Back in my days as a graduate student at the University of South Carolina, I and some fellow graduate students were involved tangentially, very tangentially, in the great Confederate flag debate in Columbia, SC. During the 1990s the Confederate flag flew over the capitol in Columbia, SC. Various civil rights groups began to snipe at the flag, viewing it as a symbol of oppression, and demanding its removal from the capitol. Not all folks associated with the civil rights movement held this view. Andrew Young for one saw any debate over Confederate symbols as a great distraction from addressing the very real problems of violent crime, drug use, and failing schools afflicting African-Americans. The majority of African Americans surveyed at the time cared not a whit for Johnny Reb’s flag one way or the other. But after a long decade of agitation and supportive media coverage the Left was able to effect the flag’s removal from the Capitol. A great compromise, or more accurately a series of compromises were struck from 1990 to 2000 whereby a monument to the contributions of African-Americans to the state of South Carolina was placed on state house grounds, the Confederate naval jack came down from the Capitol building, and a Confederate flag was placed next to the Confederate soldier monument on state house grounds. Like all compromises, none of us were completely happy with the outcome on either side of the issue, but compromises by their nature are things with which we can live. And those of us who had fought for the flag in print and word could, at the end of the day, live with this one. We are Americans after all, and one of the cultural traits of Americans is our genius for compromise.
Not so the Left. As I write today and think back upon that time I realize my political naivete. The Left never had any intention of keeping the compromise made, it was one step in the long march of redefining American history and American culture. Foolishly, I believed this was just about the South; chalk that up to provincialism, parochialism, or blind affection for one’s region and people. No, as Brion McClanahan and many of my other compatriots have argued well in the pages of this blog, the Left always plays for higher stakes, and in obedience to their great master Antonio Gramsci, they always play the long game. The cultural hegemony the Left seeks is about domination, but it is primarily about the destruction of any vestige traditional Christian and European aspects of American civilization. In other words, you folks outside the South, you are next on their list. The South was and remains first on the list because it is a much easier target than other American places and regions. Our people, our history, and our culture have been distorted and demonized for a very long time. We are never in short supply of the native born Quisling on the make ever eager to cooperate with destroyers of his people. There is, however, a third reason. We are still, for the most part, gentlemen and gentlewomen who refuse to plunge into the gutter of lies, detractions, innuendo, and falsehoods used so effectively against us by our enemies. We keep our promises and we honor our word. Unlike Mr. Richard Cheney, we know that if we resort to the methods of terrorists we become terrorists. Trust me, we do not wish to become them: the Alt-Left, the Quisling Southerner, in brief the American cultural terrorist.
We shall continue to ponder, discuss, and debate the best ways to resist the evil of our day. The Abbeville Institute exists in large part for this purpose. One thing is finally clear in my own mind: there can be no more compromises, no more agreements, no more naive trust. We are not dealing with people who merely disagree with us, they wish to destroy us by the redefinition and demonization of those things which give to us our identity. But first and foremost The Left cannot be trusted. These people do not keep their word; they are a people who are void of honor.
