The Superior North?

If the South was, and is, so wicked and corrupted, and if Southerners are and have always been  a bunch of scum-sucking inbred racist hicks, a region of boorish imbeciles, what does it say about the "intellectually superior" north that they couldn't make it as a nation on their own, without Dixie? 

What does it say about the "morally superior" north that they had to fight a war that killed hundreds of thousands on both sides to keep the brutish, morally inferior slavers and hick farmers in the South under their wealthy and powerful yankee thumb?

The north did not send a brutal army of invasion into the South to free slaves. That "cause" was tacked on well into the war. Read Lincoln's initial executive order calling for volunteers to make up the invasionary force; not a word, no a syllable about slavery.

At first, it was about "preserving the union."

Why was it necessary to keep the wicked Southern states in the union in order to preserve it?  Well, it wasn't. It only required ratification of the Constitution by nine states to create the federal government -- the union -- and set it in operation.  If the Southern states had been allowed to leave in peace, there would have been twenty-two (22) states left in the union -- more than twice the nine required to create it -- and they could have remained just as united as heck, if that was what they wanted.

Confederacy-bashers have told me it was necessary to keep the South as part of the USA in order to "form a more perfect union."  But wouldn't it have been a more perfect union without the "dirty South" than with it?

Let's face it. The north knew it was missing some vitally important component -- some element necessary to survive as a nation -- that it lacked and that the South possessed. That is why the South had to be violently forced to remain in the union. Even after the war, when carpetbaggers and other assorted yankees came South and robbed state treasuries blind, bought up miles of virgin timber for pennies an acre, paid wretched Southern sawmill and mining workers with "scrip" instead of real money, to keep them enslaved to the company store, instigated discriminatory railroad freight rates so it woud be prohibitively expensive for Southern companies to ship finished goods (textiles, steel) to the north -- or even to other places in the South -- so all it could ship was cheaper, raw goods (which was then turned to finished goods in northern factories, which, of course, sold them at a handsome profit)... 

It's time people realized that the north is not morally or intellectually superior to the South -- not at all.  What the north excels in is greed, hypocrisy, exploitation of others and falsification.

More Lies and Insults, Flogger Style

On Sunday, February 24 -- four days ago -- I noted the influence of group-think on flogger attitudes toward Southern heritage supporters.  Specifically, I wrote:

Corey's question to me betrays his leftist, "group-think" mentality, which attempts to categorize people, lump them together in groups, and then make everyone in the group mental clones who all think alike and believe alike. Thus, if you can find something to smear one member with, it can be applied to the group as a whole. So if you're a supporter, defender or advocate of Southern heritage, you think exactly like all the other supporters, defenders and advocates of Southern heritage.  It simply cannot be acknowledged by these floggers that a variety of thought -- and some disagreement -- exists within the Southern heritage community.

And just days afterward, two floggers -- veteran Kevin Levin and newbie Al Mackey -- make blog entries that so marvelously illustrate what I said above, it's almost like I had them made to order.

Let's start with Levin.  First, I must acknowledge that my statement above isn't entirely accurate, especially the last sentence. Oh, it can be acknowledged by floggers that some disagreement exists within the heritage community, but not realistically. When floggers blog about it, they are likely to blow it waaaay out of proportion, which is exactly what Levin has done at Civil War Memory in a post dated February 27. The title reads, "Confederate Heritage Advocates Devour Their Own."

Devour their own? A bit melodramatic, don't you think? Or, as my daddy used to say, in imitation of his mountaineer forebears, "That's high meller drammer."

You can go read it, if you're interested in seeing the extremes he goes to in order to mischaracterize the situation. The title alone is hyperbole so extreme it qualifies more as an outright fabrication than as hyperbole.

About the situation itself, Levin makes some ass-umptions, as he is prone to do.

"No one on this page seems to know why the Covington (Tenn.) chapter of the SCV chose to remove the battle flag from the cemetery in favor of a First National Flag and as far as I can tell no one has bothered to ask," he sez. 

Well, maybe you have to look farther than a thread on a Facebook page, Levin. Not every action or aspect of a situation gets posted about and commented on, ya know?  (Shades of Brooks Simpson, who thinks if he doesn't know about it -- particularly if nobody has posted about it on his blog's comment threads -- it never happened.)

I wonder if floggers like Levin and Simpson really believe that what they know about any given subject is the sum-total of knowledge about it...  I dunno, folks, but that seems to me to be skirting very close to megalomania...

In this case, in the very post that started the thread, Billy Bearden wrote that SCV officer Wallace "removed the Battleflag from the pole flying over the graves of Confederate Veterans and replaced it with a 1st National because he didn't want to offend anyone..." Billy ends the comment by noting that "no one had complained" about being offended by the battle flag. 

Do you suppose Kevin was so obsessed with finding something in the thread that he could bellyache about on his blog that he completely missed the fact that, yes, Billy reported exactly why Wallace replaced the battle flag?

Levin then takes a couple of guesses about the motives of those who replaced the battle flag, ending with, "Ultimately, what is more important, debating the divisive history of the flag or sharing the stories of the men the SCV are committed to honoring and a time when that project is under assault?"

First, why should discussions of the flag's history be prioritized out of the debate? It's under attack, Mr. Levin. That necessitates a defense. We know you'd like the defense to end, and the flag removers to win, but -- surprise! --  Southern heritage advocates don't see that issue the way you do.

Besides, the same people who want to eradicate displays of the flag also wish to eradicate all positive commemorations of Confederate soldiers -- and perhaps all memory of them -- from the cultural landscape and from American memory. Defending the flag is itself a defense of the men who fought beneath it.

Kevin then mentions, "What I find fascinating, however, is just the sheer nastiness of the comments that follow as well as the ones that didn’t make it into the pic." I'll deal with that later in this post, although I can tell you right now, for sheer nastiness, nothing in that entire Facebook thread even comes close to the toxic slime about Southern Heritage folks you find in comment threads by floggers and their followers.

Levin ends with this sentence, which he no doubt thinks is a fitting stinger to wrap up with: "Billy Bearden is fond of pointing to the NAACP as the most significant threat to Confederate heritage.  It’s clear to me that the problem is much closer to home."

What's clear to Kevin, though, is probably more a product of his imagination and wishful thinking and than it is reality.

The second flogger post I want to discuss was made by Al Mackey, with the title, "They Only Love Their Ancestors Who Fought For Slavery." This is apparently a reference to, or follow up of, an earlier Mackey post dated February 15 and titled, "Do They Love Their Ancestors Or Not?" which I will deal with in a separate blog post.

What I want to note is how marvelously Mackey illustrates my point: "Thus, if you can find something to smear one member with, it can be applied to the group as a whole."  Note that in Mackey's blog title, the"They" (plural) he mentions is actually one (that's one, (1), o-n-e) individual.  Mackey sez, "Here we have an instance of an individual who 'loathes' one of his ancestors who fought against treason."

Actually, the individual mentions nothing about loathing an ancestor "who fought against treason." In fact, he explains that in fighting against the Confederacy, this ancestor was committing treason, not fighting against it.  So basically, Mackey is lying.

But let's get to that "sheer nastiness" part.

In my February 24th post already mention, I also wrote that "...disparaging the intelligence of people they disagree with is a front-line attack of the flogger mentality." And I listed some of the choice name-calling and intelligence insulting that flows so easily from the keyboards of these haters.  Here are some new ones, from these two new articles under discussion:

Levin: Once in a while he [Bearden] offers something worthy of reflection, but this clearly represents a walk off the deep end.

Mackey: If this clown didn’t have an IQ less than the outside air temperature ...and ... he can spout such moronic idiocy ...

Mackey is actually the one walking off the deep end, going beyond the usual odious insults to this individual's intelligence, and accusing him -- out of the clear blue -- of supporting terrorism:  "He probably cheers for the Taliban, too.  I wonder if he was one of those who were dancing in the street on 9/11." 

And I wonder who he's talking about. I don't remember reports of anyone in the USA dancing in the streets on 9/11.  There were some reports of Palestinians celebrating the attacks, but the claim is disputed.  So who is Mackey hallucinating about, just so he can insult someone he disagrees with?

We see the mentality of the floggers clearly in posts like this. They think it's good and right to lie about people's intelligence just because those people see the civil war differently than they do; and its okay to lie about the same people and imply that they support terrorists jihadists, for the same reason.

They tell these lies about people they don't know.  All they know of these folks is what they find in a handful of sentences on the Internet -- and they have to LIE about that. 

I have speculated before on the cause of such hatred exhibited by floggers and their comment thread followers, so I'll forego that this time.  I will only observe ... these are not nice people, folks. They're liars and mini-totalitarians...  You have to hope they confine their hatred to discussions of the civil war, and never get any real power over other people...

What's Behind Flogger Name-calling

Because I posted about Al Mackey's flogger practice of name calling that denigrates people's intelligence, Corey Meyer sends me this comment, "So Connie do you agree the (sic) Hitler and Lincoln a (sic) virtually the same as the secessionist claimed and that Lincoln did not extend liberties to certain people?"

Although I posted an answer in the comments, responding to that question is worth a blog post all its own.

First, what difference does it make whether I agree or disagree? That doesn't change the facts of what I wrote about Mackey and the floggers -  that disparaging the intelligence of people they disagree with is a front-line attack of the flogger mentality.

It doesn't change the fact that they throw around terms like "lunacy" and "clown" and "idiots" -- or, in the case of Eric Wittenberg and his sycophants, "galactically stupid" and "troglodytes" and "knuckle-draggers." And we can't forget Brooks D. Simpson and the Crossroads crew -- "rampant idiocy" and "ignorant morons" and "cretins" -- and that's just a tiny sampling.

Corey's question to me betrays his leftist, "group-think" mentality, which attempts to categorize people, lump them together in groups, and then make everyone in the group mental clones who all think alike and believe alike. Thus, if you can find something to smear one member with, it can be applied to the group as a whole. So if you're a supporter, defender or advocate of Southern heritage, you think exactly like all the other supporters, defenders and advocates of Southern heritage.  It simply cannot be acknowledged by these floggers that a variety of thought -- and some disagreement -- exists within the Southern heritage community.

The same assumptions are evident in Brooks Simpson's attempt to smear groups like the Southern Heritage Preservation group, with the statements of one or two members, and then to expand the smear to all Southern heritage advocates.  He occasionally attempts to create negative significance of the fact that someone in the group didn't make a comment -- and then attributes the "ominousness" of the silence to the whole group, and from them to the whole Southern heritage community.

Andy Hall's take is a bit different. He apparently thinks you're a fake Southern heritage advocate unless you think and believe exactly like "real Confederates." Although when he quotes a "real Confederate" he doesn't say how he knows everyone in the Confederacy held the identical thought or belief.  At least, I've never encountered such substantiation from him.

You see, leftism despises individuality and it shows up all kinds of ways. Among these floggers it is an intolerance for anyone who arrived at their views of history in any way but the accepted one -- that is, via the teachings of professional educators who all churn out classrooms full of mental clones...

In a broader application, you see it in Obama's and the feds' eyeing -- drooling over -- private pensions. They'd like nothing more than for the feds to sieze this enormous pool of money... Why? To help the totally-broke and deeply-in-debt federal government? That may be the excuse, but what lies behind it is the leftist/progressive/socialist mentality that cannot stand the idea that people are individuals rather than undifferentiated unit of the hive -- and they especially can't stand for the individual to OWN something, like a private pension, that not everyone has.  In the most extreme view, socialists believe no individual should own anything. The state should own everything, and administer it for everyone else.

But back to the floggers. Apparently the only thing they love more than portraying people they disagree with as morons is portraying them as ... you guessed it ... racists. This is why Brooks D. Simpson attempts to associate me with Brad Griffin (Hunter Wallace) and why he puts the false idea that if you haven't denied something on his blog then you support it. That is the reason for Corey posting about it time and again at his blog, such as his recent post about modern Southern Nationalists (which really has nothing to do with his purported interest, the civil war).

The obsession with racism and with denigrating people's intelligence clearly (to borrow a Levin/Hallism) demonstrates that their interest in the "civil war" is to use it as a tool for evilizing or stupidizing people they don't like.

Agree? Or Disagree?

Massive Cognitive Dissonance of the Floggers

(Well. of one of them anyway...)

Rookie Flogger Al Mackey is ketchin' on to what it takes to be a flogger in good standing, real fast. Disparage the intelligence of people you disagree with.  Throw around terms like "lunacy" and "clown" and "idiots".  Real intellectual, ain't it?

He used these words to describe a video on the Daily Show Website here ...

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-february-21-2013/tyranny---texas?xrs=playershare_twitter

... and asks, "...I really wonder if these folks are serious or if they’re intentionally part of the gag."

Gag? What's completely lost on Mackey is that the Daily Show is leftist comedy -- that is, leftist hatred with an overlay of ridicule that passes for comedy in the leftist mentality. Stewart and the producers of that show craft it to ridicule people they politically and culturally disagree with, and look down on. I can't believe Mackey doesn't know this.

But then, this is the guy who "covered" Julia Ward Howe's hoop-skirted rear end after her admission that she and her fellow abolitionists wanted to "blow up the union" by explaining that what she really wanted was for the pieces of the union, after the great kablooie, to reassemble themselves exactly as before -- but minus slavery...

Once again, we see the massive cognitive dissonance of anti-Confederate floggers....

Repurposing the Soldier's Home in Virginia?

I received this disturbing information via messenger from Bobby Edwards.

Connie, I spent an hour or so on the phone with our Lee-Jackson Camp SCV Commander yesterday, and he has alerted me of a problem that I know is coming - the Remodeling of the Soldiers' Home for business use by the VMFA instead of Historical use by the Commonwealth of Va. The appropriation for two and 1/2 million has been included in a House and Senate version, and will go to the Governor's office for his review and possible amendments.

We failed to get the legislators to make the grounds a historic landmark, and now the Governor is the one who may have some impact. Although he did not issue a Confederate History month in April, the possibility that he may still name the Soldiers' Home building a Historic attraction and use it in the Commonwealth's promotional efforts to draw visitors in the remaining Sesquicentennial. I am trying to form at a minimum - a letter writing campaign to the Governor for him to treat the Soldiers' Home, with the proper historiography that it deserves. Thanks for any help you may be able to provide.

It's a shame that Richmond fails to promote or advantage themselves of their rich history, and especially since the history of the Soldiers' Home is also the history of many Union Veterans, who contributed so freely to make the Soldiers' Home possible, and met the Confederates on the grounds to bind up the wounds of the Country. Ours is a compelling story of reunification that needs to be told to the Country. We are a National Story.

By identifying the grounds as "National Reunification" - the Confederate Battle Flag, and the current American Flag could be included in a display of flags at the Soldiers' Home - And, as a Welcome Center telling our story would be a powerful story for Virginia.

Bobby Edwards
Lt. Commander, Lee-Jackson Camp No. 1

 Let's all join the letter campaign to Governor Bob McDonnell.  A contact form can be found on the Governor's official website, here: http://www.governor.virginia.gov/AboutTheGovernor/contactGovernor.cfm

You can also mail him via the US Postal Service at this address, or call/fax his office at the following numbers:

Mailing Address:

Office of the Governor
Patrick Henry Building, 3rd Floor
1111 East Broad Street
Richmond, Virginia 23219
view directions to the office...

Phone Numbers:

Office: (804) 786-2211
Fax: (804) 371-6351
TTY/TDD (For the deaf or hard-of-hearing):
1-800-828-1120, or 711

We know the VMFA (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts) is not friendly to Confederate heritage. If left in their hands, the Soldier's Home will be stripped of its history and who knows what purpose they'll put it to.  

Trashy Novels? You Tell Me

180 DEGREES TRUE SOUTH

When Is Reviewing an Unread Book Okay?

When it's done by somebody who criticizes others for doing exactly the same thing he's doing.

"... it is amusing that the author of this blog entry admits he hasn’t read the book …  and I think you can judge for yourself someone who assesses a book he hasn’t even read."  ~Brooks D. Simpson, Crossroads Blog, February 17, 2013

Judge for myself? You bet I can...

I note the following "assessments" made by Brooks Simpson about my books (and, not incidentally, about me), which "he hasn't even read...."

*Observing the color of the cast of characters in Connie’s writing (which she admitted, because I haven’t read what she’s written … I’ve just read what she writes about what she has written) is just that: an observation. That you may take it as a criticism is your business. However, it is a bit of a stretch to say one is writing “pro-southern” literature if the South one imagines lacks people of color.

(Note: Not a good idea to judge a book by its cover or your own bigotry.

Men as victims, falsely accused. Evil feminists. In Chastain’s fictional world, women are the protagonists, men simply objects upon which women project much (good or evil). And there’s a strong sexual undercurrent in them, sometimes veering toward the strange, as in the oft-promised Sweet Southern Boys.

(Note: in Southern Man, Troy Stevenson -- a man, a real man, not a formulaic romance hero -- is the protagonist, the male lead, the real hero, the focus, the central element and the story's raison d'etre, from Prologue to Epilogue...)

No wonder your “books” have not captured the imagination of the Southern heritage folks. They’re simply not very good.

As for your writings... Perhaps you aren’t able to keep track of your ceaseless efforts to self-promote your self-published novels, which tend toward the trashy.

....it appears that Ms. Chastain is not above showing us that she’s quite familiar with some sexually suggestive sites (which may explain some of the passages in her publications).

Apparently segregation (or outright exclusion) reigns supreme in her fictional world, too....

*(Read more about the deceit-creep of his "observations" about my characters, here: The Anti-Racist Smear Mentality.  I've also blogged about his  "assessments" of my books, which he hasn't read, here: Bigotry Against White Southerners On Display.)

It's interesting that people who have read my books do very different "assessments" of them. Of course, the readers of my novels tend to be Christians, or people whose worldview has been shaped by Christianity. I suspect -- no, I'm convinced -- that makes a world of difference...

Although there are only a few reviews of my books posted at Amazon.com, none of them are negative or overly critical.  I've also been contacted directly by people who've read my books, and who had very positive things to say about them.

Simpson's implication that sexually suggestive websites have influenced my stories, and his statement that my novels "tend to be trashy" makes me wonder if he considers sex to be dirty or trashy. Of course, it can be --  but that doesn't mean any novel with sexual themes is trashy.

Among other things, Southern Man is an indictment of the sexual revolution, a fictional look at the destructiveness it rained down on individuals and the culture. Another theme of the story is how sexual fidelity strengthens and sweetens marriage.

As for trashy -- yes, a false accusation can trash a man's reputation ... and, in fact, his whole life -- but I don't think that what Simpson meant. One wonders if he rooted for Mike Nifong, or if he agrees with feminist Catherine Comins, who argued (in Time Magazine in 2001) that men who are unjustly accused can sometimes gain from the experience.

"They have a lot of pain, but it is not a pain that I would necessarily have spared them. I think it ideally initiates a process of self-exploration. 'How do I see women?' 'If I didn't violate her, could I have?' 'Do I have the potential to do to her what they say I did?' Those are good questions."

Bizarre reasoning, isn't it? I mean, if men can "gain" from the hell of false accusation which initiates a process of self-exploration, maybe the entire male sex would benefit from being dragged through the false-accusation nightmare. Why go through the trouble of other methods of self-exploration -- keeping a journal, assessing your strengths and weaknesses, learning new skills, developing others?  Just get yourself falsely accused of rape or sexual harassment and reach new heights of spiritual awareness and human potential...

But if this bizarre method is actually beneficial, who is to say rape isn't an experience a woman can sometimes gain from?

Yes, they have a lot of pain, but is it pain they should necessarily be spared, if, ideally, it starts a process of self-exploration? 'Did I bring this on myself? Did I ask for it? Or is it simple get-evenism?' Those are good questions.

For the irony impaired, the comment above is irony. Before you start moon-baying, teeth-gnashing, throwing ashes on your head and screeching to every one that Connie Chastain says women can benefit from being raped, look up irony at Dictionary.com   That is the difference between my statement and Comin's. Mine is irony, hers is not.

In any case, over the upcoming days and weeks, I'll be blogging at 180 Degrees True South (which is undergoing a gradual revamping) about the "trashiness" of my novels -- for those who are interested in the truth....
________________________
Comp image copyright by F1 Online.

A Question People Largely Avoid Answering

Is a preference for the dissimilar morally superior to a preference for the similar?

I Reckon Liars -- At Both Extremes -- Just Gotta Lie

Despite my requests that he stop posting about me and linking to Backsass on his odious blog, Brad Griffin has done it again. This time, he has assigned a completely false motive to my comments on the League FB page, and used that as an excuse and a jumping off place to post a rant about subjects dear to whatever passes for a heart with him, but that have nothing to do with me or my comments on the FB thread.

I have to wonder why he needs me as an excuse to rant and rave about black folks. And I again have to wonder why my presence on a little niche blog is so important to him that he has to post repeatedly about me...  It might be interesting to know what he gets out of it ... but that would require thinking about him a whole lot more than I want to do.

Griffin, please. LEAVE ME ALONE.