The Co-Popes of Confederate Right-Think -- Hall and Levin

Posting on a comment thread of a Confederacy-hatin' blogger, Kevin Levin, Delusional Andy Hall writes:

I have long believed that in at least some of these cases some sort of accommodation could be achieved that would be acceptable to both parties. An example of that might have been the flag at the Sutherlin Mansion in Danville, that before its removal in 2015 flew year-round at the site. Now it’s gone completely. A good-faith effort to reach an accommodation might have prevented that outcome.
But all the incentives for the Confederate Heritage™ folks are to be defiant, uncompromising, and to prove to their fellows that they are more unreconstructed than the other guy. The idea that they’re trying to educate the general public sway broader public opinion is simply ludicrous. So instead of working in a constructive way, they demand nothing less than complete and total victory, and very often they lose completely as a result.

You know what, Andy? I don't believe you have "long believed" that at all. And I don't believe you would accept it. You are in the camp that will not be happy until every physical artifact of Confederate history and heritage are ground down to molecule level, and the history books that don't spin the war your way either burned or hidden away in dank, damp caves where they will mold and deteriorate until they are dust.

Folks, two things about Andy -- he tries to come across as unruffled, unemotional and above the fray, but it's futile, because his hatred manages to punch through, anyway.

The other thing about Andy is that he thinks he knows everything there is to know about an event (not to mention the people involved) without the benefit of having been there. Presumably, reading about it on the Internet opens his brain and pours in a bunch of information that isn't reported, so he can speak of it as an expert -- as if he was right in the middle of it, beginning to end, and knows every single thing about it. What happened at the Sutherlin Mansion in Danville when the Third National was removed is an example.

But the most telling thing about Andy is how he knows heritage folks, INSIDE OUT -- almost always people he has never met, never talked to, never been around. He reads some sentence on the Internet and HE JUST KNOWS. He can tell you what MOTIVATES THEM. He can tell you WHY they are thus motivated.

Well, no. He doesn't and he can't. What Andy can do is hate certain people, bigtime. And not only that, but to post crap that will encourage others to hate them, too.

Andy is like a reformed drinker who now rails against any and all who drink -- even if it's just swallowing a spoonful of Nyquil when you have the Mother of All Colds and you just need some sleep; you're no better than the town drunk.

He used to see Confederate history in a favorable way, or sez he did. But then he SAW THE LIGHT. He was WOKE. The scales fell from his eyes and now he knows that heritage folks are Satan's minions on earth, spreading lies to entrap people, and send them to Civil War Hell... And Andy is the infallible pope of Civil War History. He knows it all, folks, even what he doesn't know. What he thinks about it is RIGHT. It CANNOT be wrong because HE SAW THE LIGHT. And he not only SAW THE LIGHT, he did what was right in response -- he got on the Internet and started drumming up hate for heritage folks who don't see things like he does...

Of course, Andy isn't the only one who thinks he is infallible about this stuff. You could call Kevin Levin Andy's co-pope of Civil War History. He knows it all, even the unknowable. And he is as much a hater of heritage folks as Andy is.  More on Levin in my next post.