My review of "A Patriot's History of the United States"

JEFFHEAD.COM ^ | 11 June 2005 | Jeff Head

[martian_22]

Bttt!

[LS]

As always, I'll "ping" your Amazon review as "helpful" whenever I'm there:)

Leftist reviews of anything are always "not helpful."

How's it coming with the editor?

Scott hasn't placed "SD" yet, but swears that he always finds a publisher, even if it takes time.

[LS]

Thank you, thank you. Available soon in audio, too, from Blackstone. Working on the details.

[lodwick]

Ordered - thanks for bringing this one to my attention.

[Jeff Head]

You are very welcome. If you cherish foundational American faith, ideals and moral values, which are the basis for our liberty, you will enjoy this book and its documentation of the history that reveals and punctuates it.

[rlmorel]

And anothor AudioBook bump! I am really looking forward to reading this.

[Dumb_Ox]

I don't think we have the same conception of what sinful pride is.

Frankly, I don't care much for the American government itself, whatever party is in charge, which might be another major reason why such expressions of "We're #1 in the eyes of everybody who doesn't hate us" provoke irritated verbiage from me. My loyalty to the physical land of my birth and the people I actually know is prior in my mind, then less local areas gradually increasing to the abstract nation and then the very very general Globe. Nationalism strikes me as a half-way house between globalism and localism. I think of myself as a Coloradoan before I think of myself as an American, which is very strange because I have no connections to nostalgic Southern neo-confederates.

[LS]

Reading? Or listenig??

[wardaddy]

So, do I agree with every represetation of the civil was in PHUS...no,

That is sort my feeling.....ambivalent to that section admittedly.

The rest of the book is great.

Personal bias and identity almost always clouds perspective. It's just human nature.

[Dumb_Ox]

I don't think that we would have very much liked some of our ancestors, in some ways - slavery is an example - but it has to be said that in the big picture the things we wouldn't like about them were things that were in fact commonplace to previous history and geography. There was slavery just about everywhere, during most of history. And arbibrary government.

Slavery was actually mostly eliminated in Western Christendom between 1000 AD and the Renaissance. In this sentence are you saying our current system of government is arbitrary? That's my take on it, especially when it comes to the friggin' Supreme Court. Most everything governmental has been nationalized or internationalized, and I think certain conservatives' praises for the nation simply reinforce that problem.(Hey, speaking of which, Winthrop wasn't speaking of America but just his colony, right? So it seems his city upon a hill is even more wrenched out of context.)

Also, in an odd similarity with some leftists, I don't think much of assimilation. I still think of myself as Irish some 100 years after my last ancestor arrived in this land, and what isn't Irish in my ancestry is otherwise Celtic. The erasure of ethnicity in my mind is a bug and not a feature of American life. I don't like homogenization in general, but American assimilation in particular treats the nation's borders as one big River Lethe--all who pass through to stay must forget the past. One can even twist the phrase "Novus Ordo Seclorum" to justify such amnesia. Yeah, not everything should be remembered, but there is plenty that shouldn't be forgotten.

The issue is politics. Like most on FR, I am a paleoWhig. I believe in the Constitution as written and amended, both for tradition and because it institutes a highly pragmatic system, validated by history. I respect the fact that I can't have my own way on everything, and am grateful for a system which provides good enough government.

I once thought of myself as a whig, but I think I might be a Tory poseur, now. :) Anyway, I like the constitution well enough, but I think it has become simply a paper obstacle to either the General Will or the Will of the National Ruler, in the service of which legal arguments are manufactured. There's not much reasoning going on. The constitution has regrettably become an Ink-Blot test where you see what you want to see--it's even explicitly stated in Supreme Court jurisprudence now. In my eyes, it is lamentably no longer the charter for the government but simply a challenge for creative lawyers to overcome for fun and profit.

Also, the "good enough government" of compromise tends towards the lowest common denominator, and the cultural onslaught of the left has tended to make that common denominator lower and lower. Heck, even conservatives do so now: we're not a "Protestant Christian Nation" as the nativists insisted, but instead a "Judeo-Christian nation," to include the Jews and the Catholics. Right now some Muslims are even trying to get their name into that hyphenated adjective!

Frankly, I'm having a hard time distinguishing the current American system of government from a well-organized band of robbers, from the President down to Joe "Regular Voter" Citizen. Of course, the Soviet Union was a badly organized band of robbers, which might be even worse, but hopefully that's behind us now. Here's a passage from Augustine that presently haunts me:

"Remove justice, and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale? What are criminal gangs but petty kingdoms? A gang is a group of men under the command of a leader, bound by a compact of association, in which the plunder is divided according to an agreed convention.

If this villainy wins so many recruits from the ranks of the demoralized that it aquires territory, establishes a base, captures cities and subdues peoples, it then openly arrogates to itself the title of kingdom, which is conferred on it by the eyes of the world, not by the renouncement of aggression but by the attainment of impunity."
-Augustine, City of God Book IV Chapter 4

So much government, no matter the party, is simply divvying up plunder among one's associates, without regard to questions of truth or genuine human goods except insofar as they hinder the efficiency of any plunder's flow to one's allies. I'm in a very-pessimistic-about-politics mood this week, so hopefully this feeling will pass. I would appreciate it if somebody here can help disabuse me of this feeling. I've promised myself not to give up on the American political system until I attend a county party caucus, for fear I'm simply believing the sensationalistic prophets of doom in the media and pundit classes.

Thanks to you both for writing, I haven't had a discussion like this on FR in some time.

[rlmorel]

Listening, but if I cannot wait for it, I may buy it. I live in a small ranch, and buying books is problematic. I already have so many books my tolerant wife looks at me askance whenever I walk in with one, and asks me when I am going to get rid of some of my old ones.

I HATE having to choose which books to discard...:( They are all like old friends.

[LS]

Where is your ranch? I grew up on a cattle ranch near Higley, AZ. My dad, despite a deformed foot, was an excellent rodeo roper in teams with my uncle.

[Jeff Head]

Well, irrespective of how you or I feel about it...and I must add, that the fact that we are both discussing those feelings on an open, public forum such as this without fear of retribution puts us ahead of the large majority of people who have lived on this planet...still, people from all opver the earth long to live on these shores so they can experience the freedoms we have in this land and have the opportunity to improve themselves.

Irrespective of the losses we have experienced in our nation away from what the founders invisioned and put in place, we are still by and large very free and have the opportunity to improve ourselves according to the dictates of our own hearts and the fruits of our own labors.

We have that liberty and freedom, IMHO, because there is a large existance of fundamental morality in this land still, despite what goes on in Washington DC, or Hollywood,. or Denver Colorado, or any other other capital...and God in Heaven still smiles on that (and I believe He will as long as it remains in place). Second to that, and paramount in its defense, is that we are free because over eioghty million American citizens remained armed with their own personal weapons.

In order to gain back the ground lost, people must become active in their own spheres of influence. That's one reason such a book as this, which speaks to these very issues, is a good thing. It will be a vehicle and a tool to help oin that endeavor...to become involved and help influence and educate.

Just my opinion.

[Jeff Head]

Yes they do...and in that regard this book is a good thing and hopefully will be used by a lot of people (home schoolers, educators, parents, grand parents, friends, relatives and neighbors) to help balance the perspective.

[cyn]

Thanks, Jeff. Stay well.

[rlmorel]

Heh, oh no, not that kind...I mean the little three bedroom living room, bathroom and kitchen ranch like the kind they built in the 50's...all with the red shag carpeting and turquoise kitchen appliances!

I do, however, look like I could handle myself on a horse, do I not...:)

[rlmorel]

Well Said!!!!!

[Jeff Head]

Thanks...way too many typos, but those words still represent the sentmients of my heart.

[jla]

bttt

[jla]

I grew up on a cattle ranch near Higley, AZ.

You must love wintertime in Ohio.