A Commercial Rant

[JCalkin]

I don't own a Confederate flag (what would I do with it...??), but I refuse to allow someone else's claimed "offense" of it to ruin - in my mind - the original intended purpose of that flag and the original intended patriotic cause:

defiance in the face of tyranny

True, but meanings change, and I suspect that the greater percentage of the population now equates the Confederate flag with all of the negative things now associated with Southern states during the civil war era, i.e. slavery and general bigotry. Show a confederate flag to 1000 people on the street and ask what it represents and I'd be willing to bet that more than half would quickly answer "slavery", "racism", or a related idea.

Yes, it's a perversion of the original meaning, but then faggot (A word I NEVER use) used to mean something else, too.

What matters is not the word, or the symbol, but what it is intended by the user to mean.

[Chuck Jackson]

Someone bring me a beer when they come back, I don't want to miss any of this.

[Brassdad]

I wish there was a little bitty car I could fit in comfortably and would haul everything I need to haul. Alas, there's the rub.

Hey shlep....this looks like it would haul most everything I would need....and there might be room for that rub too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40Mgl_qKI-4

[JCalkin]

bigotry and racism: It would be an enlightening exercise to find a "southern redneck" quote that - to you - seems to be ultimately offensive, and then compare it to the writings of A. Lincoln on the subject of race.

I never said that the confederate flag meant racism TO ME. Nor did I add the phrase "southern redneck" to anything I said. Through empirical observation, many of the people I associate with (me being from the north and having lived in all northern states: NJ, VT, NH, ID, IA, NE) confer that meaning upon the confederate flag, erroneously or not, as do (I suspect but cannot confirm) the northern folks who plaster the thing in their pickups' rear windows or decorative front license plates. I have tried to educate them all (the people I know, that is) but alas, I am only one man.

Incidentally, where are all the "Don't Tread on Me" rattlesnake flags, since we're talking about icons of revolution that pertain to this country?

southern slavery - an oft smoothed-over fact: Slaves in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA were not freed until AFTER the end of the War Between the States and until AFTER A. Lincoln's death. (Cross-check the date of the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment with the dates of Appomattox and of the Ford Theatre incident.)

Having read a considerable amount on Lincoln I do know that his main goal (very nearly his only goal) was to preserve the United States in the form it was in when he took office, and not lose half of his country's land, which would have been politically disastrous.

faggot: still means the same thing: "stick". It is an extremely stereotypical description of the body types of homosexual males...in much the same way that "gay" is a stereotypical description of homosexual males' outward behavior...

...I continue to fail to understand, then, why "faggot" (an appearance slur) is unacceptable whereas "gay" (a behavior slur) is acceptable.

It's not the words that are unacceptable, nor is it the images/icons/symbols/whatever. It is their meaning. When people say "gay", they are using terminology which to them means "homosexual" without being offensive. It is accepted as "safe" language because the people who use it (by and large) do not mean any insult by its usage. "Faggot", on the other hand, is used primarily as a derogatory insult by those who use it, it is interpreted that way by those who hear it, and the cycle is self-reinforcing.

Popular opinion and popular usage have to, to some extent, dictate the language we use on a day-to-day basis. It's the same principle that defines profane language.

I'm not personally offended by the Stars and Bars, unless I know it is being used to support a position of racism and bigotry, because in those particular cases, that is it's intent. It is possible that what it meant in 1860 and what it means in 2007 are different even on a generally culturally accepted level, leaving the intent of individuals out of the equation.

Some people might still want to wear a swastika as a good luck charm, but I doubt it'd make them very popular.

[Mark]

I want a $1 million custom RV/bus like the ones they build down south in Oregon. I want a giant tuba painted on the side of the bus. And, I want Curtis to pay for it (viewtopic.php?t=24843&highlight=).

[TubaRay]

I want a $1 million custom RV/bus like the ones they build down south in Oregon. I want a giant tuba painted on the side of the bus. And, I want Curtis to pay for it (viewtopic.php?t=24843&highlight=).

The concept of Oregon being "down south" is difficult for me to grasp. Otherwise, I wholeheartedly agree with your post.

[KevinMadden]

, or the swastika (that was originally a native american symbol for peace) are totally wrong, and at the very least tactless(although I probably should be the last person for calling people out on that) to display/say in public.

note that the the 'peaceful swastika is usually found reversed :

as opposed to the Nazi Swastika:

you can see the offensive swastika is not the same as the original, it is already a perversion.

[Rick Denney]

i've heard that too, although it was philly, pitt and Alabama in the middle, though I guess it hardly matters. (although wasn't Kentucky a border state and not in the confederacy?)

The point is that central Pennsylvania is absolutely nothing like the South. No resemblance at all, except that the residents are mostly non-urban. Having spent time in both central PA and Alabama, I can say with some conviction that they are utterly dissimilar.

I doubt I could find any native Pennsylvanian that would identify with the Confederacy in any way, or who would know how to do so even if so inclined.

Rick "who lives right at the closest point between the South and Pennsylvania" Denney

[Rick Denney]

Some observations for consideration by the young'uns:

1. The Civil War was a clash between two economic systems. One was slavery-in-fact, and the other depended on so-called wage slaves. Considering the working conditions of both groups, it was hard in 1855 to make a strong moral case that one was worse than the other. That moral case is much more clear now--wage slavery provided the potential for improvement of the quality of life of the working class, while slavery-in-fact did not. But this wasn't clear when the debate was raging in this country.

2. There was no belief in the political world of the 1850's about the status of blacks as full-fledged citizens in America. Pro-slavery southerners wanted them as slaves, and wage-earners in the North wanted them shipped back to Africa (as espoused in these years by Lincoln on moral grounds). Why? Because the Irish and German immigrants in the North (particularly in the Old Northwest--Ohio, Illinois, etc.) saw blacks as economically competitive. Nothing promotes racial tension like economic competition. Those who debated against slavery on moral grounds were often the purveyors of the greatest violence seen leading up to the Civil War. The reason northerners didn't want slavery in the newly colonized western states (there was no argument about it in the already settled eastern states) is because they were hoping to go there and escape wage slavery. The most violent clashes between pro and anti-slavery forces before the war were in Kansas. There's a reason the Missouri Compromise is called the Missouri Compromise, and not, say, the Ohio or Alabama Compromise.

3. No racial group has the corner on the racism market. Being victims of poor treatment by members of another race is not the province of any particular race. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

4. By my observation, southerners are more apt to say things that northerners interpret as racist, while actually maintaining a respectful and productive relationship with members of other races. Northerners avoid saying things that trigger accusations of racism, but in my observation are at least as apt to treat persons of other races poorly, and are more apt to maintain separation in daily life. Martians, in observing what people do rather than what they say, would see the race differently quite differently than we like to believe.

Example: I know a tuba player who regularly performs with a New Orleans jazz band whose members are otherwise black. The other members don't look on my friend as being black, because he is not black and doesn't act in accordance with black culture. They don't expect him to. But they respect him as a tuba player and as a person of integrity, just as he respects them as musicians and persons of integrity, both having earned that respect in the context of their relationship. That mutual respect means more than what either might believe in their abstract view of other races. On the other hand, I've seen those from northern states who do not live among persons of other races try to fit in by adopting the cultural expressions of those races. They receive ridicule and mistrust instead of respect for what is perceived as patronizing behavior, by my observation. The elite classes anywhere are remarkably good at being patronizing, especially when they want to use that as a spotlight to highlight their elite status.

5. Most people don't have a clue about history and make all sorts of offensive assumptions about people who live in other places. There seems to be a correlation between youth and historical ignorance.

Rick "thinking victims usually get pity rather than respect" Denney

[windshieldbug]

I would compare Lincoln's 11th-hour highlighting of the issue of "slavery" (in order to garner addition desperately-needed support of a very unpopular war) to our current President's "weapons of mass destruction" issue.

I don't want to encourage politics, but it shore seemed to this Yankee boy, after all he was said and taught, that the previously mentioned war was mostly about union vrs. state's rights.

The fact that anybody did the right thing in retrospect was purely coincidental.

[TubaRay]

Curtis "who still doesn't like trucks" Scharding-Taras

I wish I could say that I don't like people who don't like trucks, however that wouldn't be true. The truth is it absolutely doesn't matter to me at all whether you like trucks or not.

[The Jackson]

Smokey and the Bandit 4?

[tubatooter1940]

i've heard that too, although it was philly, pitt and Alabama in the middle, though I guess it hardly matters. (although wasn't Kentucky a border state and not in the confederacy?)

The point is that central Pennsylvania is absolutely nothing like the South. No resemblance at all, except that the residents are mostly non-urban. Having spent time in both central PA and Alabama, I can say with some conviction that they are utterly dissimilar.

I doubt I could find any native Pennsylvanian that would identify with the Confederacy in any way, or who would know how to do so even if so inclined.

Rick "who lives right at the closest point between the South and Pennsylvania" Denney

Brent Burns wrote, " If it's snow bird season, why can't we shoot 'em? Pack 'em up. Sack 'em up and send 'em back overnight air.Take your attitude and your wife's blue hair. Don't tell us how you did it up North "cause we don't care."