by James Dale Yohe

David Boaz has pointed out the futility of looking towards the past. How far do we look? As a transplanted Westerner (Nevada) living happily in the South I think we may have an answer. As a Libertarian living under Washingtonian tyranny I would find it pleasurable to look back to a time when Washington’s brutal fist wasn’t in a locked grip around the throat of free men. When was this Mr. Boaz? When the French controlled Mississippi? No, instead it was the grip of just as brutal and parasitic Frenchmen rather than a fellow American, strangling the spirit and souls of free men. To look back and find a time where the grip of a centralized tyranny was challenged, though unsuccessfully, we must look back to the period of time embodied by the Stars and Bars and the Confederate battle flag.

The blood of tyrants and patriots must be shed in the name of liberty. Unfortunately too little of the former and too much of the latter was shed during the War of Northern Aggression ( or the Civil War as I’m sure that Mr. Boaz would like to call it, as a sure sign of submission to Washington and its PC enforcers). As Mr. Boaz should know the "War" had little to do with freedom and everything to do with slavery. No man was freed as a result of Northern victory, only the Yoke of slavery was extended around the necks of those who could have claimed to be free prior to the "War". Tax slavery was extended, the concept of total war was realized and the strength of D.C. was increased. That one could say that the cause of liberty was advanced after the war is to claim that the income tax, and the welfare/warfare state are improvements over conditions prior to the war. Is Mr. Boaz prepared to make this statement?

Maybe he is. There are those that believe the state can only be defeated by actually fighting against it and those who believe that at least their own circumstances can be improved by making compromises with it. Mr. Boaz and his Cato and Reason allies belong to the latter. Why not sacrifice the glory of the south and the battle flag of the confederacy, if it will gain one legitimacy within the establishment?

Why not? I think the answer comes from the essence of what one must do to gain this legitimacy, agree with the state. A writer can hang in the wings and wait to gain the attention of his rulers and the boorish press that glorifies a group of sub rate men graced with the power of democracy. The great men in today’s world are not rulers, but rather entrepreneurs who change our world for the better through their innovations and improvements. They are not the vote whoring morons catering to the fickal musings of disinterested voters and the media propagandists who commentate on politics having studied journalism. Boaz and his ilk would rather influence and gain the acceptance of these types than belong to the group of people who actually change and improve our world. I charge Boaz with second handism. In his search for acceptance, he has become a member of the class he desires the attention of.

I cannot claim a Southern heritage, but I can admire that group of men who fought the tyrants of D.C. While they may not have freed the black man, they did not enslave those in possession of their freedom in the brutal and barbaric fashion that Lincoln and his successors have. God save Dixie may not be a cry for perfection, only one for improvement. When the Stars and Stripes, a sign of Washingtonian dominance to both Nevadan’s and Southerners, can escape Mr. Boaz’s criticism, while he rails against the rebellious battle flag of the confederacy, there appears to be a contradiction in his thought. Why cry out against the flag of a nation that never freed the black man, without criticizing the flag of a nation that enslaved all.

May 9, 2001

James Dale Yohe [send him mail] teaches economics in Florida.

Copyright © 2001 LewRockwell.com