The deed is done in South Carolina and since we live in the era of change embraced by the SJW movement there was nothing that was ever going to stop it, so perhaps it’s best that we be done and get on with our lives. But let’s not allow this moment to pass without at least giving a nod to what transpired today in Columbia. It’s absolutely true that a “bipartisan” coalition of folks have managed to remove a banner from a Confederate monument on the Capitol grounds in Columbia and then, for good measure, had the metal pole it was attached to torn down like the statue of a no longer popular dictator.

On Friday morning just after 10, the Confederate flag on South Carolina’s State House grounds was removed. The flag was on the Confederate memorial and had previously flown from the State House dome. A few minutes before it was set to be removed, the crowd began to chant “Take it down! Take it down!”

The Honor Guard arrived just after 10 to take down the flag. Seven members of the guard were present at the ceremony. They pulled the flag down the flag pole quickly. After it was removed, there were chants from the ground and some began singing “Na, na, na, hey, hey, hey, goodbye.”

Yes, listen to the crowds with their smug chanting of a song generally heard from school children when they beat the rival high school at football. Later in the day – just for good measure – the awful, racist, hateful metal pole which the Confederate Battle Flag had flown from was taken down as well. Congratulations, Social Justice Warriors. You’ve defeated racism once and for all. If taking down the flag didn’t do it, getting that pole removed is surely the last stake through the heart of the vampire of racial discord. Well done. Here’s a picture of the hateful metal pole being lowered to the grass. Isn’t this just a symbolic, wonderful moment for America?

Speaking as one of the dead enders, I’m going to pause on this Friday evening to say that this was not a moment of national pride. Regardless of how long CNN kept Don Lemon on camera to talk about what a remarkably transformative moment this was for the nation and how each and every sign of public dissent was kept off camera… irrespective of the parade of petite Republicans lined up by the networks who needed to get their chit signed off for the next election cycle by praising this action… having no concern for the cable news talking heads who crowed endlessly on the subject of healing and bipartisanship… this was a national embarrassment.

Congratulations to all of the Republicans who dutifully lined up to allow the SJW to redefine that flag into what they wanted and bent a knee at the new alter. Who knows? Perhaps you’ll win an election or two out of it. Probably not, though. Is there one of you out there who honestly thinks that using Dylan Roof as an excuse to tear down a few square yards of cloth is going to change anything? That metal pole probably had as much meaning. There are people on both sides of the obvious racial divide in this country with complaints… that’s beyond question. But on Saturday morning are any of them going to wake up with some new world view which erases generations of history where both sides have long standing gripes?

The flag flew on battlefields, it’s true. And there have been some hateful folk in more recent generations who chose to adopt it to their cause. But there were many others at various times who found a different meaning. There are families who pass down memories of not only the war, but of the crushing treatment the South received in the post–Reconstruction era and the postbellum South during the late nineteenth century. Traveling in time well beyond that, many of today’s families still feel the frequent reminders of the defeat. They understand that “The South” is still the safe harbor for comedians on stage and at the local bar… the butt of the last offensive jokes which can be told without fear of censorship. The stupid, southern rednecks who listen to unpopular music, go to NASCAR races, gig frogs, wrestle gators or whatever other stereotype you wish to apply. They speak more slowly. They have funny accents. And you can treat them like lesser people without fear of the SJW coming down on your heads. They’re just southerners… they don’t know any better.

In the past few decades, long after everyone in the nation had rejected slavery and all it stood for, young people stood up and managed to find a way to embrace their unique southern heritage against the slurs and insults. You saw that flag flying in places where nobody was talking about black people or slavery or white supremacy. They were talking about loving the south and all it stood for in the modern era… pride, civility, and a sensibility born from a need to survive a crushed and broken past. You saw it – and other banners like it – on stage behind bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd.

None of that had anything to do with endorsing slavery. None of it had to do with a war that happened more than a century before aside from the wreckage left behind. It didn’t matter if you were black or white as long as you remembered that you were southern. And in that we find the greatest embarrassment of all in this debate. It seems that any other demographic group in the nation can be proud of their heritage… except for The South. If you are from below the Mason-Dixon you will seemingly live in perpetuity with the scars of the antebellum past. And if anyone wants to spit on you in the gutter after you’ve been beaten down in the contest of public debate, there will be nobody to defend you. It’s always okay to make fun of the southern man. And if you want to tear down his flag or even his flagpole, the nation – and most particularly the media – will throw you a ticker tape parade.

“The South” – at least as defined as a unique, richly flavored heritage in the American melting pot – nearly died at the end of the 19th century. But it hung on in the tenacious way that southerners have always held on. They held on even as they came (as Virgil Cane said) and tore up the tracks again. And as they held on and regrouped through the 20th century, they had a symbol to cling to. It might not have been the best symbol, and others would obviously see it as a sigil of war, but it was the symbol they had. And they hung on to it. It grew to mean something deeper and more profound about the cultural identity of just being from The South when everyone else wanted to pretend that The South had never existed.

Now you’ve torn it down on the State Capitol grounds in one place and you’ve chopped down a metal tree which held it. I hope you’re proud of yourselves. If you’re a politician you’ve bought a few minutes of positive press from a media complex which will go back to hating you tomorrow. And you’ve earned a dark cloud over your head from those who know you sold them down the river in the name of political correctness.

And now, as we watch CNN endlessly replay the crowds childishly singing Na, na, na, hey, hey, hey, goodbye for the cameras, let’s turn back the clock a little for another song.

Good luck, folks. You haven’t solved a damn thing.