is flying a confederate flag a "redneck pride" thing or just being "racist"?

[Samof94]

Reminder that the modern display of the Confederate flag was a response to the Civil Rights movement in the 50s/60s.

Like, South Carolina began flying the flag at the state capitol in 1962, nearly 100 years after the Civil War.

It is a symbol of racism, unquestionably.

Mississippi adopted that flag due to Lost Cause beliefs. The Lost Cause is about as valid as Holocaust Denial.

[Samof94]

Probably my favorite anecdote from the Confederate flag debate was a conversation I had with an elderly gentleman with a thick Southern accent dressed in overalls and a red t-shirt, who said of the Confederacy, "I think they're traitors, and the people who fly that flag today are traitors and terrorists."

This is true, but Americans complaining about rebel traitors is just a bit much.

Canada took are traitors then, would you like the latest batch?

The patriots were the traitors in the Revolutionary War, not the loyalists.

Winners write history.

First of all, that's not always true.  Former Confederates and Confederate sympathizers wrote a great deal of Civil War history, for example.  Secondly, writing history doesn't mean writing accurate history.  If the Loyalists were traitors, then the term "traitor" is simply an empty partisan label with no meaning.  Why exactly were the Loyalists obligated to support an insurrection launched by their fellow citizens that they didn't agree with?   It's like saying that if Donald Trump and the mob that attacked the Capitol managed to establish a dictatorship, I would morally owe that government allegiance even though it was created over my extreme opposition and had overthrown the government that I really DID owe allegiance to. 

Good point about history writing.   Would have been better off if the Confederates really had all fled to South America.

Wonder how any loyalists who didn't fled were treated during the War of 1812.

Imagine Brazil being anglicized somewhat even though it’d still be Portuguese speaking and that is what I’m imagining with that outcome.

[Samof94]

I think it's a cultural symbol for many and I don't believe every person that has a Confederate flag does not like black people.  I think it's been mainstreamed as not just "Southern" or "country" but also as "rebel" and "outlaw".  

Living in Pennsylvania for a long time, I saw a lot of them and that was a Union state!

I would never wear a Confederate flag or carry it around or fly it from my house, but I know of people who live in houses with them and are either good friends with black people or do support civil rights for all races.

"I've got a black friend so I can't be racist."

Or even worse, a black person flying and defending the flag.

[Samof94]

Probably my favorite anecdote from the Confederate flag debate was a conversation I had with an elderly gentleman with a thick Southern accent dressed in overalls and a red t-shirt, who said of the Confederacy, "I think they're traitors, and the people who fly that flag today are traitors and terrorists."

This is true, but Americans complaining about rebel traitors is just a bit much.

Canada took are traitors then, would you like the latest batch?

The patriots were the traitors in the Revolutionary War, not the loyalists.

Winners write history.

First of all, that's not always true.  Former Confederates and Confederate sympathizers wrote a great deal of Civil War history, for example.  Secondly, writing history doesn't mean writing accurate history.  If the Loyalists were traitors, then the term "traitor" is simply an empty partisan label with no meaning.  Why exactly were the Loyalists obligated to support an insurrection launched by their fellow citizens that they didn't agree with?   It's like saying that if Donald Trump and the mob that attacked the Capitol managed to establish a dictatorship, I would morally owe that government allegiance even though it was created over my extreme opposition and had overthrown the government that I really DID owe allegiance to. 

Good point about history writing.   Would have been better off if the Confederates really had all fled to South America.

Wonder how any loyalists who didn't fled were treated during the War of 1812.

Some of them did.

Confederate flags(and all the things you’d think of)are a thing in Brazil, except all in Portuguese of course.

[Samof94]

Probably my favorite anecdote from the Confederate flag debate was a conversation I had with an elderly gentleman with a thick Southern accent dressed in overalls and a red t-shirt, who said of the Confederacy, "I think they're traitors, and the people who fly that flag today are traitors and terrorists."

This is true, but Americans complaining about rebel traitors is just a bit much.

Canada took are traitors then, would you like the latest batch?

The patriots were the traitors in the Revolutionary War, not the loyalists.

Winners write history.

First of all, that's not always true.  Former Confederates and Confederate sympathizers wrote a great deal of Civil War history, for example.  Secondly, writing history doesn't mean writing accurate history.  If the Loyalists were traitors, then the term "traitor" is simply an empty partisan label with no meaning.  Why exactly were the Loyalists obligated to support an insurrection launched by their fellow citizens that they didn't agree with?   It's like saying that if Donald Trump and the mob that attacked the Capitol managed to establish a dictatorship, I would morally owe that government allegiance even though it was created over my extreme opposition and had overthrown the government that I really DID owe allegiance to. 

Good point about history writing.   Would have been better off if the Confederates really had all fled to South America.

Wonder how any loyalists who didn't fled were treated during the War of 1812.

Some of them did.

Confederate flags(and all the things you’d think of)are a thing in Brazil, except all in Portuguese of course.

I'm guessing it's because of these guys?

True, quite true. The same country was later home to Mengele.

[Samof94]

Reminder that the modern display of the Confederate flag was a response to the Civil Rights movement in the 50s/60s.

Like, South Carolina began flying the flag at the state capitol in 1962, nearly 100 years after the Civil War.

It is a symbol of racism, unquestionably.

Mississippi adopted that flag due to Lost Cause beliefs. The Lost Cause is about as valid as Holocaust Denial.

I never really understood what the Lost Cause was.

What exactly is it? I know it's about the South and the Civil Wae, but what exactly it is never seemed clear.

Essentially that the Confederacy’s fight in the Civil War was a heroic, but ultimately doomed, cause, struggling to preserve the “noble” Southern way of life and the institution of slavery (which they held was actually better for slaves than being free), but that the South, in spite of its superior chivalry and horsemanship, was always going to lose against the more industrialised North.

As you can see, a load of BS.

Exactly. It is like saying Austria was a victim of Nazi Aggression or that Japan did nothing wrong.