For those who have not seen this classic poem by Thelen Paulk...
I had a dream the other night, I didn't understand.
A figure walking through the mist, with flintlock in his hand.
His clothes were torn and dirty, as he stood there by my bed.
He took off his three-cornered hat, and speaking low, he said:
"We fought a revolution, to secure our liberty.
We wrote the Constitution, as a shield from tyranny.
For future generations, this legacy we gave.
In this, the land of the free and home of the brave.
"The freedom we secured for you, we hoped you'd always keep.
But tyrants labored endlessly while your parents were asleep.
Your freedom gone, your courage lost, you're no more than a slave.
In this, the land of the free and home of the brave.
"You buy permits to travel, and permits to own a gun, permits to
start a business, or to build a place for one.
On land that you believe you own, you pay a yearly rent.
Although you have no voice in choosing, how the money's spent.
"Your children must attend a school that doesn't educate.
Your Christian values can't be taught, according to the state.
You read about the current news, in a regulated press.
You pay a tax you do not owe, to please the I.R.S.
"Your money is no longer made of Silver or of Gold.
You trade your wealth for paper, so your life can be controlled.
You pay for crimes that make our Nation, turn from God in shame.
You've taken Satan's number, as you've traded in your name.
"You've given government control, to those who do you harm,
so they can padlock churches, and steal the family farm, and
keep our country deep in debt, put men of God in jail, and harass
your fellow countrymen, while corrupted courts prevail.
"Your public servants don't uphold the solemn oath they've sworn.
Your daughters visit Doctors, so their children won't be born.
Your leaders ship artillery and guns to foreign shores,
And send your sons to slaughter, fighting other people's wars.
"Can you regain the freedom for which we fought and died?
Or don't you have the courage, or the faith to stand with pride?
Are there no more values for which you'll fight to save?
Or do you wish your children, live in fear and be a slave?
"Sons of the Republic, arise and take a stand!
Defend the Constitution, the Supreme Law of the Land!
Preserve our GreatRepublic, and each GOD-Given Right!
And pray to GOD, to keep the torch of Freedom burning bright!"
As I awoke he vanished, in the mist from whence he came.
His words were true, we are not Free, we have ourselves to blame.
For even now as tyrants trample each GOD-Given Right,
We only watch and tremble, too afraid to stand and fight.
If he stood by your bedside, in a dream, while you're asleep,
and wonders what remains of our Rights he fought to keep,
what would be your answer, if he called out from the grave:
"IS THIS STILL THE LAND OF THE FREE AND HOME OF THE BRAVE?"
Note: this poem by Thelen Paulk has been widely circulated throughout the Internet as "Author Unknown." Thelen is known and should be credited with his work.
"A Visitor From The Past" can be found in Thelen's book of Christian Patriot poetry:
Research has led to the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.
These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second to take from four days to four years to complete.
Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2- 6 years; It does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.
When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.
According the American Heritage dictionary, fascism is a system of government marked by 1) centralization of authority under a dictator, 2) stringent socioeconomic controls, 3) suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and 4) a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism. The Chinese autocratic regime gleefully fulfills this definition. China’s forced occupation of Tibet has led to the deaths of an estimated 1.2 million Tibetans. Additionally China’s direct support of the Sudan genocide blatantly continues. Within China's borders, compulsory family “planning” and forced abortions are universal. China has hundreds of forced-labor prisons, which hold political and religious dissidents. There are firsthand reports of physical and psychological torture, confessions forced by torture, live organ harvesting, and other inconceivable atrocities within these prisons.
America should send a message to China: we do not support you; we will not attend the Olympics.
Henry Clay: speech regarding the Mexican War (1846)
"…we believe the two nations [Mexico & America] could not be happily governed by one common authority, owing to their great difference of race, law, language and religion, and the vast extent of their respective territories, and large amount of their respective populations…."
"That we deprecate, therefore, such a union, as wholly incompatible with the genius of our Government, and with the character of free and liberal institutions; and we anxiously hope that each nation may be left in the undisturbed possession of its own laws, language, cherished religion and territory, to pursue its own happiness, according to what it may deem best for itself."
Henry Clay, The Papers of Henry Clay, vol. 10: Candidate, Compromiser, Elder Statesman, Melba Porter Hay, ed. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1991), pp. 361-376.
According to a MSNBC article from last year, the War in Iraq is costing the United States around $255 million per day. Iraq's sustainable oil production capacity is almost 3 million barrels per day. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Iraqi ground holds more than 112 billion barrels of oil—the world's second largest proven reserves— and unexplored regions could yield an additional 100 billion barrels. One million barrels of oil a day, is either 1/20 of the United Statesdaily gas consumption or 100 Million dollars (calculated at $100 a barrel). America has liberated Iraqi’s from the torture chambers of Saddam, but in doing so we have gone billions of dollars further in debt.
The month that President Bush was sworn into office, gas was averaging $1.70 a gallon. Now, after five years of war in Iraq, gas is $3.60 a gallon. That is two dollars more to pay—because of the war on terror. Iraqi oil should be used to pay America back. It is a little known fact, but Kuwait (think Desert Storm) paid the United State $36 billion for its liberation. Iraq should do the same.
The left never seems to tire of reminding us that “Bush lied about Iraq having WMDs!” But was it really a lie? If so, how so? It is an established fact that Iraq had developed and used WMDs previously, against its own citizens, though the left seems to have conveniently forgotten this. In his 1998 State of the Union address, President William J. Clinton said:
Saddam Hussein has spent the better part of this decade, and much of his nation’s wealth, not on providing for the Iraqi people, but on developing nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, and the missiles to deliver them.
In this edition of the Write Idea Rankings, I will rank the most liberal and most conservative states based on the popular vote in Presidential elections, as well as their members of Congress and Governors.
Most Liberal States: (1 being the most liberal)
1. Massachusets went to the Democrats in the Presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 by an average of 26%, all ten of it's Representatives are Democrats, it's Senators are Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, two of the most liberal U.S. Senators, and Democrat Deval Patrick is the Governor.
2. Rhode Island'sGovernor, Don Carcieri, is the only high ranking Republican in the state, all four members of Congress are Democrats. Rhode Island was carried by an average of 25% by the Democrats in the last two Presidential elections.
3. New York's Senators are Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer (both liberal D's), twenty-three of it's twenty-nine Representatives in Congress are Democrats, the Governor is David Patterson (thanks to the resignation of Elliot Spitzer), and the state was carried by 18% and 25% in the last two Presidential elections.
4. Vermont also has a Republican Governor, James Douglas, who is the highest ranking Republican in Vermont, all three of Vermont's members of Congress are Democrats. Democrats carried the state by an average of 15% in the last two Presidential elections.
5. Maryland was carried by 13% and 17% in the last two Presidential elections by the Democrats. Eight of ten of Maryland's members of Congress, as well as it's Governor, are liberal Democrats.
Most Conservative States: (1 being the most conservative)
1. Utah voted for Bush for President by a margin of 41% and 46% in 2000 and 2004. Four out of five members of Congress, as well as the Governor John Huntsman, are all Republicans.
2. Idaho is Represented by four Republicans in D.C., Republican Butch Otter is the Governor, and President Bush carried the state with 67% and 68%. 3. Wyoming's Governor Dave Freudenthal is the lone high-ranking Democrat in Wyoming, all three members of Congress are Republican. President Bush won the state by 40+% both elections.
4. Nebraska was carried by President Bush by margins of around 30% each election. Republican David Heinemen is the Governor, and four of five members of Congress are Republicans, and the lone Democrat, Senator Ben Nelson, is the most conservative Democrat in the U.S. Senate.
5. Oklahoma has a Democratic Governor, but is represented by six Republicans and one fairly conservative Democrat in Congress, and President Bush won over 60% in both elections.
CongressmanPaul Broun is standing strong for the American Taxpayer.
“We must stop the spending. Earmarks are just the beginning of the process. Earmarks are a vehicle that Members of Congress can use that leads to fraud and abuse, and to government corruption. We must stop these ‘bridges to nowhere.'” --Congressman Paul Broun, M.D.
Consider these latest earmark statistics:
2008 included 11,610 projects ($17.2 billion)
337% increase in number of earmarks since last year (last year was 2,658)
30% increase in earmark spending since last year (last year was $13.2 billion)
Total pork identified by Citizens Against Government Waste since 1991 adds up to $271 billion.
Congressman Broun was one of only 16 Members of Congress to achieve a perfect score. The Georgia delegation was further represented by Rep. Nathan Deal and Rep. Lynn Westmoreland who each earned a perfect score.
“I am committed to being a good steward of the taxpayer’s money,” said Broun. “As this perfect score shows, I am now, and will continue to be, a consistent vote to eliminate wasteful government spending. We simply have to stop the spending."
Congressman Broun’s 12 votes, when taken together, would have saved taxpayers over $57,000,000 in frivolous government spending in 2007. Examples of projects that Congressman Broun voted against funding include:
$3,000,000 for the LewisCenter for Education Research in Apple Valley, California;
$628,843 for grape genetics research in Geneva, New York;
$250,000 for the East Coast Shellfish Research Institute in TomsRiver, New Jersey; and
$200,000 for the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine in Orono, Maine.
Congressman Broun believes we should adopt such proposals as:
*No more “monuments to me.” Lawmakers should not use taxpayer money to fund projects named after themselves.
*No more “airdrops.” The process by which Congress spends the American people's money should be completely transparent. Members of Congress should not circumvent transparency by airdropping earmarks into bills in conference at the last minute.
*No more “fronts” or “pass-through” entities. Taxpayer funds should not be laundered through “front” operations that mask their true recipients.
*Members of Congress who request earmarks should put forth a plan detailing exactly how the money will be spent and why they believe the use of taxpayer funding is justified. Members of Congress who “secure” earmarks should place these plans in the Congressional Record well in advance of floor votes on those earmarks.
*The Executive Branch should be held accountable for its own earmark practices. The Executive Branch asks for earmarks, too, and has done so under administrations Democratic and Republican alike. Members of Congress should hold present and future Administrations accountable for the way in which taxpayer-funded earmarks are used.
The United States Government has announced that it is planning to help Egypt build a border fence along the Gaza-Egypt border. Washington transferred $23 million worth of special aid to the Egypt as part of its assistance in locating smuggling tunnels.
Weapon smuggling from the Gaza strip into Egypt has been a problem every since Israel gave up the Gaza strip. As the strip is now virtually controlled by terrorists, Egypt no longer has a buffer zone protecting their border. Thus, we see, the US insisted that Israel leave the Gaza strip. Israel left the Gaza strip. Terrorists then took it over, and subsequently have been shooting rockets into Israel, and smuggling weapons into Egypt. Our government, seeing the problem it created, gives Egypt millions of dollars to build a fence. Wait a minute. I thought that fences did not work? I thought that fences were bad? Remember the global outrage when Israel built its fence? The United Nations called an unprecedented two emergency sessions to "discuss" Israel’s fence. Alternatively, try our attempt to build a fence on our Southern border.... Nope we cannot every get around to do that, rather we build a fence for Egypt.
The planned fence between Egypt and Gaza will employ technology directed at preventing the fence from being damaged. This is in response to Palestinian militants who blew a hole in the current wall between the two nations that allowed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flock into Egypt late January and early February.
The American Army Corps of Engineers plans to send teams to Egypt to help push forward the border fence plans. While building the wall, the Americans also hope to help Egyptian security forces locate and destroy smuggling tunnels into Gaza
The United States Government is more interested in securing Egypt's borders then it is in securing ours. This is just wrong. Plain and simple.
It has been reported that in South America, the start of winter last year was one of the coldest ever observed.
"A brutal cold wave brought record low temperatures, widespread frost, snow, and major energy disruption." In Buenos Aires, it snowed for the first time in 89 years, while in Peru the cold was so intense that hundreds of people died and the government declared a state of emergency in 14 of the country's 24 provinces. In August, Chile's agriculture minister lamented "the toughest winter we have seen in the past 50 years," which caused losses of at least $200 million in destroyed crops and livestock.
Or try this, a few months ago, New Hampshire set a new snowfall record of 44.5 inches, breaking the 1876 record of 43 inches.
University of Oklahoma geophysicist David Deming, a specialist in temperature and heat flow, notes in the Washington Times that "unexpected bitter cold swept the entire Southern Hemisphere in 2007." Johannesburg experienced its first significant snowfall in a quarter-century. Australia had its coldest ever June. New Zealand's vineyards lost much of their 2007 harvest when spring temperatures dropped to record lows.
Additionally the Canadian government is forecasting the coldest winter in 15 years. On top of all of that, an "Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations" was sent by 100 scientists with the declaration, "don't fight, adapt."
It is not possible to stop climate change, a natural phenomenon that has affected humanity through the ages. Geological, archaeological, oral and written histories all attest to the dramatic challenges posed to past societies from unanticipated changes in temperature, precipitation, winds and other climatic variables. We therefore need to equip nations to become resilient to the full range of these natural phenomena by promoting economic growth and wealth generation.
On this last November 5th, in response to global warming skeptics Al Gore declared, “There are still people who believe that the Earth is flat.” Perhaps, Mr. Gore, you forgot to read this US Senate Report authored by 400 prominent scientists.
Atmospheric scientist Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has authored almost 70 peer-reviewed studies and won several awards. He states, "First, temperature changes, as well as rates of temperature changes (both increase and decrease) of magnitudes similar to that reported by IPCC to have occurred since the Industrial revolution (about 0.8C in 150 years or even 0.4C in the last 35 years) have occurred in Earth's climatic history. There's nothing special about the recent rise!"
Dr. Denis G. Rancourt, Professor of Physics and an Environmental Science researcher at the University of Ottawa, believes the global warming campaigns do a disservice to the environmental movement. "Promoting the global warming myth trains people to accept unverified, remote, and abstract dangers in the place of true problems that they can discover for themselves by becoming directly engaged in their workplace and by doing their own research and observations. It trains people to think lifestyle choices (in relation to CO2 emission) rather than to think activism in the sense of exerting an influence to change societal structures,"
A Look at the Moral and Legal Elements Surrounding the Civil War
July 23, 2007
In the Orwellian tradition, he who controls the present, controls the past, and he who controls the past, controls the future. Every political system has a myth which is used to influence the beliefs of the citizens (or subjects) of that particular government. The myth of postbellum American government is simple and yet brilliantly effective: “In the American Civil War, the North fought to end slavery, and the South to preserve it.” This statement contains one of the greatest fallacies of American history.
Unfortunately, the United States Government has applied its massive resources to propagate this myth. Schoolchildren study, some even memorize, Lincoln’s speeches—and yet—probably, they have never heard of a man by the name of Jefferson Davis. The “Battle Hymn of the Republic” myth has been engrained in the conscience of the American polity. What has been forgotten, is that there are two sides to every story. Nevertheless, in his wisdom, Abraham Lincoln foretold the result of the propagation of this American myth: “You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time.”
The major argument propagated by defenders of the North is that slavery was legal in the South and (for the most part) illegal in the North. The question demanded is, “How can anyone seriously defend the South, when such an evil existed within their states?” Perhaps an examination of the history surrounding the [first] War for Independence is in order. Consider Samuel Johnson’s irritation at the American colonists who threatened secession from Britain: “[H]ow is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?” The force of this argument is impossible not to feel. One must acknowledge that slavery was a dark moral stain on the seceding American colonies, all of which allowed slavery in 1776; similarly, it was a dark stain on the seceding Southern states, all of which allowed slavery in 1861. Nevertheless, immoral actions by a certain entity do not make other actions by that entity intrinsically immoral. If this were not so, mankind would be in a sad state indeed. If the American colonies and the Southern states had a moral right to secede, than, obviously, it would be morally wrong to attempt to prevent their secession through invasion. This holds even truer in the Southern case, than in the colonial case. First, the Southern states presented a moral and legal right to secede. Second, unlike the British, the North violated the civilized rules of warfare. Third, the North had no legal, moral, or precedential argument favoring their cause.
“No subject [slavery] has been more generally misunderstood or more persistently misrepresented.” These words written by the President of the Confederate States of America ring ever so much truer today. Unbeknownst to many, Lincoln’s (so-called) Emancipation Proclamation freed only those slaves he had no control over. The proclamation stated that the slaves were freed, “within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States.” In other words, Lincoln freed those he had no control over and left those he had control over in bondage. Indeed, the proclamation specifically stipulated that those in slavery in the excepted areas (the areas that were not in rebellion) were to be, “left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.” This meant that slavery was still legal in the six parishes of Louisiana that were under Yankee control at the time and the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia. Moreover, ironic as it seems, the Northern General Ulysses S. Grant’s wife held personal slaves during the war. In fact, these slaves were not freed under Lincoln’s proclamation but rather under the Thirteenth Amendment passed after the end of the war. In an 1858 debate, Lincoln, made the following statement:
I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races…. I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.
Indeed, a great deal of the Northern states and the Northern population agreed with Lincoln. The majority of Northern states passed laws prohibiting or harshly restricting
the entrance of “free blacks.” New Jersey shut out blacks; Massachusetts prescribed flogging for black nonresidents who stayed longer than two months. Ohio, at one time, passed a law expelling the entire black population. A number of states erected constitutional barriers to the immigration of free blacks. Oregon’s constitutional language was typical:
No free negro, or mulatto, not residing in this state at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall ever come, reside, or be within this state, or hold any real estate, or make any contract, or maintain any suit therein; and the legislative assembly shall provide by penal laws for the removal by public officers of all such free negroes who shall bring them into the state, or employ or harbour them therein.
Northern hands were by no means clean when it came to the issue of slavery.
Of all the justifications for war, none is greater than the economic rationale. In the War for Southern Independence, the North’s principal interest was to protect its economic well-being. Testifying to this, Thomas Cooper, president of South Carolina College stated, “We shall ere long be forced to calculate the value of our Union, to ask of what use is an unequal alliance by which the South has always been the loser and the North always the winner.”
In the founding document of our great American Nation, Thomas Jefferson eloquently made the case that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.Jefferson goes on to declare that the governed have a right to a government that disciplines itself to the will of the people. If the government does not do so, that government has no moral right to exist. Likewise, in ratifying its Constitution, Virginia clearly stated that it had the right to withdraw from the national union:
We, the delegates of the people of Virginia, duly elected,… in behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known, that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by them, whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression; and that every power not granted thereby, remains with them and at their will: that, therefore, no right, of any denomination, can be canceled, abridged, restrained, or modified.
In the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson again echo these thoughts:
Resolved, that the several States composing the United States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government….
The argument that the South was morally and legally justified in withdrawing from the union is best summed up in the ex post facto words of General Robert E Lee,
We could have pursued no other course without dishonor. And sad as the results have been, if it had all to be done over again, we should be compelled to act in precisely the same manner.
If the colonies had lost the war with England, would that have made England right? Simply the fact that the North defeated the South, does not justify the North’s invasion. It is evident in the writings of John Locke that, “Might does not make right.” An aggressor does not gain any legitimate legal right by a successful military adventure. That is not to say the victorious North did not equate might with right. In the words of Supreme Court Justice Salmon P. Chase, “State Sovereignty died at Appomattox.”
Nearly all American historiography after 1865 is nationalist and based on the assumption that slavery was the root cause of the war between the states. This myth demands refutation. A new historical perspective holding that the prescription of secession in 1860 was morally and legally correct and that it was the only cogent and benevolent solution to all the troubles confronting the union at the time is imperative to the refutation of America’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic” myth:
When two men are about to come to blows, it is best to separate them. To write history from the assumption that the peaceful dissolution of the Union in 1860 was a good thing—nationalists, after all, assume that the dissolution of the Union under the Articles of Confederation was a good thing—would bring to light a vast array of facts, moral possibilities, and spectacular moral losses hitherto hidden from view. And it would open up political possibilities that are today closed off because the limits of politics are, in large part, the limits of historical self-understanding.
Bibliography
Ann Norton. Alternative Americas.Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.
Calhoun. John C. The Works of John C. Calhoun, vol. I, “A Discourse on the
Constitution and Government of the United States,” D. Appleton and Company,
New York, NY, 1854.
Charles Adams, When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern
In this week's Write Idea Rankings, I will be taking a look at some of the most interesting Oregon primary races to watch in the upcoming months leading to the May 20 primary:
1.Democrat, Presidential: It looks like Obama and Clinton will still be fighting it out come Oregon's primary, Obama has already made a stop here and Clinton is planning to make a stop in the next few weeks. Obama will most likely win the popular vote, but it will be interesting to see if Clinton can keep it close, and what the delegate margin will be.
2. Democrat, Senate: In my opinion, Jeff Merkley and Steve Novick are fighting each other for the right to get beat in the general by Gordon Smith. Merkley started the favorite, he was backed by the National Democrats, and is the only Democratic candidate who has held public office, but Novick has made it a race with his clever advertising, he was also recently endorsed by former Governor John Kitzhaber. It should be interesting to see if the campaign gets any nastier.
3. Democrat, Secretary of State: Three Democrat state Senators Kate Brown, Rick Metsger, and Vicki Walker are now running (Brad Avakian dropped out after being appointed Labor Commissioner). Brown has the highest name recognition as the former Majority Leader, Metsger probably has the most appeal to moderate Democrats, and Walker is the only Democratic candidate who is not from the Portland Metro area.
4. Republican, Congressional district five: RepublicansKevin Mannix and Mike Erickson are fighting for the nomination for the seat being vacated by Democrat Darlene Hooley. Mannix is probably the favorite, with his longtime service to the state, the fact that he is the only Republican in the race with any political experience, and he has carried the district in all of his statewide runs. Erickson, however, has poured large amounts of money into the race, which should help even it out.
5. Democrat, Attorney General: Liberal Democratic Legislator Greg Macpherson is running against law professor and former U.S. Attorney John Kroger. Kroger has been endorsed by most unions so far, as well as by former Governor Kitzhaber.
State Representative Linda Flores is one of the few true Conservative (with a capitol c) Legislatures in Oregon. Sure, we've got 29 Republicans, however, the truth is only a handful are Conservative. Linda has consistently advocated for limited government and common sense solutions to many of the problems we face in Oregon. As the Write Idea noted in
