F#$% “Civility”

From the Desk of Slats MacCune: Professional Dreamweaver.

Done clutching the pearls yet?  We live in times that are too brutal for more genteel phrases such as “de-select civility.” 

Civility should not be an excuse for pusillanimity in the face of fascism, or authoritarianism of any stripe.  Sometimes, direct action is the only way to roll.

Stripping ideology aside, bullies take comfort in the expectation of measured responses.  When I was in the 7^th grade, a cul-de-sac tormentor named Frank put me in a head-lock and would not let go.  He thought that I would not react strongly to his aggression.  When I wheeled around and punched him in the face, the dynamic shifted immediately.  From that point on, I earned the wide berth I was given.  It wasn’t a time for a polite debating society.

Shifting to far more serious and systemic matters, Brittany “Bree” Newsome was a hero for climbing that flagpole in South Carolina and removing that evil Confederate flag.  The protestors were right to pull down the “Confederate Soldiers Monument” in Durham, NC recently. Those who call for moderation for the sake of moderation in word and deed are abdicating their moral responsibility to speak out against the hate mongers who have a) always plagued America and b) are re-asserting themselves quite vigorously in the Trump era.         

I know you folks in Howard County put a premium on (some might say fetishize) the concept of civility as an end in-and-of itself.  Civility should not be exercised automatically. Not everyone deserves it.  Nazis certainly don’t.  The “alt-Right” doesn’t.  Frankly, these fascists and their fellow travelers rely on “reasonable” people who choose to act “civilly” as opposed to taking a stand and fighting back. 

As Dante wrote about those who “in a time of moral crisis” opted to “preserve their neutrality,” there are people “who made, through cowardice, the great refusal.”  Now is not the time for equivocation or vacillation in the face of those who embrace the dogmas of hatred.  And if that means not turning the other cheek, then so be it.

    

Monumental Lunacy

The Howard County Times, taking the concept of "on-the-other-hand-ism" to its illogical apogee, penned a horrendously ill-thought out and terribly crafted editorial, which can be found here.

Choosing to conflate a repository of knowledge (a library) with a celebration of traitors who fought for the Confederacy (the monument on the courthouse grounds in Ellicott City), the scribbler who penned that piece appears to have lost the thread immediately after the byline.

The call for a "modulated" response is nonsensical.  The Civil War ended (spoiler: The South lost) 152 years ago, why is additional time needed to ponder the fate of something which should never have been installed in the first place?

Employing the same kind of reflexive anti-reasoning that calls for "bipartisanship," even when one side is clearly in the right while the other is demonstrably wrong, the HoCo Times has embarrassed itself with an editorial that appears to claim that opponents of this marker are attempting to "rewrite history."  Rubbish.  The people on the monument simply do not deserve to be remembered, on public grounds, as those who "fought for their beliefs in a vastly different era." This phrasing almost sounds romantic and the rest of the sentence, which almost grudgingly acknowledges that they were on "the wrong side of history by allowing and condoning slavery" is not nearly damning enough.  They turned their back on country and picked up arms to preserve the abomination of slavery, and all of the suffering that came with that evil institution.

The only proper response is for the marker's immediate removal.  Anything else is unacceptable.  For the Times to not recognize this is not a sign of a struggle against "political correctness," it is a sign of their failure to perceive moral correctness.

Stay tuned, as more will follow.