gingerhobbit said:
The flag issue is sorta like gay marriage, climate change, evolution...it's 2015, why the fuck is this still even a discussion?
Those who are ignorant of history (as well as other disciplines) always assume that advancing time equates with advancing social and scientific progress. It doesn’t. But given that in 2015 in the United States public education and the fourth estate have both been annihilated, such ignorance is only to be expected.
gingerhobbit said:
One, poor people have always done the fighting for rich people (or rich slave owners). Two, people get fooled into fighting for dubious reasons all the time. A lot of guys died in Iraq because 9/11. Except, of course, that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.9
These two statements are correct.
gingerhobbit said:
Three, you can fight and die for an idea you believe in (like slavery), even though you aren't personally involved, and even though that reason is wrong.
This statement is theoretically correct.
gingerhobbit said:
I totally buy that some, maybe many, of them were fighting for states' rights. But what right specifically had them all riled up? The right to own slaves.
This conclusion however, is a non sequitur, for you’ve made no logical argument to justify it. You’re simply advancing your personal opinion as fact – which it isn’t. As eyeteach fruitlessly attempted to point out, the majority of southerners weren’t slave owners; therefore directly equating the Confederate flag and state’s rights with slavery and racism is ignorant at best and deliberately deceptive at worst.
I imagine most people know that blacks owned black slaves in Africa. But how many people know that the first slaveowner in America was a black man? How many people know that Jews provided the ships, the crews and the captains that transported the majority of slaves to the New World? How many people know that the majority of the slave owners in the South, and in particular the largest slave owners, were Jews?
But let’s not talk about inconvenient facts. Instead, let’s pretend that we can eliminate 350+ years of racial strife by throwing around a simplistic social meme and banning a few symbols. Let’s ignore the fact that the average Southerner during the Civil War was no different from the average American today, fighting and dying in wars that they never chose and never understood.
In fact, after we ban the Confederate flag, let’s ban the American flag too, because, hey, it’s just as racist and imperialistic too, isn’t it? I’m sure there must be someone in the United States who finds it offensive; and once it’s gone, this will be a perfect world, won’t it? No more racisim in the hearts of men, peace on earth and good will towards all.
gingerhobbit said:
ETS: As for censoring the flag, I think it's been pointed out several times that government agencies aren't banning the flag. They are just removing it from publicly owned venues.
False. Both Amazon and Ebay have been forbidden to sell the Confederate flag by the US Government.
gingerhobbit said:
The rest of the "banning" is simply being done by people who are exercising their rights to free speech, just like the people who choose to display that flag.
One person’s right to “free speech” doesn’t give them the right to trespass onto another person’s private property to steal and desecrate, much less to dig up graves at public monuments.
gingerhobbit said:
An "infringing government" is one that disappears dissidents, annexes whole regions by use of military force, or that seizes property and kills the owner.
Extraordinary renditions, Iraq and Afghanistan, Ruby Ridge… any of this ringing a bell?
gingerhobbit said:
A government that says, "no, you can't enslave human beings" is a government doing its job. To equate one with the other is...well, sorry, but it's fucking dumb.
You must be referring to the Obama’s administration’s demand that the anti-slavery clause in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement be removed, thereby allowing Malaysia (a major hub for human trafficking) to be a part of said agreement. Of course this was only a month before Obama attacked the Confederate flag as a symbol of slavery. Hypocrisy much? 2,000 years and what has changed? The masses are still pacified with bread and circuses while the ruling elites carry on business as usual.
