Confederate Battle Flag

[barfbag]

It's 100% totally fine to have Southern pride -- it's just not OK to express it with the flag of a bunch of people who tried to form a separate country to keep their slaves.

Is it OK for someone to celebrate their Jewish heritage by raising or waving the Israeli flag, even though it is highly offensive to the Palestinian people?

yes

[Marnetmar]

A symbol of traitors who tried to leave the United States for slavery.  Granted, the vast majority of Southern whites didn't own slaves, but (unless they individually stayed loyal to the Union) they did fight against the Union on behalf of the rights of the rich to own people.  Absolutely shameful.

Anyone who tries to argue "bbbbut it wasn't really about slavery!!1" is an apologist moron.

The fact that it's become the beloved symbol of Dixiecrats, the KKK, and other white supremacists should be a clue to the people who aren't sure...

You nailed it. Anyone who uses it as a symbol for Southern pride needs to take a good look at history and themselves. You may as well be a German flying a nazi flag as a symbol of German pride and say that the nazis weren't all bad. Completely illogical.

It is perfectly acceptable for symbols to have different meanings for different people.  I grew up in the South and for the vast majority of people it is a symbol of Southern Pride.  That may sound weird to a lot of people outside of the South or the concept of Southern Pride might also sound strange.  But, growing up there it seems that the attitude of others towards the region is flatout bigoted and prejudice.  As if they expect you to apologize for being Southern.  That they think less of you for simply being Southern.  So, we become irrationally prideful of our culture and over celebrate our heritage and symbols.  It's a symptom of cultural polarization.

Having said that, no one from the South should have any misgivings or try to play ignorant about what the Confederate Battle Flag means everywhere else in the US or to non Southerns.

Also, having now lived on the East Coast for about 15 years, I have no idea what people in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and other non Southern states are doing flying it.

Here's my thing:

People are flying the flag that was used for a country that was founded, even partially, on the idea that part of state's rights included the decision of whether or not to allow one man to put another into involuntary servitude. I don't see how just pretending that isn't a reality so that it can mean different things for different people is morally right at all.

It's like flying a right-facing red and black swastika and saying "well, for me, the swastika stands for German pride and heritage, plus the swastika was originally a symbol for peace," and as a guy born smack in the middle of Texas, I think I have a right to say this.

As for the Israeli flag, it's a symbol of a religion being used for a symbol of a country.

[barfbag]

It's 100% totally fine to have Southern pride -- it's just not OK to express it with the flag of a bunch of people who tried to form a separate country to keep their slaves.

Maybe they're fans of the Dukes of Hazzard or the Haunted Tank?

You're a fellow southerner. What are your thoughts on the Confederate Flag?

Southerner by birth, but not breeding.  My parents were Yankees who had moved south and my ancestors were Canadians and Dutchmen at the time of the war.  The South could use a symbol less tainted with the heritage of slavery than the Flag, but there isn't one.

I'm a Yankee by birth too.

[roadkill]

It's like flying a right-facing red and black swastika and saying "well, for me, the swastika stands for German pride and heritage, plus the swastika was originally a symbol for peace," and as a guy born smack in the middle of Texas, I think I have a right to say this.

As for the Israeli flag, it's a symbol of a religion being used for a symbol of a country.

Would you have a problem with someone in India painting a swawtika on both sides of the door of their house?  Or ... how about someone flying the US flag in Vietnam? 

Are you saying religious symbols can't be offensive?  How about go and place some Islamic symbols at the 911 World Trade Center memorial.  I'm sure lots of people would be offended.  Symbols can mean different things to different people.

[barfbag]

It's like flying a right-facing red and black swastika and saying "well, for me, the swastika stands for German pride and heritage, plus the swastika was originally a symbol for peace," and as a guy born smack in the middle of Texas, I think I have a right to say this.

As for the Israeli flag, it's a symbol of a religion being used for a symbol of a country.

Would you have a problem with someone in India painting a swawtika on both sides of the door of their house?  Or ... how about someone flying the US flag in Vietnam? 

Are you saying religious symbols can't be offensive?  How about go and place some Islamic symbols at the 911 World Trade Center memorial.  I'm sure lots of people would be offended.  Symbols can mean different things to different people.

Yes and often people are too ignorant to know their original meaning.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

That may be true, barfbag, but meanings can change. And that doesn't make everyone who subscribes to the new meaning an asshole.

[barfbag]

That may be true, barfbag, but meanings can change. And that doesn't make everyone who subscribes to the new meaning an asshole.

No not everyone, but there are a lot of people who get worked up without knowing what they're talking about. The truth is I've never really felt strongly either way about the confederate flag.

[anvi]

Swastika symbols date back to the Indus Valley civilization, long before the emergence of Buddhism, and they are symbolic of various divine figures or tantric ideas in Hindu and Jain traditions too.  It was partly from this Indian heritage and partly from Schliemann's excavation of Troy that German Orientalists began speculating about the cultural origins of the symbol, and from there that the Nazis adopted the symbol. 

Anyway, I think over-intellectualization about such symbols and their origin leads us down paths of irrelevance, and that precisely because the histories of such symbols are not widely known,but are instead associated with their most recent socio-political uses.  I don't think either Nazi flags or Confederate battle flags should be displayed in celebration of anything, since they have in times that have directly effected ours been used to represent horrible things, things we should not idealize, no matter where we are from.

[Marnetmar]

It's like flying a right-facing red and black swastika and saying "well, for me, the swastika stands for German pride and heritage, plus the swastika was originally a symbol for peace," and as a guy born smack in the middle of Texas, I think I have a right to say this.

As for the Israeli flag, it's a symbol of a religion being used for a symbol of a country.

Would you have a problem with someone in India painting a swawtika on both sides of the door of their house?  Or ... how about someone flying the US flag in Vietnam? 

Are you saying religious symbols can't be offensive?  How about go and place some Islamic symbols at the 911 World Trade Center memorial.  I'm sure lots of people would be offended.  Symbols can mean different things to different people.

After some thought, I believe you're actually on the right side of the issue here. I apologize for the rather black and white thinking I expressed.

[barfbag]

Swastika symbols date back to the Indus Valley civilization, long before the emergence of Buddhism, and they are symbolic of various divine figures or tantric ideas in Hindu and Jain traditions too.  It was partly from this Indian heritage and partly from Schliemann's excavation of Troy that German Orientalists began speculating about the cultural origins of the symbol, and from there that the Nazis adopted the symbol. 

Anyway, I think over-intellectualization about such symbols and their origin leads us down paths of irrelevance, and that precisely because the histories of such symbols are not widely known,but are instead associated with their most recent socio-political uses.  I don't think either Nazi flags or Confederate battle flags should be displayed in celebration of anything, since they have in times that have directly effected ours been used to represent horrible things, things we should not idealize, no matter where we are from.

This is what I've been saying all along about the swastikas.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Swastika symbols date back to the Indus Valley civilization, long before the emergence of Buddhism, and they are symbolic of various divine figures or tantric ideas in Hindu and Jain traditions too.  It was partly from this Indian heritage and partly from Schliemann's excavation of Troy that German Orientalists began speculating about the cultural origins of the symbol, and from there that the Nazis adopted the symbol. 

Anyway, I think over-intellectualization about such symbols and their origin leads us down paths of irrelevance, and that precisely because the histories of such symbols are not widely known,but are instead associated with their most recent socio-political uses.  I don't think either Nazi flags or Confederate battle flags should be displayed in celebration of anything, since they have in times that have directly effected ours been used to represent horrible things, things we should not idealize, no matter where we are from.

This is what I've been saying all along about the swastikas.

anvi has credibility here.  You don't.

[Repub242]

The Confederate battle flag is a symbol of pride and heritage to me. There were African-Americans who voluntary fought in the Confederate Army. The Union Army paid black and white soldiers differently, the Confederate Army paid them the same.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

While many who served in the Confederate Army did so not to defend slavery, but their homes, that does not change the fact that no matter how much its defenders try to sugarcoat the issue, the Confederate States of America came into existing for only one reason, to defend the institution of race-based slavery.  While there certainly were other disputes between north and south, largely based on the different needs of a slave-based economy and one based on free men, those who declared independence in 1860 and 1861 did not suffer from the delusion that there was any other issue save slavery that caused them to attempt a revolution.

[TNF]

The flag symbolizes the Confederacy and the cause that it championed: slavery.

That said, I wouldn't argue that those who fly the flag today actually support the restoration of the Confederacy or slavery. There's little evidence to support that. The flag was used as a symbol of resistance in the 1960s and 1970s to federal efforts at integration. In that regard, it's use was obviously quite reactionary and racist in nature. Today, however, I would argue that most people who still fly the flag or who keep it, or wear clothes with the flag on them are doing so in no relation to the racial conflicts of the past. That isn't to say that there aren't those that do just that (the various Southern hate groups attest to that), but it is instead to say that for most people who fly that flag, it's a cultural symbol or a symbol of personal defiance.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

While many who served in the Confederate Army did so not to defend slavery, but their homes, that does not change the fact that no matter how much its defenders try to sugarcoat the issue, the Confederate States of America came into existing for only one reason, to defend the institution of race-based slavery.  While there certainly were other disputes between north and south, largely based on the different needs of a slave-based economy and one based on free men, those who declared independence in 1860 and 1861 did not suffer from the delusion that there was any other issue save slavery that caused them to attempt a revolution.

This.  I find it incredibly ironic that Democrats are the first to complain about it when they were the party that supported slavery, segregation, and the Confederacy when they existed.

[Del Tachi]

I do not under the controversy surrounding this symbol.  It literally baffles me everytime someone tries to talk about it. 

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I find it incredibly ironic that Democrats are the first to complain about it when they were the party that supported slavery, segregation, and the Confederacy when they existed.

What's even more ironic is that if those Democrats were alive today, they'd almost all be Republicans.

[Simfan34]

The Confederate battle flag is a symbol of pride and heritage to me. There were African-Americans who voluntary fought in the Confederate Army. The Union Army paid black and white soldiers differently, the Confederate Army paid them the same.

You're an idiot, please commit autosarcophagy, you dirty neo confederate traitorous un-American ignoramus. 

[Simfan34]

Also other: symbol of treason.

I don't know why they should rename these parks, though the comparison you made about the church being preserved was true.

We don't name things after traitors.

Honestly, I have to once again bow down in defeat on this one. Not only is my analogy wrong, but I don't know why I almost instinctively defended the south. Robert E. Lee and the Confederate flag is one thing, but for God’s sake, we are talking about Nathan Bedford Forest!!

It's because your libertarian, revisonist, neoconfederate "states rights" feelers tingled.

The appropriate thing to do would be to hold a public toppling ceremony where participants proceed to smash the statues, burn the signs and Confederate flags, followed by the deliverance of patriotic speeches while flags are waved and patriotic songs are sung. Thoughout this ceremony, racists should be hit with sticks.

[DC Al Fine]

Also other: symbol of treason.

Indeed. Ban the dirty rebel flag!

[Simfan34]

Not the point I was trying to make, but hurrah nevertheless!

[TNF]

Also other: symbol of treason.

Indeed. Ban the dirty rebel flag!

Psh.

If anything, it's this flag that needs to be replaced with this one:

[CatoMinor]

Psh.

If anything, it's this flag that needs to be replaced with this one:

Don't you mean this?

[Simfan34]

Psh.

If anything, it's this flag that needs to be replaced with this one:

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Also other: symbol of treason.

Indeed. Ban the dirty rebel flag!

Psh.

If anything, it's this flag that needs to be replaced with this one:

Pray tell, what is that flag?