Slashdot Mirror
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.
Search google for "confederate flag" and click the "shopping" tab.
https://www.google.com/#q=conf...
Now replace "confederate" with just about any other potentially offensive term (nazi, communist, rhodesia) and you get plenty of results.
(NOTE: I don't support flying the flag. It's a rebel flag and I don't like it. But banning it from the marketplace? That seems rather self-defeating)
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
Only Luddites want Luddite software with confederate flags.
Modern app appers want apps with app flags!
Apps!
Who fought to just leave. What is the definition of oppression?
But that is not sufficient reason to stop selling it to civilians. This is a country founded on the idea of Free Speech.
We believe that the best way to fight evil is to let evil speak so we can hear who is evil. Much better than outlawing their vile ideas and having to guess who secretly harbors them.
In other words, I want to be able to see what shmucks wear/use the flag so I know whom to avoid.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Amazon, WalMart et al, are still selling that sh!t on their sites.
The US flag has flown over hundreds of other countries and we have killed or caused to be killed hundreds of thousands in countries we were never invited to. The US flag flies over the NSA, CIA, DOJ, 3 agencies that we are always pointing out how anti-american they are.
I allow others to have opinions I may not agree with so they will allow mine.
Pulling this garbage is not acceptable. A flag only represents something to those who believe in it. To the rest of us it is colored cloth at the end of a pole.
Great to see everyone jumping on the bandwagon. Focusing on the flag once again ignores the real problems since it's easier to find a "magic pill" to fix everything. This is like Obama's first election where, once the flag is down, everyone will declare an "end to racism" and happily ignore the real work involved with tackling endemic bias.
The removal of Confederate Battle Flag items from the market and such is a bad idea.
Walmart, K-Mart, Sears, etc., should all continue to sell "Redneck Pride" crap - promote it, even. Because such things are great visual cues as to who is a moron/dolt/idiot without having to actually talk to them.
--
BMO
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...
I don't understand why there has suddenly been such a huge push to eradicate the rebel flag. It isn't like there has been a sudden groundswell in people who are opposed to racism or race-related violence...
To dedicate so much time, energy and attention on this flag only brings more attention to it, and imparts it with some weird power in pop culture. If what the confederate flag allegedly stands for is so offensive (there's still plenty of heated debates on that topic burning up other parts of the internet), spend that energy combating the groups that push and perpetuate that ideology.
The response to a negative influence in a culture shouldn't be to attack a symbol associated with the influence. Combat the influence.
[nb: I do not own a confederate flag and question the motives of those that fly it]
An internal system operation returned the error "The operation completed successfully.".
Now I WANT ONE!
A flag or something, just because those SJW are banning it
Exactly this. A government agency (state, local, or federal) has no business flying a Confederate flag any more than they can fly the US flag upside down while lit on fire. Citizens, however, have free speech and can use that to express themselves in almost any way they want so long as that way doesn't hurt someone else. If you want to paint a big Confederate flag on your truck while wearing a Confederate flag jacket and a "The South Shall Rise Again" pin (with Confederate Flag), go ahead. Of course, the rest of us have our rights to form opinions of you based on your Confederate flag obsession.
All in all, I think the flag issue is a side track. Yes, it's partially related to the church shooting, but it's not the whole problem. You could ban and burn every single last Confederate flag in existence and it wouldn't solve the problem. So by all means take it off of government buildings, but then let the issue rest and move on to more important issues related to what happened.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Ok, so "Confederate Flag" brings zero results but "Nazi Uniform" pulls up exactly that. And that's OK. I don't want retailers being the morality police and more than I want my ISP to block content it doesn't agree with.
If I want a small Confederate Flag for a historical display, or a re-enactment, or other event these retails think I shouldn't be able to get it? That's crap.
Shall we remove all confederate items from museums? Shall we rewrite the history books so the civil war never happened? If we remove the confederate flag from everywhere, will that mean slavery never happened? The civil war happened. Slavery happened. Racism happened, and it is still happening. Removing some flags will not advance the goal of eliminating racism.
Instead of quibbling about a flag that some people find offensive, why don't we work to fight actual racism. Lets stop looking the other way when whites are treated differently than other races. Fighting so hard over symbols while we are mostly ignoring the reality of racism in the US seems counterproductive.
OK, I do see the point of removing the flag from statehouses, but historical displays and museums...give me a break. And, yes this is happening, as crazy as this seems.
Ironic that about the only place left to buy a Confederate Flag is the Black Market
Your country was founded on the principle that the government should not stop anybody from speaking. It wasn't founded on the principle that corporations must be compelled to distribute other people's material regardless of content. Apple are not obligated to publish this material.
Nobody is outlawing anything. This is an example of a business choosing not to publish something.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Because preserving freedom of expression is far more valuable than whatever harm is done by those flags existing and being displayed.
You do not understand free speech.
Private companies DO NOT have to allow things which they find objectionable. Censoring your own product line does NOT run contrary to the idea of free speech.
It only applies to the GOVERNMENT - that is, they can't make it illegal to produce/sell/display your own flags.
Any citizen or private company CAN choose not to carry offensive things.
Enemy oppressor?
Every slave ship sailing from Africa to the USA sailed under the US flag.
For over 100 years of slavery, it was all done under the US flag.
Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election, His name was not even on the ballot in 10 states. There were only 33 states at the time so close to 1/3 of the states did not have him on the ballot and he still won. That was the key that started the whole civil war! An election that even today would cause riots, to have a candidate win when he was not even on the ballot in 1/3 of the states!
Yes racial tensions were high and yes the south decided to make slavery a key point of there cause, but when the Civil war broke out it was not all about slavery. Abraham Lincoln himself was "Anti-Slavery" meaning against slavery's expansion, however he was not calling for immediate emancipation.
"I say that we must not interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists, because the constitution forbids it, and the general welfare does not require us to do so." -- Abraham Lincoln September 17, 1859: Speech at Cincinnati, Ohio
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.
I guess Ultimate General Gettysburg is getting pulled :(
May your blade chip and shatter.
Ever heard of Corvin Amendment (approved by Lincoln!) which would preserve slavery in states where it was legal? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Basically it was offer to the South to keeep their slaves, if only they would not leave the Union!
They still fought the war to leave, so it was not "all about slavery", more about tariffs.
Paul B.
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.
There's a difference between letting a flag fly and yanking a historical wargame featuring the Confederates because of their flag. What's next? History books and textbooks with pictures of the Confederate flag will be pulled too?
At least I can still get a copy of Axis and Allies from the Play Store though, so Nazis are still cool apparently.
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
If you want to fly the nazi flag, I will fight for your right to do so. Probably while calling you ugly names in the process, but in this country we have the right to exercise our own judgement, no matter how benightedly poor.
While Google, Apple, et. al. can certainly choose to remove these things from their store, in their own exercise of discretion, the whole discussion has gone off the rails. It makes a convenient distraction while the TPP gets pushed through.
Actually, Lincoln was a massive abolitionist, but knew he could not win the election, nor his moves against slavery by outright stating that. His own writings throughout show that. His ambiguous or contrary statements in the mid to late 1850's were because he was attacked earlier as an abolitionist. He knew what he was doing and saying - just like the deist separationist Jefferson who changed the demanded "endowed by the god of christianity" lines for the Declaration of Independence to the ambiguous "by *their* *creator* with certain unalienable rights".
"Enemy Oppressor" - enemy, heck yes, for fighting a war to not just retain slaves but to expand aspects of slavery back into the north. Oppressor - hell yes, as those who own slaves are definitely oppressors.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
It doesn't mean slavery or hatred or bigotry or treason. The national flag of the Confederate States does means secession and slavery, but that's not the flag we're talking about. (That flag is currently the state flag of Georgia, the only difference being the state seal added inside the circle of stars, so you should take up those issues with the state of Georgia.) The flag we're talking about was created to boost morale of the soldiers, and was only for use in battle. It was created first for the Northern Virginia Infantry and was adopted by other state infantries as it gained popularity. It was not a political flag. To the soldiers and their families it symbolized bravery and valor in battle and it honored the dead. After the war it was adopted by the United Confederate Veterans, and it was referred to as "the soldiers' flag."
Its meaning has evolved in complex ways after the war, but if we're talking about its early history its meaning always had to do with the honoring the dead and the brave, and not so much with the political causes for which those people were sacrificed.
is defined by protecting the right to say things you don't agree with.
This is every bit as stupid as people going to jail in Germany for teaching their dog to give a Nazi salute. (they're even trying to re-educate the dog to shake instead ... who's the crazy fuck now?)
People are still able to sell or purchase a Confederate flag. It is not illegal and I have not heard any reports of the federal or state governments suggesting that is should be illegal. What we are hearing is that major retail (and online) outlets are opting not to sell it. Opting not to sell something is a similar level of "right" as is opting to sell something (that is legal to sell).
You could argue that with the consolidation of sellers (Walmart, Amazon, etc.) there are fewer purchasing choices and that the consolidated sellers have increased influence as to what is in the marketplace, but that issue goes beyond the Confederate flag and other specific goods.
I think this story is a little more nuanced than that to be honest.
Apple, eBay, et al, obviously have the right to sell whatever they want, and if they don't want to sell a flag representing treason and racism, then that's fine and their right, of course.
But...
1. Apple is going a tad overboard here. For example, they're banning Civil War games, because those games have Confederate Flags in them. I'm confused as to what Apple thinks its doing by banning those games.
2. There's a difference between, say, a State, like South Carolina, flying a flag that essentially says "Fuck Black people" either over its State House, or more recently, in front of it, and someone, that is, a person, not a government, be they... a little ill-informed, or an outright racist, buying it to express their own views, for some aesthetic reason, ironically, or whatever.
I would rather the companies currently rushing to ban it step back for a moment and think their policies through. What are they trying to achieve? What products do they have that actually portray the flag and in what context are those flags portrayed? Is banning all of them the right way forward?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
"The problem with quotes on the Internet, is that it can be hard to verify the source." -- Abraham Lincoln, March 27, 1862.
While Google, Apple, et. al. can certainly choose to remove these things from their store, in their own exercise of discretion, the whole discussion has gone off the rails. It makes a convenient distraction while the TPP gets pushed through.
Who cares, though? The TPP would get pushed through even if there were no distraction. They would just report on fluffy bunnies or whatever, and ignore it as always.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
In May 1862, Abraham Lincoln overturned an order issued by General David Hunter that would have freed every slave across vast swaths of the southern Atlantic coast.
That was after he was made president and 1 year into the civil war.
He is not the man you think he is and revising history to make him some grand savior is BS.
The US Constitution is just a piece of paper, as are all of the articles in the Bill of Rights - made of the same stuff I wipe my butt with after take a shit.
USA PATRIOT act. Trans-Pacific Partnership. What the ever-living fuck, need I go on? The US Constitution is no longer fit for bumwad, it's been shit upon too much already.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
While your argument is correct, it also points out the glaring issues with the walled gardens created by apple and google with their ubiquitous marketplaces. If software is speech and if mobile apps can only be installed via app stores (which for 99% of phone using Americans is the case) then we can easily say that google and apple now have more control over our speech than we should be comfortable with.
Who cares if the government allows free speech only to have it taken away by the corporations that control our means to make our speech?
A nutjob walks into a church and shoots 9 people. That means we get rid of the Confederate Flags? WTF, the flag didn't kill anybody, shit confederate war soldiers didn't kill those people in the church. It's non sequitur. Getting rid of them through outlets like this will mean, more people will buy them and fly them is all and oh by the way Amazon, Apple, Walmart et all please remove anything with the ANC colors or those of the Black Panthers and Rainbow flags while you're at it; they offend me.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Every slave ship sailing from Africa to the USA sailed under the US flag.
For over 100 years of slavery, it was all done under the US flag.
Do you have a citation on this? The USA had been in existence as a country for less than 100 years by the time slavery was abolished. So it would be tough on the 'over 100 years', and I doubt every single slave ship was sailing under the US flag during that.
I don't read AC A human right
You guys are screwed. Good luck recovering and creating a reasonable culture.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
There are no laws preventing you from showing you're racist, but the government does not need to be doing that and people may choose to not buy from companies that are bigoted.
That's a fine sentiment, but you may be too busy to help barc001, because Pamela Geller's need for support to exercise her right to mock Mohammed is in even graver danger...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Not quite... give this some thought. The government forces them to open those gardens and (the government) becomes tyrannical, or they do not, and things remain as they are.
Interesting catch 22... I've got no solution either.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
can't have that general lee around any more.
Exactly what I was thinking. I don't have a problem with Google not listing Confederate paraphernalia in their shopping results, just as I applaud WalMart and friends for discontinuing their sale. But Apple yanking or threatening to yank any game or app that contains a confederate flag is... knee-jerk and way overbroad.
I can see the actual enforcement being spotty and arbitrary--big studios' Civil War games will get a pass while smaller outfits either get completely ignored or killed without warning.
Nothing posted to
Wow, saying the confederate flag means slavery, hatred, bigotry and treason and it gets a +5 Insightful? The second part may be insightful but somehow this isn't marked flamebait.
Some people say the flag means that, some people say it means states rights, who knows. But do people actually believe someone who flies the flag is saying bring back slavery or a succession from the Union? Maybe they just want to stand for a weaker Federal government, something many people support today.
Maybe the reason they fly the flag is to respect their ancestors who fought and died for what they believe in. Would you ask someone to take down the original U.S. flag that so heavily fought for their rights and owned slaves?
My point is, people are afraid of a flag that is being flown for many reasons. But the fact remains, that those spreading all of this fear of the flag are just as guilty of perpetrating hatred as those they accuse of flying the flag...and in most cases more so.
I think I'll buy a confederate flag, just to support the right to own a confederate flag. Does that make me a racist? Will America ever stop generalizing everything with labels just to make complicated issues easier? Stay tuned...
Note: Captcha was encroach
Indeed, it was mostly the British and Dutch flag, but to their credit they caught on earlier how reprehensible this business was (not by much in the case of the Dutch).
hate speech is not protected
ALL speech is protected.
You stupid sonofabitch, nothing has been banned. Some state governments have decided not to fly the Confederate battle flag over government properties any more. Some stores have decided, privately not to sell Confederate battle flags any more.
You wanna have a Confederate battle flag fly proudly over your meth lab, be my guest. You want to have a hundred and six Confederate battle flags in your next Klan parade, knock yourself out. Nobody from the government will come and force you to take it down. Are we clear on that now?
I guess not.
You are welcome on my lawn.
First; you make some excellent points.
All right; you've got some salient details wrong.
The American flag did not exist until 1776, and that was only the continental colors, or 1777 for a recognizable version of the stars and stripes. And no slave ships sailed to the US after the abolition of slavery in 1865 by the thirteenth amendment - that's right, the END of the civil war, not the beginning. So the longest that "slave ships" could possibly have sailed under the "US flag" is 91 years, not "over 100 years".
Far from every slave ship sailed under the US flag, anyway. Not only did that flag not exist before 1776, but many/most slavers were from other nationalities anyway. "The Atlantic slave traders, ordered by trade volume, were: the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Spanish, and the Dutch Empire."
By far the greatest number of slaves sent to the Americas were not sent to the US or the area which would become the US, anyway. Breakdown by destination of distribution of slaves, 1519-1867:
Portuguese America, 38.5%
British America MINUS North America, 18.4%
Spanish Empire, 17.5%
French Americas, 13.6%
British North America, 6.45%
English Americas, 3.25%
Dutch West Indies, 2.0%
Danish West Indies, 1.3%
Reference: Stephen D. Behrendt, David Richardson, and David Eltis, W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research, Harvard University. Based on "records for 27,233 voyages that set out to obtain slaves for the Americas". Stephen Behrendt (1999). "Transatlantic Slave Trade". Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. New York: Basic Civitas Books. ISBN 0-465-00071-1.
[Note: I'm not sure what the separate categories are for, "British America MINUS North America" and "English Americas"; I don't have a copy of the reference to hand to see if/how it explains]
[BTW: re "Danish West Indies", I had to look that one up myself]
A bit of detail of which many people are unaware: the US was far from the last area to abolish slavery. Just some which held out til later were:
Portuguese territories (4 years later)
then-Spanish colony of Puerto Rico (8 years later)
then-British colony of the Gold Coast (9 years later)
Egypt (12 years later)
Ottoman Empire (17 years later)
then-French protectorate of Cambodia (19 years later)
then-Spanish colony of Cuba (21 years later)
Brazil (23 years later)
Korea (29 years later) (but not fully implemented until 65 years later)
then_French colony of Madagascar (31 years later)
then-British protectorate of Zanzibar (32 years later)
Ethiopean Empire (37-77 years later)
China (41 years later)
Siam (47 years later)
Morocco (57 years later)
Afghanistan (58 years later)
Iraq (59 years later)
Iran (63 years later)
Tibet (94 years later)
Saudi Arabia (97 years later)
The USA had been in existence as a country for less than 100 years by the time slavery was abolished.
... and the slave trade was abolished long before slavery itself. It was banned by America in 1807, and banned by the British Empire about the same time. There was still some smuggling, but after the Napoleonic Wars, Britain established a naval squadron to patrol the coast of West Africa and suppress the trade.
Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election, His name was not even on the ballot in 10 states. There were only 33 states at the time so close to 1/3 of the states did not have him on the ballot and he still won. That was the key that started the whole civil war!
And did he get the required electoral collage votes to become president or not? Were the voters deprived the right to vote for Breckinridge, Bell or Douglas through Lincoln being left off the ballot?
Lincoln won fair. The Democrats killed their hope of election themselves by some of their key figures in the south carrying on in an seditious way that could not be endured by much of their voter base, splitting their vote 3 ways. The Republicans had a clear platform of a strong central government and less slavery. Those who voted them in knew what they were voting for and got it./p
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
No. It was absolutely about slavery. The documents and statements written at the time of secession were all about slavery. The statements made after the war had all the other reasons, revisionist history was being written by the confederates once the defeat was imminent.
The north would absolutely have made a pre-war deal to let slavery continue in the existing slave states. The long vicious debate in congress had been about the expansion of slavery. The south wanted to maintain the equilibrium and wanted half the new states added to the union to be slave states. The south feared that in the future a non-slave majority could abolish slavery and destroy the base of their wealth and economy. The north wanted slavery confined to existing slave states, maybe they would go for self-determination of a territory knowing that most would go non-slavery. In negotiation terms confinement was their aspirational point but self-determination was their resistance point.
The 3/5ths compromise is so misunderstood. Southern, slave-holding states wanted the slaves to be counted as people for the purpose of apportionment for of Representatives and Electors for President. Northern, non-slave states said they shouldn't be counted since they weren't going to be citizens. By counting them as 3/5ths of a person for the purposes of apportionment, it bolstered the power of the Southern states (who had a much smaller White population relative to Northern States) in the legislature and allowed them to come to terms and agree to move forward with the Constitutional Convention. It's convenient how people who misinterpret the 3/5ths compromise also generally neglect the "and Indians not taxed" portion of the clause, which is meant to draw distinction between those paying taxes and submitting to the power of the State and those who weren't.
For the tl;dr crowd, the South wanted to count them as 5/5ths of a person and the North wanted to count them as 0/5ths of a person.
This is revisionist history. The North won so obviously they twisted the truth in the history books to make the Southern states out to be demons. Of course they would. MOST southerners DID NOT own slaves during that time. Yet we all went to war. Congress made a series of aggressive moves that pushed the southern states into a war.
No, the revisionist history is from the south. At the time of secession, one secession declaration after another repeatedly cited slavery. The "aggression" was the north wanting to confine slavery to existing slave states with the goal of adding non-slave states to the union and eventually voting in abolition. That was the confederate nightmare, well the nightmare of the confederate 1%. Its this confederate 1% whose wealth and power was slave based that made the decision to go to war, who wrote those declarations.
The confederate 99% didn't make the decision to go to war, you are partially correct that they were generally not economically vested in slavery and most likely not willing to risk their lives to defend slavery. So the 1% had to sell the war to the 99% using different arguments. Imagine that, a war waged for one reason but sold to the public for other reasons. So while some confederate soldiers may not have been willing to fight for slavery itself, they in fact did so because that was the absolute cause behind the war, why the 1% voted for war.
The confederate soldiers were the pawns of the confederate politicians. Pawns that defended their "betters" economic interests, slavery. Yes, this truth hurts. Hence the revisionism, hence the focus on great-great-great-grandpappy's love for his state to rebrand a symbol of the defense of slavery as a symbol of heritage.
Lincoln was trying to abolish the institution of vampirism. There was a documentary about it recently.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt16...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
You must live in a Northern State, Down south our history books tell a different story.
Yes, your Southern history books ignore all the state secession documents that clearly state the preservation of the institution of slavery as a main cause for war. They ignore the fact that the decision makers, the 1%, decided to vote for war and to initiate war to defend their source of wealth and power, slavery. Instead your history books like to focus on the cover stories that the 1% used to sell the war to the 99% with. It doesn't matter if great-great-great-grandpappy didn't personally fight to protect slavery in his own mind, he in fact did so by defending the confederacy which as a government was inherently about the preservation of slavery.
To put in madly, June 2015 is when U.S. Conservative Chechens have come home to roost from a hand hugely overplayed. ACA subsidies have not only been held as valid regalutory measures, but required by the legislation. And now the confederate flag. The error in the logic is that most state houses do not fly other enemy flags. The only enemy flag some fly is the confederate flag. And instead of just keeping it on the down low, they made sure it was always in the face of everyone as a symbol of how whites are still fighting against the blacks or the Mexicans to whoever wanted to take over our country and rape our women. Both of these are strategic losses as a result of overconfidence. And it is a loss because the flag is no longer about heritage, which was a valid argument. The bigots have kept it at such a high profile, that it has lost its dignity. To be clear, a Deep South person, so oI see that some do see a heritage and history, but that has been destroyed by the boots. So as soon as NC builds a Hilter memorial and outs a nazi flag on it, we can talk.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Don't you know that it's been decided for you that the debate will be about racism and bigotry and intolerance (only on one side though), not freedom of speech and censorship? Just like it was decided ahead of time for those civil war game devs (and all the other creators) whose content was removed.
./ editors "forgot" the censorship icon for this story (just like they forgot it for the story on the reddit banfest).
Either that or it's all a big misunderstanding, and the
You know, from a British perspective, the US flag is a rebel flag as well. Just sayin.
True. I doubt it flies above any government buildings in the United Kingdom ...
The US flag flew in the United Kingdom during WW2 in the camps and on the bases of US soldiers, sailors and airmen.
See, when one has a war over a political disagreement an amicable reconciliation is possible. Unlike when a war is fought over the defense of the institution of slavery.
are the far left - free speech, free expression, as long as it conforms to their speech and their expression
So sick of the pussies that corp Amerika has become. Uncle like people would really stop shopping at Amazon because they fulfill orders for Confederate flag? Really?
You don't want a Confederate flag then don't buy one. Pretty simple.
And unlike a bricks and mortar where *gasp* your sensibilities might be offended by seeing one on display, you aren't going to get a flag in your search results unless you are actually searching for one.
The US Constitution is just a piece of paper, as are all of the articles in the Bill of Rights - made of the same stuff I wipe my butt with after take a shit.
You wipe your ass with parchment? Doesn't that get expensive, or do you skin the animals and treat the skin yourself?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
If Confederate Flag = Nigger then
Then search engines and shops banning stuff having the confederate flag or containing the word nigger are definitely in the right!
That being said - I'm missing where all of the bandwagon jumpers are blocking rap lyrics - or anything to do with the word nigger.
If we accept Confederate Flag is racist or hurtful to some people and embrace the block, then we must also accept that the failure to do the same with the word nigger means is not racist or hurtful when used and therefore should be allowed and embraced.
That being said - I just changed all of my devices to duckduckgo for a search engine. I do believe that the same amount of hatred directed at the confederate flag should be directed at people calling other people niggers.
I apologize for using the word nigger - but if you sit down and think about it - google is actually being racist.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Although I think a confederate flag other than the battle flag should be flown I suspect that taking down the stars and bars will cause quite a severe reaction in the south. That flag honors our southern war dead from all wars and not just the civil war. Southern soldiers are well known for ferocious dedication and bravery during really heavy combat. Many people will be severely hurt by states not flying the flag and it may well spark violence. The confederate flag has nothing to do with race at all. Black soldiers fought for the south as well as white soldiers.
I have a riddle. How is breast cancer like racisim? Breast cancer has no easy solutions. To fix it we need lots of scientists and doctors and we need a society that values STEM fields creating those profressionals. Then we need to give these researchers a LOOOOOOOOTT!! of money. Hard right? Oh I know, let's all wear red bracelets to raise awareness! Yay now I don't have to actually do anything.
How do we solve racism? I don't know but I'm sure taking down confederate jacks won't play much of a part in it.
The United States (or, more accurately, "These United States" was more common in that era) did not invent slavery, but we did fight a very bloody war to end it. The fact that the founders engaged in a deplorable, yet common agricultural practice in the late 18th century does not invalidate their accomplishments or ideas.
In fact, it was the very wordings of our founding documents that Lincoln used to argue against chattel slavery. In that light, Lincoln was not a radical revolutionary, he was in fact a conservative who argued that we return to our ideals.
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky