An inept bomber.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Misguided person bombs Wal-Mart.

It is seen by some as an icon of slavery and racism while others say the banner symbolizes their heritage and history.

 In this case the heritage and history is slavery and racism.  The forth estate is full of euphemisms.

[Larks2242 251]

I disagree with that, Slavery is no longer part of it, I fly the flag but I do not support slavery of any kind,  It is all about disassociating yourself with the ideology of the north and the west and  having pride  in who you are.

I don't believe in it being used as a form of discrimination and I don't put it up for those reasons.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I disagree with that, Slavery is no longer part of it, I fly the flag but I do not support slavery of any kind,  It is all about disassociating yourself with the ideology of the north and the west and  having pride  in who you are.

I don't believe in it being used as a form of discrimination and I don't put it up for those reasons.

It means what it means.  It is the battle flag of the Confederacy which has been defunct for sometime now.  Nobody flies the French Fleurs de Lys up here (gold on white).  Only Quebec has some of these in their provincial flag, but they are argent on azure.

Basically the Stars and Bars is a symbol of the losers.  Don't you think it is time to forget it and join the rest of the country?  The time for this kind of defiance is long past.  Mississippi needs to revise its state flag.  Remember what follows hubris.

  Edited November 3, 2015 by A Nonny Moose  

[MintberryCrunch 83]

Sometimes I can't help but think that people who feel so incredibly strongly in favor of that flag don't care about it because of "heritage". It just sounds like BS. The flag had a resurgence in popularity during the Civil Rights era as a way to show opposition to desegregation and the Civil Rights movement. You can't just pretend it doesn't have negative associations for many people. That doesn't mean people shouldn't have a right to own it or fly it, but Wal-Mart also has a right to not sell it. 

[Larks2242 251]

I disagree with that, Slavery is no longer part of it, I fly the flag but I do not support slavery of any kind,  It is all about disassociating yourself with the ideology of the north and the west and  having pride  in who you are.

I don't believe in it being used as a form of discrimination and I don't put it up for those reasons.

It means what it means.  It is the battle flag of the Confederacy which has been defunct for sometime now.  Nobody flies the French Fleurs de Lys up here (gold on white).  Only Quebec has some of these in their provincial flag, but they are argent on azure.

Basically the Stars and Bars is a symbol of the losers.  Don't you think it is time to forget it and join the rest of the country?  The time for this kind of defiance is long past.  Mississippi needs to revise its state flag.  Remember what follows hubris.

It is not time to forget it, Those who forget are destined to repeat, Mississippi does not need to revise anything, Removing the flag and succumbing to political correctness is not the solution.

Political correctness is what is destroying this country, None of this was an issue until 2015 and should not be the issue it is today.

[Munchiez 74]

I disagree with that, Slavery is no longer part of it, I fly the flag but I do not support slavery of any kind,  It is all about disassociating yourself with the ideology of the north and the west and  having pride  in who you are.

I don't believe in it being used as a form of discrimination and I don't put it up for those reasons.

It means what it means.  It is the battle flag of the Confederacy which has been defunct for sometime now.  Nobody flies the French Fleurs de Lys up here (gold on white).  Only Quebec has some of these in their provincial flag, but they are argent on azure.

Basically the Stars and Bars is a symbol of the losers.  Don't you think it is time to forget it and join the rest of the country?  The time for this kind of defiance is long past.  Mississippi needs to revise its state flag.  Remember what follows hubris.

I disagree with that, Slavery is no longer part of it, I fly the flag but I do not support slavery of any kind,  It is all about disassociating yourself with the ideology of the north and the west and  having pride  in who you are.

I don't believe in it being used as a form of discrimination and I don't put it up for those reasons.

It means what it means.  It is the battle flag of the Confederacy which has been defunct for sometime now.  Nobody flies the French Fleurs de Lys up here (gold on white).  Only Quebec has some of these in their provincial flag, but they are argent on azure.

Basically the Stars and Bars is a symbol of the losers.  Don't you think it is time to forget it and join the rest of the country?  The time for this kind of defiance is long past.  Mississippi needs to revise its state flag.  Remember what follows hubris.

It is not time to forget it, Those who forget are destined to repeat, Mississippi does not need to revise anything, Removing the flag and succumbing to political correctness is not the solution.

Political correctness is what is destroying this country, None of this was an issue until 2015 and should not be the issue it is today.

I am from Florida, and have been living in Virginia for a while (back in FL now) but, I've been living in southern states all my life. I've been all over the world and all over the United States. In my town in Virginia, the once Capitol of the Confederacy, people DO fly the flag (General Lees Northern VA battle flag) because they feel a connection to the historical impact of their home. In the town I lived in, Abingdon, there were A LOT of confederate families who have lineage to soldiers who had died in the Civil War. People regularly fly the American flag and rebel flag on the same pole there. It's a historical connection, NOT a "racist" one. There is a black family in Abingdon who proudly fly a rebel flag on their porch because of their HISTORICAL connection to our area.

[Easy Bakes 253]

 how bout a compromise?

Remove it from the state flags but continue to display it at Civil war historical sites?
 

 

[MintberryCrunch 83]

The fact is, the flag is a symbol of heritage and history for some, and for others it is a symbol of racism and slavery. Neither one is "wrong". It means different things to different people. Around here, if you see someone with that flag, they're probably a neo-Nazi, as those are typically the only people in California who enjoy displaying that flag (there is a neo-Nazi organization in Tracy, for example, that uses the battle flag as one of their symbols). No, the flag did not start out with that kind of association, but you can't deny that some people use it for that purpose. Additionally, there are plenty of people in the South who don't care for the flag and don't want it flying in their public buildings. Ultimately it's up to the people to decide whether or not they want to fly it. You can't tell someone they're wrong for liking the flag and using it as a historical symbol, the same way you can't tell someone they're wrong for not liking it because they associate it with racism.

[Duke87 1,070]

My take on the confederate flag is that like any other flag, it's just cloth dyed with a particular pattern of color. It can be taken to symbolize various things but at the end of the day complaining about it is solid #firstworldproblems. Appreciate that our freedom of speech allows us to fly whatever flag we see fit to. There are places in the world where displaying the wrong symbols can get one far worse consequences than criticism from one's peers.

Meanwhile, all this fuss over symbols is a distraction from the real problem. We all see headlines about "Someone flying the confederate flag did a bad thing!" and then try to eradicate said flag from public display as though that's somehow going to stop people from doing bad things. Which of course is absurd. All it does is make people feel better, it's blatant placebo policy. But policy which is far easier to enact than having a serious conversation about why the psychopath had is psychopathy unchecked and untreated, where he learned that members of a particular race were to be the subject of his hatred, and how he was able to so easily get his hands on weapons with which to kill a bunch of them.

 

[AkemiAzula 280]

The swastika is an ancient symbol of luck but if I wore a swastika on my shirt and whistled merrily through town I doubt good luck would come to me.

Technically it is a form of cross.

I always liked the Nazi flag as it is pretty in its simplicity and power, like the cross or the Jews star or the Ankh etc.

A flag is quite rightly as Duke87 points out just a pattern of geometry on some cloth.

I have a tattoo on my right arm of the symbol of the Fire Nation which is the Avatar universes version of a swastika or 'symbol of empire against weakness'.

I support Sozin's policy to exterminate the air nomads. So I naturally am not the sort of PC rebel alliance sympathising type who would have an issue with somebody flying a 'controversial' flag.

But in the case of the Confederacy all I have read of the nations history seems to suggest it was not really... a fire nation or earth kingdom as it were. Its identity was not significantly different to the 'North's.

It is like having a Yorkshire flag. Essentially Yorkshire is English. Maybe different to us in the south of England but I don't see why she needs her own flag awavin.

Methinks the yanks flag covers them all because it doesn't say much besides 'we are some fifty united states'. There is no reason to hate the yankey flag as it has no meaning really.

So Southerners who prefer the Confederate flag must one deduceth feel an attachment to what made the South different at the time of the conflict, or simply associate it with 'the South' as a 'Southern Flag' like a Yorkshireman would a flag with a snippet wearing a flat cap and a white roseflower.

 

At any rate nothing to get up in arms for.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

If there were no "African-Americans" in the U.S., let alone a large presence, you could fly any flag you liked.  However, it is not a matter of political correctness to refrain from waving a red flag in front of a bull, it is a matter of prudence.  It is clear to outside observers that this issue indicates that the U.S. remains divided, and it gives rise to outfits like the KKK and the Neo-NAZI movements.  These right wing fools are bad enough, and don't need any vicarious encouragement.

[Larks2242 251]

If there were no "African-Americans" in the U.S., let alone a large presence, you could fly any flag you liked.  However, it is not a matter of political correctness to refrain from waving a red flag in front of a bull, it is a matter of prudence.  It is clear to outside observers that this issue indicates that the U.S. remains divided, and it gives rise to outfits like the KKK and the Neo-NAZI movements.  These right wing fools are bad enough, and don't need any vicarious encouragement.

We are very divided but one has to realize the things that have happened under the US flag, African Americans didn't get their full rights till 1965 when a racist relunctlent Lyndon Banes Johnson decided it would be the best way to hook them to the democratic party, (Two notable senators Robert Byrd former KKK and Al Gore's father Al Gore Sr. spent the entire day trying to filabuster), The segregation of Asians during WW2, and failure of existence of woman's rights to vote, We could say the US flag is offensive. We could then go on to say how offensive the Japanese, Vietmanese, All the middle east flags and then on to the entire world which would then require eradicating nearly any image of any allegience of a nation. 

[LexusInfernus 908]

 We are very divided but one has to realize the things that have happened under the US flag, African Americans didn't get their full rights till 1965 when a racist relunctlent Lyndon Banes Johnson decided it would be the best way to hook them to the democratic party, (Two notable senators Robert Byrd former KKK and Al Gore's father Al Gore Sr. spent the entire day trying to filabuster), The segregation of Asians during WW2, and failure of existence of woman's rights to vote, We could say the US flag is offensive. We could then go on to say how offensive the Japanese, Vietmanese, All the middle east flags and then on to the entire world which would then require eradicating nearly any image of any allegience of a nation. 

Except that the Confederate Flag is a symbol of one of the few countries in the world (in the illustrious company of Nazi Germany and apartheid era South Africa) that were founded on the principle that humans are not equal and who have waged a war against others in order to keep that principle alive. Sure, other nations have done bad things definitely, but where in those countries these bad things have been rectified by people finally understanding that what they were doing was wrong. The Confederacy (and again along with Nazi Germany) had to be destroyed through a military conflict before they grudgingly accepted they were on the wrong side of history. 

Honestly, saying that you fly the confederate flag out of a historical sense of pride and tradition is really no different or better than a German flying the swastika flag for those same reasons. Those flags represent human societies at some of their lowest points in history, its not right to brush that aside in favor of some more politically acceptable idealized vision of the past. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

@Larks2242 :  I'm sorry, your politics is so far right, I wonder if you wear those blinders to bed.

[AkemiAzula 280]

So not treating everyone equally is bad and this is undeniable. I see. By that logic people who do believe they are superior to others, being people themselves, are equal to the majority who are pc.

Just like with religion nationalism fails because nations are not pure and consistent. In Avatar the nations are all fairly consistent culturally and racism and nationalism make sense in the way a traditional artist abhors cubism.

Alas our world is a fresk world with little prettiness or consistency of style or culture. May it burn forever. 

While idealism is, well, idealistic, I fail to see how flying a flag can be seen as militant or offensive unless it is explicitly used to declare war and followed by action on the ground.

Also Mr Larks has a good point in that every nation has sinned from every perspective unless you are very relaxed morally. All flags could be considered offensive if you make an association.

His mention of womens rights is quite a powerful one. Before last century every flag was offensive to a feminist. 

Also just because a nation is not 'founded upon the principle of mans inequality' does not mean the nation has not just as much an ingrained culture of inequality, as the female example demonstrates.

Why all this outrage over apartheid when to this day in muslim nations women go about veiled and humble and serve their male masters?

Racism is after all just a form of tribalism or nationalism, like supporting Tottenham or Arsenal. Slavery of a race may seem non pc but consider women and the fact in many countries they remain subservient, but we do not cry 'apartheid!' at these nations.

The Confederacy inmho was a failure. And I don't see the point in flying a dead nations flag. But if such an act raises such extraordinary levels of sensitivity it seems a tad over the top.

To demonstrate painfully clearly how subjective all this sensationalism is consider one can be jailed in Germany for giving the 'nazi salute' yet onr could walk into a church and say 'hail Satan' without anything more than being ushered out by the priestmaster.

[Larks2242 251]

 We are very divided but one has to realize the things that have happened under the US flag, African Americans didn't get their full rights till 1965 when a racist relunctlent Lyndon Banes Johnson decided it would be the best way to hook them to the democratic party, (Two notable senators Robert Byrd former KKK and Al Gore's father Al Gore Sr. spent the entire day trying to filabuster), The segregation of Asians during WW2, and failure of existence of woman's rights to vote, We could say the US flag is offensive. We could then go on to say how offensive the Japanese, Vietmanese, All the middle east flags and then on to the entire world which would then require eradicating nearly any image of any allegience of a nation. 

Except that the Confederate Flag is a symbol of one of the few countries in the world (in the illustrious company of Nazi Germany and apartheid era South Africa) that were founded on the principle that humans are not equal and who have waged a war against others in order to keep that principle alive. Sure, other nations have done bad things definitely, but where in those countries these bad things have been rectified by people finally understanding that what they were doing was wrong. The Confederacy (and again along with Nazi Germany) had to be destroyed through a military conflict before they grudgingly accepted they were on the wrong side of history. 

Honestly, saying that you fly the confederate flag out of a historical sense of pride and tradition is really no different or better than a German flying the swastika flag for those same reasons. Those flags represent human societies at some of their lowest points in history, its not right to brush that aside in favor of some more politically acceptable idealized vision of the past. 

Except that unlike Nazis which was founded on hate due to the situation they were in at the time, the Confederate States war was about states rights VS Federal rights, A war that very much still exists today.

The Confederate States  have not had the time other states had, Slavery was on it's way out, Many Southerners  were looking for new ways, the industrial revolution then happens and we are not much different then we are now, It's not as day and night as things seem, No one could hold onto slavery.

I wrote a  bunch more but then my browser crashed and I lost it  but that basically sums up what I wrote.

 

@Larks2242 :  I'm sorry, your politics is so far right, I wonder if you wear those blinders to bed.

I am not even going to dignify that with a reply.

[LexusInfernus 908]

 Except that unlike Nazis which was founded on hate due to the situation they were in at the time, the Confederate States war was about states rights VS Federal rights, A war that very much still exists today.

The Confederate States  have not had the time other states had, Slavery was on it's way out, Many Southerners  were looking for new ways, the industrial revolution then happens and we are not much different then we are now, It's not as day and night as things seem, No one could hold onto slavery.

I wrote a  bunch more but then my browser crashed and I lost it  but that basically sums up what I wrote.

Its an romaticized and idealized view on the past when people say the Civil War was really only about state rights and had nothing to do with defending slavery. Its also not true. 

The Civil War was very much about the Confederacy trying to protect slavery. If what you say was true and slavery was about to be abolished by the Confederate states anyways, then why was this the issue they decided to start a war over? Why didn't they just relent and give in to something that wasn't really such a big deal and they would abolish soon anyways? Oh sure, it was about being principled on the issue of state rights, slavery just happened to be the most relevant issue at that time, it could just as easily have been about some other issue.

But it wasn't another issue. The Confederacy choose to turn slavery as something that they should allow to decide on at a state level. They have gone into history as 'those guys that waged a war to retain the right to keep other human beings as slaves and deny them their personhood and humanity'. And that means that at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter if it really was only about states rights (and trust me, it really was about slavery), the Confederacy was very clearly at the wrong side of history and waving their flag around and saying its about celebrating your historical roots and Southern pride makes you celebrate the bad guys. Just keep that in mind.  

 

[Sabretooth78 808]

 Except that unlike Nazis which was founded on hate due to the situation they were in at the time, the Confederate States war was about states rights VS Federal rights, A war that very much still exists today.

The Confederate States  have not had the time other states had, Slavery was on it's way out, Many Southerners  were looking for new ways, the industrial revolution then happens and we are not much different then we are now, It's not as day and night as things seem, No one could hold onto slavery.

I wrote a  bunch more but then my browser crashed and I lost it  but that basically sums up what I wrote.

Its an romaticized and idealized view on the past when people say the Civil War was really only about state rights and had nothing to do with defending slavery. Its also not true. 

The Civil War was very much about the Confederacy trying to protect slavery. If what you say was true and slavery was about to be abolished by the Confederate states anyways, then why was this the issue they decided to start a war over? Why didn't they just relent and give in to something that wasn't really such a big deal and they would abolish soon anyways? Oh sure, it was about being principled on the issue of state rights, slavery just happened to be the most relevant issue at that time, it could just as easily have been about some other issue.

But it wasn't another issue. The Confederacy choose to turn slavery as something that they should allow to decide on at a state level. They have gone into history as 'those guys that waged a war to retain the right to keep other human beings as slaves and deny them their personhood and humanity'. And that means that at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter if it really was only about states rights (and trust me, it really was about slavery), the Confederacy was very clearly at the wrong side of history and waving their flag around and saying its about celebrating your historical roots and Southern pride makes you celebrate the bad guys. Just keep that in mind.  

 

Not to become embroiled in this issue, though there is somebody that lives around me (or so I assume, I see them fairly often) who drives a half rusted-out dodge truck (read: normal dodge truck) flying a big "confederate flag" out of the tailgate.  My first reaction is to think what an embarrassment that is in a northern state until it fully registers that most of these "pickup truck culture" fools are irreparable and you can't fix stupid.

That said; if I recall correctly none other than Honest Abe himself said that "if he could have saved the Union without freeing the slaves, he would have".  Or something to that effect; I might be paraphrasing.  Honestly I don't care enough about the topic to verify it.  Point is neither side was particularly virtuous.

[LexusInfernus 908]

That said; if I recall correctly none other than Honest Abe himself said that "if he could have saved the Union without freeing the slaves, he would have".  Or something to that effect; I might be paraphrasing.  Honestly I don't care enough about the topic to verify it.  Point is neither side was particularly virtuous.

What Lincoln said (it was in a letter to some guy named Horace Greeley) was that his main overriding objective was to save the union. Here is the full quote: 

"I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save Slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy Slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men, everywhere, could be free. Yours," 

[Odainsaker 2,134]

We should also read Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens' infamous Cornerstone Speech, given two weeks after the first Confederate states seceded and just three weeks before the Confederacy fired the first shots.  Stephens makes it very clear what the Confederacy was ultimately fighting for:

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone 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.  This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

Later downplaying of slavery and window-dressing with "States' Rights" by Confederate leaders trying to solicit recognition and aid from the European powers actually infuriated the Richmond Southern Punch in the "The New Heresy":

"The people of the South are not fighting for slavery, but for independence."  Why this is tantamount to saying that the South is fighting for independence at the expense of slavery.  It is an acknowledgement that slavery is either an evil or unimportant -- a doctrine which we hold to be opposed to the experience of ethnologists and of every agriculturalist of the South.

If the new heresy is intended to conciliate European nations it will fail for it does not tally with our history as the Southern people know.  The first are not to be hoodwinked by so transparent a fallacy; the second cannot agree to hold our great industrial institution at so low a figure.  Is the new heresy intended to conciliate the Yankees?  If so, worse still, as we should never consent to eat our words and our principles face to face with that negro stealing race.

Our doctrine is this:  WE ARE FIGHTING FOR INDEPENDENCE THAT OUR GREAT AND NECESSARY DOMESTIC INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY SHALL BE PRESERVED, and for the preservation of other institutions of which slavery is the ground work.

The Atlantic Wire has more choice quotations in "The Confederate Cause in the Words of Its Leaders:  What This Cruel War Was Over," including the declarations by the various southern state legislatures on why they had seceded over slavery.

Ah well, I remember my Texas schooling in history and the required test essays on Civil War causes--you had to write about "northern aggression," "northern economic oppression," and States' Rights...if you mentioned the S-word, the threat was an instant failing grade.  Still, mine was a relatively progressive high school, and the understandably shocked class learned first-hand what politically mandated state-sponsored revisionism looked like.

 

As for bombing Wal-Mart...sheesh, it's far more imaginative to trick their bakery into decorating ISIS cakes.

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

All things being considered, should we be fighting the U.S. Civil War yet again?  Water under the bridge.