[quote]pushharder wrote:
My friend, smh, along with any others, can carefully construct these exquisite oracles of denunciation about removing symbols and remembrances of Southern history and I won’t give an inch and accept the hypothesis that it’s cathartic for our society to knock around this inane beach ball.[/quote]
This is a straw man. I am very clearly not talking about ceasing to remember anything. I am talking about celebration, which flight of colors on public property before a state house most certainly constitutes. Nobody has put a dent in this very simple argument – nobody has even tried to.[/quote]
One of the stupider things they are trying to do is pull down the statues of Robert E Lee, and I say this without having a dog in this fight, but as a person who went to Army War College.
The leaders of the Confederacy very easily could have changed tactics and fought a guerrilla war, making it not only impossible for the North the hold the South in any meaningful way, but also destroyed the economy of the North by wrecking the infrastructure.
You think Mogadishu (or whatever) was bad? Try fighting that inside Pennsylvania and Ohio. It would have destroyed the nation as a viable nation.
And people forget that England, Spain/Mexico, and A-H Empire were all licking their chops to invade and take over various sections of North America.
Any guerrilla war would have left the USA ripe for the pickings by the big boys, and various factions would have (initially) let them in.
Lee knew this and wisely chose to save America.
This decision is one of the many reasons he was lionized even in the North after the War. It’s also why Reconstruction was relatively benign as such things go.
[quote]pat wrote:
And most people who lived in the CSA and died in the war never owned a slave. Slaves were for the rich and most people were not rich.[/quote]
And most Nazis never killed a Jew. Move to Germany, throw a Swastika up in your lawn and see how that argument holds up in court (note that this is an evaluation of a feeble and illogical maxim, not a moral equivalence – as I said previously, the CSA doesn’t need any analogy; their own words are denigration enough).
Which is to say – what you’ve tried here does not change the fact that the CSA and its many colors were born in explicit defense of slavery. This thread has become a catalog of logical fallacy, a collection of every stupid thing ever said about the Civil War.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
…and now the formerly exquisitely crafted oracles of denunciation are including direct comparisons between the Nazis and the CSA in a counterattack that is way too thinly supported to succeed.
Good grief.[/quote]
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
(note that this is an evaluation of a feeble and illogical maxim, not a moral equivalence – as I said previously, the CSA doesn’t need any analogy; their own words are denigration enough).
[/quote]
Maxim: A flag which stands for a vile cause is alright for public display and celebration so long as most of the people who fought/lived under the flag did not directly participate in carrying out the vile cause.
Maxims must be universal.
The Swastika illustrates this particular maxim’s absurdity. I don’t need the Swastika – this alone does the trick: “What you’ve tried here does not change the fact that the CSA and its many colors were born in explicit defense of slavery.” The Swastika simply helps some people understand.
Testing a maxim =/= moral equivalence or analogy. I don’t argue by analogy because argument by analogy is terrible.
The simple fact is that Pat is trotting out an old and stupid line that doesn’t withstand a couple seconds’ worth of examination. Another entry in the book of stupid things people say about the Civil War.
Like any symbol, the Confederate flag can be used in different ways. Sometimes to show Southern Pride. This doesn’t really necesarily have much to do with racism, or even the Civil War. It just shows pride in where you live, and unity with other people from the region.
In the North, I don’t think there is a real sense of “Northern Pride” or regional unity. Western New Yorkers don’t care about Ohio, or feel kinship with Pittsburg. In Buffalo, everyone hated NYC. It’s different, and without this sense of regionalism, it can be hard to understand what others are talking about when they mention it.
The Confederate flag can also be an in your face, overt, hostile image. This is obviously the national perception of the symbol.
If Southerners as a “group” decide on a new symbol, or new flag to represent the region, will it be associated with slavery and racism as well? What could the new symbol be? An SEC banner?
What Will happen to Lindsey Graham? Do conservatives feel like he’s a turn-coat? I didn’t see him as a viable dude anyway, but what do I know.
[quote]pat wrote:
And most people who lived in the CSA and died in the war never owned a slave. Slaves were for the rich and most people were not rich.[/quote]
And most Nazis never killed a Jew. Move to Germany, throw a Swastika up in your lawn and see how that argument holds up in court (note that this is an evaluation of a feeble and illogical maxim, not a moral equivalence – as I said previously, the CSA doesn’t need any analogy; their own words are denigration enough).
Which is to say – what you’ve tried here does not change the fact that the CSA and its many colors were born in explicit defense of slavery. This thread has become a catalog of logical fallacy, a collection of every stupid thing ever said about the Civil War.
Edited.[/quote]
Devil’s advocate: You are mixing secession and the war as if they are the same thing. They are not. They are intertwined, for sure, but they are not the same thing. Secession was 100%, undeniably about slavery. Every State in the CSA left the Union because of slavery. I do not argue that. Obviously, the Southern slaves were freed as a result of the Civil War, but was it really started over slavery? Freeing Southern slaves didn’t even become an objective for the Union army until late 1863. If the Civil War was began because of slavery, why did Lincoln let nearly 3 years of war pass before he issued the emancipation proclamation? Why did he only emancipate Southern slaves in 1863? Why did slavery persist in the North for nearly 5 years after the war?
[quote]pat wrote:
And most people who lived in the CSA and died in the war never owned a slave. Slaves were for the rich and most people were not rich.[/quote]
And most Nazis never killed a Jew. Move to Germany, throw a Swastika up in your lawn and see how that argument holds up in court (note that this is an evaluation of a feeble and illogical maxim, not a moral equivalence – as I said previously, the CSA doesn’t need any analogy; their own words are denigration enough).
Which is to say – what you’ve tried here does not change the fact that the CSA and its many colors were born in explicit defense of slavery. This thread has become a catalog of logical fallacy, a collection of every stupid thing ever said about the Civil War.
Edited.[/quote]
Devil’s advocate: You are mixing secession and the war as if they are the same thing. They are not. They are intertwined, for sure, but they are not the same thing. Secession was 100%, undeniably about slavery. Every State in the CSA left the Union because of slavery. I do not argue that. Obviously, the Southern slaves were freed as a result of the Civil War, but was it really started over slavery? Freeing Southern slaves didn’t even become an objective for the Union army until late 1863. If the Civil War was began because of slavery, why did Lincoln let nearly 3 years of war pass before he issued the emancipation proclamation? Why did he only emancipate Southern slaves in 1863? Why did slavery persist in the North for nearly 5 years after the war?
[/quote]
In order to avoid exactly this charge, the way I have been putting it is this:
The CSA flags were created for a country which was created for the purpose of ensuring the future health and proliferation of slavery. I know, of course, that the North entered the war in order to preserve the Union*. But to draw an arbitrary line there without asking why the Union needed preservation is to play games with history. Slavery was the issue at the heart of the disagreement, and the disagreement was resolved in blood.
Which is not to say, as someone else did earlier, that anti-slavery sentiment in the North had nothing to do with secession. It did. Secessionists explicitly denounced, for example, northern states’ non-compliance with, and/or legal “nullification” of, fugitive slave laws.
^ In other words, the argument does not rely – at all – on Northern motivations, proclivities, etc. It does not hinge on some fantasy of monolithic Union heroism. It has only to do with the flag’s meaning and historical context vis-a-vis the explicit circumstances and purpose of its nation’s birth.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
Another shooting tragedy has struck America. It is certainly a horrible and despicable act. But, what is one of the first things Obama talks about, more stringent gun laws.
As if the perpetrator could not have run the group of people over with his car in a parking lot? People can kill a number of ways. Violence begins in the mind and cannot be prevented by removing one weapon.
All this flag debate is irrelevant to me however, the op is correct, guns are not the cause of the problem. they are a means by which the evil/psychopathic/disaffected/etc choose to kill people.
however, all that means is that societies of nearly all nations dont have a gun problem, society has a people problem.
that is not to say that I think people should carry guns, far from it, but guns arent the problem.
however, all that means is that every single society since the dawn of man himself has a people problem. There always has been, and always will be evil people in this world. No inanimate object will change that.
however, all that means is that every single society since the dawn of man himself has a people problem. There always has been, and always will be evil people in this world. No inanimate object will change that.
[quote]Mcincinatti wrote:
I am a huge supporter of “let the States decide”- where I don’t think I and other posters agree is here:
now that this is being debated, and the flags and other “symbols” might be removed, I am in full support. If the SC flag comes down, the State decided to do that. Simply because free citizens organized and put pressure on elected officials to do so doesn’t seem like ‘progressive revisionism’, it seems like smart organizing and affected change- i.e. a pretty damn democratic process. Don’t like officials deciding to take down these mementos? Don’t elect 'em next time[/quote]
I’m with you here insofar as it is a body of people who live in said state. One of the difficulties of being a smaller gov’t type is that–IF you are desirous of maintaining philosophical consistency–you must accept really crappy things happening if they don’t go the way you would like. This includes things like “if I were king I’d ban alll****” but having to accept that people in your state don’t like that. Or especially that people in another state don’t think that way.
That’s why we have elections. The democratic process takes effort and conscientious involvement. If people in S.C., Mississippi, or Georgia (they did in 2001) decide to take flags down great. If they don’t then I don’t think people who live anywhere else have the right to bitch. Or, perhaps bitch yes because we all have a right to speak our own minds about things that are important to us… but not the right to complain that “something should be done”.
It was, you just didn’t like the outcome. So I am in agreement with you as long as it’s people in those states deciding to bring them down. If it’s pressure from “outside” the people who live and vote in that area, then I don’t like it. Doesn’t matter whether the outcome is something I desire or not…the PROCESS must be respected and that includes–for me–letting an individual state’s voters decide what they want about issues in their own damn state.
[quote]Mcincinatti wrote:
I am a huge supporter of “let the States decide”- where I don’t think I and other posters agree is here:
now that this is being debated, and the flags and other “symbols” might be removed, I am in full support. If the SC flag comes down, the State decided to do that. Simply because free citizens organized and put pressure on elected officials to do so doesn’t seem like ‘progressive revisionism’, it seems like smart organizing and affected change- i.e. a pretty damn democratic process. Don’t like officials deciding to take down these mementos? Don’t elect 'em next time[/quote]
I’m with you here insofar as it is a body of people who live in said state. One of the difficulties of being a smaller gov’t type is that–IF you are desirous of maintaining philosophical consistency–you must accept really crappy things happening if they don’t go the way you would like. This includes things like “if I were king I’d ban alll****” but having to accept that people in your state don’t like that. Or especially that people in another state don’t think that way.
That’s why we have elections. The democratic process takes effort and conscientious involvement. If people in S.C., Mississippi, or Georgia (they did in 2001) decide to take flags down great. If they don’t then I don’t think people who live anywhere else have the right to bitch. Or, perhaps bitch yes because we all have a right to speak our own minds about things that are important to us… but not the right to complain that “something should be done”.
It was, you just didn’t like the outcome. So I am in agreement with you as long as it’s people in those states deciding to bring them down. If it’s pressure from “outside” the people who live and vote in that area, then I don’t like it. Doesn’t matter whether the outcome is something I desire or not…the PROCESS must be respected and that includes–for me–letting an individual state’s voters decide what they want about issues in their own damn state.[/quote]