How long before the American flag has to come down?

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American-Flag

 

The pipe of the racism piperĀ is playing and the lemmings hear the call. One after another politicians run to the front of the political correctness cliff and jump off blathering about how the Confederate flag has to come down and even how the next symbol of oppression must also find the dustbin of history:

Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has joined calls to remove a statue of Kentucky-native Jefferson Davis from the state capitol building.

The statue of Jefferson Davis has been in the rotunda of the Kentucky Capitol building since 1936, but it has come under fire by McConnell, GOP Gubernatorial candidate Matt Bevin, and ā€œtop Republicans in Kentuckyā€™s House and Senate.ā€

According to WAVE 3, McConnell gave a measured response to questions about removing the statue, saying, ā€œMaybe a better place for that would be the Kentucky History Museum, which is also in the state Capitol.ā€

Frankly, I think the Confederate flag flying in the South probably should have been taken down years ago but thanks to democrats like Fritz Hollings up it went.

Retailers lined up and jumped off the cliff as well. Amazon stated it will no longer sell the Confederate flag, but it will continue to sell Communist merchandise.

Amazon sells a huge variety of shirts, posters, you-name-it featuring the hammer and sickle, Joseph Stalinā€™s mustache, all things Che Guevara, Vladimir Lenin and other colorful revolutionaries who fought to make the world a better place, man. Guevaraā€™s book Guerilla Warfare is on sale in four different formats. In one of the worst genocides in modern times, Stalin forcibly starved Ukrainian peasants in whatā€™s known as the Holodomor, a ā€œterror-famineā€ that left anywhere from 2.4 million to 7.5 million Ukrainian peasants dead in 1933.

Nazi merchandise? Sure.

Walmart has pulled the Confederate flag but it will be happy to sell you a poster of Che Guevara.

ā€œWe never want to offend anyone with the products that we offer. We have taken steps to remove all items promoting the confederate flag from our assortment ā€” whether in our stores or on our web site,ā€ said Walmart spokesman Brian Nick. ā€œWe have a process in place to help lead us to the right decisions when it comes to the merchandise we sell. Still, at times, items make their way into our assortment improperly ā€” this is one of those instances.ā€

“We never want to offend anyone with the products that we offer.”

Well, a lot us find Communists and Nazism offensive. A lot of us find the aggrandizement of philosophies that has killed millions after millions of people offensive.

“We never want to offend anyone with the products that we offer.”

Hmm. Can’t help but wonder- will that eventually include the American flag?

Increasingly, the American flag- the flag of the United States of America- is becoming more and more offensive to the left.

Hispanics find the American flag offensive

Muslims find the flag offensive.

Illegals? I guess they don’t mind as long as the priorities are in order:

Flag stomping has become a liberal past time

Rappers find the flag offensive.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mQ4tPgkoJg[/youtube]

Activists find the flag offensive.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajl-5rwliK4[/youtube]

Oh, and kill whitey while we’re at it.

Liberal educators find the flag offensive.

Wearing the American flag is offensive.

And the Obama mentor in whose living room the political career of Barack Obama was spawned?

 

bill-ayers-stomping-on-american-flag

 

As soon as there are enough votes to be had and voters to be pandered to, democrats will call for the removal of the US flag and replace it with something closer to their hearts.

 

soviet_flag

 

What comes after that? Burning the books about the Confederacy?

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Slavery had been abolished throughout the northern states by 1804.

@Greg: So, all that is needed for something to be “bad” is for people to be convinced of its “badness”? While some believe the Battle Flag of Northern Virginia suddenly, on June 16, 2015, became the physical representation of evil, it doesn’t really matter that millions of rational minds see nothing but historic representation in it and, regardless, it much come down?

June 16, 2015, it went from being a flag (liked or not) to being the representative of racism and slavery. Magically. Just as magically, taking it down is supposes to make people forget that they are racists or why they were (reminder: because of that flag).

Iā€™ve always liked the solar symbol that is the swastika

Well, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that makes you an antisemitic racist. You have argued so yourself. See, it doesn’t matter what it MEANS, all that matters is what someone, even a minority, THINKS it means. So, when I recall the evil of Nazi Germany, Hitler and the 65 million people that died due to his aggressions, that is all that matters. It wouldn’t matter if I was ignorant (or chose to be ignorant) of the historical significance of the symbol, all that matters is, a) what I THINK it means and, more importantly, b), can I use it to beat someone, politically, over the head with it?

Silly and weak, Greg. Once again, silly and weak.

Due to it’s history of racism and hatred this symbol should be banned.

@Bill, #102:

June 16, 2015, it went from being a flag (liked or not) to being the representative of racism and slavery.

A lot of people had a problem with the banner long before June 16, 2015. I have my doubts about any claims that most people who display it are history buffs. That certainly isn’t the case around here.

Silly and weak, Greg. Once again, silly and weak.

You don’t understand the comparison with the symbolism of the swastika? Sometimes there are intensely negative associations attached to a symbol that are so strong and so wide spread that any open display of the symbol will almost always send the wrong message. Jewish Americans won’t much like seeing an openly displayed swastika; Americans of African descent won’t much like seeing the flag in question. There’s abundant reason for both groups to feel offended.

@Greg:

Slavery had been abolished throughout the northern states by 1804.

Slavery was not formally abolished in New Jersey until 1865. Slaves were listed on their census rolls as “indentured servants for life” which is still slavery.

And you’re still an idiot.

@Greg:

A lot of people had a problem with the banner long before June 16, 2015. I have my doubts about any claims that most people who display it are history buffs. That certainly isnā€™t the case around here.

None of that took the form of demanding it disappear from sight and the accusations that anyone that disagrees must be a slavery-supporting racist. It became more a symbol of leftist demagoguery than of anything else.

I fully understand the symbolism, but I cannot help the perception someone else may have of something of mine. Without malicious intent for the possession of the image, I don’t CARE about the various perceptions anyone could, in the width and breadth of their imaginations, could have. Why should I make myself a prisoner of what other people imagine?

Recall my point about the CSA flag and the battle flag. One, the CSA flag, actually represents the government that is said to support slavery while the battle flag actually does not. However, due to ignorance, the CSA flag is uncontested while the flag of honorable sacrifice his vilified. Add to that the fact that it is all politics and theater, and you have one, thick stupid soup. No, I won’t make myself a prisoner to such ignorance.

For the record, I don’t own a battle flag. I believe I have a couple of commemorative pocket knives depicting Confederate generals and/or battles (bought as gifts, so I may have given them away) but otherwise, aside from books and movies on the subject, I have no Confederate memorabilia. I am defending nothing of my own but for the right to think rationally and intelligently.

Furthermore, I would hazard a guess that most Jews, having been taught about their history and facts (FACTS) about the Holocaust, knows the difference between the ancient symbols and the Nazi iteration. A study of propaganda, the Nazi adaptation of the swastika and its modification for use reveals its origins as well (though the Nazis liked it because it looked cool).

Again, I refuse to be held prisoner to misconceptions and ignorance, no matter how much the benefits of such failures are argued.

@retire05, #105:

Slavery didn’t vanish anywhere overnight. It had become too deeply woven into the social and economic fabric of the nation. In some northern states, legal, social, and economic change was two steps ahead and one step back. Based on that, some people try claim that the north and the south were equally culpable for the prolongation of slavery—a barbaric institution that turned the most basic claims of our nation’s founding documents into hypocrisy and lies. The claim itself is a lie. Fiercely held, differing opinions on the issue is what split the nation. The south’s rationalization of slavery was based upon racism. Racism was what allowed people to hold slaves as personal property while calling themselves Christians and Americans.

The Civil War is what settled the issue of national direction. The outcome didn’t automatically get us to our destination, any more than did earlier changes in state or national laws.

And youā€™re still an idiot.

You’re still as rude as you are wrongheaded.

@Greg:

Slavery didnā€™t vanish anywhere overnight. It had become too deeply woven into the social and economic fabric of the nation. In some northern states, legal, social, and economic change was two steps ahead and one step back. Based on that, some people try claim that the north and the south were equally culpable for the prolongation of slaveryā€”a barbaric institution that turned the most basic claims of our nationā€™s founding documents into hypocrisy and lies. The claim itself is a lie.

What astounds me is how you try to twist what you already said. And no, it is not a lie that the North was just as responsible for slavery as was the South. It was the ports of the North, Boston and Philadelphia, that saw the importation of humans, sold by enemy tribes of Africa, to the Atlantic slave traders. It was in those harbors that slave ships were built. It was also in the mills and factories of the North where fortunes were made from the products of slave labor in the South.

Another inconvenient item that the victors of the War of Northern Aggression has tried to wipe from the annals of history is the number of blacks that were owned, like cattle, by other blacks. Louisiana was rife with black slave holders. But you won’t find that in any public school history book, nor will you learn of the fortunes made by Northern business off the labor of slaves held in the South. Nor are black children of today taught that Anthony Johnson, a former indentured servant in Virginia who earned his freedom, was the first slave holder on record. In 1655, Johnson sued to maintain John Casor, as an indentured servant for life (i.e. slave) and won. Both Johnson and Casor were black.

All you seem to know is revisionist history, and damn little of that. And I am rude to you because you are an idiot and I can’t abide people who are deliberately obtuse.

@retire05, #108:

It was the ports of the North, Boston and Philadelphia, that saw the importation of humans, sold by enemy tribes of Africa, to the Atlantic slave traders.

We’re not talking about how slavery came to be in existence in America and who was chiefly responsible for that. We’re talking about how it came to be eliminated. Ultimately there was a war, with two opposing sides. One side advocated the abolition of the institution of slavery, while the other side advocated its continuation.

That remains a simple and straightforward historical fact, no matter how hard you attempt to obscure or distort it.

I can only imagine how young minds are being twisted by revisionist historians via far-right conservative-influenced school text books. You’re as full of shit regarding history as you are science. If it doesn’t fit your political agenda, out it goes. Naturally, anyone who points out the bullshit the political right is up to is immediately branded as one who is doing the distorting. It’s like all this crap about the “liberal mainstream media,” which is basically code referring to anything that doesn’t go along with your own political agenda and world view.

You wanted to provoke an angry response? Well, there you go.

Louisiana was rife with black slave holders. But you won’t find that in any public school history book…

Most likely because it’s a complete fantasy. Rife means widespread, not rare and isolated cases. There’s also the question of motive. A free black might be motivated to buy a person he had a non-economic interest in—a parent or child or other relative, for example. In an environment where people are property, it could be the only way of improving the lot of someone you care about.

@Greg: 101

Slavery had been abolished throughout the northern states by 1804.

What? do you know what ‘google’ is? Slavery was not abolished throughout the North until Dec 1865, that’s after it had been abolished in the South.

@rich wheeler: Rich, I have a ‘animal Mercy’ question. a Wooded area is behind my house. Several cats (house type) reside there. A couple of them come into my yard every day begging for food. When I have kitchen scraps, I feed them to the cats. sometimes I don’t have kitchen scraps, but the cats still ‘beg’. I have, a few times, fed them cat food. I don’t think this is a good situation because if I were not here, those cats wouldn’t get any food unless they find a wild rat or something to kill. If I called the humane society to come get them, I suspect they would be euthanized. What would you recommend?

Some people, apparently, are not aware that the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in “states that are in rebellion”, meaning the states that were NOT in rebellion could still have slavery.

But, ignorance is bliss, they say.

@Greg:

Weā€™re not talking about how slavery came to be in existence in America and who was chiefly responsible for that.

No, you’re not talking about it because it doesn’t comport with your view of slavery. But I’m not going to allow you to control the dialog, any more than I’m going to allow you to continue to make false claims like:

Louisiana was rife with black slave holders. But you wonā€™t find that in any public school history bookā€¦

Most likely because itā€™s a complete fantasy. Rife means widespread, not rare and isolated cases. Thereā€™s also the question of motive. A free black might be motivated to buy a person he had a non-economic interest inā€”a parent or child or other relative, for example. In an environment where people are property, it could be the only way of improving the lot of someone you care about.

Because you want to remain willfully ignorant, and believe that blacks only owned slaves because of humanitarian reasons, I am not going to let that stand. There’s this:

“In the rare instances when the ownership of slaves by free Negroes is acknowledged in the history books, justification centers on the claim that black slave masters were simply individuals who purchased the freedom of a spouse or child from a white slaveholder and had been unable to legally manumit them. Although this did indeed happen at times, it is a misrepresentation of the majority of instances, one which is debunked by records of the period on blacks who owned slaves. These include individuals such as Justus Angel and Mistress L. Horry, of Colleton District, South Carolina, who each owned 84 slaves in 1830. In fact, in 1830 a fourth of the free Negro slave masters in South Carolina owned 10 or more slaves; eight owning 30 or more (2).

According to federal census reports, on June 1, 1860 there were nearly 4.5 million Negroes in the United States, with fewer than four million of them living in the southern slaveholding states. Of the blacks residing in the South, 261,988 were not slaves. Of this number, 10,689 lived in New Orleans. The country’s leading African American historian, Duke University professor John Hope Franklin, records that in New Orleans over 3,000 free Negroes owned slaves, or 28 percent of the free Negroes in that city.

To return to the census figures quoted above, this 28 percent is certainly impressive when compared to less than 1.4 percent of all American whites and less than 4.8 percent of southern whites. The statistics show that, when free, blacks disproportionately became slave masters.

http://americancivilwar.com/authors/black_slaveowners.htm

Then, there is the extensive article penned by Obama’s good friend, Dr. Henry Louis Gates. Gates tries to put a happy face on a sad picture, but even in the end, he has to admit that history doesn’t agree with your perception of black slave holders.
http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2013/03/black_slave_owners_did_they_exist.html

If you disagree with Dr. Gates, I suggest you contact him and tell him his article is wrong. But don’t be surprised if Obama’s goons don’t show up to make you change your mind. Perhaps you, Gates and Obama could have a beer summit.

Then there is the story of Marie Coin-Coin, and her children, of Melrose Plantation in northwestern Louisiana:

“The affluent period was between 1830 and 1840 for the Metoyer family. Pierre, one of the less prosperous brothers died in 1834 leaving a plantation of 677 acres, after giving his seven children land for their marriages. Augustine divided the land between six children and kept two plantations for himself, which contained 2,134 acres (Mills, 109). Early in 1850 the Metoyer family had improved their land by 5,667 acres and had a total of 436 slaves.
http://slaverebellion.org/index.php?page=the-black-slave-owners

The Metoyers were black, Gullible Greggie.

Read down further for more information on black slave holders, some who were nothing more than breeders in order to sell the offspring.

You can continue to remain in your historical ignorance, but I am not going to let you get by with it without showing you just what an idiot you are.

@Aqua: Many slave owners throughout the USA were black, some of them even owned white slaves:

Perhaps the most insidious or desperate attempt to defend the right of black people to own slaves was the statement made on the eve of the Civil War by a group of free people of color in New Orleans, offering their services to the Confederacy, in part because they were fearful for their own enslavement: “The free colored population [native] of Louisiana ā€¦ own slaves, and they are dearly attached to their native land ā€¦ and they are ready to shed their blood for her defense. They have no sympathy for abolitionism; no love for the North, but they have plenty for Louisiana ā€¦ They will fight for her in 1861 as they fought [to defend New Orleans from the British] in 1814-1815.”

http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2013/03/black_slave_owners_did_they_exist.html

And for a time, free black people could even “own” the services of white indentured servants in Virginia as well. Free blacks owned slaves in Boston by 1724 and in Connecticut by 1783; by 1790, 48 black people in Maryland owned 143 slaves. One particularly notorious black Maryland farmer named Nat Butler “regularly purchased and sold Negroes for the Southern trade,” Halliburton wrote.

One of the earliest(but not the first) slave owners in the US was a black man. So slavery, apparently invented in Africa, was not an invention of the US. Slavery still exists in Africa even today. Some slavery (sex slaves) still exists in the US today.

@Greg: With all the anger directed at the South for slavery, why is some of it not directed toward Rhode Island? Half of all slaves brought to the US were brought by the slave traders in Rhode Island. Brown University was started by money contributed largely by the Brown Family. How did Rhode Island get to skip all this blame? Do you realize how many slaves were sold under the Rhode Island flag?

@Bill:

Some people, apparently, are not aware that the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in ā€œstates that are in rebellionā€, meaning the states that were NOT in rebellion could still have slavery.

An interesting fact I found about that is that Tennessee had already ‘given up’ in 1863 when the Eman Proc was issued and therefore it did not apply to Tennessee. All the confederate states ended slavery in 1865.

@Redteam: Please call the closest SHELTER..They will do their best to place them. Thanks

@retire05, #113:

No, youā€™re not talking about it because it doesnā€™t comport with your view of slavery.

I’m not talking about how slavery came to America because that’s not the topic. Want to talk about it? Our ancestors brought it here. Our ancestors also forcibly displaced and/or exterminated the indigenous people who were here before them. Basically, we’re the descendants of European tribes that conquered their way across Western Europe, the British Isles, and ultimately didn’t stop until they’d crossed an ocean and come to the shore of a second. The people who wrote about the God given rights of man, however enlightened they were for the day, in the practical world treated other human beings as their personal property. The White House that the nation’s first black President presently resides in was built with the help of slave labor.

The fundamental principles enshrined in our nation’s founding documents were unrealized ideals—lights to be guided by and things to incessantly striven for, not a state of affairs attained and fully realized by writing down the words and signing a sheet of parchment. This perception seems to be one difference between the political right and the left. The current-day left understands the nation as a work in progress. The current-day right seems to believe what is needed is to roll back the clock and undo many of the changes the left views as social progress.

Why are we even arguing about slavery? In this nation, its abolition was something we should all agree was progress in the direction of one of our nation’s highest ideals: that in a moral sense, all men are created equal, and that no one should be reduced by another to the level of property or chattel. Those who sought to preserve it by force were misguided, and ultimately on the wrong side of history.

“Many slave owners throughout the USA were black, some of them even owned white slaves…”

“Many” is clearly a great exaggeration. From the linked article:

“So what do the actual numbers of black slave owners and their slaves tell us? In 1830, the year most carefully studied by Carter G. Woodson, about 13.7 percent (319,599) of the black population was free. Of these, 3,776 free Negroes owned 12,907 slaves, out of a total of 2,009,043 slaves owned in the entire United States, so the numbers of slaves owned by black people over all was quite small by comparison with the number owned by white people.”

I’d like to see a documented instance of a free black person living on the North American mainland who owned a white slave, without conflating indentured servant status with slavery. I have great difficulty imagining how such a thing would have sat well with the locals.

@Greg:

When the discussion is about slavery, how they were brought here is completely relevant. YOU Greg are not NOT a moderator at FA, you are a tolerated guest poster and you are certainly are not the arbitrator of what parts of a topic are relevant. If you don’t like it I suggest you start your own blog. You have some nerve complaining about the inclusion of relevant details that are uncomfortable for you to accept, yet you often bring in completely unrelated matters into a discussion, like you just did with the following rant:

Our ancestors also forcibly displaced and/or exterminated the indigenous people who were here before them. Basically, weā€™re the descendants of European tribes that conquered their way across Western Europe, the British Isles, and ultimately didnā€™t stop until theyā€™d crossed an ocean and come to the shore of a second. The people who wrote about the God given rights of man, however enlightened they were for the day, in the practical world treated other human beings as their personal property…

You are woefully uneducated as to the founding fathers, as a good many of them supported the abolition of slavery before the states of this nation were even united under the Constitution. (It’s covered in The Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers discussions, which too many leftists such as you are completely ignorant about.) You have continually shown a lack of knowledge about history, but that doesn’t stop you from coming on FA and proving it time after time. I sometimes wonder if you are a masochist who gets off on being denigrated.

Why are we even arguing about slavery?

Don’t be obtuse, you know perfectly well why. But hey, no one on FA is forcing you to be here or said that you have to argue about slavery. You are free to leave this discussion at any time.

@Aqua:

Your statement is just as close-minded as someone saying slavery wasnā€™t one of the central issues of secession and the war.

Typically anyone who tries to downplay Slavery as the root cause of the conflict between the North and South and the main cause of the Civil War has a vested interest in feeling that way. I can understand people wanting to feel a certain way about their heritage. You are much more fair-minded and balanced than most around here, but i can still detect a tortured effort to move the needle one way, mainly through focusing on economic and political grievances as if they existed somehow separate from slavery. Everything you’ve written, I understand happened. But you can’t push slavery into a corner. Any economic policy issue can’t be divorced from it. At the time of the Civil War, the South had four millions slaves worth close to 3 Billion dollars. , which were the foundation of a prosperous economic system: “In the seven states where most of the cotton was grown, almost one-half the population were slaves, and they accounted for 31 percent of white peopleā€™s income; for all 11 Confederate States, slaves represented 38 percent of the population and contributed 23 percent of whitesā€™ income. Small wonder that Southerners ā€” even those who did not own slaves ā€” viewed any attempt by the federal government to limit the rights of slaveowners over their property as a potentially catastrophic threat to their entire economic system.”

The fact that slaves were owned by a small percentage of whites is irrelevant to the causes of the war or the righteousness of secession. The slave owners were the ones making the decisions. If the South won, slavery would have been extended indefinitely, and likely efforts would have been made to expand it into the Caribbean and further South. What in terms of grievances regarding central government intrusion can actually be weighed against that?

We can debate the reasons all day, but the leaders of the Confederacy never minced words regarding their ultimate goals, as I’m sure you know. Their vision for their nation wasn’t one that embraced this freedom from tyranny that is implicit in all this rhetoric about “states rights”. Their constitution was an abomination and a direct rebuttal of the Truths enshrined in our Declarations of Independence. Honor those who fought the war, but the Confederacy itself deserves no such generous assessment.

Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens, March 21, 1861:

The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutionsā€”African slavery as it exists among usā€”the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away… Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon itā€”when the “storm came and the wind blew, it fell.”

Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition

@Tom:

But you canā€™t push slavery into a corner.

I did not push slavery into a corner. I called it one of the central issues. One of the central issues.

Small wonder that Southerners ā€” even those who did not own slaves ā€” viewed any attempt by the federal government to limit the rights of slaveowners over their property as a potentially catastrophic threat to their entire economic system.ā€

I think that this is a little over simplified. You completely discount the impact the tariffs had on the South and its economy. Slavery was absolutely calculated into that equation, but to leave out any other variables is disingenuous.

Northern politicians were ever ready to sacrifice whatever anti-slavery sentiments they had for the sake of a tariff deal. Rumors after the Compromise of 1850 linked it to logrolling for tariff protection. Illinois votes for the Compromise were connected to railroad land grants that Illinois obtained in 1850. Southern congressmen claimed to have won over Pennsylvania’s delegation by promising to repay a vote for the Compromise with “adjustments” in the tariff rates. At the same time, the Pennsylvania legislature voted to repeal laws that handicapped efforts to recapture fugitive slaves.

In the 1820s or ’30s, no one would disagree that the tariff was the chief political issue disturbing the United States. But it was not then purely a regional split: many Northern farmers and merchants joined the Southern planters to oppose high tariffs. After the Missouri Compromise, slavery was a deeply troubling, but minor, irritant on the political scene. So how, in 25 years or so, did this national conflict shift to Southern slavery — which was the same thing it had been in 1820 and ’30 — so much so that the declarations of independence of the various Southern states in 1860 and ’61 seem to make it their chief reason for secession?

The answer is the combination of economic self interest and political machination which was itself, rather than slavery, the power that split the country. In opposition to the Democratic Party, the Whigs made a high tariff their strongest plank. But it wasn’t enough.

“[T]he values of a dominant national party had to represent more than the transparent self-interest of the manufacturer in having a good transportation system, a protective tariff, a stable currency, and a dependable work force. In order to achieve national support, the manufacturers’ values had to be anchored in a social issue of paramount national concern. That issue was the politicization of the moral struggle between North and South over the extension (or contraction) of slavery.”[7]

If you are so inclined, you can read a book called Slavery, Secession, and Southern History by Clyde N. Wilson. That’s where most of that came from.
It has always been the custom that those that win the war get to write the history. I understand that, and I understand why most Northerners believe all the South cared about was slavery. But no matter what decade or century you live in, it always comes down to one thing, money. Was slavery part of that, even a big part of that? Yes it was. But it wasn’t the only part, nor even the overriding factor in the war.
Tom, I understand your line of reasoning. I and most of the people that live in the South see it all the time. Southerners talk slow, have funny accents, we must be dumb. We were born and raised in the South, how can we not be racists. We talk of things like State’s rights and secession, how are we not traitors. I had friends and colleagues when I was in the Air Force from the North and they flat out told me, that is the way Southerners are viewed. Some told me when they got their first set of orders to a Southern State, they fully expected to see segregation.

Honor those who fought the war, but the Confederacy itself deserves no such generous assessment.

Stated in your own words. And that is how most people that don’t live in the South view us, as a relic of the Confederacy with nothing but a desire for slavery.

@Aqua:

Northern Involvement in the Slave Trade

@Greg:

Why are we even arguing about slavery? In this nation, its abolition was something we should all agree was progress in the direction of one of our nationā€™s highest ideals: that in a moral sense, all men are created equal, and that no one should be reduced by another to the level of property or chattel.

Because any time the Confederate battle flag or any other piece of Southern history is brought up, you Yankees rush in to remind us that we are nothing but a bunch of slavers if we have a single shred of love for our heritage.
And just some food for thought, slavery doesn’t exist today and the talks of secession grow stronger everyday. And before you say it’s because we have a black president, it all started way before he took office.

@Aqua: What I remember at Marine Corps Officer Basic School late 66 Quantico—- Southern Officers were saying (half kiddingly?) they couldn’t show up at home in their dress blues.
Enjoying your informative debate with Tom. No question Confederate leaders saw blacks as clearly inferior–sub human in some cases.Truth be told Northern whites were not much better.
Has the South come full cycle? Taking down The Confederate Flag is huge.

Is there any question a large % of Southern Whites were not ready for an African American POTUS in 2008? My guess 30-40%

@Aqua:

I think that this is a little over simplified. You completely discount the impact the tariffs had on the South and its economy. Slavery was absolutely calculated into that equation, but to leave out any other variables is disingenuous.

I don’t discount it. I would be happy to include on a list of extended causes and explicitly give it its proper weight. What’s disingenuous is including it on a laundry list of reasons along with slavery implying they’ve all equal. If someone insists that Al Capone went to jail because of tax evasion, NOT because he was murderer and a gangster, is that not burying the lead? Can one really separate Capone the tax evader from Capone the gangster?

Was slavery part of that, even a big part of that? Yes it was. But it wasnā€™t the only part, nor even the overriding factor in the war.
Tom, I understand your line of reasoning. I and most of the people that live in the South see it all the time. Southerners talk slow, have funny accents, we must be dumb. We were born and raised in the South, how can we not be racists.

If people say those things about you, I suggest you take it up with them. I certainly haven’t. You openly bare the chip on your shoulder. You link your own personal feelings of persecution to the outcome of a historical debate. Am i supposed to consider you objective now? There’s no one alive who was responsible for slavery. It ended 150 years ago! Yet so many seem to have a vested interest. I honestly can’t wrap my head around how anyone can read the declarations of secession, or the written and spoken words of the Confederate leadership, and still come away with the idea that it was not an “overriding factor”.

Stated in your own words. And that is how most people that donā€™t live in the South view us, as a relic of the Confederacy with nothing but a desire for slavery.

Again you put words in my mouth. I am merely pointing out that most “Northerners” can understand pride in heritage and honoring one’s ancestors. Where that understanding ends is when symbols of racial terror like the confederate flag are explained as only symbols of heritage. We know that not to be true. You know that that flag has been used for explicitly racist purposes time and time again. Is it really impossible for South Carolina to honor your heritage without flying on state grounds what is for many citizens of that state a divisive and painful reminder of terrorism and oppression? Many white and conservative Southerners have already answered that question in the negative, and it’s a heartening thing to see.

@rich wheeler: If anyone did’t vote for Obama because of his race, it would have been a Democrat. A Republican wouldn’t have voted for him because he was, well, a Democrat. Do you think there is more or less racism in the South now as opposed to 50 plus years ago?

@rich wheeler:

Southern Officers were saying (half kiddingly?) they couldnā€™t show up at home in their dress blues.

I think it’s clear that America, 150 years on, has not come to grips with the Civil War and slavery, with the darkest aspects of our history, certainly not like Germany and Japan, for example, a hundred years later.

@rich wheeler:

What I remember at Marine Corps Officer Basic School late 66 Quanticoā€”- Southern Officers were saying (half kiddingly?) they couldnā€™t show up at home in their dress blues.

You are full of crap. That didn’t happen. I had some friends in the Corps back then and they were extremely proud to show off their Blues and everyone thought they looked great. Quit spreading dung.

No question Confederate leaders saw blacks as clearly inferiorā€“sub human in some cases.

Is that from first hand knowledge, or just spreading rumors?

Is there any question a large % of Southern Whites were not ready for an African American POTUS in 2008? My guess 30-40%

An even better question, was this country ready for a gay traitor to be president?

@another vet:

Do you think there is more or less racism in the South now as opposed to 50 plus years ago?

Let me ask a more significant question. Do you think there is less racism now in the North than there has always been? If you want to see racism, go to Chicago, New York city or Detroit.

@rich wheeler: 117 You’re saying go ahead and have them euthanized. I’d have thought your Mercy group would have a better answer. All talk, no feeling.

@another vet: I actually considered it. I really did. In the end, however, he appeared to be too much of an empty suit (dead on) and his history had too many unknowns and ambiguities.

@Tom:

I think itā€™s clear that America, 150 years on, has not come to grips with the Civil War and slavery, with the darkest aspects of our history, certainly not like Germany and Japan, for example, a hundred years later.

All that is clear is that the only people that stoop so low as to use race as a political weapon (while simultaneously exploiting minorities) is the left.

@rich wheeler: They didn’t celebrate the 4th of July in Vicksburg, Mississippi (the day they surrendered to Grant’s siege) until 1944. Some people hold a grudge, but it would appear that most people that held such hard feelings have either died off or modified their position.

Meanwhile, some others want to find racism and intolerance, for various purposes, in anything and everything. We have healing and growing on one side and degeneration on the other.

@Bill: I know he was an empty suit. I saw it myself with an EO issue in my Reserve unit he got involved with that he let fall by the wayside after promising to do something about it. My main reasons for not voting for him is that it was quite apparent from his statements and past activities he was a divider and a neo-Marxist who wasn’t very fond of his country.

@Redteam:I thought your question was legit. Not some gotcha BS.
I said SHELTER where they will attempt to place them. If the cats ACTUALLY exist and you are Actually concerned for their well being you oughta take care of em–what’s it cost you–a few bucks a week .Step up RT

I now see from your #129 you’re having one of your “fits” today–calling me a liar and spouting about BHO being a “gay traitor” When you calm down try to do what’s right for the cats. Thanks

@Tom:

Where that understanding ends is when symbols of racial terror like the confederate flag are explained as only symbols of heritage.

If the only symbolism you can see in the battle flag of Northern Virginia is racial terror, then you should most certainly be demanding that the U.S. flag be removed, as well. Or do you think that the Stars and Stripes doesn’t also represent racial terror?

Do you agree that the Stars and Stripes be removed from every Native America reservation in the United States? Do you agree that the Medals of Honor, that was awarded to 13 Buffalo Soldiers during the “Indian” wars should be cancelled because those wars were based on a policy of genocide? Should the photographs of the Buffalo Soldiers, so proud at Wounded Knee, be banished to the dust bins of history?

What about the descendants of the American born Japanese and Germans that were imprisoned during World War II? Think their offspring are proud of a flag that not only imprisoned them, but confiscated all their property? And in 1800, as the slave trade was really rolling, what flag flew over Boston harbor?

You find hate where you want to find hate. You are one of the most racially divisive people to have ever posted here. You see only what you want to see, because I’m sure, of a failed public school system.

@Tom:

You openly bare the chip on your shoulder. You link your own personal feelings of persecution to the outcome of a historical debate. Am i supposed to consider you objective now?

I’ll take this one first. I do carry a chip on my shoulder, it doesn’t weigh down my objectivity. I rarely, very rarely let my emotions interfere with a debate. This one is no different. For you, the Civil War was about slavery and that’s that. You completely ignore this part of my post:

The values of a dominant national party had to represent more than the transparent self-interest of the manufacturer in having a good transportation system, a protective tariff, a stable currency, and a dependable work force. In order to achieve national support, the manufacturersā€™ values had to be anchored in a social issue of paramount national concern.

How can you possibly overlook something that still gets used in politics today? Lincoln didn’t give a crap about slaves, he wanted to colonize them back to Africa and Central America. The “Noble President” was more racist than any person living today.

Whatā€™s disingenuous is including it on a laundry list of reasons along with slavery implying theyā€™ve all equal.

Back to the blockquote. They were all equal.

Northern politicians were ever ready to sacrifice whatever anti-slavery sentiments they had for the sake of a tariff deal.

Money, plain and simple. I know the North wants to be remembered as going to war to free the slaves. A noble gesture, no doubt.

I honestly canā€™t wrap my head around how anyone can read the declarations of secession, or the written and spoken words of the Confederate leadership, and still come away with the idea that it was not an ā€œoverriding factorā€.

Please read this one more time:

So how, in 25 years or so, did this national conflict shift to Southern slavery ā€” which was the same thing it had been in 1820 and ā€™30 ā€” so much so that the declarations of independence of the various Southern states in 1860 and ā€™61 seem to make it their chief reason for secession?

The answer is the combination of economic self interest and political machination which was itself, rather than slavery, the power that split the country. In opposition to the Democratic Party, the Whigs made a high tariff their strongest plank. But it wasnā€™t enough.

That statement outtake does not discount slavery as an issue, but adds that there was much more to it than that.

Where that understanding ends is when symbols of racial terror like the confederate flag are explained as only symbols of heritage.

So, no one can look on that flag and say, “this is in remembrance of the time we told the Yankees to pound sand and were willing to fight for our right to say it.” We must always look on that flag and hang our heads in shame because…racists?

Is it really impossible for South Carolina to honor your heritage without flying on state grounds what is for many citizens of that state a divisive and painful reminder of terrorism and oppression?

That’s up to the people of South Carolina to decide. I was ok with it being removed from the Georgia flag. Personally, I haven’t had a battle flag since I was a teenager. I’m not ashamed of it, just really haven’t thought about it much. But I happen to like that flag a lot, and when I see it, the first thing that pops in my head is: Yankee, go pound sand.

@rich wheeler:

Has the South come full cycle? Taking down The Confederate Flag is huge.

Come full cycle from what? Are we racists? I’m sure there are still racists in the South, just as there are in the North.
Do we still want to be left alone and have limited government? Yeah, so in that sense, we haven’t divested our roots.

Is there any question a large % of Southern Whites were not ready for an African American POTUS in 2008? My guess 30-40%

I honestly know of no one that was against having a black president. I know a lot of people that were/are against having a socialist president.

@Bill:

By the way, in the context of Six Flags, the CSA flag should remain flying. It represents history, like it or not.

Not as cool looking as the battle flag, but those 11 stars do have a story to tell. Lately I’ve been collecting Jolly Rogers flags. But I’m sure that will offend someone sooner or later and I’ll have to pull them.

@Aqua: Oh, I fully agree. All I am saying is these idiots, based on their “principles” are protesting the wrong flag and don’t even realize it.

How could a recreational park supposedly commemorating the six governments under which Texas existed NOT have the flag of the CSA? Anyone that doesn’t like it can go live in San Francisco.

@Greg:

Why are we even arguing about slavery?

Who is arguing about slavery? The discussion is about why the people in the USA don’t have the right to fly whatever flag they choose to fly without someone getting their panties in a bunch. So for a rallying cry the lefties pick a flag that they think they can get mileage with, the confederate flag and claim that anyone that wants to fly it is a slaveholding proponent racist. It’s been long established as a fact that the stars and bars are only a flag that originally was flown as the battle flag for the Army of Northern Virginia. Of course, because of the colors of the flag, Red white and blue, the other armies of the south adopted it as their battle flags also. Since it has been long established, by those interested in ‘real’ history, that the war was over the rights of states to decide their laws for themselves the flag has come to represent the heritage of people that believe that they have the right to stand up for what they believe in. Of course the problem has become, since the lefties need money raising issues, to decide that the flag represented ‘slavery’ and since the lefties are victims of the lefty liberal education system in the US, they have no way of understanding the truth of the origins of the flag. Has nothing to do with slavery. So the ‘argument’ about slavery is basically due to the ignorance of the lefties of the world.

@rich wheeler: The issue about the cats was legitimate, and you just blew me off on the answer. I had already told you that if I call the local animal control people that they will only euthanize them and so what do you answer. Call the shelter. That told me that you basically didn’t give a damn and had no answer. Typical leftie liberal BS. So you don’t want flies and mosquitoes killed because all life is precious, but call the shelter and have them kill the kitties.

On the other issue, Obama is a gay and a traitor. You have a problem with the truth?

@Tom: 126

I honestly canā€™t wrap my head around how anyone can read the declarations of secession, or the written and spoken words of the Confederate leadership, and still come away with the idea that it was not an ā€œoverriding factorā€.

That’s because you were the victim of a leftie liberal system that only taught you to believe in what they told you, not in reality. I can see that if conservatism is ever to prosper that the education system will have to start from ground zero.

As I pointed out yesterday, over half of the slaves imported into the USA was by ships flying the US flag. They were sold by importers and traders in Rhode Island, which flew the US and Rhode Island flags. They used the income from selling slaves to build schools such as Brown University. Who is demanding that all those flags come down?

@Redteam: You are one strange duck RT. How do you know the Local shelter will euthanize the cats. Have you even called them? What’s the hardship in you feeding them if necessary.You too busy. Step up RT.
Show your ‘COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATIVE” side.

@Redteam:

Chances are your cats are feral. They are more than happy to eat free food, but I doubt they will let you catch them. And your problem is that while Rich advocates you continuing to feed them, before they are six months old, they’ll start to breed with each other. Now 5 cats are 10 cats or more.

My advise; get a live cage and catch them if you don’t want to be overrun in a year with feral cats. Call around and find a “no-kill” shelter, if you can, and if you can, drop the caught cats off with them.

Can you tame ferals? Not much. I had one that lived in my yard that I caught and had neutered. Even after neutering, it took almost 8 years before I could pet her although I talked to her every day. Same with the one surviving kitten she had. Feral cats are great for farms, providing they’re neutered, but if not, you are going to wind up with a kitty Chicago on your hands. And lots of dead birds.

@retire05: Good advice—We’re talking no kill shelter. Neutering is also the right thing to do.
RT If you want me to make some calls pls. give me location.

@rich wheeler: because I know that the statistics for this parish is that about 98% of the animals that go there ‘don’t come out’.

If you read carefully, you saw where I did say that I feed the cats. Did you see me complaining about the cost? What I’m more concerned about now is that, here you are with facebook posts about mercy for animals and when I ask a question, because you claimed to have compassion for the animals etc, I just get blown off with the standard, call the shelter. What happens to those cats if I go on vacation for a week? Or I just go to a ball game and get back late and forget to feed them? I had feelings about what was right and looked to an ‘animal mercy expert’ and got a ‘go bother somebody else’ response. You really buy the liberal line.

@retire05: thanks Retire. I have a house cat of my own, that is solid gray, ‘rescued when he was a tiny baby by me’ after his mother either abandoned him or she got killed or something. I never let him outside. But these other cats, 2 most of the time, sometimes a 3rd one will come right up to my back door, but they run when I go out. When I do go out, they ‘approach me’ and meow until I go get something for them to eat. I think they are probably about a year of age.

If I find a place that will save them, I will take them to them. Fortunately I have a ‘cat trap’ that I had to get when I got overrun once before. At that time, years ago, I took the ones I trapped to other neighborhoods and dumped them out. Just moving the problem.

@retire05:

And lots of dead birds

yes, just recently there was a nest that hatched 5 wrens. Just a few days before they reached the age to fly, the nest got destroyed (though I don’t know it, I assume they got eaten.)