What a difference four years makes, from the ability to repel the British Navy in Charleston Harbor in June 1776 to the ability to repel the British Army in May/June 1779 from entering Charleston, May 1780 would see a very different and sobering picture.
The British were quickly establishing forts and posts throughout the land and accepting surrender of Patriot forces from the Georgia border towns of Savannah and Augusta arching up to Ninety-Six in northwest South Carolina arching back down through Camden and on to Georgetown on the coast for well over 100 miles.
With power shifting back to the Loyalists / Tories in the state, Whigs began accepting parole. Military men the likes of Andrew Pickens and Andrew Williamson also were paroled while generals and politicians who surrendered at Charleston were taken out of action. William Moultrie became a POW in Charleston and Benjamin Lincoln was forced to retire to his farm in New England. Christopher Gadsden was placed in solitary confinement in St. Augustine, Florida while Henry Laurens was taken to London, England and imprisoned in the Tower of London.
August 1780 saw the twin defeats at Camden (Gates) and Fishing Creek (Sumter) leaving only Francis Marion, age 48, available, should he choose it. Would he like others go back to their way of living and let the British back into power?
The abundance of POWs (Prisoners of War) in the region as a result of General Gates’ defeat at Camden left an opportunity that most men would have missed. A deserter shared information of over 150 Maryland Continental POWs being housed in Thomas Sumter’s abandoned home on the north savanna of the Santee River about 6 miles from Nelson’s Ferry where Francis Marion and his men are camped. This was a major river crossing north of Charleston:
This intel delivered on 24AUG1780 was NOT shared with the 60 men under Francis Marion. This was his M.O. (Mode of Operation) that he would use time and again. A surprise attack needed to be a surprise to succeed!
Politicians think in terms of election cycles, getting elected the next time is their highest priority. Beyond this, it is either the money the can make along the way from lobbyists, or the power they hold while in office, or the lucrative post-political job they can get to pave their way to retirement.
Warmongers are a different breed. War offers an expediency towards things they value most, an elite status that protects them from the everyday, they dream of empire and destruction of everything in the way of that empire.
“This is the way the kind of king you’re talking about operates. He’ll take your sons and make soldiers of them—chariotry, cavalry, infantry, regimented in battalions and squadrons. He’ll put some to forced labor on his farms, plowing and harvesting, and others to making either weapons of war or chariots in which he can ride in luxury. He’ll put your daughters to work as beauticians and waitresses and cooks. He’ll conscript your best fields, vineyards, and orchards and hand them over to his special friends. He’ll tax your harvests and vintage to support his extensive bureaucracy. Your prize workers and best animals he’ll take for his own use. He’ll lay a tax on your flocks and you’ll end up no better than slaves. The day will come when you will cry in desperation because of this king you so much want for yourselves…” 1 Samuel 8 – God’s Warning via Samuel
Fathers think and act very differently as their heart is with the next generations. Fathers think on legacy, think of love and selflessness, and would rather deal with war themselves than let their kids deal with it. Fathers would be willing to look like a fool to take the focus off the object of their affection, their son or daughter. Fathers would wage war, as a very last resort, to give their ancestors and their community more freedom and liberty. With freedom their offspring are most likely to thrive in bringing innovative value to others in their community. Sharing the fruits of what they love to do to others who can trade or barter back the fruits of their own talents and gifts. This exchange is called an economy, an environment of cooperation and friendship!
Jeff Deist from the Mises Institute has a short article out today about war, where he states:
Why do seemingly endless military conflicts persist, despite lacking any constituency for their prosecution beyond the DC beltway? And why does US military strategy appear incoherent and counterproductive, when viewed through the lens of peace? Why can’t we do anything about this, no matter whom we elect and no matter how much war fatigue resides in the American public?
The answer is not found in a facile denunciation of the military industrial complex or war profiteers, though both are very serious problems. The answer lies in understanding how the DC War Party operates. Its goals are not ours. It is not democratic; the government is not “us.” It is not political; its architects are permanent fixtures who do not come and go with presidential administrations. It is not accountable; budgeting is nonexistent and gross failures only beget greater funding. It is above all not “economic” — it operates in an artificial “market,” one created and perpetuated by wars and interventions ordinary people don’t want. War socialism, or what former Congressman Barney Frank brilliantly termed “military Keynesianism,” has taken on a life of its own.
War taken to the edges of our world are accomplished by an elite who operate in a cocoon of their own making, insulated from their decisions, while in true sociopathic style, have zero empathy for those caught up in their unleashed hell on earth.
Ludwig von Mises experienced this first hand:
Ludwig von Mises saw peace as the key to any liberal economic program, and argued strenuously against the fallacy of war prosperity. Even early in his career, before his horrific experiences as an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I, he recognized the critical distinction between economy and war: the former characterized by exchange and cooperation, the latter marked by the worst form of state intervention:
“Only one thing can conquer war — that liberal attitude which can see nothing in war but destruction and annihilation, and which can never wish to bring about a war, because it regards war as injurious even to the victors.”
The victors DO pay a cost even when they do in fact win the war. In the movie ‘The Patriot’ (2000) the fictional main actor Benjamin Martin says at the close of the movie about reflecting on what we have won and what we have lost. There is a cost to war:
.. the loss is not only economic, it is also cultural and moral. War, the ultimate rejection of reason as a means of navigating human society, reduces our capacity for compassion and makes us complacent about atrocities. Worst of all, it emboldens and strengthens the domestic state — encouraging us to accept absurdities like TSA theater and SWAT teams with leftover military vehicles operating in peaceful small towns.
The small town life of the 1950s, the 1910s or the regional societies of the 1840s and 1780s are no more. Culturally and morally the society we have today in the United States is bankrupt. With the government’s effective pacification of the church via 501C3 exemptions, even the Christian religion has next to zero influence in changing or reforming society. Only an underground non-official movement of Jesus followers could positively impact this empire like it did to the Roman Empire in the First Century.
Until then, the atrocities abroad come home to roost.
While US troops remain mired throughout the Middle East, a subsurface political war heats up in the US. This cold civil war creates the kind of hyper-politicized society progressives once only dreamed of. Social media outlets encourage even the most ill-informed and ill-intentioned voices to spread hatred against those with differing views. Goodwill doesn’t translate, so fake bravado hidden behind anonymity or distance are the order of the day. Epithets like “racist,” fascist,” “Nazi” and worse become cheap currency in the new vocabulary of meaningless words. Dissenting voices lose jobs, reputations, and access to popular platforms. Mobs form to attack political opponents in restaurants and shops, shout down campus events, and threaten online disclosure of their perceived enemies’ personal information.
The estimate length of time the US Military expects to be in Afghanistan is the same as it has been for Germany and Japan .. OVER 50 YEARS!
Jeff Deist ends his article with a dire prediction:
The hawkishness of neoconservatives and the “democratic socialism” of progressives both lead in the same direction, toward economic destruction and war. If you think American society is polarized and prone to lashing out abroad now, what happens with a shrinking economy and 40% unemployment?
The end of the rope experience like present day Venezuela may very well come to the American Empire. Prepare yourself and your family appropriately with self defense training and skills, adjust economically, be strategic psychologically, and most importantly, get right spiritually toward being a loving father or mother of your kids, your extended family and friends as well as others in society in the future. Be ready to be a light in the darkness.
Obviously, calling oneself right or left means nothing. Beyond this, talking as well might give someone an insight into a person being “right” or “left”. Actions speak the loudest however, and in tough times it is one’s actions that create a legacy between “right” and “left”.
From Bionic Mosquito’s article comes some interesting thoughts on past and present efforts involving society and individuals, the relationships therein and the role of “right” or left”. Bionic starts off with this quote that I love:
As long as you’re living right, then you don’t have to worry about what people see.
– Clay Aiken
So true. I learned at an early age, I think age 5, that to lie I had to remember not only the lie itself, but who I told it to, and when .. and so I settled on just telling the truth and letting the chips fall where they may. I sleep good at night.
Bionic has been spending some time with Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn’s work called: ” Leftism: From de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Marcuse ” that is online courtesy of the Mises Institute. He quotes Erik in saying:
.. In all European languages (including the Slavic idioms and Hungarian) right is connected with “right” (ius), rightly, rightful, in German gerecht (just), the Russian pravo (law),pravda (truth) ..
This is just the way the European’s organized things .. maybe based on:
On The Day of Judgment, the righteous are to be on the right, and the punished on the left; Christ, of course, sits on the right.
The Bible. In any case, once we have a definition that can be agreed upon, we can compare it with experience. So let us start looking at that it all means.
So, what is “right” for man? Man – each one a unique individual – needs room; room to grow, room to be left alone, room to think, room to thrive. Much of political reality over the course of a few centuries has been to crush this:
“…all the great dynamic isms of the last 200 years have been mass movements attacking – even when they had the word “freedom” on their lips – the liberty, the independence of the person.”
Individual-based, not the collective. So how free were those before and after the Revolutionary War? Well, truth be known, any freedoms gained were quickly evaporated by a centrist agenda early before the Constitution was created (even though the Articles of Confederation were SUPPOSED to be modified by the convention in Philadelphia). The “fear” that the British Empire might again have eyes on this young republic made people opt for the collective again and freedoms were picked off one by one.
Bionic quotes Erik once more:
“The right has to be identified with personal freedom, with the absence of utopian visions whose realization – even if it were possible – would need tremendous collective efforts; it stands for free, organically grown forms of life.”
I do believe that the influence of Jesus and His followers had an impact on furthering the natural rights of individuals regardless of their class or skin color (i.e. Galatians 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”)
While the leftist dreams of restoring some mythical golden age, the rightest looks to the past to find what is eternally true, and build on this:
“The true rightist is not a man who wants to go back to this or that institution for the sake of a return; he wants first to find out what is eternally true, eternally valid, and then either to restore or reinstall it, regardless of whether it seems obsolete, whether it is ancient, contemporary, or even without precedent, brand new, “ultramodern.”..”
The right recognizes the uniqueness in each individual; the left dreams of uniformity. Politically…
“… [t]he leftists believe in strong centralization. The rightists are “federalists” (in the European sense), “states’ righters” since they believe in local rights and privileges, they stand for the principle of subsidiarity.”
The left cannot stand for competing authority or allegiance:
“Leftism does not like religion for a variety of causes. Its ideologies, its omnipotent, all-permeating state wants undivided allegiance. With religion at least one other allegiance (to God), if not also allegiance to a Church, is interposed.”
OK, so let us unpack this .. know that Republicans are not “right” (since they crushed the peaceful attempt at an exit of sever southern states in 1861) and the German National Socialist (Nazi) regime was not “right” either ..
What does true conservatism support?
“All conservative movements in Europe are federalistic and opposed to centralization. Thus we encounter in Catalonia, for instance, a desire for autonomy and the cultivation of the Catalan language among the supporters of the extreme right as well as the left”
With this understanding, the way one approaches history can be greatly enhanced, especially understanding the hate that developed of the Jews during the 1920s and 1930s as shared by Thomas Dilorenzo in his Lew Rockwell article today:
The economic policies of the Nazis, wrote Hayek, are “full of ideas resembling those of the early socialists.” The dominant feature of Nazism was a fierce hatred of anything capitalistic — “individual profit seeking, large-scale enterprise, banks, joint stock companies, department stores, international fiance and loan capital, the system of ‘interest slavery,’ in general.” Nazi policy, wrote Hayek, was nothing less than “a violent anti-capitalistic attack.” “It is not even denied, wrote the Nobel Prize-winning economist, that “many of the young men who today [1943] play a prominent part [in the Nazi Party] have previously been communists or socialists.”
The “common trend” of German journalists and others who supported the Nazis “was their anti-liberal and anti-capitalist” beliefs. The even adopted as their “accepted dogma” the phrase “the end of capitalism.”
The Jews were singled out for special hatred by the Nazis, who viewed them as symbols of capitalism. “The party . . . combats the Jewish-materialist spirit within and without us,” they wrote in their “25-Point Platform of the Nazi Party.” And as Nazi apologist Paul Lensch wrote in his book, Three Years of World Revolution (p. 176), the ideas of “freedom and civic right, of constitutionalism and parliamentarianism . . . derived from that individualistic conception of the world,” must be gotten “rid of to assist in the growth of a new conception of State and Society. In this sphere also Socialism must present a conscious and determined opposition to individualism”
So let us be clear, the left’s socialism is much closer to the Nazi state than efforts of decentralization like what happened to the USSR and what is happening in Spain with Catalonia.
So in summary, those that call themselves “conservatives” or “right” these days are usually not. Listen to their words BUT inspect their actions. As Tom Woods pointed out in his article on Woodrow Wilson back in 2003:
There is the prudence and perspective of the conservative. No conservative, whose hallmark is a disposition toward stability, would risk his own country’s well being, both financial and moral, in a ceaseless crusade of visionary schemes. A real sense of history, as well as an appreciation of what is possible in this fallen world, should sober us up from the utopian fantasies of liberalism. Great American statesmen of the past understood this: we can be an example to the world, but beyond that we dare not go. No mother should ever have to be told that her sons died trying to straighten out the political situation in Nigeria. As Lord Byron said, “Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.”
It is NOT America that must go abroad to bomb nations into democracy, America would have done better to be a model group of republics much like what is seen around Russia these days as they already have seen the bad side of collectivism in the USSR.
History helps one from repeating the mistakes of others .. just do your own research!
This post is Part #2 of an overview that shows how South Carolina fought to keep the British Empire at bay. This is a continuation of Part #1 where in my previous post I showed how twice South Carolina, specifically the port of Charleston, was able to resist the British advances to date. However, in my last paragraph I mentioned how the American Continental’s unsuccessful siege at Savannah, Georgia in the fall of 1779 caught the attention of British general Clinton in the port of New York City who decided the time was right to send part of his fleet and troops south to the Carolinas and roll them all up the coast to finally crush this rebellion.
Clinton assembled an 8500 man expeditionary force on this large flotilla of ships that would take six-weeks in bad weather to reach the shores of South Carolina about 25 miles south of Charleston. The June 1776 attempt to enter the port taught the British that maybe the land approach would be more successful. The British had to throw all their horses overboard in the rough Atlantic Ocean weather and so targeting replacement horses in South Carolina would be one of the first orders of business.
The British landed on February 11th near Beaufort, South Carolina and joined the British forces from Savannah in an attempt to encircle Charleston, lay siege to the city and force a surrender. The people of South Carolina were not real excited about the defense of Charleston as the militia refused to deploy there for fear of smallpox, the locals refused to have trees cut down to keep the British from having cover during the siege. Cooperation was at an all-time low.
In early April 1780 the British had laid siege to Charleston and by mid-April, Continental General Benjamin Lincoln ordered all officers without an assigned command and any who were unfit for duty to leave the garrison and retire to the countryside. Francis Marion, who had injured his ankle attempting to escape an officer’s party that had turn into a drunken affair, retired to his plantation 50 miles north and inland from the port of Charleston. On 14APR1780 the noose tightened as the British cavalry commander Tarleton surprised a larger force of American Continentals at Monck’s Corners 30 miles north of Charleston and secured 400 horses for the British. The American commander in Charleston with 5000 men had been requested to defend Charleston at all costs and now had no escape route.
By early May 1780, Charleston was indeed cutoff from the rest of the colony and the British almost had free reign of the land routes throughout the region. Charleston ran up the white flag on 11MAY1780 and the next day the entire Continental force under Lincoln surrendered. The power vacuum was quickly replaced by the British as the following towns also were occupied in the next three days by 15MAY1780:
Monck’s Corners, Cheraw, Orangeburgh, Ninety-Six and Dorchester. The port of Georgetown would be occupied by July 11th.
The next major town to be occupied would be Camden by August 16th and this would be the low-point of the patriot cause in South Carolina during the Revolutionary War or better described as the War for the Independence of Thirteen Sovereign Colonies from the British Empire!
From Iceland (where it is much safer to say the truth), The Saker article “Sanctions, Sanctions, Sanctions – the Final Demise of the Dollar Hegemony?” by Peter Koenig takes on this trend from all angles and states the obvious:
They [sanctions] are made to punish countries, nations, that refuse to bend to a world dictatorship.
Even ZeroHedge said back ten days ago:
… the relative surge in China’s ‘petroyuan’ futures contract overnight could suggest a shift away from the petrodollar to avoid US sanctions on Iranian oil..
A picture of USD hegemony:
.. and a picture of a significant shift:
So what is Peter Koenig saying? Here are a few interesting clips:
… Looks like everybody accepts this new economic warfare as the new normal. Nobody objects. And the United Nations, the body created to maintain Peace, to protect our globe from other wars, to uphold human rights – this very body is silent – out of fear? Out of fear that it might be ‘sanctioned’ into oblivion by the dying empire? – Why cannot the vast majority of countries – often it is a ratio of 191 to 2 (Israel and the US) – reign-in the criminals? ..
You see, sanctions ARE effectively the first strike in most every war, from Gulf War I and II back to WWII with both Germany and Japan. It is rare when sanctions do not result in war because of the stress it brings on a nation’s people that causes politicians to panic into “doing something”.
Now doing something might not mean specific military actions, but maybe just imprisoning some criminals (US’s CIA) that are in various countries:
What if Iran, Venezuela, Russia, China – and many more countries not ready to bow to the empire, would jail all those spies embedded in the US Embassies or camouflaged in these countries’ national (financial) institutions, acting as Fifth Columns, undermining their host countries’ national and economic policies? – Entire cities of new jails would have to be built to accommodate the empire’s army of criminals.
Interesting times ahead for sure. But when a bully empire operates on lies, the patience of these nations will be tested. What of the American people? Well, the last line of this paragraph shows what we have become:
Imagine Russia – more sanctions were just imposed for alleged and totally unproven (to the contrary: disproven) Russian poisoning of four UK citizens with the deadly nerve agent, Novichok – and for not admitting it. This is a total farce, a flagrant lie, that has become so ridiculous, most thinking people, even in the UK, just laugh about it. Yet, Trump and his minions in Europe and many parts of the world succumb to this lie – and out of fear of being sanctions, they also sanction Russia. What has the world become? – Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, would be proud for having taught the important lesson to the liars of the universe: “Let me control the media, and I will turn any nation into a herd of Pigs”. That’s what we have become – a herd of pigs.
Actually, I have known pigs, and they are even smarter than dogs. Suffice it to say, the American people in general are sheep .. stupid and aimless, scared to be without someone telling them what to do every day or every hour (daddy / mommy government and its media).
So if the American people are dumb, what about its leaders? Well, there is a history there .. and if you knew it all you would NEVER trust the US government again. Consider just one parallel, Venezuela = Chile:
… Venezuela is struggling to get out of this dilemma which has people suffering, by de-dollarizing her economy, partly through a newly created cryptocurrency, the Petro, based on Venezuela’s huge oil reserves and also through a new Bolivar – in the hope of putting the breaks on the spiraling bursts of inflation. This scenario reminds so much of Chile in 1973, when Henry Kissinger was Foreign Secretary (1973-1977), and inspired the CIA coup, by “disappearing” food and other goods from Chilean markets, killing legitimately elected President Allende, bringing Augusto Pinochet, a horrendous murderer and despot to power. The military dictatorship regime brought the death and disappearance of tens of thousands of people and lasted until 1990…
I think the CIA would love to get back into South America this way .. as they are getting back into Africa after too much attention has been drawn to its Middle East collusion with Israel, Saudi Arabia and UK with ISIS. Peter Koenig goes on to state the facts about Iran, North Korea and China and the inability for the US to ever abide by treaties it is involved with for any real length of time .. just ask the American Indians:
The bottom line is a rot that is the swamp:
… What is really transpiring is that Washington is isolating itself, that the one-polar world is moving towards a multipolar world, one that increasingly disregards and disrespects the United States, despises her bullying and warmongering – killing and shedding misery over hundreds of millions of people, most of them defenseless children, women and elderly, by direct military force or by proxy-led conflicts – Yemen is just one recent examples, causing endless human suffering to people who have never done any harm to their neighbors, let alone to Americans. Who could have any respect left for such a nation, called the United States of America, for the people behind such lying monsters? ..
Our national character is mud. Our legacy means once the empire starts dying there will be a piling on of other countries demanding revenge on this nation who by then will be led by our kids and grand-kids. We will not have followed Thomas Paine’s advice:
