Judging Historical Figures By Today's Standards

I agree with Matt Lewis, it is hard and dangerous to judge historical
figure by today's standards:

Of course, as many historians would warn, the problem with
Beck’s criticism is that it’s dangerous to judge a historical
figure—especially one who served as president more than
a century ago—by today’s standards.

Roosevelt’s tenure occurred at the dawn of the 20th
century—when “The American Experiment” was still
fairly new. Roosevelt didn’t have the benefit of seeing
the disastrous results of liberalism that we witnessed
in the 1960s and ‘70s—results that led many Americans
—including Ronald Reagan—to change their political ideology.

Roosevelt also presided during an era when big business
and monopolies were more powerful than we can imagine
(while most modern-day conservatives would gladly repeal
much of the New Deal and the Great Society, I’m guessing
few would want to repeal the Pure Food and Drug Act that
Roosevelt signed in 1906).

It does not mean that wrong and immoral practices in the past were
alright. Just that historical figures must be taken in totality and historical
context. Our founding fathers would not live up to our current societal
standards of racial and gender equality.

Hispanics and Jewish Ancestry

I had heard before a good portion of the Spanish and people of Spanish descent
(Hispanics) have Jewish ancestry. It seems with modern developments in genetic
technologies they are able to find more. From a Reuters article:

MADRID - From the 15th century on, Spain's Jews were mostly
expelled or forced to convert, but today some 20 percent of
Spaniards have genes similar to Sephardic Jews, a study has found.

A report in the American Journal of Human Genetics says almost
a fifth of Spaniards have genes similar to Sephardic Jews while 11
percent have links to Muslims in North Africa.

"The genetic composition of the current population is the legacy of
our diverse cultural and religious past," one of the report's authors,
Francesc Calafell, from the evolutionary biology faculty at Pompeu
Fabra University in Barcelona, said on Friday.

Last year there was a study published in The Journal of the American Medical
Association finding that a mutation in a gene common among women with Jewish
ancestry was also prevalent Hispanic females. Here is the study concluded:

Among African American, Asian American, and Hispanic patients in the
Northern California Breast Cancer Family Registry, the prevalence of
BRCA1 mutation carriers was highest in Hispanics and lowest in Asian
Americans. The higher carrier prevalence in Hispanics may reflect the
presence of unrecognized Jewish ancestry in this population.

So there you go.

Reaping What They Sowed

I'm going through the study guide of my brother's high school history. As I flip
through the book I notice there is so much emphasis on minorities, women and
class in the chapters. I'm Hispanic and female, I think it's important to tell
the story of how minorities groups have been oppressed thought out American
history and also the long fight for women rights. Obviously, these stories need
to be told.

However, there seems to be too much emphasis on race, gender, and class. I
think there is something lost if one solely looks at American history through
the prism of race, gender, economics. We become no longer a collective but
identified by what oppressed group we belong to. Divided by the labels. One
of the subheading of the chapter guides ask, "How were women doing during
this decade?" Why not ask "How were Americans doing during this decade?"
I want to know how women and men were doing. Does it not matter how men
(half of the population, I might add) were doing?

There are some shameful stuff in America's past, no doubt about it. But I also
think there is a whole lot of good too and that seems to be left out of the books.
Americans helped defeat Nazism even though we weren't perfect at home. I
don't think any other country has defended liberty and freedom like we have
in the past century.

To be fair, history books only have a limited number of pages to tell their story.
Therefore, a lot of stuff is going to be left out. One is never going to get the
complete story about how life was a hundred or even twenty years.

But I would like the future history books to note: As a ethnic minority and a women
living in America in this date and time, I can not feel more free and appreciative.
And I know that I'm free today because others have suffered before my generation.
I'm just reaping what they sowed. I realize that. This is an exceptional country and
I hope that makes it to the pages of a history book one day.

Lies About American History Continued

Yesterday I posted the first half of the '48 Liberal Lies About American History.'
Today I will conclude the list. Here ya go:

25) The Scopes trial proved that Darwin was correct and Christians were
backward.

26) The 1950s were dull and boring and created a generation of conformists
in the workplace and home. Terry's note: Yeah, that's pretty much how the
50s are portrayed on television.

27) Richard Nixon sent burglars into the Watergate office complex.

28) Neither Ronald Reagan's election nor the "Contract with America" proved the
triumph of conservative ideas.

29) Bill Clinton was impeached over sex.

30) George W. Bush was selected, not elected, in 2000, and votes wore stolen
on his behalf.

31) Muslim terrorists are door and uneducated and hate us because we support
Israel.

32) The news media is objective, fair, and balanced- and always has been.
Terry's note: This lie is funny.

33) Native Americans were great environmentalists, while white settlers destroyed
the buffalo.

34) The first Thanksgiving took place because the Indians saved the Puritans
their own ineptitude.

35) The "Robber Barons" pillaged the land and destroyed the environment.

36) Federal regulators have protected the public's health by identifying harmful
products.

37) Global warming is a fact, and it's man-made, American-driven problem.

38) The Constitution was the creation of "elites" protecting their financial interests.

39) Northern capitalist greed- not slavery- drove the Civil War.

40) The Sherman Anti-trust Act protected the "little guy" and reined in "big
business" abuses.

41) The Transcontinental Railroad's never would have been built without
government.

42) The Robber Barons only assuaging their guilt with their philanthropy.

43) The income tax was created to make the rich pay their fair share, and tax
cuts only benefit upper-income Americans.

44) Business failures and tax cuts combined to cause the Great Depression.

45) LBJ's Great Society had a positive impact on the poor.

46) The decline of American autos and steel was caused by insufficient
government support the industries.

47) The Reagan tax cuts caused massive deficits and the national debts.

48) History textbooks used in schools are unbiased and not politically correct.

Lies About American History

There's an new book called '48 Liberal Lies About American History' that
I want to read. The author, Larry Schweikart, talked about his book on Book
TV and The Dennis Prager Show. I thought I would post the lies. I haven't
read yet so I'm not sure how he debunks these "myths." Also to be fair, I
don't think all these lies are solely "liberal." There are probably some right
leaning people that believe these things. For example, some Ron Paul supporters
believe in the whole 9/11 conspiracy stuff. Well, here is the list of lies:

1) The first presidents intended for the United States to be isolationist.

2) The Mexican and Spanish-American wars were imperialist efforts drummed
up by "corporate interests."

3) FDR knew in advance about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

4) Harry Truman ordered the atomic bombing of Japan to intimidate the Soviets
with "atomic diplomacy."

5) John F. Kennedy was killed by LBJ and a Soviet team to prevent him from
getting us out of Vietnam.

6) Richard Nixon expanded to Vietnam.

7) The 'Peace Movement' activists were dupes of the KGB.

8) Ronald Reagan knew "Star Wars" wouldn't work but wanted to provoke a
war with the USSR.

9) Mikhail Gorbachev, not Ronald Reagan, was responsible for ending the Cold
War.

10) September 11 was not the work of terrorists: it was a government conspiracy.

11) No terrorists or weapon of mass destruction were hiding in Iraq.

12) The founders envisioned a "wall of separation" between Church and State,
keeping religious influence out of government.

13) Thomas Jefferson favored "small government" and was a pacifist.
Terry's note: I noticed this particular portrayal of Thomas Jefferson
in the HBO movie John Adams.

14) Women had no right in early America.

15) Restrictions on the right to vote kept voter participation low.

16) Prohibition was unpopular from the beginning and failed in all its objectives.

17) Sacco and Vanzetti were innocent and wrongly executed.

18) Senator Joseph McCarthy concocted the "Red Scare" and there was nothing
to fear from communist subversives.

19) The Rosenbergs were not spies and were wrongfully executed.

20) Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK because he was deranged Marine, not because
he a communist.

21) Columbus was responsible for killing millions of Indians.

22) The early colonies were intolerant and racist.
Terry's note: If I remember correctly from his interviews his argument isn't
that the early settlers weren't intolerant and racist but that intolerance
and racism was global and not isolated to America.

23) Early America home of few guns or gun owners.

24) Abraham Lincoln only freed the slaves to beef up his troop strength.

I will post the rest tomorrow. Please discuss the first 24 if you wish.