Wednesday, July 11. 2007
 For those who are inclined towards a federalist, libertarian view of the American nation, the debate about the Most Destructive President probably ought to be about Lincoln and FDR.
Lincoln - a superb and fascinating human being by any measure - squashed any pretense of voluntary confederation among the units of the young nation. FDR elevated the power of the Federal government over the individual to levels which never could have been imagined previously. However, the ultimate result of the sickening Civil War has been positive - freedom for many and preservation of the union (although one may and should question whether maintaining the union was worth the destruction of the South and 620,000 dead - the most in any war in America's history). FDR's accumulation of power in DC has been an enduring disaster which, because of the numbers of clients and beneficiaries, may be impossible to undo short of rebellion (see Vermont's recent threats to secede, but for different reasons). Did the New Deal have any impact on the Depression? No, none - and some argue that New Deal policies helped to perpetuate the Depression. But "he cared." I am sure that he did. Individual freedom from government power is always stolen with the excuse of "crisis." (Thus the Left has learned to have a "crisis du jour" to try to justify the expansion of the Federal government at the expense of the states and the citizen.) The Great Depression was the seemingly permanent crisis which was used to justify almost any power grab by Washington. How was this done? The notion of a permanent severe scarcity crisis was presented, which supposedly only Roosevelt's leftist (more acurately, Stalinist) government experts were smart enough to deal with. A piece on the subject by Captain Ed pointed me to George Will's review of Shlaes' The Forgotten Man, which we have discussed here earlier. A quote from Will: Before Roosevelt, the federal government was unimpressive relative to the private sector. Under Calvin Coolidge, the last pre-Depression president, its revenue averaged 4 percent of gross domestic product, compared with 18.6 percent today. In 1910, Congress legislated height limits for Washington buildings, limits that prevented skyscrapers, symbols of mighty business, from overshadowing the Capitol, the symbol of government. In 1936, for the first time in peacetime history, federal spending exceeded that of the states and localities combined. Roosevelt said that modern "civilization" has tended "to make life insecure." Hence Social Security, which had the added purpose of encouraging workers to retire, thereby opening jobs to younger people. Notice the assumptions of permanent scarcity, and that the government has a duty to distribute scarce things, such as work.
The New Deal "brain trust" was wrong about theory, wrong about the American vision of freedom, and wrong about the direction of the future. You can read a couple of our previous pieces on this subject here and here. Addendum: The Jacksonian makes a different argument - for Pres. Wilson, here. He makes the case that the political changes from 1909-1919 set the stage for FDR. A good read.
Wednesday, July 4. 2007
 How easily we forget that the Declaration of Independence only predicted the USA in retrospect. The Declaration was the military and political alliance of 13 colonies, each of which was self-governing within the generous limits established by Britain. In the Declaration they proclaimed themselves to each be a "state," ie a nation, independent from Britain, and to join to remove British colonial control, by force of arms if necessary.
Each state coveted its autonomy, during and after the war. There was no US until 1789 when those independent 13 states, after much dithering, politicking, and ambivalence, agreed to cede some small amount of power, besides the power to run the Continental Army, to a united Federal government. They were all, naturally, and rightly, suspicious about the idea. But the State of New York, as I understand it, gets the main credit for insisting on the addition of a Bill of Rights before being willing to sign on to the document. Many delegates felt that enumerating all of those rights - and more - was unnecessary and obvious. Image: Weisgerger's painting of Betsy Ross presenting the flag of the Continental Army in 1777 - what was called the flag of the "Grand Union." Prior to that time, the Army had only State and militia flags and banners.
Tuesday, July 3. 2007
A brief look at the history of travel by Culver at History News Network. A quote: Americans were long suspicious of leisure – it was for the wealthy and effete, not the hardworking and respectable. A brief respite from work to recover one’s health was acceptable; leisure as a way of life was not. Recreational travel was meant to be constructive, educational, or redemptive, such as nineteenth-century Chautauquas or visits to national parks. Mere hedonistic fun was a danger to morals and a healthy work ethic. While many Americans discarded their fear of leisure during the twentieth century, and even embraced it as a way of life – for an example of this, see retirees – academics continued to view tourism with suspicion.
Read the whole thing.
Monday, June 25. 2007
This week it's La Crosse, Wisconsin, a nice little town on the Mississippi River along the border with Minnesota. As the story goes, the site got its name when explorer Zebulon Pike witnessed local Indian tribes playing a game with sticks that resembled a bishop's crozier, or crosse, in the language of the French fur traders who, as usual, were the first Europeans to establish themselves in the area. In the late 1800s, thousands of Norwegian and German settlers moved to the area, lending it a character which remains to this day.  The town was the beneficiary of plenty of that distinctively American "main street" style architecture during the 1880s and 1890s, as can be seen in the old postcard above, and to the town's good fortune most of it has survived to the present day. Through a city-wide master plan for redevelopment La Crosse has managed to renovate and refurbish over 100 historic buildings while attracting cutting-edge technology and communications firms to the town. The entire riverfront has been developed as well and outfitted with walking paths and recreational boating areas, making the downtown an even more attractive place to live. The main downside to the place? It's too darn cold for a lot of folks, though the Norwegian settlers didn't mind too much, as this excerpt from an 1854 letter written by a Norwegian immigrant to his relatives back home shows:
"When you wrote about some coffee beans, it is impossible for us to obtain them. They grow in South America under sunshine and a warm and unhealthy climate. Here the climate is cold, healthy and fresh. . . "
The Dylanologist would have to agree, though of course it's true that there's an awful lot of coffee in Brazil.
Monday, June 18. 2007
With all the posts Bird Dog and I have written about the tragic fate of so much of the nation's architectural legacy during the 1960s and 70s (here and here, for examples), I decided to put a more positive spin on things by focusing instead on those fortunate towns that survived "urban renewal" more or less intact. Whether through shrewd foresight, adept planning or just plain luck, these towns weathered the storm and survived into a age where the noble civic architecture of the pre-war years is valued and treasured. Our first featured town? Staunton, Virginia, known for being  the birthplace of Woodrow Wilson and a major trade hub of the Confederacy during the Civil War. Unlike many other southern cities, however, Staunton received hardly any damage during the war, so a large number of the elegant antebellum residences have survived to the present day. In the four decades following the war, the city was embellished with stately Victorian and Romanesque architecture courtesy of architect T.J. Collins. Staunton was small enough, moreover, that no urban planner chose to route an interstate through the downtown area during the postwar years. When the city fell into decline in the 60s, many buildings fell into disrepair, but few were actually torn down.  By the late 1970s, civic-minded citizens were already hard at work preserving the precious architectural heritage of Staunton. The one major new addition to the downtown in recent years - a much-needed parking garage - was built in an elegant classical style that melded with the rest of the city and captured an award for outstanding and original design in 2002.
The huge 1st century BC Hunnu Kingdom, against which the Great Wall of China was a defence, seems to have consisted of Mongols. Attila, too. As a wag commented, hunnu?
Saturday, June 16. 2007
Addendum - by coincidence, a piece by Driscoll yesterday on pre- and post-Dallas liberals.
Monday, June 11. 2007
We have mourned, on these pages, the destruction of the great American downtowns during the 60s and 70s in the name of progress. And we have praised the liveable, human-scale cities which, for whatever reason, managed to escape the wrecking ball. Why does Savannah, GA always come to mind? Georgia on my mind, I guess. In 1950, Louisville was the 12th largest city in the US, and a thriving place. But the downtown lacked parking lots, so lots of buildings "had to" come down. Photo below: the 1920 Rialto Theater during the 1969 demolition, replaced by a parking lot. I'd be willing to bet they wish they had the Rialto now. An essay, Louisville after the Bombings, here. Our Dylanologist says the same essay could have been written about Nashville. 
 Western soldiers like to collect souvenirs of war. As quoted in a scholarly essay by Michael Stevenson :
'Many soldiers in the 24th Division's tank companies and Scout platoons began to collect battlefield souvenirs - especially Soviet AK-47 assault rifles carried by the military. … In one instance, an elaborate Iraqi Defense Ministry compound was broken into by the 2-4 Cavalry, and, under the eyes of its commander … soldiers loaded glassware, trays, sterling silver, gun collections, oversized rugs, and a huge photograph of Saddam Hussein onto tanks and armored cars to take back to America. … The items were to be used … for a Cavalry Ball, to be held after the war…'. In the case of this war, a 'war-souvenir officer' was even appointed to gather war trophies - flags, enemy tanks and artillery pieces, two camels, etc - for display at the Fort Stewart Museum, back in Georgia.
Stevenson's essay takes a look at how widespread this was during the 19th Century wars in Africa. Why did people go to the trouble of collecting this stuff, what meaning did it have for the collectors, and what meaning does it have for later owners? The whole essay is linked above. Photo: Zulu shield and spear.
Wednesday, June 6. 2007
"Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone." (Text of note found in the pocket of General Dwight David Eisenhower long after the D-Day landings succeeded.)
“...a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization.” The FDR audio here. D-Day was an excellent trick. 
Thursday, May 31. 2007
Since we're on the subject of dams this week, the Johnstown Flood was 118 years ago, today. The dam broke.
Friday, May 11. 2007
KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov speaks (h/t, No Pasaran). Topics: Useful Idiots, the Demoralization of the West, and Exploitation of the American Mass Media. I don't know when these videos were recorded.
Monday, April 30. 2007
 Niall Ferguson discusses Nassim Taleb's new book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, in The Telegraph.
The piece echoes some of the themes in Dr. Bliss' Virginia Tech and the Fantasy of Safety. Quote from Ferguson: ... it is Taleb's assault on traditional historiography that is most relevant here. Since Thucydides, it is true, historians have encouraged us to explain low-probability calamities (like wars) after the fact. Such story-telling helps us to make sense of a random disaster. It also enables us to apportion blame. Generations of historians have toiled in this way to explain the origins of great calamities like, say, the First World War, constructing elegant narrative chains of causes and effects, heaping opprobrium on this or that statesman. There is something deeply suspect about this procedure, however. It results in what Taleb calls the "retrospective distortion". For these causal chains were quite invisible to contemporaries, to whom the outbreak of war came as a bolt from the blue. The point is that there were umpteen Balkans crises before 1914 that didn't lead to Armageddon. Like Cho Seung-Hui , the Sarajevo assassin Gavrilo Princip was a Black Swan - only vastly bigger. The same flaw is obvious in the stories currently being told about the Virginia Tech massacre. If we can see the causes of Cho's rampage now, why was it not anticipated at the time? Negligence is not the only possibility. The reality is that for every Cho who runs amok, there are hundreds of thousands of depressive, misanthropic students who don't.
and ...as President Bush has learned, you don't get rewarded for trying to stop bad things from happening, precisely because if you're successful they don't happen. On his watch, after all, there hasn't been another 9/11 (a classic Black Swan event). And Saddam Hussein will never invade Kuwait again. But is anybody out there grateful? Not even Bush himself can be certain that his strategy of pre-emption deserves the credit for non-events.
Read the whole thing.
Wednesday, April 25. 2007
 A wonderful review of some very funky 19th C. American architectural styles, at Sippican Cottage. Scroll down. Or look at the log cabins too. Good fun.
Keep 'em comin', Mr. S. Cottage: it's a free eddication for me. But what would you call that French Quarter architecture we posted below? "Caribbean Whorehouse"?
Thursday, April 19. 2007
 April 18, 1775. The Battle of Lexington and Concord.
Jules Crittenden linked to the English documents regarding that battle. We owe everything, historically, culturally, and spiritually, to those reckless farmers who were not willing to take any crap from their well-intentioned but ultimately feckless government. Rick Moran remembers Paul Revere and his midnight ride.
Tuesday, April 10. 2007
 Charles Babbage (1791-1871) not only designed and built the earliest calculating machines - with printers, too - but also designed programmable computers which used punch cards.
One of his machines was built in 1990 according to his plans, and was able to perform calculations to 32 decimal points. Mr. Babbage detested street musicians, according to Done with Mirrors, who seems to enjoy them.
Saturday, April 7. 2007
The half-forgotten story of two fine Yankees. A story to remember, from the good old days of the CIA.
Friday, March 30. 2007
From a piece by Fred Sanders on George Washington Carver: Carver developed a homespun religious philosophy and told little stories that catch the imagination. One story has him crying out to God, “Oh, Mr. Creator, why did You make the universe?” to which God replied, “You want to know too much for that little mind of yours. Ask me something more your size.” So he tried “Dear Mr. Creator, tell me what man was made for.” Still too big. Finally: “Mr. Creator, why did You make the peanut?” "Thats better!" the Lord said, and He gave me a handful of peanuts and went with me back to the laboratory and, together, we got down to work.
It might be homespun but it works for me.
Friday, March 23. 2007
From the always-interesting Edward Luttwak in Harper's. It begins: Modern armed forces continue to be structured for large-scale war, but advanced societies whose small families lack expendable children have a very low tolerance for casualties. Even supposedly warlike Americans gravely count casualties in Iraq that in three years have yet to reach 3,000—fewer than were lost in many a single day of battle in past wars. Fortunately, this refusal to spill the blood needed to fuel battles diminishes the likelihood that advanced societies will deliberately set out to fight one another (pas des enfants, pas des Suisses, pas de guerre) unless they are somehow able to convince themselves that a war could be entirely or very largely aerial and naval. Such wars, however, are difficult to imagine, except when islands are involved, as in a China-Taiwan war, which is very improbable for its own reasons. Air and naval forces can certainly be employed advantageously against any less advanced enemy incautious enough to rely on a conventional defense, conducted by regular forces, but in that context as well there must be severe doubts about the continued usefulness of the ground forces of advanced countries that are intolerant of casualties. It is easy enough to blockade the enemy, to successfully bomb all the right nodal points and shut down electrical, transportation, and communications networks. Air strikes can disable runways and destroy both sheltered and unsheltered aircraft, ballistic missiles, and nuclear installations. Air power can also sink warships, or rout any mechanized forces deployed in the open, as the United States did with Iraq in 1991 and partly in 2003, and as it could do with Iran. No real role would remain for ground forces except to dislodge the enemy from any territory he had occupied, or to occupy his own territory. That, however, is bound to cost casualties that might not be tolerated; it is also bound to provoke an insurgency.
Insurgencies understand this very well. A thoughtful piece. Read the whole thing. As we always say at Maggie's Farm, "Hope is not a plan." Neither is hopelessness, of course.
Thursday, March 22. 2007
 The Museum of the City of New York has decided to perpetuate the leftist myths - the Communist Party of the USA propaganda - of the "Lincoln Brigade," which was no brigade, which mainly came from NYC, and which fought (only for a few months) under the control of the Russians and never for the army of the Spanish Republic in their civil war against Franco.
Heroes, or "useful idiots"? The facts would seem to support the latter. Report in the New York Sun.
Wednesday, February 28. 2007
The Free and Independent Republic of West Florida. Its complex history here. 
Friday, February 23. 2007
FDR was an impressive politician, a true noblesse oblige aristocrat (who never knew a working man, and never had the chance to find out how wise they/we are), with a fine temperament (no doubt those 10 martinis/day helped with that). He latched onto a fad pressed upon him by his advisors - the communalism fad of the world intelligentsia of the 30s - and almost broke the back of American freedom in the process. Not being particularly scholarly - or wise - himself, he bought into the notion that The Depression was due to Capitalism, requiring repair if not replacement by the geniuses in government. Good wartime leader? Yes. Moral: beware of fads, and stay away from cranks. A quote from a piece in View from 1776 on the subject: Mr. Chase said regarding the Depression, …the cycle is a direct product of that specialization which appeared with the industrial revolution. It is a product of laissez-faire, and the neglect to inquire what an economic system is for…There never has been control from the top, and that is the only point from which the cycle may be steadied.…I suspect it is the end of the economic system as we have known it – and suffered with it – in the past…a new deal is in order. What remedies did Mr. Stuart Chase propose? The drive of collectivism leads toward control from the top. … At bottom the conception of economic planning is science supervising a people’s housekeeping. … And so the final idea of a National Planning Board emerges; …a group which knows the past, can give capable advice as to the present, and sees into the future, especially the technological future. …The real work, the real thought, the real action must come from the technicians: that class most able, most clear-headed of all in American life, hitherto only half utilized in technical detail and in college class rooms. …This is a long-swing project we are starting, longer than the secular trend; longer than the industrial revolution itself. Errors will be made; methods will be tried out and discarded; but the principle of control from the top must go on.
Ah, control from the top. Of course. Isn't that always the solution for us foolish citizens? Hmmm, but isn't it "the top" that provides our basic education, too? Aw heck, never mind: Everybody knows that most of the smart people in America are too busy with life to get involved in politics. But that old FDR arrogant impulse, that views folks in government as being smarter than citizens, as knowing "what is best for us," persists. I know enough of them, and I can tell you that they are, on the whole, narcissistic idiots and sociopaths with a slick talk....with rare exceptions, who sooner or later get disgusted and quit. Have you ever known a politician who you would want in charge of your personal life? But the Stalinist impulse is still alive, still dangerous, and still wrong.
Monday, February 12. 2007
For a Lincoln tribute on his birthday, we'll defer to Powerline, where they have a good one.
Saturday, February 10. 2007
 Being a Colonial soldier against native insurrectionists who did not know the exacting Rules of European Warfare, such as standing shoulder-to-shoulder in precise targets lines and taking turns at firing group volleys at one another, must have been most unnerving. A single shot in volley took 56 precise steps, usually on the command of a sergeant (who must have needed one of those little wrist things that footfall quarterbacks have today! Imagine if the savages redskins Indians Native Americans indigenous insurrectionists charged when you were laying down your musket at step 51! Read Philbrick’s fabulous Mayflower to see how they barely survived.
 Here are the orders, or words of command, under the 1668 title of "The Compleat Body of the Art Military," laid down for the practice of the manual of arms (i.e. for such as used the muskets).
1. Stand to your arms
2. Take up your bandoleers
3. Put on your bandoleers
4. Take up your match
5. Place your match
6. Take up your rest
7. Put the string of your rest about your left wrist
8. Take up your musket
9. Rest your musket
10. Poise your musket
11. Shoulder your musket
12. Unshoulder your musket and poise
13. Join your rest to the outside of your musket
14. Open your pan
15. Clear your pan 16. Prime your pan
17. Shut your pan
18. Cast off your loose corns
19. Blow off your loose corns and bring about your musket to the left side
20. Trail your rest
21. Balance your musket in your left hand
22. Find out your charge
23. Open your charge
24. Charge with powder
25. Draw forth your scouring stick
26. Turn and shorten him to an inch
27. Charge with bullet
28. Put your scouring stick into your musket
29. Ram home your charge
30. Withdraw your scouring stick
31. Turn and shorten him to a handfull
32. Return your scouring stick
33. Bring forward your musket and rest
34. Join your rest to the outside of your musket
35. Draw forth your match
36. Blow your coal
37. Cock your match
38. Fit your match
39. Guard your pan
40. Blow the ashes from your coal
41. Open your pan
42. Present upon your rest
43. Give fire, breast high
44. Dismount your musket joining the rest to the outside of the musket
45. Uncock and return your match
46. Clear your pan
47. Shut your pan
48. Poise your musket
49. Rest your musket
50. Set your musket off the rest and set the butt end on the ground
51. Lay down your musket
52. Lay down your match
53. Take your rest into your right hand clearing the string from your left wrist
54. Lay down your rest
55. Take off your bandoleers
56. Lay down your bandoleers
Image: Easy to see why the flintlocks replaced the matchlocks: you could eliminate a few firing steps.
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