• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Confederate Flag[W:1518,2230, 2241]

Should the Confederate Flag be abolished?

  • Yes

    Votes: 55 30.2%
  • No

    Votes: 127 69.8%

  • Total voters
    182
Re: Confederate Flag

And if you were misreading the symbolism?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika

"It continues to be commonly used as a religious symbol in Hinduism and Buddhism.[3]"

Would you get mad at Buddhist or Hindus for using their symbol the way they see it as, just because you view it as hateful? Isn't that you not taking their intent into mind? You are insisting that others see it a certain way, but unwilling to find out the intent people use behind the symbol they show. It doesn't have to mean anything "bad" or hateful at all.

I would say that there is significant stylistic difference between a Nazi swastika and the others.
 
Re: Confederate Flag

Incorrect.



Irrelevant.
Obnoxious.

The USA was not recognized as a nation for over a year but they had a flag and then only France recognized them.

Having a flag that represents your cause is independent of being recognized as a nation.

Actually, Morocco was the first country to formally recognize the US as an independent country in 1777...

"...During the American Revolution, so many American ships used to call at the port of Tangiers that the Continental Congress sought recognition from the “Emperor” of Morocco to establish good relations between the two countries. This recognition was granted in 1777, making Morocco the first country to recognize the United States of America...."​

Embassy of the kingdom of morocco in the USA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morocco–United_States_relations


Not sure, but I don't think the US had an official flag at that time.
 
Re: Confederate Flag

I would say that there is significant stylistic difference between a Nazi swastika and the others.

There are. But not a lot.

I still say intent is important. Just because someone flies the Confederate flag doesn't mean they are being racist or are a racist.

How many think that it was racist on the "General Lee"?
 
Re: Confederate Flag

And if you were misreading the symbolism?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika

"It continues to be commonly used as a religious symbol in Hinduism and Buddhism.[3]"

Would you get mad at Buddhist or Hindus for using their symbol the way they see it as, just because you view it as hateful? Isn't that you not taking their intent into mind? You are insisting that others see it a certain way, but unwilling to find out the intent people use behind the symbol they show. It doesn't have to mean anything "bad" or hateful at all.

Having been born and raised in the South, I am not mistaking the symbolism of the Confederate flag. I've been around people who have flown it my entire life, and I know full well what it means down here.
 
Re: Confederate Flag

There are. But not a lot.

I still say intent is important. Just because someone flies the Confederate flag doesn't mean they are being racist or are a racist.

How many think that it was racist on the "General Lee"?

How many black people did you see on that show?
 
Re: Confederate Flag

Having been born and raised in the South, I am not mistaking the symbolism of the Confederate flag. I've been around people who have flown it my entire life, and I know full well what it means down here.

So have I, and I know some who don't fly it to support racism. Some fly it to support another possible secession, but very few now would honestly support it including a return to slavery or even segregation.

Heritage or Racism: The Confederate Flag : The Elm

Just because you view it a certain way, doesn't mean others do. Do you believe the Dukes of Hazzard was racist? I was raised on that show. It is one that I own now. Does that make me racist for liking that show?
 
Re: Confederate Flag

So have I, and I know some who don't fly it to support racism. Some fly it to support another possible secession, but very few now would honestly support it including a return to slavery or even segregation.

Heritage or Racism: The Confederate Flag : The Elm

Just because you view it a certain way, doesn't mean others do. Do you believe the Dukes of Hazzard was racist? I was raised on that show. It is one that I own now. Does that make me racist for liking that show?

I don't know if the show is racist or not, honestly. It wasn't my cup of tea when I was a kid. I do know that I don't recall seeing too many black people on the show, but that doesn't mean anything.

What does mean something is what I've said, over and over. I was born here. I was raised here. I've lived here most of my life, and save the last 5 years, I've lived out in the country with the biggest, rowdiest rednecks you'd ever want to (or not want to) meet. They were the beer drinking flag flyers, and as I have mentioned before, heritage was not on their minds when they were flying the flags. At least not if you could tell by listening to what they said.

Now of course, I'm certain that they could have been lying. :lol: I'm sure that they were talking about heritage when using the "n" word. I'm sure of it.

I unfortunately know about this. I hate that I grew up in this vile, hateful kind of environment, but I did. I can't help what I was raised in. But it also unfortunately makes me knowledgeable about the way most of these people think.

But everybody bury your heads in the sand, and continue banging that "heritage, not hate" drum.
 
Re: Confederate Flag

How many black people did you see on that show?

How many black people were in a lot of shows during that time? It wasn't exactly common in the late 70s/early 80s or blacks and whites to "share" shows. That is about the time things started to change.

There were also pretty much no one of any other race either, nor were there really any middle class people in Hazzard. Not sure there were any homeless either, unless they were someone who just became homeless or was about to become homeless, but would be helped by someone (usually the Dukes).

But just to be clear, one of the sheriffs in another county was black.
 
Re: Confederate Flag

I don't know if the show is racist or not, honestly. It wasn't my cup of tea when I was a kid. I do know that I don't recall seeing too many black people on the show, but that doesn't mean anything.

What does mean something is what I've said, over and over. I was born here. I was raised here. I've lived here most of my life, and save the last 5 years, I've lived out in the country with the biggest, rowdiest rednecks you'd ever want to (or not want to) meet. They were the beer drinking flag flyers, and as I have mentioned before, heritage was not on their minds when they were flying the flags. At least not if you could tell by listening to what they said.

Now of course, I'm certain that they could have been lying. :lol: I'm sure that they were talking about heritage when using the "n" word. I'm sure of it.

I unfortunately know about this. I hate that I grew up in this vile, hateful kind of environment, but I did. I can't help what I was raised in. But it also unfortunately makes me knowledgeable about the way most of these people think.

But everybody bury your heads in the sand, and continue banging that "heritage, not hate" drum.

Again, I was born and raised in the South (born in Kentucky, then raised in NC). I knew some "good ol' boys" who were racists, but also knew and know plenty who aren't. Heck, most of those my husband and I went camping with back in Nov could be considered good ol' boys, some flying the confederate flag. Funny how the two black women we had with us while out camping seemed to be fine with it.
 
Re: Confederate Flag

Again, I was born and raised in the South (born in Kentucky, then raised in NC). I knew some "good ol' boys" who were racists, but also knew and know plenty who aren't. Heck, most of those my husband and I went camping with back in Nov could be considered good ol' boys, some flying the confederate flag. Funny how the two black women we had with us while out camping seemed to be fine with it.

Funny how everybody who flies the flag, or are OK with the flag, have "black friends who are OK with it." :lol: Can't imagine anyone who is OK with the Confederate flag would honestly say, "I have a black friend who got pissed when we raised that flag at the campsite."
 
Re: Confederate Flag

Funny how everybody who flies the flag, or are OK with the flag, have "black friends who are OK with it." :lol: Can't imagine anyone who is OK with the Confederate flag would honestly say, "I have a black friend who got pissed when we raised that flag at the campsite."

Why not? If it was upsetting to them, wouldn't they say something? Or wouldn't they at least let someone know? Do you think no black people watched Dukes of Hazzard, where every day there was a confederate flag right there? Or perhaps, is it possible, that not everyone, views it the same as you do, including some black people?

Oh, and I never said "we raised the flag at the campsite". Having the flag displayed somewhere isn't the same as raising it as if declaring the area "owned" under a banner.
 
Re: Confederate Flag

Every first-world nation is a REGULATED capitalist nation. Try to find a first-world nation where the capitalism is not strongly regulated - you won't find one.

However, if you travel to most third-world democracies, you'll certainly find truly deregulated capitalism. I strongly recommend you travel the world a bit, so that you can see it for yourself.

Not true, in a lot of third world countries the bureaucracy and red tape is even worse than in the US and its so bad that most of the time you need to pay an insider just to get things done.
 
Re: Confederate Flag

Funny how everybody who flies the flag, or are OK with the flag, have "black friends who are OK with it." :lol: Can't imagine anyone who is OK with the Confederate flag would honestly say, "I have a black friend who got pissed when we raised that flag at the campsite."

Then why do Democrat politicians do it?

You do realize it was a Democrat governor of South Carolina who first raised the Confederate flag over the state house don't you? His name is Ernest Fritz Hollings. He used to be the governor, he put it up. Later he became a U.S. Democrat Senator representing South Carolina.

But he wasn't the only governor of our time that celebrated the confederacy. Bill and Hill Clinton did too while he was governor of Arkansas. In 1987, while governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton signed Act 116 that stated “The blue star above the word “ARKANSAS” is to commemorate the Confederate States of America.”

Screen-Shot-2015-06-20-at-7.20.37-PM-620x557.png


But then again one person Clinton portrayed as his mentor from Arkansas was Senator J. William Fulbright, a proud segregationist!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._William_Fulbright

But speaking of Arkansas, another famous Democrat Senator from Arkansas, was Al Gore's father. He too was a segregationist. He was in office during the vote of the Civil Rights bill and voted against it like most the Dixiecrats. (Southern Democrats) And just a stone's throw away in West Virginia was Democrat Senator (Sheets) Byrd....not just a member of the KKK but one of their grand wizard types. Ole President Johnson was indebted to the Republicans in getting the Civil Rights Act passed and made that publically known as the Dixiecrats (Southern Democrats) tried to thwart it every way they could muster.

I agree with those who think the Confederate flag should be in a museum. But what I have a real problem with is the revisionist history being portrayed by those on the left. Either be willing to tell history honestly and stop the revisionism or shut up and sit down.
 
Re: Confederate Flag

Keep the flag. Most people who fly the flag today don't support slavery or racism, but instead use it to honor their ancestors or culture. Even if they did support racism or slavery, it still shouldn't be abolished. Freedom of speech is more important than protecting people's feelings.
 
Re: Confederate Flag

Keep the flag. Most people who fly the flag today don't support slavery or racism, but instead use it to honor their ancestors or culture. Even if they did support racism or slavery, it still shouldn't be abolished. Freedom of speech is more important than protecting people's feelings.

So whose feelings would be hurt by taking the flag down? I really don't see many on the right recognizing the call for removing the flag as free speech. Apparently, it's only free speech when the right does it.
 
Re: Confederate Flag

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1435219608.645239.jpg
ImageUploadedByTapatalk1435219617.345308.jpg
I just thought these were funny and interesting
 
Re: Confederate Flag

.....I agree with those who think the Confederate flag should be in a museum. But what I have a real problem with is the revisionist history being portrayed by those on the left. Either be willing to tell history honestly and stop the revisionism or shut up and sit down.

The South fought the Civil War to keep slavery....


The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States
 
Re: Confederate Flag

And have I ever known government to be very effective? That's very easy to answer. What democracies have the highest standards of living for their populations in terms of education, income, safety, and life expectancy? The first-world democracies, of course. And what do ALL first-world democracies have in common? BIG government, HIGH effective taxes, and STRONG regulation.

Tell that to Greece. :lamo
 
Re: Confederate Flag

I don't think anyone wants to erase history. It happened. We should acknowledge that, and learn from it. But there is a big gap between erasing history and glorifying the mistakes our country made. Slavery happened, the civil war happened, flying a flag representing that era like a symbol of pride is unacceptable.

I have to disagree, although I appreciate your tone. Just because one military entity/nation/whatever defeats another in battle, doesn't mean the victor should strip the defeated of symbols or culture the victor doesn't like.

We've all agreed that the Confederate flag has been misused by extremists, but relegating it as only a racist symbol will hurt a lot of people who use it to honor their fallen heroes. Because, keep in mind that even when we determine that one side of a conflict has a greater goal for good - the defeated side is made up of real human beings with real emotions.
 
Re: Confederate Flag

What most people consider to be the flag of the Confederacy is actually an adaptation of a battle flag used to differentiate between the "Stars and Bars" flag which, at a distance, could easily be confused with the "Stars and Stripes" of the Union.

The Confederate states DID secede, in part, over the right to own slaves but the overall reason for secession was more about States Rights as a whole than anything else.

If by "States Rights" you mean the states rights to own slaves and maintain racial order then yes, it was about states rights.
 
Re: Confederate Flag

So honestly, I'm still on the fence on this issue. The politically correct culture that is evolving and growing, especially on the left, is out of control.

When it comes to the Confederate flag, I haven't really figured out in my head, what the real issue is here.

The flag is a flag. I would't say that it's on the same level as symbols like the swastika, or the cross, symbols that clearly represent an ideology.

Though whites in the south did own slaves (and the north), I don't think that the flag is self was, at the time, representative specifically of that ideal. However, I think the flag and what it represents in more modern times has come to represent something different.

It is the same with the swastika. I lived in a house built in the early 1920's. Much to my surprise there were several swastikas on the foundation and in the attic. When I researched this I found that the origins of the swastika on housing during construction was because the symbol was meant as a good luck charm. It laterally means "well-being".

But if I few a flag over my house today with a swastika on it, even if I explained I was flying it based on it's pre-German interpretation of it, people would be offended and question my motivations for flying it, no matter what my true intentions. Is it really that important for me to dig my heels in and assert my right to fly a flag that I know directly offends people, and worse brings out racist notions based on it's dark history?

I lean toward removal of state sponsorship of the symbol, after all, the Confederate flag is one of millions of symbols that can be used, but my only misgiving the the pandering to the militant politically correct crowd and really just need to separate in my own mind how this is different than other arguments based solely on political correctness.
 
Re: Confederate Flag

Then why do Democrat politicians do it?

You do realize it was a Democrat governor of South Carolina who first raised the Confederate flag over the state house don't you? His name is Ernest Fritz Hollings. He used to be the governor, he put it up. Later he became a U.S. Democrat Senator representing South Carolina.

But he wasn't the only governor of our time that celebrated the confederacy. Bill and Hill Clinton did too while he was governor of Arkansas. In 1987, while governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton signed Act 116 that stated “The blue star above the word “ARKANSAS” is to commemorate the Confederate States of America.”

Screen-Shot-2015-06-20-at-7.20.37-PM-620x557.png


But then again one person Clinton portrayed as his mentor from Arkansas was Senator J. William Fulbright, a proud segregationist!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._William_Fulbright

But speaking of Arkansas, another famous Democrat Senator from Arkansas, was Al Gore's father. He too was a segregationist. He was in office during the vote of the Civil Rights bill and voted against it like most the Dixiecrats. (Southern Democrats) And just a stone's throw away in West Virginia was Democrat Senator (Sheets) Byrd....not just a member of the KKK but one of their grand wizard types. Ole President Johnson was indebted to the Republicans in getting the Civil Rights Act passed and made that publically known as the Dixiecrats (Southern Democrats) tried to thwart it every way they could muster.

I agree with those who think the Confederate flag should be in a museum. But what I have a real problem with is the revisionist history being portrayed by those on the left. Either be willing to tell history honestly and stop the revisionism or shut up and sit down.

First, Where did I say that this was a Republican-only issue? Secondly, what do you consider revisionist history? I'm curious. Thirdly, I'm not on the left.
 
Re: Confederate Flag

The South fought the Civil War to keep slavery....


The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States

Someone posted yesterday (in one of the million threads about this :lol:) a list of the states who went to war with the North, and their reasons for doing so, and the reasons were for slavery (and this came from the states themselves). So you can tell them until you are blue in the face that the States went to war over slavery, and people are going to plug their ears and believe what they choose. Facts are irrelevant.
 
Re: Confederate Flag

The South fought the Civil War to keep slavery....


The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States

What's your point?
Slavery was brought to this country by the immigrants who moved here. It was a practice accepted throughout the known world regardless of skin color. Even those who sold the slaves to the slave merchants earmarked for our shores were as dark skinned as the people they sold.

The left likes to talk a lot about "subjective" morality. That no one has the right to set objective morality for another. Well these folks didn't see anything wrong with slavery. It was a way of life they had been taught in another country. King George encouraged it because the more the colonies produced, the more money he collected. But the movement to stop the practice in this country started in the 1700's by church leaders, their congregations and the politicians they elected.

After the Civil War something wonderful changed and that is Blacks were being elected to office to represent their constituents.During Reconstruction, some 2,000 African Americans held public office, from the local level all the way up to the U.S. Senate, though they never achieved representation in government proportionate to their numbers.
Black Leaders During Reconstruction - American Civil War - HISTORY.com

Race relations continued to heal till Democrat Woodrow Wilson became president. Things went from Blacks being elected in the South to public office to that big elitist segregationist Wilson segregating the Federal offices in government making black folks work separately from whites. The Dixiecrats (Southern Democrat politicians) had a real friend in Woodrow Wilson. Much of the progress made in race relations because of that bozo were lost. Ironically the years of Wilson's presidency are called the Progressive Era.

Fast forward to the Civil Rights movement. The Dixiecrat elites had a stronghold on the Southern states and did everything they could to thwart the passage of the Civil Rights bill. Their unwillingness to approve Civil rights legislation started long before President Johnson. It began when Eisenhower and Republicans brought the matter before Congress. They were successful in thwarting it until Republicans in Congress working with Democrats in favor of the civil rights bill that eventually garnered enough votes for passage. It was a Republican who penned the final bill that was passed into law and signed by President Johnson. And President Johnson certainly gave the Republicans the credit for its passage.
What you might not know about the 1964 Civil Rights Act - CNNPolitics.com

But today the rhetoric spewing out of the left is a real fairytale. They have proven they are willing to take race baiting to an all time new level to camouflage the truth and the wall of shame that has taken them over a century to build.
 
Back
Top Bottom