A few historical and inconvenient notes left on the cutting room floor during Black History Month.
History
Private Property’s Harvest
Yes, we’ve got the pandemic, lockdowns, a worsening deficit, etc. But we still live in a relatively free country at the most prosperous time in human history.
The Moral Meaning of the Berlin Wall
Life in the socialist utopia of East Germany was a waking nightmare.
Reflecting On Communism After 103 Years
November 7th marks the 103rd anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, where Communist revolutionaries overthrew the czarist government of Russia, eventually leading to the establishment of the Soviet Union.
Slavery vs. Capitalism: The 1619 Project Not Only Ignores Actual History, But Basic Economics
People who believe that slavery is an efficient system of production are people who are ready to impose 100% marginal rates of taxation in the belief that doing so is economically harmless.
Spiritual Poverty of Black Americans and The Welfare State
Chief among the policies that reward inferiority and irresponsibility is the welfare state.
Slavery as the Cause of General Loss
While slavery enriched slave owners, it impoverished not only the slaves but also the United States as a whole.
Capitalism vs. Slavery
Similarities between slavery and socialism, and indeed the aggressive anti-capitalist rhetoric of proslavery ideology, are seldom examined in the “New History of Capitalism” literature.
Leftist Effort to Revise American History
Most of the effort to rewrite American history has its roots among the intellectual elite on our college campuses whose message has been sold to predominantly white college students who have little understanding of how they are being used.
The American Spirit of Liberty Against Slavery and Racism
Contrary to, the ideological propaganda and rhetoric of the Race Marxists and Identity Politics Warriors, America is not and has not been an irredeemable captive of racism as asserted to have begun with the country’s first arrival of slaves in 1619.
Confederate Monuments: The Problem With Politically Correct History
Where does this viewing of history through the prism of modern-day feelings end?
On July 4th: Love America or Lose Her
Patriotism is more than a sentiment. It is a necessity. To keep what history has presented to us, Americans must either love it or lose it. Balkanize America and you risk becoming the Balkans.
Slavery Did Not Enrich Americans
Slavery was not necessary for cotton, and cotton was not necessary for industrialization. Had chattel slavery never taken hold in the United States, we would very likely be richer than we are today.
Appreciating Black History
Government should do its job of protecting constitutional rights. After that, black people should be simply left alone as opposed to being smothered by the paternalism inspired by white guilt.
Capitalism and History of the Industrial Revolution: The Factory System of the Early 19th Century
There is a tendency to exaggerate the “evils” which of the factory system and factory legislation was not essential to the ultimate disappearance of those “evils.” Conditions which modern standards would condemn were then common to the community as a whole.
The Guns of August: A Look Back at the Financial Shock of the Great War
The crisis of 2020 has invited a lot of comparisons to the past, particularly the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 and to various war efforts. For those concerned with banking, public finance and monetary policy, the summer of 1914 might be a more appropriate candidate.
Karl Marx and the Communist Revolution
Marx’s critique of capitalism and capitalist society has shaped much of the social thinking in Western countries that led to the welfare state and extensive government intervention into economic affairs.
Books: The 1619 Project: A Critique
The 1619 Project sacrifices scholarly standards in the service of the ideological agenda.
The Real Record of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (1932)
The Reconstruction Finance Corporation (modeled after the earlier War Finance Corporation) was created in early 1932 under the Hoover Administration as what amounted to the “discount lending” facility of the Federal Reserve System: it would lend to financial institutions chartered by states and in rural areas.
New York Times’ Politically Weaponized 1619 Project: An Epitah
The reputation of the 1619 project’s other essays, many of them entirely unobjectionable adaptations of scholarly insights for a popular audience, has suffered because of the NY Times’ inflexible refusal to address erroneous historical claims in the essays by Hannah-Jones and Desmond.
What 1619 Project’s Critics Get Wrong about Lincoln
While Lincoln’s colonization remarks grate the modern ear, and evince a patronizing paternalism toward the program’s intended participants, they also reflect the sincerity of his anti-slavery beliefs and an accompanying recognition that white-supremacist violence would not end with the formal abolition of the institution.
A More or Less Perfect Union
Ginsburg explores the U.S. Constitution and features interviews with and gains the perspectives from constitutional experts of all political views — liberal, conservative and libertarian.
FDR and Stalin Planned the Future of the World
Seventy-five years have now passed since that fateful meeting at Yalta. Stalin, who helped Hitler start the Second World War, reaped his reward at the end of it: Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, at the cost of terror and tyranny for all the people who were forced to live in the “socialist paradise” for almost half a century following the end of the war in 1945.
John Stuart Mill on Slavery, Secession and the Civil War
One of the most heated and controversial issues today concerns the place of slavery in the history of the United States, and attitudes toward the institution of human bondage in the Western world in general.