Posted on 02/24/2005 4:02:20 PM PST by CHARLITE
Howard Dean and Yankee Democrats don't have a clue what it means to be a Southerner. It's not about Confederate flags. It's about honor, family, self reliance and American patriotism.
Who are these Confederate voters that Vermonter Howard Dean wants to represent? Is Jefferson Davis on the ballot again? I thought he was dead, along with the Confederate States of America. Hey, I’m a Southerner, why didn’t I get the memo? Duh, Dean was just being "hisself", a Yankee liberal, describing voters as he sees people – divided by race, class and gender. What a hoot. Liberals imagine identity politics fit real people. Dean should listen to Yellow Dawg Democrat Zell Miller.
Confederate Voter is the wrong term. Democrats covet the White Southern Voter. True, the white Southerner majority’s ancestors were Confederates, but that provides the wrong connotation – slavery, segregation and racism – that doesn’t fit the present and the future. The South is different from the rest of the country in significant measures, but the distinction isn’t "Confederate", it’s simply "The South". Yankees and liberals just don’t get it, although Dean did stumble over truth when he talked down to Southerners to get over “race, guns, God and gays.” Behind "race, guns, God and gays" are issues based on values.
The South is about deep-fried shared values, history, and identity. Better universities have courses on Southern culture. Psychologists can test for regional attitude and behavior differences. The differences matter when Southerners vote. If only the liberals could understand that complex thoughts –- not easy divisions of race, class and gender –- reside in the heads of most Southerners. Liberals shouldn’t forget that Southern culture encourages a fierce passion for ideas held as right. Over 300,000 dead Yankees learned that lesson.
Here are some ideas held in common:
Slavery, segregation and racism are wrong. They are sins against God. There are white, black and other racists. None are respected.
The Confederate battle flag is a racist symbol only to racists, demagogues (liberals, thus Democrats), and dummies. To Southerners, Confederate symbols stand for courage, sacrifice, and fidelity. The people who want to oppress the Cross of St. Andrew want to suppress the Cross of Jesus.
The American flag is the highest national symbol and beloved above all else.
There are absolute truths, unchanging and yet always relevant, in the Holy Bible, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.
The Bible Belt is buckled by people who actually read the Bible, believe it and evangelize it more than any other region. From a Biblical world view come the values that count.
Ten Commandments. Our culture and laws are based on our Judeo-Christian values. Historical fact is not hate, nor is it "imposing" beliefs, nor is it a separation-of-church-and-state issue. It’s a free-speech and freedom-of-religion issue. This issue draws from the same power as Martin Luther and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Watch out.
Family First. Your name is all you have really in life. You can not shame your last name – your People. Honor is personal, familial and real.
Love the Land. Hunting, fishing, and animals are all part of good stewardship, using and preserving our natural blessings.
Men and Women are different for good purposes. Men should be gentlemen. Women should be ladies. Marriage is between one man and one woman only.
Sexual sins are wrong. Adultery, homosexuality, incest and bestiality are all wrong. Tolerate homosexuals -- they’re your kin -- but don’t honor them.
Fight when right. Serving in the military is an honor. Fighting for freedom is worth the cost – no matter what.
Defend yourself. We have a right and duty to defend our persons, our family and home and neighbors with whatever it takes, including personal firearms.
Leave us alone. Tax less, govern less, nanny less, lecture less, because we want the individual freedom for our family, our property, our opportunity, our liberty to prosper.
Crime leads to poverty. Poverty doesn’t cause crime. Our ancestors built something from nothing and re-built it again after destruction. Better to earn your way in life than take a handout. Better to be poor and free than rich and slave.
We are Americans first. We are Federalists who believe in the Constitution as it was intended, not as it has become with the Judicial Oligarchy and Federal Behemoth. We don’t want to be ruled by the U.N. or anybody else. We don’t give a damn what foreigners think of us. And, frankly, my dear, we don’t give a damn what Yankees think of us (and that really bothers them).
We are conservatives based on convictions. We are not loyal to any Party, as much as to our Principles.
The Democrats can con Southern voters like Bill Clinton did. But, the Democrats are on the wrong side of ACW II (the Great U.S. Culture War, 1962-TBD) for the South. A few factors can change that:
If Southern culture, fueled by Christian evangelism, is ascending, then the immigrant invasion (foreign and Northern) will add to the Southern census - and conservative votes - after each generation of assimilation.
If the Liberal Cultural Cleansing, most ruthless in government schools, is gaining and Southerners are weak enough to surrender, then Liberals can win elections.
If blacks ever get off the Democrat plantation, then the South will explode as a conservative haven, hope and success. Progress is so slow in this emancipation. Yet, the irony is how Southern values – white and black are so close. We are united more by culture than we are divided by race.
As a Republican, I’m glad that Dean and the Democrats think talking slowly means you’re stupid. As a man actually named "Bubba" all my life, I’m proud to be disdained by any non-Southerner - and non-conservative, non-camily, anti-evangelical Christian - "youse guys".
October 6, 2003
James Atticus Bowden has specialized in inter- disciplinary, long-range "futures" studies for more than a decade. He is employed by a Defense Department contractof for the Future Combat Systems. A 1972 graduate of the United States Military Academy, he is a retired Army Infantry Officer. He earned graduate degrees from Harvard University and Columbia University. He holds two elected Republican Party positions in Virginia.
Mr. Bowden's e-mail address is: jatticus@aol.com
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1349913/posts?page=43
A good read. The South and West will continue to strengthen politically, too, because there is a mass-exodus of people from the North that are of like mind. I was one of these people.
FMCDH(BITS)
Not so ... the vast majority of Yankees do get it, Bubba. You've got more friends than you know.
Interesting post Char.
While looking at Kerry's "The New Soldier" last summer, I noticed they did a demographic breakdown in the back of the book on the Vietnam Vets Against the War. Almost everything in that book was lies, however, when you looked at the region these VVAW came from, only something like .3 percent (?) came from the south. Also very few from the west. Most of these liberal, anti-war types were northeastern or eastern or upper midwestern. It did seem to go along with what I know about Southern men. They're damn good soldiers!
Excellent post, Thank You.
Most people can't relate to the Battle Flag as the Cross of St. Andrew and do not know that it is also on the flag of Scotland. Scotland, in turn provided many of the orginal settlers of the mountain regions of the South. (And other areas as well, Fayetteville NC was originally Campbellton). Consider the never ending (still) hostility toward England by the Scots and you will begin to understand the Southerner. If one does not believe that the Scots still have an impact in the Blue Ridge area, just listen to the music and hear the echo of the pipes in it.
"Crime makes Poverty" I hadn't thought of that, but it is true, and who would know better than those from a state originally settled by "criminals" released from debtors prison and transported by Oglethorpe to found the State of Georgia.
Finally, the last line of the Declaration is meaninless to a liberal.
I’m a reconstructed Southern Democrat who changed my registration to Republican twenty years ago.
In His Forever Grip
chuck
Well done lass.
)))PING(((
So the vast majority of yankees are in newly red NE states?
Hmmm, seems to me I remember exactly why I never returned to Pa.
You've hit on the real problem. Most of these Southerners will scream and wail about bigotry for hours on end, then turn on a dime and make the most sweeping generalizations about yankees possible. To hear them talk no one north of the Mason Dixon line has ever even heard of family, let alone hold any family values.
Naaaahhh.
All Hildebeast has to do is go to some Stop-N-Rob and say "Can I get me a huntin' license?".
Then borrow a shotgun and some Huntin' duds. Then shoot a couple of Geese in a canned hunt.
Right? After all, it's worked before on all us Goobers.
As one of the (albeit new) Skynyrd songs say - "We ain't much different at all."
Well, their voting habits sure leave a lot to be desired. Most northern states from the old Civil War Union side vote for communists. Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia regularly vote for patriotism and traditional values. The rest of them vote like Europeans.
And I was born in Wisconsin, a horribly liberal place. They haven't voted GOP since Reagan. What a bunch of cheeseheads.
Give me a group of West Point Grads and I'll win the battle. Give me a bunch of Texas A&M Aggies and I win the war. G.S. Patton... VMI & West Point... or at least close to what he said.
The most informative book you'll ever read...
Encyclopedia of Souther Culture.
Edited by Wilson & Ferris
Published by Chapel Hill
Quite remarkable!
Agreed. That's the problem in a nutshell.
Your list of states is interesting: Ohio and Indiana were mainly Union, but had a large Copperhead following also. The others were all "border" states: W. Va split off from the old state at the beginning of the war, Kentucky tried to be neutral, but the southerners "invaded" from the south and the Union from the North, so it remained torn for the whole war. Missouri tried to secede, but Nathanial Lyon broke that up even though he died doing it, the governor and lt. governor went south and claimed that MO was Confederate, but the articles of secession never passed. The state, especially the KS/MO border was a continuous battleground for the whole war (plus 5 or 6 years before it).
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