We don’t learn this kind of history in high school anymore, although we should. We, everyone who calls America home, owe a debt of gratitude to Skanderberg and the people of Albania. (More at Red State.)
In 1492, Columbus got money from the Spanish king to try and sail around the world. Why? Because everyone in Europe was busy trying to work around the Ottoman Empire. We know what happened next—America was discovered, and settled, and that’s where we come from.
An interesting historical note is that the Ottoman Sultan not many decades before that time made a mad rush to take Constantinople and Rome. While they could take Constantinople with the latest in military technology—the cannon—they were unable to take Rome because one Skanderberg raised the red flag of double eagles in his hometown and successfully fought off vast horders of Ottoman invaders in his homeland.
Constantinople and Rome were only the first two steps in a grand scheme to impose Islam on the rest of the world by that mad sultan. Thanks to Sanderberg, Europe was saved once again from Muslim domination, left free to be influenced by Christianity and incubate its philosophies and sciences and build the foundation of a modern Western Civilization we enjoy today. Skanderberg is one of those people you can only thank God was born at the right place at the right time with the right talents, because without him and the Albanians, we wouldn’t have what we have.
Keeping the Ottomans out of Europe was a different task than getting them out of Constantinople—a vital crossroads for East-West trade. Europe began suffering under the heavy levies that the Ottomans put on trade going through there, and so Europe began searching for ways to get around the Ottomans and into the East. And that is the story of why Columbus could get financing to try and sail around the world.
Today, Albania has one of the free-est economies with some of the lowest taxes in the world. They are also one of the few modern nations who doesn’t have to import its people to keep its population growing. America, and the rest of the world, would be wise to follow their example by drastically lowering taxes and doing all we can to support the family social structure in our society.
