News Flash: We’ve Been Betrayed by Establishment Conservatives

As Paul Gottfried pointed out recently, “No one on the Left sounds as unhinged as ‘conservative’ journalists like Max Boot (Furling the Confederate flag is just the start). Or for that matter, Jeff Jacoby (The Confederate flag is anti-American).” And Gottfried is right – it’s not just Establishment Conservatives in the media who are attacking their own base – the most shrill, hysterical slander against Southern heritage has come from “conservative” Republicans in office. For example, here’s Gottfried again in a piece entitled “The NeoCons’ Confederate Problem.” And if you have the stomach for it, watch Republican Jenny Horne screech that the “symbol of hate” flying on the South Carolina capital grounds MUST be removed:

The mania against all things Southern has made a lot of folks realize they have no representation in government. Elected officials who claim to be conservatives actually represent no one but the powers that be. We’ve been stabbed in the back too many times, whether it’s been the issue of same-sex “marriage,” abortion, amnesty for illegal aliens, Muslim immigration to this country, citizen surveillance, you name it, and we, the people, are always on the losing end.

A little witticism has popped up online in response. Establishment Conservatives are ridiculed as “cuckservatives.” The term blends the word “cuckold,” a man who’s faithful to his unfaithful wife, with “conservative.” Like all good political jokes, it serves up the truth with a side dish of humor. “Cuckservatives” may claim to represent conservatism, but actually advance leftist and Establishment interests because they have embraced the leftist worldview.

Is the term fitting? Consider this: What do authoritarian leftists do when challenged? They do not debate, but attack, and their go-to position is that only a racist, white supremacist, neo-nazi would DARE question their noble agenda. The most extreme example would be the “anti-racist” thugs who physically attack those who fail to think correctly. The more “respectable” leftists do the same thing, only without the gutter language. For example, here’s Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center slamming Pat Buchanan. At 1:45 into this video, Beirich says: “Neocons for the most part in white-supremacist circles are identified as Jews. So it’s actually an expression of anti-Semitism when he has material like that about Neocons. It comes from his right-wing, crazy, anti-Semitic views.”

Compare that language to that used by the so-called “conservative” Ace of Spades: “The word “#cuckservative” is being used as a banner-of-convenience by a conglomeration of several types of people, who range from what I’d call mere nativists to actual, hard-core, Nazi-flag-in-their-twitter profile white supremacists.”

Robert Stacy McCain, another Establishment Conservative, uses the same terms in his slam against the #Cuckservative revolt: “Thus, also, you don’t necessarily have to like Jews or be pro-Israel to be my friend. But if you start making noises about “international bankers” or “neocons” or otherwise signaling to me that you have a paranoid hostility toward Jews — what I call conspiratorial anti-semitism — well, no, I can’t hang with that.” And just to rub a little more salt into the wound, McCain’s assistant blogger, Wombat-socho, bragged the next day that he’d banned several commenters on the McCain blog, in effect, repelling what he called a “flood of racist/white nationalist/Nazi idiots.”

As a recent Washington Post article on this growing movement has noted, “‘#Cuckservative’ is a full-scale revolt.” For those who have had enough betrayal, and are sick and tired of always losing because we trusted Republican politicians, the “#Cuckservative” meme is at least a start.

Thus Spake Zorg

Under an excellent article by Catholic World Report, a post by “Zorg” was penned on the WBTS.:

Very good article, except I have to quibble over the word “cause.”

“To insist that the only cause of the war was slavery—and it was a
cause of the war—obscures a number of things.” I understand that you mean it was an historical factor, but a *cause* of the *war* it was not. Yes, we habitually speak this way, but it’s not helpful. It’s too much of a propaganda term as it implies inevitability and some sort of quasi-physical “historical process” or whatever. Human beings are exceedingly prone to rationalize war rather easily, so the words used are very important.

War-making is not a matter of physics, but of choice. Human beings with free will directly cause war as it is organized violence. It was Lincoln who decided to make war on the states after they seceded, and because they seceded. His stated goal for making war was to preserve the Union (even at the expense of the slaves if necessary). If Lincoln did not make war against them for seceding, then there would have been no war.

Secession is not war. This is a distinction which cannot be missed. War is a planned aggression, willed and carried out consciously by men. And those who do so are directly responsible for the consequences which follow.

Incredibly monstrous consequences followed Lincoln’s war on the states and the people of the South. We are still feeling the effects after 150 years. Lincoln’s Orwellian “Union” was not the voluntary Union of the Founders or of the Constitution, but more like the Soviet Union – join or die. And now the rotten fruit of this idolatrous doctrine of the central state as an irresistible mystical “Union” is becoming fully manifest.

This current move to cleanse the culture of our historical and cultural symbols is truly un-American. The cultural Marxist narrative that this historical American battle flag is somehow “racist” in itself, and that anyone who displays it must be publicly shamed and vilified, is insane, but it’s par for the course. It’s what these people do. They are hellbent on vilification and thought control. You either toe the line and parrot back to them their social-engineering propaganda or you are a “bigot,” or a “racist,” or a “homophobe,” or “anti-choice,” or “hateful,” or “ignorant,” etc. We must all be “one,” and stop being “divisive.”

I’m guessing that they finally figured out that that X was a St. Andrew’s cross, and they had the usual reaction of vampires.

The quality of argument is really improving!

US South and Utah More Charitable Than Others, Despite Poverty

Market Watch recently published a study showing wealthier neighborhoods give less than do poorer neighborhoods. However, there’s a more interesting trend.

From the map, Utah and the US South appear to be much more charitable than the rest of the US. And notice how “Deep South” Mississippi and Alabama are especially charitable despite poverty. These two states are where we find some of the highest percent of remnant blue-blood Southrons.

Counties in New England tend to give less — yet also have either moderate or high standards of living, while counties in Utah and the Southeast, where religious attendance is higher, have higher rates of giving, despite having low or moderate standards of living. San Juan County in Utah has an “Opportunity Index” — based on educational, economic and involvement in civic life — of 35.6% out of 100% but a giving ratio of 8.8% (anything above 7.9% is considered a high giving ratio). Hamilton County, N.Y., however, has a higher opportunity index of 56.6% and a giving ratio of just 3% (anything below 4.3% is considered low).

I expect there are a variety of trends at play here. Religion, rurality, sense of community (homogeneity helps), rootedness (generations living in same area), ethnicity (whites), and lack of opportunity (making others’ poverty more understandable) all encourage charity. I realise these are dark areas, but such doesn’t mean the blacks give as much as the whites.

It’s interesting that many of the Blue State residents will likely vote for government to step in to help, but they don’t wish to give themselves. So, it’s partly a difference in culture.

Once again we see how wonderful is the dying shell of the remnant Olde South, how sad is its passing. Notice how this is not a “capitalist” vs. “socialist” divide. The divide truly is between the US South and Utah versus much of the rest of the US. This is not a Cold War divide.

The Southern Cradle: A Review of The Other Irish

Ever wonder about “The Scots-Irish Rascals Who Made America”? Here’s my review of Karen McCarthy’s entertaining introduction to The Other Irish, featured today on the Abbeville Institute blog.

Southern Identity Found to Be “Mortifying”, “Heartbreaking”, Results in Apology

America was 13 colonies, each granted independence by the British; but the heritage of 6 of those colonies is not tolerated.

A recent prom photo of Colorado students posing behind a Confederate flag has created outrage, followed by the predictable apology.

That the South can trace back to Virginia Dare’s birth in 1587 and to the later successful Jamestown Settlement is apparently irrelevant. That slavery wasn’t banned in the Middle East until the early to mid 20th century and did not originate in the US South is ignored. American states were very different, decentralised until the unification of the 14th Amendment; but today that distinct heritage is oppressed.

The US was not always such a pleasant destination for immigrants. It had to first be colonised, developed from a wilderness. The heritage of those early colonists deserves respect. No society is perfect, and there is more to the South than a heritage of slavery.

Why the Confederacy Lives

The very existence of opposition gnaws at radical leftists. They particularly despise Southerners because the South’s resilient culture is a major impediment to their agenda. Culture is an organic and tireless organizing force, and therefore a threat to far-left schemes that would dismantle society and put the left in charge. Just look at how traditional culture overthrew the Soviet bloc in the 1990s, and how it’s challenging overgrown governments around the world today.

So it’s no surprise to see yet another slam against the South by the tag team of Euan Hague, Heidi Beirich, and Ed Sebesta. Their latest hit piece, entitled “Why the Confederacy Lives,” neatly and blindly dismisses Southern heritage, the rise of self-government, and growing distrust of social reengineering as — drum roll, please — racist.

What, again?

Yes, again. It’s an entirely predictable article. As Hague and company see it, there is no reason for distrusting big government other than blind, irrational racial hatred. Here’s just one example they cite:

In more public venues, the SCV’s dog-whistle politics come into play. Casting an eye over recent events in Ferguson and elsewhere, although never explicitly stating this, SCV deputy commander-in-chief Thomas V. Strain Jr. recently decried the “young men with no guidance attacking law-abiding citizens and law enforcement officers,” officers who, when they “remedy the situation and protect the innocent … are called murderers.”

Of course, it’s not just “neo-Confederates,” as Hague & Co. call their various targets, who now realize that government welfare and other programs have undermined traditional family formation and unleashed a mostly black underclass of rootless, anti-social young people. Just last month, Nicholas Kristof, hardly a pro-Southern pundit, said this of failed federal programs that have done more harm than good:

Fifty years ago this month, Democrats made a historic mistake.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, at the time a federal official, wrote a famous report in March 1965 on family breakdown among African-Americans. He argued presciently and powerfully that the rise of single-parent households would make poverty more intractable.

“The fundamental problem,” Moynihan wrote, is family breakdown. In a follow-up, he explained: “From the wild Irish slums of the 19th-century Eastern seaboard, to the riot-torn suburbs of Los Angeles, there is one unmistakable lesson in American history: a community that allows large numbers of young men to grow up in broken families … never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any set of rational expectations about the future — that community asks for and gets chaos.”

Liberals brutally denounced Moynihan as a racist.

Kristof concluded that tossing the word “racist” at every study of black dysfunction is counter-productive:

Growing up with just one biological parent reduces the chance that a child will graduate from high school by 40 percent, according to an essay by Sara McLanahan of Princeton and Christopher Jencks of Harvard. They point to the likely mechanism: “A father’s absence increases antisocial behavior, such as aggression, rule-breaking, delinquency and illegal drug use.” These effects are greater on boys than on girls.

Read the Hague hit piece and you’ll see no mention of how the resurgence of smaller, more responsive political units are in direct response to the horrendous history of big governments. Post-Lincoln America has a bloody record of launching wars of aggression, and will continue its policy of perpetual war as long as it exists. The central government in DC is the greatest threat to our safety and liberty. That’s not hype — that’s fact. Yet, Hague sees what he calls “Confederate ideology” as the real problem.

If you’re looking for dangerous ideologies, look no further than Mr. Hague himself. He’s a Marxist, an adherent of the most anti-human, murderous ideology the world has ever seen. Hague’s Marxist allegiance is documented here and at the World Socialist Web Site.

This isn’t the first time the SPLC has played footsie with Marxists. And seeing as how communism has re-branded itself as “anti-racism,” it probably won’t be the last.

Thanks to Gail for the heads-up!

How ‘bout a Little Bourbon with Your Philosophy?

Over at the Abbeville Review, John Devanny offers a highly readable and invaluable introduction to the South, the predominant attitudes and values that define it, and how it is changing. Underneath the various changes occurring before our eyes, says Devanny, we can still see the essence that makes the South what it is:

The Southerner was, and a number of them still are, philosophical realists (or as Flannery O’Connor might have said, “hillbilly Thomists”). That is why the natural world was so important to the Southern way of life. The world was real, not a play-ground for the abstractions of secular Puritans or neo-Platonic fantastics. The hillbilly Thomist conforms his mind to reality, seeks to improve what can be improved, ameliorate what can be ameliorated, and endure what cannot be changed. He embraces reality, not virtual reality. We need more hillbilly Thomists.

As Stark Young observed in I’ll Take My Stand, “That a change is now in course all over the South is plain; and it is as plain that the South changing must be the South still, remembering that for no thing can there be any completeness that is outside its own nature.” That was true in 1930 and it is true today. As our Southern grandparents would advise us, “Deal with it.”

This short and information-packed article is as encouraging as it is informative. Highly recommended.

Robert E. Howard, Southern Writer

Robert E. Howard’s Conan tales often make lists of pro-conservative fiction. The American Conservative, for example, touted Howard’s Conan tales as outstanding, if disturbing, examples of “last men” narratives, which explore the human condition within a background of the collapse of civilization. The Abbeville Institute has published my introduction to Howard’s stories and the surprisingly complex worldview they portray.