The South Was Right

by James Ronald Kennedy

  A “just” government as described by Jefferson is one which rules with the consent of those governed. It does not force or coerce its citizens to accept its will, but reflects the common will of the people. A just government respects the liberty of the individual. As John Stuart Mill said,

  No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected, is free, whatever may be its form of government.5

  Now let us look at the present government of the United States and see how it respects (or fails to respect) the liberty of the individual. Then we can decide if its rules and edicts deserve the consent of those governed.

  One example alone will serve to show the nature of the Northern liberal government’s disregard for liberty and the consent of those governed. The example of forced busing is proof enough that the government no longer respects the rights of the people. Like a nightmare on wheels, this institution makes a mockery of the concept of liberty and of the principle of government by the consent of those governed. This evil system, which is forced on Southern children to a greater extent than on Northern children, is by its very nature wrong. The federal courts forced busing upon the South claiming that it would improve education and reduce racism. After a generation of forced busing we now know that these goals have not been met and that in fact the very opposite has occurred! All of this has transpired over the objection of the Southern people and in violation of their rights and liberties. When analyzing the results and the hardships that result from this continuing Yankee social experiment, we are left unable to explain why “our” government continues to persist with these policies.

  According to a two-year study done by the Dallas Independent School District, black elementary students in segregated schools showed higher academic achievement and less racial prejudice than did black students in integrated schools. (Study reported from Dallas Texas by UPI 2-25-79.)

  Taking children away from the control of their parents is wrong, no matter what the objective of some social bureaucrat might be. Children are a divine trust given to parents by God. They are not property of the federal government or of its judges. Yet “our” government tells us that stealing our children will increase civil rights, and that forcing children into schools according to racial quotas will do away with the evil of segregation. They also tell us that giving special treatment to minorities will eliminate racial discrimination and produce a color-blind society. Does this remind you of Orwellian doublespeak? How could anyone believe that forcing parents to send their children to schools far away from home in a strange environment against their will (exit consent of those governed) really increases freedom and decreases prejudice? In the South, eighty to ninety percent of the white population and forty to sixty percent of the black population is opposed to forced busing. These statistics indicate that a clear-cut majority of Southerners is opposed to this nightmare. Yet “our” federal government, which now is the sole judge of its power and its use of that power, continues to force its will on the people of the South. Are we not a land of “democracy”? Are we not a “free people”? Do we not live in the “land of the free”? The simple and painful answer to each question is “No.” Why should we deceive ourselves any longer? We do not control the education of our children, the federal government does. Our consent be damned. Governmental officials do as they please, while we must obey like the humble serfs of our conquering masters.

  A just government is one that rules by the consent of the governed. Can we say that this government, which has given us forced busing and demanded equality for homosexuals and communists in our classrooms, is doing the will of the people of the South? If this is the will of the people, then we have a “just” government. Fellow Southerner, consider this: if the federal government is doing all this (and needless to say, it is), against the will and consent of its citizens, it has ceased to be a just government. Liberty cannot survive in such an environment. What would patriots like Patrick Henry or Thomas Jefferson say if their children were used by a government like so many guinea pigs in a grand laboratory experiment? Is this the type of country they fought for? Is this the type of country that Southerners have been so willing to die for in every war since 1865? Of course not! Rightful heirs of liberty should not accept the actions and edicts of such an unjust government. The liberal establishment does not rule by divine right. We must not allow them to be our masters any longer. All Southerners must join with that great Southerner Patrick Henry and say, “Give me liberty, or give me death.” The faint of heart and the weak of faith will no doubt cry “treason,” but if we fail to be loyal to the first principles upon which this country was founded, then and only then will we have become traitors. We must not worship the form and forget the substance from which government derives its very essence. Christians revere their Bible, not because of its form or name, but because of what it is and what it does to and for them. To love a Bible just because it is a book is idolatry, but to love the Bible because it is God’s Word and because it speaks God’s words, is the essence of a Christian’s devotion to his God. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees because, as He said, they were like whited sepulchers, beautiful and clean on the outside, but yet inside were full of dead men’s bones.

  With sadness in our hearts, we must report to our fellow Southerners that this “land of liberty,” this “land of the free,” this “constitutional republic” is like a whited sepulcher. It has the outward signs of liberty, but this is only surface appearance. Inside, it is full of dead men’s bones, the remains of individual liberty murdered at the hands of a central government that admits no limits to its own power.

  The Pursuit of Happiness

  Let us question the wives of senior managers in industrial corporation. The advance witnesses of life in the future. Thanks to their improved standard of living, do your husbands have more or less work to do than ten years ago? Do they have more or less time available for family life? Were an industrial organization to be content with such a low return, its output itself would be condemned.6

  The Founding Fathers knew that people needed, for their sense of psychological equilibrium, the right to pursue a state of mind in which they would be content or happy. Nowhere in the Declaration of Independence do we find a commitment of the state to ensure everyone’s “happiness,” but what was required was that everyone have the right to “the pursuit of happiness.”

  Like Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, who is quoted above, the South also questions whether happiness can be found among the sweat shops of industrialism. With its rich tradition of agrarian-ism, the South has long been warning the world of the dangers inherent in the loss of our relationship with the environment. The traditional South, as defended in I’ll Take My Stand, knew that the creation of industrial wealth could not produce happiness. The Marxists have attempted to solve the problem of property and happiness by forced collectivization. This has very little appeal to traditional Southerners because of their rich heritage of individual liberty and self-reliance.

  The pursuit of happiness is a valid means of expression for a free people. Indeed, today our world seems to have gone to the extreme in its efforts to find “happiness.” Why should such an element of life be, apparently, so hard to realize?

  One major reason happiness is so elusive in the United States is that Northern industrialism has attempted to sell happiness in little boxes of materialism. Sadly we have found out that an abundance of material things cannot in and of itself produce happiness. People can find true happiness only as they understand themselves in relation to God’s world.7

  In this age of materialism we have increasingly removed ourselves from nature. We are less identified with nature and also less able to define our proper role in nature. The more we remove ourselves from the land and lock ourselves up in the artificial environments of cities and suburbs, the more we lose sight of the divine order in the world. We have created too many artificial barriers between ourselves and our natural environment. We now find it difficult to identify happiness.
We have separated ourselves from our natural environment, and, like fish out of water, we flounder helplessly as we attempt to find our proper place in this new and alien world. Our only hope is to return to our natural medium and to be refreshed by its revitalizing influence. Otherwise our work-a-day world will slowly choke us with its dull standardization.

  Before the Industrial Revolution, people took much pleasure in the accomplishments of their labor. Today’s wage slaves, on the other hand, endure their labor while anxiously awaiting the magical “quitting time” that will allow them to begin their real lives. Medical science has given us longer life spans, but technological industrialism has in effect shortened our lives by eight hours per working day.

  Northern industrialism is a dangerous entity because it has a tendency to reduce the whole person to an abstraction.8 This depersonalization is the result of the loss of the essence of humanity, which is everyone’s sovereign individuality. Our society is increasingly becoming a machine economy, with the individual becoming no more than an adjunct of the machine.

  Is it any wonder that only two parts of the person are developed in today’s society? One is that part trained to aid the machine in its role of production. The other is the consuming portion. We have been conditioned to become the consuming entity of the industrial society. We provide the means of production and consumption. We are colonials (those who exist for the good of others) in our own homes.

  In the beginning, industry was created to provide the needs of society. This relationship has since been reversed. Now we exist to consume manufactured goods. There is no need for quality in production because we have been told that happiness exists in having disposable items. Material goods are not made to endure. The Northern industrialist cannot allow us to buy goods that last a lifetime—this would reduce the need for production. Far from controlling production (exit the law of supply and demand), we, especially the people of the South, are at risk of becoming its slaves. Industrialism does not look to our needs; it creates a desire for certain material items and then moves to fill that artificially created “need.” If a profit can be had, then the industrialist makes and markets the item. The central theme of Northern industrialism is, “If it makes a profit, produce more, advertise more, create more desire for the ’happiness’ this item can bring. If it does not produce a profit, then scrap it, for it is of no value.” Happiness cannot and should not be judged by such a materialistic standard.

  For generations Southerners have been told to industrialize and thereby bring about a new and better world. Industrialism has been held up as a panacea for all the economic woes and ills of the South. Dutifully obedient to this “New South” gospel, Southern governors have made annual pilgrimages to the North to beg Northern industries to come down South and take advantage of its abundant labor supply, its inexpensive living conditions, its wholesome environment, and its stable society. Has industrialism produced the miracle of happiness for our people? It is true that we all want a better standard of living for our people. We also want to pursue happiness, but remember that not all that glitters is gold. We wish to see industry come to our land, but we must make an effort to humanize industry or else be faced with the prospect of being choked by its dehumanizing and environmentally destructive forces.

  The heritage of Southern agrarianism speaks a warning to us about the loss of human values to industrialism and admonishes us not to live our lives as adjuncts of mindless machines. It warns us not to heed the false gospel of “progress.” It tells us of the danger of leaving the land where we can commune with nature and with our Creator. It reminds us that through the natural world we can renew our lives and enrich our humanity. We are reminded that we need to maintain the spiritual kinship with our agrarian roots. If we seek after the false gods of industrialism, we will leave more than the land; we will leave the source from which we obtain our essence, our humanity. The loss of our humanity plus worship of the machine will lead to a condition in which we will evermoreseek happiness but never find it. When happiness is measured in terms of materialism, it is incumbent upon the producers of material goods to assure that the consuming public never find happiness. For, if happiness is found, then consumption will cease or at least be dramatically reduced. The result will be a net loss to those who produce. If we are allowed to find happiness in things other than the material, then we will become ineffective as consumers and therefore of no use to modern industrialism.

  COLONIALISM AND THE DENIAL OF HAPPINESS

  Man is only truly man, in as far as master of his own acts and judge of their worth, he is author of his own advancement.9

  Most of us are accustomed to hearing representatives of third-world countries complain about colonialism. We seldom stop to consider that the Southern people also suffer under the yoke of colonialism.

  To deny people the right to be the author of their own advancement is to deny them the right to be whole. For a free people will, by the irresistible impetus of their freedom, be masters of their lives and destinies. Let us consider the life of a colonial. A colonial must exist for the benefit of someone else, a relationship that Southerners have in regard to the all-powerful central government.

  Colonialism is not a new idea but rather an old and dying form of government. Under colonialism, people are usually poor economically and spiritually as compared to the people who constitute the governing power. The current poverty of the Southern people is a result of this colonial relationship in which the powerful North exercises control and dominion over the weaker Southern subjects of the Yankee empire. Even more revealing than this relationship between the stronger and weaker is the fact that colonialism is a relationship in which those who are dominated are not allowed to become the creators of their own history. Colonialism has reduced the Southern people to a position in which they are not allowed to assert their rights or defend their heritage. They can only react, much as a tucked-tail dog does when disciplined by his cruel master. This means that their lives, as colonials, are not planned according to their own needs and best interests, but according to the needs and political desires of the ruling Northern liberal order. As Southerners, we are a minority in the Yankee empire. We are being exploited for the good of the controlling elements. Our labor and raw material is used, not to build a better South, but to maintain the Northern liberal industrial establishment.

  THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS AND SOUTHERN ECONOMIC REALITY

  Happiness is indeed more than economics, but the pursuit of happiness cannot be divorced from the economic realm of life. It is in this realm of economics that the South stands like a shoeless urchin in a relentless winter storm.

  Economic prosperity has been elusive for the South since Ap-pomattox. Because of our poor economic standing, the youth of the South must start their pursuit of happiness as second-class citizens within the United States.

  Much has been said about the booming “Sun Belt,” but occasionally some hard and cold facts are revealed that dispel this myth of Southern prosperity. According to the United States Commerce Department, the average income for Southerners is below that of other Americans. As a matter of fact, of the Southern states, all but one is ranked in the bottom fifty percent of states for personal income. The South, after the loss of its war for independence, has always been on the bottom of the economic scale. The people of Canada, who remained loyal to the English Crown during the American Revolutionary War, have a higher personal income than the average Southerner!

  If two young people start to work, one in the South and one in the North, the Northerner will have a distinct advantage over the Southerner. This trend will continue throughout their lives. If the young person has the luck of living in Mississippi, he or she will have the dubious honor of living (or trying to exist) on the lowest per capita income in the entire country.

  Why should the Southern states always be at the bottom of the economic barrel in America? Year after year, Southern youth who are yoked to a second-class economy must compete against their
Northern counterparts. Regardless of whether this situation has come about by accident or by design, the results for young and old alike are the same. As Southerners, we must make our way in an economically depressed region of “our” country. This has been the case since our benevolent masters from the North “saved” the glorious Union! What a terrible price we are paying for their political, military, and economic success! The Yankee myth-makers would have us believe that we should be grateful to them for their willingness to come all the way down South to kill, rob, and burn just to keep us in their land of freedom and prosperity.

  We should face the fact that our economic well-being will never be salvaged by anyone other than ourselves. The Southern states at one time had enough natural resources in oil and gas to be as prosperous as any Middle-Eastern Arab nation. What has happened? Our resources have been squandered for the benefit of the Northern industrialist. These resources were not and are not being used to build up our Southern economy. The South has served as a convenient source of natural resources and cheap labor, just like any other victimized colony.

  Our only hope of changing our second-class economic status is to quit acting like pacified colonial subjects. We must look to ourselves for our economic salvation. Let us pledge to those yet unborn that they shall not come into this world as second-class citizens; then we must be prepared to take those actions necessary to fulfill that pledge.

  The controlling element of the Yankee empire responds, in typical reactionary fashion, to the nationalist views of Southerners by assigning villainy (hate, bigotry, racism, etc.) to our motives. The Southern people do not and have never harbored evil intentions against their Northern neighbors. What we have demanded and continue to insist upon is the right to control our lives, our destiny, and the sovereign right to build for ourselves a better South. We have no desire to enforce our will upon others. We claim the right to use our freedom and liberty to build a better world for ourselves, and we reject the notion that the liberal Yankee imperialists possess the right to nullify our liberty. We desire this expression of liberty for ourselves and for all others who wish to adopt it freely.