Support the Confederate Flag: DON'T BACK DOWN

Note to those who support the Confederate flag: DON'T BACK DOWN.

Don't be tepid or tentative in your support of the flag. Our opposition to Northern cultural bigotry and historical (and hysterical) ignorance must be firm and unflinching. We are right, and they are wrong. View the issue with the moral clarity it deserves.

Anti-Southern bigotry is possibly one of my biggest triggers.  I wrote about that some time ago, in a previous post from 2010.  In that post I noted that the Civil War was then, and this is now.  I said that I wanted to work with Northerner conservatives in our modern political struggles, and not refight a war of 150 years ago.  However, I noted that the Civil War (better described as The War for Southern Independence) tapped deep emotions in me, and had the power to make me hate.  I stated that I don't like to hate and seek to avoid that emotion whenever possible, because happiness and hate cannot coexist.  This week, however, I feel the negative emotion returning.  

Why?  Because Yankees, liberals and Southerners ignorant of their own history keep re-invading the South.  They buy into the Northern Myth.  Intellectually lazy, they go along with the popular mythology that casts the Confederates into the role of villain.  They dishonor our Confederate ancestors and grossly misrepresent their cause.  Now they want to finish the wishes of General Sherman to exterminate all Southerners completely, by insisting that the Confederate flag be relegated to museums, viewed only as a dishonorable artifact.

"We must show manners to those who find the flag objectionable," they write.  Why is it that we must show manners but they do not?  Why do their feelings count but not ours?  

Arm yourselves with knowledge of Southern history.  I suggest you can do that by reading a previously posted article by Professor Donald Livingston of Emory University, "Why the Civil War Was Not About Slavery."

The Confederate Flag Will Not Come Down: Deal With It

As a Confederate descendant who is well read on the history of the War for Southern Independence, I revere the Confederate flag.  It is the flag of my country and my ancestors.  In light of the Charleston murders, we are now seeing a lot of liberals and mainstream Republicans calling for the removal of the flag from public display.

Mitt Romeny tweeted that the flag should come down.  He tweets

Take down the #ConfederateFlag at the SC Capitol. To many, it is a symbol of racial hatred. Remove it now to honor #Charleston victims.

I answered him with this:

Saber Point ‏@Stogie2  20m20 minutes ago

@MittRomney I regret voting for you Mitt. The flag stays. Take down the flag of Utah, it's a symbol of a false prophet and polygamy.

And of course, there's "Old Gorey" that many associate with invasion of the South, war on women and children, the genocide of the American Indian, the theft of Hawaii from its Queen and its people, and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Oh yes, and it flew over Northern slave ships who brought the slaves to America in the first place.

The point is, a flag means different things to different people. We Confederate descendants do not accept Mitt Romney's definition or our flag, nor that of the Daily Kos, Karl Rove, Jeb Bush or any other cultural bigot who wishes to bully us into accepting their skewed view of history.

Here are the motivations of the flag haters:

1. Moral vanity. Nothing pleases a liberal more than asserting his alleged moral superiority over someone else. What is an easier way than by attacking the South?

2. To legitimize the Northern Myth, the huge lie that the North invaded the South to free the slaves because they were just so morally righteous and broad minded and enlightened. The truth is that the North hated blacks, wanted them kept out of the new territories, made laws prohibiting their presence, and planned to deport them all back to Africa or elsewhere. They went to war to force the Southern states back into the Union for economic reasons; slavery had nothing or very little to do with it. An independent South would have free trade, open ports, thus ending the Northern tariff on imported goods. A massive relocation of jobs and revenues would quickly flow from the North to the South. This would have created an economic boom in the South, but would have impoverished the North, who depended on the South continuing to pay 80% of the taxes collected by the federal government, and whose dock workers, shipping companies, railroads, textile mills and warehouses would soon find themselves out of work. Yes, this is all well documented in the newspapers of the time. When asked why he would not simply let the South go, Lincoln exclaimed "Let the South go? Who will pay my tariff?"

3. To legitimize the consolidation of the once sovereign states into subordinate entities inferior to and controlled by the federal government. Today this is effectively being accomplished through federal courts, who overturn state laws and legislate from the bench.

4. To legitimize the federal government's "right" to invade the individual states and make war on their citizens, using force to impose its will. We are continually moving in that direction today.  A nationalized police force is in the works.  Once accomplished, all American states will be effectively occupied by the federal government.

Here's why we will never agree:

Taking down the flag would mean acquiescing to bullies who wish to force their viewpoint on us, a viewpoint that is erroneous, insulting, self-serving and false. It would mean replacing our superior knowledge of history with the superficial myths the flag-haters learned from popular media, Hollywood and Northern-biased textbooks. We will not allow knowledge to be replaced with ignorance, or truth with falsehood.

History, or what is alleged to be history, is a major political weapon. The fight over history will largely influence how current and future generations see the Republic: as a collection of sovereign states with the right to self-govern and even secede, or as consolidation of those states into an increasingly oppressive federal tyranny from which there is no refuge, remedy or escape.

Leave our flag alone.

Some Questions For the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles

The Texas Department of Motor Vehicles has refused to issue license plates displaying the Sons of Confederate Veterans' logo, which features a Confederate battle flag.  The SCV sees the flag as symbolic of patriotism, sacrifice and resistance to tyranny.  The Texas DMV sees the flag as however it was portrayed in the last televised rerun of "Mississippi Burning."  Or what they were told about the War for Southern Independence in the third grade.  Or something.

Here are the questions about the matter that the Texas DMV officials should consider:

1.  Who is practicing censorship and suppression, the SCV or the DMV?
2.  Whose actions serve to restrict individual freedom, choice and expression?
3.  Who is trying to impose ignorance over knowledge?
4.  Who is dealing in negative stereotypes and attempting to stigmatize and ostracize thousands through the arm of government?
5.  Who is practicing the cultural equivalent of ethnic cleansing?
6.  Who is politicizing history like 1984?
7.  Who is honoring the thousands of Texans who served and died for the Confederacy, and who is dishonoring their memory by officially defining their flag as objectionable?

Note:  My Uncle, who took part in the Invasion of Normandy (D-Day) in World War II is buried in Dallas.  My great grandfather, a Confederate veteran, is buried in Acton Cemetery in Acton, Texas, close by the grave of Davy Crockett's wife, Elizabeth.