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South Carolina, tear down that flag!

We kept hearing about how the flag couldn't be lowered to half staff after the shooting because it was fixed in place. But tonight on the news they showed it being gradually lowered. There was a handle that was being cranked, so it was obvious that the mechanism was already in place and wasn't rigged on the fly for the ceremony. The rebels lied? I'm shocked!

Steve S
 
SezMe said:
There's another sad part to all this emphasis on the flag. The gun issue just disappeared. After other mass shootings at least some time, usually less than 48 hours :(. was given to gun violence and prevention ideas. Not in this case. The NRA must be buying champagne in wholesale lots.
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I think this plays a large role in why many GOP politicians decided that flag is wrong.
 
SezMe said:
There's another sad part to all this emphasis on the flag. The gun issue just disappeared. After other mass shootings at least some time, usually less than 48 hours :(. was given to gun violence and prevention ideas. Not in this case. The NRA must be buying champagne in wholesale lots.
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That's not why the emphasis was put on the flag. First, there was never much of a chance that we'd see any action on gun control out of this. As bad as the AME attack was, think about the Newtown massacre: 20 dead 1st-graders, by some guy with even more guns, and no real point to make. And congress basically shrugged at that one. Why would they suddenly spring into actio over this attack?

Second, what this attack *did* show, and it's more easily addressed, is that white supremacy is still a major issue. It's no coincidence that the terrorist said that he was "awakened" by the Trayvon Martin case, and used the exact same "black brute" stereotype that Zimmerman did when he described Martin. Nor is it a coincidence that he used the same "why don't they protest black-on-white crime" argument that pops up all over the web in the Martin Case - including here.

And the simple fact is, even if we had no guns, Eric Garner would still be dead, and officer Casebolt would still have run around screaming and flinging black teens around. There are multiple issues with this particular attack, and the fact that some high school dropout managed to find out about, and believe, racist stereotypes from the 19th century is a major one. Regardless of what anyone else thinks, those exact same stereotypes and fears are exactly why the battle flag flew at the SC state capitol. And that's why it was important to take it down, and put it among the other relics.
 
steve s said:
We kept hearing about how the flag couldn't be lowered to half staff after the shooting because it was fixed in place. But tonight on the news they showed it being gradually lowered. There was a handle that was being cranked, so it was obvious that the mechanism was already in place and wasn't rigged on the fly for the ceremony. The rebels lied? I'm shocked!

Steve S
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I don't think it was the rebels that lied.

I never read that there was any physical impediment to lowering the flag to half staff. Maybe somebody somewhere said that, but I never read it.

What I did read is that there was a legislative impediment. The law that was repealed by the SC legislature specified the manner in which the flag was to be flown. It could not be legally lowered until the vote of the legislature and the signature of the governor. It could be lowered, but not legally. I'm not 100% certain that those rules specified it had to be flown full staff, but see the next paragraph.

Another thing that I did not read, but that I said, was that it made no sense to lower that flag to half staff. There's a specific set of rules about when to lower flags to half staff, and which flags to lower to half staff. That flag didn't fit. (I won't bother repeating why, but in the first 400 posts of this thread, a few posts on that topic was my primary contribution.)
 
DavidJames said:
You are completely misreading what others are saying. I don't believe it's intentional, but it sure is consistent.

Can you not see the difference between.

other people think that all meanings of the flag anywhere are based in racism.
and
The flag can mean many things, but they are all rooted in the Confederacy and the Confederacy was racist to the core.

It's clear as day to me.
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No, I can't see the difference, at least not a meaningful difference in the context of the discussion. If there is something obvious there, I'm missing it.

Is every use of the Confederate flag connected to the Confederacy? Of course. That's a definition, so no one in their right mind would dispute it. I certainly don't. Was the Confederacy racist? That's not a definition thing, but no one with even the slightest knowledge of history would dispute it.

So, what's the point of saying it? That's a genuine question, by the way. I think there must have been a point, and I tried to get at it. I think that the point was that no matter how the flag is used, it is a racist statement, even if not intended. To clarify, I asked if playing a wargame and giving the Confederate player a Confederate coaster and the Union player a Union coaster was a racist statement. I insisted it wasn't. At least one poster said that it was, and no one contradicted him.

Given all of that, I can't see any meaningful distinction between the two statements. I really have no clue what the point could possibly be that distinguishes them.
 
I have the same sympathy for those who fought and died for the Confederacy as I do for those who fought and died for Hitler.
 
Dylan Roof also burned the American flag and posted pictures of himself burning our flag. So why aren't liberals calling for a ban on burning the flag? Why the selectivity? If the Confederate flag must be banned because Roof posed with it, why should we not also ban burning the American flag since Roof burned the American flag?

The Confederate flag is not a racist symbol any more than the American flag is a racist symbol. The KKK's usual flag of choice is the American flag, by the way, not the Confederate flag.
 
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Liberals are hard to figure out. Many have to get a four-year college degree to understand those liberal ideas. Way too much effort.
 
Chad Haden, 34, of Braxton, Mississippi, said many
flags have flown for nations that allowed slavery,
including the U.S. flag. Haden said one of his
ancestors fought for the Confederacy, and he does
not want to see Mississippi's flag change any more
than he wanted the battle flag in South Carolina to
come down.
"I've got to question the motive of it, of why they
come after us? It's like they're trying to take one bad
thing from us, slavery, and they ignore the progress
that was made before the war. They try to make us
the villain. I've got a question: Is it just a hatred of
Southerners?"
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http://mobile.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.php?c_id=2&objectid=11479408
 
bobtaftfan said:
If the Confederate flag must be banned because Roof posed with it...
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The flag had 150 years of history as a symbol of segregation and denial of civil rights before Roof posed with it and it's hasn't been banned. It's just been removed from public display at the S.C. statehouse.
 
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Upchurch said:
Source or evidence?
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The source is the history of NASCAR.

Just out of curiosity, why are you not grilling thaiboxerken about his/her claim that NASCAR has a disproportionate amount of fans that are racist because they are "red necks" and/or from the south. Is it just the flag or do you agree with this?

I'm going to the races (like I have for years) in NH next week. I'll report how many Yankee red necks show up. ;)
 
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@ jimbob

"I've got to question the motive of it, of why they
come after us? It's like they're trying to take one bad
thing from us, slavery, and they ignore the progress
that was made before the war. They try to make us
the villain. I've got a question: Is it just a hatred of
Southerners?"

In the decades prior to the War, what progress was made in the South in the matter of slavery? Did the number of slaves decline? Or expand? Did the freedom to criticise slavery become more generally accepted? Or was it more vigorously repressed? Did the conditions in which slaves worked become more benign? Did the South undertake to restrict, or did it strive to extend, the area in which slavery was practiced?
 
steve s said:
We kept hearing about how the flag couldn't be lowered to half staff after the shooting because it was fixed in place. But tonight on the news they showed it being gradually lowered. There was a handle that was being cranked, so it was obvious that the mechanism was already in place and wasn't rigged on the fly for the ceremony. The rebels lied? I'm shocked!
Click to expand...


The state law that authorized the placement of the flag prevented it from being lowered or removed without legislative action.
 
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