The Civil War was not fought over slavery, it was fought over states' rights. Slavery was on the way out. In 1860, 1.4% of Southern people owned slaves. Even Robert E. Lee had released his slaves 7 years prior to the beginning of the Civil War because he believed it to be immoral (which it obviously is, no one is questioning that).

Even if it was fought over slavery, why the war was fought is irrelevant to the fact that the Confederate Flag is not a symbol of racism or slavery, it's a symbol of Southern pride.

If an exchange student from Germany came to the US and waved the German flag, no one would mind. "He's allowed to take pride in his heritage and homeland," they would say, despite the fact that Germany was once an evil dictatorship responsible for the deaths of millions, far more deaths than the CSA was responsible for. (Please note that I am not conflating the present-day German flag with the WWII era Nazi flag. I am simply saying that, in the same way that Germany used to be a terrible place for certain people, so was once the USA.)

The Confederate Flag, Bonnie Blue, the first national flag, etcetera--all symbols of Southern pride. Not racism. If people from Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Lesotho, Nepal, Mexico, and so on, are all allowed to proudly wave their flag and pay homage to their heritage and homeland within US borders without criticism, then why not Southerners? Why is it an Iranian immigrant can proudly wave their flag and pay respect to their homeland--their evil, oppressive homeland--and people applaud, but the minute a Southerner even talks, let alone waves a flag, he's laughed off as a white supremacist?

I know white supremacists--in Charleston, for example--oftentimes wave the Confederate flag. But trust me, as a die-hard Southerner who proudly waves said flag--I think those people are deplorable. They're a disgrace to our flag. Just like the wild acts of Antifa don't represent leftists, the neo-nazis in Charleston don't represent conservatives or Southerners.

I am a conservative, and I live in the South, and I live way out in the backcountry, as is the same with all of my family and most of my friends. And you know what? I've never met a racist person. Ever. We have more blacks and Hispanics than any other part of the country, and, aside from the Southwest, more Native Americans too. My best friend is Mexican, the girl that I plan to marry is Navajo, and I'm not 100% white myself. Why the fuck would I be a white supremacist?

If the Confederate Flag still offends you, that's fine. But if it offends you, I expect you to be equally offended at the Iranian, North Korean, Soviet Union, etc., flags as well. You can't pick and choose.

Note: I am not saying foreigners don't have the right to take pride in their heritage and homeland. They totally do. It's a free country. But if they do, so do we.

TL;DR Go back up and read it. It ain't that long.


Signed, a Southerner who's tired of being shit on by everyone north of Mason-Dixon

Edited 3/17/2018 07:21:42

Raise the rebel flag. Because why not?

Heil Trump!

Edited 3/14/2018 12:35:40

I completely agree. I don't mean to make this partisan but as the south got less racists it became more republican.

^Racism isn't evil. Jews are racist. Older Germans are racist. Japanese are racist. What's wrong with racism? Nothing. As long as international cooperation among civilized races is always on the table there is nothing wrong with racism.

Edited 3/14/2018 14:35:37

HERITAGE NOT HATE let's celebrate the country that was banded together by slavery and nothing else

I love all my Flags, Especially the Stars and Bars, because people stupid enough to attack/rob you over the Virgina Battle flag are too stupid to know what it is most of the time.

HERITAGE NOT HATE let's celebrate the country that was banded together by slavery and nothing else

...Most of them?

Technically we're all banded in artificial Roman Imperial borders, and Rome itself was a very pro-slavery society.

And most borders not directly affected by Rome were affected by countries directly affected by it's heirs.

You are wrong.

On 21 March 1862 Alexander Stephens remarked upon the principles of the Constitution of the Confederate States of America. Stephens was at that time the Vice President of the Confederacy. What follows are excerpts from those remarks, the Cornerstone Speech.

"the new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions-African slavery as it exists among us-the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization."


"The prevailing ideas entertained by (Jefferson) and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the Constitution, was the prevailing idea at the time."

"Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error."

"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 moral condition. This, our new Government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."

If you assert , however high Stephens' station in the Confederacy, that his remarks were those of a private individual without the force of being a general principle, then I would point you towards the various documents of secession of the particular rebelling governments. They make no secret of the fact that they were acting in defense of slavery.

The flags of the Confederacy were symbols of those people who rejected the idea that all men should be equal before the law. As such the taint of racism is a permanent stain on those flags. It can not be got out. How you or any person react to that fact is a matter of choice. But that choice has no material effect upon that basic fact. It might be said that the battle flag serves as a reminder of men who were bravely defending their home states. As true as that statement is, as true as it may be that those flags can be symbols of pride, they are also -and have always been- symbols of the notion that the white race should oppress the black.

Alexander Stephens, Cornerstone Speech: http://www.csaconstitution.com/p/alexander-h.html

Various States, Declarations of Cause: https://www.civilwar.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states

>feelings
>relevant to ethical quandaries
lmao

It's all racism ans slavery, end of discussion.

Its all racism ...

Nah, it is more complex than that.

My town literally got shot up by a band of Confederates so it doesn't really make sense to wave that flag here but in other places it does.

It is sad to see a discussion about such an irrelevant topic.

Why is it that people who yearn for the past always pick the biggest losers? Champion the Wehraboos and go 2-for-2

Why cant you guys, like, move on?
We in Austria are more over the Nazi topic 70 years ago than you guys with your much less significant civil war over 1 and a half centuries ago.
Look more at the future and present, instead of the past.

Edited 3/16/2018 23:43:06

Then folk'd start talking of more relevant problems, instead of mostly made-up ones. Which the folk causing the relevant problems would of course not want.

Most people here so far have misinterpreted what I said. I never whined about losing the Civil War. I'm not even talking about the Civil War; granted, I did mention it, but that's not the main topic. The topic is the Confederate flag, which was the battle flag of an army 150 years ago. However, today, it's not the same flag it was then. Today it symbolizes Southern American culture. By waving it, we are merely taking pride in our heritage. Other people all over the planet express their pride in their heritage and homeland in different ways; this is our way. I know you don't like (U.S.) Americans, Cata, and you probably hate us Southerners even more so, but surely you can understand that?

That said, the American Civil War, as unfortunate and long ago as it was, plays a huge role in Southern culture. Just because you don't understand it or even like it doesn't mean we should stop just because you're "over the Nazi topic from 70 years ago." Well, excuse us for having a culture of our own. I didn't know we weren't allowed to do that.

Long live Dixie.

The war wasn't fought to protect states' rights. The war was fought by the North to preserve the Union until 1863, when the fight against slavery was wisely thrown into the pot by a clever Lincoln (who, despite being the least democratic of all U.S. presidents, has my respect as a wartime leader. I'm not sure the North could have won with a lesser man as Chief of State). The blanket term "states' rights" is why the South seceded, and those rights included the big one: slavery. The 'right' that supported the South's economy at all; as well as the North's, for that matter. Sorry if this seems like nitpicky semantics to anyone, but I think this difference matters. Anyway, onto the question posed:

The Confederate flag we see today is not any of the four versions Confederate flag. It is the Confederate Naval jack, commonly mistaken for the Virginian Army's flag, which is a square version of the same design. The flag itself can be and is representative of different things to different people. I don't think the U.S. should be at a point where we are censoring our own history for fear of offending people. Alas, Gettysburg park has taken down ALL flags in order to stay away from controversy (i.e. people protesting en mass because God forbid a Confederate flag is flying on a historical park that preserves the battleground of what I believe to be 1 of 2 game changers in a war that shaped our country into what it is today).

A group of people I don't understand are Northern hicks who fly the Confederate flag. I've even seen a truck with one mounted in its bed. But whatever. I doubt their reasons for flying it, but it is their right to own it and do with it as they wish.

Edited 3/17/2018 05:45:46

Why not fly some genuinely hardcore flags such as Natsoc, Kahanist, Italian fascist, etc as long as it is legal?

^Because those have no value or meaning to the people in question.