Tag: divorce

Divorce is Inevitable: Bring It!

When a spouse goes full-crazy, initial attempts to resolve differences are attempted, even with the assistance of neutral parties, but many times the only solution is divorce. The God-given positive in this world of having two stand as one against the world to help bring another generation life towards the hope of a better future is fractured by human brokenness.

While myself (SF1) has been as a child through the divorce process, I can see clearly that there are times that a positive future can emerge that would be better than the strife caused by continued struggle. However, scars will remain, not just for years or decades, but for generations as this human failure of two people no longer being able to work together takes its toll on the kids every time.

So just like the option to dabble in the mRNA experimental biological agents, one has to count the cost and compare the risks with the benefits at an individual level.

This all is a metaphorical intro to the ‘marriage’ of 50 states, federated into one republic as designed by the generation alive in the 1780s. There is no way any intelligent founding father thought that this marriage would ever be permanent let alone last over 200 years. From my post two years ago “Pre-Covid” it was very apparent that we (USA) just have to get this separation and divorce underway ASAP. Without secession, the 50 states will all suffer under tyranny and totalitarianism for decades to come, and our kids will suffer the most.

The first of two articles I would like to draw your attention to is one by James Bovard on how the fixation on the “treason” accusation leveled at those who don’t bow to the current political narrative that rips u and re-writes history while violating natural law at almost every step will actually tear up the nation at a much faster pace. One might think that the Left is trying to trigger the so-called Right in this post-Trump fog of war here in America’s fly-over country.

While the founders learned from England in their political struggles of the 1600 and 1700s and defined treason very narrowly .. :

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.”

These words were written in 1787 and yet within only a decade, John Adams as the second president of the US signed the Alien and Sedition Act that made it a crime to be critical of the US government. How about that! The temptation to accuse betrayal on the other party in a marriage is at the ready as a tool to undermine the character of the real victim in the relationship.

Fast forward to the 1950s where there was a Communist everywhere in the US, it was not until the Vietnam war when the masses revolted against this stupid expedition based on lies (typical off all wars since the American Revolution) that the calls for identifying traitors domestically were silenced.

Fast forward another 50 years and we find the Left attempting to label Trump a traitor with accusations of his alignment with Russia for over three years of his term until the next crisis could be launched, Covid-19. As a final nail in Trump’s political coffin arranged by the Left was the myth around the 06JAN2021 Capitol Building “insurrection” .. accomplished without weapons. Only in 2021 can feelings alone constitute an insurrection against a triggered section of society, but here we are.

To see how clearly this “treason” accusation can rip apart a nation and launch calls for secession would be the success of a propaganda campaign in 1861 to label all the states that seceded from the union as traitors.

.. the Civil War illustrates the catastrophic damage that can result from broad-brush definitions of treason. Northern politicians quickly persuaded their supporters that all Southerners were traitors — a capital offense. In 1864, Gen. William Sherman wired the War Department in Washington, “There is a class of people — men, women, and children — who must be killed or banished before you can hope for peace and order.” Union armies in Virginia, Georgia, and elsewhere late in the war intentionally devastated civilian populations who were considered collectively guilty of secession and treason.

The Left is channeling William T. Sherman in calls to exterminate a “class” of people here in the USA. The Trump-right in the meantime is calling for the summertime reinstatement of his presidency. So in my metaphor, the whole political bird (with red and blue wings) is the crazy spouse, and the more innocent party is “we the people”.

The only way to get crazy out of the equation is to reduce their sphere of influence by splitting up the USA into 15 republics like the USSR did in 1990 (or “democracies/communist countries” should those regions desire).

The fact is as James Bovard wraps up his thoughts is:

American politics is increasingly becoming toxic because presidents nowadays are elective dictators.

From federated republic to democracy to the totalitarian state, it should be clear to the casual observer that this nation is no longer a place for liberty and freedom.

For decades and possibly for centuries there has been a consistent effort for “new people” to fix all this from the inside. Elect the right people and we can turn this ship around. Sorry, that ship has sailed and the swamp is all encompassing. There is so much corruption that the foundation is gone. Consider the second of two articles in this piece from Jim Quinn:

It has been somewhat baffling to me why the masses have been unable or unwilling to acknowledge the existence of a ruling cabal/invisible government who are the true ruling power in our world. Any impartial assessment of facts, recognition of historical events confirming the observations of Bernays and Quigley, and knowledge of human nature, should unequivocally convince a critical thinking individual what they are told to believe by politicians, media and financiers is entirely false.

For decades, calling anyone who questioned the approved and sanctioned narrative about how our “democracy” supposedly operates has been called a conspiracy theorist. Of course, this term gained widespread use after the CIA used the term about anyone questioning the JFK assassination. CIA Director William Casey could not have been any clearer about the true nature of our government than his statement in 1981.

“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”

We have arrived. Everything the media says is indeed false, just 40 years after the CIA director predicted.

Your government and the financial interests who operate the puppet strings of their politician, media and central banker puppets do constitute a malevolent Deep State, designed to enrich themselves, while subjugating, controlling, and manipulating the masses. If anyone was in doubt about this fact, what has transpired in the last fifteen months should have convinced them of their error. The criminal ruling cabal have virtually perfected Bernays’ propaganda techniques through collusion with Big Tech and the traitorous surveillance state apparatus.

They have consciously and intelligently manipulated the ignorant masses regarding a non-lethal – to healthy people under 80 years old – annual flu, in order to test how far they could push their authoritarian un-Constitutional masking and lockdown measures upon us before we pushed back. To their delight and astonishment, the vast majority of Americans proved to be cowardly, easily manipulated, fearful, and begging to be enslaved by their superiors. It has truly been a depressing display of spinelessness, supplication, and subservience.

In addition to full out lies, the expansion of the national debt secures in my mind that the evil elite desire to enslave the next generations of Americans as the political structure collapses on itself:

How can anyone believe there are reasonable methods of solving the problems of this country through democratic means, when the entire system is captured, corrupt, and concealed from visibility by a criminal cabal of sociopathic billionaires and their highly compensated lackeys? The Deep State, or whatever you want to call the ruling oligarchy controlling the levers of society, have been able to deflect responsibility for the current state of affairs by having their captured media mouthpieces deny their existence and classify those of us who call out their misdeeds as conspiracy theorists.

As this denial of reality loses credibility, and every conspiracy theory is proven to be true, these Deep State co-conspirators have stepped out of the shadows and showed their cards during this fake pandemic crisis. I am not sure whether this change in tactics is an act of hubris or desperation.

The empire’s legs can’t sustain this direction, and those in control do hope that they can capitalize on this with a world totalitarian government that US large corps (Tech, Medical, Finance, etc.) all what to be a part of.

Since I am old, I will repeat myself and use Robert E. Lee’s quote a second time in a week:

The ruin has arrived only 150 years after this honorable man’s prophecy.

Time to think local and act local to keep our sanity in these days, hug your kids and your parents and partner with the like minded in your communities.

-SF1

Choices? You Ain’t Got No Stinkin’ Political Choices .. Socialism or Nationalism

There was a time when “consent of the governed” meant something:

That to secure these [God-given] rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government ..

Even Abraham Lincoln, in a moment of clarity (i.e. when he and his Illinois could BENEFIT from something other than a government about to go to war with Mexico for Texas) said:

Quote from 1846, NOT from 1861.

By 1861, with Lincoln wanting those seven states that had left under Buchanan’s watch BACK in the UNION for REVENUE, he changed his mind.

Now think on that a bit. If you reflect on a marriage where one spouse not only takes most of your money, but also abuses you verbally, you have every right to seek a just divorce. So too did these seven southern states.

Post 2020 election, if President Trump loses, those “deplorables” who have been ripped off by democracy morphing into socialism, which Karl Marx said was only a stage before communism (REIMAGINE THIS), are once again going to think about this “consent”. Most deplorables are ardent nationalists that would still invade states that attempt to leave the union.

Secession is THE answer, whether it be the fly-over country or the east and Left coasts, it be time for a divorce!

To be honest, the deplorables will not only have to look at the evil Democratic political party, but also the stupid GOP political party that did nothing to stop the spread of socialism (Bush’s “No Child Left Behind”, Corporate Welfare State, etc).  The GOP is secretly in bed with the Democrats and predictably vote in lockstep on the major shifts in this once federated republic:

  • The Patriot Act
  • The Invasion of Iraq
  • Obamacare (and keeping it even when the GOP had control of Prez / Congress)
  • Illegal Immoral Wars and Interventions: Ukraine, Syria, Libya

So just to be clear, our US political choices include plan 1.1 and plan 1.2, because they are only a little different (tough to see that these are radically different, as both cause more deaths and keeps removing our God-given freedoms):

The Deadly Isms | S2 Ep 1: Socialism

AND

The Deadly Isms | S2 Ep 2: Nationalism

It is time to learn the differences, but more importantly, to understand what is not talked about in political circles, that of freedom, individuality, consent of the governed and being left alone!

If Trump is re-elected, you will have a little more time to come up to speed on how politics or voting will never fix this. The “Great Reset” is here, so it will be time to:

Empires and collectives will never want freedom as they promise you various utopias. Get smart, recognize a PsyOp, and blend into the woodwork locally while connecting with like minded-people for the road ahead.

Peace out.

-SF1

The Remnant: Those in the Minority that Get It – Faith Version Episode 1

In my previous post I opened up the whole concept of the remnant as it was offered by Albert Jay Nock in the 1930s to describe those who could see what the masses could not. His thought was that is was a huge waste of time and effort to educate the masses, and that it was much more effective to address the remnant, even if it meant a much smaller audience and rarely any reward factor.

I talked about my school experience transition where I was able to see it for what it was by age 10 as my parents separated and I moved with my mother and sister to California for my 5th grade school year. My whole personality changed with this new adventure in the midst of a time of crisis, where my parents were heading toward divorce.

My second of three major transitions came in the part of life that many people talk about the least. While most see this as religion, I see this more as faith and hope. Many, like myself were introduced to faith through religion, especially in my generation ( #60ish ), and that experience could have been good or bad, however, if you are one of the remnant, you might be “gratefully disillusioned”.

In hindsight I would change nothing, because my faith journey toward who I am today required that I navigate (with the assistance of the Great Navigator) my own way to the understanding I have today and where I might be going in whatever tomorrows I still have. I had mentioned last week:

I think it is by design that truth makes itself know in a process verses just being taught. While knowledge helps, there is nothing like a crisis to unpack that truth that had been simmering for months and years before.

This holds true for me in my own process of developing a faith worldview.

The process started in my earliest memories of attending a fairly large conservative church where a majority were of Dutch ancestry in the Midwest. The typical cycle of weekly religious life was church attendance TWICE on Sunday, at 9:30am and 6pm with almost NO “fun” allowed on that “day of rest”.

Many families would have cooked their Sunday meal the night before and prepared for a day, the “Sabbath”, to reflect on where they came up short with their creator. The church service was designed by John Calvin’s followers to be a rather dour experience where man’s degenerative nature was emphasized and I was quickly aware of the sour faces around me for that hour of organ music and hymns followed by a sermon from the “dominie” ( minister / professional pastor ) who spoke God’s Word at us in no uncertain terms.

Dominie is a Scots language and Scottish English term for a Scottish schoolmaster usually of the Church of Scotland and also a term used in the US for a minister or pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church

By Monday morning I was on my way to Christian school where the underlying emphasis was still communicated as almost all our lessons came from the Bible’s Old Testament and God was someone you always feared. Staying on the right path performance wise seemed to be the only way to avoid God’s wrath and judgement until one went to Heaven to be with Him forever. Midweek there was a Catechism class taught at the church and so we were bused from the Christian school to the church for another hour of instruction on what is called the Heidelberg Catechism, a question and answer format that was foundational to this Calvinistic theological matrix that emphasized total depravity of man, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace and perseverance of the saints. ( known by the acronym TULIP, how Dutch is that? ) The only day without religious expectations was Saturday, which to me meant Little League, college football and playing with neighborhood friends except for weekends when our family went to my grandparent’s dairy farm for the day to visit, which itself was an interesting experience that I plan to talk about someday.

Inside this rhythm of religion, I started to explore the only option I had during the minister’s sermon on Sunday mornings, the Bible. Instead of paging through the Old Testament, I started reading the New Testament books where I discovered a whole new “lens” to see what faith was beyond the typical religious wrappings and trappings. I found it interesting that Jesus came humbly into the world and took His time to start His official ministry, that he was marginalized in His own hometown and that He chose gnarly fishermen to be on His team. This was not an exclusive religious performance culture, but an inclusive relationship-based friendship culture. The nautical culture that Jesus introduced His friends to the real loving Father he had, would impact the early Jesus-follower’s vocabulary for generations. The anchor symbol meant a hope to a future, whether on this earth or not.

“At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.” ~ CS Lewis

So in the middle of religion, I found a relational faith that would take years and decades to unpack. I will post an “Episode 2” in a few days that expands on my journey during the balance of my school years from 5th grade and beyond.

In hindsight, towards the end of this journey, I have learned to relax in this relational faith in the middle of the storms of life.

As opposed to religious obligation says that it is all up to you, where, if God isn’t doing the things you want, you have to work harder, stand firmer and pray longer. The religious focus I have found is on your performance, your obedience, your righteousness.

Outside that box, you will learn to rely on Him ( Abba Father or Papa ) alone and recognize that any time you give up responsibility for your spiritual and faith nourishment to another person – whether friend, pastor or author, you’ve already traded away a bit of your freedom, for life in a box.

So in these days I picture this:

.. and I leave you with this:

Peace out ..

The anchor holds
Though the ship is battered
The anchor holds
Though the sails are torn
I have fallen on my knees
As I faced the raging seas
The anchor holds
In spite of the storm

-SF1

 

Does An “In Your Face” Crisis Change One’s Worldview? Rarely for the Masses

Crisis events does tend to make one a bit reflective, at least for me. As I reflect on a couple of my previous “crisis events”, it was evident that my resulting worldview change took years and then took a crisis for me to make the final step into my own new land and new worldview.

I think it is by design that truth makes itself know in a process verses just being taught. While knowledge helps, there is nothing like a crisis to unpack that truth that had been simmering for months and years before.

I have wrote about this just last month when I said:

May a new generation and a new remnant of Americans see though the infectious nature of government and decide for the future that they will take responsibility for themselves, their livelihood and the education of the next generation and never trust any government again.

However, I do not think that the masses ever achieve this kind of mind shift, for I think there are limits for the typical broken person to make that transition well. What I mean by that is, that in time, to be “well” on the other side means to actually be grateful for the process. That the new land is much more freeing than the old. I call this being gratefully disillusioned.

The fact that the masses typically can’t or won’t make this transition is why in my quote above I used the word “remnant”. That word came to me over five years ago on one of my journeys through the political path that included people like Ron Paul and Jeffrey Tucker. Jeffrey had a libertarian hub that I was a member of for a few years that allowed me to purchase books at either free or $X levels. One of these was Albert Nock’s books written during the Great Depression that acknowledged that the masses were not to be prioritized in expending energy towards opening their eyes to a new worldview. Here is a quote from Gary North in his 2002 article about the remnant:

Nock warned against deliberately appealing to the mass-man. There is no audience there, he said, for any developer or defender of ideas on liberty. Individualism does not appeal to the mass-man. This is why he is a mass-man. Any attempt to whoop up the troops will fail to attract the Remnant. Indeed, it will alienate them. They will go elsewhere.

Nock took as his starting point God’s call to the prophet Elijah after Elijah’s public confrontation with King Ahab, when Elijah’s temporary victory in front of the assembled representatives of the nation backfired. Elijah was now on the run from the king. He despaired. God told him this:

Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him (1 Kings 19:18).

His ministry was to them, not to the masses, God reminded him. He had failed to persuade the masses. He did not need to persuade the Remnant, which already agreed with him. He merely had to speak the truth in the name of God before the Remnant.

So as you may see, a prophet in these days (not foretelling but forth-telling) is one who sees things differently than most, and yet to them, it is crystal clear.

I have done this truth-journey thing two or three times in my six decades of life here on this planet. The beauty of this is that there were overlaps to these journeys chronologically, which in a way helped with the process for me in hindsight.

My first worldview change journeys started for me as a 5 or 6 year old. I was not totally aware yet, but my parents were going through a huge change in their marriage complete with lies and distrust. For me, at this naive age, all I knew was that I had a new baby sister, but beyond that I was pretty clueless as my world was small and included just a few compartments.

  1. Faith (is God real, what is this church service thing, what is this mid-week catechism thing and Sunday school thing)
  2. School (what is this friends thing, why do some of the richer kids talk to me sometimes and not other times, playground unwritten rules all at a Christian school)
  3. Home-life (parents who facilitated “home” but were not on the same page offset by an awesome 1960s freedom to play outside ALL DAY long on weekends and after school on weekdays).

In my youth then there was church and school, and what to believe about these two areas which was mandatory for me verses my free-range suburban neighborhood freedom which came naturally.

In today’s post I only offer one of these journeys and will cover the other two more major ones in subsequent posts.

My formal day school journey was probably the quickest one to unfold. Like I said before, my K-4th grade experience was at a Christian school which had an underlying caste system in place that separated at times the more wealthy middle-upper class kids from the ones whose parents struggled to pay the school tuition. My whole demeanor during those years was one of hiding in the shadows, hoping that the day passed quickly so I could get home to my neighborhood for my daily dose of free-range freedom. Besides my 2nd grade teacher who on the 1st day told the class to look at the ceiling and notice the holes in the tiles followed by “that is where I pinned the ears of the kids last year who misbehaved”. These were 10 foot ceilings!!! Other than that, most teachers were fine except when it came to reciting Bible verses in front of class, graded on the exact word for word repeating of various combinations of these verses every week. I guess I would have appreciated some context for each of these verses but rote memorization apparently is what this religion wanted. Most all complied and thought nothing of it, I myself thought that the exercise was misguided, but who would listen to a 6 year old?

The crisis that would finally diffuse my own distaste for much of the school environment would be the decision of my parents to separate, with my mom, sister and myself moving to another state (California) for the school year. To underscore my distaste of my K-4th grade experience, my first question to my parents when they broke that news on that August Sunday afternoon just a few weeks before school was to start was NOT .. “Can I see my school friends before we go?” BUT “Do I have to go to Christian schools in California?”.

The answer was “no” and with that I had no more questions actually. I felt so free and ready for a cross-country trip to arrive in a totally new neighborhood and a totally new school. This “re-start” allowed me to be who I was in this new environment. This fresh start overnight changed my personality so much that I did not really care for what others thought of me or my ideas. As Popeye would say “I yam what I yam”

This is a remnant characteristic, as Albert J. Nock would admit later in his life:

“And so it was that at the age of thirty-five or so I dismissed all interest in public affairs, and have regarded them ever since as a mere spectacle, mostly a comedy, rather squalid, rather hackneyed, whereof I already knew the plot from beginning to end. I have written a little about them now and then,”
― Albert Jay Nock, Memoirs of a Superfluous Man

The journey out to California in a 1963 Chevrolet Impala towing a U-Haul trailer was eventful in itself, as my mom was not too good with directions, so my role as a co-pilot was great for my self esteem. I was needed.

I always love maps, and so this was an epic drive:

As a 5th grader, being ten years old, I then experienced my best grade in school to date. I met new friends from all over the spectrum (red, yellow black and white as well as Christian and non-Christian) and I was fine with all that. I walked home from school past strawberry fields, cow pastures and a golf course to our apartment and then proceeded to pick up my 5 year old sister from her babysitters, feed her a late lunch and then go to the apartment complex pool for a few hours of swimming. Livin’ the dream!

At the end of that school year my sister and myself would fly back to the Midwest on a TWA 707 to be with my father that summer.

Shortly thereafter my parents would divorce and I would complete my schooling in the Midwest, but I always treasured my school year out in California in the late 1960s! I was now part of the “remnant”, even if I did not know it yet.

Below at the end of this post are the words of Albert Jay Nock (available in MP3 from the Mises Institute) explaining the role of a prophet verses that of a promoter. The financial rewards of being a prophet are few, however, being true to one’s own soul is priceless!

Just be you! You have been made for a unique imprint on this earth for a time.

-SF1

Nock’s wisdom on display:

Here is what Nock wrote about the prophet’s job. He used Isaiah as his example. The prophet’s job is not the job of the promoter.

Everyone with a message nowadays is, like my venerable European friend, eager to take it to the masses. His first, last and only thought is of mass-acceptance and mass-approval. His great care is to put his doctrine in such shape as will capture the masses’ attention and interest. . . .

The main trouble with all this is its reaction upon the mission itself. It necessitates an opportunist sophistication of one’s doctrine, which profoundly alters its character and reduces it to a mere placebo. If, say, you are a preacher, you wish to attract as large a congregation as you can, which means an appeal to the masses; and this, in turn, means adapting the terms of your message to the order of intellect and character that the masses exhibit. If you are an educator, say with a college on your hands, you wish to get as many students as possible, and you whittle down your requirements accordingly. If a writer, you aim at getting many readers; if a publisher, many purchasers; if a philosopher, many disciples; if a reformer, many converts; if a musician, many auditors; and so on. But as we see on all sides, in the realization of these several desires, the prophetic message is so heavily adulterated with trivialities, in every instance, that its effect on the masses is merely to harden them in their sins. Meanwhile, the Remnant, aware of this adulteration and of the desires that prompt it, turn their backs on the prophet and will have nothing to do with him or his message. . . .

Isaiah, on the other hand, worked under no such disabilities. He preached to the masses only in the sense that he preached publicly. Anyone who liked might listen; anyone who liked might pass by. He knew that the Remnant would listen; and knowing also that nothing was to be expected of the masses under any circumstances, he made no specific appeal to them, did not accommodate his message to their measure in any way, and did not care two straws whether they heeded it or not. As a modern publisher might put it, he was not worrying about circulation or about advertising. Hence, with all such obsessions quite out of the way, he was in a position to do his level best, without fear or favour, and answerable only to his august Boss.

If a prophet were not too particular about making money out of his mission or getting a dubious sort of notoriety out of it, the foregoing considerations would lead one to say that serving the Remnant looks like a good job. An assignment that you can really put your back into, and do your best without thinking about results, is a real job; whereas serving the masses is at best only half a job, considering the inexorable conditions that the masses impose upon their servants. They ask you to give them what they want, they insist upon it, and will take nothing else; and following their whims, their irrational changes of fancy, their hot and cold fits, is a tedious business, to say nothing of the fact that what they want at any time makes very little call on one’s resources of prophesy. The Remnant, on the other hand, want only the best you have, whatever that may be. Give them that, and they are satisfied; you have nothing more to worry about. . . .

We all know innumerable politicians, journalists, dramatists, novelists and the like, who have done extremely well by themselves in these ways. Taking care of the Remnant, on the contrary, holds little promise of any such rewards. A prophet of the Remnant will not grow purse-proud on the financial returns from his work, nor is it likely that he will get any great reknown out of it. Isaiah’s case was exceptional to this second rule, and there are others, but not many.

Organizations Can Take on a Life of Their Own: Ku Klux Klan Version 1.0

As I have stated many times before, there is a bit of misinformation out in our world that can lead people to believe things that are not actually true. This happened well before the Internet’s “fake news” and “fact-check” phenomenon as Mark Train points out here:

“If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.”

So take all your history books (especially if they have anything to do with the South and the North and were published after 1865) with a grain of salt when you read them. Source material is out there but mining that is more and more difficult as search engines have been compromised.

While I never expect any politician except perhaps Ron Paul to get history > 90% correct, this latest article laments how Ted Cruz has latched on so some fake history in the last few days:

It is also appalling to me when a conservative such as Glenn Beck or Ted Cruz—who would never allow the politically correct to deceive them on contemporary issues—routinely allow themselves to be hoodwinked on historical topics. Nathan Bedford Forrest is a prime example.

So hang on now and consider these thoughts without accepting them as truth until you do your own homework. Context, as always, is imperative in making wise judgements:

  • The year 1865 was pivotal in American history. It was the year the Civil War ended, the Confederacy died, the Ku Klux Klan was born, and the Democratic Party transitioned from the party of slavery to the party of white supremacy.

It must be known that the GOP/Republican party was originally a Free Soil party that believed in white land ownership exclusively. Lincoln himself is on record saying many times that the black race was subpar to the white race:

“…I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.”

Let’s look at the initial focus of this organization instead of focusing on what it became, especially in the 1900s when members were waving the stars and stripes and intimidating the general public into a race war like you see below:

1925 KKK March on Washington DC

Today’s focus if on the first version (1.0) of the Ku Klux Klan that ran from 1866-1869:

  • It (KKK) was born in the law offices of Judge Thomas Jones in Pulaski, Tennessee. Half its original members were attorneys. Its initial standards were high. One had to be in the Confederate Army at the time of the surrender or in a Union prisoner-of-war camp to be eligible for membership. Its original mission statement called for it to be “an instrument of Chivalry, Humanity, Mercy and patriotism” which was to “relieve and assist the injured, oppressed, suffering, and unfortunate, especially widows and orphans of Confederate soldiers.”

You have to know how much the North, especially the government, hated everything about the South after Lincoln was assassinated. In fact, there is some contention that the assassination might have been orchestrated much like our current FBI and CIA helps unstable individuals to carry out these kind of things when a large public figure might go a direction they are not willing to travel. It was well known that Lincoln wanted a peaceful transition back to the Union for these eleven states. Not everyone in government was ready for that, in fact, they rather loved the way Lincoln shifted the republic towards a centralized, tyrannical state. “States rights” were violently dismissed by 1865. Eventually, military districts were established as these states were raped and pillaged one more time for the North’s benefit.

[US government] have a 47% tax on cotton, which they used to subsidize Northern railroads and other large corporations. On the other hand, they did provide pensions to Northern widows and orphans at the expense of Southern widows and orphans.

As 1866 dawned, here was the real ‘state of the South’ under Union occupation:

  • The loss of the war and the death of the Confederacy were not isolated events. They also signaled the breakdown of the Southern economy and the collapse of law and order in many localities. Gangs of criminals and individual thugs had a field day throughout the South. Union deserters, Southern outlaws, recently freed slaves who did not know how to handle their freedom, and professional criminals ran amuck. Arson, robbery, rape, and murder were the order of the day. At the same time, Carpetbaggers and collaborators pillaged the public treasuries, increased taxes 300% to 400%, ran up huge public debts, pocketed the proceeds, stole land and farms, and enriched themselves at the expense of a helpless and impoverished people.
  • African Americans suffered most of all. Much of the South’s land was ruined during the conflict, and 1867 was a year of famine. The new Northern rulers had no interest in the Southern people, black or white. Tens of thousands of Negroes literally starved to death. No effort was made on the part of the new rulers to even keep records of how many died.
  • Public health was almost completely ignored. Smallpox epidemics periodically raged throughout the South in the 1862 through 1868 period. The weakened and malnourished black folks were especially susceptible, often dying at rates of three or four times higher than Southern whites, who were themselves not well nourished. Black children were particularly hard hit. In one six-month period in 1865, 30,000 African Americans died in North Carolina and South Carolina alone. The epidemic lasted six years.

Much like the aftermath of the Iraq invasion in 2003 when the USA really did not have a game-plan except to overthrow their old partner Saddam Hussein, the North did not really want the blacks migrating north and so the GOP used the government offices of the south to entice them to stay. In the end the GOP “used” the blacks to maintain their control in these southern states. Not until the corrupt Grant administration was there the trade-off to allow the people once again to vote in even honorable ex-Confederate officers and enlisted men to public office and allow these states re-entry into the Union in the late 1870s.

It was in this context that Northern politicians actually entertained the thought of a 2nd Civil War:

Not content with theft and neglect, a significant minority of Northern politicians openly advocated a second Civil War. They included Thaddeus Stevens, the chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives; General Benjamin F. “Spoons” Butler; Governor Richard Yates of Illinois; carpetbagger Governor Andrew J. Hamilton of Texas; and Senator Jim Lane of Kansas, among others. U.S. Congressman William Anderson Pile advocated “death to all supporters of the South, past or present.” General William T. Sherman wanted Southerners demoted to “demizens”: people who were given certain rights (such as the right to pay taxes) but not others (such as the right to vote). Governor William G. “Parson” Brownlow of Tennessee. A former Methodist preacher, slave owner, and newspaper editor, he believed slavery was “ordained by God.” He nevertheless supported the Union and a second Civil War. “I am one of those who believed that the war ended too soon,” he declared, and “the loyal masses” should not “leave one Rebel fence rail, outhouse, one dwelling, in the seceded states. As for the Rebel population, let them be exterminated.”

About this time in correspondence between Robert E. Lee and Lord Acton in England, Robert E. Lee responded:

.. while I have considered the preservation of the constitutional power of the General Government to be the foundation of our peace and safety at home and abroad, I yet believe that the maintenance of the rights and authority reserved to the states and to the people, not only essential to the adjustment and balance of the general system, but the safeguard to the continuance of a free government. I consider it as the chief source of stability to our political system, whereas the consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it.

At this point in time, in the middle of a despotic domestic scene, great men will arise and protect their families and their land. The character of Nathan Bedford Forrest can be seen in his quotes:

“I have never, on the field of battle, sent you where I was unwilling to go myself; nor would I now advise you to a course which I felt myself unwilling to pursue”

“I went into the army worth a million and a half dollars, and came out a beggar”

So here is Nathan’s entry into this foray and the real source of the term “wizard”:

The government were it was functioning at all was often in the hands of criminals, and they felt compelled to take the law into their own hands. There is a point between civilization and anarchy in which vigilantism is an acceptable, temporary measure, until law and order can be restored. Into that breach stepped Nathan Bedford Forrest. He was receiving a hundred letters a day from his former soldiers, relating eye-witness accounts of outrage and lawlessness .. Forrest applied for membership … In the spring of 1866, the leaders of the KKK met in the Maxwell House in Nashville, Tennessee, and created the position of “Grand Wizard,” a tribute to Forrest’s wartime nickname, “Wizard of the Saddle,” and gave it to the general .. Under Forrest, it [KKK] became, as he said, “a protective political military organization,” i.e., a paramilitary force, a counterbalance to [Governor] Brownlow’s Loyal Legion.

All government would react, but it is interesting how Tennessee’s governor reacts:

Governor Brownlow sought to pass a law making it legal for anyone to shoot a former Confederate on sight.

Now there is a data point to think about. What was it that really made the Union and the GOP so hateful? The treatment of blacks? I highly doubt it, it was more like when a spouse seeks to leave a marriage due to abuse and the other spouse ramps up the abuse to keep them in the “union”. What the South was to the North before the war was tariff income. After the war it became conquered territory to be used and abused.

Forrest knew the support he had from his former soldiers:

If that law passed, Forrest declared, there would be a second war, although he did not want it, but he would look upon the activation of Brownlow’s militia as a declaration of war. He also declared that he could raise 40,000 Klansmen in Tennessee and 550,000 throughout the South in five days. No one wanted to fight a half a million man cavalry army under Nathan Bedford Forrest ..

The Tennessee governor relented.

Just a few years later:

In February 1869, Brownlow resigned as governor. His successor sought to work with the Democrats, was conciliatory to his former enemies, and restored voting rights to Southern veterans and Confederate sympathizers. Forrest, meanwhile, became concerned that white trash elements were taking over large parts of the organization and were using it for their own nefarious and hateful purposes. As a result, Nathan Bedford Forrest issued General Order Number One, disbanding the Ku Klux Klan. “There was no further need for it,” Forrest commented later, “. . . the country was safe.”

So was Nathan Bedford Forrest this horrible guy? No. He had a heart for the people oppressed by the likes of Brownlow and other Northern politicians that had a hate streak for all things of the South. Obviously, if the South was that bad, why didn’t Northern politicians just let her go?

Money. Just follow the money.

-SF1