Never in history has such a mediocre, but self-important and ungracious generation owed so much, and yet expressed so little gratitude, to its now dead forebears. Where is the pantheon of woke heroes who will replace the toppled or defaced Thomas Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt?
Victor Davis Hanson
Hillary Clinton recently admonished her party’s hard left for its disregard for “what wins elections” after what went down in Virginia in November. Suburban and rural voters served up a Toolshed Tuesday for Democrats, restoring the GOP to absolute control of the Old Dominion. Her pal James Carville blamed their party’s shellacking on “stupid wokeness,” because a silent majority seethed as statues toppled, and race-based lesson plans turned Virginia History into the study of sins.
Virginia is, of course, home to the first permanent English settlement, as well as Jefferson, Madison and Washington. But, above all, it created America’s first gainful industry, when Sir Walter Raleigh introduced tobacco to Mother England in 1586. This was paramount to America’s future greatness, because England was the cutting edge of 16th century civilization. This is lost on the woke, who enjoy every benefit of the Anglo-American miracle, but still resent English cultural constructs.
Imagine the USA if it had not been created in the image of English Protestants, who brought freedom of religious beliefs to their colonies; thereby welcoming Puritans in New England, Quakers in Pennsylvania, Huguenots in Virginia, Moravians in North Carolina – and even Catholics to Maryland – long before the 1st amendment was in place. South Carolina’s colonial charter expressly granted liberty of conscience to “Jews, heathens, and dissenters.”
To be sure, parts of America flirted with evangelical pressure toward Christianity, but imagine if the Spanish or Ottomans had framed the Constitution. The Spanish Inquisition (doom for Jews and Muslims) ended in 1834, forty-three years after the USA ratified the Bill of Rights. Every day, 13 Christians are killed and 12 Christian buildings are attacked outside the USA, primarily in Islamic Africa, Asia and the Middle East (source: Open Doors).
Every American, especially non-Christians, should be grateful for Mother England; because of the ten countries with the MOST religious freedom, five, including the USA, are English-speaking (source: US News).
Imagine the USA if English for-profit companies (the Virginia Company and the Plymouth Company of England) weren’t behind its settlement. All of Europe took guns, germs and steel to the New World, but England brought an unmatched blend of opportunity and organization – the seed corn of American exceptionalism – and this is no small matter.
I dismiss the sophistry of the 1619 Project because ancient Egypt and Rome ran on chattel slavery long before America was colonized. Suffice it to note that it was not slavery, but irrigation science that sustained Egypt, while advanced engineering and military science sustained the Roman Empire. If super cheap labor ensured economic dynamism, then why have US importers bypassed nearby Haiti ($350 average 2019 wage) to make goods in far away Vietnam ($2,235 average 2019 wage)?
Culture eats cheap labor for breakfast, and English culture ate its competition for lunch. The Magna Carta (1215) protected “winners” from unjust taxes and trials; thereby advancing the ideal of equal opportunity. England issued public stock (1606) and government bonds (1694) while most of the world still bartered. The Industrial Revolution began (1750) in England – and the US supplanted the UK as the top global economy – for a reason.
Imagine US education without Cambridge-educated John Harvard, who began our most consequential college in 1636, or Oxford-educated John Locke, propounder in 1693 of our ideals on public education. Imagine the civil rights movement (or OJ Simpson’s fate) without English jurisprudence. Imagine government anywhere in America without parliamentary order or English-style elections. In short, there is no USA without Mother England.
In 1664, the Dutch surrendered New York to England without a fight. France lost the French and Indian War in 1763 – and its mainland possessions – to England. The USA made the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, paying France $15 million. Spain sold Florida to the USA in 1819 for $5 million. English-speaking pioneers seized Texas from Mexico in 1836. Russia sold Alaska to the USA in 1867 for $7.2 million. In plain English, one culture alone out-fought and out-hustled the rest of the world.
The woke belittle English governmental and judicial constructs as “white-informed” or “race-driven” without offering other-informed alternatives. That’s because Japan was stuck in a feudal system until 1868, and the Ottoman Empire kept Sharia over Kanun (legislated law). Some advice to the cancel-culture crowd that are aggrieved by English constructs and traditions: you don’t miss your water, ’til your well runs dry. The rest of the world knows this.
In 1976, I began graduate school in England very much disillusioned by Watergate and the fall of Saigon. Thanks to two Oxford dons, Max Beloff and John C. Clarke, I realized how exceptional America is, because no other country ever had six men the caliber of Adams, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison and Washington in one place (Philadelphia) at the same time (1787). Carefully read AOC’s Green New Deal and you’ll realize she can’t carry Jefferson’s quill and paper.
Back to Hanson’s quote at the top. He’s a Hoover Institute fellow, keen commentator on current events, and spot on that Joy Behar (The View), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Joy Reid (MSNBC), Eugene Robinson (WaPo) or Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) will never ever be honored with a statue. Pantheons are for the truly consequential, such as Lincoln, Jefferson and Washington – not the truly aggrieved.
At best, Ms. Tlaib might move America to pity Palestine, but mostly she just hates on Jews. Because of Washington, she lives freely outside her “occupied” homeland. Jefferson ensured she’s free to be an out-spoken Muslim. Lincoln ensured she has equal rights and protections (Amendment XIV) and the right to vote (Amendment XV), despite her anti-Semitism and smears of America’s cops and courts.
No fan of Hillary here, but she’s right about Tlaib and her ilk burying the Democrat Party in 2022. And the great irony might be the hard-right’s last laugh: fighting this “stupid wokeness” is Donald Trump’s best path back into the Oval Office.
