Confederate Treason

Ever since the early years of this century, I've worried that there's a sort of cold civil war going on.  I remember a time when I had Republican friends I got along with and could have civilized debates with.  I have fond memories of debating the issues of the day in high school with my Republican friend Doug Herman.  Regardless of politics, Doug and I were always friends.

I've always seen democracy in the U.S. and the rest of the first world as being something civilized, in which the citizens can openly discuss the issues of the day with courtesy and respect.  Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right of due process and even freedom of religion and a separation of church and state are all critical human rights that are necessary for democracy to be functional.  Every citizen has a right and even a duty to both express their opinions and respect the rights of others to theirs.  Every citizen has an obligation to keep religion firmly separate from politics, lest we begin to legislate religious beliefs and thereby violate freedom of religion.  The government cannot imprison people without due process of law and without accusing them of crimes and giving them a fair trial by a jury of their peers.  If it could, it would be all too easy to take political prisoners.

These are more than just American rights.  The Declaration of Independence says that we are all, "endowed by [our] Creator with... inalienable rights."  That is to say that these rights are as things should be.  They exist to stop tyranny are are necessary for preserving democracy.  This concept is called human rights or natural rights.  What this means is that everybody on earth actually has these rights.  If governments keep them from the people, those governments are oppressing their citizens' rights.  For example, last I checked, the Saudi Arabian government does not preserve freedom of religion.  But the important thing to understand is that Saudi Arabs, like all human beings, have a right to freedom of religion.  It's just that their government oppresses those rights.

However, in this century, I've seen conservatives violate all the forms of civility that are vital to healthy democracy.  George W. Bush imprisoned suspected terrorists indefinitely in Guantanamo Bay without due process in a trial by a jury of their peers.  This violated (and is in many cases still violating) their human rights to a fair trial.  If they're guilty, a trial should be able to prove that.  If a trial fails to prove their guilt, they should be presumed innocent and set free.  This is more than just an affront to these prisoners.  It's an affront to human rights, which are vital to a functional democratic society.

Twenty-First Century conservatives have done everything they can to tear down what Thomas Jefferson called the "wall of separation between church and state" (the quote that coined the term).  Our Constitution says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."  That means that we cannot have government sponsored religiosity of any kind.  Displaying the ten commandments on public property, such as court houses, is one step toward establishing religion.

What's more, freedom of religion cannot function without a separation of church and state.  If we have prayer in public schools, the ten commandments displayed in court houses, and presidents talking about Jesus in their speeches (which George W. Bush did), the message is that this is a Christian country.

It is not, has never been, and, God willing, never will be.  To make America a Christian nation, would be to establish a religion.  Moreover, we all have a human right to separation of church and state.  All this mixing of state and church is a violation of our human rights!

When our leaders come onto TV to debate the issues of the day, I never see them debate in a civilized or respectful way anymore.  The conservatives interrupt, verbally attack and talk down to liberals and moderates who disagree with them.  While this isn't a violation of freedom of speech, exactly, it's a cultural step toward creating the very dysfunction, for our democratic society, against which freedom of speech is meant to protect.

The poorly named "tea party" brought our government to a halt several times by refusing to pass the budget.  This is fundamentally opposed to the democratic process.  They have accused the President, without any evidence whatsoever, much less proof, of being born outside of the U.S. (in spite of him producing his birth certificate) and of being a Muslim (he's actually a Christian).  When George W. Bush was in office, they wouldn't stand for anyone even questioning President Bush.  Polite questioning is healthy.  However, the "tea party" people likened the President first to the Joker from Batman and then to Adolf Hitler: both totally uncalled-for comparisons.  They've treated our President with less respect than most people treat their dogs.  It's not only thoroughly barbaric, it's anti-democratic and unworthy of American citizenry.  Civility, as I've said, is necessary to healthy democratic discourse.

Now, we see white police officers shooting black kids down in the street like dogs. When blacks protest, we see totally inappropriate and uncalled-for violent responses. Most recently, we've seen innocent black people shot down in their own church.

The Fox Propaganda Network has tried to frame this as anti-Christian.  Wrong!  White supremacists typically identify as Christian themselves.  The various KKK organizations identify as Protestant.  Have people forgotten that the oppressors burned black churches during the Civil Rights movement?  While these killings may well be un-Christian, the victims were targeted because they're black, not because they're Christian!

For a long time, I've wondered what's going on.  There's something at work here that runs deeper than mere political beliefs.  Many Twenty-First Century conservatives are clearly far from interested in healthy democratic debate.  Instead, they're on the war path.

A few days ago, Valerie posted to Facebook a link to the best article I've ever read on the Tea Party, the bad old boys of the South and the Confederacy.  Suddenly the light bulb went off in my head.  Here's the link:

http://weeklysift.com/2014/08/11/not-a-tea-party-a-confederate-party/

The author makes a strong case for the so-called "Tea Party" being the Confederate Party.  He exposes a pattern that is behind this cold civil war.  The Confederacy never died!  It didn't end with the Civil War.  It continued to fight by keeping ex-slaves on the plantations to work for next to nothing.  When blacks tried to take their rights as free people and vote, the Confederatists kept them down, first with Jim Crow laws and, if that didn't work, lynchings.

The Ku Klux Klan has been described as a gang, but it is so much more insidious than that.  It's a terrorist organization, and integrated into the Southern establishment.  It has sheriffs and mayors among its members.  Now, I'm not saying that every Southern leader is a white supremacist hater.  I'm only saying that the white supremacist Confederates have their tentacles throughout Southern politics and power. 

The author, Doug Muder, points out something, too.  These Confederates don't play by the civilized rules of democracy that the rest of us play by.  Part of the deception is that different parts of the Confederate Party do different work and part of it is that they seem to follow democratic avenues, when in fact they take the path of least resistance.  We may see conservative politicians from the Confederate Party try to stop this piece of legislation, introduce that piece or make speeches about why we should do one thing and not another.  Then, we see seemingly unrelated Confederates attempting to assassinate the President's character.  We then see on TV that white police officers have shot and killed unarmed black kids who were running away and hear their defense that they somehow "needed" to to protect themselves.  Then, at another time, we hear of whites murdering innocent black people.

At first glance, these seem to be isolated incidents.  It seems as if there's a spectrum from civility to barbarity among these incidents and the people who perpetrate them.  However, after reading Muder's article, I realized that it's all one big system.

Now, some of my readers will retort that what I'm saying sounds like "conspiracy theory", but bear with me.  It also must have seemed like this during Reconstruction, during the age of Jim Crow laws and during the Civil Rights movement.  One side of this beast had a civilized facade, while the other side was lynching blacks and burning their churches.

Am I saying that all of these people, from the conservative politician to the white supremicist murderer, are actually in literal communication?  No.  It's worse than that.  I am saying that there's an insidious culture of racism that breeds these seemingly disparate acts.  There's, moreover, a social system continuing to wage the Civil War that many of the members of this Confederate Party are a part of.  And I think it's highly likely that many of the politicians secretly want police to "put black folk in their place" or even want black church-goers to be terrorized in their places of worship.

"Conspiracy theory" has become a buzzword, in the propaganda sense of the term.  A buzzword is a technique involving a term that can have two different meanings (A and B) in which propagandists use the term to mean A in the hopes that people will think they mean B, where B is a conclusion that will further the political goals of the progandists.

Thus, "conspiracy theory" could mean two different things.  One is obviously dubious suggestions of conspiracy, like UFO coverups.  The other is highly plausible conspiracies.  Remember that the Ku Klux Klan is a conspiracy that we definitely know is very real.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the term "conspiracy theory" was being deliberately used as a buzzword by these Confederates specifically to gaslight liberals who want to shed light on what's really happening with the white supremacists in this country.

Everyone who was involved in the Civil Rights movement, back in the day, tells me that the conspiracy against blacks was very real.  The Jim Crow laws, the police stopping blacks from voting in the south, the disinformation campaigns, the lynchings and the church burnings were all part of one, underground, political system.  In fact, Valerie, who was raised among those people, tells me much the same thing.

The scary thing about Muder's article is that Muder points out the Conferates only start with seemingly democratic political means to their ends when they think those will work.  When those fail, they get more an more barbaric.  Political discourse gives way to propaganda, disinformation and disrespect of any dissenters.  These give way to threats.  (He showed pictures of "tea party" or what he calls Confederate Party protesters with signs saying things like, "We came unarmed (this time).")  The threats eventually give way to violence (such as police brutality) and white terrorism (such as church murders).  It's all part of one, many-tentacled demon of hatred.

The Confederate Party has never really respected the democratic process.  It only uses it cynically, if it thinks it can get what it wants with it.  It will protect the status quo at all costs.  It is hell bent on stopping universal health care, good public school systems, a safety net for the poor, and so forth, at all costs, civility and democratic values be damned.  It will willingly throw suspects in prison without trial or shoot them down in the street (particularly if they're non-white).  And, the worst part is that it's being exported out of the South. 

Now, there are plenty of conservatives who are separate from this Confederate Party.  We've seen dissent between the so-called "tea party" and non-"tea party" Republicans.  There are plenty of Southerners who are non-Confederates, too.  It's a mentality, a culture, a system and, at its worst, an underground, undemocratic, tyrannical government.

Muder points out that the telltale sign of Confederate Party members is that they'll want to tell people how they think South was the victim in the Civil War when nobody asked.  Muder asks how that's relevant to today?  Why would they try to convince people of that?  The only reason could be that it's important to them.  And why is it important to them, because they know their secret: they're real politics is that they're still fighting the Civil War.

They'll tell us that the Civil War was fought over tariffs as opposed to slavery.  I used to get caught up in this idea, mainly because, as a good citizen, I try to see other people's points of view, even if my first reaction is to disagree.  I used to think that such people were sincerely engaging in democratic, public discourse, so when I'd see them say those things on TV or read about it in the news, I'd tend to do my civic duty and listen.  I'd tend to attempt to apply logic to their statements.  For awhile, I bought into the idea that tariffs might have been at least as significant as slavery in the causes of the Civil War.

But, I realized something today.  Neither slavery nor tariffs were the causes of the Civil War.  Both were certainly causes for tension between the North and South prior to the Civil War.  I suspect the real truth is that some Northerners were abolitionists and some were Industrial Revolution moguls who wanted to exploit the South.  What I realized today, though, is that neither was the actual cause of the Civil War.  President Lincoln was opposed to fighting a civil war, before war broke out.  The war started when Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumpter in 1861.

The Civil War has been described by many as a failure of our democracy and of just the sort of thing our Constitution was made to avoid.  The cause of the Civil War was Confederate barbarism.  The South (for the exception of West Virginia and, at least officially, Kentucky) started out trying to use the democratic process.  When that failed, they seceded.  When the Union said they couldn't do that, they went for their guns.  Sound familiar?  It's the same pattern that I see going on today.

Now, certainly, Sherman's march to the sea was one of the great atrocities of modern warfare, but Southerners have repeatedly used that to complain that their ancestors fought the war honorably while the Union fought dishonorably.  However, this belies the fact that the Confederate states failed to work within the democractic process.  They were dishonorable politically before the Union was ever dishonorable militarily.

And, as for tariffs, yes, that was an issue.  However, does anybody really think the South would have given up its slaves if the North hadn't forced them to?  If anybody does, I'd ask them, why didn't the South give up their slaves decades earlier?  I've heard some people say, "well, that was before the cotton gin was invented.  The invention of the cotton gin meant the South was no longer dependent on slave labor?"  Really?  Is that supposed to be some sort of justification of slavery?  Slavery is never justified under any circumstances!  There's no sort of lack of technology that justifies it.

Getting back to current events, South Carolina State Representative Lee Bright compared taking down the Confederate flag from the state capital building to a "Stalinist purge".  Why would anyone think that?  The only flag any American patriot should endorse flying over a state capital apart from the state flag (and perhaps the flag of the capitol city, if such a flag exists) is the American flag.

Do we ever hear of modern Germans saying that it's alright to fly the Nazi flag as a "piece of history"?  No!  Why?  Because, Germans are extremely remorseful for the Holocaust and want to make sure it never happens again.  Do we ever hear Germans saying, "well, the U.S. fought dishonorably in World War II"?  Of course not.  Why would they?  They know what a tyrant Hitler was.

The Confederate South started the Civil War with treason.  The Confederate flag is a traitor's flag and the only place it belongs in America is in a Civil War museum.  Why would Representative Bright think that taking down the Confederate flag would be like a "Stalinist purge"?  The only reason I can think of is that Bright is a Confederate and that flag represents the underground government, to which he has pledged his true allegiance.  Far from being a "Stalinist purge", taking down the treasonous flag would be an act of patriotism to America.

Now, if any of my Southern friends are offended by this post, remember several things.  First, I don't mean you.  If you're not a Confederate, I haven't said anything against you.  Secondly, if you're a patriotic American, what's the problem?  If you're offended by what I've said about the Civil War, what I'd ask is: why do you care?  The Civil War 150 years ago.  I'm not interested in the original Confederacy.

I call for the South to disavow modern Confederates and to stop whining about the Civil War.  Let it remain in history books, museums and Civil War reenactments, but, apart from that, let it go.  The North may have imposed tariffs and carpet-baggers on the South, but the South imposed slavery on blacks.  Meanwhile, Charles Dickens was extremely embarrassed when he visited America and was served by slaves.

So, for what it's worth, if it so happens that any of my Yankee ancestors were the tariff imposing / carpet-bagging kind of Yankees rather than the abolitionist type, because I'm a civilized citizen of a democracy, and in the interest of diplomacy, I apologize on their behalf.  In return, apologize on behalf of any of your ancestors who were slave owners.  Now that we've apologized, let's move on!

I call on all Americans to be extremely worried about the modern Confederate Party.  Know that, rather than being gentile, civilized fellow citizens, they are anti-democracy barbarians who will go for their guns once they don't get their way.  I don't know what the answer is, but I hope that we all exercise our freedoms of speech and the press and our rights to petition the government for redress of grievances and to peaceably assemble to try to communicate amongst our non-treasonous fellow Americans and find a solution.

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[1] Well, I still do, but far less than I used to and it seems far more improbable these days.
[2] Well, by "Confederate Party", I mean people who identify as tea party, but I'm using Muder's term for them.