Dixie Rebel

  TV news lives on polls, but I don’t think they are accurate.   They show to some extent what some people are thinking, but they don’t necessarily predict the outcome of elections unless there is a substantial spread between the responses.   I would not even trust a 10% differential.   I think there are many people, like myself, who do not reaspond to poll questions, so the people polled are not representative, and many do not respond honestly.   Those who do respond may strongly favor a candidte and thus tend to respond in wsys they think will help their candidate, e.g. by saying what issues they think are important.   One big problem is that most pollsters are elite Democrats from left-leaning media or academia.   Conservatives sense this and when these leftist pollsters call, Republicans are not going to cooperate with them, because they see them as the enemy. The pollsters have contempt for the conservatives they interview and the interviewees know that.     Thus, polls tend t

  The Founding Fathers were not enthusiastic about pure democracy.   In his excellent book, The Quartet, historian Joseph Ellis describes James Madison’s views on a democracy that represented the direct choices of “the people.”     “Madison’s experience at both the state and the federal level had convinced him that “the people” was not some benevolent, harmonious collective but rather a smoldering and ever-shifting gathering of factions or interest groups committed to provincial perspectives and vulnerable to demagogues with partisan agendas. The question, then, was how to reconcile the creedal conviction about popular sovereignty with the highly combustible, inherently swoonish character of democracy. Perhaps the most succinct way to put the question was this: How could a republic bottomed on the principle of popular sovereignty be structured in such a way to manage the inevitable excesses of democracy and best serve the long-term public interest?     “Madison’s one-word answe

  I resent the fact that Democrats revile Southerners who have positive feelings for the Confederacy.   Our ancestors fought for the Confederacy. It is normal to have positive feelings about your forebears, especially when they did brave things.   My great-grandfather fought for the Confederacy at Shiloh and at Mobile Bay.   I will not condemn him for that.   For me the Confederate battle flag is a symbol of respect for Southern bravery and devotion.   The Confederate army did not fight against blacks.   They fought against other whites.   Slavery was an issue, but it was not part of the war; it was part of the politics.   White Confederates did not kill blacks unless they were on the battlefield as troops of the Yankee army.   Lincoln made a point of creating black military units, because there were none when the Civil War started.   By and large the white veterans of the Confederate and Union armies reconciled after the war.   Blacks took no great interest in the Civil War battle