It’s True What They Say About Dixie
Throughout most of American history region has been a better predictor of political position than party. That aspect of our reality has been neglected and suppressed in recent times as the rest of the country has conspired or acquiesced in transforming the South into a replica of Ohio.
Yet the notorious squeak vote on the ObamaCare bill shows that the old reality still exists and that the South is still the core and mainstay of any viable American conservatism. My friend Bill Cawthon has run down the statistics on the House of Representatives vote. Of the four census regions, the South was the only one to vote against the federal takeover of medicine. The South (the Confederacy plus Kentucky and Oklahoma) voted 71 per cent against the bill; the Northeast 75 per cent in favour; the West 61 per cent aye; and the Midwest divided evenly.
Every Southern State voted a majority negative. The no vote included 19 Democrats from the South. If you remove the four sparsely populated Plains States of the western Midwest, the Midwest total moves to a majority in favour of ObamaCare, even allowing for the no-vote of the Southern border State Missouri.
This pattern has held on every major piece of legislation since 1965, even allowing that Southern Congressional districts are designed by federal lawyers and judges to maximise the minority vote. Immigration, balanced budget, public prayer, women in combat—the South has provided the brake on the leftist agenda of federal grasp. Of the 212 nay votes on ObamaCare nearly half (100) came from the South.
A century and a half ago, John C. Calhoun, one of the most prescient observers of the American regime, remarked that the South was the balance wheel of the Union which prevented
the whole from flying apart under the stress of the manias that regularly seized hold of the mainstream. It looks as though that is still true, though our ability to control the machine grows weaker year by year.
Entries(RSS)
Dr. Wilson,
I am sojourning this week in Madison, Wisconsin, the state claiming to be the birthplace of the Repulibcan Party and the state, with Madison at its core, being Obama country.
Two nights ago, I allowed myself to become briefly engaged in a "discussion" on Obama Care. The opinion of the other parties was that my position was "predictably" Southern. I agreed with the intended slight and took it as a complement.
Providence has a sense of humor. Here in the heart of Madison, in a large cemetery, are the graves of Confederate soldiers who died in this place as POW's. Confederate and Southern state flags fly over their graves. Some are actually from my great grandfather's unit, the 12th Louisiana. Yesterday, as I visited the site, a mockingbird and a jaybird hopped among the markers.
Good things manage to peep through!
Dr Wilson, as an adoptive Ohioian I can say it is generally speaking, a decent state. Most regions of it are inhabited with decent Americans, it is only the strip along Lake Erie that are filled by the worst leftists (except for Tom Piatak).
"Providence has a sense of humor. Here in the heart of Madison, in a large cemetery, are the graves of Confederate soldiers who died in this place as POW’s. Confederate and Southern state flags fly over their graves. Some are actually from my great grandfather’s unit, the 12th Louisiana."
I recently asked an old Jesuit priest if there were any good Jesuits left at Georgetown and he responded, "Oh yes, but most all of them are in the cemetary." I wonder if this could be said of the good folks in Madison, Wisconsin?
Praise Dixie! Think I might move there. To all concerned parties who remember me saying that I am from California, I promise to Almighty God I will leave any and all West Coast habits behind me for good. As for my accent, I think that might take some time, bear with me.
Brock H. Amen to that! Join the ranks of the Northern Confederates until you move to the real America, south of Mason and Dixon's line!
Excellent observation Dr. Wilson.
Right you are. Except the utopian model isn't Ohio, but D.C. and its infested suburbs.
Dr. Wilson,
It's good to see Dixie voting against Obamacare. If only they would vote against war as well.
Mr. Maxwell,
Is it by coincidence that the strip along lake Erie that is full of leftists was originally claimed by Connecticut as its "Western Reserve?" The areas first settlers were Connecticut Yankees.
@9
No coincidence at all. I think its likely their descendants are still residing there. Some other parts of Ohio are solidly Democrat as well, mainly the southeast that borders West Virginia; that area is dominated by unions members who are culturally conservative.
Mr. Maxwell,
The Ohio Democrats gave us James Traficant. They're better than the neocon Republicans put up by the southerners.
@11
I wasnt knocking them at all, except the northshore Democrats, most of which are vile creatures.
*11. Mr. Whitmoore. Those neocon Republicans in the South are mostly creatures of machines controlled by the RNC and rich carpetbaggers. The change from Democrat to Republican has made the Southern representation more leftist.
If I'm not mistaken, Christopher Langan, the super-genius from Lawn Guylind, NY upped and moved to northern Missouri a few years ago. He probably knows something.
I despair the manias have seized the mainstream permanently, and Southern influence is minimal. The Republican elites are trying dilute the campaign themes stressing the repeal of Obamacare in order to increase their congressional presence in the non-Southern regions. They believe they must embrace some aspects of Socialized medicine in order to gain seats. As for those Southerners they should just shut up and forget about repealing any thing once imperial Washington has made it the law of the land, and don't forget to vote and pull the R lever.
Dr. Wilson - For once I completely agree with you. As a Cleveland resident, the suburbs are beautiful, but the central city is physically wrecked. It is not however as bad as Detroit and Buffalo. Please remember that the Vatican was the only country to recognize the Southern Confederacy during the Civil War, because it was more Godly and God fearing than the North.
It is obvious to me that many Americans will emigrate to the Southern states and several of the conservative mountain states in the next decade as (1) same-sex marriage becomes the law of the land, ordered by the courts, and (2) the federal police power is increasingly turned against conservative citizens. This will increase the chances of secession, especially since the increasingly conservative region will consist of contiguous states. The downside: the desertification of the southern (and midwestern) part of the United States in the long run (which may not be all that long) due to global warming. I believe the South's sturdy Scots-Irish stock will find Alaska quite congenial. It's not too soon to start colonizing that territory, in addition to building the strength of the South for the time being.
I doubt conservatives will start exodusing to the south anytime soon. There are lots of blacks in the south, conservatives don't tend to be black (to put it lightly), and blacks and whites don't really get along very well and prefer to be as far apart as possible. I'm not optimistic about the south's future.
Race relations are not nearly as hostile in the South as elsewhere in the country, though this will never be admitted because it is part of the Yankee's excessive self-love that he is the great moral authority that corrects the evil Southerner. Right now the South is more threatened by immigration---Mexicanication of large areas (and not just Florida and Texas.) And the other immigration problem. I would say about half the great number of Northern folks moving South are fine people who help to strengthen the South. Half are not.
Speaking of intra-US migration, can florida even be called a southern state anymore? Maybe the panhandle; but the rest might be a lost cause.
Dr Wilson @19
I was shocked to see how your own Tarheel State has been transformed by immigration when I drove through it last October. I remember passing through one little town south of Raleigh where I saw nothing but Mexicans in the main stretch of the city.
NC and GA are 10 per cent Mexican and growing. Defeat in war did not destroy the South but the Republican party may have succeeded at last with open borders greed.
Dr Wilson your state is not alone NJ is overrun not only in the northeast portion of the state but along the Jersey shore.
I've always wanted to know whats really behind the immigration madness that the west has suffered from since the 60s. I recall some years ago, Chronicles did a special issue on immigration; however I missed it so I never got to see what Thomas Fleming thought the answer was. Is it really just greed with cheap labor? Maybe in part, but I've always thought it had more to do with advancing cosmopolitanism and expanding the tax base, at least on the part of the elites.
Mr. Maxwell,
Would that be Sanford? I've heard from former natives that it has been overrun.
When I was visiting Raleigh for Thanksgiving last November, I was surprised that most of the Hispanics disappeared from the Crabtree Valley Mall in Northern part of the city. I thought it was because of the recession, but my uncle told me that it was because they tightened up on driver's licenses. I think that its not to late for the numbers of Hispanics in North Carolina and Georgia to be whittled down through attrition due to enforcement but 5-10 more years at previous immigration rates would push it to the point of no return.
The only hope in all of this immigration madness is that the destruction and dissolution of the empire, which our masters are accelerating toward at an ever faster rate, will produce such a paradigm shift among our folk in just what constitutes a nation. I don't wish to hate any group or ethnicity; God doesn't love us Southerners more than others, but we have a right to run our extended household (i.e. our country) the way we see fit. It's one thing to be kind to the stranger - a Biblical mandate - it's something else to allow him to break in and take over, having not only a seat at your table but a say in how you run things. Simply put, I don't wish to live in Mexico, Arabia, or even Pakistan for that matter. This is my home.
What kind of utopian nonsense is it to think that one can form a propositional nation out of such disparate groups who don't share so many of the same cultural, legal, religious, and philosophical traditions? What occurred in Philadelphia over two centuries ago owed a great deal to Greek and Roman patterns of governance, but make no mistake, it was also Christian and British in its character. We cannot replace the folk who founded our country and expect to maintain the way of life and rights bequeathed to us by our forefathers.
Sorry, I know, I'm preaching to the choir, but I just couldn't he'p it!
Regards,
David Smith
Tennessee
Mr. Maxwell,
I always thought it was a way to break the back of Unions, to lower wages, to sustain a steady and constant supply of migrant workers, to enable the flow of drugs to be better coordinated between the North and South Americas,(The growing region and the consuming region) to restore a renewed vigor to the ancient trade of human traficking, prostitution and to offer honest Mexicans who waited in line to immigrate after suffering the enduring consequences of a corrupt Masonic Government, to be disparaged, neutralized and corrupted. Other than that, it benefited the republicans monetarily, the democrats politically and broke the middle class remnant that was sustaining what was left of the South. It was a coalition of evil intentions cloaked under the disguise of good, honest, hardworking, Americans and Mexicans uniting for a better life, a better world and a better global community --- as I remember.
Jeremiah Whitmoore said, "It’s good to see Dixie voting against Obamacare. If only they would vote against war as well."
Our handlers in DC know what they're doing. They coopt our strength and re-direct it into serving the very regime that subjugated our ancestors and condemn our descendants to cultural suicide. Dr. E. O. Wilson of Alabama once described how the Southern martial tradition manifests itself today:
The South continued her antebellum dream of the officer and gentleman, honorable, brave, unswerving in service to God and country. ... Our men, and especially our officers, were nonetheless individually the finest soldiers in the world at that time. They were Southerners, men not to be trifled with.
Tradition, patriotism, and sacrifice are Southern virtues that have been misdirected into serving the Empire. However, I believe the regime's foolhardy excesses are shocking people into realizing the true nature of what they've been supporting with their blood and treasure.
It would be next to all most impossible to recreate the Confederacy as it once existed. Too many areas have been lost to Southern nationalism. I could not envision West Palm Beach, Fla. raising the Stars and Bars anymore than they would in Philadelphia. Likewise, it hard to see secession in McAllen, Texas anymore than the "New South" suburbs around Charlotte, Dallas or Atlanta.
Yet, it's interesting that a place like eastern Tennessee, which was pro-Union during the War Between the States, probably has more common with the old Confederacy now than, say, Orlando. There are lots of rural and small town and mid-sized cities throughout the South and the "forgotten corners" of each state and set them up as "liberated zones" of Southern culture as a base to work from.
#29. Actually, Mr.Scallon, there are many sound people in those "New South" suburbs. The area around but outside Atlanta, for instance, is as conservative as any area in the U.S. However, I take your point.
Four centuries ago, brave and intelligent people out of Britain braved the perils of sea and wilderness and created a land of freedom and plenty. Look at it now.
#4 Brock H.
A Southern accent is not that hard to learn, as I found out when some Southern families passed through the West Side of Chicago, a couple of years ahead of the black takeover. The mouth seems to enjoy forming those soft aahs and long aaws and turning almost any vowel into a playful diphthong. You'll like the way you sound and feel like talking more.
This is off topic, but could any of you Southern gentlemen tell me how common non-rhotic accents are in the South nowadays? Have they all but disappeared?
Mr. Toddard @ 33
A mere generation ago, most white Southerners had non-rhotic accents. Today, however, it exists only in pockets and is likely more prevalent in rural blacks than whites.
In my experience, it is yet found in older people but not at all in younger people. Those considered "poorer," i.e. not as "well educated" in the government system, have it more than their counterparts.
All of my grandparents and great aunts and uncles spoke with it. Their voices come back to me even now as I attempt to respond to your post. My name "Robert" was pronounced by them all as "Robutt" and "water" was "waduh". Gone are the days. We are "so well educated."
@33, 34
It seems to me that the public education system, and probably TV as well, is killing many regional accents. Not only in the South, but interior New England, and England herself.
Several years ago I can recall hearing the distinct accent of Charlestonians when I visted. On my last trip late last year, I didnt hear one.
Daniel Maxwell @ 36,
I know two young men and a most Charlestonian lady, the three of whom I met at Abbeville Institute events, who have the accent in spades!
@37
Good to hear. When I was there, most everyone had the 'generic' Southern accent that I hear spoken by Kentuckians and Tennesseans.
The odder Northern accents are, I believe, even more endangered. There wasnt ever too many in the Midwest where I live, but from Pennsylvania on up there used to be quite a variety.
Dr. Peters is only too right. There is nothing lovelier than the speech of a cultured Carolina lady above a certain age. Alas, now giving way to Valley-Girl-speak. Of course, one can't measure exactly how much is lost because most of the people in Charleston and other Southern cities now are not actually from there but immigrants from the Rust Belt. It is the world-historic destiny and mission of "America" to reduce everything to the lowest common denominator of civilisational sludge.
I also lay the blame squarely on college campuses, with their odious culture, for the further destruction of localism - North and South. A year or two ago, I read an ugly anti-Christian essay - printed in the college newspaper of Ole Miss - without a doubt written by a transplant.
An old man I once worked for stopped in Savannah and a little black boy was selling boiled peanuts. The old man was puzzled because he couldn't understand what a "bald" peanut was.
I queried my ninety-three-year-old mother over coffee this evening on the loss of the non-rothic accent in our family. She said that her father's family which comes from the Neutral Zone of Louisiana did not have it. It was prevalent only on her maternal side, the side of the family with which I was most intimate. She said that she was not conscious of not having it but that neither she nor her siblings did.
My paternal grandmother had it, but none of her children did.
Several things might have mitigated the non-rothic accent in our climes:
1. WWI which brought in thousands of soldiers from the North and which brought a "nationalism" which was antagonistic to German in Louisiana and to Creole and Cajun French and likely to certain forms of the "Southern" accent as well.
2. Public schooling as an industrial process which had been alien to our part of the South.
3. The coming of radio.
4. The coming of the movies.
In north Louisiana, although we were segregated, we kids, black and white, played together. We did not go into the house of the other and, therefore, did not eat with one another. We did, however, take water together, our respective adult stewards providing it on the porch. I remember one of the black kids, known to us as Scrappy, saying when he drank of my great uncle's water, "This be some cool waduh." When we reached puberty, we were discouraged from playing with one another. Adults on both sides knew and respected the necessary taboos.
My point is that the great American leveling has destroyed the black idiom of Southern culture as well as its European counterpart. Hollywood, Madison Avenue, "education," brute federal force and demographics have taken their toll.
On the positive side, I know a liberal couple from Iowa whose children grew up in South Carolina and learned to speak properly.
"Those considered “poorer,” i.e. not as “well educated” in the government system, have it more than their counterparts"
That is the case up here (in Massachusetts) as well. My father and mother, Memere and Pepere and even Old Pepere (who was born in 1883 and died at a hundred when I was in grade school) have/had strong non-rhotic accents of the traditional New England variety, as do my brother and sister to different degrees. Mine lessened somewhat, from spending so much of my formative years with friends from the wealthier parts of our ex-mill city, where the local accent is nearly non-existent. Our own local accents here in New England are disappearing for two reasons, I believe: 1) television, which is by far the most significant instructor of (what passes for) morals and (what passes for) propriety in America, and 2) because the local accent is looked down upon as uncouth.
"An old man I once worked for stopped in Savannah and a little black boy was selling boiled peanuts. The old man was puzzled because he couldn’t understand what a “bald” peanut was"
When I was 12 and my New England accent stronger than it is now, I visited relatives in Alaska for a month in the summer. We went out for hamburgers at one point and I order a "Doctor Pepper". I had to repeat it five times before they understood me. They literally thought I was a foreigner.
Which, in a way, I was.
I visited Savannah for a week a year ago, and absolutely adored it. I listened all week for that syrupy, non-rhotic drawl, that prettier cousin to our own broad accents up here, and only heard it once, from the throat of an older, straight-backed, clear-eyed gentleman who seemed to me to be the living embodiment of everything I find romantic about the South. It was in the middle of the week and hot as blazes, and though he was dressed as if for church he did not sweat a drop. One of the many friendly, jovial and engaging people I had the pleasure to meet and share a drink with that week. I don't speak to that many strangers up here even in my own home town.
It's called breeding. Something even those charmers Ginsburg and Sotomaier haven't yet figured out how to declare unconstitutional.
Don't know much about that non-rhotic - sounds like a landscaping tool to me - but as a kid I never met a girl with a Southern accent I wasn't soon half in love with.
Mr. Jacobi @ 47
The non-rhotic is a landscaping tool; it shapes the linguistic and cultural contours of a people. When natural and not a Hollywood affectation, always utterly failed, it creates a wonderful beauty.
@48
Agreed, which is what makes Tom Hanks' Oscar for "Forrest Gump" so risible. No one could have sounded less like an Alabama boy than he did there, though he gave himself some competition in that department with his performance in Castaway, wherein his character is allegedly from Memphis. Giving Sandra Bullock an award for her travesty of a Memphis accent for "The Blind Side" provokes laughter as well. Perhaps the most atrocious recent Hollywood foray into Southern accents can be heard in the unthinkable remake of "All the King's Men", particularly Sean Penn and Jude Law.
I like regional accents, even if they're not mine. It makes me happy to see that the country hasn't been totally subsumed into mass culture.
I live in Virginia in college worked at a McDonald's near the interstate, got a lot of travelers. A family from Massachusetts came in (I knew they were from there, as they ordered "quahtahpoundahs". After awhile, the 10 year old boy in the family came up and said "could I please have a covah for the frap". I thought to myself, what in the WORLD does he want???? "Uh, what's a frap, we don't have anything like that on the menu." "Yeah, you do, you know, fraps, chocolate, strawberry, vanilla". Then the light dawned!!! He wanted a lid for his milkshake!!! "Oh, I'm sorry" I said, "I didn't know what it was, down here you should ask for a lid for your milkshake". I am sure he thought I was clueless and dumb but he was too polite to say so!!!