Ernst Schrieber, commenting in the Protein wisdom post linked earlier, offers this New York Post article: In 1911 — in the wake of a notorious Gramercy Park blueblood murder-suicide — Sullivan sponsored the Sullivan Act, which mandated police-issued licenses for handguns and made it a felony to carry an unlicensed concealed weapon. This was the… Read More The Strange Birth of New York’s Gun Laws
Twitter is not for the slow of wit, nor for the rushed to judgement… It was desegregation that caused white America to believe that the government had stopped “protecting” them, and so they needed guns. The mind scarcely has the courage to boggle. Presumably white Americans slaughtered the Indians with racially-insensitive discourse. And that business… Read More Amanda Marcotte Don’t Know Much About History….UPDATED with More Gob-Smackedness
Daley Gator and I have a long exchange in the comments of his blog about the origins of the Civil War. A friendly Progressive and I discuss gun control in the wake of the Aurora Shooting. And the circle of life rolls on.
The usual round of books and look-backs on the War of 1812 commenceth. Austin Bay seizes upon a book on the naval war between the US and Britain: In 1812, Great Britain presented U.S. war planners with a very challenging strategic problem, one with contemporary irony given America’s 21st century military might: How do you… Read More Scrapping With the British Navy
In National Review of all places. (h/t: Memeorandum) I’m skipping over the “you know, the wogs never had it so good as under the Raj” part of the article, and deal merely with this: The colonists had the better of the argument with the British, but individual Americans did not have substantively more liberties at… Read More Conrad Black Says Some Rather Silly Things About the American Revolution
The Father of Science is not for the casual reader, and I salute anyone who can work his way through any of his books. This summary of the Politics is as good as any. Will I take the opportunity to link my own essay on Revolution, which include Aristotle’s thoughts from Book V? Yes, yes… Read More Unpacking Aristotle
It was our first official war, and we very nearly lost it. Today it is remembered chiefly for giving birth to the poem that became our national anthem. It wasn’t the most important war even then: Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, which occurred the same year, was far more significant. But there are some resonances that… Read More The War of 1812
Bring it, Caeser.
Francis Fukuyama discusses the “Bad Emperor” problem. I had a meeting a couple of years ago in Beijing with a mid-level official heading a Central Committee office, who told me over a long lunch that I could not possibly understand contemporary China without appreciating what a total disaster the Cultural Revolution was, and how the… Read More Bad Times For the Communist Dynasty
Fascinating post at Medieval Musings about the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, and especially the coronation mantle of the first King, Roger II. I always thought Robert Guiscard a fascinating character; he erased the distinction between nobleman and bandit and established a new realm in the wake of the Moorish retreat from southern Italy. Well, actually it… Read More When Sicily had Kings
Content Blues 