Tag: Dutch

From Yankee to Marxist Color Revolution: An Interesting Timeline to Consider

In the quest to understand what might be upon us here in 2020, to utilize CSI techniques to identify where this effort against individuals and private property while dutifully labeling everyone into different groups where collectively somehow all the wrongs can be righted, one can use history to double-check that one is not indeed going bat-sh*t crazy.

The Marxist push in this land did not spring up overnight, nor only during Obama’s administration, nor after Reagan’s or even FDRs. One needs to go way back to when Europeans came to America’s shores to spot the germ of this parasitic plant.

I eluded to this in my last post calling out the GOP’s DNA being so similar to that of BLMs. This however was not the original birth or insertion of this parasite onto our shores. We have to go back to the first incursions onto this continent as highlighted in a recent post from Abbeville Institute when Jason Morgan rightly said:

Being unwelcome in England due to his penchant for religious terrorism, the Yankee was exiled across the sea where he immediately set about destroying the civilizations he found here. He ran wild against the Wampanoag and the Iroquois. He put the Lakota and the Navajo into camps, where they remain. He later crossed another sea, imprisoned the Hawaiian queen, committed genocide against the Moros, napalmed the Vietnamese in their farming villages, and put the torch to the cultural treasures of Japan. Having practiced looting and pillaging in Atlanta, he put his well-honed skills to use in Baghdad, the ruination of museums and relics following wherever he directed his gaze.

I just love this 30,000 foot view of the trends in history to sort all this out or at least consider in light of these trying times that impact our body and soul.

Norman Rockwell’s Icabod Crane

While most assume that Yankee just indicates being from the US north as opposed to Rebel being that from the US southern states, its roots actually had to do with the Dutch in the late 1600s:

[Yankee] a name applied disparagingly by Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam (New York) to English colonists in neighboring Connecticut. It may be from Dutch Janke, literally “Little John,” diminutive of common personal name Jan.

By 1820 Washington Irving’s story of “The Headless Horseman” Ichabod Crane was a Yankee who had come from Connecticut to New York and “made himself a nuisance” so a young New Yorker played a trick on him to send him packing back to “Yankeeland”.

At this time, even in the current region of the Midwest (called “The West”) most settlers and pioneers came from Virginia, Carolinas and even Texas after the War of 1812 to break in the land of prairies and forests past the Ohio River.

The Yankees from New England and New York State came later via railroads, especially just before and after the so-called Civil War to ply their trade in spite of their general repugnant character.

Clyde Wilson has spent his lifetime in part trying to understand the Yankee mindset as he has read so many personal accounts from those with more humble characters encounter this rather unique character originally from the northeast. He noticed in Thomas Jefferson’s writings:

Thomas Jefferson himself once complained that “It is true that we are completely under the saddle of Massachusetts and Connecticut, and that they ride us very hard, insulting our feelings, as well as exhausting our strength and substance.” This was long before anyone began debating the issue of slavery. The Yankees said Jefferson, “were marked with such a perversity of character” that America was bound to be forever divided between Yankees and non-Yankees.

Clyde goes on to compare what he has seen in recent years as being a continuation of this:

[Clyde] Wilson describes how New England writers have falsified the history of America by emphasizing the Mayflower Pilgrims while ignoring or downplaying the earlier, Jamestown Pilgrims; by pretending that New Englanders alone won the American Revolution and ignoring the efforts of Francis Marion and other Southern revolutionary heroes; by ludicrously portraying the Virginia planter George Washington as a New England “prig” in their books and movies; and of course reserving their biggest lies in their discussions of the causes and consequences of the “Civil War.” As if to prove Jefferson’s point, Daniel Webster wrote in his diary: “O New England! How superior are thy inhabitants in morals, literature, civility and industry”

Puke. Seriously? I guess Daniel Webster was as much a Yankee then as Hillary Clinton is today:

There is no better example of this today than that “museum-quality” specimen of a Yankee – self-righteous, ruthless, and self-aggrandizing as Hillary Rodham Clinton, and her pay-to-play Clinton Foundation.”

Priceless. At the end of the day their character can be summed up as:

[Clyde] Wilson describes “Yankees” as “that peculiar ethnic group descended from New Englanders, who can be easily recognized by their arrogance, hypocrisy, greed, lack of congeniality, and penchant for ordering other people around”

Y’all all know these people, from North, South, East and West, they are everywhere!

So it is a great delight to share a few more highlights from Jason’s blog post:

And yet, for all that, the Yankee is nevertheless a human being. With patient tutelage he, too, may be brought into the world of gentility and manners. His is not a hopeless case, no matter how large loom the depredations of his tribe. ..

The United States is a long experiment in this very thing. Our Yankee cousins, inflicted on us as God gave the Philistines to the Hebrews, are a test and a burden, but also a chance to do real charity and teach the wayward how to live like human beings. From age to age the South has tempered the Hun-like nature of the Yankee, patiently bearing with him and quietening him in his atavistic fits…

The Yankee has ever been anxious to take up his weapons and bathe in the blood of innocents as his ancestors did. We know firsthand, unfortunately, how the Yankee behaves when war gets into his head. But even a raging Yankee may be soothed and tamed, with time. American history is the history of the South trying to teach the Yankee to behave like a gentleman. We have not always succeeded, but we have tried.

Honor and principles are usually not in the Yankee’s repertoire.  Individuality and respect for others made in God’s image is in the heart of Southerners whereas ..

.. the Yankee hates order and gentility, and so they range the cities of the plain looking for some scrap of civilization to demolish. Lee, Jackson, Jefferson, all are defaced. Revealing his utter ignorance, the Yankee even lashes out against statues of the 54th Massachusetts, against Lincoln and Grant. (Did you think the Yankee was learning any history in his trade schools?)

At the end of the day, anyone can attempt to know what is good and true from the Southern tradition. One must know that the “slavery” label is the Yankee’s only defense in attempting their own complacency of those days when chattel slavery was actually encouraged by the banks and shipbuilders of the north. Only when the south attempted to leave the union so that their economy would have to adjust did they wage war on a peaceful, orderly, legal secession of seven states.

Everyone who loves his home and wants to protect and preserve his heritage is a partner. There are Southern natives of Michigan and Minnesota, California and Maine, who labor patiently at the arts and at husbandry. It is not a paradox but the deepest truth of America that anyone in the North who holds America dear and loves his family and homeland is a fellow Southerner. Likewise, the South, thronged with Yankees, has largely forgotten what it means to cherish, to forgive, to clear weeds from the heart and give thanks for even the hard things. We have been under Yankee capture for far too long. We all need to learn to be civilized.

Black and white, yellow and brown, red and sable, come, let us live like God intended, bearing with one another, being Christians, helping one another, not nursing hatred in our souls.

Again, there is something here that resonates with today’s world seemly split between those who see others made in God’s image and the balance that see them as worthless users of the earth’s resources (Green agenda) or oppressors (Marxist agenda) of the common man or even the evil elite (New World Order/Central Bank) that demand a financial reset to get all this under control.

Humble reflection is essential to stay the course, to True North, in these days 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

 

American Revolutionary War: 3D Layers to Causes, Principles Used and Results

The advantage of taking on a portion of this ‘American Revolutionary War’ conflict, as I was able to do in reviewing John Oller’s book ‘Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Won the American Revolution‘, was that I could get my head around how South Carolina became ripe for revolution, how principled was the conflict and how South Carolina dealt with their freedom from empire.

The disadvantage is that nothing happens in a vacuum or in isolation, and so in reality one needs to back up to the macro (Thirteen Colony Federation view) and even to a global view to understand more holistically how all this came down. This last disadvantage I was able to partially overcome with the assistance of a book Captain1776, Malibu and myself first ran across at the Camden, SC RevWar historical site bookstore called ‘South Carolina and the American Revolution – A Battlefield History‘ by John W. Gordon.

This book helped me to understand the rather complex web of issues, real or imaginary, physical or psychological that helped evolve the love of family, love of community and even into a love of a colony/region towards violence-based actions that risked these very things (family, community and colony/region and even culture).

The writer is a former US Marine officer and professor at the Citadel in South Carolina who is now involved with national security affairs in Quantico, VA. What was refreshing in John W. Gordon’s approach was the eye towards tactics and strategies that either helped or detracted from the efforts of either the rebel-patriots-Whigs or the loyalists-Brit-Tories in the very real civil war that raged in South Carolina from approximately 1775 until 1783.

One aspect realized, was the early attempt on the part of the British to utilize the Cherokee and Creek to their advantage in the southern theater of this war the British brought to regain control of the colonies actually led to ‘blowback’, where unintended consequences would rule as a result of decisions made. This in conjunction with the assumption that Loyalists would rise to greatly assist the British efforts showed how much out of touch London, England was with the thoughts on the minds of those in the low country, midland and rolling hills leading up to the Blue Ridge felt in 1775, 1778 and 1780.

Another aspect that came to light when reading this book was the pivotal moment the French aligned with the colonies which caused this conflict to spread to English colonies around the globe as this became a very real world war that involved Spain and the Dutch as well as the French.

Primary to all of this was the effect this effort to extract the South Carolina people from British Empire control in how this region unified to a degree during the conflict, that pitted father against son and cousin against cousin. The effect was specifically where, during and and especially after the war, the upstate areas obtained more say in the government. The fact that civil government by the people themselves for three years in absence of the British royals, that was then forced into exile in North Carolina for a time after Cornwallis occupied Charlestown and much of the region and then back in late 1781 showed that South Carolinians could rule themselves!

Decades later, praise for this effort across micro-cultures inside this state would emerge from the pen of George Bancroft in 1857 in “History of the United States”:

Left mainly to her own resources, it was through the depths of wretchedness that her sons were to bring her back to her place in the republic ..  having suffered more, and dared more, and achieved more than the men of any other state.

This struggle matured a generation of men and women towards principles that will be again used eighty years later when another “empire” would be threatening South Carolina in coercive and violent ways once more.

Hats off to South Carolina’s Revolutionary War generation in their fight for their love of future generations and their way of life.

-SF1

NOTE: Future posts are forthcoming towards a more in-depth review of this new book, South Carolina and the American Revolution – A Battlefield History , in our library