I think people of the South who know the history behind the Confederate flag still like it, because it represents the fact that at one point they stood up and said "We don't like the way things are going, we're going to go be our own country for a while."
i'm also from way the fuck in the Pacific Northwest so I could be talking out of my ass again
When I first saw a confederate flag was from Dukes of hazard when I was younger I always thought it was a "Dukes of hazard" flag as a kid.
I guess this guy forgets about atrocities like the Fort Pillow Massacre. Never mind the damn slavery. Yes yes States' Rights, we've all heard it a thousand times. Now go back and look how many times "States' Rights" was brought up in the context of Slavery.
Frankly I just think he's doing it for attention. Plus to cash in on the ever growing "Lost Cause" interpretation of the Civil War which is unfortunately growing in acceptance as this thread shows. TBH I don't have much pride about the US flag either though.
[QUOTE=MercZ;33608287]I guess this guy forgets about atrocities like the Fort Pillow Massacre. Never mind the damn slavery. Yes yes States' Rights, we've all heard it a thousand times. Now go back and look how many times "States' Rights" was brought up in the context of Slavery.
Frankly I just think he's doing it for attention. Plus to cash in on the ever growing "Lost Cause" interpretation of the Civil War which is unfortunately growing in acceptance as this thread shows. TBH I don't have much pride about the US flag either though.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I still show respect to the flag for a lot of different reasons, but it doesn't invoke any sense of pride or dedication in me like it used to when I was a kid.
This might be long but here we go.
The antebellum South was, as you all know, was controlled by the plantation class of super rich white plantation owners had virtually all control over the other classes: slaves, freedmen, slaveowning whites (with few slaves), and non slaveowning whites. First some statistics and general info.
Slave population as a percentage: South Carolina: ~60%; Mississippi: ~55%; Lousiana, Alabama, Florida, and Georgia: ~45%; Virginia: ~40%; North Carolina and Texas: ~30%; and Tennessee and Arkansas: ~25%. As you'll notice the slave population pretty well correlates to date of secession (with the exception of Texas), the core deep south states seceded within a few days while the others did so after the attack on Fort Sumter.
About 1/3 of all households owned slaves. It's difficult to do a person by person breakdown because the patriarch of the family pretty much owned everyone and everything in the house, there were few if any smaller families or people living alone. As fewer than 1% of blacks in most states were free (highest: 5% Virginia), essentially all of these households were white so it's safe to say ~20% of the southern households owned slaves. South Carolina approached 50%. Of these 33% of households, 50% owned less than 5 slaves, 88% less than 20. These people were nearly as powerless as the poor white yeoman farmers who comprised the rest of the population. Less than 1% of these families owned 200 or more and these families held about 30% of all slaves and all of the political power.
The state governments were highly authoritarian as well and, what a surprise, were run by the <1%. Slaves were considered much less than human by the vast majority of the population. Religious leaders justified slavery, plantation owners justified slavery, the poor whites were indoctrinated and racism was much worse in the South overall. At least the racist northerners believed they were human. The southern whites were so committed to the idea that the "negro" was so lazy (ironic considering they did all the work) and so uncivilized that he would die on his own and must be subordinate to whites in order to experience the benefits of civilization. They even thought that they were doing them a good thing by enslaving them.
White supremacy was prevalent among the poor and helped them ignore their own dire situation. They knew no matter how poor they were, they were superior in the plantation owner's and God's eyes to the "negros." They knew they had power over something at least and were allowed to beat or maim escaped slaves which earned them praise from, you guessed it, the plantation owners. Plus, they depended on the plantation owners for pretty much all goods and services that didn't include sustenance farming. The plantation owners controlled the media as well who eagerly fed the poor propaganda and banned pretty much any book, article, etc. that spoke negatively of slavery or of their society. If their entire livelihood outside of basic sustenance depended on the plantation owners, their news was controlled by the plantation owners, their relatives were possibly slaveowners, who the fuck do you think they're going to stand up for?
Slavery would have never died out on its own until the advent of mechanized farming around the 1930s, if even then. Cotton exports and slave population rose dramatically from 1800 to 1860. Cotton accounted for the 7% of all exports in 1800. By 1860, it was 57.5%. All of this benefited a very small percent of people, but as these people became wealthier, their control tightened. The dirt poor were placated by racism, religion, and false hopes of someday being wealthy. There was no secret ballot, anyone who would try to vote against slavery would be ostracized so slavery could only end before mechanized farming with either a bloody revolution, unlikely in such a rural place, or an outward pressure as it actually did.
Now to the causes and motives of the Civil War. Some already posted the orders of secession of several states so I won't do that again but I will say this. All roads leading up to the Civil War eventually lead to slavery.
State's rights? The right to own slaves. Agriculture vs. industry? Replace agriculture with slave labor. Religious differences? Southern preachers extolled slavery and justified it, northern preachers preached against it. Tariffs? The South needed cheap imports because their entire economy was based on slavery so there was no way to make their own.
The southern leaders were slaveholders who pretty much said their biggest reason for secession was slavery. 50% of confederate soldiers were from slaveholding families so fighting for their homes meant fighting for their livelihood which was built on the backs of slaves, and in the case of the other 50%, plantation owners who owned slaves and sold them their goods, gave them their education, and ran their government. Recall that southern media demonized the evil Abraham Lincoln who had vowed to immediately dismantle slavery (he didn't) which would immediately destroy their entire culture and way of life. People, if anything, are very stubborn and will cling to tradition even if the alternative would be better for them. Look at this like a bigger version of the domestically abused wife or child who refuses to leave or call the police even when beaten within an inch of their lives. It's disgusting to see so many Confederate apologists in the 21st century. The only reason you don't know the real version is the conservative backlash and lost sales the textbook companies would face if they published anything close to the real version of events.
Now about the flag? A flag is the symbol of a nation (the battle flag is for all intents and purposes the de facto Confederate flag because of the way it is used and seen nowadays except in a small minority of cases, like historical reenactment). The nation in question: existed only for four years, was run by a group of men who's stated purpose for secession was to uphold and defend the institution of slavery, was perhaps more racist than any society in history sans Nazi Germany and possibly colonial Spain, practiced a form of slavery that seems barbaric even by the standards of the Ancient World, and consisted of a populace completely and utterly controlled economically, intellectually, socially, religiously, and in the case of slaves, physically by a very, very small group of greedy, selfish individuals. I don't really fault the average person who lived there as everything was beyond their control and it was all they knew for all their lives but they were not the Confederacy, they were victims of the Confederacy, essentially enslaved (to a lesser extent) but enslaved nonetheless. The Confederacy is not the average southerner, the Confederacy is the plantation economy in it's purest form and all the evil it exerted on everything around around it. Even when viewing this from a 19th century human rights perspective, the Confederacy was very backward.
[QUOTE=The Baconator;33606864]Abe was a good president, but he was not an abolitionist:
[I]I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.[/I][/QUOTE]
'i intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free' yeah you're right sure doesn't sound like an abolitionist
apparently everyone in facepunch wants to own slaves
this "lost cause" interpretation of the civil war is fucking retarded, are you all saying that blacks don't have rights or am I missing something?
even if the war wasn't about slavery at first, it sure as hell became about slavery, considering the NYC riots at the beginning and lots of other racial events.
[QUOTE=OvB;33592624]Skinheads and Klansmen made it racist. The flag itself is the Confederate Battle Flag and has no racist meaning to it. Robert E. Lee and many other Confederate Generals didn't really have an opinion on slavery. Lee himself, was generally against slavery. They were racists in that they believed blacks were inferior to whites, but than again that could also be said about many Northerners of the time.
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/H8XDq.jpg[/IMG]
Skinheads ruin everything.[/QUOTE]
I'm getting fucking tired of you imbeciles thinking skinheads=racism, read up on their history, only a small fucking part of skinheads are racist, hell the first skinheads were fucking black.
[QUOTE=Crimor;33621522]I'm getting fucking tired of you imbeciles thinking skinheads=racism, read up on their history, only a small fucking part of skinheads are racist, hell the first skinheads were fucking black.[/QUOTE]
are you a skinhead?
[QUOTE=ButtsexV3;33621546]are you a skinhead?[/QUOTE]
Yes I am, got a problem with it?
no just wondering why anyone would willingly identify with skinheads after the bad rep they've gotten. at least if you fly a rebel flag you don't have a chance to get knifed
[QUOTE=ButtsexV3;33621607]no just wondering why anyone would willingly identify with skinheads after the bad rep they've gotten. at least if you fly a rebel flag you don't have a chance to get knifed[/QUOTE]
Why would you identify yourself as an american after the shit you guys have done, just because some people did something doesn't mean the majority think alike, just fucking annoying we get put in the same booth as the american reichfags who has nothing in common with skinheads other than a shaved head.
[QUOTE=Crimor;33621662]Why would you identify yourself as an american after the shit you guys have done, just because some people did something doesn't mean the majority think alike, just fucking annoying we get put in the same booth as the american reichfags who has nothing in common with skinheads other than a shaved head.[/QUOTE]
skinheads being lumped in with nazi jerks sucks i feel for you
[QUOTE=Crimor;33621662]Why would you identify yourself as an american after the shit you guys have done, just because some people did something doesn't mean the majority think alike, just fucking annoying we get put in the same booth as the american reichfags who has nothing in common with skinheads other than a shaved head.[/QUOTE]
because I live here, you don't live in skinheadtopia
[QUOTE=ButtsexV3;33621685]because I live here, you don't live in skinheadtopia[/QUOTE]
It's your choice to live in america, you can just leave.
also here's a nice tldr on the evolution of skinheads.
[url]http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wylIgEs1vKo/StFYzVVxibI/AAAAAAAAAEU/b2zVSSIpsho/s1600/family_treelarge1.gif[/url]
I'm probably mostly an Oi!skin according to this chart.
[QUOTE=Crimor;33621706]It's your choice to live in america, you can just leave.
also here's a nice tldr on the evolution of skinheads.
[url]http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wylIgEs1vKo/StFYzVVxibI/AAAAAAAAAEU/b2zVSSIpsho/s1600/family_treelarge1.gif[/url]
I'm probably mostly an Oi!skin according to this chart.[/QUOTE]
you ever just get up and leave a country? it's expensive and mentally and physically taxing. not calling yourself a skinhead is free and easy.
[QUOTE=RBM11;33620732]This might be long but here we go.
The antebellum South was, as you all know, was controlled by the plantation class of super rich white plantation owners had virtually all control over the other classes: slaves, freedmen, slaveowning whites (with few slaves), and non slaveowning whites. First some statistics and general info.
Slave population as a percentage: South Carolina: ~60%; Mississippi: ~55%; Lousiana, Alabama, Florida, and Georgia: ~45%; Virginia: ~40%; North Carolina and Texas: ~30%; and Tennessee and Arkansas: ~25%. As you'll notice the slave population pretty well correlates to date of secession (with the exception of Texas), the core deep south states seceded within a few days while the others did so after the attack on Fort Sumter.
About 1/3 of all households owned slaves. It's difficult to do a person by person breakdown because the patriarch of the family pretty much owned everyone and everything in the house, there were few if any smaller families or people living alone. As fewer than 1% of blacks in most states were free (highest: 5% Virginia), essentially all of these households were white so it's safe to say ~20% of the southern households owned slaves. South Carolina approached 50%. Of these 33% of households, 50% owned less than 5 slaves, 88% less than 20. These people were nearly as powerless as the poor white yeoman farmers who comprised the rest of the population. Less than 1% of these families owned 200 or more and these families held about 30% of all slaves and all of the political power.
The state governments were highly authoritarian as well and, what a surprise, were run by the <1%. Slaves were considered much less than human by the vast majority of the population. Religious leaders justified slavery, plantation owners justified slavery, the poor whites were indoctrinated and racism was much worse in the South overall. At least the racist northerners believed they were human. The southern whites were so committed to the idea that the "negro" was so lazy (ironic considering they did all the work) and so uncivilized that he would die on his own and must be subordinate to whites in order to experience the benefits of civilization. They even thought that they were doing them a good thing by enslaving them.
White supremacy was prevalent among the poor and helped them ignore their own dire situation. They knew no matter how poor they were, they were superior in the plantation owner's and God's eyes to the "negros." They knew they had power over something at least and were allowed to beat or maim escaped slaves which earned them praise from, you guessed it, the plantation owners. Plus, they depended on the plantation owners for pretty much all goods and services that didn't include sustenance farming. The plantation owners controlled the media as well who eagerly fed the poor propaganda and banned pretty much any book, article, etc. that spoke negatively of slavery or of their society. If their entire livelihood outside of basic sustenance depended on the plantation owners, their news was controlled by the plantation owners, their relatives were possibly slaveowners, who the fuck do you think they're going to stand up for?
Slavery would have never died out on its own until the advent of mechanized farming around the 1930s, if even then. Cotton exports and slave population rose dramatically from 1800 to 1860. Cotton accounted for the 7% of all exports in 1800. By 1860, it was 57.5%. All of this benefited a very small percent of people, but as these people became wealthier, their control tightened. The dirt poor were placated by racism, religion, and false hopes of someday being wealthy. There was no secret ballot, anyone who would try to vote against slavery would be ostracized so slavery could only end before mechanized farming with either a bloody revolution, unlikely in such a rural place, or an outward pressure as it actually did.
Now to the causes and motives of the Civil War. Some already posted the orders of secession of several states so I won't do that again but I will say this. All roads leading up to the Civil War eventually lead to slavery.
State's rights? The right to own slaves. Agriculture vs. industry? Replace agriculture with slave labor. Religious differences? Southern preachers extolled slavery and justified it, northern preachers preached against it. Tariffs? The South needed cheap imports because their entire economy was based on slavery so there was no way to make their own.
The southern leaders were slaveholders who pretty much said their biggest reason for secession was slavery. 50% of confederate soldiers were from slaveholding families so fighting for their homes meant fighting for their livelihood which was built on the backs of slaves, and in the case of the other 50%, plantation owners who owned slaves and sold them their goods, gave them their education, and ran their government. Recall that southern media demonized the evil Abraham Lincoln who had vowed to immediately dismantle slavery (he didn't) which would immediately destroy their entire culture and way of life. People, if anything, are very stubborn and will cling to tradition even if the alternative would be better for them. Look at this like a bigger version of the domestically abused wife or child who refuses to leave or call the police even when beaten within an inch of their lives. It's disgusting to see so many Confederate apologists in the 21st century. The only reason you don't know the real version is the conservative backlash and lost sales the textbook companies would face if they published anything close to the real version of events.
Now about the flag? A flag is the symbol of a nation (the battle flag is for all intents and purposes the de facto Confederate flag because of the way it is used and seen nowadays except in a small minority of cases, like historical reenactment). The nation in question: existed only for four years, was run by a group of men who's stated purpose for secession was to uphold and defend the institution of slavery, was perhaps more racist than any society in history sans Nazi Germany and possibly colonial Spain, practiced a form of slavery that seems barbaric even by the standards of the Ancient World, and consisted of a populace completely and utterly controlled economically, intellectually, socially, religiously, and in the case of slaves, physically by a very, very small group of greedy, selfish individuals. I don't really fault the average person who lived there as everything was beyond their control and it was all they knew for all their lives but they were not the Confederacy, they were victims of the Confederacy, essentially enslaved (to a lesser extent) but enslaved nonetheless. The Confederacy is not the average southerner, the Confederacy is the plantation economy in it's purest form and all the evil it exerted on everything around around it. Even when viewing this from a 19th century human rights perspective, the Confederacy was very backward.[/QUOTE]
Very well said, and deserves to be quoted onto the next page.
[QUOTE=Ladowerf;33620868]apparently everyone in facepunch wants to own slaves[/QUOTE]
If we had to have slaves, let it be the people who would only harm society if we let them do their own thing.
[sp]if you think I'm referring to blacks then you, sir reader, are dumb[/sp]
[QUOTE=Crimor;33621662]Why would you identify yourself as an american after the shit you guys have done, just because some people did something doesn't mean the majority think alike, just fucking annoying we get put in the same booth as the american reichfags who has nothing in common with skinheads other than a shaved head.[/QUOTE]
why don't you uh, relax
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