The Pussification of The South Dec 04, 2004
Recently here in Arkansas, it seems like the Clinton Library has been the big topic of conversation, saturating the news to the point of naseau on my part. Clinton maybe didn't suck, but he wasn't as great as liberals seem to think either.
That's beside the point.
Shortly before the mass of ceremonial bullshit that went into opening the library, a ridiculous bit of political correctness was undertaken in Little Rock, namely — pun intended — the RENAMING of Confederate Blvd. Now, part of the road had already been redubbed as Springer quite a few years back. The moniker assassins returned to finish the job recently apparently because of all the visitors that would be descending on Little Rock for the whole library shebang. God forbid someone should see the word "Confederate," be reminded of the Civil War and think of slavery.
Of course, Little Rock has long been embarassed, I guess, about its most prominent historical event, that little thing about keeping black children from their educational rights.
Here's the problem. Yes, racism is an ugly thing and certainly the South has been, and even, to a degree, still is today, guilty of racism, especially in the pre-Civil War days of slavery.
But for once let's get things straight. The Civil War, the Confederacy, the Rebel Flag ... all these things are about something bigger — and a whole lot more positive — than racism. Racism has long been a side issue that has clouded the Civil War and its real reason for happening.
The whole ideal behind the Civil War was states' rights, an issue that is no less important today than ever.
I'm not a redneck. I'm not a white supremacist. When I yell "yee-haw!" it's all in good fun. I don't listen to much country music (there's lots of us down here that don't). Blah blah blah. But you know what? I love the Rebel Flag. (A) It's about rebellion, duh! (B) It stands for the rights of states to decide for themselves what to do without a bloated federal government sticking its goddamned nose in where it doesn't belong.
The feds are there to set up basic constitutional parameters and maintain infrastructure. The rest is up to the states.
Let's face it. Minus the whole slavery thing (which I admit was deplorable), the South was RIGHT in the Civil War. Abe Lincoln is not the super duper president schools' revisionist history has made him out to be. That's right, it's the so-called traditional history force fed you in school that's really the revisionist version of things. It's the doctored version.
Why call the truth revisionist?
And why go around revising things that don't need revising.
There's no fucking reason the Confederacy — a noble part of Southern history — should be swept under the rug to save face in front of a few damn Yankees.