Poll

Should Mississippi keep the Confederate Battle Flag in the corner of its state flag?

Hell Yes! Yeeha!
Hell No! Screw that!
I don't know.
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Offline Tau

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Re: Confederate Flag in the Mississippi State flag
« Reply #60 on: June 27, 2015, 03:28:13 AM »
There's nothing wrong with that. Benedict Arnold was a great man who did a lot of great things, and he deserves everything you just mentioned. I'm invoking the UK Embassy in the US for a reason. Putting a statue of a man who, in the US, is mostly famous for betraying us to the UK in front of the UK's embassy here would be rather rude. Similarly, putting the flag of the confederacy on your state's flag, or raising it at your statehouse, is rather rude.
I don't see what you're trying to say. You're saying that one case of celebraiting traitors in the traitors' homeland is ok, but in another case it's inappropriate. We're not calling for flying the Battle Flag in DC, you know.

We're not talking about flying the Battle Flag in DC, but we're talking about flying it at a state capitol, which is the state's equivalent of DC. You do get that, right? Flying the flag at the South Carolina Statehouse (especially considering the fact that S.C. was the first state to secede and fired the first shots) is just like flying it in DC, except on the state level.

Celebrating Benedict Arnold is one thing, but celebrating him at the embassy your country keeps in America would be actively disrespecting the US. Another example would be building a statue of J. R. Oppenheimer in Hiroshima, or a statue to Andrew Jackson at Wounded Knee.
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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: Confederate Flag in the Mississippi State flag
« Reply #61 on: June 27, 2015, 04:26:38 AM »
We're not talking about flying the Battle Flag in DC, but we're talking about flying it at a state capitol, which is the state's equivalent of DC. You do get that, right?
Yes, I do. It's flying the traitors' flag on the traitors' soil. I already said that.

Celebrating Benedict Arnold is one thing, but celebrating him at the embassy your country keeps in America would be actively disrespecting the US. Another example would be building a statue of J. R. Oppenheimer in Hiroshima, or a statue to Andrew Jackson at Wounded Knee.
The SC Capitol is nothing like an embassy.
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Offline Tau

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Re: Confederate Flag in the Mississippi State flag
« Reply #62 on: June 27, 2015, 05:08:25 AM »
We're not talking about flying the Battle Flag in DC, but we're talking about flying it at a state capitol, which is the state's equivalent of DC. You do get that, right?
Yes, I do. It's flying the traitors' flag on the traitors' soil. I already said that.

Celebrating Benedict Arnold is one thing, but celebrating him at the embassy your country keeps in America would be actively disrespecting the US. Another example would be building a statue of J. R. Oppenheimer in Hiroshima, or a statue to Andrew Jackson at Wounded Knee.
The SC Capitol is nothing like an embassy.

Wounded Knee isn't an embassy either. And no, it isn't flying the traitor's flag on the traitor's soil. It's flying the traitor's flag on the soil of the country they betrayed. South Carolina is no longer a member of the confederacy. It's a member of the US. Choosing to fly the Traitor's Flag at their capitol is their showing that they don't respect the union and long to break off again. Thus, it's treason at worst and rude at best.
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Re: Confederate Flag in the Mississippi State flag
« Reply #63 on: June 27, 2015, 12:20:43 PM »
This is exactly why we need free speech. If Mississippi wants to be proud of their rebellious past they can do so. Traitorous is being melodramatic because the flag does not represent a security risk to the country unless you get really jingoistic.

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Re: Confederate Flag in the Mississippi State flag
« Reply #64 on: June 27, 2015, 02:58:02 PM »
Calling it treason is ridiculous.  That was specifically defined in the Constitution so it wouldn't be be spuriously applied to anything the government didn't like:

Quote
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

That being said, I wouldn't call it a free speech issue, either, not when it concerns what a government is "officially" saying.  For example, I bet that in some states, a majority of voters would support the construction of a giant plaque that says "FUCK ISLAM" next to a statue of a soldier with his boot on the head of a turbaned guy on statehouse grounds.  But I think most reasonable people would agree that shouldn't be allowed.

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Offline Tau

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Re: Confederate Flag in the Mississippi State flag
« Reply #65 on: June 27, 2015, 03:00:28 PM »
This is exactly why we need free speech. If Mississippi wants to be proud of their rebellious past they can do so. Traitorous is being melodramatic because the flag does not represent a security risk to the country unless you get really jingoistic.

This has nothing to do with free speech. Nobody is talking about not letting southerners fly the confederate flag. That would be dumb. We're talking about a state capitol doing it.
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Offline Rushy

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Re: Confederate Flag in the Mississippi State flag
« Reply #66 on: June 27, 2015, 03:16:28 PM »
This is exactly why we need free speech. If Mississippi wants to be proud of their rebellious past they can do so. Traitorous is being melodramatic because the flag does not represent a security risk to the country unless you get really jingoistic.

This has nothing to do with free speech. Nobody is talking about not letting southerners fly the confederate flag. That would be dumb. We're talking about a state capitol doing it.

A state capitol has the right to fly whatever the state deems as their flag. You are, quite literally, claiming states don't have the right to free speech. Even worse, you claim that flying a specific kind of flag is tantamount to treason. Has your brain melted recently?

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Offline Tau

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Re: Confederate Flag in the Mississippi State flag
« Reply #67 on: June 27, 2015, 03:16:51 PM »
Calling it treason is ridiculous.  That was specifically defined in the Constitution so it wouldn't be be spuriously applied to anything the government didn't like:

Quote
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

I'm not talking about it breaking laws. I never claimed to be. It could never be, because the constitution also says that the term 'enemy' doesn't apply to rebels but rather only to members of foreign nations actively at war with us. That said, one could make the argument that raising the flag is giving aid and comfort to the rebels, but it's irrelevant because of the above.

I'M NOT SAYING THAT RAISING THE FLAG IS OR SHOULD BE ILLEGAL. THAT WOULD BE SILLY. I'm saying it's in poor taste. When I use the word treason, I'm using it not in its legal sense but in its colloquial sense. The point I'm making is that raising the flag of a failed rebellion at the statehouse of the state that started the rebellion is rude. I'm not going any farther than that. Just rude. They shouldn't do it.
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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: Confederate Flag in the Mississippi State flag
« Reply #68 on: June 27, 2015, 03:18:13 PM »
Nobody is talking about not letting southerners fly the confederate flag. That would be dumb.
Unfortunately, it's already happening, and the issues do not exist in a vacuum, separated from one another.

You're also supporting a decision made at the federal level overwriting the will of the people of the state. So yes, you quite directly are supporting an anti-free-speech measure.

And no, it isn't flying the traitor's flag on the traitor's soil. It's flying the traitor's flag on the soil of the country they betrayed.
Noted: South Carolina is not part of South Carolina. It is exclusively part of the United States.
« Last Edit: June 27, 2015, 03:19:47 PM by SexWarrior »
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Offline Tau

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Re: Confederate Flag in the Mississippi State flag
« Reply #69 on: June 27, 2015, 03:25:43 PM »
Nobody is talking about not letting southerners fly the confederate flag. That would be dumb.
Unfortunately, it's already happening, and the issues do not exist in a vacuum, separated from one another.

And no, it isn't flying the traitor's flag on the traitor's soil. It's flying the traitor's flag on the soil of the country they betrayed.
Noted: South Carolina is not part of South Carolina. It is exclusively part of the United States.

South Carolina is not a state currently betraying the US. You're thinking of the confederacy which, when it existed, was 'traitor's soil'. Since it no longer exists, it's sort of irrelevant.

Anyway, I can't find any examples of people outside of the military (which is within its rights) calling for an actual ban of the confederate flag. I can find people using the word 'ban', but only as shorthand, and they're mostly the people arguing against it. If there is a real movement dedicated to making it illegal for individual citizens to fly the confederate flag, please show me evidence of their existence because my google-fu has failed to do so.
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Re: Confederate Flag in the Mississippi State flag
« Reply #70 on: June 27, 2015, 04:02:22 PM »
“It was necessary to put the South at a moral disadvantage by transforming the contest from a war waged against states fighting for their indepdence into a war waged against states fighting for the maintenance and extension of slavery…and the world, it might be hoped, would see it as a moral war, not a political; and the sympathy of nations would begin to run for the North, not for the South.” Woodrow Wilson, “A History of The American People”, page 231

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Re: Confederate Flag in the Mississippi State flag
« Reply #71 on: June 27, 2015, 04:11:34 PM »
Quote from: Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy
They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error... 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

Quote from: Woodrow Wilson
If the colored people made a mistake in voting for me, they ought to correct it
« Last Edit: June 27, 2015, 04:21:43 PM by Tausami »
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Re: Confederate Flag in the Mississippi State flag
« Reply #72 on: June 27, 2015, 04:14:42 PM »
http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/declarationofcauses.html

The seceding states themselves made it abundantly clear that the potential abolition of slavery was one of the primary motivating factors for leaving the Union.
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Re: Confederate Flag in the Mississippi State flag
« Reply #73 on: June 27, 2015, 04:47:12 PM »
Calling it treason is ridiculous.  That was specifically defined in the Constitution so it wouldn't be be spuriously applied to anything the government didn't like:

Quote
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

That being said, I wouldn't call it a free speech issue, either, not when it concerns what a government is "officially" saying.  For example, I bet that in some states, a majority of voters would support the construction of a giant plaque that says "FUCK ISLAM" next to a statue of a soldier with his boot on the head of a turbaned guy on statehouse grounds.  But I think most reasonable people would agree that shouldn't be allowed.

Well duh, you are simultaneously insulting dead people and a religion and quite intentionally and beligerently. It's not the same thing as flying the confederate flag except that some people infer an insult from said flag which is not implicit in the flag itself.

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: Confederate Flag in the Mississippi State flag
« Reply #74 on: June 27, 2015, 09:27:25 PM »
Anyway, I can't find any examples of people outside of the military (which is within its rights) calling for an actual ban of the confederate flag. I can find people using the word 'ban', but only as shorthand, and they're mostly the people arguing against it. If there is a real movement dedicated to making it illegal for individual citizens to fly the confederate flag, please show me evidence of their existence because my google-fu has failed to do so.
It's actions, not words, that matter. If you don't know about major retailers withdrawing the flag and prohibiting others from selling it via their platforms, as well as Apple removing any and all apps that feature the flag in any context, then... well, you haven't even read this thread. Please do so before posting in it. It helps.

South Carolina is not a state currently betraying the US.
And Benedict Arnold is not a person currently betraying the US.

Yes, the thing with celebrating history is that it generally refers to things which happened in the past, not to things which are currently happening. It's strongly implied in the meaning of the word.
« Last Edit: June 27, 2015, 09:34:16 PM by SexWarrior »
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Offline beardo

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Re: Confederate Flag in the Mississippi State flag
« Reply #75 on: June 27, 2015, 09:45:58 PM »
The Mastery.

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Re: Confederate Flag in the Mississippi State flag
« Reply #76 on: June 27, 2015, 09:46:27 PM »
You need to post that in the edgy thread.

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Offline Pongo

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Re: Confederate Flag in the Mississippi State flag
« Reply #77 on: July 07, 2015, 04:12:13 PM »
Regardless, my background aside, it's ludicrous to argue that the Confederate flag does not mean racism.  I typed in "confederate flag" into Google and the fourth predictive result, right after history, was "confederate flag racist."

Does that surprise you? There's a debate on whether or not the flag is racist. People are looking for resources on the subject. I thought we buried the "Google says so, so it's true" fallacy when Thork started spamming Google Trends graphs all over the place to claim that Microsoft is more relevant than bread and what-not.

But hey, I learned some facts too using your method:



9/11 was, in fact, a conspiracy. After all, "9/11 conspiracy" is the third (objectively more factual than your fourth!!!) suggestion for 9/11.
Homeopathy is legit - after all, if it weren't, the fourth suggestion for it would indicate it somehow.
America is not #1. Shame, I was hoping to move there in a few years. :(
EDIT: America is also Israel. After all, the two words occurred one after the other, and thus this is the only possible interpretation.

The Confederate Flag means racism.  This should be an axiom.
I'm sorry, but using "my claim should be an axiom" to back up your claim is not gonna work.

Now, I am fully aware that people say that it does not mean racism and I do maintain that they are wrong.  You don't get to hang a swastika somewhere and claim it means environmentalism.
You do, however, get the hammer and sickle somewhere and have it mean "airline".



Unsurprisingly, Aeroflot are not trying to kill Putin and reclaim the power for the proletariat.

You cannot rewrite the meaning of a symbol because you don't like part of it.
You can, and it happens rather frequently.


If you want to have a symbol that represents your Southern heritage and don't want people to think you're racist, then pick something different than a Confederate flag.
Alternatively, stop telling people that you know what they're saying better than they are.

Semiotics is a serious field of study with deep insights into not only how people perceive things, but also the way in which we associate feelings of loyalty, aversion, and pride; to say that all that can be undone by whatever the person flying the symbol thinks is frankly arrogant.
I have just decided that by "semiotics" you mean "vanilla ice cream". That should be axiomatic because of Bing, or something. Your sentence now makes no sense and you should feel really bad for it.

Now, I will fully admit that it's my opinion that the Confederate Flag means racism, but it's not a lonely opinion.
w0w, I never knew! This changes everything and immediately makes you right! After all, the popularity of an idea always determines its truth value.

While it may not mean racism to everyone, one of the core meanings of the confederate flag is racism.
Define "core".

When you use that symbol, you get that meaning.  Plain and simple.  When the KKK uses the swastika, they are achieving the white supremacy meaning that they desire, but they are also getting strong antisemitic feelings attached to that.  If the KKK said that they are just using the swastika to only mean white supremacy (I don't think they would, but lets pretend) they can't change the feelings that the symbol evokes in those that see it.  If the KKK wanted to use the swastika to convey a meaning of only white supremacy, then they are doing a very poor job of communicating.
Restating your claim over and over does nothing to strengthen it.

However, as it turns out, the KKK doesn't mind getting these other elicitations because the symbolism of the swastika so closely aligns with their ideals.  I was criticized for this sounding that I was making an argument for symbols being able to mean different things.  It was in part (they can mean different things, but one meaning does not invalidate the other meanings), but what's really at work here is symbols can mean many things.  Lets say that the swastika means three things: Ayran supremacy, environmentalism, and Nazi Germany.
No, let's say the swastika means four things, and that this list is not exhaustive: Aryan supremacy, the Purushartha, Suparśvanātha and the Sun. See, the funny thing here is that you don't need to make up new meanings for it - you just need to stop being a stuck up American who's only willing to examine the culture of his immediate surroundings.

white supremacy is very close to Ayran supremacy
No, it's not. Please learn some history or something.

People flying the Confederate flag cannot lose the meanings of racism associated with the symbol
They already have. It just looks like the American left wing hasn't caught up with it and are now up in arms over "I don't understand it, therefore it's evil!" I thought that was the Republicans' modus operandi, but the horseshoe theory is as strong as ever.


Okay, I think that most of these objections can be answered with me being more clear.  People railed on me in IRC for saying what I'm about it and I wasn't able to express it fully there either, so I am glad for this opportunity.

The mere fact that a significant number of people are arguing that the Confederate Flag means racism proves that it does.  This is because a symbol can be made up of parts, and those parts can mean different things to different people (what others have been arguing all along). However, it does NOT mean that a symbol loses, or gains, meaning depending who is using it (coincidental convergent symbols aside).

For example, a police shield might stand for pride to someone, but mean fear to another.  Whenever a person who associates it with fear sees it, it will evoke emotional responses of fear for them.  If they use it, they use it to mean fear.  Does that mean it no longer means pride to anyone who associates it with pride?  Of course not.  This is because the symbol means different things and pride is one of them.  This is why a Confederate flag means racism regardless of what meanings the user intends to portray.  The people who associate it with racism still see it as racist.

This is also why having people argue that the flag is racist means that it is racist; assuming that they are not a fringe few.  This was why the Google search I provided demonstrated that the Confederate Flag is racist.  If you were asking "Do people think that 911 was a conspiracy?" then your picture would have demonstrated that.  If you were asking "Do people think Homeopathy is legit?" then your picture would have demonstrated that as well.  If you were asking "Do people have negative opinions about America?" then your third picture would have shown that yes, yes they do.  However, you bizarrely tried to show that having Google results return a statement proved the statement.  I asked "Do people think the Confederate Flag is Racist."  I typed in "confederate flag" into Google and one of the top few results was "racist".  This shows that people think the Confederate Flag is racist. Therefore, racism is one of the meanings that make up the Confederate Flag.

Lets look at this to help demonstrate the point further.  Lets pretend we have three people and each person represents a significant portion of the population.  Here is what the Confederate Flag means to them:

Person 1:
Southern Pride
Redneck Lifestyle
Heritage

Person 2:
Redneck Lifestyle
History
Discomfort

Person 3:
History
Racism
Bigotry

This is obviously not a definitive list and certainly not 100% accurate, but from this example (and, because again, they are representative of a pretend population) of we can conclude that the Confederate Flag stands for southern pride, heritage, redneck lifestyle, discomfort, history, racism, and bigotry.  It doesn't matter if Person 1 intends to use the symbol differently than how Person 3 will perceive it, Person 3 will still perceive it as racist just as a person who thinks a police shield means pride regardless of the intent of the person who is displaying it.

Furthermore, there are people that overtly use the Confederate Flag to mean racism.  Are they using the symbol incorrectly?  Does it really mean "redneck pride" when they use it?

Symbolism is messy and tricky.  In this case, for many people, the Confederate Flag means racism and that is what they see when they see a bumper sticker of a confederate flag.  What if the person with the bumper sticker really means southern pride?  Then they are doing a very poor job of communicating and need to pick a new symbol; that particular symbol comes with a lot of baggage and one of which is racism.



I did not address many of your other points.  If you would still like me to, I suppose I could do a point by point, but I would rather not unless you had a particular argument you would like me to speak to.

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Offline rooster

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Re: Confederate Flag in the Mississippi State flag
« Reply #78 on: July 07, 2015, 04:38:11 PM »
In the end, I don't mind if it's taken down from state buildings. I can understand that.

But I wish companies and organizations would get off the bandwagon and stop trying to ban the flag. It seems pretty fucked up to ban a symbol, regardless of what it is. I thought this was 'Merica!

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: Confederate Flag in the Mississippi State flag
« Reply #79 on: July 07, 2015, 04:46:06 PM »
The mere fact that a significant number of people are arguing that the Confederate Flag means racism proves that it does.  This is because a symbol can be made up of parts, and those parts can mean different things to different people (what others have been arguing all along). However, it does NOT mean that a symbol loses, or gains, meaning depending who is using it (coincidental convergent symbols aside).
This is the crux of your fallacy. To many people, the star and crescent is a symbol of hatred. That doesn't make it one in any way, shape, or form.

For example, a police shield might stand for pride to someone, but mean fear to another.  Whenever a person who associates it with fear sees it, it will evoke emotional responses of fear for them.  If they use it, they use it to mean fear.  Does that mean it no longer means pride to anyone who associates it with pride?  Of course not.  This is because the symbol means different things and pride is one of them.  This is why a Confederate flag means racism regardless of what meanings the user intends to portray.  The people who associate it with racism still see it as racist.
...are you suggesting the government should stop displaying police shields because some wuss out there is afraid of it? If not, you just provided an excellent example for why "some people think X and therefore X holds" is a terrible line of reasoning.

This is also why having people argue that the flag is racist means that it is racist; assuming that they are not a fringe few.  This was why the Google search I provided demonstrated that the Confederate Flag is racist.  If you were asking "Do people think that 911 was a conspiracy?" then your picture would have demonstrated that.  If you were asking "Do people think Homeopathy is legit?" then your picture would have demonstrated that as well.  If you were asking "Do people have negative opinions about America?" then your third picture would have shown that yes, yes they do.  However, you bizarrely tried to show that having Google results return a statement proved the statement.  I asked "Do people think the Confederate Flag is Racist."  I typed in "confederate flag" into Google and one of the top few results was "racist".  This shows that people think the Confederate Flag is racist. Therefore, racism is one of the meanings that make up the Confederate Flag.
What?

You typed in "confederate flag" and got "racist" (as the 4th suggestion)
I typed in "9/11" and got "conspiracy" (as the 3rd suggestion)

Why should I type in questions while you can type in names of things? Again, if your argument holds, then so does mine. Either we agree that Google's autocomplete feature gives us a good idea of what words mean (it doesn't - a short reading on what a web crawler is and how it works would tell you this much), or we agree that it doesn't (and thus stick to reality).

The problem with your interpretation of "confederate flag racist" is that it provides you with the exact same amount of information as "america israel" - you can choose to interpret it as "the Confederate flag is racist", and I can choose to interpret it as "America is Israel"[1]. We both have exactly as much information backing up our interpretations - none. If we double down on the "Google is facts" fallacy, we could inspect what the actual results of the search you proposed are. Interestingly, Google's semantic web engine chooses to serve this paragraph on top of the results page:



Dagnabbit, turns out it ain't racist after all. Google says so.

Lets look at this to help demonstrate the point further.  Lets pretend we have three people and each person represents a significant portion of the population.  Here is what the Confederate Flag means to them:

Person 1:
Southern Pride
Redneck Lifestyle
Heritage

Person 2:
Redneck Lifestyle
History
Discomfort

Person 3:
History
Racism
Bigotry

This is obviously not a definitive list and certainly not 100% accurate, but from this example (and, because again, they are representative of a pretend population) of we can conclude that the Confederate Flag stands for southern pride, heritage, redneck lifestyle, discomfort, history, racism, and bigotry.
No, we can't. What we can conclude is that it means different things to different people. We cannot conclude that it somehow magically means a sum total of all beliefs in some objective sense. This is true of all invented symbols in existence.

It doesn't matter if Person 1 intends to use the symbol differently than how Person 3 will perceive it, Person 3 will still perceive it as racist just as a person who thinks a police shield means pride regardless of the intent of the person who is displaying it.
That is correct. Why should Person 1 or 2 give a fuck? If I choose to interpret the name "Pongo" as "I literally hate Polish people", will you change it? Should I petition Parsifal to bammywham the name "Pongo" because I unilaterally decided that it's offensive? Because I'm pretty sure I'd be told to piss off if I did that.

Furthermore, there are people that overtly use the Confederate Flag to mean racism.  Are they using the symbol incorrectly?  Does it really mean "redneck pride" when they use it?
No, but I already made the point about punishing everyone for the behaviour of the minority. You responded to that by claiming that since some people think it's racist, it must be racist, full stop. Either stick to that claim or take it back.

Symbolism is messy and tricky.  In this case, for many people, the Confederate Flag means racism and that is what they see when they see a bumper sticker of a confederate flag.  What if the person with the bumper sticker really means southern pride?  Then they are doing a very poor job of communicating and need to pick a new symbol; that particular symbol comes with a lot of baggage and one of which is racism.
Yes, silencing people because someone might interpret their words wrong is a great idea. I'm sure we'll be banning the USA flag any moment now because it, too, carries negative connotations for some people.

I did not address many of your other points.  If you would still like me to, I suppose I could do a point by point, but I would rather not unless you had a particular argument you would like me to speak to.
You did omit many of my counter-points and just restated the points that were being countered, but I think we'd be wasting both of our times if we continued this. Each and every claim you made so far contradicted the previous one, and you've done a much better job at burying your argument than I ever could. I don't really think you can redeem your claims that:
  • If somebody thinks that a symbol means a bad thing, they're right. If somebody thinks that a symbol means a good thing, that doesn't matter. What's that? The latter are the majority? Well, screw that, they're clearly wrong!
  • If a symbol offends a group of people, it should be banned, but only if it's the Confederate flag. Other symbols are ok because they're not the symbol you picked.
  • Google autocomplete gives us a good idea of what's factual, but only if it happens to agree with you. If it doesn't, this profound technique is obviously being misused.
You provided no support for any of these claims other than restating and rephrasing them, and you provided plentiful reasoning for why none of your claims hold.


[1] - Note that this still makes very little sense even with your "Confederate flag means racism to people" sidestep. I'm pretty sure America doesn't mean Israel to many people. They're fairly separate locations.
« Last Edit: July 07, 2015, 04:53:31 PM by SexWarrior »
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