Mostly on one side.

Ignorant racist gunfucks adapted the Confederate flag nearly a hundred years later for hate, and those who honor the dead were mostly silent, so let the flag sink.

One side was defending slavery. There is little honorable about war and fighting in order to own people is about as far from honorable as you can get.

So it's not as if many had that much of a choice as refusal could be punishable by execution.

in the morally indefensible. Killing other people under duress does not make a person honorable, not killing people under duress does.

One side were racist pigs railing against civil rights. They would rather have left the states than give people right. There is nothing honorable about that whatsoever.

The North had its share of racist assholes too. Some northern states passed laws that limited where freed slaves can live. In other words they supported their freedom, but didn't want to live near them.

General Grant also continued to own slaves himself until 1865.

He managed an farm, White Haven, which had slaves owned by his father-in-law before the war.

"In Mary Robinson’s July 24, 1885, recollections, during an interview for the St. Louis Republican memorial to Grant following his death, she noted that “he always said he wanted to give his wife’s slaves their freedom as soon as he was able.” In 1859, Grant freed William Jones, the only slave he is known to have owned. During the Civil War, some slaves at White Haven simply walked off, as they did on many plantations in both Union and Confederate states. Missouri’s constitutional convention abolished slavery in the state in January 1865, freeing any slaves still living at White Haven."

http://www.nps.gov/ulsg/learn/historyculture/slaveryatwh.htm

General Order #11 of 1862

A bit more complex that you cared to delineate. While Grant clearly had anti-Semitic views, he also had tactical reasons for doing this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Order_No._11_%281862%29

Note that Grant thought that the "black market in Southern cotton" was being run "mostly by Jews and other unprincipled traders." Apparently no real proof-- just a hunch.

The Confederates that volunteered at the beginning were either scions of wealthy families, or victims of 19th century Fox News, constantly talking about the massacres of women and children the North was performing and how they were coming to rape and kill everyone in the South. The Confederacy then drafted people a year before the Union, eventually drafting virtually all able-bodied males between the ages of 17 and 50. Most of them were either lied to or forced to fight.

So, like 95% of all wars, it was basically a bunch of poor people being forced to fight rich men's wars.

I'm certainly not defending the Confederacy or that stupid fucking flag; I'm just saying that we shouldn't blame wars on the soldiers who fight them.

This statement reinforces my opinion that he can actually win the WH. Flame away, but that's my opinion.

Which is that government entities should not fly that flag, and that it was adopted as a reaction to the civil rights era.

The underlying issues are where he needs to go next. It's where all Americans need to focus. And before you go there, I'd like to see the Confederates States treated as the traitors they were and continue to be, as along as they refuse to adhere to the laws and spirit of this country, for which that war was fought.

Have you been following me personally (which I find doubtful, but one never knows...), or is this a generic assumption, in which case one knows what is said about that....

I don't do that.

I tend to take "you" as personal, unless I have reason to believe otherwise.

Not looking for an argument or debate...just wondering why you have this opinion.

I don't get it either

His politics are dead center....exactly where most Americans are. He is a remake of Clinton and Carter.

And the Confederacy was racist from the beginning. It existed to perpetuate a system that treated blacks as subhuman property. I hate this idea that its symbols were co-opted for hate decades later.

No thanks, Jim Webb.

My Dad walked from Normandy to where Patton met the Soviets. He was not shipped directly home but was put in charge of German solders that were no longer prisoners but hand no place to go. They worked at cleaning up the debris of war. My friends and I had been playing war and were shouting all kinds of rude insults at the kids who were playing the Germans. Dad called us in for a little talk about how the German soldiers for the most part were defending the home. He did mention that the Waffen-SS and the Gestapo were despicable people, but not the everyday soldier who was probably conscripted.

This man not only fought against the Germans but he was present at the liberation of 2 concentration camps. He knew 1st hand of the atrocities that were committed but he refused to condemn the average Jerry in uniform. He said they were just like us.

It is easy to spread blame with a broad brush. Thankfully the War crimes tribunals limited harsh judgement against those who deserved it. I'm sure some people would've like to just wipe out all the German people, just as some would have cheered at hanging all of the johnny rebs, just because.

my Mom told me a story of when she had seen my older brother and friends playing war, and they were yelling about 'The Germans!' Mom says, she stopped them for a moment, and pointed out to them that they were all German (3rd generation Americans, but still German ancestored - actually probably 'Prussia' when our ancestors immigrated).. She said they had very confused looks on their faces.

history that makes me want to even tear down the American flag along with the Confederate flag: In most cases the German prisoners of war and the Germans emigrating to this country as refugees etc. were treated much much better than the black soldiers who fought against them. In many cases returning black soldiers who were wounded were not given the quality of medical care that wounded white soldiers received without question. Racism is sickening on so many levels.

Civilians were plundered, deserters shot, and often whole towns were destroyed just to set an example.

Wars are complicated, ethically murky phenomena. Dividing lines between heroes and villains are often not very distinct.

Be glad we only had one civil war (many countries have them constantly). I hope we don't see another civil war in my lifetime, or ever.

I shudder to think of what it would have been like to have experienced the horrors of the Civil War era.

Our founding fathers were traitors.

If they lost the war and this land was still owned by Britain, we'd be calling George Washington and Thomas Jefferson the biggest traitors to the crown.

Today, some consider Edward Snowden a traitor. Others consider him a hero.

nice to see someone speak like an adult on this and not just another knee jerk reactionary. Many of the southern generals were heroes of the Mexican war and were the grandsons of or founding fathers. I think this call to purge all things confederate is Orwellian and a diversion from the real issue, out of control gun violence in the United States. Its so easy to attack people who have been dead for a hundred years but what is that really doing to solve our hyper violent society?

Or not.

that have become part of American society. People latch onto the flag issue because it is easy to think about and solve. And of course, if the banning the flag is good, then banning other stuff will be better. This is 21st century American thinking.

http://toucharcade.com/2015/06/25/apple-removes-confederate-flag/

Apple is removing games that have Confederate flags in them. This includes RTS Civil War games. It is pandering to political correctness gone amok.

Remove the Confederate flag from a state building? Yes, I am more than ok with that.

Remove the Confederate flag from video games, destroy graveyards and tombs, and rewrite history now because of one fucker? No, I am not ok with that.

This is a toothless distraction that does nothing to educate those most in need of an education. It does nothing to touch their psychology to elicit empathy with others.

once they took up arms. It took pardons, and petitions for many to get that back.

It would have been best never to have reached that point, war, they were allowed to choose sides.

Webb is a warrior,. And he hates war. And he loves his country. He also understands the Civil War still shapes America.

In spite of this:
http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/people/jim-webb-women-cant-fight/
I still kinda like the old dinosaur.

Not hypocrisy, rather one raised from the cradle to think a gentleman always protects and defends women may not be capable of recognizing or understanding chauvinism.

Based on his actions since writing that piece, it's a good bet he believes women are man's equal under the law. While I doubt his interior world view has changed to "accept" women fighting and dying in combat, I believe Webb does appreciate women's rights to defend their country.

Thank you for the kind reminder, SusanCalvin!

May I infer that you might be a Heinlein fan as well?

...stopped after the second mind-transference Lazarus Long marrying his daughter or whomever thinking the guy went weird.

Now I'm 58 and wondering what happened to our national vision, replaced by greed-is-all-there-is and leadership we can buy wholesale. Have you read John Boyd? "Rakehells of Heaven" and "The Last Starship from Earth" are good examples of where we head if we cooperate with these monsters.

Robert Heinlein put in my mind the ancient idea that citizenship is reserved for those who've served in the nation's military. I like Sparta and Rome and all, but I've grown to understand that all are equal under the law and each has a stake in the nation and its future -- a Democrat.

Heinlein's personal story still makes my heart sink -- an Annapolis grad having to leave service due to health problems. Have you read Harry Harrison's "Bill the Galactic Hero"? The work does wonders by exposing the hypocrites who use the human imagination for what they are through humor. I understand Isaac Asimov HATED the book.

Thank you for grokking me, SusanCalvin. Somehow, the darkness is no where near as scary with a Friend.

I have not read any of the non-Heinlein books you list, and I am looking forward to them. I'm particularly interested in the one Asimov hated, since I'm also an Asimov fan.

Thank you for grokking me as well.

It's a *really* common misconception that _Starship Troopers_ posited *military* service as a prerequisite for full citizenship (voting and running for office), and I can see why, since the revolt was started by veterans and Juan's service is military, but the service for full citizenship is presented as not being even usually military (although often unpleasant and/or dangerous).

(Yeah, I have 'em practically memorized..... )

"Fields Of Fire" was a unofficial required reading for a lot of Infantry NCOs

He should have just kept his big mouth shut. He's not going to win over anyone but racists and Republicans with that schtick.

As John Oliver said, that flag belongs in a museum, in a box marked "BAD FLAG."


It is a symbol of a bunch of American traitors who tried to defeat our nation. We aren't in the habit of glorifying other losers, otherwise we'd be driving on Rommel highway and sending our kids to Hitler Elementary. Time to put the fucking losers in their place--in thte LOSERS category, where they belong.

the neo-Confederate vote here at Dixie Underground.

is almost always a very young man, who very recently was just a boy, conscripted into a conflict he had no say in, for policies he had no say in, who if he did anything else, would at best be immediately disenfranchised from everything and everyone he had ever known, and shot, beaten and/or imprisoned at worst.

it's hard for me to quickly judge any soldier no matter who they fought for

But it is so easy to condemn people from the past, with practically no knowledge of the society they lived in.

I was but a young man once as well.

Long before James Webb became secretary of the Navy or a U.S. senator—or even potentially a 2016 Democratic presidential candidate—he was a 23-year-old Marine fighting in Vietnam’s An Hoa basin, west of the city of Da Nang, as part of the Fifth Marine Regiment. During his tour as a rifle platoon and company commander, Webb was awarded the Navy Cross, the Silver Star, two Bronze Star Medals and two Purple Hearts for his actions in combat. An enemy grenade left him with shrapnel lodged in his head, arm, leg and back. Recounting his gritty combat tour during some of the war’s darkest days—in one eight-week period, his rifle platoon suffered 51 Purple Hearts among those killed or wounded—he told an interviewer in 1988, “My greatest feeling in Vietnam was that I was a pawn.”

Webb’s time at the war helped to inspire his career as a writer; his 1978 debut novel, Fields of Fire, is considered one of the best books ever written about the Vietnam War, and his writing ever since has often focused on combat. It’s an experience, Webb says, that the average civilian can never understand. As he wrote in his 2014 memoir, “I and my fellow combat veterans stand on one side of a great impassable divide, with the rest of the world on the other.”


Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/jim-webb-fiction-119116.html#ixzz3eBXJD2dP

Not a good intro, IMHO.

The best interpretation is that he was speaking from the heart- but he would have been better served by silence.

caused the whole damned thing by refusing to evolve from their hideous viewpoints. There was nothing honorable about Jefferson Davis or any of the other traitors that chose to split the country apart and send their honorable men to die fighting for the right to own human beings.

I will posit these possible explanations for why non-slave holders fought for the Confederacy:

* Quite possibly heard or read the various Secession Acts specifying any or all of the following: separation from the Union is necessary to preserve and maintain the supremacy of the white guy over all others; the basic "some day I can get me some slaves and be rich like that guy over there"; and freed slaves are going to rape the women in my family. In other words, the non-slave holder was of the same political bent as the slave-owner. You can read the causi belli for various states here: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/what-this-cruel-war-was-over/396482/

* God. Yes, God. God condoned slavery. It's in the Bible! God didn't condone slavery.That's in the Bible too! You can't go against the Almighty, now can you? There were few religious minorities in the United States in the run up to the Civil War. Most Americans were of one protestant denomination or another. The three main protestant sects: Methodist, Presbyterian and Baptist split in the 1840s over the issue of slavery. So, for example, the Northern Baptist preacher would rail against slavery and its negative effects on society while his Southern counterpart spoke just as determinedly about maintaining human bondage because it was a good thing for everybody. This link has more on the impact of religiosity, personal belief systems and the echo chamber here: http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/civil-war-overview/why-non-slaveholding.html

* Conscripted and fought with the army.

* Joined a slave patrol and ended up in the army. In addition to the regular army units, local militias formed slave patrols. Now slave patrols had been a regular feature of Southern life for more than a hundred years. White Southerners feared slave rebellions and many more slave patrols were formed in the first year of the Civil War since - truth be told - a slave rebellion was feared more than the still far away Union army. As the war dragged on, slave patrols contributed more men to the war effort. Men with "20 negroes or more" were automatically exempted from military service. Rich man's war, poor man's fight.

What has showed up. It's the "waiting for the ticking time bomb vet" drive by poster. You know, the one who just makes a few degrading posts and leaves

on whether the flag should be down or remain on the capital. Fast-forward today it is still up there.