I have interviewed Buddy Witherspoon on WTMA and was hopeful he would be a good anti-Lindsey Graham vote, but have since changed my mind for the same reasons stated here. Writes Dylan Hales at The Left Conservative:
“As one could probably guess from recent postings on this site, I have a litmus test for all candidates. In order to get the vote and endorsement of yours truly, one must openly dissent from the continued presence of U.S. troops in Iraq and must be interested in a serious reassessment of our foreign policy. While the standards I apply to candidates running in major parties and candidates running as third party “outsiders” are different, these are the minimum requirements necessary for my support unqualified or otherwise.
Buddy Witherspoon is an un-PC, shoot from the hip kind of guy. By all accounts he can be taken at his word. He has shown a willingness to take some strong populist, conservative positions. His stands on immigration, spending, the 2nd Amendment and trade will be of any interesting to anti-status quo voters. But he’s not “my buddy”.
We have achieved some success in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and I am not willing to set a deadline for withdrawal and I will not cut and run.
That is Mr. Witherspoon on Iraq, and this is me saying “no thanks”. War is not the only thing that matters, but it is the issue that is most tied up with the other key issues of the day (immigration, spending, size of government, taxation, civil liberties, et.). Witherspoon could easily pull a Murray Sabrin, and argue that the WMD are gone, Saddam is out and it is time to come home. Instead he spits the neocon “cut and run” line, and senselessly babbles on about not having a timetable for withdrawal (without a timetable, one can assume our presence will go on forever, a withdrawal will require planning and informing the troops that they are coming home).
Buddy, you may be better than Lindsey, but who isn’t? Anti-war conservatives and South Carolinians deserve better than this from a populist challenger. I’m not the biggest fan of former Myrtle Beach Mayor Mark McBride, but he talks the non-interventionist talk, and is on board with the paleos on the other issues too. If you want a serious alternative to GOP elitism, he is the guy for you.”
“Sen. John McCain has said he will be Hamas’ worst nightmare. It’s a juvenile thing to say. The line sounded more convincing when Sly Stallone said it in one of his Rambo movies.
What does the senator propose to do to Hamas? Refuse to recognize the Hamas members who are the legitimately elected representatives of the Palestinians? It’s already been done. Assassinate Hamas’ leadership? The Israelis do that every chance they get. Put Hamas’ elected officeholders in prison? Done that. Seal off the Gaza Strip and impose collective punishment on a million innocent people? The Israelis have done that. Set up roadblocks? Done. Periodically attack the Palestinians with advanced weapons? Done.
What Sen. McCain is much more likely to do as president is become America’s worst nightmare by continuing the failed policies of the Bush administration. Here is a man who has publicly admitted that he knows nothing about economics and who confuses Sunnis and Shi’ites. What are the two major problems facing America? Economic troubles and a war in the Middle East involving Shi’ites and Sunnis. Sen. McCain finished near the bottom of his class at Annapolis and launched his political career by dumping the wife who stood by him during his imprisonment and marrying big money. Excuse me if I’m not overwhelmed with his resume.
All Sen. McCain is promising is more of the same, which is precisely what the American people don’t need. We need to repair our economy and to mend fences abroad. Macho talk borrowed from make-believe macho movie characters should have no place in our diplomacy. Hollywood heroes have scriptwriters to make sure the bad guys miss. American presidents and the American people don’t.”
Writes Christopher Check in the Chicago Daily Observer (5/8/08):
“If you are looking for a sign of hope, however, look at Congressman Walter B. Jones of North Carolina’s 3rd congressional district. Since 1995 this Republican congressman held his seat unopposed from within his party. In Tuesday’s primary, however, he faced a challenger for the first time. Why? Because three years ago, the very man who introduced legislation changing the name of french fries to Freedom Fries converted from one of the Iraq War’s biggest supporters to one of its fiercest critics.
His conservatism is beyond reproach: tough on immigration, a strong supporter of American manufacturing, 100 percent pro-life, unwavering on Second Amendment rights, a firm defender of marriage and family, et cetera.
Nonetheless, his challenger, Joe McLaughlin attempted to paint Jones as a liberal. Why opposing foreign wars of imperialism makes one a liberal is not clear. (Perhaps George Washington was a liberal.) In any case, McLaughlin thought he had a big advantage: the 3rd congressional district includes Camp Lejeune, home of the Second Marine Division, and is heavily populated by veterans. Surely our men in uniform would not support “cut-and-run” Jones.
McLaughlin was wrong. Way wrong. Veterans and active duty servicemen alike are all too aware that they are the ones shedding their blood and losing their limbs (and their minds) while the Pearles and Kristols of the world plan their next adventure. The men in uniform in Jones’s district know that he is their best friend in Congress. His support of the troops is not the mile-wide-and-millimeter-deep jingoism of yellow ribbons and bumper stickers. It is the support of a man who attends the funerals at Camp Lejeune and sees young boys who will never know their fathers. It is the support of a man who realizes America’s security is jeopardized not strengthened by this war.
With nearly 60 percent of the votes, Jones beat McLaughlin handily. And he beat him in Onslow County, where Camp Lejeune is located (and where McLaughlin served as commissioner), as well as in Wayne County, the home of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base.
While the rest of the Republican Party (especially in this state) is on its back gasping for life, conservatives might take a look and see how goodness and truth, and devotion to principle, played on Tuesday in North Carolina.”
May 10th is Confederate Memorial Day in South Carolina and as usual the holiday will likely pass with less fanfare than some might like. That a holiday to honor the Confederate dead doesn’t get as much attention as their flag says more about today’s politics than it does yesterday’s soldiers.
For us modern folks, it is the flag that first comes to mind upon hearing the word “Confederate” and how one feels about the South’s most famous symbol is the key to how we feel about everything else associated with it. Some insist that the Confederate flag stands for bravery and sacrifice while others believe it stands for slavery. Some contend that it stands for regional pride while others consider it a symbol of racism.
The Confederate flag is not the first symbol in history to have double meaning. There’s little doubt Muslims during the Crusades had as negative a view of the Christian cross as their opponents did a favorable one. Englishman likely had a different feeling about the Union Jack than those in India and elsewhere who watched as foreigners colonized their homeland. And the American Indian, no doubt, has had a love/hate relationship with Old Glory for centuries. Yet no reasonable man would dare suggest that Christians, the English or Americans surrender their most cherished symbols.
Black Southerners are not without reason in their distaste for the Confederate flag. But does their distaste discount white Southerners’ affection? Should the worst aspect attributed to a symbol, however accurate or inaccurate, define that symbol for everyone?
For example, many black Americans have made African heritage a symbol of pride. Should the fact that more enslavement and slave trading occurred in Africa by Africans than it ever did in the entire West, discount African symbolism entirely?
Many have compared the Confederate flag to the Nazi swastika as an irredeemable symbol that stands exclusively for ‘hate’ and hate alone. But to compare Nazism, an imperial philosophy defined exclusively by anti-Semitism and white supremacy, with the War for Southern Independence, a struggle for national sovereignty not unlike the American Revolution, is absurd. That Adolf Hitler targeted a certain ethnic group for annihilation is as certain as the fact that Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee did not. And whereas the swastika represented the singular vision of a race-obsessed dictator, Confederate imagery grew out of the Christian and American character of the Southern people, from the St. Andrews Cross that adorns the battle flag to the 13 stars that define the red, white and blue banner.
Mutual respect does not necessarily entail mutual understanding, and just like the cultural divide in hip-hop and country music, a black American doesn’t have to understand Robert E. Lee anymore than a white American needs to understand Malcolm X. What has happened to the Confederate flag is that those who neither like it nor understand it have been allowed to define it exclusively, which would be like reading a history of the Boston Red Sox written by the New York Yankees. Both groups belong to the same game and play on the same field, but naturally have entirely different perspectives.
Whether the Confederate flag stays with us or continues to wither on the vine, it is but one symptom of a much larger problem. Political correctness and multicultural philosophy have rendered too many white Americans defenseless against those who would gladly rob them of their cultural inheritance just out of spite. It was Martin Luther King Jr. who said “a nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.” And with the increasing attacks on traditional American symbols, everything from Christmas to Christopher Columbus in recent years, you can bet the ongoing destruction of the Confederate flag is but the first downpayment.
Outside of pro wrestling, what I know about sports you could fit in a thimble. But I do know about neocons. This is great (thanks to Justin Raimondo at Takimag.com):
“Should we be worried the Mariners are baseball’s equivalent of the Bush Administration? Fiscally undisciplined with negligible positive returns? Check. Marketed as veteran leadership despite any veterans with leadership experience? Check. Sloppy management reinforced with sloppy execution on the ground? Check.”
“Kudos last night to North Carolina voters for nominating B.J. Lawson, a bonified Ron Paul Republican to the nomination for the 4th Congressional District and re-electing Walter Jones Jr. to the sixth CD. Jones was the only GOP member of Congress to endorse Paul for President.
This is important because while Lawson faces an uphillclimb in a heavily Democratic district, just the fact he won the district puts it Ron Paul’s hands. Given the way the GOP divies up its delegates to its national convention by Congressional District, controlling a district is a big deal and means Ron Paul’s Republicans are going to have influence and power within the party in the future regardless what happens this fall.
Jones’ election is also important to show Republicans that opposing the war, even in a district filled with military bases, is not a political death sentence. Voters do actually respect Congressmen who take a stand even if they may disagree with it (or maybe they privately agree. If they thought Jones was cut-in-run peacenik, wouldn’t the margin have been just a little closer than 2-to-1?).”
“What is clear, by now, is that the War Party is openly rooting for Hillary: see the Weekly Standard for the neocons’ paean to Hillary the war goddess. Before the Obama surge nearly wiped her out, she was sounding like Obama in his denunciations of the “war that should never have been fought,” i.e., Iraq, yet she shifted gears rather abruptly and began presenting herself as a lunch-bucket know-nothing pro-war demagogue who could pass for Joe Lieberman in drag.
The Weekly Standard-ites are all atwitter at the new Hillary, the woman who “may still be a nanny-state type in some of her policies, but in her own life she seems more and more of a Social Darwinian, refusing to lose, and insisting on shaping her destiny.” She’s a “fighter” – never mind what she’s fighting for – who’s been through a lot. Of course, the same can be said of Ron Paul, yet we don’t hear any praise coming to him from Bill Kristol, Rush Limbaugh, and the neocon Right. The reason for this newfound enthusiasm for the Woman the Right Used to Hate is twofold: She isn’t Obama, and she is sounding more and more like McCain when it comes to foreign policy, the premier issue as far as the neocons are concerned.”
“This is very good news: Huckabee + Paul gets 20% in North Carolina; Huckabee + Paul + Romney gets 23% in Indiana. If you add in the “no preference” vote in NC, then the anti-McCain vote jumps up to 27%. Some of this might be a flailing protest vote–which isn’t a bad start in my opinion!”
“Since 9/11, our leaders have given every reason for Islamic terrorism except those which include the hard evidence. As the former head of the CIA unit tracking Osama Bin Laden, Michael Scheuer writes, “On no other foreign policy issue since the Cold War’s end has the truth been so easy to establish on the basis of hard facts but so hard for Americans to see — primarily because their leaders eagerly distort or ignore the truth. At day’s end, each (leader) is ready to intervene abroad to champion abstractions such as democracy rather than U.S. interests, each is ready to spend the lives of soldiers and Marines to do so, and each advances the Islamist cause by failing to see that Muslim hatred is motivated by U.S. interventionism more than any other factor.”
As a 22-year veteran of the most hands-on terrorist-monitoring unit of the CIA, one might think Scheuer would know a thing or two about what motivates radical Islam.”
The "Southern Avenger" Jack Hunter is a conservative commentator (WTMA 1250 AM talk radio) and columnist (Charleston City Paper) living in Charleston, South Carolina.
