Forgetting History

Despite how much and how stridently the Liberals and Progressives claim that Americans want to revise history, it they who are not only forgetting history but demanding that it be forgotten.

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

— George Santayana
The Life Of Reason. Vol. I, Reason in Common Sense

To put it simply, those who cannot learn from past mistakes are more than likely going to make them again.

Americans need only look into the past to when we were the invaders who refused to assimilate into the native language, culture, sociopolitical tapestry of America and accept and retain those lessens.

Is it too late to build a fence?
Is It Too Late To Build A Fence?

The Native American tribes could have done things differently and stood a better chance of retaining their nations, cultures, languages…and lives. They, however, failed to recognize the dangers and act accordingly in the early days of the European colonization of America.

We've lost control of our borders. They must be rounded up and deported
…All 300 Million Of Them!

This ended up leaving the debased remnants of the Amerindian peoples in an untenable situation. No amount of Ghost Dances are going to return the land to their tribes now or bring back their languages and cultures.

  • Of the 300+ native tribal languages in the US, only 175 remain many without native speakers. This is expected to drop to 20 by 2050
  • In the 17th Century Native Americans in the US numbered between 12 – 18 million. By the beginning of the 20th Century they had been reduced to 250 thousand

Now we, as Americans, are on the other side of the equation and we can remember this history or we can forget and face the consequences.

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8 Responses to “Forgetting History”

  1. antiwasp Says:

    J,

    That’s kind of an oversimplification don’t you think? You could have tried a little harder with the argument, unless you actually think that Mexican culture is superior to ours. If so, I’d say your un-American. -antiwasp

  2. jonolan Says:

    Superiority or inferiority of culture is irrelevant. It’s numbers and cultural adamancy is all that matters. “Press 1 for English” ring a bell?

    There’s already whole areas of the country where English is, at best, a second language. Add another 100 million or so invaders and where does that leave us?

  3. Moe Says:

    jonolan, you’ve left out something hugely important. American Indians – cultural differences and hostilities and invasion aside – were wiped out mostly by communicable diseases they had no immunties against. The population decline can be attributed to this more than to any other reason.

    So . . . not the same thing.

  4. jonolan Says:

    Insofar as actual extermination goes, you’re right, Moe. But Americans probably don’t face biological extermination at the hands of the foreign invaders. We face cultural extermination instead through raw numbers and the unwillingness of the invaders to assimilate.

  5. cmblake6 Says:

    This article is superb, and your comments are dead nuts on. As usual, a superior exclamation. Unfortunately, it may have to come to blood for the sake of rescue.

  6. jonolan’s lesson in history « Cmblake6's Weblog Says:

    […] the destruction of cultures by infiltration and erosion. Like this:LikeBe the first to like this post. from → Blatant Subversion, Deep Thought, […]

  7. jonolan Says:

    Thank you, cmblake6.

    Sadly sort of, you’re probably right in that blood – and a great lot of it – will likely have to flow if we are to rescue ourselves from this predicament. Worse, it won’t flow soon enough to avoid having to shed the maximum or near-maximum amount to correct the situation.

  8. cmblake6 Says:

    Sadly, I am afraid you are absolutely correct. I realize the truth, that’s why that comment.

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