The ending to a NYT article under the headline "Flag Supporters React With a Mix of Compromise, Caution and Outright Defiance." The man with the flag tattoo wasn't reacting with compromise, caution, or outright defiance, of course. He reacted with some mix of empathy and desire for social acceptance. The NYT characterized his attitude a "resigned to surrender" — war imagery that resonated with the first paragraph:
It has been quite a few years since the lost cause has appeared quite as lost as it did Tuesday. As the afternoon drew on and their retreat turned into a rout, the lingering upholders of the Confederacy watched as license plates, statues and prominently placed Confederate battle flags slipped from their reach.
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63 comments:
I took down my battle flag and put up a big Che poster.
The pained look from the black woman could also have resulted from his beard.
Never assume (unless you want to follow the narrative).
Frankly, much like our tall bearded man in the tattoo parlor, it was some mix of empathy and desire for social acceptance that caused me to stop wiggling my dick at ladies.
You never know who is going to be projected up on the screen for the two minute hate. It isn't always that Jewish guy.
States' Rights are dead. We are all Centrists.
Next up, the demise of Individual Rights*.
- Hammond
*One defining quality of a "Right" is that it does not cost anybody any money. Thus such things as a "right" to free medical care, free lodging, free food, free anything provided at public expense, are inappropriate to the above use of the word. μολὼν λαβέ.
"I took down my battle flag and put up a big Che poster."
Why Che? Why not a poster of Robert E. Lee atop Traveller? Wouldn't that adequately express pride in your heritage and your revolutionary zeal? Without the trappings of human bondage.
States' Rights are dead
If States' Rights proponents have to have some kind of identifiable flag, I suggest Don't Tread On Me is a better choice than one that is so closely associated with the enslavement of a race.
Or how about using the Constitution? Too Quaint?
Hail the victorious cretans!
"Don't Mess With (your state's name here)."
Next, they will then state that the existence of the Flag is proof that the South needs to still have their elections monitored.
Cause we're all racists or some such bullshit.
They're not going to be satisfied with this. Don't kid yourselves.
Perfect lesson on all tattoos. The damn things mark you forever as an old fool whatever your age.
Unfortunately, damikesc is correct. I think getting rid of the Confederate flag is the right thing to do. But the zeal with which the Yankees are wielding their supposed moral superiority really makes me sympathize with the "screw you" backlash against it.
adisonMan said...
States' Rights are dead
If States' Rights proponents have to have some kind of identifiable flag, I suggest Don't Tread On Me is a better choice than one that is so closely associated with the enslavement of a race.
Or how about using the Constitution? Too Quaint?
Too inconvenient.
Turns out, "Shall not" , means exactly what it says.
I can't believe I agree with Mark.
Once again, political discourse focuses on symbolism over substance. The battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia was adopted after the war by Democrats in the KKK and was raised in state capitals by Democrats in their legislatures (Fritz Hollings in the case of South Carolina), so somehow Republicans are supposed to feel guilty.
It wasn't a flag that caused that asshole to murder 9 innocent people in their church.
How many people know the name of the Democrat governor who put the Confederate battle flag over the South Carolina capital ?
Fritz Hollings who was also the Senator until 2005.
Funny how that never makes it into the stories.
"They're not going to be satisfied with this. Don't kid yourselves."
They don't actually even care about this. It's just another of the endless excuses for why they deserve to have more power to control what people say and do.
They don't want you to stop doing any specific thing, they want you to come to them for permission before you do anything at all. And the more arbitrary and capricious their demands, the better suited they are to attacking only the targets of their choice.
This thing about "emotional scars of slavery," etc. is something thought up in the last 10-20 years, and has more to do with some folks - mostly "white" - trying to hold on to the dreams of their youth, 50-60 years ago than any actual problems.
Mark: But the zeal with which the Yankees are wielding their supposed moral superiority really makes me sympathize with the "screw you" backlash against it.
It wasn't "Yankees", it was the usual activist resenters, their SJW Red Guards, and the hordes of dumb sheep (one hesitates to call them "citizens") who apparently take their marching orders from other sheep with a platform. (What used to be called "the free press", now staffed by blank-brained SJWs with degrees in something called "journalism"). Just as many Southerners bleating along as Yankees, or any other region.
Meanwhile, anybody else notice what Congress was up to in the last couple of days? Not just a "we have to pass it to find out what's in it bill", but a "we have to pass it and still not find out what's in it" bill (well, until the taxpayers are presented with the bill). Or anybody been noticing the lack of any serious interest in, you know, the guy who murdered those people in the church a few days ago?
@MichaelK, it would be interesting, I think to hear Hollings' musings on this topic (if he still has his faculties, that is, at 93).
He did parlay the Flag into a good career. I wonder if Haley can do the same, but in an opposite source. Doesn't this whole thing burnish her National Credentials? People who judge her harshly for taking down the flag will not outnumber those who hole her in greater esteem because of it.
The "freedom riders" fought real problems and took real punishment for doing so.
This is just schtick.
Tim, I think you're thinking of a different Mark. I'm the kind, open-minded one who values logic over partisan vitriol.
Not source, sense. Not hole, hold.
Sheesh.
So it's bad for the south to hold onto the emotional scars of losing the Civil war, but good for African Americans to hold onto the emotional scars of slavery when both ended at exactly the same time?
Bryan C: They don't actually even care about this. It's just another of the endless excuses for why they deserve to have more power to control what people say and do.
They don't want you to stop doing any specific thing, they want you to come to them for permission before you do anything at all. And the more arbitrary and capricious their demands, the better suited they are to attacking only the targets of their choice.
A late friend of mine, when she was a young scholar, had her career and her youth blighted by the Cultural Revolution. (In this, she was luckier than many of her peers.) When she was telling me about those times, it all seemed so alien and very, very far away, not quite real, like reading about barbarisms a thousand years ago.
I also remember thinking how lucky I was to live in such a different culture, a sane place, not a place of incomprehensible conformity, or full of incomprehensibly resentful and vindictive crazy-ass sheep. Or, at least (as I also thought when reading about the French Revolution), a country with a vast, secure middle-class that wouldn't permit a tolerably non-corrupt governing class to get too corrupt, too out-of-touch, or too indifferent to its interests.
I was young and simple then.
A maladjusted high school drop-out from a broken family murders 9 innocent church-goers. The Left responds:
1. Plan A: pass more gun control (blocked by NRA and its allies)
2. Plan B: remove Confederate Flag from state Capitol (success)
3. Plan C: feel good, have empty dialogue on race, move on to next crisis.
In the meantime, the dignity of the surviving victims and the massive outpouring of support by the citizens (both black and white) of Charleston to try to heal the wounds of this tragedy gets shunted to the sidelines.
Historically, the South was on the wrong side. Currently, the South - more specifically, it's citizens -- are on the right side.
Can't say the same for our Liberal friends.
Put up a gay rainbow flag where the SC confederate flag is.
From iconic to ironic.
#gamergate
That NYT writing is so over-the-top melodramatic. It's embarrassing. Why can't news reporters report the news instead of emoting like a school girl?
Tattoos are useless.
How many people know the name of the Democrat governor who put the Confederate battle flag over the South Carolina capital ?
Fritz Hollings who was also the Senator until 2005.
The first hoisting was in 1961 and nobody took it down after the year it was SUPPOSED to be up for ended. The original PROPOSAL was by a Representative, but yes, Hollings hoisted it.
Republican Beasley (who was an utter dipshit, mind you) took it down in 1998 and put on a memorial. Republican Haley (who will be an excellent VP *hint, hint*) took it off state grounds entirely.
Democrats, at no point, did much to remove it.
Meanwhile, anybody else notice what Congress was up to in the last couple of days? Not just a "we have to pass it to find out what's in it bill", but a "we have to pass it and still not find out what's in it" bill (well, until the taxpayers are presented with the bill).
This week is why I'm not a Republican.
Funny, they can't do a thing about Obama's immigration --- but THIS horrible law? Yeah, they got it passed. Funny, huh?
Google "rainbow confederate flag" and you get some weird/nasty/crazy results.
Fritz said...
So it's bad for the south to hold onto the emotional scars of losing the Civil war, but good for African Americans to hold onto the emotional scars of slavery when both ended at exactly the same time?
Something like that, yes. As an aside, by the standard definition*, ours may not have even been a civil war. In a civil war, one or more factions battle another for control of a country. That didn't happen here. Instead, we had a failed war of independence. Had the South won the war, they would have continued as a separate independent country instead of taking over the United States.
* From dictionary.com: "1. a war between political factions or regions within the same country."
Since we're now saying symbols of disputed significance will be considered to have the meaning of their detractors rather than their users we will eliminate black power and Black Panther imagery as racist also, right?
And there's certainly no serious person involved in politics who would openly display symbols from mass murdering regimes.
http://reason.com/blog/2014/04/14/jay-carney-communist-propaganda-connoiss
Blogger rhhardin said...
Put up a gay rainbow flag where the SC confederate flag is.
We can't do that because it could be considered offensive to Muslims. Homosexuals are treated harshly in many Muslim countries.
I guess a good question for someone commenting on how nice it is the flag is being taken down is:
So it was a bad thing that Democratic Governor Fritz Hollings put it up there in the first place?
damikesc: Funny, they can't do a thing about Obama's immigration --- but THIS horrible law? Yeah, they got it passed. Funny, huh?
Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, whores gotta whore.
Well at least the little black lawn jockeys have all but disappeared.
"History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.
Karl Marx got a few things right!
Brill said...
Well at least the little black lawn jockeys have all but disappeared.
My grandfather, a Yellow Dog Democrat*, died in 2004 at the age of 96. He had one of those lawn jockeys in front of his house. My sister and I sometimes laugh when we think about what he would've thought about Obama. Had he lived until 2008, there was likely no way he'd ever vote for a Republican but we can't see him voting for Obama, either. He would've voted for Hillary! in the primary (he loved the Clintons) but probably would've skipped the general election.
*For those who may be unfamiliar with the term, it describes a Democrat who would just as soon vote for a yellow dog as to ever vote for a Republican.
Blogger MadisonMan said...
I wonder if Haley can do the same, but in an opposite source. Doesn't this whole thing burnish her National Credentials? People who judge her harshly for taking down the flag will not outnumber those who hole her in greater esteem because of it.
This is cute. But you're not a Republican so of course you'd think life was fair like this.
In reality, the Democrats and Liberals who will push her to do this will never vote for her. The Republicans will be split, like me, who will think she is another in a long line of surrender monkeys who never stand up for anything and are always capitulating to these whiners.
Again, I have no stake in the flag debate. I grew up in Southern California and thought terms like Yankee were only used during the Civil War and didn't even realize people flew the confederate flag anymore until I was in my late teens.
But I'm no longer interested in surrender monkeys as politicians. If you can't stand for the little guy, how will you stand for me? And clearly the minority here is the guy who still wants to fly the confederate flag.
We were laughed at just a few days ago by a commenter here on Althouse who suggested that after the flag would be monuments. Har! They will never take down the monuments you fools, flags are totally different than monuments.
That was only a few hours ago. And now, here we are.
They will never stop looking for surrender. Never.
So, I'm voting for the guy who gives them the finger. Screw these surrendering Republicans.
Keep the Confederate Flag, like the German socialist flag, for historical reference. However, shifting culpability from the social complex and Party that denigrates individual dignity and debases human life, that pursues establishment of a pro-choice religious State, and thereby creates people like Roof, is beyond the pale, and a mistake. Remove the Confederate Flag, and redirect focus back to the cause. The Democrats, American left, and sympathizers, are play a game that they should and need to lose.
Take down the Confederate flag and raise the Democrat battle flag emblazoned with a an obese, smoking donkey holding dignity in one hand and a scalpel in the other. The pro-choice religious doctrine is the cause of the new Confederacy seeking to establish institutional discrimination, and preserve sacrificial rites... the institutions of "slavery" in the 20th and 21st centuries.
"We can't do that because it could be considered offensive to Muslims. Homosexuals are treated harshly in many Muslim countries."
This is my #1 reason for supporting gay rights.
"Finally got those Duke boys." -- Boss Hogg
"So, I'm voting for the guy who gives them the finger."
That would be Governor Ernest Hollings in 1962.
Nikki Haley is term-limited as governor and is not running for president.
She just took a hit for the team to give cover for Graham and Scott.
Blogger Meade said...
"So, I'm voting for the guy who gives them the finger."
That would be Governor Ernest Hollings in 1962.
No need to go back so many decades.
Google "Pelosi with Gavel" and maybe you'll remember how they got Obamacare passed and shoved onto the rest of this nation, a big, huge, middle finger to all of us.
This is why conservatives keep losing the culture war. The Democrats are willing to give us the middle finger and press on. Republicans retreat.
Blogger Meade said...
"We can't do that because it could be considered offensive to Muslims. Homosexuals are treated harshly in many Muslim countries."
This is my #1 reason for supporting gay rights.
Give that middle finger to the Muslims and Christians. That's how you win, Meade.
It can sometimes be done comically, but giving the middle finger is almost always childish. Encouraging someone else to give the middle finger is even more childish.
Promoting human rights is the adult way.
Why Che? Why not a poster of Robert E. Lee atop Traveller?
Because Lee is a White man, a symbol of racism, sexism and the Patriarchy. there is nothing noble about him, or anything we can learn from his example.
Che on the other hand was a noble minority, fighting the system, a rebel, someone to be revered and held up as a shining beacon for our children.
Oh. I see then why you took down your give-em-the-finger battle flag.
MadisonMan:
States' Rights ... using the Constitution
Excellent suggestion. Original compromise notwithstanding, the institution of slavery under pro-choice Westerners, black African-Americans, and Indian tribes was ended with a nation established by The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution.
Actually, the national charter would also be a good symbol that affirms both individual dignity and intrinsic value -- without manifestations of penumbras in personal faith -- in contravention to the secular values of our nominally civilized State.
Meade,
You are correct. It's childish. Like stamping your feet and crying to get what you want.
The Democrats have discovered this works.
The Republicans, on the other hand, think if they continue to act politely and with your approved sense of modicum, someone will listen.
Therefore, they retreat. Thinking they'll get credit for it. And then next month, someone will want to remove a monument to the Confederacy. And we will be back to where we were and Republicans are racist.
Retreat doesn't work in politics. Acting like a child does. This is what I've learned from our betters on the left.
Larry J said...
Brill said...
Well at least the little black lawn jockeys have all but disappeared.
My grandfather, a Yellow Dog Democrat*, died in 2004 at the age of 96.
A family across the street has one. They are red neckier than average.
Promoting human rights is the adult way.
Except of course for the right to life....
Fuck the unborn...they don't vote.
Oh my God..I have come up with the future issue for feminists. Pregnant women should get two votes. After all, they are making decisions for two people already.
"Che on the other hand was a noble minority, fighting the system, a rebel, someone to be revered and held up as a shining beacon for our children."
Indeed. Che killed for the Progressive cause. He killed people that needed to be killed. Progs should keep wearing his image.
The Lee's of the Old Dominion were always angry about Union Soldiers under the Illinois guy daring to act like they were in charge. But an angry Robert E. Lee through it all away on Pickett's charge at a stonewall half a mile away on the third day at Gettysburg.
But if President Jackson had hanged John C. Calhoun in the 1830s over his State nullification of Federal law assertions, then no War would have had to have happened.
All of that is fascinating and glorious history.
But the Segregationist of the south elected a generation later with the help of a restored KKK used to intimidate southern blacks and whites alike never deserved to wear the stolen honors of Lee and Jackson's Battleflag.
"Doesn't this whole thing burnish her National Credentials? People who judge her harshly for taking down the flag will not outnumber those who hole her in greater esteem because of it."
I think she did the right thing and did it in the right way, I could care less about the flag but there was a point about it being on state property. Of course the SJWs will not stop there but insist, as they already have, that anything named after a southerner be renamed.
CNN had some "African American Studies" professor bitching about Ole Miss which has provided him with a sinecure for affirmative action. They will not stop. Kevin Williamson has another great column today on how the left has lost its mind and is wigging out.
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