Sometimes my fellow southerners make me despair.

[GaYellowDawg]

Just read a post about a song defending wearing the Confederate flag. I don't know why anyone would want to. Do y'all really want to know why so many southerners wear that shit? And defend it? The answer is, because someone at some point who wasn't white male and Southern Baptist suggested that it might not be a good idea, and might be racist. So of course, lots of mouth-breathing southerners decided, "Ain't no one gonna tell me whut I can whar!" And just had to wear it, and defend it. Most southerners don't know jack shit about the Confederacy. Ask anyone who's wearing a rebel flag to name just one member of the Confederate government besides Davis. Or one officer other than Lee, Stuart, Jackson, or Forrest. 99% of the time, you won't get an answer because they don't know. Ask them when the Confederacy began. They don't know that, either. All they know is that they're wearing that flag because someone told them they couldn't.

Then there are the Confederate sympathizers. The ones who tell you slaveowners weren't so bad, or the Confederacy was a lost dream of true states rights government, that Abraham Lincoln was a vicious racist, that freeing the slaves was the worst thing to happen to them, revisionist history blah blah blah. Usually, this is someone who had an ancestor who was a Confederate soldier. Or had ancestors who were slaveowners. Someone who basically can't stand the fact that according to today's standards, their ancestor was a monster. Well, sorry. You're better off being honest about it.

I had a great-great-grandfather who fought for the Confederacy. If I met him, I'd tell him he was wrong. Dreadfully wrong. He was hellaciously courageous - got shot in one battle, went home, recuperated, went back - but a) in time of war, courage is a common commodity; b) that courage was spent in the wrong cause.

Celebrating the Confederacy, or wearing its symbols, is wrong. Wrong. The reasoning is as simple as this:

First: Section 9, Clause 4 of the CSA Constitution states:

No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.

Not only was slavery permitted by the CSA constitution, it was enshrined as a right. A permanent right. There's no ambiguity there. Permanent enshrinement of slavery. How can that be anything but oppression? Hell, oppression is too light a word, but I can't come up with anything else.

Second: any Confederate flag symbolizes the Confederacy, whether it's civilian or military.

Therefore...

Any Confederate flag is a symbol of oppression. Period. And it's completely inappropriate to a civilized society. Anyone who defends it in the face of these facts automatically and dramatically lowers my estimate of their IQ.

[redgreenandblue]

1. I don't do flags in general. Have no need for them.

But to most southerners I have met who own a rebel flag it is more a symbol of "you don't fuck with the south" than a symbol of racism.

Unjust causes have been fought for under various flags. Some might argue the stars and stripes are a symbol of genocide against native Americans.

[demosincebirth]

7. let not start that argument. It's been re hashed, here, a hundred times.

[hedgehog]

2. As a Northerner living in a depressed semi rural county in Upstate New York,

I'd like to toss in my two cents.

Symbols can change meaning over time, or even hold two meanings simultaneously. A prime example is the swastika: a sun symbol and therefore a symbol of good for millennia until the Nazis got hold of it.



Now, here in the North, the Civil War is one, maybe two weeks of high school history class. However, you have a lot of angry people who have seen their jobs vanish as factories closed. There is the typical rural distrust of big government © as the cause of all problems. For these people, the Confederate battle flag has morphed into a symbol of anger with and distrust of any type of authority. At the same time, there are African Americans moving into the area and many families are now mixed race.

[demosincebirth]

3. Why would someone wear a flag that is a symbol of the worst defeat in American history? Also,

a flag that symbolizes slavery, bigotry, racism, injustice and above all, stupidity most likely. It's also a sign of defiance. All you probably have to say to them is remember Sherman on his way to Atlanta. That might calm their testosterone a bit

[RedstDem]

4. show them a csa flag besides the stars and bars

and they'll think its the state flag of Texas......every time.

not only has the stars and bars morphed into a symbol of rebellion for them, it's a symbol of idiocy to me.

[CRK7376]

5. Unfortunately

this Southerner is surrounded by the Bars and Stars of Dixie. Fascinating subject, the Civil War. It's over and dispalying the Stars and Bars from the back of your car window or truck or flying from your flag pole in the yard is not gong to change the outcome of the Civil War. The South and Confederacy lost. Move on, stop being racist, but that will not likely happen in NC anytime soon Too many bigots, racists and small minded people. Unfortunately we are starting to see more and more of them as my high school daughter is starting to date and has gone boy crazy....Fortunately my kids are color blind, but some of the kids my daughter likes were raised by less open minded people. She is learning, but it can be painful lesson sometimes.

[TimberValley]

6. I think some Southerners try to delineate between slavery and the rest of the Confederate cause.

They try to be anti-slavery while being pro-Confederate or pro-state's rights or whatever.


To use an analogy, I'm sure some Germans fought for Germany in World War II, not because they supported Nazis, but because they supported their home country. That may be how some Southerners are; do not support slavery, but dislike the North or liked the idea of Confederate independence.

[RedstDem]

12. lol same here

Made it thru about a minutes worth.

[Mini79]

9. Oh look, it's another let's bash the South thread

Gee, has it been a week already? Seems like this forum can't go a week without at least one 'Southerns are ignorant racist rednecks that don't deserve to be called Americans' thread.

[GaYellowDawg]

10. Oh look, someone didn't read well.

I'm southern, nitwit. Born and raised. Born in Georgia, raised in Tennessee, back in Georgia. Never said once that I, or other southerners, didn't deserve to be called Americans. Nice straw man. Hope you don't wrap it in the Stars and Bars while you're at it.

And you know as well as I do that ignorant racist rednecks are thick on the ground down here. My post, however, was not an indictment of the south, or southerners in general. It's the ones who wear that damn flag that piss me off. And you know what? If you make yourself look like an ignorant horse's ass, like lots of southerners do, it should come as no surprise when criticism comes from without and within.

[Mini79]

11. I didn't post this to you!

Just as a general for the group. And since you called me a nitwit I could reply and call you a name but I will take the higher road here.

You want some damn racism? The most racist guy I ever met was from Rhode Island. If there was a black man, he wanted to kick his ass. If the guy happened to be gay, he wanted to kill him and piss on his body. My daughter is in Michigan right now and is surrounded by racists who have no problem calling her a stupid redneck racist all the while calling black co-workers monkeys and making jokes about watermelons and fried chicken. I am living in an area where we have a HUGE community of bi-racial couples and another big community of gays and lesbians.

I am so GODDAMN tired of the weekly Southern bashing threads( again, not pointing out you, okay) that tell me I don't have a right to be proud of being a Southern, or telling me I am stupid if I don't move out of the South. And anybody that tries to defend the South gets so damn bashed and verbally beaten up it isn't funny. Now, I'm not a Liberal, I'm an independent but I always thought Liberals were for all, not just for the whole country except for the South.

[GaYellowDawg]

13. OK

You're justified in calling me out on the name calling, and I apologize for it. I'll point out in return that I wasn't talking about all southerners, just the dipshits who defend the Confederacy or wear/fly its flag. There are plenty of them, but that's not all of them. Fair enough?

[RainDog]

14. The is pertinent to something discussed all over the internet today

Whether you like it or not.

Brad Paisley and LL Cool did a song that it a huge embarrassment for both of them.

But maybe that's good because it will provoke some dialog.

So, while you see this as another southern bashing thread, others recognize this post in the context of articles on Slate, The Atlantic, Yahoo, Salon, etc. etc.

And, I'm from the south, born there, grew up there. I now live in a place that's just as fucked up, politically, and I don't have any problem when people rail about these things that are problems.

I despise people who live where I do. I don't give a shit if they're southern or confucian or martian - their actions deserve censure and criticism.