States Rights - Banning Monuments - Sovereignty and Heritage

I note that the VA will issue headstones for veterans of the CSA.



Seems that nobody is holding any grudges....for the most part. Your tax dollars at work.....

...Most Civil War experts don't realize the federal government has spent more than $2 million in the past decade to produce and ship headstones honoring Confederate dead, often at the request of local Confederate heritage groups in the South, and overwhelmingly in Georgia. Going back to at least 2002, the government has provided more headstones for Confederate graves than for Union soldiers' graves. In that time, the Department of Veterans Affairs has provided approximately 33,000 headstones for veterans of the Civil War. Sixty percent of those have been for Confederate soldiers.

Surprise.

 

I would respectfully suggest the main reason for that is that down here "we" remember them and it is very much a part of life for many true Southerners. By true I mean the ones that were born n raised and still live here. Southern Heritage or Pride is very much alive down here no matter what the folks tearing down war memorials may wish or say. While I was not born in the South I come from southern parents and am married to a southern belle. Both of us have descendants that fought for the CSA.

 

Could be.

My people didn't show up in the US until 1871 - fled Germany because of an oppressive Gov't.

Never had a dog in that fight.

 

Even as a northerner I eventually saw through the propaganda. Don't get me wrong, ending slavery was a good and honorable thing, however we also ended state's rights in the Civil War. A lot more was involved than we were taught. I think it is shameful to ban battle flags and monuments out of political correctness.

Through those monuments and acceptance we were able to heal and come back as a union of peoples. Tearing them down incites resentment that could tear us back apart. It's one more stage of destroying the melting pot that made us one people regardless of race or culture. No it is the diversity that divides us and the political correctness that stifles us.

 

"Tearing them down incites resentment that could tear us back apart."
Quote for Truth!

The Left is hell-bent on destroying this country, aided and abetted by the mass media.

 

Basically they are tearing down the old house so they can build their new perfect house, just like they did in Argentina, Venezuela, Eastern Europe, Russia, China, Korea...

 

Banning flags, monuments and renaming stuff is what you do when you want to for get the past.
Its not until you forget the past that you can repeat the past.
I think democrats would love to bring back the old ways.

 

Being retired military, I have spent more than a little time in "The South"

I generally enjoyed my time there, with a few notable exceptions.

I have featured "The South" in book Four (Aftermath) of my World of the Chernyi series. In book Six (The Fisher People) of the same series, I explore Texas - which is in the South but IMO, is so unique in its culture and outlook as to be NOT part of The South.

History is just that - history. When people go to rewriting that history, many folks - and rightfully so, consider that an outright attack on their culture, heritage and themselves. While it may be true that the victor writes the history, I think in the case of US history, that is not so much the case.

The South suffered, horribly so, under Reconstruction or so the locals say. The politics certainly were altered. Sour-than Democrats (founders of the KKK and other fun organizations) still have a virtual lock on local and State politics. This status quo is being threatened by recent politics, much of which is driven by outside, paid, professional agitators.

Speaking of outside paid agitators:
I find it interesting that the KGB admitted to pouring large sums of money into the Chicago Communist community, the Black Power movement (in the 60s) and who know how many other outfits in an effort to destabilize the US Government.

Now we see the same thing again, but the money comes from sources all over the world - Russia (yes), Iran, the Saudis, and then a-holes like G. Soros and his fellow travelers such as Tom Steyer and Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson -- all supply funds to shady 'Green' organizations. One need only look at the funding trail for the now radical "Sierra Club" or it sister organization - "GreenPeace". The term watermelon comes to mind - green on the outside and Red on the inside. Anti-capitalist to the core.

(see 92-page Senate study entitled “The Chain of Environmental Command: How a Club of Billionaires and Their Foundations Control the Environmental Movement and Obama’s EPA,” has been virtually ignored by the increasingly discredited establishment press — much of which willingly serves as a propaganda mouthpiece for the very same outfits exposed in the Senate report.)

The summer has just started, I hope things calm down, but somehow- I doubt that will be the case.

For the record, I do my fighting at the ballot box and trying to persuade people with my writing. I may not have these luxuries in the future as the recent horror at the DC baseball game seems to predict.....

 

A trip to Wikiland yields some interesting reading

Cultural heritage is the legacy of physical science artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations. Cultural heritage includes tangible culture (such as buildings, monuments, landscapes, books, works of art, and artifacts), intangible culture (such as folklore, traditions, language, and knowledge), and natural heritage (including culturally significant landscapes, and biodiversity).

The deliberate act of keeping cultural heritage from the present for the future is known as preservation (American English) or conservation (British English), though these terms may have more specific or technical meaning in the same contexts in the other dialect..

AND

The ethics and rationale of cultural preservation.
Objects are a part of the study of human history because they provide a concrete basis for ideas, and can validate them. Their preservation demonstrates a recognition of the necessity of the past and of the things that tell its story.

In The Past is a Foreign Country, David Lowenthal observes that preserved objects also validate memories. While digital acquisition techniques can provide a technological solution that is able to acquire the shape and the appearance of artifacts with an unprecedented precision in human history, the actuality of the object, as opposed to a reproduction, draws people in and gives them a literal way of touching the past.

This unfortunately poses a danger as places and things are damaged by the hands of tourists, the light required to display them, and other risks of making an object known and available. The reality of this risk reinforces the fact that all artifacts are in a constant state of chemical transformation, so that what is considered to be preserved is actually changing – it is never as it once was.

Similarly changing is the value each generation may place on the past and on the artifacts that link it to the past.

Intangible culture


The Grandfather tells a story, by Albert Anker, ca. 1884.

"Intangible cultural heritage" consists of non-physical aspects of a particular culture, more often maintained by social customs during a specific period in history. The concept includes the ways and means of behavior in a society, and the often formal rules for operating in a particular cultural climate. These include social values and traditions, customs and practices, aesthetic and spiritual beliefs, artistic expression, language and other aspects of human activity.

The significance of physical artifacts can be interpreted against the backdrop of socioeconomic, political, ethnic, religious and philosophical values of a particular group of people. Naturally, intangible cultural heritage is more difficult to preserve than physical objects.

Destroy the monuments (physical culture) and own the educational institutions and you can utterly change (or destroy) an intangible culture..... You know this works, because it is going on under your very nose even as you read this.

 

A tangential issue to "States Rights" is the notion that any US political entity - say a City - can reject or completely ignore any Federal Law they disagree with. I'll stay with State wide topics for now.

One issue that has been in the news is the so-called legalization of marijuana. Right now, twenty-six States and the District of Columbia currently have laws broadly legalizing marijuana in some form. Three other states will soon join them after recently passing measures permitting use of so-called "medical marijuana".
Yet the Federal level, weed is still listed as a controlled substance.

Green (weed) businesses have a hard time - as no Bank will touch their money. Paying taxes is difficult as they have no (legal) way to ship even cash to state capitol to pay up. Quite the mess.

Some States have rejected the Dept of Education's ill-fated "No Child Left Behind" - they still want the FEd money, but not the rules. One State has taken a pass on the 'program' and the related funding. This is really less rebellion than sheer pragmatism, it seems the Feds were covering only about 17% of the cost of the mandated program. It makes sense to take a pass.

Where these "States Rights" issues bleed over is where/when the choice of one (State) impacts the surrounding region.
One case in point is Colorado's legalization of marijuana. Not only is crime up significantly in CO, neighboring States are also paying for the crime the dope brings to their jurisdictions.
See (Crime Is Up in Colorado: What That Tells Us About Pot Legalization and, Perhaps More Importantly, Lazy Reporting | HuffPost)
and
(Prosecutors: Colorado sees increase in homicides motivated by marijuana)
"In Aurora, the last 10 of 15 drug-related homicide cases were connected to marijuana."


I see this here in Anchorage where crime of all types has increased.
(Anchorage is on track to break the record for most homicides in one year. What's going on?)
"On Tuesday, police issued a stark and unusual warning: Don't travel alone at night.

The FBI is now "assisting local police in investigating recent homicides in Anchorage," according to agency spokesperson Staci Feger-Pellessier."

Many blame this increase in crime on gang-bangers from CA coming to town to peddle dope. This, of course, interferes with local "pharmaceutical entrepreneurs" and result in violent clashes over territory.

My point? A State or City may choose to ignore Federal Law, generally a bad idea, but the citizens generally wind up paying for the reckless actions of their politicians.

I have said this before - ignoring the Law can have unpleasant side effects:

 

I generally believe this to be the same type hype and propaganda that Reefer Madness started in the 20s. Skewed statistics and syllogistic reasoning can be twisted to support pretty much any opinion and this is just another example. Freedom is a literal word and does not require permission from a government. Where the harm comes is when government passes laws and people choose to break them and a black-market economy emerges with all the criminal elements that are required to operate and protect an underground economy. I get so tired of the same old Mr. Mackie approach to problems that need to be addressed at the root rather than the fallen leaves.

 

"Dividing the Nation" takes a multiple prong approach by many players

A mass media that hates the current administration
A Judiciary that is less focused on the Law and the Constitution as much as "Fairness" or "Social Justice"
An education system that seems focused on both dumbing down the population, while actively re-writing or ignoring historical facts - again, looking for "Social Justice"
Politicians that only care for their Party rather than the health of the Nation, and too many seem Hell-bent to push for uncontrolled immigration which will destroy any chance at a coherent culture unique to the United States.
Bureaucrats at every level more than willing to sell out the highest bidder to line their own pockets or increase their personal power/control.

Finally, a lazy and uninformed Public, one far too willing to believe the lies of Free stuff that 'someone else' will pay for. One need only to look at the Bernie supporters this last go around - and it will only get worse in the future, sad to say.