Posted on 07/23/2004 7:51:00 AM PDT by Captain Kirk
Wrong Song of the South: The Dangerous Fallacies of Confederate Multiculturalism.
David T. Beito and Charles W. Nuckolls
During the last decade, the League of the South and other “southern heritage” groups have fought to preserve the state flags of Georgia and Mississippi. Some members of the League have demanded that universities hire Southern born professors. Others have promoted antebellum style dances. Nearly all are quick to champion their “heroes,” including Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis, against any slights.
The jargon of group rights and identity politics, normally the domain of the politically correct, permeates their pronouncements. In Georgia, a member of the League boasts that “our Southern heritage celebrates true diversity...and true multiculturalism.” Read the rest here.
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
YEP!
As would have happened with California and Nevada. One of the reasons for the development of both the Pony Express and Western Union telegraph was to give California a sense of connection to the rest of the nation. Few Americans are aware of the fact that Americans were not a majority in the state. The gold fields had attracted people from as far as Australia, Chile, China, and Europe. These, together with disenfranchised Mexicans had little in common with America.
A nation using the wealth of the gold fields, the richness of the agriculture, the location for trade, and a synpathetic nation in Britain, with British Columbia to the north may not only have seceded, but done so successfully. So allowing the secession of the Lower South would set a precedent that could truly destroy the Republic.
bump
"The United Nations is a club, not a polity."
Then why is this "club" attempting to claim jurisdiction over internal matters of the United States. This nation originated as an assemblage of sovereign states with the powers of the central government limited to those spelled out in the constitution and it has evolved to the current status in which one hardly dares go to the bathroom without permission from the central government. The United Nations will follow the same pattern if allowed to.
Would you dare to even suggest that South Carolina agreed to join the Union with full knowledge that she could never leave? I was born and raised in this state and I would consider the suggestion absurd.
"Its ok for everyone to celebrate and show respect to their heritage except me."
I sympathize, I am a six foot four inch, two hundred and fifty pound white male with a surname which apparently traces back to the Viking invaders of England, descended from Confederate veterans on both sides. I was born in the true Cradle of the Confederacy, the county where the first secession meeting was held and where almost everything that existed prior to The War of Northern Aggression was destroyed by Sherman's troops. Besides that I am heterosexual and consider Rush Limbaugh to be a promoter of big government. I am surprised that I have not been hunted down and shot.
It's here-they-go-again-time.
More hate coming from the folks
who accuse us of hate. LOL!
Damn this has grown tiresome.
Like a broken record.
Bless their hearts.
Superbly stated.
Did someone say, "Move on!"?
If they send a Chinese mechanized infantry corps to your town, they won't be.
If that's so, they were very naive, because (correct me if I'm mistaken) the Constitution makes no provision for it.
"If that's so, they were very naive, because (correct me if I'm mistaken) the Constitution makes no provision for it."
The powers of the central government are limited to those explicitly granted to it, all other power is reserved to the states or to the people. The constitution does not specifically grant to the central government the right to force a state to remain in the union, therefore it does not rightfully have this power, how is it naive to expect not to have the central government claim powers not granted to it?
are you SCV???
free dixie,sw
the Constitution was INTENDED as a curb on the central government, which was created by the several STATES!
NO STATE would have entered a compact in the early 19th century, from which it could NOT FREELY withdraw!
free dixie,sw
I guess that it would come down to whether you believe this is a government "OF THE PEOPLE" or not! Apparently you don't have the slightest inkling of where our American Ideals were first set down in writing.
In a piece entitled "Wrong Song of the South," recently appearing in Reason online, Professors David T. Beito and Charles W. Nuckolls, both of the University of Alabama, undertake to expose the "dangerous fallacies of Confederate multiculturalism" (italics in original).
Confederate multiculturalism – a phenomenon which seems largely to exist in the authors’ minds – is said to characterize the League of the South and other (unnamed) "‘southern heritage’ groups." For some reason, "southern heritage" is put in scare-quotes. Perhaps there is no Southern heritage worth mentioning; or perhaps there is, but it is all bad.
Better we should form Burned-Over District Heritage Societies.
In aid of trivializing the ideas of Southern multiculturalists, so-called, the authors adduce a (white) female professor caught in the act of defending Kwanzaa. The less said of this "comparison," the better. Just in terms of sheer time-depth, Southern culture is a few centuries older than Kwanzaa and might, therefore, have more standing. Southern culture, like it or not, is "older than the Union," so to speak, and thus has had time to develop a good many cultural features with no small claim to authenticity, even as the word is understood by social scientists.
The whole American experience itself is not very old in historical terms, and it is not immediately self-evident that the repackaging of that experience by New England scribes, self-appointed to define the truly "American," settles such questions for all time. There is a Virginia-centric reading of Southern – and American – history, and there has been for a long, long time.1 It is not entirely idle for people who find themselves in possession of a particular inheritance at the end of several centuries, to wish to preserve some of it, especially when they find that inheritance under constant attack.
Beito and Nuckolls adduce the League’s call for "reparations for the South" as further evidence of Southern multiculturalism. Here, I fear they are – for all their formal training in the sciences of human action – a bit tone-deaf. I don’t think anyone calling for "reparations for the South" really expects to get them. What we have here is a talking point, an attempt at reminding people that Mr. Lincoln’s Union-saving armies did burn Atlanta, did burn Columbia, did shell Charleston for a year and a half, and so on.
At a time when everyone is supposed to go around apologizing for the sins of his ancestors, it is understandable (if unwelcome to some), that someone might wish to broaden the discussion in this direction. Since Union conduct of that war underlies present-day US inability to wage anything but total war, a perspective on that conduct might provide interesting insights into deeply rooted "American" traditions in foreign policy and war making. The contemporary Neo-Con doctrine of presidential infallibility, as presented by John C. Yoo and other phony "originalists,"2 stems directly from Lincoln’s notions of inherent presidential powers, and thus a straight line runs from Lincoln’s "precedents" to the much-mooted torture memos of recent memory.
Read the rest of the article here: http://www.lewrockwell.com/stromberg/stromberg65.html
I agree, Stainless. One has to wonder just where these professors were "educated." The article/analysis is laughable. One huge cliche by a couple of PC "educators" entranced by the sound of their own voices.
Yes. Jefferson Davis was Secretary of War at the time, in the 1850s, long before he came to realize that State sovereignty was more important to freedom than yankee imperialism.
I'm drinking one now. 8 ounce glass bottle. Hard to find. Kind of expensive. But oh so yummy!
Try substituting the word "Nations" for the word "States." How does that sound?
The image I get is of an individual trying to obtain a divorce by simply declaring himself divorced.
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