Christendom’s Last Stand

There’s a couple YouTube videos I think everyone should be familiar with. The first is a speech from the excellent film Gods and Generals, the whole film is worth watching, but I want to draw particular attention to a speech by General Stonewall Jackson, his farewell speech to the first brigade, his very own “Stonewall Brigade.”

In the speech, he repeats the exhortation that the brigade was the first brigade in every army it had been part of. He closes with the exhortation, “You are the first brigade in the affections of your general, and I hope that posterity will hand you down as the first brigade in our second war for independence. Farewell.” Every time I watch this scene, I get a little misty eyed, and I think Stephen Lang deserved an Oscar for that particular performance.

The second video I want to mention is Patrick J. Buchanan’s famous “Culture War” speech from the 1992 Republican Convention. If you haven’t seen it, or were too young to remember it, watch it. Events have proved PJB to be a prophet. He saw clearly where thing were headed nearly 30 years ago and he deserves much honor for his courage in the face of the Cultural Marxist mob that has proved him right these many years. In the speech, Pat warned about communism, abortion, the Homosexual Lobby, organized anti-Christianity, feminism, morally compromised leaders, profligate governments, ludicrous environmental worship, women in combat roles, pornography, judicial activism, loss of industrial jobs, and riots by non-whites in our cities.

Most famous was one particular paragraph from his speech:

My friends, this election is about more than who gets what. It is about who we are. It is about what we believe, and what we stand for as Americans. There is a religious war going on in this country. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we shall be as was the Cold War itself, for this war is for the soul of America. And in that struggle for the soul of America, Clinton & Clinton are on the other side, and George Bush is on our side. And so, to the Buchanan Brigades out there, we have to come home and stand beside George Bush.

Pat Buchanan, “Culture War” Speech

I would disagree with the assessment that Bush was on the side of the righteous, but otherwise Pat was completely correct.

If Pat had won in 1992, perhaps his dream of “a republic, not an empire” might have been realized. But, it was empire we got and empire we have. That American Republic, the one Patrick Buchanan dreamed of, died in 1860, but that does not mean Americans are gone. Rather, they are where they have always been. There are scattered remnants in the far north of the Old America in New England, in the high country of the far west in Deseret and the occasional nut from the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. But, Dixie is the only coherent remnant of the older, better America.

From the swamps of Florida to the Tidewater of the Chesapeake, from the dusty Permian to the lush subtropical urbanity of Charleston, Dixie is still there and Dixie is what is best in America. What is commonly thought of as “American” by the rest of the world is really Dixian. And, what the rest of the world loves about America is mostly Dixian. The Blues, bourbon, Faulkner, Cajun food, BBQ (note: Texas brisket is the best barbecue), the French Quarter, Mark Twain, cowboys, etc. – that’s all Dixian. You have much to be proud of, as Southerners, and nothing to be ashamed of. “The Soul of America” was lost in 1860, but the soul of Dixie might yet be saved, if God is kind and our hearts are unwavering.

Why then bring up a movie by a guy from New Jersey and a 30 year-old political speech by a loser? Well, partly, because I love the movie Gods and Generals and I love PJB – you can’t make me not love them. But mostly, because I bring them up to illustrate two things. (1) PJB showed us the players and the stakes of the cultural conflict and (2) the Stonewall Brigade showed us an example of heroism to emulate. I have fought this culture war all my adult life: in comment sections, on Twitter, on Facebook, via email, in online forums, on podcasts, in articles and on websites from A to Z over the last two decades. And wherever I go, I find the members of Identity Dixie advancing the cause.

Someone advocating for demonically-possessed cross-dressers reading to children at the local library? ID members are pushing back, with facts and logic, as well as, memes and jokes. Race hustlers advocating for the impoverishment of working people to pay for reparation schemes, our people are there and shutting him down. Women advocating for childlessness and an empty career in marketing? One of our guys is there telling her that her life is ultimately meaningless without a family and children – without her progeny. In every conflict in this culture war, our guys are “where the fire is hottest.”

We might be analogous to the Redshirts, taking things back from a corrupt government, or perhaps we are modern day Fire-Eaters, sounding the alarm for secession. Mayhap, we are the new Twelve Southerners, keeping the flame alive for future generations. History shall judge our place in a Free Dixie and I shall leave it up to future historians as to what role we played. Personally though, I see us not as Redshirts, Fire-Eaters or Agrarians, but as the Stonewall Brigade of this culture war.

I see you as honest men for a just and righteous cause. Facing legions of the debased and internet communists, with nothing more than your meme folder and FBI Table 43. Every day, you go forth and battle for the soul of Dixie and to show your fellow Southerners the path back to God and away from the decaying Empire. When you convince a Yankee to go home or convince a Southerner that their Confederacy wasn’t evil, you are fighting the fight God meant for you. My favorite essay, Thomas E. Woods’ “Christendom’s Last Stand,” shows that the conflict in the War of Northern Aggression was the same theological conflict we are engaged in today. Woods quotes JH Thornwell thusly:

Astute observers on both sides of the conflict, in fact, recognized the war less as a clash between two systems of labor than between two kinds of civilization. Southern theologian James Henley Thornwell described the two sides this way: “The parties in this conflict are not merely abolitionists and slave-holders — they are atheists, socialists, communists, red republicans, jacobins on the one side and the friends of order and regulated freedom on the other. In one word, the world is the battleground, Christianity and atheism the combatants, and the progress of humanity is at stake.

Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

The men who sweated through their wool uniforms, that eventually turned to rags, and then their feet bloody in the campaigns of the Valley and won for themselves eternal glory in the annals of warfare, might not have understood the finer points of the theological or political problems that Woods elucidates. But, they did understand it at a gut level. I would also say that if you read their letters, a number of them DID understand the nature and scope of the conflict – and, that understanding motivated them to fight like lions.

If you are reading and contributing to this website, understand you are the combatants of this online Culture War. You are the first brigade advancing for the soul and future of your nation. You are the vanguard in the army to defend Christendom. You are the defenders of BBQ, Billy Faulkner and Billy Shakespeare and the King James Bible and all of of Western history from Aristotle to Zelazny. You fight with courage and verve every day – and, you do not falter. I am proud to be by your side and prouder still of the way you have conducted yourselves even in the most trying of circumstances.

I cannot teach you anything new, you are already canny writers and meme-makers in the arena of ideas. I can only tell you one small piece of advice that, like most good ideas, is not original. Let us humble ourselves before our God and seek to bring our people to repentance. As the Book of James says, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.” The Book of Chronicles says further, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

The Lord has promised it and I believe it. Let us go therefore, and do as our fathers have done and advocate for a future Free Dixie and all Christendom.

Deo Vindice

-By DE

Editor’s Note: This article, like all ID content, does not endorse or illicit violence, but rather illustrates the endeavors and the pursuit of free speech to combat our cultural decline. Only a goon would think otherwise.