Battle Lines

By Eddie Howell

As if the sickening movement to remove all traces of the Confederacy weren't already bad enough, now, “activists” want to change the name of USC's mascot, the horse Traveler, because its name is similar to that of Robert E. Lee's horse Traveller.

General Robert E. Lee on his horse Traveller

Of course, if its name is Traveler, that must mean it's an evil horse of hate and racism. Also, the horse's color happens to be white. This probably makes it doubly evil. Maybe it should be replaced by a colorful donkey to represent the Democrat Party. This whole business is now beyond idiotic. Again, another thing showing that colleges are becoming the stupidest places in America.

This anti-history movement is not only anti-Confederate, it is anti-American, and ultimately anti-human. Let's erase the parts of history we don't like. Well, I'm not fond of the growth of criminal gangs during Prohibition. Should I therefore advocate removal of all traces of Al Capone? He wasn't really a very nice guy. I'm not a fan of Woodrow Wilson. Can we expunge him from our history? He re-segregated the military and was a bully, a dictator, and an unapologetic racist. Oh, but wait, he was a Democrat. Of course it was Democrats who started and supported the KKK and opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. But that was OK, because they were Democrats.

George Orwell's 1984 oppressor, Big Brother, believed that whoever controls the past controls the future, and whoever controls the present controls the past. Revising history is a popular tool of dictators.

A major point I'm trying to make is that taking down Confederate monuments will do nothing to stop racism, and could very well provoke more. It's an insult to the people of the South whose ancestors fought for a cause they believed in, which encompassed more than slavery. Very few, a very tiny minority, today, believe that slavery was OK or that white supremacy is a good thing. The slavery issue was settled at great cost and so should no longer be an issue. The fact that it existed should not be hidden, however. The Orwellian movement to remove Confederate reminders, whether monuments or things named after Confederate figures smacks of the Soviets' actions to remove disliked persons from the historical record, as though they never existed. It is not substantially different from Big Brother's memory hole in 1984.

The whole business is a threat to our constitutional rights of free speech and free expression, and is sometimes a provocation to violence. As reprehensible as the neo-Nazis and KKK are, they are a very tiny minority in America. Whatever threat they might represent can readily be countered by law enforcement. But the left isn't satisfied unless they can demean America and stir up needless controversy. The masked antifa thugs are exactly that – thugs – like Mussolini's black shirts or Hitler's brown shirts. They themselves are about as fascist as you can get. Their purpose is to bully and harass and beat, and possibly murder people and destroy property in the name of – what? They are definitely no better than any of their opponents. Any attempt to intellectually defend or justify what they do is actually laughable.

Of course, race hustlers like Black Lives Matter and Al Sharpton want to shake down anyone they can over false accusations and threats. And many legitimate conservative organizations are labeled by the despicable Southern Poverty Law Center as “hate groups,” while few organizations on their list are more hateful than they.

The globalists pulling the strings of this sorry business may find that America is not Europe. We are serious about freedom and constitutional rights. We care about our heritage. We regret slavery. We're against racism and white (or any other racial) supremacy. We don't hate Jews or any other minority. We don't, as a people, condone violence in the streets. But Americans have been and are willing to fight against tyranny, against globalism, and against socialism – and actual fascism (a form of socialism). Americans have generally been quiet about these abuses, but we won't be pushed too far. The election of Donald Trump and the rejection of Hillary Clinton should demonstrate that there is a limit to how much we will take from the adversaries of freedom or the corrupt Swamp.

Also, no one should rejoice over Mr. Trump's troubles. He will be fine. His voters still support him, and his opponents will lose support among the American people because of their hysterical hatred of the president and their disdain for his supporters, and America in general.