Pro Rege Papers

This is the original Bill Keller quote from the interview with CBS that Michelle Malkin made semi-famous:

“…if you’re under the impression that the press is neutral in this war on terror, or that we’re agnostic—and you could get that impression from some of the criticism—that couldn’t be more wrong. We have people traveling on the front lines with soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. We’ve had people who’ve been murdered in trying to figure out the terrorist threat. You know, we live in cities that are targets, proven targets, for the terrorists. So we—we’re not neutral in this.”

Bill Keller, the editor of The New York Times, is obviously not clear on the situation. The Times does not need to “figure out the terrorist threat,” it needs to report what is going on. The terrorist threat was figured out on (and before) 9/11. Government officials are the ones who figure out what terrorists are up to, and The Times is not helping that effort at all by revealing the ways in which we fight terror, and thereby helping the murderers of those Times reporters that Keller was talking about.

Of course you always have that last clause: “…we’re not neutral in this.” Keller does not specify which side he is on, if he’s not neutral. It certainly is not clear that he’s on the American side, since he’s published nothing that congratulates our forces or helps them. There’s also nothing to signify that he’s not on the terrorist side, since he uncovers national secrets to the advantage of organizations like Al-Qaeda.

I highly recommend A Basic History of the United States, by Clarence B. Carson. It is a good sum-up of United States history from the early 1600s till the beginning of 2001. Comprising six volumes, it would be useful for those of you who want to brush up on American history. He has written other books as well that go into economics, government, communism, etc.

Carson goes through all of American history and examines the development of political theory, capitalism, and American culture. The books contain some very intriguing ideas about what could have happened. I draw on many of those ideas for posts. For example, he had a short paragraph that postulated what could have happened if government hadn’t funded the development of railroads so much. I extrapolated on that point in my post, “Railroads and the Civil War.”

Rousas J. Rushdoony is also very insightful on a number of subjects. I drew on his knowledge for a number of posts, for example “Voting in the early 1800s.”

If you’re looking for some good reading, I highly recommend their writings.