Posted on 06/13/2005 4:41:07 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
VERBENA (AP) — A huge Confederate battle flag flying over Interstate 65 north of Montgomery will become a permanent fixture, according to officials with the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
The organization bought land on the side of the interstate near Verbena and put up the flag, which has been flying for several months above the tree lines from the top of a large pole, easily visible from the heavily traveled interstate.
Leonard Wilson, commander of the Alabama division of Sons of Confederate Veterans, said the flag will be dedicated in a ceremony at 5 p.m. on June 26.
The flag is located on a little more than half an acre of land just north of where Autauga County 68 crosses over the interstate, about six miles south of the Verbena exit.
"We put the flag up so people could see it," Wilson said. "We are showing off our heritage. The flag is part of our heritage."
Critics of Confederate flag displays say they are reminders of the slavery era and Alabama's racist past, and can damage Alabama's image when flown beside a busy interstate route to Gulf beaches.
It's deserved. Any man who'd do something like that, I'd be proud to call a friend of mine, and any country or culture should be pleased to have him as a citizen.
That's a perfect example of why the Southern Battle Flag raises a controversy. On the one hand, there's guys like you. And on the other hand, there's guys like the KKK neo-nazi, who unfortunately was prominent and common, and abused the Southern flags, gave it a negative connotation. So when even decent people try to fly it nowadays, many people (until about a year ago, even me) thought of was the KKK flying it and hollering as they raised hell to terrify some poor American.
Well, I speak only for myself. The only times before about a year ago I saw the Confederate flag was being waved in the hands of neo nazis, alongside the swastika and some random white power flags. Metzger and his son came to Canada bringing their BS with them every so often. The Heritage Front (which is a neo nazi/white power group) flies it around here.
That scared me, and I'm not a guy who scares easy. That's not disinformation, that's what I saw. Now, I'm not so anti-Confederacy these days, but thats because a) I met quite a few very fine Southerners who DID proudly wear the flag and weren't racist and b) I realize its just an abused symbol. Nonetheless, I still remember being frightened by the freaks who waved it around chanting their idiocy and that's the connection I made in my mind.
The only way you will redeem the southern flag is if you carry it into battle against these same freaks who abuse it, and show its a symbol of virtue and courage and justice, and not one of oppression and hate and the long nursed spite of a few losers. I say this not to offend, but to show you my perspective. If it bothers you, ignore it and ignore me. But right or wrong, the flag is often associated with racism.
As for some of the anti-union folks being anti-southern, maybe some are, but I'd say most aren't. Don't tar everyone with the same brush, and don't mistake (rightly or wrongly) provoked resentment for bigotry: if it bothers you that they tar all proud Southerners so, imagine how they feel to see their union fracturing because of a few (perceived) hotheads.
I understand what you're saying... but as for the connotations associated with the flag, the Ku Klux Klan marched under the US flag for years and years, yet why no connotation there? Slaves were bought and sold under the US flag and the Union Jack for ages, yet the Confederate flag flew for four short years and bears ALL the brunt on this issue. Is this the way it should be? The Emancipation Proclaimation did not free one slave in Union States like Delaware... yet there are those who keep arguing the Civil War was over slavery. If this was the case, the EP would have freed all slaves, plain and simple.
Can you give me an example from FreeRepublic?
As I said, the Civil War was over many things. It was partially a power struggle, partially a culture war and a whole host of other things. It's also long over. The South is a strong part of the Union, and the Union needs it for survival (look at how Presidents must be Southerners nowadays).
The reason there is no real connotation between the KKK and the IS flag is because the star and stripes flew at the head of liberating armies, and has become a symbol of freedom and hope to many people. Or at least it was, before liberals and muslims started trashing it and burning it. Which just goes to show my point... ;)
On that we largely agree. As for the Confederate flag (battle flag, each of the three nationals, etc.) it was at the head of a liberating army to half of our country for four years. The south saw it as a symbol of liberation from the rule of the north. The South is a very strong part of our country. I look at the electoral map nearly every day... and I thank God for the South!
Right. But the US flag has liberated tens of millions and defended tens of millions more over and over again for a century and a half. Depending on your perspective, of course.
All I am saying is that it's counterproductive to the South's wellbeing/success and unpatriotic to blast the US nowaday in defence of a Republic that no longer existed, that never existed for long and that is clearly associated in many people's minds with racism and slavery. From where I stand, a patriotic and true Southerner in this day and age would act in best defence of Southern values and act upon them; including freedom for every man, no matter his creed or colour. Fight for state's rights, by all means. Defend positive Southern values. Live them. That's how you redeem the Stars and bars. Through hard work and courage, undoing inch by bloody inch the work of KKKers and neonazis and separatatists and redeeming the flag as a symbol of freedom and virtue and American unity in the eyes of those who behold it. Not by spitting in the faces of those who see it as an insult to the union (which it can be seen as nowadays).
One of the most repeated of neo-confederate myths and dodges, but to accept it shows you have no knowledge of what the EP was and do not understand the United States Constitution.
As to the Confederate flag, I don't really give a damn one way or another. It does not "offend" me but says something sad about those who revere it for things it never was and never even stood for when it was operable.
I see it as a sad, short lived symbol of a morally flawed cause that a high percentage of the good and honorable men who died under it neither fully understood nor would agree with if they did. Such is the nature of any civil war.
From a purely historical perspective, it's a symbol of folly, tragedy, and needless suffering in the service of an ignoble objective. From a contemporary basis, it is a symbol full of myth and bluster shamelessly abused by the worst denizens of our culture.
But do as you wish. It is still a free country. But I doubt the Stars and Stripes would have been accorded the same respect if the outcome has been different 140 years ago.
I've not heard anyone from the South bashing the U.S. In fact, the folks in the South in my view tend to be more patriotic than those in the north who elect folks like Bernie Sanders, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy and the rest of the blame America first crowd....that is clearly associated in many people's minds with racism and slavery.
Again, this is largely due to disinformation from leftist profs and race-hustlers like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who are out to make a buck.From where I stand, a patriotic and true Southerner in this day and age would act in best defence of Southern values and act upon them; including freedom for every man, no matter his creed or colour.
I believe most do. Many will agree here that racism is far more pervasive in Boston than it is in nearly all of the South.
Through hard work and courage, undoing inch by bloody inch the work of KKKers and neonazis and separatatists and redeeming the flag as a symbol of freedom and virtue and American unity in the eyes of those who behold it.
Many are trying to do just this, but there are those who refuse to let it be done... those who profit financially and politically keep it going by convincing those who are easily swayed.
Funny, you wrote five paragraphs with little substance other than talking points. You seem to be an expert on the Emancipation Proclaimation... tell me, how many slaves did it free in the Union states?
There are several Southerns in this very thread who bash the US and Northerners. I read "damnyankees", bigot, hateful, left on a big brush tarring everyone north of the Mason-Dixon line. I've personanlly heard a few, not a whole lot mind you, Southerners bash the US (and on the whole, I do find the average midwesterners and southerners to be more patriotic than the average northerner, FReepers here excepted of course. :D ))
I don't have great use for Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson these days, though I don't hate them (I just consider them old formerly noble racehorses that should have been put out to pasture years ago) but I as I told you, I have seen neonazis in Canada who have defended slavery and are racist use the Confederate flag as a symbol. That's not an argument. That's a point I am outright telling you: that I had good reason myself for many years to make the association. Nothing more, nothing less.
None.
But with that question, you only prove the fact that you haven't a damn clue what the Emancipation Proclamation was.
Now, let's check your Constitutional IQ.
Tell me how Lincoln could have freed any slaves in a "Union" state?
If the south was part of the union, how could he have done it for any state? The EP was a gimmick to keep Europe out of the war.
Federal Courts were not operative in most of the the "South". Those regions were in open rebellion and therefore under military, not civil command (martial law, we call it) and the Commander in Chief was authorized under the Militia Act to issue military orders, including one which allows the sizing of "property" (which slaves were legally defined as) and to dispose of that property as he wished. He chose to free them. (One hundred thousand of them chose to put on Blue uniforms and help free the rest.)
Perfectly Constitutional under military law. But in any jurisdiction where Federal courts were operating, it would not have worked.
Try reading something other than neo-confederate propaganda, and you won't be asking silly questions like that again.
First off, my question was a rhetorical one... but I suppose you didn't get that. Secondly, I've read much from both sides on the war. I could certainly ask you to read something other than the South-bashing politically-correct propoganda that you apparently read. Thank God for southerners! They single-handedly kept Kerry out of the White House.
Be sure to let the folks in Ohio know that would ya?
MOST of the "offended" are the SAME bunch of DUmmies that are "offended" by the US flag.
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
in point of FACT, at the last large klan rally in DC, there were over 10,000 US flags & HUNDREDS of CROSSES but not even ONE CSA flag on display.
should we stop displaying either/both those, because STUPID, idiotic, fools display them???
free dixie,sw
Call me stupid, ignorant and empty headed then.
I was offended and/or scared by the Dixie battleflag. Saying things like that is unproductive, unhelpful and in fact detracts from your argument.
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