The South is not a region geographically. The South is a philosophy, a set of ideas, a monolithic and perhaps even mythic way of seeing things--which the liberal mind loathes and holds in such intolerance as to be bigoted, hateful and totally inept in understanding.
The South, at least mythically and in cliche, stands for conservative culture. It is really antithetical to "progressivism" and the evils of the political Left which have poisoned America since the mid-Twentieth Century. The mythic Southerner opposes high taxation, Government invasion into individual liberty, tyranny, infringement of the right to private property, weakening of the Second Amendment, open borders, socialism, a welfare state, criminal leniency, legalization of drugs--all the things the Left endorses. Thus, the South is on the opposite magnetic pole to progressivism, liberalism, globalism and socialism.
Every political expression must find a palatable way to express itself so it appears rational, compassionate and reasonable. For, after all, it is still true in our society that government officials must get elected before they can govern. Thus, politicians must justify their philosophies, goals and agendas to the people. How do those opposed to the South go about doing this?
Of course, they look for hated institutions, ideas, actions or unreasonable historical positions--persons or movements on which to anchor their disdain. The two single ideas that ripple outward from a progressive's heart-core of disgust and repudiation are: racism and slavery. This is often disguised as "tolerance."
It does not seem to matter that slavery ended in 1865 and was forever prohibited by the 13th Amendment, which is well and good. And it likewise does not seem to matter that minorities in this country are protected by every conceivable law, legislation, Amendment, program, executive order and affirmative action proclamation that could be conceived by the federal mind, which is also well.
The point is: to advance the leftist, progressive, post-modern agenda, we must not only sell what we want--we must repudiate whatever the public sees as supporting the opposite position. In this case, we must convince people that the South--at least the mythical South, endorses the evils of racism and slavery and that it is intolerant. Of course, they flew the "confederate flag" to prove it. It only follows that southerners must react defensively to prove that they are not really racists or all the ancestors of slaveholders; thus, southerns must at least pretend to support the basic heart pulse of the liberal progressives. Else they will be found guilty for not partially endorsing the progressive left. (So, the Governor of Alabama and South Carolina take down the confederate flag as a defensive response, just to prove that they are not racist or intolerant.
It matters not that probably less than one tenth of 1 percent of southerners would today endorse any form of racism, or would condone any form of discrimination--or that the institution of slavery is so far removed from their consciousness that they don't even have a conceptualization of it, except that they loath and condemn the ancient chattel slavery system. It matters none. If they are southerners, they must be condemned by the truly progressive, superior liberated minds of the political left and by the rightist "conservatives" who fear the left and do homage to it.
So we have the modern cultural war on the South. And people can't wait to leap on that wagon and ride because they feel the end of the ride will result in great political reward. Which is probably true.
Even Bill Clinton, the Arkansas boy who made good, said of Donald Trump: "Make America Great Again? If you are a white southerner, you know what that means!" Donald Trump is white, though not a Southerner; therefore, he must be a racist.
No comments:
Post a Comment