Backing and Forthing....

Palmetto Patriot has posted a response to my criticism at the Southern Nationalist Network blog.  Before I address the only thing I consider worth discussing at any length, let me say I make no apologies for not jumping on the Dugin bandwagon, and I stand by my statement that there are many other philosophers, historians, theologians, academics, ideologists etc., whose works would better serve the cause of Southern Nationalism.

With that out of the way, I do note a few things about this paragraph:

To remind readers, my talk was given to Southern nationalists, who were addressed as such in its title. Throughout the speech I repeated the line, ‘Southern nationalists are/were not conservatives.’ Notice that Chastain is compelled to defend George W Bush, a man whose anti-Southern policies I brought up in my speech. Notice too that Chastian is willing to  overlook or excuse those anti-Southern policies because of his position on her favourite social issues. What did Bush do to end abortion in the United States when he was in office and his fellow conservatives had control of the US Congress? They essentially conserved the status quo, like good status quo conservatives. What did they do for the South? They conserved the anti-Southern status quo (by extending the Voting Rights Act for 25 more years) like good status quo conservatives. Bush was a dreadful president from a Southern nationalist point of view – one of the worst in recent history. And yet Chastain defends him from her conservative point of view. By doing so she makes it clear that her point of view is not Southern nationalist.

What Palmetto Patriot has done in the above paragraph is to create a false dichotomy -- an either/or proposition.  I have noted before the tendency of people to create a false dichotomy by claiming there are only two alternatives -- either Idea A, or its complete and total opposite. If you don't accept and embrace Idea A in its totality, well, then, you must embrace its opposite, completely and totally.  There is no possibility of a third, fourth or fifth way of looking an issue.

I have written about the false dichotomy here, here, here and here, usually (though not always) as it is palmed off by Southern heritage critics like Brooks D. Simpson.

First, I felt no compulsion to defend George W. Bush -- and I did not defend him.  You cannot read my comments and find a defense of him, compulsive or otherwise. My comments were made to explain those Bush issues that Southern traditionalists supported and approved of.  These were based on my observation of, and conversations with, Southern traditionalists during the Bush years. Explaining likely reasons why Southern traditionalists supported Bush is not a defense of Bush, but an explanation of Southern traditionalists' views and motives. I can't really believe Palmetto Patriot does not see this.

Palmetto Patriot seems to be saying if you supported Bush's position on ANY issue, you supported his position on ALL of them (and that amounts to defending Bush).  But that is a false dichotomy that claims you must support them all, or you must reject them all. There is no acknowledgement that there is a third way ... one might support Bush's positions on some things, and reject his position on others.  Frankly,  I think few people ever agree totally with ALL of any politician's positions -- or any parent's positions, for that matter, or teacher's or wife's or employer's ... or blogger's.

I am a Southern nationalist. I support the independence of the South, and have done so since I discovered the Southern independence movement in 1999.  From 2000 to about 2004, I published an online ezine, 180 Degrees True South, the tagline for which was An e-zine for those who love the South, honor its heritage and seek its independence.  I wrote in support of independence for Dixie, and published the writings of others who also supported it.

I am also a Southern traditionalist and agree with most other Southern traditionalists on most issues, but I was not a supporter of Bush and certainly not a compulsive defender. I've never voted for him in my life, and in 180 Degrees True South, I was extremely critical of his actions regarding the Confederate plaques in the Texas Supreme Court building.  When he was president, I didn't support his wars in the Mid-East, his immigration policy or his refusal to secure our borders.

But apparently, knowing the issues for which many Southern traditionalists supported him makes me a "compulsive defender" of Bush and all his policies.  I know.  Makes no sense to me, either.

One other point. Palmetto Patriot asks, "What did Bush do to end abortion in the United States when he was in office and his fellow conservatives had control of the US Congress?"  First, Presidents and Congress cannot overturn Supreme Court decisions. But I do note that Bush nominated two justices to the Supreme Court -- Roberts and Alito -- who exhibit antagonism toward abortion and whose nomination struck terror and hatred into the abortion lobby. If abortion is to be ended, it must be done by the Supreme Court's overturning Roe v. Wade, which will require the nomination and appoinment of justices who will rule to end it.

Beware the false dichotomy.  Beware fabricating it and then palming off the notion that a critic totally embraces one of the two artificially created alternatives.  Few people, few issues, are that stark and limited.

The King of Hypocrisy

Brooks D. Simpson, hypocritus monumentalus, writes, "...members of the SHPG are famous for attacking books and articles they have not read, a sign of how they hold themselves above normal methods of learning and understanding."

This from a man who has repeatedly attacked my novels which he has not read. To borrow a phrase from Tom Wolfe, the stench of hypocrisy wafting from the Crossroads blog will burn the rhinal cavaties raw....

He just can't get enough of lyin'

Brooks D. Simpson must be addicted to lying.  He just can't seem to help himself.  At Crossroads blog, he post a comment he lifted from the Southern Heritage Preservation Group, and adds this commentary afterward:

Those nasty abolitionists … and those wonderful, caring slaveholders … and fate intervening (why would fate have to intervene if slaveholders were so wonderful?)

Wouldn’t it be nice?

The only problem -- the original commenter said absolutely nothing about wonderful, caring slaveholders.

The poster does mention "the bond of eternal friendship between the former slave and the master" that might have occurred had slavery been ended a different way, but the "masters" (i.e., Simpson's "slaveholders") are not described in any way whatever; no adjectives, good or bad, modify the term.

You have to wonder, if the comments of heritage folks are so awful, why does a professor of history at a major state university find it necessary to lie in order to create or magnify the awfulness?

Here's the comment as it appears at Simpson's blog:

The worst thing to ever happen to the American Negro was the abolitionists. But for them ever agitating to free the Negro slave forthwith, the issue MIGHT have been resolved in such a manner so as to prepare the Negro for the duties and responsiblities of liberty and citisenship. Thus ensuring the bond of eternal friendship between the former slave and the master.

But alas, such was NOT meant to be. For had fate intervened, mighten not American liberty, and responsible citisenship been taught to these unfortunates? And mighten not this continent been spared the evils of “”civil war”" such as been unseen? And the resulting consequences?

And was not this to have been the greatest yet legacy? The handing down of the prepared ctitisenship responsibilities to a formerly subjugated race, properly readied for the awesome tasks of American liberty?

The whole world would yet be praising us for this deed, some 100/150 years later.

Southern Conservatism -- A Response

Michael Cushman has posted at the Southern Nationalist Network website the transcript of a speech he recently gave at a League of the South gathering in Georgia.  The following is my response to Status quo conservatism & Southern nationalism.

I first have to note that the description/definition of "conservatives" in this article is incomplete and perhaps a bit deceptive because of it. I'm referring to this description, "...conservatives ... have wanted to preserve the status quo – the Modernist values and social order today based on democracy, equality and universalism – that we suffer under today." 

Perhaps the qualifier "status quo conservatism" is supposed to clue the reader that the article deals with a only certain type of conservatism (as opposed to, say, non-status quo conservatism) -- or perhaps a certain segment of it.  But the qualifier is neutralized by the article itself, which seems to encompass the whole of conservatism.

The source of this truncated definition is evidently Professor Alexander Dugin. I had never heard of Alexander Dugin until reading this article, so I did a brief online search about him.  Perhaps his somewhat limited definitions or descriptions of liberal and conservative are accurate to some degree, but I do not see that as a reason for Southern Nationalists to pay much attention to him -- as the old saying goes, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Just from reading his Wikipedia entry alone, I find plenty of reasons to consider his viewpoints irrelevant, at best.  He is identified as ...

...a politologist, traditionalist, and one of the most popular ideologists of the creation of an Eurasian empire that would be against the North Atlantic interests. He is also well known for his proximity to fascism, he has had close ties to the Kremlin and Russian military. He was the leading organizer of National Bolshevik Party, National Bolshevik Front, and Eurasia Party. His political activities are directed toward restoration of the Russian Empire through partitioning of the former Soviet republics, such as Georgia and Ukraine, and unification with Russian-speaking territories, especially Eastern Ukraine and Crimea.

Some may consider Wikipedia insufficient reason for rejecting an author or his writings, but if this is the description of an ally of Southern nationalists, I have to wonder who needs opponents?  I believe there are many other philosophers, historians, theologians, academics, ideologists etc., whose works would better serve the cause of Southern Nationalism.

In any case, the problem I have with this view of conservatism is that it is not only incomplete, but primarily political; it ignores cultural and social conservatism, which could also be termed traditionalism. Issues vital to social conservatives were totally ignored in Mr. Cushman's article.

For a great many Southern traditionalists (aka social conservatives), the modernist values of democracy, equality, universalism, globalism, human rights, etc., so tightly focused on in this article, are abstractions at best. Traditionalists are far more strongly focused on traditional views of social units such as the family, church, and community. They are opposed to abortion, radical feminism, homosexuality and same-sex marriage, sex education in schools and similar issues.

To the extent that they focus on politics at all, it is largely to identify politicians whose views of these issues most closely parallel their own -- or at least, whose views are not openly antagonistic to their own. Southern traditionalists didn't support George W. Bush necessarily because of his extending the voting rights act, or his foreign wars, or immigration policy. They supported him because of his record of opposing abortion, of supporting traditionally defined marriage, his public statements of faith, and similar cultural and social issues.

Wikipedia notes that social conservatives are strongest in the South.

Perhaps the greatest omission in the article is the role of faith in conservatism and the South.  Traditionalist views of social issues are virtually always based on faith, particularly the Christian faith.

Wikipedia also notes, "The Bible Belt is an informal term for a region in the south-eastern and south-central United States in which socially conservative evangelical Protestantism is a significant part of the culture and Christian church attendance across the denominations is generally higher than the nation's average."

When the definition or concept of conservatism is not artificially constricted or truncated, when it is given this more comprehensive -- and, to me, accurate -- definition, the South and Southerners are indeed conservative.

Once again, Brooks D. Simpson proves that liars gotta lie....

He posts a comment I made in a thread following a video, here: http://www.lifestyleandlove.com/southern-belle-video-extra-itvs/, and pumps his commentary about it just chock full of lies...

It's interesting to picture him desperately searching the Internet for something  he thinks he can smear me with...  How petty and pathetic....

Allow me to correct him, and once again show him for the gargantuan liar and filth-smearer that he is....

First, I'm not in hot water.

Second, Pat Hines is not my buddy. Anyone who reads the comments between Pat and me on Backsass can see that he and I have quite a history of clashes and disagreements. 

Three, I haven't defended Pat so much as I've pointed out lies people have told about things Pat posted: http://www.facebook.com/groups/272315346193652/permalink/312837125474807/

Four, the date on my comment on the Southern Belle video page is wrong. My comment was posted months ago.  In fact, all the time stamps on on all the comments on that site are wrong.  It indicates I replied to JohnsonJohnson1 a full 43 minutes before he posted....

But here is Simpson's Big Lie (at least, in this post): "First she tells us that the Confederacy ended slavery in 1864."

I do not say anywhere that the Confederacy ended slavery.  The words "Confederacy ended slavery" appear absolutely nowhere in my comment.  That is N-O-W-H-E-R-E.  Nowhere. 

What I said was that slavery was legal in the Confederacy from 1861 - 1864.  The last date is a typo, and should have been 1865 -- but the "four years" should have given Simpson a clue that what my comment indicated was that slavery was legal in the Confederacy only for a long as the Confederacy existed, simply because it couldn't possibly have been legal in a nation that had ceased to exist. 

Look at it again.  My dates indicating the time period that slavery was legal in the CSA included a typo; Simpson's claim that I said the Confederacy ended slavery is a flatout, slimy, baldfaced lie.

This also applies to the United States.  Slavery couldn't have been legal in the United States before the United States came into existence, which it did in 1788 when the ninth of the nine states required to ratify the Constitution did so.  It was legal in the various individual states prior to that, but the various individual states were not the United States.

Yes, the reference to the 14th Amendment rather than the 13th was a mistake.  Even so, it remains a fact that United States did not legally and constitutionally end slavery until AFTER the Confederacy ceased to exist -- whether it was months after or years after -- it was still AFTER.

Then Simpson asks the remarkably irrelevant question, "Does she forget that between 1788 and the secession winter/spring of 1860-61 that those United States included her beloved South?" 

Nope, I haven't forgotten. But the subject wasn't "the South."  It was the entities of the United States and the Confederate States and the time periods that slavery was legal in each of them. 

Pity how a college professor has to mangle his own intelligence by pretending to misunderstand something that's perfectly clear despite some minor errors --  all for the sake of denigrating another human being -- a pasttime he absolutely loves.

Such a petty, petty little man....