By John J. Fox III

     As a way of introduction I wanted to let you know that I am a heterosexual male, married [to a woman]; a 59-year-old military veteran [Army]; a father; a Christian; a Southerner; member of the SCV; member of the NRA & you guessed it – a conservative. In the past, introductions of this type were not needed, but due to confusion in recent years between right and wrong, I wanted to make my background clear. 

    Let’s go back to Charleston, South Carolina in June 2015. How could a gutless, uneducated, evil young man walk into a Christian church, sit down at a Bible study with church members and then pull out a gun and shoot them in cold blood? If the shooter had been a down on his luck black guy wearing a Black Panther costume and the church members had been all white then I expect few would remember the event today. But, we all know the skin colors were reversed which made the Charleston shootings of 2015 much worse thanks to today’s racially charged society.

     Thanks to the internet and social media the Facebook image of the white shooter with a Confederate flag quickly made its way all around the world. Those who had been trying to figure out how to whittle the South down to size suddenly had a perfect “crisis” handed to them. The shooter was labelled a “racist” and since he was seen with a Confederate flag then that “racism” had to be stamped out – destroyed. That meant destruction of Southern war monuments and Confederate leaders – a perfect goal for the Barack Obamas and Eric Holders of this world.

     When so-called community organizers are voted into major leadership positions they divide people. They use division to retain power and money by keeping groups at each other’s throats. The community organizer besmirches the intelligence of the people he claims to help – because by showing up in the neighborhood as the savior he reinforces in their minds their inability to solve problems without the savior’s help.

     This mindset is allowed to continue primarily in the large urban enclaves thanks to the help of the mainstream media. The conspiratorial media has decided that it will help choose winners and losers in this country through their biased news coverage that supports one side of an argument over another.

     This is why the Charleston shooting played perfectly into the hands of the Obama White House and his Justice Department. Thanks to the media’s continuous portrayal of the shooter’s association with the Confederate flag and what they claimed was its inherent racism a connection was linked back 150 plus years to the Confederacy. Because our schools and universities have done such a poor job teaching history and civics for the past forty years is it any wonder that so many Americans have accepted this convoluted thinking?

     The idea that if you tell a lie long enough it will become the “truth” has certainly been shown to work. Look back only a few years to see how gullible the American public was thanks to the lying media. Does anybody remember the attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya that killed 4 brave Americans six years ago? This came just before Obama’s 2012 re-election and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blamed it on an unorganized mob that was angry about an anti-Muslim video made by an American. A lie! And if you think otherwise, then I urge you to read the book “13 Hours” or see the movie. How about five years ago when Obama pushed for his healthcare plan and then told another huge whopper, “If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep your healthcare plan.” Just ask the millions of American families who had their plans cancelled thanks to Obama’s meddling in socialized medicine how this lie has affected them. Where is the media – to this day – on these lies that have been accepted by many as the truth? All this gets shrugged off with a wink and nod that all politicians lie. Well Mr/Mrs/Ms Journalist – your damned job is to point these lies out, ask hard questions, do some digging and get the truth out.

     So, it should be no wonder what 150 years of lies by big government Republicans, Leftists, and Democrats have done to the reasons that our Confederate ancestors fought this War. What they claim to be the sole cause of the war [slavery] has now been propagandized down through colleges to elementary schools. If a teacher/professor dares mention that perhaps economics, tariffs and invasion might have played a role in bringing on the War then they are in danger of losing their job, not getting tenure and being ostracized. 

     The demonization of all things Confederate has always been lurking in the shadows, but the 2015 Charleston shooting helped bring this movement into the open with help from South Carolina’s Republican governor Nikki Haley. Anti-Confederate groups popped up all over the country demanding that Confederate statues and monuments be torn down. Some in Memphis demanded that General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife be dug up and moved.

     Fast forward now to 2017. Wes Bellamy, a Charlottesville city councilor, called for removal of General Robert E. Lee’s statue from the city’s Emancipation Park. This spot had been known as Lee Park until June of that year. The city council voted to remove the statue, but war monuments and memorials are protected under Virginia state law. But as we have seen through the years, when Democrats are in control they do not enforce or they refuse to follow laws they do not like. Also, Bellamy made some bigoted, racist Tweets and he was forced to resign from his seat on the Virginia State Board of Education. He also took a leave of absence from his teaching position at Charlottesville High School. YET, he was allowed to remain a Charlottesville City Councilor. This disgraceful decision to keep him on the city council allowed him to push the city toward an expensive and deadly confrontation in August 2017. Liberal hypocrisy at its finest.

     As the summer heat of 2017 grew, the Lee statue came under increased verbal, legal and physical assault. A protest was planned to rally support for the statue on August 12, 2017 in what is referred to as a Unite the Right rally. The media still claims the event was a white nationalist/supremacist rally. Certainly, there were some members of racist groups that attended, but many regular people came out to support keeping the Lee statue in the park. Many media photos revealed people holding KKK and Nazi flags. However, Antifa and other violent leftist groups showed up in greater numbers to fight the statue supporters, yet little media scrutiny was given to them or their financial backers.

     The protests, of course, turned violent as the opposing groups bumped into each other instead of being kept apart by law enforcement. In fact, law enforcement on the scene did very little to enforce the laws, instead standing off to the side as fights and vandalism took place. Several questions still have not been answered. Why did law enforcement stand idly by and who told them to stand down?

    One only has to ask: Who benefits if violence breaks out at a rally to save a Confederate statue?  Would it be then-Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe [a Clinton acolyte] and the Democrat party? It is unfortunate that no investigative journalist decided to make a FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request for the communication records between the governor’s mansion and Charlottesville officials the week prior to the rally to see what was discussed.

     When Heather Heyer was run over and killed by a supposed white supremacist during the latter stages of the rally then the Left again had their “crisis.” This was the violence that the Left had hoped the event would generate. As we now know, this “crisis” generated huge donation dollars to left-wing causes but it also generated mobs to attack and destroy the reputations of Confederate leaders and war monuments nationwide. To this day, the media continues to remind us of the “crisis” wrought by events in Charlottesville.  

     Ask yourself, would Heather Heyer be alive today if the Charlottesville City Council had booted Wes Bellamy? Would the two brave Virginia State troopers, killed in the helicopter crash while flying perimeter patrol for the Charlottesville event still be alive too?

     Of course there never seems to be any reflection by liberal politicians – the Wes Bellamys, the Terry McAuliffes, the Barack Obamas, the Eric Holders, the Hillary Clintons, the Chuck Shumers, the Nancy Pelosis etc. – that their rhetoric and actions might help create these violent “crises.” Nor does the media ever accuse them of creating the “hateful” environment that has grown in this country since Barack Obama was elected in 2008.

     Yet, the previous days have shown the Democrats and the media blaming the recent mail bombs and the Pittsburgh synagogue shootings on Trump’s rhetoric. Both of these violent episodes come mere days before the upcoming mid-term elections – more “crises” to be exploited. Again the hypocritical media helps push the narrative along that creates more division.

     Does anybody remember the five Dallas police officers killed and the nine others wounded in a sniper shooting in July 2016? The shooter was a deranged black man reportedly angry because he thought police officers, especially white ones, were targeting black people. Well Barack Obama began that false narrative accusing police officers nationwide of targeting blacks dating back to 2009 during the Henry Gates incident when Obama accused the Cambridge, Massachusetts police of “acting stupidly.” Then Obama never denounced the Ferguson, Missouri lie “hands up don’t shoot” when Michael Brown committed a strong-armed store robbery then actually tried to take an officer’s gun and then charged the officer before he was shot dead. Did the media ever accuse Obama of creating a hostile environment for police officers? Did the media ever accuse Obama of inciting people to attack police officers because of his rhetoric? No, the media did not!

     To this day, the media continues to do a disservice to the citizens of this country and to the country’s moral foundation thanks to their refusal to present factual, unbiased information. A dangerous line is crossed when the media spin presents the Democrat angle on an issue in a positive light but denounces the Republican angle. Look at the Associated Press, New York Times, Washington Post and most of the major television networks. Much of their work now has become opinion pieces, oozing with emotion, instead of being factually based.  

     What allows this era of unethical journalism to continue is that the majority of the leadership in the Republican Party refuses to call the media out for their blatant anti-Trump, anti-Republican, anti-conservative bias. The Republican Party for too long has operated without any backbone for fear of being labelled racist, anti-semitic, homophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim etc. This timidity carries over to their inability to stand up for the preservation of our history. Republican leaders fear that RACIST  card if they fail to follow the rules that the Democrats create. Republicans for too long have allowed themselves to be put in a small Democrat box. Whenever, the Republicans try to step out of this box they are denounced with slurs, curses and mobs and they retreat. This makes them ineffective at governing and doing the right thing.

     The purveyors of hate, division and fear seem to be winning the public debate against all things Confederate thanks to a biased media which controls the airwaves, newspapers and the internet. Few incumbent Republicans, wanting to remain on the gravy-train of power and perks, will make a strong stand to stop the changing of streets and schools named after Confederate leaders. Nor will many of them denounce the removal or destruction of Confederate monuments. One idea whose time I believe has arrived is term limits on ALL politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike. Term limits might ensure that politicians would make better decisions that benefit this country’s citizens instead of being in perpetual campaign mode trying to retain power.

     There was a time in this country when morals and values did not seem as murky. But that is what recent “crises” have wrought. I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I do think back to something that Obama’s first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel said: “You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.”

     Something has gone terribly wrong in the United States of America when we allow emotional, uneducated people to use these “crises” to tear down and destroy our history and our institutions. The radical Leftists see how successful the anti-Confederate campaign has been and they will be bringing their pitchforks after the Founding Fathers next. If these radicals can highlight the “sins” of our Founders then they think they can invalidate the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. I fear what will be left of this great country once the purveyors of pettiness finish their quest if we don’t bring some sanity back into politics and the news business.

     This is our country too and there are many of us who are not pleased with what has been going on. Leftist politicians, teachers, university and school administrators, journalists, movie screen writers, and authors need to remember that.

     When you go vote on November 6, ask yourself what the Founding Fathers would do and what would they say about the situation in this country today.