Kentucky teen and Confederate flag prom dress

The BBQ Pit
142

Bricker is perfectly correct. Under the law as it applies in this case, the school was wrong. Under my ideal interpretation of the First Amendment, the school would be even more wrong. The remedy for repugnant, ignorant, offensive speech is not suppression but seeking to allow ever more divergent views until vague ideas and shibboleths are made clear, positions are defined, and minds are made up with as much information as they are prepared to absorb subjected to as much critical analysis as they are prepared to apply. The hope is that in this battle, sense will triumph over mere volume. There’s the problem: it is hard to trust that truth will win when it begins with a disadvantage. But if we don’t trust it (and I’m often pessimistic myself), we all collaborate to construct barriers to the free exchange of ideas which can only serve the enemies of freedom.

That out of the way, let’s all move on to the substance, rather than the mere legitimacy, of ideas. The right to say anything should be so ingrained in Americans that a speaker should never be able to divert our attention with appeals to freedom of speech, but rather be compelled to proceed immediately to a defense of his/her thesis. This would save a lot of time and energy on all sides.

In the present instance, a young girl has stupidly been allowed to defend her unassailable right to speak freely instead of, more appropriately, the sheer moral and intellectual vacuum of what she’s actually saying. Stupid, stupid, well-intentioned blunder.

143

You know, I almost feel bad for this girl for being shut out of her dance. Going to the prom in her rebel-flag prom dress was probably going to be the high point of her life. What will she reminisce about with the girls at the nail salon fifty years from now?

144

Whoa! I NEVER said this! I do NOT believe this! Where did it come from ? I have posted in response to bnorton several times, all decrying slavery and all that the Confederate flag stands for.

Now I am puzzled and worried–is it possible to hack someone else’s moniker?

Please, I do NOT believe in this statement and would never say such a thing, EVER. I will contact an administrator to try to clear this up.

145

I don’t think he hacked your account or anything, he just dummied up a quote. Should be easy to do, just put in the quote tags, etc. I think since he was immediately banned, he was caught at his slanderous game.

Idiots like him shame all good people on all sides of issues.

Sir Rhosis

146

Thank you, Sir Rhosis , but I am still confused as to who did it–why people find that sort of thing “fun”, I’ll never know.

I think I understand the sequence of events here–phew!

Carry on…

ITA, The Kingof Soup

I would like very much to hear a reasoned, rational argument from the girl as to the reasons for her choice and her actions afterward.

147

And maybe at some point you will acknowledge that you cannot, by definition treat someone decently if you keepthem as a slave. The only decent thing to have done would have been to free them the instant they came to be identified as yours.

A supposedly gentle dictator is still a dictator, and a well treated slave is still badly treated. Deal with it. Your ancestors were despicable.

148

Let me preface this by saying: yes, I am a Southerner, if you include Texas (Austin, specifically; that little blue island in a veritable sea of red) in the South. No, I am not a racist. Yes, it is conceivable that as I have Southern ancestors, some of them were slaveowners (more likely the case that they were indentured servants and sharecroppers, considering my relatives). Yes, I think slavery is a horrible institution, a poverty of humanity, a disgusting note in human history.

That being said.

The Southerners were right in saying that their way of life would be irrevocably changed were slavery to be banned. The North saw a predomination of immigrants and was a non-agricultural area; the factories in the North did not by and large requre slave labor, instead needing fairly unskilled labor that could be gotten on the cheap. The South, on the other hand, had been working with a slave economy for a very long time and with the investment they had made in their laborers (an investment more often capitalized upon by Northern sellers of slaves) they could not afford to change their way of life.

Imagine the day that burning fossil fuels becomes illegal and you are no longer allowed to drive your cherry red '65 convertible. Nobody’s going to give you a refund; nobody’s going to buy you a new mode of transport. Yes, you should have thought of that before you bought the thing, but that doesn’t stop ME from owning a car.

Should the rich white Southerners of the antebellum era have used slaves as their farm labor? Should they have abused those slaves to the degree they did? Hell no. But there were understandable reasons behind their anger.

Up until the Industrial Revolution, it has (and if I am wrong, I would dearly love a cite on some culture in which this was not true) been a requirement in every culture that had any sort of artistic, philosophical, or creative upperclass to have a downtrodden lowerclass. Frequently that lowerclass, while not CALLED slaves and while technically possessed of freedom to find something new to do, were at least as badly treated as the black slaves of the South.

Why were blacks enslaved in the South? The answer for that one’s really simple. It wasn’t just that people thought blacks were inferior. It was that they were really easy to spot. Indentured servants in the north served for seven years per person in payment for their passage to America, but one white redhaired Finn O’Malley looks much like another and he could (and did) easily save some money, buy a horse and wagon, and sneak off to Oklahoma. Blacks looked different from free Southern folk and were easy to spot.

(Does this excuse it? No. Just providing background.)

The reason for the banning of the Confederate Battle Flag or any other signs of the Confederacy seems to be the conflation of the Confederacy with slavery. This is an argument I’m not going to get into; suffice it to say that the two walk alongside each other closely enough that they’re effectively the same thing in most people’s minds. Should it then be a mark of shame to wear the American flag? Not only did America once fully support slavery, north and south, it also supported the extermination of Native Americans, the forced labor of Hispanic, Irish, and Chinese workers on the railroad in horrible conditions, and concentration camps for citizens of Japanese and German descent. Are these only warts on our history? I point to smallpox blankets and the Trail of Tears as big huge running festering sores.

But America stands for personal freedom and goodwill, the melting pot of racial harmony and equality. Well, the Confederacy stood for personal freedom (of those it considered citizens, admittedly), gentility, and taking a nap at three in the afternoon. There is, as has been stated before, no culture on the earth (none that I can think of) that can say it has never trodden on anyone’s rights. What, then, spoken clearly, is the effective difference between wearing the American flag and the Confederate Battle Flag?

Please understand (I’m saying this a third time because I know I’m going to be misunderstood) that I don’t fly the Confederate flag, I’m glad the South is a part of the Union, and I am not a racist. Slavery was an abomination and I’m glad it’s over…well, at least it’s pretty much over in America.

I’m just sayin’ y’all need to think very carefully.

149

That’s the thing about freedom of speech - you don’t need a reasoned, rational argument for your views. It’d be nice to hear one, but you sure as hell won’t from her.

Letting idiots like her have free speech is one of the prices we pay for the speech we want to protect. (And I am sure the argument can be made the other way round by people who don’t like my message). I just wish the Sons of the Confederacy, or whatever group it is, was as protective of the rights of speech and expression of others who are refused entry to their proms because of their choice of date, for example.

150

Yeah, to prevent her from going into the dance. That’s not false imprisonment. She could have simply turned on the car and driven away (which it appears as if she did). Perfectly reasonable means of escape, thus no false imprisonment.

(yes, I know this is a response from a long ago post, but I haven’t been on the boards much and just saw this response, sorry all.)

151

I don’t agree that all slave owners were “evil shites”. Early in history, there was no thought that slavery was evil. And to some extent- early salvery wasn’t half as bad as some make it out to be. Take Rome for example. Slaves had rights, could accumulate money, buy their freedom and weren’t all that bad off- and there was a NEED for slavery (when you captured an enemy hostile army, you could either kill them all, or make them slaves. Slavery was the human choice!). What was critical, too- is that once you weren’t a slave anymore, you were a Citizen like any other. This is whee Southern Slavery went so very wrong. The need for slaves had pretty well gone- in fact the South crippled itself by it’s dependence on slavery. But what was so evil about Southern Slavery was the fact that it was race based. You weren’t a slave becuae your side lost- you were a slave becuase you were a lesser form of being. I think that’s why earlier slavery wasn’t quite as bad- dudes them coudl look down at their slaves and say “there but forth the grace of Mar I go- we coudl have lost that batlle, and I’d be the slave”. Gives one real empathy. And there was no though that the slaves weren’t "human’ didn’t have souls or any of the crap that came out of southern racist slavery.

Southern racist slavery was thus particulary evil becuase it was based upon racism, not “to the victors belong the spoils”. And, what was worse- by the 1800’s educated men and peopel of consceince KNEW it was evil. In fact around the birth of the American republic, educated men were starting to have second thoughts- which is why many slave holders them freed their slaves (at least in their wills). I’ll give GW and Jefferson a bye- becuase they had just come into the age where elightenment was dawning.

However, by 1860- southern racist slavery was known for what it was. You could only be a salveholder then if you were particularly set in a form of deepest racism or denial.

Getting back to bnortons post- one thing we are guilty of is judging dudes by our present held beliefs. I call that “presentism” and it is both silly and a form of a fallacy. You must judge people by what the beliefs were THEN- as often belief is founded upon knowledge. After all- many of the early greek philosphers thought that the Sun went around the earth. Doesn’t mean they were stupid. Thus, since in the late 1700, the enlightened & educated beliefs were just forming that slavery was wrong, we can give GW and Jeffferson a bye. Not so later slaveholders.

What will be be held as monsters for? Not letting chimps and dolphins vote? Hmm- centuries off. Allowing smoking in public places, or allowing pregnant moms to drink &/or smoke? I think that one will hit before I am dead. Spewing global warming gasses or polultants into the air? Already started.

Whatever it is- for those posters around 20 who live to be 100- you will be reviled for your “medieval” mindset for allowing or particiapting in certain things that are common now. That much I am sure of. :stuck_out_tongue:

152

DrDeth, awesome post. IMO emphasis should be put on:

When you were a slave in those times, your “master” had exclusive ownership of your labour - not of you. American slavery took people and made them into posessions.

153

True enough. Slavery then was different from slavery…er…in the more recent then. :wink:

154

I can’t find my copy, but I’m sure in the September 2001 issue of National Geographic, there was an article called “21st Century Slaves” that stated that there were probably more people in America living in slavery today than at any time in the in the 1850’s. I believe that a US State department document supporting this was cited. I am sorry that my research skills are not good enough to find the cite. :frowning:

155

I’m gonna sound like a naive doofus, here… but how, and where? I’ve heard the term “white slavery,” but it has always been some nebulous thing I’ve never given much thought to. I can understand there there are probably a lot of illegals here working (“slaving”) so as not to be turned in and deported. Is this what you mean?

This floors me.

Sir Rhosis

156

Might it have been that they were living in conditions comparable to the conditions in which most slaves lived with just as much chance of improving their lives?

Seems more likely.

157

The United States of America has a history as a nation of over two centuries, including many terrible things and many good and noble things. The Confederate States of America had a history as a would-be nation of less then five years; it was founded for the preservation and defense of slavery, and it never had any chance to be anything other than a slave state. Perhaps if the Confederacy had won its independence, the ninth President of the Confederate States would have freed the slaves, worked for reconciliation between all the peoples of the C.S.A., white and black, and mediated between the Great Powers of Europe and averted World War I (and consequently the Russian Revolution, Communist despotism, World War II, the Holocaust, etc., etc., etc.) to boot. Maybe the first man on the Moon would have been a Confederate, after the C.S.A. won the “space race” against their friendly rivals to the North. Or, maybe, Confederate imperialists would have invaded large areas of Central America and the Caribbean, spreading slavery wherever they went, and the C.S.A. and the Brazilian Empire would have formed a Pro-Slavery Axis, carving up Africa and re-introducing the Atlantic slave trade. Or maybe eventually there might have been an even worse civil war than our Civil War, a brutal race war that would have left the whole South embittered, impoverished, and divided into mutually hateful white and black racist enclaves.

Who knows? None of it happened, so all we have of Confederate history is that they were willing to destroy the Union and risk war to preserve slavery. A lot of brave men and brilliant generals fought hard and even heroically for the C.S.A., but when you get right down to it, Confederate history is pretty much all wart.

158

Sir Rhosis a quick search of the U.S.Department os State website turned up this Slavery in 2004.
Here is a quick quote:

18,000 to 20,000 is pretty significant. Granted, I only made a quick search, believe what you want.

159

Thank you for the link.

I believe it, it just sickens me to have to realize this could go on in this day and age.

Sir Rhosis

160

I don’t know much about modern slavery, but I can tell you that the term “white slavery” refers to forced prostitution. I believe the term originates from old (and AFAIK unfounded) fears that decent white women were being kidnapped and shipped off by the boatload to brothels in Asia.

161

Well, ancient slavery varied in its direness from society to society. Frex, the Hebrew bible contained injunctions for masters not to send their slaves out in coarser garments than those the master wore, but it’s unsure whether that was a real custom or the sort of goody-two shoes wanking that no one pays attention to that’s common in religious books. I remember reading about the skeleton of a slave from Greek times – a young girl, maybe in Pompeii, whose bones had been warped by the heavy loads she’d been forced to carry while very young. And we’ve all heard of those nasty, nasty salt mines.

Slavery for the Romans was pretty vile in many respects – they could rape female slaves at will and I don’t think the social penalties for killing slaves were all that onerous. Slaves who ran away could be crucified, IIRC. Quite the heavy penalty.

I have also read accounts of early (pre-Colonial) gold mining in Africa in which tribesmen would capture pygmies and toss them into a mine whose entrance was a hle in the ground. If gold came up, food came down. If gold didn’t come up, food didn’t come down.

I believe even in those times, people knew slavery was a shit deal. Remember the Roman sayings, “Let the slave hate us, so long as they fear us” and “woe to the vanquished.”