Whether from within or without, the Tea Party/Conservative message must not be permitted to be preempted by malcontents within the movement, or the minions of the DeMarxist press who have proven themselves to be enemies of freedom. With a scarce 100 days until the day of reckoning, we cannot be distracted from the task at hand.
Mark Williams
Recently, there have been some stories out there purported to be from ‘leadership’ elements of some of the ‘Tea Party’ groups, claiming to speak for entire regions of Tea Party/Patriot activists. I don’t know who or what David Webb is or who he claims to speak for, but as far as I know he doesn’t represent any groups that I’m aware of. Furthermore, that he ‘expelled’ Mark Williams for a post in which he frames his article as a letter to Abraham Lincoln regarding racism… What!? I’ve written articles very much along the same vein… more than once. Are you going to try and bounce me as well, you stooge?
In my experience what Mark Williams was driving at is quite true. The ones who squeal racist the loudest are in fact the racists themselves. Having experienced it in my own life I know it’s out there, and it’s every bit as ugly as the racism that it was meant to defeat. There is only one goal for Tea Party activists and that is to see that solid Conservative Constitutional candidates are supported against the radical DeMarxist elements in our State and Federal governments, whose goal is the destruction of America as we know it.
We don’t need some self-important blowhard using our movement to get face time on the lame stream DeMarxist press. I monitor most of the major Conservative Patriot Movement sites on a daily basis… I see very little contention or disagreement out there. There is spirited discussion of ways and means to accomplish our goal, which is to wrest control of the Congress from the radical Socialists. Victory in November is our goal and our entire focus.
As far as the NAACP is concerned, they have reaped what they have sown. They have proven themselves to be highly racist. We don’t have to assert this… it’s fact! We have it on tape… it’s out of their own leaderships’ mouths on more than one occasion. To claim that the lapdog press and the racist administration gave them their marching orders, to turn around and try to assert that the Tea Party groups foster racism, is simplistic to the point of being sophomoric in the extreme. But then, it is the Barack Hussein Obama government we’re talking about.
I agree that every Tea Party member is a leader. Self-appointed leaders, claiming the leadership of others, lead nothing but themselves. But their ill-considered pronouncements can cause the rest of us a lot of grief. Stay strong… stay united… stay free… be American Patriots!
Yesterday, my article purposely skirted the issue of states’ rights. John Brown would have been executed, whether he assaulted the Springfield Armory or not. In his missionary zeal for his abolitionist cause, he murdered five pro-slavery settlers at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas on May 26, 1856.
The ‘States’ Rights’ issue was never a simple one, and the America of the 1850s was being torn apart by the slavery issue. The pro-slavery south was determined that the abolitionist north not bring ‘free states’ into the union. That’s a vast oversimplification but, in essence, the antebellum south was dependent on slave labor to maintain its agrarian economy which was extremely labor intensive. Southern politicians held strongly to the principle of the right of states to self-determination, with regard to the enumerated powers granted the Federal Government by the Constitution in Article 1, Section 8. Another oversimplification, but my purpose here is not to embark on a historical treatise.
The framers of the Constitution knew that they had a hot potato on their hands with the slavery issue. It’s why they skirted it. They knew that they could never get the support of the southern states if they addressed it. Unfortunately, it was a genie that was already out of the bottle. As the race baiters are fond of saying, many of the signatories, particularly from the southern states, were slave owners, though even at that early date many northern politicians detested slavery. They were men of their time. England and France had been slave-free for almost 50 years by 1850. You might say that the seeds of the Civil War were sown at the time the Constitution was ratified.
At this point, it might be germane to point out that muslim slavers have been active practically from the time of Mohammed, shortly after the year 600 AD, though the muslims certainly didn’t have a lock on the market. Anyone ever consider the origin of the word ‘slave’? The total numbers of enslaved peoples, predominantly of African origin, will never be known… however, it is in the multiples of millions. The total number of slaves transported across the Atlantic is said to be more than eleven million, though the number of slaves imported to the US was greatly curtailed by 1820. Muslim slave traders are active in sub-Saharan Africa to this day.
There has been much outright bunk out there about Abraham Lincoln and the slavery issue. The nutcases have a one horse argument that Lincoln was not the least interested in the slavery issue until his second term election. Lincoln was strongly in favor of ending slavery, by preventing new states and territories from entering the Union as slave states or territories. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was to have accomplished this. Obviously, later on such a gradual extinction of slavery became impossible with the advent of the war.
Fast forward to today and the US government’s refusal to protect US citizens from the depredations of illegal aliens and Mexican drug cartels operating across our southern border. It’s about time some of the states started asserting themselves against the ridiculous failure of the Federal government to perform their duty. The DeMarxist government feels that the only way to preserve itself in power is to allow, and encourage, a literal invasion of our country by a sub-group of largely illiterate, low wage earners… crippling states with their demands on services which were intended for citizens of this country. They see these people as automatic votes for the DeMarxist goody-bag of welfare treats.
Our out of control government in Washington is facing more and more states standing up and saying ‘hell no!’, alongside many millions of American citizens determined to take back our country and put it back on the path of Constitutional conservatism. States’ rights are your rights… fight for them.
I just finished reading the excellent "Tried by War (Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief)" book by James M. McPherson. In addition to a great discussion of the trials and troubles President Lincoln went through dealing with recalicitrant generals and military setbacks Mr. McPherson discussed the political travails and considerations that Lincoln had to keep in mind at the same time.
Mr. McPheson discusses the Copperheads and toward the end of the book he discussed the 1864 Presidential election which Lincoln sincerely believed that he was going to lose. The Democratic platform made the "demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of the states, or other peaceable means, to the end that, at the earliest practical moment peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union." This was a demand for "peace" without precondition allowing for the continuation of slavery and and end to the attempts by the military to defeat the Southern armies still in the field, still fighting to maintain the Confederacy.
I guess defeatism is in the Democrat blood. I was so reminded of the "Peace Now" signs I saw for so many years in the yards here around Austin. As I said so many times to my wife as we drove past those signs how they were not calling for peace they were rather calling for defeat. And the Democrats during the Civil War were basically calling for defeat then also.
P.S. I forgot to mention one other thing I meant to bring up when I first wrote this. There were only 3 Northern State legislatures controlled by Democrats. They were the only legislatures that did not set up a procedure for absentee voting for their citizens serving in the U.S. Army...
What should the President do if he finds himself in the midst of wrapping up a war that has claimed the lives of many and divided a country; presiding over an Economy that has generally prospered despite the war and finds himself at odds with international partners because of the war?
If you are Abraham Lincoln you issue a proclamation of Thanksgiving. Let me be clear. You issue a proclamation of Thanksgiving not merely for the blessings you enjoy, but you pointedly name and offer homage to the Source of that blessing, "... The Most High God ... our beneficent Father ..." Whose " ... Almighty hand ... works in human history to accomplish ... the Divine purposes ...." If you are Abraham Lincoln you gratefully acknowledge God's gifts while beseeching Him for His mercy for "... our sins ... [and] ... for our national perversenenss and disobedience ...."
But of course, as is widely recognized by many of today's Republican intelligentsia, such public displays of religion and Christianity should be returned to the privacy of one's heart where they speak to no one; they should be avoided because of the damage such expressions of faith do to the Party's efforts to be about The People's business; they cannot help but push thinking and rational people away from the Party and towards the other side which has sensibly removed God from every last public place. A Party and a President who does such a thing deserves to be in the minority and will be seen by history as presiding over the destruction of the Party and its principles.
For the rest of Lincoln's proclamation which, as some historians have discovered, contributed to the healing of a nation; the unifying of a nation and the ascending of a Party to power and prominence, read on. Or you can just go back to your Turkey and dressing and shake your head at those Right Wing Religious nuts and their silly ideas about human dignity and worth, the nature of man, the struggle between Good and Evil and other interesting but irrelevant things ...
The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the Source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the field of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than theretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.
In testimony wherof I have herunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
135 years ago today, Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettsyburg Address. Since we're in need of Republican leaders these days, I thought it appropriate to call out one of the big guns.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
To hear Barack Obama tell it, Campaign 2008 is all about change. Unfortunately, both he and John McCain today agreed to the same, tired routine of debates organized by the Commission on Presidential Debates for the past five presidential cycles.
Sticking to the system – this year that means three presidential debates on Sept. 26, Oct. 7 and Oct. 15, and a vice-presidential debate on Oct. 2 – makes strategic sense for Obama. While it’s true that accepting a 20-year-old debate structure runs counter to Obama’s pitch as a change agent, the reality is that speaking off-the-cuff isn’t Obama’s strong suit.
He’s gives a great speech, but Obama proved at Saturday’s Saddleback Church forum, where he and McCain answered the same questions in back-to-back appearances, that he is more professorial than presidential – and not necessarily a good professor.
But McCain should know better than to toe the debate line. He is the mirror opposite of Obama. He is lousy at giving prepared speeches but excels at connecting with voters in question-and-answer sessions. That’s true of town-hall meetings, podium-style debates and innovative forums like Saddleback.
So why is McCain settling for just three structured, predictable debates? He needs to think outside the debate hall – and do it in a way that is perfect for the Internet video era.
He should take a cue from Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican elected president and a man remembered for his anti-slavery debates with Stephen Douglas.
The seven official Lincoln-Douglas debates in Illinois’ 1858 U.S. Senate race aren’t the model McCain needs to remember, though. They are rightly remembered for their great pageantry and oratory, but they also featured plenty of mud-slinging by both candidates. Not much has changed from then until today.
The better strategy for McCain to follow is the one that Lincoln employed to force Douglas to confront the challenge face-to-face. Lincoln followed his long-time rival around the state. He was in the Chicago audience when Douglas announced his re-election bid and responded to Douglas' comments the next day. He later followed Douglas to Bloomington and Springfield.
Douglas ultimately agreed to more structured debates in order to regain some control over the confrontations and to avoid charges of political cowardice.
That tactic could be even more powerful today. Imagine McCain following Obama from city to city, answering him point for point and having staffers capture it all on video. The press would love it – and even if their infatuation with Obama keeps them from reporting on the encounters fairly, the McCain team could blast the footage across the Web.
It’s exactly the kind of thing a maverick should be doing in this new media age.
