Sunday, August 6, 2017

The Civil War’s (sic) Basic Cause: Sectionalism

 https://southernspaces.org/sites/default/files/images/2004/mackethan-secondilltakemystand.jpg

In this late 1940 address to the Southern Historical Association, historian Frank L. Owsley (1890-1956) spoke of the sectional cause of the Civil War and the North’s reluctance to allow the South to seek political independence.  Prof. Owsley was born in Alabama, taught at Vanderbilt University and was a member of the Southern Agrarians.
Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com   The Great American Political Divide

The Civil War’s Basic Cause: Sectionalism

“Before attempting to say what were the causes of the American Civil War, first let me say what were not the causes of the war.

Perhaps the most beautiful, the most poetic, the most eloquent statement of what the Civil War was not fought for is the Gettysburg Address. That address will live as long as Americans retain their love for free government and personal liberty; and yet in reassessing the causes of the Civil War, the address whose essence is was that the war was being fought so “that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth” is irrelevant.

Indeed, this masterpiece of eloquence has little if any value as a statement of the basic principles underlying the war.

The Civil War was not a struggle on the part of the South to destroy free government and personal liberty, nor on the part of the North to preserve them. Looked at from the present perspective of the worldwide attempt of the totalitarians to erase free governments and nations living under such governments from the face of the earth, the timeworn stereotype that the South was attempting the destruction of free government and the North was fighting to preserve it seems unrealistic and downright silly.

If the destruction of democratic government by the South and its preservation by the North were not the causes of the Civil War, what then were the causes? The surface answer to this question is that in 1861, the Southern people desired and attempted to establish their independence and thereby to disrupt the old Union; and that the North took up arms to prevent the South from establishing this independence and to preserve the Union.

This [Southern] state of mind may be summed up thus: by the Spring of 1861, the Southern people felt it both abhorrent and dangerous to continue to live under the same government with the people of the North. So profound was this feeling among the bulk of the Southern population that they were prepared to fight a long and devastating war to accomplish a separation.

On the other hand, the North was willing to fight a war to retain their reluctant fellow citizens under the same government with themselves.

The cause of that state of mind which we may well call war psychosis lay in the sectional character of the United States. In other words, the Civil War had one basic cause: sectionalism.

Our national state was built, not upon the foundations of a homogenous land and people, but upon geographic sections inhabited severally by provincial, self-conscious, self-righteous, aggressive and ambitious populations of varying origins and diverse social and economic systems; and the passage of time and the cumulative effects of history have accentuated these sectional patterns.”

(The Fundamental Cause of the Civil War, Frank L. Owsley, excerpt, Address to Southern Historical Association, November 8, 1940)

McMaster Worked at Think Tank Backed by Soros-Funded Group that Helped Obama Sell Iran Nuclear Deal

Via Billy

 

White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster served at a UK-based think tank financed by a controversial, George Soros-funded group identified by the Obama White House as central in helping to sell the Iran nuclear deal to the public and news media.

From September 2006 to February 2017, McMaster is listed as a member of International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), where he served as consulting senior fellow.  The IISS describes itself as a “world-leading authority on global security, political risk and military conflict.”

The IISS has been supportive of the Obama administration-brokered 2015 nuclear accord with Iran, and the group has repeatedly hit back against charges that Tehran has violated the agreement.

McMaster himself has been accused of purging the National Security Council of hardliners on Iran, and he is seen as a leading proponent of the Iran nuclear accord within the Trump administration. He has reportedly urged the White House to recertify Iran’s compliance with the Iran nuclear deal.

More @ Breitbart

One Day

 Lies of Omission

There have been a lot of times when I have been ready to step off the porch and take up the torch of American freedom, but always I have been counseled that I am jumping too quick. Okay, I am the sort of barroom brawler that you would expect of oilfield trash, so my temper is often too short and my feet too quick to move, but as I have grown older, I have learned to take good counsel from others and submerge my more spontaneous instincts.

And, in the past, they have been right, it was too early, but that does not mean that the injustices weren't real, or that they didn't deserve a response, only that few others would have reacted the way I would and I would have been standing out there by myself, with no sympathy, with no support, just swinging alone and ridiculed by those who should have been standing next to me. Which harkens back to the concept of the initial Declaration of Independence, when it was understood that they either hung together or they would surely hang separately.

There is a moment when a government becomes so corrupt that it can no longer be tolerated by the people and I suggest that we are there.

Dems roll out big gun to protect top suspect in hacking scandal

Via Billy

Imran Awan pictured alongside former President Bill Clinton (Photo: LinkedIn)
A relative of the Awan brothers’ stepmother, Samina Galani, told the Daily Caller in March that she has spoken out against the Awans because, “I am fighting to protect the country. These are very bad people.”

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

 Despite having declared bankruptcy, the top suspect in the Democrat’s House hacking scandal, Imran Awan, has somehow acquired the services of one of the top power attorneys in Washington.

And not just any power attorney, but one deeply connected to the Clintons.

According to the biography of Chris Gowen on the website of the law firm of Gowen, Rhoades, Winograd & Silva, PLLC, he has:


    Worked in the White House for former President Bill Clinton (for five years) as a traveling aid (sic) on national and international trips

    Worked for Senator Hillary Clinton

    Worked for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign by directing advance operations

    And was a fact checker for President Clinton’s memoir, “My Life”

More @ WND

CNN: Mueller's investigation of Trump is going too far

Via Billy

Mueller launches grand jury in Russia investigation - report

Last month, when President Donald Trump was asked by The New York Times if special counsel Robert Mueller would be crossing a line if he started investigating the finances of Trump and his family, the President said, "I think that's a violation. Look, this is about Russia."

The President is absolutely correct. Mueller has come up to a red line in the Russia 2016 election-meddling investigation that he is dangerously close to crossing.
 
According to a CNN article, Mueller's investigators could be looking into financial records relating to the Trump Organization that are unrelated to the 2016 election. According to these reports, "sources described an investigation that has widened to focus on possible financial crimes, some unconnected to the 2016 election." The piece goes on to cite law enforcement sources who say non-Russia-related leads that "involve Trump associates" are being referred to the special counsel "to encourage subjects of the investigation to cooperate."
 
This information is deeply concerning to me. It does not take a lawyer or even a former federal prosecutor like myself to conclude that investigating Donald Trump's finances or his family's finances falls completely outside of the realm of his 2016 campaign and allegations that the campaign coordinated with the Russian government or anyone else. That goes beyond the scope of the appointment of the special counsel.
 
More @ CNN

The Imbecile Tax

Via Joe

 

Grown-ups used to appreciate being treated as grown-ups, especially by other grown-ups. How is it that today’s grown-ups demand that they be treated like not-too-bright children?

This manifests all over but one obvious area is new cars. The latest example being what Nissan just announced it will be installing in at least one of its 2018 models – the Pathfinder SUV – and probably, inevitably, the rest, too:

“Rear Door Alert.”

Its purpose? To remind Moo or Duh (or both of them, together) that Baby Finster is strapped into his seat back there and not to forget and leave him to roast like a pork loin while they go shopping for a new sail fawn.

More @ Eric Peters

Dershowitz: ‘Ethnic And Racial Composition’ Of Mueller’s Jury Pool Stacks Deck Against Trump

Via Billy

Liberal Professor Warns That Mueller Is Stacking The Jury Pool Against Trump

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s decision to impanel a grand jury in Washington, D.C. will prove “very unfavorable” to President Trump, in part because of the “ethnic and racial composition” of jury members, says constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitz.

“I think it’s a tactical move designed to send a message that if the prosecutor decides to prosecute, he will have a real advantage with the jury pool where the case will be held,” Dershowitz said in an interview on Friday with WABC radio host Rita Cosby.

The retired Harvard Law School professor was responding to new reports that Mueller has impaneled a grand jury in Washington D.C. in addition to one already active in Alexandria, Va.

Nigel Farage: People voted for change with Trump, GOP blocking it

Via Billy


Former U.K. Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage ripped Republicans for opposing President Trump on Sunday, saying they are going against the will of those who voted for the president.

"The political revolution of 2016 with Brexit and with Trump was people voting for change, real, fundamental change. And here we are in the middle of the following year and that change isn't happening," the Brexit leader, who appeared with Trump during the presidential campaign, said on Fox News.

More @ The Hill