“The coat of arms isn’t history itself”? Really? Of course it is history…racist history designed in 1939 with Jim Crow rampaging through the former Confederate states. And this is the history you want displayed daily by the government? Put the damned thing in a museum with factual explanations and acknowledge that our future is not in this past.
This is not rocket science and the way to move forward is to actually move forward and put history in a museum where we can study it but not have the worst parts of it flung in our faces continuously by the government.
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You are totally missing the point. The other four countries LEGALLY governed Alabama. The confederacy never LEGALLY existed therefore it had no right to govern any state. No other country ever acknowledged the confederacy as a bonifide country. The ONLY pople who ever considered the cofederacy an actual country were the folks who lived there. Everyone else in the world sees the confederacy as a bunch of traitors who tried to overthrow the United States government. The confederacy usurped the legal authority of the US, they took over (stole!!!) all US owned property, and then declared themselves a country, which they were not!!! The only flags that should fly over any government-owned site should be only flags from LEGAL, REAL, ACTUAL countries and certainly not failed attemps to overthrow the legal, real, actual country.
I was born and have lived in the south my whole life and when I was a young girl I was taught this same kind of nonsense. Then I grew up and started thinking for myself. If you think about it logically, instead of emotionally, you will see the fallacy of your argument.
(Excuse typos please. I’m so Pi$$ed at hearing this same old lame excuse again I can’t type straight.)
It doesn’t look like I’m the one who is emotional here. I don’t disagree with you, the leaders of the confederacy were traitors. But for four long years, the laws of the United States did not apply to the the citizens of Alabama. They paid taxes to the confederacy. They were subject to the laws of the confederacy. Legitimate or not, for all functional purposes the people of Alabama were governed by the Confederacy.
I would disagree with you in several other parts. While no other country officially recognized the Confederacy, the United Kingdom funded the confederacy, provided them with arms and trade, and even built two of their battleships, including the CSS Alabama. No other country recognized the United States until 1787, so why should we get to claim our birthday as 1776 by your definition?
Second, are you sure the other countries legally governed Alabama? I wonder how the Chicasaw, Cherokee, and Alabaman peoples feel about the claim of the French to govern the land. The British took the land from the French in a war, the same thing the confederacy was trying to do. The United States claimed the Southern part of Alabama illegally from the Spanish until the Spaniards, 15 years later gave the land to the US in exchange for a promise they would be allowed to keep Texas. Which of course, we didn’t abide by when we supported Mexican independence.
So giving legal credence to the French especially is exactly the same as the confederacy. You need to approach history objectively, without the emotion tied to what the confederacy stood for, and recognize that for four years, it was the governing body of a lot of people.
Now we still should pull down the rebel flag from any government property, and any army bases named for confederate generals need to be renamed. These guys were traitors after all. But don’t think that you can say that the confederacy never governed its people.
You can parse all the words (like legal) you want and you can dress it up all you want in pseudo-intellect BS, but the fact remains: you can’t govern what is not yours to govern.
Southerners will tell you the civil war was about state’s rights. One of those rights was the right to secede and form their own country. They lost the war, which means they did not have the right to secede and form another government; therefore, any government they “played at” was not a country and had no right to impose its governance on any of the US citizens living in those states.
And how about all those folks who lived in the south but didn’t want to leave the US or be part of the Confederacy? They didn’t want to be governed by the ersatz, self proclaimed country called the confederacy but now they should be reminded of the four years they were held prisoners by the treasonous acts of their so-called government?
Bottom line: You can’t just decide to set up your own government and just because you did and imposed your will on the citizens doesn’t mean you were actually a government.
Ummm… Isn’t that exactly what the founding fathers did? I mean what about all of the faithful subjects of the crown who didn’t want to be part of the US? Or is the difference that might makes right?
I can’t speak for the rest of the South, but here in Texas (at least up until this past year when they ‘updated’ the history books) we were taught that slavery was the proximal cause for the Civil War. At least, that is what I was taught 20 years ago and all of my friends seem to have the same understanding.
“is the difference that might makes right?”
If you want to think of it that way, yes. The one who wins gets all the toys so to speak, which includes disavowing the legitimacy of those who rebelled against them. It is the way it has always been. If you win you get to determine the fate of the defeated.
If the crown had won do you think they would have allowed the colonies to continue to fly the stars and stripes? Hell, no. They would have done verything they could to eradicate that flag and would probably have imprisoned anyone who dared to fly it.
Which is one reason we declared independence. We believe in freedom of speech over here, and waving whatever flag you want is part of that. You have the right to fly the rebel flag or the nazi flag for that matter, and you have the right to be seen as a friggin’ idiot by everyone who sees you. I don’t think that following the crown’s model is a wise course for us.
I am sorry you are uncomfortable with the history of the south. You should be. It is an uncomfortable history, one that the confederate states should be ashamed of. But it is still history. You can’t whitewash it and pretend it never happened. That only helps the racists.
I am no more uncomfortable with the history of the south thant I am uncomfortable with the history of the US and treating the confederacy as the outlaw government it was is not whitewashing history.
Let’s just agree to disagree. There was a time I argued the same arguments you are. Now, 50 years later, I see it much differently. Perhaps someday you will, also…or mybe not.
