Happy Birthday America!
I’ll be the first to admit that I have less than zero tolerance for those who champion causes under the banner of “progressivism.” I’ve never been able to get beyond the absurdity inherent in people who insist we would all be better off if Americans had no reverence for our past; no mindfulness of our place in life’s great continuum; and, no deep and broad concern for the what sort of nation we pass on to generations that will follow us. As I observe it, there is a vast shallowness of soul possessed by “progressives.” They scoff at all historical prescriptions pointing to the danger in living for and craving only the instant, radical change that comes with exposure to every new innovative trinket, bauble and glittery design: “Hey! Look what I figured out how to do! Let’s all go do it!”
Who cares if the bungee cord is 10 feet longer than the distance to the ground from the bridge. It is the “progressives” who would have us jump simply because someone invented the cord!
These thoughts were on my mind as I read this essay:
Put away the flags | The Progressive
On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed…
[more gibberish ensues, then this]
…When the first English settlers moved into Indian land in Massachusetts Bay and were resisted, the violence escalated into war with the Pequot Indians. The killing of Indians was seen as approved by God, the taking of land as commanded by the Bible. The Puritans cited one of the Psalms, which says: “Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the Earth for thy possession.”
When the English set fire to a Pequot village and massacred men,women and children, the Puritan theologian Cotton Mather said: “It was supposed that no less than 600 Pequot souls were brought down to hell that day.”
For me, this was the most important and easiest part of Zinn’s piece to debunk. Because I’m quite familiar with the Pequot war, his spin on it leaves me convinced that Zinn wrote the whole piece with utter faith that no one would discover or debunk his disingenuousness. By putting this particular moment in American history out there, Zinn leaves himself open to ridicule by those of us who share handed-down family stories about the things our ancestors did to lay the foundation for our great nation. You see, my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great Grandfather, John Endecott, led the expedition that fought and killed the Pequots; so, I have a vested interest in making sure that history is not revised in such an onerous manner by contemporary authorities who would alter the facts to promote anti-American agendas. Zinn’s piece attempts just that.
It would be both inconvenient and premise-killing for Zinn to honestly report that five Indian tribes fought alongside my ancestors against the Pequots. Might it be informative for Zinn’s readers to know that the Pequots had been harassing, stealing from, killing, raping, and enslaving the members of their neighboring tribes for generations prior the first American colonists’ arrival? Why doesn’t this intrepid historian inform the average reader that the Pequot’s extermination as a viable tribe was universally applauded by Indians and colonists at the time? Zinn and other latter day revisionists hope, with perhaps reasonable expectation, that the details of this chapter in our history are unknown to most in modern society. To tell the truth about history would not only obliterate the fallacy Zinn attempts to promote regarding John Endecott, it also would destroy the false memes regarding other historical issues such as slavery in America. Along these lines, Thomas Sowell opines proudly this Fourth of July:
“More Europeans were enslaved and taken to North Africa by Barbary Coast pirates alone than there were African slaves taken to the United States and to the colonies from which it was formed.
Yet throughout our educational system, our media, and in politics, slavery is incessantly presented as if it were something peculiar to black and white Americans.
What was peculiar about the United States was that it was the first country in which slavery was under attack from the moment the country was created.
What was peculiar about Western civilization was that it was the first civilization to destroy slavery, not only within its own countries but in other countries around the world as well.
We cannot count on public school history texts or civics curriculums to tell more than partial truths that support politically correct dogmas, multiculturalist’s agendas and progressivist’s fallacies. I harbor no illusions about what we are up against. I know that what the “official historical texts” will teach my my daughter as she enters school this fall, even at her private Christian school, will be far less factual and far more falsely indoctrinative than the texts I had in school 30 years ago; and my textbooks were already loaded with crockery then! It is up to me as a parent to intervene when she’s being sold a fallacious bill of historical goods.
So, there is a lot to be said for multi-generational American families not only perpetuating handed-down stories about ancestry among kin, but also for their stirring a more general and broad interest in perpetuating the un-revised facts about how the 20 or so generations of our American ancestors lived. I have strived to view history through ancestral eyes, putting myself in their moments before having the audacity to pass judgement upon them. Were it not for my family’s intentionally continuing the thread for nearly 400 years, I would not have such a concrete argument to back up my suspicion that Zinn is being an obfuscating satchel of excrement. If such an “acclaimed historian” as Zinn must lie so overtly - and feels secure in knowing America has been made ignorant enough for him to do so - in order to “prove” that there is an inherent evil in national pride, what other falsehoods is he willing to create in order to further mislead us?
The last thing I’d ever want do at this point is to go on, point by point, an attempt to refute the other historical examples that Zinn uses in his attempt to convince us that where we come from and who we are represent inherent evils that must be extinguished. Quite frankly, while not ignorant, I’m not as well versed about the Mexican War, the invasion of Cuba and our excursions in the Philippines and elsewhere as I am about John Endecott and Pequots. But I think it’s the healthy and wise idea for me to consider that Zinn isn’t telling the whole truth in any of the examples he uses to bolster his argument. Perhaps some others who read this can fill us all in, and together this Fourth of July we can fully Fisk Mr. Zinn’s folly as a tribute to all of the great Americans from history he surely has wronged and would have us forget.
After reading Zinn’s whole essay, does anybody besides me see the irony in his antipathy for concepts like “manifest destiny” and “Providence?” Had Americans never believed in them, would progressives like Zinn today have the freedom to rail against them? No. On the contrary, if people with ideas like those championed by Zinn had been around 230 to 400 years ago, we would not be celebrating America’s birthday today. The United States would never have been!
If the progressives, the Howard Zinn’s of this world, were our ancestors, today would be July 4, another day on the calendar, and nothing more.
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