Are Historians Really Apolitical?

80% of members at the American Historical Association conference supported a resolution about "the U.S.-sponsored genocide perpetrated by Israel in Gaza."

In debates about originalism, historians claim the moral high ground. We are lectured that only those with doctorates, trained in the proper methodology, can place history in the proper context. And the historians insist that they, unlike conservative law professors, are apolitical, and bring no biases to their careful work.

Does anyone actually believe these claims? You shouldn't.

The New York Times reports from the annual meeting of the American Historical Association.

Leadership of the American Historical Association has vetoed two resolutions criticizing Israel's actions in Gaza that were approved by a member vote over the weekend, saying they lay outside the group's mission and would pose risks to the organization and the historical profession.

The first resolution criticized what it characterized as intentional "scholasticide" in Gaza, where most of the educational system, including all 12 universities, has been damaged or destroyed. The second condemned ongoing attacks on academic freedom at American universities, including the silencing of protest against "the U.S.-sponsored genocide perpetrated by Israel in Gaza."

Both resolutions passed with nearly 80 percent support from the almost 500 members who attended the vote, held on Saturday during the group's annual conference in Chicago. But on Sunday the 16 voting members of the executive council voted not to pass them on to the full membership of roughly 14,000 for final consideration.

"As worded the two resolutions fall outside the scope of the American Historical Association's chartered mission," the council said in a statement. "Approving them on behalf of the entire association would present institutional risk and have long-term implications for the discipline and the organization." . . .

The "scholasticide" measure was passed with 282 votes for, 76 against, and two abstentions. The academic freedom resolution passed 245 in favor, 62 against, with one abstention.

Professional historians are not apolitical. They lean overwhelmingly to the left, and are subject to the same sorts of biases as conservatives.

I suppose we should be thankful that the AALS is not venturing down this road. As left-wing as the legal professoriate is, it still seems moderate when compared to the liberal arts. The MLA, of course, passed the Gaza resolution:

The academic freedom resolution was developed in coordination with members of the Modern Language Association, the country's largest scholarly association in the humanities. Over the weekend, it was approved by that group's delegate assembly, by a vote of 61 in favor, 52 against. That resolution will now pass to a vote by the group's roughly 20,000 members, where it must receive a majority that also totals at least 10 percent of membership.

And you wonder why conservatives have taken such aggressive postures to higher education.

Comments

[Bunny495]

Tell me something I don't know.

[Dr. Ed 2]

No, there was a cadre of professors who had gone into World War II already having a college degree, and used the G.I. bill for grad school. They largely retired between 1985 and 1995, and were replaced by the so-called “tenured radicals” who had been undergrads in the late 60s & early 70s and then quietly infiltrated the academy.

They called themselves the “tenured radicals” and volunteered for things like hiring committees, and grad admissions committees — they served as gate keepers to impose a political illness test, which had an existed before. They’ve now largely retired, and because of their efforts, the generation of faculty that replaced them were even more radical than they were.

That generation is on the cusp of retirement, and the generation it hired is even yet more radical. It’s become like incest, only worse, and that’s how a history profession has gone from left leaning but accurate to left-wing lunacy we see today.

It’s how we can have something like Juneteenth considered to be the day that slavery ended with anyone with a scintilla of knowledge about US history knows that not to be the case. It’s how something like the 1619 charade can be taken seriously it’s how we can have land acknowledgments without people asking well what about, well what about, well what about?

While you got a left-wing bias in the 80s, today all you get is bias.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Betteridge's Law of Headlines.

[Darwinnie]

So, the MAGA law professors pushing an agenda with their biased historical analyses are …..? What exactly?

[Sylvie1]

A minority of law professors. NOT professional historians.

[y81]

So neither law professors nor historians are apolitical? I agree, which is why I don't take the various pronouncements at the Conspiracy about what the law does or does not say very seriously, because I know that, unlike the advice i give to paying clients, the statements here are not the product of disinterested, objective analysis, but rhetorical attempts to advance a political agenda,

[Dr. Ed 2]

The majority of professional historians aren’t professors.

[Incunabulum]

Politically biased.

But lets not pretend they're the only ones. That you have a bias isn't automatically a bad thing. Hiding it or, worse, pretending you don't have biases is how you destroy academia.

[LawTalkingGuy]

“Hiding it or, worse, pretending you don't have biases is how you destroy academia.”

Well good thing that’s not something historians do!

[Rossami]

Can't be bothered to read the articles again? That is precisely what a rather largish number of historians claimed in their criticisms of the Bruen and Heller decisions.

[LawTalkingGuy]

“That is precisely what a rather largish number of historians claimed in their criticisms of the Bruen and Heller decisions.”

I don’t think they claimed to be unbiased. They just said based on their historical study, Heller and Bruen got it wrong.

You seem to think that unless they say: I AM BIASED before any historical analysis historians are pretending to be unbiased.

But you could say the same for Scalia and Thomas.

But that’s stupid. If you read academic history or talk to academic historians or take college-level history classes, you’d know that the entire field cares greatly about biases in historical writing! It’s something they talk about all the time.

[Michael Ejercito]

So why has no historian explained what Israel dod to Gaza was worse than what the Allies did to Germany and Japan?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Because shut up, you genocidal racist. /sarc

[Dr. Ed 2]

You assume they even know with it was a World War II, and if so, also know who was involved in it.

[John F. Carr]

What do historians think of Churchill these days? As an imperialist he may be out of favor.

[SRG2]

I don't think anyone is denying that there is a partisan bias in academia, whether history or law. The issue is who has greater professional expertise when it comes to researching, analysing and contextualising (second time I've used the word here today, fwiw) sources and it's not lawyers.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

It's quite evidently not historians either, if they think a historians' professional society's opinion on Gaza is within their expertise. What next, elaborate on the merits of various string theories?

[Joe_dallas]

Judging from the historical analysis as written by Stevens in his Heller dissent, its quite dubious that left leaning historians have greater professional expertise.

[LawTalkingGuy]

"Judging from the historical analysis as written by Stevens in his Heller dissent, its quite dubious that left leaning historians have greater professional expertise."

Stevens also isn't a historian. Why would you judge the expertise of professional historians by a Supreme Court opinion anyway? Shouldn't you just read their actual work? What could Steven's Heller dissent possibly show about the quality of the work of a left-leaning medievalist for instance?

[loki13]

For that matter, why should you trust that the dubious majority opinion written by right-leaning (umm... leaning?) jurists has any validity?

I am going to make an original comment on this below, but this is a insanely stupid Blackman post (but I repeat myself) that engages in the fallacy of equivocation.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Since he doesn't read comments or social media...I am extremely tempted to actually email him or even send him a copy of That Noble Dream.

I mean I doubt even Randy Barnett actually believes that professional historians think or claim they are "apolitical."

[Joe_dallas]

LawTalkingGuy 3 hours ago
"Stevens also isn't a historian. Why would you judge the expertise of professional historians by a Supreme Court opinion anyway?"

Why ?
Like Duh!
His source for the historical record in his dissent was from historians. He cherrypicked the history he liked, truncated significant all the history that contradicted his "common defense" and completely ignore the proposed change to the amendment to limited 2A to times of the common defense. Other than that.......

[LawTalkingGuy]

I started to go through Heller to point out how Scalia was also relying upon professional historians for his sources, but it was taking too long so I suggest you go reread the majority opinion, look at how he also used secondary sources and source compilations throughout. Even when he's directly citing the primary sources...those can be found previously cited in works by professional historians. He didn't go to archives and libraries to find this stuff himself!

[Dr. Ed 2]

Because judges always do original research, they never read any of the brief submitted, never use anything contained in them in making the decision.

After all, briefs exist merely to run up bills for clients….

[bernard11]

His source for the historical record in his dissent was from historians. He cherrypicked the history he liked, truncated significant all the history that contradicted his "common defense" and completely ignore the proposed change to the amendment to limited 2A to times of the common defense. Other than that.......

And if he did that, how would it reflect badly on the historians whose work he cherry-picked, truncated, etc.?

Regardless, my impression is that cherrypicking sources and so on is fairly standard legal practice.

[David Nieporent]

bookkeeper_joe has added fake historian to his fake c.v. Note how he once again doesn't cite a single thing Stevens got wrong, because he doesn't know anything Stevens got wrong.

[LawTalkingGuy]

I just can’t get over why someone would look at one judicial opinion as definitive proof that an entirely different profession lacks expertise.

[Joe_dallas]

both you and DN want to ignore the well documented history of 2A.

Both you, DN and Stevens feel compelled to ignore the proposed change to 2A to limit the right to keep and bear arms to the common defense which was voted down.

Both you and DN have expressed your hatred of having an informed public with real world information that conflicts with the leftist narrative.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Dude you are just having an entirely different conversation with yourself.

Whoever is right in Heller has no bearing on whether it makes any sense to use a particular Supreme Court opinion to evaluate the work of left-leaning professional historians broadly.

I mean how does the Stevens dissent in Heller discredit David Brion Davis’s work on slavery for instance?

[Incunabulum]

Thing is - historians really don't have any advantage in researching or analyzing. That's a huge part of a lawyer's job.

And when it comes to 'contextualizing' . . . well the problem is that they pretend to biaslessly contextualize when that is a bald-faced lie.

So they're not even good at the one thing they should have an advantage over law professors with

[LawTalkingGuy]

“historians really don't have any advantage in researching or analyzing“

Actually they do: they have far more training, including linguistic training, in dealing with and finding primary sources and understand the secondary literature for the relevant field. I never went to an archive in law school and no one suggested I should!

“pretend to biaslessly contextualize when that is a bald-faced lie.”

They actually don’t pretend this at all.

[Sarcastr0]

Can the expert opinion of anyone who ever voted for a Democrat ever be trusted?

The only truly trustworthy opinions come from egotists who cite themselves in an ouroboros of shitty takes.

[David Nieporent]

80% of members at the American Historical Association conference supported a resolution about "the U.S.-sponsored genocide perpetrated by Israel in Gaza."

No, they didn't. (Though I acknowledge this is the bad writing/math of the NYT, not Blackman.) From the article:

"Both resolutions passed with nearly 80 percent support from the almost 500 members who attended the vote,"

"The 'scholasticide' measure was passed with 282 votes for, 76 against, and two abstentions. The academic freedom resolution passed 245 in favor, 62 against, with one abstention."

282 is of course, not 80% of 500. And 245 is even less so.

[Daddyhill]

You have the right numbers, David, good on you. There's another problem though, which is that the 500 (out of 14,000, i.e. 3.5%) who attended the conference may well have been self-selected both for being there and for voting--perhaps bringing their prejudices with them. Perhaps all the non-attenders were busy with teaching and writing and might have abstained from the vote, had they been there.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, except that we have surveys of party affiliation of faculty, and political donation patterns of faculty, that confirm that 80% of history faculty are left-wing.

So, yes, they're unrepresentative in that they showed up, but they probably are representative in their politics.

[Sarcastr0]

party affiliation

Humans can favor a political party and still have judgement on other issues independent of that.

You are bad at understanding people. You always ends with telepathically finding every group is leftist and not to be trusted. Including the GOP.

[Brett Bellmore]

Mr "Humans don't let their political views influence their judgement even if surrounded by people who share them" says I'm bad at understanding people. That's hilarious.

[Sarcastr0]

You're the one with the slam-dunk always biased take.

My negation thesis is not slam-dunk always unbiased; though I am unsurprised you would exclude the middle like that.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, obviously some of them weren't biased: The resolution passed, but then got rejected as non germane by the leadership. Good for them, though they shouldn't have had to have intervened like that.

[Sarcastr0]

No new goalposts.

Quit with this nonsense:
Well, except that we have surveys of party affiliation of faculty, and political donation patterns of faculty, that confirm that 80% of history faculty are left-wing.

Dems are not leftwing, the vote itself (thanks to DMN for doing the numbers) shows your take is wrong, and humans don't work like that.

[Brett Bellmore]

Got any other counterfactuals you'd like to assert, while you're on a roll?

[loki13]

I am going to point this out in very simple terms because I don't want to get into the general "partisan affiliation in academia" debate.

DMN correctly pointed out that Josh Blackman made a major error in post. In fairness, and DMN pointed this out, it was caused by bad/sloppy writing in the NYT. You know, the source people like Blackman claim to hate except they always use it for actual news (wonder why?). This source was the premise of a post.

Now, you come on and basically say, "Well, it doesn't matter that this is wrong and a scholar made a basic error that anyone should have noticed in a partisan post attacking other people for making results-oriented partisan errors, because it was DIRECTIONALLY CORRECT." Cool?

There are numerous studies and numerous attempts to look at the political/ideological leanings of different types of workers, including faculty, and including historians ... and it measures this in different ways (partisan registration, self-identification, attitudes, ideological affinity outside of partisan affiliation, etc.). There are also a lot of attempts to look at whether these leanings affect output in different ways. Depending on what study you look at and what you are measuring, you will get different results and different numbers. So precision is necessary, and you can't just blithely pull a number out of your posterior as you do here (or misrepresent numbers as Blackman did misunderstanding what was reported).

I would add that this is rich coming from someone who yesterday repeatedly quoted a statute and omitted the next line which is the qualifier. Since I don't want to continue this debate in the open thread, I will post it here for your edification-

(5) to make arrests—

(A) for any offense against the United States, if the offense is committed in the officer's or employee's presence, or

(B) for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States, if the officer or employee has reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such a felony,

if the officer or employee is performing duties relating to the enforcement of the immigration laws at the time of the arrest and if there is a likelihood of the person escaping before a warrant can be obtained for his arrest.

...I hope you understand three things.
First, when I provide general explanations of legal concepts, I am not lying to you. I may, on occasion, be wrong, as any human is. But I don't lie. You might want to consider that before googling and trying to Brettlaw me.
Second, I hope you understand that this language is specific for "federal law," as I was talking about.
Third, omitting the most important part of (5) was really poor form. That is the reason that they are always claiming that someone was "obstructing" or "interfering" with an enforcement action or "assaulting" an officer. Which, as we repeatedly find out, is a lie to extort the victims into giving up.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm admittedly a bit unclear what the nature of your complaint is.

It was claimed that ICE officers could not arrest US citizens, could not arrest for anything not related to immigration offenses. I was demonstrating that this was false.

Here's my interpretation of the quoted language:

Clause 4 clearly relates to arrest of suspected illegal aliens, and arrest for immigration related offenses.

Clause 5A relates to a general power to arrest people who commit any "offense" in their sight, without that limitation to suspected illegal aliens or the offense being related to immigration, and clause 5B to federal "felonies" without the requirement that it be committed in their sight.

The text you complained that I omitted reads, "if the officer or employee is performing duties relating to the enforcement of the immigration laws at the time of the arrest and if there is a likelihood of the person escaping before a warrant can be obtained for his arrest."

The whole section relates to "(a) Powers without warrant", the quoted text simply confirms that the power to arrest without a warrant only applies while they're on the job, and in cases where going to get a warrant might result in escape.

It in no way establishes that the ICE agents can't arrest people for any offense against the US they witness, and for any federal felony. It just establishes that they only have these powers while on the job, and have to get a warrant before arresting if it's feasible.

Now, what part of that do you think I got wrong?

[loki13]

...I suggest looking back over what I just wrote, and wrote before. As I wrote, they can't make traffic stops (state law). They can't generally arrest citizens.

What you are claiming is that they have general federal police power when they are on the job (and I am unclear why you think there is a difference between offenses against the US and federal offenses, but whatever). In other words, when they clock in, they can arrest US Citizens for, inter alia, catching lobsters in violation of federal law when they see it. Or seeing someone perform a rain dance without express federal permission (yep). Or smoking a joint (probable cause for drug trafficking) regardless of state law.

But that can't be the case, can it? That would mean ICE would be able to use any scenario they dream up (and it would be abused, because Trump and ICE) to claim that they could just execute US Citizens at will. But they don't.

Instead, we see the same charges that are always brought. What do they always say? That the US Citizen was "obstructing" or "interfering" with an ENFORCEMENT ACTION or had assaulted an officer engaged in same, so they needed a shooting or something.

Here's the clue.
"...if the officer or employee is performing duties relating to the enforcement of the immigration laws at the time of the arrest..."

That does not mean they can enforce all federal law at any time. The is specific language with a specific meaning. Again, you chose to omit the qualifying language, and, instead of just saying "my bad," you are now trying to argue that your choice to omit the specific qualifying language that rubbishes what you said does not matter, because you don't understand what it means? So, instead of, I don't know, listening to people who do law-type stuff, or paying attention to what ICE actually claims (although they lie) ... you make up a meaning and insist that it is correct, because ... why, exactly?

I'd say that this should be a lesson in results-oriented research, but I've tried to explain this to you before, and yet, here we are. Be better, Brett. I think you can be a pretty decent guy when you aren't caught up in politics.

[Brett Bellmore]

" As I wrote, they can't make traffic stops (state law)."

Agreed. But traffic offenses can also be federal crimes, like if you double park an FBI agent in order to stop him from pursuing a criminal. Or try to run him over, say.

"They can't generally arrest citizens."

Within the limitations described in the section, yeah, they can.

"But that can't be the case, can it? "

Sure can be. They're federal law enforcement agents. With a specialized focus, sure, but federal law enforcement agents. They're not required to ignore federal crimes that aren't immigration related, any more than an FBI agent is required to ignore immigration offenses or an agent of the DEA is required to ignore you passing counterfeit bills.

And that was the mistake that I was correcting: The idea that ICE are somehow not federal law enforcement agents, like FBI. They absolutely are.

"and I am unclear why you think there is a difference between offenses against the US and federal offenses, but whatever"

The difference is between "offenses against the United States", which have to be witnessed, and federal "felonies", which do not have to be witnessed. Not all offenses against the United States are felonies, some are misdemeanors or what have you.

[loki13]

Brett.... why are you still digging? You realize that you are trying to argue lawsplain back to me something that:

1. I explained to you. In simple terms. That you did not know.
2. That you then proceeded to google and try to find out in order to argue with me. Because ... reasons?
3. In your googling, you found a statute. That you either didn't understand (hopefully) or deliberately misquoted, leaving out the most relevant limiting language. Not to mention .... there's case law and stuff.
4. After I pointed out your mistake, you are now ... continuing to argue with me. With such gems as saying that traffic violations can also be federal crimes, because you might try to run over an agent? Um ... I don't even want to bother, because it's not worth it. The point has to do with this- what was the cause to approach Good to begin with? What was the authority to demand that she get out of the car (seize) a US Citizen. There's ... oh, it's not worth it. This is law, not Brettlaw.

Good luck. I will again point something out- if you want to learn something, you can. If you want to find things to tell you what you already believe (even if you don't understand it), then ... you're not going to learn much, are you?

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm "still digging" because I honestly do not believe I'm in a hole here.

Somebody claimed that ICE are not law enforcement agents, I pointed out a statute that said they're wrong. They absolutely ARE law enforcement agents, with the power to arrest citizens under specified circumstances, such as witnessing a federal crime.

Is obstructing enforcement of immigration laws a federal crime? Yes, it is, and ICE can arrest you for that crime.

Even if you commit it by committing a traffic violation.

[loki13]

...okay, so what you just said ... is what I said from the beginning.

Look, it's obvious you just don't understand the actual point. Under "Real Law" (not what ever it is you are trying to research to argue Brettlaw) the first thing we should be asking is this-

Why did ICE Agents surround her car and attempt to open her door? We can discuss the specific powers the have to detain suspected unlawful immigrants for a brief stop, but that's not applicable. So ... why?

You can go ahead and apply the basic standards. Was this consensual questioning?
Ummmm...
Was this an involuntary detention based on articulable facts of a specific crime committed by the particular individual?
Well, then what was the crime? It couldn't be obstruction, because she allowed ICE agents to go by her, and there is no evidence that they were actively engaged in an enforcement action at that time. And if it was obstruction, why did they aggressively order her out of the car and prolong the Terry stop?
So ... was it arrest based on probable cause? For what crime? As we have seen, this administration repeatedly lies about events and charges the US Citizens that it murders, shoots, kidnaps, and injures ... with obstruction. But we also repeatedly find that this isn't true. In case after case ... the actions are dismissed when the evidence starts coming in. Heck, in this case we already have six senior DOJ attorneys that have resigned because the administration won't let an investigation even happen!

Think about that- a woman was shot dead, and you would think that if the administration was confident, they would be fine with an investigation that would find the facts and clear the ICE agent. Nope.

I could keep lawsplaining actual law, but I've learned you don't care. Moreover, you don't care about the actual context- roving bands of ICE thugs in the Twin Cities who are pointing machine guns at protesters, illegally accessing databases to go to the homes of protesters and threaten them, unlawfully putting fake license plates on their vehicles, abducting US Citizens and beating them, and using pepper spray when they leave the scene on people they don't like and arresting people for filming their actions. And more.

This is what happens when you hire the worst of the worst and let them operate with impunity. And it's not like this is the first time this officer has acted improperly, lied, or escalated a situation unnecessarily.

You want to understand why people are outraged by this? To borrow a legal term from Terry ... it's the totality of the circumstances, Brett.

[Bob from Ohio]

"80% of members at the American Historical Association conference supported a resolution about "the U.S.-sponsored genocide perpetrated by Israel in Gaza."

No, they didn't."

Read it again, it said "members AT the American Historical Association conference", not ""members OF the American Historical Association"

The subset of AHS members who actually attended the conference did vote 80/20.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, as pointed out above, about 500 members actually attended the conference, and 282 is not 80% of 500.

80% of those who bothered voting...

[Bob from Ohio]

Homer nods.

Guess I was the one who should read again. As the great philosopher Barbie said: Math is hard!

[bernard11]

Which Homer do you think you are?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

At least the abominable resolutions got vetoed and withheld from the membership.

But it's not as if the "nobody here but us anti-Zionists" group received nothing at all.

"In recent weeks, the AHA has established:...

"a committee to provide guidance for the Association’s efforts to aid Palestinian historians..."

https://www.historians.org/news/aha-advocacy-call-to-action/

Just as long as a Palestinian historian doesn't say, "hey, some of those deals the Jews offered us in the past were OK, we should have taken them."

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"Ad Hoc Committee to Aid Palestinian Historians...

"Purpose: To provide guidance for the Association’s efforts to aid Palestinian historians. The committee helps the AHA work constructively with other scholarly associations, AHA affiliated organizations, and nonprofit charitable institutions to channel historians’ time, energy, and expertise to this endeavor."

https://www.historians.org/group/ad-hoc-committee-to-aid-palestinian-historians/

"AHA members have powerfully expressed their desire for concrete action to support the needs of Palestinian historians and students in the wake of the destruction of universities, schools, archives, libraries, and museums in Gaza."

https://www.historians.org/news/aha-establishes-ad-hoc-committee-to-aid-palestinian-historians/

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Perhaps they should ask why Gazans vote for Hamas and support Hamas' self-destruction of universities. They've used hospitals as ammo depots and fortresses; does anyone doubt they use universities the same way?

[bloocow2]

Gazans haven't "voted" for Hamas in close to 20 years, and most of them living there now would have been too young to vote the last time they had an election. In 2006.

Which isn't to say that they all hate Hamas or anything. But if you want to look at how many Gazans support them, maybe rely on something that isn't the result of a 20-year-old election.

[Incunabulum]

They've got guns. They chose not to use them against Hamas. Indeed, tons of them chose to use them *for* Hamas.

[bloocow2]

No, they aren't.

There you go, I saved you a couple thousand words.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Of course, I'm not going to endorse Blackman's historical expertise, simply because he found some bad news about the American Historical Association.

[Krayt]

It's not genocide. It's a collective punishment to teach Palestinians to not let their murderous kleptocrat leaders do something similar again. Everyone, every family hurts, forget lives, just massive destruction of buildings, houses, businesses. Think twice next time. There is a joy, I suppose, in razing all the buildings those thugs scurry about in.

But it's not genocide. That reveals a completely different wool pulled over eyes in a different way.

Shaddam IV, Emperor of the Known Universe: "This is genocide! The complete and systematic destruction of all life on Arrakis!"

As usual, political leaders hyperbolate for their own benefit. Collective punishment masquerading as rooting out the rats? That's a decent topic to discuss and also not allowed. And very different from genocide.

[Martinned]

In my job, merger control, we distinguish between internal documents that were prepared in the ordinary course of business, and internal documents that were prepared in contemplation of the merger. Broadly speaking I care very little about the latter.

Historians' work is not more reliable because they're not biased, but because they do their work without thinking about how to influence the Supreme Court. In those cases where they are trying to influence the courts, they should be ignored just like Josh should be.

[Brett Bellmore]

Seriously, your thesis is that the Supreme court are the only 9 people they have any motive to influence?

[Sarcastr0]

Ever thought maybe historians do scholarship not to influence anyone at all but to study a thing they're passionate about?

Hell, plenty of legal scholars are into it for the scholarship!

[Brett Bellmore]

Sure, plenty of them are. Plenty of them aren't. More have mixed motives.

My position is that, when a group of people share a particular ideology, the mechanisms that would ordinarily check their bias are largely defeated, because there's nobody around them motivated to call them out on it. Rather, they tend to get egged on.

You want to suppress bias in a group, you need diversity in the group, not group-think.

[Sarcastr0]

Voting for a political party isn't an ideology.

Indeed, the idea of history department as institution is flawed; historians are experts in their particular subfield, not cooperating in some grand vision of leftist narritivism.

You have a deeply distorted view of groups of people where they always end up with some hidden agenda.

[Brett Bellmore]

You... really think voting for a political party is unconnected with ideology?

Man you really have to do some wild rationalizing in order to avoid admitting that having an academic discipline utterly dominated by one political party is problematic.

[Sarcastr0]

Look at you and your dancing thesis. Your initial claim is that party affiliation *defines* ideology.

Now you're all 'connected to.'

You can't even stay self-consistent within like 20 minutes, you're so outcome-oriented on this stuff.

an academic discipline utterly dominated by one political party is problematic.
Or, you could treat people like individuals. Especially in something with all sorts of varying interests specialties and personal journeys like a history department.

From race to national origin to political party...ever notice how collectivist you are?

[Brett Bellmore]

Rationalize harder, it's not working.

[Aubrey LaVentana]

"maybe historians do scholarship not to influence anyone at all"

Michael Bellesisles enters the chat.

[Sarcastr0]

Fine. Some historians.

But that's not a biz you go into for the clout.

[David Nieporent]

I knew that name would be invoked in this thread as soon as I clicked on it; I just assumed it would be by Bret Bellmore.

[Aubrey LaVentana]

Who revealed Bellesisle's fraud? A professional historian, or an amateur?

[Incunabulum]

You're assuming that historians don't prepare their work with an eye to influencing anyone.

But, like law professors that like to teach what they think the law *should be* (rather than is) in order to prime a new generation to push it in that direction, historians teach what they think history should be.

[Sarcastr0]

I was speaking generally, I'm sure there are outlier historians hoping to make policy.

But those are not the usual. By contrast, plenty of people go into the law hoping to influence people and policy.

law professors that like to teach what they think the law *should be* (rather than is)
I think those are outliers as well. It's a type of bad law professor, but hardly the norm among those people.

historians teach what they think history should be.
Have you ever talked to a historian?

[Brett Bellmore]

Probably an outlier among law professors teaching law at non-elite law schools, anyway. An outlier among law professors drafting amicus briefs to the Supreme Court? I wouldn't bet on it.

[Sarcastr0]

The verb Incunabulum used was 'teach.' Are you saying that a law prof that writes an amicus will tend to be a bad professor, not teaching what the law is but what they think it ought to be?

That's almost certainly wrong. You can't do a good amicus without understanding what the law actually is.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, I'm saying a law professor who writes an amicus brief to the Supreme court is trying to influence the shape of the law. Advocating what they want the law to be.

[Sarcastr0]

So your statement is that when lawyers wear their advocacy hat, they are advocates, and when they do not they are not.

Insightful!

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, the first part was right, anyway. But I suppose you're physiologically incapable of not reading more into what I write than is there.

[TwelveInchPianist]

[DaveM]

I took an undergraduate degree in History. There was no claim that historians were any less biased than those in other disciplines that I can remember. What they did pride themselves on is not being outright shills for the victors, as they claimed many historians of antiquity had been. Personally, I doubted even that much.

If you're taking money from someone, the person holding the moneybag has you on a short leash, obviously. And if there's really only a handful of bags available, then they've got you by your ... well, you get the idea.

[Sarcastr0]

Money is not the prime motivator for a lot of professional people.

That seems hard for people to understand.

And if you're not purely mercenary, someone jerking your leash via funding will give rise more to resentment than resignation.

I don't buy your theory of historians serving their capitalist masters when I hear it from leftists, and I don't buy it here.

[Brett Bellmore]

Money is literally the dictionary difference between professionals and amateurs.

Professional: "engaged in a specified activity as one's main paid occupation rather than as a pastime."

Amateur: "a person who engages in a pursuit, especially a sport, on an unpaid rather than a professional basis."

[Sarcastr0]

It always seems sad to see the life as a set of financial transaction.

[Brett Bellmore]

It always seems sad to deal with people who don't care what words mean.

[Sarcastr0]

Professional does not mean mercenary.

I'll add it to the list of words you have a special definition of:

Invasion
Fascism
Terrorism
Professional

[Brett Bellmore]

Professional exactly means mercenary. I cited the Oxford definition above, the primary meaning:
"1.
engaged in a specified activity as one's main paid occupation rather than as a pastime.
"a professional boxer""

For Merriam Webster, it was the second meaning given:

"2
a
: participating for gain or livelihood in an activity or field of endeavor often engaged in by amateurs
a professional golfer/poker player
Few think of Idaho as fertile ground for developing professional baseball players.
—Michael Lycklama
b
: having a particular profession as a permanent career
a professional soldier
c
: engaged in by persons receiving financial return
plays professional football/sports/poker"

"Professional" does not exclusively mean somebody who does something for pay, but it IS a central part of the meaning of the word.

[Sarcastr0]

Nothing there says anything about being motivated by pleasing your paymaster.

I'm listening to a podcast about Michelle Obama's team. She kept a lot of them on after the White House. And most of them have stayed with her.
They are all professionals, and could command a higher paid job with WH on the resume. But they don't.
I don't know their particular motives, but it's not the bottom line.
And yet, professionals.

Your take that being a professional means your cause is to please whoever signs your checks turns the concept of professionalism on its head.

[Bwaaah]

"Money is not the prime motivator for a lot of professional people."

Yes it is. Tell any of them that their paycheck won't be coming at the end of the week and they'll change their tune immediately.

Money is the prime motivator, and as long as it's not in question, many people will pay attention to other things.

[Aubrey LaVentana]

so let's discuss power as motive instead of money.

[Frank Drackman]

Nothing new here, it's like how in England Syphilis was called "The French Disease" and in France "The English Disease" or like how Alabama fans claim 87 National Championships (at Auburn we only claim 57', 2010, and of course 1993 and 2004, where we got gyped)

Frank

[Dr. Ed 2]

What I find amazing is that Gaza, which has a population slightly larger than the state of Maine and an average IQ of something like 68, even HAS 12 universities.

But then I reflect on some of the purported “scholars” that I have seen come out of the so-called Palestinian community and the only surprise I have is the audacity of these places purporting to be universities.

[David Nieporent]

1) Gaza's population is 50% bigger than Maine's.
2) Gaza's population is young, while Maine's population is the oldest in the United States.
3) The notion that any place outside of Dr. Ed's household has "an average IQ of something like 68" is something only someone with an IQ of 68 could think.

[TextFirst]

68 is indeed the measured average IQ in Gaza. That, combined with Islam, is what makes them nearly impossible to make peace with. They're extremely aggressive and extremely stupid, which is why they combine all the worst aspects of being a predator and a parasite. This is also why they're not capable of self governance.

[bernard11]

68 is indeed the measured average IQ in Gaza.

Someone may have done that measurement somehow, but it's nonsense. That would mean the average Gazan is in the bottom 2.5% of the group on which the test was normed.

So tell us, what test was used, how was it administered, and how was it normed. If you don't know, don't go around spreading patently absurd numbers and making ridiculous generalizations.

[dwb68]

And the academics that promote "history, text, and tradition" interpretations of the constitution arent political either, fer sher.

Not to say I disagree with the concept of the original public meaning of the constitution; but like all contracts the words were a compromise to give both sides wiggle room. Its more accurate to say there is a range or band of interpretation. The first amendment is a classic example: shortly after passage, congress passed the sedition act, unconstitutional by modern standards. War powers is another: Thomas Jefferson, not a big fan of standing armies and navies, sent his to the Barbary Coast.

Is the Federal Reserve constitutional? I guess we will find out.

[Brett Bellmore]

My chief concern here is that as soon as you see ambiguity as empowering, rather than frustrating, you'll see ambiguity everywhere. Because who doesn't like to be empowered? So viewing ambiguity as a license to attribute a congenial meaning to the text has bad incentives.

There are bits of the Constitution that are genuinely ambiguous, but not so many as people who don't like what the text is saying like to pretend.

"The first amendment is a classic example: shortly after passage, congress passed the sedition act, unconstitutional by modern standards"

I take this rather differently: The Bill of Rights was adopted, not to forestall implausible evils nobody expected, but instead to prohibit evils that could easily be anticipated. So early violations simply demonstrate that the authors of those amendments were correct to fear the government being tempted to those abuses.

[dwb68]

Ambiguity can be bracketed. It doesnt mean its a "congenial" bracket. I dont want the federal military enforcing the law, except that early presidents sent the military to put down tax rebellions. So maybe the President can do it "a little" under exceptional circumstances?

There was an Overton window when the constitution was enacted, history should attempt to find the boundaries.

I think the biggest failure of the "history and tradition" camp is to acknowledge that maybe the debate wasnt settled--it was postponed; or that the modern scenario was simply never conceived. I tend to think birthright citizenship falls in this camp. We had so much land in the 1870s, and we were trying to drive the Indians off it the idea of surplus labor was laughable. As long as you promised to homestead, you were welcome.

[Brett Bellmore]

And I think the biggest failure of the "screw history and tradition" camp is that often they just don't LIKE the Constitution earlier generations stuck them with, but see no feasible way to formally amend it to be more to their liking.

So they resort to interpreting it to be more to their liking, bypassing that pesky public who won't agree to the changes they'd like.

[dwb68]

yes, well, there is that.

[bernard11]

Once again, it is only Brett who truly understands what the Constitution means.

Everyone who disagrees is being dishonest, arguing in bad faith.

[Sarcastr0]

"a very difficult time believing that people genuinely disagree."

[bernard11]

What early violations demonstrate is that looking to early events to determine the proper meaning of the Constitution is dubious.

[dwb68]

..

[LawTalkingGuy]

"And the historians insist that they, unlike conservative law professors, are apolitical, and bring no biases to their careful work."

I don't know if you are lying or simply unfathomably ignorant. Professional historians do not claim this at all. Historians actually talk about their biases and influences of politics all the time. It's called historiography and you would know about it if you even took one undergraduate history course. There wasn't one book in history undergrad that I read where we didn't discuss the author's biases. In fact the very first day of a class on the founding period...was a discussion about Whiggish vs Progressive history.

Peter Novick wrote an entire book about how the historical profession has grappled with ideas about objectivity and relativism. Carl Becker literally did a speech called "Every Man his Own Historian"

Joan Scott, the pioneering gender historian's book is called Gender and the POLITICS of History.

Hayden White went so far as to say all historical writing is fiction!

When historians criticize law professors for being bad at history, its because they actually don't know anything about the field. And this post proves them right: you have no clue what you are talking about.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Blackman remains unqualified to comment on this topic. He knows nothing of the methods relied upon by academic historians. Two points will at least hint at how to bring better focus than either Blackman or the comments thus far have featured.

1. As with many learned professions, methodological questions concerning the academic history profession are curated by a tiny elite among the most prestigious practitioners in the field. How academic historians as a group vote in political elections held today could not be less relevant to professional standards which elite academic historical practitioners profess and demand of their colleagues.

2. History—interpreted as an endeavor to author accounts based on queries and inferences intended to elicit accurate narratives about what happened during a long-forgotten past—confronts one challenge unique among the learned professions. History not only cannot rely on present context to guide interpretations, it must not do so.

No other profession suffers that constraint. Thus, lawyers like Blackman, and even lawyers who practice as Supreme Court Justices, along with commenters like those on this blog, together with historical laymen generally, tend not to notice that stricture even exists.

By their nature, narratives which aspire to accuracy as historical accounts must exclude from textual influence every hint of present-day: context; insight; information; political controversy; cultural norms; religious issues; economic analysis; scientific advance; etc. The reason for that is trivially obvious. It is a logical impossibility to attribute historical influence to notions unknown at the times under consideration. Thus, historians investigating what did happen then cannot allow present context of any kind to come under historical focus. People who lived then can no more have been influenced by today's context than people living now can be by what will happen decades or centuries hence.

Obvious as it is, that turns out to be an easier concept to mention than to take seriously as a matter of everyday practice. Indeed, learning to observe that check on historical reasoning, and to practice it reliably and consistently, is an imposing bar for would-be academic historians to get over during their training. Only a minority among the best academic historical professionals ever learn to avoid nearly completely that kind of anachronistic reasoning. Even those slip up from time to time, and no doubt enjoy the corrections they get from their graduate students when they do.

So of course there are plenty of lesser academic historians who do permit anachronistic present context to contaminate their work. To observe that is no more a condemnation of the historical endeavor than it would be condemnation of the legal profession to observe that not every Supreme Court justice shows the judicial temperament of the greatest among them.

What should a historical layman do, if he remains as ignorant of the norms of academic history as Josh Blackman is? Or for that matter, as Brett Bellmore is? He should either cease critiquing the historical profession from a basis of ignorance, or he should seek advice among academic historians about who the best-respected members of the profession have been, and then rely on works authored by those.

As I have mentioned previously, there also exist expert works on historiography to consult. I recommend those to historical laymen only with hesitation. They will not find them easy going. But if you are of a philosophical turn of mind, and genuinely interested in what academic professional historical expertise looks like, one magisterial essay stands out: On HIstory, authored by philosopher of history and historian Michael Oakeshott, is a 100-plus page masterpiece. If you already have a graduate history education, you can hope to benefit by even a single read. I suppose I have read it 5 times through, with insight increasing each time. So far, I must have mentioned Oakeshott at least several times, with no sign that anyone has taken up the challenge. Blackman ought to give it a try.

[Bob from Ohio]

Stephen Lathrop remains unqualified to comment on this topic. He knows nothing of the methods relied upon by academic historians.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Sometimes the subjective intentions or predictions of the authors or the law as to what the effects of the law will be, conflict with the plain language of the law itself.

To take one example at random - the textual command of "*equal* protection of the law* looks like it means "equal," not "close enough to equal for government work," yet of course we can find "founders" of the 14th Amendment who believed you could separate the races into separate institutions and still be equal.

And a contemporaneous text, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, says nothing of anyone enjoying the racial-equality rights enumerated there on a segregated basis.

So...do we believe our lying eyes (the text) or some polititians claming that separate is equal?

The text should take priority, not what some Congrescritter said about the text.

[Brett Bellmore]

"yet of course we can find "founders" of the 14th Amendment who believed you could separate the races into separate institutions and still be equal."

Facially, it would appear that separate can be equal. Eventually the Supreme court finally recognized that, in practice, it never would be, because nobody who demanded separate actually WANTED equal.

So banning separate is an accommodation to that reality, kind of like the exclusionary principle: The Constitution doesn't actually mandate the exclusionary principle, the appropriate constitutional approach to wrongful searches is to prosecute them as crimes. Because that's what the police entering your house without a warrant and removing stuff is: Burglary.

But the Supreme court eventually decided that was not going to happen thanks to prosecutorial discretion, so the exclusionary principle was adopted to avoid the constitutional limits on searches just being rendered moot.

I personally hope that the Supreme court will some day recognize that "reasonable gun control" is just as much an oxymoron in practice as "separate but equal", because virtually all gun laws are actually driven by hostility to the right.

[Bored Lawyer]

Separate but equal does exist. Men and women's bathrooms.

Actually, women's are nicer. Something I only learned after I was married and we had our first child. We were in a mall. Baby in the stroller began to cry. Wife said, I'll take him into the ladies' room to nurse him. I said, where will you sit? She said, on the couch? Said I, what couch? Said she, the one in the ladies' room. Said I, you have couches in ladies' rooms?

But it's true, as applied to race, separate but equal was a complete farce. As it was intended to be. I wish the Supreme Court would have struck it down on that basis.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

But of course Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment made distinctions between male and female, in the course of penalizing distinctions between Black and White.

[LawTalkingGuy]

You know this reminds me: when I was in undergrad taking the required class focusing on historiography and the historical profession, our openly left-wing professor talked a lot about how Howard Zinn tried to hijack an AHA meeting in 1969 to get them to pass a resolution condemning US involvement in Vietnam and what that said about the profession at the time. Rather than pretending historians are apolitical, professional historians put it front and center!

[loki13]

Ugh. This is already well-covered by others. But I will add to this by saying that what Blackman is doing here is engaging in the fallacy of equivocation. In order to illustrate how he is doing it, I will use an analogy, which I hope is outrageous, but might be a future JB post-

Supreme Court Justices have a doctorate, and are right-leaning. Physicians have a doctorate, and are left-leaning. Therefore, Justices know as much about medicine as physicians, just with a different partisan bias.

See what I did there? Lawyers are not trained in history- they are trained in advocacy- to think like a lawyer. They are not trained to read history skeptically, but to read it with a bias. To find the information that supports their case and to undermine or diminish anything that will discredit their cause. This is why it is called "law office history." We see it over and over and over again. History is uncertain, and law is predicated on two sides arguing with one result.

Moreover, history is, itself, biased- which is something historians have grappled with. What is recorded, what is written, who is written about ... this reifies biases that existed at the time. These biases are then inculcated through time ... and then people in the present look at the past and interpret the past with our own biases because we don't, and often can't, understand how those people thought and acted. For example, look at the Second Amendment. Whatever you think of it, one thing is certain- the people who wrote it understood clauses and grammar and writing in a very different way than we do now, and textualist approaches that we have developed recently to "interpret it" reflect our own biases and cannot shed light on what the clauses and grammar of it meant at that time (there are some good works on this, but I don't want to get into a debate because it is what it is). The legal use of history, and actual history, are orthogonal to each other.

Anyway, this is yet another JB post that does nothing but attack his perceived enemies ("the left") for being partisans, but really shows that what he really wants is for everything to be turned into a partisan "us vs. them" binary, so that there is no longer any need to resort to ... facts, or rules, or reality, but just tribal preferences.

PS- tribal preferences do not work out well for the Chosen People. I mean ... look at history. Look at the present in America. Maybe we might not want to keep going down this path?

[LawTalkingGuy]

I forget who exactly he was talking about, but Hayden White has an essay where he was discussing a philosopher of history who posited that the study of history is actually the study of the present, because all material that the historian must rely upon necessarily exists in the present.

[Sarcastr0]

Last history class I took talked about history as the study of narratives, not exactly facts.

[LawTalkingGuy]

That’s the main thrust of Hayden White’s work, although he’s by no means the end all be all when it comes to the historical discipline. (My bias is that I have always found his work highly persuasive, so I can be reflexively defensive of the view that all narrative is fiction)

[Brett Bellmore]

Famously, "He who controls the present controls the past; He who controls the past controls the future."

[loki13]

I think that the one that people should pay more attention to today is this one-

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."

Why is it important to me that this administration lies about everything, all the time? Why do I keep writing (correctly) that ... they lie, they lie, they lie? Because we have seen this before, and we will see this again. Once you begin to seek evidence to prove the lies you have been told, and disprove the evidence of your eyes and ears, all is lost.

[Brett Bellmore]

The reason it's important to you to assert that this administration lies about everything, all the time. is that is spares you of the need to actually demonstrate that anything they say IS a lie.

But it is as silly to claim that everything Trump says is a lie, as to claim that everything he says is true.

[Sarcastr0]

loki tirelessly posts demonstrations of the lies. Specifically the DoJ.

[loki13]

Well, I do a pretty good job documenting it, repeatedly, in multiple court cases.

But as we have seen, the fact that courts make findings, and that we know that the administrations lies (including in signed documents to the court) does no good to the true believers here.

I point it out, and the people here keep on repeating their lies. I literally can't help you more than that, Brett. You want to believe something (or want to believe it is "directionally true" or whatever) so you don't care. But Orwell was on point on this issue- that's why the destruction of the truth, and more importantly, the destruction of the People's capacity to care about the truth, is the true heart of totalitarianism.

[bernard11]

But it is as silly to claim that everything Trump says is a lie, as to claim that everything he says is true.

Not by a long shot.

[Brett Bellmore]

He's not a character in a logic puzzle, why are you having trouble understanding that? If you ask him where the Sun rises, he's not compelled to say in the West.

[dwb68]

The past and future are artficial constructs. Photons dont experience time. A photon from the big bang arrives at your eyes (from its perspective) instantaneously. It arrives 6 billion years in the "future," also instantaneously. Photons connect past present and future. Since chemistry and magnetism are driven by the exchange of photons (maybe virtual), its all been done. Your mass is rotated in spacetime so you cant see it, thats all.

[Drewski]

"Photons dont experience time."

Pop physics. You can't establish a rest frame traveling at c, so you can't make statements like that. If you try to place a photon at rest to measure its passage through time, you get other photons traveling at c relatively (photons travel at c in any frame). Do those photons experience time? Now you have a rest frame at twice c with photons still traveling at c relatively. Things break.

[dwb68]

Not quite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Zspu7ziA8Y

Spacetime is actually geometry. Time dilates and lengths contract at the speed of light. Another interesting fact is that the photon takes every possible path (Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) -- Feynman path integral for a photon, which can be experimentally proven too).

[Stephen Lathrop]

LawTalkingGuy — Interesting, that bit about the present. That is an alternative approach to an opening premise relied upon by Oakeshott. Who then dispenses with its use by excluding it from consideration as properly historical activity.

First, of course, the notion that history remains a summation of everything which ever happened, as that vague corpus is presently known, must be distinguished from a competing notion that history consists of authored accounts based on queries made in ways designed best to elicit reliable inferences about a long-forgotten past.

The notion of a heritable and presently useful corpus amalgamating all past occurrences, generally available to everyone as a present legacy is, of course, not historical at all. It is an aspect only of present context. We can know that because, trivially, no such present amalgamation could have been perceived likewise in any preceding era, and thus could not have influenced the contemporaneous context of any historical events under consideration.

But yes. By definition, all that we have from history are present artifacts which happened to have survived in various forms. The rest must be presumed forgotten. That is why authored history must begin as a process of query and inference.

Those present survivals Oakeshott partially classifies. That classification process is itself a challenge to careful insight into chronology. For one thing, a large percentage of historical survivals preserve not information from a former era they appear to refer to, but instead information taken at second-, or third-, or some other yet-more-remote hand from the era referred to. Which makes those survivals indicators better used to infer contexts prevailing at the later time of their own creation, instead of at any earlier time which happens to be the one primarily under consideration.

Thus, a nineteenth century painting purporting to show the scene of the first thanksgiving at Plymouth, MA is rightly useful context for inferences about the 19th century at the time and place the painting was created, but be demonstrably irrelevant as context for what happened at Plymouth in the 17th century. No one present in the 17th century, including people depicted in the painting, could have been aware of it.

A useful distinguishing principle is that whatever significance a historical survival may present in present context—in an archive, in a museum, as an artifact on the ground—that remains present information, information to which the era during which it was created had no access.

It follows that survivals useful to infer historical context invariably must have been created contemporaneously with the era under consideration, or prior to it. And thus at least in principle still available to those who lived then and there, and influenced them, if that influence can be shown by reference to other survivals.

It follows, in the most general terms, that historical inference is practiced most wisely when it proceeds on the basis of making historical survivals critique each other. That is a process which requires use of strict criteria to assure relevance. But which also goes far to exclude intrusion of present-minded context into resulting inferences.

Conversely, when present context is relied upon to deliver historical critique, that either risks or assures that historical irrelevancies will show up among resulting inferences. That is bad news for folks like many commenters here, who insist that because they can read English language text created in an antique era, but still surviving today, they necessarily infer accurately what that text meant in original context. Any notion of, "textualism," understood and presented that way is generally an occasion for an academic historian to mind his manners while rebuking an absurdity.

But exceptions do exist. Interestingly, they tend to be quantitative, but even antique quantities as plainly evident as literal dates sometimes need careful interrogation to be accurately understood in contemporaneous context. Not for nothing are some tombstones from the pre-founding era annotated on their faces to disambiguate calendar references during an era during which calendars changed. Many other quantities referred to in antique texts are likewise snares for investigators insufficiently schooled in quantitative contexts as they applied variously to different places and eras.

A need to master broad context in reference to particular times and places is the reason the best academic historians almost invariably become specialists. Conversely, claims to historical authority covering vast ranges of time, and extending across disparate cultures and geographies, are rightly suspected as field marks of historical charlatans. No scholarly lifetime lasts long enough to accomplish so much.

[Bob from Ohio]

No one is apolitical.

People can be dis-interested in politics but that is not the same. Everyone has political views.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

And the historians insist that they, unlike conservative law professors, are apolitical, and bring no biases to their careful work.

I don't think this is true. See, e.g., Erik Loomis at the Lawyers, Guns & Money. He in no way pretends to be "apolitical."

I do somewhat welcome this comment:

are subject to the same sorts of biases as conservatives

It is helpful that JB recognizes he has "biases," though I'm not sure there is a full overlap ("same sorts").