General Matt W. Ransom, North Carolina Unionist

 His great grandson, Matt Ransom Johnson, was my playmate in Littleton as a child.  We used to go to Mosby Hall and dig for whatever we could find.  He still lives in Littleton and comes to pick up some of my pecans each year at Dixieland.

General Matt W. Ransom of North Carolina was among the prewar unionists in the South abandoned by Lincoln and his purely sectional party.  They counseled Lincoln to let Fort Sumter go and allow a cooling-off period to restore harmony to the country, rather than precipitate an unnecessary crisis and war.  This former Unionist bravely led his men at Seven Pines, Malvern Hill [wounded], Sharpsburg, Boone’s Hill, Suffolk, Plymouth, Drewry’s Bluff [desperately wounded], Fort Steadman, Five Forks, and many other Petersburg-area battles. 

Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman

North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission

“Unsurpassed Valor, Courage and Devotion to Liberty”

www.ncwbts150.com

The Official Website of North Carolina’s War Between the States Sesquicentennial

General Matt W. Ransom, North Carolina Unionist

“Union men in the South have ever been of the opinion that [Lincoln’s call for troops after Sumter] was a great blunder, and that it solidified the entire South, driving Virginia and North Carolina into the new Confederacy . . . the fall of Fort Sumter and the call for North Carolina to furnish her quota of troops to invade South Carolina totally changed the aspect of affairs.

All over the State courageous and patriotic men had been loudly pleading the cause of the Union.  At that very time a union and peace assemblage had gathered in Wilkesboro and earnest men were making stirring appeals for the old flag.

[Zebulon] Vance, now fast growing into a popular idol, was in the very act of imploring the God of Nations to avert the awful catastrophe of civil war, and had both hands uplifted to High Heaven, when suddenly someone in the crowd read the telegram announcing the capture of Fort Sumter and Lincoln’s call for troops. In describing the scene thereafter, Governor Vance said, “When these hands of mine were lowered, they fell by the side of a secessionist.”

In his heart he despised the extremists of both sides.  The appeal to a higher law than the Constitution to abolish slavery smote on his ear like a fire bell in the night. The assertion that the Constitution of our country was a league with the devil and a covenant with hell he resented with all the bitterness of his nature . . . [though] above all Ransom and other old line Whigs, and some Democrats as well, knew that sooner or later slavery had to go.  The civilized world was against it.

One of the finest spectacles this world has seen, or will see, is the conduct of Robert E. Lee, Matt W. Ransom, and other men who loved the union with all the intensity of their nature, when the time for fighting was at hand. It was not their war. They were against it.

But when war actually came, Ransom and the other peace men went to the front, fought bravely and made no complaints. “If we must fight,” they said, “we will fight strangers. We will not fight our brothers and neighbors.”

Such conduct is an attribute of very high virtue, and it is the foundation stone upon which the men of the South are this day laying broad and deep a civilization most attractive and enduring.

Ransom was opposed to slavery and favored its gradual abolition.  Our Constitution might have guaranteed slavery in its every line, but this would not have prevented its downfall.  He thought that the war was useless and a crime.  Vainly he hoped to avert civil war and its horrors . . . as member of the Legislature from Northampton County in 1861 he was most active in securing the passage of a bill creating a [Montgomery] Peace Commission, with instructions to repair to the capital of the new Confederacy and to restore the relations of the seceding States to the Union . . . but their task was a vain one.

[Ransom] resigned his seat [and] volunteered as a private soldier in the ranks, bade farewell to these historic halls [of the Legislature] and went forth to defend his native State. On the 8^th of May, 1861, he was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the First Regiment of Infantry, and from this date until April 9, 1865, when Appomattox put an end to Southern hopes, whenever duty called, or danger was the thickest, this brave man could always be found.”

(Unveiling of the Bust of Matt Whitaker Ransom, Address of Robert W. Winston, January 21, 1911; North Carolina Historical Commission, 1911, pp. 10; 16-19) 

Health care spending spikes by a staggering 9.9% 1st 1/4, fastest since 1980

Via Angry Mike

 Ding-dong

Just three months ago, President Obama was trying to claim that his signature domestic accomplishment, Obamacare, was responsible for slowing health care spending in the United States.

 That claim was widely debunked by fact checkers at the time since health care spending began to fall long before Obamacare was passed, and has since began to rise.

But now all pretense that Obamacare would lower health care costs has been destroyed.

More @ Townhall

Subway removes ham and bacon from nearly 200 stores and offers halal meat only after 'strong demand' from Muslims

Via Susan

Fast food giant Subway has removed ham and bacon from almost 200 outlets, and switched to halal meat alternatives in an attempt to please its Muslim customers.

It has confirmed turkey ham and turkey rashers will be used instead in 185 of its stores, where all the meat will now be prepared according to halal rules.

The chain, which has around 1,500 outlets across the UK, explained its decision by saying it had to balance animal welfare concerns with 'the views of religious communities'. 

More @ Daily Mail

The Heat Death of Democracy

 

 

 

"In a Closed System, Stupidity Tends to Increase Until It Reaches a Maximum"

Long-time readers, if there is one, will notice that I have written of much of this before. I thought it worth another take.

In something called Upshot, apparently the love child of the New York Times, I find a piece by a negligible robot happily chronicling the failures of boys in school. This has become a ritual for feminists and pussy-whipped male Sonderkommandos.  If smugness and condescension were oil, these tali-wagging unmen would be gushers, maybe a gas fielñd.

This particular dropping rattles on (if droppings rattle) about the superior “social skills” of girls, which in fact they have. (“Social skills” is illiterate sociobabble. It is plural, so I ask, what are these skills? Bright smile? Curtsey? Subtle flattery? “Sally has a really good bright smile, but her subtle flattery needs work.”)

After running on about the superior social skills of girls (meaning that they are docile, obedient, easily managed, and seek approval from teachers), the author, David Leonhardt, points out that girls are getting far more four-year college degrees, etc. All true.

He does not point out is that schools at all levels have been made (deliberately, I think) so hostile to males (the endless sexual-harassment propaganda), with so heavy an emphasis on procedure complied with instead of material mastered (neat homework, pretty pictures pasted into projects), and so much emphasis on socialization to feminine norms and on inculcation of Appropriate Values, that boys are asphyxiated. It is intellectual water-boarding. And has produced the desired result.

More @ Fred On Everything

CCW permit experience so far in Orange County California

 

Imagine the amount of taxpayer's money wasted. 

From a fire fighter son-in-law who lives in San Clemente

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

Halfway through the process, had two interviews, a visit from a deputy to my neighbors and I go in for Livescan fingerprinting in a few weeks.

Mid July I take my Orange County approved CCW course ( even though I have taken numerous firearm courses and have a CCW in Utah and Nevada )

Pay my $186 and I should have it by August unless something gets reversed.

Todd

Black Bear Sightings Becoming More Common in North Carolina

Black bear sightings throughout North Carolina are becoming more common as the bear population increases and bears expand their home range. While black bears are not inherently dangerous and are rarely aggressive toward people, the Wildlife Commission provides guidelines the public can follow to avoid potential conflicts.

More @ NC Wildlife

Race Relations

Via Billy

Did Illegals Misusing SSNs Earn More on Average Than US Women?

 

If you simultaneously accept estimates published by the Census Bureau and the Chief Actuary of Social Security, then illegal aliens who misused Social Security numbers to work illegally in the United States in 2010 earned more on average than American women did.

The Office of the Chief Actuary published an analysis in April 2013 entitled, "Effects of Unauthorized Immigration on the Actuarial Status of the Social Security Trust Funds." It included this question and answer:

More @ Townhall

Differences Don’t Necessarily Equal Discrimination

Via Susan

 

Well, another Equal Pay Day has come and gone. This year it came on April 8th to represent how long into 2014 a woman would have to work to make what a man did in 2013. The highlight this year was when White House Press Secretary Jay Carney tried to explain away the pay gap between men and women in the White House by saying that when men and women hold similar positions, they are paid the same. And while the federally commissioned CONSAD report from a few years back found virtually the same thing nationwide, the Obama administration still pushed forward its executive order to end the gender wage gap.

This is nothing new of course. Equal Pay Day and other things of that sort have always required a large degree of cognitive dissonance. Back in 2012, the adult actress Sasha Grey made a PSA (a very explicit one at that) for the Belgium version of Equal Pay Day saying “porn is about the only way to make more than men.” In its analysis of the PSA Jezebel accuses the ad of sending “mixed messages.”[1] The first mixed message one might wonder about is why, if women are discriminated against, is such discrimination not relatively uniform? After all, not only do adult actresses make more than their male colleagues, but the same goes for models. Indeed, in 2013, the top ten male models made only about one tenth of what the top ten female models made. Why is this?

More @ Mises

Letter To Washington & Lee University

Via Virginia Flaggers 

202 Washington Hall
Lexington, VA 24450

Re: Demands of "The Committee"

Dear Sirs and Madam:

I, like many others, have been following the media accounts of the demands made by a small group of W&L Law students who refer to themselves as “The Committee”. I feel that it is incumbent upon me, and others who feel as I do, to write and urge you, in the strongest terms possible, to resist any inclination to capitulate to these specious demands, whose sole intent is to disparage the memory of General Lee, defile his final resting place and besmirch the reputation of the institution whose very existence he is largely responsible for securing.

These students should be reminded that had it not been for the courage and foresight of the trustees of Washington College to appeal to General Lee, in the late summer of 1865, to accept the presidency of that destitute school, and had he not accepted that position and begun to raise the funds required to maintain and improve that facility with alacrity, their latter-day condemnation of the man and the institution would be moot.

Now to address the specifics of the "demands" themselves:

1. This has already been addressed by the university.

2. The term "Neo-Confederate" is sometimes employed as a pejorative description, or ad hominem slur, for people who take a sympathetic view of southern history and for southerners in general, even when they do not belong to or espouse the ideas of a "Neo-Confederate" organization. That is the case here. The people who gather in Lexington for the Lee-Jackson Day parade and memorial service in Lee Chapel do so solely to honor the memory and service of two great Virginians, not to espouse or advance any agenda. Even a casual observer cannot help but note the solemnity and reverence displayed during the memorial service. Whether "The Committee" likes it or not, Lee Chapel is an icon, a beacon that draws people from all walks of life and from all parts of the country for this one hour service, once a year. For the demands of seven individuals to deny hundreds the right to assemble for an annual, peaceful event would be an injustice of significant magnitude.

3. To the best of my knowledge, the only Confederate flags displayed on campus, at least publicly, are those around the recumbent statue of Lee in the Chapel. Those are regimental battle flags representing some of the regiments that Lee commanded in the Army of Northern Virginia. They are soldiers' flags, not, as many would have you believe, symbolic of anything other than the brotherhood of valor that comprised that gallant body of men, Lee's "boys". Those flags are there representing the devotion and respect of those veterans for their old commander, "Marse Robert". To remove them, for any reason, would border on sacrilege.

4. I am unaware of just what "The Committee" means by the participation of the University in chattel slavery. I do know that many people and institutions, including some of the oldest and most prominent families in New England and any number of great financial institutions, carry a far greater burden of guilt for chattel slavery than does Washington and Lee University, yet I hear no hue and cry for apologies from them. I do know, that like many other Virginians, slaveholding and non-slaveholding, the faculty and students of Washington College rallied to the call to defend Virginia from a pending Northern invasion. Co. I, the Liberty Hall Volunteers of the 4th Virginia Infantry Regiment of the famed Stonewall Brigade was made up almost exclusively of those students and their professors. And they sacrificed mightily; only a pitiful remnant of nine men from that company remained standing at Appomattox.

So far as denouncing Lee for his participation in chattel slavery, it is apparent that these students know little of nothing of General Lee's involvement with the "peculiar institution". If they were conversant with it, they would know that Lee, owning no slaves himself, had, as the executor of his father-in-law's estate, manumitted all of the Custis slaves by 1863. As far as the University "denouncing Lee", one cannot escape the irony inherent in that "demand". Indeed! Denounce the man, who more than any other single individual, is responsible for these young people having this institution to attend.

In closing, I urge you not to surrender to the emotion-charged and misleading rhetoric of a tiny minority of the student body, .4 of 1% of the total enrollment. I also ask you to ponder why, in the case of several individuals who are second and third year law students, it took them so long to become "offended". To cave in to their outrageous "demands", couched in the most divisive, disrespectful and racially evocative terms imaginable, would do a disservice to the University, the majority of the enrolled students and the Commonwealth of Virginia."

W. A. Dennison, Bristol, VA

Supreme Court green lights detention of Americans

Via Cousin John

 

 Traitors, all.

 A decision from the U.S. Supreme Court means the federal government now has an open door to “detain as a threat to national security anyone viewed as a troublemaker,” critics of the high court’s ruling said.

The high court by its own order this week refused to review an appellate-level decision that says the president and U.S. military can arrest and indefinitely detain individuals.

Officials with William J. Olson, P.C., a firm that filed an amicus brief asking the court to step in, noted that not a single justice dissented from the denial of certiorari.

“The court ducked, having no appetite to confront both political parties in order to protect the citizens from military detention,” the legal team told WND. “The government has won, creating a tragic moment for the people – and what will someday be viewed as an embarrassment for the court.”

More @ WND

The Fall Of Saigon April 30, 1975: 39th Remembrance

 

More @ FNC

New Benghazi Emails Mean Obama Impeachment Trial Must Be Launched

Via Daily Timewaster

I didn’t know how right I was when I wrote on September 29, 2012 “Benghazi Worse then Watergate.”

With the release of new emails it is spectacularly worse — so bad in fact that it has made a full investigation with an impeachment trial necessary for the protection of our republic.

From the Washington Free Beacon:

Previously unreleased internal Obama administration emails show that a coordinated effort was made in the days following the Benghazi terror attacks to portray the incident as “rooted in [an] Internet video, and not [in] a broader failure or policy.”

Emails sent by senior White House adviser Ben Rhodes to other top administration officials reveal an effort to insulate President Barack Obama from the attacks that killed four Americans.

Rhodes sent this email to top White House officials such as David Plouffe and Jay Carney just a day before National Security Adviser Susan Rice made her infamous Sunday news show appearances to discuss the attack.

The “goal,” according to these emails, was “to underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure or policy.”

The levels of criminality involved in this are mind-boggling.  Everyone from Ben Rhodes to Hillary Clinton to Jay Carney to Susan Rice to Mike Morell to Barack Obama and on and on must explain themselves minute-by-minute. American “liberals” and their media consorts should search their souls. People died here.

More @ PJ Media

III Citadel PatCon & Brock's NC PATCON

NC PatCon: We are now fewer than two weeks from gathering once again at Brock's place in North Carolina.  Holly and I are eager to be back among fellow Patriots in such a wonderful environment. 

We will be teaching Fight to your Weapon on Friday the 9th, and are pleased so many class alumni will be there.  Two of our III 300 Patriots have offered to share some of their Krav techniques with us as well, so be ready to train!  After CQB Holly and I will be joining Grenadier for his Georgia Force-on-Force introductory class.  He'll be introducing Patriots to using AirSoft guns as training aids - we are really looking forward to this class.  H & I are looking forward to meeting G1.  Saturday Brock has a full day planned, including speeches and discussions.  Of course nightly campfires will certainly again be highlights.

More @ III Percent Patriots

The Incredibly Stupid One at the Hanoi Hilton

Via WRSA

SN HEGDAHL, USS CANBERRA – PRISONER OF WAR

 By Dick “Beak” Stratton, Captain, USN (Ret.)

It was a warmer than usual summer day in Clark, South Dakota when a rather large and ungainly young man, a recent high school graduate, set about finding his way in the world. The salivating Navy recruiter asked the youngster what it would take to have him sign up: “why, I’d like to go to Australia .” It was as good as done. After all, in 1966, if you were lucky enough to ship out on the USS Canberra, more likely than not, during the course of your hitch, there will be a port call to the ship’s namesake— Canberra , Australia . 

 More @ Cherries Writer

The "choking cop" gets fired

Via Angry Mike

A Tennessee Sheriff’s office has fired a deputy whose excessive actions against a compliant detainee were photographed and circulated on the Internet over the weekend. The pictures appear to show the deputy methodically choking a handcuffed University of Tennessee student until the young man drops unconscious to his knees.

Knox County, Tenn. Sheriff J.J. Jones fired deputy Frank Phillips, a 24-year veteran of the department, after British publication the Daily Mail published pictures that freelance photographer John Messner had taken of the incident.

More with video @ Personal Liberty Digest