Trashing Our History

Over the recent years there has been a trend in academia to produce accounts of the lives of the heroes of our history that show them in less than favorable light. While we may have been guilty of embellishment on occasion, the pendulum has swung back the other way – with a vengeance. On the surface it appears that this is simply the result of academic arrogance as members of the ivory tower community endeavor to show themselves smarter that the average schlub who works for a living. It has the added benefit of giving the writer something unique to publish in a world where books and articles in print are a major measure of professional status and survival.

However, when we look at the primary targets of these studies, we find a pattern that reflects the worldview of the denizens of the ivy covered halls. The founders who stood and fought for individual liberty and responsibility need to be taken off their pedestals and reduced to the level of the political agitators of our day. Better yet, if they can be shown as scoundrels, their inspiration and ideals can be further discredited.

Looked at from this angle, is it any wonder that men like Washington, Jefferson, Henry and Madison have been reduced to a band of rich white slave owners by those who fancy themselves to be intellectuals. The fact that many in their number were looking for peaceful ways to end the institution is ignored. The “intelligentsia” have a real problem with one man owning another, as do most readers of this, yet they have no problem at all with a few unquestioned and unaccountable leaders virtually controlling the people of an entire nation.

The more blatantly socialistic of their number have gone so far as to write the history of the American Revolution as a tale of a small group of wealthy land owners conspiring to oppress the masses – such is their jaundiced view of these men who pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor. They tend to gloss over the fact that many who signed the document in Philadelphia lost everything, wealth, position and family members in pursuit of freedoms dream.

This is why all we get from those who profess knowledge is stories about Thomas Jefferson’s alleged affair with slave Sally Hemmings, as if this were the central factor in his existence. Efforts to show hypocrisy in his life, particularly injecting today’s harassment in the work place standards are a clear attempt to deflect our attention from such wisdom as:

I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution taking from the Federal Government their power of borrowing.

Or

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.

Andrew Jackson is a later president whose misdeeds are fondly reported, but his accomplishments are not. We have been repeatedly regaled with stories of the “Trail of Tears” where Native Americans were forcibly moved from their homelands to other, less hospitable surroundings in the name of Manifest Destiny.

What they fail to tell us, is that upon taking office Jackson dramatically cut the size of the national government and then killed the Second National Bank – the Federal Reserve of his day. He knew the dangers posed by a central bank and put an end to it… surviving an assassination attempt only days later.

One by one, American heroes are being attacked and their accomplishments belittled. Is it a coincidence that only those standing for liberty experience this treatment? Brought up to date, is it a coincidence that Sarah Palin gets “the treatment” while Hilary skates on all the Arkansas shenanigans and Vince Foster.

Saying there is a commonality to actions by the academic community and the press does not necessarily mean it’s all one big conspiracy. It does mean, though, that there is a common set of values and agenda. Are all the guilty parties confirmed one worlders, or Soros flunkies? Could some be merely fellow travelers? It doesn’t really matter.

At best, those wanting to tear down our country have only a partial truth. At worst they have lies. We have the truth, but the truth that is untold is useless. We have heard time and time again about the need to speak up. They have the power of numbers and the force of repetition. They are, knowlingly or not, the diswciples of Joseph Goebbels who said:

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

We are rapidly approaching the time when the consequences of the lies and half truths of the last century will come crashing down on the American people. We can allow the academics, the press and the politicians to spin more and more fanciful tales to explain their failures or we can get out of our shells and let the truth set us free.

And what is the truth? The truth is the the founders and later American heroes were imperfect people like the rest of us. They had their faults and flaws like we all do. These faults and flaws did not rule their lives. In spite of them, they worked to build the greatest country in the world. We can’t let them or our grandchildren down by allowing it to self destruct.

Authored By Larry Miller Political Christian