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If You Want To Know Why We Keep Fighting Wars, Look No Further Than The South.

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Message Lawrence Velvel
 

            These figures illustrate what has long been obvious to anyone who has studied or considered the history of the matter:  they show that the South is far more inclined towards war than the rest of the nation.  Naturally, there will be some objections to this view.  It will be said, for instance, that the recent figures are what they are because the South is overwhelmingly Republican, this is Bush’s war, and his party members are supporting him. Well, not all party members supported him in the relevant votes.  A few did not, just as some Democrats voted for war in 2002.  But, far more importantly, to be in favor of war is the position of people who are conservative to reactionary (as well as some moderates).  Southerners are Republicans because they are conservative to reactionary.  They are not conservative to reactionary because they are Republicans.  (Think of this idea as being something like Plato’s question of whether something is good because the Gods love it, or whether the Gods love it because it is good.)  The South has been a conservative to reactionary stronghold (now called a red state stronghold) for at least 175 to 180 years, and that is why it is Republican today.  So people who say southern support for this war is a party matter fail to reckon with the long history of conservative to reactionary, and militaristic, thinking.  If the South weren’t that way it wouldn’t be Republican today and wouldn’t be supporting the war so overwhelmingly.

 

            Then it may also be objected that the foregoing Southern votes in Congress aren’t responsible for the war, since there were plenty of non Southern votes to authorize the war.  That, of course, is true.  Yet is makes a considerable practical difference, when it comes to war or any other policy, if you start with a large, diehard committed bloc on your side, a bloc that will argue for you, work for you, and needs no convincing, but instead will push for you. The South is such a bloc when it comes to war.  Beyond this, the Southern bloc did make a difference on the Senate vote to end the war.  The resolutions would have had a majority of votes cast if you remove all the Southern votes pro and con, or even if you just split them evenly.  It may not at this time have garnered the 60 needed to override a veto, but who knows what could have happened had it at least had a majority?

 

            So we are faced with a militaristically inclined, pretty solid bloc of conservative to reactionary votes in the part of the country that has long been a one party section, for about 80 years a solidly Democratic section and now, for about 35 to 40 years or so, a solidly Republican section.  The South can, through history in various fields (like civil rights) for many years did, and in future may again stall progress toward a better society.  Its warlike proclivities may in themselves stall progress, because as was true in the times of Wilson, FDR and Johnson, war brings progress to an end, or at least severely limits it, because emotion and focus turn extensively to war instead of to progress.  War, like death (spoken of by Oppenheimer at Trinity), is the destroyer of worlds.

 

            The South’s tendency, even desire, for war is part of a broader problem that has been explained and discussed here at other times:  the problem of the vastly disproportionate power the South has continually exercised over the political life of this country since 1789, with the sole exception of the period 1861-76.  There is no easy way to solve this problem, with its militaristic component, but there is a way, one that would help make the country far more democratic than it is now. 

 

One of the reasons for the South’s disproportionate power is the constitutionally mandated composition of the Senate, with two Senators from each state regardless of a state’s population. One really knows of no one who suggests changing this, and it is dubious that any change could be worked in less than 100 years.  But another reason for the South’s political power is the winner take all system of single member districts in votes for Representatives, and the winner take all nature of state representation in the Electoral College.  Neither the single member district system, nor the winner take all method used in such districts and in the Electoral College, are constitutionally mandated.  In fact, to a minimal extent they either have not been or are not currently being used by a tiny number of states today.  They can be changed to proportional systems of voting.  The pros and cons of this have been discussed in other postings, and therefore will not be rehashed now.  Suffice to say now that proportional systems of voting would mean that the votes of the millions of Southerners whose votes count for nothing now because they are totally nullified by majorities, would instead count for something.  Southern progressives and liberals would be able to elect Congressmen and Congresswomen, and their votes would also count in the Electoral College.  The South would no longer be a solidly conservative to reactionary bloc in national affairs.  It would instead be reasonably divided, like the rest of the country is.

 

            Of course, the use of systems of proportional representation would also mean that several states that are reliably Democratic (i.e., liberal or progressive) in elections for President or the House would elect a larger number of conservatives.  For the conservative vote in those states would no longer be reliably cancelled out, reliably overridden and nullified, in such elections, just as the liberal vote would no longer be nullified, in such elections, just as the liberal vote would no longer be nullified in the South.  So be it.  Our major problem really is not, and as far as I know never has been, the existence of divided political power in the North.  Rather, it has always been the presence of undivided political power in the South.  The solid bloc South has already caused this country much disaster, including the Civil War which killed more Americans than any other war even though the country’s population was only 30 million at the time, not the approximately 140 million of World War II, or the approximately 180 to 200 million or so at the time of Viet Nam.  Unless history proves to be no guide whatever -- which one would not think on the basis of Bush II’s Iraq war -- we’d better find some way of ending the solidly-conservative-to-reactionary-bloc- power of the South or it will cause us disaster again in the future.  That is, as I say, unless history proves to be no guide at all.  Does anyone wish to argue that history will be no guide because historical patterns do not repeat themselves?  If so, they will find a lot of historians to argue with.*

 



* This posting represents the personal views of Lawrence R. Velvel.  If you wish to comment on the post, on the general topic of the post, or on the comments of others, you can, if you wish, post your comment on my website, VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com.  All comments, of course, represent the views of their writers, not the views of Lawrence R. Velvel or of the Massachusetts School of Law.  If you wish your comment to remain private, you can email me at Velvel@mslaw.edu.   

VelvelOnNationalAffairs is now available as a podcast.  To subscribe please visit VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com, and click on the link on the top left corner of the page.   The podcasts can also be found on iTunes or at www.lrvelvel.libsyn.com 

 

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Lawrence R. Velvel is a cofounder and the Dean of the Massachusetts School of Law, and is the founder of the American College of History and Legal Studies.
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