The Confederate Flag

Dannyalcatraz · Jul 9, 2015

It's like gay people voting Republican.

I actually understand them, and likewise ethnic minorities and poor people who vote GOP. They usually share a LOT of the GOP's espoused fiscally conservative ideals. They just happen to differ on particular social issues.

IMHO, if you're a single-issue voter, you're probably voting for candidates who will do you more harm than good. But if that issue matters deeply to you, voting against it is extremely difficult. In a sense, it is like a philosophical "pearl of great price".

Alzrius · Jul 9, 2015

Janx said:
I'm surprised it's not legal to shoot folks flying nazi or confederate flags. Oh wait, I know why...

Because killing people for holding beliefs or belonging to groups that offend American values is itself offensive to American values?

Janx · Jul 9, 2015

Dannyalcatraz said:
What saddens me is that the Atlantic article had to be written at all. Sure, some people aren't going to have gotten the memo that has been circulating since the 1800s what the South actually stood for. But if it were just a few, that wouldn't be much of an I issue- you almost can't get 100% agreement on anything.

The thing is, while some of the quotes and commentary might be harder to track down, the texts of the documents by which the Southern states seceded to form the Confederacy are readily available for anyone to read. But shamefully, those words are not taught in most schools...anywhere in the USA.

Exactly.

I imagine plenty of poor southerners signed up for the Confederate Army because they thought they were being patriotic. To their state (and not their nation). They bought into the mean old North won't let us States have our Rights. Likely somewhere ignorant that the speeches and statements by the leaders of this rebellion were doing so to support their racist habit.

And then 150 years later, a whole lot of southerners are ignorant of the fact that 54 years ago, SC put the flag on the state house in protest to being forced to racially integrate. Racism again.

I imagine that the last 150 years of education in the South has been trying to sugar coat their treason for racist reasons. Why doesn't the North suffer from this? Because whatever Northern states had slaves freed them and committed to 100% saying it was wrong to have slaves. The Southern States can have a guilt free conscious in when they stop lying to themselves about how wrong it was to have slaves and to stop supporting a symbol that stood for that.

Honestly, nobody would be anti-South if the South didn't cling so strongly to these wrong-headed ideals that they don't understand what racism their ancestors stood for. Even Germany understood how important it was to say "Nazis are bad. Nobody shall fly a Nazi flag." Nobody rides their butt about being Hitlers buddy.

Bullgrit · Jul 9, 2015

Alzrius · Jul 9, 2015

Janx said:
Even Germany understood how important it was to say "Nazis are bad. Nobody shall fly a Nazi flag." Nobody rides their butt about being Hitlers buddy.

But on the other hand, it's a criminal offense to not only belong to Nazi organizations in Germany, but to so much as show the Nazi flag or the Nazi salute (outside of certain contexts, such as historical footage used for teaching purposes, if I recall correctly)...all of which makes me wonder if they've quite gotten the lesson regarding why fascism is a bad thing.

Homicidal_Squirrel · Jul 9, 2015

Janx said:
This is kind of the whole problem is that the racists have somehow brainwashed the south into thinking the civil war wasn't about Race, it was about oppressing the south.

It was through text books and monuments.

The south established the confederate flag.

Eh... kind of. They established a couple.

My favorite thing about this is the "heritage" line. The flag is a symbol of Southern heritage. I'm just curious how people who claim Souther heritage divorce their Southern heritage from slavery.

Raunalyn · Jul 9, 2015

I'm honestly having mixed feelings about this. While I understand and agree with what most of you have said regarding the removal of the flag, I have an intense and almost blinding aversion to destroying history, even if it's for the right reasons. I'm a very firm believer in the adage "Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it."

What else will we have to remove? What else will we have to change because someone gets offended by it?

I realize that I may be playing Devil's Advocate here. Please don't take it that I *want* to keep the flag flying...I actually liked the earlier suggestion that it remain in museums as a historical reminder. But it's as I said...I have mixed feelings...

Janx · Jul 9, 2015

Homicidal_Squirrel said:
It was through text books and monuments.
Eh... kind of. They established a couple.

My favorite thing about this is the "heritage" line. The flag is a symbol of Southern heritage. I'm just curious how people who claim Souther heritage divorce their Southern heritage from slavery.

I would suspect most of them. Most people in the south are not card carrying KKK members. But they also deny or are ignorant that the founders of the Confederacy did so for slavish reasons.

The South has no legitimate heritage as it did not exist until it seceeded from the Union. It's not a thing worth protecting. It's not a thing for any state to claim identity to. South Carolina is not The South. It is South Carolina. It has a great heritage as a state. But not as the entity known as The South.

Janx · Jul 9, 2015

Raunalyn said:
I'm honestly having mixed feelings about this. While I understand and agree with what most of you have said regarding the removal of the flag, I have an intense and almost blinding aversion to destroying history, even if it's for the right reasons. I'm a very firm believer in the adage "Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it."

What else will we have to remove? What else will we have to change because someone gets offended by it?

I realize that I may be playing Devil's Advocate here. Please don't take it that I *want* to keep the flag flying...I actually liked the earlier suggestion that it remain in museums as a historical reminder. But it's as I said...I have mixed feelings...

taking down a flag has to do with ending a nation. The Confederacy was a briefly lived nation 150 years ago founded a a bunch of really bad statements that Danny linked. They didn't even have that flag for but a few years.

What history has been erased? More like what history was ignored and swept under the rug by the losers of that war?

It's not like we go rubbing Japan, Germany or Brittain's nose in it that they lost and were wrongity wrong. It's done. They made changes.

Bullgrit · Jul 9, 2015

Question: Slavery was a legal American institution for almost 100 years, since the original 13 colonies, right on during the ACW. Does the South serve as a scapegoat for America on the issue of slavery, (and racism in general)? Essentially putting all the baggage on the South to lessen the weight of all of America's guilt?

Are there other examples, in America or any other country, where one region/peoples of the country is held more to account for an atrocity actually committed by the entire nation?

Bullgrit

The Confederate Flag

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