Dave Does History

It’s a common idea today that “we don’t trust the media.”

There’s almost a mantra that this is a relatively new thing, and that no matter what side of the political fence you happen to be ion, the “media” is automatically presumed to be fully serving as a water carrying propaganda arm of the other side.

In recent days, we have seen another story that reignites this debate. Just three days after the Dobbs ruling by the Supreme Court, the Indiana Star reported that women were coming from Ohio for “reproductive care.”

Among the patients referred to the Indiana clinic was a 10 year old incest victim.

Or… was there?

In the early weeks of 1776, Independence fever was fanned by the publication of the most influential and best selling book ever published in America. Thomas Paine had arrived in the Colonies about a year earlier with a letter of introduction from Ben Franklin and immediately and set out to continue his legacy of failure at everything he tried.

Until he took the ideas of the enlightenment and put pen to pap and produced a book that soon had every person in the colonies discussing a single idea: Independence.

That fever led villages, towns, counties all over the colonies declaring their Independence from the King. And it led the Continental congress to act, and on July 4, 1776, they would issue the Declaration that was – and still is – heard around the world. They founded a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated tot he proposition that all men are created equal… an idea to which the men who wrote those words knew they weren’t living.

But they also believed in the future, Americans would find a way to preserve and expand those ideas...

A few months ago we and a caller who was of the opinion that “only a few” guys actually “did anything” at the 1787 Constitutional Convention. The idea is one that many people might have, simply because they just don’t know anything about anybody except the few names that bubble to the top of the historical bottle. But if you uncork that bottle, you get a wonderful bouquet of ideas and of people that you have never heard anything about before.

Sitting in that room in Philadelphia was a man who was one of the calming and guiding hands on the tiller. When the “four masters” gathered as the committee of style*, it was this man, William Samuel Johnson, who chaired the committee that would oversee the final draft of the Constitution.

He was a man who had come late to the American Revolution. In fact, he had once been arrested by the Patriots for communicating with the enemy. Once American Independence was declared, he was fully  on board with his new country. It shouldn’t have been a surprise. He came from a legacy of inventing new ways of doing things.

In fact, you could make the argument that it was his father who actually invented America…

*Gouverneur Morris, James Madison, Rufus King and Alexander Hamilton

Links:

America Begins: How Samuel Johnson Created America (JAR)

Yesterday was Flag day, and I carried out my standard activities for the day, which includes watching the film, “The Sand Pebbles.”

I first saw the film as a senior in high school. I remain convinced that it was shown to our English class specifically because I was known to be joining the Navy and the teacher thought that I would enjoy it. For the record, I didn’t “enjoy it.” I loved it.  It is in my top favorite films, and, as I said, it is a Flag Day tradition for me.

This week, as I watched the film  – long ago memorized – I came to a strange realization. If my beloved English teacher (of blessed memory) showed 16 or 17 year old me this film in school today, all hell would break lose…

On June 14, 1937, the state of Pennsylvania did something that to date, no other state has decided to do. In declaring June 14th a state holiday, Pennsylvania was making a statement that – in our times – has proved to be controversial and perhaps even quaint.

But the whole thing stated long before there was a Colin Kapernick or even a State of Pennsylvania. It stated a few days after the battles of Lexington and Concord, in the halls of the Pennsylvania State House.

There the second Continental Congress took its seat, and began to guide the nation through two of the most remarkable years in all of human history…

In the late 1930’s, the Iowa Hawkeyes had endured years of being a perennial doormat of a football team. But in 1937, a new student-athlete enrolled at the school, and quickly became the heart and soul of a rapidly improving team. By 1939, the Iowa Hawkeyes were the #3 team in the country, finishing 6-1-1, upsetting Notre Dame. Their starting halfback easily won the Heisman Trophy, and proceeded to give one of the most remarkable acceptance speeches in the history of the award.

The player would go on to decline to play professional sports – despite wildly rich offers to do so – and many people were convinced that his destiny lay in pubic service to the nation. Many who knew him believed that the twenty-one year old law student was the nations great hope for the Presidency in a few short years. His commitment to the nation, to his faith and his school was inspiring, and no one was surprised when he left school to enlist in the Navy. It was assumed that he would be every bit as committed to his service there as he had been for Iowa’s sports teams.

And he was…

In November of 2013, the nation was “more divided than we have ever been before!” The issue at hand was healthcare, and specifically the lawsuit that was headed to the District Court over Obamacare.

Odd as it seems today, at the time it was NOT at all clear what any Court would rule on the matter. And on the DC Circuit, where the case was headed, there were three seats open. The Senate had been unable to confirm President Obama’s three nominees as the democrats could not overcome the cloture rule to end debate. This left the DC Circuit court in an odd position of being almost equally split between GOP appointed Judges and Democrat appointed Judges which really put the matter up in the air.

At just this moment, onto the stage of history walked Harry Reid, the senate Majority Leader, who announced that there would be a change tot he rules, and the cloture rule was being “nuked” – at least as far as these three nominees went.

Oh… there was great wailing and gnashing of teeth on the right, while the left rejoiced and proclaimed eternal victories yet to come because of this brave and bold move by the Majority Leader.

Less than half a decade later, there was another round of weeping and gnashing of teeth. This time, things were reversed and there was much condemnation of those who decided to nuke the rules.

What happens if Harry Reid doesn’t invoke the nuclear option? What happens if Edmund G Ross decided to listen to threats made against him and not vote his conscience on May 16, 1868?

Who?

You know… Edmund G Ross, Major, USV, 11th Kansas Volunteer Cavalry… and Senator from the great State of Kansas… That Edmund G. Ross…

In April of 1917 the US Government had a problem. It had just declared war on Imperial Germany, less than six months after re-electing President Wilson who’s entire campaign theme was “He Kept Us Out of the War…”

The problem wasn’t the political flip-flop, but rather the fact that roughly a third of all American Citizens were either immigrants from or descended from immigrants from… you guessed it… Imperial Germany. Those American Citizens, including one who lived in Hollywood, were not convinced that this “War to Save Democracy” was anything other than a war to destroy their homelands and cultures.

The President pondered what to do about the fact that support among the citizenry for this war was tepid, at best. He needed to whip up a war fighting spirit and furor that would carry Americans across the sea, to stand in Paris, and say those words, “Lafayette, nous…

Dave Bowman joins Bill Mick to close out our Tuesday with our weekly trip through the Wayback Machine as we get his unique perspectives on history.

Today…just what makes history and who are the players?

April 19, 1775 was the day that the American Revolution ended.

I know that sounds odd, since it was the day that he British tried to seize the Colonial military stores at Concord, and the shot heard ’round the world was fired. But the reality is that was the moment when the American Revolution ended and the war which was its consequence began…