Stars and Bars

I prefer the Stars and Stripes. International symbol of illegal wars in the middle east, the highest death rate caused by guns in the civilised world, childhood obesity and McDonalds...
 
I can be an asshole but you can't. Boohoo, etc etc etc
:lol: Well shit I hurt his fee-fees again. Even though, credit where credit is due, momentum is the one who demolished him. Wonder when he'll respond to him?

Isn't it just marvellous how he likes to make such a grand gesture of sticking his fingers in his ears and going "Lalalalalalala!"? :lol:
Like dealing with a five year old. I'll gladly keep making him look like a heel. He can read it when he's not logged in and can't respond, it's all the same to me.

I prefer the Stars and Stripes. International symbol of illegal wars in the middle east, the highest death rate caused by guns in the civilised world, childhood obesity and McDonalds...
Hey now, we're just following in our fathers footsteps.

Yeah we got issues. Some of us are trying to solve them. We'll get there eventually. There's a Churchill quote to that effect I think.
 
Yeah we got issues. Some of us are trying to solve them. We'll get there eventually. There's a Churchill quote to that effect I think.

Hell, you can use Churchill as an example of what not to do internationally. Look at the clusterfuck the Brits left in the Middle East, or Europe with their role in WW I and the Treaty of Versaille, or India, etc. The only solace I have with US foreign policy is that even at our worst we aren't nearly as bad as the Brits were.

As an American, fuck Churchill. The sinking of the Lusitania makes him a war criminal as far as I am concerned. As someone who was Australian for the first three years of my life, fuck him for Gallipoli too.
 
The only solace I have with US foreign policy is that even at our worst we aren't nearly as bad as the Brits were.
My point exactly. We live in a world almost wholly shaped by former imperialist powers.

As an American, fuck Churchill. The sinking of the Lusitania makes him a war criminal as far as I am concerned. As someone who was Australian for the first three years of my life, fuck him for Gallipoli too.
Hell the only reason that all our WWII top brass and politicians aren't war criminals is because we won the war. Whether Churchill deliberately put the Lusitania in harms way or not, it pales to what came after.
 
My point exactly. We live in a world almost wholly shaped by former imperialist powers.
Yep, the entire mess we are in can be traced to the Brits.


Hell the only reason that all our WWII top brass and politicians aren't war criminals is because we won the war. Whether Churchill deliberately put the Lusitania in harms way or not, it pales to what came after.

History is written by the victors we all know that.
 
Confederate States of America = Racist
Wrong. The preponderance of blacks as slaves had nothing to do with the color of their skin (as evidence by the facts that there were white and Asian slaves and that there were black slave owners) and everything to do with the fact that it was African leaders that sold their people into slavery.


Confederate Flag = Racist
Originally it wasn't at all racist - it was a battle flag. The racist association emerged in the mid-20th century as explained upthread (possibly by you even).


Make no mistake slavery was not the southern sin, it was the American sin, and we needed to end it.
Slavery was an American sin? Not at all - slavery had been around for thousands of years before the Civil War and it's still around today. If anything America should be praised for how quickly we recognized that slavery is not acceptable.


When anyone sees that flag two things should come to mind racism and murder.
When anyone sees the swastika, should the holocaust be the only thing that comes to mind? Or should we also remember that it's an old Buddhist and Hindu symbol? You can certainly acknowledge the Flag's association with 20th century racism and murder but you should also remember it's history and heritage.


It supports the contention that the federal government did not provoke the south. The CSA was belligerent and went looking for a fight.
No! What it means is that ending slavery was an important step towards the end-goal: preserving the union. The war couldn't have been won without declaring slavery illegal.
 
What other association is there to make with the Confederate Battle Flag? There are two, A) it was the battle flag for a group that wanted to maintain slavery of (primarily) Africans as slaves, and B) as a statement in response to the Civil Rights Movement.
 
What other association is there to make with the Confederate Battle Flag? There are two, A) it was the battle flag for a group that wanted to maintain slavery of (primarily) Africans as slaves, and B) as a statement in response to the Civil Rights Movement.
I addressed both of those in my last post: A) it's a historic American flag that was not at all rooted in racism back in the mid-1800s, and B) yes, during the civil rights era it did emerge as a symbol of white supremacy. I think I have Momentum57 to thank for pointing that out.
 
And I am pointing out that there is no other thing to associate it with as opposed to the Buddhist/ Hindu symbol that was coopted by the Nazis.
 
Hey now, we're just following in our fathers footsteps.
Whoa there, we advocate world domination and shooting unarmed black people, never said everybody should be fat. ;)

Personally I don't quite see how this has suddenly become such a massive issue. I mean I come from a nation which has 4 flags*, shoving the wrong one on your car and parking it in the wrong area will get it keyed, or in the case of Ireland, torched. Even the Union Flag causes strife as there are a lot of people who are anti-union, especially here in Scotland. Hell, I have a lapel badge of the Lion Rampant of Scotland and have been warned on a few occasions that it could cause issues by suggesting I'm a Royalist and an English Royalist at that.

Here in the UK the Stars and Bars is what people who wear stetson hats stick on their imported American pick-up trucks (or PT Cruisers) because they really wish they were from the Southern States for no conceivable reason. But it's no different from any other flag or symbol in terms of "representing bad things". Outside of the context relating to any one individual you can't place a singular meaning on a symbol of any description, especially one dating from 100+ years ago. The use of the Stars and Stripes pre-dates the abolition of slavery, surely that is just as much a symbol of racism?

I maintain this is just a distraction. The issue is not some assortment of stars and coloured lines that may or may not have anything or everything to do with racism in the 21st century, it's that racist people are using it as a banner of sorts. Of course racism cannot and will not be eradicated and reducing the amount of racism in the US would be hard so the US government have decided to stop using the flag...
This achieves nothing, It's a case of looking like you're doing something while actually not doing anything and pushing the real issue aside. They say the flag is offensive, so fucking what? Being offended, that is potentially the nicest bad thing that can happen to a person. If you're offended you can just move on with your life, it has no real impact other than on your mood, fuck whatever it is that offended you, go away and live your life. Being offended is NOT the same as being oppressed, that flag isn't oppressing you, racist fucktards are oppressing you. Why is the use/non-use of a fucking flag getting more news coverage and internet discussion than the fact that there are a fuck ton of people out there who think some humans are worth less than other humans due to nothing but the colour of their skin, or their gender, or their sexuality.

Without wanting to sound like a raving conspiracist it's either a gross mismanagement of government effort due to lack of basic understanding about how the world functions or it's merely to draw the headlines away from important issues and on to something comparatively trivial.



*St George's cross for England, the St Andrew's cross for Scotland, St. Patrick's Cross for N. Ireland and that Welsh one with a dragon on it which nobody cares about.
 
Whoa there, we advocate world domination and shooting unarmed black people, never said everybody should be fat. ;)

Personally I don't quite see how this has suddenly become such a massive issue. I mean I come from a nation which has 4 flags*, shoving the wrong one on your car and parking it in the wrong area will get it keyed, or in the case of Ireland, torched. Even the Union Flag causes strife as there are a lot of people who are anti-union, especially here in Scotland. Hell, I have a lapel badge of the Lion Rampant of Scotland and have been warned on a few occasions that it could cause issues by suggesting I'm a Royalist and an English Royalist at that.

You know to shut up a bar full of scots? A coworker was in Scotland in his previous job and had a bunch of Scottish folks badgering him about America. He said "you had a vote to become independent from England, right?" They said "yeah." He goes "we did that over 200 years ago, what's taking you guys so long?"

I have no idea if that was really relevant to what you were saying but, I had to share it. :)
 
@cap
Problem here was that a state government building was flying the flag, remember government doesn't have freedom of expression only private citizens do.
 
[video=youtube;pcy7qV-BGF4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcy7qV-BGF4[/video]
 
A few relevant tidbits that I've had open on my phone for weeks and finally need to post so I can restart my phone browser :p

Lincoln blatantly disregarded the Supreme Court's decision that only Congress, not the President, can suspend habeas corpus. Lincoln, often regarded as one of our greatest Presidents, also established what was essentially martial law throughout all this. This just shows that he was far from the righteous saint that he is often made out to be.

The infamous emancipation proclamation excluded several slave-owning locales, including the northern slave states, such as Maryland.

Very interesting Wiki article: Modern display of the Confederate flag. Lots of history discussed.
 
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