The Legacy of Abraham Lincoln (Photoshop)

What a Friggin' Hero

A Great Film About Abraham Lincoln, Passed Over for an Academy Award?

I of course, refer to the film, "Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter."  No, it's not really historically accurate, but not much less so than Spielberg's "Lincoln."

As a great and glorious example of moral rectitude, Lincoln was a fraud.  When I have time, I will tell you all facts about the Emancipation Proclamation that most of you never learned in school...like the fact that it didn't free a single slave -- nor was it intended to.  Perhaps our Second Coming of Lincoln will issue a Confiscation Proclamation, ending gun ownership.  But that would be unconstitutional...just like the first proclamation.  However, that is discussion for another time.

Meanwhile, when you go to the movies, pass up "Lincoln."  It is total B.S.  Believing in myths and feel-good but false history does no one any good.

In fact, "feel-good" history is often a ruse by which to justify modern politics in the here and now.  Carl Sandburg's  biography of Lincoln, written in the 1930's, was a disguised justification for FDR's New Deal.  Spielberg's "Lincoln" is presented for the same purpose, to justify Obama's overreach and suspension of the Constitution.  The more you buy in to Hollywood's phony Lincoln, the less willing you will become to oppose Obama, whose policies are probably less extreme than those of Old Abe.

So you think Old Abe was a hero, even though he started a war without the approval of Congress, arrested and imprisoned thousands of US citizens without charges or trial, illegally suspended Habeas Corpus, ordered the arrest of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for ruling it unconstitutional, shut down hundreds of newspapers who disagreed with his policies, acquiesced in the illegal and unconstitutional deportation of an Ohio congressman (for opposing him), and issued a sweeping proclamation without the participation or agreement of Congress.

Further, he ordered Union troops to burn Southern universities, private homes and farms, to destroy livestock and confiscate medicines, and to use captured Confederate officers as human shields against artillery.  His glorious Yankees raped Southern black women, used Southern black men for target practice, and kidnapped others to be pressed into labor for the Union Army.  Other Northern troops stole private property from private homes, carrying off the silverware and candlesticks.  Think of that the next time you hear "Battle Hymn of the Republic."

Lincoln was a dictator; there is absolutely nothing about the man that can be called "American."  He operated completely outside of the law and the Constitution and managed to kill more Americans than any foreign despot ever could.  His time in office was a reign of terror, not enlightenment, not justice, not heroism and certainly not morality.

As for the weepy and wimpy Lincoln of Spielberg's propaganda, he did not exist.  Lincoln despised black people, considered them to be an inferior race that should be deported to Africa or Central America.  His opposition to slavery in the territories was for economic and racial reasons, not equality.

Lincoln's war on the South was all about preventing secession, not about emancipation.  The Northern army was called "the Union Army," not "the Abolition Army," for a reason.  This fact becomes more pertinent and important every day, now that tens of thousands of Americans in every state in the Union have petitioned Obama for the right to peacefully secede from the socialist tyranny now under construction.  When states actually do begin to secede once again, Obama will undoubtedly try to stop them by brute force...just like Lincoln did.  And if you buy into the Lincoln myth, how could you possibly oppose him?

Aha, now you see the reason for this propaganda.  You are being trained to embrace tyranny as great patriotism, and Obama as the reincarnation of Abraham Lincoln.

Sean Hannity Warns of Secession Due To Radicalized Federal Government

Sean Hannity tends to be too establishment for me, but even he is seeing the writing on the wall...and it spells "Secession."

Hannity has stated that he foresees states leaving the union "if the federal government continues its 'radicalized, abusive pattern.'"  He said:

People that are fed up with a power hungry, radicalized, abusive federal government intruding into every aspect of our lives,” Hannity continued. “People are going to say they’re fed up, and states are going to want more liberty and more freedom. They’re not going to want to tax their citizens to death anymore. If this pattern continues and gets worse and worse and worse, I can see at some point the states saying, "Forget it. I don’t want to be a part of this union anymore."

And this:

Hannity rejected the idea that secession is necessarily a “radical concept,” arguing that the Declaration of Independence is itself a “radical document.”

“There is a tipping point in all of these debates,” he said. “Now, politically speaking, that means people are going to be thrown out of office, I hope. But if not, there are going to be people in more conservative states that have had enough. I can see a state like Utah saying, ‘Enough is enough,’ [and] a state like Texas saying, ‘Enough is enough.’ I absolutely can.”

Read more and watch a video of Hannity's comments at the Daily Caller, here.

Texas v White Did Not Settle the Issue of Secession

American Thinker has an article today that analyzes the legal case of Texas v (versus) White (1869).  The case has often been cited as proof that the Supreme Court declared secession to be unconstitutional, and that should settle the matter for all time.

Not so fast.  Texas v White wasn't even about secession.  Cory Genelin, writing for American Thinker, concludes:

In summary, Texas v. White, even if given the utmost respect, and considered binding precedent, does not stand for the proposition that no state may ever break its bonds with the Federal Government of the United States. At the same time, if it is considered the final word on the Federal Government's right to prohibit a state from seceding, then that right is far from established.

The article is a bit long and legalistic, but is a worthy source for any Southern scholars who stockpile intellectual ammo for fighting the Northern Myth.

Read it all here.

Six Year Old Suspended For Pointing Finger and Saying "Pow!"

The Left is insane.  They are completely bonkers, nuts, crazy and weird.

The Washington Compost has the story:

The parents of a 6-year-old Silver Spring boy are fighting the first-grader’s suspension from a Montgomery County public school for pointing his finger like a gun and saying “pow,” an incident school officials characterized in a disciplinary letter as a threat “to shoot a student.”

The first-grader was suspended for one day, Dec. 21. The family’s attorney filed an appeal Wednesday, asking that the incident be expunged from the boy’s school record amid concerns of long-term fallout.

EEEEEK!  He's Got Fingers!

Note to Leftists:  a finger is not a gun.  It cannot be loaded.  It cannot fire bullets.  In the old days, we used to call such incidents "playing."  I even had semi-realistic mock-ups of guns -- cap guns and squirt guns.  If someone brought one of those to this idiotic school, perhaps he would be convicted of a felony and imprisoned for years to come.

I have to wonder about the motivations of the school administrators for such unhinged behavior (on their part).  Did they do this because they are prone to gross overreaction and have no sense of proportion? Are they unhinged fanatics with absolutely no judgment?

Or did they do this to instill in the minds of school children that guns are so evil and terrible, that one cannot even pretend to fire one, lest he be arrested as a potential terrorist?  This would seem to be brainwashing children to become the docile adults necessary for mindless obedience to Big Brother.

Note to Parents:  Get your kids out of public school.  Stop the brainwashing!  If you can't afford private school, home school.

Department of Homeland Security: Preparing for Civil War?

The Department of Homeland Security -- Why Is It Buying Millions of Hollow Point Rounds?

It sounds incredible -- on second thought, not so incredible anymore -- that the Department of Home Security is preparing for a civil war or an economic collapse.  One website claims the DHS has purchased over a billion hollow point rounds of ammunition.  The site further claims that international law prohibits the use of hollow points by the military, and that they can only be used domestically.  Putting two and two together, one might conclude that the DHS is preparing for civil war.  See their video here.

The same video documents the massive public purchases of firearms following Obama's re-election, as well as massive buying of ammunition.  Many Americans appear to be preparing for a civil war as well....as rebels.  Much of the public instinctively knows a great internal conflict is coming and want to be ready.

The same website claims that the Illinois State legislature is planning to ram through a state law banning all firearms from the state, with confiscation to follow.

The Signs Are There:  the Federal Government Has Become a Threat to Liberty

More and more, our federal government appears to be plotting to end our freedoms and impose a form of fascism on the country.  Obama's re-election has emboldened the Left, and they appear to be seizing an historic opportunity to transform the United States into a socialist/fascist tyranny.  They have been at this for decades, but previously were content with a slow gradualism of transformation, a subtle pollution of the zeitgeist.  The metaphor most often quoted for this is "boiling the frog."  If you drop a frog into a pan of boiling water (they theory goes), it will immediately jump out to save itself.  However, if you increase the heat a degree at a time, the frog will be cooked before it realizes the danger.

We seem to be moving from slowly increasing the heat to microwaving the frog.  Feinstein's fascist gun confiscation bill is proof.  Obama, a radical punk, continues his destruction of the economy and forcing many more citizens onto the welfare rolls, making them dependents of the state.  A New York Times editorial this week advocated ending the Constitution of the United States so that government politicians can do whatever they like.

A few months ago, a military magazine carried an article advising the military on how to prepare for and fight an internal insurrection -- a civil war.  Of course, that eventuality will be moot if the populace is disarmed and unable to fight.  In any case, statists are recognizing the possibility of civil war.

Time to Bring Back the Militias?

I believe it is time to bring back the militias, and to support them and fund them.  Under Bill Clinton's regime, many concerned citizens feared the destruction of their rights, and formed unofficial and unrecognized militias.  Militias were groups of armed men who practiced target shooting together and even trained together in military tactics.  They held meetings and discussed survival tactics and techniques.  These militia members saw themselves as the "unorganized militia," as provided for in Title 10, Subtitle A, Chapter 13 -- United States Code.

The Left did its usual slander job on the militias following Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma.  McVeigh was not a member of any militia, nor was he acting from any philosophy or dogma put out by the militias.  Nevertheless, the Left successfully tainted the reputation of the militias, and hung the McVeigh albatross around militia members' necks.  Now when you mention "militias," many people automatically envision mass murderer Timothy McVeigh.

In spite of this, it's time to bring these militias back.  The threat of an oppressive, unconstitutional federal government is now greater than ever.  Once gun confiscation begins in mass, it will be time to fight.  We cannot give up our guns meekly.

Will the Military Step In, and If So, Whose Side Will They Take?

The U.S. Military is largely patriotic, loyal and conservative.  If civil war breaks out, will they support the federal usurpers, or will they support the Constitution and the people?  Aren't the military sworn to oppose all enemies, foreign and domestic?  If there is a domestic enemy, will they consider that enemy us, or the Democrats in office?  What about Posse Comitatus?

Since the Obama and the Democrats are already busily dismantling all of our constitutional protections, why should the Military be any different?  Military leaders should privately think on these awful possibilities, and what their reaction will be in the event of civil war.  Instead of becoming an arm of tyranny, they could become the sword of liberty, by deposing an out-of-control, leftist tyranny.

Daniel Greenfield on the Importance of Cultural Secession

A must read today is a post on the blog Sultan Knish, written by a conservative and traditional Jew, on how the right can retake the culture and the country.  It won't be easy, but it can be done.  It involves cultural secession before physical secession; it involves winning the demographic war and the cultural war.

Here are some salient quotes to whet your appetites, listed by topic:

1.  Demographics:  Third world immigration has greatly contributed to the growth and success of progressive politics:

Taking back America demographically is a matter of having enough children within a cultural structure that passes down the values of adults to the children, while focusing on limiting immigration as much as possible. This isn't an impossible task.

Greenfield gives the Amish,Orthodox Jews and Mormons as examples of tight-knit communities who are producing the children needed, while simultaneously eliminating the progressive programming for those children that occurs from both public education and Hollywood entertainment.

Many Christian families have begun doing the same, by home-schooling their children and restricting their exposure to progressive indoctrination.

2.   Culture War:  We are losing the culture war to progressive programming from media, academia and entertainment.  Forming tight-knit communities with shared traditional values is essential, as well as finding ways to substitute our own education and entertainment that is stripped of progressive content.  Winning the culture was is essential.  Greenfield writes:

The progressive agenda is to destroy the family, to undermine it, ridicule it, economically disadvantage it and burden it until it falls apart and is replaced by the Big Brother of the State. The traditional agenda is to maintain the family and pass along traditional values across the generations. That is what this cultural war is really about; whether the family or the state will the defining unit of human experience.

3.  Cultural Secession:  

Cultural secession means cutting away the educational and entertainment culture of the left out of your home. It means creating your own alternative education and entertainment and grouping in communities that act as a support structure for traditional values. Is it easy? No. It involves sacrifice. But groups such as the Amish and Orthodox Jews have done it and have thrived doing it.

Daniel Greenfield makes a lot of sense and describes the strategies needed for our cultural and demographic survival.  Read the entire article here.

Lawrence Auster on How We Can Form a New Conservative Society

Foreword:
My friend Lawrence Auster of View From the Right posted the article (reproduced below) on how we can start over again, following the loss of western civilization to the far left.  I like his description of where we are now:  free to start over, without hopelessly trying to inject some conservatism into the runaway leftism of the now dead American Republic.   We can now stop beating a dead horse and look for a new steed on which to ride.

Auster often alludes to a kind of internal secession from liberal society, wherein traditional conservatives form their own internal societies in which traditional American values and culture can be preserved, as islands in a sea of multicultualist, leftwing ideology.  From these societies we can eventually find practical ways to govern ourselves, perhaps through actual secession or by slowly retaking the country, maybe by a "reverse march" through the institutions.  All this would be determined later.

Actually, Auster's scenario has been described before, by the League of the South, who advocated such internal secession over a decade ago.  At the time, I didn't like the idea, as it seemed too passive to me, as I wanted to fight for the country.  Now I must admit that we have lost the country to a socialist/fascist ideology and that this form of passive aggression may be all we have left.

Larry concludes his remarks by denying that Lincoln destroyed the Constitutional order of the United States; I fear that Larry was (like most of us) heavily indoctrinated into the Lincoln myth at an early age.  Lincoln surely destroyed the Constitutional order, or at the very least, dealt it a fatal blow that only now is finally killing off the country envisioned by the Founding Fathers.  

Reader observations and remarks are welcome.

****

STARTING OVER AGAIN - by Lawrence Auster

A correspondent told me this evening that he is working on an article about secession in which, among other things, he will present the laws that would be needed in the new, non-liberal, breakaway society (or societies) to avoid the mistakes of the existing society. This is exactly the kind of work that is needed. It is a complement to my proposed article listing all the things about the existing America that we reject.

The trauma of the decisive takeover of this society by the left and the death of the constitutional republic has a large silver lining: we are now free intellectually of liberal America. We no longer have to keep hopelessly trying to inject some conservatism into a society that is overwhelmingly and unchallengeably liberal. Now we are free to start over again,—intellectually at first, and later, we hope, practically. What the task involves is taking the good principles and components of the old America and dispensing with the bad, and introducing new principles and components that can be the basis of a new, viable, non-liberal society.

- end of initial entry -

Ed H. writes:

Does the model of the South as it existed for almost a hundred years post-Reconstruction, pre-Civil Rights, offer anything as to what a post-liberal American political entity might look like? During that time the South was an almost a de facto separate country existing loosely within the USA. Rather than formal secession, independence was maintained by culture, local laws, and indifference to what others might think. There were no external borders, but it was a no-go zone for the federal government. Strict states rights created a unique, powerful, and defiant culture and people, defined by the principles of the 1787 Constitution and yet a place where no one dared use federal laws to distort the local religious or racial identity. We do not need to accept how liberals looked on the New South, i.e. a cauldron of bigotry, we can look at it as a non-liberal, traditionalist, highly cultured, European, white, American Republic. So we do have at least one rough but workable model from our past to go by. And this seems a much more likely and achievable first step.Arizona with its defiance of Eric Holder provides another example of how this could begin to happen today. The federal judiciary would quickly show up, pure defiance with no backing down would be inevitable.

LA replies:

I think there is much to what you are saying.I would also point out that your accurate picture of the post-Reconstruction South puts the lie to the ridiculous, brain-dead paleoconservative notion that America’s constitutional order [was] destroyed by Lincoln.

Is It Time For a New Political Party?

When anyone brings up the subject of a new political party, they are quickly drowned out with hoots and hollers from the "mainstream," who tell us that a third party can't win.  I used to agree with this.  However, I am totally fed up with the Establishment Republicans.  It would be nice to bury Lincoln's party once and for all.

This past week or so, Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the House, has been removing Tea Party and conservative congressmen from key committees.  I imagine that this is so Boehner and the Establishment GOP can more easily accede to Obama's demands, spend more money and raise taxes.

Starting a new party wouldn't be easy, but what choice do we really have?  A conservative party is what we need.  Why not make the unofficial Tea Party an actual party?

Four States Consider Nullification of Obamacare

The Tenth Amendment Center states that four states are planning to vote on bills that would nullify Obamacare, making the law null and void and unenforceable in those states.  Another ten or so states are mulling over the creation of similar bills.  Nullification, an old American strategy, may yet be the best way to end the so-called Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

The principle of nullification is not new, and is described in Thomas E. Wood's book 33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask.  The Virginia Resolutions of 1798 concluded that if the federal government should encroach upon the powers reserved to the states, the states have a right to nullify the offending law and refuse to enforce it—after all, a law that violates the Constitution is no law at all. Taken together, these ideas became known as the “Principles of ’98."

It doesn't matter if a federal court, including the Supreme Court, decides differently.  Ultimately, it is the right of the individual states to determine the constitutionality of any federal laws and choose to obey them or not.

This principle has precedent in American history.  Of course, there is the well-known "Nullification Crisis" of 1833, when South Carolina passed an ordinance of nullification against the 1828 federal Tariff of Abominations that would have greatly increased the tax on imported goods from Britain, resulting in a significant lowering of British demand for Southern cotton.  President Andrew Jackson was prepared to send federal troops to South Carolina to enforce the tariff, but a compromise ended the crisis.

However, that nullification crisis of 1833 wasn't the first time individual states have nullified federal laws.  The first was by Massachusetts, reacting to federal government's Embargo of 1807.  This embargo was designed to punish Britain and France for depredations of American neutrality rights on the seas, and prohibited any American trade with foreign nations whatsoever.  The U.S. Navy was to enforce the embargo by stopping and searching merchant ships -- a clear violation of the 4th Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures.  Further, the embargo badly damaged the New England economy.

A federal district court ruled the embargo constitutional, but Massachusetts did not agree, and passed state laws to nullify the federal embargo.  The nullification held.  The important thing to note is that the federal court's decision was not the last word on the matter.   The Massachusetts House explained:

“Were it true, that the measures of government once passed into an act, the constitutionality of that act is stamped with the deal of infallibility, and is no longer a subject for the deliberation or remonstrance of the citizen, to what monstrous lengths might not an arbitrary and tyrannical administration carry its power…. Were such doctrine sound, what species of oppression might not be inflicted on the prostrate liberties of our country? If such a doctrine were true, our Constitution would be nothing but a name—nay, worse, a fatal instrument to sanctify oppression, and legalize the tyranny which inflicts it.”  (Thomas E. Woods, 33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask.)

The Governor of Connecticut, John Trumbull, agreed with the Massachusetts legislature, stating:

“Whenever our national legislature is led to overleap the prescribed bounds of their constitutional powers, on the State Legislatures, in great emergencies, devolves the arduous task—it is their right—it becomes their duty, to interpose their protecting shield between the right and liberty of the people, and the assumed power of the General Government.”  (See Woods Jr., Thomas E. (2007-07-10). 33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask (p. 30). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.) 

Conclusions:  Nullification of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is both legal and constitutional, and is undoubtedly the most expedient way to dispose of this unconstitutional and oppressive federal law.  However, each state will have to pass its own separate nullification laws.  Which state will be the first to do so?  Once one does, others will quickly follow.

Stirrings of Secession: An Essay by Pat Buchanan

Jefferson Davis

Pat Buchanan has an essay at Vdare today entitled "Stirrings of Secession."  Buchanan states what others have observed, e.g. Lawrence Auster at View From the Right, that conservative voters and liberal voters are all intermixed within the states, and that makes secession difficult if not impossible.  I disagree.

A large portion of the American colonists were loyal to the crown in 1776, but the states still successfully seceded from Great Britain. It is fair to say that the loyalists and the patriots were considerably intermixed within the colonies.

Not all Southerners wanted to secede from the union in 1861, but most supported the South when it was invaded.

All a state needs today, in order to legally secede, is a voting majority who wants it.  Those who don't can leave the state or live with the decision.  This is not to say that the federal government would allow it without a fight, but once again their opposition would be in opposition to both constitutional and natural law.

Buchanan also claims that the issue of secession was settled at Appomattox. On this point, Buchanan is dead wrong. The idea that a constitutional question can be settled by force is to deny the rule of law and the long-held principle of "the consent of the governed." As Jefferson Davis wrote while in prison at Fort Monroe: “A question settled by violence or in disregard of law, must remain unsettled forever.” He was speaking of the right to secede. He was partially correct, but not on whether the issue "must remain unsettled forever." As he himself stated previously, “The principle for which we contend [i.e. secession] is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form.”

The principle is reasserting itself, just as Davis predicted.

Read Buchanan's essay here.

See Related Post from American Renaissance here:  Secession:  It's Constitutional

Happy Thanksgiving, Y'All

Happy Thanksgiving!