Anyone who knows American history, knows that the South's desire to maintain the slavery system was the reason for the Civil War. Thus, the raison d'etre for the Confederacy was slavery. So, celebrating and identifying with the iconography of the Confederacy is tantamount to supporting for slavery and racism.
We all know slavery was horribly wrong. The truth is very few people actually owned slaves. What most people don't know about history is that the first slave owner in our country was a black man from Massachusetts. Yes, the south was trying to protect slavery but it's not like the north had any higher morals. They simply wanted to end slavery in order to cause suffering for the southern economy which in turn would give northern Republicans even more political power as southerners would've migrated north. At the time the radical Republicans were already at a huge advantage and abolishing slavery was their final move for complete control. I have mixed views on the Confederate flag. It is part of my state's heritage so while I'm proud of my state's heritage, I'm not particularly proud of slavery. Bottom line is that the abolition of slavery is a mute point in discussing who was right and who was wrong on the Civil War because neither side really had a problem with it on moral grounds despite what Republicans and northern politicians were saying. There was no intention of forcing the southern states to eliminate slavery until after the war as a concession to re-entering the union. Concessions are what happens when one side loses to another in a war. Slavery was something very beneficial to the southern economy and therefore the north abolished it. It is VERY naïve to think the Civil War was only over the morality of slavery.
That's like saying it's OK for a German to put a Nazi flag on his BMW. After all, the Soviet Union was bad too and the Allies didn't fight WWII to help out the Jews.
If only it were a good comparison. Nazis and slave owners were apples and oranges. I know Democrats don't want people to know this, but most slave owners took good care of their slaves and slaves accepted slavery because it was all they knew. This wasn't the case for the Jews in WWII. Of course it's easy to look back and talk about how wrong slavery was now. If it was all someone was brought up around in a time where it was rare to travel more than a county from their home, then they're not going to have been exposed to any other ideas about slavery being immoral. I suppose you'll say that Nazis were fed war propaganda from their media and didn't know what they're country was really doing. What does it matter why the Allies got involved? The fact that Nazism was stopped is the important thing. The same can be said for slavery. It was wrong and should've been abolished like it was. If you want to go ahead and tell a German they can put a swastika on their BMW, go ahead. Common sense can tell the difference. There were no gas chambers or concentration camps for slaves. Did you even know the swastika originated in the Indus Valley in antiquity and literally means "to be good?" What about the early American flags where there were thirteen stars in a circle? Should we ban those because some of the colonies allowed slaves then? Give me a break.
Is that some of your patented witty satire? Because I don't find it witty and I can't tell whether you're being satirical or just stupid.
My point on this is simple. The Confederacy was formed as an attempt to maintain slavery in the South. That was its purpose. So, if you choose to identify with or celebrate the Confederacy, you're choosing to identify and celebrate slavery. And yes, slavery was a horrifying, violent and evil system. But, there's no point on going back and forth on this because you're just making up history and not using basic logic.
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