Rude, Crude Yankees = Good Useful Idiots

The Patriotist ^ | July 22, 2002 | Al Benson Jr.

[Aurelius]

I occasionally get some rather rude e-mail from those with a deep-rooted Yankee mentality in regard to my little web site. Usually the writer informs me, rather contemptuously that my web site is all wet, that it stinks, that the War of Northern Aggression was really fought to preserve slavery, that I am totally in error about Abraham Lincoln, who, in the writer's opinion, is really god, and on it goes. 'Those people' never offer historical argument to back up what they say [they can't] but they are quite accomplished at ridiculing others when they, themselves, don't have a clue about the historical accuracy of anything. No doubt many of them are cultural marxists and don't even realize it. But, then, no one has ever accused those with a Yankee mentality of being over-endowed with discernment. Let me say here, that when I refer to the Yankee mindset, I am not offering a blanket condemnation of all Northern folks, else I would also condemn myself. I know lots of good Northerners who would cringe at being thought of as Yankees, and I know some Southerners who, unfortunately, fit perfectly into the Yankee mold. What I am talking about has no connection whatever with where you were born.

I got a rather nice e-mail recently from a Southern-born Yankee type who crudely informed me that "Lincoln was right and J W. Booth, and R. E. Lee and Jeff Davis and the rest of the gang were murderers who all deserved to be hanged." You can really tell that this character did his homework - what historical insight! He then went on to inform me that he was a white man born in the South but was, "thankfully educated in California." Folks, I submit, that anyone today who is thankful for having been 'educated' in California the way this man seems to have been 'educated' is just not the brightest light in the harbor. He then informed me, in his infinite wisdom that I should 'get a life' beyond my web site and 'grow a brain.' He closed his tirade with the statement that Lincoln was the last of the good Republicans, and his parting salutation was 'Long live Bill Clinton.' Usually I don't bother replying to such sanctimonious drivel, but, in this man's case I made an exception. I e-mailed him back and told him that if people such as he didn't like my web site then I must be doing something right. I suppose I should have ended my reply to him with 'Have a nice day' but, for some unknown reason, I didn't bother to.

This individual is a perfect example of the Yankee mindset - smug, self-satisfied, egotistical, and totally ensconced within a sense of their own perfect rightness in all things and on all issues. Anyone daring to disagree with them has to be berated because 'those people' have got it all figured out - after all, their 'teachers' and 'college professors' dutifully informed them that the war was all about slavery and that Lincoln freed all the slaves, and the 'history' professor wouldn't lie - would he? Lincoln must be more astute than Jesus Christ because, after all, Lincoln came along more recently on the evolutionary scale didn't he?

I have had people that checked out my web site and disagreed with something they saw on it. Often they have contacted me and have been courteous enough to voice their opinions in a civil manner. Others have offered constructive criticism, which was all right, because I took it in the spirit in which it was given. I had a black man once that read one of my articles and took exception to it, stating that he was a Christian. I contacted him back, informing him that I was also a Christian and with Christian charity, I sought to correct the misconception that he had. Once he understood where I was coming from we were able to carry on a dialogue with no bad feeling on either side. Some folks will check out the site and come back with genuine questions about something. That's fine. I answer what I can historically [unlike the Yankees, I don't claim to have all the answers about everything] and I often try to pass these folks on to someone else that knows more than I do.

But there is a certain class of Yankees - often well 'educated' that are just so superior to the rest of us 'great unwashed' that they don't even feel the need to attempt courtesy. They howl about us 'rednecks' and what we write and tell us to 'get a life' yet the sum total of their 'life' seems to be wrapped up in demeaning those who dare to disagree with their vaunted opinions.

A while back, Professor Clyde Wilson wrote an excellent article in Southern Partisan magazine called The Yankee Problem in America. In it Professor Wilson took on such Yankee paragons or 'virtue' as Ted Kennedy, the man who never learned to drive over a bridge straight, and St. Hillary Clinton of 'Cattle Futures' fame. Wilson described such people as smug, self-righteous, above the rules the rest of us live by, and completely convinced that they are right in all things - right enough that they deserve the privilege of telling the rest of us how to live - all for 'our own good' of course [and just maybe for their profit.]

There is no place in the Yankee mindset for grace, courtesy, compassion, consideration of the feelings of others, or for any of those Scriptural virtues that have graced and improved our civilization in the past. The Yankee knows only complete self-righteousness and, in that self-righteousness he exhibits a certain perverse pleasure in seeking to trample on the feelings of those who dare to disagree with his elevated opinions. In most cases, the Yankee understanding of accurate history is about an inch deep, and therefore, he becomes little more than a 'useful idiot' that the cultural Marxist professor that 'educated' him can turn loose on the world for the total benefit of the New World Order.

[WhiskeyPapa]

"In fact, the Constitutional Convention considered and rejected a provision that would have authorized the use of Union force against a recalcitrant state. On May 31, 1787, the Convention considered adding to the powers of Congress the right: "to call forth the force of the union against any member of the union, failing to fulfil its duty under the articles thereof."29 The clause was rejected after James Madison spoke against it:

"A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State, would look more like a declaration of war, than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound." - James Madison

Madison seems pretty clear, and in the record. Maybe you just don't like the record.

Let's amplify the record:

"The men at the convention, it is clear enough, assumed that the national government must have the power to throw down state laws that contradicted federal ones: it was obvious to them that the states could not be permitted to pass laws contravening federal ones...

It did not take long for the supremacy of the Supreme Court to become clear. Shortly after the new government was installed under the new Constitution, people realized that the final say had to be given to somebody, and the Connecticut Jurist and delegate to the Convention Oliver Ellsworth wrote the judicary act of 1789, which gave the Supreme Court the clear power of declaring state laws unconstitutional, and by implication allowing it to interpret the Constitution. The power to overturn laws passed by Congress was assumed by the Supreme Court in 1803 and became accepted practice duing the second half of the nineteenth century."

"The convention was slow to tackle the problem of an army, defense, and internal police. The Virginia Plan said nothing about a standing army, but it did say that the national government could 'call forth the force of the union against any member of the Union failing to fulfill its duty under the articles thereof.' The delegates had expected to discuss something like this clause, for one of the great problems had been the inability of the old Congress to enforce its laws. Surely it should be able to march troops into states when necessary to get state governments to obey.

But in the days before the convention opened Madison had been thinking it over, and he had concluded that the idea was a mistake. You might well march your troops into Georgia or Connecticut, but then what? Could you really force a legislature to disgorge money at bayonet point? 'The use of force against a state,' Madison said, as the debate started on May 31, 'would be more like a declaration of war, than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.' Although he did not say so at the moment, he had another way of enforcing national law, which not only would be more effective, but also philosophically sounder. As the government was to derive its power from the people, it ought to act on the people directly. Instead of trying to punish a state, which was, after all, an abstraction, for failure to obey the law, the U.S. government could punish individuals directly. Some person -- a governor, a tax collector, a state treasurer -- would be held responsible for failure to deliver the taxes. Similarly, the national government would not punish a state government for allowing say, illegal deals with Indians over western lands, but would directly punish the people making the deals. All of this seemed eminently sensible to the convention and early in the debate on the Virginia Plan the power of the national government to 'call forth the power of the Union' was dropped. And so was the idea that the government should be able to compell the states disappeared from the convention. It is rather surprising, in view of the fact that the convention had been called mainly to curb the independence of the states, that the concept went out so easily. The explanation is, in part, that the states' righters were glad to see it go; and in part that Madison's logic was persuasive: it is hard to arrest an abstraction."

--"Decision in Philadelphia" by Collier and Collier

Walt

[Issaquahking]

In case you haven't heard.... we are about to enter the second one. It will be intelligent conservatives (not neccisarily republicans by name) Verses the useful idiots of the U.N. and greenie socialist/communist crowd. We already have this one won if we have to raise the ante to weaponery.

[jwh_Denver]

Your ancestors did that? Did they cart it down themselves?

No they trucked it down. Had some problems in the South where there was nothing but dirt roads.

I lived in Mississippi for a year and I couldn't believe how stupid the people were there. I learned real quick do not tell a joke more complicated that "why did the chicken cross the road" because I'd get this stupified look of pure no clue what I was talking about. I don't blame them for being stupid, I just figure the heat and humidity fried their brains.

[GOPcapitalist]

No, I don't "got it." You're claiming that because the space program has sites in the South, that the South is not technologically backward.

No. I am noting the fallacy in the assertion "Here on the west coast, not to many are impressed with cars going in circles at 180 mile an hour. Now sending a space craft into space and reaching 27 miles a second, does have a tendency to impress us. While some folks in the south play with toys, many here have left the ol south in the dust of the past."

Such an assertion directly claims space technology for the left coast while implying that the south is technologically inferior and impressed with automobiles of years past. The southern domination of the space program indicates both are incorrect.

In reality, the mere location of a space center in the south has nothing to do with the question either way. The mere presence of buildings and wires don't tell us a thing about Southerners' technical savvy.

Reality suggests otherwise. Speaking as a first hand witness for Houston, we have a prominent space-tech oriented economy growing up around the southeast suburbs of the city not too far from mission control. Several of the tech giants like Boeing, Raytheon, and Lockheed-Martin have set up major project offices here as have several dozen other robotics and aerospace firms. We've got what is arguably one of the top concentrations of tech and aerospace firms in any given area of the US, and especially of any major city.

Remember, the sites themselves were selected either for purely technical reasons (KSC), military jurisdiction (MSFC), or political patronage (JSC). And the fact that they're there simply means that people will have to move to the South in order to work those sorts of projects

Really? Cause the Houston industry has practically grown up around JSC itself with no shortage of personel considering its proximity to a major city.

There was nothing explicitly "Southern" that made these the inevitable locations.

I never said there was. I simply note that, contrary to another person's implications the south is not unaware of the space program and is in fact probably more economically and experientially oriented around it than any other region of the nation.

But if we grant your point, it's actually quite damaging to your underlying position: most of the really serious space stuff occurs almost entirely outside of the South: * Rockets are built in Colorado, California, and Utah * Satellites are built in Colorado, California, and Arizona * Most of the really serious space missions are controlled from Maryland, California, and Colorado

Serious space stuff? You mean lobbing satelites into orbit. As you noted, they do that in Guyana as well. I'll grant the activity is certainly serious, important, and beneficial to communications, navigation, and military, but I don't think is comparable to actual manned space flight. Our nation's greatest space acheivements - i.e. putting Americans into space and the moon landing - were launched from Florida and controlled from Houston.

So if the presence of space centers is an indication of technological prowess, the fact that the manufacture and control of serious programs occurs almost entirely outside the South has to indicate that the South has no ability to support such things.

Does it though? You simply stated a couple of states where it occurs, yet as I have noted, practically every major aerospace tech firm involved in the space program has installations in Houston, many of them among their largest if not their single largest operations. Then again, while part gathering is important to space operations, it's all meaningless unless those operations actually take place. And for that you need a launch site and mission control, both of them in the south.

That's harder to answer, but it is true that the ante-bellum South had very little in the way of an industrial base.

Such is the nature of an agrarian society, but the absence of coal belching sweat shops does not necessarily mean the absence of persuing technological knowledge. The war itself demonstrated that. In case you are wondering about what I refer to, I don't believe the yankee navy included submarines and their ironclads didn't arrive until after ours.

[GOPcapitalist]

Hey lumberhead

Now that's real mature. What next? Are you going to call me a "poo poo face" and a "big meanie"?

I was responding to post # 57. Another southern boy was shooting off his mouth saying California wasn't nothing and that the south makes stock cars and other bull $hit.

That's nice and all, but the manner in which you did so was to dishonestly imply a californian claim to space tech while simultaneously denying its strong southern presence.

Then you decided to argue with me about the west coast contributions to aerospace when I told him that I was more impressed with spacecraft traveling at 27 miles a second, than freaking cars going around in circles at 180 mph.

No. I decided to simply correct your erronious implications about southern participation in the events surrounding those spacecraft.

Only a fool or an idiot would attempt to debate California's major, cutting edge, leading contributions to aerospace, satellite developments, mans fist trip the lunar surface etc. etc etc. LOL! And you attempted to do just this.

Where? Noting the prominence of southern participation in the space program following YOUR earlier implication of its absence does not in any way constitute denying Californian involvement. I did note that without Houston and the Kennedy Space Center launch site, none of the manned flights would ever get anywhere, but even that does not dispute the fact that some of the rocket parts are built elsewhere.

The installation is about 150 miles northwest of Los Angeles California, and is presently operated by Air Force Space Command's 30th Space Wing. Vandenberg AFB is the only military base in the United States from which unmanned government and commercial satellites are launched into polar orbit.

And as I said earlier, that's nice and all but simply does not compete with actual manned space flight. Satellites go up from all over the place including the third world. Man goes up in two places - America, from a launch location in Florida, and Russia.

You obviously bit off more than you can chew, and it's making you look rather foolish.

I tend to disagree and would accurately point out that I'm not the one desparately trying to analogize lobbing of unnmanned satelites into orbit to launching a manned spacecraft bound for the moon.

[GOPcapitalist]

Uh, Walt. Is there any reason why you've started including a massive reproduction of a battle scene painting with your posts?

Once is adequite.

If you are attempting to create some sort of signature for your name I similarly welcome it, but you might want to try reducing the image's size or picking a different one for the sake of space, bandwidth, and download times. You'll find that most freepers of both sides will probably appreciate it if you were to do so.

Thank you in advance.

[Just_de_facts]

I wish newbies like you and Whiskey Papa would stop posting egotistic drivel. We already know your intelligent, now try some reason, logic and rational thought.

[WhiskeyPapa]

Uh, Walt. Is there any reason why you've started including a massive reproduction of a battle scene painting with your posts?

Once is adequite.

I reduced it 50% on the AOL server. It still looks pretty huge though. I thought that was adequate. It looks a lot smaller when I pull it up as a URL. Maybe the change will kick over here. Anyone have any ideas?

It's a picture of Col. Robert Gould Shaw leading the 54th Massachusetts intantry.

I do aim to use it as a header.

Walt

[sibb1213]

No they don't realize we are not all rednecks! Plus, they have their own form of rednecks and some of them have moved to my neighborhood from Ohio, Michigan, NY and Illinois. Did you ever notice once they move to the South, you can't get them to go back home? I guess they just enjoy living down here with all of us idiots.

[WhiskeyPapa]

I'll have to rescan the picture. It's a good one though. It appears in "From Auction Block to Glory" by Phillip Thomas Tucker.

Walt

[Non-Sequitur]

Why not use this one, Walt?

Pictures of surrendering rebs always puts me in a good mood.

[Non-Sequitur]

Darn. It worked in preview. Anyway, it's Richard Norris Brooke's "Furling the Flag". The south was not to see such a depth of sorrow again until Richard Petty died.

[HELLRAISER II]

I've noticed that myself, they tend to like it down here don't they?

[Joe Hadenuf]

I wish newbies like you bla bla

I am imagining you sitting there wishing. Try wishing a little harder junior. Hehehe.....

[GOPcapitalist]

I reduced it 50% on the AOL server. It still looks pretty huge though. I thought that was adequate. It looks a lot smaller when I pull it up as a URL.
Maybe the change will kick over here. Anyone have any ideas?

Try the following.

First: You need to fix your code for that image to reduce its size when you post it. That way it won't take up the entire screen. Copy the following code to achieve
this:

<img SRC="http://members.aol.com/walterm140/rgshaw4.jpg" height=250 width=280>

Second: Even if you do reduce the image itself to something that doesn't take up half of the entire thread, the size is still a major problem. Even after you said you have reduced it, the image itself is STILL over 200 kilobytes. That's desktop wallpaper size and it's a strain on even the fastest phone lines to download every time you post it. As a general rule, you should not post anything that size more than once. For repeat posts such as headers you should try not to use anything more than about 30 Kilobytes. You are over 170 kb's over that limit as it stands right now. So, for the sake of bandwidth, either reduce your image size to something reasonable or pick another image.

[H.Akston]

"A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State, would look more like a declaration of war, than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound." - James Madison

I quote meat, not some author's conjecture. You use force - you dissolve the compact. A Voluntary Union is a more perfect union.

[H.Akston]

America lost the "Civil War".

[H.Akston]

On my browser, you posted a small facsimile of a Confederate Battle Flag.
L . O . L . :))

[Non-Sequitur]

Unintentional, I assure you. I was trying to post this picture

See if it works this time.

[H.Akston]

That's a good one. I can see America losing the "Civil War", in that one.