Posted on 07/18/2006 12:49:14 PM PDT by aomagrat
A Confederate heritage group says its free-speech rights were violated when a landowner removed a billboard promoting Southern history near the famed Darlington Raceway.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans plans to demonstrate at the State House next month and buy radio advertisements to complain about losing its billboard on U.S. 52, about two miles from the racetrack.
“This is the most chilling thing I’ve seen against freedom of speech,” spokesman Don Gordon said.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans bought the billboard this spring in response to remarks by a NASCAR executive about the rebel flag.
The billboard featured a Confederate flag and a checkered race flag. The message said, “Victory is Great, but Honor is Greater. Defend your Southern heritage.”
The billboard, taken down briefly in May, also listed the group’s phone number and name.
Officials of the S.C. Central Railroad, which owns the land where the billboard stood, said the message was “controversial” and needed to come down.
“It is not in our commercial interests to have billboards on our property displaying messages that might be controversial in the local community, whatever the substance of the messages,” a company spokeswoman said in a prepared statement.
“We made no judgment as to the content of the billboard, but we did understand it to be controversial and therefore asked that it be removed.”
An outdoor advertising company, hired by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, installed the sign just before Darlington’s annual Mother’s Day race. It was removed permanently June 16, according to a July 11 letter from the S.C. Sons of Confederate Veterans commander, Randall Burbage, to fellow members.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans says it is an international, nonprofit historical society. The group, which says it has 30,000 members nationally, has taken positions in defense of the Confederate flag in South Carolina.
‘NOT ... ANYTHING FAVORABLE’
In October, NASCAR’s chief executive, Brian France, told the CBS television show “60 Minutes” the Confederate flag was “not a flag that I look at with anything favorable. That’s for sure.”
As it branches away from its traditional Southern fan base, NASCAR has tried to shed its rebel-flag-waving image. The nation’s largest stock car racing organization has started diversity programs and tried to appeal to black and Hispanic fans. The Darlington Raceway, in business for more than 50 years, has served as a pillar of NASCAR.
“A member of the France family said some uncomplimentary things, so we put that billboard up to make a statement and to stimulate new members,” the confederate veterans’ Gordon said. “We really didn’t expect anything like this to occur.”
Attempts to reach NASCAR spokesman Jim Hunter were unsuccessful. However, Hunter said last spring that NASCAR did not seek to have the sign removed.
“If we find out NASCAR is involved, you can expect airplanes towing Confederate banners over every NASCAR race anywhere in this nation — forever,” Gordon said.
Mac Josey, vice president at the Darlington Raceway, said he knew nothing about the billboard and did not ask that it be removed. He said the track does not fly Confederate flags, although some fans do.
Wesley Blackwell, chairman of the Darlington County Council, said he heard about the billboard during a social gathering at the Darlington speedway in May. Blackwell said the county did not ask that the sign be removed.
‘NOT A WORD WOULD BE SAID’
The Confederate veterans group paid Palmetto Outdoor Media more than $5,000 to put up the advertisement, Gordon said. Most of the money was refunded when the sign was removed.
However, Gordon is not satisfied.
“What if it was a sign trying to bring new members to the NAACP? We all know not a word would be said,” Gordon said.
Palmetto Outdoor Media co-owner Rodney Monroe said his company’s land-lease agreement with S.C. Central Railroad has a section that called for the removal of offensive advertisements.
“We lease the property from the company and we, obviously, crossed the line as far as what was acceptable to them ... and were asked to remove the sign,” Monroe said. “We are not in the business to cause or create controversy.”
Gordon said his group had a contract with Palmetto Outdoor for the sign to stay up through part of next year.
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees every American the right to free speech. However, the sign was on private property, and the property’s owner ordered it down.
Bill Rogers, director of the S.C. Press Association, said that removal violated the principle of free speech, if nothing else. The sign did not appear to be inflammatory, he said.
“I can see why they would feel their rights are violated, that if someone doesn’t like the message, they take it down,” Rogers said.
That's exactly what the South did.
Then "Honest Abe" followed them down the street, shot them, stole the ball, and then told everyone back home that he got it from Daniel Webster.
I exposed him as a fraud by asking a simple question about Generals Lee and Beauregard, a simple question anyone familiar with The museum, Confederate monuments and New Orleans should have been able to answer easily, but which confounded STAND WATIE to the point of utter mental meltdown, especially when I revealed that the Confederate Museum was on Lee Circle and in the very shadow of one of the tallest monuments and statues of General Lee in the South and that STAND WATIE didn't even know it was there.
I maintain that if I ever wanted to troll this board and disrupt it by painting it as a haven for racists, I would claim to be a true confederate patriot and a devoted member of the SCV and post as many pro-confederacy threads as I could find. Simple logic here, one does not troll by looking for support, one trolls by angering people that believe that they always right and forcing them into positions where their hypocrisy can be exposed.
That is if I wanted to troll this board....and I don't.
Now I was going to originally use this post to point out that no where in the Constitution does it tell us how slaves are created legally, or by what standards are people deemed to be slaves instead of citizens by birth, and that if one reads the documents of the Founders (Declaration of Independence, Constitution, etc, etc,) they never define who can become a slave, by what means they are made a slave or even the term slave itself.
So I'll ask these questions of all you "real southerners" and you all know who you are,
show me where in the documents of our founding fathers that they:
defined slavery,
defined the legal process of enslaving a human being,
defined which races may be enslaved,
defined the reasons for deciding who is a citizen and who is a slave
defined which laws were punishable by permanent enslavement
defined which laws prior to the civil war freed slaves based upon the merit of their actions or conditions
Of course all you "Real Southerners" can answer easily these questions, and I expect you to since they are very basis of all your arguments concerning the civil war is that slavery was "legal" in this country from the beginning. Surely you can provide those laws that defined slavery as it once was as a legal entity based upon the documents and laws that were written by the Founding Fathers.
I'm not asking you to prove what I know of the south and slavery, only to prove what you know, surely that is not too much to ask, is it?
and if it is too much to ask of you, then kindly put away your confederate flags and uniforms and talk about beer, guns, and pcik up trucks instead those things you are not really experts in.
Obviously the concept of political immaturity on a national scale is lost on you, are you sure you aren't a liberal or a democrat?
> How can you state that the Civil War (or more correctly the War for Southern Independence) was all about slavery when one of the Union states was a slave holding state?
Wow. You think that's actually a logical arguement?
Ooookaaaayyy...
So one of the non-seceding states was a slave state. But *all* of the states that seceded were slave owning. In their various ordinances of secession and state Constitutions, they point out that the source of their problems was the issue of slavery.
> There were no "traitors" before Ft. Sumter, so I'll trouble you to take down that word.
Alright. Would "Scumbags" be better? "Lowest form of human life - those who would set themselves up as aristocrats?" "Evil monsters who 8pretended* to be gentlemen?"
You tell me. What *do* you call a man who sees glory and honor in killing his fellow man in order to maintain his "right" to keep other men in permanent slavehood?
> You are in the unenviable position of explaining how a People who are NOT free to abolish their Union and change their Constitution, are still "free" somehow.
Ain't nothin' wrong with seceding. But when you secede and then launch a war of aggression against your former fellows... you have no right of complaint for what follows.
Most of the comments are from people that do not even know the whole story behind the billboard and the railroads decision. The railroad had a contract that plainly stated that the sign company would have to remove any sign that was 'offensive'. To remove a sign for any other reason was not included in the contract. The railroad admitted it was not offensive they felt it was 'controversial'. ‘Controversial’ is an opinion or opinions over which parties are actively arguing. Controversies can range from private disputes between two to large scale disagreements. The railroad has another billboard up the road from where the ‘recruiting’ billboard was placed. This billboard was anti same sex marriage and place by a church. Why was the sign left up? This has been a much more controversial subject in this country over the last year or two. If the railroad wants to refrain from controversial signage, the other sign should come down too. So with that maybe it is discrimination? We can’t have that in this country, can we? The SCV was only trying to recruit with the sign and the railroad, after being coerced by elected officials (Darlington county Council) removed the sign. It was only controversial to certain people. So now elected officials can discriminate at will?
This has potential to be a freedom of speech (First Amendment issue) because of one factor that everyone overlooks. The railroad receives subsidies from the federal government and tax breaks. The government does not condone First Amendment violations. There also may be a violation of Civil Rights, because the railroads receive Federal Aid. Under the Civil Rights Bill there is a section:
Nondiscrimination
Nondiscrimination provisions apply to all programs and activities of Federal-aid recipients, sub-recipients, and contractors, regardless of tier. The obligation to not discriminate is based on the objective of Congress to not have funds, which were collected in a non-discriminatory manner used in ways that subsidize, promote, or perpetuate discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, age, or physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, or retaliation. Primary recipients are responsible for determining and obtaining compliance by their sub-recipients and contractors.
The railroad did this. The railroad flagrantly discriminated by removing one controversial sign, and left the other. They censored one organization but not the other. They allowed one organization to free speech, but not the other.
> Who rules the country? The GOP.
Wow. DU talking point, right there.
and frankly, i DOUBT that he ever worked at the NOLA Confederate Museum, especially if he started "spouting off" all of his south-HATING, SCALAWAG, REVISIONIST bilge.
fwiw, "cobra" going over to DO research at a museum is NOT being a "researcher" AT a museum. "researchers" are USUALLY paid staff members.
i was just a "poli sci" grad student at Tulane.
free diixe,sw
The rebs showed a lot of fight when they vacated the formidable position on Missionary Ridge and ran all the way to Georgia.
I've got nothing against ordinary reb soldiers. I think that most of them were decent fellows whose ignorance of the larger world and its issues were misused in a bad cause by the selfish thugs who ran the Confederate show. I think reb soldiers on the whole fought decently and on a general equality with the Union soldiers. But the discrepancy in casualties was due to the fact that most often the Union had to take the fight to the rebs with the offense generally involving greater casualties. And the normal superiority of both the strategic and tactical defense was even greater in this early period of rifles.
If the myth of superior Southern martial valor was true, Sherman could not have treated South Georgia and South Carolina as his private park.
Weak way to attempt credibility at any rate - his posts are not anchored in research, nor are they framed like research work.
What I know of slavery is this - at the time of the ratification of the Constitution it WAS legal and the Conbstitution DID NOT provide any basis to make it illegal. The abolitionists all got their noses up due to the part of the DOI (Dec. of Indep) where it states "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal". Slavery in and of itself was an onerous thing and the South was trying to figure out how to do away with it. The major problems the slave owners faced was what to do with the slaves once they were emancipated as the slave owners were still legally responsible for their welfare (training for a job, and finding them a job). So the slave owners faced the prospect of becoming bankrupt if they emancipated their slaves at once.
On the other side of the coin, the Abolitionists wanted immediate emancipation for all slaves, yet they had NO PLAN with what to do with them after emancipation. Amazing when you look at how many ex-slaves were available to work during the industrial revolution here in the States, but the Northern States were too busy putting immigrants to work.
The reason for the Southern secession was caused by two things (one North, and one South). On the Southern side, the admission of territories in the west as "Free Soil" meant that the Southern States would no longer maintain parity in Congress, and as a minority faction, all laws inimicable to Southern interests would get ramrodded through over Southern objections. Along with this, the constant movement by the Abolitionists to foment a Slave uprising (remember John Brown?) put the Southern States on the defensive. On the Northern side, the up and coming industrial power base felt it was time for the North to hold the reins of power in Congress and the Executive branches. They financed the Abolitionist movement and got senators and representatives elected who would cultivate their interests (Stevens, Sumner, and a few others plus Abe Lincoln).
The Southern States were also trying to get free trade with other nations and the North, but the North however, didn't want that to happen as it would have hurt the Northern States economically (i.e. tariffs). There were many other factors that figured into the final mix, but this is a breif overview of why the South felt forced to secede.
The war of aggression was launched by Lincoln who stated that "We must preserve the Union". So he called up 75,000 troops to put down "the rebellion". But look up rebellion and secession and their meanings. Lincoln calling it a rebellion was nothing more than a political ploy to get a war. HE got his war. But if you would care to dig a little deeper, you would find that it wasn't about slavery at all, and that is what galls me about Yankees the most. You buy the line about "It was to free the slaves" and it WASN'T. The North went to war to prevent the Southern States from leaving the Union. They forced the will of Washington DC on the Southern States in 1865. AT THAT time the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution became "nice to know" items but of no real force. It opened up a whole new era of ways to get around the Constitution by legislation. So it was about political power, and freedom of States. The Northern side fought for centralization of political power and the Industrial barons of the North, the South fought for a State's right to determine its own future. Power, money are most commonly the things that people go to war over, and the War of Aggression waged by the North 1860-1865 was NO different.
"persons convicted of crimes" is the answer.
btw, had you asked a SMART & CLEAR question of me, rather than an incredibly STUPID one, perhaps i would have known the answer you desired.
frankly, the nature of your questions, causes me to wonder about your IQ.
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
Such individuals were not slaves and were citizens of this country despite their condition or the servitude to those they were legally bound to for the sake of meeting a contract they had entered into freely or paying off a debt they owed to a creditor.
But let's look at the whole quote: No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, But shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
I can think of one Founding Father that would have been personally effected by this part of the constitution because he had been a runaway apprentice and legally bound to a "Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due" before the Constitution was written, if we are to define that clause as the very basis of proof that The Constitution legalized slavery then by those words Benjamin Franklin was a slave for most of his adult life.
Yeah I'm stretching the logic a bit, but by precisely the same amount required to convert a "Person held to Service or Labour" into slave by the logic of southern democrats.
To gloat you'd first have to actually win an argument with me or anyone else here, STAND.
That has almost the same chance of happening as you becoming the next president of the confederacy.
Want to know whose statue in in the center of Lee circle again?
Those laws were written back in the time of Greco-Roman law. Our laws have their roots in Greco-Roman law, and English law (prior to the emancipation of slaves in England mind you) thereby slavery at the inception of this Country WAS legal. The slaves were created by their own countrymen who sold them off for gold. This is back during the time of inter-tribal warfare, and despot Kings. The white Europeans saw a viable market and burgeoning gold mine to fill their own pockets. You first have to understand that many of the laws about slavery were State written and at the time of the ratification of the US Constitution, the States were independent, sovereign States as recognized by King George in the Treaty of Paris 1783. Even when they ratified the Constitution, the States still maintained a greater proportion of self-governance power than they ceeded to the Federal Government. There are several books out on the subject. But to try and simplify the War of Northern Aggression by saying it was just about freeing the slaves is pure horsesh*t. All that serves to do is to make you believe the North had the high moral ground. Dig deeper, find the truth! I did, and I was educated in the public school system! Once you find out the truth then you can see how what exists in Washington DC is faaaaaaaaaaaar from what the Founding Fathers' envisioned for this nation.
You stated earlier something about putting away the Confederate Uniforms and talking about guns. Well boyo, that same government that suppressed the South's bid for independence, is the same government whose politicians want to erode your Civil Liberties from time to time. Remember Bill Clinton and how gun control became a national hue and cry? Luckily there were enough freedom loving Americans to step up to the plate and shoot down their attempts. But they haven't stopped, they are just laying low for now. I believe that it was the 2nd Amendment to the Bill of Rights they went after that time, now its the 1st Amendment. PC, and liberals are the bane of freedom, and those who follow the Liberals' warped ideology are fools and "Useful Idiots". And it all started back in 1865 with the defeat of the South.
it was you who BRAGGED about being able to "gloat". not i, as i know only FOOLS "gloat" and that it isn't "seemly" to do so,even to "put down" a SCALAWAG.
free dixie,sw
scalawags, imVho, are BENEATH notice and/or respect.
free dixie,sw
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