Rand Paul: Confederate flag is “inescapably a symbol of human bondage and slavery”

[Anti Federalist]

Perhaps because, run with me on this, the idea of people being property didn't sit well with them?

You're making the moral case, which is, of course, what abolutionists were making as well.

I'm simply stating the legal case, and what it was based on, which is really very simple:

"Your own court said these slaves are our property. You are now making rules that will limit what I can do with my property and causing me finanacial harm."

How much better everybody would have been if the whole wretched system had never been introduced here in the first place.

Racial animosity, slavery, and its lingering effects have torn this country apart numerous times in the past and it appears that it will continue in the future, no matter what capitulations are agreed to.

 

[Anti Federalist]

And while I have taken issue with some of Rand's "weak sauce" positions in the past, there's not a damn thing he could have done in this situation, where you now have a whirling vortex of doom of media and talking heads all spun up and out of control, but to make the statement he did.

Might as well have been King Canute giving orders to the tide as to try and stand up to a full blown, F5, media frenzy.

 

[nayjevin]

I was married to a Hindu, and they do defend it. It's marked my doorway and it's present on their temples. I've had the "Swastika" in my house.

I see now that Hindu's do defend that symbol, I stand corrected.

But but but...

 

[fisharmor]

Fine, how about the confusing U.S flag?

If I was anywhere near Charleston, I'd organize a trip to the capitol building, grab a bullhorn, call the media, and start burning US flags.

I would say something like this:

This is the flag that committed genocide on the original inhabitants of this land.
This is the flag that originally condoned and protected slavery.
This is the flag that made war on its neighbors and took their land.
This is the flag that told women they could not vote.
This is the flag that imprisoned millions and ruined millions of lives because those people had the wrong plants in their possession.
This is the flag that confiscated the property of one race living here and threw them into concentration camps.
This is the only flag in the history of the world to use nuclear weapons in anger.
This is the flag that has invaded the world to stamp out a perceived evil, time and time again, only to bring greater evil.

Whatever evils that other flag committed, those evils were brief, a long time ago, and small in comparison to what has been done by THIS flag.

 

[nayjevin]

Fine, how about the confusing U.S flag?

I don't see that the level of confusion is anywhere near the level of the confederate flag, so I don't think it's a fair comparison. But the problem is the same - reduce a philosophy to a symbol, and that symbol can be co-opted. It's only a full understanding of the subject that renders the learner immune to that problem.

They won't touch that because they are politicians, you know it and I know it. And that's fine, I don't expect them to. But I'm not going to get out my pom poms and start cheering over some dumb statements they put out.

If their 'excellent' statements actually help them with some people more than it hurts them with others, then I guess its all good. But the PC game doesn't generally work that way.

Maybe you missed it, I don't think it's a PC game at all. The confederate flag means racism to practically everyone who doesn't identify personally with it, and some of those who do.

I don't see how it's productive to get mired in a rebellious attempt to defend the symbol, that's a lost battle. Defend the philosophy that it should represent.

 

[jj-]

We should defend the original meanings of symbols.

We shouldn't stop using the word capitalism because other people make them mean corporatism, etc. Every time they decide to mess up the meaning of a word, we should come up with another? Insanity.

 

[hells_unicorn]

My father's side of the family has a fairly extensive history of Copperhead politics (aka Northern anti-Civil War political thinkers, largely democrats at the time) and I'm generally sympathetic to the south regarding this issue, but this is a matter of inevitability. Rationality and historicity are all but gone from the public narrative, and frankly speaking, this is the case because people don't want to put in the effort to understand the actual history behind the civil war. Not only about how the so-called "union" essentially burned down entire cities in the name of preserving "the union", and racist Abe Lincoln's whole scheme to ship every black person to Liberia, but also how poor immigrants fresh off the boat were used as cannon fodder in order to accomplish it.

The cure to this problem is home-schooling, and until I hear Rand Paul join in with the Fascists trying to force people into government institutions as opposed to having their choice of where their children are schooled, he has my support. Symbols are subservient to interpretation, and interpretation is the servant of education, so the name of the game here is education, not political martyrdom.

We should defend the original meanings of symbols.

We shouldn't stop using the word capitalism because other people make them mean corporatism, etc. Every time they decide to mess up the meaning of a word, we should come up with another? Insanity.

We should stop using the word capitalism because it was originally coined by Karl Marx and it carries a misleading perception that economic freedom is only about wealth and not about choice and benevolence. For the life of me, I have no idea why people still cleave to this poisonous word, let alone how it was that so-called liberty supporters ever took it up in the first place.

 

[nayjevin]

We should defend the original meanings of symbols.

We shouldn't stop using the word capitalism because other people make them mean corporatism, etc. Every time they decide to mess up the meaning of a word, we should come up with another? Insanity.

No, not every time, and no one is arguing that. Strawman.

 

[William Tell]

Maybe you missed it, I don't think it's a PC game at all.

No, you missed it. The media is asking every Republican Politician under the sun what they think of the flag. And as per usual, they feel the need to try to 'prove' to the media that they are not racist. These statements from the candidates are defensive. None of them are going to gain votes over this, but they feel they may lose something by not kissing up to the media.

 

[AuH20]

No, you missed it. The media is asking every Republican Politician under the sun what they think of the flag. And as per usual, they feel the need to try to 'prove' to the media that they are not racist. These statements from the candidates are defensive. None of them are going to gain votes over this, but they feel they may lose something by not kissing up to the media.

Sir, do you secretly keep black citizens locked up in your attic?

I'm waiting for this one.

 

[jj-]

No, not every time, and no one is arguing that. Strawman.

Yes, you are. You're arguing hindues shouldn't use the swastika. Your arguments logically apply to things such as capitalism, etc. When 'capitalism' starts triggering people like n***** does, your argument backs the censor. If not, you're being inconsistent. You probably deny this because applying consistently your arguments clearly shows they're insane.

You're asking people to allow themselves to be pushed around. My impression from reading your posts was that maybe you need to take some testosterone, as no point of view personifies not having balls as yours do.

 

[freshjiva]

The Confederate flag should never have developed into the preferred symbol of States rights in the first place. The Gadsden flag predates it by decades, and frankly is far better anyway. Let the Confederate flag die. It wont be missed.

 

[thoughtomator]

My conversation with a friend about this topic late last night:

Him - "What do you think about that whole Confederate flag thing?"
Me - "Sounds like a stupid distraction from real issues."
Him - "OK granted, but what do you think about it flying at full mast when the other flags were lowered to half-mast? Don't you think it should be taken down?"
Me - "So they are going to take down the Confederate flag but leave the US flag?"
Him - (long pause) "You got me there."

 

[nayjevin]

Yes, you are. You're arguing hindues shouldn't use the swastika. Your arguments logically apply to things such as capitalism, etc. When 'capitalism' starts triggering people like n***** does, your argument backs the censor. If not, you're being inconsistent. You probably deny this because applying consistently your arguments clearly shows they're insane.

If capitalism triggered people like that word does, I would not back censorship, but I would view anyone who still uses that word the same way I view people who use the confederate flag. They have every right to use it, but they either don't recognize that it hurts their cause, or they don't care.

So you attempt to say I am backing censorship, when I have done no such thing. You attempt to say that I am arguing 'every time they mess up a word' it should be abandoned, when I did no such thing. You show the same bad attitude, defensive mindset, inability to comprehend, and tendency to project with this account that you do with your previously banned one.

You're asking people to allow themselves to be pushed around.

Again putting words in my mouth. People who don't have a closed mind are not having the same problem with my statements. I am saying that using the confederate flag does not help the cause of educating people about the confederacy. People who use it either don't understand that, or don't care.

My impression from reading your posts was that maybe you need to take some testosterone, as no point of view personifies not having balls as yours do.

Your impressions from reading are consistently inaccurate and untrustworthy.

 

[whoisjohngalt]

The swastika is an ancient Sanskrit symbol meaning "good luck" yet no one defends it's use or tries to take it back like they do with the Confederate flag. Symbols despite what their defenders would have you belief, do not acquire meaning from the intent of the person using the symbol but rather from the inference of the people who see that symbol.

There is a legal right to freedom of expression question, but that only applies to individuals not to state governments. But there is the much more important issue of humanity. We should be condemning this shitty flag. Want a state's rights flag? Use the Gasdsen. It doesn't matter what you say the Confederate flag stands for; the fact that it immediately causes most people to think the bearer is racist gives it a clear meaning.

Rand is absolutely right to condemn this embarrassing symbol. Especially since he never suggested the federal government should force them to take it down.

 

[AuH20]

The swastika is an ancient Sanskrit symbol meaning "good luck" yet no one defends it's use or tries to take it back like they do with the Confederate flag. Symbols despite what their defenders would have you belief, do not acquire meaning from the intent of the person using the symbol but rather from the inference of the people who see that symbol.

There is a legal right to freedom of expression question, but that only applies to individuals not to state governments. But there is the much more important issue of humanity. We should be condemning this shitty flag. Want a state's rights flag? Use the Gasdsen. It doesn't matter what you say the Confederate flag stands for; the fact that it immediately causes most people to think the bearer is racist gives it a clear meaning.

Rand is absolutely right to condemn this embarrassing symbol. Especially since he never suggested the federal government should force them to take it down.

I don't think you are seeing the big picture. They are coming for all objectionable material in their eyes. Every last unapproved item and symbol.

 

[nayjevin]

When defending a symbol, there is a law of diminishing returns in effect as to success of showing people the 'true' meaning behind the symbol. At some point, when symbols are lost, it becomes a better proposition to move on.

 

[nayjevin]

Don't get lost in 'they' thinking.

 

[jj-]

You show the same bad attitude, defensive mindset, inability to comprehend, and tendency to project with this account that you do with your previously banned one.

What? I was never banned here. Since you lost the argument, now you're using your status as moderator to lie about me. Bad practice. Your thinking skills will never improve with this evasive practice.

 

[devil21]

Heck of a distraction operation ongoing. Well played, TPTB.

I don't agree with Rand much on this topic but at least he's correct that it's a state issue and if SC wants to remove it, that's up to them. I hate to see manufactured political pressures used to erase (and eventually rewrite, most likely) history though.