Posted on 08/31/2017 8:30:15 PM PDT by ctdonath2
I highly recommend y'all spend time with RevolutionsPodcast.com - so far an in-depth analysis of 7 different revolutions dominating Western history.
The segment on the American Revolution is of course a given, to better know where we come from and why our system & culture is as it is.
Of late, I've spend a couple dozen hours listening to the French Revolution, and there's some significant parts that rather rhyme with our current sociopolitical unrest.
- The Left/Right political nomenclature began with the French Revolution.
- Leftists originally sought broad reforms advocating "liberté, égalité, fraternité" - and then proceeded to implement them by executing anyone who slightly disagreed with Robespierre.
- Leftists went so far in their massive sociopolitical changes as seriously soaking the rich (however defined), confiscating property, redistributing wealth, destroying land ownership, stifling the church, and even redefining the calendar into a practically metric system.
(Sounding familiar? I'll leave most of the details to the narrator to address. Go listen.)
Then some interesting points emerge.
- ALL the perpetrators of the Revolution are, one way or another, destroyed by their own successes. This cycles several times, hanging (literally and figuratively) enthusiastic & powerful Leftists by their own rope.
- All of their attempts to bring good to the populace, in flagrant contradiction with basic economic laws, fail spectacularly.
- And in a moment that struck me hard during wrap-up episode http://www.revolutionspodcast.com/2015/09/353-the-consulate.html we see a massive real-world fulfillment of the longstanding observation that "if you confiscate everything and completely level the economic playing field for everyone, everyone will return to their previous economic strata" - about a decade after the revolutionaries began their violent & pervasive implementation of socialism, landholdings & wealth pretty much returned to what they were at the beginning.
(It's this last point that prompted me to write this.)
So, with that as a curt summary, let's remind the Left that their lofty goals of socialist Revolution were tried, as completely as could be expected in a country as similar to ours as could be, and resulted in practically zero "progress" upon the corpses of vast numbers of mundane citizens & hyperproductive leaders. Not just Venezuela, not just Russia, not just China - all of which are dismissed as too different from our case to matter - but France, and really not that different nor all that long ago from where we are now.
When you’re done listening to the fine work Mike Duncan has done, check out my history podcast, too. I am telling the complete story of Southeast Asia, and at the rate I am going, I expect to cover the Vietnam War sometime in early 2018.
https://www.blubrry.com/hoseasia/
Hit the bookmark link at the top of post 1
The American “revolution” was more a revolt than a revolution, a political revolt (not a religious one) against the nation of England and their king. As opposed to the French Revolution which was not a revolt against another nation, but a lawless-godless insurrection against Christianity and the Bible. It overthrew both, substituting a religion of reason, and a socialist political system.
It was the first of a series of godless socialist revolutions in Europe that was to culminate in the Bolshevik Revolution. Which socialist insurrections have been with us ever since. Its what is going on in America as we speak.
Our history books will try to lump America’s “revolution” in with the French. It was two very different things.
Mike Duncan was amazing on his History of Rome podcast.
That’s a great podcast series. I learned so much beyond what I ever studied in school about the Roman Empire.
The French Revolution was also fired up for ten years by the circulation of little pamphlets, basically filled with all sorts of propaganda.
So reminds me of the press now.
Bfl
>>Now the French Revolution podcast was particularly intriguing: the attempted escape and then the execution of the royal family, Talleyrand, Lafayette, Robespierre, the relations with the very young USA.<<
Which number podcast was it?
peeing....
I mean bookmarking!
Thank you...bfl!
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