Lieberman: U.S. May Face Terror Attack In 2009

Say it ain't so, Joe:

Sen. Joe Lieberman warns the United States will likely face a terrorist attack in 2009 and feels Republican presidential nominee John McCain will be better prepared to handle the imminent attack than Democratic rival Barack Obama.

"Our enemies will test the new president early,” Lieberman says during on interview Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

“Remember the truck bombing of the World Trade Center happened in the first year of the Clinton administration, and 9/11 happened in the first year of the Bush administration," he notes.

Time out!

Now wait a cotton-pickin' mintute! All this time, we've been assured that Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq was launched to PREVENT terrorists from attacking the US. Yes, the hows of this process were a little hazy -- I recall something about Iraq being "flypaper" that would somehow lull all who hated Americans into directing their fire at National Guard volunteers instead of flying more jets into New York.

And now Lieberman says it was all for nothing?

Wake Up, America. We're Driving Toward Disaster.

Since it was founded in 1994, the League of the South has been warning anyone who'd listen that DC's other-worldly, over-centralized policies were taking us down the wrong road. Restoring local self-government wasn't just about greater efficiency, or citizen accessibility, or even the restoration of morality to government -- though all of those were genuine motivations to stop the slide toward empire. The ultimate justification, though, for the League's stance was that big, over-centralized government inevitably leads to tyranny, war, and ruin, and the signs that we're approaching a cliff at 80 miles an hour are increasingly clear.

In other words, the Southern Cause isn't about nostalgia, legalism, or the "Lost Cause," but ultimately about survival, both cultural and physical. Now the warning signs are so clear, none but the most delusional can ignore them -- increased, rather than decreased, instability in the Middle East, worsening the always nervous oil market, sending prices to new, terrifying highs; the credit crunch, with its deadly effect on the housing market, a direct result of the Neocons' foolish overseas borrowing to pay for the "liberation" of Iraq, also worsened by egalitarian home mortgage policies that trump rational business decisions; rising crime, including frightening increases in immigrant gang activities, the inevitable result of DC's de facto Open Borders policies; and an out-of-control citizen control mechanism that claims the power to dissolve the 4th amendment and other basic freedoms, even habeas corpus.

Now, it's not just "right-wing" pundits who recognize that things are falling apart, but liberals, too. James Kunstler has a great piece arguing that America's infinite consumption, infinite growth, and world-wide empire are not only unsustainable, but suicidal. His recommendations sound like a position paper from the League of the South Board of Directors:

So what are intelligent responses to our predicament? First, we'll have to dramatically reorganize the everyday activities of American life. We'll have to grow our food closer to home, in a manner that will require more human attention. In fact, agriculture needs to return to the center of economic life. We'll have to restore local economic networks -- the very networks that the big-box stores systematically destroyed -- made of fine-grained layers of wholesalers, middlemen and retailers.

We'll also have to occupy the landscape differently, in traditional towns, villages and small cities. Our giant metroplexes are not going to make it, and the successful places will be ones that encourage local farming.

(As a heads-up to readers, stand by for some exciting new activism strategies from the League leadership -- something we've been working on for some time.)

For now, let's just take a look at where the attitudes that led to these self-destructive policies came from. As Kunstler says, the notion that we can have, or should have, anything we want is both delusional and suicidal. The most concise expression of this philosophy is from the atheist writer Ayn Rand. As she wrote, appropriately, in The Virtue of Selfishness:

Nothing is given to man on earth except a potential and the material on which to actualize it. The potential is a superlative machine: his consciousness; but it is a machine without a spark plug, a machine of which his own will has to be the spark plug, the self-starter and the driver; he has to discover how to use it and he has to keep it in constant action. The material is the whole of the universe, with no limits set to the knowledge he can acquire and to the enjoyment of life he can achieve.

Contrast that view of man and nature with the traditional Southern view, best summarized by Richard Weaver in The Southern Tradition At Bay:

"But nature is not an opponent, as ancient systems of belief could have instructed us; it is the matrix of our being, and as such scientists we are parricides. Piety is a realization that beyond a certain point victories over nature are pyrrhic." (p. 16)

That's the change in direction we now need so desperately, from that of greed, selfishness, and unbelief, to that of honor, patriotism, and piety.

Details to follow ...

Quote of the day

"To tar the sacrifices of the Confederate soldier as simple acts of racism and reduce the battle flag under which he fought to nothing more than the symbol of a racist heritage is one of the greatest blasphemies of our modern age." James Webb, Senator and former U. S. Navy Secretary.

Shots heard 'round the world fired near Charleston

Think the American War for Independence was fought and won in the North? That's because most textbooks were written and published there. Here's a bit of history all Southerners can be proud of:

Most American school children have heard stirring stories of the battles of Concord Bridge and Lexington Green, relatively minor skirmishes fought by the Minutemen of Revolutionary lore. These were fought in April 1775, and at Concord Bridge was fired the "shot heard 'round the world." But it was at an unfinished, palmetto-log fort on Sullivan's Island where the cannon shots heard 'round the world were fired. There, 425 Americans fought off a British invasion fleet of 20 ships, foiling an early attempt to occupy Charleston, then the largest and most important city in the colonies south of Philadelphia.

The Battle of Fort Sullivan marked the first American victory over a substantial British force in the Revolution.

The last such victory was at Yorktown, Virginia, 7 months after Guilford Courthouse in North Carolina.

Gun Control

Steve Sailer nails it once again. The whole point of the Bill of Rights was not to define, much less grant, certain rights to the American people. The point was instead to strictly limit the powers of the new Federal government. The rights and powers of the people were expressed and protected by their sovereign State governments -- and they were protected by State militias:

The other big change is that the Bill of Rights didn't apply to the states until the 14th Amendment of 1868. For example, Connecticut had an establishment of religion until 1818. So, the ratifiers weren't establishing an absolute right of gun ownership, they were just preventing the federal government from infringing it.

Winners and losers in Heller

Thursday's Heller ruling was not a victory for freedom, or gun rights, or anything worth defending. It was a victory for government supremacists and their camp-followers.

Just to get a feel for what this ruling means, check out this provocatively titled news story: Gun Ban Ruling Sets Up Bay Area Legal Battles. You don't even have to click it to see where this is going: a "Red-State" ruling incites Blue States to re-assert anti-gun laws, the National Rifle Association fund-raising machinery revs into high gear to stop the Red-State gun-grabbers, millions flow into NRA coffers, NRA lobbyists cart donations to politicians, and the music goes 'round and 'round.

If you think the NRA is pro-Constitution, recall how they took a pot shot at the most consistent, most principled defender of the Constitution a few years back, Ron Paul of Texas:

A staunchly pro-gun-rights lawmaker has repeated his opposition to legislation that would protect firearms manufacturers from liability suits, despite a report that the National Rifle Association may pull its support for him in the next election.

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, voted to oppose H.R. 1036, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, because he said he feared it would be an unconstitutional enhancement of federal power. As WorldNetDaily reported, the bill passed the House earlier this month 285-140.

But because he voted against the bill, the NRA may drop its support of Paul in the future, according to Chicago Sun-Times syndicated columnist Robert Novak.

The NRA is part of the problem. It agrees with DC that DC is the source of our rights, and that any meaningful effort to preserve those rights must be waged there. It's a single-issue organization, with all the blinkered energy and cash that define -- and limit -- such groups. All too often, they take stands that seem to advance their abstract, isolated goal, but in the long run hobble them. The Ron Paul case was just one such example.

DC, of course, is the big winner in this ruling. Once again, we have been persuaded that the Federal government defines its own power, and what our rights are. And all the "conservative" pundits and bloggers nod like bobbleheads that this is a good thing.

Doesn't sound like any kind of pro-freedom victory to me. And when will we ever learn?

Obama Supports FISA Legislation

Well, lookee here -- Obama reveals himself to be nothing more than -- a politician:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) today announced his support for a sweeping intelligence surveillance law that has been heavily denounced by the liberal activists who have fueled the financial engines of his presidential campaign.

In his most substantive break with the Democratic Party's base since becoming the presumptive nominee, Obama declared he will support the bill when it comes to a Senate vote, likely next week, despite misgivings about legal provisions for telecommunications corporations that cooperated with the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program of suspected terrorists.

For all his talk about reinventing politics, and changing the way things are done in Washington, Obama, in his pursuit of the ultimate political prize, is simply playing the game.

Here's the simple truth: no one aims for supreme power unless they REALLY want it.


So don't think for a second that Obama, should he win, will start dismantling the machinery of power once he possesses it. President Obama will keep the DC war machine well-oiled; he'll either find an excuse to stay in Iraq, or expand the war in Afghanistan. And there's always Iran.

The man savors political tug-of-war, enjoys wielding power. Like all the others attracted to the unnatural power of the chief executive, he's an addict reaching for that ultimate fix. If he grabs it, and feels it in his hand, he's not about to let go -- he would never transform DC into a pacifist, feel-good Woodstock, no matter what the frightened Republicans claim. They, all of political animals, ought to know better.

How switching language can change your personality

The complex creature that is man will never be fully comprehended. However, we do know that the mother tongue is a vital part of who we are, and this story confirms that:

Bicultural people may unconsciously change their personality when they switch languages, according to a US study on bilingual Hispanic women.

It found that women who were actively involved in both English and Spanish speaking cultures interpreted the same events differently, depending on which language they were using at the time.

It is known that people in general can switch between different ways of interpreting events and feelings – a phenomenon known as frame shifting. But the researchers say their work shows that bilingual people that are active in two different cultures do it more readily, and that language is the trigger.

The various languages are much, much more than just different words and sounds for expressing the same meanings and feelings. Language profoundly shapes our thoughts, and defines and proclaims our shared personality with our historic community.

John O'Donohue, the Irish poet and philosopher who spoke Gaelic as his native language, was best known for his book Anam Cara — Gaelic for "soul friend." In the ancient Celtic church, a spiritual guide was an anam cara, someone with whom you could share your innermost thoughts. Language was a vital concern to O'Donohue, who saw it as the most important bridge to loved ones, connecting all to the beloved community, defining and informing you of who you are. O'Donohue wrote, "With your soul friend, you can say who you are. With this love, you are understood as you are, without mask or pretension. Where you are understood, you are at home."

And when we are surrounded by those we do not understand, we are not at home. Nor do we know who we are anymore.

Those are the social, cultural, and spiritual stakes of our fight for survival as a people.

Sooner Sense

Hooray for Oklahoma!

The Oklahoma House of Representatives passed a resolution informing DC it had gone too far, and they weren't going to take it any more. Better yet, the Oklahoma House went on to instruct DC to “cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers.”

As this article correctly states, the language of the long-neglected 10th Amendment couldn't be plainer:

While much of the U.S. Constitution invites legitimate debate as to the “Framer’s Intent,” the twenty-eight words which comprise the Tenth Amendment are as unambiguous as they are forgotten.

“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.”

One of the clearest and most compelling proofs that our Founding Fathers indeed envisaged a limited federal government, the Tenth Amendment is a vital safeguard against an overreaching central authority.

In an age of political spin, pandering, and equivocation, it's refreshing to see elected representatives taking a truly courageous stand:

... the resolution’s lead sponsor—State Rep. Charles Key—was nearly as unambiguous as the language of the Tenth Amendment in explaining his desire to protect America’s “forgotten” right.

“The more we stand by and watch the federal government get involved in areas where it has no legal authority, we kill the Constitution a little at a time,” he said. “The last few decades, the Constitution has been hanging by a thread.”

Here, I have to dissent. The Constitution isn't hanging by anything -- it fell into the ash-heap of history decades agao. Today, it's an empty form, reduced to little more than a word game for ambitious politicians and judges who compete to see who can best warp its words into whatever suits their immediate purpose.

Heidi Beirich receives well-earned promotion at SPLC

With today's release of “Behind the Veil," a video exposé of the "anti-immigrant" movement, Heidi Beirich rises from her role of the Torquemada of the Southern Poverty Law Center to its Leni Riefenstahl.

As the publicity release for the video announces:

In the video, Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)—the nation’s premier monitor of hate groups—discusses SPLC’s research on organizations such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), NumbersUSA, and the Social Contract Press.

In the Riefenstahl tradition, Beirich draws the viewer into the video's movement and message with an alluring grace that can only be described as Beirichy. I found myself utterly bewitched, and totally convinced by the video's subtle and well-researched political message: Immigrants are good, and restrictionists are evil.

Produced by La Raza (translation: "Das Volk," ) the video reveals that those who would stop the uncontrolled human flood across our borders may pretend to care about security, and upholding Federal law, but are actually violent racist extremists who should be mercilessly hounded, arrested, tortured, and forced to attend sensitivity classes:

On the one hand,” says Beirich, “the anti-immigrant system is based on pandering to the extremists that you know will join your ranks, back you, fund you, and attend your events. On the other hand, it tries to use groups like FAIR to present a more moderate face that seems disconnected from these folks, but really at the end of the day, isn’t.”

Congratulations, Heidi! Leni would be proud.

The Southern grievances

Here's an interesting online debate you'll want to check out. It's a fairly objective, though still skewed, look at the background to the War to Prevent Southern Independence. Here's a sampling:

This does not sound like an oppressed population. If anything, it sounds like the North had more right to fear for its autonomy than the the South did. The South had gained more property and had been given the right to impose their definition of property on Northern states. Where the autonomy and lifestyle of anyone other than themselves were concerned, they didn’t care — and for the most part they got their way.

So why did the South secede? What were the injustices?

And in response:

Since the beginning of the Republic, great care was taken to balance the sectional interests of North and South. But the election of Lincoln and Hamlin, both from the North, shocked Southerners. As North Carolina’s governor John Ellis noted:

“Two persons have been elected to the offices of President and Vice-President exclusively by the people of ONE SECTION of the country…A clearer case of foreign domination could not well be presented.”

When war came, it was clear that it was a war between two economic and political systems, as opposed to the post-war propaganda that it was a great, noble war of liberation. In the real world, nations do not go to war to do good deeds; they go to war for power, land, and treasure.

Feel free to join in.

McCain the conservative candidate?

What says "conservatism" more than promoting the homosexual agenda and amnesty for illegal aliens? Darned if I know! Because John McCain is definitely a real conservative -- he says so himself, and Bob Dole, Mr. Conservatism himself, agrees. And look! He's friends with the Log Cabin Republicans:

GayPatriot has exclusively learned that presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Senator John McCain held a personal meeting with the head of the national gay Republicans organization, the Log Cabin Republicans. Log Cabin President Patrick Sammon confirmed his meeting with Senator McCain earlier today. [25 June]

And the amnesty lobby likes John McCain, too:

Sen. John McCain took some grief from the Left for keeping a tight handle on who he invited to his secret meeting with Hispanics in Chicago last week. And he took some grief from the Right for apparently promising at that meeting to pursue a pathway to citizenship for some illegal immigrants.

The grief from the Right continued today. Anti-amnesty crusader Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., wrote McCain a letter calling him out on the meeting, questioning McCain's commitment to pledges made earlier in the campaign, and snarkily invoking McCain's "Straight Talk" mantra.

The LCR crowd wants to expand the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples who can adopt children, and President Bush himself assured us Latinos bring their strong family values with them when they violate our borders. So when McCain becomes president, this country will just be knee-deep in family values.

If he doesn't blow us all up first.

States Outraged Over Supreme Court Ruling Against Execution for Child Rapists

Notice that the outrage against this bizarre ruling is mostly in the Southern States -- where concepts of justice and representative government still rule:

The efforts of nearly a dozen states to execute child rapists were derailed Wednesday by a Supreme Court decision that incensed supporters of such punishment. At least one state said it was not ready to give up. ...

Louisiana's law, passed in 1995, is the broadest in the United States. It also makes first-time offenders eligible for the death penalty, unlike Texas, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Montana — which required at least one previous conviction for child rape. Following Wednesday's ruling, all become unconstitutional.

Several states, including Missouri, Alabama and Colorado had been considering similar laws. Supporters there were incensed by Wednesday's ruling.

In South Carolina, Attorney General Henry McMaster, who pushed hard in 2006 to get lawmakers to approve such punishment, said states could ultimately fight Wednesday's ruling by waiting for a change in the makeup of the Supreme Court, or by getting legislatures to redo death penalty laws.

Keep pushing, DC. Keep usurping our laws. Keep imposing your agenda on us. The people of the sovereign States will one day reclaim what was always theirs, but lies and threats had denied them.

One day, just the right straw will settle in place, and then ...

Ron Paul smacks FISA

There's not much to add to Ron Paul's denunciation of the FISA fiasco he made from the House floor:

The main reason I oppose this latest version is that it still clearly violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution by allowing the federal government to engage in the bulk collection of American citizens’ communications without a search warrant. That US citizens can have their private communication intercepted by the government without a search warrant is anti-American, deeply disturbing, and completely unacceptable.

In addition to gutting the fourth amendment, this measure will deprive Americans who have had their rights violated by telecommunication companies involved in the Administration’s illegal wiretapping program the right to seek redress in the courts for the wrongs committed against them. Worse, this measure provides for retroactive immunity, whereby individuals or organizations that broke the law as it existed are granted immunity for prior illegal actions once the law has been changed.

Using these communication giants to do the regime's dirty work is nightmarish. I can't imagine a clearer abuse of power -- these corporations are not only regulated by the Federal government, but beneficiaries of its favors. They're glorified slaves.

What does that make us?

A little change of pace

I'm guilty of focusing on the activist, controversial political stuff a lot, so it's a good idea to check out web sites that relax and contemplate the real meaning of being a Southerner. Here's one such site that I've enjoyed, called "Gotta be a country girl."

McCain says only World War III would justify draft

Assurances from some people can make you even more jumpy. This one, for example:

Many Americans are fearful the U.S. government will be forced to reinstitute the draft given the prolonged Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Asked about that possibility by a potential voter in Florida during a telephone "town hall meeting," McCain said: "I don't know what would make a draft happen unless we were in an all-out World War III."

Um, ok - and how likely that McCain would expand our never-ending Middle East disaster into a world war? Uh-oh --

Local food = secession

Here's the most effective step you can take to escape the corporate leash -- eat local, thereby cutting the ropes one fiber at a time:

A few weeks ago I attended a meeting of Kansas secessionists. The participants were rowdy, complaining of economic gigantism squashing them flat and bureaucratic thugs hounding their every move. They were all sick and tired of worker-ant existence in the hive-mind of American groupthink and they wanted out. Despite the quintessentially political nature of the gathering, politics proper never came up. Conservative and liberal meant nothing in that room, and party affiliation even less.

Kansas patriots fomenting disunion? No, though there are a few of those kicking around these parts. These were local farmers organizing a farmer’s market.

What's so threatening to the corporate state about supporting local agriculture, and shunning the pre-processed, uniform, shrink-wrapped soylent thrust on us by the megalo-marts? Simply everything:

“What’s the big deal?” many will ask. Let Pollan count the problems—declining health; an obesity epidemic; the collapse of the family meal; environmental degradation; a food system that will eventually tumble leading to food shortage and political unrest; the loss of joy and beauty in eating; the forgetfulness of a people bereft of one of the most basic pillars of tradition—grandma’s recipes; and ultimately, the loss of freedom for a people incapable of the ordinary work of self-provisioning.

The globalist march through our culture aims at our homes. Don't let your kitchen table be their Trojan horse.

Should Buckhead secede?

The trickle is building, as more regions rediscover self-government. It's mostly out of necessity, as citizens react against oversized, grossly wasteful and neglectful bureaucracies. Buckhead, in northern Atlanta, is just the latest example:

The Fulton County Taxpayers Foundation has mailed a glossy four-page newsletter to about 50,000 households in the area, pushing to secede from Atlanta and make Buckhead its own city.

Supporters point to the city government's budget problems and school property tax rates and say the proposed city of Buckhead would better manage their tax dollars. Opponents fear the move would financially devastate Atlanta, which is currently struggling with a staggering budget shortfall.

"We're Atlanta's version of the Boston Tea Party," said Glenn Delk, a Buckhead resident and attorney who wrote much of the newsletter. "It's the only way [city leaders] will listen to us."

This is the way self-determination will unfold, not with a techicolor, Gone With The Wind, October Revolution spectacle, but with thousands of businesslike, tidy little secessions. Which is fine by me -- most of the big, noisy productions didn't end up all that well, anyway.

Britain to get border force to fight illegal immigration

As we've recently noted, Europe is waking up to the short- and long-term dangers of uncontrolled immigration. From the Telegraph:

Jacqui Smith said that senior officers had proposed a single force, run by its own chief constable, which will include uniformed officers on patrol and Special Branch to fight terrorism.

It signals a harder approach to illegal immigration, which has surged in the past decade and has stretched police forces tacking gun crime, drug and people trafficking across Britain.

Who knows, maybe Britain will drop the other half of the invite the world, invade the world policy that led to the London subway attacks. That'll be another lesson we can take from Mother England.

Neoconservatism: America's Tradition?

Here’s my latest theory: the lower public support falls for Bush’s costly and counter-productive military adventures, the more other-worldly his dwindling supporters turn.

How else to explain Robert Kagan’s latest agitprop entitled “Neocon Nation: Neoconservatism, c. 1776”? Your fingers will fall out of their sockets googling the web trying to find a more dishonest distortion of American history. Kagan’s piece could only find traction in an age when more that half of American high school students think British General Cornwallis surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Yorktown. As the title of Kagan's piece proclaims, Neoconservatism is really THE American way of governance – and the foundations of this ideology of an interventionist, highly-centralized government backed by a massive, aggressive military were laid at the founding of our Republic.

Now, one might wonder why the Founders set up a highly decentralized government with Articles of Confederation and a later Constitution that guaranteed continued State sovereignty, including control over their own militias, or a Bill of Rights that deliberately hobbled the central government (especially that pesky Fourth Amendment strictly limiting the government’s power to search and seize persons and their property).

But this is Robert Kagan we’re talking about. Early in the piece, he offers this example of the armed virtue America’s Neoconservative tradition was capable of:

To understand where the idea of promoting American principles by force comes from, it is not really necessary to parse the writings of Jewish émigrés. One could begin with less obscure writings, like the Republican Party’s campaign platform of 1900. In that long-forgotten document, the party leaders, setting the stage for what would be William McKinley’s crushing electoral victory over William Jennings Bryan, congratulated themselves and the country for their recently concluded war with Spain. It was, they declared, a war fought for “high purpose,” a “war for liberty and human rights” that had given “ten millions of the human race” a “new birth of freedom” and the American people “a new and noble responsibility . . . to confer the blessings of liberty and civilization upon all the rescued peoples.”

Yes, wasn’t it nice of the recently centralized American nation to confer liberty to the Filipinos? The noble language does indeed sound like Bush & Co. congratulating themselves for their invasion of Iraq. But in fact, both military actions were examples of brutal conquest rather than acts of liberation. The truth about America’s conquest of the Philippines is that over one million Filipinos died resisting their conquerors from 1899 to 1913. American commander General Jacob H. Smith revealed the actual character of the war with his infamous order to "Kill everyone over ten” when his troops took over an ungrateful, rebellious village.

Kagan continues his Three-card Monte version of American history with these distortions of Washington, Jefferson, and John Quincy Adams into primeval versions of Bush, Cheney, and Bolton:

With twenty years of peace, Washington predicted in his farewell address, the United States would acquire the power to “enable us in a just cause, to bid defiance to any power on earth.” Jefferson foresaw a vast “empire of liberty” spreading west, north, and south across the continent. John Quincy Adams considered the United States “destined by God and by nature to be the most populous and powerful people ever combined under one social contract.”

According to Kagan, those quotes endorse the Neocon ideology:

And these ideals would revolutionize the world. Hamilton, even in the 1790s, looked forward to the day when America would be powerful enough to assist peoples in the “gloomy regions of despotism” to rise up against the “tyrants” that oppressed them.

If you’re among those who believe Cornwallis presented his sword to Grant at Yorktown, you might accept Kagan’s conclusion that the Founders dreamed of such men as Wolfowitz and Feith as the embodiment of their ultimate vision for the American nation. But if your knowledge of history hasn’t slipped down the Memory Hole, you might recall what the Founders actually said. Washington, for example, saw the new Union as a means of avoiding wars rather than igniting them all over the globe, or as he put it, that the people of the States would

… find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and, what is of inestimable value, they must derive from union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves…

In the same Farewell Address from which Kagan devined George Washington’s distant dream of the National Security State, we find what the first president really thought about a standing military:

Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.

Later, President Thomas Jefferson seconded and expanded Washington's denunciations of “permanent alliances” with foreign powers when he called for "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none” in his inaugural address.

Finally, here’s what John Quincy Adams actually felt about Hamilton’s notions about what the American Republic should be:

Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force....

Our earliest presidents, then, grasped that a strong, centralized, militaristic government would be the enemy of liberty at home and abroad, rather than its champion. But don’t try to tell Robert Kagan – he’s too busy deciphering what Jefferson had to say about America’s destiny to "liberate" Iran.

Kristol: Bush might attack Iran if he thinks Obama will win

If ever there were any doubt that madmen run the government, or that mentally unhinged pundits have the ear of government, this should clear it up:

President Bush is more likely to attack Iran if he thinks Senator Barack Obama may be elected, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol told FOX News Sunday morning.

Kristol added that if Senator John McCain was going to win the presidency, Bush would “think it more appropriate” to let him deal with the issue.

So -- if we want peace, we have to vote for the lunatic?

God help us all.

Border Governors Worried About National Guard Pullout

OK, what's wrong with this story?

The thousands of National Guardsmen sent to reinforce the U.S.-Mexican border two years ago have almost completely withdrawn, despite pleas from border-state governors once skeptical of using soldiers to catch illegal immigrants and drug smugglers. ...

In late April, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano joined Richardson in signing a letter to Capitol Hill leaders begging them to extend the National Guard's presence.

"It is irresponsible to phase out the current support of the National Guard without the infrastructure and full-time personnel to fill the gap," the letter said.

This is just one more outrage that would give any time-travelling Founding Father an instant stroke. The very idea that the once-sovereign States must "beg" the Federal government for protection -- denied use of what was once their own State militias -- would've been inconceivable to Washington, Jefferson, and Madison.

But DC is busy playing international power politics with those troops, so they can't be spared in anything as mundane and un-sexy as protecting Americans from Mexican drug lords and illegal alien invaders.

How much longer until the people of the States recall the delegated powers and treasure DC is squandering? Crises like this will certainly hurry the day.

Northern Ireland Tour Agencies Target Scots-Irish in Southeast

I've never seen so much attention focused before on the roots of Southern culture. And now it seems the focus has come full circle:

Tourism agencies in Northern Ireland are hoping to attract visitors from the Southeast U.S. by launching a tour focused on Scots-Irish historic sites this summer.

Susie McCullough, marketing director for the Belfast Visitor and Convention Bureau, told GlobalAtlanta that the tour targets the many people in the U.S. who trace their heritage back to Northern Ireland and Scotland.

“We feel that Northern Ireland is very appealing to the North American market,” she said. “A lot of Scots-Irish, especially in the South, came from here.”

What's behind this surge in re-connecting with old bonds? No doubt, the foundation was laid by the scholarship of Grady McWhiney, Michael Hill and others, including the Kennedy Brothers (that's the GOOD Kennedys, by the way!). And James Webb's book on the Scots-Irish, as well as his new-found fame as a possible veep, have certainly popularized a long-neglected topic.

But I suspect there's more. I think it's also spurred on by the breakdown of American identity. These days, "American" is supposed to apply to Spanish-speaking illegal aliens, Muslim immigrants who're not about to change their name to Jones and become Baptists, and Ukrainians -- in other words, everyone and no one.

What's the appeal in that? For more and more folks in the South, not much -- so they start to look deeper, and are finding authentic roots extending past the empty ideology of multiculturalism.

McCain meets with Hispanic leaders

Seems John McAmnesty had a closed-door meeting with Hispanic activists yesterday. I wonder what they talked about? Let's listen in:

Republican presidential John McCain assured Hispanic leaders he would push through Congress legislation to overhaul federal immigration laws if elected, several people who attended a private meeting with the candidate said Thursday.

Democrats questioned why the Arizona senator held the meeting late Wednesday night in Chicago. But supporters who were in the room denied that McCain held the closed-door session out of fear of offending conservatives, many of whom want him to take a harder line on immigration.

Both McCain and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama support giving legal status to millions of illegal immigrants, but neither has made the issue a centerpiece of the campaign. At one time, McCain's campaign suffered because of his stance on the issue.

Aren't we lucky to live in a country where we get to choose our leaders? So -- which Big-Government, Open-Borders candidate are YOU going to vote for?

Confidence in Congress: Lowest Ever for Any U.S. Institution

We didn't really need a scientific poll to tell us this:

Gallup's annual update on confidence in institutions finds just 12% of Americans expressing confidence in Congress, the lowest of the 16 institutions tested this year, and the worst rating Gallup has measured for any institution in the 35-year history of this question.

But other conclusions from the same poll reveal surprising trends that raise disturbing questions:

From 1973 through 1985, organized religion was the top rated institution. Today, just 48% of Americans are confident in organized religion, one of its lowest ratings ever. The lowest score for religion to date was 45% in 2002 at the height of the Catholic Church's priest sex abuse scandal.

We've argued for some time that the old political loyalties and sources of social and political stability have been eroded by oversized, intrusive government, moral decay, and multiculturalism. Clearly, this and previous polls indicate growing fault lines that will certainly develop into seismic shifts. The public's loss of confidence in traditional, republican institutions confirms the need for reform, perhaps even a wholly new direction. We have long advocated downsized, local self-government as a healthy, peaceful, and legal alternative.

But another poll result suggests another possibility: 71% view the military as the institution that most inspires confidence. With the public distrusting its civilian institutions, could its near-adulation of the military inspire a Seven Days in May-style military takeover of the US government? Such blind trust is unwarranted, of course. After all, it was the US military that plotted to unleash terror attacks on Miami as part of its Project Northwoods plan to prod the American public into supporting an invasion of Cuba. That fact alone reveals what the military's actual priorities are, and protecting our lives and liberty are way down near the bottom of their to-do list. Like all entrenched bureaucracies, the military has become its own reason for being.

As the three-ring circus in DC stumbles along toward total irrelevance, let's try to keep that in mind.

Hawaiian group demands restoration of the monarchy

Here's yet another group that wants to free itself from DC's grip:

Surrounded by royal guards and the occasional tourist, Her Majesty Mahealani Kahau and her government ministers hold court every day under a tent outside the palace of Hawaii's last monarch, passing laws and discussing how to secure reparations for the Native Hawaiian people.

Kahau and her followers are members of the self-proclaimed Hawaiian Kingdom Government, which is devoted to restoring the Hawaiian monarchy overthrown in 1893. Nearly two months ago, they stormed the gates of the old Iolani Palace, and they have politely occupied the grounds ever since, operating like a government-in-exile.

Illegally seized by a US-led military coup, Hawaii still possesses the right to self-determination. So we here in the South salute you. Hawai'i Pono'i!

Europe re-considers multiculturalism

Has Western civilization woken up to the threat against it? Indicators like this arouse genuine hope:

In one of the clearest signs yet of Europe's hardening stance on immigration, on Wednesday the European Parliament approved tough new rules for expelling undocumented immigrants, among them a provision allowing member nations to keep migrants in detention centers for up to 18 months. Foreigners who have been forcibly deported also face a five-year ban on reentering the European Union.

The measure, which met stiff opposition from liberal lawmakers and human rights groups, comes as a wave of anti-immigrant feeling and policy proposals are sweeping Europe and parts of the United States.

After the London and Madrid subway bombings, and the Paris riots, the genuine threat posed by Third-World immigration to European identity and security simply could not be ignored any longer.

Here's another hopeful sign. Globalists and their multicult allies often cited the large-scale migration of labor among the European Union nations as a clear sign that nationality and ethnic identity had been tossed aside in favor of cosmopolitan rootlessness. All that matters, they gloated, is economic opportunity. The globalists had achieved their dream of transforming people into just one more commodity that can be interchanged, like capital and raw materials. The old bonds of patriotism had died.

But human nature is a stubborn, tough thing. While the internationalists proclaimed the death of the nation-state, something powerful was stirring within the souls of all those "interchangeable" laborers:

Four years after Polish graphic designer Chris Rychter headed to Britain to find work and study as a citizen of the European Union, he and his wife have returned home.

Part of a swelling tide of migration back east, they are having a house built in a suburb of the Polish capital.

"It took me just three days to find a job back in Warsaw," Rychter, 27, told Reuters. "We never saw Britain as home... We went for the adventure and to get some professional experience." ...

Statistics on migration within the 27-nation EU are not precise, but around half of an estimated one million people from eastern Europe who moved to Britain since 2004 have already returned home.

Has the tide turned in Europe? No doubt, the globalist/multicult schemers aren't about to give up. They'll be back -- but so will we.

Communists get "inside" support in slandering the South

The one thing Neocons, multicult leftists, and communists openly agree on is their hatred of the South. No wonder, then, the re-emergence of Walter Hilderman into the sunlight is pounced upon as a rich source of ammunition against the conservative, Christian South. The latest to pounce? The Communist Party for Socialism and Liberation:

Showing that racism is alive and well in the South, a massive Confederate flag was raised on June 3 along I-4 and I-75 outside of Tampa, Fla. ...

Walter Hilderman, a former member of SCV, affirms that the current leadership of the group is aligned with the League of the South—an organization whose self-proclaimed goal is an independent Southern republic consisting of the member states of the former Confederacy. According to the Southern Poverty Center, the SCV has a $5 million war chest to fund its hate propaganda throughout the nation.

Right. Educating folks about the Confederate soldier's ordeals and courage is "hate propaganda."

And notice that the mere display of the Confederate Battleflag is "proof" of the racist intentions of the Florida SCV. But then, that's the same thing you'd hear from Lindsey Graham, John McCain, or Morris Dees.

And a quote from an ex-SCV member gives this condemnation the look and feel of objectivity.

Good going, Walter. Looks like the old saying is true -- you CAN judge a man by the comrades he keeps.

Redneck: In defense of a word and a people

I'm both surprised and pleased at all the attention the mainstream media's focusing on Southern ethnicity these days. It reminds me of the resurgence of ethnic groups within what was supposed to be the united and assimilated Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in those artificial nations' latter days. Could this be a similar omen of what's happening within the DC empire? Just asking ...

Anywar, here's the latest on us, and it's darn well worth reading. Southerners are:

... the descendants of the Scots-Irish who pushed the American frontier across first the Appalachians and then ever westward, spreading as far north as the hills of Pennsylvania and as far south and west as wide-open Texas, leaving their manners, speech and customs an indelible if often unremarked part of the American character.

Oh, yes, rednecks are also fighters. Which means that, ignored and snubbed in times of peace, or just patronized by those who think their very name an insult, they are always called on when the country's in real trouble. To this day, they are part of the backbone of the U.S. military. They are, in short, people to tie to. They will stand their ground, as America's enemies have discovered since 1776 and long before. They need no one to come to their defense, let alone shield them from their honest name. Yes, they can be touchy, but only about matters of honor. ...

Their code is as involved as any Bedouin's, and maybe more so than the Southern gentleman's. Indeed, the two - gentleman and redneck - are part of the Southern whole, complementing and competing with each other, each half-envying, half-pitying the other but aware they share an indissoluble bond that involves the land, the language and whatever is the essence of what the South is, or was.

Sounds like something Michael Hill or Grady McWhiney might've written. Good to see our story becoming mainstream.

Our criminal government

Chalk this up as another major milestone in the delegitimization of the central government:

Army Maj. General Antonio Taguba (Ret.) writes "there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes," Taguba says. "The only question is whether those who ordered torture will be held to account."

Will they? Or to put it another way, how much is left of our tradition of being a nation of laws? Sadly, not much, as the pro-war crowd's reaction to the preservation of habeas illustrates. As Colin Powell's chief of staff once observed, it may take a foreign government to bring these criminals to justice:

Larry Wilkerson, a former army officer and chief of staff to Colin Powell, US secretary of state at the time, told the Guardian: ... "Haynes, Feith, Yoo, Bybee, Gonzalez and - at the apex - Addington, should never travel outside the US, except perhaps to Saudi Arabia and Israel. They broke the law; they violated their professional ethical code. In future, some government may build the case necessary to prosecute them in a foreign court, or in an international court."

Looks like American justice, like American manufacturing, has been outsourced.

Bipartisan accord reached on war funding bill

That headline just kills me. (I mean, was there ever any doubt? Do you really think the Democrats are peaceniks? Please.) Unfortunately, extending the war will kill thousands more.

Democratic and GOP leaders in the House announced agreement Wednesday on a long-overdue war funding bill they said President Bush would be willing to sign.

And people wonder why I refer to Democrats and Republicans as the two wings of our single ruling party.

Should Obama pick a Confederate VP?

Here's another pundit arguing he should, and why. From the Boston Globe, no less:

Obama can't compete with McCain on military experience. But he can do the next best thing: pick US Senator James Webb of Virginia as his running mate. Webb was secretary of the Navy under President Reagan. He's a proud Scots-Irish son of the South with roots in Appalachia. He's written several best-selling novels and won an Emmy for his coverage of the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut for PBS. He has a son in Iraq in the Marine infantry and wore a pair of his son's combat boots while campaigning for the Senate.

He could become what Democrats have long needed: the soldiers' candidate.

No doubt, Webb would deliver what Obama needs, Southern votes and military qualifications. Which is exactly why we hope it doesn't happen.

Man kills neighbor he suspected of plotting terrorism

Don't dismiss this story of a man gunning down his neighbor while the victim grilled supper as the actions of a madman.

The accused was perfectly justified in his actions. And I'll prove it.

Rene Stermole acted in pre-emptive self-defense, and he had good reasons to believe his neighbor was out to get him:

Stermole said he believed Wright was a member of the El Rukn street gang, as well as a terrorist. Stermole believed Wright wanted to kill him and believed Wright had repeatedly threatened to kill him.

These beliefs were not figments of an over-active imagination, but based on an actual attack on Stermole:

He had seen two African-American men that he believed were El Rukn gangsters hanging out in a threatening manner near a bus stop. One of the men looked like a guy that had beaten him up in 1986. He drove past another African-American man whom he believed reached into his coat in a threatening way.

Let's not forget that America was also attacked on 9/11. And our glorious leaders assured us Iraq was involved -- somehow -- with that attack. Some of the 9/11 terrorists even looked like many people from Iraq.

Let's also remember that after 9/11, the Federal government launched Operation TIPS (for "Terrorism Information and Prevention Service") to encourage Americans to alert the FBI if they suspected their neighbors of terrorist activities or sympathies. The program was even expanded to include 10,000 truck drivers to watch the roads for pro-terrorist drivers. So Mr. Stermole was simply acting the way his government had encouraged him to act -- fear everyone around you, and shoot first if you think there's even a 1 percent chance they're going to harm you. You can always ask questions later.

Which is exactly what he did:

As Stermole pulled into his alley, he stopped his car near Wright, who was in or near his own backyard, pulled out a camera and photographed him.

In the picture, Wright’s arms are spread out in a gesture of apparent disbelief. He is holding a bag of garbage and some cooking utensils. He is wearing a polo shirt, shorts and sneakers.

Stermole told the jury that he interpreted the gesture as an invitation to a gunfight. He believed Wright was wearing a bulletproof vest, was packing two handguns and had a sniper backing him up.

Just because the neighbor didn't have those weapons doesn't prove that he couldn't have. No doubt he had the capacity to possess such weapons, so Stermole was clearly justified in his actions. He was only protecting himself and his mother.

And if you don't agree, you're just an American-hating Moonbat.

Fighting for our freedom?

Michael Reagan, on his radio talk show, openly and repeatedly called for the execution of a prominent anti-war activist:

“We ought to find the people who are doing this,” Reagan said, “take ‘em out, and shoot ‘em. Really. Just find the people who are sending those letters…to demoralize our troops…they are traitors to this country…and shoot them. You have a problem with that? Deal with it. But anybody who would do that doesn’t deserve to live. You call them traitors–that’s what they are–and you shoot ‘em dead. I’ll pay for the bullet.”

“How about you take Mark Dice out,” Reagan continued, “and put him in the middle of the firing range? Tie him to a post, don’t blindfold him, and let it rip and have some fun with Mark Dice.”

This is nothing new. David Horowitz once expressed similar sentiments, though not quite as specific or graphic:

“When your country is attacked there can be no such thing as an ‘anti-war’ movement. Protesters against America’s war on terror are not peaceniks, they are America-haters and saboteurs, and they should be treated as such.”

Comments like this tell you everthing you need to know about the "freedom" the pro-war, big-government crowd wants for you -- the freedom to obey your leaders.

Word of the day

coopt: To neutralize or win over (an independent minority, for example) through assimilation into an established group or culture: co-opt rebels by giving them positions of authority.

You're an oligarch. You control the media, Hollywood, lower and higher education, and the government. Life is good. But there are dissidents who oppose your globalization schemes. What do you do with such a troublesome group? Simple -- make 'em feel like they have a stake in the regime that controls them. The easiest way to do that is to appoint one of them to a prominent position. And to make 'em really want it, have someone attack the prospective appointee.

Richard Just writes form the liberal-progressive New Republic. A better description would be that it is a domestic-international interventionism journal. It has a long history of cheering on American wars, beginning with World War I, the Civil Rights Revolution, and on through the invasion of Iraq. Here's Just arguing against appointing Jim Webb as Obama's vice-president:

It turns out Webb is also something of an apologist for the Confederacy. He has accused "revisionist politicians and academics" of trying "to defame the entire Confederate Army in a move that can only be termed the Nazification of the Confederacy." When I saw the Politico piece that came out on Wednesday documenting Webb's views on the Confederacy, I can't say I was shocked. That's because, years ago, when I was working at The American Prospect, I spent some time reporting on a Sons of Confederate Veterans chapter in southern Virginia; and there are clear similarities between the Sons of Confederate Veterans' worldview and Webb's.

Southern activists, secessionists, paleoconservatives, and paleolibertarians are supposed to retort, "Oh, yeah! That's just the man I want to vote for!"

And it's working:

I rooted for Democrat Webb against Republican George Allen for senator from Virginia. Unlike virtually all public officials these days, Webb is a guy with real achievements, and in downing Allen, he killed the neocons' handpicked choice for president in 2008. Now Webb is being mentioned as VP for Obama. I immediately liked the idea, but now I am sure it would be right.

No, no, no! Once again, we're letting the system play us like a fiddle. The system is unreformable, and by its nature opposed to everything we believe in -- it's all about power, its consolidation, and its growth. Webb seemed attractive at one time, but if he leads his Anglo-Celtic constituency to agreeing to Obama's disastrous agenda, he'll be revealed as a Judas goat, not our Jefferson Davis.

Resist the temptation, folks. Don't fall for this scam.