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Are you a Confederate but Don't Know It?
By Charley Reese
Abbeville Institute
Most of the political problems in this country won't be settled until more folks realize the South was right.
I know that goes against the P.C. edicts, but the fact is that on the subject of the constitutional republic, the Confederate leaders were right and the Northern Republicans were wrong.
Many people today even argue the Confederate positions without realizing it.
For example, if you argue for strict construction of the Constitution, you are arguing the Confederate position; when you oppose pork-barrel spending, you are arguing the Confederate position; and when you oppose protective tariffs, you are arguing the Confederate position. But that's not all.
When you argue for the Bill of Rights, you are arguing the Confederate position, and when you argue that the Constitution limits the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, you are arguing the Confederate position.
One of the things that gets lost when you adopt the politically correct oversimplification that the War Between the States was a Civil War all about slavery is a whole treasure load of American political history.
It was not a civil war. A civil war is when two or more factions contend for control of one government. At no time did the South intend or attempt to overthrow the government of the United States. The Southern states simply withdrew from what they correctly viewed as a voluntary union. They formed their own union and adopted their own constitution.
The U.S. government remained intact. There were just fewer states, but everything else remained as exactly as it was. You can be sure that, with as much bitterness and hatred of the South that there was in the North, the Northerners would have tried Confederates for treason if there had been any grounds. There weren't, and the South's worst enemy knew that.
Abraham Lincoln's invasion of the South was entirely without any constitutional authority. And it's as plain as an elephant in a tea party that Lincoln did not seek to preserve the Union to end slavery. All you have to do is read his first inaugural address. What Lincoln didn't want to lose was tax revenue generated by the South.
As Northern states gained a majority in both houses, they began to use the South as a cash cow. Here's how it worked: Most Southerners who exported cotton bartered the cotton in Europe for goods. When the protective tariffs were imposed, that meant Southerners had to pay them. To make matters worse, the North would then use the revenue for pork-barrel projects in its states. The South was faced with either paying high tariffs and receiving no benefits from the revenue or buying artificially high-priced Northern goods.
Southerners opposed pork-barrel spending. Their correct view was that, because the federal government was merely the agent of all the states, whatever money it spent should be of equal benefit. Their position on public lands was that they belonged to all the people and the federal government had no authority to give the lands away to private interests.
Northerners had announced they would not be bound by the Constitution. What you had was the rise of modern nationalism fighting the original republic founded by the American Revolution.
So, regardless of where you were born, you may be a Southerner philosophically.
Originally published at the Orlando Sentinel.
https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/a...-dont-know-it/
By Charley Reese
Abbeville Institute
Most of the political problems in this country won't be settled until more folks realize the South was right.
I know that goes against the P.C. edicts, but the fact is that on the subject of the constitutional republic, the Confederate leaders were right and the Northern Republicans were wrong.
Many people today even argue the Confederate positions without realizing it.
For example, if you argue for strict construction of the Constitution, you are arguing the Confederate position; when you oppose pork-barrel spending, you are arguing the Confederate position; and when you oppose protective tariffs, you are arguing the Confederate position. But that's not all.
When you argue for the Bill of Rights, you are arguing the Confederate position, and when you argue that the Constitution limits the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, you are arguing the Confederate position.
One of the things that gets lost when you adopt the politically correct oversimplification that the War Between the States was a Civil War all about slavery is a whole treasure load of American political history.
It was not a civil war. A civil war is when two or more factions contend for control of one government. At no time did the South intend or attempt to overthrow the government of the United States. The Southern states simply withdrew from what they correctly viewed as a voluntary union. They formed their own union and adopted their own constitution.
The U.S. government remained intact. There were just fewer states, but everything else remained as exactly as it was. You can be sure that, with as much bitterness and hatred of the South that there was in the North, the Northerners would have tried Confederates for treason if there had been any grounds. There weren't, and the South's worst enemy knew that.
Abraham Lincoln's invasion of the South was entirely without any constitutional authority. And it's as plain as an elephant in a tea party that Lincoln did not seek to preserve the Union to end slavery. All you have to do is read his first inaugural address. What Lincoln didn't want to lose was tax revenue generated by the South.
As Northern states gained a majority in both houses, they began to use the South as a cash cow. Here's how it worked: Most Southerners who exported cotton bartered the cotton in Europe for goods. When the protective tariffs were imposed, that meant Southerners had to pay them. To make matters worse, the North would then use the revenue for pork-barrel projects in its states. The South was faced with either paying high tariffs and receiving no benefits from the revenue or buying artificially high-priced Northern goods.
Southerners opposed pork-barrel spending. Their correct view was that, because the federal government was merely the agent of all the states, whatever money it spent should be of equal benefit. Their position on public lands was that they belonged to all the people and the federal government had no authority to give the lands away to private interests.
Northerners had announced they would not be bound by the Constitution. What you had was the rise of modern nationalism fighting the original republic founded by the American Revolution.
So, regardless of where you were born, you may be a Southerner philosophically.
Originally published at the Orlando Sentinel.
https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/a...-dont-know-it/
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Scottish Boy Who Wouldn't Bow to Mecca Goes Viral
An image of a six-year-old Beaver scout who remained standing during an Islamic prayer has gone viral. The action, filmed during a youth trip to the Central Scotland Islamic Centre in Stirling, Scotland, has been widely shared on social media.
Whereas Muslims pray five times daily while facing their holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, a group of Beavers--part of an affiliate programme of the Scout Association aimed at boys and girls ages six to eight--was encouraged to take part in the ritual as part of earning their "Faith Activity Badge."
Alongside a representative of the Islamic Centre, the scout leader and his young charges are shown prostrating themselves before Allah, although one little lad clearly refused to do so. At the time of writing, a six-second video clip shared on X by Tommy Robinson (Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) has gained more than 1.7 million views.
An image of a six-year-old Beaver scout who remained standing during an Islamic prayer has gone viral. The action, filmed during a youth trip to the Central Scotland Islamic Centre in Stirling, Scotland, has been widely shared on social media.
Whereas Muslims pray five times daily while facing their holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, a group of Beavers--part of an affiliate programme of the Scout Association aimed at boys and girls ages six to eight--was encouraged to take part in the ritual as part of earning their "Faith Activity Badge."
Alongside a representative of the Islamic Centre, the scout leader and his young charges are shown prostrating themselves before Allah, although one little lad clearly refused to do so. At the time of writing, a six-second video clip shared on X by Tommy Robinson (Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) has gained more than 1.7 million views.
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Yesterday, the New York Times ran a story with the nearly incomprehensible headline, "Justice Dept. Is Said to Open Criminal Inquiry of E. Jean Carroll, Who Accused Trump of Rape." (Why not just "Justice Dept. Opens Criminal Inquiry of E. Jean Carroll?" But never mind.)
According to 'sources,' the DOJ is preparing to indict Jean for perjury-- the same way Congressman Richard Nixon finally nailed Soviet spymaster and State Department darling Alger Hiss. (Unfortunately, not before Hiss helped draft the UN Charter; but I digress.)
E. Jean Carroll famously sued President Trump during the lawfare years of the Biden interregnum. She claimed a 25+ years-before rape in the unlikely location of Bergdorf Goodman's dressing room. Her suit was filed long past the statute of limitations, but was resurrected by a brand-new New York law tailor-made to revive her claim. The circus-like trial was a travesty of a comedy.
The NYC jury ultimately rejected the rape charge, but awarded about $5 million in damages for assault. (Later she'd get another $83.3 million for defamation damages from a different Manhattan jury for Trump's denials that he did anything wrong.)
Her perjury charge seems pretty airtight. Caroll initially denied under oath ever having been paid or funded by anyone to bring the rape case against President Trump. But later, her attorneys admitted in court that she had received money from Reid Hoffman, the corpulent billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn --and Democrat super-donor-- who is also alleged to have funded the mostly peaceful protests at burned-down Tesla dealerships.
Beyond goofy Ms. Carroll, her much more sinister billionaire funder Reid Hoffman has already been in the DOJ's crosshairs since November, when then-Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed the DOJ was investigating Hoffman for his many and substantial ties to Jeffrey Epstein. "He's a sleazebag," Trump explained at the time.
Hoffman could also be implicated in Caroll's perjury indictment, assuming it happens, if he encouraged or asked her to lie.
link
According to 'sources,' the DOJ is preparing to indict Jean for perjury-- the same way Congressman Richard Nixon finally nailed Soviet spymaster and State Department darling Alger Hiss. (Unfortunately, not before Hiss helped draft the UN Charter; but I digress.)
E. Jean Carroll famously sued President Trump during the lawfare years of the Biden interregnum. She claimed a 25+ years-before rape in the unlikely location of Bergdorf Goodman's dressing room. Her suit was filed long past the statute of limitations, but was resurrected by a brand-new New York law tailor-made to revive her claim. The circus-like trial was a travesty of a comedy.
The NYC jury ultimately rejected the rape charge, but awarded about $5 million in damages for assault. (Later she'd get another $83.3 million for defamation damages from a different Manhattan jury for Trump's denials that he did anything wrong.)
Her perjury charge seems pretty airtight. Caroll initially denied under oath ever having been paid or funded by anyone to bring the rape case against President Trump. But later, her attorneys admitted in court that she had received money from Reid Hoffman, the corpulent billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn --and Democrat super-donor-- who is also alleged to have funded the mostly peaceful protests at burned-down Tesla dealerships.
Beyond goofy Ms. Carroll, her much more sinister billionaire funder Reid Hoffman has already been in the DOJ's crosshairs since November, when then-Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed the DOJ was investigating Hoffman for his many and substantial ties to Jeffrey Epstein. "He's a sleazebag," Trump explained at the time.
Hoffman could also be implicated in Caroll's perjury indictment, assuming it happens, if he encouraged or asked her to lie.
link
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From Aleister Crowley though members of British parliament to Jeffrey Epstein. A very interesting historical background.
https://open.substack.com/pub/ponero...-vice-of-kings
https://open.substack.com/pub/ponero...-vice-of-kings
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"Socialists suck because they confuse wanting something with knowing how to provide it."
"They begin with compassion because compassion is easy when the bill goes to someone else."
https://substack.com/@ivanaunfiltered/note/c-257513060
"They begin with compassion because compassion is easy when the bill goes to someone else."
https://substack.com/@ivanaunfiltered/note/c-257513060
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Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 34,447
Total Cats: 7,567
From: Chicago. (The less-murder part.)
I mean, we need something to be distracted from the fact that the two-week war in Iran has thus far failed to produce any criminal prosecutions from the apparently nonexistant Epstein Files, which I guess were all stored on Hunter Biden's laptop?
And those energy prices. Really the best. People say those energy prices are amazing, the highest they've ever been. Much higher than under sleepy Joe.
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Persia/Iran History Lesson
A major turning point came in 1907 when Britain and Russia effectively divided Persia into spheres of influence:
Northern Persia became a Russian sphere.
Southeastern Persia became a British sphere.
A central zone was left nominally neutral.
The Persian government was not consulted before the agreement, which caused deep resentment among many Persians.
In 1901, a British businessman, William Knox D'Arcy, obtained oil exploration rights in much of Persia. Oil was discovered in 1908, leading to the creation of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. The British government later acquired a controlling interest because oil was vital for the Royal Navy.
After the Russian Revolution, Britain attempted to make Persia largely dependent on Britain through the 1919 agreement. The plan would have given Britain major influence over Persia's military, finances, and infrastructure. Many Persians saw it as turning their country into a British protectorate in all but name. The agreement was never ratified by the Persian parliament.
In 1921, a coup brought Reza Shah Pahlavi to power. Historians debate the extent of British involvement, but Britain generally supported the emergence of a strong central government that could stabilize the country and protect British interests.
In 1941, Britain and the Soviet Union jointly invaded Iran because they feared German influence and wanted secure supply routes to the Soviet Union. Reza Shah was forced to abdicate and was replaced by his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
In 1951, Iran had a democratically elected government. Its prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, led a nationalist and constitutional movement, and his parliament voted to nationalise the country's oil, which until then had been controlled by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the firm that would later become British Petroleum (BP). Iran was claiming its own resources for its own people. For this, and for nothing more sinister than this, it was destroyed.
In August 1953, the CIA and Britain's MI6 organised the overthrow of Mossadegh, an operation the Americans called Ajax and the British called Boot. It was not an invasion. It was a covert engineering of unrest, bribed politicians, bribed officers, manufactured street mobs, and a propaganda campaign painting the elected prime minister as unstable and dangerous. By the end of a single day of violence that left hundreds dead, the elected government was gone. Sixty years later the CIA formally admitted what it had done.
Into the space where Iran's democracy had been, the West installed the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, with expanded and increasingly absolute power. This is the same Pahlavi dynasty whose heir is now offered to the world as the face of Iranian freedom from his current home in Texas. The father was installed by a foreign coup that destroyed an Iranian democracy. The son is presented as the democratic alternative to the regime that the father's rule produced.
Because the Shah's rule did produce it. With Western backing, the Shah built SAVAK, the secret police developed with CIA assistance, notorious for surveillance, imprisonment, and torture. Political parties were banned. Dissent was crushed. For twenty-five years, the West's man in Tehran modernised the economy with one hand and tortured the opposition with the other, and the resentment accumulated, and the only spaces where opposition could survive the SAVAK were the mosques, which is precisely why the revolution that finally erupted in 1979 took the form it did. When you destroy the secular, democratic, nationalist opposition, as the 1953 coup did, you clear the field for the only opposition that the secret police cannot fully reach. The clerical one.
The Islamic Republic, in other words, is the blowback. It is what grew in the ruins of the democracy that the West destroyed to keep the oil. The theocracy that the West now bombs is the grandchild of the coup that the West now never mentions. This does not make the Islamic Republic gentle, and it does not make its executions imaginary. It means that the current regime is not the beginning of the story. It is the consequence of an earlier intervention, and the man now offered as the cure is the heir of the very dynasty whose Western-backed rule was the cause.
A major turning point came in 1907 when Britain and Russia effectively divided Persia into spheres of influence:
Northern Persia became a Russian sphere.
Southeastern Persia became a British sphere.
A central zone was left nominally neutral.
The Persian government was not consulted before the agreement, which caused deep resentment among many Persians.
In 1901, a British businessman, William Knox D'Arcy, obtained oil exploration rights in much of Persia. Oil was discovered in 1908, leading to the creation of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. The British government later acquired a controlling interest because oil was vital for the Royal Navy.
After the Russian Revolution, Britain attempted to make Persia largely dependent on Britain through the 1919 agreement. The plan would have given Britain major influence over Persia's military, finances, and infrastructure. Many Persians saw it as turning their country into a British protectorate in all but name. The agreement was never ratified by the Persian parliament.
In 1921, a coup brought Reza Shah Pahlavi to power. Historians debate the extent of British involvement, but Britain generally supported the emergence of a strong central government that could stabilize the country and protect British interests.
In 1941, Britain and the Soviet Union jointly invaded Iran because they feared German influence and wanted secure supply routes to the Soviet Union. Reza Shah was forced to abdicate and was replaced by his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
In 1951, Iran had a democratically elected government. Its prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, led a nationalist and constitutional movement, and his parliament voted to nationalise the country's oil, which until then had been controlled by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the firm that would later become British Petroleum (BP). Iran was claiming its own resources for its own people. For this, and for nothing more sinister than this, it was destroyed.
In August 1953, the CIA and Britain's MI6 organised the overthrow of Mossadegh, an operation the Americans called Ajax and the British called Boot. It was not an invasion. It was a covert engineering of unrest, bribed politicians, bribed officers, manufactured street mobs, and a propaganda campaign painting the elected prime minister as unstable and dangerous. By the end of a single day of violence that left hundreds dead, the elected government was gone. Sixty years later the CIA formally admitted what it had done.
Into the space where Iran's democracy had been, the West installed the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, with expanded and increasingly absolute power. This is the same Pahlavi dynasty whose heir is now offered to the world as the face of Iranian freedom from his current home in Texas. The father was installed by a foreign coup that destroyed an Iranian democracy. The son is presented as the democratic alternative to the regime that the father's rule produced.
Because the Shah's rule did produce it. With Western backing, the Shah built SAVAK, the secret police developed with CIA assistance, notorious for surveillance, imprisonment, and torture. Political parties were banned. Dissent was crushed. For twenty-five years, the West's man in Tehran modernised the economy with one hand and tortured the opposition with the other, and the resentment accumulated, and the only spaces where opposition could survive the SAVAK were the mosques, which is precisely why the revolution that finally erupted in 1979 took the form it did. When you destroy the secular, democratic, nationalist opposition, as the 1953 coup did, you clear the field for the only opposition that the secret police cannot fully reach. The clerical one.
The Islamic Republic, in other words, is the blowback. It is what grew in the ruins of the democracy that the West destroyed to keep the oil. The theocracy that the West now bombs is the grandchild of the coup that the West now never mentions. This does not make the Islamic Republic gentle, and it does not make its executions imaginary. It means that the current regime is not the beginning of the story. It is the consequence of an earlier intervention, and the man now offered as the cure is the heir of the very dynasty whose Western-backed rule was the cause.
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Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 34,447
Total Cats: 7,567
From: Chicago. (The less-murder part.)
I'm honestly a bit surprised at how rapidly the Karmelo Anthony trial has been proceeding.
And, frankly, by just how badly it's going for the defendant.
This, for example, was the prosecution's cross-examination of the last defense witness on the stand yesterday:
At this point, I think that a conviction is pretty much a foregone conclusion. And yet I'm looking rather nervously at the hoards of people loudly proclaiming that they stand by Karmelo, that they'll always side with a brotha, etc.
And I fear that we're going to see George-Floyd-level mostly peaceful protests after the verdict is read.
In fact, it reminds me of the Jason Van Dyke trial back in 2018. I clearly remember standing in the back of the control room as we were covering the reading of the verdict live, and thinking "please convict, please convict..." not because I believed that Officer Van Dyke was actually guilty of murder, but because I feared the ramifications of an acquittal. Fortunately (for everyone except Van Dyke), he was convicted of second-degree murder, and that was enough to appease the masses.
This time around, I fear we will not be that fortunate.
And, frankly, by just how badly it's going for the defendant.
This, for example, was the prosecution's cross-examination of the last defense witness on the stand yesterday:
Prosecutor: “Who was in the wrong, and who was in the right?”
Teenager: “I think Karmelo was in the wrong.”
Prosecutor: “Karnelo Anthony provoked this?”
Teenager: “Yes.”
That's not the Cliff's Notes version, either. That is some straight-up My Cousin Vinny level ****. That was a DEFENSE witness. Prosecutor: “Who was in the wrong, and who was in the right?”
Teenager: “I think Karmelo was in the wrong.”
Prosecutor: “Karnelo Anthony provoked this?”
Teenager: “Yes.”
At this point, I think that a conviction is pretty much a foregone conclusion. And yet I'm looking rather nervously at the hoards of people loudly proclaiming that they stand by Karmelo, that they'll always side with a brotha, etc.
And I fear that we're going to see George-Floyd-level mostly peaceful protests after the verdict is read.
In fact, it reminds me of the Jason Van Dyke trial back in 2018. I clearly remember standing in the back of the control room as we were covering the reading of the verdict live, and thinking "please convict, please convict..." not because I believed that Officer Van Dyke was actually guilty of murder, but because I feared the ramifications of an acquittal. Fortunately (for everyone except Van Dyke), he was convicted of second-degree murder, and that was enough to appease the masses.
This time around, I fear we will not be that fortunate.
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Thread Starter
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 80,600
Total Cats: 4,374
From: Chantilly, VA
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