“Fighting for freedom, fighting for the right to live peacefully and independently”
During the Olympics, one of the commentators used these words to characterize the efforts of Ukraine during their war with Russia.
And it struck me that this is exactly what the Confederate States of America was doing during the war with the United States from 1861 to 1865.
The Ukrainian people are deified and worshipped by our society, praised effusively at nearly every opportunity for their bravery, resilience, and strength. People fall all over themselves in their eagerness to express their solidarity. During sporting events like the Olympics, audiences are reminded, again and again, about how inspirational the Ukrainian athletes are, the difficult conditions they’ve had to overcome, the sacrifices they’ve made, and the fact that they are fighting for something larger than themselves.
Yet the Confederates, who were fighting for the exact same thing, receive the exact opposite treatment. They are unanimously condemned as racists, white supremacists, “traitors,” and “insurrectionists” (as if defying authority is somehow bad). It is accepted as self-evident that they do not deserve to be honored in any way. Their names erased from streets, buildings, and military bases, their commemorations canceled, their monuments sickeningly destroyed in a systematic and relentless campaign of obliteration.
In the eyes of society, fighting for freedom is noble and honorable when done by Ukrainians, but “treason” and “insurrection” when done by southern Americans.
The fact that two nations, fighting for the same thing, are treated so differently, demonstrates the utter hypocrisy and lack of logic of our society.
Freedom. The right to live peacefully and independently.
These are things that all people deserve. These are things that the people of the Confederate States of America deserved just as much as the people of Ukraine do.