According to the Oxford English Dictionary, racism is a belief or ideology that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially to distinguish it as being either superior or inferior to another race or races. I do not feel that my race is superior to another nor do I feel that my race is inferior to another.

A group on facebook, a social tool for college students, named George Wallace Appreciation Society is not a racist group. Furthermore, this group is not really a group. For example, there are no meetings, nor are dues collected; there are no lectures and no discussion among members. This ‘group’ functions as a way for people to express their favor for states’ rights in a lighthearted manner.

Using “BenLogic”, if Ben made a group on Facebook called “I am the world’s biggest loser” and many of his friends became members, others may view those members as insensitive people who attack someone that they know. There are so many ways to blow the George Wallace Appreciation group out of proportion, if you’re uneducated or unethical.

The ideology of George Wallace does not dominate my life, much like Pepsi does not dominate my life despite the fact that I would willingly join a group devoted to the appreciation of Pepsi-Cola. If I were truly in favor of George Wallace’s one-time belief in segregation then I would be more apt to join a group called ‘Overturn Brown v Topeka Board of Education’ or somesuch like that. But we are getting beyond ourselves. These analogies only serve for the sake of example.

To be quite honest, Ben’s great zeal for the research of my facebook groups may show a tendency on his part for devoting time that could certainly be put towards more fruitful activities. This brings up the issue of what, in our society, can be inherently understood as a joke and what, under all circumstances, can be understood as a serious action.

Chip Hairston

Vote Jeff Evans

“As far as I know, the only thing that Joe has done for me is to design a website. I don’t know much about blogs, and I am not aware of what this is about. I am just not into blogs.”

Senator Reynolds, if you’re “just not into blogs” then why did you attend a blog conference? Isn’t that you sitting with the yellow dog himself, Joe Stanley? At a blog conference?

Were you for blogs before you were against them? Like you were for Embarq before you were against Embarq? Like you were for the abusive driver fees before you were against them? Like you were against giving illegal immigrants in-state tuition before you were for it? It’s easier to keep up with a pair of expensive flip-flops at a water park than your legislative flip-flops…

Joe Stanley states in the article above that he created your website for free as a volunteer. I’m not sure how he stays in business creating free websites but just remember: You get what you pay for. He created a free website for the ODBA - one linking us to pedophiles.

I apologize for the delay in getting this posted. The Franklin News-Post Site is still down and I had a little trouble with my HP all-in-one while scanning the article:

He has the good sense to live blog at Good Sense!  Leave your questions for our attorney general now and then make sure you tune in on September 24th at 5:00 for the answers…

From today’s e-mail (emphasis mine):

This is from a guy who used to work here as an attorney but left for
his second tour of duty in Iraq (he came back to work after his first).
Thought you might find this interesting — a pretty good account of
what’s going on over there from a reliable source. John is a great guy.
Keep in mind that he has gone over there twice now on a voluntary basis.
The only reason he came back the first time was that he was injured when
a rocket hit his humvee.

—–Original Message—–
From: John Teer [mailto:johnteer@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2007 1:52 PM
To: john teer
Subject:

Salam Alaikum from Baghdad. For my second trip to Iraq, I lead an Army
Reserve civil affairs team attached to a brigade combat team of the 1st
Cavalry Division in central Baghdad, covering some of the same territory
that I patrolled during my first tour. With the exception of a very
tiny minority trying to kill us, the people are really friendly, wave to
us while we’re on patrol and are almost always happy to have a
conversation with us. The kids are the exact same as last time - always
eager to shake hands and try out a few phrases of English with the
soldiers.

On a typical day, I attend a patrol and intelligence brief before 6 am,
go on one or two patrols or missions, which are generally about four to
six hours each, attend a couple of meetings with either Iraqis or
Americans and write a few reports. If lucky, I can usually hit the rack
around midnight. On Fridays, we rest and prep for the other six days
(and I’ll maybe attend few meetings). We like Fridays.

The military has developed a bizarre fetish for Powerpoint slide
presentations. Find a bomb, meet with a tribal sheik, build a school,
capture a bad guy or save the world? All the same - you have to paste a
few photos into Powerpoint, add captions and email your digital
concoction to higher headquarters. The chow is great. Last time the
Army gave us month after month of nothing but MREs (so we’d sneak off
and eat at local Iraqi restaurants). This time there’s a huge dining
hall in our Forward Operating Base (hooray for KBR!), which was one of
Saddam’s many palaces. Our FOB borders the Green Zone, where I’ve seen
soldiers from around the world, including Canada, El Salvador, Fiji,
Britain, Georgia, Ukraine, Uganda, Italy (actually, their paramilitary
police), Denmark and Finland. The United States is building its largest
embassy in the world next door to where I lived last time I was here. I
think it is scheduled to open this winter.

While it’s regularly been around 110 to 120 degrees this summer, within
another month the temperature here will be about the same as North
Carolina’s until next summer. With the days now growing cooler, it’s
much easier to walk around with the typical 75 pounds of body armor,
weapons and ammo. Our vehicles are up-armored Humvees with huge gun
turrets on top. Each door weighs more than 700 pounds. Last time, I
didn’t even have doors on my Humvee. And we have more and better toys,
from improved night vision to new, non-lethal “Nerf” rounds that are
fired from M203 grenade launchers. One of our gunners got to nail an
un-compliant Iraqi with a Nerf round just the other day. That’s good
stuff.

Of the civil affairs tactical teams in Baghdad, my team’s work is some
of the most complex because we also oversee substantially all of the
reconstruction projects in central Baghdad that are over $200,000.
Typical projects include coordinating and contracting for the
installation of huge generator stations in neighborhoods, rebuilding the
war-shattered Haifa Street area (a real miracle - from raging war zone
to shining example in less than a year), running new water mains and
rebuilding schools. With about $40 million in projects underway right
now, many of our patrols necessarily entail driving and walking between
various construction sites around Baghdad. I also meet with the
construction executives on a regular basis to review the progress of
their projects and try to work through any issues.

Iraq faces huge obstacles, and no one can claim that it’s safe, yet. In
the last few days we’ve had four car bombs blow up on our patrol routes
(fortunately, in each case, when we were a safe distance away).
Unfortunately, Iraq seems to have been stagnant and decaying for the
last three years. But in the last few months, there have been real and
visible signs that Iraq is moving forward again. Projects are being
completed before they get blown up or stolen in the dark of night. New
solar-powered street lights make it safe to go out after sunset and
create bright bubbles of thriving coffee shops and teenager-packed
internet cafes. The city of Baghdad is beginning to tackle new
projects, such as water and sewer lines, totally independent of the
coalition forces.

Iraq is far from being in a civil war. Most of Baghdad’s residents -
the vast, vast majority - are good people. They don’t care what
religion their neighbor is. They just want to live in relative peace
and safety. Tiny groups of terrorists kill indiscriminately, hoping to
spur reprisals, divide opinion and drain resolve. The good news is that
we’re crushing those evil bastards and seem to have them on the run for
the first time. It will take time. I hope against hope that before the
end of my tour, I’ll be able to take off my body armor, helmet and
weapons and join some kids playing a neighborhood game of soccer, if
only for five minutes. At that point, I’d know their future is secure.

Which brings me to a final thought. If you are looking to make a
non-deductible donation, send me a soccer ball to pass along to a kid.
Or a box of crayons or magic markers. And someone just told me that
Beanie Babies are a hit with the toddlers and girls. Many of these kids
have never had a single toy of their own.

CPT JOHN TEER
CAT3/B/422 CAB
FOB PROSPERITY
APO AE 09348

Ma’is salam.

Finally, something we can all do to show our support of our troops. Please join me in what we’ll tentatively call “OPERATION SOCCER BALL” and drown John with soccer balls. Crayons, magic markers and Beanie Babies are accepted, too.

I want John and the thousands like John to come home, too, but like he said, not until they know that they’ve secured the futures of those children. Now go find those soccer balls!

Update: We’ll have to tentatively call it Operation Soccer Ball, part deux.

My first guest blogger!

In response to a rather bizarre post over at Ben’s blog, Chip Hairston has agreed to post his thoughts on racism, George Wallace, why dogs are better than cats….. I truly don’t know what he’s going to say.  I sent him the password to this Site and we can all read it for the first time together…..  Stay tuned!

We can no longer hide our head in the sand and tell ourselves that the ideology of our free fathers is not being attacked and is not being threatened by another idea . . . for it is. We are faced with an idea that if a centralized government assumes enough authority, enough power over its people, that it can provide a utopian life . . that if given the power to dictate, to forbid, to require, to demand, to distribute, to edict and to judge what is best and enforce that will produce only “good” . . and it shall be our father . . . . and our God. It is an idea of government that encourages our fears and destroys our faith . . . for where there is faith, there is no fear, and where there is fear, there is no faith.

In encouraging our fears of economic insecurity it demands we place that economic management and control with government; in encouraging our fear of educational development it demands we place that education and the minds of our children under management and control of government, and even in feeding our fears of physical infirmities and declining years, it offers and demands to father us through it all and even into the grave. It is a government that claims to us that it is bountiful as it buys its power from us with the fruits of its rapaciousness of the wealth that free men before it have produced and builds on crumbling credit without responsibilities to the debtors . . . our children. It is an ideology of government erected on the encouragement of fear and fails to recognize the basic law of our fathers that governments do not produce wealth . . . people produce wealth . . . free people; and those people become less free . . . as they learn there is little reward for ambition . . . that it requires faith to risk . . . and they have none . . as the government must restrict and penalize and tax incentive and endeavor and must increase its expenditures of bounties . . . then this government must assume more and more police powers and we find we are become government-fearing people . . . not God-fearing people. We find we have replaced faith with fear . . . and though we may give lip service to the Almighty . . in reality, government has become our god. It is, therefore, a basically ungodly government and its appeal to the psuedo-intellectual and the politician is to change their status from servant of the people to master of the people . . . to play at being God . . . without faith in God . . . and without the wisdom of God. It is a system that is the very opposite of Christ for it feeds and encourages everything degenerate and base in our people as it assumes the responsibilities that we ourselves should assume. Its psuedo-liberal spokesmen and some Harvard advocates have never examined the logic of its substitution of what it calls “human rights” for individual rights, for its propaganda play on words has appeal for the unthinking. Its logic is totally material and irresponsible as it runs the full gamut of human desires . . . including the theory that everyone has voting rights without the spiritual responsibility of preserving freedom. Our founding fathers recognized those rights . . . but only within the framework of those spiritual responsiblities. But the strong, simple faith and sane reasoning of our founding fathers has long since been forgotten as the so-called “progressives” tell us that our Constitution was written for “horse and buggy” days . . . so were the Ten Commandments.