Symbols and Flags

[TrashMan]

 

That's the problem - they weren't fully allowed.

Pedophilia had a specific place in the context of mentoring boys and homosexuality could have a prominent role in military structure but you were still tradition bound to marry and have a family.

Traditions and expectations of ancient societies are way off from those of today.

 

 

Which is still more than today.

[Walsingham]

This conversation reminds me just now that I'd quite like to fly a union jack. But the bloody BNP have 'stolen' the jack for their own sordid purposes.

 

I think the Queen should officially lay claim to the flag as a trademark or something. Then you can only fly it if you aren't a t**t. Officially speaking.

[TrashMan]

[Amentep]

Hi All

 

This topic is a spin-off of the discussion we were having around the Swastika and there are several points I would like to discuss for those interested. I would like to start with the Confederate Flag and people using it in the USA. On my previous forum there was this heated discussion around whether it was racist and divisive.

 

There were several people on that forum from the South in America who I know were not racist and said the Confederate flag represented  history, others claimed it was racist. So what does the Confederate flag represent to you? What do you think if someone is wearing a shirt with it on and is sitting in a restaurant that you are eating it?

 

Which confederate flag?  I can't help but imagine the 1st Flag of the Confederacy would be mistaken for an early US flag (in fact I'm pretty sure I remember some people in real life doing that).

 

The 2nd Flag of the Confederacy would probably be mistaken for a post-50s defiant state flag that incorporated what most people think of as the "confederate flag" in defiance of Federal edicts (for example, like the 1956-2001 Georgia flag).

 

Probably the same for the 3rd Flag of the Confederacy with an added bonus "what the hell is up with the red stripe down the side?" for good measure.

 

 

The abolition of slavery to southerners at the time essentially meant to them the end of their way of life and the complete collapse of their economy. Now looking back I don't believe it did lead to a complete economic collapse, but they didn't know that at the time.

 

Actually the war led to a complete economic collapse, so yeah they basically fought against the north fearing a possible economic collapse ensuring that in the end they got an economic collapse.  Oops.

[Amentep]

Personally I wish I could go back to 1787 and talk to the folks at the convention in Philadelphia and give them a little insight into what was to come. Outlaw slavery right from the get go. You have to wonder what the world would have been like then. What would have changed.

 

I'm not sure at the time you'd have been able to sell them on it even with the insight; IIRC they tried to outlaw slavery at the time but the decision ultimately boiled down to make a union and kick the can down the road or not have a union of all the colonies.

 

But if you had been able to convince them, it certainly would have made a different world.

[Guard Dog]

Yeah that's pretty much my understanding of history too.

[Walsingham]

GD will correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't many confederates of the opinon that slavery was the wrong point to rally around?

 

My favoured understanding is that most confederates were defending the constitution of the United States as they understood it. Freedom and direct democracy over distant (more so than today, even) abstract waffling. The reason slavery cut is that the Washingtoners were prepared to wreck entire states economies when they themselves weren't affected.

 

I can understand why they marched, tbh.

[pmp10]

GD will correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't many confederates of the opinon that slavery was the wrong point to rally around?

Not really.

Admittedly some of the elites understood that slavery is a poor issue over which to secede.

But the common people of confederacy simply thought they had no choice since it was the basis of their economic and social order.

Remember that when Lincoln got elected he didn't promise abolition of slavery - just stopping it's extension was enough to start a war.

[Gorgon]

There isn't really much to be said for the Confederate position. It wasn't a fight over ideology though, at least not at first. Lincoln was keen not to be put in with the Abolitionists which were seen as disruptive radicals. Later the slavery issue became a means to an end; unification.

[Guard Dog]

GD will correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't many confederates of the opinon that slavery was the wrong point to rally around?

 

My favoured understanding is that most confederates were defending the constitution of the United States as they understood it. Freedom and direct democracy over distant (more so than today, even) abstract waffling. The reason slavery cut is that the Washingtoners were prepared to wreck entire states economies when they themselves weren't affected.

 

I can understand why they marched, tbh.

One of my favorite figures from the Confederacy, James Longstreet, wrote in his memoir From Manassas to Approtimax  that the south should have freed the slaves before firing on Ft. Sumter. I believe the majority of the men who took up arms for the south, especially the professional soldiers who left the Union army to fight for their home state armies did so not out of dedication to slavery but loyalty to their homes. You have to understand that prior to the civil war there was no strong national identity. People identified themselves as citizens of their state rather than as Americans. That changed in the years following the war. Lee was Lincolns first choice to command the Union army even though he was only a colonel at the time but he refused to take up arms against Virginia.

 

Only the wealthy landed gentry actually owns slaves but they are of course the power behind the politicians. The thing is the institution was doomed at any rate. If Lee had won at Gettysburg the war would have ended in an armistice with the south as a new nation. But Great Britain and most of the other nations of Europe would not have dealt with a country that practiced slavery so economic pressures would have done what the war would not have if they won. Since the south lacked any kind of industrial base it would have been left behind in the industrial revolution and since it was a weak union to begin with it would have collapsed with the states breaking away to form their own nations within 100 years or so. Some people think there might have been reunification with the north at some point but I doubt that. War makes for bad blood. But even if slavery had ended after the war you have to figure the cause of civil rights would have been set back by years.

Edited June 1, 2013 by Guard Dog

[Gorgon]

Once Sherman started operating behind enemy lines it became obvious that the north could afford to replace their losses and the south could not. They were never going to win. As long as Lee could keep winning and then giving the same ground and keep the Union tied up the illusion could be maintained, that changed with the scorched earth campaign.

[Walsingham]

I just think it's yet another one of those historical situations that belies glib summation.

*snip*

 

EDIT:

 

I guess what I was driving at was that perhaps if the flag could be used in some successful practical campaign as a symbol of _civil freedoms_ it might legitimately win the right to be honoured as such.

Edited June 1, 2013 by Walsingham

[ShadySands]

A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union

 

 

 

The government of the United States, by certain joint resolutions, bearing date the 1st day of March, in the year A.D. 1845, proposed to the Republic of Texas, then a free, sovereign and independent nation, the annexation of the latter to the former, as one of the co-equal states thereof,

 

The people of Texas, by deputies in convention assembled, on the fourth day of July of the same year, assented to and accepted said proposals and formed a constitution for the proposed State, upon which on the 29th day of December in the same year, said State was formally admitted into the Confederated Union.

 

Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?

 

The controlling majority of the Federal Government, under various pretences and disguises, has so administered the same as to exclude the citizens of the Southern States, unless under odious and unconstitutional restrictions, from all the immense territory owned in common by all the States on the Pacific Ocean, for the avowed purpose of acquiring sufficient power in the common government to use it as a means of destroying the institutions of Texas and her sister slaveholding States.

 

By the disloyalty of the Northern States and their citizens and the imbecility of the Federal Government, infamous combinations of incendiaries and outlaws have been permitted in those States and the common territory of Kansas to trample upon the federal laws, to war upon the lives and property of Southern citizens in that territory, and finally, by violence and mob law, to usurp the possession of the same as exclusively the property of the Northern States.

 

The Federal Government, while but partially under the control of these our unnatural and sectional enemies, has for years almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against the Indian savages on our border, and more recently against the murderous forays of banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico; and when our State government has expended large amounts for such purpose, the Federal Government has refuse reimbursement therefor, thus rendering our condition more insecure and harassing than it was during the existence of the Republic of Texas.

 

These and other wrongs we have patiently borne in the vain hope that a returning sense of justice and humanity would induce a different course of administration.

 

When we advert to the course of individual non-slave-holding States, and that a majority of their citizens, our grievances assume far greater magnitude.

 

The States of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa, by solemn legislative enactments, have deliberately, directly or indirectly violated the 3rd clause of the 2nd section of the 4th article [the fugitive slave clause] of the federal constitution, and laws passed in pursuance thereof; thereby annulling a material provision of the compact, designed by its framers to perpetuate the amity between the members of the confederacy and to secure the rights of the slave-holding States in their domestic institutions-- a provision founded in justice and wisdom, and without the enforcement of which the compact fails to accomplish the object of its creation. Some of those States have imposed high fines and degrading penalties upon any of their citizens or officers who may carry out in good faith that provision of the compact, or the federal laws enacted in accordance therewith.

 

In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.

 

For years past this abolition organization has been actively sowing the seeds of discord through the Union, and has rendered the federal congress the arena for spreading firebrands and hatred between the slave-holding and non-slave-holding States.

 

By consolidating their strength, they have placed the slave-holding States in a hopeless minority in the federal congress, and rendered representation of no avail in protecting Southern rights against their exactions and encroachments.

 

They have proclaimed, and at the ballot box sustained, the revolutionary doctrine that there is a 'higher law' than the constitution and laws of our Federal Union, and virtually that they will disregard their oaths and trample upon our rights.

 

They have for years past encouraged and sustained lawless organizations to steal our slaves and prevent their recapture, and have repeatedly murdered Southern citizens while lawfully seeking their rendition.

 

They have invaded Southern soil and murdered unoffending citizens, and through the press their leading men and a fanatical pulpit have bestowed praise upon the actors and assassins in these crimes, while the governors of several of their States have refused to deliver parties implicated and indicted for participation in such offenses, upon the legal demands of the States aggrieved.

 

They have, through the mails and hired emissaries, sent seditious pamphlets and papers among us to stir up servile insurrection and bring blood and carnage to our firesides.

 

They have sent hired emissaries among us to burn our towns and distribute arms and poison to our slaves for the same purpose.

 

They have impoverished the slave-holding States by unequal and partial legislation, thereby enriching themselves by draining our substance.

 

They have refused to vote appropriations for protecting Texas against ruthless savages, for the sole reason that she is a slave-holding State.

 

And, finally, by the combined sectional vote of the seventeen non-slave-holding States, they have elected as president and vice-president of the whole confederacy two men whose chief claims to such high positions are their approval of these long continued wrongs, and their pledges to continue them to the final consummation of these schemes for the ruin of the slave-holding States.

 

In view of these and many other facts, it is meet that our own views should be distinctly proclaimed.

 

We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.

 

That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.

 

By the secession of six of the slave-holding States, and the certainty that others will speedily do likewise, Texas has no alternative but to remain in an isolated connection with the North, or unite her destinies with the South.

 

For these and other reasons, solemnly asserting that the federal constitution has been violated and virtually abrogated by the several States named, seeing that the federal government is now passing under the control of our enemies to be diverted from the exalted objects of its creation to those of oppression and wrong, and realizing that our own State can no longer look for protection, but to God and her own sons-- We the delegates of the people of Texas, in Convention assembled, have passed an ordinance dissolving all political connection with the government of the United States of America and the people thereof and confidently appeal to the intelligence and patriotism of the freemen of Texas to ratify the same at the ballot box, on the 23rd day of the present month.

 

Adopted in Convention on the 2nd day of Feby, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one and of the independence of Texas the twenty-fifth.

[Zoraptor]

Once Sherman started operating behind enemy lines it became obvious that the north could afford to replace their losses and the south could not. They were never going to win. As long as Lee could keep winning and then giving the same ground and keep the Union tied up the illusion could be maintained, that changed with the scorched earth campaign.

At that point probably not, but that was 3 years into the war. If they'd taken Washington prior to that they probably would have 'won' , and they had a couple of chances to do exactly that- Gettysburg, if Stuart hadn't disappeared off on a vanity trip or if Longstreet's alternative plan were used and very early, immediately after 1st Bull Run, when the Union army pretty much dissolved itself and left Washington with minimal defences.

 

Alternative history though, who knows if it actually would have happened that way.

[Guard Dog]

Taking Washington in itself would not have achieved a decisive military victory for the south. Although the capital was the supposed objective the real mission behind the invasion was to pull the union forces out of northern Virginia and lure them to attack Lee's army on favorable ground. The southern government had no illusions about their prospects of winning a long war with the Union. Their best hope was to crush the Army of the Potomac on northern soil which would have left the Union states with nothing but militia to defend itself outside of the second army assembling in New York and Grants army in the west. The idea was to offer peace in exchange for recognition once the union army was defeated. Lee marched north on the west side of the Blue Ridge, Hooker marched north with the Union troops on the east side and they came together at Gettysburg.

 

In truth the entire engagement was decided on the first day when John Buford arrived in the town with the 2nd Federal Cavalry. He realized Lee would arrive before Hooker and occupy the strategic hills around the town. He deployed his cavalry as dismounted infantry and held the confederates off for a full day allowing the union army to arrive first and take the hills despite being outnumbered 10 to 1. He died later from complications of wounds taken that day. I always wondered if he ever knew his decision probably changed the course of history and saved the country?

[Rostere]

Really, I thought "diminishing the independence of constituent states" meant close to literally in this context "forcing us to abolish slavery".

 

But yes, alternative history is always very interesting.

[Meshugger]

Didn't South Park have an episode about this?

[Walsingham]

Can I just say

 

 

"Bayonnnnnneettts!"

[Oerwinde]

Didn't South Park have an episode about this?

The one with the flag of south park depicting a bunch of white guys lynching a black guy, and the kids not getting what was wrong because they didn't see them as different colors?

[Walsingham]

Aw. No one got my Gettysburg reference.

[babaganoosh13]

"They should replace the stars on the Confederate flag, with the stars of the WB."

Classic Chris Rock.

[CoM_Solaufein]

I see flags as part of one's heritage, culture, where they came from. I have an American flag because I am American. I have a Union Jack flag because my grandmother was from England. And I have a Confederate flag because it represents my family from my mother's side of the family who are from the South. I never viewed the Confederate flag as racist but its unfortunate that racist morons keep using it as their symbol.

[Walsingham]

Is there any way we can MAKE a symbol racist and then sort of wean racists off flags?

 

I vote Justin Bieber.

Edited June 4, 2013 by Walsingham

[Oerwinde]

If people would stop teaching their kids to be offended by things there would be a lot less butthurt people.