Examining Levin's Claims part 1

In chapter five of his book, "Searching For Black Confederates", Kevin Levin cites a supposed memo by then-Sons of Confederate Veterans commander Dean Boggs. Levin characterizes the remarks by Boggs as the genesis of the "black Confederate myth" that turned "camp slaves" into soldiers. In that memo is referenced a book to be written by Francis Springer, and stories from SCV members about the actions of black men supporting the Confederate States are solicited. I decided to see if any such book was ever written. In fact there was a book published thirteen years after Boggs supposedly solicited stories from the membership, but it's not exactly a smoking gun.

The book that Springer wrote is entitled "War for What?", and it was published in 1990. It is 221 pages and 30 chapters. It details the causes of the Civil War, gives a short history of the war itself, and briefly discusses Reconstruction. Black Southerners who supported the South are given one chapter out of thirty and a few paragraphs in other chapters. It is most definitely not a black Confederate manifesto.

Here are some of the quotes from Francis Springer's book that do pertain to "black Confederates". The claims here do not line up with the narrative Levin says the SCV created and pushed, particularly the first quote from page 104:

There were no Negro troops authorized by the Confederate government until almost the last few days of the war, and only one company found its way into combat. - p 104​
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General Pat Cleburne in 1864, urged the arming of the slaves, but it is hard to see how it could have been done effectively. The problem was logistics. Lee, with a line so thin that he couldn't spare men for a reserve, could not feed the men he had. Such food as there was couldn't reach the front because transportation had broken down. Still, some aver that armed slaves could have staved off the fall of Atlanta, and that peace negotiations then in progress might have ended favorably to the South. Maybe so. No one knows. - p 105​
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... the experiment of training Negro soldiers was tried in the South in March 1865. In the only documented occasion of Negro soldiers as such in combat, a company from Richmond hospitals "behaved in an extraordinary suitable manner" in defending the city a couple of weeks before the break through that forced the evacuation of Richmond. Many individual Negroes did serve as soldiers and were active in combat. Some were under fire while acting in other capacities. Some were in the Confederate Navy. Many Negro "body servants" accompanied their masters to the front, foraged for them, cooked, patched their uniforms, nursed them when sick or wounded, and buried them when they died. It was not the same thing as serving in units composed entirely of Negroes where all the qualities that make up unit efficiency could be tested, but it proved the individual qualities of those who went.... - pp 105-106​
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What was the attitude of Southern Negroes? Were they united in purpose, and what was their purpose? Most comments in print assume that all of them were waiting with hands uplifted in piteous plea for the Yankees who had sold them into their horrible conditions to come back and take them away from customers who had bought them. It will be no news to those who have studied the facts that this is nonsense, and certainly no news to anyone that all Negroes did not think, act and look alike. They were individuals, had their own class system and their lives were affected by many influences, especially by the attitudes of people white and black around them. - p 87​

 

All Southern Negroes were not hoeing tobacco or picking cotton. Some were overseers, many were skilled craftsmen. Many were personal servants in families where a division of sympathies existed and would hear both sides of current political issues. Some were city dwellers, some free farmers, some (perhaps as many as 3,000 or more) were slaveholders. It is only natural that their attitudes would vary, but the South was the only home that most Negroes knew... - p 88​

Don't ask, Don't Tell repealed, and thoughts on why disapproval of homosexuality is not bigotry

I found this on a message board at one point and copied it to keep for future reading, because it makes good sense. People use the term "bigot" like a club to attack anyone who disagrees with them, but that usage isn't always correct. Read on...

Having a moral objection to a particular kind of action doesn't make someone a bigot. The term "bigot" is constantly used as a weapon with which to attack anyone and everyone who objects to the "gay rights" movement on moral grounds. But this terminology is misplaced and misleading.
Let's say that my next-door neighbor and his wife attend a monthly "swinging"/"wife-swapping" party. Let's also presuppose that both my neighbor and his wife truly want to be involved in these parties, and both of them feel strongly that this kind of action is enjoyable and emotionally fulfilling, and even good for their marriage.

Now let's say that I raise objections to my neighbor's action on moral grounds, because I am convinced (both for theological and philosophical reasons, not out of an unreasoning "homophobia") that marriage vows can only be truly honored, and love can only grow and flourish, if the relationship is such that neither the husband or wife seeks intimacy outside the marriage.

Certainly I am taking a stance against my neighbor's action, as well as the actions of his wife and everyone else involved in the swinging/wife-swapping parties they attend. But this does not in any way imply that I hate my neighbor, or that I am trying to deny his full human dignity. I am objecting to the activity that he and his wife engage in at the swinging parties, not because of hate or fear but because of a conviction that what they are doing is harmful to their marriage and to each of them personally.

The same is true if I say that I object to activity in which two men or two women touch each other in such a way as to arouse and stimulate each other. Making this claim does not make me a bigot, nor does it in any way mean that I hate those who engage in such activity, or that I wish anyone harm, either physically or in any other way.

Racism and objection to the "gay rights" movement are constantly compared as though they were fundamentally the same ("homophobia" is lumped together with racism and anti-Semitism); even the phrase "gay rights" implies this, because it invites comparison to the Civil Rights movement of the 60s.

But in truth this is a false comparison, a comparison made "obvious" by repetition rather than by true similarity. Racism means that I fail to recognize the full human dignity of another person because of his or her ethnicity or race; I view this person as somehow less than human, and perhaps even as something worthless that can be abused or destroyed with impunity. It was racism that motivated the Nazi genocide of the Jewish people during the 30s and 40s, and racism that motivates white supremacist groups such as the KKK.

But voicing a moral objection to some kind of action, provided that is done in a non-violent way and respectful way, is neither racism nor bigotry. One is not a bigot for objecting to "gay" or "lesbian" activity any more than one is a bigot for objecting to swinging/wife-swapping, or for objecting to polygamy (and here I mean polygamy in which everyone is of legal age and no woman has been forced to marry against her will). I object to all these kinds of action, not because I bear animosity towards those who are involved in these actions but because I believe that these kinds of actions are contrary to the good of the persons involved.

I'm anything but a perfect person; I've done many things in my life that are neither good nor loving. But making a statement about the moral wrong of some kind of action doesn't presuppose that the person making the statement is morally perfect; understanding why something is right isn't the same as actually doing the right thing (although ultimately the two must go together if the person's actions are to be consistent with his or her thoughts and words).

It's important to notice that everything I've said here is true regardless of whether a person's attraction to others of the same sex is (a) genetically/biologically determined, (b) the result of psychological factors stemming from one's life history, or (c) some combination thereof. The point is that what I'm denying is not the person's human dignity, but the moral goodness of his or her actions. Having a genetic predisposition for a certain kind of action does not necessarily mean that said action is morally legitimate. One could make the argument that all humans have a genetic inclination towards having sex with multiple others rather than just one other (insofar as this allows for a greater probability of successfully passing on one's genes), but that doesn't mean that being faithful to one's husband or wife is contrary to nature or that swinging/wife-swapping is morally right.

The point of my post is simply to indicate that it's unjust to throw around the term "bigot" in reference to any and everyone who objects to the "gay rights" movement and the claims that it makes about sexual morality and about sexual difference. Raising moral objections is not hatred, and using the term "bigot" prejudices the issue by painting all who raise objections as angry, dangerous people who want to inflict harm, either physically or psychologically. The best way to silence those who disagree with you is by depicting them as ignorant, dangerous wackos (which is easy to do when you can draw attention to fringe groups like the people who demonstrate at military funerals).

The Lame Duck Congress

Is it just me, or should a Congress that the voters just fired even be in session, passing bills? What legitimacy can they possibly have?

Time to move the swearing in of the new Congress to mid-November? It's not the 1700's any more, and it doesn't take a few months for the new reps to get to Washington. We don't actually need two months for the old Congress to make mischief.

The 2010 Midterm Election in Perspective

From Peter Wehner of Commentarymagazine.com:

In shifting through the fine analysis that emerged in the aftermath of last week’s midterm elections, a few data points are particularly noteworthy:

» Republicans picked up more House seats than in any election since 1938. Republicans now control the most House seats, and Democrats now have the smallest number of House seats, since 1946.

» Fifty incumbent Democratic congressmen were defeated, while only two incumbent House Republicans lost.

» Independents comprised 28 percent of the electorate and supported Republican congressional candidates by a margin of 56 to 38 percent. That represents a 36-point turnaround from the last midterm election, in 2006, when independents supported Democratic congressional candidates by 57 to 39 percent. In addition, independents trust Republicans to do a better job than Democrats by a margin of 23 points on jobs and employment, 23 points on the economy, 27 points on government spending, and 31 points on taxes.

» Voters support repealing/replacing ObamaCare by 51 to 42 percent. Democrats oppose repeal by 80 to 16 percent — but both independents (by 57 to 31 percent) and Republicans (by 87 to 7 percent) want to repeal and replace it.

» Sixty-five percent of voters said that the stimulus bill either hurt the economy or did no good — and those voters overwhelmingly favored the GOP.

» Fifty-four percent of those voting said they were dissatisfied with the performance of Barack Obama — and they broke 85-11 for the Republicans.» Republicans have captured the seats in at least 57 of the 83 Democratic-held districts in which Obama won less than 55 percent of the vote.

» Democrats hold a majority of the congressional delegation in only three states — Iowa, New Mexico, and Vermont — that don’t directly touch an ocean. Republicans similarly routed Democrats in gubernatorial races across the Midwest and the border states, from Ohio and Tennessee to Wisconsin and Iowa.

» Republicans picked up 680 seats in state legislatures, the most in the modern era. In the 1994 GOP wave, Republicans picked up 472 seats. The previous record was in the post-Watergate election of 1974, when Democrats picked up 628 seats. The GOP gained majorities in at least 19 state house chambers. They now have unified control — meaning both chambers — of 26 state legislatures. And across the country, Republicans now control 55 chambers, Democrats have 38, and two are tied. (The Nebraska legislature is unicameral.)

» Republicans have not enjoyed this much power in state capitals since the 1920s.

» Voters who identified as ideologically conservative accounted for 41 percent of the turnout, an increase from the 34 percent figure in 2008 and the highest level recorded for any election since 1976.

This was no ordinary midterm loss by the party in power, predicated on a bad economy. Sounds like a repudiation of Barack Obama and the Democrats to me.

review - Justice Society of America #44

I found the art to be pretty good, but the writing wasn't what I had hoped for. I feel like I'm reading a book from the worst days of the 90s. Dark, brutal and bloody are not words I'd normally use to describe the adventures of the Justice Society, but that's what we got here. Which is not to say that we haven't seen violence in the book before, particularly in "The Next Age" opening arc, but this issue felt far more brutal to me. There was no charm and humor to counter-balance the darker elements of the storyline.

Some super-powered terrorist is being held in a CIA secret prison in Afghanistan. He escapes and slaughters everyone guarding him. He heads to America and attacks a city, so the Justice Society heads out to stop him. This nameless, motiveless, unknown plot device of a villain proceeds to trash the group with ease, bloodying everyone up and breaking Alan Scott's neck. In the end, after hours of fighting in which a good chunk of the city is destroyed, Lightning stops him by seriously electrocuting the guy, while Dr. Fate contains him.

Aside from the fact that Alan Scott/Green Lantern was declared the most powerful man on Earth just two issues ago, and here he's taken out in five seconds flat, didn't we just see a team member seriously wounded and near death in the last storyline? And Alan Scott himself has already been nearly killed back during the Johnny Sorrow storyline early in the run of the JSA title, making this feel like a retread idea.

A few more nitpicky points...

- Does it seem out of character that the polite, doesn't drink, smoke or cuss Jay Garrick flies into a rage and calls the villain a "bastard"? Sure he's shocked at what happened to Alan Scott, but that over the top rage just doesn't seem like the same Jay Garrick I've been reading for years. And this isn't the first time a team member's been mortally wounded. Heck, Alan got killed in the last story arc, and Jay didn't act like this.

- How exactly can Jay be drafted as mayor, without his consent, for a city he doesn't even live in? And in a state he's not a resident of? Monument Point is "outside of Washington DC", but according to JSA #15, Keystone City is in Ohio.

To summarize, it feels like several of the characters are out of character, most notably Jay Garrick. And Alan Scott goes from most powerful man on Earth to "taken out in five seconds to show how powerful the bad guy is". It's a rough beginning, and I hope things turn around for the better pretty fast.

2010 Midterm Elections

Well, that was fairly impressive.

I've been to three tea party gatherings, spurred on by concern about the direction that President Obama has been taking the country. I think the level of spending has been frighteningly high, and the health care law not only too expensive, but sold dishonestly and passed in the ugliest way possible, after we all said "No".

So now the American people have said no, very loudly and very clearly, by handing the still disliked Republican Party their biggest wins since the 1940s. If we borrow Obama's car analogy that he's been fond of using for the past few months, the Democrats may have been in the driver's seat, but the people have put their foot down and slammed on the brakes.

Hallelujah. Gridlock would be vastly preferable to what's been going on for the past two years. I hope, I hope... I hope we actually get our tax rates extended where they are, that spending can be cut, and that healthcare is chipped away at until we can (hopefully) get a new president in 2012 and repeal the thing outright.

Tuesday was a great night. Awesome.

"But I didn't choose to be gay!"

I often hear this from apologists for the gay lifestyle. "You tell me when you chose to be straight. I certainly never chose to be gay."

Really? So that first homosexual relationship or lesbian relationship just happened? It snuck up on you and suddenly you found yourself involved with someone of the same gender through no fault of your own?

At some point, the choice was made to act on those feelings or impulses. THAT's when the choice was made to be homosexual or not. Feelings in and of themselves don't determine who and what we are. I might feel the urge to run naked through a crowded football stadium, but that doesn't make me a streaker.

At some point, a choice is made. Don't pretend that it isn't.