Honor, Oh Honor Where Have You Gone?

Abigail and Dolley readers it has occurred to me recently that we are genuinely lacking in honor.  Honor is no longer taught as a virtue or touted as a worthy attribute; only in the military cultures does it remain.  Woe to us if that were to ever change.  Our lack of honor and the loss thereof is clearly demonstrated in the character of the two men that will vie for the Presidency this year; neither has enough honor to fill a thimble.

We see the lack of honor in sports, from the pee-wee level to the professional arena, winning trumps honor at every turn.  Cheating, spying, and dirty play are only thought evil if they are caught.  The man who stands up for honor is shouted down, ridiculed, and despised.  The coach who calls a foul is aggressively and openly  challenged by the cheater, for the cheater feels it is his right to cheat if that is what it takes to win.

We see the lack of honor in our marriages through infidelity, pornography, neglect and abuse.  It is present in men and women equally, we no longer condemn adulterers.  We attend wedding celebrations of people who have left their spouses and their children for an adulterous relationship and wish the new couple well.  The culture spits venom and bile at those who believe and vote for traditional definitions of marriage and you won't win a lot of friends pointing out the general lack of honor.

Children break the 5th Commandment everyday, there is no honor of Mother and Father.  Many parents cry themselves to sleep at night fretting over their young adult children.  Who despite their best efforts are morally reprehensible vermin with no sense of responsibility, work ethic, or respect.

In life, we do not have a choice where we are born or who we are born to.  We have no choice in our natural beauty or intelligence.  We do have a choice in what kind of people we will be, sadly most do not choose the honorable life.

The primary ways that honor has been taught in our society is through the father and the church.  The father is gone and church attendance is at its lowest levels in American history.  Alas, honor was one of the first to pack its bags and leave for a virtue, like our Lord, never stays where it is not wanted.

Ulysses S. Grant - We Have Been Lied To!

Abigail and Dolley readers until yesterday, if you had asked me about Ulysses S Grant, I would have told you that he was a Union General that was elected President.  I would have said he was a drunk and presided over a very corrupt Presidency.  He was a failure in business and died broke.  I suspect that you, my kind reader would have said something similar.

What would you say if I told you that portrayal is a lie?  What would you say if I revealed to you that Ulysses S Grant was one of the greatest Americans to ever hold the office of President?  What would you say if I told you that he was not a drunk?  You are probably as shocked as I was to find out that we have indeed been so completely deceived in our recollection of this man, that the injustice of it is nothing short of a crime against history.

Ulysses S Grant - Photo by Matthew Brady

 It was this picture that caught my attention.  Most pictures of Civil War soldiers do not appeal to the modern eye.  I can't recall ever looking at one and thinking, "Wow, he's handsome!"  Thus, when I saw this yesterday, I had to find out who it was.  I was shocked to discover it was Grant.  The article was about how he was much maligned and how revisionist historians had painted such a false picture of this great American hero.  I had to find out for myself.

Ten hours later, I could weep from the injustice.  Ulysses S Grant was none of the things that I had previously thought except for the fact that he was a trusting man who was swindled out of his modest life savings and did indeed die broke.  Even the story of his death speaks to a man of unwavering integrity and honor.  In the throes of a painful death from throat cancer, Grant tirelessly composed and dictated his memoirs.  The proceeds from their sale were intended to rescue his families fortunes and he did not succumb to death until they were completed.

Widely regarded as the most successful Presidential Memoir in history, they are still in print and reveal a genius of wit and insight.  Mark Twain said of his memoirs that a thousand writers could not have tendered such a well-turned book where few if any sentences required revision and the simplistic language conveyed and imparted greater meaning than most anyone he'd ever read.

This was not the work of a lifelong alcoholic on his deathbed.  By all personal accounts and writings of those who knew him, Ulysses S Grant was a man of honor, temperance, and modesty.  He was a champion of civil rights, fierce protector of the Confederate Officers in peacetime, forged a humane and generous policy toward the American Indians, and crushed the domestic terrorism of the KKK.  He was a fierce lover of his family, devoted to his wife, and indulgent and affectionate toward his children.

He was an artist, a writer, and perhaps the greatest horseman to ever hold the office of President.  Grant was kind to animals and is said to have only been seen in a temper over a Teamster mistreating a horse.  He had an incredible memory and 20 years after the fact recognized a soldier with whom he had shared rations with at the Battle of Shiloh.  He recalled in great detail many aspects of battles, movements, and army life.  He was disciplined in his manner and speech.  He was humble and was always uncomfortable with the public adoration and praise that he received.

In all my research, I can find no contemporary of his who describes him as a drunk.  There is no indication of this in any accounts written during his lifetime or after in dozens of interviews.  The only allusion I could find of it was from WW Smith, who was a cousin and lifelong companion who indicated that Grant would occasionally not make himself available to people during the holidays while his children were home in favor of spending time with his family.  On one such occasion, it was written of Grant that he was drunk when in fact he had been spending time with his children.

Alas, he was a Republican and continued Lincoln's legacy to honor and protect the Black man and to heal the nation of the wounds of Civil War.  He was a brilliant General and an American Hero.  He was revered and well loved.  I suspect that liberal historians choose not to discuss this about him since it did not fit their purposes.  Shame on them.

For citations and further edification, please visit:  Ulysses S. Grant Homepage

Small Town America and Why We Still Matter

Abigail and Dolley readers, I went to a reunion yesterday.  Not a family reunion, but an Small Town American reunion.  A gathering of folks who grew up and around a small mill town on the outskirts of Charlotte.  These days there is little difference between Pineville and Charlotte, but for those of us who grew up there, we know the difference.  We remember the landmarks that are no longer there, we "Awwed" audibly when pictures of loved ones flashed on the screen during the memorial CD, we smiled at the pictures of the wild Southern boys and their jacked up muscle cars, but most of all we were happy to see each other and took pride in our heritage.

Now, the ruling classes and the liberal elite would have looked upon this group with contempt.  You see we were in cut off shorts and T-shirts, we sang all the words to Sweet Home Alabama, and we raised our cups to lost friends and good times.  We laughed at old stories, complained that we were still smoking and knew we should quit, and talked about our kids, grandkids, and small businesses.  What the ruling class forgets is that these are the people that fix your cars, build your houses, and work in your factories.  They are the back bone of this Country and will show up with a casserole when someone passes away, a tow to pull your car out of a ditch, and money to bail you out of whatever trouble you've gotten yourself into.

Their pride in their country is held in contempt by the liberal elitists who scorn their patriotism and hate this country.  Their accents render them unintelligent in the eyes of the country club Republicans.  Their faith is scorned by the academics that are too smart for God.  They are Southern, so they must be racist, say the mainstream media.  I say, they are wrong again.  These are the people that built this country, their blood ran on the battlefields of history, their sweat plowed the fields, and their hands built the products that changed the world.

These are now the people who are muzzled and stifled by an over bearing government that makes it too difficult for the common man to start a business.  These are the folks whose factories have shut down because regulators required too many expensive "safety" upgrades (for their own good, of course.) and taxed "the rich" at such a rate they could no longer afford to do business in this country.  These are the folks that used to build your house, clean your gutters, and mow your lawn but now can't find work because there are illegal aliens that will do that job "under the table".  These are the people who teeter on the edge now because the work is gone and the horizon is bleak.  These are the people who recognize that when you talk about "the rich" you are really talking about their employers and they know their jobs won't be coming back until the government stops taking their bosses money at an alarming rate.

These are the people that loved Ronald Reagan and "hoped" Obama would live up to his promises of a "change".  In the immortal words of George W Bush, "You fool me once.... wait hang on.  Well, if you fool me once then, you aren't gonna fool me again."

Long live small town America!  Enjoy the video.

The Culture Of Honor

I love to read and I am ALWAYS reading something.  I usually have a serious business/self help/Jesus book going and always have a romance novel of some sort.  Now before everyone goes and gives me crap about my romance novels, I love them.  They take me away from all the heavy stuff in the world and I find them highly entertaining, besides I have a fantastic grasp on historical facts from a vast array of settings.  So in fact, they are educational (hehehe).

My latest serious read was Outliers by Malcom Gladwell.  A truly enlightening and entertaining study of the factors around successful people, not just their work ethic, but their cultural heritage, where they were born, when they were born, and a host of other unique sets of circumstances that made these people successful.  One of the areas he discusses is cultural heritage and how it is carried down through the generations.  Using clinical research studies and various writings Gladwell puts together some very convincing commentary on people and societies.  One that rang true with me was the culture of honor.

The Culture of Honor is prevalent in the South.  Only in the South is, "He needed killin'" a viable defense.  Researchers found that this went across generations and socio-economic back grounds.  I will explain:

After the Jacobite uprising in 1845 (and I know hundreds of details about this because of my romance novels) the Highland Scottish clans were destroyed.  The last civil war in the UK brought about one of the bloodiest battles of all time in the fields of Northern Scotland in a place called Culloden.  The British had enough of the troublesome Highlanders and slaughtered them on the battlefield and then starved them to death for about 20 years afterward.  It was a crime to play a bag pipe or wear a plaid, the men were gone, the clan chiefs or lairds were gone, their whole structure of life was gone.  Many immigrated to America and they settled in the South with large portions of them choosing the familiar landscape and climate of the Appalachian and Blue Ridge Mountains, they brought with them their culture.

Cultures develop in large measure through the work the people do.  Since the Highlands are not ideal farming ground, these folks were herdsmen.  A herdsman has to be vigilant to protect his livelihood.  The theft of his animals can profoundly effect his families ability to survive and must be protected at all costs.  A weak man will loose his herd and thus his living, his social status, and his manhood.  A man in this culture must be ready to respond with force any perceived attack on his person.   .

Gladwell explains that the cultural heritage of these people is evident in Southern Society today.  The University of Michigan conducted a study of how men would react to an insult.  It did not take long for them to figure out the one word that would get men riled up quickly, asshole.  The experiment involved asking men to fill out a questionnaire and take it down a narrow hall to student that was collecting them.  Another student would block the way and bump into them, while walking away the student would call the test subject an asshole.  Measuring heart rate, blood pressure, testosterone, and cortisol levels the researchers could determine the Southerners without looking at their questionnaires!  These were well to do kids who were attending an out of state university, these were not Hillbilly Hatfields and McCoys (who of course also were of Scotch-Irish descent and steeped in a culture of honor).  These students were furious and ready to fight.  Conversely, the Northern Students did not have the same reaction.  Some even showed lowered blood pressure and heart rates as if they were purposely calming themselves in an effort to blow it off.

Gladwell also tells a story of a murder trial of an old man from the South.  He lived next to a filling station and the town hoodlums would loiter there and give him grief.  One day the old man blasted three of them with his shot gun, killing two.  The judge was astounded when the jury returned a verdict of not guilty.  When asked later, one of the jury commented that the old man wouldn't have been much of a man if he hadn't killed those punks, he HAD to do it.

I keep having visions of the Tarleton Twins from Gone With The Wind whooping and hollering about going to war.  I believe the best example in recent years is from the Honorable Senator from Georgia, Mr. Zell Miller and his fiery exchange with the pinko commie bloated blow hard, Chris Matthews after Miller's address at the GOP Convention.  Senator Miller, a lifelong Democrat gave the Keynote address at the 2004 GOP Convention.

Enjoy!