For too long, Blacks in America have been given a free ride on too many issues and allowed to complain about anything without accountability.
Accountability is the defining issue of issues in conjunction with setteling the problems of the Black Community. As long as the pimps like J.Jackson and Al Sharpton are allowed to side-step accountability, to never demand personal accountability for unwed mothers and then produce them within their own society, e.g., black society, then blacks will have grievences.
Attacking Southern or Civil War icons is not the issue, it is the issue of personal accountability; Kinda makes you see why democrats are democrats and Republicans who pay taxes and are responsible citizens in communities are Republicans.
Gee, Potok, that appears to me to be EXACTLY what you and your cronies want.
GOOD! I hope we scare the commie bastards right out of Montgomery, the South, and on to Havana or Beijing where they belong.
We've never lost our pride, nor our desire to be left alone to our own way of life, culture and civility.
We are predominately Christians with a tremendous desire to live free, in a society that reflects our values. Not the values we are told to adopt by globalists, one worlders, or any other political whore.
What has caused Southerners to rally is the attacks against our values. We don't believe in globalism, New World Order agendas, or open borders.
We believe in liberty, and the Rule of Law, something you don't hear many politicians dicussing now.
We believe in the power of prayer and the power of gunpowder: Patrick Henry was correct-Most Southerners would agree: Give me liberty or give me death.
Over the next few decades, we our backs are going to be against the wall. The only way we and our culture will remain in existence is by a healthy dose of political and cultural activism laden with a strong dash of aggressive assertiveness.
This woman is a heroine of the highest order.
Well, ain't that the truth! We are the last place for civility, independence, and constitutionality.
ping!! ping!!! ping!!! ping!!! Where do I sign up and what do I need to do? May God bless Dixie!!
************
As long as the Union
Was faithful to her trust,
Like friends and like brothers
Both kind were we and just;
But now, when Northern treachery
Attempts our rights to mar,
We hoist on high the Bonnie Blue Flag
That bears a single star.
Hurrah! Hurrah!
For Southern rights hurrah!
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag
That bears a single star.
**************
Two brothers on their way,
Two brothers on their way,
Two brothers on their way,
One wore blue and one wore gray.
One wore blue and one wore gray,
As they marched along their way,
As they marched along their way,
The fife and drum began to play,
All on a beautiful morning.
One was gentle, one was kind,
One was gentle, one was kind,
One came home, one stayed behind,
A cannonball don't pay no mind.
Cannonball don't pay no mind,
If you're gentle or if you're kind,
It don't think of the folks behind.
All on a beautiful morning,
All on a beautiful morning.
***************
The federal government was not oppressive prior to 1860. Eleven of the first fifteen presidents were southerners, including seven from Virginia and two from Tennessee.
Southerners controlled the judicary also. The most intrusive federal legislation prior to the war was the Fugitive Slave Act. This act forced state authorities help federal authorities recapture escaped slaves. It was this act, and the Dred Scott decision, that made a mockery of states' rights --but it was NORTHERN states which were mostly oppressed.
Another mythical contruct is that the war was fought over tariffs, or taxes. The Constitution prohibits taxes on the exports of any state. Only incoming goods from outside the US had tariffs on them. And tariffs were lower in 1860 than they had been in 40 years. The 1860 Morrill Tariff could NEVER have passed if southern congressmen had kept their seats.
The cause of the war was slavery.
It was what was presaged by the elction of an admittedly anti-slavery president that the slave holders feared. The poor whites feared amalgamation with free blacks. As long as blacks were slaves, their social status was not at rock bottom.
Until these various factors are admitted and examined and until the CSA apologist cheerleaders admit them, then the CSA battleflag cannot represent the true history of the war and "southern" heritage.
Walt
"I have done that," says my memory. "I cannot have done that" -- says my pride, and remains adamant. At last -- memory yields. --Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
One comes to think of one's ancestors as "just like us" only better and to attribute all faults to those who opposed them. History is more complicated than that, though. Good and evil are mixed together more thoroughly. I suspect most Southerners recognize that. But some compensate for the impurity of history by making some opponent purely evil.
It's especially unfortunate that the need for regional pride combines with the desire to explain where things went wrong in history to produce resiliant myths about the Old South and the Civil War. The Rebel troops were indeed brave and were fighting for their homes and families and what they took to be freedom.
But the Confederate leadership was very much not "just like us." And they had been after far more than just "to be let alone." The government they were fighting against was not repressive in 1860 and gave them no cause for justified rebellion. They were not fighting the same battles Americans are fighting now. Southern elites were as militarist, imperialist, centralist, represssive and statist as other elites. And if they Old Republic died, they were the ones who dealt the blow that killed it.
If you are a Southerner, especially a White Southerner, you might nevertheless feel that they were fighting for your freedom. But nothing I've seen, heard or read convinces me that they were fighting for my freedom, or for that of most contemporary Americans or that those who fought against them were fighting for tyranny.
It's too bad that so much Southern pride is vested in that war. It's also a pity that so much effort is put into justifying not just the bravery or dedication of the troops but the secessionist cause, and not just justifying it, but maintaining that it was purer and more politically correct by modern standards than any 19th century political movement could be. It might produce a more accurate and nuanced view if some of the cynicism expressed here about American political history were applied to that of the Confederacy as well.
Is Southern pride simply American pride? Sometimes it really doesn't look like it here. It really does look like militant Southern pride intends to heap as much abuse on non-Southern elements in order to keep itself alive. But the saving grace in all this is that most Americans are learning that virtues and vices aren't confined to this or that section or segment of society, but are more evenly distributed throughout our country.