Mutineers, Yes, Traitors, NO

Short post tonight - we have been running back and forth with visits to the hospital for a family member who had a minor procedure.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.nj.com/specialprojects/index.ssf?/specialprojects/revwar/rev18.html

Whenever I learn or am reminded about an historical event that merits mention  I feel the need to bring it to the attention of others. I caught this account watching a documentary the other night and this time I was struck by how much it illustrates true American patriotism.

This event occurred during the mutiny of the troops of the Pennsylvania Line of the Continental Army in our War of Independence. The grievances of the mutineers  both Pennsylvanians and the later-to-mutiny New Jersey line (And earlier mutinies of the Massachusetts and Connecticut troops), are common knowledge:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Line_Mutiny

"During the winter of 1780–1781, the Continental Army was dispersed into smaller components to ease the strain of supply. The Pennsylvania Line, comprising about 2,400 men, was encamped at Jockey Hollow, New Jersey, near Morristown. Conditions for the army were deplorable, as reported in letters by both General George Washington, commander of the entire Continental Army, and General Anthony Wayne, commander of the Pennsylvania Line. In previous years, both Washington and Wayne had cited corruption and a lack of concern on the part of state governments and the Continental Congress in fostering the poor conditions.

Pennsylvania troops had particular cause for discontent, as Pennsylvania was one of the stingiest states in paying its soldiers — many of the Pennsylvania Line had served for three years in exchange for only their initial $20 bounty. Other states' troops were receiving enlistment bounties valued in hundreds of dollars (New Jersey recruits received a $1,000 bounty), and even new Pennsylvania recruits received large bounties while serving soldiers neither received regular pay nor reenlistment money.

By January 1, 1781, the soldiers' dissatisfaction reached a boiling point. Many "three year men" reckoned that their enlistment terms, "for three years or the duration of the war", had ended with the coming of the new year. However, desperate to maintain the army's manpower, the Line's officers reckoned the enlistment terms to mean that soldiers were bound to serve for the duration of the war if it lasted more than three years. The Pennsylvania government would later admit that the widely accepted reckoning used by the soldiers was the correct one.

On January 1, 1781, the Pennsylvania Line held a raucous New Year's Day celebration. That evening, soldiers from several regiments armed themselves and prepared to depart the camp without permission. Officers led the remaining orderly regiments to quell the uprising, but after a few warning shots from the mutineers, the rest of the regiments fell into line with them. Captain Adam Bitting, commander of Company D, 4th Pennsylvania Regiment, was fatally shot by a mutineer who was trying to kill a lieutenant colonel. Otherwise, the uprising was relatively bloodless."

What happened when General Clinton sent a representative to encourage the mutineers to defect to the British is not as well known:

http://www.nj.com/specialprojects/index.ssf?/specialprojects/revwar/rev18.html

"The mutiny also moved Gen. Henry Clinton to lead a force of British and Hessian troops from Staten Island to South Amboy in the hope of luring the Pennsylvanians to the British side. Clinton sent John Mason, a Tory, and James Ogden, a guide, to Princeton to promise the Pennsylvanians they would be paid in gold if they marched to South Amboy and switched sides.

Instead, the mutineers turned Mason and Ogden over to authorities. On Jan. 10, they were convicted of spying, and the following day they were hanged at a crossroads on the way to Trenton."

The commentators on the show noted the extent to which the ill-fed, clothed, equipped and paid soldiers detested the notion of abandoning their country. They may have been willing to disobey orders to demand fair treatment but, as one commentator stated, they would not "turn Arnold" - the treasonous act of the would-be deliverer of West Point was far to recent and repulsive to these men to entertain any such thoughts

We should never confuse the actions of true patriots who desire to be treated with decency with those who seek to harm our nation.

That's all  tonight. We expect the hospital to discharge our patient in the morning.

To and Fro'

The household is is currently in a state of managed disorder, with one spending a couple of days in the hospital recovering from a minor procedure, and the others either being cared for or ferried home from wrestling practice. The latter will be run over to the hospital for a visit once practice is over.

After that, I may be able to squeeze out a post.

"Refugees" Take Over Vienna Church

Hat tip to GatesofVienna.net. (New address)

Europe has long been overrun with illegals of their own. The vast majority of these are from Muslim-majority countries.

Not content with a place to stay and 150 Euros of taxpayer money while their applications for asylum, which tends to be given away like candy in Western Europe, are considered, a number of them waltzed (Pun intended since we are taking about Vienna, after all) on in to  the Votive Church and basically took over the joint.

You see, it does not matter to the Muslims that the parishioners cannot attend mass in their own Church;  Muslims were were wrongfully denied the conquest of Vienna by the outrageous defense of the city on more than one occasion (The last was 1683 one hundred years before the UK recognized the American Republic), so in reality the city and everything inside it rightfully belongs to them anyway. After all, in fairness, the Ottoman messenger did give the citizens a chance to avoid the siege if only they accepted Islam.

Protests by Church officials and parishioners over this act of aggression and forced Dhimmittude were met with feigned self-righteous treatment by the media and the rest of the Left. The response of the Cardinal was a submissive volte-face.

The Catholic Church as a whole is in dire need of some real leaders.

http://gatesofvienna.net/2013/02/church-of-the-extortionists/#more-26919

"For a whole day, Christoph Schönborn [The Cardinal] said what the majority of Viennese Catholics are thinking. He showed true anger at the occupiers of the Votive Church. The next day, he was already headed back in the opposite direction, on the leash of the Far Leftists of Caritas and its PR people. They apparently believe that the Church is acting rightly by allowing several MSM outlets to make a fool of it on a daily basis. At any rate, Schönborn once again took the side of those who want to blackmail the republic and force it to change its laws, Which the evil republic is not willing to do — at any rate not yet.

We can at least be happy that the church occupiers are not doing in this situation what is an old and beloved custom in their Afghani and Pakistani homeland — snapping on an explosive belly-belt and blowing it up if they don’t get what they want. After which they will apparently meet their 99 virgins.

So Schönborn is no doubt right to be filled with submissive gratitude. Our dear occupiers haven’t even disturbed the mass. That really makes us happy.

And the next day, the Cardinal can enter his cathedral without a care. A whole company of guards are there to protect him against visitors like the ones who are gladdening the hearts of the parish of the Votive Church. Aside from that, he clearly knows just one thing: nobody is leaving the church. Although it would require only a short visit by the police. But he is convinced that the thing can be resolved by a good conversation.

Until then, Caritas — financed by Church donations — will care for our valued guests. And the Church will not even turn off the electricity, which (you guessed it) is also paid for by the Church. So our valued occupiers can continue using the laptops and earphones already kindly put at their disposal. But please, my dear Cardinal, you have forgotten something — electric blankets and heaters. It would really be too bad if you could not provide them......"

http://gatesofvienna.net/2013/02/asylum-fraud-and-the-devastation-of-society/

http://gatesofvienna.net/2013/02/cardinal-of-vienna-attacks-leftist-lobby-groups/

Revised-Venezuela Confiscates People's Wealth By Devaluation

Added 2/10/13- I fairly admit that I have failed to note that this new development may not be only the work of Hugo:
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/02/10/still-no-sign-chavez-after-leaving-venezuela-2-months-ago/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-08/venezuela-devalues-its-currency-32

Hat tip to The Blaze.

The man of the people has done it again.

"While the rest of the developed world is scrambling here and there, politely prodding its central bankers to destroy their relative currencies, all the while naming said devaluation assorted names, "quantitative easing" being the most popular, here comes Venezuela and shows the banana republics of the developed world what lobbing a nuclear bomb into a currency war knife fight looks like:
VENEZUELA DEVALUES FROM 4.30 TO 6.30 BOLIVARS
VENEZUELA NEW CURRENCY BODY TO MANAGE DOLLAR INFLOWS
CARACAS CONSUMER PRICES ROSE 3.3% IN JAN.

And that, ladies and gents of Caracas, is how you just lost 46% of your purchasing power, unless of course your fiat was in gold and silver, which just jumped by about 46%. And, in case there is confusion, this is in process, and coming soon to every "developed world" banana republic near you."

The Venezuelan people have lost almost half of their purchasing power. While Chavez send free and/or heavily-subsidized oil to his fair-weather friends, including US citizens in an effort to make friends here (Heating oil-accompanied by TV and radio ads), his nation is being run into the ground.

Venezuela is a mess. Violent crime is rampant. Kidnappings are commonplace. Soviet-like shortages are the norm for all sorts of products. Armed thugs terrorize landowners. The opposition has been silenced in a manner that would make Obama salivate.

As I noted in an earlier post, when the last tanker with a full load of oil leaves Venezuela, and the nation has nothing to show for its former vast reserves, the people can thank Mr. Chavez.

Republican Spain Smoke and Mirrors

At bottom of this post are the thoughts of a contributor to this blog, Scipio.

One of the most most bizarre phenomena of the twentieth century was the glorification of the "Republicans" of Spain and the whitewashing of the atrocities committed by the anarchists. Unleashed by the Left, the anarchists were given license to roam about doing what they pleased to so that the Left, in an effort to create enough disorder and fear, could install an all-out totalitarian state.

Motivated by the call to fight "The Fascists" young men in the West  left their homes to join units such as the romantically named Lincoln and Washington Brigades, only to be used as cannon-fodder by the Republicans.

The Western media more than glossed over the horrors of the "Red Terror". Almost to a one, they either ignored it or chalked it up to the necessary job of combating reactionary elements. Only the Nationalists, not all of them fascists by any means (The Falange only being a portion of the movement), would be labeled as the monsters.

Burt Boyar was quoted from his book book "Blessed" in the following link:

http://radiopatriot.wordpress.com/2013/01/18/the-red-terror/


"The National and Municipal Police were under the command of a government whose plan was to let chaos reign throughout the country until the Soviets came in to “Restore Order”. This end result had been sought at the first meeting of The Comintern (Communist International) in 1918 when Lenin announced that Spain was their first target because of its strategic location at the mouth of the Mediterranean and because it was a warm weather port. They finally almost accomplished it eighteen years later in 1936. The plan was to create chaos and then step in to “create order”, remaining in control, making Spain the first Iron Curtain country. To accomplish this all members of the Anarchist Party, working men, were sworn in by the new government as militiamen, given rifles and empowered to make arrests, while their elected leaders of the Popular Front sat back and let nature take its course.

In Madrid, Barcelona, Seville – all major cities, the militiamen roamed the streets in packs, stealing, plundering, beating, killing at will, taking “revenge” on their “oppressors”. Anyone who appeared to have money or a belief in God, or to have served in the military, was their natural prey, “a fascist”. They were robbed, beaten, killed, and left on the streets to eventually be picked up and taken to the morgue by police vans cruising the streets looking for them. The municipal police were under orders to look the other way.......

Spain was gripped in what became known as The Red Terror. Even more than the aristocracy and the military, the clergy was the most despised by the Anarchists. Within four months, one hundred and sixty churches were burned and as the priests, monks, altar boys and nuns came running out, fleeing the smoke and flames, the Anarchists were waiting for them with mounted machine guns and mowed them down.

In Malaga, militiamen stripped nuns of their clothes, gang-raped them on the street, lined them up on the concrete and drove over them with a steam roller. A monk captured by militiamen had his rosary beads forced into both ears until his eardrums burst. Another was put into an arena with eight fighting bulls. His hands and feet were not bound so that he could amuse the militiamen by trying to escape the horns of the monstrous animals that quickly gored him to bits, repeatedly catching him on their horns and tossing him in the air until he had become only pieces of body parts.

In all, some seven thousand priests, monks and nuns and twelve bishops perished in the savagery of these working men’s “revenge”."

The tremendous differences between Franco and true totalitarians who, unlike the disparaged longtime ruler of Spain, never paved the way for free elections, is noted in the review of a previous work by the same author and his late wife, Jane:

http://brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/693

"Francisco Franco committed one of the few crimes that is truly unforgivable to the intellectuals, academics, and politicians of the Left--who dominate the opinion-making class--he was an anti-communist. And, of course, he was not just any anti-communist; he successfully led the Nationalist forces to victory over the Communists, and other parties of the Left, in the Spanish Civil War, that cause celebre of Leftists throughout Western Europe and America. Literature of the period is rife with romantic novels featuring idealistic young Americans and Englishmen heading off to join the Republican forces in their noble struggle against fascism. Hemingway is but one of the authors who worked this theme, which has persistently clung in the Western imagination despite such devastating factual rebuttals as George Orwell's great Homage to Catalonia. At best, Orwell convinced the open-minded that the Republicans were in fact a tool of the Soviets, but hardly anyone has ever sought to vindicate Franco and the Nationalists. (Paul Johnson is one of the rare exceptions in his outstanding conservative revisionist history, Modern Times. See his excellent review of Paul Preston's biography of Franco in the NY Times Book Review.)........

This prejudice against Franco is particularly odd if you simply take an impartial look at the historical record and at how Spain fared throughout and after WWII. Despite repressive measures taken against Leftists and a substantial number of summary executions, Franco's Spain had no gulags. Nor did his government pursue a systematic genocide against any segment of the population. In fact, Spain was a safe haven for European Jews and went out of its way to rescue the Sephardim, European Jews of Spanish descent (hence, the previously mentioned favorable cover blurb). By keeping Spain, for the most part, out of the actual combat of WWII, Franco preserved Spanish lives, maintained Spanish independence, and continued laying the groundwork for a stable society, one which would eventually become a democracy. More than this though, neither he nor the Spanish people were responsible for the kind of large scale slaughter which other leaders and nations engaged in throughout the war--there are no Dresdens, or Nankings, or Hiroshimas, or Stalingrads, etc., to trouble the Spanish conscience.

Compare this record to that of FDR and America. America too stayed neutral, until provoked by the attack on Pearl Harbor. FDR refused to allow Jewish refugees into the United States. We rounded up innocent Americans of Japanese descent and shipped them to concentration camps. Over four hundred thousand Americans died fighting the War and Lord only knows how many we killed, including hundreds of thousands of civilians in nuclear blasts and fire bombings. And at the end of the day, what did we achieve ? We merely replaced a homicidal German regime with a homicidal Russian one, locking ourselves into an additional fifty years of deadly and expensive Cold War. Given this context, which leader, FDR or Franco, better deserves to have his War performance lauded ?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From Scipio-

"Republican Spain Smoke and Mirrors"

"For sometime since the end of the civil war a myth has been spreading about the bullying and genocide inflicted by the Nationalists on the Republic (both terms have been used to describe it).

The Republican regime was made up such heterogeneous, often unsavory elements that it was regularly at each other's throats, with the war often assigned a secondary priority. Towards the end it became even more pronounced and surreal; this civil-war-within-a-civil-war is a taboo subject. That the republic was not entirely composed of poets, novelists and artists as the romantic fantasy would have it, is another.

If extra-judicial detentions (abduction), torture, and paseos (execution) when informal and firing squads at cemeteries or prisons (the formal manner) is how they dealt with each other and their allies, imagine how they treated those remotely suspected of being neutral, or heaven forbid opposed to their politics.

Apologists for the Republic have several answers they believe are an iron-clad when explaining away this reign of terror.

The main one nowdays is: It didn't happen, it's just fascist propaganda.

Another is the pent-up anger of the lower classes towards the rich and the clergy. Simply put: They had it coming. Vox populi, lex maxima: This legal fiction was voiced by no less a personage that a republican minister of justice, García Oliver, an anarchist to justify the extermination. Ponder on that for a moment. In the movie based on Hemingway's book For Whom The Bell Tolls, there's a scene which illustrates this wishful thinking. When the civil war began, workers and peasants rose-up against their ancient oppressors and did burn churches and hold mass public executions, but once they got it out of their system they settled down and began to build a spanish version of a left-wing utopia.

Yet another is the need of the Republic to fight spies and fifth columnists. Russian syphillis it's been called, seeing spies everywhere. Needless to say it was a painful and inmediately fatal disease for those who came in contact with the Checas and other representatives of the Republican security apparatus.

None of these arguments provide but the flimsiest cover for the atrocities, but if you disregard the victims' testimony out of hand and then argue that the victim asked for it, well then it can be treated as iron-clad.

One shudders just thinking of the gigantic blood bath, had the republicans won the war. Victory only seems to spur communists into greater killing and repressions to keep their populations cowed and obedient (see China, North Korea or Cuba).

I have a personal theory on why this romantic fiction continues to grow, in spite of the facts and reality which absolutely contradict it.

A communist article of faith is the immaculate nature of their world movement (along with their infallibity). It logically follows that as a part of the world communist entity, republican Spain could never engage in terror or murder, those are things in which fascists indulge. For doing so would sully the sacrifice of so many volunteers and expose the idealistic naivetee so common to American left-wingers out to save the world, even if it kills it. Lori Berenson and John Walker Lindh come to mind.

Even if some left-wingers ever entertain the heretical notion that the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites were more or less gigantic concentration camps or killing fields, Spain they argue is the one exception. That is until it was crushed by the evil fascists hordes led by Franco.

Failure to reckon Communist systematic murder and repression of their own and alien population, before and after WW II at least on an par with the Nazis (the numbers tip the scales heavily against the communists) is the main reason people refuse to see and accept the true nature of the Republic.

Academia and Hollywood acting as the keepers of the republican myth is another. In our culture this is not to be disregarded lightly or underestimated."  

Moral Decay Broached at Prayer Breakfast

-Recently we heard the term "societal decay" mentioned:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/01/31/legal-immigrants-must-watch-testimony-against-gun-control-in-america/

Today, Dr. Benjamin Carson noted the problem with "moral decay" in our nation.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/07/prayer-breakfast-speaker-praises-jesus-gets-political-calls-political-correctness-dangerous-hammers-fiscal-irresponsibility/

"Carson encouraged discussion about societal issues, also pointing out education as an essential conundrum the country needs to confront. He highlighted his own path from poverty to success, sharing very personal details about his parents and early family life and subsequently described the importance of helping students seeking to advance academically through his Carson Scholars Fund.

The speech took an interesting turn when the doctor cautioned that moral decay and fiscal irresponsibility can have dire consequences — even for powerful countries like America. Here, he became even more pointed and impassioned.

“I think particularly about ancient Rome. Very powerful — nobody could even challenge them militarily…they destroyed themselves from within,” Carson continued. “Moral decay. Fiscal irresponsibility.”

While he said America’s issues are dire, he was positive that the nation can fix its ways, as there are bright and innovative people who simply need to come together to address the problems at hand......"
Doctor Carson hit it right on the button. I lean strongly towards a cyclical view of history. This outlook is, as one could imagine, rejected by Leftists, who insist that all human history marches us inexorably towards the elimination of all classes, nations, family roles, etc., followed by the rule of the elite who fancy themselves as intellectuals.

Societies do not fail to follow patterns of infancy, growth, consolidation of power in the hands of a few, and the decline in virtues such as hard work, austerity, and morality. Disintegration and collapse follow without exception. Some of those of the Left delude themselves that the State has reached a point in which decline is not possible. Others on the Left, of course, have every intention of hastening the decline and ruling over what is remains.

Rome is indeed the paradigm for us. As she grew is size and power, the Republic came under increasing control of the few who had benefited from the importation of cheap labor (Slaves). The small and middling farmers, who were the backbone of the Republic, lost their farms or had to sell out and move to the city. There they added to the mass of people already dependent on cheap or free grain. Military service by this point demanded that the soldiery had to be away for many months or years at a time, making it impossible for the citizen to serve his nation and return to his farm. The army became to be made up of the landless and those who were not (Or not yet) citizens. The people grew to view serving in the army as something foreign, particularly after Augustus later revamped the whole system and made the minimum enlistment twenty-five years. Morality collapsed, most especially among the rich.

By the third century, inflation had run amok, and Diocletian resorted to fixing prices across the board. Occupations were made to be permanent, with children having no option than to serve in the trades of their fathers. Even tax collectors were not immune to this inherited servitude. These were required to collect their quota or come up with the difference out of their own pockets. The desperation of the tax collectors caused the last of the small landowners to surrender their holdings to the rich and live on their estates in a capacity that amounted to serfdom.

Without the experience, the love of country, and toughness imparted by military service, and the decline of morality and industriousness among the people, the enervated Romans, Italians and others were mere spectators as the Empire was fought over by competing generals and, later, the very foreigners that had served the empire for pay and land.

At the end, the armies of the chieftains could waltz right in and assume power.

Spanish Men Fail to Protect Their Women

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57567674/armed-gang-rapes-6-tourists-in-acapulco/

-Yet another example of what happens when Western men fail to act as, well, Western men.

"Six Spanish tourists were raped by a gang of armed, masked men in the Mexican resort of Acapulco, the latest chapter of violence that has tarnished the once-glamorous Pacific coast resort.

The vicious, hours-long attack occurred before dawn Monday at a house that six Spanish men, six Spanish women and a Mexican woman had rented on a quiet, idyllic stretch of beach on the outskirts of Acapulco.

The attackers gained access to the house because two of the Spaniards were in the yard and apparently were forced to open the door, Acapulco Mayor Luis Walton told a news conference late Monday.

The five attackers burst into the house and held the group at gunpoint, he said. They tied up the six men with phone cords and bathing suit straps and then raped the six Spanish women. The Mexican woman was not raped.

Guerrero state Attorney General Martha Garzon said the Mexican woman begged the men not to rape her and the assailsants told her they would spare her because she is Mexican.

"Fortunately we have strong evidence to lead us to those responsible for this reprehensible act," Garzon told Radio Formula.

The attack began about two hours after midnight Monday and the victims were only able to report the crime five hours later, at nearly seven in the morning........"

While we have the heroic example of a school bus driver who was shot to death for refusing to let a criminal take students off of his bus*, in this case we find not one man out of six who was willing to lay down his life and refuse to just let armed men harm the women who were vacationing with the group.

What value is one's life if you give it priority over that of others?

Of course, with six armed assailants, there was probably no way that the vacationers could "win the battle", but how can one expect to live with himself after choosing to allow the criminals to tie you up? Did they think that, following this, the females would only be robbed and otherwise be treated nicely?

Spain has a history chock full of brave men who would, regardless of the chances of survival, steadfastly and in an indignant manner, refuse to submit to allowing the weak to be victimized. 

Despite the consequences, I would much rather be remembered for telling the thugs to go ---- themselves than have to be untied by the rape victims after I made it easy for them to be attacked.

These women, whether they be wives, girlfriends, sisters, etc., deserved better. I could never show my face to any of them after failing to make any stand whatsoever in their defense, even if I knew that I would not survive.

The men of the West have sunk to levels unimaginable by any of their predecessors. They have chosen to believe that, as the Left tells them, men are no different from women and that the only thing of value is your own life.

What about your reputation? Your sense of shame?

As the Athenian lawgiver Solon is recorded (by Herodotus) to have told King Croesus of Lydia (The King being fabulously rich), no man can know if he is truly happy unless that happiness extends until, or occurs at, the point of his death. I don't believe that any of these men have much of a chance of dying with good memories of their lives.

They will be forever remembered as the men who chose their own lives at the expense of the women in their party.

*http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/04/us/service-held-for-school-bus-driver-in-alabama.html?_r=0

"On Tuesday afternoon, Jimmy Lee Dykes, to whom Mr. Poland had given a gift of yard eggs and homemade jam days earlier, boarded Mr. Poland’s bus and handed him a note demanding that he hand over two young children. Mr. Poland opened the emergency door in the rear of the bus and blocked Mr. Dykes’s way as the children escaped. Mr. Dykes shot him four times and took a 5-year-old boy named Ethan, whom he has been holding in an underground bunker ever since." [That tragedy ended with the police shooting the jerk in a rescue operation]

Texas Students Made to Design Socialist Flags

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/04/texas-lesson-plan-instructs-6th-graders-to-design-flags-for-a-new-socialist-nation/

Deep in the Heart of Texas-

"A curriculum system used across the state of Texas reportedly includes a lesson plan for 6th graders instructing students to create a flag for a “new socialist nation” using “symbolism to represent aspects of socialism/communism.”

The following was taken from the CSCOPE curriculum lesson plan: “Notice socialist/communist nations use symbolism on their flags representing various aspects of their economic system. Imagine a new socialist nation is creating a flag and you have been put in charge of creating a flag. Use symbolism to represent aspects of socialism/communism on your flag. What kind of symbolism/colors would you use?”..........

As I have noted about similar topics, this is very, very bad.

While we assured ourselves that it was only Academia that was doing this, the Left was putting the primary schools firmly in its collective grasp.

Throughout the nation, the children are being brainwashed into accepting Socialism. The usual means by which this is done is subtle; all the horrid stuff about of all aspects property ownership, self-defense, aristocracy, imperialism, colonialism, industrial revolution and abuses of Church authorities are standard (And sole) fare, painted in lurid pictures worthy of the anti-Catholic "Convent porn" of gullible Fundamentalists . Indeed, the thing about the Medieval Church that college students seems to learn about the most are the interdicts. The way these are presented to the student, the Medieval period was just a series of steps from one interdict to the next. Of course no one is told the backgrounds behind the interdicts; it was just the big, bad Popes (And of course not a single one of them were any good at all).

-And on some occasions, like in the report at top, it is not subtle at all.

They rightly are taught about the evils of Nazism and Fascism (Both have Leftist origins by the way)

What are they not taught? Like the character Bender in The Breakfast Club, when asked about how it is is his household, "That's real easy":

They are not taught how any and all Socialist governments has failed and failed miserably. China abandoned Socialism almost completely, keeping only the choicest parts like absolute iron rule-control of her people. Socialism stagnates each and every society in which the contagion gets a foothold. Murders and State-induced (I am talking about the purposeful ones, but the North Korean accidental types works also) famines killed scores of millions. People are reduced to the status of insects, with only the most promising students who toe the Party line being fed the royal jelly of inner Party membership. The individual is not suppressed, but destroyed. The arts and literary works decline into the equivalent of fast-food menu items, just without the bright and shiny colors. In the US, the people are denied any real education; being taught to "read" by recognizing words as pictures and to do "math" by counting on their fingers. The latter two of course are implemented to keep them fat, dumb, and happy. Public displays of religion or solid values/morals are condemned. People are purposely denied any knowledge of the history and accomplishments of their physical and cultural ancestors, leaving them ignorant and pliable.

People are, in short, enslaved for their own good.

When I bring up the topic of splitting the US into two countries, one a Republic and the other Progressive/Socialist, I am often told that I am jumping the gun and that we need to take back the schools. 

Well, if you think that can be done, knock yourself out trying. What we need to do to save the schools is to fully split from the Socialists who currently run the show, both Democrats and far too many Republicans.

We are running out of time. These sixth graders are just one group out of tens of thousands who are being turned against the culture that bred them. In just a few years they and those who follow will be old enough to vote. Soon enough, American-minded people will be a very small minority.

This is no Chicken Little moment. It's real and is happening right before our eyes.

If we do not take political action now, we someday will be asked by the pathetic few who see through the propaganda why we stood by idly and did nothing while the nation was stolen and destroyed.

-At least I will be able to honestly say that I tried.

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2012/11/in-consideration-of-secession-part-i.html

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2012/11/in-consideration-of-secession-part-ii.html

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2012/11/in-consideration-of-secession-part-iii.html

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/01/hannity-brings-up-secession.html

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2012/11/questions-before-secession.html

Baker Refuses Cake for Fake Wedding

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/02/baker-under-investigation-after-declining-to-make-gay-couples-wedding-cake-if-i-have-to-be-penalized-for-my-beliefs-so-be-it/

"An Oregon man may have broken the law and is facing a state investigation after refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding, KATU reports.

KGW has details on the story:

It started on Jan. 17 when a mother and daughter showed up at Sweet Cakes by Melissa looking for the perfect wedding cake.

“My first question is what’s the wedding date,” said owner Aaron Klein. “My next question is bride and groom’s name … the girl giggled a little bit and said it’s two brides.”

Klein apologized to the women and told them he and his wife do not make cakes for same-sex marriages. Klein said the women were disgusted and walked out.

“I believe that marriage is a religious institution ordained by God,” said Klein. “A man should leave his mother and father and cling to his wife … that to me is the beginning of marriage.”

[...]

“I’d rather have my kids see their dad stand up for what he believes in then to see him bow down because one person complained....."

Once again, this is how the Leftist thugs work. You never know if you will be the next person who gets picked out for abuse, control, and prosecution.

Mr.Klein, we are told, must suck it up and put hours of labor and effort into making a cake for a fake wedding or face essentially forfeit his right to run the bakery. Like being forced to pay for abortion pills, we are told that, once you engage in business, you give up all rights to stand up for what you believe. Not only that, but you must accept the business of  any participants, no matter how their specifications may go against your principles.

Applying this reasoning, atheists will now be able to make Jewish or Christian bakers make cakes with writing that denies the existence of God.

It's the new price of doing business - your dignity.

One must keep in mind that governments do not have creative powers. They cannot bring rights into existence. The State is given the power to regulate and protect institutions such as marriage to prevent abuses. These would include underage brides, one spouse who is still legally married to another, etc.

Marriage existed long before any government; therefore a government cannot,despite any legislative hoop-jumping, create the legality of a marriage that, by its very nature, cannot exist. Any law that presents itself as such is nothing more than play-acting by the State.

I once believed that the primary reason for using statutory powers to pretend that same-sex marriages exist was to destroy the family  While I still believe that this is the primary purpose for some, I have come to think that others have a more insidious purpose for this.

-The purpose is to establish full governmental control of society and all of its people.

Think about it. If the State can force people to act as if a government can bring the impossible into existence, and force everyone to go along with it, then what is it incapable of doing or forcing? If a society accepts that the State can conjure up institutions by going through the motions of making laws, what can stop them from removing rights or creating others that infringe on the Liberties of the rest of the people?

If this poor baker loses his license, is convicted by the State and/or is successfully sued civilly, rest assured that the next step will be to insist that Churches perform these fake ceremonies or give up their right to have their marriage ceremonies acknowledged by the State. That being done, couples will have to go to a Municipal Clerk after or just before a Church wedding in order to have the marriage recognized by the government.

Again, I hold that it is time to split the Republic into two separate entities. Let the Progressives run their side into the ground.

February 8 Gun Rights Rallies

http://in-defense-of-liberty.com/2013/01/11/new-jersey-2nd-amendmentrkba-to-march-on-state-house-in-trenton-february-8-2013-1000am/

"To my fellow NJ residents, the gun owners of this State and those who wish to stand up for our freedoms will be marching on the State House on February 8, 2013 at 10am. The gathering will take place in front of the entrance to the annex. The address is:

125 West State Street in Trenton, NJ"

I am trying to get off from work in order to attend this rally. We need to speak up in defense of our rights and let everyone know that we will not accept any further reductions of our rights.

Armed Cop Stops School Shooter

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/01/31/armed-guard-stops-school-shooter-after-he-opened-fire-at-atlanta-middle-school/

http://www.cbsatlanta.com/story/20937727/atlanta-police-gang-unit-investigating-price-middle-school-shooting

-Here is another example to cite when the sheep claim that there is nothing we can do but disarm everyone.

Note that this schools employed metal detectors, but the actor was able to bring the gun inside. It is not clear exactly clear how that happened.

ATLANTA (CBS ATLANTA) -

"Atlanta police and Atlanta Public Schools officials have released more details in the shooting that occurred early Thursday afternoon at Price Middle School in southeast Atlanta.

Telvis Douglas, 14, was shot in the back of the neck in a courtyard outside the school by a 15-year-old male student just before 2 p.m., according to Atlanta Police Chief George Turner.

An off-duty Atlanta police officer working as a school resource officer at the school was able to get the suspect to drop the gun before he was arrested, Turner said.

During a news conference that was held by Turner, Mayor Kasim Reed and Atlanta Public Schools officials on Friday, Turner said that the Atlanta Police Department's Gang Unit is now investigating the shooting......."

Note that the Left will stop at nothing to prove that the evidence against their case actually proves their side. In a truly demonically twisted conclusion, Piers Morgan tried to get his listeners to believe that he (Piers) thinks that, since the actor was able to shoot one person, the armed officer was not able to accomplish anything of value. Leftists lie like rugs, and Piers is no exception. I wonder what Piers' conclusions would be for, say, a criminal who got caught shortly after stabbing someone. My guess is that he would claim that the fact that the arresting officer was of no help in that case either.
With a people almost completely disarmed, Britain, from where Piers hails, has a violent crime rate that is far higher than that of the US. Beatings, murders, and gang-rapes occur with much greater frequency than in the US, but he holds that nation up as an example for us to follow.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/01/piers-morgan-claims-armed-guard-was-not-able-to-stop-atlanta-school-shooting-reality-disagrees/

Another Immigrant-Citizen Supports Firearms Ownership

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/01/31/legal-immigrants-must-watch-testimony-against-gun-control-in-america/

Hat tip to The Blaze.

No time to post tonight. High school wrestling meet went late. The good news is that my son pinned his opponent, who was quite strong and a very good wrestler.

We have another account of a person who came to the US from a nation in which the people are not allowed to own firearms. His testimony is brutally honest.

Of note should be his reference to what the Left has intensively cultivated with a passion but tries to keep out of public debate - "societal decay".
".
I wish that more Americans would be willing to bring this fact into the arena.

“Thank you for giving me this opportunity to express my opinion and give my testimony in opposition to the majority of the proposed bills, which do nothing to deter future crimes,” he added. “Gun control doesn’t work.”

Ong then launched into a impassioned diatribe about what he considers to be the real problem fueling gun gun violence — “societal decay.”

“Your own history is replete with high school rifle teams, boy scout marksmanship merit badges,” he explained. “You could buy rifles at hardware stores, you could order them… your country was awash in readily available firearms and ammunition, and yet in your past you did not have mass school shootings*.”

“What changed?” he asked. “It was not that the availability of guns suddenly exploded or increased, it actually was decreased. What changed was societal decay,” he added, resulting in more applause.".............

Military Officers Reportedly Asked About Firing on Citizens

http://bwcentral.org/2013/01/will-you-fire-on-american-citizens/

Hat tip to Free Republic.

I must preface this by noting that the person who is being interviewed does not provide a source by name. Whenever this happens, I have no choice but to hold back from accepting everything that I hear or read.

This does not mean that what you will hear in the video (Top link) should be dismissed outright. The Obama administration, fully aware of the hostile nature of their actions, has almost from the beginning taken steps to present loyal Americans as the problem. It's the perfect Orwellian Newspeak/Doublethink (Often rendered today as Doublespeak); present the abuses in which you are engaging as being consistent with American government and values, and paint those who oppose your oppressive acts as dangerous and unpatriotic.

The administration knows that they are pushing people up against the wall and that there will come a time when some will push back. My hope is that those who do so use political efforts to split the US into separate nations, one a Progressive state and the other a Republic, but I have little doubt that there will be those who see no hope in this.

The Left works like a professional wrestler tag-team match (Although they are not faking it). One make all sorts of claims that what they are doing is consistent with Constitutional thought, while the other runs around disparaging the supreme Law of the land as obsolete, aristocratic, or just plain evil. You are defending what the Constitution actually says on one side, and defending the document/law itself on the other.

Dr. Jim Garrow, a respected writer, he helps unwanted Chinese girls, and he is a one-time Nobel Prize nominee, reports that a former high-ranking officer in the US military reported to him that military officers, particularly those who are being vetted for influential positions, have had the question posed to them about how they would handle an order to fire on or otherwise engage US citizens in military actions.

If what Dr. Garrow says is true, I have to have a problem with his source. I know that people are afraid of losing their livelihood and possibly facing charges for discussing secret information, but if those who give the orders are in fact asking these questions, the people need to be made aware of this. If he is truly concerned enough to say something to a trusted friend or associate, then all bets for personal security are off.

I don't like watching videos because I am impatient and a fairly fast reader, but I did watch the one in the top link.. The link below has some text from the inerview.
http://www.examiner.com/article/shock-claim-obama-only-wants-military-leaders-who-will-fire-on-u-s-citizens?cid=db_articles

Record Set Straight on Nullifiation

http://www.trevorloudon.com/2013/01/nullification-deniers-this-is-what-james-madison-really-said/

http://newjerseypatriotblog.newjerseypatriot.us/?p=2310

Hat tip to New Jersey Patriot.

I know that preface my remarks with bits of my life story entirely too often, but there is a purpose for doing so. For many years, indeed decades, I resisted admitting to myself what was happening to our nation. I refused to accept that our nation was headed in a dangerous direction.

An old (And still) adamant Union and Lincoln man, I naively applied my reasoning for condemning the acts of the Confederacy to our current situation. I failed to understand that, although the South did commit a grievous wrong by  seceding from the US government, this did not mean that later there could not arise conditions that could put us in a situation in which nullification or secession  was necessary.

Here we are.
Firstly, our Federal government was not truly federal in nature. Our government is actually a national one that has aspects that are federal, such as sovereign states that have real political power. Those who supported adopting the Constitution took the initiative by taking the name of Federalist, which forced their opponents to, by default, be referred to as Anti-Federalists.

Alexis de Tocqueville, in Democracy in America, made the point  in the early 19th century that our federal government was clearly a national one.

The national government has assumed much stronger national powers than that which was provided for in the Constitution. A Civil War, along with slavery and suppression of rights of freedmen were the primary reasons for this. The rise of the Progressives, who gained the reigns of power by WWI, was the spark which accelerated the move towards a purely national government. FDR only completed the process.

With the schools creating more socialist-minded and anti-Western culture statists which each graduating class, generations of people made dependent by being placed on welfare, and the mass importation of people who come from countries that have no history of republican-type governments, the Left now has the political pull to empower the national government like never before.

We face a political situation that would be utterly unrecognizable to any of the framers. Our national government now exercises powers completely foreign to anything within the wildest imaginations of our founders or even Lincoln. While our founders fought for their rights over some taxes, restrictions on expansion to western lands and markets for our exports, we stand idly by while being hit again and again with one new oppressive law or regulation after another. Those who made a stand for their rights as Englishmen in the late 18th century did so for far less reasons than we have for doing so today.

Oh, to be able go back to the freedoms we had during the worst days of King George III and Parliament! We never had it so good.

Trevor Loudon is a New Zealander. He is a strong supporter of the US and its Constitution. As a citizen of a British Commonwealth nation, he has seen firsthand how quickly a people can be reduced to political impotence and how a free nation can, in the blink of an eye, be mired in stagnant socialism and full governmental control. Like a specter from A Christmas Carol, he works to warn us to stand up for our rights before it is too late.

Please read the article from his blog which is linked at top. It puts to rest many of the claims by the media and the elitists of Academia that we have no option other than to accept what is being rammed down our throats.

Regarding the portion of the article on the Supreme Court and the determination of the Constitutionality of laws, I want to add that, by providing the following three examples, we can know that we no longer have a court that will function as a bulwark for, and last defense of, our freedoms.

The first was Wikard v. Fillburn, in which the Court upheld a draconian FDR-era law that resulted in a man being fined for growing more than the allowed amount of grain on his own farm. Threatened with Justice-packing by the Mussolini and Stalin-admiring FDR (The President threatened to change the number from nine Justices and add more who would follow his lead), the Court ruled that, because the farmer may be able to grow enough grain to enable him to feed his own livestock without buying grain, the farmer's actions could be regulated under the Commerce Clause.

The next nail in the coffin was Kelo V. New London. Here the concept of eminent domain morphed from the state forcing the sale of private property in order to serve a public need (Roads, Schools, etc.) to a governing body being able to condemn a person's home in order to sell it to a private developer. There would not even be a need to prove that the municipality was in dire need of funds - all it had to say was that it could make more money from selling the property and maybe receive more tax revenue from the newly-developed seized properties.

The most recent and egregious case was on Obamacare. Here the Federal government could not only compel a person to purchase something (Insurance is merely the foot in the door for far more), the Court is now effectively able to assign new meanings to the law.The compulsion to purchase can, with no legislation or tax code to cite, be considered to be a tax.

I find no reason to believe that things will improve in time to arrest the collapse of what is left of our freedoms. The Court will see at least one more (Possibly three) new appointments in Obama's second term.

Former Progressive David Mamet On Gun Control

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/01/26/former-brain-dead-liberal-filmmaker-pens-scathing-column-on-gun-control-a-political-appeal-to-the-ignorant/

Hat tip to The Blaze.

I must confess that I was unaware until today that the 1982 movie The Verdict was one of David Mamet's works  That was a great movie.

Mamet is known for his direct and no-nonsense manner of writing and speech. Being at one time, in his own words, a "brain dead liberal", he abandoned that stagnant and intellect-numbing world and now is a firm Conservative and supporter of individual rights.

His remarks on gun control put most of us to shame for their brutal clarity. Noting that the Left wants us to believe that the conclusions of the debunked (Even by determined gun control advocates) Kellerman* study and others and accept that guns in homes make one less safe, he presents us with a logical argument that I wish I had made:

"The Left loves a phantom statistic that a firearm in the hands of a citizen is X times more likely to cause accidental damage than to be used in the prevention of crime, but what is there about criminals that ensures that their gun use is accident-free? If, indeed, a firearm were more dangerous to its possessors than to potential aggressors, would it not make sense for the government to arm all criminals, and let them accidentally shoot themselves? Is this absurd? Yes, and yet the government, of course, is arming criminals."

He does not let up with his brutally clear reasoning:

"The police do not exist to protect the individual. They exist to cordon off the crime scene and attempt to apprehend the criminal. We individuals are guaranteed by the Constitution the right to self-defense. This right is not the Government’s to “award” us. They have never been granted it.

The so-called assault weapons ban is a hoax. It is a political appeal to the ignorant…

Will increased cosmetic measures make anyone safer? They, like all efforts at disarmament, will put the citizenry more at risk. Disarmament rests on the assumption that all people are good, and, basically, want the same things.

But if all people were basically good, why would we, increasingly, pass more and more elaborate laws?

The individual is not only best qualified to provide his own personal defense, he is the only one qualified to do so: and his right to do so is guaranteed by the Constitution."
"Violence by firearms is most prevalent in big cities with the strictest gun laws. In Chicago and Washington, D.C., for example, it is only the criminals who have guns, the law-abiding populace having been disarmed, and so crime runs riot.

Cities of similar size in Texas, Florida, Arizona, and elsewhere, which leave the citizen the right to keep and bear arms, guaranteed in the Constitution, typically are much safer. More legal guns equal less crime. What criminal would be foolish enough to rob a gun store?But the government alleges that the citizen does not need this or that gun, number of guns, or amount of ammunition."

His scathing remarks on wholesale taking from the producers/taxpayers and distributing at the pleasure of the government should not be left out:

"Karl Marx summed up Communism as “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” This is a good, pithy saying, which, in practice, has succeeded in bringing, upon those under its sway, misery, poverty, rape, torture, slavery, and death.
For the saying implies but does not name the effective agency of its supposed utopia. The agency is called “The State,” and the motto, fleshed out, for the benefit of the easily confused must read “The State will take from each according to his ability:the State will give to each according to his needs.” “Needs and abilities” are, of course, subjective. So the operative statement may be reduced to “the State shall take, the State shall give.' "
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*The 43:1 study, also called the Kellerman study, which was published in 1986 in the New England Journal of Medicine, was an atrocious example of false use and application of statistics. It was based on cherry-picked statistics in the Seattle area. It suffered from a complete lack of scientific responsibility. It was an attempt to get people to think that they, or someone else who was innocent, are 43 times more likely to be injured or killed by their own firearms than to wind up using it on an intruder. When later pressed about the manner in which he came up with his ratio, he then switched gears and threw out the 2.7:1 ratio - an equally false yet less outrageous number. To provide one example of how poorly the study was done, the only events that were counted as times when a person used a gun in defense of a home was when the bad guy got shot. This was the most pathetic portion of the finding since the vast majority of people who own firearms have, rightly so, no desire to kill people and show/produce/declare their weapon in order to cause the bad guy to leave in the overwhelming amount of circumstances. This fact alone completely threw off the entire average, even if the rest of the statistics had been honestly complied, which they were not. The awful and dishonest techniques used by Kellerman can be seen in part on the link below:

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/the-tainted-public-health-model-of-gun-control/

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------