Corey attempts intellectual analysis

Corey Meyer has just posted a pseudo-intellectual think-piece -- his idea, I guess, of analysis -- about the Southern Heritage Preservation Group on Facebook. I really don't have a lot of time for his silliness, but I had to answer... (Grammar and spelling are as they appear on his blog; this is an exactly copy-paste.)

Corey sez: In the past few days there has been an intense exchange of comments between several Civil War Historian bloggers and the Southern Heritage Defense supporters. You can read the exchanges here, here and here. The latter site has been very active today (8-6-11).

What I want to do in this post is try and shed some light on what is going on in the minds of those Southern Heritage Defense supports

Connie replies: A prerequisite would be for you to figure out what's going on in yours first.

Corey: Any discussion on the minds of Southern Heritage Defenders (SHD) must begin with the current political climate of the United States.

Connie: Sez who? And why?

Corey: I think it is fair to say that anyone reading these words knows the current polarization of the country over the debt limit and government spending.

Connie: Possibly. On the other hand, a lot of people in America don't pay much attention to national politics, and may barely have a grasp of it.

Corey: Also, many would agree some changes are needed in Washington to help this country out of the economic troubles we are currently facing.

Connie: "Economic troubles" is quite an artful euphemism for being so deeply in debt that we'll never be able to pay it off and therefore face economic ruin/collapse as a country.

Corey: Sadly much of what SHD deal with is a combination of present troubles and the troubles facing the country in the 1860′s.

Connie: I'm afraid not. You're confabulating, here, Corey.

Corey: We historians call this presentism…the applying of today’s attitudes and experiences to the past. SHD are unknowing experts of this and I shall explain how and why they do this .

Connie: Actually, dictionary.com defines presentism as, "the doctrine that the Scripture prophecies of the Apocalypse (as in the Book of Revelations) are presently in the course of being fulfilled." You appear to be mistaken about presentism, Corey.

Corey: The SHD is someone who has an unshakable love of the Southern Confederacy that existed for only four years between 1861 and 1865. However the Southern Confederacy has lived on in the minds of people since their devastating loss at the hands of the Federal Government in 1865. The story of the reason the South went to war in 1861 has been altered by the Lost Cause Myth that sprung forth in the later half of the 19th century. This myth removed the issue of slavery from the history and made the Confederate soldiers struggle for “independence” its central them. It is, therefore, no wonder the SHD clings so tightly to the memory of the Southern soldier. The Southern soldier represents all that was good in the South during the war.

Connie: We psychologists call this "projection," Corey. You believe what you've just written, so you project this belief onto others. (Yes, I'm as much a psychologist as you are a historian. I'm as much a historian as you are, too. As much as Levin and Hall and Simpson are, as well.)

Corey: Now that the Lost Cause Myth has been dispelled and slavery returned to its rightful place in the history of the war, SHD have come to the rescue of the Southern soldier and his reputation. To think that Southern soldiers would have fought for something other than hearth and home is unthinkable to these folks.

Connie: It's not unthinkable to me. I know there were many reasons why they fought. Ye of narrow minds are the ones who try to narrow it down to one cause, usually slavery.

Corey: What SHD fail to recognize is that those soldiers fought for what the Confederacy was fighting for and that was slavery.

Connie: See? Diddin I tell ya?

Corey: I could go on and on here about the causes of secession and the writings of the Secession Commissioners from the South, but that is for a different time and place.

Connie: Sorry, that is not correct. Some of the Deep South states seceded over slavery, among other things (the other things are listed in their Declarations of Causes but you have to not stop reading after you encounter the word "slavery.") The states of the upper South seceded because D.C. in violation of the founding principles of the USA, was planning a military invasion of the South. The fighting was because an army invaded the Southern states -- but that army did not invade to free slaves, so the South could not have been fighting to defend slavery.

Corey: SHD find themselves in a precarious position.

Connie: Not me. My position is just fine.

Corey: They on one hand want to honor their ancestor soldiers and keep their memory untarnished while at the same time deny the big overreaching reason these men went to war.

Connie: The overarching reason they went to war was to defend family and home from a barbaric invading army.

Corey: During this process today’s displeasure with how things are being run in Washington overlap.

Connie: What claptrap. They do not overlap. The USA, while violating its founding principles to invade the South, was not the global bullying empire it is today. If you think the two situations are similar, the only thing similar is that the American empire was in its infancy back then and today it is a huge, strapping monstrosity of a bully.

Corey: They see their Confederate ancestors struggle against the “evil empire” as their struggle against, ironically the first black President who happens to be a Democrat.

Connie: Struggling against the first black President? You get more delusional with every paragraph, Corey. What difference does it make what color he is? He's presiding over, and assisting, the economic collapse of the country. You're fine with that? I thought you were this big USA supporter and defender. What most people are doing is struggling to keep their heads above water, economically.

Corey: Therefore if secession was legal and the best remedy for what ailed the country in 1860, something similar is good today. This is what prompts them to claim anyone who disagrees with their view of the Civil War to be a revisionist or Communist/Marxist.

Connie: Ah, who claims that? I only claim someone is a communist/Marxist if they promote, espouse or seek to bring about communism or Marxism. Most of the ones I've encountered have little knowledge about the War -- they just have the propagandist view of it.

Corey: So, in my humble opinion, to save face not only for themselves but their ancestors as well they must root for the United States to fall apart. That way they and their ancestors will be vindicated for what happened 150 years ago. For them there is no other course to prove that what their ancestors did during the War of the Rebellion was correct…or as the Kennedy Brothers say..”The South Was Right”. The one thing I find ironic is that their worship of Bobby Lee and all things Confederate seems even more diehard than the admiration for Lincoln by those they refer to as the “cult” of Lincoln.

Connie: Your humble(?) opinion is wrong. The USA is falling apart; what we say or don't say won't change that. It is past the point of no return. We are rapidly falling to third-world economic status. And yes, it was a long-haul process that began with Lincoln's destruction of the founders federated republics. And if everything the Confederates did wasn't correct, the union was even more incorrect, Corey. Whatever criticism you want to level at the South, the same and worse can be said of the north.

Corey: Oh well…I really should not try to understand them, but try to empathize with them…after all they did lose the war.

Connie: Exactly, you should not try to understand because you are not equipped to. Your cognition is way too distorted by your prejudice and your rigid subjectivity to understand anyone who believes the slightest bit differently than you.

BTW, Corey. How do you get "SHD" out of Southern Heritage Preservation Group?

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Folks, one of the things you need to realize when reading this claptrap hooey from Corey is that a number of members of the SHPG are Vietnam vets. Regardless of whether you agree with the U.S. policy of "containment" in Southeast Asia, the men of today who went over there as boys, teenagers -- the average age was 19 -- put their lives on the line for their country. Fifty-thousand of them lost their lives. Thousands of others faced a host of medical problems (and still do) thanks to their own government's disregard for their health and lives over there. And the civilian culture largely gave them the back of its hand across their jaws.

I challenge Corey to tell us what is his military service to this country he falls on his face and worships. Let's hear it, Corey. Army? Navy? Air Force? Marines? Name, rank and serial number. Years of service. Duty stations. Type of discharge....