The Value of History
Many people think history is a boring, irrelevant topic. They are
sadly mistaken. History is among the most important subjects a
person can study, and it's extremely relevant to your every day
life. Here are some things to consider:
- "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat
it." There's a reason why you don't touch a hot stove several
times a day. Been there, done that, and it hurts. Ditto for the
great lessons of history. An example is the Great Depression,
which FDR created by vastly increasing the federal debt (we were
emerging from a recession at the time he started the spending
spree). After three years (at the time of this writing) of
Obama's debt acceleration, we can see that it's still a very bad
idea.
- The winners write the history. In the 1850s, the northern
members of CONgress were violating the Constitution and
parliamentary procedure. This behavior effectively
disenfranchised those living in the southern states. So, the
South seceded. Once that happened, the North invaded the South.
So began the War of Northern Aggression, which was a war over
secession. It was not a civil war, because a civil war is one in
which insurgents try to take over the means of governing. Yet
today, this war is called the Civil War. Even though that is
grossly inaccurate. And there's a purpose for that lie. Those
who have taken the time to understand the history know what the
purpose is.
- History is much more than dates of wars and other major
events. A true student of history enjoys a fascinating process
of discovery, and comes away with lessons applicable to current
events.
- In its broadest sense, "history" isn't just what's gone in
with a country or civilization. For example, you can log into
your credit card provider's site and see your payment history.
If you sell a car, the buyer will probably want to know its
maintenance history. If you have a fiancé, you will want to know
that person's financial, romantic, and legal history before
joining your assets. When you think of history as "knowing
about" then the idea of history goes from being a droll
recitation of meaningless facts to understanding how the present
came to be.
- As you may have surmised from the previous point, history
isn't always something you find in mildewing old books. Recent
history is often crucial to know. Consider, for example, what
happened in 2008. The USA was reeling from eight years of debt
increase resulting from chronic overspending that was not only
illegal but immoral.
So in the Presidential pseudo-election of that year, the two
candidates representing the D and R wings of The Party (which
was formed during Reconstruction, another important point we
learn from history) were both big spenders. But Obama was
especially bad. Of all senators, he had the worst spending
record. This record was freely available via the National
Taxpayers Union, www.ntu.org,
which keeps a history of who spent what and helps you understand
it by grading each member of CONgress. Obama had an F rating.
Yet, he became the President.
The result? By ignoring the history of his track record, we
ended up with an even bigger spender than the one who spent us
into economic misery. We went from the frying pan into the fire.
Three years later (at the time of this writing), we have
unemployment and other economic markers at levels that are
actually worse than during FDR's Depression.
The value of history is now something we can actually put a
number to. The national debt now exceeds the GDP of all of the
entire world's nations combined, more than three times over! All
debt has carrying costs, and thanks to Obama those costs include
millions of job losses.
Don't let anyone ever tell you history isn't important. |
