Holy crap, is this where this debate is now? Quoting the fucking dictionary?
Has anyone stated that the flag is intrinsically racist? Flags represent things, they are symbols. American flags fly over American capitols because they are American cities.
The confederare flag is the flag and symbol of a secessionist band of states that banded together and waged war against the United States.of America. There is a subtext of racism and oppression which makes what that flag represents even worse. There is absolutely no reason for that flag to be flown over American government buildings or any other public space. It represents treason, for fucks sake.
Keep it simple: make an argument in favor of displaying that flag over an American capitol. There just isn’t one.
This isn’t about freedom of speech or expression. That goddamn rag is never going to be banned. If it’s your thing, buy a million confederate flags and plant them all over your property.
It boggles my mind that that flag was ever allowed up on any government/public property, because as a symbol, almost nothing could be more un-American.
I do realize that you’re just trolling here, but this bit is so astoundingly stupid that there’s a pretty good chance that you, being the jackass that you are, might actually believe there’s no difference between historical accuracy on a children’s toy and the use a particular flag has been put to in real life. Let me clear it up for you, troll: the various flags used by the CSA have been used after the demise of that despicable treason to glorify racism and segregation. People alive today have had family members murdered by those touting a CSA flag. Those flags should never have been glorified by governments under the United States of America.
Capitols are buildings. Capitals are cities. Other than that (spelling) error, I completely agree with your post.
Another thing that boggles my mind is that the various state governments involved in that treason paid CSA veterans after the war was over. That really should have been banned by the Feds. But, of course, there is some nice irony in those bastards getting paid in “Yankee dollars”.
He would have made more sense if he was talking about gay marriage or sex changes.
In most cases, I’d agree with you. However, disabled draftees is another story. As the most proximate party to their being injured, their state should have been responsible for and able to partially or fully support them. (Of course nowadays we have support programs for things like that but I don’t know how much of that support infrastructure was around back then for the disabled.)
Can’t agree with you there. Armed insurrection was still treason.
No kidding, dummy.
Strange concept that words have meanings.
Do you realize what you just admitted to doing?
Chief Justice John Roberts, ladies and gentlemen!
It is strange. Your posts are full of words, and yet…
I dunno why you’re so shocked - most debates on this board seem to traipse through Dictionaria sooner or later. It’s like Belgium.
I used the same Nazi flag/German parallel in a conversation yesterday (i.e., “flying the Confederate flag because of some notion of Southern US ‘pride’ is like flying the Nazi flag because you like VW Beetles.”)
Someone should create a meme.
I think I acknowledged that what he is doing might in fact be one of those arguments of convenience. That was actually what I thought was worth exploring.
I can see that, to some extent. But in the particular line of argument that you jumped in, what I saw was assertions where the conclusion seem to be implied, and I was wondering what it was. Put another way: A bunch of argument over whether the number is or is not 27%, but no explanation of what he really thought it meant if it really WAS 27%.
-VM
If all this is true, it’s a curious tack that you’ve taken. For instance, the text that I reproduced from your last paragraph above has nothing to do with this whole foray into “how many black people may or may not support the rebel flag in SC”.
-VM
History’s intensity fades once the action is over. I think you are blatantly ignoring that racism isn’t over; it’s still an issue right now. If racism had just gone away (which it really SHOULD have by now)…for instance, if someone hadn’t just shot up a church full of people BECAUSE they were black and he is a racist…then this would be a completely different conversation.
It is this kind of (seemingly deliberate) mischaracterization of the debate that will tend to generate nothing but animosity and eye-rolling over your posts. Yes, there are probably some black people who don’t realize that the confederate flag is, in many ways, a monument to their oppression. But it seems that there are a great many more who do. And that is why it is a problem to be flying that flag, even if the person flying it didn’t MEAN it as a racist gesture.
When racist behavior ends–and has been gone for, say, some decades–then the various confederate flag apologists can gripe about everyone’s obsession with ancient history.
-VM
Utter bullshit. Lots of people have made repeated attempts―ever since that flag made its ugly reappearance as a symbol of opposition to the civil rights movements in the 1950s and 60s―to remove that symbol of treason and white supremacy from government buildings and installations.
That’s highly debatable. It’s conspicuous use among white supremacists, whether open or closeted, contradicts you.
Here’s a thought - if it’s really about heritage, why not embrace symbols from before the Civil War? Surely there are some. Why choose from that particular and divisive period?
Christian anti-Semitism - it still exists, right? The Inquisition is history (has it faded, you think?) but Christian anti-Semitism is quite strong and definitely has not gone away. You know, of the “Jews killed Christ” variety, and of other flavors. I have heard normal, regular Christians express these feelings occasionally over the last 30 years I spent in the US. Even some “friends” of mine (of the Baptist variety) who were not ostensibly anti-Semitic told me (with sorrow, I am sure) that their faith holds that I will go to hell because I am Jewish. Fairly recently, a Christian Identity follower - Buford Furrow - went on a shooting spree at a Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles.
Do you think I (and other Jews) should consider the Christian cross to be the “monument to my oppression” and demand it be taken down? On government land, no less, like in military cemeteries.