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Sorry, but I must disagree about denigrating the Confederate States like this as unconservative. Our biggest desire was to be left alone and to make our own laws.
The United States’ approach at the time, at least that advocated by the radicals—and they were radicals—was that their views on right and wrong in law must be imposed on other jurisdictions, and that the people living in those jurisdictions could not be allowed to have any other approach. That’s not conservative.
It is not conservative to centralize law at the national level.
It is not conservative to demand “union” on states which had freely joined the federation with the explicitly-stated understanding that they could freely leave it.
It is not conservative to invade another country because it wants to live free and independent.
It is not conservative to advocate an American “nationalism,” as the United States did, destroying the concept of a federation of otherwise sovereign states.
It was the United States under Lincoln which was not conservative, and which sought to impose its will and its vision of the good on states who had a different view.
Kelly shouldn’t be excoriated for his comments on Lee or the War Between the States. And he’s right that a failure of compromise, on both sides, is what led to the war. Those getting on their self-righteous high-horse today about no compromise with slavery would do well to remember that Yankees had owned slaves, too. And they had made compromises in ending slavery in their own states, peacefully, and on their own terms. And there were states with legal slavery in the remaining United States throughout the war.
But I’ve known for many years that Michael is no friend of my side on this, so there probably isn’t much point in my writing this except to remind others that there is another side.
Anyone who has read a history book is not shocked by the statement that the civil war was the result of a lack of ability to compromise. That’s almost a banal statement. No offense intended to John Kelly — it’s banal because it’s true.
I’m a little irritated at Michael for complaining that Kelly made these comments about Lee without regard to conventional wisdom. Come on, Michael… :-) Don’t you know why Trump was elected? It’s because enough people were sick and tired of go along to get along Republicans who cow-tow to political correctness (conventional wisdom). So when Kelly doesn’t bow to political correctness, that’s a feature not a bug.
Do we have to keep talking about the Confederacy? The North won the Civil War. We southerners surrendered. Let’s move on.
There used to be a movement toward reconciliation in this country that acknowledged the Civil War was a fight of brother vs brother. Nowadays it seems like the only narrative about the war is that the good guys, who had no faults of their own, wore blue and the bad, evil racists wore gray.
Both sides put up monuments after the war. Respect why they were built, leave them alone, and just move on.
I don’t like this guy’s talks and now it’s clear to me why. One track mind. He won’t allow the good to overcome his conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom is killing most of the media and entertainment fields. They all say they understand nuance and complexity and then they yield to conventional wisdom which is invariably simplistic.
Ditto! For Heaven’s sake, we should all be Americans now!!
Yes, I really don’t get what is up with these sore winners. They won the damn war, so why can’t they leave us in peace a century and a half later?