Interstate intolerance

I swear, if this politically correct environment of intimidation
doesn't stop, one of these days somebody is going to throw shots over
it. You may as well believe that because throughout history, that
statement has proven correct; people who are demonized nearly to
oblivion ultimately do not go away peacefully.

The latest outrage over outrage comes in the form of interstate
intolerance expressed by Connecticut lawmakers over the display of
Confederate and Civil War photographs in the office of a Virginia prison
warden.

Yes, you read it right -- a Virginia prison warden.

According to the report, "The warden of a super-maximum security
Virginia prison has removed prints of Civil War battle scenes from his
office after critics said the display was inappropriate at a facility
where guards have been accused of racial intolerance. Some of the scenes
in the framed prints included the Confederate flag."

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The article continued, "Most of the criticism came from Connecticut
lawmakers. The Wallens Ridge State Prison in Wise County has about 400
inmates from Connecticut, and legislators from the state toured the
facility in January. ... Three legislators said the display in Warden
Stan Young's office was especially offensive in light of complaints of
racial strife at the prison, which has a mostly minority population and
a mostly white staff."

First things first. Warden Young should grow some cajones, tell
these whining Connecticut lawmakers to mind their own business, and
refuse to alter the appearance of his own office because of some
misguided anger from a couple of meddling idiots.

Secondly, Warden Young should challenge these Connecticut lawmakers
to name one prison, anywhere in the United States, that does
not have racial problems. Prisons house some of the most violent
and nationalistic gang members who have ever walked the streets in
cities all across this country; obviously Connecticut voters cannot
elect realists to their own state legislature who are cognizant of this
fact.

Virginia's "racist prison problem," therefore, is a hoax.
Consequently, it has absolutely nothing to do with the
Confederate flag or Civil War battles that took place 135 years ago.
Anyone from any state who says he or she is "offended" by the
display of photographs in the office of a Civil War historian and buff
is lying because there is nothing to be offended about -- unless you've
got an agenda and you're looking to be offended. There is nothing
"racist" about being an avid student of the Civil War, either -- no
matter which "side" you supported.

But because liberal media moguls, statist politicians and hypocrites
in the "divide and conquer" activist business have so hammered the
issue of race relations in this country, more and more people are
becoming too frightened of being labeled something to speak out against
the lies.

Earlier this week Rush Limbaugh read some amazing things on his
program that define the hypocrisy and the irony hanging over this whole
race issue. Some of his research staff discovered that Arkansas has an
official "Confederate Flag Day," while Tennessee has laws observing
Confederate General Robert E. Lee's birthday, President Abraham
Lincoln's birthday, and Nathan Bedford Forrest's birthday.

Forrest, avid Civil War buffs know, was the first Grand Wizard of the
Ku Klux Klan. But he was also one of the finest cavalry officers this
country has ever produced; that achievement, however, is relegated to PC
obscurity because he happened to apply his trade for "the wrong side."

Not so ironically, however, no one in the establishment,
anti-Southern heritage press will ask why President Bill Clinton, many
years as governor of Arkansas, did nothing to end the "injustice" of his
state's official observance of the Confederate flag. Nor will any of
these same press weenies ask Vice President Al Gore, heir apparent to
the corrupt nightmare that has epitomized the Clinton administration,
why he has not come out against his home state's observance of the
country's first official hatemonger.

And yet, "offended" liberal legislators from the tiny state of
Connecticut can use phony outrage to intimidate a Virginia prison warden
into removing pictures of a period of our history he enjoys studying and
learning about from the walls of his own office.

Unbelievable. I guess your outrage only means something if you're on
the left side of the street.

The death of tolerance in this country is not coming from the
quarters most blamed for it: the "extreme right" or from some fictitious
minority-hating white conspiracy ring. Rather -- and hypocritically --
it is coming from those who scream "intolerance" the most, and who see
it consistently where it does not exist. Worse, these are the people
who get the most "play" in the press. He who bitches the loudest gets
the most ink, I suppose.

But listen, one of the most important things it means to be an
American is to exercise your right to profess your beliefs -- no matter
what they are -- and to espouse them in public in a manner of your own
choosing. Those who chatter about intolerance these days are keen to
showcase their "offense" to political and cultural dissenters, never
realizing that by doing so they are utilizing this very same
right that is supposed to be extended to everyone --
regardless.

Doing what Warden Young did -- succumbing to the "outrage" of
political hostiles -- only empowers these same people to try to
intimidate someone else into silence.

That ain't America. In this country, you don't have to agree with
everything somebody else says or believes, but you sure as blazes have
to let them hold those beliefs and, like you, speak their own mind.