Heather Cox Richardson self-identifies as a “historian” and works as a Professor of History at Boston College. Her newsletter is called Letters From An American, which sounds as anodyne as iodine. This earns her the benefit of the doubt as I examine her review of the FBI threat assessment document.
On the other hand, I always bear in mind the words of the great Talmudic genius, Rabbi Chaim Zimmerman (1914-1995) who, among other distinctions, was my late father's Talmud teacher in 12th grade at Rabbi Jacob Joseph School on the Lower East Side of New York, circa 1946. He was also the great-uncle of my brother Aaron's wife in New Jersey.
A student asked him: “Can we believe the writings of historians about bygone eras?”
He responded: “If the newspapers lie today about what happened yesterday, what chance is there that a historian will tell the truth about times deep in the past?”
He meant that as a philosophical point. The longer ago a thing occurred, the less fresh the evidence, the more latitude that leaves for reinterpretation. And the more temptation it provides for those disposed to lie about the past in an effort to cast it as prelude for something one supports in the present.
Yet this critique also assumes bad faith, using today's lying reporters as an object lesson in the inability of honest people to keep news reporters reporting news and, by extension, to keep history writers writing history.
But even in the world of good faith, there is room for both factual error and illogical deduction. We can apply Zimmerman's point obliquely by noting that today's honest researcher of history still has to use contemporaneous accounts as his primary source material.
If the dishonest reporter lied back then, the honest historian will be forced to relay lies now. Pretty much limited to reporting the record, it is hard for him to outsmart those who have already “fertilized” the field with loads of manure.
With all this alertness reinforced and pre-considered, we read with interest Professor Richardson's newsletter, beginning with this observation:
“The Department of Homeland Security today issued a bulletin warning, ‘Lone offenders and small groups motivated by a range of ideological beliefs and personal grievances continue to pose a persistent and lethal threat to the Homeland.' Both domestic extremists and foreign terrorists are using online extremist messaging and calls for violence to motivate supporters to launch attacks.”
Contrast this to the news article of the same day by Eric Lendrum in American Greatness. The headline reads: DHS Warns of ‘Heightened Threat' of Attacks on Churches and Cops Ahead of 2024 Election. The first paragraph reads: ‘The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued a warning of a “heightened threat environment” including possible attacks against such institutions as churches and the police, as the 2024 election draws closer.”
Hmmm. Both are reading the same report, right? Now, I am no fan of DHS reports and would not cite them as authoritative. But I can't fault this element of it, the fact that they warn particularly that churches and police are targets. That piece got lost in the heather. Consequently… to be continued…
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
READ NEXT: Teen Magazine Vilifies Republican Stance On Controversial Curriculum
Well, from recent reports it sounds as if right-wingers are the ‘terrorists’ of choice today. Any right-thinking individual can see that the real threat comes from the New Left, who will do anything, like the Marxists, to neutralize and destroy any perceived opponent. Like the Bolsheviks and Hitler’s brownshirts, they are up to any outrage, illegal and/or immoral. Because they know no law and they know no morality. Marxists worship one thing only: POWER. Then, whenever they get get it, they’ve no earthly idea what to do with it.
As every election cycle goes by and we don’t purge the left wing radicals from our government, the harder it’s going to be to get rid of them and get control of our country again. They want to destroy our constitutional republic and install their version of a socialist government, with them retaining the power of course.