The Debate that Shook the Southern Movement

Part 3

Dan Bennett vs. Dennis Wheeler

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#14 Dan Bennett to Dennis Wheeler -- January 8,

On Wed, 07 Jan 1998 00:11:24 -0600, dennisw@mindspring.com wrote: "Now I think you'll acknowledge that many items in your list are not >peculiar to the South and you have seemingly abandoned the idea that to >be a part of the definition of the South, a thing must be unique to it."

DB: Taken individually they aren't unique to us, but I believe that taken together they are.

DW: (When you change your position on things it would be helpful if you would >call our attention to it.)

DB: Nope, no change. If I were to say that any one of those characteristics was the thing that defined Southern culture, it would be untrue. That is still the problem you have with your position; you're attempting to define our culture by a single characteristic that applies to many others as well.

DW: Now, part of the Christian religion is being honest: "Thou shalt not bear >false witness against thy neighbor." Wouldn't you now like to >acknowledge that white social and political supremacy is also part of the >Southern definition, at least as integral to it as many of the items you >mentioned?

DB: I will acknowledge that to be true, but it's not a chacteristic that I find particularly honourable.

DW: You wrote: "Well, once again let me observe that I completely reject your >definition of "Reconstruction" as a contrivance, having no particular >meaning as you use it."

>Dan, you really should be honest in your speech.

DB: I am never otherwise. Let me reiterate if you think I lacked sincerity the last time - I reject your definition of "reconstruction" as bogus. Better?

DW: I have made it clear on >a number of occasions what my definition of Reconstruction is: the >concept that the South must allow the equal social and political >participation of all ethnic groups within it or be racists, bigots, and >hatemongers."

DB: And I've made it clear that I reject that definition as a contrivance. You're apparently obsessed with race, and therefore attempt to make everything into a racial issue.

DW: There are three Christian principles involve here that you have rejected. > First, the division of the nations which God instituted in Genesis 9-11, >violation of which is a breaking of the sixth commandment: "Thou shalt >not kill."

DB: That has to be one of the most imaginative bits of theology that I've ever heard. I see no Scriptural basis for it whatsoever. It appears to be derived solely from your own fixation on racial matters. That's the sort of creative exegesis that characterises heretical outfits like the "Christian Identity" churches, some of whom have moved so far into their own universe as to cease to have any connection with orthodoxy at all.

DW: Second, the fifth commandment: "Honor thy father and thy >mother" which demands the inferior be subject to the superior.

DB: Funny, I always thought it meant what it said. But then again, I didn't have a personal axe I wanted to use it to grind. I'd also be interested in who it is decides who is inferiour and who is superiour. In the parent-child relationship it's pretty much self-evident. In a relationship between two nationalities or races, it isn't at all clear. Who is to say whether the Frenchman is superiour to the Irishman, or the Japanese inferiour to the Belgian? Where does such aythority derive?

DW: And >third, the eighth commandment: "Thou shalt not steal" which has been >violated in taking away from the Southerner both his property and his >right to self-determination unhindered by alien peoples.

DB: The alien people who have been and are stealing our self-determination are the Yankees, and our differences with them aren't racial. But that still has nothing to do with Christianity per se, does it?

DW: You also wrote: "I personally see nothing whatsoever in the Christian >faith that leads me to believe that I should set greater store by one >group of people than another, and much that would lead me to precisely >the opposite conclusion."

>I would like to see the evidence that leads you to an opposite >conclusion.

DB: I'll base it on our Saviour's distillation of the Law - Love the Lord thy God with all that is within you, and love your neighbour as yourself. He tells us that upon these precepts rest ALL the Law and the prophets. When asked to expand on love of neighbour, He offered the example of an interaction between the people of two different nations- Jews and Samaritans.

That, and the fact that the apostles went out from the nation of Israel and took the Gospel into "all the world", just as our Lord commanded, without regard to the race or nationality of the recipient. Are we better than they?

DW: I don't see your position as tenable in holding that a Christian people >held to such an immoral social and political theory and practice.

DB:Christian people are no less fallen people than the rankest infidel, and, and their sins are no less egregious. And in any case, there is no such thing as a "Christian people". Only individuals may become Christians, not groups. The Christian faith is the basis of Southern culture, but it does not follow that Southern culture may then be elevated to the equivalent of Christianity.

DW: You also wrote: "Racial prejudice" means just what it says; prejudging >someone based on their race. Personally, I think that is racial prejudice >is, at best, unjust, and I'm formally against institutionalised >injustice. The law, like the Lord, should be no respecter of persons."

>In your definition of racial prejudice you don't include anything that >would demand institutionalized injustice.

DB: When the law supports different sets of rules for different people based on their ancestry, then that is unjust.

DW: So, I must extrapolate. >Evidently, you mean that when persons who practice racial prejudice are >able to enshrine their prejudices in law, this leads to or embodies >institutionalized injustice.

DB: Just so.

DW: Now I also take it that you use the phrase "respecter of persons" as an >antithesis of "racial prejudice."

DB: No, that's reversed. Racial prejudice is precisely respect of persons.

DW: As to what policies comprise >institutionalized injustice, you have left unsaid as well. I would call >to your attention Titus 1:12,13 "One of themselves, a prophet of their >own, said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. This >testimony is true. For this cause reprove them severely that they may be >sound in the faith."

>In your view, does this qualify as "racial prejudice?"

DB: Yeah, Id say so. I do note, however, that St, Paul didn't advise other believers to separate themselves from the Cretans, but simply to reprove them. If you'll recall, this is the man who took the Gospel to "the nations", which I suppose downgrades him in your economy.

DW: Also, in the Old Testament, according to Greg West, "a caste distinction >was also provided concerning the entrance of persons of foreign blood >into the Hebrew state and church.(Ex 17:16 ; Duet 23:3-8) The descendants >of Amalek were forever inhibited. The descendants of Amon and Moab were >debarred to the tenth generation. The Egyptians and Edomites could be >admitted at the third generation; the one, because their patriarch Esau >was brother to Jacob, the other because the Israelites had once lived in >Egypt. While the law of the stranger, (Lev. 24:22), gave the alien equal >protection of life, limb and property before the law, it still did not >give him the right of citizenship. He remained a stranger."

DB: That's very interesting. If we were to apply that to ourselves (which we can't, logically, since we aren't Hebrews), then we'd have to segregate all those whose ancestors came from different nations. That would pretty much put paid to the concept of "Anglo-Celtic", since those two groups are very distinct indeed. You'd also have to try and pry apart all the various other European national groups, and all their various admixtures. Matter of fact, blacks and Asians would be the least of your worries, since they're easily distinguisable. How are you going to arrange to keep the Ukrainians separated from the Russians, the Russians from the Poles, the Poles from the Germans, and the Germans from the Brits? Your government is going to have its work cut out for it just making sure that everyone keeps a respectful distance.

And that having been arranged, which ethnic group is at the top of the pecking order? Personally, I'd prefer to see those of us of English ancestry capping the stack. Then again, the name "Bennett" is probably of Norman origin, which is probably too great a reminder of some nation-mixing that happened about 900 years ago. If we go matrilineal (that's the most accurate way, after all), then I'll pull for the Celts, but I'm not really safe there, either, because I have Welshmen and a Sassenach or two on that side, as well. (Having no desire to scandalise our readers, I won't even mention the German branch of the family here.)

DW: I would like to know if you consider that God's activity here of making >legal distinctions between persons on the basis of their ancestry >constitutes "racial prejudice."

DB: Nope, God can do as He likes without comment from me. But when mere humans undertake to play at being God, then I take great issue with it.

DW: You also wrote: "I see nothing moral in having two sets of laws, one for >one group and another for another (that is what we're talking about, >isn't it?) that grants privileges to one group that it denies to another. > Invoking history is nothing to the purpose here; there is enough shabby >behavior in our history (or anyone else's, for that matter) to justify >any enormity if you inclined to do so."

>Above, I have not invoked history alone, I have invoked the Word of God.

DB: And if you were a god, and establishing a people through which to interact with all your creation, you might be justified in doing what God did. Fortunately, you aren't.

DW: I appreciate the candor with which you state your Libertarian position. >Yet I will remind you that the historic Southern position has been >anything but Libertarian. We have maintained group distinctiveness from >day one.

DB: Your group distinctiveness is rather limited, though, isn't it? You have explained that you believe a tenet of Christianity to observe the separation of "nations", yet you completely ignore any such distinction unless the "nation" in question happens to have observably different physical characteristics than those of lumpen Europeans. That seems more than a little hypocritical. If you're going to keep the "nations" separated, then keep 'em all separate. After all, there was no physical difference between the Moabites and Edomites and Amalekites and the Hebrews. As a matter of fact, they were all closely related by blood, and all spoke variations on the same language. If that is the paradigm we're to follow, then groups as dissimilar as Scotsmen and Englishmen should never be allowed to interact.

DW: In the South, the great thinkers were still Christian in their thinking. >And did not, like you, believe in Equalitarianism on racial matters.

DB: You still have not demonstrated that "equalitarianism" in the sense of "equal before the law" is in any way contradictory to Christianity. The attempt to append your own racial notions onto the Christian faith is, well, somewhat distressing.

DW: Please forgive me for this oversight of not offering anything to support >the "curious" notion that the U.S. was founded on the principle of racial >separatism. I now offer the U.S. Constitution, which restricted >citizenship to white people.

DB: There is no such language in the Constitution. Matter of fact, there's very little in that document that defines what a citizen is at all.

DW: I offer the Supreme Court decision in the >Dred Scott case of 1857 which reiterated that blacks were not part of the >body politic in the U.S. and were never intended to be part of the >American body politic by the framers of the Constitution. I offer the >constitutionality of the slave system and the clause in the Constitution >whereby blacks were to be counted as three-fifths of a person for >purposes of the national census.

DB: "Representative and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons. "

Doesn't say "blacks", does it? Free blacks were counted, "Indians not taxed" and slaves (implicitly not "free persons") were not. And you've accused ME of being dishonest?

DW: I offer that Indians were not offered citizenship. >Asians were not granted citizenship until after WWII. And I offer the >words of the first American immigration policy that the applicant "must >be a free white person."

DB: "14th Amendment Sect. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. "

That obviously shows your assertion to be invalid, since "all persons born or naturalized in the [US]" would certainly include those of Indian or Asian ancestry. In other words, what you said just simply isn't so. BTW, I don't like the 14th amendment all that red-hot either, but it's there, like it or not.

DW: May I remind you that virtually every Southern state followed Dabney's >advice and passed laws against miscegenation. And Southern legislatures >passed various formulas to distinguish between blacks and whites. The >most amount of black blood a person in the Jim Crow South could have and >be considered white was 1/32. And the least amount of black blood a >person could have and be considered white was in Louisiana, 1/128.

DB: What you're say here, in essence, is that if government establishes what is just and what is not. If that is the case, then you could argue in favour of witch burning since that used to be the law, and a good many people thought it was a good idea. Sorry, I'm not buying any of that.

DW: This is yet another dishonest answer on your part. You know that Thomas >Jefferson, Dabney, and Jefferson Davis did not desire to grant suffrage >to blacks. You know they did not favor granting citizenship to them.

DB: And in that, I believe Davis, Dabney, and Jefferson to have been wrong.

DW To make your feeble attempts to drive a wedge between what I say and what >Southern spokesmen have said and what the South has historically >practiced is quite dishonest on your part.

DB: I think it compares very favourably with your practise of fetching non-existent dogmas from Holy Scripture and attributing things to the Constitution that simply aren't there.

DW: And you answered: "Patent hogwash. You've just managed to reduce the >Christian faith to a matter of where someone's great-granddaddy came >from. I guess we can dispense with a Saviour now, eh?"

>Your answer, sir, is an outright lie. You knew that when you wrote it.

DB: Nope, it appears to be the sad fact, and I take no pleasure whatsoever in that observation.

DW: You have made no attempt to deal with the passages in Genesis wherein God >divided mankind into nations. You have instead attempted to slander me >and attribute a position to me on a totally distinct matter. A lie, >indeed.

DB: You, sir, have failed abysmally to demonstrate that God's division of mankind into nations has one single, solitary thing to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If I were you, I believe I'd take thought to St John's warning at the end his Revelation, the one about adding to or subtracting from the message of Scripture.

DW: The truth is the fact that God divided mankind into ethnic groups called >nations, does not impact directly on the need of all men for a Savior.

DB: It's good that you haven't lost sight of that fact, at any rate.

DW: I'll make you a deal, brother Dan. If you'll quite being dishonest and >"denying the sky is blue," and will deal with the issues in a fair and >honest manner, I'll quit accusing you of being dishonest.

DB: If you'll reciprocate by forbearing to cite "facts" which don't exist, then you may have reason to worry about the potential specks in my eye.

DW: This is one of your most dishonest answers to date. You have made a >linkage between the ethnicity of Daniel and his friends and the work of >God saving them from the fire without providing any evidence that such >linkage exists. What gives?

DB: There isn't any linkage, which is, of course, my point. You really don't like following your own arguments to their logical conclusions, do you? Then again, I that's perfectly understandable under the circumstances.

It appears to me that your notion of what is "Southern" is based primarily upon a certainly heterodox and possibly heretical view of the Christian faith, some utterly false ideas about what is in the Constitution and isn't, and the historical fact that a good many Southerners have believed in separation of the races. From there, you're elevated racial separatism to the point where you consider it to be basis for Southern culture.

Fallacious premises generally lead to false conclusions. In my opinion, enough of your premises are demonstrably fallacious to render your conclusions, if not completely false, then at least highly dubious.

Dan Bennett - Unreconstructed Southron


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#15 Dennis Wheeler to Dan Bennett -- January 10

Dear Dan,

Now we're getting somewhere. Your presuppositions are coming into the open.

You wrote: "That is still the problem you have with your position; you're attempting to define our culture by a single characteristic that applies to many others as well."

That's not true. It's just that this characteristic is the one being discussed here and it is very important to us as a people. But to say I define our culture by it is not accurate. You are attributing a position to me that I haven't advanced.

You wrote: "Well, once again let me observe that I completely reject your definition of Reconstruction; as a contrivance, having no particular meaning as you use it."

I'm not sure what you mean by contrivance, but I will quote Dabney on the issue: "Argument is scarcely needed to demonstrate that the infamous reconstruction measures were taken, not in the interest of a true Union, but of this Jacobin faction [of the Republican Party]. For instance, one of their leaders, Alban Tourgee, in his "Fools Errands," expressly declares that the purpose of reconstruction was to elect another Jacobin President, otherwise jeopardized by the reunited Democracy, through the help of the negro suffrage.... Their reconstruction measures, in their sense of them, were an entire success C and did just what they designed, helped them elect a series of Jacobin Presidents and to fix their party and policy upon the country. True, those measures placed the noblest white race on earth beneath the heels of a foul minority constructed of a horde of black, semi-barbarous ex-slaves and a gang of white plunderers and renegades....

"But this simple course [readmitting the Southern states] meant the following result! The Democrats of the North, rallying the Southern people to themselves, would elect a Democratic President. There is the whole rationale and cause of the infamy and treason of reconstruction."

"To fix their party and policy upon the country" means to make us into philosophical abolitionists. I haven't contrived this idea. This idea is the truth.

You wrote: "You're apparently obsessed with race, and therefore attempt to make everything into a racial issue."

That's not true, either. I just carry on business-as-usual, holding to the beliefs that Southerners have always held. I think that any attack on my racial views is an attack on the South and the Southern people and would only be made by a person who has been reconstructed in heart and mind.

You wrote: "That [linking integration to murder] has to be one of the most imaginative bits of theology that I've ever heard. I see no Scriptural basis for it whatsoever. It appears to be derived solely from your own fixation on racial matters. It's the sort of creative exegesis that characterises heretics like the Christian Identity churches, some of whom have moved so far into their own universe as to cease to have any connection with orthodoxy at all."

That's more of a statement of what you don't know than what you do know. For instance, if you read Douglas Jones' article, The Biblical Offense of Racism, (available by clicking on the link to it from my web site http://web.archive.org/web/20050215062914/http://www.mindspring.com/~dennisw/articles/jones.htm )

you will see how he links segregation and racism to hatred and thus murder. I think you might agree with him. Although he is correct in seeing the link between the racial issue and the sixth commandment, his error is in his application. He has it all backwards. This article has been widely circulated and widely discussed in Christian circles. Your statement above implied that I had imagined the link between the race issue and the sixth commandment. Not so. This only shows you haven't read enough about the issue to have been exposed to the concept.

You seem to know of no point of view except that of the Jacobins, the architects of reconstruction. And as I've shown in my article The Mark of the Beast,

http://web.archive.org/web/20050215062914/http://www.mindspring.com//%60dennisw/articles/beast.htm

persons with your view have in some measure rejected the law of God and accepted the mark of the beast.

All of my theology is based on historic Christian theology. Your reconstructed views, although widely accepted in this day and time, are spurious heresies. The fact that you've never been exposed to many of these concepts, along with your Platonic, Pietistic assertion that Christianity doesn't comprise a system of thought, shows you are not very well read on a great many things. (More on this later.)

Proverbs 18:13: "He who gives an answer before he hears, it is folly and shame to him."

You wrote: "I'll base it on our Saviour's distillation of the Law - Love the Lord thy God with all that is within you, and love your neighbour as yourself. He tells us that upon these precepts rest ALL the Law and the prophets. When asked to expand on love of neighbour, He offered the example of an interaction between the people of two different nations - Jews and Samaritans."

Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures. This is a covenantal statement showing the Jews that Gentiles were also included in the covenant, not a Nimrodian statement showing that the abolitionists and the communists were right all along and that all peoples of the earth should be one based on their kind acts one toward another.

You also wrote: "That, and the fact that the apostles went out from the nation of Israel and took the Gospel into, all the world, just as our Lord commanded, without regard to the race or nationality of the recipient. Are we better than they?"

This issue is obviously one of great confusion to you. In your reconstructed mind, you can't see the difference between salvation and social relationship. Your assumption is that the Christian religion naturally tears down all barriers between peoples, or something to that effect. (I'm guessing because many times, such as this one, you won't state your positions, but just give hints along the way as to what they are.) You have made no case that one impacts the other, but assume it, I guess, and throw out barbs and insults at me for not believing it. And the truth is, you haven't advanced any evidence for it.

The truth is that the gospel and salvation do not tear down God's division of nations any more than they tear down rights of private property, authority in church, home, and state, or a number of other God-ordained strictures and structures.

I would call on you to demonstrate how that the gospel impacts on God's division of the nations in a way that tears it down and renders those who believe in it guilty of not loving the peoples of the world.

You wrote: "There is no such thing as a Christian people;. Only individuals may become Christians, not groups. The Christian faith is the basis of Southern culture, but it does not follow that Southern culture may then be elevated to the equivalent of Christianity."

I don't think this will play very well with many of your friends and associates in the Southern movement. I'd be interested to hear how Franklin Sanders, Dr. Hill, Rev. Wilkins, and others would respond to such a statement.

The New Albany Declaration reads: "That we are a Christian people of Northwest European descent, with predominately Anglo-Celtic institutions, traditions, culture and heritage; wherever we may abide, we are bound by blood, loyalty and sentiment to the American South...."

But the real issue is not what Southerners believe, but what does the Bible teach? Two things come immediately to mind: First, the Great Commission is a commandment to Christianize the nations: "Go, therefore, and make disciples (teach) of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." (Matthew 28:19)

Second, there is the judgement of the nations talked about in Matthew 25:32: "And all the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats."

So while your understanding of being a Christian is partly correct, it is also partly incorrect in that you see that matter in individualistic terms only and fail to grasp the covenantal and sociopolitical nature of the Christian religion.

Plato held that the material world was base and useless, but the spiritual world was meaningful and good. This Platonism has made its way into Christian theology in the form of Pietism, a belief that the Christian religion is personal and inward only.

But the drive of the Christian religion is more than that, it is one of world conquest. We are to be tearing down all false philosophies, "bringing every thought into captivity of Christ." We are to be discipling the nations; the kings of the earth are to do homage to the Son (Psalm 2); and the glory of the Lord is to fill the earth until that time seen by Jeremiah that no one will need say to his neighbor, know the Lord, for all will know the Lord.

You can read a quick primer on this on The Dennis Wheeler Home Page:

http://web.archive.org/web/20050215062914/http://www.mindspring.com/~dennisw/articles/truth.htm

I wrote: I would call to your attention Titus 1:12,13 ;One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. This testimony is true. For this cause reprove them severely that they may be sound in the faith.

"In your view, does this qualify as racial prejudice?"

You answered: "Yeah, Id say so. I do note, however, that St, Paul didn't advise other believers to separate themselves from the Cretans, but simply to reprove them. If you'll recall, this is the man who took the Gospel to the nations."

You are again confusing love and righteousness with integration. And here is an example of your error. You have stated that Paul is committing "racial prejudice" here. (And I would remind you he is speaking words inspired by the Holy Spirit, which would make Him culpable as well. If you'd like to amend or explain your remarks, we'll be glad to hear the new ones.) And yet this man you say is guilty of "racial prejudice" is the one who took the gospel to the nations.

So I don't understand your linkage between the two.

You went into a long litany of all the peoples we would have to separate if my system was instituted. Without reprinting your list here, let me simply respond that (1) we cannot be responsible for the actions of peoples in the past. We can only do our best to give heed to God's creation ordinances. We have a nation before us, the Southern people; created in the way it was created, but nonetheless here. Our duty is to preserve it, not pollute it just because the original blood lines of this people cannot be traced back to Noah.

(2) Also, your litany demonstrates anew how serious a matter it is to break down God's ethnic divisions as once it's done, it can't be undone.

Last time, I asked you: "I would like to know if you consider that God's activity of making legal distinctions between persons on the basis of their ancestry constitutes racial prejudice."

Your answer was: "Nope, God can do as He likes without comment from me. But when mere humans undertake to play at being God, then I take great issue with it."

You have set up a false dichotomy here between God's actions and men's actions. Still, that is not the issue at issue in the question, which you have evaded. The issue is that since God's acts reflect His holy character and He does not act in capricious arbitrariness, then if God has once commanded men to do something, that thing cannot in and of itself be wrong or unjust.

You have said that making legal distinctions on the basis of a person's ancestry is "racial prejudice." Yet you have provided no argument that "racial prejudice" is an evil act or something to be shunned (and I have never accepted your perspective of "racial prejudice" as valid). Yet you imply it is wrong, whether you have stated it or not. I have shown an example of God commanding it and have attempted to find out your perspective on God's actions.

You have stated that you "take great issue with it" (racial prejudice) but yet have okayed God's act. Still, you have not given any evidence as to why you take issue with "racial prejudice.". That's what we're still waiting to hear.

Next, I wrote: "We have maintained group distinctiveness from day one."

Your answer was: "Your group distinctiveness is rather limited, though, isn't it? You have explained that you believe a tenet of Christianity to observe the separation of nations, yet you completely ignore any such distinction unless the nation in question happens to have observably different physical characteristics than those of lumpen Europeans. That seems more than a little hypocritical.

On this point, I have thought you were being dishonest. Now I realize you are merely confused. First, it is you who has attributed to me the principle you say that I advance. You are the one that has said I believe the Southern people is anyone who is white, not me. And now you accuse me of hypocrisy for not upholding the principle that I never advocated in the first place, but you advocated for me.

If you can find any place where I have advocated that all white peoples comprise the Southern nation, or anything close to that, then I will answer this question. (Remember, you're the one who said the Yankees fit into my definition of a Southerner, not me. You've had so many errors and false characterizations of my positions, I haven't been able to refute them all. But since this is now an issue, I refute this one here.)

In the first paragraph of my review of Dr. Fleming's article White Like Me, I wrote: "The central point of the article White Like Me is that white nationalism in America is not a legitimate perspective because it seeks to bind people to each other in too abstract of a manner as it does not take into account a shared language, a shared culture, a set of common heroes, a somewhat vague religious consensus, or a shared geographical area. I agree with this premise."

This article can be viewed in its entirety: WHITE LIKE ME by Dennis Wheeler

There's the challenge for you; I'm on the record as not holding to the premise you attribute to me and then accuse me of hypocritically applying. You are truly a victim of your own propaganda.

Next comes the point about the US being founded on white separatism. I offered the Constitution and the Dred Scott decision, etc. And you found some errors in my offerings which led you to conclude: "That obviously shows your assertion to be invalid since all persons born or naturalized in the [US] would certainly include those of Indian or Asian ancestry."

But I don't think it does. First of all, "white separatism" was your phrase not mine. My first error was in assuming I knew what you meant by this and adopting your phrase. What do you mean by "white separatism?"

Second, I still assert that at the founding of the country, blacks, Asians, and Indians were not citizens, and did not possess the voting franchise. This is what I call white separatism.

After the US military had overthrown the country and the constitution in the Civil War, then they passed the 14th amendment, to which you refer, and bestowed citizenship and the voting franchise on these peoples. So, I conclude that the US was founded on "white separatism." I'd like to hear your definition of "white separatism and see if we're comparing apples to apples.

On the topic of miscegenation, I wrote: "May I remind you that virtually every Southern state followed Dabney's advice and passed laws against miscegenation?"

Your response was: "What you're say here, in essence, is that if government establishes what is just and what is not?"

That's not a reasonable conclusion to my argument. It looks like a desperate attempt to discredit me personally since you have no counter-argument to offer. Again, the point being made is the Southern tradition on racial matters. I do believe it was the moral position, but obviously that's not my argument here.

I said: "You know that Thomas Jefferson, Dabney, and Jefferson Davis did not desire to grant suffrage to blacks. You know they did not favor granting citizenship to them."

Your answer was: "And in that, I believe Davis, Dabney, and Jefferson to have been wrong."

I'll let that statement stand on its own. I'll be interested what the Southern people think of it.

I said: "To make your feeble attempts to drive a wedge between what I say and what Southern spokesmen have said and what the South has historically practiced is quite dishonest on your part."

Your answer was: "I think it compares very favourably with your practise of fetching non-existent dogmas from Holy Scripture and attributing things to the Constitution that simply aren't there."

This is another desperate statement given because you have no counter-argument, evidently.

You wrote: "You, sir, have failed abysmally to demonstrate that God's division of mankind into nations has one single, solitary thing to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

Again, you are the one who has made the linkage between the two, not me. Why would I try to demonstrate a point I haven't even made? It's your linkage that is ridiculous. I agree with what you've said and would go even further. I have explicitly stated the link is indirect and you have acknowledged that I have done this.

This is why I have charged you with being dishonest time after time. I make a statement. You acknowledge it. Then accuse me of doing something else. And then pat yourself on the back for being so insightful. I'll let the readers be the judge. You are bringing in totally irrelevant material in an attempt to cloud the issue, or it is becoming more obvious as this debate proceeds how little grasp you have of the subject matter at hand.

Sincerely,

Dennis Wheeler


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#16. From Mike Broadwell -- January 14

To Dennis and others,

Well, it appears that Dan Bennett has dropped the Battle Flag and hoisted the White Flag, heading for the hills to find his compadres who somehow never arrived with reinforcements for his beleaguered position.

What motivates the so-called "rainbow confederates" to attempt to defend the Old South as a haven of modernism and "progress" as defined by the liberal establishment? If we have "progressed" despite the defeat of the South, why is it important to revive the South as it was? To promote libertarianism? Surely one doesn't need to go to that trouble.

Most of the serious minds of the South viewed it as the last Christian, non-materialist society left on earth, not as a streamlined materialist's utopia. I am sure Dan means well, but any reasonable reader of this thread should be able to see clearly the dead end to which his sort of "defense" leads.

Can anyone point out an example where ceding the moral high ground to the opposition has lead to ultimate victory?

Mike Broadwell


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