Racism

[Rex]

I think the North's motivations are an interesting academic subject, but ultimately irrelevant. The defeat of the confederacy could have been a complete accident of history--like a huge earthquake or something--and it would still be important.

[Gunpowder]

But then I'd get to tell people that God said STOP

[mister d]

N.J. Senate president turns sprinklers on gun rights protesters

The whole issue, gun lovers arguing that gun laws should be relaxed because a woman died while waiting for a permit for a gun which would have protected her from another gun, is the most circular horseshit you can fathom.

[brian]

Something interesting I might have learned and didn't realize (if it is true) is that the resurgence of the confederate flag was related to the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Which, if true, means it literally is nothing other than a symbol of racism and oppression (not that I needed much convincing).

[joeyclams]

Something interesting I might have learned and didn't realize (if it is true) is that the resurgence of the confederate flag was related to the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Which, if true, means it literally is nothing other than a symbol of racism and oppression (not that I needed much convincing).

This is absolutely what happened. That flag was a bygone memory for the most part until the segregationists decided to use it as a symbol of Jim Crow and their 'movement.' Lindsey Graham saying it's a part of SC's heritage doesn't know much about the state's heritage if he believes that.

[howard]

[Rex]

best documentary in TV history

[Bensell]

Something interesting I might have learned and didn't realize (if it is true) is that the resurgence of the confederate flag was related to the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Which, if true, means it literally is nothing other than a symbol of racism and oppression (not that I needed much convincing).

This is absolutely what happened. That flag was a bygone memory for the most part until the segregationists decided to use it as a symbol of Jim Crow and their 'movement.' Lindsey Graham saying it's a part of SC's heritage doesn't know much about the state's heritage if he believes that.

Clamsy is right. Until the early 1960s there was almost no celebration of the Confederate flag

[rass]

Just because, I just checked and I'm sort of surprised the flag was on the car in the mid-2000's movie version.

If you watch this more recent commercial with the original Duke boys and car, they appear to go to great pains to never show the top of the car, so the flag is never seen (just a corner here or there is some shots). The (spoilers) brand new car at the end does not have the flag (no room?).

[Pruitt]

Something interesting I might have learned and didn't realize (if it is true) is that the resurgence of the confederate flag was related to the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Which, if true, means it literally is nothing other than a symbol of racism and oppression (not that I needed much convincing).

This is absolutely what happened. That flag was a bygone memory for the most part until the segregationists decided to use it as a symbol of Jim Crow and their 'movement.' Lindsey Graham saying it's a part of SC's heritage doesn't know much about the state's heritage if he believes that.

Clamsy is right. Until the early 1960s there was almost no celebration of the Confederate flag

Just read that it was made part of the Georgia state flag in 1956.

I had no idea...

[joeyclams]

Something interesting I might have learned and didn't realize (if it is true) is that the resurgence of the confederate flag was related to the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Which, if true, means it literally is nothing other than a symbol of racism and oppression (not that I needed much convincing).

This is absolutely what happened. That flag was a bygone memory for the most part until the segregationists decided to use it as a symbol of Jim Crow and their 'movement.' Lindsey Graham saying it's a part of SC's heritage doesn't know much about the state's heritage if he believes that.

Clamsy is right. Until the early 1960s there was almost no celebration of the Confederate flag

Just read that it was made part of the Georgia state flag in 1956.

I had no idea...

Yep. It's why all the claims that it's a symbol of 'southern pride' are lying or lying to themselves. It's only ever had one meaning.

[Rex]

Brown vs. Board of Education was the driver.

I don't know about other southern states, but Georgia did not actually have an official state flag during the Civil War or before it.

[DC47]

the 'leverage' the south had was the attitude of Lincoln, as carried forth by Grant. All that malice toward none, charity toward all bullstuff. Grant's conduct and terms at Appomattox, (and Sherman's much more generous terms for Joe Johnston's surrender, so generous Johnson immediately rescinded some of them), and Grant's huge popularity allowing him to restrain the druthers of Johnson and the more ardent Republicans in the early reconstruction period.

The enduring desire of Lincoln for a soft peace, carried forth by Grant on the strength of his popularity, saved the south from the fate of most losing sides in civil wars. And saved the nation from the other nasty things that usually follow civil wars (like brutal oppression that leads to refighting the war later.)

I agree that the South got off easy compared to the aftermath of most civil wars around the world. Mass execution and some degree of genocide are not uncommon. I don't think that this particular case was all that unusual though, if two factors are considered.

First, the two sides were not divided by ethnicity or religion. It's even a bit of sleight of hand to call them 'sides' as there were many southerners with Union sympathies and many northerners with Confederate sympathies. There is a lot less passion involved in a civil war along these lines. And less practical reason to slaughter the opposition.

Second, Lincoln et al. had good reason to fear a continued guerrilla war even after Lee surrendered. The motivation would have been there, as the presence of former slaves and Union troops would certainly have provided constant cause for anger, and no doubt issues that southerners felt were dealt with unfairly. There were still a lot of weapons, young men, and leaders with military training in the south at the end of the war. Some historians say that the inability of the Confederate government to extract soldiers and munitions from particular southern states that were holding them back was one of the key reasons they lost the war. Waging a war against guerrilla forces in the rural south and frontier states would have been no easy thing for the northern states -- decimated from the loss of so many men and a war economy -- to successfully pursue.

The 'soft peace' that Lincoln and others offered the south seem to me to have most likely been based primarily on intelligent strategy rather than simply the character traits of Union leaders.

[howard]

I think Lincoln's approach was the correct one, despite my snark above. We also had the history of relatively smooth reconciliation after the revolutionary war (although a lot of Tories went up to Canada.)

[DC47]

The revolutionary war was certainly a civil war of a kind. However, the losing side's soldiers and munitions left. The Tories who remained posed no threat of a guerrilla war. However, treating them to the usual fate of the losing side would mean executing and imprisoning people who were closely related to the non-Tories. So this is another case where a 'soft peace' was the way to go.

[DC47]

Here's my take as someone, who like DC, is a history buff with a particular interest in the Civil War, though I don't presume to be a historian:

1. The South absolutely, positively did secede in order to preserve slavery. There had long been a fear that the political balance was drifting to a point where the federal government would be able to outlaw slavery, and the 1860 election was their final tipping point. Any talk of "states' rights" in an abstract sense beyond the one, specific "states' right" to keep slavery legal is bullshit.

I agree. My interest is primarily in the North's motivation.

'States' Rights' have always been asserted by parties that think they have something particular to gain, and a bit less about principals grounded in political philosophy. I believe that prior to 1860 the South was deeply concerned about Northern states asserting their own states' rights to ignore federal law requiring cooperation in returning escaped slaves

While I'm not sure of this, I believe that the federal government posed the threat to dramatically raise tariffs on cotton exports, or actually did this, in the 1850s. This economic issue may also have motivated southern secession.

2. At the same time, it's equally erroneous to portray the North as launching a great moral crusade to end slavery. Northerners who actively sought the immediate universal abolition of slavery were a minority. Many more did oppose slavery on moral grounds, but weren't willing to start a war for that sole purpose (Lincoln was in this camp, at least at the start). Most other Northerners opposed slavery, but on the grounds of it being economically backward, or small farmers fearful of having to compete with wealthy slaveholders, rather than out of a humanitarian concern for the slaves. The North fought the war first and foremost to preserve the primacy of the federal government over the states, and recognized midway through that abolishing slavery would be a useful way to disrupt the South's war effort. That the South's cause was based on the preservation of an institution any civilized modern person regards as barbaric has retroactively helped the moral judgment of the North.

I think many believe the erroneous portrayal you mention. I think that a cursory examination of racial attitudes and the popularity of the abolitionist movement (not high in most places) undercuts this argument. Yet I think this is what is taught to us in schools.

An alternative view is that the North sought to preserve the union because secession was somehow unconstitutional (which was widely debated at the time) or in some other way morally wrong (e.g., the south reneging on their share of federal indebtedness, the south 'firing the first shots'). I find this dubious as well. The federal government obviously had the option of simply letting the southern states go their way. The Buchanon administration was largely following this path prior to Lincoln's election. Going to war against a well-armed, professionally-led Southern military was a dangerous alternative. I doubt that political principals or being offended at southerners firing on Fort Sumter were enough to motivate this action.

My current tentatively-held theory is that the North was motivated primarily by geopolitical strategy. They feared various aspects of what would happen if there were two nations rather than one, each pursuing their own interests via alliances with European nations which still had interests in North America and in world trade.

This seems like kind of a complex, intellectual perspective, more suited for Henry Kissinger than the mid-19th century people we tend to see as somewhat primitive yokels. And it seems entirely absent from Lincoln's articulate speeches about the nobility of preserving the Union at Gettysburg and elsewhere. But I suspect that many of the nation's leaders, even if educated in one-room schools and never having attended college, and capable of physical assaults in the halls of Congress, were well-versed in the European history of military and economic battles between an ever-changing coalitions of competing nations. And they obviously knew that North America was not so far away that European nations had no interest. Canada, Mexico, and colonies around the Caribbean as well as in South America were counter-evidence. International trade was obviously increasing, so the economic fate of America was increasingly not just about what was produced and consumed in the country.

But I fully acknowledge that I know little about the way that the nation's leaders were thinking in the years that led to the Civil War. When I focused on this era as a kid, I had a strong tendency towards drawing schematics of military formations at various battles, and details like the schedule that Grant and Lee followed at West Point (they got up way earlier than me!) So I may be off-base here. I'd be glad to hear criticism of what I've laid out, or other competing perspectives.

[brian]

Two days later and I'm still angry. I think now I'm angry because no one else seems to be. What kind of fucking country is this if nine innocent people can be gunned down in a church and there's no outrage about it? When did this become the cost of doing business so that gun manufacturers can make billions of dollars so that we can all live in fear? The one thread that binds the gun owners I know is fear. They're afraid of everything, of everybody. The irony is at the end of the day they're afraid of other gun owners (legal, illegal -- it doesn't matter). And the never-ending cycle just keeps on going. My own state legislator who lives right down the street is a fucking dipshit moonbat who tried to make it legal to carry guns on college campuses in Nevada. Where does it end? Almost one year ago to the day here in Las Vegas, two right-wing anti-government nuts just executed a couple of cops trying to eat some pizza for lunch. No one wants to talk about the elephant in the room. Those cops had guns and they're still as dead as a doornail. More profits to be made. Cha-ching. No other industrialized country in the world has to deal with this shit like we do. (Yeah, Norway. Once in 100 years. Yeah, Canada. Once in a 100 years. Yeah, England. Once in a 100 years.) This shit happens EVERY FEW MONTHS. If the thought of 20+ elementary school kids gunned down a couple of years ago didn't do it I don't know what will.

I hate this feeling. I really, honestly am thinking about leaving this country. I can't do it right now, but maybe in a couple or three years. I've had it. You all can have President Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio or some other spineless fuckweasel. I quit.

[MaxWebster]

i applaud your rant.

i'm trying hard to not read any more or get emotionally involved...nothing will ever change.


if it were that easy to remain here in Canada forever it'd be a done deal already for me. (immigration ain't easy anywhere...)

[brian]

Fortunately if you have some money, immigration to certain places isn't that hard, but those places aren't anywhere most Americans would want to live (Mexico, Belize, Panama etc.) Fortunately I'm not that picky. I can learn to speak Spanish and I don't need five-star restaurants or a 3,000 sq. ft. house with a perimeter alarm.

[brian]

I just need some place with warm weather, proximity to a beach, cheap beer and at least a relative acceptance of gringos.

[Pruitt]

I just need some place with warm weather, proximity to a beach, cheap beer and at least a relative acceptance of gringos.

Beer here is plentiful but not cheap, and we will accept almost anyone, but our beaches blow and the weather is worse.

Your rant is well done.

There is a banal sentimental narrative that is seized upon in times like this. Buddy of mine lives in Charleston and he unintentionally underscored this yesterday when he posted this with a link to a peace rally on some bridge today:

Charleston heals ...no riots ...no overturned cars.... People coming together against hate

So tears will be shed, speeches will be given, backs will be patted and everyone will go home and post their pictures from the rally with the hashtags promoting love and forgiveness and Charleston and then LOOK SQUIRREL, attention will be diverted.

We have all seen this too many times to honestly believe otherwise.

And what if Charleston hadn't come together to heal in a very telegenic way? What if rallies became protests became riots? We have recently seen how that narrative is spun.

[Gunpowder]

Two days later and I'm still angry. I think now I'm angry because no one else seems to be. What kind of fucking country is this if nine innocent people can be gunned down in a church and there's no outrage about it? When did this become the cost of doing business so that gun manufacturers can make billions of dollars so that we can all live in fear? The one thread that binds the gun owners I know is fear. They're afraid of everything, of everybody. The irony is at the end of the day they're afraid of other gun owners (legal, illegal -- it doesn't matter). And the never-ending cycle just keeps on going. My own state legislator who lives right down the street is a fucking dipshit moonbat who tried to make it legal to carry guns on college campuses in Nevada. Where does it end? Almost one year ago to the day here in Las Vegas, two right-wing anti-government nuts just executed a couple of cops trying to eat some pizza for lunch. No one wants to talk about the elephant in the room. Those cops had guns and they're still as dead as a doornail. More profits to be made. Cha-ching. No other industrialized country in the world has to deal with this shit like we do. (Yeah, Norway. Once in 100 years. Yeah, Canada. Once in a 100 years. Yeah, England. Once in a 100 years.) This shit happens EVERY FEW MONTHS. If the thought of 20+ elementary school kids gunned down a couple of years ago didn't do it I don't know what will.

I hate this feeling. I really, honestly am thinking about leaving this country. I can't do it right now, but maybe in a couple or three years. I've had it. You all can have President Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio or some other spineless fuckweasel. I quit.

Clive Bundy helped stoke the flames in those guys. But he's a patriot who's rights to free grazing land have been trampled on for so long by the government, that you understand he's going to have to fight back at some point.

[Gunpowder]

[DaveInSeattle]

Roof's manifesto found online...

Pretty much what you'd expect. Clean up the language and use some more carefully chosen phrases, and he could have been a guest commentator on Fox News...

The event that truly awakened me was the Trayvon Martin case. I kept hearing and seeing his name, and eventually I decided to look him up. I read the Wikipedia article and right away I was unable to understand what the big deal was. It was obvious that Zimmerman was in the right. But more importantly this prompted me to type in the words “black on White crime” into Google, and I have never been the same since that day. The first website I came to was the Council of Conservative Citizens. There were pages upon pages of these brutal black on White murders. I was in disbelief. At this moment I realized that something was very wrong. How could the news be blowing up the Trayvon Martin case while hundreds of these black on White murders got ignored?

[TT2.0]

the money quote if you don't want to read his whole rambling manifesto

I dont pretend to understand why jews do what they do. They are enigma

[P.D.X.]

I googled stuff that I hate and got mad when it brought up stuff that I hate.

[sancarlos]

Something interesting I might have learned and didn't realize (if it is true) is that the resurgence of the confederate flag was related to the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Which, if true, means it literally is nothing other than a symbol of racism and oppression (not that I needed much convincing).

This is absolutely what happened. That flag was a bygone memory for the most part until the segregationists decided to use it as a symbol of Jim Crow and their 'movement.' Lindsey Graham saying it's a part of SC's heritage doesn't know much about the state's heritage if he believes that.

Clamsy is right. Until the early 1960s there was almost no celebration of the Confederate flag

Just read that it was made part of the Georgia state flag in 1956.

I had no idea...

Yep. It's why all the claims that it's a symbol of 'southern pride' are lying or lying to themselves. It's only ever had one meaning.

[howard]

wave that flag

[Ryan]

I'm just now remembering how "Dixie" was in heavy rotation during elementary school circle time. In New Hampshire. In the 1980s.

Old times there are not forgotten!

[BSF21]

This shit has put me in a position that I never thought I'd be in. I'm a gun owner. I don't carry. I own guns in the same way I own fishing rods and golf clubs. It's a sport to me. Very few things are more fun for me than a few hours at the range. It's not about the power or anything like that. I appreciate the precision and technique it takes to do anything with exacting accuracy. I'd likely be into archery as well if I had any easy entry into the world of it.

I've always been of the opinion of "fuck off, I'm not hurting anyone with my hobby, so piss off with your anti-gun shit and leave me alone", but these events make it harder and harder to even enjoy my hobby anymore. It's the thing you can't bring up to anyone in person without sounding like a wingnut or someone who is completely unsympathetic to victims of tragedy after tragedy, but there are a very small number of people who are fucking it up for the rest of us and it's gone from pissing me off to just saddening me. Every time I take out my firearms to go try and enjoy breaking clays or whatever, I know a few people I know give me a sideways glance like I am a threat to get done out there and then decide to mow a few people down at Walmart before I mosey on home. People are absolutely right regarding the NRA and firearm manufacturers stranglehold on the uneducated American public and Congress. Again, a few people fucking it up for the rest of us.

I'm damn near ready to give it up and just sell them. My shotgun hasn't been out in 8 months. The only thing that really keeps it here is my own piece of mind that I have it in case someone decides to smash a window out at 3am, which again, is something you can't even say anymore without sounding like the guy "whose family never would have gotten hurt or robbed if they had just had a gun in the house, y'all hear me?". I'd be horrified to ever have to even point a gun at another human being, but I'm not going to sit here and tell you I wouldn't if it meant protecting my family.

It's just exhausting at this point. Everyone that has any kind of voice that can be heard is just so far on the apex of the pendulum swing. Like most other political topics. NO GUNS and ALL THE GUNS are the only viewpoints that ever get heard. No one cares about the guy who has a pump shotgun that he likes to shoot clays with 4 times a year, and a small pistol and .22LR Ruger that he likes to target shoot with when he is down at his buddy's farm in the summer. That same guy that thinks there is no reason we can't have strict background checks and other safeguards put in to try and make sure that people who want to use guns to hurt people can't. He's an island.


TL;DR: It really sucks when the average normal persons voice gets so lost in the rhetoric and bullshit catchphrases of news media that he has no place anymore. A few fuckwits have to wreck it for most responsible people. Shooting anyone is bad in about 99.7% of all cases and it sucks that a kid who was clearly broken and hurting was given a gun with no thought of what the consequences could be.

[brian]

There's gotta be some kind of middle ground, but those voices get lost. I personally think we could improve things if we did three things which seem kinda common sense to me:

1) Expanded/mandatory background checks and close "gun show" loopholes to require background checks any time a firearm is sold.
2) Enhanced penalties any time an unlicensed firearm is used in commission with a felony. Like serious, serious mandatory penalties like 10 years in prison if you use a firearm not registered to use to stick up a liquor store regardless of any other prison time for the crime in question. Enough time to hopeful give someone pause about possessing an illegal gun.
3) Require gun manufacturers to invest money in technology to prevent guns from being used illegally (fingerprint technology, etc.)

Unfortunately as far as I know the NRA fights tooth and nail on ANYTHING that makes it harder to possess a gun.

[brian]

(And we should probably move this to the gun thread, which I'm sure we have one but no one's going to be able to convince me anyone should be able to own something like an AR-15. Handguns for home protection or range shooting...OK. Shotguns/rifles for hunting, sure. But shit like AK-47s and AR-15s are just designed to mow a bunch of people down in a hurry.

[Gunpowder]

They are fun to shoot. Until someone steals it from your car.

[howard]

TL;DR: It really sucks when the average normal persons voice gets so lost in the rhetoric and bullshit catchphrases of news media that he has no place anymore.

Having a strong-held minority point of view isn't for pussies. Nor is standing strong for your rights. Good news-it gets easier with practice. And it is worth the difficulty.

[mister d]

Point 2 bolded and underlined. Fuck all these drug imprisonments; the dude selling weed on the corner can get wrist slaps forever UNLESS HE'S CARRYING A GUN WHEN HE DOES IT at which point he's just done.

(And yes, I know this opens up a ton of potential for cops to fuck people over with planted guns. They do it now, so I'm not sure its a new risk or just acknowledging a present risk.)

[Gunpowder]

If I have a gun and getting caught with it is a 10-20 year sentence, I'm probably much more likely to use it on the officer.

[brian]

If I have a gun and getting caught with it is a 10-20 year sentence, I'm probably much more likely to use it on the officer.

That's hardly incentive to not try and toughen laws for illegal possession of a gun. Shit, the penalties (like Mr. D alluded to) are way tougher for illegal possession of narcotics than they are for a gun.

[Jerloma]

It's okay guys...Racism is solved.

I keep hearing… people saying we need more conversations about race. Actually, we don’t need more conversations. What we need is conversions because the reconciliation that changes people is not a racial reconciliation. It’s a spiritual reconciliation when people are reconciled to God.

When I love God, and I know that God created other people regardless of their color as much as he made me, I don’t have a problem with racism.

It’s solved!

[mister d]

If I have a gun and getting caught with it is a 10-20 year sentence, I'm probably much more likely to use it on the officer.

Did 3 strikes increase cop shootings?

(I have no idea? But I'm of the belief that a person either would or wouldn't shoot at a cop and consideration for a law likely doesn't play much of a role.)

[Gunpowder]

If I have a gun and getting caught with it is a 10-20 year sentence, I'm probably much more likely to use it on the officer.

That's hardly incentive to not try and toughen laws for illegal possession of a gun. Shit, the penalties (like Mr. D alluded to) are way tougher for illegal possession of narcotics than they are for a gun.

And we've seen what harsh penalties for narcotics have done.