Posted on 12/27/2002 10:10:58 AM PST by Chi-townChief
I don't see why there's so much trouble about poor Trent Lott. After all, the South won the Civil War--oops, the War Between the States--and they're entitled to enjoy their victory. It's their right to fly the Stars and Bars over the Georgia capital, to celebrate the ''Confederate Heritage,'' to speak at the racist, anti-Catholic Bob Jones University, to lecture to white supremacy groups, to venerate the Dixiecrat Party and its founder Strom Thurmond for his wisdom, to proclaim always their mantra of ''states' rights,'' to trim black voters off the polling lists.
Admittedly, racial segregation in the South isn't what it used to be. Blacks can ride anywhere on a bus that they want to, their kids can go to integrated schools, they can vote in elections, they can work at jobs formerly off-limits to them. They're still poor for the most part and not all that well-educated (in Mississippi no one is), but that's not the fault of white Southerners.
Does someone say that the Stars and Bars is the flag of a racist revolution to keep black people in slavery? Does someone argue that the ''Confederate Heritage'' is a heritage of racial oppression, rape and murder? The answer is simple: ''Hey, boys in blue, we whupped y'all fair and square. Y'all ain't nothing but bad losers.''
My ''damn Yankee'' prejudice is to say that ole Marse Abe made a mistake. He should have let the rebel states go. We didn't need them, and we'd be better off without them.
The South didn't win the war, you say? Who's running the country now? Texans (or pseudo-Texans) like Bush and Cheney and DeLay, and crackers like Trent Lott, and until recently carpetbaggers like Newt Gingrich. When was the last time a Yankee was elected president? In 1960, the only Northerner since Roosevelt. Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon don't count; Orange County is Confederate country.
Nixon was the one who had the brilliant idea of incorporating Strom's Dixiecrat Party into the GOP in his notorious ''Southern strategy.'' Most of the newspaper accounts of the turn of the Solid South from Democratic to Republican don't mention that the change was inspired by anger in the South at the Democratic support for civil rights and racial integration. The Democrats won the campaign but lost the war. Gettysburg was not the decisive battle of the war between the states. The 1968 and 1972 campaigns were. The ''reform'' wing of the Democratic Party threw out the unions and the Catholics and gave away the game to the Dixiecrat wing of the Republican Party. They've never figured out how to win against the descendants of Strom and Tricky Dicky.
I'm not saying that all Southerners are racist (there are a lot of racists in Yankee land too--most of them Republicans). Nor do I contend that all Republicans are racists. However, the current Republican near-majority has its origins in racism. Many of the present causes of Southern Republicans--the Stars and Bars, the Confederate Heritage, Bob Jones University--are clearly causes of the antebellum South.
I'm willing to accept the song ''Dixie,'' both because ole Marse Abe ordered it played for the big victory march in Washington when the war was over and because it was written by Bing Crosby, a notorious Yankee who never set foot in Dixie (actually by New Yorker Dan Emmet, whom Crosby portrayed in film).
However, if the Republicans really want to break free of the Old South and become once again the party of ole Marse Abe (which they clearly don't), then they have to do more than merely drop redneck bigots like Trent Lott. They must loudly disown Bob Jones University and the battle flag over the Georgia capital and the Confederate heritage, and Jeb Bush's elimination of black voters from Florida registration rolls.
I concede that the Dimmycrats (as Mr. Dooley called them) are not without faults of their own--most notably the anti-Catholicism that affects some of the leadership level, their enslavement to the teachers unions and their stand on some life issues. Yet, whatever their failings, they're not storming the Little Round Top at Gettysburg with the Stars and Bars waving and loud rebel yells.
History says that Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the 20th Maine triumphed in that skirmish. A look at the Beltway today makes me wonder if they really did.
Are you trying to tell me that the entire world is not socialist now? If you had said Communist you might have had a point. But as I see it there are no truly Capitalist countries left.
"Not only not a right, but actually illegal and unconstitutional. Which is why it isn't done."
First you have have to translate "trimming black voters off the polling lists" from liberalspeak.
Translation: attempting to clean up rampant voter fraud that is prevalent in heavily black Rat precincts.
True, but the rich plantation owner secessionists were not willing to evolve and sacrificed our country and the South's men to continue their filthy lucre. It was more greed than lack of evolution.
Instead of enslaving people by skin color, there are many different ways people can be enslaved, i.e. criminal, political wrongdoing (USSR), repayment of debt. For what ever reason (economic, superiority) it maybe, people accepted it back then, but that doesn't make it right.
Those who were getting rich off it were certaiinly more accepting of it than others.
But it is just plain old ridiculous for a democratic country to still be giving concessions to a minority of the people because they need reparations for something that happened years ago.
I agree.
Its true, in the past white people have enslaved blacks, but don't forget -- we weren't the only ones who did it(despite the reasons). I guess what irks me, is the fact that people want to focus so much on what happened in the past, but forget to take a look at thioer current situation. Human rights violations occur all the time, in this day-- but no is ready to fight a war over it. People are ready to show compassion to opression by passing laws about hate crimes domestically, but no one is willing to fight over it (Chinese occupation of Tibet).
Freedom is for those that are willing to fight for it. If a people aren't willing to fight for it, maybe they don't deserve it. Americans have been willing to fight for freedom and fairness.
Calling all neo-reb ranters...
And while we're getting Catholics to admit their pedophilia, let's also get the liberal federal and state workers to admit their pedophilia. For instance I hear an awful lot of stories of these Teachers Union people having the ame kind of troubles as the Catholic priests. I wonder what the percentages are. The liberal media doesn't want to go there of course.
True. I'm not Catholic, by the way. I would just like to see the self righteous liberal media community apply the same standards to the liberal Teacher's Union as they do to the semi-conservative Catholic Church.
I agree with you on this, but you have understated the argument. The British also would have used their influence to keep the CSA dependent on them for manufacutured goods sold in exchange for agricultural products.
The words "Canada" and "vice" do not go well together
First, I said vise, not vice. Second, who won each time the US invaded Canada? Third, Freedom Fighters based in Canada launched at least one Southern raid against Union territory during the war.
That would've been the CSA's worry wouldn't have it
The CSA never had territorial ambitions in the Phillipines.
Could be.
First, I said vise, not vice.
Yeah I meant "vise", the clamping doohickey. I thought it looked funny when I read it.
Second, who won each time the US invaded Canada?
Who lost more soldiers in the Civil War? Invading is hard, but it doesn't mean the country being invaded is stronger than the country invading. The South found that out in Pennsylvania.
Third, Freedom Fighters based in Canada launched at least one Southern raid against Union territory during the war.
Did they burn Washington DC?
The CSA never had territorial ambitions in the Phillipines.
They didn't have time to worry about foriegn entanglements.
Neither I. :^)
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