"Why do you want to display the flag of a loser?"

cause, you know, it's part of their heritage.

to display a Nazi flag in Germany. They are way sensitive about that Nazi crap over there. I didn't see any when I was there.

[link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_legality_of_Nazi_flags|

We Southerners can't help it if some conservative idiots want to display Confederate Flag. Just let it go. I really, really don't care how many of your relatives fought for the Union. It's all in the past. Thank you very much.

I'm reading this post as being directed at anyone flying the confederate battle flag, who tries to justify it with some nonsensical excuse. I don't see that as the exclusive domain of Southerners, but rather more the province of (as you correctly point out) "conservative idiots." As such, not bashing Southerners, except where Southerner intersects with conservative idiot. I'll grant a certain commonality, but I won't go so far as to claim identity.

I know of 2 houses in my neighborhood that fly the stars and bars and I'm in Massachusetts. An idiot is an idiot no matter where the flag flies.

discern the difference between a "Southern bashing" thread and one which takes issue with individuals who continue to defend the display of the Confederate flag ... well ... I can't help you.

The OP never said the south did they?

what that flag stands for is "all in the past."

It's a critique of a certain subset of Southerners who continue to glorify Southern secession for their own hateful agenda.

You aren't a part of that group, are you?

to have malice toward none based on that conflict.

The challenge remains as important as ever.

hell no.

my working class Southern ancestors did not fight for the South, did not vote for sucession and did not own slaves. When Union troops came to their small remote homestead they stole their horses and money, killed their chickens and many of the cattle in their small herd, burned their barns and tried to burn their home. My great-great-grandmother was pregnant when Union troops made her and her family refugees. They had little food or money when she and her husband and seven children travelled over 300 miles to stay with family in Texas to escape the conflict. She walked most of that distance in the heat of summer. The family was devastated financially and never fully recovered. They returned to their home after the war and were forced to completely start over. They had done nothing wrong.

As they say, pain depends on point of view. Apparently, the same is true of pride.

but who were devastated by the Allied bombings should blame the Allies, not the Nazis?

OP seems proud of his Union soldier ancestors. The context of that conflict is that a lot of civilian innocents were killed and otherwise harmed. IMHO, all combatants share responsibility for the human costs of combat. Those Union soldiers killed, plundered, and enacted vigilante justice on civilian non-combatants. OP is certainly entitled to take pride in that should he/she choose.

War is an ugly business and we ought never forget that there are innocents who have no part in the conflict who are often harmed. Both the Allies and the Axis nations - both the Confederacy and the Union - share responsibility for those innocent casualties.

I don't know anyone who displays the Confederate flag. However, the next time I see one I will be reminded that there are still folks descended from both sides of that conflict of 160+ years ago that can't seem to move forward.

and I am repulsed by anyone (and there are females who do this) who acts nostalgic about the civil war era ala Scarlett O'Hara, for instance. those pretty dresses...

I think people who display confederate flags, etc. are pigs unless they're museum curators at work.

The union was the correct side of this issue, no matter where your family was when it was happening. That's how I see it.

So, honestly, I can't muster much sympathy for the idea of innocent Germans, considering the mass execution of Jews, or for displaced white Southerners, considering the legacy of slavery.

I mean, it's a matter of proportion. One family vs. an entire race of people. Priorities.

You find it acceptable that my family was plundered and made refugees - even though they were barely able to eek out a living in their Southern mountain abode and did not have slaves or support the Confederacy?

Would you find that a tragedy if my family had been black freedmen?

Assuming it were wrong to plunder and make refugees of civil war era black Southern freedmen, would it be acceptable to do likewise to white Southerners who did not have slaves or support the Confederacy? If so, why? Were they not entitled to due process of law? Are they to be presumed guilty simply due to the color of their skin or their place of residence?

Do you find civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan acceptable?

I don't find it acceptable to judge people based on where they live or their place of national origin. Nor do I find the plundering and displacement of innocents and civilians acceptable. Nor do I believe that one family or individual is less significant or less important than any other group or race. That is the kind of belief that ultimately concludes that individuals are subserviant to the state or the church or whatever other group is seeking submission. It is the same type of belief that eventually concludes that the corporation and the profits and tax dollars it generates is more important than the welfare of the consumer or the safety of the corporate worker. I don't consider any of these things consistent with liberal and progressive political beliefs.

I'm not advocating or defending the display of the Confederate flag. I'm pointing out that there were civilians who did not support the Confederacy and who did not have slaves who were killed, displaced and pillaged. To deny that is to deny the reality of war. To defend that is to embrace injustice IMHO.

Just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.

I stated my opinion. After a hundred and fifty years - I think it's time to find a better story for the south that has nothing to do with the civil war.

What your family experienced is done and gone.

Yes, I find it specious for white people (and I am one) to have some sort of never ending victim status related to the civil war.

I am not a victim. But what happened to my ancestors 160+ years ago was wrong. They were victims who were fortunate enough to escape with their lives and survive. Many others lost far, far more than my family. Funny how we don't like to acknowledge that.

Specious? Really? How is it false or misleading to acknowledge that there were innocents and civilians and non-combatents during the civil war that were killed, plundered or dislocated by the hostilities? That's the stuff of war.

You're right what happened then is done and gone. Or should be. But it's really not. We remain personally invested and won't let it go. We tell the history and the war stories. We are sometimes proud that our ancestors fought for or against one side or the other - even when they perhaps fought against other family members. We take sides. We prejudge Yankees or Southerners to this day based on little more than where they come from. And we judge the display of a symbol (i.e., a flag) based on 160 year old history rather than the intent and conduct of the person who displays the symbol.

Sadly, that war continues to divide. And this very discussion is evidence of that division.

Perhaps someday we can move beyond this.

Particularly when dealing with the East, where the crimes on both sides (especially the German) were infinitely worse.

Soviet soliders committed millions of rapes, executed who knows how many civilians (my guess is in the hundreds of thousands), and the postwar redrawing of borders led to the expulsion of about 12 million ethnic Germans from their homes (a couple million fled voluntarily during the war to stay away from the Red Army). Were these people victims of the Soviets, the Nazis, or both?

It's kind of hard to tell. I don't think one can dispute that Nazi policies were responsible for wrath against Germans during and after the war. The Nazis were absolutely abominable and the policies they pursued were pure evil. But in the end, it was real people who carried out the violence/expulsions against Germans. Do they deserve some blame too? Does a Soviet soldier raping a 12 year old girl deserve blame? Does a British bomber crew dropping incendiaries on a neighborhood deserve scorn for what happened below? Are the firebombing of Tokyo and the atomic bombs war crimes?

These are questions that really don't have answers, IMO. Without the horrendous German behavior during WWII, we wouldn't have had all of this. But does that excuse the rapists and sadists who took the opportunity to do their thing? I really don't know.

what people do to one another during war is fucked up. no doubt.

and, yes, I know about those issues in the East. One of my relatives by marriage was a displaced person from Poland. Everyone hated the Poles. His mother hid his father from both sides just to stay alive long enough to immigrate with nothing, basically, and the father died soon after, so that his mom was left with four small children to raise on her own with no visible skills and no family.

There are millions of such experiences, and worse. No doubt.

There are acts of the state and acts of the individual and the two are not the same agency.

However, it seems to me that when one nation or another instigates world war and genocide - what comes after is a result of those actions until that war is over. This is not to say that individual actions do not arise from agency (such as a rape of any 12 year old).

But the reality is that war is horrible, no matter what side anyone is on, for most people. For this reason, when another nation responds to the insistence on war, they do so in order to destroy the capacity of the other side to engage. What else are they going to do?

I would never prefer war to peace and I would hope that my individual responses if I were in a war situation would reflect some humanity toward others - but war sometimes takes away people's humanity, no matter whether they are the victims or the conquerors.

Grant, the humiliator of Vickburg and great final victor over Lee and grey dressed traitors.
Sherman, the sacker of Atlanta and disjointer of the confederacy.
Sheridan, the rampager all over the Shenandoah Valley and it's palty defenders.
Or, least I forget, General Meade, how broke the confederacy's back at Gettysburg.

I honor my country. I honor my relatives who died for it. My heritage is american and my flag has 50 stars on it. That is my heritage.

The US flag was displayed in battle during the genocide of the American Indians well before and after the civil war.

So,they lost too,fuck em?

because that comparison is entirely inapt.

To take a less controversial example: if you go back a few generations, most of of come from long lines of illiterate people, but we are not proud illiterates.

It is not the "Stars and Bars".

It's a common mistake made by many.




http://www.usflag.org/history/confederatestarsandbars.html

And I'm from NC.

I do. I'm proud of my state's contribution in the Civil War. You'd have a case if they were gunning for you under the Confederate battle flag. But they are mainly just flying it and looking stupid. You're free to fly whatever colors you like as well.

And I'm not flying any freakin' German flags in my house!

and my grandfather fought against the Germans in WWI.

Okay, he would have, but fortunately he was in Washington state finishing his training when the war ended. His tombstone still lists him as a WWI vet.

I find it somewhat ironic that my grandfather, with his half-German ancestry (okay, it is more like 1/8th, but still a German surname, that should count for something) would fight against Germany to put Alsace in France. Our paternal ancestors were Germans - from Alsace. How would Johannes the immigrant feel about that? Who knows? Maybe he wouldn't care one way or another about Alsace - we are in America now.

Then again, my grandfather's paternal great grandfather was married to a descendant of French Hugeunots, making my grandfather almost as much French as he was German.

They represent an enemy that we went to war with and crushed.

One of my ancestors died at Andersonville. I found this out in my thirties. Another great-great grandfather was badly injured and lost a brother. A nephew of my great-great-great grandfather also died at Andersonville, and one of his sons died in the war too. Many of my relatives were members of the GAR. Heck, I am even distantly related to US Grant.

Still, I was born in South Carolina, and I grew up proud of my southern heritage. Perhaps because I read history books inspired by the Sons of the Confederacy. I also read a biography of the Swamp Fox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Marion#Legends_and_modern_opinions_about_Marion
Lee and people like Stonewall Jackson were painted as great warriors and honorable men. Barely any mention was made of slavery, except to say that Lee was opposed to it.

Then too, on the side of the North were drunks like Grant and war criminals like Sherman.

So I can see how people raised even further south than my own home in the deep south of DAKOTA would cherish their southern heritage. In some ways I view the Confederate flag as a symbol not of slavery, but of rebellion. A southerner could easily be displaying it not to say "I love slavery" or even "I love the Confederacy" but to say "I am a rebel". A "person who fights against or resists established authority". Which is not a bad thing when the authority is unjust.

By which I mean the authorities of today and, say, 1984 (which is both the future and the past).

I'm all for burning and desecrating the Confederate Battle Flag.

Fuck the Confederacy. Nothing but a nest of traitors and slavers.

The Confederate flag should be as reviled as the swastika!