It’s time to tell the truth about the Confederacy

The Civil War ended a century-and-ahalf ago. But the nation never fulfilled its post-Civil War goals of granting political and economic rights to all its citizens.

Many descendants of Confederate veterans misname the Civil War as the “War of Northern Aggression.” How could the North have been the “aggressor” when the South fired the first shot? The descendants who say “The South will rise again” believe they are patriots. True Americans will reply with “And the South will fall again.”

True American patriots should defeat domestic enemies who attacked our Capitol on Jan. 6 in an attempt to raise the Confederate flag over it, just as the Confederates attempted to raise their flag over Fort Sumter.

It is a heinous desecration of the American flag to kill brave patriots carrying our flag as Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, both Union deserters, ordered their men to do during the Civil War.

Advocates of Critical Confederacy Theory should cease teaching this false doctrine, believing themselves to be heroes.

It is long overdue to change the conversation from:

Confederate heroes to Confederate traitors.

Ku Klux Klan members as libertarians to Ku Klux Klan members as anarchists.

Proud Boys as patriots to Proud Boys as domestic terrorists.

God-given right to own people to equal justice under the Constitution.

Women as second-class citizens to equal justice under the Constitution.

White men rule to equal opportunity under the Constitution.

It’s time to reinstitute Navy-Marine Corps core values that began two centuries ago when sailors landed Marines proudly carrying our American flag on the shores of Tripoli to support and defend the Constitution.

It’s time to stop teaching our children that the United States is still divided but rather that under the Constitution the United States is “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for ALL.”