Sunday, August 03, 2008

The Southern Cross's Meaning to a Southerner.


March, 2008
“Why the Confederate Battle Flag Will Never Be Hauled Down in Dixie!”
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When you ask me, as a Southerner, to give up the Confederate Battle Flag… do you have any idea what you are asking me… and… why what you are asking is impossible and is not going to happen? I don’t think you do.

Have you ever wondered why that flag never seems to go away? Why that flag appears all over the world, even in Africa, when freedom movements are born? Where once it stood for the fight of the Southern states for freedom and independence, it has become a universal ensign of the fight for freedom! Did you see the Confederate Battle Flag when the Berlin wall came down? Did you see the Confederate Battle Flag being waved proudly in the streets of Belgrade when Milosevic was arrested and went to trial? Did you see the Confederate Battle Flag in the Sudan? Yes, even among the black people of the Sudan the Confederate Battle Flag was their choice of an emblem for their freedom movement.

We Southerners cannot give up that flag. For in doing so, we recognize we would be rejecting our families. We would be denying who we, as a people, are. Make no mistake about it; the Southern people are a different people from those who settled the northern part of this great nation. We are, for the most part, of Celtic ancestry. We do not accept defeat. If you ever wonder why the South didn’t just lie down and roll over after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, there’s your answer.

There are those in the South who have not yet given up on the idea of Southern Independence. There is a feeling that eventually the US will crumble, and collapse, from the accumulated weight of it’s ever growing federal government. Some even look forward to that day as the day when the Southern states will again seek their independence.

We’ve all seen the bumper stickers with the caricature of an old Confederate soldier, obviously disgruntled, and the expression: “Forget, Hell!” written across the sticker. There is more truth in those pop culture bumper stickers than most of us, north AND south, are comfortable with. There is an undercurrent of discomfiture running through the American bloodstream.

March 8th, 2008 was Confederate Flag day in North Carolina. On that day the First National Flag of the Confederacy was raised above the State Capitol Building, in Raleigh, and remained there, all day, as festivities were enjoyed around the city. Confederate reenactors (Re-activated Confederate soldiers, as we refer to them … just for the day, of course!) were all over. There were speeches, and many events in remembrance of that period in our history. Mr. Thomas Moore was the keynote speaker for this year’s event. The title of his speech was: “The Unconquered Banner”. We recommend you read his speech. You’ll find it at:

http://www.ncscv.net/files/theunconqueredbanner.pdf

I hope you have read it. If you have, what I have said above will make more sense to you… especially if you do not enjoy the happy coincidence of being born a “Southerner”.

No, the St. Andrew’s Cross, the Confederate Battle Flag, will never disappear. Wherever men seek freedom, wherever men value honor, and loyalty, and love of God, family, and country, that flag will fly. For it is an undying symbol of all those things… and more. It stands for the bravery of men who will willingly lay down their lives for the idea that men are born with the unalienable right of freedom, no matter the color of their skin, no matter their station in life, no matter the despotic forces arrayed against them. And it stands for the proud heritage of a singular people who first marched onto a battlefield beneath its billowing folds to fight and die, as their fathers and grandfathers before them, for Independence.

It occurred to me a while ago that as the federal government of this land continues to clench its mailed fist around the few remaining freedoms we Americans have left, that Confederate Battle Flag will be seen flying from doorpost after doorpost from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border and from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast as Americans recognize what is happening in this country and decide to show their support for a return to the freedom granted them, as Americans, under the original constitution of the United States of America.

Deo Vindici!


Longstreet

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