Monday, March 2, 2015

Apology Owed -- Will It Be Given?

Last November, in conjunction with Veterans Day, Al Mackey exercised great nastiness by employing his bigotry and blind spot where heritage folks are concerned.

He called "many" confederate (sic) heritage advocates "despicable scum," for "trying to palm off the lie that confederate (sic) veterans are American veterans." They're not, Al sed. They're "civil war veterans."

Actually, Congress apparently hasn't designated anybody as "American veterans" -- only as "veterans," without the "American." So I posted this today at Al's flog:
Revisiting this, Al. I can’t find where the US Code defines “American veteran” at all. A cursory search of Title 38 brings up the terms “native American veterans” and “disabled American veterans” a few times, but no “American veterans.”

The purpose of the Department of Veterans affairs “…is to administer the laws providing benefits and other services to veterans and the dependents and the beneficiaries of veterans.” The point of defining veterans is to determine who is eligible for said benefits.

The language (1) defining veterans AND (2) designating/defining CSA veterans as veterans appears almost identical:

===38 U.S. Code § 101 – Definitions includes this:

For the purposes of this title—
(2) The term “veteran” means a person who served in the active military, naval, or air service, and who was discharged or released therefrom under conditions other than dishonorable.

And…

===Public Law 85-425 Veterans’ Benefits Act of 1957 includes this:

“(e) For the purpose of this section, and section 433,
the term ‘veteran’ includes a person who served in the military or naval forces of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War, and the term `active, military or naval service’ includes active service in such forces.”

What those two passages define is the term “veteran,” not “American veteran” and not “Civil War veteran.” And the term “veteran,” as of 1957 includes Confederate veterans.

A on-site search of the US Code at Cornell University’s Law School’s Legal Information Institute appears to indicate that the term “American veteran” does not occur in Title 38, VETERANS’ BENEFITS.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/search/site/American%20veterans?f%5B0%5D=bundle%3Ausc_node

Thus, it seems to be a generic or popular designation — and by virtue of the nearly identical definitions above, if “American veteran” can be applied to U.S. vets, it can be applied to Confederate vets with the same accuracy.
Well, Al went into a tizzy, posting all kinds of irrelevant definitions in an effort to not see the obvious -- the difference between "veteran" and "American veteran." Smart man like him, can't tell the difference between one word and a two-word phrase.

I made a last ditch effort to get through to him with this follow up comment:
"38 US Code 101 (2 defines the “The term ‘veteran’ — not American veteran. The word AMERICAN appears no-flippin’-where in the definition. Read my comment again, Al. I didn’t say “veteran.” I said AMERICAN veteran. I quite plainly said it defines VETERAN. But not AMERICAN veteran. The definition does not use that term, “AMERICAN veteran.” Can’t you READ man?
It's really kinda pathetic when people who pride themselves on being so smart are so willing to sacrifice their brains in order to maintain their hatred of Confederate heritage and its supporters.

So will the apology be forthcoming? Of course not. What a silly question.

14 comments :

  1. At Al's flog:

    ME: Yes, really. 38 US Code 101 (2 defines the “The term ‘veteran’ — not American veteran. The word AMERICAN appears no-flippin’-where in the definition.

    Read my comment again, Al. I didn’t say “veteran.” I said AMERICAN veteran.

    I quite plainly said it defines VETERAN. But not AMERICAN veteran. The definition does not use that term, “AMERICAN veteran.”

    Can’t you READ man?

    ========

    AL: Connie, what type of veteran do you believe the US code would define? Is it a Spanish veteran? Is it an Australian veteran? Is it a Brazilian veteran?

    =======

    ME: AL,it doesn’t matter what I believe, or what YOU believe, the US code “would” define. What matters is what it DOES define. And what it defines is “veteran”. And the definition does not include the word AMERICAN. And that word, VETERAN, is the same one that legally defines Confederate veterans. “American” is not a part of the legal definition, it is a popular or cultural term, so if somebody wants to call US vets or CSA vets “American vets” not a thing in the law prohibits that.

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  2. He's simply using the classic Leftist tactic of pretending something is illegal, until everybody believes the same, then working to make it a illegal in fact. That's why people sometimes call the police whenever somebody uses "Hate speech". They believe it's illegal and therefore are primed for the passage of actual laws to that effect, when they're finally, and quietly, passed, later on. Similarly, they push definitions and "facts" until such time as everybody believes they're true, and reference sources, dictionaries, laws, etc, are forced to change in conformance to this new reality, which they insist has always existed. The previous sources, of course, were lies made up after the fact to cover the "guilt" of the authors. The floggers simply want their audience to believe that Confederate veterans don't count, so they can convince the Northern people, who are the real rulers of America, to change the definitions and laws to reflect what they insist that it already is. It's classic Yankee thinking. Chaotic and ever shifting in the face of a reality that fails to conform to their schizophrenic world view. It's interesting to note that there are efforts to discredit the Virginian founders and even the Constitution, in favour of the Puritan leaders as the "true Founding Fathers."

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  3. These Floggers aren't stupid. But they believe that their audience is, and will buy their tales, hook, line and sinker. They also believe that their opponents are stupid, too. They also think like Yankee lawyers. If you think a stop sign has only one meaning, instead of the ten they say it has, then you're in the wrong, not them. Why?, because they're Yankees and they said so. You have the mind of a small child, or are little better than an animal and therefore lack the understanding of adults/Humans of Northern extraction. These people's thoughts and actions ain't hard to figger out. It's as predictable as a watch. They've thought this way since 1620.

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  4. Well big Al never lets the truth get in the way of his hate of heritage folks. Sad folks really.

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  5. So at what point do native born Confederates stop being American? I wonder how he feels about the Germans who hired out their services to the Union. How are they defined???

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    1. It's one set of standards for them, and another set for everyone else.

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    2. 200,000 German immigrants fought successfully to maintain the United States. They were Americans by the truest definition of that phrase.

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    3. So then by Al's logic all of the foreign born men who served the Union would be Americans, even though they returned to their native land. The men who fought for the Confederate States of AMERICA are now foreign born. What an idiot.

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    4. Well Pat *I am surprised to see you again since you ran away from our discussion about defining native and African Americans.

      Did I say immigrants??I don't think so. No the Germans didn't care who won, they were just looking for a payday. They went back to Germany and their descendants fought us in WWI and WWII. They were Germans, not Americans to the end.

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      “The Confederate Veteran (long published in Nashville, Tenn.) states: “In the Confederate Army and Navy in 4 years there were 605,000 men. In the Union Army and Navy in 4 years there were 2,778,000 men. When we entered the World War in 1917 our Government was sending across to Germany $83,000 a year in pensions. Of this sum $67,000 was for Civil War pensions paid to aliens hired to subjugate the South. If this sum was still being sent 52 years after Appomattox, how much more must have been sent to these hirelings 10 or 15 years after the struggle ended?

      One of my former students was placed in charge of teaching the illiterates at Camp Lee in World War I. At their first meeting a crowded room was asked “who is this Camp named for? And then, what did General Lee do?”

      [T]hen a lanky mountaineer rose and said: “He’s the chap that licked the Huns the other time.”

      When you consider the facts listed above you realize that there was more truth than error in that ignorant reply. With 75,000 more mercenaries, and many of them Germans, in the opposing force than the total enlistments in all the army and the navy of the South, “Lee was the chap that so often licked the Huns the other time.”

      (Some Things For Which the South Did Not Fight, Henry Tucker Graham, Bowman Printing, 1946, pp. 10-11)




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    5. That's nearly a 5 to 1 numerical superiority. The North only sent a tiny fraction of that to the Mexican American War, The War of 1812 and The War of Independence. But that just shows that they have different national interests and priorities than we do. I doubt they would have put much effort into repelling a foreign invasion of the Gulf Coast.. They'd have left it to the South, like they always do.. And always will.

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    6. Exactly. Good points.

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    7. More on Pat's immigrants fighting to preserve the United States. I contend they didn't care one way or the other. They were bought!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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      Lincoln Scours Europe for Troops:

      “…[T]here had begun to be opposition to the departure of Irishmen from the country by the thousand, a migration greatly aggravated by the economic distress of the island. As early as January, 1862, the Liverpool Reporter observed that for several months young men loaded with gold watches and large bounties had been leaving Ireland, ostensibly to emigrate to America, but actually to serve in the Federal army, for which they were engaged by Northern agents.

      An extract from the Ulster Observer of Belfast is typical of the comments appearing in the opposition press: “We have more respect for our country and our countrymen than to see them wearing the livery of a foreign state in a cause which involves no principle with which they can be identified….[but America] cannot, and should not, expect our countrymen to be her mercenaries in the present fratricidal struggle. Already the battlefields are white with the bones of their brethren. Thousand of Irishmen have, thanklessly, it would appear, laid down their lives for the North…and if President Lincoln still stands in need of human hecatombs, he should look elsewhere than to the decimated home of Ireland for the victims.” In general, it can be stated that the public journals were loud in denouncing “Federal agents” and clamorous for their prosecution and punishment.

      “…One might say that [Secretary of State] Seward did everything he could to encourage….[foreign enlistments]…the Homestead Act of May, 1862, which provided free farms to all aliens who had filed declarations of intention to become citizens of the United States. It further provided that foreign-born residents might become full citizens after one years’ residence on condition of honorable service in the army. By an act approved July 4th, 1864, the Office of Commissioner of Immigration was created under the Secretary of State; the duties imposed upon him were to gather information as to soil, climate, minerals, agricultural products, wages, transportation, and employment needs. This information was to be disseminated throughout the countries of Europe.”

      (Foreigners in the Union Army and Navy, Ella Lonn, LSU Press, 1951, pp. 412-418)

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    8. They also created ad hoc regiments from criminals released from prison.

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    9. Where can I find that info?

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