Some comments on a Marine Corps Gazette June 2020 letter by General David H. Berger, Commandant of the Marine Corps. General Berger explained his regulation banning displays of the Confederate battle flag on Marine installations because it is “a symbol related to hate speech” and “inflames feelings of division.” Then, he added paradoxically: “My intent is not to judge the specific meaning anyone ascribes to that symbol.”
The general seems unaware of the irony that he is required by law to defend a real hateful act – burning the American flag. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. wrote that defending speech we hate is most important because it makes us think. Speech we love just makes us feel good. And, on 27 May 1969 the Department of the Army issued a directive entitled “Guidance on Dissent,” which counseled restraint in dealing with dissenters:
“It is important to remember that freedom of expression is a fundamental right secured by the Constitution. A commander should not prevent distribution of a publication simply because he does not like its contents.”
General Berger insists: “I am focused solely on building a uniquely capable warfighting team…” [without] “ideas and language… considered offensive and unacceptable to others.” I did not know that our armed forces have lethal weapons, rigorous training and firm discipline at taxpayer expense to save people from having their feelings hurt. That would also be
news to every boot camp recruit with an angry drill instructor. Will sensitivity training in barracks be next?
Since 1865, tens of thousands of Southerners, proud of their defiant heritage, have served honorably as Marines without harming the Corps’ morale and fighting spirit. The renowned fighting Marine Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller was a Virginian inspired by his grandfather’s brave stand under a Rebel flag symbolizing what our nation was founded on – the people’s right to govern themselves with state and local elected
officials, rather than grovel to a central authority.
Now, we see the results of that centralization while Marines are denied historical enlightenment by a policy similar to liberal college “safe zones” where everyone is protected from seeing or hearing anything that may be unappealing. Early in the Korean War (1950-53) Chesty Puller’s First Marines liberated Seoul from communist occupation and raised a 48-star Old Glory over the Capitol Building. They were ordered to replace it with a United Nations flag, when a Confederate battle flag would have been more suitable for a country whose southern half was fighting northern invaders.
The Star-Spangled Banner waved over slavery in much of our Land of the Free, until President Lincoln decided to change things at the cost of getting six hundred thousand Americans killed. “Inflamed feelings of division” in states below the Mason-Dixon Line moved them to use their Constitutional freedom to withdraw from the Union. Their northern compatriots understood the Supreme Law of the Land differently and, as often happens, the political dispute was solved by force of arms. The Confederacy has been called a “Lost Cause.” But how could that be when the cause on both sides was Americanism? That cause cannot be lost. It can only be surrendered if we allow political correctness to prevent us from preserving all the details – bad and good – of our history for future generations.
Is this to be the Marine Corps’ first surrender?
The new rules of censorship and conformity are much stricter and less explicit than in previous eras. Back in the old prudish days before nasty became cool, if we avoided saying the f-word
and s-word we could freely discuss fornication and excrement. Now we never know when the hammer might fall on us. Under General Berger’s revisionism, a Marine could complain that a squad-mate said or did something that seemed hateful or offensive. If the accuser were politically correct by race or gender and the accused was politically incorrect by nature – a
white male – their commanding officer would be required to make a serious investigation of the case.
The world is approaching a point where feelings are all that matter; facts and common sense are irrelevant. When we must constantly wonder how people feel about us, we will no longer be
ourselves with individual personalities distinct from the herd. During my service, we joked that the purpose of Marine training was to make us brain-dead robots able only to obey orders.
Thanks to General Berger, that is no longer a joke.
-By B. Starr
O I’m a good old rebel, now that’s just what I am. For this “fair land of freedom” I do not care at all. I’m glad I fit against it, I only wish we’d won, And I don’t want no pardon for anything I done.
Well, that’s another one of those “half truths” people tell these days, but the fact is, as I’ve pointed out many times before, as many as a full quarter of those “Americans” you allude to weren’t “Americans” at all in any sense that makes any sense. They were European immigrants canvassed by the Yankee government and brought over to fight Lincoln’s war in the stead of their Yankee counterparts.
The apple doesn’t fall far. Our northern compatriots still ignore that all-important terminology contained in the so called “supremacy clause,” namely “and the laws which shall be made in pursuance thereof,…” The meaning and purpose of which is explained well enough in Federalist #33, but what is that to the alien Yankee?
Oh for goodness sakes! What kind of sentimental horseshit is that? You think the Yankees and the Confederates were fighting for the same cause; a cause you denominate “Americanism?” C’mon, man, get your head out of your hindparts!
T. Morris: Not that your snotty arrogance deserves a reply, but you might have learned about “sentimental horseshit” if you had served in combat with Yankee and Dixie boys making good fighting teams – as their ancestors did before Fort Sumter. Or if you had been around to overhear elderly Civil War veterans relive old experiences over beer and laughter.
The point of my article – evidently beyond your scope – is that General Berger and his ilk project the hate that they attribute to the Confederate battle flag. If Marines were free to view the flag and discuss the important history behind it, they could settle their differences without needing a brass hat to tell them when to feel offended.
Thank you for reading and commenting.
Mr. Morris is absolutely correct. As I was reading what you wrote it was just so bad, not in content or maybe even intent but the way you framed and the terminology etc. is all wrong. Its very noticeable and he is 100% correct. Its probably not your fault and you are just writing and speaking the way yankees do, which is who taught you, we all have habits left over from their indoctrination camps, just as we shed ours, you must make an effort to shed yours as well. Go re-read his statement and instead of getting your feelings hurt recognize what he is saying is the truth and make adjustments. All Southerners go though this, now its your time. This is not a small thing, the manipulation of terminology and framing is what they do, you must learn to guard against it, and certainly not propagate it yourself.
“Americanism”, equals damm yankee. That war has been over for 150 years. Best I can see they still say we are traitors. The only times they speak well of us is when they need us to vote their way, or war.
Quite so, Mr. Robbins. There was a decades long lull in the storm that basically served to put us asleep, but hopefully we have learned, or will learn, that open radicalism may well go into hybernation for a time and a season as expedience may dictate, but eventually that it will come out with all its former fury and then some. See here, for example:
https://orthosphere.wordpress.com/2020/07/08/on-scowering/#comment-145042
Meanwhile, our writer seems to hold a low view of “Lost Causes,” and, by extension, our Loyalty to Lost Causes. When in fact Loyalty to Lost Causes is “one of the most potent influences of human history.” See here:
https://orthosphere.wordpress.com/2018/12/08/on-loyalty-to-lost-causes/
BTW, I would be remiss if I failed to mention that frequent commenter, James Owen, often reminds us that “Americanism,” such that it is, is really just Yankeeism, which is an alien (to us) view of God, man, and government. This is why they consider us traitors and shall ever consider us such; if we don’t walk like a Yankee, talk like a Yankee, and “think” like a Yankee, then we are traitors by their definition of the term, as were our patriotic forbears. But I’m OK with that, really. For I know I’m in very good company.
By his reasoning George Washington was a traitor. When our forefathers signed the Deceleration of Independence they did it knowing it was their death warrant to their masters. It seems if it was up to this man we would all still be singing God Save the Queen and our freedom would be just another lost cause.
Sorry Bill but Southerners exist, this is OUR home and it always will be. I find it strange that you would hold that our cause is lost while your country is burning down around you, at the hands of the very thing you created in an attempt to enslave us. We told you that would happen, but greed and envy cannot be reasoned with.
Apparently, my understanding of some English words is obsolete with our rapidly changing language. If “Americanism” is now “really just Yankeeism,” what is its opposition – “Dixieism?” “Confederateism?” “Southernism?” What is its goal – to restore the CSA as a separate independent nation?
I guess that wouldn’t be anymore far-fetched than the liberal/Democrat/Marxist holy war to make all of us devout socialists.
And does the Lost Cause Loyalty include slavery? That would give it much in common with Black Lives Matter, the only disagreement being which race would be enslaved?
You do realize you’re writing at a Southern Nationalist website?
Wow man you are still wearing training wheels when it comes to us. Are you actually a Southerner or are you just a transplant? I am not asking to be insulting, but the things you are saying needs no explaining for a Southerner, even though we were all stripped of our history and culture at gunpoint, we still share the same soul and I am not seeing that in you. I am asking because it matters in terms of your approach to learning the truth, so it would be helpful for us to know where you are coming from.
Also I have spoken to Mr. Morris about this yesterday, its hard for us sometimes because of the way we have to keep waking our people up after long term indoctrination and the need for our codified curriculum so we dont have to keep wasting time and resources on this.
Michael,
I think Mr. Starr originally got upset because I strayed from the King’s English, describing one aspect of his article as “sentimental horseshit,” and advising him to get his head out of his hindparts as to the question of what the two sides were fighting for in the so called “Civil War.” In fairness to Mr. Starr, the manner of speaking I chose to use in that instance was insulting to him in a way. I sort of regret that he was insulted, but don’t apologize for it in any case. I generally tend to follow my instincts with regard to such matters and the Devil take the hindmost. Plus, I read his article almost immediately after having read the recent Orthosphere article and Harrington’s comments to it I posted the link to in an earlier comment above. My dander was up a bit at that moment, in other words, a kind of a “moment of weakness” for me. But anyway, you wrote above:
Amen! I’ll tell you an anecdote relevant to that issue. Years and years ago (early ’90s) I was having a conversation with an older man (a sort of a mentor to me back then) who is now long since passed away, who said to me at some point in our conversation that he knew that “you are one of us” because no young man of Yankee extraction could ever formulate the ideas you are conveying nor express them in terms so uniquely Southern. Up until that moment, I was more or less indifferent to our ancestors and the legacy they had worked so hard, in spite of the most formidable of obstacles, to bequeathe to us, their posterity. What I mean by “indifferent” is that I had as yet to put much effort at all into learning about those generations of our forbears, their way of life, the times and circumstances in which they lived and labored to, as R.L. Dabney expressed it, preserve a culture “too good for” our generations. Not that I didn’t know something about all of that, just not enough, not nearly enough.
As to the issue Mr. Starr raises in his reply to me inquiring whether Loyalty to Lost Causes includes loyalty to (chattel) slavery, well, all I can say to that is that he has entirely missed the point of what Loyalty to Lost Causes means. I posted a link to Prof. Smith’s article, which explains it well enough. So there ya go.
The Editors here must be desperate for anti-Yankee venom to print T. Morris’
self-serving drivel. Apparently he thinks that if he acts smart and tough he can make others believe he has those qualities. That is common among gutless cowards who let better men do the fighting while they shoot off their mouths. Or keyboards. I’ve encountered many pansy punks like him and the only thing about them that impressed me is that there is nothing impressive about them. Behind their phony bluster there is not even any real bluster.
Tragically, that seems true of this entire e-magazine. Our country is being torn apart by a Civil War (a real one this time) as Communist religious fanatics rampage unopposed. Black Lives Matter and similar wild mobs financed by capitalist billionaires who hate capitalism’s freedom have made the dead professional criminal/drug addict George Floyd their saint and cry out for blood in his name. Those who thought they could depend on government protection are counting their dead. But IdentityDixie seems little concerned about that, when they should be warning honest Americans to get guns and ammo before the mobs reach their homes. Lots of guns and ammo.
Bill Starr,
Whatever your low opinion of me on a personal level, let us agree, shall we(?), and on the off chance that you’ll hang around these precincts much longer, to keep the editors and the moderators at ID out of our little disputes. In the first place, you really ought to be more appreciative of your hosts than to accuse them of being “desperate for anti-Yankee venom,” and [full of] “phony bluster”; in the second, I’ll offer this sage piece of advice: at least put in minimal effort to learn more about your hosts and interlocutors before you (ignorantly) accuse them of such things, casting aspersions at the feet of people you don’t even know.
Identity Dixie, like virtually all other websites, has a comments policy. Now, presumably you’re a defender of the “free exchange of ideas” concept, even the kinds you don’t like? I mean, “Americanism” and all that, right? Also presumably, you’re smart enough to know that the surest way to expose a fraud (meaning a man like me, full of fake, self-serving bluster) is to give him a platform and a microphone with which to spew his blusterous venom? Or is it “venomous bluster?”
Well, anyway, please let us know how either one of us (me escpecially, but anyone else for that matter) in this discussion has (1) violated the comments policy, and/or (2) where you get off as a guest writer denigrating your hosts and implying they’re abdicating their authority and responsibility in allowing my comments to stand?
Thank you, Michael.
I might be more impressed if you “real Southerners” did something positive, such as resisting the mobs tearing down Confederate monuments. All I see here is complaining self-pity because… I don’t know, maybe because the complainers like self-pity.
You are welcome Bill.
Well first you must understand that we have no interest in impressing you, nor do we concern ourselves with the opinions of yankees, we dont care about some fake social status, we dont have hierarchies based on social ass licking and shekel hording. I am slightly confused by you placing “real Southerners” in quotation marks. Would you go to Japan and be confused by all of the “real Japanese” you found? It seems you have the mentality that a tourist trap restaurant by the airport would contain the “real Japanese”, thats not the case, nor would you moving there putting on a bathrobe and waving around a mop handle like a samurai sword make you yourself Japanese. You either are one or you are not and moving there will never make you or your descendants one either. Our identity is not genetic alone, it is also spiritual.
Additionally, as I stated earlier, we share a collective soul, that is not something you can buy nor adopt like the yankees attempted to do with our Constitution. To them it is and always has been a legal document, words on paper, easily rearranged or replaced, as they like to say a “living Constitution” easily changed to suit their wants. To us it is a spiritual document, we do not even need it. Most of the young children who ran off barefooted to fight the monsters invading our home could not even read it, they did not need to, its just who they were, no explanation needed.
Thats not something you can just adopt, steal or erase. No matter how many times you try to erase their memory in indoctrination camps, steal all of their possessions, carpet bag into our home through borders forced open at gunpoint or flood them with their puppets from other countries in an attempt to displace them from their home, and a million other attempts at our soft genocide that they try to hide in darkness. Nothing works, they remain the same, much to the never ending frustration of our would be rulers. The reason being the same as our ancestors tried to explain when they framed the Constitution, our rights stem from God, a spiritual place outside of anyone’s ability to touch. We do not exist solely on this earth, our identity stems from a place that none can touch.
As to your question, why dont we go defend concrete monuments in cities that are filled with foreigners who are hell bent on destroying “America”, whatever that even means, let me ask you a question instead. Why should we?
Mr Starr: I understood your article quite well. I did have problems with parts of it; Your comments to Mr. Morris seemed to be right out of Eric Foners mouth. I want you to know I am a combat veteran and retired having served with yankee boys. We had a common enemy not each other. We came from different cultures, many of them did not think well of Southern culture. I ask, what would be wrong with an independent South? Do you fear the lost of abortion by law? Legalized sodomy? School intergration by law? and many other evil laws? Why to you equate a new Confederate States of America with slavery? Just in case you did forget the self-righteous government under Lincoln had slavery. Those Yankees boys fought to control the South, to make us just like them, to have us continue to pay their way. Southern culture is being destroyed and it started in the North. We Southerners always have to give way. Always!!!
Mr. Robbins: As another combat veteran, we had a saying – “Tough shit. Take your problems to the Chaplain.”
I resent your sneaky liberal trick of asking questions in such a way – “Do you fear the lose of abortion by law?” etc. that accuses me of having those opinions and demands that I defend myself. What if I asked you, for example: “Did you enjoy beating your wife last night!”
And I don’t need a history lesson on Lincoln’s self-righteous government.
Good luck on getting an independent South before the Communists force a dictatorship on all of us.
The communists did force a dictatorship on us, they wave the Federal sky rag and live due north. We are the actual Americans and the last person that died defending the Constitution wore grey.
Mr. Starr: You made a point of being a combat veteran, I understood that when you first said it. I wanted you to know you are not the only one that went to war. Millions of us have. My point is this, We southerners have been under attack for 150 years, your people have attacked our accent, the foods we eat, state flags, our intelligence and many of our customs. What do I have in common with you Yankees. You arrogantly imply we will never have an independent South. You might be right. Have you considered that God is in charge, and for some reason he has kept the South where it is. Here is a clue: It was not and is not about slavery. Whether you like it or not sodomy, abortion, forced integration all came from the North. The communist you speak about also had their begining up north. You should know that for the last 50 years Southerners have been beat relentlessly by your damm Yankee self-righteous phony history. We have no voice in America, we are being forced into a corner. The South may never rise again, but the Yankee is falling. I could become nasty, but I won’t.
Yep. (don’t forget feminism – I had almost written “radical feminism,” but thought better of it since feminism is radicalism by definition, Motte and Bailey equivocation notwithstanding). And the meddling Yankee wasn’t content to wallow in his own filth, to “live and let live”; he had to spread it all over God’s country as well because that is who he is deep down in his soul.