The Confederate battle flag is what makes America stupid: Spengler

[bemildred]

As the New York Times reports this morning, not a single Republican presidential candidate has the courage to tell South Carolina to stop flying the Confederate battle flag from its state capitol. It is a bit late for that, to be sure; public display of any kind of the symbol of the slaveholders’ rebellion should have been banned after the Union victory in 1865. Removing the Confederate flag from the grounds of South Carolina’s seat of government has become an African-American cause in the wake of last week’s Charleston church massacre. It may be incommensurate with the crime, but black Americans are entirely justified in their rancor against official sanction of a symbol of slavery.

On moral grounds I sympathize with the African-American view, but there is an even more urgent reason to rip down the Confederate flag. Our refusal to look squarely at the evil character of the American Confederacy turned us into idiots. It may be a bit late to remedy this national lapse in mental capacity, but one has to start somewhere.

America never recovered from its Civil War, which killed nearly a million combatants on both sides. The Union won on the battlefield but conceded a cultural victory of sorts to the defeated South, spinning a myth of Southern gallantry in a lost cause. This myth dominated the popular culture from D.W.Griffiths’ 1916 epic “Birth of a Nation” (which celebrates the rise of the Klu Klux Klan) to Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind with its romantic image of antebellum plantation culture.

This concession to a wicked cause cut America off from the principles of its Founding and ultimately turned us into idiots. It was not always so, as Angelo Codevilla explained in his masterful 2014 book “To Make and Keep the Peace.” John Quincy Adams and Abraham Lincoln performed brilliantly in the foreign policy arena; Lincoln’s alliance with Russia kept Great Britain from joining with the Confederacy to carve up the American republic.

http://atimes.com/2015/06/the-confederate-battle-flag-is-what-makes-america-stupid/

[pogglethrope]

1. Not to be a nitpicker, but there are

at least two problems with this snippet of David Goldman’s essay:

“... public display of any kind of the symbol of the slaveholders’ rebellion should have been banned after the Union victory in 1865.” Banned must mean against the law; such a law would violate the First Amendment. I’m all for repealing the Second Amendment, but not the First Amendment.

“... Civil War ... killed nearly a million combatants on both sides.” Wikipedia usually gets it right on historical matters: “The Civil War ... cost nearly 1,100,000 casualties and claimed more than 620,000 lives.” Citing as fact a death count some 50% higher than an accurate count is unnecessary to make a point. To me, it shows a too casual attitude towards historical facts.

It’s not uncommon to get your conclusions wrong when you get your facts wrong. The author may have fallen into that trap. For instance, his implication that many or most Confederate soldiers fought because they wanted to become slave owners. How could he possibly know that? While that may be true for some, there's no way to know that it was true for most. It's likely that Northerners as well as Southerners of the time wanted to improve their financial lot in life. For some Southern men of that era, getting wealthier could well have included becoming a slave owner.

Confederate veterans were still living when I was growing up and it was not uncommon to see a Confederate flag flown in a parade. (The notion that they fought valiantly for an evil cause simply never occurred to me.) The county I grew up in was in the South, but its populace sided with the North. I don’t know whether that meant they were anti-slavery or just opposed to seceding from the Union. As far as I know, no slaves were ever held in the county or any surrounding county.

Local men who refused to serve in the Confederate Army were taken prisoner and force-marched in chains to the state capital over a hundred miles away. They were forced to serve in the Confederate Army. "Many more men hid in the woods until they were caught or killed or could make their way to Union lines."

Tried to call a local history buff before posting this, but couldn’t reach him. I’ll try again later. If I find I’ve given any incorrect information, I’ll update the post.

[bemildred]

2. Yeah. I know. 600K is the number I recall.

I'm not that much of a fan of Goldman/Spengler either.

But I think you are going to see a lot of this argument. Because of the American Exceptionalism part.

[malthaussen]

3. Pointing out inconveniences in the current narrative will get nowhere.

Even if one is a Pennsylvania boy whose ancestors fought in the Army of the Potomac.

Like the inconvenient truth that the CSA passed conscription six months before the USA, that rich slave-owners could and did hire substitutes to fight for them, and the totally mind-boggling truth that even a few slaves fought for the CSA, which one would think was a classic example of acting against one's own interests. And if this guy truly thinks Abraham Lincoln (or Secretary Seward) "kept Great Britain from joining with the Confederacy," then he has a uniquely simplistic view of the subject. But then, the same could be said for many who prate on about the Civil War and slavery while knowing little about it.

I just mentioned elsewhere the inconvenient truth that the 13th amendment failed on first reading and barely passed on the second -- without a single Southern Representative in Congress. Wonder what the Newspaper of Record has to say about that.

As for the million dead, careless writers often conflate casualties with dead. I suppose it makes for a more interesting story.

-- Mal

[bemildred]

4. I think the most inconvenient truth is that racism has always been ubiquitous here in the USA.

Some places more that others, some times a little more, some times a little less.

When you live in the white ghettos, the white-only places, and the wealthy places, you don't see it.

And it has always been a popular political horse to ride on here too, and often has decided elections.

My main two issues with Goldman's argument are that he still wants to pretend we are "special" and that he sets up the South to be driven off into the desert as a scapegoat.

I think we have to stop being special and start following our own rules, be law abiding instead of "special". Special is just a dishonest racket.

On the other hand there is an argument to be made that failing to follow through on the reforms made pursuant to the Civil War, to implement real progressive democracy, not empire and plutocracy, has cost us bad as a nation, and the rest of the planet too.

[yurbud]

5. it doesn't MAKE us idiots--it makes idiots easier to identify like juggalo make up

Or as Bill Maher said, a confederate flag bumper sticker tells the cops, "The meth's in here!"