May 20, 2010
WHAT OTHER VERSION IS THERE?:
Robin Hood: A role model for conservative politicians (Ed Ross, 05/17/10, Daily Caller)
Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood, which opened to mixed reviews in American movie theaters on May 14, is an excellent educational film for current and future conservative American politicians. It reinforces the importance of championing limited government, individual rights, and freedom over the pursuit of self interest.If you haven’t yet seen the film, this may confuse you. The countless versions of Robin Hood, from 1938’s Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood onward, portrayed the medieval hero as a liberal. Robin always had the right talking points, but his main activities were the pursuit of his own interests and the redistribution of wealth. He pursued merriment with Lady Marian and his merry men. He fought for his beloved but absent King Richard the Lionheart and to recover his lost estates. And he taunted the Sheriff of Nottingham for entertainment. Most important, he took from the rich to give to the poor—a defining liberal characteristic.
Yes, those other Robin Hoods helped overthrow Richard’s brother, the evil King John, but only to restore Richard to the throne—the exchange of one absolute ruler for another.
While academics and critics have tried to co-opt Robin Hood for the Left, it can hardly be a more conservative tale.
NB: The BBC did an excellent series, Decisive Weapons, several years ago that included an episode on the longbow. Some have argued, contra The Longbow Theory of Democracy, that the weapon lacked the penetrating power to defeat armored men. But in one of the more exciting archaelogical finds of all time a sunken boat was raised with a batch of bows on board and they rurned out to be much larger and more powerful than historians had previously understood them to have been. The show is available at The Box