Some people in the South Carolina political discussion are so ignorant as to come up with polemics whenever government spends one dollar of taxpayer money. However, we believe that certain things that don’t immediately deliver a return on investment are worth investing in. Consider among those the Palmetto State’s historic sites.
In the South, the past is never really past. We love our history. We love our ancestors. We don’t necessarily like the government putting its hand in what’s happening, but corporations aren’t exactly lining up to thoroughly bankroll historic sites. That’s where the government comes in.
Right now, money for work at the Fort Moultrie visitors’ center on Sullivan’s Island is being held up by U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky. The former pitcher for the Detroit Tigers has hurled a wild pitch. The whole idea is under some misbegotten concept of fiscal responsibility.
The action comes as a result of Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning’s decision to block key legislation that would have extended several critical priorities for middle class families. That legislation covered tax credits for COBRA health coverage, unemployment insurance for 400,000 people, as well as the short-term extension of the Highway Trust Fund. The Fund supports all surface transportation programs for the nation -– highways, bridges, transit and safety inspections, as well as efforts to encourage seat belt use and to fight distracted and impaired driving.
“As American families are struggling in tough economic times, I am keenly disappointed that political games are putting a stop to important construction projects around the country,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “This means that construction workers will be sent home from job sites because federal inspectors must be furloughed.”
Let’s put this out there, though. Would the Sons of the American Revolution endorse this action? Would the Sons of Confederate Veterans? It’s a fairly good assumption that most members of both fraternal organizations. despite their conservative ideological beliefs, would be against it. That’s because preserving our nation’s history, and making it available to the American public, is one of the things that the Federal government should be doing.
It’s just a shame that it took a post by the S.C. New Democrats on Indigo Journal to bring this to our attention. This is not an ideological or a partisan issue. We’re desperately seeking S.C. Republicans that will take up the banner for our state’s historical sites.
The recent fetish with the Founders by tea partiers has us thinking about this post we put up in May of 2009. The “Mount Vernon Statement,” yet another part of this, goes into a blind contemplation of what went down between 1776 and 1788.
We recommit ourselves to the ideas of the American Founding. Through the Constitution, the Founders created an enduring framework of limited government based on the rule of law. They sought to secure national independence, provide for economic opportunity, establish true religious liberty and maintain a flourishing society of republican self-government.
[...]
The change we urgently need, a change consistent with the American ideal, is not movement away from but toward our founding principles. At this important time, we need a restatement of Constitutional conservatism grounded in the priceless principle of ordered liberty articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
In filing his lawsuit against the State of South Carolina, Gov. Mark Sanford name-dropped the Founding Fathers, something every politician, and those in the periphery, have a duty to do at least several dozen times a year. Here’s the problem: the Founders weren’t deities, they were men.
If the Governor wants to play up the separation of powers argument to prevent needed money to get to schools and to keep South Carolinians safe, then that’s his prerogative. But including the Founders as a buttress to what he is saying is one of the most ridiculous rhetorical maneuvers in American politics. The intention of the name-drop is, “If the Founders wrote it, it must be great.”
Sure, about 75-to-80 percent of what ended up in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was brilliant, on a level never seen before and rarely again. But, one has to realize some facts.
The Founders were all privileged white men. They owned a good bit of land. A solid number of them owned slaves. Hence, who could vote for George Washington? White men who owned 20 acres of land. Women, free blacks, lower-class whites? Yeah, not so much. But, hey, it’s not all bad. If you were a slave, you counted as three-fifths of a person, though under law you were still as much of a piece of property as the overseer’s whip.
Hence, it took until the 1820s for all white men to be able to vote, a Civil War and Constitutional amendments to abolish slavery and give black men the right to vote (though, in practice, that took another 100 years) and about 144 years after independence for women to gain the franchise.
If you wanted to vote for your U.S. senator, good luck being elected to the state legislature. It wasn’t until the 20th Century that senators were elected by popular vote. Also, if it weren’t for a bunch of crazy people worried about civil liberties, we wouldn’t have gotten the Bill of Rights.
And, sweet heavens, this is just the beginning. So, next time you hear something about “original intents” or what the Founders wanted, keep in mind what was the original intent. Political history, like current events, is never in the bichromatic, simplistic way some would like it.
As we have often said, Southern public school districts have issues because of integration. White people with money didn’t want their taxdollars going to pay for black children to get educated. This is the main reason many Southern school districts aren’t adequately funded. And now wealthy white people are exploiting the situation to further rip public schools.
But, hey, we aren’t the only ones to come to this conclusion.
There have been plenty of mentions during the impeachment process of Gov. Mark Sanford about an impeachment in 1877. The year struck us as meaningful, since it was when the old guard of South Carolina retook the government from the Federal occupying forces and the “Radical Republicans.” Former Confederate Gen. Wade Hampton III was inaugurated as governor, and a push began to throw out everyone elected or appointed during Reconstruction.
One of those under the gun was S.C. Supreme Court Asst. Justice Jonathan Jasper Wright. He was originally from Pennsylvania, and arrived in the Palmetto State after the Civil War to set up schools for freed slaves. After a brief return to Pennsylvania, he came back and became one of the first blacks to be admitted to the South Carolina bar in 1868. That year, he was elected to the Senate, representing Beaufort, and two years later was elected by his fellow legislators to the Supreme Court.
The 1876 gubernatorial race, though, proved to hasten his downfall. The race between Hampton and former Union 2nd Lt. Daniel Chamberlain was beset by voter fraud and violence, much of it perpetrated by a paramilitary organization known as the Red Shirts. These men were former Confederate soldiers who took up arms to reassert the old ways. One of their typical activities was shooting into and disrupting election rallies of the blacks and few moderate whites who were supporting the Republican ticket.
The decision about the winner went to the Court, and Wright and fellow Justice A.J. Willard voted in favor of Hampton. A while after, Wright tried to reverse his opinion, but it was too late. That drew the ire of Democrats who had flooded into office, and rumors ran around town that he was a drunk and susceptible to bribery. The House put together a set of impeachment charges and that spelled the end of Wright’s term on the Court. He knew his days were numbered, so he resigned and went on to private practice until his death in 1885. Wright’s also known for setting up a law department at Claflin University after leaving office.
We like The Herald-Journal. It has some of the best political reporters in the state, and the crime blotter is in the Top 3, along with the Free Times and the Charleston City Paper.
However, the op-eds leave something to be desired. Take, for instance, the Sunday column by Lane Filler titled, “Very proud to be living in South Carolina.” Filler seemed to be upset by regular emails from his sister that link to New York Times stories and asking, in effect, what the hell is going on in the Palmetto State.
When news of Gov. Mark Sanford’s tango in paradise broke, she started sending me e-mails with links to the New York Times stories. Apparently she imagined we were too busy with a huge moonshine feature and a special food section titled “Ku Klux Klan Wives Share Their Favorite Recipes” to catch on to the Sanford buzz.
Each e-mail essentially read “What is wrong with freakin’ South Carolina?”
She was sending these communications from New York, where Gov. Eliot Spitzer had to resign after his assignations with hookers were revealed, and his replacement, Gov. David Paterson, announced he and his wife were both adulterers so quickly that it was practically part of his oath of office.
With all due respect, South Carolina was the state that gave the finger to the doctrine of federalism to the point where President Andrew Jackson was ready to send in the army. Then there was the infamous caning incident. Not to mention governor and then U.S. Sen. Ben Tillman saying on the Senate floor that blacks who wanted to be involved in politics deserved to be shot (Tillman also beat up his fellow S.C. senator), U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond leading the longest filibuster in American history over a civil rights bill, and, oh yeah, secession.
Hey, we’ve lived in the South all our lives. Hell, we’re from a town that’s known less for steel (its calling card) and more for Bull Connor, fire hoses and bombings. That doesn’t mean we’re not hometown proud. At one point, we lived in Texas, and that was too far away from the Deep South to be comfortable.
Each Southern state has its share of corrupt officials and absurd political scandals. It comes with the territory. But, for a columnist at a paper owned by the New York Times Company to slag the Times is a little funny. Beyond that, it’s one thing to be proud of where you’re from. Our family spent its nearly 300 years in America between South Carolina and Alabama. Love them both. To defend the nuttiness that happens is quite another kettle of fish.
Certainly, part of the reaction is part of the “He can’t do that to our pledges — only we can do that to our pledges” meme, along with the knee-jerk irritation of Yankees commenting on our state. Still, it’s silly to go into a “I know you are, but what am I” discussion when said state becomes a national joke for about three months.
Slate’s irregular indulgence in graphic design and whimsy known as “Barack Obama’s Facebook Feed” is one of the best parts of the weekend. The online magazine’s Christopher Beam and Chris Wilson manage to distill recent political happenings into a hysterical political satire in the style of your average Facebook news feed, without all the posts about FarmVille and Mafia Wars.
The entry from Aug. 21 was another out-of-the-park effort, including bits like the jokes on the continuing misadventures of Vice President Joe Biden.
Of course, the health care debate figured prominently, since President Barack Obama seems hell-bent on recreating former President Bill Clinton’s first term. Even U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint’s tweets came in for a feature.
In case that was too Dennis Miller-esque for you, the Siege of Petropavlovsk (which you should never have heard of) occurred in the Pacific theater of the Crimean War in the 1850s. That naval and land battle was a smashing victory for the Russians, who inflicted five times as many casualties as they received against the British and the French. It was also full of gray areas: when his ship opened up its cannons on the town, British Admiral David Price shot himself. And, a while after repulsing the allied forces, the Russians ended up evacuating the garrison at Petropavlovsk during the winter. This has been your obscure history lesson for the day.
So, yeah — Slate’s got jokes.
We usually don’t trust national people who peek into S.C. politics and pick heroes and villains. South Carolina is an insular state with a political culture that is more mobster-like and incestuous than most could imagine.
So, our eyes practically sprained themselves while rolling in response to RedState’s Erick Erickson’s (what, was John Johnson taken?) lovefest over Rep. Nikki Haley’s run for governor. It’s not unlike the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page’s journalistic fellatio of Gov. Mark Sanford, despite what we all know here that he’s an empty suit and owned by special interests.
It was fairly absurd:
And Nikki Haley puts her votes where her mouth is. Republicans in South Carolina punished her for daring to push for fiscal restraint and transparency in the state legislature by yanking a prime committee position in the State House, but she kept on pushing till she won. She got her start in state politics by challenging and beating the longest serving state representative in South Carolina — and she did it in a Republican primary.
Nikki Haley is not afraid to challenge the establishment Republican Party. She is not afraid to set standards for the party and expect those around her, and herself, to live up to them.
Let me be blunt: if conservatives and libertarians cannot unite behind Nikki Haley and get her onto the national stage as a fresh face for both Republicans and small government, we might as well call it day.
The GOP needs Nikki Haley in the South Carolina Governor’s Mansion. The grand coalition that last put the GOP in power needs someone of Nikki Haley’s integrity and spine to get us back both on the path of small government and back into a position to lead the nation. Nikki Haley.
Oh, that is funny. Let’s run this scenario (again, yawn) — the Big Three were already known, hiring staff and fundraising before Haley even came close to announcing. To win, she’d have to beat two of the three in the primary to make it into the runoff. Can a third-term state representative from Lexington manage to raise enough money and get more earned media and turn out their supporters better than a sitting congressman, lieutenant governor and attorney general?
The only way she had a chance was if Sanford’s base and shell groups were organized, united and behind her. It’s not. It, because the people behind it are smart and smart with their money, have split between the Big Three. They’re trying to back a winner.
Then there’s her given name, which cuts both ways. Niche Indian diaspora sites have been running her full name as a tribute to Indian immigrant success (her parents came over, settled here and built a successful business). Now, there’s some concern in state GOP circles if “Nimrata Nikki Kaur Randhawa Haley” is barnstorming through rural towns instead of Nikki Haley, suburban wife, mother, accountant and state legislator.
It’s not something we want to see — watching racism in the South isn’t something that makes us feel good. But, everyone knows what happened to U.S. Sen. John McCain’s adopted daughter in the 2000 primary. It’s also to be expected.
Of course, there’s also an upside. She’s currently trying to tap her friends and family fundraising base, many of whom only know her as Nikki Randhawa. So there’s that.
But, there’s reason to worry about an ignorant backlash. In 1998, Democratic operatives were worried that Inez Tenenbaum wouldn’t get traction because her name would be considered too Jewish. Sen. Greg Ryberg, a Catholic, also ran into that. We don’t quite know what differentiates a German name or Eastern European name from a Jewish name. For instance, we’re following a Wolfe on Twitter that’s a rabbi.
It will be interesting to see how this all goes down.
It’s been a while since we could predict that Alabama would be good season-in and season-out (like, say, 1989-1996), so we’re getting ready for the 2009 season by getting hyped with the best highlight videos from last season’s 12-0 regular season campaign.
For those of you who don’t understand what it’s like to expect excellence from your favorite football team every year, we feel bad for you, son. Actually, no, not really. Expecting mediocrity would be much easier than having to deal with the the letdowns of the past decade of Crimson Tide football (you have it easy, South Carolina). But, we’re pretty excited and can’t wait to see Bama wipe out another ACC team in the Georgia Dome.
We have posts on Rep. Nikki Haley and Supt. of Ed. Jim Rex in the works. Really. But with 19 hours of solid work and only a two-hour nap in between, we need some football therapy.
Russia doesn’t fuck around. But, our only experience with Russkie subs comes from the movie adaptation of Tom Clancy’s blockbuster novel, “Hunt for Red October.” However, the Akula-class submarines that are traveling through international waters off the U.S. coast do not have the “caterpillar drive” installed.
Two Russian attack submarines have been cruising in the Atlantic off the East Coast of the United States, a senior defense official said Wednesday. Russian attack submarines such as this one have been spotted in the Atlantic Ocean. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said their presence is not causing alarms to go off.
“So long as they are operating in international waters, as, frankly, we do around the world, and are behaving in a responsible way, they are certainly free to do so, and it doesn’t cause any alarm within this building,” he said.
It has been years since Russia operated near the U.S. seaboard, thousands of miles from home ports.
“What’s interesting is, they haven’t been able to do this in some time, and now they are. It indicates a return to their ability to do this,” the senior defense official said.
He viewed the patrol as an example of Russia showing the United States and the world its expeditionary forces, part of a continuing trend. He said the Russians have recently been a partner in anti-piracy operations around the world. And last year the Russian Navy conducted a “tour around the world,” pulling into ports throughout Latin America.
In December, a Russian spokesman said that tour demonstrated “Russia’s ability to fly its naval flag and ensure protection of its national interests in the world theater.”
The Akula-class nuclear-powered submarines, which are normally equipped with surface-loaded cruise missiles and surface-to-air missiles, have stayed in international waters, the source said. These are not the class of submarines that can launch intercontinental nuclear missiles.
The U.S. Navy has the capability to locate, identify and track submarine activity through satellites, ships, aircraft and classified systems.
Naturally, we start thinking of the film “Hunt for Red October” when we hear of Russian subs cruising the East Coast, but Soviet skipper Marko Ramius, played by Scottish-born Sean Connery, just wanted to defect (even Fred Thompson was genial to Alec Baldwin’s theory — though “Russians don’t take a dump, son, without a plan”). It seems like the subs that are going on recon are more like Capt. Tupolev’s Alpha-class Konovalov. We just hope there’s not a “reactor failure” off the Grand Banks that we have to deal with.
People interested in history and archeology (like us) know that a lot of interesting discoveries are made at construction sites. After all, that’s because the guys digging into the ground do it on a regular basis, and are getting paid good money to do it. It’s not like you have a bunch of dudes with short hair taking a backhoe to a designated historical site.
So, such a thing happened Tuesday when a construction crew setting up a new McDonald’s in northeast Columbia uncovered a tombstone from a woman who died 74 years to the day.
Construction supervisor John Lakey said he initially thought they had found an actual grave.
“We did some exploring and then decided it’s just a trash dump,” said Lakey.
Richland County Coroner Gary Watts said no remains were found at the site, and authorities think someone threw away the tombstone in order to build on the property.
“It is a strange irony that at some point this woman had a wealthy family,” said Chicora Foundation spokesperson Debi Hacker. “They got her a beautiful tombstone, then at some point the tombstone was thrown away.”
Ah, sort of like the reverse of “Poltergeist,” where they moved the tombstones but didn’t move the bodies. Or the construction of the Citadel football stadium, when they just destroyed the tombstones and put parts of the structure through skeletons because it was cheaper than moving the bodies (the buried included a crew of the CSS H.L. Hunley).
Money is always fleeting. My family had a plantation, owned human beings and had $5 million in land alone (in 1850 dollars), but all that is left of that venture is a cemetery among scrub brush in the middle of nowhere in Calhoun County. You die, and the world moves on. Next thing you know, your tombstone is stolen and is dug up on a site of a crap eatery.
