The historian Richard Hofstadter was one of the most influential historians of his time, and The American Political Tradition—which first appeared in 1948—is still read today. He was early in his life sympathetic to Marxism and a “Progressive,” but he was disillusioned by the utopian mindset of these two ideologies after the Second World War, and he became a sharp critic of the “heroes” of this tradition.
When I was a junior at a high school in the suburbs of Los Angeles in late 1978, rather uncharacteristically, I took a big risk. The teacher of my American Government class, Mr. Knapp, gave us an assignment to write a serious paper about government economic policy. Instead of doing that, I decided to submit a paper with a satirical theme, estimating what it would cost to become Santa Claus. Not only was I not following instructions, I had no idea how Mr. Knapp would react to my brand of humor.
Mainstream historical “memory”—profoundly influenced by post-New Deal progressive interpretation—treats Warren G. Harding as corrupt and negligent, inactive, primitive, lucky, or irrelevant relative to the economic recovery during his presidency.
If recent years are any indication, this year we’ll be treated, yet again, to a smattering of articles about the supposed politics behind Thanksgiving, and how the bad guys (whether on the left or right) are opposing all things decent by refusing to celebrate the holiday in a way that promotes the correct political agenda. On one side are the leftists who feel compelled to use Thanksgiving as an extension of Col
As US debt soars and foreign central banks stockpile gold, a US senator today introduced a bill to require the first comprehensive audit of America’s gold reserves in decades. Sponsored by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), the Gold Reserve Transparency Act would require a full assay, inventory, and audit of all United States gold holdings, along with an upgrade in the purity of the gold so that it meets global market standards.
[Every year at Thanksgiving-time I resurrect a column written by a fellow teacher, Kent Dillon, about the real reason we celebrate this holiday. It is a story no longer told in the textbooks because it is thoroughly unPC, and undermines the idea that government is the solver of all problems. We were teachers, as well as part of the crew, at The Flint School, a private, academic boarding school aboard two large sailing ships, and we used the world as a campus.
