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Friday, December 29. 2006

Not a Southern Gentleman

The University of Texas is considering taking down their monuments to Confederate heroes. Says Never Yet Melted:

A common tragic reality of our time is that positions of power and responsibility typically go to the mediocre conformists who successfully climb the greasy pole of life, one finger cautiously raised in the air at every level of ascent. In a better world, the president of the University of Texas would be a gentleman of sound principles and liberal education, capable of feeling a sense of loyalty to his state and region’s history, courageous enough to withstand the divisive demands of rabblerousers and demagogues, and dignified enough to dismiss the unseemly impulses of fashion.

Read his whole piece here.

Why are we sympathetic to our fellow Americans who were part of the Confederacy? Not because we like slavery (the war was only partially about slavery), but because the principle of states' rights was correct. Those 250,000 southern farm boys who died were not fighting for slavery - few of them owned slaves.

No, they fought valiantly for honor and freedom under the leadership of one of the finest Americans in history, Robert E. Lee. As fellow Americans, they deserve to be honored and remembered.

Posted by Bird Dog in Politics at 16:36 | Comments (27) | Trackbacks (0)

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One would think that the South was the epicenter of evil in this country. A few enlightened facts might help.
1. The Abolistionists finally pushed the Congress inot abrogating the compact that formed the Union in the first place. The South would have never formed the Union without the compromises all agreed to.
2. The South withdrew because of this unilateral abrogation of the compact.
3. Most southerners never owned slaves and by the 1860's there was already a Southern movement to free the slaves.

Those who roil the waters in a continued attempt to extract that last pound of flesh from Southern Heritage would do well to focus on the ongoing slavery going on right now in Africa.
Those of us with Southern Heritage are only going to become more resentful of those who are still twisting the knife.
#1 habu1 on 2006-12-29 17:57 (Reply)
Ditto. I know. I lived in Dixie for a few fine years.
#2 bird dog on 2006-12-29 18:16 (Reply)
Why is it we are forced to be so PC when it comes to our own historical fundamentals or call them contributing moments or movements in time. ( the southern or rebel movement for example) by removing such monuments but yet we have to make such a issue about honoring or acknowledging those of other cultures or even religions. Ignore the holocaust and suddenly your ignorant and inconsiderate of an entire religious demographic...and rightfully so. But whistle dixie and damn if they don't want to hang you.
#3 Old southern dog on 2006-12-29 18:41 (Reply)
We should withdraw statehood from native American lands from coast to coast and eject Anglican snobs and redneck dirt farmers a plenty to atone for the Before Times of the Civil War. Let us atone in chronological order. please.
#4 wilhelmina durant on 2006-12-29 18:54 (Reply)
Not that within our mutlicultural PC environment do I want to throw gasoline on a fire but consider that a few years ago a special tax was imposed on the students to erect a monument to Martin Luther King.
We factually know that MLK cheated on his wife numerous times, plegerized his doctoral dissertation and in general was not a man of great character, words perhaps but not character. NOW they want to take down a monument of Robert E Lee, a man who graduated WITHOUT ONE demerit from West Point and by almost universal acknowledgement always maintained the highest deportment of a true gentleman throughout his entire life.
It boggles the mind. All demogrphically driven PC crap.
#5 habu1 on 2006-12-29 19:15 (Reply)
Why stop there, wilhelmina? Tear down the Parthenon--the Hellenes had slaves. Of course, so did every other organization more powerful than another. No, no, no, NO, I'm not 'for' slavery. Just pointing out what everyone already knows--that humanity has a past, and that if we're going to destroy the memories of the good parts of that past on the basis of the bad parts, then, we have a whole lot o' erasin' to do.

Stalin would understand my alma mater's new commission, but I do not. In fact, i'm sick over it.

Good post, Habu, you old reprobate, you.
#6 Buddy Larsen on 2006-12-29 19:29 (Reply)
I was referring to your first post, as I can't huzzah the second quite as much, as--and you know this--MLK just like the Confederacy had his good and bad side, yet overall provides a rightfully proud rally point for his people.
#7 Buddy Larsen on 2006-12-29 19:34 (Reply)
I hope the UT commission will consider that the nation--both halves--sacrificed 2% to 3% of its population in settling the issues of the war.

This is equivalent to 6 to 7 million people today.

If this doesn't pay the debt & settle the account, then what would?

Surely not toppling statues, Saddam-style, a century and a half after-the-fact, of heroes of American battlefields.
#8 Buddy Larsen on 2006-12-29 19:45 (Reply)
We are Yankees, yet we revere Robert E. Lee as a man of honor. Had we been alive at the time, we would have been drafted and tried to kill our southern brothers. Terrible. And they never had a chance, really.
#9 Bird Dog on 2006-12-29 19:48 (Reply)
Jest tongue in cheek, buddy larsen.
#10 wilhelmina durant on 2006-12-29 19:50 (Reply)
Well, I'm not so sure about that inevitability. President Lincoln's 1864 election opponent ran on a peace platform that would've 'made' the split.

And, until Billy Sherman took his freshly-raised army of teenagers to Atlanta, the election was in severe doubt.

I've always accepted as Providence that the Union won, but have to admit that the DC Leviathan has lately begun to float in my mind a few little clouds of doubt.

Sad, and unnecessary, that we should even admit to an occasional wonder whether the status quo is retrievable.
#11 Buddy Larsen on 2006-12-29 20:10 (Reply)
Have a Happy New Year Buddy. You're missed over at the "other" place a great deal.

just sitt'n 'round now wait'n for the big hanging of Saddam.

I don't think UT is gonna object to his hanging although there are probably more than a few tenured folk who would rather banish him to Dearborn.
#12 habu1 on 2006-12-29 20:24 (Reply)
wilhelmina,
I believe we're atone deaf.
#13 habu1 on 2006-12-29 20:28 (Reply)
Birddog,
I believe there's little doubt from the outset that the South had no chance.
And as a Southerner i believe this country could have never reached the heights it hasa if the South had won, so it was probably best we lost. We fought for the old states rights issue and as I mentioned the fact that after the formation of the Union, the North abrogated the compact and the South said adios, we're outta here. Abe said no and a horrible war ensued.
But it is part of our history and expunging the Southern history will not change a thing. Everyone should just get over it.
#14 habu1 on 2006-12-29 20:38 (Reply)
well, I'm willing to negotiate with the Comanches. They can have my place back, but only in trade for a family steamer ticket back to Skjerstaad, a longboat, and a decent set of herring nets.
#15 Buddy Larsen on 2006-12-29 20:38 (Reply)
Good discussion folks. I admit to having had problems balancing my allegiance to my southern youth with the realities of the 'growing' we all do as raised up in this world.

I think Buddie's theme of "good and bad" is certainly true. "Hero's" are rare enough in life. We shouldn't have to lose the few we have.
#16 Luther McLeod on 2006-12-29 20:45 (Reply)
It's pretty amazing how little the personality types change thru the years. Not equating Lincoln with anybody, but his opponent in the 1864 election, George McClelland, was a military man who did not want to damage his army, and had any number of perfectly reasonable reasons to stop the war and make peace with the Confederacy. And Gen Sherman's Lincoln-saving Atlanta Campaign was not foreordained by any means. It was a wild idea he cooked up on his own, and sold to Gen Grant, who then sold it to the president. Any one of them could've said no at any time--and the result would've likely been not two nations but ultimately a dozen or three--like the Balkans.

USA has greatly benefited from no internal wars since, in all the great expanse of 50 states. Who can believe that, balkanized, we would have created that record?
#17 Buddy Larsen on 2006-12-29 21:13 (Reply)
Habu, thank you. Your "atone deaf" is punny-pitch perfect!
#18 wilhelmina durant on 2006-12-29 21:30 (Reply)
Buddy,
Saddam is gone..ho hum ..no great stuff..,

I do agree with you about MLK as a hero for this country.
It is almost certainly unfair for anyone in our history to be compared to the likes of R.E. Lee and George Washington. MLK was a great man giving leadership at a very difficult but necessary time in this countries history. I was disappointed he got wobbly on Vietnam but that's another lifetime.
#19 habu1 on 2006-12-29 22:20 (Reply)
Well, I wouldn't place him in the first rank, but that's the Rushmores and those who who oughtta be Rushmores--but he did focus a lot of positive pride, and the "character" message is timeless. He's a good ideal.

As far as the politics of the moment, here, have a stroll down memory lane/nightmare alley:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-women29dec29,0,1917782.story?track=tothtml
#20 Buddy Larsen on 2006-12-29 23:24 (Reply)
In removing these memorials, Texas University would be rewriting the history of previous people's idea of history. At the very least, the Confederate memorials should stand to represent deeds and values past. But they really should be given due honor by a better, big picture perspective on history than what that great state's big U seems to offer these days.
#21 alumna on 2006-12-29 23:31 (Reply)
alumna--sometime when you want to cry, 'search' Prof Robert Jensen.
#22 Buddy Larsen on 2006-12-30 00:15 (Reply)
I am pleased that this was such a stimulating post. They always said "The South will rise again," and it has done so, hasn't it?
#23 bird dog on 2006-12-30 07:50 (Reply)
I have many ancestors on both sides who were Civil War veterans, most of them Confederates. Living in Pennsylvania, I now feel as if when the topic comes up (which it does, a lot -- there are a great many Civil and Revolutionary War re-enactors here) I keep my mouth shut. This is, without a doubt, yankee land.
#24 rightwingprof (Link) on 2006-12-30 11:35 (Reply)
This thread plus the Saddam event made me remember an odd fact about the travails of President Lincoln: the Union faction known as "copperheads" were harshly against the war ("Lincoln's War") throughout--and were also the same people who, after Appomattox, wanted Robert E. Lee (and other Confederates) executed. Hung.

Lincoln's backers, conversely, wanted both to prosecute the war thru to the salvation of the Union, and then to forgive the enemy (as in the soaring "with malice toward none, with charity for all" Second Inaugural Address).

Stark, isn't it, the character revealed in the juxtapositions?

**********
(the Second Inaugural Address)

http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/inaug2.htm
#25 Buddy Larsen on 2006-12-30 15:09 (Reply)
For all I know, I might have been a copperhead too. Every war has its anti-war movement, in free countries. Heck, the American Revolution was not supported by a majority - but it turned out pretty fine, after some hard slogging. Otherwise, we might be like Canada - God forbid! ...or like Australia, which isn't quite as bad, but they have no guns.
#26 bird dog on 2006-12-30 15:59 (Reply)
Good point, and good reminder--walk a mile in his moccasins before you judge a feller.

I can't figure out the Oz, either, on that score. It must be an artifact. Hope they dispose of it.
#27 Buddy Larsen on 2006-12-30 17:42 (Reply)

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