Pat Buchanan on the South and the Union

Patrick J. Buchanan, one of the few intelligent conservative writers (even when I disagree with him on certain issues), writes on the South, the Union, and progressives.

Says Buchanan:

"...no matter the progress made over half a century, they do not trust the South to deal fairly and decently with its black citizens, without a club over its head. They do not believe the South has changed in its heart from the days of segregation.

They think the South is lying in wait for a new opportunity to disfranchise its black voters. And they think black Southerners are unable to defend their own interests – without Northern liberal help.

In this belief there are elements of paranoia, condescension and bigotry.

"Many liberals not only do not trust the South, some detest it. And many seem to think it deserves to be treated differently than the more progressive precincts of the nation.

"Consider Wednesday's offering by Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson. The South, he writes, is the home of 'so-called right-to-work laws' and hostility to the union shop, undergirded by 'the virulent racism of the white Southern establishment,' a place where a 'right-wing antipathy toward workers' rights' is pandemic.

"The South is the 'the heartland of cheap-labor America. ... When it wants to slum, business still goes to the South.' Then there are those 'reactionary white Republican state governments.'"

I recommend that you read the piece. It exposes how much racism the modern left has toward the South, how much distrust still exists between the Northerners and the Southerners. Deep down, we as Christians must recognize sooner or later that we must love our enemies (Matthew 5:43-48), as Jesus Christ commanded,  even when we loathe their culture or behavior with a deep loathing. We must not let the troubles of centuries past to conflict with the possibility of restored fellowship. Also, it would help to reconsider much of the established history we have been taught, as that would clear up many, if not all, of our problems