Topics – Page 5 – Zombies Uncensored

Pres. Lincoln: ‘Ship ’em back to Africa’

Southern Avenger Jack Hunter: Slaves to ‘Settled’ History

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPCDPhLoA5U&feature=player_embedded

Southern Avenger Jack Hunter: Liberals, and quite a few mainstream conservatives, believe that any questioning of official Civil War history is not even to be permitted.

The controversy over declarations honoring Confederate soldiers opens the question which facts from the Civil War are permissible, and makes yet another argument for getting the government as far away from the public school system as possible. Part of the reason for the lack of civility when it comes to discussions about the civil war is due to how the war is taught in school.

The recent debate over the moral high-ground led me to dig deeper into the history of the war–deeper than what I was taught in school. A little research led to several “that wasn’t in my history book” moments.

Ron Paul had pointed out several times the Civil War might have been avoided if slaves were bought by the federal government to free them.

PAUL: No, I don’t think he was one of our greatest presidents. I mean, he was determined to fight a bloody civil war, which many have argued could have been avoided. For 1/100th the cost of the war, plus 600 thousand lives, enough money would have been available to buy up all the slaves and free them. So, I don’t see that is a good part of our history.

I dug a little deeper and learned something new: what Paul was referring to is called compensation emancipation. President Lincoln did propose compensated emancipation for slaves in six Union slave states. In the proposal Lincoln sent to the Union states, slaves had the cost at $400 per slave, $300 in compensation to the slave owner, and $100 for deportation and colonization.

Not only did Lincoln propose compensated emancipation, on April 16, 1862, it was enacted, at least in the District of Columbia. After the Civil War started, President Abraham Lincoln signed the The District of Columbia Emancipation Act, which ended slavery in the Capital and compensated former owners loyal to the Union $300 per slave.

At the moment, I’m not so sure about Paul’s view that Lincoln was “‘determined to fight a bloody civil war,” because Lincoln supported a version of compensated emancipation; I can’t say I see Lincoln as a great President, though, because Lincoln held a ‘ship ’em back to Africa’ attitude.

At the moment, I say I’m not sure because I have no way of knowing what other facts were buried in Civil War history. The unpopular and obscured facts from Civil War history I’ve stumbled upon feels akin to finding out you’re adopted, because the country I thought I came from turns out not to exist.

Political Pedophiles at School

St Paul’s and St Michael’s School, Performing their “MP Diane Abbott RAP”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GMunSfsyUI&feature=player_embedded

The children attend St Paul’s with St Michael’s Church of England Primary School. They are singing praises to their Member of Parliament (MP), the UK equivalent of a member of congress.

Why would a private church school teach their students to sing praises to their government representative, Diane Abbott? This school is a Voluntary Aided School, which means they receive all their operating costs from the central government. It’s like a little league team in America singing praises to their sponsor.

It’s perfectly fine for schools to educate children about their government and representatives. Teaching children tolerance and concern for others is a good idea. I question, however, the school taking such a major role in promoting political positions, primarily a parental responsibility.

Praising children for performing songs reciting campaign points of ruling politicians is a perversion of education. We have age of consent laws because children aren’t adequately developed, physically or emotionally, to consent to sexual acts. How is it that adults, in positions of authority and trust, ignore the fact childhood reasoning processes are not adequately developed to discern the relevant merits of political systems, either?

Using children in this manner to promote specific agendas is simply political pedophilia.

Political Pedophiles at School

St Paul’s and St Michael’s School, Performing their “MP Diane Abbott RAP”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GMunSfsyUI&feature=player_embedded

The children attend St Paul’s with St Michael’s Church of England Primary School. They are singing praises to their Member of Parliament (MP), the UK equivalent of a member of congress.

Using children in this manner to promote specific agendas is simply political pedophilia.

Ron Paul SRLC highlights

Ron Paul at Southern Republican Leadership Conference

Just a couple of ideas from Ron Paul I’d like to hear more politicians promote.

No matter how badly you would like to have them, all empires end, not because they’re defeated militarily, all empires end for financial reasons.

We can do better with peace than with war.

War: Fog of Moral Justification

Sons of Confederate Veterans Chairman Defends Omission of Slavery from Confederate History Month

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UzaC_YARlw&feature=player_embedded

To explain why there is still a divide over why the US Civil War was fought, look to the war in Iraq. If a public opinion poll was taken today asking what the Iraq war is about, you’d probably get several different views and just as heated discussions.

Some of the debated reasons for the war in Iraq:

WMD’s (Weapons of Mass Destruction)
Oil
Combating Terrorism
Human Rights
Bringing democracy to the Middle East

The original emphasis of the war was to remove WMDs from Iraq, because they posed a threat to the US and the stability of the Persian Gulf region. After no WMDs were found, the emphasis (and justification) for the war shifted. Concerns over human rights, combating terrorism and promoting democracy were elevated over removing non-existant WMDs as the reason for the war.

Was the Iraq war fought for the original issue of WMDs, or was it to combat terrorism? When the war is over, will there be another reason promoted? We are living through the years of the war right now, and still there isn’t a consensus over why the war is being fought.

Something very similar happened in the Civil War. Originally, Presidents Lincoln’s goal was to preserve the union; after the war began, the emphasis shifted to ending slavery.

Except from Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address

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.

Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them; and more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read:

Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.

In Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, prior to the end of the war, the issue became the morality of slavery.

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

When justifications for war change as a war goes on, it leads to endless debates about the “real reason” for fighting the war. A hundred and fifty years from now, the question will be asked, “Why was the Iraqi war fought?” And there won’t be a consensus on that war, either. Once the fog of war sets in, the fog of moral justification sets in too.

UK Post Office Resurrecting Freddie and Fannie Debacle

Just keep piling it on until the entire edifice falls down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs5mt5Bsvck&playnext_from=TL&videos=2If1BOIF2ds

The UK is working on creating its own version of a Freddie and Fannie debacle of low rate mortgages to increase home ownership. The interesting part is that in the UK the method of delivery is not a (GSE) government-sponsored enterprise, but the Post Office.

The Post Office plans to shake up the mortgage market in the UK

Despite the Bank of England base rate remaining unchanged at 0.5pc, Britain’s biggest high street financial services provider – with more branches than all the banks combined – has just cut its mortgage rates for the fourth month in a row. Better still, the new deals are fixed rates for up to five years and some are market-beaters.

This isn’t just good news for hard-pressed homebuyers but for many others too, particularly people in rural communities, because the company in question is the Post Office.

What? You didn’t know the place where you buy stamps also provides homeloans? Well, you do now.

So I looked at the UK Post Office web site to see for myself. Loans, very similar to the ones the US is still struggling with, are being touted as “Rate Designed For You” by the UK post office. At least the banks/Post Office are requiring 20 percent down, so it’s not as bad as some of the sub-prime mortgages were in the US.

2 year fixed rate

3.15% which is a fixed rate until 30/06/2012, then

3.49% variable, which is the Bank of England Base Rate plus 2.99% for the rest of the mortgage period

Government backed loans, low fixed rate to attract buyers, followed by variable interest rates–what could go wrong?

Back to the original article about the Post Office loans.

The new deals are part of the Post Office’s bid to reverse decades of decline – and its success could help revive commercial life in many villages, which might otherwise fade into dormitory suburbs.

It plans to follow up with a new current account and first-time buyer mortgages as part of its strategy to provide a viable alternative to the high street banks, whose reputations have been tarnished by charging borrowers too much and paying savers too little.

I had thought the lessons of government backed mortgages were clear by now. When governments back loans, it encourages risky behavior. The artificial demand for loans creates a bubble, the bubble eventually pops, and people are left upside-down in mortgages. I thought it would be at least a decade or two until this idea reared its ugly head again.

Thanks to The Modern Mystic for pointing this out.

O’Reilly Misrepresents Facts on Westboro Case, Again

Megyn Kelly discusses Westboro Baptist Church with Bill O’Reilly

Kelly argues areas where O’Reilly has misrepresented the facts surrounding this case. O’Reilly accused Kelly of saying the case had no merit, while Kelly’s position was that it was going to be a closed case.

O’Reilly accused the other two judges in the case with concurring with Judge Shedd’s view that “reasonable people can debate the worthiness the appropriateness of Westboro position.” Kelly points out the other judges threw the case out for other reasons, and did not need to concur with Judge Shedd.

Kelly goes on to explain to O’Reilly that Judge Shedd has a point. “It may not have been intentional infliction of emotional distress, for this Westboro Baptist Church people to go outside of that funeral and protest, because to make that claim under the law you have to prove conduct that is extreme and outrageous, but extreme and outrageous don’t have the meaning that you and I understand them to have; legally it means something else.”

Latter on Kelly also points out that the Westboro protest was a thousand feet away from the funeral. For a moment, I thought Kelly was going to point out another area where O’Reilly has misrepresented this case, as the protesters didn’t disrupt the funeral.

O’Reilly states at the start of the clip:

As you may remember, these fanatics disrupted the funeral Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder, twenty years old, killed in Iraq.

Evidently the Westboro group wasn’t very successful in disrupting the funeral in question. The father of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder did not see t signs of the protesters until he saw them on television later that day.

Kelly points out this case has serious implications on free speech, which it has; but this case has also been a serious misrepresentation of the facts by O’Reilly.

O’Reilly Misrepresents Facts on Westboro Case, Again

Megyn Kelly discusses Westboro Baptist Church with Bill O’Reilly

O’Reilly states at the start of the clip:

As you may remember, these fanatics disrupted the funeral Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder, twenty years old, killed in Iraq.

Kelly points out this case has serious implications on free speech, which it has; but this case has also been a serious misrepresentation of the facts by O’Reilly.

Government Free Fantasy Pledge

This is what happens when you show up at a tea party with a “no medicare” pledge?

This pledge to stop using governmental programs is very popular with big government advocates. Underneath, the argument is quite simple: if you don’t like governmental control in one area, you should forgo governmental control in all areas.

It’s the updated version of “Day in the Life of Joe Middle-Class Republican.” The newer version is The Tea Party Pledge.

The main purpose behind the pledge is to label as “hypocrites” those who would halt the expansion or call for reducing the role of government. The implied argument is that if you think its wrong for the government to be in control of the items listed but do not abstain from using them, you can’t be taken seriously.

In essence, it’s asking people to act as though they live in a world that doesn’t exist. Government is involved with almost every aspect of our lives; it’s impossible to live government-free. The argument is tantamount to telling an environmentalist who complains about air quality to stop breathing.

Those calling for government to stop farm subsidies are not hypocrites for eating. An environmentalist calling for the elimination of fossil fuels isn’t a hypocrite each time they use a fossil fuel, because the fossil fuel free world does not exist. Calling for the reduction of government in a life dominated by government isn’t hypocritical, either.

The hypocrisy here is in ignoring how government has slowly taken away from people the ability to be self-reliant. The money for all the services government supplies comes from the people. A natural consequence of taking wealth from people is that they become dependent on the entity that now has control of their wealth.

The cruel nature of these attacks is especially clear when asking people to abstain from Social Security. Money taken from paychecks for Social Security throughout the years hinders individuals’ ability to save for their own retirement. These activists then have the nerve to call people hypocrites to accept some of their own money back from the Social Security system in order to survive.

These listed items in this pledge makes a very different point than intended: Government is too big–so big it’s clearly impossible to live without direct involvement in each of our lives.

Fears of US Political Violence Put in Perspective: Softcore

Warnings of political violence and domestic terrorism in America seem to be all the rage these days. Bricks thrown through windows and buses being egged–oh my!

It is just talk; for real examples of political violence, you have to look outside of the US: places like Iraq, where today suicide bombers killed 42 people. Or South Africa, where President Jacob Zuma called for unity after the murder of a white supremacist on Saturday.

No curfews in America due to riots, as there are in India right now. Police in riot gear aren’t battling protesters, but they are in the UK where the EDL clashed with police over a new mosque being built.

Below is a video that sums up the fighting being waged in America today. When it comes to political violence and domestic terrorism, I think the US might just come in dead last.

Washington D.C Monument pillow fight April 3rd 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYLPvZiBuog