On things that do not involve rights, a simple 50+ majority should rule.
That is the case that needs to be argued. Because there are posters who are vehement that the Confederate flag represents racism and that’s all it represents. To the point of comparing it to Nazi flag.
Which is an absolutely true statement if you look at the history of the Confederate flag.
I’ve been thinking about this in context of your statement that “there is no charitable interpretation of flying the confederate flag.” I think there’s been a decent case made that there can be, as least for some southerners (and Terr is trying to make the case that there even exist some number of black southerners who would agree). You’re basically saying that these flag-wavers BEGGING to be misinterpreted.
I’ve been making the case that just saying “X is an asshole” is begging to be interpreted the way that I interpreted it. Your answer is, “You misinterpreted my meaning. You’ve got no right to be offended, because what you heard is not what I meant.”
Is that not exactly the same case that a number of southerners make about their confederate flags?
It seems to me that a person cares what other people think and wants to TRY to communicate clearly, or he/she doesn’t, and if you misunderstand, well, that’s your problem. You can argue “levels of ambiguity” if you like, but the fact is that, in this case, you sound an awful lot like a confederate flag-waver to me. More to the point, if you make an exception for yourself in THIS case, why would any southerner listen if you claim that they’re not entitled to the same exception for their beloved flags?
Seems to me that either we have a burden to give a shit how other people interpret what we say, or we don’t. And a condescending “I’m sorry you misunderstood” doesn’t indicate much giving a shit on your part.
-VM
Case in point, Smartass.
So you deny that the Confederacy’s primary if not sole reason for existence was the perpetuation and expansion of the institution of slavery?
So you deny that the reason the Confederate flag was put on the South Carolina capitol in 1962 and more broadly revived as a “symbol of the South” was large in opposition to the civil rights movement?
Irrelevant to the subject. The subject is not history. The subject is what the flag means to the people today and whether “Confederate flag = racism” is the only reason to fly it.
http://time.com/3931754/confederate-flag-fad/?xid%3Dtcoshare - that’s from 1951 I believe. Of course, even here the modern writers choose to interpret the “anti-Truman gesture” as racism. Instead of anti-government and anti-Northernism.
Since I generally reject postmodernist thinking, I think the primary meaning of symbols are derived from its history, not what people decades removed from it attribute it to. Thus it is true that what the Confederate flag represents is racism. And going by that logic, it has to be remembered that most modern uses of the Nazi flag are people trying to be cool and edgy, not because they agree with Hitler’s views.
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Are you trying to be deliberately obtuse here? The main reason for Southern anti-Truman/government/Northern sentiment was because the Truman administration made some gestures in favour of civil rights.
Because you say so. No other reasons possible, right? And again, that is just to show that no, 1962 was not the starting point.
As I say, history is history. Present is present. Do all the people who would prefer the Confederate flag still flying in SC want it because of racism? No? What percentage do you think have racism as the motivation?
Whose rights are you talking about? The government’s or the citizens’?
Is there a particular reason why you ignored my question about the difference between private actions and government actions?
I think you’re conflating the arguments of different posters. It’s easy to do in a forum like this when the free-for-all starts. But when you do that, the discussion is pretty much always going to descend to name-calling, because you wind up misrepresenting everyone else’s position.
And something that easily gets lost in this kind of debate: The fact that there are nonracist people who fly the flag does not in any way negate the atrocities that have been committed by others while waving it. If I don’t understand or agree why something is offensive to you, that doesn’t mean you have no “right” to be offended, whatever that means.
That being said, I think any discussion of “rights” in this context is a red herring. For private citizens, they do certainly have the right to be offensive (and the responsibility to live with the consequences). They have a right to have racist opinions (but there are a lot acts that they have no right to commit based on those opinions).
But this argument isn’t about rights in that sense. It’s about the way governments (which have no “rights”) ought to behave. And as far as private citizens, the topic was not whether they have a right to fly the flag, it was what we should think of them when they do. Should we think of them as being equivalent to klansmen? Nazis? Right or wrong, everyone in the U.S. has the “right” to believe that a person who flies the confederate flag is as bad as one wearing the white hood. And if you don’t want them to think that, you’re not going to get anywhere arguing over anyone’s rights.
-VM
So what other reasons do you suggest? What is clear to anyone even remotely familiar with the historic period is of course that the Democratic Party adopted a civil rights plank in 1948, leading to the delegates from the Deep South states to bolt and that Truman desegregated the armed forces.
Read my post again-my mention of the date of 1962 refers specifically to the Confederate flag being raised in front of the Capitol not the revival of the Confederate flag as a whole.
As I pointed out, most people who use the Nazi flag aren’t motivated by Nazism. For example, I seriously doubt Prince Harry wore that uniform because he hates the Jews.
I assume you realize that this is a different poster than the ones you’ve been arguing over poll numbers with, right?
He’s not addressing any of the previous content of the thread, or acknowledging any points that have been made by “your side”. He’s just restating assertions that have been made periodically for the last several hundred posts. He’s basically trolling you because he knows it will derail your attempt at debating that much more.
Once you start letting random posters jump in and completely derail you by restating assertions from pages back, it just becomes a game to them. You’ll keep starting over from scratch and never get anywhere. And you come across looking like someone who just keeps restarting the same argument without ever finishing it.
That being said, I think your overall strategy here is doomed, because you seem to be intent on arguing over minutia rather than addressing the full argument. And you’re ready to re-start the argument with any person that jumps into the thread.
Admittedly, I’ve done a little bit of nit-picking in this thread. In my case, it was because I didn’t actually disagree with the larger argument–I just didn’t like the tactics being used.
-VM
Note: By “larger argument”, I mean “People ought not be flying the confederate flag.”
-VM
Or more accurately, I’m seeking to focus the debate upon the main question instead of nitpicking over pools. Also its amusing I’m the one accused of “trolling” when it is Terr who makes such insane assertions as that anti-Truman sentiment in the early 1950s in the South were not primarily driven by Southern opposition to the administration’s support for civil rights!
Look, either you’re participating in the debate, or doing drive-bys to throw in random shots:
You know good and damn well that this has been a key point of debate for a number of posters for pages and pages. Just throwing it out like that is trolling. Terr is not arguing very well, but he’s at least trying to stand his ground. Sticking your head up every now and then to throw a rock is easy.
You might ask why I care…I’m asking myself that a little. I think it’s this: Terr is putting a lot of stock in the opinions of black people in this poll. Now it MAY be that this is just an argument of convenience for him. However, to see someone arguing in favor of confederate flags while giving ANY thought to the feelings of black people is rare enough that it interests me. It suggests to me that there’s someone here who MIGHT be able to be brought over from the Dark Side.
Or we could just try to confuse him and convince him that people on our side don’t pay attention to the other side’s arguments. Maybe that’s still fun for you, but I’ve seen enough of it over the years from apparently intelligent people to make me weep for the future.
How many times do people need to play the same game, where no one wins and everyone just walks away pissed off, before it occurs to them that it might be interesting to change it up and see what happens?
As for me, I like to try different ways of tilting the gameboard, maybe jump the train onto a new track (and I have an unseemly affection for poorly mixed metaphors).
-VM
I would very much doubt that statement. “Pointing it out” does not mean it’s the truth.
ROTFLMAO. I am not a Southerner (though I am now in Texas). I am not a Northerner either. Or Midwesterner. I dont own even one item that has a Confederate flag on it and never have. In fact, no one around me does. I think I watched “Dukes of Hazzard” exactly once. I don’t really care whether SC or Texas flies that flag or not.
I am annoyed, though, by this silly rush to remove it now, after a hundred years, when its racist component has been hugely diluted. It annoyed me just as much when Russians (where I was born) destroyed all kinds of churches and burned the icons (I am not Christian, either) and renamed all kinds of places after the Revolution, and annoyed me just as much when now after the fall of the Soviet Union they rushed to rename those places back.
Silly, stupid magical thinking - you remove the Confederate flag and that will make people less racist? Because it was the Confederate flag that was making them racist, right? No, when you remove people’s cherished symbols, you just make the more entrenched. And resentful. Is that the goal?
The same point can be raised about the Confederate flag, no?
Since you mention Russia, do you think the same about the tearing down of Stalin and Lenin statues after the fall of Communism? Was it all a silly, meaningless action that distracted from the tasks of setting up a free society? Nobody thinks removing the Confederate flag will end racism, but symbols do matter and in particular removing the Confederate flag from public property shows that at the very least we will stop the whitewashing of history. Also considering you’ve been criticizing those who get “offended” at the presence of the Confederate flag, why would you be concerned about people “offended” by its removal?
I’m still wondering why it’s Terr who gets to decide that the flag’s racist connotations have been “hugely diluted.”
As should be apparent, I sent that retort to start a new line of debate-mainly that for non-postmodernists: namely that the actual purpose of the flag is more important than what meaning people give to it nowadays. Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I have not seen that line of argument being used by anyone other than myself here.
“ZOMG but wut about deh Negro Confederatz!?!?!?!?!” is neither a particularly original nor interesting argument if you are used to these sorts of debates, but actually a pretty common tactic although it usually simply involves trotting out some random black guy in a Confederate uniform. Its not much different than “anti-Zionists” trotting out Norman Finklestein when convenient.
I am paying attention to his arguments. If I was just concerned with making fun of him, I’d be simply heaping abuse considering this is the BBQ Pit.
As I pointed, considering the quality of some of Terr’s assertions, he’s playing the game you are accusing me of.