Voices from the past *UPDATED*

I mentioned Richard Disney the other day in connection with the short animated film he dug up from the late 1940s/early 1950s that contrasted American freedom with state-ist politics. Turns out that’s not Disney’s only find. You really need to go over to his blog and check out the other voices from the past that he’s resurrected, and then go back and visit regularly, because I think he’s promising to find more.

As you all know, I’m an old movie aficionado. Frankly, you can take away all my other channels if you just leave me TCM. I so much enjoy peering through a window back into time — what they wore, what they said — and I also simply like the values that infuse the movies. What’s fascinating about the clips that Disney is assembling is that those same values infused video materials that came from sources other than Hollywood. The Industry was pushing the same line: America’s not perfect, but it’s still better than the rest, a message I continue to believe is true. Here’s a 1948 video I found, from “Searcy College in Arkansas,” that makes that same point about the benefits of the capitalist system. Not a bad primer on basic market economy, either:

UPDATE:  I didn’t realize it, but Mark Steyn’s column today is on virtually the same subject as this sweet old video:  capitalism, not government, as the best vehicle for change.