What is the subject of this post? A commenter asked me about this propaganda video.
Everyone has their “truth”.
How do we know when someone thinks they actually believe the truth? They are not afraid of a little competition in the marketplace of ideas.
How do we know when someone is a fascist? They try to paint their opposition as vile and demonic, shut them up, and erase them from the face of the earth.
We all need to study the history of the Civil War. To understand what we are going through today, we all need to try to put ourselves in the shoes of the people who lived before the war, during the war, and after the war. The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), an organization that the producers of this video obviously detests, are part of history, the history of the aftermath of the Civil War.
Look at monuments like the World War II Memorial (nps.gov) and the Monument to President Franklin Roosevelt (nps.gov). Just as most of the monuments to the veterans of the Civil War were built as those veterans were finally fading from our existence so were the great monuments to the veterans of World War II. And who built them? Those who remembered the graying warriors most fondly. The children of the heroes.
The United States is a free country. So, the North left the people of the South free to believe what the people of the South wanted to believe about the Civil War. The children of the Confederate soldiers appreciated the tremendous sacrifice of those who had battled, lost, and suffered defeat. They honored those who had buried innumerable dead, returned to homes that had often been burned down, and cared for families in want even though they themselves were tired and spent. Lost cause or not, right or wrong, the soldiers of the South had fought honorably and bravely, and they had paid an awful price.
The members of the UDC were the children of the generations who had fought the Civil War. Because they were human, they had some beliefs we now find detestable, but who knows what our descendants will think of us, especially nonsense like that idiotic t-shirt.
So do the producers of that video have a good point? Do we want people exercising political influence and stuffing propaganda into the public schools? No? Then maybe we ought to try school choice and let parents decide what their children ought to learn. Is that what the producers of that video want? Not likely, but Liberal Democrats do seem to lack any sense of irony.
What brought out a special chuckle was this line.
You can still get glimmers of this lost cause memory of the war from people who will always choose to see it through the personal.
Try debating a Democrat. Is there any issue they don’t personalize?
Then consider:
- What about all those statues and even portraits Democrats want torn down? Ninety percent of the men the statues honor were Democrats. Moreover, the statues were put up by Democrats, including that one they mention in the film that was located in Arlington Cemetery that Democrat President Woodrow Wilson honored.
- The Lost Cause curriculum was installed in schools run by states controlled by the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party was racist then, and it is still obsess with race.
The point here is simple and straightforward. If we don’t like what the Democratic Party was doing to our schools using propaganda promoted by the UDC, then we should not allow any political party to run our schools and propagandize our children.
Citizen Tom 
When I was a kid in school, we were in the middle of the 2nd world war and the posters against japs and germans were everywhere … but not just in the schools … at the local business establishments as well …
@John
Another reason the government should not run the schools.
It is kind of odd how well it works, but propagandists try to get at parents through their children. Also, with the propaganda in the schools I suspect it was it easier to get high school boys to sign up for the military after they graduated.
Yes, we had recruiter visits on career days and I joined the military twice and, when all is said and done, I am glad that I did. I could have ended up digging graves for a pittance with my dad who seemed to make a career of dead end jobs.
@John
It is funny. The military use to be a place to send young men to straighten them out. Now the requirements to get in are too tough for that, and all the new media wants to talk about is PTSD.
Anyway, I enjoyed my time in the military.
I did make a solemn promise to myself however… I promised that as long as I live, I will never say “Sir” respectfully to another man who puts his pants on the same way I do. In fact, I swore I would get into a position to be able to buy and sell such individuals if I chose to do so and I came damned close to achieving my goal.
@John
Money is good to have, if you know what to with it. Few do, I guess. I hope you are so blessed.
Anyway, I have wealth enough to stay retired and do as I wish, and that is a blessing for anyone who has grown gray and creaky. More money would just get me into trouble.
I grew up as a military brat. So, calling someone sir never struck me as a big deal. It was respect I paid to the position not the person. Now I call everyone sir or ma’am for a similar reason. Everyone is made in God’s image. So, I pay my respects to God by showing appropriate respect to those who bear his image. I don’t think God puts on pants the same way you or I do.😉
Besides I have a lousy memory for names.
I am sure God does many things the same way we do — after all, we are created in His Image, are we not? I too have wealth enough to stay retired and to do as I wish …I will not defer to other people’s superiority … I will respect them … but I will render unto God what is God’s and unto Caesar that which is His.
I grew up as a military brat. So, calling someone sir never struck me as a big deal.
I’d say it is actively helpful and creates a better environment.
We spent time raising kids in the military community, then moved outside of it for about four years (while my spouse was a reservist), then back on base.
The difference between the kids was striking. Military kids turned out a LOT better, overall, and saying “sir” and “ma’am”, speaking respectfully, and knowing how to look someone in the eye and properly shake their hand was not an insignificant part of it.
@Tom Thanks for taking the time. 🙂
@marmoewp
No problem. I have been meaning to write another post on the removal of the monuments.
What is weird is that the Democrats are removing the evidence of their own history as if Democrats had nothing to do with those monuments. And in a way that is true. The Civil War Democratic Party was plainly racist. Today Democratic Party is still obsessed with race, but they don’t promote outright racism. Instead, they use race as a horrific wedge issue.
The news media paints the Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln, as racist so that blacks will fearfully vote Democrat. At the same time, the Democrats running the inner city schools do such an awful job that most blacks cannot see through this nonsense. Hopefully, when Trump asks blacks what the Democratic Party has done for them it will occur to them to think about it. Perhaps blacks will begin to realize that Democrat politicians have done a lot more to them than for them.
I heard something the other day that rings so true: “If you send your children to be educated by Caesar, how can you expect them not to behave like Romans?”
@Lisa VL
That is an interesting way to put it, and it is not difficult to apply it to ourselves.
I like the comment above that says “If you send your children to be educated by Caesar, how can oyu expect them not to behave like Romans? This brings to mind a thought of my own, “If you home school your kids and you tend to be an idiot, how can you expect your kids not to be idiots as well?” Another way of putting that might be, “Home schooled kids can only rise to the highest level of intellectual proficiency of those who teach them.” God help the kids who are home schooled in today’s atmosphere of fake news, uneducated opinionism and outright prejudice. (Bias.)
@John
Are you familiar with self-study? It worked for Abraham Lincoln. If their teacher is the measure of how high a child can rise, then most of them are better off teaching themselves.
Lots of people get GEDs. That certification is respected. When homeschooling children, the primary role of a parent is getting that child to study. The issue is finding a decent curriculum and discipline, not being a genius parent.