This morning, South Carolina removed a symbol of divisiveness and white supremacy from its state house grounds. Congratulations to the people who approved of and voted for this. And congratulations to organizations like NASCAR and others who joined with the people of South Carolina in recognizing that the stars and bars represented an evil, murderous era in America's history.
Interesting information from Wall St. 24/7 on the states with the most hate groups.
Eight out of the ten cited are in the south.
Top ten states with the most hate groups:
10. Louisiana
9. Virginia
8. Kentucky
7. Alabama
6. South Carolina
5. Tennessee
4. New Jersey
3. Idaho
2. Arkansas
1. Mississippi (No. 1 state with the most hate groups).
"With a population of 3 million and 22 active hate groups, Mississippi has the highest concentration of hate groups in the country. Poorly educated populations are among the most likely to participate in hate groups.
Only 20.4% of adults in the state have a bachelor’s degree or higher, the second smallest share in the U.S. The Council Of Conservative Citizens, a white nationalist group, has chapters in four cities across the state, while the black separatist group Nation of Islam has chapters in three."
38 comments:
Now we should take down the American flag. It was used as a battle flag for union troops to slaughter thousands of Native Americans and make them slaves on reservations. Guess that won't happen because they are not a big enough group to determine an election.
Lest anyone forget, the WSJ is a right leaning publication.
It's a good day!
Ignorance and hate are constant companions.
Skud, you just don't get it.
The man who designed the Confederate flag SPECIFICALLY said it represents "...the Heaven ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race." Those are his EXACT words that describe what the stars and bars stand for: white supremacy and all the ugliness that it represents: repression, torture, murder.
The American flag had no such racist murderous ideas attached to it when it was designed. Like all countries on the planet, we've done very great things and very shameful things. However, our ideals are to do great things and reject the shameful ones.
The stars and bars was designed as a symbol of keeping human beings in bondage because white people believed the slaves were inferior.
You refuse to understand this perhaps because it will demolish your cherished ideas of what that flag REALLY means.
You choose to stay blind to the facts.
BTW, skud, these were southerners who made the decision to take down that flag from the So. Carolina state house grounds. And there are other southern states run by southern governors and legislators who are making the same decisions about the stars and bars.
Idaho is in the South? Must have been one heck of an earthquake..... :-)
Idaho is in the South? Must have been one heck of an earthquake..... :-)
Mishtake!
Skud, you just don't get it.
Seems that he never has and it is very unlikely he ever will.
Views from "the other perspective". This will continue for some time.
Good decision by South Carolina. We can only hope the rest of the south follows them.
A good day. And since the Republicans insisted on treating the slavery flag with honor and reverence even as they conceded the point by removing it, they're still tainted by the miasma that oozes from it.
And yes, Idaho is right up here in the northwest next door to my own state -- but it's so high on the list only because it's become known as a place for white supremacists to gather and form their compounds (presumably in order to dwell among their intellectual superiors, the potatoes).
"The Constitution was on the side of the South." --Rick
"Only the Southern states had large numbers of slaves. Counting them as part of the population would greatly increase the South’s political power, but it would also mean paying higher taxes. This was a price the Southern states were willing to pay. They argued in favor of counting slaves. Northern states disagreed. The delegates compromised. Each slave would count as three-fifths of a person.
Following this compromise, another controversy erupted: What should be done about the slave trade, the importing of new slaves into the United States? Ten states had already outlawed it. Many delegates heatedly denounced it. But the three states that allowed it — Georgia and the two Carolinas — threatened to leave the convention if the trade were banned. A special committee worked out another compromise: Congress would have the power to ban the slave trade, but not until 1800. The convention voted to extend the date to 1808.
A final major issue involving slavery confronted the delegates. Southern states wanted other states to return escaped slaves. The Articles of Confederation had not guaranteed this. But when Congress adopted the Northwest Ordinance, it a clause promising that slaves who escaped to the Northwest Territories would be returned to their owners. The delegates placed a similar fugitive slave clause in the Constitution. This was part of a deal with New England states. In exchange for the fugitive slave clause, the New England states got concessions on shipping and trade.
These compromises on slavery had serious effects on the nation. The fugitive slave clause (enforced through legislation passed in 1793 and 1850) allowed escaped slaves to be chased into the North and caught. It also resulted in the illegal kidnapping and return to slavery of thousands of free blacks. The three-fifths compromise increased the South’s representation in Congress and the Electoral College. In 12 of the first 16 presidential elections, a Southern slave owner won. Extending the slave trade past 1800 brought many slaves to America. South Carolina alone imported 40,000 slaves between 1803 and 1808 (when Congress overwhelmingly voted to end the trade). So many slaves entered that slavery spilled into the Louisiana territory and took root.
Northern states didn’t push too hard on slavery issues. Their main goal was to secure a new government. They feared antagonizing the South. Most of them saw slavery as a dying institution with no economic future. However, in five years the cotton gin would be invented, which made growing cotton on plantations immensely profitable, as well as slavery.
The Declaration of Independence expressed lofty ideals of equality. The framers of the Constitution, intent on making a new government, left important questions of equality and fairness to the future. It would be some time before the great republic that they founded would approach the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence."
SOURCE: The Constitution and Slavery
Your argument is weak, Rick. The stars and bars was specifically designed by a man who believed in white supremacy, and it wasn't until the Civil Rights era that it was used as a symbol of "segregation now; segregation forever." It represents repression, torture, and murder.
The American flag represented this country's highest ideals, ideals that this country did not always live up to but has always struggled to achieve: liberty and justice for all its citizens.
The stars and bars represents no such ideals.
Rick, the current American flag is the flag of the winners, any southern iteration of any of the flags of the confederacy, the flag of the losers.
Our country fought a war to determine which way to go, the south lost. Period.
The winners write the history and in the case of a civil war, determine the flag. Can you cite any example where a country experienced a civil war and allowed the defeated side to continue to proudly fly their flag over government installations?
Leave to the confederate flag worshippers to do something this sneaky and underhanded.
"Blame John Boehner for the House GOP’s Confederate flag fiasco
The Confederates launched a surprise attack, under cover of darkness.
It was 8:30 Wednesday night, and the House was plodding toward its 20th hour of debate on a little-watched appropriations bill, when Rep. Ken Calvert (Calif.), who had been leading the Republican side of the debate, rose. “I have an amendment at the desk,” he said.
Yes he did: A proposal to protect the sale and display of the Confederate battle flag at national parks and cemeteries."
Charlie Pierce @Esquire
"...there is no controversy that can't be made worse by getting the U.S. House of Representatives involved.
The move came after complaints from Southern conservatives, including Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.). "I strongly oppose the inclusion of this amendment, which was slipped into the bill in the dead of night with no debate," Palazzo said in a statement. "Congress cannot simply rewrite history and strip the Confederate flag from existence. Members of Congress from New York and California cannot wipe away 150 years of Southern history with sleight-of-hand tactics. I will fight to ensure that this language is not included in any bill signed into law."
Actually, what's being wiped away is 150 years of bad American history that was tailored to protect the tender feelings of treasonous losers. This helped give us 100 years of American apartheid and Jim Crow. I think we're better off without all of that."
Wiped away Shaw? Do you really believe it will wipe anything the hard core feel? That they won't pass it on to another generation?
I'm not so sure.
But there is no doubt the flag(s) in question should not fly anywhere over government buildings or on government grounds.
Rick: "Slavery wasn't made illegal by rewriting the Constitution, but by presidential decree..."
The Emancipation Proclamation did not free all slaves.
Slavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution:
"The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. In Congress, it was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865. The amendment was ratified by the required number of states on December 6, 1865. On December 18, 1865, Secretary of State William H. Seward proclaimed its adoption. It was the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments adopted following the American Civil War.
Slavery had been tacitly protected in the original Constitution through clauses such as the Three-Fifths Compromise, by which three-fifths of the slave population was counted for representation in the United States House of Representatives.
Though many slaves had been declared free by President Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, their post-war status was uncertain. On April 8, 1864, the Senate passed an amendment to abolish slavery. After one unsuccessful vote and extensive legislative maneuvering by the Lincoln administration, the House followed suit on January 31, 1865. The measure was swiftly ratified by nearly all Northern states, along with a sufficient number of border and "reconstructed" Southern states, to cause it to be adopted before the end of the year."
Rick, this is what I wrote regarding what I said was evil:
"Congratulations to the people who approved of and voted for this. And congratulations to organizations like NASCAR and others who joined with the people of South Carolina in recognizing that the stars and bars represented an evil, murderous era in America's history."
and I stand by it. IMO, the stars and bars represent an evil era in our history, since it was used by the KKK to intimidate African-Americans during the Jim Crow era, and as stated several times, its designer specifically created it as a symbol of white supremacy.
Slavery was constitutional, but evil. This is the crux of the matter. Our constitution legalized an evil. There is no defense for enslaving, torturing, and murdering people because the framers of the constitution were too weak and cowardly to fight the southern bloc that threatened to not join the union if slavery were mentioned in the constitution. They kicked that can down the road for 50 years.
Secession was legal until 1869, after the Civil War. IMO, breaking up the union in order to maintain slavery, an evil, was, legal or not, wrong.
RN: "Wiped away Shaw? Do you really believe it will wipe anything the hard core feel? That they won't pass it on to another generation?"
Well maybe not wiped away (Charlie Pierce's words, not mine), but what I've witnessed since the Charleston massacre is very encouraging. These are southerners making decisions to relegate the stars and bars to where it belongs, in a museum, not on government property. That and other initiatives southerners are taking re: the Confederacy give us all reason to hope.
So blast the American flag born of a slave nation as well as a confederate flag you despise for THE SAME THING. The fact that you don't see your position as hypocritical just shows your liberal delusion. Your position to make today's debate on the flag seem similar to the Civil War debate, is ridiculous.
Anonymous, you don't get it either. The American flag represented an ideal--liberty and equality. It didn't always live up to those ideals, but this country struggled to achieve them; and by abolishing slavery, for example, America showed itself that it could become a more perfect union, as is stated in the preamble to the constitution.
You and others refuse to see that the stars and bars was a flag that was created as a symbol of white supremacy. The American flag, though created during the era of human bondage in this country, was not specifically designed to celebrate slavery.
I'm not hypocritical at all. I can understand the difference between the two symbols. You can't.
You seem to be the one who's deluded.
Rick, tell me why my argument is weak. And maybe you could start with a few examples of what I asked for.
Who even argues the point... The winners do write the history.
I have no issue with private citizens flying the flag, but government should not fly a flag of secession.
Most conservatives jump out of their skin when Mexicans fly their flag here and yet, they would argue it is a source of pride in their homeland.
How is this different? Losers don't get to write the rules.
Shaw, you can't convince people who don't want t understand that the confederate flag also represented armed rebellion against the United States of America. The American flag didn't represent rebellion against itself. These people are angry and try any sort of argument to convince themselves. They lost the war but didn't that fact. Instead they've tried to rewrite history about states rights, which actually was code for keeping black people as second class citizens. It doesn't matter the political party at teh time, Democrats or Republicans. The facts are that the people who flew the stars and bars were comfortable with the idea of white supremacy and they never rid their states of the vermin of the murderous KKK. Lynching was a states right. Murders of black citizens went unpunished. How does anyone defend that awful legacy?
What I find particularly interesting is the actual truth that the Confederacy was doing nothing more than the 13 American colonies did in breaking away from the British government.
And the USA reacted precisely as did Britain.
Oh well. So much for consistency.
"And the USA reacted precisely as did Britain."
Well, not exactly precisely...we won, they lost!
That is irrelevant to my point Jerry. From a consistent philosophical viewpoint anyway.
Rick said...
"Dave, Japan kept their flag."
That has nothing to do with this discussion.
Yes, the issue of slavery was debated and the southern colonies held the rest of the colonies hostage with their demand of not addressing the subject of slavery.
If you want to believe that the American flag is a symbol of slavery, repression, torture, and murder to prove your point, go ahead.
But you forget that the flag also represented the northern states, and those states abolished slavery after the signing of the constitution.
"By 1789, four of the Northern states had adopted policies to at least gradually abolish slavery: Pennsylvania (1780), New Hampshire and Massachusetts (1783), Connecticut and Rhode Island (1784). By 1804 all the other Northern states had abolished slavery: New York (1799), New Jersey (1804).
The Declaration of Independence not only declared the colonies free of Britain, but it also helped to inspire Vermont to abolish slavery in its 1777 state constitution. By 1804, all Northern states had voted to abolish the institution of slavery within their borders."
"...even though many of them decried it, Southern colonists relied on slavery. The Southern colonies were among the richest in America. Their cash crops of tobacco, indigo, and rice depended on slave labor. They weren’t going to give it up.
The first U.S. national government began under the Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1781. This document said nothing about slavery. It left the power to regulate slavery, as well as most powers, to the individual states. After their experience with the British, the colonists distrusted a strong central government. The new national government consisted solely of a Congress in which each state had one vote.
With little power to execute its laws or collect taxes, the new government proved ineffective. In May 1787, 55 delegates from 12 states met in Philadelphia. (Rhode Island refused to send a delegation.) Their goal was to revise the Articles of Confederation.
Following this [3/5ths] compromise, another controversy erupted: What should be done about the slave trade, the importing of new slaves into the United States? Ten states had already outlawed it. Many delegates heatedly denounced it. But the three states that allowed it — Georgia and the two Carolinas — threatened to leave the convention if the trade were banned. A special committee worked out another compromise: Congress would have the power to ban the slave trade, but not until 1800. The convention voted to extend the date to 1808."
"But you forget that the flag also represented the northern states, and those states abolished slavery after the signing of the constitution."
Correction: Some states abolished slavery BEFORE the union adopted its constitution.
My, how focused we are on the past! Interesting actually as we debate the same issues {essentially} of history over and over again. And, continue to allow bias to affect thinking.
Rick: "Amazing you defend the unanimous decision to keep and protect slavery by the founding fathers."
Wrong. Nowhere in my comments do I defend keeping slavery.
Rick: "...slavery did not end until the Civil War."
I just pointed out that northern states ended slavery BEFORE the Civil War.
I don't need to protect this nation's flag. I choose to see how this country eventually comes to its senses where civil rights and justice is concerned. You don't see that as a good thing. I'm sorry that you hold that sort of animus toward your country. I guess I'm more realistic where countries and how they treat their citizens is concerned. I can't think of a country on this planet that is perfect because humans are imperfect.
"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it eventually bends toward justice."
We just witnessed this a few weeks ago with the SCOTUS ruling on marriage equality.
Thanks for the discussion.
Its kind of comical how the Baggers try to legitimize a clown candidate like Donald Trump. I guess their failure to understand their bottomless stupidity in supporting a horse's ass like Trump accounts for the anger they show when they open their pie holes and try to defend the clown.
Rick's comments have been scrubbed. He turned out to be a sniveling little tattle-tale troll, with the mental acuity of a gum wrapper.
(Rick is one of those multiple personalities that infects the TGOP blogs. He's also posted on them as "Gary S's Blog. Which is it? Is he a Gary or a Rick? Or just an ordinary dick.)
Sorry I wasted your time and mine on him.
You see Rick, you were welcome here, even with another point of view... and then because people did not agree with you, you went elsewhere and not just registered disagreement, you called people names. Is that adult? Mature?
The larger question is how people, who disagree, can live respectfully around each other.
That is not a value many, as evidenced by name calling, posting pornographic images, slander and stealing identities so as to post under assumed names, consider important. And yet we hear all the time from this crowd that character counts.
Thanks for showing your character.
Good bye and good luck.
Not surprised, Shaw. Rick is an escapee from the blog that features pornographers and racists as "friends." Garbage attracts garbage.
So Ricky Gary went running around to the Bagger blogs advertising his inability to express himself intelligently? Fakers like Ricky Gary who steal IDs and pretend to be more than one commenter are perfect examples of the rampant dishonesty infecting that group. They can't win arguments, so they lie cheat and whine like 3-year old diaper wearers. Ricky Gary go stuff a binkie where the sun don't shine.
Now the WATBs are blaming Obama for the removal of the Confederate flag. He had nothing to do with it at all. The governor and legislators of South Carolina made that decision and other southern states are making similar decisions. Obama had no authority to remove anything from the state capitol grounds. But that doesn't stop the Whiney Ass Titty Babies from blaming the president. When they lose a political battle all they can do is mewl and act like toddlers who can't get their way. The end of an era of respecting a lousy flag came about because southerners made those decisions, not Obama.
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