Extremist attacks on the Confederate flag harms minority rights. Here are reasons.
1. It trivializes major gains in minority rights by making a fuss over a non-important dead symbol of a by-gone era.
2. It draws focus to a very minor skirmish when important battles could be won elsewhere.
3. It attracts political opportunists like honey draws flies.
4. It unnecessarily opens all the old wounds that festered during the Civil Rights movement and prevents consolidation of gains and enjoyment of benefits that have already been earned.
5. It attracts the crazed, odd, insane and unbalanced elements of our society and inflames them to do harm--much like the idiot in Charleston who murdered innocent people simply because he was crazy or evil, or both.
6. It plays into the hands of a few idiots who call for a "race war." Nobody wins a war like that. Everyone loses. Let's stop pouring gasoline on the flames. (Can you see any similarity between hatred for the Confederate flag and hatred for law enforcement officers? At least a lot of the rhetoric is the same--and many of the political opportunists are the same; we see their faces on TV every night--pouring gas on the fires). See points 3 and 5 again.
6. It has no object, no purpose, no definitive end. How do we know when victory is to be declared? It's like commitment to a war with an unknown objective.
7. It destroys credibility. Do you mean you have no concerns greater than someone flying a Confederate flag? If that is the only battle left, you have no battle.
Sunday, October 25, 2015
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
FINAL SALUTE TO THE WALKING DEAD
The final salute to General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia came from a most surprising source--Brigadier Lt. General Joshua Chamberlain. Chamberlain was a Union hero of the Battle of Gettysburg who was also placed in charge of accepting the arms surrendered by Lee's army at Appomattox on April 10, 1865, the day following Lee's formal meeting with Grant.
As the surrendering Confederate regiments were passing in review before the assembled Union troops, Gen. Chamberlain ordered Federal troops to present arms as a token of respect for the defeated Confederates. Chamberlain's writing records the reaction of Confederate General John Gordon and the rest of the Confederate army:
"Instructions had been given; and when the head of each division column comes opposite our group, our bugle sounds the signal and instantly our whole line from right to left, regiment by regiment in succession, gives the soldier's salutation, from the "order arms" to the old "carry"—the marching salute. Gordon at the head of the column, riding with heavy spirit and downcast face, catches the sound of shifting arms, looks up, and, taking the meaning, wheels superbly, making with himself and his horse one uplifted figure, with profound salutation as he drops the point of his sword to the boot toe; then facing to his own command, gives word for his successive brigades to pass us with the same position of the manual,—honor answering honor. On our part not a sound of trumpet more, nor roll of drum; not a cheer, nor word nor whisper of vain-glorying, nor motion of man standing again at the order, but an awed stillness rather, and breath-holding, as if it were the passing of the dead!:
Then Lt. Col. Chamberlain of Maine, had been instrumental in turning back Lee's attack on Little Round Top in the Battle of Gettysburg on July 2, 1865. He had been severely wounded in action at Gettysburg and was high decorated. There is probably no Union officer who personally saw more action against his Confederate enemy than Chamberlain. He had engaged in practically hand-to-hand combat on Little Round Top and had led the bayonet charge that repealed the final Confederate advance on the Union's left flank on July 2. In spite of that, or perhaps because of it, Chamberlain recognized the valor and bravery of his former Confederate adversaries and honored them once they had been defeated.
I am disheartened, 150 years later, that the political Left (and some on the Right) wish to denigrate all who wore the Confederate gray--something that Chamberlain and other Union soldiers and officers had no stomach for at the immediate end of the war. However, as time passes, those who never had the honor of facing brave men on the battlefields feel free to assassinate the character of Southern soldiers simply because it is politically permissible to do so. Chamberlain certainly never sympathized with Confederate politics and he made that very clear. He did, however, recognize their honor and bravery and he had a magnanimous character which seems to have been lost on our present political generation altogether. In a modern PC culture, someone would have grabbed Lt. Gen. Chamberlain by the coattails and said, "Look, General, these people supported slavery and few the Confederate battle flag. You must not be seen as doing anything which might fail to condemn them." If anyone had done this, I suspect Chamberlain would have punched them in the face. He was quite a brave and honorable gentleman.
As the surrendering Confederate regiments were passing in review before the assembled Union troops, Gen. Chamberlain ordered Federal troops to present arms as a token of respect for the defeated Confederates. Chamberlain's writing records the reaction of Confederate General John Gordon and the rest of the Confederate army:
"Instructions had been given; and when the head of each division column comes opposite our group, our bugle sounds the signal and instantly our whole line from right to left, regiment by regiment in succession, gives the soldier's salutation, from the "order arms" to the old "carry"—the marching salute. Gordon at the head of the column, riding with heavy spirit and downcast face, catches the sound of shifting arms, looks up, and, taking the meaning, wheels superbly, making with himself and his horse one uplifted figure, with profound salutation as he drops the point of his sword to the boot toe; then facing to his own command, gives word for his successive brigades to pass us with the same position of the manual,—honor answering honor. On our part not a sound of trumpet more, nor roll of drum; not a cheer, nor word nor whisper of vain-glorying, nor motion of man standing again at the order, but an awed stillness rather, and breath-holding, as if it were the passing of the dead!:
— Joshua L. Chamberlain, The Passing of the Armies, pp. 260-61
_____________Then Lt. Col. Chamberlain of Maine, had been instrumental in turning back Lee's attack on Little Round Top in the Battle of Gettysburg on July 2, 1865. He had been severely wounded in action at Gettysburg and was high decorated. There is probably no Union officer who personally saw more action against his Confederate enemy than Chamberlain. He had engaged in practically hand-to-hand combat on Little Round Top and had led the bayonet charge that repealed the final Confederate advance on the Union's left flank on July 2. In spite of that, or perhaps because of it, Chamberlain recognized the valor and bravery of his former Confederate adversaries and honored them once they had been defeated.
Politicians today have no such honor.
I am disheartened, 150 years later, that the political Left (and some on the Right) wish to denigrate all who wore the Confederate gray--something that Chamberlain and other Union soldiers and officers had no stomach for at the immediate end of the war. However, as time passes, those who never had the honor of facing brave men on the battlefields feel free to assassinate the character of Southern soldiers simply because it is politically permissible to do so. Chamberlain certainly never sympathized with Confederate politics and he made that very clear. He did, however, recognize their honor and bravery and he had a magnanimous character which seems to have been lost on our present political generation altogether. In a modern PC culture, someone would have grabbed Lt. Gen. Chamberlain by the coattails and said, "Look, General, these people supported slavery and few the Confederate battle flag. You must not be seen as doing anything which might fail to condemn them." If anyone had done this, I suspect Chamberlain would have punched them in the face. He was quite a brave and honorable gentleman.
CIVIL WAR HISTORY IS MOST COMPELLING OF ALL
I recently re-read The Killer Angels by author Michael Shaara, easily one of the best historical novels of recent times. It is non-partisan in that it is told from the viewpoint of the people who participate in the Battle of Gettysburg and favors neither North or South. The novel is breathtaking for its action, its character development and for telling of the horrors of war, suffered by both sides. In my view, the book is better than the movie ("Gettysburg") - simply because the essence of Shaara's prose cannot be captured entirely on film. The first book in the trilogy, Gods and Generals, was also quite good.
Shaara's son, Jeff, authored The Last Full Measure, the epic about the final two years of the War Between the States. Again, moving and historically realistic without favoring South or North.
Reading Civil War history should be required, not discouraged. If the works explored are truthful, colorful and accurate, as Shaara's books are, the readers will be truly educated about America's past and will gain much needed insight into the present. Unfortunately, I don't think high school students spend much time, perhaps almost no time, on real American history, let alone the Civil War. It seems to me, and I was one a history teacher, that curriculum now days major in the minors.
The average American high school student cannot tell you in which century the Civil War was fought. Many cannot discuss the reasons for the war beyond the patent answer, "Slavery." If you asked students, even in college, to state 5 results of the Civil War, my guess is that they would be hard pressed.
It can only be hoped, probably in vain, that the richness and depth of experience that comes from reading Civil War history will be fostered by our educational system. I don't want us to become a society of technicians who fail to appreciate who we are, where we came from and where we are headed. On second thought, when I look at our mathematics and science scores, I don't think I have to be concerned about technicians, either.
Shaara's son, Jeff, authored The Last Full Measure, the epic about the final two years of the War Between the States. Again, moving and historically realistic without favoring South or North.
Reading Civil War history should be required, not discouraged. If the works explored are truthful, colorful and accurate, as Shaara's books are, the readers will be truly educated about America's past and will gain much needed insight into the present. Unfortunately, I don't think high school students spend much time, perhaps almost no time, on real American history, let alone the Civil War. It seems to me, and I was one a history teacher, that curriculum now days major in the minors.
The average American high school student cannot tell you in which century the Civil War was fought. Many cannot discuss the reasons for the war beyond the patent answer, "Slavery." If you asked students, even in college, to state 5 results of the Civil War, my guess is that they would be hard pressed.
It can only be hoped, probably in vain, that the richness and depth of experience that comes from reading Civil War history will be fostered by our educational system. I don't want us to become a society of technicians who fail to appreciate who we are, where we came from and where we are headed. On second thought, when I look at our mathematics and science scores, I don't think I have to be concerned about technicians, either.
Sunday, August 2, 2015
WHY LEE LOST THE WAR
Modern liberals make much of the fact that Robert E. Lee "lost the war." But the wonder is not that the war was lost. The wonder is that it took the entire forces and strength of the United States 4 years to defeat one of the most brilliant commanders in the annals of war.
When the war began, the odds were overwhelming stacked against the South:
When Lee faced Grant in the Wilderness Campaign, he was in a desperate defensive maneuver to hold the last rail line at Petersburg and to slow the Federal advance upon Richmond. Many of his soldiers were barefoot and not all of them were armed. By the time the Army of Northern Virginia reached Appamattox in early Apri 1865, the Southern troops were starving, having been cut off from all supplies.
When I taught history, I tried to help my students understand Lee's untenable position by comparing it to a game that they all understood--the game of checkers:
Pretend you are in a checker game. Your opponent doesn't know nearly as much about the game as you do. You are by far a superior checker player. You can counter any move your opponent makes and can defeat him easily. There is just one rule, however, which you need to note. When you remove one of your opponent's checkers from the board, he can replace it any time and keep playing. If you take your opponent's last checker off the board by a superior move, all he has to do is reach and put the checker back on the board and keep playing. However, you are not allowed to replace your checkers. When yours are gone, they are gone for good. The game will go on a very long time because you can out think, out wit and out maneuver your opponent. But eventually, given enough time, he will defeat you because you have only 12 checkers and your opponent has an infinite number of checkers. No matter how good you are as a checker player, you are doomed to run out of resources eventually and lose. Therefore, it is not a matter of who the best player is. It is a matter of having a limited number of resources. Such was the case with Lee.
Lee outmaneuvered his opponents, out fought them, ran many of them out of command (Hooker, McClellan, Burnside, Sherman, etc.), and defeated armies twice his size on numerous occasions. He would have won the war except for one thing: attrition. Lee could not replace his losses over time. He could inflict more damage on a superior number of the enemy than he himself suffered; however, he would also suffer losses and those losses were not replaceable.
So there is little honor in bragging that Lee was whipped. That it took 4 years for the mightiest power on the planet to defeat him is a monument to his military genus.
When the war began, the odds were overwhelming stacked against the South:
- The South had only one-fourth of the railroads in the nation.
- The South had one-third of the population.
- The South had no navy when the war began.
- The South had less than one-fourth of the nation's industry.
When Lee faced Grant in the Wilderness Campaign, he was in a desperate defensive maneuver to hold the last rail line at Petersburg and to slow the Federal advance upon Richmond. Many of his soldiers were barefoot and not all of them were armed. By the time the Army of Northern Virginia reached Appamattox in early Apri 1865, the Southern troops were starving, having been cut off from all supplies.
When I taught history, I tried to help my students understand Lee's untenable position by comparing it to a game that they all understood--the game of checkers:
Pretend you are in a checker game. Your opponent doesn't know nearly as much about the game as you do. You are by far a superior checker player. You can counter any move your opponent makes and can defeat him easily. There is just one rule, however, which you need to note. When you remove one of your opponent's checkers from the board, he can replace it any time and keep playing. If you take your opponent's last checker off the board by a superior move, all he has to do is reach and put the checker back on the board and keep playing. However, you are not allowed to replace your checkers. When yours are gone, they are gone for good. The game will go on a very long time because you can out think, out wit and out maneuver your opponent. But eventually, given enough time, he will defeat you because you have only 12 checkers and your opponent has an infinite number of checkers. No matter how good you are as a checker player, you are doomed to run out of resources eventually and lose. Therefore, it is not a matter of who the best player is. It is a matter of having a limited number of resources. Such was the case with Lee.
Lee outmaneuvered his opponents, out fought them, ran many of them out of command (Hooker, McClellan, Burnside, Sherman, etc.), and defeated armies twice his size on numerous occasions. He would have won the war except for one thing: attrition. Lee could not replace his losses over time. He could inflict more damage on a superior number of the enemy than he himself suffered; however, he would also suffer losses and those losses were not replaceable.
So there is little honor in bragging that Lee was whipped. That it took 4 years for the mightiest power on the planet to defeat him is a monument to his military genus.
ROBERT E. LEE - BEFORE PROGRESSIVE RE-EDUCATION
“Lee was the noblest American who had ever lived and one of the greatest commanders known to the annals of war.” --Sir Winston Churchill
Remember Churchill? 75 years ago, when freedom was being threatened by the evil of Nazism, it was Churchill who first led the lonely fight to save Europe. Churchill, at the time, and for decades after, was the most respected statesman in the free world. I suppose that now Churchill must be thought of as a racist, or an idiot, or a bigot--because his opinion of Lee was so awe-inspiring. But Churchill was not alone, back before the radicals changed our worldview and rewrote history.
After Lee's death, a Northern newspaper wrote of him: "We have long since ceased to look upon him as the Confederate leader, but have claimed him as one of ourselves; have cherished and felt proud of his military genius; have recounted and recorded his triumphs as our own; have extolled his virtue as reflecting upon us—for Robert Edward Lee was an American, and the great nation which gave him birth would be today unworthy of such a son if she regarded him lightly".
Robert E. Lee opposed Slavery, and had freed the slaves he inherited from his Wife's estate long before the war. One of them, William Mac Lee, chose to stand by Robert E. Lee's side throughout the war, serving as his cook and confidant. This former slave and friend described Lee with these words, "I was raised by one of the greatest men in the world. There was never one born of a woman greater than Gen. Robert E. Lee".
The following prayer by Robert E. Lee is contained in the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library in Independence, MO. It was memorized by Truman as a young man and President Truman is said to have prayed it throughout his entire life:
"Help me to be, to think, to act what is right because it is right; make me truthful, honest, and honorable in all things; make me intellectually honest for the sake of right and honor and without thought of reward to me."
In the post-modern, progressive rush to condemn Lee (something traditional history never did) - the liberals have deserted all of the values that Lee held dear, and lived by. It is not one man, or even one ideology that they condemn--it is an entire value system, one which apparently belongs to the past but has no part of the present or future. Or so the liberals would wish.
Friday, July 31, 2015
"CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER" - CONFEDERATE FLAG
Years ago, the US Supreme Court developed a doctrine about the kind of speech that can be censored. The doctrine, written primarily by justice Oliver Wendell Homes, Jr., was called the "Clear and Present Danger" doctrine.
This doctrine made a distinction between unpopular speech that might generally advocate harmful or even illegal ideology vs. speech that called for a "clear and present danger," the type of speech that the government had the right to censor or punish.
While I am not arguing a legal point here, I would encourage rational analysis of whether there is any "clear and present danger" involved in flying or displaying the Confederate flag.
Any common sense or reasonable approach to the Confederate flag issue would conclude that:
Is there a right "not to be offended?" I don't believe so. I believe that minorities, in spite of their protected status, are still subject to the same offenses to their sensibilities, tastes, prejudices, opinions, likes and dislikes as the rest of us.
"Minorities, in spite of their protected status, are still subject to being offended, just like everyone else."
I am not protected against being offended, in most cases. If you set out to protect me against being offended, think of all the things you would have to outlaw, censor or eliminate. What if I am offended by Country Music? Do you censor or outlaw Country Music? What about rap? I am offended by abortion. I am offended by mosquitoes, spinish, opera, Natzism, Islam, a lot of religious beliefs that I deem to be wrong; I am offended by much of what I see on TV, and by many common words, phrases and ideas that I encounter every day. A lot of literature offends me. The list of things that offend me would take many pages if I were to write them all down. Are we to make a list of all the things that offend me and try to eliminate them? Are we to make a list of ALL the things that offend blacks (or women, or men, or seniors, or teenagers) and try to eliminate them from society? What would a society look like it it were totally void of all things that offend someone? I can't even imagine what a sanitary society of that nature would look like. It would, of course, be totally anti-democratic. Maybe it would resemble a radical Muslim Caliphate, even more extreme, perhaps.
Does anyone in America have a constitutional right not to be offended? I don't think so. And I don't believe such a goal could ever be achieved, not even by enslaving the entire population with a mandatory list of ideas that must be avoided.
Of course, the government should not go around trying to offend. It shouldn't, but it often does. I was offended when the US Government bathed the White House in pink light recently to celebrate a certain Supreme Court decision. But, I enjoy the right to be offended.
Being offended is part of the price for living in a free, or at least partially free society. When society begins trying to eliminate all things offense--it is a slippery slope that knows no boundary and if taken to the ultimate extreme ends in a dictatorship like Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Communist North Korea or a Muslim Caliphate. People might even then still be offended but they would dare not let it be known.
What's the goal here? Would we not be better off if we could concentrate on clear and present dangers to civil rights instead of ideas that we find offensive, or symbols of those ideas?
This doctrine made a distinction between unpopular speech that might generally advocate harmful or even illegal ideology vs. speech that called for a "clear and present danger," the type of speech that the government had the right to censor or punish.
While I am not arguing a legal point here, I would encourage rational analysis of whether there is any "clear and present danger" involved in flying or displaying the Confederate flag.
Any common sense or reasonable approach to the Confederate flag issue would conclude that:
- The Confederate flag poses no CLEAR DANGER to anybody. It is, to some, offensive, hateful, unpopular, in the same way that a thousand ideas may be offensive to me. But it does not hurt anyone. It presents no clear danger to any right, unless there is a right "not to be offended."
- There is no PRESENT DANGER. Even if you concede, for the sake of argument, that the flag once supported slavery, racism....or whatever, the Confederacy ended in 1865. Nobody on earth today believes or acts as if the Confederate government exists, or that it has any power to re-enslave, encumber, discriminate, kill, maim or harm any living person. Regardless of what the flag stood for in 1865 (that is clearly up for debate) - it has no power over anyone in 2015. There is no clear danger; there is no present danger.
- the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the US Constitution
- the Civil Rights Act
- the Voting Rights Act
- the Equal Housing Act
- the Fair Employment Act
- and countless other pieces of legislation which make it nearly impossible to commit any meaningful act of discrimination against a member of the minority class.
- Numerous rulings by the federal courts that protect minorities against any infringement of constitutional rights.
Is there a right "not to be offended?" I don't believe so. I believe that minorities, in spite of their protected status, are still subject to the same offenses to their sensibilities, tastes, prejudices, opinions, likes and dislikes as the rest of us.
"Minorities, in spite of their protected status, are still subject to being offended, just like everyone else."
I am not protected against being offended, in most cases. If you set out to protect me against being offended, think of all the things you would have to outlaw, censor or eliminate. What if I am offended by Country Music? Do you censor or outlaw Country Music? What about rap? I am offended by abortion. I am offended by mosquitoes, spinish, opera, Natzism, Islam, a lot of religious beliefs that I deem to be wrong; I am offended by much of what I see on TV, and by many common words, phrases and ideas that I encounter every day. A lot of literature offends me. The list of things that offend me would take many pages if I were to write them all down. Are we to make a list of all the things that offend me and try to eliminate them? Are we to make a list of ALL the things that offend blacks (or women, or men, or seniors, or teenagers) and try to eliminate them from society? What would a society look like it it were totally void of all things that offend someone? I can't even imagine what a sanitary society of that nature would look like. It would, of course, be totally anti-democratic. Maybe it would resemble a radical Muslim Caliphate, even more extreme, perhaps.
Does anyone in America have a constitutional right not to be offended? I don't think so. And I don't believe such a goal could ever be achieved, not even by enslaving the entire population with a mandatory list of ideas that must be avoided.
Of course, the government should not go around trying to offend. It shouldn't, but it often does. I was offended when the US Government bathed the White House in pink light recently to celebrate a certain Supreme Court decision. But, I enjoy the right to be offended.
Being offended is part of the price for living in a free, or at least partially free society. When society begins trying to eliminate all things offense--it is a slippery slope that knows no boundary and if taken to the ultimate extreme ends in a dictatorship like Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Communist North Korea or a Muslim Caliphate. People might even then still be offended but they would dare not let it be known.
What's the goal here? Would we not be better off if we could concentrate on clear and present dangers to civil rights instead of ideas that we find offensive, or symbols of those ideas?
SARAH PALIN GETS IT RIGHT ABOUT CONFEDERATE FLAG
I love Sarah Palin's point comparing the Confederate Flag with Planned Parenthood's "flag". Her question is:
"Which flag killed 80,000 black babies last year?"
The question simply points to the misguided focus that's going on here. The Confederate flag isn't killing or hurting anyone. Why aren't we focused on the real present day evils in the world? There are plenty of them.
As Charles Krauthamer points out, the murders in Charleston would have happened whether the Confederate flag was flying over the capitol or not. The flag is irrelevant to anything going on in the world today.
Why are we not more concerned about murdering unborn babies, Islamic terrorism, attacks on our homeland (such as happened recently in Chattanooga), letting Iran get the atomic bomb.....on and on.....?
There is no end to the good that could be done if we'd get our hysterical national mind off what happened in the 1860s and focus on what is happening everyday in the 21st Century.
Here's an interesting link to Governor Palin's comparison:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/27/palin-planned-parenthood-not-confederate-flag-killed-90000-black-babies-in-2014/
"Which flag killed 80,000 black babies last year?"
The question simply points to the misguided focus that's going on here. The Confederate flag isn't killing or hurting anyone. Why aren't we focused on the real present day evils in the world? There are plenty of them.
As Charles Krauthamer points out, the murders in Charleston would have happened whether the Confederate flag was flying over the capitol or not. The flag is irrelevant to anything going on in the world today.
Why are we not more concerned about murdering unborn babies, Islamic terrorism, attacks on our homeland (such as happened recently in Chattanooga), letting Iran get the atomic bomb.....on and on.....?
There is no end to the good that could be done if we'd get our hysterical national mind off what happened in the 1860s and focus on what is happening everyday in the 21st Century.
Here's an interesting link to Governor Palin's comparison:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/27/palin-planned-parenthood-not-confederate-flag-killed-90000-black-babies-in-2014/
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