Opinion
Mr. Manion is correct when it comes to the EDA and history in his Letter to the Editor
To the Editor:
If what Christopher Manion wrote in his Letter to the Editor regarding the importance of history in reference to the EDA is true, and I’ve no doubt that it is true, then he is spot-on when he writes that history is important.
As a published historian and historical researcher, I can’t over-emphasize the importance of knowing and understanding history when it comes to current events. If one disregards or fails to comprehend the events and the personalities of the past—provided these are seen through the context of the past rather than the context of the present day and time—people today will make the same or worse errors in the present or future, with either the same consequences or worse.
Case in point beyond the EDA debacle: in the 1800s in California, many law makers and those responsible for upholding and enforcing the laws failed to do so in ways designed to protect the citizens. The result was the inception of vigilantes, who took the laws into their own hands and meted out punishments and retribution for crimes both real and perceived. The result was an almost unbearable break-down of law and order which persisted for many years.
Fast-forward to Germany after 1933, when the new government there (under the Nazi party) not only broke laws but encouraged specific members of the German population to purposely violate the laws with no consequences; in fact, the laws were changed to sanction crimes which were understood to be serious crimes in other countries of the world, and also in Germany prior to 1933.
Fast-forward again to San Francisco; the city has just now put into office a district attorney who has not only never prosecuted a single case, but has also publicly proclaimed a laundry list of criminal offenses which will be allowed with no consequences or penalties as his method of reducing the prison populations. I suspect it will be only a matter of a short time before decent, law-abiding Californians either move out of San Francisco or begin to take the law into their own hands, much as they did in the 1800s, with the same results of a lawless and out-of-control society, because they know that the D.A. will not enforce the laws which govern the people as a whole.
Mr. Manion is correct when it comes to the EDA and history: those who don’t understand or forget the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them in the future. And to also quote Prof. Einstein on insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Well done, Mr. Manion. Well done.
Arthur Candenquist
Rappahannock County