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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...
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.
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.
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.
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.........