Posted on 08/04/2007 10:19:48 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
Might be interesting to note commentary on history by FReepers. Maybe the Pres would like to drop by.
Here are the question this book purports to answer based on the author’s study of research made by historical scholars :
— Did the Founding Fathers support immigration?
— Did Martin Luther King Jr. oppose affirmative action?
— Were the American indians really environmentalists?
— Were states’ rights just code words for slavery and oppression?
— What was “the biggest unknown scandal of the Clinton years”?
— How wild was the “wild West”?
— How antiwar have American liberals really been over the years?
— Did the Iroquois Indians influence the United States Constitution?
— Did desegregation of schools significantly narrow the black-white educational achievement gap?
— Was the Civil War all about slavery, or was something else at stake as well?
— Can the President, on his own authority, send troops anywhere in the world he wants?
— Is it true that during World War II “Americans never had it so good”?
— How does Social Security really work?
— Was George Washington Carver really one of America’s greatest scientific geniuses?
— Was the U.S. Constitution meant to be a “living, breathing” document that changes with the times?
— Did Indian wisdom help the Pilgrims grow corn?
— Who is most responsible for the “imperial presidency”?
— Is discrimination to blame for racial differences in income and job placement?
— Where did Thomas Jefferson’s radical states’ rights ideas come from?
— What really happened in the Whiskey Rebellion, and why will neither your textbook nor George Washington tell you?
— What made American wages rise? (hint: it wasn’t unions or the government)
— Did capitalism cause the Great Depression?
— Did Herbert Hoover sit back and do nothing during the Great Depression?
— Did Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal lift the United States out of the Depression?
— Does the Constitution’s commerce clause really grant the federal government the power to regulate all gainful activity?
— Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to do whatever it thinks will provide for the “general welfare” of Americans?
— Does the Constitution really contain an “elastic clause” that gives the federal government additional, unspecified powers?
— Did the Founding Fathers believe juries could refuse to enforce unjust laws?
— What do foreign-aid programs have to show for themselves?
— Did labor unions make Americans more free?
— Should Americans care about historians’ rankings of the presidents?
— Who was S.B. Fuller?
— Did Bill Clinton really stop a genocide in Kosovo?
intersting question and not answered correctly in public skrewls... :)
The post says Woods wrote a book on “How the Catholic Church” built Western civilization. I would ask: Which Catholic Church? The Eastern or the Western?
Most of these questions are fallacious in form and content. Asking proper historical questions is nearly an art with few practitioners, of which the author is apparently not one.
Good Afternoon, RightWhale... could you elaborate more on your post. How does one go about asking historical questions?
Tom Woods wrote a book. Who actually wrote this article reviewing his book? For that person, a remedial punctuation class is in order.
“How does Social Security really work?”
The real, and invariably more interesting question ought to be:
What Federal law compels/requires/mandates the ordinary citizen participate (via wihholding) in the Social Security benefits program?
Aside from asking what date somebody was born, it is nearly impossible to ask a valid historical question. Start with that. Charles Beard asked if the Founding Fathers of the second Constitution, 1787, the present Federal Constitution, had personal financial interests in that Constitution. That might be a valid question, but whether he was able to show the answer one way or another is still being debated. Most of the questions in this list are examples of one historical fallacy or another. It is nearly impossible to avoid historical fallacy, so perhaps there are no valid historical questions.
Piffle.
Here are a few:
What year did Columbus leave Spain for the New World?
What year was the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution ratified?
When did the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor take place?
There are three.
Charles Beard asked if the Founding Fathers of the second Constitution, 1787, the present Federal Constitution, had personal financial interests in that Constitution
Of course they did. The entire country had a personal financial interest in the document.
The only people actually interested in 'debating' such a silly question are over educated history professors.
L
Geez. So many choices! (But it wasn't Whitewater or Monica which were smokescreens for many others.)
ML/NJ
I looked at the website, but couldn't find a name.
For that person, a remedial punctuation class is in order.
Maybe that's why the author remained anonymous.
I read the “Politically Incorrect Guide to American History” and it was excellent.
F
"He was in a skirmish once at San Juan Hill, and he got so much moonshine glory out of it that he has never been able to stop talking about it since. I remember that at a small luncheon party at Brander Matthews' home once, he dragged San Juan Hill in three or four times, in spite of all attempts of the judicious to abolish the subject and introduce an interesting one in its place. I think the President is clearly insane in several ways, and insanest upon war and its supreme glories. I think he longs for a big war in which he can spectacularly perform as chief general and chief admiral, and go down in history as the only monarch of modern times who has served both offices at the same time."
"Mr. Roosevelt is the Tom Sawyer of the political world of the twentieth century; always showing off; always hunting for a chance to show off; in his frenzied imagination the Great Republic is a vast Barnum circus with him for a clown and the whole world for audience; he would go to Halifax for half a chance to show off, and he would go to hell for a whole one."
- link
The problem would be the answer I come up with. Did I ignore sources? Did I interpret a source correctly? Did I start to answer the question from the correct context or point in history? Did I leave out a variable because it would change my conclusion, etc? Do I have all the facts, or am I missing something?
To me, Beard's question is a valid one. The problem, as you describe it, is the answer. Just because the answer might be disputed doesn't mean the question is not valid.
Ping for later read/reference. Good thread!
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