Sep 11th, Cavalry, Coffee, and Croissants

On the 11th of September 2001, nineteen Muslim terrorists hijacked four American civilian airliners, and crashed one into each tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, and one into the Pentagon. The Fourth, United Flight 93, crashed into a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, when the passengers - who had by then heard of the fates of the other flights - heroically attempted to regain control of the aircraft from the Muslim terrorists. In all, 2,977 people were murdered, and more than 6,000 others injured by the terrorists who perpetrated the attack.

You knew all that, of course. But, do you know the reason why Osama Bin Laden chose the 11th of September as the date on which to attack the United States of America?

On the 14th of July 1683, the Muslim Ottoman Empire, with its capital in Istanbul, Turkey (which used to be Constantinople, the capital of the Orthodox Christian Byzantine - or Eastern Roman - Empire), besieged Vienna, Austria with an army of 300,000 men. This was the second Muslim Ottoman siege of Vienna (the first was in 1529), and it arguably marked the zenith of 1,000 years of Muslim conquest of Christian lands, including the entire middle east, all of North Africa, much of Eastern Europe, and the Iberian Peninsula (which was liberated in 1492, after 780 years of the "Reconquista"), Sicily, Malta, etc.

Understanding that the Ottoman incursion into Western Europe threatened them all, the European powers mobilized forces to assist the besieged Austrians.

On the 12th of September 1683, the siege was broken by the largest cavalry charge in history (18,000 horsemen), led by King John III Sobieski of Poland, whose heavy armored cavalry tore through the exhausted (from failed attempts at undermining Vienna's walls) Ottoman forces downhill.

The 1683 Battle of Vienna is considered one of the battles that saved Western Civilization, and it marks the decline of the Ottoman Empire - the greatest Muslim empire in history. From that point, though it remained powerful for hundreds of years, the Ottoman Empire gradually shrank, until it was finally dissolved after fighting on the losing side of World War I.

And that is why Osama Bin Laden chose the 11th of September. The symbolism is unmistakable. Bin Laden wanted to take the world back to the 11th of September 1683. He wanted to take the world back to a time when Muslims reigned supreme, and Christians were fighting for their very existence, and he perceived that the greatest obstacle to his goal was the United States of America.  

Now you know. What now? Well, there's a part of the story that I believe to be true, and though I don't know that for sure, I'm going to tell you anyway.

The story goes that, when the victorious Christian troops looted the abandoned Muslim Ottoman camp, they found something of which they'd only heard rumors. They found sacks of a drink that supposedly gave the Muslim Ottoman troops energy to stay up all night on guard duty. They found coffee.

The story continues that a civilian baker that had volunteered to stay in Vienna to help feed the troops (many civilians evacuated as the Muslim Ottoman army approached) requested to commemorate the victory with a special pastry. He created a pastry shaped like the crescent moon on the Muslim Ottoman flag. He created the croissant.

So, on this 11th of September, and on every 11th of September, by all means, let us mourn the dead. Then, on the 12th of September, let us celebrate past victories, and commit ourselves to never bend the knee to anyone but Christ, by feasting on coffee and croissants.

'Negroes and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms' - Instavision

'Negroes and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms' - Instavision

The role of the KKK and Jim Crow proponents disarming black people also doesn't get a lot of attention.  "Birth of a Nation", which was a film Woodrow Wilson praised, shows Klansmen disarming blacks, and at the same time there were armed blacks resisting the Klan. 

Woodrow Wilson, by the way, was a "Progressive" Democrat.

It's really simple.  The most basic human right is the right to live, because one cannot exercise any other right if one is dead.  If humans have the right to live, then by logical extension, we have the right to defend our right to live.

If, as "gun control" proponents believe, we have no right to defend our right to live, then by logical extension, we have no right to live.  And if we have no right to live, then we have no rights.  Period.

The KKK, of course, denies the humanity - and therefore the human rights - of blacks, so their desire to disarm blacks is logically consistent with their "values".

Think about that the next time a politician tells you that you have no right to use a gun to defend your right to live.

Double Standards (Political Edition)

Remember when Sarah Palin said that "you can see Russia from Alaska"?  No, she never said, "I can see Russia from my house".  That was a Saturday Night Live parody that political ignoramuses ascribe to her.  Sarah Palin was, of course, right.  You can see Russia from the Alaska across the Bering Straight.

"Liberals", naturally, ridiculed her for making a factually accurate statement.  They always know better, even when they're wrong. 

Compare that with how they treat Pres Obama's many geographical errors.

Mr. Obama’s geographical confusion has become habitual. He once claimed that he had been to all “57 states.” He also assumed that Kentucky was closer to Arkansas than it was to his adjacent home state of Illinois. 

In reference to the Falkland Islands, Mr. Obama called them the Maldives — islands southwest of India — apparently in a botched effort to use the Argentine-preferred Malvinas. The two island groups may sound somewhat alike, but they are continents apart. Again, without basic geographical knowledge, the president’s commentary on the Falklands is rendered superficial. 

When in the state of Hawaii, Mr. Obama announced that he was in “Asia.” He lamented that the U.S. Army’s Arabic-language translators assigned to Iraq could better be used in Afghanistan, failing to recognize that Arabic isn’t the language of Afghanistan. For that matter, he apparently thought Austrians speak a language other than German.

Remember, Sarah Palin made a factually accurate statement about her home state, and was ridiculed for it.  Pres Obama made multiple abysmally ignorant statements about his country and both his home states (Hawaii and Illinois).  Clearly, the "Liberal" media mocked him mercifully for it, right?

Of course not!  Haven't you been paying attention?

The president’s geographical illiteracy is a symptom of the nation’s growing ignorance of once-essential subjects such as geography and history. The former is often not taught anymore as a required subject in our schools and colleges. The latter has often been redefined as race, class and gender oppression to score melodramatic points in the present rather than to learn from the tragedy of the past.

See?  When Sarah Palin makes a factually accurate statement, she's an idiot.  When The One makes multiple ignorant statements, it's everyone else's fault.  Gotta love how that works.

To be fair, the author I quoted above - Victor Davis Hanson - is a conservative, which is why he was willing to point out all those ignorant statements.  "Liberals" won't even admit they exist.

Secession, No. Federalism, Yes

You may have heard that the White House website now has petitions from all 50 states requesting permission to peacefully secede from the Union.  The most famous of these - and the one with the most signatures - is from Texas, naturally.  The whole thing is silly, but it reflects a real problem.  A whole lot of Americans are unhappy with the federal government, which makes perfect sense.  It's impossible to please 350,000,000 people at the same time.  It's highly unlikely that any state will actually attempt to secede, but the existence of so many disgruntled voters is no laughing matter.

There is, however, a very simple solution to this problem.

 Let the central government do the things that only central governments can do -- national defense, regulation of trade to keep the provinces from engaging in economic warfare with one another, protection of basic civil rights -- and then let the provinces go their own way in most other issues. Don't like the way things are run where you are? Move to a province that's more to your taste. Meanwhile, approaches that work in individual provinces can, after some experimentation, be adopted by the central government, thus lowering the risk of adopting untested policies at the national level. You get the benefits of secession without seceding.

Pretty simple, right?  If you want to live in a state with enormous debt, high taxes, business-stifling regulations, high unemployment, lots of poverty, welfare and income inequality, and crappy schools, move to California, New York or Illinois.   If you want to live in a state with low debt, low taxes, little regulation, lots of jobs and low unemployment rates, move to North Dakota, Texas or Utah.

It's not even a new idea.

Sound good? It should. It's called federalism, and it's the approach chosen by the United States when it adopted the Constitution in 1789. As James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 45, "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State."

It's a nice plan. Beats secession. Maybe we should give it another try.

For a bunch of racist old white dudes, those Founding Fathers sure were smart!

Bill Whittle: Three Years of Obama

Bill Whittle's Guide to the Election

Bill Whittle, in his inimitable way, explains the choice before us.

I highly recommend all his informative videos.