The Forsaking of Old Landmarks and Where It’s Brought Us

The Forsaking of Old Landmarks and Where It’s Brought Us

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 8/11/19

            Three   entities have played a major role in producing the culture we now live in: homes, schools, and atheism.  Our culture is one of weakened families, high out-of-wedlock birthrates, therapy-soaked education, mass shootings, drug use (including our pet drug, alcohol, the evils of which most adults refuse to acknowledge), opioid deaths, declining worship attendance, political incivility, ugly language, ubiquitous pornography, and loneliness.

            These are not the only characteristics of America today.  Neighborliness still exists, charitable giving continues, most citizens are law-abiding, and the economy is strong.  Yet, there is currently a sure slide toward pure rancor and a decline of reasoned discourse.

            Quite a few unhappy souls in the media and politics are blaming one person for this slide even though that person was their creation.  It was they who ignored the American worker, who sought to trade the role of nations for the glories of globalization.  Preaching tolerance, they practiced intolerance toward Middle America.  Perched behind television anchor desks, in Hollywood studios, or resplendent Congressional offices, they scornfully dismissed all Americans who were not as “progressive” as they.

            When their creation won the presidential race in 2016, they cried, literally.  Blind for a solid year and a half to what a presidential campaign was revealing, and accepting polls as absolute truth, they viewed their creation as a fun toy, enjoying him since he gave politics a spark which they considered novel.  Then, Uh-oh!  Half of the nation’s voters took their toy seriously. He got elected.  His warts were preferable to the snarky attitudes and squishy beliefs of his creators and their preferred candidate. 

            The losers forgot or simply didn’t know that many Americans still believe in (“cling to”) certain landmarks.  Historically and literally, a landmark was a stone or a tree marking the boundary of land.  You know, borders.  But there are non-literal landmarks as well such as traditions or beliefs, held dear because they have held together civilization itself.

            The home, which is to say marriage and family, is a landmark.  It absolutely speaks of boundaries.  Is not a man’s home his castle?  His wife his beloved?  His brood his future hope?  Yet, even “wife” is now a bad word.  Family is anything you want it to be.  A couple?  A trouple?   You decide while the unraveling of monogamous marriage, a western civilization landmark, continues.  Kids don’t need a mommy and a dad anymore.  Marriage and family are a mere social construct. What’s nature or God got to do with it?

            The words of C.S. Lewis are relevant: “We remove the organ and still demand the function.  We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise.”  But “men” and “women” have gotta go.  Call your state-supported university (even if you live in the South) and ask if it has sent out memos on the proper and expected use of pronouns.  You might obtain first-hand knowledge of how academia is attacking the foundations of traditional culture, unless the Vice-President for Diversity refuses to talk to you.

            Speaking of diversity, it is higher education’s primary goal, displacing excellence.  Diversity, as a goal, has become ruinous by the very fact that it politicizes education.  Higher education’s aim is no longer learning but having on campus a certain percentage of different people, based on factors such as race.  And don’t dare speak of “seeking the truth,” a former goal of western universities, unless you can endure being laughed to scorn.  The university is the land of no truth.

            Atheism’s role?  Its numbers are growing and their books are selling.  Atheists desire a total religious lobotomy on America.  If any nation’s birth resulted from a belief in the transcendent, it was America’s.  Wherever America’s Judeo-Christian roots have spread, schools, hospitals, and orphanages have sprouted.  Not so with our atheist friends who, as far as we know, don’t build schools, hospitals or orphanages.

  One of my three atheist friends told me he complained to his Kiwanis Club president because of the Christian prayers.  When challenged, he denied that atheism is a religious position, but a purely neutral secular stance.

            Ah, atheistic secularism!  The supposed default position of humanity.  The refuge of those who resist the very thought of anything transcendent. There’s only matter and energy.  We’re all mere dust, no matter what the Psalmist or Shakespeare’s Hamlet claimed.  Could such a view affect an 18-year-old male’s conduct?  His understanding of right and wrong?  Mom and Dad, if he ever knew his dad, are out of the picture.  To whom is he responsible?

                        Landmarks are not imaginary. They are steady markers that show us the way.  We best restore them.

Roger Hines

8/7/19

           

             

           

For Female Teachers Getting Ready for School

                  For Female Teachers Getting Ready for School

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 7/28/19

            Ladies, I know what you’re facing, and I only wish to encourage you as you get back to a task that shapes not just individuals but nations.

            First, a bit of personal history.  I knew when I was 15 that I wanted to be a teacher, thanks to about 50 splendid classmates in the class of ’62 and our incredible teachers and coaches.  My classmates were a mix of town kids and country kids.  They were full of life, and seemed to be happy.  President Eisenhower was smiling down on us until President John F. Kennedy succeeded him, affirming our youth and daring us to dream.  My classmates, all of them, made me want to teach high school or college and be around people like them for the rest of my life.

             I did enter the teaching profession. Only once did I consider leaving it.  Quite a few surveys have indicated that the chief reason teachers leave teaching is students and the chief reason they stay in teaching is students.

            In the late 70s I seriously considered leaving teaching, not because of low pay, but because of students.  Since I had been a substitute school bus driver my senior year in high school, had driven trucks during college, and even knew how to back a four-wheel trailer with a tractor (try it), I figured I could drive a Greyhound bus.  To the Marietta Square I went, got a bus driver’s application from the downtown bus station, filled it out but threw it away, hoping the next year’s students would be more teachable.  They were.  I continued to teach seniors alongside predominately female colleagues.

  If you are offended by my singling out females or if you think I am already headed toward condescension or stereotyping, you might want to stop reading now.  I for one just don’t cater to the prevailing sexual chaos that denies the obvious and wondrous differences between males and females, that denies the reality of gender and scoffs at the mention of femininity and masculinity.  You probably know what I’m trying to say since teachers are probably positioned better than anyone else to observe cultural change and to keep a solid grip on the pulse of the times.

            While male teachers, coaches, and administrators need encouragement also, my interest in talking to females in education has a historical basis.  I have 10 sisters and have worked with females all of my life, so, sorry … but I have a heart for women and deep sympathy for the struggles they face.

            Let me shoot down a myth embraced by many males, particularly a few of my fellow conservative male friends.  A few times I have heard men refer to the “feminization of education” and rue the fact that our children and youth are taught mainly by women.  “Kids need some men teachers too,” they asserted.

            And of course students do.  But not because women can’t handle smarty teenage boys. One reason I’ve admired my female colleagues is their ability to dress down a towering, high school boy whenever such action was needed.  Women teachers are tough.  They don’t feminize anything.  They effectively mix grace with strength.  Any time I’ve seen a female teacher confronting a male student in the hall, I’ve hung around (sorry, I was taught to be protective) to see if things were ok.  Not only was I never needed; I even borrowed a line from a short, first year teacher and used it countless times: “Young man, you’d better explain yourself real fast.”

            You may be married or not.  You may have children or not.  But if you do have a family, I know what you will start doing in the next few days.  You will teach (and often contend with) children or teenagers all day long, then go home and serve your family, and then sit down at 9:30 to plan or review for the next day of teaching.  You will get very tired, but you will know all the while that you are shaping individuals and nations.

 Teachers actually never know whom they are teaching.  I didn’t know I was teaching the future Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court or a druggie who would become a faithful husband, father, and a successful small business owner.

            Go forth, ladies, and help us address the great unraveling that almost every nation is experiencing.  Girded with knowledge, an appreciation for beauty, a zeal for excellence, and a love for children and youths, you are needed to turn boys into men, girls into ladies, and chaos into civilization.

            Good luck!

Roger Hines

7/24/19

           

Me, Seventy-five ?

                                       Me, Seventy-five ?

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 6/16/19

            In 1984 during a presidential debate Ronald Reagan said of his opponent Walter Mondale, “If my opponent will not hold my age against me, I’ll not hold his youth and inexperience against him.”  Mondale asked for it.  He had just brought up the issue of Reagan’s age.

            Mondale took it like a man, however.  He laughed as much as the audience did.  Like his fellow Minnesotan, the Happy Warrior Hubert Humphrey, Mondale laughed much anyhow.  That was back when our politics was far less acrimonious.

            Reagan went on to begin his second term one month before turning 74.  The man gave old age a good name.  His cheerfulness put to scorn the claim of columnist George Will who, upon turning 50 wrote, “Looking forward from 50 is no bowl of blueberries.”

            50?  Old?  Sounds young to me.  Will turned 78 this past May.  Let’s hope he didn’t go into depression. 

            Looking forward from age 75 - if I live for two more weeks – shouldn’t be too difficult to do.  Nine and soon to be ten grandchildren will remind me that life goes on.  Our republic is far stronger than the constancy of cable television news leads us to think, and everywhere I go I see teenagers and twenty-somethings working their heads off.  I know there’s more to the picture than this, but I’ll still take hope wherever I see it.

            My first memory is from age three, but from the fabric of the last 72 years I have plucked three others, all of which have been sources of joy and/or learning.  These particular memories also remind me of the debt I owe to so many who have rendered me a rich man for three quarters of a century.

            I remember the dirt, the soil I mean.  Oh, the dirt, the fields, the gigantic gardens that my father and other farmers up and down Old U.S. 80 Highway cared for.  Their dirt was a precious possession, almost their second self.  I wish that children today understood that groceries don’t come from grocery stores.  School teaches them where groceries come from, but only at the intellectual level.  How I wish children and teens could experience real dirt for themselves and get outside their houses more.

  My professional life has required me to haunt libraries and bookstores, but even the printed word has not erased the memory of the smell, the feel, and the mystery of dirt.  Directly or indirectly, food comes from dirt.  “From dust to dust” is a phrase too many children and teens have never even heard. 

            Antonia (“Pupi,” we called her) was the Italian woman brought to America by one of my much older brothers after World War II.  What a memory.  What an education this tough, resilient woman brought to a poor Southern family.  Her broken English and knowledge of Europe made her not just an exciting oddity, but the interesting centerpiece of our lives for the rest of her life. Antonia left her family and a significant job for an American soldier boy.

            A more recent memory is the year 1971 when I moved to the county I now live in.  From Day 1 this county has been forward-looking and even more inviting than a bowl of blueberries, or peaches either for that matter.  While some counties around us falter educationally, economically, and socially, ours thrives.  I say it’s not because we are an educated county.  It’s because many good people have landed here, most of whom treat others well.  We fuss when necessary, but because of visionary political, community, and religious leaders, we still have something special.

            Oh, for the space to name names.  Suffice it to say that my two mayors (I live in one town but have the address of another), commissioner, state representative, state senator,  Congressman, governor, and my two U.S. Senators are good people and effective leaders. My last three former governors, the only former ones I was ever around (one Democrat and two Republicans) are all men of good will.  They are also givers.  That’s something to remember when I start thinking the nation is going to the dogs.

            Men of faith, pastors particularly, have shaped my county also.  Two pastors helped me raise my children.  Two others have helped me to look steadily forward in faith as I grow older.  Another, a retired Methodist minister, has become a great friend to this aging Baptist.  He knows I believe John Wesley was actually a Baptist.

            My county’s leaders and citizens obviously seek civil peace – order.  Just call it being a good neighbor and loving your neighbor as yourself.  Whatever it’s called it can surely produce good memories for a guy who is not getting younger.

Roger Hines

             

           

             

                 

                                

Around the World, Populism is Popping

                    Around the World, Populism is Popping

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 6/1/19

            Populist, patriot, and nationalist have become put-down words.  Making the illogical and unfair error of judging an idea by its misrepresentation, critics of populism, patriotism, and nationalism display their bigotry, not to mention their misunderstanding of words.

            Judging Christians by the KKK that attempts to shroud its evil with the Christian cross is both wrong and ignorant.  Judging churches by the actions of Westboro Baptist Church is just as wrong.  Yet such misrepresentation has gone on for decades.  Most Southerners are not bigots, most Jews are not rich, most millennials are not lazy, and most citizens north of the Mason-Dixon Line are not unfriendly.

            But reading the New Your Times or a handful of other nationally known newspapers, one would think that any American who won’t disavow the labels populist, patriot, and nationalist is illiterate and bigoted.  Why this myopic view of fellow citizens?  Why the disdain for simple love for one’s country?  We used to call this disdain prejudice, a word that is falling away, but it means pre-judging or judging others as you lump them with a group and then cast aspersions on the entire group.

            In the Marietta Daily Journal several days ago columnist Pat Buchanan wrote, “The nation is the largest entity to which one can give loyalty and love.”  Buchanan extols France’s great general Charles De Gaulle who believed in and pressed for “nation-states from the Atlantic to the Urals.”  And what does Buchanan get for his love of his nation and the belief that American civilization is in great danger of early death?  He is tagged as a “nationalist,” one who despises all other nations and views them with condescension.

            But alas, it’s not just America’s deplorables who subscribe to love of one’s nation as per President Trump’s America First theme.  European nations are also fed up with globalization, multiculturalism, and all other such efforts to pull us into what amounts to world union.  Enough of “We are the world, we are the people.”  We are nations.

            Across Europe and in India Trump-like sentiments are spreading.  28 countries recently held elections for representatives to the European Union.  751 seats in the EU parliament in Brussels were up for grabs.  At least 3 European nations come to mind where the winds that swept Trump into office are touching down in Europe as well.  As it turns out, populist/nationalist coalitions are reshaping both American and European politics.  In India the pro-America Nationalist Party just won an overwhelming victory.

            In England the Pro-Brexit Party which favors Britain’s departure from the EU and a return to national sovereignty surged to victory.  The established parties, Conservatives and Labour, faltered.  In France the National Front party led by Marine Le Pen won the national election for EU representatives, thereby moving Le Pen’s party into first place over current president Emmanuel Macron.  Le Pen claimed Macron has “displayed extreme arrogance and spite for common people and the French people in general.”  She asserted that French politics can no longer best be described by the terms “left” and “right,” but by nationalist and globalist.  How applicable to American politics is that?

            Le Pen stated, “Globalism breeds a post-national spirit which carries the notion that borders must disappear.”  In Italy the League Party of Matteo Salvini also won big.  Like Le Pen, Salvini has preached national sovereignty and independence from the EU.

            These victories don’t mean that the EU will soon be upended.  They do, however, spell trouble.  Given that Hungary and Poland also have nationalist parties that are on the rise and that Germany’s leader, Merkel, was soundly defeated in the EU vote, change is definitely happening.

            What is all of this but the desire for local rule?  How was Donald Trump able to smash both political parties, embarrass the experts, and tame a previously impenetrable news media?  Why, even in Scotland, are coalitions forming to bring about a total break from Britain?  Why, if “union” is so good, did the Soviet Union last barely 70 years?     

            Europe’s Old Guard is faltering.  So is the political party system in America.  Trump’s rallies are nothing more or less than a great revolt of the middle class.  His supporters are based in work and driven by faith.  They apparently like a billionaire who, though he cusses, doesn’t drink or smoke, and definitely connects with them.

            Populism means “of the people.”  As it turns out, people around the world are tired of having pseudo-“diversity” crammed down their throats.  The Brits want to be Brits, the French want to be French, and India wants to be Indian.  What’s wrong with that?

Roger Hines

5/28/19

Abortion and the Abortionists

                           Abortion and the Abortionists

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 3/26/19

               

            This past week my wife received a mail-out from Planned Parenthood.  It included a membership card and an appeal for money.  My wife did not solicit the information, has never been a member of Planned Parenthood and most certainly never will be.  She doesn’t believe in “terminating” unborn babies or in the ridiculous claim that doing so is a part of “reproductive health.”

            This appeal came at a wrong time for us.  Our youngest son and his wife are expecting their second child in July.  It’s a girl.  When I look at our beautiful daughter-in-law in her third trimester, I think of Governor Northam of Virginia (a doctor!) who defended letting babies die after birth.  He has paid no political price.  After a brief stir, things are back to normal for Northam.

            I think also of Joe Biden who recently said if he is elected president, he would do everything within his power to maintain “abortion rights.”

            Abortion “rights”?  The “right” to get rid of a baby?  Just what is abortion?  How is it done?  Why is it done?  We know the answers to these questions.  Abortion ends the life, horribly so, of unborn babies.  And that is a “right”?  God forbid.  There is no separation of the abortionist and abortion supporters.  They are all accomplices.

            Abortion is done in different ways, and they are all barbaric.  Why is it done?  That’s the most important and revealing question.  It is not done mostly because of rape.  It’s done out of convenience, because people don’t want the baby they have produced.  Regarding rape, I’m glad that the black actress and Christian singer Ethel Waters, the result of rape, wasn’t aborted.

            Reading through the mail-out also made me think about Stacy Abrams, Nancy Pelosi, the National Organization of Women, and many others, all of whom are complicit with the infamous Dr. Gosnell.  The whole picture makes me sad and angry.  Where is our respect for the wonder, the mystery, and the sacredness of life?  Are abortionists and their cheerleaders not bothered at all by the brutal act of dismemberment or suction?

            What a philosophical dance to toy with the word “viable.”  What a moral judgment to “decide” when human life is human life.  It is akin to the euthanasia argument that says “quality of life” is the determining factor in whether or not assisted suicide should be permissible.

            How did abortion become the centerpiece of the Democratic Party?  How can any woman who is carrying a baby allow it to be killed?  How did so many American and European women become hostile to the thought of pregnancy and motherhood?

            Our modern culture wants no limitation on sex.  Now we can – or so we think – choose our sex, change our sex, reduce sex to entertainment only, and simply rid ourselves of the undesired result of sex.  One chief aim of liberalism has been to free man from nature and nature’s God, particularly regarding sexuality.

            But more and more Americans are speaking out against abortion, with little help from Congressional conservatives.  Eleven state legislatures have already passed “heartbeat bills” that virtually end abortions in their states.  The persistent work of Concerned Women of America (which dwarfs the NOW), the Family Research Council, and other pro-life groups is paying off.  It’s no longer a fight between activist organizations.  Ordinary citizens are apparently telling their state legislatures how they feel.

            The movie “Unplanned” has revealed much about Planned Parenthood.  Its main true character, Abby Johnson, had risen from volunteer to clinic manager.  Upon witnessing an abortion for the first time in her own clinic, she left Planned Parenthood and began to give speeches that advance the pro-life position and uncover the details of Planned Parenthood’s evil.  I suspect witnessing an abortion might change Abrams, Pelosi, and anyone else.  But how likely is it that they or any of us will ever witness one?  Enjoying bloody murder and raunchy sex on the screen, we withdraw from depicting the act of abortion.

            And just why has our federal government continued to give money to Planned Parenthood?  Perhaps because members of Congress have never witnessed an abortion either, or because there has been no effective groundswell against the murderous act.  But that is changing and changing fast.

            The letter my wife received states there are nearly 20 abortion cases that are one step away from the Supreme Court.  Yes, the letter was a fund-raising effort, but it also revealed a real fear of the changing wind at the state level.

            Technology is opening many eyes, but it was observation that changed Abby Johnson.  I pray that many other Planned Parenthood employees and supporters will be changed as well.

Roger Hines

5/22/19

           

             

Is our Language getting to be a Mess?

                                   Is our Language getting to be a Mess?

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 5/19/19

So …, if global warming doesn’t do us in, repetitive or prissy words and phrases will.  That said, at the end of the day we’re talking about an existential threat to the nation.  I mean, the way we’re throwing around repetitive, prissy words these days, who can understand anybody?  Like, what’s wrong with plain words?

            So … another thing.  About the two words “existential threat.”  I used them in the paragraph above just to see how it would feel.  I can tell you I feel awful for doing it.  I know what a threat is, but every time I hear somebody on television say “existential” threat, I screw up my face a little bit and sit there, praying that the word will soon die.

            But it’s not dying.  Last week I heard it 5 times during a 10 minute conversation between a cable news anchor and a member of Congress.  Speaking of conversation, “let’s have a conversation.”  That’s another jewel that’s going to drive some of us to insanity.  The first time I heard it was when Hillary Clinton was announcing her candidacy for president via video and concluded by saying, “So … let’s have a conversation.”  Ah, was it Hillary who in-artfully initiated the “So …” craze as well? I’m ready for a conversation on how to kill off “Let’s have a conversation,” as well as on “We can have that conversation.”

So …, back to “existential.” I’m sure it refers to existence, so am I right to assume that an “existential threat” is a threat that threatens our existence, say, like the sun itself, since it’s supposed to burn us up in about 12 years?

Another word is “issue.”  I have an issue with the word “issue.”  Talk about abuse.  It used to mean “topic,” as in the issue of inflation, slavery, or the misuse or overuse of certain words.  Today it means anything you want it to mean, but typically people use it when they mean problem.  So …, I don’t have an “issue” with arthritis; I have a problem.  Believe me.

Not to offend members of the therapy generation, but I’m also skittish about the word “bonding.”  Look, I’ll befriend you, support you, defend you, give you a little money, or hug your neck, but please don’t require that we “bond.”   Let’s just become the best of buddies and leave it at that.  I didn’t say I was against touching.  I’m not.  I’ve been around hundreds of teens and young adults who, I firmly believe, were not touched enough.  But they didn’t need any “bonding.”  They needed a little more attention and loads of encouragement.

Speaking of the therapy generation, may I never make light of depression or any other such emotional needs, but our heightened emphasis on therapy is an indication that many of our emotional needs have been manufactured.  According to Dr. Peggy Drexler, a New York-based research psychologist, today’s 20-and 30-somethings are turning to therapy more frequently and far sooner than their age group in any previous era.  With such changes come the changing language and new words.  “Self-care” and “life coaches” are now very much with us.  And what do life coaches recommend for self-care?  Bonding.

As for clichés, don’t get me started.  Let’s just “bring to the table” all of them we’ve ever utilized (that means “used”) and “put them to bed.”  Then let’s start with “a level playing field,” avoid “mixing apples with oranges,” and do our best to “change the culture” at our workplaces.  Truth is we just need to have a funeral – I mean, “memorial service” – for all the pretentious language any of us have ever used.  That done, we should all have “closure.”

Closure can never arrive, though, for those who insist on saying “firstly” for “first.” Or “hopefully” for anything.  “Hopefully” should be shot at daybreak.”  It is a cheap, non-think convenience that is right up there with “issue,” and I do have a problem with it.  Not an issue.

I don’t mean to sound like a language stickler.  The people I grew up around used clear, understandable English.  They busted many a verb, but they still knew how to speak plainly and respectfully.  I understand that language, like dress, is social adaptation.  You put it on or take it off, depending on the occasion.

But you always, always avoid saying something like “Never end the life of a water bird that can lay ovoid bodies composed of the precious yellow metal” when all you mean is “Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden egg.”

Roger Hines

5/8/19

 

Why I Still Love the South

                               Why I Still Love the South

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 5/12/19

            I’ve always believed I would make a good Yankee, mainly because every place in the North I’ve visited, I’ve liked.  Pristine Wisconsin won my heart during a college summer job that carried me all over the state. 

            If Boston has any alleys that aren’t clean and shiny, I must have missed them.  All of the ones I have peered into were as clean as the streets.  Portland, Maine had me even before I walked through the house of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  Oh, those seafood restaurants and the friendly locals who frequented them.  In Chicago at the world famous Moody Church, I observed that the auditorium full of congregants was about one-third black, one-third white, and one-third Asian.  That was nice.

                        Unlike other regions of the nation that are quite happy with who they are, too many leaders of the South have succumbed to the smearing of the South-hating Southern Poverty Law Center and to Hollywood’s portrayals of the South.  Former Emory University professor Boyd Cathy recently wrote, “A South whose leadership cannot or will not say a good word about Robert E. Lee is in serious decline, if not already dead.”

            How sad that in the South we now have virtually no political leaders who will defend the South from the slings and arrows thrown her way.  How many Southern governors, mayors, or community leaders have resisted the numerous attacks on Southern monuments?  Indeed, how many of them have led the way in getting rid of them?

Robert E. Lee was no more imperfect than George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, or Abraham Lincoln.  Lee was a man of honor.  Like many of our founders, he owned slaves.  Unlike many other slaveholders of the era, he treated them kindly.  Who is defending this good man from the onslaughts of those whose aim is the cultural cleansing of the South?

            Recently presidential candidate Joe Biden used a stump speech opportunity to bring up Jim Crow laws and to claim that Republicans will take us back to Jim Crow.  How productive, how healing was that?  Has Biden visited Atlanta lately, or Charlotte?  Or Mississippi, the state that has more elected black officials than any other?  Biden’s remarks were pure bigotry, the rattling of old bones.

            Before the Civil War, the South was leading America, providing the fledgling nation with its first, third, fourth, fifth, and seventh presidents (Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Jackson), not to mention its supreme debaters of all time, Calhoun and Clay.  Of that stellar quartet (Washington, Madison, Hamilton, and John Jay) who transitioned America from a loose confederation into a nation, two were Southerners.  The nation’s eleventh president, James K. Polk, who extended America’s territory across the continent from sea to sea, was a Tennessean. In fact, all of the nation’s land mass beyond the 13 original states was acquired by Southern presidents.  Since 1900 the South has provided 5 presidents.

            Because of the tragic racial events in Charlottesville, we can count on one hand the Southern political leaders who will remind the nation of the South’s virtues and contributions.  It’s even harder to identify those who will defend the South against cultural cleansing.  Fearing the media, they keep quiet.

            In 1930 twelve Southern men of literature, most of whom were professors connected with either Vanderbilt University, Yale, or University of the South, penned the book, “I’ll Take My Stand.”  Dubbed “the Nashville Agrarians,” these men held forth on what the South has lent the nation.  Long before “green” was in vogue, they argued for the value of agriculture and against the evils of excessive industrialization.  No silly dreamers, these historians/novelists/poets invoked the simpler values of family, home, tradition, and community.  They decried the forces of materialism, love for power, and all compulsions of society that mediated against strong families and communities.

            If the Agrarians were alive, they would speak out against the false piety of those who point fingers at Southern monuments.  They would defend those who won’t sell their land to corporations simply because they love their land, and would rebuke Southerners who cave to the South’s critics.

            The Agrarians were not “sufferers from nostalgic vapors.”  They foresaw the cultural breakdown of hearth and home we are now seeing on the 6 o’clock news.  They knew that the South had much to offer.  Would that more Southern leaders today could be so positive instead of allowing themselves to become shameful deniers of their heritage.

            I’m proud of the South for its self-reckoning, its racial healing, and its genuineness.  And I’m still proud of Robert E. Lee.

Roger Hines

5/8/19