Hillary Clinton Finds the South Too Southern



by Mac Johnson, 2/21/07

Well, it must be campaign time again because the Democrat presidential “hopefuls”
have finally found a war they are willing to support publicly. No, not Iraq or
Afghanistan, or even the First Gulf War, Panama, Grenada, Vietnam, or Korea (taking
a position on any of those is much too safe.) Instead, the resolute blue state
warriors have decided to publicly reiterate their unconditional opposition to
the Confederacy. Let the chips fall where they may, but Chris Dodd, Joe Biden
and now Hillary Clinton have decided they’re agin’ the Confederate
flag.

The cause of these startling declarations of public fealty to the Union is the
fact that, while driving through the South to get to Florida, somebody in the
Democrat party seems to have discovered that the whole place can be terribly
Southern. Indeed, many Southerners continue in their Southern-ness even as we
live and breath, apparently unaware that to be Southern is an inherently racist
act.

Now one would think that all Southerners would spend their days wandering around
in a shamed stupor, flagellating themselves with spiked chains forged from the
actual rails of the underground railroad, while chanting “I hate myself,
I hate my daddy, I hate his daddy, I hate his daddy too…” But apparently,
many Southerners have failed to buy into the two dimensional propaganda caricature
of themselves as the villains of all human history and seem to think that they
are as entitled to identity, history and pride as any other American group —
warts and all. How multicultural!

Yet instead of celebrating diversity and singing the praises of the gray stripe
in the American rainbow, Clinton and comrades have declared that the Confederate
flag has no place being displayed anywhere near the South Carolina state house.
I mean think about it — a Confederate flag in South Carolina! What’s
next, Mickey Mouse ears at Disneyland?

If it were just this one flag that bothered the professionally offended, it
would be laughable. Does anyone really believe that the flag is a threat or
that Hillary cares one bit about anything in the state of South Carolina, other
than its primary? (And where was Hillary’s strong stand against Southern
symbols when her husband was running for governor of Arkansas?) But the assault
on the flag at the South Carolina state house is not merely laughable because
it is part of a media-subsidized total war on all Southern symbols.

Children are expelled from schools for t-shirts or purses displaying “the
flag.” The Southern banner has been taken off the state flag of Georgia
through the weaseling of politicians, and the people of the state denied the
right to vote on reinstating it (which tells where the majority opinion must
lay). The Southern flag has been taken down from historical parks and cemeteries.
The names of Southern heroes are being removed from streets and schools all
over the South — all in the name of “diversity” — a category that
includes all cultures save anything particularly American.

In short, Southerners have been told by their liberal overlords that they are
an intrinsically offensive people and that the only way for them to avoid further
offense is to commit cultural suicide — to forget their own past, condemn their
own ancestors and tear down their own symbols and emblems. Hell, forget Tibet,
if you want to see a small region culturally erased by left-wing nutcases avenging
past schism, look no further than Alabama or Mississippi.

It’s probably just a matter of time before the war monuments are blasted
off the side of Stone Mountain and Southern children face re-education at summer
“contrition camps.”

Think I’m nuts? In her condemnation of the Confederate flag in South
Carolina, Clinton claimed, "I think about how many South Carolinians have
served in our military and who are serving today under our flag and I believe
that we should have one flag that we all pay honor to, as I know that most people
in South Carolina do every single day.” In other words, honoring the flag
under which more South Carolina veterans died than any other is offensive to
South Carolina veterans.

If that is her real concern, then I (as a displaced Southerner) will make a
deal with her: why don’t we just let the veterans of South Carolina vote
on whether to keep the flag flying in South Carolina and live with their decision?
If a majority of Marines and Soldiers and Sailors and Airmen from Columbia and
Catawba and Charleston vote to give up being Southern, I will shut up and accept
their decision. Conversely, if they vote to proudly keep their region’s
symbol intact, then Hillary and Biden and Dodd, and all the other carpetbagging
whiners that appear like evil stinking corpse flowers every four years to broadcast
their contrived stench upon the very loyal and patriotic people of the American
South, will shut up and go home — if Hillary can ever decide where her home
state is.

If there is something un-American in being Southern, which is what Clinton
implied with her statement that display of Southern symbols is an affront to
America’s veterans, then nothing is American — from George Washington
on down to today, when a disproportionate number of the men that fight for our
country in Iraq and Afghanistan are from places like South Carolina, where “the
flag” is still displayed with purely American pride.

If Hillary wants to honor such veterans, she can try supporting a war that
didn’t end 143 years ago, and begin looking on the unique history of the
American South “with malice towards none, with charity for all…”

And for those that think that this debate over Southern symbols does not affect
them, consider that the forces that would erase the emblems and heroes of Southern
history in the name of tolerance are the exact same ones who would, for the
same alleged tolerance, erase other American emblems and heroes as well, be
they the Pledge of Allegiance, the dead white male Founding Fathers, Christian
crosses, or even Old Glory herself.

The South is Southern. Get over it.

copyright 2007 Mac Johnson

On The Web:
http://www.theonerepublic.com/archives/Columns/JohnsonM/20070221JohnsonSouth.html