I am guessing you are tired of looking at bird pictures. If so, you are in luck because tonight’s post is a book recollection. My brother gave me this book as a gift (possibly Xmas or my birthday, I can’t remember), but in either case, I actually finished reading Michael Medved’s book awhile back. Now that the birds are done for a bit, I figured I better wrap up the recollection before I forgot everything. I was actually not familiar with Michael who apparently has a conservative talk show. The premise of the book is his attempt to refute some common misconceptions (translated liberal distortions of truth) about my country. It appears my brother has me correctly profiled since I did enjoy this read. It was more like a fire hydrant of interesting information regarding America’s past. My weakest subject is Geography (unless it is on a RISK board game). A close second has to be American history – in complete contrast to my academic success in Mr. Beagles high school History class where I achieved an A+ (amazing the amount of effort you are willing to put in a class when the instructor goes the extra mile to make it fun and interesting.
A few of the refuted lies hit close to home. The topic of America being founded on the genocide of Native Americans was relevant based on my university removing the most reverent symbol to American Indians that I am aware of (it was NOT a mascot, apparently it is okay if you buy them off – Florida State and explain to me how the professional teams don’t seem to get bothered by the so called activists – Washington Redskins and Cleveland Indians come to mind). As a result I will never give another penny to my alma mater and will continue to display the honored Chief Illiniwek. Another topic regarded America’s guilt and supposed need to reconcile for past slavery. I appreciate him taking on this sensitive topic and coming from the Land of Lincoln, I am astutely aware of efforts that were taken to end this activity. I often find it interesting that people want to harp on the past without giving any credit to efforts that set the slaves free – America went to war over this and jeopardized the union of states to accomplish it. The other very relative topic concerned reaffirmation that America’s founding fathers were immersed in faith. My brother and I have had many discussions on this topic and both agree that the recent changes in coin design are covert attempts to rid our currency of the word “God”. The latest attempt at putting the In God We Trust on the coin edge is simply so it will get rubbed off and then slowly desensitize us to the point we don’t notice it missing in the next design.
Overall, I thought it was a very good read. I did not agree with all of his opinions, but to his credit, he did an excellent job of backing up his statements and supporting his opinions. Follow the jump for the list of things that stood out from the read.
