 Poverty is indeed predictable. According to economist Walter Williams, here’s how to bypass poverty: “Complete high school; get a job, any kind of a job; get married before having children; and be a law-abiding citizen.” As a black man raised by a single mom, Williams rose up and escaped the projects himself. To him, and most clear-thinking people, no amount of emotional claptrap will change the reality that repeatedly making bad decisions will result in bad outcomes.  But when it comes to poverty, it’s all about social scientism, in which leftists make up entire ideologies they think will support their unrealistic theories. They create fictions in order to promote their progressive hocus-pocus and to hell with the collateral damage. Take a Fakebook post shared during Hurricane Florence. It was written by Gwen Frisbie-Fulton, whose Twitter bio reads: “activist~writer~southerner~anarchist.” And not “anarchist” in the anti-government way, but more in the anarcho-tyranny, statist vein. Ms. Hyphenated-Last-Name sure talks a lot about the import of fully funding public schools for a chick who’s supposed to be anti-authority. Then again, her profile lists her big issues as “homelessness, housing, women, ecology, egalitarian organizing.” I gotta give her credit, though. She at least sends her son to a failing Title One school, where he’s part of the 15% of white students. That’s a serious commitment to “equality.” Yet no mention of “boys” in her issues or “mother” in her bio. Fulton’s a grrrrl of the New South, casting off the shackles of tradition and embracing post-modern fallacies. Sad ’cause she’s a decent writer. So, we’ve considered the source. Now let’s deconstruct Fulton’s words and the false and dangerous presuppositions they propel forward as fact. After all, when lies are wrapped in powerful language and tug at your heartstrings, it can be hard not to fall for them.  “I called Alyeesha — a friend of a friend who had stayed at my house a few years ago when she was escaping a bad relationship. She lives Down East … in a small one-room house that was her grandma’s sharecropping cabin. She rents the cabin from the man who now owns the land; it is not hers.” “She (has) a mattress on the floor, a sofa from a Rent-a-Center, and a picture of her grandmother on the wall. I wanted to let her know that if she was evacuating from the hurricane, there was a sofa waiting for her here. ‘Naw, I’m going to ride it out,’ she said.” Here begin the implications that black people can’t get ahead. That they’re living hand-to-mouth in places stolen from them, and playing by the rules of evil white men who revel in keeping them down. Gotta have a high-interest couch instead of using CraigsList. “Everyone I know … on the shore is riding it out … for most of them … it’s just that they can’t go. There aren’t enough seats in the car, or there is no car, or the car is busted.” “There are too many babies or too many old folks. There are jobs that won’t be held for them … paychecks that haven’t yet cleared … food stamps that ran out last week … (not) enough money in anyone’s damn bank account.” The dramatic assumption? Black people are helpless, almost childlike. Perpetual victims with high-time preference who are unable to plan or budget for a rainy day. And although there are government goodies, it’s never enough. Author and former welfare recipient Star Parker calls this “Uncle Sam’s Plantation” – a socialist mentality which “enslaves” low-income folks. It degrades individuals through eschewing personal responsibility, encouraging single-motherhood, promoting moral decay, and decimating the family unit by replacing fathers with big-daddy government. By telling people they have no autonomy in their lives, that they’re not actors, that they’re only acted upon, it’s arrogance on the part of the do-gooders and manipulation on the part of the political class. As Thomas Jefferson said, “Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.”  “As terrifying as it is, we know it’s not Florence that is wreaking havoc on North Carolina. It’s everything that comes later … it’s everything that was before.” Hmm, and what might that be? “We know that it is the slow seep of the water back down from the mountains … we know it is poverty. … We know where the flood waters will go. They will follow a slow, predictable path … (and) read like economic and racial maps.” Forget about building up the characteristics and life skills necessary in order to break out of the cycle of state-dependency. The Fultons of the world instead tell them they’re cogs in this capitalist conspiracy, or in this case, just water droplets in the swells of the white-supremacist sea. That kind of excuse-making is what Parker says “dehumanizes” folks. It’s a narrative that actually makes things worse, creating a gulf between low-income blacks and the 80% of them who are in the middle class. We should instead be looking at “pathologies,” explains Parker, like out-of-wedlock birth, crime, and the “values” within distressed communities. “There is a gap because of how we conduct our family lives,” she adds. For instance, the economic disparities between black men who are married to the mother of their children and white men who are married to the mother of their children are virtually nonexistent. If poverty was the consequence of racism, this certainly wouldn’t be the case. It’s about human action. Like Williams asks rhetorically, “Do people have free will, or are they governed by instincts?” In other words, can a person pivot when he’s heading down the wrong path, or is he purely a puppet of nature and circumstance? “No one can blame a person if he starts out in life poor, because how one starts out is not his fault,” Williams remarks. But “if he stays poor, he is to blame because it is his fault.” “We all love a good hurricane. We fetishize storms … The hurricane is … the excitement that we need. We gather bottled water, toilet paper, snacks. It’s something we can do … Our lives can be so mundane. We gorge on hurricanes.” Huh. So people who prep are somehow doing so because of their humdrum lives, not because they want to be equipped and ready for a looming emergency? Not because they view evidence, see a conceivable threat, and want to act accordingly? Stupid. Maybe it’s this type of behavior Fulton should be encouraging. Thinking ahead, weighing costs and benefits, considering cause and effect, and dealing reasonably and responsibly with a situation are the exact actions one should to take in order to survive natural disasters, as well as to navigate and avoid some of the storms of life.  “Alyeesha has the grit to make it through … but after the winds pass and the bottled water gets loaded back up, she knows that people’s attention will just move on. Jim Cantore does not come for poverty.” What does The Weather Channel’s go-to hurricane guy have to do with anything? At first I thought Cantore had been “insensitive” and was being pegged a racist, but I found nothing remotely controversial about him. Maybe it’s because he’s a white guy, and his very skin color and biology grant him innate “privilege.” Or maybe it’s that he grew up in too-white rural Vermont. Or that he’s been employed at TWC since 1986. Curse that bigoted work ethic! “Alyeesha’s little house may be flooded out, she may lose everything. There is no insurance company to call; her landlord may just tell her he can’t do nothing.” Renter’s insurance is a thing. You don’t need to depend on your landlord to protect your property. “Her friend who drives her to work may not be able to come to get her, she may lose her job. She will be left standing in the still waters of America, brown water on her brown legs, on land that was not her grandmothers and is not hers.” No one is going to get fired because of a hurricane, especially a low-income black woman. C’mon.  Again, the presupposition is the same old leftism that’s been pushed since LBJ’s “Great Society” reared its destructive head in 1964. That no matter what Alyeesha does, the historical and institutional racism of the country (and specifically the South) will simply pull her under. Despite $22 trillion spent on the “War on Poverty” in its first 50 years, there were no decreases in what are categorized as “the poor.” What there has been, though, is diminished self-sufficiency and increased inter-generational dependence. “The cold fact is that the poverty rate among blacks fell from 87 percent in 1940 to 47 percent by 1960,” remarks economist Thomas Sowell. “This was before any of (the LBJ) programs began.” “Poverty … (has) always been a slow build of mold between generations. … It’s a looming light bill and a long wait on child support.” In 1960, most black children were raised in two-parent families, says Sowell. But that isn’t the case today, when the great majority of black kids are raised by a single parent – one of the root causes of poverty. But who has time for obvious fixes when you’re clamoring for cash? According to domestic policy analysts Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield, “Adjusted for inflation, this spending (which does not include Social Security or Medicare) is three times the cost of all U.S. military wars since the American Revolution.” It’s never enough. The assertion is that Alyeesha will drown if she’s not rescued by white angels like Fulton, whose formulas for salvation only require more government theft, monetary increases to already-failing programs, and self-righteous proclamations. This tired tactic of feelings over facts only increases the cycle of poverty. That ain’t charity. It’s immoral and counterproductive. As Sowell poignantly puts it, “Liberalism is totalitarianism with a human face.” Their kind of helping doesn’t produce fruit, but it sure fills them a misplaced sense of virtue.  “Poverty has always been a flood and not a hurricane … It’s the uncomfortable plastic chairs at DSS and the caseworkers who don’t make eye contact. It’s the 10 months of pregnancy with no insurance and lying to the doctor about the cramps because you can’t afford a referral.” “It’s the long wait in jail because you can’t afford bail … It’s the long nights with the heat out and the long calls trying to reach the landlord.” “It’s the hours in detention after your own boss at the meat processing plant calls immigration on you and the long stare you give him while he hires your cousin for less money under the table. … So we look away.” Like Parker says, it’s values. Crime begets poverty. Like Williams says, marry the father of your children and stayed married. It’s “not rocket science.” Like we deplorables say, don’t come here illegally. Build the wall. Expecting mothers (legal citizens and otherwise) already get Medicaid if they’re “categorically needy.” This is a pretty low bar for those already entangled in the welfare industrial-complex. Now Fulton’s just making stuff up. It’s already illegal for a tenant’s heat to be shut off. And if you’re an illegal alien who’s working, why would the guy who hired you call immigration? He’s already paying you for less money off the books. Illogical. Moreover, no one “looks away” from the non-white poor. It’s all we ever hear about. And what does it even mean to be in “poverty” in America? Below is a sampling from the Mises Institute of material goods owned by most of the 46.2 million Americans deemed “poor” in the 2010 census.  The lion’s share are not lacking adequate clothing, warm housing, or food. In fact, “Some 96% of poor parents report their children were never hungry at any time in the prior year,” report Rector and Sheffield. They “have more living space in their homes than the average non-poor Swede, Frenchman, or German.” “Poverty is predictable … like underfunded schools and outdated textbooks … legislators turning their heads.” Really? Few issues are talked about as incessantly and laudatorily than are teachers and the indoctrination centers where we pay them to work. How dare I, mom to three homeschooled sons, throw stones from my 1,400-square-foot house with only five rooms of living space per person, and no carport or cable? I refuse to look away. 40% of my husband’s labor is forcibly confiscated by the state for wealth redistribution, most of which is used to propagate the very school system that encourages this systemic racket and its divisive talking points. Now that’s predictable. “It’s the predictability that after the storm we will arrest the looters who spent their last dollars on gas when prices surged up 50 cents before the storm. … We will … not say a thing.” At least Fulton admits that the overwhelming majority of American “poor” have cars – a luxury in many other countries – but this glimmer of reality comes at the expense of fetishizing the categorical crime of looting. Why make excuses for such lawlessness? And maybe Alyeesha doesn’t want Fulton’s help. Maybe she doesn’t want to be used as a prop in her PC advertisement. Maybe she knows she can take care of herself or that her life isn’t half bad. Maybe she’s grateful to live in her ancestral home. Maybe she’s thankful to be alive. “But that’s the … slow drip of poverty. All your life you are just watching the water rise, knowing no one is coming to get you: after all they told you to get out." Don’t get swindled by left’s hurricane of hubris. It’s a river flooding with fallacies, a storm raging with irrationality, and winds blowing with the hot air of white guilt. (See, I can play this rhetorical game, too!) It’s a critical-theory screed drowning in the red dirt of socialism. It’s time to get our heads above water and breathe new life into truth. This piece was originally published at DissidentMama.net on September 29, 2018. Liked it? Please consider supporting DM on Patreon.
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 One year ago today, Allen Armentrout took a rebel stand in Charlottesville, Virginia (see part 1). The world deemed his peaceful and principled actions as racist and traitorous. Like cultural-Marxist clockwork, the politically correct ramifications (see part 2) immediately began unfolding for the unReconstructed Southerner.
Armentrout knew he couldn't overcome these trials and tribulations by himself. So he leaned on the cornerstone of his life: Jesus Christ. “What got me through it all, honestly, was I knew what I had done was the light of the Lord," the 22-year-old said during our recent two-hour chat. “If God has a will for our life, we better do it." "In the end, God’s got a bigger plan and something way better for us. And if we don’t receive rewards or blessings … in this life, we will in the next.” Wise words from such a young man. The rebel remnantGod's favors did begin to manifest for Armentrout in the here and now. He experienced an outpouring of support, monetary and otherwise, from a slew of Southern-without-apology compatriots and even a few Northerners. One of his favorite correspondence (as well as a generous donation to his college fund) came from a lawyer in New York City. “Good job, young man," the letter read. "Even though I’m a Yankee, I respect your integrity and your character.” The tremendous encouragement of like-minded folks who dare to oppose the cultural genocide was a feeling reminiscent to his days flagging overpasses in Pensacola, said Armentrout. Sure, there were always a few loud and belligerent people, who castigated him from their sense of self-appointed moral superiority. "But at the same time, you’ve probably got four or five as many people going under the bridge, giving you salutes and thumbs up and honking their horns," he recalled of his early activist days. "I’m telling you, it makes you feel free.”  He also got the backing of numerous SCV camps, received an award from the Military Order of the Stars and Bars, and was flown around the country for pro-Southern speaking engagements. The accolades were greatly appreciated and spurred in him hope for the Southern cause. To defy the status quo is a rarity these days. But to do so in such a gallant and solitary way is almost unheard of. It struck a nerve with Southerners and non-leftists of all stripes. People who said, "It's about damn time somebody stood up!" Armentrout's act of allegiance to ancestry, real history, and patriotic principles was even immortalized in a music video and his image made into pop art (as seen above). "I'm very thankful there’s a remnant of people still left that respect the old-time way," he said humbly. From Russia with loveArmentrout's blessings continued when he was contacted on Instagram by a woman from Moscow, Russia. “'You’re a hero,' she wrote. 'You’re a celebrity in Russia.'" At first, he was distrustful and thought the message was some sort of publicity stunt. But as it turned out, she worked for the largest non-government-controlled media in Russia, Armentrout told me, and this free-press news channel wanted to interview him. “For an American to actively stand up against the liberal movement and to experience what I experienced, to them, I’m a folk hero," Armentrout commented. "I don’t consider myself a hero … but that’s how they saw me.” So, he prayed about it and finally agreed to the offer. A Los Angeles correspondent and news team from Moscow flew into North Carolina, and Armentrout met them at a park near his house. He specifically chose a public meeting place. “Last thing I want to do is get abducted, thrown into a van, and wake up in Russia somewhere,” he remarked with a chuckle.  When The Last Patriot of America segment aired, "I had hundreds of people from [former] Eastern Bloc countries and Russia contact me, and telling me, 'We’re proud of you. Russia backs you up!'"
”People who lived under communism know how precious freedom is and they see the leftist direction America is going," Armentrout assessed. "They’re screaming ... ‘Don’t give up your rights! Why are you giving in to these liberals? Why are you letting them take over this country? We’ve been there, done that. It doesn’t work!'" Still today, some in the Russian press will refer to Armentrout as “one of the few traditionalists” left in America. Funny that the most honest assessment he got from any TV news network or newspaper came from people who once lived under Bolshevism. “It showed me the condition of America," he said matter-of-factly. "The truth in American journalism is just dying out. It’s all fake.” Triumph over tragedyAnother happy point for Armentrout was that he and Pensacola State University came to an amicable agreement, and he eventually got accepted to a new school. All his college credits transferred, and he'll be graduating in May 2019, just one year late and debt-free.
During the interim, Armentrout got a job with a tree company, which offered him a short-term but adventurous opportunity to work out in California with the sequoias. He also bought a house in North Carolina, which he's now subleasing, so he could accept a career-advancing position out of state.  This Proverbs reference was recently tagged on Charlottesville’s Beta Bridge, which serves as a “tradition of expression” for locals and UVA students. The verse is “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set” and was painted along with the words “Love thy neighbor as thyself” from Mark 12:31. This display of humility and hope covered Antifa’s message, “Still here, still fighting,” as well as their socialist-paramilitary symbols. Guess what, comrades? We rebels are still here and fighting, too "The reason that good things happen in my life is because the Lord’s good to me," Armentrout affirmed. "I don’t take a bit of credit for any of it. It’s all Him.” He sees too how God used his seeming misfortune to open other doors. "I was able to witness to some people that the Lord put in my life through this ‘set back.' I know that ultimately through my suffering … I was able to share the Gospel." When asked if he'd do Charlottesville all over again, Armentrout replied with an adamant "yes." He's simply not consumed by the rage and the debasement that so defines the leftist mob and their sinister “social justice.” He holds no animus toward the people who screamed obscenities at him or lied about him. He's not angry about the disruptions that were needlessly caused in his life. “As Southerners, we invest emotionally in what we do. When we believe, we put our heart and soul into it. When people attack us ... it hurts," Armentrout admitted. Yet this Southern son overcame. He perseveres by holding tight to his faith, praying for his enemies, and clinging to heritage. "You can’t change history," he said. "You can rewrite it. You can author it. You can brainwash millions of people, but it doesn’t change what actually happened. And people that stand up for the truth are always and will always be in the right.” "Duty ... is the sublimest word in the our language. Do your duty in all things ... You cannot do more, and you should never do less." |
| "There is scarcely anything that is right that we cannot hope to accomplish by labor and perseverance. But the first must be earnest and the second unremitting." — Robert E. Lee |
In the final paragraph of part 1, Allen Armentrout told me how honoring the sacrifice of the Confederate dead "completes" him, giving him a sense of identity and peace spiritually. But it also serves a purpose ideologically, resisting the cultural cleansing to which his ancestors and Southern history are subject.
"Just put a foot down. This is your blood."
Armentrout's activism is steeped in liberty and in rebuking the poisonous nature of progressive dogma. “Exercising your rights is another thing that makes me feel complete in my life ... (and) knowing that I can do something controversial and unpopular, and there’s nothing anyone legally can do to me.”
To the willfully uninformed, Armentrout was some loony kid who wanted to play dress-up on that fateful day in Charlottesville last August. Or perhaps a "Nazi" who aimed to stir up trouble. Or maybe just a backwoods yahoo with bad timing.
Charlottesville was "not my first rodeo," Armentrout said. In fact, ever since he took that life-changing ancestral pilgrimage to Keezletown and witnessed those unkept veterans' graves, he had become a quiet but confident Dixie activist.
It first began with Armentrout attending city council meetings and tending to a Confederate cemetery in his hometown of High Point, North Carolina, where he'd clean the markers, rake pine needles, and fly his Battle Flag. Then “I would play Dixie on my phone and I would stand there and salute."
"I didn’t care who was watching," he explained. "I just knew that what I was doing was right."
To the willfully uninformed, Armentrout was some loony kid who wanted to play dress-up on that fateful day in Charlottesville last August. Or perhaps a "Nazi" who aimed to stir up trouble. Or maybe just a backwoods yahoo with bad timing.
Charlottesville was "not my first rodeo," Armentrout said. In fact, ever since he took that life-changing ancestral pilgrimage to Keezletown and witnessed those unkept veterans' graves, he had become a quiet but confident Dixie activist.
It first began with Armentrout attending city council meetings and tending to a Confederate cemetery in his hometown of High Point, North Carolina, where he'd clean the markers, rake pine needles, and fly his Battle Flag. Then “I would play Dixie on my phone and I would stand there and salute."
"I didn’t care who was watching," he explained. "I just knew that what I was doing was right."
CSA veterans memorial in Pensacola.
By the time he moved to Pensacola, Florida, to attend college, Armentrout had grown bolder. He started flagging overpasses, which he described as a “piece of the puzzle” for him. Just a gray-uniformed man on a highly traveled road, holding a flag and saluting for hours.
“I would do it by myself, unfortunately,” he remarked, adding that there were always people who’d promise him they’d be there next time. But they never showed. “I’m not waiting on any other person."
"Part of being Southern is being able to lead yourself, being able to govern yourself. Being able to say, ‘This is important to me, and I’m going to make it a point to go out and do something for what I believe and love.'"
“I would do it by myself, unfortunately,” he remarked, adding that there were always people who’d promise him they’d be there next time. But they never showed. “I’m not waiting on any other person."
"Part of being Southern is being able to lead yourself, being able to govern yourself. Being able to say, ‘This is important to me, and I’m going to make it a point to go out and do something for what I believe and love.'"
Proving grounds of a patriot
When he saw an uptick in the bludgeoning of his heritage by Obama, the corporate press, the corrupt race-baiters, and self-loathing whites in the aftermath of the Charleston shooting in 2015, Armentrout joined a Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) chapter near his university.
The camp's membership were “older gentlemen, who were not as zealous and, in my opinion, were kinda burned out," he said. Armentrout was told on several occasions that if he kept flagging, he needed to represent himself as an individual, clearly distinguishing himself from the local SCV.
“Isn’t that what I joined this camp for?" he asked rhetorically. "I broke out my suit and started going to city council meetings as an ‘individual.’ I got super-active.”
His Dixie advocacy was well known in the Florida Panhandle. He was asked to lead the re-dedication ceremony (photo seen at top) of a once-public Confederate statue and flag, which had been returned to a local by the City of Crestview.
The Pensacola SCV "came after me and even attacked me, saying I was capitulating" to the Southern-symbol removers. Armentrout said. "I had had about enough of it.”
The camp's membership were “older gentlemen, who were not as zealous and, in my opinion, were kinda burned out," he said. Armentrout was told on several occasions that if he kept flagging, he needed to represent himself as an individual, clearly distinguishing himself from the local SCV.
“Isn’t that what I joined this camp for?" he asked rhetorically. "I broke out my suit and started going to city council meetings as an ‘individual.’ I got super-active.”
His Dixie advocacy was well known in the Florida Panhandle. He was asked to lead the re-dedication ceremony (photo seen at top) of a once-public Confederate statue and flag, which had been returned to a local by the City of Crestview.
The Pensacola SCV "came after me and even attacked me, saying I was capitulating" to the Southern-symbol removers. Armentrout said. "I had had about enough of it.”
"There is no more dangerous experiment than that of undertaking to be one thing before a man's face and another behind his back." — Robert E. Lee |
Fortunately, an Alabama SCV division defended him, offering him the organizational support he'd been needing. Armentrout became a member and the camp helped him with the Crestview dedication.
Although an SCV member in good standing, Armentrout understands the struggles of "Southern heritage" organizations trying to exist and do battle in our prickly post-modern world. Many Confederate descendants aren't even willing to try to take the hill, much less die on it.
Although an SCV member in good standing, Armentrout understands the struggles of "Southern heritage" organizations trying to exist and do battle in our prickly post-modern world. Many Confederate descendants aren't even willing to try to take the hill, much less die on it.
The Big Sleezy
It was this compliant attitude among some old-schoolers that ultimately led Armentrout to New Orleans. The Crescent City was ground zero of the Dixie-cide by the spring of 2017.
Monuments to three of the Confederacy's most notable heroes – Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Louisiana's own P.G.T. Beauregard – were under threat by quisling extraordinaire, Mayor Mitch Landrieu, a sinister Soros-backed band of carpetbaggers known as Take 'Em Down NOLA, and all the usual suspects. These statues have all since come down.
Antifa "want to see the destruction of this country," Armentrout affirmed. “I saw them disgracing and tagging the monuments … and I said, ‘Where are the good guys?’"
"The only opposition the TV shows is people making fools of themselves ... some guy doing something stupid with a Confederate Flag or saying something that makes him sound idiotic.” He wanted to counter that narrative and be a good guy.
Monuments to three of the Confederacy's most notable heroes – Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Louisiana's own P.G.T. Beauregard – were under threat by quisling extraordinaire, Mayor Mitch Landrieu, a sinister Soros-backed band of carpetbaggers known as Take 'Em Down NOLA, and all the usual suspects. These statues have all since come down.
Antifa "want to see the destruction of this country," Armentrout affirmed. “I saw them disgracing and tagging the monuments … and I said, ‘Where are the good guys?’"
"The only opposition the TV shows is people making fools of themselves ... some guy doing something stupid with a Confederate Flag or saying something that makes him sound idiotic.” He wanted to counter that narrative and be a good guy.
The Lee statue is removed from atop the once-preeminent locale of New Orleans’ Lee Circle.
Armentrout told me he'd read that New Orleans SCV camps had advised their members to "stand down" and “restricted members from any way defending the monuments.” Needless to say, he was disappointed and thusly motivated.
“The SCV is a very valuable asset ... (but) some members are not that good at actively taking up a Battle Flag and marching into a threat." He was, so he did. And did so solo yet again.
Up to now, Armentrout had received his share of disapproving looks when caring for tombstones in High Point. In Pensacola, the full-time student and employee and part-time activist had been told to "get a job," called a "dumb ass," and given pretentious lectures by guilt-obsessed people who claimed to have Confederate lineage.
He had even had a jar of peanut butter thrown at him while on a Florida overpass. So, when a black preacher cursed at him in New Orleans, it wasn't that shocking – just another step in the social devolution he was experiencing firsthand as a resistor against it.
But seeing the stunning statues doused in red paint and covered with sticky foam did take him aback. And the city's foot soldiers were even more jarring.
“I saw a fire truck roll by and a fireman got off the truck wearing a mask and a riot helmet, got a crowbar, ripped the plaque off of this monument … and threw it in the back of the truck and sped off." The "goons" flabbergasted Armentrout.
“The SCV is a very valuable asset ... (but) some members are not that good at actively taking up a Battle Flag and marching into a threat." He was, so he did. And did so solo yet again.
Up to now, Armentrout had received his share of disapproving looks when caring for tombstones in High Point. In Pensacola, the full-time student and employee and part-time activist had been told to "get a job," called a "dumb ass," and given pretentious lectures by guilt-obsessed people who claimed to have Confederate lineage.
He had even had a jar of peanut butter thrown at him while on a Florida overpass. So, when a black preacher cursed at him in New Orleans, it wasn't that shocking – just another step in the social devolution he was experiencing firsthand as a resistor against it.
But seeing the stunning statues doused in red paint and covered with sticky foam did take him aback. And the city's foot soldiers were even more jarring.
“I saw a fire truck roll by and a fireman got off the truck wearing a mask and a riot helmet, got a crowbar, ripped the plaque off of this monument … and threw it in the back of the truck and sped off." The "goons" flabbergasted Armentrout.
“So many people are not natural leaders, they’re natural followers."
So by the time Armentrout opted to go to Charlottesville, he'd seen some stuff, learned some lessons, and knew exactly what he was doing. He planned it precisely as to avoid bodily harm by the crazed hive-mind thugs he knew would challenge his legal and peaceful self-expression.
“In the South today, you have to understand, the Reconstruction and living under 150 years of Yankee occupation is going to have an effect on the inhabitants," Armentrout said of anti-Confederate groupthink. "150 years of deluded history and eventually rewritten history, the implication of apathy in schools, where kids are taught not to care, is going to take its toll.”
“They’re just a product of the environment that the Yankees created." It's a gracious stance that many people, including some fellow Christians, would have a hard time taking: Lord forgive them for they know not what they do.
“In the South today, you have to understand, the Reconstruction and living under 150 years of Yankee occupation is going to have an effect on the inhabitants," Armentrout said of anti-Confederate groupthink. "150 years of deluded history and eventually rewritten history, the implication of apathy in schools, where kids are taught not to care, is going to take its toll.”
“They’re just a product of the environment that the Yankees created." It's a gracious stance that many people, including some fellow Christians, would have a hard time taking: Lord forgive them for they know not what they do.
"I have fought against the people of the North because I believed they were seeking to wrest from the South its dearest rights. But I have never cherished toward them bitter or vindictive feelings, and I have never seen the day when I did not pray for them." — Robert E. Lee |
As a preemptive measure, Armentrout called the police department three times before driving up to Virginia as to notify them of his intent to salute the Lee statue and open-carry weapons for self-defense. "If you ever want to do something that by the world’s standard is crazy, call your local police department."
He continued, "It gives the police dispatcher a forewarning and the police officer a prelude to understanding what’s going on before he pulls up to the scene.” It can help to dispel misinformation and fabricated claims of violence, as well.
Armentrout also had close friends of the family act as his advocates, phoning the police third-party, simply communicating that he’s "on point and not crazy." All necessary precautions when entering as hostile an environment as Charlottesville.
He continued, "It gives the police dispatcher a forewarning and the police officer a prelude to understanding what’s going on before he pulls up to the scene.” It can help to dispel misinformation and fabricated claims of violence, as well.
Armentrout also had close friends of the family act as his advocates, phoning the police third-party, simply communicating that he’s "on point and not crazy." All necessary precautions when entering as hostile an environment as Charlottesville.
Armentrout talks with Charlottesville police, one of whom asked the mob, “You want another day like Saturday, don’t you?
At the previous weekend's Unite the Right (UTR) rally, the Charlottesville Police had stood down, enabling the harsh brutality and consequent wreckage that needlessly befell people and property to unfold, so this measure was huge a gamble for Armentrout. But it paid off.
He told me the cops were utterly professional, both the ones who talked with him en route to Lee Park and once on site. “The police sergeant came up to me and was like, ‘Sir, you have every right to be here. We are here for you public safety because we know what can happen.”
The officer told Armentrout they had other things going on in the city and that his being there was tying up law enforcement resources. He added, “But we don’t expect you to leave.”
“Sir, I definitely respect other people’s public safety," responded Armentrout. “I just came up here to respect my ancestors and pay my respects to Lee, and I just wanted to see this monument in the event it was taken down.”
Armentrout also noted that he'd driven far to honor Lee and needed a few more minutes, but did request a police escort back to his vehicle. "I wouldn’t feel comfortable walking out of here," he said. So he whistled "Dixie" in his head, gave a final salute, and then nodded to the police.
He told me the cops were utterly professional, both the ones who talked with him en route to Lee Park and once on site. “The police sergeant came up to me and was like, ‘Sir, you have every right to be here. We are here for you public safety because we know what can happen.”
The officer told Armentrout they had other things going on in the city and that his being there was tying up law enforcement resources. He added, “But we don’t expect you to leave.”
“Sir, I definitely respect other people’s public safety," responded Armentrout. “I just came up here to respect my ancestors and pay my respects to Lee, and I just wanted to see this monument in the event it was taken down.”
Armentrout also noted that he'd driven far to honor Lee and needed a few more minutes, but did request a police escort back to his vehicle. "I wouldn’t feel comfortable walking out of here," he said. So he whistled "Dixie" in his head, gave a final salute, and then nodded to the police.
"We should live, act, and say nothing to the injury of anyone. It is not only best as a matter of principle, but it is the path to peace and honor." — Robert E. Lee |
The lying media made it seem as if Armentrout was forced to leave the park and that the righteous social-justice warriors had succeeded in chasing off the big, bad rebel. The fact that he wasn't disarmed prove the fabricated plotline.
Armentrout's .45 remained holstered while he rode in the front of the police cruiser, and his AR-15 just laid in the backseat. "'This guy has a handgun on his side in my patrol car' was probably the last of [the cop's] concerns. He was probably like ‘I need to get this guy out of my town before another Saturday happens.”
Armentrout's .45 remained holstered while he rode in the front of the police cruiser, and his AR-15 just laid in the backseat. "'This guy has a handgun on his side in my patrol car' was probably the last of [the cop's] concerns. He was probably like ‘I need to get this guy out of my town before another Saturday happens.”
Media Madness
News crews and reporters were still lurking around Charlottesville because of the UTR event, so they arrived on the scene quickly. "They thought, 'Here is this guy. He’s gotta be nuts,'" Armentrout said.
"He’s by himself with an AR at a Confederate monument that’s been at the seat of controversy. He’s going to do something … and we’re going to get it on camera.”
But “I didn’t, and it blew their minds. That’s what made those people yelling at me even madder," he added. "I hope that me doing that … maybe they could see what Christ was like in that small moment. I had faith."
"He’s by himself with an AR at a Confederate monument that’s been at the seat of controversy. He’s going to do something … and we’re going to get it on camera.”
But “I didn’t, and it blew their minds. That’s what made those people yelling at me even madder," he added. "I hope that me doing that … maybe they could see what Christ was like in that small moment. I had faith."
It made no difference that Armentrout wasn't the ignorant, redneck, belligerent cartoon character the Lincoln cultists have created as their perpetual scapegoat for all of society's ills. Just as he had drawn the ire of the alt-Marxist hordes in Lee Park, the progressive press went after him with a vengeance.
"We must be very careful how we are influenced by hearsay." — Robert E. Lee
Armentrout was portrayed as a "white supremacist" and a "racist protester," who was carrying an emblem of "racial terror" say "historians." The hyperbolic headlines and bombastic articles fed into the purposeful media manipulation that there are Nazis abounding in AmeriKKKa.
Wanting to set the record straight, Armentrout answered questions from a few newspapers, but the so-called journalists turned out to be hacks who wrote predictable hit pieces. Of course.
He said an English reporter wrote article with “a huge slant, basically saying I was condescending of women because I would pay for their dates or hold doors for them. I said, ‘I’m proud of that. I’m a gentleman.” So he stopped giving interviews.
Wanting to set the record straight, Armentrout answered questions from a few newspapers, but the so-called journalists turned out to be hacks who wrote predictable hit pieces. Of course.
He said an English reporter wrote article with “a huge slant, basically saying I was condescending of women because I would pay for their dates or hold doors for them. I said, ‘I’m proud of that. I’m a gentleman.” So he stopped giving interviews.
The aftermath
Despite Armentrout's self-imposed media-blackout, he still got hate mail. He even received a few death threats.
Unfortunately, Armentrout was also "released" from his upcoming senior year at Pensacola State University, which was supposed to be free. Not a good place for a young college kid to be, especially one who believes that "debt enslaves a person."
Armentrout used GoFundMe to try to raise money for finishing up his undergraduate degree. But the website shut him down – twice! - due to alleged "hate speech" violations.
"You've got to be a man, you gotta take command of your own life, you gotta make choices that are tough," he tells compatriots who may find themselves in these same dire straights. "You gotta decide what you want for you and your family, you gotta be willing to protect them."
It takes earnest labor and unremitting perseverance, just like Lee wrote. "One day the Lord might call them to take a stand," Armentrout said. "It’s not easy, but it’s worth it."
Be sure to check out part 3, "Humility and hope."
Original blog posted at DissidentMama.net.
Liked it? Please consider supporting DM on Patreon.
Unfortunately, Armentrout was also "released" from his upcoming senior year at Pensacola State University, which was supposed to be free. Not a good place for a young college kid to be, especially one who believes that "debt enslaves a person."
Armentrout used GoFundMe to try to raise money for finishing up his undergraduate degree. But the website shut him down – twice! - due to alleged "hate speech" violations.
"You've got to be a man, you gotta take command of your own life, you gotta make choices that are tough," he tells compatriots who may find themselves in these same dire straights. "You gotta decide what you want for you and your family, you gotta be willing to protect them."
It takes earnest labor and unremitting perseverance, just like Lee wrote. "One day the Lord might call them to take a stand," Armentrout said. "It’s not easy, but it’s worth it."
Be sure to check out part 3, "Humility and hope."
Original blog posted at DissidentMama.net.
Liked it? Please consider supporting DM on Patreon.
Author's note: I wasn't sure what to expect when interviewing Allen Armentrout, who launched to brief fame after the above image went viral late last summer. What I found was an intelligent, articulate, kind, and hopeful young man. A pure Southern gentleman, whose "Yes, ma'ams" delighted this ol' dissident belle.
Raised right, educated in true history, and nourished in the God of the Bible, Armentrout's also a fearless resistor to the Southern cultural genocide. To me, he serves as a much-needed light in these dark and dangerous times. I hope you will agree.
Raised right, educated in true history, and nourished in the God of the Bible, Armentrout's also a fearless resistor to the Southern cultural genocide. To me, he serves as a much-needed light in these dark and dangerous times. I hope you will agree.
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August 15 marks the one-year anniversary of when Allen Armentrout did his duty: honoring General Lee. Defying his youthful 21 years of age, the North Carolina native and lover of Southern heritage stood his ground resolutely and quietly as a seething flash mob gathered around him, hurling the most hurtful and irrational rhetoric at the lone rebel.
The Cloud and the Darkness
"Terrorist go home!" the rabid crowd of about 30 shrieked with hysterical flair synonymous with today's intolerant left. "Racist!" screamed one. "Get the fuck out of here!" screeched another. Obscenities, expletives, juvenile chants, and verbal snares filled the totalitarian-tainted air.
“She actually whispered in my ear," Armentrout told me in my recent two-hour phone interview with him (click here for full audio). The "she" he's referring to is the black woman seen in this video and the link above.
"It was kinda eerie. I can still hear it. She was like ‘We’re going to find you, chop your body up into tiny pieces, and people aren’t even going to know.'" That'd be peak social justice, I suppose.
The most well-known image from that Tuesday in Charlottesville, Virginia, is at top, a picture in which Lara Rogers, a middle-aged mother of three shoves double-birds in Armentrout's face. To cultural Marxists, Rogers is considered a "middle-fingered hero," who's just resisting "white supremacy."
“She actually whispered in my ear," Armentrout told me in my recent two-hour phone interview with him (click here for full audio). The "she" he's referring to is the black woman seen in this video and the link above.
"It was kinda eerie. I can still hear it. She was like ‘We’re going to find you, chop your body up into tiny pieces, and people aren’t even going to know.'" That'd be peak social justice, I suppose.
The most well-known image from that Tuesday in Charlottesville, Virginia, is at top, a picture in which Lara Rogers, a middle-aged mother of three shoves double-birds in Armentrout's face. To cultural Marxists, Rogers is considered a "middle-fingered hero," who's just resisting "white supremacy."
But to we non-leftists, Rogers and others in the nihilistic throng are emblematic of exactly why Armentrout was in what I disrespectfully call "the Berkeley of the Blue Ridge." It's a place brimming with unhinged tyrants, who claim to defend their homes and values, while they seek to destroy the roots and history of what once made Charlottesville (and the South at large) so great.
They're Jacobins who resort to vitriol and bully tactics while claiming the moral high ground against a young man who simply wants to defend his hearth and heritage against a fashionable and utterly dangerous cultural genocide. They claim unity, but seek to conquer. The claim victim status, but revel in schadenfreude.
They're Jacobins who resort to vitriol and bully tactics while claiming the moral high ground against a young man who simply wants to defend his hearth and heritage against a fashionable and utterly dangerous cultural genocide. They claim unity, but seek to conquer. The claim victim status, but revel in schadenfreude.
Stand Unflinchingly By Your Post
“I stood there two hours being mocked and brushed up against," Armentrout explained in his warm Piedmont drawl. "I don’t think you could’ve gotten more verbally assaulting than those people did to me.”
“Can you imagine what they might have done if I didn’t have a gun, if that was how volatile they were with me having a gun?” continued Armentrout, who came to Charlottesville open-carrying an AR-15 on his left shoulder and a holstered .45 handgun on his right hip, wearing a Confederate kepi and jacket, and holding a large Battle Flag.
Simply exercising his God-given and legal right to self-defense threw some emotive apparatchiks into a tizzy, of course. Leftists simply cannot fathom the concept of self-defense because they childishly equate guns with murder.
It also tweaked some of Armentrout's supporters, who thought the weaponry sent the wrong message, considering the violence that had unfolded in Charlottesville just three days prior. He admitted he almost left the rifle in the trunk of his car.
But with “all this hating on the ARs,” he opted to prove that the maligned gun can be used in a peaceful way and as a deterrent to harm and criminality. “Every time an AR-15’s been put on the news, it’s ‘Oh, it’s killed somebody.' This time, it’s not going to be that way."
“People nowadays do not value life," he added. "How hard do you think it’d be to kill a kid with a Confederate flag at a controversial monument? It’d be nothin’."
“Can you imagine what they might have done if I didn’t have a gun, if that was how volatile they were with me having a gun?” continued Armentrout, who came to Charlottesville open-carrying an AR-15 on his left shoulder and a holstered .45 handgun on his right hip, wearing a Confederate kepi and jacket, and holding a large Battle Flag.
Simply exercising his God-given and legal right to self-defense threw some emotive apparatchiks into a tizzy, of course. Leftists simply cannot fathom the concept of self-defense because they childishly equate guns with murder.
It also tweaked some of Armentrout's supporters, who thought the weaponry sent the wrong message, considering the violence that had unfolded in Charlottesville just three days prior. He admitted he almost left the rifle in the trunk of his car.
But with “all this hating on the ARs,” he opted to prove that the maligned gun can be used in a peaceful way and as a deterrent to harm and criminality. “Every time an AR-15’s been put on the news, it’s ‘Oh, it’s killed somebody.' This time, it’s not going to be that way."
“People nowadays do not value life," he added. "How hard do you think it’d be to kill a kid with a Confederate flag at a controversial monument? It’d be nothin’."
When in the Conflict of Life
Like a soldier preparing for battle, Armentrout played bagpipe military music through his Bluetooth headset when setting out for Lee Park, the now contentious site where the Confederate general's monument has been standing since 1924. He geared up and started the trek from his car, which was positioned about a mile away for security measures.
En route, a man brandished a weapon and made veiled threats, and a few cops approached him. Undeterred, Armentrout steadfastly marched onward, weapons visible and flag flying high. Such are the battle lines in this 4th-generation war and Lee Park was the beachhead.
En route, a man brandished a weapon and made veiled threats, and a few cops approached him. Undeterred, Armentrout steadfastly marched onward, weapons visible and flag flying high. Such are the battle lines in this 4th-generation war and Lee Park was the beachhead.
Back in June, the politically correct Charlottesville City Council had voted unanimously to change the park's name to Emancipation Park, and in February, voted to remove Lee's statue. (The statue still remains pending lawsuit, but is sometimes cloaked in a tarp.) But the progressives who've colonized this once charming mountain town have deemed the statue contemptuous and demand that it must go.
This kind of puritanical purge of all things Southern is one of the many reasons the Unite the Right (UTR) rally had even taken place in city the previous weekend. The 26-feet-high bronze sculpture simply came to represent resistance to the leftist status quo because the Charlottesville barbarians made it so.
The horrific event, as described by my friend who attended the rally, didn't occur because the city is a "place fractured by racial history and racial wounds," assert the social-justice shills. The calamity was caused by these very hand-wringers who now cry foul and proved what dissidents of all stripes have been saying all along: we live under anarcho-tyranny.
And the cultural Marxists' cleansing of Confederate symbols and subsequent celebration of evildoers only proliferated post-UTR, amplifying that ugly reality. In fact, it was the razing of the Confederate veteran statue in Durham by a legion of lunatics which inspired Armentrout to head to Virginia.
“There does come a point where morally what they believe in is completely wrong and threatens my way of life in some cases," Armentrout said of the Reconstructed masses. "And that’s when you have to stand up for what you believe in.”
Charlottesville is a case study in peak democracy. It's the bitter pill that there's an outright state-enforced, media-pushed, corporate-collaborated war against freedom of conscience, civility, and federalism. And Dixie is its emblematic whipping boy.
This kind of puritanical purge of all things Southern is one of the many reasons the Unite the Right (UTR) rally had even taken place in city the previous weekend. The 26-feet-high bronze sculpture simply came to represent resistance to the leftist status quo because the Charlottesville barbarians made it so.
The horrific event, as described by my friend who attended the rally, didn't occur because the city is a "place fractured by racial history and racial wounds," assert the social-justice shills. The calamity was caused by these very hand-wringers who now cry foul and proved what dissidents of all stripes have been saying all along: we live under anarcho-tyranny.
And the cultural Marxists' cleansing of Confederate symbols and subsequent celebration of evildoers only proliferated post-UTR, amplifying that ugly reality. In fact, it was the razing of the Confederate veteran statue in Durham by a legion of lunatics which inspired Armentrout to head to Virginia.
“There does come a point where morally what they believe in is completely wrong and threatens my way of life in some cases," Armentrout said of the Reconstructed masses. "And that’s when you have to stand up for what you believe in.”
Charlottesville is a case study in peak democracy. It's the bitter pill that there's an outright state-enforced, media-pushed, corporate-collaborated war against freedom of conscience, civility, and federalism. And Dixie is its emblematic whipping boy.
"It is history that teaches us to hope."
— Robert E. Lee
“You know why people hate us?" asked Armentrout, who likened the progressive agitators to the cruel ancient Roman emperor Nero. “Because we’re the last beam of hope. We’re the last group of people in the United States who stand up to tyranny" and the monuments are a reminder of that.
“There once was a group of people who said, ‘Enough’s enough,’ and took up arms against" central authority, he continued. "The federal government doesn’t want people to know about that.” He's absolutely correct: that's what this is about.
“They can tear down every monument. They can kill every Southerner. They can burn every history book. They can dig up every Confederate grave. It doesn’t change what happened. The truth cannot be destroyed, ever.”
“There once was a group of people who said, ‘Enough’s enough,’ and took up arms against" central authority, he continued. "The federal government doesn’t want people to know about that.” He's absolutely correct: that's what this is about.
“They can tear down every monument. They can kill every Southerner. They can burn every history book. They can dig up every Confederate grave. It doesn’t change what happened. The truth cannot be destroyed, ever.”
And just like Nero-era Christians were tortured, unjustly punished, and castigated as scapegoats for every social ill but still somehow prevailed, the prayer is that Southerners too shall triumph. But they can only do so with God.
“With Christ, comes freedom, and with Christianity, comes free will," affirmed Armentrout when critiquing America's spiritual and social degradation. "We can fight. We can complain ... but until we turn our hearts over to the Lord, it’s not going to change anything.”
“With Christ, comes freedom, and with Christianity, comes free will," affirmed Armentrout when critiquing America's spiritual and social degradation. "We can fight. We can complain ... but until we turn our hearts over to the Lord, it’s not going to change anything.”
Faithful to the Discharge of your Duty
Armentrout told me that he felt "spirit-led" to Charlottesville. “If the Lord has told you to do something – it doesn’t matter how hard it is or how much you’re going to suffer in doing or what you might have to sacrifice – in the end, the Lord is going to bless you."
His maturity in faith and unwavering courage in his beliefs are the blessings of God, Armentrout said. How else could one remain so undaunted in the face of such vile chastisement?
This self-control he exhibited is what astounded people. "How could you be so calm? I would’ve knocked her upside the head," Armentrout said were some of the most common comments regarding Rogers' infantile aggression.
“Yeah, well, I wanted to, but that’s not the Christian thing to do ... you can turn the other cheek when people are cussing you. Through just that one character trait alone, I showed Christ in me ... (but) it does take some restraint from the Holy Spirit.”
His maturity in faith and unwavering courage in his beliefs are the blessings of God, Armentrout said. How else could one remain so undaunted in the face of such vile chastisement?
This self-control he exhibited is what astounded people. "How could you be so calm? I would’ve knocked her upside the head," Armentrout said were some of the most common comments regarding Rogers' infantile aggression.
“Yeah, well, I wanted to, but that’s not the Christian thing to do ... you can turn the other cheek when people are cussing you. Through just that one character trait alone, I showed Christ in me ... (but) it does take some restraint from the Holy Spirit.”
"My chief concern is to try to be an honest, earnest Christian."
— Robert E. Lee
The dichotomy between Armentrout's stealthy demeanor and the alt-Marxists' unbalanced behavior was palpable. It's why he didn't engage them in conversation. He did, however, have a polite dialog when he first arrived at the park. They agreed to disagree and ended the exchange with a handshake.
But when the maniacal mobsters ambushed him, he "clammed up." Attempting to have a civil exchange with uncivil and miseducated people is "a lost cause," he said.
“This is our town!” cried out a person, who was probably not even a native of the city, much less of Virginia. “Racist go home!” chanted the blood-thirsty gaggle. "You're not welcome here!"
But when the maniacal mobsters ambushed him, he "clammed up." Attempting to have a civil exchange with uncivil and miseducated people is "a lost cause," he said.
“This is our town!” cried out a person, who was probably not even a native of the city, much less of Virginia. “Racist go home!” chanted the blood-thirsty gaggle. "You're not welcome here!"
The South is his home.
Armentrout's German ancestors came to Pennsylvania in the 1740s, but migrated to Virginia's Shenandoah Valley soon thereafter. From the settlement of Keezletown, his forebearers fought in the French and Indian War. One relative was a POW and slave to an adversarial Native American tribe, but escaped.
The Armentrouts constructed churches, grew their families, cultivated community, fostered freedom, and continued defending Virginia during both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Continuing the patriotic lineage, his fourth great-grandfather served in the Confederate Army in the Stonewall Brigade during the War Between the States.
"I’m just very proud … of the sacrifice they gave so that I can live in this country," he said of his kin. I'm "thankful that even though we were defeated, that my ancestors stood up to the Yankees and the invaders and tried to fight for our independence there, too.”
The Armentrouts constructed churches, grew their families, cultivated community, fostered freedom, and continued defending Virginia during both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Continuing the patriotic lineage, his fourth great-grandfather served in the Confederate Army in the Stonewall Brigade during the War Between the States.
"I’m just very proud … of the sacrifice they gave so that I can live in this country," he said of his kin. I'm "thankful that even though we were defeated, that my ancestors stood up to the Yankees and the invaders and tried to fight for our independence there, too.”
"A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday does not know where it is today." |
When Armentrout was a junior in high school, he and his father made a pilgrimage to Keezletown – a link he discovered when doing ancestral research. It was the dirty grave markers in an unnamed cemetery there that started Armentrout on a path which led eventually to Charlottesville.
He decided to clean those neglected veteran gravestones “of men who died for our rights and our freedoms hundreds of miles away from their families.” Many of their “descendants probably don’t even know where they are. For all I know there might be an Armentrout in Missouri or Texas, somewhere far away from me that hopefully a fellow compatriot out there might clean.”
He decided to clean those neglected veteran gravestones “of men who died for our rights and our freedoms hundreds of miles away from their families.” Many of their “descendants probably don’t even know where they are. For all I know there might be an Armentrout in Missouri or Texas, somewhere far away from me that hopefully a fellow compatriot out there might clean.”
Armentrout's budding appreciation for genealogy and honoring the dead built upon the lessons instilled in him by his father, Michael, who's an independent fundamental Baptist preacher. Unlike the atrocious example Rogers set for her children, Armentrout's dad taught him about virtue and godliness through the lens of history.
"I learned a lot from my dad and those two pictures."
"Some of my best Christian role models growing up were Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson," he explained." As a boy, images of the Confederate generals in his father's study always caught his eye.
"My dad taught me as a young man to revere those individuals and taught me what they believed, showed me what to stand for and what not to. I was taught that I have rights and freedoms. I was taught the truth and I was taught to care.”
"My dad taught me as a young man to revere those individuals and taught me what they believed, showed me what to stand for and what not to. I was taught that I have rights and freedoms. I was taught the truth and I was taught to care.”
"I think it better to do right, even if we suffer in doing so, than to incur the reproach of our consciences and posterity."
— Robert E. Lee
His dad educated him about the War and the Southern cause "and made the information pertinent to the way we live and how what they fought for applies to today.” To me, it's a very Orthodox perspective.
Just like we Orthodox look to the saints and use their stories to help grow us in faith, Armentrout looks to the enigmatic Lee and Jackson. Just like we Orthodox are called upon to pray for our dead Christian ancestors, Armentrout honors his.
Just like the traditional Orthodox fought against iconoclasm in the Byzantine Empire, Armentrout resists the destruction of his symbols and traditions. This all gives him a sense of purpose. Pride in a people.
“A man’s life is always trying to seek things to fill the void in his heart and respecting those who fought and died for you completes you in some way," he said. It's about time and place. Identity and meaning. Ties that bind. And being a grateful Southern son."
Be sure to check out part 2, "Take my stand."
Original blog posted at DissidentMama.net.
Liked it? Please consider supporting DM on Patreon.
Just like we Orthodox look to the saints and use their stories to help grow us in faith, Armentrout looks to the enigmatic Lee and Jackson. Just like we Orthodox are called upon to pray for our dead Christian ancestors, Armentrout honors his.
Just like the traditional Orthodox fought against iconoclasm in the Byzantine Empire, Armentrout resists the destruction of his symbols and traditions. This all gives him a sense of purpose. Pride in a people.
“A man’s life is always trying to seek things to fill the void in his heart and respecting those who fought and died for you completes you in some way," he said. It's about time and place. Identity and meaning. Ties that bind. And being a grateful Southern son."
Be sure to check out part 2, "Take my stand."
Original blog posted at DissidentMama.net.
Liked it? Please consider supporting DM on Patreon.
“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
— “The Pledge of Allegiance,” September 9, 1892
With Independence Day just a few weeks ago and all the statist fervor that’s displayed annually around the holiday, I’m reminded of why I don’t say “The Pledge of Allegiance.” Let’s begin with the sordid inception of this American ritual.
The Pledge was written by Francis Bellamy, a 19th-century Christian socialist and member of the Boston-born movement known as the Nationalist Club. The organization urged for the nationalization of private property and exponential growth in social services, especially public education.
So, what we’re talking about here is not the kind of nationalism that seeks political independence for a regional people who share a distinct culture, language, and religion. Rather, this was more about “economic democracy.” In other words, socialism.
Enter Francis’ cousin, Edward Bellamy, a then-famous author of socialist-utopian novels. Edward’s “Looking Backward” was the third best-selling book of the day and greatly influenced none other than progressive public-school advocate, John Dewey. The book also inspired the proliferation of more Nationalist Clubs, where Bellamyites would gather to study Marxism and disseminate anti-capitalist ideas.
The blue-blood’s brand of nationalism coursed its way through the veins of America’s body politic and into many cities beyond Boston. The movement found common cause with reformers of the era, such as the People’s Party, the Social Labor Party, and the Social Democratic Party. And at the club’s height, there were chapters as far away as Washington, D.C., Chicago, Canada, California, and New Zealand.
Back to Francis: in the late 1880s, he was fired from his New England pastoral job for incessantly preaching that Jesus was a socialist. But he went on to become the founding vice president of the Society of Christian Socialists and a frequent contributor to its circular, “The Dawn.”
Francis was then hired by “The Youth’s Companion” (YC), a leading children’s publication that also featured works by Americana greats, like Jack London, Mark Twain, and Booker T. Washington. As content creators in the magazine’s premium department, Francis and James B. Upham began a promotion in 1888 that solicited subscriptions from public schools with the bonus of receiving a U.S. flag.
Up until this point, flying the stars and stripes wasn’t a common custom most anywhere. Remember, this was prior to the country’s ascent into foreign-adventurism during the Spanish-American War and subsequent role as global-policeman via propaganda pushed during both world wars.
But despite 20-plus years of Reconstruction, people still largely identified with their community, state, or region at this time. It’s not that folks weren’t proud of their home, it’s just that their home wasn’t the “nation.”
Plus, Unionism wasn’t (and I would argue, still isn’t among loud and proud Dixie natives) the instinct of most homegrown Americans, so shows of patriotism weren’t really necessary. Hell, Congress didn’t proclaim the 4th of July an official holiday until 1870, and Southern cities, like battle-worn Vicksburg, Miss., didn’t even celebrate it till the early 1900s.
But in just a few short years of YC’s promotion, approximately 26,000 flags had moved into public schools through this ingenious marketing concept. As with most business strategies, though, demand began to stagnate. So in 1892, Upham had another grand idea: increase magazine sales and the numbers of flags into schools by couching the promotion as a way to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus coming to the Americas.
A new flag pledge was published in the September 8 issue of YC. Students were encouraged to memorize and recite it, as well as participate in a novel flag-raising ceremony to observe the upcoming Columbus Day in October.
Francis spoke at a national meeting of school superintendents in support of the gimmick, er, I mean, patriotic program. Of course, the educrats were seduced by the campaign and happily obliged at utilizing government education to work the Pledge into the consciousness of the masses.
“Our public school system is what makes this Nation superior to all other Nations,” Sherman Hoar, U.S. Congressman from Massachusetts, told Francis in support of the pledge campaign. Pompous populism was at a fever pitch.
The National Education Association became a sponsor, and U.S. Congress and President Benjamin Harrison also participated in the excitement, making a national proclamation about the Columbus Day pledge-and-flag event. And so was born a new American covenant.
Interestingly, the pledge was originally recited while raising a stiff right hand upward. Due to its similarities to the Nazi salute, this practice was discontinued during WWII and replaced with placing right hand over heart. At the urging of the Knights of Columbus, “Under God” was added by Congress and President Dwight Eisenhower in 1954 as a stance against the threat of atheist communism. Oh the irony.
So, controversies over the Pledge’s words have become an all-encompassing straw man: while leftists fight to have the Pledge taken out of schools (even though they’re the ones who put it there), godly limited-government folks think they’re being both patriotic and faithful in promoting the Pledge’s public prominence (even though it’s a socialist screed). The discombobulation is baffling.
The terminology of the now-lionized Pledge echoed the sentiments that was – and still is – the vanguard of New England meddlesomeness, which spread like wildfire throughout the Progressive Era. It ramped up in the late 1800s and hammered home the wrath of Reconstruction, planting the creeping seeds of post-modern socialism that slowly but surely befell 20th-century America and is today in despondent, dark bloom.
“Republic … is the concise political word for the Nation – the One Nation which the Civil War was fought to prove,” Francis explained of the terms he used in crafting the Pledge. “To make that One Nation idea clear, we must specify that it is indivisible, as [Daniel] Webster and [Abraham] Lincoln used to repeat in their great speeches.”
He also wanted the political vow to be “an intensive communing with salient points of our national history … [including] the meaning of the Civil War” and viewed his Pledge as an “inoculation” against radicalism. And as a puritanical populist who once ran for New York governor on the Prohibition Party ticket, you know the “virus” of subversion to which he was referring was states’ rights.
There’s a reason “Happy Secession Day” was trending on social media this 4th of July: many people are coming to realize that Revolutionary colonists fought to break from the British by severing their relationship with the crown. Indeed, These United States were born of divisibility.
Secession, not oneness, is our heritage, no matter what progressive pundits or public-school propagandists say. Questioning “the republic” and “the flag for which it stands” is as American as apple pie; it is truly in line with our founding as a people of freedom and faith. Our legacy is not that of soulless automatons and empire worshippers.
“I believe a man is happier, and happy in a richer way, if he has ‘the freeborn mind,'” C.S. Lewis said. “For independence allows an education not controlled by Government; and in adult life it is the man who needs and asks nothing of Government who can criticize its acts and snap his fingers at its ideology.”
Now I know Lewis is a Brit, but I think it’s important to have a strong Christian counterpoint to Francis’ social-gospel message. Lewis may have been a mutton-and-turnip-eating Irishman, but he surely had his Anglican finger on the pulse of what it means to be faithful and free-thinking – an often difficult task for some Christians to accomplish, much less one who adheres to the tenets of socialism and its imperial aims.
Government that’s smaller and closer to home is always better for liberty, and Dixie has been living under an antithetical system for way too long a time. As an unReconstructed Southerner, I see the Pledge’s “one nation” and “indivisibility” mantras as simply reinforcing the central authoritarianism which my Confederate ancestors fought against.
Take the experience of Francis Key Howard, grandson of Francis Scott Key, author of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Key composed what came to be the lyrics of America’s national anthem when witnessing the U.S. flag waving in Baltimore harbor after the British bombardment of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812.
Fast forward not even 50 years to the War of North Aggression, when Howard was arrested without warrant in accordance with the federal government’s policy of jailing dissenters of Lincoln’s wartime policies. Howard’s crime? He had written an editorial condemning Lincoln’s suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, implementation of martial law in Baltimore, and imprisonment of the city’s mayor, its police commissioners, the entire city council, and a sitting U.S. Congressman – all without charge.
By imprisoning so many of his political enemies, Lincoln prevented Marylanders from ever having a vote on secession. After all, people can’t challenge the unrestrained power of the nation-state and its usurpation of authority, if their leaders are all locked away.
Howard was originally held at at Fort McHenry, precisely where Key had experienced his pivotal patriotic moment and penned the reverent words honoring the flag and fortitude of his young, struggling country. Obviously, Howard wasn’t feeling the same warm-and-fuzzy sentiments as did his grandfather.
“The flag which then he [Key] so proudly hailed, I saw waving at the same place over the victims as vulgar and brutal a despotism as modern times have witnessed.”
— Francis Key Howard, 1861
To me, the Pledge is either a socially sanctioned habit that few question at best, or a forced loyalty oath of subordination at worst. Why vow allegiance to something hellbent on crushing self-determination, promoting tyranny, and propping up oligarchs who pay for their socialist schemes on my dime just because it’s the status quo? It’s all just a bit too totalitarian for this rebel.
But I’m not a barbarian, for goodness sake. I respect my family and friends who do participate in the Pledge. After all, I know they see it as a simple act of publicly displaying love of country. But I also see my small resistance as patriotic.
There’s a line in an old Ani DiFranco song that goes, “I am a patriot. I have been fighting the good fight.” I, too, am fighting the good fight for a homeland where “liberty and justice for all” (not special rights for some) and a republic that embraces (not crushes) divisibility can again take root, and against the reconstructed socialism that has foisted ruination and colonization upon my nation: the South.
As author Edward Abbey once wrote: “A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.” I am that kind of patriot. Deo vindice.
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Original blog posted at Dissident Mama.
“In my experience, it’s too simplistic (and unfair) to blame one group of people for our collective failure to evangelize,” said Pastor J.D. Greear, who last month was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Yet that’s exactly what he and the other race-hustlers do: blame white Christians and their “inertia” and “privilege” for the plummeting numbers within Southern Baptist churches.
“In the Christian obsessed with ‘social justice,’ it isn’t easy to discern whether charity is flourishing or faith is expiring.”
— Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Colombian writer
I referenced much of the SBC’s heterodoxy in a previous blog. But the “white people got work to do” slogan is a guilt-inducing, group-think bludgeon and has become an idol in much of mainline American Christianity. The “people of color are perpetual victims” mantra is a near sacrament that must be bowed down to, or else.
Just ask James Edwards, host of The Political Cesspool. He’s long been warring rhetorically on social media and on his radio show with prominent Southern Baptist pastor Dwight McKissic and other SBC bigwigs.
The self-described paleo-conservative has become a lightning rod for interviewing controversial personalities, and defending such unpopular notions as private-property rights, secession, political decentralization, and military non-interventionism. Gasp!
But what was Edwards’ unforgivable “sin?” He believes in white pride, advocates for the white family, and is unapologetically pro-Southern. You know, cultural Kryptonite in these enlightened times.
Now, some or all of that might not be your cup of tea, but are any legitimate reasons to “disfellowship” Edwards and his entire congregation “without even so much as a phone call to my pastor or anyone else in our church,” he wrote? The political purge was carried out covertly, without discussion, deliberation, or even an SBC vote, which is further explained by the hateful and divisive Southern Poverty Law Center
“In the Christian obsessed with ‘social justice,’ it isn’t easy to discern whether charity is flourishing or faith is expiring.”
— Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Colombian writer
I referenced much of the SBC’s heterodoxy in a previous blog. But the “white people got work to do” slogan is a guilt-inducing, group-think bludgeon and has become an idol in much of mainline American Christianity. The “people of color are perpetual victims” mantra is a near sacrament that must be bowed down to, or else.
Just ask James Edwards, host of The Political Cesspool. He’s long been warring rhetorically on social media and on his radio show with prominent Southern Baptist pastor Dwight McKissic and other SBC bigwigs.
The self-described paleo-conservative has become a lightning rod for interviewing controversial personalities, and defending such unpopular notions as private-property rights, secession, political decentralization, and military non-interventionism. Gasp!
But what was Edwards’ unforgivable “sin?” He believes in white pride, advocates for the white family, and is unapologetically pro-Southern. You know, cultural Kryptonite in these enlightened times.
Now, some or all of that might not be your cup of tea, but are any legitimate reasons to “disfellowship” Edwards and his entire congregation “without even so much as a phone call to my pastor or anyone else in our church,” he wrote? The political purge was carried out covertly, without discussion, deliberation, or even an SBC vote, which is further explained by the hateful and divisive Southern Poverty Law Center
Edwards is not nor has he ever been a member of the Klan, as some assert. But with plenty of establishment Christian leaders, such as McKissic, joining with and promoting the Leninist-Marxist Black Lives Matter movement, would these Evangelicals even have a leg to stand on if Edwards was a Klansman? I think not.
After all, BLM’s “Blacktivism” is geared toward “freedom and justice for Black people” and seeks empowerment for the “global Black family,” yet curiously aims to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family.” Huh, double-standard much?
For a people who incessantly talk of their quest for Christian “authenticity,” evangeleftists sure do like to pray at the altar of forced “diversity.” What can be any more artificial than racial (and gender) quotas, like the ones McKissic and Greear have endorsed for the SBC?
Belarus’s Ministry of Internal Affairs said it well when criticizing Britain for raising a rainbow flag over its embassy: “The essence of fake is always the same — the devaluation of truth.”
After all, BLM’s “Blacktivism” is geared toward “freedom and justice for Black people” and seeks empowerment for the “global Black family,” yet curiously aims to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family.” Huh, double-standard much?
For a people who incessantly talk of their quest for Christian “authenticity,” evangeleftists sure do like to pray at the altar of forced “diversity.” What can be any more artificial than racial (and gender) quotas, like the ones McKissic and Greear have endorsed for the SBC?
Belarus’s Ministry of Internal Affairs said it well when criticizing Britain for raising a rainbow flag over its embassy: “The essence of fake is always the same — the devaluation of truth.”
It’s counterfeit virtue, and it seems abundantly clear that in-group preference is okay for everyone, except white folks. It’s like Jim Crow, although not in a legal sense. Rather, this caste system creates supra-rights for aggrieved minorities and special untouchable classes as defined by the pulpit. Some must follow the man-made laws, while others get a pass.
The feel-good words used by the churched inquisition may sound nice, but here’s their true meaning.
• “inclusion” = excluding certain points of view
• “diversity” = anti-whiteness and infantilizing “people of color”
• “racial reconciliation” = pushing white guilt and self-hatred
• “social justice” = covetousness and cultural Marxism
• “unity” = submit or be deemed unworthy of salvation
But what is racism? Here’s what Merriam-Webster says.
The feel-good words used by the churched inquisition may sound nice, but here’s their true meaning.
• “inclusion” = excluding certain points of view
• “diversity” = anti-whiteness and infantilizing “people of color”
• “racial reconciliation” = pushing white guilt and self-hatred
• “social justice” = covetousness and cultural Marxism
• “unity” = submit or be deemed unworthy of salvation
But what is racism? Here’s what Merriam-Webster says.
Other dictionaries echo the same refrain: racism must require a sense of superiority of one race over another. It doesn’t mention pride, preference, stereotyping, or even power, as the leftists say it must have in order to be legit. According to the true definition, one must lack personal humility and possess utter disdain for specific others in a broad-brush way for racism to exist.
“Liberals are skilled at using orthodox language to mean something else.”
— Professor Robert Gagnon, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
Yet, some Christians do mental gymnastics to remake the word in their own progressive image. The cultural-Marxist zealots with Reclaiming Jesus – which includes Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry (known for his pedestrian royal-wedding sermon) and Jesus-was-a-socialist guru Tony Campolo of Red Letter Christians – talk out of both sides of their mouth, just like Greear and McKissic.
They say “no oppression based on race” can be inline with Christianity and that “any doctrines or political strategies that use racist resentments, fears, or language must be named as public sin.” But that’s exactly what they foment with their “racial reconciliation” ideology.
They continue, “We reject white supremacy and commit ourselves to help dismantle the systems and structures that perpetuate white preference and advantage … one that goes back to the foundation of our nation and lingers on.” Oh yeah, and “silence is complicity.” Spiritual extortion, nice touch.
To them, “Racial justice and healing are biblical and theological issues.” Of course this means all penance for sinful whites, all absolution for sinless blacks. No appreciation for white Christians, except for those “allies” who hate their own whiteness, and no level of pandering to blacks is off limits. “We give thanks for the prophetic role of the historic black churches in America when they have called for a more faithful gospel.”
So black Christians are by default prophets and better Christians than those white evil-doers? Allegedly “pro-black” policies are seemingly “central to the mission of the body of Christ in the world,” but dissenting white brothers and sisters – and black conservative Christians, like pastors Voddie Baucham, Jr., and Darrell Harrison – are apostates. Sounds more like Black Liberation Theology to me.
This double-speak is what gives evangeleftists cover in pushing the political stunt known as MLK50, a virtual veneration by a slew of pastors and opinion-makers who call Martin Luther King, Jr. “the greatest American ever to have lived.” This past spring, the event raised money for minority-student college scholarships, while they preached of white guilt, institutional racism, and King’s faith and civil-rights works.
“Liberals are skilled at using orthodox language to mean something else.”
— Professor Robert Gagnon, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
Yet, some Christians do mental gymnastics to remake the word in their own progressive image. The cultural-Marxist zealots with Reclaiming Jesus – which includes Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry (known for his pedestrian royal-wedding sermon) and Jesus-was-a-socialist guru Tony Campolo of Red Letter Christians – talk out of both sides of their mouth, just like Greear and McKissic.
They say “no oppression based on race” can be inline with Christianity and that “any doctrines or political strategies that use racist resentments, fears, or language must be named as public sin.” But that’s exactly what they foment with their “racial reconciliation” ideology.
They continue, “We reject white supremacy and commit ourselves to help dismantle the systems and structures that perpetuate white preference and advantage … one that goes back to the foundation of our nation and lingers on.” Oh yeah, and “silence is complicity.” Spiritual extortion, nice touch.
To them, “Racial justice and healing are biblical and theological issues.” Of course this means all penance for sinful whites, all absolution for sinless blacks. No appreciation for white Christians, except for those “allies” who hate their own whiteness, and no level of pandering to blacks is off limits. “We give thanks for the prophetic role of the historic black churches in America when they have called for a more faithful gospel.”
So black Christians are by default prophets and better Christians than those white evil-doers? Allegedly “pro-black” policies are seemingly “central to the mission of the body of Christ in the world,” but dissenting white brothers and sisters – and black conservative Christians, like pastors Voddie Baucham, Jr., and Darrell Harrison – are apostates. Sounds more like Black Liberation Theology to me.
This double-speak is what gives evangeleftists cover in pushing the political stunt known as MLK50, a virtual veneration by a slew of pastors and opinion-makers who call Martin Luther King, Jr. “the greatest American ever to have lived.” This past spring, the event raised money for minority-student college scholarships, while they preached of white guilt, institutional racism, and King’s faith and civil-rights works.
“Racial unity is a Gospel issue,” the conference website claimed in fashionable form. Oh, the bravery. Oh, the leadership. Oh, the irony. Gag.
But no mention that King denied some extremely important Christian essentials: the Virgin birth, that Christ was the Son of God, the physical resurrection of Christ, and the inerrancy of Holy Scriptures. Check out his own words if you don’t believe me. Somehow those aren’t anti-Gospel issues. Um-kay.
Theologian Robert Gagnon called the Christian hypocrisy at MLK50 “propaganda” and a “perfunctory whitewash.” His critique of the “foreordained” message of King’s near sainthood and his insistence that King never repented earned Gagnon some Baptist heat. Thankfully, he refused to bend the truth, despite the bullies’ best efforts.
Even Orthodoxy is not immune, although I do think people with varying views can (and often do) get along much more fluidly within the ancient faith. Liturgy, apostolic traditions, and church history help in keeping some of that animosity in check.
There is true unity in the chalice. Orthodoxy is “diverse” in that universal sense, but some over-“educated” Western Christians still do try their best to homogenize some of the non-dogmatic faith issues.
“Orthodoxy rejects the teaching that churches or countries should be divided along racial lines,” wrote Father Peter Jon Gillquist in reference to his kicking Matthew Heimbach out of communion with the Antiochian Orthodox Church Archdiocese of North America. “He must submit to period of formal penance in order to be received back into the Orthodox communion.”
See, Heimbach is co-founder of the now-defunct Traditionalist Youth Network, a ethno-nationalist movement. He’s a proponent of right-socialism, of which I’m no fan. Then again, there are plenty of left-socialists and nation-statists who are members in good standing within the Orthodox Church, yet no one seems to care two whits about their politics.
Liberals of all stripes are never banished from the Church; the example is only made of “neo-Nazis.” Of course, today that job-killing, church-expelling, friend-losing designation includes Heimbach, perhaps rightly so. But tomorrow it could include me, or you, or any conservative because it is the left who creates and then sticks individuals in these ever-broadening categories.
In defending Father Gillquist, Father Ernesto Obregon basically made analogous Heimbach’s unpopular activism with the horrific sin of pedophilia. Could you imagine any priest doing that with a black nationalist, a feminist, or a gay man?
The inconsistencies and contradictions among American Christians abound. For instance, Heimbach is said to support a “separationist ideology,” but BLM isn’t? C’mon.
Is it simply that the marginalization of non-leftist white folks is kosher? Could there actually be something that I like to call “Marxist privilege” within the Church, which pushes double-standards depending not upon soteriology and ecclesiology, but rather upon political correctness?
“He must formally reject violence, hate speech, and the heresy of Phyletism,” Gillquist continued. Media darlings BLM and Antifa are built upon brutality and fear, and encourage people to “punch a Nazi,” meaning anyone with whom they disagree. Feminism advocates for women to kill their children. All are inherently violent groups, yet plenty of Christians support these ideological movements with seemingly no repercussions.
And “hate speech” is a post-modern invention. The offense and acceptable parameters of discourse are always defined by the person making the allegation, and the assertion is never targeted at people of color or leftists high on the caste.
The Christian clamor about being “intentional” and “finding connection” is constant. Those noble works can be showered upon gang members, heroine dealers, parents who give their kids hormone-blockers, illegal immigrants, corrupt lawyers, lying reporters, thieving politicians, pro-abortion activists, or pretty much any fallen soul – other than deplorables. Nope, no “children of God” mercies for them.
And then there’s “phyletism.” Now I’m a newly chrismated Orthodox, but from what I know, this controversy had to do with Bulgarians wanting Bulgarian-only parishes in Constantinople. In fact, the word, which was coined by the Great pan-Orthodox Synod that met in Constantinople in 1872, was synonymous with “ecclesiastical racism.”
“We renounce, censure and condemn racism, that is racial discrimination, ethnic feuds, hatreds and dissensions within the Church of Christ,” wrote the Synod. Yet, it’s not deemed heretical to have national or cultural loyalty outside the Church. There is a Greek Orthodox Church after all.
After Charlottesville, even the Assembly of Canonical Bishops of the USA went so far as to equate phyletism with “all forms of xenophobia and chauvinism” (whatever that means in modern newspeak), but clarified that the “promotion of racial or national supremacy and ethnic bias or dissension in the Church of Christ is to be censured as contrary to the sacred teachings.” Yet, they went on to to appeal to the “leaders of our great nation.” Odd.
My patron saint, Ilia the Righteous (mentioned in my last blog), sought national independence for Georgians from the Russians and autocephaly of the Georgian Church. He worked to out those who dishonored the Georgian nation, and its language, faith, and culture.
So, was Ilia a xenophobe because he vociferously dissented against Russian invasion? Was he a chauvinist because he had Georgian pride? Was he ethnically biased because he championed for a specific people-group? And what the heck codifies “dissension in the Church?” Well, what’s certain is that it’s always one-sided and never, ever broaches the poison of progressivism.
I’m just not convinced that the newfangled Americanized definition of racism is dogma or is even a Gospel issue. The political correctness and presentism weighing down the once simple-to-understand concept make it superficial, convoluted, and subjective.
You can say that the Gospel can heal true racism and, thus, promote more unity among folks as a result of Jesus’ love and grace. But heresy? Eh, not so sure.
If a puritanical progressive “blames himself for what is wrong, he thereby stakes out a claim to be the one who must rectify it. A guilt trip is an ego trip.”
— Historian Forrest McDonald
What I am convinced of is that there’s a double-dealing deception going down. Some sincere people may have consumed so much leftist Kool-Aid flowing forth from the pulpit that their seemingly good intentions have blinded them.
Some may even understand the hypocrisy and its dangerous ramifications, but are too scared to speak up or resist. Others are just trying to navigate the PC landscape as best they can, and are willing to bend principle and throw people under the bus for political expediency. It’s waaaaaaaay easier to be an “ally” than it is to be dissident.
But there are some who aim to co-opt something good (in this case, Jesus Christ) and destroy the institution (the Church) from within. The people orchestrating this madness veiled as Christian spirituality don’t simply have selective outrage. Rather, they fully grasp the agenda and are using scapegoating to gain power, curry favor with the mob, and propel the scheme to its nihilistic ends.
Hey white Christians. I know you’re already beaten up for just being white and having mythical “privilege.” For being a “white supremacist” simply by virtue of not being black, or for voting for Trump (although the stats really do betray the latter deceitful media narrative).
Or for not being sensitive of your role in “colonial oppression” or your complicity in “systemic racism.” For not spitting on your ancestors' graves hard enough or for never doing enough to further “racial reconciliation.” Your sin is worse and your judgement greater than all else. To the periphery, crackers!
Don’t the people being played know they’ll never be given mercy by the power-hungry race pimps or naive men of the cloth? It’s too risky. There is no grace for whitey, if he upsets the conformist apple cart, either real or imagined, voluntarily or involuntarily. The social-justice establishment is using the weakness, contriteness, charity, selfishness, and/or ignorance of the altruistic white masses to pull a fast one.
I mean, if you can’t stop falling in line with the dictates of leftism – the very ideology which threatens the salvation of individual souls at the behest of the cultural-Marxist collective and seeks to annihilate faith and family – you should feel guilty as hell. Wake up and stop being such brainwashed automatons, y’all.
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Original blog posted at Dissident Mama.
I’m often asked why I use a pen name. I could tell you that it’s because it’s kinda cool to be in the company of other great writers who used pseudonyms, like O. Henry, Tennessee Williams, and Dr. Seuss. But honestly, it’s because I’m an anti-leftist writer, and the left is treacherous and unhinged as hell.
I’m a freedom fighter who lives in an un-free world. I’m a paleoconservative trapped in a progressive state. I’m a Southern-without-apology blogger trying to survive in the loony land of Lincolnianism. I’m a truth-seeker who dwells in a culture of lies.
I wouldn’t have to use a pen name in a normal world. Well, normal ain’t what we got, y’all.
As a former feminist-atheist-socialist, I understand the threat that is cultural Marxism. I mean, I did minor in women’s studies … before it was called “gender studies.” I understand leftist language, and I know how the left thinks, and it’s some dark stuff, y’all.
I’m a freedom fighter who lives in an un-free world. I’m a paleoconservative trapped in a progressive state. I’m a Southern-without-apology blogger trying to survive in the loony land of Lincolnianism. I’m a truth-seeker who dwells in a culture of lies.
I wouldn’t have to use a pen name in a normal world. Well, normal ain’t what we got, y’all.
As a former feminist-atheist-socialist, I understand the threat that is cultural Marxism. I mean, I did minor in women’s studies … before it was called “gender studies.” I understand leftist language, and I know how the left thinks, and it’s some dark stuff, y’all.
In fact, just saying “cultural Marxism” is considered racist language by the modern, seething left. It’s among a slew of verbiage considered racist “dog whistles,” including Bolshevik, urban, cosmopolitan, bankers, and others gems not yet determined by the totalitarian thought police. Thus, if you use these terms, you’re not worthy of conversation, or an opinion, or even existence. Punch a Nazi, am I right?
I’m trying to put up a little firewall between my family and the crazies, so that Antifa and BLM thugs (or left-leaning libertarians like the ones who made this bingo board) don’t come to my house and throw a brick through my window – or worse – due to my “unacceptable” views. Considering the zealotry of the illogical left, I’m surprised more politically incorrect writers don’t use pseudonyms.
Yes, yes. There are indeed liberal folks who do want to dialog, but they’re truly the tiny exception, not the overwhelming rule. Otherwise, I would use my real name, as well as invite folks who disagree with me over to my house for a beer summit. Alas, that is not the case.
As a journalist (and a media consumer with a modicum of intelligence), I see that the people who pull these systemic strings are bad dudes. It’s a machine buttressed by naive do-gooders, sycophantic virtue signalers, self-serving opportunists, and downright monstrous mobs.
I’m here to question the message. I’m here to poke holes in the cabal. And the only way to maintain integrity as a writer is to seek and tell the truth. Be bold but loving.
As anyone with a cursory knowledge of history knows, though, pursuing truth is dangerous business. The Founding Fathers did, and that’s why many of them chose to use pen names leading up to and even after the Revolution.
I began this adventure known as Dissident Mama in December 2016. Remember those days? They almost seem wide-eyed innocent in comparison to the highly charged political heat and social unrest that has occurred since then.
Just check out last weekend’s street-fighting clash in Portland between Patriot Prayer and Antifa. As anyone with a clue is finally admitting, civil war is here. And as the left admits, “This is just the beginning.”
Back when I started blogging, the divider in-chief Obama was still in office, and perhaps leftists were taking a brief respite, exhausted from the brutality they dished out to Trump supporters and upon private property leading up to the election. Maybe the haters were in shock, still reeling because Trump had just upset the new-world pecking order of Hillary’s globalist-feminist ascent into the Oval Office.
But after Trump’s inauguration, leftist fury was unleashed. The barbarians were well-rested and frothing at the gate, calling for social and physical savagery, and often making it happen and without much repercussion. And then by August, well, the nihilistic mob was unabated and anarcho-tyranny was in full inglorious swing. Charlottesville was the pinnacle of the leftist feeding frenzy.
See, the progressives had worked tirelessly for 150 years to finally get to the point of being able to decree who is and isn’t acceptable. Sure, you can have “respectable” talks with war mongers, imperial murderers, race baiters, anti-white haters, thieves, infanticide supporters, hormone-replacement-therapy child abusers, anti-Christian tyrants, and communists, but a right-leaning person? Nah.
Unite the Right was a critical mass. Pro-monument Southerners, states-rights folks, free-speech activists, paleocons, limited-government types, and alt-righters of various stripes all gathered together to stand against the agreed-upon tyranny of cultural Marxism.
This was not supposed to happen. Why hadn’t these people been properly indoctrinated in K-12 and college? How could so many people be red-pilled, apparently resistant to the establishment media’s constant brainwashing? Why wasn’t everyone buying into the dehumanization of non-leftists and the constant social-justice propaganda?
That’s why the governments of Charlottesville and Virginia and their police henchmen gave cover to and protected the aggressive tactics of domestic terrorists, allowing them to encircle and trap Unite the Right folks, fostering and igniting the very violence the “authorities” are supposed to keep at bay. They doubled-down and then shifted the blame.
This allowed the treasonous media spread the “Nazi” propaganda oh so gleefully. It’s tragically effective in winning over the hearts and minds of the unwashed masses. They painted as victims savage leftists, enabling the blood-thirsty agitators to get rich and get off Scot-free with their fictional sob stories.
Same formula worked for the swarms of rioters who toppled a Confederate monument or a vandal who was “adding context” in her own way, both as authorities watched: those whipper-snapper “peace activists” get off with a talking-to. Aw, they’re just passionate idealists fighting for “justice,” don’t ya know?
Meanwhile, race-baiting opportunists are endlessly celebrated, alleged “white supremacists” get convicted of “hate crimes” for using self-defense, some even getting up to 10 years in prison. Others get doxxed and lose their white-collar jobs at politically correct corporations. Some just commit suicide.
And then the sainthood of Heather Heyer rolls on. (Could I actually say that Hunter Wallace deserves a Pulitzer for his research and reporting on these two fifth-column media hoaxes and not get lynched by the anarcho-tyrants if I didn’t use a pen name?)
How can James Fields, a white man, be charged with “one count of a hate crime act resulting in the death of Heather Heyer,” a white woman? And “one count of racially motivated violent interference with a federally protected activity,” when it was Unite the Right who had the proper rally permit, not the leftist hordes.
When the DOJ implies in no mistaken terms that Fields is a “white supremacist,” yet fanatical cultural Marxists are “a racially and ethnically diverse crowd … chanting and carrying signs promoting equality and protesting against racial and other forms of discrimination,” is it any mystery as to why I use a pen name? Facts, evidence, and rule of law seem not to matter anymore.
The calculated lies are unquestionably believed that even a little ol’ Southern gal like me isn’t safe from the progressive tarring and feathering, whether figurative or literal. It’s guilty until proven innocent. Unless, of course, you can’t even get a fair shake in the court of public opinion, much less in civil and criminal court. You’re guilty … ’cause the left says so.
Charlottesville was supposed to teach these deplorables a lesson. And it did to a degree. Rally organizers are being sued for the violence that unfolded at the hands of police-backed Antifa during their lawful event. The left has extremely deep pockets and powerful allies.
The push-back has been severe. The rhetoric vitriolic. The misinformation malignant. So much so that many alt-righters have given up on activism.
Having long been banned from Facebook and Twitter, some stick to making fun of the left on alternative media, like 4Chan and /pol/, while progressives continue to completely control the mainstream media, establishment social media, and the narrative. Some alt-right podcasters are even being sued to disclose the identities of their supporters and listeners.
I’m no ethno-nationalist or member of the Trad Workers Party. Hell, some alt-righters are atheist Yankees who push for forced collectivism and increased centralization, and dismiss all women's voices as a reaction to the scourge of feminism. Way too statist for my blood.
I’m anathema to some movements within this thing called the “alt-right.” I believe in God and family, decentralization and private property, self-determination and localism. But when thought crimes rule the day, that should scare every person who seeks liberty, no matter who is espousing the opinion. No one is immune, no matter how puritanical.
Citizen journalists Faith Goldy has been assaulted by Antifa, Lauren Southern and Brittany Pettibone have been banned from Great Britain, and Tommy Robinson has been jailed for 13 months for simply speaking out against out of control immigration and the deculturization of the UK. Borders equal racism, the overlords say.
If those folks are too dissident for you, what about school teachers who feel they must disguise their voice when speaking out against children being used as anti-gun political pawns? Or James Damore being fired from Google for sharing an opinion based on beliefs that were commonly held just 20 years ago?
Or what about you, when you feel you can’t speak your mind freely due the mounting pressures of self-censorship? When you don’t say what you believe because you fear the voracious consequences of the thought police?
And what about people with political power? We know Congressman Steve Scalise got shot while playing baseball, and Senator Rand Paul got beaten up on his own front lawn.
Recently, Sarah Sanders’ family was flash protested against after leaving the Red Hen, Pam Bondi was spat upon in a movie theater, and left-wing “activists” mobbed the homes of Kirstjen Nielsen and Stephen Miller – all actions for which the left makes excuses or supports outright.
Harassment of anyone thought to be an enemy of the left is being encouraged by a sitting congresswombat, er, I mean congresswoman Maxine Waters. (Hey now, calm down. I didn’t call her a monkey. My apologies to the wombat community.) Peter Fonda wants to throw Barron Trump in a “cage with pedophiles,” for goodness sake.
Could you imagine the reaction if a business owner denied service to new “democrat-socialist” darling, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? Or spit on Keith Ellison? Or protested in Kamala Harris’ front yard or punched Cory Booker or shot any Democrat, especially an “aggrieved minority” with special status on the victim pyramid?
Double standards and demagoguery abound in our bipolar world. Not even Laura Ingalls Wilder is safe from the progressive purge, so you think I’d be? Yet another reason I use a pseudonym. Any dissent to the narrative is considered a threat, no matter how big or small. To the left, I’m Hitler. That’s how totalitarianism works. It’s about control.
Now, I’ll probably never get Internet-famous enough for any hysterical socialist to bother teaching me a censorship-obedience lesson in proper Maoist form. But being that I won’t submit to their absurd and ever-changing dictates, I didn’t want to take the chance.
Moreover, if the company where my husband works knew he was married to such a politically incorrect chick, he’d have to undergo sensitivity training at best or get canned at worst. Meanwhile, his corporation incessantly encourages participation in LGBT activism, promotes anti-white “diversity,” and pushes other liberal-conformity schemes. Peak capitalism, baby.
My pseudonym gives me an opportunity to not only express myself, but also to make friends with people, who may otherwise want to dissociate with me due to my “radical” worldview. I’m a fairly likable gal, so when liberals who’ve come to think I’m pretty cool find out about my blog, some get taken aback.
Our relationship might make them question the presumptions they have about “the right,” or “conservatives,” or “Trump voters,” or “proud-to-be-Southern people.” It’s actually a clever strategy that often opens people’s minds to deeper inquiry and nuance. It can also foster dialog and healthy debate that might not have otherwise occurred. Plus, I get to grow and learn from these interactions and relationships, as well.
If someone really wanted to find out who I was, it probably wouldn’t be that difficult. And I hope that if that ever happens, the people with whom I’ve built bridges will stand up and defend my humanity and my God-given right of freedom of conscience. However, I’m not so sure.
So using a pen name is a smart move for a domesticated homeschooling boymom like me. I want to promote peace, but also not be victimized by the madness. Prepare for the worst, pray for the best. I didn’t start this uncivilized conflict, but I will darn-tootin’ resist it as best I can, if only in my own small way.
I’m just a gal who understands that opinions shape culture. I simply want to speak truth, raise my sons, be a good wife, follow Jesus, and be left alone to live my life as I see fit. I aim to play the long game and live to fight another day. I don’t want to throw anyone under the bus, but I sure don’t want to get run over either.
My Orthodox patron saint is Ilia the Righteous of Georgia. He was a brave writer who voiced opposition to the Russification of the Georgian people, and their borders, language, culture, and Christianity. Due to his outspoken nature and strong stances, Ilia was assassinated by a band of militant “social democrats” in 1907. Sounds familiar, don’t it?
I do want to emulate Ilia’s unwavering Orthodox faith and his powerful prose, but I’d certainly like to avoid getting killed, if I can help it. Teeing off the left is and always has been risky, so is it any wonder I use a pseudonym? Yeah, I think I’ll just stick to letting Dissident Mama’s pen do the talking.
Liked it? Take a second to support Dissident Mama on Patreon!
Original blog posted at Dissident Mama.
Yes, yes. There are indeed liberal folks who do want to dialog, but they’re truly the tiny exception, not the overwhelming rule. Otherwise, I would use my real name, as well as invite folks who disagree with me over to my house for a beer summit. Alas, that is not the case.
As a journalist (and a media consumer with a modicum of intelligence), I see that the people who pull these systemic strings are bad dudes. It’s a machine buttressed by naive do-gooders, sycophantic virtue signalers, self-serving opportunists, and downright monstrous mobs.
I’m here to question the message. I’m here to poke holes in the cabal. And the only way to maintain integrity as a writer is to seek and tell the truth. Be bold but loving.
As anyone with a cursory knowledge of history knows, though, pursuing truth is dangerous business. The Founding Fathers did, and that’s why many of them chose to use pen names leading up to and even after the Revolution.
I began this adventure known as Dissident Mama in December 2016. Remember those days? They almost seem wide-eyed innocent in comparison to the highly charged political heat and social unrest that has occurred since then.
Just check out last weekend’s street-fighting clash in Portland between Patriot Prayer and Antifa. As anyone with a clue is finally admitting, civil war is here. And as the left admits, “This is just the beginning.”
Back when I started blogging, the divider in-chief Obama was still in office, and perhaps leftists were taking a brief respite, exhausted from the brutality they dished out to Trump supporters and upon private property leading up to the election. Maybe the haters were in shock, still reeling because Trump had just upset the new-world pecking order of Hillary’s globalist-feminist ascent into the Oval Office.
But after Trump’s inauguration, leftist fury was unleashed. The barbarians were well-rested and frothing at the gate, calling for social and physical savagery, and often making it happen and without much repercussion. And then by August, well, the nihilistic mob was unabated and anarcho-tyranny was in full inglorious swing. Charlottesville was the pinnacle of the leftist feeding frenzy.
See, the progressives had worked tirelessly for 150 years to finally get to the point of being able to decree who is and isn’t acceptable. Sure, you can have “respectable” talks with war mongers, imperial murderers, race baiters, anti-white haters, thieves, infanticide supporters, hormone-replacement-therapy child abusers, anti-Christian tyrants, and communists, but a right-leaning person? Nah.
Unite the Right was a critical mass. Pro-monument Southerners, states-rights folks, free-speech activists, paleocons, limited-government types, and alt-righters of various stripes all gathered together to stand against the agreed-upon tyranny of cultural Marxism.
This was not supposed to happen. Why hadn’t these people been properly indoctrinated in K-12 and college? How could so many people be red-pilled, apparently resistant to the establishment media’s constant brainwashing? Why wasn’t everyone buying into the dehumanization of non-leftists and the constant social-justice propaganda?
That’s why the governments of Charlottesville and Virginia and their police henchmen gave cover to and protected the aggressive tactics of domestic terrorists, allowing them to encircle and trap Unite the Right folks, fostering and igniting the very violence the “authorities” are supposed to keep at bay. They doubled-down and then shifted the blame.
This allowed the treasonous media spread the “Nazi” propaganda oh so gleefully. It’s tragically effective in winning over the hearts and minds of the unwashed masses. They painted as victims savage leftists, enabling the blood-thirsty agitators to get rich and get off Scot-free with their fictional sob stories.
Same formula worked for the swarms of rioters who toppled a Confederate monument or a vandal who was “adding context” in her own way, both as authorities watched: those whipper-snapper “peace activists” get off with a talking-to. Aw, they’re just passionate idealists fighting for “justice,” don’t ya know?
Meanwhile, race-baiting opportunists are endlessly celebrated, alleged “white supremacists” get convicted of “hate crimes” for using self-defense, some even getting up to 10 years in prison. Others get doxxed and lose their white-collar jobs at politically correct corporations. Some just commit suicide.
And then the sainthood of Heather Heyer rolls on. (Could I actually say that Hunter Wallace deserves a Pulitzer for his research and reporting on these two fifth-column media hoaxes and not get lynched by the anarcho-tyrants if I didn’t use a pen name?)
How can James Fields, a white man, be charged with “one count of a hate crime act resulting in the death of Heather Heyer,” a white woman? And “one count of racially motivated violent interference with a federally protected activity,” when it was Unite the Right who had the proper rally permit, not the leftist hordes.
When the DOJ implies in no mistaken terms that Fields is a “white supremacist,” yet fanatical cultural Marxists are “a racially and ethnically diverse crowd … chanting and carrying signs promoting equality and protesting against racial and other forms of discrimination,” is it any mystery as to why I use a pen name? Facts, evidence, and rule of law seem not to matter anymore.
The calculated lies are unquestionably believed that even a little ol’ Southern gal like me isn’t safe from the progressive tarring and feathering, whether figurative or literal. It’s guilty until proven innocent. Unless, of course, you can’t even get a fair shake in the court of public opinion, much less in civil and criminal court. You’re guilty … ’cause the left says so.
Charlottesville was supposed to teach these deplorables a lesson. And it did to a degree. Rally organizers are being sued for the violence that unfolded at the hands of police-backed Antifa during their lawful event. The left has extremely deep pockets and powerful allies.
The push-back has been severe. The rhetoric vitriolic. The misinformation malignant. So much so that many alt-righters have given up on activism.
Having long been banned from Facebook and Twitter, some stick to making fun of the left on alternative media, like 4Chan and /pol/, while progressives continue to completely control the mainstream media, establishment social media, and the narrative. Some alt-right podcasters are even being sued to disclose the identities of their supporters and listeners.
I’m no ethno-nationalist or member of the Trad Workers Party. Hell, some alt-righters are atheist Yankees who push for forced collectivism and increased centralization, and dismiss all women's voices as a reaction to the scourge of feminism. Way too statist for my blood.
I’m anathema to some movements within this thing called the “alt-right.” I believe in God and family, decentralization and private property, self-determination and localism. But when thought crimes rule the day, that should scare every person who seeks liberty, no matter who is espousing the opinion. No one is immune, no matter how puritanical.
Citizen journalists Faith Goldy has been assaulted by Antifa, Lauren Southern and Brittany Pettibone have been banned from Great Britain, and Tommy Robinson has been jailed for 13 months for simply speaking out against out of control immigration and the deculturization of the UK. Borders equal racism, the overlords say.
If those folks are too dissident for you, what about school teachers who feel they must disguise their voice when speaking out against children being used as anti-gun political pawns? Or James Damore being fired from Google for sharing an opinion based on beliefs that were commonly held just 20 years ago?
Or what about you, when you feel you can’t speak your mind freely due the mounting pressures of self-censorship? When you don’t say what you believe because you fear the voracious consequences of the thought police?
And what about people with political power? We know Congressman Steve Scalise got shot while playing baseball, and Senator Rand Paul got beaten up on his own front lawn.
Recently, Sarah Sanders’ family was flash protested against after leaving the Red Hen, Pam Bondi was spat upon in a movie theater, and left-wing “activists” mobbed the homes of Kirstjen Nielsen and Stephen Miller – all actions for which the left makes excuses or supports outright.
Harassment of anyone thought to be an enemy of the left is being encouraged by a sitting congresswombat, er, I mean congresswoman Maxine Waters. (Hey now, calm down. I didn’t call her a monkey. My apologies to the wombat community.) Peter Fonda wants to throw Barron Trump in a “cage with pedophiles,” for goodness sake.
Could you imagine the reaction if a business owner denied service to new “democrat-socialist” darling, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? Or spit on Keith Ellison? Or protested in Kamala Harris’ front yard or punched Cory Booker or shot any Democrat, especially an “aggrieved minority” with special status on the victim pyramid?
Double standards and demagoguery abound in our bipolar world. Not even Laura Ingalls Wilder is safe from the progressive purge, so you think I’d be? Yet another reason I use a pseudonym. Any dissent to the narrative is considered a threat, no matter how big or small. To the left, I’m Hitler. That’s how totalitarianism works. It’s about control.
Now, I’ll probably never get Internet-famous enough for any hysterical socialist to bother teaching me a censorship-obedience lesson in proper Maoist form. But being that I won’t submit to their absurd and ever-changing dictates, I didn’t want to take the chance.
Moreover, if the company where my husband works knew he was married to such a politically incorrect chick, he’d have to undergo sensitivity training at best or get canned at worst. Meanwhile, his corporation incessantly encourages participation in LGBT activism, promotes anti-white “diversity,” and pushes other liberal-conformity schemes. Peak capitalism, baby.
My pseudonym gives me an opportunity to not only express myself, but also to make friends with people, who may otherwise want to dissociate with me due to my “radical” worldview. I’m a fairly likable gal, so when liberals who’ve come to think I’m pretty cool find out about my blog, some get taken aback.
Our relationship might make them question the presumptions they have about “the right,” or “conservatives,” or “Trump voters,” or “proud-to-be-Southern people.” It’s actually a clever strategy that often opens people’s minds to deeper inquiry and nuance. It can also foster dialog and healthy debate that might not have otherwise occurred. Plus, I get to grow and learn from these interactions and relationships, as well.
If someone really wanted to find out who I was, it probably wouldn’t be that difficult. And I hope that if that ever happens, the people with whom I’ve built bridges will stand up and defend my humanity and my God-given right of freedom of conscience. However, I’m not so sure.
So using a pen name is a smart move for a domesticated homeschooling boymom like me. I want to promote peace, but also not be victimized by the madness. Prepare for the worst, pray for the best. I didn’t start this uncivilized conflict, but I will darn-tootin’ resist it as best I can, if only in my own small way.
I’m just a gal who understands that opinions shape culture. I simply want to speak truth, raise my sons, be a good wife, follow Jesus, and be left alone to live my life as I see fit. I aim to play the long game and live to fight another day. I don’t want to throw anyone under the bus, but I sure don’t want to get run over either.
My Orthodox patron saint is Ilia the Righteous of Georgia. He was a brave writer who voiced opposition to the Russification of the Georgian people, and their borders, language, culture, and Christianity. Due to his outspoken nature and strong stances, Ilia was assassinated by a band of militant “social democrats” in 1907. Sounds familiar, don’t it?
I do want to emulate Ilia’s unwavering Orthodox faith and his powerful prose, but I’d certainly like to avoid getting killed, if I can help it. Teeing off the left is and always has been risky, so is it any wonder I use a pseudonym? Yeah, I think I’ll just stick to letting Dissident Mama’s pen do the talking.
Liked it? Take a second to support Dissident Mama on Patreon!
Original blog posted at Dissident Mama.
So, people on social-media are just now losing their minds over the Obama-era policy of children of illegal aliens being separated from their parents when they break immigration law. (Yes, they’re “illegal” because they’re not complying with US immigration law, and they’re “alien” because they’re foreigners. These are both risks that people take upon themselves and, thus, there are consequences.)
You have libertarians freaking out that we even have a border. Christians are crying a river that the entire Third-World can’t just come to ‘Murica on refugee status (a topic I wrote about in a 3-part series last year). And leftists of every stripe claim that policing the Southern border and enforcing immigration law is “child abuse” and akin to a “crime against humanity.” “No human is illegal,” they say.
You have libertarians freaking out that we even have a border. Christians are crying a river that the entire Third-World can’t just come to ‘Murica on refugee status (a topic I wrote about in a 3-part series last year). And leftists of every stripe claim that policing the Southern border and enforcing immigration law is “child abuse” and akin to a “crime against humanity.” “No human is illegal,” they say.
Funny that many of the same people orchestrating this “for the children” media frenzy have no compunction about giving young boys and girls hormone blockers to stop the natural onset of puberty. Hmm, that’s odd.
Funny too that some of the same folks who claim Trump is running “concentration camps” have no problem separating children from their parents via government-indoctrination centers known as compulsory K-12 public schooling. Interesting.
(Well, I suppose an estimated 1,000 hours a year per child spent in public schools – not counting school breakfast and after-school programs – would technically make these re-education camps, not concentration camps. But you get my point.)
Many of the same people screaming indignity have no compunction literally ripping the unborn from their mothers, yet promote the murderous separation of abortion. Or what about the shysters who have their kids hold “Babies need moms and dads” signs, yet encourage single-motherhood, fatherless homes, and government as sugar daddy? Peculiar, ain’t it?
Apparently, manufactured outrage is an easy sell these days. I mean, the child-parent separation that everyone from the Mennonites to the Methodists and Al Moehler to Metropolitan Tikhon is railing against is the exact thing that’d happen to my kids if I were to do something illegal. There’s always a higher bar for law-abiding citizens.
Hell, if I did something not illegal but deemed suspect by a random puritanical busybody, CPS would knock down my door, separate me from my kids, and keep them in custody till I could win them back, hopefully. Guilty until proven innocent for me.
Funny too that some of the same folks who claim Trump is running “concentration camps” have no problem separating children from their parents via government-indoctrination centers known as compulsory K-12 public schooling. Interesting.
(Well, I suppose an estimated 1,000 hours a year per child spent in public schools – not counting school breakfast and after-school programs – would technically make these re-education camps, not concentration camps. But you get my point.)
Many of the same people screaming indignity have no compunction literally ripping the unborn from their mothers, yet promote the murderous separation of abortion. Or what about the shysters who have their kids hold “Babies need moms and dads” signs, yet encourage single-motherhood, fatherless homes, and government as sugar daddy? Peculiar, ain’t it?
Apparently, manufactured outrage is an easy sell these days. I mean, the child-parent separation that everyone from the Mennonites to the Methodists and Al Moehler to Metropolitan Tikhon is railing against is the exact thing that’d happen to my kids if I were to do something illegal. There’s always a higher bar for law-abiding citizens.
Hell, if I did something not illegal but deemed suspect by a random puritanical busybody, CPS would knock down my door, separate me from my kids, and keep them in custody till I could win them back, hopefully. Guilty until proven innocent for me.
Well, let me clarify my position. I am a Southern traditionalist and a secessionist. I don’t want to live in this Disunited Nation-State of Lincoln. If my ancestors had been victorious in their efforts of self-determination, you can bet my border would look a lot different and be much smaller than our current blob of a country. My “border” would actually be based on something tangible: shared language, faith, traditions, customs, and private property. That’s called culture, people.
I’d much prefer not to live under a central-authoritarian regime brimming with special “civil rights” for “protected” classes of people. This is what happens in a democracy.
As a liberty-lover, I don’t even believe in the existence of either DHS or HHS. They’re both freedom-infringing bureaucratic make-work.
See, I’m also an Orthodox Christian who thinks the most moral thing to do with this immigration is to stop supporting the very socialist policies that created this problem. Socialists create oppressive living conditions south of the border, and then Third-World socialists move here and beg for more socialism.
Homegrown socialists perpetuate social programs that lure socialists here and then call for more socialism to fix the chaos they created. It’s for the children, don’t ya know?
I don’t like subsidizing the extortion racket, the nihilistic demands of the mob, the corporate structure, and a government media which pushes fake “unity” and “indivisibility.” Yet, what they really do is work tirelessly to foster division, covetousness, greed, and discord, because it benefits the establishment and its minions.
The open-borders statists pushing this newfound crisis don’t care about the kids. What they’re seeking is to forever remake America in a progressive image as described above. It’s a ruse using children as political pawns and virtue-signalers as their willing puppets: just the fuel necessary to propel this social-justice machine forward.
I don’t want to live in this culture-less society that prides itself on multiculturalism (an oxymoron of epic proportions), forced diversity, “hate speech” laws (but only for some people), censorship, safe spaces, Yankee materialism, and emotivism, not logic, data, and facts. I don’t want to be a part of a system which says that advocating for my family is racist, while simultaneously promoting a low-trust social order and the subsequent violence that stems from it.
I’d much prefer to live among people who understand that democracy is absolutely abhorrent to human liberty and share (or at least respect) common-law heritage. I’d like to live in a place that doesn’t coerce me (and eventually my children) by threat of deadly force to pay federal taxes in order to fund abortion, subsidize illegal aliens, or anything else necessary for the “greater good.”
How come the leftist worldview always requires something of me (my money, my freedoms, my faith, my family’s future, etc.), yet my worldview requires nothing of them, other than to be left the hell alone? But I’m the boogieman. Classic.
I don’t care if you dress it up in Christian-ese. After all, who needs big-government cronies when you have leftist bleeding-hearts running about, issuing statements, and being either uninformed or complicit in the purposeful destruction of my home, heritage, and culture. Couching it in messianic political language still doesn’t change the fact that you’re promoting state violence and devastation against my kids.
Well, the localized society based upon family, community, neighborliness, voluntaryism, Christian faith, smaller, more accountable law, and private-property borders that I’d prefer is not the current reality. That cause was dashed in 1865, at least for the time being.
What we have now is life in an empire. An existence that includes having the fruits of your labor stolen from you to fund the very things you consider evil, like unending and pointless wars abroad and the imprisonment of citizens for non-violent crimes, as well socialized “medicine” and the welfare system.
And it’s those very economic incentives which entice the entire Third World to migrate here, forever enslaving my sons to perpetual debt-bondage and involuntary servitude to the state. It’s about control, wealth redistribution, and power. We’re funding our own destruction. Now I would call that a crime against humanity.
You know what else is child abuse? Ensuring through political and artificial means that my sons become a demographic minority within a few decades. I mean, they’re already said to be toxically masculine misogynists, patriarchal sexists, and potential rapists who are somehow still basking in the glory of all that doggone white-male privilege we keep hearing so much about.
My kids must follow the rules or else. Hell, they pay for the damn rules. But they don’t get tear-filled media stories or late-night talk-show rants of support. Who are their allies?
If my sons have no allies now, besides their family, you can sure as shit bet they won’t have any allies when they’re minority members in a carefully crafted system run by a majority who hate them. Even though they, too, are the “children of God,” the silence will be deafening.
Another lie is that most people coming here simply want a better life. Why then do those very same people not learn the English language, or not assimilate to what is claimed to be our freedom-loving culture, or not send so much of their earnings back to their home country?
Why do they accept welfare, and a “free” education and healthcare subsidized by tax-paying natives? Why do they self-segregate? Sounds more like colonization to me.
Why do they call me paranoid for saying there’s an unfolding cultural genocide purposefully playing out against the unReconstructed Southern people? It’s happening right in front of our damn eyes. After all, much of the razing of Confederate monuments is carried out based on the narrative that the “vibrant, multi-ethnic” communities don’t feel represented with all these statues of dead, white guys out on display.
What about the fact that this balkanized and increasingly anti-white America doesn’t reflect my children? Eh, you must be scared of brown people, they say callously. Yeah, not wanting to participate in this injustice somehow makes me the bad guy. Being a student of history and understanding the devilish cultural-Marxist agenda even gets me pegged unchristian.
Let’s open the floodgates for runaway immigration, create an uncontrollable demographic shift and an overwhelming systemic drain, fund the culture-killing madness, and then alter our history and principles to meet the needs of illegals. Wow, I can’t imagine why anyone would oppose this. Either commit slow, tedious suicide, or become a pariah. That seems to be the choice.
Yes, yes, there are NA[X]ALT immigrant examples. I believe that used to be the case for the majority of immigrants who came to the US legally before the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965. Not the lion’s share of the 45.6 million who are here now.
The 37-million foreigners who immigrated to the US from 1820 to 1930 had to follow the rules, fold into the social fabric, and chart their own destiny all without a “safety net.” And the ones who couldn’t hack it left. In fact, many did go home. That’s a story you rarely hear.
My personal anecdote is that my Lebanese grandmother never took welfare, well, except Social Security. She was part of a thriving community in Richmond, Virginia, comprised of typically first-generation Americans who considered themselves just that: American. Didn’t hurt either that she smartly married herself a handsome North Carolinian of Scottish ancestry.
These were Americans who had olive-toned skin, ate Kibbeh and stuffed grape leaves, and sent their kids to school with sandwiches made of Syrian bread instead of Wonder bread. We were glad when people ate our weird food. We didn’t call it cultural appropriation.
These folks left a legacy of pharmacists, lawyers, real-estate agents, businessmen, and middle-class families who were simply thankful Virginians doing their thing. But those are tales of the past.
This is no longer America’s story. The melting-pot is a myth. Careful, prudent, and humane immigration died in 1965 at the hands of leftist politicians and their media collaborators. And it’s championed by a populace hard-wired with Christian altruism, which is so often misguided.
Don’t believe me, just study the Progressive Era, the Temperance Movement, the Social Gospel, and 20th-century American history as a whole. Do-gooders have a real talent for having their supposed good intentions wreak havoc on the rest of us.
Moreover, we’re told that these illegal immigrants are destitute, and that as Christians, we must help them. By purposefully importing poor people, we’re moving our society away from prosperity and back to impoverishment, undoing the very thing that my and my husband’s poor white ancestors worked to avoid.
They toiled and sacrificed for their progeny’s sake. Not to have their hard work undercut by a socialist scheme. Shanties for all!
Many Christians say we should willingly endorse and throw our money at every progressive sham and then not complain about the horrible ramifications. It’s Biblical principle, they say. But when Jesus told the rich man to part with his treasure, it came with an addendum:
Follow me. Give it away for God, not for something ungodly.
And then Christians think they’re earning brownie points with God by forcing their fellow Christians to not only support causes they find obscene and hideous, but to fund their own downfall. That’s what charity means to people these days. Sheesh, no wonder so many conservative people are fleeing the church.
How about we try something different. Let’s reunite families by not letting them come here en masse in the first place. Let’s stop stealing from our neighbors to buttress the anti-family policy known as wide-open borders. Let’s stop celebrating parents who make unethical and illegal decisions that put their own kids at risk. Let’s not use children as political props.
Let’s stop pretending that immigration is a Jesus thing and not a political move meant to ensure long-term voting blocs for the godless statists, cheap labor for crony capitalists, continued power for the elites, and a leftist remaking of America. It’s a Trojan horse, y’all.
Let’s admit that “magic soil” is a lie. Let’s stop allowing people to appropriate our Christian culture and trash our common-law heritage in order to dismantle those very building blocks of our home. Let’s build the freakin’ wall!
But the malevolent malcontents say Trump’s wall is immoral and tyrannical. They say that my voting for Trump as a stop-gap measure to this progressive madness makes me a horrible person, a hater, a backsliding Christian.
Yet they’ve created another wall – a barrier where my family must exist and survive. It’s not built with barbed wire and rough-shod stone. Rather, it’s a political wall that makes extremely clear I cannot peacefully leave this oppressive union; the War of Northern Aggression proved that.
It’s more a de facto wall ruled by social-justice shaming, conformist cuckery, and progressive political enforcement, so resistance is futile. Don’t fight it. Behave.
Just shut up, pay your taxes, fight the empire’s wars, sell out your children, submit to the cultural decay, wallow in white guilt, cave to an inauthentic brand of Christian charity, and rally for open borders … or you’ll be tagged anti-child, a xenophobe, unAmerican, a white supremacist, or maybe even a Nazi.
I guess better to be branded those things than to be dominated by the totalitarians who have erected and maintain the wall of subjugation and marginalization behind which my children currently live. That, my Christian brothers and sisters, is separation.
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Original blog posted at Dissident Mama.
I’d much prefer not to live under a central-authoritarian regime brimming with special “civil rights” for “protected” classes of people. This is what happens in a democracy.
As a liberty-lover, I don’t even believe in the existence of either DHS or HHS. They’re both freedom-infringing bureaucratic make-work.
See, I’m also an Orthodox Christian who thinks the most moral thing to do with this immigration is to stop supporting the very socialist policies that created this problem. Socialists create oppressive living conditions south of the border, and then Third-World socialists move here and beg for more socialism.
Homegrown socialists perpetuate social programs that lure socialists here and then call for more socialism to fix the chaos they created. It’s for the children, don’t ya know?
I don’t like subsidizing the extortion racket, the nihilistic demands of the mob, the corporate structure, and a government media which pushes fake “unity” and “indivisibility.” Yet, what they really do is work tirelessly to foster division, covetousness, greed, and discord, because it benefits the establishment and its minions.
The open-borders statists pushing this newfound crisis don’t care about the kids. What they’re seeking is to forever remake America in a progressive image as described above. It’s a ruse using children as political pawns and virtue-signalers as their willing puppets: just the fuel necessary to propel this social-justice machine forward.
I don’t want to live in this culture-less society that prides itself on multiculturalism (an oxymoron of epic proportions), forced diversity, “hate speech” laws (but only for some people), censorship, safe spaces, Yankee materialism, and emotivism, not logic, data, and facts. I don’t want to be a part of a system which says that advocating for my family is racist, while simultaneously promoting a low-trust social order and the subsequent violence that stems from it.
I’d much prefer to live among people who understand that democracy is absolutely abhorrent to human liberty and share (or at least respect) common-law heritage. I’d like to live in a place that doesn’t coerce me (and eventually my children) by threat of deadly force to pay federal taxes in order to fund abortion, subsidize illegal aliens, or anything else necessary for the “greater good.”
How come the leftist worldview always requires something of me (my money, my freedoms, my faith, my family’s future, etc.), yet my worldview requires nothing of them, other than to be left the hell alone? But I’m the boogieman. Classic.
I don’t care if you dress it up in Christian-ese. After all, who needs big-government cronies when you have leftist bleeding-hearts running about, issuing statements, and being either uninformed or complicit in the purposeful destruction of my home, heritage, and culture. Couching it in messianic political language still doesn’t change the fact that you’re promoting state violence and devastation against my kids.
Well, the localized society based upon family, community, neighborliness, voluntaryism, Christian faith, smaller, more accountable law, and private-property borders that I’d prefer is not the current reality. That cause was dashed in 1865, at least for the time being.
What we have now is life in an empire. An existence that includes having the fruits of your labor stolen from you to fund the very things you consider evil, like unending and pointless wars abroad and the imprisonment of citizens for non-violent crimes, as well socialized “medicine” and the welfare system.
And it’s those very economic incentives which entice the entire Third World to migrate here, forever enslaving my sons to perpetual debt-bondage and involuntary servitude to the state. It’s about control, wealth redistribution, and power. We’re funding our own destruction. Now I would call that a crime against humanity.
You know what else is child abuse? Ensuring through political and artificial means that my sons become a demographic minority within a few decades. I mean, they’re already said to be toxically masculine misogynists, patriarchal sexists, and potential rapists who are somehow still basking in the glory of all that doggone white-male privilege we keep hearing so much about.
My kids must follow the rules or else. Hell, they pay for the damn rules. But they don’t get tear-filled media stories or late-night talk-show rants of support. Who are their allies?
If my sons have no allies now, besides their family, you can sure as shit bet they won’t have any allies when they’re minority members in a carefully crafted system run by a majority who hate them. Even though they, too, are the “children of God,” the silence will be deafening.
Another lie is that most people coming here simply want a better life. Why then do those very same people not learn the English language, or not assimilate to what is claimed to be our freedom-loving culture, or not send so much of their earnings back to their home country?
Why do they accept welfare, and a “free” education and healthcare subsidized by tax-paying natives? Why do they self-segregate? Sounds more like colonization to me.
Why do they call me paranoid for saying there’s an unfolding cultural genocide purposefully playing out against the unReconstructed Southern people? It’s happening right in front of our damn eyes. After all, much of the razing of Confederate monuments is carried out based on the narrative that the “vibrant, multi-ethnic” communities don’t feel represented with all these statues of dead, white guys out on display.
What about the fact that this balkanized and increasingly anti-white America doesn’t reflect my children? Eh, you must be scared of brown people, they say callously. Yeah, not wanting to participate in this injustice somehow makes me the bad guy. Being a student of history and understanding the devilish cultural-Marxist agenda even gets me pegged unchristian.
Let’s open the floodgates for runaway immigration, create an uncontrollable demographic shift and an overwhelming systemic drain, fund the culture-killing madness, and then alter our history and principles to meet the needs of illegals. Wow, I can’t imagine why anyone would oppose this. Either commit slow, tedious suicide, or become a pariah. That seems to be the choice.
Yes, yes, there are NA[X]ALT immigrant examples. I believe that used to be the case for the majority of immigrants who came to the US legally before the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965. Not the lion’s share of the 45.6 million who are here now.
The 37-million foreigners who immigrated to the US from 1820 to 1930 had to follow the rules, fold into the social fabric, and chart their own destiny all without a “safety net.” And the ones who couldn’t hack it left. In fact, many did go home. That’s a story you rarely hear.
My personal anecdote is that my Lebanese grandmother never took welfare, well, except Social Security. She was part of a thriving community in Richmond, Virginia, comprised of typically first-generation Americans who considered themselves just that: American. Didn’t hurt either that she smartly married herself a handsome North Carolinian of Scottish ancestry.
These were Americans who had olive-toned skin, ate Kibbeh and stuffed grape leaves, and sent their kids to school with sandwiches made of Syrian bread instead of Wonder bread. We were glad when people ate our weird food. We didn’t call it cultural appropriation.
These folks left a legacy of pharmacists, lawyers, real-estate agents, businessmen, and middle-class families who were simply thankful Virginians doing their thing. But those are tales of the past.
This is no longer America’s story. The melting-pot is a myth. Careful, prudent, and humane immigration died in 1965 at the hands of leftist politicians and their media collaborators. And it’s championed by a populace hard-wired with Christian altruism, which is so often misguided.
Don’t believe me, just study the Progressive Era, the Temperance Movement, the Social Gospel, and 20th-century American history as a whole. Do-gooders have a real talent for having their supposed good intentions wreak havoc on the rest of us.
Moreover, we’re told that these illegal immigrants are destitute, and that as Christians, we must help them. By purposefully importing poor people, we’re moving our society away from prosperity and back to impoverishment, undoing the very thing that my and my husband’s poor white ancestors worked to avoid.
They toiled and sacrificed for their progeny’s sake. Not to have their hard work undercut by a socialist scheme. Shanties for all!
Many Christians say we should willingly endorse and throw our money at every progressive sham and then not complain about the horrible ramifications. It’s Biblical principle, they say. But when Jesus told the rich man to part with his treasure, it came with an addendum:
Follow me. Give it away for God, not for something ungodly.
And then Christians think they’re earning brownie points with God by forcing their fellow Christians to not only support causes they find obscene and hideous, but to fund their own downfall. That’s what charity means to people these days. Sheesh, no wonder so many conservative people are fleeing the church.
How about we try something different. Let’s reunite families by not letting them come here en masse in the first place. Let’s stop stealing from our neighbors to buttress the anti-family policy known as wide-open borders. Let’s stop celebrating parents who make unethical and illegal decisions that put their own kids at risk. Let’s not use children as political props.
Let’s stop pretending that immigration is a Jesus thing and not a political move meant to ensure long-term voting blocs for the godless statists, cheap labor for crony capitalists, continued power for the elites, and a leftist remaking of America. It’s a Trojan horse, y’all.
Let’s admit that “magic soil” is a lie. Let’s stop allowing people to appropriate our Christian culture and trash our common-law heritage in order to dismantle those very building blocks of our home. Let’s build the freakin’ wall!
But the malevolent malcontents say Trump’s wall is immoral and tyrannical. They say that my voting for Trump as a stop-gap measure to this progressive madness makes me a horrible person, a hater, a backsliding Christian.
Yet they’ve created another wall – a barrier where my family must exist and survive. It’s not built with barbed wire and rough-shod stone. Rather, it’s a political wall that makes extremely clear I cannot peacefully leave this oppressive union; the War of Northern Aggression proved that.
It’s more a de facto wall ruled by social-justice shaming, conformist cuckery, and progressive political enforcement, so resistance is futile. Don’t fight it. Behave.
Just shut up, pay your taxes, fight the empire’s wars, sell out your children, submit to the cultural decay, wallow in white guilt, cave to an inauthentic brand of Christian charity, and rally for open borders … or you’ll be tagged anti-child, a xenophobe, unAmerican, a white supremacist, or maybe even a Nazi.
I guess better to be branded those things than to be dominated by the totalitarians who have erected and maintain the wall of subjugation and marginalization behind which my children currently live. That, my Christian brothers and sisters, is separation.
Liked it? Take a second to support Dissident Mama on Patreon!
Original blog posted at Dissident Mama.
Back in 2000, philosopher Christina Hoff Sommers declared, “It’s a bad time to be a boy in America.” In her book, The War Against Boys, she wrote, “Routinely regarded as protosexists, potential harassers and perpetuators of gender inequity, boys live under a cloud of censure.”
Since Sommers penned these prescient words nearly two decades ago, our cultural decay has become even more entrenched. The feminists have dug in their combat-boot heals, and the louder they shriek and stomp and cry about their fictional mass victimhood, the more my sons suffer. The anti-male creed has taken on a life of its own, with the habitual caterwaul to a supposed all-powerful, women-crushing patriarchy, and a specifically a white one at that.
Within the pages of Vice, HuppPo, and Elle; on the broadcasts of The View, MSNBC, and Girls; and in the miseducation classes of America’s universities, social-justice assemblies in our nation’s public schools, or mandatory diversity training smothering the corporate cubicle grid and boardroom alike, it’s mandated that all must bow at the altar of “(White) men suck. Women rock.”
The anti-male bias is proclaimed from beyond the ivory towers and has woven its lethal thread into the daily commonplace of daycares, churches, moms groups, and home-owners associations. “Straight white men” are evil. There’s even a wretched play and song to hammer home the sexism for ultimate effect.
What Sommers coined as the “myth of shortchanged girls” is a sinister scam, in which progressives aren’t merely clamoring for “equal access” and “equal pay for equal work.” Rather, they desire egalitarianism, and special status and rules for anyone with a vagina.
Furthermore, they seek to demote men, their professions, their uniqueness as humans, and their roles as providers, protectors, fathers, brothers, and sons. It’s punishment veiled as equality, subjugation masqueraded as fairness.
Social-justice warriors seek to shortchange my boys because they weren’t born with the right plumbing. Of course, the irony is that this is the same inanity that for so long supposedly kept women out of coveted positions of power. (I will argue in future blogs that women have always wielded control and influence, albeit not necessarily in public fashion. Give me a stern, tough-as-nails matriarch, and she can make even the boldest of kings shake in his boots.)
But in our era, the populous is drowning so deeply in the surging noxious waves of feminism that we’re either becoming numb to the misandry, or we’re just so worn down by the ridiculousness, that we want to shrug it off for our own sanity.
But hate unabated and unchallenged always has a way of wriggling its way into the nooks and crannies of the culture and into the mindsets of the masses. Really, if the enmity weren’t so detrimental to civilization, it actually would be pretty comical.
Take, for example, a few of the go-to ad hominems the “grrrrrrls” spew forth in an effort to silence half the population.
“Toxic masculinity” is code for dehumanizing boyhood and manhood. It’s a bludgeon used for belittling all males, at all costs, and elevating all women (except those of the non-leftist variety), no matter the cost.
“Mansplaining” is a dagger aimed at killing the expressions of my children, husband, and every man I know and respect. It’s an implement meant to censor men’s thoughts, thus, giving dominance to those in opposition to real equality and freedom: feminists.
“Manspreading” is a more farcical version of the above, but it’s just as menacing. This verbal weapon is meant to demean men for their stature, not their opinions, but is nonetheless objectifying and degrading.
Hell, if women were endowed with testicles and a penis, you can bet they’d be stretching out in an effort to cool off their junk. They’d also declare it some kind of human right, and then try to make us all either subsidize it (as some feminists suggest for motherhood and menstruation) or worship it (like the growing breastfeeding in public hysteria).
“All men are potential rapists,” to the even worse, “All men are rapists and should be put in prison and then shot,” are simply polemics – tools aimed at silencing opposition. Is it any wonder that “polemics” in Greek translates to “warlike” and “belligerent”?
I mean, how can one argue in defense of rapists? Or not rally to the cause of the victim? You’re called horrible names if you even cling to the notion of innocent until proven guilty or that someone’s not an immoral felon merely by virtue of having a dick. The feminists win by stating fiction as fact. From Marx to Marcuse, this tactic has always worked well for the polemicists, so why stop now?
“White privilege” is a bit of a hornet’s nest, so for another day and another blog. But all we need to chew on for now is that it’s acceptable for “journalists,” Hollywood insiders, “educators,” and apparatchiks of all stripes to unapologetically state that they’re “repulsed and mystified by men” and look forward to a day when “old white men holding culture back will all be dead.” This kind of hate is becoming normalized.
Sadly, I could go on, but let’s wrap this up with the two biggies, those all-encompassing and discourse-annihilating nails in the coffin of reason, intellect, and true equality: when in doubt, just tag someone either a misogynist or a tool of the patriarchy. Easy peezy, debate done. Conversation over.
Now, consider uber-PC pastor, John Pavlovitz, writing about his daughter, who supposedly “smashes the patriarchy” just because she’s strong-willed, rebellious, and fearless. Huh, sounds like most kids to me, especially young girls. I was one once, ya know.
But then again, this dude has his thumb on the pulse of truth and enlightenment because he heads a big social-gospel church, so perhaps I should defer to his infinite wisdom instead. Nah, challenging the liberal elitism of what I like to call the “evangeleftists” is way more satisfying, both creatively and spiritually. (And if that term takes off, please remember you heard it here first!)
Hey, Pastor John, I’m partial to teaching my sons, who are obviously in the cross hairs of progressive puritans like you, that being a boy is awesome! Scratching butts, farting, playing zombie apocalypse with Nerf guns, shooting BB guns, being geography geeks, wrestling, wielding swords, doing archery, competing over anything and everything, warming their hands down their pants, constantly moving and wiggling, picking boogers, being enamored with battles and flags and armament, wearing camo, loving history, disassembling things in order to figure them out, building forts in the woods, being tough yet gentlemanly, and thinking that dookie jokes are hilarious is not only okay, but it’s super cool.
Please continue to “push back against a big world” that seeks to define you, fellas. Resist cultural Marxism. Man up! Embrace masculinity and celebrate the joy of being who God made you to be: all boy, no apologies. Keep on smashing that misandry, kiddos. And this recovering feminist will be cheering you on all along the way.
Liked it? Take a second to support Dissident Mama on Patreon!
Original blog posted at Dissident Mama.
Since Sommers penned these prescient words nearly two decades ago, our cultural decay has become even more entrenched. The feminists have dug in their combat-boot heals, and the louder they shriek and stomp and cry about their fictional mass victimhood, the more my sons suffer. The anti-male creed has taken on a life of its own, with the habitual caterwaul to a supposed all-powerful, women-crushing patriarchy, and a specifically a white one at that.
Within the pages of Vice, HuppPo, and Elle; on the broadcasts of The View, MSNBC, and Girls; and in the miseducation classes of America’s universities, social-justice assemblies in our nation’s public schools, or mandatory diversity training smothering the corporate cubicle grid and boardroom alike, it’s mandated that all must bow at the altar of “(White) men suck. Women rock.”
The anti-male bias is proclaimed from beyond the ivory towers and has woven its lethal thread into the daily commonplace of daycares, churches, moms groups, and home-owners associations. “Straight white men” are evil. There’s even a wretched play and song to hammer home the sexism for ultimate effect.
What Sommers coined as the “myth of shortchanged girls” is a sinister scam, in which progressives aren’t merely clamoring for “equal access” and “equal pay for equal work.” Rather, they desire egalitarianism, and special status and rules for anyone with a vagina.
Furthermore, they seek to demote men, their professions, their uniqueness as humans, and their roles as providers, protectors, fathers, brothers, and sons. It’s punishment veiled as equality, subjugation masqueraded as fairness.
Social-justice warriors seek to shortchange my boys because they weren’t born with the right plumbing. Of course, the irony is that this is the same inanity that for so long supposedly kept women out of coveted positions of power. (I will argue in future blogs that women have always wielded control and influence, albeit not necessarily in public fashion. Give me a stern, tough-as-nails matriarch, and she can make even the boldest of kings shake in his boots.)
But in our era, the populous is drowning so deeply in the surging noxious waves of feminism that we’re either becoming numb to the misandry, or we’re just so worn down by the ridiculousness, that we want to shrug it off for our own sanity.
But hate unabated and unchallenged always has a way of wriggling its way into the nooks and crannies of the culture and into the mindsets of the masses. Really, if the enmity weren’t so detrimental to civilization, it actually would be pretty comical.
Take, for example, a few of the go-to ad hominems the “grrrrrrls” spew forth in an effort to silence half the population.
“Toxic masculinity” is code for dehumanizing boyhood and manhood. It’s a bludgeon used for belittling all males, at all costs, and elevating all women (except those of the non-leftist variety), no matter the cost.
“Mansplaining” is a dagger aimed at killing the expressions of my children, husband, and every man I know and respect. It’s an implement meant to censor men’s thoughts, thus, giving dominance to those in opposition to real equality and freedom: feminists.
“Manspreading” is a more farcical version of the above, but it’s just as menacing. This verbal weapon is meant to demean men for their stature, not their opinions, but is nonetheless objectifying and degrading.
Hell, if women were endowed with testicles and a penis, you can bet they’d be stretching out in an effort to cool off their junk. They’d also declare it some kind of human right, and then try to make us all either subsidize it (as some feminists suggest for motherhood and menstruation) or worship it (like the growing breastfeeding in public hysteria).
“All men are potential rapists,” to the even worse, “All men are rapists and should be put in prison and then shot,” are simply polemics – tools aimed at silencing opposition. Is it any wonder that “polemics” in Greek translates to “warlike” and “belligerent”?
I mean, how can one argue in defense of rapists? Or not rally to the cause of the victim? You’re called horrible names if you even cling to the notion of innocent until proven guilty or that someone’s not an immoral felon merely by virtue of having a dick. The feminists win by stating fiction as fact. From Marx to Marcuse, this tactic has always worked well for the polemicists, so why stop now?
“White privilege” is a bit of a hornet’s nest, so for another day and another blog. But all we need to chew on for now is that it’s acceptable for “journalists,” Hollywood insiders, “educators,” and apparatchiks of all stripes to unapologetically state that they’re “repulsed and mystified by men” and look forward to a day when “old white men holding culture back will all be dead.” This kind of hate is becoming normalized.
Sadly, I could go on, but let’s wrap this up with the two biggies, those all-encompassing and discourse-annihilating nails in the coffin of reason, intellect, and true equality: when in doubt, just tag someone either a misogynist or a tool of the patriarchy. Easy peezy, debate done. Conversation over.
Now, consider uber-PC pastor, John Pavlovitz, writing about his daughter, who supposedly “smashes the patriarchy” just because she’s strong-willed, rebellious, and fearless. Huh, sounds like most kids to me, especially young girls. I was one once, ya know.
But then again, this dude has his thumb on the pulse of truth and enlightenment because he heads a big social-gospel church, so perhaps I should defer to his infinite wisdom instead. Nah, challenging the liberal elitism of what I like to call the “evangeleftists” is way more satisfying, both creatively and spiritually. (And if that term takes off, please remember you heard it here first!)
Hey, Pastor John, I’m partial to teaching my sons, who are obviously in the cross hairs of progressive puritans like you, that being a boy is awesome! Scratching butts, farting, playing zombie apocalypse with Nerf guns, shooting BB guns, being geography geeks, wrestling, wielding swords, doing archery, competing over anything and everything, warming their hands down their pants, constantly moving and wiggling, picking boogers, being enamored with battles and flags and armament, wearing camo, loving history, disassembling things in order to figure them out, building forts in the woods, being tough yet gentlemanly, and thinking that dookie jokes are hilarious is not only okay, but it’s super cool.
Please continue to “push back against a big world” that seeks to define you, fellas. Resist cultural Marxism. Man up! Embrace masculinity and celebrate the joy of being who God made you to be: all boy, no apologies. Keep on smashing that misandry, kiddos. And this recovering feminist will be cheering you on all along the way.
Liked it? Take a second to support Dissident Mama on Patreon!
Original blog posted at Dissident Mama.
Today marks the 155th anniversary of the fateful death of Stonewall Jackson. In honor of this truly remarkable figure, who succumbed to pneumonia on May 10, 1863, I thought I’d share something my 10-year-old son and I recently wrote for our homeschool co-op.
This “Faces of History” research paper is part of a curriculum we use called the Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW). I referenced the assignment in my last blog because of my displeasure with a few source-texts for some of the other American-history-based lessons within the writing-intensive program.
Honestly, the main reason my husband and I decided to homeschool our sons originally was to counter the statist propaganda taught by race-class-gender fetishists and pushed as “history” in government schools. I mean,we were on the home-education train well before we were Christians … or even birthed children! So, yeah, resisting Lincolnianism is kinda our thang.
Hence, my kiddo and I were on a mission to set the Southern record straight with our five-paragraph Jackson biography, which had to include the following format: introduction, three sub-topics, and conclusion. We decided that “soldier,” “faith,” and “legacy” would be fitting subjects to encompass the inscrutable Jackson.
We also opted to use only adult sources. Too many children’s history books, especially ones about the “civil war,” are simply not worthy of the time and energy of folks who aren’t interested in revisionism. Thus, my son required quite a bit of my help parsing, digesting, and organizing the intense, but high-quality materials.
Moreover, IEW encourages what is called “hand holding” – a parent taking lead on some aspects of an assignment but with the child remaining fully part of the process. The methodology asserts that the student will learn to emulate the skills through modeling the adult. And it works. I know because I’ve seen it. And this paper is proof.
Before completing this assignment, my son and I already thoroughly respected Jackson. Over the years, the family has visited his home, place of work (Virginia Military Institute), and grave in Lexington. We’ve stopped traffic by taking a family picture while waving both Battle Flags and the Virginia state flag in front of his grand statue on Monument Avenue in Richmond.
Later this spring, we’re camping at Stone Mountain, Georgia – home to the largest bas-relief carving in the world, which just so happens to feature Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis. Down the road, we plan to make pilgrimages to some other important Jackson sites, including Manassas, Chancellorsville, and Clarksburg.
We understand that time is of the essence. We grasp that the memorials to Jackson and other Confederate dead are under siege.
We get that we must embrace and celebrate Southern heroes before the puritanical progressives move them to “contextualized” museums or just raze them altogether. Hell, the latter is what Jackson’s quisling great-great-grandsons aim to do. Sickening. We can deduce that this iconoclasm is a vital battleground within the ongoing cultural genocide.
But after diving into the details of this valiant, noble, and godly man, my son eventually wanted to title his paper “Stonewall Jackson kicks ass!” Being that our co-op is Christian and my allowing that racy title probably wouldn’t have been the best parenting ever, we opted for something a bit more academic but as historically accurate.
Still, we think this paper speaks to our overall contentious contention: that if more people were like Stonewall Jackson, the world would be a better place. You read and decide for yourself.
On his deathbed, Jackson’s final words were “Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees.” So while this son of the South is at peace dwelling in the the eternal, we unReconstructed rebels continue to fight in Jackson’s stead for his honor and for his cause: hearth and home.
And there’s no better way to raise unReconstructed resistors than by homeschooling the next generation. As Proverbs 28:18 says, “Instruct your son, and he shall love you; and he shall give honor to your soul, lest he follow a lawless people.”
“Stonewall Jackson: The Indispensable American Patriot”
By Houston
It was once said of “Stonewall” Jackson that “A braver man God never made.” But Thomas Jonathan Jackson was an unlikely soldier with humble beginnings. In 1824, he was born in Clarksburg, West Virginia, when the state was still part of Virginia, and was an orphan at a young age. He attended West Point not to become a soldier, but to sharpen his character. Having ranked last on his entry exam, Jackson graduated 17 out of 59, proving his dogged determination. And by the Mexican War, he had earned a reputation as a “fighting man.” Interestingly, Jackson hated war and was not a secessionist. But he loved Virginia and considered the invasion of his homeland acts of war, aggression, and tyranny. It’s a popularly mimicked moral misjudgment that Jackson and his Confederate brothers fought only to keep slavery intact. However, Jackson, who was lionized for his kindness by many blacks of the time, either freed or hired out his six slaves at the onset of the war and brought many slaves and free blacks to Christ before his death. In 2005, a black Southern pastor gave an honest account: “Thomas Jackson, like Jesus, was willing to cross real boundaries for the sake of the Gospel.” Because he was such an exemplary man, more people should aspire to be like “Stonewall” Jackson.
Jackson was a pure military genius, whose fearlessness made him and Gen. Robert E. Lee a near invincible team during the War Between the States. To try to shorten the conflict, he was ready to raise the “black flag.” “Shoot them all,” Jackson stated in June 1862. “I do not wish them to be brave.” As a general, he aimed to wage an aggressive, punishing war on the enemy by taking the bayonet to Yankee territory. Surprisingly, Jackson exhibited calmness in battle. In fact, that’s how he got the name “Stonewall.” “There is Jackson standing like a stonewall,” yelled Gen. Bernard Bee of South Carolina at the First Battle of Manassas. “Let us determine to die here and we will conquer. Rally behind the Virginians!” It was at this battle that Jackson’s “foot cavalry” saved the day, as they were known to do. Jackson was able to move large armies at unheard of speeds. These forced marches averaged 20 miles a day with each soldier carrying 40 to 50 pounds of gear. Because Jackson consistently beat overwhelming odds, even when the Yankees had double the troops, he had become the most famous general in the world by the spring of 1862. By flanking the Union and pulling off unfathomable sweeps, the formidable “Stonewall” always turned up the heat. “Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy,” Jackson explained, “and when you strike and overcome him, never let up in pursuit.” Understanding human nature, Jackson took advantage of the “fog of war,” so together with Lee’s direction, the two incredible generals never lost a battle.
Because Jackson was a “man of arms surrounded by tenets of faith,” he was known as the “Confederate Joshua.” Like the Biblical soldier, Jackson believed he was the Lord’s instrument on earth. “Duty is ours. Consequences are God’s,” he uttered on his death bed. Courage. Leadership. Divine guidance. These were the attributes that followed Jackson into battle, making him the “sledgehammer of the war.” Jackson was an enigma. He was the model Christian and soldier, a Calvinist who questioned predestination, and a slaveowner who ran a Colored Sunday School for slaves and free blacks. Additionally, Jackson did not support slavery as a choice because he considered it ordained by God: slaves were given this burden and that he must be a compassionate master. Similarly, Jackson thought the Union had violated the principles of the Founding Fathers, the principles of Christianity, and the principles of civility, as well. The North was “attempting to create a new society that lacked order and cohesiveness … (and) seemed to be striving to alter basic American structures,” explained historian James I. Robertson, Jr. “If the South did not resist, it would stand in failure of God’s will and become subservient to Northern domination.” And he was right. Jackson’s Christianity was his lamp in all that he did. The general, who knew death wasn’t his choosing, was as prepared for it in peace as in war. Fighting by the Old Testament and living by the New Testament, Jackson was truly a soldier of the cross.
After Jackson was shot by friendly fire on May 2, 1863, at Chancellorsville, his death a week later was a fatal blow to the Confederacy and stunned, appalled, and astonished North and South alike. His military partnership with Lee was one of history’s most adept. “You have lost your left arm, I have lost my right,” Lee mournfully wrote to his ablest lieutenant whose arm had been amputated because of the wound. The legacy of this team is second to none, and the South’s winning strategies were dependent upon it. “So great is my confidence in General Lee that I’m willing to follow him blindfolded,” stated Stonewall of his fervent loyalty to the general. Commenting on Jackson’s resolve and devotion, Lee remarked, “Straight as the needle to the pole he advanced the execution of my purpose.” Since Lee attempted to divide the army and flank the enemy at Gettysburg without Jackson, the system failed. Boldly, Lee even declared that a complete Southern victory both at the famous Pennsylvania battle and for Confederate independence would have occurred if Jackson had not been killed.
Isn’t it shocking that this amazing man is not respected anymore? Jackson was once mocked as “Hilljack,” yet became one of history’s most celebrated generals, who was adored, respected, and exalted by his troops. “His fights were our fights, his victories were our victories,” a Georgian soldier explained. “My individuality, with that of thousands of others, was represented in the power wielded by that great military chieftain.” Honestly, to talk of Jackson while leaving out his Christianity “would be like undertaking to describe Switzerland without making mention of the Alps,” remarked Dr. Moses D. Hoge, who was a fellow Presbyterian. He prayed before everything. On Sundays, he didn’t read newspapers. He prayed in his tent and even during battle. People felt so reverently about Jackson, even in the North. When a Confederate boat called “Stonewall” fell into Union hands, the enemy kept the name out of admiration for Jackson. Crushing all hopes of Southern victory, his unfortunate death shocked everyone and destroyed the winning Lee-Jackson alliance. Stonewall Jackson was an irreplaceable American patriot, not a traitor.
Bibliography
Bedwell, Randall. May I Quote Stonewall Jackson? Cumberland House Publishing Inc., 1997.
Gwynne, S.C. Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson. Simon & Schuster, 2014.
“Jackson’s ‘colored Sunday school’ class.” The Washington Times, 2006, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2006/may/5/20060505-083815-2779r/. January 16, 2018.
McClanahan, Brion. The Politically Incorrect Guide to Real American Heroes. Regnery Publishing Inc., 2012.
Robertson, James I., Jr. Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Soldier, the Legend. MacMillan Publishing USA, 1997.
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This “Faces of History” research paper is part of a curriculum we use called the Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW). I referenced the assignment in my last blog because of my displeasure with a few source-texts for some of the other American-history-based lessons within the writing-intensive program.
Honestly, the main reason my husband and I decided to homeschool our sons originally was to counter the statist propaganda taught by race-class-gender fetishists and pushed as “history” in government schools. I mean,we were on the home-education train well before we were Christians … or even birthed children! So, yeah, resisting Lincolnianism is kinda our thang.
Hence, my kiddo and I were on a mission to set the Southern record straight with our five-paragraph Jackson biography, which had to include the following format: introduction, three sub-topics, and conclusion. We decided that “soldier,” “faith,” and “legacy” would be fitting subjects to encompass the inscrutable Jackson.
We also opted to use only adult sources. Too many children’s history books, especially ones about the “civil war,” are simply not worthy of the time and energy of folks who aren’t interested in revisionism. Thus, my son required quite a bit of my help parsing, digesting, and organizing the intense, but high-quality materials.
Moreover, IEW encourages what is called “hand holding” – a parent taking lead on some aspects of an assignment but with the child remaining fully part of the process. The methodology asserts that the student will learn to emulate the skills through modeling the adult. And it works. I know because I’ve seen it. And this paper is proof.
Before completing this assignment, my son and I already thoroughly respected Jackson. Over the years, the family has visited his home, place of work (Virginia Military Institute), and grave in Lexington. We’ve stopped traffic by taking a family picture while waving both Battle Flags and the Virginia state flag in front of his grand statue on Monument Avenue in Richmond.
Later this spring, we’re camping at Stone Mountain, Georgia – home to the largest bas-relief carving in the world, which just so happens to feature Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis. Down the road, we plan to make pilgrimages to some other important Jackson sites, including Manassas, Chancellorsville, and Clarksburg.
We understand that time is of the essence. We grasp that the memorials to Jackson and other Confederate dead are under siege.
We get that we must embrace and celebrate Southern heroes before the puritanical progressives move them to “contextualized” museums or just raze them altogether. Hell, the latter is what Jackson’s quisling great-great-grandsons aim to do. Sickening. We can deduce that this iconoclasm is a vital battleground within the ongoing cultural genocide.
But after diving into the details of this valiant, noble, and godly man, my son eventually wanted to title his paper “Stonewall Jackson kicks ass!” Being that our co-op is Christian and my allowing that racy title probably wouldn’t have been the best parenting ever, we opted for something a bit more academic but as historically accurate.
Still, we think this paper speaks to our overall contentious contention: that if more people were like Stonewall Jackson, the world would be a better place. You read and decide for yourself.
On his deathbed, Jackson’s final words were “Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees.” So while this son of the South is at peace dwelling in the the eternal, we unReconstructed rebels continue to fight in Jackson’s stead for his honor and for his cause: hearth and home.
And there’s no better way to raise unReconstructed resistors than by homeschooling the next generation. As Proverbs 28:18 says, “Instruct your son, and he shall love you; and he shall give honor to your soul, lest he follow a lawless people.”
“Stonewall Jackson: The Indispensable American Patriot”
By Houston
It was once said of “Stonewall” Jackson that “A braver man God never made.” But Thomas Jonathan Jackson was an unlikely soldier with humble beginnings. In 1824, he was born in Clarksburg, West Virginia, when the state was still part of Virginia, and was an orphan at a young age. He attended West Point not to become a soldier, but to sharpen his character. Having ranked last on his entry exam, Jackson graduated 17 out of 59, proving his dogged determination. And by the Mexican War, he had earned a reputation as a “fighting man.” Interestingly, Jackson hated war and was not a secessionist. But he loved Virginia and considered the invasion of his homeland acts of war, aggression, and tyranny. It’s a popularly mimicked moral misjudgment that Jackson and his Confederate brothers fought only to keep slavery intact. However, Jackson, who was lionized for his kindness by many blacks of the time, either freed or hired out his six slaves at the onset of the war and brought many slaves and free blacks to Christ before his death. In 2005, a black Southern pastor gave an honest account: “Thomas Jackson, like Jesus, was willing to cross real boundaries for the sake of the Gospel.” Because he was such an exemplary man, more people should aspire to be like “Stonewall” Jackson.
Jackson was a pure military genius, whose fearlessness made him and Gen. Robert E. Lee a near invincible team during the War Between the States. To try to shorten the conflict, he was ready to raise the “black flag.” “Shoot them all,” Jackson stated in June 1862. “I do not wish them to be brave.” As a general, he aimed to wage an aggressive, punishing war on the enemy by taking the bayonet to Yankee territory. Surprisingly, Jackson exhibited calmness in battle. In fact, that’s how he got the name “Stonewall.” “There is Jackson standing like a stonewall,” yelled Gen. Bernard Bee of South Carolina at the First Battle of Manassas. “Let us determine to die here and we will conquer. Rally behind the Virginians!” It was at this battle that Jackson’s “foot cavalry” saved the day, as they were known to do. Jackson was able to move large armies at unheard of speeds. These forced marches averaged 20 miles a day with each soldier carrying 40 to 50 pounds of gear. Because Jackson consistently beat overwhelming odds, even when the Yankees had double the troops, he had become the most famous general in the world by the spring of 1862. By flanking the Union and pulling off unfathomable sweeps, the formidable “Stonewall” always turned up the heat. “Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy,” Jackson explained, “and when you strike and overcome him, never let up in pursuit.” Understanding human nature, Jackson took advantage of the “fog of war,” so together with Lee’s direction, the two incredible generals never lost a battle.
Because Jackson was a “man of arms surrounded by tenets of faith,” he was known as the “Confederate Joshua.” Like the Biblical soldier, Jackson believed he was the Lord’s instrument on earth. “Duty is ours. Consequences are God’s,” he uttered on his death bed. Courage. Leadership. Divine guidance. These were the attributes that followed Jackson into battle, making him the “sledgehammer of the war.” Jackson was an enigma. He was the model Christian and soldier, a Calvinist who questioned predestination, and a slaveowner who ran a Colored Sunday School for slaves and free blacks. Additionally, Jackson did not support slavery as a choice because he considered it ordained by God: slaves were given this burden and that he must be a compassionate master. Similarly, Jackson thought the Union had violated the principles of the Founding Fathers, the principles of Christianity, and the principles of civility, as well. The North was “attempting to create a new society that lacked order and cohesiveness … (and) seemed to be striving to alter basic American structures,” explained historian James I. Robertson, Jr. “If the South did not resist, it would stand in failure of God’s will and become subservient to Northern domination.” And he was right. Jackson’s Christianity was his lamp in all that he did. The general, who knew death wasn’t his choosing, was as prepared for it in peace as in war. Fighting by the Old Testament and living by the New Testament, Jackson was truly a soldier of the cross.
After Jackson was shot by friendly fire on May 2, 1863, at Chancellorsville, his death a week later was a fatal blow to the Confederacy and stunned, appalled, and astonished North and South alike. His military partnership with Lee was one of history’s most adept. “You have lost your left arm, I have lost my right,” Lee mournfully wrote to his ablest lieutenant whose arm had been amputated because of the wound. The legacy of this team is second to none, and the South’s winning strategies were dependent upon it. “So great is my confidence in General Lee that I’m willing to follow him blindfolded,” stated Stonewall of his fervent loyalty to the general. Commenting on Jackson’s resolve and devotion, Lee remarked, “Straight as the needle to the pole he advanced the execution of my purpose.” Since Lee attempted to divide the army and flank the enemy at Gettysburg without Jackson, the system failed. Boldly, Lee even declared that a complete Southern victory both at the famous Pennsylvania battle and for Confederate independence would have occurred if Jackson had not been killed.
Isn’t it shocking that this amazing man is not respected anymore? Jackson was once mocked as “Hilljack,” yet became one of history’s most celebrated generals, who was adored, respected, and exalted by his troops. “His fights were our fights, his victories were our victories,” a Georgian soldier explained. “My individuality, with that of thousands of others, was represented in the power wielded by that great military chieftain.” Honestly, to talk of Jackson while leaving out his Christianity “would be like undertaking to describe Switzerland without making mention of the Alps,” remarked Dr. Moses D. Hoge, who was a fellow Presbyterian. He prayed before everything. On Sundays, he didn’t read newspapers. He prayed in his tent and even during battle. People felt so reverently about Jackson, even in the North. When a Confederate boat called “Stonewall” fell into Union hands, the enemy kept the name out of admiration for Jackson. Crushing all hopes of Southern victory, his unfortunate death shocked everyone and destroyed the winning Lee-Jackson alliance. Stonewall Jackson was an irreplaceable American patriot, not a traitor.
Bibliography
Bedwell, Randall. May I Quote Stonewall Jackson? Cumberland House Publishing Inc., 1997.
Gwynne, S.C. Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson. Simon & Schuster, 2014.
“Jackson’s ‘colored Sunday school’ class.” The Washington Times, 2006, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2006/may/5/20060505-083815-2779r/. January 16, 2018.
McClanahan, Brion. The Politically Incorrect Guide to Real American Heroes. Regnery Publishing Inc., 2012.
Robertson, James I., Jr. Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Soldier, the Legend. MacMillan Publishing USA, 1997.
Liked it? Take a second to support Dissident Mama on Patreon!