It was battle flag of Northern Virginia. Each star represented the original 13 colonies that wanted their individual government. The blue field looked like an "x" to represent cross us out of your government. The flag represents history and wanting to form its own govt. We are loosing our freedoms everyday. I better shut up now.
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What does the confederate flag mean to you? (1 Viewer)
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Why state governments should take down the Confederate flag
By Ilya Somin
June 21
In the wake of the terrible racist terrorist attack in Charleston, many are calling on South Carolina and other state governments to stop displaying the Confederate flag. They include a much-discussed Atlantic column by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and various politicians, such as 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
It is long past time that state governments stopped displaying the Confederate flag, and otherwise honoring Confederate leaders. We should not honor people whose main claim to fame was waging a bloody war for the purpose of perpetuating and extending the evil institution of slavery. Some still deny that this was the motivation for Confederate secession. But overwhelming evidence proves otherwise. You don’t have to take my word for the proposition that slavery was at the root of the Confederate agenda, or even the word of John Stuart Mill. Take that of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, vice president Alexander Stephens (who called slavery “the cornerstone” of the Confederacy), and southern states’ own official statements outlining their reasons for seceding.
Despite claims that the Confederates’ true cause was “states’ rights,” they were in fact more than willing to sacrifice state autonomy to slavery whenever the two conflicted. For example, Confederate forces tried to coerce the states of Kentucky and Missouri into joining the Confederacy, even though majority opinion in both preferred to stay in the Union. The Confederate Constitution gave slaveowners the right of “sojourn” with their slave property in all states, effectively preventing state governments from excluding slavery from their territory.
The Confederacy was also a brutal and oppressive regime, even aside from slavery. For example, it had a terrible record on civil liberties, considerably worse than that of the Union during the Civil War.
The Confederacy cannot even be defended on on the traditional ground that its establishment represented the will of the people of the southern states – at least not if we remember that some 40% of its population was black. When you combine the African-American population (the vast majority of whom likely preferred to stay in the Union), with the substantial minority of southern whites who opposed secession, it becomes clear that secession did not enjoy majority support in the South. Majority approval doesn’t automatically justify a secession movement – particularly one with an agenda as awful as preserving slavery. But the Confederates lacked even that justification.
Unfortunately, flying the Confederate flag (as South Carolina still does) is not the only way that state and local governments continue to honor the Confederacy and its leaders. Throughout the South, there are still numerous schools, streets, and other institutions named after Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee (who, contrary to some popular mythology, was also a defender of slavery), and other Confederate bigwigs. This isn’t limited to conservative areas in the deep South. It is also true of places like liberal northern Virginia, where I live. You can’t drive more than a few miles here without seeing a street named after Davis, Lee, or Jeb Stuart.
One can try to defend the Confederates by invoking a kind of historical moral relativism: their support for slavery should be excused because it merely reflected the values of their time. But that actually lets them off the hook too easily. By 1861, many Americans – including some white southerners – recognized that slavery was wrong, and at odds with the Enlightenment ideals underlying the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. A few southern whites were active opponents of slavery. Many more at least recognized that it wasn’t worth fighting a war to defend.
It is sometimes claimed that Robert E. Lee’s Virginia background in effect made his decision to support the Confederacy virtually inevitable. But some other Virginia-born officers, such as George Thomas (who became one of the top Union generals of the war), made the opposite choice. Perhaps the state government should honor those who made the right decision, rather than those who made a terribly wrong one. The Union side in the Civil War was far from ideal, and committed some injustices of its own. But its triumph was nonetheless far preferable to that of the Confederacy. As Frederick Douglass put it in 1871, it would be wrong to “remember with equal admiration… those who fought for slavery and those who fought for liberty and justice.”
Not all who wave the Confederate flag today do so because they approve of slavery and racism. Many, perhaps most, are simply trying to express regional pride, without carefully considering the flag’s history. Others have bought into the myth that Confederate secession had no real connection to slavery. But the flag’s historical association with slavery and racism cannot simply be ignored. Both during the Civil War era, and during other periods such as the Civil Rights Movement, its major function was as a symbol for political movements seeking to oppress blacks.
Taking down the Confederate flag and otherwise curbing official veneration of the Confederacy may not prevent racist violence of the kind we saw last week. Unlike participants in racist lynchings and mob violence a century ago, people like the perpetrator of the Charleston attack do not represent the mainstream values of their society. They are relatively marginal extremists who are unlikely to stop because most of society condemns them and their values. Nonetheless, ending state-sponsored honoring of Confederate leaders and symbols would be a valuable symbolic step.
By Ilya Somin
June 21
In the wake of the terrible racist terrorist attack in Charleston, many are calling on South Carolina and other state governments to stop displaying the Confederate flag. They include a much-discussed Atlantic column by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and various politicians, such as 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
It is long past time that state governments stopped displaying the Confederate flag, and otherwise honoring Confederate leaders. We should not honor people whose main claim to fame was waging a bloody war for the purpose of perpetuating and extending the evil institution of slavery. Some still deny that this was the motivation for Confederate secession. But overwhelming evidence proves otherwise. You don’t have to take my word for the proposition that slavery was at the root of the Confederate agenda, or even the word of John Stuart Mill. Take that of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, vice president Alexander Stephens (who called slavery “the cornerstone” of the Confederacy), and southern states’ own official statements outlining their reasons for seceding.
Despite claims that the Confederates’ true cause was “states’ rights,” they were in fact more than willing to sacrifice state autonomy to slavery whenever the two conflicted. For example, Confederate forces tried to coerce the states of Kentucky and Missouri into joining the Confederacy, even though majority opinion in both preferred to stay in the Union. The Confederate Constitution gave slaveowners the right of “sojourn” with their slave property in all states, effectively preventing state governments from excluding slavery from their territory.
The Confederacy was also a brutal and oppressive regime, even aside from slavery. For example, it had a terrible record on civil liberties, considerably worse than that of the Union during the Civil War.
The Confederacy cannot even be defended on on the traditional ground that its establishment represented the will of the people of the southern states – at least not if we remember that some 40% of its population was black. When you combine the African-American population (the vast majority of whom likely preferred to stay in the Union), with the substantial minority of southern whites who opposed secession, it becomes clear that secession did not enjoy majority support in the South. Majority approval doesn’t automatically justify a secession movement – particularly one with an agenda as awful as preserving slavery. But the Confederates lacked even that justification.
Unfortunately, flying the Confederate flag (as South Carolina still does) is not the only way that state and local governments continue to honor the Confederacy and its leaders. Throughout the South, there are still numerous schools, streets, and other institutions named after Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee (who, contrary to some popular mythology, was also a defender of slavery), and other Confederate bigwigs. This isn’t limited to conservative areas in the deep South. It is also true of places like liberal northern Virginia, where I live. You can’t drive more than a few miles here without seeing a street named after Davis, Lee, or Jeb Stuart.
One can try to defend the Confederates by invoking a kind of historical moral relativism: their support for slavery should be excused because it merely reflected the values of their time. But that actually lets them off the hook too easily. By 1861, many Americans – including some white southerners – recognized that slavery was wrong, and at odds with the Enlightenment ideals underlying the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. A few southern whites were active opponents of slavery. Many more at least recognized that it wasn’t worth fighting a war to defend.
It is sometimes claimed that Robert E. Lee’s Virginia background in effect made his decision to support the Confederacy virtually inevitable. But some other Virginia-born officers, such as George Thomas (who became one of the top Union generals of the war), made the opposite choice. Perhaps the state government should honor those who made the right decision, rather than those who made a terribly wrong one. The Union side in the Civil War was far from ideal, and committed some injustices of its own. But its triumph was nonetheless far preferable to that of the Confederacy. As Frederick Douglass put it in 1871, it would be wrong to “remember with equal admiration… those who fought for slavery and those who fought for liberty and justice.”
Not all who wave the Confederate flag today do so because they approve of slavery and racism. Many, perhaps most, are simply trying to express regional pride, without carefully considering the flag’s history. Others have bought into the myth that Confederate secession had no real connection to slavery. But the flag’s historical association with slavery and racism cannot simply be ignored. Both during the Civil War era, and during other periods such as the Civil Rights Movement, its major function was as a symbol for political movements seeking to oppress blacks.
Taking down the Confederate flag and otherwise curbing official veneration of the Confederacy may not prevent racist violence of the kind we saw last week. Unlike participants in racist lynchings and mob violence a century ago, people like the perpetrator of the Charleston attack do not represent the mainstream values of their society. They are relatively marginal extremists who are unlikely to stop because most of society condemns them and their values. Nonetheless, ending state-sponsored honoring of Confederate leaders and symbols would be a valuable symbolic step.
Officer Pete Malloy
Footballguy
Jayrod
Footballguy
Smart as he is, I think that was just a quoted article.MT nails it, as usual
Jayrod
Footballguy
Aerial Assault
Footballguy
racism, intolerance, and bigotry
TheIronSheik
SUPER ELITE UPPER TIER
The American flag represents annihilation of the American Indians. Can we please take that down as well?
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
I guess I thought the most interesting part of this thread was the OP was where the poster asked where people were from, if they had ever seen a Confederate flag in their neighborhood, and what they would do if they did indeed see one in their neighborhood.
However, I can tell you I've traveled a good it in these United States and typically when north I've seen some beautiful, moving tributes to the soldiers and civilians who died during the war. Maybe people forget that, the human cost. When those statues and memorials were built it was not just because of the cause, or whatever they thought it was, it was because people had died, because of the horrible cost of the war.
The Confederate battle flag doesn't interest me so much, I wouldn't fly one, I'm from and live in LA but I think I can recall one being flown in my memory, it was a house that had an owner who lived right next to the interstate (where it was somewhat raised) and he built a flag pole; and - as he was in the suburbs - that pole would hoist that flag up so that it was almost eye level with people leaving the airport on the way into town. That always bugged me, I guess he had a right but really someone should have done something about it. That was a long time ago now. If you want to see a confederate flag now you have to go to the northshore.
I think the tougher question is monuments and memorials. Examples:
- Arkansas has a blue star in its flag that commemorates the Civil War, which I'm guessing hardly anyone is aware of, should it stay there?
- Once a year Arkansas has a Confederate flag day that commemorates the civil war, should they still do that? This is commemorated on the capitol grounds.
- Arkansas' capitol also has a monument to the civil war on its capitol grounds, should it stay there?
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SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
No, a SS argument would be used against removing the confederate battle flag, I'm in favor of that, including state flags where it's embedded. I really do stay away from SS arguments in general, but if that is what it is look at the WaPo article where the author feels obligated to sweep in "official veneration" and "state sponsored honoring" of the confederacy into what should be curbed or ended.
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Henry Ford
Footballguy
TheIronSheik
SUPER ELITE UPPER TIER
TobiasFunke
Footballguy
The American flag represents the United States of America, which stands for and has done many many things. It would be difficult to pin it down to one concept or event, or even a handful of them, but even if you tried I doubt any of them would be the annihilation of the American Indian, some of which preceded the creation of the independent country. It was a huge and terrible thing, but it's not a fundamental aspect of what the nation stands for or has done.
The Confederate flag represents the Confederacy, the cornerstone principle of which was protecting the right to enslave black people.
That's from a speech by the vice-president of the Confederacy just prior to the start of the Civil War. I doubt you can find a speech from a Founding Father stating that the nation's foundation is land and cornerstone rests upon the great truth that American Indians should be killed.
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Mjolnirs
Footballguy
This is usually political suicide in South Carolina. I would be surprised if this gets enough traction to actually get the 2/3 majority needed.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
What's ridiculous is there a big confederate monument right in front of the damn thing.
matttyl
Footballguy
What do you think of when you see the Iron Cross? Whenever I see it, I think of Nazi (German) soldiers, typically high ranking ones. I know the symbol was around long before then, but that's what comes to my mind. That's why it kinda surprised/stunned me that it is the basis for the emblem of "West Coast Choppers", a popular DJ on DC 101 here in the DC area (Elliot in the morning), and on occasion other places.
With people bringing up the example of a swastika (which was also used well before the Third Reich), why not this one as well?
With people bringing up the example of a swastika (which was also used well before the Third Reich), why not this one as well?
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
It doesn't seem offensive or as offensive to most Americans, it did predate Hitler but I guarantee you that to a Frenchman, Russian or a Pole it likely represents Prussian-German militarism in general. To them it's probably very offensive.
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rockaction
Footballguy
The Iron Cross, to me, is Germanic warfare. Those guys use it for that reason. I was introduced to it by some shady people who knew its history and thought it was cool. I did not. It's a pretty lousy symbol to go around toting, but bikers are notorious for going around with ####ty war symbols adorning that which they love. Helmets, insignias, stuff on their bikes and jackets. All part of the sad outlook of the motorcycle gang rebel, one that has been filtered down and domesticated into reality television by adoption of its symbols and "attitude."
Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test has some depressing yet worthy excerpts about biker culture and its acceptance in the hippie counter-culture
Thompson's Hell's Angels is probably just as illuminating, but I've never read it, because I never really cared for Thompson too much.
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moleculo
Footballguy
As a South Carolina voter, I will support gov Haley in any way possible on this issue.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
Yaknow, I didn't get the reference, but I see it now:
http://www.westcoastchoppers.com/
Yeah, I'm surprised this hasn't been raised more....
TobiasFunke
Footballguy
I also remember Independent Trucks from my very brief foray into skateboarding as an impressionable young dooshbag. So weird. Guessing most people don't make the Nazi connection when they first see it.
moleculo
Footballguy
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
Mjolnirs
Footballguy
I will be contacting the offices of my Senator and Congressman encouraging them not to support her effort.
Fennis
Footballguy
Officer Pete Malloy
Footballguy
matttyl
Footballguy
So I typed a very long post, but it was lost when I accidentally hit the "back" button on my mouse. Here's what I remember from it....
For what it's worth, I was born in and have lived my entire life in this great State of Virginia. I grew up about 10-20 miles from the first major battle of the war - Manassas, aka Bull Run (southerners offen named battles for towns, northerners named them for landmarks). I've spent a whole lot of time up and down the I81 corridor of my state and have visited many, many battlefields - Winchester, Front Royal, Rappahannock station, Brandy Station, Culpeper Court House, Fredericksburg, Wilderness, Chancellorsville, and others. I see the battle flag on bumper stickers, t-shirts, and on flag poles very often - and even see the "official flag of the Confederacy" (Stars and Bars - which the Georgia flag is based on) as well as the "Bonnie Blue" from time to time.
The "battle flag" raises different emotions for me, but it honestly should be removed from any "state grounds" like a state capitol. In other "public" locations, such as an actual battlefield, grave-site/memorial of Confederate soldiers, museum, or tomb (which I feel "Lee's Chapel" in Lexington, Virginia would qualify for) it should remain for historic purposes.
I guess my next question would be, where do we go from there? Various people have brought up the point of roads named for Confederate generals. Should those be changed? Do we also change the names of the 40+ counties named for Confederate generals, including Arlington - named for Lee's property there. What about for the 10 current US military bases (Fort Hood and Fort Lee among them)? As Ken Burns has said, Lee is responsible for more deaths of US soldiers than Hitler. How about for the countless town names? Leesburg, while not named for the General himself was named for his great granduncle, who while I can't confirm I would guess was either a Confederate sympathizer himself, or would have been one had he still been alive. Should everything named "Lee", "Jackson", "Stonewall", "Stuart", "Davis", "Beauregard", "Forrest", "Hampton", "Hood".....and so on.....be changed? Roads, counties, towns, schools, restaurants, holidays.....
For what it's worth, I was born in and have lived my entire life in this great State of Virginia. I grew up about 10-20 miles from the first major battle of the war - Manassas, aka Bull Run (southerners offen named battles for towns, northerners named them for landmarks). I've spent a whole lot of time up and down the I81 corridor of my state and have visited many, many battlefields - Winchester, Front Royal, Rappahannock station, Brandy Station, Culpeper Court House, Fredericksburg, Wilderness, Chancellorsville, and others. I see the battle flag on bumper stickers, t-shirts, and on flag poles very often - and even see the "official flag of the Confederacy" (Stars and Bars - which the Georgia flag is based on) as well as the "Bonnie Blue" from time to time.
The "battle flag" raises different emotions for me, but it honestly should be removed from any "state grounds" like a state capitol. In other "public" locations, such as an actual battlefield, grave-site/memorial of Confederate soldiers, museum, or tomb (which I feel "Lee's Chapel" in Lexington, Virginia would qualify for) it should remain for historic purposes.
I guess my next question would be, where do we go from there? Various people have brought up the point of roads named for Confederate generals. Should those be changed? Do we also change the names of the 40+ counties named for Confederate generals, including Arlington - named for Lee's property there. What about for the 10 current US military bases (Fort Hood and Fort Lee among them)? As Ken Burns has said, Lee is responsible for more deaths of US soldiers than Hitler. How about for the countless town names? Leesburg, while not named for the General himself was named for his great granduncle, who while I can't confirm I would guess was either a Confederate sympathizer himself, or would have been one had he still been alive. Should everything named "Lee", "Jackson", "Stonewall", "Stuart", "Davis", "Beauregard", "Forrest", "Hampton", "Hood".....and so on.....be changed? Roads, counties, towns, schools, restaurants, holidays.....
Officer Pete Malloy
Footballguy
General Malaise
Footballguy
I'd be willing to change my name from Forrest to something more Union sounding. 
TheIronSheik
SUPER ELITE UPPER TIER
General Malaise
Footballguy
Foster?I'd be willing to change my name from Forrest to something more Union sounding.
Frosty?
Frogurt?
Ramsay Hunt Experience
Footballguy
UlyssesI'd be willing to change my name from Forrest to something more Union sounding.
Ramsay Hunt Experience
Footballguy
William Tecumseh Nesbitt
Officer Pete Malloy
Footballguy
He asked the question.Billions of dollars wasted to try and erase history. Brilliant!
Of course it would be financially irresponsible to do this.
Taking down a flag probably wouldn't cost a cent.
Officer Pete Malloy
Footballguy
I'll be writing my senator and congressman asking them to support this.
General Malaise
Footballguy
Fennis
Footballguy
Thurston Howell IIIFoster?I'd be willing to change my name from Forrest to something more Union sounding.
Frosty?
Frogurt?
Limp Ditka
Footballguy
Powder has a nice ring to it.
Ramsay Hunt Experience
Footballguy
I just realized that Virginia still celebrates Lee-Jackson Day on the Friday before MLK day (in my college years, Virginia had a combined Lee-Jackson-King day). I'm torn. I oppose the glorification of a moral stain on our history, but I support four-day weekends.
matttyl
Footballguy
He'd rather be named after a drunk?UlyssesI'd be willing to change my name from Forrest to something more Union sounding.
matttyl
Footballguy
Which I said I agree with. I then asked "is that where we end it"?He asked the question.
Of course it would be financially irresponsible to do this.
Taking down a flag probably wouldn't cost a cent.
General Malaise
Footballguy
When I'm done with this name, Forrest will make Ulysses look like Andrew Volstead.He'd rather be named after a drunk?UlyssesI'd be willing to change my name from Forrest to something more Union sounding.
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