Should I Go?

[Kolchak]

Take the time and Google, Lord Actons 1866 letter to Robert E. Lee.Acton was an Englishman and intellectual who saw what Lincoln and the radical Republicans were all about. Don't just read it. Take the time to understand it.

[Kolchak]

One more thing. How many Jewish generals did the Union have? How many did the Confederacy have? Look it up. Keep in mind the population differences.

Ever hear of Juda P. Benjamin? He was the Confederate Secretary of State. The highest ranking Jew in any branch of American government, north or south until the 20th century.

The Confederate flag is the same as theNazi flag? Go to India and other parts of Asia and see how many swastika's you see. They're considered good luck over there. You going to tell them they must take them down because you're offended? No. You're not going to do that because you are going to say that the swastika is part of their heritage and their culture. You're going to say it was hijacked by some worthless piece of human filth and suborned for purposes of evil.

Well guess what? My flag was too. BOTH OF THEM. THE UNITED STATS FLAG AND THE CONFEDERATE FLAG.

If you stop living your life behind a computer screen and get out and live life, and stop your unhealthy obsession with death, then take the time to travel out west and ask native Americans what they think of the United States flag?

Ever hear of the word genocide?

Union General's Sherman and Sheriden knew the definition. They took what they learned during the civil war and applied it liberally on the American Indian, under the banner of the Stars and Stripes.

[Murfreesboro]

You make some good points, Kolchak.

Mau, I know I've mentioned before that our family attends a Lutheran church here in Murfreesboro. I may or may not have mentioned that my husband's parents helped to found that church in the early '60s, because Lutheranism is very uncommon in the South. Consequently, almost everyone who attends our church is Northern-born, as were my in-laws. I have several friends there from upstate New York, actually, as well as friends from Wisconsin, Michigan, and South Dakota. There are a few transplanted Texans, since Texas did have some significant numbers of German immigrants in the 19th century. But most of the people at church are not native to the South. I don't think most of them have much opinion about the Confederate flag, one way or the other. I know it doesn't mean to them what it means to me. However, I also know that these people are social conservatives who think like me on most political subjects. I am well aware from my many, many discussions with them that the New Yorkers do not feel NYC is at all representative of their state. As I have said, I have visited NYC twice in my lifetime and really enjoyed it, but I would genuinely love to visit other parts of New York.

When I was in my mid-twenties I took a bus trip across the country from Chicago to San Francisco. I saw things on that journey I have never seen before or since. It made me proud to think that, even though that area was so "foreign" to me, I actually did have a part in it because it was part of my nation. I wish we all had the resources to travel extensively around our vast nation and see all the parts of it. America is overwhelming.

What saddens me right now is how misunderstood I think our Constitution and our founding history is by too many people. Either it is not being taught well in the schools, or the pop culture is drowning out its message. I know my husband, who is a strict constructionist regarding the Constitution, gives his handful of AP Government students a lot to think about each year. I don't blame the teachers all the time the way so many Conservatives seem prone to do. But we need to restore a passion in our young people to rediscover our true history, especially the history of the Revolutionary period, which I think has been slighted in recent years in favor of studying the Civil Rights era.

Probably most people stop studying our history once they graduate school and get busy making a living and, perhaps, raising families. But we need to keep learning about our history all our lives long, because what we learn in school is just the tip of the iceberg.

ETA: Kolchak, I did as you suggested and Googled both Lord Acton's letter & Lee's reply to it. Fascinating reading!

In Ken Burns' Civil War series (PBS), the Mississippi historian Shelby Foote (whose 3-voume Civil War is superb and quite readable, Mau, if you are interested) is liberally interviewed. He remarks that, after that war ended, the term "United States" began to be construed as a grammatical unity--"The United States is"--rather than "The United States are," which was the former construction prior to that war. He laughs and says, "The Civil War made us an 'is.' " I think that is a brilliant insight and suggests what was really at stake in the Civil War.

[jadewik]

Awe, Mau, I wasn't arguing with you in the dollar store thread. I said my bit and, seeing as you had your own thoughts and beliefs, I moved on. I did read your last post. As far as the internet is concerned, I like to give up the last word so I'm not locked in a battle of verbal futility.

One of the things that bothers me most about religious discussions is that different sects are lumped together, and frequently the members of a particular religion are judged by the overzealous, extreme members of that faith. That's one of the reasons I try to keep my religious proclivities to myself online... to see Christianity take the fire of today's views through an out-of-context historical lens is vexing--especially in the states where religious freedom played so large a role in the nation's founding. It further irritates me that the different branches of the government have lately been overstepping their bounds. The judicial branch is supposed to interpret the law as written, not legislate from the bench.

One thing that is important to note in the gay marriage debate is that you still can't be gay married in states that don't accept gay marriage. The ruling was that if you are gay married in one state, every state must honor the marriage license. Like Murf' said, the Supreme Court kinda opened a can of worms with this "law" in that the same language used to promote gay marriage can also apply to things like concealed carry permits, which are not issued in some states.

I also would like to comment that the stars and bars flag is not the "Confederate Flag"... look it up (not on Wikipedia). The real flag had stars in a field of blue in the upper left corner, and three stripes. The flag that was taken down this morning was a symbol, and the beauty of a symbol is that you take out of it what you put into it... so keep that in mind when you interpret a symbol. You are telling a lot more about yourself than you think.

[jadewik]

Mau, your cousin in Arizona should get that tooth looked after. An abscessed tooth can kill if the infection gets into the jaw bone. I can recommend excellent dentists in both Phoenix and Tucson. Let me know if I need to pass the information on in a PM.

[Murfreesboro]

You are right, of course, Jade, about the Confederate flag. The Confederacy had several flags, actually, and the one that is best known was the battle flag, because the official flag was too easily confused with the U.S. flag on the battlefield. It is, of course, the battle flag that all the controversy is about. Since the "nation" didn't survive the war, that is the flag that is best remembered.

I think all this PC-ness re the Confederate flag has, in a way, backfired. On 4th of July weekend, the NASCAR fans flew it in defiance of the official NASCAR request to leave it at home, or trade it in for a U.S. flag. I know how those fans felt. They were most likely resentful at the political correctness, at being told what to do and when to do it. The Confederate battle flag has always been a flag of defiance, a sort of Southern "Don't Tread On Me."

[Murfreesboro]

Oh, about the gay marriage decision--I'm not sure you are correct, Jade, when you say that the recent Supreme Court decision did not compel all the states to perform gay marriages, but merely to recognize those marriages performed in places where it is legal. I know that gay marriage was illegal in TN, but there has been an onslaught of gay marriages in Nashville since that decision. There are places throughout the South where county clerks are resigning their positions rather than issue licenses for those ceremonies. Other county offices have simply decided not to perform marriages, period. I haven't read the Supreme Court decision, but I don't see how these things could be happening, if those states that had formerly outlawed gay marriage weren't now being forced to perform them.

ETA: My husband (who teaches AP Government, so he stays abreast of this stuff) says the Supreme Court has interpreted the 14th Amendment to create a right to same-<deleted> marriage. This implies the elevation of same-<deleted> marriage above traditional marriage. One of the implications of this decision is that it elevates same-<deleted> marriage above virtually anything else, including, many fear, the First Amendment free exercise of religion clause.

[Boogeyman]

Did anyone see the story about the bill being introduced by Democrats to remove the words "husband" and "wife" from the language of federal laws? This was predicted to happen if the SCOTUS ruled the way they did. And it is only going to get worse.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/07 ... deral-law/

[jadewik]

You may be right. I will have to re-read the official language used by the Supreme Court. I know they used that "equal protection" clause...

I have been seeing more and more rulings that take laws from one state and apply them to other states. That defeats the purpose of having different state rights... it is kinda scary.

[Kolchak]

Well do-do, here I was ready to let this go...

There were actually four different national flags for the Confederacy. The first was very similar to the US flag, in battle that proved a confusion. Having fought in modern war, I can tell you that accurate communication is what detrrmines most outcomes of the fighting.

The first Confederate flag is called the stars and bars, and is basically what we fly now in Georgia. Special interest groups and so called civil rights groups, would not allow the people of the state to vote on what flag we would fly because they knew that hands down we would support the flag we've had for over forty years. That flag is called the Cross of Saint Andrews. We were never given our chance to vote. So much for democracy in action.

Different versions of the Saint Andrews Cross were flown until the end of the war. It is ironic that the Jamaican flag of today is simply Saint Andrews Cross in green, black and yellow. Jamaica is an island that is run by former slaves, and yet they fly a variant of the same flag, that so many here say speaks of slavery? Strange.

If you Google Ku Klux Klan marches in Washington DC, you will see photos of thousands of klansmen marching in front of the capital and yet they are all carrying United States flags. Not a Confederate flag in the bunch. Strange, nobody pointing that out. If you were to view those photos for the first time, would that not color your view of the United States of America?

The word is genocide. There is a clear attempt by those not just on the far left to destroy any semblance of the South, but the neo-cons like Cheney and Bush and Boener. Neo-con commentators like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are also haters of Southern pride and resistance to a heavy handed authoritarian government, like Hamilton and Madison proposed. True conservatives, north and south are of the Jeffersonian model, we don't believe that power should rest within a single strong central government.

As it has always been, the issue is about power and responsibility. Liberals and neo-cons, along with mass media and big business are afraid to show that the policies that have failed black America, and have only made the welfare state bigger, created a permanent class of people who end up in prison and commit crime at a higher rate than other, but at the same time are given preferential treatment in court, school and business.

Now 12.7 % of the population can tell the rest of us what and how to think, least they call us racist and bigot and anything else they want to. They need not worry because all of the media will fall in lockstep behind them.

Today they can tell you how and what to say, think and do, but if you ask for reciprocity, they will say that what is theirs is theirs, but what's yours is open to their interpretation.

Take down every single vestige of the old South tomorrow. It will not stop the rapes, murders, robberies and assaults by blacks on each other and on whites, that the media and government know of, but will never admit to. When you consider most major urban cities today are black governed, is that really a surprise?

[Kolchak]

BTW...the 14th Amendment was ramrodded through congress right after the Civil War, and it has been shown that it was not properly done, making it of questionable legality.

[Murfreesboro]

I hadn't seen that proposal by the Democrats to remove the words "husband" and "wife" from our laws, Boogeyman, but nothing can surprise me now.

Kolchak, I have to say that Rush Limbaugh, at least, has been very forceful on his program regarding what he sees as the "real" reason for removing the Confederate flag. He has said that he believes the desire on the part of liberals is to humiliate the South, which is the most conservative and most Republican area of the country. I don't know what he personally thinks about the Confederate flag, but he certainly hasn't fallen in "lockstep" with those who are denouncing it. The only conservative commentator I have heard agreeing with the decision to remove it is Glenn Beck, with whom I often agree, although I was disappointed in his take on this issue. But then, he is from New York originally, I think, and probably doesn't "get" it. If Sean Hannity has said anything about it, I missed it. He, too, is a New Yorker, whose family on both sides came to the U.S. from Ireland maybe a hundred years ago, so I doubt he has much stake in the issue.

My husband, who does not have Confederate ancestry, although he was born in TN (the only Southern-born member of his family), was happy to show me a statement on the part of Sons of Union Veterans. Their official position is to honor the battle flag of the Confederacy and those who fought under it. They referenced the way Confederate and Union veterans met in camaraderie at reunions after the war, and they spoke of the honor their former enemies had shown under that flag. That's what it means to them.

I think our current take on the Civil War, and what it meant to those who fought it, is all screwed up. But I persist in my belief that for most of us who cherish the Confederate battle flag, what it means to us is similar to the recently-revived Gadsden flag, the "Don't Tread on Me" symbol from the Revolution. And deep down, I suspect that many people opposed to it know that. They don't want that spirit of defiance in the South, but that is pretty much what has always defined the South.

[Kolchak]

Sean Hannity was working on radio here in Atlanta when he got called up to the big league at Fox. He thinks because his wife is from Georgia that he is qualified to speak authoritatively about the South. While here on local radio, he wanted to change our old flag, using the typical scalawag, carpet bagger line that it is part of history, but not part of our future. Typical horse manure, and won't respond to the United States genocide on Indians as reason to change the US flag. Rush made his comment about two weeks ago and I read the reprint in Lew Rockwell. Com.

I've known about Glenn Beck for quite awhile. He had some members of a pro Southern group on his show and just made fun of them. People like Beck, Hannity and Limbaugh are very brave when expecting me to go to war and die for them, but they are never going to put themselves in harms way. I hate cowards as much as I hate the news media, because they're one in the same.

You're right about the neo-cons and far left not wanting anybody to have the same mindset of the Founding Fathers, the last thing totalitarian people want is someone to think for themselves.

[Murfreesboro]

Well, I certainly hadn't heard that Beck ridiculed a pro-Southern group on his show. I know he and his sidekicks have a habit of ridiculing people, which is one of their least attractive qualities, IMO.

I knew Hannity had a Southern wife, but I have never heard him make pronouncements about the Confederate flag. Maybe he has kept his mouth shut in this most recent controversy. If so, maybe he has learned something.

I just didn't know/hadn't heard that Rush had weighed in with anything derogatory about the Confederate flag. I have heard him make the comments I paraphrased above. I do think he believes the Confederate flag controversy is a distraction from our bigger problems, as is so much of the "news" that gets reported nowadays--Bruce/Kaitlyn Jenner, for example.

None of these radio commentators is Southern, of course, and I suppose all of them are interested in trying to bring Black conservatives into the fold, which may account for some of their attitudes. I gather that a lot of Blacks have knee-jerk reactions to the Confederate battle flag. They complain about our stereotyping them, but they have a lot of stereotypes about us, too. One of my daughter's good friends in high school was a young Black man, whom I happen to regard highly. But several years ago she told me that when he learned I was from Mississippi, he got a dour expression on his face and muttered, "Mississippi." I guess to him, nothing good can come from Mississippi--at least, not from White Mississippi, LOL.

As for me, I know that I wasn't thinking anything at all about the Confederate battle flag until all this happened. It had probably been several years since even a thought about it had crossed my mind. Now, I want to go out and buy one. And it's just because TPTB want to shame me about it, and to educate me. They are so condescending, and so self-righteous. Not all the zealots are religious. (I agree with you, obviously, that "the last thing totalitarians want is someone to think for themselves." As Rush Limbaugh likes to say, the Left will always let you know whom they fear by whom they attack. And they fear the South. The Neo-cons, or country club Republicans, or crony capitalists--whatever you want to label them--are fellow travelers.)

[Kolchak]

I still have the real Georgia state flag license plate on my truck, and I have a print or two of my Confederate heroes in my trophy room, but I don't wear my pride on my sleeve anymore than I wear my pride as a soldier or just as an American.

As usual the real problems are ignored and an innocent scapegoat is found. For the last thirty years that has been us. And I'm tired of it. This will continue until we are gone or until another revolution begins. I don't hold out much hope for another revolution.

In order to obfuscate the real problems in the black community, they've been thrown us as a bone to chew on by race baiters and those desiring our total and complete extinction. Either way we die and the far left and the media and those who pull the strings continue as the real power.

It's not just stupid to sell out your heritage and principles in order to please a segment that will never support us because we expect them to earn their way and not expect preferential treatment and behave like humans, it's suicidal.

I see only darker days in our future.