans.
41 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 15 March 2009:
#38 John. All honour to the Massachusetts patriots who expelled the British. Of course, there was still much fighting to be done by Southerners until freedom was secured by all the American states. One of the great unexplained tragedies of American history is how the Massachusetts elite went so badly wrong within a few years after, pursuing utterly selfisah policies, aiding the British enemy in wartime, attempting to prevent the movement of Americans westward to establish yet more free States, and deliberately lying to claim all the credit for the War of Independence with slandering the contributions of the South (and the Middle States).
Then pursuing economic and cultural imperialism that last until this day and that were the root cause, as many Northerners and even a good number of New Englanders recognised, the root cause of the great bloodletting of the 1860s.
42 Comment by J Meng on 15 March 2009:
Etienne Gervaise @39: I am an American citizen from birth; so, what’s your point about my claim about the decline and fall of America as if it can only be appreciated and explained by outsiders? What’s worse than the obliteration of one’s country?
43 Comment by Robert on 15 March 2009:
Dr. WIlson writes :”One of the great unexplained tragedies of American history is how the Massachusetts elite went so badly wrong within a few years after, pursuing utterly selfisah policies, aiding the British enemy in wartime, attempting to prevent the movement of Americans westward to establish yet more free States, and deliberately lying to claim all the credit for the War of Independence with slandering the contributions of the South (and the Middle States).”
Yes, this is a great historical mystery. Just looking at some of the Massachusetts citizens as they attempt to lead is a portrait in dissipation. Even aside from the Kennedy clan, look at Michael Dukakis, John Kerry,and other Mass. leaders who are so disconnected from anything of substance -of course they cannot ride or shoot — but I am speaking of something even more elementary to real character like drinking coffee, enduring rain, or conversing with ordinary folk without lieing. The only man G.W. could have lost to in 2004 was John Kerry but leave it to Massachusetts to always lead where no serious man would ever follow.
44 Comment by C Bowen on 16 March 2009:
The Constitution favored power to the South–who, allied with the West, first pursued policies of protectionism for infant manufacturing interests. As the Boston Elites had interests in shipping and boat building, it was a natural political dichotomy. The Federalists were all but wiped out politically by the early 1800s helped by a waive of Yankee Irish immigration who, as today, didn’t care for the Eastern Establishment, but didn’t care for the pro-Napolean sympathies of the South thanks to persecutions of the Catholic Church. Copperheads/Yankee Democrats were certainly better leaders then Midwest lawyers.
Anyway, Federalist opportunists in New England began the cause of secessionism–a last ditch effort to stay relevant. After the disastrous course of the Southern War Hawks helped forge a separate peace of sorts with the British during the expansionist war of 1812 (the DC regime didn’t master the ‘get them to shoot first’ trick until Fort Sumter), the Boston elite grew in real power terms and leaned Federalist.
The new money was used for loans to build factories.
When Mr.Madison’s War ended, the only ones with money were in Boston but the end of the manufacturing war boom caused the interests to ditch shipping and free trade for protectionism as they were stretched thin in factory investments(JQAdams)–and the Southern War Hawks made a similar ideological switch back to agrarians and away from factories. To preserve their position, the slave or free state arguments began as they were popular for a variety of reasons and demographics.
Shipping interests continued to go whaling, boat building, ice shipping to Boston, timber, but the money behind it shifted to other trades–like opium.
45 Comment by Jon I. on 16 March 2009:
@#32 Etienne Gervaise
I do not take pleasure in the legitimate charities that were damaged, along with the folks who have lost their entire life savings.
The people I am glad that it happened too simply took a good hit. I don’t have anything against wealthy people, especially when it is self-made but I do have a problem with what I call the “elite”, or the super wealthy, along with those who as I said are “connected” with the puppet masters of our government and society. I have no love for the Hollywood crowd, along with anyone who has ever inherited from a Rockefeller, a Rothschild etc.
Along with Mr. Hidgon, I cannot feel sympathy for the many leftist, “social activist” organizations that were laid low along with Mr. Madoff.
46 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 16 March 2009:
44. Your account is full of misapprehensions. The South never favoured tariff for industries. At the end of the War of 1812, Southerners, who were always more national-minded and not as selfish and sectional as New Englanders, agreed to a modest temporary tariff as a gesture to New Englanders who had been damaged by the Embargo and war. That support had ended by the 1820s when it became apparent that the industrialists wanted permanent and high tariffs. It is true that early on shipping dominated New England and was anti-tariff. Danile Webster sat in the House of Reps from Portsmouth NH and voted against the 1816 tariff. By the time he moved to Boston a few years later the industrialists out-powered the shippers and Webster was a high-tariff man.
I do not understand your points about Napoleon, but your assumptions are wrong in all kinds of ways. The South was never particularly fond of Napoleon. The Irish Catholics were generally quite sympathetic to the South because the South, unlike the Northern elite and public, was NOT anti-Catholic.
47 Comment by Tom Ridenour on 16 March 2009:
”One of the great unexplained tragedies of American history is how the Massachusetts elite went so badly wrong within a few years after, pursuing utterly selfisah policies,…
I think the mystery is explained in large part by one simple thing: the self-righteous, holier-than-thou aspect of the Puritan character, which remained even after they jettisoned their religious dogma in favor of Transcendentalist skepticism––and it remains to this day, poisoning our land.
When you have fallen in love with absurd abstractions, like the “public good”, and believe your way is superior and its implementation will improve that fictional “the public good” (especially your little corner of “the public good”) you don’t hedge on the means you use to make your way THE way. You have convinced yourself that that which is best for New England is best for America. Once you succeed with that you then labor to convince Americans that that which is best for America is also best for the world. Welcome to Neoconotopia.
48 Comment by C Bowen on 16 March 2009:
Source: James Truslow Adams, New England in the Republic 1926
He sites Abbott Lawrence, Memoir of Abbott Lawrence 1883 (Lawrence has “bad guy” protectionist & rail roads written all over him, but that sort of makes his points more interesting, writing in 1848 to combat the notion that ‘protectionism’ started in New England.)
And it was Madison in 1793 who started the tariff program as an extension of foreign policy/trade war with Britain, and manufacturing interests were squarely in the Democratic camp by 1800–then the embargo/sanction regime starts as prelude to war, imperial war, the invasion of Canada, debt financed– a script we all know.
Let me stipulate, I’m in the Constitution as Coup d’etat camp–I have no dog in this fight save imagining whom I would have sympathized with politically with in the moment.
New England Federalist propaganda around 1800 referred to the “Southern jacobins” and thought of Irish Democrats (not wholly without reason) as likely potential revolutionaries–some probably were. I should have been clearer that (the decent) Irish Catholics objected to the French Revolution on the grounds of what happened to the Church; they certainly sympathized with the South, and for the revolutionaries amongst the Irish, fighting England wasn’t a bad idea–it was good for Ireland (in theory–where have we heard this before?) But with Irish Catholics, the sympathies change (and Reagan Democrats are born lol).
The secessionist reaction in New England was just sitting there waiting for the taking, and the Federalists of New England adopted New England First.
Ironically, the John Henry affair that Madison fell for (the Chalabi case of another era) while not entirely off the mark, was a huge coup for Federalists.
49 Comment by Tom Ridenour on 16 March 2009:
The Irish Catholics were generally quite sympathetic to the South because the South, unlike the Northern elite and public, was NOT anti-Catholic.
That may well have been true then, but not now. I know. I grew up in an Anti-Catholic family, and in an area that had only a handful of Catholics everyone looked down on.
As a southerner and Catholic (convert) I have noted that many of the protestant ministers who are at the forefront of the Southern movement are very hostile to the Catholic faith (of which they know nothing). To my disappointment, I have heard them talk to other members at conventions and meetings, spreading things I know are lies and misrepresentations about the Church and distortions of Church teaching.
If you’re going to hate something hate it for what it really is, not for some distorted straw-man vision your bigoted imagination can fabricate.
To those Protestant ministers and others who carry and spread Catholic hatred by lies and distortions I have but one thing to ask: Could you please strive to treat others as you want to be treated?
If you, as a Southerner, hate being lied about and your history misrepresented by the Yankee government, why, then, do you treat Catholics and the Catholic Church that very same way?
To paraphrase Bishop Sheen, not one decent person hates the Catholic Church, but thousands hate what they have been lead to believe she is.
Those who misrepresent her and distort her teaching, I don’t care how holy and righteous they present themselves to be or how much they are revered and respected, will have a lot to answer for because they unjustly slandered the Church.
As for me: I’m Southern and Catholic. I don’t see a contradiction there at all, and I’m thankful to God I can claim both of these allegiances and see an harmonious, complimentary balance between them.
The fact is, America has always had an anti-Catholic animus in virtually every section, but the hatred and hostility was much greater in the north in the early years of the Republic.
50 Comment by Robert on 16 March 2009:
Tom,
Yes maybe, but things have changed since the North ripped the South all to hell. Southerners are still more likely to mind their own business when they are left alone. It is only when somebody begins to instruct them on how the cow ate the cabbage that they start fighting back. Simple folks don’t tend to be as concerned with what is none of their business, as do politicians — so many of these preachers today have such a pathetic understanding of faith they have moved into politics. When I was a youngster I always felt comfortable in places like Louisianna, Georgia and Tennessee. But heck I don’t feel comfortable anywhere these days even in my own Catholic Church! Everybody must be reading George Weigel these days because evidently you can’t be a Catholic any longer in any place unless you vote republican too — and that ain’t the South’s fault!
51 Comment by Tom Ridenour on 16 March 2009:
50 Everybody must be reading George Weigel these days because evidently you can’t be a Catholic any longer in any place unless you vote republican too — and that ain’t the South’s fault!
Nolo Contendere. My guess is most Catholics who are political are the more concerned pro-lifers. Most are not politically or historically sophisticated enough to know there are any alternatives other than the two shams in DC. Also, they are mislead by the slander of the Libertarian position that comes from phony conservative/political pragmatist like MIchael Medved.
Most of these Catholics support the Republican party because they believe they’ll get the support thenyneed to overturn the abortion debacle from them. Sure the Republicans have disappointed in the past, but the Democrat party is clearly impossible.
Most of these pro-life Catholics are spiritually strong and politically unsophisticated––naive. But they are of good will. But who will introduce them to Thomas Woods and others who offer a real, sane alternative to the Neoconomania of the Republican so-called Conservatives?
Of course, to Catholic shame and the shame of the bishops, who have failed to fulfill their mandate from Christ to “go forth and teach…”, we know the majority of Catholics voted for the baby killer, Obama. They have blood on their hands and should refrain from Communion. But the cowardice of the bishops and priests to teach and enforce what Rome teaches persists and the apostates commit sacrilege with every communion. Only a few Bishops openly protest.
52 Comment by Tom Ridenour on 16 March 2009:
Just one point about the Catholic animus of many religious leaders in the Southern Movement:
How are we going to unite to stand against Yankee tyranny if we are slandering one another and creating unneeded division and resentment?
Not only is doing so malicious and stupid, it’s just downright Bush League–and haven’t we had enough of Bush?
53 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 17 March 2009:
Several of you gentlemen have a point about some of the clergy who pretend to or think they are leaders of “the Southern movement.”
The people to whom you refer are unfortunate victims of the remnants of Yankee puritanism that was imposed on the South in defeat. The Southern tradition is eclectic tolerance of the other fellow’s church. Strange that people who call themselves Southerners should be the last defenders of the nastiest form of Yankee Puritanism, but that sort of thing happens in conquered and occupied countries. Some of the same people condemn harmless pastimes as witchcraft. And curiously, share the Catholic hatred of the harmless (in America) Masonic order. A disintegrating society produces many strange fruits.
54 Comment by Sempronius on 17 March 2009:
I’ve been semi-officially banned from commenting on CW posts,but this is too tempting to pass up.
Inevitable.After centuries of “Whore of Babylon” and “Scarlett lady of the Mediterranean” propaganda,you could hardly expect anything less.Also,seizure of monastery lands by Henry VIII has created a powerful political interest within Anglo-Saxon civilization that is strongly prejudicial against Catholic-Continental-Latin civilization.That power transcends virtually evey sub-group in the Anglosphere.
(Amusingly,when Hilaire Belloc discovered that the Puritans celebrated a Thanksgiving Day for their arrival in New England,he proposed that the English celebrate a Thanksgiving for their departure!)
A good deal of “religious” animus is merely a cover for national-ethnic divisions.The Southern-Yankee continuum in these matters is simply an expression of ethnic solidarity in the face of a common “foe.”
I would also add that “tolerance”,in classic Catholic analysis,is simply another word for “indifference.”And indifference carries with it a problem or four of its own.
55 Comment by Robert on 17 March 2009:
“And curiously, share the Catholic hatred of the harmless (in America) Masonic order.”
Dr. Wilson,
I don’t hate the Masons in America but I don’t know that much about them. I always go to their bean and cornbread feeds and the annual circus they bring to town. My grandad was a 32nd degree as was my Uncle and for me it always seemed just like a charity or mens group with not the faintest clue as to how or where they received their ritual. I have heard everything from “organized naturalism”, to an anti-catholic force in Mexico, to sponsors of the French Revolution, and even that they helped build Chartres Cathedral, but again I am not familiar enough with all that to know. I have been asked to join before while eating with them, but their wives always save me the uncomfortable request by saying, “Honey, you know he can’t join because he’s a Catholic.” To which I always respond, “Yes, and far it be it from me to attempt the last word with a woman.”
56 Comment by Tom Ridenour on 17 March 2009:
The people to whom you refer are unfortunate victims of the remnants of Yankee puritanism that was imposed on the South in defeat. The Southern tradition is eclectic tolerance of the other fellow’s church. Strange that people who call themselves Southerners should be the last defenders of the nastiest form of Yankee Puritanism, but that sort of thing happens in conquered and occupied countries.
This is an excellent point. I’ve felt that there is a common spirit in Puritanism and certain strains of strict Calvanism. But I wonder, Dr. Wilson, could some of the post war Catholic animus have sprung from resentment towards Irish (Catholics) who were conscripts in the Yankee army? Also do you think the alleged xenophobia of the South, such as it is, was an effect of the war?
People look at the south now and assume things were always this way. But it seems to me many of the evils the South is vilified for, whether justly or unjustly, were largely effects of the war and reconstruction. I know relations between whites and blacks changed drastically due to the Yankee poison purposely pumped into southern society to weaken the South during Reconstruction, using the cleaver old tactic of divide and conquer.
Am I off base here in making these assumptions?
57 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 17 March 2009:
#54. Young Sempronius, you reveal a limited understanding and an ungeneroius spirit if you think Protestantism results primarily from a political/economic motive. That is too cheap and easy. In a sense, anti-Catholic animus was unimportant in early America, because there were so few Catholics, and those who were good citizens were well tolerated actually if not officially. William Gaston was chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court for years though he was technically ineligible, for instance, and the Armstrongs of New York held important military and political offices, not to mention Maryland. The Catholic bishop was invited to address the legislature in South Carolina at the same time Yankee mobs were torching convents in Boston and Philadelphia (Republican strongholds, of course), with the collusion of local authorities.
For the record, the first Americqan Thanksgiving was an Anglican one at Jamestown, not the ballyhooed event in Massachusetts. Co
58 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 17 March 2009:
#56, Tom, you ask some interesting questions. No, I do not think that anti-Catholicism grew in the South because of the Catholic Irish in the Union Army. There were plenty of good irish in the Southern army as well and there were far more Catholics in high positions in the Confederate army and government than there ever were in the U.S. until the 20th century. Father John Bannon, a brave priest with the Missouri Confederates, ran the blockade and went to Pio IX to inform him of the situation; after which priests were sent to Ireland to damp down the Yankee recruitment of cannon fodder. There was something of a trend of ex-Confederates toward conversion after the war.
The South became anti-Catholic in the late 19th century in the same way it became Republican in the late 20th century. Because the Southernness was being drasined away and it was becoiming more typically mainstream American. Of course, as soon as the South starts to forget itself and resemble mainstream America, it is immediately targeted by the left enemies of the mainstream as the fount of America’s bad characteristics.
A plague on all their houses.
59 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 17 March 2009:
@42 J Meng
The book Nine Nations is about 20 years old. The fact of the matter is in 1861 the South wished to be free and fought hard for an independence they could not keep. Lincoln’s union was preserved at a terrible cost. Is it really necessary to hold together 50 states by force if they have little in common with Washington? I have adopted Virginia as my home, and should the legislature secede tonight, I’ll be wearing butternut camo for muster tomorrow.
60 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 17 March 2009:
@45 Jon I
The problem is we’ll never really know who got ripped off, or for how much. In a Ponzi scheme, the first ones in get back their earnings and probably their initial stake, too. I’m struck with a vague suspicion that “singers” were dragged before cameras who were not victims at all. And 50 Billion is a lot of money, it didn’t all vanish, it ended up somewhere, and our Keystone Kop FBI will never really look for it.
61 Comment by Jonathan Vaughan on 17 March 2009:
#58 – Clyde Wilson
Very interesting you mention Bannon. I recommend the book, The South’s Finest: The First Missouri Confederate Brigade from Pea Ridge to Vicksburg. Most confederate regiments were hard fighting, and the Missouri Brigade was that to the power of ten. When training my sons on manliness, this history will be required reading.
62 Comment by Sempronius on 17 March 2009:
Older,wiser,CW,let us be friends again.My understanding of these matters is partly based on the writings of Belloc and Cobbett.Neither of whom can be fairly described as cheap or easy.Cobbett,a good man and friend of England’s downtrodden,as well as a sympathizer of the American Revolution,was himself a Protestant.You should of heard what my old Jesuit teachers had to say about the subject!
I should mention that political and economic concerns are not entirely absent from certain instances of Catholic behavior as well.
Yes,I know.I learned that from you,reading old copies of Chronicles Magazine.However,Belloc’s quip was in reference to those dour Northern Protestant kinsmen of yours.
By the way,now that I’ve got your attention,I’d like some expert opinion.I’m about to delve into three books by two scholars,and I’d kindly appreciate your opinion before I begin.They are,Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy and An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States,both by Charles Austin Beard.And Cracks in the Constitution by Ferdinand Lundberg.
Any advice,opinions,admonitions,death threats?
One last thing.Where the heck is Fleming?
63 Comment by Tom Ridenour on 17 March 2009:
From Dr. Wilson, #58
Tom, you ask some interesting questions.
Dr. Wilson, thank you so much for that response. It’s very clarifying–––are you sure you have actually spent time in academia?
Some of what you say I suspected, though I didn’t know about Catholics in positions of authority in the Confederacy. What I figured is that 1) there may have not been that enough Irish in the “Glorious Federal Liberation Army” to warrant such a response, and 2) the south was full of people of Irish heritage, like some of my own relatives, that there was a kind of a balance that would have kept other non-irish/non-Catholics from using race as an excuse for venting…but as Chesterton says, any stick is fine for beating the Church.
#58 The South became anti-Catholic in the late 19th century in the same way it became Republican in the late 20th century. Because the Southernness was being drasined away and it was becoiming more typically mainstream American.
Yankee pollution came slow to the isolated mountains of SE Kentucky I grew up in. Just as a kind of proof of what you’re saying, I heard very little negative about anyone from my parents, except those my mother regarded as “poor white trash”, but I think that was compensation on her behalf to make up for all those around who regarded us as poor white trash. But to my point, the only anti-Catholic was my uncle, who had gone to the Navy during Korea. He came back with a strong anti-Catholic sentiment and articulated it whenever he had the chance. No one else was of that disposition, not just in my family, but in the whole area. So, that’s a bit of anecdotal support for what you say. Now, I don’t know. It’s been a long time since I’ve been home.
#58Of course, as soon as the South starts to forget itself and resemble mainstream America, it is immediately targeted by the left enemies of the mainstream as the fount of America’s bad characteristics.
Sounds like the crooks in Washington: they force policy on business, business implements them in obedience, business collapses, the crooks in DC posture and preen and feign outrage, look for scapegoats, hold a few show trials, and then take over the company their policies caused to fail.
So much for Yankee justice. A pox on their house, Amen!
And Pax upon yours, Professor.
64 Comment by Robert on 17 March 2009:
“seizure of monastery lands by Henry VIII has created a powerful political interest within Anglo-Saxon civilization that is strongly prejudicial against Catholic-Continental-Latin civilization.That power transcends virtually evey sub-group in the Anglosphere.”
Sempronius,
This is a pretty thin read of Mr. Belloc if you ask me. I always think that too few people read too little Belloc — as in, if you are going to read him, read alot of him. I don’t want to break the news to you but one of Clye Wilson’s favorites is The Four Men. Have you read that book? What Belloc said about Protestantism is that without England, it would have been a family feud. That Henry VIII was a staunch defender of the Mass, that he was a temperamental fellow, that Calvin’s book provided an intellectual basis upon which the unstable situation came to rest, that Henry’s desire for a male heir along with his weakness for women, occuring soon after the revolt in Germany, coupled with a determinate number of corrupt Catholic clergy all converged, and the break up was accidentally completed and forever unfortunate for our race. A little reading of Mr. Belloc, like a little learning, is a dangerous thing. Or to paraphrase Cardinal Newman’s remark about history, “To be steeped in Belloc,is to cease to be a pompous ass.”
65 Comment by John Mitchel's last laugh on 17 March 2009:
Re#41: “One of the great unexplained tragedies of American history is how the Massachusetts elite went so badly wrong within a few years after, pursuing utterly selfisah policies, aiding the British enemy in wartime, attempting to prevent the movement of Americans westward to establish yet more free States, and deliberately lying to claim all the credit for the War of Independence with slandering the contributions of the South (and the Middle States).”
That is no mystery, and cultural history explains it. They were always acting as Anglo-Saxon Puritans, the great Judaizing heretics. And they always will act as what they are culturally, whether religiously they be Calvinsits or Social Gospelers or Unitarians or Mormons or Queer Theorists and New Agers.
Just as the Chosen Race will always act as the Chosen Race, whether it be led religiously and morally by Orthodox Pharisees, agnostics, atheists, Buddhists, or New Age Multiculturalists.
66 Comment by John Mitchel's last laugh on 17 March 2009:
#57 Protestanism resulted primarily because Martin Luther hated being a monk and feared ofr his salvation and so concocted ’sola fide.’ But it is at best romantic to assume that Protetantism spread as it did due to masses of humble folks concluding that salavtion is by faith only. Not only did all Protestant revolutions feature mass property theft (both of Catholic Church property and property of Catholics who refused to convert), but Luther himself made economics central to his alleged theological reformation when he made the case that ‘rich Italy’ was stealing from the ‘poor Germanies,’ which then would be justified in becoming Protestant and stealing all Catholic property.
Look at England: what % of Catholic Church property was stolen during the English Reformation? What % of property owned by Catholics who refused to convert to Protestantism was allowed to remain in the hands of their Catholic owners?
67 Comment by Tom Ridenour on 18 March 2009:
#66:What % of property owned by Catholics who refused to convert to Protestantism was allowed to remain in the hands of their Catholic owners?
Let us not forget the land and property confiscations in Ireland. How many Irish were driven off their ancestral land because they would not deny their ancestor’s faith.
The Empire is the enemy of the Church, for both vie jealously for that universal part of man that seeks an object worthy of transcendent allegiance and fealty.
Watch for the attacks on religion to increase, and the Catholic Church will be at the epicenter standing against the excesses of modernity.
The Empire is a usurper––that’s its nature. It confiscates and subjugates like a bird flies or a fish swims.
“Surely you exaggerate–– such a thing could never happen in America.”
Think not?… How many things have already passed and are passing that only 15 years ago we would have thought impossible.
Who, in America, in 1845 could have conceived of a million man army from certain states marching on other states to ruthlessly conquer and destroy their land, burn their homes, steal their wealth and imprison the whole region by the most brutal of means?
68 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 18 March 2009:
#62. Dear Sempronius, I am happy to see that in your search for knowledge you are casting a wide net. I do not know the work by Lundberg. The two books by Beard are worth reading. I think Beard’s reputation has suffered because successors picked up his ideas in a literal-minded way and ran with them. All Beard really does is expose that there were economic motivations in the founding and early politics of the U.S. This should really be no surprise, since economics can be found as an aspect of any large event (like the English break with Rome). The problem comes when literal-minded idiots (who fill the ranks of the American academy) take economics as the exclusive and deterministic factor in great events. This, of course, is Marxism/capitalism. When Beard wrote, you must understand, he was presenting something that had been largely ignored and was shocking to many. It is little noted that the capitalists already knew the validity of what he said (the role that machinations of their predecessors had played in the Constitution and early politics) but did not want it to get around. Chief Justice W.H. Taft, “conservative” Republican, is supposed to have said of Beard’s revelations: “They’re true, but he shopuldn’t say so.”
69 Comment by John Roberts on 18 March 2009:
I know this is off topic but I was wondering if Prof. Wilson has ever posted a suggested reading list here at this website. As a sort of cyber U.S. History professor I would love to read books that would correct the mainstream Yankee history that we have all grown up with. If someone could provide I link I would be most appreciative.
70 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 18 March 2009:
Uou will find archived under Columnists and my name on http://www.lewrockwell.com a reading list for Southern history. It is now a few years out of date and limited in scope, but may be useful.
71 Comment by Jonathan Vaughan on 18 March 2009:
Reply to #70
Look for Dr. Wilson’s archived articles. Many of them contain long book lists of the type your are seeking. There is one article I vaguely remember devoted mostly to Southern reading.
72 Comment by Chesterbelloc on 18 March 2009:
“One of the great unexplained tragedies of American history is how the Massachusetts elite went so badly wrong within a few years after”
Massachusetts has gone through several fundamental shifts in character. In the Revolutionary period the Puritans of Boston (who had not yet lost all their senses) were balanced by the sensible English farmers who occupied the rest of the State. After the war these Puritans began their long, strange transformation into liberals while simultaneously consolidating control of the State in Boston (most visibly in the crushing of Shays’ Rebellion). From that point on they dominated the State, although as late as 1920 sensible rural Yankees like Calvin Coolidge could rise to power (I wonder what Prof. Wilson thinks of him?). By the 1950s, however, the Boston liberals had gained complete control by teaming up with the legions of union hacks that now occupied the State. This is the parternship that has produced such wonderful hybrids as Ted Kennedy and John Kerry.
On another note, I second John Roberts’ request for some good works of Southern history.
73 Comment by Derek Leaberry on 18 March 2009:
Excellent overview of the moral decline of Massachusetts, Mr. Belloc. Were the roots of Massachusetts Yankee decline there from the Puritan beginning? I feel certain Dr. Fleming would argue that. Was Yankee degeneration intensified by Emerson, Thoreau, Wendell Phillips and others like them? It would seem so. Was John F. Kennedy’s defeat of Henry Cabot Lodge in 1952 the last gasp of the Yankees at the same time that the Irish of Massachusetts began to absorb the worst features of the Yankees? That would seem so.
And think of the wicked deeds of the Yankees who transplanted themselves, especially to upstate New York. Feminism, the Free Love Movement, Mormonism, the Barnburners and various other egalitarian movements all germinated in Yankee settled areas of New York.
74 Comment by Sempronius on 18 March 2009:
Many thanks to CW.
Ouch,that hurt.It is a bit difficult to be “steeped in Belloc.”He wrote over 150 books.However I’ve done more than “a little reading” of HB.And if memory serves,the desire to loot Church property,together with the rise of a wealthy class of Protestants created by that looting,strongly attached to their new faith and their new loot,clinched the affair.
-What Was the Reformation?
by Hilaire Belloc
You could hardly be any more categorical.There were,of course,a myriad other causes of the revolt.But seizing Church lands was a major one,and probably the one cause that was the “clincher.”
75 Comment by Tom Ridenour on 18 March 2009:
72 Massachusetts has gone through several fundamental shifts in character.
I lived in Connecticut for 15 years and got very familiar with the social and cultural climate. My own sense is the specific content of consideration has changed for New Englanders, but the character has remained the same: obnoxious, aggressive, selfish, and promoting its self-aggrandizing agenda with a pseudo religiosity and self-righteousness. The Puritan and Progressive spirit share the same reprehensible character.
76 Comment by R Hammes on 18 March 2009:
Dr. Wilson,
What are your thoughts on Walter Edgar’s “South Carolina: A History”? My wife, a school teacher, said her fellow teachers have highly recommended this book to her. I hesitate to take the advice of a public school teacher.
Mr. Edgar appeared in a video for the Catholic Dioscese of Charleston on the history of Catholicism in South Carolina. The video was a part of my RCIA classes. The video was a one hour apology for South Carolina’s history of oppression of blacks and women, complete with a flippant dismissal of Bishop Lynch’s support for secession, a yankee explanation of the war (with no southern viewpoint offered), and outrage that SC is only one of nineteen or so states not to pass the Equal Rights Amendement. The only speaker in the video that I can recall who had anything decent to say about SC history was Mr. Edgar and he was limited to the WWI/ WWII eras.
77 Comment by C Bowen on 18 March 2009:
After ‘revising’ Yankee history, you’ll need to consult Loyalist resources and form a proper, conservative opinion–don’t stop half-way, or the purpose of Yankee “history” won’t be fully understood in context.
Jumping ahead to the end of your readings, isn’t it something that British party politics played such a role in our founding? Was General Howe a traitor? And what about Burke?
78 Comment by Derek Leaberry on 18 March 2009:
I think the de-industrializing of Massachusetts has pushed it further to the left as well. Massachusetts had a larger base of what roughly could be called conservative voters when it had industries, pre-1960. Industries not only require a business class that votes for more conservative candidates, it provides sources of campaign cash. On top of that, most blue collar workers have an inherent conservative streak. Today, the chief industries of Massachusetts are the colleges, the governments, and the computer crowd, all of which are left-wing. This is the sort of America Barack Obama and the Democratic Party want for the rest of us.
Of course, by their support of absolute free trade, “conservatives” like George W. Bush, Lawrence Kudlow, John McCain, David Brooks and a gaggle of others support the very de-industrialization that will likely spell the death knell of political conservatism. Sam Francis didn’t call the Republicans the Stupid Party for nothing.
79 Comment by John Roberts on 18 March 2009:
Dr. Wilson:
The motherlode! Thanks!
80 Comment by J Meng on 18 March 2009:
Etienne Gervais, @59: I have no argument with your desire to remain a Virginian when this country falls. In fact, I salute your aspirations. As I have noted elsewhere, this nation will probably fracture (balkanization) into various regional identities. My question concerned your assertion that only foreigners can explain America to Americans(your allusion to a book called Nine Nations). My argument is that any student of history can appreciate it, even one in whose country the rot is more than apparent. Not everyone in our country has a red, white, and blue wrapped around him like a charm that prevents him from seeing the truth.
81 Comment by Robert on 18 March 2009:
Sempronius,
Yes he does explain these methods in “How The Reformation Happened” but he always insisted that there is s big differenc in writing History as to “How” things happened as opposed to “Why” Avarice, lust, greed are essential engines for any revolutionary movement once the sparks are ignited and the fire begins to burn. But Belloc takes great pains to point out ths differnce bewteen how and why– and that was the gist of my post. No offense was intended. In fact all history these days is wriiten to level the mystery of men in action and rarely is a reader ever struck by wondering why. There was a time when folks recognized the differnce between Herodotus and Thucididees and prefered the poet who could write. Once upon a time there was a muse for history(Herodotus rendered her homage) but they haven’t been singing of late since Belloc died and the full throated Thrush broke the silence outside his sick room window.
82 Comment by Chesterbelloc on 18 March 2009:
You raise some very good points, Mr. Leaberry. Massachusetts’ shift to a post-industrial economy was the final nail in the coffin. Not only did it rot every medium-sized city in the State, but it meant an end to all the Reagan Democrats. I doubt he could win MA today. And isn’t it annoying how the lefties always move into nice places like upstate New York? They took Vermont, California, Oregon, and Washington a long time ago, and now they may turn New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Florida, and even Virginia sour. And let’s not forget “artist colonies” like Key West, Providence, and Fire Island! I suppose we have Thoreau’s (admittedly eloquent) descriptions of natural beauty to blame for the loss of so many nice places.
Mr. Ridenour has pinned down the Connecticut (and also Long Island) attitude, however I think that is primarily an export of New York City. I had to wait tables on these snide people for a summer. It was not pleasant. All many of them care about is how much money you make.
83 Comment by Chesterbelloc on 18 March 2009:
I meant to say Provincetown, not Providence. There’s QUITE a difference.
84 Comment by J Meng on 18 March 2009:
Sempronius @79: “Ouch,that hurt.It is a bit difficult to be “steeped in Belloc.”He wrote over 150 books.However I’ve done more than “a little reading” of HB.And if memory serves,the desire to loot Church property,together with the rise of a wealthy class of Protestants created by that looting,strongly attached to their new faith and their new loot,clinched the affair.”
Yes, the one important fact to remember about the so-called Reformation was its goal to cast off the authority of Rome. Once that was achieved, the looting began. I believe that was the point of H. Belloc’s history.
85 Comment by J Meng on 18 March 2009:
Sorry, I meant Sempronius @74.
86 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 19 March 2009:
#76. Sounds like the Father of Lies has been let loose among the faithful. Tell them about Sherman torching the Ursuline convent, school, and art collection in Columbia, and the nuns and schoolgirls trekking down the middle of the street in Feb. (burning buildings on both sides) to seek shelter on the outskirts of town.
87 Comment by Aaron D. Wolf on 19 March 2009:
Belloc’s claim that “the Reformation” was motivated by greed and avarice is tiresome. It come not from a reading of history but from theological presuppositions about the sovereignty of the pope. Which is to say, whenever the pope takes lands for the church, it is good, and whenever someone who rides under the amorphous “Reformation” banner takes land, it is the fruit of Protestantism. This leads to the argument ad hominem, which was Belloc’s chief weapon. Line up every story, add some rumors, and then presto! The evil tree has produced evil fruit.
Here’s John Taylor of Caroline:
“[P]arties and factions measure their principles by their interest, and assert or deny the same proposition, like lawyers for fees. Hence they censure their predecessors for obtaining wealth, in modes which they use themselves, and pretend to be guided by different principles, whilst they worship at the same shrine. Just as a Pope, had the conversion of Rome to christianity failed, would have become the high priest of Jupiter, and practiced the idolatry he had loudly condemned, to increase his revenue, splendour and power.”
88 Comment by Josh Cooney on 19 March 2009:
#87
I’d like to think that the Pope would not have become pagan. Such a statement seems needlessly cynical. Yes, there is some truth to the fact that the Church has been too worldly at various points in history, but does the whole history of the Catholic Church really point to an institution that has always sought the prestige and power of the world by forsaking its divine mission?
If that were the case, wouldn’t recent Popes be more inclined to accommodate modernity in order to increase their influence? Papal power has steadily decreased over the centuries and yet, as far as I can tell, Popes continue to preach the Gospel and uphold Christian doctrine in a hostile world. I don’t think Pope Benedict’s recent condemnation of condom use against the spread of AIDS was meant to “increase his revenue, splendour and power.”
I am not even Catholic, but I’m thankful that Christianity still has a Pope. Without the Pope and the Catholic Church what are we left with? 30,000 MORE Protestant sects?
89 Comment by Derek Leaberry on 19 March 2009:
Although I am not well-versed in religious history, the seeds of Protestantism go back as far as the Cathars of France, who were definitely not commercially oriented. In England, John Wycliffe in the late 1300s brought forth Protestant concepts. In Bohemia, there was Wycliffe’s disciple John Hus, who was active in the early 1400s until he was burned at the stake in 1415. The printing press spread Protestantism a century later. However, it can’t be denied that England’s Henry VIII used the Reformation to loot church properties in order to supplement his own wealth and to reward his allies.
90 Comment by Robert on 19 March 2009:
#87 “Belloc’s claim that “the Reformation” was motivated by greed and avarice is tiresome.”
Aaron,
What is tiresome is the claim that this is what Belloc understood as the cause of the Reformation. It is not. I attempted to explain this to the lurking crowd in post #81 but to no avail. The only thing I would ask of a serious man like yourself is to read his introductoion to “HOW (not WHY) the Reformation Happened. There are two types of criticism leveled against Mr.Belloc that serve the purpose of discounting him and both are false as hell. One is that he was arrogant and shouted down the cooler heads of scholars and scholarship when he lacked facts. (The ad hominem attack) The other is tha we know a lot more history now than when he was writing.
Christopher Dawson was all the rage for a while because he was kind, nuanced and had immpeccable notes at the end of each page and chapter. Then read him,and leave the wiser, European farmer alone. Of course Belloc was a trouble maker, of course he fudged the story here and there, of course he would rather walk the battle lines under all types of weather than simply draw them on map. For those who prefer the other type, let tham read Inge, Shaw or for the newer tastes, Paul Johnson. But if you are going to be smart aleck about Belloc, then at least know what you are talking about.
even Paul Johnson
91 Comment by Josh Cooney on 19 March 2009:
Upon rereading Mr. Wolf’s comments I think I better understand his point. It is true, I think, that nothern European kings took advantage of the Reformation to usurp the power of Rome/Italy. And, if I understand Mr. Wolf correctly, it is neither fair nor accurate to lump this political/economic power grab with the theological motives of Luther and Calvin.
I would generally agree with this, but I still think the heart of the Reformation is a battle between unity vs. anarchy and civilization vs. barbarism (I don’t mean to imply that Protestantism is barbarism, but I don’t think it is an accident that the Reformation took hold in the non-Mediterranean regions of Europe. It has always seemed to me that the Reformation tried to rid Christianity of it’s Greco-Roman influence. A bad idea, in my opinion.)
I know Chronicles devoted an issue to the Great Schism, but are there any issues that explore the Reformation and what it means today? I would be interested in a roundtable discussion, and I’m sure most readers would be as well. The Protestant/Catholic debates on the website always receive a multitude of attention and comments.
92 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 19 March 2009:
I thank Dr. Wolf for his comment, with which I agree. So far as understanding history, you don’t get far by attributing bad motives to only one side. It is not as if the Roman Church has been always pure and unwordly. As I said earlier here, one should always take stock of economic motives but only a Marxist/capitalist regards them as solely decisive in any great event. As John Lukacs has so well said often, the ideas in men’s heads are more important than material factors, the latter being the product of the former. I greatly admire Belloc as a valiant spirit and a great writer in our language, but I don’t have to agree with him every time.
93 Comment by Robert on 19 March 2009:
Dr. Wilson,
It is not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing with him, it is a matter of giving a great man of the pasat his due meed of praise. And anyone who repeats the mantra “greed, avarice and lust” in any conflict will be partially correct, but that is NOT what Mr. Belloc says about the Reformation — although he reminded his Protetsnt avderaries of taking their fair share of the loot which they certainly did. But for those who actually read his work on the Reformation, they can find a number of causes. (mostly Catholic failures but not all of them) This was my warning against Sempronius, then Meng took up the innanityl, then my firend Mr. Wolf weighs in, and now my favorite livng historian — who should know better. Gentlemen, read his introduction to How the Reformation Happened and if one stil desires to persists in this “Belloc’s avarice and greed buainess” I wlll be thankful for the certain and future repose of you souls as an example of invincible ignoarant.
94 Comment by Robert on 19 March 2009:
My child said my spelling was bad above? My eye are fading and without any help it is hard to see the screen. The spirit is all.
95 Comment by Robert on 19 March 2009:
Mr. Cooney and Leaberry,
The main causes which Mr. Belloc describes are four in number.
1) The weakening of moral discipline among the clergy.
2) The weakening of moral discipline among the laity especially the rich. Although he notes that “they had not,of course. the doctrinal disease of our our time; they did not regard their vices as virutes nor call the rapid grasping of a fortune, heroic, as we do.”
3)AN increasing popular indignation at the failure of the Church to reform itself.
4) The permanent hatred of the Catholic faith which has been and is inseperable from its existence on earth since the crucifixtion.
96 Comment by Sempronius on 19 March 2009:
Robert,you’ve done an excellent job of summing up Belloc’s argument.There really was no disagreement.This whole thing got started when T Ridenour asked why Southerners are diffident towards Catholics.I opined that its part of the larger Anglo-Protestant heritage.The bit about monastery lands was meant to illustrate that powerful interests were created which secured England adherence to the Reformation’s cause.And those interests,in mutated form,perdure to this day,long after the religious factor has abated.Now lets put a line under it.
97 Comment by Robert on 19 March 2009:
Thank you Sempronius and I will. I have an obsession about Mr. Belloc and have since my college days. I have the best Belloc collection in Oklahoma. He is the only man I ever read with my poor eyes, as none of the others are worth it when you have only so much time to read. For years I simply enjoyed knowing the truth about him while others ripped him — as a widow enjoys her garden of flowers. But among friends like the Chronicles crowd I speak up more in defense of him, because he is a pearl of great price and should not be simply tossed around swine who survive off the husks of life. But as you say, a line under it for now.
98 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 19 March 2009:
Robert, 99ff Thank you for the clarification. Not having read Belloc on this particular matter, I was led to misjudge what he said. I have the best Belloc collection in Carolina. I can’t agree with his seeming admiration for Napoleon, however
99 Comment by Robert on 19 March 2009:
“I have the best Belloc collection in Carolina”
Doesn’t surprise me
“I can’t agree with his seeming admiration for Napoleon, however..”
Don’t put your faith in princes or historians — even of the rare and wise kind. Felix said to St. Paul, “Paul, you have gone mad with all your learning…” “God’s foolishness is greater than man’s wisdom.”
100 Comment by J Meng on 19 March 2009:
Robert @93: “Meng took up the innanity” For my edification, please explain that I took up an inanity.
101 Comment by Robert on 19 March 2009:
Meng,
I was set upon by evil companions, I have shot all my lead,my sword is broken, there is blood on my hands. I am retiring from the field for the evening as a weary man. Don’t think great thoughts or take offense at anything I may have said in the heat of battle, just re-read the thread. I am finished for the day– maybe until Easter.
102 Comment by J Meng on 20 March 2009:
Robert @93: Not to belabor the point, but as Belloc notes, the looting of the Catholic Church properties came after a period of twenty years or so when those who had revolted against the Church were “closely intermixed with a very legitimate determination to reform abuses.” He goes on to say, “there were grave corruptions in the Church and grave discontent with the organizatin of the Church on the part of masses of men who never dreamed of destroying Church unity or interfering with the great mass of Cchurch doctrine and custom. This was especially the case in England, where the Church was less corrupt than elsewhere and where the people were by nature conservative….But at the end of these twenty years there came–round about 1536-40–a change in what had hitherto been a confused movement….This change was primarily caused by the great effect of Calvin, who set out with the greatests lucidity and unparalleled energy to form a counter-Church for the destruction of the old Church. He it was who really made the new religion, wholly hostile to the old one. At the same time the temptation to loot Church property and the habit of doing so had appeared and was growing; and this rapidly created a vested interest in promoting the change in religion. Those who attacked Catholic doctrine, as, for instance, in the matters of celibacy in the monastic Orders, or of a divinely appointed Hierarchy with the Papacy at its summit, opened the door for the seizure of the enormous clerical endowments, monastic, episcopal and parochial, by the Princes and City Corporations….Such an economic change in so short a time our civilization had never seen….It had for effect the firm establishment of a permanent motive for confirming the success of the Religious Revolution. The new adventurers and the older gentry who had so suddeenly enriched themselves saw, in the return of Catholicism, peril to their immense ne fortunes.” (Introduction of Belloc’s CHARACTERS OF THE REFORMATION, pp. 3-4, Tan Re-Publication 1992)
103 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 21 March 2009:
Well, I don’t know about you folks but I spent all day planting norton grape vines, and I’m only half done. But in 3 years I plan to produce a batch of home-made wine. I’m not too bright either because my SATs were 930. No matter how bad things get, I will never take a federal government check again, I did it in the navy and it was my hardest lesson.