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I read you just fine but you are obviously trying to defend the South for re-electing racist Senators. I think all of us can understand that some sins are worse than others. Most intelligent people can recognize that a person who led the opposition to Black voting rights and Civil rights should not be a leader and hold the most powerful political position in your state. This is why the South is so heavily criticized. Many Southerners don't see racism as an issue that people should have no tolerance for.
If you read me just fine, then you are deliberately taking my statements and twisting them to fit your agenda.
I'm not defending the South for re-electing racist Senators. I'm saying that politics are complex, and your insistence at looking at just one aspect of those two Senators is being simplistic. The Senators campaigned on other issues besides race. People voted for them for reasons besides race. It might suit your agenda to focus solely on this one aspect, but that's your agenda. You do have an agenda, you know. It comes clearly through the many South-bashing posts you write.
New Englanders have a specific identity. And yet they have many sub-cultures as well. The people who live in New Hampshire are distinct from the people who live in Vermont. The people who live in Connecticut are distinct from the people who live in Massachusetts. They vote differently on different issues. They have a diversity of political leanings, from liberal to conservative. The stereotypes that are employed in Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry, for instance, don't apply to all New Englanders, or to all Vermonters, or to the inhabitants of any single village in New England. Stereotypes are one-dimensional. People are not.
New Englanders have things in common that lend themselves to their identity. They have history, and schools, weather, and geography. There are aspects of culture which unify them, and aspects that distinguish them.
Southerners have things in common that lend themselves to their identity. They have history and schools and weather and geography. There are aspects of culture which unify them, and aspects that distinguish them.
My argument is that racism is not an aspect of culture which unifies Southerners, it is, instead, an aspect that divides them. Your argument, at least according to your remark on the difference between Idaho and the South, is that racism is an aspect of culture which unifies the South. But you've never been able to actually support that argument. You use isolated incidents, anecdotes, to give your argument weight. But there are anecdotes of racism from all over the country. You use statistics to try to support your argument. And yet Phoenix has substantially more hate crime than Little Rock. Since anecdotes and statistics don't make your argument, you use the history of the region. But it's 2009, not 1909. The South, like the rest of the country, has to work hard to continue to improve itself with regards to racial issues. But the South, like the rest of the country, has many other issues besides race that it has to deal with.
Exactly but racism is also a part of your culture. You and other Southerners don't admit it and pretend you are no more racist than the rest of the country. Even you know that isn't true. Why is it that you can admit some things but not others?
Personally, I could care less if you waive your flag. I'm just amused at the lack of honesty by the South. Again, the South claims they victimized by stereotypes yet they proudly waive a flag that symbolizes their identity...the same identity they claim is a stereotype. I'm just amused that you and other Southerners pretend they are no more bigoted than the rest of the country despite having a strong history and culture that espoused racism. They pretend that none of that impacts them today yet they still feel they connected enough to the confederacy to waive a flag. Go figure!
Perhaps person A doesn't wave a flag and doesn't want to be labeled the same as person B that has a flag and is a racist. Perhaps person A understands that person C has a flag but is not racist. It's pretty simple if you're not blinded by prejudice just as it is regarding other stereotypes.
And how can you guarantee that slavery would have been abolished? You mean that after fighting (and in your ideal world, winning) a war to preserve slavery, spending millions of (confederate) dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives, the south would have then turned around and ended it? Yeah, right.
At what point would the south have passed the 14th amendment? Right after freeing all the slaves?
I'm sure your slavery/islamic fundamentalist analogy makes sense to you, but it's another candidate for 'Bad Analogy of the Year' award to me.
the war was about states rights... not slavery...was the main right slavery..yes..but it was about states right..we are the unites STATES,, we are not the country of america.
we should have stopped slavery , when we stopped being part of england,, they were the ones who brought slavery here to the us. but it bacame an issue of COMMERSE.
If you read me just fine, then you are deliberately taking my statements and twisting them to fit your agenda.
I'm not defending the South for re-electing racist Senators. I'm saying that politics are complex, and your insistence at looking at just one aspect of those two Senators is being simplistic. The Senators campaigned on other issues besides race. People voted for them for reasons besides race. It might suit your agenda to focus solely on this one aspect, but that's your agenda. You do have an agenda, you know. It comes clearly through the many South-bashing posts you write.
You are trying twisting your own words. It's pretty simple. I claimed the South kept re-electing racist senators in Strom Thurmond and Jessie Helms. You then sought to rationalize the South for re-electing them by arguing that people voted for them for their other issues and not for their racist views. You then tried to rationalize that all politicians have prejudices and faults. This is your way of equating racism with other sins. I responded by saying people outside the South recognize there is no tolerance for racism and wouldn't re-elect a known racist regardless of what his or her views are. But in the South, there is more tolerance for racism hence the reason Helms and Thurmond kept getting re-elected. I called you out on this and now you are trying to tap dance around the issue by saying I'm twisting your words. And it's obvious what your agenda is: defend the South at all costs
You are trying twisting your own words. It's pretty simple. I claimed the South kept re-electing racist senators in Strom Thurmond and Jessie Helms. You then sought to rationalize the South for re-electing them by arguing that people voted for them for their other issues and not for their racist views. You then tried to rationalize that all politicians have prejudices and faults. This is your way of equating racism with other sins. I responded by saying people outside the South recognize there is no tolerance for racism and wouldn't re-elect a known racist regardless of what his or her views are. But in the South, there is more tolerance for racism hence the reason Helms and Thurmond kept getting re-elected. I called you out on this and now you are trying to tap dance around the issue by saying I'm twisting your words.
No.
You claimed that electing racist Senators is proof that the South is racist.
I pointed out that people vote for Senators for many different reasons. Nothing you've said refutes that. If you vote for a Senator in Arizona that is pro-choice, does that mean that every person who voted for that Senator shares that political viewpoint? No, it doesn't. Because people vote the way they do for complicated reasons, and because they are interested in a host of different issues. When you can refute that, then you might have an argument. As for other regions and how they vote, there are several people currently serving in Congress from states outside the South who aren't poster children for the theme of tolerance. I don't want to bash other states because that's not my agenda. But intolerant people do get elected from all over this country.
Exactly but racism is also a part of your culture. You and other Southerners don't admit it and pretend you are no more racist than the rest of the country. Even you know that isn't true. Why is it that you can admit some things but not others?
ahhh... YOU JUST PREJUDGED.....
I am not a southerner... my family has been here (in NEW ENGLAND) since 1640..I am a New englander....Mass, CT, Maine and New york.....look at my profile....Long Island, New York...born in Brooklyn.....there is a cancer center in Harvard, with my families name on it....((DF/HCC))
and my family fought for the Union
just because I am showing YOUR racism,,doesnt mean I am from the south
Personally, I could care less if you waive your flag. I'm just amused at the lack of honesty by the South. Again, the South claims they victimized by stereotypes yet they proudly waive a flag that symbolizes their identity...the same identity they claim is a stereotype. I'm just amused that you and other Southerners pretend they are no more bigoted than the rest of the country despite having a strong history and culture that espoused racism. They pretend that none of that impacts them today yet they still feel they connected enough to the confederacy to waive a flag. Go figure!
Sorry, you are putting together all of these little "connections" in your own head. You are trying to find the lowest common denomenator of varying circumstances to tie them together to fit into your personal anti-south agenda. You are bordering on conspiracy theory here.
The problem that you have with the south has little to do with their own stereotypes and how they think YOU percieve them and how they percieve themselves. The reason, the stereotype you wish to push forward is that they are racist, rednecks and uneducated. Your goal is to find them and their history in a negative light in an attempt to demonize them. THEIR goal is to stand up for their rich long heritage and culture, recognizing the great things they have brought to this nation and the contributions they have made to make this country a better place.
They fly the confederate flag, because they think that it represents a region of the country and a culture which is something to be proud of... even with mistakes in the past and present.
So what do you do? You tell them that their flag is racist, and when they don't cease flying it... because they recognize you as a bigot, then you call them a hypocrite. Talk about a win win situation for you.
The sad part is, I think most everybody is able to recognize exactly what you are trying to do, and thats demonize an entire region of the country for your own political agenda. Problem is, your position is illogical.
The south has alot to be proud of. Continuing to fly the flag that represents their region is taken by the less educated to mean that they support all the errors of the past, and thats just ridiculous.
Afterall, the flag of the United States of America used to fly over plantations in the north with slaves. Do you take the position that the US flag is a symbol of racism too?
How about you just admit that your entire OP is misleading, dishonest, illogical, and that you are unable to be objective because of your rancid hatred to what you percieve to be as the "enemy".
the war was about states rights... not slavery...was the main right slavery..yes..but it was about states right..we are the unites STATES,, we are not the country of america.
we should have stopped slavery , when we stopped being part of england,, they were the ones who brought slavery here to the us. but it bacame an issue of COMMERSE.
Exactly, it was and still is about states rights. I wish people would realize that, but the history books and other revisionism has made the South the devil. The message of states rights is lost because of slavery, and ignored ever since on the same basis. I totally despise the act of slavery, but I still believe this country would have been better off if the south would have won. It would have protected states rights, which have taken the backseat ever since to the federal government.
...there wouldn't have been such a fight to maintain it being waived in certain capital buildings especially when there was protest from groups who were offended by it. It means more to the South than you are letting on.
The fact that people were "offended" doesn't give them the right to tell others they don't have the freedom to do something.
We dont' live in the world that you desire. If you don't like it, don't look at it.
Its as simple as that.
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