Imperial Esplanade wrote:"And, to quote my Southern grandfather, if a frog had wings, he wouldn't bump his ass on the ground when he hops."
I have absolutely no idea what you're attempting saying that in regards to.
It's a way of saying that "If this had happened differently, then we'd view it differently" isn't an especially meaningful line of conversation, since it's self-evident, and doesn't prove anything of importance.
"The Union didn't abolish slavery before the war. The Union had taken practically no action on slavery one way or the other, except in the guise of compromises that only delayed the inevitable. Slavery was the chief cause of the war. This has been established. If you want to start another goddamned Civil War thread, then I'll give you plenty of sources to back that basic historical fact."
Are you kidding me? Slavery was abolished everywhere but the border-states and below in the Union. Read up on your basic US history. Elementary schoolchildren know this to be true.
Since I've made previous references to slave states and free states, I thought that it would be obvious that I was speaking of no action but these compromises being made on a national level. The United States government had done nothing to limit the spread of slavery, and certainly had not outlawed it.
Context. Learn it. Love it. Live it.
And yes slavery was a chief cause... did I deny that anywhere? No, but the reasons run deeper than that. For decades prior, the south had felt relatively more and more isolated (which includes more reasons than just slavery) which only spurred a growing sense of nationalism. This was more than just a war to keep their slaves, it was a war to split from the US and start a new nation.
http://personal.tcu.edu/swoodworth/Craven.htm
One of many scholarly reports who agree with the belief that the civil war wasn't just regulated strictly to slavery. That's quite a naive point to hold onto.
I read the paper. Maybe it's the sleep deprivation, but I can't find any motivation listed that wasn't tied directly or indirectly to slavery. Care to help?
"It's called a Civil War because it fits the definition of a civil war."
Nowhere, in that definition, does it account for secessionist movements, which was exactly what the confederacy was. They weren't fighting to keep their slaves and remain a part of the United States, THEY WANTED TO BECOME AN INDEPENDENT NATION. That is not a civil war, that is a war of independence. Again, this is something that elementary school children know.
Yes. Let's go back to that definition, shall we?
: a war between groups of people in the same country
Nowhere does it list the motivation for the war as being of import when it comes to the definition. They were of the same country. That they wished to become an independent one is absolutely irrelevant when it comes to whether or not the term fits.
"I don't have any issue with some regional pride, though I think that it can be a bit silly. The issue is with the symbol that you chose, which was first used by people who were killing their fellow countrymen in order to maintain their right to keep slaves (Yes, what they were trying to do was to establish their independence. They wished to do so out of fear that the political makeup in the United States had shifted to an anti-slave position, and that their "peculiar institution" would be outlawed). If you want to show German pride, don't fly a swastika, and if you want to show Southern pride, don't fly a Confederate flag."
That's fine and all, just understand that it's your opinion and I respect that. I have to respectfully disagree though, because the swastika wasn't the flag of Germany, it was the flag of the Nazi political party and the defacto flag of the tyranny that Adolf Hitler instilled afterward. The Dixie Flag was the dejure flag of the Confederacy of the United States, and is not directly related to slavery or even institutional racism. It's just simply the flag of a failed aspiring state. Apples and oranges. Not only that, but people don't use the Dixie Flag due to its' historical significance, or even in support of the confederacy or any of its' practices, so that's actually entirely irrelevant.
Yet it has the same meaning to people who view it. The fact that you don't get this is mind-boggling. You're parsing technicalities when the point is that people will understandably look at that flag and see it as the symbol of slavers who fought to hold on to their right to own, beat, maim, rape, and flog their fellow human beings while profiting off of their forced, unpaid labor. It's an awful symbol created for awful people. It's a symbol not of the best of the South, but of the worst it's ever been. The South has so much to recommend it, and yet for some reason, people choose a flag that represents everything that was truly evil about it.
"If you're proud to be Americans, don't fly a flag that was originally a symbol of people who were trying to kill as many Americans as possible so that they could enslave people. It's a stupid symbol to use, and I suspect that it alienates any number of people who would otherwise either be sympathetic or not care."
Again, entirely your opinion and I respect that. I still have to respectfully disagree though, because the confederacy wasn't 'trying to kill as many Americans as possible so that they could enslave people,' they were fighting for independence. Yes, it would be an independent state that would've most likely legalized slavery, but I suspect your tone and your view would been quite different if the confederacy had done an about-face and suddenly opposed legalized, systemic slavery.
Remember the bit about a frog having wings?
Anyway, it's utterly disingenuous to state that they were fighting for independence, not the right to hold slaves. Of course they were fighting for the right to independence. The reason that they wanted this independence was because they wanted to continue to own slaves, and saw that as being in danger if the balance tipped towards free states.
The fact is, the Confederate Flag represented the Confederate State of America during the 1860's, that's the only thing it really represented historically... culturally today, it's not ever used for its' historical representation or to support what that could've been state would have stood for, but rather solely for southern identity. Like the flag of Scotland is a source of pride for Scots, the flag of the Confederacy is a source of pride for southerners.
So you use a symbol of the worst aspects of the antebellum South, and their willingness to kill their fellow human beings in order to ensure their ability to enslave other human beings. That's not good marketing.
Yes, I understand it has a tainted past... but it's not the point,
No, that is the entire fucking point.
it's a flag our region once united under (albeit for relatively negative reasons) and is used as a source for positive, constructive pride today... for all the same reasons the flag of Scotland is a source of positive, constructive pride to them.
Scotland wanted to break off from England in order to keep owning people?
]If anything, I think you should note how such a flag that represented a negative, toxic evil as you make it out to be (for some reason, solely attributing it to slavery) could now be used for entirely different (and now positive) reasons.
I don't think that you realize just how irrevocably tainted that symbol is by what my Southern ancestors did.
