The American Horror Next Door

"Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. 

"Sec. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."...  

Now, therefore, be it known, that I, William H. Seward, Secretary of State of the United States...do hereby certify that the amendment aforesaid has become valid, to all intents and purposes, as a part of the Constitution of the United States. 

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the Department of State to be affixed. 

Done at the city of Washington, this eighteenth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the ninetieth. 

-- Proclamation of the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, December 18, 1865.

Today, in the closing days of the two hundred and thirty-seventh year of American Independence, less than one hundred and fifty years since the constitutional abolition of slavery in the United States, we take that abolition completely for granted. That's a bold statement, I know, but I believe it completely justified.

"Slavery" brings up a definite mental image in the minds of Americans, which more likely than not is that of black slaves, predominately forced agricultural labor, prior to the end of the American Civil War that resulted ultimately in emancipation and abolition. The term gets thrown around a lot in different circles too. I've used it as a shock term in describing what I see as our overall decline in condition from citizens of a republic to subjects of a State. It's been used to describe conditions under which some aliens in the United States today exist because of their presence here in violation of immigration laws. Both are valid, but both also serve to perpetuate visions that keep a real slavery crisis in the shadows.

Just this past week, we heard the sensational story out of Cleveland, Ohio about the three women rescued from captivity at the hands of a sexual predator for a decade. The victims have been referred to, properly, as "slaves". The story is front page news on a large proportion of print and online media, and among the top stories on broadcast media.

Yesterday afternoon (May 10, 2013), there was another horrific story reported out of the Cleveland area. It hasn't been reported by CNN. Or Fox News. Or...well, hardly anywhere. I believe that this story isn't being widely reported because it's a societal problem so incredible in the breadth and depth of its horrors that many people just can't process or accept that it could happen here, in the United States.

This story is one of the real faces of slavery in America: young women, many still girls, children, forced into into sexual slavery as prostitutes. There are also cases simply involving forced labor, but I find coerced sex-for-service inflicted upon a victim of any age particularly barbaric. And want to know what's really scary? It's probably also going on right now, close to you, within minutes of travel time from where you're sitting and reading this.

I am a Conservatarian, Volume I: The Basics

A few weeks ago, I was tossed a "Follow Friday" on Twitter by Kevin Boyd, a blogger, social media director of the great new blog site Pocket Full of Liberty, and on my short list of great Twitterverse friends I really have to meet in real life someday. Kevin graciously tagged me as "Mr. Conservatarian", and when I've gotten in a rant-ish kind of mood over on Twitter recently, I've been shooting out pearls of wisdom with the heading and hashtag "I am a #Conservatarian".

The whole concept of "Conservatarian" probably could use some explanation, and I'm all too happy to oblige. And yes, I'm rather pretentiously labeling this "Volume I", as this is a topic area that I can drop dozens of posts into, and hope to do so.

Sleepers wake? Part One of a Different Take on Benghazi

Inquiries and investigations into the Benghazi attack on September 11, 2012 that left four Americans dead, including US Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens, are picking up. Many are starting to ask about what I think is one of the key questions in the whole scandal, namely who was it that gave then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, UN Ambassador Susan Rice, and others the talking points about the "YouTube" excuse; that it was the rather badly made anti-Muslim video that spurred on the whole attack and following debacle. Glenn Kessler at The Washington Post's "The Fact Checker" blog is on this angle, as is Ed Morrissey at Hot Air and in his new column for The Week.

Cover-ups rarely are spurred on by the events that directly precipitated the need to cover up, rather their genesis is to be found in keeping under wraps other things that an investigation will likely expose. This was true in both the Watergate and Iran-Contra scandals, and it's almost certainly true about the aftermath of Benghazi.

I'm a fan of both history and fiction dealing with espionage and international intrigue. You may have read my recent post on the 70th anniversary of Operation Mincemeat, which except for date checks and verifying some minor details, I wrote pretty much from memory. Perhaps I've read too much history and fiction in that genre, as the tack I'm taking here is a bit off the wall, but I think it's the only explanation that begins to fit all the facts. It's also going to take several posts to flesh out the whole story as I see it. So, here goes...

Sergeant Robert M. Patterson, USA

Robert Martin Patterson was born on April 16, 1948 in Durham, North Carolina. As a 20-year old Specialist 4th Class in the United States Army, he was posted with Troop B of the 2nd Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, fighting in Vietnam attached to the 101st Airborne Division.

Forty-five years ago today, May 6, 1968, Patterson was a fire team leader when his unit became pinned down by heavy fires from an enemy bunker complex while they were in the attack. Patterson charged the enemy positions, and was rewarded with both a promotion to Sergeant and the receipt of our Nation's highest honor for his courage.

Pig(ford)s at the trough

(Important blogger's note: the title of this post is in no means to be interpreted as disparaging or demeaning to Mr. Timothy Pigford, the original named lead plaintiff in the class action suit that led to this travesty.)

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."

"With respect to the two words 'general welfare', I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."

Those two quotes are by James Madison, and on those topics, he'd be an authority as one of the principle authors of both the Constitution of the United States and the Federalist Papers written in support of the Constitution's ratification.

Last week, The New York Times came across a story of incredible fraud, waste, and graft coming out of the United States Department of Agriculture, generically known as "Pigford". Naturally, the Times was somewhat late to the game as the late Andrew Breitbart was on the story over two years before, and it has also been reported on by Breitbart.com writer Lee Stranahan, as well as numerous other new media sources.

Today is "Blog about Pigford Day", and rather than rehash all the details of the scandal in total, I'm choosing instead to comment on the root cause of how we got there. Naturally, it all comes back to the Constitution, and willful departure from the limited enumerated powers of our government.

TFH 5/1: Sergeant Maynard H. Smith, USAAF

Maynard Harrison Smith was born on May 19, 1911 in Caro, Michigan. He didn't have a particularly accomplished youth or early adulthood, choosing instead to live off his parents' prosperity, particularly after his father's passing. Smith married shortly before the United States entered World War II, but he abandoned his wife and infant child.

In 1942, the law caught up with him and he was given a choice: enlist or go to jail. He chose the former. Smith joined the United States Army Air Forces, progenitor of today's United States Air Force. After basic training, he volunteered for aerial gunnery school, somewhat selfishly because it meant faster promotion and more money. He was disgusted, at age 31, from having to take orders from soldiers and airmen years his junior.

Reportedly, Smith was pretty much always in trouble during training. Regardless, he made it through gunnery school, got promoted to Sergeant (all aerial gunners were ranked as non-commissioned officers), and was assigned to the 423rd Bombardment Squadron of the 306th Bombardment Group at RAF Thurleigh in England.

TFH 4/30: Major William Martin, RM goes to war

My regular readers know that I've told many stories here of men who gave their lives in battle to save others. Seventy years ago today on April 30, 1943, a man already dead went to war, and undoubtedly saved hundreds if not thousands of American and British soldiers from becoming casualties both in July and August 1943 and beyond.

Glyndwr Michael was born in Aberbargoed, Wales on January 4, 1909. His father, a coal miner, committed suicide in 1924. His mother died in 1940, leaving the Welshman alone, depressed or suffering from additional mental illness, and homeless. His corpse was discovered on January 24, 1943 in a London warehouse. Michael's death was caused by ingesting rat poison, and it's unknown whether he committed suicide or his death was an accident because he was scrounging for food.

Society often looks past the deaths of derelicts, of the unwanted. With no family surviving to claim his remains, Michael's body would become the centerpiece of the greatest wartime deception since the perhaps mythical Trojan Horse, and would ultimately be buried with military honors befitting a man killed in battle.

TFH 4/28: Private Nicholas Minue, USA

Nicholas Minue was born to ethnic Ukrainian parents in Sedden, Poland on March 13, 1905. He emigrated with his family to the United States, where they settled in Carteret, New Jersey. In 1926 at age 21, he volunteered and enlisted in the United States Army. Minue made the Army his home, and by 1942 with sixteen years of service held the rank of Sergeant. Then 37 years old, he requested assignment to any of the hundreds of combat units being assembled for war in either Europe or the Pacific. His request was denied, as he was thought to be too old or too senior.

Fighting for his adopted homeland, fighting for the liberation of his birth land from Nazi tyranny; no order saying "no" would keep Nicholas Minue from fulfilling the soldier's duty of going to war. He voluntarily gave up his rank, reverted to the status and pay of a mere Private, and went to combat with the 6th Armored Infantry Regiment of the 1st Armored Division.

Reflections on the Tsarnaev manhunt, one week after

On April 18, Americans residing around the city of Boston were alerted by their neighbors that an imminent threat to their safety was in their midst. Throughout the night, they were warned about the danger to their property and their families.

As April 19 dawned, those Bostonians who were willing, along with many others from surrounding communities, armed themselves and took to the streets and fields in defense of their homes, communities, and fellow citizens...

...wait, WHAT?

TFH 4/24: Sergeant William L. Nelson, USA

William Lloyd Nelson was born on February 22, 1918 in Dover, Delaware. He was drafted into the United States Army in January, 1941 before the United States' entry into World War II. By 1943, he was a Sergeant with the 9th Infantry Division's 60th Infantry Regiment and was a mortar section leader.

On March 23, 1943, the US II Corps, Lieutenant General George S. Patton commanding, launched their final assault in Tunisia to force the last Nazis in North Africa to surrender or be annihilated. The next day, 70 years ago exactly, Sergeant Nelson risked everything and gave his life to the cause of liberty to see that the fires of his section's mortars would fall catastrophically on enemy forces. He was posthumously decorated with the Medal of Honor.

TFH 4/9: Private Robert D. Booker, USA

The United States Army's 34th Infantry Division was the first division deployed to Europe for World War II, departing New York for Ireland in January, 1942. They saw their first action in North Africa beginning in November, 1942. The "Red Bull" division, as they were known, also fought throughout the Italian campaign.

At some point in its history, the 34th division gained the motto, "Attack, attack, attack!" Perhaps they got their motto from the events of seventy years ago this day when Private Robert D. Booker, a 22 year-old machine gunner from Callaway, Nebraska with the division's 133rd Infantry Regiment, charged forward alone over open ground to silence enemy machine guns and mortars and earned his Nation's highest honor.

Margaret Thatcher, 1925-2013

The debt the free peoples of Europe owe to [the United States], generous with its bounty, willing to share its strength, seeking to protect the week, is incalculable. We thank and salute you! ...

We do not aim at domination, at hegemony, in any part of the world. Even against those who oppose and who would destroy our ideas, we plot no aggression. Of course, we are ready to fight the battle of ideas with all the vigour at our command, but we do not try to impose our system on others. We do not believe that force should be the final arbiter in human affairs. We threaten no-one. Indeed, the Alliance has given a solemn assurance to the world—none of our weapons will be used except in response to attack...

Distinguished Members of Congress, our two countries have a common heritage as well as a common language. It is no mere figure of speech to say that many of your most enduring traditions—representative government, habeas corpus, trial by jury, a system of constitutional checks and balances—stem from our own small islands. But they are as much your lawful inheritance as ours. You did not borrow these traditions—you took them with you, because they were already your own.

Human progress is not automatic. Civilisation has its ebbs and flows, but if we look at the history of the last five hundred years, whether in the field of art, science, technology, religious tolerance or in the practise of politics, the conscious inspiration of it all has been the belief and practise of freedom under law; freedom disciplined by morality, under the law perceived to be just.

 -- Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, to a joint session of the United States Congress, February 20, 1985.

Thank you, madam, for your service to humanity's quest for freedom and liberty. The world in which my children are being raised is better for your iron presence having been such a stalwart feature of much of my growing up. As with the Lion who came before you at Downing Street, you will be greatly missed for the rest of days.

Defeat—I do not recognise the meaning of the word!

-- during the Falklands crisis, 1982

TFH 4/7: First Lieutenant James E. Swett, USMCR

James Elms Swett was born in Seattle, Washington on June 15, 1920. He grew up in San Mateo, California. Before his enlistment in the United States Naval Reserve on August 26, 1941, Swett had already obtained a civilian pilot's license and was placed into training as a Naval Aviator.

When he completed primary flight instruction in early 1942, his Nation was at war and he was given the option to stay with the Navy or instead accept a commission with the Marine Corps. Swett chose the latter, and became a Second Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps Reserve. After completing his full training as a Grumman F4F Wildcat pilot and earning his Wings of Gold as a Naval Aviator, he joined Marine Fighting Squadron 221 (VMF-221) in the Solomon Islands.

Seventy years ago today - April 7, 1943 - then-First Lieutenant Swett flew his very first combat mission. He led a section of Marine fighters against a large Japanese bomber force. The Marine flyers were outnumbered, but following Swett's leadership they pressed their attacks. Swett's Wildcat was severely damaged by both enemy and friendly fire during the battle, and he personally destroyed at least five, possibly seven, enemy aircraft. His incredible heroism was recognized with the Medal of Honor.

TFH 3/19: HM2 David R. Ray, USN

David Robert Ray, known familiarly as "Bobby", was born on February 14, 1945 in McMinnville, Tennessee. He graduated from City High School in his hometown in 1963, and also attended the University of Tennessee from 1963-1966. On March 28, 1966, Bobby Ray volunteered to enlist in the United States Navy. After recruit training in San Diego, he received further training as a hospital corpsman.

Through May of 1968, Ray served at Long Beach, California both aboard the hospital ship USS Haven (AH-12), moored as a static hospital platform, and at the Naval Hospital. In that month, he volunteered for corpsman duty with the United States Marine Corps and was sent to Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton for field medical training. After completing the course, he was deployed to Vietnam with a Marine unit at war.

TFH 3/18: 1st Lt. Jack W. Mathis, USAAF

Jack Warren Mathis was born on September 25, 1921 in San Angelo, Texas. He enlisted in the United States Army on June 12, 1940 and was trained and served as an artilleryman. He was serving in that capacity when he found out that his younger brother, Mark, had joined the United States Army Air Forces, forerunner of today's United States Air Force. Jack joined his brother in aviation cadet training, and both men became bombardiers.

The two brothers weren't assigned to the same unit, although both were stationed in the United Kingdom to fly combat missions over occupied Europe and Nazi Germany. Jack Mathis was posted to the 359th Bombardment Squadron of the 303rd Bombardment Group (Heavy), stationed at RAF Molesworth in Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom. They were one of the first units of the VIII Bomber Command (later becoming the famed Eighth Air Force) to arrive in Europe for daring, daylight precision bombing raids that would change the course of the war. They were equipped with the Boeing B-17F Flying Fortress.

TFH 3/13: LTJG Joseph Feeney, USNR

After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, thousands of Americans answered their nation's call to arms and volunteered for military service. Many were too old to be drafted. A lot of them were assigned to stateside non-combat roles, to free up younger men for combat service. Some did see action overseas, or as in the case of today's honoree, on the seas.

Joseph Feeney was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania on May 28, 1909. About all I know about him is that at some point, he wound up with an officer's commission in the United States Naval Reserve. I'm guessing he was one of the thousands of volunteers who decided the best way they could help the United States in war was with the United States Navy.

Many civilian transport ships were armed for self-defense from aircraft, and to a lesser extent submarines; the weapons themselves were manned by US Navy sailors. On March 13, 1943, Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Joseph Feeney was the naval armed guard commander aboard the tanker SS Cities Service Missouri. They were en route to Curaçao, Venezuela through the Caribbean Sea in a convoy when the ship was hit by two torpedoes fired by a Nazi German U-Boat in the early morning hours.

TFH 3/11: Chief Master Sergeant Richard L. Etchberger, USAF

In the 1960s, aerial navigation and accurate, conventional weapons-based, air attacks on enemy targets relied heavily on ground-based navigation aids like Tactical Air Navigation, or TACAN, systems. Today's Global Positioning System (GPS), on which most modern precision-guided munitions rely, was just a dream for the future.

Another such system was the AN/TSQ-81 ground-based bomb direction radar, a development of the AN/MSQ-77 bomb range scoring system. Instead of predicting where a bomb would land after being dropped in practice, the TSQ-81 would predict where an attacking aircraft should drop its ordnance to hit a particular target.

American attack and bombing missions over North Vietnam often faced foul weather and other problems we take for granted in combat today, like simple darkness. They needed additional ground-based TACAN and radar targeting assistance to hit their targets reliably. Their problem? The best location for such a site in 1966-67 was in neutral Laos.

TFH 3/10: Three sailors on the USS Eberle

The USS Eberle (DD-430) was a Gleaves-class destroyer commissioned into the United States Navy on December 4, 1940. The ship served in the Atlantic Fleet and escorted convoys in the North Atlantic and also participated in the November 1942 invasion of North Africa. On December 26, 1942, Eberle sortied from Naval Station Norfolk for Recife, Brazil to assume patrol duties in the South Atlantic.

The South Atlantic may seem to have been "out of the action" for the war raging in Europe, but that wasn't the case. Nazi German ships attempted to run Allied blockades to get essential war materials. On March 10, 1943, Eberle on patrol encountered one such blockade runner, the Karin. After firing on the enemy ship and forcing her to stop, Eberle dispatched a boarding party. As the Americans boarded the German vessel, the enemy crew detonated demolition charges.

Three of the Americans on the boarding party were decorated with the Navy Cross for their heroism. They were Seaman First Class Alexander J. Bisheimer, Lieutenant Frederick L. Edwards, Jr., and Signalman Third Class William J. Pattison.

TFH 3/9: CPT Jack H. Jacobs, USA

Jack Howard Jacobs was born just days before the end of World War II on August 2, 1945 in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up in Woodbridge Township, New Jersey and attended Rutgers University where he was a member of Army Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC). After graduation in 1966, he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army.

Less than two years later, then First Lieutenant Jacobs was assigned as a military advisor to the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). While assigned to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam's 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment of the 9th Infantry Division on March 9, 1968, Jacobs took command of one Vietnamese company when its command group was devastated by casualties and even though he was wounded himself, single-handedly ventured repeatedly into the line of fire to evacuate casualties and counter-attack the enemy.

Afterwards, he was promoted to Captain, and then later he received our Nation's highest honor.

TFH 3/8: Private George Watson, USA

George Watson was born in 1915 in Birmingham, Alabama. He graduated from Colorado A&M, today Colorado State University, in 1942 and on September 1 of that year enlisted in the United States Army to serve his country during World War II.

African-American soldiers during World War II faced a segregated Army, just as they faced a segregated society. As was true with many African-American soldiers, Watson was assigned to a support unit, the 29th Quartermaster Regiment. Watson was aboard the requisitioned Dutch ship SS s'Jacob when the ship was bombed by the Japanese in Porloch Bay, New Guinea on March 8, 1943. He gave his life trying to save his fellow soldiers in the water and was, at the time, awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

In the late 1990s, the service records of minority DSC recipients from World War II were reviewed to determine if racial prejudice and discrimination had precluded the award of the Medal of Honor. On January 13, 1997, Watson's heroism received the recognition it truly deserved from President Clinton at the White House.