The Debate that Shook the Southern Movement
Part 6
Dan Bennett vs. Dennis Wheeler
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#29. Dennis Wheeler to Dan Bennett -- February 1, 1998
Dan wrote: "Couldn't quote the whole thing, could you Dennis? Pretty
dishonourable on your part, don't you think? But then again, I don't suppose
that honour matters much in your economy. After all, it's all about colour in
your mind, isn't? Isn't it? Hmmmm?"
I went back and looked at your post to see what I had missed. And for the
audience's sake, it was a series of questions about what sort of legal program I
would want to see instituted in the South. I left that portion out because I
don't see what it has to do with the issues being discussed here?
If Dan would be so kind as to demonstrate some tether, I would appreciate it.
Until he does, I see it as just another evasion of the issues at hand. I have
demonstrated through an abundance of quotes from famous Southerners that my
views are indeed in line with those of the historic South. Dan has denounced
both my views and theirs as immoral, demonstrating how out of touch he is with
the historic South and how well the work of the Recontructionists has imprinted
both his heart and his mind.
He has resorted to name-calling, baseless charges, snappy one-liners as his
defense and has yet to put out anything cogent and comprehensive.. Constantly
shifting the focus of the debate into more numerous areas of less importance.
Dan wrote: "You made up the doctrines, you support 'em. You say that "God's law"
dictates that the "nations" be separated. I say that's utter and complete
hogwash, supported by absolutely nothing. In short, I call. You got cards, show
'em."
I will be glad to go through this again for you and the readers. It's quite
logical to my way of thinking. In Genesis 9-1, God institutes civil government
and then divides mankind into nations. After the rebellion at the Tower of
Babel, he divides the nations by "language" so that they will never attempt
integration again. Rev. Joseph Morecraft III has asserted: "It appears to be the
will of God to use nationalism to restrain human revolt against God... According
to Psalm 2:3f, the anti-Christian powers of the world are united in futile
conspiracies to overthrow the political and moral law-order of Almighty God and
His Christ... God always brings His judgment upon such attempts, Gen 11:7f; Psa.
2:4f; and many times He uses the faithfulness of Christians to bring down their
efforts, Isa. 40:25f, coupled with the suicidal nature of their own course, Prov.
8:36, and the providential intervention of God."
You might know of Reverend Morecraft. He speaks fairly often at League of the
South events.
I will also offer a quote from author Harold Stigers in his popular commentary
on Genesis: "It may be said that, in general, nationalism is best for the world
in its present state of sin and that to destroy those national boundaries is
contrary to God's present will. It may also be said that God's wrath will fall
on those people who by creating empires provide conditions that facilitate the
increase of sin and so weaken men. God even causes empires to come to an end to
hold down the increase of sin."
We see here that nationalism, or the separation of the nations is for the
purpose of restraining sin, which is the violation of God's law. I don't see it
as too big of a leap to hold that "that `God's law' dictates that the `nations'
be separated," to use your term.
And far from being Odinists or Christian Identity adherents, the men I quoted
are Presbyterians and even more mainstream than myself.
Dan wrote: "The "article" in question [The Mark of the Beast] is worthy of
nothing more than ridicule, and that is all I have to offer on it. Post the URL
for the wretched thing and let the readers decide for themselves."
I find it fascinating that since you believe the article is worthy of nothing
more than ridicule, why you have yet to bring yourself to hurl one ridicule
against it. There must be something in it that you feel safe in criticizing. But
thank you for the invitation to post the URL again. I think this is one of the
most meaningful theological articles of the 1990s.
http://www.mindspring.com/~dennisw/articles/beast.htm
Dan wrote: "Share with us where Dabney expounds on the "law of God" about the
separation of "nations", or how it violates the 6th commandment. Take your time,
we'll wait."
I appreciate this challenge. It gave me a good excuse to read Dabney's essay on
The Negro and the Common School again. That should put a spring in the step of
any true Southerner.
Dabney first showed how that integration between Virginian and negro would
inevitably bring contention. He wrote: "The black race is an alien one on our
soil; and nothing except his amalgamation with ours, or his subordination to
ours, can prevent the rise of that instinctive antipathy of race, which, history
shows, always arises between opposite races in proximity."
One may argue that Dabney is not arguing against integration here but is only
holding out that amalgamation will do as good a job at preventing contention as
subordination would. But he had already closed that door by writing: "The tenor
of the argument concedes, what every man, not a fool, knows to be true: the
negroes, as a body, are now glaringly unfit for the privilege of voting. What
makes them unfit? Such things as these: The inexorable barrier of alien race,
color, and natural character, between them and that other race which constitutes
the bulk of Americans: a dense ignorance of the rights and duties of
citizenship: an almost universal lack of that share in the property of the
country, which alone can give responsibility, patriotic interest, and
independence to the voter: a general moral grade so deplorably low as to permit
their being driven or bought like a herd of sheep by the demagogue: a
parasitical servility and dependency of nature, which characterizes the race
everywhere, and in all ages: and an obstinate set of false traditions, which
bind him as a mere serf to a party, which is the born enemy of every righteous
interest of our State [Virginia]"
Dabney also wrote: "The satanic artificers [Yankees] of our subjugation well
knew the work which they designed to perpetrate: it is so to mingle that blood
which flowed in the veins of Washingtons, Lees, and Jacksons, and which
consecrated the battle fields of the Confederacy, with this sordid, alien taint,
that the bastard stream shall never again throb with independence enough to make
a tyrant tremble."
And here's the statement in which Dabney laid the foundation for the Jim Crow
laws which our people instituted for their safety and which you find so immoral:
"In endeavouring to remedy the dangers of the commonwealth, we must remember
that we are a conquered people, and have to obey our masters. Otherwise our
straight road back to safety would be at once to repeal negro-suffrage. But our
masters [Yankees] will not hear of that. What is called `impartial suffrage' is,
however, permitted by their new Constitution. We should at once avail ourselves
of that permission, and without attempting any discrimination on grounds of
`race, color, or pervious condition of bondage,' establish qualifications both
of property and intelligence for the privilege of voting. This would exclude the
great multitude of negroes, and also a great many whites.... The mass of white
men are now so impressed with the dishonor and mischiefs of negro suffrage, the
majority of those white voters having no property, would, even joyfully,
surrender their privilege, tarnished and worthless as it is, if thereby the
negro could be excluded."
I know that wasn't exactly on the topic you mentioned, but it is so important to
understanding the history of the South and the mindset of the true Southerner, I
thought it should be quoted for the record. For when you start waving the
Confederate battle flag, this is the ideology you are supporting. Any attempt at
denial of this is dishonest from the beginning.
Dabney really zeroed in on the murderous effects of integration with this
statement: "It is one of the most painful evidences of the atrocity of the wrong
perpetrated on Virginia by her conquerors, that good, patriotic, philanthropic,
Christian men here see the evil fruits of that crime looming up so fearfully, as
actually to find a grain of private consolation in the hope that a race of human
beings among us are advancing to the miseries of extermination. I do not find
fault with the hope: it is natural: I shall naturally and justifiably hope that
my wilful destroyer may perish before he murders me: I condemn the oppression
which has left good and wise men no solace except in that hope."
And finally: "And when the white people are at last driven to the end of all
patience by intolerable annoyances, and the blacks are determined to live and
not to work, collision cannot but ensue."
These statements are from the greatest theologian, philosopher, and prophet in
American history. The man who was asked to become the Chairman of the Church
History department at Princeton in 1860, but declined, joining the Confederate
Army instead and being commissioned as Stonewall Jackson's Chief of Staff.
My views are so similar to his, and so different from yours, that the hypocrisy
of someone with your views being a part of a pro-Southern, pro-Confederate
organization, should be easily seen by every man, not a fool.
Dan wrote: "That, sirrah, is a damned and damnable lie. And now I well and truly
know what sort of man I'M dealing with."
I have gone back and looked at my entire posting about the pornographic postings
and fail to see where the lie is. It seems to me that every statement was true.
Where exactly is the lie, Mr. Bennett?
Dan wrote: "I'm calling your bluff again, MR. Wheeler. Post some of those things
here, and let's see if they're mine at all. I'll tell you this straight out - I
post under one name - my own. So let's see what you can contrive to attribute to
me."
No one has accused you of posting under more than one name, only more than one
e-mail address. And that was not an accusation, but an assertion of what seems
to be fact. According to the DeJaNews message board, you post under
dan"calvary.com and NoSpam"all.com. Is this accurate?
And no one is attributing anything to you, but only asking you to explain how is
it that these questionable postings show up under your Author Profile? Since you
have a wife and children, I hope these aren't yours. And like I said before, if
they're not yours, you should complain to DeJaNews for having them listed under
you Author Profile.
Dan wrote: "Another pestilent lie, you know quite well it's not me, but we'll
see that, won't we? Show them cards, MR. Wheeler."
Actually I didn't know it wasn't you. A man that shows such little regard for
the truth and righteousness as yourself is liable to many other wicked things. I
just say that I hope it is not you. And, evidently, you have called that hope a
lie as well.
When a man falsely accuses another man of a lie, he becomes a liar himself. This
is the position you find yourself in now unless and until you can show where I
have lied.
Let me hear from you,
Dennis Wheeler
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#30 Michael Mehaffey to Mike Broadwell
libertee"mindspring.com wrote:
MB > Dan, > The heart of the claim of this thread was whether or not you or your
> views were "reconstructed". You claimed that they are not, while the > other
parties have countered with historical citations and arguments to > prove
otherwise, which you have failed consistently to answer. >
MM I'd be happy to give you some historical facts then. Thomas Jefferson started
a movement in the South against slavery with his paper, "A Southerner On
Slavery", in which he condemned the institution and called for manumission. By
the 1830's, there were more anti-slavery groups in the South than in the North,
and the idea of freeing the slaves gained the prestige of leading Southerners,
such as Thomas Gadsen of South Carolina. The State of Virginia introduced a bill
in 1830 that would have emancipated the slaves gradually but it didn't pass, but
during the bill's time in the State legislature, the Virginia congress held very
heated debates on whether slavery was good or an evil, something was unheard of
after the 1830's, when the powerful slave-owning class would manipulate the
common folk into a mob mentality and cause the South to make the terrible
mistake of staking everything that it stood for and its even very distinct
character on only one aspect of its society, slavery; as if all of its other
Southern qualities could be taken or left, but the one thing that couldn't, was
the freeing of Blacks.
So there is a Southern tradition against slavery that actually began with
Jefferson lasted in the academic corridors of the University of Virginia well
into the 1950's; there was an idea there to introduce a bill in the Virginia
legislature to integrate the schools but then those academics were run out of
the state by political demagogues, just as there spiritual ancestors were either
run out of the South or lynched after the 1830's.
MB > You are in practise and philosophy a multiculturalist. The fact that you >
are married to a Korean is of no concern to me, it is your business.
MM So why bring it up?
MB But > your attempts to re-define the South so as to remake it into a >
multicultural ideal are not only historically false, but have damaging >
consequences for the survival of the South.
MM No, YOUR idea of keeping the South somehow "pure" from "outsiders" is why the
South is still lockstep in its doomed, intolerant, mind-abnegating and even
childlike ahistorical worldview. For your information, the South has three
primary cultural ingredients: the English Cavaliers of Virginia, the
Scotch-Irish frontiersmen of the backcountry, and, guess what? The Africans of
the Deep Southern Black Belt. That's pretty goddamned multicultural, ain't it?
Listen to some of the dialects of South Carolina whites, boy, and you'll hear
the Africans speaking. Let's not forget Cajuns, Indians and a large community of
Scotch Highlanders who spoke Gaelic in North Carolina well after the Civil War.
MB The distinctiveness of the > South cannot be seperated from the people who
comprise it, and the very > survival of our people is under assault from the
multiculturalists who > are trying to remake the world in their image.
MM Nobody has been better in living in a world of unreality than the Southerner,
and twisting arguments and facts to fit that world, as shown so eloquently in
your post. You still live in the old false siege mentality of the Savage Ideal,
that wonderfully-coined phrase by Jack Cash, wherein you ardently resist truth
and reality to the bitter end, at all costs, which will lead you, as it led our
ancestors, to bitter defeat.
MB The Southern response has > ALWAYS been a defensive one, i.e. designed to
protect what is ours. > Whether the means of defense have always been proper is
certainly a > matter for debate. But self-defense is a God-given right and duty,
for > nations as well as individuals. You may mean well, but your philosophy >
is devastating in its implications, as we can see all around us. >
MM Really? Your philosophy as I just said above, is guaranteed to lead toward
failure. You fail to address whether self-defense is always necessary, only that
it is a right; weak-minded reasoning of someone who must know intuitively that
his position is defective. When should a man defend himself? When he is told
that he is wrong? Or when being attacked? You aren't making distinctions like
this, because you know that if you did, the fallacy of your argument would
become evident. Supporting multiculturalism can hardly be equated with the
advocating of destruction of Southern culture, but you are saying that it is.
The real enemy of the South isn't multiculturalism, but (that's right, I do
believe this) the creeping influence of Yankee style education and its innate
hostility of all things Southern, using the anti-slavery argument to justify the
annihilation of the Southern culture itself, which is the legacy of
reconstruction, itself the prime era wherein the Yankees proved themselves to be
the most despicable and stupid; also, the Southern love of capitalism, a system
that has done more to destroy the real genius of Southern culture, especially
when combined with Yankee-style education. The result is an industrialized
culture of clones who are encouraged to forget about their traditional grace and
hospitality while hungering for money and screaming the rebel yell. The Old
South, you should remember, was not really about being a bunch of petty
shopkeepers, as it was with the Yankees and is now with Southerners, but about
being more or less aristocratic, which meant not only being proficient in arms
and fighting but also outstanding in generosity and humanity, as well as proud
of the art of rhetoric, something that all aristocratic societies have been. The
South was no exception, excepting, of course their treatment of slaves, which
was abominable; but the fact of slavery does not mean we shouldn't try to uphold
the ideals of an aristocratic society and extend those ideals to include all
Southerners as equal parts of it, and I do mean Black people as well. This would
mean dropping capitalism as a way of life, and returning to our agrarian roots,
something I don't expect many Southerners to be too willing to do nowadays, but
nonetheless a worthy ideal.
MB > If you want to wave the flag and talk on the radio about a > >"new"
confederacy which will implement the ideals of Martin Luther King, > >then go
ahead.
MM Fine, then, I will.
MB (Dan) > Which ideals of King do you take such strong exception to? His idea >
that people should be judged by their character and not the colour of > their
skin? I personally think that's a very Southern, very Christian > viewpoint. The
converse, juding by colour rather than character, is > altogether unjust,
unChristian, and very Yankee-like. You choose > which you prefer; I already
have. >
MM Moreover, Dr. King was staunchly proud of his Southern roots. Today, you'll
find far more racial problems in Northern cities than in Southern ones. I'm
proud to call Dr. King one of our own.
MB > Here you have clearly stated your underlying principle. It is a clear >
demonstration of your "reconstructed" worldview. I challenge you to show > that
you can find any support among knowledgable southerners for this > viewpoint not
being a "reconstructed" one. >
MM I, a native of Knoxville, Tennessee, a graduate of the University of
Tennessee, 7th generation grandson of Oliver McHaffy, who settled in South
Carolina in the 1740's and of Peter Wallace, who settled in Shenandoah Valley,
Virginia around the same time, and who fought as patriots in the Revolutionary
War, and whose descendants would fight for the Confederacy as I did in the
Persian Gulf War, I, who glory in the rich musical cadences of the Southerner's
speeches and storytelling as well as his splendid, aristocratic, homespun,
hospitality, and also the Southerners' love of the martial spirit, support this
view, and not as "reconstructed" , but as native to the South.
MB > (Mike from earlier post) > >Then comes homosexual equality, and even
"animal rights". Why not? > >Equality is not a standard. It can float downward
(rarely upward) > >because the point is not any goal or standard, just
"equality". The Gay > >Rights argument is "Regardless of our behaviour, we
deserve equality". > >That was the same argument used for "Civil Rights".
MM This stuff about animal rights and gay rights is boring, pointless
obfuscation. Don't worry, Mike, the South won't be taken over by a bunch of
limp-wristed communists any time soon.
You support segregation, right? Black people are somehow naturally prone to poor
behavior, right? Therefore they should stay separate, and "stay in their place",
right? You still want the South to fail, right? So all Southerners supported
segregation? Not my parents.
MB > I invite you to return to that post and respond to my answers to your >
denials of the possibility of a Christian social order and other relevant >
items. >
MM I'll gladly do it. Better, still, I'd recommend a good book for you, called
Mind of The South by W.J Cash, who was born and raised in North Carolina and
whom I quoted above. That book explains the South with almost mathematical
precision. As for your Christianity, you wouldn't find a more of a hard-drinkin',
gamblin', gun-and-knife wieldin' hellraiser and braggart than a Southerner in
antebellum times; not exactly your pious little round-shouldered Pat Robertson.
Ever heard of Alexander Keith McClung? He was called the Black Knight of the
South, and that wasn't for being a Good Samaritan. Ever wondered why the South
has always had the highest murder rate in the country?
Respectfully,
Michael S. Mehaffey
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#31. Dennis Wheeler to Michael Mehaffey
Dear Michael,
I am glad you have decided to enter this discussion. You have put together a
very coherent position. Still, there are a few points I would either like to
discuss further or take issue with completely.
You wrote: ".... the Virginia congress held very heated debates on whether
slavery was good or an evil, something was unheard of after the 1830's, when the
powerful slave-owning class would manipulate the common folk into a mob
mentality and cause the South to make the terrible mistake of staking everything
that it stood for and its even very distinct character on only one aspect of its
society, slavery; as if all of its other Southern qualities could be taken or
left, but the one thing that couldn't, was the freeing of Blacks."
I think there are different aspects of slavery that are certainly open to
debate. There is first the matter as to whether or not it was a beneficial and
efficient economic system. Second, there is the matter of what consequences it
would bring to the South in later decades and centuries. Thirdly, there was the
matter of the slave trade itself, as distinct from the institution of slavery.
And fourth, there was the matter of the morality of slavery.
There were certainly debates on the first aspect. As to the second aspect, even
Robert E. Lee opposed it on those grounds. He could see the devastating effects
it would have on the white people. As for the slave trade, Dabney argued in
Defense of Virginia and the South that Virginia was the first political district
in America to outlaw the slave trade.
But none of these matters were the matter on which the South was attacked over
slavery. We were attacked over the morality of slavery as an institution. I
can't agree with you that the slave owners "manipulate [ed] the common folk into
a mob mentality" on the issue. No, the theological and moral defense of the
institution was taught in the churches and universities of the South by her
ablest theologians and professors. Dabney and Thornwell were still having
dormitory's named after them at Southern seminaries in the 1970s. Their works on
theology are still taught in many places, although their teachings on slavery
are conveniently omitted in our day and time.
And when writing the material for The Southern Tradition at Bay in the 1950s and
1960s, historian Richard Weaver drew heavily on these men and others with
similar beliefs to demonstrate the consensus in the South in the period leading
up to the war.
I think the reason the common folk supported the institution of slavery is that
this is what they were being taught by their superiors and that they also saw
the frightening consequences of emancipation without repatriation to Africa for
the freedmen.
Our generation has been the first one to witness the full effects of Negro
emancipation without repatriation because after the war, our people set up Jim
Crow to insulate themselves from the devastating effects of black political and
social empowerment. Once the bars of Jim Crow were torn down, crime and
uncivility came on us like a flood.
You also wrote: "So there is a Southern tradition against slavery that actually
began with Jefferson lasted in the academic corridors of the University of
Virginia well into the 1950's; there was an idea there to introduce a bill in
the Virginia legislature to integrate the schools but then those academics were
run out of the state by political demagogues, just as there spiritual ancestors
were either run out of the South or lynched after the 1830's."
If you are interested in showing it, I would be interested to see some of the
arguments Jefferson advanced against slavery to see if they were of a moral or a
pragmatic nature.
Second, I think the strong reaction shown against those who wanted to integrate
the schools shows our people understood the denigrating effects it would have on
both their children and their society. I don't think it was surreptitiously
fostered by persons who had anything but the welfare of the people under them as
their motive.
At any rate, the experience of school integration has proven them right.
You also wrote: "YOUR idea of keeping the South somehow "pure" from "outsiders"
is why the South is still lockstep in its doomed, intolerant, mind-abnegating
and even childlike historical worldview. For your information, the South has
three primary cultural ingredients: the English Cavaliers of Virginia, the
Scotch-Irish frontiersmen of the backcountry, and, guess what? The Africans of
the Deep Southern Black Belt. That's pretty goddamned multicultural, ain't it?"
First, I am glad you don't attempt to couch your perspective in a Christian
paradigm like others do. The anti-Christian tenor of you perspective and
verbiage gives you a consistency of argument that "Christian" integrationists
can't match because their system is self-contradictory on the face of it.
Second, I can't agree with you that our ethnic isolationism is a "doomed,
intolerant, mind- abnegating ... worldview." I see it as the wave of both the
recent past and the future. The Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Ethiopia, Somalia,
Czechoslovakia, just to name a few, are examples of failed attempts at ethnic
admixture within a single geopolitical entity. And there are many other multi-
ethnic countries on the path to break-up (Italy, Canada, India, China, Great
Britain, etc.)
In 1993, Professor Samuel Huntington, in an article in Foreign Affairs, the
quarterly journal of the Counsel on Foreign Relations, made the point that this
ethnic isolationism was a coming wave, and that at some point, the United States
would not be immune to its pressure.
So rather than seeing it as a doomed worldview, I see it as an inevitable
occurrence. But whether or not heavy-hitting insiders like Huntington see the
inevitability of it, ethnic walls are in line with God's world order, instituted
in Genesis 9-11. Separate peoples and separate nations are creation ordinances
upon which God has ordered the world. Mankind, in his rebellion against God and
his world order, has attempted to erect a new world order of ethnic integration
many times throughout history. They have all failed and the one being erected
today by the United Nations will also fail.
As for the peoples who make up the South, I have made the point that it was
basically a merger between Cavaliers and Scotch-Irish. We see the other
sub-groups as being thrown in with us by political and practical necessity
because of the War. The Southern people have accepted this. We have not, though,
accepted the idea of the blacks being part of us. (See my quotations by Dabney
in my post to Dan Bennett on February ??. You can view this entire debate from
its inception by logging on to my web page http://www.mindspring.com/~dennisw/debates/bennett/index.htm
)
Since the War, the Southerners have erected political and social barriers
between themselves and the blacks. Legislatures insulated the population against
black encroachment into our blood by laws against white/black sexual relations
and laws defining how little blood one needed in them to be considered black.
Washington had to descend on us with force and the threat of more force to
change these policies and mores.
You also wrote: "Supporting multiculturalism can hardly be equated with the
advocating of destruction of Southern culture, but you are saying that it is.
The real enemy of the South isn't multiculturalism, but (that's right, I do
believe this) the creeping influence of Yankee style education and its innate
hostility of all things Southern, using the anti-slavery argument to justify the
annihilation of the Southern culture itself...."
I didn't give your entire quote here as it was quite long. You went to talk
about the aristocratic society of the South. In general, I think you have set up
a false dichotomy here; holding that the anti-slavery position of the Yankees
was a ruse to accomplish a different end, "annihilation of Southern culture."
You are not arguing they invaded for monetary gain. And you have left out the
concept that the Southerners believed the master-slave relationship and the
white superiority - black inferiority relationship to be an integral part of the
aristocratic system of the South which the Yankees sought to destroy. As Greg
West argued in a previous post in this thread, a people and its culture has a
symbiotic relationship. The culture is a product of the people. One does not
exist without the other.
Part of the Southern aristocratic system was an understanding that if the blacks
were allowed to be equal participants, their glaring differences to us would be
of such magnitude that both our people and our culture would be overwhelmed.
This is borne out by our treatment of them after the War, once we re-established
control of our internal affairs, along with the cumbersome and elaborate
defenses we erected to keep them from becoming equal participants of our
society. I think you have left these important items out of your analysis.
Your statements against capitalism seem, at first blush, to be in line with some
of those advanced by the 12 Agrarians in I'll Take My Stand. I both agree and
disagree with some of their conclusions. Yours, however, weren't stated
completely enough for me to understand them fully. Would you please elaborate on
your position on capitalism and how it relates to the South and the Yankee
invasion.
You also wrote: "Moreover, Dr. King was staunchly proud of his Southern roots.
Today, you'll find far more racial problems in Northern cities than in Southern
ones. I'm proud to call Dr. King one of our own."
King may have been proud to be from the South. But his ideal for the South was
the same as that of the Reconstructionists. The dictum of the Reconstructionists
was essentially: "The South must allow the full social and political
participation of all peoples in the South or be racists, and bigots, and
hatemongers." The Civil Rights Movement was the Second Reconstruction, since
they had failed in the first one to subjugate the Southern people in heart and
mind. They saw the way to moral righteousness in social and political equality
of the races. This the program King advocated for the South and it was the same
program as that of the Reconstructionists.
I guess I see King as a blight on the South and an enemy to the South.
You also wrote: "So all Southerners supported segregation? Not my parents."
I don't like to talk about someone's mama, but you brought it up. I'm sad to
hear that your parents did not support segregation. I would have to say they
were in the minority of Southern opinion. The destruction of segregation was
brought about with great coercion and force from the government in Washington.
We had no army to oppose them with in the 1960s as we did in the 1860s.
Since the Civil Rights Act, our people have suffered immeasurable evil at the
hands of the blacks. We have responded with the social phenomenon of "white
flight." Since the 1970s, millions of Southerners have moved from physical
proximity to the black areas and formed new communities away from the cities.
The phenomenon has been so amazing it can be categorized as a mass migration.
In Atlanta we have what political pundits call a "doughnut," a black center with
a white ring around it. And the black center votes overwhelmingly Democratic
while the white ring votes overwhelmingly Republican. So while many Southerners
don't know how to articulate their opposition to integration, they are certainly
shrewd enough to minimize its damaging effects on their lives.
You also wrote: "As for your Christianity, you wouldn't find a more of a hard-drinkin',
gamblin', gun-and-knife wieldin', hellraiser, and braggart than a Southerner in
antebellum times; not exactly your pious little round-shouldered Pat Robertson."
Again, I didn't give the entire quote. I'll look into this book, The Mind of the
South, by W.J. Cash. Of course there was a bad element among Southerners before
the war. But I don't think it is proper to judge the entire people as being
characterized by their actions. Richard Weaver goes to great length to
characterize the Confederate soldier as a "Christian warrior." Southern leaders
like Jackson and Lee were known for their Christian piety.
In the book Christ in the Camp, author Dr. J.W. Jones tells of the great
revivals that took place in the Confederate Army as the war raged on. And more
recently, both the Statement of Purpose of the League of the South and the New
Albany Declaration declare the Southern people to be a Christian people.
By the way, Pat Robertson's father was a fine southerner, a signer of the
segregation resolution in the 1950s, along with many other Southern congressmen
and senators. I don't know what came over his boy.
Dennis Wheeler
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#32. Dan Bennett to Mike Broadwell
MB libertee"mindspring.com allowed as how:
>Dan, >Dennis is correct in stating that your arguments have regressed into
>infantilism. This should be plain enough to any objective reader.
DB An "objective reader" being one who shares your notions on racial separtism,
I presume.
MB > There >is no need to respond to the claims of your most recent post, since
most >were answered in my post of 1/10/98.
DB I'm sure they were, at least in your mind.
MB > It was at this point that you took >your "sabbatical" from the debate, and
gave the impression that you had >given up. Your return marked a return to
earlier silliness and name >calling.
DB Silliness? Let's recap what we've been saying here and let's see where the
silliness lies.
My position is that the law should be the law for everyone, without regard to
race or ethnicity. Your position is that there should be different laws for
people of different racial or ethnic backgrounds. More simply put, you want to
restrict the liberties of blacks and possibly members of other racial or ethnic
groups.
My position is based on the concept that the government has no right, and should
have no right, to play favourites. I reject the concept as unjust on its face.
Mr. Wheeler has asserted (and you have parroted) the idea that racial separtism
is the touchstone of the true Southerner, and that one who doesn't believe in it
is, in his terms, "reconstructed". The fact that such a definition includes a
good many Yankees and excludes a good many Southerners you've chosen to dance
around rather than address.
Mr. Wheeler has also defended the idea of de jure racial discrimination (he
claims not to know what discrimination means, but I find myself unable to find
another language upon which we can agree, so I'm restricted to English) based on
the contention that many or most Southerners have accepted it. My response to
that is that the by the same criterion we could declare that Bill Clinton is a
good president, since a goodly majority of Southerners appear to think so. (As a
matter of fact, we could have lots and lots of fun with the idea of truth
established by popular vote, but I'll simply leave that to the imagination.)
Plain response: I reject the appeal to popular opinion, it's too often wrong. I
reassert - government HAS NO RIGHT to play favourites.
You have also invoked as a law of God the idea that there should be little or no
contact amongst "nations". In so doing, you have: A) contrived a "law"
altogether unsupported by any orthodox theology and which contradicts the plain
message of New Testament Scripture, B) in the contrivance of this "law",
restricted the definition of "nations" to "races", completely disregarding the
fact that Scripture makes no such distinction, and C) "supported" the whole
construct with appeals to the construct itself. Plain response - the whole thing
is hogwash, constructed by hand to try and justify/rationalise your previously
held racial prejudices.
Mr. Wheeler has also adduced the idea that the US Constitution as originally
written only counted blacks as 3/5s person for purposes of representation. This
is simply untrue. Slaves were counted 3/5s, free blacks were counted as 1. He
has also stated that under the Consitution Indians and Asians weren't given the
right to vote. True enough, NEITHER WERE WHITES. The states controlled the
franchise. He has also said that ASians and Indians weren't granted citizenship
until the 20th century. Again, it simply wasn't true. Plain response - untruths,
however high you stack them, don't prove your point.
What you've constructed here is a 20 foot tower of Jello, and you're complaining
because I'be observed that it doesn't look any too firm. Sorry, but again, I
don't hold with circumlocution. If you want mindless assent to your notions,
you'll have to try the "white nationalist" ngs.
MB > It has become clear that you are not able to answer that post >and others
by myself and Dennis because you can't make a rational >argument for your
position, which is irrational.
DB <Laugh> I'll let the preceding items answer that.
MB >You are in practise and philosophy a multiculturalist.
DB Not in the least. I believe that Western Christian culture, and specifically
the Southern variant therefof, is superiour to othercultures, and is what makes
us unique as a people. Unlike you, I haven't confused the idea of "culture" with
"race" Culture transcends race, and it is ourculture that makes us a people, or
a "nation".
MB >The fact that you >are married to a Korean is of no concern to me, it is
your business.
DB Just so.
MB > But >your attempts to re-define the South so as to remake it into a
>multicultural ideal are not only historically false
DB ...but exist only in your mind. The South is the preserve of SOUTHERN
culture, and that's the way I intend to keep it. Racial separatism does nothing
towardthat end. I don't happen to believe that the best Southrons live in Idaho.
Do you?
MB >I don't expect you to answer forthrightly, since that hasn't been your
>method as of yet. My contention as that you logically can't be >forthright and
hold your position.
DB I've done nothing else, while you and Mr. Wheeler have danced all over the
landscape, from one sophistry and bogus argument to another. But that's OK, I'll
hold my ground. It's a Southern thing.
MB >Here you have clearly stated your underlying principle.
DB Indeed I have. And what precisely is your objection thereto? (And here I have
no real expectation of a forthright answer.) Is King supposed to be an evil
totem about whom no one is allowed to speak favourably? Sorry, I'm free from
such superstition. When he said that people should be judged by character rather
than colour, he was dead on the money. Or perhaps you prefer the white murderer
to the black saint. Hmmm?
MB >>(Mike from 1/10/98) Not whose argument, Dan? Lyndon Johnson's, MLK's, >the
NAACP's?
DB MLKs, sure. Johnson just wanted the votes, and King WAS the NAACP at the
time.
MB > What standard of behavior did LBJ and MLK uphold, Dan?
DB I doubt that they'd have been my bestfriends, but it that means I should
automatically gainsay whateverthey believed then I'd have to oppose the book of
Amos 'cause King quoted it, wouldn't I?
MB > How >do you judge someone's behaviour before you know them?
DB You don't, which is rather the point, isn't it?
MB >It is a little >late to discover that your neighbor is an axe murderer or
child molester >after he has moved into you neighborhood, isn't it?
DB If you would be so kind as to demonstrate how being black is equivalent to
being an ax murderer I'd appreciate it. Or should blacks be restricted in their
movements on the basis that they MIGHT be axe murderers?
MB > You have stated that >the Southern society involved more close personal
contact between whites >and blacks than up north.
DB That much should be self-evident.
MB > Why were the Southerners so opposed to >integration then? Shouldn't they
have known to judge by the behaviour, >not the skin color?
DB The LAW certainly should have judged by behaviour and not skin colour. I have
said so a goodly number of times, haven't I?
MB > Is it out of the realm of possibility that they were judging behaviour?
DB Think about what you're asking, and see if it makes any sense. No, scratch
that, I'll ask it myself - do you believe that all blacks should be presumed, a
priori, to behave badly? If so, then you may make your case for restricting
their behaviour as a group. If not, then you'd better judge them individually.
MB >If violation of the 10 Commandments is our standard, does the much higher
>rate of violation by blacks before "Civil Rights" and the dramatic >increase in
such since that time support the Southern view, or the >Integrationist one?
DB If the 10 commandments is the standard, I think you'd be hard pressed to
prove that whites do one whit better than blacks do in that regard.
MB > This fact is not denied by the liberals, it is just >blamed on all the
evils of the past, or the Battle Flag, or whatever. >Does the bible ever excuse
violation of the 10 Commandments on the basis >of how one is treated?
DB Nope, nor do I. I simply say that the law should only hold against you what
YOU have done, not what someone else with your name, your ancestry, or your
colour may have done.
MB >I invite you to return to that post and respond to my answers to your
>denials of the possibility of a Christian social order and other relevant
>items.
DB You may have a Christian social order when the majority of the citizenry are
Christians. But again, social orders don't get saved and don't go to Heaven;
people do.
Dan Bennett, Unreconstructed Southron
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#33. Mike Broadwell to Dan Bennett.
To Dan Bennett
Dan, You recently posted the following: (I'm skipping your earlier silly
comments)
DB Silliness? Let's recap what we've been saying here and let's see where the
silliness lies.
My position is that the law should be the law for everyone, without regard to
race or ethnicity. Your position is that there should be different laws for
people of different racial or ethnic backgrounds. More simply put, you want to
restrict the liberties of blacks and possibly members of other racial or ethnic
groups.
My position is based on the concept that the government has no right, and should
have no right, to play favourites. I reject the concept as unjust on its face.
MB First of all, these points were covered in the post of 1-10-98, which you
never attempted to answer. You are presenting a libertarian view of society,
which I showed was not Christian in principle, and not workable. It recognizes
no duty, only rights, and is not compatible with the Christian view of man as
corrupted by sin.
I also showed on 1-10-98 that the Southern system was a bottom up and not a top
down arrangement. It should be easy enough to see that this was the case, since
Southerners opposed integration every step along the way, i.e. they went AGAINST
the government which was pushing integration, busing, etc.
Classical libertarians hold that the so-called "Civil Rights" movement was an
assault on property rights, and an unjust imposition which violates the right of
private property and free association. People should have the right to contract
and associate with whomever they please. If they choose to do so on the grounds
of ethnicity or race or whatever, they are within their rights. Do you concur
with this position?
It is obvious that you either don't understand my points or are purposefully
trying to "Clintonize" them into oblivion. But you don't even seem to understand
your own points. Classical libertarians would not consider refusal to contract
or associate with someone a violation of his liberties.
Is this what you mean, or do believe that "non-discrimination" should be
enforced by the government?
DB Mr. Wheeler has asserted (and you have parroted) the idea that racial
separatism is the touchstone of the true Southerner, and that one who doesn't
believe in it is, in his terms, "reconstructed". The fact that such a definition
includes a good many Yankees and excludes a good many Southerners you've chosen
to dance around rather than address.
MB I can't speak for Mr. Wheeler, but I have merely recounted the historical
evidence and rationale behind the Southern attempts to maintain racial
separation. I have left the morality of this position open to debate, and have
tried to get you to face the record honestly. Belief that a "colorblind" society
is a morally superior one was not the mainstream Southern position regardless of
the fact that some Southerners may have believed it to be so. It was the goal of
the Jacobins and Abolitionists who pushed the North to attack us. It was the
very underpinning of their moral argument for war. Reconstruction was an attempt
by them to consolidate this view and impose it on the defeated South. It would
seem fair to call one who has adopted the principles advocated by the
Reconstructionists "reconstructed". This is without regard to the rightness or
wrongness of the principle itself.
As for it being the "touchstone of the true Southerner", that is your wording
and not mine. No single thing encompasses what it means to be Southern, and
everyone may not agree on every single aspect of what constitutes Southern. It
would seem to be a fairer statement to say that the Southerners believed that
racial integration would alter their society in an irrevocably harmful manner.
To say that they didn't (and don't) have the right to make that determination
for themselves requires some pretty heavy moral justification, doesn't it?
DB Mr. Wheeler has also defended the idea of de jure racial discrimination (he
claims not to know what discrimination means, but I find myself unable to find
another language upon which we can agree, so I'm restricted to English) based on
the contention that many or most Southerners have accepted it. My response to
that is that the by the same criterion we could declare that Bill Clinton is a
good president, since a goodly majority of Southerners appear to think so. (As a
matter of fact, we could have lots and lots of fun with the idea of truth
established by popular vote, but I'll simply leave that to the imagination.)
Plain response: I reject the appeal to popular opinion, it's too often wrong. I
reassert - government HAS NO RIGHT to play favourites.
MB Perhaps Mr. Wheeler was referring to "discrimination" as a pejorative term.
You are correct that majority opinion doesn't make something right or wrong
(i.e. does not alter the law of God). My earlier point was that your method of
obfuscation and distortion is a way to keep majority opinion on your side by
misrepresentation of the facts, rather that an honest attempt to arrive at the
truth.
Dan, you are the one who keeps confusing the morality of the issue with the
facts surrounding it. What the South did and whether it was right or wrong are
separate issues. One is a matter of historical record, while the other a matter
of theology. You won't honestly present the historical record because you
disapprove of the morality that underlay it. Yet you want to be considered true
to the historical South in spite of your moral opposition to its principles, and
are not honest enough to admit it.
DB You have also invoked as a law of God the idea that there should be little or
no contact amongst "nations". In so doing, you have: A) contrived a "law"
altogether unsupported by any orthodox theology and which contradicts the plain
message of New Testament Scripture, B) in the contrivance of this "law",
restricted the definition of "nations" to "races", completely disregarding the
fact that Scripture makes no such distinction, and C) "supported" the whole
construct with appeals to the construct itself. Plain response - the whole thing
is hogwash, constructed by hand to try and justify/rationalise your previously
held racial prejudices.
MB I think you are directing this to Mr. Wheeler, because he has presented the
theological case. In any case, you seem to have twisted his points all out of
shape. They must be hard for you to swallow, or you must be pretty stupid.
Dennis has been making the case that nations should be self-governing. By
nations, he is using the New Testament meaning of "ethnos" or ethnic group, of
which language and blood ties form the core. Obviously, neither language or
blood ties is an exclusive category, or Dennis would not be distinguishing a
Southern "people" from the Northern "people" who share both things in large
degree.
It would seem that a common sense argument can be made for his position. An
"ethnos" or "people" is a large, extended family, and family ties are stronger
than logical constructs, such as the "social contract" theory which underlies
libertarianism and all other forms of liberalism. "Blood is thicker than water"
is an old saying. Blacks may not like the Battle Flag, and Southerners may not
like the MLK holiday. Why should either group be made to suppress its desires
and expressions of group identity? Wouldn't it be more sensible to let each
group have its own society and government? Why is this idea such anathema to you
Dan?
DB What you've constructed here is a 20 foot tower of Jello, and you're
complaining because I'be observed that it doesn't look any too firm. Sorry, but
again, I don't hold with circumlocution. If you want mindless assent to your
notions, you'll have to try the "white nationalist" ngs.
MB Dennis may have made some technical mistakes in his post, but the general
facts of his presentation hold true. Even Yankees know that much history. You
have a lot of nerve to accuse anyone of circumlocution. Just as Bill Clinton
didn't "inhale", so you live on the edge of technicality and twisted logic. Dan,
if "culture" and "nation" are synonymous, then why employ two different words.
The root of the word "nation" is the same as that for "natal", i.e. related to
birth. A "nation" consists of people related by birth. "Culture" comes from the
root "cult" which has to do with religion and ceremonial rites. Peoples or
nations develop unique "cultures" because of genetic differences as well as
religious or ceremonial ones. Witness Europe, which had the same religion and
many different peoples and cultures.
Once again you have confused the historical facts with morality. Dictionaries
are historical in that they present the common usage of terms. Your claim that
racial separatism does nothing to preserve Southern culture is not made from
historical or empirical grounds but moral ones. You have to twist the words of
others as well as the dictionary to make things fit your moral perspective.
If MLK is to be judged by the content of his character, then he is a flaming
failure in every regard. He makes Clinton look like an Eagle Scout. But once
again you have twisted the arguments beyond all recognition.
Are you saying that Southerners found dark skin aesthetically displeasing, and
therefore set up a rigorous system to keep from having dark-skinned folks enter
into their most important relationships? That they contrived to harm and
suppress them in every conceivable manner merely because of an aesthetic dislike
for dark colored skin? If this is the case, then it would seem that Southerners
were very wicked people, and it is no wonder that you have tried to distance
yourself from such a wicked group by redefining Southern history, marrying a
person of another race, etc., etc., This is the logic of your argument.
As for the LAW you keep harping about, it did treat people equally. Whites were
hanged for murdering blacks, as well as the converse. Mistreatment of slaves was
punishable, and slaves could sue for redress of grievances.
Most of the racial policies were social conventions, some of which were put into
laws. They reflected the attitudes of the people, and were not imposed by some
Caesar against the wishes of those people.
DB If the 10 commandments is the standard, I think you'd be hard pressed to
prove that whites do one whit better than blacks do in that regard.
MB Dan, this has to be the silliest response you've made yet. For our purposes,
let us look at Commandments 6 through 10, since adherence can be more easily
measured.
VI. THOU SHALT NOT KILL
According to the USA Today, blacks commit half of all the murders in the US.
Since they are only 12 % of the population, and whites around 70%, that means
that they are committing murder at 6 times the rate of whites or more.
VII. THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY
Blacks are 50 times more likely than whites to have syphilis (as of 1990). Over
2/3 of Black births are out of wedlock, as opposed to 22% for whites (the rate
for Blacks at the beginning of Civil Rights, by the way.)
VIII. THOU SHALT NOT STEAL
The ratios for theft are around that for murder. Just note the barred windows in
Black neighborhoods.
IX. THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS
Granted, this is a little hard to quantify, but just look at the most revered
Black, Martin Luther King, with his plagiarism, false accounts of history, and
so on.
X. THOU SHALT NOT COVET
9 out of 10 Blacks vote Democratic, the party of covetousness and envy. The
majority cry out for affirmative action, and their per capita welfare enrollment
is astronomical.
Until you can follow simple arguments about history and word definitions we'll
forego theological debate.
Mike Broadwell
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back to Part 5
Back to Bennett vs. Wheeler
Index
|
