Prattville Dragoons Camp 1524 Commander's Column for January 2019

Commander's Column – Political Correctness Amuck

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas and happy holidays.  It seemed it was one celebration and event after another and the holidays just flew by.  I hope it was an enjoyable time for everyone and that you were able to observe and celebrate the true meaning of the season.   The holiday headlines were filled with the latest politically correct nonsense with the main stream media protecting us from ourselves, radio stations censoring “offensive” songs which we have enjoyed singing for generations and the condemnation of joyful holiday family shows.   We’re told “Baby It's Cold Outside” is about date rape.  “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” condones bullying. “Jingle Bells” was blacklisted when it was discovered that one of its first productions was performed in 1857 in blackface in Boston.   The reason for the season? The #MeToo movement found its divine origin when a new perspective on the Christmas story reminded us that Mary was impregnated by God without her consent.  The story of baby Jesus is about migrants finding refuge?   Blasphemous heresy yes but, how can the SCV and Southern heritage survive the absurdity of this PC stupidity, today’s “enlightenment”?  How can our Southern heritage survive examination under the scrutiny of today’s standards and an appreciation and widespread endorsement only of progressive ideals?

Bill Gill forwarded an article pertaining to a November 21, 2018 Washington Post published op-ed written by retired U.S. General Stanley McChrystal entitled “Good Riddance: Americans need to set aside icons like Robert E. Lee to live up to our potential”. 

“While interviewing Southern historian Shelby Foote , J.L. Wall asked the writer if he had been alive during the War would he have fought for the Confederacy?  To which Foote replied:  "No doubt about it. What's more, I would fight for the Confederacy today if the circumstances were similar. There's a great deal of misunderstanding about the Confederacy, the Confederate flag, slavery, the whole thing. The political correctness of today is no way to look at the middle of the nineteenth century. The Confederates fought for some substantially good things. States rights is not just a theoretical excuse for oppressing people. You have to understand that the raggedy Confederate soldier who owned no slaves and probably couldn't even read the Constitution, let alone understand it, when he was captured by Union soldiers and asked, What are you fighting for? replied, I'm fighting because you're down here. So, I certainly would have fought to keep people from invading my native state. There's another good reason for fighting for the Confederacy. Life would have been intolerable if you hadn't. The women of the South just would not allow somebody to stay home and sulk while the war was going on. The women made him go."

The General throws away all of his principles because his wife tells him too. Why does she tell him to? Because "bad" people were protesting the proposed removal of a statue of General Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia and she doesn't want to offend visitors to their home. The saddest part about this story is that she is based her concerns and he caved into her demands on the grounds of a false narrative (about the sequence of events in Charlottesville and those responsible).”

The progressives would seek to reconstruct an America built upon a quicksand of relativism.  Fascist Antifa anarchists pronounce any who oppose their radical ideals as fascists themselves and use violence to silence opposition.  These nihilists “promote the unraveling of American culture by an assault upon our history through the removal of icons of the past and an excess of ‘political correctness.’”  Our Confederate heroes fought and died in defense of their homes and families but they were empowered with a belief in and yearning for liberty.  The Confederate Constitution reinforced the founding principles and sovereignty of the states.  It should come as no surprise that they have targeted vestiges not only of our Confederate heritage but increasingly of our founding fathers to institute their global Marxist utopia.  WAKY in Elizabethtown resisted the holiday PC onslaught playing “Baby, It's Cold Outside” for two straight hours on December 16^th but, the importance of the Sons of Confederate Veterans Charge cannot be minimized as we confront these enemies not only of our Confederate history but of our very Republic. Education and winning the hearts and minds of these anarchists is impossible but we must awaken the millions of freedom loving Americans who value our God given liberty and our constitutional protections which are illuminated throughout our Southern history and heritage.