Posted on 06/02/2007 12:07:32 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
Having been relieved of those uniquely American qualities – guilt and fear – he has nothing to worry about.
~ Dr. Yen Lo, of The Pavlov Institute (From the movie "The Manchurian Candidate" [1962])
In the May 1, 2006, edition of Newsweek, there appeared a book review by David Gates of Nathaniel Philbrick's book, "In the Heart of the Sea." I knew from the article's title ("Pilgrims' Bloody Progress") precisely where the sentiments of the author (and the reviewer) resided. It was another hatchet job on the Pilgrims, the Founding Fathers, and on America – the most wicked, racist, sexist, homophobic, imperious, murderous nation in the history of humanity ... isn't it?
Philbrick's propaganda tome was about the beloved Pilgrims, the Adam and Eve of America's beginnings, the progenitors of each of us, the great and courageous adventurers who wanted a country where they could freely worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience – all sentiments reviewer Gates calls "fairy tales."
While the Pilgrims did many great deeds and overcame great adversity, including by the end of the first winter losing over 50 percent of their members due to a variety of maladies, with the Indians the Pilgrims, admittedly, had many conflicts. One of the redeeming characteristics of Philbrick's book is that at least he details that for the first 50 years, interaction between the Pilgrims and the Indians was largely friendly.
However, Philbrick's dispassionate treatment of the Pilgrims soon gives way to outright open hostility, a propaganda treatment of his subject matter that would make the editors at the Communist newspaper Pravda blush with envy. Philbrick vividly details all the sins of the evil white man who invaded this pristine land called "America." The author chronicles how these first white settlers from Europe gleefully began to rape and pillage the land, and as a bonus killed virtually all of the Indians with guns, alcohol and disease. This popular but erroneous view of early American history is in line with the Zeitgeist of the current squatters in the academy and complies with the liberal template for the history of the West in general.
Philbrick starts his book by narrating a story about a Pilgrim scouting party from the Mayflower that stole some corn and were attacked by about 30 Indians with yard-long arrows. The results – "one Indian was probably wounded; the whites were unscathed." You can almost feel the cynicism in the tenor of the author and the reviewer's sentiments – ("How dare those damn Pilgrims steal corn from the noble Indians. I don't care if the Pilgrims were freezing and starving to death, for this outrage they deserve to die!")
Philbrick laments, "The nation's history began with the Pilgrims and then leapfrogged more than 150 years to Lexington and Concord and the Revolution." Why? Neither reviewer Gates nor author Philbrick gives the reader any reason for these omissions in the standard history textbooks. Perhaps it is due to liberals having largely taken over most of America's educational institutions (including textbook publishers, public schools, colleges and graduate schools – science, economics, law school, medical school, journalism school, business schools, seminary, etc.) Also, with the ascendancy of liberalism came their tools, techniques and theories to pervert the truth – evolution, Marxist theory, Freudian theory, revisionist history, deconstructionism, secularism, humanism, Higher Criticism, positivism, egalitarianism and particularly since the 1970s, feminism, homosexuality, environmentalism and liberalism, the latter of which is used by many leftist academics to denigrate all that America was founded upon.
Of course, Philbrick's tome (revisionism and all) was awarded a National Book Award in 2000, but does a book award a great book make? Or even a good book make? Or even a propaganda book make? Gates remarks: "The Pilgrims weren't Jeffersons and Franklins with some quaint religious customs. They believed in signs and miracles and that God's hand guided their weapons against Satan's mission."
Philbrick and Gates are wrong in their characterization that the ideas of the Pilgrims and Franklin and Jefferson were vastly different. The salient question, therefore, is this: What writers and writings most influenced the constitutional framers? To answer this question, University of Houston political science professors Donald Lutz and Charles Hyneman in 1985 published a monumental study that took them 10 years to bring together. They amassed over 15,000 items, including 2,200 books, newspaper articles, pamphlets and monographs of political materials written between 1760-1805 and discovered that the three writers the constitutional framers quoted from the most often were: 1) Barron Montesquieu (1689-1755), 2) William Blackstone (1723-80), and 3) John Locke (1632-1704). Incidentally, all of these men were strong adherents of natural law philosophy, which believed in an inseparable connection between law and morality.
The Pilgrims, the Puritans and the constitutional framers all insisted on cementing the connection between law and morals by infusing biblical precepts into the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and Bill of Rights. In fact, one other source was quoted more than Montesquieu, Blackstone and Locke combined – the Bible. Fully 96 percent of the literature, books, articles, monographs and political tracts the framers used and that were analyzed in the Lutz/Hyneman study had their origins in the Word of God. Take that, Robespierre!
To revisit my initial question – Why does the left so hate America? – the answer lies in a word: jealously. Liberals are jealous of America and the moral foundations of her greatness because, having rejected God and embraced the secularism of the Enlightenment Age, these socialists, atheists, anarchists, craven pols, activist judges, Hollywood hacks and humanist academics seek to eradicate all vestiges of morality from the history of America and of the West. Under their new paradigm, God is replaced with science (evolution) and eulogized as "dead" by Nietzsche.
Welcome to the Orwellian world of contemporary liberalism, politics, culture and society. Welcome, Manchurian candidate Nathaniel Philbrick. "You have been relieved of those unique American qualities – guilt and fear. Now you have nothing to worry about." Happy 400th birthday, Amerika!
Unfortunately, the author here can’t even get the name of the book he is ranting about correct. “In the Heart of the Sea” is Nathaniel Philbrick’s book is the story of the whaleship Essex which was the basis for “Moby Dick”. Nothing PC about it unless you dislike his description of the early 19th century Nantucket Quakers who controlled the whale oil trade.
The book he is complaining about is “Mayflower”. I haven’t read it myself but a good buddy of mine recommended it.
Also, with the ascendancy of liberalism came their tools, techniques and theories to pervert the truth –
evolution, ( Hey! )
Marxist theory, ( UmHmm )
Freudian theory, ( Hey! )
revisionist history, ( UmHmm )
deconstructionism, ( eh )
secularism, ( eh )
humanism, ( eh )
Higher Criticism, ( Wha? )
positivism, ( Yikes! )
egalitarianism ( UmHmm )
and particularly since the 1970s,
feminism, homosexuality, environmentalism and liberalism, ( zzzz)
the latter of which is used by many leftist academics to denigrate all that America was founded upon.
Excuse me don’t excuse me. You’re making the doctor happy unhappy.
“With the ascendancy of liberalism came their tools” ... liberalism ?
Let’s try to keep a grip, people!
I wouldn’t exactly say that the Pilgrims were without faults...and I sure wouldn’t have been amongst their group with all of the religious authority in full-turbo. Adding to their episode...the fact that they just weren’t prepared for the task ahead of them...and could have easily been wiped out by their own screw-ups...not even counting what various Indian groups could have taken them out...had they desired.
The Left has destroyed the future of European civilization...
and now the left wants to destroy the future of American civilization.
To destroy our future they must destroy our past and what our civilization was built on.
The Pilgrims got off the ship and went inland to “Do the work the Natives would not do”! So it was all across the continent. Now the Mexicans come here as did the Pilgrims.
“In the Heart of the Sea” is Nathaniel Philbrick’s book is the story of the whaleship Essex which was the basis for “Moby Dick”.
That actually sounds pretty interesting. Is it any good?
I’ve read “In the Heart of the Sea”: it is excellent, but even less for the faint heart than “Moby Dick”, considering the events after the sinking.
They had to sink or swim. They developed a civilization and a nation that has far exceeded in wealth, generosity and personal liberty anything ever seen anywhere else on Earth at anytime in mankind’s history.
The Mexicans you mention sneak in as criminals like heavies in the night, whine for food stamps, medical care, free education and make demands for “rights.”
One group of illegal aliens (Aztlans) demand that we give the country to them lock stock and barrel.
Bad comparison.
The author also seems to miss the fact that all was not peace and harmony with the Native Americans before the “evil” Pilgrims arrived. Indian tribes had routinely declared war and even committed genocide against other tribes for centuries before the arrival of the white man. The Native Americans also were not great friends of the earth either. One favorite buffalo hunting technique of the plains Indians was to spook herds of buffalo into a stampede and direct the herd to a cliff, a so called buffalo jump, where hundred of animals would be killed and crushed making for easy hunting among the carcasses.
Acceptance of God and Godly principles means acceptance of accountability and that is, to many, unacceptable.
Your bigotry is blinding you!
bump
Thanks!
Squanto was among the last of his band, the others having been wiped out by disease, the fundamental cause of the depopulation of the natives.
I thought his post was spot on. There's no comparison between the Pligrams and the illegals invading our nation today.
Too bad the only the only response you can offer is to bleat "bigotry"...just like a leftist would.
It’s a fascinating story. Like Hiryusan alluded it’s pretty grisly in parts. You read it wondering “could I do what I did”?
Make that “could I do what they did?”
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