Three Courageous Southerners

This week marks the birth dates of three courageous Southern men:

Martin Luther King - January 15th

Robert E. Lee - January 19th

Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson - January 21st

King is honored with a national holy day. For the growing percentage of working people who are employed by government, or by government regulated business, (full disclosure: I'm in that favored category) it's a welcome day off. Federal employees enjoy ten of these national holy days, courtesy of the involuntary donations the government collects from less privileged Americans.

Personally, I'm not enthused about holy days in honor of flawed humans. Christmas commemorates the birth of the only flawless human, and is an exception, with one caveat: Jesus was certainly not born around winter solstice. Nevertheless, hearing "...come let us adore him..." - in public, in post-Christian, lawyer-laden, America - blesses my soul.

Objecting to holy days for humans - Columbus Day, MLK Day, Presidents' Day (nee' Washington's and Lincoln's birthdays) - doesn't negate the fact that birth dates of great people do afford opportunities to reflect on their legacies.

Enter Martin Luther King, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson.

The three have two things in common: They were Southerners, and they were remarkably courageous.

Many Conservatives object to honoring King because of his philandering, plagiarism, and Communist associations. Count me among those that see those things as fair game for discussion.

And to reiterate, I don't care much for holy days that honor mere men, anyway.

Where I part with many Conservatives is in my genuine admiration for King's courage. I also happen to appreciate his oratorical skills.

Martin Luther King knew for several years that he was a likely target for assassination, yet he continued to speak out boldly, publicly, for what he believed.

While King's consorting with communists is censorable, let's save some contempt for certain of his contemporaries…like the cowardly reprobates who killed four little girls in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing, eh?

I also happen to admire him as an orator. For me, words like, "I have a dream....," and judging men by "the content of their character, not by the color of their skins," are keepers, rightly preserved for the ages. Our current crop of race mongers - Sharpton and Jackson; Eric Holder and Jimmy Carter - are frauds largely because their collectivist politics lead them to regard color over character.

My other two courageous Southerners are at least as worthy of honor as MLK. But there character is often impugned because of their association with the lost cause of Southern Independence.

Lincoln referred to both Lee and Jackson as traitors, which is remarkable because in the spring of 1861, he offered Lee command of the entire Federal army, on the recommendation of then top General Scott, who regarded Lee as the finest officer in the Army.

Lee declined the offer, resigned his commission, and the rest is history...

...Except that history has been distorted.

The average person has been greatly misinformed about the War for Southern Independence.

But in school we learned Lee and Jackson fought to preserve slavery.

Wrong! They fought to preserve Virginia, when she was invaded by what was to become the most powerful army ever formed up to that time. These invaders marched through Washington D.C. singing John Brown's Body, an ode to the terrorist who once pulled four men out of their beds and murdered them in cold blood.

(Julia Ward Howe, whose husband helped finance Brown's ill-fated takeover of the Harper's Ferry arsenal, changed the words of John Brown's Body into a horrendous ditty celebrating the slaughter of secessionist southerners. Millions of Christians have sung The Battle Hymn of the Republic in church, oblivious to the fact that they are equating the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of other Christians with God's work.)

Lee unequivocally opposed slavery. Jackson – the Rosa Parks of his day - demanded that the young black people in his Sunday school class be allowed to sit with him in the front of the church (for context consider that Lincoln regarded blacks as inferior and advocated sending them all out of the country).

If Lee and Jackson fought for slavery, Ike and Patton fought for Stalin.

Robert E. Lee carried on friendly correspondence with Lord Acton, the British statesman who said "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely." Lord Acton wanted Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia to prevail, because he saw that Lincoln's victory would be a victory for "might makes right."

Where are the wise and courageous of our age who will overcome the ignorance and cowardice that threatens to enslave from it's fortress in Washington D.C?