Does The Confederate Flag Promote Love?

So in a very large percentage of states that see racial tensions rising we also see a very large amount of outrage and many hitting the streets to protest and often ending in more violence. Now look at the reaction this weekend in the only land the flag still waves on government property. To me the reaction is like something out of all our minds of how society should act when evil happens. People of all color coming out sending the loudest message of peace,love and forgivness.

Does the flag waving somehow promote tolerance and love.

Should we now raise it in other place?

To me it is just another sign that we live in an upside land where everything is backwards from what we believe.

a reply to: deadeyedick

I would counter your question in the title with another question: Should ignorance as to the true reason that most people appreciate the battle flag (it's not the official CSA flag) dictate how society sees a symbol?

Seriously, I'm tired of dumbing down our society to placate the ignorant and foolish. Why should symbols be discarded because we as a society allow ignorance to use the bullhorn and be the loudest in the room?

Edit: To answer your question, though, I don't think that it promotes love, and it was never meant to: It serves as a reminder about government overreach and what it can lead to, and it should be a constant reminder to the federal government that we'll only take so much before we'll step up and fight back.

While slavery was a part of the Civil War, it was not the spark that lit the match head, in the same sense that a hatred of tea is not what sparked the Boston Tea Party.

(the "we" to which I'm referring is the American people, not Southerners...just because I live 10 miles south of Cincinnati in KY doesn't make me a Southerner)

The only love it promotes is the love of racism. People should be able to fly it at their homes if they want but it has no place on government property.

The flag is simply a diversion.

We won't ban guns. We won't ban psychotropic drugs. We won't expunge hate from our midst. But we can villainize an inanimate object, the meaning of which we can't even agree upon. We can rip it down, burn it, whatever, and then pat ourselves on the back while sadly going about our lives and our politics/policies the same as ever.

a reply to: deadeyedick

You didn't really think this through did you?

Does the flag waving somehow promote tolerance and love.

Wouldn't the fact that there was a racially motivated mass shooting in the first place disprove your hypothesis?

a reply to: deadeyedick

Provocative question, and I mean that in a good way.

There isn't much symbolism out there explicitly promoting love, peace and the value of human life.

Flying flags and displaying symbols are asserting a meme into the mind of accepting operatives and independents.
Unfortunately most of these memes prescribe control or aggression.

The confederate battle flag is an assertion of a meme that has a proven historical legacy of human suffering and evil. Some might argue the same about the American flag itself.

a reply to: deadeyedick

Does the flag waving somehow promote tolerance and love.

Does burning it promote tolerance and love? Let me be clear. I don't fly the Confederate flag. Never have and never will but, sometimes people that preach tolerance are the most intolerant. "I'm and open minded tolerant person unless you disagree with me and then I don't tolerate you." If someone says the Confederate flag symbolizes fighting government overreach, I take them at their word. If someone else says it symbolizes racism to them, I take them at their word. I can't read people's minds.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

Edit: To answer your question, though, I don't think that it promotes love, and it was never meant to: It serves as a reminder about government overreach and what it can lead to, and it should be a constant reminder to the federal government that we'll only take so much before we'll step up and fight back.

You really have no idea what you're talking about. Don't believe me, its all right there in the declarations made by the states when they seceded. Read a few

Georgia's:

The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.

Mississippi's:

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.

...

It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.

It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.

EDIT: oh and let's not forget South Carolina:

Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

Please stop repeating this myth.

originally posted by: theantediluvian
a reply to: deadeyedick

You didn't really think this through did you?

Does the flag waving somehow promote tolerance and love.

Wouldn't the fact that there was a racially motivated mass shooting in the first place disprove your hypothesis?

Yes i thought it through and we see these type of shootings all over the place but somehow magically people responded exactly opposite from the norm and i in the search for truth and ability to spread whatever made the difference am trying to find what is different this time and the confederate flag being waved on federal land is the biggest factor that stands out.



Great replies everyone.

I wonder if anyone has other explainations as to why we got such a beautiful reaction that seems to be quickly drowning out the hate that was shown in the act.

My point with this thread is that we should identify the factors that made the difference and mimic that because there is no end in sight to violence.

originally posted by: buster2010
The only love it promotes is the love of racism. People should be able to fly it at their homes if they want but it has no place on government property.

It is a very important reminder of American history though, isn't it?

You don't have to agree with something to recognize the history behind it.

a reply to: kosmicjack

This. And we won't better educate our population to help end racism and bigotry. Instead we just perpetuate divides. A flag is just a thing people can point at, the real issue is inside the people themselves.

“ Service. Honor. Pride.”
Black Confederate Veterans

source: www.scv357.org...

a reply to: deadeyedick

The confederate battle flag should never be flown on state or federal government property. There are no circumstances where this should be tolerated.

What always gets me is the bumper stickers that say, "Heritage, not hate," as it is a heritage of hate. For the most part I am diametrically opposed to white, southern culture, and I just happen to be a white, Florida native.

Does anyone have any clue as to why everyone there black and white came together in such a maner that unlike any other so called racist shooting.

a reply to: deadeyedick

Most of me thinks everyone views the actions of the shooter as hateful and repugnant and they seek to stand against it. But a small part of me thinks that such a united front in the face of tragedy is also an effort to get back to normal ASAP...and that includes a return to the same constructs and attitudes as before.

a reply to: kosmicjack

i always enjoy your replies

i hope that at the least i have brought up this in a way that makes folks question things about the reaction

i will leave it alone now

I propose another question: does ANY flag represent love?

Flags are symbols that people use to portray a message about themselves. That message is determined by the flyer of the flag, not by the person who sees it.

Letters are symbols also. If I write the word "green," I am trying to convey the meaning of the word "green," which to my mind might be a vorgin forest, a clear grassy meadow, or something along those terms. If an economist happens to read that word, without any context, that accountant will likely think of money. If an ecologist reads it, they will likely think of solar energy.

In both cases, the meaning others gave to the word does not change my intention in using it.

Children have a lot of fun with this concept. I remember the first time I read in the Bible that "the cock crowed three times." OMG! "Cock" is in the Bible! LOLOL! The choldish enthusiasm and curiosity in me took those letters as having a set meaning and ignored all other connotations. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew it meant what we would call a "rooster," but that didn't fit with what it needed to mean to make the situation what I wanted.

I outgrew that, ,of course. Children still do it in their youth, and I tend to give a light smile when i hear it. It's not really funny anymore, just nostalgic.

Flags are symbols as well. The Stars and Bars, "Old Glory," flaps proudly in the breeze above every Federal building. why? Because it is a symbol of the United States. As such, it can have both good and bad connotations. I believe those poor Indians, some of which were likely my ancestors, who walked the Trail of Tears would have a much different view of the American flag than those who proudly serve in the military. Oppressed countries around the world view the flags of their oppressors as symbols of hate, while the citizens of those countries view them as symbols of pride and honor.

So which one is appropriate for the Confederate Battlejack?

Well, let's examine history. The Battlejack started when South Carolina made the decision to seceed from the union. They took down the Stara and Bars and raised the CSA Flag. They also demanded that, since they were no longer a part of the United States, federal law no longer applied on thier sovereign soil. The Federal forces stationed in South Carolina disagreed, and fighting broke out. Within days, all the Southern states seceeded. The United States immediately declared war and the Confederacy lowered the CSA flag and raised the Battlejack... their flag of wartime.

The secession was over a law that taxed all property at a single rate. That meant 10 acres in New England, heavily industrialied, paid one tenth the tax of 100 acres in Georgia, although the 10 acres made many times the income and was worth many times more. It was an unjust law designed to target the Southern states to take revenue for the Northern states, and multiple attempts to fight this law in Congress were struck down by political means.

There were other issues: in the 1700s, slave traders from Europe began selling their wares in the United States, primarily in New England. Soon they learned that the Southern states could be another income source, so they started selling slaves in the South as well. Just as in New England, few people could really afford to be slave-owners; only the wealthy had slaves, just like only the wealthy have servants today. There were abuses on both sides opf the Mason-Dixon line, but none more heinous than those of the slave-traders themselves. As people began to realize that these dark-skinned strangers were not mere animals, a cultural divide began to open between those who wanted to recognize the humanity they saw and those that did not. Usually, those who did not see the humanity were the wealthiest, with the most to lose should slavery be outlawed: those who needed the free labor.

The spark was the Industrial Revolution. In New England, industry was becoming king. Machinery was replacing the need for slaves, and the movement to free the slaves began to move forward in earnest. But in the South, plantation owners had no such machinery to replace the slaves, and resisted the movement. Notice I said the plantation owners... the top 10% of the population only. The vast majority of Southerners were poor, from tiny farms that couldn't afford slaves, to craftsmen who didn't need them, to sharecroppers who were little more than slaves themselves.

Once the war started, the South, frankly, began kicking butt. In our mainds, we were fighting for our freedom. The quick operation to put down these rebels turned into a long, drawn-out process that Lincoln was not politically prepared for. The people were tired of fighting. So to energize the nation, Lincoln began pointing out the slavery issue. Indeed, the Gettysburg Address, which freed the Southern slaves, was a briliant ploy to shift the focus of the war from some distant sense of "they shouldn't seceed" to a more immediate and personal sense of "they're enslaving those poor people!"

Lincoln also agreed to an attack plan by General Grant: send in Sherman and cut the "snake" in half. Sherman did. He slaughtered thousands upon thousands of children, from infants to teens, some in front of their mothers, women, old men, anyone they found. Some died at the point of a sword, others by the hooves of horses, some intentionally trapped inside burning buildings. Per Lincoln's order, blacks were not to be harmed, but Sherman also wasn't under any duty to help. He stranded thousands of blacks (some freed, some already free) with no way to support themselves. He burned entire crops, hundreds of acres, destroyed food stores, burned bridges, and left nothing but utter destruction in his wake.

Those are the actions not of a soldier, but of a war crminal.

The operation had the intended effect. Supplies for Conferderate troops dried up and Lee was forced to surrender. It is interesting to note that battles continued in the South for a while after that surrender, as lower commanders refused to accept "Yankee invasion."

That's what happened. History books be damned. It is written in letters and reports of that time, ignored by anyone with literary power today, but still extant. Some of those letters are safely stored in my possession, written by my ancestors.

The returning sldiers and the surviving population were not so quick to lie down as some would have wanted. That Battlejack still flew high and proud above what was left of a once-thriving culture. It came to mean that even though the people had been defeated in battle, their spirit had not been conquered. It meant survival against all odds, against any enemy, and a refusal to bow down. It symbolized a spirit that could not be conquered.

And that is a dangerous thing. It was especially dangerous for the carpetbaggers who saw a chance to profit. Those are heroic sentiments that could have stirred up empathy towards the South. So they changed the meaning in the hearts and minds of the North. The flag began to be seen as a last cry of "you took my slaves."

The same people, the carpetbaggers, coined the word "redneck," with the connotation of dumb, backward, incestuous evil-doers (in this area) . The N-word was coined about the same time, an aberration of the word "Negro" with, yes, a connotation of hate. There was none other to attack.

Later groups would take up the Battlejack, standing behind its history of representing courage, bravery, and tenacioty. The KKK would take it as their emblem... interestingly enough they also took the Christian Cross. Motorcycle gangs would adopt it to represent their spirit of freedom. Over the years, many have used the Battlejack for many reasons.

But it's not their flag.

It's ours.

Our take has not changed. It represents pride in our forefathers, a spirit of independence, a refusal to surrender even in the face of insurmountable odds, a resilient and tenacious refusal to back down from who we are and what we believe. It is our fathers' flag, our brothers' flag, our people's flag.

If you hate the Hells Angels, feel free to try and outlaw Hells Angels. If you hate the KKK, feel free to take action against the KKK. But I am not a part of the He;;s Angels, the KKK, or any other such group that hijacked the Battlejack. I am a proud Southerner, and that is MY flag. To attack it is to attack my people, my family, my friends, my ancestors.

Just like Darynn Roof tried to do to all black people in a church in South Carolina.

TheRedneck

originally posted by: deadeyedick
Does anyone have any clue as to why everyone there black and white came together in such a maner that unlike any other so called racist shooting.

I believe that what separates this incident from others is that the perpetrator wasn't a cop, his motivation wasn't a secret, and there was no way to explain it away with the usual tactics.

The truth was unavoidable.

People have been coming together but it doesn't have much value for identity politics driven propaganda. If you look at the images and video of the many many recent peaceful protests, you'll see people of all races and ages. Unfortunately, these aren't sensational and they're largely ignored in favor of images of looting and burning pharmacies. Sadly, this disproportionate media focus can only contribute to the distorted views of disturbed losers.

originally posted by: deadeyedick
Does anyone have any clue as to why everyone there black and white came together in such a maner that unlike any other so called racist shooting.

I'm curious about what other "so called racist shootings" you're comparing this to where people didn't come together.

In this case I'm sure the fact that it happened inside a Christian church during a bible study had a lot to do with it. Many people no doubt value their religious identity above their racial identity.