The world has been devastated by whole armies of honorable men

Republican White House hopefuls struggle over the flag

Romney and the SC governor days in the lead, the GOP hopefuls have carefully, gently, and oh so politely agreed the flag ought to come down.

But meanwhile, many conservative pundits defend the indefensible by attacking the attackers and some old fashioned Southern Republican politicians defend the honor of the Confederate soldiery.

And they all know perfectly well it's not only about the flag.

State Sen. Lee Bright, Cruz’s South Carolina co-chair, has emerged as one of the most vocal opponents of the move. 

Bright told the Charleston Post and Courier that taking the flag down was akin to a “Stalinist purge,” a claim he expanded on in an interview with POLITICO on Tuesday.

“It’s not just the flag,” Bright said. 

“They want to take down the Confederate monuments; I’ve gotten emails from people who want to rename streets. … Anytime you want to basically remove the symbols of history from a state, that’s something that just is very bad. … These are honorable men who fought for their homes, their home state; to disgrace them in the name of political correctness is just wrong. They’re not here to defend themselves.”

They should rename those high schools and streets after Grant, Sherman, Lincoln, Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubman, and the like heroes who fought to crush the slave empire of the Confederacy and end slavery in the renewed and stronger Union, forever.

And the Union dead, hundreds of thousands of honorable and decent men, many devoted volunteers but many also barely willing draftees, dragged off to war just like their opposite numbers in gray.

The German armies of World War Two were full of decent men drafted to fight, as well as honorable professionals.

Likewise Stalin's forces throughout his reign.

Blah, blah.

Stalin's armies occupied the Baltic States and half of Poland, subjecting them to the red nightmare, and tried to do the same for Finland.

After crushing Hitler's forces - with a helpful assist from Americans and Brits - and raping half the women and girls in Germany, they imposed that same nightmare on all of Eastern Europe.

Hitler's armies crushed everyone they could at the cost of tens of millions of innocent lives, supporting tyranny everywhere including at home, a key war aim at which they succeeded being the killing of millions of Jews to make the continent Judenrein.

The armies of the South fought, killed, and died to maintain a brutal and racist slave empire in North America that its leaders meant to expand both north and south.

So much for armies of decent and honorable men.

They are not actually the issue; The Lost Cause for which they fought is the issue.

And some of the living white people - and of the living black people, too, white ancestors being common among them - of the South will have to get used to the idea of having ancestors who fought for so awful a cause it is impossible that any honorable or decent person could wish to commemorate and honor them for their service.

As a good many of them no doubt already have.