Monday, January 16, 2017

An Amazing Speech From 1887: Slavery was the occasion of the war of 1861—not the cause.

 John_C._Calhoun

Delivered as the commencement address for South Carolina College, 1887.
 
What theme is most fitting for me present to the young men of the South, at this celebration of the South Carolina Col­lege ? What shall one, whose course is nearly run, say to those whose career is hardly begun ? In my retrospect I deeply sym­pathize with you in your prospect. You look to a future—a new future; I to the past—the old past. Have they no nexus? Is the New South cut off from the Old South? Is the past of our Southern land to be buried, and the new era to forget and wholly discard its memories, its ideas, and its principles? Be­cause a sweeping revolution has upheaved its society, is all it ever believed and wrought out by its great intellects and its social and political virtue to be deemed the worthless debris of a useful convulsion, fit only to be cleared away to make place for a new order of ideas, principles, and faith ?
I do not believe it.
The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils himself in various way.
But in all the history of civilized man, every seemingly extinct order has contained the seeds of that which succeeds it, and the rubbish of the past is but its circumstances, its incidents. And the seeds of truth it cherished have survived in the flower and fruitage of a later polity, free only from what was hurtful or unnecessary to the better order, which it will assume, under new conditions and with new surroundings. The child is father to the man: as true in case of a nation as of the individual.

Much more @ The Abbeville Institute and worth every sentence.

Major U.S. Mistakes in the Vietnam War: Part 5 of a Series

Via Mike

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A sixth prominent mistake in the Vietnam War was that President Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara continually refused to listen to the experience and accumulated wisdom of military chiefs and micromanaged military operations. This was an exacerbating factor in the first five mistakes covered in this series: appeasement, allowing enemy sanctuaries, a U.S. media-driven South Vietnamese regime change, the disastrous military doctrine of “gradualism,” and failure to utilize our strategic supremacy in Air and Naval power. Not listening to military experience and advice was also an important debilitating factor in providing effective political leadership in war. Some crucial leadership mistakes will be covered in another article in this series.

More @ The Tribune

The Great American Purge

 http://www.aotmclub.com/photos/thomasfleming.jpg

The framers of the Articles of Confederation, our first constitution, had no intention of re-creating in America a form of centralized government like that they were fighting to overthrow. There is no doubt that they believed in the independence and equality of the State legislatures, which were close to the people represented. The framers of the subsequent Constitution were of the same mind, and the creation of the Bill of Rights underscored their fear of centralized government – and the Tenth Amendment was inserted for a reason. That amendment in execution is as simple as its words: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” The destruction of Southern governments between 1861-65 was simply the overthrow of the latter Constitution by illegal usurpations by Lincoln; in supporting those usurpations, the Northern States lost their freedom and independence as well.
Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com   The Great American Political Divide

The Universal Principle of Free Societies

“States’ rights? You can’t be serious! What do you want to do – restore Jim Crow or bring back slavery?” Any serious discussion of the American republic comes aground on this rock, and it does not matter which kind of liberal is expressing the obligatory shock and dismay . . . looking for ways to pander and slander his way, if not to fame and fortune, then at least to expense account lunches and regular appearances on C-SPAN.

Even out here on the frontier, every hicktown mayor and two-bit caporegime knows how to scream racism whenever the rubes get in the way of some vast public works project that promises an endless supply of lovely tax boodle.

In my wild youth – a period which, for Republicans, only ends in the mid-40s – I used to make historical and constitutional arguments to show the agreement with Adams and Jefferson on the limited powers of the national government. I would cite the opinion of Northern Jeffersonians and point to the example of Yankee Federalists who plotted secession (in the midst of war) at the Hartford Convention of 1814, but the argument always came back to race.

No one in American history ever did anything, apparently, without intending to dominate and degrade women, Indians and homosexuals. This reducto ad KKK is not confined to the political left; it is practiced shamelessly by right-to-lifers who equate Roe vs Wade with Dred Scott and by most of the disciples of one or another of the German gurus who tried to redefine the American conservative mind.

States’ rights, home rule, private schools, and freedom of association are all codewords for racism, and when someone aspiring to public office is discovered to be a member of a restricted or quasi-restricted country club, instead of telling the press to mind their own business, he denounces himself for right-wing deviationism, fascism, and ethnic terrorism.

He resigns immediately – thus insulting all his friends in the club who are now de facto bigots – and begs forgiveness. So long as a group is “Southern” or “Anglo” or “hetero” or even exclusively Christian, it is a target, and then the inevitable attack does come, many of the members run for cover, eager to be the first to find safety by denouncing their former allies.

The great mistake the right has made, all these years, is to go on the defensive. The federal principle that is illustrated by the traditional American insistence upon the rights of the States is not only ancient and honorable: It is, in fact, a universal principle of free societies and an expression of the most basic needs of our human nature.

To defend, for example, the Tenth Amendment is a futile gesture if we do not at the same time challenge leftists to justify the monopolization of power by a tiny oligarchy. Under “leftist” I include, in very crude terms, anyone who supports the New Deal, the welfare state, and the usurped powers of the federal courts. It is they who, as lackeys of a regime that has deprived families and communities of their responsibilities and liberties, should be in the dock explaining their record as wreckers of society and destroyers of civilization.”

(The Great American Purge, Thomas Fleming, Chronicles, April 1999, excerpts, pp. 10-11)

Lexington Welcomes the Flaggers - Flagging Friday- Lee Jackson Day 2017

Via Susan


We kicked off the Lee-Jackson Day Weekend in Lexington on Friday with a 10:00 a.m. meeting at Stonewall Jackson Cemetery.  After receiving instructions, schedules, and fliers to distribute, about 50 Flaggers, many joining us for the first time,  hit the streets of Lexington!  There were folks from Maryland, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Mississippi, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Missouri, and Montana, among others.

Austria’s party chief calls for law banning ‘political Islam’ over its ‘fascist worldview'

Via Billy

Austria’s far-right party chief calls for law banning ‘political Islam’ over its ‘fascist worldview'
 
Austria needs an “effective law banning political Islam,” said Heinz-Christian Strache, the head of the Austrian far-right Freedom Party (FPO), adding that the Alpine country should also stop accepting new migrants and refugees. 
 
“Let us put an end to this policy of Islamization as soon as possible,” Strache said in a speech at the annual Freedom Party New Year’s meeting that was held in Salzburg, referring to the current EU and Austria’s “welcoming” policy towards asylum seekers from the Middle East and North Africa.
 
He added that, otherwise, Austrians and Europeans “would come to an abrupt end.” He went on to say that the current cap on new arrivals introduced by the Austrian government last year that amounts to 37,500 asylum seekers per year does not actually change anything. He also criticized a proposal recently introduced by the center-right Austrian People's Party (OVP), which involves the reduction of this cap by a half to 17,000 people per year.

He denounced both measures as “laughable” and called for the “minus immigration policy,” which should involve not only a ban on all new arrivals but also an expulsion of all migrants and refugees, who entered Austria illegally or were involved in any crimes on its territory.

“We need no cap and no halving of that cap – we need a zero immigration and in fact even negative immigration while all illegals and criminals [who are migrants] should be expelled from the country,” he said during the party meeting, as cited by the Austrian APA news agency.

More @  RT

Federal Judge Drops the Hammer After Marilyn Mosby Claims She’s Immune to Prosecution

Via Billy

 YES! Federal Judge Drops the Hammer After Marilyn Mosby Claims She's Immune to Prosecution...  

Tough titty.

 

When Freddie Gray was killed in Baltimore in 2015, Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby over-inserted herself into the case.

While it is normal for a prosecutor to be zealous about a case, for Mosby, getting the officers allegedly involved in the death seemed something of a holy crusade.

A prosecutor’s job is to work for the truth, wherever that might lead you.

The officers involved thought Mosby went beyond her job and sued her.

Now a judge has upheld the cops’ right to continue with the lawsuit.

From Conservative Tribune: