Firehose #141: Paul Revere’s Warning
Also: Tune in to Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO Friday night!
Greetings from the David Levine Memorial Barn Studio, where we’ve been putting the near-finishing touches on the wall displays in the room created for but never fully utilized by America’s greatest 20th century literary/political caricaturist. You have almost certainly seen his work:
As some of you have perhaps deduced, I have long since succumbed to Semiquincentennial Fever, which means duty now requires me to remind you that this very day, April 18th, is the 250th anniversary of Paul Revere’s famous midnight ride warning his fellow Massholes that the British were coming the Regulars were coming out toward what the next day would be the Revolutionary War-inaugurating Battles of Lexington and Concord.
Of course, as our friend Bill Schulz (veteran of Episode #79) can’t stop bellyaching about, it was not merely Paul Revere’s ride; arguably the biggest hero/warner-fella that night was William Dawes, a.k.a. Bill Schulz’s—or better stated, William Dawes Schulz’s—great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandpappy. But, history is written by the poets, and poets are more interested in dudes with cool-sounding names, plus Revere had his fingerprints all over the Revolutionary Resistance, so … Bill Schulz loses again! Plus, I don’t exactly recall David Levine caricaturing William Dawes....
What does this have to do with price of tea in China? Anything you want, man. But also! Our pal & loyal listener Jack Henneman, as those paying subscribers who joined this week’s Second Sunday Zoom know, has been encouraging fellow patriots to put two lights on in the highest window of their abodes Friday night (two if by sea, don’tcha know), and has also posted part one of a promised two-part Revere-sidebar series within his excellent podcast, The History of the Americans.
* Oh hey is that Ken Burns out this week with a teaser trailer from his upcoming The American Revolution? Yes indeed-o:
* There was music in the cafes at night, and revolution in the air…. This has been one of those weeks where the lessons of the 250th have been dancing in the margins of the ever-monarchical news, occasionally darting in for a star turn of their own. For instance, in Thursday’s remarkable decision by Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit:
"The Government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order," Wilkinson observed. "Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done." Such actions "should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear."
* Intuitive sense of liberty … get used to that. Such subtext was made text by this week’s listener question on The Reason Roundtable (featuring special guest star Mary Katharine Ham [#345 & #430]), beginning at around 43:30:
* Speaking of my terrible beard, it will be seen on HBO tonight:
Last week, Maher reported on his impression-altering Trump dinner at the White House:
* Speaking of intuitive sense of liberty, Kmele crossed swords again Thursday with Chris Rufo (#322), after Rufo had tweeted out a Wall Street Journal article headlined, “Meet MAGA’s Favorite Communist,” and added: “The Right is learning new political tactics. We are not going to indulge the fantasies of the ‘classical liberals’ who forfeited all of the institutions. We’re going to fight tooth and nail to recapture the regime and entrench our ideas in the public sphere. Get ready.”
Rejoindered Mr. Foster:
An explicitly illiberal project built on the delusion of achieving permanent political and ideological dominance.
Politicize everything. Deploy lawfare against your political rivals (and anyone standing too close to them). Purge dissent. Expand executive power, even at the expense of constitutional fidelity. And most importantly, assume (against all reason) that once seized, power will remain safely in your hands — and that if it somehow slips away, your enemies will suddenly rediscover restraint.
It’s an astoundingly shortsighted and tragically common form of self-deception: the belief that you can normalize abuses without eventually being consumed by them. […]
These aren’t “new tactics.” It’s a clumsy retread of old, doomed ideas — the kind that leave you weaker than when you started.
“Get ready.”
Diabolically cringe.
Classical liberalism isn’t magic. It doesn’t defend or renew itself. Every generation must relearn why it matters — and fight to safeguard it against threats foreign and domestic, and perhaps especially domestic. Whatever its defects, I prefer classical liberalism to Rufo’s prescription. He is part of the problem. Been true for some time.
* As lovingly recounted in #501, our tall and distressingly anti-American pal Jesse Singal (#111 & #171) has been Twitter-beefing with (*checks notes*) the vice president of the United States. Let’s see what happens when you Google-search on their names! Oooh, here’s a February 2022 Singal-Minded paywaller, “On the Sad, Foreboding Tale of J.D. Vance: The Republican Party is in a very, very dark place.” And here’s a more recent Mediaite headline, proving once again that journalistic outlets are far more decorous than the people who actually hold political power in this country: “‘If You Have an Iota of Courage…’: Journalist Challenges JD Vance After VP Accuses Him of Trafficking in ‘Smug, Self-Assured Bullsh*t.’” Also—because America apparently deserves it—see Twitchy.
* Moynihan this week, before the “medical emergency,” had a guest cancel on his Report, so instead flew solo, taking slings and arrows from some of y’all:
* Comment of the Week (which turned out to be a lie, if funny) is from Benjy Shyovitz:
I’m gonna have to miss second Sunday cuz of Jew stuff, and you say you’re not even planning to release it? Antisemitic much? More like the Fifth Reich!
Walkoff music may be obvious, but I wasn’t expecting the double-neck.
I happen to live along the route of Paul Revere’s midnight ride, according to a stone plaque a stone’s throw from my building. (Also nearby: The apartment Barack Obama occupied while he was a student at Harvard. It’s now a shrine to the former president. Pfft!)
By the way, Revere, twice married, fathered a total of 16 children. Sixteen! I guess the British weren’t the only ones who were coming.
Matt, since you’ve been going down the revolution rabbit hole as of late, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out the story of Sybil Ludington.
While Paul Revere gets the fame for a ride others took part in, Ms Ludington (allegedly) did the same, but for a far greater distance. While 16 years old, she rode 40! Miles throughout the night to warn the militia, who were under command of her father, about the Redcoats raid of Danbury, CT. The following day, the miltia and regulars under future traitor douchebag Benedict Arnold, engaged in the battle of Ridgefield, while the British were heading back to the coast. What resulted was a British tactical success. However it strengthened patriot resolve in Connecticut, and the British never tried to raid so far inland again.
I say alleged, because other than family history, there’s not much proof that Sybil’s ride even happened, but I’d like to believe it did. And there is a badass statue of her in Carmel along her supposed route. Perhaps on one of your forays upstate, you could make a quick detour (not far off of 84).
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/60409