Thursday, March 28, 2024
Miles from the Mainstream
D. R. ZUKERMAN, proprietor

Advice to President Trump from
Winston Churchill, just 80 years ago

August 5, 2020 --

LPR heard John Batchelor on his nightly radio program (WABC in New York City) use the term "the war between the states," referring to the American conflict from 1861 to 1865.  He was absolutely correct to do so. 

A "civil war" is a war between two contending forces for the same prize. 

The South, by seceding was not interesting in governing the United States; they wanted to remove themselves from the United States to establishing their own nation.  To refer to the conflict as the American Civil War is to assert that the South wanted to gain control of the federal government; this is not so.  This, in turn, suggests to LPR that it is incorrect to call members of the Confederacy "traitors."  They did not seek to overthrow the U.S. government, or turn it over to foreign control; they simply wanted to get away from U.S. hegemony.   

Of course, to call it a "Civil War," makes it easier to denounce Confederates as traitors.  This usage, however, is more in line with history being written by winners than an exercise  in precise terminology.  The conflict, mid 19th century, was a war between the states, for the purpose of creating a southern republic -- however abhorrent --- than in overthrowing the existing republic.  There are southerners who continue to call it The War Between the States."   LPR agrees with this usage, while denouncing, certainly, that peculiar institution of the South that that war put to an end.

By contrast, today, the insurgency from the radical left  (radical means to uproot) IS a form of civil war.  The antifa/Black Lives matter movement wants to gain control of the federal government, and establish dictatorial rule in place of limited government committed to freedom for all.   Indeed, today's insurrectionists ARE traitors to the form of government established by our Founders.  The sympathy for the radical left shown by Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, her opposition to President Trump's use of federal force to protect federal buildiongs in Portland Oregon, clearly puts into question their loyalty to the government established under our Constitution.

Voters on Election Day, November 3, therefore should keep in mind that a vote for Joe Biden is likelt a vote to overturn constitutional government in the United States.  The term "cancel culture," therefore, is a euphemism for "overthrow the Constitution of the United States."   This aim, welcomed by the left, including much of the mass media, is not, LBR believe, the goal of  a majority of our countrymen.