For some reason, I now have the urge to go put on my own Civil War outfit (this is Richmond) and head up to the White House of the Confederacy for a photo. I blame you, namely because the White House of the Confederacy is exactly 100 yards from the Emergency Room entrance at MCV. My appearing in long skirts, petticoats, and non-combatant's sash would certainly earn me a lot of attention from my co-workers, that's for certain.
Anyone living in Richmond, VA. Around here, they don't necessarily shoot to kill. They shoot for whatever they can get. Which is why, when I find out who taught some of the thugs around here to aim for the leg, we will have words.
well, in all fairness, the civil war re-enactment stuff does sort of require shooting. Somehow just pointing your gun and saying "Bang!" doesn't cut it.
that said, there are at least two problems with this theory.
1) you don't need to aim at someone to shoot at someone directly. 2) civil war re-enactment is stupid.
However, point a is moot. Aiming at the other army is how you fight a war. If you're firing blanks from half a field away, I don't see the reason not to. Also, there's no reason you have to be aiming at someone to hit them. I'm sure not all these people are marksmen.
Which pretty much leaves number 2 (since I'm sure the live ammunition wasn't loaded on purpose).
people, please ... let the civil war die. it's over. Done. That people keep clinging t the war, the flags, the issues is embarrassing.
Yeah, because, I mean, the Confederate states *saying* that the only reason they started the Slaver's Treason was to protect slavery, and that they would have been happy to stay if they could have kept slavery, THAT'S not important. What's important is that racist white people can wave the slaver's flag at blacks and then say "what? It's nothing serious! You're overreacting!" when called on it.
Hey, now, just because someone waves a slaver's flag doesn't mean anything! The fact that everyone else who knows the origin of the flag is horrified at its use doesn't mean anything!
Lincoln declared in August 1862 that the war wasn't about slavery and it was not being fought over the issue of slavery.
That the 13 secessionists declared the institution of slavery, as defined by the constitution, to be their principle reason for secession does not make it the reason for the war, which wasn't started by the secession itself, etc etc etc.
(and no, I didn't get into an argument at flemco's because it's something a bit too emotive, but I am currently rereading my favourite ACW history book and have a lot of the issues in my head anyway)
It was only the religious extremists that wanted to start a war to free the slaves, most of those fighting on the union side were fighting for the union and constitution as was...
The war was to prevent the secession, and the sole reason for the secession- according to the secessors themselves- was slavery. So while the North wasn't fighting for abolitionism (at least at the beginning), the South was certainly fighting against it.
The South *did* fight to keep the slaves from being freed.
EVERY LAST ONE of the slave states cited "we are seceding because we want to keep slavery" as their *primary* reason for secession, and for half of them it was their *only* reason.
(Texas said that they wanted slavery, and also Mexicans and Indians were filthy savages that they wanted to keep *out* of their territory. So Texas really hasn't changed, any, since then)
Slavery was the reason for secession. Protection of slavery was *the sole and entire* reason the slave states wanted out of the union. Maintaining slavery was why they attacked the North.
Oh, agreed—but a lot of those actually fighting, including, famously, Lee himself, were fighting for states rights and their interpretation that abolition was a matter for them, not for the federal govt or 'yankee meddlers'.
Many, if not most, of those fighting under the flag weren't slavers, didn't own slaves, etc. Some of the propaganda they bought into, like liberty only possible with slavery, etc, was weird, but mindsets are weird.
Re your other point about racist symbols, etc; it's got to the point over here that you rarely if ever see a British or English flag flying, many people assume the flyer to be racist. Reclamation attempts sometimes happen, especially during sports contest, but when out doorknocking for candidates I'm always very wary of the house bedecked with simple English flags.
So I get what you mean. But the battle flag isn't, of itself, a racist symbol, and its use isn't by default usage by racists—it's been accepted for southern units of the US army to use it in action since the early 1900s, for example.
Yes, I've no doubt that a lot of those using it are racists, and it is used for racist purposes, but to many others it's a symbol of the south—people like symbols, and like reclaiming stuff from racists.
Given that the interpretation 'the war was about slavery' is open to interpretation amongst eminent historians, a default assumption of racism isn't a good plan.
Assumption that racism is likely is probably safe, but it isn't always, and needn't be.
@John—Hobsbawm is a marxist historian, and put a good case in his book on the period that the root cause of the war was economic pressure, protectionist north versus free trading south, and would likely have happened regardless of the slavery issue—that was merely used as an excuse to mobilise the masses, in the same way that religion frequently is.
Personally I'm in the 'it was a bit of everything' camp, and put slavery down as the single most important issue, but it was by no means the only issue, and slavery alone wouldn't have caused the conflict to be as messy as it became.
And much like the South, some people just never know when to give up old battles. ;)
All I ever can think of when I read another "you shouldn't have pride in being Southern" is the ever-appropriate song lyric, "Southern man don't need him around anyhow."
I'm disappointed that this happened about a month ago and there are still no stories on Google News talking about how John Wayne Dumbass was arrested on four charges of second-degree fuckwittery. This is not well-regulated militia, it's reckless endangerment.
But, seriously, are we the only nation that is cool with performing wide-scale reenactments of emotionally unsettled wars and allowing proponents of the losing side to walk around with weapons that are capable of firing ammunition?
There was a discussion just like this in weaselking's journal not a week ago.
It doesn't matter that most Southerners didn't own slaves or weren't slavers, they were fighting for the South's "state's rights" to continue the institution of slavery. Most people who didn't own slaves in the South couldn't afford to; it wasn't because they had problems with slavery or weren't interested in owning slaves. They just didn't have the money to go buy one off the auction block.
I really don't get your British or English flag comparisons. However, I don't want to dismiss them as being derailing and irrelevant out of hand, so maybe you should give some context?
And to many people, the confederate flag a racist symbol. I'm seriously tired of having the opinion of other people (usually White people) elevated above my opinon (which I share with other Black people) about the symbolism of the flag.
Okay, let's just say for a minute that it doesn't mean anything racial whatsover. For lots and lots and lots of Black folks in the South, it's an inherently racist symbol. For many people, you cannot divest the racist legacy of the South from the Confederate flag. And I'm sick of how our opinion is consistently delegitimized as not being the "right" one because it's not shared by people in charge.
1) You're oversimplifying the issues behind the civil war 2) You're oversimplifying and exaggerating the positions of everyone who disagreed with you on the flag issue.
Noone said that slavery wasn't a reason. What they said is that slavery wasn't the *only* reason.
What's important is that racist white people can wave the slaver's flag at blacks and then say "what? It's nothing serious! You're overreacting!" when called on it.
I don't even think the texas guy who was ranting and yelling implied this was true. Certainly noone else in the discussion did.
Seriously, you can make logical, passionate and honest arguments against the *actual* positions people took, I'm not sure why you're stooping to deliberately lying about what people were putting forward.
Oh, agreed—but a lot of those actually fighting, including, famously, Lee himself, were fighting for states rights and their interpretation that abolition was a matter for them, not for the federal govt or 'yankee meddlers'.
And Southerners continued to insist that their resistance to being forced to treat black people as fully human was a matter of "states' rights" even when their schools were being integrated at gunpoint. At some point, one has to stop buying that shit.
Many, if not most, of those fighting under the flag weren't slavers, didn't own slaves, etc.
Given that war is essentially poor people settling the disputes of wealthy people, I'd guess that the number of slaveowners who fought were in the single digits.
But the battle flag isn't, of itself, a racist symbol
It is a symbol created for the purpose of serving as a flag under which human beings would be killed for the purpose of perpetuating slavery. Southerners can claim that they don't mean "racism yay!" by flying it, but it's a pretty extraordinary claim.
Yes, I've no doubt that a lot of those using it are racists, and it is used for racist purposes, but to many others it's a symbol of the south
As I've said elsewhere: pick another symbol. If the best you can do is a symbol devised to stand for murdering to perpetuate slavery, maybe self-examination is in order.
I don't even think the texas guy who was ranting and yelling implied this was true. Certainly noone else in the discussion did.
*I* did.
In a discussion about an incident where an Obama sign, on the lawn of a black man, was replaced with a Confederate flag, you and others have been arguing that it's not a racist symbol or intended in a racist manner.
I have nothing to say about Jay's arguments. I'm not addressing them, beyond pointing out that his premises are wrong. Since his premises are wrong, nothing that follows from them *matters*. I don't have to address his steps or his conclusion, since they're necessarily and inevitably flawed.
And to many people, the confederate flag a racist symbol. I'm seriously tired of having the opinion of other people (usually White people) elevated above my opinon (which I share with other Black people) about the symbolism of the flag.
Black Person here. Who disagrees with you.
You get to speak for *you*, I get to speak for *me*. Neither one of us gets to speak for 'The Black People' unless there was an election and I missed my voting slip in my NAACP booster mailing.
Okay, let's just say for a minute that it doesn't mean anything racial whatsover. For lots and lots and lots of Black folks in the South, it's an inherently racist symbol. For many people, you cannot divest the racist legacy of the South from the Confederate flag. And I'm sick of how our opinion is consistently delegitimized as not being the "right" one because it's not shared by people in charge.
Yes.. for lots and lots of Black Folks in the South it's an inherently racist symbol (and a bad thing). For many people you cannot divest the racist legacy of the south from the confederate battle flag... I understand that and agree. But whether or not it's how *YOU* feel, doesn't mean you're right when you say that, as a symbol, it can *ONLY* symbolize one thing.
And in this conversation/debate noone was telling you that you weren't right when you said it was primarily a symbol of racial hatred... we were just saying that it *can* symbolize other things and sometimes it does.
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 12:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 12:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 12:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 12:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 02:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 02:52 pm (UTC)that said, there are at least two problems with this theory.
1) you don't need to aim at someone to shoot at someone directly.
2) civil war re-enactment is stupid.
However, point a is moot. Aiming at the other army is how you fight a war. If you're firing blanks from half a field away, I don't see the reason not to. Also, there's no reason you have to be aiming at someone to hit them. I'm sure not all these people are marksmen.
Which pretty much leaves number 2 (since I'm sure the live ammunition wasn't loaded on purpose).
people, please ... let the civil war die. it's over. Done. That people keep clinging t the war, the flags, the issues is embarrassing.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 02:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 03:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 03:02 pm (UTC)Fights for the Fairfax battalion of Cromwell's Ironsides.
You've probably got a few hundred years of it still to go.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 03:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 03:07 pm (UTC)That the 13 secessionists declared the institution of slavery, as defined by the constitution, to be their principle reason for secession does not make it the reason for the war, which wasn't started by the secession itself, etc etc etc.
(and no, I didn't get into an argument at
It was only the religious extremists that wanted to start a war to free the slaves, most of those fighting on the union side were fighting for the union and constitution as was...
*ducks*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 03:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 03:14 pm (UTC)Lincoln was fighting to keep the country together.
The South was fighting to keep their slaves.
I don't find it the least bit unusual or contradictory that the two opposing sides were fighting for two opposing reasons.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 03:16 pm (UTC)The South *did* fight to keep the slaves from being freed.
EVERY LAST ONE of the slave states cited "we are seceding because we want to keep slavery" as their *primary* reason for secession, and for half of them it was their *only* reason.
(Texas said that they wanted slavery, and also Mexicans and Indians were filthy savages that they wanted to keep *out* of their territory. So Texas really hasn't changed, any, since then)
Slavery was the reason for secession. Protection of slavery was *the sole and entire* reason the slave states wanted out of the union. Maintaining slavery was why they attacked the North.
It's really not complicated.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 03:28 pm (UTC)Many, if not most, of those fighting under the flag weren't slavers, didn't own slaves, etc. Some of the propaganda they bought into, like liberty only possible with slavery, etc, was weird, but mindsets are weird.
Re your other point about racist symbols, etc; it's got to the point over here that you rarely if ever see a British or English flag flying, many people assume the flyer to be racist. Reclamation attempts sometimes happen, especially during sports contest, but when out doorknocking for candidates I'm always very wary of the house bedecked with simple English flags.
So I get what you mean. But the battle flag isn't, of itself, a racist symbol, and its use isn't by default usage by racists—it's been accepted for southern units of the US army to use it in action since the early 1900s, for example.
Yes, I've no doubt that a lot of those using it are racists, and it is used for racist purposes, but to many others it's a symbol of the south—people like symbols, and like reclaiming stuff from racists.
Given that the interpretation 'the war was about slavery' is open to interpretation amongst eminent historians, a default assumption of racism isn't a good plan.
Assumption that racism is likely is probably safe, but it isn't always, and needn't be.
@John—Hobsbawm is a marxist historian, and put a good case in his book on the period that the root cause of the war was economic pressure, protectionist north versus free trading south, and would likely have happened regardless of the slavery issue—that was merely used as an excuse to mobilise the masses, in the same way that religion frequently is.
Personally I'm in the 'it was a bit of everything' camp, and put slavery down as the single most important issue, but it was by no means the only issue, and slavery alone wouldn't have caused the conflict to be as messy as it became.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 03:30 pm (UTC)All I ever can think of when I read another "you shouldn't have pride in being Southern" is the ever-appropriate song lyric, "Southern man don't need him around anyhow."
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 03:35 pm (UTC)But, seriously, are we the only nation that is cool with performing wide-scale reenactments of emotionally unsettled wars and allowing proponents of the losing side to walk around with weapons that are capable of firing ammunition?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 03:36 pm (UTC)It doesn't matter that most Southerners didn't own slaves or weren't slavers, they were fighting for the South's "state's rights" to continue the institution of slavery. Most people who didn't own slaves in the South couldn't afford to; it wasn't because they had problems with slavery or weren't interested in owning slaves. They just didn't have the money to go buy one off the auction block.
I really don't get your British or English flag comparisons. However, I don't want to dismiss them as being derailing and irrelevant out of hand, so maybe you should give some context?
And to many people, the confederate flag a racist symbol. I'm seriously tired of having the opinion of other people (usually White people) elevated above my opinon (which I share with other Black people) about the symbolism of the flag.
Okay, let's just say for a minute that it doesn't mean anything racial whatsover. For lots and lots and lots of Black folks in the South, it's an inherently racist symbol. For many people, you cannot divest the racist legacy of the South from the Confederate flag. And I'm sick of how our opinion is consistently delegitimized as not being the "right" one because it's not shared by people in charge.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 04:13 pm (UTC)2) You're oversimplifying and exaggerating the positions of everyone who disagreed with you on the flag issue.
Noone said that slavery wasn't a reason. What they said is that slavery wasn't the *only* reason.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 04:16 pm (UTC)What's important is that racist white people can wave the slaver's flag at blacks and then say "what? It's nothing serious! You're overreacting!" when called on it.
I don't even think the texas guy who was ranting and yelling implied this was true. Certainly noone else in the discussion did.
Seriously, you can make logical, passionate and honest arguments against the *actual* positions people took, I'm not sure why you're stooping to deliberately lying about what people were putting forward.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 04:20 pm (UTC)And Southerners continued to insist that their resistance to being forced to treat black people as fully human was a matter of "states' rights" even when their schools were being integrated at gunpoint. At some point, one has to stop buying that shit.
Many, if not most, of those fighting under the flag weren't slavers, didn't own slaves, etc.
Given that war is essentially poor people settling the disputes of wealthy people, I'd guess that the number of slaveowners who fought were in the single digits.
But the battle flag isn't, of itself, a racist symbol
It is a symbol created for the purpose of serving as a flag under which human beings would be killed for the purpose of perpetuating slavery. Southerners can claim that they don't mean "racism yay!" by flying it, but it's a pretty extraordinary claim.
Yes, I've no doubt that a lot of those using it are racists, and it is used for racist purposes, but to many others it's a symbol of the south
As I've said elsewhere: pick another symbol. If the best you can do is a symbol devised to stand for murdering to perpetuate slavery, maybe self-examination is in order.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 04:21 pm (UTC)*I* did.
In a discussion about an incident where an Obama sign, on the lawn of a black man, was replaced with a Confederate flag, you and others have been arguing that it's not a racist symbol or intended in a racist manner.
I have nothing to say about Jay's arguments. I'm not addressing them, beyond pointing out that his premises are wrong. Since his premises are wrong, nothing that follows from them *matters*. I don't have to address his steps or his conclusion, since they're necessarily and inevitably flawed.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 04:21 pm (UTC)Also I have [black/gay/Native American/Muslim] friends, so I know about this stuff!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 04:22 pm (UTC)You can have one without the other. However, you can't have "pro-CSA" without "pro-slavery", because the two are one and the same.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 04:23 pm (UTC)Black Person here. Who disagrees with you.
You get to speak for *you*, I get to speak for *me*. Neither one of us gets to speak for 'The Black People' unless there was an election and I missed my voting slip in my NAACP booster mailing.
Okay, let's just say for a minute that it doesn't mean anything racial whatsover. For lots and lots and lots of Black folks in the South, it's an inherently racist symbol. For many people, you cannot divest the racist legacy of the South from the Confederate flag. And I'm sick of how our opinion is consistently delegitimized as not being the "right" one because it's not shared by people in charge.
Yes.. for lots and lots of Black Folks in the South it's an inherently racist symbol (and a bad thing). For many people you cannot divest the racist legacy of the south from the confederate battle flag... I understand that and agree. But whether or not it's how *YOU* feel, doesn't mean you're right when you say that, as a symbol, it can *ONLY* symbolize one thing.
And in this conversation/debate noone was telling you that you weren't right when you said it was primarily a symbol of racial hatred... we were just saying that it *can* symbolize other things and sometimes it does.