James Lileks:
Perhaps soon in Muslim countries some provocateur will hold an “Everyone Draw the Confederate Flag” contest. Social Justice Warriors might crash it with strongly worded pickets, and perhaps some damning chants (“Hey Hey Ho Ho / Racist men were Duke and Bo”). Such a thing would have been absurd a week ago, but the culture turns on a dime these days — a dime with the portrait of a president who interned people for their race, and isn’t that a tad problematic? — and now the Stars and Bars have been scrubbed from Amazon, Sears, Etsy, eBay, and all other merchants eager to scramble to the virtuous side of the modern moral ledger. Within a week there will be a law that grants the right to wear a Confederate-flag tattoo, but if you go out in public you have to wear a piece of waxed paper over it, preferably smeared with Vaseline.
Insert obligatory boilerplate about the South and the Flag here; imagine counterargument right . . . here. Are we good? Good. Those issues aren’t the point here. Consider a complaint going around the right side of the Internet lately, which notes that merchants eager to drop the Confederate flag like a flaming sack of feces are perfectly fine carrying — well, this:
Hurry! Only four left! Be the first on your block to proclaim your love of omnicidal tyrants.
Or, if you prefer more artisanal, small-batch killers, there’s everyone’s favorite hairy homophobe:
So why are these okay? many on the right ask. Typical, isn’t it? They have no idea.
1. Che was cool. You can tell he was cool because he was totally into universal health care and building a new society where everything was taken care of and you could concentrate on art instead of worrying about things like money. He and Fidel overthrew that Babtisto guy who the CIA put in there to torture people so they would harvest sugar for Coca-Cola. I mean, look at his expression! Noble. Unselfish. Looking up to the future with calm, confident resolve.
Or, it’s the look of a man who’s thinking, “Never fails. Two minutes after the firing squad’s done, and here come the buzzards.”
2. Communism is kinda awesome! First of all, the USSR stuff is amaaazing from a graphic-design point; they used revolutionary styles to spread their egalitarian message, just like people today are using responsive web design to garner awareness about the need to ban plastic bags. A lot of those artists wouldn’t have gotten jobs in the U.S. They would have ended up in some small town doing drawings for the local newspaper, which is practically like going to the Gulag. And if some of those artists did die in the labor camps, well, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette, and also purge several million chickens who were hoarding eggs by laying them too slowly. And then you have to purge the men who run the chicken coops for wrecking the five-year plan to produce twice as many eggs with half as many chickens. Have you seen old Soviet art for the Chicken Production Drive of 1924? It’s awesome.
I mean, sure, Stalin did some things, but they were way ahead of everyone else when it came to font selection. They probably had like a Ministry of Fonts.
3. Communism is really a noble idea, and it’s never been tried. I mean pure Communism, where everyone is taken care of and stuff gets made because everyone’s on board and pitching in. Not like today’s dog-eat-dog society, where you get out of college with a Masters in Fine Art focused on Iberian lute dirges and a ton of debt, and you can’t get a job that isn’t handing a cup of caffeinated sugar to some bro in a suit. In Communism, college is free and you get a job afterwards teaching people about Iberian lute dirges. If that’s what you want! I mean you can be a doctor too, but it’s not like you’ll make more money.
Curt, You are raising a straw man. When you say “the left,” this is a term which, on your blog, means pretty much everyone who voted for Obama, Kerry, Gore, or Clinton. I have a great many Facebook friends who voted for Obama. Not a single one ever said a kind word about Stalin, Che, or anyone else like that.
Why don’t people get outraged over the odd disaffected stoner wearing T shirts with these images? Number one, I can’t remember the last time, if ever, I saw someone wearing one of those. Can you? (remember the last time you saw one of those on a person who is even plausibly someone who’d vote in an election?). In contrast, I see the Confederate Battle Flag all the time. I probably usually mutter “red neck” under my breath when I see one, just as I’m sure you mutter something colorful when you see even an Obama sticker (I’m assuming that you don’t see Stalin or Che stickers at which to mutter anything).
Number two, people care about issues which had a deep effect on them or their relatives. I really don’t like Nazis, because 90% of my paternal forebears living in the WWII era were exterminated by them (I know this from my distant cousin, with whom I once spoke, who ran the Jewish Documentation Center in Vienna). Likewise, African Americans don’t like anything at all about the revolt of the Southern states which revolted for the sole purpose (and I’m happy to argue this, because I’ve got the facts on my side) of maintaining the institution of slavery, which entailed not only forced labor, but child labor, and rape (of both women and children) on a truly massive scale.
So, yeah. Tens of millions of Americans are touchy about a flag which is the most prominent symbol of mass forced labor and rape of their forebears. It’s not unreasonable for a South Carolina black person to not wish to see the Confederate Battle Flag flying from the grounds of the State legislature to which he pays taxes. Just as a German Jew would be appalled to see the Swastika fly on the grounds of a German legislative building. Even though some Germans might say “it’s not a memorial to genocide, but to the miraculous recovery of Germany in the 1930s from the devastation of World War I and to the brave German soldiers who fought and died in defense of their homeland.”
It’s just like anything else. You’ve got to try and walk a mile in the moccasins of those who’s attitude you don’t understand.
There’s no mass outrage about Stalin and Che T shirts because they are vanishingly rare and because they aren’t flying from the grounds of an official US state government building.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
@Larry Weisenthal:
Actually, no, you don’t have facts on your side. What you do have is revisionist history, perhaps California style, on your side.
Ah, yes, walking in moccasins. Want to know what my ancestors thought of that flag was being carried by soldiers when they were forced to walk miles on a death march? What flag was it carried by Col. Chivington, or the infamous Custer? What flag did Sheridan’s troops carry when they were ordered to kill as many Native Americans as they could? How about that flag carried by black troops out of Fort Clark in Texas when their goal was to kill off the Comanche?
Don’t be so arrogant as to presume to know what it is like to walk even three feet in a pair of moccasins.
@Larry Weisenthal: Larry The reason I visit this site is because I continue to be amazed how far out of touch with REALITY The large majority of these posters continue to be.
It’s a guilty pleasure. A car wreck I can’t take my eyes off.
Hope you stay around awhile. I enjoy reading your reasoned, interesting and intelligent approach,
@Larry Weisenthal #1:
I’ve been making the same points on other threads – this issue keeps the racists snapping like rabid pit bulls.
Notice that Retire05 issued you a signed, blank-check repudiation, categorically accusing you of revising history without filling in a single detail. Sort of a “I-know-you’re-wrong-even-before-you-say-anything-and-here’s-why,” one-size-fits-all rebuttal that is as empty as the mind it came from.
Retire05 was the FA alumnus who predicted Justice Kennedy would favor “states’ rights” over individual rights in the Obergefell Marriage Equality case, and that the case would accordingly fail. Oops… Wrong again. Her champion (Justice Scalia) accused the Court’s majority of destroying America’s “democracy,” evidently having not read the many Flopping Aces commenters who keep reminding us all that we are a “republic,” not a “democracy.”
Thomas’s dissent complained that his feelings were hurt by the argument that restricting same-sex marriage was comparable to restricting interracial marriage. He is apparently unhappy with plaintiffs’ exercise of their First Amendment rights.
Roberts’ dissent was equally disturbing. He complained bitterly that the Court’s majority was “legislating” beyond it’s rightful duty. The SCOTUS’ decision wrote no legislation. It simply overturned states’ legislation that the SCOTUS found unconstitutional. There is a difference, and you’d think Roberts would be mindful of it.
The oxymoronically named “right” gets it wrong again.
@George Wells:
I see nothing has changed. You’re still the nasty liar you have been since the first day you landed here at FA.
Of course, you didn’t quote me, because to do so would have prevented you from twisting what I said into what you want to accuse me of saying. I have told you before, George, that nasty little habit you have of doing that shows how really dishonest you are.
Either provide my original quote, and it’s location, or stand the liar you have, many times, proven yourself to be.
George and Rich, Have you noticed that 5-4 decisions like the Hobby Lobby case, which granted the right of “religious freedom” to corporations, are considered to be the exercise of the responsibility of respected Supreme Court justices to interpret the Constitution in its application to civil law, but when the 5-4 decisions go against one’s wishes, it becomes “judicial tyranny” and “legislating from the bench by 5 lawyers?”
@Larry Weisenthal:
Did you intend to say you learned this from those forebears? I’m quite sure Larry that if you polled your Obama voters, they wouldn’t know who Che or Hitler were. That’s because nobody takes them seriously any longer, Just as people flying a confederate flag shouldn’t be taken as a threat. But they have to have a ’cause’ and ignorance is as good as any.
So how many of your friends were slaves? How many are victims of ‘forced labor’?
So are you out picketing today to take down those colored lights on the white house because it is a ‘symbol’?
@rich wheeler: Well Richie, he lives right there in your neighborhood, You and he could get together and discuss killing babies and saving dogs and mosquitoes. Oh and maybe you could come up with some good rainbow colored lighting plans for the County courthouse there and the state capitol building.
@George Wells:
George, did you happen to notice that you ‘called out’ Retire05 for not ”filling in a single detail” but:
didn’t say a damn word about Larry ”not filling in a single detail”?
Hypocrisy anyone?
@Larry Weisenthal:
Have you ever looked at the OWS web site? To refresh your memory, this is an organization that was highly supported by the Dems and the left in this country. Check out the symbolism with the clenched fist. Check out the call for world revolution. It was exactly what Marx called for in his Communist Manifesto /em> and was embraced by Communist leaders from Lenin to Castro. Go back and look at the pictures from the OWS “gatherings” and you will see LOTS of symbolism pertaining to Communism. These “gatherings” were attended by tens of thousands of people, not one or two stoners. Their movement was also supported by leaders in your party.
http://occupywallst.org/
As for the 5-4 Court decision on gay marriage, it was really 6-3. To think Roberts actually opposes gay marriage is a far stretch. I’d lay odds he voted that way to preserve his self image after re-writing Obamacare for the second time. Had Kennedy voted the other way, Roberts would have switched his vote. Either way, most likely in due time gay marriage would have been approved in all 50 states by the states themselves.
@retire05 #5:
Such a deceitful coward you are.
You know full well that Flopping Aces has no search engine with which to locate specific quotes. If it did, YOU could quickly locate where YOU predicted that the SCOTUS would indeed do what they DID, and rub my face in it. But you can’t.
In fact, When I click on “Categories and Archives,” all I get is a blank page and, sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t print out hard copy of your running stream of nonsense. So there IS nothing to link, one way or the other.
But go ahead, tell me what you DID expect the SCOTUS to do. No, not the crap about YOU not having a crystal ball that you threw in after you discovered that my prediction was being corroborated by the experts. And not that recent bit about how maybe I WOULD win, but that the win would be a “hollow victory.”
If your mind is simply gone, and you have no memory about what you DID say on the subject, just own it and move on. Or if you DO remember what you said, FIND IT and make me eat crow with the link. But don’t challenge me to do the impossible – I’m not your miracle-working God.
@Redteam #9:
“George, did you happen to notice that you ‘called out’ Retire05 for not ”filling in a single detail” but… (you) didn’t say a damn word about Larry ”not filling in a single detail”?
Hypocrisy anyone?”
The difference in the two cases is that:
1. Larry offered to debate the issue if anyone cared, while Retire05 did not.
2. I agreed with Larry’s point, while I did NOT agree with retire05’s.
Perhaps I should have mentioned these two points in my post, but I thought that they’d be UNDERSTOOD.
I sincerely apologize for giving your more credit than you deserve.
@Larry Weisenthal:re your #6 That’s exactly why I “love” these guys and gals. They love to call out hypocrisy—-then this. A car wreck.
@George Wells:
That’s pretty funny coming from someone who has been proven to lie about what others have said as many times as you have, George.
It’s not up to me to prove I didn’t say what you claim, George. The onus is on you to prove your claims.
Ummm, seems you can remember what I said about a crystal ball, but can’t remember much of anything else, like where I said anything you claim. You don’t dump the responsibility to prove your claims on me. Again, the onus is on you. You made the claim YOU PROVE IT.
OK, once again, you are making a claim re: something I said. It is your place to prove it.
No, you’re just a sad old sodomite that consistently lies about what others said.
Your claim; your responsibility to prove it. Now, either back it up or apologize for being a proven liar.
@Another vet #10:
Your speculation concerning a possible 6-3 decision is a good thought.
Roberts certainly had to have known that his nonsense about “This court is not a legislature” was nothing more than a bald distortion of the same facts that the “right” has been promoting all along – that the decisions of the SCOTUS that the GOP doesn’t like are all instances of “judicial activism,” the product of “5 unelected lawyers.”
What ever could have compelled Roberts to make such an obvious error? Nobody ever said that the SCOTUS WAS or IS a legislature, thank you very much, Mr. Chief Justice. The SCOTUS doesn’t LEGISLATE. Not from the bench, not from anywhere.
For that matter: No, Mr. Chief Justice, this ISN’T a democracy, either, it’s a republic.
Who drugged you and KEPT you drugged until you checked “NO” on Obergefell right before you passed out?
Fox News?
@retire05 #14:
Ummm…
You just claimed that I lied. Prove it.
If you can manipulate the FA Archives to prove something, show us how it is done. Otherwise, your crying about “lies” are meaningless.
I am no more able to search the archives than you are.
That doesn’t silence my tongue any more than it silences yours.
@George Wells:
You’re trying to weasel out of proving your claim. I expect no less from a weasel.
@George Wells: So you’re ashamed to admit that you took both sides of the same issue?
Actually you didn’t. I did see the difference and called you on it.
Where both you and Larry are wrong is that you say these people have a ‘right’ to be offended (for some reason, seemingly associated with slavery). Why? Accepting that everyone has a ‘right’ to be offended about anything they choose, but why pick slavery? Who do you know that was a slave (in the US)? Who do you know that owned a slave, in the US? So why be ‘offended’ about something that hasn’t existed in 150 years? Why do black people act as if slavery was all about them? Blacks owned slaves, whites were slaves, some owned by blacks. Should the world be flipped over for these wrongs over a 100 years ago? No, the flag is just an opportunity to ask for more welfare and handouts. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s called the ‘victim card’.
@George Wells: Roberts was re-writing legislation from the bench in the Obamacare case. Like I stated on a another thread, I fully expected gay marriage to be approved and actually by a wider margin than 5-4. While I may disagree, at least I can see some constitutional reasoning behind the decision that being Article IV, Section 2. However, the Obamacare decision was a clear case of judicial activism and lowers the status of the Supreme Court to that of an elite team of 9 legislators who re-write laws for certain laws they like as opposed to being a separate but equal branch of government.
Article IV, Section2
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
The fiction that the court conservatives are apolitical jurists who care only for the original textual meaning of the Constitution and abhor “activism” is easily dispelled in three words: Bush v. Gore.
@Tom: you do realize that Bush got more electoral votes than Gore. Don’t you?
@another vet:
Then anyone with a concealed carry permit should be legally allowed to also carry in New York or California. But I don’t suggest you try it.
@Redteam:
Yes. Yes, I do. You’re so close to connecting the dots here. If only you had ready access to a near infinite store of Man’s knowledge at your fingertips and an easy way to access it. Like a “search machine” you could type Bush v Gore into. We can dream…
@retire05 #14:
“It’s not up to me to prove I didn’t say what you claim, George. The onus is on you to prove your claims.”
No, the onus to demonstrate HOW any claims can be proven – if made – falls ON YOU. If you are making the claim that ANY proof of ANY statement CAN be made, show the way. If you can’t PROVE anything, how can you state anything other than a hypothetical question, or – as you are so fond of doing – just spit venom and toss insults, as if anyone cares.
Why not try this:
Explain how a “lefty” such as me might have predicted anything OTHER than a SCOTUS victory for gay marriage. That seems pretty straight-forward. Or conversely:
Explain how a nasty bigot such as you might have predicted anything OTHER than a SCOTUS defeat for gay marriage.
Again, pretty straight-forward.
Once you sweep away all of your smoke and mirrors about who can quote and link what, you are left with the simple, painfully obvious truth: That you were wrong and I was right.
I TOLD YOU SO.
You didn’t believe it then, and you haven’t the dignity to admit it now.
So you invent impossible excuses to distract attention from what anyone with a shred of common sense can figure out: That never in a million years would Retire05 have publically predicted a SCOTUS decision in favor of same-sex marriage.
You HAD to predict the opposite.
Your political stripe DEMANDS it.
“The polls are all wrong – Romney is going to win!”
You think that if you repeat a lie often enough it will come true, like if you click the heals of your ruby slippers together three times and utter the line “There’s no place like home” three times, you’ll end up in Kansas.
“Benghazi-Benghazi-Benghazi.”
“ObamaCare is dead-on-arrival.”
“We’re going to vote to kill ObamaCare… 50 TIMES!”
“The economy is a DISASTER!”
“SQUALK-SQUALK-SQUALK!”
Lies don’t spontaneously trans-mutate into truths after they have been repeated a thousand times, no matter how fervently you wish they did.
@Tom:
@retire05: Yep, but it would need to be challenged in court. Don’t be surprised if it happens in the wake of the decision on gay marriage.
@Tom: And, if I didn’t have this mass data storage system…That would change the vote in Florida in 2000, exactly how?
@Another Vet #19:
It was a “decision.”
You said so yourself.
The “decision” stated that the LEGISLATION that Congress PASSED and that the President signed into law was constitutional.
That’s ALL the SCOTUS did.
Look up the process of “legislating,” or find a legal description of the process Congress uses to enact “legislation.”
It isn’t what the court does.
Saying otherwise does not make it so, no matter how much you wish it did.
The term “activist judge” was invented by right wing extremists to scare their constituents into sending them more money to fight off an imagined army of drug-addled commie hippies masquerading in black robes as federal judges.
The judiciary has NEVER been a pawn of the mob. Its powers are not the same as – but equal and complimentary to – the powers of the legislature and the powers of the president.
I didn’t LIKE the SCOTUS decision in Bush v. Gore, and I didn’t like the Hobby Lobby decision either. But once those decisions were made, I didn’t go on and on, whining and crying about them, as you and yours are evidently set to do over the ObamaCare and gay marriage decisions.
Why do you bother?
@Redteam:
It wouldn’t “change” the vote. We’ll never know the true vote because the Supreme Court halted the recount. In a state rife with voting irregularities the margin was down to under 300 votes with only the Presidency on the line. Recounts were under way when the Republican Sec of State deemed that none of the ongoing recounts warranted an extension. The SCOTUS, along ideological lines, upheld the stopping of the recount. How anyone can square stopping a vote recount and effectively handing the Presidency to George Bush with judicial restraint is beyond me. And that’s the point. Scalia is full of sh*t when he accuses colleagues of legislating from the bench. He was one of five people who picked a President!
@George Wells:
Many conservatives cling to this notion that they are not “partisan”, they are simply applying age old principles impartially across the board. This allows them to spin inaction or resistance to changes in abstract terms. In the wake of the recent ruling, many conservatives claimed to be ambivalent or personally in favor of Gay Marriage, but against the legal mechanism by which it was achieved. Or, similarly, many conservatives claim no personal affinity for the Confederate Flag, but are intensly offended by the idea of “activists” pushing for its removal. When you point out they are as inconsistent, self-serving and seemingly partisan in the application of their principles as Scalia is in his votes, they become afflicted with an obtuse inability to process your point. The thing is, conservatives will never tell you how change should be wrought, only what is wrong with any particular attempt. Their answer to most issues of social justice is to do nothing and eventually it will all work out, although probably not in this lifetime.
@George Wells:
You said in your post #4:
You made the claim that I “predicted” Justice Kennedy would favor states rights over individual right and that the case would, accordingly, fail.
It is your responsibility to prove that I ever said that. Everything else is just so much dodging on your part because you let your mouth write a check your ass can’t cash. That you don’t want to spend your time locating that quote, knowing how you would love to prove yourself right, speaks volumes.
Now, either prove your claim, or admit you’re lying and don’t really know what I said.
@Tom:
And we do know how you love you some social justice, a term coined by Marx.
Ebay will no longer sell anything with the Confederate battle flag on it, but it seems to have no problem with this item:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/F-k-your-god-inverted-crucifix-t-shirt-small-to-2-extra-large-choose-size-/221738198631?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item33a0a06667
@retire05
Why are you upset that a corporation made a business decision not to sell items they deemed reputationally harmful and thus a danger to their bottom line? Is it because you love the Confederate Flag or because you hate free markets? (Both?)
@Tom:
Because Ebay managers are being hypocrites. Tell me, Tom, would you have no problem with Ebay allowing a t-shirt that pictures a lynching of a black man with “F**k blacks” on it?
The dishonesty, not to mention callousness, of the Flopping Aces writers on this topic has been truly astonishing as they’ve deceitfully attempted to reframe the discussion around removing the flag from State grounds to one of “banning” it. By flying an unambiguous symbol of white supremecy on State grounds, the State of South Carolina is making an explicit political statement that no black tax payer from South Carolina should be forced to endure. As to white racists wanting to use the flag to express their personal view points, as a staunch supporter of the First Amendment, I support that right. I imagine most “liberals” see it this way.
So the question is, are FA writers this confused regarding the issue at hand? Or are they just constructing straw men to allow those who are sympathetic to the Confederate Flag to voice their frustrations in terms that seem pro-Democracy rather than pro-racist?
@retire05:
Corporations aren’t brave. If you think a corporation should sublimate their business instincts to your higher concerns regarding the Confederate flag, I think we have our answer regarding your feelings on free markets. You take the fascist view.
To the larger point, it’s remarkable how blind you and others are to what has actually transpired this past week, to what the culture at large has reckoned with while you’ve been locked blindly in your little self imposed corner. Your President expressed it rather eloquently in his eulogy for one of the victims
@Tom:
Actually, you’re the one with the “fascist” views, buddy. I frankly don’t care what Ebay sells or doesn’t sell. But if a company is going to take a stand on what they consider a moral issue, I can promise you, there are more Christians than Southerners and they are going to lose on this one. Christians can boycott a company just like you lefties can.
But Obama didn’t seem to have a problem with that flag when it appeared on his 2008 campaign buttons in some Southern states. He’s as big a hypocrite as Ebay.
And it didn’t go unnoticed that you didn’t answer my question. You’re like all lefties; quick to point the finger and quick to dodge any question that makes you uncomfortable.
I’m sure the owners of this website would not be unhappy if you decided not to return since you find them so reprehensible.
@retire05 #31:
The Flopping Aces Archive is still empty.
Your request is denied.
@George Wells:
You obviously aren’t smart enough to use the means provided to you.
So until you prove otherwise, you remain a liar.
@Tom: 537 votes difference. What this week the supreme court can do no wrong, but you didn’t agree back then. Perhaps it’s because they did it legally that troubles you.
@retire05: They’ll probably be selling rainbow shirts and flags also.
@Tom:
The state of South Carolina, as most US states do, have a system of laws where their legislature passes laws and the governor signs them or vetos them or allows them to become law without their signature. South Carolina passed a law to fly the confederate flag. They can reverse that with a 67% vote in both houses and the governors signature. I predict they won’t pass that. Don’t you agree that’s how it should be done?
@Redteam:
i don’t speak gibberish. Do you have a translator?
@Redteam:
I agree. They should get their ass in gear because I also support non-violent protests like the one today by a fearless young lady who removed the treasonous artifact.
@Redteam:
Quid pro quo: what are your thoughts on Rosa Parks? She broke the law, as it was. Was she wrong?
@Tom:
She should be locked up.
@Tom: i
Actually that was written in English, had you not been educated by liberals, you would have known that. And it doesn’t require a translator.
@Tom: Depends on what law she broke and what the penalty for breaking that law was.
@Redteam #49:
Wow! That same thinking was used by the defendants in the Nuremburg trials as they attempted to justify their following Hitler’s rule in spite of it being fundamentally wrong. (That defense was soundly rejected, by the way.) It also undermines your defense of people who claim religious freedom as a justification for breaking non-discrimination laws.
Better rethink that…