Posted on 06/25/2015 6:46:03 AM PDT by PROCON
I am a 60-something Caucasian Yankee, born and raised in Michigan. My mother was British. My father was the first in his Canadian-immigrant family born in the USA. I have lived in North Carolina for almost 40 years, longer than my next door neighbors who were born and raised here. I understand a lot about the South, except for one thing: The pride in the Confederacy, its history and symbols. I do understand the reverence for General Robert E. Lee. I share it. He was a great general and a good and great man. He could have fought on but surrendered ultimately for the good of the whole country.
A few years ago, there was a movement in our town to “retire” the giant statue of the Confederate soldier that towers over the one-story public library. Black citizens came to city meetings and pleaded their case. The statue made them feel terrible. They did not want their children to have to walk past it as they entered and left the public library. They begged the powers-that-be to please at least move it, if not destroy it altogether.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
All Confederate generals were great AND good!
The answer to your question is found in piles of box written about the whys of the civil war.
General Sherman was a monster. Useless Grant was a tyrannical president. Honest Abe wasn't very honest.
You hit the nail on the head!!!!!!!
Yours is the Best Answer, imho.
There is nothing I could say that would get through to this dimwitted airhead.
With the exception of Gen. John B. Hood. Your statement has merit.
I don’t understand tattoos, ear and nose rings, purple and blue hair, etc. but I do understand that it’s not my place to take way the freedom of expression and speech of others. I’m also not a fascist liberal who tries to deny others their rights either.
I’ll ask the author a question in response. Why do African Americans associate with a continent that has so many horrendous issues in the present and past, where slavery still exists, where individual liberty and fair treatment are a fantasy?
Why do Europeans esteem certain kings in their history, like Louis XIV and Charlemagne, instead of rejecting all kings as tyrants?
Southerners still have regional pride and they still resent Northern domination, politically and culturally. Not odd that symbols of resistance to those things should find a popular place.
There’s a lot more to the old South than slavery. About 2% of southerners owned slaves. Hundreds of thousands of poor southern farmers didn’t die fighting for slavery. States were big places, then, most people never going beyond their beloved Alabama, for instance. There was a lot of pride in one’s state. So, the question is, why do some people still feel “Confederate pride”? I think it’s less about the confederacy and more about “leave me the hell alone”. I used to wave the confederate battle flag. Today, I wave the gadsden flag.
There actually is a logical reason. First, let me be clear that I am not opposed to people in American flying whatever flag they want as it is covered by (increasingly diminishing) freedom of speech. That being said, lets look at it another way. The Confederate flag is a symbol of southern states that seceded under the guise of states rights which really meant they wanted to keep slavery as it was the underpinning of the southern economy. A very costly war was fought and those states lost. Because the underlying issue was slavery, the flag - as a symbol of those southern states - also became a symbol of racism and slavery.
Look at the repulsion we all have when neo-Nazis fly the swastika flag. It is actually outlawed in Germany because of the message it sends. Is it possible to understand that the fear and disgust a Jew would feel walking past a swastika is the same that a Black person feels when they see the confederate flag? How about if you walked down the streets in Prague waving a hammer an sickle flag? Look at the outrage that was expressed when someone posted an article recently about an ISIS flag being flown in Minnesota. What about when we Christians see Jesus being mocked in picture or word?
I agree that we live in a country where policy is driven by faux outrage, that race-baiters make their livings by lurching from protest to protest. I also know, from talking with some very dear, conservative Black friends that the confederate flag is hurtful to them.
My grandfather had a saying - just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
America should go after the rebellious Indian tribes next and make them stop recognizing their resistance to the U.S.
Bingo!
Both my former Yankee bride and I agree 100%.
(She was “War Reparations”. I made a raid up North and stole away one of their finest ‘honeys’. She calls herself a Carolina girl now.)
To me the pride comes from having been born and raised in a land that fought for liberty and freedom from an oppressive government. My ancestors fought the aggression and oppression. As they did in the Revolutionary War. They saw it happening all over again less than 100 years after their ancestors had defeated King George. Now they felt there was a king in Washington and they wanted out. I admire them for that.
And owning another person is sickening. None of my ancestors owned slaves so they weren’t fighting to keep what they didn’t have.
Ever heard of “Northern Pride”? Me neither.
It isn’t so much “Confederate Pride” as it is a deep down distrust and disdain for arrogant Yankees who cluster like rats in large cities and congratulate themselves that they are so far more civilized than those ignorant disgusting rednecks from the south.
Imagine how conservative feels walking past the library they were forced to pay for
Her first few paragraph explained a lot.
She identifies herself as yankee, living in NC for 40 years, even though she said she understands the South, but not as a Southerner.
A lot of blah blah blah later, there’s this gem “How can there be pride in such a shameful history?”
That’s all you need to know about this person. She DOES not understand, HAS not tried to understand...... But, hey, she’s an understanding type of person.
"The withdrawal of a State from a league has no revolutionary or insurrectionary characteristic. The government of the State remains unchanged as to all internal affairs. It is only its external or confederate relations that are altered. To term this action of a Sovereign a 'rebellion' is a gross abuse of language."
"Obstacles may retard, but they cannot long prevent the progress of a movement sanctified by its justice, and sustained by a virtuous people ."
"Secession belongs to a different class of remedies. It is to be justified upon the basis that the States are Sovereign. There was a time when none denied it. I hope the time may come again, when a better comprehension of the theory of our Government, and the inalienable rights of the people of the States, will prevent any one from denying that each State is a Sovereign, and thus may reclaim the grants which it has made to any agent whomsoever."
"The contest is not over, the strife is not ended. It has only entered upon a new and enlarged arena." Jefferson Davis, address to the Mississippi legislature - 16 years after the wars end.
"The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form."
Yes, every time a woman has to walk past a statue of a man she “feels” that it should be taken down!! And every time a car passes a statue of a horse and rider, the driver “feels” that statue should be outlawed!! And every time a dog whizzes on a fire hydrant, he “feels” the hydrant should be disrespected!!! And...
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