Must have missed that history lesson.

 

Don't feel bad. Plenty of other's missed it too.

 

14 and i turn 18 in march, it was a personal choice. i always had these beliefs and opinions and around when i was 14 i figured out who i was and it stuck.

and thank you horsepuller for pointing that out.

i also agree with cartwright, the naacp and similarities cause more race tensions than the flag does. and the only reason the flag causes any is because the people who pull the race card out and raise a fuss about it.

 

No, the problem is that nobody ever seemed to be offended until race panderers like jesse jackson and al sharpton started stirring up trouble. I am from and have lived in the south all my life and I can tell you that when blacks and whites are allowed to live together without govt or special interest intrusions everybody for the most part gets along just fine. It is when outsiders come in and make issues where they didnt exist before that tensions occur. How do you think jesse jackson is a multi millionare, but he has never had a job? He and his kind come in and anger their own people by pouring salt in 150 year old wounds, then taking donations from them so he can fight for them. That is what I mean by race panderers. They come in and create a false sense of racism and get rich off their own people by fighting the racism they created.

 

exactly. if anyones the racist its people like him. if they want racism to go away, then get over it.

 

let me kinda let you all know where this came from- shortly after 9-11 the country became very patriotic with the display of the american flag(and it made me fell good to see that) in the weeks and months after tha day i noticed a good number of people driving around with large confederate flags flying, some times with the u.s. flag and sometimes not. so i thought to myself what is this person trying to say, and that is my question
his he just trying to hes from the south or is it more than that. in my mind the confderate flag means more than just " i am from the south" that is why i am trying to understand it.
ps. rebel "you have figured out who you are" at 18 years old- remember this day when you turn 40

 

I can only speak for myself here, but to me it doesnt mean anything at all. I dont even own a flag, much less fly one. I dont think its any different than displaying any other historic item. Many people collect and display german relics from WWII but that doesnt make them *****. The problems tend to occur when persons like I mentioned before brainwash people into thinking everybody is against them and flying that flag proves it.

 

You are wrong, my friend. The South's desire to seceed from the union is what the flag stands for. Look at the history books. Not all that many folks owned slaves in the South. Even the great Robert E Lee didn't own any, and, in fact, didn't believe in slavery. The flag is simply a part of our heritage- in the case of most people. Nothing more than a tribute to the bravery of the men who fought for their percieved right of seccession. I don't fly one on my truck or on my house because it is too widely misunderstood.

What is the message it represents? As Sinjin said early on in this thread: "often not the one received"

 

wlihntr, it seems more to me that there is a large fraction of America that is disenfranchised politicaly and economicaly. They have strong conservative values but the prosperity of the nation seems to have bypassed their section of the country. Though we have a conservative party at the wheel of government, it seems a lot of conservative folks still feel under-represented by government. The Confederate flag is a historical symbol that represents defiance and empowerment. I think now it's also being used as a symbol to identify one's demographic and unify with other's who share the same sense of identity.

I don't agree with the folks who use the Confederate flag to invoke misinformed emotions in other's, but I don't agree with those people who are offended by their emotions either. I will agree, the Confederate flag is part or our American heritage. Like it or not, you can't rewrite history and make it go away.

Heritage, not hate.

 

If the Confederate flag stood for slavery in the south, then why doesn't the American flag stand for slavery in the north? They owned slaves as well. When the northern economy grew out of an agricultural economy to a shipping/commercial economy the need for slaves lessened. Still, wealthy northern farmers still owned slaves long after it wasn't "cool" to do so in the north. The south's economy did not grow out of agricultural as quickly as the north's economy did. They still depended on agriculture. The rich, and ONLY the rich plantation owners owned slaves. The population of the south was primarily poor, subsistent agricultural farmers who struggled to make ends meet. These are the people that the Confederate flag represented during the time of the Civil War.

I gotta wonder about the education of the people who think that the Civil War was about slavery and only slavery. The reason the Civil War occurred was because they south decided to secede because of unfair taxing on land from the north. This taxing made it very difficult for the majority of the agriculture to survive. The south refused to pay the taxes and the northern army began blockading major southern ports such as Charleston and Savannah. This forced the south to secede and that started the Civil War.

Learning this in a "History of the South" class, I learned that the Confederate flag stood for the small farmer in the south who was overworked, overtaxed, and treated unfairly by the northerns who accused the southern people of doing something that they, themselves, did while they looked down on the south.

Face it, slavery was in practice under both flags. Don't blame me for telling you this, blame the Anglo "English Americans" and "French Americans" who settled this country.

 

Chiefman
Thank you for speaking the truth.

 

all the rebel flag means to me is southern pride. I have no objection to anyone who wants to fly or display it, as its a part of our history. the problems i have with flags are those who take our stars and stripes and drag it on the floor, burn it, or otherwise defile and deface it.
perhaps of those who want to race bait and create problems like that would focus on real flag problems, this country would be a better place

 

I'm sittin here north of the mason-dixon line and have something to say. I have nothing against people flying the confederate flag. They are not imposing their ideas on me.

The civil war was not about slavery. It was about keeping the Union together. The reason the south suceeded was that they wanted more states rights. They didn't like the power that the big gov't had. I can see their point. President Lincoln sent troops in to tell the south that they couldn't succeed, he wanted to keep the country together. When you look at the economic and population figures from that time the North should have just walked in and took over the south. They had more factories, men of fighting age, credit to borrow money from other countries. The thing that made the south so hard to turn 'em around was the fact that they believed in their cause. They had almost all of the military leaders from the Mexican War. These guys knew how and when and had experiance in fighting. They had PRIDE and BELIEVED in what they were fighting for. I belive that that is what the confederate flag stands for, bucking the system (for lack of a better phrase right now). The reason the slavery was brought into the mix was that it was as good a time as any to bring that up. It was getting hard to let new states in and keep the free/slave ballance. I am not saying that slavery had nothing to do with the civil war I am saying it had minimal influence.

Sorry bout high jacking the thread here. The purpose and cause of the civil war is fought about by the many historians beliefs. I have looked on my own and this is what I believe. I am not trying to force it on you.

On Edit: These are my words and ideas. My opinion. I respect those of others.

 

It doesn't stand for a darn thing.

It just looks cool.

 

I'm with you on that one.

Although I do find it funny that some people, of whatever side not picking on anyone in particular, tend to believe they are the keepers of the truth.

It must not be too difficult to be omniscient when your head is so big.


Whistler