The flag of the Confederacy was sewn by and belongs to Democrats. So, don’t advertise them by flying it. When you do, you become part of the reason why the Democrats win.
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23 replies on “It’s a Trap: This Flag Belongs to Democrats, So Don’t Advertise for Them by Flying It”
I live in the south and know many people that had ancestors that fought for the Confederate Army. It’s in their DNA.
If you don’t like the flag—don’t look at it! If your a snowflake–Grow up! The Battle Flag is part of our history. Fine young men and officers fought for that flag. Right or wrong, they served honorably.
Bill, please check your history but I’m fairly certain that Robert E. Lee was not a slave owner and never was. He felt his loyalty belonged to Virginia.
I’ve gotta give credit when people I respect share my opinion; I’ve said for years that those statues are their albatrosses and they should continue to wear them. Some of those Confederate generals were indeed Great Men – Great Men serving an evil cause, just as Rommel was a great general serving Nazi imperialism.
Very thought provoking, fellas! Zo really got me to thinking on a number of fronts.
And I just now noticed a disturbing similarity between the red lite background behind Bill, along with the blue version behind Zo, to the recent lighting behind Biden at Independence Hall. Clearly not the same intention at all, as you are also showing the V for Virtue bat-signal behind you, too.
Might want to consider some alternative version? Or perhaps no matter what you do, there will be “someone” able and willing to “complain”. 🙂
It’s not Biden we need to fear. He’s the “Weekend at Bernie’s” president.
It’s those who are handling him. Those who are propping him up as a puppet for them. It’s Wormtounge.
It’s The Swamp.
In the words of Foghorn Leghorn, “Wait a minute, now. I say, I say, I say.” I grew up in Atlanta, the home of “Gone with the Wind” and the home of the ‘states rights’ excuse for slavery. The South, because of slavery, was responsible for 60% of the entire US economy. It was the primary resource for much of the raw material used in the textile industry in England (which is why England, the “home of the anti-slavery debate”, almost came into the Civil War on the side of the South.). England subsidized it.
Nearly the entire world at the time thought nothing about whether slavery was immoral. It was a fact of life throughout the world, despite the moral idiocy required to justify it. And the federal government did go against state’s rights to abolish it.
So, there were huge economic consequences for the South, it was a real state’s rights problem, and the South agreed with the rest of the “wrong-headed” world that slavery was OK. We are hard-wired for tribalism, and the noble southerner fighting for his way of life was a real thing, no matter how stupid. Wars have been fought for more stupid reasons (see WW1).
Growing up where I did, the Confederate battle flag was a source of tribal pride, mainly because we were so far past the Civil War and we no longer debated whether slavery was an abomination. We just didn’t like Yankees. Northerners driving through Atlanta would stop at souvenir stands and buy Confederate periphernalia, because the war was way in the past.
Sure, the KKK flew the flag, and they were very few and very dumb. They were the tribe with the stupid guys we all laughed at, mocked, and ridiculed.
Again, we are a tribal community. TV like “Starsky and Hutch” and other shows that used the flag were not doing it to enslave or leave the Union.
We are being played politically, and that’s all this debate entails. (And reading David Stanton’s replies, I think that we may have been on different tribes as kids.)
Pretty much what I’ve been saying re: slavery. The left talks like slavery was invented by the American Founders and enshrined in the Constitution, whereas nothing could be further from the truth.
They were born into slave-owning, and they STILL wrote these words, which directly threatened their livlihoods if carried out.
It’s easy for us, we who have never owned slaves or known anybody who either owned a slave or was a slave — our livlihoods do not depend on a pre-existing economic model which employed it heavily (especially if you were a plantation owner). They were the actual “woke” people. They woke up to the terrible fact of slavery when they were the owners.
Today’s “woke” people think they came up with the idea and are inherently superior, when it was taught to them like it was taught to me. That slavery and racism are wrong.
And don’t get me wrong, I’m fine with leaving the Confederate battle flag off of the pole outside the capitals and everywhere. My point was only that we are being played, the flag is just a means to an end for the Left, a way of dividing us further. We are tribal, it was a way of defining Southerners as having more of a Scotch/Irish honor code type of mentality, and now it is just a stupid thing to keep defending, so good riddance, flag, you’re more trouble than you are worth. Too much baggage.
Zo, it’s pretty unreasonable to hold President Trump responsible for failing to drain the sewer of its lawlessness when the tools he had to work with were the same lawless sewer rats he was trying to eject.
I agree completely about the Confederate (menstrual) rag. It’s FAR worse than the Swastika, because “to whom much is given, much is required.” Nobody ever accused Germany of a freedom loving heritage.
One blithering idiot I argued about Lincoln with blamed him for the huge government bureaucracy. I told him that blaming Lincoln for the Washington, DC, sewer, is almost as stupid as blaming Jesus for the Inquisitions.
Yes, leave the statues up, but taxpayers should not be forced to pay for their upkeep. If retained by governmental entities, their should be large signs at their base saying, “Traitor against America who chose dirt over decency.”
Whereas I agree that the Civil War was fought over the issue of slavery, not all of those in the South were Democrats or for slavery. One of my great-grandfathers (my mother’s mother’s father) was a Southern Colonel at Gettysburg, and indeed was on one of the climactic points of that battle. It was rather a miracle that he survived. After the war he became a pastor, though he had been a lawyer before it. I do not fly the stars and bars, nor will I, but I don’t want Southerners to be “tarred with the same brush” the way the Democrats are currently trying to do to conservatives.
One of your best discussions. I wish every Republican politician would watch this
Disagree with you – Confederate flag is not a flag of “enemies” that is the whole point. These are all American ancestors.
Agree slavery is criminal and that it was a big part of what was happening in the country. Majority of those who fought did not have slaves or care about slavery.
Do you believe and support everything that is stated by politicians? Do you believe that everyone at that time who fought in that war did? Then how can you bring up the words of a politician of that time (Declaration of Secession) and oversimplify why people fought at that time?
Removing flags, images, or monuments from history doesn’t remove the history it only hides it.
We can hate what was done in the name of slavery and understand the issues were not just about that. We still have industrial vs agricultural state conflicts (e.g. New York vs “fly-over country”).
If the only “State’s rights” vs Federal control was about slavery – I agree with your argument that that would be a non-issue and about humanity but there was much more:
https://www.marottaonmoney.com/protective-tariffs-the-primary-cause-of-the-civil-war/
As early as the Revolutionary War, the South primarily produced cotton, rice, sugar, indigo and tobacco. The North purchased these raw materials and turned them into manufactured goods. By 1828, foreign manufactured goods faced high import taxes. Foreign raw materials, however, were free of tariffs.
Thus the domestic manufacturing industries of the North benefited twice, once as the producers enjoying the protection of high manufacturing tariffs and once as consumers with a free raw materials market. The raw materials industries of the South were left to struggle against foreign competition.
Because manufactured goods were not produced in the South, they had to either be imported or shipped down from the North. Either way, a large expense, be it shipping fees or the federal tariff, was added to the price of manufactured goods only for Southerners. Because importation was often cheaper than shipping from the North, the South paid most of the federal tariffs.
Much of the tariff revenue collected from Southern consumers was used to build railroads and canals in the North. Between 1830 and 1850, 30,000 miles of track was laid. At its best, these tracks benefited the North. Much of it had no economic effect at all. Many of the schemes to lay track were simply a way to get government subsidies. Fraud and corruption were rampant.
With most of the tariff revenue collected in the South and then spent in the North, the South rightly felt exploited. At the time, *90% of the federal government’s annual revenue came from these taxes on imports.*
…
The South Carolina Exposition and Protest written by Vice President John Calhoun warned that if the tariff of 1828 was not repealed, South Carolina would secede. It cited Jefferson and Madison for the precedent that a state had the right to reject or nullify federal law.
In an 1832 state legislature campaign speech, Lincoln defined his position, saying, “My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman’s dance. I am in favor of a national bank . . . in favor of the internal improvements system and a high protective tariff.” He was firmly against free trade and in favor of using the power of the federal government to benefit specific industries like Lincoln’s favorite, Pennsylvania steel.
The country experienced a period of lower tariffs and vibrant economic growth from 1846 to 1857. Then a bank failure caused the Panic of 1857. Congress used this situation to begin discussing a new tariff act, later called the Morrill Tariff of 1861. However, those debates were met with such Southern hostility that the South seceded before the act was passed.
———–
Even if slavery had been abolished – there was an imbalance in the treatment of the states by the Federal government that was still at issue.
Child labor, “labor brokers”, and indentured servitude were part of the labor force in the North as part of its industrialization, but these are largely ignored because of the obvious inhumanity of slavery in making humans property. This is not whataboutism – it is pointing out that the North was not “good” and the South “bad” and the Confederate flag is not a symbol of slavery. It is just not that “black and white.”
Some references:
http://www.americancowboychronicles.com/2017/09/the-civil-war-did-north-use-slave-labor.html
https://uncpressblog.com/2020/03/23/brian-p-luskey-the-civil-wars-free-labor-crisis/
The Confede-RAT rag is a flag of TRAITORS to America, who chose to place their loyalty to dirt ahead of decency. The DECENT southerners came north to fight for the Union. In the same way, when Jeroboam set up his golden calves in Israel, those faithful to God migrated down to Judah, and the God-haters in Judah migrated north to Israel where they could indulge their lusts freely. Words mean things. When you sign up to fight for evil, that makes you evil.
Hi Shelly. What you’re relating is the history of the Civil War as it is taught in the South. Everything you said about the conditions and circumstances is true but the conclusions are a bit on the iffy side. That people are being taught this sort of thing is proof that the victors do not always write the history books.
For example — In the matter of tariffs vs. shipping costs those were the real situation as it existed before the Civil War. However, one does not go to war due to shipping costs. Shipping costs are shipping costs, the same for someone in say Nebraska or the Oklahoma territories as they would be for someone in Georgia or Virginia. In fact, shipping to the nearer states south of the Mason-Dixon line would actually be less than shipping to the western states and territories. If there were expenses above and beyond rail shipment those expenses were incurred due to risk, not bias.
Too, no industrial Northern manufacturer is in any way constrained to sell any of his output to the South at a cheaper rate just because they’re The South. It’s a market economy and he’s competing in that market for top dollar. Southerners couldn’t afford that top dollar but that’s no fault of the industrialist. The reasons they couldn’t afford such things are another matter entirely.
The South was caught on the horns of an economic dilemma. Slaves are expensive to own and represent considerable “sunk cost”. Mechanization was on the horizon and probably would have replaced human slave labor in the next few decades. Machines are much, much cheaper than slaves and represent a better bottom line. You can’t park a slave in a shed and forget about him until the next planting, or harvest, or whatever but that is exactly what’s done with machines. Machines do not eat and get sick except when they’re in use and the ownership, operating and maintenance costs of machines are far below those of humans, idle humans or not. The problem was that the machines were not yet very good and as you say, they were bulky and expensive to ship. This situation was in flux.
At the same time, the South was facing an economic crisis because slaves are expensive to own and King Cotton was competing with places like Egypt where cotton was also a primary export but handled by wage employees instead of slaves. This meant that Egyptian cotton growers only had to pay for the actual work they needed done and not house and feed slaves who were working or not. There was plenty of cheap labor starving in the vicinity at the time. Those people were left to their own devices when they were not being employed by cotton growers and thus represented no financial liability when not actually being put to use.
Combined with a newly acquired freedom of the seas and expanding shipping available due to that freedom meant Egypt and other places could compete with the cotton prices in the Southern US. The only reason the Southern cotton growers were able to compete is that they grew so much cotton (and tobacco) that they were able to serve markets underserved or not at all served by those other geographic locations. In this situation the North was actually a plus for the Southern cotton growers because there was huge demand for cotton and that cotton was shipped by comparatively inexpensive rail rather than seagoing vessels that took months instead of days or week to make delivery.
The North bought Southern cotton at market prices and the shipping costs per ton were the same in both directions. Railroad and other shippers do not slash prices due to the direction being shipped. They can’t. It costs just as much to pull a railroad car north as it does to pull it south.
This surplus also drove down cotton prices in a never ending spiral that only got worse as time went on. The days of King Cotton in the traditional, historic sense were numbered and this was a real problem for the South.
So the South thought, not altogether wrongly, that keeping slave labor was their only economic option to sustain viability. In the short term they were right, in the long term they couldn’t have been more wrong. Still, people do not tend to think in the long term years or decades ahead, they tend to worry about how they’re going to plant, grow, pick and get their cotton to market this year or maybe this year and next year. That’s about as far out as even a modern farmer generally makes plans.
All of this said, at the root of the economic problem sat slavery like a big, fat political target. So while the particulars were as you say, the root of the problem was still slavery and it was going to stay that way until slavery was abolished.
Most of this is probably not something that is included in modern Southern high school curricula. No one today wants to feel like they’re evil slavers and for political reasons slavery and slave holding has been portrayed in a much more brutal light than was the actual case at the time.
Most slave holders didn’t brutally abuse their slaves any more than they would brutally abuse their horses, cattle or oxen. Doing that would be expensive as hell. A balky mule would get a slap, thump or switch and the same goes for a balky slave. Slaves were chattel property of exactly the same sort as livestock and were treated under the same sort of conditions. You don’t keep beating a mule once he starts moving and there’s no reason in the context of the time to do that to mule or slave.
A slave owner used a full blown whip sparingly and only as much as was necessary to get the work done. I have a bullwhip and I know how to use it. It inflicts a very grievous injury at the site it is applied to. It’s not just being hit with a flexible object, the tip or “fall” breaks the sound barrier. That’s the loud “CRACK!” that a whip makes and if done skillfully sounds like a gunshot. A fall weight of several ounces travelling at the end of what amounts to a lever between 6 and 12 feet long plus the energy imparted from the body of the human it’s attached to, moving at transonic speeds concentrated in a small area of impact does nasty things to living flesh. It leaves a ragged gash several inches long and fairly deep. The pain is immediate and severe, it’s not like getting shot or cut by a sharp knife. That fall has been dragged through whatever is in the vicinity, manure, mud, etc. That deep, traumatic penetrating wound is virtually pressure treated with filth and a nasty infection will inevitably follow. This was in the days before any sort of effective antibiotics.
So it’s not just a nasty hit, it’s something you only do as a last resort because laying that whip across human hide is going to be expensive and potentially fatal. It’s a sure recipe for financial loss.
Yes, there were brutal monsters that delighted in inflicting agony. Those same people beat their horses and cattle too. They are rarer than not because doing that is a very costly practice. I grew up on a farm and I used to work for a company that was involved in cattle breeding/buying. I always knew when I entered a barn or stall if the animal(s) contained therein had been abused or not. The abused ones make it all too clear what their life has been like. They try to flee, they’re skittish, wary, erratic, dangerous, aggressive and intractable. This makes them an even greater target for the rage of some monster who likes to hurt things. It’s a feedback loop of the worst sort.
That kind of thing was not the average life of a real slave. It could become that if they disobeyed or ran but not if they obeyed and did their work. Even then, excluding the monsters, what punishment was doled out was generally with more than a little regret. I’m not saying this is good. I’m saying that not everyone who dealt with slaves was a red-eyed fiend willing to cut up valuable property for the least infraction. If you were the ‘slave boss’ working for a plantation owner and you did things like that you wouldn’t have your position for very long and just might find yourself picking cotton to make up for the slave you put out of commission.
I’m not trying to soft pedal slavery but it wasn’t universally the sort of hell on earth that it’s often portrayed to be. The hell was not being free to determine your own destiny, to enjoy the full fruits of your own labors and to say what you thought and go where you wanted to … and much less often one of real, searing, constant physical pain. You were going to work or starve free or slave, slaves didn’t have it good but they had guaranteed roof and food if they worked. It wasn’t good food nor a great roof and after the war many former slaves found themselves worse off physically than they were as slaves. I would argue that aside from the compulsion factor many slaves lived better lives than a lot of today’s ghetto dwellers do. They lived in rural environments with fresh air, food and shelter. Even as slaves they had a degree of dignity that a modern gangbanging Crip, Blood or junky wastrel doesn’t enjoy. A slave might say “You can beat me but you can’t break me” where a junkie would say “F that, break me. I don’t care as long as I get another bag of dope.”
Though the spectre of that truly hellish sort of life was always there too. Like I said, I’m not making excuses or trying to sound like slavery was a good thing at all. I’m just keeping things realistic because these are the facts as they existed before the revisionists switched them all around and scrambled them.
OK, now all of that said, the nascent United States of America had a serious dilemma confronting it. The nation was only a little over 80 years old and facing a cataclysmic existential crisis. The crux of that crisis was choosing slavery or abolition. Everything else radiated out from that festering boil and threatened the life of our young Republic. The two sides, each for reasons it felt sound, were intractable. All the other factors were secondary, tertiary or even less important. If tariffs and shipping costs were the major mover then that’s what Abraham Lincoln would have seized upon instead of slavery. He knew slavery was the issue of the day, he swore to abolish it, and that’s what swept him into office. Lincoln didn’t campaign on matters of tariffs and transport costs. He didn’t crusade for the South to enjoy better economic prosperity or the lessening of tariffs and transportation fees. If there had been a way to abolish slavery by that route he would probably have taken it and gladly so.
However, Lincoln didn’t use the excuse of slavery for his actions, he used the existence of slavery and that may be a fine distinction but even so not at all the same thing. The South and its slavery gave Lincoln and the abolitionists all the reasons they needed, they didn’t require any excuses.
The “States Rights” argument made in southern schools is a deflection fallacy. It would be no more legitimate than if the Soviet Socialist Repooblik of Kalifornia started executing white people because they’re white people. Kalifornia could claim it has a right to execute who it wants to but that wouldn’t mean the right actually exists. No matter how many other factors you bring into the argument be they tariffs, transportation fees or something else, the issue is still going to be at the root that people are being abused for no sound moral supportable reason.
The same goes for slavery. You want to be very careful not to elevate things like tariffs and shipping to the same level because they’re not at that level at all. That just pulls the moral issue of slavery down to the same level as tariffs and shipping.
I know you’re a good person. You’re no more responsible for the evil done in the name of slavery than a modern German is for the holocaust. You’re not culpable in this. No more than I am and my family never, ever had anything to do with slavery in America. (Though they were Vikings so … Yeah. They took slaves from amongst the British dogs. And each other.) That’s good enough. There’s no basis to bother trying to deny that slavery or holocaust were attacked for some reason other than that they are monstrous. There may be other lesser reasons too, but that’s THE reason.
The Civil War was over slavery. LIke it or not, agree with it or not, that’s a fact. Abraham Lincoln caused it to be a fact when he used it to launch himself into The White House. Slavery is the issue people voted on that put him there. Not “States Rights” or any lesser cause. Southern states began seceding between the election and when Lincoln was sworn into office. Before Abe hand any actual political power. That means beyond a doubt that they knew it was going to be all about slavery too. They didn’t fear tariffs and shipping fees, they feared manumission leaving them without labor to drive their businesses.
There’s just no way around that and you shouldn’t try. You can’t say it was because of this or that and not because of slavery. If you don’t know that, your education has failed you.
Meh, the flag thing is a tad weak. I’m not from the South but I live there now. That was the Confederacy’s Battle Flag and yes, it was created by the Southern Democrats who broke the U.S. in half with a civil war to support slavery. Every word of that is true. But …
That’s not how the people who fly it today see it. That was the original iconography but it has morphed into something else. It is not surprising nor uncommon for images to be seized from and used against the original owners. That’s what Biden is trying to do, and failing badly, with “Ultra-MAGA”. But that doesn’t always mean that such things are doomed to fail as bad as Biden and Co. are failing.
That flag is to the South what the Gadsden Flag is to many people. Yeah, OK they’re wrong but I’m not going to tell some Southern redneck in a monster 4×4 and a full gun rack hung on the rear window that he ought not fly it on his pickup truck or anywhere else. I understand his purpose and meaning even if he’s not ideologically 100% correct in doing so.
I look at this as being his own, personal business and none of mine. I have a neighbor who has one tacked up in his garage, high on the back wall. I asked him why he put that there and he said “It’s a message”. I said, “Ok, just what is the message?” He said “The Message is F~CK YOU, YANKEE!”
So, Ok … There’s no way I’m letting that go and I said “Oh, me personally? Are you sure you want to go there?”
He had forgotten that I was what these people consider a “Yankee”. (In truth a “Yankee” is someone from New England and I’m not from New England. I’m from Minnesota.) He backed up a step and thought about it and he said …
“No, not you personally. I know you and am proud to call you a friend. What I meant by that applies to people who come here, to my ancestral home, and try to tell us that we have to do things the way they want us to. Instead of the way we know we should do things. You don’t do that, you don’t have to do that, you already do the things we should do. We are on the same side. That message is for people who are not on our side.”
So, yeah, I can live with that. I’m not going to go around telling people to strike their flags anymore than I’m going to go around condoning people tearing down statues, no matter which side those statues commemorate.
Because the way I see it, Zo making an issue of this is about the same thing as saying that those Confederate Officer’s huge, beautiful statues on Monument Avenue in Richmond have to come down. One man’s statue is another man’s flag and vice-versa.
Of all the things I wanted to be sure not to miss when I was first in Richmond, Monument Avenue was the very top of my list.
I’m not Southern born and those men commemorated in metal and stone are not my heroes. Those men were every single one Southern Democrats fighting to support the slavery of human beings. They were enemies of the United States. They were and their statues symbolize everything that Bill and Zo object to in the Confederate Battle Flag. It was their flag and trying to make out like there’s some crucial difference between those beautiful historical monuments and the flag those men fought under is just lame sophistry. If it’s not OK to tear those monuments down it’s not OK to take a leak on their flag either.
Let them have their history and their heritage. That is what has them voting Republican so there’s some net gain to it. These folks feel like the Yankees are trying to take them over and subsume them … again. It’s OK with me if they fight back in whatever lawful, peaceful way they’re comfortable with. I don’t feel like I need to make an issue of this Battle Flag thing and I would advise anyone else who is not a born Southerner to keep his nose out of it too.
Because Southerners are not going to see this the way you do if you’re not one of them. To them it’s part and parcel with tearing down those monuments, talking about them like all Southerners are stupid, making fun of their accents, and generally taking a big smelly dump on their very fine and noble way of life.
They’re very good people, far better people than exist in many places in the U.S. There’s a reason I chose to spend the last part of my life here in the South and it wasn’t the heat and humidity. There are a lot of things these folks get right and we should concentrate on those, not the ones that are going to piss them off and alienate them.
This issue is political fratricide. Let it be and move on to something that has some real meat on the bones.
There are a lot of lots bigger fish that need frying than this little guppy.
All of that said … If you ain’t a Southern Boy and you are flying the Stars ‘n Bars, you are an idiot. So stop being an idiot. Southerners are friendly and cordial so they won’t let on like they see what an idiot you are. They’re not stupid so they won’t miss the fact that you’re an idiot either.
The Confede-RAT rag is an emblem of despicable traitors who made Benedict Arnold look like a patriot. Arnold only turned coat for money and bruised ego. The Confederate traitors fought to preserve a despicable institution. They chose dirt over decency. The DECENT southerners came north to fight for the Union. In the same way, when Jeroboam set up his golden calves in Israel, those faithful to God migrated down to Judah, and the God-haters in Judah migrated north to Israel where they could indulge their lusts freely. Words mean things. When you sign up to fight for evil, that makes you evil. The Confederate (menstrual) rag is FAR worse than the Swastika, because “to whom much is given, much is required.” Nobody ever accused Germany of a freedom loving heritage.
You have a point in that there is Biblical guidance for this sort of thing. There is Biblical text that directly applies to this conversation. Your analogies are weak due to differing context as I will explain below but there is real, actual Biblical admonition for this situation presented in the very Words of Jesus Christ Himself.
Matthew 7:3-5 New King James Version:“3 And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
If you’re going to go all Biblical then practice what the Bible says instead of using it as an excuse for vituperation.
You called every ancestor of every Southerner who did not come North to fight for the Union “evil” and named every single one of them “indecent”. That oversimplified blanket statement does not include anyone who for any reason could not abandon his responsibilities and go North to sign up. Even ignoring those cases, you’re over the top with that sort of thing.
Because any way you look at it …
You are trying to apply modern context and hindsight to people who lived long ago under different conditions. This is the same thing as condemning and trying to scrub from history books names like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington because they owned slaves. Your definition makes them evil TOO. This is exactly what our enemies do and the other side of the same coin as people who hold a grudge against white people for the enslavement of black people 180 years ago.
I’m not willing to go there and even if I was, I know the Bible well enough not to try to use it as an excuse to do so. You’re entitled to your opinion and I’m not trying to make an enemy out of you but … You’re not entitled to hold your opinion as being Devinly Justified. That is a definition of attributing to God that which is not God and another way to say that is “Taking the Lord’s Name in vain.”
I’m not saying that in modern context slavery and those who support slavery are anything but evil. The people you condemn did not live in modern context and the flag in question does not represent modern military belligerent units in rebellion as it is applied today. If you’re going to apply context then you must apply all of it, not just the bits you favor for your own reasons.
Look to the mote in your own eye. There’s a reason why Jesus called for that kind of close focus. We all miss the mark when it comes to sinlessness and following The Law. That includes you as well as me and everyone else who ever lived except one. I can say that with complete safety and certainty because there has only ever been one human being who accomplished that feat. He had to leave His Throne in Heaven to do that for us.
I’m certain you are not Him and do not speak new directives for Him but are even so compelled to try to fulfill His meaning of His Own Words. That’s not easy and what is tempting is wrath disguised as wisdom. Sometimes wrath is appropriate but not when it contradicts the passage I cited above. Those are the very words of God spoken by God Himself and they are unequivocal. Some of us are just more aware that’s the case than others. Usually because like me we had to learn such lessons the hard way.
Now, you can get angry and fire off a wrathful reply or you can take what I’m saying in the edifying spirit which is my intention. I don’t really care all that much, you addressed me and I did my duty. I said what I have to say to you and will not respond to you further on this thread.
Oh, my! Another bleeding heart who rips “do not judge” out of context! LOL And you also have a habit of not reading my comments. I said NOTHING about Confederate descendants. READ MY COMMENT. Those who took up arms for the traitors were evil. Those who stood for decency went north. After the war, most of them went back home. However, regardless of whether today’s southerners had ancestors who fought for the sewer rat secessionists or had ancestors who fought for decency but moved back home after the war, today’s southerners are not responsible for anything their ancestors did. Again, PLEASE learn to READ my posts before you “respond” to things never said.
Your historical ignorance is also breathtaking. Washington & Jefferson didn’t take up arms to defend slavery. Demonrats did. There is NO equivalence to our founders and the Confede-RATS.
Yeah, I didn’t read that past the part where you called me a bleeding heart. I withdraw what I said about not further conversing with you on this topic because …
Bleeding heart? Really? That’s absurd.
There’s no point in reading any further, that said it all. Or all I needed to know about you anyway.
It’s absurd because If you knew me you’d know that if I’m not the biggest hardass you’ve ever known I’m right up there in the top half dozen at the very least. I find it hilarious that a Naval Officer, any Naval Officer, thinks I’m a “bleeding heart”. I could count the number of Naval Officers who I have unqualified respect for as men on both hands and here’s a newsflash for you Skippy, you are not one of them. Though I do have a specific finger in mind when it comes to your kind.
My son is a Naval Officer that outranks you in your little cute avatar picture. He’s a Naval Aviator and has been under enemy fire. Has flown in Iraqi airspace. Texted me a screenshot of his phone connecting to Iraqi cellular service. So he’s not exactly what most people would consider to be a wimp. On his worst day at his most angry with me it would never occur to him to call me a “bleeding heart”. That you would do so simply betrays your abysmal ignorance. Willful ignorance because clearly you have zero desire to remedy it.
So if you’re going to say really dumb things then I reserve the right to laugh at you. And I will. Because I am doing that right now.
Maybe you might consider being a little less combative with people here. Or not. I don’t really care. Either way, if you make a total fool out of yourself and say stupid things then people won’t respect what you have to say and … Calling me a “bleeding heart” was about as stupid as they come.
I’m sorry for one thing though. If I knew you were such a dumbass I would never have addressed you as a serious person and have learned from that mistake. I won’t make it again. I’ve known plenty of dumbasses wearing officer insignia. Now I know all I need to about you and that means I can add one more to the list.
LOL Thank you Captain Ad Hominem, travel agent to Bizarre-o World! LOL. You latch onto a single word and then launch into some pathetic diatribe against phantom concepts not even discussed in the comment you’re “replying” to. While I confess to violating Prov 26:4, your persistent devotion to senselessness is perversely amusing. However, life is too short to waste time on people like you. Therefore, your “replies” to my comments will only yield the “LOL’s” you’ve earned. (Bye.)
123456
Fascinating conversation guys! The Comparison of Pedo Hitler’s speech to Adolf’s cathedral of lights is the easy one to perceive. The more complex comparison is the one Zo brought up and the one that conservatives need to beating like a drum! History and facts are inconvenient and irrelevant to democrats. History is whatever they say it is on any given day, depending on what they are trying to accomplish. The reason that the facts and history that Zo brought up don’t stick to the democrats is that their Teflon is the all to willing cooperate media.
How do you change the hearts and minds of people who are willing to make up anything, call it truth, and are backed at every turn? The democrats, cooperate media, cooperate America, big tech, permanent Washington, etc., their shared ends are justified by any means because they are Godless, and lacking in any moral compass. Doesn’t this come back to a battle against evil and exposing evil that is standing in plain sight, unafraid?