G.K. Chesterton

His comments are very, very interesting. Especially considering the timing of it being written in 1922. This was less than 60 years removed from the Civil War. That would be like someone writing about Korea and Vietnam right now. The memories and direct consequences of those wars are still very real to us today. Chesterton was born in 1874, only four years after Virginia itself was re-admitted to the Union (1870).

Anyway, I cherry picked what I thought were the most interesting:

On religious liberty at America’s founding:

Now there is nothing in this to diminish any dignity that belongs to any real virtues and virilities in the Pilgrim Fathers; on the contrary, it is rather to the credit of their consistency and conviction. But there is no doubt that the note of their whole experiment in New England was intolerance, and even inquisition. And there is no doubt that New England was then only the newest and not the oldest of these colonial experiments. At least two Cavaliers had been in the field before any Puritans. And they had carried with them much more of the atmosphere and nature of the normal Englishman than any Puritan could possibly carry. They had established it especially in Virginia, which had been founded by a great Elizabethan and named after the great Elizabeth. Before there was any New England in the North, there was something very like Old England in the South. Relatively speaking, there is still.

–G.K. Chesterton (1922)

On a Northern vs. Southern birth view of America’s founding:

Long ago I wrote a protest in which I asked why Englishmen had forgotten the great state of Virginia, the first in foundation and long the first in leadership; and why a few crabbed Nonconformists should have the right to erase a record that begins with Raleigh and ends with Lee, and incidentally includes Washington. The great state of Virginia was the backbone of America until it was broken in the Civil War. From Virginia came the first great Presidents and most of the Fathers of the Republic. Its adherence to the Southern side in the war made it a great war, and for a long time a doubtful war. And in the leader of the Southern armies it produced what is perhaps the one modern figure that may come to shine like St. Louis in the lost battle, or Hector dying before holy Troy.

–G.K. Chesterton (1922)

On the analogy of Ireland as the American South:

England once sympathised with the South. The South still sympathises with England. It would seem that the South, or some elements in the South, had rather the advantage of us in political firmness and fidelity; but it does not follow that that fidelity will stand every shock. And at this moment, and in this matter, of all things in the world, our political propagandists must try to bolster British Imperialism up, by kicking Southern Secession when it is down. The English politicians eagerly point out that we shall be justified in crushing Ireland exactly as Sumner and Stevens crushed the most English part of America. It does not seem to occur to them that this comparison between the Unionist triumph in America and a Unionist triumph in Britain is rather hard upon our particular sympathisers, who did not triumph. When England exults in Lincoln’s victory over his foes, she is exulting in his victory over her own friends.

–G.K. Chesterton (1922)

Observation on the Southern view of the War’s court history:

I can answer for it, at least, that there are some people in the South who will not be pleased at being swept into the rubbish heap of history as rebels and ruffians; and who will not, I regret to say, by any means enjoy even being classed with Fenians and Sinn Feiners.

–G.K. Chesterton (1922)

On Southern slavery vs. Northern “slavery”:

Strange to say, it is not certain that a lost cause was never worth winning; and it would be easy to argue that the world lost very much indeed when that particular cause was lost. These are not days in which it is exactly obvious that an agricultural society was more dangerous than an industrial one. And even Southern slavery had this one moral merit, that it was decadent; it has this one historic advantage, that it is dead. The Northern slavery, industrial slavery, or what is called wage slavery, is not decaying but increasing; and the end of it is not yet. But in any case, it would be well for us to realise that the reproach of resembling the Confederacy does not ring in all ears as an unanswerable condemnation.

–G.K. Chesterton (1922)

On ex-post-facto justification of Lincoln:

And if [Lincoln] has been proved right, he has been proved right by the fact that men in the South, as well as the North, do now feel a patriotism for that American nation. His wisdom, if it really was wisdom, was justified not by his opponents being conquered, but by their being converted.

–G.K. Chesterton (1922)

This last quote was particularly interesting. It is the quote that Nock was referring to in his book. The crushing of secession was ultimately written down in history as the “right” thing to do, only because, ultimately, most Southerners accepted it as simply immutable. That’s what reconstruction was all about. Reconstruction was to be the re-programming of the Southern mind. It worked, and now Lincoln is seen as great. If, as Chesterton alludes to with his Irish example, the Southern spirit had continued to buck against centralized government and the resistance had continued into the twentieth century, Lincoln would be viewed more like Cromwell than Bismark.

I found it interesting that Glenn Beck had his “Restoring Honor” rally at the Lincoln Memorial, and had pictures of Lincoln plastered on all the rally material. I guess Glenn forgot that Lincoln ordered the deaths of about 250,000 southern men and women during the War to Prevent Southern Independence, and then set the ball rolling for a brutal decade-long occupation of the former Confederate states. Exactly how is that “honorable?” My, how conservatives worship at the feet of dictators and tyrants. As long as they have an “R” after their name.

So many people give Lincoln an out by blaming the brutality of the post-war Southern occupation on the “radical republicans” in Congress. While that’s true, they would have never been so emboldened if it hadn’t been for Lincoln’s complete disregard of the Constitution and slaughtering of tens of thousands of Southerners at the hands of criminally insane generals like Sherman. When the President shreds the Constitution, what do you expect his successors to do? The same thing. Just like Bush completely disregarded the Constitution on a dozen occasions, now we have Obama doing the same thing.

So, Glenn. At your next rally, it’d probably be a good idea to steer clear of mass murderers as the face of your P.R. campaign. It sends a slightly wrong message. There are plenty of Americans from history that actually cared about freedom and liberty. Lincoln was absolutely not one of them.

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
IN THE FIELD, RALEIGH, April 25, 1865.

DEAR JULIA, – We arrived here yesterday, and as I expected to return to-day, did not intend to write until I returned. Now, however, matters have taken such a tum that I suppose Sherman will finish up matters by to-morrow night and I shall wait to see the result.

Raleigh is a very beautiful place. The grounds are large and filled with the most beautiful spreading oaks I ever saw. Nothing has been destroyed, and the people are anxious to see peace restored, so that further devastation need not take place in the country. The suffering that must exist in the South the next year, even with the war ending now, will be beyond conception.

People who talk of further retaliation and punishment, except of the political leaders, either do not conceive of the suffering endured already or they are heartless and unfeeling· and wish to stay at home out of danger while the punishment is being inflicted.

Love and kisses for you and the children,
ULYS

Did you catch that? “So that further devastation need not take place.” Need? What need? There is never a need for leveling entire countries for political purposes. What lunacy and evil. Now, let’s change the words around a bit and see what happens:

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE KABUL.
IN THE FIELD, Afghanistan, June 25, 2009.

DEAR JULIA, – We arrived here yesterday, and as I expected to return to-day, did not intend to write until I returned. Now, however, matters have taken such a tum that I suppose David will finish up matters by to-morrow night and I shall wait to see the result.

Kabul is a very beautiful place. The grounds are large and filled with the most beautiful mountain vistas I ever saw. Nothing has been destroyed, and the people are anxious to see peace restored, so that further devastation need not take place in the country. The suffering that must exist in this country over the next year, even with the war ending now, will be beyond conception.

People who talk of further retaliation and punishment, except of the political leaders, either do not conceive of the suffering endured already or they are heartless and unfeeling· and wish to stay at home out of danger while the punishment is being inflicted.

Love and kisses for you and the children,
McChrystal

I’ve said it before. We, as Southerners, have been invaded and occupied before. And it was hell. We have little excuse for saying things like “we should turn that place into a parking lot.” In the whole of a country like Afghanistan or Iraq, there are only a small percentage who are of any threat to the world at large. That doesn’t make it ok to lay waste and kill thousands of innocent people who had nothing to do with it.

don’t worry. You haven’t gone crazy and ended up in D.C. This isn’t the Washington Monument. It’s the Jefferson Davis Monument. The fact that it looks identical to the Washington monument is purely happenstance (yeah right):

I think it’s pretty funny myself. I mean, that thing looks just like the W.M. If you know this blog, there should be no doubt about the love I have for Southern history and heritage. But, I must question the idea of erecting a monument to a politician. Any politician. In particular, Jefferson Davis. It’s not that he was a particularly bad politician in relation to others. But, most of the Confederate military commanders hated him. Indeed it’s been said more than once that Davis himself was a huge factor contributing to the South losing the war. His micromanagement of military affairs is an undisputed matter of record.

I wanted to go by and see the monument in person really bad, but some events happened that denied me the pleasure. If anyone has a chance to visit it, please send me some better pictures. One interesting bit of trivia is that, evidently the Jeff. Davis Monument is the tallest unreinforced concrete structure in the world. Do not think about this as you are standing below it.

This type of thinking is perhaps nowhere more prevalent than in education. Somehow, education is looked upon differently than all other human endeavors. It’s assumed that unless there is a grand, unifying curriculum that everyone follows then somehow children will end up less than ideally educated. Take post-bellum Peabody Trust advocate and Alabama congressman Jabez Curry for example:

Curry is lamenting the “unsystematic” structure and lack of “unity” in pre-war schools. This is a common complaint we here from government types. Lack of uniformity and cetralization is always frowned upon as less than efficient, and generally unfavorable. But, in real life. The life lived by non-beuracrats. Diversity and decentralization is always not only preferable, but necessary to get the job done. The free and open market operates, to borrow a phrase from Eric Raymond, as a bazaar. Many voices and agents acting in their own self interest will end up creating a unified whole called a marketplace. This marketplace cannot function when all agents act uniformly as one. Something like that isn’t a marketplace. It’s a religion.

But, the natural question arises: why would we want schools to resemble a marketplace? The short answer is because markets are where innovation happens. Let me give you a somewhat lengthy example. When little Johnny’s daddy, who is a farmer, is in the middle of harvest season, he really needs Johnny on the farm helping instead of in school learning about Greek mythology. Why is this somehow wrong? It’s not like when Johnny isn’t in school he’s locked in a closet, cut off from the world. No. Little Johnny is getting a thoroughly well rounded education in that scenario. One where he learns practical life skills, agriculture and business to compliment any classroom learning he may receive. So, let’s assume for the sake of example that this is a liberal school and allows Johnny to stay at home and help his dad.

Now suppose he comes back to school after harvest and tells his teacher that he and his father figured out how to handle a complex problem that they were faced with on the farm the previous week. As he describes the problem and tells the solution, his teacher realizes that this is similar to a particular classroom difficulty he’s been struggling with. So the teacher goes about implementing a modified version of Johnny’s idea to the daily teaching method and has tremendous results. When word gets out about this, other teachers begin to implement the idea and have similar success. This is how markets innovate. But, under a top-down, unified, centralized approach, this market mentality is stunted. Innovation is only allowed by those outside of the system and then approved by a far away committee.

It’s no wonder our schools are suffering so badly. Socialism kills innovation in the economy. Why do we think importing socialist ideas into education would do anything other than kill innovation there as well?