To the editor:
From one who served his country in both the military and its community, I call on Army Bob to “lose your hate.” It’s not becoming for one who also has honorably served his country in the military and community.
McCarthyism is a term used to describe reckless, unsubstantiated accusations, as well as demagogic attacks on the character or patriotism of political adversaries. I remember the McCarthy Senate hearings in the 1950s; it was an ugly time for our nation. Though the Senator has been dead for 60 years, his legacy is the word McCarthyism, an epithet you seem to embrace.
In your opinion pieces, you select a current topic – this week the removal of Confederate statues, and quickly turn it into an attack on your favorite target – those on the left side of the political spectrum. You used only a few words to defend the Confederate soldiers; 72% (by word count) of your op-ed slams the Left.
I am a patriot; I served my country, I was an Eisenhower/Rockefeller Republican, but the Republican Party left me in 1980 and has headed further right over the past 30-plus years. I have not changed my political philosophy, but I am now a liberal, a progressive – and damn proud of the title.
But you castigate me, and millions of others because we “hate our country, and want to paint it as an unjust, racist, sexist, homophobic illegal society that needs to be purged.” I am not going to repeat all your demagogic attacks, but end with your demand that we “leave our hands off your history.”
YOUR history reminds me of the Trump administration’s “alternate facts.” You say 95% of soldiers did not own slaves. That is a false number; 70% is closer to accurate. Keep in mind that if a man owned at least 20 slaves he was excused from fighting. (Yes, as always, it is the poor who fight our wars!)
Then in your remake of history, you ask the Confederate soldiers why they were fighting and you claim “they would say to maintain states’ rights, not to preserve slavery.” States Rights? Sounds like you are parroting the “Lost Cause” folks.
Young men join armies for a lot of reasons; a paycheck, adventure or altruistic nationalism. After the war started, some joined to protect their homeland; some were conscripted. But you need to go back many years prior to the first shot fired; you need to understand the indoctrination forced on the white southern man.
In the 1850s, the national churches (Methodist, Baptist, etc) split into north and south branches, thus freeing the southern preacher to speak the positives of slavery to the masses in the pews, using biblical passages to justify the South’s honorable ownership of slaves. Politicians provided stories for the newspapers and pamphlets to be distributed, expressing the horrors of emancipation. Equality between the whites and Negroes was the primary fear. Community leaders were warning of the dangers of turning loose several million poor and ignorant Negroes on a defenseless white population. Using 2017 terminology, they were radicalized!
A poor white Southerner could maintain his dignity and position in life because he could look down on the Negro. As the wealthy could look down on him, the poor were at least better than the Negro. The election of Lincoln signaled the end of slavery, thus the poor white Southerner would take up arms to defend his social status.
Yes, the Confederate soldier fought to maintain slavery.
Yours, Tom Andrews
Mr. Andrews…….
As long as we are stating historical facts, let us also realize that A. Lincoln was willing to allow slavery to exist in those states that allowed it, if only those states that seceded would rejoin the Union. In fact, those states that had slave owners, that did not secede from the union (like Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland and West Virginia (which seceded from Virginia), were allowed to keep their slaves. So, there was more than slavery as the cause for secession and the war.
Part of the reason was taxation. There was no income tax, only taxes on imports and exports. There was a sentiment in the south, much like that of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. They were providing a great deal of tax revenue, with very little return for their contributions. Most tax revenue and Federal Services was distributed to the North where the Major Cities were located. The South felt very much like the American Colonies felt about English Taxation.
So there were many that were in favor of secession for that reason, as well as those that felt abolition would bring ruination to an agrarian economy.
As to spewing hatred over a difference in ideology, it appears to me, that the “Progressive Left” has time and again shown their stripes on college campuses as well as on the streets of America. Violence and Hate reciprocate in Violence and Hate.
I was once a Liberal Progressive. When there were party leaders like John Kennedy. However, John Kennedy could not now win a Democratic Primary. However, I believe his pragmatism would be welcome in the Republican Party. As Ronald Reagan said, “I did not leave the Democratic Party, it left me”. If you are interested, I recommend that you read Skin in the Game, by Nassim Taleb. Especially that portion with regard to IYI (Intellectual Yet Idiot). That is what happened to the Progressive Left.
Mr. Andrew and Mr. Moras,
Gentlemen, I would support my dear friend Army Bob, but he knows my thoughts on this matter and he is very able to defend his position.
Mr. Moras, I too was sick at one time – a Democrat for many years, brought up in a liberal household during the time of Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter (voted for him twice!), then I began my education of Democrat policies and radical way of protesting – and saw more of my paycheck going to the government. I agree with your observations and statements. The Democrat Party left me – a party of radicals and liars, much like the Establishment Republicans (Remocrats).
Mr. Andrews, the Republican Party you say you left to veer to the Democrats is a party closer to adhering to the Constitution than any Democrat. Certainly not enough yet, but at least they try. The states used to be the power and the federal government was subservient to the states (that’s why the armies of both the North and South were identified by the states from which they were created). Now, under Democrat tinkering (Roosevelt in the 30’s and 40’s), the federal government has become the Leviathan the Founding Fathers detested and warned us about. The Democrats embrace it like a religion, as do Establishment Republicans. I am a little “r” republican, as in Conservative, and a reluctant Trump supporter (I was a Cruz supporter), but I know the difference between a lying, detestable, deplorable, enabler like Mrs. Clinton and a showman who gets things done, and I’ll take the showman any day. Mrs. Clinton would be the third term of Obama – another 4 years of budget busting, poor economy, no growth policies, and more and more and more taxes.
The statutes were there during President Obama’s years – why didn’t they remove the detestable Confederate statues, change the base names, and remove the Jefferson and Washington monuments, level Stone Mountain and change all street names, school names, etc. with those names? Your TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) is very visible. I had to endure 8 years of a Marxist leading the country and he certainly crippled us, and we are more divided than ever. Guess electing an African American wasn’t the glue to bind the country in racial matters – who would have predicted that? But the American public was never educated about Obama and his past, and the media never put him under a microscope. And they still don’t, because they don’t want to know what a radical he was and is.
Mr. Andrews,
Sir,
Thank you for your service to our nation. Well I guess I am not on your Christmas card list.
Please spend a few hours and see what the unofficial voice of the American left on MSNBC is saying concerning the monuments to Civil War soldiers. MSNBC has folks who attack Americans considered great in our founding history. View for a few hours and you may just agree the issue is larger than a monument. The issue is our founding fathers and founding documents as well as Confederate veterans some folks on the left wish to tear down.
The comment by Mr. Bob Moras is spot on, good job Mr. Moras.