Robert E. Lee, Southern Heritage, Media Bias, and Al Sharpton

Canada Free Press ^ | 01/15/15 | Gail Jarvis

[Sean_Anthony]

Many American presidents have held Robert E. Lee in the highest regard and publicly paid homage to him. Today, we have a president who holds Al Sharpton in higher esteem than Robert E. Lee.

As you can probably surmise by my detailed caption, this article is a collection of random thoughts. It is typical at the beginning of a new year for people to reflect soberly on the state of events, and make optimistic resolutions and predictions for the future. Although I will try to maintain a hopeful outlook, I’m afraid I am unable to make any starry-eyed predictions.

My random thoughts are heavily influenced by the anniversary of Robert E. Lee’s birthday, which falls on January 19th. The anniversary of the birthday of this remarkable man should be a very special day, not only for Southerners, but for all Americans who acknowledge true heroes. Unlike today’s media-created celebrities, Lee was a genuine hero. In addition to his exemplary public life, General Lee’s personal life didn’t involve scandals or debauched behavior that had to be hidden from the public eye.

Theodore Roosevelt characterized General Lee this way: “the very greatest of all the great captains that the English-speaking peoples have brought forth.” Lee is also venerated in Europe, as evidenced by this tribute by Winston Churchill: “one of the noblest Americans who ever lived.”

[Regal]

I guess in the world of wardaddy, when the Persians offer the Spartans life through slavery, or death as free warriors, wardaddy becomes a slave. Not Regal. Live free or die, under any conditions.

[CatherineofAragon]

"And yet runaway slaves made their way north. If their lot was so oppressed there, why did they continually attempt to go there? Could it be that it was comparatively less oppressive than the south?"

I guess they forgot to watch Fox News coverage on the anti-black sentiment up North.

How would you expect them to know about it?

"I suppose one is inclined to be tolerant of their property."

Yes, believe that if it makes you feel good...and it likely does.

De Tocqueville was smarter than that. I find it's usually the folks who have small black populations in their states with the greatest misconceptions about race relations in the South.

[DoodleDawg]

I guess they forgot to watch Fox News coverage on the anti-black sentiment up North.

Do you really think that sentiment towards blacks up North was any different than sentiment towards free blacks down South?

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

How would you expect them to know about it?

So blacks only fled slavery by going north out of ignorance? And people who participated in the Underground Railroad were only delivering blacks into greater oppression? Boy, it seems that instead of expending so much time and energy into demanding the return of their slaves, the south should have been able to just give them tickets home and they'd have come willingly. Why do you suppose it is that we never hear about any escaped slaves willingly returning south after finding they're so oppressed in the north?

I find it's usually the folks who have small black populations in their states with the greatest misconceptions about race relations in the South.

And I find that it's only white southerners who insist that slavery really wasn't THAT bad.

[CatherineofAragon]

"And I find that it's only white southerners who insist that slavery really wasn't THAT bad."

But that's not what I'm doing.

I'm telling the truth about the widespread hatred of blacks that existed in the North, and it's making you very defensive. You just don't want to hear it.

*Shrug* Not my problem, though. You might want to think of the northern states as some kind of bucolic, arms-wide-open refuge for slaves, but it wasn't. It's your history. Own it.

I'll also add that you might want to consider focusing your energies on the current-day threat to Western civilization and spend less time bleeding about something that happened 150 years ago. You might enjoy playing into the hands of the race pimps...I'm not about to waste my time.

[CatherineofAragon]

"Do you really think that sentiment towards blacks up North was any different than sentiment towards free blacks down South?"

Can you read?

[DoodleDawg]

Can you read?

Yes. Hence the question.

[CatherineofAragon]

So you just enjoy setting up big straw men, then?

[DoodleDawg]

So you just enjoy setting up big straw men, then?

No, I'm asking a question which you are ignoring.

[Ohioan]

Miss Feltscher, in my opinion, takes some facts totally out of context, to lump things--and concepts-- which have very little actually in common, together.

While I would applaud her favoring school choice, I must deplore her mistaken view of what Jefferson was actually saying in the preamble to the Declaration, as well as her effort to persuade that there was a major conflict between Calhoun & Jefferson. Jefferson called for almost everything that Calhoun advocated; while Calhoun's most important clash with the Federal Government was over tariffs, not slavery.

Both Jefferson & Calhoun were very much in favor of logical scientific study of human differences. For example Jefferson laments in his Notes On The State Of Virginia, that while we had in our lands three major races, we had not in six generations, studied them as objects of Natural History.

It is the Totalitarian Left that has tried to suppress the study of the actual differences between people; hypothesizing the myth that by changing the cultural environment you can change Man. This social environmental nonsense, underlies the imagined efficacy of totalitarian policy; thus it is always the Left that seeks to demonize and suppress efforts to understand human differences. (This includes the Nazis, who suppressed actual scientific studies of differences, in favor of self-serving propaganda, which attributed characteristics in terms of the acceptance of Nazi propaganda. See the comments of Col Gayre in The Lies Of Socialism).

To fully respond to Ms. Feltscher, I would have to spend hours creating something that would be too long to ask anyone else to read here.

[Ohioan]

There are certain areas where the States surrendered some of their rights to self Government, largely set forth in Article I, Sec. 10, but that does not include anything relevant to this discussion. For example, the States cannot delcare war unless actually invaded or in immediate danger of being invaded. The States cannot make anything but gold or silver a medium for the payment of debt; but unfortunately, a similar restriction was never imposed on the Federal Government.

The Constitution, not the Federal Government, is the supreme law. The distinction is vital.

[CatherineofAragon]

"No, I'm asking a question which you are ignoring"

As straw men deserve to be.

[x]

Lee is also venerated in Europe, as evidenced by this tribute by Winston Churchill: “one of the noblest Americans who ever lived.”

Seriously? I don't know if you want to make present-day Europeans the standard of which Americans should be "venerated," but apart from Churchill, who was born less than 10 years after the war ended and has been dead for 50 years, I doubt Europeans think that much about Lee at all.

On the other hand, admiration for Robert E. Lee will remain as ardent as it has been for almost two centuries.

The fact that Gail feels it necessary to make a comparison to Al Sharpton to make his point indicates that ardent admiration for Lee is a thing of the past.

[Ohioan]

I am not clear as to what individual rights you are assuming were recognized in the Founding, to support your comment #95. There was certainly no right to universal suffrage, or universal white male suffrage. Most States had stiff property requirements; and the Constitution left determination of the suffrage to the States!

As for the other new rights granted at the Federal level in the 1960s, these "rights" were really restrictions on the free choice of other people, managing their own affairs. Telling private employers that a Federal Agency will supervise & control their freedom to determine whom they will hire is hardly a concept consistent with any theory embraced by the Founding Fathers. It was, rather, wholly consistent with theories of Government under Marxist & Nazi regimes.

[Sherman Logan]

Universal individual rights. How about those inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Nothing in there about suffrage at all.

You apparently believe nobody had their individual rights improved by the change in American attitudes that peaked in the 60s?

All I can say is that I wish you could come back in your life as a black man in 1930s Alabama. They you could see for yourself.

As I’ve said before, the 60s were not entirely positive, in fact I think their net impact on America and the world was negative. But removing 10% of the US population from a condition of legally and culturally enforced dhimmitude was one aspect of the period that was entirely positive and in full compliance with the principles of the Founding.

[DoodleDawg]

As straw men deserve to be.

Especially when you can't answer them.

[Ohioan]

Bubba, you, like my College Alma Mater, Oberlin, seems preoccupied with remembering the "Underground Railroad," but you totally ignore (forget) the millions of Southern Negroes who remained loyal to the old South. Had they not, with most of the White men off to the War, life in what was later labelled the Southern "Black Belt," would have been intolerable to the Whites.

At least have the honesty to acknowledge the testimony of the most respected Southern Negro of the late 19th & early 20th Century, Booker T. Washington.

Why do you want to play into the hands of scoundrels & demagogues (Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton & Obama), by persisting in trying to disparage a traditional role model, who really did "walk the walk, as well as talk."

[x]

A couple of years before the onset of the 21st century, a Midwestern college began researching exemplary Americans for a book about the heroes of our nation. The book was to be limited to six famous individuals who exemplified the best of our nation. The project involved a review of famous persons involved in the American Revolution; the primary statesmen responsible for the creation of our Republic, and notable personages involved the sectional conflict that resulted in the War Between the States. - Also scrutinized were numerous scientists, scholars, actors and writers, and celebrated individuals from the civil rights movement, World War heroes, and outstanding industrialists. Ultimately, six famous Americans were chosen: George Washington, Daniel Boone, Louisa May Alcott, George Washington Carver, Andrew Carnegie, and Robert E. Lee.

That was George Roche at Hillsdale College. More power to him, but so far as I know, the list really doesn't reflect anything more than his own opinion.

[Ohioan]

Your ex cathedra pronouncement as to the condition of "a black man in 1930s Alabama," does not prove your point. Admittely, the 1930s in Alabama were hard times for both Whites & Blacks; but I believe that social statistics (the crime & statistics with regard to births in and out of wedlock), will show that the Black Alabama communities, on average, were healthier then than by the late 1960s.

I do not see the advantage that you apparently see, in forcing social change on other people--often at the expense of individual rights;--but be that as it may be. What was done in the 1960s has not actually benefitted anyone. And the saddest aspect, is that it has contributed to a deterioration in the sense of personal responsibility, in favor of looking to Government as the answer. This has hurt the Black Alabaman, even more than his White neighbor.

[Sherman Logan]

Disagree. In the immortal words of a great American, “Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”

Since you think the subordinate position of black Americans in the South during Jim Crow was no big deal, may I suggest you make your way to the territory controlled by ISIS and see how much you enjoy living in a world where you are more or less tolerated as long as you “stay in your place.”