Is the Confederate Flag Racist? Options

[sadolakced acid]

I would still say that the main reason many states seceded was in protestation of the federal government (ie, all the other states) trying to tell them what they can and can't do.  A state government is a lot closer to individual rights than a national government, and unlike the socialist-bent society we live in, I tend way more towards a capitalist free enterprise point of view, to which individual rights are essential. 

the states seceded in protest to the election of lincoln. they were sore losers. lincoln wasn't even going to ban slavery- just ban in in new territories.

and yet, the states seceded. and not to protect individual rights, mind you. to protect the rights of a few over the rights of many.

would you care to detail these individual rights that the confederacy was aiming to protect?

NOTE: the stars and bars was the civilian flag. fly that one for heritage.

(fae, check for a PM from me)

[madchenallein]

Here are a few quotes for you. You seem to want to goad me into saying the South should have been able to have slavery. I abhor the maltreatment of blacks that occurred so often then, be it slavery or general inhumane behavior due to grandfather clauses and Jim Crow laws. Here are the 'individual's rights/states' rights' I endorse:

1) The 10th Amendment states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." This amendment was the basis of the doctrine of states' rights that became the ante-bellum rallying cry of the Southern states, which sought to restrict the ever-growing powers of the federal government. The principle of states' rights and state sovereignty eventually led the Southern states to secede from the central government that they believed had failed to honor the covenant that had originally bound the states together.


2) Wartime need for a centralized government that could impose conscription, as well as other measures necessary to win its freedom, conflicted sharply with states'-rights doctrine.

3) This is me, from the inception of the Constitution, Federalists like Alexander Hamilton supported a liberal view of the 10th Amendment, and felt that it implied many powers for the federal government. The framers intended for states' sovereignty, and a large central national government goes against that, so, this argument predates the War Between the States or the slavery issue.

4) You might be interested to know that immediately prior to the War of 1812, NEW ENGLAND had a states' sovereignty issue with the federal government, leading to the Hartford Convention in 1814-1815.

5) The issues of a centralized bank were contested by several northern states in the early mid-1800s, and Georgia contested the centralized governments' dictates on what it could and couldn't do about Indian territories IN ITS OWN STATE.

Keep in mind that all this is PRE-CIVIL WAR, please.

6) Me again, the purpose of our government is representation for the people, by the people, and national government is just too high of a level to make decisions that adequately address the needs of people spread across each state. At that level, representatives are out of touch and often apathetic. But give each state their Constitutionally guaranteed sovereignty and the residents of each individual town are much likelier to be able to hammer out legislation that reflects regional needs, concerns, and preferences.

I think with the passion of southerners, people who fly other Confederate flags have chosen so, first of all because it is a Confederate flag, and second of all because its uniqueness (being a battle flag from a particular regiment perhaps that an ancestor fought with, or a navy flag if that person comes from a coastal area) probably means something to them personally. But, if the secondary reason is just because they like the design, then more power for them for even looking into the history of their country.

Personally, I will not 'fly' a Confederate flag because it is so offensive to others. It's also not a big enough issue to me to go around stepping on toes. But I will never cease to respect ANY of the Confederate flags or to love the better ideals the Southerners were fighting for, of which slavery was NOT one. I will never disown my opinion or alter it simply because some people may feel offended by it. You know what? I feel offended that some people think the government ought to be able to tell me what they're going to do with my tax money, or even what rate they will tax me, or that we have an income tax! That's unConstitutional! It's just fodder for the beast of big government. But, you know what else? I'll continue to pay my taxes until the LAWS change via my letter writing, voting, lobbying, whatever, because that's my right and responsibility as a concerned citizen.

As incendiary as some of your views and many of your posts are, Mr. Acid, ("i could very well put swastikas everywhere. they're a religious symbol of both the greeks and buddhists, maybe more. but it doesn't matter anymore. everyone thinks it's a nazi symbol"), I'm surprised you'd be so concerned that other people moderate their words and actions to avoid giving offense.

[sadolakced acid]

Here are a few quotes for you.  You seem to want to goad me into saying the South should have been able to have slavery.  I abhor the maltreatment of blacks that occurred so often then, be it slavery or general inhumane behavior due to grandfather clauses and Jim Crow laws.  Here are the 'individual's rights/states' rights' I endorse:

i'm trying to see what exactly you're talking about. you use a rather vague reference to individual rights- i wanted to know what they were so i could refute them.

  1)  The 10th Amendment states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." This amendment was the basis of the doctrine of states' rights that became the ante-bellum rallying cry of the Southern states, which sought to restrict the ever-growing powers of the federal government. The principle of states' rights and state sovereignty eventually led the Southern states to secede from the central government that they believed had failed to honor the covenant that had originally bound the states together.

ahh yes... so each state should have it's own air force, and it's own marine corp? not national guard, i mean it's very own. and each state should have to pay for all roads (non interstate) and internal improvements themselves? it would interest you that the west (part of which sided with the south) was the one who used implied powers to get money from the federal coffers to build roads within thier states.

the southern states, it seemed, was all too ready to give the national government the power to give them money, in violation of a strict interpretation of the constitution.

and you forget the implied powers DO give the federal government the power.

  2)  Wartime need for a centralized government that could impose conscription, as well as other measures necessary to win its freedom, conflicted sharply with states'-rights doctrine.

states rights doctrine, however, was not in the constitution. sure, the 10 ammendment gives some powers to the states- but not the right to secede, and not the right to states-rights doctrines.

if the founding fathers wanted a states-rights based country, they would have left the articles of confederation. but they didn't.

  3) This is me, from the inception of the Constitution, Federalists like Alexander Hamilton supported a liberal view of the 10th Amendment, and felt that it implied many powers for the federal government.  The framers intended for states' sovereignty, and a large central national government goes against that, so, this argument predates the War Between the States or the slavery issue.

the framers did not intend for the states to secede. if they did, they would kept the articles of confederation.

  4)  You might be interested to know that immediately prior to the War of 1812, NEW ENGLAND had a states' sovereignty issue with the federal government, leading to the Hartford Convention in 1814-1815.

that's interesting. but i already knew that. and i fail to see how it applies- there was no further movement towards secession.

  5)  The issues of a centralized bank were contested by several northern states in the early mid-1800s, and Georgia contested the centralized governments' dictates on what it could and couldn't do about Indian territories IN ITS OWN STATE.

Keep in mind that all this is PRE-CIVIL WAR, please. 

and this applies... how? these issues were settled in the supreme court, if i recall correctly.

and i do know very well this was before the civil war.

  6)  Me again, the purpose of our government is representation for the people, by the people, and national government is just too high of a level to make decisions that adequately address the needs of people spread across each state.  At that level, representatives are out of touch and often apathetic.  But give each state their Constitutionally guaranteed sovereignty and the residents of each individual town are much likelier to be able to hammer out legislation that reflects regional needs, concerns, and preferences.

it's very interesting to hear your opinion. but unless you're s supreme court justice writting the majority desicion, it's not very much good in this debate. the national government is made up from representatives from each state. each state has it's own government. i fail to see how the national government is out of touch. you make it sound like there is no such thing as a state.

I think with the passion of southerners, people who fly other Confederate flags have chosen so, first of all because it is a Confederate flag, and second of all because its uniqueness (being a battle flag from a particular regiment perhaps that an ancestor fought with, or a navy flag if that person comes from a coastal area) probably means something to them personally.  But, if the secondary reason is just because they like the design, then more power for them for even looking into the history of their country.

right. why not fly lee's flag ( the battle flag) or jackson's flag (the unstained)?

i very much doubt people who believe the navy jack is the rebel flag have ANY idea of what the real flags were.

Personally, I will not 'fly' a Confederate flag because it is so offensive to others.  It's also not a big enough issue to me to go around stepping on toes.  But I will never cease to respect ANY of the Confederate flags or to love the better ideals the Southerners were fighting for, of which slavery was NOT one.  I will never disown my opinion or alter it simply because some people may feel offended by it.  You know what?  I feel offended that some people think the government ought to be able to tell me what they're going to do with my tax money, or even what rate they will tax me, or that we have an income tax!  That's unConstitutional!  It's just fodder for the beast of big government.  But, you know what else?  I'll continue to pay my taxes until the LAWS change via my letter writing, voting, lobbying, whatever, because that's my right and responsibility as a concerned citizen. 

unfortunatly for you, slavery was one. no matter how you spin it, southerners were fighting for, among other things, the right to hold someone against thier will as an inferior and treat them as such. if you check the little declarations of secession that each state gave- you'll find slavery is there. not the first issue, but it's on there all right.

As incendiary as some of your views and many of your posts are, Mr. Acid, ("i could very well put swastikas everywhere. they're a religious symbol of both the greeks and buddhists, maybe more. but it doesn't matter anymore. everyone thinks it's a nazi symbol"), I'm surprised you'd be so concerned that other people moderate their words and actions to avoid giving offense. 

my stance has nothing to do with offense. it has to do with the truth. i'm a southerner- a "rebel flag" is a disgrace. it's saying "hey, i'm cool! i'm flying the wrong flag! and it's not even the right wrong flag!"

a navy jack flown as a rebel flag is a symbol of ingnorance, disgrace, stupidity, and yes racism.

a navy jack flown as a navy jack, is a confederate flag, a piece of history, a part of a person's heritage.

yet i fail to see how the entire south has been populated by the descendents of a couple of ships and a tennesee regiment.

[madchenallein]

You want to know a huge HUGE individual right that is very much in the forefront today, that would much more appropriate decided on a state level-where legislatures have a much better clue about constituents' needs?

EMINENT DOMAIN!

I think an individual has a right not to have his or her property seized by the state, particularly not for private use. However, we aren't seeing eye to eye on that thread either.

You won't persuade me and I won't persuade you, and I am tired of you not 'recognizing' or 'acknowledging' or 'whatever' all the reasons and proof I am giving you, and I HAVE given you opinions and support for those. So, I am just agreeing to disagree. I will concede that you have a good grasp of history, however, I do too, and we clearly have different perspectives.

[sadolakced acid]

You want to know a huge HUGE individual right that is very much in the forefront today, that would much more appropriate decided on a state level-where legislatures have a much better clue about constituents' needs? 

EMINENT DOMAIN! 

I think an individual has a right not to have his or her property seized by the state, particularly not for private use.  However, we aren't seeing eye to eye on that thread either. 

You won't persuade me and I won't persuade you, and I am tired of you not 'recognizing' or 'acknowledging' or 'whatever' all the reasons and proof I am giving you, and I HAVE given you opinions and support for those.  So, I am just agreeing to disagree.  I will concede that you have a good grasp of history, however, I do too, and we clearly have different perspectives.

now i thought you were being a strict interpretationist...

becasue eminent domain is specifically mentioned in the constitution, even if the 10th ammendment was used as you wish it to, eminent domain would still be there.

and although eminent domain is on a national level, it's use is decided on a city and state level. However, obviously these levels 'closer' to citizens and 'closer' to the issue, who should know what's best, don't. Because it's the city governments who are taking people's land away to build mega marts and costcos. The local government does not always do better than the national government.


(( about the individual rights- i thought you meant rights of individuals... ))

anyways; it's a debate. conflicting viewpoint are what makes it fun. i honestly don't really care about the "rebel flag". if someone draws it or waves it (the navy jack), i just think "oh what a stupid person". it's no big deal to me. But this is a debate. it's for fun.

[ryfitaDF]

every time i ask somone sporting the confederate flag i ask "why?" and they reply "heratage". so then i ask "how is that 'heratage'?" and they go "allright! i hate nigras!" according to that research, i can conclude that the confederate flag is a racist symbol. they don't even know that the civil war was fought for state rights.

[A.D.]

May be a little late in posting but I gotta speak my mind......Items, designs, clothing styles, tattoos, what ever.....there is no such thing as a racist item. People are racists, not items. It comes down to what the item means to you. If you wear a swastika because it represents Nazism to you, then it will be taken as a racist design. I know plenty of people who simply think of the rebel flag as representing good ol boys, or a time past......


anyways..piss off. who cares what other people think if you like it..

[Equator]

You cannot separate racism from the Confederate flag. Why? The foundational doctrine on which the Confederacy was founded was racist. Therefore, the heritage found in the Confederacy is racist. Consider the doctrine and theology of the documents of the founding fathers of the Confederacy that reveal their primary reason – racist slavery – for existence:

From the five States that composed the “Declaration of Causes of Seceding States: [1]”

· “…maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery … established …ties between …slave-holding States of the confederacy... based upon …hostility by the Union to … African slavery.”
- Texas’s “Declaration of Causes of Seceding States”

· “The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.”

· “In the momentous step which our State” [Mississippi] “has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course. Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world.”
· [The Union] “has announced that the South shall be excluded from … [new] territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States…. denounced as sinful the institution of slavery….” By South Carolina.

If there’s any doubt that the single main issue for secession was slavery, then read “The Address of the people of South Carolina, assembled in Convention, to the people of the Slaveholding States of the United States: [2]”
“…We but imitate the policy of our fathers in dissolving a union with non-slaveholding confederates, and seeking a confederation with slave-holding States.
“Experience has proved that slave-holding States can not be safe in subjection to non-slaveholding States… portions of the world have been … ruined by Anti-Slavery fanaticism. The people of the North.... United as a section in the late Presidential election, they have elected … one who has openly declared that all the States of the United States must be made Free States or Slave States.
“But if African Slavery in the Southern States be the evil their political combinations affirm it to be, the requisitions of an inexorable logic must lead them to emancipation. If it is right to preclude or abolish Slavery in a territory, why should it be allowed to remain in the States? The one is not at all more unconstitutional than the other, according to the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. And when it is considered that the Northern States will soon have the power to make that Court what they please, and that the Constitution has never been any barrier whatever to their exercise of power, what check can there be in the unrestrained councils of the North to emancipation? … There is sympathy in association, which carries men along without principle; but when there is principle, and that principle is fortified by long existing prejudices and feelings, association is omnipotent in party influences. In spite of all disclaimers and professions there can be but one end to the submission by the South to the rule of a sectional Anti-Slavery Government at Washington; and that end, directly or indirectly, must be the emancipation of the slaves …the people of the non-slaveholding North are not and cannot be safe associates of the slaveholding South under a common Government…”

If there remains the remotest doubt, that slavery was the reason that the South seceded, then read the Louisiana Commissioner’s “Address of George Williamson to the Texas Secession Convention” [3]:

“Louisiana looks to the formation of a Southern confederacy to preserve the blessings of African slavery, and of the free institutions of the founders of the Federal Union, bequeathed to their posterity.

“Louisiana supplies to Texas a market for her surplus wheat, grain and stock; both States have large areas of fertile, uncultivated lands, peculiarly adapted to slave labor; and they are both so deeply interested in African slavery that it may be said to be absolutely necessary to their existence, and is the keystone to the arch of their prosperity….
“The Mexican yoke could not have been more galling to "the army of heroes" of '36 [1836] than the Black republican rule would be to the survivors and sons of that army at the present day.
“The people of Louisiana would consider it a most fatal blow to African slavery, if Texas either did not secede or having seceded should not join her destinies to theirs in a Southern Confederacy.
“A professedly friendly federal administration gave Texas no substantial protection against the Indians or abolitionists…Louisiana remembers too well the whisperings … for the abolition of slavery in the times of annexation not to be apprehensive of bolder demonstrations from the same quarter and the North in this country. The people of the slaveholding States are bound together by the same necessity and determination to preserve African slavery. The isolation of any one of them from the others would make her a theatre for abolition emissaries from the North and from Europe. Her existence would be one of constant peril to herself and of imminent danger to other neighboring slave-holding communities….

“That constitution the Southern States … hope to form a slave-holding confederacy that will secure to us and our remotest posterity the great blessings its authors designed in the Federal Union. With the social balance wheel of slavery to regulate its machinery, we may fondly indulge the hope that our Southern government will be perpetual.” [Emphasis Added]

[1] Declaration of Causes of Seceding States. Circa 1860. Retrieved September 19, 2003(http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html)

[2] Rhett, Robert B. March 9, 1861. “The Address of the people of South Carolina, assembled in Convention, to the people of the Slaveholding States of the United States.” Retrieved July 8, 2005(http://americancivilwar.com/documents/williamson_address.html)
[3] Willimason, George, (E.W. Winkler, ed.) March 9, 1861. Journal of the Secession Convention of Texas, “Address of George Williamson to the Texas Secession Convention,” pp 120-123. Library of Congress.

[ComradeRed]

Equator: You use a hell of a lot of ellipses. Could it possibly be that slavery was ONE of the causes, yet you "..."ed out all the other causes, such as intrusive Federal government, high government spending, and the tariff? Saying that the Confederacy was founded on slavery is like saying the Republican Party was founded on tax cuts--that's only one part of their platform, not the whole thing.

If you read the Confederate Constitution, of the substantive changes it made to the Union Constitution, the majority were not about slavery--only five clauses were, and two of the five actually weakened slavery by prohibiting the importation of additional slaves or enslaving natives of territories added to the Confederacy.

And if you look at previous Southern history, it becomes clear that the tariff was just as big of an issue as slavery... the South Carolina Nullification Crisis in the 1820s, which was the closest that we got to secession before the Civil War, occured because of a proposed hike in the tariff, not because of anything slavery-related. The crisis was eventually settled with a compromise.

Moreover, even if you are right about the Confederacy being racist, having pride in the South most certainly is not. If you are German, and have pride in Germany, does that mean you support killing Jews? If you are a patriotic American and you fly the American flag, does that mean you have to support the War in Iraq? Or, if you fly the Israeli flag during holidays, does that mean you support the occupation of Palestine? Clearly, we draw a distinction between a country and its government in almost all cases; why should the Southern Confederacy be an exception? You can have pride in your country without supporting the policies of your government.

[Equator]

Equator: You use a hell of a lot of ellipses. Could it possibly be that slavery was ONE of the causes, yet you "..."ed out all the other causes, such as intrusive Federal government, high government spending, and the tariff? Saying that the Confederacy was founded on slavery is like saying the Republican Party was founded on tax cuts--that's only one part of their platform, not the whole thing.

If you read the Confederate Constitution, of the substantive changes it made to the Union Constitution, the majority were not about slavery--only five clauses were, and two of the five actually weakened slavery by prohibiting the importation of additional slaves or enslaving natives of territories added to the Confederacy.

And if you look at previous Southern history, it becomes clear that the tariff was just as big of an issue as slavery... the South Carolina Nullification Crisis in the 1820s, which was the closest that we got to secession before the Civil War, occured because of a proposed hike in the tariff, not because of anything slavery-related. The crisis was eventually settled with a compromise.

Moreover, even if you are right about the Confederacy being racist, having pride in the South most certainly is not. If you are German, and have pride in Germany, does that mean you support killing Jews? If you are a patriotic American and you fly the American flag, does that mean you have to support the War in Iraq? Or, if you fly the Israeli flag during holidays, does that mean you support the occupation of Palestine? Clearly, we draw a distinction between a country and its government in almost all cases; why should the Southern Confederacy be an exception? You can have pride in your country without supporting the policies of your government.

Comradered:

There are always other reasons for war besides one.

The Confederacy distinguished itself as “Slave States” verses “Free States” or “Non-slave” states.

The Confederacy didn’t want to import more slaves because they feared being over-run by blacks. They feared revolt. Yet, they wanted to protect their investment and they needed to keep social order. The South’s fear was fulfilled with the chaos that resulted after the slaves were free.

The SC tariff issue related to the S. & the N. differences over slavery. Note what a significant objective outsider commented:
“…I could easily prove that almost all the differences which may be noticed between the characters of the Americans in the Southern and in the Northern states have originated in slavery…” [1]
- Alexis de Tocqueville (circa 1839)

Non-racist Germans are entitled to be proud about the Republic of Germany, not Nazi-Germany. Nazis, like the Confederates, are racist. America’s foundational doctrine is not anti-Iraqi. Israel still exists. The Confederacy (founded on racist doctrine), like the Nazi-Germany, doesn’t exist. They are lost causes. The racist foundational doctrine is the reason for exception to national pride for a nation that doesn’t exist.

[1] De Tocqueville, Alexis. 1839. Democracy in American. Vol I, Chapter 13; “The Present and Probable Future Condition of the Three Races that Inhabit the Territory of the United States” From the Henry Reeve Translation, revised and corrected, Retrieved July 16, 2005(http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/1_ch18.htm)

[ComradeRed]

The Confederacy distinguished itself as “Slave States” verses “Free States” or “Non-slave” states.

No, modern historians do that.

Both sides thought they were fighting for 'freedom'. In fact, up until 1863 with the Emancipation Proclamation, it's not a stretch to say that the South was seen as the 'good guys' while the North, which invaded the South, was seen as the 'bad guys'. This is why European countries were almost ready to aid the South, and the London Post compared the South to the thirteen colonies. It's clear that, at the time, the South enjoyed the moral high ground at the start of the war, and the moral high ground did not shift to the North until halfway through.

The Confederacy didn’t want to import more slaves because they feared being over-run by blacks. They feared revolt. Yet, they wanted to protect their investment and they needed to keep social order. The South’s fear was fulfilled with the chaos that resulted after the slaves were free.

As if there wasn't chaos before the slaves were freed. Have you heard of Nat Turner? He led a slave revolt and killed hundreds of white Southerners, mostly unarmed women and children, before being stopped by Virginia militia.

The SC tariff issue related to the S. & the N. differences over slavery. Note what a significant objective outsider commented:

Because a French observer and philosopher clearly understands the issues better than the people who lived through the time and in the area.

The tariff issue related to the North wanting to protect its manufacturers, while the South wanted cheap prices to help out its farmers (the slaveholding class was, in fact, a small minority)

Non-racist Germans are entitled to be proud about the Republic of Germany, not Nazi-Germany.

Sure they can. A Princeton professor ( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...704732?v=glance ) wrote a book called the "Nazi war on cancer" which details the largely successful anti-cancer and pro-health programs that the Nazis started. Does that make him a racist?

In his words, "Do we look at history differently when we learn that ... Nazi health officials worried about asbestos-induced lung cancer? I think we do. We learn that Nazism was a more subtle phenomenon than we commonly imagine, more seductive, more plausible."

Similarly, just as ssomeone who supports the scientific findings of Nazi scientists n cancer or physics doesnt necesarily support killing Jews, just because a person believes in a low tariff and responsible government spending--both Confederate policies--doesn't make him a racist.

Nazis, like the Confederates, are racist.

Your argument for the Nazis being racist is clearly more well-founded than the arguments of the Confederates being racist, because in the Nazi manifesto (Mein Kampf), it actually talks about the differences in race, whreas the Confederate constitution NEVER claims black people to be inferior and only five clauses out of probably over a hundred are slavery related.

America’s foundational doctrine is not anti-Iraqi. Israel still exists. The Confederacy (founded on racist doctrine),

Part of America's foundational doctrine, however, WAS racist against the Indians. The last clause of the Declaration of Independence said that Indian hordes were "merciless" and "savages" who did not obey the laws of war and indiscriminately killed women and children. And America was clearly founded on anti-British doctrine. So are patriotic Americans necessarily for killing Indians and British people?

Read the Confederate Constitution. The VAST MAJORITY of the changes deal with government spending regulations, not with slavery.

http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/books/co...n-csa-xtra.html

That details the main differences between the CSA and USA constitutions. As you can see, most of the differences arose in abusive practices by the US Congress such as engaging in trade wars and passing irresponsible spending bills, as well as passing bounties and riders.

With the exception of the slavery clauses, the CSA Constitution protected individual rights much better than the USA Constitution, and clearly slavery was only one issue of many.

Just for some examples, in the Confederacy, an indivudal could run for office as soon as he was a citizen, wheras in the Union, you had to be a citizen for nine years. Sounds like the North was founded on xenophobia. In the Confederacy, all bills had to be clearly defined and riders were prohibited, whereas riders were common practice in the Union. Thus, a Confederate flag waver may very well be sending his support for transparent government, which certainly is a good idea.

like the Nazi-Germany, doesn’t exist. They are lost causes. The racist foundational doctrine is the reason for exception to national pride for a nation that doesn’t exist.

So just because a nation was defeated, it's wrong to have pride in it? So is it wrong for people to have pride in the accomplishments of Roman and Greek civlization? They're gone after all. Is it wrong for people to go visit the pyramids or the Great Wall? The nations that built those are gone, after all. Is it wrong for the Kurds to stand up to Saddam Hussein? He beat them, after all.

Just because a nation was invaded and subjugated (Unlike Nazi Germany, which invaded other countries first, the North invaded the South first during the Civil War) doesn't mean that it's wrong to still have pride in it.

De Toqueville, a seocndhand observer of American affairs, is no more reliable than a modern historian--we should look at primary documents first.

-------

Furthermore, the Confederate-Nazi comparison has a very important difference: The Nazis were a past government of Germany, and a new German government was installed right after the Nazis were defeated. On the other hand, the defeat of hte Southern government meant the end of the South as a nation. So if Southerners want to be proud of themselves as a region, the closest they can go back brings them to the Southern Confederacy, whereas a German can still trace himself to his current government and does not need to go back to the 1940s.

[Equator]

In the “Ordinances of Secession 13 Confederate States of America, circa 1860. Retrieved August 30, 2004.
(http://americancivilwar.com/documents/ordinance_secession.html), and in many of its other documents, it is the Confederacy that distinguished itself as racist “Slave States” verses “Free States” or “Non-slave” states as follows:

“And as it is the desire and purpose of the people of Alabama to meet the slaveholding States of the South, who may approve such purpose, in order to frame a provisional as well as permanent Government upon the principles of the Constitution of the United States,”

“WHEREAS, The recent developments in Federal affairs make it evident that the power of the Federal Government is sought to be made a weapon with which to strike down the interests and property of the people of Texas, and her sister slave-holding States,”

“The people of Virginia in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal Government having perverted said powers not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States:”

The North invaded the South because the North won. Winners invade and occupy the losers. The South started the War by firing upon the Union Ft. Sumter. This was as wise if Castro attacked Guantanamo. Not too bright! Do you suppose that America would just sit back and take the attack? Or, do you think that the US would invade Cuba? What would / should the US have done if the Philippine government attacked US installations in their country after the US gave them their independence?

Remember the Confederacy had peace upon secession. South Carolina (followed by other states) peacefully seceded one year and four months prior. Since they started the fight, didn’t they get their just reward?

Thank you for making my point regarding the South’s fear of black reprisal.

Because the Nazis had other reasons - besides Jew hating - for fighting the War, did that make them non-racists? If the Confederates had other reasons (e.g. tariffs) besides maintaing slavery, then that makes them non-racists, right?

I use the word “racist” to refer to the effect, not the motive. I’m not going to play the “catch me if you can” game. I’m not God to judge for sure what one’s motive is. I can certainly judge the effects of actions. The effects of “the slaveholding States of the South,” and the effects of neo-Confederacy are racist. The Confederacy (with its racists theology and doctrine) places blacks in an inferior position than whites. Perhaps Nazis and Confederates could fly their flags for heritage purposes. I don’t care to place myself in a position that requires me to prove motive. In view of the fact that so many racists (in denial) fly these flags, their motives raise questions in people’s minds. This is especially true since the flags wave by day, while the hoods are dawn at night.

“Savages” didn’t refer to all Indians, it only refered to hostile bellicose enemies. I don’t know that the Indians refer to the American flag as racists. I do know that blacks refer to the Confederate flag as racist. If the Indians do believe that the American flag stands for racism, then they could view it as both racist and a symbol of our nation. I’m sure that they do consider it the latter. Similarly, the Confederate flag represents: racism and a symbol of a lost racist cause.

Note the Declaration of Independence:
o “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”


For insight as to why the South maintained slavery to keep social order consider excepts (especially note the last two sentences) from:

Alexis de Tocqueville,
Democracy in America
Table of Contents: Volume I

Chapter XVIII

"THE PRESENT AND PROBABLE FUTURE CONDITION OF THE THREE RACES THAT INHABIT THE TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES
“I am obliged to confess that I do not regard the abolition of slavery as a means of warding off the struggle of the two races in the Southern states. The Negroes may long remain slaves without complaining; but if they are once raised to the level of freemen, they will soon revolt at being deprived of almost all their civil rights; and as they cannot become the equals of the whites, they will speedily show themselves as enemies. In the North everything facilitated the emancipation of the slaves, and slavery was abolished without rendering the free Negroes formidable, since their number was too small for them ever to claim their rights. But such is not the case in the South. The question of slavery was a commercial and manufacturing question for the slave-owners in the North; for those of the South it is a question of life and death. God forbid that I should seek to justify the principle of Negro slavery, as has been done by some American writers! I say only that all the countries which formerly adopted that execrable principle are not equally able to abandon it at the present time.
“When I contemplate the condition of the South, I can discover only two modes of action for the white inhabitants of those States: namely, either to emancipate the Negroes and to intermingle with them, or, remaining isolated from them, to keep them in slavery as long as possible. All intermediate measures seem to me likely to terminate, and that shortly, in the most horrible of civil wars and perhaps in the extirpation of one or the other of the two races. Such is the view that the Americans of the South take of the question, and they act consistently with it. As they are determined not to mingle with the Negroes, they refuse to emancipate them.
“Not that the inhabitants of the South regard slavery as necessary to the wealth of the planter; on this point many of them agree with their Northern countrymen, in freely admitting that slavery is prejudicial to their interests; but they are convinced that the removal of this evil would imperil their own existence. The instruction which is now diffused in the South has convinced the inhabitants that slavery is injurious to the slave-owner, but it has also shown them, more clearly than before, that it is almost an impossibility to get rid of it. Hence arises a singular contrast: the more the utility of slavery is contested, the more firmly is it established in the laws; and while its principle is gradually abolished in the North, that selfsame principle gives rise to more and more rigorous consequences in the South….
“Whatever may be the efforts of the Americans of the South to maintain slavery, they will not always succeed. Slavery, now con- fined to a single tract of the civilized earth, attacked by Christianity as unjust and by political economy as prejudicial, and now contrasted with democratic liberty and the intelligence of our age, cannot survive. By the act of the master, or by the will of the slave, it will cease; and in either case great calamities may be expected to ensue. If liberty be refused to the Negroes of the South, they will in the end forcibly seize it for themselves; if it be given, they will before long abuse it.”

[ComradeRed]

All you prove with your quotes was that slavery was ONE of the founding precepts of the South.

Big deal, the Athenians believed in enslaving non-Greeks, but we don't call someone who respects Ancient Athens an anti-Greek bigot, do we?

The North invaded the South because the North won. Winners invade and occupy the losers. The South started the War by firing upon the Union Ft. Sumter. This was as wise if Castro attacked Guantanamo. Not too bright! Do you suppose that America would just sit back and take the attack? Or, do you think that the US would invade Cuba? What would / should the US have done if the Philippine government attacked US installations in their country after the US gave them their independence?

Well, the Philipines acknowledged the right of the US to have those installations. They signed a contract that gave the US those institutions. So did Castro as part of the Cuban Missile Crisis agreement. The South NEVER agreed to have a Union military base in its territory, and thus the seizure was justified. It's just like how we seized British forts on our frontier like Detroit after independence and the British defended those forts, but did not invade us after they fell.

Ft. Sumter was an excuse, just like the Nazis used the Polish "attack" on the Gleiwitz radio station as an excuse to invade Poland. And it was a bad excuse at that--just a decade and a half earlier, an American army marched into Mexico and when the Mexican army fired back, it was said that the Mexicans had started the Mexican-American War; it was blatantly not true.

If another country sends a military force into your country without your consent, International Law dictates that it is an act of war.

Moreover, your argument here is essentially "might makes right", which essentially justifies slavery, so there's no issue as to whether the Confederacy was immoral or not, since, after all, winners invade and enslave the losers... like the Europeans did to West Africa.

Because the Nazis had other reasons - besides Jew hating - for fighting the War, did that make them non-racists? If the Confederates had other reasons (e.g. tariffs) besides maintaing slavery, then that makes them non-racists, right?

No, it makes SOME of them racists, and not ALL of them racists. Not ALL Nazis were racist; one of their top generals, Erich von Manstein, was a proven Jew. Some wanted an aggresive employment policy, some wanted more land for Germany, some wanted to avenge Versailles.

You can argue that the Nazi leadership was racist, but it's inaccurate to say that all Nazis were racist.

Further, the Confederate leadership was by and large NOT racist. Robert E. Lee was famous for recieving communion alongside a black man after the war despite booing from other people in the Church. The situation in the South was that they believed that slavery actually helped the Africans, because conditions in Africa were crappy at that point. The Southern leadership was not racist in the sense of wiping out and harming Africans, the way Nazis believed in harming the Jews.

The South thought that they were doing the Africans a favor by placing them in civilization... just like we're doing with Iraq.

I use the word “racist” to refer to the effect, not the motive. I’m not going to play the “catch me if you can” game. I’m not God to judge for sure what one’s motive is. I can certainly judge the effects of actions. The effects of “the slaveholding States of the South,” and the effects of neo-Confederacy are racist. The Confederacy (with its racists theology and doctrine) places blacks in an inferior position than whites. Perhaps Nazis and Confederates could fly their flags for heritage purposes. I don’t care to place myself in a position that requires me to prove motive. In view of the fact that so many racists (in denial) fly these flags, their motives raise questions in people’s minds. This is especially true since the flags wave by day, while the hoods are dawn at night.

You can't argue effects. If you argue effects, then anyone who doesn't go around robbing white people to pay black people is a racist, since black people are poorer right now so by doing nothing, you are effecting racial equality.

And that also means that everyone who has ever hired a more qualified white person to a job over a less qualified black person is a racist, etc. Or someone who moves to the suburbs because of lower taxes is racist, because his taxes aren't funding black people in the cities any more, etc.

The claim that the end results are more important than intentions in determining whether someone is good or bad is ludicrous.

“Savages” didn’t refer to all Indians, it only refered to hostile bellicose enemies. I don’t know that the Indians refer to the American flag as racists.

I know a few that do. And a few that refer to those sports teams as racist.

European settlers wiped out the Indians en masse by purposely infecting them with smallpox, and then driving them off their land, and killing them in battle. They got it a lot harsher than black people did, so when the Confederacy actually did secede and promised to respect Indian tribes, almost all Indian tribes (most notably the Cherokee in Oklahoma) took the Confederate side.

I do know that blacks refer to the Confederate flag as racist. If the Indians do believe that the American flag stands for racism, then they could view it as both racist and a symbol of our nation. I’m sure that they do consider it the latter. Similarly, the Confederate flag represents: racism and a symbol of a lost racist cause.

Or of states' rights and limited government.

Just because Athens believed in enslaving the inferior non-Greeks to serve Greeks doesn't mean that, when Athens lost the war with Sparta, that their cause was a "lost racist cause". (Sparta drew no such distinction; they enslaved fellow Greeks as well as the "inferior Asiatics" that Athens enslaved) Similarly, the Confederacy supported a lot more things in addition to slavery, many of which were visibly positive.

If liberty be refused to the Negroes of the South, they will in the end forcibly seize it for themselves; if it be given, they will before long abuse it.”

It seems to me that this is saying that the South should grant the Negroes liberty, or it would lead to civil war and a bloodbath, and that slavery would end by itself.

Which supports my argument well: the last country where slavery ended was Brazil in 1888, and that was nonviolently. If the Confederacy was allowed to continue its existence and slavery ended in 1888, then the issues WOULD have become States's Rights and Responsible Government Spending, both of which gave the Confederacy the moral high ground over the Union.

[fameONE]

I love how you delve into the catacombs of textbooks for justifying your responses while missing the bigger picture; present day.

A group of "hicks" that proudly wave their 'stars and bars' and claim to hate 'niggers, jews, chinks, gays and catholics' and they approach you. How do you react?

Better yet, how do you then interpret the confederate flag?

A textbook explanation is absolutely useless.

[Equator]

Comradered:

Racists can be benevolent to the ones they believe are inferior. I’ve had various racist beliefs throughout my life while I had black friends as best friends. I’ve been racist the whole while. Because Lee was nice to some black man doesn’t disprove racism. I don’t know who in the Confederacy was or wasn’t racist. I’m not every man’s judge. What I care is that the theology and the doctrine was racist.

Do you think that Texas’ statement below is racist? This is their theology in their Declaration of Causes of Seceding States (http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html#Texas):
“In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of Negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and Negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.”

One can be a racist against his own race. Josephus betrayed the Jews to the Romans. Traitors happen every day. People have always hated their own race. Many blacks hate blacks just like many whites hate whites. Are such self (racially speaking) haters racist? YES! The KKK has people in it that are part black. There’s nothing new under the sun. How do you know that Manstein was a Jew? If he were, it wouldn’t disprove racism.

From http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsourc...y/Manstein.html I quote:
“The charges focuses on his [Erich von Manstein] passing on and co-signing an order that read 'the Jewish-Bolshevist system must be exterminated once and for all and should never be again be allowed to invade our European Lebensraum.' (Carver, 231).”

Alexis de Tocqueville (http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/1_ch18.htm )
partially addresses racial self-hatred:
“Mulattoes are by no means numerous in the United States; they have no force peculiar to themselves, and when quarrels originating in differences of color take place, they generally side with the whites, just as the lackeys of the great in Europe assume the contemptuous airs of nobility towards the lower orders.”

De Tocqueville also addresses the difference between American and European slavery:

“The only means by which the ancients maintained slavery were fetters and death; the Americans of the South of the Union have discovered more intellectual securities for the duration of their power. They have employed their despotism and their violence against the human mind. In antiquity precautions were taken to prevent the slave from breaking his chains; at the present day measures are adopted to deprive him even of the desire for freedom. The ancients kept the bodies of their slaves in bondage, but placed no restraint upon the mind and no check upon education; and they acted consistently with their established principle, since a natural termination of slavery then existed, and one day or other the slave might be set free and become the equal of his master. But the Americans of the South, who do not admit that the Negroes can ever be commingled with themselves, have forbidden them, under severe penalties, to be taught to read or write; and as they will not raise them to their own level, they sink them as nearly as possible to that of the brutes.”

“The hope of liberty had always been allowed to the slave, to cheer the hardships of his condition. But the Americans of the South are well aware that emancipation cannot but be dangerous when the freed man can never be assimilated to his former master. To give a man his freedom and to leave him in wretchedness and ignominy is nothing less than to prepare a future chief for a revolt of the slaves. Moreover, it has long been remarked that the presence of a free Negro vaguely agitates the minds of his less fortunate brethren, and conveys to them a dim notion of their rights. The Americans of the South have consequently taken away from slave-owners the right of emancipating their slaves in most cases.52”

“It is important to make an accurate distinction between slavery itself and its consequences. The immediate evils produced by slavery were very nearly the same in antiquity as they are among the moderns, but the consequences of these evils were different. The slave among the ancients belonged to the same race as his master, and was often the superior of the two in education 31 and intelligence. Freedom was the only distinction between them; and when freedom was conferred, they were easily confounded together. The ancients, then, had a very simple means of ridding themselves of slavery and its consequences: that of enfranchisement; and they succeeded as soon as they adopted this measure generally. Not but that in ancient states the vestiges of servitude subsisted for some time after servitude itself was abolished. There is a natural prejudice that prompts men to despise whoever has been their inferior long after he has become their equal; and the real inequality that is produced by fortune or by law is always succeeded by an imaginary inequality that is implanted in the manners of the people. But among the ancients this secondary consequence of slavery had a natural limit; for the freedman bore so entire a resemblance to those born free that it soon became impossible to distinguish him from them.
“The greatest difficulty in antiquity was that of altering the law; among the moderns it is that of altering the customs, and as far as we are concerned, the real obstacles begin where those of the ancients left off. This arises from the circumstance that among the moderns the abstract and transient fact of slavery is fatally united with the physical and permanent fact of color. The tradition of slavery dishonors the race, and the peculiarity of the race perpetuates the tradition of slavery. No African has ever voluntarily emigrated to the shores of the New World, whence it follows that all the blacks who are now found there are either slaves or freedmen Thus the Negro transmits the eternal mark of his ignominy to all his descendants; and although the law may abolish slavery, God alone can obliterate the traces of its existence.
“The modern slave differs from his master not only in his condition but in his origin. You may set the Negro free, but you cannot make him otherwise than an alien to the European. Nor is this all we scarcely acknowledge the common features of humanity in this stranger whom slavery has brought among us. His physiognomy is to our eyes hideous, his understanding weak, his tastes low; and we are almost inclined to look upon him as a being intermediate between man and the brutes.32 The moderns, then, after they have abolished slavery, have three prejudices to contend against, which are less easy to attack and far less easy to conquer than the mere fact of servitude: the prejudice of the master, the prejudice of the race, and the prejudice of color.
“It is difficult for us, who have had the good fortune to be born among men like ourselves by nature and our equals by law, to conceive the irreconcilable differences that separate the Negro from the European in America. But we may derive some faint notion of them from analogy. France was formerly a country in which numerous inequalities existed that had been created by law. Nothing can be more fictitious than a purely legal inferiority nothing more contrary to the instinct of mankind than these permanent divisions established between beings evidently similar. Yet these divisions existed for ages; they still exist in many places and everywhere they have left imaginary vestiges, which time alone can efface. If it be so difficult to root out an inequality that originates solely in the law, how are those distinctions to be destroyed which seem to be based upon the immutable laws of Nature herself? When I remember the extreme difficulty with which aristocratic bodies, of whatever nature they may be, are commingled with the mass of the people, and the exceeding care which they take to preserve for ages the ideal boundaries of their caste inviolate, I despair of seeing an aristocracy disappear which is founded upon visible and indelible signs. Those who hope that the Europeans will ever be amalgamated with the Negroes appear to me to delude themselves. I am not led to any such conclusion by my reason or by the evidence of facts. Hitherto wherever the whites have been the most powerful, they have held the blacks in degradation or in slavery; wherever the Negroes have been strongest, they have destroyed the whites: this has been the only balance that has ever taken place between the two races.
“I see that in a certain portion of the territory of the United States at the present day the legal barrier which separated the two races is falling away, but not that which exists in the manners of the country, slavery recedes, but the prejudice to which it has given birth is immovable. Whoever has inhabited the United States must have perceived that in those parts of the Union in which the Negroes are no longer slaves they have in no wise drawn nearer to the whites. On the contrary, the prejudice of race appears to be stronger in the states that have abolished slavery than in those where it still exists; and nowhere is it so intolerant as in those states where servitude has never been known.
“It is true that in the North of the Union marriages may be legally contracted between Negroes and whites; but public opinion would stigmatize as infamous a man who should connect himself with a Negress, and it would be difficult to cite a single instance of such a union. The electoral franchise has been conferred upon the Negroes in almost all the states in which slavery has been abolished, but if they come forward to vote, their lives are in danger. If oppressed, they may bring an action at law, but they will find none but whites among their judges; and although they may legally serve as jurors, prejudice repels them from that office. The same schools do not receive the children of the black and of the European. In the theaters gold cannot procure a seat for the servile race beside their former masters; in the hospitals they lie apart; and although they are allowed to invoke the same God as the whites, it must be at a different altar and in their own churches, with their own clergy. The gates of heaven are not closed against them, but their inferiority is continued to the very confines of the other world. When the Negro dies, his bones are cast aside, and the distinction of condition prevails even in the equality of death. Thus the Negro is free, but he can share neither the rights, nor the pleasures, nor the labor, nor the afflictions, nor the tomb of him whose equal he has been declared to be; and he cannot meet him upon fair terms in life or in death.
“In the South, where slavery still exists, the Negroes are less carefully kept apart; they sometimes share the labors and the recreations of the whites; the whites consent to intermix with them to a certain extent, and although legislation treats them more harshly, the habits of the people are more tolerant and compassionate. In the South the master is not afraid to raise his slave to his own standing, because he knows that he can in a moment reduce him to the dust at pleasure. In the North the white no longer distinctly perceives the barrier that separates him from the degraded race, and he shuns the Negro with the more pertinacity since he fears lest they should some day be confounded together.”

Each state gave up its sovereignty when it signed the Constitution. The confederacy of 13 American United States was gone. Each state gave up its sovereign rights in favor of a majority ¾ vote. Additionally, as the states voted to borrow money collectively, they had to repay it collectively. They collectively agreed to establish forts in individual (including Southern) states. Thus, the Union had rights to Ft. Sumter. If states could unilaterally secede, then there would be no ¾ majority vote. Why would there be a majority vote if one state could veto all the others through secession? Secession needed to be approved by ¾ majority vote, not unilaterally. Each co-signer of the Constitution agreed to agree what was Federal property. Ft Sumter was Federal property, not state property. Thus, the same rule with respect to the Philippines or Cuba, respecting their attacking our bases, would apply to the Confederacy. Read the Constitution:
“U.S. Constitution - Article 1 Section 10
Article 1 - The Legislative Branch
Section 10 - Powers prohibited of States
“No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
“No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.
“No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

“Article V
“The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.”

Moreover, might doesn’t make right. For racists, it does.
Do you think slavery was a favor for blacks? Was legalized rape (where did American blacks get their Caucasian features?), murder, selling off family members, and outlawing literacy loving Christian favor for Africans to provide them with a better life? Was the price of 50% loss in transatlantic voyage for contraband cargo after 1808 a favor?

Are you saying that the American institution of slavery wasn’t racist?
The intentions of a person are not my business. The effects are. Socialism has negative effects: it justifies the end via evil means. Your argument against Socialism illustrates my point. The negative effects make it evil. Similarly, the negative racist effects of the Confederate make it evil.

The Confederates may have been better Indian lovers. Yet, they enslaved blacks. Many Cherokees owned slaves. They had an investment to protect in the Confederacy. Texas referred to them as “savages” in their Declaration of Secession. Is there an Indian organization – like the black’s NAACP - that decries the American flag like the NAACP denounces the Confederate flag?

The confederacy didn’t believe in State’s Rights or limited Federal Government. They violated states’ rights by insisting on the Fugitive Slave Law et al. Read their Declaration of Secession. They wanted to impose support for slavery on the North and deny them of freedom of the press, assembly, belief, etc. Because the North didn’t kowtow, they seceded.

The moral high ground that you allege to the South was seen in Jim Crow Laws and Black Codes that existed up till the 1960s until the hated Federalis came in and broke up the white good-ol’ boy system. The Confederate flag was seen waving at the civil rights riots. High ground?

[ComradeRed]

[quote=Equator,Aug 18 2005, 7:15 PM]
Racists can be benevolent to the ones they believe are inferior. I’ve had various racist beliefs throughout my life while I had black friends as best friends. I’ve been racist the whole while. Because Lee was nice to some black man doesn’t disprove racism. I don’t know who in the Confederacy was or wasn’t racist. I’m not every man’s judge. What I care is that the theology and the doctrine was racist.[/quote]

Lee was not a racist, certainly not as much as most Nothern generals. He supported allowing slaves in combat roles the whole time, and while I agree that how you treat someone isn't a perfect indicator of how you perceive him, it's still a pretty good one.

[quote=Equator,Aug 18 2005, 7:15 PM]Meaninglessly long quote[/quote]

Which proves that ONE PART of their cause was racist, not that their entire cause was.

[quote=Equator,Aug 18 2005, 7:15 PM]How do you know that Manstein was a Jew? If he were, it wouldn’t disprove racism.[/quote]

It's ridiculous to claim that EVERYONE in the Nazi government hated Jews. Some just wanted a job. Some wanted more land. Etc. While certainly many of them were racists, 40% of Germany voted for Hitler, and the vast majority of those people voted for him because they wanted to revoke the Versailles Treaty and have an economic recovery, not because they suppored the massacre of Jews.

[quote=Equator,Aug 18 2005, 7:15 PM]Very long and meaningless quote that has to do with education, not the issue at hand, that no one will bother to read.[/quote]

We can all see what happened when people DID compensate freed slaves, like they did in Imperial Russia... those same freed serfs ended up either killing people on the side of the communists or being killed by the communists, and were clearly worse off than American slaves who were freed without compensation.

[quote=Equator,Aug 18 2005, 7:15 PM]Each state gave up its sovereignty when it signed the Constitution. The confederacy of 13 American United States was gone.[/quote]

Have you ever heard of the 10th amendment?

Or of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution which very explicitly states that the Federal government is only supposed to do things that affect multiple states, and that things entirely within state borders were states' issues?

[quote=Equator,Aug 18 2005, 7:15 PM]Each state gave up its sovereign rights in favor of a majority ¾ vote. Additionally, as the states voted to borrow money collectively, they had to repay it collectively.[/quote]

No they didn't. They borrowed money on their own, and then Alexander Hamilton proposed that the Federal Government assume all the States' debt, which resulted in a compromise that put the capital of the US in Washington, in the South, instead of in Philadelphia or New York, in the North.

[quote=Equator,Aug 18 2005, 7:15 PM]They collectively agreed to establish forts in individual (including Southern) states. Thus, the Union had rights to Ft. Sumter.[/quote]

The British Empire collectively agreed to establish forts in Detroit and the Ohio River Valley, but when we declared our independence, we still seized them.

Britain had 11 million people as opposed to America's 3 at the time of the revolution. We were an even smaller minority than the Confederates were in the Civil War, so if our revolution was justified in spite of being against a majority power, then so was the Confederates'.

[quote=Equator,Aug 18 2005, 7:15 PM]If states could unilaterally secede, then there would be no ¾ majority vote. Why would there be a majority vote if one state could veto all the others through secession? Secession needed to be approved by ¾ majority vote, not unilaterally.[/quote]

The secessions WERE approved by a majority vote, in the places that wanted to secede. And the secessions aren't vetoing the others. If South Carolina decides to lower its tariff, that does NOT prevent Massachusetts from keeping its tariff high. A state that secedes just decides to go its own way, not 'veto' the decision of other states.

If the vast majority of people in a particular area decide that they want independence for their area, then they have that right--just like the Kurds, or the Poles, or Killington, Vermont.

[quote=Equator,Aug 18 2005, 7:15 PM]Each co-signer of the Constitution agreed to agree what was Federal property. Ft Sumter was Federal property, not state property. Thus, the same rule with respect to the Philippines or Cuba, respecting their attacking our bases, would apply to the Confederacy.[/quote]

Ft. Sumter wasn't built in the 1770s when the States were deciding what forts to have. Sorry.

[quote=Equator,Aug 18 2005, 7:15 PM]Article I, Section 10[/quote]

So States don't have absolute power. Big deal. Neither did the Federal government, if you read Article I, Section 8, or Amendment X. In fact, by seceeding, they essentially don't want anything to do with the Union any more and thus the Constitution no longer applies.

In fact, James Buchanan said that, while the Confederacy didn't have the legal right to secede, the Union also didn't have the legal right to go in and stop them because only the militia is supposed to be used for domestic insurrections, and the militia is in control of state governments.

[quote=Equator,Aug 18 2005, 7:15 PM]Moreover, might doesn’t make right. For racists, it does.[/quote]

Really? The Nazis always portrayed the Jews as scheming and manipulative... if racists believed that might made right, then it would seem that the Nazis would submit to the Jews, not fight them.

Your argument that the Confederacy is a lost cause because we beat them is basically saying that the side that wins is necessarily the side that is morally right, i.e. might makes right.

[quote=Equator,Aug 18 2005, 7:15 PM]Do you think slavery was a favor for blacks? Was legalized rape (where did American blacks get their Caucasian features?), murder, selling off family members, and outlawing literacy loving Christian favor for Africans to provide them with a better life? Was the price of 50% loss in transatlantic voyage for contraband cargo after 1808 a favor?[/quote]

I didn't say it was; but the Southerners at the time believed it was, therefore their intention was benevolent.

They were NOT trying to wipe out black people, the way the Nazis were trying to wipe out the Jews, thus a Confederate-Nazi comparison is misleading.

[quote=Equator,Aug 18 2005, 7:15 PM]Are you saying that the American institution of slavery wasn’t racist?[/quote]

No, it certainly was; but so was the Athenian institution of slavery, and yet we are able to focus on Athens's good points, like its democracy and free trade, so why can't we do the same with the Confederacy's support of local and responsible government?

[quote=Equator,Aug 18 2005, 7:15 PM]The intentions of a person are not my business. The effects are. Socialism has negative effects: it justifies the end via evil means. Your argument against Socialism illustrates my point. The negative effects make it evil. Similarly, the negative racist effects of the Confederate make it evil.[/quote]

Socialism has negative intentions too: to deprive people of what is rightfully theirs in order to force the government's view of society down on the people.

A well-intentioned but ill-effected policy is a bad idea, but not necessarily immoral.

[quote=Equator,Aug 18 2005, 7:15 PM]The Confederates may have been better Indian lovers. Yet, they enslaved blacks. Many Cherokees owned slaves. They had an investment to protect in the Confederacy. Texas referred to them as “savages” in their Declaration of Secession. Is there an Indian organization – like the black’s NAACP - that decries the American flag like the NAACP denounces the Confederate flag?[/quote]

I'm sure there is, just the Indians don't have as much political power since they are a smaller minority and don't have teh money that black people do.

[quote=Equator,Aug 18 2005, 7:15 PM]The confederacy didn’t believe in State’s Rights or limited Federal Government.[/quote]

Um, yes they did. That was the legal argument behind their secession, and if you read the Confederate Constitution, it had a lot more protection for States' Rights than did the Union's.

[quote=Equator,Aug 18 2005, 7:15 PM]They violated states’ rights by insisting on the Fugitive Slave Law et al. Read their Declaration of Secession. They wanted to impose support for slavery on the North and deny them of freedom of the press, assembly, belief, etc. Because the North didn’t kowtow, they seceded.[/quote]

So because they seceded, then the North could have its freedom of the press, assembly, belief, etc., while the South could have its low government spending. No fugitive slave laws. Neither side imposes itself on the other--live and let live.

For the record, the North violated civil liberties a lot more than the South--Lincoln had legislators in Maryland ARRESTED for just disagreeing with him and a newspaper in New York was HANGED for publishing pro-Confederate information. In the SOuth, during the Civil War, a credible opposition remained and public officials weren't arrested or killed for their beliefs.

[quote=Equator,Aug 18 2005, 7:15 PM]The moral high ground that you allege to the South was seen in Jim Crow Laws and Black Codes that existed up till the 1960s until the hated Federalis came in and broke up the white good-ol’ boy system. The Confederate flag was seen waving at the civil rights riots. High ground?
[/quote]

The South clearly did have the moral high ground in 1861--that's why most Europeans were supportive of the South. And that's why Lincoln HAD to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, because he knew that, if he didn't, the South would keep the moral high ground and the war would drag on longer.

[Equator]

BrandonSaunders:

History is the means by which Confederates claim heritage rather than hate behind their flag. They make up their history, portraying Yankees as card-playing Devils, next to praying Confederates: who helped the unfortunate Africans by offering them employment in slavery. They deny their past and present evil. The neo-Confederacy is a theocracy (quite an oxymoron), based on racist slavery. Today, they claim that it is not racists. The KKK claims that they aren’t racist! Check out their site. No one is a racist anymore. Racism is no longer in vogue. It’s not chic. Therefore, it doesn’t exist. It can only apply to the other guy. Today, everyone (like Confederates) is a heritage lover – never a racist.

[ComradeRed]

If you claim that every nation which held racist ideas was a racist nation and thus should be condemned for its racism, you will have to condemn basically all of the great Ancient civilizations (Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, etc. all had a habit of enslaving people of different ethnicities). And then you have to condemn the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment bceause our modern notions of racism come from those two periods of history. And then European settlers on different continents, as well as the natives on those continents for attacking European settlers, etc.

Even though Ancient Egypt was FAR more slave-dependent than the Confederacy, we look today on their legacy as one of culture, relative stability, and technological advancement, not one of slavery and racism towards "Asiatics". Similarly, when we look at the Ancient Romans, even though the population of Italy was sometimes 2/3 slaves, and they committed near-genocidal wars against "Barbarians" (The Confederates never tried to commit genocide), we primarily see a culture that brought stability and technological growth and an improved quality of life to most of Europe. And even though Europeans killed something like 90% of Indians by creating smallpox plagues in the New World, we don't look back on colonization and condemn people who dress up as Pilgrims for Thanksgiving Dinner as racists who want to burn witches and slaughter Indians. Sure, SOME people who dress up as Pilgrims might hate Indians, but the vast majority just want to celebrate the good points of their heritage--just like the vast majority of Southerners who have a Confederate flag on their pickup truck and never put on a white hood or burn a cross or lynch a black guy.

The Confederates were not nearly as brutal as the Romans or even the Spanish colonists in the New World, and yet we tend to only see their slavery and not focus on some of the good things they stood for, while we remember aqueducts and Don Quixote as the crowning moments of Roman and Spanish cultures?

Sounds like hypocrisy to me.

[Equator]

Comradred:

How do you know that Lee wasn’t a racist? Are you God?

All Nazis and all Confederates are not racists. Their flags are, because their flags stand for racism

Bash Yankees all you want. That doesn’t obfuscate Confederate racism.

The neo-Confederates don’t know that their Confederacy didn’t favor State’s Rights, except their own to have their right to slavery and to extend slavery to the new territories. This information is all in the South’s Declaration of Secession.

I don’t desire to comment on the rest of your blog. If you want the Confederacy to be self-righteous. Then, that is OK with me.

What I care about is that the Confederate flag is a hot issue because it is a racist one – disguised as a cultural one. To say the least, the Confederacy is racist on the grounds that it is racially antagonistic.

[ComradeRed]

Comradred:

How do you know that Lee wasn’t a racist? Are you God?

How do you know that he was? Are you God?

I don't claim to have proof that he wasn't, but the evidence suggests that he wasn't, whereas the evidence suggests that Union generals like Sherman were racists (abandoning freed slaves in Georgia to the mercy of Confederate cavalry while burning a bridge that might have allowed them to escape, for example).

All Nazis and all Confederates are not racists. Their flags are, because their flags stand for racism

No they don't... they stand for Nazi Germany, and the Confederate States of America, respectively. Some of their policies were racist, not all of them.

The reason flying a Nazi flag is bad, whereas flying a Confederate flag can be a symbol of heritage, is that the Nazis represented totalitarianism in EVERYTHING they did--they were just as willing to censor and kill Aryans as they were Jews. That's why when we call someone a "Nazi" today, we usually mean that they are very strict or totalitarian, not that they were racist (a Feminazi isn't a feminist who hates Jews, and a grammar Nazi isn't a grammarian who hates Jews).

Bash Yankees all you want. That doesn’t obfuscate Confederate racism.

The neo-Confederates don’t know that their Confederacy didn’t favor State’s Rights, except their own to have their right to slavery and to extend slavery to the new territories. This information is all in the South’s Declaration of Secession.

Once agian, that just proves that slavery was ONE issue, not the only issue.

To say the least, the Confederacy is racist on the grounds that it is racially antagonistic.

So was Rosa Parks.

[Equator]

Comradred:

I don’t care so much what something meant in yesteryear. I care what it means today. The fact that “gay” meant happy in the 1930s is irrelevant to me today. The fact that a neo-Confederate may not be racist is also irrelevant. The fact that many neo-Confederates (e.g. the KKK) are is relevant. The fact that neo-Confederacy is divisive and based on racist theology is relevant because it affects how people (e.g. blacks) view it today. Pro-Confederates deny and / or minimize racism in slavery. Anti-Confederates tend to see only slavery. Such is the case with black America. If we’re going to get along with them, we should attempt to respect them and love them by not antagonizing them with a reminder of their inferior position in white majority society. I’ve wanted to fly the Confederate flag in defiance of the National Association Against Caucasian People who antagonize my white society. I’m sorry for doing so. Retaliation and vengeance doesn’t heal social wounds. It makes them worse. We can be happy about our culture. However, we shouldn’t flaunt our superior white culture knowing that it makes others feel inferior because of the doctrine and theology of the culture/society which made them inferior: like animals. Moreover, up to the present the Confederate flag is used by racists (e.g. the KKK) who deny their racism. Blacks don’t know who is who. Therefore, they are offended by the Confederacy that puts them down. I can’t blame them. If I were a Jew, I wouldn’t want someone flying a swastika in my face. If I were a black person, I'd be provoked to hostility over the Confederate flag, in like manner.

[ComradeRed]

The fact that a neo-Confederate may not be racist is also irrelevant. The fact that many neo-Confederates (e.g. the KKK) are is relevant.

Oh come on, that's like me saying, "The fact that some inner-city black people are not crackheads is irrelevant. The fact that many inner-city black people are is relevant."

For the same reason that it would be wrong to stereotype black people as crackheads because a good chunk of them do, in fact, use crack, it's wrong to stereotype all Confederates as racists because a good chunk of them are.

The fact that neo-Confederacy is divisive and based on racist theology is relevant because it affects how people (e.g. blacks) view it today.

Martin Luther King was divisive, so what? Any movement that some people don't agree with is going to be divisive. And just because other people view it as racist doesn't mean that it is. I could view the Teletubbise as promoting homosexuality, but that doesn't mean that they are. I could view the CreateBlog smilies as promoting racism since they are all yellow, but that doesn't mean they are.

Pro-Confederates deny and / or minimize racism in slavery. Anti-Confederates tend to see only slavery. Such is the case with black America. If we’re going to get along with them, we should attempt to respect them and love them by not antagonizing them with a reminder of their inferior position in white majority society.

So? If no one did anything because they were afraid it might offend someone else, we'd still be in the Stone Age. "Black America"'s leaders were concerned about improving themselves, NOT whether they were antagonizing white people, which is why we remember people like Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks for their bravery, to do things that did offend and antagonize people.

...our superior white culture...

You said that, not me.

Moreover, up to the present the Confederate flag is used by racists (e.g. the KKK) who deny their racism. Blacks don’t know who is who. Therefore, they are offended by the Confederacy that puts them down. I can’t blame them. If I were a Jew, I wouldn’t want someone flying a swastika in my face.

But just because you don't want someone flying a swastika, doesn't give you the right to take it away from them, any more than a Pittsburgh Steelers fan has the right to raid people's houses and steal all their New England Patriots t-shirts.

[Equator]

Comradred:

The issue is: “is the Confederate flag racist?”
The issue is not: “are Confederate flag wavers racist?”

So, stop attacking the validity of judging other people’s motives. I’m not! I’m judging the action. If you don’t want to stay with the issue, then there’s no point of debate with me.

Are you saying that no symbol can be racist?

No one is taking away your Confederate flag. You have the right to fly it. We all have the right to be racist.

However, the government of the people shouldn’t fly it because it is offensive.

[ComradeRed]

A symbol can be racist if the thing it represents had the sole purpose of being racist. The Confederacy's sole (or even primary) motivation was not racism, and therefore the Confederate flag is not racist.

A government of the people should fly it if the majority of people support it. The government isn't actually violating anyone's rights by flying it. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, it's not something that "picks my pocket or breaks my leg". The design of the flag should be solely left up to what the people in general want. It's not a minority rights issue. Anything the government does is offensive, if the President makes a conservative speech, it will offend liberals, and vice versa. We can't hogtie ourselves based on what others might see as offensive, but doesn't actually violate their rights.

[Equator]

Refer to post 8/21/05.