As a Louisiana native who is now living north of the Mason-Dixon Line, I am well aware of the concerted effort to erase Southern culture from the nation's collective consciousness. I have written numerous articles addressing this social cancer, and every time I do I inevitably hear from people who have the audacity to call me an extremist. "The Civil War is over," they say. "The South lost. Get over it!"

Sure. Never mind that those of us who defend the South do so in response to the increasingly virulent attacks on our heritage. Forget that political correctness has blinded the eyes of so many Americans that historical facts can be obscured easily with half-truths and thinly veiled lies.

It's amazing how quickly people forget. Secession was at one time viewed as an absolute right retained by the people of the various states, a fact undeniable since it was an act of secession that gave birth to our nation in the first place. Today, anyone who believes that states have a moral and constitutional right to secede is looked upon with the kind of disgust and contempt normally reserved for the criminally insane.

Another example of hidden history is the contribution made by black Confederates in the fight against Abraham Lincoln's invasion of the South. Interesting how that always manages to escape notice during Black History Month. Thanks to historical revisionists, facts that once enjoyed mainstream acceptance by the public have been reduced to fictional beliefs espoused by the fringes of society.

Most of the controversy today has to do with the display of Confederate symbols. You may recall the heated debate surrounding the Confederate flag that flew above the South Carolina statehouse. The flag sat undisturbed for nearly four decades until the NAACP decided to launch an economic boycott against the state. Legislators eventually crumbled under the political pressure and moved the flag to a nearby monument, but members of the NAACP were upset that the flag remained on Capitol grounds. So, as a sign of their appreciation, they kept the boycott in place.

The Associated Press recently reported on Albert Burckhard, army veteran and retired high school teacher, who dressed as a Confederate soldier and buried a Confederate flag in front of the post office in Isle of Wight, Va. Why? Because "everybody knows" that the battle flag is offensive to blacks.

Mr. Burckhard's idiotic protest is only the most recent example of self-destructive Southerners in action. All across the South, symbols of the past are disappearing.

In Little Rock, Ark., Confederate Boulevard was renamed Springer Boulevard. The University of Mississippi dropped Colonel Reb as its on-field mascot. Georgia changed its state flag in an effort to distance itself from its Confederate history. "Heart of Dixie," Alabama's state slogan, is disappearing from car license plates. Vanderbilt University removed the word "Confederate" from a dormitory, despite the fact that funding assistance for the building was provided by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

The sad thing about each of the preceding examples is that all of them occurred in the South. Worse, all of them were perpetrated by Southerners.