A Dangerous Precedent

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The rush to ban display and sale of the Confederate flag in the wake of last week’s shooting in Charleston should cause concern for any person intelligent enough to understand how such precedents, once established, are often used to justify further aggression by Cultural Marxists.

They often argue by analogy, saying This Offensive Thing is exactly like That Historic Atrocity in order to justify the suppression of anything that can be deemed “offensive.” In confrontations with the Cultural Marxist, therefore, we are never arguing merely about the point in controversy — e.g., gay marriage or the Confederate flag — but we are always aware that ceding the immediate point will embolden them to some further demand because, after all, Progress must always march forward.

Whatever it is the Left is arguing against will predictably be compared to the Holocaust — or slavery, or “McCarthyism” — and disagreeing with the Left thereby makes you a Nazi Who Wants to Kill Six Million Jews.

We have to beware of ceding ground to this kind of sophistic argument, because progressives always find in each victory some “principle” that they will then leverage in arguing for their next demand. The Confederate flag is offensive and therefore must be banned and, once we acquiesce to that demand, what will be demanded next? Will feminists demand that Gone With the Wind be censored because of Rhett Butler’s “marital rape” of Scarlett? Certainly the same people who demand that the Confederate flag be prohibited as contraband will not prevent the suppression of Gone With the Wind. And exactly how much of American culture could be similarly banned? Where is the ultimate limit of this censorship? What about the pin-up girls painted on the side of World War II bombers? What about depictions of homosexuals in movies and literature? Will LGBT activists censor The Silence of the Lambs because of the negative portrayal of the transvestite killer “Buffalo Bill”?

“Oh, Stacy, you’re just being alarmist,” you may say.

Dismiss my concerns as the special-pleading of a Southerner, and tell me that I’m making a silly “slippery slope” argument. Disregard the reality that there is a slope in our culture, and that we do seem to be sliding down it at an accelerating pace. Go back 20 or 30 years, and try to think how few people in 1985 or 1995 imagined the point in the Culture War at which we find ourselves now. Certainly two or three decades ago I did not foresee, inter alia, ObamaCare or same-sex marriage, nor could I have imagined then the state of U.S. foreign policy now.

Really: Suppose that in 1990, someone had told you two years into the presidency of George H.W. Bush that the governor of Arkansas would defeat him in the next election, eventually being impeached for having sex with a White House intern, and yet survive that scandal. Imagine, in 1990, if anyone had told you that the Arkansas governor’s wife would someday be elected senator from New York — ?!?!? — then be appointed as Secretary of State by the man who had defeated her for the Democratic nomination to be president in 2008. What would you have said if someone had told you all that in June 1990?

You’re crazy! That could never happen!

And no one then would have imagined that Wal-Mart in 2015 would be prohibiting the sale of the Confederate flag, either.

Well, I doubt I’ll be alive in 2040, but I shudder to think what kind of America my children and grandchildren will be living in, 25 years from now, if things keep going in the direction they’re going now, at an ever-accelerating speed. Conservatives must either pick a fight we can win, or else make up our minds that the next time progressive pick a fight — no matter what it is about — we’re going defeat them at all hazards. Every time progressives win, they become stronger and America becomes weaker. Unless we can find some way to counterattack and force the Left to fight on the defensive, there will be no stopping this cultural and political avalanche short of tyranny or anarchy.

 

155 comments

  1. I saw a man on the grounds of a seminary this evening. He was wearing a brown T-shirt embossed with an image of … Che Guevara.

  2. Actually dude, it was Governor Fritz Holllings who raised the flag on the South Carolina State House.

    But to belabor your point, it was Democrat’s who raised those flags over Southern State Houses.

    I’m not privvy to Abe Lincoln’s thoughts, but I’m pretty sure he would have said…Really, y’all are making this big stink over an INANIMATE OBJECT when there are much more important things to worry about?

  7. Dude, really, if you want to give in every.single.time. liberals make a stink over some thing or another, then you might as well lay your head on the chopping block and wait for the axe.

  9. The Stars and Stripes was waved far more by the Klan, and slavery existed far longer under the stars and stripes than it ever did under the 3 national flags of the Confederacy. It really is long past time you preening fools grow up and learn real history instead of the agitprop you’ve swallowed for so many years.

  11. We have entered Orwell’s world…..

    MiniTrue has decided which parts of the past will remain, every Republican and Conservative is part of the Left’s Two Minute Hate (Try to praise President Bush or VP Cheney and see anger in there eyes) and like INGSOC, the Left wishes to control the Past to control the future.

    Next up: Keep an eye on your libraries and see if the Modern Left likes to burn. They have already started.

  12. None at all, and I’m not embarrassed by it. I am embarrassed for Yankees who know little history and have swallowed a bunch of agitprop in its place.

  13. I may be willing to accept the ban of the Confederate Battle Flag if they ban the Hammer and Sickle, Che T-shirts and Lenin or Trotsky images.

    The “Stars and Stripes” flew over a slave nation longer than the “Stars and Bars” did. You can bet they will be demanding we ban the “Stars and Stripes” in months rather than years.

    This is nonsense and NOBODY has the right to tell me what to believe.

  15. By that logic we have to ban the “Stars and Stripes” as it flew over a slave owning nation for more than four score and seven years. The “Stars and Bars” only flew for less than 5 years.

    Take down your Che T-shirts, Hammer and Sickle flags, Lenin, Trotsky and Mao posters and then come and talk to me about the Confederate Battle Flag.

  16. You know all those “my golden retriever is smarter than your honor student” bumper stickers? I want one that reads “my Rhodesian Ridgeback is smarter than your Kenyan president”.

  18. “Oh, Stacy, you’re just being alarmist,” you may say.

    I don’t say that. I say, “Testify, brah”.

    …we’re going to defeat them at all hazards.

    Funny you should say that. I think that Southerners should put away their battle flag, and fly their state’s Secession flag. Because maybe it’s time to talk about that again. Remember that the Civil War was not entirely about slavery. It was about what Southerners saw as government overreach, which, btw, we’re seeing again. In fact, my family fought to protect their family and property from the invading Yankee army. It’s not like we owned slaves, ever. Hell, we were poor farmers and petty horse thieves.

    And speaking of “all hazards”, here’s the 1861 Florida Secession flag.

  19. Isn’t it, though? The ones that deliberately do it know ehat they’re doing. Then the lemmings – the majority – just believe every stupid word because they’re too lazy or incompetent or both to check for themselves. Self-imposed stupidity just irritates me.

  20. The Left is populated by bigots who hate Southerners. Leftists (including Southern leftists) can bury you under a mountain of sophistry to justify their hatred, but people like Dylann Roof give these people an opportunity to vent their hatred a little more openly for a couple of weeks. Compare one author’s reaction to Dylann Roof with his reaction to the Tsarnaev brothers:

    http://theweek.com/articles/465282/futility-blaming-islam
    http://theweek.com/articles/465289/insanity-blaming-islam

    http://theweek.com/articles/562004/surprisingly-uncomplicated-racist-history-confederate-flag

    I especially appreciate the part where this author Yankeesplains: “…people should not spend their days mourning relatives they never knew from a war that ended 150 years ago…” Apparently he knows nothing about the horrors of the Civil War. I wonder if Ambinder offers the same advice to African Americans who still lament the history of slavery in this country?

  21. What about melted my brain was WAL-MART, the king of the trailer trash shopping experience refusing to sell (one of many styles) of the Confederate flag. Do they not know the provenance of at least 50% of their customer base? Idiots. To lose sales because of some whining leftists is insane.

  22. Years ago in the last century schools actually taunt how to spot propaganda. We now have several generations who have been spoon fed propaganda and hove no clue how the media is driving the culture to perdition.

    Proof that the media is flaming the fires of black hatred for whites here is an example. Nearly five years ago Omar Thornton gunned down eight white employees of the Hartford Distributors beer company. The world never saw the faces of those eight slain innocent white men. Not one single picture, and very little was written about them.

  23. The Left is populated by bigots who hate Southerners. Leftists (including Southern leftists) can bury you under a mountain of sophistry to justify their hatred, but people like Dylann Roof give these people an opportunity to vent their hatred a little more openly for a couple of weeks. Compare one author’s reaction to Dylann Roof with his reaction to the Tsarnaev brothers:

    http://theweek.com/articles/465282/futility-blaming-islam
    http://theweek.com/articles/465289/insanity-blaming-islam

    http://theweek.com/articles/562004/surprisingly-uncomplicated-racist-history-confederate-flag

    I especially appreciate the part where this author Yankeesplains: “…people should not spend their days mourning relatives they never knew from a war that ended 150 years ago…” Apparently he knows nothing about the horrors of the Civil War. I wonder if Ambinder offers the same advice to African Americans who still lament of slavery in this country?

  25. Yes, this seems to be the new meme on the left and is a neat trick for denying their own culpability. They’ve “othered” Southern Democrats.

  26. Heh. I don’t know John Hoge, but from reading him, I think he’d dig the Uncle Jesse role.

  28. Hell yeah, man! At what point will they have overused the BS racist accusation, I want to know? Rolls off my back, for sure. (But then, it did all along because I always knew it wasn’t true). Just forget the names and focus with RSM laser-like intensity on the actual (probably strawman) argument.

    Why any conservative would be bothered by small-minded insults, is beyond me. I say, let ’em shove their “optics” and just laugh out loud to any and all idiotic sticks and stones name-calling. Cripes. How old are these people?

  29. You see? The US Southwest was won by slavers, therefore we must give it back. It’s tainted! ; )

  30. If they really were interested in prevalent social problems, they’d be asking why young people no longer have critical thinking skills.

  31. I used to work at Walmart as recently as a year ago. SJW culture has spread into their HR department, and they have started training about MICROAGGRESSIONS!
    When I saw that, I knew they’d become a soulless shell and sold out.

  32. They’d have to have critical thinking skills in order for that question occur to them n’est-ce pas?

  33. I’m telling you dude, I got no tolerance for that stupid HR training crap. All companies force this asinine waste-of-time BS on their employees now. While whining about profits out of the other side of their mouths.

    I mean it, I should be President. Day One, I’d ace 95% of the do-nothing bureaucracy. Day Two, I’d restore the military, and take steps to unravel the Occupant’s damage. Day Three, I’d send my Secretary of State, a redneck from Texas, to the ME to clarify my position on carpet bombing. Day Four, I’d deregulate most everything. Day Five, I’d unleash my Attorney General, Trey Gowdy. Day Six, I’d implement my flat tax, ace the IRS, and burn the Federal Reserve to the ground and dance on its grave, before I restored non-fiat currency. Then on the Seventh Day, I’d rest.

    There you go folks. Write me in. I can’t be bought. 😀

  34. I wanted to say “bowel movements” but couldn’t think of a way to tie it in with cultural cleansing, lol.

  39. According to federal census reports, on June 1, 1860 there were nearly 4.5 million Negroes in the United States, with fewer than four million of them living in the southern slaveholding states. Of the blacks residing in the South, 261,988 were not slaves. Of this number, 10,689 lived in New Orleans. The country’s leading African American historian, Duke University professor John Hope Franklin, records that in New Orleans over 3,000 free Negroes owned slaves, or 28 percent of the freeNegroes in that city.

    To return to the census figures quoted above, this 28 percent is certainly impressive when compared to less than 1.4 percent of all American whites and less than 4.8 percent of southern whites [who owned slaves]. The statistics show that, when free, blacks disproportionately became slave masters.

    The majority of slaveholders, white and black, owned only one to five slaves. More often than not, and contrary to a century and a half of bullwhips-on-tortured-backs propaganda, black and white masters worked and ate alongside their charges; be it in house, field or workshop.

    Quoted from: http://www.americancivilwar.com/authors/black_slaveowners.htm

  40. Yep. And attempting to get rid of the battle flag will only result in more of them being displayed. That’s how Southerners are. Contrary.

    Just for fun, I looked at battle flags on ebay last night, and saw they were selling hundreds of them an hour, lol! (Personally, I’m looking for the Florida Bonny Blue version Secession flag. That’s my fave, and would add a nice deco to my garage.)

  43. Yeah. The “rainbow flag” symbolizes the pride some people take in a (deviant) sexual act. Pride? In a sex act? Hell, why don’t we have a brown flag to symbolize our pride in crapping in a toilet? Or maybe a flag with a chihuahua humping a leg to show, so that some people can show their pride in doing it doggy-style.

    I bet if you went back in time to 1860 and told the slaves (the black ones AND the white ones), well, and everybody else for that matter, that someday we were all going to be forced to take “pride” in buggery and carpet-munching, they wouldn’t believe it.

    Man. I’m losing it over this asinine flag thing.

  44. You’re either a know-nothing, an editor for Salon (but I repeat myself), or a troll. Why do you feel compelled to share your random brain vomit with us? Doesn’t campaigning for Hillary keep you busy enough?

  46. They think they’re performing a cultural colonic, and yet somehow they’re more full of isht than ever.

  49. Yeah, the Confederate flag symbolizes nothing except it’s the flag flown by the Confederacy who fought a Civil
    War over the right to own slaves, the KKK, and was put up on the SC statehouse during the Civil Rights era as a big FU to the federal government. sure, it symbolizes nothing, except of course institutional racism, and slavery. Give it a rest, will you? Conservatives have really jumped the shark on this one.

  50. No, we don’t have ban the American Flag, ditto head, since that was the flag being flown when the slave owning South was defeated. Why are conservatives so attached to this? I think you’re just annoyed because liberals got their way. and I don’t own any Communist memorabilia.

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