Originally posted by 80sU2isBest:
When I was younger, I was a huge Civil War buff. I knew everything there was to know, especially pertaining to General Robert E. Lee. I have a Confederate flag. I also have Confederate money. I have a lot of Civil War momentos. Do I fly the flag? No, of course not. Do I see why anyone should fly the flag? Not really, except Confederate war museums, or the like. Also, here in Texas, we have Six Flags Over Texas (same in Georgia and St. Louis, among others). These 6 flags represent the 6 countries that once "owned" Texas. To remove the Confederate flag from Six Flags would not only be the height of political correctness folly, it would also be revisionist history.
You can definitely take political correctness too far.
I agree. Funny, I came here to post a 'are you proud or ashamed of your southern heritage' thread. I think it's sad that southerners are made to feel ashamed and because of PC they are now looked down on so. You can't even glorify the men who started this nation anymore because they were 'slave owners.' When I pick up my kids' history books, I find that Jefferson and Washington have been de-emphasized, while any minor contribution of anyone other than a white male has been exalted to a great level. Sorry, but this is revisionist history. We can't change what has happened. Growing up in the south, in the shadow of battlefields, we were always proud of our heritage, and we knew all the battles of the Civil War and the generals. Now most kids can't even tell Lee from Grant. This is because we must now be ashamed and feel our ancestors were 'evil'. Well, of course slavery was wrong, and I believe it would have ended on its own without a war as farm machinery became invented. This would have been better for everybody- the slaves would not have been thrown out all at once with nowhere to go, and there would not have been the hatred and resentment that came afterward.
YES slavery was wrong, and weird, and it's hard to believe it happened in this country only 140 years ago. It seems so ancient. But in those days, people were raised a different way and believed a different way, so you can't consider them as evil as someone now who by modern standards knows better. People have a way of justifying the things they want to do so they can do them anyway and not feel guilty. It's like abortion today, when you really look at what it is, it's wrong, but people want to do it anyway so they justify it by calling it a 'choice.' It was the same in those days. The abolitionists (radical anti-slavery activists) would try to tell of the evils of slavery and they would hear rebuttals from slave owners like 'it's none of your business' 'it's my life' 'if it's wrong for you don't do it but don't take away my right' and so on, just like we hear today in the abortion debate.
Okay back to the topic. When I was a kid, no one had a Confederate flag for any offensive reasons. No one liked slavery or had anything against blacks, we had black friends! We knew from the time we were little we were 'rebels' and when kids moved in from nothern states we called them 'yankees.' There was just something about it that had come down through the generations- the pride in generals like Stonewall Jackson, hanging onto something after losing hundreds of thousands of men in a lost cause (southern independence,not slavery, 75% of southerners owned NO slaves, they just fought because their territory was being invaded)I think there used to be pride, and interest, that my generation was the last to hold. It has now turned to shame. There is no need trying to explain this, even remotely trying defend this will get you called 'racist.' What has happened to brainwash people against southern heritage has worked, and is now far too embedded into the minds of the people now to ever be taken out, just as the old ways were to the old people.
My teenage nephew has a Confederate flag in his truck window, and his best friend is a black guy who has one too, for a joke. They are cool and laugh about it. That's the way it should be. They go down the road listening to southern rock and hiphop, and the kind of equality they have achieved is what should be, more than activists and calls of being 'offended.'
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"I DO go on, don't I?"-Bono, MCI Center, DC, June 14, 2001
[This message has been edited by *Stormy* (edited 04-05-2002).]