Tag Archives: history

We Shall Never Overcome

04 Friday Aug 2017

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Seems the Civil War just won’t go away.

In Maryland the problem isn’t the crime, the unemployment, the illiteracy, the illegitimacy, or the false sense of entitlement. No, it’s a 17th Century Coat of Arms.

“When the General Assembly in 1904 adopted a banner of this design as the state flag, a link was forged between modern-day Maryland and the very earliest chapter of the proprietorship of the Calvert family.”

But the red and white part of the flag, known as the Crossland arms, was also the design flown by Marylanders who sympathized with the South in the Civil War, according to state records.

“During the war, Maryland-born Confederate soldiers used both the red-and-white colors and the cross bottony design from the Crossland quadrants of the Calvert coat of arms as a unique way of identifying their place of birth,” the records say. “Pins in the cross bottony shape were worn on uniforms, and the headquarters flag of the Maryland-born Confederate general Bradley T. Johnson was a red cross bottony on a white field.”

During the slow process of reconciliation after the Civil War ended in Union victory in 1865, a “flag incorporating alternating quadrants of the Calvert and Crossland colors began appearing at public events” in the state.

By extension of this “logic” all state flags are Confederate in nature – all states share the same hemisphere with those former CSA states once in rebellion…

Better tear down some monuments. Riot or something. Blame someone.

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This is “racist.”

Seeing as how so many are obviously unhappy in 21st Century America, maybe it’s time they depart. To anywhere.

They Hate Your History but Want Your Money

10 Monday Jul 2017

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A short video from the beach (per request):

Perrin Lovett Show / YouTube.

The subject matter, if any, was sparked by This Article from Saturday’s Tampa Bay Times. It’s about the Rays’ hating of American history and their desire for a new (expensive, taxpayer-funded) stadium.

I call it “replacing one monument with another.” And I think I was a little off on the cost – the Marietta Braves new stadium cost Georgians nearly $700 million. Like Cerno says, “stop supporting people who hate you!”

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Tampa Bay Times.

*Please visit and support Perrin on Patreon.

Memorial Day 2017

29 Monday May 2017

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Last week Bill Bonner wrote a good article for International Man that seems to fit with the theme de jure (HERE via LRC).

Meanwhile, scuffles broke out in New Orleans. On one side were demonstrators eager to pull down the statues of war heroes Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and P.G.T. Beauregard. On the other side, demonstrators were there to protect them.

ABC News:

Multiple people were arrested on Sunday as hundreds of protesters clashed over the fate of Confederate monuments in New Orleans, police said.

Three protesters were arrested and charged with disturbing the peace on Sunday afternoon near Lee Circle in New Orleans after a fight broke out at a Confederate monuments demonstration, according to the New Orleans Police Department…

More than 700 people attended demonstrations on Sunday on both sides of the city’s plans to remove three remaining Confederate monuments.

Then, vandals defaced the monument to P.G.T. Beauregard, draping a sign on it that said: “This is historical violence, we say no.”

We’re not sure what that was supposed to mean. But we know where our sympathies lie: with the stones.

War of Liberation

Confederate General Robert E. Lee was one of the greatest soldiers in American history. Compared to him, the gilded generals now frequenting the White House—Mattis, McMaster, Kelly—are little more than paper pushers.

But let’s look at P.G.T. Beauregard, the hero of the First Battle of Bull Run.

Born on a sugar plantation in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, little Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard didn’t speak English until his parents sent him to New York to learn it.

Thence, he got an appointment to West Point and began his military career thereafter. He served his country in the Mexican-American War… and then served as superintendent at West Point.

But when Louisiana declared independence, what was he to do? Defend the homeland? Or fight against it?

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P.G.T. meets B.L.M. Someone’s Twitter.

Here’s a thought for Memorial Day 2017: It is Memorial Day, let’s stop acting like the Taliban, stop tearing down and defacing our Memorials.

Way to go, Big Sleazy

11 Thursday May 2017

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I congratulate the City of New Orleans and its upstanding citizens on their successful removal of the Statue of Jefferson Davis, first, last, and greatest President of the C.S.A.

Workers in New Orleans in the early hours of Thursday took down a statue of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. It was the second of four such statues or monuments targeted for removal as city officials seek to erase the vestiges of an era that celebrated white supremacy and racism.

Crews, wearing masks to cover their faces, worked under a heavy police presence starting at 3 a.m. to dismantle the statue, which was erected in 1911, nearly 50 years after the end of the war, and commissioned by the Jefferson Davis Memorial Association.

Wearing masks over their faces … like the Klan. Irony lost, certainly.

Begone, era of white supremacy and racism! Begone, history, heritage, pride and civility! Hell, begone all ye old, dirty, usurping, 0-culture crackers! Comes now the era of the SJW, the post-1965 Amerika!

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Annie Flanagan / Carlos Slim’s Blog.

But, seriously, congratulations to the people of the Big High-Crime Drainage Ditch. All their problems are now solved. Never again need they fear: ridiculously, hilariously failed schools; high unemployment; crime to make Detroit wince; gangs; drugs; welfare careerism by the generation; illiteracy; an economy as stagnant as their beloved swamp; the swamp; 110% humidity; tropical diseases; public corruption; public urination; public vomiting; vagrancy; illegal gun raids; looters; Superdome sodomy and rape sprees; police looters, and; the next Katrina.

Getting rid of one old white man accomplished so much. Two men – I think they did away with Gen. Beauregard too, him and his horse. Two men and a horse gone and N.O. becomes paradise on earth. It’s like Newspeak for the statuary aware – out with the old and tainted and in with a better, brighter, if lower and dumber future. You will see this improvement immediately upon your next visit to N’Awlins. You will; I’ve made my last trip.

This pitiful episode, and the hundreds like it around the faltering U.S., do lend some optimism to the prospect of one day tearing down other monuments – those to Amerika’s favorite plagiarist, drunken womanizer, and communist. I think the FBI files will be unsealed in ten years or so.

Until then, in honor of anti-Southern hatred in N’Awlins and elsewhere, I leave you with this:

I do not give a damn!

Mr. Ross Goes To Washington

13 Sunday Nov 2016

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The 2016 election is over and January will see a new host of politicians headed to Washington. Some suggest real and needed change is coming. I will believe that when I see it. However I would like to share some happy memories about a more honest approach to D.C.

Most do not remember the name of Robert Ross. He was not a terribly popular figure in his time, especially in America. And his time has long since faded into the history books.  Maj. Gen. Ross was for a short time the commander of the British army during the War of 1812. That fratricidal nonsense gave us two things: a catchy tune by Johnny Horton* and a lesson on handling the American Capital. The latter was courtesy of Ross.

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Ross. U.S. Capitol Historical Society.

Ross was born in Ireland ten years before the American Revolution. He led a distinguished military career which culminated in his command of British forces on the east coast of America. He was killed just prior to the Battle of Baltimore in September 1814. This was just after his greatest success: The Burning of Washington, D.C.

 

On August 24, 1814 Ross and his men entered into Washington with the most noble of intentions, to level the place. The British torched the White House, the Capitol and numerous other government buildings. Interestingly, and greatly reflecting on Ross’s high character, he largely left private property alone. He was also persuaded to preserve benign public structures (most notably the Patent Office).

Negotiations also saved nearby non-government towns. They went something like this: Americans: “Please don’t burn our town.” British: “Okay”.

The very next day a hurricane came in from the Atlantic. The “storm that saved Washington” really didn’t. While it extinguished the flames, it caused equally substantial damage. For example, it took out the Patent building spared the day before by Ross. Admiral Sir George Cockburn regarded the storm as God’s assistance in cleansing the filth on the Potomac. Perhaps he foresaw what would eventually take shape there over the next two centuries.

And the growth came, just as nature springs back to life following a forest fire with greater vigor. From the ashes and water leapt one of the most insane conclaves of democratic tyranny ever known on Earth. From the ruins came a rebuilt government with laws, legions, and regulations enough to paper the globe.

Still, for his part in history, we may thank General Ross. For America’s official position, there are no hard feelings against the man. His portrait hangs in the Capitol building with honor. What happens in D.C. rarely ever makes sense. Yet for us, the freedom-minded, the lesson is simple: as a matter of last resort fire is the ultimate anti-septic.

*Horton’s famed The Battle of New Orleans is part of Americana. He made a lesser known version of the same name for the British, the lyrics essentially reversed. Ray Stevens updated the song following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

A Den of Vipers and Thieves

20 Wednesday Apr 2016

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Today news comes of a revenge 184 years in the making, a revenge that could only happen in post-American America. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew has tentatively announced that Harriet Tubman will replace former President Andrew Jackson on the Twenty Dollar Bill as early as 2020. Lew made the decision after shock followed his previous proposal to knock Alexander Hamilton off the Ten Dollar Bill in favor of a woman.

Hamilton is safe thanks to a new hip hop Broadway musical. (Yes, post-American America.) However, he will likely be joined on the new $Ten by one or more famous American ladies. Might I recommend Bonnie Parker. Rumor has it Jackson will be relegated to a supporting role on the back of the new $20. Maybe they will feature a picture of his tombstone.

So, how is this revenge? History, my friends, history. In 1816 there was created the Second National Bank of the United States in Philadelphia. It was a private corporation set up, in violation of Article One of the Constitution, in order to expand government debt and power while simultaneously enriching the already wealthy. It was modeled after the failed First National Bank and in keeping with the central banking cabal theories of Alexander Hamilton. Is all this starting to make sense?

Earlier Congresses, while happy to illegally trade away their authority for easy money, were still more prone to banking oversight and regulation than their modern contemporaries. The Second Bank was not a complete sell-out. It was, however, ruinous to the larger economy the way central banks tend to be. It died a veto’s death in 1832 on the watch of ardent central bankstering opponent Andrew Jackson. Jackson, a blunt man, accurately condemned the Second Bank: “You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the Eternal God, I will rout you out.” And rout them out he did.

So long, old man. Slate/google.

Money returned to being real money for a time. Congress set the value in gold and silver and notes were issued and held by various state and federally chartered banks. This period corresponded with the most robust economic growth in American history. Only once, during Abraham Lincoln’s war, was the gold standard suspended – among many other illegalities. Most Americans, those not killed in the government’s wars, prospered. Times were good. Slaves were freed. And so on. Still unscrupulous politicians were constrained by fiscal reality and a certain small sect of leeches lost decades worth of influence and domination. Both of these maniacal parties returned to splendor when central banking made a comeback in 1913 with the passage of the Federal Reserve Act.

The Federal Reserve brought happy days back again – for them, not us. The people have only reaped two depressions (with another looming), the financial crisis, the S&L crisis, junk bonds, bailouts, the constant cycle of smaller recessions, blossoming federal debt, spending and power, crushing private debts, the collapse of purchasing power, inflation, wars, wars, and more wars, one idiotic government program after another, the end of the gold standard, the confiscation of gold, the theft of gold, and the near total evisceration of monetary value. Hooray!

All of these calamities were foreseen by Jackson. By vetoing the Second Bank he set the Hamiltonians (almost as cult-like as the Lincoln lovers) and the Rothschilds back by almost a century. In truth they had their revenge in 1913 at Jekyll Island, Georgia. Keeping Hamilton while ditching Jackson from the fiat currency is merely icing on the cake. Given the degeneration of America in post-American times, that icing must be particularly sweet.

Kari Winter is the director of the University [SIC] of Buffalo’s Institute for Gender. (Again, no need for colleges anymore). “Dedicated to advancing women’s and LGBTQ leadership, vision, and influence, the Gender Institute fosters workspaces in which each participant is stimulated to reach her/his highest potential and to increase knowledge and justice within the university, within their disciplines, and in society at large.” University [SIC] of Buffalo website.

Ms. (Mr.?) (It???) Winter praised leech Lew’s announcement as follows: “[Hamilton] is fully appropriate to be on American currency, whereas Jackson was a scoundrel, a slave holder and a white supremacist who was involved in the removal of Indians and was completely opposed to paper money and was horrible to women…” Her Institute is dedicated to knowledge, remember.

Yes, Jackson may have been a scoundrel – a temperamental man prone to violence and dueling. Then again, Hamilton dueled as well; he just wasn’t as good at it as Jackson. Jackson was a slave owner, true. George Washington was but they don’t seek his removal from the $1 Bill just yet. Jackson did remove forcibly many Indians. So did Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln is secure on the $5 Bill; I’m sure Ms. (????) Winter agrees. Lincoln never adopted two Indians as his own children as the racist Jackson did – such a white supremacist. Horrible to women? Lincoln made widows and vagabonds out of hundreds of thousands of women. Jackson fought to save women (and men) from economic destruction. Jackson also defended his wife from the lowbrow political attacks of his rivals – that violent temper at work.

It really all comes down to the paper money, to Jackson’s atavistic hatred of the evils of central banking. In a way it is fitting that Jackson should be removed from our worthless, private corporation-issued currency. By the way, whatever Lew decides on the matter, the Federal Reserve has the final say. In a world where mobsters run the economy and the government, where popularity and history are in the keeping of rappers and teenagers, and where a University [SIC] seeks to advance LGBLT (or is it LGBBQ?) influence, a man like Jackson is a misfit.

‘Merica. Google.

Let the vipers and thieves gloat; theirs is the long victory.

Is Our Children Learning?

24 Wednesday Feb 2016

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“Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?” So inquired President select, George W. Bush to a crowd in Florence, South Carolina, January 11, 2000. The politicians obviously are not learning. But is … are the children? A new international study doesn’t look too good for youngsters in America. The study is massive, 384 page PDF download but here it is.

The 2015/16 Index of Freedom  of Education concentrates on the availability of “non-govermental” education. The rankings are deeply hidden, starting on page 315. The mighty United States, which ever one knows is the freest place on Earth, is in a tie with Hungary for 17th place. Who knew Hungary was the co-freest place on the planet.

This study is concerned with educational opportunities outside of the mainstream of “public” “schooling.” That would include private schools, charters,community, parochial, family schools, tutoring and home schooling. Most global education studies center on proficiency in one or more subjects. The U.S. does poorly in those too. I didn’t bother to look up any of those. Just Google, “where does America place in … reading, math, science, etc.” and you will be unpleasantly surprised as to just how poorly our schools do in any given field. I think we place outside of the top 20 in just about any category. Frequently American students are the only ones who can’t find America on a map. They also have trouble spelling “America” and can’t count high enough to cover all 50 States. The problem runs from elementary school through high school and even to the university level.

StateLibQld_1_141227_Interior_of_a_school_room_at_Postmans_Ridge_in_the_Helidon_district,_ca._1902

Might as well be Harvard today. Google.

As for free choice in education, the Catholic Register sees a worldwide issue.:

Each country’s ranking depends on four differently weighted factors: the legal possibility to create and manage a non-governmental school; whether it is publicly funded, and if so, which pre-specified costs that funding covers; the net enrollment rate of primary education; and finally, the enrollment rate in non-governmental schools as a percentage of total primary education.

Ireland came in at number one. Were it not for American homeschooling, which typically ranks highest in any rankings, the U.S. would have come in worse than 17th. Most students in America are forced to suffer twelve plus years of prison-like “public” indoctrination. After all that many cannot read. Most that can read only at a 5th grade level.

The Register gets it:

Thomas Jefferson over two centuries earlier:

It is better to tolerate the rare instance of a parent refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings and ideas by the forcible transportation and education of the infant against the will of the father.

And perhaps a little more surprisingly, with this Jeffersonian affirmation by the Democratic Party National Platform, which declared (as late as 1892):

We are opposed to state interference with parental rights and rights of conscience in the education of children as an infringement of the fundamental Democratic doctrine that the largest individual liberty consistent with the rights of others insures the highest type of American citizenship and the best government.

How times change!

For most of human history, prior to the twentieth century, children were either educated at home, in church, or in small and independent local schools. Many never made it past what we would call the 5th grade but at least they could read (without wasting seven more years). What changed?

During the late 1800s, as larger and more complex government was beginning to grow like kudzu, and as the industrial revolution was taking off, business and state leaders saw an opportunity. They institutionalized education in order to control what was taught and, ultimately, to control society. To paraphrase George Carlin they wanted obiediant workers just smart enough to fill out the forms and run the machines and just dumb enough to keep taking the status quo. That’s exactly what they got.

Today schools, especially in America, what little or nothing to do with education. They raise children into subservient adults who will pay taxes, watch television, and look forward to social security. It’s not just the schools.

Almost all children are bright and inquisitive by nature. They want to learn. Learning is fun. They question everything. How many times has your child asked you, “why?” You did that too, if you recall. Then sadly, after just a few years, most start to turn into zombies.

Ours is a silly culture where people start absentmindedly at screens most of the waking hours. It’s a sick and dying culture where every form of sin is on display and openly celebrated. Many parents cannot educate their own children because they themselves are not educated. Their too busy with triviality anyway.

Enter the government. How convenient that benevolent old Georgia or California or New York offers free daycare and schooling for the kids. We get what we pay for. It costs nothing and it is worth nothing.

Those government schools waste so much time taking attendance, monitoring water fountains, locking down for nothing, promoting football and other bullshit it is no wonder they can’t teach Johnny to read. He doesn’t need to read to work for corporation X, sit in prison, or collect welfare. It’s part of the plan.

There are plenty of exceptions but they are just that – good apples in a rotten lot. Given the wicked nature of the system, there is no point in reforming it. Reform after useless reform is constantly foisted on the dumbed down public: Deweyism, the Frankfurt school, the new school, charter schools, head start, no child left behind, common core. None of it works.

Abolishing government schools entirely would be a good start but only a start. The whole state needs to be abolished so people can be free to spend their time and money with their children effectively. Those who care will have to step in and step up to do the teaching. Fortunately, with modern technology, this is easier than ever before. A free, world class education is readily available online for any who want it – from phonics to calculus.

Have you heard any of the morons running for president talk about this? Of course not. They may pay lip service to education but they will continue to keep things as they are.

We as adults must change. People must stop wasting time chasing raises, getting tattoos, watching television and loafing around. Spend time with your children. Show them by example what decent educated people do with their lives.

The alternative we are experiencing has nearly destroyed is. We have sacrificed multiple generations on the alter of statism. This is a sin worthy of the millstone. When will we learn?

Reading The Law: The Ancient Alternative to Law School

07 Monday Dec 2015

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A few days ago I wrote a column about the trials and tribulations of a beautiful, talented young woman enrolled and embattled at the Moritz College of Law at THE Ohio State University. I’ve also written about my legal education.

Law schools have become a collection of expensive but houses where, if one can tolerate the boredom and foolishness, one is allowed the honor of applying for a state license to practice law. The courses studied in these schools bear little resemblance to the actual law. Graduation does not guarantee admittance to the Bar. Bar test preparation is left to the student once he graduates.

Many determined and intelligent students will succeed on their own merits. A few law schools do a fair job readying students for the profession; most are dismal in their attempts. Alan Watson, of whom I have sung praise before, is the preeminent expert on legal philosophy. He wrote a book, The Shame of American Legal Education, which should be required reading for any American giving serious thought to attending law school.

Watson decries the lack of intellectual rigor and dependence of the case method (religious study of court interpretation of the law) which plague American law colleges. He praises the system of his native Scotland where students attend school for a shorter period of time and actually learn both the letter of and the ideas behind the law. Following graduation the Scots apprentice under established barristers to round out their education and transition into the field.

It’s a far better approach than we Americans use. It is similar to our old system which we adopted from the British. They had adopted it from the Romans and the Greeks.

For ages attorneys were educated men who studied the law under the tutelage of a practicing attorney. A few had a short period of standardized class time at a college. This formal lecturing range from a few weeks to a year. Upon completion of the apprenticeship the budding lawyers were either certified by a local court or eligible to sit for Bar examination (if any) or they just started working on their own.

The institution was known as “reading the law.” Most of the greatest attorneys of history were produced this way. Their ranks include: Solon, Cato, Cicero, St. Thomas More, William Blackstone, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, John Jay, Lysander Spooner, Abraham Lincoln, James Byrnes, and Robert Jackson. All of these men were accomplished attorneys. Some were titans of the field.

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Cato the Elder.

In America this was the standard of legal instruction from colonial times until the early 20th Century. The College of William and Mary was the first American school with formal law lectures. These were designed to enhance the student’s apprenticeship. Jefferson attended lectures at William and Mary.

Young men were encouraged to read the law, to understand theory and application:

If you are absolutely determined to make a lawyer of yourself the thing is more than half done already. It is a small matter whether you read with any one or not. I did not read with any one. Get the books and read and study them in their every feature, and that is the main thing. It is no consequence to be in a large town while you are reading. I read at New Salem, which never had three hundred people in it. The books and your capacity for understanding them are just the same in all places.

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing.

Abraham Lincoln, 1855

Things began to change in the late 1800s. It was then the newly formed American Bar Association began to lobby states to restrict licensing to those who had attended law schools. Later the ABA commenced its practice of certifying the schools. This cartel approach of command and control protected the monopoly of the existing bar members. The results, from a quality viewpoint, were mixed. Blackstones and Jeffersons are hard to come by these days.

The radical expansion of law school power coincided with the massive growth of government. Both resulted in the growth and increased complexity of the laws. As Cicero noted, more laws means less justice. Of course, justice had nothing to do with these trends. They were premised entirely on control and money.

Nonetheless a few states still adhere to the reading tradition although it is frowned upon. Those who stand to lose prestige and tuition frown a lot.

California, Maine, New York, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington still allow reading in place of law schooling. Each has its own standards and in some a period of law school attendance is required. Out of over 80,000 new lawyers minted in 2013, less than 100 read the law.

The surviving process of reading has been lauded of late by Business Insider and the New York Times. Both note the difficulties faced by a reader.

“The A.B.A. takes the position that the most appropriate process for becoming a lawyer should include obtaining a J.D. degree from a law school approved by the A.B.A. and passing a bar examination,” said Barry A. Currier, managing director of accreditation and legal education for the group.

Robert E. Glenn, president of the Virginia Board of Bar Examiners, was less circumspect. “It’s a cruel hoax,” he said of apprenticeships. “It’s such a waste of time for someone to spend three years in this program but not have anything at the end.”

NY Times.

Of course, anything but the cartel’s way is a hoax. The frowners frown. Never mind the vast number of students who drop out of law school or graduate but cannot pass the bar. At least they paid tuition.

A few organizations exist to perpetuate the old tradition. Sterling Education Services is one. “What if, instead of a traditional law school degree and six-figure debt, you could take the bar exam and achieve your goal through hands-on legal experience?” – Sterling. These groups offer study aids and seminars. They’re looking to cash in on the alternative. Then again, these are the exact same bar prep services law school graduates turn to immediately after law school.

Though frowned upon this ancient alternative is viable. If a lawyer reads the law in a reading state and passes that state’s bar, he can then apply in other states. It would certainly warrant examination by those considering the legal profession. Those who follow this path follow in the footsteps of giants.

We Fight Over There, They Fight Over Here

25 Wednesday Nov 2015

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We have been warned and warned and warned again – by the Greeks, the Romans, the British, the Germans, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Israelites, the Egyptians, the Ottomans, the Africans, and our own Founders – of the lethal danger of foreign entanglements. The study of any nation’s history reveals that things always go badly when that nation involves itself politically and militarily in conflicts in which it has no business. It’s a lesson no people seem capable of grasping; Americans are no exception. A scientist might consider it a defect in human evolution – I hereby name it the geo-political suicide gene or GSG. Maybe we can start a society and find a cure.

As the GSG condition progresses one thing always leads to another for the afflicted state. The hobgoblins must be found or invented one after another. Following the defeat of the Nazis, the Italians and the Imperial Japanese in World War II, the United States immediately turned its animosity and attention towards the Russians. Upon the bankruptcy of Russia late last Century it was decided to concentrate, stupidly, on the Middle East.

I watched and listened as Colin Powell stated America’s alarming case against Saddam Hussein at the UN in 2003. Fact after deadly fact was rattled off of the dangers posed by the seemingly most dangerous man on earth. As I listened I wondered why, if all this was known, we weren’t already bombing the hell out of Iraq. We soon were. Iraq and just about every other Muslim country.

The problem (as usual with this sort of thing) was that each and every fact was a lie. Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. He had no nuclear program. He had no League with al-cia-da or with Osama – he was their enemy in fact. He had no plans nor ability to attack the U.S.

Lies or not, we stepped in it. We’re still knee-deep in the mud and muck of an eternal conflict between peoples wholly unconcerned with us. Well, they are now , being sick of our meddling. ISIS is the name given the latest hobgoblin (or ISIL, or IS, or CIA program X).

And, now, in the middle of the fray the Russians are back. Things are ugly enough already but now stand the chance of turning nightmarish.

Our history with Russia is topsy-turvy. Our ally in WW2 they became our cold war enemy. Now they could be viewed as an ally against ISIS but that obviously isn’t convenient for someone. We would seem to have a common enemy in Syria but we don’t or, at least, our approaches differ.

Yesterday our NATO treaty ally Turkey shot down a Russian plane over Syria. The Russians threaten retaliation. Under Article Five of the outdated, idiotic NATO treaty we could be legally (if that’s the term) bound to defend Turkey from Russia. An attack on one is an attack on all. Our common enemy must find this convenient and amusing.

While we waste our waning power abroad the enemy is at work here. On American soil. Today. They are as serious and determined as we are deluded.

Back during the early stages of the foolish and failed Iraqi campaign there was a popular saying of justification: “We have to fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here.” It was an expression of the ever-changing defense of the defenseless. One heard it from the blathering fools of talk radio and the national redneckery on a regular basis. It, too, was a lie. It did not work.

The strategy failed because the same governments that started the trouble in the first place have insisted on importing into the West the enemies they made overseas. This is the suicidal part of GSG.

ISIS is in America now. They’re in France and Britain. They’re shooting and bombing our people while we play chicken with the nuclear armed bear. At the same time the natives have their liberties curtailed by the government. The same government that chastises the people for pointing out the problem. The same government that created the problem. The same government that makes the people pay for the GSG.

Sometimes the government admits the truth. They just admitted finding a dozen terrorists among the droves of allegedly vetted “refugees.”

Yet and still they claim they have control. Many still believe them. Many still support the GSG.

Really, with “leadership” like this, who needs ISIS or any other hobgoblins? It’s something to ponder while there’s a little time left.

Piracy, Counterfeiting, and Treason

23 Monday Nov 2015

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This article was featured on The Perrin Lovett Show (with usual amateur production, etc.).

The United States Constitution sets forth a very few enumerated powers for the federal government – 18 to 30 or so, depending on how one reads the text.Several others could be imagined given a certain degree of lucidity. The modern law and political crowd obviously has a very vivid imaginations.

“Our” government now involves itself in literally everything. The pretense of following the Constitution was long ago dropped in favor of a do-all, end-all, all things for all people nanny state. This proves, as Lysander Spooner noted toward the end of the 19th Century, the abject failure of the Constitution. Either it enabled the growth and development of the current system or it was powerless to prevent it. Either way a lost cause for the liberty-minded.

Amongst those few, ancient powers were the prohibition and prosecution of but three specific crimes. Others, a few, could, again, be imagined based on the surrounding text.

Insanity, rather than imagination, best describes the current vast expanse of federal criminal “justice.” Today there are something like 10,000 crimes in the federal code – not all of them are even contained in Title 18, criminal laws. If you have a system where laws escape their designated place, you then have a problem. Worse, the various federal administrative agencies – none of which are found in the Constitution – write a bazillion regulations every year. Many of these carry quasi-criminal penalties.

One gets the idea that any and everything is illegal in America. It is. Possessing a “short” lobster is illegal. Owning a flower banned by a foreign government is illegal. Installing a toilet with a decent sized water tank is illegal.

Few of these laws were enacted to preserve order or to protect the public. Rather, they are intended to promote the government’s over the populace. The people seem to approve. That is, until they find themselves on the wrong side of a federal courtroom.

The average American commits three felonies a day – usually with no intent. Most of these go unprosecuted. Most are never known. Even if a violation is disclosed it is rarely acted upon. It would be impossible to persecute 300 million citizens on a regular basis. Unnecessary too. Prosecution is selective at best. It’s designed to make examples to keep the people in line.

Again, it started out with but three crimes. All the rest were left to the states for enforcement by statute or under our English heritage of common law. While a few cases of the three original varieties occasionally come up, these crimes are almost completely committed, these days by the government itself.

Counterfeiting

“The Congress shall have the power …To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States.” U.S. Const., Art. I, Section 8.

You, dear reader, must be familiar with the concept of the counterfeiter. It’s some dude in a basement with a press and green ink or a high-end color copier, who manufactures fake twenties for use at the supermarket. This does happen. However, it is dwarfed by the scheme enacted by the government in 1913 through the Federal Reserve Act.

That Act created the modern central banking system. One of those thirty or so enumerated powers in the old parchment authorized only Congress to create currency. Said currency was to be based only upon the determined value of gold or silver. It was thus real money, linked to something of intrinsic value.

Via the Act Congress abdicated its authority to a private banking cabal. They were literally given a monopoly to print money. A tenuous link was, then, in place which, on the surface, to the Constitution and the gold standard. The Act’s original language stated the new federal reserve notes could be redeemed at any time for either “lawful currency” or precious metals. It was a sly admission the new notes were something other than lawful. Funny almost but deadly.

This cozy arrangement allows the government an endless supply of debt by which to prop up its income tax scheme and bottomless spending. The tax also, conveniently, came along in 1913. Like a plan or something.

The cabal benefits by being able to loan themselves and their friends an infinite amount of money. You may read all about this process, dubbed the “Mandrake Mechanism” in G. Edward Griffin’s The Creature from Jekyll Island.

The downsides for you are several. First, you endure the loss of Constitutional government – lost to a despicable gang of criminals. Second, you loss buying power to inflation. The more of something there is, the less each individual unit is worth. The more money the Fed prints, the less the money you have buys. Prices rise accordingly. Incomes are always the last to increase; they are perpetually behind the curve.

The Treasury still has the ability to print real money in addition to the Fed’s funny notes. The last time it did so was in the 1960s in a bid to boost currency circulation. The gold link was weakened during the great depression (by a Democrat administration) and severed entirely in the early 70s by Richard Nixon (a Republican) (2 parties, remember…).

Piracy

“The Congress shall have the power … To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations…” U.S. Const., Art.I, Section 8.

This was a serious issue for the young Republic, being tied to European trade. It’s still an important issue. Ask Captain Phillips about piracy in the 21st Century. Again, however, the actions of the central government eclipse anything done by the hook and parrot set.

The government does not roam the seas looking for vessels to raid. Well, actually, they do. Most of their pillaging and plundering is conducted on land though. Piracy is synonymous with stealing. What doesn’t the government steal?

They get your money through taxes, fees, and insidious inflation. They get your flowers, short lobsters, milk, and produce. They get your arms, legs an lives through their endless wars. They get your children with their mandatory non-education system. They get it all. Pipe up too loudly about this theft and they bring out the guns – piracy. Everything, everywhere, everyday.

Treason

“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason…” U.S. Const., Art. III, Section 3.

With the exception of the “Civil” war the government does not conduct military operations against itself. Sometimes one wishes the opposite. They do occasionally make war on us: whiskey tax protesters, poor coal miners, displaced veterans, Indians, those of Japanese ancestry, churches, etc.

The real crime they commit – constantly – is giving aid to our enemies. Any enemy they can find so long as the free people suffer. Piracy and counterfeiting (see above) are two good examples. Another example is the absolute infidelity to the limits of the Constitution. Yet again, the majority of the people seem okay with the ridiculous overextension of state authority – so long as they get (or are at least promised) some goodies.

A great example from the news of late is the American warfare/welfare policy concerning Islamic terrorism. The military trots around the globe in search of crazed radicals. Rather than defeating them, they stir the boiling pot. This allows for wholesale spending of the fiat money. It also gives them graft to loot. It also angers the hell out of already dangerous peoples.

As if that isn’t bad enough Washington then imports as many “refugees” to the States as it can locate. Screening be damned, they have a Civilization to wreck.

If any outsider attempted such unimaginable terror, it would be considered an act of war. As is, I view it as an act of Treason. The people may not go along with this one much longer. Not when Paris-style theater and sporting outings become the norm. Not when Sharia law emerges from the 7th century into places like Dearborn and Omaha.

What if anything can be done? I think reform is not an option. Many of my conservative friends want a “return to the Constitution.” That means going back to a document that was roundly ignored the first time. At best, it would reset the clock. This time around there’s no assurance the demise (eternal) would take so long to happen. They could just use history as a blueprint.

Congress, the President (any President), and their friends in beaurocracy and banking are non to eager to give up all that power and fun. The Courts have long since rubber stamped the insanity. It’s all okay because of the Necessary and Proper Clause, or the Welfare Clause, or the Santa Clause, or … Just because it just is.

Years ago, during a federal firearms case, I asserted the government’s lack of authority over firearms law as a defense for my client. I moved the court to dismiss the charges for lack of standing. I reminded the judge about Article One enumeration. I waived a copy of the parchment around like a fan. As I spoke there was a stunned silence. Attorneys are not supposed to uphold the law as I did literally.

My motion was denied instantly. My client took a plea deal and voided any chance of an appeal. Any appeal would have failed anyway. Law and order minus the law part.

These are not only my experience. Ted Cruz, whom I’m told is running for President, accessed the White House of ‘Counterfeiting Immigration Documents’

Given what we know about government, they probably did. They’re obviously getting away with it. This was a story about immigration too. Perhaps the merging of Treason and counterfeiting.

Speaking to Fox News following a federal judge’s decision to temporarily halt President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration, the potential Republican presidential contender said the commander in chief is ignoring federal law.

“One of the things it points out is the president has claimed, rather absurdly, that the basis of his authority is ‘prosecutorial discretion.’ That he’s simply choosing not to prosecute 4.5 million people here illegally,” Cruz told Fox News. “But what the district court concluded, quite rightly, is they’re doing far more than that. The administration is printing work authorizations. It is affirmatively acting in contravention of federal law. Basically, what its doing is counterfeiting immigration documents, because the work authorizations its printing are directly contrary to the text of federal law. It is dangerous when the president ignores federal law.

…

“We’re not going to disregard this federal court ruling,” Obama said, but he added that administration officials would continue to prepare to roll out the program.

We’re not going to ignore the law, we’ll just not abide by it. To hell with it… That, in a nutshell, is the government. What can be done? Not much right now. For starters though we could all cease to hold the state up on a pedestal of honor. The gallows would be more appropriate. Stop legitimizing the monsters. Shun the long enough and maybe they will go away.

Peterpan2-disneyscreencaps_com-1915

Arrrrrrr. Ye taxes and short lobsters I shall have! Disney.