Mall boots kiosk selling Confederate flag clothing

TuscaloosaNews ^ | December 13, 2002 | AP

[stainlessbanner]

The manager of a Mobile mall has evicted a merchant selling clothing with Confederate battle flag designs, citing complaints from people angered by the merchandise.

The merchant, Camo Unlimited, opened a kiosk in Colonial Mall Bel Air just after Thanksgiving. The Blountsville-based company sells Dixie Outfitters clothing at the Mobile mall and at other malls throughout the Southeast, owner Toby Smith said.

Dixie Outfitters offers more than 600 designs with themes such as hunting, trucks and dogs, all including the stars and bars of the Confederate battle flag. The clothing line's "Legends of the Confederacy" series features generals and other leaders of the Confederacy.

Smith said that soon after he opened the kiosk, employees of another store at the mall complained. Soon afterward, the mall's management told him to clear out by Sunday.

Tim Nolan, the mall's general manager, said he heard from several people who indicated the store could spur a boycott of the mall.

"May I remind you that blacks and other minorities constitute a major portion of consumers who patronize Colonial Bel Air Mall," chapter president Lettie Malone wrote in a Dec. 5 letter to Nolan.

"They should not be embarrassed or made to feel uncomfortable by those who are still fighting and trying to revive a war that never should have been a part of our civilized society."

The state president of the NAACP, the Rev. R.L. Shanklin, said the group never had plans for a boycott, and that he would have to approve any boycott carried out by the organization.

Nevertheless, Nolan said the mall was in an "emotionally charged controversy that we didn't want to be in the middle of."

"There was going to be no easy decision," he told the Mobile Register. "Certainly customers are disappointed that we took them out. Customers would have been disappointed had we left them in."

Asked whether he thought his clothing was offensive, Dixie Outfitters owner Dewey Barber said, "We certainly don't put any designs out there that we feel are offensive to anyone."

Dixie Outfitters' Web site has links and news stories about the Battle Flag, and in a section called "Our Mission" it states:

"The truth about the Confederate Flag is that it has nothing to do with racism or hate. The Civil War was not fought over slavery or racism. We at Dixie Outfitters are trying to tell the real truth via our art and products in regards to the Confederate Flag."

Ben George, head of a local Sons of Confederate Veterans camp, said he was considering a protest against the eviction.

[Bluntpoint]

Do you think a hundred years after the first cave man discovered fire, their decendants were arguing whether it was discovered in South Prehistoria or North Prehistoria?

Do you think, maybe, they all said "fire," it is good, and then got on with life.

[jsraggmann]

We have the Bill of Rights because the Anit-Federalists, led by Patrick Henry, demanded it. 15 December should be a national holiday too.

[WhiskeyPapa]

I am afraid you are mistaken.

No I'm not.

Then you'll surely stop paying federal taxes? Right? Why not declare your independence exactly the way the rebels did? Who can stop you?

Answer: The same power that stopped them.

It surprises many people but the rebellion had no major success west of the mountains, excepting Chickamauga. Union arms were everywhere successful.

Even in the area around the rebel capital and Washington, rebel arms had a lot less success than generally thought. Lee's incursions into Maryland and Pennsylvania were bothe turned back with very heavy losses -- he has as little success outside Virginia as Hooker, Burnside and Pope had inside it.

And at the same time the Army of the Potomac was being sustained by re-enlistments, Lee's army was being riven with desertion.

Just a few inconvenient facts for the neo-reb rant.

Walt

[Bluntpoint]

So, are you positing that the war was fought and won and that it is now over?

[WhiskeyPapa]

So, are you positing that the war was fought and won and that it is now over?

It is over, except for the lunatic fringe.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

Slave ownership in the union states was still protected by the United States Constitution.

Slave ownership was protected by the Constitution in the rebel states too. But the slave power forgot one thing -- the Constitution allows the president to invoke the law of war in time of war. Weren't slaves property? By the laws of war, enemy property may be seized. Was the so-called CSA a foreign nation? No, but the rebels said it was, so they could hardly complain when the president declared any slaves free who can make their way to the protection of Old Glory. The slavers forgot that slaves, unlike a bay of hay or cotton, have feet.

It's really kind of funny in a sense. But as President Lincoln said, "Those who would deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and under a just God, can not long retain it."

Rebel cupidity was matched only by rebel stupidity.

Walt

[stand watie]

ROTFL!

well said.

free the southland,sw

[stand watie]

WELL SAID!

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

LOL!

[stand watie]

if you had a brain, you'd take it out and play with it.

otoh, as a scalawag you'd break it.

move north turncoat.

free dixie,sw

[mac_truck]

...I should have, of course, said that it was the Union that INITIATED the war by refusing to remove their occupying force from sovereign state soil at Fort Sumter.

Perhaps then sir, you'd care to respond to post 169 regarding that sovereignty, as I am fairly confident in Walt's grasp of the relevant "facts".

[Amelia]

The Emancipation Proclamation "freed" the slaves only in these areas:

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Palquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebone, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Morthhampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.

According to the National Park Service website,

On Jan. 1, 1863, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln declared free all slaves residing in territory in rebellion against the federal government. This Emancipation Proclamation actually freed few people. It did not apply to slaves in border states fighting on the Union side; nor did it affect slaves in southern areas already under Union control. Naturally, the states in rebellion did not act on Lincoln's order. But the proclamation did show Americans-- and the world--that the civil war was now being fought to end slavery.

Lincoln had been reluctant to come to this position. A believer in white supremacy, he initially viewed the war only in terms of preserving the Union. As pressure for abolition mounted in Congress and the country, however, Lincoln became more sympathetic to the idea. On Sept. 22, 1862, he issued a preliminary proclamation announcing that emancipation would become effective on Jan. 1, 1863, in those states still in rebellion. Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in America--this was achieved by the passage of the 13TH Amendment to the Constitution on Dec. 18, 1865--it did make that accomplishment a basic war goal and a virtual certainty.

[Colt .45]

"Name one of the framers that said that."

Read closely oh most ignorant one ... 'By far the greater quantity of power was retained by the government of each State when the United States Constitution was framed and adopted in 1787-1788. Only a comparatively small part of each State's power was delegated by its people to the new central, or Federal, government - chiefly the powers concerning "war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce" (per The Federalist, number 45 by Madison). This delegated-power government - the central Republic - was granted few and limited powers; while each State's government is a full-power Republic under the State Constitution, subject to its restrictions, also to that grant, and to the few restrictions specified expressly in the United States Constitution as applying to the government of the States.'

' The American people and their leaders in 1776-1787 were determined that the central government should never be allowed to possess power to act, or be permitted to act, as a "consolidated" government with sovereign, unlimited power over all of the people and things in the country. Vigilant friends of Individual Liberty, including for example leaders such as Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, warned repeatedly and emphatically against the danger of ever permitting such a government to exist in America. - 'The American Ideal of 1776, Twelve Basic American Principles' - Hamilton Abert Long

Now each State being a full power Republic subject to its own Constitution and the few restrictions in the United States Constitution tells me that each State retained its own sovereignty.

But to illustrate further - ' Samuel Adams, firebrand patriot-leader always in the lead for both American Independence and Man's Liberty against Government-over-Man, expressed fear in this regard in 1789 (letter to Richard Henry Lee) in keeping with his never varying sentiments. He said that he feared misinterpretation of the Constitution would bring about fully centralized (consolidated) power in the Federal government at the expense of the States and "sink both into despotism". - 'The American Ideal of 1776, Twelve Basic American Principles' - Hamilton Abert Long

[Colt .45]

"Now unless the actions of the secessionists in ACW were in fact criminal acts (got my vote), it was a civil controversy. And since the Supreme Court has jurisdiction, no ordinance or act of secession can withstand that challenge, can it?"

Fraid so Buckwheat! Our laws were based on Blackstone and English law an ideal of which stated " Indeed, it is found by experience that, whenever the unconstitutional oppressions even of the sovereign power advance with gigantic strides, and threaten dissolution to a state, mankind will not be reasoned out of the feelings of humanity, nor will sacrifice their liberties by a scrupulous adherence to these political maxims, which were originally established to preserve it. And therefore, though the positive laws are silent, experience will furnish us with a very remarkable case, wherein nature and reason prevailed. When King James the Second invaded the fundamental constitution of the realm, the Convention declared an abdication, whereby the throne was vacant, which induced a new settlement of the Crown. As so far as this precedent leads and no farther, we may now be allowed to lay down the law of redress of public opinion. If, therefore, any future prince should endeavour to subvert the constitution by breaking the original compact between the King and people, should violate the fundamental laws, and should withdraw himself from the kingdom, we are now authorized to declare that this juncture of circumstances would amount to an abdication, and the throne would thereby be vacant. But it is not for us to say that any one or two of these ingredients would amount to such a situation, therefore our precedent would fail us. In these, therefore, or other circumstances which a fertile imagination may furnish, since both law and history are silent, it behooves us to be silent too, leaving for future generations, whenever necessity and the safety of the whole require it, the exertion of those inherent but latent powers of society which no climate, no time, no constitution, no contract can ever destroy or diminish." - - 'The Constitutional History of Secession' - John Remington Graham (lawyer)

[WhiskeyPapa]

"Name one of the framers that said that."

Read closely oh most ignorant one ... 'By far the greater quantity of power was retained by the government of each State when the United States Constitution was framed and adopted in 1787-1788. Only a comparatively small part of each State's power was delegated by its people to the new central, or Federal, government - chiefly the powers concerning "war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce" (per The Federalist, number 45 by Madison). This delegated-power government - the central Republic - was granted few and limited powers; while each State's government is a full-power Republic under the State Constitution, subject to its restrictions, also to that grant, and to the few restrictions specified expressly in the United States Constitution as applying to the government of the States.'

Do you think I am not going to go back and check what you wrote earlier?

Here's what you posted earlier:

However the point here is that the Constitution was a compact of sovereign and independent states who never gave up their sovereignty when they ratified the Constitution and the Founders intended that is should be that way!

In no way does the quote you provide above from Madison support the statement you made earlier. In fact, it says the opposite.

None of the framers held that the states were sovereign and indepedent under the Constitution.

Stop lying. It is amazing how the bloody handed rebel traitors can be held up as perfect Christian gentlemen, and their defenders will then tell any kind of lie.

Walt

[Lee'sGhost]

Sure, by directing you to Post #359.

[Lee'sGhost]

"LOL"

What?

[Bluntpoint]

"free dixie,sw"

How about free cable. That is something we can all agree on.

Maybe we can have the Civil War Channel, where all the movies and documentaries only depict the winning battles of the Confederacy.

Or science shows about the silk worm. If silk would have relaced cotton, there would not be this turmoil today.

Silk worms, as of today, do not make up a sizeable portion if the electorate.

[yarddog]

It is interesting that a person who believes in a "strong and coercive federal government" would be posting on a website who's very purpose is to turn back many years of that coersive government's programs.

BTW his cut-an-paste, frenzy on this thread are a classic study in nonsense. All of them are not to the point and most are not even close.

Oh yes, see his post #383 if you want to see just how much out of touch with reality he really is. Lee takes an outnumbered, badly equipped army into the North and fights a losing battle once and a draw once. In both battles he loses fewer men than the North (Gettysburg has some who claim the South lost more but the best figures show the North suffering the heavier casualties). Also the South lost quite a lot less at Antietam, despite the North being in posession of his battle plans.

Does any sane person want to compare those to Fredricksburg, Chancellorsville, or for that matter to Grant's attack at Cold Harbor?

[stand watie]

do you STILL not "get it"?

the RISEN DIXIE movement is NOT about re-living the WBTS; the movement is about NOW & the FUTURE.we are building a new nation, one person at a time.

we are two/too different peoples to "remain un-equally yoked together";the southland will be FREE.

free dixie,sw