-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- "The time has come when the spoiled brats of modernity need to be told they cannot always have their own way, that things are not always going to be changed to accommodate their bawling and bellyaching, and that if they don't like the old battle flag flying over Columbia, they will just have to learn to live with it." -- Patrick J. Buchanan "Perfect happiness, I believe, was never intended by the Deity to be the lot of one of his creatures in this world; but that he has very much put in our power the nearness of our approaches to it, is what I have steadfastly believed." --Thomas Jefferson to John Page, 1763. ME 4:10 ---------------------------- http://www.dixienet.org/dn-gazette/skirmish.htm New Skirmishes in the Cultural War by Patrick J. Buchanan 10 June 1997 In 1898, 34 years after Gen. Sherman's army burned Atlanta to the ground, a Union veteran visited the city. The veteran "addressed the Georgia legislature, praising the valor of the Confederate dead and proffering national aid in the care of their graves. ... Georgia rose up to greet him and with Georgia the whole South." It was a magnificent gesture by President William McKinley, who been a teen-ager at Antietam. The scene was recreated by biographer Margaret Leech in "In the Days of McKinley": "He sprang to his feet when the band played 'Dixie' and waved his hat above his head. He reviewed the marching ranks of gray-clad troops. ... His voice was fervent as he said that the old disagreements had faded into history and the nation would remain indivisible forever. Gen. Joe Wheeler often stood beside the president, swelling the ovation by his immense popularity." McKinley had chosen "Fighting Joe" to lead U.S. troops in the Spanish-American War. Before the victory at Santiago, the old Confederate cavalryman had been heard to yell, "We've got the Yankees, I mean the Spanish, on the run!" For four years, McKinley had seen the Civil War dead "piled up." But if this veteran of Antietam could stand out of respect for the flag of his foes, what, exactly, is our problem 100 years later? A few weeks back, a storm erupted when it was discovered that Maryland had allowed members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans to have a replica of the old battle flag printed on their license plates. The state was forced to discontinue a gracious gesture. Now, South Carolina is in an uproar. The governor who pledged to keep the Confederate flag flying over the capital has said it perhaps should be taken down. Now, the state legislature is considering a November referendum to let the people decide. Which is as it should be. The symbols that a people honor should be freely chosen by them and neither imposed nor deposed by elites. Against the battle flag, the old arguments are being trotted out. It has been used by racists to taunt black folks. Yes, and the cross of Christ has been burned on hillsides. But that does not make the cross a symbol of evil. The battle flag represents the cause of slavery! Nonsense. It flew over the Confederate armies, not slave auctions. And the War of 1861-1865 did not begin over slavery. When the Confederate guns fired on Fort Sumter, there were more slave states in the Union (eight) than in the Confederacy (seven). The struggle over the battle flag is one more skirmish in a cultural war long underway in America. In this war, the aggressors are the modernists. They are the iconoclasts tearing down symbols, heroes and holidays of an older America. Look at who and what is under attack. Washington's Birthday dissolves into Presidents' Day. Easter is out; spring break is in. Columbus is reviled. VMI and the Citadel must be reconstructed. Custer National Battlefield must be renamed. The Ten Commandments must come down from courthouse walls. Christmas carols are forbidden in public schools. Prayers are outlawed. And, of course, all Confederate monuments and flags are reviled. These modernist campaigns have in common two things: They are all attacks on traditional symbols, icons or heroes; second, none reflects the wishes of the great majority. When changes are made, they are ordered by unelected judges or produced by moral pressure from clamorous elites who are entering a claim that their symbols, heroes and holidays must have priority of place in a public square that is supposed to belong to all of us. Time after time, to advance social peace, traditionalists have caved in. Whether made out of a spirit of accommodation or moral timidity, these concessions have proven a mistake. For the left has not been mollified; there is no gratitude, no reciprocity. Though it professes a devotion to diversity, the left is deeply intolerant and is not going to be satisfied with traditionalists making room for its symbols and heroes in the public square; it wants ours out! The time has come when the spoiled brats of modernity need to be told they cannot always have their own way, that things are not always going to be changed to accommodate their bawling and bellyaching, and that if they don't like the old battle flag flying over Columbia, they will just have to learn to live with it. Let South Carolina vote this November on whether the people wish to continue flying a flag that braver men fought and died under -- to prevent an invading army from burning and looting South Carolina. Time to teach the noisemakers a lesson in democracy. © Pat Buchanan DixieNet™ is maintained by Apologia Services. © Copyright 1995-99, The League of the South, Inc. All rights reserved. http://www.dixienet.org/dn-gazette/skirmish.htm Bard "The evidence of [the] natural right [of expatriation], like that of our right to life, liberty, the use of our faculties, the pursuit of happiness, is not left to the feeble and sophistical investigations of reason, but is impressed on the sense of every man. We do not claim these under the charters of kings or legislators, but under the King of Kings." --Thomas Jefferson to John Manners, 1817. ME 15:124 <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soap-boxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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