Around here people take pride in being Southern and I'm sure they aren't thinking of the flag in that way.
But I don't like it because it represents this country being divided.
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- Thread starter Mikey Radio
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But I don't like it because it represents this country being divided.
This is a very weak excuse. Every state has its own flag to compliment the US flag. The Confederate flag DOES represent slavery and a lost cause. It's time for these Good Ole Boys to get over it. Southern Pride doesn't have to mean redneck idiocy. Southerners even might actually like a New York bagel now and then...
I do!!!
Let's be more direct. Slavery aside, the Confederate flag represents a breakaway republic. The lost cause was "we don't want to be part of the experiment founded by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, George Washington, etc. We'd rather separate ourselves from the United States of America and form our own country with (to quote Bender from Futurama) blackjack and hookers." There was no divided loyalty when it came to the Confederacy. You were either with them, or with the US.
You cannot fly the Stars & Bars and the Stars and Stripes on the same flag pole and say "I am a patriot and I love America." One of these things is not like the other.
And this born-and-bred New Englander would kill for just one catfish restaurant up here!I do!!!
Historians will tell you the breakaway Republic considered itself "real America" and revered Jefferson as well as Lee. Sound familiar? ("are you an American or a Democrat?). Trump and his cult consider the blue states "not real America and a bunch of anti-American Communists. Trump witheld Covid aid for "not real America" for a reason.
And they would be wrong.
The question I have for folks who say "we need to take America back!" is:
From whom? The slightly more than half of the voters who want something different?
There's this idea floating around among mostly conservatives that the country "belongs" to them, and when liberals or Democrats get a hold of one or more levers of government the whole shebang has gone off the rails somehow. Truth is, the folks who wrote the Constitution thingy believed the country didn't "belong" to one group of the other. They actually designed it to set opposing sides of the equation against each other and make it almost necessary to come to some sort of compromise. Bicameral legislation. Separation of powers between legislative, executive, and judicial.
The idea that one man or one party is entitled to be the "real America" is fundamentally anti-American.
Back in the early 1800's, the differences between the North and the South became evident after the shared rejection of British rule faded. The Industrial Revolution isolated the agricultural South, and there was a "rich vs. poor" resentment.
In that era, there was, world wide, considerable realignment of nations. Italy began consolidating, while Gran Colombia split into three nations in our Hemisphere. An attempt to unite Central America failed and sank in a sea of despots and dictators. These are just a couple of examples of how a modernizing world was realigning and redistributing. So the differences between the two parts of the US and conflicts over the policies to be applied to the new western territories became major issues.
Even today, we have seen very recent efforts to separate Québec from Canada. This "stuff" happens all the time in the modern world.
I see it more like flying a state flag with the national flag today, but do agree that it is in bad taste and disrespectful to many since the Confederate flag is seen by some as being a symbol of slavery and discrimination.
That is best... and simplest argument.
Many non-southerners see the Stars and Bars as only representing slavery and succession. My experience is that such meaning is secondary to a symbol of other traditions.
Today, many people who are not of a culture, region, ethnicity or race want to give names and descriptions to other peoples just to show they are very, very woke. Best example: "Latinx" which is unusable in the native language of most Latinos (or in any Romance language). It's a construct of people who are separate from the people and their culture.
Wow. So flying the Confederate flag is merely an issue of bad taste. That's all. Throwing the United States on the pyre of failed experiments is fine. Nothing to see here. Move along.
It's disrespectful to some people, and nothing worse than a college fraternity house emblem to others. But given today's political environment... the same one that does not allow you to see the variety of perspectives there are on this subject... it's inappropriate to use it any longer.
Remember, the South was "punished" by the North for many decades following the war. An historical example of over-punishing a loser after a war is found in post-WW I Germany and we know what developed out of that.
To southerns who were not plantation owners, the post-Civil War era was definitely evidence of a failure of the United part of the United States.
The Washington Redskins changed their name. Many people objected. They argued that it was never offensive. Some folks like to call Black people the N word. They think it's acceptable. There used to be separate bathrooms for Blacks and Whites as recent as the 1960s. Is that the "variety of perspectives" you value? America was supposed to be a "Melting Pot". Everyone originally came here from somewhere else. (Except of course the Native Americans who were punished far worse than any White Southerner).
As for the Civil War, it's hard to "Unite" people who wanted to separate. War is never pretty. The South could have avoided a lot of misery by choosing a different path...
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What's weird to me is that they didn't like being called that, but then they started calling each other that in a friendly manner. WTF?
At first, I was somewhat surprised that the casual racist tropes of violence, "multiple baby daddies" and the like were thrown around here with impunity. Now...well, I guess it all fits. I mean, the flag of a traitorous breakaway republic is just "poor taste" because it's "disrespectful to some." The very real and visceral pain it causes many because of its history is far more than disrespect. It's not merely bad taste. Slavery existed elsewhere, and still does, so it wasn't really that bad, you know, in context. And fighting to keep that structure in place wasn't so bad, in context. And the people who remember the lynchings, the oppression, the violence, the hatred, the flagrant discrimination...they just need to understand it in context. Because it's the same as a frat house banner with a juvenile slogan or image, in context after all.
The semantic gymnastics used to justify ongoing racism and hatred by minimizing both what happened and the continued use of one of the most concrete symbols of that blight on our history is, if nothing else, impressive in its scope.
If you need a symbol as loaded with pain and hatred, violence and bigotry, as that banner to show your pride in being...whatever it is you are, there is something deeply, fundamentally broken about your values.
The semantic gymnastics used to justify ongoing racism and hatred by minimizing both what happened and the continued use of one of the most concrete symbols of that blight on our history is, if nothing else, impressive in its scope.
If you need a symbol as loaded with pain and hatred, violence and bigotry, as that banner to show your pride in being...whatever it is you are, there is something deeply, fundamentally broken about your values.
Where is the bangs-head-on-table-repeatedly icon?
I wonder if they would apply the same gymnastics and apologetic arguments to a certain other flag that represents racism?
"Sure, the swastika hanging from that pickup truck might offend a few Jews, but hey...maybe that guy has German ancestors and just wants to respect his culture? Maybe his "The Reich Will Rise Again" bumper sticker just means he wants Germany to be great again. And after all, Stalin killed more people in his country than Germany did in the Holocaust, so in context it's not that bad. Just offensive to a few people..."
Sure, and today it's just about pride in lederhosen and schwarzwälder kirschtorte
Isn't it about time to lock this thread? Everyone seems entrenched, and honestly, what does it mean in the grand scheme of things if the forces of "correctness" manage to sway a few of the "incorrect" contingent over to their side of the issue?
I second that suggestion.
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