We banned a flag not too long ago...HEY what about this one? A very long rant...

[ShaklesOfBigGov]

You are either confused or very stupid. It wasn't banned, it was moved. That flag wasn't moved because a guy shot a bunch of blacks. It was moved because it has been a symbol of oppression since the civil war. It was virtually forgotten until the KKK took it as a symbol, and wasn't displayed on public property until civil rights were granted. Only a racist idiot would say it was banned (again, it was not) because of roof.

He might be referring to the fact of the removal of the purchase of the confederate flag from a vast majority of websites. I would not classify that as a "move".

Incidentally, the Civil War was over state rights and the power of a Federal Government to impose its power over them. If it was over the issue of slavery itself we wouldn't find this statement from President Lincoln:

On September 22, 1862, Lincoln had issued a preliminary proclamation warning that he would order the emancipation of all slaves in any state that did not end its rebellion against the Union by January 1, 1863. None of the Confederate states restored themselves to the Union, and Lincoln's order, signed and issued January 1, 1863, took effect.

What of those slaves in the north, as it's well documented that the union also had slaves themselves. William T. Sherman had many slaves that served him until well after the war was over and did not free them until late in 1865. U.S. Grant also had several slaves, who were only freed after the 13th amendment in December of 1865.

Confederate General Robert E. Lee freed his slaves (which he never purchased — they were inherited) in 1862!

I always prefer to do a little digging into personally fact checking our U.S. history, instead of simply going with what the popular agenda in society tries to sell you.

 

[NYcarbineer]

You are either confused or very stupid. It wasn't banned, it was moved. That flag wasn't moved because a guy shot a bunch of blacks. It was moved because it has been a symbol of oppression since the civil war. It was virtually forgotten until the KKK took it as a symbol, and wasn't displayed on public property until civil rights were granted. Only a racist idiot would say it was banned (again, it was not) because of roof.

He might be referring to the fact of the removal of the purchase of the confederate flag from a vast majority of websites. I would not classify that as a "move".

Incidentally, the Civil War was over state rights and the power of a Federal Government to impose its power over them. If it was over the issue of slavery itself we wouldn't find this statement from President Lincoln:

On September 22, 1862, Lincoln had issued a preliminary proclamation warning that he would order the emancipation of all slaves in any state that did not end its rebellion against the Union by January 1, 1863. None of the Confederate states restored themselves to the Union, and Lincoln's order, signed and issued January 1, 1863, took effect.

What of those slaves in the north, as it's well documented that the union also had slaves themselves. William T. Sherman had many slaves that served him until well after the war was over and did not free them until late in 1865. U.S. Grant also had several slaves, who were only freed after the 13th amendment in December of 1865.

Confederate General Robert E. Lee freed his slaves (which he never purchased — they were inherited) in 1862!

I always prefer to do a little digging into personally fact checking our U.S. history, instead of simply going with what the popular agenda in society tries to sell you.

Slavery was the sole reason for secession.

 

[ShaklesOfBigGov]

You are either confused or very stupid. It wasn't banned, it was moved. That flag wasn't moved because a guy shot a bunch of blacks. It was moved because it has been a symbol of oppression since the civil war. It was virtually forgotten until the KKK took it as a symbol, and wasn't displayed on public property until civil rights were granted. Only a racist idiot would say it was banned (again, it was not) because of roof.

He might be referring to the fact of the removal of the purchase of the confederate flag from a vast majority of websites. I would not classify that as a "move".

Incidentally, the Civil War was over state rights and the power of a Federal Government to impose its power over them. If it was over the issue of slavery itself we wouldn't find this statement from President Lincoln:

On September 22, 1862, Lincoln had issued a preliminary proclamation warning that he would order the emancipation of all slaves in any state that did not end its rebellion against the Union by January 1, 1863. None of the Confederate states restored themselves to the Union, and Lincoln's order, signed and issued January 1, 1863, took effect.

What of those slaves in the north, as it's well documented that the union also had slaves themselves. William T. Sherman had many slaves that served him until well after the war was over and did not free them until late in 1865. U.S. Grant also had several slaves, who were only freed after the 13th amendment in December of 1865.

Confederate General Robert E. Lee freed his slaves (which he never purchased — they were inherited) in 1862!

I always prefer to do a little digging into personally fact checking our U.S. history, instead of simply going with what the popular agenda in society tries to sell you.

Slavery was the sole reason for secession.

You have to b able to support your statement with researched documented historical facts. You haven't provided any to prove your opinion

 

[TemplarKormac]

Pressure and legislative efforts to remove it from government buildings and public property have been ongoing for a long time. That is nothing new.

Must I say it again? I'm not talking about that. I completely understand that side of the story. I get it, and I agree with it. That is irrelevant to my argument, however, with all due respect.

The gay pride flag has never represented hatred so it seems kind of silly to single it out for this example.

That's the whole point, Coyote. It is silly. Asinine. But the liberals used that same reason to ridicule the Confederate flag, to slather anyone supporting it with derogatory invective. Interestingly, I'm seeing liberals use the same defense. "The flag doesn't represent hatred." Really? There are plenty of radical gay rights proponents who engage in rather shocking displays of hatred against Christians or general opposition under that banner, but nobody is calling for it to be "removed" or "banned."

Anyhow... it's also worthy of note that when James Holmes dressed up as The Joker and shot up a theater full of people, nobody started demanding that we stop showing Batman movies. Nobody. The Batman movies are full of violence that evidently inspired Holmes to carry out his atrocity.

The issue you seem to have with the Confederate Flag is you want to change it's meaning either by reinventing it or whitewashing it.

No, I don't really care what they do with it to be quite honest. I see it as a historic symbol, nothing more, a symbol of the doldrums we southern states came out of. I know full well what it represented. I have a license plate cover depicting the old Georgia State Flag hanging on my wall, next to a like kind of the American Flag. I don't support what it stands for in the slightest.

People have the right to do that but it's an uphill slog because of the very values that flag was founded upon and came to represent after the war.

No. I'm not slogging anywhere, but I will point this out. The American flag was created under the principles of Freedom, Liberty and Independence. Since then, it has flown over all sorts of atrocious events in American history perpetrated by America, none of which represented those values but yet it still flies. Northern Slavery, Japanese internment, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, etc and etc. Yet it still flies.

Flags don't kill people

So why all the uproar?

 

[bodecea]

To the leftists here:

You wanted to ban this flag when some white boy shot up a black church. You got your wish:

Not soon after the massacre, a picture of Dylann Roof was found where he was sporting a Confederate flag, and then again not soon after, liberals behaved as if banning that flag would somehow bring those poor souls who died in Charleston back to life. It didn't. If it were only that simple.

But when a black gay man kills two people on live TV, what would have been the reaction if people began calling for a ban of the Gay Pride Flag? This flag does represent him, does it not?

If you want to ban one flag when someone goes on a killing spree, why don't we ban all of them? Sins have been committed under all sorts of banners and flags. Banning the flags will not undo any of the crimes.

But here liberals are, using the very same narrative which they once viewed as a defense of racism, hatred, slavery, or even the murderer himself to defend a flag which represented the sexual preference of the man who murdered two people. What if we used that same logic against gay rights activists? That flying that flag is a defense of the man who killed two people in cold blood?

Even in her ignorance, the woman in the tweet below asks an important question. How does removing (banning) a flag change someone's actions? It doesn't. But here we are, fighting over which flags to ban when some psychopath goes on a killing spree. My gosh, such petty arguments over such things as pieces of fabric. Why aren't we condemning the person instead of the flag? Why are we blaming the flag or the weapon he used? On a separate note, a number of you liberals want to ban firearms when a perceived conservative commits a mass murder, however, when a gay black man commits murder, no longer is he the perpetrator, but the firearm itself. How I wish you knew how much of a double standard is being perpetrated here.

If only all of you (both sides now) realized how colossally hypocritical your narratives are. Ban one, keep the other. Ban, ban, ban, ban! This offends me! Ban it! Ban all the things! Wow. No... I can't even... just... just stop. Seriously.

If you're about to use the same narrative you criticize, you will have a bad time.

When did that Con-federate Southern Cross flag get banned?

 

[Syriusly]

To the leftists here:

You wanted to ban this flag when some white boy shot up a black church. You got your wish:

Not soon after the massacre, a picture of Dylann Roof was found where he was sporting a Confederate flag, and then again not soon after, liberals behaved as if banning that flag would somehow bring those poor souls who died in Charleston back to life. It didn't. If it were only that simple.

But when a black gay man kills two people on live TV, what would have been the reaction if people began calling for a ban of the Gay Pride Flag? This flag does represent him, does it not?

If you want to ban one flag when someone goes on a killing spree, why don't we ban all of them? Sins have been committed under all sorts of banners and flags. Banning the flags will not undo any of the crimes.

But here liberals are, using the very same narrative which they once viewed as a defense of racism, hatred, slavery, or even the murderer himself to defend a flag which represented the sexual preference of the man who murdered two people. What if we used that same logic against gay rights activists? That flying that flag is a defense of the man who killed two people in cold blood?

Even in her ignorance, the woman in the tweet below asks an important question. How does removing (banning) a flag change someone's actions? It doesn't. But here we are, fighting over which flags to ban when some psychopath goes on a killing spree. My gosh, such petty arguments over such things as pieces of fabric. Why aren't we condemning the person instead of the flag? Why are we blaming the flag or the weapon he used? On a separate note, a number of you liberals want to ban firearms when a perceived conservative commits a mass murder, however, when a gay black man commits murder, no longer is he the perpetrator, but the firearm itself. How I wish you knew how much of a double standard is being perpetrated here.

If only all of you (both sides now) realized how colossally hypocritical your narratives are. Ban one, keep the other. Ban, ban, ban, ban! This offends me! Ban it! Ban all the things! Wow. No... I can't even... just... just stop. Seriously.

If you're about to use the same narrative you criticize, you will have a bad time.

I agree- any State flying that flag on its Capital building- or as the State Flag- should have it taken down.

Oh wait- are you using hyperbole again?

 

[bodecea]

You are either confused or very stupid. It wasn't banned, it was moved.

Moved. Banned. What's the difference? Removing it from the public view or hiding it away is essentially banning it.

That flag wasn't moved because a guy shot a bunch of blacks. It was moved because it has been a symbol of oppression since the civil war.

That's a lie and you know it. Yes the flag represented those things; but had he not done what he did, we wouldn't even be talking about it, now would we?

It was virtually forgotten until the KKK took it as a symbol, and wasn't displayed on public property until civil rights were granted. Only a racist idiot would say it was banned (again, it was not) because of roof.

I love how you have deluded yourself into thinking that way. Hey, why didn't you push this argument before he did it? I mean it represented slavery and oppression before he killed those folks, I wonder why you weren't so eager to have it banned or moved at that point in time? Where was all of this fervent rhetoric then?

...

Quite a difference for intelligent people. You can still wave your Con-federate flag and buy your Con-federate flag crying towel all you want.

 

[bodecea]

Get back in the basement, kid. You don't have any clue what you're talking about.

IOW

"I can't debate the OP so I will resort to calling names."

Yeah. Go back to bed, granny.

You might want to learn what "banned" means...and what it doesn't mean.

 

[bodecea]

I'm ALL for banning that flag. It's become a symbol of hate and is waved in our faces and on YOUR WHITE HOUSE to say. fxxk you

Poor Stephanie. She knows nothing.

 

[TemplarKormac]

As I remember, Black Lives Matter, initiated by parents and families, started as a movement to bring attention to real problem: disproportionate numbers of black people being killed by police (in comparison to whites in the same situations) and a lack of any seeming accountability. It's a movement designed to bring attention to a problem.

It is a movement designed to bring attention to a problem that doesn't exist. More whites die by cop than blacks. Proven fact.

In that sense - it's no different than say the Tea Party Movment.

Interesting. I never saw any Tea Partiers smashing up entire cities when something went against them. They were peaceful. They protested the right way, from the beginning. No cops had to be called, nobody got arrested.

No where is there a stated or implied intent of starting a "race war". Are they supposed to remain silent?

Are they supposed to start riots? Attack police? No. Should they be be silenced? No. They can spout their ignorance of reality all they want, First Amendment and all that. But they are more like Occupy Wall Street than the Tea Party. They are a chaotic influence. They stir up racial animosity wherever they go. Their right to speak out ends when the speech devolves into violence and wanton destruction of property.

Oh, I dread the verdict in the Freddie Gray case. The prosecution has no case and everyone knows it. When the not guilty verdict is handed down, you may see something similar to the LA riots all those years ago. This is what I'm talking about. Black Lives Matter is the disease, not the symptom.

Blaming Black Lives Matter is like blaming a rape victim for being raped because of how she was dressed.

Sorry, in both cases they bring it on themselves.

Don't want to be raped? Don't dress in skimpy clothing, you won't be singled out by perverts in back allies that way. Harsh as it may sound, you'll invite only misfortune upon yourself.

As for the Black Lives Matter movement... the old saying goes "don't start nothin', won't be nothin'."

Second - the outcry over the confederate flag is not due to one act of violence but rather, that the one act was the tipping point for public condemnation.

I really do find that hard to believe.

 

[TemplarKormac]

To the leftists here:

You wanted to ban this flag when some white boy shot up a black church. You got your wish:

Not soon after the massacre, a picture of Dylann Roof was found where he was sporting a Confederate flag, and then again not soon after, liberals behaved as if banning that flag would somehow bring those poor souls who died in Charleston back to life. It didn't. If it were only that simple.

But when a black gay man kills two people on live TV, what would have been the reaction if people began calling for a ban of the Gay Pride Flag? This flag does represent him, does it not?

If you want to ban one flag when someone goes on a killing spree, why don't we ban all of them? Sins have been committed under all sorts of banners and flags. Banning the flags will not undo any of the crimes.

But here liberals are, using the very same narrative which they once viewed as a defense of racism, hatred, slavery, or even the murderer himself to defend a flag which represented the sexual preference of the man who murdered two people. What if we used that same logic against gay rights activists? That flying that flag is a defense of the man who killed two people in cold blood?

Even in her ignorance, the woman in the tweet below asks an important question. How does removing (banning) a flag change someone's actions? It doesn't. But here we are, fighting over which flags to ban when some psychopath goes on a killing spree. My gosh, such petty arguments over such things as pieces of fabric. Why aren't we condemning the person instead of the flag? Why are we blaming the flag or the weapon he used? On a separate note, a number of you liberals want to ban firearms when a perceived conservative commits a mass murder, however, when a gay black man commits murder, no longer is he the perpetrator, but the firearm itself. How I wish you knew how much of a double standard is being perpetrated here.

If only all of you (both sides now) realized how colossally hypocritical your narratives are. Ban one, keep the other. Ban, ban, ban, ban! This offends me! Ban it! Ban all the things! Wow. No... I can't even... just... just stop. Seriously.

If you're about to use the same narrative you criticize, you will have a bad time.

I agree- any State flying that flag on its Capital building- or as the State Flag- should have it taken down.

Oh wait- are you using hyperbole again?

Eh, I don't have time for asshattery. Move along.

 

[Coyote]

You are either confused or very stupid. It wasn't banned, it was moved. That flag wasn't moved because a guy shot a bunch of blacks. It was moved because it has been a symbol of oppression since the civil war. It was virtually forgotten until the KKK took it as a symbol, and wasn't displayed on public property until civil rights were granted. Only a racist idiot would say it was banned (again, it was not) because of roof.

He might be referring to the fact of the removal of the purchase of the confederate flag from a vast majority of websites. I would not classify that as a "move".

Incidentally, the Civil War was over state rights and the power of a Federal Government to impose its power over them. If it was over the issue of slavery itself we wouldn't find this statement from President Lincoln:

On September 22, 1862, Lincoln had issued a preliminary proclamation warning that he would order the emancipation of all slaves in any state that did not end its rebellion against the Union by January 1, 1863. None of the Confederate states restored themselves to the Union, and Lincoln's order, signed and issued January 1, 1863, took effect.

What of those slaves in the north, as it's well documented that the union also had slaves themselves. William T. Sherman had many slaves that served him until well after the war was over and did not free them until late in 1865. U.S. Grant also had several slaves, who were only freed after the 13th amendment in December of 1865.

Confederate General Robert E. Lee freed his slaves (which he never purchased — they were inherited) in 1862!

I always prefer to do a little digging into personally fact checking our U.S. history, instead of simply going with what the popular agenda in society tries to sell you.

There's a current movement to white wash the confederacy with a new "popular agenda".

Sure - individuals on both sides owned or freed slaves. But that's little more than a minor detail.

It's disengenius to say it wasn't over slavery. The issue of slavery was integral to "state's rights" - specifically the right to own, breed and sell humanity. As each new territory became a state, it had to be designated a slave state or non-slave state in order to maintain the balance of states legalizing the ownership of human beings by other human beings.

This latest attempt at minimizing the issue of slavery is just that - an effort to minimize. You can not unweave the history of slavery from the southern state's right's cause.

 

[Dad2three]

You are either confused or very stupid. It wasn't banned, it was moved. That flag wasn't moved because a guy shot a bunch of blacks. It was moved because it has been a symbol of oppression since the civil war. It was virtually forgotten until the KKK took it as a symbol, and wasn't displayed on public property until civil rights were granted. Only a racist idiot would say it was banned (again, it was not) because of roof.

He might be referring to the fact of the removal of the purchase of the confederate flag from a vast majority of websites. I would not classify that as a "move".

Incidentally, the Civil War was over state rights and the power of a Federal Government to impose its power over them. If it was over the issue of slavery itself we wouldn't find this statement from President Lincoln:

On September 22, 1862, Lincoln had issued a preliminary proclamation warning that he would order the emancipation of all slaves in any state that did not end its rebellion against the Union by January 1, 1863. None of the Confederate states restored themselves to the Union, and Lincoln's order, signed and issued January 1, 1863, took effect.

What of those slaves in the north, as it's well documented that the union also had slaves themselves. William T. Sherman had many slaves that served him until well after the war was over and did not free them until late in 1865. U.S. Grant also had several slaves, who were only freed after the 13th amendment in December of 1865.

Confederate General Robert E. Lee freed his slaves (which he never purchased — they were inherited) in 1862!

I always prefer to do a little digging into personally fact checking our U.S. history, instead of simply going with what the popular agenda in society tries to sell you.

Slavery was the sole reason for secession.

You have to b able to support your statement with researched documented historical facts. You haven't provided any to prove your opinion

Confederates Speak: Yes, We Fought the Civil War Over Slavery

. It was in South Carolina that the Civil War began, when the Confederacy fired on Fort Sumter. The state’s casus belli was neither vague nor hard to comprehend:

...A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction. This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.


In citing slavery, South Carolina was less an outlier than a leader, setting the tone for other states, including Mississippi:

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin…

Louisiana:

As a separate republic, Louisiana remembers too well the whisperings of European diplomacy for the abolition of slavery in the times of annexation not to be apprehensive of bolder demonstrations from the same quarter and the North in this country. The people of the slave holding States are bound together by the same necessity and determination to preserve African slavery.

Alabama:

Upon the principles then announced by Mr. Lincoln and his leading friends, we are bound to expect his administration to be conducted. Hence it is, that in high places, among the Republican party, the election of Mr. Lincoln is hailed, not simply as it change of Administration, but as the inauguration of new principles, and a new theory of Government, and even as the downfall of slavery. Therefore it is that the election of Mr. Lincoln cannot be regarded otherwise than a solemn declaration, on the part of a great majority of the Northern people, of hostility to the South, her property and her institutions—nothing less than an open declaration of war—for the triumph of this new theory of Government destroys the property of the South, lays waste her fields, and inaugurates all the horrors of a San Domingo servile insurrection, consigning her citizens to assassinations, and. her wives and daughters to pollution and violation, to gratify the lust of half-civilized Africans.

Texas:

...in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states....

None of this was new. In 1858, the eventual president of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis threatened secession should a Republican be elected to the presidency:

I say to you here as I have said to the Democracy of New York, if it should ever come to pass that the Constitution shall be perverted to the destruction of our rights so that we shall have the mere right as a feeble minority unprotected by the barrier of the Constitution to give an ineffectual negative vote in the Halls of Congress, we shall then bear to the federal government the relation our colonial fathers did to the British crown, and if we are worthy of our lineage we will in that event redeem our rights even if it be through the process of revolution.

It is difficult for modern Americans to understand such militant commitment to the bondage of others. But at $3.5 billion, the four million enslaved African Americans in the South represented the country’s greatest financial asset. And the dollar amount does not hint at the force of enslavement as a social institution. By the onset of the Civil War, Southern slaveholders believed that African slavery was one of the great organizing institutions in world history, superior to the “free society” of the North.

From an 1856 issue of Alabama’s Muscogee Herald:

Free Society! we sicken at the name. What is it but a conglomeration of greasy mechanics, filthy operatives, small-fisted farmers, and moon-struck theorists? All the Northern men and especially the New England States are devoid of society fitted for well-bred gentlemen. The prevailing class one meet with is that of mechanics struggling to be genteel, and small farmers who do their own drudgery, and yet are hardly fit for association with a Southern gentleman's body servant. This is your free society which Northern hordes are trying to extend into Kansas.

The last sentence refers to the conflict over slavery between free-soilers and slave-holders. The conflict was not merely about the right to hold another human in bondage, but how that right created the foundation for white equality.


Jefferson Davis again:

You too know, that among us, white men have an equality resulting from a presence of a lower caste, which cannot exist where white men fill the position here occupied by the servile race. The mechanic who comes among us, employing the less intellectual labor of the African, takes the position which only a master-workman occupies where all the mechanics are white, and therefore it is that our mechanics hold their position of absolute equality among us.

Black slavery as the basis of white equality was a frequent theme for slaveholders. In his famous “Cotton Is King” speech, James Henry Hammond compared the alleged wage slavery of the North with black slavery—and white equality—in the South:

The difference between us is, that our slaves are hired for life and well compensated; there is no starvation, no begging, no want of employment among our people, and not too much employment either. Yours are hired by the day, not cared for, and scantily compensated, which may be proved in the most painful manner, at any hour in any street of your large towns. Why, you meet more beggars in one day, in any single street of the city of New York, than you would meet in a lifetime in the whole South.

We do not think that whites should be slaves either by law or necessity. Our slaves are black, of another and inferior race. The status in which we have placed them is an elevation. They are elevated from the condition in which God first created them, by being made our slaves. None of that race on the whole face of the globe can be compared with the slaves of the South. They are happy, content, unaspiring, and utterly incapable, from intellectual weakness, ever to give us any trouble by their aspirations. Yours are white, of your own race; you are brothers of one blood. They are your equals in natural endowment of intellect, and they feel galled by their degradation.

On the eve of secession, Georgia Governor Joseph E. Brown concurred:

Among us the poor white laborer is respected as an equal. His family is treated with kindness, consideration and respect. He does not belong to the menial class. The negro is in no sense of the term his equal. He feels and knows this. He belongs to the only true aristocracy, the race of white men. He black no masters boots, and bows the knee to no one save God alone. He receives higher wages for his labor than does the laborer of any other portion of the world, and he raises up his children with the knowledge, that they belong to no inferior cast, but that the highest members of the society in which he lives, will, if their conduct is good, respect and treat them as equals.

Thus in the minds of these Southern nationalists, the destruction of slavery would not merely mean the loss of property but the destruction of white equality, and thus of the peculiar Southern way of life:

If the policy of the Republicans is carried out, according to the programme indicated by the leaders of the party, and the South submits, degradation and ruin must overwhelm alike all classes of citizens in the Southern States. The slave-holder and non-slave-holder must ultimately share the same fate—all be degraded to a position of equality with free negroes, stand side by side with them at the polls, and fraternize in all the social relations of life; or else there will be an eternal war of races, desolating the land with blood, and utterly wasting and destroying all the resources of the country.

Slaveholders were not modest about the perceived virtues of their way of life. In the years leading up to the Civil War, calls for expansion into the tropics reached a fever pitch, and slaveholders marveled at the possibility of spreading a new empire into central America:

Looking into the possibilities of the future, regarding the magnificent country of tropical America, which lies in the path of our destiny on this continent, we may see an empire as powerful and gorgeous as ever was pictured in our dreams of history. What is that empire? It is an empire founded on military ideas; representing the noble peculiarities of Southern civilization; including within its limits the isthmuses of America and the regenerated West Indies; having control of the two dominant staples of the world's commerce—cotton and sugar; possessing the highways of the world's commerce; surpassing all empires of the age in the strength of its geographical position; and, in short, combining elements of strength, prosperity, and glory, such as never before in the modern ages have been placed within the reach of a single government. What a splendid vision of empire!

How sublime in its associations! How noble and inspiriting the idea, that upon the strange theatre of tropical America, once, if we may believe the dimmer facts of history, crowned with magnificent empires and flashing cities and great temples, now covered with mute ruins, and trampled over by half-savages, the destiny of Southern civilization is to be consummated in a glory brighter even than that of old, the glory of an empire, controlling the commerce of the world, impregnable in its position, and representing in its internal structure the most harmonious of all the systems of modern civilization.

Edward Pollard, the journalist who wrote that book, titled it Black Diamonds Gathered In The Darkey Homes Of The South. Perhaps even this is too subtle. In 1858, Mississippi Senator Albert Gallatin Brown was clearer: .....


Thus in 1861, when the Civil War began, the Union did not face a peaceful Southern society wanting to be left alone. It faced an an aggressive power, a Genosha, an entire society based on the bondage of a third of its residents, with dreams of expanding its fields of the bondage further South. It faced the dream of a vast American empire of slavery. In January of 1861, three months before the Civil War commenced, Florida secessionists articulated the position directly:

At the South, and with our People of course, slavery is the element of all value, and a destruction of that destroys all that is property. This party, now soon to take possession of the powers of the Government, is sectional, irresponsible to us, and driven on by an infuriated fanatical madness that defies all opposition, must inevitably destroy every vestige or right growing out of property in slaves.

Gentlemen, the State of Florida is now a member of the Union under the power of the Government, so to go into the hands of this party.


As we stand our doom is decreed.


Not yet. As the Late Unpleasantness stretched from the predicted months into years, the very reason for the Confederacy’s existence came to threaten its diplomatic efforts. Fighting for slavery presented problems abroad, and so Confederate diplomats came up with the notion of emphasizing “states rights” over “slavery”—the first manifestation of what would later become a plank in the foundation of Lost Cause mythology.



What This Cruel War Was Over

 

[Coyote]

Pressure and legislative efforts to remove it from government buildings and public property have been ongoing for a long time. That is nothing new.

Must I say it again? I'm not talking about that. I completely understand that side of the story. I get it, and I agree with it. That is irrelevant to my argument, however, with all due respect.

The gay pride flag has never represented hatred so it seems kind of silly to single it out for this example.

That's the whole point, Coyote. It is silly. Asinine. But the liberals used that same reason to ridicule the Confederate flag, to slather anyone supporting it with derogatory invective. Interestingly, I'm seeing liberals use the same defense. "The flag doesn't represent hatred." Really? There are plenty of radical gay rights proponents who engage in rather shocking displays of hatred against Christians or general opposition under that banner, but nobody is calling for it to be "removed" or "banned."

Umh...you said, earlier that that was another topic for another day...so I ignored it. But now you have brought it up so I feel free to ask you this: When has the gay flag represented hatred, murder, lynchings (KKK)? While every group has it's extremists I honestly can't find an example of one where someone murdered someone on behalf of gay pride. At it's worst it represents a "lifestyle" abhored by a segment of our population as "immoral" or "sinful" and is seen as being too "in your face" about it. But that is it. Can you say the same thing about the what the confederate flag represents?

Anyhow... it's also worthy of note that when James Holmes dressed up as The Joker and shot up a theater full of people, nobody started demanding that we stop showing Batman movies. Nobody. The Batman movies are full of violence that evidently inspired Holmes to carry out his atrocity.

Actually...there was some discussion of that, but it was minimal. On the other hand - it's not a good comparison. A flag with over a century of meaning behind it vs a pop cult movie with only a few years.

The issue you seem to have with the Confederate Flag is you want to change it's meaning either by reinventing it or whitewashing it.

No, I don't really care what they do with it to be quite honest. I see it as a historic symbol, nothing more, a symbol of the doldrums we southern states came out of. I know full well what it represented. I have a license plate cover depicting the old Georgia State Flag hanging on my wall, next to a like kind of the American Flag. I don't support what it stands for in the slightest.

That's pretty much how I view it.

People have the right to do that but it's an uphill slog because of the very values that flag was founded upon and came to represent after the war.

No. I'm not slogging anywhere, but I will point this out. The American flag was created under the principles of Freedom, Liberty and Independence. Since then, it has flown over all sorts of atrocious events in American history perpetrated by America, none of which represented those values but yet it still flies. Northern Slavery, Japanese internment, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, etc and etc. Yet it still flies.

True...but the confederate flag started out representing the principles that allowed man to own, breed and sell his fellow man and that was in it's birth. That is why it makes such a contentious symbol to those who's ancesters were among the bought and sold.

Flags don't kill people

So why all the uproar?

Because maybe it's time to relegate it to history, where it belongs, rather than as an ongoing symbol of those who are still reliving a war that was over and done with ages ago?

A more realistic answer is business' jumping on the bandwagon of political correctness because no one wants to be seen supporting racism

 

[TemplarKormac]

Pressure and legislative efforts to remove it from government buildings and public property have been ongoing for a long time. That is nothing new.

Must I say it again? I'm not talking about that. I completely understand that side of the story. I get it, and I agree with it. That is irrelevant to my argument, however, with all due respect.

The gay pride flag has never represented hatred so it seems kind of silly to single it out for this example.

That's the whole point, Coyote. It is silly. Asinine. But the liberals used that same reason to ridicule the Confederate flag, to slather anyone supporting it with derogatory invective. Interestingly, I'm seeing liberals use the same defense. "The flag doesn't represent hatred." Really? There are plenty of radical gay rights proponents who engage in rather shocking displays of hatred against Christians or general opposition under that banner, but nobody is calling for it to be "removed" or "banned."

Umh...you said, earlier that that was another topic for another day...so I ignored it. But now you have brought it up so I feel free to ask you this: When has the gay flag represented hatred, murder, lynchings (KKK)? While every group has it's extremists I honestly can't find an example of one where someone murdered someone on behalf of gay pride. At it's worst it represents a "lifestyle" abhored by a segment of our population as "immoral" or "sinful" and is seen as being too "in your face" about it. But that is it. Can you say the same thing about the what the confederate flag represents?

Anyhow... it's also worthy of note that when James Holmes dressed up as The Joker and shot up a theater full of people, nobody started demanding that we stop showing Batman movies. Nobody. The Batman movies are full of violence that evidently inspired Holmes to carry out his atrocity.

Actually...there was some discussion of that, but it was minimal. On the other hand - it's not a good comparison. A flag with over a century of meaning behind it vs a pop cult movie with only a few years.

The issue you seem to have with the Confederate Flag is you want to change it's meaning either by reinventing it or whitewashing it.

No, I don't really care what they do with it to be quite honest. I see it as a historic symbol, nothing more, a symbol of the doldrums we southern states came out of. I know full well what it represented. I have a license plate cover depicting the old Georgia State Flag hanging on my wall, next to a like kind of the American Flag. I don't support what it stands for in the slightest.

That's pretty much how I view it.

People have the right to do that but it's an uphill slog because of the very values that flag was founded upon and came to represent after the war.

No. I'm not slogging anywhere, but I will point this out. The American flag was created under the principles of Freedom, Liberty and Independence. Since then, it has flown over all sorts of atrocious events in American history perpetrated by America, none of which represented those values but yet it still flies. Northern Slavery, Japanese internment, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, etc and etc. Yet it still flies.

True...but the confederate flag started out representing the principles that allowed man to own, breed and sell his fellow man and that was in it's birth. That is why it makes such a contentious symbol to those who's ancesters were among the bought and sold.

Flags don't kill people

So why all the uproar?

Because maybe it's time to relegate it to history, where it belongs, rather than as an ongoing symbol of those who are still reliving a war that was over and done with ages ago?

A more realistic answer is business' jumping on the bandwagon of political correctness because no one wants to be seen supporting racism

Was there supposed to be a response here?

 

[Lakhota]

What flag was banned?

 

[Coyote]

As I remember, Black Lives Matter, initiated by parents and families, started as a movement to bring attention to real problem: disproportionate numbers of black people being killed by police (in comparison to whites in the same situations) and a lack of any seeming accountability. It's a movement designed to bring attention to a problem.

It is a movement designed to bring attention to a problem that doesn't exist. More whites die by cop than blacks. Proven fact.

It's a problem that very much exists. There are more whites in the population than blacks - proven facts. More blacks are killed than whites per proportion of their race.

Blacks are more likely to be pulled over, handled aggressively, shot, arrested, incarcerated, and given the death penalty for the same crimes than whites. There is a lot of evidence to support that.

More important - people are demanding accountability for what seems to be a lot of unarmed people, who are not violent criminals - getting shot - when the only common denominator seems to be race.

In that sense - it's no different than say the Tea Party Movment.

Interesting. I never saw any Tea Partiers smashing up entire cities when something went against them. They were peaceful. They protested the right way, from the beginning. No cops had to be called, nobody got arrested.

I've never seen unarmed Tea Partiers routinely pulled over, shot, or harrassed by police because they were Tea Partiers. Like the woman who committed suicide in jail...she should never have been in jail in the first place.

No where is there a stated or implied intent of starting a "race war". Are they supposed to remain silent?

Are they supposed to start riots? Attack police? No. Should they be be silenced? No. They can spout their ignorance of reality all they want, First Amendment and all that. But they are more like Occupy Wall Street than the Tea Party. They are a chaotic influence. They stir up racial animosity wherever they go. Their right to speak out ends when the speech devolves into violence and wanton destruction of property.

I find the Tea Party to be pretty damned ignorant and they've done their share of stirring racial animosity

I haven't seen blacklivesmatter instigating violence or calling for race wars.

Oh, I dread the verdict in the Freddie Gray case. The prosecution has no case and everyone knows it. When the not guilty verdict is handed down, you may see something similar to the LA riots all those years ago. This is what I'm talking about. Black Lives Matter is the disease, not the symptom.

'Uh...they don't? I think they do, a very strong case.

Blaming Black Lives Matter is like blaming a rape victim for being raped because of how she was dressed.

Sorry, in both cases they bring it on themselves.

Don't want to be raped? Don't dress in skimpy clothing, you won't be singled out by perverts in back allies that way. Harsh as it may sound, you'll invite only misfortune upon yourself.

As for the Black Lives Matter movement... the old saying goes "don't start nothin', won't be nothin'."

[/QUOTE]

In other words - certain folks need to remember their place. Maybe that is the problem here.

As for rape...wow. That takes the cake. It's not the responsibility of men to control their urgings, it's the responsibility of women to not provoke those urgings? Simply wow. Free pass to rapists folks - it's not their fault.

 

[Coyote]

Pressure and legislative efforts to remove it from government buildings and public property have been ongoing for a long time. That is nothing new.

Must I say it again? I'm not talking about that. I completely understand that side of the story. I get it, and I agree with it. That is irrelevant to my argument, however, with all due respect.

The gay pride flag has never represented hatred so it seems kind of silly to single it out for this example.

That's the whole point, Coyote. It is silly. Asinine. But the liberals used that same reason to ridicule the Confederate flag, to slather anyone supporting it with derogatory invective. Interestingly, I'm seeing liberals use the same defense. "The flag doesn't represent hatred." Really? There are plenty of radical gay rights proponents who engage in rather shocking displays of hatred against Christians or general opposition under that banner, but nobody is calling for it to be "removed" or "banned."

Umh...you said, earlier that that was another topic for another day...so I ignored it. But now you have brought it up so I feel free to ask you this: When has the gay flag represented hatred, murder, lynchings (KKK)? While every group has it's extremists I honestly can't find an example of one where someone murdered someone on behalf of gay pride. At it's worst it represents a "lifestyle" abhored by a segment of our population as "immoral" or "sinful" and is seen as being too "in your face" about it. But that is it. Can you say the same thing about the what the confederate flag represents?

Anyhow... it's also worthy of note that when James Holmes dressed up as The Joker and shot up a theater full of people, nobody started demanding that we stop showing Batman movies. Nobody. The Batman movies are full of violence that evidently inspired Holmes to carry out his atrocity.

Actually...there was some discussion of that, but it was minimal. On the other hand - it's not a good comparison. A flag with over a century of meaning behind it vs a pop cult movie with only a few years.

The issue you seem to have with the Confederate Flag is you want to change it's meaning either by reinventing it or whitewashing it.

No, I don't really care what they do with it to be quite honest. I see it as a historic symbol, nothing more, a symbol of the doldrums we southern states came out of. I know full well what it represented. I have a license plate cover depicting the old Georgia State Flag hanging on my wall, next to a like kind of the American Flag. I don't support what it stands for in the slightest.

That's pretty much how I view it.

People have the right to do that but it's an uphill slog because of the very values that flag was founded upon and came to represent after the war.

No. I'm not slogging anywhere, but I will point this out. The American flag was created under the principles of Freedom, Liberty and Independence. Since then, it has flown over all sorts of atrocious events in American history perpetrated by America, none of which represented those values but yet it still flies. Northern Slavery, Japanese internment, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, etc and etc. Yet it still flies.

True...but the confederate flag started out representing the principles that allowed man to own, breed and sell his fellow man and that was in it's birth. That is why it makes such a contentious symbol to those who's ancesters were among the bought and sold.

Flags don't kill people

So why all the uproar?

Because maybe it's time to relegate it to history, where it belongs, rather than as an ongoing symbol of those who are still reliving a war that was over and done with ages ago?

A more realistic answer is business' jumping on the bandwagon of political correctness because no one wants to be seen supporting racism

Was there supposed to be a response here?

Damn quote system....

 

[ShaklesOfBigGov]

You are either confused or very stupid. It wasn't banned, it was moved. That flag wasn't moved because a guy shot a bunch of blacks. It was moved because it has been a symbol of oppression since the civil war. It was virtually forgotten until the KKK took it as a symbol, and wasn't displayed on public property until civil rights were granted. Only a racist idiot would say it was banned (again, it was not) because of roof.

He might be referring to the fact of the removal of the purchase of the confederate flag from a vast majority of websites. I would not classify that as a "move".

Incidentally, the Civil War was over state rights and the power of a Federal Government to impose its power over them. If it was over the issue of slavery itself we wouldn't find this statement from President Lincoln:

On September 22, 1862, Lincoln had issued a preliminary proclamation warning that he would order the emancipation of all slaves in any state that did not end its rebellion against the Union by January 1, 1863. None of the Confederate states restored themselves to the Union, and Lincoln's order, signed and issued January 1, 1863, took effect.

What of those slaves in the north, as it's well documented that the union also had slaves themselves. William T. Sherman had many slaves that served him until well after the war was over and did not free them until late in 1865. U.S. Grant also had several slaves, who were only freed after the 13th amendment in December of 1865.

Confederate General Robert E. Lee freed his slaves (which he never purchased — they were inherited) in 1862!

I always prefer to do a little digging into personally fact checking our U.S. history, instead of simply going with what the popular agenda in society tries to sell you.

There's a current movement to white wash the confederacy with a new "popular agenda".

Sure - individuals on both sides owned or freed slaves. But that's little more than a minor detail.

It's disengenius to say it wasn't over slavery. The issue of slavery was integral to "state's rights" - specifically the right to own, breed and sell humanity. As each new territory became a state, it had to be designated a slave state or non-slave state in order to maintain the balance of states legalizing the ownership of human beings by other human beings.

This latest attempt at minimizing the issue of slavery is just that - an effort to minimize. You can not unweave the history of slavery from the southern state's right's cause.

Again, I bring the documented fact of Lincoln's threat to the southern states, the reason behind the emancipation proclamation, to force those southern states back into the union by freeing slaves in those states that stand in opposition to the north. It clearly isolates those southern states in particular and not on the United States as a whole, that is a BIG difference. The fact men leading those union troops continued to have slaves even at the conclusion of the civil war is another damning fact. Lincoln's use of the preliminary proclamation in September 22, 1862 was a strategic decision to hurt the south economically. If not, he would have made the initial decision at that point to free ALL slaves, not just within those states in rebellion. His statement clearly doesn't make that claim. Even after that controversy that would follow the civil war, equality wouldn't be accepted until the battle for the civil rights movement in the middle of the next century.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Uh...they don't? I think they do, a very strong case.

Show me.