So people who are obsessed about the "Confederacy"...

[edhopper]

You know the treasonous States that lost a war over 150 years ago, want every one to just get over 250 years of brutal, racist slavery and move on?
Do I have that right.

[Ozymanithrax]

1. You read those teasonous southern conseravtibe pig dogs like a book. n/t

[Fire1]

2. No. "Celebrate it." n/t

[RKP5637]

3. That's sure what it sounds like to me... and rewrite history in the process...

With the line of thinking they have this country is consuming itself. We have so many issues to work for the 21st century and these people are back obsessed with the Confederacy than moving forward. I feel like someone pulled the stopper in a huge bathtub and all of the brains have drained out of America... The US will not be much of a leader in the 21st century IMO.

[Bucky]

4. 400 years?

Don't confuse brutal racist Jim Crowism with brutal racist slavery. There was only ~250 years of brutal racist slavery in this country (preceded by 100 years of brutal racist slavery in other parts of the Americas).

Not disputing your point, just nit picking the facts.

[edhopper]

5. point taken

fixed on edit.

[sharesunited]

6. That's a fair point which ties directly to SCOTUS nominations.

Slavery was one era. Segregation was another, and one in which the judiciary alternatively upheld then chipped away at the institution.

These transitions reflect the governing branches passing the ball to each other.

The 13th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act were legislative and presidential accomplishments.

Shelley v. Kramer, Loving v. Virginia, and Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka were judicial accomplishments.

Along the way, there were setbacks and relapses, resisting the new, embracing the old, and setting the table for change amidst bitter recalcitrance and impatient frustration.

[Bucky]

8. Excellent point. One reason we have "activist judges" is the other branches failing

When the legislators don't handle problems that deprive people of their basic rights in a country that provides people with recourse for contesting their rights, then the courts are going to step up and act. That's exactly what our constitutional form of government is all about. It's not activist judges, it's an activist citizenry using the judicial system it created under its sovereign power.

[jody]

11. Your "deprive people of their basic rights" suggests "activist judges" are to bend or distort our

Constitution with decisions that support your opinion of "basic rights" while denying my opinion of "basic rights".

[sharesunited]

12. The judiciary is supposed to be the check and balance upon the elected branches.

At least the federal judiciary is supposed to be. Appointed not elected. And for lifetime terms.

[jody]

16. Agree but that does not address "activist judges" introduced by Bucky. IMO one person's "activist

judge" is another person's "bad judge" particularly on divisive, polarizing political issues such as abortion, religion, et al.

IMO there are some rights that are beyond the reach of government.

They are referred to by our Declaration of Independence, state constitutions, Bill of Rights, and SCOTUS cases as natural, inherent, unalienable/inalienable or pre-existing rights and according to SCOTUS do not depend upon a piece of paper for their legitimacy.

SCOTUS and a government that abides by SCOTUS' decisions are the only protection of those rights a minority has against the tyranny of a simple majority.

[sharesunited]

37. Delimiting your rights is a big part of the job.

Where does money as political speech end and McCain-Feingold begin?

What kind of weaponry can society tolerate your having?

What qualifies as a public purpose in the exercise of eminent domain?

All justices can be considered activist to the extent of their effort to lead the way they want the country to go, and their willingness to deviate from the course we previously were on.

[Chulanowa]

18. Slavery lasted well beyond the Civil war

It simply wasn't called slavery. The sharecropping and tenant system was slavery in every respect but name, as well as for-profit prison gangs made of - guess who - black men arrested on spurious charges and convicted by white juries and sentenced by white judges.

[jody]

22. Absolutely correct and my statement is based on personal experience. Blacks were held in economic

bondage until the late 20th century through the share-cropper system, perpetual indebtedness, and corrupt county sheriffs.

[terrell9584]

51. You of course conviently forget that this fate befell

A large portion of the previously yeoman white population who remained in that state until World War II freed them to have a middle class industrial life.

[jody]

52. I forgot nothing, my reply was a narrow one to a statement linking "slavery" & "sharecropping". n/t

[jody]

7. Those 250 years occurred under the British and US flags. n/t

[Bucky]

9. But all 250 were on our shores.

The people changing the form of government doesn't trigger some magic "new pitcher, new count" moral tabula rasa.

[jody]

10. Understand but the OP conflates "confederacy" with "slavery" and ignores "secession". Secession was

threatened by various groups in the early history from Federalists, the party of George Washington and John Adams, to Democratic-Republicans, the party of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

The issue has never been resolved in the courts.

[edhopper]

13. I was mainly

referring to the recent case of the Virginia Governor honoring the Confederacy without mentioning slavery.
And I did not conflate the two. I pointed out that the same folk who "don't want to hear about slavery anymore" are often the ones who wish to revisit and revise the South's role in the Civil War.

[jody]

14. VA, NC, TN, AR did not secede because of slavery but to avoid fighting against other Southern states

Whether they had the right to secede has never been determined by SCOTUS.

[edhopper]

20. No

Lincoln and Grant took care of that.

[jody]

21. Took care of what? Some historians argue that charges against Jefferson Davis for treason were

dropped in Feb 1869 because his defense would have included arguments states had a right to secede.

[MadHound]

25. Oh good grief, just go take a look at the secession statements of those states

In the first few lines of each one they all state(as do the statements of all the states that made up the Confederacy) that the issue of slavery is the primary reason they're leaving the union. Each and every one.

Please, stop it with this revisionist bullshit. If you don't believe me, go look at the primary documents and see for yourself. In fact primary documentation is the best way of discovering history, that way you're not influenced by the generation after generation of bullshit revisionists.

There have also been several court cases that have since established that states do not have the right to secede. Texas v. White is probably the most concise and clear on this matter.
<http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/cases/historic.htm>

[Chulanowa]

26. He's technically correct, actually

Those specific states - a long with Florida and Louisiana - in fact did not explicitly state slavery as a reason for secession (all the others did, however). Ratehr they expressed solidarity in their declarations.

In other words, Tennessee didn't secede over slavery - they seceded because South Carolina seceded, and South Carolina seceded over slavery. it's like seven degrees of Kevin Bacon, only with slavery instead.

[jody]

31. Or they seceded rather than obey Lincoln's order activating the militia to fight the Confederate

States.

In any case secede they did and the rest is history to be interpreted by anyone with an opinion based on fact, conjecture, etc.

[jody]

30. Wrong, please read the secession statements of VA, AR, TN, NC and educate yourself.

Virginia April 17, 1861

Arkansas May 6, 1861

Tennessee May 7, 1861

North Carolina May 20, 1861

[rasputin1952]

29. The Spanish, Dutch

and Portuguese brought slaves here as well. The whole situation was a horror, from those who captured individuals in Africa, South and Central America, the Caribbean and all of the indentured servants that arrived, many never to get away from bondage.

No human being has the "right" to own another...period. Man's inhumanity toward his fellow man is one of the most terrible aspects of being human. Slavery still exists in this world; as horrible as it is to our history, we, as human being should be fighting it wherever it exists; just as we should be fighting for equal rights for every member of this nation.

In some ways, we still have a form of servitude, women, the GLBT community, hispanics and others are far too often treated as second class citizens. The poor, whether black, white, hispanic Amer-Indian, or any other graphic still feel the weight of an oppressive society, even oppressed by those who occupy the same societal sphere.

My hope is, that someday, I hope in my lifetime, we will have eradicated this scourge.

[jody]

33. Right, "Slavery still exists in this world", a fact that we can change. n/t

[Zomby Woof]

15. No one is more obsessed with the Confederacy than the shrill members of DU

[pecwae]

23. No kidding.

This is the only place where I've seen thread after thread about it.

[Individualist]

24. +1

[Individualist]

43. Lincoln wanted to end the bitterness engendered by the war.

That was reflected in his plan for reconstruction.

Those who continue and inflame the bitterness 145 years later dishonor the great man.

I'm proud of my great grandfather, a Tennesseean who was a Union soldier in the Civil War. After the war ended, he honored Lincoln by making peace with his neighbors who had served the Confederacy.

[TexasObserver]

17. There are many unreconstructed Confederacy worshippers still alive.

Typically, they're clustered in familes across the old Confederacy, families who carried their vile hatred forward until this time. They still dress up like Confederates, and they still loathe blacks. You can find them in Confederate dances and parties this time of year, on the society pages, prancing around like they're colonels and generals whose treasonous great grandfathers didn't get their butts kicked.

[K8-EEE]

19. Did you see the "re-enactors" on CNN last night?

Oh. My. God. Deliverance time!

[Paladin]

27. Note To Our Resident Neo-Confederates:

"Gone With The Wind" was a work of fiction. Look it up if you don't believe me......

[aikoaiko]

28. Sometimes the obsession goes both ways ---

There are those who obsessed with the idea that any pride in Southern culture is a racist desire to reinstate slavery and reattempt secession.

[theHandpuppet]

34. Funny, when people start defending the Confederacy as "Southern Culture"

The parameters are solely those of the white, antebellum South. This is a real sticking point with me. I want to know when some 120,000 Southern Unionists will be included in these memorials and celebrations of Southern culture, not to mention some 95,000 black men who served from Southern units of the United States Colored Troops. Why are their statues not lining the streets of Richmond, what days of remembrance are declared for these forgotten Southern patriots? And how in the hell can any discussion of "Southern culture", or "history and heritage" as some neo-confederate apologists would have it, omit the history of millions of slaves, without whom Southern culture would not exist?

[jody]

35. Broad issues are commonly known but subtle facts escape many such as a few black Confederate soldier

Image below of the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.

[theHandpuppet]

49. Interesting intepretation

What you refer to as a depiction of a black Confederate soldier on this monument commissioned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy is, according to the govt website on this memorial, its creation and symbols, a black slave following his young master who marches off to fight. There is also on this monument a depiction of what is descibed as a "mammy" holding the babe of her white master.

The question still stands -- why the lack of recognition for the 120,000 Southern Unionists and nearly 95,000 Southern men of the USCT who fought and died for their country? Southern history of the Civil War era is not the sole domain of the Confederacy. There were many loyal Southern men, both black and white, who were fiercely opposed to secession, especially in the Appalachians. Neo-confederate revisionists would love to erase the memory of their sacifice and patriotism but some of us will remember them, despite the slap in their faces by the likes of Governor McDonnell and his ilk.

[jody]

50. I believe history reports the Jewish sculptor of the Confederate Memorial intentionally included a

black soldier for accuracy.

As always people will differ on such things and neither you nor I can resolve the matter.

[aikoaiko]

38. Maybe, but I certainly wasn't defending the Confederacy.

;)

[TexasObserver]

36. Those who champion the Confederacy typically ARE racists.

Who do you think is out there pushing the Confederacy? I've been around this people for decades, and they are racist to the core. They are the chest thumping, Obama hating, tea partying right wing white people who hate civil rights, call the Civil War the "war of Northern Aggression," and would return to slavery today if they could.

You are romaticizing these people and buying into that bullshit "pride in Southern culture" meme. I have enormous pride for the things that are worthy of pride. Slavery and the Civil War horrors are not subjects of pride for any thinking Texan or Southerner.

[aikoaiko]

39. I don't know what pushing the Confederacy means.

Sure, there are some people who would like to see the South rise again, but for the most part people with confederate flags on their vehicles or tend the Confederate memorials are just like most people who take some pride in their heritage. They embrace the best parts, and forget or justify the unpleasant aspects.

[TexasObserver]

42. The only people I know who openly embrace the Confederacy are right wing nuts.

And I've know a bunch of them over the years. Tea baggers, one and all.

[jody]

45. Given your assertion about those you know, you certainly don't have a random sample of those who

view the Confederacy different than your biased sample.

[walldude]

32. You'll love this, Haley Barbour calling slavery "A nit" that people need to get over

Just four days after proudly proclaiming that he is a "fat redneck" with "an accent," Barbour defended the slavery-free commemorations of the Confederacy in Virginia, Georgia and Mississippi. As he suggested to CNN's Candy Crowley, for people outside of Dixie the old times there should be forgotten. Asked if McConnell's omission was a mistake, Barbour responded:

"Well, I don't think so...I don't know what you would say about slavery, but anyone who thinks that you have to explain to people that slavery is a bad thing -- I think it goes without saying...

To me it's a sort of feeling that it's just a nit. That it is not significant. It's trying to make a big deal out of something that doesn't matter for diddly."

http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/haley-barbour-neo-confederate-gop

[dflprincess]

40. The Civil War did not end "over 150" years ago

It ended on April 9, 1865 - a mere 145 years ago. Not that that explains why some people can't accept it's over and that the traitors lost.

[neverforget]

41. The Northern States should have April as "Victory over the Confederacy"

month.

[Ganja Ninja]

47. I'll go one better.

We should declare a national "Victory over the Confederacy" holiday and make the south celebrate it as well. Maybe then they'll shut up.

[neverforget]

48. That works too! I am so sick of this Confederacy bs.

[ecstatic]

44. Agreed. They should either STFU or be prepared to pay the reparations

that were never paid.

[jody]

46. Given the ambiguity of reparations for the Civil War, please clarify your assertion. n/t