http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=Philosophy Thu, 20 Jun 2013 08:06:22 -0400 Liveleak http://edge.liveleak.com/80281E/u/u/ll2/logo.gif http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=Philosophy Wed, 19 Jun 2013 12:42:15 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e05_1371659875 socialism-rocks Who was the first president of the United States? Ask any school child and they will readily tell you "George Washington." And of course, they would be wrong-at least technically. Washington was not inaugurated until April 30, 1789. And yet, the United States continually had functioning governments from as early as September 5, 1774 and operated as a confederated nation from as early as July 4, 1776. During that nearly fifteen year interval, Congress-first the Continental Congress and then later the Confederation Congress-was always moderated by a duly elected president. As the chief executive officer of the government of the United States, the president was recognized as the head of state. Washington was thus the fifteenth in a long line of distinguished presidents-and he led the seventeenth administration-he just happened to be the first under the current constitution. So who were the luminaries who preceded him? The following brief biographies profile these "forgotten presidents." Peyton Randolph of Virginia (1723-1775) When delegates gathered in Philadelphia for the first Continental Congress, they promptly elected the former King's Attorney of Virginia as the moderator and president of their convocation. He was a propitious choice. He was a legal prodigy-having studied at the Inner Temple in London, served as his native colony's Attorney General, and tutored many of the most able men of the South at William and Mary College-including the young Patrick Henry. His home in Williamsburg was the gathering place for Virginia's legal and political gentry-and it remains a popular attraction in the restored colonial capital. He had served as a delegate in the Virginia House of Burgesses, and had been a commander under William Byrd in the colonial militia. He was a scholar of some renown-having begun a self-guided reading of the classics when he was thirteen. Despite suffering poor health served the Continental Congress as president twice, in 1774 from September 5 to October 21, and then again for a few days in 1775 from May 10 to May 23. He never lived to see independence, yet was numbered among the nation's most revered founders. Henry Middleton (1717-1784) America's second elected president was one of the wealthiest planters in the South, the patriarch of the most powerful families anywhere in the nation. His public spirit was evident from an early age. He was a member of his state's Common House from 1744-1747. During the last two years he served as the Speaker. During 1755 he was the King's Commissioner of Indian Affairs. He was a member of the South Carolina Council from 1755-1770. His valor in the War with the Cherokees during 1760-1761 earned him wide recognition throughout the colonies-and demonstrated his cool leadership abilities while under pressure. He was elected as a delegate to the first session of the Continental Congress and when Peyton Randolph was forced to resign the presidency, his peers immediately turned to Middleton to complete the term. He served as the fledgling coalition's president from October 22, 1774 until Randolph was able to resume his duties briefly beginning on May 10, 1775. Afterward, he was a member of the Congressional Council of Safety and helped to establish the young nation's policy toward the encouragement and support of education. In February 1776 he resigned his political involvements in order to prepare his family and lands for what he believed was inevitable war-but he was replaced by his son Arthur who eventually became a signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, served time as an English prisoner of war, and was twice elected Governor of his state. John Hancock (1737-1793) The third president was a patriot, rebel leader, merchant who signed his name into immortality in giant strokes on the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The boldness of his signature has made it live in American minds as a perfect expression of the strength and freedom-and defiance-of the individual in the face of British tyranny. As President of the Continental Congress during two widely spaced terms-the first from May 24 1775 to October 30 1777 and the second from November 23 1885 to June 5, 1786-Hancock was the presiding officer when the members approved the Declaration of Independence. Because of his position, it was his official duty to sign the document first-but not necessarily as dramatically as he did. Hancock figured prominently in another historic event-the battle at Lexington: British troops who fought there April 10, 1775, had known Hancock and Samuel Adams were in Lexington and had come there to capture these rebel leaders. And the two would have been captured, if they had not been warned by Paul Revere. As early as 1768, Hancock defied the British by refusing to pay customs charges on the cargo of one of his ships. One of Boston's wealthiest merchants, he was recognized by the citizens, as well as by the British, as a rebel leader-and was elected President of the first Massachusetts Provincial Congress. After he was chosen President of the Continental Congress in 1775, Hancock became known beyond the borders of Massachusetts, and, having served as colonel of the Massachusetts Governor's Guards he hoped to be named commander of the American forces-until John Adams nominated George Washington. In 1778 Hancock was commissioned Major General and took part in an unsuccessful campaign in Rhode Island. But it was as a political leader that his real distinction was earned-as the first Governor of Massachusetts, as President of Congress, and as President of the Massachusetts constitutional ratification convention. He helped win ratification in Massachusetts, gaining enough popular recognition to make him a contender for the newly created Presidency of the United States, but again he saw Washington gain the prize. Like his rival, George Washington, Hancock was a wealthy man who risked much for the cause of independence. He was the wealthiest New Englander supporting the patriotic cause, and, although he lacked the brilliance of John Adams or the capacity to inspire of Samuel Adams, he became one of the foremost leaders of the new nation-perhaps, in part, because he was willing to commit so much at such risk to the cause of freedom. Henry Laurens (1724-1792) The only American president ever to be held as a prisoner of war by a foreign power, Laurens was heralded after he was released as "the father of our country," by no less a personage than George Washington. He was of Huguenot extraction, his ancestors having come to America from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes made the Reformed faith illegal. Raised and educated for a life of mercantilism at his home in Charleston, he also had the opportunity to spend more than a year in continental travel. It was while in Europe that he began to write revolutionary pamphlets-gaining him renown as a patriot. He served as vice-president of South Carolina in1776. He was then elected to the Continental Congress. He succeeded John Hancock as President of the newly independent but war beleaguered United States on November 1, 1777. He served until December 9, 1778 at which time he was appointed Ambassador to the Netherlands. Unfortunately for the cause of the young nation, he was captured by an English warship during his cross-Atlantic voyage and was confined to the Tower of London until the end of the war. After the Battle of Yorktown, the American government regained his freedom in a dramatic prisoner exchange-President Laurens for Lord Cornwallis. Ever the patriot, Laurens continued to serve his nation as one of the three representatives selected to negotiate terms at the Paris Peace Conference in 1782. John Jay (1745-1829) America's first Secretary of State, first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, one of its first ambassadors, and author of some of the celebrated Federalist Papers, Jay was a Founding Father who, by a quirk of fate, missed signing the Declaration of Independence-at the time of the vote for independence and the signing, he had temporarily left the Continental Congress to serve in New York's revolutionary legislature. Nevertheless, he was chosen by his peers to succeed Henry Laurens as President of the United States-serving a term from December 10, 1778 to September 27, 1779. A conservative New York lawyer who was at first against the idea of independence for the colonies, the aristocratic Jay in 1776 turned into a patriot who was willing to give the next twenty-five years of his life to help establish the new nation. During those years, he won the regard of his peers as a dedicated and accomplished statesman and a man of unwavering principle. In the Continental Congress Jay prepared addresses to the people of Canada and Great Britain. In New York he drafted the State constitution and served as Chief Justice during the war. He was President of the Continental Congress before he undertook the difficult assignment, as ambassador, of trying to gain support and funds from Spain. After helping Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, and Laurens complete peace negotiations in Paris in 1783, Jay returned to become the first Secretary of State, called "Secretary of Foreign Affairs" under the Articles of Confederation. He negotiated valuable commercial treaties with Russia and Morocco, and dealt with the continuing controversy with Britain and Spain over the southern and western boundaries of the United States. He proposed that America and Britain establish a joint commission to arbitrate disputes that remained after the war-a proposal which, though not adopted, influenced the government's use of arbitration and diplomacy in settling later international problems. In this post Jay felt keenly the weakness of the Articles of Confederation and was one of the first to advocate a new governmental compact. He wrote five Federalist Papers supporting the Constitution, and he was a leader in the New York ratification convention. As first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Jay made the historic decision that a State could be sued by a citizen from another State, which led to the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution. On a special mission to London he concluded the "Jay Treaty," which helped avert a renewal of hostilities with Britain but won little popular favor at home-and it is probably for this treaty that this Founding Father is best remembered. Samuel Huntington (1732-1796) An industrious youth who mastered his studies of the law without the advantage of a school, a tutor, or a master-borrowing books and snatching opportunities to read and research between odd jobs-he was one of the greatest self-made men among the Founders. He was also one of the greatest legal minds of the age-all the more remarkable for his lack of advantage as a youth. In 1764, in recognition of his obvious abilities and initiative, he was elected to the General Assembly of Connecticut. The next year he was chosen to serve on the Executive Council. In 1774 he was appointed Associate Judge of the Superior Court and, as a delegate to the Continental Congress, was acknowledged to be a legal scholar of some respect. He served in Congress for five consecutive terms, during the last of which he was elected President. He served in that off ice from September 28, 1779 until ill health forced him to resign on July 9, 1781. He returned to his home in Connecticut-and as he recuperated, he accepted more Counciliar and Bench duties. He again took his seat in Congress in 1783, but left it to become Chief Justice of his state's Superior Court. He was elected Lieutenant Governor in 1785 and Governor in 1786. According to John Jay, he was "the most precisely trained Christian jurists ever to serve his country." Thomas McKean (1734-1817) During his astonishingly varied fifty-year career in public life he held almost every possible position-from deputy county attorney to President of the United States under the Confederation. Besides signing the Declaration of Independence, he contributed significantly to the development and establishment of constitutional government in both his home state of Delaware and the nation. At the Stamp Act Congress he proposed the voting procedure that Congress adopted: that each colony, regardless of size or population, have one vote-the practice adopted by the Continental Congress and the Congress of the Confederation, and the principle of state equality manifest in the composition of the Senate. And as county judge in 1765, he defied the British by ordering his court to work only with documents that did not bear the hated stamps. In June 1776, at the Continental Congress, McKean joined with Caesar Rodney to register Delaware's approval of the Declaration of Independence, over the negative vote of the third Delaware delegate, George Read-permitting it to be "The unanimous declaration of the thirteen United States." And at a special Delaware convention, he drafted the constitution for that State. McKean also helped draft-and signed-the Articles of Confederation. It was during his tenure of service as President-from July 10, 1781 to November 4, 1782-when news arrived from General Washington in October 1781 that the British had surrendered following the Battle of Yorktown. As Chief Justice of the supreme court of Pennsylvania, he contributed to the establishment of the legal system in that State, and, in 1787, he strongly supported the Constitution at the Pennsylvania Ratification Convention, declaring it "the best the world has yet seen." At sixty-five, after over forty years of public service, McKean resigned from his post as Chief Justice. A candidate on the Democratic-Republican ticket in 1799, McKean was elected Governor of Pennsylvania. As Governor, he followed such a strict policy of appointing only fellow Republicans to office that he became the father of the spoils system in America. He served three tempestuous terms as Governor, completing one of the longest continuous careers of public service of any of the Founding Fathers. John Hanson (1715-1783) He was the heir of one of the greatest family traditions in the colonies and became the patriarch of a long line of American patriots-his great grandfather died at Lutzen beside the great King Gustavus Aldophus of Sweden; his grandfather was one of the founders of New Sweden along the Delaware River in Maryland; one of his nephews was the military secretary to George Washington; another was a signer of the Declaration; still another was a signer of the Constitution; yet another was Governor of Maryland during the Revolution; and still another was a member of the first Congress; two sons were killed in action with the Continental Army; a grandson served as a member of Congress under the new Constitution; and another grandson was a Maryland Senator. Thus, even if Hanson had not served as President himself, he would have greatly contributed to the life of the nation through his ancestry and progeny. As a youngster he began a self-guided reading of classics and rather quickly became an acknowledged expert in the juridicalism of Anselm and the practical philosophy of Seneca-both of which were influential in the development of the political philosophy of the great leaders of the Reformation. It was based upon these legal and theological studies that the young planter-his farm, Mulberry Grove was just across the Potomac from Mount Vernon-began to espouse the cause of the patriots. In 1775 he was elected to the Provincial Legislature of Maryland. Then in 1777, he became a member of Congress where he distinguished himself as a brilliant administrator. Thus, he was elected President in 1781. He served in that office from November 5, 1781 until November 3, 1782. He was the first President to serve a full term after the full ratification of the Articles of Confederation-and like so many of the Southern and New England Founders, he was strongly opposed to the Constitution when it was first discussed. He remained a confirmed anti-federalist until his untimely death. Elias Boudinot (1741-1802) He did not sign the Declaration, the Articles, or the Constitution. He did not serve in the Continental Army with distinction. He was not renowned for his legal mind or his political skills. He was instead a man who spent his entire career in foreign diplomacy. He earned the respect of his fellow patriots during the dangerous days following the traitorous action of Benedict Arnold. His deft handling of relations with Canada also earned him great praise. After being elected to the Congress from his home state of New Jersey, he served as the new nation's Secretary for Foreign Affairs-managing the influx of aid from France, Spain, and Holland. The in 1783 he was elected to the Presidency. He served in that office from November 4, 1782 until November 2, 1783. Like so many of the other early presidents, he was a classically trained scholar, of the Reformed faith, and an anti-federalist in political matters. He was the father and grandfather of frontiersmen-and one of his grandchildren and namesakes eventually became a leader of the Cherokee nation in its bid for independence from the sprawling expansion of the United States. Thomas Mifflin (1744-1800) By an ironic sort of providence, Thomas Mifflin served as George Washington's first aide-de-camp at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, and, when the war was over, he was the man, as President of the United States, who accepted Washington's resignation of his commission. In the years between, Mifflin greatly served the cause of freedom-and, apparently, his own cause-while serving as the first Quartermaster General of the Continental Army. He obtained desperately needed supplies for the new army-and was suspected of making excessive profit himself. Although experienced in business and successful in obtaining supplies for the war, Mifflin preferred the front lines, and he distinguished himself in military actions on Long Island and near Philadelphia. Born and reared a Quaker, he was excluded from their meetings for his military activities. A controversial figure, Mifflin lost favor with Washington and was part of the Conway Cabal-a rather notorious plan to replace Washington with General Horatio Gates. And Mifflin narrowly missed court-martial action over his handling of funds by resigning his commission in 1778. In spite of these problems-and of repeated charges that he was a drunkard-Mifflin continued to be elected to positions of responsibility-as President and Governor of Pennsylvania, delegate to the Constitutional Convention, as well as the highest office in the land-where he served from November 3, 1783 to November 29, 1784. Most of Mifflin's significant contributions occurred in his earlier years-in the First and Second Continental Congresses he was firm in his stand for independence and for fighting for it, and he helped obtain both men and supplies for Washington's army in the early critical period. In 1784, as President, he signed the treaty with Great Britain which ended the war. Although a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, he did not make a significant contribution-beyond signing the document. As Governor of Pennsylvania, although he was accused of negligence, he supported improvements of roads, and reformed the State penal and judicial systems. He had gradually become sympathetic to Jefferson's principles regarding State's rights, even so, he directed the Pennsylvania militia to support the Federal tax collectors in the Whiskey Rebellion. In spite of charges of corruption, the affable Mifflin remained a popular figure. A magnetic personality and an effective speaker, he managed to hold a variety of elective offices for almost thirty years of the critical Revolutionary period. Richard Henry Lee (1732-1794) His resolution "that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States," approved by the Continental Congress July 2, 1776, was the first official act of the United Colonies that set them irrevocably on the road to independence. It was not surprising that it came from Lee's pen-as early as 1768 he proposed the idea of committees of correspondence among the colonies, and in 1774 he proposed that the colonies meet in what became the Continental Congress. From the first, his eye was on independence. A wealthy Virginia planter whose ancestors had been granted extensive lands by King Charles II, Lee disdained the traditional aristocratic role and the aristocratic view. In the House of Burgesses he flatly denounced the practice of slavery. He saw independent America as "an asylum where the unhappy may find solace, and the persecuted repose." In 1764, when news of the proposed Stamp Act reached Virginia, Lee was a member of the committee of the House of Burgesses that drew up an address to the King, an official protest against such a tax. After the tax was established, Lee organized the citizens of his county into the Westmoreland Association, a group pledged to buy no British goods until the Stamp Act was repealed. At the First Continental Congress, Lee persuaded representatives from all the colonies to adopt this non-importation idea, leading to the formation of the Continental Association, which was one of the first steps toward union of the colonies. Lee also proposed to the First Continental Congress that a militia be organized and armed-the year before the first shots were fired at Lexington; but this and other proposals of his were considered too radical-at the time. Three days after Lee introduced his resolution, in June of 1776, he was appointed by Congress to the committee responsible for drafting a declaration of independence, but he was called home when his wife fell ill, and his place was taken by his young prot'eg'e, Thomas Jefferson. Thus Lee missed the chance to draft the document-though his influence greatly shaped it and he was able to return in time to sign it. He was elected President-serving from November 30, 1784 to November 22, 1785 when he was succeeded by the second administration of John Hancock. Elected to the Constitutional Convention, Lee refused to attend, but as a member of the Congress of the Confederation, he contributed to another great document, the Northwest Ordinance, which provided for the formation of new States from the Northwest Territory. When the completed Constitution was sent to the States for ratification, Lee opposed it as anti-democratic and anti-Christian. However, as one of Virginia's first Senators, he helped assure passage of the amendments that, he felt, corrected many of the document's gravest faults-the Bill of Rights. He was the great uncle of Robert E. Lee and the scion of a great family tradition. Nathaniel Gorham (1738-1796) Another self-made man, Gorham was one of the many successful Boston merchants who risked all he had for the cause of freedom. He was first elected to the Massachusetts General Court in 1771. His honesty and integrity won his acclaim and was thus among the first delegates chose to serve in the Continental Congress. He remained in public service throughout the war and into the Constitutional period, though his greatest contribution was his call for a stronger central government. But even though he was an avid federalist, he did not believe that the union could-or even should-be maintained peaceably for more than a hundred years. He was convinced that eventually, in order to avoid civil or cultural war, smaller regional interests should pursue an independent course. His support of a new constitution was rooted more in pragmatism than ideology. When John Hancock was unable to complete his second term as President, Gorham was elected to succeed him-serving from June 6, 1786 to February 1, 1787. It was during this time that the Congress actually entertained the idea of asking Prince Henry-the brother of Frederick II of Prussia-and Bonnie Prince Charlie-the leader of the ill-fated Scottish Jacobite Rising and heir of the Stuart royal line-to consider the possibility of establishing a constitutional monarch in America. It was a plan that had much to recommend it but eventually the advocates of republicanism held the day. During the final years of his life, Gorham was concerned with several speculative land deals which nearly cost him his entire fortune. Arthur St. Clair (1734-1818) Born and educated in Edinburgh, Scotland during the tumultuous days of the final Jacobite Rising and the Tartan Suppression, St. Clair was the only president of the United States born and bred on foreign soil. Though most of his family and friends abandoned their devastated homeland in the years following the Battle of Culloden-after which nearly a third of the land was depopulated through emigration to America-he stayed behind to learn the ways of the hated Hanoverian English in the Royal Navy. His plan was to learn of the enemy's military might in order to fight another day. During the global conflict of the Seven Years War-generally known as the French and Indian War-he was stationed in the American theater. Afterward, he decided to settle in Pennsylvania where many of his kin had established themselves. His civic-mindedness quickly became apparent: he helped to organize both the New Jersey and the Pennsylvania militias, led the Continental Army's Canadian expedition, and was elected Congress. His long years of training in the enemy camp was finally paying off. He was elected President in 1787-and he served from February 2 of that year until January 21 of the next. Following his term of duty in the highest office in the land, he became the first Governor of the Northwest Territory and the founder of Cincinnati. Though he briefly supported the idea of creating a constitutional monarchy under the Stuart's Bonnie Prince Charlie, he was a strident Anti-Federalist-believing that the proposed federal constitution would eventually allow for the intrusion of government into virtually every sphere and aspect of life. He even predicted that under the vastly expanded centralized power of the state the taxing powers of bureaucrats and other unelected officials would eventually confiscate as much as a quarter of the income of the citizens-a notion that seemed laughable at the time but that has proven to be ominously modest in light of our current governmental leviathan. St. Clair lived to see the hated English tyrants who destroyed his homeland defeated. But he despaired that his adopted home might actually create similar tyrannies and impose them upon themselves. Cyrus Griffin (1736-1796) Like Peyton Randolph, he was trained in London's Inner Temple to be a lawyer-and thus was counted among his nation's legal elite. Like so many other Virginians, he was an anti-federalist, though he eventually accepted the new Constitution with the promise of the Bill of Rights as a hedge against the establishment of an American monarchy-which still had a good deal of currency. The Articles of Confederation afforded such freedoms that he had become convinced that even with the incumbent loss of liberty, some new form of government would be required. A prot'eg'e of George Washington-having worked with him on several speculative land deals in the West-he was a reluctant supporter of the Constitutional ratifying process. It was during his term in the office of the Presidency-the last before the new national compact went into effect-that ratification was formalized and finalized. He served as the nation's chief executive from January 22, 1788 until George Washington's inauguration on April 30, 1789. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e05_1371659875 socialism-rocks The Forgotten Presidents (The presidents before George Washington) history Wed, 19 Jun 2013 09:38:33 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=29a_1371648890 english-patriot33 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/online-quran-teaching-pakistan Concerns over online Qur'an teaching as ex-Pakistan militants instruct pupils Religious websites and instructors enjoy mini-boom reading Qur'an online as British Muslims tap into distance teaching With his track record as a member of the political arm of a banned terrorist organisation, Mian Shahzib is unlikely to ever be given a visa to enter Britain. But that does not stop the jovial 33-year-old from giving British children religious instruction every day from the comfort of his home in Pakistan. He spends hours each night sitting under a fluorescent light in the courtyard of a small mosque in Lahore, peering into a laptop as children first from the Middle East, then Europe and North America spend half an hour after school talking to him over a faltering Skype line. "Put on your cap and wash your hands," he told a 12-year-old boy sitting in a large office chair in his parents' home in Edinburgh. After checking the boy had memorised various prayers to get him through the day, including a special blessing for exiting and entering the toilet, he got down to business, helping the boy read aloud the classical Arabic of a few verses of the Qur'an. The fact that a hardcore Islamist and long-term follower of the UN-proscribed Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) has daily access to children in the west is likely to fuel concerns about religious radicals spreading their message. Shahzib's website, Easy Qur'an Memorising, makes no mention of his history and is one of hundreds of such online companies, some of which advertise on satellite channels broadcasting to the Pakistani diaspora. They are part of a little-known outsourcing boom fuelled by parents of Pakistani origin turning to Qur'an teachers in Pakistan. "It's just like a call centre where you are saving a lot of money by getting someone overseas to do it much more cheaply," said Fawad Rana, a property developer in Solihull who has used Qur'an teachers for his two sons for the past three years. Rana makes an online payment of lb30 a month to Faiz-e-Quran, one of the larger online religious education companies, which gets his children three half-hour sessions a week. "And there's the convenience factor - the last thing kids want to do is spend half an hour travelling to the nearest mosque and then not even getting 10 minutes of one-on-one tuition," he said. Although Faiz-e-Quran say it takes care to scrutinise and monitor all the teachers it employs, the industry is increasingly dominated by one-man operations. After several years working on his business, Shahzib now has about a dozen students aged 12 to 18 scattered all over the world. It's a long way from his past role as an activist with JuD, a Pakistani Islamist organisation known for its holy war against Indian rule in the contested region of Kashmir. The organisation is on the UN's list of sanctioned organisations because of its alleged association with al-Qaida and is considered a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group behind the 2008 terrorist attacks on Mumbai. As a young man, Shahzib helped prepare young JuD militants before they crossed the line of control that marks the unrecognised border between Pakistani and Indian-held Kashmir. His job was to motivate them with religious teachings and to fill their heads with tales of Indian soldiers raping Muslim women. He was briefly arrested after falling out with his old mentor, Hafiz Saeed, the JuD leader, who lives openly in Lahore but who is subject to a US reward of $10m (lb6.36m) for information leading to his arrest. Shahzib believes Saeed has bent to demands from Pakistan's security establishment to rein in militancy in Kashmir. "I told him to his face that he had betrayed the jihad," he said. These days he still follows the "philosophy" of JuD, even if he is not an active member. He supports the fight against foreign forces in Afghanistan. But he does not think the struggle should be taken to the streets of Britain. "It is completely wrong to attack soldiers in Britain," he said. "If a young man in the UK wants to support jihad I support that, but come to Afghanistan to fight, not the UK." The Guardian was told of other online tutors with radical backgrounds or who are members of extreme or sectarian organisations, but it is impossible to know how widespread the phenomenon is in a completely unregulated industry. Sultan Chaudri, the owner of Faiz-e-Quran, said his company is at pains to scrutinise all 13 teachers who work for him to ensure radicals are not employed. "All the problems we are seeing in Pakistan and Afghanistan is because these young children get sent to madrasas where no one knows what sort of education they are getting or what kind of indoctrination is taking place." When Chaudri, a retired colonel, started his business four years ago his marketing team had to assure parents that there would be no such risk with online teaching. "They used to say we are not going to get education from a maulvi in Pakistan because he is going to teach bad things to my child," he said. "Parents realise now that there is no risk because they can see the lessons right in front of their own eyes." Inspired by a call-centre model of global outsourcing, Chaudri's staff work in shifts from an office in Lahore. In a country plagued by power shortages his office uses three generators and subscribes to four different internet providers managed by a duty IT supervisor. Five clocks show the time in all the areas where his 200 students live. Outsourced Qur'an teaching started about six years ago and there are now a handful of big players. Although there are no reliable figures on how many children around the world are being taught by Pakistan-based teachers everyone seems to think it is growing fast. "We were recommended it by a cousin in America, and we've passed it on to lots of our friends," said Rana. "When we first found out we just thought, wow, what a wonderful service they are providing." According to Chaudri, the business is fragmenting, with teachers striking off on their own to establish "one computer academies", often poaching customers from companies such as Faiz-e-Quran. "They are so dishonest," he said. "In the last four years I have seen so many teachers that have run away with so many students." For young men who have only had a religious training and often struggle to find regular employment, the prospect of earning decent wages teaching Qur'an reading online is extremely attractive. Chaudri does not allow his staff to use a webcam when teaching. Instead, the teachers in Lahore simply share a page of text from the Qur'an which the student, who will rarely be able to understand the Arabic words, then attempts to read. "It is not good to let them see into the houses," he said. "I have seen that after 10 days the teachers will fall in love with the lady of the house, or the daughter of the house; they will send letters saying 'I love you very much.'" Also, he wants to spare his clients from having to look at the unkempt religious young men who work for him. "They don't take care of their beard. They are not very pleasant to look at." http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=29a_1371648890 english-patriot33 Concerns over online Qur'an teaching as ex-Pakistan militants instruct pupils islam, muslims,quaran book of evil , outlaw islam, Mon, 17 Jun 2013 05:44:22 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=832_1371460157 olifaxe Every year the tests of the National High School diploma start with the philosophy one. Each and every high school student of France has a philosophy test. It's not the same coefficient for all of theme but they still got to take it. Here are the subjects of this year. There are three main courses in High School. Literature/arts course (coef 7, the highest). Is the language but a tool ? Is science only about noting facts ? Economic course (coef 4.) What do we own to the state ? Do we interpret instead of knowing ? Science course (coef 3.) Can we act morally without getting concerned about politics ? Does work allow us to take conscience of ourselves ? Every student has to write a composition on the subject in four hours. Mine was How do we need to search for the truth ?, it was back in 2006. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=832_1371460157 olifaxe <span class="highlight">Philosophy</span> subjects for the French National High School Diploma 2013. School Philosophy High School French France Science Smart Funny Wed, 19 Jun 2013 03:46:24 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=690_1371626695 aydeo Bill Clinton,Tony Blair, Barbara Streisand,Robert De Niro,Sharon Stone, Mikhail Gorbachev and other Various guests honor Israeli president at his 90th birthday- Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair opened the celebrations with warm words for Peres and said: "We have our queen, and you have your Shimon." In his speech, Former US President Bill Clinton said Peres was the Albert Einstein of the social world. According to Clinton, Peres managed to put together a unified theory of meaning, philosophy, politics, psychology, technology and society. One day, Clinton said, his theory would become a reality in both Israel and the world. Clinton was followed by Barbra Streisand who sang for the president and said that Peres knows how to swim against the current for what is right. She was followed by Peres himself, who took the stage to much fanfare. In English, Peres thanked all the dignitaries for coming and then returned to Hebrew to welcome the Israeli politicians, the IDF chief of Staff Benny Gantz, bereaved family members, the family of the late Prime Minister Rabin. "I know you have come to Jerusalem from around the world to pay tribute to me, and with me; to do tikkun olam," said President Shimon Peres at the ceremony marking his 90th birthday, in the presence of many esteemed guests. Peres added that he was honored to fight for the country and for peace for so long. "I am moved to see so many people who have been with me along the way." Peres called Streisand's voice angelic and said it was worth waiting 90 years to her sing. World leaders who were not present at the ceremony praised Peres via video recordings, among them US President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Spanish King Juan Carlos and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone and several other key figures arrived at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem for the Presidential Conference, and to wish the Israeli president a happy birthday. The Presidential Conference hosted some 5,000 people from 20 countries, including political figures, such as Mikhail Gorbachev and Rahm Emanuel, Nobel Prize laureates and Hollywood stars http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4394076,00.html All photos are from yesterday, The video (In which Bill Clinton sings for Peres) was taken a decade ago, during Peres 80th birthday http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=690_1371626695 aydeo President Peres celebrates 90th birthday; Tony Blair: We have our queen, and you have your Shimon...! President Peres,90th birthday,Bill Clinton,Tony Blair,Barbara Streisand,Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone,Jerusalem Mon, 17 Jun 2013 02:07:41 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=4b9_1371448049 dirkdiggler Certainly a different approach Philosophy is: since in Norway life sentence doesn't exist (the maximum penalty is 21 years), every inmate will go back to society. So far the model works: within two years of their release, only 20% of Norwegian prisoners end up back in jail. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=4b9_1371448049 dirkdiggler Halden Prison in Norway Halden Prison Sun, 16 Jun 2013 11:36:04 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=678_1371395553 Detroit Iron By DOMINIC PATTEN Saturday June 15, 2013 @ 1:46pm PDT On June 6, 2011, Scott Pelley took over as anchor of the CBS Evening News , his tenure following Katie Couric 's five-year run. The once-dominant newscast had fallen to third place behind NBC and ABC during the end of Dan Rather 's reign, and Couric's stint saw the broadcast fall to record ratings lows. While still No. 3 among the Big Three, the CBS Evening News With Scott Pelley has seen significant growth since the Texan took over after a long run at sibling 60 Minutes. In the past year, the 6:30 PM broadcast has added 490,000 viewers, the largest annual increase for the network's evening news in 15 years and the best among the broadcast news rivals since 2002. Overall, the CBS Evening News is up 12% in viewers since Pelley's debut. Just before his second anniversary in the anchor chair, Deadline spoke with Pelley about the relevance of cable news and why so many mistakes are getting on the air. DEADLINE: In an age where the news is a 24-hour business, how can a 6:30 PM once-a-day broadcast still give the reach and the immediacy that news stories require? PELLEY: You know, never in human history has there been so much information available to so many people. But never in human history has there been so much bad information available to so many people. And I think people are looking for brand names that they can trust and CBS News is one of those. The other half of this is that folks are busy. They're going to work, they're going to school they're getting the kids off to school, and they care about the world; they want to know about the world but they don't have a lot of time to spend on that. So what were offering at the evening news is, within 30 minutes we're going to tell you about the 12 most important things that happened in the world. And you're going to get that from the CBS News brand, which you already trust. And I think that's why we've added a million viewers in the last 2 years and why we grew so much this last year in particular. DEADLINE: You said recently you believe that there's a crisis in journalism, saying that the house is on fire: there are too many mistakes, things are being put up too fast, it's too sloppy, and there is too great a reliance on social media. PELLEY: The country is only as strong as its journalism - that's the way democracies work. The higher the quality of the information, the better informed the electorate is and the better the government runs. And the American people can always be trusted with the information. What I was talking about in that particular speech is remaining vigilant to those goals. Too often in recent months and maybe over the last couple of years, in the haste to be first with a piece of news, a news organization has gotten it wrong and I was just suggesting that that race to be first is a bankrupt pursuit. It's meaningless. It doesn't mean anything to anyone except those of us within the industry. It's a game that we play on our own control rooms to see who got something first. It has no value whatsoever to the audience and I think a little bit of humility on the part of journalism would serve it and the audience very well, that we should care less about competing with each other and care more about delivering the highest-quality product that we can to the audience. So that's what I was driving at there. We're a human institution and, worst of all things, we're a human institution on deadline. So mistakes are going to get made all the time. At CBS and everywhere else. But the goal should always be to deliver the highest-quality product that we can. DEADLINE: You have talked about the mistake that you yourself made in the Newtown coverage as something that concerned you. PELLEY: In the immediate aftermath of Newtown, when there was a lot of information flowing out of there from police sources, and we reported that, and others reported, some information that was incorrect about what happened and that Nancy Lanza was a teacher at the school and that her son had attacked her classroom. We were not the only ones to report that but in the frenzy to get information on the air, we reported that and others reported that. And that really started me reflecting on the rush to get things on the air that were not completely verified. And then when others reported in Boston that someone had been arrested two days before that had actually happened, then I started to really become concerned. And there had been concern before when a couple of the cable channels got the Supreme Court's ruling wrong on the president's healthcare . One of our best moments ever was that day. Other people were reporting that the Supreme Court had struck down the Affordable Healthcare Act, but our correspondent Jan Crawford has covered the Supreme Court for decades, she's written a book about the Supreme Court, and she knew that you got to read past the first couple of pages to see what's really going on. And so Jan is on the air live telling me "wait a minute, wait a minute, let me read this." Other people are on fire saying that the healthcare law had been struck down in its entirely and Jan finds like, I don't know, on like Page 36, that in fact it hasn't been struck down. DEADLINE: Let's talk about what else is going when we talk about news - specifically TV news on cable. Fox News Channel is still solidly No. 1. However, Jeff Zucker has said that CNN is now more broadly defining what news is and MSNBC's Phil Griffin says his network is not the place for breaking news. What do you see going on with cable news? PELLEY: I think the various cable channels are trying to discover who they are by searching for niches in the marketplace where they can create a business model that works for them. CBS News is not trying to figure out who it is. We've known who we are for many, many decades. And so that's why you see CBS News being constant and not announcing that we're changing the definition of news or that we're veering left or veering right. These are channels that are new, relatively new, and are still trying to figure out what they want to do and who they want to be. DEADLINE: So for you, other outlets especially the cable news networks do center on just one segment of the political spectrum in their reporting? PELLEY: Certainly. It's no surprise. Fox is associated with the right and MSNBC is associated with the left and they've done that because it is a business model. It's a strategy. They've decided to bite off one small part of the viewership and be happy with that 200,000 viewers, 300,000 viewers that they have. But when you are talking to 7 million viewers across the country, man you have got to represent everybody's views and have got to give them the impression that you are being as honest as you know how to be. DEADLINE: While the news flow on cable may be in the hundreds of thousands, a lot of people are watching Bill O'Reilly, a couple of million a night. Same thing with Hannity. PELLEY: We measure our audience in millions. They're not big numbers. People talk about cable a lot and cable has a very high profile. Not a lot of people watch cable news, they just don't. If you look at the Nielsen numbers, the cable channels have a few hundred thousand viewers at any given moment. The CBS Evening News again has 7 million viewers, ABC has 8 million viewers. Brian has almost 9 million. Altogether we have about 25 million viewers on any given night. That's a very different order of magnitude. DEADLINE: NBC has MSNBC. Obviously, Fox has Fox News. Do you think it's time for CBS to get its own cable news network? PELLEY: You know, I wonder whether we might have moved beyond the time of the cable news network. Isn't it all going to the Internet now? Is there really a reason for a news organization such as ours to establish a cable channel when we could establish a much bigger footprint if you will, on the Internet? So, these are decisions that are not at all up to me. We've got a lot of really smart people who think about these things and work on these things, but if you ask me, I wonder whether that's a necessary step any more. DEADLINE: But what is CBS News online going to tell me at 2 in the afternoon about a protest in Turkey, or am I going to have to wait until 6:30 to get the story? PELLEY: We're going to give you the latest reporting that we have on any given story at any given time. We break stories on our website all the time. We'll have our correspondent at the White House or somewhere in the world call in with a scoop. The person who runs the CBS News website sits about 15 feet away from me and we'll often tell a reporter to call the Internet desk and let's break that story right now. So very often we're breaking stories online hours before they appear on the evening news. DEADLINE: With breaking stories like the bombing in Boston and the tornados in Oklahoma, you've been breaking into regularly scheduled daytime programming a lot lately. It almost turns you into cable when you do that and go to wall-to-wall coverage. PELLEY:We only do that on big stories. The problem the cable channels have is they have to fill 24 hours. That's a terrible thing. We only do that on the biggest stories. The thing is there has happened to be a lot of big stories lately with the tornado that you mentioned, and of course Boston had to be reported right away. So we are being very aggressive about covering the news and if there is a story that rises to national importance we want to be there live, covering it as it happens. And I think that the audience is been seeing a lot of that from the evening news. We've also been taking the evening news broadcast to a lot of the scenes of these stories. Because it is all about the reporting. So we bring in a lot of reporters, correspondents, producers, etc, to all these big stories so that we can do the reporting first-hand, see it for ourselves and get it on the air as quickly as possible. That's just part of the philosophy of Jeff Fager and David Rhodes. They have told us that they want to be aggressive about covering the news and that's what we're doing. DEADLINE: To that point and with your growth and 60 Minutes ongoing strength, are we going to see another News program on CBS this season or soon? PELLEY: I do not know. That's the honest answer, I do not know. You are going to see whatever Leslie wants, that's what you're going to see. And if Leslie has something afoot in that area, I have not been apprized. http://www.deadline.com/2013/06/cbs-evening-news-scott-pelley-cable-mistakes-interview/ http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=678_1371395553 Detroit Iron 'CBS Evening News' Anchor Scott Pelley On Making Mistakes And Why Cable News Doesn't Matter As Much As We Think CBS Evening News, CBS News, Scott Pelley Sat, 15 Jun 2013 23:59:27 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d94_1371354454 waterlawman I found this compelling and a great read. Enjoy!!! Writings on Newton by Stephen David Snobelen http://www.isaac-newton.org/update.html At the end of the seventeenth century, Isaac Newton (1642-1727) initiated a revolution in science. At the end of the twentieth century, scholars began a revolution in the understanding of Newton. As Newton's long-concealed private papers on theology become increasingly accessible, students of Newton's thought are coming to see Newton as more than a scientist. The author of the Principia mathematica was a true Renaissance man who spent decades delving in the secrets of alchemy and even longer studying the Bible, theology and church history. Leaving behind four million words on theology, Newton was one of the greatest lay theologians of his age. A study of Newton's theology and prophetic views illuminates the life of this great thinker and helps us understand his science. This website provides downloadable academic papers (both published and forthcoming) that explore Newton's theology, prophetic views and the interaction between his science and his religion. These resources include substantial quotations from Newton's unpublished theological manuscripts. 2060: The date heard around the world On 22 February 2003, the Daily Telegraph (London, England) published a front-page story announcing Isaac Newton's prediction that the world would end in 2060. The story was based on interviews with myself and Malcolm Neaum, the producer of the BBC 2 documentary Newton: the dark heretic (first shown on 1 March 2003). I was asked to make myself available to the media because some of my academic research on Newton's prophecy and heretical theology was used in the documentary and since I was not only interviewed for the documentary both in Jerusalem and Cambridge, but am also shown with the manuscript containing the 2060 date in Jerusalem. Although the 2060 date was not news to the small community of scholars who study Newton's theology, this was the first time the wider public became aware of Newton's prophetic views. Over the next few days, the news spread around the globe and was covered in newspapers (making the front pages in Israel and Canada on 23 and 24 February respectively), on the radio, on TV and on a plethora of Internet news sites. The story was covered on the Internet in all the major European languages from English, French and Spanish to Hungarian, Romanian and Russian. Websites in South America, South Africa, Australia, China, Vietnam and India also covered the story. Many of these websites picked up the story second and third hand, and several of them treated the story as a bit of a lark, with one site including a picture of a mushroom cloud (an image more readily associated with Einstein) with the caption &quot;Party like it's 2060&quot;. For almost a week, I received a barrage of requests for interviews from the media. CBC Radio and TV, Global TV in the Maritimes, Agent France Presse, the largest radio talk show in Chicago and even the Russian section of Radio Free Europe, which aired the interview in Russian translation. I tried to use this unexpected opportunity to fill in more details about Newton's theological and prophetic thought, and to point out that Newton's apocalyptic thought was not just doom and destruction. Although there was a sensational element in the way the news was covered by many media organizations, the story has performed a very important role in alerting the public to the fact that Isaac Newton was not merely a &quot;scientist&quot;, but also a theologian and a prophetic exegete (not to mention an alchemist). The public was therefore challenged to re-conceptualize Newton in all his complexity. The BBC 2 documentary, with its visual impact and much greater detail, challenged its viewers in an even more profound way. Why did Newton's prediction for 2060 become such a big news story? One reason why Newton's heresy, apocalyptic thought and prediction about the 2060 date became news in February 2003 is because most members of the media and the public had no idea that Newton was anything other than a &quot;scientist&quot;. For many, the revelation that Newton was a passionate believer who took biblical prophecy seriously came as something of a shock. It seems that both the media and the general public have a notion of Newton as a &quot;rational&quot; scientist that makes it difficult to absorb the knowledge that Newton was practising both alchemy and prophetic exegesis-studies many see as antithetical to the enterprise of science. The media has perpetuated a myth that science and religion are inherently in conflict (the fact is, sometimes they are; but religion has also often stimulated the development of science). The story about Newton predicting the Apocalypse in 2060 is the sort of thing that one would expect to see on the covers of the tabloids. In this case, however, the story is true. Ironically, the tabloids did not cover the story (perhaps because this story, although counter-intuitive to many people, is authentic). There is likely another reason why so many found the story about Newton and 2060 so compelling. When the story broke, storm clouds of war were on the horizon. Concern about the predicted war in Iraq (now a &quot;fulfilled&quot; prophecy) probably heightened the public's interest in Newton's date for the end of the world, particularly because the pending war involved the nation who occupies the land of ancient Babylon http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d94_1371354454 waterlawman Sir Isaac Newton and The Year 2060 by Stephen David Snobelen Stephen-David-Snobelen,Isaac-newton,bible,god,science,math,calculus,2060,end-times,apocalypses,revelations,gog,magog,2ndcoming,Christ,lord,history,news,scientist,Illuminati, Sat, 15 Jun 2013 17:06:30 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=81f_1371330063 Detroit Iron Posted by Edward Cline at 8:22 PM Review: American Betrayal : The Secret Assault on Our Nation's Character , by Diana West Where to begin? In American Betrayal *, Diana West begins in 1933. In the name of establishing historical causo-connections, I would have begun in 1781, when Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant published his Critique of Pure Reason , a brain-cracking treatise which relied on reality to prove that reality was unknowable. That is, by reading his book, a real thing in your real hands, you were expected to agree with Kant that real things were only rough reflections of things whose "essences" existed beyond the evidence of our benighted, warping senses, in some other realm. Kant counted on everyone not noticing the contradiction and not seeing the ease with which his elaborately constructed mare's nest could be exploded. No contemporary, I gather, ever confronted Kant and said, "Herr Professor! If what you say is true, then this book is just a shadow, and the print in it, and all your words, too! What could they mean? How could they be true? Are your words noumena , or mere phenomena ?" But no one ever did confront Kant with his contradictions, fallacies, and cerebral legerdemain, except some Hegelian hair-splitters, and the Western world has been the worse for it. 1781 . Just as the American Revolution, a product of the Enlightenment, was winding to a close with the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, with reality-loyal Americans winning their freedom from the British monarchy, Kant published his Critique , whose ideas, if not opposed and refuted, were guaranteed to destroy the freedom of their heirs. The Founders, as they later debated in Philadelphia the means and ends of a true republican government that would guarantee men's freedom from each other, were not aware of the incubus that was birthing across the Atlantic and which would eventually infect American political philosophy with the syphilis of collectivism, moral relativism, and statism in the 19thcentury. Kant was an enemy of the Enlightenment. Diana West, among her other arguments, contends that the political and intellectual leaders of the West by 1933 had abandoned reason and all Enlightenment ideas. Nay, with very few exceptions, they became as hostile to them as Kant ever was. West begins in 1933. Of what significance is that year? Adolph Hitler became Chancellor of Germany and Reichsstatthalter of Prussia on January 30th, 1933. From August 1934, he would be F"uhrer of Germany until his suicide in April 1945. Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt became the 32nd president of the United States on March 4th, 1933. He would remain in that office until his death in April 1945. On November 20, 1933, at Roosevelt's urging, the U.S. recognized the Soviet Union. West writes: The West's decision to recognize the USSR - and its determination to keep recognizing it, no matter how much lying and acquiescence to betrayal that entailed - did more to transform us than any single act before or since. The profound diplomatic shift - part Faustian bargain, part moral lobotomy - didn't just invite the Soviet Union into the community of nations. To make room for the monster-r'egime, the United States had to surrender the terra firma of objective morality and reality-based judgment. No wonder, then, that tens of thousands of Dreyfus cases in Russia meant nothing to the "conscience of the civilized world.... Because the Communist r'egime was so openly and ideologically dedicated to our destruction, the act of recognition defied reason and the demands of self-preservation. Recognition and all that came with it, including alliance, would soon become the enemy of reason and self-preservation.... ...It was here that we abandoned the lodestars of good and evil, the clarity of black and white. Closing our eyes, we dove head first into a weltering morass of exquisitely enervating and agonizing grays. (pp. 195-196) In short, the U.S. government had by 1933 lost the capacity for making moral judgments. It cringed like a coward when asked to make one, and hissed and spat like a rabid animal at the mere suggestion of it. It still does when the subject of Islam comes up. Recognition of the Soviet Union not only granted the murderous Communist dictatorship a moral sanction, it also opened the gates to the wholesale Soviet infiltration and subversive activities of its agents, American sympathizers or "fellow travelers," and members of the Communist Party USA. The Soviets never honored any of the terms of that recognition. The precedent had been set. We can see the insidious parallels today in our government's refusal to withdraw moral sanctions from Islamic r'egimes and its tolerance of terrorist-founded and terrorist state-funded organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim American Society (MAS) within our own borders. In March 1933, Harry Hopkins, a veteran of former New York Governor Roosevelt's welfare programs, on Roosevelt's invitation joins the new administration, at first running the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), the Civil Works Administration (CWA) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA). In this pre-war period he also established the National Youth Administration (NYA) and the Federal One Programs for artists and writers. In May 1940, Roosevelt makes Hopkins his first counsel in all matters pertaining to Europe and the new war. Hopkins moves into the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House, his office and residence for the next three and a half years. Hopkins not only advises Roosevelt on foreign policy and war issues, but directs Lend-Lease, a program conceived by Armand Hammer, a notorious Sovietaphile, ostensibly created to aid the British in their fight against the Nazis, but actually intended to aid Josef Stalin and the Soviet Union. Between 1932 and 1933, millions of Russians starved to death as Stalin's government confiscated harvests in the brutal forced collectivization of Russian agriculture. Millions more would perish over the decade from starvation, from being sent as slaves in the Gulag, in mass executions, and in political purges. But 1933, writes West, was a crucial year in American history. In reprising the statements of historians and commentators about the wrongness of recognizing the Soviet r'egime as a legitimate government, given the known horrific consequences of forced collectivization, she states: Dennis J. Dunn agrees with historian David Mayers, who has argued that the failure of the U.S. government under Roosevelt to reckon with the profound crime of the Terror Famine in negotiations over recognition made it - us - "a passive accomplice to Stalin in the Ukraine." I agree. Which makes 1933 the year of America's Fall (p. 243) Diana West steps up to lectern and confronts Professor Kant with some very incisive and inconvenient questions of her own. Who really won World War II? Was it really America's "Good War"? Did the "greatest generation" fight to rid the world of one toxic dictatorship only to enable another to take its place? How is it that the only beneficiary of that war was the Soviet Union, which acquired an Eastern European empire? Were Americans conned, scammed, and robbed throughout the government-perpetuated Depression and then during the war? Who was really establishing American foreign policy in the 1930's and 1940's: Roosevelt, or Stalin through Harry Hopkins, who had Roosevelt's ear 24/7, and countless Soviet agents and traitors embedded in our government dedicated to selling secrets, altruism, self-sacrifice and welfare statism? Hopkins, West suggests, was the Soviets' most important agent in the U.S. government. Whether or not he was "recruited" or "co-opted" by the Soviets, or was a volunteer agent, West was not able to determine with certainty. He is referred to in Soviet cables as "Agent 19." The KGB boasted that he was the Soviet Union's "most important agent." West performs a yeoman's task and gets to the "essence" of that whole sorry and tragic period, proving in her narrative that the reality of our relationship with the Soviets is knowable, and moreover, that its "essence" was ugly, scary, and shameful. I would add, pertaining to all the actors in that period responsible for what West calls the "Big Lie," criminal and treasonous. What precedes and follows West's statement is not for the weak of stomach or faint of heart. With a meticulous and excruciating fealty to the truth, and after exhaustive and often frustrating research (because many documents that once existed and that were evidence of the government's complicity were destroyed or had simply vanished from government archives), West paints a picture of not only FDR's complacency towards Soviet totalitarianism, but Harry Hopkins's contribution to the fall, as well, in addition to that of a legion of liars, fabricators, Communist moles, agents, and spies who populated government positions. If you think the Benghazi cover-up is a classic case of desperate political back-pedaling, official lies and semi-lies, face-saving, and walking away from reality, that episode is merely a miniature of the colossal con pulled on the whole country by Roosevelt and his minions from 1933 onward. West covers several main subjects, among them the extent of Soviet espionage against the U.S. and the extent of Soviet infiltration in our government, an infiltration so common and ubiquitous in numerous Depression Era and wartime agencies that the government was literally top-heavy enough to cause the ship-of-state to list ever Leftward. The government was so saturated with lefties and Communists that they became the de facto architects of domestic and foreign policies. West dates the beginning of the end of a fairly solid and reclaimable constitutional republic - reclaimable from Wilson's Progressive precedents of a central bank, the income tax, and becoming the world's moral policeman, moves which put the country on the road to incremental serfdom - from 1933, when the U.S. recognized the U.S.S.R. as "just another system of government," not much different from our own. Roosevelt, West explains, believed in the "convergence" of our system of government and that of the Soviets. Aside from buttressing his collectivist programs of the New Deal welfare state, the "convergence theory" enabled Roosevelt to be essentially an apolitical pragmatist . There was...one point of ideology that Roosevelt does seem to have fervently embraced, which historian Dennis J. Dunn believes made him an ideologue after all. FDR, Dunn writes, seized on the theory of "convergence" as it applied to the United States and the USSR, the idea being that capitalism and Communism would take on enough characteristics of the other to "converge." ...As Dunn explains it, the convergence theory "held that Soviet Russia and the United States were on convergent paths, where the United States was moving from laissez-faire capitalism to welfare state socialism and the Soviet Union was evolving from totalitarianism to social democracy." (p. 192) There's that Hegelian/Marxist "dialectical" evolutionary force that was somehow ineluctably moving both sides toward "convergence" so that, to the casual observer, when the melding occurred, there wouldn't be a dime's or kopek's worth of difference between the two countries. Human volition and action would have nothing to do with it, neither in acts of Congress nor in executive branch decrees nor in Supreme Court decisions. "Convergence theory" assumed the cognitive powers of a somnambulist. It would "just happen." Don't blame us, counter the advocates of that theory and others. We have nothing to do with it. It's just "history." It would be unfair to both West and her book to attempt anything here other than highlighting some of the revelations she discusses at length throughout American Betrayal . Here are some of them: Lend-Lease Much of West's story focuses on the organized massive theft and redirection of American war productivity to the Soviets that occurred under Lend-Lease. But how did it really begin? As noted above, it was the idea of politically ambidextrous businessman Armand Hammer whose financial and commercial relationship with the Soviets dated back to 1921. (His father, Dr. Julius Hammer, a socialist and later a Communist, named him after the Socialist Labor Party of America's symbol of an arm and hammer.) Worried that a Nazi attack on the Soviet Union would jeopardize his interests in the Soviet Union (and no one in Washington believed the German-Soviet non-aggression pact, signed on August 23rd, 1939, would last), he met with Roosevelt in the White House on November 28th, 1940 and sold the president and Hopkins on the idea of establishing a government entity that would be responsible for aiding the British in their war with Germany (Hopkins later claimed the idea came to him out of the blue), but would actually help Stalin prepare for the expected abrogation of the "non-aggression" pact and enable him to withstand the invasion with American help. It should be noted that this "pact" prepared the way for the co-invasion of Poland by both the Nazis and the Soviets on September 1st, 1939, the spark that began World War II. Both regarded the pact as a temporary truce (in Islam, a hudna contrived to buy time); Stalin wanted to eventually conquer Europe; the Nazis drooled over the oil fields of Baku and the prospect of endless lebensraum . Armand Hammer, who died in 1989, was a walking exemplar of the political "convergence" subscribed to by Roosevelt, a Republican who contributed to Richard Nixon's 1972 presidential campaign, and was a frequent visitor to the White Houses of Presidents Reagan, Carter, and George H.W. Bush. He had met and was on friendly terms with every Soviet dictator but Stalin. Hitler signed the first operational directive to invade the Soviet Union on December 18th, 1940. On March 11, 1941, Congress passed the Lend-Lease bill, and on June 22nd, Hitler invaded Russia. Roosevelt appointed Hopkins as head of Lend-Lease. West details just how much Lend-Lease aided the Soviets. When the U.S. finally entered the war on December 7th, 1941, Hopkins and Lend-Lease gave aiding the Soviets the first priority in planes, tanks, small arms, munitions, Liberty ships, military machine parts, and other materiel, including food, clothing, medical supplies, etc. - over the U.S.'s own warfighting needs . While Americans had to make do with rationed sugar, butter, meat, tires and gasoline, the Soviet government received these things free, without condition, and without interest (on a "loan" which was not expected to ever be paid back by the Soviets, and never was). The Navy and Army had to wait until Soviet quotas were filled before being able to take delivery on their own weaponry and supplies. Harry Hopkins said so, and Roosevelt agreed. West also investigates the likelihood that Hopkins aided the Soviets in acquiring not only information regarding the Manhattan Project to produce the first atomic bomb, but facilitated, through Lend-Lease, the Soviets receiving the actual physical components, such as cadmium rods and uranium, allowing Soviet scientists to fashion their own bomb, first tested in 1949. (pp. 122-123) West writes about the political power Lend-Lease gave Roosevelt and his "co-president," Hopkins. Lend-Lease was ...sold to the American public as a means to keep the United States out of war in Europe - as a substitute for U.S. military involvement, not a means by which to enter the war...The legislation endowed the president with unprecedented powers to bypass the Senate and other checks and balances. For example, Lend-Lease allowed FDR to set the terms of the most massive U.S. expenditures in foreign aid history and their repayment, or nonrepayment. Who, then, needed a Senate to advise and consent on related treaties? The State Department, too, took on attributes of a governmental fifth wheel as Hopkins helmed Lend-Lease and U.S. foreign policy from the White House. (p. 134) Among other things, Singapore, the Philippines and Corregidor fell to the Japanese because all the war materiel that could've saved Americans and the British was instead sent to Russia under Lend-Lease, and FDR and his advisers knew it. Douglas MacArthur had to beg Washington for planes and naval support and relief, but the Soviets came first. Roosevelt said, "I would rather lose New Zealand, Australia or anything else rather than have the Russian front collapse." (pp. 46-47) The Office of War Information (OWI) West devotes many pages to how the Office of War Information, staffed and controlled largely by Communist Party members, contributed to the white-washing of Soviet Russia, to make "Papa Joe" Stalin and his dictatorship palatable to the American public. Aiding them in this propaganda and agitprop were the press and broadcast luminaries. The overall mantra was: Stalin and Russia were the "good guys," put upon by the "bad guys," the Nazis. Stalin and his r'egime never did a bad thing, they just had a "different" political system, which shouldn't be judged because of the millions it wiped out of existence (those millions never mentioned). This effort ranged from standard pep-talky government propaganda to wartime newsreels to Hollywood movies. The standing orders from the OWI especially were that in no instance was the totalitarian nature of Soviet Russia ever to be revealed, discussed, or even insinuated. A book about novelist Ayn Rand's testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 concerning the propaganda film Song of Russia (1944) is revealing in and of itself. Rand's testimony was solicited because she had escaped Soviet Russia in 1926 and had first-hand knowledge of conditions there. Concerning the lies propagated by the government, one committee member asked her why she objected to the U.S. allying itself with the Soviets to defeat Hitler. Rand answered: That is not what I said. I was not in a position to make that decision. If I were, I would tell you what I would do. That is not what we are discussing. We are discussing the fact that our country was an ally of Russia, and the question is: what should we tell the American people about it - the truth or a lie? If we had good reason, if that is what you believe, all right, then why not tell the truth? Say it is a dictatorship, but we want to be associated with it. Say it is worthwhile being associated with the devil, as Churchill said, in order to defeat another evil which is Hitler. There might be some good argument made for that. But why pretend that Russia was not what it was?** Why pretend, indeed? Because the government didn't want to risk alienating Americans from the war effort. It wouldn't be good for "morale." They might stop buying War Bonds, and demand an end to rationing. They might object to being in league with a devil that wanted to collectivize them, too. Katyn Forest Massacre After Hitler and Stalin had devoured Poland in 1939, both went about "cleansing" Poland of its government and military elements, with the Nazis targeting Polish Jews. We are accustomed to watching videos of the Polish cavalry facing German tanks, but we are rarely informed that in the spring of 1940 the Soviets murdered between 15,000 and 22,000 Polish officers and policemen in Katyn Forest to remove any chance of the Poles resisting the Soviet occupation. Initial blame was put on the equally blood-thirsty Nazis, but it was the Nazis who discovered the mass graves after capturing that region from the Soviets, and who brought in several American and British POWs to see for themselves (hoping to put a chink in the American-Soviet alliance), among them Americans Capt. Donald B. Stewart and Lt. Col. John H. Van Vliet Jr. Stewart later testified before a Congressional committee about what he saw, and Van Vliet wrote two memos, one of which was put into an Orwellian memory hole - by Alger Hiss in the State Department. This information was relayed to Roosevelt, so he and Hopkins knew about the massacre. They suppressed the information. The country would not learn about it until 1950, when Stewart delivered his testimony. Russia would not confess to the massacre until 1990. Diana West discusses this whole shameful episode in her ground-breaking book. (pp. 202-218) The Nuremberg Trials Another issue that sent Diana West off on a wholly justified tear was the hypocrisy of the Nuremberg Trials , two sets of them between November 1945 and October 1946, with the U.S. conducting separate trials in its occupied zone in Germany. Two Soviet judges sat in judgment of their fellow killers, the Germans, alongside their American, British and French colleagues, and one Soviet chief prosecutor argued that justice be meted out to the Germans in the dock. The presiding Soviet judge, Major General Iona Nikitchenko, had previously presided over some of the notorious show trials in the1930's during the Great Purge. But all the judges at Nuremberg took part in a conspiracy of silence about the enormity of guilt shared by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in the way of massacres, purges, beginning WWII by invading Poland with Germany, and policies of extermination. West noted: The fact is, not a jot about the Soviet criminal case came to judgment at Nuremberg - not the NKVD massacre of some twenty thousand Polish officers known as the Katyn Forest Massacre (charged to the Germans), not the forced "repatriation" of some two million Soviet-claimed refugees, which occurred thanks to essential assistance from British and U.S. troops - our very own war crime - which was still underway in Germany and elsewhere even as Nuremberg unfolded. (p. 55) No one was supposed to raise so much as an eyebrow, if the ghastly details of Nazi depredations described during the trials seemed to resemble the ghastly details of Soviet depredations. The Soviets commit such crimes? Perish the thought. And thought did indeed perish. Stalin's insistence on a "second front" The conduct of the war was more or less dictated by Stalin and adapted as necessary by Roosevelt and his Hopkins-picked general military staff, which included Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower and George C. Marshall. Stalin's idea was, first, to prolong the war as long as necessary, in order for the Soviets to better defend itself against the Nazis; and second, that the British and Americans should open up a "second front" by invading France. Winston Churchill, increasingly the odd-man-out in the triumvirate, argued fruitlessly to open up the new front by invading through the Balkans or through Italy, the better to cut off Soviet advances into central Europe. Unlike Roosevelt, he had no illusions about Stalin's master plan and motives. Both Roosevelt and Stalin knew alsowhat Churchill was certain would happen if the Soviet armies were able to overrun Eastern Europe and also Germany: those countries would remain under Soviet rule. Roosevelt, the "great liberator," was comfortable with the idea. West writes, quoting Francis Cardinal Spellman's recollections from his September 3rd, 1943 meeting with Roosevelt: "The European people will simply have to endure the Russian domination in the hope that in ten or twenty years they will be able to live well with the Russians," Spellman recounted FDR saying at this pre-Tehran, pre-Yalta moment. Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Bessarabia, the eastern half of Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Germany - FDR conceded all to Communist r'egimes or Soviet protection! What is most weird and most disturbing about Roosevelt's obdurate fatalism is that the entire Red Army at this time was still inside the USSR . (p. 266) Of course Roosevelt's "fatalism" saved him the necessity of making a moral judgment. That was moral relativism at work, his "convergence" kicking in to relieve him of all responsibility for the certain misery and deaths that were sure to follow a Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe. Don't bother me, don't bother me. I don't want to know. And so Eisenhower became Supreme Allied Commander and began planning D-Day. German overtures to end war in 1943 rejected Integral to understanding why Stalin wanted his "second front" is West's revelations that not only was there an extensive German underground dedicated to ridding the country of Hitler and ending the war - an underground the U.S. refused to assist or aid in any way - but that Roosevelt, beholden to Stalin, rejected several overtures from high-ranking German officers to kill or incarcerate Hitler, establish a provisional, non-Nazi government, and sue for peace - but on the condition that German forces released from fighting the British and Americans be free to repel the Red Army from Germany and other regions then held by the Nazis. The war could have ended in 1943, long before the costly D-Day invasion through France in June 1944. Had that surrender happened, D-Day would never have taken place. It wouldn't have been necessary. Churchill, sympathetic to the idea, was helpless. Stalin wanted Germany reduced to rubble. A German surrender in 1943 would have been premature for Stalin and spoiled his plans to conquer as much of Europe as possible without bumping into Anglo-American forces coming from the west. He insisted on a "second front" and Roosevelt obliged him, with Churchill's strategic advice shunted to the side as irrelevant. All the men in the conspiracy to stage a coup d''etat against Hitler were subsequently executed by Hitler's henchmen, including Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, chief of German military intelligence, who had been aiding British intelligence, and who was baffled by Roosevelt's resistance. (pp. 282-286, pp. 308-309) The repatriation of Russians and Europeans to the Soviets by British and American forces, on order from Washington, was another shameful episode discussed by West, one not known to very many Americans. Ordering General Patton to stop his pell-mell drive so that the Red Army could take Berlin is a bit of history that hasn't been covered up. There is the issue of tens of thousands of American and British POWs in German camps being "liberated" by the Red Army and subsequently incarcerated in Soviet labor camps. There is one pre-war episode not mentioned by West but which has always stuck in my mind, one I read about long ago as a teen and which inaugurated my suspicions that WWII was not entirely conducted as I'd read in history books. This was story about the S.S. St. Louis , which left Hamburg, Germany in May 1939 with 900 Jewish refugees escaping Nazi persecution. After being turned away by Cuba, the ship called on Miami, Florida. No one was allowed to enter the country because of an annual quota on immigrants. After being rebuffed by the Canadians, as well, the ship sailed to Antwerp, where many of the passengers were taken in by Britain, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. When the Nazis invaded the Continental countries, there was no escape for the remaining 620 passengers taken in by those countries. It is estimated that 254 of them died from one Nazi reason or another. My point here is that the U.S.'s ersatz immigrant quota system denied all those passengers a chance to survive and live. Today, we allow the virtually unlimited immigration of Muslims, and are contemplating allowing millions of illegal Mexican aliens, under the rubric of "amnesty," to remain here to better ensure a Democratic victory in 2016. This is a form of "convergence" not even Roosevelt could have contemplated or imagined. He opened the gates to one form of enemy; Obama and his minions continue to open them to another. Diana West has done this country a favor by putting between two covers the record of a long, disgraceful period in American history. She will not receive very many thanks or compliments for having done so. She is likely to be reviled and smeared, when it is Franklin D. Roosevelt's person and record that should be reviled, together with the Soviets' top agent, Harry Hopkins. Moral and political relativism, she demonstrated, allowed the U.S. to tolerate the Soviets and their murderous totalitarian r'egime in the Red Decade, and then become an "ally" with it to crush a rival totalitarian r'egime, that of the Nazis. It inoculated Roosevelt, a political pragmatist with strong left-wing premises, against knowledge of the terrible and freedom-destroying nature of Communism, while, au contraire , at the same time allowed him and his agents to decry the terrible and freedom-destroying nature of Nazism. West's book initially began as an enquiry into why 9/11 was met with the government's ambivalence and delusions about the nature of Islam. Observing the inroads Islam and Sharia law were making in the U.S., she was certain that Islam was not so much a primitive religion as an all-encompassing totalitarian ideology, one as committed to conquest and slavery as had been Nazism, Communism, and Shintoism. If the government had raised the hue and cry about the evils of Nazism, why not about the evils of Islam? Because Roosevelt, Hopkins, and their allies in the State Department and other government entities practiced their own brand of uncritical "outreach" to Communism and the Soviet Union. Her search for an answer led her to discover and uncover, as far as the surviving records permitted her, all the lies and truths about Roosevelt, Harry Hopkins, Stalin, Communism, and the real reasons why the U.S. was drawn into a war whose only real victor was the Soviet Union. No hue and cry was ever raised by anyone in power about the evils of Communism, she discovered. Why not? And those few who did raise the hue and cry were mocked, smeared, marginalized, discredited, ignored, and banished from serious discussion. Why? What would permit our government, the leader of the "free world," to participate in and perpetuate the suppression of the truth about Communism and the Soviet Union, and to enlarge the area of the unfree world with an insouciant cry of C'est la vie ? What would motivate it to con Americans year after year and throughout a devastating war? If our national character is defined as one of incorrigible individualism and freedom from fiat or arbitrary coercion, what had happened to it? These were the questions she sought answers to. One answer she learned was that by 1933, our government had indeed reached another kind of "convergence," one in which truth and liberty met power-lust at a vector point and were demolished by a craving for power over men as a means of having power over reality, and that such power-lust would readily discard all principles and all commitment to upholding not just the Constitution, but the value of freedom. West does not go into the history of that growing power, which can be traced back to certain ideas and actions taken by men in government in the 19th and early 20th centuries to implement those ideas, and advocated by numerous groups, the most prominent of which were the Progressives. On one hand, the culprits did not value the truth. On the other, they feared its power and went to extraordinary lengths to suppress it, erected ideological barricades to block it from public knowledge, and punished those who spoke the truth or threatened to tell the truth. It's all here in American Betrayal . Read it at your own risk. West's lesson to Americans: Reality can't be redacted, buried, fabricated, falsified, or omitted. Her book is eloquent proof of it. * American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation's Character, by Diana West. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2013. http://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/2013/06/our-enemy-inside-gates.html http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=81f_1371330063 Detroit Iron Our Enemy Inside the Gates Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin Sat, 15 Jun 2013 16:07:56 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=520_1371326050 Mr-Creosote A Saudi youth whose hero appears to be the late, great Saddam, offers a curse for Assad, and suggests a Jihad against him would be just the ticket. He further opines on his political philosophy re deranged dictator assad, but my grasp of the lingo isnt up to catching it all. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=520_1371326050 Mr-Creosote A young Saudi chap calls for a 'Jihad on Bashar', 'and then recites a curse on said tyrant Syria, Uprising, Fri, 14 Jun 2013 15:10:57 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7b2_1371234903 John Nada Some weeks ago i posted the &quot;Kickass: Russian Su-30MK flies on the edge of space&quot;Video. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=049_1365104531 Here is the original venezuelan video. The Su-30MK2 reached more then 23km altitude and Mach 1,7 at a horizontal flight. This is the philosophy behind the Su-27: Huge wing area with big vectored thrust = huge range, extreme agility and maximum flight altitude. at some range, this jet can just outrun most of the enemy missiles by pure kinematic power. Original Youtube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5EIhIXkeV4 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7b2_1371234903 John Nada Another Video of the russian-venezuelan Su-30MK2 flying supersonic above 23km altitude Su-30MK2, Su-30, Su-27, F-15, F-16, F-18, F-22, Suchoi, Venezuela, Chavez, Putin, military, usa, nato, israel, zionist, jews, syria, nwo Fri, 14 Jun 2013 14:04:40 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a41_1371232819 Dealer Murphy's Laws of Combat Sniper's motto: "Reach out and touch someone." Sniper's philosophy: "If you run, you'll only die tired." Thanks for watching! http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a41_1371232819 Dealer Rising Storm - Allies Sniper Rising Storm, Sniper, Gameplay, team2h2k, Allies Fri, 14 Jun 2013 08:32:57 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0d5_1371213032 Fine_Just_Fine NOTE: The following article is based off a speech given on June 8, 2013 at the Celebration of Liberty event in Topeka, KS. While some of the nullification strategies are specific for Kansas, the general principles can and should be applied in every state of the country. So NSA boss James Clapper is pretty irritated that he and his buddies got busted this week. Here's what he had to say, "The unauthorized disclosure of information about this important and entirely legal program is reprehensible and risks important protections for the security of Americans." To these criminals, you being aware of what they're doing is a bad thing. And speaking of "reprehensible," let's talk a little bit about a Mr. Eric Holder. Not only is his office tasked with defending the NSA in front of the secret courts that authorized this mass spying (wow, "secret court" sounds a little like something Stalin would've used, doesn't it?), he also doesn't like the idea of YOU having the right to keep and bear arms unless HE says it's ok. As many of you already know, our Supreme Leader Lord Holder threatened you in a letter to Governor Brownback. Here's a little of what Eric had to say: "In purporting to override federal law and to criminalize the official acts of federal officers, SB102 directly conflicts with federal law and is therefore unconstitutional." This Holder guy has the arrogance to tell you - the People of Kansas - what your constitution means. This hubris isn't limited to Eric - it's pervasive in the entire government. On the NSA spying program, Barack Obama told us all not to worry. It's "legal" because Congress has reauthorized the program over and over. The view of tyrants has been the same throughout history - if they do it, it's ok. But our buddy Eric Holder didn't stop at just claiming kingly powers for himself. He also decided to threaten you. "I am writing to inform you that federal law enforcement agencies...will continue to execute their duties to enforce ALL federal firearms laws and regulations. Moreover, the United States will take all appropriate action, including litigation if necessary, to prevent the State of Kansas from interfering with the activities of federal officials enforcing federal law." This is what power-mad criminals always do. Holder and his criminal friends have been doing this for quite some time. Back in 2009, his office sent a letter to the Oklahoma Attorney General's office. He used aggressive language, threatening to withhold Federal funds appropriated for Oklahoma. The reason? A proposed amendment to the State Constitution, which would have made English the official language of the State. Regarding that letter to Oklahoma, Rob Natelson - one of the nation's leading constitutional scholars - said this: "During the 2nd century AD, Roman Emperors began to increasingly interfere with local government and they did this with...letters...letters that look something like this. They started out as almost advisory and they got increasingly peremptory. By the end of the 2nd century, there was very little local government left. I look at this and I see this letter which gets close to looking like an order from the central government down to a sovereign state legislature, and I say...WOW! This looks like something that Septimius Severus would have sent to the local officials." This is the arrogance of an emperor. QUESTION The question is this - What are you going to do about it? Well, here's a few options that are guaranteed to fail. I've got a 100% guarantee on this. Vote the Bums out in Congress. Well, people have been voting bums out for at least a century or more and we just keep getting more bums. Make the case in court. Yeah, good luck with that. You know, those people who ruled that inactivity was "taxable"? - Well I wouldn't trust them with my garbage. March on DC! - Sorry. Only dogs begs for scraps. I recommend a different direction and you're already on that path. No more waiting. The time to nullify is now . IN PRACTICE So let's put that into practice. And in order to do that, I want to review just a little about what you have as law here in the State of Kansas - it's actually far broader and stronger than what most people think it is. The 2nd Amendment Protection Act that Sam Brownback signed into law last month has two major parts: a) A "firearms freedom act" component. This is what most of the experts talk about as the entirety of the bill. This part of the law exempts firearms manufactured within the state and sold within the state from federal laws and regulations under the Interstate commerce clause. It also provides for criminal penalties for federal agents who attempt to violate this portion of the law. The constitutional philosophy behind this is that these goods have not traveled in "interstate commerce" and are outside of federal purview. Constitutionally-speaking, this is absolutely correct when considering the view of the founders instead of the living-breathing constitution that the federal courts have given us. If this was the entirety of the law, it would be a great first step for you in Kansas. But this is just one part of the 2nd Amendment Protection Act. This other part - is just awesome - and with some work, could really have an impact in favor of your right to keep and bear arms. It states, in part: Any act, law, treaty, order, rule or regulation of the government of the United States which violates the second amendment to the constitution of the United States is null, void and unenforceable in the state of Kansas In conjunction with Section 6a, the bill defines what is meant by "the second amendment to the constitution of the United States," and it isn't based off a decision of the supreme court. The second amendment to the constitution of the United States reserves to the people, individually, the right to keep and bear arms as that right was understood at the time that Kansas was admitted to statehood in 1861. Based off this text, the state of Kansas is not allowed to enforce - since the law calls the acts "unenforceable" - any federal gun control measures that violate the 2nd Amendment as understood at the time that Kansas joined the Union in 1861. And since there's no evidence that the People of Kansas agreed to a Constitution that allowed the federal government to restrict the right to keep and bear arms in any way - that means all federal gun control laws, rules, regulations, treaties and orders are "unenforceable" in Kansas. Don't get me wrong, the feds are still going to WANT to enforce these so-called federal laws, but they rely so heavily on assistance and support from state and local government that a law banning everyone in the state from enforcing these federal acts will render the feds almost toothless. Judge Andrew Napolitano has confirmed this recently, telling us that such widespread noncompliance in a state would make federal gun laws "nearly impossible to enforce." This is exactly what James Madison said we should be doing regarding constitutional violations. In Federalist #46 he advised us to a few things, most prominently: - refuse to cooperate with officers of the Union - use "legislative devices" to create "very serious impediments" Madison told us that if several adjoining States would do the same it "would present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter." In other words - the feds cannot enforce gun control in Kansas without the help of Kansas. WHAT'S NEXT? Well, the state isn't going to magically stop enforcing federal law. Unless you get active and take steps to enforce this "unenforceable" section of the Kansas 2nd Amendment Protection Act, nothing will change. Nothing - guaranteed. But if you start to take action, and take action now, you can turn this mess around. There are three things you need to accomplish to make your state the 2nd Amendment freedom state. Get your local community - city or town AND your county to pass a 2nd Amendment Preservation Ordinance . Once the state is blanketed with local communities passing these ordinances, get the state to follow up and expand the current law just a bit further. Taking James Madison's advice - work with and support your neighboring states. As far as the first two, Here at the TAC, we've already drafted legislation to do just that. The Kansas Local 2nd Amendment Preservation Ordinance . ( other states here ) Here's the 2 most important excerpts: Whereas, the (CITY, COUNTY, TOWN) of (NAME) affirms its support for the 2nd Amendment Protection Act by confirming that the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as understood at the time that Kansas entered the union in 1861, did not authorize the federal government to enact any laws, orders, rules or regulations, whatsoever, regarding the right to keep and bear arms; and andNo agency of the (CITY, COUNTY, TOWN) of (NAME), or person in the employ of the (CITY, COUNTY, TOWN) of (NAME) shall enforce, provide material support for, or participate in any way in the enforcement of any act, law, treaty, order, rule or regulation of the government of the United States regarding personal firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition within the boundaries of this (CITY, COUNTY, TOWN). Things are already moving forward thanks to the tireless work of great patriots like Patricia Stoneking. Plus good folks like Blake Branson, Rob Wood - and many others I should be mentioning. The Sedgewick county commissioners already passed this as law. And under the leadership of Mayor Kenny Chartier, the small town of Herndon passed Ordinance #510 last month - to fully ban local enforcement of federal gun laws. Two down. 100 more to go? Then you'll take on the 2nd task and work to get the state legislature to do the same. They should pass what should be an easy bill- one to expressly prohibit all state agents, agencies, employees and assets from ever participating in any way in the enforcement of any federal gun control measures. All of them. A total stand-down. Finally, the third step, support your neighbors. Instead of donating money to some 2016 presidential candidate? Send $50 over to Missouri First - they followed your lead here in Kansas and got their state to pass a 2nd Amendment Preservation Act to nullify all federal gun control measures as well. Support the group, Oklahoma Liberty . Become a member and support the TAC! CLOSING Three things. That's what you need to do. Blanket the state and the entire region with laws like this - and federal gun control is as good as dead no matter what they try to pass in Washington DC. I can assure you that facing down the evil empire is not going to be easy. But easy is for losers. I hope you'll take this advice from Samuel Adams, the great agitator for liberty: Instead of sitting down satisfied with the efforts we have already made, which is the wish of our enemies, the necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance. The time for waiting......is over. The time to act.....is now. Together, we can send a message to Eric Holder and all his successors - something that will shake their foundation and resonate through history. We don't need your stinkin' permission to exercise our rights - we're going to exercise them whether you want us to or not. READ MORE from Tenth Amendment Center for your rights and how to be involved. http://www.rightsidenews.com/2013061332700/us/homeland-security/three-steps-to-nullify-federal-gun-control.html http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0d5_1371213032 Fine_Just_Fine THREE STEPS TO NULLIFY FEDERAL GUN CONTROL gun control, gun rights, second amendment