Another Liberal Fails History

A friend recently sent out a link to an article in the Greensboro (NC) News and Record, in which a left-wing columnist by the name of Susan Ladd decries the notion of American exceptionalism. To her, the idea that the United States of America is better than anyone else, or has even been a positive force for good in world history, is "hypocritical" and just plain wrong. She is appalled that people would protest against the recent revisions of the AP History curriculum, a revision which was developed by left-wing activists and which leaves out large chunks of actual American history. To her, these criticisms of the new standards are tantamount to "ethnocentrism" and indicate that we "think we're better than everyone else." Keep in mind that this is in response to criticisms of an "American" history course that omits mention of D-Day and Bunker Hill – two pivotal episodes upon which two major and defining events in our history turned. That is what she's upset about being criticized. Incomplete, one sided, inadequately covered, purposefully slanted activism being taught as "history."

From reading her article, it is readily apparent that the author is not only a left-wing agitator, but a rather unoriginal one at that. The litany of sins from America's past which she lists are nothing new. Neither are her rather inadequate examples from recent current events that she relies upon to prove that America is still following her terribly errant ways. Logical errors abound through the article. It's surprising that a major regional newspaper would have published it, on the grounds of professionalism alone.

I'll begin by noting that the whole premise of her article rests on a straw man argument. Essentially, the whole article seeks to "refute" her non-existent opponents who propose that there are no black marks at all on American history. However, nobody to my knowledge, not even those who have been criticizing the AP History curriculum, has argued against it on the grounds that negative aspects of American history are mentioned. The criticism centers upon the contentions that only negative facts about our history are mentioned, and that (as mentioned above) many pivotal and positive aspects of our history seem to have been purposefully omitted. In other words, the AP presentation is one-sided and unfair, as well as simply being poor history and factually specious.

Obviously there are black marks in American history, just as there are in everyone else's. Nobody denies this. Nobody that I know of claims that Americans are a race of irreproachable colossi, striding upon the earth as gods among mortal men. But when you actually stop to look at these marks – as we will the ones that Mizz Ladd lists – one would be hard pressed to find how these make us worse than anyone else. At the very worst, these marks would only make us as bad as pretty much everyone else in history (but, as we will see, they don't even do that). So let us look at them in order, Americans persecuted and slaughtered Native Americans. Of course. But then again, it isn't as if America is alone in the abhorrent treatment of native inhabitants by foreign conquerors. The Canadians basically did the same to their First Nations tribes as well. The Australians wiped out the Tasmanians based on the view that they weren't actually human. The British were the ones handing out smallpox-infested blankets. The Belgians exploited their African subjects in the Congo so badly that even the other European colonial powers were appalled.

And this isn't just something that white guys did. The Mongols exterminated entire regions – they so totally destroyed and depopulated the central Asian kingdoms they overran that these regions are STILL recovering from the effects eight centuries later. The Japanese all but destroyed the Ainu who preceded them in their islands. The Turks to this day refuse to own up to their slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians and nearly a million Greeks back in the 1920s. One could go on and on.

Indeed, what about the Native Americans themselves? They routinely raided, enslaved, and massacred each other. The Aztecs "farmed" their neighbors for captives whose beating hearts would be cut out while the victim still lived. In many ways, the Native American treatment of other tribes was worse than anything even the most die-hard American believer in Manifest Destiny would have been even remotely comfortable considering. Americans enslaved African-Americans. And half a million Americans died in a war to end that slavery. Really, how stupidly out-of-context could her criticisms be? But taking an even longer view, we see that slavery has pretty been the baseline for the entire world for nearly all of human history up until the 19th century. Everyone in antiquity practiced it in one form or another. Every race and nation, on every inhabited continent, practiced it. The Africans enslaved each other. The Australian aboriginals practiced slavery. So did the Native Americans, and pretty much everyone in Asia, as well as the Muslims. Especially the Muslims. Many more black Africans died making the Trans-Sahara crossing to slave markets in North Africa and Egypt than died in the Trans-Atlantic crossings and in the New World. The Muslims LOVED themselves some slavery. In fact, they still do – it is notable that the only countries with widespread slavery today are Muslim.

It was only in Western Europe and North America, impelled by their Christian faith, that consistent and successful abolitionist movements arose. Looks a little different when we put things into some context, no? Americans put Japanese-American citizens in internment camps during World War II. At the same time, the Japanese were beheading 300,000 Chinese at the rape of Nanking and forcing tens of thousands of Korean women into sexual slavery (the so-called "comfort women") to the Japanese military. While not necessarily justified, it makes our internment of Japanese on the West Coast look quite a bit less heinous by comparison, does it not? And it's not like these Japanese were rounded up to be murdered in an industrial fashion, as happened in Germany and the Soviet Union. In fact, while the conditions of Japanese internment were not particularly pleasant, neither were they torturous and lethal, either. An interned Japanese was more likely to die of a heart attack than from deliberate mistreatment by guards. American soldiers slaughtered civilians in My Lai during the Vietnam war. By this point, Mizz Ladd's examples are become rather fatuous. To rephrase her statement for more accuracy, "A small handful of American soldiers slaughtered civilians in My Lai during the Vietnam war." This was neither official American military doctrine nor was it common practice. The use it as an example is, at best, desperate, if not disingenuous.

And really, as bad as My Lai was – and yes, it was – how does it compare to the routine slaughter of captured prisoners and enemy civilians that makes up most human practice for most of human history? How does My Lai compare to the Assyrians, or the Mongols, or the Zulus, or the Aztecs, or the Spanish, or the Muslims, or the Japanese, or the Russians, or the Germans, or the....fill in the blank? A little perspective might be in order here. And American CIA agents tortured political prisoners. At this point, she is simply straining credulity to its limit. Waterboarding and nude Iraqi prisoners (which was later punished, if you will recall) are as bad as what...well...pretty much everybody else in history have done as part of their "intelligence-gathering" efforts? Really? It's quite apparent by this point that she is simply overexerting herself to find filler to make her list longer. When the CIA begins bricking people up inside pillars and roasting them to death, as was the practice of certain Chinese emperors, then maybe Mizz Ladd will have a valid point.

All in all, it actually looks like the litany of America's sins, when viewed with a little historical context, make America look less bad than pretty much everybody else in the world. Not perfect by any means, as I've already mentioned. But still, I can't help but thinking that even in these imperfections, we still come out looking, uh, better than the rest of the world throughout all of history. In other words, the very fact that these things were what Mizz Ladd had to rely upon to make her case actually ends up undermining and destroying her argument, since they allow the opportunity to put America in comparison to the rest of history – a comparison that actually makes us look pretty good.

But that's not the end of it. In her article, Mizz Ladd's essential problem with the critics of the AP History curriculum is that they want American history to include things that present America in a positive light. To her, the real sin of today would be to teach American history in a balanced manner that considers George Washington to be slightly more important than, say, Harriet Tubman or Cesar Chavez. Yet, let's be honest here – aren't there a lot of things about America that liberals may absolutely hate, but which are objectively good things which students ought to know about if they're to have a well-reasoned view of their own nation?

Take the issue of slavery. Yes, we had slavery. But we were also one of the few countries that not only freed our slaves (at great cost to ourselves), but then proceeded to eventually grant that same despised minority the same equal rights of citizenship that the majority enjoys?

What about the American free market system, which produced the largest, most prosperous, and most upwardly mobile middle class that the world has ever seen? A system in which social status and economic level are more fluid than in any other?

What of our practically unique constitutional system that combines a written Constitution with concrete safeguards of individual liberties, thus guaranteeing that even today, we still have the freest individual citizens in the world? Our Constitution doesn't just set out an outline of which government department is to do what, like those of many nations do. Even our fellow-travelers in the rest of the Anglosphere cannot boast of constitutionally-protected speech, religious rights, self-defense, and the rest (if you don't believe me, go to the United Kingdom and publicly criticize Islam or gay marriage).

Why is it that America is the place where the rest of the world wants to come? Like it or not, nearly a fifth of Mexico's population is already over our border – and there's a reason for that. Frankly, it's because Mexicans compare the USA to Mexico, and vote with their feet. You don't see people taking to the sea in rickety, leaking boats to get TO Cuba, do you? Freedom and prosperity are their own arguments.

I could go on and on, but I believe any reasonable person will have already understood the point. Mizz Ladd can jibber-jabber on about the KKK (which, frankly, I was surprised a few years ago to find they even still existed, that's how ineffectual and unimportant they really are) and how they claim to represent "Christianity," but the fact of the matter is that her arguments are weak and her examples pointless. No reasonable person thinks the KKK represents Christianity, and no reasonable person ever has. No reasonable person thinks that bombing abortion clinics or shooting abortion doctors is Christian doctrine or practice. No reasonable person thinks that Obama was anything other than a complete moron when he tried to compare the Crusades (a set of defensive wars) to the virulent, persistent, endemic violence of Islam, past and present. In short, no reasonable person believes about these things the way Susan Ladd does.

slavery has pretty been the baseline for the entire world for nearly all of human history up until the 19th century. Everyone in antiquity practiced it in one form or another. Every race and nation, on every inhabited continent, practiced it. The Africans enslaved each other. The Australian aboriginals practiced slavery. So did the Native Americans, and pretty much everyone in Asia, as well as the Muslims. Especially the Muslims. Many more black Africans died making the Trans-Sahara crossing to slave markets in North Africa and Egypt than died in the Trans-Atlantic crossings and in the New World. The Muslims LOVED themselves some slavery. In fact, they still do . . . the only countries with widespread slavery today are Muslim.
This gets to the issue as to whether or not our rights come from God. Liberals, take them as they run, hate themselves some Christianity. But a broad view of history shows that slavery as an institution was so established throughout history and worldwide that there exists now only one literature of defense of slavery (other than the Koran itself). Only one literature of the defense of slavery as an institution exists because it was never under moral attack anywhere else. That literature came from the American South, before/during the Civil War. Just as slavery was about to be abolished nationwide.
Christianity, at its inception, did not abolish slavery. The sum (I dare say) of reference to slavery in the New Testament

Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto Philemon our dearly beloved, and fellowlabourer, And to our beloved Apphia, and Archippus our fellowsoldier, and to the church in thy house: Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God, making mention of thee always in my prayers, Hearing of thy love and faith, which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all saints; That the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus. For we have great joy and consolation in thy love, because the bowels of the saints are refreshed by thee, brother. Wherefore, though I might be much bold in Christ to enjoin thee that which is convenient, Yet for love's sake I rather beseech thee, being such an one as Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ. I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds: Which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me: Whom I have sent again: thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels: Whom I would have retained with me, that in thy stead he might have ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel: But without thy mind would I do nothing; that thy benefit should not be as it were of necessity, but willingly. For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him for ever; Not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh, and in the Lord? If thou count me therefore a partner, receive him as myself. If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account; I Paul have written it with mine own hand, I will repay it: albeit I do not say to thee how thou owest unto me even thine own self besides. Yea, brother, let me have joy of thee in the Lord: refresh my bowels in the Lord. Having confidence in thy obedience I wrote unto thee, knowing that thou wilt also do more than I say. But withal prepare me also a lodging: for I trust that through your prayers I shall be given unto you. There salute thee Epaphras, my fellowprisoner in Christ Jesus; Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, Lucas, my fellowlabourers. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen. Epistle to Philemon
does not condemn the institution. It was only in the colonial/revolutionary era that Christians - especially Protestants, and most especially British Protestants - turned against the institution of slavery in principle. Since “the sun never set on the British Empire,” that was crucial in the abolition of the institution of slavery worldwide - to the extent that it has been abolished.

The British Navy, for no reason other than Christian principle, was tasked with the expensive maintenance of a squadron off West Africa to suppress the slave trade there.
William Wilberforce was the leader of opposition to the institution of slavery in Britain.
Thomas Sowell published the above information in the second half of Black Rednecks and White Liberals - Thomas Sowell

Given that slavery is the negation of personal rights, the intelligence that no other cultural system except Christianity - certainly not Islam, and certainly not Atheism with its Gulags - has any claim to opposition to slavery as an institution leaves any basis for the existence of individual human rights apart from the belief of Christians willing to stand for the principle “at any hazard.” Anti-christian activists can claim superiority - claiming moral superiority is what they do - but they lack any track record of lives put on the line for the principle. Rather, they are mere critics, while the “man who has actually been in the arena” has been Christian.
That the American founding, with all the losses involved in the Revolution, considered itself Christian is easily verified by the references to divine Providence and Creator in the Declaration of Independence, and by the reference to Jesus Christ (Who else was conventionally considered to have been born "one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven” years before the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention, and referred to as “our Lord?”) in the Constitution.
Substitute any religious/ethical system for Christianity, and you have at best a speculative and utterly untried foundation for respect for individual rights. “If the trumpet shall make an uncertain sound, who shall prepare for battle?” The fantasy upon which denial of the reality that rights come from God or else are illusory is based is that human rights will never need to be defended.

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