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Now Whiskers, you know I am always grateful to be edified or even admonished by you.

However, my memory varies from your account of the creation of my about page. To the best of my recollection the about page always contained the late-in-life conversion of Gen. Forrest to Christianity. But did you not admonished me respecting the use of the word "guerrilla" when I tried to use it as a noun instead of an adjective? I fought you as long as I could but finally had to concede your point but I was stubborn and unwilling to comply with your counsel so I put the word in italics arguing that that treatment designated the word as a foreign language word and therefore I could use it as a noun. The use of the word guerrilla appears in the about page as follows:

At war's end, General Robert E. Lee was approached by his subordinates who urged him to break out from Yankee encirclement and take to the western mountains to wage a guerrilla against the enemy. It is a testament to the nobility of Lee's character that he firmly declined their suggestion urging his men instead to lay down their arms and take up their duties as citizens of the Federal Republic.

As you know from our previous exchange on this issue, I did not decide to use either the pen name, Nathan Bedford, or the avatar cavalierly but deliberately and with full consciousness of the potential for criticism from the left, which you quite rightly point out. As the reader will see from a review of the about page, I consciously concluded to use this name and avatar for several reasons not the least among them was a certain puckish satisfaction for sticking it in the eye of the left. But on a more serious level, I decided to attack directly the last refuge of leftist scoundrels, the race card. That partly explains my tedious repeating on various threads Nathan Bedford's first maxim of American politics: all politics in America is not local but ultimately racial.

I understand completely your point of view that one ought to tread lightly in this area of race and I do not entirely dismiss it but I have at least to this degree consciously rejected it. In other words, my posture is not thoughtless but calculated. I have concluded that conservatives must stop running from this issue and stand and fight. The most recent example of the baleful power of the race card in American politics is on display right now in the pushback against Trump as a racist for demanding proof of Obama's eligibility. Trump's reaction is to take them on directly. He is not apologizing his way into political suicide as we so painfully observed with Sen. Trent Lott. I think Trump's reaction is long overdue and the better course. We shall see.

Interested Freepers lurking on this thread will find much of this alluded to in the about page.

As to the caution that I ought not to be posting under this name and avatar from Germany, I make no apologies. It is a fact that there is less prejudice against Africans here in Germany than in most parts of the United States. The intermarriage rate is extremely high here. The Holocaust was two generations ago and I leave it to the Lord to visit the sins of one generation on to the next.

But if the opposite were the case, I would nevertheless reject your observation which implies that an accident of geography forecloses free-speech and presumes a guilty character. I reject it for the same reasons I use the pen name and avatar.

I have posted many times my belief that it is fatal to condition the right of free speech on the subjective reaction of the listener. That is what the left is trying to impose on us to shut down conservative speech. That is how the Muslims are trying to impose censorship on the whole world. Once we submit to subjectivity there will be no end to the tyranny

Equally, I reject the notion that public relations values, the Dale Carnegie idea of making friends and influencing people, trumps vigorous and principled advocacy of conservative values. That is the way of timidity and defeat.

It was great to hear from you again and I hope you are doing well.

Are you going to correct my grammar?

Fondly,

Well thought out, complete post as usual, Nathan.

My only point was that in the current environment (bi-racial occupant of the Oval Office, with the meme of "racist, racist!" on steroids being set loose (to protect Obaama as well as attack Tea Partiers), it would be all too easy for any disputants of FR to take the cheap shot -- "the KKK wasn't enough for him, he had to join the Nazis as well."

Europe in general is far more 'multicultural' in some ways than the US -- and this is inevitable, when you consider that the countries are in some cases roughly the size of individual states, each with distinct languages and cultures.

I don't happen to recall the dispute over guerilla: I don't want to take credit for someone else's argument; but I am glad you posted it to show that you have a history of being swayed by argument. I appreciate your attempt to use the avatar as an attempt to act as an Ann Coulter, selectively arousing faux-outrage in order to defuse its cavalier use (think by analogy to "reactive armor" on tanks and you've got it!)

For the deathbed conversion, you always had it, but (IIRC) I urged you to give it a little more prominence. I apologize if I claimed too much credit, or misremembered.

NO corrections on grammar today, lots going on at home.

Would be interested in your take on Vattel and the whole Natural-Born-Citizen brouhaha.

Cheers!

nathanbedford: " I did not decide to use either the pen name, Nathan Bedford, or the avatar cavalierly but deliberately and with full consciousness of the potential for criticism from the left, which you quite rightly point out."

grey_whiskers: "My only point was that in the current environment (bi-racial occupant of the Oval Office, with the meme of "racist, racist!" on steroids being set loose (to protect Obaama as well as attack Tea Partiers), it would be all too easy for any disputants of FR to take the cheap shot -- "the KKK wasn't enough for him, he had to join the Nazis as well." "

I take it that FR's nathanbedford, despite posting from Germany is a natural born American citizen.
So this has nothing to do with Nazis.

These are the first nathanbedford posts I've stumbled on in many months (years?) and I'm first struck by how much better they seem than the previous ones I remember -- proving either that:
a) posting on FR has a salutary effect on people's thought processes or
b) my memory has grown even worse than I will admit... ;-)

In defense of Nathan Bedford Forrest, even a short summary of his life, such as this one, clearly shows that he was as complex as he was brilliant.
So those intending to praise or condemn him can usually find something to cite.

For those wishing to condemn him, we have Forrest's wartime record at Fort Pillow and his two year leadership of the early Klu Klux Klan.

For those defending him, Fort Pillow can be at least partially explained, and his two-year Klan membership ended in 1869, when he not only left, but dissolved the organization.

And Forrest ended his life making a serious effort to reconcile races.
Because of that, he earns our admiration -- if I dare say this -- in much the same way many today admire German commander, Erwin Rommel.
Both fought brilliantly in a lost cause, and both died, in a sense, opposing the cause they had fought for.

I have a special affection for Forrest because one of my great-grandfathers, fresh off the boat, not even speaking English, enlisted in the Union army and tangled with Forest's troops several times throughout the war.
In my opinion, both survived that war because of the unnecessarily decent behavior of the other.

FR's own nathanbedford, despite his unusually provocative avatar, strikes me as being as careful and reasoned as he is bold.
In short, if not fully worthy of his name, then at least striving to achieve it. ;-)

Now, for anyone who wonders just what in the wide world this has anything to do with the value of pi squared, the obvious answer is: you need to back and recalculate, just what are your values? :-)