This is a timely new book
Category Archives: History
Brexit
The British elites cannot continue to ignore the masses:
Somehow, over the last half-century, Western elites managed to convince themselves that nationalism was not real. Perhaps it had been real in the past, like cholera and telegraph machines, but now that we were smarter and more modern, it would be forgotten in the due course of time as better ideas supplanted it.
That now seems hopelessly naive. People do care more about people who are like them — who speak their language, eat their food, share their customs and values. And when elites try to ignore those sentiments — or banish them by declaring that they are simply racist — this doesn’t make the sentiments go away. It makes the non-elites suspect the elites of disloyalty. For though elites may find something vaguely horrifying about saying that you care more about people who are like you than you do about people who are culturally or geographically further away, the rest of the population is outraged by the never-stated corollary: that the elites running things feel no greater moral obligation to their fellow countrymen than they do to some random stranger in another country. And perhaps we can argue that this is the morally correct way to feel — but if it is truly the case, you can see why ordinary folks would be suspicious about allowing the elites to continue to exercise great power over their lives.
It’s therefore not entirely surprising that people are reacting strongly against the EU, the epitome of an elite institution: a technocratic bureaucracy designed to remove many questions from the democratic control of voters in the constituent countries. Elites can earnestly explain that a British exit will be very costly to Britain (true), that many of the promises made on Brexit’s behalf are patently ridiculous (also true), that leaving will create all sorts of security problems and also cost the masses many things they like, such as breezing through passport control en route to their cheap continental holidays. Elites can even be right about all of those things. They still shouldn’t be too shocked when ordinary people respond just as Republican primary voters did to their own establishment last spring: “But you see, I don’t trust you anymore.”
Brexit is Britain’s Trump, but it’s a much healthier response to the “elites” (they’re not particularly elite in matters of knowledge or competence) than ours has been.
No, Michelle
The house you live in was not built by slaves.
But why spoil the narrative with actual history?
Hillary’s Emails
So many warnings, so many lies.
As Austin Bay says, anyone who has ever handled classified material knows that they be doing years in Club Fed for a fraction of what she’s done.
Will we ultimately see a Torricelli solution to this?
“Violent Extremists”
They’re not “on the run” as the president says; they’re on the march:
“Today we worry about more than just terrorist cells — we worry about full-fledged terrorist armies as they capture territory and enlist thousands to join their ranks.”
In Syria and Iraq, McCaul said the world is witnessing “the largest global convergence of Islamist terrorists” in modern history.
Note: In “modern” history. This really has been going back for centuries. They just have better weapons now, and weaker-willed foes.
Hiroshima
I agree with Glenn:
All this talk about the Hiroshima bombing being a war crime is just virtue-signaling, mostly by people who would regretfully acknowledge the unfortunate necessity of obliterating, say, Texas…
Know what would have been more evil than dropping the bomb? Not dropping the bomb. #Moron #MoralMidget https://t.co/gHEFztfsVI
— Apostle To Morons (@Rand_Simberg) May 27, 2016
[Update a while later]
No, Brian Williams, we did not use atomic bombs against Japan “in anger.”
As I said, second-guessing historically ignorant moral midgets.
[Update Saturday morning]
Hiroshima as gun control:
It is instructive to consider that if president Obama had been transported to 1945 nobody in the audience would have understood what he was talking about. By the same token Harry Truman would be scarcely comprehended if sent into the 2016 future to address the modern Democratic electorate. That is because these men, separated by 70 years, saw the arrow of causality as working in a manner opposite to the other.
To the World War 2 generation threats to mankind came from ideologies which once allowed to spread would automatically find the things necessary to effect destruction. The Atomic Bomb was incidental. An ideology on the loose in the 21st century would invent something else far more deadly. To that way of thinking a creed which vowed to destroy “the American way of life” would be seen as a menace with the same fervor that moderns would regard it as harmless. The ideas would be central, the things secondary.
Who is right time will tell. Truman’s record now speaks for itself. His legacy, the Pax Americana also known as the Long Peace, has prevented a general war for three generations, the length of living human memory. Some will say his achievement was accidental. By contrast the record of the man who now promises a world without nuclear weapons — his synonym for peace — has only just embarked on his plan.
It has been far from auspicious; according to a former secretary of defense the world is today closer to a nuclear conflict than at any time since the height of the Cold War. From the South China Sea to Ukraine, to the Middle East, the shadow of war is everywhere one looks. Perhaps one should give it time, as socialism and other sure-fire schemes should be given time, and we will not be disappointed.
It is ironic to consider that today’s generation perhaps has more blind faith than the men who 70 years ago defeated Hitler and Tojo. Moderns know what’s going to happen much more than people in the past. They read it in a book. They saw it on social media. They know it will be specified in talking points memos. We forget sometimes that by contrast the World War 2 generation had no certitude of triumph. They did not even know the Atomic Bomb was going to work or that they would perfect it before Hitler did. They could not have seen it as evil with the same retrospective certainty that Obama can. At each step of the way these young men won victory — can the word still be used without embarrassment? — with none of the certainty which today’s generation possess in such abundance.
RTWT.
But it’s worth noting (as he does not) that traditional Islam (and sharia) is a creed which vows to destroy the American Way of Life. You may not be interested in ideology, but ideology is very much interested in you.
Pot, Kettle On Line One
In the latest display of his utter lack of a sense of irony, Barack Obama says that world leaders are “rattled” by Trump’s “ignorance” and “cavalier attitude.”
Pretty rich coming from the guy who’s very life has been a textbook example of the Dunning–Kruger Effect in action. Which is why Obama likely has no idea that Trump is his doppelganger.
Yup.
Venezuela
Why won’t the Left apologize for backing the disaster there?
Because they never apologize for anything, and virtue signaling is more important to them than actual results, regardless of how many millions of lives are blighted or brutally ended by their policy prescriptions.
[Noon update
What do the VA, TSA, Venezuela and Bernie have in common?
Greetings, Slaves
Thoughts on the degeneration of crony socialism.
The Latest Book Review
Roger Launius has reviewed it over at Quest, but for subscribers only (I think it will become available when the next issue comes out). It was interesting, in that it was more of a good summary, with no value judgments, though in an email he did say it was “thought provoking.” And he had no criticism of facts or history, so that’s a good thing. It may be the first “peer reviewed” review I’ve gotten. FWIW