Freedom Can Not Be Bestowed And Is Rarely Restored ... J. D. Longstreet

Freedom Can Not Be Bestowed And Is Rarely Restored
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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Is it possible to give someone freedom? 

Think about it.  This is profound -- especially at this critical time in America.

Is freedom something you can bestow upon another human being?  Or, must freedom be taken, and secured, by those who would be free?

There is hardly a race of people on the planet who have not, at one time or another, been slaves.  Most have seized any opportunity to end their enslavement by taking their freedom, often through revolt and the shedding of blood.  Their freedom was bought, and paid for, in the currency most often bartered for liberty… blood.

The shedding of blood gave them an investment in their freedom and a reason to cherish it precisely because of it’s cost.  These people understand freedom and the cost.  They know, all too well, that freedom is not free.  If one desires freedom, one must pay for it.

It seems, to me, that when you bestow freedom upon a people, you simply substitute one slave master for another. That is, the person upon whom, you bestow that freedom, is forever tied to you.  That is the very definition of enslavement -- slavery!  Voluntary servitude, maybe, but there is most certainly a tie that forever binds between the “bestowed” and the “bestower”.

Sooner or later -- the “bestowed” begins to resent the “eternal hold” his emancipator has over him. And a slow burning rage begins deep inside his inner most being.  That rage is handed down from generation to generation.  We see evidence of that rage here, in America, everyday. 

Much is being said today about the continent of Africa.  A hopeless morass of enslavement, if ever there has been one, stares the entire world in the face.  There is little we can do for Africa.  I have said it before and I will say it again… Africa must heal itself.

The question arises… if the western world steps in and cleans the mess up and “bestows” the people of the various countries of Africa their freedom, will they be able to maintain it?  Will they value it enough to strive to protect and defend that freedom, or will that place less value in the "gift" of freedom than they would it that freedom was "earned".  I tend to think they will value it less as a "gift."

There are all sorts of enslavement, but the simple truth is… the resentment of the emancipated for the emancipator is ever present. 

I have come to believe we do enslaved peoples no favor when we free them.  For proof of this we have only to look within America itself.  I fear we will face even stronger resentment in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and other middle eastern countries, as we withdraw and leave them to their own devices.

The evidence is already becoming clear. Even before the dust had cleared from the exiting US forces Iraq was already conniving to return to its old ways of dictatorial government.  Freedom?  Nah!  They obviously prefer a strongman form of government.  Very soon Iraq will be run by the mullahs of Iran as they seek to enlarge and secure their hegemony over the region. 

This is a hard truth to digest.  But, I believe that if, and when, we get past all the politically correct facades we have constructed to shield ourselves from this truth we will come face to face with the hard cold fact:  The bestowal of Freedom can’t be done.  It is impossible to accomplish. 

Freedom must be taken, seized, at whatever cost, to have any value.  A human being cannot accept freedom as a gift without accepting the inevitable bonds that will always, and forever, tie the emancipated to the emancipator.

Eventually, we will have to accept this truth and deal with it.

If I may be so bold, America must, I repeat -- MUST -- come to understand that democracy is not necessarily the form of government that will best serve ALL peoples of the earth. 

Democracy is DANGEROUS -- extremely dangerous -- and unpredictable.   To hand a people, just freed from enslavement, democracy is akin to placing a loaded gun in the hands of a two-year old.  Often the urge for revenge on their previous overlords -- and those who supported them -- is overwhelming and violence occurs.  Even in America upon the occasion of the colonists winning their freedom from Great Britain,  there was a near mass exodus of Tories (Those were the "loyalists" who supported the British Crown before and during the American Revolution) at the close of hostilities.  Yes, there WERE some reprisals.  NO people are immune from vengeful emotions.

Democracy does not guarantee a people will not deliberately vote themselves right back into slavery.  And -- as we are learning right here in America -- a limited democracy, such as our own constitutional representative republic, did not guarantee that the American people would not vote their freedom away and adopt
socialism/Marxism, incrementally, as we have done.

America's government was designed and intended for a learned, educated, people. It served us well when America's people were well educated and actually cared about their government.  As of today, the greatest threat to the freedom of the American people is their very own government -- a government created by the people and allowed to grow in power and reach until it has smothered most of the people's hard won liberty. 

Today there are fifty separate countries/states controlled by one single entity, created, originally, by those separate, sovereign, countries to act as their agent.  The whole concept has been turned on its head.  The last time a government had just a smidgen of the power over the American people that the current government has, those colonists went to war to win their freedom.  America is in deep trouble today.        

While we Americans are straining to keep an eye on the trouble spots around the globe, especially in the Middle East, we are ignoring, perhaps, the most volatile of all  the smoldering powder kegs on the planet -- America itself.

Millions of Americans remember a free America -- and they want it restored.  They also know that freedom is not free and they know the price
re-acquiring it will demand.  They know, too, it is a job only they, the American people, can do.  For those Americans, voluntary servitude is not even an option.

So, we have come full circle.  As in the old expression:  "Physician heal thyself," many Americans think it is past time to put our own house in order and stop, or at the very least "suspend," our attempts at exporting the American brand of democracy to the entire world, especially to those tribal nations of the Middle East and the continent of Africa.

Iraq has demonstrated the fallacy of THAT pipe dream.

The struggle to restore a free America is in its infancy.  When America awakens on the morning of  November 7th, 2012, and faces the horror that I believe awaits us as a nation, then I expect a growth spurt.  It will then be impossible to deny that freedom and liberty in America has very little value to those who view the state as "the great benefactor," indeed, as their god.

The election results of November 6th, will be the clarion call for those who would be free -- AGAIN.

I'll repeat the question I raised above:  "Is freedom something you can bestow upon another human being?  Or, must freedom be taken, and secured, by those who would be
free?"  It is a question Americans would do well to ponder between now and the election in November. Our colonist forefathers knew the answer.                                       

J. D. Longstreet
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The ABC's of Journalism's Eroding Integrity ... Alan Caruba

By Alan Caruba

I joined the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) in April 1979, thirty-three years ago. The preamble to its Code of Ethics says, “Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist’s credibility” and that journalists should “test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent errors.”

Someone needs to send a copy of SPJ’s Code of Ethics to the news staff of the American Broadcasting Company (ABC).

ABC News and other practitioners of sloppy reporting prompted me to found The National Anxiety Center in 1990 as a clearinghouse for information to debunk “scare campaigns” designed to influence public opinion and policy. Part of that effort was a 2008 series “The Enemies of Meat” in which I examined the scare campaigns related to ranching.

The most troubling trend in recent times has been a steady erosion of journalism’s integrity.

In particular, the latest example has been ABC’s lax ethics that visited devastation on a company with a thirty-year history of safe operation, Beef Products, Inc. The company pioneered the provision of lean, finely textured beef which is blended with fattier hamburger to make it more learn and nutritious. It also protects it against pathogens with a process that won the coveted 2007 “Black Pearl” award from the International Association for Food Protection.

ABC reporter Jim Avila, in hot pursuit of a journalism award, wrote a series of reports claiming that BPI was producing “pink slime” with the network hyping the term by using it 52 times in a two-week period in March. Any reporter investigating BPI would have swiftly found a mountain of evidence exonerating the company from any hint of the allegations made against it.

Avila’s reporting put BPI in jeopardy of closing down entirely, forcing the suspension of business at plants in Texas, Kansas, and Iowa, while the headquarters plant in Dakota Dunes, South Dakota, struggles to continue operations. So far 650 employees have lost their jobs with several thousand more jobs at risk at companies that relied on BPI, affecting their families and communities.

The company’s founder, Eldon Roth, wrote in a March The Wall Street Journal ad that “Before last summer, we could not have imagined the personal, professional, financial and spiritual impact of the campaign of lies and deceit that have been waged against our company and the lean beef we produce.”

When challenged on the job losses by Dan Gainor of the Media Research Center, Avila arrogantly tweeted him saying “Let’s be clear. No one job loss if bpi had been upfront with consumers” and dismissed a rebuke from the American Meat Institute’s Janet Riley, saying, “I’m saying we don’t go to lobbyists paid by meat industry to get our experts.”

Not upfront with consumers? The product in its present form has been used for more than a decade with coverage in the Washington Post, the New York Times, a Hollywood movie and more! As for the “experts” in Avila’s reports, he chose a former federal bureaucrat who called the product “pink slime” in a ten-year-old email to fellow employees at the Department of Agriculture.

In an April Bloomberg Business Week article, reporters, Bryan Gruley and Elizabeth Campbell examined the way BPI had been subjected to “sliming”, noting that its finely textured lean beef had been purchased for use by McDonald’s, Wal-Mart Stores, Burger King, Kroger, Taco Bell, and scores of grocers for many years. In short, if you have had a hamburger in the past decade, you have eaten lean finely textured beef and enjoyed it.

Avila repeated the formula in July when ABC aired a story about “super bugs” that it alleged was a strain of bacteria in chicken that could lead to urinary infections in women. ABC did acknowledge that “there is no study showing a definitive link between the presence of e-coli in chicken and infection in women…” but not until viewers had become alarmed by the report.

Ashley Peterson, Ph.D., the vice president of science and technology for the National Chicken Council, noted that, even if there was a “super bug”, it would be easily avoidable through “proper cooking and handling of poultry products, because all bacteria, resistant or not, are killed by proper cooking.” Cooking meat properly is a 10,000 year-old practice, but when someone forgets to do it, Avila and ABC thinks it is news.

The kind of reporting that has become the hallmark of ABC News is an insult to everyone. In the case of BPI, it constitutes a bogus attack on the meat industry and is destructive of the livelihood of everyone fortunate to bring home a paycheck in those industries.

What happened to BPI can happen any time a reporter like Avila dispenses with the most fundamental standards of journalism.

The ABC News product increasingly ceases to be journalism. It is sensationalism. It is reprehensible. It’s time to let ABC News feel the sting of public disapproval.

© Alan Caruba, 2012
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Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" his popular blog and thereafter on dozens of other websites and blogs. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. To visit his Facebook page, click here For information on his professional skills, Caruba.com is the place to visit.

Team Obama fines oil companies for not using fantasy fuel ... Deroy Murdock

Team Obama fines oil companies for not using fantasy fuel

There is no such thing as “cellulosic” ethanol, but EPA fines companies for not using it

Deroy Murdock

 

Why does America’s economy feel like an SUV that is running on fumes? The Obama Administration’s laughably rigid enforcement of a Baby Bush-era ethanol mandate typifies today’s regulatory climate. When Uncle Sam governs with a tire iron in his hand, U.S. companies wisely pull off the road and pray for new management.

The Environmental Protection Agency has slapped a $6.8 million penalty on oil refiners for not blending cellulosic ethanol into gasoline, jet fuel and other products. These dastardly petroleum mongers are being so intransigent because cellulosic ethanol does not exist. It remains a fantasy fuel. The EPA might as well mandate that Exxon hire Leprechauns.

As a screen shot of EPA’s renewable fuels website confirms, so far this year – just as in 201l – the supply of cellulosic biofuel in gallons totals zero.

“EPA’s decision is arbitrary and capricious. We fail to understand how EPA can maintain a requirement to purchase a type of fuel that simply doesn’t exist,” stated Charles Drevna, president of American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), the Washington-based trade association that represents the oil refining and petrochemicals industries.

“We’ll fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn but from wood chips and stalks or switch grass,” President G.W. Bush said in his 2006 State of the Union address. “Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years.”

So, in 2007, Bush idiotically signed the Energy Independence and Security Act. Beyond prohibiting Thomas Edison’s ground-breaking incandescent light bulb by 2014, EISA’s Renewable Fuel Standard mandated cellulosic ethanol.

Under the RFS, refiners had to blend 6.6 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol in 2011. Although this substance is not extant, EPA then demanded to see 31 percent more of it. This year’s quota is 8.65 million gallons.

EPA still expects cellulosic ethanol to leap magically from test tubes into storage tanks. While EPA has lowered its original targets as each year rolls around (for example, 2012’s “volumetric requirements” were originally set at 500 million gallons), its compulsory quantities remain enormous for the next 10 years, as the following table shows.

[table is in Word version only]

Presidents Bush and Obama have pumped some $1.5 billion in grants and guarantees into converting cellulosic ethanol from dream into reality. As Thomas Pyle of the Institute for Energy Research reports, Team Obama handed a $105 million loan guarantee to POET, “the world’s largest ethanol producer,” to create cellulosic fuel. Last September, Abengoa Energy scored a $134 million loan to build a Kansas cellulosic factory. Last August, Obama gave the Navy $510 million to develop biofuels for the U.S. armed forces.

Way back in 2010, some 70 percent of fantasy fuel was supposed to spring from Cello Energy in Alabama. Unfortunately, in 2009, a jury determined that Cello falsified its production capacity. Cello went silent in October 2010 when it filed for bankruptcy.

The National Academy of Sciences announced last year that “currently, no commercially viable bio-refineries exist for converting cellulosic biomass to fuel.” NAS further predicted that in 2022, EPA’s mandated cellulosic supplies will not materialize “unless innovative technologies are developed that unexpectedly improve the cellulosic biofuels production process.” In other words, if you don’t build it, they will not come.

A Wall Street Journal editorial perfectly encapsulated this fine mess.

“Congress subsidized a product that didn’t exist, mandated its purchase though it still didn’t exist, is punishing oil companies for not buying the product that doesn’t exist, and is now doubling down on the subsidies in the hope that someday it might exist.”

The oil refiners absorbed all of this and chose, at first, to play nice. AFPM and the American Petroleum Institute petitioned EPA in February 2011 and again on January 20, 2012 – the second time joined by the Western States Petroleum Association. As the administration gave labor unions and entire states waivers from ObamaCare, the refiners asked for waivers from the RFS mandate.

Fully 15 months after the first petition and four months beyond the second, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson finally rejected the refiners’ appeals, reaffirming that they must obey this regulation – never mind that they more easily could defy gravity. “We thank you for your interest in these issues,” Jackson’s May 22 letter cheerily added.

Thus, on June 11, AFPM and WSPA sued EPA in DC Circuit Court. The plaintiffs hope a federal judge will blend some sanity into a scenario that resembles the work of Salvador Dali.

Rather than focus on expanding operations and creating jobs, lawful American companies now must spend money to sue the federal government for relief from unobservable rules. This fact demonstrates how bone-headed and bull-headed Washington has become. Even worse, business people beyond the oil industry watch this charade and wonder when the regulatory tumbrels will roll by for them.

“This doesn’t help. On the margin, this spooks business people,” says economist Tom Landstreet, founder and CEO of Standard Research Corporation, a Nashville-based investment analysis firm. The former colleague of supply-side legend Arthur Laffer adds: “This is part of a pervasive cluelessness about the economy and markets. It’s just one of a thousand cuts.”

Company owners these days ask themselves “How does one become a favored industry or business under this administration, versus being one that is vilified and demonized,” says AFPM’s Drevna. If a particular enterprise is “not part of that inner circle,” he continues, “they might go to Singapore or somewhere with a more business-friendly atmosphere.”

Drevna applauds recent comments by Governor Bobby Jindal (R-Louisiana). “I suspect that many in the Obama Administration don’t really believe in private enterprise. At best, they see business as something to be endured so that it can provide tax money for government programs,” Jindal wrote in a June 14 RedState.com op-ed. “The problem is that the private sector is so foreign to our President that he would need a passport to go there and a translator to understand what is happening.”

Washington’s unyielding, heavy-handed, and nonsensical behavior nonetheless may obscure a sliver of silver lining. The Bush-Obama Administration indeed has invented a hybrid fuel: cellulosic ethanol is one half industrial policy and one half comedy routine.

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New York commentator Deroy Murdock is a nationally syndicated columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University. This article originally appeared on National Review Online, in July 2012.

The “REAL” A. Lincoln! ... J. D. Longstreet

The “REAL” A. Lincoln!

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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Every year, when spring rolls around, you can count on numerous articles in the mainstream media, and elsewhere, reviling the Confederacy, and so-called Neo-Confederates, the Confederate Battle flag, Proclamations of Confederate History Month, etc, etc, … ad infinitum.

It never fails that Southerners are branded as slavers over and over, and readers are told how vile, and nasty, and ignorant, and just plain E V I L we Southerners are. Most of the ruminations by these writers and commentators are just plain garbage not backed up by REAL history but underwritten by revisionist history. In plain English -- it is BOVINE SCATOLOGY!

I know what I am about to attempt to tell you will fall on mostly deaf ears because many of you anti-Southerners don’t want to hear it, will not hear it, and will continue to deny the truth simply because the facts do not fit your life’s template. TOUGH!

Yes, we had slaves in the South. But so did the north. In fact, the north ran the slave trade. Many of the fortunes of wealthy northeasterners today were built on the slave trade.

My family had no slaves. As sharecroppers there were times when the slave’s living conditions were, in fact, better than theirs!

And I am sick and tired of the anti-southerner’s vindictive claims that the War Between the States was fought entirely to free the slaves. That, dear reader is a bald-faced lie!

Yes, many months into the war, slavery was injected into the “reasons for the war” by the Lincoln Administration. Remember, of all slave-holding and slave-trafficking countries on the globe at the time, America was the ONLY one to abolish slavery through war! THE ONLY ONE!

We are fed the idiotic pabulum of revised history in our public school system that Lincoln was the savior of the Black man in America. We are taught that Lincoln freed the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation. That, too, is a bald-faced lie.

One of the spoils of war is the right to write history the way you want it to be remembered and taught. The Confederate soldier knew that and Confederate General Patrick Cleburne attempted to impress upon his men the meaning of losing the war. He summed it up this way: “…It means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be taught by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by all the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, or maimed veterans as fit objects for derision.” Gen. Cleburne was spot on!

As to Lincoln freeing the slaves, allow me to inquire… have you ever actually read the Emancipation Proclamation? I advise you to do so. When you DO read it, and read it carefully, you will quickly see that it did not free a single slave – NOT ONE!

In reference to the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln, himself, said the following: "The [Emancipation] proclamation has no constitutional or legal justification except as a war measure." That statement was in a letter to Sec. of Treas. Salmon P. Chase; 3 Sep 1863.

The following is a quote from the London Spectator, dated October 1, 1862 concerning the Emancipation Proclamation: "The principle [of the Proclamation] is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States government."

But, we Americans are taught that Lincoln LOVED the black people, right? Well, it isn’t exactly the truth.

Let us examine Lincoln’s own words and try to determine the degree of respect Lincoln held for the Black race:

Abraham Lincoln said the following on September 18, 1858 in a speech in Charleston, Illinois:

"I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races [applause]: that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." -- Reply by Abraham Lincoln to Stephen A. Douglas in the first joint debate, Ottowa, IL; 21 Aug 1858.

Lincoln also said this: “"I have never seen to my knowledge a man, woman, or child who was in favor of producing a perfect equality, social or political, between Negroes and white men." This statement was in his opening speech, fourth joint debate with Douglas, Charleston, IL; 18 Sep 1858.

Lincoln thought the Black man should be equal to the While man, right? Well, think again! Lincoln said this about that: "Negro Equality! Fudge!! How long in the government of a God, great enough to make and maintain this Universe, shall there continue knaves to vend, and fools to gulp, so low a piece of demagoguism as this?" A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as immediate separation is impossible the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. Such separation, if ever affected at all, must be effected by colonization. The enterprise is a difficult one, but 'where there is a will there is a way:' and what colonization needs now is a hearty will. Will springs from the two elements of moral and self-interest. Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and at the same time, favorable to, or at least not against our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be." From an address by Abraham Lincoln at Springfield, Illinois, on June 26, 1857.

In a speech at Springfield Illinois on July 17th, 1858, Lincoln said the following: “What I would most desire would be the separation of the black and white races.”

Speaking at Charleston, Illinois, September 18th, 1858, Lincoln said this: “ … I will, to the very last, stand by the law of this state, which forbids the marrying of white people with Negroes.”

There is a very “telling” letter which Lincoln wrote to Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York Tribune, in response to an article Greeley had written entitled; “Prayer of Twenty Millions.” The letter from Lincoln is dated August 22nd, 1862. In the letter Lincoln says the following:

Dear Sir: I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptible [sic] in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.

As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.

Yours,

A.     Lincoln.

Do you detect the slightest bit of political “double talk” in Lincoln’s letter? Never forget, Lincoln was, first and foremost, a politician! If you had ANY doubt, this letter to Greeley ought to dispel it.

So which is it? Was Lincoln Pro-slavery, or Anti-slavery? You decide.

In his first Inaugural Address before Congress on March 4th, 1861, Lincoln said: “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to intervene with the institution of slavery.”

Then, in another letter to Horace Greeley dated March 24th, 1862, Lincoln said: “I am a little uneasy about the abolishment of slavery in this District of Columbia.”

Confused? Oh, it gets even more confusing -- or enlightening -- depending upon the degree to which you admire the truth.

Ever hear of The Corwin Amendment? Some refer to it as the original 13th amendment to the US Constitution. Let’s take a look at it.

On February 28, 1861, the United States House of Representatives approved the resolution by a vote of 133-65 (Page 1285, Congressional Globe). On March 2, 1861, it was approved by the United States Senate with a vote of 24-12 (Page 1403, Congressional Globe). A young Henry Adams observed that the measure narrowly passed both houses due to the lobbying efforts of Abraham Lincoln, who was then the President-Elect.

Why is the Corwin Amendment important? First let’s take a look at the text, shall we?
 

The text of the Corwin Amendment is as follows:

“No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.”

Ratification efforts began soon after the measure was adopted and Lincoln endorsed it in his inaugural address. In fact, Lincoln said this about the Corwin Amendment in his first Inaugural Address on March 4th, 1861: “To the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the states, including that of persons held to service … I have NO OBJECTION TO ITS (THE CORWIN AMENDMENT) BEING MADE EXPRESS AND IRRVOCABLE.”

The proposal was ratified by the legislatures of Ohio (May 13, 1861) and Maryland (January 10, 1862). Illinois lawmakers — sitting as a constitutional convention at the time — also approved it, although some still question the validity of that action. It was also considered for ratification in several other states including Kentucky, New York, and Connecticut where it was either rejected or died in committee because wartime issues had begun to preoccupy the states and the nation as a whole.

So why is the Corwin Amendment important today? Because, dear reader, it IS STILL PENDING! As long as it remains a pending amendment, there is the possibility, however slim, that it could still be ratified. The President’s signature is not required, and a President cannot veto an amendment to the constitution.

Congress even passed the Crittendon-Johnson resolution on July 22, 1861 in which the Congress announced that the purpose of the war “was NOT interference with the rights or established institutions of those states, but to Preserve the Union with the rights of the several states unimpaired.”

Then, in December of 1862, in his State of the Union message to Congress, Lincoln proposed three constitutional amendments: 1 – Slaves not freed by the Emancipation Proclamation were to be freed over a 37 year period, to be completed by January 1st, 1900. 2 – Provided compensation to owners for the loss of their slave property. 3 – The government would transport “FREED BLACKS,” at government expense, out of the United States -- and relocate them in Latin America and in Africa.

Now. Does any of this sound like the Lincoln you know -- or the Lincoln you were taught about in the government indoctrination centers we refer to as Public Schools? Probably not! Ask yourself how much more you DO NOT KNOW about President Abraham Lincoln.

For instance -- did you know that Lincoln started a war without the consent of Congress? Did you know that he illegally blockaded southern ports; illegally suspended habeas corpus and arrested tens of thousands of his political opponents; illegally orchestrated the secession of West Virginia; shut down hundreds of opposition newspapers and imprisoned their editors and owners; deported the most outspoken member of the Democratic Party, Congressman Clement I. Vallandigham of Ohio; confiscated private property, including, by the way, firearms; ignored the Ninth and Tenth Amendments; tolerated the arrest of ministers who refused to publicly pray for him; arrested duly elected members of the Maryland legislature, as well as Congressman Henry May of Baltimore; and supported a law that indemnified federal officials from all these illegal acts.

Shocking, Right?

THIS, dear reader, is the Lincoln I know – not the “Saintly Lincoln” revised history forces on us today. The “air brushed” Lincoln we know today is pure propaganda.

The facts we enumerated above can be easily verified on the Internet. Once you begin digging don’t be surprised when you turn up even more historical accounts of Lincoln’s duality. Your research will present you with a choice. You must choose between the REAL Lincoln, and the REVISED Lincoln.

Someone once said “so much of what we know is wrong.” The wise man, in today’s world, questions everything.

 

As the direct descendent of a whole slew of Confederates soldiers, and a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, I took an oath to see that the true history of the Confederate soldier is preserved and passed on to generations yet unborn. Theirs is a story of courage, bravery, audacity, faith, pride, and honor. I will make every effort to see that theirstory is told and then passed on.

 

It is the oral tradition of passing on a people’s story, which is as old as man himself. In this way we can be sure that no matter what the revisionists do to the “official” record, we will have the truth. And it is the TRUTH that makes one FREE.

J. D. Longstreet

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Voting For Wildlife Extermination ... Paul Diessen

Voting For Wildlife Extermination
Extending the wind energy PTC will drive eagles and other majestic birds to extinction
Paul Driessen
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The latest justification for extending the industrial wind electricity production tax credit (PTC) is that we need an “all of the above” energy policy. The slogan falls flat, even when it’s expanded to “all of the above and below” – which is rarely the case with radical environmentalists and “progressive” politicians, who steadfastly oppose “any of the below” (ie, hydrocarbons).

America needs an “all of the sensible” energy policy. If an energy option makes sense – technically, economically and environmentally – it should be implemented. If it flunks, it should be scrapped.

Industrial wind energy mandates, renewable portfolio standards, subsidies, feed-in tariffs and production tax credits fail every test. They flunk environmental standards disastrously. In fact, they are subsidizing the slaughter of countless eagles, hawks, falcons, owls, herons, cranes, egrets, other birds and bats.

The wind PTC epitomizes “you didn’t build it.” If any business “didn’t get there on your own,” or was “successful because, along the line,” somebody (in government) “gave you some help” – it is Big Wind.

Industrial wind energy has been mandated, propped up, subsidized, built and protected by government. Elected and unelected officials at the federal, state and local levels have given it every unfair advantage that taxpayer and ratepayer money, legal favors and exemptions, and crony corporatism could bestow upon it. Meanwhile, in numerous cases, the same legislative, regulatory, environmentalist and industrialist cronies have penalized and marginalized Big Wind’s hydrocarbon and nuclear competitors – often for the same reasons that are ignored with wind energy.

Industrial wind is actually our least sustainable energy resource. It requires perpetual subsidies to survive. The tax revenues it takes from productive sectors of the economy, the insufficient and unreliable nature of wind electricity, and the exorbitant electricity rates that wind turbines impose on factories and businesses, kill two to four jobs for every “green” job created. Wind is a net job loser.

Big Wind also imposes excessive environmental impacts. It requires vast amounts of raw materials and land for turbines, backup power and long transmission lines. The extraction and processing of rare earth metals and other materials devastates large agricultural, scenic and wildlife habitat areas and harms people’s health, especially in China. Worst, the turbines are returning numerous bird and bat species to the edge of extinction, after decades of patient, costly efforts to nurse them back to health.

These are not sparrows and pigeons killed by housecats. They are bats that eat insects and protect crops. They are some of our most important and magnificent raptors, herons, cranes, condors and other majestic sovereigns of our skies. They are being chopped out of the air and driven from numerous habitats.

The US Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS), American Bird Conservancy (ABC) and other experts estimate that well over 500,000 birds and countless bats are being killed annually by turbines. The subsidized slaughter “could easily be over 500” golden eagles a year in our western states, Save the Eagles International biologist Jim Wiegand told me. Bald eagles are also being butchered. The body count for the two species could soon reach 1,000 a year.

In the 86-square-mile area blanketed by the Altamont Pass wind facility, no eagles have nested for over 20 years, and golden eagle nest sites have declined by half near the actual facility, even though both areas are prime eagle habitat, says Wiegand. Wildlife expert Dr. Shawn Smallwood estimates that 2,300 golden eagles have been killed by Altamont turbines over the past 25 years.

The wind industry keeps the publicly acknowledged death toll “low” and “acceptable” by employing deliberately flawed methodologies, says Wiegand. Companies have crews search around turbines that are not operating; search only within narrow radiuses of turbines, thus missing birds that were flung further by the impact or limped off to die elsewhere; search for carcasses only every 2-4 weeks, allowing scavengers to take most of them away; avoid using dogs to sniff for bodies; not count disabled or wounded birds and bats; and pick up carcasses, under the guideline of “slice, shovel and shut up.”
High security at most wind turbine sites makes independent analysis almost impossible, adds ABC wind energy coordinator Kelly Fuller. Even the faulty (fraudulent?) raw bird kill data are rarely made public and are difficult to access even through the Freedom of Information Act. Amazingly, Fish & Wildlife does not require that the information be made public. What little does get released is too often filtered, massaged and manipulated – and now the FWS may allow the industry to put even these suspect body counts into private data banks that would not be subject to FOIA.

The FWS and Justice Department prosecuted and fined oil companies for the unintentional deaths of just 28 small migratory birds (no raptors and no rare, threatened or endangered species) over several months throughout North Dakota. They fined ExxonMobil $600,000 for accidentally killing 85 birds over a five-year period in five states. But they have never prosecuted or penalized a single wind turbine company for its eco-slaughter. Now they are going much further.

The Service has proposed to grant “programmatic take” permits that would allow wind turbine operators to repeatedly, systematically, legally and “inadvertently” injure, maim and kill bald and golden eagles –turning what has been outrageously selective (non)enforcement of endangered species laws into a 007 license to kill. While the new rule “is not specifically designed for the wind industry” (as an industry spokesman helpfully pointed out), Big Wind will be by far the biggest beneficiary.

The FWS says it can do this based on illusory “advanced conservation practices” that are “scientifically supportable,” approved by the Service, and “represent the best available techniques to reduce eagle disturbance and ongoing mortalities to a level where remaining take is unavoidable and incidental to otherwise lawful activity.” The Service also claims “mitigation” and other “additional” measures may be implemented where necessary to “ensure the preservation” of eagles as a species.

When its goal is to restrict development, the FWS frequently defines species, subspecies or “distinct population segments” for sage grouse, spotted owls, “jumping mice” and other wildlife – or labels a species “imperiled” in a selected location, even when it is abundant in nearby locations. With eagles, the proposed “take” rules strongly suggest that the Service could easily say the presence of eagles in some parts of the Lower 48 States or even just Alaska would mean their preservation is ensured, even if they are exterminated or driven out of numerous habitats. (Ditto for other species imperiled by wind turbines.)

Attempts to “mitigate” impacts or establish new population segments will almost certainly mean imposing extra burdens, restrictions and costs on land owners and users outside of turbine-impact areas.

Another vital, majestic species being “sliced” back to the verge of extinction is the whooping crane, North America’s tallest bird. Since 2006, installed turbine capacity within the six-state whooping crane flyway has skyrocketed from 3,600 megawatts to some 16,000 MW – and several hundred tagged and numbered whooping cranes “have turned up missing and are unaccounted for,” says Wiegand. And yet, another 136,700 MW of new bird Cuisinarts are planned for these six states!

The Service knows this is happening, and yet turns a blind eye – and Big Wind is not about to admit that its turbines are butchering whooping cranes, bald eagles, Peregrine falcons, bats and other rare species.

This subsidized slaughter and legalized carnage cannot continue. Every vote to extend the PTC, or approve wind turbines in or near important bird habitats and flyways, is a vote for ultimate extinction of majestic and vital species in numerous areas all over the United States.

Wind energy is not green, eco-friendly, sustainable or sensible. Extending the subsidized slaughter is not something any members of Congress, state legislatures or county commissions – Republican or Democrat – should want to have on their conscience.
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Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author or Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.