Lower the flag South Carolina

From the files of Jeff Jacoby at The Boston Globe

Away down South in Dixie, the Confederate flag is in the thick of battle once again.

Last week, South Carolina's Governor David Beasley plunged his state into controversy with a televised call to lower the rebel flag from above the statehouse and move it to a nearby Confederate memorial.

Four minutes after making his proposal, Beasley heard himself compared by state Senator Glenn McConnell — also on statewide television — to Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister who sought to appease Adolf Hitler. Attorney General Charlie Condon called Beasley's speech "a victory for the extremist groups." He declared that those who have "criticized the Confederate flag should be ashamed of themselves."

The state where the Civil War began is the only one that still flies the Confederate flag from its seat of government. The South Carolina Legislature ordered the banner flown over the Capitol dome in March 1962, a symbol of defiance as the civil rights movement was reaching flood tide. (Officially, the flag was raised to commemorate the Civil War's centennial.) It has waved over the statehouse ever since, a revered emblem of Southern "heritage" to some, a detested reminder of oppression and bigotry to others.

South Carolina has changed since 1962. For one thing, Beasley, McConnell, and Condon are all Republicans, along with most of the state's congressional delegation and about half of the legislators in Columbia. Not too long ago, Republican officeholders were among the state's rarest fauna. The grand old man of South Carolina politics, US Senator (and former Governor) Strom Thurmond, was a Democrat until 1964, and when he ran for president on a segregationist platform in 1948, the Confederate flag was his standard. But Thurmond was with Beasley last week, seconding the governor's motion to remove the flag from the Capitol.

Yet some South Carolinians, their heartstrings tangled around the 1860s, still revere the Confederacy and all its trappings. McConnell, the state senator, howls that moving the Confederate flag "will amount to cultural genocide." Condon, the attorney general, warns that if the flag is moved, "before long, our history will be rewritten. The children of South Carolina will be taught, in the name of political correctness, to be ashamed of their state's history."

As if there were nothing in their state's history to be ashamed of.

The Confederacy has been extinct for 131 years. Its brief life was the cause of unspeakable sorrow, pain, and death. To insist that its battle flag deserves a place of pride above the statehouse is worse than mossbacked, it is reactionary. It is morally tone-deaf. And it is, to anyone dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, appalling.

The men and boys who followed the Confederate colors into battle may have been honorable and decent, but there was neither honor nor decency in the cause for which they fought. The Civil War was about many things, but it was first and foremost about slavery. South Carolina and the Confederacy went to war to perpetuate the freedom of white Americans to buy and sell black Americans. To be sure, most Confederate soldiers weren't slave owners, and many believed they were fighting in self-defense. But there would have been no war had the South not seceded, and the South seceded to protect chattel slavery.

Conservatives incline to tradition, and this conservative adheres to the credo that that which it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change. But the tradition of flying the Confederate flag over Columbia's skyline is a horrid one. To the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the flag may recollect the bravery of Stonewall Jackson and the cannons at Fort Sumter. To tens of millions of others, it evokes the agony of the Middle Passage and the long nightmare of Jim Crow.

It is not by chance that white supremacist hate groups have adopted the Confederate flag. It is flown at Ku Klux Klan rallies. It is the emblem of punks on the racist fringe. It has been taken up by neo-Nazis in Germany, where the swastika is outlawed. Does that mean that anyone who admires the rebel flag is tainted with bigotry and hate? Of course not. But the bigots and the haters embrace that flag for a reason: It was first raised in defense of the proposition that some men are no better than property.

South Carolina's governor, whose great-great-great grandfather Reuben Beasley fought for the South, has waded into an issue he could have avoided and made a lot of enemies he could have done without. He has also done the right thing. "Any banner we choose to fly over the Capitol," he said, "should be one that everyone can claim as their own." That is manifestly not true of the Confederate flag.

Americans of every color have reason to revile that banner. Three hundred sixty thousand Union soldiers, most of them white, lost their lives, and hundreds of thousands more were wounded, crippled, and shellshocked, in a war started by armies flying that flag.

It is an ongoing affront to the Union dead, as it is to the memory of 10 million enslaved and murdered African innocents, when the flag of the Confederacy whips in the breeze.

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When U.S. troops leave too soon

From the files of Jeff Jacoby at The Boston Globe

Desperate civilians try to board an American plane out of Saigon, April 1975.
Millions of victims would lose their lives or their freedom after South Vietnam
 and Cambodia fell to the communists.

Last month marked the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, a moment vividly encapsulated by the frenzied scene of South Vietnamese desperately trying to reach the last helicopter on the roof of the American embassy. April was also the 150th anniversary of the surrender at Appomattox, when Robert E. Lee capitulated to Ulysses S. Grant, bringing the bloodiest fighting of the Civil War to an end.

The two episodes seemingly have little to do with each other. But each, in its way, illustrates one of the bleakly recurring themes of US military history: When America's armed forces prematurely abandon the field, the results are usually heartbreaking for the people they leave behind.

The Vietnam experience makes the point with aching sorrow. By 1972, the US war against the North Vietnamese communists was being won on the ground; it was lost in Congress and at the Paris peace talks under the political pressure of the antiwar movement.

The United States pulled its fighting troops from Vietnam in 1973, then refused to provide its South Vietnamese allies with the economic and military aid they needed to resist Hanoi's onslaught. As disaster loomed, President Ford implored Congress not to turn a blind eye to the "vast human tragedy" about to engulf "our friends in Vietnam and Cambodia."

But hostile lawmakers refused to heed Ford's pleas, and 40 years ago this spring the communists swept to power. What ensued was horrific. "Millions of people lost their lives and tens of millions lost any chance at freedom," Robert F. Turner, co-founder of the Center for National Security Law at the University of Virginia, recalled in a recent essay.

In Cambodia, the fanatical Khmer Rouge slaughtered an estimated 1.7 million men, women, and children. In neighboring South Vietnam, there were hundreds of thousands of additional victims — frantic "boat people" trying to escape by sea, inmates tortured in re-education camps, innumerable others summarily executed or "disappeared."

To the shock of at least some former antiwar activists, more people died in the first two years of Indochina's communist peace than had lost their lives in the 13 years of America's war. Even now Vietnam remains a communist dictatorship, one of the least free places on earth.

When US forces settle in for a long peace after fighting a difficult war — as in (West) Germany and Japan following World War II, or South Korea since the 1950s — their presence has generally nurtured stability, prosperity, and democratic freedoms. When they retreat precipitately — as in Lebanon or Iraq — renewed cruelty and violence predictably fill the vacuum.

And it isn't only overseas that the pattern has been manifested.

In a striking new book, After Appomattox, historian Gregory Downs chronicles the years of military occupation that followed Lee's surrender to Grant in 1865 — a military occupation that was indispensable to the uprooting of slavery and the political empowerment of freed slaves.

In the face of Southern white supremacist hostility, it was only the continuing presence of federal troops in the South that could break up remaining pockets of rebellion, establish the right of blacks to vote and seek election, void discriminatory laws, and unilaterally remove disloyal or racist sheriffs and judges from office.

But there were far too few troops to do the job properly. With the end of battlefield fighting, pressure to "bring the boys home" was intense. By the end of 1866, fewer than 25,000 troops remained in the South — down from nearly 1 million at the time Lee surrendered. Meanwhile, a violent white insurgency was spreading, led by a Democratic Party terror group called the Ku Klux Klan. These insurgents "spread across the South," Downs writes, "assassinating Republican leaders and intimidating black voters."

Contrary to popular belief, Gen. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House didn't end the
 Civil War. Though battlefield clashes ceased, several years of military
occupation were to follow.

Where the US military held sway, Reconstruction legislatures made remarkable gains — funding schools and hospitals, reforming property and marriage laws, making possible the election to office of more than 1,500 black candidates. But those gains were swept away as it became clear that Washington would not deploy the troops necessary to crush the Klan terror.

Public support for continuing the occupation evaporated. By the late 1870s, the troops were effectively gone. Southern Democrats moved ruthlessly to roll back the astonishing progress in black civil rights; in its place they imposed poll taxes, literacy tests, and racial segregation. "Without the fear of federal [military] power," recounts Downs, "a new and bleak era of Jim Crow was dawning."

Military occupation and the prolonged exercise of war powers go against the American grain. The urge to "declare peace and get out" is only too understandable. This season of anniversaries is a reminder that yielding to that urge can come at a terrible price, above all to those who remain after the US military is gone.

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Rudy Giuliani: A privileged cracker devil

From the files of Colonel Allen B. West and written by Michele Hickford, Editor-in-Chief

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While putting together this article about the blatant display of hypocrisy from the media over Rudy Giuliani’s temerity to question the patriotism of the Great and Powerful O (no, not Oprah), I came across this little tidbit from Louis Farrakhan.

Farrakhan holds nothing back in his criticism of Mayor Giuliani’s recent comments about Obama, saying Giuliani “grew up on the sweat and blood of black men and women who made America before your fathers got here” and calling him not just a “privileged cracker,” but a privileged “devil.”

Yep, we white folk will forever be punished for the sins of those who supported slavery in this country – even if our forebears were nowhere near this country when slavery existed – simply because we’re still white.

But back to the subject of dissent…

As Guy Benson writes for Townhall, “During the Bush years, we were often reminded, dissent was the “highest form of patriotism.” Over the course of Obama’s tenure, dissent became dangerous, disrespectful, un-American and quite possibly racist.”

Most definitely racist, as Rev. Farrakhan so passionately points out.


“When a conservative figure says something that seems to impugn or question a prominent liberal’s character or love of country – particularly a black liberal — “civility” SWAT teams are dispatched to knock down some proverbial doors. Such transgressions mustn’t stand.”

It doesn’t take a brain surgeon like Dr. Ben Carson to recognize that Republicans are forced to play by different rules, because the press tends to be made up of liberal Democrats and they enforce the rules. Unfortunately, Republicans continue to accept them.

Not all of course…

My boss, Col. Allen West, energetically refuses to follow the Liberal Civility Code of Conduct — for which he is routinely vilified.

Even new Internet star CJ Pearson has been called an “Uncle Tom” (and he’s only 12 years old by the way) for his video criticism of the president.

But many thanks to Guy Benson for providing this handy list of what IS permissible under the Liberal Civility Code of Conduct.

(1) White House spokespeople calling Republic suicide bombers, kidnappers and arsonists budget tactics.

(2) President Obama flatly stating that the GOP wants dirty air and water, and opposes people having healthcare.

(3) House Democratic leadership branding Obamacare critics “un-American.”

(4) Nancy Pelosi calling House Republicans “unpatriotic.”

(5) Lovely Debbie Wasserman Schultz chairwoman asserting that Republicans want to “literally” drag America back to the Jim Crow era.

(6) Less lovely Harry Reid sliming private citizens with whom he disagrees as “un-American.” I guess because they have the chutzpah to actually contribute to the United Negro College Fund. Of maybe it’s just racist. I don’t know.

(7) House Democrats comparing conservatives and Republicans to “demons,” “fascists,” generic Nazis (on several occasions), — and, of course, Hitler. 

(8) Vice President Biden allegedly referring to the Tea Party’s “terrorist” tactics.

(9) The New York Times saying that the Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people.

With the deluge of horrific images courtesy of the ISIS production studios, I would hope comparisons to terror tactics and jihad will cease. But just in case, I’ll end with this photo comparison to assist liberals in telling the difference between the Tea Party and actual jihad.

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Scotland: From serfdom to independence?

Scotland, from Serfdom to the possibility of independence from the files of Ken Laive at the Examiner

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Read the LaRive Files at the Examiner

Author's Notes: The following was taken from my travel diary back in 2005. It was published in several Louisiana Newspapers from 2005 to 2008, and found its way into the Lafayette Political Buzz Examiner page in 2009.

At the time, who could have foreseen that with just a simple and singular vote, Scotland might be free from Britain's domination, and yet, it seems there may be a chance that the vote might keep everything just the same... you see, the Progressive left has a great hand in that say, and Unions do not want to relinquish their hold on labor... we will just have to wait and see...

Scotland, and the idea of Liberty...

Right now, I’m working on a North Sea platform, and as usual, pumping the locals for ‘color.’ I had a conversation with a Scottish friend who gave me an interesting insight into a bit of Scottish psyche. He has traveled extensively in the States, and loves the idea of the Constitution guaranteeing personal freedom, and he spoke to me about the Bill of Rights in a way that is lost to one born to it, and taken for granted.

He was trying to explain the frustrations of being proud of his Scottishness, while at the same time being frustrated at the lack of freedom, and liberty in his country, when compared to being an American in America. He told a story, which highlighted this problem that I would like to share…

He had two friends, let’s call them Tommy and Bill, who worked for the railroads, maintaining and repairing track as members of a ‘rail gang.’

“These rail gangs were made up of hard men. Tommy and Bill played at right and left back (defense) for the railway soccer team, which was infamous as being the hardest team in the league. Bill and Tommy’s motto was “they shall not pass!” and woe to any opposing forward who tried to run past them with the ball!

The rail gangs were also noted for their extreme left wing political views, and during their lunch breaks there were always discussions on the merits of various forms of Socialism. The only ganger's who weren’t stanch members of the Labour party, were staunch members of the Communist party!

These were men who would, in times of war, have helped form the backbone of any fighting unit of the famous ‘Gordon Highlanders’ regiment in the British army. Their foremen at work treated them with the respect that was due to hard working, hard fighting men. They had a fiercely independent streak, and were proud of the fact that they felt themselves to be the equal of any of their so-called ‘betters’ in the aristocracy.

They were proud of the fact that they worked in all weathers... and no train would be stuck because they were inside a hut warming their hands. Not that they did it for the railway company mind you, but because of pride in their own toughness, with ability to brave the elements. It was their responsibility, and they took that serious...

One day, as they were repairing a section of track, the whistle blew to warn them of an approaching train, and they moved to the side of the track to allow it to pass. The train slowed to go over the damaged track, and crawled along at less than walking speed.

As the train passed this rugged line of men, they looked up at the carriages and the many faces looking out. And there, they were so surprised to see, was the Queen Mother, the most respected member of the British royal family.

When she saw the men, she smiled and waved her hand gracefully (as only she can do). Then, this group of hard men, these hardened socialists, who would punch a boss rather than take any abuse, all at the same instant... doffed their caps to her! When the train had passed, each of them avoided the eyes of their mates, put their caps on, and never mentioned the incident to each other ever again!

“It seemed that, in spite of their strongly held socialist beliefs, that ‘we are a’ Jock Tamson’s bairns’ (we are all equal), centuries of kow-towing to the aristocracy had made the cap-doffing an instinctive reaction. These men would have had their eye teeth removed rather than admit this, but nevertheless it was so.

Because there has never been a revolution in the UK, and because the ruling classes are still there, the ordinary people have never known what it feels like to be truly free. There are still hereditary peers in the house of Lords who have the right to vote on legislation, not because they are qualified in any way, shape, or form, but because their forefathers were part of the ancient aristocracy!

In the distant past, people were elevated to the peerage for performing some service to the king, perhaps even providing women for his pleasure, and their sons and grandsons have been reaping the benefit for generation after generation.

Only recently has the Labour government made changes to the House of Lords, with some of the hereditary peers being turfed out of their cozy club. Even this radical Labour government didn’t have the courage of their convictions, however, and left some of the hereditary peers in place. If the ruling government still doffs its cap to the aristocracy, small wonder that Tommy and Bill doffed theirs!”

Now, before we Americans start to scoff at the serf-like attitudes of these men, it’s worth thinking about the fact that our forefathers were probably driven out from Scotland (or countries like it) – and had to fight tooth and nail in the War of Independence, so that their children would never have to doff their caps to their ‘betters’.

Even so, think about how the east coast intelligentsia in America fall over themselves to get close to visiting British royalty, even after nearly 260 years of freedom. Take these railwaymen out of Scotland for a couple of generations, let them breathe the free air of America, and they would be no different from any of us.

Finally, a few words of warning about America which my Scottish friend passed on, and which I quote almost word for word: “Freedom is a precious commodity that has to be re-won each generation. A lazy and apathetic population will have their freedoms eroded slowly and smoothly by those in the halls of Congress who ‘know what’s best for you.’

Don’t, as a people, allow a ruling class to get too entrenched in the corridors of power! This is not a party political statement. I don’t care if you vote Democrat, Republican, or any other political party, it behooves each of you to vote regularly, and to regularly call your government representatives to account. Are two generations of Bush in the White House enough? Should you even contemplate voting for another Kennedy?

Remember, it’s only a few years since Richard Nixon contemplated the idea of changing the constitution so that he could run for a third term! And it was only through the incompetence of a few burglars that it was discovered how far he was prepared to go to hang on to power! You should make sure that you elect more Thomas Jeffersons, rather than the scions of a few ruling dynasties. Don’t create your own royal families, so that your children don’t ever feel too ashamed to look each other in the eye as they stand with doffed caps and watch some dignitary sweep past in an armored limo”.

Far fetched? Maybe, but we should check even the smallest tendency for the ruling classes to rear their ugly heads in this fine country of ours – just in case! My friend tells me that he cannot openly write about his feelings, and envies my ability to do so. I felt a lump in my throat when I realized the implications of what he said, and how much for granted I have taken our freedoms… Liberty, in danger.

I had not paid much attention to the political climate of America or the world until I started to travel. And of all the cultures I have met along the way, from the high road to the low, Scotland and its people are a part of my heart. I hope they can find enough patriots who want to be free from the yoke of tyranny. God bless you Scotland.