Writing on the Southern Front: Authentic Conservatism for Our Times by Joseph Scotchie

Author:Joseph Scotchie [Scotchie, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781351402767
Google: 3rA0DwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 36705144
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-09-08T00:00:00+00:00

II.5 The Rest of the Story

The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History. Thomas E. Woods Jr. Washington: Regnery Publishing.

(2004)

To some, the title of Thomas Woods’s instant best seller might seem trivial. However, its contents make bold claims. Everyone wants to be politically incorrect. But what is “political incorrectness?” Professor Woods’s brisk history of the United States is so bold that even conservatives have begun distancing themselves from major portions of the book.

The author hits hard on all fronts. No icon (or iconic belief) in the liberal canon is left untouched. For instance, the early Puritans did not “steal” Indian lands. Rather, both sides, the author contends, made economic exchanges that were beneficial to each party.

On it goes. Quoting H. L. Mencken, the author shows that it was the Confederate soldier, not necessarily his Union counterpart, who fought for self-government; that American involvement in both world wars could have been avoided (in the case of World War I, involvement extended the war, resulting in catastrophe); the original “big businessmen” were libertarian in economics, with results entirely positive for average Americans; the New Deal did not ease the Depression; the Great Society did not alleviate poverty; the Warren Court heralded a revolution of judicial tyranny that continues to this day.

Professor Woods’s critique extends to those not part of the liberal canon. He is sympathetic to Ronald Reagan’s vision of limited government. Further, the 1980s was not a “decade of greed” (charitable giving grew significantly). And in fact, the Gipper made no headway at all in downsizing the federal Leviathan. Would that Ronald Reagan was as “right wing” as his critics claimed he was. Still, Professor Woods seems to hold out hope that Reagan may yet be the John the Baptist of the anti–big government forces.

Critics have used the usual smear tactics to attack the book by discrediting the author. They sneer at Professor Woods’s position at a community college in Suffolk County, New York, plus his membership in The League of the South. This also is done to prevent serious discussion of the book.

What such critics don’t want you to know is the crux of the book’s argument, for its theme is self-government. That simply is the core of the much-vaunted American “experience.” Consider only this pearl from an 1842 interview with one Captain Preston, an aging Revolutionary War veteran:

JUDGE MELLEN CHAMBERLAIN: Did you take up arms against intolerable oppression? Captain Preston replied that he had never felt any oppressions.

JUDGE CHAMBERLAIN: Was it the Stamp Act?

CAPTAIN PRESTON: No, I never saw one of those stamps.

JUDGE CHAMBERLAIN: Was it the tea tax? Captain Preston said no again.

JUDGE CHAMBERLAIN: Were you reading John Locke and other theorists of liberty?

CAPTAIN PRESTON: Never heard of ’em. We read only the Bible, the Catechism, Watts’ Psalms and Hymns, and the Almanac.

JUDGE CHAMBERLAIN: Why, then, did you fight?

CAPTAIN PRESTON: Young man, what we meant in going for those redcoats was this: We always had governed ourselves, and we always meant to. They didn’t mean we should.

And consider where tyranny leads.

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