Petitioners protest Confederate flag [flown by homeowner]

[Brian Foley]

Petitioners protest Confederate flag

Residents of the predominately black Brownsville community in Summerville are angered over a neighbor's Confederate battle flag.

More than 200 people have signed a petition to protest a resident flying the Confederate battle flag...The moves follow a controversy, when a new resident hung a Confederate battle flag from her porch alongside an American flag...

Good thing this town doesn’t have any real problems and so many people have all this time for such trivia.

They want the woman beaten and the house burned down to make her an object lesson no doubt.

How about they march against people flying the Mexican flag?

“While we understand the woman has a legal right to fly that flag, we want to call public attention to it, so that people will think twice about trying to do something like that again,” said Councilman Aaron Brown, who represents the district.

Most of those leftwingers whom support the building of the victory mosque in NY, suddenly take this tack when the subject has to do with a Confederate flag.

 

[spidergoat]

I support the right of someone to hang a confederate flag outside their house, even if it is a symbol of slavery and the triumph of special interests (cotton, farming) over human rights.

 

[Lori_7]

Good thing this town doesn’t have any real problems and so many people have all this time for such trivia.

it may be legal to fly that flag, but i don't blame the people in her town for being pissed off, it's entirely offensive. you know damn well she wouldn't be flying that flag if she wasn't white, and she wouldn't be flying it if she wasn't a fucking bigot. she's obviously trying to offend, and big surprise, it's working.

Most of those leftwingers whom support the building of the victory mosque in NY, suddenly take this tack when the subject has to do with a Confederate flag.

freedom of religion, freedom of humanity. i don't see a contradiction there.

 

[spidergoat]

I think people mostly fly this flag because they know it pisses people off. I grew up watching the Dukes of Hazzard and didn't think a thing about it.

 

[Lori_7]

I think people mostly fly this flag because they know it pisses people off. I grew up watching the Dukes of Hazzard and didn't think a thing about it.

i did too. i think i was too young to be offended by it.

the difference really is in the intent. if one's intentions are to holler "i'm a dumbass redneck! yeehaw!" then that's one thing. but if you're intentions are to offend black people because you hate them, that's quite another.

 

[occidental]

The south lost the war, thats why they shouldnt fly the confederate flag. Free speech may allow the losers the right, but I find it distasteful.

 

[adoucette]

The whole time I lived in Ga, this was the state flag:

They only changed it in 2003.

Anywhere you go in the South, you will see the Confederate Battle flag.

Arthur

 

[SolusCado]

I support the right of someone to hang a confederate flag outside their house, even if it is a symbol of slavery and the triumph of special interests (cotton, farming) over human rights.

Who says that is what it is a symbol of? Shouldn't those who create symbols be the ones to define their meaning? The confederacy's objection to the union was one of freedom. They believed the people in the industrial parts of the country had no right to exert their will over those in the farming industry. They basically believed state's rights trumped the "United States" claims of control, and that is what they went to war over. In that respect, the confederate flag basically symbolizes states freedoms.

 

[SolusCado]

The south lost the war, thats why they shouldnt fly the confederate flag. Free speech may allow the losers the right, but I find it distasteful.

I actually agree with this statement. It seems somewhat traitorous, waving a BATTLE flag of all things of an attempt to protest the union of the states (in war) in the first place.

 

[spidergoat]

Who says that is what it is a symbol of? Shouldn't those who create symbols be the ones to define their meaning? The confederacy's objection to the union was one of freedom. They believed the people in the industrial parts of the country had no right to exert their will over those in the farming industry. They basically believed state's rights trumped the "United States" claims of control, and that is what they went to war over. In that respect, the confederate flag basically symbolizes states freedoms.

That's a load of crap. Why did they insist that non-slave states allow runaway slaves to be returned? If it was about states rights, the non-slave states should have been allowed to decide on their own what they wanted to do with runaway slaves. Instead, it was a highly contentious issue.

 

[adoucette]

That's a load of crap. Why did they insist that non-slave states allow runaway slaves to be returned? If it was about states rights, the non-slave states should have been allowed to decide on their own what they wanted to do with runaway slaves. Instead, it was a highly contentious issue.

Well that specific issue was most definately about State's rights.

And more to the point, it was a key reason that South Carolina Seceded since they claimed that the Constitution was a CONTRACT and the Northern States weren't honoring the contract.

U.S. Constitution - Article 4 Section 2

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, But shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.)

The Northern states were not only allowing their citizens to steal the valuable property of their Southern neighbors, but then refusing to follow the Constitutional provisions that they all had agreed to when they UNITED.

Arthur

 

[spidergoat]

I'm not sure you get it. The Northern states didn't accept that slavery was a legitimate contract for labor. The Southern states wanted the Northern states to ignore state's rights and obey the laws of the South. It was a fine example of hypocracy, and it proves that the civil war was about slavery, not the right of a state to determine it's own laws.

The North was not stealing property, since they could not claim ownership of a slave.

 

[adoucette]

I'm not sure you get it. The Northern states didn't accept that slavery was a legitimate contract for labor. The Southern states wanted the Northern states to ignore state's rights and obey the laws of the South. It was a fine example of hypocracy, and it proves that the civil war was about slavery, not the right of a state to determine it's own laws.

The North was not stealing property, since they could not claim ownership of a slave.

No, you don't get it.

The section

U.S. Constitution - Article 4 Section 2

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, But shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

Was part of the Constitution that the Northern States ratified, so they quite clearly accepted that slavery was a legitimate contract for labor when they did so, and agreed that any slaves escaping to non-slave states would be returned.

This was not a minor point during the Constitutional conventions, and indeed, without this clause it is unlikely that South Carolina would have ratified the Constitution and would have remained an independent Country. Without South Carolina's signing, it's likely other Southern Colonies would not have signed.

Indeed, the Constitution even specifies how slaves are to be counted as far as representation in Congress, and the year in which no more slaves are to be imported.

Article 1 Section 2
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

Article 1, Section 9
The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.

Arthur

 

[cosmictraveler]

The only flag I fly.

 

[spidergoat]

...The section


Was part of the Constitution that the Northern States ratified, so they quite clearly accepted that slavery was a legitimate contract for labor when they did so, and agreed that any slaves escaping to non-slave states would be returned.

This was not a minor point during the Constitutional conventions, and indeed, without this clause it is unlikely that South Carolina would have ratified the Constitution and would have remained an independent Country. Without South Carolina's signing, it's likely other Southern Colonies would not have signed.

...

Arthur

And that was the seed of the civil war, which was clearly fought over slavery. I concede that this clause does seem to force Northern states to return fugitive slaves, but the very fact that there were so many fugitive slaves means that slavery was an abomination to human rights. We would have gone to war over it sooner, but we were still recovering from the Revolutionary war.

 

[SolusCado]

That's a load of crap. Why did they insist that non-slave states allow runaway slaves to be returned? If it was about states rights, the non-slave states should have been allowed to decide on their own what they wanted to do with runaway slaves. Instead, it was a highly contentious issue.

It was a matter of property, not the status of the legality of slaves.

EDIT: Sorry, just now catching up on the rest of the thread and apologize for my redundancy.

 

[spidergoat]

It was about slavery. One side thought that property rights could trump human rights, and we had to kill lots of people before our country recognized it.

 

[adoucette]

And that was the seed of the civil war, which was clearly fought over slavery. I concede that this clause does seem to force Northern states to return fugitive slaves, but the very fact that there were so many fugitive slaves means that slavery was an abomination to human rights. We would have gone to war over it sooner, but we were still recovering from the Revolutionary war.

There was absolutely no reason to go to war.

All the states saw the writing on the wall.

Congress had been working for some time on a way to exit from slavery.

The South wanted the US government to compensate the Slave owners for releasing the slaves and if the slaves were going to be freed, they wanted something for the slaves to have to start a new life. ie. they needed a place to go when they were replaced by tractors and cotton gins.

The US Gov though, mainly because of the Northern states didn't want to both pay for the release and for the grub stake ("Forty acres and a mule" was one of the proposals to be given to each adult male freed) .

Indeed, after the Emancipation Proclimation, when General Sherman’s army cut its swath of destruction across Georgia, they were followed by many thousands of former slaves. This was a huge problem to Sherman and forced the question of what did it mean to be emancipated?

Sherman issued field orders establishing forty acre homesteads for the newly freed slaves and provided army mules so they could till the land. Sherman’s order, however was temporary “until Congress shall regulate their title.”

Which Congress never did, and thus the land was taken back by the same army that had given it to them.

Four million newly-freed people in the South could now go where they wished, but they had no land and no shelter. Echoing their feelings, Frederick Douglass said these freedmen were sent away empty handed, without money, without friends, and without a foot of land to stand upon.

http://www.landandfreedom.org/ushistory/us15.htm

To me it echos the words Kris Kristoferson would write a hundred years later.

"Freedoms just another word for nothing left to lose, and Nothing is the only thing that Bobby (or Lincoln) left me"

Arthur

 

[spidergoat]

The South's reaction to emancipation? Sharecropping and Jim Crow. Cheap labor and Disfranchisement. It was all about cheap labor then and now.

 

[adoucette]

The South's reaction to emancipation? Sharecropping and Jim Crow.

Which would have been avoided by a sensible and compassionate means of ending Slavery.

Just proclaiming that they were free was probably the most CRUEL thing that could have been done.

Arthur