Published in History

Looking for a cheap lunch at a favorite Vietnamese restaurant, got an education instead.

Fox News reports from London:

George Washington has been named Britain's greatest ever foe, according to the UK's National Army Museum.

The American Revolutionary War hero and the country's first president was the winner of a vote held at the museum Saturday to identify the Britain's most outstanding military opponent, The (London) Daily Telegraph reported.

Washington triumphed over the likes of Michael Collins, Napoleon, Rommel and Ataturk for the (in)famous title of "greatest foe ever." One hopes that the title was born of respect on the part of the British. Of course, Collins, Napoleon and Rommel were ultimately unsuccessful and Ataturk enjoyed only limited successes. Washington alone won a victory for all ages, as it were, in American democracy. And his miraculous cannon fortification of Dorchester Heights during the ultimately successful siege of Boston remains an unsurpassed example of military leadership.

Perhaps the British merely wished to name the only man to defeat them in recent history as the greatest of men in recent history. If one must be defeated, let it be by the greatest of adversaries. Whatever their reasoning, the truth is the same: Washington was the greatest of men.

Over at NRO, Allen Guelzo writes of the legacy of the Titanic, which sank along with over 2/3rds of its passengers 100 years ago this weekend. "The Titanic, name and thing," he quotes, "will stand for a monument and warning to human presumption." In the piece, Guelzo takes issue with some of the crimes committed by James Cameron in his epic portrayal of the disaster, and gives proper praise to the heroic captain of the Carpathia, Arthur Rostron, who did not flinch in rushing his ship through iceberg-infested waters to rescue whoever he could from the doomed ocean liner. "Presumption was what killed the Titanic. Presumption that technology relieves us from prudence, presumption that intelligent regulation will eliminate fear and pain, presumption that we have achieved exemption from the dangers that plagued earlier generations, presumption that nature can be driven out with a will-intentioned pitchfork...The sea hath spoken." Read the whole thing.

Over two thousand years ago, a group of aristocrats surrounded Gaius Julius Caesar at a meeting of the Roman Senate and stabbed him to death, having conspired to overthrow a dictator and reestablish a republic. Within a few years of their action, all of the conspirators were dead, and Caesars ruled the world for centuries. Caesar's staying power is visible even today. Among the otherwise-mindless topics "trending" on Twitter today, this morning was filled with trending topics including "Julius Caesar" and the "Ides of March", while a current trending topic is #ReasonsYouGetStabbed. I find this utterly remarkable given that I think you would be hard-pressed to find another person outside of Jesus Christ who has been dead for so long, or for even half as long, and is still so alive in the public imagine. It's a testament to how much the conspiracy of Brutus and Cassius failed in its mission to end Caesar. While there are a multitude of reasons that the Republicans were unable to overcome the Caesarians, these three mistakes from the offset really doomed their dreams:

While I'm on my papist roll, the Vatican has released a handful of documents, hailed by The Telegraph of London as redemptive, attesting to Pope Pius XII's aid to Jews during the Holocaust. For many years, liberals and militant secularists have arrogantly denounced Pius as "Hitler's Pope." The claims have always been spurious, as I noted previously upon observing that Jewish authorities almost unanimously praise Pius' conduct during the war.

Pius XII seems to me to be one of the most maligned figures of modern history. Whereas Allied powers did nothing to directly prevent the Holocaust (except, of course, by winning the war against Germany), Pius was consistently and unreservedly critical of NAZI Germany and is credited with saving nearly a million Jews by siphoning them through local parishes into foreign nations. Jewish and world leaders fully recognized Pius' "heroic virtue" until his name was defiled by a seemingly KGB-sponsored German play which portrayed the Pope as a devotee of Hitler. The German government and Jewish leaders condemned the historical revision, but the myth (welcome among those who always welcome such derisive slurs) endures today.

[See here for a nearly-exhaustive list of articles and texts on the topic.]

One of the documents, written by interred Jews in Italy, reads in part:

While in nearly all the countries of Europe we were persecuted, imprisoned and threatened with death because we belong to the Jewish people and profess the Jewish faith, Your Holiness not only sent notable and generous gifts to our camp through the apostolic nuncio... but also showed your fatherly interest in our physical and spiritual well-being," they wrote in German.

(You) intrepidly raised your universally venerated voice against our enemies - still so powerful at that time - to openly support our rights to human dignity.

When in 1942 we were under the threat of deportation to Poland, Your Holiness extended your fatherly hand to protect us and prevented the deportation of the Jews imprisoned in Italy, thereby saving us from almost certain death.

The full archive of over 2 million documents will be released within the next year or two.

Were the first Americans originally from Spain? And where did those ur-Spaniards come from? I guess one bit of evidence is this artwork discovered on a dig; and then there's this. What is most distrubing about the scholarship in this field is its sheer conventionality--its lack of imagination.

is The Politically Incorrect Guide of the Modern Presidents: From Wilson to Obama.  That it is good and true and well written and amusing goes without saying.  Buy a couple to give it to your friends, or better, to your political enemies.  I hope he makes a mint off this!

The current Republican exchanges? Besides those, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, according to the popularizing Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer. He responded to Newt Gingrich's call for Lincoln-Douglas debates against Obama. Holzer, however, reassures us that "Rather than inspiring memorable words, they proved for the most part an embarrassment." In fact, in his view, they show Lincoln's racial bigotry: 

"I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races," he declared in Charleston, Ill., to robust cheers, "nor ever have been in favor of making voters of the negroes, or jurors, or qualifying them to hold office, or having them to marry with white people." It was not the future emancipator's finest hour.

This is mediocre historian shallowness, which ignores what Lincoln might do in the future--shown clearly by the Emancipation Proclamation, his allowing blacks to fight in the Union army, and his early policies for reintegrating the South. Lincoln had no reason to speak of such civil and political equality, when most blacks were slaves. This superficiality breeds ignorant Lincoln haters and other cyncial leftists who despise their country. Though Holzer describes well the excitement of the debates, he, like most historians, simply doesn't see the principles involved. Ultimately, he does not understand the subjects as they understood themselves.

Read Harry Jaffa, author of the best book on political science since The Federalist. Crisis of the House Divided is also available via google books.  Ashbrook has a pdf as well, but I can't find it. In the meantime here are some short essays by real Lincoln scholars.

UPDATE:

Our friend Jack Pitney is skeptical of Newt's debating skills.

 

"Oh, they've always liked the Americans. Especially the Berliners, ever since the young president gave that speech."

I sincerely hope he needs no introduction (since his glorious "God is a Republican; Santa is a Democrat" exegesis), so here's Dave on 2011.

David Brooks on how the Obama Administration used the wrong historical analogy of Progressivism--more government to deal with our crises--to get the nation into deeper trouble. 

First, the underlying economic situations are very different....

In the progressive era, the economy was in its adolescence and the task was to control it. Today the economy is middle-aged; the task is to rejuvenate it.

Second, the governmental challenge is very different today than it was in the progressive era. Back then, government was small and there were few worker safety regulations. The problem was a lack of institutions. Today, government is large, and there is a thicket of regulations, torts and legal encumbrances. The problem is not a lack of institutions; it's a lack of institutional effectiveness.

The United States spends far more on education than any other nation, with paltry results. It spends far more on health care, again, with paltry results....

In the progressive era, there was an understanding that men who impregnated women should marry them. It didn't always work in practice, but that was the strong social norm....

One hundred years ago, we had libertarian economics but conservative values. Today we have oligarchic economics and libertarian moral values -- a bad combination.

In sum, in the progressive era, the country was young and vibrant. The job was to impose economic order. Today, the country is middle-aged but self-indulgent. Bad habits have accumulated. Interest groups have emerged to protect the status quo. The job is to restore old disciplines, strip away decaying structures and reform the welfare state. The country needs a productive midlife crisis.

The progressive era is not a model; it is a foil. It provides a contrast and shows us what we really need to do.

Brooks concedes far more to Progressivism than he should on both policy and its philosophic soundness:  "The country needs a productive midlife crisis."  It needs rather to reassert its founding identity.  Here are some incisive brief essays on Progressive loopiness and radicalism. 

Vaclav Havel was a man worthy of the Shakespearean eulogy:

He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.

It is often noted that Havel was a "mere" playwright before his activism against communism thrust him into the forefront of politics. But Havel existed in the interim of politics, in the revolutionary moment when character is of greater weight than policy. His instincts for politics, understood classically, arose from his understanding of the humanities and served well his fellow citizens.

The Czech Republic now mourns the passing of a national treasure. Their national sorrow is unique because men of Havel's stature do not largely exist elsewhere in the world. May they take solace in the knowledge of their great fortune in having had such a man for so long. He defined an era of hope and the world is poorer for his passing.

Update: For a powerful recitation of Havel's life and times, read Reason's "Velvet President."

Today is the remembrance of the attacks on Pearl Harbor. Like all such days of remembrance, it is a thanksgiving to those who sacrificed on our behalf and a caution that the worst of man's history may not yet be behind us. December 7, 1941 changed the course of human history. Other dates of infamy have done likewise - September 11, 2001 immediately comes to mind.

I was a bit disappointed, though not surprised, that U.S. media coverage in Asia nearly ignored the date and the highest ranking "news" article for Pearl Harbor on google included "truther"-style articles asking, "Who was really to blame?" It's a connection between FRD and Bush which I hadn't previously noted - and won't spend much time entertaining. Rather, I believe FDR's words in the wake of the event (compare to Bush's speech after 9-11) provide the most relevant testimony of the event:

Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with the government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleagues delivered to the Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. Very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.

Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island.

This morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.

As commander in chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense.

Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces - with the unbounding determination of our people - we will gain the inevitable triumph - so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, Dec. 7, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire.

"There is nothing proper about what you are doing, soldier, but do try to kill me properly." Thus were the last words of Marcus Tullius Cicero, who bowed his head in a gladiatorial gesture to ease the task of his assassination, which was ordered by the Second Triumvirate of Rome. At the time Cicero was the most popular of the Romans, and the public did their best to hide him as the Triumvirate's soldiers scoured the Italian countryside. He was finally betrayed by one of his brother's slaves while he was trying to flee to join Brutus and Cassius. It is said that Octavian Caesar argued with Mark Antony for two days to spare Cicero from proscription, but Antony would not budge. His hatred for the silver-tongued Cicero was such that he had the orator's head, hands, and tongue nailed to the doors of the Senate house--the only individual of the many murdered by the Triumvirate to suffer such a fate. It is also worth noting that in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Cicero (who, despite having few lines, is nonetheless greatly important to the plot by helping to reveal the character of both Brutus and Rome) is the only person killed by the proscriptions to be lamented by Brutus and Cassius.

While reading this essay by Jaffa on whether or not there could be another Churchill, a good thing to do on the statesman's birthday, I came across a line that reminded me of something:

Today is Twain's birthday and Google has done a clever thing.  It is also Churchill's birthday.  They both smoked cigars, by the way.  I always hesitate to say much about Twain, have the same problem with Shakespeare.  They are too big, too important, too capacious. The human condition demands a Shakespeare.  The new human condition, the American condition, demands a Twain.  Everyone in the world has always loved Tom and Huck and Jim and the big river and the possibilities.  Regardless of the problem, laughter was everywhere, and this is now known to be the American way.  (Lincoln of course was--essentially--a professional comic.)  Even Nietzsche recognized some of this virtue.  He wrote this after he read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: "The American way of laughing does me good, especially this sort of sturdy seaman like Marc Twain. I have been unable to laugh anymore at anything German." Tom Sawyer appeared in 1876, as did Untimely Meditations.  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published in 1885, the same year as the final version of Thus Spoke Zarathustra.  

I came across a Civil War song recently written by an Irishman from that era in New York City, about the Irish Brigade in the Civil War. Many of the Irish who fought in the war were the children and grandchildren of rebels who fought in the 1798 Irish Rebellion. My family has some particular connections to that uprising and one of its leaders, John Murphy. My grandmother lives in Boolavogue right down the street from the Father Murphy Center, which is on land owned by my grandfather's cousin, Jim. Jim also owns Vinegar Hill in Enniscorthy, where the Irish rebels made their last stand before a British-led massacre saw hundreds executed and the rebel leadership wiped out. Today Vinegar Hill is a small, quiet, nice bit of land overlooking the village. My great-grandfather was struck by lightning twice in his life, once while trying to herd some sheep off of the hill. A century before, that great battle saw it covered red in the blood of Irish rebels, many of whose compatriots and families fled to the United States in the subsequent decades. The Irish Americans represented an interesting part in our war, and supported the Union heavily for several reasons--not least of which was that they saw the United States as their best hope for support against their homeland's oppressors. The ballad below highlights some important historical points of all of this--the connection to the Boys of '98, the refusal to participate in a parade for the Prince of Wales, and the support for George McClellan.

My name is Tim McDonald, I'm a native of the Isle,

I was born among old Erin's bogs and left when but a child.

My granddad fought in '98 for Liberty so dear;

He fought and fell on Vinegar Hill as an Irish Volunteer.

Then raise the harp of Erin, boys, the flag we all revere--

We'll fight and fall beneath its folds like Irish Volunteers!

When I was driven from my home by an oppressor's hand,

I cut my sticks and greased my brogues and come o'er to this land.

I found a home and many friends, and some that I love dear,

Be jeebus I'll stick to them like bricks, an Irish volunteer.

Then fill your glasses up, my boys, and drink a hearty cheer,

To the land of our adoption and the Irish volunteer.

Now when the traitors in the South commenced a warlike raid,

I quickly then threw down my hod, to the Devil went my spade!

To our recruiting office then I went, that happened to be near,

And joined the good old Sixty-ninth like an Irish volunteer.

Then fill the ranks and march away, no traitors do we fear;

We'll drive them all to blazes, says the Irish volunteer!

When the Prince of Wales came over here and made a hubbaboo,

Oh, everyone turned out, you know, in gold and tinsel too;

But the good old Sixty-ninth, they didn't like these lords or peers;

They wouldn't give a damn for kings, the Irish volunteers!

We love the land of Liberty, its laws we do hold dear,

But the Devil take nobility, says the Irish volunteer!

Now if the traitors in the South should ever cross our roads,

We'll drive them to the Devil as Saint Patrick did the toads.

We'll give them all short nooses that come just below the ears,

Made good and strong from Irish hemp by Irish volunteers.

And here's to brave McClellan, whom the army now reveres!

He'll lead us on to victory, the Irish volunteers.

Now fill your glasses up, my boys, a toast come drink with me:

May Erin's Harp and the Starry Flag united ever be;

May traitors quake, and rebels shake, and tremble in their fears,

When next they meet the Yankee boys and the Irish volunteers!

God bless the name of Washington! that name this land reveres;

Success to Meagher, Nugent, and their Irish Volunteers!

The WSJ replaced its weekend interview with an article by Neal Freeman (a 38-year board member at National Review) which imagines a series of interviews between the late William F. Buckley and the conservative movement. It celebrates the 60th anniversary of "God and Man at Yale."

The personal anecdotes of Buckley's life and reflections on the conservative movement's "scrawny" ranks at Yale in those early days (not that those ranks have been greatly increased in academic settings since Buckley's days) make the article an amusing read. And Freeman's assessment of Buckley's would-be judgement on the GOP field, as well as conservative scholars and writers, is noteworthy.

Freeman blinks at the last moment and refuses to throw Buckley's weight behind a single candidate. But we are reminded of the ever-relevant Buckley Rule: Conservatives should support for election the rightward-most viable candidate. 2012 is no exception to the rule.

4,196,949,605 of 7 billion people on earth.

I am the 78,636,613,080th person to have lived since history began.  

The historic milestone cannot but bring to mind the global hysteria of the "population bomb," a liberal fallacy which led to the international community's willful complicity in global programs of sterilization, abortion and human-rights abuses. The UN Population Fund is a remnant of this shameful history and exists now as little more than an international lobby for the abortion industry which identifies the Catholic Church as a greater enemy to "reproductive rights" than China.

Of course, the lie of overpopulation was always a mere means to the end of liberal globalization: the liberal control of international organizations capable of stealing sovereignty from the nations (and thus people) of the world. Liberal globalization would achieve by stealth and trickery what the greatest imperialists and conquerors in history had failed to achieve by force. Their weapon was fear and their delivery mechanism was "undisputed science" which captured the world's population in a stupor of ignorance.

Of course, rational minds prevailed. The Catholic Church was foremost in the resistance to these immoral policies and authoritarian tactics. Conservatives likewise opposed the radicalism of population control. They were vindicated as being on the side of science and rationalism.

Of course, the media largely failed to notice any of this. Partially, they didn't wish to expose their own complicity. But more importantly, they were already chanting the next cadence of liberal globalization. Global cooling was next, followed by global warming and now climate change. The entire environmental movement, with its need to regulate all life on the planet at the international level, serves this goal. Internationalism - be it law, politics, diplomacy or economics - has long been dominated by the left. They have recognized since the "population bomb" days that the last battlefield is global in breadth and that internationalism is the strategic high ground.

Their climate and environmental alarms will likely herald nothing more frieghtening than the overpopulation scare - and the damage inflicted on the world will be relative to the successes of such policies. Right-minded people have and will continue to oppose their secret war of oppression, but today is, more than anything, a reminder of the radical left's grand strategy.

H.W. Crocker III is the author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to the British Empire." Brett Decker reviews in today's WaPo:

The zeal of Anglophiles tends to be overdone - like food in Old Blighty - because it needs to compensate for an anti-historical political correctness that has infected academia, twisting an objectively positive institution - the British Empire - into something bad. Harry Crocker's new book ... sets the record straight about the small island that governed a quarter of the planet and had a civilizing influence on the rest of it.

Decker's review hints at the gems within Crocker's book - which is surely worth a read. But the two gentlemen also seem to grasp the fortunate legacy of the British Empire:

Late in life, Winston Churchill sighed, "I have worked very hard all my life, and I have achieved a great deal - in the end to achieve nothing." The former prime minister was lamenting the demise of the empire he hoped would continue to be the guarantor of peace and a force for good in the world. Yet, as Mr. Crocker puts it, "When Britain could no longer maintain the Pax Britannica, it became the Pax Americana." Despite the sun having mostly set on the British Empire, the old limeys' high-minded values of limited government and individual rights endure through its former colony, America, which took up the important burden as Western Civilization's chief proselytizer. Chin-chin to that.

October 25th is named for twins who were martyred in the year 286, the Christian saints Crispin and Crispinian. The day bore witness to three of the most famous battles in history. The first is one made famous by Shakespeare, the Battle of Agincourt--the victorious English archers of Henry V against the French forces of Charles VI. The second is the 1854 Crimean War's Battle of Balaclava, where British Lord Cardigan led the famous and ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade against the Russians. The final is the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Pacific theatre of World War II, the largest single naval battle in human history, which saw the United States essentially wipe out what remained of the offensive capabilities of the Imperial Japanese Navy. This is a day of warriors, and, as always, the Bard provides the best words for it:

On October 23 in the year 42 B.C., the forces of Triumvirs Mark Antony and Gaius Octavian Caesar were locked in battle against the soldiers of Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, fighting on a great plain located to the west of the ancient city of Philippi in Greece. Twenty days early, at the First Battle of Philippi, Antony's forces had crushed those of Cassius and the assassin committed suicide. While this would have put the Republicans at a disadvantage, that same day they had been able to intercept and destroy a fleet of reinforcements coming for the Triumvirs, leaving Antony and Octavian in a precarious position. However, Brutus was no brilliant strategist--Cassius was the cunning one. The battle came to full force on the 23rd, and Brutus was outflanked by Antony. Trapped, the camp of Caesar's assassin was stormed by Octavian's forces and captured. After retreating to some nearby hills, Brutus saw that it was impossible for him to escape capture and subsequently ended his life, refusing to return to Rome in chains.

This was the noblest Roman of them all;

All the conspirators save only he

Did that they did in envy of great Caesar;

He, only, in a general honest thought

And common good to all, made one of them.

His life was gentle, and the elements

So mixed in him that Nature might stand up

And say to all the world, "This was a man!"

Last Tuesday at Philadelphia's Ben Franklin Hall (a more suitable venue is difficult to imagine), British barristers sparred with American lawyers over the legality of the American colonists' Declaration of Independence.

The American's invoked natural law and the consent of the people. "The English had used their own Declaration of Rights to depose James II and these acts were deemed completely lawful and justified." Indeed, self-determination is now reflected in the fundamental rights of the UN Charter.

The British case recalled the historic lawlessness and fecklessness of the secession. "There is no legal principle then or now to allow a group of citizens to establish their own laws because they want to. What if Texas decided today it wanted to secede from the Union?" Denigrating "no taxation without representation" as little more than a wish to avoid paying their due share for the protection of the empire during the French and Indian War, the barristers listed the grievances in the Declaration as "too trivial to justify secession."

I believe it was Gordon Wood, clarifying Jefferson's supposed sufferance of "a long train of abuses and usurpations," who observed that never in the course of human history had men revolted over such slight actual harms. The empty and retreating declaration by the British Parliament that they had the power to rule over the colonies "in all cases whatsoever" was the sort of injury to which the Americans mainly revolted. Abuses of principle. Usurpations of ideas.

Of course, it is the jealous love of these principles and ideas which enabled to new nation to survive and prosper (contrary to the flawed recipe of the French Revolution, for example). Yet these grievances are not the sort for which the U.S. or NATO would now intervene on behalf of a restless people in a foreign land.

The British even slyly invoked the authority of Lincoln as they diminished the authority of "the laws of nature" and, by extension, of "nature's God."

Lincoln made the case against secession and he was right. The Declaration of Independence itself, in the absence of any recognised legal basis, had to appeal to "natural law", an undefined concept, and to "self-evident truths", that is to say truths for which no evidence could be provided.

It is noteworthy that the British attempt to reduce the American argument to a religious dogma. While the spirit of the revolution was democratic and the mode was legalistic, the foundation rested upon a sense of Providence. Interestingly, the British do not seem compelled to address this third leg of the revolution.

There are many compelling and legitimate arguments by which to address the question at hand - and most are well worth serious contemplation.  

Here's my vote for the most creative midterm exam ever, from my friend Nick Proctor at Simpson College:

For my American Civil War midterm, the extra credit was a set of Charlie Sheen quotations. Students could match up to ten of them to appropriate Civil War leaders in particular circumstances. They then had to provide a brief explanation for each match. So, for example, a good answer for #10 would be: "Grant after the fall of Forts Henry and Donalson." Similarly, a good answer for #5 could be "Forrest while raiding in central Tennessee."

1. I will deploy my ordinance to the ground.
2. I don't sleep; I wait.
3. "Can't" is the cancer of "happen."
4. I'm a high priest Vatican warlock.
5. I have one speed; I have one gear: GO!
6. They're the best at what they do. I'm the best at what I do, and it is ON!
7. I think my passion is misinterpreted as anger sometimes. And I don't think people are ready for the message that I'm delivering, and delivering with a sense of violent love.
8. I'm here and I'm ready. They're not. Bring it.
9. That we are to stand by the President right or wrong is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
10. I'm bi-winning. I win here. I win there.
11. Life comes down to a few moments. This is one of them.
12. Boom, crush. Night, losers. Winning, duh.
13. Fame is empowering. My mistake was that I thought I would instinctively know how to handle it. But there's no manual, no training course.
14. Here's the good news. If I realize that I'm insane, then I'm okay with it. I'm not dangerous insane.
15. I have defeated this earthworm with my words. Imagine what I would have done with my fire breathing fists.

I invite NLT contributors to add their favorite pairings in the Comments section.

Economic turmoil, long and spread out, resulted in a tremendous amount of unemployment and the huge accumulation of debt. Foreign enemies, from a mighty rival to more puny but nonetheless dangerous bands of attackers, threatened the nation decades after it had seen its greatest enemies vanquished. Government meddling redirected a substantial amount of wealth to those whom most people did not think deserved any more. For fear of their safety, tremendous power was placed in the hands of the executive to counter the threats posed to society. For want of material security, these same people were given a mandate by the people to rid the nation of economic inequity. Over a long period of upheaval caused by this mess and coupled by widespread political corruption, a republic saw itself destroyed and reborn an empire.

Former CIA operative Brian Kelley passed away last night. He was a remarkable man. During my time as a fellow at the Institute of World Politics, I had the opportunity to interact with him several times and listen to him speak. He was one of the country's leading authorities on counterintelligence, and was very involved during his time in the Air Force and the Central Intelligence Agency with many of the biggest espionage cases in American history. Kelley and his family suffered greatly during the hunt for the most notorious Russian mole within the United States intelligence community-- traitor Robert Hanssen, whose capture was the subject of the motion picture Breach. Kelley had a similar profile to Hanssen, doing much of the same type of work and happening to live relatively close to where the real spy lived. It did not help that Hanssen was involved in hunting for the spy. Kelley ended up suffering interrogation, placed on administrative leave, was rejected by the American intelligence community, and had his privacy subject to wiretaps. Suffering this for nearly two years, he was vindicated at last when Hanssen was discovered to be the spy and arrested. Hanssen now sits in the Supermax prison on a life sentence without parole, spending 23 hours a day in solitary confinement, convicted of doing more damage to the American intelligence community than any other individual person in our history. Kelley was restored to his status, and spent much of his later life teaching counterintelligence studies at the Institute of World Politics. He was a patriot and a wise warrior, who served his country and his neighbors well. He will be missed.

After walking across Capitol Hill on errands this morning, seeing the greatly enhanced security that has been brought out in light of a potential terrorist threat this weekend, I sat at my computer and started reading through the news. A 5-minute video on Yahoo went through the events of that terrible day, starting with the carefree news on the early morning about Michael Jordan rumors and other things, and then the belief that this plane crash was an accident, and then the horror in the newscasters' voices upon learning that it was not. I felt that heart-wrenching feeling, that labored breathing, that welling up in my eyes that has been common ever since the creation of YouTube allowed such clips of that day to be replayed over and over again. One of the main pictures at the Los Angeles Times page remembering the attacks was an image that has been burned in my mind for ten years, flashing on those difficult nights of sleeping--a lone man, white shirt and black pants, falling from the towers. Tears well up in my eyes. Another picture of the crowds gathered at the windows in the tower above the burning hole, fighting desperately for air-- I choke and remember the confusion I felt watching that in my classroom before the teacher shut it off. A video, next, of reactions to the attack from around the world-- screaming of an old woman in New York as she sees the tower collapses, our noble friends in Britain playing our anthem at their palace as weeping crowds stand at the gate, people in Poland and Russia and Vietnam and Australia and Brazil and France weeping on their knees, holding our flag, and placing flowers outside of our embassies. I begin to weep, and just sit in my room and do that for a short while, reliving that day as most others are.

Steve Hayward on another reason to hate Woodrow Wilson. It may not surprise you; it did me. He really was a shallow ideologue. I wonder what he would have thought about motorcycles?

In a little over a month, our son will be ten years old.  Of course, this means that he was born in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on our country.  It also means that on the morning of September 11, 2001 when my husband screamed, "Julie!  Oh my God . . . come look at this!" I lay in bed, heavily pregnant, and not very inclined to be accommodating to his request.  "What is it?" I shouted back.  "There's been a terrible plane crash!" he explained.  All I could think of at that moment was how annoyed I was to be roused for that news.  Plane crashes are terrible tragedies but, unless you have a direct tie to it, there is no news in it that changes your life or necessitates your getting out of bed.  Nevertheless, I obliged him, and tottered into our den to see what why he was so agitated.

No sooner had I recognized the building and recalled the terrible luck of that place (thinking, of course, of the 1993 bombing) than the second plane struck the second tower.  This was a new order of things.  I thought it was impossible for me to swell any more than I already had in the 8th month of my pregnancy, but this was not true.  Anger filled every pore of my being and I thought I might explode.  And then, as I watched the horror unfold--the tumbling of the buildings, the ash covering those who were able to flee, the realization that innumerable brave souls must have sacrificed themselves in order to save others as they ran into instead of running out of those buildings--the anger receded a bit and gave way to bitter heartache.  Yet the anger found a permanent little refuge ever to dwell in my soul and I accepted it--though not without some regret.  I would never, could never forget this.  Nothing would make it right.  Nothing could ever fully avenge it.  It altered everyone who witnessed it as it would alter everyone who remembered it.  

I remember sobbing much of the day and desperately clutching my curly-headed daughter, then only a toddler.  She had no way of understanding what was going on or why her parents were so gut-stricken that day.  But even she sensed that the world--which just the day before had included a carefree trip to the county fair--was now different and that joy, should it come, would come along with caution.  The confidence that assures the vulnerable and makes them forget their condition was shaken.  We were all vulnerable now.  In truth, however, this was not a new state of things.  It was just that a generation of Americans unaccustomed to acknowledging it except in abstractions, was rudely awakened to a fundamental truth of human existence:  the good things in life are fragile.  We had taken our security and prosperity for granted and, even more, we had assumed that our liberty was a given and a permanent fact.  Coming to know what to do with this realization would be the hard (and often thankless) work of the next decade (or more).  Remembering that realization--though it then seemed impossible that we could forget--will be the work of the decades to follow this anniversary. 

On October 10, 2001 I woke up in the pre-dawn hours to realize that I was in labor.  Since my daughter had been born in less than six hours and second babies generally come faster, I had been advised to get to the hospital at the first sign of contractions.  When I arrived, however, the nurses examined me and I could hear them murmuring to each other about possibly sending me home.  "She'll probably just be back later tonight or tomorrow," said one.  "Tomorrow?" I thought, "No!"  In addition to wishing to avoid anti-climax and continue with the dragging discomfort of heavy pregnancy, I could not bear the thought of birthing a son on the one-month anniversary of the attacks.  A television, tuned to CNN, blared in the delivery room with pictures from the mammoth efforts to clean-up at Ground Zero.  "Tomorrow will mark the one-month anniversary of the September 11 attacks," the anchors dutifully announced, as if anyone could forget.  I pulled aside one of the nurses.  Her son had just been mobilized to head over to Afghanistan and she read the look on my face.  "He will be born today, not tomorrow.  I understand," she assured me, and then she got my doctor to order a pitocin drip.  It turned out, actually, to be barely necessary.  My son was born about an hour and half after this conversation with the nurse.

As she brought him to me, I looked upon his little face and remembered my fears about raising a boy (as I come from a family accustomed only to girls).  Even then, in that summer of calm before the storm, I knew that we would have to raise him to be strong in ways I did not fully comprehend.  Yet I did not understand just how strong he would need to be until after 9/11.  Ten years on, however, I understand that 9/11 did not alter the truth of this necessity.  It only underlined it for me and, I hope, for a generation of mothers like me.  And, yet, I wonder . . .

I understand the reluctance to remember and the wish to avoid unpleasant associations.  But my children--both of them--have grown up in a post 9/11 world that, in the main, is marked by nothing but fear or solemn silence as it recalls those events. 

We remember it when we line up like sheep to take off our shoes and have our persons probed at the airport.  I remember one awful incident when my son (then 3) was traveling with a cast on his broken arm.  He was whisked away from me to a separate room and swabbed for traces of explosives.  Try explaining that to a toddler. 

During most of the years of their schooling, 9/11 came and went without any formal acknowledgment or remark.  Earth Day, on the other hand, has taken up to a week of acknowledgment and instruction.  We don't fear teaching children to fear man's folly as it applies to pollution and the raping of the Earth's resources.  But we still cannot look outright evil in the face.  I expect that this year, being the 10th anniversary of the event, will mark some change.  It will be necessary to say something.  Yet I am betting that what gets said will be something like solemn regret for the so-called "tragedy" . . . as if this really were just another terrible plane crash.  This is the beginning of forgetting--this choosing not to remember or to pass on what our parents' parents (though probably with better personal reasons) must also have chosen to forget to pass on:  that every good thing we have is vulnerable when we do not understand how we got it or what it takes to keep it.

In the wake of 9/11 it appeared that a generation many had discounted was ready, quietly, to step up and do the job of securing liberty to themselves and their posterity.  As we pass the 10 year mark, it is time for that same generation to consider whether their inclination to labor in reflexive silence and, often, without self-reflection is the best they can do for posterity.   
 

Two Claremonsters, Bill Voegeli and Tom West, reflect on the meaning of 9/11.  Our NLT colleague Bill recalls the evacuations he and his fellow New Yorkers stoically endured.  Tom West always fights for the wisdom of the founders: 

My first reaction to the attack was anger -- certainly against the terrorists, but also against our government. The FAA disarmed pilots in 1987. Passengers and crew were ordered to submit quietly to hijackers' demands. In the name of safety, government banned the very thing that could have prevented the murder of thousands: the Founders' agenda of self-help, self-defense, and gun rights.

Their brief observations can be found at the end of this link on NRO.

In college, I wrote a paper on King Arthur as the final exam for a class on Winston Churchill. (My professor was a wise man who justly rewarded my insights - and charitably resisted the likely instinct to fail me.) The exact historicity of the ancient king pales in importance to his legend and legacy as the quintessential British ruler.

However, any hint that the legends are true is a welcome revelation. The London Telegram reports "King Arthur's round table may have been found by archaeologists in Scotland."

Archaeologists searching for King Arthur's round table have found a "circular feature" beneath the historic King's Knot in Stirling.

Ultimately true or not, any reason to reflect upon a more noble and disciplined Britain - particularly in these days of looters and hooligans - is a good thing..

A beautiful letter from George S. Patton to his son, June 6, 1944:

At 0700 this morning the BBC announced that the German Radio had just come out with an announcement of the landing of Allied Paratroops and of large numbers of assault craft near shore. So that is it.

This group of unconquerable heroes whom I command are not in yet but we will be soon--I wish I was there now as it is a lovely sunny day for a battle and I am fed up with just sitting.

I have no immediate idea of being killed but one can never tell and none of us can live forever, so if I should go don't worry but set yourself to do better than I have.

All men are timid on entering any fight; whether it is the first fight or the last fight all of us are timid. Cowards are those who let their timidity get the better of their manhood. You will never do that because of your blood lines on both sides. I think I have told you the story of Marshall Touraine who fought under Louis XIV. On the morning of one of his last battles--he had been fighting for forty years--he was mounting his horse when a young ADC [aide-de-camp] who had just come from the court and had never missed a meal or heard a hostile shot said: "M. de Touraine it amazes me that a man of your supposed courage should permit his knees to tremble as he walks out to mount." Touraine replied "My lord duke I admit that my knees do tremble but should they know where I shall this day take them they would shake even more." That is it. Your knees may shake but they will always take you towards the enemy. . . .

And much more. Read the whole thing.

On this day in 1968, the Soviet Union led a Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia to end the Prague Spring. In January of the same year, Slovak reformer Alexander Dubček had begun a decentralization program in Czechoslovakia, focusing on the economy and democracy. He liberalized regulations on personal freedoms and orchestrated the country's peaceful division into the Czech and Slovak Republics. Russia would not accept these reforms and used military force to restore soviet order. Czechoslovakia would remain under Russian control until the 1989 collapse of East Germany spread across central and eastern Europe in the following year.

Gorbachev credited the Prague Spring for inspiring glasnost and perestroika. The only difference between the Prague Spring and Gorbachev's reform movement has been described as "nineteen years." While not ultimately as successful as the Polish Solidarity Movement, the Prague Spring was a watershed moment for political freedom - and its defeat by Russian militarism was a critical blow to Communism's moral and intellectual standing.

Over at the American Scholar, George Watson makes an attempt to take Winston Churchill and hold him up as a darling of the Left and the founder of the British welfare state. This "forgotten Churchill" ought to be remembered not just for his war leadership and stubborn defiance of Hitler and Nazism, argues Watson, but for his creation of the National Health Service and fighting sweatshops. While it is true that Churchill engaged in creating social insurances as a young politician, his reasons for doing so were far, far different than the Left's-- he wanted to prop up some welfare programs in order to stem the advance of socialism, which is why most socialists in the United Kingdom fought against his measures (as Watson rightfully points out). As Steven Hayward draws attention to at Power Line, Churchill did not support social engineering and never thought that government central planning could be smarter than the marketplace. He acknowledged the fact that higher taxes are not the road to prosperity, embraced a pre-Hayekian opposition to central economic planning, and thought that socialism and all its ilk was dangerous and immoral.

In his Empire of Liberty, Gordon Wood claims that:

Educated and reflective observers found it increasingly difficult to hold to the eighteenth-century conspiratorial notion that particular individuals were directly responsible for all that happened.... [W]ith the spread of scientific thinking about society many of these sorts of conspiratorial interpretations began to seem increasingly primitive and quaint.

But as Noemie Emery notes, such "conspiratorial notions" are alive and well, among our credentialed elites no less than anyone else, for "Some think their beliefs are so true and self-evident that principled and/or informed opposition to them is simply impossible, and that their opponents must be fools and/or villains. They also feel themselves under permanent siege, from the press, from the establishment, and most of all from the centrists in their parties."

Human nature 1, historicism 0.

Walter Russell Mead, who seems to have become a blogging superstar lately, has a long, interesting reflection on the phenomenon of "flash mobs" and not of the amusing kind.  He connects the problem with other social trends, and concludes that it is yet another way that the Progressive consensus is failing.  He notes the:

Growing public perception that sixties liberalism doesn't work undermines the consensus for sixties racial as well as immigration and economic policy.

The trouble is that the Progressive branch of liberalism cannot function without the myth that there is a consensus about what comes next.  Without agreement that things must move in a particular direction, a living constitution cannot function. 

Not long ago, Secretary of State Clinton described piracy as a "17th century problem."  Mrs. Clinton noted that we still have piracy today, and was pointing to what she regarded as an anomaly.  Aristotle, of course, said that piracy is one of the five natural ways by which men put bread on their table. By that, I take him to be saying that there always will be pirates among us.  The idea that certain ideas, habits, customs, ways of life, moral beliefs, etc. belong to certain ages is not natural. It is a particular idea.  That idea might be under stress, too. As Mead notes in another recent post:

For two generations markets have mostly thought of risk in terms of tame risk: the risk that an asset might lose some of its value, the risk that a particular counterparty might not fulfill its side of a transaction.  But now we are back to the world of real risk or wild risk: the risk that a currency might disappear, the risk that a major government (as opposed to the occasional banana republic) might default on its debts, the risk that a financial crisis could erupt and that no government, no central bank could limit its scope or temper its impact.

After the Berlin Wall fell Jesus Jones sang that we were "watching the world wake up from history."  Perhaps we're seeing the end of History in Hegel's sense, and the return of history, in the classic sense.  Perhaps the change is not so dramatic.  Ever since Adams and Jefferson began their argument, the American mind (if there be such) has been torn on this question.  Ending the debate might have serious consequences.

I draw your attention to this piece on the famous Tuskegee Airmen, a name given to the 15,000 African Americans who broke the barriers of color and gravity in service to their country during the Second World War. These old warriors now number just over a hundred, move a little slower than they did in battle seventy years ago, and are a little harder of hearing, but they still stand proud at their annual gathering to remember lost comrades and their days in the sky. Good for them, and good for us.

Divine comedy from Paul Simms in The New Yorker.

UPDATE: Pretty pleased with what I've come up with in just six days. Going to take tomorrow off. Feel free to check out what I've done so far. Suggestions and criticism (constructive, please!) more than welcome. God out.

Comments follow.

Apparently the latest criticism of Michelle Bachmann is that she gets migraine headaches. That hardly disqualifies someone from high office.  After all, Thomas Jefferson suffered from the same ailment.

Meanwhile, Bill's post below points out that "Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution has made a similar case, arguing that a nation whose government has 'most of its budget on automatic pilot and a fifth of its expenses unpaid for' has abandoned 'fiscal democracy.' That is, all of the budgetary decisions that matter were made decades ago when social insurance programs were created."

That reminds me of Jefferson's belief that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living, and "that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it."  For one generation to bind another with debts and other obligations to pay is for one set of people to tax another without their consent.  According to Mr. Jefferson, that is a version of involuntary servitude.  Our entitlement programs are moving close to that line, if it has not already crossed it.

Happy Birthday, Caesar. 2111 years ago, Gaius Julius Caesar was born in Rome. The "noblest man that ever lived in the tide of times" would go on to be spared in the proscriptions of Sulla, fight pirates, conquer Gaul, invade the Rhineland and Britain, subjugate Egypt, and make himself the unparalleled master of the ancient world. As Dictator for Life, the lean and hungry men of the Senate feared he would become a tyrant and name himself King, so under the leadership of his good friend Marcus Brutus they murdered him at a meeting of the Senate. In one of the many ironies of history in Caesar's life, he died at the foot of a statue of his old friend and rival, Pompey Magnus. His adopted heir, Octavian, would finish his conquests and establish the Roman Empire, bringing with it a time of peace and prosperity unparalleled in Europe until the modern day. He remains one of the few Ancients who is familiar to even those who do not study history.

In honor of John Quincy Adams' birthday today, I thought it would be fitting to post a link, and some words from, his speech of July 4, 1837:

The most celebrated British moralist of the age, Dr. Samuel Johnson, in a controversial tract on the dispute between Britain and her Colonies, had expressly laid down as the basis of his argument, that--"All government is essentially absolute. That in sovereignty there are no gradations. That there may be limited royalty; there may be limited consulship; but there can be no limited government. There must in every society be some power or other from which there is no appeal; which admits no restrictions; which pervades the whole mass of the community; regulates and adjusts all subordination; enacts laws or repeals them; erects or annuls judicatures; extends or contracts privileges; exempts itself from question or control; and bounded only by physical necessity." (Johnson's Taxation no Tyranny)

The Declaration of Independence was founded upon the direct reverse of all these propositions. It did not recognize, but implicitly denied, the unlimited nature of sovereignty. By the affirmation that the principal natural rights of mankind are unalienable, it placed them beyond the reach of organized human power; and by affirming that governments are instituted to secure them, and may and ought to be abolished if they become destructive of those ends, they made all government subordinate to the moral supremacy of the People.

The Declaration itself did not even announce the States as sovereign, but as united, free and independent, and having power to do all acts and things which independent States may of right do. It acknowledged, therefore, a rule of right, paramount to the power of independent States itself, and virtually disclaimed all power to do wrong. This was a novelty in the moral philosophy of nations, and it is the essential point of difference between the system of government announced in the Declaration of Independence, and those systems which had until then prevailed among men. A moral Ruler of the universe, the Governor and Controller of all human power is the only unlimited sovereign acknowledged by the Declaration of Independence; and it claims for the United States of America, when assuming their equal station among the nations of the earth, only the power to do all that may be done of right.

Gladiator battles were to Rome what football is to the United States (and soccer to the rest of the world). Successful gladiators could attract huge fan followings and achieved a certain celebrity status, as athletes do today. If a gladiator was successful long enough, he was usually given his freedom and allowed to go into retirement, resting upon his laurels. So rabid were the Romans about their gladiator fights and loyal to their home teams that, like the example of Vancouver recently, riots could break out if things did not go their way. At a game in Pompeii once, taunting turned to stone-throwing between the Pompeians and the visiting Nucerians, resulting in deaths and injuries during the subsequent riot. It was so bad that Emperor Nero banned gladiator games for Pompeii for ten years (after the ban they would get to enjoy it for another ten years before Vesuvius ended gladiator games in Pompeii permanently). Graffiti and higher-quality wall painting boast of Pompeii's victory over Nuceria Alfaterna, despite the ban.

Sir Christopher Wren's St. Paul's Cathedral in London is celebrating its 300th birthday today. Of course, at 300 years old, St. Paul's is a youngster among England's great churches and cathedrals. Nevertheless, her caretakers decided she was in need of a little makeover, so today also marks the conclusion of a 15 year restoration effort. I'd say she doesn't look a day over 200.

From Ronald Seavoy's classic The Origins of the American Business Corporation.  (A book on a subject that ought to occupy more time in our history classes).  After the American Revolution, as the State of New York passed a law allowing religious congregations to incorporate (a step necessary to allow them to own land):

A mortmain clause, limiting the amount of land a congregation could own, was added to prevent the accumulation of real property in immobile corporate hands.  Thereafter, some form of mortmain restriction as placed in almost all charters of benevolent societies.  This was a legal carry-over from England where mortmain clauses were designed to prevent the accumulation of land in the hands of churches and other charitable organizations.

I wonder if we, in modern America, should consider restoring that a like restriction on all tax-free entities.  Perpetuities are problematic in a democratic-republic.  As the endowments of our major Universites and colleges grow, along with our major foundations, it reduces our tax base.  Business corporations must compete to survive. Hence that concern does not apply. But charitable trusts can be forever. Since we don't have the feudal law here (at least in most cases), it would probably have to take a different form than the old restriction. 

As I understand the law, (and I may very well be wrong here), charitable institutions have some key advantages in the market.  If they don't pay capital gains taxes on trades, for example, they can be much more efficient traders of stocks and other assets.  Similarly, if they don't pay real estate taxes, they can drive for profit landlords out of the market by charging less rent for like apartments.  When relatively little wealth is off the tax books, that's not a real problem. As more and more is held by charities, it could become a problem.  More generally, the lack of competition makes long-term ownership by charitable entities very different than ownership by business corporations.

Perhaps we could just require that charitable foundations spend more than the current 5% per year of their endowments (and change the way that 5% is counted).  It would make sense to exempt land that was used directly by charities (such as church and school buildings), but not other lands, etc.

The descendants of the litigants in the great civil rights case of 1896 form a foundation.  Sweet idea, and I'm wondering whether serious tea party-style activists might follow suit by forming similar foundations devoted to ending irrational discrimination.  They might find inspiration in Jennifer Roback Morse's libertarian scholarship, which notes the City of New Orleans overriding the railway's preference for integrated seating.  (Clint Bolick has also performed great service along these lines.)  Here is another way to put natural rights-thinking to practical use.  Reading Charles Lofgren's classic work on Plessy is essential background.  The Claremont historian shows the direct ties between Plessy's arguments and the Declaration of Independence.

The Tea Party's most appealing argument is for the restoration of the principles of the Declaration of Independence in everyday life.  The fight for color-blind justice is an essential part of that argument.  Thanks to Mike in the comments.

Treppenwitz:  Here is one version of Edward Erler's argument on Plessy's persistence in our jurisprudence.

President Harry Truman's grandson, speaking ahead of the release of his latest book about the relationship between the 33rd president and his wife, offers some insights into the last American president to not hold a college degree, who was so penniless by the end of his life that he and his wife were the first recipients of Medicare, who set the stage for America's Cold War policies, and who ordered the only military usage of the atomic bomb, which he called "the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark." The thing that the grandson seems to stress is Truman's humility and lack of pomp. Interesting fellow.

Progressives, and some strains of neoconservatives, like to believe that history is constantly progressing upwards and forward, and that each age brings a type of advancement that will eventually lead us to an 'end of history' as espoused by the thinkers and leaders of this century-old movement. The United States has gone back and forth in believing this theory, with our citizenry never quite buying the argument that tyranny is a thing of the past and we are entering some sort of peaceful era of the enlightened administrator. Europe, for the most part, has long capitulated to this idea of permanent advancement and peace-- they believed it before and after the Great War, they believed it after WWII, and they believed it when the Berlin Wall came falling down. Indeed, after the Cold War we were momentarily swept up into this fanciful idea until the attacks on our country ten years ago woke us up. If there is anything within the realm of politics that destroys the Progressive notion of the unstoppable progression of the peaceful administrative state, it is foreign policy. Simply, there are bad people out there, and self-interested nations out there, and sometimes they try to kill us or each other. Even simpler-put, the times and surroundings may change, but human nature does not. Our Founding Fathers realized this, hence the creation of a government that manages to peacefully contain the extremes of human nature while allowing its better parts to justly be drawn out. Hence the constant annoyance of our Progressive friends at the Constitution and, to some, the Declaration, and constant historicist attempts to discredit the Founders and contain them and their ideas within their time.