The last refuge of a scoundrel
"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel," said Samuel Johnson. He can be forgiven this, because it was as low as he could go in early April, 1775. The concept of "states' rights" had not yet been invented and turned loose upon an unsuspecting world.
In a time when this dessicated corpse has been exhumed by people frantically trying to regain control of the public dialogue, it's well to remember that "states' rights" was acknowledged, even by some supporters of the Confederacy, to be a polite code word for "states' rights to protect the institution of slavery." I have just come from two contrary items. One was journalistic commentary that a judge's Internet privacy problems in Ohio may finally overturn the illusion of Internet privacy, so far as it provides a cloak for sedition and racism at least. The other was reading some pathetic defenses of secession and states' rights in a comment thread, provided by people who apparently learnt to spell "secession" last week, and who sat in the back row of high school history class throwing spitballs. Imagine if all Internet commenters had to sign their names to their remarks: One can only hope.
States' rights is a toxic doctrine that ruins all who touch it. It contributed substantially to the downfall of the Confederacy so beloved of these fools. In the winter of 1864-1865, with Georgia cut in half by a trail of ruin, South Carolina being dismantled by a Federal army out for revenge, and Lee's troops before Richmond starving on their feet and freezing in rags, the governors of surviving Confederate states would not release abundant stores of food and uniforms to the national army, because they were reserved for use by (at this point) nonexistent state forces.
In despair, Jefferson Davis commented that "if the Confederacy fails, there should be written on its tombstone: Died of a Theory."
It is all one could ask to have desperate reactionaries hang their flag from a doctrine proven in blood to guarantee disorder, dissolution and failure for its friends. The problem is that so many of the people beating this drum today would have to fail again before they understood it.
In a time when this dessicated corpse has been exhumed by people frantically trying to regain control of the public dialogue, it's well to remember that "states' rights" was acknowledged, even by some supporters of the Confederacy, to be a polite code word for "states' rights to protect the institution of slavery." I have just come from two contrary items. One was journalistic commentary that a judge's Internet privacy problems in Ohio may finally overturn the illusion of Internet privacy, so far as it provides a cloak for sedition and racism at least. The other was reading some pathetic defenses of secession and states' rights in a comment thread, provided by people who apparently learnt to spell "secession" last week, and who sat in the back row of high school history class throwing spitballs. Imagine if all Internet commenters had to sign their names to their remarks: One can only hope.
States' rights is a toxic doctrine that ruins all who touch it. It contributed substantially to the downfall of the Confederacy so beloved of these fools. In the winter of 1864-1865, with Georgia cut in half by a trail of ruin, South Carolina being dismantled by a Federal army out for revenge, and Lee's troops before Richmond starving on their feet and freezing in rags, the governors of surviving Confederate states would not release abundant stores of food and uniforms to the national army, because they were reserved for use by (at this point) nonexistent state forces.
In despair, Jefferson Davis commented that "if the Confederacy fails, there should be written on its tombstone: Died of a Theory."
It is all one could ask to have desperate reactionaries hang their flag from a doctrine proven in blood to guarantee disorder, dissolution and failure for its friends. The problem is that so many of the people beating this drum today would have to fail again before they understood it.
Labels: states' rights
posted by Uncle | 00:20
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