December 29, 2011
(by Anne Applebaum, WaPo.com) – According to its director, the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History needs new plumbing, new wiring and better lighting. So desperately does the building require renovation, in fact, that there is talk of shutting the whole place down for a year or two, of bringing in some fresher architecture, even of designing a “museum for the 21st century.” But while they’re at it, maybe the curators of this hugely popular, hugely prominent museum on the Mall should also spend some time talking about what, precisely, their museum is for.
I realize this is no easy task. Probably best known to generations of Washington children for its large collection of trains, the Museum of American History is the one part of the Smithsonian that justly deserves to be called “the nation’s attic.” It collects everything from first ladies’ gowns to family photo albums to old ballots. It owns, among other things, Helen Keller’s watch, Cesar Chavez’s union jacket, Thomas Edison’s light bulb, and a copy of Elvis Presley’s first album. Its current exhibits explore America’s campaign against the polio epidemic, the first 50 years of Disneyland, the impact of Brown v. Board of Education and the music of Latin pop star Celia Cruz.
Just about the only thing that the Museum of American History does not do, in fact, is teach anyone American history. That is, it doesn’t tell the whole American story, or even chunks of the American story, in chronological order, from Washington to Adams to Jefferson, or from Roosevelt to Truman to Eisenhower. When the museum was built in 1964, this sort of thing probably wasn’t necessary. But judging from a group of teenagers whom I recently heard lapse into silence when asked if they could identify Lewis and Clark, I suspect it’s now very necessary indeed.
Opinion polls bear out my suspicions. According to one poll, more U.S. teenagers can name the Three Stooges than the three branches of government. Even fewer can state the first three words of the Constitution. A San Francisco reporter once did an informal survey of teenagers watching Fourth of July fireworks in a park and found that only half could name the country from which the United States had won its independence. (“Japan or something, China,” said one seventh-grader. “Somewhere out there on the other side of the world.”) We’re not talking about ignorance of semi-obscure facts here: We’re talking about ignorance of basic information.
Given this yawning knowledge gap, the Museum of American History could perform a real service to its 3 million annual visitors just by telling them, in at least one or two permanent exhibitions, something about what actually happened. After all, museum visitors can see Mickey Mouse and his ilk any time. But many visitors, after their once-in-a-lifetime trip to Washington, won’t go to another history museum again. Ever.
I’m sure chronology isn’t the hottest thing in curatorial science these days, but a museum that tells a chronological story doesn’t have to be full of dusty displays and dull captions. The first room of the museum of totalitarianism in Budapest opens with a bank of television sets blaring fascist propaganda on one wall and a bank of television sets blaring communist propaganda on another. Without a single written word, the dilemma of Hungary in the 1940s becomes instantly clear. Apply the same ideas to the American Revolution — use music, pictures and, yes, George Washington’s candlestick — and it’s possible to fascinate even the most video-numbed modern American. Nor are cartoon characters needed to make U.S. history “relevant” either: The language of the American Constitution is the language of the civil rights movement and the language Sen. Barack Obama used in his speech [during the 2008] Democratic convention. An exhibition on the Civil War would naturally include Confederate flags and symbols, which are still the subject of controversy today.
None of which is to say that the museum needs to chuck out Evel Knievel’s motorcycle and Judy Garland’s ruby slippers or (worse) put them in a pompous exhibition called “Postwar Popular Culture.” Why not stick them on the top floor and jumble them together with the “I Like Ike” buttons,” Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone and the first sewing machine. Let visitors wander through the nation’s attic — but with a better understanding of how the nation got to be here in the first place.
Posted at WashingtonPost.com on June 22, 2005. Reprinted here on December 29, 2011 for educational purposes only.
December 22, 2011
(by Charles Stanley, Crosswalk.com) – What difference does it make who Jesus is? He lived 2,000 years ago, so how could that matter today? The truth is, knowing who Jesus is can mold your character, impact your belief system, and change your lifestyle. And more than that, it will determine your eternal destiny.
………..
One of the best ways to understand someone is to find out what he thinks about himself. Jesus said many, many things about who He was – He said that He is the Son of God (Matthew 16:16-17), that He and the Father are one (John 10:30), and that the Father is the One who sent Him. (John 5:37) He also announced that He did not come to be served, but to serve and that He came to give His life as a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28) – He came as a substitute payment in behalf of humanity. He agreed with His accusers when they called Him “King of the Jews.” His “I am” statements from the book of John reveal that He claimed to be the Good Shepherd who loves the sheep (John 10:11), the Bread of Life who can prevent hunger (John 6:48), and the True Vine who abides in us as we abide in Him. (John 15:1)
Jesus also said He was the Door to Heaven (John 10:9), and in John 14:6, He expanded on that thought: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but though Me.” That statement has caused many people to back away, thinking, “What a bigoted, egotistical statement! How narrow-minded to think that the only way to Heaven is through the person of Jesus Christ.” And yet, this man called Jesus is exactly who He says He is. He is the Good Shepherd. He is the Bread of Life. He’s the way, the truth, and the very life itself….
Now, if you believe all the other things Jesus said, but decide He can’t be the only way to Heaven, then you are saying He told partial truths or lies. You can’t have it both ways. Either Jesus is who He says He is, or He is not. So you cannot say, “Jesus is a good man, a wonderful teacher, an effective preacher, a great healer, philosopher, and humanitarian, BUT…” Whenever your belief in Christ’s validity has caveats, you make Him a liar. When it comes to all that He said about Himself, either He is a counterfeit and a fraud, or He is exactly who He says He is – the eternal Son of the living God, the Savior of the world, and the One who will some day judge each one of us.
And of course, to find out who Jesus really is, we have to look at His death. From the biblical accounts, it is obvious this was no ordinary death. His crucifixion was plotted by the religious leaders – the same men who had exaggerated the requirements of the Mosaic law and then coerced the people to obey in minute, burdensome detail. These same men were jealous of Jesus because their position of authority was threatened by His popularity with the crowds. So, in spite of the fact that they enforced the Law with others, these men were so ungodly that they were willing to lay aside one of the most basic principles in Scripture: “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). They were committed and determined, at all cost, to kill this man Jesus. They felt so threatened by Him that they were totally blinded to the truth of who He was.
The death of Jesus was plotted by those who hated Him. And it was performed by Roman soldiers, a group that had no earthly idea what they were doing. They crucified two thieves, between whom they crucified the living God, clothed in human flesh, the sinless One born of a virgin, who began His ministry in the power of the Holy Spirit. He never harmed anyone. He never rebelled against the government. He never violated the law. It was a death He in no way deserved, and therefore, it looked like a vicious plot and a tragedy. But remember what Jesus said? – that He came to do His father’s will and to give His life as a ransom for many. So why was He dying? Because, together with the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, God the Father had planned His death before the world ever began, knowing that man would sin against Him and be hopeless and helpless to save himself.
On the cross, it was not simply a man dying; it was an…eternal scene in which God the Father placed upon His Son the sin-debt of all mankind, past, present, and future. And then God unleashed the full force of His wrath to punish Jesus – instead of you and me.
There is one more aspect to investigate if we really want to know who the man Jesus Christ is – we have to go beyond His death. That is not possible to do with anyone else, of course, but because Jesus is the Son of God and the living God, He did exactly what He had promised: He rose from the dead. Even His disciples were shocked, though He had told them ahead of time. With His resurrection, Jesus settled once and for all that there is life after death, not just for Himself, but for all who believe on Him. (John 11:25-26) His resurrection also proves that everything He ever said is true.
Jesus said He is coming back. Can we believe that? Yes, because the Bible says so, and also because all the other promises Jesus made that could possibly be fulfilled in His lifetime came to pass exactly as He had said.
Knowing the truth of who Jesus is means you are confronted with a decision: Will you believe the testimony of the Scriptures and receive Him? Or will you turn your back on truth and walk away to face a hopeless eternity? Next time you see a manger scene, remember who’s lying there – His life, His death, His words about Himself, and His resurrection. Jesus is not just a baby; He the Son of God, sitting at the Father’s right hand, with all the sovereign power of the universe, and with the offer of eternal life to anyone who believes on Him.
Posted at Crosswalk.com on July 7, 2006. Reprinted here on December 15, 2011 for educational purposes only.
December 15, 2011
(by Carol Platt Liebau, Townhall.com) – In 2009, The New York Times revealed that, before abandoning the idea, Barack and Michelle Obama had considered eliminating The White House’s traditional nativity scene as part of an effort to celebrate a “non-religious” Christmas. In light of that story, it wasn’t entirely surprising to learn that [in 2009], for the first time, the President’s Christmas card contains neither any mention of Christmas itself nor a quote from the New Testament. Obviously, the Obamas aren’t fans of overt displays of Christian religiosity.
The White House has told Fox News Radio that the card represents nothing but an attempt to recognize that Americans are celebrating other holidays at this time of year – not just Christmas. No doubt that approach is imbued with politically-correct, multicultural sensitivity, but it also, perhaps, reflects a world view that’s out-of-step with most regular Americans – and even America’s heritage.
Even setting aside the overwhelming predominance of Christmas observance in this country, it’s not clear why the elimination of “Christmas” (or any Bible reference) on the Obamas’ card is deemed necessary. How many reasonable Christian people would be upset by the use of “Happy Hannukah” in Israel or “blessed Ramadan” in a majority Muslim country? Would a normal Christian be incensed – even in a majority-Christian country like America – by being wished a “Happy Hannukah” by a Jewish person (or president!) or a “blessed Ramadan” by an observant Muslim one? Let’s hope not. After all, those are benedictions, not curses.
Efforts to promote “season’s greetings” and “happy holidays,” both in The White House and the larger culture, seem to rest on the assumption that “Merry Christmas” will offend those of other faiths, or of none. But is it truly so intolerable to be confronted with the indicia of a religion that is not one’s own? In a country that was founded on the concept of religious tolerance by all and toward all, it’s not clear why this should be the case.
What’s more, why should a religious holiday like Christmas be deemed unique in its potential to offend? In contrast to their apparent reticence to highlight the Christianity inherent in Christmas, the Obamas apparently perceive no insensitivity in celebrating holidays – like St. Patrick’s Day and Cinco de Mayo – that point out specific ethnic differences among Americans. Historically, our country has suffered far more internal turmoil based on race and ethnicity than on religion – and we have a far larger number of different ethnicities than religions. The difference in approach makes no sense.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether a President uses the specific word “Christmas” on a card, as opposed to a Bible verse or some other religious element. What does matter is when the occupant of the highest office in the land attempts to transform the Christmas (or Hannukah or Ramadan) season into nothing more than a great big “happy holidays” opportunity. Intentionally or not, that approach serves to replace religiosity with some variety of civic secularism that swaps belief in God for a diffuse and undefined “holiday spirit.”
And for America, that’s a dangerous path. Religion not only provides meaning to life and illuminates life’s larger truths; it also helps a free people remain free by providing them with ways to govern themselves individually, without having to resort collectively to the heavy hand of government.
So permit me to say what the Obamas’ card does not: Merry Christmas.
Carol Platt Liebau is an attorney, political commentator and guest radio talk show host based near New York.
Posted at Townhall.com on Dec. 14, 2009. Reprinted here Dec. 15, 2011 for educational purposes only.
December 8, 2011
(by Bob Brody, NYDailyNews.com) – As soon as I had a mother-in-law, I had issues with her. For starters, she talked too much. She also talked too loud. Plus, she worried too much, tending to see the world as a problem that defied solution.
Every Thanksgiving at our Queens apartment, all these idiosyncrasies collided with combustible force. I’d like to say that I took them in stride and even found some charming. But that would be a lie. We were never going to get along, my mother-in-law and I — that much I could see from the start. The woman got under my skin more than acupuncture.
Still, I stifled my annoyance over my lot in life as her hostage, simmering instead. I never aimed a cross word at her, nor raised my voice to her, nor gave her anything like a dirty look. I bit my tongue and treated her with kid gloves. So it went for 23 years.
Then, in 1998, something strange and surprising happened. She suddenly stopped getting on my nerves — without acting any differently. I, in turn, tried harder to make her happy. After so long avoiding conversations, I started to talk with her. I asked about her life, listening as she reminisced. I took her for long drives. I treated her to dinner at the restaurant of her choice every Sunday at around 5. We actually enjoyed our next Thanksgiving together.
The following spring, at the age of 78, she went into the hospital for open-heart surgery. She suffered complications and lapsed into a coma, no longer able to talk. And on a sweltering June day, just as I had started to get the hang of getting along with her, she died.
Her name, by the way, was Antoinette. Antoinette Chirichella of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. But everyone knew her as Nettie. A handsome, olive-skinned woman, usually dressed in a sleeveless house dress. Warm brown eyes, a noble Neapolitan nose, graying hair frizzed high and a smile almost saintly.
Why my abrupt, late change of heart? Maybe Nettie grew on me. Maybe I simply grew up. Maybe it dawned on me that even though she might never change, I certainly could.
Maybe Nettie talked so much because she grew up with three siblings and had to compete for attention at the dinner table. Maybe she had to be loud because only then could her sister seamstresses hear her over the clatter of sewing machines as she slaved in a factory for 47 years.
Maybe, in those last months, I finally recognized how much I owed her. She had raised her daughter – without a husband, on a pittance – and then took care of our two children, too, while my wife and I worked. Nothing was ever easy for her, yet she never gave us an ounce less than her all. Nettie never second-guessed me, never questioned my bad decisions or came down on me when I got fired from my first job; never stopped believing in me even when I almost stopped believing in myself.
So I made amends with an act of apology long overdue. It was as if, toward the end, I had somehow sensed she might be around only a little longer and should make the best of the few moments we had left together.
Nettie has been gone for 12 years now, and I would give most anything to get her back, even if only for an hour, just to keep my apology going. I would love to see her just once more with her grandchildren, both grown so smart, beautiful and talented. We keep her cane on display in our living room, leaning against a dresser, as if to lend our family her support through eternity.
If I ever forget how to feel grateful on Thanksgiving, she’s all the reminder I need.
Brody, an executive and essayist in Forest Hills, Queens, blogs at letterstomykids.org.
Posted at NYDailyNews.com on November 24, 2011. Reprinted here on December 8, 2011 for educational purposes only.
December 1, 2011
(by Walter E. Williams, Townhall.com) – Thomas Edison invented the incandescent bulb, the phonograph, the DC motor and other items in everyday use and became wealthy by doing so. Thomas Watson founded IBM and became rich through his company’s contribution to the computation revolution. Lloyd Conover, while in the employ of Pfizer, created the antibiotic tetracycline. Though Edison, Watson, Conover and Pfizer became wealthy, whatever wealth they received pales in comparison with the extraordinary benefits received by ordinary people. Billions of people benefited from safe and efficient lighting. Billions more were the ultimate beneficiaries of the computer, and untold billions benefited from healthier lives gained from access to tetracycline.
President Barack Obama, in stoking up class warfare, said, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.” This is lunacy. Andrew Carnegie’s steel empire produced the raw materials that built the physical infrastructure of the United States. Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft and produced software products that aided the computer revolution. But Carnegie had amassed quite a fortune long before he built Carnegie Steel Co., and Gates had quite a fortune by 1990. Had they the mind of our president, we would have lost much of their contributions, because they had already “made enough money.”
Class warfare thrives on ignorance about the sources of income. Listening to some of the talk about income differences, one would think that there’s a pile of money meant to be shared equally among Americans. Rich people got to the pile first and greedily took an unfair share. Justice requires that they “give back.” Or, some people talk about unequal income distribution as if there were a dealer of dollars. The reason some people have millions or billions of dollars while others have very few is the dollar dealer is a racist, sexist, a multinationalist or just plain mean. Economic justice requires a re-dealing of the dollars, income redistribution or spreading the wealth, where the ill-gotten gains of the few are returned to their rightful owners.
In a free society, for the most part, people with high incomes have demonstrated extraordinary ability to produce valuable services for — and therefore please — their fellow man. People voluntarily took money out of their pockets to purchase the products of Gates, Pfizer or IBM. High incomes reflect the democracy of the marketplace. The reason Gates is very wealthy is millions upon millions of people voluntarily reached into their pockets and handed over $300 or $400 for a Microsoft product. Those who think he has too much money are really registering disagreement with decisions made by millions of their fellow men.
In a free society, in a significant way income inequality reflects differences in productive capacity, namely one’s ability to please his fellow man. For example, I can play basketball and so can LeBron James, but would the Miami Heat pay me anything close to the $43 million they pay him? If not, why not? I think it has to do with the discriminating tastes of basketball fans who pay $100 or more to watch the game. If the Miami Heat hired me, they would have to pay fans to watch.
Stubborn ignorance sees capitalism as benefiting only the rich, but the evidence refutes that. The rich have always been able to afford entertainment; it was the development and marketing of radio and television that made entertainment accessible to the common man. The rich have never had the drudgery of washing and ironing clothing, beating out carpets or waxing floors. The mass production of washing machines, wash-and-wear clothing, vacuum cleaners and no-wax floors spared the common man this drudgery. At one time, only the rich could afford automobiles, telephones and computers. Now all but a small percentage of Americans enjoy these goods.
The prospects are dim for a society that makes mascots out of the unproductive and condemns the productive.
Dr. Williams serves on the faculty of George Mason University as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and is the author of ‘Race and Economics: How Much Can Be Blamed on Discrimination?’ and ‘Up from the Projects: An Autobiography.’
Posted at Townhall.com on Nov. 23, 2011. Reprinted here Dec. 1, 2011 for educational purposes only. For a brief bio and more articles by Walter Williams, go to econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/vita.html.
November 24, 2011
(from The Wall Street Journal, WSJ.com) – A chronicle of the Pilgrims’ arrival at Plymouth, as recorded by Nathaniel Morton.
Here beginneth the chronicle of those memorable circumstances of the year 1620, as recorded by Nathaniel Morton , keeper of the records of Plymouth Colony, based on the account of William Bradford , sometime governor thereof:
So they left that goodly and pleasant city of Leyden, which had been their resting-place for above eleven years, but they knew that they were pilgrims and strangers here below, and looked not much on these things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest country, where God hath prepared for them a city (Heb. XI, 16), and therein quieted their spirits.
When they came to Delfs-Haven they found the ship and all things ready, and such of their friends as could not come with them followed after them, and sundry came from Amsterdam to see them shipt, and to take their leaves of them. One night was spent with little sleep with the most, but with friendly entertainment and Christian discourse, and other real expressions of true Christian love.
The next day they went on board, and their friends with them, where truly doleful was the sight of that sad and mournful parting, to hear what sighs and sobs and prayers did sound amongst them; what tears did gush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each other’s heart, that sundry of the Dutch strangers that stood on the Key as spectators could not refrain from tears. But the tide (which stays for no man) calling them away, that were thus loath to depart, their Reverend Pastor, falling down on his knees, and they all with him, with watery cheeks commended them with the most fervent prayers unto the Lord and His blessing; and then with mutual embraces and many tears they took their leaves one of another, which proved to be the last leave to many of them.
Being now passed the vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before them in expectations, they had now no friends to welcome them, no inns to entertain or refresh them, no houses, or much less towns, to repair unto to seek for succour; and for the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of the country know them to be sharp and violent, subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search unknown coasts.
Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wilde beasts and wilde men? and what multitudes of them there were, they then knew not: for which way soever they turned their eyes (save upward to Heaven) they could have but little solace or content in respect of any outward object; for summer being ended, all things stand in appearance with a weatherbeaten face, and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hew.
If they looked behind them, there was a mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a main bar or gulph to separate them from all the civil parts of the world.
Published November 23, 2011 at The Wall Street Journal. Reprinted here November 24, 2011 for educational purposes only. Visit the website at wsj.com.
November 17, 2011
(by Jeffrey Lord, Spectator.org) – He was twelve when he began to have his doubts about the Church of England.
But unlike most of his neighbors, William Bradford of Austerfield, England, was not one to sit quietly by, saying and doing nothing.
In Nathaniel Philbrick’s 2006 book Mayflower, a portrait of…courage emerges of Bradford and his fellow believers, the 102 souls Americans know today as the Pilgrims. The English refugees from Royal tyranny…did not have an easy time of it, and it is…perhaps useful to take a moment and reflect.
Just what is it they accomplished that enables [us] to spend a day [eating] turkey and pumpkin pie after hours of parades and football games? How hard was this to do? What happened as they did this? In particular, for those Americans [who think times are hard now] the old true tale is perhaps a bit of perspective.
Over the entrance to young Bradford’s church in Austerfield, Philbrick tells us, was a stone carving of an open-mouthed snake. This lent a perhaps unplanned emphasis to the notion of English Puritans that the Church of England “had been poisoned ‘by that old serpent Satan.’” In any event, the youthful William made the decision to seek out a congregation of like-minded believers who believed that worshipping God was something to be done as God and the Bible, not the King of England, instructed.
This placed Bradford squarely on the inevitable path of breaking the law. In the century before Bradford arrived, English Separatists had been both jailed and executed for daring to believe other than their monarch. The coronation of King James in 1603 had begun to turn up the pressure even more. James was not a Puritan fan. He viewed them, says Philbrick, as troublemakers — which, if you were sitting on a throne whose occupant was not just head of state but head of church, was surely not an unreasonable perspective. Requesting the presence of the nation’s religious leaders at the royal estate of Hampton Court for what is known as the Hampton Court Conference, an angry James declared of the dissenters: “I shall harry them out of the land.” Which is precisely what he devoted his reign to doing.
This meant that the Separatists who formed a congregation in the small town of Scrooby…were gathering together in violation of the law. In 1607, the Bishop of York learned of this, promptly doing his duty to his King and his God. Members of the congregation were arrested and packed off to prison. Others were chilled to know their houses were being watched. Not surprisingly, they decided to leave England and take their beliefs with them.
Slight problem.
King James may have threatened to “harry” them out of England, but in point of fact, one needed the King’s permission to leave the country legally. Leaving the country, in those days defined as heading across the English Channel to Europe. Surprise, surprise — the King was not about to give them that permission. In other words, they were to remain in England and worship as instructed — or face prison. Or death.
To which the Separatists responded by making a series of covert plans to secretly leave without the King’s permission. They would, they decided, take off in the dead of night — and escape to the Continent.
This was not easy. As Philbrick notes wryly, the attempt to flee “did not go well.” The first ship captain they hired turned them in to the King’s constabulary, in a town in Lincolnshire called “Boston.” The leaders served their time — and then the decision was made to try again. The second captain was Dutch — and more to the point he was trustworthy. Arriving at the appointed hour, boarding the ship on the southern bank of the Humber River — they saw trouble appear in the form of the local militia. Since the women and children were to board last, the distinctly unfeminist men doing all the literal heavy lifting of lading the ship while the women and children waited on the embankment — when the militia showed up unexpectedly the captain abruptly lifted anchor and took off. They got away — with a shipful of agonized male Separatists watching their weeping wives and children recede in the distance. The captain decided the best way to evade capture was to sail to Amsterdam. They made it. And yes, plans were immediately laid to do it all again — and the women and children, in another middle of the night scenario — this time minus the militia — finally made their way to Holland to join their husbands and fathers.
Once together in Holland, the reality of real religious freedom appeared. There were, it was now apparent, dissidents within the dissidents. Focused on resisting the King, once free of that restraint, not unlike the tale of today’s barking dog that catches the truck, the question presented itself: how exactly did these people wish to worship God? This minister and that minister had this or that idea, ideas that did not go down well with their congregations. One pastor refused to do infant baptisms, another, caught up in what Philbrick describes as “messy scandals,” airily sought to dismiss his critics by insisting that he as the minister, along with the church elders, could simply dictate policy to the congregation. In short, chaos.
With this, a leader in the group, one John Robinson, who like his flock had been forced into exile due to his Kingly problems, took a majority of the worshipers from Amsterdam to the Dutch city of Leiden. There they settled. And it was there that William Bradford, who had taken what he could of his small inheritance with him from England, “emerged as one of the leading members of the congregation.”
Bradford was a corduroy worker, and in 1613 became a new husband with his marriage to his beloved Dorothy May. In 1617 they had a son, John. Life in Holland was not easy, and Bradford’s business life suffered, resulting in a loss of a good bit of his inheritance. His response? His losses were “a correction bestowed by God…for certain decays of internal piety.” A Puritan, was Bradford, to the core.
Slowly the English Separatists got their act together, with Bradford and Robinson leading the way. So focused were these Separatists on their religious lives, however, that they had difficulty with the outside world of Leiden. Mostly farmers, they were in a city now, and the primary occupation of Leiden was commerce, which is to say there was nothing seasonal about intense work. It was, as we might say today, 24/7, an aspect of life that was something of a culture shock.
There was another problem. The English Pilgrims began to realize that their children were being raised in a Dutch culture — and they disapproved. Yet going back to live in England was now out of the question. Bit by bit, the obvious answer — at once as inviting as it was terrifying — was to leave the Old World altogether for the New World. The opportunities were there. The French, Dutch, and Spanish were already well vested in New World ventures of one kind or another. The problem: the British government lacked the money to do a serious colonization project. So it had fallen to what we would call today’s “venture capitalists” to step forward — and they did. Not, it should be said, to automatic success. There were two groups of British noblemen, in London and Plymouth, who were taking the lead. The Plymouth group had already struck out with a failed attempt to set up a colony in Maine (as we know it today). King James let the Londoners go ahead with the Virginia Company in 1606, but Jamestown, as it was called, was not exactly a rip-roaring financial success.
Now what?
William Bradford stepped forward.
In 1619, Bradford sold his house in Leiden to raise money for a colonizing expedition to America. If successful, it would solve his congregation’s problems. Now having their worship focused, they would be left in peace, safely distant from those still present Kingly threats of arrest. They would in fact be out of the King’s royal hair at a considerable distance — in a place where they would raise the British flag on behalf of the King, staking a claim in the New World. Since the King had much to gain from a foothold colony in America, he would be all too willing to let them go. Not to be forgotten here were the children. They would be raised, so went the theory, as little English ladies and gentlemen, out from the tainted influence of the Dutch.
Easy, right?
No.
Another group of Separatists, possessed of the same thought, had just tried the same thing. The news arrived that 180 Separatists had set sail from elsewhere in Holland. Reaching America, 130 of them were dead. The voyage across the Atlantic, wrote one Separatist, had these poor souls “packed together like herrings. They had amongst them the flux, and also want of fresh water, so as it is here rather wondered at that so many are alive, than so many dead.” The news was disturbing, to say the least. How could this trip possibly be accomplished if certain death — and an agonizingly gruesome death at that — loomed over the entire voyage?
They would face, wrote Bradford, “miseries of the land” that could “consume and utterly…ruinate them.” They would “be liable to famine, and nakednes, and the wante, in a maner, of all things. The chang of aire, diate, and drinking of water, would infecte their bodies with sore sickneses, and greevous diseases” Should they do this?
The answer was to be found in their faith in God, so they believed. They chose to persist, with Bradford believing as well that “all great and honourable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and must be both enterprised and overcome with answerable courages.”
Another backer appeared. But alas Thomas Weston, representative of a group of London merchants, was seen as taking advantage of his potential voyagers. There was an argument. A furious one. Still, they went ahead. Others would be added to the group –”strangers” as opposed to those risking the trip for religious reasons. Personality conflicts arose with these “strangers.” Then there was the matter of that essential for sailing the ocean — or for that matter anywhere. No ship had been obtained, and it was now June of 1620. The project was in motion — and no ship!
Finally, two ships were located, one a square-rigger. A bit long in the sailing tooth, it was still serviceable. Its name: the Mayflower. And it would accompany a second ship — the Speedwell.
And almost immediately after it set sail, the Speedwell had a problem. It was sabotaged by its ship’s master, who had fitted the Speedwell with a new mast that was — deliberately — too large for the ship. Once out on the open ocean, the ship began taking on water. So the two ships sailed back to England, to Plymouth. Once there, the Mayflower took on the Speedwell‘s passengers — crowding as many as would fit onto its decks. Thus crammed, with the exception of William and Dorothy Bradford’s three-year old son John whom they left behind in case they did not survive, on September 6, 1620, the Mayflower set sail for America from Plymouth.
They weren’t gone long before seasickness set in. Agonizing, gut-wrenching, and debilitating. One John Howland, in search of fresh air, stumbled onto the deck, was pitched toward the rail — and went overboard into the Atlantic. In his twenties, Howland had physical strength, and managed to grab onto a rope and hold on to it — in spite of being pushed some ten feet underwater. Crew members managed to snag him with a hook and haul young Howland back aboard.
The ship was soon caught up in something its Captain had never heard of and did not understand — what we now know as the Gulf Stream, the warm river of water that flows from the Caribbean along the North American Coast, and, as Philbrick notes, out across the Atlantic and on up past the British Isles. The effect of this, along with furious gale winds, was to push the Mayflower off course, sending it far north of where it was supposed to be. Sometimes the ship was so naked to the elements that the terrified passengers could only huddle and pray as the sails were furled and the Captain was forced to have the ship “lie ahull” — simply surrendering the Mayflower to the whim of the raging sea. In 1957, the voyage of the Mayflower was re-created in a replica called the Mayflower II. To the horror of the modern crew, with all the mid-20th century knowledge of seamanship available to them, exactly the same thing happened, a storm overtaking the replica ship that was so violent the captain was pitched from his bunk, terrified he was about to lose his ship.
On one particularly frightening occasion in the original voyage, a huge wave smashed against the side of the ship and strained “a structural timber until it had cracked like a chicken bone.” The Captain considered turning the ship around, hoping they could get back to England. Bradford and his friends refused. Taking out a screw jack they had brought along to be used lifting heavy lumber and such in the building of houses, they managed to fix it to the shattered beam, holding it in place. They also made it plain. There would be no turning back, a sentiment for which the Captain came to admire them.
All of this meant that the intended destination, the mouth of the Hudson River, was not only never in sight — the now violently ill and terrified passengers weren’t even close to the place they intended to settle. Disease had begun to settle in among them now — both the passengers and the crew — and a decision was made to simply race for the nearest bit of land findable.
On November 9, 1620, sixty-five days at sea, exhausted, cold and sick, passengers stood on deck at dawn to see the most welcome sight they could imagine — land. Specifically, the arm of land was named on one map as Cape James, after their King. It had another name, though, and perhaps in a sign of already blossoming American independence from the idea of reverence for kings, the other name stuck. The new arrivals went with the idea of referring to the Cape with the name not of a king — but a fish. The fish that swam the local waters in such great numbers. Cape Cod, it would be. Looking out at the sand amid the dunes, said William Bradford, made his band of Pilgrims “not a little joyful.”
Now what? The Cape where large schools of codfish were pooling was not the Hudson River. They had no patent from the King for this desolate part of the New World. But the Captain knew his passengers were in poor health. They needed to get ashore. In The History of Plymouth Plantation, what would become the first book written in America, Bradford recorded the realization of what they knew before they sailed. There were indeed no “friends to wellcome them, nor inns to entertaine or refresh their weatherbeaten bodys, no houses or much less townes to repaire too, to seeke for succoure.…And for the season, it was winter, and…the winters are sharp and violent…subjecte to cruell and feirce stormes…”
They sailed around the Cape, finding finally a good harbor. It was time. They clambered down into a small boat and made for shore. They had, finally, arrived. They had the freedom they had so fiercely sought out.
“In the next four months, half of them would be dead,” we learn. And yet, said Bradford, who would lose his beloved wife Dorothy when she fell over the side of the anchored Mayflower and drowned, “what could now sustain them but the spirit of God and His Grace?”
William Bradford went on to be elected thirty times the Governor of the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts, the second signer of the Mayflower Compact. His son John would eventually rejoin the father, and another ship would arrive bearing the widow Alice Southworth, who would become his second wife. They would have three children of their own. (Not as many as John Howland, the young man who fell overboard mid-voyage and was rescued from the churning sea. Howland and wife Elizabeth would go on to have ten children and 88 grandchildren.) He was a leader looked to by his friends and neighbors as a beacon in the search for religious freedom and for liberty itself.
William Bradford’s courage, and that of the 102 souls who gave birth with such terrible effort to the country and the freedoms we celebrate this week, is surely worth taking a moment to remember. It is also perhaps a moment to remember the inscription on Bradford’s grave, the English translation from the Latin as follows:
“What our forefathers with so much difficulty secured, do not basely relinquish.”
Amen to the answerable courage of William Bradford.
And Happy Thanksgiving.
Jeffrey Lord is a former Reagan White House political director and author. He writes from Pennsylvania at jlpa1@aol.com.
First published on Spectator.org November 24, 2009. Reprinted here November 17, 2011 with permission from The American Spectator. Visit the website at Spectator.org.
November 10, 2011
(by Jonah Goldberg, NationalReview.com) - Up to 40 million Chinese people still live in caves. That’s more than the populations of Texas and Illinois combined. In fairness, a fraction of these caves are apparently pretty nice, complete with electricity and well-compacted dirt floors. But that’s grading on a curve because, well, they’re still caves.
Meanwhile, 21 million Chinese live below what the Communist party calls the “absolute poverty” line. That sounds pretty good if you have in mind our poverty line, which is just under $11,000 per year for an individual and roughly $22,000 for a family of four. The absolute poverty rate in China is $90 a year, or $7.50 per month. And 35 million live on less than $125 per year. Hundreds of millions of Chinese live on $1 or $2 a day.
Michael Levy, who recently wrote a book on his stint as a Peace Corps worker in rural China (yes, China still asks for Peace Corps help), put it well in an interview with NPR: “Imagine that there’s a country exactly like the United States. Exactly the same size. It’s got the same cities. It’s got the same number of rich people and poor people. It’s just like us. And now add 1 billion peasants. That’s China.”
And yet that’s the country President Obama insists we need to emulate. “Everybody’s watching what’s going on in Beijing right now with the Olympics,” then-candidate Obama told an audience in Virginia in 2008. “Think about the amount of money that China has spent on infrastructure. Their ports, their train systems, their airports are vastly superior to us now, which means if you are a corporation deciding where to do business you’re starting to think, Beijing looks like a pretty good option.”
Obama has returned to campaign mode and his fear-China refrain. To listen to Obama, China’s beating us in some sort of infrastructure race. “Folks in Congress are also going to get a chance to decide . . . whether our construction workers should sit around doing nothing while China builds the best railroads, the best schools, the best airports in the world.”
Maybe we could use more infrastructure spending, but China’s got nothing to do with it. The reason China has invested massively in infrastructure is simply that it has relatively little of it. America has 5,194 airports with paved runways (the only kind I use, how about you?). That’s more than 11 times China’s 442. In fact, you can add up the paved airports of the next 10 countries combined, and America beats them with more than a thousand airports to spare. We have nearly twice the roadways China does and almost three times the railways.
Ah, but China is investing in high-speed rail! Which, we are told, will help us win the future. Except that China has, in the words of London’s Financial Times, “slammed the brakes” on its high-speed rail program for a slew of safety and economic reasons.
What people don’t often mention is that we have the best freight system in the world (in Europe, they move people on rails and cargo on roads; we mostly do the opposite because we’re so much more spread out). That’s why Warren Buffett — the president’s favorite billionaire — has invested massively in freight rail. Alas, switching to high-speed rail in the U.S. would seriously threaten the efficiency of our system.
Obviously, China’s a formidable economic player, and a growing military and diplomatic power. But only a fool would trade our problems for theirs (even though Obama has reportedly told friends he envies the president of China for having an easier job). China’s health and safety standards are abysmal compared with America’s. China’s air is crunchy, its rivers often flammable. Their housing bubble could make ours look like a minor correction. Demographically, China is still on target to get old before it gets rich.
Moreover, China’s social fabric is in dire need of repair. Just consider the recent horrifying footage of a two-year-old toddler who was struck by two vehicles and was left to die in agony in the middle of a busy street as passersby ignored her. The New York Times reported this summer that, in some regions, it is common for officials to snatch newborn babies from parents — and sell them. Indeed, China has a thriving market in children. And do you really think our problems with income inequality are worse than China’s?
Oh, and let’s not forget: It’s still an autocratic police state.
Obama is hardly alone in his effort to mythologize China in order to justify expansion of government. Times columnist Tom Friedman — who has written often of his envy for China’s authoritarian system — begins his new book comparing the unreliable escalators at his neighborhood subway station with a glitzy convention center in China, in order to suggest that China is winning the future. It’s as instructive as comparing his mansion in Bethesda, Md., to a Chinese cave.
-Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. You can send him an e-mail at JonahsColumn@aol.com, or via Twitter @JonahNRO.
Originally published November 3, 2011. Reprinted here on November 10, 2011, for educational purposes only. May not be reproduced on other websites without permission from National Review. Visit the website at NationalReview.com.
November 3, 2011
(by Phil Boehmke, AmericanThinker.com) – November 11th is Veteran’s Day. As Americans we have a bond with our veterans that is unique in the world. The American Soldier, Sailor, Marine and Airman have fought for the cause of freedom all over the globe under the most extreme conditions. Here in American we do not fear our military, because our friends, family and neighbors who proudly serve our nation are the guardians of our liberty.
[Over] twenty-five years ago President Ronald Reagan honored our heroes on Veteran’s Day at Arlington National Cemetery. The words our president spoke on that day are more poignant than ever.
…the living have a responsibility to remember the conditions that led to the wars in which our heroes died. Perhaps we can start by remembering this: that all of those who died for us and our country were, in one way or another, victims of a peace process that failed; victims of a decision to forget certain things; to forget, for instance, that the surest way to keep a peace going is to stay strong. Weakness, after all, is a temptation — it tempts the pugnacious to assert themselves — but strength is a declaration that cannot be misunderstood. Strength is a condition that declares actions have consequences. Strength is a prudent warning to the belligerent that aggression need not go unanswered.
Peace fails when we forget what we stand for. It fails when we forget that our Republic is based on firm principles, principles that have real meaning, that with them, we are the last, best hope of man on Earth; without them, we’re little more than the crust of a continent. Peace also fails when we forget to bring to the bargaining table God’s first intellectual gift to man: common sense. Common sense gives us a realistic knowledge of human beings and how they think, how they live in the world, what motivates them. Common sense tells us that man has magic in him, but also clay. Common sense can tell the difference between right and wrong. Common sense forgives error, but it always recognizes it to be error first.
We endanger the peace and confuse all issues when we obscure the truth; when we refuse to name an act for what it is; when we refuse to see the obvious and seek safety in Almighty. Peace is only maintained and won by those who have clear eyes and brave minds. Peace is imperiled when we forget to try for agreements and settlements and treaties; when we forget to hold out our hands and strive; when we forget that God gave us talents to use in securing the ends He desires. Peace fails when we forget that agreements, once made, cannot be broken without a price.
Each new day carries within it the potential for breakthroughs, for progress. Each new day bursts with possibilities. And so, hope is realistic and despair a pointless little sin. And peace fails when we forget to pray to the source of all peace and life and happiness. I think sometimes of General Matthew Ridgeway, who, the night before D-day, tossed sleepless on his cot and talked to the Lord and listened for the promise that God made to Joshua: “I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”
We’re surrounded today by the dead of our wars. We owe them a debt we can never repay. All we can do is remember them and what they did and why they had to be brave for us. All we can do is try to see that other young men never have to join them. Today, as never before, we must pledge to remember the things that will continue the peace. Today, as never before, we must pray for God’s help in broadening and deepening the peace we enjoy. Let us pray for freedom and justice and a more stable world. And let us make a compact today with the dead, a promise in the words for which General Ridgeway listened, “I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”
In memory of those who gave the last full measure of devotion, may our efforts to achieve lasting peace gain strength. And through whatever coincidence or accident of timing, I tell you that a week from now when I am some thousands of miles away, believe me, the memory and the importance of this day will be in the forefront of my mind and in my heart.
Thank you. God bless you all, and God bless America.
Today make it a point to thank a veteran.
A special salute to Bill Lyford USA, Lynn Lee WAC, Cliff Reirich USAF, Mike Newcome USAF, Jim Haager USN, Don Snyder USMC, Dan O’Bryant USN-Sea Bee, Ed Ahlgren USA and Emma Rodriguez USA.
This article was first posted at AmericanThinker.com on November 11, 2010. Reprinted here November 3, 2011 for educational purposes only. Contact Phil Boehmke at: paboehmke@yahoo.com.
October 27, 2011
(by Frank J. Fleming, NYPost.com) – The Occupy Wall Street crowd has correctly identified two distinct groups in this country: the wealthiest 1 percent and the other 99 percent, who suffer from the 1 percent’s vast wealth: The wealthiest 1 percent not only have more money than us, they have much, much more money. That’s just wrong.
It’s easy to see how the wealthiest 1 percent are devastating our country. Let’s say you took part in a raffle and won a prize of $500. Happy at your good fortune, you’d start thinking of all the neat things you could buy with $500.
But say the person next to you won $1 million. Then, suddenly, your $500 would seem like nothing in comparison, and all your ideas of what to do with that $500 would seem pathetic compared to what you could do if only you had the other person’s $1 million.
One truth would ring constantly in your mind: “That’s not fair!”
That’s what the wealthiest 1 percent do to us a nation: It’s just impossible to appreciate our affluence while other people are allowed to have so much more than us.
Sure, we could instead compare ourselves to the poor in other nations who live on a dollar a day or the poor throughout history who lacked all the freedoms, opportunity and technology we have — but it’s too depressing to think about those people. Instead, we just need to do something about the wealthiest 1 percent.
Some might say one person’s income doesn’t affect another’s, and people should only worry about improving their own finances, but this is ignorant of how math works: None of us can get ahead while the 1 percent are around.
Let’s say you had two apples and another person — let’s call him “Rich” — also had two apples. If you then got one more apple and Rich got 80 more apples, would you now have more apples? No, you’d have fewer apples — fewer than that other guy who has an unfair number of apples!
See, the wealthiest 1 percent prevent us from getting ahead because any time we improve our incomes, we spend more on businesses and services, and guess who that helps? The 1 percent. Getting ahead just isn’t worth the knowledge that the rich are getting richer.
There’s no point in working hard to try to become one of the 1 percent ourselves, because what’s the chance of that happening? One in 100? Who would play a lottery with odds that bad?
No, instead of working hard, the 99 percent can only sit and protest on Wall Street until the wealthiest 1 percent are torn down.
Here’s the thing: They’re the 1 percent, but we’re the 99 percent. Their wealth may be much more than ours, but 99 is a much bigger number than one. So we should just gang up and take their money.
When one person takes the property of another, that’s tyranny, but when lots of people get together and do it, that’s democracy. So we should legislate that the 1 percent no longer get to keep that vast wealth and must instead distribute it among the rest of us. (I should get the largest portion because it was my idea.)
After we’ve taken care of their wealth, to keep the nation happy and prosperous we should pass a law making it illegal for there to be a wealthiest 1 percent — this country should just be the normal 99 percent.
Sure, that isn’t mathematically possible, but government shouldn’t be about what’s possible; it should be about what’s fair.
Frank J. Fleming’s e-book, “Obama: The Greatest President in the History of Everything,” will be released by HarperCollins on Nov. 15.
This article was first in at NYPost.com on October 25, 2011. Reprinted here on October 27th for educational purposes only. May not be reproduced on other websites without permission from The New York Post.
