Were Confederate soldiers terrorists?

If one reads much,  it is not infrequent to encounter ill-reasoned idiocy, but I must admit that this piece takes the cake.  To liken Confederate soldiers to Muslim terrorists is incomprehensible.  I might expect something like this from the National Enquirer perhaps, but CNN?  Do they have an editorial board over there?

If you can find a less cogent, less well reasoned piece by any major network or news organization, please let me know.  Aside from a complete lack of historical perspective regarding the civil war, the analogies this man uses hold about as much water as a sieve.

Were Confederate soldiers terrorists? – CNN.com.

Civil War, Civil Rights, and the Death of the Republic I

My mother recently sent me up several boxes of mementos from my childhood and young adulthood.  There were photos, concert tickets, yearbooks, wooden nickels and report cards.

My children, ages 15 and 18 took great pleasure in reading my teachers remarks regarding my behavior.  Words like undisciplined and troublemaker abounded.  Yet they appeared along with a few positive kernels such as my love for reading.  As I gazed at the photos and yearbook of my senior year in high school, I was struck by the hopefulness of my generation.  We had weathered the tumultuous sixties and not only survived, but had watched the promise of civil rights, not complete its fulfillment, but certainly move much further down the road.  We had hope for peace, love, and a better world, and we decried the “establishment.”

I knew four of my great-grandparents, and each of them had fathers that fought in the Civil War, two for the north, and two for the south.  Aside from the thirteenth amendment that freed the slaves, that war ended all discussion of where the true governmental power lay in this country… and that was Washington, D.C.

The Civil War was not so much about slavery as it was about disunion, about the right of States to be self-determinate, to be masters of their own political allegiance.  Slavery was the tinderbox that set afire the republican barn built by the founders.

My memories, my families collective memories span the time period of the last one hundred and fifty years of this country.  We have watched as the ravage of the civil war eventually led to the civil rights movement, and we are pleased by that.  After all, that is the promise of the Declaration of Independence, that “all men are created equal”.  A number of my forbears fought, and bled in the Revolution dedicated to the ideals expressed in that document.  This promise to “all men” is an important promise, and it is a great thing that it has been more fully realized.  The civil war gave us that gift, but it gave us much more as well.  Much more than for which we could have hoped or perhaps, even feared.

The war gave us the consolidation of Federal power at the expense of the states power, and that is a fearful thing.

I will continue this ramble next week.

Perspective: The South is rising again (OneNewsNow.com)

The debate regarding the role of the states and the federal government in our country has a long history.  It certainly was a prevalent topic during the writing of our current constitution.   The debate continues still.  This article is a must read

Perspective: The South is rising again (OneNewsNow.com).

Politics Cannot Be Fixed

1913 was a watershed year for the United States of America.  Since 1813,  we had seen tremendous economic and social gain.  The average worker in the USA was living at a level that was simply inconceivable a mere 100 years before.  America was a beacon of freedom and possibilities for the entire world.  Life was good for most Americans, and there was hope always,  for a better future, but the ills were there, and well meaning folks of all stripes came to believe that government might be the vehicle to cure these ills.

Enter the progressive party.  Formed by Teddy Roosevelt in 1912, the wheels were set in motion for a line of  Presidents and political ideology that championed the use of government as a well meaning vehicle to effect social and economic change.  To do this, however requires money, and in 1913 the income tax was born, and the Federal Reserve Bank was created.  With the income tax, a revenue stream was created, and with the Federal Reserve Bank, and their ability to “provide liquidity” to the masters of a burgeoning economic powerhouse, the wheels were set in motion for a continued growth of government over the next century.

This article suggests that as government has grown, and has become more and more an arbiter in society of which businesses succeed and which businesses fail, so has grown special interest politics.  It also implies that political polarization is a natural outgrowth of  Big Government.

An interesting article from the Mises Institute, and a worthy read.

Politics Cannot Be Fixed – D.W. MacKenzie – Mises Institute.

Reflections on the 17th Amendment: State Sovereignty, a Necessary Adjunct to Liberty

When this nation was founded under the document that we call our Constitution, much debate surrounded the place of the central government in the lives of the people.    The Anti-federalists (true federalists, mind you, that wanted a severely limited central government)  had the notion that small was better, and that local government, i.e. State government,  would be more responsive to the needs, wants and values of the people.  They had intimate experience with a government “far away,” and feared the potential of tyranny  in such government.

Yet as much as the founders feared tyranny, they feared also a “too democratic government.”  Much was made of the potential for  “mobocracy,” and the resulting possibility of  violent swings of temper within a necessarily factionalized electorate.

The states, some already having over 150 years experience in the minding of their own affairs, feared a loss of their own sovereignty should the new and national constitution be ratified.  After all, who could possibly be a better arbiter of the people’s wishes, and who could more completely recognize the needs of the people than the states themselves?

Thus the idea of a bicameral legislature was born.  The Congress, representing the interests of the people or “mob”, and the Senate, representing the interests of the state within the legislative framework.   Two provisions of the Senate’s body helped fully realize the State’s interest: First, there would be equal representation of each state within the body by the election of two senators from each of the several states.  Second, the Senators would be elected not by the people, but by the legislatures of the several states themselves.

As The Farmer remarked in The Philadelphia Independent Gazeteer, on 4/15/88:

…advocates of the new system, take as their strong ground the election of senators by the state legislatures, and the special representation of the states in the federal senate, to prove that internal sovereignty still remains with the States.

It must be remarked here that The Farmer did not believe the truth of this argument,  but is stating that this argument was proffered by the Federalists that favored  ratification of the constitution.  The argument of the Senate as a protector of state sovereignty was, however accepted by many anti-federalists.

Robert Yates another Anti-Federalist  writing under the pseudonym Brutus in Anti-Federalist # 63 remarks about  Senators in the proposed constitution:

The Senators represent the states, as bodies politic, sovereign to certain purposes. The states being sovereign and independent, are all considered equal, each with the other in the senate. In this we are governed solely by the ideal equalities of sovereignties; the federal and state governments forming one whole, and the state governments an essential part, which ought always to be kept distinctly in view, and preserved. I feel more disposed, on reflection, to acquiesce in making them the basis of the senate, and thereby to make it the interest and duty of the senators to preserve distinct, and to perpetuate the respective, sovereignties they shall represent. . . .

Regardless of whether or not the Senate could or could not protect the sovereignty of the states within the federal framework, it is clear from just these two citations, that within the clockwork of the proposed Constitution, the Sovereignty of the States was thought by all a necessary adjunct to liberty.

On the Duty of Civil Disobedience Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau wrote this piece in 1849 and the concepts he discusses are perhaps more important now than they were when he wrote them.  Take the time to read this essay from an American that lived over 150 years ago.

On the Duty of Civil Disobedience Henry David Thoreau.

Tea Parties, Third Parties and the Republican Party

I have read that over 50 percent of the people in this country today are registered as independents.  The reasons for this are many.  The Tea Party crowd, made up primarily of conservative Americans will be an important part of the electoral equation come 2012.  Will the Republicans be able to garner their support?  This article suggests that they may not.

Big Government » Blog Archive » Tea Parties, Third Parties and the Republican Party.

The 10th Amendment Movement

The tenth ammendment of the constitution states that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Our federal government’s march towards a greater centralization of power in Washington, D.C., are driving the consideration of of nullification among many of America’s citizenry.  The link below will take you to a site that can inform you of the nationwide attempts of the states to seek a stop to this intrusive behavior of our central government.

I encourage you to take a look.

Tenth Amendment Center |  The 10th Amendment Movement.

The Strange Concensus on Obama’s Nobel Acceptance Speech

If you paid any attention to Obama’s Nobel address, it was an homage to America’s military power in the world, and a strong argument for the necessity of war.  I offer you a couple of quotes below:

I come here with an acute sense of the cost of armed conflict – filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.

There will be times when nations – acting individually or in concert – will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.

…the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace.

I believe that force can be justified on humanitarian grounds,
And this is just a sampling.  During the War in Vietnam there were Hawks and Doves…  No more.   There are only Republicrats.   I mean, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Peggy Noonan, all loved the Democratic President’s speech…. Whoa!

I have made the remark that Liberty and Empire are mutually antagonistic.  Empire is by definition authoritarian.  Liberty in this country will only survive if Americans can come to their senses., recognize the advancing police state, our State of war, and seek a return to the limited government that made this country once a beacon to the rest of the world.  Government, my readers, is not our friend. As Thomas Paine  wrote in Common Sense:  “Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.”

I believe that we are leaning towards the latter.  Follow the link below to a most perspicacious article discussing the speech.  It is worth the read.

Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

My Problem with the Republicans

I recently had a comment in the  About Me page of  this blog regarding the statement that I hoped for “the formation of a political party that can speak to something other than the extremes.”   I was asked to “Define extremes” and relate that definition to the Republican Party.  I made several extensive, yet general remarks that were unsatisfactory to my reader.  I will attempt to rectify that here.

The title of this blog should not be construed to mean that I only have a problem with Republicans.  I don’t like the Democrats either.  They are, both of them, Republicrats.  But I will leave the Democrats for another day in a “My Problem with the Democrats” post.

First let me describe my fundamental political/economic beliefs.

• I am a capitalist. I believe that capitalism meets best what Thomas Hobbes in The Leviathan described as man’s appetitive nature. Capitalism has made us the wealthiest  country in the world.
• I believe in Free Markets
• I believe that a man, or woman, should be able to keep the fruits of their labor.   I believe in low taxes.
• I believe in what the founders of this country described as Republican government, and that this government derives its power from the consent of the governed.
• I believe in limited government, for as Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense, Government is, at best, a necessary evil.
• I believe that the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness extends to All citizens.
• I believe in the separation of Church and State
• I believe that government interests are:
  • the protection of myself and my property.
  • Education (As a people, we have a great interest in an informed and educated citizenry, and a poor child should have the same educational opportunity as does a child born to wealth).
  • Infrastructure i.e. : roads, bridges, ports.  (this enables business growth… read job growth)
  • Creating an environment where business can prosper (limited and enforceable regulation)
• I believe that communities are best suited to care for the indigent and infirm (read this as as non-redistributive).
• I believe in a small and effective standing army.  (The founders believed, and we have proven this in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, that standing armies lead to adventurism)

In a nutshell, these are my beliefs.  Now, If I look at the Republican Party Platform, my ideology is quite similar.  However, what one says is very often quite different from what one does, and I am not interested in party platitudes.  I would state that the actions of a party are those that denote it.

1. Limited Government:  The republicans have supported the expansion of government for the last forty or fifty years.  Witness most recently the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act. Republicans voted overwhelmingly for this (207-19) and  George Jr. signed it into law.  The expected costs over ten years are 534 Billion to the taxpayer.  This ain’t small potatoes.
2. Low Taxes:  The Democrats are a Tax and Spend party.  The Republicans are a Don’t tax, but still spend party.
3. Free Markets:  one example… Milk pricing supports.
4. The Republicans believe in a unique set of individual rights… as long as you are not a gay or lesbian, black or hispanic.  Their belief in individual rights seems to extend only to people like themselves…  Those that have the same moral code.  If you doubt this, listen to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, self appointed Republican spokesmen.  Or take a look at the Republican National Convention.  You will see a sea of white faces.  The Republican’s umbrella is neither large nor inclusive, at least not at the national level.
5. In their platform, under “The Armed Forces Protect and Defend our Democracy”  they say they are “committed to preserving our national strength while working to extend peace, freedom and human rights throughout the world.”    How about working on peace, freedom and human rights here at home?  The extension of force to bring about democracy elsewhere is a bad idea… it doesn’t work, and it is terribly expensive in terms of money, lives, and our reputation throughout the world, witness recent examples Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.
6. Witness the Patriot Act…  In his book 1984 George Orwell called this Newspeak, where language has no bearing on reality (war becomes peace… hate becomes love).   The Patriot Act gives Big Brother the right to spy on you…  This is patriotic?   This extends our personal liberty?  Republicans voted overwhelmingly for this act, and George Jr. signed off on it.
7. TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program)… The largest transfer of wealth in government history.  God Bless the Republicans on this one, except for then President Bush, who signed the bill into law.

So I cannot sleep with the Republicans.  It is easy to say that one believes in something.  It is much more difficult to live by those principles.   I could go on and on with this.  Examples of the National Republican Party’s failure to adhere to its basic beliefs are endless.  They talk the talk, but they do not walk the walk.  That is my problem with the Republican Party.