Confederate flags filmed being stolen, destroyed in new social media challenge

a reply to: FormOfTheLord

Again: you're not understanding.

If I as an American citizen, along with many other people desire to have something that we believe is part of our heritage and history: who are you to judge us?

It is every American's right to be able to express themselves.

You don't have to agree with it. You don't have to like. But you do not have the right to take it away either.

Fixating on a single group, and insisting that what they represented, must be what those symbols will always represent is short sighted, close minded and a good example of having tunnel vision.

Just as you are free to believe what you want about those symbols, and express how you feel about them on here as you have, everyone else has the right to also be able to express their views and feelings on it.

Wanting something censored is not the answer. Taking away people's right to freedom of expression is also not the answer.

Insisting that a group of people, the Dixiecrats, are what people are today is an extremely bigoted way to look at something.

I'm sorry, but that IS what you are doing. It is making you no better than them.

However: I fully support your right to have that view and be able to express that view, even though I don't agree with it, and think it's wrong.

See how that works?

I'm accepting that you have the freedom to express that. I'm not demanding that you have it taken away. I'm not demanding that if you had any symbols representing your expression taken away or destroyed, nor am I applauding individuals who may trespass and steal that symbol from you.

I may argue with you about it. But I fully support your right to it, and do not condone those who would break the law to take it from you.

That's the difference.

originally posted by: XTexan
Hey my thread got opened back up!

a reply to: FormOfTheLord

Not sure what people's opinion of the flag or it's origin has to do with this topic.

The topic is people being encouraged to trespass and steal. The object being stolen does not matter. In my state the law gives the homeowner the right to defend property with lethal force. Texas isn't the only state that allows for that.

Thats called murder, and it sickens me to see our society has sunk this low. Perhaps the kid that shot up that church is getting just what he wanted. he did claim he wanted to start a race war, after people saw him posing with confederate flags, people started buying up confederate flags monkey see monkey do. Now people are talking about murdering others who attempt to take thier confederate flags down.

Sheer barbarism in its inception, how easily the weak minded are led down the path of self destruction.

a reply to: FormOfTheLord

Whether or not it's murder will be up to the LEOs involved and a jury, not you.

If you trespass and steal for ANY reason, you risk being shot and killed.

a reply to: FormOfTheLord

See there you dont care who they are so you dont know what your doing.

No, YOU don't know what you are doing.

Again, this topic is about removing a flag from MY property that does not belong to you!

I'm so sorry you can't wrap your head around that. Until you do there is no point in talking to you.

originally posted by: TerminalVelocity
a reply to: FormOfTheLord

Again: you're not understanding.

If I as an American citizen, along with many other people desire to have something that we believe is part of our heritage and history: who are you to judge us?

It is every American's right to be able to express themselves.

You don't have to agree with it. You don't have to like. But you do not have the right to take it away either.

Fixating on a single group, and insisting that what they represented, must be what those symbols will always represent is short sighted, close minded and a good example of having tunnel vision.

Just as you are free to believe what you want about those symbols, and express how you feel about them on here as you have, everyone else has the right to also be able to express their views and feelings on it.

Wanting something censored is not the answer. Taking away people's right to freedom of expression is also not the answer.

Insisting that a group of people, the Dixiecrats, are what people are today is an extremely bigoted way to look at something.

I'm sorry, but that IS what you are doing. It is making you no better than them.

However: I fully support your right to have that view and be able to express that view, even though I don't agree with it, and think it's wrong.

See how that works?

I'm accepting that you have the freedom to express that. I'm not demanding that you have it taken away. I'm not demanding that if you had any symbols representing your expression taken away or destroyed, nor am I applauding individuals who may trespass and steal that symbol from you.

I may argue with you about it. But I fully support your right to it, and do not condone those who would break the law to take it from you.

That's the difference.

History will judge you period. The facts will be laid out clearly for all to see, wether you wish to deny the history of the confederate flag is up to you. But if your going to get behind something at least know what it is for gods sake, dont try and make up some willie nilly exuses for the true history of what has happened in the past. At least know what the symbols your useing represent. Dont say three actually means 2 because it doesnt, we all know three means 3, just like the confederate flag is for racism, oppression, dehumanization, and last but not least slavery.

a reply to: FormOfTheLord

I would never do that since I have enough respect and common sense to know not everybody views that symbol the same way I do, but if I did and someone assaulted me because of it, they would be in the wrong. A symbol doesn't cause violence, people do. If a symbol makes someone angry, that's just the way the world works. What they do with that anger is what matters. If it drives them to petition to have it removed from public property, I 100% support their right to do so, even if I think it's stupid. If it drives them to violence or destruction of property(public or private), then they are wrong and I hope they get what's coming to them, whether that's jail or a bullet or both.

originally posted by: thov420
a reply to: FormOfTheLord

I would never do that since I have enough respect and common sense to know not everybody views that symbol the same way I do, but if I did and someone assaulted me because of it, they would be in the wrong. A symbol doesn't cause violence, people do. If a symbol makes someone angry, that's just the way the world works. What they do with that anger is what matters. If it drives them to petition to have it removed from public property, I 100% support their right to do so, even if I think it's stupid. If it drives them to violence or destruction of property(public or private), then they are wrong and I hope they get what's coming to them, whether that's jail or a bullet or both.

Well if you know that you will offend people and have really studied the history of the confederate flag and all the hate crimes that have happened since 1948 when the dixiecrats were protesting not being able to burn and lynch African Americans anymore by law, and your in full awareness of the oppression the people who have waved the flag have perpatrated in the past, and you still want to represent that evil history. . . Go for it, wear it to work, wear it at school, your doing it for your own reasons, perhaps to provoke people, but it sure aint becuase you want people to not target you, and just go about your buisness. If you go looking for trouble you will most likely find some somewhere.

But if you dont really know the history of the flag and what it historically represents for all people, then please please do not brandish it, because in doing so it will be out of ignorance, and you will not know why people object to its mere presence.

Bottom line it has an extreamly evil history being slavery, and after 1948 it got so much worse with the lynchings and various other hate crimes. If your proud of that stuff fly it if your not then do everyone around you a favor and dont fly it.

originally posted by: FormOfTheLord

Well if you know that you will offend people and have really studied the history of the confederate flag and all the hate crimes that have happened since 1948 when the dixiecrats were protesting not being able to burn and lynch African Americans anymore by law, and your in full awareness of the oppression the people who have waved the flag have perpatrated in the past, and you still want to represent that evil history. . . Go for it, wear it to work, wear it at school, your doing it for your own reasons, perhaps to provoke people, but it sure aint becuase you want people to not target you, and just go about your buisness. If you go looking for trouble you will most likely find some somewhere.

I agree 100% if you go looking for trouble you will find it. That's why I choose not to provoke others. I'm glad to see you believe in the 1st amendment, me too. Where I think we differ, is you seem to be encouraging this theft/vandalism behavior while I condemn it.

But if you dont really know the history of the flag and what it historically represents for all people

Bold mine. So you know 100% what that flag means to all people? That's some amazing insight/clairvoyance.

then please please do not brandish it, because in doing so it will be out of ignorance, and you will not know why people object to its mere presence.

People can object all they want and as long as I'm not breaking any laws there's nothing they can do to stop me unless they want to resort to violence and then they will be the ones breaking laws.

Bottom line it has an extreamly evil history being slavery, and after 1948 it got so much worse with the lynchings and various other hate crimes. If your proud of that stuff fly it if your not then do everyone around you a favor and dont fly it.

Actually It's history is mainly as a war battle flag and as a naval jack during that war, a war over state's rights vs the federal government. Because it was appropriated by the Dixiecrats you keep going on about is irrelevant. The swastika was appropriated by the Nazi's, it doesn't make that symbol inherently racist unless it's on the Nazi flag. And even then, if someone wants to fly it, more power to them. I don't agree with it, but I sure don't condone stealing/destroying people's personal property.

So wheres the pile of corpses?

This story is where I draw the line in the defense of this case. We still have the freedom in this country to express free speech. You cannot steal property on someone's property because you do not like it.. You cannot and you will always be wrong about it even when you think your right....

I think we need to start balancing this Confederate flag nonense out. It appears mankind lack the intelligence to harmonize a diverse group on his own. He insists on violence at every turn even when he can make a decision to harmonize.

It is indeed trivial to me.

its going to be so awesome when we get to see the go-pro footage of one of these idiots getting blown away. The children of Neo-libs seriously dont know what kind of trouble they are in for. I'd give it 10 days.

SOME here need to look up the definition of murder. It has to be pre planned and in cold blood to be considered murder.

The confederate flag incites violence and dehumanization.

That appears to happen to only certain people. It has never incited either in myself.

originally posted by: Realtruth

originally posted by: XTexan

We should be talking about mental health. Every time these things happen the discussion should be mental health.

Here's the problem with that argument.

One sane doctor in a room full of mentally unsound people, things go bad and they turn against him, the majority rules, even if they are insane.

Washington D.C. is living proof of that.

Mental health and reasoning are subjective.

Bang Bang.......Get off my lawn.

We have no way of knowing if the people pushing this stealing and destruction of these confederate flags are not the racist them self. or liberals trying to push a anti gun program.

They may be trying to get blacks killed when they steal these flags and turn them into just criminals stealing property.

Or they may be anti gun types trying to get someone shoot to push there anti gun program.

a reply to: ANNED

Chesterfield seems to be a place stuff like this is happening.
A white dad was out waving his flag when a guy (never shown by the media, nor his race mentioned) stops his car, gets out, and puts a loaded gun to the white guy's head in front of his family and says something like What do you think about your cause now?

The police did NOT put the guy in jail, though he was IDed and pursued.

A quick look at their news shows a headline of another family who had their flag stolen and burned, they found it in the street.

Here's one link: wtvr.com...
Here's another, wtvr.com...
wtvr.com...

I love how the people that say they can't tolerate hate speech are so quick to insinuate that all rural white southerners that love the flag are liars, bigots, and racists.

I see those who would resort to violence over petty effing theft aren't much better in morality than the thieves are. That is tantamount in my point of view to maiming or killing someone for stealing your smiley face sticker. Both are cheap personal property, neither of which are justifiable for killing over. It isn't life & death stuff, people, it's mass-produced inanimate stuff.

THAT SAID. Taking something that doesn't explicitly belong to you ain't peachy, either. You want a petty theft record over it? Smooth move, dumbass. You want to risk getting shot by the trigger-fingered? Your move, dumbass. Being a thief is stupid enough, but there's always someone with a weapon willing to risk a murder charge to get you before you get away.

originally posted by: rockpaperhammock
We need to create a huge thunderdome where people who really feel that strongly about anything can fight other people who feel that strongly about the opposite...We can do this until one is left standing...then we hang them.

I recommend Delaware.

We Should !

Dr. Dealgood: Listen all! This is the truth of it. Fighting leads to killing, and killing gets to warring. And that was damn near the death of us all. Look at us now! Busted up, and everyone talking about hard rain! But we've learned, by the dust of them all... Bartertown learned. Now, when men get to fighting, it happens here! And it finishes here! Two men enter; one man leaves.

Dr. Dealgood: Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls... Dyin' time's here.

We should have a Thunder dome in every Town ! in the US

its like bringing the Ol, Wild West Back of the Old Days of a Legal Duel ! Gun Fighting !

good Idea ..

It will be like the Old Ancient Roman Empire Gladiator days .. at the Maximus Colosseum !

Great way to Weed out !

How about a Death Row Game Show ! while we are at it!

we can win Prizes like lets make a Deal!

or ! Like Death Race 2000

where we can have the incurables and unwanted's and undesirables for Points !

Well we are heading that way ! Pay preview Executions... ohh wait The Media Almost had that ! Right ?

I can see this Is Wrong for Someone to take a Confederate Flag Down on someone Own Property
that is a definite in the wrong I Agree ..

As the Confederated Flag is for Historical purposes and a Southern Heritage ..
but the Flag is Destroyed by the KKK White Supremacist and Neo Nazi since the 1930s a symbol of HATE !


Interesting ..

“1930s Photograph of an elderly black man who had been a Confederate bugler during the Civil War. He is wearing a Stonewall Jackson UCV (United Confederate Veterans) ribbon. Note with photo reads ‘Found in Amarillo, Texas. 1930 UCV Bugler - Stonewall Jackson.’”


a Free Black , a Slave Servant that joined the C.S.A. ?


DIXIE'S CENSORED SUBJECT
BLACK SLAVEOWNERS

By Robert M. Grooms
americancivilwar.com...

a reply to: TerminalVelocity

If I as an American citizen, along with many other people desire to have something that we believe is part of our heritage and history: who are you to judge us?

OK, I'll give MY answer as to why I have a right to judge those who insist on using that flag as a proud symbol of their 'heritage and history'.

I too am an American entitled to a view of what that piece of colored cloth represents. My Great-Grandfather fought in the Civil War and earned for me, not just the right, but the absolute responsibility to pass judgment on your ideology.

As a volunteer in the 3rd Michigan Infantry he saw action at Bull Run (both of them), Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg where he was one of the 'lucky ones' at the Peach Orchard and was 'only' wounded). He recovered from his wounds in time to also see Chancellorsville, The Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Petersburg.

And yes, that traitors rag was carried at Gettysburg when my Great-Grandfather was wounded, and so my family (and the family of every 'Northerner' who fought in that war) has a very personal relationship to that flag.

You see, the 'People of the South' are not the only Americans who can claim a personal relationship with that flag with powerful memories of exactly what it represents to them. My family have just as much right to express what that relationship is as you do - more, in fact, since the traitors rebellion was put down and your effort to glorify the rebellion, the treachery, and the bankrupt ideals behind the rebellion is no more that a transparent attempt to rewrite history and justify your own personal history.

In addition, the families and friends of the almost 4000 people who were lynched in this country between 1877 and 1950 (lynchings didn't stop in 1950, but this study didn't count them) have just as much right to express what their relationship with that flag is as do those folks who claim it is not a symbol of hate.

As someone with a personal relationship to that flag, as someone whose identity was partly formed in relationship with that flag and its family connections, and as a descendant of someone who fought and was wounded in a war brought on by the 'history and heritage' that that flag is now said to represent and has always represented let me enlighten you:

The only 'heritage' it represents is the heritage of tyranny, slavery, and cruelty.
The only 'history' it represents is the history of treason, rebellion, and betrayal.

It is true that in the 20th century it has gained new symbolism without losing its 19th century 'heritage and history'. In the 20th century it has 'gained' in stature to also represent the Dixiecrat Segregationist, the KKK lynch mob, Church bombings.

But above all, it represents hate. Hate of the black man. Hate of brown man. Hate of the immigrant. Hate of the intelligent. Hate of the Government. Hate of the law. Hate of self. Hate of everything.

Matthew Guterl, a professor of Africana and American studies at Brown University who studies race in the aftermath of the Civil War said it succinctly (and more effectively than I)

(in this article)

...people invoke the flag because they want to endorse on some level, even if secretly or subconsciously, the very rationale for the Confederacy. When people say 'heritage not hate,’ they are omitting the obvious, which is that that heritage is hate. When someone says it’s about history, well, that particular history is inseparable from hate, because it is about hate. It’s about racism, and it’s about slavery.
...
Wearing the flag or celebrating it, putting it on your car window or coffee table in your house, it's a reminder to everyone, to every guest, to every person who sees it, black or white, that you are a stakeholder in the Confederate history of the South, and therefore the defense of slavery and racial prejudice. No one is immune to this.

Even to say that it’s about heritage not hate, is to recognize that for many people it is inextricably about hate. You can’t filter out the racism and leave what’s pure and historical in the flag, because that purity doesn’t exist. Some things are so primitively stained or tarnished by history that that can never be set side. The flag is a perfect example.

a reply to: thov420

Actually It's history is mainly as a war battle flag and as a naval jack during that war,

Correct. It was never the 'Confederate Flag'.

a war over state's rights vs the federal government.

Specifically and singly the right to hold fellow human being in bondage. Every secessionist state identified that single issue in their justification documents as the cause of secession citing, in one way or another, slavery as a 'State's Right'. So that is the specific "State's Right" that you are defending when you are holding up the "Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia" as a symbol of State's Rights, History, and Heritage. This is not even debatable, it is in the plain language of the secession documents.

You will notice that not one of the of the secessionist states held up as a State's Rights issue the right of its citizens to live in peace with out being invaded by its neighbor's. In the decades before the war, 'border' states were continually being invaded by murderous gangs of slave hunters who kidnapped (black and white both; slave and freeman both), raped (black and white both), and murdered (black and white both) their way across Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and even as far north as Michigan and New York. Do those states not have rights to protect their citizens?

You will also notice that not one of the secessionist states held up the right of the People of the United States to change the Constitution. In fact their fear of the mood of the people towards a change to the Constitution was one pressures for them to secede. South Carolina for one, quoted Article 4 Section 2 of the Constitution as supporting the right to hold slaves, yet did not recognize the right to change the Constitution, stating in no uncertain terms that if that provision did not exist, no 'slave-holding' state would have signed on.

South Carolina also claimed that some of the non-slave states were, by their laws, refusing to honor the Article 4 provision that runaway slaves should be returned. It did not mention that South Carolina was ignoring the Federal law that prohibited the importation of slaves after 1 January 1808 (as allowed for in the Constitution). What about the rights of the non-slave states to have the Constitution respected by the slave states?

Because it was appropriated by the Dixiecrats you keep going on about is irrelevant.

Wrong. It is exactly on point.

The flag was chosen by the Dixiecrats exactly because of what it represented before they 'appropriated' it: racism and hate. It continues to represent that ideology, has never fallen out of disuse, and those who continue to cling to it unavoidably carry that baggage with them.

As the saying goes, "Opinions are like a$$holes - everybody has one", and you are entitled to yours. You are also entitled to exercise your right of free speech to express your opinion (just as I am exercising mine right now - yes it does work both ways). At the same time, the right to free speech carries the responsibility to understand what the words you speak actually mean.

The 'heritage' that that flag represents is the heritage of hate; that is its symbolism - when you speak of heritage that is what you are speaking of. When you speak of state's rights, you are speaking of the right to maintain a system of human bondage which means not just forcing human beings to slave labor, but to murder them at whim without penalty, rape women at whim without responsibility, and to generally live in the cruelest depravity that has ever been legally endorsed in the history of the planet (and that is NOT an exaggeration).

The flag DOES mean those things, and when you display them you ARE endorsing exactly what that flag means.