Jesus said to his Apostles, ‘For the heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut: lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.’

Of course, Jesus was speaking of the spiritual eyes, ears, and hearts of the people in relation to their understanding and accepting the salvation He was offering to them, but I believe that there is a practical, political analogue to this passage. For some time now, the Southern people have shut their individual and collective eyes, ears, and hearts to a message that offers them true liberty, while deeply imbibing of one that gives them the illusion of freedom while it fastens the chains of slavery upon them. The former is the creation of an independent, Southern republic, while the latter is remaining a ‘patriotic American’ in Abraham Lincoln’s so-called ‘indivisible union’.

The result of Lincoln’s revolution of 1861-65 was to change the fundamental principles of these United States from those of a democratic republic of republics to those of a marxist oligarchy. In their book, Red Republicans and Lincoln Marxists, Walter D. Kennedy and Al Benson, Jr. have done an outstanding job in making the connections between Lincoln and the socialist/marxist revolutionaries of Europe. Y’all should read it.

By the early twentieth century, most of the planks of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto had been put into place, e.g. income taxes, loss of property and inheritance rights, a central bank, and public schools (yes, Virginia, public schools are communist institutions). By the end of the 1950’s, other planks had been installed, e.g. means of communication and transportation centralized in the state, combination of industry and agriculture, and industrial/agricultural armies (CCC, WPA, etc.). The last forty-nine years have brought us the coup de grace of the so-called civil rights movement, affirmative action, sodomite unions, abortion, almost constant war, a police state that would make Hitler and Stalin proud, government takeovers of private companies, income redistribution schemes (welfare, subsidies, etc.), and other oppressions to numerous to list here. The real genius of those who foisted this on the American people was to package it as patriotism, Americanism, and Christian charity. Sinclair Lewis once wrote that when fascism came to America, it would be wrapped in the flag and carrying a Cross. Voila!

We Southrons have been among the most ardent supporters of the aberrations listed above because of our natural conservatism and our misguided desire to prove what ‘loyal Americans’ we are. The latter comes primarily from our multigenerational immersion in those communist schools, but the popular media is also culpable. We’ve also swallowed the slick marketing of tyranny as freedom hook, line, and sinker.

The other significant mistake we’ve made is in casting our lot with the Republican Party. Any Southron worth his salt should realize that is was the Republican Party who stole our country and freedom from us in the first place some century and one-half ago. How convenient for them that their conquered subjects have become their adamant supporters, despite their constant back-stabbings and betrayals. Like Reverend R. L. Dabney observed long ago, they never conserve anything except the radical innovations of their supposed political opposites. So why do Southrons continue to support them? As one high ranking Republican insider once admitted to our Chairman, Thomas Moore, they view us the same way the Democratic Party views the negroes – a captive audience. Did you get that? We’re their prisoners, folks, but only so long as we continue to accept their ruse. How long will our hearts stay gross? How much longer will our ears be dull of hearing and our eyes remain shut? Put another way, how much longer will we accept the lie before we clamor for the truth?

The truth is that we can choose liberty over slavery, but it will require summoning the will to assert our God-given right to an independent country of our own. Independence is the message of hope to which our people must open their eyes, ears, and hearts.

And this is the mission of the Southern National Congress (SNC). We seek to create a legitimate institution for Southrons, by Southrons, that will give our people a voice that’s been denied them, and real hope for a restoration of their liberty. Yes, we will remonstrate with the current regime and petition it for redress of our grievances. Like our forefathers, we must pursue a reasonable and honourable adjustment of things with the United States government. However, we’re not fools. We full well expect to be ignored, but in the process, we will establish our credibility as an alternative voice, a voice that will tell the Southern people that we speak for them and advance their dearest interests.

It doesn’t require much imagination to visualise what our Southern Republic would look like, because it’s simply the things we already desire while we’re trapped in the U. S. empire. Unlike our current situation, though, in a free South, the things we desire are obtainable! Finally, we would be able to have: government at all levels run by statesmen who value and protect life, liberty, and property, sound money backed by gold and silver, peace and commerce with all, entangling alliances with none, true ownership of property, bequeathing of property to our heirs unencumbered, an end to abortion, unfettered gun ownership, freedom of association, and Christian justice and decency just to name a few.

You are faced with a choice my fellow Southrons. You can keep your eyes, ears, and hearts shut and remain in slavery under the U. S. empire, or you can open them, be converted, and be healed by liberty in your own free country. Liberty or slavery – you make the call.

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