(no subject)

[fpb]

I am appalled that this kind of tosh: http://frontpagemag.com/2010/01/06/seven-miracles-that-saved-america-by-david-forsmark/ - is being not only published but promoted, even by a notoriously narrow-minded website. If the American conservative movement does not want to confirm every bad stereotype attached to them across the world, they ought to take the lead in criticizing and demolishing this sort of irrational (and ignorant) production.

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Well, no, the whole thesis is inacceptable from beginning to end. There was nothing miraculous about Columbus managing to get to the Caribbean, as the story of Cabral makes clear. Every war and every army have stories like that of Washington's "miraculous fog"; it only means one piece of luck in seven years of an activity - war - that depends on luck all the time. (And if we are looking for miracles, what about the unusual wind pattern that kept the British fleet away from Yorktown and trapped Cornwallis between the artillery of Washington and Rochambeau and the ships of Le Grasse?) There was nothing miraculous about the election of Lincoln, just a very smart campaign by a talented lawyer (Lincoln had become the leading lawyer in his state, and a rich man, before he ever entered national politics) and experienced campaigner (remember the Lincoln-Douglas debates) who had a brilliant ability to get noticed and make the right speech at the right time - in fact, the way all successful politicians rise. And frankly, I think that to place the election of Ronald Reagan in the same class is mere party political delusion. You may disagree, but I think that Reagan's part in the collapse of the Soviet empire has been grossly overestimated, and that the Soviet Union would have collapsed whoever was at the American helm. Everyone knew, at the time, that it was an incredibly inefficient and corrupt society, and I think the reasons for its collapse were wholly internal.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Those people, who tell us socialism or communism cannot work, nonetheless often display a touching faith in the viability of the USSR left to its own devices.

[sun-stealer.livejournal.com]

I meant tolerable as in beneath my dignity to even acknowledge.