Author: Warren Throckmorton

League of the South President Says League Will Do Whatever It Takes To Gain Independence

In a message distributed to supporters recently and published on League websites, League of the South president Michael Hill says his supporters will do “whatever it takes” to gain independence. Hill proclaimed this in the context of defending armed conflict with what he called the “U.S. empire.”
Hill began his column by recounting an appearance on the Alan Colmes radio show. On the program, Colmes asked Hill if “Southerners would physically defend ourselves if we were denied our rights, including the right to self-government and self-protection.” Hill’s answer startled Colmes:

He was startled when I answer unequivocally “Yes!” “You mean,” he asked, “you Southerners would take up arms against the US government if they threatened your rights?” He simply could not believe that someone in modern America could contemplate actually defending themselves and their rights by force!

He adds:

The modern American regime seeks to destroy real manhood, especially among us Southerners, because it knows—both instinctively and historically—that it is only real men who will dare stand against tyranny. And if you know your history, you know that Southerners are “defenders of the blood.” We are mostly Anglo-Celts (or we are descended from other European ethnicities that have a martial tradition), so it should not come as a surprise to those who know our history.

In Hill’s mind, time is short, and decisive action may be needed:

When you take stock of the current position of our people and what the future likely has in store for us if things continue as they are, we will be outnumbered, dispossessed, and have no land on which to live, work, worship, and raise our families. That is unacceptable. But it will become the reality unless we stand and do something to stop it.
For nearly twenty years The League of the South has advocated for the survival, well being, and independence of the Southern people. We want our separation from the US empire to be peaceful, if possible. But when the Southern people are rallied to our cause in sufficient numbers to effect a separation, then we will do whatever it takes to secure our independence and establish our own nation based on our own self interests.

Hill seems to think there is a critical mass of Southern white males who are ready to use violence to fight the “U.S. empire” for Southern independence.  I have no idea whether or not Hill is serious, but the rhetoric is ominous.

Ex-Gays Demand Something

For years, Parents and Friends of Ex-gays and the International Healing Foundation have pushed the idea that ex-gays were a minority group like gays. They have mimicked the language of civil rights movements and yet very few people have seemed to buy it.  Today, Chris Doyle’s group Voice for the Voiceless had a lobby day at the Supreme Court (even though you can’t really lobby the Supreme Court) and demanded their rights. Problem was only about 10 showed up.
CBN has more…

After all is said and done, I can’t figure out what rights ex-gays lack or why they need protection.
The CBN interview is a surreal viewing experience and a big commercial for IHF with unsubstantiated charges about “security threats.” If such threats were verifiable, I feel sure that Doyle’s group would make them public.

Nick Cummings USA Today Article on Reorientation Therapy

A couple of readers asked me to comment on Nick Cummings USA Today column on reorientation therapy. With some caution, I think it would be good to do so.
First I want to say that I have always liked and admired Nick. His work in managed behavioral health care was pioneering. In the 1980s, Nick promoted the idea that excellent clinical services could save businesses a lot of money and actually expand access to therapy. He was correct and helped create modern managed behavioral healthcare, which is essentially the dominant system today. In addition to the new business strategies that Nick’s company (American Biodyne) innovated, Nick was/is a gifted clinician and trainer. I learned a lot from Nick about therapy as a Biodyne clinician in the mid-1980s. I will always be grateful for his influence on me at that time.
Nick is an admirable gentleman in many ways. He seems to be indestructible and maintains an ambitious and rigorous schedule into his older age. He also reads and studies Greek (another area of common interest) and has developed a cooperative program with China that is helping to shape their behavioral health system.
Having declared a sincere admiration for Nick, I have to add that we disagree about his recent push to defend reorientation therapy as a modality. Nick is an endorser of the Sexual Identity Therapy Framework and I have heard him promote the ideals we support.  Thus, I know that any person who sought change therapy from him would not get the usual reparative therapy explanations for homosexuality, nor would religion be used as a coercive tool. In other words, I don’t believe Nick wishes to defend any and all approaches to change therapy; I think he wishes to defend the right of clients to arrange their lives and seek help to do it. However, it is dismaying that his defense comes in the context of  the JONAH’s court case. Much of what is done in the name of reorientation cannot be defended.
One area Nick and I disagree about is how much to emphasize the role and importance of bisexuality. Nick once told me that clients who had no prior heterosexual experience were not successful in changing orientation and so over time, the Kaiser-Permanente therapists discouraged orientation change for those clients. To me, this suggests that many of those “changed” clients were bisexuals who found ways to live with or minimize their same-sex attractions. Furthermore, to my knowledge, no one was discussing “spousosexuals” from 1959-1979. Some men and women are generally attracted to the same sex but spontaneously fall in love with one person of the opposite sex. Some of those successes could easily have been people who had the potential for that kind of fluidity. Another problem with relying on Nick’s data is that follow up was lacking for many of the clients. Nick is aware that some of his clients remained changed, but he does not have systematic data on the population.
If all reorientation therapists were like Nick, I doubt we would have the conflict and polarization we have seen over the past decade or so. I also doubt there is anybody currently vocally defending reorientation who practices as Nick did. Current reorientation therapists blame parenting and masculinity deficits for same-sex attraction, some of them put people through emotionally taxing and empirically questionable human potential exercises, still others attempt to coerce people with religion. My impression is that Nick and his crew did none of that. Certainly, in all of my dealings with American Biodyne, no one ever suggested any of that. The emphasis was always on helping the client find strategies to enhance mental health and live in accord with their aspirations.
Nick’s closing paragraph makes me think that he believes that there are some, perhaps many, therapists who work empirically and ethically with “fully informed persons.” This is where we disagree. The way reorientation is practiced as I have seen it and heard it described at various conferences and by various therapists in my travels during the last decade or so gives me no confidence that he is right this time.
Given those concerns, I continue to support the APA’s distinction between sexual orientation and sexual orientation identity; the former being durable once established and the latter being more subject to modification. I am skeptical there are many current reorientation therapists fully inform their clients about that distinction.

Institute on the Constitution Supports Controversial PA Police Chief's Actions to Nullify Gun Control Legislation

UPDATE: Kessler was suspended by his city council for using borough weapons for non-borough purposes. According to local media, Kessler’s supporters showed up armed to the teeth.
……….
Mark Kessler is the Chief of Police in Gilberton Borough, PA and is making some people nervous. Today, Change.org is promoting a petition to the mayor of Gilberton in opposition to Kessler. Kessler has garnered some national attention for his efforts to nullify any gun control legislation in his borough.
Someone who isn’t nervous about Kessler is Michael Peroutka, director of the Institute on the Constitution. Peroutka thinks Kessler’s efforts to nullify all gun control laws is just what the country needs:

On January 3rd of this year, Kessler drafted a “Second Amendment Protection Resolution” for his Pennsylvania town which, when passed by city officials a few weeks later, nullified every single gun control law in the nation.
“If you want to own a firearm,” Chief Kessler said, “the Second Amendment is your concealed carry permit, period. It has nothing to do with self-defense: it has to do with freedom from tyranny.”
Police Chief Kessler went on to say: “Nullification is the key. We just have to tell them, ‘that’s it’. I drew my line in the sand back on Jan 3rd. One person can make a difference: you just need to do something about it.”
Well, Amen.
Remember, when a law enforcement officer, like Chief Kessler, refuses to enforce an unconstitutional act, he is not breaking the law, he is upholding the law.
This is because unconstitutional acts of legislatures are NOT the law.

Thus, it is up to Kessler to decide what is constitutional or not and go by his own analysis. You don’t need a permit to carry a gun, you already have one Kessler opines. Thus, he is not going to enforce any gun control laws and the IOTC is fine with that.
Peroutka recommends support for an organization of like-minded police chiefs and sheriffs which promotes nullification.

We recommend that you give your support to the Constitutional Sheriff and Police Officers Association, whose mission is to equip sheriffs, peace officers and public officials with the necessary information and public support to carry out their duties in accordance with their Oaths of Office.

Peroutka, in a speech before the neo-Confederate League of the South, extolled the virtues of nullification and interposition and says his IOTC course is helping to create a consensus around nullifying laws. At 45:49 into the video, Peroutka describes how Carroll County in MD passed an ordinance forbidding any county resources for the use of implementing a MD gun control law. The sheriff pledged not to enforce the law there. Then at 47:33, speaking about the MD law, he says:

We don’t care what the legislature passes, it’s not valid, we don’t recognize it, and it’s not going to be enforced in Carroll County. And that’s the first step of nullification. The next step and what we really need is the step of interposition. Where we need the sheriff and the police to come out and the county executive to come out and say we not only are not going to enforce that but if somebody else comes into our county and tries to enforce it, we’re going to arrest them. That’s the step we need and some counties have done that.

Peroutka then explains the actions of Kessler and Gilberton Borough as being an illustration of nullification and interposition. He added that Kessler intends to arrest anyone who attempts to enforce a gun control law of any kind.
The oath of Kessler’s “Constitutional Security Force” sounds non-violent, but his videos (note the Confederate flag in this one) strike a more confrontational tone (NSFW – profanity) .
The concepts of nullification and interposition can be traced back to James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. See these two articles, first by Kevin Gutzman and the second published by the Heritage Foundation and written by Christian Fritz for conservative analyses of the concepts.
Gutzman points out that fans and opponents of nullification can use Madison as an authority because Madison took both sides at different times and for different causes. Toward the end of his life Madison noted that one state alone could not nullify federal law. Gutzman noted that at the end of his life, Madison said:

The advice nearest to my heart and deepest in my convictions, is that the Union of the States be cherished and perpetuated. Let the open enemy to it be regarded as a Pandora with her box opened, and the disguised one as the serpent creeping with deadly wiles into Paradise.

In 1835, Madison also stated his opposition to John C. Calhoun appeals to Madison’s earlier writings on nullification. About a single state nullifying a federal law, Madison wrote the following:

But it follows from no view of the subject that a nullification of a law of the United States can, as is now contended, belong rightfully to a single State as one of the parties to the Constitution, the State not ceasing to avow its adherence to the Constitution. A plainer contradiction in terms, or a more fatal inlet to anarchy cannot be imagined. 

As Fritz documents, Madison did not consider nullification, in the sense Peroutka advocates, to be constitutional. In fact, I don’t know of anyone outside of the Confederates or neo-Confederates who consider nullification to be constitutional. Perhaps my readers will help out if there are others who make a constitutional case for nullification.
It remains to be seen what will develop from these nullification impulses and actions. What does seem clear is that Peroutka hopes that teaching the IOTC course will lead to more actions which Madison called “fatal inlet[s] to anarchy.”

TX Rep. Steve Stockman Joins with League of the South Board Member on Amicus Brief

And he seems happy about it…

Stockman may not know that the Institute on the Constitution (IOTC) is essentially Michael Peroutka, board member of the League of the South. However, this brief is another indication of the emergence of the IOTC as a player among right leaning advocacy groups, and now with the assistance of a U.S. Congressman.
For more information on the brief regarding a gun rights case, click the link in the tweet.