I-95 Memorial Battle Flag Projects Update

 

The I-95 Memorial Battle Flag Site #2 is nearly complete, and when installed, a beautiful pole will stand 82' high, and display a 20x30 Battle Flag.

All of our projects are funded solely by donations from supporters, so we are constantly looking for ways to be good stewards of those funds, working on shoestring budgets to raise as many flags as possible for as little expense as necessary. We have been fortunate enough to be able to obtain several "reclaimed" poles, which will be used on pending projects, but the story behind this next one will be hard to top...

Originally 90 ft. in height, this pole was purchased for use by the U.S. Military, and once stood on an Army base in Virginia... none other than... Ft. (Robert E.) LEE!

More @ Virginia Flaggers

NC: Rejecting the Time-Honored Spirit of Compromise

 

“I want men gentlemen North and South to mark my words:  

when . . . this country should be laid waste; when shipping in our ports shall be destroyed, when our institutions of learning and religion shall wither away or be torn down; when your cities shall be given up for plunder and for slaughter; when your sons and my sons, your neighbors and my neighbors, shall be carried from this bloody field of strife; and our mothers, our sisters, our wives, and our daughters, shall assemble around us, and, with weeping eyes and aching hearts, say: 

“Could you not have done something, could you not have said something, that would have averted this dreadful calamity? 

I want to feel in my conscience and in my soul that I have done my duty.”  

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North Carolinian John A. Gilmer of Guilford County struggled mightily with the Republicans to find compromise but failed.  The same was done by Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis who said in July 1864: "I tried in all my power to avert this war. I saw it coming, and for 12 years, I worked night and day to prevent it, but I could not.  The North was mad and blind; it would not let us govern ourselves, and so the war came, and now it must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his tracks, and his children seize the musket and fight our battle, unless you acknowledge our right to self-government” The refusal of the Republican party to pursue peaceful compromise caused the war, and subsequent loss of the Founders’ Constitution.

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 the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"

Rejecting the Time-Honored Spirit of Compromise

“Gilmer turned to Republicans in the [US House] chamber. 

“I would say to my Northern friends . . . that you have it in your power . . . to crush this [talk of disunion] out in one hour.”  Simply allow both sections equal rights in the territories and there would be “a speedy end to the ambitious schemes of disunion politicians.”  The endless debate was no more than “an excuse for agitation” that accomplished nothing.  

“I incline to the opinion that in the future, as heretofore, soil, climate, and productions would settle the question of slavery in the Territories, if peace and quiet were restored.  After all that has been said and done, Congress has never made a free State out of any Territory that nature intended for a slave State, and has never made a slave State out of territory where free labor could be profitably employed.”

Gilmer pleaded with his Republican colleagues to consider any compromise, any concession that might deprive secessionists of their arguments.  Southern fears were real and would continue to be exploited if Republicans kept silent or ignored the problem.

“You say you have elected your President constitutionally,” said the North Carolinian. “I admit it.  You express wonder and surprise that the South should be alarmed at this.  Now, let me reason with you . . . Suppose the positions of the two sections of the union were reversed; suppose the [Southern] States were eighteen, and the [Northern] States fifteen; suppose the [Southern] States had a majority in this House . . . [and the Senate and electoral college, and nominate a Southern president and vice-president, and all adopt] a resolution intimating that it is in the power of Congress, as well as the duty of Congress, to provide that no more free States shall be admitted into the Union . . .  

[S]uppose all these things were to happen, and then speeches, assurances, and telegrams, should be freely circulated throughout your country, that the South intended to make all the States slaveholding States: I submit to you, my Northern friends, would you not be very much warmed up against that Southern movement, and begin to feel that you were but small folks in this Government? Would you not feel like looking out for yourselves, at least to the extent of asking for some guarantees?”

Settlement of every sectional dispute was within reach if only the time-honored spirit of compromise could be revived. “Is it possible that the sons of American fathers cannot agree on this trifling matter?”  What would the Founding Fathers do under these circumstances?  Would they let matters go on until blood was shed?  Should compromise fail and conflict come, Gilmer knew it would be his duty to stand by North Carolina. 

“I want men gentlemen North and South to mark my words:  when . . . this country should be laid waste; when shipping in our ports shall be destroyed, when our institutions of learning and religion shall wither away or be torn down; when your cities shall be given up for plunder and for slaughter; when your sons and my sons, your neighbors and my neighbors, shall be carried from this bloody field of strife; and our mothers, our sisters, our wives, and our daughters, shall assemble around us, and, with weeping eyes and aching hearts, say: “Could you not have done something, could you not have said something, that would have averted this dreadful calamity? 

I want to feel in my conscience and in my soul that I have done my duty.”  

(Taking a Stand, Portraits From the Southern Secession Movement, Walter Brian Cisco, 1998, White Mane Books, pp. 97-98)

Dining with Stalin

“In the socialist commonwealth every economic change becomes an undertaking whose success can be neither appraised in advance nor later retrospectively determined. There is only groping in the dark. Socialism is the abolition of rational economy.” —Ludwig von Mises

When I was driving to work earlier this week, I heard a fascinating story on NPR that discussed communal life under the Soviet Union. As part of the grand effort to completely reorganize Russian society under communal lines, the Soviet regime sought to abolish private kitchens!

Why? The NPR story reported that “Soviet authorities considered kitchens and private apartments dangerous to the regime was because they were places people could gather to talk about politics.”

According to Russian writer and radio journalist Alexander Genis, “[t]he most important part of kitchen politics in early Soviet time was they would like to have houses without kitchens. Because kitchen is something bourgeois. Every family, as long as they have a kitchen, they have some part of their private life and private property.” Another Russian writer adds, “[c]ommunal kitchens were not places where you would bring your friends. I think that was one of the ideas for creating a communal kitchen. There would be a watchful eye of society over every communal apartment. People would report on each other. You would never know who would be reporting.”

The full article on NPR is worth reading and contains a number of revealing gems on the reality of communal kitchens in Soviet apartments and regimented life under communism. Here’s one striking episode:

More @ The Independent Institute

Montel Williams: War on Veterans

Via LH

I was on his show along with others many years ago concerning the Battle Flag.  He was a gentleman.

 Montel Williams gave a passionate, emotional speech about the need for congress and the administration to stop dragging their feet and being political with veterans problems and get them corrected. He was attending a veterans picnic in Myrtle Beach for Memorial Day.

Concealment, Cover, and Tactical Movement

From my earliest days of training beyond the fundamentals of shooting, I recall being taught that cover is better than concealment and that the most valuable tactic is gaining cover. As with many things I was taught as doctrine, I now say “maybe.”

Concealment is basically a visual concept. If the best way to win a fight is to avoid it, concealment may be a useful means to avoid or escape a fight. It may also allow you to move unseen to a position of advantage in a fight that you cannot avoid. Concealment is also pretty much an all-or-none proposition – if your foot is sticking out beyond the side of what you thought was concealment or if your shadow projects beyond it, your assailant may notice that you’re there. Similarly, if you’re trying to move your children unseen, from their bedrooms to yours, and scrape your gun or flashlight against the wall, you may have lost the concealment that the wall had provided you.

More @ Bearing Arms

The Holy Grail of Muscle Cars: 1971 Plymouth Hemi 'Cuda Auction

 

@  MECUM

Bills Custom Wood Products

Via WiscoDave

 

More @ Bill's

Donetsk fighting

 

More @ U 96

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 St. Andrew's Cross

 

Remains of 40 Confederate soldiers discovered in Virginia cemetery

Via Robert

Their remains sat, unmarked, in shallow graves at the Old City Cemetery in Lynchburg, Va., for decades. Now, some 150 years after the Civil War, the bodies of 40 Confederate soldiers discovered over the past two months will receive a proper memorial.

"It's been very meaningful to us to find these spots, identify these soldiers and bring closure to families," said Ted Delaney, the cemetery's assistant director, who, along with a team of archaeologists, uncovered the exact resting place of some 40 Confederate soldiers as well as the plots where Union soldiers were once buried and later exhumed.

More @ Fox

Dairy Farmer Fights Eminent Domain And Warns Others

Via LH