Something has been bugging me as of recently about the aforementioned symbols. Let me begin by saying that I have both German and Southern backgrounds. In fact, 2 out of the 4 sets of Great Grandparents I have came directly off the boat from Germany, so to speak. In this so called great age of understanding and tolerance that we supposedly live in, why are these symbols still looked down upon as the forefront of the racist movements that are still very much alive in our great country? I have no problem with any minority whatsoever, yet when I proudly display the symbols of my heritage, people feel the need to make undue trouble for me.

People say discrimination is one of the worst things you can do to anyone anymore, especially minorities. Well let me ask you this- what about the "majority" (I'm talking about white males, even though we're technically not the majority anymore)? Don't you think we feel discriminated against when people assume that we are racist when most of us are not? Also, there in lies the problem- when you assume white males are racist, you yourself are being racist towards us.

That being said, let me give a little history lesson to try to enlighten you to the fact that the Iron Cross and the Confederate Flag are not racist symbols. The Confederate Flag was once a nation's flag, just as the stars and stripes is our flag now. The only reason why the south wanted to keep its slaves was because they didn't think they would be able to function as a nation at the time and would crumble. Keep this in mind- almost all of the labor done in that time period was done by slaves. The southerners were afraid that if we freed them then they would just run off, and thus not leaving anyone to do the work (we later found out that the country was strong enough to continue on without slave labor). On a final note, whether you want to realize it or not, our country wouldn't be even half as strong as it is today if it weren't for the slave labor. Now I'm not saying it was good thing to enslave an entire race (well, except for the ones we left in Africa), it's far from it. What I'm saying is that our country gained its strength through cheap and free labor, just as it is today with migrant workers coming up from the mexican border.

Now as for the Iron Cross, this is probably the least misunderstood of the 2. People see an Iron Cross and they think "nazi", when this is completely false. This symbol of German Heritage was developed by the melding of many of the ancient Germanic tribes' symbols into one unified symbol, meant to, well, unify them as one. This symbol is just as much a part of a race's culture and heritage as the Celtic Cross is for the Irish. Why must people continually be ignorant of the meaning of different symbols? If you dig enough, you'll find that even the Swastika was not originally made to be a racist symbol.

So please, I ask you to think differently from now on when you see the Confederate flag and Iron Cross.

"idiot redneck"  So now its name calling too.  You're not really making any point other than you don't like it.  Using this same thinking, I'd imagine that the Christian cross should also be dismissed due to the inquisition? Lots of innocent people were killed there too.

I don't like flag burning but I'll defend your right to do it. In fact, I did... This is what "freedom" and "liberty" is about.

oreomann33 wrote: Anyone see the new southpark?

i think they're all gonna hurt each others little feelings in this thread

what about the swastica? (not spelled correctly)

is it bad to show that sign off?

guess it depends on the way you mean it

because the nazis took the symbol as their own.

Brian Fellows wrote: Think about what you're saying...Hillary Clinton...slavery and treason... Can you really compare the two?

Treason? How do you figure? The Confederate States, had the constitutional right to leave the union. It was a conceptt hat the states entered into the compact/ Constitution willingly and thereby had the legal right to leave as well. Even northern state's in our nation's history threatened to leave. It was only after the Civil War that a consitutional amendement was added that changed that.

In theory then Abraham Lincoln started a war with a legally soveriegn nation. Yet he used 90 volunteer armies to fight indicative of an internal revolt, suspended habeus corpus, among other things. He tended to go back and forth on how he treated the confederacy (a seperate nation, or a revolt).

The emancipation proclamation did not free the slaves, and it only "freed" slaves in State's that were not part of the Union. This allowed slavery in Delaware and Maryland. Theoretically if the south wanted to simply save slavery, they could have rejoined the Union. It was about the deeper issues of State's Rights, and the powers of the Federal Gov't in a system of federalism.

Is the Confederate Flag necassarily representative of hate, the answer is no. However, alot of stupid, rascist redneck have fallen in love with the flag, which then progogates the belief of a hate sysmbol,...as well as the 4 years of the "Stars and Bars" under whch slavery existed (since it is seen by some as a war over slavery, the side which "supported slavery" and their symbols or indicative of evil).

As far as the Iron Cross... people that think it is evil are ignorant. It is a symbol used throughout German history as previously stated. People just think its an "evil Nazi symbol" because whenever they see a doculentary on the war, or pictures, the see an image of the Iron Cross. In WWI and WWII they were given out as medals for examplery service (1st class and second class), much like our medal of honor. There is nothign about hate in the Iron Cross, unless you are ignorant of the symbol.

As far as the Swastica, this is clearly a hate symbol. It might have had positive meaning at one point in time, but over time its meaning has changed since it was adopted by a party of hate as the symbol.

Since a symbol simply is representative of something else, whether an idea or an object. By the Nazi party adopting the swastica as their symbol, coupled by their actions and ideas, the meaning of the Swastica was changed. The other 2 symbols might mean soemthign different to those uninformed about their true meaning, or the events surrounding them, so they then take offense, but the symbols in and of themselves givent ehri context, do not represent hate.

Oh and before someone attacks me, I am not a southerner or a redneck. I am a pragmatic college student from/ in NYS, with Irish and German heritage.

I agree with the above.

Ah, where to start...

First off - OLD!!!  I swear virtually every post in this thread gets repeated almost verbatim every year or so on here (mine included).  The lack of apparent movement/change in the statements of all parties tends to indicate a general lack of listening.  Maybe if we actually tried to understand what each other were saying instead of merely being enamored with our own stellar argument, we might learn something new.

On point - I suspect people are talking past each other a bit.  This is a matter of "is" versus "ought". 

The "pro-Stars 'n Bars" crowd are forcused on the "ought" aspect, whereby people "ought" to be able to display certain historical symbols without fear of reprisals, and other people "ought" not be offended.

The opposing crowd, on the other hand, are focused on the "is" aspect, as in it "is" the case that these symbols in fact have been coopted by evildoers, and these symbols in fact have become symbols of evil to many, and in fact millions of people "are" horribly offended by them.

Both can be correct.  While excellent historical arguments can be made for why any given person "ought" not be offended by the flag in the back of the pickup, and why one "ought" not assume that the owner of the truck is a raging white supremacist, it "is" a matter of simple truth that many, many people are so offended, and will leap to those conclusions, regardless of whether they are justified in doing so.

Really two different conversations.  On a theoretical level, it is interesting to discuss the history of the swastika, but on a reality level we have all long since given up flying that on our flagpole, despite longstanding legitimate non-Nazi heritage connections and good intentions. 

If your neighbor flew the swastika, and when promptly barraged by demands for removal declared that people had no business being offended since he wasn't flying the swastika in a Nazi context, you might not necessarily think your neighbor was a racist, but you would certainly think that he was a fool and an inconsiderate tool - and you would be right.

And so it is also with the stars and bars.  Clearly most people with the flag in the back of their truck are not on the way to an Aryan Nation meeting, but they ARE being inconsiderate and intentionally obnoxious, because they KNOW how much it offends many others, and they simply do not care, hiding behind the "ought" of historical significance.

There are times and places where displaying a swastika in fairly inoffensive - like in your WWII memorabelia collection - and other times and places where people will be outraged, like your flagpole on July 4.  Same symbol, different context.

And so it is also with all symbols of the confederacy (and the union, for that matter).  It is a very difficult period in this nation's history, with great emotional attachment for millions.  Simply declaring those emotions void because these symbols may have other meanings or origins is disingenuous.

Darur wrote: oldsoldier wrote: The Civil War was an issue of states rights over federal mandates Bingo! Too many people are caught up in the idea the civil war was about slavery.  It had very little to do with slavery

Yeah.  Uh-huh.  Sure.

Fine - the war was about states' rights.  And what, pray tell, where the specific states' rights that were being fought over?

Commander_Cool wrote: The Confederate States, had the constitutional right to leave the union. It was a conceptt hat the states entered into the compact/ Constitution willingly and thereby had the legal right to leave as well.

Well...  not exactly.  What you are stating was the POSITION of the confederate states (and other states as well).  It was by no means a settled legal issue.  Heck, they fought a war specifically to settle it.

Clark Kent wrote: And so it is also with all symbols of the confederacy (and the union, for that matter).  It is a very difficult period in this nation's history, with great emotional attachment for millions.  Simply declaring those emotions void because these symbols may have other meanings or origins is disingenuous.

I'm not saying that these symbols aren't deeply offensive to some people. What I'm saying is take the time to learn what they actually mean before flying off the handle and calling someone a racist just because they show something you don't like. That makes you just as bad, if not worse, than the people who actually use the symbols as part of their racist beliefs.

I'm also not saying that the people who use those symbols just for the purpose of hate should shut up and go away. They have just as much a right to free speech and freedom of expression as anyone else. I usually just ignore them what they start spouting bigot nonsense. It works better to make them go away than to retaliate in kind.

Remember- if you don't like what someone has to say, don't listen to them or walk away. If you don't like what's on TV, turn the channel. Racists have no power to influence anyone if no one pays any attention to them.

its true!!!!

OS beat me to it.

The confederate flag that you guys are talking about, is NOT the starts and bars. That is the confederate National flag that is shown above in OS's post.

The Confederate flag that is associated with racism and hatred is a battle standard. Its implications have less to do with slavery than the good old stars and stripes does.

Explain to me how many ships came bore slaves to this country flying that hated banner?

Now explain to me how many ships bore slaves with the Stars and Stripes flying from the mainmast?

I bet the number is higher on the latter than the former, since the answer to the first question is Zero.

States rights...okay, what were they pulling for? Do you know that one of the things that the south wanted, was for a boost in their economy, not through slavery, but for the talked about 'transcontinental railroad' to cut through southern states. There's something that has nothing to do with slavery.

So the Confederacy is associated with slavery, as is their totem....cool. Explain to me then why the US flag isn't as tarnished when the President of the United States (Lincoln) stated publically that if he could preserve the union without freeing any slaves he would do it, if he could preserve the union by freeing some of the slaves and not all of them, he would. Or, if he had to free all of them he would.

Northern states, in response to the fugitive slave act passed laws saying that escaped slaved were free to pass through their states, but Not welcomed to stay. (Illinois was one such state)

Lincoln's own 'emancipation procilimation' never freed a slave in the United States. If you read it, it states that 'slaves held in states or parts of states in rebellion against the union are henceforth and forever free' Union held territory in the south was exempt. The slaves held in Northern states were exempt. It was a strictly political move.  

So orgnaizations in this country that are openly racist fly the confederate flag. Cool. What other flag do they fly? Take a wild stab at it.

If you guess "Stars and stripes" you're right.

The vast majority of soldiers in the confederate army were dirt farmers. Barely wealthy enough to feed themselves much less own slaves. When they agreed to take up arms, they did so in defense of the states they lived in, regardless of the politics. Wouldn't you do the same?

My argument is that we're getting too wrapped up in a couple of issues as opposed to looking at the big picture. There were many reasons the south decided to leave the union, several of them are tied to the issue of slavery, others are not.

As for the iron cross, i don't think its seen as a symbol of naziism. The Swastika, is, despite its long history of having been seen in religious art and sculpting from Buddhism to the Navajo Indians in the US, once it was adopted by Hitler, the face of it changed. The context in which it is used, black in a white circle on a red field is not the same symbol as that which had decorated temples throughout the world beforehand. However, the simplemindedness of people in the world to attach an ideal to a symbol bastardized this one as well.

I was accused of racism several times when I was in school because I displayed a confederate third national flag on my dorm room wall, and had a key chain that had the hated flag on it. I was asked to remove both of them from view, without having my reasoning questioned. Had I fought the decree, I'd have been branded racist, and probably would have lost my RA job and housing on the college campus, since they pride themselves on their tolerance and acceptance of everyone, and my symbols, in their eyes violated their principals, no matter what my reasoning was.

Fair? No. Justified? No. Did I see where they were coming from? sadly, yes, and I removed the symbols without any trouble.  

Do people view these symbols as evil and hate-filled? Yes. But only because they fail to look into the long standing history, of such symbols.

If you're going to get bent about symbolism, you've got a lot more to get ticked at than the confederate flag, but hell, they lost the war, so why not associate them with all the wrongs that this country committed during that time period and paint the picture that those under the stars and stripes were doing nothing but fighting the evils of slavery.

Congratulations, you've passed 5th grade US history. Pick up a book with fewer pictures and learn history.