HYSTERICAL HISTORIANS by Larry Stout
HYSTERICAL HISTORIANS by Larry Stout, 4/27/08
I recently spent $55.00 filling my gas tank, and it occurred to me that my first car did not cost that much. Everyone I know is worried these days. My sister-in-law is about to have her job outsourced to Mexico. A precious woman in our church could not afford to go the hospital, and when she finally was convinced, it turned out she has advanced uterine cancer. Is it any wonder that when a pollster comes along and asks, “Do you think the country is heading in the right direction?” that eighty percent of the American population answered “No.” No surprise there.
But recently 109 professional historians were polled in an informal survey conducted by the History News Network. It found that 98 percent of them believe that Bush's presidency has been a failure, while only about 2 percent see it as a success. Not only that, more than 61 percent of the historians say the current presidency is the worst in American history. This was a surprise to me. I never realized there were so many hysterical historians.
When I studied as an undergraduate, I came to realize that being a true historian was hard work. Their job was to provide perspective through their understanding of the past. They would examine primary documents and sources and find underlying causes that led to certain sequences of events. They were able to answer the riddles of why certain events happened as they did. Good historians are able to provide insight – great ones uncover truths never realized before.
Today, though, historians are apparently nothing more than political shills. The reasons given for their low ratings of President Bush were invading Iraq, "tax breaks for the rich," and alienating many nations around the world. This is history? It sounds more like Democratic Party talking points.
But for argument sake, let us look at these points. Was invading Iraq a mistake? Perhaps it was, but again, it will take at least another decade or so before this really bears out one way or the other. Had Saddam Hussein remained in power, would the world be safer than it is now? This requires speculation and today, reasonable people disagree, but I believe more sober historians in the future will have difficulty answering that in the positive. Let us suppose, however, that Iraq was a futile effort that resulted in some 4000 American lives lost. How does this compare with Vietnam? In that conflict, the USA lost some 58,000 lives and the end result was a totalitarian Communist regime. No objective historian could truly view Iraq as worst than Vietnam.
What exactly were “tax breaks for the rich” which were such a demerit to Bush’s legacy? Yes, there have been tax breaks, but these have been across the board. A married couple making $50,000 paid $5,085 in taxes under Clinton and $4012 under Bush, those making $75,000 paid $9,426 under Clinton and $7762 under Bush, and those making $125,000 paid $23,426 under Clinton and $19,462 under Bush (Information source: www.taxfoundation.org). Anyone with a modest intellect should notice that the tax rates are proportional – so yes, it is true that those who make more will also receive the biggest tax breaks. (I am one of those who have seen less taxes, but I can assure you that I do not see myself as “rich.”)
Did these break the economy? No, actually the opposite was true. The dot.com bubble had burst in 2000, and by the third quarter of 2000, the GDP declined by an annual rate of 0.5 percent. The economy was faltering, the markets were falling, and economic growth was going backwards. All of this took place before George W. Bush took the oath of office for the first time.
Through a combined effort of decreasing taxes and increasing trade, the economy turned around under the Bush Administration. Up until the recent collapse in the housing market (caused more by the Federal Reserve Board than any administration policies), the American economy created more jobs than all the countries in the Euro zone and Japan combined, and the economy grew faster than that of any major industrialized nation in the world. Those same tax breaks that the historians saw as a black mark are what helped fuel one of the longest periods of economic prosperity in America’s history. (Yes, that comes as a surprise to many, but it happens to be history).
Finally, what about the issue that USA has alienated nations around the world? From the perspective of someone who has lived abroad for over a decade and a half, I can assure anyone that America Bashing is the world’s favorite sport. The last time America was truly admired was during the Marshall Plan in the 1950s, and even then there was a sense from many Europeans that this was the minimum that the United States could do. When Ronald Reagan put Pershing missiles in Europe in the 1980s, there were riots and demonstrations much worse than those over the Iraq War. Many popular pundits at the time felt that the dumb American cowboy occupying the Oval Office had made a great mistake. History showed that by this action, Reagan guaranteed Western European’s security, and this in turn had a profound impact on future events in Eastern Europe and the USSR.
I remember in 1990 going through every news journal from the previous year and trying to find one that had predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall. I did the same thing in 1992 to find anyone that predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union. I could not find a single journal or magazine article, even from academic sources, that saw those events transpiring before they happened.
In short, I must admit my extreme disappointment in those 109 historians, who I would think of as historians in name only. Perhaps President George W. Bush will turn out to have been a failure as president, but no one could tell that today. I personally believe that President Bush is a man with strong Christian convictions who has tried to lead as best he knew how. The final verdict on the man is one that is far beyond us all.
I recently spent $55.00 filling my gas tank, and it occurred to me that my first car did not cost that much. Everyone I know is worried these days. My sister-in-law is about to have her job outsourced to Mexico. A precious woman in our church could not afford to go the hospital, and when she finally was convinced, it turned out she has advanced uterine cancer. Is it any wonder that when a pollster comes along and asks, “Do you think the country is heading in the right direction?” that eighty percent of the American population answered “No.” No surprise there.
But recently 109 professional historians were polled in an informal survey conducted by the History News Network. It found that 98 percent of them believe that Bush's presidency has been a failure, while only about 2 percent see it as a success. Not only that, more than 61 percent of the historians say the current presidency is the worst in American history. This was a surprise to me. I never realized there were so many hysterical historians.
When I studied as an undergraduate, I came to realize that being a true historian was hard work. Their job was to provide perspective through their understanding of the past. They would examine primary documents and sources and find underlying causes that led to certain sequences of events. They were able to answer the riddles of why certain events happened as they did. Good historians are able to provide insight – great ones uncover truths never realized before.
Today, though, historians are apparently nothing more than political shills. The reasons given for their low ratings of President Bush were invading Iraq, "tax breaks for the rich," and alienating many nations around the world. This is history? It sounds more like Democratic Party talking points.
But for argument sake, let us look at these points. Was invading Iraq a mistake? Perhaps it was, but again, it will take at least another decade or so before this really bears out one way or the other. Had Saddam Hussein remained in power, would the world be safer than it is now? This requires speculation and today, reasonable people disagree, but I believe more sober historians in the future will have difficulty answering that in the positive. Let us suppose, however, that Iraq was a futile effort that resulted in some 4000 American lives lost. How does this compare with Vietnam? In that conflict, the USA lost some 58,000 lives and the end result was a totalitarian Communist regime. No objective historian could truly view Iraq as worst than Vietnam.
What exactly were “tax breaks for the rich” which were such a demerit to Bush’s legacy? Yes, there have been tax breaks, but these have been across the board. A married couple making $50,000 paid $5,085 in taxes under Clinton and $4012 under Bush, those making $75,000 paid $9,426 under Clinton and $7762 under Bush, and those making $125,000 paid $23,426 under Clinton and $19,462 under Bush (Information source: www.taxfoundation.org). Anyone with a modest intellect should notice that the tax rates are proportional – so yes, it is true that those who make more will also receive the biggest tax breaks. (I am one of those who have seen less taxes, but I can assure you that I do not see myself as “rich.”)
Did these break the economy? No, actually the opposite was true. The dot.com bubble had burst in 2000, and by the third quarter of 2000, the GDP declined by an annual rate of 0.5 percent. The economy was faltering, the markets were falling, and economic growth was going backwards. All of this took place before George W. Bush took the oath of office for the first time.
Through a combined effort of decreasing taxes and increasing trade, the economy turned around under the Bush Administration. Up until the recent collapse in the housing market (caused more by the Federal Reserve Board than any administration policies), the American economy created more jobs than all the countries in the Euro zone and Japan combined, and the economy grew faster than that of any major industrialized nation in the world. Those same tax breaks that the historians saw as a black mark are what helped fuel one of the longest periods of economic prosperity in America’s history. (Yes, that comes as a surprise to many, but it happens to be history).
Finally, what about the issue that USA has alienated nations around the world? From the perspective of someone who has lived abroad for over a decade and a half, I can assure anyone that America Bashing is the world’s favorite sport. The last time America was truly admired was during the Marshall Plan in the 1950s, and even then there was a sense from many Europeans that this was the minimum that the United States could do. When Ronald Reagan put Pershing missiles in Europe in the 1980s, there were riots and demonstrations much worse than those over the Iraq War. Many popular pundits at the time felt that the dumb American cowboy occupying the Oval Office had made a great mistake. History showed that by this action, Reagan guaranteed Western European’s security, and this in turn had a profound impact on future events in Eastern Europe and the USSR.
I remember in 1990 going through every news journal from the previous year and trying to find one that had predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall. I did the same thing in 1992 to find anyone that predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union. I could not find a single journal or magazine article, even from academic sources, that saw those events transpiring before they happened.
In short, I must admit my extreme disappointment in those 109 historians, who I would think of as historians in name only. Perhaps President George W. Bush will turn out to have been a failure as president, but no one could tell that today. I personally believe that President Bush is a man with strong Christian convictions who has tried to lead as best he knew how. The final verdict on the man is one that is far beyond us all.
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