Gettysburg Park and Museum Asked to Remove all Purchasable Items From Stores, And They Actually Migh
70 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Duck M.;48054263]But they have the right to do it, just like people have the right to fly the confederate flag from their homes-as much as either of us disagree with either of these actions.[/QUOTE]
And we, as their consumers, have the right to call them out for being dumbasses and falling for knee-jerk overreactions. If they are going to be stupid, we have the right to call them out for being stupid.
[QUOTE=Duck M.;48054263]But they have the right to do it, just like people have the right to fly the confederate flag from their homes-as much as either of us disagree with either of these actions.
In my opinion, people's objections to others flying the confederate flag isn't "stripping history". I could go open up an AP USH textbook right now and read about the confederacy and the civil war, and in five years, I will also be able to read about the confederacy and the civil war, regardless of what sort of acts of racism or terrorism are committed that are lightly, directly, or tangentially related to the confederacy or their flag. The history of the civil war will not be erased because of reactionary activism.[/QUOTE]
Oh no i agree that it will never be erased but it will become a social pariah/taboo which is almost as bad, pretending it didn't happen. The history will still always be there for others to read and learn about but even as it is now it seems a large portion of folks in the US don't really know the whole history of the civil war and just like condensed bullet points. Personally i know many who think it was a war fought purely over just slavery and also think that the entire goal of the war was just to free slaves.
[QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;48054298]And we, as their consumers, have the right to call them out for being dumbasses and falling for knee-jerk overreactions. If they are going to be stupid, we have the right to call them out for being stupid.[/QUOTE]
I didn't dispute that right, I merely disagreed with your "call out" and the sentiment behind it.
[QUOTE=Viva;48054303]Oh no i agree that it will never be erased but it will become a social pariah/taboo which is almost as bad, pretending it didn't happen. The history will still always be there for others to read and learn about but even as it is now it seems a large portion of folks in the US don't really know the whole history of the civil war and just like condensed bullet points. Personally i know many who think it was a war fought purely over just slavery and also think that the entire goal of the war was just to free slaves.[/QUOTE]
I feel like that falls to a failure of the education system, personally.
To address your other point, I don't think anyone is trying to pretend that it didn't happen-quite the opposite, really. People recognize that it did happen and thus disagree with the sentiment of the flag.
[QUOTE=.Isak.;48053925]I too, agree that people who have social and political disagreements with me should be denied a job and a livelihood by the entirety of society and forced to spend their life in crippling poverty. After all, they do stupid things![/QUOTE]
More meant the ones that give those modern racist backgrounds to symbols like the confederate flag. You know, the actually dumb stuff that's genuinely malicious to society and perpetuates hatred, bigotry, and violence towards the people.
Not that anyone with half a brain would take your emptyheaded disingenuous attempt at diverting attention form the actual purpose of my post solely for the sake of demeaning me as a serious argument.
[QUOTE=Duck M.;48054316]I didn't dispute that right, I merely disagreed with your "call out" and the sentiment behind it.
I feel like that falls to a failure of the education system, personally.
To address your other point, I don't think anyone is trying to pretend that it didn't happen-quite the opposite, really. People recognize that it did happen and thus disagree with the sentiment of the flag.[/QUOTE]
I think my main qualm here is exactly that, failure of education. I got into a debate earlier about this with a friend who was deeply offended when i said that the civil war was only minorly about slavery itself. It was a selling point of the war but there was so much more going on that slavery was just the cherry on top, the last straw. When it comes down to it i think i'm more disappointed that now everyone sees the confederate flag as just some racist symbol. I was told that the flag didnt really resurface until the 60's during the civil rights era and was adopted for racial aspects. I'm not so sure how correct that is as i didn't look into it but it sounds believable. I'm just worried that people are flocking to this idea and attacking history thinking that by burying these symbols it will cause some radical change. It'd be a baby step at best and yeah baby steps are progress, but i value history so much that it pains me to see something be viciously attacked without much understanding behind it. I feel the effort being pumped into this would be better spent elsewhere that'd have a more lasting and powerful effect.
I'm not a fan of the flag and all but this is pretty silly. I don't think it should be banned or removed from sales or whatever, and in a historical context it definitely should not be removed. I mean yes it stands for despicable things and has a bad history, and yeah, oppose flying it and all for people legitimately using it, but there are many reasons why one would want to own the flag without supporting its context or the ideals behind it. Collection, design, historical memorabilia... as a student of political science and history, and also a hobby vexillologist, I can definitely see many reasons worth owning it.
The most important and grounded one imo is for historical preservation, historical importance, and for historical memorabilia. We're getting to that scary point where we're whitewashing the thing from existence. Removing civil war games from stores and talking about stopping selling historically appropriate items is practically censoring the public from history.
[editline]26th June 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=Viva;48054356]I think my main qualm here is exactly that, failure of education. I got into a debate earlier about this with a friend who was deeply offended when i said that the civil war was only minorly about slavery itself. It was a selling point of the war but there was so much more going on that slavery was just the cherry on top, the last straw. When it comes down to it i think i'm more disappointed that now everyone sees the confederate flag as just some racist symbol. I was told that the flag didnt really resurface until the 60's during the civil rights era and was adopted for racial aspects. I'm not so sure how correct that is as i didn't look into it but it sounds believable. I'm just worried that people are flocking to this idea and attacking history thinking that by burying these symbols it will cause some radical change. It'd be a baby step at best and yeah baby steps are progress, but i value history so much that it pains me to see something be viciously attacked without much understanding behind it. I feel the effort being pumped into this would be better spent elsewhere that'd have a more lasting and powerful effect.[/QUOTE]
I'm just going to direct you here because I think you've been misled over the history of the flag and of the CW. [url]http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1472436&p=48037770&highlight=#post48037770[/url]
But you are right in that burying the symbols won't change anything. That doesn't, however, mean that we should accept them when they have a controversial attachment. We take them as they are and understand their context and adjust our position on them accordingly. I'm alright with being opposed to the flag's use. I'm not ok with an attempt to scrub it from the public eye totally.
[QUOTE=matt000024;48053380]I think this whole backlash against the flag is dumb, but this is a terrible comparison. Cereal and stuff are not related to racism, but the Confederate flag has direct racist ties.[/QUOTE]
It was a joke supplementing ironman17's post about if the guy idolized oranges.
I guess I didn't make that very clear, apologies.
[QUOTE=zerglingv2;48054191]The most famous battle site of the American Civil War is the last place the Rebel flag needs to be pulled from.[/QUOTE]
It was the first place it was pulled from.
[QUOTE='[Seed Eater];48054410']I'm not a fan of the flag and all but this is pretty silly. I don't think it should be banned or removed from sales or whatever, and in a historical context it definitely should not be removed. I mean yes it stands for despicable things and has a bad history, and yeah, oppose flying it and all for people legitimately using it, but there are many reasons why one would want to own the flag without supporting its context or the ideals behind it. Collection, design, historical memorabilia... as a student of political science and history, and also a hobby vexillologist, I can definitely see many reasons worth owning it.
The most important and grounded one imo is for historical preservation, historical importance, and for historical memorabilia. We're getting to that scary point where we're whitewashing the thing from existence. Removing civil war games from stores and talking about stopping selling historically appropriate items is practically censoring the public from history.
[editline]26th June 2015[/editline]
I'm just going to direct you here because I think you've been misled over the history of the flag and of the CW. [URL]http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1472436&p=48037770&highlight=#post48037770[/URL]
But you are right in that burying the symbols won't change anything. That doesn't, however, mean that we should accept them when they have a controversial attachment. We take them as they are and understand their context and adjust our position on them accordingly. I'm alright with being opposed to the flag's use. I'm not ok with an attempt to scrub it from the public eye totally.[/QUOTE]
i appreciate how well versed and researched you are with this and typing this all out but i disagree with some of the points made, mostly number 5. The idea of this being over state rights is not some bullshit argument. Like i mentioned without going into excruciating detail, slavery was mostly still the selling point and not the actual main point of the reasoning behind the civil war. Much more lead up to this to the point that slavery was actually not nearly as major as a factor as many believe. It was still however the tipping point. At this point of history many southern states that WERE slave societies were no longer slave societies. However it's undeniable that they heavily depended on slave labor. So it's a mixed bag, but saying that the states rights issues are bullshit is well...a major oversight and generalization that's not as correct as you lead it on to be.
Though that post is still excellent in many ways. And im even more happy that with your knowledge and research you still oppose the idea of scrubbing such a symbol from history. Be it good or bad.
[QUOTE=AJ10017;48053231]what the fuck is going on in this country. why are we trying to purge our history from everything? whats next, are they going to force history to be rewritten in text books to exclude the civil war?[/QUOTE]
Honestly with the way that the Education system treats a lot of the history of the South like folklore, they're already on their way to obfuscation of a lot of it.
[editline]26th June 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=J!NX;48053652]I know the confederate flag may be associated with terrible shit but trying to remove history like this is ignorant, it doesn't make slavery and racism not a thing, and it doesn't stop actual racists from actually using it in racist ways. It effective does [I]nothing positive.[/I]
people who use it as a racist symbol deserve hate but come-fucking-on
It doesn't magically make racism go away by not existing. Holocaust victims aren't healed of their pain by burning nazi flags. All that pain and suffering has to be remembered. We need to know what these flags are.[/QUOTE]
Fuck man. Treating the flag like this gives the symbol way more power to actual racists. When you make symbolism taboo to the levels of comparing it to Stalinism or Nazism, people will get curious about that shit for the wrong reasons.
[QUOTE=KillerJaguar;48053893]I remember my APUSH class focused heavily on pre-Civil War and the Civil War itself. So much so that I took an US History II class in college because I wanted to cover stuff after the Civil War more.[/QUOTE]
I envy you, I've met so many people now that have almost zero knowledge about the Civil War (other than Lincoln and slaves at most) and WW2 its almost embarrassing. A lot of what I know now was from self-study. But I took the new, revised test that was released this year.
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