Confederate Flag Brouhaha

[Perd Hapley]

I don't pretend to know about these things, but isn't saying the Confederates were bad at war a little like saying the 1930s/40s German army was bad at war? They were both good at fighting wars, just bad at choosing enemies. I mean, because they chose enemies with greater resources than themselves.

[Ron]

I don't pretend to know about these things, but isn't saying the Confederates were bad at war a little like saying the 1930s/40s German army was bad at war? They were both good at fighting wars, just bad at choosing enemies. I mean, because they chose enemies with greater resources than themselves.

Yes they were bad at choosing their enemy.

Their enemy (the north) was in fact a bastard in their own right but was a bastard that was morally correct on the issue of slavery.

The north/south argument is as fruitless as the republican/democrat argument. The more you learn the harder it is to discern if there are even any good guys.

 

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

Gotta dig mine out and fly it now


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[BlueStarLizzard]

I'm not sure I really care about what it represented as much as what it should represent now.

A brutal, bloody war which destroyed half the damn country. Right, wrong, North, South, doesn't matter as much too me as the fact that this is what happens when we can't agree peacefully.

The flag should fly, at least around areas of historical importance related to the Civil War.

[Perd Hapley]

The greatest tragedy, is how fast the cultural Left was able to leverage a long-dormant issue, chiefly with the use of social media, into a defining moment for a State that really just wants to mind its own business and be left alone. And I resent that capability and its implications much more than I resent the possibility of the Flag being taken down. Because that is going to have ever-increasing ramifications down the line. Think of it--a Governor calls a press conference over a nearly-dead issue in the space of 48 hours.

That's the state of the culture war in a nutshell, isn't it?

[Balog]

He said it wasn't only about slavery, which is obviously true. You got baited, but good.  


Who's fired up? 

I knew what he said. It was all about slavery, all the other things were important only as they related to the central thesis of slavery. I'm sure he's masterful in his baiting activities elsewhere but it didn't work here.

Who's fired up? A lot of conservatives, especially in the South. I do occasional comment on the thoughts and actions of people outside the immediate sphere of the thread I am posting in.

[Balog]

It's not conservatives who are rallying around stupid causes...

It's human nature and every side does it.

[lupinus]

Bury My Heart at Appomattox.

The War Between the States is an ugly piece of history. I am not a Southern Apologist, except sometimes. Certainly not a confederate apologist. The Old South was rotten in many ways, and not just slavery. I believe it was in ways a rigid system that stifled enterprise and progress.

That said, the fighting and bleeding in the war was not done by the perfumed aristocrats on their well-staffed plantations. It was done mostly by farmers and sharecroppers, who fought a Northern invasion. I do not wish to pass over the jingoism present on both sides in the days leading up to the war. Both sides were asking for it. And both sides paid for it. I don't think I even need to mention in this group that white supremacy was stock in trade on both sides of the Potomac in 1861.

Which brings us to the reason the Battle Flag still flies on the South Carolina Confederate War Memorial, and why the South has such a deep and abiding cultural memory of the War.

22.6 percent of Southern men who were between the ages of 20 and 24 in 1860 lost their lives because of the war. (direct quote from History.com)

If you pile on top of that sheer and catastrophic loss of life caused by the total war waged by Sherman, Sheridan, and Grant (which was never visited upon the North, even when Lee marched into PA), as well as the total economic losses in livestock, cotton, and other goods, and even in addition to that, the real and perceived injustices of Reconstruction--

You have a very ugly soup, which has manifested itself in the last 50 years mostly as harmless, outsized, cultural pride and not a small sensitivity to redneck jokes. And the flying of the Battle Flag.

Factor in also the near-total lack of these experiences in the North, especially the Northeast, where many families have not even been in the country for more than 4 generations, tops. It's no wonder my northern friends don't get it, and Facebook is awash with posts telling me to "Get over it" and that one caller to Mike Gallagher this morning said the South needed to "submit" to the North. *spit*

It is a damnable shame that the War occurred and that people died under the flags of the confederacy. It is a somewhat less damnable shame, in my opinion, that the flag was used as a minor accessory, for a short period of time, to repress people of color.

If the South, as a cultural unit, has made mistakes, most of us have owned it. We paid for our sins up to and after 1865 in blood. I think South Carolina has earned the right to put the Battle Flag, or any other flag it desires, on the War Memorial.

I refuse to apologize for the despicable turd who murdered those poor people. I refuse to be associated with him. I will tell the rest of the world to go to hell before I allow them to tell me what that flag does and does not stand for.

The greatest tragedy, is how fast the cultural Left was able to leverage a long-dormant issue, chiefly with the use of social media, into a defining moment for a State that really just wants to mind its own business and be left alone. And I resent that capability and its implications much more than I resent the possibility of the Flag being taken down. Because that is going to have ever-increasing ramifications down the line. Think of it--a Governor calls a press conference over a nearly-dead issue in the space of 48 hours. All because some ignorant *expletive deleted*ck decided to be outraged that the Battle Flag wasn't at half mast on Thursday.

That's real power.

Lincoln would have loved that *expletive deleted*it.

*expletive deleted*ck me, I'm done. Bury my heart at Appomattox. You can have the goddamned flag, and the rest of the country.

/golf clap


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[Balog]

I don't pretend to know about these things, but isn't saying the Confederates were bad at war a little like saying the 1930s/40s German army was bad at war? They were both good at fighting wars, just bad at choosing enemies. I mean, because they chose enemies with greater resources than themselves.

I can be amazing at throwing punches, but if I choose to punch a man who is surrounded by heavily armed friends who then shoot me am I a "good fighter?" Tactics are good, strategy is better. Starting a fight you can't win with the rationale that your people are morally and culturally superior so you'll win is the definition of bad at war.

[Balog]

When white Southerners bitch about Sherman and Reconstruction it's heritage.

When blacks bitch about slavery and segregation they just need to stfu and get over it.

[RoadKingLarry]

When white Southerners bitch about Sherman and Reconstruction it's heritage.

When blacks bitch about slavery and segregation they just need to stfu and get over it.

How about we reverse those positions?

If southerners need to STFU and get over it then so do the blacks.
While there are plenty of black people still alive who were affected by Jim Crow laws, segregation and institutional racism there is not a.single former US slave still around.

This flap over the southern cross flag is race baiting. Yeah, the subhuman turd that shot up the church used race as an excuse to justify it's atrocity it wasn't the flag that inspired it.
The race pimps are just using this as another wedge to drive into the race issue. If the bastards wanted to start a no-*expletive deleted*it race  war I don't see too much they need to do different.

[Balog]

How about we reverse those positions?

If southerners need to STFU and get over it then so do the blacks.
While there are plenty of black people still alive who were affected by Jim Crow laws, segregation and institutional racism there is not a.single former US slave still around.

This flap over the southern cross flag is race baiting. Yeah, the subhuman turd that shot up the church used race as an excuse to justify it's atrocity it wasn't the flag that inspired it.
The race pimps are just using this as another wedge to drive into the race issue. If the bastards wanted to start a no-*expletive deleted*it race  war I don't see too much they need to do different.

Never said otherwise. But you have to admit that the folks who complain the loudest about blacks saying that Jim Crow and segregation etc are still having an effect on blacks today also tend to be the ones who blame the problems white Southerners have on Reconstruction policies. No offense to our South'ron APS members.

[Jocassee]

Never said otherwise. But you have to admit that the folks who complain the loudest about blacks saying that Jim Crow and segregation etc are still having an effect on blacks today also tend to be the ones who blame the problems white Southerners have on Reconstruction policies. No offense to our South'ron APS members.

The difference between blacks and whites is that whites aren't still blaming Sherman for their current, personal issues. Some still use it to dredge up animus and may make a claim that Southerners as a group are still being kept back, but I've never heard that. Not since I've been born, that I can recall, except maybe on Confederate apologist wingnut sites.

Compare to Eric Holder, who seems to think Jim Crow laws were repealed at the end of the Bush presidency.

My sole point in my post is that Sherman, Sheridan et al it play heavily into the cultural memory of the war.

[makattak]

Never said otherwise. But you have to admit that the folks who complain the loudest about blacks saying that Jim Crow and segregation etc are still having an effect on blacks today also tend to be the ones who blame the problems white Southerners have on Reconstruction policies. No offense to our South'ron APS members.

Cultures can hold grudges for centuries, if not millennia. The effects of Reconstruction are still within familial memories (my grandaddy would tell me...).

When you wage total war on a people, especially ones that had not done the same, they remember it.

Sherman may have won the war, but he made reconciliation that much harder, as evidenced by the latent hard feelings even 150 years later. (thankfully, at a much lower intensity, but still exist.)

[wmenorr67]

My thoughts is as with any symbol it can be pervesed.  Look at the Swastika.  It is a symbol with mulitple meanings in varius cultures for hundreds of years until the 1930's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Swastika

[brimic]

Lolz.

[Chuck Dye]

My main issue with the current brouhaha is that the breast beaters, hair tearers, wailers, and gnashers of teeth seem more about getting their way than anything else.  It reminds me of the '60s shifting name game:  "Hey Whitey!  I am no longer Negro, I'm Afro-American!  Jump through that hoop 'til I change it again!"

The other side?  That flag is, to me, a symbol of a spectacular losing cause.  I amuses me that Bubba should celebrate such failure (often unaware.)

[Ned Hamford]

Anyone else notice that when talking about the American flag they couldn't care less, its just a piece of fabric, crazy to have laws protecting it and folks are crazy to care ect ect... but when talking about the confederate flag, omg its evil, its racist, its a symbol of oppression ect ect.?

Just another example of the one way ratchet that is modern liberal thought and our apparent political progression. 

[MechAg94]

My main issue with the current brouhaha is that the breast beaters, hair tearers, wailers, and gnashers of teeth seem more about getting their way than anything else.  It reminds me of the '60s shifting name game:  "Hey Whitey!  I am no longer Negro, I'm Afro-American!  Jump through that hoop 'til I change it again!"

The other side?  That flag is, to me, a symbol of a spectacular losing cause.  I amuses me that Bubba should celebrate such failure (often unaware.)

Are soldiers who fought in Vietnam still proud of serving in the military over there despite the fact that South Vietnam was eventually overrun?  

[roo_ster]

I knew what he said. It was all about slavery, all the other things were important only as they related to the central thesis of slavery. I'm sure he's masterful in his baiting activities elsewhere but it didn't work here.

If it was "all about slavery," the United States had the perfect opportunity to remedy that situation when the slave-owning seceding states left and crafted their own sovereign country.  I refer to, of course, the slave-owning states that remained in the Union.  If it was "all about slavery," the Union would have cleaned house from the get-go, when the secession of the southern states left Congress and the union left the Republicans with unassailable majorities in the House and Senate.  But Lincoln and the Republicans did not use their power to eradicate slavery from their borders when presented this golden opportunity.  Revealed preference and all that.

Slavery was but one issue of many.  Oh, it was near & dear to the slave-owning class, but it was a secondary issue to most on both sides, downstream of the primary issues.  There is way too much documentation and fact to ignore on this point.  

Cultures can hold grudges for centuries, if not millennia. The effects of Reconstruction are still within familial memories (my grandaddy would tell me...).

When you wage total war on a people, especially ones that had not done the same, they remember it.

Sherman may have won the war, but he made reconciliation that much harder, as evidenced by the latent hard feelings even 150 years later. (thankfully, at a much lower intensity, but still exist.)

One reason I think were wrong to intervene in the Balkans.  After what the Turks and their Muslim converts did to the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes--for centuries--some payback was in order.  Still is, I'd warrant.

[Balog]

Cultures can hold grudges for centuries, if not millennia. The effects of Reconstruction are still within familial memories (my grandaddy would tell me...).

When you wage total war on a people, especially ones that had not done the same, they remember it.

Sherman may have won the war, but he made reconciliation that much harder, as evidenced by the latent hard feelings even 150 years later. (thankfully, at a much lower intensity, but still exist.)

And yet the same people whining about the march to the sea scoff indignantly at the notion that Jim Crow and segregation (let alone slavery) might have any cultural impact on blacks.

[Balog]

If it was "all about slavery," the United States had the perfect opportunity to remedy that situation when the slave-owning seceding states left and crafted their own sovereign country.  I refer to, of course, the slave-owning states that remained in the Union.  If it was "all about slavery," the Union would have cleaned house from the get-go, when the secession of the southern states left Congress and the union left the Republicans with unassailable majorities in the House and Senate.  But Lincoln and the Republicans did not use their power to eradicate slavery from their borders when presented this golden opportunity.  Revealed preference and all that.

Slavery was but one issue of many.  Oh, it was near & dear to the slave-owning class, but it was a secondary issue to most on both sides, downstream of the primary issues.  There is way too much documentation and fact to ignore on this point.  


One reason I think were wrong to intervene in the Balkans.  After what the Turks and their Muslim converts did to the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes--for centuries--some payback was in order.  Still is, I'd warrant.

Re the part in bold, you should really try reading the foundational documents of the CSA. Jeff Davis et al disagrees with your position.

[TommyGunn]

Lolz.

   No no no no no no a zillion times NO!

[Pb]

rooster, the Democratic party in the south had three main grievances against the Republican Party:

1) The South opposed tariffs; Lincoln supported them.
2) The South opposed federal spending on infrastructure (ports, railroads etc); Lincoln was a fan.
3) The Democratic Party in the South loved slavery and wanted to spread it to all new states; they were also furious with the north over the failure to enforce the fugitive slave acts.  Lincoln opposed new slave states.  The south realized that new free states in Congress would eventually endanger the institution of slavery itself.

Reason #3 was probably the main reason for the CSA leaving the Union, though the others had a role too.

Not all of the slave states left the Union because they all weren't as foolish as the CSA.

Now, on the flip side- the North didn't fight the CSA to get rid of slavery (for the most part- there certainly were abolitionists who did).  The fought to "save the Union."

Both sides had totally different goals.

[Perd Hapley]

If it was "all about slavery," the United States had the perfect opportunity to remedy that situation when the slave-owning seceding states left and crafted their own sovereign country.  I refer to, of course, the slave-owning states that remained in the Union.  If it was "all about slavery," the Union would have cleaned house from the get-go, when the secession of the southern states left Congress and the union left the Republicans with unassailable majorities in the House and Senate.  But Lincoln and the Republicans did not use their power to eradicate slavery from their borders when presented this golden opportunity.  Revealed preference and all that.

That makes no sense.