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 Ive 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 groups 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 Darlingtons annual Mothers 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, NASCARs 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. Thats for sure.
As it branches away from its traditional Southern fan base, NASCAR has tried to shed its rebel-flag-waving image. The nations 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 didnt 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 companys 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 propertys 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 doesnt like the message, they take it down, Rogers said.
As usual, Watie lies. The declarations of causes were issued by the same state secession conventions that issued their acts of secession. Watie can't claim one was a valid expression of the state and the other not.
In each case, the convention voted to create a committee to draft the "causes" document. In each case, the draft document came to the floor of the convention, was debated, possibly slightly amended, and then voted on. I believe that each was passed unanimously by the general convention, but I could be wrong on that one.
> As usual, Watie lies.
Which is why I ignore him.
He's actually one of the best arguements out there in favor of looking with disdain upon the motives of the Confederacy... it's always good to have your opponant be one of the ARGUE BY CAPS LOCKS types.
> Watie can't claim one was a valid expression of the state and the other not.
Sure he can. Just as many Islamists can simultaneously believe that 9-11 was a Zionist plot to make Muslims look bad *AND* a genius strategy by bin Laden to apply a smackdown to the US. Madness allows believing simultaneously contradictory things.
> Mind you, this opinion is coming from a Northern man. I've seen the photos of the condition of Atlanta after the Union Army was through with it. Hiroshima looked like it was in better condition that Atlanta did. So, why don't you quit making fun of it?
Let me guess: you also have a problem with Israel's "disproportionate response?"
Wars should be fought to be *won.* Sherman fought to win. He proved to be a better warrior that many of those vaunted Southern Generals.
And the question remains: how many died in the burning of Atlanta?
Non-responsive. No argument raised. Substance-free spam.
The spam was your original tirade. The never ending litany of "That nasty ol' Lincoln tricked us" and "The south provided 99.99999999% or all tariff revenue" and other unsupported nonsense. And very humerous nonsense it is, too. Can the ever popular "tariffs hit the south 50 times harder than the North" be far behind?
Surviving him are three sons. R. M., J. W. and G. S. Charnberlin; two daughters, Mrs. I. E. Jones and Miss Martha Chamberlin, all of Micanopy; 12 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren .
Mr. Chamberlin for many years s was an active member of Stonewall Jackson Chapter Confederate Veterans, which formerly was one of the largest and most active chapters in the state. The passing of years 80 thinned its ranks however, that three years ago the post was declared dissolved, Mr. Chamberlin remaining its only member. Records of the chapter, upon its dissolution, were placed in the county's archives at the Court House.
Daughters of the Confederacy joined friends of the old veteran at his graveside and it was they who followed the time-honored custom of unfurling over the grave the flag of the Confederacy, the flag which may never again be unfurled in the county.
2. Many of the quotes don't support the thesis advanced. Examples follow.
Remember, dbehsman originally asked you (to keep the question at hand uppermost in mind as we go forward),
REALLY? Care to provide us with some quotes that specifically claim that the problem was primarily with slavery?
And now, to your examples:
- Rev John Wrightman, South Carolina, 1861.
Obscure reference, supportive but non-authoritative. One man's opinion, until you show otherwise.
"African slavery is the cornerstone of the industrial, social, and political fabric of the South; and whatever wars against it, wars against her very existence. Strike down the institution of African slavery and you reduce the South to depoulation and barbarism." - South Carolina Congressman Lawrence Keitt, 1860
This observation by Congressman Keitt describes the economy of the South and the likely effect of abolition on it, in his view. How does this quote support your contention that "the war was about slavery?"
Keeping in mind, of course, that the "war was about slavery" is a Marxist theme, intended to support vanguardism and (by extension) absolutism of the vanguard elite. Lincoln is their hero for that very reason, and you've never dealt with that.
"[Recruiting slaves into the army] is abolition doctrine ... the very doctrine which the war was commenced to put down." - Editorial, Jan 1865, North Carolina Standard
Support from the editorialist, but your quote shows signs of selective pruning -- an ellipse, and some words supplied. May we see the entire quote, in context? You aren't capitan_refugio, and I've seldom seen posters sink as low as he did in dredging up alleged support for his fanatical and hate-filled positions, but let's just say that, when your argument is about an overarching theme, context matters.
"What did we go to war for, if not to protect our [slave] property?" - CSA senator from Virgina, Robert Hunter, 1865
How do we know he was talking about slaves? Your insertion points us in that direction, but would his words exclude his other valuable property? If he were a plantation owner, does anyone think he'd be happy to give up the land, house, and cotton crop to Lincoln's punitive confiscations, if only he could keep his slaves?
The insertion may not be appropriate after all.
Whilst it may be admitted that the mere election of any man to the Presidency, is not, per se, a sufficient cause for a dissolution of the Union; yet, when the issues upon, and circumstances under which he was elected, are properly appreciated and understood, the question arises whether a due regard to the interest, honor, and safety of their citizens, in view of this and all the other antecedent wrongs and outrages, do not render it the imperative duty of the Southern States to resume the powers they have delegated to the Federal Government, and interpose their sovereignty for the protection of their citizens.What, then are the circumstances....?......He stands forth as the representative of the fanaticism of the North, which, for the last quarter of a century, has been making war upon the South, her property, her civilization, her institutions, and her interests; as the representative of that party which overrides all Constitutional barriers, ignores the obligations of official oaths, and acknowledges allegiance to a higher law than the Constitution, striking down the sovereignty and equality of the States, and resting its claims to popular favor upon the one dogma, the Equality of the Races, white and black." -- Letter of S.F. Hale, Commissioner of Alabama to the State of Kentucky, to Gov. Magoffin of Kentucky [Emphasis added.]
To correct him at the outset, Mr. Hale oversimplifies by a vast stretch, for rhetorical effect (unfortunately -- he had a better argument working), the platform of the Republican Party. He mischaracterizes it as well, since I doubt that a canvass of that idea among Republican voters of 1860 would have broken into double digits, that the Republican platform included the advancement of Negro equality. Even Lincoln, no matter what his private opinion might have been, said that he didn't believe that that equality was possible.
The advancement of the idea of giving the Negro the franchise, and then using his vote to annihilate the South politically and turn its population on one another, was a later, Radical addition to the platform and as yet untrue when Hale directed his words to the governor of Kentucky.
Notice, however, the commissioner's repeated references to safety and Northern fanaticism (underscored) -- how do you explain them, if the issue was simply about Southern slaveholders' rights in human property?
There's much more to say, but I'll have to adjourn for now.
Well when you get back please post your quotes showing it was all about tariffs.
No argument is true unless it agrees with you; no fact in evidence is valid, or properly interpreted, until you pass on its congruity with Declarationist dogma.
Ever hear of Duns Scotus? You ought to have -- you're just like his followers, the Dunsmen, also known as Dunses. Modern spelling: dunces.
So then it's safe to write off everything you said in reply 139 as one boob's man's opinion? Unless, of course, until you show otherwise.
Well there's a case of the pot calling the kettle black if ever there was one.
Ever hear of Duns Scotus? You ought to have -- you're just like his followers, the Dunsmen, also known as Dunses. Modern spelling: dunces.
Alas how can I continue knowing how you feel about me? Shall I hand my head in shame? Shall I slink away never to darken the door of FreeRepublic again? Or shall I just consider the source?
perhaps, one fine day the "sniveling cowards" will LEARN!
free dixie,sw
"mr. spin": don't you get tired of being RIDICULED as a BIGOT,an empty-head & a "general, all-around, FOOL", by everyone who has "an IQ above average room temperature"??? do you ENJOY being the BUTT of inside jokes on FR??? (inquiring minds want to know.)
free dixie,sw
off hand,i cannot think of a SINGLE senator from a northeastern state that could win dogcatcher in a dixie state.
the senators from the socialist/baby-killing/PC "blue zone" make me GAG!
free dixie,sw
free dixie, sw
btw, i can stand a DAMNyankee, better than a turncoat southerner.
free dixie,sw
That's real American of you Stand Watie.
"Still existing in the early 1860's since you are totally incapable of living in 2006 - so sad."
Hazard a guess, stand watie. How many dead at Atlanta? 100,000? 200,000? Half a million?
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