Posted on 06/01/2006 9:07:55 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
Last month, Ithaca High School administrators sent a letter home with students, informing their parents that the flag of the Confederacy had been banned. Ithaca High School students can no longer display the emblem on belt buckles, t-shirts, or anywhere else while on school property. Apparently, the students wearing their Dixie Outfitters t-shirts, in a proud nod to our country’s better half, were white. It is unfortunate that civil liberties apply only to those in privileged groups, such as blacks or Hispanics.
Because the United States Supreme Court has ruled in favor of protecting the freedom of speech exercised in displaying the stars and bars, Ithaca High School had to claim that the flag was creating some sort of disruption in the school that hindered the educational process. No specific instances were mentioned in the administration’s letter.
I found the claim interesting, though, because, were it true, it would clearly indicate that racism is much more of a problem in Upstate New York than in my hometown in Southern Virginia. To think that racial hatred could be stirred up by a high school student’s belt buckle is frightening, indeed. The school’s objection to the battle flag is even more astonishing considering the fact that only 6.7% of the population of Ithaca is black. But apparently the race wars here are far more intense than in my hometown, of which 13.34% of the population was black. And yet, in my public high school, where displays of the confederate flag were common on car bumpers, t-shirts, or belt buckles, and where a significant minority of the student body was black, and even in a state that historically had supported slavery, the flag was never accused of disturbing a classroom, much less of inciting racial hatred.
Ithaca’s black population is proportionately only slightly more than half that of the United States. This is an unusually white city. And apparently race relations here are in such tension that they can be upset by a kid’s t-shirt. Schools in the South, much less segregated, are clearly more at ease and have put issues of racism farther behind them;thus, students there can better appreciate the historic and cultural value of the Confederate flag. It leads one to wonder on which side of the Mason-Dixon Line racism is still prevalent today.
The Confederate flag is not—and was never—a representation of the institution of slavery. The North, in an attempt to glorify its states’ fight to suppress the South’s effort to free themselves from the North’s exploitation, has oversimplified and at times even falsified history by painting the War of Northern Aggression as a war fought over issues of morality. Children in Northern schools are never made aware that there were no more abolitionists in the North than in the South.They are never taught that the North never claimed to want to abolish slavery but merely to stop its expansion to ensure that the free states would not be outnumbered in Congress. Many Northerners do no even know that the majority of Southerners who fought and died in the Civil War did not even own slaves.
In accordance with their favored depiction of the Civil War as a moral battle in which they fought for good while the South defended evil, the North has emphasized the issue of slavery while allowing the issues of representation in national politics, economics, and regional identities which primarily caused the war to recede into the background. Erased from history are the values of self-government, freedom, and honor that led Confederates to fight to preserve their home. This is what the Confederate flag represents, and this is why it is still of the utmost importance to Southerners today. It is why black Southerners will proudly call themselves Southern and will fly the Confederate flag. The South is, above all, a cultural entity. Southerners have a dramatically different culture from Northerners; this culture of chivalry, modesty, graciousness, and hospitality is represented by the stars and bars, and it must be remembered and preserved.
If the Confederate flag has in fact caused the feelings of ill will in Ithaca High School that the administration claims, the blame must fall on the administration itself. No Southerner would be so naive as to equate the Confederate flag with support of slavery. It is a failure of Yankee schools that children are not taught the broad scope of economic, political, and even cultural factors which led to the Civil War but are only presented with a gross caricature of a war between good and evil.
Even more frightening than this restriction of freedom of speech in Ithaca High School is what has caused this common misunderstanding of the Confederate flag. In perpetuating their myth of the North as the force of good in the Civil War, the North has revised history in a way that should frighten all Americans. An emblem of a group of people’s heritage and culture has been banned because others have formed prejudices and misconceptions about it. Moreover, these prejudices and misconceptions are fueled by the public school system itself. By banning the Confederate flag, the state attempts to erase from memory the Civil War. To forget that Americans in the past were capable of such atrocities as slavery robs us of the lesson that can be learned and leaves us dangerously vulnerable to repeating past mistakes.
If the Confederate flag calls to mind slavery, and schools wish to erase from common memory all remnants of this dark period in American history, why stop at the flag? Perhaps next, Ithaca parents will receive letters requesting that their children be sent to school clothed in only synthetic fabrics because cotton was once produced through the slave labor of blacks. Or, in order to really be free of uncomfortable memories of our national history, maybe Ithaca High School will ban all black students from school property.
I suppose one is free to ignore the Church of England in London or Judaism in Tel Aviv but that doesn't ignore the fact that they are government supported at the expense of other faiths.
Then you need to get your hearing checked.
And if a majority of the good people of Alabama decide that slavery wasn't such a bad idea after all and overwhelmingly pass a referendum legalizing it then should they be allowed to do so in the name of state's rights?
Your argument is based on your emotional repugnance for slavery. The problem is, the argument is not valid in today's context because slavery is against the law of the land and, this is very important, the status of blacks has dramatically changed in the 150 years since the end of the war.
However, what if the animal rights activists were to gain power and try to make it illegal to own a horse and, just for arguments sake, let's say that all the horses in the US were owned by Southerners and that they are key to our robust economy.
Well, us Southerners are gonna say, "Shove it up your collective butts, damnyankees."
And guess what, pretty soon we're gonna be chucking bombs at each other. And do you think that people would say 150 years after that war that we were fighting over horses?
I seriously doubt it and I do not understand why you people can't emotionally detach yourselves just enough to comprehend this argument.
Not mentally flexible enough, I guess.
Future Supreme Court Justice Nathan Clifford (from Maine) once wrote regarding a state that, 'one of the foregoing fundamental principles of the American system of government, which is, that government is instituted by the people, and for the benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community. And that when any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish the same.'
Undoubtedly the courts of the United States have certain powers under the Constitution and laws of the United States which do not belong to the State courts. But the power of determining that a State government has been lawfully established, which the courts of the State disown and repudiate, is not one of them. Upon such a question the courts of the United States are bound to follow the decisions of the State tribunals.It seems that the Supreme Court had already held 5-1 that the federal government did not have the authority to determine the validity of a state government, that was soley for a state to decide.
Chief Justice Taney, Luther v. Borden, 48 How. 1, 40 (1849)
Then you need to show that there was an effort by the Lincoln administration to make it illegal to own slaves in the south. Of course, since South Carolina seceded before Lincoln even took the oath of office, that's a hard case to make. It's also hard to make it you keep insisting that Lincoln didn't give a damn about slavery.
Now, if your analogy said that the animal rights activists were trying to prevent the spread of horse ownership into new territories while admitting they had no power to stop it where it already existed, then you might be on the right track. Only your excuse to start shooting would look a whole lot flimsier.
Uh, because it's just not true? Circulating abolitionist tracts or having abolitionist meetings was illegal in some slave states. Obviously there were more abolitionists in states where such practices were allowed.
I know slavery wasn't the central issue of the war and I DO understand states' rights were of major importance but slavery was part of it. You can't change my mind about that. Being of mixed blood myself the whole slavery issue hits home because if the issue hadn't been resolved (no matter how insincerely) when it was it's very likely my dad would have been lynched for his part in my conception.
If the rebellion hadn't been put down I'm sure slavery would have continued for decades longer which would put the whole civil rights movement behind by many many years. It's only been 40 or 50 years since things finally started to even out. States did lose sovreignty as a result of the war but black people were put on the path to true freedom also. Not necessarily a fair trade but I'll take it!!
The American Anti-Slavery Society had 250,000 members.
Just look at Abraham Lincoln's views on the war--he clearly was interested in political aspects of the dispute, not moral issues
But it is beyond dispute that Lincoln thought slavery wrong. The Cooper Union speech makes that abundantly clear. But he had no intention of outlawing it where it existed, only in preventing it from being spread into the west. That's also consistently expressed in his speeches and writings. Secession, though, was a whole different ball of wax and preserving the Union became his primary goal. There's nothing inconsistent about it.
Throughout most of my adult life, and again here when I joined FR, I argued against those who glorified the Confederacy and mourned it's demise even a century and a half later. Then I came to an important conclusion:
They hate the United States of America.
They believe that the United States of America was evil in 1861, and things have only gotten worse since then, rather than believing that the United States has emerged in those same years as the greatest champion of freedom the world has ever known.
My scenario is a whole lot more likely than your amending the Constitution to establish a dictatorship.
And what does that have to do with Texas v White and the legitmacy of the southern rebellion?
"The fourth section of the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States provides that the United States shall guarantee to every State in the Union a republican form of government...Under this article of the Constitution it rests with Congress to decide what government is the established one in a State. For as the United States guarantee to each State a republican government, Congress must necessarily decide what government is established in the State before it can determine whether it is republican or not...And its decision is binding on every other department of the government, and could not be questioned in a judicial tribunal." -- Luther v Borden (48 US (7 How))
Taney didn't say that the federal government didn't have the authority to decide the validity of the state's government just the courts.
It's thatdewd again! Ain't seen you around in a while - good to have you back. The big government pseudo-conservatives are still at it - some things never change.
Bunch of lightweights showing their ignorance of history and anti-conservative bias. These players make Wlat look like a scholar. They just show up and whine about "racism" and "white supremacy" - taking notes from the libs, I think.
And when you have nothing else to support your position is, try and wrap it in the mantle of conservatism and accuse your opponents of being liberals. The southron equivilent of "Yeah, well your momma's ugly!"
There was absolutely nothing conservative about the confederate cause. Davis ran a big government, constitution trashing, oppressive regime. Far worse in it's own way than anything you accuse the Lincoln administration of being.
I think that it's you that is finally on the right track. If it makes it easier for you, use the exact events that took place from 1830 to 1865 and replace 'slave' with 'horse' wherever it occurs and then ask yourself, "Was the war about freeing the horses or was it about state(s) rights?"
Only your excuse to start shooting would look a whole lot flimsier.
Not if the entire economy is based on a single form of motive force.
Would not the United States go to war today if a foreign country threatened to cut off our supply of oil?
And what if the reason this foreign country gave of cutting off the oil supply was that they didn't want us exporting Americanism/Capitalism to other parts of the world?
Nonsense. The Executive could decide which government was republican in form for a state IN the union (competing factions). But the court held that, 'the power of determining that a State government has been lawfully established' is not one for the federal government to decide, the federal government must abide by the state courts determination. Taney writes, '[u]pon such a question the courts of the United States are bound to follow the decisions of the State tribunals'.
Then you [Cornell American writers] quite literally live in an ivory tower of your own construction, viewing the world around you through a very narrow self centered prism. The link I provided you with discussed a Unity Walk organized within the Ithaca community in the aftermath of the Cornell Campus stabbing in order to bring together groups and individuals who don't ordinarily interact with each other.
[from the article]..."The walk, in part, was a response to the recent stabbing at Cornell University, in which Charles Holiday, an African-American student, was stabbed by a white student. Nathan H. Poffenbarger was charged in the February incident. "
It would seem a tad bit sloppy on your part to have written an article decrying the public school system where you temporarily reside while remaining oblivious to the impact this racial stabbing that took place on your campus had on the surrounding community. Had you spent a few hours in objective research, you might have reached a different conclusion regarding the small upstate New York school's decision to ban CBF apparel in the classroom.
Even the actions of liberal writers on campus are blamed on the conservatives.
While it fortunate that he was not a young Republican, there is no evidence that Nathan Poffenbarger was anything more than an occasional contributer to a campus newspaper called Turn Left. Are you asserting a stronger connection than that, or simply trying to deflect the criticism away from your own publication's polemic-try?
I believe that, provided one is capable of resisting indoctrination by liberal professors, the value of an Ivy League degree makes it worth it.
As do I. However, I do not presuppose that only conservative Southerners have the necessary preperation and fortitude to make such an endeavor. Why shouldn't Northern conservatives be equally capable?
We can't let Yankees have a monopoly on degrees from our nation's finest universities merely because we want to stay in the safe cocoon of like-minded Southerners
A valuable statement, because it acknowledges what your "Old Times Forgotten" article did not, that Northern schools serve up more than just pablum. You also acknowledge the weakness of many Southern posters on this forum who prefer the safety of the "Yankee=Liberal" "Lost Cause" cocoon to a fuller understanding of this nation's people and its history.
isn't it great to show the world the fallacy of their stereotypes of ignorant, redneck Southerners who are uneducated and only hold their beliefs because they've never been exposed to anything else?
Your cause was not helped much by the villain in the stabbing incident, Nathan Puffenbarger. He is apparently a fellow Southerner, who hails from a small town in southern Maryland. It should be interesting to hear what defense is offered at his trial.
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