Global warming protest cancelled by blizzard

This is up there with the old joke about the campus atheist club meeting next Tuesday night at 9:00, God willing -- except this joke's for real:

"Not many people showed up because of the blizzard conditions," said organizer Clea Major, an international studies student at the University of Utah.

It didn't take long for the six friends to pack up a bullhorn and posters they'd planned to use for their "scream-in," an outlet for their frustration about the failure of the Copenhagen climate talks earlier this month to curb the pollution blamed for climate change.

Still, they chatted with a few passers-by during the commuter-hour protest near the Gateway, and explained that, blizzard aside, climate change is expected to bring chaos to the global climate, said Major.

She called Wednesday evening's effort a success and possibly the first in a series. As for the snow, it's not entirely new; a protest she attended last year in Washington, D.C., suffered a similar fate.

"There is always the irony element," Major said.

Yes. And there's the suspension of common sense element, too.

How to deal with systemic failure

Obama now admits a "systemic failure" in security is to blame for the Christmas Day attack on a Northwest Airlines jet.

Eight CIA agents were killed by an Afghan officer wearing a suicide belt.

And on the domestic front, 93 percent of all financial wealth is controlled by the top 10 percent of the country.

What can people do when they're confronted with undeniable systemic failure at home and abroad?

Change systems.

Bankers Get $4 Trillion Gift From Barney Frank

It was SOOO simple back in the 60s -- Republicans backed Big Business, and Democrats backed labor unions.

It's all so messy now. These days, big, politically connected corporations are the left's most potent weapons. Where would Jesse Jackson, La Raza, and ACORN be without corporate funding?

So it only figures that Barney Frank wants to give the banksters trillions of taxpayer dollars to provide more loans to the left's natural constituents. After all, that's what got us into the Diversity Recession to begin with.

Brace yourselves for Round II.

Perfectly backward thinking

The Council on Foreign Relations is one of the chief cheerleaders for endless, pointless war. Its primary communication medium, Foreign Affairs, features an article with the clever title, "Mind over Martyr: How to Deradicalize Islamist Extremists." Yes, I know it's just another agitprop piece designed to make the world safe for armament profits, but it lays bare the War Party's mindset: The problem is not US military intervention, the problem is with people who resent it.

See for yourself:

Is it possible to deradicalize terrorists and their potential recruits? Saudi Arabia, a pioneer in rehabilitation efforts, claims that it is. Since 2004, more than 4,000 militants have gone through Saudi Arabia's programs, and the graduates have been reintegrated into mainstream society much more successfully than ordinary criminals. Governments elsewhere in the Middle East and throughout Europe and Southeast Asia have launched similar programs for neo-Nazis, far-right militants, narcoterrorists, and Islamist terrorists, encouraging them to abandon their radical ideology or renounce their violent means or both.

That last paragraph listing the types of miscreants and no-accounts who oppose the projection of DC's power is especially revealing about how the ruling elite views those who resist big government and militarism.

It's that mindset that classified Ron Paul supporters and homeschoolers as domestic terror threats. The oh-so-subtle metamessage here is that if you're shaken by the near-disaster of the Detroit underwear bomber, you should view all of the government's enemies with the same disgust and fear with which government views them.

So how do we stop Islamist extremists? It's simple: We can deradicalize Islamist extremists by de-Neoconizing American foreign policy.

That means: Stop intervening in other people's affairs. Stop propping up dictators. And at home, we must reclaim control of our borders.

They're coming over here because we're over there bombing their people and occupying their countries. Pretty simple, really.

13 Republican Attorney Generals Threaten Lawsuit Over Health Care

Looks like the people of the States are preparing to rein in a runaway Congress:

Republican attorneys general in 13 states say congressional leaders must remove Nebraska's political deal from the federal health care reform bill or face legal action, according to a letter provided to The Associated Press Wednesday.

"We believe this provision is constitutionally flawed," South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster and the 12 other attorneys general wrote in the letter to be sent Wednesday night to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Wow! As I wrote a week ago when this first surfaced, "Cheers for Henry McMaster!"

Trust DC to protect us?

Maureen Dowd asks a simple question:

If we can’t catch a Nigerian with a powerful explosive powder in his oddly feminine-looking underpants and a syringe full of acid, a man whose own father had alerted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, a traveler whose ticket was paid for in cash and who didn’t check bags, whose visa renewal had been denied by the British, who had studied Arabic in Al Qaeda sanctuary Yemen, whose name was on a counterterrorism watch list, who can we catch?

via The Other McCain

Liberty and Empire, cont'd

Jacob Hornberger writes powerful and highly readable denunciations of DC's murderous and counter-productive policy of interventionism. Yesterday, I dissented from his libertarian view that DC's de facto Open Borders policy is compatible with a free and peaceful society. He sent a gracious and thoughtful response to my earlier post on his original article. His comments are italicized, and my responses follow:

"Actually, they [demographic revolution and empire] aren't really two sides of the same coin. One, open borders, is a principle of liberty--i.e., the right of people to travel, move, associate with others, and do what they want with their own money. The other--empire and interventionism--is a violation of the principles of the liberty and a limited-government republic."

Any genuine principle has to derive from reality, from historical experience. Western ideals of liberty evolved within the Western tradition, just as other ideals of liberty arose from the experience of other traditional cultures. Throughout history, we see peoples fighting and dying to resist foreign domination. They do so because they are determined to preserve their unique culture, their way of life. Look, for example, at the Jews and Celts who chose death to subjugation by the "englightened" Romans.

Every free society -- every one -- emerged from distinct historical cultures. Representative government can only arise from a shared cultural foundation, from the shared values, common history, and common language that naturally bind people together. Nowhere in the history of the world have disconnected peoples spontaneously joined together to form a limited government -- such governments are only possible within a common culture. On the other hand, empires, and their 20th-century equivalent, ideological megastates, rely on a powerful central government to hold them together -- and the record of human rights abuse of both are dismal.

The centralizers and warmongers have understood this very well. Joseph Stalin, for example, grasped that historical cultures were obstacles to his authority since they provided the peoples of those cultures with an ingrained sense of internal regulation. Robert Conquest, in "Stalin: Breaker of Nations," wrote this of Stalin's proactive multiculturalism:

Early in 1943 Stalin had taken a decision on an operation against a section of those he had been fighting much longer than he had been fighting the Germans - his own citizens. In this case it was the smaller nationalities of the Caucasus and the Crimea who had, in Stalin's view, either welcomed or not opposed the Germans. They were now to be deported en masse.

Stalin had already, in 1941, deported the Soviet Germans, and suppressed the Volga-German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic which was their largest centre. It was now to be the Kalmyks, the Chechens, the Ingushi, the Karachai, the Balkans and the Crimean Tatars. After careful planning over late 1943 and 1944 these people were rounded up, packed into Lend-Lease Studebakers, and then sent crammed into trains to various areas of Central Asia and Siberia. Their autonomous republics and provinces were abolished.

As for his attitude to nationalities, Stalin could find in the Marxist texts a number of references to some nations being 'reactionary', and of the necessity of opposing their 'national movements'. But this deportation en bloc, and their disappearance from the list of Soviet nations, was taking this logic further than had previously been envisaged. pp. 258-9.

In fact, a centralized, interventionist government must of necessity "be aggressive abroad and despotic at home," as Robert E. Lee confided to Lord Acton.

And the US government has been exactly what Lee predicted, whether a conservative or liberal was the Commander-in-Chief. After Obama's Nobel acceptance speech, Glenn Greenwald puzzled over why Neocons and leftists praised Obama's argument for an aggressive foreign policy. I sent him this answer:

Both Neocons and liberals aim to destroy tradition and replace it with their own values and blueprints. Leftists call it “revolution,” Neocons call it “creative destruction.” The goal of each is the same. Both want to reconstruct society according to abstract, universal principles of their own making. Both believe in government interventionism as a weapon to advance their agenda. They only fuss about the target. Neocons see backward Muslim nations as the more urgent threat, while liberals focus on the American Heartland.

I also question these assertions Hornberger made:

"In fact, throughout the 19th century our American ancestors maintained a system of a constitutional republic and open immigration. That is, they didn't permit the U.S. government to go abroad, either in Europe or Asia, in search of monsters to destroy and they kept the borders open."

The United States was founded by Northern Europeans. The Founders didn't dream up the rights they fought to defend; it was for the traditional rights of British citizens that they fought and died to preserve. And the new nation sought to preserve its national character by controlling its borders. You can read the actual opinions of George Washington, John Jay, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson on the subject of immigration control here.

The Founders' views on immigration were reflected in immigration legislation. The Naturalization Act of 1790 limited naturalized citizenship to "free white persons" of "good moral character." The Chinese Exclusion Acts, passed between 1880 and 1904, denied US citizenship to Chinese.

And this is just silly:

"Also, don't forget that we don't have uncontrolled immigration here and haven't for several decades. If you don't believe me, just go down the southern border and you will see long lines of cars waiting to get abused and harrassed and searched by Border Patrol, Customs, and DEA officials."

First of all, the illegal immigrants who are pouring in don't bother with the official, for-show entry points, they're crossing at all the unguarded points in between -- that's why we have upwards of 20 million illegal immigrants in this country -- so many, in fact, that whites are predicted to be a minority in their own country by 2042.

Do you really believe Western standards of individual liberty and rights to property will survive in a country dominated by people from the Third World who violently reject those standards?

It's no coincidence that warmonger Bush was determined to provide amnesty for illegal immigrants. It's all part of the plan.

Ray McBerry on the Rise in Georgia Governor’s Race

Need a shot of good news? The rising discontent against the incompetence and corruption of the central government is finding leaders ready to explore a new direction, toward self-determination and local self-government. Read this report on Ray McBerry's gubernatorial challenge in Georgia:

Having won several polls in the Governor’s race across the state in the past month, Ray McBerry’s campaign continues to pick up steam across the state.

In the past month, McBerry won first place in the governor’s race straw poll conducted in Tifton the week following two candidate forums in south Georgia, one in Tifton and another in Valdosta. Even Austin Scott, a native of Tifton, came in second to McBerry among the seven Republicans.

Meanwhile, Ray McBerry scored overwhelming victories in the online polls for the Governor’s race that were conducted by both the Augusta area Young Republicans in east Georgia and the Paulding County GOP in west Georgia.

This race will send even greater shock waves through the marbled hallways of the District of Corruption than Governor Rick Perry's threat of secession. Anything we can do to help Ray McBerry will advance the cause of reclaiming self-government in our own States. Want to join the fight? Roll up your sleeves, click here, and spread the word.

Awlaki personally blessed Detroit attack

President Obama assured us Abdulmutallab was a "lone wolf" terrorist. But new details suggest that wolf had a little help:

The Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner had his suicide mission personally blessed in Yemen by Anwar al-Awlaki, the same Muslim imam suspected of radicalizing the Fort Hood shooting suspect, a U.S. intelligence source has told The Washington Times.

The intelligence official, who is familiar with the FBI's interrogation of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, said the bombing suspect has boasted of his jihad training during interrogation by the FBI and has said it included final exhortations by Mr. al-Awlaki.

"It was Awlaki who indoctrinated him," the official said. "He was told, 'You are going to be the tip of the spear of the Muslim nation.'"

Luckily, the Muslim nation picked a blunt tip for its spear. But how long can you count on dumb luck?

As we discussed yesterday, the immediate threat may be radical Islam, but ultimately, our security is undermined by DC's official policies of Open Borders and worldwide empire -- what Steve Sailer so perfectly skewers as "Invite the world/Invade the world." Every day, we see it's a recipe for disaster, a disaster the overgrown DC bureaucracy cannot prevent.

The first step toward dealing with this growing threat is to remove the ideological blinders and see it for what it is: a clash of civilizations, just as Samuel Huntington warned us. Next, we must confront the fact that the 20th century multicultural megastate is part of the problem, not the solution.

More at memeorandum.

Terrorism Is a Cost of Empire

Here's something the pro-war, any war crowd doesn't want to face up to: The Empire is an enemy of both American security and American freedom. Regarding the recent failed attempt to blow up a plane over Detroit, Jacob Hornberger writes:

No one can deny that if the guy on that international flight to Detroit had succeeded in blowing up the plane, the Big Government advocates would be using that as an argument for having the federal government crack down even more on civil liberties.

And isn’t it interesting that the massive post-9/11 crackdown on civil liberties didn’t prevent the guy from apparently almost bringing down the plane.

(Which didn't stop the TSA from dreaming up even more draconian regulations for air travelers!)

Hornberger goes on to discuss how the "flypaper" theory underlying the War on Terror remains a dismal failure:

Not surprisingly, the pro-empire crowd is using the incident to show why it is more urgent than ever to continue the brutal occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and to expand killing the “bad guys” to Pakistan, Yemen, and who knows where else. The idea is that the government needs to keep killing those “bad guys” over there before they come here and kill us.

But as I’ve pointed out for years, the U.S. Empire has become the world’s biggest terrorist-producing machine. The more people it kills over there, the more the ranks of those who wish to retaliate against Americans are swelled.

In other words, the pro-empire advocates say, “We’re over there to kill them before they come over here and kill us.” But what’s actually happening is this: They’re coming over here to kill us because the Empire is over there killing them.

Very valid points. But Horberger (a left-libertarian) then adds this:

Even the anti-immigrant crowd is left empty-handed. It turns out that the guy apparently was entering the country legally, confirming what I’ve been saying ever since 9/11: That if people really want to keep out terrorists, they’ve got to put a total ban on foreign tourism to the United States. They’ve got to hermetically seal the United States, just like North Korea does.

But that's not the whole story. In fact, uncontrolled immigration is clearly a major reason Islamic terrorism is a growing problem here.

First there's the militancy of Islam itself. As Samuel Huntington wrote in his classic, "The Clash of Civilizations":

... the relations between Muslims and peoples of other civilizations -- Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Hindu, Chinese, Buddhist, Jewish -- have been generally antagonistic; most of these relations have been violent at some point in the past; many have been violent in the 1990s. Wherever one looks along the perimeter of Islam, Muslims have problems living peaceably with their neighbors. Muslims make up about one-fifth of the world's population but in the 19990s they have been far more involved in intergroup violence than the people of any other civilization. p. 256.

While Islamic immigration in America hasn't (yet!) created regions sufficiently populous to wage open war, it has made domestic terror more than just a threat. The 9/11 terrorists were able to blend in and prepare for their attacks because they had Islamic colonies within the United States to blend into. And non-Islamic immigration assisted their efforts -- two of the terrorists received material aid from illegal Latino immigrants who knew how to counterfeit the necessary documents to hide here until they were ready to spring their plot.

More significantly, DC's imperial agenda is what placed America on the path to becoming a multi-cultural empire to begin with. To counter the Soviet Union's post-World-War-II appeal as a universal, anti-colonial force, the United States government began reconstructing itself into a multi-cultural empire in the 1950s, and instituted its Open Borders policy in the 1960s. The idea was to make the US more multi-cultural and universal than the Soviet Union.

Empire and Open Borders are two sides of the same coin. Both are the enemies of peace and freedom.

Secession and Attorneys: Where Are The Lawyers For Liberty?

Here's a challenge from our friends at DumpDC: The American colonies won their independence thanks in great part to the tireless efforts of men schooled in the law. Today, we need liberty-minded defenders of self-government within the legal profession to step forward and take leadership roles in the fight for freedom.

I know you're out there -- and that many are members (and secret supporters) of the League of the South. It's time to come out of the closet.

Janet Napolitano was right!

The government's massive failure to interdict the Muslim terrorist wannabe on Christmas Day has prompted calls for even more intrusive citizen surveillance:

A suspected terrorist’s attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner may override privacy concerns and intensify a push for full-body scanning equipment at airports.

Senator Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, called for more widespread use of the full-body scanners after the aborted attack. “We were very lucky this time but we may not be so lucky next time, which is why our defenses must be strengthened,” Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said in a statement yesterday.

“We are starting to implement and put them in at TSA’s direction at U.S. airports,” Peter Kant, an executive vice president for Rapiscan, said yesterday in an interview. “We’ve been on the phone a lot with TSA about how to expedite delivery.”

“There have been privacy concerns expressed about the use of these whole body-imaging devices, but I think those privacy concerns, which are, frankly, mild, have to fall in the face of the ability of these machines to detect material like this,” Lieberman said on “Fox News Sunday” on Dec. 27.

The government gets more power, American subjects lose more privacy, and politically connected businesses win more lucrative contracts -- what else can you say? The system works!

A Decade of Self-Delusion

Here's Pat Buchanan with a pre-mortem of the DC Empire:

According to the International Monetary Fund, the United States began the century producing 32 percent of the world’s gross domestic product. We ended the decade producing 24 percent. No nation in modern history, save for the late Soviet Union, has seen so precipitous a decline in relative power in a single decade.

What other parallels does the US have with the old Soviet Union? For one thing, the US has convinced itself that its power and wealth are permanent, and that its growth and future success are inevitable. And then there's that ultimate delusion: That the American way is the one and only true way. Peoples in benighted lands who do not understand that might need a friendly nudge or two to make them see the light. Those who're so stubborn as to continue to refuse our obviously superior way of life might need a little extra nudging -- daisy cutters and napalm are especially good for opening eyes to reason. But while DC congratulated itself and expended billions in asserting its rightful dominance, the bills came due, as Buchanan continues:

We did it to ourselves. We believed all that hubristic blather about our being the “greatest empire since Rome,” the “indispensable nation” and “unipolar power” advancing to “benevolent global hegemony” in a series of “cakewalk” wars to “end tyranny in our world.”

The question, Buchanan concludes, is "whether America’s decline is irreversible."

That depends.

The Neocon notion of "America" as an authoritarian empire that will dominate the culture and politics of the world is clearly dying. To which many say, "Good riddance." But the real America, the America of historic communities founded on Western, Christian civilization, governed by a decentralized, limited government -- in other words, the America the Founders fought and died for -- possesses untapped strength.

How Religious Is Your State?

How different is the South from the rest of the Empire? So different, it must be constantly ridiculed to keep it down. Our religious faith is especially bothersome for our handlers, who know our spiritual foundation provides a natural order that interferes with their plans.

Yet despite it all, the South remains the most religious and conservatives region -- or should I say, nation within a nation?

Thanks to Harold C. for the link!

David Frum in a nutshell

The power of the Federal government is unlimited. Lee's surrender at Appomattox settled the question forever. Obamacare might be a bad idea, but it's still constitutional, because all enlightened people know DC can do anything it wants.

And any Republican who doesn't understand this is clinging to a 200-year-old idea.

Remaking America, one immigrant at a time

In his inaugural address, Barack Hussein Obama vowed: "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America."

No one can say he hasn't done his darndest -- heck, he's been much more effective at transforming the US into a Third-World nation than even George W. Bush, who managed to make demographic revolution a conservative goal. Here's Obama's latest success story:

The Obama administration quietly announced last week that it would overturn one of the harsh immigration enforcement measures enacted by the Bush administration following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Beginning next month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said, those who arrive in the United States fleeing torture or persecution abroad will no longer automatically be welcomed with handcuffs and months in a jail cell. Instead, many of those seeking protection will again be permitted to live freely in the country while their applications for permanent asylum are considered by an immigration judge.

What do you want to bet that the number of people claiming persecution or torture abroad skyrockets?

And I wonder if victims of Abu Ghraib qualify?

The last chance to stop Obamacare

Just as in the first instance of the central government assaulting liberty with the Alien and Sedition Acts, the sovereign States provide the best means of defense for the latest assault on our freedom. In this official correspondence, Texas Governor Rick Perry urges Alabama Governor Bob Riley to join him in resisting the central government's assumption of non-delegated, and therefore, unconstitutional power:

"As the chief executive officers of our individual sovereign states, we must stand up to this unprecedented intrusion in to our lives and the rights of our citizens. We must demonstrate resolve in the face of this infringement."

Is this the first sign of a new Confederacy emerging?

Perry isn't grandstanding. In fact, I'd say Perry is sugar-coating the situation: Obamacare isn't an "infringement" on the people of the States; it's an assault, an invasion, a blitzkrieg.

As Perry notes in his letter, not only will States such as Texas have to subsidize those States that played along, Obamacare will increase health costs in Texas alone to $21 billion over the next 10 years.

It's money the people do not have.

Nullifying this dangerous, financially irresponsible legislation is a final attempt to tamp down Federal power grabs within the present system. Perhaps this young man can offer some practical suggestions:

Another giant step toward equality

Forget the happy-happy talk about equal opportunity for all -- that just perpetuates unequal outcomes. This is how it's done:

Berkeley High School is considering a controversial proposal to eliminate science labs and the five science teachers who teach them to free up more resources to help struggling students.

The proposal to put the science-lab cuts on the table was approved recently by Berkeley High's School Governance Council, a body of teachers, parents, and students who oversee a plan to change the structure of the high school to address Berkeley's dismal racial achievement gap, where white students are doing far better than the state average while black and Latino students are doing worse. ...

The full plan to close the racial achievement gap by altering the structure of the high school is known as the High School Redesign.

That reminds me of a story by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.:

It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor.

The moral of the story: We need to get our children out of the government schools. Then we must get the government out of our lives.

But, say, wouldn't Janet Napolitano make a great Diana Moon Glampers?


That would make a doozy of a story.

Napolitano: "The system worked"

This is from my ever-expanding "We're totally incompetent and proud of it" file on the Federal government:

DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said that the thwarting of the attempt to blow up the Amsterdam-Detroit flight this week demonstrated that "the system worked."

Asked by CNN's Candy Crowley on "State of the Union" how that could be possible when the young Nigerian who sought to set off the bomb was able to smuggle explosive liquid onto the flight, Napolitano responded: "We're asking the same questions."

Napolitano added that there was "no suggestion that [the bomber] was improperly screened."

No air marshal on the flight. The suspect was allowed on the flight despite a warning from his father to US authorities a month ago. An explosive device was successfully smuggled on board, and nearly successfully detonated -- we now know that only a failed detonator kept this evil plot from becoming a Christmas day tragedy.

And Big Sister is claiming the system worked?

What worked was the successful response from the passengers. The militia spontaneously organized itself and did the job the Federal government failed to do.

Matthews: GOP Is the 'Confederacy' Party

We knew it was just a matter of time before the usual suspects started slamming the South after Rep. Parker Griffith of Alabama announced he could no longer call himself a Democrat.

And here's Tweety describing the Republicans as the party of the Confederacy, which all loyal subjects of the world's most benevolent empire know is a bad thing.


If only ...

Abbeville Institute Scholar's Conference

Be sure to check out the Abbeville Institute's conference on State nullification and secession. This sounds exciting!

Christmas in Dixie

This is the time of year we celebrate family and faith. While remembering and reconnecting with tradition and kin, it's only natural to think back to the Christmases of childhood.

Growing up, my life revolved around my grandparents' tobacco farm. Their four children all lived on the edges of their 60-acre farm, and much of our social and recreational time was spent on that land. Christmas Eve meant celebrating at my grandparents' house with my three uncles and their families. My mother and her three brothers would sing carols, and we'd exchange presents, feast, and talk until midnight. With 12 cousins packed in the house, you can just imagine the hullabaloo. It was a joyous time.

That house now belongs to a stranger, and my grandparents and two of my uncles are gone. My mother's family no longer gets together for Christmas. But what life takes away, it adds other things. Our daughter is coming up from Charleston tonight, and tomorrow we'll visit my wife's family on the small vineyard where my brother-in-law lives in the Yadkin Valley. Then we'll go to my parents' house in High Point, where we'll wake up early Christmas morning to greet what promises to be a cold but bright day. And we'll do Christmas in Dixie one more time.

You Have No Rights

The idea of inherited rights is SOOOO racist -- after all, the idea that a specific culture transmits certain constraints on what government can do to an individual is inherently exclusivist. Better to have an all-powerful government that determines what it can do to you -- all in the name of pursuing what Obama calls "a more perfect Union." This ruling backing the Federal government's power to strip citizenship FOR ANY OR NO REASON is a giant step toward that end:

Barack Obama has taken the freely chosen, public, formal stand -- in court -- that there is nothing wrong with any of these activities. Nothing to answer for, nothing meriting punishment or even civil penalties. What's more, in championing the lower court ruling, Barack Obama is now on record as believing -- insisting -- that torture is an ordinary, "foreseeable consequence" of military detention of all those who are arbitrarily declared "suspected enemy combatants."

And still further: Barack Obama has now declared, openly, of his own free will, that he does not consider these captives to be "persons." They are, literally, sub-humans. And what makes them sub-humans? The fact that someone in the U.S. government has declared them to be "suspected enemy combatants." (And note: even the mere suspicion of being an "enemy combatant" can strip you of your personhood.)

Again, Obama is simply building on what Bush/Cheney did to make the central government all-powerful.

Wither Sovereignty

Obama's globalist revolution accelerates:

Last Thursday, December 17, 2009, The White House released an Executive Order "Amending Executive Order 12425." It grants INTERPOL (International Criminal Police Organization) a new level of full diplomatic immunity afforded to foreign embassies and select other "International Organizations" as set forth in the United States International Organizations Immunities Act of 1945.

By removing language from President Reagan's 1983 Executive Order 12425, this international law enforcement body now operates - now operates - on American soil beyond the reach of our own top law enforcement arm, the FBI, and is immune from Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Yoo-hoo, Bush supporters! What do you think now of all the Executive Power your hero usurped in his War on Freedom Terror?

McMaster to recruit other attorneys general to investigate health care deal

I love the smell of State nullification in the morning -- even when it's just a whiff:

South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster said Tuesday that he intends to organize his counterparts in different states to investigate dealmaking that sealed a final compromise on federal health care legislation. ...

McMaster said the language of the Nelson provision appears to give the State of Nebraska a permanent exemption from paying the Medicaid expenses all other states in the nation will be required to pay.

“In other words, if this amendment stands, taxpayers from South Carolina and other states will be paying the bills for the increase in Nebraska’s Medicaid population,“ said McMaster. The Nelson provision is unusual in that there is not cut off date or phase out. Many provisions in federal law have a sunset date—say 2, 5, 10, or even 20 years—but this provision will continue in perpetuity.

McMaster said that Attorney General Rob McKenna of Washington State has agreed to join the effort.

He also said he intended to consult other attorneys general to for a group that would explore legal options.

“In my judgment,“ said McMaster, “Democrats and Republicans alike from every state in the union should be outraged by this deal.“

It was the North's unjust use of the Federal taxation system that sparked the Southern Independence in 1860-61. The corruption and deal-making from Obamacare is even more hideous and blatant.

Cheers for Henry McMaster!

The Abolition of Christmas

In which Pat Buchanan asks, "And why should a tiny few who resent Christmas prevail in America over the great joyous majority who love it?" A classic!

Alabama congressman defects from Democrats

From Politico:

Rep. Parker Griffith, a freshman Democrat from Alabama, will announce today that he’s switching parties to become a Republican. ...

Griffith’s party switch comes on the eve of a pivotal congressional health care vote and will send a jolt through a Democratic House Caucus that has already been unnerved by the recent retirements of a handful of members who, like Griffith, hail from districts that offer prime pickup opportunities for the GOP in 2010.

The anti-Southern smears begin in 9-8-7-6-5-

More at memeorandum.

Military Program Recruits Foreigners

Here's a news item that reminded one reader of a lesson from history:

Join the military and become a US citizen. That's the idea behind a new pilot program initiated earlier this year by the Department of Defense.

The program called, MAVNI - Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest- allows foreigners who legally live in the US for two years to enlist in the military... without holding a green card and be sworn in as citizens after completing 10 weeks of basic training.

The reader asked, "Isn't this what the Romans did? Hire barbarians to fill their military ranks, and eventually they turned on Rome, never being required to assimilate and truly become Roman."


Hmmm. Good question. So I looked up the link he provided, and here's what I found:

Meanwhile, the power of the emperors in Rome had fallen to a point where they had become merely puppets of the legionaries, many of whom were of German birth. In the 476 A.D., Odoacer, a commander of the Roman armies, deposed the last of the Roman emperors and became the first German ruler of Rome. This date--476 A.D.--is often cited as the date for the "fall" of Rome. In a strict sense, there was no "fall." The decline of Roman imperial power was a gradual and complex process marked by weakling emperors, corrupt bureaucrats, and the gradual admission of German soldiers into the legions.

Thanks for the links and question, Jeff. Actually, none of these are problems for us. Due to the miracle of American Exceptionalism ©, uncontrolled immigration is a strength, not a weakness. Here, former ethnic loyalties simply do not exist -- though there are a few insignificant exceptions. Ok, maybe more than just a few ...


But then, America does not suffer from political corruption. Well, maybe just a little. Also, our emperor can hardly be described as a weakling -- his poll numbers may be suffering the greatest drop in the history of presidential polls, but he has demonstrated his he-manliness by expanding a war that everyone knows is a sure win. Almost everyone. Ok, well, hardly anyone.

Other than those little things, America will not end up like the old Roman Empire, and the reasons are very simple to explain. First -- oh, wait, there's the phone. I gotta go ...

The Neocon/Patriotic Fusion is dead

George W. Bush managed to lasso millions of Southerners and patriotic conservatives into supporting the Neocon Agenda of aggressive war and authoritarian government. We've noted with some satisfaction the growth of fault lines within this unnatural, one-sided alliance (see here and here, for example). But lately, the rate of collapse has advanced even faster than I would've predicted.

Just check out these two comments from the normally pro-war, any war Free Republic site (these are in response to Jack Hunter's "The Return of the Antiwar Right"):

- I am tending more and more to be anti-war. I am a conservative and love, love our troops. However, these endless wars and our men coming home maimed for life and even dead is becoming less pallitable to me. I want to know if both sides finance the wars and make tons of money and this is yet another redistribution scheme of wealth, courtesy of our rogue government.

- It seems to me if there really was a "war on terror" that the southern border would be secured, visas of known terrorists would be revoked, and the current jihadists here would be removed.

Whoa! Those are heartfelt cries of disillusionment and distrust of a system that has lost its legitimacy. We should recognize them for what they are: early seismic waves warning of a fast-approaching major shift in national politics.

A picador against political correctness

Neill Payne reports on H.K. Edgerton's campaign to enforce the North Carolina Constitution:

My good friend H.K. Edgerton has touched another PC nerve. He wants to force the Asheville city government to abide by the North Carolina Constitutional requirement that office-holders believe in “Almighty God.”

Mr. Cecil Bothwell, formerly a self-described atheist who now classifies himself as a “post-theist”, took office as a newly elected city councilman on December 8. By the terms of the state constitution his belief in nothing disqualifies him from holding that office. H.K. had the temerity to bring up that inconvenient fact and has caused quite a stir.

This story attracted the attention of Andrew Sullivan, the "gay rights" advocate who seems to have convinced himself he is the prophet of a hip, edgy brand of conservatism. Sullivan doesn't like Edgerton's stance one bit. No doubt, much of Sullivan's discomfort is because the majority of blacks don't conform to much of the left/globalist agenda. Sullivan has even been forced to admit blacks, as a group, are more opposed to the homosexual agenda than whites:

African-Americans are more likely than whites — by a 65 percent-to-53 percent margin — to oppose marriage equality for gays and lesbians, according to a new report by the National Black Justice Coalition and Freedom to Marry.

Yeah, it's annoying when real, live people don't conform to theory.

And wouldn't you know Sullivan has an answer?

Former Anti-Violence Activist Indicted for Murder

Ok, this has nothing to do with Southern independence. I just like ironic headlines.

Priest outrages police by telling congregation: 'My advice to poor is to shoplift'

What's the big deal? Many churches have been encouraging illegal behavior for years. If immigration laws are to be ignored, why not ignore other restrictions on getting what you want?

Quote of the day

"Neocons, as ex-Trotskyites, are bad enough, but those who follow the pro-pagan Leo Strauss are deadly. He advocated the Big Lie. Forgive me for all the gory details, but these people – with their other leaders like Bill Buckley and Irving Kristol and the help of the CIA – perverted the American right into loving the welfare-warfare state." Burt Blumert

Beer truck spills load on Interstate 90 west in Cleveland

Nooooooooo!

History Quiz: American Presidents

Clyde Wilson's quiz will rack your brain and open your eyes. Hint: the title could have been "American President Quiz."

Dick Cheney: HUMAN EVENTS' Conservative of the Year

Only a bloodthirsty raving psychopath like John Bolton could write a headline like that. And shame on Human Events for publishing such poison.

Dick Cheney -- that South-hating, pro-torture, pro-gay marriage, lying enemy of the Bill of Rights? THAT'S a champion of conservatism?

Well, if Andrew Sullivan can call himself a conservative, I guess anyone can claim to be ...

Oppose Obamacare? Then you're a racist!

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) knows there's only one reason to oppose socialized medicine. It's not because people could actually object to DC's takeover of the health care industry -- it's because they're blind with hatred against a black president:

Why all this discord and discourtesy, all this unprecedented destructive action? All to break the momentum of our new young president.

They are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist. That is one powerful reason.

We've said it before, and we'll say it again: If you stand up to the growth of big government, you will be called racist. Get used to it.

There'll be nowhere to run from the new world government

Caught in the act: Globalists hammer out the details of their plans to destroy national sovereignty.


From the UK Telegraph:

The word "global" has taken on sacred connotations. Any action taken in its name must be inherently virtuous, whereas the decisions of individual countries are necessarily "narrow" and self-serving. (Never mind that a "global agreement" will almost certainly be disproportionately influenced by the most powerful nations.)

There is a whiff of totalitarianism about this new theology, in which the risks are described in such cosmic terms that everything else must give way. "Globalism" is another form of the internationalism that has been a core belief of the Left: a commitment to class rather than country ...

I'd say there's more than just a whiff of totalitarianism about what the globalists plan for us. The goal is to erase heritage, love of country, and national distinctions. Once they've eliminated natural, bottom-up order through indoctrination and intimidation -- or by force, if need by -- the global elite can then impose its own order -- and you better believe it will be thoroughly and severely top-down.

Quote of the day

"We have a black president and it's time for a brown governor." Palestinian-born Houston businessman Farouk Shami

Barrett Brown's Revenge!

He's back. After his last foray against Dixie, he seemed to have learned a thing or two, and retreated quietly. But now he's gunning for Robert Stacy McCain, one of the South's finest spokesmen, and Brown aims a couple of shots at both the South and the League along the way.

Regarding RS McCain, Barrett Brown wrote:

"... why he thinks the Confederacy to be so incredibly wonderful that he simply must be a member of such an organization as the League of the South, a radical anti-federal outfit which also has some bad qualities, such as its obvious keenness on a more theocratic sort of constitution."

Now, Barrett ...

I'll let the very capable Mr. McCain handle his own defense. However, I would like to respond to your assertions about the League of the South.

As to our being a "radical anti-federal outfit," well, you got us there. But then, what other choice do we have in an age where federal policy, no matter who's in the Oval Office, is to export jobs, gut the Bill of Rights, and prop up tyrants and puppet states around the world with Cruise missiles and occupation forces? The League of the South believes downsizing DC is the only possible response, other than pretending that elections can some day, some how soften imperial policy. Consider us just a little sceptical at this point.

Are we "radical"? American opinion these days is that it's patriotic to cheer on death drones even when the heroes operating them from Los Angeles vaporize a few slow-moving Afghan women and children along with evil Islamomeanies. That's a mainstream opinion we don't care to embrace, so forgive us if we don't join in the chants of "USA!"

Not sure what other "bad qualities" we've let slip before the public, but I can say we do not advocate theocracy. Last time I checked, our goal was the restoration of a Constitutionally limited republic, not rule by priests. Now we do believe our Western, Christian values should inform our domestic and foreign policy. Among those values are absolute condemnation of a government that spreads misery and death to millions of innocent civilians in the name of "projecting American power."

Our forefathers got enough of that in 1865.

'Dear Texas, Please Secede'

Looks like the movement for restoring self-government and liberty has a new champion:

Dear Texas, despite all of your shortcomings, I am here to inform you:

You are the last best hope of mankind.

The collectivists now have the votes in the Senate to pass the Health Care Enslavement Act. Everything else is procedure. Therefore I must recognize that now, to my utter horror...

I no longer live in a free country.

I will be forced by the power of the State to pay for a stranger's MRI. I will be forced to beg the government for permission to get a heart transplant.

I am a slave. The government now has complete power over everything that constitutes my humanity, for if they control my health and body, they control me. ...

I want my United States, but it is no longer the United States. It is gone and has been since at least the 1950's, as Rome was no longer Rome after the madness of the twelve Caesars, but still trundled on under momentum and past glories.

As The Other McCain observes:

And once Texas reasserts its independence, all sane Americans will immediately petition for citizenship in the Lone Star Republic. Why? Because (a) the United States is circling the toilet bowl ...

I've been telling well-meaning members of various conservative groups for some time now that the United States of the 1950s is gone forever, and that the best we can hope for is to outfit a suitable lifeboat from what's left of the REAL America.

Oh, and one more thing I'd like to add: Time's running out.

Flemish Cookies and Secession

Christmas, family traditions, and memories of fresh-baked cookies -- no wonder Karen De Coster's thinking about the Flemish independence movement.

Obama Ordered US Strike on Yemen

The peace president has attacked yet another country:

Just one day after a very public denial that American forces were in the process of attacking sites in Northern Yemen, President Barack Obama ordered multiple cruise missile attacks on sites across the tiny, coastal nation.

The air strikes were coordinated with the government of President Ali Abdallah Saleh and the attacks left 120 killed, many of them civilians according to witnesses. President Obama called Saleh after the attack to “congratulate” him on the killings.

But Muslims hate us for our freedom. Pass it on.

Buy American This Christmas!

Hints for what women want from the Indentured Servant Girl.

Southern Music break

It's Friday, y'all! Time for a Christmas classic. Here's the King with "Blue Christmas." Add a little CGI magic, and Martina McBride joins in!

Thought for the day

Leon Trotsky once wrote, "In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work does not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat."

So what happens in a country where the government controls access to health care?

How our handlers stay in control

It's almost funny how conservatives rail against Obama's domestic neo-Keynesian projects, but fall all over themselves to support his foreign projects to boost the economy through government spending on good, old-fashioned, feel-good wars.

Keynesianism bad, military Keynesianism good.

Obama - The Neocons' Trojan Horse

Still think there's a difference between the two political parties? Well, there is -- one is the Big-Government/Big-Business party, and the other is the Big-Business/Big-Government party. This revealing video shows the same old alliance of politically connected plutocrats and powermongers from the Bush years are still riding high.

George Wallace was wrong -- there's not even a penny's worth of difference between the two. From PatBuchanan.org.

Are You An Automatic Teller Machine For Washington?

Yes, you are, whether you like it or not:

Washington is treating America like a big Automatic Teller Machine (ATM). The politicians slide in their card, and out comes cash. And when the ATM runs out of money, they just call the Treasury Department and tell them to run the printing presses on overtime. Or, they “slide in their card” and borrow money from the world. All the while, they devise cunning ways to transfer more and more money from your personal and business accounts into theirs.

At some point, the American citizenry must decide that they refuse to be treated like an ATM for Washington. My prediction is that this tipping point will occur when the Dollar collapses and rolling bank holidays begin to happen all over the USA. When the credit cards, debit cards and ATM cards for Americans cease to work, and Americans cannot get their own money out of their banks, Americans will begin getting very focused. So will state politicians.

DC has proven it's beyone hope of reform. Greed and shortsightedness reign there. It's time to repudiate DC's inept rule and crushing debt.

India’s Neo-Confederates

From the LewRockwell blog:

The people of India are revolting against what this article calls “centralized, authoritarian rule” that is used to forcefully “maintain unity.” They are revolting against the Lincolnite form of government, in other words. As with all centralized, Lincolnite governments, “unity” doesn’t mean that the people are unified behind their government, but rather that violence, intimidation and coercion will be used against any and all dissenters to the political regime. (Thanks to Tomas E.).

Bush let Bin Laden escape?

Conspiracy theory? Well -- remember, when Republicans controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress, they could have outlawed abortion -- and didn't. If they had, they would have killed a proven vote-getter. How could Republicans have stirred up the voters if they didn't have the abortion issue?

So it's easy to believe the Bush-Cheney administration would spare Bin Laden for political reasons. Rep. Hinchey is pretty sure that's what happened:

Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) ... has consistently been one of the most outspoken opponents of the 2003 war in Iraq. And has consistently maintained since 2002, that the Bush Administration intentionally let Osama bin Laden escape capture. ...

"Well, I think, if you look back at the situation there, you see that there was a set of circumstances that showed clearly that there was no intention to capture [Osama] bin Laden.

And I think the main reason obviously for that was to be able to justify the attack against Iraq."

Why kill the goose that lays golden eggs? Always remember: with the Federal government, solutions are never the answer.

NC county to extend benefits to same-sex couples

Charlotte's been trying to choose an identity for itself, and this takes it one step closer to establishing one. All city leaders have to figure out now is whether it's Sodom or Gomorrah.

In totally unrelated news, Electrolux announced today it's moving to Charlotte.

Neoliberals replacing Neocons?

Wars of aggression liberation are okey-dokey as long as Commander-in-Chief Obama is in charge. Our position on these insane wars hasn't changed -- but then, any political trend involving both Thomas Friedman and David Brooks has got to be wrong, wrong, wrong. From Mondoweiss.

Paleoconservatism and Predictive Power

My earlier post on military theorist William Lind linked to an earlier piece I did on how the Neocons manage to get all the cushy think tank and editorial gigs despite their mindblowing inability to get anything right. That got me to thinking about the predictive power of a theory, which is a way of gauging the value of a theory based on its ability to make useful predictions. For example, Einstein's Theory of Relativity got a boost when field tests in Brazil proved that light rays do indeed bend under gravitational forces.

So let's compare what two Neocons and one paleoconservative said before 9/11 about what they saw as the greatest threat to US security. First we'll consider Frederick and Donald Kagan:

Frederick Kagan and his father Donald Kagan, who is a professor at Yale and a fellow at the Hudson Institute, together authored While America Sleeps: Self-Delusion, Military Weakness, and the Threat to Peace Today (2000). The book argued in favor of a large increase in military spending and warned of future threats, including from a potential revival of Iraq's WMD program.

In 1999, Pat Buchanan wrote this:

With the Cold War over, why invite terrorist attacks on our citizens and country, ultimately with biological, chemical or nuclear weapons? … [B]attling terrorism must go beyond discovering and disrupting it before it happens and deterring it with retaliation. We need to remove the motivation for it by extricating the United States from ethnic, religious and historical quarrels that are not ours and which we cannot resolve with any finality.

So two prominent Neocons viewed Iraq as the greatest threat, and that even more foreign intervention was the logical response, while Paleo Pat warned that interventionism itself was what increased the odds of a terror attack at home. Field testing of these two contrary theories in New York proved Buchanan right and the Neocons dead wrong.


Despite that hard lesson, the powers that be continue to follow the disastrous Neocon game plan, messin' where they shouldn't be messin'. The race is clearly not to the swift.

William Lind resigns from Free Congress Foundation

Well, this is unsettling -- seems William Lind has suddenly quit the Free Congress Foundation.

It's characteristic of Lind to take his leave with one parting insight, and a little self-directed comedy:

This will be the last On War column, at least for the foreseeable future. I will (unexpectedly) retire from Free Congress Foundation, where I have worked for twenty-two years, at the end of this month. Once I am re-established, either with a new institution or in retirement, I intend to re-start the column. When that will be I do not know. It also depends on obtaining connection to a telegraph line, which is not available everywhere.

(He doesn't have email!)

You'll want to read the rest of his farewell column (and the archives, if you're not already familiar with this brilliant student of military history and strategy).

My tribute to Mr. Lind and his unappreciated talents appeared in this Lew Rockwell article.

Thanks to Sid for the heads up!

Freedom and Heritage

Conservatives know that Western civilization provides the cultural foundation upon which the rule of law, private property, individual liberty, and all the other freedoms identified with the Western tradition depend upon. However, the Multiculturalists, including Neocons and the left, imagine Western standards of liberty can and should apply to all peoples. That's why paleoconservatives find themselves confronting both Neocons and progressives over Third-World immigration.

The escalating demographic revolution engineered by DC and cheered on by progressives is hardly an academic debate -- by 2050, the nation formerly known as America will no longer have its traditional European majority. What can we expect as a result? No one knows. The multicults assure us it'll be just grand -- the "more perfect Union" Linoln promised.

So let's conduct an experiment to see what we can expect in the magic year 2050. Here’s a challenge for all the multiculturalists, both Neocon and leftist, out there. Why not put your beliefs on the line and start your own little multicultural nation-state? For the first time in history, unrelated peoples will come together to create free institutions out of thin air.

We'll put the whole experiment on an island. Of course, since culture, and especially ethnicity, are supposed to be irrelevant, I get to choose who populates this island of globalist bliss. Let’s make a diverse society composed of: all the inhabitants of Watts, balanced by the residents of all of the gated communities in Los Angeles; 50,000 each of Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites; 100,000 each of Hutus and Tutsis; 20,000 each of Ibo and Yoruba from Nigeria; 10,000 Turks, balanced by 5,000 Greeks and 5,000 Armenians; and finally, just to add a little extra touch of excitement to this multicultural stew, 50 pro-Kelley Objectivists and 50 pro-Peikoff Objectivists (if we can round up that many).

The multicults can then bring in their top-notch tolerance trainers to lecture these brave new founders and pioneers about the noble philosophy of individual liberty and how they’re going to get along just fine despite their inconsequential differences. Then we'll release them so they can let freedom ring all over their new land. I’ll watch and document the results – from a safe distance.

Public Option Please Art Contest Winners

This graphic is the winner of the Public Option Please art contest:


That caption, "Liberty is to the collective body what health is to every individual body," is simply perfect. This graphic deserved to win, combining creepiness and heavy-handedness in one disturbing image. Notice how the District of Corruption is the heart of the collective nation.

Not since Leni Riefenstahl or Sergei Eisenstein has anyone better illustrated the government supremacist mindset.

White Americans' majority to end by mid-century

This is an adjustment from the original prediction:

The estimated time when whites will no longer make up the majority of Americans has been pushed back eight years — to 2050 — because the recession and stricter immigration policies have slowed the flow of foreigners into the U.S.

Census Bureau projections released Wednesday update last year's prediction that white children would become a minority in 2023 and the overall white population would follow in 2042. The earlier estimate did not take into account a drop in the number of people moving into the U.S. because of the economic crisis and the immigration policies imposed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

And that suggests another idea, best expressed by an English gentleman in 1843:

The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to One. He advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape.

"Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point," said Scrooge, "answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?"

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.

"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me."

The Spirit was immovable as ever.

Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, EBENEZER SCROOGE.

Further comment unnecessary.

The Underground Rebellion

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Below the Mason Dixon

Conor Friedersdorf asked readers to suggest ways to understand the South before he started a road trip into a nation-within-a-nation he admitted he did not understand. Some of my favorite responses:

-- Climb Stone Mountain, a huge quartz monzonite dome just outside of Atlanta. The largest bas-relief in the world is etched into the north face of the 825-ft mountain. Nothing says culture like Confederate heroes immortalized on the promontory and further glamorized with a 45-minute laser show.

-- Eat boiled peanuts at roadside stands, and ask around to find good barbecue restaurants.

-- Attend a NASCAR race at Talladega Superspeedway in Eastaboga, Alabama. Track capacity: 175,000, camp out the night(s) before, shirts and shoes discouraged. People-watching like you wouldn't believe.

-- The Cumberland Gap historic park, though small, is quite interesting, with the "Pinnacle" outlook extraordinary. During the Civil War this peak was called the "United States' own Gibraltar".

-- Dixie lives an honor culture quite different from the cultures of the northern and far western states. Children in the South are instilled with respect for elders and visitors, and they - and even their parents in their adulthood - express this by habitual use of formal forms of address and appellation, e.g., Sir; Ma'am; Mister Friedersdorf; Mrs./Miss/Ms. (pronounced almost uniformly as "Miz") Lobo. Like all manners and courtesies, Southerners use them to show genuine respect, admiration, and affection, but they also use them as blinds for disagreement, disrespect, and dislike.

-- Family is extremely important, and babies are of paramount importance. I cannot begin to tell you just how different people in the South are when around small children and especially babies. In big cities, like Dallas, babies are rarely commented and often simply ignored by most everyone in public. In the rural South, I defy you to take a baby in a stroller anywhere without being flocked by people wanting to hold your baby or compliment you and your child.

Southern music break

Hey, it's Hump Day, y'all!

Here's a great live performance of The Band's The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. It's a fitting tribute to the 70th anniversary of the premiere of Gone With The Wind.


Virgil Caine is the name, and I served on the Danville train,
Till Stoneman's cavalry came and tore up the tracks again.
In the winter of 65, we were hungry, just barely alive.
By May the tenth, Richmond had fell, it's a time I remember, oh so well,

The night they drove old Dixie down, and the bells were ringing,
The night they drove old Dixie down, and the people were singin, they went,
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la--

Grading Obama's First Year

Smitty (Robert Stacy McCain's unindicted co-blogger) says this of Obama's seemingly over-generous self-assessment:

Now, if we want to limit the discussion to lefty, Progressive nitwits, BHO weighs in with a "C". His attempt to sound vaguely equipped in the fortitude department at the Peas Prize speech kept him from achieving a full-on beta-male "B".

However, weighed against actual Presidents who were packin' the gear, e.g. George Washington, BHO is a fail of epic proportions. Screw Frank J's "D+ on the curve" nonsense.

The last century of "Theft: it's for the collective good" programs, aided by a de-furred SCOTUS that defers to Congress on every asshat Socialist idea that comes down the pike (first hit free, kids!) leave no room below.

F-

Go to impeachment. Go directly to impeachment. Do not pass "Go", do not collect $2,000,000,000,000 dollars.

Talk about ingratitude!

I couldn't disagree more. Let's recall where we were during the heyday of the Bush regime. Conservatives passively accepted Federal assaults on Fourth Amendment protections in the name of "national security." Amnesty for illegal alien invaders almost slipped through Congress because conservatives swallowed Bush's propaganda about importing "family values" from Mexico. Socialized medicine received a big boost from Bush in the form of Prescription Drug benefits for seniors, with nary a murmur about the administration's deliberate deception about the actual cost. Darth Cheney intentionally insulted Southern heritage by refusing to attend the funeral of Representative Floyd Spence because of the display of the Confederate Battleflag.

Now look at the political scene under Obama. The Tea Party protests have revealed a new sense of direction to the formerly rudderless conservative oppositon -- there's even talk of Tea Party candidates running for office.


Note the proliferation of the Revolutionary and Gadsden flags at this rally, and the small number of DC flags. In the post-Cold War age, as Samuel Huntington once noted, flags count.

Amnesty appears to have little or no chance of passage, due in part to the economy and to heightened suspicion of anything the Federal government proposes. There's even increased opposition to the Neocon Wars, which had given DC justification for warrantless searches and indefinite detention, now that they're Obama's Wars. The rise of numerous other resistance groups, including Oath Keepers, reveals a growing distrust of the Federal government that Thomas Jefferson would have welcomed as a sure sign that a love of liberty has rekindled. The Dixienet server can barely handle the increased traffic, thanks to the rantings of Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, and Van Jones, all cronies and supporters of the most left-wing regime ever to take power in America. The result is a wake-up slap in the face conservatives and Southerners needed.

To which I say, "Thank you, Barack Obama. You deserve your B+."

Young Hispanics see themselves as Young Hispanics

How's that Hispanic assimilation thingy working? From our bulging-at-the-seams "Blood is thicker than water" file comes this sobering report:

According to the Pew Hispanic Center’s National Survey of Latinos, more than half (52%) of Latinos ages 16 to 25 identify themselves first by their family’s country of origin, be it Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republican, El Salvador or any of more than a dozen other Spanish-speaking countries. An additional 20% generally use the terms “Hispanic” or “Latino” first when describing themselves. Only about one-in-four (24%) generally use the term “American” first.

Among the U.S.-born children of immigrants, “American” is somewhat more commonly used as a primary term of self-identification. Even so, just 33% of these young second generation Latinos use American first, while 21% refer to themselves first by the terms Hispanic or Latino, and the plurality-41%-refer to themselves first by the country their parents left in order to settle and raise their children in this country.

Can you blame them? What's the appeal of a squishy-soft, apologetic, guilt-ridden identity? "American" now refers to anyone who wades ashore, with no bonds, no loyalty, no identification with this country other than viewing it as a good place to turn a buck and remit money back home.

Without historical or cultural bonds to hold this randomized accumulation together, only one thing can maintain domestic order, and that is Leviathan.

The Vision of the Founders: Dead and Gone

Bill of Rights Day is Tuesday, December 15th. But as Kevin Gutzman points out in this article, it’s not a day of celebration. Instead, it should be a day of mourning for the death of decentralized self-government.

Immigration bill backers try again despite jobless rate

The Treason Lobby never gives up. Yes, they're baaaaack:

Democrats on Tuesday begin their new push for an immigration bill, hamstrung by the image of legalizing millions of future Democratic voters illegal immigrant workers at a time when the unemployment rate stands at 10 percent -- more than twice what it was the last time Congress tried to act.

So how do amnesty supporters justify importing even more cheap, exploitable labor when Americans are increasingly desperate for work? It's the patriotic thing to do:

"It certainly will confuse the debate a lot more, but at the end of the day what we have to understand is fixing this system will be good for American workers," said Eliseo Medina, executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, which is one of the major advocates for legalizing illegal immigrant workers.

Isn't it nice of Eliseo Medina, Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, Rep. Nydia M. Velazquez (chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus), and The National Council of La Raza to work so hard for the benefit of American workers? It's like a Christmas present from the Hispanic Lobby to native-born Americans!

That sounds awfully familiar:

Narrator: As the Grinch took the tree, as he started to shove, he heard a small sound like the coo of a dove. He turned around fast and he saw a small Who. Little Cindy Lou Who, who was no more than two. She stared at the Grinch and said...
Cindy Lou Who: Santie Claus, why? Why are you taking our Christmas tree? Why?
Narrator: But do you know, that old Grinch was so smart and so slick, that he thought up a lie and he thought it up quick.
Grinch: Why my sweet little tot...
Narrator: The fake Santie Claus lied...
Grinch: ...there's a light on this tree that won't light on one side. So I'm taking it home to my workshop, my dear. I'll fix it up there, then I'll bring it back here.

Sadly, there are those who scoff at the noble intentions of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. And wouldn't you know they're conservative Southerners?

"With 15 million Americans out of work, it's hard to believe that anyone would give amnesty to 12 million illegal immigrants," said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee. "Even the open-borders crowd agrees that illegal immigrants take jobs from American workers, particularly poor and disadvantaged citizens and legal immigrants. This is exactly why we need to oppose amnesty."

His office has calculated that there are 19 states where the number of illegal immigrants in the work force is at least 50 percent of the number of unemployed workers.

Some folks just don't get into the true meaning of Christmas. And if it doesn't mean rewarding criminals and accepting demographic revolution, what does it mean?

More at memeorandum.

'Caucasian' clause causes Myers Park uproar

This story from my hometown paper is just too juicy:

The NAACP filed a complaint in 2007 against the association for posting a sample deed that included a decades-old clause specifying that "people of the Caucasian race only" could live in or own a Myers Park house.

The complaint was filed with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee, which investigates claims of housing discrimination. Last week, the committee ruled that the Myers Park association was responsible for publishing a discriminatory statement and told the two parties to negotiate a settlement.

Translation: Ka-ching!

Ok, let's do our little discrimination dance. The NAACP leads with puffed-up outrage:

Although the deed was removed from the Web site more than a year ago, the NAACP is seeking penalties that could include a financial payment.

"It's kind of like being caught speeding. You can't just slow down - you've got to pay the fine," the Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP, told a crowd of about 100 people gathered Monday at Little Rock AME Zion Church in uptown.

Well done! Now the white liberal grovels:

The president of the Myers Park Homeowners Association issued a public apology Monday, saying the group was trying to draw attention to construction-related restrictions and did not intend to discriminate.

"We published it solely to alert homeowners about setbacks and other restrictions for modifying their homes," Pamela May told the Observer. "We deserve to take responsibility, and we do."

I have two questions: How much will the NAACP get for an action that did not harm anyone? And I wonder when the oh-so-politically correct Observer will investigate the blatant and ongoing discrimination practised by the Congressional Black Caucus?

Creative Loafing slams Abbeville Institute

If you're tired of the corporate media's boosterism and liberal bias, there's the self-annointed "independent" media. Creative Loafing is a prime example, which distinguishes itself by serving up even more liberal bias and cattiness than an anthology of Maureen Dowd.

Exhibit A: See if you can hear a purring sound as you read this attack on Dr. Donald Livingston and his Abbeville Institute:

The institute, which Livingston operates out of his home, is a virtually unheard of group of like-minded scholars who talk shop about Southern history and identity — as well as good-ole-fashioned secession. It’s named after Abbeville, S.C., the birthplace of John Calhoun, the affable politico — and Sweeney Todd doppelganger — who wasn’t shy about advocating states’ rights and slavery. ..

And once a year, they pay their own way to conferences where, according to the article, they play banjos, light beach bonfires and eat group meals — and talk a lot about “The South©.” Kind of like a Kappa Alpha beach weekend, but without the beer funnels.

The group’s caught the attention of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which stops short of calling it a “hate group.” Livingston was once a member of the League of the South, a secessionist organization. The professor told the Chronicle that he broke ties with the group because it was “avowedly secessionist.”

Catch that? This gathering of scholars "caught the attention" of the Southern Poverty Law Center. With actual terror experts sounding the alarm about homegrown Islamic terror threats rising in this country, the Thought Police at the SPLC pounce on the Abbeville Institute.

What prompted the SPLC to scream "wolf" for the gazillionth time? Brace yourselves:

Still, the outsiders who have heard of Abbeville tend not to like what they hear. One historian, whose research includes the cultural history of racism and white supremacy in the United States, and who asked for anonymity to avoid becoming a target of “Southern identity groups,” says the lectures he has listened to on the Abbeville Web site (http://www.abbevilleinstitute.org) are dominated by racialism and are “ideological, through and through.” There is the condemnation from the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil-rights group. In 2005, Time magazine pegged Abbeville as a group of “Lincoln loathers.”

No references to actual statements of "racialism," no links to documents verifying the accusations, but hey, no problem -- a "condemnation" from the SPLC carries the weight of excommunication in an age where government and its flunkies enforce orthodoxy with accusations of impure thought. "Racism" is this secular age's ultimate sin, and the charge of racism constitutes a prima facie case of racism.

But why does the scholarly study of secession arouse such a furor? Secession sounds like a welcome alternative to an overgrown regime that claims Constitutional constraints on illegal surveillance and detention can be ignored in the name of national security. And a regime that's elected itself to force the rest of the world to behave according to standards that don't apply to it ALWAYS has national security worries.

Obama has proven beyond all doubt that elections cannot alter DC's imperial ambitions. Downsizing sounds like the only hope to me.

And just curious -- if Creative Loafing did a story on La Raza (translation: Das Volk), would the writer pepper it with slams against Hispanics, or allow anonymous members of immigration control groups to take free shots at Hispanic culture?

Majority of Catalans favoring secession?

Though their language and culture were brutally repressed by the dictator Franco for decades, the Catalonians have bravely persisted as a distinct people. Now they may be on the threshold of achieving self-determination:

About 30 percent of 700,000 eligible voters in 170 towns and villages in Catalonia voted on the question of whether Catalonia should become an independent state within the EU, the organizers said, Reuters reports.

Early results showed that almost 95 percent of those who voted wanted Catalonia to leave Spain.

"This has been a powerful event that is going to push us toward independence," referendum campaign spokesman Uriel Beltran told Reuters.

Public opinion surveys have showed different results considering that Catalonia has had a high level of autonomy since 2006.

Three years ago Catalonians voted for the new statute which regulates relations between Catalonia and Spain and contains a preamble defining Catalonia as nation.

In 1900, there were 55 sovereign nations in the world. Today, there are 195, with dozens of active secessionist movements. Trend-spotting, anyone?

Romantic Rebel

Here's a fitting tribute to the first bad boy of American cinema, Rhett Butler, appearing in American Spectator:

Conceited and coolly cynical, he has "the most terrible reputation," so breathtakingly scandalous that he isn't received by "any decent family in Charleston." Yet 70 years since his silver screen debut, Rhett Butler's roguish charms are still irresistible.

Rhett will once again swagger into ladies' hearts tonight as the Turner Classic Movies cable channel broadcasts the Civil War epic Gone With the Wind on the anniversary of its 1939 Atlanta premiere at Loew's Grand Theater.

If you've never experienced this thrilling epic and its bigger-than-life characters, or never understood why GWTW was so enthusiastically embraced by so many, North and South, you're in for a surprising eye-opener only Robert Stacy McCain could offer.

But wait! There's more! In discussing the broader meaning of GWTW, McCain lobs this potent little logic grenade at whites he dismisses as "self-righteous hypocrites" who parade their anti-racism:

In recent years I've noticed that those who most relentlessly charge others with racism are white people who, by pointing the accusing finger, seek to make a public display of their own colorblind virtue:

Not only am I not a racist, but I am such an enlightened and courageous crusader against racism as to be able to detect the hidden hate of my fellow whites and to expose and fearlessly denounce it. Admire me!

I do believe the politically correct convoy has taken a direct hit.

If Obama's rules applied to the US ...

Washington Post

... we'd be in trouble.

Homegrown Terror on the Rise in 2009

Yes, but the threat isn't from right-wing, homeschooling, gun-owning Christians and Ron Paul voters -- it's from Muslims! Who would've ever guessed? The Southern Poverty Law Center sure didn't. But then, the SPLC is a fundraising and thought monitoring outfit. Here's what REAL terror experts say:

"There's definitely a rise in jihad recruits and volunteers in the United States, whether they're concerning plots here in the U.S. or whether they involve material support to terror plots overseas," says counterterrorism analyst Steve Emerson, author of "American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us."

Danny Coulson, former deputy assistant director of the FBI, agrees.

"I ran the entire terrorism program for the FBI for a period of time, and just from what you see in the newspaper there have been more American Islamic extremists terrorists arrested than years in the past," Coulson told FoxNews.com.

A major concern, Coulson says, is that the majority of the suspects in the 2009 cases have no direct links to major terror organizations.

"They're just homegrown terrorists who sympathize with the same Islamic extremist philosophy, and although they're not connected by order or by organization, they're connected by philosophy and religion," he said.

"Invite the World/Invade the World" would make an apt epitaph on the DC Empire's tombstone.

Clint Eastwood’s Invictus: A Colossal Bore

From Pajamas Media:

South Africa is plagued with astonishing levels of crime and poverty, its peoples segregated and suspicious of one another. But the new Clint Eastwood-directed movie Invictus says that’s all okay, because the country’s rugby team won a few games in 1995.

Not to mention that the film deifies a bloody terrorist.

Destroying the American Middle Class

This threat to our security is 100 times greater than the alleged threats of Afghans resisting foreign occupiers:

For eight straight months foreclosure filings have hit 300,000 or more yet banks on Wall Street are gearing up for record yearend bonuses for a job well done. The average American is seeing the culmination of 40 years of systematic leeching by the corporatocracy that culminated in the largest transfer of wealth in modern history. A bloodless coup that cemented the true nature of our current economic system.

Once the American Middle Class goes, so does republican government.

Time for an Immigration Moratorium

Former congressman Virgil Goode issues a challenge to the president:

When Barack Obama completely ignored the problem of uncontrolled immigration during his Jobs Summit, my former colleague Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) issued the following statement that was signed by 21 conservative Republican congressmen:

“With a 10 percent unemployment rate, now is the time for the Obama administration to stand up for citizens and legal immigrant workers. Now is the time for the President to enforce immigration laws. When the jobs stolen by illegal immigrants are recovered for citizens and legal workers, American workers will benefit. President Obama could create eight million jobs for citizens and legal workers simply by enforcing immigration laws.”

I applaud Rep. Smith for standing up against illegal immigration, but we need to go a step further to protect displaced American workers. The first priority of our government needs to be the interests of American citizens -- both native born and naturalized -- not “legal immigrant workers.” And the 25 million American citizens out of work are not only pushed out by illegal aliens, but also by certain legal immigrants.

Even if we completely stopped illegal immigration tomorrow, the government still issues 75,000 permanent work visas and approximately 50,000 temporary work visas every month. These 125,000 jobs should go to Americans first.

Of course, Obama won't do any such thing. DC's purpose is NOT to protect American jobs, but to provide cheap, exploitable labor to Big Business.

Virgil Goode is one of the few elected officials who've dared confront the Treason Lobby, including their volunteer thugs. Our earlier post on an attempt to ban him from addressing students at the University of North Carolina is worth revisiting, if only to remind yourself of what the charge of "racism" really boils down to.

Tony Blair confesses: I just like blowing things up

The horrendous, all-consuming threat of Saddam Hussein justified lies, says Tony Blair:

Reporting from London - Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said he would have found a justification for invading Iraq even without the now-discredited evidence that Saddam Hussein was trying to produce weapons of mass destruction.

"I would still have thought it right to remove him. I mean, obviously you would have had to use and deploy different arguments about the nature of the threat," Blair told the BBC in an interview to be broadcast this morning.

It was a startling admission from the onetime British leader, who was President Bush's staunchest ally in the decision to invade Iraq in 2003. Speaking to broadcaster Fern Britton, Blair insisted that ousting Hussein had improved the situation in Iraq by laying the foundation for a more democratic country.

Iraqis would thank Mr. Blair, but most were busy dodging suicide bombers and bribing officials to obtain US passports.

127 killed, 400 wounded in Baghdad bomb attacks

Bombing at Iraq police recruitment center kills one, injuring 20

Car bomb kills 2 in western Iraq

Return of the Antiwar Right

Return? Shoot, we've been right here, smacking the faces of puffed-up pretend patriots and ringing the alarm at ever-expanding government power.

So it's gratifying that the Neocons have been exposed as the authoritarians they really are -- and more important, genuine conservatives are coming back home:

The notion of defending one’s country is something patriots of all political stripes can subscribe to. But that every military action our government commits to should automatically be considered righteous and unassailable is a bizarre position for conservatives, given their natural distrust of government in every other sphere. The Wilsonian idea of “making the world safe for democracy” has never been the language of hard-headed conservative realists, but maniacal ideologues, and yet the liberal dispensation and celebration of such utopian rhetoric by the last Republican president, his party and most self-described conservatives, left the Right a confused mess.

That’s what makes sane conservatives like Congressman John J. Duncan, Jr. of Tennessee so refreshing. Says Duncan: “There is nothing conservative about the war in Afghanistan. The Center for Defense Information said a few months ago that we had spent over $400 billion on the war and war-related costs there. Now, the Pentagon says it will cost about $1 billion for each 1,000 additional troops we send to Afghanistan… Fiscal conservatives should be the ones most horrified by all this spending. Conservatives who oppose big government and huge deficit spending at home should not support it in foreign countries just because it is being done by our biggest bureaucracy, the Defense Department.”

Let's all resolve that we won't be fooled again. Of course, the first step is to scrutinize any politician who preaches support for the Neocon Wars. The last thing we need is another W clone.

Don't do as we do, do as we say

Winston Churchill would've ridiculed Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech as an oxymoron wrapped in a contradiction inside a negation. But the mind-splitting hypocrisy of this line in that speech has been overlooked:

"Although a legitimate government was elected by the Afghan people, it has been hampered by corruption..." Barack Obama, preaching to the fallen in Oslo.

Here are a few random stories, still fresh on the Internet, that give Obama's moralizing a little perspective:

Ex-Rep. Jefferson Sentenced to 13 Years for Bribery

Pennsylvania official admits to bribery

Contractor gets 9 years in Army bribery case

Two District of Columbia employees charged with corruption

Is Obama Really Preparing for Civil War?

If this is true, it's the scariest story I've seen in many years:

According to an obscure report in the European Union Times, "Russian Military Analysts are reporting to Prime Minister Putin that US President Barack Obama has issued an order to his Northern Command's (USNORTHCOM) top leader, US Air Force General Gene Renuart, to 'begin immediately' increasing his military forces to 1 million troops by January 30, 2010, in what these reports warn is an expected outbreak of civil war within the United States before the end of winter. ...

Many of us would be inclined to pooh-pooh such a story, but then there is this column from Bloomberg.com entitled "Arming Goldman With Pistols Against Public," written by Alice Schroeder. According to Ms Schroeder:

"'I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit,' said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who applied to the local police for a permit to buy a pistol. The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank."

Does this sound far-fetched? Remember, this is the same Federal government that cooked up Project Northwoods, which called for launching terror attacks against American civilians that could be blamed on Castro in order to justify another invasion of Cuba.

And let's not forget it's the same government that sacrificed over 600,000 Americans to keep its grip on power.

It’s Not Just Obama, It’s the System

This is something all Palin supporters, birthers, and Ron Paul for president supporters must read:

Since the Confederate States of America lost the war in 1865 against the union-destroying aggressions of Abraham Lincoln and his military, the federal government has egregiously encroached upon the powers and sovereignty of the people and the states respectively. Regulations, controls, taxation, deception, falsehoods, subterfuge, “bait and switch” have all been the norm. Thievery under “color of law” has been their modus operandi. Through myriad usurpations, all three branches of the federal government have suppressed and oppressed true freedom throughout these states. It has, through masquerade and fraud, turned our original federal form of government into a national, seemingly-all-powerful empire. It has overtaken virtually every major element of society.

Lovers of liberty need to come to grips with the facts, and chart a new direction. Both Establishment parties are designed to frustrate REAL reform and maintain the existing power structure, which everyone with eyes and a brain can see is collapsing on itself.

Why should we go down with it?

Sign of the times

According to a recent poll, 22% of Americans now say, "Happy Holidays." The other 78% say, "Feliz Navidad." Jay Leno

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Taxpayers bear the burden as refugee resettlement soars

Your tax dollars at work:

This fiscal year, the U.S. resettled almost three times as many refugees as all the rest of the countries in the industrialized world combined.

Despite the recession, growing poverty, unemployment and homelessness, the U.S. resettled 75,000 refugees, the highest number of admissions since 9/11.
This is possible only because what was once the calling of true sacrificial charity and private sponsors is now the responsibility of the American taxpayer.

We pay Blackwater and Lockheed Martin to wreck distant societies, then pay to resettle the refugees here -- which also creates more domestic terrorists and cultural transformation here at home.

Southern music break

It's Friday, y'all! Here's Buddy Jewell with Sweet Southern Comfort.

With rusty cars and weeping willows,
Keepin watch out in the yard,
Just a snapshot of downhome Dixie,
Could be anywhere you are,

In Carolina or in Georgia,
Open arms are waitin for ya,
Louisianna yellow rose of San Antone,
Arkansas, Mississippi,
Old man river whispers to me,
Carry on, Carry on,
Sweet Southern Comfort carry on

Invictus?

The "feel-good" movie this Christmas lionizes Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa. Morgan Freeman, who actively campaigned against the Mississippi State flag, portrays Mandela as a Christ-like figure, forgiving and compassionate toward former enemies despite what hagiographers describe as his "27 years of unjust imprisonment."

Was Mandela wrongfully imprisoned? His biography says otherwise:

In 1961, Mandela became leader of the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (translated Spear of the Nation, and also abbreviated MK), which he co-founded. He coordinated sabotage campaigns against military and government targets, making plans for a possible guerrilla war if the sabotage failed to end apartheid. Mandela also raised funds for MK abroad and arranged for paramilitary training of the group. ...

Mandela described the move to armed struggle as a last resort; years of increasing repression and violence from the state convinced him that many years of non-violent protest against apartheid had not and could not achieve any progress.

Later, mostly in the 1980s, MK waged a guerrilla war against the apartheid regime in which many civilians became casualties. Mandela later admitted that the ANC, in its struggle against apartheid, also violated human rights, sharply criticising those in his own party who attempted to remove statements supporting this fact from the reports of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Mandela even admitted at his trial, "I do not deny that I planned sabotage. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation."

Maybe that's why the United States had Mandela's name on its terrorist list until 2008, when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had his name removed.

Keep these facts in mind when you see Matt Damon gazing admiringly at Morgan Freeman in TV ads for Invictus.

Obama, Secessionist Movements and the Nobel Prize

In his slick bait-and-switch speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, Obama managed to sneak in an infomercial for the Pentagon. In his expanded definition of "just wars," he slipped this in:

Moreover, wars between nations have increasingly given way to wars within nations. The resurgence of ethnic or sectarian conflicts; the growth of secessionist movements, insurgencies, and failed states; have increasingly trapped civilians in unending chaos.

So just the "growth" of a secessionist movement justifies war. Some may have snickered when pundits compared Obama to Lincoln, but Obama is actually something new under the sun, combining Lincoln's policy of hammering down self-determination movements with Dick Cheney's One Percent Doctrine. I suppose just talking about exercising the right to alter or abolish a tyrannical government now justifies that government to unleash its killer drones.

via DumpDC.

Immigration Moratorium Now!

Angry about DC's refusal to stop illegal immigration when 15 million Americans are out of work? Send this picture to your Congressman. via The Indentured Servant Girl.

Hope 'n change, Palin-style

More Neocon lovin' for Obama! His Nobel speech defending America's illegal, senseless wars had the same effect on the pro-war, any war crowd as a Jonas Brothers encore has on teenage girls. Here's Robert Kagan, father of surge-monger Fred Kagan, licking his lips in anticipation of the Spartan delights of the "Obama Doctrine":

Wow. What a shift of emphasis. Something about this Afghan decision, coupled perhaps with events in Iran, has really affected his approach.

I don't know what to say about an "Obama doctrine," because based on this speech, I think we are witnessing a substantial shift, back in the direction of a more muscular moralism, a la, Truman, Reagan. The emphasis on military power, war for just causes, and moral principles recalls Theodore Roosevelt's phrase, "the just man armed." There is something much more quintessentially American and traditional about this speech, compared to most of his rhetorical approach throughout the year.

It's always dangerous to draw too many conclusions from a speech, but this is a big one.

We have here the spectacle of a Nobel peace prize winner urging the world to give war a chance. How fitting the promotion of "a more muscular moralism" -- Neocon talk for flowery excuses for more aggressive war -- should be praised by a member of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. It makes my head hurt.

And what does it say about Sarah Palin, who gave the president's defense of what he called "just wars" a "thumbs up"? (No mention whether it was one or two.) "I liked what he said," Palin told us in a phone interview. "We have to stop these terrorists over there."

W in skirts. More at memeorandum.

Political trivia challenge!

True or false:

In September, 2009, Morris Dees donated half of his six-figure salary to a black family in Montgomery, Alabama to save their home from foreclosure.

Mouseover Morris for the answer:

Counterinsurgency against Americans?

Why paleoconservatives opposed the Neocon Wars:

In an article published in the February, 2010, issue of Guns & Weapons for Law Enforcement (a print magazine not available online), Donald J. Mihalek argues that suspected criminals in the United States should be treated the same way “insurgents” are in Iraq.

“With violent crime increasing in many American cities,” writes Mihalek, “it is easy to think of criminals as an ‘insurgency’…. This growing insurgent behavior includes shootings of civilians, a growing trend of gang violence and an increase in narcotics related kidnapping. The trends point to a need for a renewed strategy to fight violent crime.”

Mihalek suggests cops borrow from General David Petraeus, who formulated an eight point counterinsurgency plan to deal with elements in Iraq opposed to the occupation of their country.

Talk about blowback!

"The consolidation of the states into one vast Republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it." Robert E. Lee, in a letter to Lord Acton.

How a REAL Communist Handled Secession

Lincoln and Milosevic used force to kill self-determination, resulting in the deaths of hundred of thousands, including civilians. But the Soviet Union broke up relatively peacefully. Here's an interesting look at what this could imply about the coming American breakup.

Sailermandering Texas: What to Do While We’re Waiting For Patriotic Immigration Reform

Here's what patriots can work for until real reform can be achieved:

The genius of the Founding Fathers was that they recognized America contained differing communities that needed a federal rather than a unitary political system. Now, arguably, the established states themselves contain differing communities that should be given expression.

Typically, U.S. political boundaries have been drawn by partisans, resulting in the notoriously absurd shapes of many U.S. Congressional districts. The U.S. gave the waiting world the term “gerrymandering” after a constituency resembling a salamander drawn up by Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry.

In a similar spirit, what I’m proposing here is what Peter Brimelow insists I call a “Sailermander”—it’s aimed at preserving, not a political party, but the hegemony of the historic American nation, otherwise likely to be swamped by legal and illegal immigration.

The 1845 treaty of annexation gave the new state of Texas the right to split into five states at least arguably.

It's an interesting idea -- but even the author admits it's a stop-gap measure. And of course, the real answer is for Texas to recall its delegated powers from DC and resume responsibility for its own destiny, including border security. It should be obvious by now DC isn't going to life a finger for Texans.

Except the one from Rahm Emanuel.

Thousands protest Obama peace prize

The president who just escalated the Aghanistan war by 30,000 troops has just received his Nobel Peace Prize. The world looks on in disbelief:

MORE than 6000 people marched in Oslo after US President Barack Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize with a speech justifying war, urging him to live up to the accolade.

The crowd marched in a peaceful, torchlight procession aimed at denouncing nuclear weapons and ended up outside Mr Obama's hotel in the Norwegian capital, police and organisers said.

Mr Obama - who in his acceptance speech today said "war is sometimes necessary, and war is at some level an expression of human feelings" - waved to the crowd from his hotel balcony for several minutes with his wife Michelle, protected by bullet-proof glass.

He is the oxymoron we've been waiting for.

Obama continues to drop in polls

Obama has managed to drop faster in less time than any other president at this stage in office. But this is just scary:

Perhaps the greatest measure of Obama's declining support is that just 50% of voters now say they prefer having him as President to George W. Bush, with 44% saying they'd rather have his predecessor. Given the horrendous approval ratings Bush showed during his final term that's somewhat of a surprise and an indication that voters are increasingly placing the blame on Obama for the country's difficulties instead of giving him space because of the tough situation he inherited.

The American people must have the combined memory capacity of a gnat.

Dear Lord, please don't let people make the mistake of thinking the Republicans are the answer to anything! Surely by now they see that DC is the problem, and that changing the sock puppet in charge won't change a thing.

Don't Blame the Swiss

What do you do when you see your neighbor making a deadly mistake? You make damned sure you don't repeat it:

Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, and Sweden have seen court cases and scandals concerning forced marriage, female circumcision, and honor killings. There have also been terrorist incidents: Think of the London transportation bombings, the Spanish train bombs, the murder of Dutch film director Theo van Gogh. Remember that the 9/11 pilots came from Hamburg. ...

As grotesquely unfair as a referendum to ban minarets may have been to hundreds of thousands of ordinary, well-integrated Muslims, I've no doubt that that the Swiss voted in favor primarily because they don't have much Islamic extremism—and they don't want any, either.

The irony is that the US has suffered more from Islamic colonization than any European nation. 9/11 couldn't have happened without colonies of Middle Easterners for the plotters to fade into to.

U.S. Social Security Will Go Bankrupt in 2010

Politicians want to take credit for expanding Social Security benefits and eligibility for their constituents, confident that the bill will be paid by something called "The Federal Government." But inevitably, those bills are going to be dumped on us.

That's when the crisis becomes a catastrophe, says Gary North.

Playing Sam's side of the street

More Muslims from the US jump on board the Jihad Express:

Five men who recently went missing from around the nation's capital were arrested Tuesday during a raid in Pakistan, according to an official with the Pakistani embassy in Washington.

The official said that the men, all U.S. citizens, are being held by Pakistani police while authorities look into possible links to extremist groups. ... U.S. officials believe the men went to Pakistan to join a terrorist group there, one official said.

Those men HAD to be stopped before they could, you know, do something terrible. They might even murder innocent civilians. And we all know how Uncle Sam HATES competition:

The Afghan government said NATO forces killed six civilians during a pre-dawn operation Tuesday in eastern Afghanistan. NATO disputed the allegation, saying only militants died.

Hundreds of people marched on the provincial capital to protest the raid, and an official said one demonstrator died Tuesday in clashes with police.

In defense of John Brown

Alice Keesey Mecoy (send her email), whom we quoted in our posting, Commemoration for John Brown, emailed this response:

Thank you for directing me to your blog. I apologize for the delay in responding to your comment, but I have been in Lake Placid NY for the past week at the John Brown Coming Home Events and have not been on my computer for many days. I firmly stand by my statement that we are moving closer to John Brown's vision of a world where ALL people are equal, period, no exceptions. But we need to keep working on ending slavery even today. One day we will completely eradicate slavery!

Equality always, ALWAYS, requires mass murder. Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, the Soviet Union, and Communist China are excellent examples. But John Brown was the madman who inspired them all.

So here's my wish: That one day the leveller's bloody vision will be seen for the anti-human ideology that it is. Then there will be justice and peace.

Obama’s Cash for Caulkers

Karen De Coster scrutinizes the latest feel-good, money-wasting "green" initiative from the Obama administration. Nothing but more corporate welfare gone wild.

Quote of the day

From Georgie Anne Geyer, on the Swiss constitutional amendment banning the construction of minarets in that country:

[T]hey can hardly be blamed, because they have acted to protect their culture and their principles. There is everything wrong with prejudice and hatred. But there is also something very wrong with not being permitted to defend what you have against those who would not join it but change it.

via The Ohio Republic

Losing their religion

First, Charles Johnson and Andrew Sullivan burn their bridges to the right, and now here's an ex-liberal announcing why that label just doesn't fit any more. (via The Other McCain)

What's going on?

Just as surely as the national borders from the 20th century continue to recalibrate with resurgent historical cultures, political ideologies and alignments are also adapting to the pressures of a new age. As we asserted in The Chattanooga Declaration, "The deepest questions of human liberty and government facing our time go beyond right and left, and in fact have made the old left-right split meaningless and dead."

And dead they are. This calls for a little R.E.M.:

That's me in the corner
That's me in the spotlight
Losing my religion
Trying to keep a view
And I don't know if I can do it
Oh no I've said too much
I hadn't said enough

Blast from the past

John Jay, from Federalist #2:

Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people -- a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.

This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence, that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren, united to each other by the strongest ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties.

Jay and the other Founders understood that cultural affinity was the foundation of government. A nation that loses that -- or has it stolen away by an alliance of big government and big business -- loses its political stability, and its liberty.

About that "purity" test

Lefty commentators have been raking Republicans for limiting support to those Republican candidates who support conservative values, hinting the GOP is turning itself into an ideological, exclusivist party with little mass appeal. "What happenend to the Big Tent?" they demand.

But when leftists do the same thing, why, that's just being true to Democratic principles. Got it?

Why Import Workers Now?

Pat Buchanan asks why the one guaranteed step that would help unemployed Americans -- a moratorium on all immigration -- isn't on the table. The situation and response couldn't be any plainer than this:

At last week’s Job Summit, there was talk of a second stimulus package, of tax credits for small businesses that hire new workers, of an Infrastructure Bank to select national priority public works projects like the Hoover Dam and TVA of yesteryear. ...

Unemployment is at 10 percent, near the postwar high of 1983. Fifteen million Americans are out of work. Ten million more have given up looking or are working fewer hours than they would like.

We have been losing jobs every month for two years.

Why, then, are we still bringing immigrants into the United States at a rate of 125,000 a month to take jobs from fellow Americans and compete with our unemployed for the jobs that open up?

In the last year, 1.5 million new immigrants have come to take up residence and been issued work permits.

As Jerry Woodruff, editor of Middle American News, writes: “Immigrants are taking good, high-paying jobs from highly skilled Americans. The Census Bureau found that 34 percent of all software engineers … are immigrants. Yet, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers reports that 48,000 U.S. software engineers are unemployed.”

There are three answers to the question as to why the Federal government continues tossing out H1-B visas like Mardi Gras beads despite record unemployment:

1 - (And all regular readers should know this) Solutions are never the answer. More government, in the form of bigger, more powerful bureaucracy, and government giveaways, are the only possible answer.
2 - Americans have been pummeled by an unforgiving economic system rigged in favor of politically connected trans-national corporations, and are too weak and distracted to object.
3 - DC's real priority is not to help Americans, but to reconstruct America into a socialist, Third-World country.

Militaristic, corrupt America increasingly resembles a Third World state

Floodtide immigration, an aggressive and powerful lobby for illegal aliens, a sinking economy, and a corrupt and authoritarian government -- the reconstruction of America into Obama's vison of "a more perfect union" is well on its way:

As in so many collapsed countries, an increasingly large portion of American wealth goes toward debt. Infrastructure sags. Only industries favored by the government thrive. The middle class shrinks as it is squeezed to fund programs that keep the wealthy comfortable and the poor from rioting. The only difference is that the U.S. has an ability to continue borrowing—for now. ...

The far Right wallows in paranoia with its dreams of overturning an election by discovering a Kenyan birth certificate. Most on the Left seem too mesmerized by the president to hold him accountable. The media ranges from insipid to hysterical. This country may never see the reasons for—and the parallels to—its disintegration.

I never could understand the passion of those who imagined that salvation depended on convincing enough people that Obama wasn't born in Hawaii. The rot is far deeper than one ambitious empty suit occupying the White House. The only real hope is that enough people realize our handlers are herding us down a deadly path. We still possess the means of choosing a different path.

US expects more troops in body bags next year

Here's one of Obama's projects that we know is "shovel ready" -- sending more Americans to be sacrificed to prop up the corrupt Karzai:

While Pentagon announces the plan for the deployment of 16,000 troops to Afghanistan, top US Military Commander Mullen predicts that more troopers would come home in body bags next year.

An infantry battalion force of 1,500 Marines will depart for the Afghan mission later this month, with another 6,200 from the base set to deploy in early spring, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said on Monday.

An additional 800 Marines are due to arrive early next year. Some 3,400 soldiers are also scheduled to depart for Afghanistan in early spring, followed by 4,100 support forces, the Pentagon said.

This is while the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral, Mike Mullen, told some 700 troops bound for Afghanistan that "I am sure we will sustain an increase in the level of casualties, and I don't want to be in any way unclear about that."

Let's pray for the troops, and work to end this insanity. It's time to pink slip DC.

The Not-So-Great Race Debate

Robert Stacy McCain offers a spirited defense of his comments made within what Dennis Wheeler dubbed the "Great Southern League Race Debate." I'd like to provide some background on the League's involvment.

What Mr. Wheeler referred to as the "Great Southern League Race Debate" was neither great nor a real debate. It was a flame war confined to a few rank and file members, and was mostly between George Kalas and Dennis Wheeler (who is now deceased).

Dr. Hill and Dr. Fleming did not debate the nature and purpose of the Southern League (now the League of the South), but only interceded to put a stop to the bickering on the League list server. Nor did any members of the Board of Directors take part in it. If you follow this narrative to its boring end, you'll see that not only was Wheeler's position of excluding minorities rejected, he was kicked out of the League.

The League's official position on race and racism is spelled out
here. As always, we welcome anyone who supports our mission of Southern independence. Murray Rothbard, the great economist, who was Jewish, was a charter member.

Those who're interested in an organization that excludes on the basis of race rather than values should look into the Congressional Black Caucus.

Harry Reid joins the SPLC

He sure sounds like it:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took his GOP-blasting rhetoric to a new level Monday, comparing Republicans who oppose health care reform to lawmakers who clung to the institution of slavery more than a century ago.

The Maoist Cultural Revolution had a handy-dandy list of recyclable epithets for anyone who dissented from the party line: running dog, capitalist lackey, imperialist traitor, enemy of the people, blah-blah. This country's ruling elite is resorting to the same mindless denunciations -- if you don't like what the government does, you're a racist, fascist, white supremacist, blah-blah. We've noted this trend before, and don't like what we're seeing.

It tells me they're getting mighty nervous -- to the point where they no longer know how to handle dissent. All they can think of is to demonize it.

So what do they resort to when name-calling no longer works?

Thanks to Gail for the heads up!

Resist DC: A Step-by-Step Plan for Freedom

DumpDC invited State legislators to write white papers outlining practical ways the people of the States can stop the lunacy emanating from DC. State Rep. Matthew Shea (WA-4th), was the first to respond. Here's his opening:

This summer, legislators from several states met to discuss the steps needed to restore our Constitutional Republic. The federal government has ignored the many state sovereignty resolutions from 2009 notifying it to cease and desist its current and continued overreach. The group decided it was time to actively counter the tyranny emanating from Washington D.C.

From those discussions it became clear three things needed to happen.

1. State Legislatures need to pass 10 key pieces of legislation “with teeth” to put the federal government back in its place.
2. The people must pass the legislation through the Initiative process if any piece of the legislative agenda fails.
3. County Sheriffs must reaffirm and uphold their oaths to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Shea then discusses specific steps the States can take in response to the imposition of socialized medicine, cap and trade, and other unconstitutional actions already in the works. His article is a veritable list of action plans League members, gun rights activists, and Tea Party rebels can immediately undertake.

Momentum is building ...

U.S. sees homegrown Muslim extremism as rising threat

Who would've ever guessed that opening the doors to whoever or whatever might slide in while the Pentagon dropped bombs on Muslim homelands would enrage Muslim immigrants?

The Obama administration, grappling with a spate of recent Islamic terrorism cases on U.S. soil, has concluded that the country confronts a rising threat from homegrown extremism.

Anti-terrorism officials and experts see signs of accelerated radicalization among American Muslims, driven by a wave of English-language online propaganda and reflected in aspiring fighters' trips to hot spots such as Pakistan and Somalia.

Europe had been the front line, the target of successive attacks and major plots, while the U.S. remained relatively calm. But the number, variety and scale of recent U.S. cases suggest 2009 has been the most dangerous year domestically since 2001, anti-terrorism experts said:

* There were major arrests of Americans accused of plotting with Al Qaeda and its allies, including an Afghan American charged in a New York bomb plot described as the most serious threat in this country since the Sept. 11 attacks.

* Authorities tracked other extremism suspects joining foreign networks, including Somali Americans going to the battlegrounds of their ancestral homeland and an Albanian American from Brooklyn who was arrested in Kosovo.

* The FBI rounded up homegrown terrorism suspects in Dallas, Detroit and Raleigh, N.C., saying that it had broken up plots targeting a synagogue, government buildings and military facilities.

Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano issued her strongest public comments yet on the homegrown threat.

"We've seen an increased number of arrests here in the U.S. of individuals suspected of plotting terrorist attacks, or supporting terror groups abroad such as Al Qaeda," Napolitano said in a speech in New York. "Home-based terrorism is here. And, like violent extremism abroad, it will be part of the threat picture that we must now confront."

Don't think for a moment, "Well, they finally wised up!" Remember, just yesterday Big Sister and the Federal government's outsourced Inquisition screamed about the domestic terror threat posed by Ron Paul voters and libertarians.

No, this has NOTHING to do with your security. It's all about justifying more citizen surveillance, more warrantless searches, more screening of email.

In other words, it's all about tightening the Federal government's hold on us.

More at memeorandum.

Gay advocates see bloodbath for New York Dem 'no' voters

Someone's in a lavender rage:

After spending more than $1 million to help the Democrats retake the chamber for the first time in decades, powerful gay activists and donors say they'll support challengers against anti-gay-marriage senators in 2010.

"It's going to be a bloodbath," one gay operative predicted. "We're going to use every single weapon in our quiver to take these people out. We either need to replace them or scare the hell out of them so they do the right thing."

Gay activists are considered some of the most effective fund-raisers in state Democratic political circles.

How do you think the Thought Police would react toward a conservative who vowed to "scare the hell" out of opponents?

It'd be a bloodbath.

More on History trivia challenge

This response from Garland is worth sharing:

I find it funny that Abraham Lincoln, who was supposedly fighting to preserve freedom and democracy, was pen pals with a communist, and that Jefferson Davis, who was supposedly evil and racist and all that, was pen pals with the Pope. Real history slaps revisionism in the face again.

Is it revisionism or is it propaganda?

Great moments in PUN-ditry

"Tiger's a cheetah." Maureen Dowd

I am in awe.

Update: Porn star is 8th woman claiming affair with Tiger Woods.

History trivia challenge

Who wrote a letter to Abe Lincoln in November, 1864 congratulating him on the occasion of his re-election, and praising him for fighting a war against the South that would lead to the "reconstruction of a social world"?

Harriet Beecher Stowe
Karl Marx
Heidi Beirich

Mouseover Abe for the answer:

Evolving definitions

Here are some words whose meanings have dramatically changed over the years:

Phobia

1960 - an irrational fear of a specific person or persons, or of a specific object or activity, leading to avoidance.
2009 - failure to support a government-approved agenda; thus, opposition to Open Borders is xenophobia, and opposition to the homosexual agenda is homophobia.

Fascist

1960 - a person who advocates a one-party, totalitarian system of government characterized by militarism and an ideology of racial supremacy.
2009 - anyone who wants immigration laws enforced.

Isolationist

1960 - a person who advocates a policy of neutrality and non-engagement in foreign wars.
2009 - an anti-American, pro-terrorist defeatist who thinks escalating the Afghanistan war by 30,000 troops is sufficient.

Racist

1960 - a person who believes his race is superior to other races.
2009 - a white person who wants his race to survive.

Thanks to Karen De Coster for inspiring this.

Obama: Diversity weakens nations

More precisely, Obama said avoiding diversity strengthens black nations. From a 1995 interview in The Crisis:

Interviewer: As the son of an African, what can Africa teach African Americans?

Obama: Black Americans have always had an ambiguous relationship with Africa. ... Africa has so many lessons to teach. For one thing, it's liberating to be in a country where black people are in the overwhelming majority ... because it renders issues of race less relevant. It provides a certain clarity. You can focus on what's right or wrong, true or false.

Funny thing for a post-racialist to say, don't you think?

via Across Difficult Country

Simpsons billionaire gets most write-in votes in NYC mayor race

Excellent.

Karzai says he needs more time

After all, he and his crooked brother haven't stolen everything in the country yet. So in exchange for continued US support, he's promising to end corruption. Uh-huh. And get this: He also says Afghanistan is "not an occupied country." Yeah.

Why are Americans dying to keep this crook in power?

Vicious Black Racist Website: A Liberal Hoax?

Don't be fooled by this bogus black racist site. Story from Saberpoint.

Fun trivia challenge!

True or False?

Oliver North beat future Virginia senator James Webb in a championship boxing match when both were attending the US Naval Academy.

Mouseover picture to see the answer!

Commemoration for John Brown

The far left has a different take on terrorist John Brown than we Southerners do:

"He was a man very much ahead of his time, and while we have not quite obtained his beautiful vision of a utopian America we are getting closer," Alice Keesey McCoy said.

We are indeed getting closer to John Brown's vision of utopia.

O=W

Here's a must-read blockbuster from William Lind, the best military writer out there:

"O=W" is a bumper sticker beginning to show up on liberals’ cars. After the president’s speech Tuesday night at West Point, I suspect it will spread rapidly.

For eight years, conservatives endured the agony of watching President George W. Bush attach the label "conservative" to a host of policies that were anti-conservative: Wilsonian wars, American empire, vast budget and trade deficits, increased entitlements, and the subordination of America’s interests to those of foreign powers. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and liberals are bidden to hold their tongues as President Obama makes Bush’s wars his own. The usual Washington sellout is in gear.

It should not come as a surprise. America is now a one-party state. The one party is the Establishment party, which is also the war party. Unless you are willing to cheer permanent war for permanent peace, you cannot be a member of the Establishment.

Amen, Brother Lind!

During the Bush years, many Americans, including patriotic, conservative Southerners, bought W's bait-and-switch conservatism. We lost members from the League of the South. When we pointed out what Bush was actually doing, as opposed to what he was saying, many would go Yosemite Sam on us, blowing steam out of their ears, yelling, "But Bush is a Southerner! And a conservative! He even has a cowboy hat!"

Obama won because people were sick of Bush. As Obama quietly escalated the Afghanistan war, the Neocons cooed in approval, and the latest escalation has Robert Kagan and Bill Kristol swooning. So now liberals are trying to square the circle of supporting Obama, who's just as committed to big government and war as his predecessor. Just as William Lind says, no matter which Establishment party is in power, government gets bigger. Now it's gulping down vast swaths of the nation's businesses. The health care system might be next.

And they wonder why more Americans are talking secession.

What the American South Fought to Prevent

From: 1898Wilmington:

“The triumph of the North in the war, forever dislodging the landed gentry from political power, brought sweeping authority to the tariff-minded industrialists---authority that has since been seriously disputed, and then in purely parliamentary fashion, only by the Western agrarians under William Jennings Bryan, who had mistaken their true class interests when they helped crush the South. From 1865 to 1896 the essentially revolutionary rule of the industrialists was unbroken.

The evolutionary phase in which the dominion of the industrialists regularized itself and shaded off into the rule of finance capitalists began to assume shape in 1896. Marcus Alonzo Hanna, commissar extraordinary of John D. Rockefeller, became the political architect of the new era, whose unique characteristics have been a tremendous drive into foreign markets, unprecedented industrial consolidation, expansion of the mass-production industries to a staggering degree, the unexampled application of technology to production, and the fateful gravitation of the nation’s producing resources as well as its political apparatus into the hands of bank capitalists. But although nascent finance capital made its first bid for dominance with the national emergence of Hanna, not until 1920, with the election of Warren G. Harding to the presidency, did it seize upon undivided suzerainty.

[U]nder Hanna the industrialists and bankers moved in, a consolidated body, and constituted themselves the two political parties, the control was for the first time brazenly admitted and, cynically or sincerely, justified on the pretense that it was in the national interest. Control, it become obvious to the magnates, had to wielded openly, as a prescriptive right of big capital, rather than covertly; otherwise, the rising chorus of protest might develop into an overwhelming mass movement. After Hanna crude bribery by men of wealth was no longer essential to the control of government; first because the men placed in the highest public offices from McKinley through Hoover were all the political creations of the wealthy; and second, because the community of wealth had finally obtained the rich treasure trove it had been ceaselessly seeking in the maze of frauds and trickeries that extended from the Civil War to the end of the century.”

(Politics of Aggrandizement: 1896-1912; America’s 60 Families, Ferdinand Lundberg, Halcyon House, 1939, pp. 51-53)

Rebellion needs you!

It's been an exciting year. Our message -- calling for reclaiming the right of small, responsive government, the preservation of our culture, and individual liberty, has shaken and electified mainstream political debate -- and the ruling elites don't like it one bit. Now that "secession" is mainstream, you know the political landscape will never be the same again; people will no longer accept the twiddle dee/twiddle dum alternatives our handlers expect us to passively accept and be thankful for.

This blog will continue to present news and ideas that focus on those issues, and to celebrate our unique culture -- with a few laughs along the way. There are only two things the pompous enforcers of political correctness cannot tolerate: being mocked, and a Southern culture whose very existence enrages them -- which is why they're so obsessed with us.

This blog receives no other income. Your blogmaster does not receive any payment from the League of the South or any other organization. If Rebellion is important to you, please support this work financially. Please click the donate button, and donate whatever amount you can. Keep the Cause alive. Thank you!

Southern music break

It's Friday, y'all! Here's Alabama's "Song Of The South." Just try to suppress a Rebel yell at 2:37 in when they play a bar of "Dixie"! I never can.

Winning hearts and minds in Iraq, Southern style

In a rare moment of honesty and insight three years ago, Senator Joe Biden proposed a solution to the Iraq stalemate: let the three culturally distinct regions assume full or limited sovereignty. The idea was raked by the usual suspects, including the Neocon and leftist punditry who could not conceive of a nation-state founded on such quaint notions as self-determination and historical affinity. Big, ambitious government was the only thing they could imagine uniting people. However, the growing local sovereignty movement saw in the proposal at least partial vindication of the Confederate ideal.

Here's another such vindication, from an e-mail sent by a Southern soldier fighting in Iraq. As Alexander Stephens predicted, the Cause of the South is indeed the Cause of us all.

I was discussing my Southern heritage with some other Southern-born troops when an Iraqi interpreter that was sitting with us perked up when I said my country had once fought the United States and is now under occupation. He was very interested in that so the next day I brought my Confederate Battle Flag out of my room and presented him with it. He was more than thrilled and in turn the following day brought me an antique Iraqi prayer rug as a gift.

To my surprise about 3 days later I received an invite from a local Sheik to a lamb feast where when I got there I was surprised to find several Iraqi higher-ranking officers to include the local Police Chief and the Colonel of the local troops and then there on the wall was my CBF. I'm thinking that I was totally screwed now and expecting the MPs to walk in at any minute and haul my ass out for some kind of PR screw up.

I was totally amazed when I found out that I was the guest of honor. The locals were very interested in the history of our Southern ancestry and amazed that we as a conquered people would still fight for the U.S. I had to explain that the American concept of democracy and free enterprise is still a great idea but that our dream of constitutional freedom was better. They liked the idea of state sovereignty and all agreed that Iraq would be better off modeled after the old Confederacy than the modern America.

When I left all of them wanted their own CBF so several of us ordered a few from home and gave them away under the utmost secrecy so that we wouldn't get our arses in a sling. 2 days later when we went out to the local police post there flying under the Iraqi flag was none other than one of the CBFs we had given away. The look on the face of the CO was priceless. He was more than shocked as he was from Ohio and couldn't believe what he was seeing. Needless to say the flag stayed there and flew until it deteriorated and fell apart. I haven't had a chance to get out to the out lying FOBs (Forward Operating Bases) in a while with my current job but I still love to educate the locals on our Southern history and how much Saddam was like Lincoln in his tyrrany...they love it. Oh well...winning hearts and minds Southern style.

Now that's Southern hospitality -- sharing our history and political wisdom with foreigners who're unaware of the promise of constitutional, limited government, whether they're from Iraq or Ohio.

Defamation League

Invoking the holy words "diversity" and "tolerance," the enemies of free speech and free thought continue their jihad against conservatives:

The report recently published by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) titled Rage Grows in America: Anti-Government Conspiracies unwittingly describes itself, rather than the object of its contempt, in its own opening paragraph: "fueled by paranoia and conspiracy theories." ...

Let’s be clear. This execrable document is not meant to inform; it is meant to stoke the very fear and paranoia it pretends to abhor ...

If rage is growing, it's because Americans are waking up to the threat of a White House and a congressional majority intent on exponentially increasing the power of the state and gashing individual liberty ...

Under the cloak of exposing "extremism," ADL is exposing its own antipathy toward limited government and individual liberty, especially the First and Second Amendments.

Of course, this is nothing new to long-time readers of this blog. Be sure to read the entire expose.

Secret Service: Threats Against Obama No Higher than Normal

That's what the director of the Secret Service says:

The director of the Secret Service today disputed widely-reported claims that President Obama is receiving more death threats than previous presidents.

At a congressional hearing into the White House security breach that took place last week, when Tareq and Michaele Salahi "crashed" the White House state dinner, Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan said the current threat level against the president is normal.

"The threats right now ... is the same level as it has been for the previous two presidents at this point in their administrations," Sullivan said.

So what was the source of these "widely reported claims"? The article mentions this breathless report from the Boston Globe as one example:

The unprecedented number of death threats against President Obama, a rise in racist hate groups, and a new wave of antigovernment fervor threaten to overwhelm the US Secret Service, according to government officials and reports, raising new questions about the 144-year-old agency’s overall mission.

Eeek! Death threats! Racist hate groups! Antigovernment fervor!

So where did the Boston Globe get this erroneous idea, anyway? In that same article, it named its source. Guess who?

The Southern Poverty Law Center says that antigovernment militias and white supremacist groups have strengthened in recent years, responding to an increasingly diverse population and what they see as an expanding government.

A center study released in August found a nearly 35 percent growth in racially based domestic hate groups since 2000 - from 602 to 926. The center concluded that opposition to Obama’s election has only increased the phenomenon.

"A key difference this time is that the federal government - the entity that almost the entire radical right views as its primary enemy - is headed by a black man," the report said. "One result has been a remarkable rash of domestic terror incidents since the presidential campaign, most of them related to anger over the election of Barack Obama."

Journalism 101 teaches reporters to question a news source's bias -- and ESPECIALLY its pecuniary bias. As we well know, the SPLC makes a ton of money from its "anti-hate" fund-raising campaigns. Yet, the corporate media's relationship with the Southern Poverty Law Center is anything but objective -- its every press release is treated as Gospel. In fact, the relationship is -- well, shall we say, a little too cozy?

We're winning

From an article sub-titled, 49 Percent Say US Should Mind Its Own Business In Foreign Affairs:

Almost half, 49 percent, told the polling organization that the United States should "mind its own business" internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own, the Pew Research Center survey found. That's up from 30 percent who said that in December 2002.

Results of the survey appear to conflict with President Barack Obama's activist foreign policy, including a newly announced buildup of 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan to fight Taliban and al-Qaida extremists.

When you read the rest of the piece, you'll see that the writer puts a negative slant on this trend -- after all, this is the corporate media. The writer, Barry Schweid, correctly observes this means not only a rejection of the insane Bush/Cheney doctrine of "shoot first, ask questions later," but also for Obama's escalation in Afghanistan, since only "32 percent of the poll respondents favored increasing U.S. troops in Afghanistan." Schweid calls this "isolationism," which he oh-so-helpfully defines as "turning away from the world."

Wrong! It means resuming a moral and responsible role in the world. If minding our own business becomes the norm, it represents a return to this nation's founding principles of rejecting "entangling alliances" and permanent war and instead adopting policies promoting peace and fair trade. George Washington warned that large standing armies were a threat to republican government, and Thomas Jefferson called for "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none” in his inaugural address.

Minds have been changed by the gruesome spectacle of senseless, endless war. Our next step is to dismantle the machinery that makes war easy and profitable. And that means downsizing DC, if not divorcing it.

White House Blocks Testimony on Party Crashers

Wow. Quite a hullabaloo over the couple that crashed a White House party without an invitation. Now there's an investigation to determine how security broke down.

But didn't people see the pictures of the couple mixing well with the invited guests? Joe Biden and Barack Obama beamed as they stood beside them. They were doing what party goers are supposed to do.

They're not party crashers -- such a dehumanizing term! They're undocumented guests. Amnesty is in order.

John Brown: A Terrorist who Deserved Hanging

Some pieces have to be quoted in their entirety. This is one of them:

This is the 150th anniversary of the hanging of John Brown. When he attacked Harper’s Ferry with a handful of followers, the butcher of Kansas helped sow the seeds of the Civil War. Few things would have made Brown happier than the thought of hundreds of thousands of people dying for his own Scorched Earth method of moral salvation.

The New York Times op-ed page has a piece today touting Brown as an American hero. It seeks to vindicate him:

He was held in high esteem by many great men of his day. Ralph Waldo Emerson compared him to Jesus, declaring that Brown would “make the gallows as glorious as the cross.” Henry David Thoreau placed Brown above the freedom fighters of the American Revolution.

The fact that Emerson and Thoreau turned into cheerleaders for John Brown was among the worst failings for each of them. Both Emerson and Thoreau started out denouncing politics as a snare and a fraud. And both fell for Brown and his vision of progress via slaughtering innocent people.

Brown’s attempt to create a bloody uprising in Virginia helped close the final door to compromise between the North and the South. His name should be as odious today as those of other people whose violence sparked mass killing.

In fact, John Brown triumphed. He transformed the entire US government into his bloody instrument for exterminating those who resisted DC's noble ideals of progress and enlightenment. The war against Southern civilians Sherman waged so effectively was prelude to the war on Native American women and children that followed. Then came the massacre of 300,000 Filipinos who resisted DC from 1899 to 1902. Let's not forget the 750,000 German civilians starved to death during and AFTER World War I by the US-British blockade. Then there are the 500,000 Iraqis who died from US-imposed sanctions. Which brings us to the ongoing slaughter of Muslims in the name of liberation, summarized here by Stephen Walt.

That's John Brown's true legacy. Ours.

Obama Ecstasy pills hit the streets

Don't laugh -- this is for real. And it has its uses:

There is now a line of Ecstasy pills made in the image of the 44th president of the United States, according to Texas police who have snatched a batch off the streets.

Ecstasy is known for a sense of elation, diminished feelings of fear and anxiety, and ability to induce a sense of intimacy with others.

Perhaps a good Election Day strategy to get out the vote?

This isn't just a narcotic for liberal Democrats who imagine they're getting a peace president. For gullible Republicans, there are Sarah Palin Ecstacy pills to induce hallucinations of a savior in skirts who'll deliver us into a land of small government, peace, and prosperity.

But then, some people will swallow anything.

How Texas Secession Could Save The World

Stephan Kinsella looks at the growing interest in secession as an exit strategy from DC's strangulating and incompetent grip:

... remember a year or so ago Texan Governor Rick Perry actually mentioned the possibilty of Texas seceding? Look, these politicians want to get votes. If there is a tipping point reached or sensed… imagine a candidate senses voter frustration in Texas with growing unemployment, taxes, etc.–to win as governor some candidate might try to capitalize on this. Imagine running on this campaign:

Elect me, and I will push for ELIMINATING your income taxes, and eliminating unemployment, making you richer, freer, more prosperous, and doubling or tripling your house value while cutting your property tax in half.

And this is not just an empty promise: it’s actually doable. Here’s the plan:

Texans are almost ready for this -- a few more Wall Street bailouts, a few hundred more dead GIs from Afghanistan, a few more -- well, you get the idea. It's coming.

Don’t Dare Criticize Freakish Behavior

From Karen De Coster:

On the Adam Lambert debacle:

In addition to dragging a female dancer around by the ankles, pushing a male dancer’s head into his crotch and simulating oral sex, walking a pair of male hoofers around like dogs on a leash, and furiously thrusting his hips at every opportunity, Lambert took a moment mid-song to fervently make out with (an allegedly straight) male keyboard player. After the jaw-dropping performance, Lambert told CNN that the forceful smooch was “in the moment” and was not a planned part of his routine.

Notice that Newsweek writer Julia Baird calls the reaction to this “homophobia.” Give me an effing break.

In the modern, politically correct era, tolerance means to accept, appreciate, take pride in, and defend the perverted behavior of depraved individuals such as the freakish Adam Lambert.

Thanks, Karen. We needed to hear that.

Permanent occupation of Afghanistan?

I should've paid more attention to Fred Kaplan, who knows weasel-words when he hears them:

The key word in Obama's speech was that in July 2011, the United States will "begin" to transfer responsibility for security to the Afghan forces. The pace of this transfer—how quickly we will continue to withdraw and at what point we'll get out altogether—will be determined by "conditions on the ground."

And now DefSec Gates chimes in:

The Pentagon will "evaluate" next year whether the military can meet its goal of starting to withdraw troops from Afghanistan by July 2011, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday under tough questioning, signaling that the withdrawal date could move back if violence spirals out of control.

IF violence spirals out of control? This BBC headline tells us what to expect: Taliban vow to fight US troop surge.

And wouldn't you resist if foreign invaders occupied your country?


"WOLVERINES!"

Southern politicians making more trouble for Obama

Sauce for the goose:

Congressmen John Carter (R-TX) and Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) yesterday introduced the Geithner Penalty Waiver Act, requiring that the IRS assess the same penalty against U.S. taxpayers that came forward in the UBS tax fraud investigation as paid by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for failing to pay taxes on his IMF income — zero.

Sounds fair to me -- TOO fair to be passed.

Southern Music break

It's Hump Day, y'all! Here's Johnny Horton with "Johnny Reb."


Johnny Horton gave us several historical ballads in the late 50's and early 60's, including "The Battle of New Orleans" and "Sink the Bismarck." What great memories!

Outrage on Swiss minaret vote, but how do Muslim states handle churches?

Short answer: Muslim states repress Christian and Jewish religious activity.

But the point is not simply that "they did this to us, so we did something to them." The point is that if Muslims become the majority, their repressive culture will destroy the freedoms and way of life that define Western, Christian civilization.

Are you a Republican?

See if you'd pass this test for prospective Republican candidates.

Noticeably absent: Any Mention of the Constitution, The Rule of Law, the Founder's Vision. But get this, they DO Support: smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits. Notice it doesn't say they support Constitutional Government, NO National Debt, and NO Deficits.

Thanks to Steve for the link and comments!

Afghanistan as defining moment

I watched the CBS coverage of Obama's announcement of his escalation of the Afghan surge. Unlike Obama's plan, Bob Shieffer's first reaction to it was right on target:

CBS News Chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer called President Obama's speech on Afghanistan Tuesday night "the defining moment of the Obama presidency."

"This was the night when Barack Obama took full ownership of the war in Afghanistan," he said. "We're going to have 100,000 troops there, and more than half of them will have been sent there by the President."

I agree, but I'd go a step further: This speech wasn't just "the defining moment of the Obama presidency," but the defining moment of the United States of America.

There are two parts to Obama's revised approach: 1) a rapid build-up of troops and materiel, and 2) a pre-determined withdrawal date 18 months from the build-up.

Even this amateur military historian can see the inherent defect in that plan. War is always, ALWAYS a gamble, and 4th Generation warfare is especially unpredictable. There is no way you can guarantee US troops can accomplish their mission on a pre-arranged schedule. No way. Too many variables.

Worse, limiting the entire operation to three Friedman Units has to be the dumbest military move of the new century. If Barbara W. Tuchman were alive to update The March of Folly (which I highly recommend), Obama would get a special section. By the time the additional troops are in place and have gotten their bearings, it'll be time to go. The Taliban only has to dissolve into the harsh, jagged mountain ranges and wait. This isn't a war of liberation -- it's a drive-by shooting.

If you were an Afghan watching this fiasco unfold, would you be willing to collaborate with visiting foreign occupiers who have a plane to catch?

In other words, Obama's escalation is a mish-mash of goals and strategies, a feeble attempt to make everyone happy. This country is so divided, so unsure of its goals and long-term aims, that it's impossible to arrive at a clear, definite direction. A nation's military might depends on a supportive, cohesive population. The US doesn't have that any more.

It's the same reason Congress can't handle the immigration crisis. Northern and Left Coast cities provide sanctuary to illegal aliens, while Southern and Mid-West cities pass laws protective of the traditional culture, including English-only legislation, as well as restrictions on providing housing and employment to illegal aliens, and where community support of the 287(g) local enforcement program is strongest.

Where are you going, America? America, that increasingly artificial political entity, has no idea.

Musical tribute to Charles Johnson

"Little Green Footballs"


Sung snarkily to the tune of "Little Green Apples" (With profound apologies to O.C. Smith)

And I wake up in the morning, put my hair up in a pony tail, and Mom says “hi!”
And I stumble to the computer table to feed my little lizards one more time
And more of them are non-conforming, some even question global warming, and it makes me sick
And I hit the keyboard and close accounts, jump on my bike and snap more ocean pix.

And if they’re not be-neath me, then all I’ve got to say,

I’m not the god of Little Green Footballs, Stacy McCain ain’t a racist fuzzball in the blogosphere
And there’s no such thing as climate change, Glenn Beck’s not at all deranged, from what I hear
I’m not the god of Little Green Footballs, Stacy McCain ain’t a racist fuzzball in the blogosphere
And when myself is feeling down, I Google some tea-bagging clown that I can smear.

Sometimes I simply make things up, knowing it’s all BS.
And I know that I can get away with it, 'cause everything I say is priceless.
And since readership is really big, I’ll call my critics fascist pigs, what can they say?
And the more dimbulbs that I can con, I’ll sell more stuff on Amazon, ‘cause I’m made that way.

And if they’re not be-neath me, then all I’ve got to say,

I’m not the god of Little Green Footballs, and we don't need, any hate laws to protect the gays
And there’s no such thing as bigotry, or anti-government lunacy, no Ace of Spades
[FADE INTO TOTAL OBSCURITY]
I’m not the god of Little Green Footballs, and we don't need, any hate laws to protect the gays ...

Shorter Barack Obama

"Afghanistan is MY war!"

The continuing insanity

Obama, who's already sent an additional 21,000 troops into Afghanistan since taking office, will use West Point cadets as stage props to announce his decision to deploy another 35,000 troops.

On December 10, he will receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

So when does Bernie Madoff get his prize for economics?

Dick Cheney, Generalissimo of the Barcalounger Brigade

Despite Obama's promise to send 35,000 more US troops to occupy Afghanistan, Dick Cheney is disappointed that Obama isn't as blood-crazed as he is. Obama's shortcoming, according to America's grisly eminence, is that he announced the US commitment in Afghanistan isn't "open-ended," which Cheney interprets as showing weakness. By emphasizing exit strategies over total, glorious victory, says Cheney, Obama is in danger of losing the war in Afghanistan.

Problem is, this is the same Dick Cheney who announced total, glorious victory had been achieved in Afghanistan back in 2002. And when asked if the Bush administration was responsible for the disintegration of Afghanistan, Cheney replied, "I basically don’t."

So, yes, Dick Cheney is a homicidal and delusional psychopath.

Lizard Wars, cont'd

Charles Johnson's thrown yet another tantrum against social conservatives. The reaction in the right-leaning blogosphere goes something like, "Why has he turned on us?"

Charles Johnson hasn't turned -- he's always despised us, as I pointed out earlier. Johnson continues to support his globalist agenda, which is to flatten all traditional cultures at home and abroad, and replace them with a monolithic world culture. Just check out his praise of fellow globalists and government supremacists Victor Davis Hanson and Irving Kristol.

So Johnson's the consistent one here. While he's all for the "democratizing" invasion and reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, he's just as passionate in opposing grass-roots efforts in Europe and America to preserve Western, Christian culture from Muslim and Latino colonization.

That's why the Neocon Wars initially won the full support of both leftists, such as Hillary Clinton and Chris Hitchens, and Neocons, including anti-Southern bigot Dick Cheney and Jamie Kirchik -- and why REAL conservatives, such as Pat Buchanan, Michael Hill, and Thomas Fleming, opposed those wars as the radical global jihads they actually were.

The U.S. Government Is Taking Us Down

The Federal government has done more damage to this nation than Osama Bin Laden, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and Bill Ayers in their glory days. Obama's response? To make things even worse:

President Obama has decided to up the ante in Afghanistan by acceding to his generals’ request to send an additional 34,000 troops to that beleaguered nation. What better proof that those of us who opposed the initial invasion of Afghanistan were right? The decision to treat the 9/11 attacks as a military problem, rather than a criminal-justice one, has turned out to be one unmitigated disaster, a disaster that seemingly has no end.

After all, the occupation has now been going on for 8 years. Eight years of bombs, shootings, killing, maiming, secret prisons, arbitrary arrests, torture, indefinite incarcerations, and unrestrained power to search and seize.

And eight years of unrestrained spending on armaments, soldiers, and weaponry.

Where has it gotten the American people? Nothing but more anger and rage against them among Muslims all over the world, not to mention an ever-increasing mountain of debt that is sure to send America’s currency into a free-fall.

So now Obama's going to send 35,000 more men at a cost of $1,000,000 each. It might be good news for Halliburton, but it's bad news for our teetering economy.

Even for those who don't give a damn about the harm done to the innocent civilians who've been displaced, scarred, or killed in the crossfire, the damage done to Americans -- the horrific human and economic cost, as well as the cancerous growth of an increasingly totalitarian government -- demands that we end this insanity. And the insanity will only spread and swell as long as so much power is concentrated in the District of Corruption, which continues to bumble and lurch along, snugly cocooned from the ramifications of its own actions.