Tuesday, August 30, 2011

"Quote of the week"

Via Western Rifle Shooters Association

LANGUAGE!


The Smallest Majority

Quote of the Day - Lines from Fiction Edition

I was introduced to author Richard K. Morgan's works by my shooting buddy Dusty. Here's a quote from the novel Altered Carbon appropriate to today:
The personal, as everyone's so fucking fond of saying, is political. So if some idiot politician, some power player, tries to execute policies that harm you or those you care about, take it personally. Get angry. The Machinery of Justice will not serve you here – it is slow and cold, and it is theirs, hardware and soft-.

Only the little people suffer at the hands of Justice; the creatures of power slide from under it with a wink and a grin. If you want justice, you will have to claw it from them. Make it personal. Do as much damage as you can. Get your message across. That way, you stand a better chance of being taken seriously next time. Of being considered dangerous. And make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous marks the difference – the only difference in their eyes – between players and little people.

Players they will make deals with. Little people they liquidate. And time and again they cream your liquidation, your displacement, your torture and brutal execution with the ultimate insult that it's just business, it's politics, it's the way of the world, it's a tough life and that it's nothing personal. Well, fuck them. Make it personal.

When The Man Comes Around

Black man assaults Korean woman on bus in Korea

Via Matthew

And the men do nothing? Guess none of their fathers were ROKs in Vietnam, where it was said

"They only received hostile fire from a village once, since they leveled it afterwards."

(As he should have been.)
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More Evidence Obama Did Not Write Dreams From My Father

Well said. My favorite on Michelle:
Mundy charitably describes her senior thesis at Princeton as "dense and turgid." The less charitable Christopher Hitchens observes, "To describe [the thesis] as hard to read would be a mistake; the thesis cannot be 'read' at all, in the strict sense of the verb. This is because it wasn't written in any known language.":)
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CONSERVATIVE HERITAGE TIMES
VERBATIM POST


RedPhillips

Jack Cashill has come across another example of Obama’s early writing that demonstrates further, as if any additional evidence was needed, that Obama did not write Dreams From My Father.

I really wish that PJ Foggy and Dr. Conspiracy and all the other prominent debunkers would come on here and state categorically that they think Obama wrote Dreams. I don’t think they’ll do it because I think they KNOW good and well he didn’t. They may be apologists, but they are not stupid.

Mass Exodus of Students from the Public Schools

Love it!:)
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school-choice

With public schools in Indiana spending anywhere between $9,000 and $14,000 per student annually, one would think the education they provide would be first class. Nine grand a year is quite a lot of money. Most private schools produce good academic results at half that cost; and homeschooling families perform miracles at just a portion of it.

Therefore, public school advocates shouldn’t have worried too much about the new voucher system introduced in the state of Indiana, where parents could take their vouchers and enroll their children in any school they want – provided the school has state accreditation.

But what happened is exactly what the public schools feared: more than 70% of the parents who took advantage of the vouchers transferred their children from the government-run public school system to private schools, mainly Catholic schools who have an established history and network in the state.

The exodus from the government schools is serious enough to alarm the public school bureaucrats in Indiana and force them to do meetings with the parents in attempt to dissuade them from transferring. A group in the state is suing the state to stop the vouchers program, claiming that most of the vouchers end up in religious schools, which supposedly violates the “separation of church and state.” (“Separation of church and state” is an imaginary legal principle conjured up by the secularists in the US to fight the historic public influence of the Christian religion in America; the phrase is not present in any founding document of the American Republic.)

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With Obama Slowdown Here to Stay, Regime Will Sling Dirt in 2012

CONSERVATIVE byte
VERBATIM POST
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“Economic growth second quarter slightly weaker than previously estimated.” Slightly. (chuckles) “According to revised US government data released on Friday, the GDP, which is the broadest measure of our economic health, rose at an annual rate of 1% in the second quarter.” The ChiComs are growing at 9.5%. The Cuban growth rate is higher than ours. The Cuban economy is growing faster than ours! We’re at 1%, revised down. This is a piece of news from the usual Friday evening dump, further buried by the hysteria over coverage of the Storm of the Century brought on by global warming. God, folks, the lies that have become rote! The lies that appear as news in every one of these stories! It’s just amazing. Gross domestic product: 1%. In July we were told it was 1.3%, but they revised it down.

“Economists were expecting the rate to be revised down to 1.1%, according to consensus estimates from Briefing.com.” Imagine that, economists getting it wrong! I’m stunned. I can’t believe it. And then we’re told in this story that the slowdown’s here to stay. The slowdown is here to stay. If that’s true (and I think you and I know that it is) what does this portend for the presidential campaign? Dirt. Pure, unadulterated dirt. The regime cannot and will not run on its record. The best that this regime can hope for is to say that their record would have been astoundingly good were it not for Republican obstructionism, but that’s gonna be a tough sell because the Republican presidential nominee will have had nothing to do with any obstructionism.

It's not a Ponzi Scheme if you can't exit!

Via Wolf Files

Pointing out Social Security's similarities to a Ponzi Scheme irritates Social Security's defenders. Nick Baumann at the liberal Mother Jones created a cute Venn Diagram implying that the only overlap between a Ponzi Scheme and Social Security is that Rick Perry calls them both Ponzi Schemes.

I think Baumann left some things out, so I've created my own diagram:


MORE


Maintain Our Electricity Supply: Help REIN in the EPA



The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) upcoming air pollution regulation revisions are creating a bit of a stir both in the energy industry and in Congress. The emissions that would fall under more stringent limits are ozone, mercury, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide; coal ash waste; and water used to cool facilities that generate electricity.

Many see the new scheme as one that will unduly burden the power industry, even forcing shut downs of numerous coal-fired plants altogether. Estimated costs of compliance for utility companies are up to $129 billion, with a reduction of up to 81,000 megawatts of electricity generation. Then there’s the jobs at stake. A Commerce Department analysis predicted a loss of 60,000 jobs due to the EPA’s rulings.

With 45 percent of America’s electricity being coal-fired -- a resource that is abundant and cheap with at least a 200-year supply available in the States -- these new EPA regulations seem a direct attack on not only the power companies, but on consumers. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which is responsible for the reliability of the electric system warns that over-regulation of fossil-fueled electricity generation will make it difficult for companies to meet electric demand.

There are at least three proposed bills that could rein in the EPA on this. One is H.R.910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, which has already been approved by the House in a 255-172 vote, and was referred to the Senate. Many claim it has no chance of passing the Democratic-controlled chamber.

Another is H.R. 2018, the Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011, “To amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act” which also passed the House 239-184 and was referred to the Senate. Many claim that this one, too, will not pass the full Senate.

And then there's the REINS Act, S. 299, the Regulations From the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2011, introduced by Sen. Rand Paul, (R-Ky.). Not specifically tailored for the EPA, this bill would rein in all unaccountable federal agencies. Cosponsored by Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.), it would require Congressional approval of any interim or final regulation from the Executive Branch bureaucracy that costs more than $100 million per year or that excessively increases costs or prices or has “significant adverse effects on competition, employment, investment, productivity, innovation, or U.S. competitiveness.” This popular measure already has 28 sponsors and hearings completed. There is a companion bill in the House, H.R. 10, that has garnered 159 cosponsors.

House Republicans and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) have vowed to bring up bills after the summer recess that would repeal or restrict federal regulations, and Cantor intends on starting with a proposal to delay the implementation of these new EPA rules. But we can do better than just delay the rules.

Contact your Senators and Representative and get them to support and pass this common-sense legislation that would REIN in the damaging effects to our utilities, the economy and jobs by a host of unelected czars and their bureaucratic agencies. Make specific mention of the EPA as one of the most out-of-control and draconian agencies within the federal government that needs to be relieved of its regulating power. And pressure the Senate into taking action on the already-passed House bills.

Thanks,

Your friends at The John Birch Society

Will prison officials allow Wayne Fincher to attend wife’s funeral?



Paul W. Davis shares some sad news:

It is with great sorrow and regret that I must inform you of the passing of Linda Fincher, Wayne Fincher's wife. She passed away sometime early in the morning, the 28th of August at her home. At this time the cause of death is determined to be a seizure. She was alone at the time. Miss Linda had been suffering from seizures for some years now.

I am requesting your prayers for the family, particularly for Wayne and the daughters, Connie and Carol Ann. It was ever Miss Linda's concern that she would not see Wayne come home. Sadly, that concern has come true.

Long-time readers of the War on Guns blog will recall Fincher, a lieutenant commander in the Militia of Washington County (AR), was convicted of possession of an unregistered machine gun in a trial where the judge would not allow the Constitution to be mentioned in his defense. Click here to access an extensive archive that chronicles his struggles, and click here, to read “The Silver Bullet,” a document he co-authored that “clearly demonstrates how the National Firearms Act of 1934 is a criminal fraud and levy of war.”

Friend and supporters of the Wayne and Linda Fincher write that they:

[C]alled Judge Hendren who tried Wayne and asked him to request Wayne’s release for the funeral. The judge said he could not do that in his purview but that he would recommend Wayne’s furlough if the prison officials asked his opinion.

The judge did say that if an attorney would call the prison on Hollis Wayne Fincher’s behalf that could probably be of some help.

A Fincher daughter asks via email:

Can anyone help us?

We can try. While nothing formal has been established as the best way to make Wayne’s furlough happen, if we sit around waiting for someone to organize things, it won’t. My recommendation: Fincher is housed at FCI Forrest City Low, which is part of the Federal Bureau of Prisons system. The Acting Director is Thomas R. Kane.

I have three suggestions:

MORE

How al-Qaeda got to rule in Tripoli

Via JADED HAVEN


His name is Abdelhakim Belhaj. Some in the Middle East might have, but few in the West and across the world would have heard of him.

Time to catch up. Because the story of how an al-Qaeda asset turned out to be the top Libyan military commander in still war-torn Tripoli is bound to shatter - once again - that wilderness of mirrors that is the "war on terror", as well as deeply compromising the carefully constructed propaganda of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO's) "humanitarian" intervention in Libya.

Muammar Gaddafi's fortress of Bab-al-Aziziyah was essentially invaded and conquered last week by Belhaj's men - who were at the forefront of a militia of Berbers from the mountains southwest of Tripoli. The militia is the so-called Tripoli Brigade, trained in secret for two months by US Special Forces. This turned out to be the rebels' most effective militia in six months of tribal/civil war.
Already last Tuesday, Belhaj was gloating on how the battle was won, with Gaddafi forces escaping "like rats" (note that's the same metaphor used by Gaddafi himself to designate the rebels).

Abdelhakim Belhaj, aka Abu Abdallah al-Sadek, is a Libyan jihadi. Born in May 1966, he honed his skills with the mujahideen in the 1980s anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan.

He's the founder of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and its de facto emir - with Khaled Chrif and Sami Saadi as his deputies. After the Taliban took power in Kabul in 1996, the LIFG kept two training camps in Afghanistan; one of them, 30 kilometers north of Kabul - run by Abu Yahya - was strictly for al-Qaeda-linked jihadis.

After 9/11, Belhaj moved to Pakistan and also to Iraq, where he befriended none other than ultra-nasty Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - all this before al-Qaeda in Iraq pledged its allegiance to Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri and turbo-charged its gruesome practices.

In Iraq, Libyans happened to be the largest foreign Sunni jihadi contingent, only losing to the Saudis. Moreover, Libyan jihadis have always been superstars in the top echelons of "historic" al-Qaeda - from Abu Faraj al-Libi (military commander until his arrest in 2005, now lingering as one of 16 high-value detainees in the US detention center at Guantanamo) to Abu al-Laith al-Libi (another military commander, killed in Pakistan in early 2008).

Time for an extraordinary rendition

South Vietnam, The American Waterloo: Introduction and Prelude. 54 articles


The following are a series of articles my father, Rick Johnson, wrote while working as a reporter for the Indianapolis Star. They were originally published during October and November of 1966.

I present them to you here as he originally wrote them, without edits.

The original, typewritten versions of these stories are now in the possession of the Indiana Historical Society.

It is my sincere hope that you enjoy these articles, and come away with the realization that we, as a great nation, need to learn from our past and not repeat our mistakes.

Paul Johnson

=================

By Rick Johnson

For all the outstanding men I met while a correspondent In South Vietnam. For all those who served then and those who came later…

Especially for my wife, Phyllis, and my family.

Introduction

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South Vietnam, The American Waterloo

Four Horsemen

Via The Excavator


Gunwalker: Two out, well one transferred and probably promoted to keep his mouth shut

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Acting Director Kenneth Melson is being moved out of the top job at the bureau, ATF special agents in charge announced during an internal conference call today.
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"ATF Director Reassigned; U.S. Attorney Out Amid 'Fast and Furious' Uproar."
U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke, one of the officials closely tied to Fast and Furious, is also a casualty in a shakeup tied to the botched gun-running program. Burke was on the hot seat last week with congressional investigators and, according to several sources, got physically sick during questioning and could not finish his session.
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MEAT GRINDERS AND EVIL MEN



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Power, wealth, greed, cronyism, lies, yet again more examples of the mother tiger eating her young cubs, yes it is happening today as you sit there sipping your coffee this morning. We are still sending our cubs off to be murdered and maimed for what reasons exactly? Ohhh and this has been going on for a very long time.

Our leaders know exactly why, and so should we. I sift through thousands of photos just for one blog post, "a photo is worth a thousand words" The amount of suffering our babes have gone through from one generation to the next, so as some fat white guys can enrichen their buddies is sickening.

The most precious thing in our lives is our children, yet we think nothing of it to send them off to war to be killed and to kill, all for the profits of the evil master and his cronies. Just wars? Name me one war in the past hundred years that some asshole did not profit from.

Abortion and eugenics, most conservative folks will agree are evil deeds, yet we wave the red white and blue and send our children off to be hacked to pieces. My thinking has change considerably, the doors of awareness are being opened. To think we will never be involved in a war is juvenile, yet to start and fight wars for profits is EVIL.

National Police Misconduct NewsFeed Daily Recap 08-29-11

VERBATIM POST
Injustice Everywhere

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a


Yavapai-Prescott AZ cop caught on video tasering man twice while he had his hands up, no comment from police about the case so far. [3] bit.ly/pdGJLA
  • Orlando FL undisclosed number of cops involved in a shooting incident where their claims they were nearly run over by a suspect were contradicted by a video are now under investigation [3] bit.ly/qV1fZ3
  • Elgin OR considers disbanding their police dept after a questionable fatal shooting incident by a cop who was the subject of a number of complaints alleging he was always nervous and would often put his hand on his gun during interactions. [2] bit.ly/pJolA9
  • Peel ON police successfully blocked a state investigation by refusing to release records about a police dog that attacked a woman who was sitting in a park [4] bit.ly/qG7Ega
  • Michigan State trooper sentenced to 20mo for 2 felony criminal sexual conduct charges involving a 12yr-old girl [0] bit.ly/q7udXl
  • Wichita Falls TX cop suspended indefinitely for 80mph crash that killed 2 teens, he wasn’t responding to a call at the time. [0] bit.ly/oiAOfO
  • New York NY police issued judicial stipulation to stop arresting homeless woman w/o charges after she filed suit [0] nyti.ms/mOMMeU
  • Tahlequah OK cop arrested on multiple charges for allegedly stealing over $1,600 from 3 Hispanic motorists at traffic stops [0] bit.ly/rqzXhf
  • Boynton Beach FL cop facing trial for selling meth on duty being sought after removing ankle monitor & skipping town [0] bit.ly/pKoB4T
  • Philadelphia PA cops accused of arresting 2 men on false “lack of common sense” charge for rafting on flooded street [3] http://t.co/0mElt05
  • Denver CO cop faces possible felony child abuse charge on allegations he gave toddler liquor to shut her up inside of a restaurant. [0] bit.ly/mXg8Yv
  • New Mexico state trooper on leave after arrested on battery on a household member charge in unspecified incident [1] bit.ly/mY6wvn
  • Pittsburgh PA cop arrested on several charges alleging he drove women to make drug buys & promoted prostitution [0] bit.ly/n1DFly
  • Missouri State trooper pleads guilty to concealing illegal activities of an auto repair business that altered VINs [0] bit.ly/nuzsNr
  • Phoenix AZ cop arrested in Texas on solicitation charges after allegedly busted during prostitution sting op [0] bit.ly/ocqRlZ
  • Philadelphia PA cop arrested for simple assault & reckless endangerment in alleged fight w/police officer girlfriend [0] bit.ly/p1YNdo
  • Seattle WA police DUI rubber-stamping problems illustrates how agencies hid behind challenged public records law [4] bit.ly/oGc9JJ
  • West Bloomfield MI cop suspended 5days for failing to detain twp supervisor’s husband who failed prelim DUI test, he allegedly gave them a ride home instead. [0] http://bit.ly/nCYpDD
  • Champaign Co IL sheriff’s investigator sentenced to 9 days in drunk driving & obstructing plea deal for 3-car crash [0] bit.ly/rpNJal
  • A New Mexico state trooper is now under investigation after stills from a surveillance camera surfaced showing him having sex in public on the hood of a car while wearing his uniform… as seen below. [0] bit.ly/qFX53e

Before I go, just wanted to mention that we could really use some donations so if you like what this project does and haven’t donated yet, please consider doing so today. Thank you.

That’s it for today, stay safe out there…

Self-Defense Against a Violent Flash Mob

Wyatt Earp disbursed many a lynch mob with his resolute demeanor standing behind his Colt .45 six shooters or a shotgun. Was his threat overkill? I don’t think so! It worked and usually, not a shot was fired. Check that thought. What about a “flash mob?"

Kevin Costner as Wyatt Earp

Are they less or more deadly than what Earp encountered? And do you have the reputation of a Marshall Wyatt Earp?

Does the pictured 12 gauge 15-round Kel-Tec Scatter Gun send out the wrong idea? I don’t think so. One might want a scatter gun if confronted by a violent mob. However, one is unlikely to be prepared as such. I am trying to convey the seriousness of the situation. Do you have a problem shooting twenty or more violent hoodlums intent on beating you down to the ground?

Kel-Tec KSG 15 shot 12 gauge

Kel-Tec KSG 15 shot 12-gauge

A “flash mob” is defined as a group of people who assemble rapidly in a public place, perform an odd and apparently pointless act for a brief period, and then disperse. Flash mobs typically are organized via social media, viral emails and cell phone texts. Until recently, flash mobs were organized for purposes of diversion, street theater, and artistic expression. However, recently, the phenomenon has taken a violent turn.

In recent flash mob attacks both in Europe and in the United States, large, loosely organized wolf packs of teenagers bent on committing violent mayhem have struck in public places, and have seriously injured innocent people caught by surprise in the crowd.
Those injured were in a place they had a right to be, and they were not in places where they would have expected to be targeted for victimization, such as in high crime locations. What can you as a law abiding citizen do to protect yourself and your loved ones from this blight?

Let’s not confuse cause with effect!

It does not matter why violent hooligans choose to get swept up in a viral tidal wave of violent behavior. What matters to those innocently caught up in it is how to get out of it alive with intact limbs.

Semantics

Let’s define our terms. “Flash mob” is a politically correct term for riot. The objective of the rioters is to hurt people. Whether the rioters are drunk, mean, evil, politically motivated, disenfranchised, or whatever, is irrelevant. They are violent criminal actors, or VCA’s. If you are unlucky enough to be caught in their path, they are threatening your life and limb. It is like being a Jew caught in the path of Nazi Storm Troopers in pre-World War II Germany. So, let’s get our meaning straight. There is nothing cute or politically correct about a violent flash mob. So, be aware.


This Week in American Military History

Stonewall

Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, C.S.A.

Aug. 28, 1862: The Second battle of Bull Run (known to many Southerners as Second Manassas) opens between Union Army forces under the command of Maj. Gen. John Pope and Confederate forces under Maj. Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson (Gen. Robert E. Lee in overall command).

Within days, Confederate forces will drive Union forces from the field, not unlike what happened at First Bull Run/Manassas on July 21, 1861.

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Aug. 28, 1972: U.S. Air Force Capt. Richard Stephen Richie, flying an F-4 Phantom, shoots down his fifth MiG over North Vietnam, becoming the Air Force’s first ace of the war.

But to hear Richie tell it, it was just a ride. “My fifth MiG kill was an exact duplicate of a syllabus mission, so I had not only flown that as a student, but had taught it probably a dozen times prior to actually doing it in combat,” he says.

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Sept. 3, 1777: The Battle of Cooch's Bridge (a.k.a. the Battle of Iron Hill) – the only pitched battle of the American Revolution to be fought in Delaware – opens between Continental Army and militia forces under the command of Brig. Gen. William Maxwell and a combined force of British, Hessian, and Ansbach soldiers under the overall command of British Gen. Sir Charles Cornwallis (and under the immediate tactical command of Hessian Lt. Col. Ludwig von Wurmb).

Though a British victory, which devolved into a savage close-quarters engagement, the Battle of Cooch's Bridge is significant as the first time the Stars-and-Stripes is flown in action.

Cooch Bridge

Members of the 2D Virginia Regiment re-enacting the Battle of Cooch's Bridge

by W. Thomas Smith Jr.

The journey of 3 flags

Three flags were captured by Union troops at the Battle of New Bern in 1862. The flags were taken to Worcester, Mass., where they have remained until now. They will be on loan to Museum of the Albemarle through 2015.

One hundred and fifty years ago three flags were captured during a battle in New Bern between the North and the South. Those flags left North Carolina but are now returning home to commemorate the anniversary of the bloodiest war in U.S. history.

It was late winter in 1862 and Gen. Ambrose Burnsides had been leading his expedition through eastern North Carolina, securing some of the most strategic ports in the state for the Union army.

Burnsides had taken Hatteras, Roanoke Island, Elizabeth City, and Plymouth, and he was now on his way to meet Confederate troops in New Bern.

In New Bern, the soldiers of the Confederacy were gathered to defend the port town. Three units carrying three versions of the Confederate battle flag would meet outside of the historic town on March 14.

The battle would be decisive. Defeating the rebels meant the Union would control the waterways of eastern North Carolina.

Someone’s mother or wife had likely made the flags that stood for three different groups of Southern rebels, according to Museum of the Albemarle curator Wanda Stiles. They were made of wool and cotton and were sturdy, red, white and blue flags and whomever was the barer of those standards was responsible for keeping it high for all the men to see in the course of a smoky, bloody battle.

“When in battle, you look for that flag,” explains Stiles. “The flag is kept moving as a symbol of who you are.”

On the Union side, 11,000 troops would march to New Bern. On the Confederate side, 4,500 inexperienced soldiers were about to meet their fate defending their land.

The battle began early in the morning and lasted six hours.

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The journey of 3 flags

The Nullification Crisis: Foreshadow of Civil War



Part 3 of a Series
Mike Scruggs

In 1832, another tariff bill was introduced, supposedly to correct some of the injustices of the 1828 Tariff of Abominations and to give some relief to the South. The 1828 Tariff had also produced a surplus of government income that many wanted to correct. However, the Northern beneficiaries of high tariffs succeeded in a bill that did not diminish their profit margins. Some of the abominations of the 1828 Tariff were relieved, but the reduction of the average dutiable rate to about 33 percent was scant relief to the South.

Passage of the 1832 Tariff was viewed by South Carolina and other major cotton-producing states as an unequivocal message that Southern suffering and Southern rights were of no concern to most Northern political leaders. Protectionist tariffs were political bargains in which powerful political and commercial interests united to enrich themselves at the expense of less powerful regions and commercial interests. Given no relief, the growth of Northern population and political power would mean that outrageous tax burdens would be continually laid upon the South to enrich the North.

President Jackson signed the 1832 Tariff on July 14, 1832, and John C. .Calhoun made plans to seek the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Robert Hayne, who was running for Governor of South Carolina. Meanwhile, Calhoun was engaged in the movement in South Carolina to nullify the 1828 and 1832 tariffs. Calhoun officially resigned as Vice President on December 28, 1832, to fill the Senate seat to which the South Carolina Legislature had elected him on December 12.

In South Carolina, agitation over the 1828 Tariff had begun in the summer after its signing. State Representative Robert Barnwell Rhett called on the Governor to convene the State Legislature. Appealing to both honor and justice, he called for South Carolina’s leaders to have the courage to resist Federal protectionist tariffs and other unconstitutional acts:

“But if you are so doubtful of yourselves—if you are not prepared to follow up your principles wherever they may lead, to their very last consequence—if you love life better than honor; prefer ease to perilous liberty, awake not! Stir not! —Impotent resistance will add vengeance to your ruin. Live in smiling peace with your insatiable Oppressors, and die with the noble consolation that your submissive patience will survive triumphant your beggary and despair.”

Meanwhile Calhoun’s writings had popularized Thomas Jefferson’s concept of nullification—the right of states to reject unconstitutional Federal laws. By the winter of 1831, South Carolina’s Governor James Hamilton was conducting rallies and meetings around the state in support of nullification. The South Carolina Legislature elections of 1832 confirmed that a substantial majority of voters favored nullification, and on October 20, 1832, Governor Hamilton called the legislature to a special session to consider and authorize a Nullification Convention. Thus authorized, the Convention met on November 24.

Citing Calhoun’s view that imposing unequal tax burdens for the benefit of special regional or commercial interests was unconstitutional, the Ordinance of Nullification declared that the 1828 and 1832 tariff acts:

“…are unauthorized by the Constitution of the United States and violate the true meaning and intent thereof, and are null, void, and no law, nor binding upon this State, its officers or citizens;…and all judicial proceedings which shall be hereafter had in affirmance thereof, are and shall be held utterly null and void…That it shall not be lawful for any of the constituted authorities, whether of this state or of the United States, to enforce the payment of duties imposed by the said acts within the limits of this State from and after the 1st day of February next…”

President Jackson’s rhetoric made it clear that he intended to prevent Nullification by force of arms, telling a visitor from South Carolina that:

“…if a single drop of blood shall be shed there in opposition to the laws of the United States, I will hang the first man I can lay my hands on engaged in such treasonable conduct, upon the first tree I can reach.”

On December 10, Jackson issued a Proclamation to the People of South Carolina stating:

“I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.”

Robert Hayne, who had resigned from the United States Senate on his election to the office of Governor of South Carolina in December 1832 and who had been a member of the Nullification Convention, gave an answer to the people of South Carolina and to President Jackson in his inaugural address:

“If the sacred soil of Carolina should be polluted by the footsteps of an invader, or be stained with the blood of her citizens, shed in defense, I trust in Almighty God that no son of hers…who has been nourished at her bosom…will be found raising a parricidal arm against our common mother. And even should she stand alone in this great struggle for constitutional liberty…that there will not be found, in the wider limits of the state, one recreant son who will not fly to the rescue, and be ready to lay down his life in her defense.”

Reacting to the threat to their sovereignty, South Carolina mobilized 27,000 men ready to defend their territory and rights in the event of military attack.

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The Nullification Crisis: Foreshadow of Civil War

The Obama Prison Blues‏

Via Joseph

Emerald Isle NC Pier, Monday August 29, 2011

There is yellow tape beyond the people below which blocks entry further until tomorrow PM. Then the area near the damaged end will be barred allowing the rest to be usable for fishing and so forth.


If you enlarge the picture below, you can see two men near the end evidently deciding where to blockade tomorrow.