Taking offense at flags
- Thread starter LDB
- Start date
That link will never work. This one will, though.
Massie has direct insight, in sight of the bank, that is. Everything he does it's for the cash. I think it's remarkable that he thinks it's remarkable that an inanimate object doesn't talk to him.
Massie writes, "For millions, the Confederate Flag is a symbol of their love for the New South, which has risen out of the ashes of the Old South."
The problem with that is the only time the flag flew in the Old South was during the South's fight to preserve their right to preserve slavery, and it never flew in the New South until Strom Thurmond dug the flag out of the ashes to bring back the fight for the Old South. I promise you, the Klan doesn't use that particular flag as their symbol because it represents their love for the New South. South Carolina didn't raise that flag over the State House on the 100th anniversary of the start of the Civil War because they wanted to show their love for the New South.
That was over a half century ago..., people's perception of the flag can change over time. My only point is that a symbol can take on a different meaning to people over time, right or wrong.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/247173-poll-most-dont-think-confederate-flag-racist
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/247173-poll-most-dont-think-confederate-flag-racist
Last edited:
I have no doubt that to some people, mostly younger, mostly those unaware of its history, mostly white, do not see much if any racism connected to it. It also does not surprise me in the least that those who do find it racist, and those who don't, are so clearly drawn along party lines, with conservatives overwhelmingly failing to see the racism.
The War Between The States was not solely about slavery and racism, according to this author who is more than adequately educated on the subject.
In all, a rather interesting article considering Lincoln's views on slavery and "Negroes" during that time.
He's very well educated on the Civil War, despite the fact that he will never call it that (he thinks it's The War of 1861) and is a far right conservative who's education of the subject as well as his presentation of it, is colored by his conservative bias. He starts off here with an invalid premise because he gives a false and highly biased definition of "civil war," literally a straw man definition he can set up to knock down.
He then asks the question of "how much of that was about slavery?" but never actually answers it, yet leaves the impression that the answer would be "not much."
The Civil War was fought over many issues, including the right to secede in the first place, unfair taxation, the lingering consequences of the Nullification Crisis (with SC refusing to pay import tariffs at all), free-labor versus slave-labor in territories that were yet to become states, states' rights in general, and of course, the cornerstone of it all, the right to preserve and protect slavery.
In his opinion piece quoted above, he suggested you follow the money to get a Lincoln's motivations. You can probably count on one hand how many economists, historians, and economic historians think economics played even a minor role in the states seceding from the Union, and Williams is one of them. He's also very selective in order to make his points, as he notes the Southern ports paid 75% of tariffs in 1859. While that's true, part of that is because Southern ports made up 65% of the ports where goods were imported, and also because the year before the tariff on imports was raised by Congress to 35%. So 35% on the 65 percent of the ports which imported goods equated to Southern ports paying 75% of the tariffs. The reason Congress raised the tariffs to 35% is because in 1857 powerful Southern Congressmen set the tariff rate to 5%, pissing off northern industrialists to no end. Two years after this gasp-inducing 75% tariff the Southern ports were paying was decreased in 1861 to 25% tariff, which meant the Southern ports were paying just about 50% of the tariffs.
So when he rhetorically asks, "What "responsible" politician would let that much revenue go?" I don't know who he is talking about, 'cause it ain't Lincoln.
Incidentally, when the Confederacy was formed it set a very high 15% tariff on all imports, including imports from the United States. That 15% is, of course, considerably higher than the previous 25% of even the 35%, as the 15% was on any and all goods imported, rather than on a few selected goods.
To those who want to argue that it was unfair taxation, or it was states' rights as the primary mover of secession, all you have to do is read the Articles of Secession from the states which seceded and those Articles will tell you precisely why they left the Union. In those Articles of Secession you will find slavery and the right to preserve slavery front and center. It was slavery more than anything else what the soldiers of the Confederacy were fighting for (which is why it divided families and sometimes even pit brother against brother, something that could not happen if it was as simple as North versus South or states' rights or unfair taxation), and it is that fight for slavery that the Confederate Battle Flag represents. The Southern war heroes? They were heroes because they fought for the South... to preserve slavery.
And to remove all doubt, all you have to do read the Confederate Constitution and see how it's protection of slavery at the national level was worded. To their old Union they had said the Federal power had no authority to interfere with slavery issues in a state. To their new Confederate nation they declared just the opposite, that no state had the power to interfere with a federal protection of slavery. Of all the many testimonials to the fact that slavery, and not states rights or anything else, is what really lay at the heart of their secession movement, this was the most eloquent and resolute of all.
He is indeed very well educated on the subject, obviously much better than you are which gives his opinions (supported with facts) much more value than yours according to your own standards established in previous posts. His definition of "civil wars" is in the context of civil wars throughout history; there's nothing false or biased about it and there is no straw man. Any cursory research into civil wars will confirm this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_war
Labeling Dr. Williams (who is black by the way, for those who might not be familiar with him) as a "far right conservative" is a bit of a stretch, to put it mildly. Granted, his views are conservative and he is a strict constitutionalist but labeling him as "far right" in an attempt to portray him as some sort of radical rube that doesn't know what he's talking about is ludicrous.
The larger point he is making is that the constitution did in fact establish the rights of individuals to own property and the rights of the states to secede. Slaves at the time were considered to be property, and this was not an issue when the constitution was written and the country was formed. Slavery was also common in almost every country and civilization present in the world at that time. The fact that it was inhumane and immoral - to say the least - was not even a consideration by most cultures until the northern states outlawed it. In response to that, the 13 Southern states decided to exercise their constitutional right to secede and form their own country, thus exercising their states rights. Dr. Williams first article in the two-part series establishes his position better and makes the following salient point:
Sounds like most of the posters here in the soapbox.
Oh, I dunno, I'm quite well educated about the Civil War and the history of the South, obviously much better educated than you believe me to be. And what you call "supported by facts" are a combination of highly selective facts, narrow in scope, and opinionated conclusions presented as fact.
Your continued ubiquitous use of logical fallacies, including straw man logical fallacies, is a strong indication you are unaware of them even when you see them, otherwise you wouldn't use them in an argument to convince anyone of anything, it doesn't surprise me at all that you would make such a statement. He flatly states the definition of a civil war is when two entities have as their goal to take over the central government, but that's just one of many possible goals of a civil war. But he uses that as the primary definition to make the Civil War into something it was not (straw man) and then uses Jefferson Davis and George Washington as examples to bolster his position and to bring the straw man down. His argument is the Civil War (or the War of 1861 and he calls it) was almost totally about states' rights, the right of states to secede in particular, and that slavery has little or nothing to do with it. He takes that position because, as I stated earlier, he views the Civil War through the lens of his far right conservative political bias.
It's probably best that you do not rely so much on cursory research and instead delve a bit more deeply, although I'm not sure it will make much difference, as the very first sentence at the Wiki page lists as the definition of civil war which makes my point, rather than yours or his.
"Oh, look, I've found a black man who agrees with me!" Yeah, I got it already. But as to his political ideology, I don't know why you say calling him a far right conservative is a bit of a stretch, as his political views are in fact far right. Calling him a moderate is an enormous stretch, calling him a liberal is a farce.
I gotta hand it to you, you can draw some of the most bizarre conclusions off of nearly nothing. It's quite impressive. I didn't label him "far right" to portray him as anything other than what he is, which is far right. I suppose at first glance he could be considered something other than far right, but the more familiar you become with him the more far to the right be becomes. It's not all that hard to become familiar with him, either, as he is a prolific writer of books and syndicated newspaper columns. I didn't even hint that he is some sort of a rube (because I don't think he is) or that he doesn't know what he's talking about (because I know for a fact that he does know what he's talking about). I simply don't like the way he picks and chooses facts to make his arguments (on this issue and on many others he's done the same thing with). His position is the Civil War wasn't a civil war at all (which is why he refuses to call it that) because the states have the right to secede and the instant a state declares they have seceded they are therefor not part of the old nation and it can therefore not be a civil war. Only a very small handful of historians agree with him as that being the sole or primary factor in the war, and the ones who do agree with him tend to be likewise far right conservative who want to bury the lead of preserving slavery as the reason the states seceded.
I don't necessarily disagree with him that states should be able to secede from the Union. But saying the Civil War wasn't a civil war simply because it wasn't fought over central control of the government is the ludicrous nonsense, and to imply that slavery played little or no role in that takes the nonsense one giant leap forward. The fact that state secession was contested (by Lincoln especially, and others) makes it a civil war by most anyone's definition of the term. Then you complicate things further by the Constitution itself, which I feel very confident in saying that Williams is familiar with, where it provides processes for new states to enter the Union and for current states to divide or reconfigure, but it does not have a provision for states to leave the union. A state would have to leave by force, as in a civil war, since there is no legal basis it could point to for breaking away. Williams knows this, sets it aside except at time he wants to bemoan about it, and just keeps on plodding along like any good far left or far right political position requires, as he wants to make the Civil War, er, the War of 1861, about states' rights and not slavery. If there are any lingering questions about a state's right to secede from the Union, as SCOTUS Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in a remarkable personal letter of reply to someone, "[The] answer is clear. If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede." And Dr. Williams knows this very well.
Yes, I know. Speaking of the right to own property, he believes quite strongly that people should be able to sell their own body organs, because of the right to own property. The litmus test, according to Williams, of truly owning something is having the right to sell it. He has often written {paraphrased] "If I can't sell my body or my organs, who owns it, then?"
Not an issue? You really should avail yourself of every opportunity to do some serious (not cursory, but seriously serious, although even cursory will probably suffice) research on the Continental Congress and just how big an issue slavery was from the first draft of the Declaration of Independence to the penning of the Constitution itself. The issue of slavery was THE deal-breaker on getting anything other than a simple majority vote for declaring of independence, for example.
At the beginning of 1800, nearly 3/4ths of all people alive were trapped in bondage against their will either in some form of slavery or serfdom. And while slavery has existed, in one form or another, throughout the whole of human history, so, too, right along wide them have movements to free all or large or distinct groups of slaves. So to say that is was not even a consideration by most cultures would be incorrect. Slavery has been abolished in western Europe long before the norther states abolished it. By 1500 slaves were virtually non-existent in western Europe (despite the fact that those same countries built empires around the globe using slaves). Britain officially ruled slavery illegal in Britain (but not elsewhere in the British empire) in 1772. France, in 1739. Other countries quickly followed. The Republic of Vermont banned slavery before it was even a state. Other northern states abolished slavery either immediately before or after the Constitution was written, because of the heated debates and positions on the subject from the time of the Declaration of Independence debates. I don't know that any foreign country abolished slavery because the northern states did, or visa versa, or if they simply coincided at the time.
Except they didn't have a constitutional right to secede. They wanted one, but they didn't actually have it. They certainly had a lot of northerners on their side to secede, though, that much is certain. But having a lot of people up north agree that you should be able to secede isn't the same as having the right to secede. The irony is, if the South hadn't been so impatient (and Lincoln hadn't been such a tool about it), they almost certainly would have gotten the consent of the States, either directly or through Congress, to secede from the Union peacefully and easily.
I don't know if you've read much of Dr Williams' stuff, but I highly recommend anything you can find of his. Whether you agree or disagree with this thoughts, ideas, positions and conclusions, he presents them well and gives you plenty of food for thought. This is especially so with his thoughts on capitalism and economics, as he most definitely is an expert on those subjects.
Last edited: