Shooting at SC Church During Bible Study - Suspect still at large

[Town Heretic]

Not to annoy or butt in but, as symbolism, the Stars and Bars is Masonic ... as is so much of America's iconic symbolism.

Shhh. We have enough random aneurysms in the making for the moment without you dad blasted Texans making it worse.

 

[fzappa13]

... and as it concerns the "swastika" ...

http://www.45thdivisionmuseum.com/History/SwastikaToThunderbird.html

 

[fzappa13]

Shhh. We have enough random aneurysms in the making for the moment without you dad blasted Texans making it worse.

I dunno ... I've just been kind of amused at all the fuss about symbols here lately. I guess my inordinate interest in them has led to a familiarity with their history that most don't share and ... well ... I just find it interesting and amusing ... all this wailing a gnashing of teeth about a subject that, I think, is not fully understood by those running around with their rear clenched over the subject.

 

[Town Heretic]

I dunno ... I've just been kind of amused at all the fuss about symbols here lately. I guess my inordinate interest in them has led to a familiarity with their history that most don't share and ... well ... I just find it interesting and amusing ... all this wailing a gnashing of teeth about a subject that, I think, is not fully understood by those running around with their rear clenched over the subject.

History is a particular interest of mine. We're weaned on the Civil War here and the World at War series, along with old movies, cemented an interest in WWII. Symbols are important. The Confederate battle flag is something of a cautionary tale and has a fairly dark history, past and recent. The swastika is, of course, a very old symbol. Too bad what the Nazis did to it but you can't untaint a thing like that very easily if at all.

 

[fzappa13]

History is a particular interest of mine. We're weaned on the Civil War here and the World at War series, along with old movies, cemented an interest in WWII. Symbols are important. The Confederate battle flag is something of a cautionary tale and has a fairly dark history, past and recent. The swastika is, of course, a very old symbol. Too bad what the Nazis did to it but you can't untaint a thing like that very easily if at all.

Well, I think I know you well enough that I should not have to admonish you to cast a little wider net than your TV when educating yourself on a given subject. Circling back to a previous thought, masonry split prior to the civil war and it's two primary constituent parts backed the respective combatants in our civil war ... hence England and France's involvement and so many of the symbols that remain today.

As you know, the Brit's won ... that's why you get to brandish one of their many titles of nobility.

 

[Town Heretic]

Well, I think I know you well enough that I should not have to admonish you to cast a little wider net than your TV when educating yourself on a given subject.

Well, when you're four you think the struggle against the violent Indian was darn near a war of liberation. And that puppets can talk, which you realize is a mistake by the time you're six or so and until you're old enough to really study politics.

And I never use the esquire, by the way.

 

[bybee]

We were speaking about a parallel between Germany and the South. You didn't see it. I'm suggesting you might want to open your eyes.


They did. It had a swastika on it.


I'm not worried about offending Nazis or Nazi sympathizers any more than I worry about bruising the feelings of the Klan.

As for your shooting from the hip, no. I'm arguing from a knowledge of history. If you don't know that history you might want to at least go to Google and type in WWII German Battleflag. It was designed by Hitler.

You're thinking of the original flag, not the Confederate battle flag. The original flag of the confederacy was a very different looking animal. Here's what one looks like.

The flag being objected to is the Confederate War flag, one that was by and large relegated to museums and family chests until the Civil Rights movement was under way. It was popular among racists in my part of the country and stood for the ol "They told us what to do with our coloreds then but we're not going to let them tell us now" nonsense. We'd done our level best to deny blacks everything but literal freedom in the South.

The original stars and bars wasn't well received and this response encapsulates the feeling: William T. Thompson, the editor of the Savannah-based Daily Morning News called for another and said, in 1863 that he opposed it, like others, "on account of its resemblance to that of the abolition despotism against which we are fighting."


That time and circumstance would have ended the practice at some point? Okay, it's a strong possibility that in a few generations it would have been significantly blunted and even ended by the South for any number of reasons thereabouts or thereafter. But that doesn't impact or affect the point in opposition to flying the battle flag of an enemy nation born in support of the slave trade over capital domes, state or other.


The Confederacy is. Stay on point.


Most of the north was actually composed of free states. And it was that drive that moved the Southern power brokers into a desperate gamble that failed, bringing an end to slavery sooner than even those in the north had envisioned.


No, it was told "This far and no further." It was given to understand that its presence in the territories would be denied it, at the very least by the use of popular sovereignty and a numbers game the South wasn't in a position to win. And that loss of territory and the states that would arise because of it, free, would signal the power shift that would end the economic practice and reality for the South.


Predicated and existing to serve an evil institution. Regarding the war flags of that effort, raised like Lazarus to protest integration and the fear of real equality for blacks before the law here, with anything other than contempt is compounding the mistakes of our forefathers.

There is not EVER, under any terms or conditions a right for one human to own another human.

 

[fzappa13]

Well, when you're four you think the struggle against the violent Indian was darn near a war of liberation. And that puppets can talk, which you realize is a mistake by the time you're six or so and until you're old enough to really study politics.

... and then there is that Santa business ...

And I never use the esquire, by the way.

Good man. At least then you can run for office with some semblance of constitutionality should needs be.

 

[Town Heretic]

There is not EVER, under any terms or conditions a right for one human to own another human.

:thumb: Or any real and justifiable defense for honoring the symbol of some of the worst examples of that trade and the "nation" that created itself in the service of that purpose.

 

[fzappa13]

:thumb: Or any real and justifiable defense for honoring the symbol of some of the worst examples of that trade and the "nation" that created itself in the service of that purpose.

Now, now ... we both know that is a gross oversimplification of an ongoing bruhaha between federalists and anti-federalists that was well underway at the birth of this "nation" and exists to this day.

 

[fzappa13]

For my money (pun intended) Lincoln's greatest contribution to the Northern Union might well have been his epiphany concerning the need to escape the clutches of the military profiteers that had bankrolled the North's effort to that point and take control of the Union's monetary system.

 

[Town Heretic]

Now, now ... we both know that is a gross oversimplification of an ongoing bruhaha between federalists and anti-federalists that was well underway at the birth of this "nation" and exists to this day.

No, we don't. In fact, the power structure was pretty clear on it. It's relatively easy to find newspaper articles/editorials and quotes from the leadership on the point. The federalist/anti federalist was little more than the way slave states justified or attempted to justify their part.

There's a good piece in the Atlantic that does a good job of gathering some of the early writings from the secessionist states. Let's begin there.

Here's South Carolina, the lead state in withdrawing from the Union:

Spoiler

...A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction. This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.​

Mississippi:

Spoiler

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin…​

Louisiana:

Spoiler

As a separate republic, Louisiana remembers too well the whisperings of European diplomacy for the abolition of slavery in the times of an*nexation not to be apprehensive of bolder demonstrations from the same quarter and the North in this country. The people of the slave holding States are bound together by the same necessity and determination to preserve African slavery.​

Alabama:

Spoiler

Upon the principles then announced by Mr. Lincoln and his leading friends, we are bound to expect his administration to be conducted. Hence it is, that in high places, among the Republi*can party, the election of Mr. Lincoln is hailed, not simply as it change of Administration, but as the inauguration of new princi*ples, and a new theory of Government, and even as the downfall of slavery. Therefore it is that the election of Mr. Lincoln cannot be regarded otherwise than a solemn declaration, on the part of a great majority of the Northern people, of hostility to the South, her property and her institutions—nothing less than an open declaration of war—for the triumph of this new theory of Government destroys the property of the South, lays waste her fields, and inaugurates all the horrors of a San Domingo servile insurrection, consigning her citizens to assassinations, and. her wives and daughters to pollution and violation, to gratify the lust of half-civilized Africans.​

Texas:

Spoiler

...in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states....​

In 1860 Alabama sent men to other slave states do advocate secession. This from the pen of one of them, Stephen Hale in his letter to the Governor of Kentucky:

Spoiler

…African slavery has not only become one of the fixed domestic institutions of the Southern states, but forms an important element of their political power, and constitutes the most valuable species of their property…forming, in fact, the basis upon which rests the prosperity and wealth of most of these states…It is upon this gigantic interest, this peculiar institution of the South, that the Northern states and their people have been waging an unrelenting and fanatical war for the last quarter of a century. An institution with which is bound up, not only the wealth and prosperity of the Southern people, but their very existence as a political community…They attack us through their literature, in their schools, from the hustings, in their legislative halls, through the public press…to strike down the rights of the Southern slave-holder, and override every barrier which the Constitution has erected for his protection…The Federal Government has failed to protect the rights and property of the citizens of the South, and is about to pass into the hands of a party pledged for the destruction not only of their rights and property, but…the heaven-ordained superiority of the white over the black race…Will the people of the North cease to make war upon the institution of slavery, and award to it the protection guaranteed by the Constitution? The accumulated wrongs of many years, the late action of the members of Congress in refusing every measure of justice to the South, as well as the experience of all the past, answers, No, never!​

...If the policy of the Republicans is carried out, according to the programme indicated by the leaders of the party, and the South submits, degradation and ruin must overwhelm alike all classes of citizens in the Southern States. The slave-holder and non-*slave-holder must ultimately share the same fate—all be degraded to a position of equality with free negroes, stand side by side with them at the polls, and fraternize in all the social relations of life; or else there will be an eternal war of races, desolating the land with blood, and utterly wasting and destroying all the resources of the country.​

That's what this war was about.

Let's listen to Mississippi Senator Albert Gallatin Brown from 1858

Spoiler

I want Cuba, and I know that sooner or later we must have it. If the worm-eaten throne of Spain is willing to give it for a fair equivalent, well—if not, we must take it. I want Tamaulipas, Potosi, and one or two other Mexican Stats; and I want them all for the same reason—for the planting and spreading of slavery.

And a footing in Central America will powerfully aid us in acquiring those other states. It will render them less valuable to the other powers of the earth, and thereby diminish competition with us. Yes, I want these countries for the spread of slavery. I would spread the blessings of slavery, like the religion of our Divine Master, to the uttermost ends of the earth, and rebellious and wicked as the Yankees have been, I would even extend it to them.​

This wasn't a passive South attempting to sustain and defend itself. This was an active tyrant with dreams of spreading its cancer and power further afield.

And Southerners weren't ignorant of the root of the war beyond those confines of power. This from Southern Punch in 1864, Richmond:

Spoiler

‘The people of the South,’ says a contemporary, ‘are not fighting for slavery but for independence.’ Let us look into this matter. It is an easy task, we think, to show up this new-fangled heresy — a heresy calculated to do us no good, for it cannot deceive foreign statesmen nor peoples, nor mislead any one here nor in Yankeeland. . . Our doctrine is this: WE ARE FIGHTING FOR INDEPENDENCE THAT OUR GREAT AND NECESSARY DOMESTIC INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY SHALL BE PRESERVED, and for the preservation of other institutions of which slavery is the groundwork.​

 

[fzappa13]

No, we don't. In fact, the power structure was pretty clear on it. It's relatively easy to find newspaper articles/editorials and quotes from the leadership on the point. The federalist/anti federalist was little more than the way slave states justified or attempted to justify their part.

The history of the whole affair is there for any with interest and we could cherry-pick quotes until the cows come home but the truth is Anti-Federalists barely won the day in the framing of our constitution and lost it incrementally over the course of years and it is no coincidence that our monetary system was lost in such a manner as well.

War and reconstruction is big business and the same folks are involved in both endeavors for that reason. The reason Jackson is on the 20 is that these folks got the last laugh. They were thumbing their nose at him in absentia.

War is big business and unless and until we learn to discern this we will continue to be led into one war after another under various pretexts by those whose sole motive is profit.

 

[Town Heretic]

The history of the whole affair is there for any with interest and we could cherry-pick quotes until the cows come home but the truth is Anti-Federalists barely won the day in the framing of our constitution and lost it incrementally over the course of years and it is no coincidence that our monetary system was lost in such a manner as well.

War and reconstruction is big business and the same folks are involved in both endeavors for that reason. The reason Jackson is on the 20 is that these folks got the last laugh. They were thumbing their nose at him in absentia.

War is big business and unless and until we learn to discern this we will continue to be led into one war after another under various pretexts by those whose sole motive is profit.

That being as it may, the war remains one clearly demonstrated to have been predicated upon preserving the existence and expansion of the Southern economic engine and political might, all of which rested on the back of slavery, which is why leaders and editors are fairly clear and the attempts by some to widen the philosophical chasm in the day were met with editorial scorn.

 

[fzappa13]

That being as it may, the war remains one clearly demonstrated to have been predicated upon preserving the existence and expansion of the Southern economic engine and political might, all of which rested on the back of slavery, which is why leaders and editors are fairly clear and the attempts by some to widen the philosophical chasm in the day were met with editorial scorn.

History books are sorta like religious commentaries ... you can find them in any flavor you like. Our choices likely reflect our chosen myopia.

 

[fzappa13]

History is a particular interest of mine. We're weaned on the Civil War here and the World at War series, along with old movies, cemented an interest in WWII. Symbols are important. The Confederate battle flag is something of a cautionary tale and has a fairly dark history, past and recent. The swastika is, of course, a very old symbol. Too bad what the Nazis did to it but you can't untaint a thing like that very easily if at all.

I agreed in another thread that there should be a rainbow stars and bars ... think that would do the trick? My point being that symbols are regularly co-opted and there is no law that says you can't re-co-opt them ... did I just create a new word?

 

[rainee]

I'm a rationalist.

Ok, but please don't be so accustomed to you being rational that you end up trying to rationalize away certain aspects of the past just because you didn't know "history" might have been presented in a certain limited way...


You love history and know it? Then why didn't you point out the Civil War didn't start until a seceded sovereign state tried to throw Union soldiers out of their land? Why didn't you tell people it was not illegal to secede until after the war? Why didn't you notice that every time I asked why the war started perfectly good, smart, and able minded people couldn't give a decent answer?

Oh and let's talk about that inane comparison to Nazi Germany that even you apparently are s freaking fond of...
Germany was taken over by a regime that was going to restore it to glory or something like that. It attacked its own people and it neighbors to increase its land for the fatherland or something like too.

For you, apparently, that is like a sovereign state in agreement with the other sovereign states some time before to be sovereign - thinking it was being cheated and abused - seceding and then fighting to be seceded, yeah? Yeah.
So Oh Yeah, I see it now, NOT. The Union will come out looking like Nazi Germany if you keep this up. And their flag was that of their governmental regime or something like that at that time, not a battle flag really - now was it? Not really. No.

So why did the Confederate Flag get called the Confederate Battle Flag? Because the first one they made it appear like The Thirteen Colonies Flag had a Baby? A 7 Star Flag baby?

You love history - why weren't you prepared to see the similarity??

So yes, the Confederate Flag had to be changed so that in battle it would be clear they were not part of that Union and the flag waving that was trying to kill them.

Why didn't you look at that battle in Virginia that caused the change and think about it some?

I was good to you Town.
I took the points of kindness you threw at the Southern problems and was willing to stop debating. I sought simply to have other TOLers say what they thought but you had to come back and try to demolish all that I said?

We were speaking about a parallel between Germany and the South. You didn't see it. I'm suggesting you might want to open your eyes.


They did. It had a swastika on it.


I'm not worried about offending Nazis or Nazi sympathizers any more than I worry about bruising the feelings of the Klan.

As for your shooting from the hip, no. I'm arguing from a knowledge of history. If you don't know that history you might want to at least go to Google and type in WWII German Battleflag. It was designed by Hitler.

You're thinking of the original flag, not the Confederate battle flag. The original flag of the confederacy was a very different looking animal. Here's what one looks like.

The flag being objected to is the Confederate War flag, one that was by and large relegated to museums and family chests until the Civil Rights movement was under way. It was popular among racists in my part of the country and stood for the ol "They told us what to do with our coloreds then but we're not going to let them tell us now" nonsense. We'd done our level best to deny blacks everything but literal freedom in the South.

The original stars and bars wasn't well received and this response encapsulates the feeling: William T. Thompson, the editor of the Savannah-based Daily Morning News called for another and said, in 1863 that he opposed it, like others, "on account of its resemblance to that of the abolition despotism against which we are fighting."


That time and circumstance would have ended the practice at some point? Okay, it's a strong possibility that in a few generations it would have been significantly blunted and even ended by the South for any number of reasons thereabouts or thereafter. But that doesn't impact or affect the point in opposition to flying the battle flag of an enemy nation born in support of the slave trade over capital domes, state or other.


The Confederacy is. Stay on point.

Right, sigh.

The below is more guff but will have to come back later, Mister.

Most of the north was actually composed of free states. And it was that drive that moved the Southern power brokers into a desperate gamble that failed, bringing an end to slavery sooner than even those in the north had envisioned.


No, it was told "This far and no further." It was given to understand that its presence in the territories would be denied it, at the very least by the use of popular sovereignty and a numbers game the South wasn't in a position to win. And that loss of territory and the states that would arise because of it, free, would signal the power shift that would end the economic practice and reality for the South.


Predicated and existing to serve an evil institution. Regarding the war flags of that effort, raised like Lazarus to protest integration and the fear of real equality for blacks before the law here, with anything other than contempt is compounding the mistakes of our forefathers.

 

[rainee]

Ps
You quoted an editor above writing something about "abolition despotism"

You seem to know what abolition means... So here is the definition of the other word:

des·pot·ism
ˈdespəˌtizəm/
noun
the exercise of absolute power, especially in a cruel and oppressive way.
"the King's arbitrary despotism"
a country or political system where the ruler holds absolute power.
plural noun: despotisms

 

[rainee]

Well I said you know what the first word meant... Maybe not, or rather did I?
I had to wonder why that editor would write such a statement, found something interesting about "history"

Although it means the abolition of slavery today mostly, back then there was no reason I can find to see slavery as a separate standing institution...

See definition:

ab·o·li·tion
ˌabəˈliSH(ə)n/
noun
the action or an act of abolishing a system, practice, or institution.
"the abolition of child labor"
synonyms: scrapping, ending, termination, eradication, elimination, extermination, abolishment, destruction, annihilation, obliteration, extirpation...

I have to point out that editor may well have meant a despotic annihilation of the Southern States independent existence.

 

[rainee]

BB later re free states. (Ha)