Confederate Flag Avatars: Time to say Goodbye

[vrDrew]

Let me get this straight after your dissertation. (Well written I might add). We should not allow the confederate flag to be used on these forums because, in your opinion, it represents the evil empire?

My position is that it is now time to banish the Confederate Flag because it has - post Civil War - come to represent attempts to disenfranchise and oppress African-Americans.

Robert E. Lee was not an "evil" man. Neither, in his way was Jefferson Davis. John Bell Hood. Stonewall Jackson or most of the hundreds of thousands of ordinary Southerners who fought for the Confederacy. But they were, to quote U.S. Grant:

"a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and who had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse."

There is so much to love and admire about the Southern United States. Its culture. Its food. Its music. (A fair amount of the forgoing being owed to its African-American citizens, but I digress). NASCAR.

Why celebrate, cling to (to use a somewhat charged phrase) a symbol of that region's lowest, worst history? Its ultimate defeat, disgrace, and dishonor. Put aside the Klu Klux Klan. Pre-redemption George Wallace. The Birmingham Baptist Church bombings. Bull Connor. The assassination of Martin Luther King.

Maybe you don't see the Confederate Flag as being representative of those things. Fine. But most other people do see it in those terms.

And ultimately, thats what counts. It is way past time for white Southerners to grow up. To accept the fundamental evil that slavery represented. To stop hiding behind terms like "states rights" and "northern aggression." Embrace and celebrate everything that is good about the South.

And cast aside a symbol that represents the worst.

 

[sartrekid]

Contrary to modern liberal teaching (Winners always write the History Books) the Civil War was fought over States rights.

And not over slavery? What parts that are lectured in global history books do you consider false?

 

[Eraserhead]

The Battle Flag doesn't represent, to me, all the hype put forth in this forum. To me it represents the southern struggle against the north. There is a pride in me of the south which supersedes all the malingment comments heaped upon the south for hundreds of years. We have endured the snide remarks and unjustified slander for all too long. The trashing of the Confederacy which has taken place in the last few weeks I find intolerable. The liberal/socialist element sweeping this country makes my ties to the south stronger than they have ever been. This has nothing to do with racism. I find less racism in the south today than in Yankee country

I'm not very PC so the fact that something offends someone else is not very high on my hit parade. Very little can be said or shown today that doesn't offend someone.

The comment about your post was sincere.

The South gets criticism because on every social issue it has had to be dragged kicking and screaming to make progress. The South was given 60 odd years to ban slavery on its own, and then 100 odd years to tackle state racism against blacks (which frankly it still hasn't really fully addressed).

If you don't want to be continually maligned move on and stop being the Greece of social issues.

Now sure you may argue that in Britain "the left" criticises the poor for not being PC enough or for flying English flags - but then there is no real hard evidence that the poor have an issue with people from ethnic minorities nor that English flags don't stand for positives too. Whereas with the South there is reams of evidence about discrimination against blacks.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

The thing is, racists and bigots have consciously made the confederate flag their symbol over the last decades, and now that it's linked to them to the point that its modern meaning of white supremacy nostalgia mostly eclipses its original history, they use the historical argument when they feel the urge to wave it. The least they could do is show some decency, own their principles and be upfront about it.

Well said.

The Battle Flag doesn't represent, to me, all the hype put forth in this forum. To me it represents the southern struggle against the north. There is a pride in me of the south which supersedes all the malingment comments heaped upon the south for hundreds of years. We have endured the snide remarks and unjustified slander for all too long. The trashing of the Confederacy which has taken place in the last few weeks I find intolerable. The liberal/socialist element sweeping this country makes my ties to the south stronger than they have ever been. This has nothing to do with racism. I find less racism in the south today than in Yankee country

I'm not very PC so the fact that something offends someone else is not very high on my hit parade. Very little can be said or shown today that doesn't offend someone.

The comment about your post was sincere.

Well, then, thank you.

'Trashing the Confederacy'? 'Unjustified slander'? 'Snide remarks'?

The issue is revulsion for the founding principle of the South, which was slavery, - it could not have existed without slavery, and the agenda of states' rights was driven by the need to preserve and protect an economic and social model based on slavery - and the fact that perfervid attempts to defend that proto-state, while failing to recognise its many short-comings, very much miss the point.

Look, the South, the Confederacy, was never going to win that war. A feudal society was never going to win a war against an advanced and more developed - in this instance - an industrial nation, and never has in all of recorded history.

The Confederacy was predicated on, and built on, a set of social and economic values - slavery - that were unsustainable and considered unconscionable in western Europe by the middle of the 19th century.

Socially, and culturally, it was an anachronism, already out of date even in backward European countries such as Russia. Economically and politically it was a complete failure. Granted, militarily, for a lot longer than it should have, it was more than able to hold its own, - and won some extraordinary battles - because most of the experienced and gifted officers in the US Army from before the war sided with the Confederacy.

States' Rights destroyed the Confederacy, although the rhetoric of states' rights defined and drove the country's sense of self.

As a state - a political entity - it was a complete failure. The country's currency was never stable, and collapsed completely as the war went on, and the lunacy of 'states' rights' meant - for example - that the Confederacy was unable to over-ride local interests sufficiently to agree on something so fundamental (to the movement of troops, and goods) as standardised gauges on railways until March 1865! (March 1865!!) States had their own gauges.

By way of contrast, the North, for perfectly good reasons, enforced (by law - Federal law, that is) standardised railway gauges from 1862!

Unlike the North, which ran a successful general election in the middle of a Civil War - in 1864 - and (eventually) mobilised its industry, technology, and society, in total support of that war, while securing its frontiers and strengthening its trade, the South was neither a successful democracy nor economy.

In fact, this was a country that was unable to protect its ports, stabilise its currency, and was utterly unable to secure its exports (that of cotton), upon which its primitive economy depended. The Northern blockade of Southern ports worked.

Due to 'states' rights' its armies were unable to call upon the manpower they desperately needed, as local Governors managed to reserve the right to retain thousands of troops on state soil, using the spurious argument of 'states' tights', to defy Richmond. Right to the bitter end, Richmond was unable to construct a 'war economy' because local rights - states' rights - ensured that the Confederacy was an alliance of individual (and sometimes selfish) states which had a common cause, rather than a unified political body fighting a war for their very survival.

Richmond lost the military war, and the war for hearts and minds and ideas in the modernising world of western Europe.

Actually, 1861, the last state in Europe which had a feudal system of agriculture, Russia, abolished serfdom, a few centuries after most of western Europe had abolished it.

I would argue that no country in western Europe, not least the UK which had outlawed slavery and which was trying to outlaw the slave trade, would have willingly recognised the Confederacy.

My position is that it is now time to banish the Confederate Flag because it has - post Civil War - come to represent attempts to disenfranchise and oppress African-Americans.

Robert E. Lee was not an "evil" man. Neither, in his way was Jefferson Davis. John Bell Hood. Stonewall Jackson or most of the hundreds of thousands of ordinary Southerners who fought for the Confederacy. But they were, to quote U.S. Grant:



There is so much to love and admire about the Southern United States. Its culture. Its food. Its music. (A fair amount of the forgoing being owed to its African-American citizens, but I digress). NASCAR.

Why celebrate, cling to (to use a somewhat charged phrase) a symbol of that region's lowest, worst history? Its ultimate defeat, disgrace, and dishonor. Put aside the Klu Klux Klan. Pre-redemption George Wallace. The Birmingham Baptist Church bombings. Bull Connor. The assassination of Martin Luther King.

Maybe you don't see the Confederate Flag as being representative of those things. Fine. But most other people do see it in those terms.

And ultimately, thats what counts. It is way past time for white Southerners to grow up. To accept the fundamental evil that slavery represented. To stop hiding behind terms like "states rights" and "northern aggression." Embrace and celebrate everything that is good about the South.

And cast aside a symbol that represents the worst.

Well, @vrDrew, while there is much to admire about the South, (music, food, elements of its culture), there is little to admire in the political body known as the CSA - the Confederacy - because institutionalised racism was its tragic - and appalling - raison d'être.

 

[Oudinot]

And not over slavery? What parts that are lectured in global history books do you consider false?

What is being taught today is a political fabrication. The civil war was NOT fought over slavery. Why did Lincoln wait two years to free the slaves if this were the case?

 

[Eraserhead]

What is being taught today is a political fabrication. The civil war was NOT fought over slavery. Why did Lincoln wait two years to free the slaves if this were the case?

Please. Move on. The U.S. Civil war was primarily fought to keep slavery alive.

You don't like it when the rest of the world treats the South as the Greece of social issues - well then own up to your history. This is like the Japanese denying the Rape of Nanking. It just makes it worse to pretend it wasn't an issue. The German handling of the Third Reich is the model to follow.

 

[sartrekid]

What is being taught today is a political fabrication. The civil war was NOT fought over slavery. Why did Lincoln wait two years to free the slaves if this were the case?

Why did the Southern states decide to secede?

 

[Scepticalscribe]

What is being taught today is a political fabrication. The civil war was NOT fought over slavery. Why did Lincoln wait two years to free the slaves if this were the case?

Of course it was fought over slavery, but this was a truth that many - in the North as well as the South - had shied way from acknowledging too openly in the early years of the war.

From the perspective of the South, the 'Cornerstone' speech of Alexander Stephens from March 1861 is clear evidence of that, as is the fact that the economy and society of the South was predicated upon slavery.

However, given the fact that the obviously clear military victories (especially anything that could have been described as 'swashbuckling' or 'dashing' or 'daring') in the early years were those that could have been claimed by the South and their military leaders, (although even in the early years, Northern commanders made a habit of securing glum unspectacular victories, victories that spoke of bleak drudgery, patience, and a stolid but grim focus on the task at hand - for example, the Confederacy lost New Orleans as early as 1862 which meant that they lost much of the value of the Mississippi), someone such as Mr Lincoln was not going to openly espouse a desire to end slavery until the North had secured a few victories. Otherwise, it might have seemed as though he was clutching at straws. It is no coincidence that he chose to make the announcement after a Northern victory (Antietam).

There are two further points I wish to make here.

The first is that any serious examination of US history in the 1850s throws into stark light the pathetic - and actually embarrassing attempts of large elements of the Northern Establishment to stave off conflict, and a willingness to compromise at almost any (almost, but not all) cost or price. Thus, any attempt to cast the conflict into a 'War of Northern Aggression' is a serious misreading of what occurred before 1861.

The second point is that once Mr Lincoln had succeeded in making the abolition of slavery an explicitly stated war aim of the North, the North could not lose the war. After that speech, announcing that freeing slaves had become a Northern war aim, and after the Emancipation Proclamation, no state in Europe would have recognised the South, ever, even if General Lee had won the Battle of Gettysburg.

The South's political window of opportunity - in terms of gaining international support of any description - was tiny - and lasted roughly until the summer of 1862. In other words, until the Battle of Antietam.

 

[Oudinot]

Please. Move on. The U.S. Civil war was primarily fought to keep slavery alive.

You don't like it when the rest of the world treats the South as the Greece of social issues - well then own up to your history. This is like the Japanese denying the Rape of Nanking. It just makes it worse to pretend it wasn't an issue. The German handling of the Third Reich is the model to follow.

Perhaps it is you who should move on. I never said slavery wasn't a contributing factor I just said it wasn't the cause. I could give two hoots and a hollar about the worlds opinion of the south. Go back to your multiculturalists vision of Europe. How's that working out for y'all?

 

[Eraserhead]

Perhaps it is you who should move on. I never said slavery wasn't a contributing factor I just said it wasn't the cause. I could give two hoots and a hollar about the worlds opinion of the south. Go back to your multiculturalists vision of Europe. How's that working out for y'all?

If you don't care what anyone else thinks of the South why bring it up? I didn't.

And multiculturalism might not be an unmitigated success but treating people as second class citizens based on race, gender and sexuality is increasingly treated as totally unacceptable worldwide.

 

[dan110]

It stops when you think about the words "civil society."

One of the things that I admire about Southerners is their (alleged) concept of good manners.

I think if you ponder good and hard over what the Confederate Flag might mean to some of the other good folks who come round here, you might begin to understand its not the sort of thing they might want to see.

Don't keep wasting my time with the tired (poor and huddled) argument about "where does it stop." Its very easy. It stops with the Confederate Flag.

If in another ten or twenty years, the poor MacRumors administrators have to make another terribly hard decision over an overtly offensive symbol of racism; segregation; oppression; slavery; and treason - then I'll cry them a ****ing river.

But until that time, its pretty easy: No Confederate Flag Avatars.

And see this is the tyranny that so many have spoke of before in the past and in the present. Certain groups want, no demand, to be treated as equals and with respect through tolerance, but they have no idea what real "tolerance" means. People like you should never ever be given one shard of presumed "power". You become little monsters wanting to step on every thing and every one that offends your delicate sensibilities. Please by all means stay closed minded, intolerant, and censor. My hat is off to you.

Oh yeah, while you're at it, please start a thread that states we should also get rid of the Star & Stripes and tear down all the monuments of Washington, Jefferson, Madison and others that owned slaves and kept slavery alive. Let's strike them from our money and history books since we're now so "offended". At the least, be consistent in your tyranny and ignorance. Here's a bonus: I bet you didn't know that blacks sold slaves in Africa AND America. But since that's not the PC thing to say, I won't elaborate.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Perhaps it is you who should move on. I never said slavery wasn't a contributing factor I just said it wasn't the cause. I could give two hoots and a hollar about the worlds opinion of the south. Go back to your multiculturalists vision of Europe. How's that working out for y'all?

Arrogance, - breath-taking arrogance - hubris and the desire to preserve and protect and encase in law a feudal system based on slavery led the South into war. That, plus an erroneous belief that as their concerns had been taken so seriously and had dictated and dominated so much of the political landscape for most of the 1850s, that the North would acquiesce and crumple as much of the political elite had done for so much of the 1850s. In short, even when secession was declared, I suspect that Southern political leaders initially seriously thought that the North would give way and reach an accommodation, or clutch at, or craft a compromise once again, as had been the pattern throughout the 1850s.

Actually, any serious reading of US history in the 1850s shows how desperate the Northern Establishment was to avoid conflict and throws light on the exhaustive attempts which were made to accommodate Southern interests and address Southern concerns. The Northern Establishment went to extraordinary lengths not to have a conflict and those hotheads who insisted on seceding and in firing on Fort Sumter really needed their heads examined.

A good fictional account of what was likely to happen once war broke out are sardonically expressed in the drawled tones of Rhett Butler with his brilliant but provocative remarks at the gathering in Twelve Oaks just before the outbreak of war. An even better account, and this time, one that is factual, covering some of the same ground - comes from William T Sherman, then a (well regarded) Military College Superintendent in Louisana, whose appalled remarks to a secessionist friend at what would probably transpire are astonishingly accurate.

 

[b0fh666]

so, are the avatars banned yet? after all those TLDR pompous posts i guess so, eh?

ps: analyzing the end result after all this years, i think it would be better for u americans if the south won at the time

 

[juanm]

What is being taught today is a political fabrication. The civil war was NOT fought over slavery. Why did Lincoln wait two years to free the slaves if this were the case?

So what? Abolishing slavery might not have been the first thing in Lincoln's agenda but it sure was why the South went to war. Like I said, own your principles, don't hide behind half truths.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

so, are the avatars banned yet? after all those TLDR pompous posts i guess so, eh?

I know.

Reading is so boring, - and a bit too mentally taxing, as well - while reasoned debate is doubtless tedious when contrasted with the joys of giving voice to witless unconstrained emotion, atrocious and unjustifiable beliefs and wild venting views.

 

[Oudinot]

If you don't care what anyone else thinks of the South why bring it up? I didn't.

And multiculturalism might not be an unmitigated success but treating people as second class citizens based on race, gender and sexuality is increasingly treated as totally unacceptable worldwide.

Did you read the whole thread or just jump in?

Multiculturalism isn't an unmitigated success it's an unmitigated disaster. Hopefully, you can keep it in Europe because we don't want it here.

 

[b0fh666]

nope, reading per se is none of those things. but here's something i learned in my brief time in this world : if you need to elaborate long arguments to defend whatever POV, you are probably full of it

 

[Scepticalscribe]

nope, reading per se is none of those things. but here's something i learned in my brief time in this world : if you need to elaborate long arguments to defend whatever POV, you are probably full of it

As Lady Bracknell once observed "Ignorance is like a delicate exotic flower: Touch it, and the bloom is gone."

Personally, I prefer reasoned debate to offering uninformed opinions. But, maybe be that is just me…..

 

[b0fh666]

Did you read the whole thread or just jump in?

Multiculturalism isn't an unmitigated success it's an unmitigated disaster. Hopefully, you can keep it in Europe because we don't want it here.

why not? multiculturalism is cool.

 

[b0fh666]

As Lady Bracknell once observed "Ignorance is like a delicate exotic flower: Touch it, and the bloom is gone."

Personally, I prefer reasoned debate to offering uninformed opinions. But, maybe be that is just me…..

who is this bracknell person? did she cure cancer or something?

 

[Oudinot]

why not? multiculturalism is cool.

In what universe?

 

[b0fh666]

In what universe?

in any universe. monoculturalism is stagnation.

that said, some aspects of many cultures as of today are really bad tough.

 

[sartrekid]

ps: analyzing the end result after all this years, i think it would be better for u americans if the south won at the time

What are you referring to?

 

[b0fh666]

What are you referring to?

some aspects of NA society of today... everybody is "entitled", "special", and all that .

could be worse I guess.

 

[AngerDanger]

some aspects of NA society of today... everybody is "entitled", "special", and all that .

could be worse I guess.

Whereas Southern society had no concept of a special race that was entitled to rule over others. Things could've been so much better in NA.