(I wantd to call this "VDH responds to the Arch-druid of Canterbury.")
Posted on 11/25/2007 10:18:51 PM PST by atomic conspiracy
I suggest that the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams read a little history about the British experience in India before he offers politically-correct but historically laughable sermons like the one he gave to a Muslim "lifestyle" magazine:
It is one thing to take over a territory and then pour energy and resources into administering it and normalising it. Rightly or wrongly, that's what the British Empire did - in India, for example. It is another thing to go in on the assumption that a quick burst of violent action will somehow clear the decks and that you can move on and other people will put it back together - Iraq, for example. ONE, who is clearing the decks and moving on? And who are the "other people" putting Iraq back together? Iran? Saudi Arabia? China? The British in Basra? First, we read from the anti-war Left that the US is wasting a trillion dollars and thousands of its lives in Iraq, and yet now that we are clearing the decks and not putting it back together? Which is it?
TWO, Williams should read a little about British military campaigns in India, and then count the corpses.
THREE, he should also tally up the amount of money the U.S. has spent for civic and economic development in Iraq over four years, and then compare that to what Britain invested in any four-year period in their centuries-long occupation of India.
FOUR, I don't recall the British, after their second year in India, fostering nation-wide elections.
FIVE, if he is worried about the soul of civilization in general, and the U.S. in particular, he might equally ask his Muslim interviewers about the status of women in the Muslim world, polygamy, female circumcision, the existence of slavery in the Sudan, the status of free expression and dissent, and religious tolerance (i.e., he should try to visit Mecca on his next goodwill, interfaith tour) .
SIX, all Williams will accomplish is to convince Episcopalians in the U.S. not to follow the Anglican Church, and most Americans in general that, if they need any reminders, many of the loud left-wing British elite, nursed on envy of the US, still petulant over lost power and influence, and scared stiff of the demographic and immigration trends in its own country, are well, unhinged.
(I wantd to call this "VDH responds to the Arch-druid of Canterbury.")
le bump!
le ditto
bump.
Don’t candy-coat it, Vic.
It is also ironic that both the Brits and Europeans in general call us Americans the ignorant ones... The ones lacking in history, that we don’t know anything of the world, that we’re a non culture, blah, blah, blah...
Yet repeatedly it is they that spout off with “facts” totally contrary to history much less reality in general...
It amazes me.
I have found it most interesting how the elites of the West are so hellbent of bringing about the destruction of the west.
He ends with, "I believe our capacity to tolerate both religious and personal difference is what will ultimately give us true liberty—even if it means putting up with an occasional knock on the door."
My 16-year-old son, putting 2 and 2 together, asked, "Is he referring to 9-11?"
VDH bump!
One can only wonder why this man continues to let himself live. After all everything he says, does, thinks or feels is pre ordained and he can excersise no control over his future.
Kinda takes the fun out of living, doesn’t it?
Bump
Corrected that!
He also knows that the study of history provides valuable lessons to the students of history on these mistakes, follies, errors and crimes, and, therefore, the possibility of avoiding same.
The Founding Fathers of America well understood the study of history. If you go through their writings, and the Federalist Papers, you will find that they were trying to avoid the mistakes that Greeks, Romans, and Europeans made in designing and operating the governments they set up to govern themselves.
He recommends the study of history to avoid repeating the failures of the past, not to be demoralized by them. If the study of the failures of the past demoralize a person, well, that says something about the person, not about Prof. Hanson.
“Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it!” G. Santayana
Seems to me as if he has already determined we are doomed. Unless you believe all is pre ordained then he is more an alarmist then anything else. Doom sayers and end of the world types are nothing new. One day one of them will actually be right.
You've just made a powerful argument against the value of experience in any endeavour. Experience is after all, only of value because it allows a person to extrapolate what the consequences of an action (or inaction) might be, based on their familiarity with similar past events.
Indeed, wisdom is the ability to learn and understand from one's own experience and the experiences of others. Whether you consider this in the microcosm of a single life, career, marriage etc., or in the rise and fall of civilizations, you'll see that any action that one might consider to be lacking wisdom, is one that was taken with disregard to past experience.
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