The Battle over History

I am not a plumber and I have minimal training in plumbing, therefore I would be loath to give advice on how to lay pipes.

I am not a mechanic and I have minimal training in how to fix cars, therefore I would advise you to go to a mechanic rather than me to get your car fixed.

I am not a historian, and I have only a few high school classes in history under my belt, but I can tell you for a fact what really happened during the civil war and what snooty college professor types are trying to shove down our throats.

The New York Times has an editorial today on a recently published book "The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History."

Much of the time when you see someone banging on about being politically incorrect it means they have a racial slur or a misogynist observation to share with you. To be fair, sometimes it just means they are a person who wants to assert their own individuality by rejection an imposed morality (just like everybody else).

At any rate Thomas Woods Jr. (the author of the book) is probably not in the later category.

Most ominously, it ["The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History."] makes an elaborate argument that the 14th Amendment was "never constitutionally ratified" because of irregularities in how it was adopted. This, too, is a pet cause of the fringe right, one the Supreme Court has rejected. If it prevailed, it would undo Brown v. Board of Education and many other rulings barring discrimination based on race, religion and sex. But Mr. Woods does not carry his argument to its logical conclusion. If the 14th Amendment was not properly ratified, neither, it would seem, was the 13th, which was adopted under similar circumstances, and slavery should be legal.

It strikes me that the goal of this book has nothing to do with uncovering historical accuracy and everything to do with colonizing the past. Woods wants to discover an American history that confirms his prejudices.

Oh, and in real life I do have a MA in American History.