Rut-Ro!

If another aircraft gets behind it, it can flip, engage, and establish a new flight path in seconds. The loop it pulled was so tight that any plane behind it would end up in front of it.

yikes. engage at extreme range... no dog fighting!

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Pg 8

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Secession

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This is NOT about Ron Paul. It never was and it still isn't. He just happens to be the ONLY non-collectivist candidate in the race and our ONLY chance to preserve our Republic.

ALL the other candidates are collectivists. McCain, Clinton and Obama.

Socialism is but one form of collectivism. It’s not a matter of Republican vs. Democrat or liberal vs. conservative. It’s really a matter of the state vs. us (or you). It really boils down to a battle between collective responsibility and individual liberty. There really can be no workable compromise.

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CaptainShays wrote:

Ron Paul has been very specific on what he would work to cut in the way of spending. Link Only registered users can see links on this forum! Register or Login on forum! Link Only registered users can see links on this forum! Register or Login on forum! Link Only registered users can see links on this forum! Register or Login on forum! Link Only registered users can see links on this forum! Register or Login on forum! Link Only registered users can see links on this forum! Register or Login on forum! Link Only registered users can see links on this forum! Register or Login on forum! Life and Liberty Link Only registered users can see links on this forum! Register or Login on forum! Health freedom Link Only registered users can see links on this forum! Register or Login on forum! Privacy and Personal Liberty Link Only registered users can see links on this forum! Register or Login on forum! Our national sovereignty and our economic and national security. Link Only registered users can see links on this forum! Register or Login on forum! Amnesty and the Welfare State Link Only registered users can see links on this forum! Register or Login on forum! War and Foreign Policy Link Only registered users can see links on this forum! Register or Login on forum! Vets for Ron Paul Link Only registered users can see links on this forum! Register or Login on forum! American Independence and Sovereignty Link Only registered users can see links on this forum! Register or Login on forum!

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The following is the transcript of a speech on the subject of Islam given by Jim Horn, vice Chairman of the United American Committee, to a group of Republican women in Southern California on Tuesday March 18th 2008. During and after his speech Jim was met with thunderous applause. Note: The contents of this speech may not necessarily reflect official policies of the UAC. We are not at war with terrorism. Terrorism is a tool Who’s attacking us? Is it Japanese? British? Hawaiians? Canadians? Israelis? Koreans? Brazilians? Icelanders? No, it’s Moslems. Islamists We are definitely at war with Islam, and our very survival is at stake. More importantly, that of our children and grand-children. To quote former British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill: “Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.” Things haven’t changed. Those attacking us are not special “fundamentalist” or “radical” Moslems. They are just honest Moslems like bin Laden, Khomeni, Ahmadinejad, emulating the prototype Moslem terrorist, Mohammed, and doing what his Koran tells them to do. They want to terrorize us into submission. And We are not doing too well! We’ve let the anti-God crowd (led by the ACLU) kick God out of our schools. Now, they are ushering Allah in. Islam is an evil, bigoted cult! Moslems are working to make us submit (the Arabic word is Islam) - to becoming Moslems or accepting dhimmitude - which is being inferior to them, of eroding our will to resist. The real meaning of being a Moslem, of accepting Islam is the willful acceptance of perpetual ignorance, humiliation, poverty, disease, suffering, self-loathing and abuse, hatred of women and sub-human existence. The cult of Islam is an implacable foe -- this seems to elude many of our leaders. They foolishly parrot Islamist taqiyyah - lying, balderdash, propaganda that Islam is a religion of peace, that Islam is not the enemy. B.S.! Here is a fundamental truth: The only peace that Islam recognizes is peace under the domination of Islam. Nothing else! Any ignoramus who believes otherwise is a simple minded dhimmi fool. This applies to those who believe in so-called moderate Moslems. A moderate Moslem is one who sends others blow themselves up. Islam’s assault is smart and determined. We can never underestimate their determination - which is to subdue and control us completely. Our leaders can’t get a grip on it. – they’re befuddled. They are willfully ignorant dhimmis. The Moslems are employing a multi-pronged attack: Militarily, it‘s jihad: They are shooting us, blowing us up, cutting our throats. With no identifiable central military command and control structure, our generals are befuddled and don’t know where to blow things up. Islam’s goal - is to weaken us. We are NOT succeeding in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, Djibouti, Indonesia, the Philippines, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, the Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, Kenya, Turkey, Bosnia, Kosovo, nor anywhere else. Our finest are dying every day. And we are putting some of them in military prisons for defending our country! This is a travesty. Moslems have blown up embassies, airplanes, the USS Cole, the Khobar towers in Saudi Arabia, our Marines in Beirut, kidnapped, tortured, and murdered Americans all over, they took hostages in Tehran, and did 9/11. Why? Who are we? We are the lynchpin of civilization, of what is basically good, decent, and civilized. The Moslems know that if we fall, so will go the rest of civilization. The A-bomb terrorized the Japanese into quitting. We crushed the Nazis. We didn’t use the A-bomb in Korea, and were beaten back to the 38th parallel where it began. We didn’t use all of our force in Vietnam and were handed our own butts in defeat. We are now giving the Moslems a silver platter on which they will hand our sorry butts back to us. We are trying to fight by our rules - Moslems won‘t comply. - Therefore our rules don’t apply. We need to adopt some of their rules. - Or make new rules. ECONOMICALLY and SUBLIMINALLY, or CULTURALLY they are on a roll. They control our energy - oil. - They charge us billions -- and we pay, and we pay. Our dollars buy every bullet, grenade, rocket, land mine (IED), etc. that kills an American. Yankee dollars to kill Yankee soldiers! They are taking control of us. - They buy and control our stocks - They are buying our media -- and have silenced Bill O’Reilley who used to go after Saudi Sheikh’s. - Saudis now own 15% of FOX and effectively sign his pay check. Saudis are off limits. A diminished O’Reilley rants about Rosie, gays, illegals, and pedophiles - he’s become a tabloid denizen like Jeraldo and Jerry. FOX is now even servile towards Moslim Arabs. The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has gone after Michael Savage in a big way in their efforts to censor or to subdue him. Unlike O’Reilley, Savage is courageously fighting back. Mark Steyn, a Canadian is facing charges of hate speech brought on by his forthright and honest writings about Islam and Moslems (America Alone). The ones bringing those charges are the Canadian equivalent of CAIR, the Canadian Islamic Congress. This is a form of terrorism. It‘s Arabic word is HIRABAH. Hirabah is a form of public terrorism and intimidation in an assault on a society - the targeting of people in a way to cause fear, anxiety, terror. It is the threat of legal or other intimidation against anyone who speaks out against Moslems. The way to overcome this is for thousands and thousands of us to go out and express ourselves, to speak in ways --(the simple truth will do)-- that offend Moslems, so much so that they will be overwhelmed by our exercising our rights of free expression. We did not start this war, but we have no choice in engaging in it, or perish. It’s that simple. Each and every one of is involved like it or not. During WWII in occupied Europe, nearly all of the noncombatant men, children, and women joined in the resistance in one way or another, and this helped our troops to succeed. We need to start our own resistance - NOW. Their surrogates control our energy sector via corporate boardrooms. - They have set de facto limits to alternative energy. - They are determined to keep us dependent on their oil. The recent energy bill has eliminated incentives for renewable solar power, and Bush signed off on it. The dysfunctional Department of Energy responds more to Arabs than to us. France is 85% nuclear powered, as is Germany. Japan is 90% nuclear powered. We’re barely at ten percent. We have let this happen. We are but a banana republic, dependent on others. We need to reverse this. We need to build lots of nuclear power plants. NOW! We can use power from nuclear energy to extract our own oil -- we reportedly have an 800 year supply of that stuff located in our tar sands and oil bearing shale. We have coal. Let’s use it. We have technology to clean it up, and we can even harvest gasoline from coal. The Moslem political lobby – invests billions in us. - They buy/bribe politicians in every way -- and they are able to pre-determine votes, something you can‘t do. We need to do something about that. NOW! We need to confront corrupt politicians. Ask them where their money comes from, their donations, about straw donors. Pin them down. Embarrass them. Humble them. Make them give up that dirty money. The Moslems have spent decades and billions to study and to learn about us and how we function. - They have learned how to take advantage of our goodness, of our kindness, of our decency, and thus how to take us over. --- We have become so tolerant that we tolerate the intolerant. ((repeat)) This must stop. - They know our laws better than we do - how to subvert us. - They have thousands of bankers and lawyers increasingly in control our way of life. They are taking over our stock exchanges, and establishing rules that keep investments in Israel and other civilized (anti-Arab) nations down. They are now buying into financially troubled banks, and then demanding that an approved Imam -- a Moslem “priest” be put on the board to assure that financial products offered to Moslems are ‘halal’ -- kosher. Halal finances are interest free loans and credit cards for Moslems, while you and I pay higher and higher interest on our credit cards. Those of us who invest, need to go out and invest directly in non-Arab controlled companies to get around and to thwart the Arabs. They have infiltrated our government - Our leadership hasn’t figured this out - the depth and breadth of this. - Hostile agents are active in our intelligence and security organizations. One Palestinian/Hezbollah operative has been found out. - Moslems in high places thwart loyal Arabic speakers who are Jewish or Christian from getting translator or other jobs. - They make sure top officials do NOT know what they ought or need to know. -They got Stephen Coughlin, a top pentagon expert on Islamic Law and Moslem extremism fired for being too honest and good at his job. This is one of the worst outrages coming at us. So many of us raised so much hell, that the Moslem who orchestrated this was ousted himself for being a liar. --And Coughlin has a new contract. - They, in fact so believe their taqiyyah BS and balderdash (it’s not just OK, but actually good to lie to non-Muslims) that they have a mindset that can defeat lie detector tests relied on by the CIA, the FBI & others. They will lie at all costs to achieve their evil goals. Politicians in New York recently pass a bill to outlaw libel lawsuits against people who exercise free speech. This in response to a Saudi suing people like you and I in European courts. We need one of these laws here, in California now, and need to demand that the Congress enact one also. I am concerned that if I were to become knowledgeable about something terrible, I am not confident that I could report it to the FBI and that it would be handled properly. In fact, I have had some recent information come to me and I worked on different ways to get that information into the hands of people who will handle it correctly. Just recently, a former (she blew the whistle and that’s why she is a “former“) FBI translator disclosed the extent of anti-American spying activities by increasingly sectarian Moslem Turkey. An American diplomat was involved. This war for our survival dates to 570 when Muhammad was born, orphaned, grew up, hustled a rich widow and began his quest for power. He tried to do it peacefully by pretending to be Christ like, and failed His philosophy turned into the evil cult that we know of today as Islam. The greedy and gullible pagans and others were drawn into his cult which is based on lust and greed. Islam’s guide is the Koran, a confusing and conflicting compilation of utterances that Mohammed claimed came from his god, Allah. The Koran is organized by the longest “revelations” first. There is no chronology, no thread to follow. It is confusing to read and to understand or grasp. Mohammed established the rule of Koranic abrogation. -Whatever his Allah reveled today can be overruled in later revelations - a very fickle Allah. Present day Moslems spouting the peace and love spiel are doing the BS and balderdash taqiyyah thing. They are liars -- being true to Islam. - The fools who fall for this easily are - our clergy, educators, and politicians and ignorant fools.. Qur’an is the religious side of the cult of Islam - Is the basis of the vile Shari laws (which boil down to the most crude forms of laws of the jungle and the survival of the fittest or most savage) and Moslem kangaroo courts. Mohammed’s Hadiths - rules and traditions all based on Mohammed’s greedy, lustful, brutal, savage, corrupt life, his style, governs how Moslems are supposed to live. Moslems try to emulate Mohammed in every way. For example, Mohammed married Aisha (one of about twelve wives) when she was six. So, Islam permits baby marriages which really encourages pedophilia. Mohammed had a dozen wives and many slaves, so Islam permits polygamy, many wives and slaves. The Department of State in 2007 documented (not rumors, but confirmations) over 800,000 cases of human trafficking as they call it - slave trading. Where? 99% in Moslem countries. Women under Islam are chattel. Mohammed rules recommend beating wives to keep them in line, and taught that women are inferior, just to be used. - They can only inherit ½ of men. - Their testimony does not equal that of a man. - A complaint of rape is thus a confession to having gender out of wedlock --- the woman can therefore be stoned to death for adultery. - This is Shari’a law -- what Moslem outfits like the Council on Islamic Relations (CAIR) want to impose right here, in the USA. Mohammed’s step-son married a beautiful woman whom Mohammed lusted after so much that he divorced her and gave her to Mohammed. She didn’t have a choice. Murdered Lebanese prime Minister Rafik Harriri was made a billionaire by a Saudi prince, and then became Prime Minister. Harriri divorced his stunningly gorgeous wife whom the Saudi lusted after, and gave her to the Saudi. Harriri was rewarded with tons of money. She had no choice. When Mohammed and his band conquered one village, he decreed the torture and death of every male, about 900. After pouring boiling liquid down their throats, they were mutilated and then had their heads cut off. “Islamist extremists” are merely honest Moslems emulating Mohammed. Osama bin Laden is a disciple of Mohammed. Is bin Laden dishonest? No. He is a near perfect Moslem. “Honor” killings are a common practice, and this practice is being imported. A Man in Toronto strangled his daughter because she wanted to fit into the greater society. An Egyptian murdered his two daughters in Dallas because they resisted their assigned roles of being inferior. Mohammed promised rewards for the “faithful” which includes paradise for those who die in jihad (such as suicide bombers). In paradise they are promised 72 ever-virgin maidens and 28 tender pre-pubescent boys….., as well as other pleasures. There are no similar rewards for women. Islam is much harsher than Communism or Nazism, both of which someone could resign from and still live. If one leaves Islam, they are condemned to death. Islam is just plain evil. And, it’s been around for 1400 years. Moslems call critics racists. Not so. Islam is an evil fascist system, not a race. Islam is a totalarian cult, and includes members of all races and colors, as are we, its many critics. We can critically study Christ and Judaism but Islam forbids anything critical about Mohammed or Allah. Ask serious questions, criticize or mock Mohammed and you are condemned as was Salmon Rushdie, the Danish cartoonists depicting Mohammed with a bomb in his bonnet, Theo Van Gogh who was murdered, and anti-Islam Dutch politician Geert Wilders who has made a truthful documentary on Islam and the Koran. Fascist Islam / Moslems can’t stand the comparison – or competition. They can’t tolerate freedom of speech. The UN - Useless Nations - has passed a resolution condemning anti-Moslem/anti-Islam speech -- our exercising our rights under the First Amendment to our Constitution. The Useless Nations hates freedoms set forth in our Constitution, including the one that protects the First Amendment, the Second Amendment allowing us to be armed citizens able to organize and to resist anyone who wants to suppress us, our freedoms - our constitution. Democracy and Islam are NOT and will NEVER, EVER be compatible. Qur’an forbids making friends with Christians or Jews. It is against their laws. Mohammed forbade it. If a Moslem says he is your friend, he is lying - taqiyyah. Where do we go from here? Establish reciprocity laws. Reciprocity is NOT discriminatory - it is all about fairness and equality. STOP any more Islamic centers, schools, mosques. Demand they reciprocate and allow building of and protect churches in all Moslem countries until equal status -- parity -- is reached. STOP allowing any more Moslems into USA, until they have attracted several million Christians from the USA and Europe to set up and live freely in their countries. Severely restrict all Moslem diplomats’ movements. In Moslem countries, any foreigner who wishes to do business, must put up all of the money, engage a Moslem (citizen) as a partner holding 51% of the assets and earning 51% of the profits. If the company does too well, it can be nationalized, and the foreigner given the boot. Do the same with all Moslem/Arab businesses here. Soft societies lose to hard societies. Harden up or perish - vanish. We have power. We need to use our power. Use our food for oil, medicine for oil, pills for oil, clothes for oil, airplanes for oil, cars and trucks for oil, machinery for oil, technology for oil, education for oil, and more. Put a commodity value on everything. Make them pay. We have the A-bomb. We need to let them know that we can use it. We need to re-establish our Neutron bomb program. We need to terrorize and dominate those who wish to destroy us, to make them back off, or kill them if they won‘t. Cancel all foreign assistance - taxpayer dollars to Moslem countries who fail to fully reciprocate with us. We’ll cut about twenty billion out of our budget in a day when we do that. Intolerant Islam – submission is not compatible with freedom. -- Freedom is being civilized. Now, I’d like to say a few words about Russia and China. The Russians are recovering from Yeltsinism and the Chinese from Maoism. Flush with cash, the Chinese are building a military force that can challenge the United States, or any other nation. They have tested a satellite destroyer weapon, to demonstrate that they can cripple us. The Russians are increasingly belligerent towards the United States. Some of you may ask why, and I give you this. In Russia’s involvement in Afghanistan, we sided against the Russians, and supported the Moslems. In Russia’s conflict with Moslem Chechniya, we sided with the Moslems. When Islamists started the ethnic cleansing in Serbia’s Kosovo province, we sided with the Moslems. Russia and China have active intelligence services which are very aggressive in Washington and other parts of the country. They study us closely, and know very well what is going on. The Russians and Serbs share much of their heritage in common. We have hurt them badly. We have caused the deaths of thousands and thousands of Christian Russians and Serbs, cost them a fortune, and territory. We have earned their enmity. If Mexicans - MeCHA, Aztlan, la Raza gangs started military type activity to establish their own anti-American government here, and our police were bombed by Russia for trying to stop them, how would you feel? The Russians and Chinese both see that we Americans may allow the Islamists more and more until they slyly take us over. They see themselves having to face an Islamist controlled nuclear armed North America. When that happens, they intend to win!

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The first 30-35 min or so is really good, then the last 15 min is laced with skewed views toward communism.

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Only registered users can see links on this forum! Register or Login on forum! An analysis by G. Edward Griffin, 2007 June 7 Money As Debt is a well-produced instructional video explaining the inequities in the present world's banking system. In many respects it does an excellent job, but it misses the mark in several important areas. For example, it perpetuates the myth that interest can never be paid back in its entirety because banks do not create enough money to cover the principle plus the interest. I dealt with this myth on page 191 of my book, The Creature from Jekyll Island, as follows:

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	w8n4him wrote:
	Sent to me today, by my brother JamMaster: Why the US is Collapsing..... Long read, but worth it. Only registered users can see links on this forum! Register or Login on forum!

The guy needs a new dictionary:
From the article:

	Quote:
	fascism n. a merging of the interests of big corporations and government, adjoined with a systematic curtailment of civil liberties

I could find this definition nowhere, but the definition closely matches:

Quote:

Only registered users can see links on this forum! Register or Login on forum! Main Entry: cor·po·rat·ism Listen to the pronunciation of corporatism Pronunciation: \ˈkȯr-p(ə-)rə-ˌti-zəm\ Function: noun Date: 1890 : the organization of a society into industrial and professional corporations serving as organs of political representation and exercising control over persons and activities within their jurisdiction — cor·po·rat·ist Listen to the pronunciation of corporatist \-p(ə-)rə-tist\ adjective

Remember what preceded the formation of the central bank.

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Only registered users can see links on this forum! Register or Login on forum! The industrial revolution can be defined as a drastic transformation both of the processes by which American (and European) society produced goods for human consumption, and of the social attitudes surrounding these processes. The first non-ambiguous use of the term is attributed to the French economist Adolphe Blanqui in 1837, but the idea of a "revolution" in the industrial sphere showed up in various forms in the writings of many French and British intellectuals as early as the 1820s. The expression underlines the depth and speed of the changes observed, and the fact that they seemed to derive from the introduction of machine-based factories. Although in Great Britain the slow process of industrial transformation has led historians there to question the very notion of an "industrial revolution," the speed and radical character of the change that took place in the United States in the nineteenth century largely precludes any such discussion. An Economic and Social Revolution The spread of new, powerful machines using new sources of power (water, then coal-generated steam) constituted the most obvious aspect of this process of change. Alexander Hamilton's Report on Manufactures (1791) made explicit reference to "the extension of the use of machinery," especially in the British cotton industry, and in 1812, Tench Coxe, a political economist and career official in the Treasury Department, peppered his Report on the State of Manufactures in the United States with paeans to "laborsaving machinery." Factories built around new machines became a significant element in the urban landscapes of several eastern cities in the 1830s, while railroads brought steam-powered engines into the daily life of rural areas. The new industrial order included productivity increases that made available a wealth of new, nonagricultural goods and activities. Three out of four American male workers accounted for in the census of 1800 worked full time in agriculture; by 1900 more than two-thirds of the workforce was employed in the manufacturing and service sectors. Another, less visible evolution was even more momentous: in 1800 virtually all Americans were working in family-sized units of production, based on long-term or permanent (slaves, spouses) relationships and included such nonquantitative characteristics as room and board and "moral" rules of behavior. When wages were paid, their amount was a function of these "moral" customs (some historians even speak of a "moral" economy) and the prosperity of the business as much as of the supply and demand of labor. A century later, wages determined by the labor market were becoming the norm, with little attention paid to "custom" or the moral imperative of "fair wages." Moreover, employers and employees lived increasingly disconnected lives, both socially and spatially. Among many other consequences, this shift eventually led to a reevaluation of "women's work," hitherto left unpaid within the household, and made untenable first slavery, then the segregation with which southern white supremacists hoped to create their own racist version of the labor market. It is thus impossible to overstate the social and political impact of the industrial revolution. From New Machines to Modern Businesses While the existence of an industrial revolution is hard to dispute, its chronology and causes are more open to discussion. Technologically, the United States took its first steps toward mass production almost immediately after independence, and had caught up with Great Britain by the 1830s. Following the British lead, American innovation was concentrated in cotton and transportation. In 1793, after fifteen years of experimentation in the Philadelphia and Boston areas, Samuel Slater set up the country's first profitable cotton-spinning factory in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Thomas Jefferson's decision in 1807 to stop trade with Europe, and the subsequent War of 1812 with Great Britain, created a protected environment for American manufacturers, and freed commercial capital. This led to such ventures as the Boston Manufacturing Company, founded under the impulse of Boston merchant Francis Cabot Lowell in 1813 in Waltham, Massachusetts. The company's investors went on to create a whole series of new factories in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1822. Thanks to a combination of immigrant British technicians, patent infringements, industrial espionage, and local innovations, American power looms were on a par with the English machines by the end of the 1810s. Moreover, Waltham, which combined under one roof all the processes of textile production, particularly spinning and weaving, was the first wholly integrated textile factory in the world. Still, despite the development of a high-pressure steam engine by inventor Oliver Evans in Philadelphia in 1804, American cotton manufacturers, and American industry in general, lagged in the use of steam. In 1833, Secretary of the Treasury Louis McLane's federal survey of American industry reported few steam engines outside of the Pittsburgh area, whereas James Watt's steam engine, perfected between 1769 and 1784, was used throughout Great Britain by 1800. However, in 1807, the maiden run of Robert Fulton's first steamboat, the Clermont, on the Hudson River marked the first commercial application of steam to transportation, a field in which Americans were most active. The first commercial railroad in the United States, the Baltimore and Ohio, was launched in 1828, three years after its first British counterpart. In 1829, the British inventor George Stephenson introduced his Rocket engine; the New Jersey transportation magnate John Stevens bought one two years later and had built three improved (and patent-infringing) copies by 1833. His son, Robert L. Stevens, added his own contribution by creating the modern T-rail. John Stevens also gave technical information to young Matthias Baldwin of Philadelphia, who launched what would become the Baldwin Locomotive Works with his first engine, the Ironsides, built in 1832. With the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, and the ensuing "canal craze," a spate of canal construction extending into the 1840s, all the ingredients of the so-called transportation revolution were in place. Between the 1820s and the Civil War, American machinery surpassed that of their British competitors, a superiority made public at the Crystal Palace Exhibition in London in 1851. For instance, under the impulse of John Hall, a machinist who began working at the Harpers Ferry federal gun factory in 1820, American gun makers developed a production process precise and mechanized enough to produce standardized, interchangeable gun parts; such an approach would make the fortune of gun maker Samuel Colt in the 1850s. Standardized production was eventually applied to other goods, starting with Isaac Merritt Singer's sewing machines, sold commercially from 1851 on. The biggest advance in communications technology since the railroad greatly improved mail delivery, was the telegraph, an American innovation introduced by Samuel F. B. Morse between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore in 1844. The 1830–1860 period is most important, however, for its organizational innovations. Up to then, cotton manufacturers, steamboat promoters, and railroad administrators alike were less concerned with productivity than with turning a quick profit through monopolies, cartels, and niche markets. Accounting was sloppy at best, making precise cost control impossible. Subcontracting was the rule, as well as piece-work rather than wages. In this environment, technical innovations that sped production could lessen costs for the manufacturer only if piece rates were cut accordingly. This began to occur in American cotton factories from 1828 on (leading to the first modern industrial conflicts in Manayunk and other factories around Philadelphia, six years before the better-known strikes in Lowell and other New England centers in 1834). It was not until the 1840s and 1850s that modern business procedures were introduced. These included the accounting innovations of Louis McLane, at this time president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and his chief engineer, Benjamin Latrobe, and the organizational overhaul of the Pennsylvania Railroad launched by its president, J. Edgar Thompson, in 1853. By the Civil War, competent technicians and productivity-minded administrators were revolutionizing one industry after another, a process that became generalized after 1870. Organizers and inventors systematically allied with each other; in Pittsburgh, Alexander L. Holley built for Andrew Carnegie the most modern steel mill in the world, the Edgar Thomson works, which opened in 1875. Sometimes organizer and inventor were one and the same, as in the case of Thomas Edison, who set up an experimental laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, in 1876, developed the first electric lightbulb in 1879, and went on to build what became General Electric. In other fields, the pioneers were superseded by outsiders. Colonel Edwin Drake was the first person to successfully use drilling to extract oil from the earth, which he did in Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859, but John D. Rockefeller was the man who succeeded in gaining control over 90 percent of American refineries between 1865 and 1879, creating with Standard Oil the first modern monopoly in America. The systematized search for productivity led to systematized research and development through the combined use of applied research and funding from large corporations, university-based science, and federal subsidies. From oil and electricity to chemistry, the pace of innovation became such that the period has been called a "second industrial revolution" (actually a misnomer, since rates of growth were not significantly higher than in the previous period). Similarly, the search for economies of scale led to giant factories, great concentrations of workers, and widespread urbanization. The search for new outlets for constantly increasing output led to mass consumption and advertisement. And the search for lower costs prompted bloody battles with workers. Compromise in this area was slowly reached; in 1914, Henry Ford introduced the idea that high wages meant efficient workers and useful consumers, and Roosevelt and the New Deal, from 1933 on, set up a social security system giving those same workers a safety net in hard times. Thus, much of the history of the late-nineteenth and the twentieth centuries is the history of the struggle to come to terms with the economic, political, and social consequences of the new forms of organization of human production developed before the Civil War and systematized in the Gilded Age. More generally, the industrial revolution inaugurated trends that perpetuated themselves into the twenty-first century and can properly be described as the matrix of the contemporary world.

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Pistol Marksmanship

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Only registered users can see links on this forum! Register or Login on forum! By Warren Richey | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor from the March 19, 2008 edition Reporter Warren Richey details arguments made in the US Supreme Court Tuesday in a District of Columbia gun-control case. Washington - - A majority of US Supreme Court justices appear poised to embrace an individual rights view of the Second Amendment. But a clear consensus did not emerge during historic oral arguments Tuesday on how precisely the "right of the people to keep and bear arms" should be enforced – and limited – by the courts. The justices engaged in more than 90 minutes of spirited questioning in a potential landmark case involving a legal challenge to a Washington, D.C. law banning handguns. The case is being closely watched by gun control advocates who are concerned that should the high court strike down the DC ban and support an individual's right to keep and bear arms, it might trigger a proliferation of military-grade weapons among civilians. Some analysts suggest it could result not only in ownership of machine guns, but also of missiles and other military-grade ordinance.[1] Gun rights advocates are hopeful that the high court will firmly establish an individual right to arms. But they are divided over how much that right should be limited. The case of District of Columbia v. Heller involves a security guard who is asking the courts to declare Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban an unconstitutional infringement of his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. His lawyer, Alan Gura, says the constitution protects his right to keep a handgun at home for self defense. A lawyer for the District of Columbia, Walter Dellinger, countered that the Second Amendment protects a collective right to use only those guns needed to provide for the common defense as part of a state militia. The amendment does not protect a right to use guns for self defense at home, he said. The Second Amendment reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Supporters of the individual rights view of the amendment focus on the second half of the measure, while those embracing the militia-rights view stress the importance of the first clause. Based on the questions they raised, Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, and Anthony Kennedy support an individual rights approach to the Second Amendment. Although he did not ask any questions, Justice Clarence Thomas has suggested in the past that he supports an individual rights view. Justices John Paul Stevens and David Souter appear to be among the strongest supporters of a narrow reading that would apply the Second Amendment to only the militia service. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer fall someplace in between. The attack on the militia view of the Second Amendment began within minutes of the start of the District of Columbia's argument. Mr. Dellinger stressed that the word "bear" in the amendment is consistent with military operations and suggests the purpose of the amendment is to protect militia arms. He said the first clause of the amendment limits its scope to military operations aimed at safeguarding the common defense. Chief Justice Roberts asked Dellinger why the authors of the Second Amendment specified a "right of the people," rather than simply saying the right of the state militia. Mr. Dellinger said that the terms 'militia' and 'the people' were often interchangeable. Justices Kennedy and Scalia suggested the amendment may reflect an attempt in the first clause to reaffirm militia rights already protected in the body of the Constitution, but then went on in the second clause to specify an additional, broader right of the people to keep and bear arms. "I don't see how there's any contradiction," Scalia said. "The two clauses go together beautifully." He added, "Since we need a militia, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Dellinger replied that the words "bear arms" implies that the people's right was confined to military matters. Kennedy asked whether the amendment's protections weren't broader than a focus on militias. "It has nothing to do with the concern of the remote settler to defend himself and his family against hostile Indian tribes and outlaws, wolves and bears and grizzlies and things like that?" he asked. Dellinger replied that such issues were never part of the debates surrounding the adoption of the Second Amendment. Eventually the chief justice turned the court's focus to the District of Columbia's handgun ban. He asked why a total ban on one kind of weapon should be deemed reasonable. Dellinger said handguns are particularly dangerous because they can be carried secretly and used in crimes. But Roberts wondered if the same approach were used in the context of First Amendment rights, whether it would be acceptable for a city to ban books because newspapers provided an alternative. In defending its handgun ban, district officials say it doesn't amount to an unconstitutional deprivation because homeowners can keep rifles and shotguns in their homes for protection, just not handguns. But several justices questioned other provisions of the city's strict gun laws that require rifles and shotguns to remain unloaded and disassembled or secured with a trigger lock. Justice Scalia said such laws might make it difficult for a homeowner to defend himself in the middle of the night with an intruder already halfway through the bedroom window. One of the more closely watched aspects of the oral argument was whether Solicitor General Paul Clement would stick to the position he staked out in his brief. Some analysts had suggested he might move toward the more gun-rights friendly posture embraced by Vice President Dick Cheney in a different brief submitted to the court. Mr. Clement held firm to his position that the high court should be careful not to create rigorous constitutional protections that might create a right for Americans to own any and all military-grade weapons, including machine guns. The justices did not spend much time debating what standards should apply if they declare the District's gun ban unconstitutional. At one point, Chief Justice Roberts asked the solicitor general why the court would have to articulate any all-encompassing standard. "Isn't it enough to determine the scope of the existing right that the amendment refers to, look at the various regulations that were available at the time ... and determine how this restriction and the scope of this right looks in relation to those?" he asked. Clement said he was concerned that an earlier ruling in the case could be read to recognize a constitutional right to own a machine gun. He said such a reading might endanger a range of federal gun regulations. "It is more than a little difficult to say that the one arm that's not protected by the Second Amendment is that which is the standard issue armament for the national guard, and that's what the machine gun is," Clement said. Roberts countered that the DC gun case involves an absolute ban – not restrictions on machine guns. "Why would you think that the opinion striking down an absolute ban would also apply to a narrower one directed solely to machine guns?" Scalia suggested that the test would be that the Second Amendment protects the right of the people to the type of weapon that was used by the militia (i.e. pistols and rifles), and that those now commonly held by civilians would enjoy Second Amendment protection. "If you read it that way, I don't see why you have a problem," Scalia said. "I hope that you read it that way," Clement replied.[2] A decision is expected by late June.

[1] They know that our Second Amendment rights includes the right to own any type of weapon or armor used by the military.

[2] Clement and Scalia understand the government has no authority to restrict us as they have, Roberts is planning on using a very narrow decision to deny citizen their full rights.