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Should displaying Confederate symbols be illegal in the United States?

Should displaying Confederate symbols be illegal in the United States?

  • Yes, we should have a universal ban on display of Confederate symbols.

    Votes: 3 5.2%
  • Only government-sponsored displays should be banned.

    Votes: 10 17.2%
  • No. The U.S. Constitution guarantees expression of unpopular and even odious ideas.

    Votes: 39 67.2%
  • No. We should be proud of symbols of Confederacy

    Votes: 6 10.3%

  • Total voters
    58

lonevoice

Member
Jocose said:
In the northern neck of Virginia, I've seen white folk and black folk flying the confederate flag side by side, in their yards. The Confederate Flag only stands for slavery for those arrogant SOBs up North who pretend that their invasion of the South was about something other than Federal power.

AAAAA-MEN!!!!!:clap (and I'm half black! Those of you that think the Civil War was about slavery need to do some more studying!!!!)

I wish people would just get over all this. It's history, we can't undo it, all we can do is live with it and get on with our lives. I guess some folks would complain if you hung them with a new rope.(of course, most of the real complainers are earning a living off of protesting.......)


American by naturalization, and Southern by the Grace of God!!
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
It didn't start out as being a symbol of evil, hatred, racial bigotry, and murder either, but meanings change....... Do you associate the swastika with life and good luck?
I was refering to a NAZI swatstika. Red flag, white circle, and black symbol. Im well aware the swatstika goes back much further than Hitler.

Who's revising history here, saying that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery and that those who fought for the South didn't support slavery? Next you'll be telling me that slavery in the United States didn't happen at all.
The fate of slavery was indeed on the line during the Civil War, but it was the minor issue. The big issue is that the North new it would be severly hurt economically with the Southern states succeding. To solve the problem, the North declared war.
 

DreamQuickBook

Active Member
Faminedynasty said:
Ah, but I am being bitter, slanted and crude. Forgive me, it is not generally my way to do so. But I suppose it is a monument to the fact that bitterness still runs deep on both sides from that war so many years ago.

lol You don't think I'd get mad at you for being bitter do ya? :) We are all Americans, but, people in the North ain't like people in the South, just like none of us are like folk in Southern California; and there are people that ain't ever seen an ocean or eaten crab, or had Old Bay!

We're different people, have different values and ideas about what is good for America. What is good for the North isn't necessarily good for the South or the West and vice versa. So I think it's OK if we dislike each other (not personally, but, you know, in general). You can hate those damn Bud Drinkin', NASCAR watchin', gun totting, racist, women beating rednecks all you want. And we can hate those soulless, greedy, power hungry, decadent and arrogant embarressments we call Northerners... those Damn Yankees, if you will.

But Northerners and Southerns should ALL be able to agree on one Fundamental Moral Principle.

The Dallas Cowboys and LA Lakers SUCK!

Furthermore, all you rich folk up North bring all your money down South after you get old. So we make an aweful lot of $$ babysitting old rich retired Yankees. :) Compared to up North, it's cheap to live in the south. But in the end, what is in the past is in the past. All Americans have certain things in common with regard to our future... certain... common enemies that we can all go blow the hell out of together.
 

Pah

Uber all member
Luke Wolf said:
... The fate of slavery was indeed on the line during the Civil War, but it was the minor issue. The big issue is that the North new it would be severly hurt economically with the Southern states succeding. To solve the problem, the North declared war.
Slavery was the central underpinning of all that was south at the time and used extensively for the only profit the south produced. Slave dollars feed the whole south. Slavery was core to the whole structure of the south, from it's state's rights position through the economy to the social structure of the "geentel" society. What depends on evil for existence is itself evil. The battle flag is but a remnant of that corruption. It has taken two federal defeats of the south to recognize the rights of humans - the first being the war, the second being the Brown v Board of Education decision and the civil rights act. But still the KKK lives wounded but alive with a Christian Identity face.

Yes, I know that pathetic apologetic history the south puts out that started in the 1830's. I know the effort to continue supression after an Emansipation. I am not fooled, as some willingly are, by the effort to deflect recognition of an ugly period in American history. It was not what Lincoln did but the fear of what Lincoln might do when he assumed office that started the sucession and actual conflict. The north was not the first beligerant - South Carolina was, the South Carolina that was the home of Tories in the Revolutions War who fought Confederation troops.

The south was founded on backs of others. Jamestown would have gone under had it not been for the labor of Indians and the imported slaves that replaced them when the Native Americans melted back into the woods.

There is the real history to be proud of - after lifting the rock under which it laid and polished it off with "honor of the old south". It is not the history per se that is abomnible but the unrepentant denial of the history.

Honoring the leadership of the the old south glorifies traitors, a classification that the men honored still carry. The flag represent the soldier who was pardoned for his crime but encompasses all that was wrong about the war.
 

DreamQuickBook

Active Member
If the war could have been fought again, I'd have sided with the south. I'd have opposed slavery, but I would have been happy to give my life to fight for my independence against an alien force. Again, something you northerners still haven't figured out, is that while slavery was an issue in the south, it wasn't an issue in the North. At least, not to anyone that mattered anyway. The entire argument that the Civil War was about slavery, because the South depended on slaves is illogical, because the North wasn't interested in freeing slaves. To the North, it was about money and power.

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 16th. President of the United States, edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume V, "Letter to Horace Greeley" (August 22, 1862), p. 388.

"If I thought this war was to abolish slavery, I would resign my commission, and offer my sword to the other side." --Ulysses S. Grant

"The Southern Confederacy will not employ our ships or buy our goods. What is our shipping without it? Literally nothing....It is very clear that the South gains by this process, and we lose. No---we MUST NOT "let the South go." "----Union Democrat , Manchester, NH, February 19, 1861
 

jewscout

Religious Zionist
Jocose said:
If the war could have been fought again, I'd have sided with the south. I'd have opposed slavery, but I would have been happy to give my life to fight for my independence against an alien force
and when the Confederacy won the war would you then expect the nation to give up it's "peculiar institution"? Know that the creation of this nation was to maintain this institution's existance?
 

DreamQuickBook

Active Member
jewscout said:
and when the Confederacy won the war would you then expect the nation to give up it's "peculiar institution"? Know that the creation of this nation was to maintain this institution's existance?

I think it would have taken longer to end slavery, but I think it would have eventually ended. Especially as the "white" population increased and more and more jobs were needed. Free labor would make it harder for paid labor to find work. I think it would have taken a while. *shrugs*
 

Quoth The Raven

Half Arsed Muse
jewscout said:
the source of this material is...
Sorry, EH.net . i posted all this last night - actually at about 1:45am - and then lost it. Forgive me if my desire to sleep delayed the answer to your question by too much.
Very interesting article about the economic motivation for slavery. Also has a table with a state by state breakdown of total numbers of slaves per state, total numbers of slaveholders and how many held what numbers of slaves. Mind you, there's a big gap in the table between 1-5 slaves and 100-499. Still, by far the largest percentages held between one and 5 slaves. It also had information as to the average prices over a period of years starting in 1800, and the laws pertaining to slaveholding, as well as a table illustrating total numbers of slaves in the South and their percentage of the population. At the onset of the war, the estimated total value of slaves was $4 billion.
I also stumbled across another site that said (forgive me, but I can't be bothered going to find it again ) that in some place in South Carolina the average wage for a free field hand was .40c per day. This at a time when the average wage in Illinois for a fieldhand was $1 per day. Even at .40c though, it cost roughly $85 a year more to employ someone over holding a slave.
Assuming - as yet another site informed me - that the average yearly overhead per slave was $60 and the gross return per slave was $160, with obviously a profit of $100 per slave - it would take a prime field 15 years at 1850 prices to pay for himself before you started making a profit on your initial investment. Of course, that doesn't take into account appreciation, but it also doesn't allow for depreciation once the slave is over a certain age. It also doesn't allow for children, but I was trying to keep it a bit simple.
Obviously there was an economic benefit, but they were hardly a 'free' workforce. It was quite understandeable concern over the economic impact of emancipating $4 billion worth of property.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
Honoring the leadership of the the old south glorifies traitors
I don't see them as traitors. Rather a group of leaders with a desire to practice what the Constitution gives them, and that is power of the States. The constitution does define many federal powers, but many more are left to the state to decide.
 

Faminedynasty

Active Member
NetDoc said:
I'm going to have to retract a bit and agree with Pah...

Consider the following URL: http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html
Indeed, the arguments presented within the article seem to express much of the sentiment that Jacose has within the thread, however, in the case of the written statements, all of this sentiment is rooted in the defense of slavery. That is the "right" and the economic interest they feel they were protecting.
 

Scuba Pete

Le plongeur avec attitude...
I agree... and is why I added "a bit". Obviously, slavery was the straw that broke the camel's back in this case, but it still was the "last straw" nonetheless. By the way, those aren't merely arguments but part of the actual articles of secession for each state.
 

Fluffy

A fool
Lets just suppose for 2 seconds that the South was not only fighting to keep slavery but they also wanted to invade the North and wipe out every Northerner on the plant. Why not make them really evil and and say they eat their own young and push old ladies over in the street. Would it really be relevant to answering the thread question?

Why should the actions or beliefs of a group of people have any rational impact on the nature or morality of a bunch of fabric they used as their symbol? I readily admit it is perfectly natural to come to the conclusion that somebody walking around with a Nazi flag is not very nice. However, such an assumption is making a massive leap of judgement and is not rational.

I could not care less what the majority of people thought about me. If I wear a pentacle and they find this offensive, then they have a problem and they need help with it. Giving in to them and saying I won't do whatever it is that offends them, if the action in question is not intended to cause offense or breaches their rights, only fuels their problem, making it worse.
 

fromthe heart

Well-Known Member
I lived in the south for about 6 years...I got to know some of the folks who flew the confederate flag...to them it had nothing at all to do with slavery but a symbol of southern pride. It all respect for those who felt this way I gotta' tell you they have every right to fly their confederate flag..it's historical in fact that it was the flag of the south before the war between the north and the south. I don't imagine I'd feel any different if I'd been around back in those days when they had northerners go down there in this war burn their homes,rape their women and take their cultural ways from them....not meaning the slavery part because the whole of the wealthy had slaves. My greatgrand-parents had 'slaves' these weren't abused as some slaves were they were paid a good wage and had decent living quarters. My grandmother loved her 'Mammy' just as some kids love their 'nannies' in these days. The folks that were employed by my greatgrand-parents were not held in captivity...they were there willingly, they were mostly slaves who fled the south through the underground railroad and needed employment and safety. As bad as slavery was in MANY cases there were good points to the betterment of the blacks as well through the folks who DID take these folks on as workers. They were never refered to as slaves...since they weren't there against their will but as more along the lines as housekeepers,farmhands,etc. I don't really know why all the slavery has to do with the confederate flag...they just had their own flag as being southerners as the north had their own flag as being northerners...it's just historic in that and not in slavery....those who see the confederate flag flown by many proud southerners as evil have never taken the time to ask them WHY that flag means so much to them...I did when living in the south because as some 'assume' I was a little offended by it at first but once I took the ignorance of what 'I' thought and asked them I learned it had nothing at all for the most parts on those who flew that flag to do with wanting to support slavery.


Folks who claim to have such strong feelings against these sorts of things need to just take a look at the products they purchase and find out about the products used in this country and others on the slavery of other sorts that made those products, children men and women making in one week what we could not live on in half a day...if slavery offends you watch what you buy or you yourself are supporting slavery in just as bad a form as those of the old south.:)
 

jamaesi

To Save A Lamb
My greatgrand-parents had 'slaves' these weren't abused as some slaves were they were paid a good wage and had decent living quarters. My grandmother loved her 'Mammy' just as some kids love their 'nannies' in these days. The folks that were employed by my greatgrand-parents were not held in captivity...they were there willingly, they were mostly slaves who fled the south through the underground railroad and needed employment and safety. As bad as slavery was in MANY cases there were good points to the betterment of the blacks as well through the folks who DID take these folks on as workers. They were never refered to as slaves...since they weren't there against their will but as more along the lines as housekeepers,farmhands,etc.
So if I took (and I do mean take, I´d have to kidnap you like the slaves were from Africa) from your home and made you my slave but just called you a housemaid and treated you decently you´d be okay with me owning you as my property and you having no real human rights?

Let´s not sugarcoat the institution of slavery.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
So if I took (and I do mean take, I´d have to kidnap you like the slaves were from Africa) from your home and made you my slave but just called you a housemaid and treated you decently you´d be okay with me owning you as my property and you having no real human rights?
Most of the slaves around that time were born on American soil. Some weren't, but many were. Since they were already thier, it is good that some slave owners treated thier slaves with a bit of dignity. Some other person could have bought them and abused them.
 

jamaesi

To Save A Lamb
Most of the slaves around that time were born on American soil. Some weren't, but many were. Since they were already thier, it is good that some slave owners treated thier slaves with a bit of dignity. Some other person could have bought them and abused them.
So as long as they were born here and you treated them half-decently, it makes owning another human being who has no human rights okay? :sarcastic
 

Natas

Active Member
Well, despite all the rhetoric in this thread, it seems, (by the majority of RF members anyway), that the answer to the question, "Should displaying Confederate symbols be illegal in the United States?", is a resounding NO.

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