Perhaps I'm reading too much into your back to back posts on ominous events in history, but I didn't think it an accident. Celebrating South Carolina's secession tantamount to Japan marking in celebration the Rape of Nanking? Not a direct compasrison mind you, I know you weren't intending that, but the posts seemed to parallel each other, at least a little.
I've been thinking about this SC deal since I read your post yesterday. It's a bit of an odd thing. I was raised in Mississippi. I am a proud Mississippian. I grew up with teachers, neighbors and various members of my local community participating in Civil War reenactments. The gents were always giddy to put on their dress greys ... precious few were as excited about donning blue.
Why?
I think (and this is my arm chair socio-political/psychological analysis) that this desire to "celebrate" being on the wrong side of history has a sort of allure unique to being "bad" (as in a girl's attraction to the smoking biker "bad"). Sometimes that allure is personal - the South seceded, its part of the history there, and people often try and find some way to celebrate what is an immovable, undeniable part of their heritage, even if it was ultimately the losing/wrong side. We watch movies and TV programs celebrating the mafia. They are romantic figures, despite being part of a ruthless, criminal enterprise. The same with bank robbers, gun slingers of the Old West, etc. My employer's entire motif is built around the celebration of an Empire that ruthlessly suppressed personal liberty, had an active slave trade, and warred almost continuously. In fact, our most frequented restaurant is named "Neros." An emperor who's second most infamous act (after the fiddle-fire episode) was taking a blade to his pregnant wife, and gutting her. One can scarcely imagine a more horrific act. I always thought his name a curious choice for a steak house. And I think it safe to assume that the vast majority of patrons that walk through our doors each year are Christian. A notable achievement by the casino's founder given the last of the "5 Good Emperors", Marcus Arlieus, mercilessly persecuted the members of a "rebellious" faith known as Christianity.
Why some "dark" chapters in human history are "celebrated", even glorified, while others are not is a fantastic sociological study. And one we won't fully answer here ... but hell, it's our blog, so like Nero, I'll take a stab: it seems to me that be it mobsters, bank robbers, gun slingers, gladiators, emperors, the confederacy, et al, there is something about the human condition, the American condition, that is attracted to the story of the "rebel", especially if his odds of defeating his adversary/maintaining his power are slim to none, and his means (to his end) break modern protocol for accepted behavior and norms.
To bring it back to South Carolina ... Look, I get the South wanting to "celebrate" the sacrifice of their ancestor's willingness to run head first into a hail of bullets, under the most dire of war time conditions. But to celebrate 2o December, 1860 (the very act of secession) over say May 23rd, 1788 (the very act of joining these United States), seems a bit curious to me. For my money - and I say this as a proud Southerner which I will consider myself no matter my geographical location till my last days - I prefer to celebrate the secession of 1776.
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