Tom’s Big Picture

A conclusion I’ve come to is that the entirety of true American conservatism, i.e. fighting against the tyranny of centralized government, is the political extension of the fight led by the Confederacy. In fact, arguments about tactics to advance conservative causes diverge into those that advocate violence to overthrow the centralized government (i.e. the Confederate approach) and those that urge a more gradual on-the-margin resistance.

My problem with the former is not moral (as the federal government, post-Lincoln, has no more legitimate constitutional authority than the schoolyard bully) but practical. In the new reality of mass-mechanized warfare, expensive munitions, and ultimately nuclear annihilation, we cannot afford to nurse fantasies of violent resistance. The Confederacy was the last, best chance of individuals using largely private means to meet centralized tyranny head-on- and despite a most heroic effort, was ultimately bulldozed by the industrial machine of the Federals. This machine is one hundred times more powerful now than it was then, and so the merely high-risk strategy of the Confederates is now blatantly foolish. I’m not interested in going down in a blaze of glory- remember the lesson of Hood, as this sort of thinking is a flaw of Southerners.

I also have a problem with the gradualist camp. How many years have people labored for small gains on the margin, with little to show? How many billions of dollars, hours of sweat and blood, and precious family times sacrificed as conservative activists carry water for the Republican politicians on the thinnest of gruel?

We all know the song and dance: “Well, we can’t actually STOP abortion, so we’ll just regulate it a little bit. We’ll ban homosexual marriage, but we won’t use Congress’s constitutional mandate and actually PREVENT federal judges from even having jurisdiction over the issue. That would be extremist, to actually DO something about the issues that will stick. But y’all keep voting Republican, and REAL SOON NOW we’ll get around to dealing with the issues you care about…”

No, we need to stop confusing the methodology with the goal. The goal is an end to federal tyranny, not the next election.  Instead of getting ourselves whipped up by the latest “issue of the month”, we need to think long-term about what actually might be successful in achieving our final goal.  My idea is as follows:

One of the great gifts of our Founding Fathers is that apparent legitimacy of government in this country is dependent upon public consent.  Thus, even though we know the Constitution is essentially dead, our government has a political need to use it as a fig leaf for its actions.  Even the “right” to abortion is clothed in constitutional terms, part of the implied “right to privacy”.  We can be thankful that the Founders’ legacy still affects the actions of the government today, even if in grossly distorted form.

Thus, a non-violent, sane means of resistance is to simply take actions that reduce the perceived legitimacy of the federal government.  We conservatives, natural respecters of authority and law, have trouble with this.  We simply cannot square in our mind that authority and law in service of evil is, at some point, illegitimate- and thus the right thing to do is to disrespect it in order to deconstruct its legitimacy.

We could learn a lot from the Left on this issue.  From abolitionism to the civil rights movement, the Left does exceedingly well at attacking perfectly legitimate authority with pseudo-moral crusades combined with acts of civil disobedience calculated to provoke an overreaction on the part of the powers they wish to challenge- this overreaction then creates the public sympathy necessary to advance their political causes.

Whereas the Left uses pseudo-morality and civil disobedience to attack legitimate authority, we cannot deny the obvious effectiveness of the tactic.  We need to use true morality and civil disobedience to attack illegitimate authority.

How can we do this?  What specific issues and tactics should we fight for using civil disobedience?

I’ll cover that in Part Four.

In part one, I discussed the meaning of the Confederacy, most notably its core ideology of resistance to centralized federal power. I also discussed the fatalistic religiosity of Southern faith, a strong brew of Calvinism and an ancient Celtic code of honor, that resulted in an offensive orientation to conflict- glorious against all odds, but ultimately fatal.

Thus, with the victory of the federal government over the states, the tyranny of the Equalitarians came to fruition. The horrors of Reconstruction ensued, and before long most of the country sympathized with the South’s fate as the Radical Republicans took off the mask and showed their full intent in reshaping the nation to fit the false doctrines of the Cult of Equality.

In 1876, something amazing happened. After two terms of incomparable corruption under the Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, Republican corruption went one step too far. They out-and-out stole the Presidential election of 1876 for Rutherford B. Hayes. The outrage that followed shook the foundations of the Republic- George McClellan, the most honorable and capable of Union commanders (the only one who faced Lee and never lost a major battle to him), even suggested that Union and Confederate veterans unite under his command to occupy Washington, DC and restore the rightful President, the Democratic nominee Tilden.

In a historic deal, Hayes agreed to demilitarize the South in exchange for Democratic support of his stolen Presidency. The deal was struck, and “Redeemer” governments supported by the people rose in the South that rooted out Republican corruption and largely shrank state government. It was one of the few eras in our history where government itself actually became less powerful, a victory for true conservatives.

And so it went, on the surface, until the Warren Supreme Court and its interference with states’ rights in the 1950’s and onward, explicitly admitting their intention to legislate policies from the bench that could never achieve popular approval. Meanwhile, as the central government grew through both world wars, imposition of an income tax, and the massive expansion of the New Deal, the convergence of central government supremacy and constitutional negotiability produced its fruit in the policies of the 1960’s and beyond. Tyranny came home to most Americans, as the federal government regulated who you can hire and fire, who you can sell your house to, opened the door to third world immigration, banned prayer in schools and finally gave the green light to the Abortion Holocaust as the coup de grace of the revolutionary era of 1954-1973.

But this we already know- while Radical Republican excesses caused a reaction that prevented tyranny for a time, we must acknowledge that our forefathers were right in their Second War for American Independence- and with the Confederacy died constitutional government in our republic.

And by acknowledging the reality of our extra-constitutional tyranny, we can see the potential limitations for working within the system- our acquiescence is no excuse. For if today a brave governor of Texas were to unilaterally declare the personhood of unborn children subject to protection of life by the state, and acted on this by arresting and charging abortion doctors with murder, we know the federal response; there would be troops on the ground in Austin within hours. Dubya himself, no doubt, would likely enforce the right to murder children based on the arbitrary ruling of the unelected Supreme Court- and the lack of enforcement of other laws, such as protecting our border from invasion, shows the true nature of the federal government. It is a tool of evil, preserved only by our consent and a temporary Providence of God.

But what is to be done? I think we can learn a lot from the zealous template of abolitionism used to promote tyranny over the Confederacy- but use it instead to end tyranny instead of create it. Details in Part Three….

George W. Bush is officially the biggest disappointment in American history, as his cabinet officers and underlings eagerly negotiate with the enemy to sell out the American nation with a massive illegal alien amnesty.  Bush is a traitor to his country and his civilization.

Above is Republican Party Chairman Sen. Mel Martinez from Florida, Sen. Lindsey Graham from South Carolina, and Ted Kennedy as they celebrate their betrayal of the American people.

Bush’s cabinet members lavish praise on Kennedy:

“He’s awesome,” gushed Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff , as he left a news conference announcing the bipartisan agreement. “I’d say he was one of the critical leaders in putting together this deal.”

Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez called it “a real privilege” to work with Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat and liberal stalwart…

Is it a coincidence that on the same day that the Senate annouces a massive betrayal of the American people by both parties and the President, that Zimbabwean inflation hits 3700%?  The future of our multicultural policies is South Africa- and the future of South Africa is Zimbabwe.