McCain wins Florida as GOP Continues Self Immolation (Suicide)!

McCain wins Florida as GOP Continues Self Immolation (Suicide)!

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We have now been told, innumerable times, that John McCain is now the “nominee to be” of the Republican Party. The MsM has been shouting it in their print and broadcast media for a long time now but the volume was turned up considerably after the Florida Republican Primary win this week.

Problem is… McCain, not only cannot win the election in November, his nomination will finish the immolation (suicide) of the GOP!

As a conservative republican, it is absolutely astounding how completely out of touch (and tone deaf) the upper echelons of the GOP are. The party is tearing itself apart right in front of their eyes and they are deaf, dumb, and blind to carnage they are bringing to the party.

So, let me say it again: Conservative republicans will not vote for McCain … not even to save the country from “The Clintons”. Why should they? Conservatives know McCain is not a conservative. They know he is not one of them. Conservatives know there is not a dime’s worth of difference between the way McCain would govern and the way Clinton will govern.

You need to read an article David Limbaugh has written. It is entitled: “McCain Does Not Fit 'Conservative' Definition“. You’ll find it at:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1959721/posts

Want more? Read Scott Miller’s “Why Conservatives say:” Hell NO!” to McCain” at:

http://theconservativepost.com/WordPress/?p=310

Then there is Michelle Malkin with this piece entitled: “John McCain vs. The Right. No Easy Peace”. You’ll find it at:

http://michellemalkin.com/2008/01/30/john-mccain-vs-the-right-no-easy-peace/

If the GOP nominates this man, the election is over. The dems will win in a landslide in November.

The battle rages in the Republican Party as I write this piece. Many GOP voters, from the conservative wing of the party, are vowing to “stay home” in November if McCain gets the nomination. I won’t stay home, but I will not vote for McCain. In my state a voter can skip over the Presidential portion of the ballot, entirely, and continue to vote for everything else. Many will do that, as I, myself, intend to do.

In the meantime, I say again, conservatives need to leave the Republican Party and form their own political party. We are not going to be taken seriously until we do. The moment we leave, of course, the GOP will be relegated to a back seat in the halls of government in Washington. Why they can’t see that is simply beyond my comprehension.

Longstreet

Filed under:

conservative+McCain

I’m Fat. You’re Fat. And Your Kids Are, Too.

I’m Fat. You’re Fat. And Your Kids Are, Too.
By Alan Caruba
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If you want the government, federal, state and local, to tell you what you can and cannot eat, please raise your hand. Apparently no one does except for the various politicians who think they were elected to determine what you should eat and drink.

Let’s get something straight, however. I’m fat. You’re fat. And your kids, if you have any, are probably overweight too. There are some easily understood reasons for this and economist, Eric A. Finkelstein, along with Laurie Zuckerman, tells us what they are in their new book, “The Fattening of America: How the Economy Makes Us Fat, If it Matters, and What to Do About it.”

Looking to the government for answers, however, is predictably a bad idea. Sally C. Pipes, president of the Pacific Research Institute, points out that “government data about what constitutes ‘overweight’ and ‘obese’ are misleading.” The standard metric for this is a person’s body-mass index (BMI). It is the ratio of one’s height to one’s weight. It is a measurement standard that “does not take into account an individual’s body type.” Some athletes would be categorized as obese, but their weight comes more from muscle than fat.

We keep hearing that America is in the midst of an “obesity epidemic” and this is just hype. Americans in general have put on more pounds, but an epidemic is a term applied to diseases that are quickly spread whereas the only thing spreading in America is our waistlines. It’s happening worldwide and even occurring in the world’s poorest countries. Finkelstein notes that “an astounding 1.6 billion people or roughly 25 percent of the planet’s population are (in a) higher than normal weight range, and 400 million of these are considered obese, according to a fall 2005 report by the United Nation’s World Health Organization.”

There are cultural and racial characteristics, too, that play a role in over-weight. “As was the case 30 years ago, excess weight remains more common among African-Americans and Hispanic children than among whites.” And, if the kids are fat, their parents are likely to be fat, too.

Plainly said, Americans are just eating more. “Between the late 1970s and today, men have increased their daily food intake by about 180 calories and woman have increased their daily food intake by about 360 calories.” For men that’s the equivalent of a pint of beer and, for women, it’s a four-ounce slice of chocolate cake. Over all, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), men now consuming 2,600 calories per day and woman now consume 1,900 calories daily.

A major contributing factor has been the price of food that has dropped 38 percent relative to the prices of other goods and services. Add to this that, “high-calorie foods have become much cheaper compared to healthier alternatives such as fish, fruits, and vegetables.” Fast food establishments have thrived in the U.S. and even restaurants serve large portions these days. It’s Economics 101. Cheaper food equals eating more.

In San Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom recently announced he intends to tax retail chains for stocking Coke, Pepsi, and other drinks sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. He is typical of politicians who (a) think raising taxes on anything is a good idea and (b) haven’t a clue about nutrition.

Henry Miller, a physician and fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, the author of “The Frankenfood Myth”, points out that “In sweetness, high-fructose corn syrup is equal in intensity to disaccharide sucrose, otherwise known as table sugar.” Moreover, “Sugar and high-fructose corn syrup also have essentially the same affect on the body’s production of insulin, which helps burn calories and lowers blood sugar.” According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Americans actually consume less high-fructose corn syrup than sugar.

As the price of corn continues to rise, thanks to the government mandates for the use of ethanol as a gasoline additive, so will the price of hundreds of thousands of food products that have relied on this sweetener. Corn syrup, for example, is about 20 percent cheaper than table sugar. Government intervention in agricultural practices and prices, as well as energy choices, has a history of being wrong, wrong, and wrong.

The other factor that is making most of us fatter than we want to be is a lack of exercise. We burn less calories because so many of us live largely sedentary lives. Finkelstein notes that, “roughly one fourth of U.S. adults get no leisure-time activity at all.” Then add in the way technology has radically reduced energy use at work, at home, and everywhere else. We use remote control to change television channels. We cook food in microwaves. We have devices to effortlessly do most things our grandparent’s generation had to physically do such as mow the lawn, wash the car, et cetera. Or we hire illegal immigrants to do much of the physical work.

Sedentary? You bet! We spend more time sitting in cars. Fully 88 percent of us drove to work in 2000 as opposed to the 3 percent who walked or 5 percent who used public transportation. Our kids spend more time watching television or playing video games than playing outside, burning off their calories. An estimated 10 percent of high school students are completely sedentary. Constant testing and increased homework loads contribute to that.

Lastly, there is the genetic component that politicians and the “food police” folks want to ignore. Studies have determined that, “The genetic component of obesity (is) as much as 70 percent of the differences between individual’s body weights (that) can be attributed to biological factors.” The most pill-popping society in history is yet another factor. “Many of the best-selling prescription drugs, including those that treat common conditions such as diabetes, mental illness, and arthritis, have one thing in common; individuals who take these prescriptions are likely to experience weight gain—and not just a pound or two.”

So, eat less and exercise more are still the best answers if you think you’re over-weight or want to avoid excess pounds. Or you could just sit back and watch all the television commercials for diet solutions, mouth-watering and inexpensive fast food, or the cars in which to drive to local restaurants.

Whatever you do, blaming the Big Corporations that are simply providing what you want and demanding that government ban various elements of the food supply is not going to change anything. It won’t reduce your waist size, but it will increase your loss of personal freedom and choice.

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, http://www.anxietycenter.com/. His blog is at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/.

© Alan Caruba, January 2008

Filed under:

conservative+liberal+guilt+Fat

Dixie Dreams

The Breakup of the Club

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It’s hypothetical time!

What if you joined an organization you helped create from the ground up. Suppose a large number of others joined that organization, too, but some were reluctant to lock themselves into membership because nobody knew what the future held. If there is anything unchanging at all it is the fact that change occurs. So… in order to form the club, the church, the group, the founding members decided that any one, or more, member(s) could leave the group anytime he/they felt like it.

Now… suppose the club bumps it’s way down the road of life for , oh… say, 80 years or so. It has some highs and some lows. But after about 60 years some of the members of that club took a superior stance toward other members and began forcing their wants and wishes, and ways of doing things on those members who disagreed with them. Further suppose that the “put upon” members said look, if you don’t stop this and allow us to have our due, under the “by laws” of this club we are gong to quit the club.

To continue… further suppose nothing changes and finally those members who felt they were being denied their rights under the bylaws said “goodbye”… we’re finished with this club… and since the bylaws grant us the right to leave anytime we want to… we are going to leave and create our own club.

And they did.

Now… suppose further that the remaining members of the original club are mad as hell at those members who left and decided that no matter what the by-laws of the club said, they would bring those members who had taken their leave of the club, back into the club… by force. Suppose that a fight ensued and eventually the aggrieved members who had left the club were dragged, kicking and screaming, back into the club after many had been killed in the fight and inestimable damage had been done their property, and told they would never be allowed to leave again!

Can you see how the reluctant members of that club would resent the hell out of being forced, against their will, to be a part of a club they want no part of? Can you?

Can you understand the fact that the ill feeling will last for centuries?

Now, I posed this as a hypothetical but… it is not. In fact, what I described above has already happened. The original club is, of course, the United States of America. The aggrieved members who voted to legally leave the club were the Confederate States of America, many of whom would never have joined the original USA had it not been clearly decided that they, or any other state, could leave the USA anytime they wanted. They had been ruled under the Articles of Confederation, prior to the First Constitution, and under the Articles no state could leave the confederation unless ALL states left. So, the states forming the United States made darn sure that was not a part of the “new” Constitution so they would have the option to leave… if they chose.

I’m from one of the old families of the South. My folks arrived here in 1789, through the port of Charles Town Harbor, and settled in the 96th precinct of South Carolina. My roots are deep in the red clay and sandy soil of the South. That red clay stains my soul. I say this to tell you that I understand why some Southerners today STILL resent being a part of the USA. They hate the fact that their ancestors were dragged back into the USA, at bayonet point, and they hate the fact that the South is still treated, today, as it was prior to 1860, as “the red headed step child” of the USA. It does not surprise me that there are active secession movements in 20 some odd states.

Look, you cannot forced human beings to be a part of something, anything, they do not choose to be a part of without creating hate and loathing for the tyrannical way you enforce your will upon them. It is the nature of the human beast.

But, it appears that many Americans believe the Southern states should accept their role as subjects of the northern states. I have news for you… that is not going to happen. It may appear so, on the surface, but the flame burns as hot as ever in the breast of the Southerner.

We go through this anal inspection every four years by the MSM, which does nothing to disguise their ignorance of anything, and everything, Southern… especially our history, our heritage, and our reverence for honor.

I skimmed through some of the blogs earlier today before I wrote this and I was struck by the demonstration of exactly the same kind of arrogance from those who denigrate the South today as was at play in the 1850’s and 1860’s. It is an arrogance born of ignorance. For if the writer had any actual knowledge of what he or she was writing about, as it pertains to Southern heritage, they would never had written what they did.

I have but one question: if you despise us so much, why not allow us to leave? In 1860, the Union would not allow the Southern states to leave because they needed the south’s money, the south’s wealth. The GNP of the southern states in 1860 was three times that of the northern states.

And finally, if you despise the southern states so much… please remember we are a part of the USA ONLY because the Union invaded us, conquered us, and forced us, at bayonet point, and gunpoint, back into the union! We are here against our will. We had left, legally, and formed our own country. We had a President, a bicameral congress, a constitution, an army, a navy, a Marine corp, and a population larger than that of the 13 original colonies when they won their independence from Great Britain. Plus, we were wealthy and would have been a world super power in a few decades. Without the southern states the northern states would have splintered, faltered, and finally broken apart.

OK, before I am accused of preaching secession here, let me assure you I am not! What I AM trying to do is bring a little light to bear on a subject, of which, so much of America is ignorant.

And YES, I am a little peeved. Every four years, the politicians come to town. Every four years we go trough the “Take the Confederate Battle Flag down” spiel. Every four years!

We are approaching the 150th anniversary of the War for Southern Independence. You may know it as the American Civil War. There will be celebrations throughout the South. Many are already in the planning stages even as I write. Southerners will celebrate what out ancestors valiantly tried to do, win their Independence from a tyrannical government, which was bleeding them dry through taxes and tariffs and using that money to build and improve the infrastructure of the Northern states. We will celebrate the fact that our Confederate ancestors tried, doggedly, to preserve the original constitution by which the US had agreed to be governed but had largely abandoned by 1860.

Oh no, we have not forgotten, nor will we. So, when you see our Confederate flags flying, understand that it is not JUST heritage we are celebrating. It is that, true, but it is also a public statement that a thirst for freedom still lives here. It is a public testimony to the burning desire for the fulfillment of the Southern dream of a nation ruled by a government answerable to God and her people. It is a dream unfulfilled. It is a void in our souls.

So if tempers flare when politicians rebuke our flag, our culture, our heritage, our religion, and our lifestyle… and expect us to vote for them… you bet we feel justified in withholding our vote! Sometimes we feel justified in running the opposition’s vote totals up in the primaries so as to set them up for failure in the general election. It’s viewed as a sort of benign guerilla warfare. And we savor it!

Our anger at the MsM for seeming to deliberately set us up for ridicule is white hot. All the Southern people ever wanted was… to be let alone. We have yet to achieve that goal. We carry the yoke of a conquered people and we chafe under its rough weight. It is a yoke of which we shall never be rid.

Longstreet

Filed under:

conservative+South+Freedom

It Does Not Take A Village… It Takes Dedicated, Loving, Parents!

It Does Not Take A Village… It Takes Dedicated, Loving, Parents!
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Got your copy of “It Takes A Village” yet? It's a "must" read... and just in time for the 2008 presidential campaign! And I must say it is as totally dumb and useless a piece of propaganda as has ever been written. Even the name is an affront to parents all across the world, let alone the US.

Yes… Mrs. Bill Clinton is running for President of the US. That alone is scary enough. But, if she were only a normal run of the mill leftists, it wouldn’t be so bad. But, she is the queen bee. And along with her will come that paragon of virtue her very own husband…”Slick Willie” Clinton!

Back to the Book, “It Takes A Village”. I submit to you that that is the causation of most of the crime and vandalism done to our towns and cities today. It is also the root cause of street gangs rivaling the murderous gangs of the old west. All because a village raised those kids.

In actuality, it takes a mom and a dad to take responsibility for their offspring and raise those children in the way they should go. It is the most important duty of every parent. As Solomon said: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is grown he will not depart from it”. The scriptures also teach us that: “as the twig is bent, so growth the tree”! There it is, folks. Child-Rearing 101!

Did you see anything about a village raising your child? I didn’t either. A village raising a child is strictly a socialist idea. They know that if they can get hold to that young mind they can indoctrinate that child and create another leftist clone. And they are correct. They can. It has happened, already.

If you are going to bring a child into this world… be prepared to raise that child and teach that child what it means to be an American. Teach him, or her, the freedoms, the privileges, and most importantly the responsibility, one has as an American toward his fellow Americans.

Daycare has caused more damage to the American family and the American society that an atom bomb would have caused! Mothers, going off to work and dropping their children off to be raised by a stranger. That stranger spends more time a week with their children than they do. And they wonder why they have discipline problems when they have their child at home? Think about it. The child is just a visitor in his own home. His real home is at the daycare center!

I remember that my mother decided she would go to work, soon after my younger brother was born. He was a toddler and I was no more than five years of age. The company provided a nursery school for the employees, So my mother and father dropped us off there on mother’s first day at work. It lasted almost an entire day. By the end of the day, I had managed to cuss out the lady in charge of the place, got slapped across the face so had that the full imprint of the lady’s hand was plastered all over the left side of my face… all because I did not like the way she was treating my brother and I went to his defense. She decided she would treat me the same way; I rebelled and told her to take her hands off me and called her a” white-headed old Bi-ch”! That’s when I got smacked. The lady was fired and my parents nearly sued the company… but for fear of losing my father’s job, they did not. Thus, ended my one, and only, personal experience with daycare! I remain proud of it to this day! And… I detest over zealous authority figures to this day.

No, a village cannot raise a child properly. Oh, sure, they can raise a child, but you get … well, what we have today, young barbarians!

Young parents, if you want your child raised properly, with the values you believe in, and with the core beliefs of your family, then YOU raise your child yourself! If, on the other hand, you trust someone else’s values above your own, then you allow someone else to raise your kids.

It’s as simply as that.

Longstreet

Filed under:
Clinton+Machine+Democrat+Party+Communism+Socialism+Hillary

How Paper Tigers Get to be Paper Tigers!

How Paper Tigers Get to be Paper Tigers!

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The argument rages among Americans whether we should take the leash off our Armed Forces and allow them to mop the desert and mountains up with the terrorists, or put it off in hope they will learn to love us and drop their warlike ways toward us.

If you have stopped laughing, at that last phrase above, you may wish to consider the following:

Historians tell us that when the 13 American colonies, of Great Britain, went to war for their Independence, from the mother country, roughly 1/3 of Americans were for the war… 1/3 of Americans were against the war… and … roughly 1/3 of Americans could not have cared less, one way or the other. Yet all benefited from the successful conclusion of that war… as has the entire world.

I was born before the Second World War. My formative years were the war years. Then, as I entered my teens, the US became embroiled in the Korean Conflict. Then, as I donned the uniform of my country, the secret war in Vietnam, in which the US had been involved since the 50’s, (to one degree or the other) went public. So, by the time I was a middle-aged man, I had experienced three wars.

Now, I mention this only as a means to express the fact that my experience has left me totally puzzled at the attitude of those Americans who are afraid of war. I cannot fathom the depth of that fear.

Nobody likes war! Well, maybe some do. But generally speaking, the vast majority of humans don’t like it. Unfortunately, war is a part of living on this planet and it will continue to be as long as the earth holds together and continues it’s spinning journey around the sun. It is the way of things.

Americans must get over this “scardy-cat” mentality and attack the future as we used to do. If that means we have to go to war to realize one, or another, of our goals, then so be it.

Look, great nations don’t quaver when a threat to its security is made by anyone. If they do, believe me, it will not be a great nation for long. Once that chink in a nation’s armor is made visible, it is the open door through which all that nation’s enemies will seek entry.

Here in America, our weak link, our chink in the national armor, is the Political Left. Their quavering has caused more deaths of American civilians, and American servicemen, and servicewomen, than any other single cause. A country cannot hesitate when confronted with danger. It must reply to that threat immediately and with irresistible force. Half-hearted military forays into to the homelands of our enemies only leads to unnecessary American deaths. The sooner America attacks, with overwhelming force, the sooner the battles, and the war, are over and battle deaths are minimized.

Unfortunately, the American Left has control of our Public School System and our institutions of “so-called” higher learning. They are turning out carbon copies of themselves every year. With every graduating class the future of America, as a great nation, a free nation, grows dimmer. As the Scriptures teach us: “As the twig is bent, so growth the tree!”

I have advocated the abolishment of the American public school system for some time now. Home schooling, and private schooling, is one way to win our children back and to secure a future for America. Better, still, I think, would be schools controlled locally and/or by the state. There should be, absolutely, no federal involvement in our public school systems and teacher’s unions should be banned.

This is not the America I knew, neither as a boy, nor as a young man. The America I knew bowed to no one. We were a great nation. We were a great people. We feared no man. We had confidence in ourselves that we could do anything, go anywhere, and be anything we wanted. Then the cancer of Leftist Politics took hold. And like the cancer, that it is, it has eaten away America’s soul and her will to live. It has robbed us of a future as a great, free, people.

So, if you have been asking yourselves why America hesitates these days, in my humble, or not so humble opinion, (as you choose), the answer lies above in the text of this post.

Someone has said that we are the first generation, which will not leave America a better country than we found it. Unfortunately, I must agree with that!

Longstreet

Filed under:

conservative+liberal+military+war+politics

The Left and Evangelicals. Never the Twain Shall Meet... UPDATED!

The Left and Evangelicals. Never the Twain Shall Meet!
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The American Left is making a mistake that could easily keep them in the losing column in 2006 and 2008. Their mistake is so blatant that one would question whether or not it is intentional.. It might well be. What is this mistake I’m rambling on about?

Evangelicals. Yes, America’s Evangelicals. They are a powerful force. A force who believes without a shadow of a doubt that God is on their side and they further believe it is their duty to vote against, what they perceive, as the Godless Left in America.

Now, You may agree, or disagree, with America’s Evangelicals but it makes no difference. They are a force to be reckoned with. So far the Democrat Party is doing everything in their power to insure that Evangelicals do not support them no matter how many telephone calls President Bush, and NSA listen in on.

Evangelicals can’t stand the thought of abortion.

Evangelicals believe the Bible condemns homosexuality and commands death as the punishment.

Evangelicals support the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq as one and the same war.

Evangelicals believe in Creationism and Intelligent Design, which, so far as they are concerned, is one and the same.

Evangelicals believe “In God We Trust” should be on our money.

Evangelicals believe this is “One Nation under God” and that phrase should be in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Evangelicals believe this country was founded on Christian beliefs and that is why it is tolerant of other religions.

Evangelicals do not believe in the separation of Church and State. They simply don’t see how, in a Christian nation that is possible.

Evangelicals believe they have a God given calling to bar Godless Leftists and socialists from the halls of Congress and the Whitehouse and the Supreme Court.

Evangelicals hate feminism. Many feel it is witchcraft. The biblical sentence for witchcraft, as with homosexuality, is death.

Evangelicals hate the “sin” and love “the sinner”. This is particularly difficult for the Left to wrap its collective mind around.

Evangelicals believe they are subject first to God’s law and then man’s law.

Evangelicalism is the fastest growing of the Christian faiths in the United States. They have lots of power and they are not afraid to use it.

Your can quickly see why the American Evangelical movement sides with Republicans and works tirelessly against the American Left. It’s not so much that they love the Republicans, but it is that the Republicans do not condemn them and, do not talk down to them, and actually appreciates their support… and tells them so. (This has changed this election cycle. It is now absolutely a “toss up” as to whether the Evangelicals will support the GOP in the November 2008 election. My guess is… they WILL NOT! Without their support the Republican Party will lose the 2008 presidential election!)

The American Left represents so much of what the scriptures define as sin and the scriptures warn all men not to participate in those sins.

The American Left is preached against every Sunday from the millions of Evangelical pulpits. Don’t misunderstand… the preachers do not name the American Left and it’s platform, as sin, but the scriptures do… and the preachers preach from the scriptures. Unlike many mainline denominations, the Evangelical preacher does not champion secular causes, and push environmental concerns, and such, from the pulpit. They preach from the scriptures and the scriptures, which the evangelical believes to be the infallible Word of God, rails against, and condemn, so much of the American Left’s platform.

The American Evangelical is taught to “Seek first the kingdom of heaven and all these (other) things will be added unto you”. In other words the scriptures tell the Evangelical to get his, or her, priorities right. God first… and everything else… after that.

The American left has come to represent all things ungodly, to the Evangelical, as well as a force of, and for, evil in the country and the world.

The power of Evangelicals can, and does, swing national elections.

Laugh if you must, make fun of them, if you must, but, if you are a supporter of the American Left, remember this: the Evangelical will be choosing your President, and your Congressman, and your Senators. This is simply the way it is and it isn’t going to change anytime soon. Any chance of that happening was cancelled out by the Clinton Administration. The current crop of “Lefties” is just sealing the American Left’s tomb. (If the Evangelicals withhold their support of the republican ticket, the US will have a democrat in the Oval Office come this time next year!)

Longstreet

Filed under:

conservative+Evangelicals+Leftists+Democrats+Socialists+Republicans

Green Desperation Time

Green Desperation Time
By Alan Caruba
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News of a January 31 “teach-in” on more than 1,000 college campuses nationwide strikes me of just one more example of the growing desperation of the environmental movement that has bet its credibility and influence on global warming.

Mark your calendar for any news about a March 2-4 conference in New York that is expected to draw between 400 and 500 global warming skeptics, i.e., scientists, economists, and policy experts. I suspect that print and broadcast journalists will do their best to ignore this event in what is arguably the media capitol of the nation, if not the world.

Organized by the Heartland Institute and co-sponsored by the International Climate Science Coalition, Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, and the Science & Environmental Policy Project, it should put to rest the very core of the “teach-in”, the notion that there is a consensus among the world’s scientists that global warming is happening or about to happen.

In one way, even the Greens are right. There is global warming and the reason is that it is a perfectly natural phenomenon based entirely on the activity of the Sun. No one disputes that the Earth has warmed about one degree Fahrenheit since the end of the last mini-ice age around 1850. And, as Martha Stewart would say, that’s a good thing.

What is not happening is a huge warming that is melting all the ice at the North and South Poles, causing hurricanes, or any of the several hundred other things attributed to global warming. It is definitely not something that human activity is causing or can “control” in any fashion. Try controlling the Sun, the oceans, clouds, volcanoes, et cetera!

As for the dreaded carbon dioxide, it represents 0.038% of the earth's atmosphere.

Alex Tinker, the public relations director of Focus the Nation, an environmental advocacy group, said that the teach-in would be a day when an entire college or university campus turns its attention to a single issue, global warming.“The premise behind Focus the Nation is that ‘The Science is in. Global warming is real,” said Tinker. “There’s no longer a meaningful debate about whether or not global warming is caused by human kind—the debate should be about what policy solutions we need to enact to address it."

This is a lie.

This perfectly articulates the Green’s agenda and the science is in, but it refutes all of the more fanciful claims made about global warming and its affect on, well, everything. The agenda, however, is not about global warming. It’s about doing everything possible to destroy the economy of the United States and all industrialized nations.

Anyone who tells you we can replace coal, natural gas, hydroelectric, and nuclear power with wind turbines and solar panels is blowing smoke up your skirt. The only way such “alternative” energy sources even exist is with millions in government subsidies, i.e., your tax money being thrown down an indefensible rat hole.

It’s worth noting that Tinker used the word “enact” with regard to the Greens proposed “solutions.”The environmental movement exists to use legislation to force people to do their bidding. Its entire philosophy is coercive because they know that anyone with any common sense understands their “solutions” are idiotic. As but one example, the State of California recently floated the idea of being able to control the thermostats in private homes and elsewhere so that the decision of how much energy was used no longer would be exercised by the consumer.

In just the United States where our population now tops 300 million, do you really think we need less electricity to meet our needs?

Do you really think that we should not tap the estimated billions of barrels of crude oil in a tiny part of Alaska’s vast national wildlife reserve?

Do you think we should continue to limit exploration of 85% of the nation’s continental shelf?

Do you seriously believe that polar bears that have been around for millennia are “endangered” and will disappear by 2050?

And why have a national teach-in when every single day of the year every one of us is hammered with global warming propaganda? Why take college student’s time to blather away about global warming when they have had this nonsense forced down their throats since they were in pre-school?

I will tell you why. Desperation. Time is running out for the global warming hoax.

Focus the Nation says it wants to create support for the creation of "one million new 'green jobs' – workers who would service America’s infrastructure to be more ecologically friendly.” What the hell does that mean?

The nation’s infrastructure of roads and bridges exists to serve the needs of millions of cars and trucks, and we know the Greens hate them because they run on gasoline and diesel.

The infrastructure includes power generation plants and we know the Greens hate the ones that use coal (providing over half of all the electricity in the nation) and oppose the building of nuclear plants.

I guess people who work for airlines or sea-going cargo lines should find another line of work as well because both use large amounts of energy to function.

Parents and the students who have taken on huge debt in order to attend college should tell Focus the Nation to focus on leaving the faculty to teach something that doesn’t come with an agenda that blames the human race for the climate and does not seek to undermine capitalism and the globalization that is increasing and spreading wealth throughout the world.

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column posted at http://www.anxietycenter.com/ and blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/.

© Alan Caruba, January 2008

Filed under:

conservative+Global+Warming+Religion+Pagan+Socialism+hoax

Once more… In Defense of the Confederate Battle Flag!

Once more… In Defense of the Confederate Battle Flag!

*****************

OK… ONE MORE TIME! This is NOT the “Stars and Bars”

It is the Confederate Battle Flag! (The Battle Flag is ALWAYS SQUARE! If it is rectangular it is a Naval Jack, not the Battle Flag.)

*******************************

This IS the “Stars and Bars”.

It is the First National flag of the Confederate States of America.

************************

As a Southerner, I and sick and tired of the ignorance displayed by the Main Stream media in this country as well as that of those who denigrate the Flag of my Confederate ancestors! It is disgusting, and disgraceful, and disrespectful of fellow Americans to associate Southerners with the Klan simply because the Klan uses the Confederate Battle Flag at their rallies, marches, and such. Please, please, for God’s sake, notice that they also carry the flag of the United States of America and... sometimes... they carry the Christian Flag, as well. If you are one of those airheads who makes the connection between the Klan and the Confederate Battle Flag and somehow, somehow, in that vast emptiness between your ears, miss the connection between the Klan and the US flag, the Klan and the Christian flag then, by God, that is ignorance, on YOUR part, that cannot be excused. It looks, for the all world, as if you are INTENTIONALLY slanting your attacks and aiming your attacks at the Southern people, the descendents of the brave men and women of the Confederacy!

Now, lets get another thing straight. In 1962 when the Confederate Battle Flag went back up on the capitol dome of the statehouse of my home state, South Carolina, the governor, and the man who pushed hauling that flag back up atop that glorious old building, was none other than Fritz Hollings, a democrat of Charleston, South Carolina. You may recall that he recently retired from the US Senate. (Since passed away.) You may recall, if you try really hard, that he was a dyed in the wool DEMOCRAT! Ain’t facts inconvenient???!

Since the NAACP instituted a tourism boycott of SC …after the SC legislature agreed to remove the CBF from the dome and place it at a Confederate Memorial, which happens to be at street level and in view of millions more passers by, tourism in my home state of South Carolina has not suffered one dime’s worth of loss in tourism dollars. In fact tourism dollars spent in SC had been on the rise ever since.

When the Republican Party sends candidates to my fair home state who stand on it’s sacred soil and denigrate that honored old flag, and our brave and heroic Confederate ancestors, then I have nothing but disgust and disdain for them and for the Party they represent.

I have even less respect for the MsM when they don’t take the few minutes of research time to understand what that flag means to us who claim it as a symbol of our heritage.

It will be 146 years this spring since that glorious ensign was created as a battle flag to be used by Confederate troops on the battlefield. It was created because the First National Flag… the REAL “Stars and Bars”… looked entirely too much like the US flag and some Confederate troops fired on each other thinking just that in the heavy smoke of battle at First Manassas.

If you think the CBF resembles the flag of Scotland… that is intentional. The Southern people were heavily Scot-Irish. The “X” isn’t an “X”, at all. It is, in fact, the Cross of Saint Andrew, the Apostle of Christ, who, legend says, was crucified on a cross in that image. The 13 stars on the cross are not the stars of the 13 original colonies but the stars of the 13 Confederate States.

The blood of the Southern men who died beneath that flag still flows in our veins. We honor it and we cherish it. The men who wore the gray were only 800,000 strong but they valiantly held off the 2,800,000-man army of a fledgling world super power for four long, bloody, years in a desperate fight for independence. When you denigrate that flag you denigrate the families of those honored fighting men the likes of whom the world has never seen, before or since.

Do not think we will not come to their defense. For we will. As long as we breathe we will. For as long as it takes, we will. Against all odds, we will. If you believe anything less you underestimate us as Lincoln did our ancestors.

It has been 146 years, this April, since Ft. Sumter. We have not forgotten. Every insult, every slight, every oily-tongued politician, taking verbal swipes at our heritage, only serves to remind us WHY we have not forgotten.

And finally, if you think there is passion in this piece, let me assure you, sir/madam, I am restrained!

A fellow Southerner wrote the following:

I am a Southerner . . .I won’t apologize

I won’t be reconstructed.

I will not surrenderMy identity, my heritage.

I believe in the Constitution,

In States’ Rights,

That the government should be theServant, not the Master of the people.

I believe in the right to bear arms,

The right to be left alone.

I am a Southerner . . .The spirit of my Confederate ancestor Boils in my blood.

He fought Not for what he thought was right,But for what was right.

Not for slavery, But to resist tyranny, Machiavellian laws, Oppressive taxation, invasion of his land, For the right to be left alone.

I am a Southerner...A rebel, Seldom politically correct, At times belligerent.

I don’t like Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, Or modern neocon politicians like them.

I like hunting and fishing, Leonard Skynnard,The Bonnie Blue and “Dixie.”

I still believe in chivalry and civility.

I am a face in the Southern collage of Gentlemen and scholars, belles and writers, Soldiers and sharecroppers, Cajuns and Creoles, Tejanos and Isleños, Celts and Germans, Gullah and Geechi, freedmen and slaves.We are all the South.

The South . . . My home, my beautiful home, My culture, my destiny, my heart.

I am a Southerner.

Deo Vindici.

From: http://southernmissive.booklocker.com/2007/03/06/deo-vindici/

I would echo: Deo Vindici! (“God will vindicate us”!)

Longstreet

Filed under:

Confederate+Battle+Flag+spineless+Politicians+Ignorance

Get the Feds Out of Our Schools!

Get the Feds Out of Our Schools!
By Alan Caruba

**********************

One of President Bush’s legacies that will be judged harshly in the future is his No Child Left Behind (NCLB) program that presumably was going to bring America’s school systems up to a national standard of performance.

The first mistake, however, was made in 1979 when President Carter signed the Department of Education into existence. The Constitution recognizes that education is the business of the States and local communities. Not once is education ever mentioned as a responsibility of the federal government.

NCLB is one of those horrid monster federal programs that is always devoted to noble goals, spends tons of money, and achieves nothing of value.

EdWatch, a non-profit organization has been struggling for years to put the spotlight on a whole range of awful things being done to children in our schools, from encouraging the drugging of students deemed “over-active” to the introduction of a United Nations program teaching a one-world concept in conflict with the values of national sovereignty.

The Act is up for reauthorization and, as of this writing not much is happening. Chairman George Miller of the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee has been circulating changes designed to combat what he calls “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” That is clever rhetoric, but all parents and all teachers have high expectations. NCLB is the great leveler of expectations.

Most certainly NCLB, for all its threats of retribution against any school that failed to improve, has proven “more shadow than substance” according to an article in U.S. News & World Report.

Equally damning is the revelation by the Cato Institute’s Andrew J. Coulson, director of the Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom, who recently wrote that, “While NCLB hasn’t improved achievement or closed the gaps, it has succeeded in making public schools far more expensive to operate…we seem to have wasted almost $100 billion since NCLB was enacted.”

In effect since 2001, the nation’s school administrators and teachers have long since learned how to game the NCLB system, but the losers are the students. Whether it is students for whom English is a second language and need extra help or whether it is exceptional students, both end up losing out because NCLB forces a single standard of proficiency on all students and schools.

Tom DeWeese, founder of the American Policy Center, points out that NCLB (1) forces teachers to ‘teach to the test’ rather than raise student achievement levels; (2) enforces accountability to federal agencies rather than to parents, voters, and the local community; (3) is a federal curriculum robbing local control of schools; (4) requires yearly progress demonstrating all students achieve at a certain level, thus insuring that certain levels will either be impossible for every student to achieve or so low as to be meaningless. Or both. And, finally, (5) NCLB insures compliance with international United Nations programs that have no place in U.S. classrooms.

Anyone who has ever taught will tell you that students learn at their own rates and, in urban schools, students face a wide range of obstacles beginning with broken families and dangerous neighborhoods. As U.S. News & World Report notes, “To be fair, most schools are not failing. But federal auditors recently found that the number of schools facing federal sanctions is growing. This affects more than two million children, about eight percent of all federally funded schools.”

If a school is failing, that’s the chief concern of the local board of education. It should not be subject to some federal program. The amount of money the federal government spends on education is low compared to the amount spent at the state and community level. Education is one of the prime elements of property taxes throughout the nation. These are local matters.

The intrusion of the federal government into the education of children is just one more example of how big government has a genius for making anything worse than before.

Accountability for education should be to parents, voters, and taxpayers. NCLB literally removes the power of those most concerned from being involved in the process of their children’s education.

Finally, as noted, the goal by 2014 of having all students achieve a certain level is either going to be impossible or be set so low as to be meaningless, or both.

The best thing that Congress can do is to admit NCLB is a bad, flawed, failed program that should be discontinued. The worst prospect will be that more money will be thrown at it and the education of America’s children will be laid waste when Congress reauthorizes it.

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column posted on the website of The National Anxiety Center, http://www.anxietycenter.com/. He blogs at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/.

© Alan Caruba, January 2008

Filed under:

education

Clinton's Third Term Assured!

The Clintons Will Get Their Third Term in The White House!

*******************

“None of the Above” is the best choice for Republicans in the upcoming Primaries (Primary Elections). That is this conservative’s opinion.

If anything, the situation is about as bad as it has ever been for Republican voters! Without doubt, it is the “Worst of Times” for Conservative Republican voters. I count myself among the latter.

Look, there is simply no Republican candidate, currently running, I can support, or vote for. I am hearing this over and over again from my Republican friends and associates. It is SO bad, I have had conservative friends approach me and exclaim quietly, “I’d rather have Obama in the White House than Hillary”. Even with Obama’s inexperience and naiveté, he is preferred, over Hillary, by conservative voters who see no chance for a conservative from the ranks of the Republican Party even being nominated. What it means, dear reader, is that conservative voters have tossed in the towel!

Conservatives are the “backbone” of the current Republican Party. If conservatives desert the party this November the Republican Party doesn’t stand a “snowball’s chance” of winning the Presidential race! It is as simple… and… as frightening as that.


Rush Limbaugh has said that if McCain, or Huckabee, get the Republican Party’s nomination, it will change the Republican Party forever. He’s right. The party will be unrecognizable. It will bear no resemblance to the Republican Party we have known. Conservatives will be even less welcome than they are now and they will not stay in the party even if the welcome mat was stretched out before them.

The most immediate effect will be the loss of the presidential election this coming November. Neither McCain nor Huckabee can secure a win for the GOP. That is a given. I know it , and I suspect, deep down, you know it, and the MSM knows it, and, certainly, the Democrat Party knows it. The democrats pray, every night, that either McCain or Huckabee wins the GOP’s nomination so they can run Hillary, against either of them, for a win!

It is a given that Hillary will be the Democratic Party’s candidate in November. Thus it has been since day one. All the sound and fury over Obama… is just that… a lot of noise and lot of motion... and nothing more. It is a sort of political diversion.... slight of hand, if you will. Obama is not a serious candidate with a serious chance to win. Never has been. Hillary is the party’s pick and has been for many years.

The fear the democrats have (I mean that cold clutching fear down deep in the guts of the democrat party) is the fear that the Republican Party will run a solid conservative candidate against Hillary. In that case Hillary would not have a chance… and the DNC knew it and knows it. As I said, it is their greatest fear.

But not to worry, for the Republican Party has complied with their wishes and will run a non-conservative candidate…. and in doing so will hand the keys to the White House to the Clintons… for a third term.

I must tell you of my frustration. I am frustrated that my fellow conservatives are clinging to a political party, which does not want them anywhere near it. The humiliation conservatives appear willing to undergo, just to maintain their affiliation with the Republican Party and a group of politicians who would just as soon spit upon them, is astonishing. It is incomprehensible to me.

When Conservatives open their eyes to what is REALLY happening in the Republican Party, it will be too late. For it is already too late. Not only have we been deprived of a conservative president, we have been deprived of that thing which is far more important in America than a mere conservative president… and that is a conservative Supreme Court. Conservatives can kiss THAT dream goodbye!

So, I am back to beating the drum for a real conservative political party… a stand-alone conservative party. Not a party in which conservatives are tolerated for the numbers they can bring to the voting booths, but a party by, and for, conservatives. Until that happens, fellow conservative, we are shut out of the circles of power within the government of the United States.

Longstreet



Filed under:

conservative+politics+McCain+Huckabee+Hillary+Loss

A Handful of States Preparing to Disenfranchise 2/3rds of the American Voters!

Handful of States Preparing to Disenfranchise 2/3rds of the American Voters!

*******************

Think your vote doesn’t count now? In the words of Al. Jolson: “You ain’t seen nothing yet!”

“Wallbuilders, a Christian organization, warned that under a national popular vote one would need support only from population centers in a handful of population-rich states to win every presidential election.

Critics, point out that under such a plan, a coalition of just 11 states or fewer -- California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, North Carolina, Michigan, Illinois and Georgia -- would have enough vote power to control presidential elections, leaving the other 39-plus states and the District of Columbia to fall into line. (From: “Electoral college bypass approved by 2nd state” at World Net Daily at:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59683

You really need to read the article I cite above! This is serious stuff! I am sitting here, in North Carolina, watching my state legislature, dominated by Democrats, about to do sometime dumb… again! They are considering awarding our state's electoral votes differently. Up to now, NC has been a “winner take all” state. The winner of the popular vote got ALL of North Carolina’s electoral votes. (NC has 15 Electoral Votes)

Why change now? Because the North Carolina state legislature is dominated by democrats who are embarrassed every time there is a national election because the voters of North Carolina vote for the republicans on the national ticket. On the local level the democrat machine is so “in control” that voters know casting a vote for anyone other than a democrat is a wasted vote. But, having NC fixed as a “red state” on that national map, we are all so familiar with, has become a deep embarrassment to the democrat machine in North Carolina. . By changing the way the state’s electoral votes are apportioned they hope to alleviate some of the red in their faces.

As of today the total number of electoral votes are 538. To win, a candidate must secure 270 of those votes. Below is a breakdown of the states and their electoral votes:

Alabama - 9

Alaska - 3

Arizona - 10

Arkansas – 6
California - 55

Colorado - 9

Connecticut - 7

Delaware - 3

District Of Columbia - 3

Florida - 27

Georgia - 15

Hawaii - 4

Idaho - 4

Illinois - 21

Indiana - 11

Iowa - 7

Kansas - 6

Kentucky - 8

Louisiana - 9

Maine - 4

Maryland - 10

Massachusetts - 12

Michigan - 17

Minnesota - 10

Mississippi - 6

Missouri – 11
Montana - 3

Nebraska - 5

Nevada - 5

New Hampshire – 4
New Jersey - 15

New Mexico - 5

New York - 31

North Carolina - 15

North Dakota - 3

Ohio - 20

Oklahoma - 7

Oregon - 7

Pennsylvania - 21

Rhode Island - 4

South Carolina - 8

South Dakota - 3

Tennessee - 11

Texas - 34

Utah - 5

Vermont - 3

Virginia - 13

Washington - 11

West Virginia - 5

Wisconsin - 10

Wyoming – 3

This info is available from the: United States National Archives & Records Administration at:
http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/index.html

Leaving well enough alone should be the order of the day as it relates to the Electoral College. We have forgotten a couple of crucial things about our government… and… about ourselves. One, the President of the United States was originally appointed, not elected. Popular voting had no role in the election of Presidents until the 1820s and the election of Andrew Jackson. There is a great difference between “liberty” and “democracy”. The early government of the US was created to insure “Liberty” and the Founders did all in their power to insulate that government from democracy. They created the Electoral College as a way to limit democracy’s pressure on that government.

Now… here is the other crucial thing we Americans have forgotten. Are you sitting down? Maybe you ought to. This is a hard truth: Majority rule can be just as tyrannical as any tyrant has ever been. That is a fact. There is no guarantee that majority rule will be just. None whatsoever.

There is an article we recommend to you. It is entitled “Origins of the Electoral College” by Randall G. Holcombe. You’ll find it at:

http://www.mises.org/article.aspx?Id=545&FS=Origins+of+the+Electoral+College

I am convinced that "Providence" has watched over this nation of “bumblers” and aided our success in building a form of government, over time, that has proven to be the best every devised by the mind if man.

And finally, contrary to what some of our presidential candidate would have us believe today, change for change’s sake is not necessarily good. I encourage you to ask: Change from what… to what?

Changing the Electoral College, or abolishing the Electoral College, is an open invitation to electoral hijinks the likes of which this nation has never seen in its history. It should be left alone.

Remember: The United States is not a democracy! You may not have been taught that in public school. The United States is a Representative Republic. I repeat: we are not a democracy. Our government is a hybrid. Hybrids take study to understand. Back when our public school system actually taught government, in Civics classes, most Americans had a working grasp of how the US government actually works. Now, however, with Political Correctness firmly in control, ignorance of how the government works is a must for the “elites” to continue control through their “Shadow Government”.

If you have been educated since the decade of the 1950’s, in America’s pubic school system, your knowledge of the US government has been drastically curtailed. Use the Internet. Get out there in the ether and LEARN! When you do, you will understand the Founder’s reasons for establishing the Electoral College and why it is absolutely vital that we keep it.

Longstreet

Filed under:

conservative+Elections+Electoral+College+Popular+Vote

Birthright Citizenship in the US no Longer Acceptable!!

(From November 2005)
Birthright Citizenship in the US no Longer Acceptable
************************
"all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."… 14th Amendment, US Constitution

So finally we are going to get around to correcting a problem this country has had since the end of the Civil War and Reconstruction. I refer of course to the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. To be even more exact… the “Birthright Citizenship” clause.

Just because one is born within the boundaries of the US should not guarantee citizenship in this country. If the parents are citizens of the US… then fine. The child will automatically be a citizen. But, if the parents are not citizens of the US then the baby will be a citizen of the country to which his, or her, parents have allegiance.

We simply cannot afford the drain on our treasury caused by “Anchor Babies” any longer.

U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, of Colorado is pushing the idea of an amendment change in the US House and is having more success than one would think.

The 14th Amendment was proposed back in 1865 and was aimed at making former slaves full citizens of the US. Nobody, and I mean nobody, foresaw the influx of pregnant Mexicans, into the United States, in order to have a baby and have that baby be an instant citizen and then reap the harvest of goodies from our generous welfare programs.

The colorful history of the 14th amendment leaves a huge question mark as to whether it is legal in the first place. It failed to get the votes of 3/4ths of the states, which is required under Article Five of the Constitution for ratification. The Southern States, as well as the Border States, refused to ratify it. That ticked off the Congress and they answered with the Reconstruction Act of 1867 which, for all practical purposes placed the Southern States under military law and suspended their citizenship in the US. In order for the Southern States to get their citizenship restored, they were forced to ratify the 14th amendment.

Well, sparks flew, up in New Jersey and Ohio, and they withdrew their ratification. Without the ratification from New Jersey and Ohio the Congress did not have the 3/4ths vote of the states required for ratification. Somehow, it didn’t matter to the Congress, of those days, and they went ahead and passed the 14th Amendment into law, anyway… without the constitutionally required number of states ratifying it!

I didn’t make this up. I couldn’t. This is pure, raw, US History. Look it up for yourselves.

So, here we are, in 2005, looking at a possible re-write of the 14th. It needs to be re-written badly.

It needs to be re-written simply and it should spell out that if the parents of a newborn are citizens of the US, then so is the baby. If the parents are not citizens of the US, neither is the baby. That’s all. It’s that simple. But, the Left and the Rinos will fight this proposal, most likely, to death.

Here at IoF we wish Congressman Tancredo all the luck in the world and we urge our readers to write your Congressperson and Senators and ask them to support this proposal and lets correct a mistake made 138 years ago.

This needs to be done and done quickly!

Longstreet

Filed under:

conservative+Illegal+immigration

On his 201st Birthday, the Name of Robert E. Lee is still Spoken in Reverence!

General Robert E. Lee's 201st Birthday!

Today we Southerners celebrate the 200th birthday of one of the most famous Americans who ever lived. I refer, of course, to General Robert Edward Lee, late of the United States Army, and Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. In truth, this man’s birthday ought to be a national holiday. Quite simply, Robert E. Lee saved America.

After the signing of the surrender of Confederate forces at Appomattox, Virginia, in April of 1865, had not Gen. Lee asked his men to return to their homes and become good citizens, those bedraggled, yet angry men, men who had an awful lot of fight left in them, would have taken to the hills, and the swamps, and continued the fight even unto today! As it was, some fought on for months, especially in the western territories, and even here in the mid-Atlantic, Partisan troops, under command of John Singleton Mosby, the famed “Gray Ghost”, continued to raid Union forces for at least 30 days after the formal surrender. Lee was the only man alive who could have, and did, call upon those men to lay down their arms and go home to their families and what was left of their homes. They obeyed him.

Why? Respect and Honor.

Lee is not, I repeat, NOT a legend. He was REAL. Lee is one of the handful of historical figures for which the stories of his honor and deeds are not myth, but fact. He was the epitome of a Southern Gentleman.

James Dickey, the poet laureate of South Carolina, was asked once by Barbara Walters to define a “Southern Gentleman”. Dickey replied: “A Southern Gentleman is a southern male… with a bible in one hand… and a cannon ball in the other!

Had the South won the war, Lee would have, most certainly, been the next President of the CSA. He, more than any single Confederate, reflected the true South.

As Lee lay dying, the streets and lawns of his neighborhood were filled with well-wishers, admirers, and mourners, as they awaited word of his death. His bed had been turned, days before, to enable Lee to see, through the window, those crowds of people who came to honor him because there was no way they could ever repay him for his service to both The CSA and The USA.

Robert Edward Lee was an American in every sense of the word. America is in great need of men, with the character of Robert E. Lee, today.

The First National Flag of the Confederacy flies outside my home today. It flies alongside Old Glory. Those two flags tell the story of two great nations whose destiny is forever bound together into one entity, one country.

Over the State House grounds, in Raleigh, the Third National Flag of the Confederacy will snap briskly in the January breeze. Newspapers, throughout the South, will carry articles in praise of Lee today. Here, in the South today, our steps are a little lighter, our chests swell with a tad more pride, than usual, and we look with respect upon those flags of old which mark a nation denied and a dream un-fulfilled.

Our South was once a land of Cavaliers, and Southern Knights, and Southern Ladies in their flowing dresses of silks and fine linens, and mansions surrounded by cotton fields and tobacco fields, and shielded by mighty oaks draped in Spanish moss, and perfumed by giant magnolias. A land of Dreams? To be sure. A land of flaws? Absolutely.

The South was not Camelot. But she was as close as we are ever likely to come on this continent. Had the Old South, in fact, been Camelot, then for certain, Robert E; Lee would have been our King Arthur.

Marse Robert, as you grace the mansions of heaven this day, know, sir, that you have not been forgotten. Your name is yet spoken in reverence among those in whose veins the blood of your Knights continues to flow. We salute you sir! We salute your memory. We have bound ourselves to a movement to keep your legacy alive and well.

Let it be known, among all the world today, that we honor General Robert Edward Lee. An American!

Longstreet
conservative

(A fellow Southern compatriot, Calvin E. Johnson, Jr.
of the Chattahoochee Guards,
Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp 1639
has written the following. Please see below:)

(This was originally published in 2007)
Robert E. Lee's 200th Birthday:

On August 5, 1975, 110 years after Gen. Lee's application,President Gerald Ford signed Joint Resolution 23, restoringthe long overdue full rights of citizenship to Gen. Robert E. Lee.www.ford.utexas.edu/library/speeches/750473.htm

At that signing, President Ford said, quote, "General Lee's character has been an example to succeeding generations, making the restoration of his citizenship an event in which every American can take pride" unquote.

Some people are declaring 2007, "The Year of Lee."Please share the following story with your children and local school teachers. The story of Robert E. Lee should be taught in our nation's schools as America prepares to remember his 200th birthday on Friday, January 19, 2007.

A portrait of Gen. Robert E. Lee, painted by well known"Depression-Era" artist Ernest L. Ipsen, was presented to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York on General Lee's birthday---January 19, 1931. Mrs. L.M. Bashinsky, President of the United Daughters ofthe Confederacy, presented the painting and it was unveiled by two great grandsons of Robert E. Lee, Edward Ely, 111 and Robert Edward Lee De Butts.

The late Franklin D. Roosevelt, America's 32nd president, spoke at the unveiling of the Robert E. Lee Memorial Statue in Dallas, Texas, on June 12, 1936 and said, quote," I am happy to take part in this unveiling of the statue of Lee. All over theUnited States we recognize him, as a great general. But also, all over the United States, I believe we recognize him as something much more than that. We recognize Robert E. Lee as one of our greatest American Christians and one of our greatest American gentlemen." unquote.

Who was Robert E. Lee?

Robert E. Lee, a man whose military tactics have been studied worldwide, was an American soldier, educator, Christian gentlemen, husband and father. Robert E. Lee said, "All the South has ever desired was that theUnion, as established by our forefathers, should be preserved, and that the government, as originally organized, should be administered in purity and truth.

"Tell your children that Robert E. Lee was born at Stratford Hall, Westmoreland County, Virginia, on January 19, 1807. The winter was cold and the fire places were little help for his mother, Ann Hill(Carter) Lee, who was also suffering from a severe cold. Ann Lee named her son "Robert Edward" after her two brothers.

Robert E. Lee's love for his country undoubtedly came from his close association with those who had lived during the American Revolution. His father, "Light Horse" Harry Lee, was a Revolutionary War hero, Governor of Virginia and a member of the House of Representatives. Lee was educated in the schools of Alexandria, Virginia. In 1825, he received an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He graduated in 1829, second in his class and without a single demerit. Lee was commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant of the United States Engineer Corps. His first assignment was at Cockspur Island, Georgia to supervise the construction of Fort Pulaski.

Robert E. Lee wed Mary Anna Randolph Custis on June 30, 1831. Robert and Mary grew up together. Mary was the daughter of George Washington Parke Custis, the grandson of Martha Dandridge Custis Washington. George and Martha Washington raised him as their own son. Mary was the only child; therefore, she inherited Arlington House, located across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. where she and Robert E. Lee raised seven children.

In 1836, Lee was appointed 1st Lieutenant. In 1838, with the rank of Captain, Robert E. Lee fought in the War with Mexico. His service in the war began under Gen. Wool but he was later reassigned to the staff of Gen. Winfield Scott. Gen. Scott wrote that Lee was "the best soldier I ever saw in the field."

Robert E. Lee was appointed Superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1852. Lee had served in the United States Army for nearly 32 years when he was offered command of the Federal Army at the outset of the War Between the States. In a letter to his sister on April 20, 1861, Robert E. Lee said, quote: "With all my devotion to the Union and the feeling of loyalty and duty as an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home. I therefore, have resigned my commission in the army and save in the defense of my native state, with the sincere hope that my poor services may never be needed" unquote.

Gen. Lee and his family left "Arlington House" at the beginning of the War Between the States. Lee served as advisor to President Jefferson Davis, and then commanded the legendary Army of Northern Virginia beginning on June 1, 1862. After four years of death and destruction, Gen. Robert E. Lee met Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia on April 9, 1865, that ended their battles.

Robert E. Lee was called Marse Robert, Uncle Robert and Marble Man. Lee was a man of honor, proud of his name and heritage, After the War Between the States, he was offered $50,000 for the use of his name. His reply was: "Sirs, my name is the heritage of my parents. It is all I have and it is not for sale."

In the fall of 1865, Robert E. Lee was offered and accepted the position of president of troubled Washington College in Lexington,Virginia. The school was later renamed Washington and Lee College in his honor.

Gen. Robert E. Lee died of a heart attack at his Washington College home at 9:30 on the morning of October 12, 1870. Lee is buried at the school's Chapel near his family and favorite horse "Traveler."

A prolific writer, Lee wrote his most famous quote to his son Custisin 1852: "Duty is the sublimest word in our language."

Sir Winston Churchill once remarked, "Lee was the noblest American who had ever lived and one of the greatest commanders known to the annals of war."

By: Calvin E. Johnson, Jr.
Member, SCV Public and Media Relations Committee
Chattahoochee Guards SCV Camp 1639

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