Epic Television Miniseries: A Critical History Book

Overall, a very biased book that pretends not to be; it was written as a sulk toward Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, and it shows; while Zinn is open about his biases and actually reasonably objective, this book is not a history, but a collection of opinion pieces that glorifies the god that failed (democracy) and always abominates liberty in favor of it and jingoist nationalism.

Some particulars:

p. 50, false implication that the state has a right to some share of an individual's income.

p. 80-1, false attribution (editorializing) of belief to Jefferson that government was natural rather than artificial based on statement from the Declaration that says the opposite! (e.g., "instituted", "right" to institute new government, i.e., at their option, and only with consent of those wishing to be governed)

p. 88+ they generally do well explaining that Confederation was a good system and more free than the Constitution, which was carefully used by Hamilton - in Jefferson's absence - to begin aggregating and centralizing power (see DiLorenzo, Hamilton's Curse)

p. 90, the god of monarchy may have been displaced, but democracy turned out to be (in the words of Hoppe) a god that failed too, but the authors appear to be still blindly worshipping (see Hoppe, Democracy, the God that Failed)

p. 94, begins a reverence for "Whigs" that seems unsupportable given later events, particularly around the time of the civil war, where the Republican former Whigs (still loudly proclaiming their loyalty to Whig ideas), freed of Southern restraint, instituted a series of Whig programs to centralize government and allow it to control business and hence individuals through subsidies and massive regulation ("crony capitalism") (see DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln)

p. 95-96, more of the fallacy of government being "natural" being a position of the founders, especially Jefferson, a heresy he would have soundly rejected (see DiLorenzo, Hamilton's Curse)

p. 105, at least a (false) implication that state's-rights was a Southern-only position, and only to promote slavery (see Woods, Nullification)

p. 109, more bias toward Whig mercantilism by our authors

p. 110, the goals of the so-called "second phase of the American revolution", that is, centralization of power , were hardly noble

p. 112, the Constitution was never meant to be "an end to state sovereignty"; just delegation of some powers to a new agency; to claim so is to rewrite history, not retell it

p. 114, fairly laughable that right after correctly explaining the three-fifths compromise the authors state that it implied "designation of a human as only three-fifths of the value of another"; it was about representation, not value, and slaves didn't vote anyway: would it make slaves free or equal if each was counted as one person for representation?

p. 116, reference to nullification (of fugitive slave laws) without either the knowledge or honesty to name it as such

p. 116, well, it's nice to know that slavery wasn't an "important issue"

p. 116, the framers were certainly not "acting on the assumption that the Union was the highest good"; of them all, only Hamilton was to be of that opinion, and he didn't voice it in The Federalist, at least; authors insert their nationalistic cult editorializing again. Someone should tell them that "patriot" doesn't mean "lover of large centralized government"

p. 116, failed to note that the supremacy clause only applies to laws made in accordance with the constitution denotes continued flogging of the authors' nationalistic religion

p. 117, humility my (behind)

p. 120, history has shown Beard and the anti-federalists to have been correct in all their fears; since this book was writen in 2004, and not, as one might suppose from the professed naïveté of the authors, we see again distinct and distasteful bias toward the centralizers, increased government power, and hence increasingly infringed individual rights; and the claim that some signers of the Declaration or supporters or opponents of either Constitution or Confederation stood to lose out economically, or did so, does not remove the issue of self-interest, but merely rather shows it was not the only issue of importance for a few of them

p. 122, ah, the false and pernicious line that "we the people" meant that it was the people and not the colonies that separated; of course, that is entirely false; see DiLorenzo or Woods (or the Treaty of Paris) for further information

p. 124, Washington commits a false dilemma fallacy

p. 125, unfortunately any reader of DiLorenzo's Hamilton's Curse will see that the anti-federalists - Jeffersonians - did indeed lose the war, and the Hamiltons won and are winning

p. 126, hooray, he got something right - the 2nd amendment - but probably for the wrong reasons

p. 131-2, for "extraconstitutional" (notion of a cabinet), read unconstitutional, starting up the whole wretched empire of bureaucratic evil, pork, and avarice on the Potomac

p. 134, "Hamilton's foreign birth prohibited him from becoming president": thank God

p. 135, national "assumption" of state debts, no matter how unequal: the first socialist welfare program

Hamilton wanted a "permanent national debt", and despite the effects of said debt, the authors still worship him

p. 136, … used said debt to browbeat the rich of the day, and to create a national bank that eventually become the Federal Reserve, with all the wealth destruction so caused (95% of the value of the dollar since 1913)

"Hamilton had no illusions about the damages inherent in big government" - he just didn't care, or hoped to be the one holding the whip

Authors try to attribute the debt being paid down to Hamilton ("over 20 years…") when it took reversal of Hamilton by Jefferson and others to begin to pay down the debt! (more in Hamilton's Curse)

p. 137. "The public purse must supply the deficiency of private resources." (Hamilton). I.e., theft is OK when you don't get what you want. Fortunately that idiocy at least brought Madison over.

p. 138. Oh good, Hamilton's responsible for the whole implied powers nonsense, too. Why is the author defending him again?

p. 138. If the Whiskey Rebellion had been won, tyranny would have had to take a step back. Every war advances it; the War of Southern Independence being the next big one.

In general it seems Zinn tells the story, as objectively as he can, and Schweikart/Allen are writing one long editorial or position paper. It leaves a bad taste even when they're right.

p. 152. Authors make excuses for the Alien and Sedition Acts. Faugh!

p. 153. Those idiots then make a content-free false assertion that the Constitution "repudiated" the doctrines of the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions.

p. 160. Authors still fellating Hamilton and crediting him for Jefferson's successes.

p. 168. Burr should have a monument for saving the Republic (for a little while) from Hamilton's machinations (see DiLorenzo's book Hamilton's Curse). Hamilton a "brightest light"? What a joke. This is why it's hard to take this extended rant of a book seriously: too much biased opinion, rather than facts from good sources and allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions.

p. 168. It's not "pre-emptive" (i.e., initiatory aggression) war to respond to actual attacks.

p. 174. Misspelling of Niagara ("Niagra"). Ouch.

p. 178+ - skimmed only; not really worth my time; nothing new to learn facts-wise, and the authors' opinions are frequently odious and always unwelcome.

p. 182. Demonstrates continued lack of understanding of the federal system in praising McCulloch v. Maryland.

p. 210-1. Another failure to understand federalism.

p. 250. Yes, morality is above law, especially law not consented to: and you can bet the slaves did not consent.

p. 260. Hey, they get one thing right: "Ultimately slavery could only exist through the power of the state."

p. 299, baseless assertion that the South meant to "violate the Constitution no matter what" without any sort of explanation.

p. 300, baseless driveby assertion that secession was evil (and that all the "good" people stayed home from the southern elections). Got one thing right, though: most Southerners fought to defend their state and nation and to uphold constitutional principles, not for slavery.

p. 302, it is not just an exaggeration but an outright lie to claim that the War of Northern Aggression ("Civil War") was "only about slavery". Numerous historical facts must be ignored to make such a claim.

p. 303, as Block and others point out, secession is freedom of association and always available by right, even if those exercising their freedom are murdered by tyrants such as Lincoln.

p. 305, tyranny in Maryland, including arrest of state legislators and ignoring the supreme court; illegal creation of a new state from a state that Lincoln claimed never left the (hence involuntary) union

p. 312, Lincoln was not actually a good strategist at all; he tried to micromanage his generals, frustrating them exceedingly.

p. 313, whether called "hard war" or "total war", murdering, raping, pillaging noncombatants, and destroying their property, is evil; authors' whitewashing attempt fails.

p. 313, another whitewash: northerners did not go to war because "Southerners had broken the law" (as if the USA could define law in another nation), but to regain territory and tax revenue.

p. 324, O for the "good old days" when profligate murderous wars only cost $2 million per day!

p. 324, adding a tax to make people use the state's banknotes isn't "fixing a loophole"; it's just new theft; Lincoln and Chase can be blamed for much of the state's control of banking: a sad legacy

p. 326, desperation makes people stupid, sadly

p. 347, tried to gloss over Jefferson Davis not having done anything illegal either in war or independence

p. 347, finally, "Lincoln's Last Days"... the murderer and destroyer of liberty brought to justice!

p. 348, neither treason nor sedition make sense as accusation against CSA citizens who owed no allegiance to a foreign government

p. 349, certainly not; Lincoln shall life in infamy, not as a hero of any sort

p. 349, ah, the Lost Cause, which authors begin with slander ("perverted") and continue with slander ("Marxist", "Neo-Confederate")

To set a few things straight: it is not worth arguing whether secession was legal or constitutional; those concepts from inside the compact did not apply to a party leaving the compact.

Second, in the War of Northern Aggression (WoNA), there were many wrong parties and a few right. The Southern common soldiers, fighting to defend their homeland, were certainly in the right. One might also claim exception for draftees on either side, since they were threatened with death for desertion, depending on how practical it would have been for them to escape or if (for Southerners) they eventually came to fight in defense of their homes as well. Some of the Southern generals - Lee especially - were also clearly fighting to stop a foreign attack; in fact, I do not know if many or any were fighting to maintain slavery (that is not to deny its support among many of the politicians).

As to wrong, we have anyone in the north seeking to conquer, seeking to "teach a lesson" (as the redcoats tried to do but failed in the last American War for Secession), and so forth, to "maintain the union" as the euphemism had it, was certainly evil. It was also abundantly clear (e.g., in H. W. Crocker III's Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War) that the northern soldiers and generals were fighting because they were told to, and certainly not to free any slaves; any suggestion of that motivation is stillborn. But we also have, of course, wrong on the side of the slaveholders and any who would fight for slavery rather than in defense of their country, whose numbers we cannot determine, except to realize that most soldiers would be poor and own no slaves.

p. 350, while slavery was not "irrelevant" as a cause of war, there were certainly other important causes, the tariff - the national tax of the time, chiefly inflicted upon the South for improvements in the north - being one of them

p. 351, it is not important whether the US government was more oppressive than the CSA's government; that either was oppressive is bad enough; morality is not a relative game

p. 351, another jewel in the pigsty: the government did indeed perpetuate Jim Crow, where the market would not

p. 351, they are right but not as intended that the WoNA was about freedom: whether a people had - as Lincoln himself claimed - the right to self-determination or no; and by force of arms they proved that this people in this time did not have the power, but the right remains for ever

p. 352, the WoNA destroyed the USA as a voluntary union

p. 515, mostly skimming now even through all the stupid things the authors write to absolve Wilson of purposefully and unnecessarily dragging the US into the war, but their defense of propaganda is pretty laughable, and weak too (the defense is that it was "obviously accepted and enthusiastically received", which, dimwits, is the goal, so all that's saying is that the propaganda was successful)

Same page: more rationalization of infringements to liberty (speech and press). This is what happens when people with no principles attempt to write a "history" based on what they wanted to have happened.

p. 517, they gloss merrily over the reinstitution of slavery, called euphemistically "the draft"; they scarcely criticized the income tax; and if a Republican had passed it, they likely would have cheered; another hazard of the unprincipled is that they look at who does something, rather than the nature of the act (cf. Bush vs. Obama bombing brown people)

p. 523, well, finally, some mention of Britain and France's culpability, but way too late; and of Wilson's punitive treaty (giving the Allies anything they wanted so long as they joined his pet League of Nations). At least strokes finally clobbered that useless idiot.

p. 565, almost gets it - "if a task was valuable, someone in the private sector would have paid to have it done" except they add the perfidious "or ... citizens would have imposed taxes on themselves"; no, just no: the first part is all; citizens do not "impose taxes on themselves" - if they want to pay for something they will pay voluntarily, so taxes are imposed on the unwilling under the auspices of "democracy"; taxation, as we know, is theft

p. 567, unclear if he is calling the NRA programs justified or saying that they would be claimed to be justifiable by their advocates; but it looks like the former is being claimed, which is of course inaccurate; they did not get "the nation" (the individuals therein) out of the depression; they generally lengthened it or did nothing (see, e.g., Folsom)

p. 591, "Americans had little appreciation for a society steeped in a tradition of extreme nationalism," (really? This is meant to be a joke, right?) "reinforced through indoctrination in its public education system" (yeah, that'd never happen in the US) "and replete with military training of children from the time they could walk" (well, one for three ain't bad; instead of military training, military worship is ingrained).

p. 592, you can just about take it as gospel that in this book terms like "absurd" mean "absolutely true".

p. 596, disturbing that they continue to use the term "isolationist" after admitting earlier that they mean "non-interventionist".

p. 596, if people were so hot to get into the war that they were sneaking in, why was conscription used?

p. 599, authors defending propaganda because the sweet little Americans weren't bloodthirsty by nature (forgot the War of Northern Aggression chapter after writing it, did we?)

p. 685, these are not "public accommodations" - they are private businesses, or should be (e.g., in the cases of government-run transportation), and the part of the "Civil Rights Act" that coerced their proprietors (forced association such as the EEOC) was an infringement on freedom of association, and hence individual liberty

p. 700, violating most laws (unrelated to actual harm) should have no negative connotations for anyone, although these groups did do harm by destroying property

p. 702, authors show support for banning of books and speech

p. 720, world meddler not world leader

p. 720, "1975: ... BASIC computer language invented by Bill Gates", haha

p. 735, social conservatives may rightly decry no-fault divorce, but it is better than the alternative, that is, the state forcing people to stay together - denying freedom of association, or even freedom to exit a contract (first settling debts, of course, in some reasonable way based on contributions)

p. 816, no mention of the "PATRIOT" act - an extremely inconvenient infringement on liberty for neocons - let's just ignore it

p. 829, they conclude with faith in majoritanism and infringement of individual rights, unfortunately - would they had promoted liberty