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Tuesday, August 02, 2005Rabbi Boteach Chokes on the Blue Pill
Upon arrival at Beliefnet today, I was confronted with a Confederate battle flag layered behind the words "What Terrorists and Confederate War Heroes Have in Common". Clicking the graphic took me to an article by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, entitled "The Sin of Confederate Hero Worship". Ah, Rabbi Boteach. I remember when he compared Mel Gibson's 'The Passion of the Christ' to "Mohammed al-Zarqawi's movies on the Internet where a guy gets his head chopped off". Needless to say, any intrigue I might have felt after reading the title was immediately dashed. I reckon you could say that when it comes to comparing everything one doesn't like (or understand) to Islamist murderers, Rabbi Boteach has established a pattern. The Rabbi gets right down to it: "As an American who loves his country, I am appalled by the persistence of Confederate hero worship in the South 140 years after the Civil War's end. After all, the South fought for a truly evil cause. While there were other factors that led to the Civil War, no serious, objective historian would deny that the principal cause of the war was the institution of slavery, and that the South fought to preserve its 'peculiar institution.'This is, of course, where one points out those brutal facts of reality that have conveniently escaped the good rabbi. During the second session of the thirty-sixth Congress, Rep. Thomas Corwin (R-Ohio) proposed a thirteenth amendment to the US Constitution. On February 28, 1861, the US House of Representatives approved the proposed amendment 133-65. On March 2, the Senate approved it 24-12. A couple of days later, in his first inaugural address, President Lincoln, addressed the proposed amendment, saying that he had "...no objection to its being made express and irrevocable". And what was it about the Corwin Amendment that the Great Emancipator wanted "express and irrevocable"? "No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State." So basically, the rabbi believes that while the Southern states were seceding -- in order to keep their slaves -- and the Northern states (in Congress assembled) were passing an amendment that guaranteed eternal slavery in any state that wanted it, the Southern states -- in order to keep their slaves -- seceded anyway, rather than send their delegates back to Washington to partake in the Corwin Amendment, which would've allowed them to keep their slaves. <sarcasm>Yeah, that makes sense.</sarcasm> Logically, if slavery was truly their "principle cause" and worth risking everything they had, they would have taken the prize behind door number one - the Corwin Amendment. But there was more to it than that, and so the Southern states seceded (thanks to that brilliant piece of Yankee legislation, had the South not seceded, slavery might have survived decades longer; quite possibly, even today). "And aside from the slavery question, were these men not traitors to their country? The Confederate rebellion cost the United States 580,000 lives. It began when the South rejected the election of Abraham Lincoln, a president who they believed would abolish slavery but whom we Americans today regard as the greatest president ever to lead this country."With these words, the rabbi betrays a total ignorance of a most fundamental American value: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness; that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." In a word, secession. That is the principle on which our Founding Fathers declared their independence, and fought a long, bloody war to secure. The Declaration of Independence did not establish a country, it established a nation; a body of individuals united not by blood or borders, but ideals. That was the birth of the Americans. Likewise, the Southern states rescinded their delegates from Washington DC in 1861 and formed their own union. There was nothing in the US Constitution that prohibited them from doing so, but Honest Abe probably wouldn't have been able to live with himself had the Union "crumbled" under his watch, so he launched an invasion that killed 600,000 Americans, and two constitutional, democratic republics in the process (it's like cheating on your wife, then beating her to a pulp if she threatens divorce, in order to "save the union" of marriage). That was effectively the end of federalism in the United States, and precisely why Lincoln is largely regarded as a tyrant. As HL Mencken said, "...it was the South, not the North, that was fighting for a government of the people, by the people and for the people." "The cause for which the Confederate leaders fought, namely slavery, was no more noble than the cause for which the terrorist mastermind Abu Musab Al Zarqawi fights for today in Baghdad."They fought because they were invaded by a hostile, foreign aggressor. Secession was a legal, wholly American institution. To morally equate the Confederacy's right to defend itself with the wanton actions of a homicidal maniac working to achieve worldwide domination of Sharia Law is, at best, dishonest. "The great men of the Civil War were not the rebels, but those who fought to preserve the unity of this great nation rather than to tear it asunder. The great men of that terrible war were those who ultimately freed the slaves from bondage -- most notably Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman -- rather than those whose victory would have had fellow Americans owned as beasts of burden by their countrymen."Lincoln: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that." Grant: "If I thought this war was to abolish slavery, I would resign my commission and offer my sword to the other side." Sherman: "Down here they think they are going to have fine times. New Orleans a free port, whereby she can import Goods without limit or duties, and Sell to the up River Countries. But Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore will never consent that N. Orleans should be a Free Port, and they Subject to Duties." Rabbi Boteach's "great men", in their own words. "Great men" who fought under a flag that flew over slavery for 76 years, yet somehow the Southern Cross -- which only flew four years -- is the "offensive" one. General Grant didn't even free his own slaves until he was bound by the new and improved Thirteenth Amendment to do so, months after the War had ended. But nevermind all that! "When religious southern Christians engage in nostalgia for the Confederacy, they are making the mistake of putting Southern sentiment before religious conviction, in effect elevating an inferior part of their identity over the most central part. Regional loyalty must never come before eternal principle."We will never know why a man as ill-informed as Rabbi Boteach has felt compelled to lecture us about our history, culture, and religion. Indeed, if he were a Christian, he might value the wisdom of taking care of his own problems first; for it is the Law of his own cherished religion that condones and regulates the ownership of slaves. And if this self-styled iconoclast reasonably wishes to smash our perception of the great Southern heroes who fought and/or died for the freedom of their homeland -- simply because some among them owned slaves -- then I expect from him a full repudiation of Moses, and any ancient Israelite esteemed by Judaism who ever owned a slave as per Mosaic Law. It's only fair.
Permalink | 7:28 PM
Our Finest Hour
I guess it was inevitable that this would show up in the news. And I'm the sucker who had to stay at work late to write the SITREP.
Permalink | 5:36 PM
On Secession
Would you call this a parable, or a prophesy?
Permalink | 2:29 PM
Sign It!
I wish I'd have thought of it. This highly untalented "performer" pisses me off worse than alcohol-free beer. (HT: HDYLMF?)
Permalink | 10:03 PM
Okie Noodling
Welcome to the party, Missouri.
Permalink | 9:09 PM
I Hope It Was Worth It
This is great: "MUSTANG, Okla. A superintendent's decision to remove a Nativity scene from an elementary school Christmas program has proven costly.Yeah I bet he's sleeping well at night. And you just know he'll get his ass kicked in the next election by some guy who pledges to do nothing but keep God in the school. "Although the Nativity scene was removed, the children still got to sing 'Silent Night.'"Way to stick to your guns there, chief.
Permalink | 9:12 PM
Incense and Peppermints
So I was sitting in the theater the other night, about to watch "Ocean's Twelve", when all the sudden this ad for a new movie starring Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka started playing. I don't know what genius decided to cast him, but whatever. The thing that struck me odd, though, is that they didn't bother making him look a damned thing like Willy Wonka. Nope, they made him look like Z-Man from "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls".  Boy howdy that'd be one helluva "surprise ending".
Permalink | 6:33 PM
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