We all know about Nixon getting caught in the Watergate scandal, which has lead to the unfortunate tendency to add "-Gate" at the end of every scandal or potential scandal since then. See: SpyGate.
Did you know he pulled US ground troops out of Vietnam? Liberal leaning people will talk about his secret bombings of Laos and Cambodia, but they gloss over the fact that Nixon shifted Vietnam from a ground war to an air war. And Nixon negotiated the ceasefire with North Vietnam.
Oh yeah, he also opened relations with China, and tried to end the Cold War (or at least thaw it out a bit) diplomatically with Russia.
But he has an (R) next to his name, so he was not only a bad man, but a bad President. All that matters is Watergate. Anything he did before that has been ignored by the amateur liberal historian.
We're all amateur historians. We all formulate opinions on past events. Most of us think, for instance, that Hitler sucked. But the liberals among us don't just form opinions. They form facts. They edit history to glorify their own beliefs, and belittle opposing beliefs.
Real facts: 95% of Indians were whiped out by disease and not white men with guns. Most black slaves were sold by other Africans to white slave traders. Sam Colt was from Connecticut, and didn't invent the revolver to suppress slave rebellions. In fact, there were almost no slave rebellions. The NRA was founded by ex-Union Civil War officers in New York, and hardly had anything to do with the KKK, which was founded by ex-Confederates in Tennessee. The 8th President of the NRA was Ulysses S. Grant. Y'know, the guy who was in charge of the Union Army that freed the slaves.
And perhaps we all do it, but I just tend to notice liberals' skewings more. In my honest opinion, I think most people hold liberal beliefs in order to feel better about themselves. It's almost a psychological condition. They need to feel concerned about the environment, or health care for the poor, or people who can't afford to buy a house, all so they can look in the mirror and see a Saint.
So let's just take a stroll back through history with liberal lenses.
George W. Bush is responsible for our current economic crisis. Yes, because he was in charge when the bubble was growing. But Bill Clinton was NOT responsible for the collapse of the .com bubble. Even though he was in charge when the bubble was growing. In fact, under Clinton the economy was stupendous! Everybody had lots of money, and jobs, and bloated portfolios with Pets.com and $150 a share Amazon.com stock.
Even though all that money, all those jobs, and all those stocks were built on a foundation of imagination and not reality, the economy under Clintion was fantastic. Riiiiiiiiight.
Then there's Ronald Reagan. Liberals utterly refuse to give Reagan credit for anything. And every year, they belittle him more and more. They used to just say he was overrated as a President. Now they'll argue that he was a bad President. Eventually, they'll suggest he was the Antichrist, and was the harbinger of the Apocalypse (in 2012, right?). Liberals refuse to admit that supply side economics can work. They refuse to give an ounce of credit to Reagan for helping to end the Cold War.
Then there's JFK. Excuse me, to liberals he's St. John of Brookline. Maybe it's just because I'm in the epicenter of Kennedy love here in Massachusetts, but to me, JFK is the most overrated President in history. People equate him to Lincoln, which is like equating Carter to Washington.
The Cuban Missile Crisis (CMC). Listen to a Kennedy lover gush on and on about the CMC. How JFK was so calm, so collected, played a game of chicken and made the other guy blink.
Ever hear of the Bay of Pigs? 1,500 Cubans who had been exiled from their home by Castro's revolution, armed and trained by the CIA, invade Cuba. But without suppressing fire from the Navy, or air support, the invasion is a colossal failure. Who ordered this farce? JFK. Who ordered that there be no air support? JFK. So not only did he send these guys in, he sent them in with next to no chance of achieving their objectives.
In response to this 1961 invasion, Cuba runs to the open arms of the Soviet Union. The USSR places nuclear missiles in Cuba, which function as a deterrent to any further invasions.
But JFK never gets blamed for the Bay of Pigs, or for his part in CAUSING the Cuban Missile Crisis. He always gets credit for ENDING it. That's like training a dog to eat children's faces, then getting applauded when you stop him from biting some kid's face off.
Oh, and who increased the US military's presence in Vietnam from 800 men to 16,300 (that's a 2000% increase, BTW)? It was JFK. And liberals can't even fathom this. They point out that he was planning to scale down US involvement there before he was killed. That seems likely, but liberals go one step farther than this. They GLORIFY him for wanting to pull troops out. The same troops he sent there! Again, it's the face-eating dog all over again. He's praised for cleaning up the messes he makes. But in this case, he's praised for POSSIBLY INTENDING TO SOMEDAY MAYBE CLEAN UP HIS MESS!!!
Then there's FDR. And here's where we get to something dangerous. I remember in my junior high and high school history books, reading about the Great Depression. Junior year in HS we spent 2 weeks on the Depression (and only two days on World War II). We learned about the New Deal, and how great FDR's policies were. The alphabet soup of TVA, the AAA, CCC, WPA, CWA, FSA, FHA, the PWA, and the SSA. We were taught that all these programs got America out of the Depression.
But that's not the whole truth, is it? Government programs helped slow down the economy's decline, but they didn't stimulate it's regrowth. World War II stimulated the growth of the US economy, like snorting 15 lines of cocaine laced with Viagra and ecstasy.
We sold scrap metal and oil to Japan, tanks and planes to Britain, radios and jeeps to Russia, and we lent money. We lent money to countries so that they could buy stuff from us. Is there any better way to make money? Then after the war, we lend more money to all these war torn countries. We sell them our stuff so they can rebuild. Meanwhile, the only products they can buy are American, because we're the only country in the world with any industry left. That's how GM, Chrysler, and Ford got so big, they were the only game in town. Then Germany, Japan, and Korea rebuild their factories, figure out ways to make better cars, and so GM goes bankrupt.
I can go on and on about how much World War II boosted our economy, but most basic history books won't. They'll talk about how great the New Deal was.
And this is dangerous. Because right now, in power, are people who read the same kind of liberalized histories. These are people who think quasi-socialist programs can help turn an economy around. They think there's an historical precedent for this, and they're quite wrong.
Government spending and socialist style programs do have a place, even in a conservative capitalist's dream economy. Here's an interesting NY Times editorial. Also, note how the writer can't resist insulting Ronald Reagan. And my favorite liberal line was:
"Nonetheless, reasonable estimates suggest that around a million more Americans are working now than would have been employed without that plan — a number that will grow over time — and that the stimulus has played a significant role in pulling the economy out of its free fall."
So liberals estimate that liberal policies have worked, and they also estimate that their own policies will continue to work. Where people are getting these numbers of jobs saved is beyond me. Couldn't you use the same logic to suggest that Barack's helped 100 million people remain employed? Wow, isn't he AMAZING. Siiiiiiiigh.
But this guys broader points are dead-on. Big Government has helped keep our economy from tumbling down a cliff.
But, if the US economy is a freight train, then government spending is only the braking system. Every train needs a good braking system. Brakes help you slow down when you're going down a steep hill, as the economy has been doing. But brakes don't help you move forward. They don't help you get OVER the next hill.
When you reach the bottom of a dangerous hill, and slow to a safe speed, you get off the brakes and let the train's engines (the private sector) do their thing. You don't ride the brakes when you're trying to go uphill.
The lessons of the Great Depression were vital to preventing Depression 2.0 in 2008 and 2009. But I'm afraid that liberals didn't learn the entire lesson. They took the junior high history of the New Deal saving America's economy. They didn't realize that it stopped the decline, but was actually detrimental to future growth.
History is a great thing to learn from. Unfortunately, liberals don't want to learn from history. They seek only to glorify themselves through it.
1 comment:
Excellently written. It is sad that the History of America is being filtered and replaced with lies.
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