Sunday, May 31, 2009
Just Say No To Big Government
From the Campaign for Liberty
By Jack Hunter
Frustrated with Gov. Mark Sanford's refusal to accept $700 million in federal stimulus dollars and his opposition to the state budget, S.C. Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell addressed the governor in an open letter this month, writing, "Time and again, you have failed to address problems in a constructive manner and proactively work with the Legislature to find solutions."
Noting Sanford's constant opposition to the Republican-dominated state legislature, McConnell added, "While the attacks you have launched may have been intended to build your national image as a reformer, in the final analysis, the work of a true reformer is measured not by words or TV ads or by press releases, but by what he or she has been able to accomplish."
McConnell has a point. But it's also nearly impossible to accomplish anything when there's only one reformer.
There are two types of "conservative" Republicans. The first type believes that government is broken, but simply needs Republicans to better manage it, while the other believes we need to actually reduce government. The first type can enjoy long careers by peppering their continuing support for the status quo with conservative-sounding language. The second type tends to make fewer friends because their career-long language consists of telling Democrats, Republicans, and even their constituents one word: "No."
Texas Congressman Ron Paul earned the name "Dr. No" in the House of Representatives for opposing most legislation brought to the floor. During his tenure in Congress, Sanford joined Paul in saying "no" more than any other congressman. Would America have been better served if Paul and Sanford tried to work more with the rest of the legislature to help bring us to our current state? Or might we have been better off if there were more leaders willing to consistently say "no" to more laws, more spending, and more government in general?
Consider the example of New Mexico's own "Dr. No," former Republican Gov. Gary "Veto" Johnson, who earned his nickname for vetoing 750 bills from 1995 to 2003, more than all the vetoes of the other 49 governors combined. Johnson also cut the growth of his state's government in half, privatized half of the state's prisons, reduced state employees by 1,000, oversaw the longest period without a tax increase in the state's history, and left office with a budget surplus. No doubt, New Mexico leaders wanted to spend as much money as South Carolina's legislature or any other state government. But Johnson constantly said "no," and was able to do some good.
The bloated budget and massive debt that continues to plague the state of South Carolina is a microcosm of the bloated budget and massive debt that continues to plague the entire United States. Everyone from across the political spectrum will generally agree that such reckless behavior is a problem and we cannot go on forever conducting business as usual. Yet when any leader dares to reverse course by saying "no," such leaders will invariably find themselves being attacked for daring to obstruct business as usual. The same state legislature that created our current economic woes are the same leaders who are now saying Sanford is the problem, as if a more cooperative gubernatorial extension of themselves would be preferable and somehow produce different, better results.
When Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, the new president hung a portrait in the White House of his hero, President Calvin Coolidge. Author Ivan Eland described Coolidge as a president who believed the United States had too many laws. He once said, "We would be better off if we didn't have anymore ... The greatest duty and opportunity of government is not to embark on any new ventures." But as it was in his own time, Coolidge's conservative philosophy remains unpopular today, where "good" or "great" leaders are always defined as those who expand the power of government to accomplish certain goals. The opposite is also true, and it was for this reason that Time magazine once felt compelled to declare Sanford one of America's "worst governors" for his habit of constantly opposing government.
I'm often criticized for bashing Republicans, but I do so because it's hard to take most of them seriously. Any Republican who talks about "fiscal responsibility," yet spends as much as any Democrat, whether at the national or state level, is completely worthless. Unfortunately, this description fits the bulk of the Republican Party. Most Republicans aren't the least bit serious about their conservative rhetoric.
And as America continues to spiral downward the longer spending goes upward, the few, serious conservatives willing to say "no" to government will always get the loudest "yes" from me.
The "Southern Avenger" Jack Hunter is a conservative commentator (WTMA 1250 AM talk radio) and columnist (Charleston City Paper) living in Charleston, South Carolina. See his blog.
Noting Sanford's constant opposition to the Republican-dominated state legislature, McConnell added, "While the attacks you have launched may have been intended to build your national image as a reformer, in the final analysis, the work of a true reformer is measured not by words or TV ads or by press releases, but by what he or she has been able to accomplish."
McConnell has a point. But it's also nearly impossible to accomplish anything when there's only one reformer.
There are two types of "conservative" Republicans. The first type believes that government is broken, but simply needs Republicans to better manage it, while the other believes we need to actually reduce government. The first type can enjoy long careers by peppering their continuing support for the status quo with conservative-sounding language. The second type tends to make fewer friends because their career-long language consists of telling Democrats, Republicans, and even their constituents one word: "No."
Texas Congressman Ron Paul earned the name "Dr. No" in the House of Representatives for opposing most legislation brought to the floor. During his tenure in Congress, Sanford joined Paul in saying "no" more than any other congressman. Would America have been better served if Paul and Sanford tried to work more with the rest of the legislature to help bring us to our current state? Or might we have been better off if there were more leaders willing to consistently say "no" to more laws, more spending, and more government in general?
Consider the example of New Mexico's own "Dr. No," former Republican Gov. Gary "Veto" Johnson, who earned his nickname for vetoing 750 bills from 1995 to 2003, more than all the vetoes of the other 49 governors combined. Johnson also cut the growth of his state's government in half, privatized half of the state's prisons, reduced state employees by 1,000, oversaw the longest period without a tax increase in the state's history, and left office with a budget surplus. No doubt, New Mexico leaders wanted to spend as much money as South Carolina's legislature or any other state government. But Johnson constantly said "no," and was able to do some good.
The bloated budget and massive debt that continues to plague the state of South Carolina is a microcosm of the bloated budget and massive debt that continues to plague the entire United States. Everyone from across the political spectrum will generally agree that such reckless behavior is a problem and we cannot go on forever conducting business as usual. Yet when any leader dares to reverse course by saying "no," such leaders will invariably find themselves being attacked for daring to obstruct business as usual. The same state legislature that created our current economic woes are the same leaders who are now saying Sanford is the problem, as if a more cooperative gubernatorial extension of themselves would be preferable and somehow produce different, better results.
When Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, the new president hung a portrait in the White House of his hero, President Calvin Coolidge. Author Ivan Eland described Coolidge as a president who believed the United States had too many laws. He once said, "We would be better off if we didn't have anymore ... The greatest duty and opportunity of government is not to embark on any new ventures." But as it was in his own time, Coolidge's conservative philosophy remains unpopular today, where "good" or "great" leaders are always defined as those who expand the power of government to accomplish certain goals. The opposite is also true, and it was for this reason that Time magazine once felt compelled to declare Sanford one of America's "worst governors" for his habit of constantly opposing government.
I'm often criticized for bashing Republicans, but I do so because it's hard to take most of them seriously. Any Republican who talks about "fiscal responsibility," yet spends as much as any Democrat, whether at the national or state level, is completely worthless. Unfortunately, this description fits the bulk of the Republican Party. Most Republicans aren't the least bit serious about their conservative rhetoric.
And as America continues to spiral downward the longer spending goes upward, the few, serious conservatives willing to say "no" to government will always get the loudest "yes" from me.
The "Southern Avenger" Jack Hunter is a conservative commentator (WTMA 1250 AM talk radio) and columnist (Charleston City Paper) living in Charleston, South Carolina. See his blog.
Will France Really Be A Muslim Country?
The following translation from a Muslim forum is an extraordinary insight into the thinking of Islamists about the future of France. The Islamization of other European countries is happening at an even swifter pace.From The Brussels Journal
By Tiberge
There's a 16-page discussion at a Muslim forum called Mejliss el kalam, linked by François Desouche. To translate the entire discussion is out of the question. But here is the first page somewhat simplified....The initial question, dated April 11, 2009, comes from ShamsTabrizi, from Somalia:
[Note: He links to another thread where Israelis are said to call for the slitting open of the stomachs of pregnant Muslim women. "Parisien" was eventually suspended from the forum, not surprisingly.]- Salam. In a city of 22 thousand inhabitants a few miles from Paris, more than 6 thousand persons participated in the Friday prayer at 2:00 p.m., including a significant number of converted Frenchmen and Frenchwomen. At the end of the prayer, seeing these people, I began to wonder in how many years France will be a mostly Muslim country.
- (Abelatif from Belgium responds): You must not have any illusions, my brother. France as a Muslim country will be several generations form now, or more. But it's true that it's beautiful to see Muslims of all origins at the mosque... Praise be to Allah
- (ShamsTabrizi): I don't agree. considering the evolution of the situation I have been witnessing, I do not give it more than 30 years before we will see mayors giving sermons on Friday to the faithful.
- (Abdel93600 from The Netherlands): Salam. The French are no longer having many children. Let's do France a favor and ensure the renewal of generations. It's a problem for many European countries! The birth rate in France recently reached a record, the highest in Europe, due in great part, to immigrant women.
- (Prince.Hakim from Belgium): I think we're heading for a Franco-Creole-Maghrebin civilization with massive intermarriage under the aegis of Islam.
- (Maléikite from Belgium): Brussels will be majority Muslim in less than 20 years (these are non-Muslim statistics). Inch'Allah.
- (MonSpeudo2 from France): Stop dreaming up tales about our country. It will never belong to you
- (ShamsTabrizi to Prince.Hakim): Then you agree with me. France will surely be a Muslim land for our grandchildren, maybe our children. So we must begin to construct a good basis to avoid unpleasant surprises for them in the future.
- (Maléikite to MonSpeudo2): Don't worry, we'll protect your rights, you will have the status of dhimmi.
- (ShamsTabrizi to MonSpeudo2): Ask your father if he ever imagined so many mosques and Muslims when he was your age. Then you'll have the answer as to whom France will belong. I like France, and I will like it even more when it's Muslim. Don't worry, we will be lenient on Christian minorities.
- (Prince-Hakim to MonSpeudo2): It will not be a matter of conquest, but of adherence to a joint effort between Frenchmen and Maghrebins. You should consider converting to Islam.
- (Ilyas_95 from France to MonSpeudo2): Bah! As far as I know France belongs to me as much as to you, doesn't it?
- (Parisien from France to Ilyas_95): No. I don't think so...
- (Prince.Hakim to ShamsTabrizi): I would even say the French deserve to be a part of the Umma.
- (Ilyas_95 to ShamsTabrizi): It's ridiculous to use threats... We're stuck in the suburbs and the high-rises. To say things like we're going to turn France upside-down, when we are not even able to agree on the best way to scratch our noses...
- (Ilyas_95 to Parisien): Really? Why not?
- (El-che from France): In 1974, at the UN, the Algerian president Houari Boumediene, declared: "One day, millions of men will leave the southern hemisphere to go north. And they won't go there as friends. Because they will be going to conquer. And they will conquer and people the land with their sons. It is the womb of women that will bring us victory."
In Le Figaro, December 19, 2006, our great friend Muammar Quadhafi declared: "Without sword, without rifles, without conquests, the 50 million Muslims in Europe will transform it soon into a Muslim continent!"- (Prince.Hakim from Belgium): I think we should have a friendly attitude towards the French and convince them to join us.
- (ShamsTabrizi to Ilyas_95): There is no threat but a simple observation, and when you say we can't agree among ourselves you're off the topic. I don't see what that has to do with the evolution of society advancing in the interests of Islam and Muslims. And that is precisely why I said earlier that we must begin to construct a good basis for the future of our children.
- (Abdel93600 from The Netherlands): Salam. Are there any cities in France that are already majority Muslim or close to it? Except for Roubaix (that goes back a long time) and Marseilles? We're off to a good start, one at the northernmost end the other at the southernmost end?
- (Ilyas95 to ShamsTabrizi): The political power is now in the hands of a minority that remains in power. The numbers do not in any way change the rules of the game... we just have to see to what extent "our" cities (those that are majority Muslim) represent an enviable model for the entire world...
- (Le Compagnon from the UAE to MonSpeudo2): It already belongs to us. First mission accomplished, second mission: children, third: Islamization. End of operation. You will have the right to attend school without a veil.
- (Shams Tabrizi to Prince.Hakim): Salam. That's the way things are going. In the mosque where I prayed on Friday, it was the number of French Muslims that surprised me the most. Naturally, Islamization of society will take place with their help.
- (Ilyas_95 to ShamsTabrizi): What is "Islamization" of France??? The fact that everybody is Muslim???I say this because it is an important point after all...
- (Parisien from France): Then the Israelis are right after all.
[Notice that he said TEN million, not the usual five or six we so often hear about.]- (Need_Peace from Morocco): Assalam alaikom to all. I was in France just once, in August 2007. I spent two weeks there on holiday. I did not make any particular acquaintances with our brothers and sisters of Islam, but for the entire time, I had the certitude that it was a country where Islam will be majority, and I said to everyone that France will be glorified by Islam. Inch'Allah. It warms the heart to see the number of committed sincere converts.
- (ShamsTabrizi to Ilyas_95): Who said anything about taking power? Here we are talking about a majority of the population and it's already a good start. If you also want power, then instead of thinking of yourself as weak and saying that we'll never succeed, rise up and give yourself the means to do it. Don't look for excuses to stay in bed.
- (Didyme from France to ShamsTabrizi): Hello. There are about 3 thousand converts to Islam each year. Let's be liberal and say 5 thousand. Let's forget about the Muslims who become apostates. In order for France to become a majority Muslim country only through conversion, 20 million Frenchmen would have to convert (half of the 60 million Frenchmen minus the 10 million who are already Muslim).
At the rate of 5 thousand conversions per year it would take... 4000 years! So it's difficult to count on conversions alone.[Note: If he thinks Sarkozy is expelling many immigrants, he is perhaps fooling himself. Larger numbers are coming in than returning home.]
You can count on the higher birth rate among immigrant Muslim families than among non-Muslims. But as Muslim immigrants attain the same standard of living as non-Muslims, the birthrates will become equal.
You can count on immigration even though the current policies indicate the opposite, that is, a policy of expulsion.But some can always dream about a majority Muslim France in a "maximum of 30 years."
- (El-che to Prince.Hakim): We are not supposed to be a people who terrorize and who seek to wage war and cause blood to be shed, so yes, we must have a friendly attitude towards them.
-(Prince.Hakim to Parisien, re: the Israelis): They should go back to Russia or Poland or Ethiopia.The conversation goes on for 15 more web pages. I have not had time to read through it all, but French readers may be interested. The comments at François Desouche are worth a look, although I can only post a few at random out of the 200:
- I will not have my children baptized, so that they don't appear on the lists of Christians. Islamists, when they are in power in France, like the Nazis before them, love to consult lists.Like the discussion at Mejliss, this goes on and on. It's very interesting, but the main question still remains: What will really happen when the tipping point has been reached? Will the French wait until that happens, then rebel in violence? Violence can be prevented by sane immigration policies, a refusal to build mosques and an affirmation of nationalism, if not Christianity. If violence does erupt it will be chaotic and directed at the "collaborators" as much (possibly more?) as towards the Muslims.- History always ends with massacres and bloodbaths! If you know how to read between the lines, you know what you have to do!
- (...) In short, I'm very pessimistic for the future of France. I think that the only element that could change the situation might come from international events and a possible conflict with Iran. The Muslims of France will feel threatened and I think very violent riots are foreseeable on French territory, even kamikaze attacks! At that moment, a possible civil war between pro-Iranian and ethnic Frenchmen (of Christian origin) could break out.
- What a bunch of rats... but frankly, even if the country becomes Islamized, I don't think it will become a Muslim country so easily. I have hope that the French people in their majority will finally revolt before that happens.
- We still have time. You don't need 50% Muslims in France for chaos to reign. there are about 4-5 million Muslims in France, or 6 to 8% of the population. They already have quite a bit of nuisance value. Not to mention the non-Muslim foreigners. In all, perhaps 8 million non-Europeans, or 13% of the population.
- (...) Really I would tend to say there are about 8 to 10 million Muslims in France.
- With respect, I feel that the number of 5 million Muslims in France was surpassed long ago. There are at least 10 million!!
- I would say 10 to 12 million. Sometimes, I feel like leaving this country. It's becoming too hard, like seeing a woman you love, with her veins slashed, in a bathtub, and not being able to help her.
- Nobody is really fooled. At any rate not the ethnic Frenchmen. Almost everybody knows that there will be violence at the moment of the "passing of the torch", when the Muslim community is almost in the majority and their "cultural demands" become laws... There will always be a temptation on the part of this community to affirm its domination. It's then that things will begin to go badly.
- (...) Our friends the immigrants, Islamists, collaborators should not worry too much: the French are patient, very patient, too much so, but above all they are unpredictable and the day when the fire is lit, no one will be able to stop it. History has already proven that. (...)
- Having worked a various maternity hospitals in Paris and the nearby suburbs, I can attest that black women are in a very large majority. And they don't have just one child... I saw fewer Maghrebins.
- (In response to the reader who said he wants to leave the country) And that doesn't take into account the social climate. I don't know how it is where you work, but at my job it's war.
- At my job if they're unhappy, they back off. But there's a Frenchman who praises the "virility" of the immigrants, but when it's said about a white man, that's no good, it's Le Pen. Yet in his heart, I feel sure that he suspects it will end in complete chaos. But he prefers to live like an ostrich.
One recurring theme is that despite outward passiveness, the French, in general, know that violence will come. This seems to indicate a higher level of awareness on the part of the population than is generally acknowledged. Notice that the Muslims calmly plot the takeover without any thought of a rebellion from the natives.
Pentecost Sunday
"And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and
resting on each one of them. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit..."
Acts 2:3
resting on each one of them. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit..."
Acts 2:3
Roberta Invernizzi - "Veni Creator Spiritus " - Niccolò Jommelli
"Pentecost (Whitsunday), with Christmas and Easter, ranks among the great feasts of Christianity. It commemorates not only the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and Disciples, but also the fruits and effects of that event: the completion of the work of redemption, the fullness of grace for the Church and its children, and the gift of faith for all nations."
Undercover at an Evangelical University
From NPR
Taking a semester off to travel and focus on writing isn't that unusual for a student at Brown University. But instead of studying comparative literature in Europe, Kevin Roose decided to go to Lynchburg, Va., and enroll at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. Roose passed himself off as an evangelical Christian to blend in with students at the school founded by the late Moral Majority leader. The experience led to a book, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University.
Roose, the product of the "ultimate, secular, liberal upbringing," got the idea to go undercover after meeting a group of Liberty students while a freshman at Brown. "I had never really come into contact with conservative Christian culture," he says. "It became clear very quickly that we had almost no way to communicate with each other."
Read the rest of this entry >>
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Yankee Genocide Still Here
From NewsWithViewsBy Alan Stang
Our source for the present discussion is War Crimes Against Southern Civilians, by Walter Brian Cisco (Pelican, Gretna, Louisiana, 2007). It is important to establish that the spiritual and political inheritors of the war criminals who committed those crimes do not deny them. They ignore them, hoping that if they say nothing those crimes will fade away; and so far they have been successful. Remember, the winner of a war writes the history of the war. They will respond only if their crimes become sufficiently known.
It is important to correct the record. The crimes and the criminals need to be named. More, they must be explained, because the motives that inspired them continue to motivate the men who run our country, regardless of political party. As we shall see, little has changed. Only if we drag this continuing horror into the light do we have a chance of exorcising it.
Let’s begin with a revealing contrast. In 1863, Confederate General Robert E. Lee invaded the North. The South by then had suffered two years of Yankee crimes and some Southerners thought the invasion was their chance to retaliate. Not so, said Lee. In a proclamation he reminded his men that “the duties exacted of us by civilization and Christianity are not less obligatory in the country of the enemy than in our own.”
“The commanding general considers that no greater disgrace could befall the army, and through it our whole people, than the perpetration of the barbarous outrages upon the unarmed and defenseless and the wanton destruction of private property, that have marked the course of the enemy in our own country. . . .”
Remember that at the beginning of the war Lincoln offered Lee command of the Union army. Imagine the humane result had he been able to accept. We make war “only upon armed men,” said Lee. Taking vengeance for the “atrocities of our enemies” would lower ourselves and offend “against Him to whom vengeance belongeth.” What atrocities is he talking about? Our source is divided into the states of the Confederacy. Let’s begin with Missouri.
Union Brigadier General James H. Lane: “We believe in a war of extermination. I want to see every foot of ground . . . burned over – everything laid waste. . . .” Whoa! A war of extermination? Why? Wasn’t the restoration of the Union the goal of all this? Wouldn’t that have been accomplished simply by occupying the offending states? As we shall see, some other motive was at work.
But so it was. Civilians, male and female – yes, female – died by the hundreds in diseased Yankee jails. The Yankees stole everything they could lift. Lane himself stole a carriage, a piano and women’s dresses. My favorite was his chaplain, Rev. Hugh D. Fisher, who stole the altar furnishings from an Osceola church. He needed them for his own church in Kansas. “Brethren, let us worship.”
A long caravan of stolen property wound its way to Kansas. Arson, theft and murder became commonplace. No citizen was allowed to own guns or ammunition. At war’s end, vast sections of Missouri were uninhabited. Lane’s policy of extermination had been imposed.
General William T. Sherman wrote that “rebel” farms should be given to immigrants from the North. “Enemies must be killed or transported to some other country.” Deported Missourians left the state in miles-long wagon trains laden with household effects. Foraging Yankees robbed and killed them on the way. One report speaks of a road “crowded with women and children, women walking with their babies in their arms, packs on their backs and four or five children following after them . . . .”
There is a word for all this. At the time, the word had not yet been coined. It is “genocide.” Indeed, that is what the UN calls forcibly removing one population and replacing it with another. Genocide was settled Yankee policy imposed from the top.
In Tennessee, pastors were told to declare allegiance to the Union. They refused and were jailed. Episcopal rector George Harris was arrested and told to pray for Lincoln or be hanged. Happily, he was able to escape. The Yankees used his church to store munitions. The Communists would later do something similar to churches in Russia. The Yankees closed every church in Murfreesboro and all the schools in Nashville. In that city, there was an election for circuit court judge and the secessionist won. He was arrested, charged with treason and sent to the penitentiary.
How did the Yankees treat blacks? In Athens, Alabama, they raped a slave girl at the home of Charlotte Hine. At the John Malone plantation, they went to the slave quarters and raped again. A black woman charged a soldier with the crime; his commanding officer refused to prosecute: “I would not arrest one of my men on Negro testimony.” Doesn’t your Communist school textbook say the Yankees had come to free the slaves, not to rape them?
In New Orleans, Cpl. William M. Chinock raped Mary Ellen De Riley, a black woman. He was fined $40 and reduced to private. Captain S. Tyler Reed fired his pistol at William Bird, a black boy, and put out an eye. His sentence? A reprimand. Major General Benjamin Butler, known as the “Beast,” made crooked millions in New Orleans, committed outrageous atrocities and was the only Union commander the Confederacy called a criminal. After the war the people of Massachusetts elected him Governor, proving that, with some noble exceptions, they were already as stupid as they are now.
In occupied Virginia, Union Brig. Gen. Robert H. Milroy wrote his wife that “my will is absolute law – none dare contradict or dispute my slightest word or wish . . . both male and female tremble when they come into my presence . . . I feel a strong disposition to play the tyrant among these traitors.” Wow! They actually trembled, Bob? So then, you must have been something like a god, correct?
In South Carolina, “. . . The free blacks who made up Charleston’s force of firefighters struggled heroically to protect their city and its people.” Free blacks? In South Carolina? Trusted to run the fire department? Hmm!
In Louisiana, Union brigadier general William Dwight wrote: “The scenes of disorder and pillage . . . were disgraceful to civilized war. Houses were entered and all in them destroyed …. Ladies were frightened into delivering their jewels and valuables into the hands of the soldiers by threats of violence toward their husbands. Negro women were ravished in the presence of white women and children.” The Union, forever! Hurrah, boys, hurrah.”
“The home, barn, and store of Samuel Schmulen were looted and burned. . . . Benjamin George, a fifty-year-old slave who lived nearby . . . tried to help his neighbor at least try to save the store. The effort was in vain. Then a group of drunken soldiers surrounded George, demanding to know why he, a black man, would try to assist this white Southerner. They demanded his money, and when George pleaded that he did not have any, one of the soldiers shot him in the right thigh. He survived the wound but was crippled for life.”
The forced evacuation of Atlanta saw “aged grandmothers upon the verge of the grave, tender girls in the first bloom of young womanhood, and little babes not three days old in the arms of sick mothers, thrown out upon the cold charity of the world.” A Yankee reported, “The African Methodist Episcopal Church, built by the colored people with their hard earnings, was also demolished by our soldiers.”
Union war criminals even introduced a criminal scheme later perfected by Chicago gangsters. One of them told a lady he had orders to burn her house, but, “I’ll insure it for fifty dollars.” Selling “insurance” against their own depredations was one extortion technique they used. “You buy my insurance or I breaka you head. Capish?”
In Columbia, South Carolina, Union terrorists stole everything. “Purses, watches, hats, boots, overcoats . . . were taken from victims, white or black.” A witness says: “Commissioned officers, of a rank so high as that of a colonel, were frequently among the most active.” They took the rings from the fingers of a dying woman. They urinated on the beds. They opened graves in search of lucre and left the corpses on the ground.
But here is la pièce de résistance. “Countless women had earrings ripped from bleeding ears.” A foreign diplomat wrote: “I have myself seen a lady with the lobes of both ears torn asunder.” Witnesses saw soldiers torching the Catholic convent. “What do you think of God now?” they shouted to the nuns. “Is not Sherman greater?. . .”
In St. Landry Parish alone, in western Louisiana, there were 1,596 free blacks just before the war. Some owned sugar plantations and slaves. What? Yes, blacks owned slaves. Invading Yankees were shocked. One Connecticut officer was indignant because they dared “call themselves Americans.” The Yankees stole from these free blacks as well as from the whites.
In Nashville, in September, 1862, blue bellies couldn’t find seats in a crowded theater. They ejected blacks from the “Negro gallery,” beat them and threw them down the stairs. After enjoying the performance, they attacked every black they found in the streets. In Gallatin, in May, 1864, they torched two new schools for black children, murdered one freedman and swore they would kill every black in town.
In southeast Georgia there were many free blacks who had accumulated substantial property. Indeed, so had hard working slaves. Union goons stole it all, even threatening black wives. In some cases, black husbands had to rescue them. They stole everything from a black nurse and killed her animals. “Honey, I never knowed a Yankee that wasn’t mean as dirt. . . . What can you spec from a hog but a grunt.”
And finally, in Columbia: “One black woman . . . was raped by seven soldiers of the United States Army. She then had her face forced down into a shallow ditch and was held there until she drowned.” William Gilmore Simms reported how “regiments, in successive relays,” committed “gang rape on scores of slave women.” On the Sumter District plantation, the corpses of eighteen black women were found. Each had been stabbed in the chest with a bayonet. Yankee war criminals had done with them.
Remember, these are just a few examples. You really need to read the book. So what are we looking at? Obviously it is considerably different from the mostly mythical war to “free the slaves” your high school textbook told you about. Notice that it is motivated by an insane, messianic fury. The war criminals are enraged, utterly out of control. About what? Obviously not about slavery. Men outraged by slavery do not rob, rape and murder slaves. And remember that chief war criminal Lincoln was as foul a racist as ever lived, even discomfited other racists, staunchly defended slavery and wanted to ship American blacks “back” to Africa.
No, what drove these Yankee war criminals insane was that the Southerners had dared to come out from under, to say no to the Leviathan state, to total government, to go their own way. They had expressed their freedom through secession. They had invoked their inalienable right to depart.
A debate endures about whether they had the constitutional right to secede. I don’t know why. I can solve the problem for all time. The Founding Fathers seceded from England. In the Declaration of Independence – the nation’s birth certificate – they said that whenever a people find their government oppressive, they have the right to alter or abolish it. To argue that there is no right to secede is to say that only a few years later, these same men, would concoct a document – the Constitution – in which they would deny themselves that blood-bought right.
Indeed, there were a few incipient attempts to secede before Lincoln. No one tried to argue that secession was illegal. One area that seriously considered secession was New England. What? Yes. And all through the Twentieth Century, did not the United States vociferously advance the right to secede for other people? We even fought a couple of wars, and lost thousands of the best of the best, to ensure the independence of South Korea and South Vietnam. Could there possibly be a straight-faced argument that other people deserve independence but we do not?
The Founding Fathers did not create slavery; they inherited 150 years of it. Many Southern slaves were sold to the South by Yankee slavers who no longer had need of them. Slavery was an intolerable stain on the American record. That stain could only be expunged by total abolition. Other countries, including Russia, abolished it without violence. Only ours did so at the cost of some 600,000 men and the destruction of the Union, by men who claimed to revere it and who had owned slaves themselves – and who did all this to keep the South in economic subjection.
But even this is not the core. Remember the strutting Yankee generals who confused themselves with God. Indeed, remember the terrorist assertion that insane mass murderer Sherman actually outranks God. Consider the messianic fury we have mentioned. Something more than mere greed was at work.
It is literally a satanic perversion of Christianity, a perversion pretending to be Christianity, which erupts time and again across the centuries. From time to time people who are smarter than God appear, usurpers who have the temporal power to do the job right. If you disagree with them they burn you at the stake. If you try to get out from under them, they scream you are a rebel. You have betrayed them. They will rob and rape you, they will kill you; they will invade and burn your country to the ground, to persuade you to see it their way. Either do that or die. They are disciples of Satan.
The reason this is so relevant is that this very mentality rules the nation today. That is why the federal juggernaut is so merciless, so confiscatory, so totalitarian. Reconstruction continues, not just of the South; this time of the whole nation, conducted by men consumed by hubris, who believe they can improve upon God.
But Sherman is still dead. God is alive.
There is a word for all this. At the time, the word had not yet been coined. It is “genocide.” Indeed, that is what the UN calls forcibly removing one population and replacing it with another. Genocide was settled Yankee policy imposed from the top.
In Tennessee, pastors were told to declare allegiance to the Union. They refused and were jailed. Episcopal rector George Harris was arrested and told to pray for Lincoln or be hanged. Happily, he was able to escape. The Yankees used his church to store munitions. The Communists would later do something similar to churches in Russia. The Yankees closed every church in Murfreesboro and all the schools in Nashville. In that city, there was an election for circuit court judge and the secessionist won. He was arrested, charged with treason and sent to the penitentiary.
How did the Yankees treat blacks? In Athens, Alabama, they raped a slave girl at the home of Charlotte Hine. At the John Malone plantation, they went to the slave quarters and raped again. A black woman charged a soldier with the crime; his commanding officer refused to prosecute: “I would not arrest one of my men on Negro testimony.” Doesn’t your Communist school textbook say the Yankees had come to free the slaves, not to rape them?
In New Orleans, Cpl. William M. Chinock raped Mary Ellen De Riley, a black woman. He was fined $40 and reduced to private. Captain S. Tyler Reed fired his pistol at William Bird, a black boy, and put out an eye. His sentence? A reprimand. Major General Benjamin Butler, known as the “Beast,” made crooked millions in New Orleans, committed outrageous atrocities and was the only Union commander the Confederacy called a criminal. After the war the people of Massachusetts elected him Governor, proving that, with some noble exceptions, they were already as stupid as they are now.
In occupied Virginia, Union Brig. Gen. Robert H. Milroy wrote his wife that “my will is absolute law – none dare contradict or dispute my slightest word or wish . . . both male and female tremble when they come into my presence . . . I feel a strong disposition to play the tyrant among these traitors.” Wow! They actually trembled, Bob? So then, you must have been something like a god, correct?
In South Carolina, “. . . The free blacks who made up Charleston’s force of firefighters struggled heroically to protect their city and its people.” Free blacks? In South Carolina? Trusted to run the fire department? Hmm!
In Louisiana, Union brigadier general William Dwight wrote: “The scenes of disorder and pillage . . . were disgraceful to civilized war. Houses were entered and all in them destroyed …. Ladies were frightened into delivering their jewels and valuables into the hands of the soldiers by threats of violence toward their husbands. Negro women were ravished in the presence of white women and children.” The Union, forever! Hurrah, boys, hurrah.”
“The home, barn, and store of Samuel Schmulen were looted and burned. . . . Benjamin George, a fifty-year-old slave who lived nearby . . . tried to help his neighbor at least try to save the store. The effort was in vain. Then a group of drunken soldiers surrounded George, demanding to know why he, a black man, would try to assist this white Southerner. They demanded his money, and when George pleaded that he did not have any, one of the soldiers shot him in the right thigh. He survived the wound but was crippled for life.”
The forced evacuation of Atlanta saw “aged grandmothers upon the verge of the grave, tender girls in the first bloom of young womanhood, and little babes not three days old in the arms of sick mothers, thrown out upon the cold charity of the world.” A Yankee reported, “The African Methodist Episcopal Church, built by the colored people with their hard earnings, was also demolished by our soldiers.”
Union war criminals even introduced a criminal scheme later perfected by Chicago gangsters. One of them told a lady he had orders to burn her house, but, “I’ll insure it for fifty dollars.” Selling “insurance” against their own depredations was one extortion technique they used. “You buy my insurance or I breaka you head. Capish?”
In Columbia, South Carolina, Union terrorists stole everything. “Purses, watches, hats, boots, overcoats . . . were taken from victims, white or black.” A witness says: “Commissioned officers, of a rank so high as that of a colonel, were frequently among the most active.” They took the rings from the fingers of a dying woman. They urinated on the beds. They opened graves in search of lucre and left the corpses on the ground.
But here is la pièce de résistance. “Countless women had earrings ripped from bleeding ears.” A foreign diplomat wrote: “I have myself seen a lady with the lobes of both ears torn asunder.” Witnesses saw soldiers torching the Catholic convent. “What do you think of God now?” they shouted to the nuns. “Is not Sherman greater?. . .”
In St. Landry Parish alone, in western Louisiana, there were 1,596 free blacks just before the war. Some owned sugar plantations and slaves. What? Yes, blacks owned slaves. Invading Yankees were shocked. One Connecticut officer was indignant because they dared “call themselves Americans.” The Yankees stole from these free blacks as well as from the whites.
In Nashville, in September, 1862, blue bellies couldn’t find seats in a crowded theater. They ejected blacks from the “Negro gallery,” beat them and threw them down the stairs. After enjoying the performance, they attacked every black they found in the streets. In Gallatin, in May, 1864, they torched two new schools for black children, murdered one freedman and swore they would kill every black in town.
In southeast Georgia there were many free blacks who had accumulated substantial property. Indeed, so had hard working slaves. Union goons stole it all, even threatening black wives. In some cases, black husbands had to rescue them. They stole everything from a black nurse and killed her animals. “Honey, I never knowed a Yankee that wasn’t mean as dirt. . . . What can you spec from a hog but a grunt.”
And finally, in Columbia: “One black woman . . . was raped by seven soldiers of the United States Army. She then had her face forced down into a shallow ditch and was held there until she drowned.” William Gilmore Simms reported how “regiments, in successive relays,” committed “gang rape on scores of slave women.” On the Sumter District plantation, the corpses of eighteen black women were found. Each had been stabbed in the chest with a bayonet. Yankee war criminals had done with them.
Remember, these are just a few examples. You really need to read the book. So what are we looking at? Obviously it is considerably different from the mostly mythical war to “free the slaves” your high school textbook told you about. Notice that it is motivated by an insane, messianic fury. The war criminals are enraged, utterly out of control. About what? Obviously not about slavery. Men outraged by slavery do not rob, rape and murder slaves. And remember that chief war criminal Lincoln was as foul a racist as ever lived, even discomfited other racists, staunchly defended slavery and wanted to ship American blacks “back” to Africa.
No, what drove these Yankee war criminals insane was that the Southerners had dared to come out from under, to say no to the Leviathan state, to total government, to go their own way. They had expressed their freedom through secession. They had invoked their inalienable right to depart.
A debate endures about whether they had the constitutional right to secede. I don’t know why. I can solve the problem for all time. The Founding Fathers seceded from England. In the Declaration of Independence – the nation’s birth certificate – they said that whenever a people find their government oppressive, they have the right to alter or abolish it. To argue that there is no right to secede is to say that only a few years later, these same men, would concoct a document – the Constitution – in which they would deny themselves that blood-bought right.
Indeed, there were a few incipient attempts to secede before Lincoln. No one tried to argue that secession was illegal. One area that seriously considered secession was New England. What? Yes. And all through the Twentieth Century, did not the United States vociferously advance the right to secede for other people? We even fought a couple of wars, and lost thousands of the best of the best, to ensure the independence of South Korea and South Vietnam. Could there possibly be a straight-faced argument that other people deserve independence but we do not?
The Founding Fathers did not create slavery; they inherited 150 years of it. Many Southern slaves were sold to the South by Yankee slavers who no longer had need of them. Slavery was an intolerable stain on the American record. That stain could only be expunged by total abolition. Other countries, including Russia, abolished it without violence. Only ours did so at the cost of some 600,000 men and the destruction of the Union, by men who claimed to revere it and who had owned slaves themselves – and who did all this to keep the South in economic subjection.
But even this is not the core. Remember the strutting Yankee generals who confused themselves with God. Indeed, remember the terrorist assertion that insane mass murderer Sherman actually outranks God. Consider the messianic fury we have mentioned. Something more than mere greed was at work.
It is literally a satanic perversion of Christianity, a perversion pretending to be Christianity, which erupts time and again across the centuries. From time to time people who are smarter than God appear, usurpers who have the temporal power to do the job right. If you disagree with them they burn you at the stake. If you try to get out from under them, they scream you are a rebel. You have betrayed them. They will rob and rape you, they will kill you; they will invade and burn your country to the ground, to persuade you to see it their way. Either do that or die. They are disciples of Satan.
The reason this is so relevant is that this very mentality rules the nation today. That is why the federal juggernaut is so merciless, so confiscatory, so totalitarian. Reconstruction continues, not just of the South; this time of the whole nation, conducted by men consumed by hubris, who believe they can improve upon God.
But Sherman is still dead. God is alive.
Alan Stang was one of Mike Wallace’s original writers at Channel 13 in New York, where he wrote some of the scripts that sent Mike to CBS. Stang has been a radio talk show host himself. In Los Angeles, he went head to head nightly with Larry King, and, according to Arbitron, had almost twice as many listeners. He has been a foreign correspondent. He has written hundreds of feature magazine articles in national magazines and some fifteen books, for which he has won many awards, including a citation from the Pennsylvania House of Representatives for journalistic excellence. One of Stang’s exposés stopped a criminal attempt to seize control of New Mexico, where a gang seized a court house, held a judge hostage and killed a deputy. The scheme was close to success before Stang intervened. Another Stang exposé inspired major reforms in federal labor legislation.
(Reprinted with permission of the author.)
Tiananmen Square Cleared But Not Forgotten
Twenty years ago today the Goddess of Democracy stood in Tiananmen Square and thousands of students and their supporters hoped for a more just and democratic China. Within a week their peaceful protest was brutally put down, with thousands murdered, and families billed for the bullets that killed their loved ones. The square was cleared, but the memory of those that gave their lives will surely not be forgotten in China and around the world. The following video documents those extraordinary days.
Sunlit Uplands Nominated for Catholic New Media Awards
Sunlit Uplands is very pleased to have been nominated in numerous categories of the prestigious Catholic New Media Awards, including "Peoples Choice Blog," "Best Blog by a Man," "Best Written Blog," and "Most Informative Blog."
This is a great opportunity to introduce the blog to many new readers, and we are most grateful to those loyal readers who nominated us.
Those wishing to vote in the Catholic New Media Awards may register at the site. Registration is free and voting begins on June 1, and continues through the entire month.
It is an honor to be nominated, and that honor is shared by a circle of friends, our readers, who have contributed many fine articles, ideas, editorial help, and encouragement over the past year.
This is a great opportunity to introduce the blog to many new readers, and we are most grateful to those loyal readers who nominated us.
Those wishing to vote in the Catholic New Media Awards may register at the site. Registration is free and voting begins on June 1, and continues through the entire month.
It is an honor to be nominated, and that honor is shared by a circle of friends, our readers, who have contributed many fine articles, ideas, editorial help, and encouragement over the past year.
Goodbye, Columbus
The death of a holiday at Brown
How are things elsewhere in the academy? Well, last month the faculty at Brown University voted to rename Columbus Day “Fall Weekend.” What do you make of that? Rather lacking in poetry, “Fall Weekend.” But from the perspective of the tenured elite, that anodyne moniker has the advantage of ideological neutrality. “Fall Weekend” does not commemorate a European explorer. It therefore does not honor the memory of the settlement and cultivation of the American continent and, by implication, withholds approbation of the ultimate fruit of that settling and cultivation: the founding of the United States. As Fox News reported, the Brown faculty acted in response to the clamoring of students, hundreds of whom had petitioned the university “to stop observing Columbus Day, saying Christopher Columbus’s violent treatment of Native Americans he encountered was inconsistent with Brown’s values.”
“Christopher Columbus’s violent treatment of Native Americans,” eh? How about the violent treatment Native Americans meted out to each other (and to Europeans, when they could get their hands on them)? Is that consistent with “Brown’s values”? Need a refresher course about all that? Here is the historian Keith Windschuttle, in his book The Killing of History, on “the widespread practice of human sacrifice which prevailed at the time of the Spanish conquest.”
Human sacrifice was practised by the Aztecs of Mexico, the Mayas of Yucatan, the Incas of Peru, the Tupinambas and the Caytes of Brazil, the natives of Guyana and the Pawnee and Huron tribes of North America. In societies that had developed urban settlements, such as those of the Aztecs and Mayas, victims were usually taken to a central temple and lain across an altar where priests would cut out their hearts and offer them to the gods. In the less technologically developed societies of Guyana and Brazil, victims would either be battered to death in the open and then dismembered, or tied up and burned to death over a fire. The early Europeans were shocked to find that sacrifice was often accompanied by cannibalism. In Tenochtitlan, the remains of sacrificed victims were taken from the temples and distributed among the populace, who would cook the flesh in a stew. In Guyana and Brazil, limbs of victims were skewered and roasted over a spit before being consumed. The Caytes of the Brazilian coast ate the crew of every wrecked Portuguese vessel they found. The American anthropologist Harry Turney-High writes: “At one meal they ate the first Bishop of Bahia, two Canons, the Procurator of the Royal Portuguese Treasury, two pregnant women, and several children.”
Whatever barbarities European explorers visited upon the indigenous populations of the Americas pale in comparison with the barbarities the natives visited upon others. Moreover, the European settlers have this large achievement in the credit column of their moral reckoning: they brought civilization, spiritual as well as material, to the various backward populations they subdued. They also joined together to create a society that grew into the richest, mightiest, and freest country in the history of the world. We mean the United States of America. No, it is not perfect. But for all its faults it remains, as Abraham Lincoln put it, “the last best hope of earth.” Recognizing that, of course, is really what is “inconsistent with Brown’s values.”
Friday, May 29, 2009
Should Homosexuality Be a 'Litmus Test' for High Court?
"Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, contends the position held by Focus on the Family is the equivalent of 'moral retreat.' 'It's not just the damage caused by Focus on the Family's moral retreat on the issue,' Glenn argues. '[That explanation] will be used by homosexual activists and their allies in the media to further marginalize and delegitimize any pro-family organization that continues to take a Biblical standard.'"
From OneNewsNow
By Jim Brown
Conservative political activists are divided over whether homosexual behavior should disqualify a judicial nominee from consideration for the U.S. Supreme Court.
Focus on the Family's judicial analyst, Bruce Hausknecht, recently told liberal blogger Greg Sargent that Focus would not oppose a Supreme Court nominee solely because of their homosexual behavior. "Our concern at the Supreme Court is judicial philosophy," Hausknecht said. "Sexual orientation only becomes an issue if it effects their judging."
Ashley Horne, federal policy analyst at Focus, says just like a nominee's ethnicity and life experience, homosexuality should not be a litmus test.
"Someone's sexual orientation or their preferences, none of these things should come into consideration when we're talking about evaluating someone who will make decisions based on precedent under the law [and who will] practice judicial restraint," Horne explains. "Those are the things we look at for whether or not someone would make a fit justice on the Supreme Court."
Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, contends the position held by Focus on the Family is the equivalent of "moral retreat."
"It's not just the damage caused by Focus on the Family's moral retreat on the issue," Glenn argues. "[That explanation] will be used by homosexual activists and their allies in the media to further marginalize and delegitimize any pro-family organization that continues to take a biblical standard."
Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council agrees with Focus on the Family that homosexuality should not be an absolute litmus test for a Supreme Court nominee. He argues in blog comments that "even Supreme Court nominees deserve some zone of privacy, and...there is at least a hypothetical possibility that somewhere in the country there is a judge who has experienced same-sex attractions, but who also respects judicial restraint and the original intent of the Constitution.
"In the real world, however, the chances of finding a highly-qualified judge who fits both of those descriptions are probably about equal to the chances of a camel passing through the eye of a needle," Sprigg concludes. "So don't hold your breath waiting for social conservatives to 'support' a 'gay' judicial nominee."
Focus on the Family's judicial analyst, Bruce Hausknecht, recently told liberal blogger Greg Sargent that Focus would not oppose a Supreme Court nominee solely because of their homosexual behavior. "Our concern at the Supreme Court is judicial philosophy," Hausknecht said. "Sexual orientation only becomes an issue if it effects their judging."
Ashley Horne, federal policy analyst at Focus, says just like a nominee's ethnicity and life experience, homosexuality should not be a litmus test.
"Someone's sexual orientation or their preferences, none of these things should come into consideration when we're talking about evaluating someone who will make decisions based on precedent under the law [and who will] practice judicial restraint," Horne explains. "Those are the things we look at for whether or not someone would make a fit justice on the Supreme Court."
Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, contends the position held by Focus on the Family is the equivalent of "moral retreat." "It's not just the damage caused by Focus on the Family's moral retreat on the issue," Glenn argues. "[That explanation] will be used by homosexual activists and their allies in the media to further marginalize and delegitimize any pro-family organization that continues to take a biblical standard."
Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council agrees with Focus on the Family that homosexuality should not be an absolute litmus test for a Supreme Court nominee. He argues in blog comments that "even Supreme Court nominees deserve some zone of privacy, and...there is at least a hypothetical possibility that somewhere in the country there is a judge who has experienced same-sex attractions, but who also respects judicial restraint and the original intent of the Constitution.
"In the real world, however, the chances of finding a highly-qualified judge who fits both of those descriptions are probably about equal to the chances of a camel passing through the eye of a needle," Sprigg concludes. "So don't hold your breath waiting for social conservatives to 'support' a 'gay' judicial nominee."
Americans Vote with Wallets to See Obama Birth Certificate
More than $40K in 1st 4 days for 'truth and transparency' billboard campaign
From WorldNetDaily
As WND's billboard campaign to raise visibility of the issues surrounding Barack Obama's constitutional eligibility yesterday continued to attract eager donors, the president had this to say: "I will never hide the truth because it is uncomfortable."
As WND's billboard campaign to raise visibility of the issues surrounding Barack Obama's constitutional eligibility yesterday continued to attract eager donors, the president had this to say: "I will never hide the truth because it is uncomfortable."
"On all of these matters related to the disclosure of sensitive information, I wish I could say that there is a simple formula," Obama said. "But there is not. These are tough calls involving competing concerns, and they require a surgical approach. But the common thread that runs through all of my decisions is simple: we will safeguard what we must to protect the American people, but we will also ensure the accountability and oversight that is the hallmark of our constitutional system. I will never hide the truth because it is uncomfortable. I will deal with Congress and the courts as co-equal branches of government. I will tell the American people what I know and don’t know, and when I release something publicly or keep something secret, I will tell you why."
Joseph Farah, WND's editor and chief executive officer, reacted to Obama's statement in stunned amazement.
"This is a guy who has no trouble turning over sensitive documents from previous administrations, but he still refuses to release for public view something seemingly so innocuous as his own birth certificate," said Farah. "This is a double-standard wide enough to sail the Queen Mary 2 through. Statements like this need to be challenged by a vibrant and free press. And that's what our 'Where's the birth certificate?' billboard campaign is all about."
Read the rest of this entry >>Could Sotomayor Turn Out to be Obama's Souter?
Glenn Beck raised an interesting question about the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor. Given her lack a qualifications for the nation's highest court, and the lack of enthusiasm for her among the hardcore leftists of the Democrat Party, could it be Obama's intention to throw her under the bus? Were Republicans to block her appointment, the Hispanic vote would be even more securely Democrat. Then, once conservative Republicans had spent their firepower on Sotomayor, Obama could appoint an even more radical ideologue more to the liking of his base. When one considers that The One has thrown both his pastor of twenty years and the grandmother who raised him under that bus, it seems plausible.
And here's a story from The Washington Times that should really send chills down the spines of the radical left -- Bill Donohue of the Catholic League says "it looks like she'll be at least a wash with Souter, and maybe we'll even see improvement." Donohue says he will "quietly root for her."
We've had plenty of Republican President's surprised and disappointed by their nominees to the Supreme Court. Could Sonia Sotomayor turn out to be Obama's Souter?
And here's a story from The Washington Times that should really send chills down the spines of the radical left -- Bill Donohue of the Catholic League says "it looks like she'll be at least a wash with Souter, and maybe we'll even see improvement." Donohue says he will "quietly root for her."
We've had plenty of Republican President's surprised and disappointed by their nominees to the Supreme Court. Could Sonia Sotomayor turn out to be Obama's Souter?
Pro-Life Catholic Leader Roots for Sotomayor
From The Washington Times
By Victor MortonA prominent pro-life Catholic says he will be quietly rooting for Judge Sonia Sotomayor to be confirmed to the Supreme Court and said she may even be an improvement over retiring Justice David H. Souter - as both sides of the abortion issue try to discern her position.
William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, said Judge Sotomayor's record has more bright spots than conservative Catholics can reasonably expect to get from an appointee of President Obama.
"If the Republicans are smart, they would not fight this one," he told The Washington Times in an interview Thursday.
"I wish I knew more about her. But from what we know, it looks like she'll be at least a wash with Souter, and maybe we'll even see improvement."
Judge Sotomayor's record on abortion-related cases is thin and tangential. She ruled on the right of pro-life protesters to sue on charges of police brutality and on a challenge to the "Mexico City policy," which prevented U.S. government funds from going to aid organizations that counsel for or provide abortions.
The White House said that Mr. Obama did not specifically ask her about her views on the issue but that the president is confident she agrees with him on the fundamental constitutional issues.
But pro-choice groups are uncertain about Judge Sotomayor, and this week they called on senators to ask her directly how she would rule on Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that established a constitutional right to an abortion.
"We encourage the Senate Judiciary Committee to engage Judge Sotomayor and any future nominees to the Court on their commitment to the principles of Roe v. Wade," said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights. "Anything less threatens not only a woman's constitutional rights, but her life and health."
Pro-life groups also said senators should press for answers.
"We believe it is critical that senators thoroughly explore whether Judge Sotomayor believes that Supreme Court justices have the right to override the decisions of elected lawmakers on such issues as partial-birth abortion, tax funding of abortion and parental notification for abortion," said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee.
In the protester case, she said the pro-lifers had a right to have their police-brutality claims adjudicated by a jury rather than be summarily dismissed.
In the 2002 Mexico City policy case, Judge Sotomayor rejected claims from the Center for Reproductive Rights and its attorneys, based on both appeals court and Supreme Court precedent.
Although the decision didn't deal with the fundamental constitutional issue of abortion rights, she said in the Mexico City case that the "Supreme Court has made clear that the government is free to favor the anti-abortion position over the pro-choice position, and can do so with public funds."
Mr. Obama ended the Mexico City policy soon after taking office this year.
At the White House, press secretary Robert Gibbs said Mr. Obama did not ask Judge Sotomayor about her views on the legality of abortion but asked her enough to be comfortable that she sees the constitutional issues the same way he does. Mr. Obama is pro-choice.
"I think he feels comfortable in asking her to describe the way she interprets, to describe her views on that. He felt comfortable that they shared a philosophy on that interpretation," Mr. Gibbs said.
He said Mr. Obama and Judge Sotomayor discussed both unenumerated rights and what constitutes settled law.
In 2005, President George W. Bush found himself having to defend his own Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers, against complaints from conservatives and pro-life activists who said she lacked a paper trail to prove her conservative credentials.
Miss Miers eventually withdrew her nomination.
Mr. Donohue was not alone among conservative Catholics in calling for pro-lifers to hold their fire.
"My concern is that the people in Obama's on-deck circle are much worse," said Steve Dillard, an adviser to the 2008 presidential campaign of Mike Huckabee and founder of the site Catholics Against Rudy. He called Judge Sotomayor "the best of the worst."
"Do you really want to win this battle only to get Diane Wood?" said Mr. Dillard, a lawyer and former clerk at the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where Judge Wood, whom he called a brilliant radical, sits.
Beyond abortion, Mr. Donohue said, he saw in Judge Sotomayor's record a history of backing religious liberty claims.
"She said it was wrong to prohibit a menorah on public ground; I like that. She talks about the religious rights of prisoners; I like that too," he said.
Mr. Donohue also mentioned a more personal angle: his identification with New York's Puerto Rican community, from which Judge Sotomayor comes. He mentioned leading the Puerto Rican Day Parade at St. Lucy's Catholic Church in Spanish Harlem and taking "groups of 15, 16 kids to Yankee Stadium."
"All these things put together, I'm gonna quietly root for her," said Mr. Donohue, who has never met the nominee.
Mr. Donohue also suggested that opposing Judge Sotomayor's confirmation would not be wise in the short term, in terms of who the alternative nominee might be.
"I am looking at this pool of likely competitors, and, far and away, Sotomayor is the best candidate," he said, adding that making too big a political fight over the Sotomayor pick "might look like we have an agenda that will not look good to many in the Latino community."
Group Urges IRS Review of Liberty Tax Exemption
From OneNewsNow
The group Americans United for Separation of Church and State wants the Internal Revenue Service to review Liberty University's tax-exempt status because the Christian school revoked its recognition of a student-run Democratic club.
The group Americans United for Separation of Church and State wants the Internal Revenue Service to review Liberty University's tax-exempt status because the Christian school revoked its recognition of a student-run Democratic club.Americans United made the request in a letter to the IRS, arguing that Liberty's recognition of a Republican club offers GOP candidates support that is not available to Democratic candidates.
Read the rest of this entry >>
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Homosexuals More Likely to Molest Kids, Study Reports
From Baptist Press
By Ken Walker
Read the rest of this entry >>By Ken Walker
A social researcher who has studied sexual behavior for 24 years believes the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) has sound reasons for maintaining its prohibition against gay scoutmasters.
A homosexual cannot automatically be considered a child molester, said Judith Reisman, president of the Institute for Media Education in suburban Louisville, Ky.
But with 17-24 percent of boys being abused by age 18, nearly as many as the 25 percent of girls, there is cause for concern, she said.
Since heterosexuals outnumber the homosexual population about 44 to 1, as a group the incidence of homosexuals molesting children is up to 40 times greater than heterosexuals, she said.
"You're looking at a much higher rate of abuse," said Reisman, a former university research professor who recently completed a study titled, "Crafting Gay Children." "The Department of Justice just released data and the rate of abuse are off the charts."
BSA's policy has been the subject of constant attacks from gay activists, who have convinced a number of school boards to oust the Scouts from board property.
In a story that aired Apr. 1 on CBS, "60 Minutes" also questioned its validity. After California congressman Dana Rohrabacher called the prohibition common sense, reporter Lesley Stahl remarked that common sense turns out to be a myth.
According to the FBI and several clinical studies published in reputable journals, gay men aren't more likely to sexually abuse boys, she said.
"In fact, the largest database of child molesters in the country shows that those who molest boys are over three times more likely to be heterosexual in their adult relationships than homosexual," she said.
But Reisman points to figures from a 1991 population study by the U.S. Department of Commerce.
It showed that 8 million girls were abused by age 18 by heterosexual men, a ratio of 1 victim to 11 adult men. However, 6-8 million boys were abused by age 18 by 1-2 million adult homosexuals, a ratio of 3-5 victims for every gay adult.
Questioned about Reisman's claims, CBS stuck by its story.
Spokesman Kevin Tedesco said "60 Minutes" staffers spoke with leading sources of information on child molestation, including the FBI, American Psychological Association and several clinical researchers.
The database was assembled by psychologist Dr. Gene Able, director of the Behavioral Sciences Institute in Atlanta, he added.
However, Reisman also cites a past study by Able to bolster her contention that BSA has reason to fear admitting homosexuals to the scoutmaster ranks. It found that 150 boys are abused by one male homosexual offender, compared to 19.8 girls by heterosexual offenders.
In a study published in 1987 in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Able said homosexuals sexually molest young boys with an incidence five times greater than the molestation of girls. (Calls to Able seeking further comment were not returned.)
"We looked at the leading gay travel guide," Reisman said of her research. "Forty-seven percent of the 139 nations they talked about identified places to find boys. The average heterosexual travel guide is not concerned with finding children."
Crime statistics also pose concerns. Figures released last summer by the Justice Department reveal that adults are not the primary victims of sexual assault, she said.
They showed that 67 percent of all reported sex abuse victims are children and 64 percent of forcible sodomy victims are boys under 12.
Obama Names Theology Professor, Campaign Donor as Holy See Ambassador
An associate professor will be the next US Ambassador to the Vatican -- I guess the graduate assistants were busy with more important matters. But being Cuban-American, he does complement the Sotomayor-Puerto Rican-American pick in Obama's identity politics/Hispanic strategy. Now he just needs to find a Mexican-American to head the US Immigration and Naturalization Service, and all the Latino bases will be covered.
From Catholic World NewsPresident Barack Obama has nominated Miguel Diaz, associate professor of theology at St. John's University and the College of Saint Benedict in Minnesota, as US ambassador to the Holy See. The author of On Being Human: U.S. Hispanic and Rahnerian Perspectives, Diaz is a board member of the Catholic Theological Society of America.
Diaz-- who supported the nomination of former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as secretary of Health and Human Services, despite her record on abortion-- donated $1,000 to the Obama Victory Fund in September 2008.
Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.
- Theology professor nominated to be U.S. ambassador to the Holy See (College of Saint Benedict/Saint John’s University)
- Hispanic theologian chosen for Vatican ambassador (AP)
- 26 prominent Catholics back Sebelius pick (National Catholic Reporter)
- Archbishop Naumann laments Sebelius appointment, warns of threat to Catholic hospitals (CWN, Mar 5)
- Federal Election Commission
Romney and Obama Advisor Urges Abolition of Government Recognition of Marriage
By Gary Glenn
President, American Family Association of Michigan
Doug Kmiec, the Obama-supporting law professor who today called for abolition of government recognition of marriage between one man and one woman was -- immediately before he endorsed Obama -- co-chair of the Romney for President Advisory Committee on the Constitution and the Courts. His call to deconstruct legal recognition and thus formal social endorsement and support for one-man, one-woman marriage should come as no surprise, given his support for first a Republican and then a Democratic presidential candidate whose vocal support for the homosexual agenda and opposition to constitutionally securing the definition of traditional marriage have at various times during their political careers been identical.
Romney -- under no court order to do so, but solely at his own initiative via executive order -- implemented the actual practice of so-called homosexual "marriage" in Massachusetts, ordering a revision of the state's marriage licenses to remove reference to a "husband" and "wife" and then ordering magistrates to either issue them to homosexual couples or resign. Obama promises, by repealing the federal Defense of Marriage Act, to expand nationwide what Romney started in Massachusetts.
It's no surprise that a lawyer who endorsed Obama would propose abolishing legal recognition of marriage as a unique social ideal between a man and a woman. It should open some eyes that the very same man was chosen by Mitt Romney to be his chief advisor on issues regarding the Constitution and the courts, a post that reasonably could have led to a similar position in the Romney Administration, including advising the president on judicial appointments and social policy, had Romney been elected.
Catholic Obama Campaign Adviser Wants to Replace All Legal ‘Marriages’ with ‘Civil Licenses'
From CNSNews.com
By Pete Winn
A top constitutional law professor who served as a surrogate for then-presidential candidate Barack Obama told CNSNews.com that he would like to see “marriage” replaced in the legal sense with a neutral “civil license.”
“As awkward as it may be, I think the way to untie the state from this problem is to create a new terminology that they would apply to everyone--straight or gay-call it a ‘civil license,’ said Douglas Kmiec, a law professor at Pepperdine University and author of “Can a Catholic Support Him?’
“The net effect of that, would be to turn over--quite appropriately, it seems to me, the concept of marriage to churches and a church understanding,” Kmiec said.
Kmiec said that one of the things that motivated the passage of California’s Proposition 8, which defines marriage as between one man and one woman, “was a genuine concern on the part of religious believers--including myself--that the previous California ruling was not addressing what that would mean for religious practice.”
“After the state of California acknowledged same-sex marriage, would that mean, for example, that churches like the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church, which don’t acknowledge those relationships as a marriage by virtue of their scriptural and theological teaching--would they be subject to penalty? Would they lose public benefits? Would they be subject to lawsuits based upon some theory of discrimination?”
Kmiec said his idea would address those questions.
“One of the possible outcomes that would be good in this case, would be if the state got out of the marriage business, did their licensing under a different name--which, of course, would satisfy the state’s interests for purposes of distribution of taxation and property, but then the question of who can and cannot be married would be entirely determined in your voluntarily chosen faith community.
“We know that religions differ as to how they see that question,” Kmiec said. “But it seems to me that would be a nice way to reaffirm the significance of marriage as a religious concept--because that is a much fuller concept than just civil marriage.”
"Because, as we all know, from a standpoint of religious belief, the couple is not just making a promise to themselves, or even to their local community or their state, but they are making a covenant between themselves and their Creator. That’s something that is differently expressed in different religious traditions, but we shouldn’t lose the value of that, and this is an opportunity to heighten the value of that in order to help the State of California out of the corner it has worked itself into.”
But Princeton University law professor Robert George, who is also a top constitutional scholar--and a Catholic academic--said that Kmiec’s idea would do away with the public role of marriage--and banish it to the religious “ghetto.”
“That is a terrible idea,” George said. “The idea that the state would abandon its concern for the institution of marriage, that it would treat marriage as a purely religious matter, is I think a very bad one.”
Marriage is more than merely a religious institution, George told CNSNews.com.
"It’s not like baptisms and bar mitzvahs,” he said. “It has profound social significance, public significance; it’s a pre-political institution. It exists even apart from religion, even apart from polities. It’s the coming together of a husband and wife, creating the institution of family in which children are nurtured.”
“The family is the original and best Department of Health, Education and Welfare,” George said.
“No government agency can ever surpass it, ever has surpassed it,” he added. “Governments and economies and systems of law all rely upon the family to produce something they need, but that they themselves cannot produce, and that is, basically honest, decent, law abiding people of goodwill--citizens--who can take their rightful place in society.
“Family is built on marriage, and government--the state--has a profound interest in the integrity and well-being of marriage, and to write it off as if it were a purely a religiously significant action and not an institution and action that has a profound public significance, would be a terrible mistake,” George said.
“I don’t know where Professor Kmiec is getting his idea, but it’s a very, very bad one.”
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
America's Mugabe and Dealergate
Civilized people have been shocked to see President Mugabe of Zimbabwe and his partisan thugs murder the political opposition, threaten and beat journalists, and drive white farmers off their own land. But that kind of political thuggery may not be quite so foreign as many think. In what is coming to be known as "dealergate," many are beginning to suspect that anti-Obama political contributions played a role in which Chyrsler dealers have been closed. The Doug Ross@Journal blog reports that " that many of the Chrysler dealers on the closing list were heavy Republican donors. An attorney who deposed Chrysler's president has said "It became clear to us that Chrysler does not see the wisdom of terminating 25 percent of its dealers... It really wasn't Chrysler's decision. They are under enormous pressure from the President's automotive task force."
Doug Ross provides the following partial list of closed Chrysler dealers; virtually all are significant Republican donors. In every case, Chrysler dealers who have been donors to Obama remain open and are benefiting from those whose businesses have been destroyed.
• Vernon G. Buchanan: $147,450 to GOP candidates and organizations
• Wallace D. Alley and Family: $4,500 to GOP.
• Robert Archer: $4,600 to GOP and conservative causes.
• Homer S. Higginbotham and Family: $2950 to GOP.
• James Auffenberg and Family: $28,000 to GOP; $6,000 to one Democrat candidate.
• Michael Maroone and Family: $60,000 to GOP; $8,500 to two Democrat candidates.
• Jerome Fader: $6,500 to Democrats; $2,500 to Independent Joe Lieberman.
• Stephen Fay and Family: $13,500 to GOP.
• William Numrich: $20,000 to GOP.
• Robert Carver: $10,000 to Democrats including $1,950 to Hillary Clinton, nothing to Barack Obama.
• Robert and Linda Rohrman: $24,000 to GOP.• Frank Boucher, Jr. and Family: $18,000 to GOP, $1,000 to one Democrat candidate.
• Scott Bossier: $4,300 to GOP.
• Todd Reardon: $17,000 to GOP; $2,000 to one Democrat candidate.
• Russ Darrow and Family: $78,000 to GOP.
• Bradford Deery and Family: $24,700 to GOP.
• Charles Gabus and Family: $30,000 to GOP.
• Brian Smith: $15,500 to GOP.
• Michael Schlossman: $14,000 to GOP; $14,000 to three Democrats ($12,500 to Sen. Russ Feingold).
• Don Hill: $11,000 to GOP; $12,800 to conservative incumbent Rep. Heath Shuler.
• Don Miller: $2,000 to GOP; $1,000 to Feingold.• Eddie Cordes: $2,150 to GOP.
• Robert Edwards: $1,100 to GOP.
• James Crowley: $19,100 to GOP.
• Stanley Graff: $2,200 to John Edwards (2008 Presidential Run); $500 to GOP.
• John Stewart: $10,500 to GOP.
• John Fitzgerald and Family: $4,600 to John McCain (2008); $2,000 to Hillary Clinton (2008); nothing to Barack Obama.
• William Churchill and Family: $3,500 to GOP.
• Thomas Ganley: $9.450 to GOP.
• Gary Miller: $20,000 to GOP.
• Kevin and Gene Beltz: $18,500 to GOP.
• Arthur Grayson: $14,000 to GOP.
• Eric Grubbs and Family: $26,000 to GOP.
• Michael Leep and Family: $19,500 to GOP; $4,800 to three Democrats including Sen. Evan Bayh.
• Harry Green, Jr.: $10,000 to GOP.
• Ronald Hoover: $5,250 to GOP.
• Ray Huffines and Family: $18,500 to GOP.
• John O. Stevenson: $1,500 to GOP.
• James Marsh: $8,200 to GOP.
• Max Pearson and Family: $112,000 to GOP.
America's Mugabe is more polished, but no less determined to kick aside the rule of law in imposing his new socialist order. But at least our journalists have no fear of abduction, beatings, and murder; they are his willing accomplices.
We will be looking into this story more deeply in the weeks ahead. We would welcome any information from Chrysler dealers.
We will be looking into this story more deeply in the weeks ahead. We would welcome any information from Chrysler dealers.
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