A Microcosm of the Yankee-Marxist Mindset: The Dahlgren Papers

Any who have studied the history of the War Between the States aka the War of Northern Aggression have probably heard of the infamous Dahlgren Papers. The Dahlgren Papers were a set of orders found on the body of Colonel Ulric Dahlgren after he was killed in Judson (Kill-Cavalry) Kilpatrick’s bungled attempt at a raid on Richmond, Virginia in 1864. This was supposedly a raid to attempt to free federal prisoners of war. One writer said it was a “Moe, Larry, and Curly kind of caper.”

Whatever it was, Lincoln personally authorized it. The idea of a raid on the enemy’s capitol in wartime is not a particularly alarming one. Jubal Early tried it on Washington in 1864 and almost pulled it off. Had he a bigger force than he had he might have gotten away with it. However, Jubal Early did not have in his coat pocket a set of orders instructing him to murder Abraham Lincoln and his cabinet “on the spot.” Ulric Dahlgren had such a set of orders in his possession, and therein lies the Yankee dilemma (and worldview). Continue reading

Meeting with Barry Goldwater taught him a lesson…

“You’ve been there before, right?”

The driver’s question shook the candidate out of his reverie.

The young man didn’t make a habit of using a car service, but with his campaign manager in a meeting, other workers putting up and repositioning signs and his wife needing the family car, a limo was the best way to ensure the candidate arrived at this important meeting on time.

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve been there before, right?”

“Nope… first time!” Continue reading

The Never Ending Battle Over Public School Textbooks

In going through books in my research library, some of which I am going to be forced to get rid of, due to severe space limitations in our new living situation, I came across a book I didn’t even remember. It was one written by James C. Hefley called “Textbooks on Trial” and it dealt primarily with the efforts of Mel and Norma Gabler to get decent textbooks approved for kids in Texas public schools way back in the 1960 and 70s. It was published in 1976, while the West Virginia Textbook Protest was still fresh in people’s minds and my family and I were still in West Virginia. I recall my wife and I hearing Norma Gabler speak at a God and Country rally back in the early 70s. Continue reading

Homeschooling Through High School

Why not? Whether you’re experienced or inexperienced, whatever your situation, you already know why you want to homeschool your kids through high school. Now, what about how?

We have been homeschooling our three sons since the eldest, now a sophomore at a neighboring state university, was in the seventh grade. So you can see that most of our experience is with the adolescent years. We have a ninth and an eleventh grader still at home.

First of all, relax. Teenagers are just young people. Continue reading

Invasion of the Classroom…

My wife retired nearly a dozen years ago as a full time High School teacher, however her special needs were still in demand from several Districts in our area, hence – she is still teaching as a full time substitute. There are times she has been contracted to fill a specific position for many months at a time.

This past week she was subbing for an English class in our local High School and the screen she was posting in the classroom (above) all of a sudden had a “news-flash” pop up. Since when does a News headline have the right to “come into”  and interrupt the classroom? Who is spying into the schools?

Editor
March 28, 2022

Edwin M. Stanton, Would-Be Dictator

Engraved portrait of Edwin M. Stanton, Lincoln’s secretary of war

It would seem, from his commentary about others, that Lincoln’s Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, had an inflated concept of his own abilities and a diminished view of the abilities of others. He was definitely not a practitioner of the Christian virtue of having a meek and humble spirit (James 4:6). He quite often spoke abusively of Lincoln and others in the administration. He referred to Lincoln at one point as “the original gorilla.” After becoming Secretary of War his disposition toward Lincoln did not improve. At one point he said to Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt, “Well, all I have to say is, we’ve got to get rid of that baboon at the White House!Continue reading

The Double-Edged Legacy of Andrew Jackson

Editor’s NOTE: It is rare that we publish a piece of this type, as it is in fact an advertisement for an upcoming auction – BUT – the links to various images are well worth looking at such pieces of history. ~ Ed.

One of the lessons many of us learned at an early age from Thumper in the Disney movie “Bambi” was, “If you don’t have somethin’ nice to say, don’t say nuthin’ at all.” Andrew Jackson is a president for whom it becomes challenging to say nice things! On the one hand, to admirers, he appears as a quintessential symbol of American accomplishment, the ultimate individualist praised for his strength and audacity. On the other hand, to his detractors, he appears vengeful, self-obsessed, a combatant and a tyrant, described in terms, at least prior to Donald J. Trump, as “coming closest to an American Caesar” as any president we have encountered.

Some of Andrew Jackson’s most significant impacts on our history as a nation include: Continue reading

Propaganda, Corporatism, and the Hidden Global Coup

Le Bon and Goebbels teach us about modern State and NGO-sponsored Propaganda during COVID

Knowledge of the theory and practical implementation of mass formation psychology can and is being used by propagandists, governments and the World Economic Forum to sway large groups of people to act for the benefit of the propagandists’ objectives. Although a major crisis of some sort can be extremely useful for propagandists to take advantage of (war, hyperinflation or public health for example), these psychological theories can and often are applied even without strong evidence of a compelling crisis. For this to be effective, the leader just has to be sufficiently compelling. Continue reading

The Parent Trap: Why the School Wars Still Rage

From evolution to anti-racism, parents and progressives have clashed for a century over who gets to tell our origin stories.

A stand in Dayton, Tennessee, during the July, 1925, Scopes trial. Photograph from Getty

In 1925, Lela V. Scopes, twenty-eight, was turned down for a job teaching mathematics at a high school in Paducah, Kentucky, her home town. She had taught in the Paducah schools before going to Lexington to finish college at the University of Kentucky. But that summer her younger brother, John T. Scopes, was set to be tried for the crime of teaching evolution in a high-school biology class in Dayton, Tennessee, in violation of state law, and Lela Scopes had refused to denounce either her kin or Charles Darwin. It didn’t matter that evolution doesn’t ordinarily come up in an algebra class. And it didn’t matter that Kentucky’s own anti-evolution law had been defeated. “Miss Scopes loses her post because she is in sympathy with her brother’s stand,” the Times reported. Continue reading

Crockett: Not Yours to Give

~ Prologue ~
One day in the House of Representatives, a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support. The Speaker was just about to put the question when Mr. Crockett arose:

Mr. Speaker — I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the suffering of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this house, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him.
Continue reading

Charles Dickens: A Tale of Two Cities

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only…” ~ Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, April 30, 1859

~ A Tale of Two Cities: Synopsis ~

It is the year 1775, and France, as well as England, are awash with social ills. Jerry cruncher delivers an urgent message to Jarvis Lorry vie the Dover mail-coach. In the message, he gets instruction to wait at Dover for Lucie Manette, an orphan whose supposedly dead father is alive in France. They both go to Paris a meet Dr. Manette who is now a mad man who makes shoes. The love between daughter and father recall Manette to sanity.

In 1780, Charles Darnay got accused of treason against the English throne. He was suspected of spying. Stryver, his lawyer pleads his case but not until Sydney carton, a useless drunkard comes to his defense leading to his acquittal. Continue reading

Benson: The Last Place You Want Your Kids

Anyone who has read any of my work knows where I stand on the public school system. That is no secret. I remember, many years ago now, one of my main mentors, Rev. Ennio Cugini, made the comment to me that the public school system was a place to keep students up to date on the latest propaganda produced by the communists. When you look at what is being promoted today in these so-called institutions of learning, things like Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project, it is difficult not to agree with Pastor Cugini’s assessment of public schools. Continue reading

Public Eduction: Factories Producing Compliant Global Idiots

As innocent children come into the world, their minds are a clean slate, ready to listen, absorb and learn. They trust and follow those that have been assigned the task of leading them to knowledge. For decades, that same innocent trust has been accepted by the parents to feel confident that the American education system is designed to teach basic academic knowledge to their children, while it’s up to the parents to provide love, family values, and moral integrity. Continue reading

American History: Original Sin

American Slavery, American Freedom (Colonial Virginia 1607-1676) The swampy environs of Jamestown, Virginia, claim the life of another 17th-century English settler in this painting by National Park Service artist Sydney King.

Origins matter. Every nation-state has an origin myth, a comforting tale of trials, tribulations and triumphs that form the foundation of “imagined communities.” The United States of America – a self-proclaimed “indispensable nation” – is as prone to exaggerated origin myths as any society in human history. Most of us are familiar with the popular American origin story: Our forefathers, a collection of hardy, pious pioneers, escaped religious persecution in England and founded a “new world” – a shining beacon in a virgin land. Of course, that story, however flawed, refers to the Pilgrims, and Massachusetts, circa 1620. But that’s not the true starting point for English-speaking society in North America. Continue reading

Ronald Reagan ~ A Time For Choosing

Los Angeles, California, October 27, 1964“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth…”

In a speech supporting the Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, Reagan spoke of big government, high taxation, and the “war on poverty.” He addressed foreign policy issues including the risk of appeasement, “peace through strength,” and the Vietnam War.

Continue reading

YAY! ~ Parents Are Pulling Kids Out of Public Schools

All indications are that this trickle could turn into a flood now that parents know what’s going on in their children’s education.

A recent study released from the National Centers for Education Statistics revealed that public schools have been experiencing a decrease in enrollment. Almost 4% of students were pulled out of public schools in the 2020-2021 school year. This was especially evident in the younger grades. According to the report, “Preschool enrollment dropped by 22 percent, and enrollment of kindergarteners fell by 9 percent.” Continue reading

Our Failing Students Are Crippled for Life

Thirty-odd years ago, I taught adult basic education two nights a week in a minimum-security prison in Hazelwood, North Carolina.

The men in my classes had committed a variety of crimes. The majority were incarcerated for drug-related felonies, mostly possession and dealing. One major dealer from Charlotte was rumored to have killed a rival, while another inmate had murdered his wife in a lover’s quarrel. Still another had once lived across the street from me and burglarized various houses in the neighborhood, though as he told me, “I never hit your place, you know.” One young man was behind bars for child molestation but, given his limited intelligence, would probably have fared better in a psychiatric unit.

The great majority of these prisoners were white, reflecting the demographics of Western North Carolina. Some were in their late teens, a few in their 60s. Some had grown up on farms, some in cities. Some were serious about learning, while others were clearly in the classroom to escape the dormitory for two hours. Some spoke lovingly of their parents, spouses, children, or girlfriends. Others were bitter, including one old man who swore to several people in class that he was going home to kill his wife when he was released. The police shot him dead in a chicken coop on his property when he tried to do that very thing. Continue reading