From: AdmrlLocke@aol.com Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2000 8:11 PM To: undisclosed-recipients: ; Subject: LibertyNet: Campbell; Harvey; Patriot LibertyNet A Drop of Reason in a Sea of Irrationality Issue 7/18/00 Dear Friend of Liberty: If you haven't yet called Senator Grassley (R-IA) to oppose Clinton's nomination of Bonnie Campbell to the Federal Appeals Court for the Eighth Circuit, please take a moment to do so now. His DC office may be reached directly at 202-224-3744. (Please note that this is the correct phone number; in the July 16 issue of LibertyNet I accidentally sent out his direct fax number instead of his phone number.) You can also reach him and other Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee (including Chairman Orrin Hatch and John Ashcroft of Missouri, located here in the Eighth Circuit) at the Senate switchboard, 202-224-3121. Last night at my urging the Johnson County Republican Central Committee overwhelmingly adopted the following resolution: "We oppose Bill Clinton's appointment of Bonnie Campbell to the Federal Court of Appeals." Our chair, Joanne Stoner, asked me to draft a letter from her to Senator Grassley informing him of our resolution. You'll find the draft as the first item below. If you sit on a Republican Central Committee, especially (but not exclusively) in Iowa, I urge you to introduce a similar resolution in your own Central Committee. If Republicans, and especially the representatives of the grassroots Republicans, unite in opposition to Clinton's nomination of Campbell, we might just turn the tide against this dangerous leftist. Paul Harvey ----------- My mother sent me an inspiring story of someone for whom God really turned the tide. She got the story from Paul Harvey, the popular conservative radio host. Please read it; I think you'll find it inspiring too. In this case I'll reserve my comments until after you read the story. ------------- ------------- "Dear David-- Thought you might like this story--- An interesting Paul Harvey true story "'Here is a true story by Paul Harvey. Pass it to anyone who you think would find it interesting and inspiring. You will be surprised who this young man turned out to be. (Do not look at the bottom of this letter until you have read it fully.) "'Years ago a hardworking man took his family from New York State to Australia to take advantage of a work opportunity there. Part of this man's family was a handsome young son who had aspirations of joining the circus as a trapeze artist or an actor. This young fellow, biding his time until a circus job or even one as a stagehand came along, worked at the local shipyards which bordered on the worse section of town. Walking home from work one evening this young man was attacked by five thugs who wanted to rob him. Instead of just giving up his money the young fellow resisted. "'However they bested him easily and proceeded to beat him to a pulp. They mashed his face with their boots, and kicked and beat his body brutally with clubs, leaving him for dead. When the police happened to find him lying in the road they assumed he was dead and called for the Morgue Wagon. On the way to the morgue a policeman heard him gasp for air, and they immediately took him to the emergency unit at the hospital. When he was placed on a gurney a nurse remarked to her horror, that this young man no longer had a face. Each eye socket was smashed, his skull, legs, and arms fractured, his nose literally hanging from his face, all is teeth were gone, and his jaw was almost completely torn from his skull. Although his life was spared he spent over a year in the hospital. When he finally left his body may have healed but his face was disgusting to look at. He was no longer the handsome youth that everyone admired. "'When the young man started to look for work again he was turned down by everyone just on account of the way he looked. One potential employer suggested to him that he join the freak show at the circus as The Man Who Had No Face. And he did this for a while. He was still rejected by everyone and no one wanted to be seen in his company. He had thoughts of suicide. This went on for five years. "'One day he passed a church and sought some solace there. Entering the church he encountered a priest who had saw him sobbing while kneeling in a pew. The priest took pity on him and took him to the rectory where they talked at length. The priest was impressed with him to such a degree that he said that he would do everything possible for him that could be done to restore his dignity and life, if the young man would promise to be the best Catholic he could be, and trust in God's mercy to free him from his torturous life. The young man went to Mass and communion every day, and after thanking God for saving his life, asked God to only give him peace of mind and the grace to be the best man he could ever be in His eyes. "'The priest, through his personal contacts was able to secure the services of the best plastic surgeon in Australia. There would be no cost to the young man, as the doctor was the priest's best friend. The doctor too was so impressed by the young man, whose outlook now on life, even though he had experienced the worst was filled with good humor and love. "'The surgery was a miraculous success. All the best dental work was also done for him. The young man became everything he promised God he would be. He was also blessed with a wonderful, beautiful wife, and many children, and success in an industry which would have been the furthest thing from his mind as a career if not for the goodness of God and the love of the people who cared for him. This he acknowledges publicly. "'The young man. > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > Mel Gibson. "'His life was the inspiration for his production of the movie "The Man Without A Face." He is to be admired by all of us as a God fearing man, a political conservative, and an example to all as a true man of courage.' "Love Mom" ------------- ------------- Patriot ------- In addition to finding the story inspiring, I found it illuminating as well: it explains to me why Mel Gibson would star in a movie which has been receiving rave reviews from American conservatives but howls of outrage from liberal critics. In the second item below you'll find one of those rave reviews written to me and others by a LibertyNet subscriber, Jim Davis, former Missouri coordinator for Phil Gramm's presidential campaign. I'd like to thank Jim for sending it to me. In the third following item you can read an analysis of Francis Marion, the legendary "Swamp Fox" of South Carolina, upon whom Mel Gibson's character in "Patriot," Benjamin Martin, was partially based. The author of the analysis, Thomas L. Krannawitter, hails from the conservative Claremont Institute. In the final item below, you'll find a superb review of "Patriot" by conservative columnist Vin Suprynowicz. I've twice tried to see the film, but on both occasions the theater had already sold out. Liberal critics may hate the film, as you'll see below, but ordinary Americans appear to love it. I'd like to thank David Kopel, of the Second Amendment Project, for sending me the pieces by Krannawitter and Suprynowicz. Remember that if we friends of liberty do not hang together we may well hang separately. Sincerely, David B. Levenstam, CPA, MT, MA Bush/Cox in 2000! To subscribe to LibertyNet, email me at AdmrlLocke@aol.com, with a message to the effect that you'd like to subscribe. LibertyNet and GrammNet back issues available at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3390/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Honorable Senator Charles E. Grassley 135 Hart Building Washington DC 20510 July 18, 2000 Dear Senator Grassley, I am writing as Chair of the Johnson County Republican Central Committee to inform you that we have adopted the following resolution: "We oppose Bill Clinton's appointment of Bonnie Campbell to the Federal Court of Appeals." I understand that you have made a deal with Senator Harkin to vote for Campbell's nomination. Campbell, however, has no respect for the Constitutional limits on federal power nor for our private property rights. I urge you therefore to reconsider your deal and do everything in your power to prevent Campbell from sitting on the Federal Court of Appeals. Yours truly, Joanne Stoner Chair, Johnson County Republican Central Committee -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jan & I just got back from seeing "The Patriot". sure it was a little "Hollywood hokey" and probably somewhat exaggerated but it is a must see for everyone. It is a must for all of our friends who own and are fighting for the right to keep and bear their firearms. It is also a must for all of our friends who are against that right. The movie makes you proud to be an American and proud that our forefathers took the stand they did and fought and died so that we may disagree on this issue. The movie really shows how important it is for us to be able to "keep and bear arms" and to be ready to mobilize at a moments notice and to fight for what we beleive in. I urge all of my "anti-gun" friends to go see this movie with an open mind and think about why America is what it is today. There were many sacrifices made during our struggle for independence. Who among you would not fight just as hard today if someone tried to take our freedom away or treat us unfairly? The movie made me think about our ancestors, our grandfathers, our dads, our brothers, our uncles and in some cases the females in our families who fought in other wars and who gave up years of their lives and in somecases even gave their lives. It also made me think about Vietnam and the friends I lost there. That may have been an unjust and unpopular war, but my country asked me to go and I was proud to do it to help protect those hard won freedoms. Enough of my soapbox. All I ask is that all of you think about it! Jim -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Claremont Institute-PRECEPTS. June 28, 2000 http://www.claremont.org Movie Critics Swamp the Swamp Fox By Thomas L. Krannawitter Mel Gibson's "The Patriot" opens in theaters across America today. Gibson's character, Benjamin Martin, is modeled partly on Francis Marion, the legendary "Swamp Fox" of South Carolina. There are two things about Marion that offend the sensibilities of modern audiences: The first is that he was a slaveholder. The second is that he is now accused of committing horrid atrocities against the Cherokee. The first charge, at least, is grounded in real history. Like many others during the Founding period, Marion did own slaves. More importantly however, is that also like these other men, Marion risked life and limb to found the first country in the history of the world on the principles of equal natural rights, government by consent, and the rule of law. Abraham Lincoln described this generation as "men of iron." The charge of hunting down Indians for sport, now being circulated in the British press, appears to be something contrived. In a letter to a friend written during the Cherokee wars, Marion noted that some of the soldiers enjoyed the "cruel work" of burning down Cherokee villages, "laughing heartily at the curling flames." But Marion thought such behavior unnecessary and unjust, and wrote that "we surely need not grudge [them] such miserable habitations." And when it came to chopping down Cherokee crops, Marion records that he "could scarcely refrain from tears." Marion and his militia -- a ragtag band of white and black soldiers known as "the Irregulars" -- kept the Revolution alive in South Carolina in the face of the greatest army then assembled on the earth. There exists a popular anecdote of Marion which captures wonderfully how resolute these great men were: Seeking an exchange of prisoners, a British officer went to negotiate terms with Marion. The British officer was surprised and somewhat taken aback by the dreadful condition of Marion and his troops. They were working without pay, clothed in rags, and living in the middle of swampland. At the invitation of Marion, the British officer stayed to dine with Marion and some of his men. To the disgust and amazement of the officer, the menu consisted of nothing but sweet potatoes and water! After returning to his own troops and describing the awful conditions he witnessed, the officer remarked that the Americans were suffering all this misery for the cause of liberty. "What chance have we against such men!" he exclaimed to his British comrades. In earlier times, Americans revered the name of Marion. No doubt this was partly due to the romantic legend created by biographer Parson Weems in the early nineteenth century. Like the cherry tree myth of Washington, Weems sought to popularize the courage, honor, justice and patriotism of this great soldier. And his fellow Americans thought the name and memory of Marion worth preserving as well. It is no coincidence that today one finds across the country streets, parks, towns, and counties bearing the name "Marion." Of course, the Americans who named these things were of a different stock than those today who think multiculturalism a virtue, and patriotism a vice. Like the great general of the American Revolution, George Washington, Marion was successful not because he won every battle, but because he did effectively the one thing the Americans had to do to win the war: He kept an army together and refused to quit. This spirit of perseverance is one of the pillars upon which America was built. This manliness -- a word little used today -- was the reason patriotic Americans made flags that bore the legend, "Don't Tread on Me." America's Founders believed freedom required limited government. But limited government, and therefore freedom, required many things from the people. It demanded sobriety, industriousness, self-assertion, and self-restraint. It required vigilance. As James Madison observed in Federalist 55, self-government "presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form." The story of Francis Marion provides a vivid example of the kind of virtues Americans must cultivate if we intend to remain free. And speaking of cultivating virtue, we are happy to report the Supreme Court today upheld the right of the Boy Scouts to determine their own membership standards. For more information about that case, go to http://www.claremont.org/publications/bsavictorypr000628.cfm or visit our home page at http://www.claremont.org. Thomas L. Krannawitter is the Claremont Institute's Director of Academic Programs. Copyright (c) 2000 The Claremont Institute To subscribe to Precepts, go to: http://www.claremont.org/1_precepts.cfm , or e-mail us at info@claremont.org . -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's wrong with patriotism? By Vin Suprynowicz. July 5, 2000 Along with Mel Gibson (big-budget movies rarely get made these days without a "bankable" star embracing the script, and the similarity of this film's theme to Gibson's recent "Braveheart" can't be a coincidence) producer-director Roland Emmerich and Columbia Pictures seem to have presented the forces of Political Correctness with a bit of a conundrum this Fourth of July. "The Patriot" -- the new Columbia film about the Revolutionary War in the Carolinas -- is proving to be enormously popular with American audiences, not just in ticket sales but in the resurfacing of a long-abandoned phenomenon: Theater audiences are actually wiping away tears and rising to their feet to cheer at the picture's conclusion. Yet many in the mainstream press insist this film's object lessons about patriotism, the need for even reluctant men of conscience to sometimes take up arms in defense of hearth, home, and principle -- and even the potential effectiveness of an armed amateur citizenry in resisting tyranny -- are inadvisable, inappropriate, corny and maybe even a bit scary. Some of the criticism, predictably, focuses on the film's treatment of blacks in the antebellum south. In a character based in part on the life of Francis Marion -- the famous "Swamp Fox" who bled the occupying British forces with his guerrilla raids -- Gibson plays Benjamin Martin, a reluctant patriot and widower who considers it his first job to protect his family by remaining neutral in the burgeoning conflict. Martin's eventual heroism is "unsullied by the Revolution's central contradiction, chattel slavery," complains Gregory L. Kaster, a history professor at Gustavus Adolphus College, writing for the History News Service. "Martin's black workers, we learn, are not slaves, which is so unlikely as to be preposterous." "This detail is in keeping with the film's failure to engage with any subtlety the experiences of blacks (not to mention white women) in the Revolution, or the fascinating irony of white men who owned slaves fearing their own 'enslavement' and proclaiming the equality of all men," Prof. Kaster continues. "A mostly silent slave in Martin's militia is made to stand for all slaves fighting for their (literal) freedom. Viewers learn nothing of the slaves who fought with the British in return for the promise of emancipation." In fact, the film gives white women (most notably brilliant widescreen newcomer Lisa Brenner) quite vocal roles -- albeit Politically Incorrect ones, by today's standard -- urging their menfolk to take up arms in defense of their principles. Does Prof. Kaster mean the filmmakers should have revised history blatantly enough to give us some female Revolutionary War generals? Whom did he have in mind -- Goldie Hawn or Demi Moore? Meantime, the majority of white Americans in the colonial south were never rich enough to own slaves -- many arriving on these shores as indentured servants, themselves. The film does indeed show the British offering freedom to any slave who would enlist with their forces, with Washington and the Continentals following suit. Black faces are quite noticeable in the Redcoat lines at the climactic battle of Cowpens. And while racists in Martin's militia initially grumble about his handing muskets to blacks, the stoic service of the "mostly silent slave" about whom Prof. Kaster complains finally wins them over. Is the "battlefield conversion" of the racist who finally tells his black comrade he's "proud to serve beside you; proud" a sappy and obvious Hollywood touch? Yes, of course. But what's so wrong about showing black men fighting for freedom, too? They did, after all. And where better for a racist to learn the error of his ways than in observing the stoic -- even heroic -- service of a black comrade in arms? It is a painful irony that most American blacks would wait another 80 years -- if not 180 -- for real freedom. But to assume viewers need this spelled out for them is to assume they are all illiterate morons. No, "The Patriot" does not deal in any major way with the abomination of chattel slavery. But in the end, this complaint boils down to little more than another assertion that American history should no longer be taught as anything but a dispiriting compilation of the sins of Dead White Men -- that this should have been a Spike Lee movie about the horrors of slavery. To which one can hardly imagine any appropriate response other than: "Feel free to go make that movie -- it's just not (start ital)this(end ital) movie." Anyway, the real focus of horror on the part of the forces of Political Correctness, clearly, is the crucial scene in which Gibson's character is transfigured into a man of action. Benjamin Martin -- having just seen one of his children killed despite his piteous pleadings with the evil Col. William Tavington (based on history's infamous Col. Banastre Tarleton, who recalled in his memoirs the pleasure he took in shooting fleeing rebels in the back) and with a second son under imminent threat of unjust execution -- hands flintlocks to his younger boys, aged about 10 and 13, and leads them on a wild run through the woods to a point where they can ambush the British column. Here is the very kernel of the American Revolution -- a miraculous triumph of everyday, amateur American families taking up arms in a fight for liberty against what was then the world's most powerful army -- which the forces of the collectivist left have been struggling for generations to replace with a revisionist version of our history as nothing but a scurrilous catalog of genocide and oppression. "Don't mistake ('The Patriot') for history," warns James Verniere of The Boston Herald. "It's a sales pitch for America." "Overblown sanctimony and sentimentalism," agrees Ann Hornaday in The Baltimore Sun, "as corny as the Fourth of July." "In a scene that will put lead in the spine of Second Amendment fundamentalist Charlton Heston, Martin tears into his larder of unregistered muskets ... and wreaks havoc on those who would invade his home," sneers Jack Matthews of the Daily News. Well, indeed, Revolutionary War victories at places like Saratoga and Cowpens were largely attributable to the armed amateur militia, of whom Tench Coxe (an ally of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, who would later serve in the administrations of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison) was speaking when -- in his famous letter to the Philadelphia Gazette of Feb. 20, 1788 -- he defended the new U.S. Constitution, arguing: "The power of the sword, say the minority of Pennsylvania, is in the hands of Congress. My friends and countrymen, it is not so, for THE POWERS OF THE SWORD ARE IN THE HANDS OF THE YEOMANRY OF AMERICA FROM SIXTEEN TO SIXTY. The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the militia? are they not ourselves. Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American. What clause in the state or [federal] constitution hath given away that important right. ... The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." This is the message which those who now cry "Don't pay any attention to the little man behind the curtain" wish Roland Emmerich and Mel Gibson had left unspoken. But American audiences are overlooking such cynicism and disinformation in droves -- and perhaps drawing a few even less PC parallels, one Internet wag already circulating the apocryphal response of Attorney General Janet Reno to the scene in which the evil Col. Tarleton locks a village full of patriot sympathizers in a church and sets the building afire, the chief Clinton enforcer reportedly insisting: "Those cult members locked themselves in that church and set the fire themselves; the colonel was only trying to rescue them!" "The Patriot" is a fine film and a great -- albeit admittedly "fictionalized" -- lesson in American history. Here's hoping it gets a whole new generation of Americans studying the real history of the War for Independence -- and the real reason why tyrants have always opposed an armed populace -- and leaves the forces of Politically Correct revisionism with a mighty knot in their knickers when it comes time to decide whatever they are to do with such a piece of "disgustingly populist, patriotic tripe," come Oscar time. Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available by dialing 1-800-244-2224; or via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.