A Patriot's History of the United States . . . Finally, On Sale Today!

Penguin/Sentinel and Amazon.com ^ | 12/29/04 | LS

[LS]

This is it, Freepers! A Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus' Great Discovery to the War on Terror goes on sale today!

Freepers, if you love history, and, more important, if you think that there has been a void in the telling of America's REAL history, this book is for you.

Thanks to you several Freepers who have read and commented on parts of this book. It is already the winner of February's Lysander Spooner Award for literature that advances the cause of liberty, and we are in talks with Fox and other outlets for a media blitz to take place during the official "roll out" in the second week of January. Meanwhile, if you are returning Christmas gifts and didn't get that "stocking stuffer," by all means, this is it!

I'll be happy to autograph copies if any Freeper wants to send me their copy, tell me to whom they want it inscribed or what they want it to say, and provide a postage-paid return envelope!

Thanks.

[LS]

Honestly, it's probably above a 13-year old. I'd say a 16-year old with good language skills. We originally conceived this as a "text" book but realized that it would never get by the various faculty committees, and moreover, we learned that a "text" book cannot even GET IN A BOOKSTORE! My book, "The Entrepreurial Adventure" (2000) cannot get into Barnes and Noble or Borders. So we took the "trade" route with this one, and I'm glad we did.

Just tell your 13-year-old to hang on for a couple of years :)

[jonestown]

Congratulations on the Spooner Award..
I just ran across this thread on a former Spooner winner..

Why Care What The Constitution Says?
Address:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1115106/posts?page=47

Any comments?
64 jones

---

I disagree with his take on "the consent of the governed." It undermines his whole thesis, because it was precisely that "consent" that the Revolutionaries thought they were not given---nor even asked for.

The entire premise of the Constitution is based on a framework that the laws are derived only by the "consent of the governed."

Now, of course NO ONE thought that meant "all the governed," or even (usually) a majority of the governed, but if you go to the origins of the Constitution, namely the drafts of the colonial charters, many of the governors, although they ruled at the appointment of the king, nevertheless were viewed as PURELY serving at the consent of the governed. The Plymouth covenant says so pretty explicitly, since most of these were COMPANIES and the "voters" were really "stockholders."

It is important to realize that the foundations for "consent" at all originated in medieval times as a result of a feudal arrangement between king and vassal, and this arrangement rested almost entirely on the bequeathing of LAND and a TITLE, for which the knights promised service. They did not have a vote, but their first right wa to property, and since then, property has been the foundational right of all the others---even some of the "Natural Rights" theorists saw the human person as "one's own property."

I do agree that the Constitution has become whatever a circuit court in CA wants it to be, and that needs to be reversed.
74 LS

---

Barnett claims:
"I explain why the most commonly held view of constitutional legitimacy -- the "consent of the governed" -- is wrong because it is a standard that no constitution can meet."

I fail to see, given the basic simplicity of our Constitutions principles, why the ordinary person, [at some point prior to being given the privilege to vote], could not give his 'consent', an oath, -- to honor & support the Constitution.
[ the oath required for naturalized citizens would be an obvious model]

Do you touch on these subjects in your new book?

Any possibility that you could post an except, [like Bartletts] from your introduction?

[rwfromkansas]

What is your approach on Lincoln and the North.....positive or negative mostly?

Looks like a good book. I am looking forward to reading it.

[rwfromkansas]

H-Conserv/Conservativenet sure is quiet. Jensen seems to be the only one who ever writes anything.

That is what it looked like from the archives anyway. I see one of the guys is from Emporia. That is one school on my list for getting a master's in history if I do indeed decide for certain I want to go this route instead of journalism.

[rwfromkansas]

BTW, tell the publisher to allow the "look inside this book" feature.

Just looking at the table of contents and getting to read 4 pages or so does wonders. It makes me feel like I am in a real bookstore when at Amazon.

I bet it would help with sales, even though I am just going to get it without that feature myself since I know it has to be good. But, for non-freeper readers, I bet that would be a big help.

[rwfromkansas]

What caused the crash in your opinion?

[LS]

I think you can go on-line at Amazon and it has selected pp.

I don't think I want to get into a cross-posting match with particular sections of our book, though.

[LS]

Unlike Thomas DiLorenzo, I'm a Lincolnophile. We see the CW as entirely slavery driven (interestingly, I just started a new academic project with two economists, one from COlumbia and one from Tulane, on slave price data that we think will really nail down the fact that it was slavery, and not tariffs or "clash of cultures" that was driving secession).

We agree with Higgs and Hummell that the CW caused a vast new expansion of the federal bureaucracy, much of it a-constitutional, but in the long run see that as being the only way to solve the problem that the Republic had punted on three times already.

[LS]

I thought they had this feature already. Sometimes it takes Amazon a while to get that feature up and running on a new book.

[LS]

The Smoot-Hawley tariff jolted an already weakening market. No question there was a lot of margin lending going on, but the key exogenous shock was the passage through Congressional committees of S-H, which threatened to jack up prices on domestic goods anywhere from 5% to 30%. With items like cars, for example, this meant a tremendous hit to sales. (Subsequent economists have argued that S-H was never properly "valued" because economists did not take into account the deflation by the Fed, and that S-H's real impact was about 5% of GNP---a phenomenal amount, and an amount large enough by itself to cause the Depression.)

The Fed screwed things up, too, by constricting the money supply, and the nation saw its gold flowing out because we---but only the U.S.---were still on the gold standard. It was a perfect storm of bad policies.

[rohry]

Congratulations!
I just ordered the book from Amazon.

Would you be kind enough to autograph it for me?

[kitkat]

Thanks for your answer. My grandson has a present coming for his 16th birthday.

[rwfromkansas]

I tend to be much more southern sympathetic, but that project looks very interesting...

[LS]

Yeah, see the line at the bottom of the post.

[LS]

I think you'll find the overall treatment fair, but we do take on the "neo-Confederates" as well as the Marxists in their interpretations of the CW. Still, the book is worth it if only for the New Deal and the Reagan years. Heck, my treatment of Woodstock alone is worth the $29! Hehehe.

[Lando Lincoln]

I'd like to ping this out to all my FRiends. LS is a FReeper of the first order and we all need to support his efforts. I have not read the book yet but am anxious to do so - I suspect it defends our core beliefs. If you would wish a signed copy, please contact LS by FReepmail.

Lando

[MeekOneGOP]

[Squantos]

Thanks for the ping LL !

Merry New Year !

[bad company]

Bump!

[lainde]

bttt