(09-26-2017, 01:15 AM)Last42min Wrote:

(09-25-2017, 10:33 PM)Bullseye Wrote: What makes them Anti American?

They haven't renounced their citizenship like the Confederates. 

They haven't taken up arms against the country like the Confederates.

They haven't killed thousands of Americans like the Confederates.

And, unless you believe equality in law enforcement is inconsistent with American ideals, they haven't advocated for anything Anti American like the Confederates.

Yet self righteous conservatives like yourself revere the Confederates while having the gall to wrap yourselves in the American flag to castigate the players.

  If the players succeed in their protests, the "worst" that happens is that more criminal suspects of color will actually make it to trial instead of being shot by police and those acting like police under dubious rationales.  If the Confederates succeeded, the American flag would have at least thirteen fewer stars and the country would be a fraction of its current size and strength, and the anti American ideals they blatantly admitted to would have prevailed.  Yet conservatives, from Trump on down, jump on the proverbial grenades to protect icons of the Confederacy from removal or criticism.

It has NOTHING to do with Anti-American thoughts or deeds on the part of the players.


It has everything to do with more pernicious motives of the conservatives that bash the players.

This is a fundamental misconstruction of the civil war. The confederates were statesman first and Americans second. They believed the contract they entered with the United States allowed them to govern themselves with limited interference from the federal government. When the government overstepped their boundaries (in the eyes of the confederates), the south chose to withdraw from that contract. The north said otherwise. The civil war settled the dispute over which power was sovereign: states or the federal government. Functionally, the government contract was changed after the civil war. Citizens at the time would have a completely different perspective then than we have now. Calling them traitors is disingenuous.

If conservatives embrace aspects of confederacy, it's because they still value limited government and incorporate that symbolism. In this regard, your analogy is appropriate: that choosing your symbols is important. A symbol that is divisive can actually detract from your point and cause serious backlash. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

Please keep your Confederate apologist Jedi mind tricks to yourself.  They won't work on me.

The Confederates openly acknowledged that white supremacy and Slavery were their primary motivating factors for secession, not some vague breach of contract cause of action.

https://www.duvalpride.com/showthread.ph...pid1012022

While I will not reproduce the entire post here, the relevant part of Vice President of the Confederacy's Andrew Stephens' Cornerstone of the Confederacy speech is instructive.

"The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.”


Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth." (Emphasis added)

The thing is, the Constitution of the United States establishes instances where a state can file suit against either another state or the federal government in the Supreme Court, giving it original jurisdiction over these and a few other controversies.  

Stephens was a lawyer.  He was fully capable of articulating a breach of contract case against the federal government if that was his intent, or if it were a reflection of the true reasons for secession.  He didn't.  He said slavery was the immediate cause of the rupture, as did several of the states in their various declarations of secession.  He and the confederacy could have used the American legal system to achieve the desired results and lived with the consequences.  They didn't.  Because they didn't get their way in having the unmitigated ability to oppress blacks, they voluntarily withdrew from this country and took up arms against it, even after reaping the benefits of being part of this republic.  They posed an existential threat to this country.  They were disloyal and traitorous by almost every conceivable measure.  If those of you so outraged by this protest were so singularly driven by patriotism as your angst against the protesting players suggest, any reverence reserved for the Confederacy would be met with exponentially more revulsion than what has been directed towards the players here.  But I defy you to explore the threads debating the confederacy and the removal of Confederate monuments and show me any who lean conservative on these boards who have expressed as much dismay towards the confederate betrayal of our country as they have towards these players.

Conservatives embrace aspects of the confederacy, including resentment of the federal government.  But that shared resentment is rooted in anti black antipathy at its core.

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