Tainari88 wrote:Do you agree or not? Why? Elaborate.
Generally, the entire debate is a misdirection (and thereby a massive time waster) to prevent people from addressing real issues, like unemployment, broken families, drugs, health care, etc. A lot of the political establishment has been reduced to creating emotional distress and resolving it based on issues that generally do not add any substantive value to people's lives. A related issue is the effort to rename military bases like Fort Bragg, because Bragg was a confederate officer. I'm sort of a military history buff, and I did not know that. When I think of confederate officers, I think of Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, Nathan Bedford Forrest, P.G.T. Beauregard, and James Longstreet. I never once studied Brixton Bragg or John Hood. It would never have even occurred to me that Fort Bragg or Fort Hood were named for confederate generals, and I don't think people who are bothered by this are altogether very sincere since these are not really substantive issues that make a material difference in people's lives. So it is, in effect, a ploy by the establishment to say "We hear you," and make a basically meaningless change while sustaining policies that depress wages and outsource jobs while making people feel like they have a real voice in policy matters when they don't.
Wat0n wrote:Personally, being a foreigner, this debate obviously doesn't raise my passions it raises among Americans, but I do believe the Confederate flag is a symbol of slavery and hatred and would not fly it myself (although since I'm not a citizen, I don't feel comfortable flying the US flag either!).
It generally doesn't raise passions organically in Americans either. It is a manufactured passion to direct people away from addressing substantive economic issues. Generally, the stars and bars don't specifically represent racism or white supremacy. It represents the states that seceded from the union during the Civil War.
Why the US Civil War matters is that it was the first modern war. It is to this day the bloodiest war America has ever fought. A lot of why Europeans lost so many lives in WWI is that their generals didn't study the US civil war. Additionally, union tactics employed by people like William Tecumseh Sherman are considered war crimes today. So the union was not blameless and covered in glory. They did some pretty shameful things too.
Consider Arlington National Cemetery and the Third Amendment to the United States Constitution--the Bill of Rights. What is Arlington? It was Robert E. Lee's house and plantation. Did the union army quarter troops in someone's house? Yep. They not only did that, they took his property and made it a national cemetery and didn't compensate him for it in violation of the Fifth Amendment. A lot of the Civil War amendments were passed by Southern legislatures at the point of union guns, not popular will.
Have you ever missed a deadline? Do you know where that term arises? Civil War prison camps. They didn't have the resources to put up walls or palisades for makeshift prisons, so they had lines. If you crossed the line, there would be consequences. If you crossed the "dead line", they simply shot and killed you. We use terms today like deadline without thinking of the US Civil War.
A lot of people participate in Civil War battle re-enactments as well. As much as General Lee was revered in the South, he was not as modern and forward-thinking a general as someone like Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. There are a lot of Civil War firsts that are worth exploring if you are a history buff.
Wat0n wrote:The main reason against flying it there is its other, most obvious meaning: It represents separatism from the United States and as such there's absolutely no reason for the government to fly flags representing the end of the Union.
So now you understand why some people want it flown.
Tainari88 wrote:It is true what that young man stated--most Southerners were not slave owners in the South. Most white Southerners were poor and did not own slaves.
This is why arguments about white supremacy and reparations are basically a lie. The overwhelming majority of white people did not own slaves, and with the huge influx of immigration from Europe in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, most white Americans have no connection to slavery at all.
Tainari88 wrote:So the landed wealthy created codes that were made a law to prevent the unity of the white indentured servants and black slaves.
Right. Think of the extant riots. Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act. What constrains him? The Posse Commitatus Act. It requires the governor of the state to consent to using federal troops in a state. It was passed to thwart the federal government from using US troops in the South. Do you know why the response to Hurricane Katrina really got botched? It wasn't George W. Bush. It was Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco's refusal to consent to having US federal troops in Louisiana. FEMA could not deploy until she gave consent. That's why the response in Mississippi and Alabama went so much smoother than in Louisiana.
Tainari88 wrote:The serfs weren't property like with slaves but they had extremely limited rights and it was within a context of rigid class structures.
Not unlike illegal aliens.
Tainari88 wrote:You must study all that in depth to understand what motivated such a bloody civil war.
Yes, and when you do, you come to realize why Donald Trump won the presidency. He took the side of working class voters. That's why the establishment cries "racism" to try to divide the working classes against each other.
Politics_Observer wrote:My reasons for banning the Confederate flag is because we are all Americans and the war was long over and settled.
So kill off freedom of expression, huh?
Politics_Observer wrote:So, it stands to reason because we are all Americans (well, not everybody here is American but I say this to those who are American citizens) and the Confederate flag is offensive that it should be banned.
If you are opposing freedom of expression under the First Amendment, you are basically opposing classical liberal values and the underpinnings of democracy--pretty much the very foundation of America. If you cannot express certain views, democracy becomes pointless. That's more or less what the establishment wants.
Politics_Observer wrote:We don't need something or anybody that is going to divide our country.
Banning freedom of expression is definitely going to divide the country.
annatar1914 wrote:It's time to let this sort of thing, or the celebration of it, go into the dustbin of history. General (later President) US Grant, President Lincoln, among many others in that time believed that these Southern men were traitors and rebels and that the Confederacy was an Insurrection not a true country, and I believe that they were correct to think that.
With it goes some of the memory of the sins of the Union too along with core American values like freedom of expression and freedom of thought. If you don't know your history, you are doomed to repeat it.
Politics_Observer wrote:Bear in mind, the Union Army did burn a lot of the industry down in Georgia.
They also burned peoples homes, stole their food, etc. Sherman's march is considered a war crime today.
Politics_Observer wrote:I can't say for sure what the Union army did in my ancestor's home county but they might have been stealing livestock and food from the local population, which is what I would have done if I were in the Union Army's shoes (forage on the enemy was a common Union army strategy at that time and a smart one).
... and it's also considered a war crime.
annatar1914 wrote:I'm not speaking about them being Traitorous scum. I'm speaking about people like General Lee, offered command of all US forces to put down the rebellion early on but who refused his country's highest honor during it's greatest need for a man like him. I'm speaking about ''President Jefferson Davis'' of the ''CSA'', who was an honored US Senator, former Cabinet Official, and brilliant and talented man, who was sometimes ''personally opposed, but...'' to Slavery.... I'm speaking of his ''Vice-President of the CSA'' Alexander Stephens, who opposed secession initially for very sound reasons but who resolved in his famous ''Cornerstone Speech'' that the CSA would prevail and would build itself on the ''sure foundation'' of Slavery as a positive good for all concerned, that all men are not created equal, and possibly aren't quite as human after all (paraphrasing and contracting the main idea of the speech);
Right. This is why we should not be asking children to 1) be hopelessly ignorant of the war and its consequences, and 2) telling them that giving up their first amendment rights is some sort of virtue when clearly it is not. If the Southern states want to change their state flags, they should do it. However, people should not lose their first amendment rights in service of political correctness. Once gone, we will have to kill one hell of a lot of people to get it back.
Mark Dice does a wonderful job of showing how stupid young people are:
Rich wrote:Should people be allowed to call themselves "The Young Turks" even though for many people this is a symbol of genocide, even though that name is so deeply offensive and hurtful to many? My answer is a resounding yes.
My answer too. Yes. It's classical liberalism.
Hindsite wrote:I don't believe the Confederate flag was created to represent slavery anymore than the American flag was created to represent defeating the native Americans.
Right. The debate and the gravity with which people hold it is a sad illustration of how stupid our young people are today.
Hindsite wrote:It has gotten so crazy now that they want ban showing reruns of "The Dukes of Hazard" because they have a car with that Confederate Battle Flag painted on their car. The history teachers must be teaching the young people a lot of crazy stuff for them to want to try to erase history by destroying everything they think is racist.
Right. It's as I say just a ploy to keep people from talking about substantive issues and dividing the working classes.
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