Southern Avenger Breaks His Silence

I wish I had time to comment further on this, but I have a lot I want to get done this week. But I did want to commend Jack Hunter for writing this. There are some things I think he needs to think about more deeply, and I wish Ron Paul could be nearly as forthright as he is, but this is what I was hoping for when the Southern Avenger story broke. Good for you, Jack.

Read the whole thing here.

bellum medicamenti delenda est

Southern Avenger, RIP

Jack Hunter has resigned from Senator Paul's staff and retired the moniker "The Southern Avenger." I don't revel in this because I never called for his job. But barring a full explanation of what exactly he repudiates from his years of race-baiting and Southern apologia, this is probably for the best. I am glad that he took the extra step of distancing himself from the moniker and I hope he lands somewhere he can be useful and further distance himself from his controversial past.

UPDATE: Uh, you know, this guy may just be a horrible human being. More from the Washington Free Beacon.On criticism of the movie, The Patriot, in which a South Carolina landowner fights for liberty but neglects to mention that teeny little problem the South had with liberty for all:

“Let’s convince the producers of the Patriot to reshoot a scene in which Spike Lee and [then-NAACP head] Kweisi Mfume are both tied to trees while Mel Gibson whips the hell out of them,” Hunter continued. “Mr. Lee and Mr. Mfume will get the pity they so desperately desire, and millions of Americans—especially the Southern Avenger—will get a real kick out of watching them squirm.”

Get it? Tying niggers to trees and whipping them for expressing an opinion is high comedy to this naive young man of...26. I'm sure since it's just talking about a movie about whipping them it's not really  racist. I mean, it's not like he wants vengeance for anythi....oh.

bellum medicamenti delenda est

One last comment on this latest Paul fiasco

The reason it's important that Rand Paul seriously reexamines his approach to race and his familial ties to neo-Confederates is because to ignore it is to implicitly say "I don't give a damn what black people think." Why should that matter?

Because it is societally unacceptable to openly say "I don't give a damn what black people think." Not because black people all think alike (we don't), or because black people vote overwhelmingly Democratic and thus aren't an important constituency to Republican politicians. It's because to say so is an unnecessary insult. People who are insulted for no good reason aren't going to be very open to what you have to say. And for those of us who believe what we do because we think it's the best thing for the country, and black people particularly, that the Pauls continually surround themselves with people who reject the historical cause for our ancestors' liberation and embrace the government of those who enslaved our people--in the name of liberty, no less--is a massive and repugnant obstacle to our goals of a freer society.

For decades, "states' rights," "liberty," and a host of other codewords were used by politicians and activists to preserve slavery, and later block anti-lynching legislation, desegregation, and the Civil Rights Era generally. As libertarians, it is incumbent upon us to be as inclusive in our messaging and in convincing people that we want more liberty for all people, not just the white ones. It's hard to make that case when the most prominent faces of libertarianism give speeches in front of rebel flags to say the South was right and have people who run websites called "The Southern Avenger" run their digital PR shop.

The Southern bloc that ran the Senate for so many years didn't need to wear sheets or say "nigger" to pass (or block) laws to the detriment of black folks. Likewise, that one of Paul's staff has put his mask away is of little comfort to those who still hear the echoes of the Old South in a Southern senator's rhetoric.

This is why Paul and Hunter should be more vocal in their denunciation of the "Southern Avenger" and fully come to terms with the GOP's problematic history with race, and their own.

bellum medicamenti delenda est

Why can't the Pauls get past their race problems?

Another day, another associate of the Ron/Rand Paul political camp in race trouble. Yesterday, Sen. Rand Paul's new media chief, Jack Hunter, was outed (to those of us who ignore such people) as “The Southern Avenger,” a Confederate battle flag luchador mask wearing Southern apologist who used to host a radio show. Instead of owning up to his clear, unambiguous, and appalling behavior in his past career, Mr. Avenger Hunter blames unbalanced reporting at the Washington Free Beacon for his unceremonious unmasking:

My Statement on Recent Attacks

Today’s article that brought my not-very-hidden radio pundit background to light does not accurately reflect me or my full, or true, views.

The role of a radio host is different from that of a political operative. In radio, sometimes you’re encouraged to be provocative and inflammatory. I’ve been guilty of both, and am embarrassed by some of the comments I made precisely because they do not represent me today. I was embarrassed by some of them even then.

I am also no longer a guy who judges beer drinking contests in a wrestling mask. Things change. We all hopefully grow up.

I abhor racism and have always treated everyone I’ve met with dignity and respect as individuals. This was true in the past and it is true now.

The controversial comments are also but a fraction of my decade of writing and talking about conservative, Tea Party and libertarian causes.

I have also written columns over the years promoting African-American history and politics, and many other writings that tell a far different story than what the headlines portray today. Not surprisingly, the reporter chose not to balance her piece by citing any of those columns.

“Attacks” on “not-very-hidden” punditry, as if those of us who inhabit a social world free from nostalgic slavery-apologia were supposed to assume that a United States senator would knowingly hire a man known as “The Southern Avenger”—a hostile, vengeful, character who equates the NAACP and the Ku Klux Klan—and that hiring should or would be assumed to be common knowledge without much fanfare.

I can't speak to Mr. Hunter's past or current embarrassment about what he said or did as a pundit, but many of us seem to make our names without inflaming racial tensions that have haunted its country since its inception, don't also take charge of local chapters of slavery apologist organizations, and continue using that nickname as one progresses through our professional careers as he has. As recently as 2010, Hunter gave airtime to Tom Woods, a fellow-traveler in Civil War revisionism, on his radio show. Perhaps more telling, the above non-apology is listed on “SouthernAvenger.com,” supporting his contention his past is not very hidden, but it doesn't really explain how he's attempted at all to put his youthful indiscretion behind him, save scrubbing the many iterations of the Confederate battle flag off his website.

What exactly is he avenging now, anyway?

More Race Problems from the Pauls

It's as if the Paul family just drives vans around white neighborhoods in the South playing 'Dixie' and whatever fool chases it like an ice cream truck gets a job on staff:

[Rand] Paul hired Jack Hunter, 39, to help write his book The Tea Party Goes to Washington during his 2010 Senate run. Hunter joined Paul’s office as his social media director in August 2012.

From 1999 to 2012, Hunter was a South Carolina radio shock jock known as the “Southern Avenger.” He has weighed in on issues such as racial pride and Hispanic immigration, and stated his support for the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
During public appearances, Hunter often wore a mask on which was printed a Confederate flag.

Prior to his radio career, while in his 20s, Hunter was a chairman in the League of the South, which “advocates the secession and subsequent independence of the Southern States from this forced union and the formation of a Southern republic.”

Read the whole thing at the Free Beacon here.

Some Thoughts on the Broad Spectrum of Racism

I've never shied away from my particular resentment of Southern racism. Cloaked in tradition and gentility, years of barbarity and terrorism are blithely ignored as the Southern gentlemen and their darling belles get misty when they hear 'Dixie.' It's enough to make me reach for blood pressure medication. But that doesn't mean that it's the only kind of racism, or the most important.

Racism isn't geographically isolated, nor is it confined to a particular political or ideological affiliations. Boston, for example, famously resisted bused integration in the 1970s, resulting in this Pultizer prize winning photograph:

Today, Boston remains one of the most segregated cities in the United States. Don't let the 'enlightened Northeastern liberal' reputation fool you. (see also Twitter reaction to the Bruins' elimination from last year's Stanley Cup Playoffs on the goal by a black man) Racism, in its individual and collective forms, is still ubiquitous.

Progressives tend to focus on racism in systems, often referred to as "institutional racism." Conservatives and libertarians tend to be skeptical of allegations of entrenched racism, seeming to believe that racism can only exist on an individual level, and that to the extent it exists in the United States, it's not pernicious enough to require laws to combat it because "Jim Crow is over."

Neither political side quite seems to get it.

Quick Comment on the Paula Deen Mishigas

I was only vaguely aware of Paula Deen until recent events proved alleged her to be a relic of the Old South who still likes to say "nigger" and various other less-than-pleasant holdovers from the Good ol Days. Granted, this is one of the few times when that segment of the commentariat who always rush to point out what appears to be at least plausibly racist MUST HAVE a plausible non-racist explanation will say "oh yeah, that's pretty racist." But then it invariably devolves into 'this shows how rare racism really is' and we're back to where we were before. For this reason, I hadn't really planned on writing anything until I read the TPM write-up of the affair, commenting on a part of her book:

In the book, Deen, who was born in 1947, frankly wrote about her youth in Albany, Ga., where she “never thought” about the fact she was living “in the mix of what was fixin’ to be a huge social change.”

“It was happening right under our noses: our local African-Americans were claimin’ their right for fair and equal treatment and some white folks were inspired to rethink old ways,” wrote Deen. “Still, I hardly noticed.”

The language of the second graf struck me. The use of "our" to describe southern blacks is not just a semantic accident--that reflects years of an assumption that the South and its racial identities are inextricably woven into their singular geo-political identity. This is the same way of thinking that fomented resentment at Yankees meddling with their 'way of life' and starting trouble with their  good Negroes in the 1950s and 60s.

Moreover, that blacks were "claimin'" rights--not demanding, not asserting--claiming, as if even years later, equal treatment under the law was still a matter of opinion. But these 'claims,' "inspired" some white folks to "rethink" old ways.

Inspired firefighters

James Meredith lies shot after some white people in Mississippi disagreed with his claim to attend Ole Miss

But still, she "hardly noticed" the most momentous social change of her lifetime.

Ms. Deen is just the latest person to inadvertently expose the despicable lies needed to prop up the mythical 'Southern Heritage.' I don't even care about her aborted attempt to moniker her "Sambo Burger." This willful ignorance about what the South was, what it stood for, and the direct role its people played in the oppression of so many, is the most infuriating thing about their repugnant, beloved "heritage." To even recognize the change, the Southern whites were simply "inspired" to "rethink" how they lived their lives and terrorized others. 

They weren't forced by federal law and the National Guard. Hundreds or thousands of terrorists didn't just melt back into the population, never paying for the crimes they committed against blacks who dared 'claim' equality. They weren't a society that enforced its code of oppression with government power and outside of it. It was just a some that needed to rethink old ways.

Some people like to show their pride of heritage with flags

Yay Heritage!

bellum medicamenti delenda est

Good for Bob Costas

I don't usually like it when Bob Costas gets on his preening high horse, even when I'm sympathetic to his point of view. His Sunday Night Football traditionalist Get Off My Lawn segment is my weekly cue to go to the bathroom and pick up a beer before the start of the second half. But calling in to the Dan Patrick Show today, a venue much more appropriate for opining, Costas let CBS have it for its annual Tradition Like No Other coverage of the Masters golf tournament at Augusta National (via Deadspin):

What no CBS commentator has ever alluded to, even in passing, even during a rain delay, even when there was time to do so, is Augusta's history of racism and sexism. Even when people were protesting just outside the grounds—forget about taking a side—never acknowledging it. So not only will I never work the Masters because I'm not at CBS, but I'd have to say something and then I would be ejected.

 ...

I think someone shoulda had the guts to do it along the way. Broadcaster, executive, somebody should have said to someone at Augusta, 'Look this is an issue. And this is not Nightline or Meet The Press, we understand that. But this is an issue. And it's an elephant in the room. And we're going to address it as concisely as we can but we're going to address it so our heads are not in the collective sand trap.'

Sand trap pun notwithstanding, he's absolutely right. In 2012, Augusta National admitted its first female members--Condi Rice and Darla Moore--and didn't admit its first black man until 1990.

I'll leave it to Deadspin and others to speculate whether its a shot at Jim Nance, I don't really care. But Patrick admits that it would be difficult to broach the subject, as the Masters has traditionally been harsh in its treatment of any criticism whatsoever. I think this typifies my longstanding beef with Southern romanticism: they market their "tradition" as the reason they're special, but god forbid anyone actually talks about that tradition with any amount of candor. With that gentility, honor, and that historic Southern charm came economic degradation, societal marginalization, and domestic terrorism. But the past is the past, right?

It would simply be impolite to discuss the state of things as far back as...last year's Masters when Augusta National still had no female members. But as Costas and Patrick both recognize, doing so without Augusta's explicit permission would very likely cost someone his or her job. That would be perfectly acceptable, depriving someone of their livelihood for recognizing the bloody obvious, but we must not defile the Tradition with pesky facts like year after year of prideful, defiant bigotry. No sir, we just can't have that.

You can catch the entire video at Deadspin here.

bellum medicamenti delenda est

States' Rights vs. Individual Rights

I have an essay up over at Libertarianism.org in which I argue that the "States' Rights" argument for the Confederate secession is an argument that sides with the prerogatives of the state over the inalienable rights of the individual. This has ruffled some feathers within the libertarian community, despite its veracity. If a state has a right of exit that individuals in that state do not (through no crime of their own) then clearly the state's "rights" are preferred over those of the individual.

This doesn't sit well with people who claim that the South was somehow fighting for liberty. Southern "liberty" was a false one because, within a rights framework, a man does not have the liberty to enslave another man.

You'd think people who define their politics as one of liberty would understand that.

Read it here.

bellum medicamenti delenda est

Alabama Crops Rot: Why?

Via Doug Mataconis:

A sponsor of Alabama’s tough new immigration law told desperate tomato farmers Monday that he won’t change the law, even though they told him that their crops are rotting in the field and they are at risk of losing their farms.

Republican state Sen. Scott Beason of Gardendale met with about 50 growers, workers, brokers and business people Monday at a tomato packing shed on Chandler Mountain in northeast Alabama. They complained that the new law, which went into effect Thursday, scared off many of their migrant workers at harvest time.

“The tomatoes are rotting on the vine, and there is very little we can do,” said Chad Smith, who farms tomatoes with his uncle, father and brother.

“My position is to stay with the law as it is,” Beason told the farmers.

Beason helped write and sponsor a law the Legislature enacted in June to crack down on illegal immigration. It copied portions of laws enacted in Arizona, Georgia and other states, including allowing police to detain people indefinitely if they don’t have legal status. Beason and other proponents said the law would help free up jobs for Alabamians in a state suffering through 9.9 percent unemployment.

The farmers said the some of their workers may have been in the country illegally, but they were the only ones willing to do the work.

“This law will be in effect this entire growing season,” Beason told the farmers. He said he would talk to his congressman about the need for a federal temporary worker program that would help the farmers next season.

“There won’t be no next growing season,” farmer Wayne Smith said.

“Does America know how much this is going to affect them? They’ll find out when they go to the grocery store. Prices on produce will double,” he said.

So, let me get this right: crops rotting. Hard working American farmers at risk of losing everything they own. No one coming to work the fields.

It can't be about jobs, as this is threatening to put more people out of work. But if the anti-immigrant folks are to be believed, it's NOT about racism either.

Kick out all the brown people, make a lot of people lose their farms and homes--in many cases, old farms that have been owned by the same family for generations--make food more expensive for the average citizen who is struggling to get by, and generally inflict more damage on an already depressed economy. Historically speaking, racist otherism is about the only thing that makes Americans dumb enough to continue with such programs in the face of all available evidence.

If you don't want to call it racism, fine: call it criminally ignorant economic insanity. But the Alabama electorate should decide whether it will continue to support the politicians that did this to them, and if they do, I'd like to know why.

bellum medicamenti delenda est

Take the White Man, Kill the Nigger

So, in honor of my current governor Bob McDonnell's declaration of April as Confederate History Month, I thought I'd note a couple of the more overlooked battles of the "War of Northern Aggression." The first is the Battle of Fort Pillow on April 12, 1864:

A Union report of that day:

All the wounded who had strength enough to speak agreed that after the fort was taken an indiscriminate slaughter of our troops was carried on by the enemy with a furious and vindictive savageness which was never equaled by the most merciless of the Indian tribes. Around on every side horrible testimony to the truth of this statement could be seen. Bodies with gaping wounds, some bayoneted through the eyes, some with skulls beaten through, others with hideous wounds as if their bowels had been ripped open with bowie-knives, plainly told that but little quarter was shown to our troops. Strewn from the fort to the river bank, in the ravines and hollows, behind logs and under the brush where they had crept for protection from the assassins who pursued them, we found bodies bayoneted, beaten, and shot to death, showing how cold-blooded and persistent was the slaughter of our unfortunate troops.

War is hell, obviously. But there was something different about this battle. Most of the "unfortunate troops" that had been slaughtered--many of whom were murdered after surrender--were black. Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Confederate lieutenant general who ordered the attack on Fort Pillow and the future co-founder of the Ku Klux Klan, said:

"It is hoped that these facts will demonstrate to the Northern people that nigra soldiers cannot cope with Southerners."

In his report to his superiors, Forrest wrote:

We captured 164 Federals, 75 negro troops, and about 40 negro women and children, and after removing everything of value as far as able to do so, the warehouses, tents, &c., were destroyed by fire.

And the Union accounts of the forces inside Fort Pillow before the attack:

Our garrison at Fort Pillow, consisting of some 350 colored troops and 200 of the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry, refusing to surrender, the place was carried by assault about 3 p.m. of 12th instant.

Such gentility. Such honor. Such...a remarkable disparity in the race of the dead.

That summer, at a battle known as "The Crater" near Petersburg, Virginia, a trapped regiment of black soldiers--along with many whites--threw down their weapons and surrendered under intense Confederate fire. The Southern response: "Take the white man, kill the nigger."

And so they did.

As I've noted before, there is a strand of libertarianism that defends the South, secession, and the Confederacy--some go so far as to hold the Defenders of the Lost Cause to be beacons of liberty. The federalist rhetoric employed by the Confederacy does not hold up to scrutiny, (ahem, Fugitive Slave Law). Furthermore, it is astonishing to me that federalist principles are held to be more meaningful than the plight of the millions of people in bondage--and, indeed, as they were invoked by the CSA to maintain that bondage--by modern day apologists, and audaciously in the name of "liberty."

Cloaking the murderous racism and slavery of the Confederacy in terms of liberty is offensive to me, and should be to all people who hold the integrity of the individual as something dear to them.  Slavery is anathema to liberty, and the facts clearly show that the Confederacy was founded to preserve chattel slavery. Any good points Confederates may have made about federalism while furthering their crimes can never negate the original evil that undergirded the Confederacy's foundation and existence.

Unfortunate Update

I hate it when I can see something like this coming:

I'm glad that a story of a (presumably) squeaky-clean white baptist minister is out to bring light to abusive officers--if we assume it's true. (There is no confirmation on the story I can find yet) I just hope he's got no terrible skeletons in his closet (e.g., militia organizations/fringe Minutemen, racist, etc.) because, if he does, the officers' lawyers will eat him for lunch--in spite of what appears to be a detailed and legitimate complaint.

Because our friend Rev. Stephen Anderson is back in the news...(::smacks forehead::)

Pastor Steven Anderson has used his position at Faithful World Baptist Church, in Tempe, Arizona to bring just a little more hate into the world. Pastor Anderson is praying for the death of President Obama and an eternity in hell.

“Nope. I’m not gonna pray for his good. I’m going to pray that he dies and goes to hell. When I go to bed tonight, that’s what I’m going to pray. And you say, ‘Are you just saying that?’ No. When I go to bed tonight, Steven L. Anderson is going to pray for Barack Obama to die and go to hell.”

Reminds me of this classic from the Onion:

We're not all "Jesus Freaks" who run around screaming about how everyone should "Judge not lest ye be judged," whine "Blessed are the meek" all the time, or drone on and on about how we're all equal in the eyes of God! Some of us are just trying to be good, honest folks who believe the unbaptized will roam the Earth for ages without the comfort of God's love when Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior returns on Judgment Day to whisk the righteous off to heaven.

I am not insane. I am not racist. I do not hate the president. I am not a conspiracy theorist. I do not think Obama is the devil incarnate. I do not speak in a language that makes it sound as if "government" is just another word for "evil cabal hell-bent on taking away the god-given birthrights of affluent and middle-class white Americans." But, unfortunately, so many of the people who grab headlines with legitimate accusations of state overreactions and outright intrusions upon liberties indeed fit one or more of these descriptions.

Think about it this way: what if everything you believed was most popularly represented by screaming Code Pink yahoos (I've seen them up-close and personal...scary folks.) They are anti-war, among other things, but not everyone anti-war is like this. But, of course, libertarians are anti-'security state', inasmuch as it intrudes upon our constitutional rights.( N.B. This is not to say I am anti security of the state. Big difference.) But it seems the only people standing up to the injustice of overzealous cops and invasive and illegal searches are criminals, half-wits, and/or crazy bastards. And, of those who grab headlines, they tend to be white, middle class, with a touch of Southern 'States Rights' animosity that is thinly veiled, if veiled at all, racism. (I tend to refer to myself as a Federalist.)

To paraphrase William F. Buckley, speaking about Sen. Joseph McCarthy who led the infamous committees to uncover communists in the government--which, incidentally, had indeed infiltrated high levels of the U.S. government--"just because he's crazy, doesn't mean he's wrong." So too are embarrassments to liberty like Rev. Anderson.

But, alas, many mock our position on this, and health care, and anything else that has been shouted loudly by less-than-informed people on half-assed assumptions by good ol' boys and religious nuts and militia members and...well, the list goes on.

You'll notice that at the American Prospect, they're even mocking those of us who still believe the Constitution is the law of the land by comparing us to Orly Taitz and the "Birthers" by calling us "Tenthers"--we, so naive to support the anachronistic 10th Amendment to the Constitution. What crazy fucks we must be for taking the Constitution at face value.

*I am not accusing Anderson of racism, by the way. He may be, he may not be. It's irrelevant to my overall point because if it's not him, it's someone else.

In Defense of the South

I don't really make excuses for my antipathy for a lot of "Southern Heritage." I don't like the way so many still call the Civil War the 'War of Northern Aggression;' or their use of the most offensive euphemism in history--their 'peculiar institution'; and I really can't stand the "libertarian" apologists that think the Confederacy itself was started for anything but keeping a chokehold on the liberty of others--namely, people like me and my family.

But, this is a rather fair rebuke by Michael Lind on some recent attacks on the South:

In a recent Washington Post column, Kathleen Parker quoted Ohio Sen. George Voinovich's assertion that the Republican Party is "being taken over by Southerners" to suggest that the GOP risks becoming a permanent minority party of the old Confederacy. In itself this is a legitimate point that I and many other critics of Republican conservatism have made for years. However, at Mother Jones, the blogger Kevin Drum used Parker's political argument as an excuse for all-too-typical liberal Southern-bashing. According to Drum: "There are, needless to say, plenty of individual Southern whites who are wholly admirable. But taken as a whole, Southern white culture is [redacted]. Jim Webb can pretty it up all he wants, but it's a [redacted]." Drum did the redacting on his own blog post, explaining he'd blacked out the offending text "on the advice of my frontal lobe."

Drum's creepy bigotry becomes clear when other groups are substituted: "There are, needless to say, plenty of individual blacks who are wholly admirable. But taken as a whole, black culture is [redacted]. Barack Obama can pretty it up all he wants, but it's a [redacted]." Or maybe this: "There are, needless to say, plenty of individual Jews who are wholly admirable. But taken as a whole, Jewish culture is [redacted]. The late Irving Howe can pretty it up all he wants, but it's a [redacted]."

I like the first page much better than the second page because it, as many Southern defenses in the past, devolves into a "but look at the blacks! They're crazy too!" defense. However, I share it with you because it's sentiment is right, if delivered somewhat poorly at the end with the "your blacks are as dumb as our rednecks" argumentation. (This resentment is probably because the policy preferences he highlights where blacks agree with conservatives are the exact preferences that ideologically alienate me from both blacks and conservatives. Anti-gay marriage, anti-immigration, etc.)

Anyway, never let it be said that I never said anything in defense of the South on my blog.

Dear Southerners,

If you want people to stop thinking of you as a bunch of unintelligent xenophobic hillbillies...


stop believing ridiculous nonsense.

You're welcome,

EVERYBODY ELSE

PS: Republicans, if you don't want to be thought of as a party that caters only to said Southern yahoos...oh, wait. Nevermind.

One of the Most Disturbing Stories I've Read, Ever.

It is rather difficult to surprise me when it comes to corruption in the criminal justice system. I grew up acutely aware of its power over people, particularly poor people/people of color, and while I'm no Hobbesian, I'm not one to always assume the best in people. And specifically given how long Radley has been chronicling (and thus I have been following) the Stephen Hayne debacle in Mississippi, I didn't think it could get much worse.

I was wrong.

As Radley stated when reason published the story today, a description of it doesn't really fit well into a soundbite. Suffice it to say, the article describes a tragic miscarriage of justice, gross incompetence by nearly everyone involved, and a criminal act by charlatans that should throw into question every word of testimony ever given in court by the perpetrators--and that includes potentially thousands of cases. I can't recommend strongly enough that you read it.

A Libertarian Defense of Lincoln

In libertarian circles, Abraham Lincoln isn't a president that gets a whole lot of respect. There are a few reasons for this, including:

1. Lincoln illegally suspended habeas corpus, barricaded cities and stretched the limits of executive power well-beyond any measure, even with generous interpretation, that could be granted by the Constitution


2. The Union that emerged from the Civil War was one of much more centralized power and, in many respects, anathema to the vision of the Founders


3. The South had a right to secession and thus it was wrong for Lincoln to attempt to keep them in the Union


4. A hefty Southern strand of libertarian thought that either mythologizes the Old South or, at least, tends to apologize for it by insisting that the "War of Northern Aggression" was not in fact fought over slavery. Not surprisingly, this is bolstered by a number of Southern adherents to libertarianism who refuse to face the awful history that was the antebellum American South

This first point is, by far, the strongest critique of Lincoln. In the most extraordinary time in U.S. history, and with Congress out of session, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and in doing so effectively ordered martial law wherever the U.S. military happened to be. Several of his subsequent actions, including incarceration of seditious journalists, were thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court after the war. As a strict adherent to the Constitution, I feel more than a little compunction saying "The Constitution is not a suicide pact" and letting it go at that, but if the country was falling apart all around me, with spies all over the capital city and the rest of the North, I'd have a hard time condemning him for most of what he did.

The second point is quite true, but fails to grip the severity with which the individual states abused their relative freedom from central control. This severity was played out again after Reconstruction, as they crippled the black communities with economic, educational, social and legal segregation up to and including intimidation, fraud, beatings and murder. It is no exaggeration that the Rule of Law--that is, the protection of (and consequently FROM) the law--simply did not apply to blacks in the South. There was--and human nature as it is, remains--a valid reason the central government was a necessary trump over the "States Rights." Inalienable human rights are not dependent on jurisdiction. Without a uniting and overseeing eye, those rights outlined in our Founding documents, would stand for nothing. The rights of the states to govern themselves should be respected only up to the point they abuse the fundamental rights of their citizens. If those so foolish as to proclaim States' Rights as absolute--when the right to free speech is clearly not (e.g., assault, fraud, etc.)--wish to place blame on the growth of the federal government, they need look no further than the abuses of the antebellum and Jim Crow Souths.

Thirdly, to hold up the Declaration of Independence as a document of liberty, one must recognize it is, indeed, a declaration of secession. Thus, if the Declaration is legitimate, then secession must be legitimate under some circumstances. What many libertarians fail to grasp is the "under some circumstances" part. Seceeding from a nation in order to keep other members of that nation in chains does NOT rise above the level of "light and transient" cause, to use Jefferson's words--not to mention being wholly unjust.

The purpose of the Declaration was to explain to the world the rightness of the Founders' actions and to list the reasons why prudence dictated they sever their ties to Great Britain. Four southern states--South Carolina, Georgia, Texas, and Mississippi--did the same when they decided they were to secede. Simply glancing over these four documents, unquestionably modeled on the 1776 Declaration, gives the reader a rather clear sense of the cause for separation: chattel slavery. The following are excerpted from the four declarations of secession.

Georgia:

The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.

Mississippi:

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth.

South Carolina:

The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
...

The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."

These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States.

Texas:

Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?

For all the world to see, to justify their actions, and with no less than 82 direct references to slavery or servitude contained in just those four documents, the seceding states proudly asserted that slavery--and its perceived abolition--was the primary and compelling motive for their secession and, consequently, the singular cause for the war. While it would be disingenuous to say that the North began the war with the intent to end slavery, it would be nothing short of delusion to say the South did not fight to preserve it. After all, giving deference to their legendary honor, one would think we could take them at their word...

For all his faults, missteps, and, on several occasions, blatant abuses of his power, Lincoln is a president to be respected, and whom I personally revere. While he was no libertarian himself, in toto, he did more for American freedom as president than any man before or since. He fought against an illegitimate government bent on and created for the perpetuation of human bondage--and he won. It is an accomplishment, I think, too often lost on contemporary Americans.

Today is the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth, and it should be celebrated. Happy birthday, Mr. Lincoln.

More Suthun Hehatige

From Wonkette:

Oh, Texas Republicans, you are always so funny. Here is a fun button worn by everyone at the Texas GOP convention. When not making hilarious rape jokes, Texas Republicans like to make jokes about ambitious coloreds.

How many more months am I going to keep finding obnoxious shit like this while simultaneously hearing about nonsensical "post-racialism"????

A Personal Rant: On Hate

"But I will tell you that, without any question, the most bitter anti-white diatribes that I have ever heard have come from "passing" Negroes, living as whites, among whites, exposed every day to what white people say among themselves regarding Negroes -- things that a recognized Negro never would hear." -Malcolm X

Welcome to my world. My previous two posts are videos highlighting the sick, sad, and residual racism still embedded in this country. Many will dismiss them as non-representative of our country (or white people generally) and that people who think this way live on the margins of society.

Hardly.

Sentiments such as those exposed in the clips are indeed still very much a part of American culture. They are the sort of ideas which lead many blacks in America--not to endorse but-- to sympathize with Rev. Jeremiah Wright when he screams "God Damn America!" The people interviewed are exemplars of why, contrary to widely-held belief, racism continues to be a pervasive societal ill that should be addressed for what it is, instead of treating it as some sort of antiquated idea that has been relegated to the fringe of the collective American mind.

I know it exists, because I've heard it. From fellow classmates back in grade school, to employees and patrons at bars and restaurants I worked at or frequented as an adult--I've heard it all. From innocuous ignorant comments about athletic ability to jokes about hunting black people like animals--I've heard more racist tripe than I care to remember.

I am that "passing Negro."

And I have done my best not to become too bitter over the aggregated dehumanizing jokes, slurs, and insults that I have heard and witnessed over the course of my life. But when I see videos that show a man selling t-shirts with a picture of a monkey on it to represent United States Senator Barack Obama's run at the presidency--and that he sold out of them--I am filled with such contempt that it is all I can muster not to write an "anti-white diatribe."

But I will say this: I HATE.

I hate that man for what he did. I hate all the people who make excuses for him and his putrid ilk. I hate the fact that the free speech that I cherish and literally work to protect is used by backwater trash like him to degrade a black man--and by logical extension, all black people.

And I hate that most of the people who'll read this just won't "get it."

Some will undoubtedly say to me "If you let it get to you, he's won. Don't give him that pleasure." But life is not a game-- and there is no doubt that he and his despicable kind are losers. But more to the point, black people have been taking crap like this for years...and it wears on us.

It wears because, to most people, being seriously considered less-than-human is unimaginable to the point that such a suggestion is laughable--but it isn't for us. There is an entire lexicon of sub-human pejoratives for black people that simply don't exist for other people. (There are racist terms for everyone, sure, but the sheer number of debasing terms is unmatched among the other races in the American context.) Caricatures of asinine minstrels and violent, raping savages permeated the entertainment culture for years (e.g., the film "classic" Birth of a Nation, Hattie McDaniel's disturbing performance in Gone with the Wind, Al Jolson and Bugs Bunny in black face, the Mammy housekeeper on Tom & Jerry, etc.). Even now that our full humanity has been granted by law and in the minds of most Americans, we're still not quite as good as white, now are we?

No, we're physically gifted; we have an animalistic sexual prowess; we're less intelligent; we're violent and very possibly criminal. This was and is our stereotype-- and everybody knows this.

And I HATE that.

Mildred Loving, R.I.P.

I really don't want this blog to become an obituary column, but I can't very well let the passing of Mildred Loving go by unmentioned.

Mildred Jeter, a black woman, married Richard Loving, a white man. Their ground-breaking case, Loving v. Virginia, challenged and overturned anti-miscegenation laws in at least 17 states, including my home state of Indiana -- which one of my friends recently referred to as "the South's middle finger."

Indeed.

As a product of a bi-racial marriage, I owe my existence to this decision. I grew up in the 1980s when my school system was still attempting to desegregate; while my parents tried to shield me from it, I had to endure cruel jokes and treatment from other kids and their parents because I was a "half-breed"; and to this day, when I date a white woman, I still have to ask how her parents are going to take my race. (You may be surprised how often it is actually a problem.) Yet, all that pales in comparison to what happened to Mildred and Richard (from a statement released by Mildred last year on the 40th anniversary of the decision):

We didn’t get married in Washington because we wanted to marry there. We did it there because the government wouldn’t allow us to marry back home in Virginia where we grew up, where we met, where we fell in love, and where we wanted to be together and build our family. You see, I am a woman of color and Richard was white, and at that time people believed it was okay to keep us from marrying because of their ideas of who should marry whom.

When Richard and I came back to our home in Virginia, happily married, we had no intention of battling over the law. We made a commitment to each other in our love and lives, and now had the legal commitment, called marriage, to match. Isn’t that what marriage is?

Not long after our wedding, we were awakened in the middle of the night in our own bedroom by deputy sheriffs and actually arrested for the “crime” of marrying the wrong kind of person. Our marriage certificate was hanging on the wall above the bed. The state prosecuted Richard and me, and after we were found guilty, the judge declared: “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.” He sentenced us to a year in prison, but offered to suspend the sentence if we left our home in Virginia for 25 years exile.

My mother hinted at problems my parents encountered when they were together in public back in the 70s, but I don't know what they went through. I'm sure it was pretty nasty...I know for a fact that her father's side of the family still doesn't know I'm black. I've never even met them. I assumed they were all dead until just a few years before my mother died. Even then, she wouldn't introduce me to them. (I've been told they wouldn't approve.)

Well, thanks to Mildred Jeter Loving, people like me have become more accepted in society and people like my parents can live together without fearing the police barging into their homes and arresting them for being who they are and loving each other.

Mildred Loving, R.I.P.

Someone Else Fed Up With the Right's Indifference on Race

An excellent piece by Hitchens excoriating Huckabee, Paul, South Carolina and the press. An excerpt:

Thus, as well as crassly behaving exactly like someone "from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag," former Gov. Huckabee of Arkansas deliberately aligned himself with the rancorous minority who are still not reconciled to the idea that South Carolina may not officially consecrate racism and slavery and secession. "Your flag"? What an insult, not just to the descendants of slavery but to the many, many other loyalists and Unionists who fought and died to bring their state back into the Union. And what is the point of the "outside the state" slur? Wasn't this exactly what Gov. Orval Faubus of Arkansas used to say, as if to make it seem that all was hunky-dory in his own tight little dominion until them goddam "outside agitators" arrived? In the end, as Gov. Huckabee may or may not recall, the 101^st Airborne Division, most of them "outsiders" not from Arkansas, had to be sent by a Republican president to integrate the schools of Little Rock. That was a lot of trouble and expense that the big-mouth rednecks put us all to, but it was worth it. It's insufferable to hear this glib idiot make a mockery of it now in order to try to get the Klan vote in South Carolina.