On the Neo-Confederacy

 The Neo-confederacy rises again today, for we never swept it entirely away. The movement originates in states rights, from anti-federalists viewpoints, from groups which insisted we do not need a bill of rights, for the states can decide that with no federal interference. They argue for a weaker union, so that they may organize their own society however they wish. In practicalities, what this tends to mean is fewer rights, not more, and many shut, then welded shut again, doors. The argument for democracy was that the bigger the better, so that no special interest may control the entire country. As the community grows smaller, power becomes more entrenched. Therefore, it is in the interests of elite power to shrink the dreams, the mind, the economy, the belief, and the confidence of their population so as to better control and direct them.  Yet mankind is a naturally unruly beast, who in her youth has questions and challenges, wonders about how things are and how they must be, is always trying to become more free. This is what brave and intelligent people do, but when they are afraid they shrink their will because they do not want any part of their world to be killed. So what did the confederacy do, those old slave owners do? The rich and noble, the plantation-born, the ones who could afford an education and vacations. Those people who could leave their work for months on end to go and play politics in Richmond or D.C., and had labor for which they did not pay, and to whom they never had to say please or treat politely? They told the poor white man that they were protecting them. They told the poor white man that he did not need an education, he did not need an industry, he did not need opportunities, he did not need to ask questions or interfere in governing. For hundreds of years the wealth disparity in the south was greater than that in the north. The poor were poorer, the rich were richer, I wonder why that was? Slavery, free labor whose profitable work flowed into the hands of very few, meant that the southern economy grew incredibly slowly. Bit by bit, year by year, decade by decade, as they overgrew cotton and destroyed the land, there was in the south no new strength of supply and demand. They became stuck in a rut, for the very institution upon which their entire economic system depended was also a curse, a vein of poison which destroyed the possibility of renewal and rebirth. 

The only hope for improving general quality of life at a pace which would be acceptable to anyone else living in any other part of the country, was to dismantle slavery and actually start growing the economy. Alas, the foul institution was entrenched, the possibilities inherent in the new economy were unknown and unclear, therefore they were viewed with fear. The slave-owners helped this along, the political powers sang the same old song: Stay with us if you want to be safe. Be quiet, don’t make any waves. You are a mob, you are a horse, and we are the whip. Those foreigners, those other states, they say they want to help you but they lie, because actually your entire way of life they despise. They are trying to corrupt your children, they are trying to assault your family, they are trying to destroy your job, they are trying to steal your wealth, they want to destroy your health, and will work to replace your voice with that of someone else. The north is against slavery not for moral or practical reasons, but instead to destroy your economy and degrade your morality. States rights, that’s what we’re for, the American institution. We’ve had slavery since the beginning, and what the federal government, controlled by those nasty liberals, wants to do, is steal your stuff, and force you to give your slaves up. Never mind the seventy-five percent of southern whites who own no slaves and whose jobs compete with free slave labor: This is about culture, your culture, with the rich plantation owners as your invisible benevolent dictators. I know the north hasn’t made slavery illegal yet, but I promise you, they’re going to, so when the South starts the civil war, we’re only ‘defending ourselves’. I know that hundreds of thousands of poor whites will die in order to ensure I remain rich and in charge, but that is a price I am willing to pay, because our culture and history says that is the way that things should be, in this land where all you folk think you are free. 

A hundred years later, as Martin Luthor marches down the street, they tell the same story: Segregation is how things are meant to be. Never mind that we have continued to strangle our economy, splitting it up into pieces which don't mix. The laws we make, like poll taxes, property requirements, and literacy tests, which are to protect the vote, are obviously for your own good. You wouldn't want unqualified folk having a say in government, would you?  And black folk are obviously unqualified: Look, they can’t even pay a poll tax or read a book. They are uneducated and poor. I mean, there’s a bunch of poor and educated white folk too who also can’t vote because of that, but really, did they matter anyway? We apply the laws equally to everybody, and that is obviously inherently fair. If your eyes, or the eyes of the supreme court see something wrong in that idea, then you can always vote to change it. If, of course, you could vote.  

Today, it's not like your vote matters anyway. You’re going to vote on party lines, so the elites are going to make up your mind for you. Money talks, crap walks, as it always has, and as it was meant to be. Listen to the news, listen to what we tell you, because you don't have to do your own research. We make it easy, we’re trying to help you, because all those other people you’ve never met are trying to take away your guns, your jobs, your livelihood, they are trying to corrupt your children, who are obviously weak and unprepared for this evil world. They aren't like you. The youth of today are weak and easily distracted, easily influenced, by those foreign and liberal ideas about gender, healthcare, immigration reform, voting rights, foreign adventurism, anti-capitalism, DEI. After all, your children don't have the capability to make up their own minds. They don't have the moral strength to read a book and reject it because they think its wrong. You have to look after them, you have to protect them from ideas. The way things have been is the way things are always supposed to be. Look at the ruling on abortion: The states get to decide for themselves if it is illegal or not. All we’re doing is going back. You don't need a federal bill of rights, because the states look after their own. The anti-abortion states do exactly what happened with slavery: Make federal law by judicial decree, saying choices for me, but not for thee; and I choose no. In fact, I’ll make the choice for my children, and your children, because they don’t have the capability of doing so wisely. The same for spending money on scientific studies which question things that should not be questioned: Like gender, gun control, the environment, or gerrymandering. It’s not about increasing choices: It’s about silencing voices, and deciding which fantasy books count as real. 

The civil war was about slavery, yeah, but more than anything it was about property, economics, and power. Green jobs aren’t good because they threaten the establishment of oil. Universal healthcare isn’t good because people take advantage of it. Welfare is bad because it rewards those who don’t work for a living, unless, of course, they’re rich enough that they don’t need to, in which case they deserve it because they must have worked hard to achieve it, right? We reduce taxes on the ultra-rich and corporations so that they create jobs and keep the economy moving, paying their workers who can then themselves pay a higher percentage of tax on wages and not capital gains, so that we can give money to corporations who then make more jobs which we then tax at the regular rate or at point of sale, giving the government more money, which of course we don't spend on oversight because I promise you, we’re the good sort of government folk, nothing like those other incompetent people who have actually been running the country for the last thirty years. Nevermind that we’ve held on to fifty percent of the national votes and a dozen state governorships. I mean, if we were actually in charge of your state, your community, your society, and your news, then life around here would most definitely improve. 

So yeah, it’s the neo-confederacy. The economy sucks? It’s someone else's fault. Look, the educated and the rich (The rich in other states mind you), want to control you and destroy your culture. Educating the blacks, the indians, the poor, the disenfranchised, the factory workers, the coal miners, the children, well, anyone really, about alternative lifestyles, philosophical questions, economic studies, historical disagreements, strange religions, tough choices, evaluating logical fallacies, discriminating between fake and real news, challenging authority, well, all of that is just asking for trouble. Obviously you are too dumb to handle it, and I'm going to scream and whine louder and louder until you get it. The way things have been is the way things are always meant to be. We don't need to change anything or question deeply held beliefs. We don’t need choices, temptations, or studies. Shut up. Listen to the news we own. Do what we say, hate whom we tell you to hate, and be afraid, because ‘they’ are threatening and attacking ‘us’. They might say it's about freedom, economic opportunity, healthcare, mental issues, school shootings, morals and saving the world, but really, actually, those liberals are just the devil in disguise. They’re stupid and full of lies. I mean, you don't even need to try and understand their logic or evaluate their so-called proof, because it's all made up and fake. 

The confederacy of the antebellum south had exactly the same story: The federal government, who totally ignores the fifty percent of congress we represent, and is actually controlled by a small subset of faceless people who want to destroy your culture and take all your stuff, is going to - I mean, they haven't yet, but they’re definitely going to, you can see where this is headed - do something terrible to you. They’re going to raise taxes and spend it incompetently. They’re going to entangle you in foreign wars. They’re going to let your kids have choices, which you know the children are not prepared to make. They’re going to listen to the voices of people who don’t have power, and because they aren't already rich, obviously don’t deserve it anyway. They want to give you education and healthcare, when you need to work for that, or else you couldn’t possibly appreciate or use it properly. And obviously we don't need public transportation or government regulation. I mean, look around you, things are just fine the way they are. Why would you ever want that to change? If you think things have gotten worse, well, then look at who’s in charge: We might control or have only forty-five percent of your house, your senate, your governorships, your factories, your police, your courthouses, your history books, but really it's only been a few dozen years. If things keep getting worse, if your life isn’t as good or as hopeful as that of your parents and grandparents, then obviously we aren’t in charge, because if we were then everything would be better. It's not like we actually make the laws, or determine how government money is spent. After all, we’re just the right-wing states, and look, haven’t they all for the last thirty years been doing great?