North Carolina’s Prescient Nathaniel Macon on the Best Safeguard to Public Liberty and Justice

US 158 at Vaughan,Warren County

Buck Springs, February 9, 1833

“Sir: I have received your letter of the 24^th ulto. There can be no doubt that the United States are in a deplorable situation, and that the publication of the opinion you desire would be useless. My opinion has never been a secret,

and I have always stated it to those who wanted to know it.

In the year 1824, the Constitution was buried. The Senators who were then present will, it is believed, recollect the fact, and was never afterward quoted by me while I continued in the Senate.  The opinions of General Washington, Mr. Jefferson and Governor Clinton were known but not respected.

I never believed that a State could nullify and remain in the Union, but always believed that a State could secede when she pleased, provided she would pay her proportion of the public debt. This right I have considered the best guard to public liberty and the public justice that could be desired, and it ought to have prevented what is now felt in the South – oppression.

A government of opinion established by sovereign States cannot be maintained by force. The use of force makes enemies, and enemies cannot live in peace.”    

--Nathaniel Macon

(Letter to S.P. Carson, Reminiscences and Memoirs of North Carolina and Eminent North Carolinians, John H. Wheeler, Columbus Printing Works, 1884, page 454)

The mad numerologists of gun-control

Oleg Volk

 VERBATIM

The push to restrict magazine capacity focuses on the apparently magic number "ten". Reduce Americans to ten-round magazines and no more mass murder, they claim. Let's look at where this leads.

 

Ten rounds has been the standard capacity for military rifles for a long time. 1895 Lee-Enfield held ten, as did the Soviet SVT and the German G43 rifles. Post-WW2 SKS, FN49 and SVD held ten also. No one would claim that they aren't formidable weapons even today. So why stop at ten if the goal is to reduce capability of any rifleman?
 
The first military rifle designed for high-velocity smokeless ammunition, the 1886 Lebel, held eight rounds in the magazine. So did the first rifle with detachable box magazine, the 1888 Lee-Metford. As did the "finest battle implement ever designed", the US M1 Garand. Nobody can claim that these aren't suitable for bloody mayhem in the wrong hands, so could we claim that fewer than 8 should be the limit.
 
That brings us to six rounds. The Italian WW2 Carcano (including that which was used to shoot JFK), the superb Swiss Schmidt-Rubin, the American M1917 and many Mannlicher bolt actions held six. Too many still?
 
Five, do I hear five? That would be the capacity of Mauser, Springfield, Mosin, P1914, MAS38, Arisaka, Krag, Winchester 1895 and many other guns that were front-line military weapons until the 1950s.
 
Four? No, that would give us certain Winchester and Remington sniper rifles in common military use since the Vietnam War. No anti-gun legislator would admit sniper rifles suitable for civilian ownership. The substantial similarity of a deer hunting rifle to the military sniper rifle is purely coincidental, of course.
  
Maybe three would be the magic number? French Berthier infantry rifle with a three-shot magazine was widely used through WW1. So the real number would probably be two. At which point anit-gun propaganda would harp on the similarity to double-barreled dangerous game guns and the few remaining gun owners would end up with single-shot low-power guns grudgingly permitted after much red tape ... until the next confiscation. It's a lot easier, you see, to go after people reduced to pre-1850s defensive technology. Not that the gun-banners would go after us in person - even a musket or a pike in steady hands scare them - but they would send their uniformed thugs with modern guns. That scenario played out in Soviet Russia, in Communist China and more recently in Venezuela. Once the gap of arms between the government and the people is great enough, such minor matters as civil rights cease to matter much to the rulers.
 
The mostly disarmed British subjects may still possess a few guns of limited specifications, but they lost the right to use those for self-defense. Storage, transport and other uses are so severely restricted as to make the remaining arms of minimal use. That's the end game for the American gun banners - but they won't live to win it. Their demented numerological plots matter less than the million defensive rifles sold this week. Those gun purchases are the true vote - with money, personal time and effort - that will override the hateful propaganda broadcasts and the squawking in the bully pulpits of the legislative sessions.

Politician

Via Blue

GRNC Alert 12-22-2012 Is BATFE Moving To Ban Ammo?

Will consider public comments until Dec 31st...

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is considering further restrictions for various types of ammunition used in both rifles and handguns. The new restrictions stem from the Federal Gun Control Act of 1968, which among other things restricted “Armor Piercing” ammunition and also set forth exceptions that were allowed. One such restriction banned handgun ammunition which had a composition where the materials were harder than lead. In what appears to be yet another anti-gun initiative by the Obama administration, the BATFE is now considering reversing previous policy by banning ammunition which was originally designed for rifles but can also be used in certain handguns, such as the Thompson Contender or pistol versions of semi-automatic rifles, by claiming that some such ammunition does not meet the exception standards. At issue now is what changes the BATFE would make in further determining exceptions under the “sporting purposes” exceptions. As BATFE documents note: “…in developing a narrow sporting purposes test, ammunition in traditional hunting calibers will become regulated.” Translated, common rifle ammunition, including steel-core ammunition, would be banned simply because a handgun happens to be chambered for that caliber – as such handguns have been for many decades. For more information, please go directly to the website provided by the BATFE: http://www.atf.gov/firearms/industry/ There is still time! The BATFE has opened the issue for public comment until December 31st, 2012. That gives us less than a month to have our voices heard in this issue. Take a moment and write to the BATFE using the email address provided below and let them know your concerns as they consider future changes to the “sporting purposes” exceptions to the Gun Control Act of 1968 which very well may result in further restrictions on commonly used ammunition.

IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED!

Email The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives before December 31st. Tell the BATFE that further restrictions are not needed and would be a serious violation of our rights under the Second Amendment. Support GRNC!: As we move closer to the national and local legislative sessions, GRNC needs your support to help combat the efforts against your rights as gun owners. Join or renew your membership!  http://www.grnc.org/join-grnc/join-grnc-online CONTACT INFO BATFE email APAComments@atf.gov DELIVER THIS MESSAGE Suggested Subject: "To the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives:"   To Whom It May Concern, It has come to my attention that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is considering further restrictions for various types of ammunition used in both rifles and handguns as they pertain to the Federal Gun Control Act of 1968. I am personally concerned that further restrictions on commonly used ammunition would represent a serious breach of the intended scope of the original limitations set forth under the laws created in the Gun Control Act. As BATFE documents note: “…in developing a narrow sporting purposes test, ammunition in traditional hunting calibers will become regulated.” Regulated? It would be effectively banned. I will not stand idly by while bureaucrats try to ban common rifle ammunition, including steel-core ammunition, simply because a handgun happens to be chambered for that caliber – as such handguns have been for many decades. Respectfully,

Always better safe than sorry when out fishing in a boat

The Daily Southerner, yet once again.

Tightlines

 

CORRESPONDENT Rick Goines

 

TARBORO — This is a true story as told by David Wynne to Tight Lines about his close call with disaster while fishing alone for Speckled Trout recently on the Neuse River. David is a close friend of my Havelock pal, Jerry Jackson. I have fished with David and know he is an experienced, knowledgeable fisherman that has been fishing and boating in those familiar Neuse River waters and creeks all his life. It is not much of a stretch to call him a local expert. Due to space limitations, I have taken the liberty to edit where necessary.

“I grabbed two rods, a couple of lures, hopped in my buddy's skiff and off I went. While trying to clear some leaves out of the scuppers on the 14-foot skiff, I took my hand off the tiller for an instant. The boat hooked hard to the right, throwing me out of the boat in the middle of the creek, about a mile from my house.

The creek is approximately a half-mile wide, so I had a quarter-mile swim to either side. Dressed for the cool weather, I had on my favorite camo Herter's hunting jacket, wind pants over jeans, and a pair of Topsiders. Naturally I carried my cell phone, in case of an emergency, in my jacket pocket.

When I hit the water, my first reaction was unbelief. Not only was I not wearing a floatation device, but also had not connected the kill-switch lanyard to my person. The water temperature was around 50 degrees, so I knew I needed to get out of the water as soon as possible. I also realized I could not swim with all the clothes I had on, so I shed my jacket and the liner as well as my shoes.

I rolled over on my back and started kicking my feet, headed to shore. I hadn't made it far before the cold water temperature zapped my energy from my legs. I rolled over and started to swim conventionally. This, too, didn't last long as the cool water temperature exhausted my energy and I was still a ways from shore. At this time, I also realized the boat had circled back around and was headed back at me! The boat circled me twice, way too close for comfort, before heading across the creek.

Later I found out it hit two docks and came to rest in a friend’s yard. God bless Bill Maddox! He realized that someone was in the water and climbed in his boat and started searching the creek. By this time, I had been in the water better than 30 minutes, but had made it ashore, only by the grace of God.

Bill spotted me on the shore and he and his neighbor lifted me into his boat and carried me to my house, where I was met by the rescue squad, and transported to the ER, suffering from hypothermia.

I made three serious mistakes on this trip. The first was not wearing the kill switch lanyard for the outboard engine. The second was not wearing a floatation device. The third was taking my hand off the engine's tiller with the boat in gear and traveling at speed. Lessons learned the hard way.”

Rick’s Soapbox: The moral of this story is really rather simple. Common sense and safety should always prevail in every boating situation on the water. If this can happen to a highly experienced, skilled boater and fisherman like David Wynne, it can surely happen to you and me. David wanted me to relate his story so others may benefit from knowledge of his scary, near-fatal experience.

Care to share? Tight Lines welcomes your fish snaps, tall tales, and outrageous lies at CarolinaAngler@Gmail.com.

See you on the water, my friend!

Why is there no answer to the question ‘why?’

Another good one from The Daily Southerner.

 

Editor and Publisher John H. Walker

 

TARBORO — Stephanie and I have two grandsons, 7-year-old Alex and 5-year-old Dominick, and every word we’ve heard come out of the mouths of those young survivors at Sandy Hook Elementary School has hit us like a sledgehammer.

These are youngsters the ages of our grandchildren who are describing the horror they experienced. The little blonde-haired boy who described in such great detail about being in the hall with the gunman and being pulled into a room by a teacher is Dominick’s age.

Lord, try as I might on this Sunday, I can only wonder how in Your great universe does this fit in?

All of the children who were killed were either 6 or 7 — there were four 7-year-old victims and 16 who were 6 — but that whole school and community … this whole nation … was a victim.

There are some acts of violence that are more easily dealt with, but how can you reconcile the murder of 20 children? It’s difficult enough when we hear about it from some Third World country with a power hungry dictator, but not in a school. Our children and grandchildren are supposed to feel safe there … so safe, in fact, that they never think about safety.

I know Stephanie and I are no different from any other grandparent … not Al and Connie Hull, not Buddy Hooks, not our friends Steve and Teri Martin, who are driving from Thomasville to Corpus Christi, Texas today to see a new grandbaby.

We all love them and cherish every minute we have with them, whether face-to-face or on the telephone, and I know none of us could imagine life without one of those precious little things.

Friday’s killings should open three great debates in our land — on gun control, on limiting access to school campuses and on mental illness.

I own a gun, but I’m not a hunter. I don’t believe restricting ownership of guns is the answer and I’ll use Sandy Hook as my example. The killer’s first victim apparently was his mother, Nancy Lanza. He killed her with her own gun and, according to reports, learned how to shoot and handle a gun from her.

How would tighter gun laws have helped? Nancy Lanza owned them legally and, according to reports, collected guns.

I do believe we should do all within our power to restrict access to school grounds, even if it means placing fences around the campuses.

Newtown had a system where you pressed a buzzer, identified yourself and were buzzed in. Adam Lanza, more recent reports indicate, may have forced his way in by breaking the glass in a side window.

There was nothing at-fault with the system other than the fact the building was accessible to someone with sever emotional problems.

And that brings me to third debate, on mental illness.

At a time when state governments across our nation are cutting funds for the treatment of the mentally ill, we should be doing just the opposite.

Adam Lanza had problems. A person identified as “a drinking buddy” of Nancy Lanza said less than a week before the shootings that she had said she was worried about her son … that he “was getting worse.” She recounted incidents where he was burning himself with a lighter.

I can’t tell you how to recognize if someone could be a ticking time bomb or not, but this woman, who received $20,000 a month in alimony, could have afforded some type of treatment for her son. For whatever reason, she chose to not do that and, instead, today we are searching for answers to all of the “Why?” questions that keep popping up.

 As we work to sort through all of this, I can promise you one thing and that’s when Stephanie and I get the chance to hug those grandbabies on Saturday, it will be like no hug we’ve ever given them.

(John H. Walker is editor and publisher of The Daily Southerner and can be contacted at jwalker@dailysoutherner.com or by calling 823-3016.)

It’s just their nature

Calvary Episcopal Church and Churchyard, Tarboro, N.C.

Grave of Major General William Dorsey Pender, youngest Confederate Major General from Edgecombe County, who died from wounds received at Gettysburg.

For The Daily Southerner Bob Harper

 

TARBORO — I’ll start with the old story of the scorpion and the frog.  It seems that once there was a scorpion who wanted to get to the other side of a river, but he couldn’t swim.  When the scorpion saw a frog he asked the frog to give him a ride on his back to the other side.

The frog answered, “How do I know if I help you get across the river that you won’t sting me and kill me.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” answered the scorpion. “For then I would die, too, as I cannot swim and I would drown.”

“But, once I get you to the other side you might kill me then,”

“No I wouldn’t do that, because I’d be so grateful for your help.”

So the frog finally agreed to let the scorpion ride on his back to the other side of the river.  Just before they reached the shore the frog felt a sharp sting on his back.  Indeed the scorpion had given the frog a deadly sting.

“You fool!” croaked the frog, “Now we shall both die!  Why on earth did you do that?”

The scorpion replied, “I couldn’t help myself.  You see it’s just my nature.”  So they both sank into the muddy waters and drowned.

I use this story to illustrate how I feel our government is working now as we approach the so called “Fiscal Cliff” by the end of this month.

Our government’s nature is simply “To tax and spend.”  They don’t seem to care how deep in debt we go or how high they try to raise taxes.  It’s just their nature, and if we have another deep recession with soaring unemployment because of their practicing “what is their nature”…so be it.  It’s just their nature.

Let’s take the Senate, under the control of the Democrats; it’s their job to produce a budget every year.  But, they haven’t done so since 2009.  It’s just their nature.  In 2010, the Dems completed a report, but they chose not offer it on the Senate floor.  In 2011, when the subject was brought up again Democrat Chairman Conrad said, “I’ll say something later…not today, probably…there are a lot of conversations under way.”

Later that year, the Republican-controlled House passed its budget for FY 2012 which cut $6 trillion in comparison to the president’s budget.  Back in the Democrat controlled Senate, Majority Leader Reid said, “…it would be foolish for Senate Democrats to offer a budget.”  I guess it’s just their nature.

Time for a Pelosi quote. Still in 2011, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi claimed Democrats didn’t pass a budget, when they controlled both chambers of Congress, because “Republicans would have filibustered it.”  But in this case it couldn’t be filibustered.  She should have known this.  Maybe she did and maybe she made a false statement on purpose.  Maybe it’s just her nature.

When President Obama delivered his State of the Union address last January he neglected to mention the budget failures of Senate Democrats.  The next month, Senator Harry Reid would not even consider a budget for the third straight year.  And submitting an annual budget is supposed to be their legal duty.  I guess it’s just not their nature to do their duty.  So the Dems in the Senate haven’t passed a budget in three years.  Since the last time the Democrats controlled the Senate, and actually passed a budget, the nation has spent almost $11 trillion and now we stand with a deficit of almost $17 trillion and climbing fast.  But, we can’t expect the Democrats to go against their nature … can we?

The president also wants a higher tax on capital gains (this certainly doesn’t encourage investments) and higher taxes on dividends.  Pity the people living on fixed income dividends.  He also wants to spend $50 billion on another stimulus package.  It didn’t work last time.

In August of last year Standard & Poor’s lowered the credit rating of the U.S. from AAA to AA+, for the first time ever.  They also said the outlook on the long term is negative and pointed out that the rising debt and cost of entitlements were several of the issues that should be addressed.  The U.S. debt growth ration to a percentage of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is now at 74 percent and is expected to reach 79 percent by 2015.  Canada’s is only 34 percent and going down.

Now, we have the President asking for tax increases that will take money from job creators and have little effect on our growing debt problem.  Obama now says the he should be granted the power to control the rising of the debt ceiling, taking this power away from Congress.  This would be one of the biggest power grabs ever attempted by a President.  But, then maybe that’s just his nature.

Back when George Washington became the first President of this great nation many wanted to have Washington established as King of the United States.  Washington immediately refused that idea saying that we should never consider that but we should be governed by a two house congress and an elected president with limited powers.  But, that was Washington’s nature…and a very good nature it was.

I don’t think we want an imperial president or higher debt and higher taxes that will increase our unemployment levels and send our economy back into a deeper recession.  It shouldn’t be our nature to go along with any such ridiculous program.

(Bob Harper is a Tarboro resident who writes a column of general interest.)

Add to your enemies list

Gee, wonder why they disabled comments?  Just dumbfounded here.........

UNC hires pornographic poet as English prof

Alex Porco Assistant Professor porcoa@uncw.edu

Morton Hall 120 (910) 962-2956

I'm sure he would be delighted to hear from some........ 

Campus Reform
VEERBATIM

 

The University of North Carolina-Wilmington has hired an English literature professor whose pornographic poetry verse include fantasies of sexual relations with freshmen female students, an education watchdog reported this week.

In Prof. Alessandro Porco’s poem “Hot Girl-Girl Action University” the fictional university president Jill Kelly offers a welcome to the freshman class.

“Who would say No to a gang-bang?
Who would say No to Prof. Poon-Tang?
Who would say No to my scholarly toungin’?
Thank you fathers for your daughters.”

That poem is part The Jill Kelly Poems, ranked 3,963,932 on Amazon, which chronicles the life of a porn star through poetry.

In an interview on PopMatters.com, Porco describes it as “my book-length ode to the adult-film star affectionately referred to as ‘the anal queen.”

Another of Porco's sexually explicit pieces included in The Jill Kelly Poems is “Ars Poetica.”

“Breakfast in bed & down on all fours;
You’re eggs-over-easy, muchin’ for more.
Vegans protest & brand it obscene;
But there’s no starving my anal queen.”

In another collection, Augustine in Carthage, Porco included what he describes as the “21 of the filthiest limericks I could think to write.”

Jay Shalin, of the watchdog group the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy pointed out the controversial hiring in an opinion piece earlier this week and argued that parents should be wary of placing their young adults in the classroom with Porco.

“Parents should think twice about placing their impressionable offspring into the hands of Dr. Porco and his UNC-Wilmington colleagues who found him to be an acceptable,” wrote Shalin.

“[T]here is something disturbing and predatory—and all too real—about that line, when written by the lascivious Dr. Porco,” he added.

Campus Reform was unable to reach Porco for comment, but a spokesperson for the University of North Carolina -- Wilmington said the school had hired Proco based on his expertise.

He "was hired based on his record of scholarship, experience, subject matter expertise, and references,” Janine Iamunno, executive director for university relations, told Campus Reform in a statement on Friday.

“[W]hile some may disagree personally with the content of an individual’s writings, the content of those writings constitute protected speech,” Iamunno added.

According to an education website, MyEDU.com, Porco in his first semester taught courses on American and British poetry, restoration & 18th Cent Lit, and a class on Lyric Poetry.

Follow the author of this article on twitter: @oliverdarcy

A different world

Via szhaman

 

Vienna 1908