I believe that’s the noblest thing I’ve ever seen written here.
I think the Confederate flag belongs over the statehouse as a memorial to those who fell in the civil war, as a symbol of Southern Pride, and culture, and as a historical reminder. This is probably why it was pput there in the first place.
The Governor should not be bullied by a small vocal group trying to make doctrine out of politically correct minutia.
He should say “That’s why it’s there, that’s why it stays. Get a life and bother me about my policies not my decorations.”
Because they would percieve the shadows as being both the source of their food, and punishment.
Scylla:
Did I say that the Confederates were evil? No. Did I say that they were traitors? Yes.
Deny it.
Who started the war? The southern states.
Why? Because they didn’t like the results of an election and were afraid laws would be passed that outlawed slavery.
What did they intend to accomplish? Dissolve the union and keep the system of slavery intact.
Does this make them evil? For their time and place, no. However, it hardly makes them worth honoring, no matter how valiantly they fought. For every “valiant” Confederate there was an equally “valiant” and often very reluctant Union soldier.
And what do we do if another group of states decides to pull out of the Union? Let them go?
These are basic questions. If you can’t answer them, mockery is a poor substitute.
Sorry, but I still don’t get it. What sort of god are you talking about? Like a god of food or something? Or a god of punishment?
C3, you’re right about the governor. If the majority of people in SC want that flag up - it should wave free in the breeze. Anybody outside of the State has no right to whine about it.
matt: it is quite easy to deny that the Confederates were traitors. It’s all a matter of perspective. From a southern POV the “Union” government was in direct violation of the inherent sovereignty of the States. Slavery, the hotbed issue, was debated much before the Constitution was ratified and for political reasons (i.e., the Southern States never would have ratified) was not mentioned in the document and kept as a legal practice. Then the north changed its mind. If the FF had the guts to really settle the issue early on, we never would have had a Civil War, but then again, we might not have had a nation at all.
If another group of States wishes to secede, we must let them (especially if it’s Kansas and Nebraska), but not without a bloodless fight.
Yet to be reconciled with the reality of the dark for a moment, I go on wandering from dream to dream.
Traitors ???
OK, matt4film, now you’re getting me riled.
Southerners understood their states to be part of a voluntary union, from which they could rightfully withdraw. They did so. They did not “attack the Union” as you suggest. They asked the Union troops to leave South Carolina soil (Fort Sumter). When the Union troops would not leave voluntarily, the Confederates took the fort by force.
Things could have ended right there, but the Union decided to invade the South, and not the other way around. The South, in general, fought a defensive campaign.
No question, Southern leaders started the whole secession ruckus to preserve an evil institution, slavery, which I do not defend. However, the average Southern soldier was fighting not on behalf of slavery (a tiny fraction of the soldiery owned slaves), but to defend his home. Nor were the Confederate soldiers “traiterous”. They simply viewed their first loyalty as being to their state, and not to the Union.
“Every time you think, you weaken the nation!” --M. Howard (addressing his brother, C. Howard).
Scylla: can’t we just have a war memorial? Also, I don’t think it’s clear exactly why it was put there, but it was put up in 1962, smack in the middle of the Civil Rights movement…a little suspicious, don’t you think?
Your right about the governor not cowtowing to a vocal minority…but what does the majority think? I think that has yet to be answered (except by polls, which show that the majority thinks the flag should come down).
I’m a little hot about this subject, folks, sorry if I’m offending anyone. I have friends from the South, and I generally keep my mouth shut about this subject when talking with them.
However, when General Lee and so many others attended West Point, oaths were made. Those oaths were broken. I’m sure they thought they were doing the right thing, but were they really?
Would North America be better off today if there were two countries, or maybe three, make that 5 or 10 even, as states withdrew from the Union or the Confederacy over sectional differences? We could have an all Baptist state, an all Lutheran State, an all Catholic state, a black state, a tan state, an Indian state, a Cajun state. Somehow, I don’t think anybody wants that…
Time has passed since then and wounds have healed and the whole issue of the Civil War has been much romanticized and glorified.
However, let’s not forget what the Confederate flag really meant to the people that faced it up close. It meant death. Dead men and boys, blown apart, disfigured, crippled, fighting to save the Union.
The war is over. North and South are one country. No dishonor should shadow the South, or Southerners, for past history. But let’s not unduly honor an Army and Officer Corps that’s ultimate goal was to dissolve the union.
I have stayed out of this discussion so far. I said my piece in the earlier thread and so no particular reason to recapitulate it. However, I must address one point of misinformation which often seems to arise in these discussions:
It is not. The Battle flag of the CSA (which is not now and never was the official flag of South Carolina or any other government) was not raised after the Civil War as a memorial to the fallen. It was first flown over the South Carolina statehouse in 1962 as a direct reaction to desegregation inititiatives and the civil rights movement. You can argue all you like about the symbolic meaning of the flag to you, but the intent of the original flag-wavers is both clear and offensive to those who believe al men should be treated equally.
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*
No offense, Matt but you could switch “Confederate” and “Union” and make the same point the other way.
I don’t think the end ever justifies the means. I’m not saying that the South did the right thing. I’m just saying what I said.
As has been suggested, the analogy in the OP is inexact in at least a couple of ways:
[list=1][li]The Magen David is on the official flag of the nation of Israel. The South Carolina state flag consists of a white crescent moon and a white palmetto tree on a blue background. The Confederate battle flag is not officially associated with the government of the state of SC, except by being flown over the SC statehouse.[/li][li]The Confederate flag came to be flown over the SC statehouse specifically as a symbolic act of defiance to Federal authority at the height of the civil rights movement (1962), as SC and other Southern states began to feel the heat of pressure from Federal court decisions and other actions regarding voting rights, segregation of schools, etc. There is no analogy in the case of the Israeli flag.[/list=1][/li]
That being said, I don’t think the issue ought to be whether either flag is potentially offensive. I think that whether the Confederate flag is offensive to a some segment of SC’s populace or not, it’s inappropriate for a state of this union to fly the flag formerly used by a group of states that attempted to rebel and establish a separate union. That the state began flying that flag in an effort to continue the state’s established practice of denying constitutionally guaranteed rights to certain of its citizens makes it even more inappropriate.
By the same token, I think any individual who wishes to fly the flag on their property or affix its image to their belongings is completely free to do so, just as others are completely free to judge them to be drooling morons on the basis of that alone. Note that there’s a difference between thinking that anyone who displays the Confederate flag is a moron and deciding to be offended by it; which brings me to my final point.
We are constantly surrounded the potentially offensive. Nearly anything you can name is potentially offensive to some group or other, as the OP makes evident. We cannot control (as individuals, and only in limited ways as a nation of laws) the actions or statements of others. We can control our reactions. I don’t suggest that one should not be offended by someone who directly insults you or who advocates maltreatement of a group to which you may belong. But when it’s a matter of interpretation, when there’s any doubt whatever about whether a slight was intended, it seems to me to be a healthier response to decline to be offended. You can denounce the statement or symbol, point out its inaccuracies, etc., but in a way that focuses on what is said or done rather than the effect it might have had on you. It gives the other party the benefit of the doubt, minimizes the risk that you’ll inadvertently give offense by taking offense, and reduces by at least one the number of things you have to worry about. Essentially, it’s the difference between the nineteenth-century and twentieth-century meanings of the word “liberal”; the older meaning emphasized tolerance, while the current meaning emphasizes sensitivity. I’m suggesting that it’s better to tolerate the occasional offense than to be so sensitive to offense that we spend our entire lives taking umbrage.
(NB: Much of the last paragraph owes to a essay on this topic by baseball writer Bill James in his 1996 book, The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers from 1870 to Today. In “Tolerance, Tolerance”, James discusses the then-current topic of Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott’s comments about blacks, Jews, and Adolf Hitler. It’s only tangentially related to the topic of the book, but I definitely consider the four pages it occupies well spent, as it fairly neatly expresses my own feelings on the subject.)
Spectacular analysis.
True. But do we live in the United States of America, or the Confederate States of America?
Uh, I might have a faulty memory, but as I remember the Cave Allegory, the people in the cave did not worship the shadows. As I recall, they believed the shadows to be reality, despite how unclear they were.
Then Plato supposed that if one person were to break free of his chains, go out into the sun, and return to tell those still capitve that what they see is not reality, noone would believe him because the shadows are all they had experienced, thus all they understood.
This isn’t some roundabout way of arguing that the Confederate flag does not exist, is it?
Wow. A sudden influx of really good newbies. Welcome, guys. You’re all good debators.
Lib:
Sorry, maybe I’m being thick.
These guys hanging on the walls can’t see anything but shadows moving. Some of the movements coincide with actions like feeding and punishment.
If they have been hanging there long enough, and have gone loony enough, they might stop thinking of the actions as causing the shadows, but vice-versa (since all they observe is the shadow.) They might eventually build up a whole belief system about the shadows, and what their movements portend. They might even worship them as gods of punishment, food, or perhaps the invisible pink unicorn.
C3:
Sure we can have a memorial. Why not?
You think the flag was put up in the middle of the civil rights movement? Hmmm. That is a little suspicious, isn’t it. Nevertheless, it is simply a symbol, and not all its connotations are bad. It doesn’t seem like an issue worth voting over, but if that’s the way people want to go, that’s fine. I just think there’s more important things.
matt4film:
Feeling strongly about something is one thing. Arguing from false premises is another.
It is probably safe to say that the Civil war was not primarily about slavery. The cultures, technology, and industry, and politics of the North and South were very different.
Let me play devil’s advocate for the South.
The South represented the Majority of US. territory, yet received only a small fraction of representation in the government. Northern industry had a free hand, while Southern production was severely regulated to the benefit of the North.
The North was quite hypocritical in its slaveowning attitudes, as Lib points out. From the Southern perspective, the abolition of slavery was not for altruistic reasons, but to keep the price of textiles high through regulating cotton prices. The North could export its products freely, but the South was curtailed so that Northern industry have a strong supply of cheap cotton, as well as a high foreign demand. The abolition of slavery would have crippled Southern cotton industry and reduced supply to what oly the North could use. While this was going on many Northerners still kept slaves.
This was pretty hypocritical, No?
The South was producing the majority of raw materials, but was prohibited from enjoying the benefits of that production which were selfishly hoarded by the North.
That’s one issue.
There is the right to secede, from tyrranical or unrepresentative rule upon which this nation was founded. The South felt that they had no representation, and there economy was being arbitrarily crippled to benefit Northern industry.
History is written by the victors, but the real answers are usually more ambiguous. Need I remind you that the Germans got the idea for concentration camps from the English?
These are just a couple of the issues involved in the civil war. It’s not as simple as you seem to indicate. While I’m not mocking you, I think your simplistic “Good guys, bad guys” asessment of the situation was worthy of mockery.
Scylla:
Oh, I thought you said Plato. You must have said Bluto.
matt4film wrote:
True. Just quit picking at the scab, please. 
I’m running pretty hot on this topic too. As you may have noted in my earlier post, I am only three generations removed from a death in the family from that War. (My family tends to breed late in life; I’m only 37.) I expect some of the lingering hard feelings may have gotten passed on to me. Lord knows, my Dad could really rant on the subject. So the wounds are healed, yes, but they are still tender.
rackensack– Speaking of “offensive”, can you see how the phrase “drooling morons” might be considered offensive by someone sensitive to stereotypes applied to Southerners? Just wondering. 
Scylla wrote:
Very true. A prime example is the villification of the South over the treatment of prisoners at Andersonville. Mention is rarely made of Northern prison camps, where conditions were equally horrific, or nearly so. The Union made the decision not to exchange prisoners, which put the South in a difficult position. How do you feed prisoners when there are not enough resources available to feed even your own citizens? The Union could have solved the problem by agreeing to prisoner exchange, but would not.
Never mentioned is the kidnapping, by the Northern army, of the ladies who worked the mill at Roswell Georgia. You want to talk about war crimes? Look it up.
“War is all Hell,” to quote a guy who is not too popular here in Georgia…
Lib and Erik:
Ummmm. Maybe I need to review Plato’s Republic, it has been a while. Thanks for the correction.
No, I was referring to Plato’s Republic. In Bluto’s Republic the philosopher-statesmen or replaced by Sailor Statesmen, and Spinach is outlawed.
My ideas are currently being reviewed by experts at Cambridge… …So There!