Monday, August 21, 2006

Americas Covert Enemies

From Michael Barone's latest article.
In our war against Islamo-fascist terrorism, we face enemies both overt and covert. The overt enemies are, of course, the terrorists themselves. . . .

Our covert enemies are harder to identify, for they live in large numbers within our midst.
Who are these covert enemies? Well as near as I can tell they are history teachers.
. . . they [our covert enemies] have also been working, over many years, to undermine faith in our society and confidence in its goodness. These covert enemies are those among our elites who have promoted the ideas labeled as multiculturalism, moral relativism and (the term is Professor Samuel Huntington's) transnationalism.

. . . They teach an American history with the good parts left out and the bad parts emphasized. We are taught that some of the Founding Fathers were slaveholders -- and are left ignorant of their proclamations of universal liberties and human rights. We are taught that Japanese-Americans were interned in World War II -- and not that American military forces liberated millions from tyranny. To be sure, the great mass of Americans tend to resist these teachings. By the millions they buy and read serious biographies of the Founders and accounts of the Greatest Generation. But the teachings of our covert enemies have their effect.

Of course, this distorts history. We are taught that American slavery was the most evil institution in human history. But every society in history has had slavery. Only one society set out to and did abolish it. The movement to abolish first the slave trade and then slavery was not started by the reason-guided philosophies of 18th century France. It was started, as Adam Hochschild documents in his admirable book "Bury the Chains," by Quakers and Evangelical Christians in Britain, followed in time by similar men and women in America. The slave trade was ended not by Africans, but by the Royal Navy, with aid from the U.S. Navy even before the Civil War.
First of all the idea that history is taught like this is a right wing delusion - even on college campuses history is generally taught as in a light generally favorable to America. That generally favorable isn't enough for Barone and his allies who, let's face it, want a whitewashed history in which the bad parts are brushed out.

Secondly I am totally baffled by the line "Only one society set out to and did abolish it." From the context I assume that means the United States, but of course Britain did it before we did.

I find it instructive that Barone finds the covert enemy, equal in terms of the threat presented to al-Qaeda, in America's classrooms. It's funny until you realize what the Right Wing has planned for al-Qaeda, and you start wondering what they have planned for historians (and other leftists).

His readers seem to have come to similar conclusions.
What is the difference between an
Islamofacists and a Liberal?

Answer: Not as much as you think.

They both HATE. We at least try to love.

They both want to destroy what we have.

They both KNOW their way is better.

They both want to CONTROL WHAT/HOW we think.

They both preach world opinion vs our opinion.

They both want to replace OUR CONSTITUTION.

the debate
I truly believe that modern liberalism is so dark and deranged that it is unworthy of debate. To debate that form of evil, only gives it credibility.

The debate should be between the different levels of conservatism, of which there are many.
A hard rains a-gonna fall.

No comments: