Civil War 2020

"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."

George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

The United States has a particular history that has shaped it to be what it is today.  Some of that history is good.  Some of that history is bad.  On balance, it is more good than bad and has resulted in the most benevolent and selfless nation the world has ever seen.  A lot of people don't see it that way.  As luck would have it, Orwell provided a road map for them to use: Control the past.

Columbus discovered the new world.  Vilify him and tear him down.  Done!

Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence.  Discredit him and tear him down.  In progress.

George Washington won the Revolutionary War and served as first President of the United States.  Maximize his faults and ignore his achievements.  In progress.

James Madison is the Father of the Constitution.  Discredit him.  On the to-do list.

If you can recast the Founders as villains rather than heroes, you can then discard what they wrought.  How can you revere a Declaration that was written by slave owners?  How can you live under a Constitution that was drafted by a bunch of elite white men, half of whom owned slaves?  Tear it all down!

But Frederick Douglass used the Declaration and the Constitution to bolster his abolitionist oratory.  How can you say that all men are created equal when slavery exists?  To be true to the founding documents, slavery had to end.  Then tear down Frederick Douglass!

Martin Luther King referred to the Constitution and the Declaration when he said the Founders signed "a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir."  The Founders had outlined great and noble ideas but did not live up to them.  Nor did many generations afterwards live up to those ideals but progress has been made.

In 1967, Rudi Dutschke proposed a strategy for subverting society by infiltrating institutions.  He called this the long march through the institutions.  The long march is essentially complete in the United States.  The media is almost wholly owned by the left.  Higher education is controlled by the left and churns out ignorant youth who gladly tear down statues.  Most agencies in the government at every level are controlled by the left; is it any wonder that government has mostly stood aside as chaos has gripped the nation.

Lincoln warned that the United States would not fall to a foreign threat.  If we fall, it is because we destroyed ourselves.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

Abraham Lincoln

Are we on the brink of America's second civil war?  Maybe.

Hamilton

I saw the musical Hamilton last week during its swing through Texas.  Hamilton's life is faithfully told and one cannot help but be impressed at his achievements and grieve for his losses.  However, I don't care for rap and this was mostly that.  Rap battles among Washington's cabinet members - complete with mic drops - did not impress me.  There is a lot of overt politics that reference the modern day rather than the time in which the story takes place.  The most obvious was when Hamilton says to Lafayette "Immigrants getting the job done."  Sigh.  Lafayette was not an immigrant.  He was a French aristocrat who was abroad in war.  Patton would never have referred to himself as an immigrant while fighting in Africa or Europe.  Same goes for Lafayette.  As for Hamilton, he was a British subject who moved from one colony - Nevis in the Caribbean - to another - New York.  In modern terms, that's like moving from Oregon to New York.  Again, not an immigrant in the sense the play implies.

 

Some characters come off very well, reflecting modern understandings of them.  Washington is steady, humble, and wise.  Hamilton is brash, brilliant, and arrogant.  Burr is given a sympathetic portrayal.  He is seen as second best to Hamilton for decades, which is a stretch.  Burr had many acquaintances and was prone to intrigue, aspects that don't show here.  In fact, it is Jefferson who is the schemer to undermine Hamilton.  Jefferson is shown as self-absorbed and more arrogant than Hamilton, not an easy task.  Madison is relegated to Jefferson's fawning sidekick, a slap to the Father of the Constitution.  As an interesting aside, Aaron Burr introduced James Madison to his future wife, Dolley Madison.

 

The play repeatedly declares New York to be the "greatest city in the world" which certainly thrilled Broadway during its run but is again for modern audiences.  New York may have been the greatest city in the colonies but it was a shadow to the great cities of Europe.  I love New York but this again took me out of the setting and placed me in the modern day.  The casting is intentionally non-white, which made it a bit difficult to know who was who at the beginning.  Artistic license or yet another political statement?  Meh.  On the positive, if this can introduce American history to a wider audience, that is terrific.  Maybe some rap lovers will read the Federalist Papers to get the deeper story.