Discussion: GOP Rep: I Haven't Given Confederate Flag Much Thought

A majority of people that actually died in the Civil War on the Confederate side did not own slaves

Whether or not this is true, they still fought a war to protect the right to own slaves and to essentially overthrow the United States. This is a heritage to be celebrated? This is a heritage to be condemned in the harshest possible terms.

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I haven’t given it much thought because it’s something in the South you kind of grow up being around, just seeing it at different venues or whatever. But I have never thought of it as a racist flag.

When you have a certain privilege, you don’t have to think about it, because it doesn’t effect you negatively.

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Fixed it for you: "But a majority of people that actually died in the Civil War on the
Confederate side did not own slaves. These were people who were in rebellion against the United States, commiting treason. These days, we would call them “terrorists”.

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I love when people pose the question of whether the Confederate flag represents racism or Southern pride. As if they are two different things.

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GOP Rep: Confederate Flag Isn’t Racist Symbol

Yep, you are correct, not racists at all when my father, a white man, had a cross burned on the front lawn and in a prominent place right next to it was that non-racists flag. What was his crime, he had the nerve to want to teach a Black man how to be a Dry Cleaner.

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The flag is not a symbol of racism. It’s just misused!

And the KKK is NOT a group of murderous yahoos. It’s just a bowling team that likes to dress up and start fires!

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NOTE: Subtext added.

"I don’t think it’s a racist symbol, I think people have misused it. People who are into white supremacy certainly like the symbol, but that doesn’t make it racist.

I haven’t given it much thought because it’s something in the South you kind of grow up being around, like institutionalized discrimination and openly racist attitudes. You learn to live with it–if you’re white. But I have never thought of it as a racist flag because my race hasn’t been affected by it. That is until the libruhs and kellerds started making a whoop and holler o’er it.

The question is does he understand where I’m coming from? He needs to because people like me absolutely lack the necessary empathy to see the perspectives of others. We should stop focusing on the John Lewises of the country and start focusing on the Lynn Westmorelands who have obviously suffered much more because of this flag than Rep. Lewis ever will."

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““I don’t think it’s a racist symbol, I think people have misused it,”
Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) told reporters Thursday. “I haven’t given
it much thought because it’s something in the South you kind of grow up
being around, just seeing it at different venues or whatever. But I have
never thought of it as a racist flag.””

So then, segregating black folks by black only drinking fountains, Black only schools, lunch counters, bus waiting rooms isn’t racist because that’s what you grew up around?

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Lynn Westmoreland is well-known for his total lack of intelligence.

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Yeah, misused. Just like you do when you use religion to justify your bigotry.

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Yeah, that’s what they said about the swastsika.

At the bottom of the post near where the heart “like” button is there should be a pencil button you can click to edit.

Edit: I guess on ones own posts it would be by the chain “link” button and the flag “report” button.

Thank you sir Lestatdelc!!!

But a majority of people that actually died in the Civil War on the Confederate side did not own slaves. These were people who were fighting for their states. I don’t think they even had thoughts about slavery."

So it’s not the fault of the ignorant masses of white Southerners at the time who were manipulated by the propertied class into fighting for their right to keep slaves? Hmmmm… how’d that work at the Nuremberg Trials?

I realize you’re making a point by only listing the Union casualties, but I’d suggest keeping the context of the entire abomination in the conversation. It has long been accepted (since circa ~1900-1910) that the total casualty count of the Civil War was approximately 620,000. A little over 360,000 Union casualties and just under 260,000 Confederate.

However, it has also been known for some time that those official numbers were well on the low side because they relied heavily on confirmed deaths. Other statistical analysis of recent years has looked at other evidence … such as missing landowners who never showed up again to claim any of their property, benefits paid to widows, etc. … that indicate the true total is closer to 750.000.

Keep in mind that the total population of the entire United States was 31.5 million in June, 1860. Further, about 750,000 people died in a region mostly contained between Atlanta, Georgia and Philadelphia, PA and West into Tennessee. In under 4 years.

Try to imagine the scale of that today, and that this occurred in an era that predates anesthetics, most antiseptics and even the very concept of anti-bacterial medicine, such as penicillin (not even discovered until long after World War I, in 1928).

The brutality of the American Civil War is, quite literally, beyond the ability of nearly every person alive in the United States today to even imagine.

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On the other hand, there is this guy whom Speaker Boehner actively campaigned for:

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My thoughts exactly, though stated much more eloquently than I would have. Very, very well said sir.

Anti-bacterial medicine? Heck, the very concept of bacteria and germ theory was still in the process of replacing the miasma theory of disease when the Civil War took place. But I take your overall point.

This is what the confederate flag represents no more, no less!

http://cowansauctions.com/itemImages/nn9652.jpg

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Check out Johnny Reb with his rebel flag!