After 40 years of having Republicans and conservatives recycle this crap to the public at large...

On December 28, 1987, a letter in the Wall Street Journal quoted the whole passage, and said it was from a lecture by "a history professor by the name of Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1714-1778)." Thus a source material is finally provided, but as Tytler's actual birth and death years were 1747 and 1813, the reliability of the letter-writer may be reasonably doubted.

Today, a Google search for "from bondage to spiritual faith" produces over 12,000 results. Well over half of those appear in conjunction with the "Why Democracies Fail" quote.

-----

Who, then, is the author of these quotes? Even after all of my research, I am afraid I still cannot say for certain. But perhaps some conclusions may be drawn.

Each quote can be traced back at least as far as the 1950s, but only with anonymous attribution. Specific attributions, such as those to Tytler, only came later. And, of course, the quotes cannot be found to have appeared together until the 1970s. Each quote has been the subject of authorship inquiries in The New York Times and American Notes & Queries, both of which are notoriously good at verifying authorship of works, but neither of which could provide an author for these quotes.

Some readers may wonder why I chose to quote variations so frequently, and to go into such detail when a shorter examination would do. I had three reasons for this. First, I did a lot of research, and I didn't want to cut too much of my work. Second, I wanted to put any doubts about my thoroughness to rest. And third, through my quoting and detailing, I hoped to illustrate exactly how fluid these quotations have been over the past half century. New words are added, old ones disappear, and attributions and contexts change. That's not typical of a quote that has a definitive and reliable source; it's much more common with proverbs.

These facts lead me to suspect that these quotes were probably coined by separate individuals in the first half of the twentieth century. The authors were most likely not famous persons or respected scholars, but rather just private political thinkers who got their words in print, and whose words then happened to strike a chord in others. The passage of time merely encouraged quoters to attach an author's name that strengthened the authority behind the words.

And that is where the vice of misattribution lies. Perhaps the words speak the truth of democratic governments; or perhaps they do not. But either way, attributing the words to a scholar who never spoke them is to lend to them an authority and reliability that they do not deserve. Anonymous quotes, which these almost certainly are, should not be given fictitious attributions merely to lend credence to the messages they impart. To do so is to favor persuasiveness over accuracy, and to sacrifice truth for the sake of image.

David Neiwert did an excellent post on this phenomenon, which started here in the 1930s as a method for the transmission of right wing, fascist bullshit:

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2003/09/conserva-traitors-hall-of-shame.html

That's a post in another series and tangentially related, but if you go to above link, which is well worth a read, do check out the two comments he received. David's blog was new back then but two years after the post someone whose name you might recognize turned up to defend American fascism. Justin Raimondo.

This entire post is a smear. Father Coughlin was not a spokesman for the America First Committee, and Laura Ingalls was suspended when he(sic) loyalties became apparent. Naturally, the author takes the rantings of the "Friends of Democracy," a Stalininst front group, as gospel. I suppose you would call the antiwar movement of today "isolationist."

What's "laughable" is this crude attempt to smear the biggest antiwar movement in American history. Shame on you.

Justin Raimondo

After spending a few days dealing with Raimondo in the threads at Orcinus, I can tell you he's as megalomaniacal today as he sounds in that comment, a power hungry fabulist, propagandist and conspiracy theorist, and definitely a fascist apologist, if not an outright fascist. He reminds me of Ernst Röhm.

The Transmission Belt

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2003_08_10_dneiwert_archive.html#106100591663369732

The "city on a hill" belief in America, that it would be an example to the rest of the world is very old. The reference originally comes from a sermon given in 1630 by John Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, expressing his belief that the Puritans could create a perfect model of Christian charity, and serve as an example to Christians elsewhere (i.e. back in Europe).

You shouldn't assume that everybody who uses this phrase is some kind of Reaganite, you should do your homework.

How about this, and I'll do my best Jeff Foxworthy impression just for you.

You might be living in a police state if you try and leave the country and find out that it isn't allowed.

A felony conviction for a, wait for it...... drug charge and you can't get a passport. Without a passport you cannot leave.

You might not be living in a police state if more people are trying to get into the country than are trying to get out of it.

I know several illegals, without exception they are here for economic reasons and when they have accumulated sufficient money they intend to return to their native land.

Last time I checked, you are free to leave. Please, do so.

Even if I were to leave I could still post here.. That line of thinking will get you nowhere.

Just wondering, why do you feel the need to tell others what to do? That's why I mentioned your authoritarian streak in the first place.

Last time I checked, some asshole or another is trying to put up a wall at the border. Not to keep people in, but to keep them out.

As I already stated, the vast majority of illegals are here for economic, not political, reasons.