Confederate group plans giant flag in Hillsborough County

[Hugabear]

Source: St. Petersburg Times

Next year, a giant Confederate flag may tower above the tree line near the junction of Interstate 75 and Interstate 4.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans wants drivers in the Tampa area to see the massive flag — 30 feet high and 50 feet long — atop a 139-foot pole, the highest the Federal Aviation Authority would allow. It would be lit at night.
...
Flags Across Florida started about eight years ago, after the Confederate flag was removed from the Capitol in Tallahassee. So far the group has two major flags erected: one in Suwannee County along Interstate 75 and one in Havana along U.S. 27.

Adams insists the flag isn't about racism or slavery. "It's about honoring our ancestors and about celebrating our heritage," he said. "It's a historical thing to us."

Read more: http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/article551722.ece?75

---

No wonder my state is the fucking laughingstock of the country.

I am so fucking sick of this "it's heritage not hate" argument. BULLSHIT. These people know goddamned well how offensive the Confederate flag is to a vast majority of the population, yet the insist on not only displaying their shit, they FLAUNT it. This has EVERYTHING to do with hate.

[jaysunb]

1. Your ancestors were traitors, Mr Anderson

:evilfrown:

[Dogtown]

5. Anderson wishes

He's more likely the scion of carpetbaggers; those guys took "reconstruction" *seriously* (wink-wink).

+, the women were starving and a one-leg man couldn't plough so well.


Just saying.

I'd have no problem if they'd be historically accurate; the last flag to fly over Dixie was a white bed sheet.


Please, I mean no disrespect to southerners, but the "Sons" aren't anything they claim to be.

BTW, jaysunb, I'm from the midwest but have lived close to 20 years in Georgia.

[jaysunb]

25. I was born in Mississippi

back in the mid 1940's and know more than enough about Mr Andersons ancestors, their heritage & certainly the histronics of that not so distant past.
:evilfrown:

BTW, I "overcame" and enjoy visiting the South. Many, many good and decent people call it home. :hi:

[Dogtown]

Absolutely!

We're roughly of an age; born and raised in a border state, ostensibly northern.


Some have grown, others not. Responsible southerners have grown and embrace equality and progressive values; a minority, vocal in proportion to their hatred but not their numbers, insist on having the south appear in their anachronistic image.

They're vicious, ugly, and all-too-visible but they no longer truly represent the South.

[dysfunctional press]

30. plus- they LOST. get the fuck over it already anderson

i'm just sick to death of stupid fucking morans.

[cephalexin]

2. It's not called Malfunction Junction for nothing...

:shrug:

[RantinRavin]

33. Wrong intersection

Malfunction Junction is I-275 and I-4

[cephalexin]

50. Oh, okay...way east of town. I moved out of TPA 16 years ago.

Don't miss it. :D

[Lorien]

3. Where else are the LOSERS of a war allowed to erect their flags

for all to see?

I'll reverse what Eddie Izzard says "NO COUNTRY, NO FLAG"!

[mikelgb]

4. and DU's wonderful google ad's that are defacing your thread...

...are displaying the Confederate Jack quite beautifully! Buy it Now!

:eyes:

[Oregone]

6. Id proudly hang the flag of a rebel state/union...

...but theirs is clearly representative of hate and bondage.

But come on now...imagine if Oregon or Vermont said "see ya". Win or lose, that would make me proud to see a regional populance put their foot down and say no to the facism, corporatism, wars, war profiteering, class warfare, etc.

Lets not merely brand them as traitors. You know, One Man's Hero....

Its more important to examine what they stood for. In this case, they stood for less than the United States of America (which in current times, doesn't mean much).

[Hugabear]

56. It's all about racism and hatred, not a rebel state

For one thing, the Confederate flag that they so often display wasn't even the official flag of the Confederacy, it's the battle flag. It was made famous by Nathaniel Bedford Forest after the war, when he formed the KKK to harass, intimidate, and murder the newly freed black population.

[HuffleClaw]

7. there's this tidbit too

"Last year, county commissioners recognized Confederate commander Robert E. Lee on the same day they honored a black civic leader. Commissioners later apologized and haven't since recognized Lee."

[Faygo Kid]

8. Of course it's about race. Assholes. More of this is coming.

We are going to see a lot more of this as Obama runs for president. I won't take kindly to it if any of these assholes get in my face about my support for him.

[struggle4progress]

9. “The Proper Way to Hang a Confederate Flag”

[ohio2007]

10. Lay off the lattes

[struggle4progress]

11. “The Proper Way to Hang a Confederate Flag.”

http://theangryblackwoman.files.wordpress.com.nyud.net:8090/2007/03/hangflag.jpg
http://theangryblackwoman.wordpress.com/2007/03/20/apparently-i-got-so-angry-i-dissapeared/

[salguine]

12. Yeah, right.

They have four hundred years of heritage to commemorate. So why do they insist on symbolizing it with a flag that flew for a mere four years? I guarantee they themselves don't know shit about their own history.

Fucking stupid, slack-jawed, mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging, sibling-fucking, spelling-bee-losing, diminished-cranial-capacity-having motherfuckers. Why don't we just let them re-secede? Florida will be completely under water in a few more generations anyway.

[seasat]

13. Great we had a riot in St Petersburg in 96 and are still trying to heal divisions

An unarmed African American was shot by police during a traffic stop. The result was a protest that turned into a riot destroying property and injuring several folks. There is a lot of tension here due to Florida's poor history of race relations. One of the major little covered stories of the 2000 election was how the difference in polling places and voting equipment disenfranchised black voters. The US civil right commission accessed Florida with a penalty over that. Now these idiots want to fan the flames by putting up a Confederate battle flag in the Tampa Bay area? Hopefully, the city commissioners will show some sense and deny them a permit. No good will come of it if it goes through.

[boomerbust]

14. The civil war is not over

Back in the 80's me and my family took a yearly trip to North Carolina to visit the inlaws who were snow birds who had close relatives who lived there permanantly. One night we were all gathered around the tv watching the movie Gone With The Wind, when one of the Southern Belles made the comment that she never watched this movie till its conclusion and still doesn't know how it ends. The silly and foolish yankee that I was back then made the brilliant matter of fact statement, " The North Won ". The silence in the room following that comment was unbearable. The thing I remember most about that trip was being told by that same Southern Belles husband when we were preparing to leave, " We sure enjoy having you Yankees come down here every year, but we enjoy more when you leave! That is a farewll I will never forget. So yes I beleive thet the civil war is not over.

[littlebit]

15. I have mixed feelings on this.

I am a southerner. I had ancestors who fought for the south during the civil war. They were not slave owners. The were poor Tennessee dirt farmers. The civil war was about state rights. A lot of people in the south look at it that way. They don't look at it as a way to keep the black man down. I am not saying what they are doing is completely right. I just don't think people should assume it is all about racism.

[Pastiche423]

17. I am from the south, as well

Any southerners who claim the Civil war was only about state rights are willfully ignorant.

The confederate flag IS a symbol of hate - racial hate and the hate some still feel for losing the war.

[14thColony]

19. I have similar feelings

Littlebit: I think what they're doing is silly and misguided, but like you I'm a Southerner whose ancestors fought for Georgia during the war, so it's not as cut-and-dried for me either, and I identify with much of what you say here.

I think what a lot of people outside the South fail to comprehend is that this clinging to relics of the past is not unique to Southern culture; it is common to virtually all defeated peoples. Examples include the Germans post-1918, the Irish and Welsh with their suppressed languages and flags, the Scots Jacobites, the Basques in northern Spain, all the way up to the Tibetan nationalists of today, and with many in between. All were in some ways defeated peoples, all with varying degrees of 'honor' of their causes, usually as judged by those who inflicted the defeat. And all have shown a strong tendency to cling tenaciously to relics of their past glories or their heyday (or whatever term one wishes to use) in order to come to grips with the reality of the situation. The fact that "it was over XXX years ago, get over it" is no more relevant in this case than in any of the above examples; the victors "get over it" about 10 minutes after the victory. For the defeated though, it becomes a part of that peoples' culture, and is passed down for many, many generations. In the case of the Irish and Welsh, for more than ten centuries now, with relatively few signs of their "getting over" their animosity towards England. This tendency towards a 'cultural circling of the wagons' does not fade easily, and continuing to denigrate the defeated population for their feelings has universally proven itself a rather ineffective approach in dealing with it. In fact the lesson of the Germans between World War I and World War II indicates there can be a fierce backlash to such a tack.

[Thothmes]

21. just remember

they are Americans also.

[badgervan]

22. A Common Southern Fallacy

Sorry, but the Civil War was almost exclusively about the right to own slaves, especially in the expanding territories. Southern manhood depended on slavery... no matter how dirt poor you were, at least you weren't a slave. Emancipation was a huge threat to the fighting southerner, as he worried about his family to the point of desertion in many cases... which contributed to the war's final end. Just not enough men left to man the barricades around Richmond and St. Petersburg. The slavery issue was what kept that army fighting after every other lesser reason for that war had been destroyed.
Any southerner who tells you that the Civil War was about "state's rights" is avoiding the cold, hard facts. Read "What This Cruel War Was Over" by Chandra Manning (2007) if you really believe that "state's rights" canard.

[jazzwinders]

40. I agree.

[martymar64]

47. But WHAT State Rights were the elites fighting for?

The State Rights that allowed them to keep slaves. The more general States Rights argument was nationalist propaganda used by the elites of the time to mobilize the poor and middle classes into supporting and providing cannon fodder for "The Cause". The antebellum southern power structure had a strong undercurrent of aristocracy and authoritarianism, much more prevalent than in the north, as evidenced by an agricultural system based on coerced labor benefitting a select few and roving "slave patrols", the precursors to the KKK as an intimidating force. Meanwhile, the working class and poor whites of were equally oppressed by the poverty built in to a system where they could not compete economically with the elites. The elites other motivation was to aid in expanding slavery into the west, i.e. Bleeding Kansas.
The working class of the south was fed a line of nationalistic bullshit so they would fight for the interests of the elites.

[LostinVA]

60. It was about the state's rights to have SLAVES

It pretend anything else is willfull ignorance.

[Yupster]

62. Tennessee was an interesting case

When the southern states seceeded, Tennessee called for a vote on whether to call a secession convention. It failed narrowly and Tennessee remained in the union.

When Lincoln called up the militia and gave Tennessee a quota of troops to provide for the invasion of the Confederacy, Tennessee held a second vote and voted 80 % to secede and join the Confederacy.

It was a shame. If it weren't for Lincoln's bumbling Tennessee would not have left the union at all.

[Baby Snooks]

16. Florida and Texas have one thing in common...

Florida and Texas both elected a Bush as governor. Both are jokes as a result. At least Florida didn't send theirs to the White House.

The real disgrace in both states is the number of "Blue Dog Democrats" who voted for them. And who always make a point of how they're not racist, they're just conservative.

[genorp]

18. It's not even the Confederate flag!

One thing that gets up my craw is historical revisionism. It's one thing to have pride, and another to misrepresent, which our friends on the Right are so fond of doing. The so-called Confederate Flag they fly was never a flag of the CSA. It's a 20th century amalgamation of the Navy jack (rectangle with lighter blue) and the Army battle flag (square with darker blue). There were 3 Confederate flags during the war, the "Stars and Bars" (3 stripes with a blue field in the corner with stars), then 2 white flags with the square battle flag emblem in the corner, the second white flag having a red vertical stripe on the right so it wouldn't be confused with the white flag of truce. So if they want to honor "our ancestors" maybe they should learn what flag their ancestors actually flew.

[14thColony]

20. Wow

Full marks. Not many people know that. Yes, the flag they keep flying did not exist in 1865. It's a modern invention, and as you say closer to the Navy Jack than anything the armies ever used.

If they just hoisted up the Bonnie Blue Flag no one would know or care!

[Robb]

28. Fascinating, thank you

I went and read the Wikipedia entry on this. Welcome to DU!

[magellan]

32. Props and welcome!

I did research on this long ago for a story; it's not hard to find the history of the various CSA flags on the internet. There was even a song called "The Bonnie Blue Flag" which was second only to "Dixie" in popularity in the South during the war.

Knowing this I can only conclude the people who fly the confederate flag are ignorant of the culture they're so proud of, racists who do it to provoke a response, or both.

[Paladin]

48. Correct Confederate Flag: Deck Chairs On The Titanic...(n/t)

[magellan]

65. Do you mean it doesn't matter?

I think it does, as it speaks to their true intent. i.e. it's not about the Civil War or Southern pride as they may claim, but about their hatred and ignorance.

[Heywood J]

23. The flag your ancestors flew was the Union Jack, dumbasses.

Either that or the Jolly Rodger, knowing the turpitude of some of these groups.

[DemocracyInaction]

24. E-mail I just received

I'm seeing RED (as in Red States). Just received an e-mail from a guy who lives in Georgia. We share jokes, news, etc. from time to time. Brief summary of joke: A golf course has robo caddies which are amazing and the golfers like them, etc. Then one day they aren't there. Pro shop tells golfers it's because they were too shiney and blinded other golfers. So golfers say "why didn't you just paint them black because they were really good". Answer: We did...then one held up the pro shop; two filed for welfare and the third is running for president. --- yup, this asshole country is running around blowing up other countries so they can be as good and wonderful and democratic and all that shit just like CHRISTIAN us!! The only thing that damn flag stands for is something Licoln said (and I paraphrase): They are fighting for the god given right to deny other's their rights. AMEN

[Ian David]

26. Fuck them.

http://www.cafepress.com/southdiversity

[DemocracyInaction]

29. Ian - love it

I'm a Civil War buff (odd hobby for a woman - but, hey, good enough for the President of Harvard)! I just can't get enough of the politics, social conditions and the actual chess game of the battles, etc. I'm absolutely in love with Sherman (I think we have the same personality) and Grant. It was Grant who said after seeing the Reb prisoners coming in by the droves that it was more than the slaves that needed liberating in the South!!!

[liberal N proud]

27. Something my teenager can quiz me on next time we go to Tampa

Oh Yea!

[dysfunctional press]

31. they're also going to put up a plaque honoring "black confederate veterans"...

..."He hopes people who are offended by the flag will drive to the memorial and view the plaques honoring Confederate soldiers. They plan to have one dedicated to black Confederate veterans, he said."

i could be mistaken- but weren't any of the blacks that fought for the confederacy generally forced to- in that their owners gave them over to the army for service...?

[struggle4progress]

35. Pat Cleburne's Negro Enlistment Proposal (2 Jan 1864)

COMMANDING GENERAL, THE CORPS, DIVISION, BRIGADE, AND REGIMENTAL COMMANDERS OF THE ARMY OF TENNESSEE:

... We have now been fighting for nearly three years, have spilled much of our best blood, and lost, consumed, or thrown to the flames an amount of property equal in value to the specie currency of the world ... The idea that it is their special mission to war against slavery has held growing sway over the Northern people for many years, and has at length ripened into an armed and bloody crusade against it ... Will the slaves fight? The helots of Sparta stood their masters good stead in battle. In the great sea fight of Lepanto where the Christians checked forever the spread of Mohammedanism over Europe, the galley slaves of portions of the fleet were promised freedom, and called on to fight at a critical moment of the battle. They fought well, and civilization owes much to those brave galley slaves. The negro slaves of Saint Domingo, fighting for freedom, defeated their white masters and the French troops sent against them. The negro slaves of Jamaica revolted, and under the name of Maroons held the mountains against their masters for 150 years; and the experience of this war has been so far that half-trained negroes have fought as bravely as many other half-trained Yankees ... http://www.civilwarhome.com/cleburneproposal.htm

[dysfunctional press]

46. in most historical instances, slaves who fought were promised their freedom to do so...

the confederacy wasn't offering that, and the slaves that fought for the south were basically fighting to remain slaves.

[struggle4progress]

58. I suspect we pretty much agree here

The ante-bellum South was constantly consumed by fear of slave insurrection, and any idea of armed slaves produced universal horror among the "citizens"

Thus the early 1864 proposal (that I linked) was initially strongly disapproved. But the Confederacy was losing the war, and in early March 1865 (less than a month before the fall of Richmond) the Confederate Congress actually did approve a plan to offer slaves freedom in return for army service. It is therefore conceivable that after the beginning of March 1865 some blacks were enrolled in the Confederate Army. But there was almost no time left for the Confederacy left at that point, and their military situation was deteriorating rapidly

A few blacks actually did attend some civil war veteran reunions. I suspect the following case is typical:

Mystery surrounds black Confederate veteran
Historians try to unravel role Ike Pringle played in local history
By Brian Livingston
[e-mail]

... Born in May, 1841, Isaac .... was given to the grandson of the family, Frank Pringle ... Frank Pringle joined the 24th Mississippi. Ike Pringle followed him into service ... Both men survived the war ... Ike Pringle was never wounded nor have any documentations been discovered to suggest he was a combatant or was always kept in the rear area ... But .. he was allowed to attend numerous Confederate soldiers reunions, such as the one in Pine Bluff, Arkansas in 1937 ... So what was the role Ike Pringle played in the Civil War? ... Mississippi ... grant<ed> Ike Pringle a pension in 1920 for being a member of the Confederate army ...

http://www.meridianstar.com/local/local_story_328032542.html

Note that Ike Pringle is not granted a "pension" until 1920. Such pensions were not identical to the pensions offered to "white" Southern soldiers, presumably due to status issues:

... Many of the Confederate States of America (CSA) passed laws offering pensions to indigent Confederate veterans. African-Americans were not eligible to apply for the Confederate Pensions until much later than white veterans; some became eligible for pensions as late as 1923 ...

The CSA required slave owners to "loan" slaves to help defend the Confederacy, building breastworks and bridges, driving wagons, entertaining the soldiers, cooking for the troops and other "menial" tasks.

The Confederate Pension files hold the names of the slaves and the names of any Confederate the slave was sent to serve. Often the surname of the slave and his "master" were different. This gives an excellent clue to the researcher as to the surname of the possible slave owner ...

http://en.epochtimes.com/news/8-2-1/65036.html

In a nutshell: "The Confederacy allowed black enrollments beginning only about a month before Richmond fell: if you're claiming so-and-so was a black Confederate veteran, let's see enrollment papers. Otherwise, so-and-so was most likely a slave sent unarmed to the front"

[Yupster]

66. There is an account of these enrolled A-A Confederate

soldiers actually fighting a skirmish against Yankee cavalry during Lee's retreat toward Appomattox. It was in a soldier's diary and it was recounted as an amazing thing he saw -- A-A soldiers in Confederate gray lined up and defending wagons from Yankee cavalry.

That may have been the only time that the "legal" Confederate regular army soldiers fought a battle. There are many cases of A-A soldiers fighting for the Confederacy in an unorganized fashion, just one or two A-A guys within a group of Confederates (probably free A-A's who joined up at the county level and were ignored by higher ups), but there's more about that in my other post.

The account can be found in the book "To Appomattox."

[struggle4progress]

68. Black Soldiers on the Appomattox Campaign (NPS)

... on March 23, 1865, General Orders #14 was issued which allowed for the enlistment of Blacks into the Confederate service .... in Richmond .. Majors James W. Pegram and Thomas P. Turner put together a "Negro Brigade" of Confederate States Colored Troops .... apparently these Black Confederate soldiers went along with General Custis Lee's wagon train .. unmolested until they reached .. Painesville on April 5 .... On April 10th, as Confederate prisoners were being marched from Sailor's Creek and elsewhere .. off to Northern prison camps, a Union chaplain observed the column. This incident along the retreat to Painesville, seems to be the only documented episode of "official" Black troops serving the Confederacy in Virginia as an armed unit under fire ... Confederates paroled at Appomattox Court House include thirty-nine slaves and free blacks ...

http://www.nps.gov/apco/black-soldiers.htm

So in fact, only about a week separates the actual issuance of the first general order allowing black enlistment from the fall of Richmond

[struggle4progress]

36. Confederate Congress: Second Congress, Second Session, Senate, March 7, 1865:

The Negro Soldier Question

... The following is the bill; A Bill to increase the military forces of the Confederate States.

The Congress of the Confederate States of America do enact, That in order to provide additional forces to repel invasion, maintain the rightful possession of the Confederate States, secure their independence and preserve their institutions, the President be and he is hereby authorized to ask for and accept from the owners of slaves the services of such number of able-bodied negro men as he may deem expedient, for and during the war, to perform military service in whatever capacity he may direct ...

http://www.mdgorman.com/Written_Accounts/Periodicals/negro_soldier.htm

Richmond fell in early April. The Army of Northern Virginia surrendered on 9 April. So the confederacy allowed black enlistments -- but only during the last month of its existence

[Thothmes]

45. not necessiraly.

Their were blacks that willingly joined the Confederate army. A small percentage overall, but they did serve on their own volition. Others followed their masters to the army. I dont think a wealthy planter would sign over prime healthy field hands to the army. Slave owners did on many occassions allow the army to use their slaves for a short period to dig fortifications etc. If I rememeber correctly, a planter named Mallory lent General Ewell, several hundred of his slaves to build the fortifications along the Warwick River on the Virginia Peninsula. When the work was done, the slaves were returned to Mallory.

[struggle4progress]

59. No black could have joined the Confederate Army as a soldier prior to March 1865

If you know any who joined after that day, please provide details

[Yupster]

67. I gave examples of both in post 64

all rare occurences though.

Much more numerous were the A-A's who joined the Union Army, in segregated units and very large numbers.

[Thothmes]

70. Why not

[struggle4progress]

71. See my prior posts #35, #36, #58, #68 upthread

[Yupster]

73. According to Confederate Congressional Law

no A-A could have joined the army.

However, due to the makeup of the Confederate government, and its on the fly trying to organize itself while it was being invaded, and due to the way the Confederate army was mustered,things didn't always go as the law said.

In the Confederacy things often went by whatever the local commander or conditions required.

Just to give one example, for the final two years of the war, the states of Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas were completely cut off from the rest of the Confederacy. They till fought right till the end just as hard as anywhere else though. They didn't go very much by Confederate Congressional committee decisions and laws. They did what they could with what they had.

Not to say that southern A-A's were enthusiastically fighting under the Southern Cross by the millions, but its been documented enough places that I'm convinced it happened from time to time, depending on the situation and the commanders on the ground.

There's also a documented case of a woman serving in the Confederate Army as a regular private for most of the war.

[Yupster]

64. Boy that's a complicated question

Southern African-Americans fought for the north, the south and stayed out of it as much as they could.

How did A-A's fight for the south?

The first answer was as teamsters, and laborers and camp workers. There were tens of thousands of them. These were free A-A's and slave A-A's. The Confederacy put about 75 % of their 1 million adult white men in uniform. This is an amazing percentage. About 1/4 of them were killed in the war and another 1/4 were seriously wounded. There just weren't any white men to provide roles in the meandering miles of wagon trains that followed the armies, so the A-A teamsters, cooks, etc were vital to the war effort.

There were obviously isolated cases of teamsters picking up their rifles to fend off cavalry raiders near their wagon trains. This is not controversial, but does it count as fighting for the Confederacy? What about a camp aide who picked up the rifle of his fallen owner after living with the regiment for two years?

Then there are the cases of actually fighting in the ranks.

The way the Confederacy filled its ranks is important to this question. The regiments were formed by county. Basically every adult white man in the county mustered as a regiment, elected their leaders (usually the preacher or the mayor) and marched off to war together. That system had advantages because people fought with their families and neighbors. It also had disadvantages because a failed attack could kill 1/2 of the adult white men in "the valley" in half an hour.

Anyway, A-A's were not eligible to join the regiment, but a lot depended on the county and the local leadership. There is quite a bit of evidence that it happened in some regiments to some extent. It should be noted that there were 50,000 free A-A's in Virginia alone.

On the invasion of Maryland that ended at Antietam, there are reports from citizens of Frederick, Maryland that A-A soldiers were seen marching in the ranks of Stonewall Jackson's corps just like any other soldiers. In the Peninsula campaign a sniper was so effective at killing Yankees that a special effort was made to kill him. When they finally shot him out of a tree, they were surprised to find he was an A-A. At Gettysburg on the first day of the battle some Yankee prisoners were surprised at being escorted back to the Confederate rear by an A-A Confederate.

Isolated cases all.

It makes for a very complicated story indeed.

But there's no doubt at all that tens of thousands of southern A-A's enthusianstically volunteered, trained and fought openly for the Union Army during the war.

[BreweryYardRat]

34. $5 says that thing goes up in smoke within two weeks.

Too many folks here who don't want to see that shit on that scale.

[struggle4progress]

38. I propose a new holiday: Confederate flag burning day (April 16, 2008)

... I'm thinking either June 3rd (Confederate President Jefferson Davis's birthday) or maybe April 8th (when Lee surrendered) would be great choices for Confederate Flag Burning Day. Burn baby burn

http://z.about.com.nyud.net:8090/d/politicalhumor/1/0/d/B/confederate_flag.jpg

http://dailyrepublic.typepad.com/wadingin/2008/04/i-propose-a-new.html

[Posteritatis]

37. Who wants to run up a 31x51' UN flag next to it? (nt)

[Psephos]

39. What on Earth does the UN flag have to do with the Confederacy? n/t

[Posteritatis]

41. Not much, but rightwing whackjobs define themselves in terms of hating it half the time. (nt)

[sofa king]

42. Oh, it isn't about racism or slavery.

The Confederacy just happened to secede... in an attempt to preserve their heritage of racism and slavery.

I really, really really wish that urban gangsters would do the obvious thing and take that damned flag away from the fucking rednecks. Screw Crip and Blood colors, what people ought to be sporting are the Stars and Bars.

Then we can all sit back and laugh at how quickly that stupid fucking flag is outlawed.

[JCMach1]

43. It's heritage AND hate, that's what these morans can't see

That's why it shouldn't fly

[angrycarpenter]

44. I am a white southern man

so the other white southern men assume that I share their beliefs. I have not seen a rebel flag hugger yet that was not also a racist. When the cameras are rolling it is all about the first amendment and states rights and so forth but when it is just me and him it is all about hate.

When I have talked to these persons who seem to care deeply about the rebel flag they also seem to have other causes at heart.

They want to throw everyone off of welfare.

They want to bomb Iraq flat and just take the oil.

They know for a fact that Obama is a muslim.

People who burn the American flag should be in prison (note that the first amendment carries no weight in that argument).

They hate blacks and the N word flows effortlessly out of their mouths (after first looking around to see who might hear).


I am a white southern man. They say that it is about culture not hate but I know better. It is all about hate, and the idea that the white man was put here by god to rule the world by force.

I hope they go broke replacing the stupid thing all the time.

[Paladin]

49. Well Said, ac

Your experiences with Confederate flag-worshiping types are exactly what I've noticed, time and again.

If this ridiculous flag project comes to pass, I'd support an act of vandalism to bring it down.....

[Doctor_J]

51. Looks like McSame will be taking Hillborough Co.

Oh, well. :eyes:

[NoodleyAppendage]

52. Why don't progressives in that area (if there are any) come up with a competing flag plan?

It would be wonderful if the progressives in the area decided to erect a HUGE AMERICAN flag, not some backwater bullshit RACIST flag.

J

[mitchum]

53. Loser rag

[depakid]

54. "No wonder my state is the fucking laughingstock of the country."

It's almost like there's no action or idea too bizarre to come out of Florida these days. Didn't use to be like that. WTF happened?

[Hugabear]

55. Ever since the '00 election fiasco, it's been really bizarre down here

Almost like it's like some sort of karmic payback.

[maryf]

57. It even has its own "fark" label...

too bad...

[ohio2007]

61. old habits don't die.

they just slowly fade away

[JustAnotherGen]

63. I just don't get

Why people would want to associate with being a loser? :shrug: It's the Loser Flag.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

69. Put up a flag next to their flag, one that says "MORONS"

or Morans, depending on which you prefer.

[liberal1973]

72. LoL

Yeah that would be a good idea. This guy is really a nut case.