One of my regular commenters asked, in a previous thread, “If everyone was truly released from the shackles of religion, and got beyond the false moral codes imposed on them, would society collapse in a heap of nihilism?” This question needs a longer answer than will fit in a reply comment.
The shortest summary is “No!” The less short answer is: “No, because religious moral codes are epiphenomenal.” And it is on point to add that the question reveals serious ignorance of the actual traits of most religions over most of history.
I’ll address the historical point first. The commenter’s question was framed from within the assumptions of one particular family of religions: the Judeo/Christian/Islamic tradition, which are more succinctly describable as the bastard offspring of Zoroastrian dualism. In this family, “religion” bundles cosmology, theology, and morality into a single total system designed primarily to enforce norms by programming the believer with an internalized guilt machine.
Because the dominant religions of the modern West are all derived from this group, it is difficult for Westerners to understand how bizarre and exceptional these religions are in a broader context. Most religions are not total systems. Most religions do not tie morality to cosmology. In fact, most religions have very little to say about morality at all!
Consider, for example, an Altaic shaman. It’s not his job to pronounce on who should sleep with who, or to tell people that theft is wrong. It’s not even his job to tell people that they must worship Tengri or Kara-han; dealing with the gods is his specialty, thank you. His job combines aspects of psychologist and medic with a bit of divination. The closest analog of “morality”, in his culture, is a set of inherited customs and taboos which is reinforced by explanatory myths but not generated by them and not really dependent on them. The closest equivalent of religious structures about right and wrong is an elaborate set of rules about ritual purity and impurity. In the jargon of the field, his religion is an orthopraxy rather than an orthodoxy.
Over most human cultures in most human history, “religion” has been much more like Altaic shamanism than like Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. Er, so why didn’t these cultures “collapse in a heap of nihilism”? The same question actually applies to modern religions outside the post-Zoroastrian family. Buddhism and Hinduism, for example, are almost completely unconcerned with “morality”. Hinduism is organized around ritual purity and impurity; Buddhism’s quest for merit is about liberation of the self from attachments, not about duties one owes to God or others.
Eric S. Raymond, “If God is dead, is anything permissible?”, Armed and Dangerous, 2010-02-10.
December 22, 2020
QotD: The foundational weirdness of Judeo/Christian/Islamic religions
December 21, 2020
Lee Metford MkI: Great Britain’s First Magazine Rifle
Forgotten Weapons
Published 14 Sep 2020http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
https://www.floatplane.com/channel/Fo…
Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forg…
The British went into the 1880s with plans to adopt the Enfield-Martini as its new rifle, a single shot Martini-action rifle with essentially a sidesaddle of ready-access cartridges on the side of the receiver. It would be chambered for a new .402 caliber black powder cartridge. However, the Small Arms Committee begin looking into the possibility of a magazine rifle instead, and trials of 40+ different systems found three worth considering: a Lee rifle with a box magazine, a Lee rifle with a Bethel Burton magazine, and the Owen Jones rifle. As these trials were concluding, the discovery of smokeless powder threw a wrench in the plans.
After study of the Swiss 7.5×53.5mm cartridge, the British opted to develop a small bore .30 caliber round themselves, which would be the .303 British. This round, originally loaded with compressed black powder before the use of cordite, rendered the plans for the .402 caliber Enfield Martini obsolete. What would have been a justifiable territorial and reserve rifle alongside a .402 magazine rifle was now an orphan. With the new rifle in .303 caliber, a .402 single shot Martini was just an added logistical overhead. Instead, existing Martini rifles would eventually be converted to .303 British.
At any rate, the Lee rifle and magazine were chosen as ideal, and in 1888 a batch was made for field trials across the British Empire. Widely positive reports led to its formal adoption and the beginning of production in 1889 as the Magazine Rifle MkI – later retroactively renamed the Lee Metford MkI and colloquially known as the Long Lee. The example we have today has two very rare original features; an intact manual safety and Lewes pattern sights. Both of these would be quickly removed or replaced in service, and a Mk I* and MkII pattern followed shortly after the adoption of the MkI.
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85740
QotD: The evolving style of John Coltrane
Coltrane’s late style emerged in his 1960s quartets. Now leading and writing for his own group, and newly clean of drink and drugs, he was finally able to pursue his vision and the possibilities of the music to the limits of form and expression — and ultimately beyond both. The further he went, the more ambitious and less accessible the music became, until it was incomprehensible to almost all of his audience and even to some of his closest collaborators. In the logic of modernism, further means better. But “faster” and “louder” aren’t necessarily better, so why should “further” be the supreme critical value? To judge Coltrane’s late-style art is, in an important sense, to judge modernism itself, and especially American modernism.
Dominic Green, “John Coltrane and the End of Jazz”, The Weekly Standard, 2018-08-26.
December 20, 2020
The Japanese are unstoppable everywhere – WW2 – 121 – December 19, 1941
World War Two
Published 19 Dec 2020The Japanese make gains in Malaya, Burma, Hong Kong, Borneo, and the Philippines. The Allies also have trouble in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, where they are beginning to seriously suffer from a lack of capital ships. The Soviet Red Army is advancing, though, and Stalin takes personal control of planning for the upcoming counteroffensive, while Adolf Hitler takes personal control of the German Army.
Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tvFollow WW2 day by day on Instagram @ww2_day_by_day – https://www.instagram.com/ww2_day_by_day
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sourcesWritten and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Miki Cackowski
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)Colorizations by:
Norman Stewart – https://oldtimesincolor.blogspot.com/
Dememorabilia – https://www.instagram.com/dememorabilia/
Julius Jääskeläinen – https://www.facebook.com/JJcolorization/
Carlos Ortega Pereira, BlauColorizations, https://www.instagram.com/blaucolorizations
Spartacus Olsson
Daniel Weiss
Mikołaj UchmanSources:
Bundesarchiv
IWM MH 26392, WPN 298, K 2204, FL 20432, A 12126, A 9257, FL 1203, E 3469E
Mil.ru
Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
Picture of Mark Young, courtesy of National Portrait GallerySoundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
Phoenix Tail – “At the Front”
Reynard Seidel – “Deflection”
Skrya – “First Responders”
Hakan Eriksson – “Epic Adventure Theme 4”
Philip Ayers – “The Unexplored”
Max Anson – “Ancient Saga”
Rannar Sillard – “March Of The Brave 9”
Johannes Bornlof – “Death And Glory 2”
Johan Hynynen – “Dark Beginning”
Fabien Tell – “Last Point of Safe Return”Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
December 19, 2020
History-Makers: Ibn Khaldun
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 18 Dec 2020Big thanks to our friend Al-Muqaddimah for his help with this video. The look of this video’s maps is an homage to his wonderful mapmaking style. For more Islamic History, check out his channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf0O…
From the coast of Tunisia across the Straits of Gibraltar, over the Atlas Mountains, and east to the Nile of Egypt, Ibn Khaldun had certainly seen history at work. That experience came in handy as he wrote The Muqaddimah, a genre-defining masterwork of Historiography — not just retelling the events of the past, but explaining their causes and effects through the lens of human behavior and sociology.
SOURCES & Further Reading: Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography by Irwin, The Muqaddimah
This video was edited by Sophia Ricciardi AKA “Indigo”. https://www.sophiakricci.com/
Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.
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December 18, 2020
The Warlords of the United Nations – WW2 Special
World War Two
Published 17 Dec 2020Following the German declaration of war on America on the 11th of December 1941, Britain gained an invaluable ally. Securing a joint military command between the new partnership will be central to its success, the question is, how can this be achieved?
Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tvFollow WW2 day by day on Instagram @ww2_day_by_day – https://www.instagram.com/ww2_day_by_day
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sourcesHosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Markus Linke and Indy Neidell
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Markus Linke
Edited by: Miki Cackowski
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)Colorizations by:
Norman Stewart – https://oldtimesincolor.blogspot.com/
Daniel Weiss
Adrien Fillon – https://www.instagram.com/adrien.colo…
Mikołaj UchmanSources:
IWM A 14040, TR153, H 10306, ME(RAF) 5052, A 16709Soundtracks from Epidemic Sound:
Max Anson – “Ancient Saga”
Johannes Bornlof – “Magnificent March 3”
Howard Harper-Barnes – “London”
Rannar Sillard – “March Of The Brave 4”
Johannes Bornlof – “The Inspector 4”
Phoenix Tail – “At the Front”Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
“Firestorm” – Strategic or Terror Bombing? – Sabaton History 098 [Official]
Sabaton History
Published 17 Dec 2020At the end of July 1943, Hamburg burned. A fleet of British heavy bombers had dropped thousands of incendiaries over the city, turning it into a hearth of unprecedented dimensions. Numerous major fires merged together into a single storm of fire. Structures combusted under the immense heat, as strong winds drove the inferno through the streets at rapid speed. Craving for more oxygen, the firestorm sucked human bodies into the flames and immediately incinerated or mummified them. Thousands of others died slowly of carbon monoxide poisoning in their shelters. By the end of the raid, 60% of Hamburg had been burned out and more than 35,000 of its inhabitants were dead. But while the Germans were shocked to disbelief, for the British the firestorm has worked as intended. And this was just the beginning.
Support Sabaton History on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/sabatonhistoryListen to “Firestorm” on the album The Art of War: https://music.sabaton.net/TheArtOfWar
Listen to Sabaton on Spotify: http://smarturl.it/SabatonSpotify
Official Sabaton Merchandise Shop: http://bit.ly/SabatonOfficialShopHosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Markus Linke and Indy Neidell
Directed by: Astrid Deinhard and Wieke Kapteijns
Produced by: Pär Sundström, Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Executive Producers: Pär Sundström, Joakim Brodén, Tomas Sunmo, Indy Neidell, Astrid Deinhard, and Spartacus Olsson
Community Manager: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Editor: Karolina Dołęga
Sound Editor: Marek Kamiński
Maps by: Eastory – https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory
Archive: Reuters/Screenocean – https://www.screenocean.comColorized by:
Norman Stewart – https://oldtimesincolor.blogspot.com/Sources:
Imperial War Museums: C3677,HU 63075, HU 63089, MH 27517, CL3400, MH 24747,CL3395, MH 24764, CH 6386, CH 6386, CH 6275, CH 15879, C 3371, CH 18371, C 3918, C2367, HU44269, C 4748, PST 14359, C 4973,
Bundesarchiv
National Archives NARA
Icons from the Noun Project: Arrow by 4B Icons, Bomb by P Thanga Vignesh, fire building by dDara, Skull by Muhamad UlumAll music by: Sabaton
An OnLion Entertainment GmbH and Raging Beaver Publishing AB co-Production.
© Raging Beaver Publishing AB, 2019 – all rights reserved.
When Movies Were Magic (3D glasses recommended)
Atun-Shei Films
Published 8 Sep 2020A brief history of early motion picture technology and artistry, from the magic lantern to Georges Méliès. Presented in glorious 3-D!!!
To fully enjoy this video, you will need a pair of red/blue anaglyph 3-D glasses. They can be acquired cheaply at a number of online vendors, and you can even make them at home by coloring sheets of clear plastic with permanent markers: https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Your-Own…
Support Atun-Shei Films on Patreon ► https://www.patreon.com/atunsheifilms
Leave a Tip via Paypal ► https://www.paypal.me/atunsheifilms (All donations made here will go toward the production of The Sudbury Devil, our historical feature film)
Buy Merch ► https://www.teespring.com/stores/atun…
#FilmHistory #MagicLantern #3D
Reddit ► https://www.reddit.com/r/atunsheifilms
Twitter ► https://twitter.com/atun_shei~REFERENCES~
[1] William Godwin. Lives of the Necromancers (1834). Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/…
[2] Paul Clee. Before Hollywood: From Shadow Play to the Silver Screen (2005). Houghton Mifflin, Page 12-21
[3] Chris Bennett. “The Psychedelic Phantasmagoria Shows of the 18th Century” (2018). Cannabis Culture https://www.cannabisculture.com/conte…
[4] Clee, Page 39-47
[5] Clee, Page 84-85
[6] “Dissolving View Magic Lantern Slides.” Magic Lantern World https://magiclanternist.com/2016/09/2…
[7] “A Color Photograph Pioneer Comes to Light” (2018). The European Synchrotron https://www.esrf.eu/home/news/general…
[8] Clee, Page 83
[9] Clee, Page 85-95
[10] “Freeze Frame: Eadweard Muybridge’s Photography of Motion” (2000). National Museum of American History https://americanhistory.si.edu/muybri…
[11] “Sallie Garner at a Gallop.” IMDB https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2221420/…
[12] Laurent Mannoni. “Etienne-Jules Marey: French Physiologist and Chronophotographer.” Who’s Who of Victorian Cinema https://www.victorian-cinema.net/marey
[13] Clee, Page 107-109
[14] Harald Sack. “The Kinetoscope and Edison’s Wrong Way to Invent the Cinema” (2020). SciHi Blog http://scihi.org/kinetoscope-edison/
[15] Clee, Page 127
[16] Clee, Page 139-141
[17] James Travers. “Georges Méliés Biography: Life and Films” (2017). FrenchFilms.org http://www.frenchfilms.org/biography/…
[18] Clee, Page 158-159
December 17, 2020
Henry Ford and the Mass Marketing of Hatred | BETWEEN 2 WARS: ZEITGEIST! | E.07 – Spring 1920
TimeGhost History
Published 16 Dec 2020Racist conspiracies are on the rise in America. But other hysterias are also lessening. Will there be a return to normalcy?
Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Indy Neidell and Francis van Berkel
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Indy Neidell and Francis van Berkel
Image Research by: Daniel Weiss
Edited by: Daniel Weiss
Sound design: Marek KamińskiColorizations:
Daniel Weiss – https://www.facebook.com/TheYankeeCol…
Spartacus Olsson
Mikolaj UchmanSources:
Some images from the Library of Congress
Portrait from Bibliotheque Nationale FrancaiseFrom the Noun Project:
– agreement by Vectors Point
– film camera by Chanut is Industries, TH
– cowboy man by Adrien Coquet
– Protest by Juan Pablo Bravo
– Immigrants by Luis Prado
– pair figure skating by Andrei Yushchenko
– singles figure skating by Andrei Yushchenko
– Letter by Mochammad Kafi
– speech by Juan Pablo Bravo, CL
– universe by Icongeek26
– Arrow by IconTrack
– Galaxy By VictorulerSoundtracks from Epidemic Sound
– One More for the Road – Golden Age Radio
– “First Responders” – Skrya
– “Guilty Shadows 4” – Andreas Jamsheree
– “Slow Discovery” – Cobby Costa
– “Try and Catch Us Now” – David Celeste
– “The Inspector 4” – Johannes Bornlöf
– “Deviation In Time” – Johannes Bornlof
– “Disciples of Sun Tzu” – Christian AndersenArchive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
Fallen Flag — the Ann Arbor Railroad
This month’s Classic Trains featured fallen flag is the Michigan-based Ann Arbor Railroad which operated rail services from Toledo, Ohio to Elberta and Frankfort, Michigan, along with lake ferry service across Lake Michigan to Manitowoc and Kewaunee, Wisconsin and Menominee and Manistique in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Robert I. Warrick provides an outline of the history of the line:
Ann Arbor No. 1, built in 1892 by Craig Shipbuilding Co. in Toledo, Ohio. She was destroyed in a fire on March 7, 1910 at Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
Photo from Bowling Green State University via Wikimedia Commons.
The Ann Arbor Railroad was as much a steamship line as a railroad. Built from Toledo, Ohio, northwest to Frankfort, Mich., it existed for one reason — to move freight in car ferries across Lake Michigan to bypass Chicago. From 1910 to 1968, “the Annie” operated 320 car ferry route-miles versus 292 miles of railroad. AA was at the forefront of car ferry design and innovation, from the first wooden-hulled vessels to the most advanced car ferry to ever sail Lake Michigan.
During the 1940s, up to six ferries made the round trip from Boat Landing, as AA called its yard in Elberta on the south side of Frankfort harbor, to two Wisconsin and two Michigan Upper Peninsula ports. The boats ran year-round on a tight schedule, timed to match with three pairs of scheduled Toledo freights, where AA interchanged with five trunk lines. Well-kept 2-8-2s powered those short, fast trains across AA’s rolling profile until 1950, when Alco FA2s took over.
[…]
The Eastern mergers of the 1960s ultimately doomed the old Ann Arbor. As planning for Penn Central went on, the Norfolk & Western merged with Wabash, Nickel Plate, and two smaller roads in 1964. N&W wanted no part of the Ann Arbor and its costly ferries, so AA was foisted off on DT&I, which was profitable by the 1960s.
With ICC approval, DT&I took over the Ann Arbor on August 31, 1963, and soon replaced the tired FA2s with 10 GP35s, riding on Alco trucks and painted in DT&I orange with large “Ann Arbor” lettering. DT&I’s GPs often mixed with the Annie’s.
DT&I had ferry Wabash refitted, changed her name to City of Green Bay, and loaned AA $2.5 million to rebuild Ann Arbor No. 7. The railroad renamed No. 7 Viking, lengthened it, installed four EMD 2,500 h.p. 567 diesels. But even with the bigger boats, capacity remained an issue as car sizes increased. AA was losing money. First the ferry route to Manistique, Mich. (and AA subsidiary Manistique & Lake Superior), was discontinued, then the one to Menominee, Mich.
Ann Arbor’s fate was sealed. A firm was hired to liquidate Pennsylvania Company assets, including AA and DT&I. Ann Arbor defaulted on the loan for the Viking on November 1, 1972, and filed for bankruptcy on October 15, 1973, leading to AA’s inclusion with other bankrupts in the Regional Rail Reorganization Act of 1973 that resulted in Conrail.
Merrill Breechloading Conversion of the 1841 Mississippi Rifle
Forgotten Weapons
Published 9 Sep 2020http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
https://www.floatplane.com/channel/Fo…
Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forg…
James Merrill of Baltimore had his hand in several Civil War era firearms — rifles built from scratch, conversions of the Jenks carbines, and also conversions of 1841 Mississippi rifles done by the Harpers Ferry Arsenal. Merrill’s conversion involved a knee-joint type lever which could be opened to allow loading of a rifle from the breech. The system was relatively simple, and it was one of three (the others were the Lindner and Montstorm) made in small numbers for testing by Harpers Ferry. It appears that 300 Merrill conversions were done, 100 each of the 1841 Mississippi Rifle, 1842 musket, and 1847 musketoon.
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85740
December 16, 2020
The NKVD: from Pen-Pushers to Communist Hit Squads – WW2 Special
World War Two
Published 15 Dec 2020The NKVD started out as your regular old Ministry of the Interior. But over time, they grew out to a hugely influential and highly lethal weapon for some of the Soviet Union’s leaders.
Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tvFollow WW2 day by day on Instagram @ww2_day_by_day – https://www.instagram.com/ww2_day_by_day
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sourcesHosted by: Spartacus Olsson
Written by: Joram Appel and Spartacus Olsson
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Joram Appel
Edited by: Miki Cackowski
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)Colorizations by:
Klimbim – https://www.flickr.com/photos/2215569…
Mikołaj Uchman
Julius Jääskeläinen – https://www.facebook.com/JJcolorization/
Dememorabilia – https://www.instagram.com/dememorabilia/Sources:
Picture of Lavrentiy Beria in court, courtesy of Фотограф – Ист.доки https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi…
Yad Vashem 1019-2, 143EO1, 55AO6
IWM HU 106212
USHMM
I.M. Bondarenko
from the Noun Project: border police by IcoLabs, fire building by dDara, Police by Cuputo, Skull by Muhamad UlumSoundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
Reynard Seidel – “Deflection”
Johannes Bornlof – “Deviation In Time”
Farrell Wooten – “Blunt Object”
Andreas Jamsheree – “Guilty Shadows 4”
Fluow – “Endlessness”
Johannes Bornlof – “The Inspector 4”
Gunnar Johnsen – “Not Safe Yet”Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
From the comments:
World War Two
2 hours ago
We have been talking about the NKVD a lot in our War Against Humanity episodes and in several Between Two Wars episodes. If you found this video to be interesting, I can highly recommend you try our B2W episode on the Great Terror and Military Purges in 1938. It provides some crucial context that we couldn’t expand on in this special episode. You can find it right here: https://youtu.be/MNnK0LAoyMo
Cheers,
JoramOther videos about the NKVD we mentioned in this special are:
– War Against Humanity episode covering the Katyn Massacre: https://youtu.be/gd5YhhNcC44
– War Against Humanity episode covering the Great Prison Massacre: https://youtu.be/kykPusygzOw
– Biography episode on Richard Sorge: https://youtu.be/fn9NyRfbSOo
Storm in the Labrador Sea
Draken Harald Hårfagre
Published 20 Aug 20168 minutes with the amazing Draken Viking Ship. This is the film we showed in our exhibition tent on the festivals around the Great Lakes, filmed between Greenland and Newfoundland on the crossing of the North Atlantic Ocean.
QotD: Distorting the history of America’s “Gilded Age”
To some extent, during the late 1800s — a period historians call the “Gilded Age” — American politicians learned from the past. They had dabbled in federal subsidies from steamships to transcontinental railroads, and those experiments dismally failed. Politicians then turned to free markets as a better strategy for economic development. The world-dominating achievements of Cornelius Vanderbilt, James J. Hill, John D. Rockefeller, and Charles Schwab validated America’s unprecedented limited government. And when politicians sometimes veered off course later with government interventions for tariffs, high income taxes, anti-trust laws, and an effort to run a steel plant to make armor for war — the results again often hindered American economic progress. Free markets worked well; government intervention usually failed.
Why is it, then, that for so many years, most historians have been teaching the opposite lesson? They have made no distinction between political entrepreneurs, who tried to succeed through federal aid, and market entrepreneurs, who avoided subsidies and sought to create better products at lower prices. Instead, most historians have preached that many, if not all, entrepreneurs were “robber barons”. They did not enrich the U.S. with their investments; instead, they bilked the public and corrupted political and economic life in America. Therefore, government intervention in the economy was needed to save the country from these greedy businessmen.
Burton W. Folsum, “How the Myth of the ‘Robber Barons’ Began — and Why It Persists”, Foundation for Economic Education, 2018-09-21.
December 15, 2020
Experimental Pre-WWI Ross .30-06 Machine Gun
Forgotten Weapons
Published 14 Dec 2020http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
https://www.floatplane.com/channel/Fo…
Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forg…
In August 1913, the British War Office wrote to Sir Charles Ross requesting a sample automatic rifle for trials in the UK. Ross was able to submit a prototype in May 1914, which was tested at Enfield — but only fired 308 rounds before the test ended, suggesting that something important probably broke. The gun was a very strange looking contraption, whose Ross MkIII lineage is visible only in the bolt and front of the receiver forging. A long stroke gas pistol was added, and the action flipped upside-down. A large 25-round magazine was fitted, along with a thumbhole style stock that looks very similar to the grip of a Lewis gun. In addition to one example tested at Enfield in .303 caliber, one other model was send to the US for testing, chambered for .30-06. That is the gun we are looking at today, which came to the Canadian War Museum from the collection stored at Fort Knox in the 1970s and 80s.
Thanks to the Canadian War Museum for providing me access to film this extremely unusual Ross for you!
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85740
