Is not the confederate flag an insult to the American one? I mean much

[applegrove]

more so than football players protesting unequal treatment by law enforcement? Have all confederate flags been taken down by NFL fans?

[Hoyt]

1. I think it is, but trumpsters think it's heritage. More like a heritage of hate.

[Sneederbunk]

8. Heritage of firing on the Stars and Stripes for four years.

[jberryhill]

9. +1

[wasupaloopa]

2. Seems like a good idea to take a knee for the rebel flag. Anyone at NASCAR with balls?

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

3. Boy

great comparison. They have ZERO credibility anymore. Cannot wait until i hear about compassionate consrvatism as the reset button that ends up w gop out of control and drunk w money in the US Federal Treasury. ZERO credibilty going forward on the fiscal principles they demand during Democrat Admin.'s (esentially, we're going to have austerity....to pay of the balance.....from the last two wars GWBush never paid for. Or whatever current bill they are ringing up on their own largesse.

[Igel]

5. Symbols mean what a community think they mean.

They mean what the user or bearer thinks they mean.

Negotiating whose view, the user or the perceiver, is always an interesting problem. When you have a common culture that's part of the culture. When you don't, the question is whose culture's going to dominate and compel the other to conform--the perceiver's or the symbol-user's. (It's possible to compromise and remove the symbol if no agreement can be found, allow both views to continue, or find a third interpretation.)

Take, for instance, the US flag. It's possible to interpret that otherwise contentless symbol to mean bad things, the worst of the US; to mean the current state of affairs, a mixed bag, to be sure; it's possible to interpret it to mean a set of ideals, but there's no agreement on what "American ideals" are (just competing assertions, rivals for dominance and domination). There are other interpretations.

As long as "there can be only one interpretation, and that's mine" is the dominant view, those condemning the kneelers will interpret the protest to be against what *they* think the flag represents, while the kneelers interpret resistance against their protest to be support for what *they* think the flag represents.

The flag is a piece of cloth. Like any other symbol, it has no meaning until it's interpreted. It's the "my way or the highway" narrow thinking that there's only one possible interpretation, "mine", that's the problem. (As Roman Jakobson pointed out, words like "mine" are shifters, they take their meaning from the speech act. Which is a fine example of a symbol. "Mine" doesn't mean just "Igel's"--when Trump says "mine" he means "Trump's", when Obama says "mine" he means "Obama's". Narrow-minded interpretations of shifters leads to intense bouts of stupidity, but that's just a really glaring example of how symbols work.)

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

13. "No More Mr. Niceguy." Democratic Slogan(?)

They win by directly cheating on the count software in voting machines, and the peoples like kochs devos etc give money for RW politcians to mount vast campaigns with a reliable source of funding. We out number them 2 to 1. When we keep voting AND make sure our vote is counted as cast, then we turn this thing around. And when we do, be ready for more moral fireworks and fiscal messaging from the guys who lack credibility bc we've seen what they do when things are entrusted to them. No more mr Niceguy. that should be the Democrats Slogan.

[TheRealNorth]

4. It is to me.

360,000 American soldiers died and numerous more maimed and wounded to preserve the territorial integrity of the United States and end slavery (I list end slavery 2nd as it was not the original war aim). Flying the Stars & Bars is an affront to those who gave their last full measure of devotion so that this nation should have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.


While a lot of people know about the sacrifice of the 20th Maine at Gettysburg thanks to the Gettysburg movie, not as many know about the 1st Minnesota, who prevented a Confederate attack from completely splitting the Union line right to the north of Little Round Top on the 2nd day.

http://gettysburg.stonesentinels.com/union-monuments/minnesota/1st-minnesota/

[jberryhill]

10. "I list end slavery 2nd as it was not the original war aim"

I take Lincoln at his word, stated as the shots were still being fired, from his 2nd Inaugural Address:


Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained.

[TheRealNorth]

12. Cause vs war aim

I totally agree that primary cause of the war was slavery. I am just saying that at the start of the war (before the Emancipation Proclamation) the North was not officially fighting for Emancipation.

[eShirl]

6. It is offensive.

[MurrayDelph]

7. It IS an insult to America

but they are willing to overlook the treason implied and celebrated by the Confederate flag while objecting to the kneeling football players purely based on the difference in the pigmentation of the participants.


Captain Obvious out!

[BumRushDaShow]

11. Exactly. In fact, it is "anti-America" because every time it is displayed

it is a reminder about the group who fought against America.

[hatrack]

14. Remember, the North didn't win the Civil War. The United States of America did.

I enjoy hitting rednecks over the head with that one during "debates" on the period.