Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

The Thanksgiving Proclamation

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President Abraham Lincoln
President Abraham Lincoln

In 1621, the Puritan Christian pilgrims of the Plymouth Plantation (in modern-day Massachusetts) joined with their American Indian neighbors to celebrate the ‘first Thanksgiving,’ a celebration of thanks for all that God had given them.

One particular Indian named Tisquantum, or ‘Squanto,’ was a Baptized Catholic who was fluent in English. Squanto was instrumental in helping the pilgrims establish themselves in the New World and in building the close friendship between the pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians. That friendship would result in over fifty years of peace between the European settlers—including my ancestor, William Bradford—and the American Indians of the American northeast. You can read some more of the details in my 2010 piece, On Thanksgiving.

Many of the northeast colonies continued the tradition and celebrated annual Thanksgiving holidays, but the date of the celebration differed between the different colonies. After the establishment of the United States, the New England states continued to celebrate each fall, but the holiday was largely unknown (or at least uncelebrated) in the rest of the United States.

A magazine editor named Sarah Josepha Hale had begun advocating for a national, uniform Thanksgiving holiday in the late 1840s, but the request had fallen on deaf ears in a country that was then on the brink of civil war. And of course the war and all its horrors came in 1861. Before its end in 1865, more than 625,000 Americans were dead, 412,000 were injured, and unmeasurable harm had been done to lives and property all across the United States (and the erstwhile Confederate States).

None of this stopped Hale, who wrote to President Abraham Lincoln (R) in September of 1863—more than a year and a half before the war would end—urging him to proclaim a national day of Thanksgiving anyway. She had been advocating it for fifteen years, and had written to several of Lincoln’s predecessors, but none had acted on the request. Lincoln, in the midst of the unspeakable horrors of war, thought that Hale had a good idea. He asked Secretary of State William Seward (R) to draft an appropriate proclamation, which was then issued by the President Lincoln on October 3, 1863. This proclamation, printed below (with minor modernizations of spelling and formatting), established a uniform, national Thanksgiving holiday in the United States for the first time.

In case you have any question of what this holiday is about, or what it means, read on.

Read more . . .

Election 2014 Results and Live Blog (Final)

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Ballot Races
U.S. Senate, Virginia
Ed Gillespie (R):48.34%
Robert Sarvis (L):2.43%
Mark Warner (D):49.15%
Other:0.00%
U.S. House, VA-10th
Diane Blais (IG):0.42%
Barbara Comstock (R):56.49%
Brad Eickholt (I):1.10%
John Foust (D):40.36%
Bill Redpath (L):1.52%
Other:0.12%
Ballot Issues
Virginia Tax Amendment
Yes:87.31%
No:12.69%
Loudoun Safety Bonds
Yes:68.23%
No:31.77%
Loudoun Park Bonds
Yes:59.24%
No:40.76%
Loudoun School Bonds
Yes:67.61%
No:32.39%

Election Live Blog

Read more . . .

I Voted; Now It’s Your Turn

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I Voted (by Melissa Lew)
I Voted (by Melissa Lew)

Today is election day in America, and if you are a U.S. citizen who is eligible to vote you should make sure you do so. This year, all 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are on the ballot, as are thirty-six U.S. Senate seats and countless state and local offices and referendums all across the county. Virginians like myself will be voting for U.S. Senator, our local U.S. House seat, and a statewide ballot referendum. Here in Loudoun County, we also have three local bond referendums. The polls in Virginia are open until 7:00 p.m., and as long as you are in line by that time your votes will be counted. Find your polling location on the Virginia Department of Elections web site.

I have my opinions about who should win my local races, and I have shared them here on this site. I invite you to read up on what I have to say, but also to study the issues and the candidates, read other sources, and come to an informed decision—even if your informed decision differs from mine. The ballot box is our best opportunity as citizens to shape our governments and choose our national, state, and local paths.

Even if you happen to despise all of your options and choose to write-in a candidate or abstain from voting in one or more races, your vote still counts for something. I would rather have you go to the polls and cast a blank ballot than stay home, because every abstention and every write-in also sends a message (perhaps about the overall quality of the candidates). Staying home as an eligible voter sends a different message; it tells our leaders that you just don’t care, and you are happy to let them do whatever they like.

As in past years, we will be covering election night results here on Off on a Tangent. Beginning around 6:30 p.m., the site will include live results for all of my local races along with a live blog of the night’s proceedings (locally and nationally). I hope you’ll stop by!

The War on Terror Continues, Like It or Not

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For many years, I have warned of the threat of Islamic terrorism and the need for strong measures to combat it. Obviously there are limits to what we should do; I have stood against the National Security Agency’s nationwide surveillance efforts and the Transportation Security Administration’s nude scanners and water-bottle-seizures, along with other policies that trample civil liberties without any significant positive effects. But, generally speaking, I support government action—domestically and internationally—to fight against the Jihadists.

Many Libertarians, along with their ‘small-l’ libertarian, paleo-conservative, and peacenik peers in both the Republican and Democratic Parties, believe that Islamic terrorism has its roots in western involvement in the middle east, and think that if we stopped interfering in their affairs they would leave us and the rest of the world alone. This is nonsense. To believe it, we would have to ignore the traditional Qur’anic teachings of Islam, the history of the religion’s spread throughout the world, and how modern Jihadists understand and act upon their faith.

For example, when Israel ended its occupation of the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians in Gaza put Hamas in charge and increased their terrorist and rocket attacks on Israel. When the United States and our allies pulled out of Iraq, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) took control of large swaths of the country and went on a terrorist rampage, abducting and murdering western journalists, expelling Iraqi Christians from their homes, and calling for sympathizers in the west to attack and kill as many westerners as they can. If the peaceniks are right and all the Jihadists want is for us to leave them alone, well, they sure have a funny way of showing it. Every time the civilized world pulls back, they turn around and hit us harder.

While al-Qaeda preferred massive acts of terrorism like the September 11, 2001, suicide hijackings, other groups call for less spectacular actions at the grass-roots levels, and many individual Jihadists have planned and executed ‘lone wolf’ attacks on their own. Here are just a few notable examples:

Read more . . .

Canadian Parliament Building Attacked

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An armed man attacked the area surrounding the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa, Ontario, this morning. In the first stage of the attack, a man fired a shotgun at least twice at a ceremonial military guard at the National War Memorial, mortally wounding him. The guard was taken to a nearby hospital but succumbed to his injuries. Witnesses described the attacker as as short, long-haired man dressed in black with a mask or kerchief over part of his face.

The shooter then apparently hijacked a car, drove to the nearby Parliament Building, and stormed through an entrance reserved for members of the legislature. He fired at least two shots in the building’s main foyer before he was shot and killed by Kevin Vickers, the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Commons of Canada, along with other security officials. The Globe and Mail has released video from inside the Parliament Building that shows an attacker firing, and then security officials returning fire and killing him.

A hospital in Ottawa has received three patients with injuries related to the attacks, two of whom are listed in ‘serious’ condition, but no details have been made available.

Police officials earlier stated that another shooting had taken place near Rideau Centre, a shopping mall in the area, but it now appears that this attack did not happen. An Ottawa Police spokesperson also earlier confirmed that at least two or three shooters were involved with these attacks, but it now appears more likely that there was only one actual shooter. Police officials have, however, stated that they believe more than one person was ‘involved.’

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Conservative) was evacuated immediately after the event began and was taken to a secure location. In addition, many government buildings, schools, and offices in the Ottawa city center went on lock-down. Local police officials instructed people nearby to lock their doors, pull their shades, turn off their lights, and stay away from windows. A spokesperson for North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) announced that they increased their alert posture as a precaution, and that they kept in close contact with Canadian authorities throughout the event.

The Canadian government increased their terror alert level from ‘low’ to ‘medium’ last week, citing a worrying increase in terrorist chatter. On Monday, a Montreal-area Muslim Jihadist named Martin Rouleau killed one soldier and injured another by running them down with his car in a ‘lone wolf’ terror attack. Rouleau was later killed by police.

Update, October 22, 2014, 6:32 p.m.: Canadian officials have identified the deceased shooter as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a Canadian-born Muslim convert and Jihadist who is suspected of having ties to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Zehaf-Bibeau had recently had his passport seized, as had the perpetrator of Monday’s attack on two other Canadian soldiers, because Canadian authorities suspected that they intended to travel to Iraq or Syria to participate in the fighting there. The murdered soldier in today’s attack has been identified as Nathan Cirillo, a twenty-four year old military reservist.

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.