Tuesday, January 10, 2012

The Eternal German Guilt Trip

Political correctness has permeated the historian’s craft to such a degree that honest historians must reinvent the wheel. PC has infected German history in particular. The doctrine of German “collective guilt” is often held as a precondition for German good behavior. Established historians in the US, England, and especially Germany must assume their subjects’ general wickedness since at least the 1871 unification. The German Republic’s leading social theorist, Jürgen Habermas, has argued repeatedly that viewing Germans as less than responsible for all of modern European history’s major catastrophes is “pedagogically dangerous.”

Habermas seems unconcerned with what the father of modern technical history, Leopold von Ranke, gave as the historian’s true function: describing the past “as it actually occurred.” He is quite happy that Germans learn half-truths and even total fabrications, provided these make them aware of their sinfulness and therefore willing to atone. Such self-loathing will also make Germans eager to give up their tainted national identity and become members of a world community (whether or not one really exists). Certain untruths have an apparently salutary character, and all the major German political parties now accept Germany’s sole responsibility for both World Wars and the positive role of Stalin’s armies in “liberating” their country from “fascism.”

Basic to this self-flagellation is having Auschwitz serve, in a former German foreign minister’s words, as the “founding myth for the German Federal Republic.” One must believe that not only did the Third Reich murder millions of Jews, but that Germans of all classes and regions happily cooperated. The most extreme form of this accusation is found in Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners (1996), released in Germany as Hitlers Willige Vollstrecker. The book was a German best-seller despite its insubstantial or invented evidence, a fraud methodically dissected by Jewish critics Norman Finkelstein and Ruth Bettina Birn in A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth (1998). Still, Goldhagen conducted book tours among the descendants of those he indiscriminately trashed, bringing mass displays of smarmily repentant German sinners.

“One must believe that not only did the Third Reich murder millions of Jews, but that Germans of all classes and regions happily cooperated.”

Not all books about what Germans supposedly knew about the Holocaust and what they did to assist it are as tacky as Goldhagen’s work. The more respectable formulation of his thesis goes like this: The Nazi extermination of the Jews was an “open secret.” No German administrator or military officer was supposed to know “state secrets” unless they pertained to his assigned function. While any violation of this restriction would be met with severe punishment, the secret was not as well kept as Germans would have their conquerors believe. Jews could not have been removed, we are told, without their non-Jewish neighbors knowing they would suffer a horrendous fate wherever they were taken.

The now received view preaches that there was anti-Semitism in Germany going back many centuries. It notes that in the interwar period, nationalist parties urging the exclusion of Jewish citizens received many votes. There is something else that anti-German historians now emphasize but which they may exaggerate: the occasional breakdown of the distinction between the Waffen SS Einsatzgruppen—which rounded up and murdered Jews, Poles, and Russians—and Wehrmacht soldiers who were simply fighting a war.

Ron Paul to Santorum, Huntsman, Gingrich: Stop Your Leftist Demagogy against Free-Market Capitalism

The Ron Paul 2012 Presidential campaign released the following statement in response to the feigned controversy surrounding out-of-context exploitation of Mitt Romney’s “I like to fire people” statement. Below please find comments from National Campaign Chairman Jesse Benton:

“Rick Santorum, Jon Huntsman, and Newt Gingrich are once again proving why they are unfit to be President and why this has become a two man national race between Mitt Romney, the candidate of the status quo, and Ron Paul, the candidate of real change.

Two important issues that should unite Republicans are a belief in free markets and an understanding that the media often use ‘gotcha’ tactics to discredit us. Rather than run against Governor Romney on the issues of the day Santorum, Huntsman, and Gingrich have chosen to play along with the media elites and exploit a quote taken horribly out of context. They are also using the language of the liberal left to attack private equity and condemn capitalism in a desperate and, frankly, unsavory attempt to tear down another Republican with tactics akin to those of MoveOn.org.

Santorum, Huntsman, and Gingrich are employing leftist tactics because they can’t run on their questionable records and can’t distinguish themselves from Romney. Like Romney, they all supported bailouts, big spending, deficits, and individual healthcare mandates. And, all three have disqualified themselves from the race for President of the United States, first with their records, then with their inability access major state ballots, and finally with these desperate and deplorable tactics.

Dr. Paul is committed to running the kind of substantive, issues-based campaign the American people deserve. Our campaign will talk about real issues – real spending cuts, a sound monetary policy, protecting individual liberties, and promoting a pro-American foreign policy. We will win what is now a two-man race on these issues, the issues of grassroots America.”

Gun Free Zones

Re-post


Aviators, Airplanes & WWII

A face to remember

A Republican to boot. The Tea Party needs to run someone against him.

Ron Paul polls better than expected


Mitt-romney_38
Mitt Romney 15,121 35.3%
Ron-paul_38
Ron Paul 10,705 25.0
Jon-huntsman_38
Jon Huntsman 7,194 16.8
Newt-gingrich_38
Newt Gingrich 4,410 10.3
Rick-santorum_38
Rick Santorum 4,342 10.1
Others_38
Others 1,026 2.4

Hilarious! Kim Jong-un stars in new documentary broadcast on North Korean state TV

Superman has arrived!:)


Another tourist busted for guns

An Ohio man who has a gun permit in his home state is the latest city tourist to be caught in the web of New York’s strict gun laws, The Post has learned.

Fred Vankirk, 59, of Columbus, was slapped with handcuffs at about 11 a.m. Saturday after cops found two .357 Magnum pistols and a .45 semiautomatic in his room at the Radisson Hotel on Lexington Avenue near East 48th Street, police sources said.

One of the Magnums, a five-shot revolver, had been spotted loaded and sitting in plain view on a nightstand, the sources said.

Vankirk, who has no criminal history, told the arresting officer, “I have three guns in the hotel room. Is that what this is about?” a court complaint alleges.

Later, in a videotaped interview at the Manhattan DA’s Office, he told authorities he had been in New York for about three weeks and had the guns for protection, police sources said.

He was charged with three counts of second-degree gun possession and being held on $50,000 bond, court papers show. Each count carries a potential sentence of five to 15 years, to be served concurrently if a conviction results.

MORE

Free building plans for many kinds of structures

Via Survival

"Now more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature.... If the next centennial does not find us a great nation ... it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political forces."
-- President James Garfield

LINK

========

Rich T said... Here is a link for LSU Ag Center for various buildings. From small to commercial size. Smoke houses to chicken houses to beef production. They are all in pdf format with specs on dimensions and such.

Facing the Arithmetic

Ignore the Tyrant.


The USDA Agricultural survey: Voluntary not mandatory

Via Survival

The USDA is busy sending out its Agricultural Survey attempting to elicit from unwary property owners, information regarding any agricultural production or livestock or poultry (this can be virtually ANY crop, animal or bird) that you may own and goes on to ask how much monetary value is placed on produce or the sale of animal/poultry products. The [survey] also mentions that any one who produces and sells more than $1,000 per year is asked to voluntarily supply this information to the government. $1,000 a year is such a paltry amount and is significant in the fact that this amount is so low as to encompass virtually anything you might wish to grow and produce even for your own use. It would be virtually impossible for the federal government to confiscate food sources in the event they decide they must, unless they know first hand where that source is located and how much of it is there.

This is a voluntary survey and is not a [census]. Survey’s are voluntary, the census taken every ten years to do a head count of our population is not.

In a cleverly worded promotion on the USDA website:

“The 2012 census will be conducted late in 2012 and into 2013 to reflect 2012 farming activities. It is the voice of agriculture:”

Any person with estimated or expected annual sales of agricultural products of at least $1,000 is considered a producer and should be counted. (emphasis mine)

MORE

1788 View of Consolidated State and Federal Governments

Via Bernhard

“If there were any seeds in this Constitution which might, one day, produce a consolidation, it would, sir, with me, be an insuperable objection, I am so perfectly convinced that so extensive a country as this can never be managed by one consolidated government….If the state governments vanish, the general government must vanish also….The state governments can put a veto, at any time, on the general government, by ceasing to continue the executive power.”

--William Richardson Davie of Halifax
(NC)

1788 View of Consolidated State and Federal Governments

DEA Agent Uses Death of SWAT Cop to Propagandize

Via On to Liberty

I haven’t had time to write about the awful drug raid in Ogden, Utah just yet. But the gist is that a veteran who apparently grew marijuana to self-medicate for anxiety and depression apparently shot and killed one cop and wounded several others during a nighttime raid on his home. This is the same narcotics task force, by the way, that shot and killed a man wielding a golf club five seconds after breaking down his door during a botched meth raid last year. That cop was forgiven for his mistake. Heat of battle, volatile situation, mistakes were made—you know the drill.

Perhaps we’ll soon learn that Matthew Stewart was a big-time drug dealer hell-bent on taking down a team of cops. We don’t know enough yet to say anything for certain. But from what we do know, it doesn’t appear that way. The guy had no prior criminal record. And the article below suggests that the authorities are already setting expectations for the possibility that Stewart was just a guy who grew for his own use.

Here’s a DEA flack defending the raid and pointing out the (very real, though not in the way he’d have you believe) dangers of pot smoking.

MORE

'Please give me a five-minute break, I need to rest': Moment Polish military prosecutor SHOT himself after news conference on probe

A Polish prosecutor shot himself today in dramatic footage caught on film in his office after cutting short a news conference.

Moments earlier, he had defended a military investigation into leaks related to a plane crash that killed Poland's president two years ago.

At the start of the conference at his office in Poznan, Colonel Mikolaj Przybyl said: 'During my entire service as a civilian and later military prosecutor, I have never brought shame to the Republic of Poland and I will protect the honour of an officer of the Polish armed forces and prosecution.

'Thank you, please give me a five-minute break, I need to rest,' Przybyl said, as the reporters then leave the room.

MORE

Poll: Romney, Paul Tie Obama

National Journal

Verbatim Post

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, run neck-and-neck with President Obama in a general-election matchup, according to a new CBS News poll released late on Monday that shows the two front-runners in Tuesday's New Hampshire GOP primary running stronger against the president than their fellow Republicans.

Romney posts a two-point lead over Obama, 47 percent to 45 percent, within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points. He leads Obama, 45 percent to 39 percent, among independent voters.

Obama's lead over Paul is just one point, 46 percent to 45 percent, as Paul leads among independents by 7 points.

The president posts more significant leads over the other GOP candidates, but against each he is below the critical 50-percent threshold: He leads former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, 49 percent to 41 percent; former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, 48 percent to 41 percent; Texas Gov. Rick Perry, 49 percent to 42 percent; and former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., 47 percent to 43 percent.

Among all adults, just 45 percent of Americans approve of the job Obama is doing as president, slightly worse than the 47-percent approval rating he posted last month. Among independents, 38 percent approve of Obama's job performance, while 49 percent disapprove.

Results released earlier Monday among Republicans who said they intend to vote in their state's presidential nominating contest showed Romney running slightly ahead of the rest of the field, but nearly a third of Republicans are undecided or seeking a candidate not currently in the race.

The CBS News poll was conducted Jan. 4-8, surveying 1,413 adults, for a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points. The poll includes a subsample of 1.247 registered voters.

COMBAT RIFLE MARKSMANSHIP TRAINING

Via Don

For the guerrilla fighter, there is only one reason to carry a rifle: to kill the enemy. The purpose of the rifle is to impose the will of the rifleman on his enemy. Whether the enemy is a home-invading criminal thug, roving bands of looters in a post-societal collapse/Zombie apocalypse, or the jack-booted thugs of a totalitarian regime is irrelevant. If you train to fight with a rifle, you are training to kill. If you are training to kill with a modern combat rifle/carbine, I will take the liberty of assuming that your intent is to kill the enemy as quickly and efficiently as possible. This is not due to some weepy-eyed sense of humanitarianism for bad guys, but rather it is about reducing the threat to your own life and safety.

If your goal is to kill efficiently with your rifle, then you have to know the most effective and efficient methods to utilize the weapon. That is, ultimately, the purpose of rifle marksmanship training. You must become a rifleman.


Another "non-terrorist attack" by muslim terrorist

Via Don
A man thought to be an Islamic extremist is believed to have shot the windows out of at least two businesses in Alabama City early Sunday to lure police officers to the area and engage them in a shootout.
Luis Ibarra-Hernandez, 21, from Albertville, was charged today with attempted murder, according to a news release from the Gadsden Police Department.

“After the man was taken into custody, he reported that he knew he must do something extreme to draw attention to Islam and himself, so he planned to shoot police officers,” Gadsden Police Capt. Regina May said.

MORE

SIG SAUER ACP - ADAPTIVE CARBINE PLATFORM

MPA57sst 5.7x28mm Pistol

MPA57sst 5.7x28mm Pistol

LINK
5.7x28mm
one (1) 20 Round Polymer Magazine
one (1) Muzzle Break
Side Cocker
Scope Mount
Semi Auto Design
5" Barrel
Thread Size - 1/2x28

MSRP: $599.00





Photos

John S. Mosby Lecture

Via Dedicated Dad

NC Patriots of ’61 -- Colonel William Lee Davidson

North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial
www.ncwbts150.com
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial Commission"

North Carolina Patriots of ’61 -- Colonel William Lee Davidson of Mecklenburg County:

Colonel Davidson was born at Oak Lawn plantation in Mecklenburg County 10 February 1825, son of Benjamin Wilson and Elizabeth Latta Davidson. He attended Davidson College, named for relative Brigadier-General William Lee Davidson who was killed fighting the British at Cowan’s Ford, North Carolina in 1781.

He was a Mexican War veteran and a merchant before 1861. At the outbreak of war with the North, Davidson was elected Captain of his Mecklenburg company on 16 May 1861, mustered as Company D, 7th North Carolina Regiment at Camp Mason in Graham in August 1861. He was promoted to Major 24 February 1863; and Lieutenant-Colonel on 3 May 1863. The 7th North Carolina included men from Iredell, Alexander (Alexander State Troops), Cabarrus (Cabarrus Minute Men), Rowan, New Hanover, Mecklenburg, Nash (Stanhope Tiger Guards) and Wake (Wake Rangers) counties. The regiment saw action at New Bern, Hanover Court House, Seven Days’, Second Manassas, Ox Hill, Sharpsburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Cold Harbor, Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Appomattox

Colonel Davidson was wounded in action at Chancellorsville, wounded again at the Wilderness, captured by the enemy at the latter. Exchanged in August 1864, he was promoted to Colonel on 28 November 1864 and was paroled on 15 May 1865 in Charlotte.

Living in Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina and Lincolnton, North Carolina in the postwar, Colonel Davidson worked as a lawyer and clerk for several railroads. He married Anne Irvine in 1870, died in Chester, South Carolina 13 August 1899. He is buried in St. Luke’s Episcopal Cemetery in Lincolnton.

(Source: Confederate Colonels, Bruce S. Allardice, University of Missouri Press, 2008)


NC Patriots of ’61 -- Colonel William Lee Davidson

Bonnie & Clyde Tommy Gun, shotgun on auction



Both online and present, the serious and curious Jan. 21 will be bidding and watching as a Tommy Gun and Winchester shotgun linked to bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrows at a Kansas City, Mo., auction house.

The family decided they had no interest in owning the guns anymore, said Robert Mayo, president and co-owner of Kansas City’s Mayo Auction and Realty.

Mayo, who will be the auctioneer of the entire catalog of roughly 100 firearms that day, said, “The father and the grandfather had passed away and they felt it was time that the guns go to somebody who would appreciate them.” From 1973 to just a few months ago, Mayo said the family lent the two guns to the Springfield Police Museum.

Although the two guns appear in good working order, the auctioneer said they most likely had not been fired since May 23, 1934, when the two were cut down in a Louisiana firefight with a Texas Ranger-led posse sent to hunt them down.

Mayo said, absentee and online bidding is available by going to the auction website.

Missouri car dealer Mark Muller, the owner of Max Motors, said he registered for the auction Jan. 6, as soon as he heard about it.

Muller said the chance to buy a Bonnie & Clyde Tommy Gun is going to be too much for people to pass up.

“I will buy up to $50,000, but that won’t get it done,” he said.

Allen West on Obama: "He has a complete contempt for the legislative branch."

Congressman Allen West tells Newsmax that President Barack Obama has “complete contempt” for Congress and is starting to believe that he has an “imperial presidency.”

The Florida Republican says Newt Gingrich is the “smartest” GOP candidate but thinks any of the Republican hopefuls can beat Obama in what undoubtedly will be a “brutal bloodbath.”

West also asserts that sanctions will not succeed in deterring Iran’s belligerency and warns that the United States should not cut the defense budget to make the military the “bill-payer” for Washington’s failure to rein in spending.

Ron Paul Haunts New Hampshire

Via Peter

"At some level, the enthusiasm for Ron Paul represents a rejection of the recent Republican past........"
Goes without saying

You don't have to go to a Ron Paul rally to find Ron Paul's supporters. Wherever there has been a political event in New Hampshire in recent days, at least a handful of the Texas congressman's fans have shown up, waving their signs and shouting expressions of support for their candidate. They are the only Republican campaign that does this. You will never attend, say, a Newt Gingrich rally and find Rick Santorum's supporters waving signs outside, but the Paul people are ubiquitous here, just as they were in Iowa, and the question remains: Why?

Paul is likely to finish second here in the "Live Free or Die" state, after having finished third in Iowa, and it is difficult to imagine any scenario in which the libertarian-leaning Texan could win the GOP nomination. He does not have what the pundits call a "path to the nomination." And yet the implausibility of Paul's campaign does not seem to deter his notoriously enthusiastic supporters.

"President Paul! President Paul! President Paul!" hundreds of them chanted in a Nashua aircraft hangar Friday, expressing the least likely of all outcomes in this topsy-turvy Republican campaign. As absurd as such hopes may seem, however, it is remarkable that the candidate most likely to win – former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney – generates nothing like the excitement shown by Paul's supporters. Republicans are seemingly prepared to nominate the tepid "It's His Turn" candidate, while rejecting the only candidate in the GOP field who comes near to matching the cult-like following inspired by President Obama.

There are many mysteries to the phenomenon that is Ron Paul.

Auld Lang Syne by Sissel

Via Cousin Colby

Great wildlife shots.


Silence Before Storm

They were family living in building that was populated with important people from the old politic system, like retired politicians, rich and important people.

It was about about one month after SHTF started, family stayed inside, did not know what to do, their apartment building was one of the few that gangs did not visit yet.

They heard screams and pistol shots, bad sign always, then loud curses, and sound of fighting. Anyway, there was no too much time to do anything smart,while gang get to their floor, they managed to hide girl in one of the closet, and put some pillows and stuff on her.

They did not have any weapon in apartment, except kitchen knifes. Son was in late about 17 years old , perfect age to be killed, or in better (or in worse case) to be recruited in their gang.

So they do only thing that make some sense, he just play that he is retarded,staring in one direction, drooling. When they entered apartment, they did not loose to much time on questions, luckily it was just quick sweep, so they did not find a girl under the blankets, just quick stealing time with few smacks for the woman, man tried to protect her, but he ended dead, they even did not shoot him, they just threw him trough the window. 4th floor.

MORE

CIA Chief endorses Ron Paul. The man who hunted Bin Laden explains why

Via Cousin John

Poll: Americans, 2-1, Fear Obama's Reelection

When it comes to how Americans view President Obama going into the new year, there appears to be very little spirit of Auld Lang Syne. Instead, according to the new Washington Whispers poll, many voters aren't forgetting what they dislike about Obama and want him out office.

In our New Year's poll, when asked what news event they fear most about 2012, Americans by a margin of two-to-one said Obama's reelection. Only 16 percent said they fear the Democrat won't win a second term, while 33 percent said they fear four more years. [Check out the top political events of 2011]

Next to Obama's reelection, 31 percent of Americans said they feared higher taxes, which may be proof that the president's focus on the payroll tax cut has hit paydirt.