Thomas Jefferson: Prophet

John F. Kennedy held a dinner in the white House for a group of the brightest minds in the nation at that time. He made this statement: "This is perhaps the assembly of the most intelligence ever to gather at one time in the White House with the exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

TJ said:

"When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe".

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."

"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world."

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."

"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government."

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

"To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."

He wasn't just a great Statesman, he was a Prophet. Too bad we didn't listen to him.

The Gunslinger

He Didn't Just Make Beer!

"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." -- Samuel Adams

(I submit that as used here, "wealth" means "government handout", which parallels "servitude" in the next clause. Loving wealth, in general, is not antithetical to Liberty! And all our Founders knew that.)

The Gunslinger 

From the Founders:

" When injustice becomes law, then 

Rebellion becomes duty!" 

-- Thomas Jefferson-- 

Jefferson Rocks!

Lives, Fortunes, Sacred Honor...

Ancient, effortless, ordered cycle on cycle set—
Life so long untroubled that ye who inherit forget
It was not made with the mountains; it is not one with the deep.
Men, not gods, devised it, and men, not gods, must keep.

Rudyard Kipling

We must never forget what our Forefathers devised and we inherited...

...and KEEP it!

The Gunslinger

Not so Modern Art

This is AMAZING.

That is all. Check it out. Scroll over everything...even the scattered papers.

The Gunslinger, EOTIS
Ûlfhednar

Øbama the Un-(r)epublican

Jay Cost at RealClearPolitics thinks that Øbama is not enough of a republican. Note the small "r". He's expressed nicely what so many of us understand intuitively:

First, it's fair to criticize the actions of the previous administration to a point, but speeches like his U.N. address often move beyond that to suggest a broader failure, one that implicates the mass public. For instance, the best rejoinder he has to those who question the "character" of his country is: "look at the concrete actions we have taken in just nine months," which he suggests are "just a beginning." This rhetoric does not befit the leader of a democratic republic, especially one as great as the United States of America. The President should be willing and able to defend the "character" of his country beyond his own, inconsequential-to-date actions.

Second, the implication here is that his administration has sanctified our character. No administration can do that in a republic because no administration possesses the moral standing to offer such a blessing. He is the equal of the people in every measure. He temporarily holds an office whose magnificence is dependent upon the goodness of the people he represents. Yet this President implies a claim to such moral superiority - in the above quoted sentence, then later on when he says: "The test of our leadership will not be the degree to which we feed the fears and old hatreds of our people." No President should suggest that his people would fall prey to fear and hatred were it not for his leadership - even if he thought this were true. And he surely should not air such "dirty laundry" to an international audience that does not understand how this country actually functions. Instead, he should claim that he leads a great people who have the wisdom and equanimity not to fall prey to such fears, and it is his hope that he can emulate them.

The magnificent narcissism and egotism of the man are almost awe inspiring - especially in someone so lacking in accomplishment. It's a testament to human imagination.

I disagree with Cost though. I hope he gets worse and more imperial. I wish he'd start wearing a crown. The more he reveals his skewed sense of royal self-importance the faster his influence fades and the less effective he'll be in "transforming" our country. And that's a good thing.

The Gunslinger
Enemy of the Imperial State

Wisdom Writ in Silence

We've been "enjoying" a discussion with a commenter who believes we're all illiterate barbarians because we don't agree with him. In his first four comments he called me/us 13 different insulting names. (Obviously a Liberal)

Among the jewels my wonderful readers used in the debate is this beauty: A quote by Calivin Coolidge, contributed by Van. And it's a show stopper, the perfect response to those hair-brained idiots who think the Founding Fathers and the government they created are "out of date", you know "18th Century Dead White Men"*

"About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers. "

I guess there were times Silent Cal wasn't...eloquently.

I'm carrying this in my pocket...for every time some pinhead starts with the "Constitution needs to evolve with the times" bullshit.

The Gunslinger

Enemy of the Imperial State

*Isn't Karl Marx a 19th Century Dead White Guy? (1818-1883)

A Warning From Africa

Perhaps the "tribal" behavior so many of our "betters" despise, rather that being the death of Africa as our elites insist, might have been its savior—if it had managed to muster resistance against the elitist Left, over-educated destroyer barbarians that have taken the entire continent down the road to perdition.

Perhaps "Tribal" loyalty, pride and honor isn't such a bad idea after all.

Perhaps clinging to our "Tribal" culture with courage,  in the face of the derision and persecution by the Neo-Colonialists is the only way to defeat them here.

L. E. Ikenga has some advice.

The Gunslinger

Enemy of the Imperial State (EOTIS)

Clinging to her Tribal Culture

Ûlfhednar (Wolf Clan)

It's In The Air...

Is American Thinker's George Joyce thinking Anti-Federalists thoughts too?

Read: After Obama Fails

"A failed presidency for Barack Obama could turn into liberalism's worst nightmare. Barely six months into his term, the 44th president has succeeded in generating the most widespread and serious discussion of secession since the Civil War. Despite what Newsweek's Evan Thomas may claim, Obama is not the "God" who will bring us together but the autocratic sponsor of an overbearing, oppressive leviathan from which a growing number of Americans are seeking refuge.

That refuge, according to author Paul Starobin, will come in the form of several regional republics that reflect the diverse character of Americans no longer bound in any meaningful way by our unrecognizable Federal government."

He also references the Wall Street Journal Article (see the previous post), and among other observations, adds:

"Maybe this is why Starobin claims to be witnessing a lot of neo-secessionist activity. Wouldn't a new American devolution however be a liberal's worst nightmare? Beyond the psychosis most liberals would have to endure at the thought of losing any kind of control, the prospect of vibrant, happy, and successful conservative republics in places like Texas, South Carolina or Utah would be an inescapable spotlight forever exposing the failure of liberal ideology in a Republic of California."

Nicely done, Mr. Joyce...nicely done, indeed.

The Gunslinger

Anti-Federalism

I beg forgiveness from the WSJ for posting this in its entirety...but I'm afraid it will be inaccessible after a certain date, and I think it's so important, I don't want anyone to miss it.

Divided We Stand by Paul Starobin

Remember that classic Beatles riff of the 1960s: “You say you want a revolution?” Imagine this instead: a devolution. Picture an America that is run not, as now, by a top-heavy Washington autocracy but, in freewheeling style, by an assemblage of largely autonomous regional republics reflecting the eclectic economic and cultural character of the society.

There might be an austere Republic of New England, with a natural strength in higher education and technology; a Caribbean-flavored city-state Republic of Greater Miami, with an anchor in the Latin American economy; and maybe even a Republic of Las Vegas with unfettered license to pursue its ambitions as a global gambling, entertainment and conventioneer destination. California? America’s broke, ill-governed and way-too-big nation-like state might be saved, truly saved, not by an emergency federal bailout, but by a merciful carve-up into a trio of republics that would rely on their own ingenuity in making their connections to the wider world. And while we’re at it, let’s make this project bi-national—economic logic suggests a natural multilingual combination between Greater San Diego and Mexico’s Northern Baja, and, to the Pacific north, between Seattle and Vancouver in a megaregion already dubbed “Cascadia” by economic cartographers.

Devolved America is a vision faithful both to certain postindustrial realities as well as to the pluralistic heart of the American political tradition—a tradition that has been betrayed by the creeping centralization of power in Washington over the decades but may yet reassert itself as an animating spirit for the future. Consider this proposition: America of the 21st century, propelled by currents of modernity that tend to favor the little over the big, may trace a long circle back to the original small-government ideas of the American experiment. The present-day American Goliath may turn out to be a freak of a waning age of politics and economics as conducted on a super-sized scale—too large to make any rational sense in an emerging age of personal empowerment that harks back to the era of the yeoman farmer of America’s early days. The society may find blessed new life, as paradoxical as this may sound, in a return to a smaller form.

This perspective may seem especially fanciful at a time when the political tides all seem to be running in the opposite direction. In the midst of economic troubles, an aggrandizing Washington is gathering even more power in its hands. The Obama Administration, while considering replacing top executives at Citigroup, is newly appointing a “compensation czar” with powers to determine the retirement packages of executives at firms accepting federal financial bailout funds. President Obama has deemed it wise for the U.S. Treasury to take a majority ownership stake in General Motors in a last-ditch effort to revive this Industrial Age brontosaurus. Even the Supreme Court is getting in on the act: A ruling this past week awarded federal judges powers to set the standards by which judges for state courts may recuse themselves from cases.

All of this adds up to a federal power grab that might make even FDR’s New Dealers blush. But that’s just the point: Not surprisingly, a lot of folks in the land of Jefferson are taking a stand against an approach that stands to make an indebted citizenry yet more dependent on an already immense federal power. The backlash, already under way, is a prime stimulus for a neo-secessionist movement, the most extreme manifestation of a broader push for some form of devolution. In April, at an anti-tax “tea party” held in Austin, Governor Rick Perry of Texas had his speech interrupted by cries of “secede.” The Governor did not sound inclined to disagree. “Texas is a unique place,” he later told reporters attending the rally. “When we came into the Union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that.”

Such sentiments resonate beyond the libertarian fringe. The Daily Kos, a liberal Web site, recently asked Perry’s fellow Texas Republicans, “Do you think Texas would be better off as an independent nation or as part of the United States of America? It was an even split: 48% for the U.S., 48% for a sovereign Texas, 4% not sure. Amongst all Texans, more than a third—35%—said an independent Texas would be better. The Texas Nationalist Movement claims that over 250,000 Texans have signed a form affirming the organization’s goal of a Texas nation.

Secessionist feelings also percolate in Alaska, where Todd Palin, husband of Governor Sarah Palin, was once a registered member of the Alaska Independence Party. But it is not as if the Right has a lock on this issue: Vermont, the seat of one of the most vibrant secessionist movements, is among the country’s most politically-liberal places. Vermonters are especially upset about imperial America’s foreign excursions in hazardous places like Iraq. The philosophical tie that binds these otherwise odd bedfellows is belief in the birthright of Americans to run their own affairs, free from centralized control. Their hallowed parchment is Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, on behalf of the original 13 British colonies, penned in 1776, 11 years before the framers of the Constitution gathered for their convention in Philadelphia. “The right of secession precedes the Constitution—the United States was born out of secession,” Daniel Miller, leader of the Texas Nationalist Movement, put it to me. Take that, King Obama.

Today’s devolutionists, of all stripes, can trace their pedigree to the “anti-federalists” who opposed the compact that came out of Philadelphia as a bad bargain that gave too much power to the center at the expense of the limbs. Some of America’s most vigorous and learned minds were in the anti-federalist camp; their ranks included Virginia’s Patrick Henry, of “give me liberty or give me death” renown. The sainted Jefferson, who was serving as a diplomat in Paris during the convention, is these days claimed by secessionists as a kindred anti-federal spirit, even if he did go on to serve two terms as president.

The anti-federalists lost their battle, but history, in certain respects, has redeemed their vision, for they anticipated how many Americans have come to feel about their nation’s seat of federal power. “This city, and the government of it, must indubitably take their tone from the character of the men, who from the nature of its situation and institution, must collect there,” the anti-federalist pamphleteer known only as the Federal Farmer wrote. “If we expect it will have any sincere attachments to simple and frugal republicanism, to that liberty and mild government, which is dear to the laborious part of a free people, we most assuredly deceive ourselves.”

In the mid-19th century, the anti-federalist impulse took a dark turn, attaching itself to the cause of the Confederacy, which was formed by the unilateral secession of 13 southern states over the bloody issue of slavery. Lincoln had no choice but to go to war to preserve the Union—and ever since, anti-federalism, in almost any guise, has had to defend itself from the charge of being anti-modern and indeed retrograde.

But nearly a century and a half has passed since Johnny Rebel whooped for the last time. Slavery is dead, and so too is the large-scale industrial economy that the Yankees embraced as their path to victory over the South and to global prosperity. The model lasted a long time, to be sure, surviving all the way through the New Deal and the first several decades of the post-World War II era, coming a cropper at the tail end of the 1960s, just as the economist John Kenneth Galbraith was holding out “The New Industrial State,” the master-planned economy, as a seemingly permanent condition of modern life.

Not quite. In a globalized economy transformed by technological innovations hatched by happily-unguided entrepreneurs, history seems to be driving one nail after another into the coffin of the big, which is why the Obama planners and their ilk, even if they now ride high, may be doomed to fail. No one anymore expects the best ideas to come from the biggest actors in the economy, so should anyone expect the best thinking to be done by the whales of the political world?

A notable prophet for a coming age of smallness was the diplomat and historian George Kennan, a steward of the American Century with an uncanny ability to see past the seemingly-frozen geopolitical arrangements of the day. Kennan always believed that Soviet power would “run its course,” as he predicted back in 1951, just as the Cold War was getting under way, and again shortly after the Soviet Union collapsed, he suggested that a similar fate might await the United States. America has become a “monster country,” afflicted by a swollen bureaucracy and “the hubris of inordinate size,” he wrote in his 1993 book, “Around the Cragged Hill: A Personal and Political Philosophy.” Things might work better, he suggested, if the nation was “decentralized into something like a dozen constituent republics, absorbing not only the powers of the existing states but a considerable part of those of the present federal establishment.”

Kennan’s genius was to foresee that matters might take on an organic, a bottom-up, life of their own, especially in a society as dynamic and as creative as America. His spirit, the spirit of an anti-federalist modernist, can be glimpsed in an intriguing “mega-region” initiative encompassing greater San Diego County, next-door Imperial County and, to the immediate south of the U.S. border, Northern Baja, Mexico. Elected officials representing all three participating areas recently unveiled “Cali Baja, a Bi-National Mega-Region,” as the “international marketing brand” for the project.

The idea is to create a global economic powerhouse by combining San Diego’s proven abilities in scientific research and development with Imperial County’s abundance of inexpensive land and availability of water rights and Northern Baja’s manufacturing base, low labor costs and ability to supply the San Diego area with electricity during peak-use terms. Bilingualism, too, is a key—with the aim for all children on both sides of the border to be fluent in both English and Spanish. The project director is Christina Luhn, a Kansas native, historian and former staffer on the National Security Council in Ronald Reagan’s White House in the mid-1980s. Contemporary America as a unit of governance may be too big, even the perpetually-troubled state of California may be too big, she told me, by way of saying that the political and economic future may belong to the megaregions of the planet. Her conviction is that large systems tend not to endure—“they break apart, there’s chaos, and at some point, new things form,” she said.

The notion that small is better and even inevitable no doubt has some flavor of romance—even amounting to a kind of modern secular faith, girded by a raft of multi-disciplinary literature that may or may not be relevant. Luhn takes her philosophical cue not only from Kennan but also from the science writer and physicist M. Mitchell Waldrop, author of “Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos.”

Even for the hard-edged secessionist crowd, with their rapt attentiveness to America’s roots, popular texts in the future-trend genre mingle in their minds with the yellowed scrolls of the anti-federalists. “The cornerstone of my thought,” Daniel Miller of the Texas Nationalist Movement told me, is John Naisbitt’s 1995 best seller, “Global Paradox,” which celebrates the entrepreneurial ethos in positing that “the bigger the world economy, the more powerful its smallest players.”

More convincingly, the proposition that small trumps big is passing tests in real-life political and economic laboratories. For example, the U.S. ranked eighth in a survey of global innovation leadership released in March by the Boston Consulting Group and the National Association of Manufacturers—with the top rankings dominated by small countries led by the city-state republic of Singapore. The Thunderbird School of Global Management, based in Arizona, has called Singapore “the most future-oriented country in the world.” Historians can point to the spectacularly inventive city-states of Renaissance Italy as an example of the small truly making the beautiful.

How, though, to get from big to small? Secessionists like Texas’ Miller pledge a commitment to peaceful methods. History suggests skepticism on this score: Even the American republic was born in a violent revolution. These days, the Russian professor Igor Panarin, a former KGB analyst, has snagged publicity with his dystopian prediction of civil strife in a dismembered America whose jagged parts fall prey to foreign powers including Canada, Mexico and, in the case of Alaska, Russia, naturally.

Still, the precedent for any breakup of today’s America is not necessarily the one set by the musket-bearing colonists’ demanded departure from the British crown in the late 18th century or by the crisis-ridden dissolution of the U.S.S.R. at the end of the 20th century. Every empire, every too-big thing, fragments or shrinks according to its own unique character and to the age of history to which it belongs.

The most hopeful prospect for the USA, should the decentralization impulse prove irresistible, is for Americans to draw on their natural inventiveness and democratic tradition by patenting a formula for getting the job done in a gradual and cooperative way. In so doing, geopolitical history, and perhaps even a path for others, might be made, for the problem of bigness vexes political leviathans everywhere. In India, with its 1.2 billion people, there is an active discussion of whether things might work better if the nation-state was chopped up into 10 or so large city-states with broad writs of autonomy from New Delhi. Devolution may likewise be the future for the European continent—think Catalonia—and for the British Isles. Scotland, a leading source of Enlightenment ideas for America’s founding fathers, now has its own flourishing independence movement. Even China, held together by an aging autocracy, may not be able to resist the drift towards the smaller.

So why not America as the global leader of a devolution? America’s return to its origins—to its type—could turn out to be an act of creative political destruction, with “we the people” the better for it.

—Paul Starobin is the author of After America: Narratives for the Next Global Age, recently published by Viking, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Here is the interesting inset piece:

Fighting to Secede

From Texas to Hawaii, these groups are fighting to secede

American secessionist groups today range from small startups with a few laptop computers to organized movements with meetings of delegates from several states.

The Middlebury Institute, a group that studies and supports the general cause of separatism and secessionism in the U.S., has held three Secession Congresses since its founding in 2004.

At the most recent gathering, held in New Hampshire last November, one discussion focused on creating a new federation potentially to be called “Novacadia,” consisting of present-day New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia. An article highlighted on the group’s Web site describes Denmark as a role-model for the potential country. In the months following the convention, the idea “did not actually evolve into very much,” says Kirkpatrick Sale, the institute’s director.

Below the Mason-Dixon Line, groups like the League of the South and Southern National Congress hold meetings of delegates. They discuss secession as a way of accomplishing goals like protecting the right to bear arms and tighter immigration policies. The Texas Nationalist Movement claims that over 250,000 Texans have signed a form affirming the organization’s goal of a Texas nation.

A religious group, Christian Exodus, formed in 2003 with the purpose of transforming what is today South Carolina into a sovereign, Christian-run state. According to a statement on its Web site, the group still supports the idea, but has learned that “the chains of our slavery and dependence on Godless government have more of a hold on us than can be broken by simply moving to another state.”

On the West Coast, elected officials representing greater San Diego County, Imperial County and Northern Baja, Mexico, have proposed creating a “mega-region” of the three areas called “Cali Baja, a Bi-National Mega-Region.”

Hawaii is home to numerous groups that work toward the goal of sovereignty, including Nation of Hawaii. The group argues that native Hawaiians were colonized and forced into statehood against their will and without fair process, and therefore have the right to decide how to govern themselves today. In Alaska, the Alaska Independence Party advocates for the state’s independence.

There is also a Web site for a group called North Star Republic, with a mission to establish a socialist republic in what today is Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.

A group of American Indians led by activist Russell Means is working to establish the Republic of Lakotah, which would cover parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska. In 2007, the Republic presented the U.S. State Department with a notice of withdrawal.

Does anybody else think this is the only way we are going to save the Republic? The monstrosity that has become the United States Federal Government—particularly with the virulent strain of Progressivism that has lately infected it— virtually guarantees the death of freedom.

It will not stand!

Something must be done...and we must do it!

It has occurred to me that some institutions are "too big to succeed", and are, by their very size, complexity and depth of corruption incapable of being reformed. Every layer and department and bureau and official and power-monger of the Federal Government will steadfastly resist reformation.

Might it not be a monumental waste of time to try? A fool's errand? The Founders didn't try to reform England into accord with their vision! They knew what to do—terrible, risky, deadly dangerous as it was.

Shall we pour our lives, our souls, our time, our fortunes, our energy, our hope—and our sacred honor— into the fruitless, thankless, hopeless task of trying to salvage the unsalvageable? Let us leave it to the fools who are in love with it.

Let us make new nations.

If any lasts over 200 years before it, too, becomes too corrupt of rescue...we will have procured 200 years more of freedom for New Americans. And that is a pretty damned good legacy.

The Gunslinger

Hopeless Fangirl of Glenn Beck

At the risk of sounding like a silly fangirl, I'd like to promote my favorite Talk Show host.

Glenn Beck, whose been on the radio for years, became, like me, passionate about politics because of 9/11. Since then he has become a crusader for the Founders' America.

He's got a particularly clear sight about the big picture...a talent for connecting the dots in current events that gives him, and his listeners, an advantage in knowing what's really happening...and what's coming.

Alone, almost of all Talk Show hosts, he warned for years about the coming of the current economic crisis, of the dangers of the Fed, of monetizing the debt, and the fascist/progressive nature and direction of mainstream politics.

He discovered and revealed the truth about and the history of American Progressivism, and has recognized that both parties have internalized, at least at the Federal level, its ideals of the rule by the elite—the belief that The People are insufficiently intelligent to manage their own lives, and require leaders with the power to control & dictate their lives for their "own good".

American Progressives have always seen the Constitution as an inconvenient limitation on their ambitions. And it is they who invented the idea of a "living Constitution" so that they could, whenever necessary, dilute and relax its restrictions against the growth and power of government.

And the current behavior of the Federal Government—which without the framework of knowledge of Progressivism seems so senseless and destructive—makes perfect sense when seen through the lens of that knowledge.

Beck has been an instrument of my own education, because he insists that people do not "take his word" for his assertions, but "do their own homework". He has recommended so many books and resources that my 'To Read' stack has become quite intimidating.

Most particularly, I recommend to everyone:

The 5,000 Year Leap: A miracle that chaged the world (by W. Cleon Skousen)
Meltdown (by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.)
American Progressivism (by Ronald Pestritto & William J. Atto)
Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism (Pestritto)
Liberal Fascism (by Jonah Goldberg)

That's enough to get anyone started...

Glenn Beck has been called a lot of unattractive things by the State-run media...and even by a few more nasty-minded conservatives who are envious of his growing popularity and media presence (I'm looking at you, Mark Levine), but he is none of those things (in a bad way). But he might be said to be many of them..in the nicest possible way.

He calls himself a "rodeo clown", and an "ex-dj", and a "self-educated guy". He shouts, cries, satirizes, mimics and does silly, goofy things both on his daily radio show and his Fox News Channel television show.

He's funny and smart. He takes his subjects very seriously...but not himself. And if you give him a chance, you'll find yourself informed, motivated, entertained, pissed...and in some ways, scared to death. You'll also find yourself less alone with your fears and concerns.

Now, this might sound really gushy...

...but I actually think he might be the Paul Revere/Thomas Paine of our generation. He is sounding the warning that the Fascists/Statists are coming...and he is calling us to action.

He is a true Crusader for the Founders' America. And I recommend him whole-heartedly.

And I think he scares the government, the Progressives and the state-run media out of their diapers, which is why they have spent so much time lately attacking him with all the resources at their disposal.

Listen to him. You won't be sorry. Here's his Fox News Website.

Here is his/our 912 Project website. This is a meeting place for people who want to take our country back...who want to restore our nation to the Founders' America.

[end commercial - we now return to our regularly scheduled program]

The Gunslinger

BUY THIS BOOK!

Here's the Link at Amazon.

IT'S TIME FOR THE SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION!

Let's make it a political one, before we have to make it a violent one!

Democrats and Republicans are selling out our freedom. Neither party is representing us anymore. They have been both been goosestepping down the road to fascism for decades...in spite of our objections, protestations and our warnings. They have no goal but the consolidation of power in their own hands. This current so-called "president" is the worst and the most blatant, but he is only continuing - quadruple time - the journey the Progressives of both parties have decided to force on us against our wills—while enriching themselves obscenely, both in power and treasure, in the process.

Career politicians whose interests are limited to themselves, who disdain us, who would rule us, who would impoverish us, our children, our future and our nation for their own advantage—must be REMOVED...by The People.

They are traitors to the People, the Constitution, the American Idea, the United States. They disgrace themselves and all honest men. They seek nothing less than to erase the very existence of the glorious Republic that our Founders & their generation lived and died to create and bequeath us.

The only question is....Are we worthy of the Founder's trust? Or will we allow these whores, villains and scoundrels to plunge us back into the Dark Ages of serfdom?

I have had enough.

The Gunslinger

Finally...the Truth

“we’ve begun the work of remaking America*.”

Into what?

Am I the only one who thinks this is a really, really bad idea? And who wonders who the hell gave him permission to do any such thing? And who the hell is "we", Kimosabe?

Does he mean "we" will "remake" America into something better than the Founders created? If Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness isn't good enough, what, I wonder, is superior?

And...does "arrogance" apply yet?

The Gunslinger

*ZerO 4/29/2009, 100 days speech
.

The Man Who Never Read History

Obama = Hoover. And, lucky us. Obama = FDR too.

While the two 20th century presidents managed to create the deepest, most miserable, most damaging, most debilitating, most horrible, most painful, most spirit breaking period in American history, Obama with almost no help at all will be able to claim title and responsibility to the New and Improved and Bigger and Better version....the worse devastation of the American economy and way of life, of American hope, freedom, justice, law, honor, truth, integrity, self-restraint, judgment, faith, discipline, self-reliance, industriousness & perseverance.....ever.

This is the advantage of never picking up a history book during the entirety of a useless and shallow life. You may be doing everything already proven utterly wrong, but you're doing it so spectacularly recklessly and to such a prodigious degree, you will never, ever be forgotten.

Well at least not by the few who will still be able to afford to buy history books...

Like they say, "bad publicity is better than no publicity at all". When you're a "celebrity" "President"....I guess it doesn't matter what they say, so long as their talking about you.

Obie, you should go to bed content....as you will be talked about for the next hundred years as the man who almost single-handed did what no foreign army, power, ideology, what no former economic woes could do: Break America.

ZerO....welcome to the history books, Baby!

They call it "infamy". You should look it up.

The Gunslinger

Just a Bunch of Stupid Dead White Guys...

George Washington:

"We should never despair, our situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new exertions and proportion our efforts to the exigency of the times. ... The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. ... It should be the highest ambition of every American to extend his views beyond himself, and to bear in mind that his conduct will not only affect himself, his country, and his immediate posterity; but that its influence may be co-extensive with the world, and stamp political happiness or misery on ages yet unborn. ...

The Hand of providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations. ... [T]he propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained."

John Adams:

"Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom. ... If we suffer [the minds of young people] to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives. ...

The foundation of national morality must be laid in private families...
How is it possible that Children can have any just Sense of the sacred Obligations of Morality or Religion if, from their earliest Infancy, they learn their Mothers live in habitual Infidelity to their fathers, and their fathers in as constant Infidelity to their Mothers? ... We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. ... The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People ... they may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty. ... A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever."

Thomas Jefferson:

"The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys. ... The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife. ... We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. ... The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale. ... If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy. ... I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. ... The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. ... [A] wise and frugal government...shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. ... Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."

James Madison:

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents... If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions. ... The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. ... There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

Perhaps they're not so stupid after all.

The Gunslinger

Plug for the Founders

I'd like to encourage you to get and read these books:

The 5,000 Year Leap
The Real Thomas Jefferson
The Real George Washington
The Real Benjamin Franklin

You can get them as a set at the National Center for Constitutional Studies

(They're also on Amazon, but if you buy them individually, they cost a lot more.)

I've read the 5,000 Year Leap, and it's essentially a list of the principles that America was founded on. You'll be surprised as how almost "radical" they sound today, so steeped are we in collectivist propaganda...and how far we have strayed from them. It's amazing and disturbing and enlightening and comforting.

We've been right all along!

The other three are the true biographies and the actual words of our brilliant founders. (I just started Ben Franklin...and it's good.)

The time is coming when articulating and defending our principles and values is going to be necessary. These books will help us do so with confidence.


And, no, I'm not getting a commission....

The Gunslinger

The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave?

I had a dream the other night that...well, I didn't understand
A figure walked in thru the mist with a flintlock in his hand
His clothes were torn and dirty as he stood there by my bed
He took off his three cornered hat and speaking low to me he said

"We fought a revolution to secure our liberty,
We wrote the constitution as a shield from tyranny
For future generations this legacy we gave
In this the home of the free and the land of the brave?

"The freedoms we secured for you we hoped you'd always keep
But tyrannts labored endlessly while your parents were asleep
Your freedoms gone your courage lost your no more than a slave
In this the land of the free and the home of the brave

"You buy permits to travel and permits to own a gun
Permits to start a business or build a place for one
On land you believe you own you pay a yearly rent
Although you have no voice in how the money is spent

"Your children must attend a school that doesn't educate
And Christian values can't be taught according to the state
You read about the current news in a regulated press
And you pay a tax you do not owe to please the IRS

"Your money is no longer made of silver nor of gold
You trade your wealth for paper so your life can be controlled
You pay for crimes that make our nation turn from god in shame
You've taken Satan's number and you've traded in your name

"You've given government control to those that do you harm
So they can burn down churches and seize the family farm
And keep our country deep in debt put men of god in jail
Harass your fellow countrymen while corrupted courts prevail

"Your public servants don't uphold the solemn oaths they've sworn
And your daughters visit doctors so their children wont be born
Your leaders send artillery and guns to foreign shores
And send your sons to slaughter fighting other peoples wars

"Can you regain the freedoms for which we fought and died
Or don't you have the courage or the faith to stand with pride
And are there no more values for which you'll fight to save
Or do you wish your children to live in fear and be a slave

"Oh Sons of the republic arise and take a stand
Defend the constitution the supreme law of the land
Preserve our great republic and each God-given right
And pray to God to keep the torch of freedom burning bright!"

As I awoke he vanished in the mist from whence he came,
His words were true; we are not free, but we have ourselves to blame
For even now as tyrants trample every God-given right
We only watch and tremble, too afraid to fight.

If he stood by your bedside in a dream while you were asleep
And wondered what remains of the freedoms he'd fought to keep
What would be your answer if he called out from the grave
"Is this still the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave?"

------------

I took the liberty of posting this poem which LowAndSlowPony left as a comment on the previous post.

There is nothing to add...except the answer.

The Gunslinger

Awakening

The power grab of the current administration, and their "legal" ability to do it, in that the nation seems to be willing to accept anything with resignation if Congress votes for it, has cracked my head open to reality.

The Constitution has been overthrown.

It has been for some time. But like the frog in slowly warming water, I didn't notice until the current arrogant cooks cranked up the heat so high so fast that I finally realized their intent is to boil me alive—and that all the apparatus necessary to do so is already firmly in place.

They didn't build it alone. But they are exploiting it to a degree and at a velocity that others never dared. Because they, too, realize there is no longer any limit to their power. We have the "democracy" of the mob, no longer a limited government Republic. If the tyrants can get the mob to go along with them, through emotion appeal, lying, or bread and circuses...they can do whatever they choose. There is no longer any restraint upon the power of the STATE.

That the Federal Government...in the persons of a succession of Presidents, Congressmen, Senators and Justices of the Supreme Court has slowly built an apparatus that breaches the Constitutional limitations of Federal power, and enables the STATE, at will, to enslave me in violation and defiance of the Law of the Land, I am forced me to a single conclusion:

The Federal Government is an OUTLAW.

It defies the Constitution, it violates every limitation put upon it by our Founders. It contravenes every article of faith and freedom enshrined in our nation's most sacred documents, and denies the inalienable rights granted us by our Creator.

Indeed, it has banished the Creator, and set itself up as the Highest Authority. The all-powerful, all-knowing Master of our lives.

The Government as currently constituted is illegitimate. As illegitimate as any usurper who banishes the Law in favor of a man.

For the moment....for a brief moment...while we still have the will and the weapons, we must decide what to do.

I have no allegiance to the government. My only loyalty is to the Constitution. And the government is its grossest violator. The government being an outlaw, a defiler of the Constitution, is my enemy. Not merely in the rhetorical sense, as a tenet of political thought, but in the literal sense of all tyrants who seek to dominate The People with intimidation, threats, force and violence.

Secession/insurrection may not be wise, but I'm no longer confident that any other avenue is open to us now.

The totalitarian government is consolidating its power, lengthening its reach, extending its influence.

I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me...

The Government has violated our First Amendment rights by interfering with our practice of religion, limiting political speech during a campaign, and it has signaled its intention to silence dissent by destroying Talk Radio. It has, in its schools virtually outlawed certain speech. And it has made calling someone names, making certain gestures, or using certain symbols a crime.

It has signaled its intention to effectively abolish the Second Amendment by whatever means necessary.

It has begun the drafting of our children to be good little soldiers in the Soviet regime, to spy and snitch, which violates the Third Amendment.

Arbitrary traffic stops and searches, and RICO prosecutions for purposes it was never intended has already rendered the 4th Amendment obsolete.

The modern Federal Charge of "Violation of Civil Rights" puts every defendant in a crime against a person in Double Jeopardy. The routine seizing of private property in drug cases, no matter how peripherally connected, and the notorious Kelo decision has made any protection for private property a joke.

The 6th Amendment has been used to coddle criminals, ignore victims, disregard public safety and breakdown community standards and morals.

The 7th Amendment has been hijacked by trial lawyers. Any individual or business may be held hostage, and be forced to pay ransom for the crime of being prosperous.

The 9th and 10th Amendments may as well never have been written. The Federal Government considers itself the rightful arbiter and grantor of all rights, which it begrudgingly allows The People—or the states—when it is politically expedient or convenient.

Our Constitution, the sacred document for which so many have given their lives, their fortunes and their honor, from the Founders to the heroes of our military today, has been spat on, ground underfoot and shredded by the very criminals who abuse it to justify their privileges and their power.

The Government as currently constituted is OUTLAW.

The question is, "What am I going to do about it?" It's something I'm going to be doing a lot of thinking and praying about. I'm not sure I can live with myself if I do nothing. How would that differentiate me from the sheep I despise?

How can I justify abandoning the Creator's gift of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness without a fight?

What will I say to Him when he asks, "What have you done...?"

The Gunslinger

The Skousen Society

Sorry about the length of time since my last post. Hey, it's Christmas, and I'm on vacation...and I'm chillin'.

I've got an idea though. Two internet friends are responsible for it. A correspondent from England, and a reader/commenter on this blog.

Not too long ago, I recommended the book: The 5,000 Year Leap, by Cleon Skousen. Here's the post. And here's the link to the author's page to purchase.

It lists the 28 fundamental idea/beliefs/principles upon which the Founders built America. And when you read it, you will immediately see that it is by violating them we ended up where we are now—internationally, domestically and economically. You will be shocked at the purity of the ideas, and in some ways, the severity of them—because we have been conditioned to mitigate them, soften them, cheat and bend them.

But they are responsible for the greatness of America. Indeed, they are required for the greatness of America. We abandon them, we ignore them, we forget them at our peril.

I propose a Skousen Society. Comprised of people dedicated to the principles in The 5,000 Year Leap: A glorious remnant to preserve and advance them.

One of the advantages of learning these principles is that you can see with clarity just when the ideas, policies and proposals of parties and politicians violate them or comport with them. It makes it so much easier to navigate the right course even amid the cacophony and confusion of the tempests, whirlwinds and uproars of Washington D.C.

(It might also be helpful for citizens of other countries to read, to see why their respective nations have never achieved greatness...or lost it, and what they can do to remake, revive or reinvent them.)

Please, if you don't read another book this year...read The 5000 Year Leap. And let me know what you think.

The Gunslinger