One more place racist garbage is no longer welcome

"Does that seem right to you?"

I get what you're saying, I really do. So, what I did last night was ask 3 of my black friends the same question, cold:

"When you see a Confederate Battle Flag, what do you think?"

- Racist, hillbilly
- Skinhead
- "Get a rope, boy"

So then, I asked my wife (who is wonderful and amazing, but generally quite clueless about a great many things social and political) and 2 other friends, one in California, one in Oregon, and one locally, here in Tha Saaath:

Wife: Skinhead racist
CA: Redneck bigot
OR: Skinhead
KY: Someone who hates niggers (<---you see the irony there, I'm sure. This was a buddy who I know is a total nonchalant racist...thinks he's enlightened and would hire a black guy but would be talking shit behind his back while feeling very smug about his tolerance)

Exact quotes. In fact, I wrote all of these down.

So, I know it's not scientific, but it is what it is. Not one person said, "Southern Pride" or some such thing. I did get one response on my blog, though, which both shocked and amused me:

Styx from Florida wrote: Um, the confederate flag is seen by many as a racist symbol but it isn't. It is a flag flown by many in honor of those that died fighting for state rights. Slavery was just one of many reasons. My family fought on both sides, was land owners in the south, never had slaves (didn't think they was worth a pot to piss in to be honest). My mother is a retired history teacher and I grew up understanding what the flag stood for. The Union wasn't that much kinder as they freed the slavers later in the war, put them in segregated units, gave them all the worst assignments including hard labor and engagements with high losses. Neither side was saints and both sides had raciests, the American flag is just as much can be seen as the confederate.

The sad part is the idiots that has used that symbol and taints it with negative feelings is what really pisses me off. I am all about history, honoring the dead and fighting for ideals. To me that is what that flag stands for and I plan to teach my children that in the future. I plan to show them there are people that misuse the symbol that are just that evil and full of hate.

Green Lantern wrote: Oh yeah, what was the Jubil Early quote?

" I don't think of myself as a lion. You might as well though, I have a mighty roar. "

ThirstyMan wrote:

wice wrote: As someone, who lives (and have lived his entire life) in a former Soviet satellite state, I find it really funny when people from the West talk about how it really wasn't that bad. )))

I also find it amusing. Luckily, I was quoting my mother-in-law, sister in law, father in law and brother in law, all of whom live in the Ukraine. I never lived there but they certainly did and still do.

I find it more amusing that people should use the fact they live there to mean they win the argument, slam dunk, and no one else has a point of view that is valid outside their country. If you have ever only lived in one country, all of your life, I would hazard that your internationalist viewpoint is rather skewed anyway.

Did I say anything about "winning the argument"? I don't think so, and I don't think living here makes me automatically right. But yes, I think my first-hand experience beats your second-hand knowledge about the life in communist countries. It's like being black/gay/jewish/female vs having many black/gay/jewish/female friends, when it comes to the discussion of what is or isn't offensive. Or, like playing a game a shitload of times vs reading every review of it out there, without ever trying it.

Also note that I didn't talk about other countries, like the USA or the West in general, so my "skewed international perspective" is rather irrelevant.

All I can say is that living in a communist state was really fucked up. It was obviously less horrible than being black in a southern US state in the 1800's (and much of the 1900's, for what it's worth) or being a jew in Nazi Germany and its satellites. But it was fucked up, trust me.

Oh, yes, there was (and still is) some nostalgia for it around here. It comes mainly from people who couldn't adapt to the new order, lost their jobs, etc. Many people lived acceptable lives, having a so-called job that prevented them from starving, they could even afford some fried meat on Sundays, go to a vacation once a year in one of the resorts of the Party, buy a car (usually a Trabant, or some other piece of shit) if they had the patience to wait for it 10 years, have a telephone (again, it took years from asking for it to actually getting it), and so on.

The sad thing is, their jobs were nothing but an illusion. The Party wanted to pretend that everything was all right, "surely there are some problems, but we are working on them". So, millions of "jobs" were created, where they used intentionally obsolete technologies (so they require more man-power), many times there was no demand for their products at all, so they went directly to the garbage-heap, or they simply didn't produce anything, just hang around all day, pretending that they're working. The price of all this was huge national debt, and the results still cramp many post-Soviet countries' economies.

There was poverty, just like in the capitalist countries, but talking about it was forbidden.

To live an acceptable life, you had to have no ambitions at all. Trying to invent something new, venturing, starting an enterprise was a big no-no, because that would have disturbed the pretense of balance and equality.

There were agents of the Party everywhere (some of them believed in the cause, others were blackmailed into doing it) reporting every move of their co-workers, friends and even family-members. Many people spent time in jail or had to do jobs far below their qualifications, just because they were not loyal enough.

And note that it's just the period after the 50's, and only some of the more "liberal" countries. In the first 15 years people were killed, robbed and/or deported by the state simply for being rich or just not loyal enough. And, for example, in Romania, where the leaders decided that they would pay back the national debt, people were starving to death even in the 80's.

You ask a WWII vet what he thinks when he sees the Red Sun of the Japanese flag and you'll get a wildly different answer than that from a native of Japan. Perspective. Should we lobby to have their flag removed to protect the sensibilities of the vets. Of course not. We should learn from history not hide from it. I hate how politically correct the world has become. We seem to want to hide lessons from our children instead of educating them about it. Instead of explaining to someone what the true meaning behind the Confederate flag really is we want to ban it and hide it in a closet. That doesn't promote tolerance. It promotes ignorance.

TL;DR
If you don't want to sport the flag of Dixie, don't. Don't presume to tell others they can't display it and if they do they are admitting to being a racialist* pig.

*Used with permission of Black Barney LLC

Nicely said wice. That is bang on.

GL:
"You ask a WWII vet what he thinks when he sees the Red Sun of the Japanese flag and you'll get a wildly different answer than that from a native of Japan. Perspective. Should we lobby to have their flag removed to protect the sensibilities of the vets."

GL, but it's not really the same flag is it? In WWII it was the military rising sun flag, no?

You think if the German national anthem still had the words "Deutschland Uber Alles" in it that'd be ok? The Allies had 'political correctness' in mind when they banned that?!

About the rising sun flag, apparently, some people do find it offensive. from wikipedia:

The flag is considered offensive in countries which were victims of Japanese aggression, specifically in China and the Koreas,[5][6] where it is considered to be associated with Japanese militarism and imperialism.

It's not like anyone is striking stuff from the history books, just the opposite. But some things for historic reasons became highly inappropriate and in some places they are even against the law, a propogation of hatred and intolerance. The Hitler salute, for instance. My sentiment is that the hammer & sickle should be included on that list; but it has nothing to do with PC, it is about choking the symbols of a hateful, despicable ideology which had its 'chance' and we saw the same genocidal results repeated many times.

Any question about the CSA can be summed up in the cornerstone speech quote. Ipull it out any time some jackass goes on and on about the poor lil' southern states.


"Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornerstone_Speech

SuperflyTNT wrote: I miss Czechoslovakia. It had a cool name. Now it's 4 little places, and only one has a small name.

It's two pieces now: Czech Republic and Slovakia.

You might be confusing Czechoslovakia with Yugoslavia, which separated into Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Macedonia and maybe the Kosovo at some point in the future.

This is a question that I can't find answered. I'm genuinely curious, not trolling.

How does modern America explain the hypocrisy of it's founding fathers promoting freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all while at the same time, owning slaves and promoting slavery?

Green Lantern wrote: Oh yeah, what was the Jubil Early quote?

SuperflyTNT wrote: "Does that seem right to you?"

Pfft... I thought you were talking about Jubal Early, the Confederate general.

The Expanding Man wrote: This is a question that I can't find answered. I'm genuinely curious, not trolling.

How does modern America explain the hypocrisy of it's founding fathers promoting freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all while at the same time, owning slaves and promoting slavery?

If you read John Locke it will become pretty obvious to you that he intended freedom, liberty, democracy and all these nice things only for owners of property. Not women, not serfs and also not slaves, because property rights were at least on the same level as all other rights.