To the Editor:
As I get older, I find myself getting crankier and crankier. Chris Weigard’s recent column on Confederate flags and statues fed this condition.
He says, stop celebrating Confederate Heritage Month, and call it Civil War Heritage Month. Well, apparently it isokay to have Black History Month and LGBT Month, which annoy many people, but hey, let us compromise. Instead of either Confederate Month or Civil War Heritage Month, how about calling it the War of Northern Aggression Month?
And, yes, it is called the War of Northern Aggression for a reason. The North invaded the South to start the war; the South was only defending itself. If you will recall your history, Virginia, which repeatedly voted against Secession, seceded only after Lincoln called for 75,000 troops to coerce the Lower South back into the Union. This war was begun by the North, but not to end slavery as most people now think. In fact, Lincoln and other Northern politicians said repeatedly that it was only to “preserve the Union” and that slavery would not be touched.
The war devastated the South, killing one in five white males and impoverishing her for over ninety years. Almost every Southern family had someone killed, crippled, starved or burned out. Yet, Weigard suggests that Union General George Henry Thomas should have a statue on Monument Avenue. The thought is obscene. In a similar vein, we could have statues there too for Grant “the butcher of Cold Harbor,” Sherman the inventor of “total war” and Sheridan “the Indian Killer.”
Weigard says that Jefferson Davis was a detestable human being. Maybe he forgot that your newspaper is unlike the internet where you can say anything, no matter how crazy or lacking in facts. But then again, maybe he was calling Jefferson Davis detestable because Davis was a slave owner. He might not have known, or did not care, that 12 of our U.S. presidents were slaveholders: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler, Polk, Taylor and Grant. What say you, Mr. Weigard, were all these presidents “detestable human beings” too?
I do not recall this kind of crap being offered up 10 years ago, but I guess Weigard think it is okay, since others have started the bandwagon and he has only to climb aboard. Maybe his mother did not tell him what mine did: just because everyone else is jumping off the bridge, that is no reason for you to do it, too – or was it, just because everyone else is climbing on the bandwagon?
Spare me the moral outrage of these Northern apologists. The War of Northern Aggression was the first time that a nation conducted war against non-combatants, particularly women and children, as a matter of policy. But that was okay, huh, because it was in a good cause. Yes, like the Soviets killing 30million of its own people to advance the cause of a just and equal society. The end can never justify the means.
Richard F. Papcun
To the Editor:
Guest author Chris Weigard has let his bias overflow in his editorial last week. While I might agree with some of his pragmatic points about statues and battlefields, I am angered that he calls Jefferson Davis a “a detestable human being.” If being a slave owner before the abolition of slavery in the 13th Amendment to the Constitution makes one “detestable,” then we need to delete all of the names of people born before December 8, 1856–Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Monroe, Sherman, Grant, etc. from history.
The P.C. hysteria has gone beyond the flag to include changing names on schools and roads and digging up graves and removing statues. Chesterfield County addressed the issue of Confederate History Month in 2001 by appointing a diverse dialogue group. This group met for 23 hours over six weeks. The resulting resolution received the Virginia Association of Counties’ highest award for conflict resolution. Cool educated heads are needed in times of conflict.
P.S.: I hope Rick Gray does not get blamed for this since his picture was featured.
Jim Daniels
2 Comments
I have 5 reasons for the permanent banning of Confederate symbols and flags.
1. Confederate symbols and flags have been used by white supremacist groups (e.g. Ku Klux Klan) and racist, hate-filled bigots to terrorize, harass, and intimidate African Americans beginning with the end of Reconstruction (1877) to the present-day. In addition, some local and state governments of the South began using Confederate symbols and flags to have a constant visible reminder for their race-based discrimination laws (Jim Crow) and policies, which included barring African Americans from the political process. Also, some state governments added the Confederate battle flag onto their existing state flags, and in the case of South Carolina, onto the top of their state house, all as a defiant act against the federally forced integration of public education following at various times, the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Brown vs. The Board of Education. In this case it was ruled to be unconstitutional to separate races for the purpose of public education because the public education provided to African Americans was not equal to that of white Americans. In both instances, the use of the Confederate symbols and flags by the KKK and racist bigots, along with local and state governments in the South, was intended to enforce the original purpose behind the Confederate battle flag, which was the preservation and continuation of slavery. Because of these overt racist uses of the Confederate battle flag, African Americans react to it the same way Jews react to Nazi symbols and flags: with understandable and justifiable revulsion.
2. Confederate symbols and flags represent a heritage of treason, insurrection, and rebellion against the U.S. Constitution. The Confederacy violently rejected the Constitution and denied its rule of law. This makes Confederate symbols and flags abhorrent to today’s law-abiding citizens of the United States of America. We live under the civil order provided by the Constitution. It and it alone is the mechanism by which the U.S.A. has grown and prospered to the point that it is today which has benefited us all. Everyone alive today has only ever experienced the Constitution as a national form of government. As opposed to any other form of national government that previously existed in the distant past. That’s why it’s impossible to honestly and truthfully pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic, for which it stands, while at the same time display, or support the display, of the Confederate battle flag that has only ever represented treason, insurrection, and rebellion against the United States of America. Patriotic citizens of the U.S.A. who love this country do not do that.
3. Robert E. Lee opposed the display of all Confederate symbols and flags from the time of his surrender to General Grant in April 1865 till the end of his life and beyond. Not long after the Appomattox surrender, Lee became the president of Washington College in Lexington, VA. The same day he took office, he took an oath to “henceforth” support the U.S. Constitution. He advised fellow former Confederates to do the same. Lee rejected having Confederate symbols and flags around him, which he considered to be divisive. He also did not want to have any of these symbols and flags following him to the grave. At his funeral in 1870, flags were notably absent from the procession. Former Confederate soldiers marching did not don their old military uniforms, and neither did the body they buried. “His Confederate uniform would have been ‘treason’ perhaps!” Lee’s daughter wrote. So sensitive was Lee during his final years with extinguishing the fiery passions of the Civil War that he opposed erecting monuments on the battlefields where Southern soldiers under his command had fought against the Union. “I think it wiser moreover not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavoured to obliterate the marks of civil strife and to commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered,” he wrote. Indeed the sight of the monuments on Monument Avenue in Richmond, VA, especially the one to Lee, would have sickened and disgusted Lee.
4. Jesus Christ would not fly a Confederate flag nor would he support those who do. There are three Gospel teachings by Christ that, when applied to the issue of displaying Confederate symbols and flags, strongly denounce all displays of these items. In Matthew 22:39 Jesus lists two of the most important Commandments, one of which is: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If a neighbor, which isn’t limited to the person(s) living literally next door, but refers to all people in our society and civilization, is forced to confront symbols and flags that are intended to terrorize and instill fear out of hatred, that is not loving your neighbor. It’s the opposite. And it’s wrong. In John 13:34, the Risen Christ gives one of his final teachings and instructions to his followers: “…Love others as I have loved you.” This adds emphasis to the earlier Commandment teaching. Jesus was also reminding his followers of the importance and primacy of the love he shared with them and everyone they came into contact during their time together, and to continue that love. There’s simply no room in this God love for allowing the display of Confederate symbols and flags whose sole use has been to preserve and continue slavery, as well as terrorize and intimidate people based on their skin color. The love of Christ Jesus as recorded throughout the Gospels is overwhelming opposed to the public displays of symbols and flags of the Confederacy. In Matthew 5:9 Jesus says “Blessed are the peacemakers…” The displaying of Confederate symbols and flags are divisive whether they are presented aggressively and belligerently by racists in pickup trucks or through some selfish, misguided notion of heritage via license plates, state flags, or battlefield reenactors. This divisiveness is not the way of a peacemaker. It is the deliberate act of one intending on waging war on one’s neighbors, and it declares an unpeaceful affinity to insurrection, rebellion, and treason against the United States of America. I would expect Jesus Christ to also severely admonish those people displaying Confederate symbols and flags for having breached the Second Commandment regarding idolatry, because these symbols and flags are revered and held up to be more important than the Gospel teachings on love by those who insist on displaying them. The irrational demands of these people to freely display these symbols and flags equates to the religious fervor that would be expected by those worshiping a false god. The display of Confederate symbols and flags is an unChristian act. Doing this, as well as supporting those that do this, is not the action of a follower of Christ.
5. It’s been so long ago since the Civil War ended that the Civil War and its symbols and flags don’t matter anymore. The Civil War ended 150 years ago. At that time the use of electricity in the home and by businesses was still decades away. The internal combustion engine was not even an idea then. Neither was powered flight. American football and basketball did not exist then. These two sports evoke more emotion by more Americans today than Confederate symbols and flags have ever done. These aspects of our society and civilization were well established long before most of us were born. To put it simply, we have nothing in common with the people that lived through and fought in the Civil War. And they have nothing in common with us. There’s no one alive today with any direct or indirect connection to anyone from the Civil War era. Yet we still have symbols and flags of the Confederacy lingering in our midst. These Confederate symbols and flags are not just relics of a by-gone era. They are artifacts from a distant and irrelevant past. Confederate symbols and flags ought to be buried deep in the dustbin of history where they belong.
It is not worthwhile to refute such bs in detail. Let me take just one point.. Kent Dodd said “Jesus Christ would not fly a Confederate flag nor would he support those who do.” Perhaps Mr. Dodd has a transcript of his talk with Jesus about this subject which he should publish. Perhaps not. There is a transcript, however, of one of Jesus’ principal followers, the Apostle Paul, who said in the New Testament, “slaves obey your masters.”