The Confederate Flag

[Kramodlog]

As you appear to have chosen to be wilfully obtuse, and as your position is clear, I'm going to bow out of this discussion also

I'm not obtuse, I'm coherent. Both times Canada has been confronted with terrorism it has blow it out of proportion to control its people. The flu kills more than terrorism. Canadians using firearms kill more Canadians than terrorists do, and yet the federal government deregulates firearm control instead of increasing. Terrorism is a bogeyman.

 

[Umbran]

Yes. Well all have to die.

If this is what the discussion is devolving to, perhaps it is time for the thread to die.

 

[Umbran]

I'm not obtuse, I'm coherent. Both times Canada has been confronted with terrorism it has blow it out of proportion to control its people.

And so will the Quebec government, should it gain sovereignty and be faced with terrorism.

Governments blow it out of proportion because the populace blows it out of proportion. The populace does so because it doesn't have the information to have a sense of proportion at the time. And, this is *intended* by the terrorists.

The whole point of terrorism is to get action or reaction by using fear as a weapon. So, they got what they asked for - a fear reaction out of the government. We can even posit that the over-reaction was also the terrorists' intended result - trying to cheese off enough Quebecois on the fence to take umbrage at the government for the action, and join the separatist cause. Thus, blame your terrorists for the police action as much as the government.

I will repeat that, "I get to do whatever I want, but *you* must remain within ethical bounds," is a hypocritical, non-starter argument.

 

[Thunderfoot]

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.

Boy, you can say that again - When I was in the military while stationed in Germany I witnessed a young, drunken German hop up on a table at local fest, stick his arm straight up and yell Heil Hitler, Heil Hitl... (and that's when the 7 Polizei started beating the holy living F*** out of him with their spring loaded nightsticks - 1 swing 8 hits, (yeah, police brutality - 'tis to laugh America) for about 5 minutes before they cuffed him and drug his bleeding broken body to a squad car. And everybody else waited until they were done, and then went back to singing and drinking - while every American stood there with their mouths on the ground.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Okay all, sorry I'm late to the party, but here's my take.

As to the State flown flags - yeah, bad idea for all the reasons stated... however, there are lots of parts of history that get glossed over and forgotten. Northern rage over Southern slavery is misplaced, why because in many Northern states it was legal to own slaves under certain circumstances. A great example is Illinois, home of Lincoln, Grant, John A Logan, Sherman and ..... the reverse underground railroad and coal mine slavery... Due to the laws governing coal mining in the 1800s, slaves were allowed to be owned for the sole purpose of clearing, gleaning and processing coal so that "greater peoples" could be freed for more important endeavors. As such there was a house in Southern Illinois (not too far from where I currently live) that not only processed slaves for the coal mines, kept them for personal use and bred them (no offense meant here for the possessive term) for sale and further "stock increase". Even more important, escaped slaves from the south that were caught by "emancipators" then used a series of secret tunnels and roadways to ship them back to the south (often free blacks were caught and conscripted into slavery just for the hell of it as well (you know, for bounty money)) for "re-education" and "re-introduction" back into "their natural place in the order of the universe."

My home often escapes scrutiny because of the aforementioned great northern generals and leaders; who while may not have been wholeheartedly against slavery as an institution but were against the morality of it; and for it's largely urban black activist population in its northern most metropolis (that would be Chicago). However here in the southern region there are just as many rebel flags as American flags, why, because they are racists slavers... no... because they hate the state institutions and wish to show their displeasure at those "stupid northern morons"... (a feeling I cannot help but empathize with come tax season and voting time.) The Confederate Flag is the sign of one rebelling against something, whether it's right or wrong, it is an immediately recognizable symbol as such.

Where do I stand on the issue, I don't care either way, however I am applauded that TVLand pulled "The Dukes of Hazard" for the flag on the General Lee and yet still airs "The Jeffersons", where Mr Jefferson can freely utter the phrase "honky" which is as racist as you can get (which also goes for cracker btw...) I am fully against racism, regardless of it's form...

 

[Janx]

Boy, you can say that again - When I was in the military while stationed in Germany I witnessed a young, drunken German hop up on a table at local fest, stick his arm straight up and yell Heil Hitler, Heil Hitl... (and that's when the 7 Polizei started beating the holy living F*** out of him with their spring loaded nightsticks - 1 swing 8 hits, (yeah, police brutality - 'tis to laugh America) for about 5 minutes before they cuffed him and drug his bleeding broken body to a squad car. And everybody else waited until they were done, and then went back to singing and drinking - while every American stood there with their mouths on the ground.

So, we can draw different conclusions from this.

a) oh my gosh, they violated that drunk's right to freedom of speech

b) they clearly demonstrated that support of the greatest evil that nation ever knew will be dealt with brutally as there is no such thing as free speech on the matter.

I side with B.

But I also don't think that the good guy killing the bad guy makes him just as bad as the bad guy.


On police brutality:
I finally saw the Fugitive a few days ago. Happened to be on TV. I watched as Tommy Lee Jones' US Marshalls invaded the wrong house in a raid on a black family, everybody screamed, and the man of the house got his hands around a Marshall and put a gun to his head. Tommy Lee comes around the corner and shoots him and then calls it justified.

I guess things haven't changed since 1993 when that movie came out.

 

[Umbran]

I guess things haven't changed since 1993 when that movie came out.

Things have changed - a lot more of us now realize how that was problematic. It just isn't enough.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

You know there are differences between murder, manslaughter and involontary manslaughter.

So, you kidnap someone, that person tries to escape and is killed, by you, in the process, and that's manslaughter or involuntary manslaughter?

In what way is this not murder? If I get hit by a bus while running from my kidnappers, they are still charged with murder. Once you kidnap someone, and that person dies, it's murder. Full stop.

 

[prosfilaes]

I'm not obtuse, I'm coherent. Both times Canada has been confronted with terrorism it has blow it out of proportion to control its people. The flu kills more than terrorism. Canadians using firearms kill more Canadians than terrorists do, and yet the federal government deregulates firearm control instead of increasing. Terrorism is a bogeyman.

One goal of many ethnic/religious terrorists is to provoke an response by the government, and thus push all the moderate people in that ethnic/religious group towards supporting the extremists. The whole point of terrorism in any case is to provoke a response, and it's entirely possible that if ignored, they will merely escalate, maybe go all Guy Fawkes.

Moreover, kidnapping a political official in a democracy is not about a person; it's about depriving the citizens of a country the right to choose their leadership, in favor those the terrorists approve of.

Wikipedia quotes Guy Gendron as saying "Il a été étouffé dans un moment de panique [He was strangled in a moment of panic]". Strangulation is not a quick death; it takes minutes to kill someone that way. A man was kidnapped and held, and when he tried to escape, someone crushed his throat for a minute until he was dead. If he had tried to run when they pointed a gun at him and told him to get in the car, would his death by gun not have been murder, because they wanted him alive and accidentally killed him by shooting him?

I'm an American; I have no horse in these Canadian issues. But people acting as if the death of a politician who was kidnapped by terrorists is no big deal, wasn't even really murder so much as an accident, and the government whose politician was kidnapped was overreacting by reacting basically at all really bothers me.

 

[MechaPilot]

Where do I stand on the issue, I don't care either way, however I am applauded that TVLand pulled "The Dukes of Hazard" for the flag on the General Lee and yet still airs "The Jeffersons", where Mr Jefferson can freely utter the phrase "honky" which is as racist as you can get (which also goes for cracker btw...) I am fully against racism, regardless of it's form...

As a white person, "honky" and "cracker" are funny terms to me. They don't register as insults to me, at all. They certainly don't register as being racial epithets with the weight of historical oppression behind them.