How nations slip from greatness

Although this is circulating as "anonymous" at various sites it is from the opinion column of Don Feder, Front Page, June 17, 2021. https://www.frontpagemag.com/how-nations-slip-greatness.../ Democrats call it hyperbole and misinformation. You may disagree, but this is "his truth," and Dems are all for that.

"Men, like nations, think they’re eternal. What man in his 20s or 30s doesn’t believe, at least subconsciously, that he’ll live forever?

In the springtime of youth, an endless summer beckons. As you pass 70, it’s harder to hide from reality.
Nations too have seasons. Imagine a Roman of the 2nd. century contemplating an empire that stretched from Britain to the Near East, thinking: This will endure forever.

Forever was about 500 years, give or take.

France was the thing in the 17th and 18th centuries. Now the land of Charles Martel is on its way to becoming part of the Muslim ummah.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the sun never set on the British empire. Now Albion exists in a perpetual twilight. Its 95-year-old sovereign is a fitting symbol for a nation in terminal decline.

In the 1980s, Japan seemed poised to buy the world. Business schools taught Japanese management techniques. Today, its birth rate is so low and its population is aging so rapidly, that an industry has sprung up to remove the remains of elderly Japanese who die alone.

I was born in 1946, almost at the midpoint of the 20th century – the American century. America’s prestige and influence were never greater. Thanks to the Greatest Generation, we won a World War fought over most of Europe, Asia and the Pacific. We reduced Germany to rubble and put the rising sun to bed.

It set the stage for almost half a century of unprecedented prosperity. We stopped the spread of communism in Europe and Asia, and fought international terrorism. We rebuilt our enemies and lavished foreign aid on much of the world.

We built skyscrapers and rockets to the moon. We conquered Polio and COVID. We explored the mysteries of the Universe and the wonders of DNA, the blueprint of life.

But where is the glory that once was Rome?

America has moved from a relatively free economy to socialism – which has worked so well nowhere in the world. We’ve gone from a republican government guided by a constitution to a regime of revolving elites. We have less freedom with each passing year.

Like a signpost to the coming reign of terror, the cancel culture is everywhere. We’ve traded the American Revolution for the Cultural Revolution.

The pathetic creature in the White House is an empty vessel filled by his handlers. At the G-7 Summit, Dr. Jill had to lead him like a child.

In 1961, when we were young and vigorous, our leader was too. Now a feeble nation is technically led by the oldest man to ever serve in the presidency.

We can’t defend our borders, our history (including monuments to past greatness) or our streets. Our cities have become anarchist playgrounds.

We are a nation of dependents, mendicants, and misplaced charity. Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.

The president of the United States can’t even quote the beginning of the Declaration of Independence correctly. Ivy League graduates routinely fail history tests that 5th graders could pass a generation ago.
Crime rates soar and we blame the 2nd. Amendment and slash police budgets.

Our culture is certifiably insane. We have men who marry men. Men who think they’re women. People who fight racism by seeking to convince members of one race that they’re inherently evil, and others that they are perpetual victims. A psychiatrist lecturing at Yale said she fantasizes about “unloading a revolver into the head of any white person.”

We slaughter the unborn in the name of freedom, while our birth rate dips lower year by year.
Our national debt is so high that we can no longer even pretend that we will repay it one day. It’s a $28-trillion monument to our improvidence and refusal to confront reality.

Our “entertainment” is sadistic, nihilistic and as enduring as a candy bar wrapper thrown in the trash.

 Our music is noise that spans the spectrum from annoying to repulsive.

Patriotism is called insurrection, treason celebrated, and perversion sanctified.

A man in blue gets less respect than a man in a dress.

We’re asking soldiers to fight for a nation our leaders no longer believe in.

How meekly most submitted to Fauci-ism (the regime of face masks and hand sanitizers) shows the death of the American spirit.

How do nations slip from greatness to obscurity?

• Fighting endless wars they can’t or won’t win
• Accumulating massive debt far beyond their ability to repay
• Refusing to guard their borders, allowing the nation to be inundated by an alien horde
• Surrendering control of their cities to mob rule
• Allowing indoctrination of the young
• Moving from a republican form of government to an oligarchy
• Losing national identity
• Indulging indolence
• Abandoning faith and family – the bulwarks social order.

In America, every one of these symptoms is pronounced, indicating an advanced stage of the disease.
Even if the cause seems hopeless, do we not have an obligation to those who sacrificed so much to give us what we had?

I’m surrounded by ghosts urging me on: the Union soldiers who held Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg, the battered bastards of Bastogne, those who served in the cold hell of Korea, the guys who went to the jungles of Southeast Asia and came home to be reviled or neglected.

This is the nation that took in my immigrant grandparents, whose uniform my father and most of my uncles wore in the Second World War. I don’t want to imagine a world without America, even though it becomes increasingly likely.

During Britain’s darkest hour, when its professional army was trapped at Dunkirk and a German invasion seemed imminent, Churchill reminded his countrymen, “Nations that go down fighting rise again, and those that surrender tamely are finished.”

The same might be said of causes. If we let America slip through our fingers, if we lose without a fight, what will posterity say of us?

While the prognosis is far from good, only God knows if America’s day in the sun is over." By Don Feder

I told you so

 

Glenn Beck encourages reading; his latest book list

Glenn Beck is a radio personality, an author, and a huge fan of books--he advocates for book reading, for research, and for being informed. He leans right, so that's the kind of books and authors he recommends. Fifteen years ago he inspired book clubs encouraging patriotism, particularly about historical figures. https://www.glennbeck.com/topic/books/glenn-becks-bookshelf-past-lessons-current-problems-poisonous-future? (Read complete description and summary)

https://www.thethinkingconservative.com/the-fourth-turning-an-american-prophecy-what-the-cycles-of-history-tell-us-about-americas-next-rendezvous-with-destiny/ (1997)
The authors look back five hundred years and uncover a distinct pattern: Modern history moves in cycles, each one lasting about the length of a long human life, each composed of four eras—or "turnings"—that last about twenty years and that always arrive in the same order. In The Fourth Turning, the authors illustrate these cycles using a brilliant analysis of the post-World War II period.

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz (2020)
takes readers out of today’s political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when, in the face of unrelenting horror, Churchill’s eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.

The Final Fight for Freedom: How to Save Our Country from Chaos and War (2022)
Not since the Civil War has our nation been so divided, bringing us to the edge of national suicide. And our enemies—China being chief among them—see our weakness. If we falter, they will act.

Race Marxism: The Truth About Critical Race Theory and Praxis (2022)
Lindsay explains what Critical Race Theory is, what it believes, where it comes from, how it operates, and what we can do about it now that we know what we're dealing with. It exposes Critical Race Theory for what it is by ranging widely across its own literature and a survey of some of the darkest philosophical currents of the last three hundred years in Western thought.

Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America (2021)
In Woke Racism, McWhorter reveals the workings of this new religion, from the original sin of “white privilege” and the weaponization of cancel culture to ban heretics, to the evangelical fervor of the “woke mob.”

The Extinction Trials (2021)
With time running out to save the last human survivors, Owen, Maya, and the other participants venture out into the changed world. What they find there is beyond anything they imagined. And the key to their future—and humanity's survival—is something no one expected.

San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities (2021)
San Fransicko reveals that the underlying problem isn’t a lack of housing or money for social programs. The real problem is an ideology that designates some people, by identity or experience, as victims entitled to destructive behaviors. The result is an undermining of the values that make cities, and civilization itself, possible.

Eight Days in May: The Final Collapse of the Third Reich (2021)
A taut, propulsive narrative, Eight Days in May takes us inside the phantomlike regime of Hitler’s chosen successor, Admiral Karl Dönitz, revealing how the desperate attempt to impose order utterly failed, as frontline soldiers deserted and Nazi Party fanatics called on German civilians to martyr themselves in a last stand against encroaching Allied forces.

Why We Fought: Inspiring Stories of Resisting Hitler and Defending Freedom (2021)
These dramatic and inspiring personal stories shed light on some of the darkest days of World War II and one of the most perilous times in human history.

Putin's Playbook: Russia's Secret Plan to Defeat America (2021)
With the insight of a native, Koffler explains how Russians, formed by centuries of war-torn history, understand the world and their national destiny. The collapse of the Soviet empire, which Putin experienced as a vulnerable KGB agent in East Germany, was a catastrophic humiliation. Seeing himself as the modern “Czar Vladimir” of a unique Slavic nation at war with the West, he is determined to restore Russia to its place as a great power.

An amazing woman, Amy Coney Barrett

I knew a lot of amazing women when I was growing up. My grandmothers and aunts (Bessie, Leanor, Marian, Gladys, Lois, Dorothy, Muriel, Mary) mothers of friends (Esther, Millie, Rita, Rosalie, Ada, Hazel, Lois, Vivian and others with faces in my memory, but not their names). School teachers, nurses, businesses owners, farmers) and the mothers who were there for us when we burst through the door after school. And, of course, my own mom, the brightest star in my galaxy of women. But I don't think we ever imagined such a talented jurist, a woman on the Supreme Court, mother of 7, like Amy Coney Barrett. I'm glad I lived long enough to see it.

  

Do you really want to be on the “right side” of history?

Robert P. George writes: "The next time a supporter of the latest fashionable belief, whatever it is, taunts you with the claim "history is on our side," you might consider who made those words famous. It was Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in 1956: "Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!" He was confidently predicting the ultimate triumph of communism. "I do not mean we will bury you with a shovel," he later explained, "but that your own working class will bury you."

Things didn't quite turn out that way. *Their* working class, beginning with the union-based Solidarity movement in Poland, buried European communism. It was a double victory, defeating not only communism, but the Hegelian view of history that it presupposes and is based upon.
The truth is that what we call "history" is filled with contingencies. Triumphs and defeats are not written in the stars. Progress is not inevitable. Nor is decline.

The future will be determined by, among other things, the deliberations, judgments, and free choices and actions of human beings, including ourselves. And we can't judge a view or movement to be right or wrong depending on whether it succeeds or fails, or seems likely to. Anyone who proposes to decide whether something is right or wrong based on a prediction of whether it is likely to be popular or unpopular, widely accepted or rejected as time goes on, simply has no idea what it means for something to be right or wrong.

Sometimes when people lose faith in God, they deify history, treating it as the equivalent of a divine judge--a quasi-personal force that gets the final say as to what is good and bad, just and unjust. "You had better get in line," they say, "with [here fill in the name of the thing that is supposed to be inevitable] or you will find yourself on the wrong side of history!" But that's a silly threat. History is an impersonal sequence of events. It is not morally normative and it has no more power to judge than does a stone outcropping or a carved and painted totem pole. To believe otherwise, as do Hegelians of both the right and left (including those who've never heard of Hegel), is to succumb to idolatry and superstition.

The idea of a "judgment of history" is contemporary secularism's vain, hopeless, and, in the end, pathetic attempt to fashion a substitute for the judgment of God.

We need to bear in mind that what matters is whether a view is sound or unsound from the moral point of view, not whether people in the future are likely to hold or reject it. What is worth worrying about is whether a view one holds or is considering is right or wrong, consistent or inconsistent with the true requirements of justice and the integral good of human beings as creatures fashioned in the image and likeness of God and, as such, bearers of profound, inherent, and equal dignity--not whether it is on the allegedly "right side of history." " Oct. 31, FB post.

George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University

The Gotcha question

The Iraq question isn’t the only gotcha question Jeb Bush will be getting about his brother. Just as Hillary will be carrying Bill, so Jeb and Dubya.  I believe he handled it poorly—and Marco Rubio did an excellent job and said the closest to what I would say.

• Who in the world “would have gone into Iraq knowing what we know today (in May 2015).
• Who could have known the next president (Obama) would take a war won in Afghanistan, and essentially won in Iraq (after the surge) and throw it all away because he made promises to the far left to get elected and then play footsy with Iraq and draw meaningless lines in the sand?
• Knowing now what Obama would do, of course, Saddam would have been the choice to hold Iraq in check. He was a really bad dude, and the Iraqis and Iranians are different ethnic groups.
• Now we know what Obama intends, and Saddam could be useful if not dead.
• Osama bin Laden’s death has probably led to the growth of ISIS, so that’s on Obama’s record. A year ago, none of us had ever heard of ISIS.
• Bush acted on intelligence from the Clinton era and the Democrat candidates in 2000 were really beating the war drums about WMD.
• Obama acted on intelligence from the Bush era.

How far back should we go? What if Truman had decided to undo the tentative allied victory in Europe and not use the bomb on Japan? What if there had been no Communists in FDRs cabinet and administration to push for giving Eastern Europe to the Russians laying the ground work for almost half a century of domination by the powerhouse USSR that we helped create?

I’d like to hear a candidate play the history “what if” game and out smart the reporters reading a script. The Republican candidates will all run from the Iraq-Afghanistan wars, and no one will turn the table to speak on Obama’s complete failure in the middle east. But if such a candidate emerges from the large, talented field of Republicans, I’ll vote for him/her.

More lies about the Founders—left is working overtime

No, democracy wasn't invented by the Founding Fathers nor the indigenous peoples, who had many cultures and languages. They relied on many sources not only in Europe, but the Bible and all the way back to the Greeks and Romans. No one ever learned the nonsense of this straw man poster misinformation which first tells a lie, then reports to correct the lie. Also, we don't have a Democracy, we have a Republic. The Founders were brilliant men with flaws who knew they stood on the shoulder of giants. We have tiny shriveled gnomes today who don't think, plan or read history, whose ideas are rooted in Marxism and the divine right of kings.

Yes, the archives belong to the victors as we say in the library field, however, we are fortunate to have many original documents, although well hidden and disguised in government schools today. There was a real fascination with everything Indian if you check 19th sources. And if you go back to 16th and 17th c. sources, some Europeans were horrified by the behavior and culture they found--and obviously saw their own culture as superior (although not by our enlightened, humanist standards where we sacrifice the unborn for personal gain but not usually living children).

Celebrating Brown v. Board of Education

Although true, presenting this as a black and white discussion is unfortunate. The Democrats have simply absconded with history. And this is important in remembering Brown v. Board of Education and other legislation fought for in the 1950s this year.

 

Obama meets with historians. . .

I don’t know if this happened.  Ed Klein says it did.  Doris Kearns Goodwin, Michael Beschloss, Robert Caro, Robert Dallek, Douglas Brinkley, H.W. “Billam” Brands, David Kennedy, Kenneth Mack, and Garry Wills met with Obama and staffers.  He wanted to know his place in history. It sounds like the Obama we’ve come to know through the news media—the ones that support him with unflinching loyalty.

“When one of the historians brought up the difficulties that Lyndon Johnson, another wartime president, faced trying to wage a foreign military venture while implementing an ambitious domestic agenda, Mr. Obama grew testy. He implied that he was different, because he could prevail by the force of his personality.

He could solve the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, put millions of people back to work, redistribute wealth, withdraw from Iraq, and reconcile the United States to a less dominant role in the world.

It was, by any measure, a breathtaking display of grandiosity by a man whose entire political curriculum vitae consisted of seven undistinguished years in the Illinois senate and two mostly absent years in the United States Senate.

That evening he revealed the characteristics — arrogance, conceit, egotism, vanity, hubris and, above all, rank amateurism — that would mark his presidency and doom it to frustration and failure.”
 Obama Will Be Presidential Failure Like Carter, Historian Says

This should be fun!

A friend has given me her book manuscript to read--world history. Will be a challenge. I'd learned a lot just reading the forward. I can tell we have different ideas for adverbs, but I think that's just writing style.

Question: What was your favorite book growing up?

Norma: Any book with horses. I loved the Marguerite Henry books--especially the illustrations by Wesley Dennis. I still have my King of the Wind, with the book cover intact. I could put myself right on those ponies or horses. However, for cuddling with mom in a big easy chair, it was Laura Ingalls Wilder (Little House series) hands down. She was a great reader, and I could also picture myself in Laura's life. Like this author, I didn't own any Wilder books (used the public library in Forreston and Mt. Morris), nor was I a fan of the TV series. It was a wonderful surprise in the 1990s when I was doing my research for publication on women and farm journals to discover her life as a newspaper columnist.

Leave a comment or send an e-mail, and I'll add your favorite (without your name if you prefer).

To the victor belongs the archives

As a Protestant (first an Anabaptist, then United Church of Christ, and currently Lutheran) I've had a pretty narrow view of history. In 2009 when our Lutheran church group travelled to the Holy Land we went with a group from the Greek Orthodox Church in Columbus, and that truly was my first association with this very important Christian heritage. All Christians share the early documents of the church and the ecumenical councils and the creeds. But the Protestant Reformation is strongly rooted in Rome, not Constantinople.

Today I watched the first 2 installments of The History of Orthodox Christianity. It's written, produced and distributed by GOTelecom (Greek Orthodox Telecommunications, Inc). Recently I've been listening regularly to St. Gabriel's Radio (WVKO in Columbus, OH) which carries a lot of EWTN syndicated shows like Mornings with Mother and The Father Corapi show, and I've learned a lot, been reinforced in many faith issues, and disagree a lot--just changing channels when they get to worship of Mary or purgatory. But to follow that up with the Greek Orthodox point of view on "tradition and history" of the church is quite amazing.

Also, the spread of Islam in the early church years and the lack of cohension and even human kindness between the eastern and western Christian church were appalling. It's sort of the difference between what the hen and the pig contribute to "ham and eggs." Also, the difference in the art to help tell the story is a real culture shock.

OrthodoxWiki
Orthdox Church in America

Today in History--Patsy Cline died--one of my favorites

March 5, 1963, Patsy Cline died in a plane crash.

This was most likely the proverbial straw

Although I didn't technically leave the Democratic party until 2000 when I voted for Bush (about whom I knew little) instead of Gore (whom I actually liked at that time), today I accidentally came across a straw--don't know if it was the "last straw"-- that I think mattered to me more than Clinton's deplorable behavior in office. The Rwanda genocide in 1994 and the United States' nonresponse (except for hand wringing). The USA didn't mind smacking other governments around if we needed their natural resources, but killing a million people in a matter of months? Black people? No big deal. Not even black Democrats cared much--their leverage was with the wrongs of the 18th and 19th century. And the United Nations? What a piece of worthlessness!

My disaffection with liberalism had a long history--we hadn't been a good match for a number of years dating back to the mid-1970s. I had always been pro-life and since I enjoyed reading history the humanism base of liberalism was pretty hard to swallow. It seemed pretty obvious just from the genocidal and "death by government decree" (USSR, Maoist China) and action in the 20th century, that humans were not perfectable no matter how much money you threw at them through government programs, and that there would be no perfect kum-by-ya harmony in any government's plan. And then in 1994 when we became a "small business" the barn door was left unlocked and all the horses upon which I'd ridden for years began to escape.

So it was personal, spiritual and political, but I left and have never been sorry. Conservatives turn into Republicans who turn into RINOs, but at least conservatives seem to understand that human beings are not perfectable, which all of history, common sense, and trillions of debt confirms. I don't know, maybe liberals don't really believe it either--but I know I did despite all evidence to the contrary, my own behavior, and the church's teachings.

Spreading a big TARP over a sink hole

From Forbes.com: - the $700,000,000,000 bailout will most likely fail according to the government's auditor Neil Barofsky. Some programs, such as $50 billion in mortgage modification subsidies and incentives, were not designed with any reasonable opportunity for a return to taxpayers. . . As of Wednesday, the Treasury said it had received repayments of $73.02 billion and had collected dividends, interest and warrant sale profits totaling $13.03 billion. How did we get here?

Remember how TARP, Troubled Asset Relief Program, had to be RUSHED through with no thought or the world as we know it would come to an end? But never waste a crisis. Obama's thuggery has stolen our freedom and our economy . When the state controls the owners of business you have Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. When it owns the business you have post-1920 USSR. Are these the "progressive" choices you want--national socialism or communism? Didn't we fight this in WWII and even longer in a Cold War in Europe and some hot spots in Asia called Korea and Vietnam? Why did we ask such a sacrifice of generations of our military if we would just give it all away in an election?

And it continues unabated. Our elected Congress is being pressured to rush health care bills, rush climate change bills, rush anything called eco- or sustainable or green, rush confirmation of cabinet, czars and judges so only socialists and/or communists get a seat at the table, rush, rush, rush. Or Obama's plans could collapse. So far, he's won all the battles; his plan is working, folks.

The Four Great Pillars of Ohio

The Centennial History of Columbus, Chapter 6, reports:

The growth of the common school system of the state of Ohio is one of the marvels of the nineteenth century, not only in the cities but the towns, villages and country districts as well. What may be called the principle on which this system was founded was enunciated in opening of the third article of the ordinance of 1787, a prophetic declaration of coming things, in these far-ringing words: "Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government, and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." How wonderfully has this prophetic declaration been amplified by the history of the splendid galaxy of states, extending from the Ohio river to the great northern lakes and to the Father of Waters, carved out of the Northwestern Territory. We may well remember that his ordinance antedates the National Constitution "Done by the United States congress, the 13th day of July, 1787," since the constitution was not adopted until the 13th day of November. 1787. and did not become effective until the first Wednesday in March. 1789.

The descendants of the pioneers who settled the states of Ohio. Indiana, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin, comprising the original Northwest Territory, are entitled to be proud of the fact that they are descended from the founders of the first government built upon the four great pillars: Religion, Morality, Knowledge, Liberty. The first commonwealth in history with a rescript as its unalienable birth-right, only to become more potential as it automatically divided into four great soverign states of the five and forty sisters. . .

One hundred years ago in Columbus, Ohio there were 21,675 pupils in all the schools--normal, high and elementary--10,650 were male and 11, 025 were female. The average daily attendance was 18,036, of whom 8,892 were male and 9,144 were female.

3993

Back to the lake

We picked Debbie and John up at the airport in Columbus on Tuesday afternoon--flight was just a few minutes late. We got them settled at our home, showed them around a bit, then met our daughter and SIL for dinner. Wednesday we did some sight seeing in Columbus and drove out to our son's home--bringing home some lovely cukes from his thriving garden.

We visited the State House and the Supreme Court building (Ohio Judicial Center) to see the art work and had lunch at Schmidt's in German Village, splitting a cream puff four ways. There's an interesting display on censorship in the education center of the judicial center--the whole education center is worth seeing, but this particular exhibit is very good and a piece of art in and of itself. I don't know who wrote the content, but although we now smile at some of the films the judges were required to review, one can definitely see that despite censorship, the steady downward spiral of the entertainment culture has continued. We also drove through the campus of Ohio State University, but it is a bit difficult to see. The main library is being gutted and is inaccessible for about four years, the student union is being torn down, the oval was closed to automobiles over 30 years ago due to student riots. We did jump briefly out of the car and looked at Mirror Lake. Foliage is so dense I could occasionally point to a roof top and say, "That's the building that was reconstructed to look like the original . . . ."

2763 The most popular Lakeside activity

When I was in the Association office the other day buying stamps, there was a line of people signing up for the Tram Tour, "Lakeside's History." We did this about 5 years ago with a neighbor, and I think we were the only 3 people on the ride. The tours are Monday and Tuesday mornings, 10:30-11:45, Monday afternoon 1:15-2:30, and Tuesday 3:30-4:45. Now, if you come here, you need to sign up first thing, or miss it. This week I saw 4 people on bicycles following along.



Carol, who leads the tour, grew up here attending local schools. The last tour date is August 29, and it costs $3 per person.

Lakeside, Ohio