Incredible find! These editorials could have been written directly after Charlie Kirk's assassination or after any of the BLM arson/beatings. What consequences must be leveled "against those who were the instigators of these fools and madmen, and who placed in their hands the weapons for violence and bloodshed!" I'm struck by how level-headed men across time can react in the same way to their own era's troubles and see clearly the stakes.
Until this moment, I did not realize the direct connection John Brown had to stirring up violence in the new states (which led the South to fear problems with expansion) and the military insurrection at Harpers Ferry (which led the South to fear imminent incursions and seizures). Certain men in history seem gifted with the ability to destroy and sow chaos, like John Brown or politicians like UK PM Tony Blair (behind the multiculturalism push, mass immigration, speech criminal codes, etc.). Like a pestilence to the land, they cause utter ruin wherever they go especially at key chokepoints. Then there are men of radiant light like our Dear President Donald J. Trump who build and protect wherever they go. There is a cosmic dimension to the conflicts we face here on this celestial plain.
Indeed, there's a reason that the Left has been laboring rehabilitate John Brown, who hitherto had gone down in history as a villain whose self-righteousness and religious fanaticism instigated the final crisis which culminated in the Civil War. They're even rehabilitating Nat Turner, more of an outright lunatic than a principled fanatic like Brown, who led a gruesome ax-murdering spree of white women and children in their beds. Babies literally chopped to pieces in their cribs!
They certainly have with that movie and also graphic novels aimed at kids like this one “Nat Turner’s Slave Rebellion” (https://a.co/d/18Lfu5u). Your young child can learn about how they too would have been murdered in their sleep or at school just like the other ten White kids he and his rampaging acolytes did! The cover surreally makes it seem like it’s a WWE opening sequence. But one Amazon reviewer said it’s not gruesome enough and that kids should read this one! https://a.co/d/hwEB6QD
“Birth of a Nation” (2016) isn’t just an anti-white murder fantasy and slavery atrocity porn, it’s fictitious from its generalities to its particulars. A story about a crazy old black man who brutally murders white women and children before the local militia puts him down (no long siege with a last stand) wouldn’t make for good agitprop. The 1915 original is unironically more historically accurate in every respect, not to mention a better movie.
Those interested in history should begin with a general survey of the period, such as the Oxford History of the United States, in order to establish context, and thereafter just read primary sources.
One of the biggest “tells” that a field has been propagandized and seized by bad actors is the utter indifference to primary sources by leaders. In my own profession, I was amazed that nobody seemed to care about the history of development and how all the current thought leaders just took the current paradigm as given. Even a brief look at the early primary sources showed me much better approaches and the folly of much modern “wisdom.” One must independently gather the facts and primary sources for one to be actually informed.
Stupefyingly, there are still "conservatives" such as Dinesh D'Souza haranguing, to no apparent political advantage, about how the Yankee abolitionists, who wanted to purge the land of sin by the shedding of American blood and tear the Constitution and Union asunder, were "the REAL conservatives," and Southerners, who were reacting (perhaps overreacting) to these threats of revolutionary terror, were "the REAL liberals." Contra original post-WWII conservatives like Russell Kirk and Richard Weaver, Southerners can't belong to the conservative tradition in America. Why? Because they denied that "all men are created equal" (note: not in its original intent, i.e. "to assume among the powers of the earth a separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature's God entitle them," but in how it was later reinterpreted as an anti-slavery "proposition" and "promissory note"). Unlike everywhere else, where equality is recognized as the core, if not sole, principle of the Left, in D'Souza's America equality is a conservative principle!
Honestly, the Oxford History of the United States, even the modern editions all written by post-Sixties "neo-abolitionist" liberals, are better educations in American history than anything from the likes of D'Souza or most of his colleagues at Hillsdale, Hoover, or Claremont. Whilst we may disagree with the political values of the former and how they influence their interpretations and opinions (an inevitability in history), they are nonetheless presenting the history factually, in contrast to the latter, whose values I cannot even say are much better. Indeed, "conservatives" engage in astonishingly Orwellian exercises of rectifying the facts in order to fit within whatever version of the national civil religion the Left has just discarded. In that sense, then, "The conservatives are the REAL liberals."
Allow me to make my own recommendation, "How Radical Republican Antislavery Rhetoric and Violence Precipitated Secession." A dissertation by a former Army officer published by an indie Southern press, it not only details the Northern deification of John Brown in the abolitionist press, but also, arguably more importantly, the refusal of the Republican governors of Iowa and Ohio to comply with the extradition of fugitives from justice in Virginia. (The Democrat governor of Pennsylvania, on the other hand, had the fugitives in his jurisdiction extradited to Virginia.) In the South, disunionists touted this nullification of the Constitution (the interstate rendition clause) as an example of "what we have to expect" under a Republican president, thereby putting the Southern unionists on the defensive. Every seceding state which issued a "declaration of causes" cited this incident, especially Georgia, which borrowed from a speech given by Robert Toombs: "If these men had have fled to Great Britain or France, we would have received them back and inflicted upon them the just punishment for their infamous crimes under our treaties. But they were wiser; they fled amongst our brethren; we had no treaty with them; we had only a Constitution and their oaths of fidelity to it. It failed us, and their murderers are free, ready again to apply the incendiary's torch to your dwelling and the assassin's knife and the poisoned bowl to you and your family. Do you not love these brethren? Oh! what a glorious Union! especially 'to insure domestic tranquility.'"
I remember in 2016 my dad and I saw the movie Dinesh did about Hillary Clinton, and even though the parts about her were interesting the first 40 minutes or so were about the evil history of the democratic party and showed Andrew Jackson raping his slaves late cut to Lincoln telling Union soldiers why it's important they're fighting for emancipation. Showing Jackson as an evil cartoon villain even though he had many similarities to Trump really wasn't the best thing to show before that election, especially when that was around the time of the first wave of attacking Confederate memorials.
Agreed. It actually would be more charitable to assume that D’Souza is acting in bad faith and must have some sinister ulterior motive than to assume that he is acting in good faith and really is this much of a tone-deaf dolt.
It was a classic Indian copy and paste job, but he forgot which side he was supposed to copy at times. Glad he’s out of the picture. I couldn’t take his annoying delivery and smug face.
I always said Brown was a lunatic, but recently found through reading ‘The Mind of the Old South’ (mid book btw) that Brown had 19 affidavits from friends and family while he was in jail claiming much of his family suffered from being clinically insane and erratic so it’s actually very possible he was clinically insane.
I think with the Shane Gillis thing there is a bigger problem of conservative and libertarian types making heroes out of people who can be manipulated to look like Robin Hood but like John Brown are actually just homicidal freaks. Other people I can think of are Christopher Dorner, Unabomber, Killdozer guy, and to a lesser extent the guy that stole and crashed an airplane. And going back to your Sinners episode where you talked about the normie conservative guy that liked the movie a lot of the same types don't see themselves as the intended targets of these guys, kind of like Shane they're just some omniscient observer of it.
Yeah i think that is a big problem. The killdozer guy gets me irritated especially. He was generally and anti social guy who had many chances to prevent his situation but refused to be reasonable. None of those facts are presented, of course, and instead is just a "muh evil government" story that detracts from true overreach situations.
It’s the classic “enemy of my enemy is my friend” confusion. If the enemy of your enemy is himself a complete psychopath or dirt bag, you don’t need to identify with him!
Incredible find! These editorials could have been written directly after Charlie Kirk's assassination or after any of the BLM arson/beatings. What consequences must be leveled "against those who were the instigators of these fools and madmen, and who placed in their hands the weapons for violence and bloodshed!" I'm struck by how level-headed men across time can react in the same way to their own era's troubles and see clearly the stakes.
Until this moment, I did not realize the direct connection John Brown had to stirring up violence in the new states (which led the South to fear problems with expansion) and the military insurrection at Harpers Ferry (which led the South to fear imminent incursions and seizures). Certain men in history seem gifted with the ability to destroy and sow chaos, like John Brown or politicians like UK PM Tony Blair (behind the multiculturalism push, mass immigration, speech criminal codes, etc.). Like a pestilence to the land, they cause utter ruin wherever they go especially at key chokepoints. Then there are men of radiant light like our Dear President Donald J. Trump who build and protect wherever they go. There is a cosmic dimension to the conflicts we face here on this celestial plain.
Indeed, there's a reason that the Left has been laboring rehabilitate John Brown, who hitherto had gone down in history as a villain whose self-righteousness and religious fanaticism instigated the final crisis which culminated in the Civil War. They're even rehabilitating Nat Turner, more of an outright lunatic than a principled fanatic like Brown, who led a gruesome ax-murdering spree of white women and children in their beds. Babies literally chopped to pieces in their cribs!
Above I recommended a book, "How Radical Republican Antislavery Rhetoric and Violence Precipitated Secession." It can be a bit repetitive, but the author also summarized his thesis in a speech, "What We Have to Expect: Harper's Ferry, Abolitionism, Extradition, and Secession." If you have an hour, it's well worth a listen: https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/what-we-have-to-expect-harpers-ferry-abolitionism-extradition-and-secession-by-jonathan-white/
They certainly have with that movie and also graphic novels aimed at kids like this one “Nat Turner’s Slave Rebellion” (https://a.co/d/18Lfu5u). Your young child can learn about how they too would have been murdered in their sleep or at school just like the other ten White kids he and his rampaging acolytes did! The cover surreally makes it seem like it’s a WWE opening sequence. But one Amazon reviewer said it’s not gruesome enough and that kids should read this one! https://a.co/d/hwEB6QD
“Birth of a Nation” (2016) isn’t just an anti-white murder fantasy and slavery atrocity porn, it’s fictitious from its generalities to its particulars. A story about a crazy old black man who brutally murders white women and children before the local militia puts him down (no long siege with a last stand) wouldn’t make for good agitprop. The 1915 original is unironically more historically accurate in every respect, not to mention a better movie.
Reading the primary sources for historical events is always eye opening. Thanks for these!
Those interested in history should begin with a general survey of the period, such as the Oxford History of the United States, in order to establish context, and thereafter just read primary sources.
One of the biggest “tells” that a field has been propagandized and seized by bad actors is the utter indifference to primary sources by leaders. In my own profession, I was amazed that nobody seemed to care about the history of development and how all the current thought leaders just took the current paradigm as given. Even a brief look at the early primary sources showed me much better approaches and the folly of much modern “wisdom.” One must independently gather the facts and primary sources for one to be actually informed.
Personal validation: I am a "beloved paid subscriber."
Stupefyingly, there are still "conservatives" such as Dinesh D'Souza haranguing, to no apparent political advantage, about how the Yankee abolitionists, who wanted to purge the land of sin by the shedding of American blood and tear the Constitution and Union asunder, were "the REAL conservatives," and Southerners, who were reacting (perhaps overreacting) to these threats of revolutionary terror, were "the REAL liberals." Contra original post-WWII conservatives like Russell Kirk and Richard Weaver, Southerners can't belong to the conservative tradition in America. Why? Because they denied that "all men are created equal" (note: not in its original intent, i.e. "to assume among the powers of the earth a separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature's God entitle them," but in how it was later reinterpreted as an anti-slavery "proposition" and "promissory note"). Unlike everywhere else, where equality is recognized as the core, if not sole, principle of the Left, in D'Souza's America equality is a conservative principle!
Honestly, the Oxford History of the United States, even the modern editions all written by post-Sixties "neo-abolitionist" liberals, are better educations in American history than anything from the likes of D'Souza or most of his colleagues at Hillsdale, Hoover, or Claremont. Whilst we may disagree with the political values of the former and how they influence their interpretations and opinions (an inevitability in history), they are nonetheless presenting the history factually, in contrast to the latter, whose values I cannot even say are much better. Indeed, "conservatives" engage in astonishingly Orwellian exercises of rectifying the facts in order to fit within whatever version of the national civil religion the Left has just discarded. In that sense, then, "The conservatives are the REAL liberals."
Allow me to make my own recommendation, "How Radical Republican Antislavery Rhetoric and Violence Precipitated Secession." A dissertation by a former Army officer published by an indie Southern press, it not only details the Northern deification of John Brown in the abolitionist press, but also, arguably more importantly, the refusal of the Republican governors of Iowa and Ohio to comply with the extradition of fugitives from justice in Virginia. (The Democrat governor of Pennsylvania, on the other hand, had the fugitives in his jurisdiction extradited to Virginia.) In the South, disunionists touted this nullification of the Constitution (the interstate rendition clause) as an example of "what we have to expect" under a Republican president, thereby putting the Southern unionists on the defensive. Every seceding state which issued a "declaration of causes" cited this incident, especially Georgia, which borrowed from a speech given by Robert Toombs: "If these men had have fled to Great Britain or France, we would have received them back and inflicted upon them the just punishment for their infamous crimes under our treaties. But they were wiser; they fled amongst our brethren; we had no treaty with them; we had only a Constitution and their oaths of fidelity to it. It failed us, and their murderers are free, ready again to apply the incendiary's torch to your dwelling and the assassin's knife and the poisoned bowl to you and your family. Do you not love these brethren? Oh! what a glorious Union! especially 'to insure domestic tranquility.'"
I remember in 2016 my dad and I saw the movie Dinesh did about Hillary Clinton, and even though the parts about her were interesting the first 40 minutes or so were about the evil history of the democratic party and showed Andrew Jackson raping his slaves late cut to Lincoln telling Union soldiers why it's important they're fighting for emancipation. Showing Jackson as an evil cartoon villain even though he had many similarities to Trump really wasn't the best thing to show before that election, especially when that was around the time of the first wave of attacking Confederate memorials.
Agreed. It actually would be more charitable to assume that D’Souza is acting in bad faith and must have some sinister ulterior motive than to assume that he is acting in good faith and really is this much of a tone-deaf dolt.
It was a classic Indian copy and paste job, but he forgot which side he was supposed to copy at times. Glad he’s out of the picture. I couldn’t take his annoying delivery and smug face.
When I was in college in the 2000s, the “conservatives club” to which I belonged hosted him on campus. Small world.
My personal library continues to expand. Thanks for the recommendation.
I’m always looking for good history books to curate. Keep ‘em coming!
I always said Brown was a lunatic, but recently found through reading ‘The Mind of the Old South’ (mid book btw) that Brown had 19 affidavits from friends and family while he was in jail claiming much of his family suffered from being clinically insane and erratic so it’s actually very possible he was clinically insane.
Great stuff and a historical perspective sorely needed today.
I think with the Shane Gillis thing there is a bigger problem of conservative and libertarian types making heroes out of people who can be manipulated to look like Robin Hood but like John Brown are actually just homicidal freaks. Other people I can think of are Christopher Dorner, Unabomber, Killdozer guy, and to a lesser extent the guy that stole and crashed an airplane. And going back to your Sinners episode where you talked about the normie conservative guy that liked the movie a lot of the same types don't see themselves as the intended targets of these guys, kind of like Shane they're just some omniscient observer of it.
Yeah i think that is a big problem. The killdozer guy gets me irritated especially. He was generally and anti social guy who had many chances to prevent his situation but refused to be reasonable. None of those facts are presented, of course, and instead is just a "muh evil government" story that detracts from true overreach situations.
It’s the classic “enemy of my enemy is my friend” confusion. If the enemy of your enemy is himself a complete psychopath or dirt bag, you don’t need to identify with him!
It was interesting to hear this, thankyou