Why I Don’t Care

“THE NEW ORDER OF THINGS”

by Michael Gaddy, blogging at The Rebel Madman, ©2017

(Sep. 26, 2017) — Recently there has been much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth on TV, social media and in general conversations concerning what many refer to as “disrespect” surrounding players in the National Football League (NFL) who have “taken a knee” during the playing of our national anthem or shown some other form of behavior which a large group of people seem to find offensive. While this seems to bother a large segment of people, I find that I really don’t care.

Here again, we have a prime example of how the masses are manipulated into emotional rather than cognitive responses by a tyrannical government desperate to appear relevant amidst a sea of tyranny.

What those quivering masses of patriotism fail to realize is over the past decade or so the Pentagon has spent hundreds of millions of dollars “buying” the appearance of patriotism from major sports franchises. All this, while veterans have gone without much-needed health care in VA facilities across this country. As a congressperson from Minnesota documented, as was shared on ABC News, the National Guard from 2008 to 2012 shelled out 136.14 million dollars of taxpayer monies to sponsor one race car in NASCAR, while 22 veterans a day were taking their own lives, many who couldn’t get an appointment with the VA for months.

Sports franchises who have to be paid exorbitant amounts of taxpayer dollars to appear to be patriotic are parasites, living on the producers of this country and should be treated as one would treat any other parasite.

All this being said, my lack of concern for what is happening on the fields of the NFL goes much deeper than what is listed above. As a student of American history for several decades and a true Son of the South, I know what the people who represented that flag from 1860-1872 did to millions of people in the South, my ancestors among them. I also know what government employees back then thought of those who stood on principles found in our Declaration of Independence and fought against the Armies marching under that flag. Fortunately for those of us who care about our history, the people of the government of that era left evidence of their hate and disdain for the people of the South and any others who dare to dissent.

In 1863, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman wrote to a subordinate how the people of the South were to be treated by the forces operating under the US Flag. Read slowly and I am sure you will begin to understand why I am not at all upset by those who appear to disrespect the flag.

Found in THE REBELLION RECORD; A DIARY OF AMERICAN EVENTS, originally published from 1861-1868 and later republished by Arno Press in 1977 are the damning words. I especially call attention to Volume VIII, pages 351-353. Contained therein is a document called, TREATMENT OF SOUTHERNERS, authored by Union General William Tecumseh Sherman on January 31, 1864, and sent to Union Major R. M. Sawyer, A. A., General, Army of the Tennessee at Huntsville, Alabama.

“HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE TENNESSEE, Vicksburg, January 1, 1863.

[To] Major R. M. Sawyer, AAG Army of Tennessee, Huntsville:

“Dear Sawyer — In my former letter I have answered all your questions save one, and that relates to the treatment of inhabitants known, or suspected to be, hostile or “secesh.” The war which prevails in our land is essentially a war of races. The Southern people entered into a clear compact of government, but still maintained a species of separate interests, history, and prejudices. These later became stronger and stronger, till they have led to war, which has developed the fruits of the bitterest kind.

We of the North are, beyond all question, right in our lawful cause, but we are not bound to ignore the fact that the people of the South have prejudices that form part of their nature, and which they cannot throw off without an effort of reason or the slower process of natural change.

Now, the question arises, should we treat as absolute enemies all in the South who differ with us in opinions or prejudices . . . [and] kill or banish them? Or should we give them time to think and gradually change their conduct so as to conform to the new order of things which is slowly and gradually creeping into their country?

When men take arms to resist our rightful authority, we are compelled to use force because all reason and argument ceases when arms are resorted to.

If the people, or any of them, keep up a correspondence with parties in hostility, they are spies, and can be punished with death or minor punishment. These are well-established principles of war, and the people of the South having appealed to war, are barred from appealing to our Constitution, the which they have practically and publicly defied. They have appealed to war and must abide its rules and laws.

The United States, as a belligerent party claiming right in the soil as the ultimate sovereign, have a right to change the population, and it may be and it, both politic and best, that we should do so in certain districts. When the inhabitants persist too long in hostility, it may be both politic and right that we should banish them and appropriate their lands to a more loyal and useful population. 

No man would deny that the United States would be benefited by dispossessing a single prejudiced, hard-headed and disloyal planter and substitute in his place a dozen or more patient, industrious, good families, even if they be of foreign birth. 

It is all idle nonsense for these Southern planters to say that they made the South, that they own it, and that they can do as they please — even to break up our government, and to shut up the natural avenues of trade, intercourse, and commerce. 

We know, and they know if they are intelligent beings, that, as compared with the whole world they are but as five millions are to one thousand millions — that they did not create the land — that their only title to its use and enjoyment is the deed of the United States.

For my part, I believe that this war is the result of false political doctrine, for which we are all as a people responsible, viz: That any and every people has a right to self-government . . . In this belief, while I assert for our Government the highest military prerogatives, I am willing to bear in patience that political nonsense of . . . State Rights, freedom of conscience, freedom of the press, and other such trash as have deluded the Southern people into war, anarchy, bloodshed, and the foulest crimes that have disgraced any time or any people. 

I would advise the commanding officers at Huntsville and such other towns as are occupied by our troops, to assemble the inhabitants and explain to them these plain, self-evident propositions, and tell them that it is for them now to say whether they and their children shall inherit their share. 

The Government of the United States has in North-Alabama any and all rights which they choose to enforce in war — to take their lives, their homes, their lands, their everything . . . and war is simply power unrestrained by constitution or compact. If they want eternal warfare, well and good; we will accept the issue and dispossess them, and put our friends in possession. Many, many people, with less pertinacity than the South, have been wiped out of national existence.

To those who submit to the rightful law and authority, all gentleness and forbearance; but to the petulant and persistent secessionists, why, death is mercy, and the quicker he or she is disposed of the better. Satan and the rebellious saints of heaven were allowed a continuance of existence in hell merely to swell their just punishment.” 

W.T. Sherman, Major General Commanding

Above, General Sherman well illustrated the feelings of the government towards those who dare challenge its “supremacy.” Believe me, those feelings have not changed since 1863. If you doubt that, conversations with the people who survived Waco and Ruby Ridge, the Hammonds or multitudes of others who have come under the wrath of this government would be most revealing.

Pardon me if I don’t care if people “disrespect” the flag of the government of Abraham Lincoln and his present-day idolators and sycophants.  My devotion to my ancestors will not allow it.