What about the flag that flew over the Trail of Tears?

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Yes, generally true but so much of what they often touch has a less than positive effect on many people's situation.

a reply to: roadgravel

Unfortunately a lot of those pandering laws are going to appeal to a base at the expense of another base. I imagine there will be much heated discussion in the coming months by groups feeling slighted by fake legislation aimed at keeping them down. Election season brings out the worst in the voting base...

originally posted by: bhornbuckle75
a reply to: incoserv

Technically the flag flying during the Trail of Tears was a 26 star flag, with some different variations of design all shown here. www.crwflags.com...

I know that's nitpicking, but I thought I would point it out.
As for the Confederate Flag, it is the flag of a failed attempt by seven Southern pro slavery states to secede from the United States...and is thus a symbol of being a traitor to the U.S. ...

Well, not to nitpick, but secession was not ruled a specific illegal act until after the Civil War ended, so at the time, what the South Carolina started in Dec. of 1860 fell into a grey area, although Article 1, Section 10 of the Constitution does say:

No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

So, I would say that, by extension of supposedly firing the first shots of the war, South Carolina and its seceding allies did violate the Constitution by engaging in war, but there is the legal argument that the act of seceding, had they been allowed to do so peacefully, wasn't exactly illegal in and of itself at the time.

a reply to: incoserv

Well, I guess if private citizens want to use the flag that flew over the Trail of Tears, that's one thing. But a symbol of racism and violence like that shouldn't be flown over government buildings, right?

I love the smell of sarcasm in the morning.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

Because we can. That's really the only reason needed in a free country. The fact that further badgering is happening on much higher, much more regulated platforms than ATS is proves that America is far from a free country. By definition, one's rights cannot be conditional or require any substantiated rationale to be exercised and remain "rights."

You'e right, you absolutely can fly whatever flag you wish to fly on your property. When it comes to government buildings, well that's another story altogether isn't it?

One of these days, however, you can bet they'll strike up the band and all the little puppets will go "Oh goody! Another opportunity to shake our fists with mock outrage and act like imbeciles against an inanimate object!" and the dance will resume all over again.

Bottom line: Modern humanity is really stupid.

1. Perfect example of the golden age fallacy. Do you honestly believe that people used to be smarter, better informed and less easily led? Why? I wonder if you'd have the same opinion if they'd left behind Facebook profiles and Twitter feeds?

The Herald- A Battle Flag, Indeed | Timeline of the controversy:

1962 With little fanfare, lawmakers resolve to fly the Confederate flag over the State House dome to recognize the Civil War centennial.

1983 A House resolution to take the flag down fails on a 52-44 vote.

1993 Attorney General Travis Medlock rules that no law mandates that the flag must fly over the State House.

1994 NAACP says it will organize national economic sanctions against South Carolina unless the flag is removed.

1996 Then-Gov. David Beasley proposes moving the flag to a monument on the State House grounds.

1997 In Columbia, 500 religious leaders march in support of moving the flag.

1998 Democrat Jim Hodges unseats Beasley, winning votes of many flag supporters who felt Beasley betrayed them.

1999 The national NAACP calls for tourists to boycott South Carolina until the flag is removed.

That's just the notable events pre-2000 that were included in this particular timeline. Perhaps your consternation is due to an ignorance of history? The flying of the Confederate flag over the State House/on State House grounds in Columbia has always been a source of controversy and has absolutely nothing to do corporate overlords or declining freedom. I remember similar controversy over the Georgia state flag growing up in Georgia. In that case, the flag was changed in 1956 to include the saltire cross motif common to various Confederate flag — and was changed again in 2001 to remove it.

What you're actually defending with such zeal and passion is the ill-intent of the pro-segregationist southern politicians of the Civil Rights era who could only get away with the BS they did because they were oppressing the dissenters. Ironic that you should be going on indignantly about freedom and how anyone who doesn't share your apparent ignorance is an imbecile.

a reply to: JUhrman

Glad you pointed it out. I was about to. Just a side mention...the original Stars and Bars only had 7 stars but I bet you knew that.

This whole flag debacle is a first amendment issue to me. If someone chooses to have the battle flag flying it should be his right to do so. There are a lot of things that happen and are said in many forms that people don't like, yet they still are. What of the Rainbow flag, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Mexican flags to name a few. There are people offended by those yet there's no squabble over them.

With all the stuff going on in this country and the world we argue over a flag? Really?

a reply to: fldinosaur

This whole flag debacle is a first amendment issue to me. If someone chooses to have the battle flag flying it should be his right to do so.

Nobody is trying to prevent anyone from flying any flag on their own property, let alone the state. This is not a First Amendment issue at all.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

Thank you.

My point about the Trail Of Tears and the US flag was not that we should get rid of the US flag. Neither was it intended as a defense of the Confederate flag.

My point is that they are both symbols and as such can point to deeper issues.

Expressing righteous indignation about the Confederate flag if nothing short of socio-political self gratification. It makes everyone feel good, like they've done something noble and worthwhile, but in the end accomplishes Nothing.

If people put all the time and energy and attention wasted on whining about a piece of cloth into reaching out to reach human beings across racial and ethnic divides, building meaningful relationships and changing their present instead of botching about and old piece of coloured cloth, we might actually see things change.

But that's a lot of trouble.

(Not to mention the whole Thought Police element. But that for another thread.)

originally posted by: Shamrock6
Why are we denying that the flag was used before they ever got their hands on it? It was...but we act like it wasn't.

Nope we don't deny it. We are saying it wasn't really popular and only flown in some very particular cases and almost exclusively by military people.

Almost anyone not in the military who remembers this flag from his youth remembers a usage that can be traced back to the Dixiecrats and the KKK, when it was used to support a particular political agenda.

It was a propaganda tool aimed specifically at segregation policies.

It's funny watching people pretend to be worked up and "outraged" at the confederate flag -- when they had no vocal outrage towards it before the shooting...

People like that jump on whatever PC bandwagon that trends these days.

I understand why some people think it's double standards that the confederate battle flags hurt some sensibilities and not the stars and stripes. But honestly it's perfectly understandable why these 2 symbols receive different treatments and if you don't understand it you fail to see things from a global and unbiased perspective and mainly defend it either out of nostalgia or defiance. But not out of reason.


There is really nothing comparable between the official flag of the united states of America, a symbol of the unity of the country and of the whole American society (society that has some skeletons in its closet too of course, like all nations), and an old military flag that was unearthed during the XXth century to symbolize a segregationist agenda.



It would be exactly like if today some Germans would claim "you have no right to ask me to remove the Nazi flag from the Bundestag. It is a part of our heritage and if you take it down you must also remove all the federal eagles from all official buildings and documents because it symbolizes the atrocities of the German empire during WWI.

On one side you have a national symbol of a country who participated in a war (like almost all countries), and on the other side, a flag appropriated by a certain party to symbolize a segregationist agenda.


It's not the same thing and if you refuse to see this you are being intellectually dishonest.

Just like when they claim people want to forbid the confederate flag or that no one was offended by it before the shootings. It's lies and manipulation of events.

a reply to: JUhrman

Not really.

On page 1 you said that the battle flag was unused until white supremacists unearthed and claimed it as theirs.

That's not even close to true.

And now we're saying "largely unused except for military people, who started using it within a handful of years after the war and on up through world war 2. But yea aside from all the people who were using it, nobody used it until white supremacists came along."

Goalposts = moved.

Whatever, I'm out.

originally posted by: Shamrock6
a reply to: JUhrman
On page 1 you said that the battle flag was unused until white supremacists unearthed and claimed it as theirs.

I said "forgotten" but keep #ing ants like that to try to derail the attention from the really important matters discussed here.

You can fight that strawman all day long if you want while I'll stay with those who really want to discuss this.

originally posted by: Shamrock6
Whatever, I'm out.

Of course; you're out of arguments and fallacies.

They are getting to the stars and stripes, you can count on it.
Hating our country is all part of the plan to make the UN more welcome in our domestic affairs.
Agenda 21 anyone?
How about the small arms treaty?
TPP and corporate rule?
Fast track authority for the President?
I mean, why bother with Congress when the President can make treaties all by his little ole self?
They call it efficiency or the unilateral Presidency.
Others call it dictatorship or fascism.

a reply to: incoserv

You forgot the Northern Cheyenne under Black Kettle. They were slaughtered and mutilated while flying that flag. You're right. The list goes on and on, even today. The killing is done through laws now though. It's not so overt.

originally posted by: JUhrman

originally posted by: incoserv
Irighteous indignation over the starts and bars

This is the stars and bars.

Are people indignated by it?

Or by this one?

Or this one?

Why is it southerners never fly one of these but instead the Army flag that was forgotten and resurrected by the KKK and used by Southern Dixiecrats during the 1948 presidential election ?

Can someone answer this?


People keep talking about "heritage" but it seems they don't even know an official flag from an army flag? Nor that the battle flag was actually unused until white supremacists unearthed it. So really, we can ask these people; "what heritage? Aren't you proud of your official flag of the confederate states? Why not flying it".

Can people be so easily fooled? Can history be rewritten so easily? It seems like yes judging by the number of people denying the holocaust or the moon landing.

The "Stainless banner" more so and the "Blood Stained Banner" adopted after both represent the quote from designer William T. Thompson many were sharing of white supremacy. It was compared it 100% to the current Confederate flag design, by William Poacher Miles being used by many. So which is it, the same or different? A lot of people who support the flag's original symbols do not want to use the Stainless Banner because of what the white portion represented.

originally posted by: dreamingawake
designer William T. Thompson

In May 1863, when Thompson discovered that his design had been chosen by the Confederate Congress to become the Confederacy's next national flag, he was pleased. He praised his design as symbolizing the Confederacy's ideology and its cause of "a superior race", as well as for bearing little resemblance to the U.S. flag, which he called the "infamous banner of the Yankee vandals".

Lol

a reply to: incoserv

then how about the flags of England, Spain, France and The Dutch as they colonized the continents?

How about the Catholic flags that flew when they raided the Middle East during the Crusades.

How about the flag of the cresent moon and star that Mohamed used as he conquered many tribes and nations in the Middle East.

How about the ALL the flags in history to date that are symbols of hate, race and division.

Communist flags, State flags, EU flag, UN Flag?



Start down that road and you put the blame on something that does not do anything.

People need to change.

ca we post a picutre of the confederate flag here or is it banned on ATS too?