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What difference does my opinion make in the larger scheme of things? Apparently I am “wrong” about Dixie (whatever that implies) and therefore only a nominal conservative unworthy of participation.

A thing I’ve noticed over the years, people can get so bound up in the “parry and thrust” of the skirmish that they lose sight of the central element - the premise or purpose of their argument. Sometimes in the heat of the moment one loses sight of the prize and sacrifices strategy for tactics.

Personally, I would be reluctant to all another FReeper a democrat (GD or otherwise). We’re all conservatives on this board (to one degree or another) and I don’t have specific evidence of ek_hornbeck’s voting habits but I suspect that votes for Republicans not democrats.

The central element of this thread did not have anything to do with the sectional subset of the United States which is euphemistically referred to as Dixie. The intent of the thread was not to judge anyone, southern or otherwise. It had to do with Donald Trump’s efforts to get reelected. That some chose to get their back up in offense was unfortunate.

It had to do with a FReepers caution that the display of the CBF could have a negative impact on a rally and that, whatever ones sentiments about that artifact, this would not be the time for the Trump campaign to be showing it. I happen to believe that it was a proposition that was more an anthill than a mountain but still worthy of consideration. Others disagreed and that is their prerogative.

The subsequent fracas with all the silly name calling was probably fun for blowing off pent-up steam, but not very useful. As it happens I did not see any CBF flags in attendance at the rally so the point is now moot.

Also central to the point is Trump’s opinion on the destruction of historical monuments. He is unambiguously against it. He has stated no personal interest in a statue of any particular confederate-era statuary, but holds firmly against mob violence. My own opinion has mirrored his all the way. I have stated that, beyond possibly holding and/or stating an opinion, it is none of my business what the residents of another state do with statues. If the residents want to build a statue, move a statue, or tear one down that should be their decision, not mine. And, I would note, my opinion has been crystal clear - I think that tearing down confederate statues as done in recent days amounts to display of domestic terrorism and needs to be arrested - now!

The rise of BLM and Pantifa has added an additional component to the issue. If residents of, say Virginia do not want a statue removed then it is incumbent upon them to rally forces against its removal. I would be pissed if outsiders tried to impose their weight in something that is none of their business. I remain unalterably opposed to anything that BLM and Pantifa do - they have no legitimate voice in anything. In this I stand with southern conservatives - as do most FReepers.

As always, YMMV

Thank you for your thoughtful post.

Believe it or not, I don't have any great personal or emotional investment in the Confederacy as such and my own political sympathies are solidly Federalist (one of the reasons Trump's nationalist trade policies appeal to me). I support the rebel flag and Confederate monuments because I defend the right of other Americans to honor their heritage, and because I recognize that PC antifa types who vandalized statues of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis yesterday are the same people vandalizing statues of George Washington today.

There are two things about the people on this site who willingly join hands with the radical Left in applauding vandalism against the rebel flag and Confederate monuments that bothers me:

1. First and foremost, they are unable or unwilling to recognize that the Leftists they've allied themselves with on this issue aren't going to stop with the Confederacy. They won't rest until every aspect of traditional American life and indeed Western culture is torn down. Even if you despise everything the Confederacy stood for, you ought to despise the people who agitate against its memory and monuments even more, at least if you have a grain of sense.

2. The other reason such people irritate me is their complete inability to think beyond political party labels. Only a complete idiot (like Dinesh D'Souza) would be unable to recognize the ideological difference between J.C. Calhoun and Chuck Schumer. As I said on another thread, those who say that Calhoun and Schumer "are the same because they're Democrats" have thought no more deeply about political ideology and about history than the sheep in animal farm trained to say "four legs good, two legs baaaad" (and then say "four legs good, two legs better" when their right ideologs tell them to). If someone really thinks that Andrew Jackson or J.C. Calhoun would tolerate today's welfare state Democrats who demand reparations for slavery, they're simply too stupid to be worth arguing with.

rockrr: "Personally, I would be reluctant to all another FReeper a democrat (GD or otherwise).
We’re all conservatives on this board (to one degree or another) and I don’t have specific evidence of ek_hornbeck’s voting habits but I suspect that votes for Republicans not democrats."

Here's my long-winded answer... ;-)

One purpose of politics, in general, is to reduce every choice to a binary: yes or no on a referendum, Democrat or Republican in an election, Trump or now Biden for President.
Sure, life is inherently, ah, "complicated", but politics for citizens ultimately is binary -- which side are we on?
By the way, we can find those same binary choices in many other places -- for most people one employer, one partner, one citizenship at a time.

US political history began with binary choices (patriot vs. loyalist) and evolved with two choices ever since (i.e., Federalist vs. anti-Federalist, Whig vs. Democrat, etc.).
By 1788 the patriots of 1776 split into two factions, one calling themselves Federalists and their opponents anti-Federalists.
Over many decades the old Federalists evolved into Whigs and then Republicans, the anti-Federalists into Jefferson then Jackson Democrats.

Of course at the time, anti-Federalists (Democrats) claimed to be the more "conservative" party because they wanted a more Articles of Confederation-like national government.
They opposed the new-fangled Constitution as a mere pit-stop on the road to monarchy.
"Monarchy" then was considered a threat to American liberties as serious as today's international socialism cum global-environmentalism.

Point is: Jefferson-Jackson Democrats called themselves the more "conservative" party until, roughly speaking, the time of Franklin Roosevelt.
And, indeed, Democrats did not fully abandon their historical conservatism until, again roughly speaking, the time of Lyndon Johnson.
At that point, so people claim, the parties "flipped".

But did they really?
I'm here to argue "no", Democrats today are the same as they've been since Day One -- the party opposed to the US Constitution and the Federal government it defines.
By stark contrast, Federalists-Whigs-Republicans are the party that wrote, ratified and fought civil war to defend our Constitution.

New York conservative Democrat Governor Al Smith, 1928:

That's why I say virtually all of our Lost Causers are old-time conservative Democrats.
And this may help explain why posters like wardaddy hammer the charge of "neo-cons" against us.
Neo-cons?
I first learned conservative thought from Barry Goldwater's Conscience of a Conservative -- was Goldwater a "neo-con"?
Well... yeh if you are an old-time Democrat conservative, then any Barry-come-lately is just another "neo-con".
And didn't Goldwater support the Vietnam war?
"Neo-con, case closed," say our old-time Democrats.

Now, in 1928 when NY Democrat Al Smith ran against California Republican Herbert Hoover, Smith was arguably the more conservative candidate and Hoover the "raging socialist" of that election.
But in our lifetimes, the term "conservative Democrats" applies to only one category of voters: white Southern Democrats, now nearly an extinct political species.
Except... except...
Except on Free Republic civil war related threads, where they come out in force to call the rest of us "neo-cons" and claim we support rioters tearing down first just Confederate and now also national statues.

So these days Lost Causers vote Republican, they might even call themselves Republicans, but in fact they are old-time conservative Democrats, and like all Democrats from Day One, they opposed the new Constitution and they would fight to destroy the United States if it didn't suit their own purposes.