Birth of a Southern Nation

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"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." -Proverbs 22:6

As worn out a phrase as it is, Spring often does bring with it a sense of renewal. In Dixie Traveller's own little corner of the world, it seems to be a time for birth-when family lines that seemed on the verge of extinction have suddenly begun to blossom once more, bringing hope for Dixie's future-if nurtured properly.

I rarely make it back to my former home, a Southern town that sadly, saw its best days sixty years ago and has been in rapid decline ever since. But the celebration of a milestone birthday of a relative who has been rather sickly lately was enough to draw myself from my rural hideaway for a few hours back into the remains of town for a chance to catch up with old family, meet new spouses and in-laws and be a friendly, if somewhat awkward face at the party.

On entering my cousin's lovely home, once of the first things I noticed was that the wife of another cousin was already showing her pregnancy. Somewhat lacking in tact as I do, I made sure to verify with another relative that the lady was indeed pregnant so I could congratulate her (you never live it down if you congratulate a woman who just put on a few pounds on being pregnant).

As the evening went on I reminded the Father-to-be of a time when we all swore we would never have children. We were young and had better things to do, and besides, the standard baloney about not wanting to bring a child into such a crazy world. He remembered this, but what seemed trivial and inconvenient a decade ago now seemed important, worth making sacrifices for. Both parents are honestly excited and overjoyed at the prospect of being parents.

Still I returned home to another piece of good news. A text informing me that two long-time friends of mine, both Southern Nationalists when Southern Nationalist wasn't cool, were announcing the birth of their first child of this summer. It was impossible to contain the wave of enthusiasm I felt for two couples I cared deeply for; and moreover, it seems that with the renewal of the land and creatures that always comes with Spring, Southern bloodlines in need of replenishing are finally being refreshed with new blood.

Yet as happens with a pessimist, my enthusiasm soon turned to reflection, and reflection to concern.

I cannot speak highly enough of both couples, and doubtless their children will be raised in the most loving and nurturing homes and families the parents can provide. Their offspring will come from fine old Southern families (not to pat the Dixie Traveller family on the back too hard) with long lineages in Dixie. Both will be direct descendants of Confederate soldiers, between them enough to form a full Company. But unfortunately, this is where the similarities somewhat end.

In the case of the first couple, the child will be raised in the South, but in an urban/suburban environment, the least Southern part of the State, if not the South itself. While having the Blessing of two extremely sensible parents, the child will doubtlessly be entrusted, for social and economic reasons, to the godless public school system, and as such, be fed the steady, toxic diet of State Propaganda- Critical Race Theory, Gender Dysphoria, The Patriarchy and likely some other form of bastardized history still being concocted at the time of this writing. If the child's parents do not intervene, it will likely by the age of ten have internalized a powerful hatred of self, one which the little one's foreign and Northern-born classmates and friends will be more than happy to reaffirm is the only identity they are "allowed" to have. Even worse, the child with this complex will inhabit a small part of a State he shares with the second-and inherit the potential for political and social conflict between them.

The child of my Southern Nationalist friends will grow up in a different Dixie-in many ways a more authentic one. Their child (boy or girl) will doubtlessly know how to hunt, fish, build a campground, skin a buck and run a trot line (with apologies to Bocephus).
Moreover, the child will grow up in a rural area, with a sense of place and attachment to the land that the first may lack or may even regard as useless sentimentality. Despite facing the same financial hurdles as the first, the second child will likely be homeschooled with materials that, if not overtly pro-Southern, will at least be objectively written and taught. This child will also have the voices of SCV members, young and old telling them stories of Southern heroes such as George Washington, Davy Crockett, Jim Bridger, Robert E. Lee and Audie Murphy.

But despite growing up in the world that my soon-to-be cousin didn't, this Southern-reared child will have almost as much disadvantage as the urban/Normie reared child-simply delayed. Reaching adolescence the child will develop an interest in dating, only to find extremely limited opportunities due to the plummeting birth rates among us. Whether seeking further education through college or vocational training, the homeschool education and credits received will be considered suspect and the young adult as ill-suited to work in tomorrow's degenerate corporate culture. With virtually all agricultural land now in the hands of foreigners, farming will no longer be an option for the young ruralite. Our young Southerner is basically faced with two options at this point-a lifetime of poverty or barely getting by-or to repudiate his parent's teachings and embrace (or at least regurgitate) the State propaganda his city counterpart was trained from childhood to embrace and has made him such a good citizen in "our democracy". The Southerner will not be the first faced with this choice-this choice is basically the dividing line between the Old South and the New "Sunbelt" South.

In one of my all-time favorite television shows, Sheriff Andy Taylor is talking to a man who's become a bad influence in Opie's life. The man asks Andy why he doesn't just let the boy decide on his own how to live his life. The wise Sheriff replies "it don't work that way. You can't let a young'n decide for himself. He'll grab at the first flashy thing with shiny ribbons on it. Then, when he finds out there's a hook in it, it's too late. Wrong ideas come packaged with so much glitter, it's hard to convince them other things might be better in the long run. All a parent can do is say "wait" and "trust me" and try to keep temptation away."

This is one of the great questions for our generation to answer: Will our children be guided by our steady hand toward what we Southerners know is better in the long run, or will we let the world cast its ribbons at them, and allow them to be hooked? When the first rays of the Sunny South's dawn fall on these precious little Southerners, they deserve an answer-and a plan.