Thirteen Stars Are Enough

Love triumphs over politics – at least in my household. My wife and I have long disputed over what flag to fly but last week we hit upon a compromise that satisfied us both. Can you guess which flag we are chose? Here are the facts and from them it should be easy to deduce what flag we are displaying, and why.

It is the flag of rebels who rose up against despotic government over the issue of tariffs. That government despised the rebels as an agrarian rabble that owned slaves. Those rebels mocked their lawful rulers and actually attacked government troops and installations, setting off a lengthy and terrible war that set brother against brother. The flag of the rebels had thirteen stars, and the men who served under that flag rarely had proper uniforms, often went hungry, and froze in the winter. The outcome of that war was decided in the Southern states.

If you guessed that we are flying the St. Andrews Cross of the Confederacy you are wrong. (I said we had compromised!) We are flying the revolutionary flag of the original United States of America. When we can find the streamer with "Don't Tread on Me" that will be flying under it. We found this flag in a gift shop at the Chickamauga Battlefield Park – a must see for any American patriot. To those few government hacks that have any knowledge of this country's history this flag is a direct challenge and it is meant to be. At the same time, displaying this flag is meant to show our patriotism and our belief in the concept of a free Republic under a constitution. You can see why government hacks wouldn't like it.

We Americans won our first Revolution and lost our second. But the cause and the folks involved were pretty much the same. The loss of our second war for freedom wrenched the mechanism of state from the hands of the governed and led us inexorably toward the socialist warfare state that now rules us with an iron hand. This is the government which has turned our country into a confusing paradox of a place; a feminized warfare state – truly a study in contradictions.

I am reminded that we are currently at war, and I shouldn't say such things – that unity is to be treasured above all else. To me, unity is nothing without unanimity. That is why I remain a secessionist, there can be no unanimity in this country where all are ruled from the city state of Washington, and freedom is defined by the state media organs headquartered in New York and Los Angeles. We are under the yoke of a politically correct system of cultural Marxist origin where our constitution is only invoked in the name of infamy, such as the imaginary right of a woman to destroy her unborn child. The free spirited people of the South and West cannot live under such a system without conflict. Our beliefs are not those of the ruling classes, the media or academe. Nor can we give our wholehearted support to a government that oppresses us and whose function is inconsistent with the rules we the people laid down for it to follow.

Consider this current war: it appears that only one side is at war; the terrorists are hitting their targets and killing Americans. The Americans on the other hand, are bombing Afghani tribesman who couldn't find America on the map and probably had scant to do with the WTC. One might wonder why we didn't go into bin Laden's base camps the second day of the "war" and kill every thing that drew breath, then followed by sticking his head on a pike and declaring victory. The government after all, was able to murder over seventy armed Americans in Texas without bombing Houston and without all that hot air about years of war and suspension of the Bill of Rights. (Not that anybody in Waco had any reason to assume the Bill of Rights had not been suspended!)

I have been called a lot names lately: traitor, wimp, communist and another of those pesky fellows who always blame America first; as if I were some leftist media pimp. I'm not sure how these conclusions were reached – my detractors usually refer to me as a right wing wacko or neo-confederate – has something changed? Something has changed all right – the American people are no longer reading history, many of them couldn't if they wanted to, their perception of the state is inculcated into them by those who support big, intrusive government, and this is the fault and intention of our government indoctrination centers. Many Americans still delude themselves into thinking that school teachers are among our best folks and grossly underpaid. They might get a surprise if they talked politics or religion with their children or saw the test scores achieved by their teachers.

American patriots are kidding themselves. This is not America any more nor will it be if we don't make it so. The America our friends the knee jerk patriots are defending suffered a mortal blow in 1865; it has been dying the death of a thousand cuts ever since.

A great contradiction has revealed itself. The welfare / warfare state wished to impose upon us the chains of ignorance, assuming that poorly educated, highly indoctrinated people would, in a feminized culture, fall in to step readily. Americans are taught to believe that diversity is the source of our strength when it is obvious that Western European roots and Christian culture created the America worth fighting for. We are told that violence is bad, that our kids should be kept away from guns and even from the imagined horrors of dodge ball, yet we know that this is a dangerous world and we better hope at least some of our kids grow up to be warriors. We are told that self esteem is more important than achievement and George Bush is certainly one for claiming that we are wonderful while failing to base that claim upon anything specific.

Americans are not as dumb as they are perceived to be by the government. We can tell when the government is lying, when it is fumbling, and we are not deceived by our media. Enough of us are deceived to destroy any hope of unity and therein lies the conundrum. Neither freedom loving rebels like me nor statist blowhards like Jonah Goldberg can honestly claim to speak for anyone. Nor can the left. The red zone and the blue zone could realistically be broken down into many shades of gray. The government has destroyed our sense of nation, ruined any hope of unity, and left us little in return. Yet we the people still love our country but damn few of us trust our leaders.

Perhaps it has something to do with the fumbling attempts at leadership we have experienced of late. You don't need a Harvard education to see that something is badly askew at the seat of power these days. In fact, it is probably only at Harvard that people could miss it. Current affairs remind of something a woman told me once, "Everything you know is wrong!" I just didn't realize then how right she was. Americans aren't as smart as we used to be – but we are not stupid enough to miss seeing the nonsense unfolding before our eyes.

Some examples of our current madness include nonsense like this:

  • We were gravely warned not to take Cipro unless actually infected by Anthrax – it can be dangerous to take antibiotics we were warned. Somehow that changed when Congress was exposed to Anthrax – now they and their "wonderful patriotic young men and women" (their office staff) are drowning in Cipro.
  • The postal workers were told to stay on the job – they are frontline soldiers (we are told) in the war against terrorism. Congress on the other hand bugged out so fast it was mind boggling. Postal workers were not even examined – yet even the police dogs used in Congress got medical testing. Postal workers have died from these attacks – no congressmen have been diagnosed with it so far.
  • We'll soon get to the bottom of this Anthrax attack, we were told by government. Yet who is sending these poison pills? One senator wanted to just go ahead and bomb Iraq. Proof? We don't need no stinking proof, quoth that worthy gentleman. Since we can't seem to figure out who is doing this, our leaders have decided to make some political hay while the sun is shining and blame those pesky right wing militants, whoever they may be. Maybe there should be a five day waiting period for buying Anthrax? Or did those rascals get it at a gun show?
  • Is it Weapons grade anthrax? Hmmmm. "Honest Tom" Ridge says it ain't. "Honest Tom" Thompson says it is. Other government clowns are claiming one or the other position and all points in between. To this observer, it looks pretty damn lethal and Tom Ridge is pissin' on my leg and tellin' me it's raining.
  • The response of government includes the "brilliant" idea of making a new and improved anthrax, and then creating a vaccine that will save us from it. But what about the anthrax that is already killing Americans? Didn't they court-martial some soldiers for refusing their anthrax vaccines just recently? What about that vaccine guys? Does it work or not? If not, why did you give it to our soldiers? Remember TEOTWAWKI? That's "the end of the world as we know it." It's what happens when idiots create new diseases that can't be stopped by existing medicines. Only lemmings and human beings would even consider it.
  • Government, which tells us that the "plan" is on track, has simultaneously asked the public to help come up with ideas to defeat our enemies, whoever they are. If there is a plan and it is on track, I'm unaware of it. A new terrorist alert was just issued – but no information was given and just what we should do to prepare. Is that part of the plan or is this terror thing just becoming like the weather – we check it before bed and don't go to work in sky scrapers if there is an alert? Is this too weird?
  • The FBI, contrary to all common sense wants to consolidate all the Internet servers ostensibly so they can be monitored for terrorist messages. First off – this is stupid, criminally stupid, since that makes the internet much more vulnerable to attack. It's called the "one big depot" theory and it was discredited before Julius Caesar was born. Second, what about Carnivore? Can't those bozos already monitor every email and phone call that goes out? Why do we suffer these buffoons?
  • Government, which has announced that it will not rest until the world wide phenomena of terrorism is eradicated, continues to support Islamic terrorists in the Balkans, where the destabilization of Macedonia is well under way. Considerable military resources are tied up assisting these Islamic war criminals in their ethnic cleansing operation in Kosovo. That gang of thugs has destroyed thousands of Christian churches and yet we are supposed to be concerned about fighting on Fridays, the "traditional Muslim day of prayer." Well, we sure wouldn't want to offend anyone's sensibilities.
  • Our President speaks often of eliminating "evil doers" which sounds so silly that many of us are just shaking our heads in disbelief. The same man professes to be a practicing Christian yet has only to open his Bible to learn that we are all evil doers and will remain so until the return of Christ. We are paying this guy big money to defend us from attack. There are terrorists all over the place and he bombs Afghanistan. This has a very strong odor of expediency – what's the one country in the world you can bomb (besides Iraq!) and not offend some business interest or the other? While he is smiting "evil doers" the terrorists are walking around laughing at us.
  • The most horrifying example of government stupidity came when some ridiculous air force general, no doubt of Clinton vintage, announced that those darned Afghanis just aren't rollin' over as quick as "we" thought they would. His body language was that of a thoroughly whipped sissy. At first I assumed this was an aberration but several days later Donald Rumsfield was blathering on the same topic, and noted how "dogged" the enemy are for standing up to our horrendous bombardment for over three weeks. Well, hello, is anybody in Washington aware of happenings on the planet Earth? Everybody from the wino on the corner to the normally ignorant news media have privy to the state "secret" that Afghanis are among the toughest fighting men in the world. They fought the Soviets for ten long murderous years and suffered over a million deaths without complaint. When no foreign invader is available they fight each other. To men like those, fighting is quite natural. We should be really worried because our leaders apparently went in there "thinking" that with all our gee whiz gear that these fuzzy wuzzies would just roll over but it ain't gonna happen so now what?
  • It was particularly embarrassing to hear that our special ops guys were pulled out after meeting "ferocious" resistance and were astonished that the enemy counterattacked them almost immediately. Casualties in this "desperate" battle were zero. I'm guessing that the politicians who are micro managing this fiasco are more to blame than the men on the ground. Elite troops expect to take casualties but politicians think this can be bloodless – yet expect civilians (other than themselves) to be prepared for heavy losses. Did someone put magic mushrooms in the soup at the last state dinner? We better remember that this special ops guys are all we have, despite what you'd think from watching Hollywood epics where even the chef is a Navy Seal waiting to unload on any "evil doers" that may turn up. Total special ops troops available? Maybe 2000, maybe a few more if we count SAS and various Brit commandos. After that folks, it's Clinton's Army, in all its feminized glory. Do you think Bush changed all that? In nine months? Want to bet your life on it?
  • Islam is the religion of peace. Right. The government wants us to believe that. The media wants us to believe that. The real question is why do they want us to believe that?
  • England is our natural ally. Huh? Special relationship? What?! Who burned the White House? Who did we fight for eight years for our freedom? Who got us into the First World War, and by extension, the second? What has that socialist state done for us a) ever, and b) lately?
  • Israel is our natural ally. Again, Huh? Says who? Why should we support a socialist government anywhere in the world? Why should we go to war to defend a country that can defend itself?
  • Government inattention to enforcing the laws of the land allowed thousands of potential enemies to enter the country. Yet the first thing government wanted after the attacks was more laws directed against us the citizens of this country. We should have given them something all right – a kick in the butt.
  • It is our patriotic duty to fly even though we can expect that grandma will get the same miserable treatment as Mohammed the terrorist poster child. Our money was extorted from us to bail out the very airlines who routinely abuse us yet are unwilling to defend us. Just how is it my duty to submit to humiliating treatment by guards who are obviously foreigners, obviously incompetent, and obviously enjoying themselves a great deal? How does this help the war effort?
  • The Pakistanis are our great friends in the war against terror, and just never you mind what goes on in Kashmir. But our brilliant leaders, always ready to reinforce the confidence of an ally, are leaking the news that there is a joint Israeli / American plan to snatch the nukes from Pakistan "just in case." How helpful that news must be to the Pakistani leaders who are trying to keep the lid on things in their volatile country.

So we can look at these anomalies and be relatively certain that we as Americans, are in deep trouble. This war is very close to getting out of hand. The Afghanis have indeed turned out to be more "dogged" than those lightweight Pentagon planners had imagined. One Afghani fighter told a reporter in Pakistan that they were shamed because the Americans have hardly hit them enough for them to notice it – he noted that when Ivan came calling he'd attack a single village with sixty planes and a hundred tanks, and sometimes actually take a village. He felt insulted by our efforts so far. No, they are not impressed by our military efforts and they are not going to bend to our will if this is how we are going to play the game.

They may be wondering one thing though – why we are doing it.

I say this now as an old solder. Bombs going off course, or "collateral damage" do not particularly shock me. I know what war is and expect that sort of thing as natural. That is why I always counsel caution when drawing the sword. If you don't want systematic murder, stay away from it. Sometimes a country must defend itself and at such times we should call down the horrors of hell upon our enemies. Nothing has occurred to convince me that the Afghanis have done anything to warrant that. I must ask why bin Laden, whom we are told was the perpetrator, is still alive. Of course the answer is obvious – we are giving the Saudis a pass, pretending that Syria doesn't exist, and trying to build a useless coalition because our war aims are different from our foreign policy – both of which are being pursued simultaneously.

The Afghans asked for proof that bin Laden pulled the WTC "stunt." They didn't get it. Now I'm asking for proof. Our government's track record is so bad that I have that right. They do not have my trust. I back this up by saying that when you show me convincing evidence that the Afghanis are culpable; I'm willing to help kill them. I'm well aware of how tough they are but I'm tough too. Yet a real warrior will not kill lightly. So listen up Sam, put your cards on the table if you want my support. John McCain, hero of the neo-cons, wants to send in ground troops now. Is it unpatriotic to ask what their job would be and just whom he wants them to kill?

For you fire breathing America love it or leave it types, I ask you one thing: did you trust your government before 11 September 2001? If you did we have nothing to discuss, I've not time to present reasoned arguments to children. If you didn't trust them then, why do you trust them now? Is it a need to trust? I warn you that of all reasons you can ever have for trusting someone, that is the worst. There is actually only one reason to ever trust anyone, and that is that they are in fact, trustworthy.

Now think back, and ask yourselves, "Who was going to throw open our borders just a week before the attacks?" And if you now trust the media, ask this one, "How come 8 million illegal aliens suddenly, in the space of a couple days, were suddenly being reported as three million by the media?" Could it be that they too were in favor of Dubya's amnesty proposal, knew that we the people weren't, and tried to soft pedal it? Should we forget that our open borders policy set us up for attack? Should we dare to ask the question, "Are you going to go back to your open borders nonsense once this war is over?" It looks like business as usual to me – Dubya was just on the news talking about how we "needed" immigration but must be more careful in the future. Yep, three hundred million people is just not enough, and despite the economic downturn and millions of unemployed Americans, we need more immigrants.

Now, why was it you said you trusted these people?

People who say I'm a bad guy for blaming America first need to pump the air of their heads and use that thing for thinking instead of blowing smoke. Read the documents of the founders. Examine the public school system. Examine our immigration policies, and review our system of laws. You'll soon find our leaders have passed literally thousands of laws that have no constitutional basis whatsoever. So no, I'm not blaming America first – I'm blaming the American people for rolling over like a bunch of supine sissies while despotism was quietly implemented under the guise of democracy. I have little time for the jingoist crowd who are happy to avoid thinking and as a result are harming the cause of freedom. We seem to have an abundance of "good Germans" just now when what we need is thoughtful, brave patriots.

Maybe, just maybe, it's time to hold these government people accountable and bend them to our will. Since the will of the people in New York is different from that of the people in Georgia, I tend to prefer secession to oppression. The one thing that is absolutely certain is this: what we have now is not working. A couple more attacks and our country will degenerate into a poorly organized and inefficient police state. It is mildly amusing that a government that claims "democracy" is the key to all that is good, allows us no say in anything. Even more ironic is that Johnny Rebs like me, who still believe in the Republic, don't trust the government enough to tolerate a Republic with them at the helm. Something has to give.

There have been numerous conspiracy theories about these WTC attacks which include but are not limited to, the following:

  • The government did it
  • The Israelis did it
  • The Russians did it

Is this government competent to pull off such an operation and keep it secret? Hardly. The Israelis? Well, they are certainly the folks with something to gain, and they are efficient, but how much do they stand to lose if they did it and it was found out? The Russians? Well, there are a couple of folks who think that but I certainly don't.

The truth is, I don't know who did it. I'm not sure Sam knows who did it either. I want to kill the folks who did it, and if the Afghanis were part of it, then bombs away. I must confess however, that I'm mighty queasy about killing these folks when I'm not sure of their guilt, and while my own government stubbornly clings to a crazed policy of supporting terrorists in the Balkans. That really worries me and it certainly has nothing to do with unity of purpose. And while I'm pretty darn sure that the attack on the World Trade Center was done by some flavor of terrorist, the attack on "freedom itself" is being organized in Washington DC.

October 31, 2001