I don't have much mojo on this site, but a few people will probably remember my comments on diaries promoting Martin O'Malley encouraging them to instead vote for Jim Webb. I regretted deeply that Al Gore and Jim Kerry had lost their elections not only because Bush 43 was an unqualified disaster, but because I felt this country owed the presidency to at least one Vietnam veteran. No more.
See below.
Dear Ashleigh and Webb campaign,
Six months ago I was all fired up about Senator Webb. I purchased three of his books on Amazon.com and reviewed them. Two of them pointed me towards a fourth book, “A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States” by Alexander Stephens, which Senator Webb did not exactly endorse as the best book about the Civil War, but which he claimed had persuaded Northern historians of the rightness of the South’s cause (see “Born Fighting” and “A Time to Fight”). My Amazon review of “Constitutional View,” which failed to get the high marks I gave Senator Webb’s books, expressed my hope that Senator Webb’s view of the Constitution had evolved beyond that expressed in Volume I of that book.
This week, today, is, however, no time to be arguing the finer points of a Hamiltonian vs. Jeffersonian view of the Constitution. The people who shoot others to death in their church are not Constitutional scholars, nor do they really believe they are acting to defend the Constitution. I am concerned today with the moral support given to such people by others who fly the Confederate flag or defend its use.
Senator Webb has lost my support, which on further reflection, should never have been given to him. (I in particular regret sending you my resume and applying for full-time work with your campaign.) He complains about “the Nazification of the Confederacy.” The coining of such a phrase is an indicator of moral blindness and deafness. If Hitler had had only five million Aryans to work with, and four million Jews to persecute, he probably would have created something very like the Confederacy, instead of declaring war on the whole world. The Confederacy may have killed fewer people than the Nazis, but if the United States had stepped aside and allowed the first seven seceding states to do as they pleased, they would have gone to Latin America and enslaved more people than the Nazis did in fact. And eventually, the First World War would have been fought to liberate those slaves.
If you read my reviews, you will probably notice how I gave “Born Fighting” one fewer star than I gave the other two books I reviewed, “A Time to Fight” and “I Heard my Country Calling.” Nearly all of the last two generations of Senator Webb’s ancestors grew up under Jim Crow. It is possible for people who accept life under such a system to impart a more than workable morality to their children (see Jimmy Carter), but I got the impression from that book that Senator Webb embraced all aspects of the culture which produced his parents and grandparents – that had they grown up as laborers, soldiers and mechanics in the North or West, they would somehow have been lesser men and women.
If Senator Webb would earn back my support, let him, on his next trip to South Carolina, go to the Confederate Heritage Memorial in front of the State Capitol and say to reporters and supporters, “Governor Haley, tear down this flag. Legislators of South Carolina, pass whatever laws you need to, to make that happen, or the legitimacy of your state Constitution equals that of the German Democratic Republic which refused to tear down the Wall when invited by President Reagan.” At the very least, let him state publicly that his ancestors’ contributions to the Confederacy and Jim Crow were in no way honorable. Until then, my viable choices for the primary election in my state are Bernie Sanders and Lincoln Chafee.
Respectfully,
Jason Galbraith