Nov 15, 2019 | Culture
Arthur Milikh exposes the lies and distortions behind the New York Time’s so-called “1619 Project” that seeks to reinterpret the history of America, over at City Journal.
Writes Milikh:
To make America’s Founding contemptible, one must hide, ignore, and distort the Founders’ writings and thoughts. Irresponsibly omitted from this narrative is the fact that not a single major Founder endorsed slavery.
[…]
Ample evidence shows that the Founders wished for an end to slavery, contrary to the Times’s assertion that “neither Jefferson nor most of the founders intended to abolish slavery.” John Adams argued, “every measure of prudence, therefore, ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States.” He hoped that the inequalities of the Old World would eventually disappear. In 1778, Jefferson introduced a bill in the Virginia legislature banning the importation of slavery, which he hoped would lead to the institution’s “final eradication.”
[…]
It is true that, in order to ratify the Constitution, the Founders decided to allow the abhorrent practice of slavery to continue for a limited time. North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, and possibly other states, would never have ratified the Constitution otherwise. This decision was made, however, on what the Founders considered prudential grounds—better to have union than endless wars among the states.
[…]
Another often-ignored fact is that America was home to approximately 60,000 free blacks around the time of the Founding; this number tripled in just 20 years. Black Americans voted in several states, which appears to make America the first nation in recorded history where both races voted side by side. Those free and freed persons represented the beginning of our long and strenuous path toward justice.
Black Americans have been treated in a grossly unjust fashion throughout our history. But the Declaration and the Constitution themselves, according to the Founders’ intentions, contain the principles through which justice would come, as Fredrick Douglass and, later, Martin Luther King, Jr. believed. These countervailing facts and statements, should produce a more balanced view of America’s Founding. Why, then, are they so thoroughly and carefully avoided by today’s narrative-creators, who intend to persuade through distortion?
Rather than indulge in recrimination, we should follow Lincoln in seeking “to bind up the nation’s wounds” and “to achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves.” Manipulating the next generation to disdain the American Founding will not accomplish this.
The 1619 Project, by selectively failing to highlight critical facts, is not a project to educate and enlighten, but to destroy and demean, and bury the actual principle that animated America’s greatness: individual rights.
The entire essay, America’s Founding Was Not Defined By Slavery and White Supremacy as NY Times’ 1619 Project Claims, is worth a read.
May 23, 2014 | Philosophy
Imagine if NYC was deserted by everyone who lived there and it was taken over by nature? What would it look like?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=WYf2c-b-iuQ%3F
BBC has an awesome photo series by Christopher Payne produced by Michael Maher on this…
It’s one of New York’s best kept secrets. Lying in plain sight of the city is an island which no one has inhabited for more than 50 years. North Brother Island was once a quarantine station for patients with infectious diseases. It then provided accommodation for returning World War Two veterans and finally was a rehabilitation centre for drug-addicted youths. But in 1963 the complex was shut down and abandoned. Left behind was a campus of buildings, many of which have now been reclaimed by vegetation and nesting birds.The photographer Christopher Payne was granted rare permission to visit the island over the course of a number of years. His images are now on display in the book: “North Brother Island. The Last Unknown Place in New York City.”
Nov 1, 2011 | Business, Philosophy, Politics
Dr. John David Lewis talks about his book Nothing Less Than Victory.
Dr. Lewis is a visiting associate professor in the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program at Duke University. He holds a PhD in classics from the University of Cambridge, has taught at the University of London. He has been a senior research scholar in history and classics at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center, Bowling Green State University, and a fellow of the Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship. He has published in journals such as Journal of Business Ethics, Social Philosophy and Policy, Polis, Dike, and Bryn Mawr Classical Review, and has lectured on classics, military history, and contemporary political issues at numerous universities and for private groups. His research interests are in ancient Greek and Roman thought, military history, and their connections to the modern day. His books are Solon the Thinker: Political Thought in Archaic Athens (Duckworth, 2006), Early Greek Lawgivers (Bristol Classical Press, August, 2007), and Nothing Less than Victory: Decisive Wars and the Lessons of History (Princeton, 2010). His website is www.JohnDavidLewis.com.
Sep 3, 2011 | Business, Philosophy, Politics
From Scott Holleran’s blog:
The goal of a war is to defeat an enemy’s will to fight. So argues the author of Nothing Less than Victory: Decisive Wars and the Lessons of History (Princeton University Press, 2010), who makes the case that a strong military offense can win a war and establish lasting peace while playing defense often leads to destruction. This study of six major wars, from the Second Punic War to World War 2, by historian John David Lewis, contrasts the use of overwhelming force, such as the Greek victory over Xerxes’ army and navy, with a lack of reason, purpose, and commitment to fight. On the eve of the 10th year since the worst attack in American history, I turned to my friend John Lewis, a visiting associate professor of philosophy, politics, and economics at Duke University and teacher at Objectivist Conferences (OCON), to discuss today’s war from an historical perspective. Dr. Lewis is the author of Solon the Thinker: Political Thought in Archaic Athens and Early Greek Lawgivers.
Scott Holleran: What is the theme of Nothing Less Than Victory: Decisive Wars and the Lessons of History?
John David Lewis: That wars are driven and caused by people’s decisions to fight and that those decisions are based on the ideas they hold. This has enormous implications for what victory means, because it means discrediting the ideas we’re trying to defeat. For example, one could never explain Germany’s massive attacks [against other countries] or Japan’s massive attack on America, in which they launched into intercontinental warfare, without understanding the ideals that they held. The theme of Nothing Less Than Victory is that one must defeat the enemy by discrediting his ideas.
Scott Holleran: How was Nothing Less Than Victory suggested by your students?
John David Lewis: I was teaching a class on ancient and modern warfare and it became clear that a comparative history would be useful. My students posed good questions.
Scott Holleran: While writing about the rise of the Nazis, did The Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom in America by Leonard Peikoff help your understanding?
John David Lewis: Yes, because it’s the only book I know of that places philosophical ideas as the lesson of history. It’s not only an explanation of Nazi Germany in terms of ideas but, much more deeply and widely, it demonstrates how ideas move history.
Scott Holleran: The current administration supports military involvements in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, as well as other underreported incursions in nations such as Yemen and Pakistan, with something other than, or less than, a purpose let alone a victory. The Oxford English Dictionary defines warmonger as “a person who seeks to bring about or promote war.” As a commander-in-chief who supports and initiates militarism with no purpose or end, is President Obama a warmonger?
John David Lewis: I think he’s incompetent but I don’t think Obama is a warmonger. He inherited those wars but he’s simply unable to bring those wars… [Read the rest at Scott Holleran’s blog.]
May 31, 2011 | Politics
New look and new information on Dr. Lewis’ site.
