Apologies and appeasement
0 comment Saturday, September 13, 2014 |
Recently we have been watching this rather silly tempest-in-a-teapot over Sen.George Allen's supposed use of racial slurs (macaca? Who even knows what that word means?) including the use of the dreaded, ineffable word, referred to in hushed tones as 'the n-word', and of course his reported display of the Confederate battle flag.
I haven't followed Allen's career, and I have no strong feelings about him one way or another. But I can't say I am impressed by his handling of this trumped-up scandal. First of all, I think P.G. Wodehouse was correct when he said that
It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.
And we live in a sad age when we, all of us in the West, are constantly apologizing; we (and our leaders) apologize at the drop of a hat. All someone has to do is to claim offense, provided of course that the 'offended' party is a member of a protected victim group) and we are assuming the groveling position. And it never brings about reconciliation, or a pledge to 'let bygones be bygones', as used to be the case among gentlemen and ladies. Now the apology is taken not as a gracious acknowledgement of error and a desire to make amends, but as a sign of weakness, as a capitulation. It's taken as an admission of guilt and a commitment to make reparations for as long as the offended party demands. Apologizing these days, especially when it involves one's opponents or enemies, gives them eternal leverage over the 'offender'; it's tantamount to paying blackmail money to an extortionist. They are never content with just one payment; once it's clear that you capitulate and admit guilt, they have you, and they keep exacting more payments, and they keep reminding you of your guilt.
How many leaders do we have who have resisted demands for apologies? I can think of very, very few in our generation. One lone example might be Rep. Tom Tancredo; when he made some blunt remarks about the possibility of retaliating against Mecca in the event of an Islamic terror attack (such as with a WMD) on America, he was pilloried by the usual suspects; the professional grievance-mongers in Islamic groups, and by the pious pacifists on the left.
However he resisted the demands of his baying critics for an apology or retraction.
That steadfastness on his part makes him one in a million.
I can't say I am as impressed with the Pope, and his seeming truckling to Islam, and his professing of 'respect' for that religion of war. I know his admirers think that he has not apologized and that he is to be praised; I disagree. But that's for another post, another time.
And I can't say I am impressed with George Allen's efforts to placate his critics; I think it shows little integrity. I am distressed that he is letting his critics trash the symbols of the South, namely the Confederate battle flag.
The South has been the target of a relentless campaign by leftists and other ignorant people, who want to depict the Southron cause as being driven by 'hate', and who caricature Southron people as backward, inbred, and bigoted. The South, and its history and symbols, are under constant attack. The NAACP has been attacking the Confederate flag as a symbol of hate since the 1980s, (oddly, no one 'knew' it was a hate symbol for the preceding 120+ years) and they have succeeded in convincing most of the country, even many in the South, that the flag and the Confederate heritage are racist and shameful. There are many people alive today who have been fed this revisionist view of the flag and the history of that era, and who don't even realize that the flag was not always considered a 'hate symbol'.
There are frequent episodes of vandalism against Confederate grave sites and monuments, one of the latest being this incident in Leesburg, VA.
Other incidents involve ugly graffiti on monuments, gravestones smashed or broken, and the litany goes on.
Why are these things not considered 'hate crimes'? I ask rhetorically; we all know the propaganda, whether we believe it or not: the South is the bad guy, the oppressor, and never the victim.
Political Correctness has a death grip on our culture. It deforms our thinking, it stunts our discourse, it saturates our atmosphere with lies and hypocrisy. It is poisonous.
There are lots of otherwise patriotic Americans, even those who call themselves conservative, who gleefully join in this trashing of the Confederacy and its symbols. Many such people are Northerners who hold extreme bitterness toward the 'treasonous' South, as they call it. Many others are simply sycophantic types who strike a cheap 'moral' pose by slandering the South, and paying homage to Political Correctness. There are plenty of Republicans among that group, sad to say, people who imagine themselves to be 'conservative' Americans, some of the same people who slam 'liberals' all the time. They fail to see that they are just echoing those liberals they claim to oppose.
But there is nothing remotely conservative about joining in the left's war on our American history, heritage, and symbols. There is nothing conservative about rewriting history, and expunging whatever 'offends' the victim group du jour.
I don't expect to persuade any of the South-haters who think the South of my ancestors was the repository of all evil; such people are not convinced by information or facts. But it may be that there are some, as with some of the younger generation, who have never been taught an impartial history of this country. I invite anyone who has an open mind to investigate the history for yourselves, if possible, using sources from the pre-PC era, that is, before the late 60s.
Any sources since then are suspect, having been revised and Politically Corrected.
I especially invite people who are interested to read an unbiased account of the Reconstruction era in the South.
Here is one page which avoids the PC point of view
In another generation, unless we turn things around, I expect we will be rewriting history to favor Hispanics. If we 'remember the Alamo' at all, (where my 3rd great-granduncle died, helping defend it) the history books (en Espanol, of course) will remember the defenders as villainous gringos, rightly slain by the 'heroic' Santa Anna.
Or maybe, if Moslems are in the ascendancy by then, as they hope to be, then we will no longer be allowed any symbols of our heritage, religious or cultural or national.
And our home-grown malcontents and insurgents on the left would happily eliminate all our national symbols, including Old Glory, probably, and substitute some one-world symbol.
What our fate will be depends a great deal on the quality of the leadership we get; it was famously said by Joseph DeMaistre, in 1811, that 'every country has the government it deserves.' As hard as it is to admit that in our present sorry circumstances, I think there is a great deal of truth in that saying. And I think that we get the leaders we deserve, much as I hate to say it. At present all of us in the West have leaders who are flouting the will of their constituents, who represent not the people they claim to represent, but some shadowy elite which is behind the scenes: global/corporate interests for example. None of our current leaders in the West seem to have what it takes to stand up to the external and internal threats, seeming more concerned with being PC and moving toward some kind of unholy synthesis rather than standing up for our historical nations and heritage.
I have several direct ancestors and a number of kinfolks who fought for the Confederacy. I make no apologies for them; I'm not ashamed of them. And just as we with Confederate ancestors should not apologize or truckle to anyone, neither should anyone else in the West.
Apologies and appeasement on our part are not only unhelpful; they aid and abet the other side. Anybody who truckles to our enemies, internal or external, is part of the problem. It's only the supine liberal attitudes, the emphasis on 'dialogue' and 'building bridges' and 'getting along' that leaves us open to the attacks on our heritage and our way of life. It's those spineless politicians and self-seeking public figures who are opening the gates to our enemies, and enabling them.
Maybe it is time that we the people begin to assert ourselves, stand up for our heritage, and refuse to go along with this monolithic agenda; we don't have the luxury of waiting for a man on a white charger to lead us.

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