YANKEE LIES PERSIST TO ASSUAGE AND CLOAK THEIR GNAWING GUILT BEFORE THE WORLD

Joseph Deutsch was kind enough to send me this little opinion screed from the Washington Post. 

Here is the link to the screed, follow by my response to it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-failure-of-reconstruction-was-a-ruthless-act-of-sabotage/2019/05/06/64f72e3a-7030-11e9-8be0-ca575670e91c_story.html?fbclid=IwAR0VD-IUUdw9x2ryFjhajCxg6h5lnLJTYW7HWi4YvlV0iSYKWS_QvKyMd5w&utm_term=.d1c94c8c1757

Joseph, there are so many distortions, misrepresentations, and bald faced lies in this screed it would take a small book to refute.

I'll just point out one thing. After the war Lincoln's henchmen went about the land declaring that their and Lincoln intention for the war was to make a man love his nation more than his home and state. Their intention was to destroy the federated nature of the Constitutional compact and create a consolidated, unitary, centralized command and control government. That is why England's greatest cheerleader for the north and lincoln's biggest fan was Karl Marx, who wrote endless articles in praise of Lincoln and how he repeatedly trashed the Constitution to accomplish his goal of centralization. Lincoln's cause (as the puppet of Yankee bankers, railroad magnets, and industrialists) was buttressed by hoards of Germans who flooded into the country to don Yankee blue. Why? Because they were part of the failed revolution of 1848 in Germany to created a consolidated, centralized military and economic power in Germany.

There are innumerable books, loaded with irrefutable documentation, that witness to the intent of Lincoln and his rats to reverse and destroy the federated nature of the Constitution. A few are "The South was Right," "The Real Lincoln," and "Lincoln's Marxists."

You cannot read "The Real Lincoln" (written by an economist) without understanding the war, for the north, was about money, centralized power, and the growth of empire.

I always have at hand a few quotes, two of them contemporary to the war, one of them from an abolitionist from Massachusetts, Lysander Spooner---no lover of the south by any means. Spooner, however, was an honest man and wasn't so stupid as to be unable to recognize slavery in its most virulent, cruel, and ineradicable form: government run slavery that turns the whole nation into the plantation of the ruling class.

These and countless other things clearly expose this piece of journalistic garbage as the total fantasy of a neo-Marxist---who even takes the trouble to cite Eric Foner--an openly declared Marxist--as authoritative.

Here are the quotes:

"The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals. No principle, that is possible to be named, can be more self-evidently false than this; or more self-evidently fatal to all political freedom. Yet it triumphed in the field, and is now assumed to be established. If it really be established, the number of slaves, instead of having been diminished by the war, has been greatly increased; for a man, thus subjected to a government that he does not want, is a slave. And there is no difference, in principle --- but only in degree --- between political and chattel slavery. The former, no less than the latter, denies a man's ownership of himself and the products of his labor; and asserts that other men may own him, and dispose of him and his property, for their uses, and at their pleasure." – Lysander Spooner (Nineteenth-Century lawyer, abolitionist, entrepreneur)

"A war of coercion was Lincoln's creation and he had to violently subvert the Constitution to carry it out. His purpose? To establish a centralized state."

Donald Livingston, prof. of philosophy, Emory University

If centralism is ultimately to prevail; if our entire system of free Institutions as established by our common ancestors is to be subverted, and an Empire is to be established in their stead; if that is to be the last scene of the great tragic drama now being enacted: then, be assured, that we of the South will be acquitted, not only in our own consciences, but in the judgment of mankind, of all responsibility for so terrible a catastrophe, and from all guilt of so great a crime against humanity.

Alexander Stephens, VP CSA

The famous journalist, H. L. Mencken, was no lover of the South--but like Spooner, he had fits of honesty--something unique to a journalist and reporter. In his brief but significant essay on Lincoln we find this quote:

"But let us not forget that it [the Gettysburg address] is oratory, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it! Put it into the cold words of everyday! The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination — “that government of the people, by the people, for the people,” should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in that battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves. What was the practical effect of the battle of Gettysburg? What else than the destruction of the old sovereignty of the States, i. e., of the people of the States? The Confederates went into battle an absolutely free people; they came out with their freedom subject to the supervision and vote of the rest of the country—and for nearly twenty years that vote was so effective that they enjoyed scarcely any freedom at all."

The only error in Mencken's statement is the last sentence. In my mind the limitation of 20 years of government enslavement is a gross error and miscalculation. Twenty years after the war the enslavment of the ENTIRE people of the land by the Washington ruling class was just getting started. After the first 20 years it spread like a cancer to encompass both coasts and beyond. The only abatement of its growth was merely temporary, during the administration of Grover Cleveland. But under the slimy hand of the Progressives, Roosevelt and Wilson, it exploded. Since then not only are we unable to see a cessation of the people's enslavement by the centralized government, we cannot even see any slowing or limitation of its growth and scope. Lay all this at the large feet of Lincoln and his henchmen in the party of the Radical Republicans.

Far from a ruthless act of sabotage, the resistance to the so-called "Reconstruction" was a courageous act of resistance to centralized tyranny.

Even the president of the United States, Andrew Johnson, opined the abuses of the consolidators. Consider his complaint against the radicals in the Republican party in his State of the Union, 1867. Note carefully the eerie prophetic utterance with which my quote concludes.

"The continued disorganization of the Union, to which the President has so often called the attention of Congress, is yet a subject of profound and patriotic concern. We may, however, find some relief from that anxiety in the reflection that the painful political situation, although before untried by ourselves, is not new in the experience of nations. Political science, perhaps as highly perfected in our own time and country as in any other, has not yet disclosed any means by which civil wars can be absolutely prevented. An enlightened nation, however, with a wise and beneficent constitution of free government, may diminish their frequency and mitigate their severity by directing all its proceedings in accordance with its fundamental law.

When a civil war has been brought to a close, it is manifestly the first interest and duty of the state to repair the injuries which the war has inflicted, and to secure the benefit of the lessons it teaches as fully and as speedily as possible. This duty was, upon the termination of the rebellion, promptly accepted not only by the executive department, but by the insurrectionary States themselves, and restoration in the first moment of peace was believed to be as easy and certain as it was indispensable. The expectations, however, then so reasonably and confidently entertained were disappointed by legislation from which I felt constrained by my obligations to the Constitution to withhold my assent.

It is therefore a source of profound regret that in complying with the obligation imposed upon the President by the Constitution to give to Congress from time to time information of the state of the Union I am unable to communicate any definitive adjustment satisfactory to the American people, of the questions which since the close of the rebellion have agitated the public mind. On the contrary, candor compels me to declare that at this time there is no Union as our fathers understood the term, and as they meant it to be understood by us. The Union which they established can exist only where all the States are represented in both Houses of Congress; where one State is as free as another to regulate its internal concerns according to its own will, and where the laws of the central Government, strictly confined to matters of national jurisdiction, apply with equal force to all the people of every section. That such is not the present "state of the Union" is a melancholy fact, and we must all acknowledge that the restoration of the States to their proper legal relations with the Federal Government and with one another, according to the terms of the original compact, would be the greatest temporal blessing which God, in His kindest providence, could bestow upon this nation. It becomes our imperative duty to consider whether or not it is impossible to effect this most desirable consummation. The Union and the Constitution are inseparable. As long as one is obeyed by all parties, the other will be preserved; and if one is destroyed, both must perish together. The destruction of the Constitution will be followed by other and still greater calamities. It was ordained not only to form a more perfect union between the States, but to "establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." Nothing but implicit obedience to its requirements in all parts of the country will accomplish these great ends. Without that obedience we can look forward only to continual outrages upon individual rights, incessant breaches of the public peace, national weakness, financial dishonor, the total loss of our prosperity, the general corruption of morals, and the final extinction of popular freedom. To save our country from evils so appalling as these, we should renew our efforts again and again."

Finally, note this quote from within what I previously quoted of Johnson's SotU: 

"The expectations, however, then so reasonably and confidently entertained were disappointed by legislation from which I felt constrained by my obligations to the Constitution to withhold my assent."

Johnson withheld the assent to the 14th amendment. (The Southern republics readily and GLADLY voted unanimously for the 13th amendment. Reconstruction was a punishment by the radical Republicans upon the states that had rejected the 14th amendment--including New York.)

The 14 was ILLEGALLY ratified by the radicals Republicans, and to this day it does not belong in the US Constitution).

Those states who rejected it (which included several union states) did so because they understood the 14th amendment would give the Centralized government a transcendent and DIRECT authority over each individual citizen of the Sovereign States (making them no longer sovereigns)---an authority that supersedes the state citizenship, basically nullifying it. 

What's more the 14th amendment gives the federal government (now metastasized into a Unitary and Consolidated one) the power to act upon that nullification at the lawless, arbitrary, will-o-the-wisp whim of those holding centralized power.

All this (and more) Johnson clearly knew was compounding the lawlessness and the tyrannical intentions of the Radical Republicans, who, at that time, possessed plenary legislative power to countermand any refusal of the Executive to sign their abusive legislation into law.

By their efforts the Constitution has been made a document of lawlessness and tyranny.

Southerners take the Pledge

Dear Southerners and Friends of Liberty, we all know from repeated past behavior that the Republican party has consistently betrayed the South in Washington, making promises they never had any intention of fulfilling. The backstabbing of the Republicans regarding their base has become nothing short of pathological.

Presently, it's almost impossible to see the difference between the Democrats and the "go along" party. Indeed, it would not be hyperbole to say these two self-proclaimed "national parties" represent a distinction without a meaningful difference.

There is a desperate need for a third, Liberty oriented party, a party that will serve the people instead of the special interests controlling these two frauds infesting the seats of Congress.

Because our support of the Republicans since the 1970s has been consistent we have often been referred to as "the Solid South".  Indeed, we in the South are taken for granted by the Republicans just iike the blacks are taken for granted by the Democrats. (Note today the black community is worse off in almost every way than the day Barack Obama took office, but blacks, it seems, remain fully willing to be used and betrayed by the Democrats, putting ideology and racial bias over their well being and the future well being of their children).

The Republican party has not only lied to and betrayed the people of the South, they have now added INSULT to injury, and lead the charge against the honor of our ancestors and against the Confederate Battle Flag under which they fought and honorable war for the self-determination of the Southern people. And in all the "debate" in the media the Southern voice is NOT PERMITTED to be heard, the Southern perspective and, indeed, the truths of history, are suppressed and false history is fabricated to defame our ancestors and our very selves--all lead by the Republicans in the state houses of the Southern Republics.

Seeing these events, one can only conclude that the Republicans, like the Democrats, have given themselves over to all out tyranny.

This cannot stand, and we of the South must begin the revolt against the betrayal of the parties, because no one else will.  I am asking every southerner to take the pledge that he or she will no longer vote Republican (or Democrat). Both parties deserve to be destroyed so something else can replace them that will serve the people rather than consistently betray us.

Southerners and all who love liberty must seek to find and support candidates who have no loyalty but to the people of their respective states, and are accountable to them alone.

Politically, this is the only way to begin saving our country, if it, indeed, is possible to save it. We MUST have a third party, for even electing good men and women who are Republicans is insufficient, because inside the beltway they are quickly perverted and made into the traitorous image of the Republican leadership, useless and corrupt men like Boehner and McConnell.

If you agree, please, do two things:

1. In your own words, in the comment section below, take the pledge to no longer vote for Republicans, and let your Republican leadership know you have forsaken them just like they have REPEATEDLY forsaken and betrayed you. There must be consequences for their betrayal of the South and the Southern people.

2. Make other Southerners you know aware of this pledge page and ask them to do the same.

thank you for your consideration and may God bless the South and all in America who love liberty.

Medina vs the Machine: the Battle Line have been drawn

This week thousands of Texans listened in amazement to the exchange with Glenn Beck and Debra Medina. The amazement of many was not so much over Medina's response, which were mostly straightforward, comprehensive and reasonable (more on that later), but over Beck's tactics and his outrageous remarks afterward. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Questions need to be answered that have hardly been asked in most quarters before one can reasonably speculate on the meaning of this exchange. Some of them are as follows:

1. Why would Glenn Beck seek to waylay a candidate whose primary policies are amazingly in line with those which Beck has espoused all year long? Is this not like saying Chocolate ice cream is the best and then doing all you can do to shut down the only vendor who sells chocolate? Why does Beck say he trusts the people and then refuses to give a fair hearing to the only one whose candidacy is supported by the people and not the Texas political machine?

2. Why would Beck, who has often wildly speculated on information he and his team have cobbled together, deny to another the same privilege of looking critically at their government and leaders?

Is it so crazy to question the government? After all, the government is not monolithic. It is very diverse, with its several right hands often having no idea what its left hands are doing––or why they are doing it.

*Have not many raised questions about Kennedy's assassination and the possible role of some in government?

*What about the false pretext the government used to begin the Spanish American war?

*What about Wilson and his clear intent, despite running as the candidate of peace, to involve America in Europe's first great war, billing it was "the war to end all wars?" Yea, right. How about calling what it really was, "The war to increase the American Empire and make it a world power?"

*What about the false pretexts upon which we entered Vietnam?

*What about the speculation that US leaders knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor but did nothing?

*What about the speculation that those in Lincoln's own cabinet and the Radical Republicans who increasingly opposed him could have helped facilitate his assassination?

When Daniel Webster questioned what he called Mr. Madison's war and condemned the idea the government had power to conscript our young men to fight a war for the advantage and folly a a few, was he called a nut, unpatriotic and consigned to the booby hatch of history?

Now that evidence abounds indicating many powerful among us want a unified world government why is it all of a sudden considered crazy to question the motives of some in the government? But today's $64.00 question is why, most especially,media Arch Speculator Beck consider it wacky when others do the same as he?

3. Why would Sarah Palin, Tea Party Queen par excellence, arrive in Texas only to turn a cold shoulder to the candidate supported by the Texas tea party, the candidate that supports virtually every policy to which Palin has paid lip service to ingratiate herself with the Tea Party people?Why has she trashed the Texas Tea Party people and their candidate to shill for a man with, to put it kindly, a very spotty record, a man who is clearly a political good old boy, and who, like his Montessori School sandbox adversary, KBH, uses the term "conservative" in Texas like the democrats use the term "diversity" in Massachusetts: as a vote getting punch line that goes out the window as soon as the votes are tallied?

4. Why, during the interview, would Beck refuse to inquire further about the critique of Perry that Medina made, ignore the libertarian red meat issues Debra mentioned (many of which Beck pays constant lip service)? Why would he then press her on a question that has no relevance in Texas and doggedly pursue it? Why would he then cut Debra off abruptly as soon as he gets the sound byte he's looking for, then don the clown mask and begin to put words in her mouth ("I guess that's a 'yes.'")? Why would he then procede to categorically damn her, using the most uncouth and revolting of language?––Revolting unless, of course, you the image of Beck French kissing Rick Perry appealing.

5. Why would FOX news, employer of Beck and Palin, begin to ramp up an attack on Medina right after the interview? Sounds like FOX is trying to do to Debra what they did to Ron Paul in 2008. Remember how horribly that same media treated Ron Paul in 2008, in the face of a popular uprising of support unknown, perhaps since the Revolution of 1776? Of course, they can't handle Medina the same exact way because Debra has gotten so much support she can't be as easily ignored as Paul. And this brings us to our last question: Why would this all out attack come at the very moment when she's climbing in the polls the grassroots response to Medina has scared the bejesus out of both Perry and KBH camps?

These events are not unique, they're not even a brain teaser. A little reflection reveals this is how FOX, Beck, Palin and other pretenders treat real Conservatives; they use the classic ad hominem attack to avoid addressing the real issue, and if the first two debates are any indication, Medina is the clear winner on the issues. In all fairness it also must be noted that Perry wins best dressed and best hair. (He must have recently hired John Edwards' ex-hair dresser.)

Considering the evidence it is almost impossible to resist concluding that the Machine is at work here––not the state Republican machine only, but the National Machine of so-called conservative media––which in reality is simply the Neocon Media. Anyone for Bill Kristol selecting the next Texas governor???

A small but important digression

Old-style Southern Conservatives were fond of saying "Northern conservatism never conserved anything." They say as much because they understood most northern conservatives to be Nationalists, not Patriots. Is this not mere word play? Hardly. The difference is the difference between Liberty and Tyranny; the difference between a free peoples protected by sovereign states from the increasing consolidation of power by the General Government.

After the War for Southern Independence the radical Republicans in Congress followed an agenda supported by their philosophy of consolidated government. It was their openly stated intention to change the American mind, making citizens "love their nation more than their state." Up until the War most citizens thought of themselves as citizens of sovereign states, referring to America as "the Union" or "these United States", not "the United States."

The state alone was represented on a national level. Far from disenfranchising individual citizens such a policy empowered them, protecting them with several hedges of sovereignty between them and national policy. This allowed them to act freely within their own spheres, to exercise their own right of self-government without fear of outside intrusion.

All that ended with the War and the illegally ratified 14th amendment (talk about tyrannical government abuses) put the exclamation point on the matter.

As Lincoln Supreme Court appointee Salmon Chase in a moment of candor said, "States rights died at Appomattox."...And with the death of states rights the great hedge of protection between the helpless citizenry and a rapacious, intrusive, tyrannical centralized government was dissolved. Corruption in government exploded in the ten years following the War and taxes skyrocketed, and with it government waste. The foundation was well laid for the Progressives who soon followed.

Of course, Lincoln lovers (like Beck and Mark Levin) turn a blind eye to the real cause of the past century and a half of the incremental erosion of our liberties and other evils. But they never tired of obsessing over the evils of the Confederacy (while ignoring its many Constitutional virtues, including the strengthening of the rights of states and personal liberty). Beck says he likes Texas. But it's clear he hates the south and looks down on southerns. He does not want to be a Texan, he wants Texans to be Beckites.

What's this got to do with the Price of Oil in Texas?

What has this to do with the Beck/Medina interview? After all, The Confederacy is gone, and with it slavery. Isn't that a good thing? Of course. Nothing better could have happened to the Union by worse means. I say that because it's never a good thing to throw the baby out with the bath water, but that is just what happened; American Liberty was cast out with sectional slavery and was replaced by national servitude. When the dust settled the government that emerged showed itself almost immediately to be Imperialistic, corrupt, confiscatory and Tyrannical in its nature and behavior; the very thing that great Firebrand for Liberty, Patrick Henry, so fervently warned the Framers about. Indeed, the General Government has reduced once Sovereign States to little more than administrative units, good for nothing but the collection of Federal taxes.

Today, that which is left of our freedoms rests upon a foundation of sand. We have them, not by Constitutional fiat, natural rights or mandate of Law, but by the gracious permission of the Chimera on the Potomac. Virtually every hapless citizen knows that any one of our remaining liberties could be wiped away any moment, in the dark of night with the flourish of a pen. (Patrick Henry also warned of that.) The vast number of citizens fear the government and seek to live a life in spite of it rather than under its protection of our rights.

I believe knowing these historical and political realities is essential to rightly understand the exchange between Beck and Medina.

Many people love Beck. No doubt, he's done many good things in helping people wake up to a part, but only a part, of their history, while carefully ignoring other equally important parts for nationalist reasons. But what he revealed in his interview with Debra Medina was there are those who seek to interfere in Texas politics for hidden, unstated nationalist reasons, plain and simple.

Our patriotism as Texans is clearly being challenged! Will we pass the test?

The question is not so much as who will win the election as it is how much Texans will be influenced by this sudden intrusion, this invasion of nationalism, the same real nationalism that despises states rights and the ability of the state to manage its own internal affairs without foreign, yes foreign, encroachments, threats and distortions.

When we consider all these issues and try to make sense of them we have to conclude that something else is going on here other than simply internal Texas politics. Something national is at stake, and it involves Rick Perry and Sarah Palin in some way, and it involves him in such a way that he must successfully win a third term.

These events also cast suspicions on just how sincere Sarah Palin's commitment to populism really is. It makes her look not unlike a Republican Party mole placed in the Tea Party movement to co-opt it for Republican use. It makes her look like just another politician who trashes principle for power. It makes her look like a game player, who, like Beck, says she's honest, but then disappears in smokey back rooms only to emerge behaving in ways that are clearly contradictory to her populist rhetoric.

I think these events also indicate that FOX news is hard at work using apparatchiks Beck and Palin as the proximate means to do to Ms. Medina what they tried to do to Paul.

Frankly, the only one who comes out of this smelling like a rose, a Yellow Rose and True Texan, is citizen candidate Medina.

Will the National Machine coupled with the Texas Republican good ol' boy Machine succeed in keeping Austin weird and Texas politics just business as usual? Or will Texas Patriots, whatever their political sympathies, show their patriotism and rise up in vociferous protest? The eyes of Texas and those who shed blood to preserve her Independence and protect her Sovereignty are, indeed, upon us.

We take pride in Texas independence; we rejoice in breathing freer air than the other states, and we do. But for how long?

I was not born a Texan. Kentucky was my home state and my people came from there, Tennessee, Virginia and Oklahoma. I've lived all over these United States, but I chose Texas consciously and may I say, I love Texas and rejoice in Texas independence, Texas liberty and Texas Sovereignty. May it live and grow. I consider myself, over and above all else, a Texas patriot.

Until the Beck interview I was mostly uncommitted about whom I might vote for. My tactic was that of watch and see. It still is. It ain't over till it's over. How the candidates handle the next few weeks will determine much. I will keep my BS detector well charged and on 24/7. I will consider them and their policies on their own merits, and not coloured by how some nefarious Clown with possible clandestine motives might try to characterize them. The Clown may French Kiss whom he wants, but I will make my decision independent of his machinations. As for Palin, she has not boosted Perry's image by her support, but diminished her own. I encourage all other Texans to keep an open mind as well.

One thing I am categorically opposed to is Nationalist Neocons intruding into Texas internal politics for clandestine and, perhaps, nefarious reasons. I hope and pray I share that dislike in common with more Texans than not.

Every person likes being of use to others. Feeling that you are is personally fulfilling. But no person cares to be used and manipulated by others for hidden reasons. That is only natural and reasonable. It is also natural and reasonable to deeply resent and protest outsiders who know nothing of Texas and care only to use Her for their own undisclosed ends. Dishonesty is never compelling. When disclosed, whether by another or the labors of reason, it is downright repugnant. Which brings me to my last point:

The final thing I gleaned from the Beck/Medina exchange was this: Medina was being forthright and open, while Beck was not. Honesty and forthrightness go a long way with me, even if I disagree with the person; that, too, is only natural and reasonable.

As for Beck; I may still listen to his arguments from time to time, but the interview with Medina will cause me to always be wary of his motives, for the acts of dishonesty and underhandedness I witnessed this past week on national syndicated radio warrant little more.

Texans for Texas!

the A. Armadillo

A little history quiz

If you're a moron liberal, like Bill Maher, or a neocon, like Mark Levin, Bill O'Reilly, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity or a host of other so-called "conservative commentators" whose twisted minds look at American history through the prism of the propaganda they learned in 5th grade history class with Miss Landers, a fantasy that ignores the Constitution, inverts reality, turns a blind eye to the most brutal war crimes of the 19th century, and stands you on your head in regard to moral rectitude, I guess you could say that, from your looney perspective, Lincoln was the greatest president.

But, if you care a flying fig about liberty, about the fundamental principles in the Declaration of Independence or the constrains on the General Government provided for by the Constitution, You will see this man, Lincoln, for what he is: a traitor to the Revolution of 1776 and the greatest enemy of Liberty the nation has ever seen within her borders, up to and perhaps including, Barack Obama---but that remains to be seen, since Obama's history is yet to be written.

So here's little quiz made of questions posed by Dr Clyde Wilson. I added a few of my own, just to round things out. Check them out to test your knowledge of American Presidential history.

History Quiz: American Presidents

by Dr. Clyde Wilsony Cly

• What American President launched a massive invasion of another country that posed no threat, and without a declaration of war?

What President raised a huge army at his own will without the approval of Congress?

What President started a war of choice in violation of every principle of Christian just war teaching?

What President said that he had to violate the Constitution in order to save it?

What President declared the elected legislatures of thirteen States to be "combinations" of criminals that he had to suppress?

What President said he was indifferent to slavery but would use any force necessary to collect taxes?

What President sent combat troops from the battlefield to bombard and occupy New York City?

• What President sent the Army in the middle of the night to arrest thousands of private citizens for expressing their opinions? And held them incommunicado in military prisons with total denial of due process of law? And had his soldiers destroy newspaper plants?

What President was the first ruler in the civilized world to make medicine a contraband of war?

• What President signed special licenses for his cronies to purchase valuable cotton from an enemy country even though he had forbidden such trade and punished other people for the same practice?

What President refused medical care and food to his own soldiers held by the enemy country?

What President presided over the bombardment and house-by-house destruction of cities and towns that were undefended and not military targets?

What President’s forces deliberately targeted women and children and destroyed their housing, food supply, and private belongings?

What President’s occupying forces engaged in imprisonment, torture, and execution of civilians and seizing them as hostages?

Under what President did the Army have the largest number of criminals, mercenaries, and foreigners?

Who was the first American President to plot the assassination of an opposing head of state?

Who had the least affiliation with Christianity of any American President and blamed God for starting the war over which he presided?

What President voted for and praised a law which forbade black people from settling in his State?

• What President said that all black people should be expelled from the United States because they could never be full-fledged citizens?

What President was the first to force citizens to accept as legal money pieces of paper unbacked by gold or silver?

Who was the first President to institute an income tax?

Who was the first President to pile up a national debt too vast to be paid off in a generation?

Who is considered almost universally as the greatest American President, indeed as the greatest American of all times and as a world hero of democracy?

What predecessor is President Obama most often compared to?

What president ordered the arrest of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for deciding contrary to him in his habeas corpus decision?

What president was Hitler and Mussolini's favorite president above all others?

What President single-handedly, without the messy inconvenience of Constitutional processes, changed the Federal Government the Founders had designed into a consolidated, National one?

For extra credit, why did Hitler like this president so much?

When America accused the Chinese government of human rights violations because of their response to the events in Tianamen Square, what president's actions did the Chinese point to as justification for their actions?

This is a take-home quiz. Please grade yourself–––and don't cheat!

Hillary displays her gross ignorance...once again

Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, displayed her ignorance yesterday when she said that organized religions around the world often get in the way of faith.

This is just one of the absurd utterances common to the two-dimensional mind of the materialistic liberal. To her, sincerity is faith's highest value and the actual teachings of the great faiths diminish that sincerity because these teachings are external and, therefore, by definition, superficial and artificial.

If that is true, if she is right, true faith, the best, most complete faith is a radically personal and private act...something like using the bathroom (or engaging in self-abuse.) Uh, I say this because most of us like to use the bathroom alone whenever possible. It's personal!

As a Catholic I understand faith to be something quite different. The Church teaches that faith is not like using the bathroom, it's like sharing a meal, a meal that commonly nourishes and benefits the lives of all who share it.

Hillary seems to be ignorant of the fact that true, meaningful faith has, of necessity, both subjective and objective dimensions. These dimensions are commonly referred to as fiduciary faith and dogmatic faith.

We see this expressed in the Great Commission of Christ at the end of Matthew. Jesus says he now has all power in heaven and earth and commands his disciples to go to the whole world and baptize in the name of the Trinity AND "teach them to obey all I have commanded you."

That is, those who believe are to have fiduciary faith in Jesus Himself. But such fiduciary faith is a means to a proximate end, and that end is to believe in what Jesus has commanded and obey it. Obviously, if you don't believe in Him you won't believe in what He teaches. This teaching aspect of faith makes up the objective content of faith. It is not a block or diminishment of faith but the object that completes and perfects it. This content makes up faith's dogmatic or "revealed" content.

These two aspects enrich one another. Faith that is sincere can be a virtue depending upon the content of that faith. For instance, one could believe in the Devil with deep sincerity, but such a content would make all that sincerity a supreme vice and evil, not a virtue.

The point here is when one's personal faith has no objective moral and dogmatic content, it is little more than a mishmash of feckless sentimentality, rooted in nothing meaningful. Such a faith is utterly incapable of meeting the difficulties the human person faces in life.

Faith is not impeded or diminished, but given substance and meaning when it includes a set of tenets and propositions which can be clearly articulated, as in the Great Credo all Catholics profess every Sabbath. This objective content makes up the teaching of the organized part of religion. This "external" content, far from being superficial or artificial, actually roots the soul in a transcendent certitude that alone can face and triumph over all the problems we face in life, whether coming to us from without or rising from within ourselves .

Such reality seems to have eluded Hillary's intellect for more than half a century. In that time she's has cobbled together her own orthodoxy from the sundry content of the leftist professors and socialist she worked with, and now makes it her object of worship. So, she knows little of what true faith is and what informs and perfects it.

I wonder how well she understands the nature of idolatry?

Tea Party People: A Plea for Consistency

The Tea Party is in danger of being co-opted by Republicans, or perhaps centrally organized by some within the party's own membership.

This is a grave mistake.

Such movements, begun for good reasons and carried on by most with sincere and honorable intentions, have historically become financial rackets and bureaucratically ossified once under the hand of some form of central control.

The heart of the movement, it's central inspiration, is the quintessentially American principle of right of self-rule. Self-rule always means local rule, and this is where the tea party must continue; each group must bloom where it is planted. As soon as it is run from the top down the game is up.

Many pundits are now saying the Tea Party groups should be centrally organized to become more effective. The diverse goals and ideals among the various groups is seen as a weakness and many pundits allude to this diversity rendering the movement feckless. I could not disagree more emphatically. This diversity is the health and strength of the movement. It, in fact, is the very essence of the true diversity of American republican governance.

My suggestion is for the Tea Party groups to remain independent and focused on their own local communities, regions and states. This will keep them both healthy and effective, thus American liberty can be rebuilt from the grass roots up.

This concentration on the local, however, should not preclude the formation of a loose Confederation of Tea Party groups, much like the loose alliance formed by the Articles of Confederation. Such a confederation will allow the respective groups to communicate and share ideas and methods while preserving liberty for the Tea Party groups just as it preserved the Liberty of the States between the end of the Revolution of 1776 and the ratification of our present Constitution, with its centralizing tendencies.

The Tea Party people should pay heed to that firebrand of American liberty, Patrick Henry, who has the highest praise for the Articles of Confederation as being an effective means of mutually profitable cooperation while preserving liberty and independence. If a man like Patrick Henry had nothing but the highest of encomium for the Articles should it not be considered as a worthy model today for liberty minded groups?

Such an alliance between groups would be consistent with the party groups' common inspiration of a return to small government and self-rule. In contrast, allowing themselves to be co-opted and run from the top down would be nothing but a structural imitation of the very thing they hate and which is the source of our present dilemma.

In the recent decade we as Americans have learned a difficult lesson: asymmetrical methods can be an effective means of achieving political and military goals when symmetrical means would surely fail.

The Tea Party groups should take a political lesson from the success of the Islamo-fascists. In remaining independent they lay the ground work for an asymmetrical approach to reining back the encroachments and abuses of big, centralized government. This de-centralized, asymmetrical approach is not a weakness, but the key to success where the symmetrical approach will surely fail.

The Confederate Battle Flag

For almost two generations, since the Federal government's second reconstruction in the 1960s, Southerners have sat silently, or rather, been muzzled, while the Empire has re-defined the meaning of southern symbols, especially our beloved Confederate battle flag. It's common today to have people assume that those who love or display Confederate symbols and take pride in our southern history are just driven by racial hatred. But what do these symbols mean to a Southerner, especially one who has taken the time to educate himself about our nation's founding and has studied the events between 1789 and 1861 carefully?

As a Catholic I'm very used to Protestants presuming to tell me what I believe. I'm continually surprised by the things they say. I'm even more surprised that they feel themselves competent to reveal to me my own most intimate thoughts and motives. How is it they know what I believe and why I believe it and I don't?

Should I accept their misinformed (often humorous) ideas, sometimes fed to them by professional Catholic haters, or should I consult the Popes, the counsels, the Catechism of the Counsel of Trent and the New Catechism? And what of the witness of the great saints? Perhaps Catholic haters should check those sources out to understand Catholic belief rather than accepting the ideas of badly informed Catholic haters or misinformed, lapsed and apostate Catholics.

If we presume to know better than another what their reasons for advocating a certain position are, does that not say more about us than it does about them? In such cases exactly who is the one driven by prejudice?

In every movement there are those who can be found who are there for less than noble reasons. For instance, almost everyone will agree that slavery was a serious flaw in the Confederacy. But it was a flaw in the Federal Union long before it was in the Confederacy and Constitutional as well. And being Constitutional it could be changed by lawful and peaceful means. What was absolutely unconstitutional was the invasion and subjugation of sovereign states by other sovereign states under the orders of a Centralize Power that as eventually to morph from the Federal government the Founders established into a National Government that would crush all other sovereignties and rights. Alexander Stephens is often noted for his Cornerstone speech. But his critics are conspicuously silent on the following passage from the Confederate Vice-President:

"If centralism is ultimately to prevail; if our entire system of free Institutions as established by our common ancestors is to be subverted, and an Empire is to be established in their stead; if that is to be the last scene of the great tragic drama now being enacted: then, be assured, that we of the South will be acquitted, not only in our own consciences, but in the judgment of mankind, of all responsibility for so terrible a catastrophe, and from all guilt of so great a crime against humanity. "

Not every Confederate fought for slavery––most, in fact, did not; not every Northerner fought to end slavery. Many northerners, in fact, albeit unwittingly, fought for the end of self-rule and even greater enslavement by the most brutal of means. We can now see in hindsight that they fought to turn what had been a free compact of states into a Centralized Empire. The Empire has subjugated and pillaged all the states, beginning with those which made up the Confederacy.

This so-called "Civil War" marks the beginning of the Imperial slavery of which the antifederalist Patrick Henry warned in his speeches to the Virginia ratification committee in 1788. His prescient and prophetic insight was fully vindicated when the Lincoln appointee and Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, Salmon P. Chase said, "State's rights died at Appomattox."

And with the death of state's rights the last hedge of protection for our individual liberty and self-rule also died.

Such an understanding of history, in fact, lies at the heart of those who yet love the Southern cause. There are those who say we of the South should forget. But to a Southerner who knows true American history, instead of the cartoonish version the Empire propagates in government funded schools, to forget is to accept imperial slavery and lose even the memory American Liberty.

That enslavement and subjugation was in the minds of the leaders of the Federal Government in Washington (and liberty in the minds of Southerners) is clearly seen in Union president Andrew Johnson's speech of 1868 protesting the abusive and unconstitutional acts of the Radical Republicans. He wrote and publicly opined:

"Those who advocated the right of secession alleged to their own justification that we had no regard for law, and that the rights of property life and liberty would not be safe under the constitution as administered by us. [Such is Johnson's understanding of the Southern motive for secession: liberty, not slavery]. If we now verify their assertion we prove that they were in truth fighting for their liberty and instead of branding their leaders as traitors against a righteous and legal government we elevate them in history to the rank of self-sacrificing patriots, consecrate them to the admiration of the world and place them by the side of Washington, Hampton and Sidney."

"Candor compels me to declare that at this time there is no union as our father's understood the term and as they meant it to be understood by us. The union which they established can exist only where all the states are represented in both houses of Congress, where one state is a free as another to regulate its internal concerns according to its own will, and where the laws of the central government are strictly confined to matters of national jurisdiction, apply with equal force to people of every section."

(Is in not clear from this speech that Johnson, who fought against his own homeland of Tennessee, now sees the true motives of the leaders of the northern invasion and is having buyer's remorse?)

Johnson's understanding and exposure of Federal oppression and slavery is echoed by one of the north's preeminent abolitionists and activists, Lysander Spooner. He wrote around the same time:

"The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals. No principle, that is possible to be named, can be more self-evidently false than this; or more self-evidently fatal to all political freedom. Yet it triumphed in the field, and is now assumed to be established. If it really be established, the number of slaves, instead of having been diminished by the war, has been greatly increased; for a man, thus subjected to a government that he does not want, is a slave. And there is no difference, in principle --- but only in degree --- between political and chattel slavery. The former, no less than the latter, denies a man's ownership of himself and the products of his labor; and asserts that other men may own him, and dispose of him and his property, for their uses, and at their pleasure."

I submit these are some of the ideas at the heart of those of us who love the South, are proud of her symbols and history---and who seek to re-assert them now, at the time when it has become increasingly clear that the Central Government is seeking to usurp more and more of our liberties and increasingly consolidate power into the hands of the few.

It is liberty, not slavery that drives us in this critical time––but who among our enemies cares to take the time to inquire? After all, they're too busy imposing the Imperial Will upon us poor subject/victims of their Empire.

Too late, it seems, they will remember the eternal truth: Sic sempre tyrannis!

We are Americans; we must be free! We are Americans; we will be free! Sic sempre tyranis!