Confederate Emblems to be Removed Nationwide.

[Chuukango]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/23/us/south-carolina-confederate-flag-dylann-roof.html

I disagree with this, because I don't belive the Confederate Battle Flag to be a symbol of racism. But I posted this to hear the thoughts and opinions of those on NSG. So, what is your stance on this issue?

I agree.
Completely

[Laerod]

I'm not going to debate with someone like you. I'm not into self-harm.

If I were someone that deliberately rolled critical misses, I wouldn't want to either.

[-The West Coast-]

I'm not going to debate with someone like you. I'm not into self-harm.

If I were someone that deliberately rolled critical misses, I wouldn't want to either.

It's too bad I'm not.

[Laerod]

If I were someone that deliberately rolled critical misses, I wouldn't want to either.

It's too bad I'm not.

Another natural 1. Diplomacy check failed.

[Mavorpen]

An appropriate move given how Dukes of Hazzard wasn't really all that great a show and served to relativate Confederate apologism.

You seem confused, did you read it at all?

Oh but it get's better!

The fact that you were exclusively bitching about how the Confederate flag(s) got taken down unmasks your dedication to erasing history.

My favorite part though:

No history is being erased.

I'm not going to debate with someone like you. I'm not into self-harm.

Translation: "Wow, my failure to read was exposed. Better pretend that I still won by avoiding the rebuttal and passive aggressively attacking the poster."

[Tankara]

I have seen a bunch of "The confederate flag stands for racism". I ought to remind yall that this was a fight for slavery, yes it was racist, but when the north won it didn't end racism, even in the north there was still racism just not as bad as the south. There were still many issues that happened later, I mean Mississippi didn't completely integrate schools until 1970. Arkansas capital Little Rock shut down it's school systems to keep blacks out. There are issues happening now that include racism, i would name a few, but I don't really want to offend anyone. I think it is fine to put the flag up on private property, but don't it put in public places. It is a still really important part of America's history though. The government, if you have noticed is trying to be completely, politically correct this is one reason they are trying get get rid of the confederate flag. This can be fatal. This is true, in California 5 high-school students wore American flag shirts on Cinco De Mayo, the Principal thought this would offend Mexican students, so he sent them home. That is an example of political correctness. If America was 100% "politically correct" we wouldn't be able to hang up the American Flag, because being politically correct means no hate crime, no discrimination, no offending people with "politics". The American Flag just like the Confederate Flag can offend people, which makes it politically incorrect. If you dont believe me search "what does being politically correct mean" or what does being politically correct mean for America.

[Estlund]

I have seen a bunch of "The confederate flag stands for racism". I ought to remind yall that this was a fight for slavery, yes it was racist, but when the north won it didn't end racism, even in the north there was still racism just not as bad as the south. There were still many issues that happened later, I mean Mississippi didn't completely integrate schools until 1970. Arkansas capital Little Rock shut down it's school systems to keep blacks out. There are issues happening now that include racism, i would name a few, but I don't really want to offend anyone. I think it is fine to put the flag up on private property, but don't it put in public places. It is a still really important part of America's history though. The government, if you have noticed is trying to be completely, politically correct this is one reason they are trying get get rid of the confederate flag. This can be fatal. This is true, in California 5 high-school students wore American flag shirts on Cinco De Mayo, the Principal thought this would offend Mexican students, so he sent them home. That is an example of political correctness. If America was 100% "politically correct" we wouldn't be able to hang up the American Flag, because being politically correct means no hate crime, no discrimination, no offending people with "politics". The American Flag just like the Confederate Flag can offend people, which makes it politically incorrect. If you dont believe me search "what does being politically correct mean" or what does being politically correct mean for America.

To be fair, the Radical Republicans tried their best to create an equal society in the South, they could've done it too, if it weren't for those meddling Democrats and their KKK.

[Laerod]

I have seen a bunch of "The confederate flag stands for racism". I ought to remind yall that this was a fight for slavery, yes it was racist, but when the north won it didn't end racism, even in the north there was still racism just not as bad as the south. There were still many issues that happened later, I mean Mississippi didn't completely integrate schools until 1970. Arkansas capital Little Rock shut down it's school systems to keep blacks out.

This is... nonsense. Note how your two prime examples are Southern. And there's a qualitative difference as to the symbolism of the American flag and the Confederate slaver banner. For instance while you will find racists waving the American flag to support their protest against the Little Rock Nine, you'll also find them waving the Confederate flag. Finding any blacks carrying the slaver banner in a manner of pride is something that will be really hard to do, particularly concerning pictures from the events you're referring to, while finding American flags being used to support the Civil Rights movement is not that hard.

The US flag has been used by racists, but by people opposing them as well, while the Confederate flag is pretty much exclusively used by open and closet racists.

[New Skaaneland]

I don't think black people have to use the flag for it to have another symbolism than that of slavery. It's enough if nonracist white people embrace it.

[USS Monitor]

I don't think black people have to use the flag for it to have another symbolism than that of slavery. It's enough if nonracist white people embrace it.

It already has other meanings besides slavery.

It also represents regional hatred, treason, unprovoked war, and the needless slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Americans. These are not things that ought to be celebrated.

[Salandriagado]

I don't think it should be removed since it is people's right to purchase whatever they want at Walmart.

No it isn't. That's the single most absurd statement I've read all day, and believe me, that's an achievement. Nobody's rights are being violated by the fact that Walmart does not sell literally every product ever conceived of. I can't walk into Walmart and buy 15 tons of horse manure either, but that doesn't violate anybody's rights.

4)At the end of the day the swastika is just a bunch of lines and right angles. I mean, it's not like symbols actually represent anything, right? That would be ridiculous.

Yet Amazon continues to sell things with swastikas with one hand while banning the Confederate Battle Flag entirely with the other.

I have a feeling the difference between "moral justice" and "appeasement of a pissed-off majority" is gradually fading into nonexistence.

This is neither. They're selling exactly the products that they think will make them a net profit. Maybe there's more WWII reenactors out there than US civil war reenactors? Welcome to capitalism.

[Dyakovo]

Yet Amazon continues to sell things with swastikas with one hand while banning the Confederate Battle Flag entirely with the other.

Source. Similar statements have been shown to be fabrications so far, so any unsourced claims of Amazon doing this requires explicit evidence so we may know if it actually happened and if so, under what context.

It's true

[Dyakovo]

An appropriate move given how Dukes of Hazzard wasn't really all that great a show and served to relativate Confederate apologism.

You seem confused, did you read it at all?

Oh but it get's better!

The fact that you were exclusively bitching about how the Confederate flag(s) got taken down unmasks your dedication to erasing history.

My favorite part though:

No history is being erased.

I'm not going to debate with someone like you. I'm not into self-harm.

What, someone knowledgeable?

[Dyakovo]

I have seen a bunch of "The confederate flag stands for racism". I ought to remind yall that this was a fight for slavery, yes it was racist, but when the north won it didn't end racism, even in the north there was still racism just not as bad as the south. There were still many issues that happened later, I mean Mississippi didn't completely integrate schools until 1970. Arkansas capital Little Rock shut down it's school systems to keep blacks out. There are issues happening now that include racism, i would name a few, but I don't really want to offend anyone. I think it is fine to put the flag up on private property, but don't it put in public places. It is a still really important part of America's history though. The government, if you have noticed is trying to be completely, politically correct this is one reason they are trying get get rid of the confederate flag. This can be fatal. This is true, in California 5 high-school students wore American flag shirts on Cinco De Mayo, the Principal thought this would offend Mexican students, so he sent them home. That is an example of political correctness. If America was 100% "politically correct" we wouldn't be able to hang up the American Flag, because being politically correct means no hate crime, no discrimination, no offending people with "politics". The American Flag just like the Confederate Flag can offend people, which makes it politically incorrect. If you dont believe me search "what does being politically correct mean" or what does being politically correct mean for America.

Wow, really? The Civil War didn't end racism? I never would have guessed,,,

[Laerod]

Source. Similar statements have been shown to be fabrications so far, so any unsourced claims of Amazon doing this requires explicit evidence so we may know if it actually happened and if so, under what context.

It's true

Most disappointing.

[Ifreann]

Seems legit.

You have to be very careful about making Civil War threads because you never know what kind of lunacy will come out of them.

Indeed. Why, boats might even start posting!

---

This erasure of American history is getting ridiculous. Fort Sumter furling its Confederate flag...

About time, the Union won ages ago.

[Omega America II]

I've lived in South Carolia all my life.

A state that doesn't exist in our world? This explains a lot.

You know what I meant, I meant South Carolina.

[USS Monitor]

A state that doesn't exist in our world? This explains a lot.

You know what I meant, I meant South Carolina.

It would have made more sense if that wasn't a typo.

[Neo-Chicago]

While I most definitely agree with the removal of the flag from government buildings, I don't think people themselves should be stopped from displaying so should they choose. Not that they have prevented people from doing so (at least not yet), I'm just saying should they try to in the future. It's up to the companies who are removing the flag from their products to do so, and they're providing a service to us, it's not as though they owe it to us to produce certain products.

[Occupied Deutschland]

I don't think black people have to use the flag for it to have another symbolism than that of slavery. It's enough if nonracist white people embrace it.

It already has other meanings besides slavery.

It also represents regional hatred (1), treason (2), unprovoked war (3), and the needless slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Americans (4). These are not things that ought to be celebrated.

1) Or pride. Considering how the South is denigrated by those in the former Union states, this isn't exactly a point unless one is going to extend it to cover the US flag. At which point the whole process is rather cheesy and useless.
2) Treason should be celebrated.
3) Not objectionable, considering the other instances of nation-states carrying out 'unprovoked' attacks on others but still retaining their flag...Once again, applicable to the US flag.
4) Apparently, it was rather necessary though. The South wasn't going to give up its slaves without a war. At least, that seems to be the general consensus I've read. Perhaps it's inaccurate, but at that point one extends slavery for a long time into the future past its 1865 abolition and any guess as to when it might have been abolished without a war is entirely speculative.
Which is rather hard to condemn in a historical sense. The Civil War, or some variant of it, was pretty much going to happen as soon as the cotton gin was invented and slavery took off again as a profitable and comfortable manner of making a living in the South.
And, again, the needlessness of the war's deaths are equally attributable to the US as well, as the US refused to accept secession and the continuation and propagation of Southern slavery.

[Yumyumsuppertime]

It already has other meanings besides slavery.

It also represents regional hatred (1), treason (2), unprovoked war (3), and the needless slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Americans (4). These are not things that ought to be celebrated.

1) Or pride. Considering how the South is denigrated by those in the former Union states, this isn't exactly a point unless one is going to extend it to cover the US flag. At which point the whole process is rather cheesy and useless.
2) Treason should be celebrated.
3) Not objectionable, considering the other instances of nation-states carrying out 'unprovoked' attacks on others but still retaining their flag...Once again, applicable to the US flag.
4) Apparently, it was rather necessary though. The South wasn't going to give up its slaves without a war. At least, that seems to be the general consensus I've read. Perhaps it's inaccurate, but at that point one extends slavery for a long time into the future past its 1865 abolition and any guess as to when it might have been abolished without a war is entirely speculative.
Which is rather hard to condemn in a historical sense. The Civil War, or some variant of it, was pretty much going to happen as soon as the cotton gin was invented and slavery took off again as a profitable and comfortable manner of making a living in the South.
And, again, the needlessness of the war's deaths are equally attributable to the US as well, as the US refused to accept secession and the continuation and propagation of Southern slavery.

1) Pride in what? In fighting for the right to keep slaves?
2) Treason in the name of a just cause should be celebrated. The right to own and traffic in one's fellow human beings is not a just cause.
3) Except those nations won.
4) Hard to condemn in a historical sense? The U.S. should just give up on the idea of a perpetual union? Nonsense. Their motives for breaking off were both abhorrent and not based in any sense of reality. The United States was under no obligation to let a significant portion of its land go without a fight, and in fact, it would have been suicidal as a precedent. Also? The U.S. had made no moves to end Southern slavery, nor was there any legislation on the horizon that would have been likely to be successful in ending the practice.

The South threw a temper tantrum because for the first time in decades, there was a President in office who would not cater to their every whim, and who had some sympathy for the abolitionist cause. Rather than stay in the Union and make their case, they decided to kill their fellow countrymen on the off chance that they might lose some smidgen of the ovefrwhelming political power they'd enjoyed until that day. It was the equivalent of someone taking his ball (that he doesn't actually own) and going home once he's told that he doesn't get to both play the game and be the referee, only in this case, the person returned to the game and slaughtered the other players in protest before finally being put down.

[USS Monitor]

It already has other meanings besides slavery.

It also represents regional hatred (1), treason (2), unprovoked war (3), and the needless slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Americans (4). These are not things that ought to be celebrated.

1) Or pride. Considering how the South is denigrated by those in the former Union states, this isn't exactly a point unless one is going to extend it to cover the US flag. At which point the whole process is rather cheesy and useless.

The Union flag is not the flag of the North. It is the flag of the Union. The South is also part of the Union.

2) Treason should be celebrated.

Not as a general thing.

3) Not objectionable, considering the other instances of nation-states carrying out 'unprovoked' attacks on others but still retaining their flag...Once again, applicable to the US flag.

It is objectionable. The fact that the US has done it is not an aspect of our history that we should be proud of.

4) Apparently, it was rather necessary though. The South wasn't going to give up its slaves without a war. At least, that seems to be the general consensus I've read. Perhaps it's inaccurate, but at that point one extends slavery for a long time into the future past its 1865 abolition and any guess as to when it might have been abolished without a war is entirely speculative.
Which is rather hard to condemn in a historical sense. The Civil War, or some variant of it, was pretty much going to happen as soon as the cotton gin was invented and slavery took off again as a profitable and comfortable manner of making a living in the South.
And, again, the needlessness of the war's deaths are equally attributable to the US as well, as the US refused to accept secession and the continuation and propagation of Southern slavery.

It was not necessary for the South to refuse to accept abolition without a war.

[Grave_n_idle]

This erasure of American history is getting ridiculous. Fort Sumter furling its Confederate flag, and TV Land pulling re-runs of the Dukes of Hazzard because of a car having a Confederate flag on the roof are knee-jerk reactions to a mass shooting that had nothing to do with the South or the Confederate States of America. Restore the flag on Fort Sumter and restore the flag for sale across the country; its a person's right to own a flag, even if its controversial. Isn't that what the USA is all about? Freedom of Speech, freedom to own what you like and express your own beliefs? Owning a the flag of the Army of Northern Virginia doesn't harm anyone. It never has. It's just a flag that symbolized General Robert E. Lee's army during a time of great American conflict. It's a part of our history that should not be erased or hidden.

It's a bad part of American history. You learn from your mistakes, you don't keep banging on and on about how great they were.

And that's the only value the Confederate flag has - it's the symbol of a bunch of people making a particularly dumb mistake.

[Occupied Deutschland]

1) Or pride. Considering how the South is denigrated by those in the former Union states, this isn't exactly a point unless one is going to extend it to cover the US flag. At which point the whole process is rather cheesy and useless.
2) Treason should be celebrated.
3) Not objectionable, considering the other instances of nation-states carrying out 'unprovoked' attacks on others but still retaining their flag...Once again, applicable to the US flag.
4) Apparently, it was rather necessary though. The South wasn't going to give up its slaves without a war. At least, that seems to be the general consensus I've read. Perhaps it's inaccurate, but at that point one extends slavery for a long time into the future past its 1865 abolition and any guess as to when it might have been abolished without a war is entirely speculative.
Which is rather hard to condemn in a historical sense. The Civil War, or some variant of it, was pretty much going to happen as soon as the cotton gin was invented and slavery took off again as a profitable and comfortable manner of making a living in the South.
And, again, the needlessness of the war's deaths are equally attributable to the US as well, as the US refused to accept secession and the continuation and propagation of Southern slavery.

1) Pride in what? In fighting for the right to keep slaves?
2) Treason in the name of a just cause should be celebrated. The right to own and traffic in one's fellow human beings is not a just cause.
3) Except those nations won.
4) Hard to condemn in a historical sense? The U.S. should just give up on the idea of a perpetual union? Nonsense. Their motives for breaking off were both abhorrent and not based in any sense of reality. The United States was under no obligation to let a significant portion of its land go without a fight, and in fact, it would have been suicidal as a precedent. Also? The U.S. had made no moves to end Southern slavery, nor was there any legislation on the horizon that would have been likely to be successful in ending the practice.

The South threw a temper tantrum because for the first time in decades, there was a President in office who would not cater to their every whim, and who had some sympathy for the abolitionist cause. Rather than stay in the Union and make their case, they decided to kill their fellow countrymen on the off chance that they might lose some smidgen of the ovefrwhelming political power they'd enjoyed until that day. It was the equivalent of someone taking his ball (that he doesn't actually own) and going home once he's told that he doesn't get to both play the game and be the referee, only in this case, the person returned to the game and slaughtered the other players in protest before finally being put down.

1) In having once, and still, belonging to a broad cultural unit with its basis in agrarianism. You know, regionalism. As the point was responding to.
2) Treason in general is a virtue. It is up to one to specify the reasons any treason is unjust.
3) What a stupid basis to put this on.
4) But it likely would not have been expanded, or allowed to expand considering Lincoln's disdain for popular sovereignty as a means of deciding the slavery question. The War was going to happen one way or another, unless the US was headed by someone unwilling to go to war in order to ensure a perpetual union.

The Union flag is not the flag of the North. It is the flag of the Union. The South is also part of the Union.

As a whole.
As a region, meanwhile, and when speaking culturally and politically, the South is very much distinct from the rest of the 'Union'. At one point such differences resulted in them becoming a separate country entirely.

Though there is a certain irony in those most opposed to flag-burning, and most respectful of the US flag in other aspects, are likely a broad majority in the South.

Not as a general thing.

We disagree.

It is objectionable. The fact that the US has done it is not an aspect of our history that we should be proud of.

And yet the emblem those deeds were committed under is our national flag.
How embarrassing.

It was not necessary for the South to refuse to accept abolition without a war.

Yes, it was.
Because the South of the 1860s is not the America of today, or of the 1960s where opposition to slavery was the norm. Unless one believes that time-traveling educators from the modern day could go back and convince them otherwise, it was quite necessary. In much the same way that the Nazis wouldn't accept Jews as human without a war.

[Yumyumsuppertime]

This erasure of American history is getting ridiculous. Fort Sumter furling its Confederate flag, and TV Land pulling re-runs of the Dukes of Hazzard because of a car having a Confederate flag on the roof are knee-jerk reactions to a mass shooting that had nothing to do with the South or the Confederate States of America. Restore the flag on Fort Sumter and restore the flag for sale across the country; its a person's right to own a flag, even if its controversial. Isn't that what the USA is all about? Freedom of Speech, freedom to own what you like and express your own beliefs? Owning a the flag of the Army of Northern Virginia doesn't harm anyone. It never has. It's just a flag that symbolized General Robert E. Lee's army during a time of great American conflict. It's a part of our history that should not be erased or hidden.

It's a bad part of American history. You learn from your mistakes, you don't keep banging on and on about how great they were.

And that's the only value the Confederate flag has - it's the symbol of a bunch of people making a particularly dumb mistake.

That last sentence may be the most beautifully succinct description of the flag that I've ever read.