Confederate Flag Ban at School

Discussion in 'History' started by Orleander, Aug 14, 2008.

  1. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    What I find puzzling is if you are all Americans why do you need a separatist flag? Regardless of its background, its a flag of the civil war. Why put it up when you are now one country? It would be like some Pakistanis putting up an Indian flag, how does that make any sense?
     
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  3. Simon Anders Valued Senior Member

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    The most positive interpretation, I think, would be to say that even though it is one country, different regions has distinct cultures, and that some of the people who like and want to fly confederate flags appreciate portions of that culture not related to slavery: a genteel, calm rural culture vastly more mannered and formal than northern counterparts. A culture with specific rituals and music and dance and fashion. So the flag is a kind of nostalgia, in this best case interpretation, for a past way of life.

    A word of support for separatism: perhaps, separatism, per se, is not a bad thing.
     
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  5. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    You need a flag to appreciate a way of life you have never lived? So if someone was flying a Nazi flag because they appreciated German order and competence, it would be fine?
     
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  7. Simon Anders Valued Senior Member

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    You need a statue of a deity and colorful clothes and a parade to appreciate God. (I am thinking of a certain Indian celebration I semi-participated in from a religion other than yours, but of course the point I am making applies very widely)

    And by the way, I, personally, do not need a flag to celebrate anything. I don't really like flags.
     
  8. Simon Anders Valued Senior Member

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    Well, if you go back through the thread you'll see my reactions to flying the confederate flag.
     
  9. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, but thats a current appreciation of belief. How many people who fly the confederate flag actually lived in the times they currently "appreciate". Wonder how many would opt to live that lifestyle today, for instance.

    I think flags are unnecessary and separatist. More problem than they are worth.
     
  10. Simon Anders Valued Senior Member

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    I should have added that a number of people think, quite rightly, that the northern flag has a lot of moral stains on it ALSO. So if they get to fly it, why can we fly ours.

    I find it rather amazing how much
    Jimmy snuck out from school early too so how come only I am in detention
    kinds of arguments
    are used here on sciforums.

    It is good point, but not a good argument for why the one in detention should be allowed to sneak out of school early.
     
  11. Buffalo Roam Registered Senior Member

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    Why does Islam need the Black Flag?

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  12. Repo Man Valued Senior Member

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    Red Herring, please try to stay on topic.
     
  13. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    So the current flag is the Northern flag? Perhaps it might have been better to have a altogether different flag for the combined territories? But as the losers in the civil war, shouldn't the confederates have discarded their flag? Whats the modus operandi for such things militarywise?
     
  14. Buffalo Roam Registered Senior Member

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    Really? we are talking about offensive Flags and SAM seem to find the Southern, Battle Flag offensive, well I find the Flag of Jihad even more offensive, it is a Flag of Slavery and Oppression and Religious intolerance, that is still flying as a active rallying standard today.

    Now would the School have the balls to ban the Flag of Jihad? in todays PC world I would say not, and if the School did ban the Flag of Jihad, would they come under attack from Moslems and Islam for doing so, I would say that would be a definite yes.

    Now as for a Flag that would stand for slavery in the Old South, I would say that the National Flags of the Confederacy (There were 4 of them over the period of the war) would hold that honor, but nobody says a thing about them ,most people don't even know what they look like, and many of their features still exist in the State Flags of southern state today.
     
  15. Repo Man Valued Senior Member

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    Have you ever seen this flag flying in the U.S.? Edit: Also, if S.A.M. had not posted in this thread, would you have brought this up? This thread is about a school in the U.S. banning the wearing or display of the Confederate flag, not about making S.A.M. defend her religion (again).

    Why would the school need to ban a flag that no one is waving?

    So it is just a coincidence that the flag commonly known as the Confederate flag gained a resurgence in popularity during the battle to maintain segregation during the fifties and sixties? Were the South Carolinians who chose to fly it on the State House during the centennial commemoration of the firing on Fort Sumter ignorant of history?
     
    Last edited: Aug 17, 2008
  16. Simon Anders Valued Senior Member

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    More of less the same flag. more stars cause there are more states. The reasoning is that the south was leaving the whole and now are back in the whole.
     
  17. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    What was the flag before the secession?
     
  18. superstring01 Moderator

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    I happen to agree with you here.

    While I think that it is perfectly legal to hang the confederate flag up, I think that it's silly and rather insulting to those whe suffered during the war.

    That's just me, though.

    ~String
     
  19. Simon Anders Valued Senior Member

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  20. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    I see what you mean. I'm not a very symbol oriented person myself and the Hindu festivals I participate in, the idols make up a very small portion of. I still remember one Durga Pooja in Calcutta, where everyone got very drunk and some of the guys were feeling the boobies of Mother Durga's statue, but thats a different story.

    Swallowed their flag? Don't they swear allegiance to the flag of the US?
     
  21. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    I think it's well understood that schools, although public property are not grounds to be used for general displays of free speech. Let's say I walk into a a public court room and decide to loudly start giving a dissertation on my views of the writings of Henry James. I will be "escorted" out of the courtroom if I am lucky, because the court, though seated on public property, is allowed to ensure that things that are (or might be) disruptive to its primary function, including speech, are regulated.

    There are public spaces that are understood to be open to free speech, but even public parks require permits if the speech in question is expected to draw crowds.

    A school is not such a venue. A school is run to educate, not to be a platform for any idea that students or anyone else wants to express. The argument here is that some people *disagree* with the school's position that the flag is likely to be disruptive. If the student wanted to give his views on the Civil War in the middle of his calculus class, no one would be surprised that school denied him that right, and people would laugh openly if he sued them for it.

    The question, then, is how much deference is the school entitled to in these matters? Surely their can err on the side of caution in limiting disturbances, just as all governmental bodies do.

    What it really comes down to is that one side thinks that other students should STFU if they have a problem with the flag (and that they "shouldn't" in any event—even though it's undeniable that some people do have such a reaction), and that those who don't should be free to display it. The school is afraid that the former group won't STFU, and disruption will ensue.

    Banning the flag on those grounds seems reasonable to me, and does not impermissibly impact the kids rights as I understand them. Students, on school grounds, have limited free speech rights. If he wants to tout the heritage of his grandfather as a serial killer/child molester, he's free to do so at home. If Klan members want their kids to proudly display their deep affection for the KKK by wearing white hoods all day, same deal. If I kid wants to wear his Che Guevarra t-shirt or a the communist hammer and sickle on his coat, same answer: if the school fears it will elicit a disruptive response, the school has (or, at least, should have) leeway to ban it.

    The display of religious symbols is a touchier subject, because of its history, but I don't see them as any different. A school need not ban religious symbols, but if they honestly believe that the displays will cause a disruption, they should be able to police the displays. In some cases, like a school that decides to ban the open carrying of the Bible, their belief in the possibility of disruption might strain my credulity to the point where I suspected they had some other motive (which may be an impermissible motive), but as long as they could reasonably link the ban to the possibility of disorder, even if I were skeptical, I'd likely defer to their judgment.

    In the case of a symbol of what was undeniably treason against America, a war in which amongst the South's first acts were the theft of federal property as if they owned it and firing on U..S. troops in a U.S. fort, I hardly think the school needs to justify it. No patriot should support the Confederacy, and no patriotic student should be forced to sit silently while some child evinces his support for traitors.

    Assuming the school were forced to allow the flag, I would note, surely they should also allow people an opportunity to rebut that flag-wearer's position? Or does the school only have to recognize one sides's freedom of speech, and the counter-argument be forced into silence? So, if a student wears that battle flag, my support would be for the kid who took time to deface it.
     
  22. Simon Anders Valued Senior Member

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    Sure. To present the case in a way to be most sympathetic to the South for SAM. The USA was conceived of as an association of independent states by many. Sort of an European Union -like structure before Brussels really started taking over. Conceptions varied for how strong or loose this association was.

    Southerners had a different lifestyle - not just that the South was involved in slavery, which many Unionists were also though the economy was not based on it in the North. So for southerners the option to leave was considered a right. They looked upon northern 'interference' as imperial interference. A foreign culture dictating how they should run their culture. Much as some nation out there world today might look askance and US claims to be intervening on moral grounds, when in fact it had more to do with other motivations and the slavery issue was used to create a high moral ground.

    Sound familiar.

    Of course the issue is hazier because they were part of this larger entity, but I think they did have some solid grounds for considering states rights and independence to be greater than how this was conceived by the North.

    Further the North truly botched their intervention. They came in, forced the new culture on the South and there was a short period in which afroamericans actually had power. But there was very little thinking involved, very little transitional organization and very little real concern for the afroamericans by the north. The system fell apart and a new dark age emerged where blacks were treated unbeleivably poorly, in some ways worse than before when as someone's property they were seen as the responsibility of someone to feed, at least. (please do not mistake this for an argument in favor of slavery.)

    Again, sound familiar?
     
  23. OilIsMastery Banned Banned

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    Why don't you go tell an "African American" if he is so "African" maybe he should go to Mauretania or Sudan where he can live the rest of his life in slavery. Africa is the true symbol of slavery. All of the flags of Africa symbolize slavery.
     

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