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.