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Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of Michigan Citizens for Science and co-founder of The Panda's Thumb. He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many organizations and conferences, and appeared on nationally syndicated radio shows and on C-SPAN. Ed is also a Fellow with the Center for Independent Media and the host of Declaring Independence, a one hour weekly political talk show on WPRR in Grand Rapids, Michigan.(static)
Ed Brayton also blogs at Positive Liberty and The Panda's Thumb
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Posted on: December 27, 2009 9:02 AM, by Ed Brayton
From David Barton, in a radio interview:
"Out of 182 nations at the UN this year, America is the only nation in the world that does not average a revolution every 30 to 40 years. We're the only nation where we never have to think about having a new government in our lifetime, a revolution."
You really have to wonder what color the sky is in his world.
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Comments
Let's see ...
China - 60 years ago
The UK - um, about 400 years ago
France - 220 years ago
Cuba - a little more than 50 years ago
Japan - ummm, never?
David Barton, crack historian, strikes (out) again. And Texas trusts him to judge its history curricula?
Posted by: wheatdogg | December 27, 2009 9:18 AM
Denmark - also not really, ever. Same goes for Sweden, AFAIK.
Posted by: konrad_arflane | December 27, 2009 9:27 AM
Australia has come no closer to revolution than a few glorious, disorganised failures, (in the last 221 years at least).
David Barton, Soooper Geeniius. - Dingo
Posted by: DingoJack | December 27, 2009 9:33 AM
Clearly Barton knows as much about world history as he knows about American history. A real scholar, that one.
Posted by: Mr. Upright | December 27, 2009 9:41 AM
Does the Alaska Indepence Movement count aas thinking of a revolution or does Sister Sarah make that just as American as apple pie?
Posted by: Rob Jase | December 27, 2009 9:48 AM
The POGGs up north have yet to have a revolution. Shit, they're still subjects of the queen.
It's been a while, if ever, for the Benelux nations, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and so forth.
Posted by: History Punk | December 27, 2009 9:55 AM
Wheatdogg: Japan had the Meiji Restoration in the 1860s.
... and now that I think of it, doesn't Barton want to replace our officially secular government with a Christian theocracy? That would be a revolution even if accomplished non-violently...
Posted by: mad the swine | December 27, 2009 9:56 AM
Depends on what you mean by "revolution". We change government every 4-8 years.
Posted by: Goatrider | December 27, 2009 10:09 AM
Spongy Porcine - Don't forget the Genpei War, the Genkō War & etc. - Dingo
Posted by: DingoJack | December 27, 2009 10:09 AM
Although - all these occurred slightly before the 1970's or '80's. Not quite on Mr. Barton's timetable. - Dingo
Posted by: DingoJAck | December 27, 2009 10:13 AM
#2- Same goes for Sweden, AFAIK.
Well, Sweden and Norway separated in 1905 so that somewhat counts. Stil more than a century.
#8- We change government every 4-8 years.
I'm sure he'd like to change that...
Posted by: Three Wolf Shirt | December 27, 2009 10:36 AM
Texans don't trust him to decide standards, a handful of the right-wing Board of Education members chose him independently.
And many of them are up for re-election this year....
Posted by: Geek Goddess | December 27, 2009 10:43 AM
Wishful thinking on Barton's part?
Scary.
Posted by: T. Bruce McNeely | December 27, 2009 10:46 AM
In Canada? Well, I'm old enough to remember Trudeaumania -- does that count? How about when the Reform Party succeeded in taking over the Progressive Conservatives (and pretty much abolished the "Progressive" part)?
Posted by: Eamon Knight | December 27, 2009 10:47 AM
The UK - um, about 400 years ago
Actually 331 to be precise!
Posted by: Thony C. | December 27, 2009 10:49 AM
To answer the question - marmalade, obviously.
Posted by: Theron | December 27, 2009 10:49 AM
Thony C - Um 321 surely? - Dingo
Posted by: DingoJack | December 27, 2009 10:59 AM
wheatdogg, most of what you say is correct but France is very wrong. First, there's the slight issue that multiple governments ended due to external invasion. Thus for example, the Third Republic ended because of the German invasion (and in fact the Third Republic was made to replace the second Empire).
But unambiguous French revolutions also occurred in 1848 (beginning the Second Republic) and then Napoleon III's creation of the Second Empire also borders on revolution.
So by any descriptor the French have had revolutions much more recently than 220 years ago. Although yes, they aren't nearly as common as Barton makes them out to be.
Posted by: Joshua Zelinsky | December 27, 2009 11:42 AM
And -- man, those New Zealanders are a surly bunch.
Posted by: Julie Stahlhut | December 27, 2009 11:55 AM
Thank God, at least one of the usual wingnuts who isn't claiming that Obama has overthrown the legitimate US government.
Posted by: Scott Hanley | December 27, 2009 12:41 PM
Wow, should I laugh or cry at that statement.
Posted by: Goldbrick4 | December 27, 2009 1:14 PM
....W-what? This guys judges HISTORY CURRICULUM!?
I- I listened to this in brief. D- did this guy's announcer refute HIMSELF!? They're talking about how "Revisionist history is now being revised". That.. that means their current standard is revisionist? Wh- what?
Posted by: Rutee | December 27, 2009 1:15 PM
Barton does, in his final sentence, perhaps give a functional definition for revolution as being a new government. I am sure that careful selection of beginning dates will give us the averages to show Barton's true genius.
French monarchy -- 1791
1st Republic
1st Empire
Monarchy reestablished
2nd Republic
2nd Empire
3rd Republic
Vichy France
4th Republic
218 years/9 = 24.2 years
Might even shoehorn in a couple more with whatever was in place during Napoleon I's time in Elba and then counting his return as 1st and a Half Empire.
So what Barton told us is true, from a certain point of view in a galaxy far far away. For one country. With the correct date range. Which will change from country to country. And possibly won't work at all for some countries, but they are not America so do not really count anyway.
Posted by: Sean | December 27, 2009 1:20 PM
Canada has had a few rebellions, but none of them were even close to being successful. As History Punk points out, we're still subjects of the Queen. Sort of.
Posted by: Captain Mike | December 27, 2009 1:22 PM
Wow, this is.. fundamentally dishonest.
Hell, he claims that *FREEDOM OF RELIGION* is a Christian value. That's putting aside Freedom of Speech, universal education (Actually, I know that argument, but it's not solely derived from Christianity), the republic, and free markets.
...holy shit, he really does thinkt hese are all uniquely American.
Posted by: Rutee | December 27, 2009 1:56 PM
Um wheatdog, Japan? Japan of the unconditional surrender followed by the Marshall Plan Japan? Sure they kept their Emperor but he was stripped of pretty much all of his power.
Posted by: Tony P | December 27, 2009 2:01 PM
Under this sort of rubric, I wonder if the America under the Articles of Confederation counts as being distinct from the America under the Constitution.
Posted by: jws | December 27, 2009 2:07 PM
Barton does, in his final sentence, perhaps give a functional definition for revolution as being a new government.
Which in a parliamentary system happens every election. Maybe the US is different in that you only change some of the legislature every two years, so there's never a whole new government. Or something. Biggest change we've had in Canada in 142 years would be the 1982 constitution. But I don't think a bunch of guys arguing in conference rooms and making press releases, followed by the Queen signing a couple of pieces of paper makes for much of a "revolution".
Posted by: Eamon Knight | December 27, 2009 4:08 PM
Well I have been alive and living in the United Kingdom for most of my 54 years. Our revolution must have occured during the couple of years I was living in the USA and the Solomon Islands. I would have been easy to miss it when I was in the Solomons, news took a while to get there 30 years ago.
Posted by: JohnM55 | December 27, 2009 4:22 PM
Nothing to see here, move along.
Barton's been thoroughly fisked by Chris Rodda:
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2009/3/21/175234/094
(a total of 9 youtube clips)
Posted by: Uncle Glenny | December 27, 2009 4:54 PM
Everyone seems to be making an even more fundamentally wrong assumption here - are all revolutions invariably and entirely bad things? Were all of the French revolutions bad? Did the English Civil War accomplish nothing? Was Russia really better off under the Czars?
How about, oh, I dunno, the American Revolutionary War?
Unless you assume revolutions are always an entirely bad thing (a particularly strange stance to take if you live in a former colony), or indeed always an entirely good thing (which they also patently aren't) Barton's statement wouldn't really seem to be saying anything in particular even if his figures were correct.
Posted by: Tom | December 27, 2009 5:07 PM
Tom- Well, Barton's implication seems to be that America is so perfect nobody needs to overthrow it.
Posted by: Three Wolf Shirt | December 27, 2009 5:42 PM
Hold it a tick. Of all those South American countries that have had "revolutions" in the last 30 or 40 years, how many of them did NOT involve the United States? The USA doesn't have its own revolutions because it exports them to other countries.
Posted by: Gibbon | December 27, 2009 6:10 PM
Gibbon: An obvious point that is totally lost upon those who cannot bear such an ugly thought about their beloved nation-state.
Posted by: jws | December 27, 2009 6:14 PM
@wheatdogg:
UK: wrong, North Ireland is part of the UK and their politico-religious war is hopefully coming to an end, but not quite there yet.
France: Wrong again, France only stabilized ~1968 or slightly later; coups were pretty common between Napoleon #3 and the consolidation of power by de Gaulle in the post-WW2 era. However, it has been over 40 years since the last challenge against French government (unless you count the short stint of the communist party, but they were voted in and voted out).
But let's see:
Denmark
San Marino
Norway
Sweden
Switzerland
Finland
Iceland
damn, the list goes on - at any rate, it's obvious that Barton is full of shit.
Posted by: MadScientist | December 27, 2009 6:15 PM
>Japan - ummm, never?
In addition to post-war Japan (1945), you can probably count some pre-war political assassinations by militarists and the Satsuma Rebellion (1877), Meiji Restoration (1869), the Tokugawa shogunate (1603), and a few other upheavals going back to 1185.
This is nowhere NEAR an average of "every 30-40 years" and (of course) Barton's an ignorant idiot, but there's no point in giving him ammo by being equally foolish.
Posted by: Calton Bolick | December 28, 2009 2:45 AM
Damn, I should have checked Google before I made my off-the-cuff remark at 11 pm my time last night.
I had in mind armed rebellions by a large portion of the population, not coup d'etats by nobility, military, and foreign powers. Also, I don't consider assassinations necessarily equivalent to a revolution, although some revolutions do lead to assassinations.
Nonetheless, we can agree (I hope) that Barton remarks were many times more inaccurate than mine, suggesting that maybe I know more about world history than he does. And that's a pretty bad indictment of his expertise.
Come to think of it, I bet I also know more about Russia than Sarah Palin.
Posted by: wheatdogg | December 28, 2009 3:13 AM
Actually, Belgium isn't really a counter-example either.
- Revolution in 1830 to gain independence
- Forced abdication of the king after WWII
- Toppled a couple of governments peacefully with votes of non-confidence and similar techniques.
Heck, I'm not even entirely sure we've had a government at all since the last parliamentary elections :P
Posted by: Mithandir | December 28, 2009 4:09 AM
@MadScientist
No, there is no way the Troubles in NI can be classed as a revolution. True, some of those involved might want a revolution, but that doesn't make it one. Otherwise every country with a handful of domestic terrorists would have to be considered to be in a continuous state of revolution.
Posted by: csrster | December 28, 2009 6:58 AM
Re the UK. I believe the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 is now seen by historians as more of a coup than a revolution. But I suspect Barton is conflating the two, so we can perhaps count it anyway.
You could also argue that the Irish war of independence (1919-1921) and establishment of the Irish Free State constituted a revolution in Ireland, which was then part of the UK.
You could also argue that the uprisings in Scotland after 1688 were attempted revolutions. And, since Bonnie Prince Charlie marched on London (in 1745) you might argue that this was an attempted revolution in England too. Though it started as a foreign invasion, English Jacobites would probably have supported him if he'd had more success.
Posted by: Richard Wein | December 28, 2009 7:03 AM
I suppose that if one takes any change in the system of government and/or structure of the state to be a revolution, then many countires have had a lot. But then, shouldn't one consider every change to the USA's constitution to be a small revolution?
Personally, I see revolution as a generally good thing, especially if violence and upheaval is avoided. The new government is usually better than the old one, (else why would there be a revolution in the first place?)
Posted by: SimonG | December 28, 2009 7:11 AM
@Wheatdogg:
And more important than being less wrong than Barton, you are willing to accept correction of your errors. I will take honestly mistaken and educable over aggressively delusional any day :)
Posted by: Chris A | December 28, 2009 8:07 AM
Calton @36:
If we count political assassinations, the United States last had a revolution within my lifetime: November 22, 1963, to be precise.
Posted by: Vicki | December 28, 2009 10:37 AM
Actually, we're supposed to count failures too, for good reason. Which makes the most recent Reagan
Posted by: Rutee | December 28, 2009 10:48 AM
SimonG @41: Personally, I see revolution as a generally good thing, especially if violence and upheaval is avoided. The new government is usually better than the old one, (else why would there be a revolution in the first place?)
Thomas Jefferson once said that there should be a new revolution ever 20 years so that the tree of liberty could be watered by the blood of patriots and tyrants. Although that's certainly a paraphrase and might actually be a combination of two quotes on the same subject. I don't entirely remember.
However, to say that the new government is usually better than the old one is a bit pollyanna-ish. Consider all the petty dictators who were taken out by scheming warlords and the new boss ended up being the same as the old boss. If we're talking about the revolutions to replace monarchy with democracy or cast off colonial overlords then that statement can be made about many revolutions. But there have been plenty of revolutions that ended up with a government as bad as, if not worse than, the one that preceded it.
Posted by: Geds | December 28, 2009 10:56 AM
Eamon @28: Maybe the US is different [from Parliamentary democracies] in that you only change some of the legislature every two years, so there's never a whole new government.
Technically you're right - we hold legislative elections every two years, in which all of the House and 1/3 of the Senate is contested. However, it would be stretching even to call this a "change of government" (let alone a revolution) considering that we have a reelection rate of something like 90%. Way too high, IMO.
Posted by: eric | December 28, 2009 12:10 PM
Hmmmm, let's stack up the US to this claim:
1776 - Revolution against the legal British colonial administration
1781 - Establishment of the Articles of Confederation
1788 - Shay's Rebellion
1789 - Constitutional new government established, Washington as "first" president
1791 - Whiskey Rebellion
1800-1831 - Prosser, Vesey, Turner Rebellions
1859 - Brown's Harper's Ferry Raid
1860-1865 - American Civil War
1865-1900 - Various "Indian" uprisings
1945-1975 - Various civil rights and anti-war demonstrations
What Barton ignores (which is like saying, with "water being wet"), is that the US has gone through literally dozens of failed rebellions. Just because they failed doesn't mean that there wasn't an attempt to overthrow or at least modify the government, society, etc.
Posted by: dogmeatib | December 28, 2009 2:38 PM