NOTE: Those who do not wish to learn from history should not read this essay. That's the very best way to remain ignorant. And those who learn from it should pass it along. That's the very best way to insure against tyranny...
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In 1549 Diego DeLanda, Pope-appointed, Spanish-born Archbishop of the Peninsula of the Yucatan, arrived on the shores of Guatemala.
He and his men were immediately welcomed by Pakal, the Mayan peoples' king, as gods. Being White, and averaging nearly 7" taller than the Mayans at the time, one could understand why. DeLanda's guys kidnapped Pakal and held him for a ransom in gold equal to his weight. When the "indigenous personages" coughed up that much gold, the Spaniards decided they really meant twice his weight. And then when they complied, thrice his weight.
Once the Spaniards had relieved the Mayans of all of their (available) gold, they killed Pakal anyway. For that's what folks acting in the name of God do, apparently. And then, having discovered that the "heathens" knew several times more about astronomy and mathematics and the sciences and nearly everything else than did they; they had to destroy it! It must be the work of the Devil! So, not wishing such information to escape their clutches, they burned it. All of the Mayan codices, the scrolls of their glyphs describing everything about their lives, were destroyed. Thousands of them! All of the knowledge they had accumulated down through the ages was gone. Twelve hundred-plus years of taming their environment. The Men of God made sure of it...
DeLanda had a good teacher as to how to meet and greet the natives. When the Romans captured Alexandria from Queen Cleopatra, they burned all of the books from the Library at Ephesus (I've been there!). Some 300,000 of them, we're told. For more than a dozen years, Cleo had demanded all the written materials from all the ships visiting her harbor at Alexandria, as it was the principle seaport of the time, and then had her scribes copy them. Furiously. And then she read them. All of them! She was a pretty smart cookie, one must say. It's been reported she spoke and read nine languages, including Egyptian (she was Greek), was accomplished at medicine, the arts, plus she was a damn fine politician. She kept the peace in this volatile region for her entire reign.
But since the Egyptians knew oodles more than the Romans, about nearly everything, once again, that oversight had to be rectified; they burned their books.
When the Taliban swept over Afghanistan 20 years ago, among the first things they did was to burn all the books. I can still recall the images of a roasting bonfire consuming all their knowledge, right outside the famous Treasury in Jordan. Gotta' keep the dumbasses dumb, I guess.
See any similarities between the actions of the Conquistadors and irrational, modern-day Leftists? And before them, the Romans? No? How about the statue of Jefferson that the members of the City Council of Manhattan just voted to remove from the Public Library? A statue that had been there for more than 100 years. A statue of one of our Founding Fathers. Jefferson. Why? Because like many in his day, he owned slaves. So he must be therefore be erased...
It appears Leftist rules require us to judge those of the past by the folkways and mores of the present. Presumably, one can only assume, in an effort to control the events of the future.
And the House of Representatives has voted, at the instigation of their Speaker, San Fran Nan Pelosi, to remove all statues of men who'd owned slaves from our Statuary Hall in the Capitol Building. Including nine Founding Fathers.
Including George Washington.
San Franpoopco's City Council not only voted to remove all the Founder's statues, they wanted to erase their names! As if they had never existed!
And only a couple of weeks back the city council of Richmond, VA, removed and hid the statue of General Robert E. Lee which had stood in the center of town for more than 100 years. This, the Capitol of the Confederacy, decides to erase General Lee. Their general. They won't tell us where they hid the statue, BTW. Perhaps they think maybe somebody will want to re-erect it someday...
Erasing yesterday. That's the ticket! If yesterday doesn't agree with your conception of what today ought to be, just change it! Erase it! Paint it over! Remove it! Or, like DeLanda and the Roman emperor and the Taliban, just burn it!
Like the Marxists when they took over Russia, and the communists when they took power in China, and the thugs who seized control in Cuba, and in North Korea, and in Venezuela, and in so many other places, the first thing the authoritarian socialist pricks try to do on their first day is to erase yesterday. Right after they take away all their weapons, of course (can't have them putting up a fight, now can we?). And to then rebuild knowledge from today forward. Can't have those plebes checking back to see how it was done yesterday, now can we?
What was that famous quote? "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." They haven't...and we are.
- George Santayana
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