Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell signs a declaration bringing back Confederate History month, and the media tries to smear it.
I really can't bring myself to blame the media or angry citizens; the whole history of the Civil War and Confederate States of America is shrouded by a smokescreen generated from our public education system. The visceral reaction from many is the outcry against slavery, when in reality slavery only played a mild part in the war. The anger and hatred towards the mere sight of the Confederate flag is telling. Americans really are blinded.
There are people in this country who enjoy celebrating their heritage. That does not mean that they want to relive slavery any more than they want to relive firing volleys of mini balls at their brother.
13 comments:
No. Southerners are so inbred and lacking in intelligence that they think this is a good idea. This is what happens when you let the gene pool of an entire region degenerate into stupid.
The Civil War was about slavery. Period.
Anyone who argues anything else, particularly someone from the south, suffers from the retarded mental state typical of that region.
Thank you for confirming my point.
The Civil War was about many things, the least of which was slavery. Anyone who argues anything else has a preset biased opinion not grounded in reality.
Really, John?
Care to explain why not all slave states seceeded, if the war was ". . . about slavery. Period." For example -- Delaware (a slave state) never even CONSIDERED secession.
Explain your convienient ommission of the fact that Southern states, led by South Carolina, had been agitating for secession for THIRTY YEARS prior to the Civil War, based on TARIFF disputes. That Southern states held secessionist constitutional convbentions in 1851, when the abolitionist Republican Party had not even been FOUNDED. That, when the Republicans came up as real contenders, they were controversial primarily for their TARIFF policies, which were widely viewed as favoring Northern industrial interests at the expence of Southern agrarian interests.
Care to explain why the Union not only DID NOT free the slaves in territories they possessed until WELL into the war, but in fact REENSLAVED escaped Southern slaves who entered Union lines?
One can make teh argument that the Union avoided the possibility of border states choosing to seceed in the midst of the war for teh failure of teh North to seriously consider emancipation in those areas where the North had ACTUAL power to free slaves, including the border states of Maryland, Delaware, and Kentucky -- but ALSO not ommitting that interesting holdover, NEW JERSEY (which had prohibited NEW slavery, but existing NJ slaves supposedly freed in 1846 were STILL held in bondage as "apprentices for life" and recorded as "slaves" in the 1860 Census).
As late as 1862 in Delaware (a slave state, in which Linclon had finished third with 24% of the vote), teh state legislature rejected any overtures by Lincoln to emancipate their own slaves, even if compensated by the Federal government, and stated that they would do it when they felt like it. They felt that pressure from without the state to free their slaves was improper and a severe violation of "states rights". Note that Delaware did not ratify the 13th Amendment until 1901, having rejected it in 1865. (New Jersey and Kentucky ALSO rejected the 13th Amendment until after it had already gone into effect!)
Emancipation during the Civil War was used as a TACTIC, not a CAUSE, until well past the point where an inevitable Southern defeat was apparant.
Without mentioning slavery, I despise anything Confederate related because the only thing they ever did of any importance was attack America, then lose the war. Their cause was not just, and every single American death(from both sides) from that war is the Confederacy's fault.
Yeah, but it's so much easier for the left to scream "RACIST" at anyone with a Confederate flag than it is to think and act like a rational adult.
Hell, this idiot even called the Confederate Flag the "American Swastika"
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2010/04/just-in-case.html
Yeah. What Geodkyt said.
I lived south of the Sweet Tea line until I was fifteen. When I was taught about the CW in the south, state's rights were discussed. When I was forced to move to MN, the schools did not even mention states rights.
Do your own research. I know Geodkyt (a.k.a. "Shorter Half") did.
I forgot to mention -- thank goodness I'm back below the Sweet Tea line. It took me 13 years and 2 weeks, but I'm back. (Not that I was counting or anything.
I thank everyone for their comments.
Geodkyt, I appreciate you taking this one to the mat! I've been otherwise engaged, and you put into words which I could not. Much gratitude!
Really, I didn't expect to see any friction at all from this post, so I was kinda surprised at the first comment. I live in Fredericksburg, being famously historic for CW battles, so I guess I'm used to people celebrating their heritage around here. Despite this, the public learnin' system here is just as broken as anywhere else. Funny, no?
C Tone ...
The "Do your own research" thing was directed at JH, by the way, not you. *grin*
I had when I get worked up about something on a blog post without spellcheck. I end up typing fatser than my fingers can move cleanly. . . {wince}
And, as a matter of fact, I am a Southerner (with family roots in Texas and Louisiana on my father's side) who is GLAD the South lost the war -- imagine a world with TWO "American" nations severed by civil war, on the same continent, with a HUGE border. Each nation undersized and weak, with most of their defensive efforts devoted to glaring at each other across the width of the continent, ripe for the picking by nations with imperialist leanings. . .
At this point in time, the only "Confederate" flag (actually, teh Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia -- most Americans couldn't tell you the difference between HALF the "Confederate" national flags and the state flags of half the postbellum South) is a patch off my old Boy Scout uniform, which had a Battle Flag incorporated into it.
McDonnell apologized and ammended the declaration to include slavery. So he must disagree with you on this issue.
Perhaps he does, or maybe he is influenced by something else. Regardless, his take on the matter does not alter history.
It does confirm that "his take" on the matter includes the fact that slavery actually was a big issue at time. Especially to the slaves, their decendants, and abolitionists of the era.
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