Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Nowadays, if you are a minority or a liberal, it is a one way street. Like when gay Hollywood trounced on Miss California; the 'womens rights' groups (which were hijacked and are now comandeered by lesbians) didn't utter a word in her defense. If anything, they joined the hate bandwagon.
Minority + Gay + Liberal = political gold nowadays. Everybody (including the current political establishment) will rush to your defense.
White + Strait + Conservative = nobody cares when people step on your values.
How the hell did this country come to this?
Maybe the White + Strait + Conservative need to support each other and CARE vocally and loudly about their values, and make themselves known and heard.
LMAO Manolon, this guy throw you under the bus. ("Te tiro con to")
----
Thomas
They study those schmaltzy PC History Books that teach that the North plundered the South because of slavery. Yes, according to those books, the North was so "aggravated" by the inhuman conditions of blacks that they decided to engage in a war, just a payload of poppycock.
Northeners didn't give a crock about blacks, but they wanted to plunder a country that they considered backward and not compatible with their society. The French did the same with Provence during the Cathar crusade, the Nazis did the same with Poland, etc.
They always did the same before launching a land grabbing war, always some stupid corny excuse supported by the yellow press and supercorny pamplets like Uncle Tom's Cabin, or the other pamphlet about a Cuban-American girl jailed by the Spanish, I don't recall the name, just before the Spanish-American War.
They study those schmaltzy PC History Books that teach that the North plundered the South because of slavery. Yes, according to those books, the North was so "aggravated" by the inhuman conditions of blacks that they decided to engage in a war, just a payload of poppycock.
Northeners didn't give a crock about blacks, but they wanted to plunder a country that they considered backward and not compatible with their society. The French did the same with Provence during the Cathar crusade, the Nazis did the same with Poland, etc.
They always did the same before launching a land grabbing war, always some stupid corny excuse supported by the yellow press and supercorny pamplets like Uncle Tom's Cabin, or the other pamphlet about a Cuban-American girl jailed by the Spanish, I don't recall the name, just before the Spanish-American War.
Actually, "PC" or "schmaltz" has nothing to do with the reason why people across the nation and the world do not understand the root causes of this war. They are simply not provided facts and encouraged to think critically about them. One perspective on the phenomenon is not presented, but the common themes of high school and even sometimes undergraduate textbooks are about upholding the majority perspective in a state or region of the country. If you are in the South in a majority white school district, school or history class, you have most certainly been exposed to the doctrine that the "war of Northern Aggression" was about "states rights" and "had nothing to do with slavery." It's the "politically correct" perspective of white, Southern Christian conservatives with long-nursed racial and economic grievances. More nuanced and truthful versions exist, and its understandable that southern whites want to feel pride rather than shame about where they come from, but it is not simply a matter of resisting the wholesale imposition of a point of view with compelling facts. It is also about upholding a sanitized and intellectually dishonest version of events to make people feel better about themselves and to "stick it to the man." Improving self-esteem can be a noble goal, but let's call it what it is.
The North plundered the South because that's what happens to a subjugated people when they lose a brutal war (nine times out of ten). Unlike what was done to, say, post WWI Germany, the South was ultimately welcomed back into the fold and allowed to pursue its central doctrine of white supremacy laced with "genteel" agrarian, feudal values. After all, it differed only in execution from the North's brand of industrialized, ethnicity-driven white supremacy.
More nuanced and truthful versions exist, and its understandable that southern whites want to feel pride rather than shame about where they come from, but it is not simply a matter of resisting the wholesale imposition of a point of view with compelling facts. It is also about upholding a sanitized and intellectually dishonest version of events to make people feel better about themselves and to "stick it to the man." Improving self-esteem can be a noble goal, but let's call it what it is.
----
Your previous paragraph does not come from a historian, but from a politician and a moralist. You are trying to impose the current agenda on developments that occurred 150 years ago.
Why white southeners should have to feel guilty about slavery 150 years ago?
Why do you call them a "subjugated people"?
Why do you call the real version a "dishonest version"?
Honesty, as interpreted in 2010, has nothing to do with History, and even less with History 150 years ago.
Yes, those PC history books are just a wild transport of current PC ideals to the past, and such thing is not history.
The Civil War was a war of agression, a land grabbing and plundering war.
By 1864, slavery was dying, had the North be as "fair and just" as the proclaimed, they could have waited 10 to 15 years for slavery to end of natural death since it was not economical.
More nuanced and truthful versions exist, and its understandable that southern whites want to feel pride rather than shame about where they come from, but it is not simply a matter of resisting the wholesale imposition of a point of view with compelling facts. It is also about upholding a sanitized and intellectually dishonest version of events to make people feel better about themselves and to "stick it to the man." Improving self-esteem can be a noble goal, but let's call it what it is.
----
Your previous paragraph does not come from a historian, but from a politician and a moralist. You are trying to impose the current agenda on developments that occurred 150 years ago.
Why white southeners should have to feel guilty about slavery 150 years ago?
Why do you call them a "subjugated people"?
Why do you call the real version a "dishonest version"?
Honesty, as interpreted in 2010, has nothing to do with History, and even less with History 150 years ago.
Yes, those PC history books are just a wild transport of current PC ideals to the past, and such thing is not history.
The Civil War was a war of agression, a land grabbing and plundering war.
By 1864, slavery was dying, had the North be as "fair and just" as the proclaimed, they could have waited 10 to 15 years for slavery to end of natural death since it was not economical.
As if historians divorce themselves from a perspective! Instead of insinuating that others are imposing an agenda, it would be helpful (and intellectually honest) to admit that you have one too (which is apparently redeeming "southern honor" in the name of removing a central cause of the Civil War). Can you tell me honestly that you have read what Southern politicians and Confederate policymakers had to say about their rationale for war? I mean primary sources not the interpretations of post-war and modern day apologists, who are reacting to the very same guilt-ridden consciences that many whites seem to have by trying to erase the facts. They are just doing it differently. I'm not interested in what guilt makes a person do or deny. I'm interested in understanding how it manifests itself in grievance-based revisionist arguments, no matter which group they come from.
This version of events is intellectually dishonest because it willfully glosses over the perspectives of primary sources, the most valid sources there are in historical research, which offer compelling evidence that the retention of slavery and extension of the rights to own slaves in annexed territories were the concrete reasons for the Civil War. One can offer the abstract principle of "states rights," but when one asks the question "States rights to do what?" the concrete answer is "allow citizens to own slaves," not to keep fighting duels or drink mint juleps. What reason could there be for an abstract principle to be offered ahead of concrete evidence? To obfuscate the issues of that time in order to sanitize the matter and assuage current day guilt/resentment, which is extremely dishonest. I get that white Southerners living today had nothing to do with slavery, but I also recognize that the first thing people do to psychically remove themselves from a shameful event in their cultural history is to operate in denial.
To say that the vast majority of Union and Confederate soldiers on both sides did not go to war to defend or support slavery is a fact, but it's also a fact that they weren't fighting for "states right" either. It's similar to the argument that the rank and file soldier fighting the Taliban or Al Qaeda did not go to war because they wish to eradicate Islam, or that there were Iraqi WMDs. Each individual has his/her own rationale (and it probably has more to do with personal ethics, financial objectives and a wish to protect their homes and families from a perceived threat), but what matters is the rationale provided by those in power. Tell me honestly after perusing the words/actions of primary sources that the leaders of the day (political, religious, social, media) on both sides did not make slavery the issue, that slavery wasn't the catalyst, and that the annexation of slave/free states wasn't the rationale.
Subjugation (from the Free Dictionary):
1. To bring under control; conquer.
2. To make subservient; enslave
Seems entirely uncontroversial and accurate to say that the victors in a war subjugated the losers. Again, look to the rationale of post-war ex-Confederates for their violent reprisals and nurtured resentments toward "carpetbaggers" and African Americans. If they aren't reacting to being subjugated to people they despise and believe themselves to be superior to, I'm not sure what you would call it.
Please do not create a strawman argument. I did not say or imply that white Southerners ought to feel guilty about slavery. I said that it's understandable if they do, and I am saying that the facts are such that they need to accept that the Civil War was fought to preserve their forefathers rights to have it if they wish to present an intellectual honest perspective. This is why I can respect some current day white supremacists for just coming out with and expressing admiration for the actual position their great-grandfathers had, instead of trying to whitewash it (no pun intended).
Honesty and fact-based argumentation has everything to do with history, if one's perspective on it should be deemed credible to anyone interested in studying it. Anyone can fan the flames of resentment and aid in maintaining the flippant, ignorant and buzzwordy perspectives that pass for legitimate opinions these days. Personally I'm not interested in that and when I see it, I call it out.
Here's a perfect example of the hyperbole-laden feel-good stuff I'm talking about:
"The Civil War was a war of agression, a land grabbing and plundering war"
I'm also trying to understand what makes the Civil War different from any other war ever fought? LMAO you act like there was something especially wrong about the North finishing the fight the the South started. I don't have much sympathy for a group of people who thought very little about subjugating and murdering other people for economic gain and racial bragging rights, and they are no more or less victimized than countless other losers of an armed conflict. In fact, they ought to have counted their blessings because they could have been sold into slavery themselves like the Romans and various African nations used to do it. The North could have buried the South as the economic backwater it would have become once industrialization really caught fire, but it didn't. And, they had their white supremacist regime to ensure that race-based privileges were retained, which the North did nothing to interfere with until the 20th century. I'm not sure why the pity party is being thrown for a bunch of traitors who were welcomed back into the fold within decades of starting an armed conflict with the nation whose Constitution and laws they refused to uphold.
At least in this case, as in the case of WWII, a murderous and egregiously unjust system came to an abrupt end, and character of this nation is better for it.
Really? What evidence do you have to support this POV (residual anger and bitterness don't count)? Did Confederate politicians attempt to negotiate a peaceful exit from the Union and agree to terms of transferring or retaining federal property? Did the North renege on such an agreement and attack them anyway? What formerly Southern territories were ceded to the North? Did Virginia become Lincolnland? Were the Confederates in Georgia forcibly repatriated to, say, Montana on a new Trail of Tears? Lastly, please share with us whether the Native American nations who were forcibly removed from current-day Southern states were compensated by the Confederate government?
As for slavery being a dying institution, perhaps the chattel version of it has become less relevant to the global economy, but there is little evidence to suggest that the Civil War prolonged or exacerbated the institution in the South. There's a lot to suggest it shortened it, as it disappeared in 5 years (but its essential tenets of white supremacy and suppression of African Americans continued in Jim Crow).
Chattel slavery didn't "die a natural death" in the West. It was fought or legislated out of power, either driven by economic realities or social pressure from progressive/religious forces. Chattel slavery still exists many places in the world, further making the point that such exploitation of people will continue as long as it is economically and socially expedient. It doesn't "die out."
After over a century, the South still cannot get over the Civil War. Seceed if you hate the "Union" so much. See how you will survive without the rest of the USA.
Ditto to that.
Rick Perry seemed geared up on his high horse to do just that... now these past few weeks he's had his paw out for Uncle Sam to lay down the $100 bills in it for his state. Typical.
The confederate flag does represent hatred, intolerance, and slavery, among other undesirable traits.
While I wouldn't say somebody isn't allowed to fly one, it should never be allowed on public properties or in our government. We have one flag, the American flag, and if these confederate flag waving nuts want to go out there and wave theirs over the American flag, well, I wonder just how much they really care about the country they're allowed to do that in.
They're pathetic cowards, IMO.
I suppose any time you have major change and progress in government, people are scared at the unknown, but what's happening today in the world and what happened back then are eerily similar. It's a shame people aren't respecting the offices of government and the American election process. The majority of Americans elected Democrats into office to get jobs done that the majority wanted. To have Republicans out there playing circus games is unforgivable and is part of the demise to our country. Even general civility they've thrown out the window. I still can't get over the bozo that shouted at the President during a joint session of Congress. He should have been thrown from office.
Hopefully people calm down and that includes putting away the confederate flag. We need to come together as a nation these days, wave one flag and support one government. We play into terrorist's hand when we bicker, fight and tear each other apart.
If the Confederate Battle Flag is banned, it will mean that for some the old South is still alive.
If the Confederate Battle Flag is banned, some will think that the American flag represents hatred and intolerance, among other undesirable traits.
Quite preposterous.. Banning a 150 year old flag would be like banning the flag of the Austrohungarian Empire, and it would reckon that Confederate values are a threat. More so, if you ban that flag, you'll have a confederate flag in every Southern wood-pile.
Who said anything about banning the flag? Coconut1 wrote that the Confederate flag shouldn't fly on public property or government land (presumably federal because many Southern states snuck it into their state flags). What precedent is there in this country to honor the flags of vanquished nations? You don't see the Union Jack flying on federal buildings do in New England, do you?
Confederate values have already been deemed a threat, and the U.S. constitution was amended a few times to remove the remnants of that ideology.
By the way, better have the Dixie flag in the state flag than those corny things they have in the flag of Tennessee or Arkansas. Politicians are full of air, they want to have something that reminds the Dixie flag but not the actual Dixie flag.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
