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Google, Apple, and Others Remove Content Related To the Confederate Flag
davek writes with news that Google is removing results related to the Confederate Flag from Google Shopping, the company's online marketplace. They're also blocking advertisements involving the flag. They say, "We have determined that the Confederate flag violates our Ads policies, which don't allow content that's generally perceived as expressing hate toward a particular group." At the same time, Apple is removing from the App Store any games or other software featuring the Confederate Flag. This, of course, follows the recent shooting in South Carolina, which triggered a nationwide debate over whether the flag should be flown at government buildings (or anywhere). Major online merchant websites like eBay and Amazon have already taken the step of banning merchandise relating to the flag.
Ban the free speech that offends. After all, if you're not offensive, what do you have to lose? And NSA cameras in our houses. Let's get that done. After all, if you're not a criminal, what do you have to lose? And what's that you're eating? I think you should eat healthier. Let's ban that. And then lets all go on about how great America is, unless someone finds that offensive, or terrorists can use it somehow, or it's fattening...
Now I WANT ONE!
A flag or something, just because those SJW are banning it
Flying the Confederate flag over a statehouse is one thing. It would be like Massachusetts leaving the British flag flying over its statehouse. Both are flags of an enemy government that was defeated. The only two flags that belong over a state capital are the state's flag and the United States flag. Period.
The rest of this is free speech. Even if we disagree with something someone wants to express, it should be their right to express it.
Had this same conversation with my wife. You can no longer buy a Confederate Flag at Wal-Mart, but you can still buy guns.
Would you rather have folks self-identify as racists with license plates, bumper stickers, t-shirts, etc. so you can avoid them (and their guns)? Or would you rather not know who the (armed) racists in the crowd are?
This is a large and public denunciation of racism, and an acknowledgemnt that it is a problem. This is a good thing.
Nobody in their right mind would think that taking down these flags is going to solve racism. It is just a step in the right direction.
The flag is historic.
If you want to erase history, you're a fool.
I find Google finding censorship acceptable in its search results alarming now. They are now the overlords telling you what is acceptable to view and what isn't, not yourself.
why oh why do we still let an enemy oppressor flag still fly in this country? What are we celebrating by doing so?
Free speech. I firmly stand against any local, state, or federal government entities flying the Confederate flag, for exactly the reasons you provided, but I will defend an individual's right to do so, even if I vehemently disagree with their reasons for doing so.
That said, we're starting to take things into the realm of ridiculousness here. Apple is removing apps with the Confederate flag. Great. Except that they're removing a number of Civil War games that correctly used the Confederate flag to represent the Confederacy. What next? Force HBO to stop offering Band of Brothers through HBO Now on the Apple TV because it features a swastika? Remove the Dukes of Hazzard from iTunes because they have a Confederate flag painted on the roof of the car?
At the end of the day, the flag is merely a symbol, and symbols are only as powerful as we let them be. The meaning behind that flag has changed over the years, and has meant different things to different people. We need to recognize that fact, otherwise we'll swing the pendulum too far in the other direction and end up cutting in on civil liberties.
The idea of outlawing a piece of colored cloth is about as logical as outlawing a plant.
who's outlawing a piece of colored cloth here? just curious
LMAO idiot!!! And I quote...
"Who fought to ***just leave***. What is the definition of oppression?"
WRONG - according to the states' own words - they weren't fighting to "just leave" - they were fighting to maintain slavery. Someone who outright lies about the situation (totally ignoring slavery as a component) and doesn't think that fighting to maintain slavery isn't oppression (as the states claimed they were doing) is racist or an idiot or uneducated. I gave them the benefit of doubt and SPECIFICALLY said "might" be a supporter of racism and slavery. Seriously, learn to read.
While you are learning to read (instead of your copy/paste game), read this:
http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/declarationofcauses.html
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
Kind of but not really. The North would have happily gone on with pretty much whatever the South wanted. The South just managed to not get it's way "exactly" just once and they had a collective hysterical hissy fit over it. In truth it was probably an unnecessary confrontation. Genuine abolitionists were an extremist minority in the North and most people everywhere were incredibly racist. For the first half of the war, the Union generals would have happily allowed the South to come back into the Union without any changes to the status quo. Eventually slavery became a military strategic issue and was attacked primarily for that reason.
It was ultimately really just an unnecessary temper tantrum.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
This is actually a good point. There were actually quite a few supporters of the South in the North during the Civil War. Why? Not because they supported slavery, they did NOT. It was because you can't have a "Union" unless there was the right to succeed. Many of the supporters in the North supported the South because if the government became too oppressive, they too wanted the right to succeed.
While to many, the Confederate Flag represents states rights, Southern heritage, the right to rebel (against whatever), the fact of the matter is that the Confederate Flag now represents racism to the vast majority of people. The supporters of the CF are fighting a losing battle. This is just like the swastika that was originally a Jewish and Middle Eastern symbol and was used throughout early Judaism in a lot of artwork and on stone ostuaries (stone "coffins" just for the bones). Today, it represents Nazis no matter how much the swastika supporters might want it to be a religious symbol.
At the same time, Amazon, Google, etc. apparently are ok with selling Nazi flags and other memorabilia as well as T-Shirts with the face of the Butcher of La Cabania (Che Guevara), Pol Pot, Mau Tse Tung, Stalin (who killed more than Hitler ever did), etc. If they are going to remove something like the Confederate Flag, they should be even handed among all the people who have murdered millions and persecuted even more.
I think a part of it is a misunderstanding on the part of some of the companies pulling flags from their shelves.
The outrage over the flag wasn't that the flag itself exists. It was that a State of the United States of America had it flying over or in front of their capitol building, and worse still than that, was doing it as a "Fuck you" to the rest of the country for "imposing" civil rights on it.
Given the fact it's suddenly high profile, I can certainly see some manager walking through BigboxMart looking at their shelves and seeing bumper stickers or even the flags themselves, and saying "Do we really want to be the people selling these?"
But... to go further, and start banning anything with the flag in or on it, regardless of context, shows businesses have forgotten what the controversy was in the first place.
I think it's a kneejerk reaction, to something in the news, and kneejerk reactions are usually pretty bad. Of course, my kneejerk reaction is what I'm writing here, so for all I know, I'm about to find my position is ridiculous too.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Really? Why does this say differently? http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/declarationofcauses.html
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
The American Civil War most certainly was fought over slavery.
Indeed it was. Here are the official words of the southerners themselves, expressed at the time of secession:
From the Mississippi declaration of secession:Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery.
From the Texas declaration of the Causes of Secession: ... maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery--the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits
From the South Carolina Declaration of Secession: ... an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery
From the Georgia Declaration of Secession:The South with great unanimity declared her purpose to resist the principle of prohibition [of slavery] to the last extremity.
In every declaration of secession, slavery was given as the first and most prominent reason for secession. Secession was popular in flat states, where large plantations were viable. It was less popular in mountainous areas, where slaves were less common, including what is now West Virginia, and the mountain state of Tennessee which was the last to secede and the first to rejoin the union. There was a rebellion within the rebellion in the hilly areas of northern Alabama. By the end of the war, every state but South Carolina (the flattest state, most dependent on plantation agriculture) raised volunteer regiments to fight in the Union Army, mostly from mountain areas.
At the same time, Amazon, Google, etc. apparently are ok with selling Nazi flags and other memorabilia as well as T-Shirts with the face of the Butcher of La Cabania (Che Guevara),
Thats what gets me they are not even getting their own political BS right. You can buy a copy of mein kampf on these sites. The flag you could at least make a case for 'its history' (which is thin and tenuous). Mein kampf is a bible for racial hatred.
They will quickly realize they can not placate everyone. They will quickly run out of customers. Instead of standing up for at least pretending free speech they turn their backs on these people. I think what those people have to say is vile. But where is the line? There is not one. That was the point of free speech.
The Blacks were considered inferior throughout the entire country. The North's attacks on slavery were motivated not by feelings of fairness, but to simply destroy the enemy's economic base.
So, the GP is right stating, that this was not "about slavery" in today's meaning of the concept — the war was not waged to restore fairness and bring about equal rights. You are right in that it was about slavery because it was that tactics of the Federal government, that pushed the rebels over the edge.
Yes, were somebody to try to outlaw, say, airplane-building today (such as on account of their pollution), we might see Washington trying to secede. History will then claim, the bigots objected to clean air.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
That's what baffles me about the hubub over this. I can't believe how many people I know who firmly supported burning of the U.S. flag because "they have their right to freedom of expression," and "it's just a symbol, a piece of cloth, not the country itself" have suddenly flip flopped and now believe people shouldn't have the right to express their opinion with a flag, and that a flag is suddenly more than a mere piece of cloth and should now be the focal point of an issue.
If you truly believe the flag (whether it be the U.S. or Confederate) is just a symbol, then what happens to the physical flag is meaningless. Displaying it or burning it is merely a form of expression. If you ban the Confederate flag without addressing the underlying problems which cause it to be offensive, that is literally the same thing as sticking your head in the sand - you're pretending the problem doesn't exist because you can't see it anymore.
The civil war was not fought over slavery. It wasn't even fought over keeping the south in the union. It was fought to keep Brittan from reconquering the US.
The south didn't have any money. Slavery in the south made commodity traders in the north rich, not the slave owners. You may find that hard to believe... How can you own slaves and not be rich? How can you live in one of those huge plantation houses, and not be rich? The economics of slavery favor the slave trader, not the slave owner. And those plantation houses look huge until you realize it housed an extended family of 20-30 people, plus house slaves. There were white people working the fields right next to the slaves (and they were treated only marginally better).
The south didn't have any money, but war is expensive. So how did the civil war even happen?! Turns out the south had a friend across the ocean willing to lend them very very large amounts of money. Now what could the UK possibly want in return for funding a civl war? America split in two, that's what. Divide and conquer. The war of 1812 was only 50 years ago, and Britain had not yet given up aspirations of reconquest.
Lincoln didn't free the slaves because he's a nice guy. Lincoln proclaimed emancipation to make the British government's support of slave-owning confederates EXTREMELY unpopular with the British people, who were vehemently abolitionist. Lincoln turned a war about the economic oppression of the south into a war about slavery, and in doing so, isolated the south from the rest of the world. Without the support of the UK, or the industrial capacity of the north, the confederacy was doomed.
They don't this in schools because anyone who says the civil was wasn't about slavery is a racist confederacy apologist. The fact that you don't know the civil was was about keeping North America free of the tyranny of the British crown is DANGEROUS..... and the political correctness that lead to that ignorance is one of the tumors slowly killing America.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
True, but the situation was changing. The north was getting tired of the stalemate. Abolitionists were getting a bit more power, not strong but strong enough to have an influence. The Whig party (which Lincoln was a member of for a long time) was mostly gone, and those who just wanted to continue compromising over the slavery and slave state issues were losing political power.
I suspect that the war could have been delayed another decade, but it would have come to a head sooner or later. Even if the break up had been done peacefully I think the fugutive slave issue had a good chance of causing military conflict.
Majority?
I hardly think so...just an overly vocal minority of folks jumping on a bandwagon.
Until a few days ago, when that jackass gunned down those innocent people in that church and later was pictured in one picture holding a small rebel flag, I would posit that the Rebel Battle Flag, the Stars and Bars meant very little to most people if at all.
But thanks to 24/7 news that just HAS to have something to churn the viewers (coincidentally enough all based in the northeast of the US), and them rallying all the social media addicted millennials that are just aching for the next cause of the day to jump on board with (only to be forgotten till the next fury to be raised over some sort of "justice")....the poor flag is being run roughshod over.
I've grown up all my life with the Rebel Battle Flag in my life and experience. It wasn't that big of a deal actually, but just something so everyday, that you saw it and didn't think twice about any hidden meaning. It was southern pride, or just a symbol of the south, a backdrop at a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert, or the top of the General Lee from the Dukes of Hazard (granted a silly show, but just shows how innocuous the flag symbol is). No one I'd ever known had any objections to it, nor had thought of it our used it in any manner that was threatening or hostile to blacks or other races or creeds. Hell, I'd never heard black friends object to it...just was an every day symbol of the south, nothing more nothing less.
But now...it is the topic of the day, and think what you may of it...the larger problem is that this thing is growing even further in what almost seems to be an attempt to rewrite or obliterate history.
This is spreading even in New Orleans, to threaten centuries old monuments....Lee Circle...and other long time landmarks named after confederate southern military heroes of their time, are being threatened to be torn down. None of these has ever been thought of by anyone as racist or threatening to anyone, yet in the rush to throw out the baby with the bathwater, historic landmarks are being threatened.
Ok...where do we stop?
Should we mow down the entire French Quarter? After all a LOT of slaves were bought and sold and used there.
How about all the monuments to Jefferson in D.C.? He was a notorious slave owner...should we burn down Monticello? Raze the Jefferson Memorial? Change the money?
Seriously....there is no need to try to obliterate historic monuments and figures. Everyone and every time has to be judged by the merits of that time. History if though of always in modern thoughts...well, stands to be erased.
History, helps us to understand ourselves and where we came from. Good, heroic folks had faults, but you don't destroy them because of those faults, keep them for the good things about them.
Being a southerner, proud of your heritage doesn't also make one a racist. You can be proud of one and enjoy the symbols and history as part of your culture while trying to forge new ways of thinking and tolerance.
They are not mutually exclusive concepts.
If people were to hold their breaths on this for 2 weeks.....it would all blow over and be forgotten. Hard to take a "majority of folks thinking this way" seriously, when it has just happened overnight practically, and will be forgotten about in a couple weeks....but the damage to history will last much longer.
Step back and take a breathe folks.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........