SENATE BILL: Holidays Act (Law'd)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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[MaxQue]

Thanksgiving is a religious holiday and I must say I have issues with removing Easter.
I have a big issue about removing the september Labor Day, as there would be no holiday between July and October. They must be well-distributed inside the year.

I also fear than Section 3 could lead to downright rewrite history and to shove that part of the history under the carpet.

Avrerroës, given my previous post, why Election Days should be an holiday?

I withdraw my amendment, too.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

I'm dead opposed to the amendment, especially to Section III.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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Why? We have other occasions to remember how slavery and treason have scarred our past (including Veterans Day, Emancipation Day, Memorial Day Civil Rights Day). Section 3 would only prevent federal money from going to revisionist bigots waving confederate flags. I'm confused about Ben's opposition to this, too.

We are far more in danger of our history being altered for the sake of political correctness, then Lost Cause Mythology at this point. But that is a side issue from the real problem here.

If one journeys back through the History board, you will my credentials in opposing such neo-confederate tripe are well established. With that placed firmly in your minds, I must oppose your amendment as long as it contains Section III. The Confederacy as I have stated again and again, was the fruit of a long process of southern politics, opinion and religion being degraded and throughly sold out for the sake of preserving the institution of slavery, everything was dancing to its tune and when they could no longer impose ever increasingly outrageous demands on the country as a whole, they engaged in an illegal act of treason. I have stated this in various posts over the last two years and can be found scattered throughout my posting history.

That said, I don't think it right, even while acknowledging who founded the confederacy and why, to deny a Tennessee farmer who fought an died for what he thought was the defence of his rights, some degree of rememberance. Misled and lied to by outrageous nonesense in firebrand newspapers about evil Yankee Republicans coming to deprive them of their rights, they then did what they thought duty compelled them to do. I don't think we should deny funding for schools because their happens to be a Confederate private with a musket standing in the town square. The guy probably couldn't even read, more or less care about whether or not some rich Plantation owner could continue to live high on the hog by means of stealing labor from humans in bondage. He might even have been drafted as the confederacy did have that beginning in 1862. I frankly don't see the problem with celebrating the bravery of a common soldier in such fashion.

I can't stand Nathan Bedford Forrest for instance and wouldn't mind if everyone of his statues were torn out; however, I could not support the same being done to Lee or Longstreet. Lee tried to temper emotions and restore unity after the war. Longstreet became a Republican and supported Grant's policies, thus earning him the hatred of most of these same neo-confederates. There in lies the reason why this should not be foisted upon the regions in such manner. I don't see a problem with a region, state or town honoring either of the latter two, provided they did it with utmost in historical accuracy and didn't skip over the darker side. That is afterall the best way to combate Lost Cause mythology, not political correctness. This amendment would make that impossible.

[CatoMinor]

You are telling me you want to de-fund people in Virginia for honoring Lee!?!? WTF Nix.

You need to understand that while yes there are racist neo-confederate douchebags, they are in the minority. For most people in the south it is simply honoring their heritage and keeping history alive. Southern folk are largely a people of tradition, and honoring their fallen ancestors, and romanticized leaders like Lee or Stonewall Jackson is part of that tradition. To ban southern people celebrating their history is like Mexico's past attempts to stamp out religion, it will be met with anger and quite possibly violence, strengthening the resolve and influence of the very bigots you are aiming this at. 

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Why not rephrase it to prevent the use of Federal funding for such recognition? That way if the IDS wants to spend its own money on such, that is up for its people and their representatives to decide and tax payers from other parts of the country won't be funding it.

That makes more sense then putting a whole region's education funding at stake or its whole highway funding, simply because a single town has a statue where an elaborate ceremony is held that may or may not be considered offensive by some bureaucrat in Nyman.

That is why inserting the political correctness is the worst possible way to combat ignorance, it is just sanctioning an abridged version of the events satisfactory to the political leanings of the day. It is the other side of the same coin of ignorance. If we truly want to avoid repeating the events of the past, then my philosophy is give it completely and by the facts as best as we know them. Every human being in the world is flawed, that is where slavery came from and that is where the Civil War came from. Unless people learn to recognize their own dark sides, then we will see the same stories being repeated over and over again and you will not achieve that kind of awareness by hiding from it. It must be acknowledged, accepted as it is and learned from.

I know what your intent is but this is perhaps the worst possible way to pursue it. A kneejerk politically correct demand to follow an arbitrary line, on penalty of loss of all Federal funding for everything if they fail to comply. Too often, it will be the case that agencies, and local governments will just avoid it period as to not take the risk and then you will lose any rememberance of Washington (slave owner), Lincoln (racist), TR (Imperialism), FDR (Japanese Internment) and Truman (Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Fairly soon, you don't have a history anymore, then you have the perfect breeding ground for oppression and intollerance.

I find this section of the amendment far more dangerous if you ask me.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

That last post had three more paragraphs removed for purposes of concission.

Perhaps I've been a bit abrasive about this. (For that, I apologize.) Yankee is correct that the issue of Confederate holidays is peripheral to the primary focus of this legislation. If the amendment fails, I'll reintroduce it without Section 3.

Nevertheless, I couldn't disagree with defenders of these holidays more strongly. All that Section 3 would accomplish would be to prevent organizations that receive federal funding from spending money celebrating the legacy of the Confederacy. I don't think that's an unacceptable limit on freedom of speech; if you want to celebrate the slavers' rebellion, you are, of course, free to do so on your own dime. The idea that this mild restriction would be met with "violence," as Jbrase insinuates, is extremely disturbing.

Atlasia has an interest in preventing these celebrations because romanticizing the leaders of the Confederacy is dangerous and insensitive. Lee, Longstreet, and the rest were the leaders of a rebellion of slaveholders against our country. Whatever else they might have done in their lives, whatever their personal character, none of it can outweigh that shame. Willful self-deception may be a popular tradition, but there's no reason for us to sanction it.

Yankee, the anonymous Tennessee farmer whom you describe is a tragic figure; he deserves to be remembered on Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and, more generally, whenever we recall the horrible costs of war. Associating our remembrance of him with nostalgia for the awful cause for which he fought is both improper and disrespectful.

But that is not what your amendment does. It speficially calls out a specific event and group for being so horrible as to demand exclusion. Meaning they can't be included by an agency or a region in those broader holiday's either lest they be risking their education budgets or whatever.

What about the troops that fought in the Mexican war? That was a war of expansion to gain territory for the purposes of increasing the number of slaves states. What about he War of 1812, started as an imperial land grab against Canada, with other legitimate motivations of course like seizing ships of course, but they wanted Canada and tried to get it during the war. Or the troops that fought down in Cuba in the Spanish American War?

Nix, you can't address this issue by denying funding. The only reason you deny funding is to keep taxpayer dollars from going to something they might not want them going towards. If that is the case, then my offer in the previous post solves. If the IDS wants to do the same, it can pass the same prohitibition on tax dollars being used for such thing, but that is their choice and not to be dictated by the Federal Gov't, which your present wording does with "any government..." coming after "The federal Gov't", and cosnidered in conjunction with the supremacy clause. Unless of course your term limits on the court get adopted and one of the Justices is running for the IDS Senate seat and the other for Emperor, then such things become more flexible obviously.

[Napoleon]

I certainly support Secion 3.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Damn, I can't start a vote yet b/c of 24 hour debate time.


Senator, would you care to opine on the rest of the amendment as either friendly or hostile in the remaining hours. Not that it matters because we have objections lodged.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

I object to the amendment. I object to removing Easter as a holiday. I object to section III.

These are some of the strongest objections I've ever had to a piece of legislation in Atlasia, and they pretty much go right to my core. I could pretend to defend my opinion with some long write-up, but really, the changes just offend me. This nation has a history that we can't ignore, and to censor its character to appease certain people's sensibilities is wrong.

[Napoleon]

All amendments are hostile, but I will substitute this proposal.

SECTION I: List of holidays
1.The list of holidays observed as federal holidays shall include:

    New Year's Day (January 1; shall be observed on Monday should the first fall on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday)
    Inauguration Day (all applicable Atlasian inauguration dates)
    The Monday following the Super Bowl
    International Women's Day (March 8th)
    Conservation Day (Last Monday in April; a combination of Earth Day and Arbor Day)
    Emancipation Day (April 16)
    Labor Day (May 1st)
    Civil Rights Day (May 17th; observance replacing Martin Luther King Day, falls on the same date the Supreme Court handed down Brown v. Board of Education, commemorates the struggle for Civil Rights for all Atlasians)
    Memorial Day (Final monday in the month of May)
    Independence Day (July 4)
    Immigrants Day (Second Monday in October; replaces Columbus Day; a day of celebration of our immigrant origins as a nation)
    Election Day (All Atlasian election dates that apply)
    Veterans Day (November 11th)
    Thanksgiving Day (Fourth Thursday in November)
    Christmas Eve (December 24)
    Christmas Day (December 25)
    New Year's Eve (December 31)


SECTION II: Holiday pay
1. All persons who work any amount of time on any of the holidays mentioned in Section 2 shall be paid 2x the regular hourly wage.

SECTION III: No sanction for bigotry, slavery, and treason
1. The federal government and any other government or non-profit agency that receives federal funding shall be prohibited from celebrating any holiday that recognizes or celebrates Confederate troops, leaders, figures, or concepts. Federal funding shall be withheld from any agency that fails to comply with this requirement.

[Napoleon]

While I'd prefer not to make the Monday following the Super Bowl a holiday, I support Senator Napoleon's changes and will vote for this bill if his amendment succeeds.

Napoleon: Would you be willing to move Conservation Day to the first Monday in September, just so we're not going from the beginning of July to mid-October without a federal holiday, as Max suggested?

I withdraw my amendment.

why not Civil Rights Day? May has Labor Day and Memorial Day already.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Why don't we just leaving this to the regions? It seems like an awfully particularly thing to focus on...

[MaxQue]

Why don't we just leaving this to the regions? It seems like an awfully particularly thing to focus on...

Leaving that to the regions will considerably complicate interstate commerce.

Napoleon: I still want "the Monday following the Super Bowl" to get a name.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

I'll not be voting for a bill with Section III in it.

[MaxQue]

I'll not be voting for a bill with Section III in it.

Being on the fence on section III, could you please expand more your argument, please? It's in your interest.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The Civil War is the single most important event in American history, so I don't think that singling out celebrations of the Confederacy for censure is inappropriate. We should be ashamed of many parts of our national history, but nothing diminishes our moral stature more than the fact that we built our nation on racial slavery and had to fight a bloody war among ourselves to get rid of it.

This disgrace is compounded by the numerous government-sanctioned celebrations of that rebellion. We don't have states in Atlasia, of course, but in real life nine states celebrate Confederate Memorial Day; in several states this holiday occurs on the birthday of Jefferson Davis. These occasions mark Confederate leaders as heroes to be admired or worshiped rather than as men who embraced, or at least fought to preserve, an evil institution.

You accuse me of taking the side of political correctness, but I believe that I am doing precisely the opposite. The politically correct view is that these holidays are harmless celebrations of national heritage that ought not to be criticized or disrupted. Refusing to take action would be more comfortable and less offensive to some of our sensibilities, but I am not prepared to give up so easily.

The classic sign of a case of political correctness is when someone feels he must alter or ignore the points his critic has made and replace them with his own strawman to beat down.

How many times do I have to repeat myself? I don't care one damn bit abotu the confederace nor do I find it anything less then a complete disgrace to humanity that you or anybody else would like to attest to believing it is. Stop trying to beat a dead horse on something that is not the issue here It is easy to bash up on the confederacy because most sane people share that view thus it is just so damn easy to ignore the praciticalities of what you are doing.

This is a restriction that is being applied to every level of government, as I have established and will deny to them the right to spend their own taxpayer's money as they see fit and as their representatives determine for no other reason then because the gov't in Nyman has made a determination one way or another on the matter. Local governments will not take the risk with the funding for schools and highways and will thus abandon not only what you want trashed but numerous other celebrations of historical significance the minute a lawyer or a Nyman bureaucrat comes sniffing around. A concern you have completely ignored once again in favor of beating the dead horse yet once again. And then you wonder I am labelling this as a politically correct effort. This is not the RL US as you say and thus we don't have states trying to claim in textbooks that blacks fought for the Confederacy or any of the other stupidity in VA, TX or wherever. So why is it necessary to pursue federal policies as if such was the case? Why does this have to be dictated in such a manner to lower levels of Govermnet? It doesn't. I say it is political correctness because you are using the justified righteous indignation towards the Confederacy to justify an unnecessary dictate by the Federal Goverment to the Regions and to local goverments, and ignoring some very reasonable concerns in the process. The end result of this will be the centralization of all celebratory occassions, since no local or Regional Gov't will dare risk the funding and thus they will retreat from these altogether as lawyers and subsequent amendments expand its scope, covered events and figures.

And what the hell does "concepts" mean? If it wasn't bad enough, now we are throwing some added vagueness into text as well.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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[Kaine for Senate '18]

Section III prevents any organization receiving government funds from even recognizing the people and ideas behind the Civil War.  That tramples on the heritages of 11 states and millions of people.  It's an attempt to whitewash history, and not give both sides of what happened.  While we may not like the reasons behind the Civil War, we cannot prevent the South from celebrating the people.

[Napoleon]

Section III prevents any organization receiving government funds from even recognizing the people and ideas behind the Civil War.  That tramples on the heritages of 11 states and millions of people.  It's an attempt to whitewash history, and not give both sides of what happened.  While we may not like the reasons behind the Civil War, we cannot prevent the South from celebrating the people.

We're preventing you from whitewashing history with your celebrations of slavers and Atlasian bloodshed. These people do not deserve to be honored with their own day. It's a national disgrace that we allow it.

[MaxQue]

Section III prevents any organization receiving government funds from even recognizing the people and ideas behind the Civil War.  That tramples on the heritages of 11 states and millions of people.  It's an attempt to whitewash history, and not give both sides of what happened.  While we may not like the reasons behind the Civil War, we cannot prevent the South from celebrating the people.

We're preventing you from whitewashing history with your celebrations of slavers and Atlasian bloodshed. These people do not deserve to be honored with their own day. It's a national disgrace that we allow it.

I'm pretty sure than we do not have the power of banning it. It would be a breach of the free speech and I'm honestly surprised than some Northeners still behave as if we were still at war.

I could support a Section III which is more limited, focused on more precise persons and things. I won't support a blanket ban, not considering the specifics of each case? Did someone which fought for the Confederation but had an exemplary life after? Which did good things? Which founded a town?

Alo, why not putting that ban on commemorating all Japaneses, Italians, Germans and all British which fought for their country during a war against us?

That's ridicously broad and I can't support that.

[Napoleon]

ITT: white males.

It is not the place of our government to offer funds to hate groups, that support and embrace and celebrate those who would slaughter Atlasians in the defense of their perceived right to own human beings of another race.

We do not have Adolf Hitler Day celebrated as a holiday, we do not honor the British monarchy and Mussolini doesn't get honored with a day in his name anywhere in this nation. We do, however, have locales that believe that a man such as Robert E. Lee deserves a day in his honor. A traitor, a racist, a killer. These areas have the nerve to celebrate a man who fought to preserve slavery instead of Martin Luther King Jr Day. What does this say about our country?

They can have their free speech and we can keep our funds. But we cannot call ourselves a nation while celebrating traitors within our own borders.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I would support section Three if it was limited to just federal Govt', its agencies and the use of federal funds for these purposes on the part of Regional or local govt's. I would also support withdrawing federal education fudning for the any local education authority that purports Lost Cause Mythology in place of honest and factual history. That is the proper way to achieve this and the proper way to restrict the use of Federal funds in this matter. IF you educate the children properly, then these holidays will be abolished by the Regions and local goverments themselves.

Anyway, it is time for a vote on this amendment.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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