[Ed. note] I published this originally in 2010, but because of the hardening of conservatism into confederatism and in light of recent discussions based upon the Crazy Right Wing politicking, I republish it with the now added subtitle to be more in tune with the kairotic moment.
Rand Paul has gotten a bit of notoriety lately for his statements regarding Civil Rights and discrimination, and his daddy Ron Paul has danced with White Supremacists and Christian Reconstructionists in the past. Texas governor Rick "Good Hair" Perry and others, including Georgian and Montanan lawmakers, have floated hints for secession, and Perry even has a book coming out (Fed Up!) in which he takes shots at the Federal government.
Follow me after the jump for another Southern "thinker" by the name of George Fitzhugh.
Anybody recognize this type of rhetoric?
All liberal books teach evolution either directly or indirectly. The indirect method is more dangerous than the direct one. It consists in inculcating doctrines at war with creationism without expressly assailing religion. Now, all authors who write about law, religion, politics, ethics, social or political economy, if not pro-creation men themselves, are continually inculcating doctrines accordant with their own social forms, and therefore at war with ours.
Sounds pretty familiar, huh? Those "liberals" and their "indoctrination" through "public schools" undermining this "Christian nation" by teaching evolution and science. Why, it's a culture war!
Except this is what George Fitzhugh actually wrote:
All Northern and European books teach abolition either directly or indirectly. The indirect method is more dangerous than the direct one. It consists in inculcating doctrines at war with slavery, without expressly assailing the institution. Now, all authors who write about law, religion, politics, ethics, social or political economy, if not pro-slavery men themselves, are continually inculcating doctrines accordant with their own social forms, and therefore at war with ours.
You see, George Fitzhugh wrote the above in 1857, in
Southern Thought, which was his attempt to articulate the pro-slavery argument. And, to be fair, Fitzhugh does assert that "Southern thought must justify the slavery principle, justify slavery as natural, normal, and necessitous. He who justifies mere negro slavery, and condemns other forms of slavery, does not think at all"; that, in fact, while these defenders "always cite the usages of antiquity and the commands of the Bible to prove that negro slavery is right . . . if these usages and commands prove anything, they prove that all kinds of slavery are right." Fitzhugh does not scruple to disqualify poor whites from his slavery: race slavery and class slavery is all the same to him "for the principle and the practices of mankind in the general have been to make inferior races and individuals slaves to their superiors." But it's clear that we see the beginnings of the type of thought that compels a Rand Paul, and
others, to claim the "right" of businesses to discriminate, or to claim the "right" of profiting at the expense of or by the exploitation of others.
To facilitate the ascension of Southern thought, or what I prefer to call Cracker logic, Fitzhugh admits that "The South has much work before her, for to justify her own social system, she will have to disprove and refute the whole social, ethical, political, and economical philosophy of the day."
Of course, a giant element of that social, ethical, political, and economical philosophy to which Fitzhugh alludes involves Enlightenment values and theories, including the "social contract" and natural, or "unalienable" rights. But once Southern schools start educating folks properly, they can rid themselves of those pesky "Northern and European" ideas and Southerners can write some books. Continuing where he left off before, Fitzhugh's full thought states
Now, all authors who write about law, religion, politics, ethics, social or political economy, if not pro-slavery men themselves, are continually inculcating doctrines accordant with their own social forms, and therefore, at war with ours. Hence it follows, that all books in the whole range of moral science, if not written by Southern authors, within the last twenty or thirty years, inculcate abolition either directly or indirectly. If written before that time, even by Southern authors, they are likely to be as absurd and as dangerous as the Declaration of Independence, or the Virginia Bill of Rights.
You caught that, right? The Declaration of Independence is "dangerous" to Cracker logic because it was written prior to Fitzhugh's thirty year window. Small wonder that its author, Thomas Jefferson, was the target of Reconstructionists on the Texas State Board of Education for removal from U. S. History and social studies textbooks. Small wonder that a Rand Paul has a problem with the Civil Rights Act. Equal rights? How dangerous and absurd. What was James Madison thinking with that whole Bill of Rights thingey?
I probably go on too long, but there's many fascinating parallels between Fitzhugh's ideas and the rhetoric of Southerners/Republicans today, from the exceptionalist idea of who are the Real Americans ("the South is the only conservative section of civilized christendom") to whom to blame ("Men who begin by assailing negro slavery find that all government begets slavery in some form, and hence all abolitionists are socialists, who propose to destroy all the institutions of society.")
Make no mistake, behind their smiles and coiffed hairdos, these hypocrites are authoritarians who would have us think that War is Peace and Slavery is Freedom and Strength is Ignorance. They're spouting the same ideas as they always have, slightly softened with a good 'ol boy smile and a lilting accent, or a wink and a "you betcha!". They quote scripture while siding up to White Supremacists and they're all about exploitation whether the cash crop is King Cotton or King Oil.
I leave you with this final quote:
All true power, whether in speaking, writing, or fighting, proceeds quite as much from strength of will as from power of mind or body, and no men have half the strength of will that Southerners possess. We are accustomed to command from our cradle. To command becomes a want and a necessity of our nature, and this begets that noble strength of will that nerves the mind for intellectual conflict and intellectual exertion, just as it nerves the body for physical contest. We are sure to write well, because we shall write boldly, fearlessly, and energetically.
Strength of will trumps strength of intellect. This is the paradigm for your modern Republican. It's come in many forms. Aryan Nation. KKK. John Birch Society. It's not just about race, but class, gender, sexual orientation, religious preference. Everybody who has ever said these crackers want to erase the Enlightenment and go back to a feudal society are correctamundo. Rand Paul claims his discrimination is grounded in Libertarian ideology
Meh. Cracker logic.
[Update: I revised "sexual preference" in the last paragraph to "sexual orientation" thanks to teachme2night's pointing out the datedness of the original. mea culpa.]
Fri Oct 11, 2013 at 1:38 PM PT: The last quotation concerning strength of will as more important than strength of intellect reveals much about Cracker ideologic; that's why Cruz and the others have been convinced that they will carry the day regardless of what reality says. "Reality" is an intellectual construct that they will overcome by will. This was the mantra of neoconservatives in the Bush run up to the invasion of Iraq.