Look Away, Dixieland

I recently recounted to a friend how, in 2020 America, I feel as if  I am living in a bizarre science-fiction novel. I am not sure how I got here. I clearly suspect to round a corner and see Rod Serling smoking a cigarette and delivering an opening narration to the home audience about how I went to sleep one mild spring night only to awaken to find myself living in a strange land where almost nothing and no one makes any sense.

My friend agreed, saying that if he were abducted by aliens and transported to another planet inhabited by a strange species never encountered before, he would feel no more alienated than he currently does living amongst the lunacy in which we find ourselves.

There is a timeless methodology used by the left in attempts to win persuasion. The hippies of the 1960s and ‘70s (referred to by many of my generation’s grandfathers as “damn, dirty hippies” but not by others because they considered it redundant) ushered in a new way of thinking. Their new way had little to do with truth, but much to do with what was the “cool” way of viewing things.  Jack Weinberg, a leader of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement,  told American kids, "Don't trust anyone over 30," a remark misattributed to Abbie Hoffman, the Beatles, and a host of others.   . It was unthinkable that anyone from the younger, “hip” generation would side with the old fogies of traditional standards and the Christian moral code. 

The ploys of shaming, name-calling, character assassination, speech-policing, lawlessness, rioting, property destroying, physical violence, and general mindless hell-raising have been taken to new and higher levels by the likes of Antifa and BLM, but the playbook is not new. Those who know their history have read this script before. Perhaps the biggest difference now is the lack of courageous and intelligent people on the other side to stand up to it.  If America's cowardly conservatives and moderates  been in charge of defending the Alamo, they would have killed themselves before Santa Anna’s troops had a chance to scale the walls. 

We see those who know better making excuses, condoning, and even outright supporting fake narratives such as white cops habitually gunning down innocent, unarmed black men. Actually, studies have consistently shown over the years that the number one cause of death for young black males is homicide committed by other young black males. Yet, apparently, the only black lives that really matter are those few that can be sensationalized to the point more hell-raising can ensue.

Following the carnage of the War Between the States and Reconstruction, a fragile truce emerged in America between the sections in which both North and South were allowed to acknowledge and commemorate their own unique histories and respect each others’ heroes and symbols. No more. And for those Northerners who thought only the “evil, racist Southerner” would be targeted, well, the joke is on you, as statues of Grant and Heg are toppled with as much gusto as those of Lee and Jackson. They were all white devils, you see, and so authorities turn a blind eye to rampant criminality due to “stand down” orders from frightened chiefs, mayors, and governors.

We need to consider where we are. We have reached a point in 21st-century America where to even suggest that the lives of your children are meaningful and valuable brings condemnation, attack, and unemployment.

I have changed my mind regarding the removal of Confederate memorials. I would rather them be moved to locations where they could be protected and respected than be left to vandalism at the hands of the barbarians allowed to freely roam city streets. The memory of the men depicted in the statues are too worthy to remain at the mercy of masked hooligans skulking about the night. 

I was born in Alabama in the year 1977, the same year a popular country song declared, “The New South, thank God, is still the same.” No more. In forty years, the South has largely been indoctrinated through public education to hate itself by those who hypocritically deem themselves “tolerant.” The universities where I pursued higher education have lit up their libraries in rainbow colors to celebrate sodomy and brought in cranes to dig up and remove memorials to students who risked their lives to keep their school from being burned to the ground. 

In my time, I have watched the erosion of Southern culture and, with it, the deterioration of Western Civilization due to the lack of fortitude necessary to defend it. What kind of morbid mess are we leaving our posterity?

What is the remnant to do? We must boldly defend the faith and reject “the world.” We must be willing to be hated by “the world.” We must exercise influence in the areas God has put us, and that means foremost our families, communities, and (if possible) our workplaces. No matter how dark this world gets, followers of Christ are still commanded to be the light, “forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, [pressing] toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” 

In spite of everything lost, there is still much to lose, not least of which is our honor and our dignity.