For nearly fifty years, we have taught American children that the three greatest determinants in history are race, class, and gender. Virtue is scoffed at; “Great Men” are mocked; and free will is ignored. Should we be shocked—do we even have the right to be shocked—that our press, our culture, and our educators are obsessed with race? In every way, we are a far more racist society than we were in, say, 1989. Everything evil we now call “racist,” whether the thing is actually racist or not. Racist has come to be synonymous with evil and wrongdoing. Aside from the fact that this severely diminishes and attenuates the true challenges to true racism, it is also demonstrably false, especially in regard to our history as an American people.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/09/1619-project-slavery-founding-bradley-birzer.html

And, yet, why not the opposite? Why can’t social media be about spreading the Gospel, 280 characters at a time; or about the release of information on how to adopt children from war-torn countries; or why not a Platonic dialogue; or how to get the local homeless person much needed food and shelter; or how to plant better tomatoes, or… Like almost everything technological, social media can be good or bad. Sadly, it seems to have gone the wrong direction in recent years. Much of what has happened with social media reminds me of promises made in the 1950s that television would revolutionize the teaching of children. It did, but not in the ways promised.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/09/social-media-plato-cave-bradley-birzer.html

Second, the actors are rather stunning as well: Lorne Greene, Jane Seymour, Patrick Macnee, and Lloyd Bridges? An incredible cast. The two main characters, portrayed by then relatively unknown actors, Richard Hatch (Apollo) and Dirk Benedict (Starbuck), are, again, simply extraordinary. They give every single ounce of talent they each have to the roles, and what they have is not inconsiderable. The two leads have an excellent chemistry as well, with Apollo being the moral and serious one, and Starbuck as the stereotypical fighter jock and rogue (think Han Solo) with a heart of gold.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/08/battlestar-galatica-40-years-later-bradley-birzer.html

Barnes and Noble was named the #1 Most Reputable Retailer in America by Reputation Institute (RI), a global technology-driven provider of reputation measurement
— Read on goodereader.com/blog/bookselling/barnes-noble-named-1-most-reputable-retailer-in-america

While much has been made of the “Ten Commandments” in recent history, men for centuries have accepted these commandments as deeply rooted in the order of the universe and of creation—as an overt expression of the Natural Law. And, to be certain, they are logical as well as honest. They promote good order in the society, in the family, and in the community.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/08/burning-bushes-smoking-mountains-law-bradley-birzer.html

Even if the Allies should utterly defeat the Axis, Dawson feared that the poisons of power and centralization will remain. “The sufferings that the occupied countries have endured have weakened the whole tradition of civilized order and have accustomed men’s minds to violence and lawlessness,” he wrote a year later, in 1945. Because the democracies themselves were forms of totalitarianism, their party politics would especially descend into thuggery after the end of the war, thus permanently dividing Republicans from Democrats and Tories from Labour. We will no longer see our opponents as opposition, but rather as the enemy in a stake for total control of each respective society. Political opponents will call not for victory over their opposition, but rather for the complete “liquidation” of the opposition. “Every election,” he predicted, would become “a potential civil war.” Even as of 1945, broader commentaries identified fascists as “right wing” and democrats as “left wing,” thus creating artificial distinctions in the race for total control. “The result of this division is to obliterate the distinction between constitutional and totalitarian parties, and to force every shade of political opinion into alliance with some extremist totalitarian party which inevitably tends to become… predominant.”
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/08/christopher-dawson-modern-public-opinion-bradley-birzer.html

1774

• Parliament passes the five “intolerable acts”
• Late May: Maryland meeting in Annapolis passes resolves in support of Boston
• September 5-October 26: First Continental Congress (CC) meets
• September 17: Suffolk Resolves tempers but passes by CC
• October 14: CC passes “Declaration of Rights and Resolves”
• October 24: CC forms Continental Association (nonimportation, nonconsumption, nonexportation)
• October 25: CC petitions King for protection against Parliament
• October 26: Congress adjourns permanently–if King answers petition
• December: John Adams writes as “Novanglus”

1775

• February 9: Parliament declares Massachusetts in a “state of rebellion”
• March 22: Parliament rejects Burke’s plan of reconciliation
• April 19: Battles of Lexington and Concord
• May 10: American militias take Ft. Ticonderoga and Crown Point
• May 10: Second Continental Congress (SCC) meets; declares united colonies on defensive
• May 26: SCC again claims defensive
• May 29: SCC invites Canadian provinces to join America
• May 31: Mecklenburg County, NC, declares itself independent from UK
• June 15: SCC forms Continental Army; names Washington as commander
• June 17: Brits “win” the Battle of Bunker Hill
• July 6: SCC passes “Olive Branch Petition” for King; passes Dickinson’s Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms”
• August 2: SCC adjourns
• August 23: King rejects “Olive Branch Petition”; proclaims Americans as traitors to empire; colonists must either “submit or triumph.”  
• September 12: SCC meets; Georgia finally sends delegates; all 13 represented
• November 16: Burke again calls for reconciliation
• November 29: SCC forms secret committee to treat with other nations
• December 6: SCC declares complete independence from Parliament; claims loyalty to King
• December 22: Parliament declares all N.A. Colonies beyond protection of empire; prohibits all trade with colonies