"As Gen. Forrest would say, 'Talk is cheap.'"
It is said that the ghost of Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest rides around the haunted battlefields of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Kentucky by night. Some have reported the gray caped spirit of Gen. John Bell Hood in the woods around Chickamauga Creek.
Left wingers have the right to criticize the Confederacy and its politics. But I'd like to see one of them carry on a conversation with Hood or Forrest regarding the honor of Confederate soldiers. I'd like to see one of them dishonor the Confederate flag in the presence of these men. That would truly be a courageous act.
Frankly, I don't think our liberal friends have the stomach for such conversation.
John Bell Hood commanded the Army of Tennessee. He fought at Gettysburg where he permanently lost the use of his left arm in battle. Being transferred to the western front, Hood launched a massive attack into a gap in Union lines at the Battle of Chickamauga and had his right leg blown off. In spite of these permanent and hideous wounds, Hood continued to fight for most of the remainder of the war. You would not wish to argue character with General Hood.
Neither will wise men speak ill of the Southern spirit in the presence of Gen. Forrest. Bedford was in his share of tough fights, before and after the war. In 1841, Forrest's uncle was killed by several of the Matlock brothers in Hernando, Mississippi. Bedford shot two of them with his two-shot pistol and wounded two more in a knife fight. He stood 6 feet, 2 inches tall and weighed 210 pounds. It is estimated that during the war Bedford personally killed 30 enemy soldiers. He was known as a hard rider and fierce swordsman. At the Battle of Fallen Timbers he charged a large group of enemy soldiers only to realize too late that his men had abandoned the charge to leave Forrest intermingling with the enemy alone. Realizing his men were not with him, Forrest used his Colt and sabre to clear the road of enemy troops and galloped back to his own men. A Union soldier attempted to dismount Forrest by pulling him off his horse. Forrest yanked the man across the saddle in front of him, charged back to his own lines, then dropped the enemy soldier to the ground with a heavy thud. During this escapade, Forrest was shot in the back at point blank range with a musket. A surgeon removed the ball without the benefit of anesthesia.
At Brice's Cross Roads, Forrest commanded 500 troops when he encountered a Union force of 8,500 troops under Brig. Gen. Samuel D. Sturgis. Forrest charged the northern troops and drove them from the field, having his horse shot from under him in the fight. Biographers state that Forrest had 15 horses shot from under him during the war. A conversation about the inadequacies of southern virtue is one that I would not wish to have with Mr. Forrest.
So when the sissy left wingers speak of kicking the a--es of Confederates, they do so only from the safety of television studios, wearing their lipstick, face powder and cheap cologne.
As Gen. Forrest would say, "Talk is cheap."
It left its Northern base and stealthily crept along the base of the mountains, out of sight, then forded the Potomac to invade Virginia in the dead of night-- turning its deadly snake-like head toward the Deep South.
We call it political correctness. It was a gradual invasion. At first, it made some sense. Offensive and hateful speech was targeted. PC speech tried to be sensitive, caring, treating all of God's children with respect. I applaud that.
Then, over the years PC got crazy. In its extremes, PC began to practice the very things that it once condemned. Whole sections of the nation were branded as racists or bigots. Emblems were criminalized. Ideas were demonized. Nothing was safe or simple any more. Restrooms for men and women aren't enough any more. The Washington Redskins Cleveland Indians have to be renamed after 100 years. Dixie isn't a PC tune, even at halftime at a southern university or high school. The entire entertainment industry has been provided with PC indoctrination (brainwashing). As far as we know, this was mostly voluntary.
The South is one of the kindest, compassionate and caring place in the world. Nobody has manners, charm, smiles and welcome mats bigger or brighter than Charleston, Atlanta, Bowling Green, or Chapel Hill.
It is always an outsider who doesn't understand the South, has never lived in the South, cannot whistle Dixie if his life depended on it--those are the folks who try to use their version of PC to indict the South on bogus charges. The South has been framed.
As a frog gigging, squirrel hunting, stump jumping, snuff dipping, log snaking, tractor pulling, turnip loving, slow drawling son of the South, I say, "Leave your PC stupidity at the Mason Dixon Line, where it belongs." Come on down to Macon or Tupelo or Mobile and get a whiff of that warm Southern breeze. Enjoy some really tolerant, sensible, compassionate, fun-loving Southern ladies and gentlemen. Listen to them say "ya'll, fixin' to," or "How ya doin', Sugah?" See them dig some crawdads and cook a fine pot of turnip greens with a turn of exquisite cornbread while you sip on real Southern sweet tea.
There's nothing to fear in the real South. I promise you, you will not see one single slave. No brutal plantations, no African Americans being tormented by people with sheets over their heads. No burning crosses, no hate filled marches in the streets, none of the imaginary stuff the PC pundits up North fantasize about. And our African-American citizens experience drastically fewer incidents of violence purpetrated by a po-lice officer than ya'll would see in places like Chicago, Gary, Indiana, Cleveland, Ohio, Baltimore, Maryland, or Newark, New Jersey.
The South is a place of friendly, enlightened people, sugar white beaches, tranquil blue waters, towering pines, carefully manicured lawns, mockingbirds, best selling authors, space engineers, iced tea, fine food, welcoming smiles, pleasant conversations and sitting on the front porch at night listening to the whip-0-wills along the hollow road.
Come visit us down heah in the South. Just leave your PC at the Mason Dixon Line. You can pick it up on your back north, if you decide it's worth going back to. Most of ya'll stay here once you see how charming and gracious the South really is. You will probably nevah go back north at all. Heck, the furtherest north I've been in decades is Nashville.
P.S. You may still see a few "confederate flags" down heah. Not hate. Culture.
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.
I've told you about my friend who lives alone in a big 4 bedroom house that his family has always "owned." Get used to that word being in quotation marks. "Owned," as we now say. The word is becoming archaic, silly, outdated. The very idea that a person can "own" anything! The word "own" is never allowed in a socialist or Marxist society. The idea that an individual can "own" anything is repulsive, stupid and it has outlived it's usefulness. Speaking of "owning" something belongs to the old generation, not the new one. That's how we're being trained to think.
Anyway, my friend lives in this huge old house that he believes he "owns." That's the word we old timers would have used for property we bought and paid for and it was always ours. We felt that we "owned" it. My friend feels that way. But he supports Bernie Sanders' idea that we should all be economically equal. I don't think he has thought it through.
Even though my friend is poor and lives on a small Social Security check, he is not equal. He has a great deal more than many people. First, he has that big old house, which is bigger than most houses around. There are certainly many people who have to get by with much smaller houses. Second, he "owns" two automobiles. There are people around who only have one car. There are many people around who don't have a car at all. Some people have to walk, hitch a ride or take the bus. So my friend has better transportation than some people.
Also, my friend eats out a lot. I see him at restaurants around town, fast food and nicer placers, nearly every day. A lot of people don't get to eat out nearly every day. A lot of people have to eat at home and they may only be able to afford soup or Ramen Noodles. You get the idea. My friend is not equal. He eats a lot better than some people.
My friend gets good medical care. He has Medicare because of his age. And I think he may have a "gap" policy that pays what Medicare doesn't. There are a lot of people who are still uninsured and have trouble getting medical care at all. So my friend is not equal. He is above equal.
Now, to make the world equal, something will have to be done about my friend. Simply put, he has too much to be equal with everyone. True, there are many people who have more than he has; but there are many people who have less. So, somebody will have to find all the people who have more and take away some of what they have. Then, they will have to take away some of what my friend has (maybe his big house and one of his cars) and give it to somebody who is more "not equal" than he is.
However, this will cause yet more inequality. My friend will still have more than some people and less than others.
"The US Government already controls 50 percent of the US economy. We already have a socialist government, just not total socialism.
How much Socialism would be enough? 75 percent? 90 percent? Or do we
need 100 percent, like North Korea? How much socialism is enough?"
I don't think anyone has ever solved the true "equality" problem. North Korea has come about as close as anyone ever has. (Cuba is really not that close). Each day, the North Korean government measures out a certain amount of rice for each man, woman and child in the country. Everyone gets the same amount, except workers get more than those who don't work. If anyone is caught growing or eating additional food, they are imprisoned and tortured. The idea is that everybody must be equal. In spite of those extreme measures, there is a small class of people who are rich and live lavish lifestyles. They are elite members of the ruling Communist (Socialist) party. They have limos, $3,000 suits, diamond rings...and they dine of caviar and drink expensive wines. They attend lavish dinner parties and spend thousands of dollars on one evening of entertainment. That's all right, though, because we don't count them. They are exceptions. Nearly everyone else is "equal."
In North Korea, trading or commerce is not permitted unless it is done by the Communist Party - because somebody could possibly make some money or become more affluent than somebody else. You cannot "own" a home, a vehicle, a vegetable garden or even an animal. Chickens, horses, cows and even dogs belong the the Communist Party. If you are caught killing a chicken, you are arrested and charged with stealing from the Party. They try really hard to keep everyone equal.
Now, of course, my friend says that Bernie doesn't want that kind of Socialism for America! However, that's the only kind of pure Socialism there is. Anything less is not true Socialism but a mixture of Socialism and free market capitalism. And all Socialists, in all of history, began by saying they didn't want that kind of Socialism. Lenin said he didn't he want that kind of Socialism.
So let's all go down to the polls and elect Bernie in November. Let's trust Bernie not to give us that kind of Socialism, but a friendlier, gentler kind (whatever that is). There is only one problem with that.
The US Government already controls 50 percent of the US economy. We already have a 50% socialist government, just not purely or totally socialist. So, if we are not socialist enough now - we must need pretty radical socialist reform to drive us further toward a Marxist-Lenist economy. How much Socialism would be enough? 75 percent? 90 percent? Or do we need 100 percent, like North Korea? How much socialism is enough?
How will we know when we are all financially equal? Will it be when the government begins to measure out our food each day?
I have a friend who loves Bernie Sanders, or thinks he does. My guess is, he doesn't know Bernie Sanders or what he really stands for. But he thinks Bernie is all right. He thinks Bernie wants to makes all of us more equal.
My friend believes that it is wrong for some people to earn a lot of money while other have nearly nothing. He believes it is unjust that his former employer lived in a large house, drove a new car and went to expensive vacations, while he, my friend, earned minimum wage and barely got by. My friends longs for a world in which Bernie Sanders will make the rich people pay more and give the poor part of their wealth.
However, my friend will not like the world when the followers of Bernie Sanders take over. Believe me, he will not like it.
You see, my friend, though he considers himself to be poor, lives in a large old house that he inherited from his mother and father. He lives alone in the old house with 4 bedrooms, a separate living room, dining room, kitchen and 2 bathrooms. That's more house than he needs. That's more than many poor people have.
That house should be occupied by a larger family with, say 5 or 6 kids, and 3 or 4 adults. My friend should be moved to a small efficiency apartment with one bedroom, a tiny bathroom and a small kitchenette. Maybe 700 sq. ft.
Who says he should? Bernie Sanders, that's who. In the real world of socialism, the government forces "efficiency." One old man has no right to live in a large house that could better be used to house a large family with 6 kids. In fact, an individual has no right to own anything...period. The government would own the house and decide who gets to live there. And it would not be my friend. The government would decide how many automobiles to be manufactured each year and it would own the auto production factories. my friend drives an old car but if he ever wanted a newer one, he would have to get Bernie's permission to buy one. I don't think he would like that.
For socialism to work, the government must own and control nearly everything. As long as individuals own private property, they can decide what to do with it. This is as anti-socialist as it gets. Socialism must, by definition, destroy the private ownership of property. That's the only way to make everyone truly "equal." Once our right to "own" anything is taken away, we have no real rights.
Who says my friend has a right to live in his big old house if he wants to? The private ownership of property says so. He owns it, he can live in it as long as he wants. But only as long as he owns it. But if he no longer owned it..... If the government owned it.... Then, the government would decide who lives there.
My friend drives a big, gas guzzling automobile. The socialist would say he should not do so. He ought to drive a little Geo Metro or some other little two-seater contraption.
If my friend understood Bernie, I don't think he would like him or his plan for America. But my friend does not understand Bernie. Neither do the millions of people pushing for a socialist or Marxist agenda for America. They won't like the real Bernie, either. Any more than Russia liked Lenin or Stalin. Any more than Cuba liked Fidel, once he was really in power. Any more than Venezuela liked Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías. But they learned too late.
I saw a poll the other day that says 40 percent of college students feel that socialism is better than our present free enterprise ("capitalist") system. 50 percent of high school students prefer socialism. However, a majority of them could not define or explain what socialism is. They've just been taught to prefer it.
If you believe those numbers, we can't be very far away from electing a socialist (excuse me "Democratic Socialist") government. Heck, the Socialist candidate got 40 percent of the vote in Georgia and Alabama in the primaries. Maybe we're even closer than I feared.
APRIL 9, 1865 (APPAMATTOX COURT HOUSE, VIRGINIA) - Robert E. Lee surrenders the Army of Northern Virginia to U.S. Grant, commanding, Army of the Potomac.
A ragged and starving Confederate army surrendered today after being surrounded by superior Union forces commanded by Ulysses S. Grant. The Southern army attempted for weeks to fight its way out of Grant's tightening encirclement. Lee's army, facing hunger and depletion of manpower, launched one brutal attack after another against Union forces, hoping to connect with railroad shipments of vital food supplies, which ultimately failed. The final battle came near the tiny village of Appomattox Court House.
After a series of written exchanges between Lee and Grant during the previous day, a meeting was hastily arranged for April 9th at Mr. McLean's house in the village of Appamattox. General Grant rode most of the night to arrive in time for the meeting. He reportedly suffered a severe headache and appeared tired, wearing a mud splattered private's uniform. In striking contrast, Lee appeared wearing a new gray uniform, polished boots and parade sword.
After a brief conversation, General Lee signed the surrender document and rose to leave without ceremony.
As Lee began to ride away, Grant's troops began to cheer, their intent being to cheer the Union's victory. Grant immediately silenced them, reminding his troops that "The rebs are our countrymen again."
This event could only have occurred in the world of 1865, never in today's world. In today's world, it would have been much different.
There would have been yelling mobs outside the McLean house. Agitators would have been bused in from Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and other cities. Liberal spokesmen would have appeared decrying the racial injustice that had been done, demanding change. Pinch hitters would have appeared at the CNN, MSNBC and CBS news buses, reminding audiences how dastardly the South had been. Demands would have been made for retribution against Lee, his officers, his army. Doubtless, arrests would have occurred, military tribunals established on the spot and the "rebel" prisoners would have been shot or lynched. Even the graves of dead Confederate soldiers would have been dug open and the bodies exhumed for humiliation and dishonor. All Confederate flags and southern state flags would have been gathered and ceremonially burned. Tiny Confederate flags meant to mark the graves of southern soldiers would have been prohibited. Great care would have been taken to make certain that all traces of the Confederacy's existence was forever hidden--expunged, so that no one would ever know its story.
In addition to the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments which followed the war, other amendments would have been ratified. The 16th Amendment would have made it a federal crime to fly the Confederate flag or any insignia which resembles the flag. The 17th Amendment would have banned any motion picture, video game, photography, literary work, song or other literary or artistic depiction of any Confederate person, flag, idea, image or notion in any form. The 18th Amendment would have authorized cities and states to disinter dead Confederate soldiers and leaders and remove their bodies from city parks, to tear down their statues and rename any park, street, building or other remembrance or memorial. It would be a federal crime to in any way honor a southern "hero" or person who had participated in the Civil War if he had worn a Confederate uniform or served in a Confederate or southern state government position.
That's what would have happened if the War Between the States had ended in 2015, instead of in 1865. The world, you see, has become a much more politically corrupt and politically wicked place than it was in 1865. Alas, there are no Lincolns among us today. No US Grants, either, for that matter. The weary battle-worn General in the plain blue uniform at Appomattox who silenced his cheering soldiers as Lee rode away would have been expected to "loose the vengeance of his terrible swift sword..." Grant would have been reluctant but probably could not have withstood the political pressure from the far left in his own party. It would not have been a pretty sight.
There have been plenty of times when insanity has pulled earth out of its normal orbit. It happened in Nazi Germany, in Stalinist Russia, and during the French Revolution, as a few examples. I want to explore the French Revolution a little more.
The basic idea of the French Revolution was to change people's beliefs, identities and values. It was also to re-educate people and to eradicate traditional ways of thinking so a new cultural normal could be introduced. While it evoked a fondness for decimalization and metrication, it went a lot further than decimals and metrics. It had a great deal to do with secularization, the removal of religion from society or, at least, marginalizing religion so that it had no influence on the state or national life. And it causes us to think about some of what is happening in Post Modern America.
After the French Revolution, the traditional 7-day week was changed to a week with 10 days. Sunday was replaced with the tenth day, called "decadi." This disrupted worship on Sunday and it was intended to. (Spelling was even changed, e.g., Bible became bible).
The traditional 24-hour day was changed. The new day had 10 hours. Each hour had 100 minutes. Each minute contained 100 seconds.
So, the new French hour contained 144 conventional minutes (making it over twice as long). The new minute contained 86.4 conventional seconds (44% longer). The new second equaled only 0.864 conventional seconds (13.6% shorter).
I assume that this was so confusing that nobody was on time because nobody knew what time it was. Workers didn't like the system because now they got one day off every 10 days instead of 1 day off every 7 days. (No, the national domestic product did not increase correspondingly).
If the clock situation isn't confusing enough, the French radicals messed with the calendar, too. They kept a 12 month year but changed the names of everything. Weeks had 10 days. And the New Year began in the Autumn. Here are the names of the months (all new, of
course):
Autumn
vendemiaire - "grape harvest"
bromaire - "midst"
frimaire - "frost"
Winter
nivose - "snowy"
pluviose - "rainy"
ventose - "windy"
Spring
germinal - from "germination"
florial - "flower"
prairial - "meadow"
Summer
messidor - "harvest"
thermidor - "summer heat"
fructidor - "fruit"
In other parts of the world, Britain in particular, they poked fun at the new months, calling them: "Wheezy, Sneezy and Breezy; Flippy, Drippy and Nippy; Showery, Flowery and Bowery; and Hoppy, Croppy and Poppy."
As I said, the goofy French extremists invented a new week that contained 10 days instead of seven. They were very creative in naming the new days of the week, as you will see.
primidi - first day
duodi - second day
tridi - third day
quartidi - fourth day
quintidi - fifth day
sextidi - sixth day
septidi - seventh day
octidi - eighth day
nonidi - ninth day
decadi - tenth day (replacing Sunday, the traditional day of rest or worship)
Many "enlightened" secularists today will tell you that the French Revolution changed the world and ushered in the beautiful new world of human rights that followed. But there is much they won't admit about the French Revolution:
Instability was rampant. There were eleven new constitutions since 1789. France experimented with every form of government, including dictatorship, absolute monarchy, republican, democratic, and monarchy again.
Rights came to be seen as abstractions bestowed by a powerful, coercive state which often undercut tradition, custom, law or traditional liberties.
Wars. The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars convulsed and changed the entire map of Europe and began the colonization process. The Revolution also brought the rise of nationalism and with it the rise of national hatred and conflict, never more prominent than in Germany, ultimately realized under Bismark. The French Revolution poisoned Europe for the entire century which followed and indirectly set the stage for World Wars I and II.
Violence. Not only wars, but political violence followed. Anticlericalism led to the repudiation of Christian values and sentiments and injected hate into the political process in France. We would do well to remember that hate was first ushered into the political process by liberal extremists during the French Revolution.
In fact, our term "right wing" and "left wing" as used in modern times comes from the French Revolution. It referred to the seating arrangements of the two major groups in the Constituent Assembly.
The Revolution took traditional Christian values out of public life. Citizenship or nationalism became the only sort of identity recognized by the French State, making it harder for France to integrate religious minorities such as Muslims, who find their identities elsewhere (certainly outside of France, as we have seen).
Defenders of the French Revolution will point out that it ended absolute monarchies in Europe. It did that. However, Professor Lynn Hunt of UCLA regards the Revolution as an enormous dysfunctional family haunted by patricide: Louis as the father, Marie-Antoinette as the mother, and the revolutionaries as the unruly mob of brothers.
So, we can see a great deal of ourselves in the French Revolution: social unrest, revolt against authority, questioning of all traditions or customs, secularization, violence, political hatred, rampant political correctness, terror, instability, government indecisiveness, destruction of culture and tradition, increase of central state power, underpinning of moral principles, experimentation-- change just for the sake of change. (You will continue to see "CHANGE" as a key political word in upcoming campaigns, even after you might think that Obama has ruined the word).
