Friday, July 30, 2010

Debunking "Beck U" -- Faith 102 with "Professor" David Barton

By Chris Rodda. Here.

5 comments:

Tom Van Dyke said...

Godwin's Law Watch, Comments Section:

Post #5.

Well done, Kossacks.

Naum said...

@Tom

Is that the summation of your take — in jest, to mention a "comment" on the content, in lieu of anything substantive or illuminating about the actual content of the post.

But since you went there, I'll share a relevant link:

The best class I have ever taken: HIST143, the History of Fascism and Nazism

This class taught me that some things are just so bad, so legitimately evil, that making bullshit comparisons cheapens that evil. And I cannot stand by and let true, legitimate evil be cheapened. As a result, if I ever use the word “Nazi,” you know I mean it and I’m not joking.

And finally, this class taught me what to look for in case something like the Nazis ever reappeared in the world. Similar things have popped up here and there since the Nazis were defeated, like what happened in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s. But thankfully, the instances have been relatively rare and short lived (although still brutal and horrible for the people involved). But I worry that there are elements of society in the US that are developing along similar lines as the early years of the Nazis. Some elements were there in 1994, and while those elements have ebbed and flowed over the years since, they’re cropping up again. Where and how is a different post, however.


/cheerio :)

King of Ireland said...

All the talk of Nazi's aside, I see just as much revisionism on the Left as Right.(for lack of better labels) How many people, as much as Jon knows about this subject which is more than about anyone and he did not, realize that Aquinas said the things he did about resistance to tyranny or that later schoolmen were proponents of human rights? For that matter how many people know that the idea of a constitutional republic did not start with America and there were in fact, many of them in European history?

What do people think James Madison studied when did his study on the best and worst forms of government in history?

If Fukuyama is correct, and for the most part I think he is going to be right in the end, then we have to know what a "liberal democracy" is? What we see today bears little resemblance to what it meant during the founding in many ways. So I for one need to know what it means when we are talking about when it ocmes to "liberal democracy" and then I need to go back to pre-Madison to see if it lines up with the governments he studied and the ideas he borrowed from.

If not then to sell it as founding style liberal democracy is a bigger lie with more far outreaching consequences for the world over the next 500 years than anything Barton can dream up.

We miss the big picture of what Tierney and Kraynak are discussing and the magnitude of it be obessessing with trivial matter(in comparsion) of the culture wars.

Tom Van Dyke said...

You're right Naum, I'm not going to sit through those hideous videos. Plus they were already played out here at AC---this is a rerun for us.

Further, they're only mildly useful except as political theater. A book review that lists only the errors in the book and not the parts that are correct is not worth much serious time.

Tom Van Dyke said...

As for the Nazi stuff, until we have a Kristallnacht in the US, that's not worth a serious person's time either.