The Confederate Flag Needs To Be Raised, Not Lowered - By Chuck Baldwin

[moonwhim]

The Confederate Flag Needs To Be Raised, Not Lowered
By Chuck Baldwin
July 9, 2015
Ladies and gentlemen, I submit that what we see happening in the United States today is an apt illustration of why the Confederate flag was raised in the first place. What we see materializing before our very eyes is tyranny: tyranny over the freedom of expression, tyranny over the freedom of association, tyranny over the freedom of speech, and tyranny over the freedom of conscience.

In 1864, Confederate General Patrick Cleburne warned his fellow southerners of the historical consequences should the South lose their war for independence. He was truly a prophet. He said if the South lost, “It means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy. That our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by all of the influences of History and Education to regard our gallant debt as traitors and our maimed veterans as fit subjects for derision.” No truer words were ever spoken.

History revisionists flooded America’s public schools with Northern propaganda about the people who attempted to secede from the United States, characterizing them as racists, extremists, radicals, hatemongers, traitors, etc. You know, the same way that people in our federal government and news media attempt to characterize Christians, patriots, war veterans, constitutionalists, et al. today.

Folks, please understand that the only people in 1861 who believed that states did NOT have the right to secede were Abraham Lincoln and his radical Republicans. To say that southern states did not have the right to secede from the United States is to say that the thirteen colonies did not have the right to secede from Great Britain. One cannot be right and the other wrong. If one is right, both are right. How can we celebrate our Declaration of Independence in 1776 and then turn around and condemn the Declaration of Independence of the Confederacy in 1861? Talk about hypocrisy!

In fact, southern states were not the only states that talked about secession. After the southern states seceded, the State of Maryland fully intended to join them. In September of 1861, Lincoln sent federal troops to the State capital and seized the legislature by force in order to prevent them from voting. Federal provost marshals stood guard at the polls and arrested Democrats and anyone else who believed in secession. A special furlough was granted to Maryland troops so they could go home and vote against secession. Judges who tried to inquire into the phony elections were arrested and thrown into military prisons. There is your great “emancipator,” folks.

And before the South seceded, several northern states had also threatened secession. Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island had threatened secession as far back as James Madison’s administration. In addition, the states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware were threatening secession during the first half of the nineteenth century--long before the southern states even considered such a thing.

People say constantly that Lincoln “saved” the Union. Lincoln didn’t save the Union; he subjugated the Union. There is a huge difference. A union that is not voluntary is not a union. Does a man have a right to force a woman to marry him or to force a woman to stay married to him? In the eyes of God, a union of husband and wife is far superior to a union of states. If God recognizes the right of husbands and wives to separate (and He does), to try and suggest that states do not have the right to lawfully (under Natural and divine right) separate is the most preposterous proposition imaginable.

People say that Lincoln freed the slaves. Lincoln did NOT free a single slave. But what he did do was enslave free men. His so-called Emancipation Proclamation had NO AUTHORITY in the southern states, as they had separated into another country. Imagine a President today signing a proclamation to free folks in, say, China or Saudi Arabia. He would be laughed out of Washington. Lincoln had no authority over the Confederate States of America, and he knew it.

Do you not find it interesting that Lincoln’s proclamation did NOT free a single slave in the United States, the country in which he DID have authority? That’s right. The Emancipation Proclamation deliberately ignored slavery in the North. Do you not realize that when Lincoln signed his proclamation, there were over 300,000 slaveholders who were fighting in the Union army? Check it out.

One of those northern slaveholders was General (and later U.S. President) Ulysses S. Grant. In fact, he maintained possession of his slaves even after the War Between the States concluded. Recall that his counterpart, Confederate General Robert E. Lee, freed his slaves BEFORE hostilities between North and South ever broke out. When asked why he refused to free his slaves, Grant said, “Good help is hard to find these days.”

The institution of slavery did not end until the 13th Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865.

Speaking of the 13th Amendment, did you know that Lincoln authored his own 13th Amendment? It is the only amendment to the Constitution ever proposed by a sitting U.S. President. Here is Lincoln’s proposed amendment: “No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give Congress the power to abolish or interfere within any state with the domestic institutions thereof, including that a person's held to labor or service by laws of said State.”

You read it right. Lincoln proposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution PRESERVING the institution of slavery. This proposed amendment was written in March of 1861, a month BEFORE the shots were fired at Fort Sumter, South Carolina.

The State of South Carolina was particularly incensed at the tariffs enacted in 1828 and 1832. The Tariff of 1828 was disdainfully called, “The Tariff of Abominations” by the State of South Carolina. Accordingly, the South Carolina legislature declared that the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were “unauthorized by the constitution of the United States.”

Think, folks: why would the southern states secede from the Union over slavery when President Abraham Lincoln had offered an amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing the PRESERVATION of slavery? That makes no sense. If the issue was predominantly slavery, all the South needed to do was to go along with Lincoln, and his proposed 13th Amendment would have permanently preserved slavery among the southern (and northern) states. Does that sound like a body of people who were willing to lose hundreds of thousands of men on the battlefield over saving slavery? What nonsense!

The problem was Lincoln wanted the southern states to pay the Union a 40% tariff on their exports. The South considered this outrageous and refused to pay. By the time hostilities broke out in 1861, the South was paying up to, and perhaps exceeding, 70% of the nation’s taxes. Before the war, the South was very prosperous and productive. And Washington, D.C., kept raising the taxes and tariffs on them. You know, the way Washington, D.C., keeps raising the taxes on prosperous American citizens today.

This is much the same story of the way the colonies refused to pay the demanded tariffs of the British Crown--albeit the tariffs of the Crown were MUCH lower than those demanded by Lincoln. Lincoln’s proposed 13th Amendment was an attempt to entice the South into paying the tariffs by being willing to permanently ensconce the institution of slavery into the Constitution. AND THE SOUTH SAID NO!

In addition, the Congressional Record of the United States forever obliterates the notion that the North fought the War Between the States over slavery. Read it for yourself. This resolution was passed unanimously in the U.S. Congress on July 23, 1861, “The War is waged by the government of the United States not in the spirit of conquest or subjugation, nor for the purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or institutions of the states, but to defend and protect the Union.”

What could be clearer? The U.S. Congress declared that the war against the South was NOT an attempt to overthrow or interfere with the “institutions” of the states, but to keep the Union intact (by force). The “institutions” implied most certainly included the institution of slavery.

Hear it loudly and clearly: Lincoln’s war against the South had NOTHING to do with ending slavery--so said the U.S. Congress by unanimous resolution in 1861.

Abraham Lincoln, himself, said it was NEVER his intention to end the institution of slavery. In a letter to Alexander Stevens who later became the Vice President of the Confederacy, Lincoln wrote this, “Do the people of the South really entertain fears that a Republican administration would directly, or indirectly, interfere with their slaves, or with them, about their slaves? If they do, I wish to assure you, as once a friend, and still, I hope, not an enemy, that there is no cause for such fears. The South would be in no more danger in this respect than it was in the days of Washington.”

Again, what could be clearer? Lincoln, himself, said the southern states had nothing to fear from him in regard to abolishing slavery.

Hear Lincoln again: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it.” He also said, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so and I have no inclination to do so.”

The idea that the Confederate flag (actually there were five of them) stood for racism, bigotry, hatred, and slavery is just so much hogwash. In fact, if one truly wants to discover who the racist was in 1861, just read the words of Mr. Lincoln.

On August 14, 1862, Abraham Lincoln invited a group of black people to the White House. In his address to them, he told them of his plans to colonize them all back to Africa. Listen to what he told these folks: “Why should the people of your race be colonized and where? Why should they leave this country? This is, perhaps, the first question for proper consideration. You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss; but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think. Your race suffers very greatly, many of them, by living among us, while ours suffers from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side. If this is admitted, it affords a reason, at least, why we should be separated. You here are freemen, I suppose? Perhaps you have been long free, or all your lives. Your race is suffering, in my judgment, the greatest wrong inflicted on any people. But even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race. The aspiration of men is to enjoy equality with the best when free, but on this broad continent not a single man of your race is made the equal of a single man of our race.”

Did you hear what Lincoln said? He said that black people would NEVER be equal with white people--even if they all obtained their freedom from slavery. If that isn’t a racist statement, I’ve never heard one.

Lincoln’s statement above is not isolated. In Charleston, Illinois, in 1858, Lincoln said in a speech, “I am not, nor have ever been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races. I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races from living together on social or political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white.”

Ladies and gentlemen, in his own words, Abraham Lincoln declared himself to be a white supremacist. Why don’t our history books and news media tell the American people the truth about Lincoln and about the War Between the States?

It’s simple: if people would study the meanings and history of the flag, symbols, and statues of the Confederacy and Confederate leaders, they might begin to awaken to the tyrannical policies of Washington, D.C., that precluded southern independence--policies that have only escalated since the defeat of the Confederacy--and they might have a notion to again resist.

By the time Lincoln penned his Emancipation Proclamation, the war had been going on for two years without resolution. In fact, the North was losing the war. Even though the South was outmanned and out-equipped, the genius of the southern generals and fighting acumen of the southern men had put the northern armies on their heels. Many people in the North never saw the legitimacy of Lincoln’s war in the first place, and many of them actively campaigned against it. These people were affectionately called “Copperheads” by people in the South.

I urge you to watch Ron Maxwell’s accurate depiction of those people in the North who favored the southern cause as depicted in his motion picture, “Copperhead.” For that matter, I consider his movie, “Gods And Generals” to be the greatest “Civil War” movie ever made. It is the most accurate and fairest depiction of Confederate General Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson ever produced. In my opinion, actor Stephen Lang should have received an Oscar for his performance as General Jackson. But, can you imagine?

That’s another thing: the war fought from 1861 to 1865 was NOT a “civil war.” Civil war suggests two sides fighting for control of the same capital and country. The South didn’t want to take over Washington, D.C., no more than their forebears wanted to take over London. They wanted to separate from Washington, D.C., just as America’s Founding Fathers wanted to separate from Great Britain. The proper names for that war are either, “The War Between the States” or, “The War of Southern Independence,” or, more fittingly, “The War of Northern Aggression.”

Had the South wanted to take over Washington, D.C., they could have done so with the very first battle of the “Civil War.” When Lincoln ordered federal troops to invade Virginia in the First Battle of Manassas (called the “First Battle of Bull Run” by the North), Confederate troops sent the Yankees running for their lives all the way back to Washington. Had the Confederates pursued them, they could have easily taken the city of Washington, D.C., seized Abraham Lincoln, and perhaps ended the war before it really began. But General Beauregard and the others had no intention of fighting an aggressive war against the North. They merely wanted to defend the South against the aggression of the North.

In order to rally people in the North, Lincoln needed a moral crusade. That’s what his Emancipation Proclamation was all about. This explains why his proclamation was not penned until 1863, after two years of fruitless fighting. He was counting on people in the North to stop resisting his war against the South if they thought it was some kind of “holy” war. Plus, Lincoln was hoping that his proclamation would incite blacks in the South to insurrect against southern whites. If thousands of blacks would begin to wage war against their white neighbors, the fighting men of the southern armies would have to leave the battlefields and go home to defend their families. THIS NEVER HAPPENED.

Not only did blacks not riot against the whites of the south, many black men volunteered to fight alongside their white friends and neighbors in the Confederate army. Unlike the blacks in the North, who were conscripted by Lincoln and forced to fight in segregated units, thousands of blacks in the South fought of their own free will in a fully-integrated southern army. I bet your history book never told you about that.

If one wants to ban a racist flag, one would have to ban the British flag. Ships bearing the Union Jack shipped over 5 million African slaves to countries all over the world, including the British colonies in North America. Other slave ships flew the Dutch flag and the Portuguese flag and the Spanish flag, and, yes, the U.S. flag. But not one single slave ship flew the Confederate flag. NOT ONE!

By the time Lincoln launched his war against the southern states, slavery was already a dying institution. The entire country, including the South, recognized the moral evil of slavery and wanted it to end. Only a small fraction of southerners even owned slaves. The slave trade had ended in 1808, per the U.S. Constitution, and the practice of slavery was quickly dying, too. In another few years, with the advent of agricultural machinery, slavery would have ended peacefully--just like it had in England. It didn’t take a national war and the deaths of over a half million men to end slavery in Great Britain. America’s so-called “Civil War” was absolutely unnecessary. The greed of Lincoln’s radical Republicans in the North, combined with the cold, calloused heart of Lincoln himself is responsible for the tragedy of the “Civil War.”

And look at what is happening now: in one instant--after one deranged young man killed nine black people and who ostensibly photo-shopped a picture of himself with a Confederate flag--the entire political and media establishments in the country go on an all-out crusade to remove all semblances of the Confederacy. The speed in which all of this has happened suggests that this was a planned, orchestrated event by the Powers That Be (PTB). And is it a mere coincidence that this took place at the exact same time that the U.S. Supreme Court decided to legalize same-sex marriage? I think not.

The Confederate Battle Flag flies the Saint Andrews cross. Of course, Andrew was the first disciple of Jesus Christ, brother of Simon Peter, and Christian martyr who was crucified on an X-shaped cross at around the age of 90. Andrew is the patron saint of both Russia and Scotland.

In the 1800s, up to 75% of people in the South were either Scotch or Scotch-Irish. The Confederate Battle Flag is predicated on the national flag of Scotland. It is a symbol of the Christian faith and heritage of the Celtic race.

Pastor John Weaver rightly observed, “Even the Confederate States motto, ‘Deovendickia,’ (The Lord is our Vindicator), illustrates the sovereignty and the righteousness of God. The Saint Andrews cross is also known as the Greek letter CHIA (KEE) and has historically been used to represent Jesus Christ. Why do you think people write Merry X-mas, just to give you an illustration? The ‘X’ is the Greek letter CHIA and it has been historically used for Christ. Moreover, its importance was understood by educated and uneducated people alike. When an uneducated man, one that could not write, needed to sign his name please tell me what letter he made? An ‘X,’ why? Because he was saying I am taking an oath under God. I am recognizing the sovereignty of God, the providence of God and I am pledging my faith. May I tell you the Confederate Flag is indeed a Christian flag because it has the cross of Saint Andrew, who was a Christian martyr, and the letter ‘X’ has always been used to represent Christ, and to attack the flag is to deny the sovereignty, the majesty, and the might of the Lord Jesus Christ and his divine role in our history, culture, and life.”

Many of the facts that I reference in this column were included in a message delivered several years ago by Pastor John Weaver. I want to thank John for preaching such a powerful and needed message. Read or watch Pastor Weaver’s sermon “The Truth About The Confederate Battle Flag” here:

The Truth About The Confederate Battle Flag

Combine the current attacks against Biblical and traditional marriage, the attacks against all things Confederate, the attacks against all things Christian, and the attacks against all things constitutional and what we are witnessing is a heightened example of why the Confederate Battle Flag was created to begin with. Virtually every act of federal usurpation of liberty that we are witnessing today, and have been witnessing for much of the twentieth century, is the result of Lincoln’s war against the South. Truly, we are living in Lincoln’s America, not Washington and Jefferson’s America. Washington and Jefferson’s America died at Appomattox Court House in 1865.

Instead of lowering the Confederate flag, we should be raising it.

[ajax]

Amen. Robert E Lee is one of the best persons this country has ever produced. And now people are demanding to demolish his statues (not that I'm really into statues). Group think mob mentality. Perhaps the Lincoln Memorial ought to come down:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/07/tho ... -monument/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[David13]

I just read the first paragraph. I agree. Where is the freedom.
They should have their freedom.
dc

[Original_Intent]

Chuck Baldwin is one of my few living heroes - great man!

[Sirocco]

I liked the thing until it shoehorned gay marriage into it...

[David13]

That was the best part of it.
dc

[firefly]

I don't know what to think of lincoln... a good guy or bad guy?


Can someone tell me what the Lincoln Douglass debates were about if it wasn't about Lincoln wanting to free the slaves?

Wasn't the major problem leading up to the civil war in the United States about slavery? Isn't that why the number of free states and slave states had to be equal. What was all the fighting in Missouri about?

[Sirocco]

That was the best part of it.
dc

felt tacked on imo

[EmmaLee]

I don't know what to think of lincoln... a good guy or bad guy?

Can someone tell me what the Lincoln Douglass debates were about if it wasn't about Lincoln wanting to free the slaves?

Wasn't the major problem leading up to the civil war in the United States about slavery? Isn't that why the number of free states and slave states had to be equal. What was all the fighting in Missouri about?

Here are some threads you should read -

viewtopic.php?t=13330" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=13267&hilit=Lincoln" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5510" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[petertaylorpedro]

Thanks Chuck - I couldn't agree with you more.

No greater departure from the original founding of this nation occurred then at the time of the Civil War (really should be called the Second War for Succession). The more that I learn about that time period, the more I see that it was a major turning point away from a limited Jeffersonian republican government with sovereignty residing in the states, to the consolidated behemoth ruling us from Washington we have today. Lincoln was a tyrant who wasn't content to let the South go her way; who suspended all aspects of the constitution, and caused the deaths of over half a million souls.

I will happily continue to sport a confederate flag magnet on the back of my automobile. And no, I don't hate black people and want them to be slaves again. I LOVE all people want all people to have the best chance for freedom and prosperity - as envisioned by the Founders. I want to have a govt that is ruled by the consent of the governed. If the war was about slavery, then how was it that slavery ended peacefully in most all other locations around the world? Was it worth shredding the constitution and ending the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, and invading and decimating and entire section of the country? Like it or not, the original constitution sanctioned slavery. If you want to change the constitution, you amend it. The basis for bloated, controlling, Gadianton-like government we enjoy so much today was given a big lift by the US Govts invasion and subjugation of the South.

[ajax]

Walter Williams:
http://www.thenewsstar.com/story/opinio ... /30140483/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The victors of war write its history in order to cast themselves in the most favorable light. That explains the considerable historical ignorance about our war of 1861 and panic over the Confederate flag. To create better understanding, we have to start a bit before the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

The 1783 Treaty of Paris ended the war between the colonies and Great Britain. Its first article declared the 13 colonies "to be free, sovereign and independent states." These 13 sovereign nations came together in 1787 as principals and created the federal government as their agent. Principals have always held the right to fire agents. In other words, states held a right to withdraw from the pact – secede.

During the 1787 Constitutional Convention, a proposal was made that would allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison rejected it, saying, "A union of the states containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a state would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound."

In fact, the ratification documents of Virginia, New York and Rhode Island explicitly said they held the right to resume powers delegated should the federal government become abusive of those powers. The Constitution never would have been ratified if states thought they could not regain their sovereignty – in a word, secede.

On March 2, 1861, after seven states seceded and two days before Abraham Lincoln's inauguration, Sen. James R. Doolittle of Wisconsin proposed a constitutional amendment that read, "No state or any part thereof, heretofore admitted or hereafter admitted into the union, shall have the power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States."

Several months earlier, Reps. Daniel E. Sickles of New York, Thomas B. Florence of Pennsylvania and Otis S. Ferry of Connecticut proposed a constitutional amendment to prohibit secession. Here's a question for the reader: Would there have been any point to offering these amendments if secession were already unconstitutional?

On the eve of the War of 1861, even unionist politicians saw secession as a right of states. Rep. Jacob M. Kunkel of Maryland said, "Any attempt to preserve the union between the states of this Confederacy by force would be impractical, and destructive of republican liberty."

Both Northern Democratic and Republican Parties favored allowing the South to secede in peace. Just about every major Northern newspaper editorialized in favor of the South's right to secede. New York Tribune (Feb. 5, 1860): "If tyranny and despotism justified the Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861." Detroit Free Press (Feb. 19, 1861): "An attempt to subjugate the seceded states, even if successful, could produce nothing but evil – evil unmitigated in character and appalling in content." The New York Times (March 21, 1861): "There is growing sentiment throughout the North in favor of letting the Gulf States go."

The War of 1861 settled the issue of secession through brute force that cost 600,000 American lives. We Americans celebrate Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, but H.L. Mencken correctly evaluated the speech: "It is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense." Lincoln said the soldiers sacrificed their lives "to the cause of self-determination – that government of the people, by the people, for the people should not perish from the earth." Mencken says: "It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of people to govern themselves."

The War of 1861 brutally established that states could not secede. We are still living with its effects. Because states cannot secede, the federal government can run roughshod over the U.S. Constitution's limitations of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. States have little or no response.

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University.

[abelchirino]

I don't know what to think of lincoln... a good guy or bad guy?


Can someone tell me what the Lincoln Douglass debates were about if it wasn't about Lincoln wanting to free the slaves?

Wasn't the major problem leading up to the civil war in the United States about slavery? Isn't that why the number of free states and slave states had to be equal. What was all the fighting in Missouri about?

Is it possible that Abraham Lincoln was not nearly as bad as the people around him, who were influencing him? And that after the war, as he began to realize what was going on, and that he was being used by the real criminals, it was at that moment that he was assassinated?

[wargames83]

I don't know what to think of lincoln... a good guy or bad guy?


Can someone tell me what the Lincoln Douglass debates were about if it wasn't about Lincoln wanting to free the slaves?

Wasn't the major problem leading up to the civil war in the United States about slavery? Isn't that why the number of free states and slave states had to be equal. What was all the fighting in Missouri about?

The Lincoln - Douglas Debate was Lincoln arguing against Douglas' Kansas-Nebraska Act which allowed those territories to choose to allow slavery, contrary to the Missouri comprise. Lincoln didn't became an abolitionist until well into the Civil War. At these point he was just trying to stop the expansion of slavery.

[marc]

The only flag that ought to be raised is the banner of Zion, that ensign to the nations. We are all too busy squabbling over the many divisive standards (banners) of Babylon.

...14 Therefore, be not afraid of your enemies, for I have decreed in my heart, saith the Lord, that I will prove you in all things, whether you will abide in my covenant, even unto death, that you may be found worthy.

15 For if ye will not abide in my covenant ye are not worthy of me.

16 Therefore, renounce war and proclaim peace, and seek diligently to turn the hearts of the children to their fathers, and the hearts of the fathers to the children...

[Separatist]

[Benjamin_LK]

I don't know what to think of lincoln... a good guy or bad guy?


Can someone tell me what the Lincoln Douglass debates were about if it wasn't about Lincoln wanting to free the slaves?

Wasn't the major problem leading up to the civil war in the United States about slavery? Isn't that why the number of free states and slave states had to be equal. What was all the fighting in Missouri about?

Immediate abolition of slavery would lose the states where slavery was had a whole lot of finances. Lost labor, lost high-value property (slaves were expensive) and so on. All of which there was plenty of reason to vent on in the official declarations of secession.

[Separatist]

Black veteran, a 'Son of the South,' defends the Confederate flag
http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/201 ... e_sou.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

By Courtney Daniels, a Birmingham native, former U.S. Marine and veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom

In 2001, the Taliban shamelessly dynamited the Bamiyan Buddhas, two of the largest such carvings of the ancient world. Built in the 6th century by monks who made their homes along the Silk Road, the Buddahs stood for millenia until fundamentalists removed them from the face of the Earth. Such ignorance still abounds. Over the past few months, the onslaught of the Islamic State has wrought the systematic destruction of cultural artifacts from Palmyra to Nineva, all because they were deemed "offensive" by a minority that if it had its way, would ensure the entire world would adhere to a dark and revisionist existence.

A couple of days ago, in the wake of a childish debate over a memorial flag flown near a Confederate statue, a Southern monument was ignorantly desecrated with an attempt at the "Black Lives Matter" slogan. The spray-painted phrase was misspelled. The inanimate statue, a solemn reminder of the South's fallen sons, didn't take away any citizen's pursuit of happiness, it didn't interfere with the social and racial disparities that some claim as a detriment to advancement -- it simply stood there, silent and bold, marking the bravery and errors of yesterday's determinations.

From the gun debate to the flag debate (which are both somehow tied to this most recent, senseless shooting tragedy) it seems that liberal thought continues to show its fear of inanimate objects. Such a way of thinking never holds PEOPLE accountable. Instead it points fingers in every other direction.

The removal of a historical banner won't stop racists from exercising bigotry. As a matter of fact, racists will be racists despite regulations and constant "feel good" legislation, no flag needed. The ignorance of the disgruntled protestors is evident in their refusal to acknowledge that the flag widely recognized as the "Confederate Flag" was never actually adopted as the flag of the Confederacy. They'll also never admit or realize that not only was slavery not the motivating factor for the ensuing civil war, but that slavery was an American institution, not a Confederate one.

The Confederacy, in its prime, never mounted the atrocities of the Trail of Tears or the Black Hills conspiracy. But it seems that all because a few cowards in bedsheets once hijacked the gorgeous colors of a banner so rich in history to terrorize and intimidate other Americans, we condemn the Southern cloth to oblivion as a misnamed symbol of hate. It doesn't matter that slaves outside of the declared boundaries remained enslaved in the North. Neither does it matter that many Southerners gave up plots of their property to house and provide compensable labor for black workers. It doesn't matter that Lincoln, who is often regarded as the liberator of enslaved blacks cared less for the welfare of slaves than for the sovereignty of an entire country.

Where I come from, deep in the Heart of Dixie, I see that flag every single day with its bold red field and star-studded cross of St. Andrews in royal blue. I hold a certain respect for it that others fueled by emotion and misinformation wouldn't understand. I revere it as a son of the South in a way that would confuse those on the outside looking in, who by the way are not entitled to commentary on which flag waves in our humid Southern breeze. I spot it on not so subtle scavenger hunts gracing a random shirt at the gas station, the hat of the guy behind the counter at my local bait and tackle shop, and the bed of a passing pickup with the accompanying decal "Southern Pride." I smile because I know that if in need, that guy would give me that same shirt off his back. I smile because I live in a region that has a certain defiance that only a select few inherit.

As a black man who grew up in the South, I'll admit I didn't always see the issue with this same clarity. I blindly followed the sentimentalism of my parents and educators who passed judgement from a seat of victimization, failing to challenge evidence to the contrary. My opinion on the Battle Flag was swayed as a 13-year-old reading a contributor's opinion in the Birmingham News, circa 2001. A white man with Confederate heritage, he acknowledged that he had never considered the flag flying on his front lawn to have held such a negative connotation in the minds of so many blacks. I remember from reading the column, he had a certain politeness that urged him to take his flag down and hang it indoors out of respect for those who didn't like it. I respected his consideration and it prompted me to do my own homework on what role the Civil War and the flag in question played in my ancestor's past and my own future. I realized then that I had foolishly labeled every white person sporting the flag as a racist, with no facts to back my claim and without placing myself in their shoes or knowing them personally.

In short, I've come to terms with it being a wrongfully vilified piece of Southern culture, as important to our collective heritage as RC Cola and Moon Pies.

In so many ways, the South is the conscience of the entire nation. In the 21st century with Americans abandoning all decency and forgetting to walk tall, the South still manages to maintain a certain air of moral obligation that has been all but lost in northern enclaves like Philadelphia where Americans scowl at one another, heavily divided by racial suspicion and bigotry, or cities like New York where neighborhoods a century after the Great Migration of blacks are still heavily defined by skin tone and distrust. In the South, we mingle. We play. We do like Willie Mays and "say hey" no matter the color of the person sitting on the porch. I walk into my local grocery with my daughter and like the tick of the clock, I know I can count on an endearing "Hey baby doll, you need some help?" from the attendant whose skin heavily contrasts mine. Her "y'all come on back now" is the most welcoming invitation I could ever hear.

It's clear that as a nation, we are embarking on a new, revised, politically correct avenue of apology. The future is a dim one, void of backbone and fistfights. No more, "each according to the dictates of his own conscience."

"If it offends my neighbor, make it illegal, dynamite it, wipe it from the face of the Earth" rages the contentious fascist. It's becoming clear that what those progressives want is a new, bleak, unrecognizable South, its accomplishments and errors equally stricken from the annals of history. They wish its monuments to be no more, the names of its generals removed from every institution, it's antebellum flair retold as a horror story as if Sherman's destruction wasn't enough of a disgrace.

I am from the great state of Alabama and live between the rivers of Tennessee. I am a proud American and maybe in ways, an even louder Southerner. Can't help it. I relate because I'm a rebel in so many ways and I'm very proud of where I'm from. I can read an accent from either Carolina and know that I'm in good company. I can present my pistol permit to a Texas Ranger and trust that it will be honored four hundred miles in the other direction. I know that I can stop for small talk in any Waffle House in Georgia, and strike up a meaningful conversation with the Walmart shopper behind me in line in Mississippi. I don't need to know those people, they already know me. I am related to them and they are related to me.

If you don't know us but have an opinion about how we should live our lives or if you can't dissect the FACTS of a situation without making it a divisive issue, as Southerners, we only have one thing to say to your folly: "Bless your heart."