This is a bad week for the crazy people

[Findecanor]

As I heard one guy point out on the radio, the German government doesn't fly the Nazi flag over their buildings.

They are not even comparable The Nazis was a party that had taken over the whole country with force, and then invaded other countries. As such, even for the Germans it is a symbol of aggression.
The Confederates were a collection of states that wanted to get out of a union, not take over the union - as such it is a symbol of independence.

By the way, the Nazi flag is illegal in Germany. Even using it for journalistic or quasi-documentary purposes is skirting the rules.

[ander]

Well, it does make a lot of sense. As I heard one guy point out on the radio, the German government doesn't fly the Nazi flag over their buildings.

Nor do we fly the union jack...

I'm not sure I'd put the Brits on the same level, though (despite their cooking).

[The Nazis and Confederates] are not even comparable The Nazis was a party that had taken over the whole country with force, and then invaded other countries... The Confederates were a collection of states that wanted to get out of a union, not take over the union - as such it is a symbol of independence.

Dunno about that. Mostly it was about slavery—capturing entire villages of people at gunpoint, transporting them to other places, and treating them like animals. Hmm, that does sound familiar.

Unlike the Nazis, slave owners didn't have a policy of murdering their "possessions". After all, they paid good money for them. However, because slaves weren't considered people, their "owners" were free to treat them however they wished—including raping them (and considering any resulting children slaves, too) and killing them for insubordination, trying to escape, or any other reason.

Consider too than nearly half of kidnapped Africans died before they even reached the U.S., because of the horrendous conditions on slave ships. (BTW, this, and not some kind of genetic predisposition, is why so many American blacks are unusually strong and athletic: The weaker ones were "weeded out" in a gruesome, artificial evolutionary process.)

So if you ask me, the Confederate flag, while not quite as terrible a reminder as the Nazi flag, isn't far behind. YMMV of course.

By the way, the Nazi flag is illegal in Germany. Even using it for journalistic or quasi-documentary purposes is skirting the rules.

That's encouraging. If they can own up to their history, maybe we can too, once we're willing to stop romanticizing it.

[hwood34]

Well, it does make a lot of sense. As I heard one guy point out on the radio, the German government doesn't fly the Nazi flag over their buildings.

Nor do we fly the union jack...

I'm not sure I'd put the Brits on the same level, though (despite their cooking).

[The Nazis and Confederates] are not even comparable The Nazis was a party that had taken over the whole country with force, and then invaded other countries... The Confederates were a collection of states that wanted to get out of a union, not take over the union - as such it is a symbol of independence.

Dunno about that. Mostly it was about slavery—capturing entire villages of people at gunpoint, transporting them to other places, and treating them like animals. Hmm, that does sound familiar.

Unlike the Nazis, slave owners didn't have a policy of murdering their "possessions". After all, they paid good money for them. However, because slaves weren't considered people, their "owners" were free to treat them however they wished—including raping them (and considering any resulting children slaves, too) and killing them for insubordination, trying to escape, or any other reason.

Consider too than nearly half of kidnapped Africans died before they even reached the U.S., because of the horrendous conditions on slave ships. (BTW, this, and not some kind of genetic predisposition, is why so many American blacks are unusually strong and athletic: The weaker ones were "weeded out" in a gruesome, artificial evolutionary process.)

OK so first off, rarely were slaves killed for any reason, as you said before slaves were expensive as hell so it would be stupid just to get rid of them like that. Also, find me the evidence to suggest that there was any sort of selective breeding happening with slaves. This pseudo-science gets brought up constantly but there's no hard evidence to suggesting it ever happened on a large scale. If they were, why would they risk harming the gene pool by raping the slaves? You know where lots of athletes also come out of? Africa. If anything, blacks' success in sports can be more attributed to their poverty following slavery for so many years. Athletics, especially sports like basketball or baseball, are substantially more accessible to lower-income families.

I can't see how you could even say the Confederacy is even comparable to the Nazis in that regard. The Nazis committed some of the atrocities known to man. Lots of people in the south didn't even have slaves, they just felt that they were being treated unfairly because the north was pushing for more tariffs and sanctioned trade which hurt the South's economy as a whole.

[ander]

Gee, I guess slavery wasn't so bad, then. Thanks for straightening me out. You never know what you'll learn around here.  :?|

Let's put it this way then: How terrible does something have to be before it makes sense to stop glorifying it?

I'm not black, and I don't live in the U.S. South—but it's not too hard for me to imagine how someone like that feels when they see the symbol of their ancestors' dehumanization waving from public buildings.

[hwood34]

Gee, I guess slavery wasn't so bad, then. Thanks for straightening me out. You never know what you'll learn around here.

:?|

Oh yea, good that's what you took from my statement, that's exactly what I said.

[hwood34]

Gee, I guess slavery wasn't so bad, then. Thanks for straightening me out. You never know what you'll learn around here.  :?|

Let's put it this way then: How terrible does something have to be before it makes sense to stop glorifying it?

I'm not black, and I don't live in the U.S. South—but it's not too hard for me to imagine how someone like that feels when they see the symbol of their ancestors' dehumanization waving from public buildings.

ok again, read the above statement

[ander]

I did—and aside from the spelling error, punctuation errors, and the run-on sentence, it made complete sense to me.

And no, I don't think we can always infer the depth of people's values from how literate they are. I'm always willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. In fact, in this case, I have more doubt than usual.  :?)

[hwood34]

I did—and aside from the spelling error, punctuation errors, and the run-on sentence, it made complete sense to me.

And no, I don't think we can always infer the depth of people's values from how literate they are. I'm always willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. In fact, in this case, I have more doubt than usual.  :?)

Sorry, your statement directly contradicting what I had just said made me think you just skipped over it. And thanks for pointing out my grammar; it's good to see you're above typical, petty internet bull****. It looks like the first sentence was a run on, I don't really see where I made any other egregious grammatical errors.

[ander]

I was wrong about the spelling error. I'm just not used to seeing people spell "yeah" without the H. Nowadays it's usually reserved for things like Shakespeare and records of oral voting.

Technically, you combined three sentences ("Oh yea, good that's what you took from my statement, that's exactly what I said"). That's not important, though... It'd just been a while since I'd seen anyone defend slavery, and I was grasping for some sort of explanation. The writing style seemed an immediate possibility.

[hwood34]

I was wrong about the spelling error. I'm just not used to seeing people spell "yeah" without the H. Nowadays it's usually reserved for things like Shakespeare and records of oral voting.

Technically, you combined three sentences ("Oh yea, good that's what you took from my statement, that's exactly what I said"). That's not important, though... It'd just been a while since I'd seen anyone defend slavery, and I was grasping for some sort of explanation. The writing style seemed an immediate possibility.

Again, where the **** do you see me defending slavery? I'm starting to question your mental capacity since you seem incapable of grasping simple concepts.

[demik]

I was wondering why I had ander on my ignore list. Now I remember.


**** those sister ****ing confederate flag waving southerners tho.

[hwood34]

I was wondering why I had ander on my ignore list. Now I remember.


**** those sister ****ing confederate flag waving southerners tho.

Yeah it seems like a bunch of people I don't really see much are coming out of the woodwork being idiots.

[demik]

Since we are on the topic of slavery. I, for whatever ****ing reason, have the complete Roots collection in my car. Where did it come from? I don't know. But it's there.

[BlueNalgene]

I'm glad I bailed on this thread when I did.

[iri]

Is it already time for cat pictures?