The Movement You Need…

This article from Saturday’s London Daily Mail somewhat confirmed something I have been pondering over the past few weeks.

Don’t listen to the liberals - Right-wingers really are nicer people, latest research shows | Mail Online

George Orwell once wrote that politics was closely related to social identity. ‘One sometimes gets the impression,’ he wrote in The Road To Wigan Pier, ‘that the mere words socialism and communism draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, nature-cure quack, pacifist and feminist in England’.

It all started when I forwarded to a cousin a bit of minutiae regarding statistical differences between behaviors of peoples of various cultures. The data fascinated me because I have done many analyses of precinct-level voting behavior. Past behavior is a great tool for predicting future behavior. Generally, people within a precinct share a greater level of “sameness” than they do with those in neighboring precincts; people self-differentiate themselves from others when they select a place to call home. This information is pretty much confirmed by various sections of the General Social Survey (GSS) to which the Mail’s article pointed as a source.

My cousin, a dyed in the wool egalitarian leftist, apparently was upset that I had the audacity to even read statistics that explore differences between peoples’ cultural traditions and how they might affect behavior. To him, it appears I have committed some some sort of thought-crime in pondering that people from various cultures might be different in any way at all. To him, all people of every culture and every nation are not only “equal,” they’re “identical;” it is an article that underlies his humanist faith. If people actually are different, and that difference is in any way based upon folkways, traditions, or anything handed down through the generations, then his whole set of assumptions about the way the world works might crumble. (Continued)

Tags: Conservatism, general social survey, london daily mail, Political Correctness, progressivism, sameness, traditionalism

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. (Continued)

Tags: american history, Conservatism, progressivism