Tag: states

A Federated Republic Would Never Have to Depend on One Person for Its Survival

I will lay the blame primarily on Abraham Lincoln, whose reaction to the secession of seven states in 1861 led to this republic’s change from version 1.0 in 1781 to version 2.0 (thanks to the US Constitution(1787), a coup d’etat by any simple analysis) to version 3.0 in 1865 that rendered the states as impotent servants to the master (general/federal government), a virtual democracy (i.e. mob rule).

Lincoln’s effort to save actually destroyed!

The genius of the Articles of Confederation is that it recognized as each state was in fact a sovereign country (just like the 1783 Treaty of Paris recognized). The presidential election pre-US Constitution was a non-issue, and 99% of Americans only saw the federal government when the post-rider stopped a few times a week. Furthermore, if one state had a tyrant, it would minimally impact other states.

In 2020, I would give almost anything to have the federal politics happen hundreds of miles away and have little impact on my day to day, year to year life in my own community. Can it be that whatever “federal” power is necessary that it be with this aim:

The said states hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defence, the security of their Liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretence whatever. – Article III ‘The Articles of Confederation” 1777

The US Constitution brought the executive branch to a much more powerful level encouraged by those like Alexander Hamilton who saw royalty and a central government as the path toward empire. The empire has been realized, but at what cost? The cost was the soul of this republic.

Today’s situation did not happen overnight, and most people could trace it back to the 1970s, but few realize that the real roots of this go back much further. The wedding of big government and big business was a Whig wet dream from the early 1800s that Lincoln himself believed in like a religion. Even by 1861 the US Constitution was easily raped by Lincoln himself all in the name of “safety” for the “union”. Preserving all thirty-some states with territories to the west complicit with big business barons working their behind the scenes magic with the US government to eliminate the competition.

Enter a recent book review “The Election to End All Elections” by Angelo M. Codevilla on Michael Anton’s new book called ‘The Stakes: America at the Point of No Return‘

[Michael Anton] urges Americans to vote for Trump, disappointed though they may be with his performance, because they know even better than before how much this country’s ruling class would use control of the presidency to hurt us in our private and public lives for having dared to reject their mastery. Trump, imperfect as he is, is like a finger in a dike that, if removed, would loose a deluge. Anton describes how the Democratic Party-led complex of public-private power has been transforming our free, decent, and prosperous country into its opposite—and how it’s going to do to the rest of America what it has already largely accomplished in California.

Personally, I find more and more people disillusioned with how the Marxist inroads into not just the colleges but also much of corporate America has been achieved in the past few decades. Many went to college for “communications” finding out that the MSM is nauseating to consider working for, and others now feel the same way about the medical fields (MIC – Medical Industrial Complex) with the Covid-19 “over-reaction”!

It is intriguing that a rather young person would see with such clarity just into what California is experiencing right now, and all the dots that line up as to the sequence of bad decisions to get to where millions are in a state of exodus there. Angelo writes in the review of Michael’s book:

[Here] in 2020 productive middle-class families are fleeing California—so much so that the state will probably lose a seat in the House of Representatives after this year’s census. And all because its government—controlled by oligarchs in the entertainment and high-tech industries, as well as the state bureaucracy and public sector labor unions—raised taxes, imposed regulations, let public services decay, stopped defending against criminals, and empowered left-wing social activists. Today’s California is for government-favored oligarchs and those who service them. You want a career? If you don’t conform every word and action to the ruling orthodoxies, your work and talents will be wasted. You want your children to grow up intelligent and decent? The schools will teach them little reasoning and much depravity. Like you, they will also learn to compete by favor-seeking rather than by performance. You see crime rising, sense that you have to protect yourself, but know that, in most of the state, the police will arrest you for it. And you are sick of paying for it all.

The bottom line it seems is that in much of middle-upper class America, most kids do not become taxpayers until they are almost 30. This allows the Marxist/totalitarian mindset to take root the longer kids are in college, making PhDs the ones with the most student debt and the most likely to be compliant in whatever corporation will have them! This is by design.

Michael Anton goes on to say:

The real power…resides not with elected (or appointed) officials and “world leaders”; they—or most of them—are a servant class. The real power resides with their donors, the bankers, CEOs, financiers, and tech oligarchs—some of whom occasionally run for and win office, but most of whom, most of the time, are content to buy off those who do. The end result is the same either way: economic globalism and financialization, consolidation of power in an ostensibly “meritocratic” but actually semi-hereditary class, livened up by social libertinism.

The intellectuals from the monarchy days is what I am reminded of. These types do NOT like competition, and government is big and bad enough to wield a club apparently. Angelo continues:

Despising any divine or natural authority and contemptuous of America’s history, those in the ruling class make war on the American people’s culture and national identity. Ironically, this ruling class, led almost exclusively by white men, has cast white men in general as the proper targets of universal vengeance—an inversion of reality sustained by a near-monopoly of power over corrupt institutions and mass communications. Anton’s section on “Propaganda and Censorship: Narrative, Megaphone, and Muzzle” is particularly worth reading.

Insightful stuff here. It is at this point where the talk turns to conservative vs. liberals .. and right away I think of the civil approach the South had with the “rule(US Constitution)-breaking” North where the ends justifies the means:

Truth-bomb time from Angelo:

They [ruling class] do not believe they have to worry about controlling their own violent troops because they are sure that they have nothing to fear from conservatives. That is because conservatives have continued to believe that the United States’s institutions and those who run them retain legitimacy. Conservative complaisance made possible a half-century of Progressive rule’s abuse. The War on Poverty ended up enriching its managers while expanding the underclass that voted for them. The civil rights movement ended up entitling a class of diversity managers to promote their friends and ruin their opponents. The environmental movement ended up empowering the very same wealthy, powerful folks while squeezing the rest of America into cookie-cutter living and paying inflated energy prices. The feminist movement delivered divorce and abortion—far from benefiting women, it has made millions dependent on ruling class favor. The COVID-19 pandemic has had almost nothing to do with public health and almost everything to do with separating, impoverishing, and disconnecting people inclined to vote against the ruling class. As leftist judges rule, conservatives respond by appointing judges who pledge not to rule. As leftist governors establish their brand of effective sovereignty by decree, conservative ones obey court orders. So long as, and to the degree that, the illusion of legitimacy stands—so long as the Right obeys while the Left disobeys and commands—there is no end to what the Left can do because there is so little that conservatives do to fight back.

.. until there is physical fighting, and like with the War Against Southern Independence, all the gloves will come off.

The boomerang and blow-back are real things that the Left is not ready for, and some in rural America are hoping for, so for now Trump, just one person, is holding it all back. Federation to Democracy to Socialism/Fascism/Marxism which is a very toxic brew.

Peace out.

-SF1

Source: Claremont Review of Books

Simple Truths: Sometimes Just One Quote Can Launch One on a Research Expedition

Sometimes only a nugget of truth can cause one’s mind and heart to seek out the deeper meanings of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

From Clyde Wilson comes this gem:

“there has not been a real opposition party in U.S. politics since Mr. Jefferson sent Colonel Hamilton and His Excellency John Adams heading back north.”

Source: “Annals of the Stupid Party: Republicans Before Trump” by Clyde Wilson

Think about it for a minute. I am sure going back ten or fifteen years almost everyone will lament (maybe only privately) that no matter what party or what president is elected after promising the moon, one always seems to get the same “nothing-burger”.

Well, let’s just say the further you go back in the history of the United States of America, the more you see the two or three parties bringing more of the same to this country, sometime the red team is more “progressive”, sometimes the blue team is, but at the end of the day, the politicians will just politic this nation to its eventual death. There is no major difference in the political parties of 2019, same has been the case since the early 1800s. The two parties are the wings of the same bird!

Another quote I came across that had me thinking:

“A civil war, by denotative or connotative definition, occurs when a faction wishes to overthrow or control an existing government in order to impose its own ideology upon the governed. The Southern states that seceded from the Union had neither the desire nor the plans to take command of the country. They simply wanted to withdraw from it, and arguably, according to even some modern constitutionalists and historians, had a right to do so, based upon the nation’s origins. Virginia, New York and Rhode Island demanded that the right of secession be reserved before they would even agree to the Constitution, thereby implying that secession was indeed a right reserved by individual states.”

Source: “Slavery and The Civil War: What Your History Teacher Didn’t Tell You” by Garry Bowers

It is true, and yet 99% of all Americans think, really do think, that the 1861-1865 conflict was a “civil” war. It is a myth, plain and simple.

So what was it? Well, to be honest, if someone files for divorce, is that ever a reason to be an aggressor on individual as in doing personal harm to him or her? Only psychos will “take out” the other person so “no one else can have him/her”.

To break it down properly, you have to know that EACH state acted independently to weigh the pros and cons of secession. Some state representatives said that exiting the federation was too early, others said it was past time. In the end, from December 1860 until early February 1861, seven sovereign states left the federation and others like North Carolina and Virginia decided to stay in the federation of states.

The very act of leaving verses trying to force seven state’s priorities, beliefs and convictions on the remaining 20+ states, means that they were ready to live and let live. There was zero aggression on the part of the exiting states. Even when these states came together in Montgomery, AL in February 1861, there was never the thought of pushing their agenda on the more northern states or the “union” as a whole.

This was not a civil war. People need to know that. It will become important someday, soon I hope.

Another quote from the same source as above might help convince you of a truth, as you consider whether or not to accept it as such:

“In U.S. official government records, it is known as “The War of the Rebellion.” This title, too, is incorrect. In 1867, none other than U.S. Supreme Court Justice Salmon P. Chase noted, in his declaration that Jefferson Davis (or any other Confederate) could not be tried for treason, that “Secession is not rebellion.”

There you have it. The action in 1860/1861 was the same thing as in 1775, when a year later, in 1776 it was stated:

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Please notice that the word “united” is not capitalized. Words and capitalization matters. These were thirteen sovereign states that decided to separate and divorce the British Empire.

Please notice too that the dissolution of the political bands is something that happens in this broken world, and that separate and equal can be better than together and miserable and abused!

This discussion is needed today, in the USA!

If the USSR can do it (break apart into smaller republics), one would think the US, which was born of secession, could do the same. Right?

Just think about it. Research it. Consider it. You don’t have to accept it as truth you know.

-SF1

1860: Worlds Collide as the Northern States Elect a President for ALL the USA

This point in time (1860) was not when friction started between the three major regions of the “united States of America”. Please note that in many documents, the “u” in union was because the emphasis on this “new nation” launched in 1776 was on the States and the powers it reserved for themselves verses the power delegated to the general (now called federal) government. The Articles of Confederation spelled this out better in print and in practice. The Constitution, however, was construed in secret backrooms in Philadelphia in 1787 and became a document that Patrick Henry would prophetically claim “I smell a rat”.

The most telling aspect of the state bent of the original view of this “republic” experiment was the language used to describe it until 1860. An example is the phrase “the United States are a republic.” Yes, you read that right. It sounds wrong only because everyone has been taught that the United States is singular and not plural. In our eyes, it is a nation, it is “one” .. and as the socialist pledge teaches us, it is indivisible.

So what happened? Well if you can imagine a marriage of two regions, south (the strongest region in the 1770s) and the north (the weakest region at this time) set aside their differences to fight off an empire. Successful as they were, they knew that only because England was pulled into a world war on various fronts and the assistance of the French, they were very lucky. Exiting these war years with the Articles of Confederation holding them somewhat together (general government could not tax, raise armies or borrow money), there came an effort to “strengthen” these bonds out of fear. The new marriage vows were designed to allow a stronger bond, general government taxes (a whiskey tax of 25% that put the British Empire’s stamp tax that the colonies revolted against to shame) and other new powers that centralized control. Patrick Henry, George Mason and Richard Henry Lee all saw through the sham of this shift towards tyranny. Eventually Thomas Jefferson would see the defects of this modified republic experiment, but it was too late. A great quote by William M. Robinson, Jr. about this moment in time is:

“The successful working of the dual system (Madison’s ‘dual sovereignty’) depended on the concert and mutual respect of the State and federal governments. When this noble experiment in government was launched in 1789, the world watched with interest and wondered whether human nature would be equal to it.”

Human nature was not equal to it. Compromises was made and even though eventually ten amendments were added (but note these “bill of rights” were not central to this document), these modified “vows” hung heavier and heavier as the country grew and expanded.

Working from a piece from Abbeville Institute on the defining differences in constitutions it is shared about what changed between 1787 and 1860:

Between 1789 and 1861 the US Constitution became a cudgel splintering on the anvil of human nature. No Founder could foresee the social, political and economic upheavals of the next 70 years: the stunning acquisition of land called the Louisiana Purchase doubling the size of a once small Republic cuddled along the Atlantic seaboard; the explosive value of cotton in the 1800 teens; our Industrial Revolution in the 1820’s; a population growth from 3.9 million in 1790 to 31.5 million in 1860, mostly in the North. Neither Jefferson nor Hamilton believed a Republic could govern so large a landmass and diverse a population. By 1860 Washington was long rutted on the road of Empire where human nature roams by instinct to the acquisition of further wealth and power.

By 1860 there was a strong North who had emerged as a leader in political power that left the south and the west (both Midwest and Pacific West) in the shadows. The ability of the general government to tweak tariff revenue dis-proportionally among the regions and subsidize northern “internal improvements” and industry were particularly prominent since about the 1830s. Redistribution of tax monies is never an easy pill to swallow. By 1860, the South felt backed into a corner and when the election results were in, it understood that the North could elect a regional president with only 39% of the country’s votes. This was a marriage that they could no longer be a party too.

However, instead of arguing purely on emotional lines, they decided to use the legality of their exit, by stating that “slavery” was their reason in many of the secessionist documents. Secession/divorce was never ruled out as an option as the North had considered that when it was the weaker partner in 1798 and 1814. Even Lincoln knew he could not push on the slavery issue legally during his first inaugural address in March 1861:

Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that—

I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.

So here we are, seven states had legally seceded from the united States and the newly elected president, the first one elected specifically by a section of the nation alone, is saying that the Constitution limits his ability to end slavery.

Lincoln does not stop there however, from his same speech he says:

I will venture to add that to me the convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject propositions originated by others, not especially chosen for the purpose, and which might not be precisely such as they would wish to either accept or refuse. I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution—which amendment, however, I have not seen—has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.

Yes, Lincoln was willing to make slavery permanent in the states that desired this, IF these seven states would return.

When you read the first inaugural address you can’t say that slavery was the issue for the war that followed, because to Abraham Lincoln, slavery was not worth fighting over. A future post will discuss why a war had to be the only response the North considered when the southern seven states refused to re-join the union. It should be noted that the reasons for secession differ from the reasons for war.

As a side note, when comparing the US and CSA constitutions (again, from the Abbeville Institute article referenced earlier), the slavery sections are identical:

… the CSA [constitution] enunciates what was understood but not written in 1787, especially in three places: 1) the CSA extends the Fugitive Slave Clause to Territories; 2) in the governance of Territories the CSA allows slavery until the Territory becomes a State. The people of that State then choose whether to be a Slave or Free State; 3) the CSA explicitly forbids the Central government interfering with slavery in any State. This last was also the 1861 US Corwin Amendment that Lincoln supported. All three were part of the original, unwritten understanding of the US Founders.

In summary, the major differences were not about slavery, but about sovereignty, which is as follows:

1.        Eliminated ‘dual sovereignty’. No powers were granted to the Central government. Specific powers were delegated.

2.        Created a Defined and Unmistakable Federal government.

3.        Mandated a solitary 6 year term for the President; gave the President a line item veto; required a mere majority vote in Congress for fiscal spending initiated by the President, but a 2/3’s majority if initiated by Congress.

4.        Placed Constitutional amendment conventions entirely in the hands of the States. The Central government had no role but the mandate to issue a call for a convention when 3 of the 7 States had already proposed amendments.

That alone does not look like a slavery-centric divorce/exit plan. This is about letting states have primary powers and specifically giving the general government limited powers. This had been the rub all along!

Also, on a final note, Lincoln too used the marriage analogy in his first inaugural address, but claimed that the “nation” could not do this:

Physically speaking, we can not separate. We can not remove our respective sections from each other nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts of our country can not do this. They can not but remain face to face, and intercourse [communication], either amicable or hostile, must continue between them.

Lincoln has been proven wrong many times on this .. especially with the breakup of the USSR and the subsequent republics that were successfully birthed as a result.

In summary, 1860’s election changed the course of this federated republic, and the reactions to this new reality included the death of over 700,000 men and the ravaging of the southern region physically, emotionally and financially for the next hundred years. In the northern mind, one must pay an eternal price from desiring separation and divorce. Forced to be in this marriage, the south has never been the same, and this marriage has never been the same. Is it over yet?

-SF1

2014 Federation Attempt / 2018 Realities in Novorossiya

When the US/NATO interests back in 2013-2014, specifically the CIA, attempted the Ukraine Orange Revolution 2.0 (version 1.0 being back in 2004-2005), it became obvious rather fast that not unlike Syria (2011-?), this discontent was manufactured by US foreign policy interests. The US/NATO would love to have Ukraine (all of it) firmly in NATO and pressed up firmly on Russian’s border.

In a previous post, I talked a bit about the promises made in 1991-1994 to Russia that NATO would not enter any power vacuum that followed the split up of the USSR into many republics.  The US, never the upholder of treaties when violations of such ink and paper can offer something more for this anxious empire,  accomplished things behind the scenes like Ukraine’s Color / Orange Revolution in 2004 that triggered the masses to overthrow their government (which the US/NATO did not approve of) to tip the scales toward something more aligned with the US Empire’s mission and vision for the globe.

As noted in this Lew Rockwell article, version 1.0 became the template used elsewhere:

The Orange Revolution, as it was known at the time, was a classic CIA-engineered plot to impose their political outcome on the Ukrainian people. And they succeeded with flying colors.

That CIA-sponsored coup d’etat was so successful that it has since been used as a model for every other CIA-manufactured scheme that has toppled governments and reversed fair election outcomes the world over. In fact, the Ukraine is where the various social network utilities were used so effectively that the new MO has become known as the digital blitzkrieg. Never in human history have so many citizens been stampeded in the direction of overthrowing their government while being completely ignorant of the real forces manipulating the cattle prods.

Russia, when faced with foreign sponsored revolution directly on its border (how would the US react if this were happening in Canada or Mexico?), patiently assisted mainly to preserve life of Russian people in the region and ended up with Crimea asking to be annexed inside Russia itself. As far as the other Ukraine provinces that hold many Russians:

.. there was an effort to declare some type of separatist movement, whether absorbed by Russia OR independent along side Ukraine.

As it is many times when cultures overlap, there are never clear majorities or agendas in any given province, so a path forward is never clean and without disagreement, violence, or war.

Eight provinces emerged in 2014 full of ambition to federate into a New Russia:

.. with a flag that might look a little familiar in the United States, the original anti-tyranny flag based on the Christian St. Andrews cross:

 Novorossiya –

… proposed confederation of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) in eastern Ukraine, both of which share a border with Russia. Ukraine has designated the confederation as lying within an Anti-Terrorist Operation Zone.

Notice how this proposed federation would cut the rest of Ukraine from the Black Sea and the oceans and trade beyond. This is similar to how the Western (now Midwest region) states felt when the Confederate States of America was formed from seven seceded states. A panic would ensue when one thinks about the financial implications of such a change.

So in the last four years, there has been an uneasy state of “pause” in this movement as Russia sends these areas $1B USD annually, which is the SAME amount they also support the on-going Syrian defensive operations with. (NOTE: Iran supports the Syrian defenses to the tune of $10B USD annually, ten TIMES that of the Russians)

What are the thoughts now in these provinces toward the future? From this recent Russian Insider article:

According to a 2017 poll carried out by Germans, 45% want to join Russia, 35% want an autonomous status within the Ukraine, while only 21% want to return to the status quo.

The path forward and the timing of any Russian moves to solidify any path for these regions is unclear in the face of US sanctions and threats in the Syrian theater of operations. Russia is too smart to desire a two-front revolution/war of any kind.

As typical in an area that desperately wants to return to some normality in their lives and some security in their and their kid’s futures, some remain defiant, choosing an uncomfortable freedom instead of a stable slavery. People from the left as well as the communist side of the political spectum are aligned when it comes to Novorossiya:

Novorossiya is a core issue for almost all nationalists. Almost all of them can be expected to move from their current ambivalent position on Putin to outright opposition. [should Putin abandon the New Russia effort in Ukraine, which is highly doubtful]

While the nationalist response goes without saving, many Communists will also be quite unhappy. For instance, Zakhar Prilepin (famous author and chief editor of Svobodnaya Pressa, Russia’s best major leftist resource) and leftist activist Sergey Udaltsov (whom Western journalists called a political prisoner for leading the 2011-12 anti-Putin protests along with Navalny, before he revealed himself to be unhandshakeworthy in 2014) are Novorossiya supporters.

This is another region in which “stay tuned” is still a thing. Do your own research and learn more about other regions in this world that value liberty and freedom!

-SF1