l3ubba

I am just using what you said. I didn't make anything up. In your posts you said it was an outrage that companies would "ban" the Confederate flag from their stores yet you also believe people should have the freedom to wave whatever flag they want. You are the one who brought up the media story and all of the media coverage about this, not me. I am just responding to the stuff you posted.

Lol that is the funniest response I have gotten yet. First I don't know what your number 1 bullet is referring to ("No" what?) But I find it hilarious that you are saying I am lying. What am I lying about? I used the gay couple as an example because it is almost the exact same situation as you posted about. There were stories in the news about how certain bakeries were refusing to bake cakes for gay weddings and all the conservatives jumped up and defended their actions saying that the bakery doesn't have to serve them if they don't want to. You just posted a story about a Walmart refusing to bake a Confederate flag cake and now all the conservatives are saying that is wrong and they shouldn't be discriminating against someone just because they want a certain flag on their cake. You don't see the parallel in those stories at all? You don't see any hypocrisies? And I did read your posts that is why I quoted them and responded to specific things you said. Ok so who is saying the flag should be 100% banned? This is the first I am hearing of this. I have been following the news and I have been reading these forum threads and nowhere have I seen anyone suggest anything about banning the Confederate flag and making it illegal. I have seen people arguing that it should be banned from being flown at government buildings and at certain memorials, but nobody has said that private citizens should be banned from flying it. You are a primary source? How so? Because you are black? Does that mean I am a primary source when it comes to topics about white people? I'll go ahead and answer that last question for you; no I am not. I am one white person out of millions and millions of them so anything I say has no meaning when you talk to other white people. So you are black and the flag doesn't offend you and you don't see it as a racist symbol. The fact that you are black has no meaning to me, it does not make your opinion more valid than anyone else's and, to me personally, it doesn't make me pay more attention to your opinion (other than me thinking it is ridiculous that someone would use their race as a way to bring more attention to their opinion). I'm not going to go into the history of the flag and why it stands for racism and hatred because I have already spent a lot of time explaining that in another thread and I am sure that no matter how many historical facts I throw at you it will not change your opinion.

You do have the right to fly whatever flag you want. Nobody is banning anyone from flying the Confederate flag, they just don't want it to be flown on government grounds. I don't know where you are getting your information but it is very wrong. Please give me one source that the US is "denying people a basic right to wave a flag". Companies aren't "banning" the Confederate flag, they are choosing to not sell that kind of merchandise anymore. They are doing this on their own free will, nobody has demanded that they do this. These companies have made those decisions themselves, that is called free market and while you and several other people on this forum are outraged that these companies for doing this you will say in the same breath that everyone should have the freedom to do what they want. So using your logic if someone wants to fly a flag they should have the freedom to do so but when a company decides (on their own free will) to stop selling a particular product it is an outrage? Do you not see the hypocrisy in that statement? You keep bringing up your race, what does this have to do with anything? Do you speak for all black people? Does the fact that you are black mean that your opinion holds more weight? There are plenty of black people who do have a problem with the flag and there are plenty others who don't. Maybe it doesn't represent racism and hate to you but to others it might and if people read a history book once and awhile they would understand why that is a perfectly legitimate opinion. Again, nobody banned the flag, they willing decided to stop selling it. I don't understand why you started this thread. There is already another thread that covers this topic, no need to start a whole new thread on the same thing. I find it extremely hypocritical that when certain bakeries refused to bake wedding cakes for gay couples the conservatives said "that is the company's choice and they have the right to deny someone" and not even 6 months later when companies are deciding to pull certain products from their shelves and refuse to bake a Confederate flag cake the exact same people are saying it is an outrage. It seriously baffles me as to how people don't see the hypocrisies in their arguments. Sometimes I wonder if these are really that blind to their own hypocrisies and they actually believe what they are saying is true or if they know what they are saying is hypocritical and not true but say it anyway to push their agenda. And yes you are right, lots of those corporations made those decisions based on people's opinion. That is what corporations do, they want to keep their customers happy so that those people keep coming back to their stores, this isn't a brand new tactic they are using they have been doing it for centuries and every business does it. Thank God, someone else sees through all the bullshit and knows what is fact and what is fiction. I was beginning to think I was the only one here that didn't believe all the BS rhetoric that has been spewed out here.

I think cp702 pretty much covered it. 1. Most agencies will issue you a pistol and tell you that is what you will carry. Any agency that allows you to carry a personal firearm is still going to have restrictions on what you can carry. 2. Yes, you will probably be issued a kevlar vest. However, as cp702 said, it really depends on who you are working for. 3. cp702 pretty much covered everything on this. Short answer is yes, every court has some form of security so you could theoretically work for any of them. Depending on the court however, there might be certain prerequisites. 4. Again, depends on the court. Most local courts (city and county) rely on the local sheriff's office to provide court security. The sheriff's office in my county has a court services section which has full time and part time bailiffs who are sworn deputies.

My point is at the time lots of people didn't agree with the ruling in Brown v. Board of Education and I'm sure there were people who tried to minimize the importance of that Supreme Court decisions because they didn't like it. Looking back on it now we know that it was wrong to segregate schools based on race just like we should have known this whole time that it is wrong to deny two people the right to marry because of their sexual preference.

I think most people would agree with that statement. I'm not here to say that all black people hate the Confederate flag, I'm just here because the topic was that the CSA and the Confederate flag are being "improperly portrayed" which I don't think is true. Again, I don't know why anyone would take this personally. Nobody is calling supporters of the flag racist and nobody is saying that you shouldn't be able to fly the Confederate flag as a private citizen. You made it seem like you cared that products were getting pulled. Also I thought this thread was about how the CSA and Confederate flag are being portrayed incorrectly? The difference between the KKK flying the US flag and state governments flying the Confederate flag is that the KKK is a private group who say they do it for the white race and America but the US government and the majority of the US population do not support them. A state government flying a flag of a country that broke off from the US so they could continue to keep slaves is something completely different. It was for economic reasons but racism played a huge part in it. If it wasn't about race then why did they bring people all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to be slaves? Wouldn't it have been cheaper to just enslave other white people or Native Americans? If you think race wasn't the primary reason for black slaves in America then you are completely ignoring history. Look at the things that were written and said about African Americans, there was a hatred for black people, they were viewed as inferior to the white man (and yes before you say it again, I know that there were racists in the North as well). And you didn't answer my question. Does that mean that back in the 1800s when we were abolishing slavery we should have been like "well slavery has never been an issue before so why even bring it up"?

No one is taking it personally. They are just tired of seeing people fly the Confederate flag when that flag was originally used by an army that fought to keep slavery. If it means something different to you then cool, but that doesn't change the history behind the flag. Again, Apple can do whatever it wants. I couldn't give two shits if they sell civil war games or not. Actually what you said was "That is forcing games to be banned. Books to be removed from shelves." so when I read that I read it as they are forcing games to be banned and books to be removed from shelves. Haven't heard anyone calling for books to be pulled from shelves, but again, that is up to the business. We have a free market and if those stores decide to pull certain products then they have the right to do so just like if they want to continue selling those products they have the right to do so. I was actually not aware of the Supreme Court case, but it isn't something that just popped up. They started hearing the case several months ago so this isn't just a new issue that popped up suddenly as you said earlier. People have had an issue with this for awhile and for whatever reason the media decided to focus on this story now. Who knows how the media picks stories. For the past year it has been nothing but "police brutality", I guess they got tired of that. I didn't twist any words. I was using the exact same example you gave. During Roman times slavery was viewed as acceptable just like flying a Confederate flag has been viewed as acceptable for the past 100+ years. You said that flying the Confederate flag "was never an issue before". Well as we both just stated neither was slavery at one time. Does that mean that back in the 1800s when we were abolishing slavery we should have been like "well slavery has never been an issue before so why even bring it up"?

The flag can represent whatever you want it to represent for you. Just like the Swastika represents something different to other people (it was used as a symbol of good fortune by Buddhism and Hinduism long before Hitler used it). I don't know how many times I'm going to have to repeat myself but yes, it is a flag of racism and hate. It was used by an army that fought to keep slavery and racism alive, if that doesn't make it a flag of racism and hate I don't know what will. That is not "forcing" games and books to be banned. I haven't heard of any books being pulled off shelves and games aren't being "banned", companies are just choosing not to sell them anymore. That is the decision of the company, nobody is forcing them to do that. When this whole issue started people wanted the Confederate flag to be taken down from in front of the SC capitol building, I didn't hear anyone start demanding that Amazon and Walmart stop selling Confederate merchandise. Just because it wasn't an issue in the past doesn't mean it can never be brought up as an issue. You even said in one of your posts that slavery was not an issue back when the Romans were doing it and it wasn't an issue in Britain was bringing slaves to America in the 1600s and 1700s. Does that mean that slavery should have never been brought up as an issue? It wasn't an issue before right? I don't understand why you are taking this so personally. Nobody is saying that people who choose to fly the Confederate flag are racist, they are just trying to remind people of the history behind that flag and why it shouldn't be flown on government grounds.

Sometimes I wonder if back in 1954 when the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation in schools was illegal if people were like "ok, blacks can get the same education as white people, can we move on to more important issues now". Our country was founded on personal freedom so if a group of people are being discriminated against and having their freedoms taken from them I think that is an important issue.

Very well put. I can tell you did much more research on the topic than me, lol. That is pretty much what I think every time someone says "the Civil War wasn't about slavery, it was about state's rights". They are only half right. Like you said, it was about state's rights...the right to have slaves. The Confederate Flag does not offend me; I don't like the flag and I don't have a like seeing it flown everywhere (Florida is full of them), but I also think it is someone's 1st Amendment right to fly whatever flag they want whether it be the US flag or the Confederate flag (shit you could fly the ISIS flag for all I care). The only thing I disagree with is flying the Confederate flag on government property. The only flags that should fly on government property are the US flag and the state flag.

So allowing people to have the freedom to marry who they want (which is a personal matter) is forcing something on an entire nation? Also, you seem to be fixated on the 10th Amendment. I suggest you read the other parts of the Constitution too, such as Article III which establishes the Supreme Court and says what they can and can't do. You should also look into the Supreme Court case because there is another amendment you are forgetting, the 14th Amendment which provides provides equal protection and rights to all citizens under the law. The first section in the 14th Amendment even says "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". So looking at the 14th Amendment you could say that all the states that denied marriage to same sex couples are depriving them of life and liberty and they are abridging a privilege of certain citizens.

I think denying someone the freedom to marry who they want to marry is unconstitutional. The 10th Amendment says that what the Supreme Court is doing is constitutional. The Constitution says that the Supreme Court is supposed to review cases and make interpretations on the law. That is exactly what happened. They reviewed the case and decided that the law was unconstitutional. I don't care about pleasing anyone. I care about people having the freedom that our country claims to have. This was an important issue and the only people I ever hear say "lets move on to more important issues" are people that have a problem with gay marriage.

Nobody wants to erase the Civil War from history. They just want to start flying the flag of a rebel cause that fought to keep slavery alive. Nobody wants to deny anyone's heritage either. You can acknowledge your heritage and be proud of it without flying the flag of a racist nation. Germans are proud of their heritage but they don't feel the need to fly the Nazi flag and they still realize that they were wrong during WWII. The Confederate Flag is a symbol of racism. The country who flew that flag fought the US to keep slavery. If that is not a symbol of racism then I don't know what is. And yes, slavery and racism was around much longer under the Stars and Stripes however we learned from our mistakes and accepted that it was wrong. Our nation grew up and said that slavery was wrong and it should be around anymore. The South did not do that. The South fought to keep slavery. Nobody is saying that CSA soldiers shouldn't be treated honorably. People just don't want a flag that represents slavery, racism, and rebellion to fly on government property. Actually I'm willing to bet slavery has killed millions of people. Also, why are you down play it? So if something doesn't kill as many people as the Holocaust it makes it not as bad? Wrong is wrong, I don't care if it killed 10 people or 10 million people. You keep saying that slavery is not the reason they went to war. Are you denying history? It is written everywhere. As cp207 said, the CSA revolved around slavery. Their whole country was founded because they wanted to preserve slavery. And nobody is saying that the North wasn't racist, but the North still thought that slavery should be abolished. And the reason the CSA are "the black sheep" is not because they lost, it is because they fought to keep slavery. Yes, slavery was necessary to the South's economy but racism was a part of it. Why do you think all slavery were African American? If slavery wasn't about racism then why did they only have black slaves? Why did they treat African American's (slaves or free men) like shit? Why did we have racist laws in our country up until the 1960s? Just because people thought slavery was ok in the past doesn't mean that we cannot evolve and realize that what we had been doing for hundreds of years was wrong. I don't know where you went to school but when I was in school they taught me history. They didn't put a spin on it, they didn't say that the South were a bunch of evil slave owners, and they didn't say that the North were angels. They taught me that the South wanted to keep slavery both for economic reasons and because of racism. They taught me that even though free African Americans in the North were treated better and had more freedoms in the North they were still discriminated against. I feel like I am repeating myself for the fourth time but I'll say it again: the South was racist and wanted to keep black slaves. That is an indisputable fact of history and there is plenty of evidence supporting it. You can continue to deny it but it doesn't change the truth. I have never in my life saw so many people that deny facts of history. And nobody is saying that the North wasn't racist and nobody is saying that the North were perfect little angels. I don't understand why defenders of the CSA are saying "well if you are going to call the South racist you have to call the North racist too". We have all acknowledged that fact, it is part of history, I have not heard one person say that the North wasn't racist.

Yes I am saying there is no simple or definite solution. Completely banning guns would not reduce the gun violence to 0, but it may be more effective than current laws (or maybe not). Whether the quote mattered or not is the opinion of the reader. It was relevant to the post I made and personally I thought it was a fitting quote based on what I had said. Just because somebody has the last word in a debate doesn't mean that every counter point before that is invalidated. The topic dies out eventually, people get tired of making posts. There are good points made by lots of people in that topic, just because they decided (for whatever reason) to stop posting doesn't mean they were wrong or that their points are no longer valid.

Actually that topic didn't end in anyone getting "invalidated"; there is no right or wrong answer when it comes to gun control. And Riley used that quote because it related to what my post was about. You are making it sound as if he just picked a random quote that had nothing to do with anything and was from some random person and posted it on here.

As much as I agree with you, you have to understand that guns are so entrenched in American society that I don't think there will ever be a time where Americans will give up their guns. Unlike most other societies we don't care for our fellow man as much and we are not as courteous, we are a lot less likely to give up something to better society as a whole. The attitude of people in the US today is nothing but "I want it so I should have it because it is my right" and they are absolutely right, it is their right according to our laws. I think when you look at other well developed countries that have much stricter rules on guns the amount of gun violence is a lot less. Australia is a perfect example of a country that used to have relaxed gun laws and made a huge change after a huge shooting in their country. The key difference though is people in those countries realized that there was an issue and agreed the best way of fixing it was to give up some of their rights to help their fellow man, this is something you will not likely see in the US.

Do you have numbers on how many realistic plots have been foiled? I think the number would be a lot lower than you think. My point is being why should we wait for right wing (or even left wing for that matter) extremist to start becoming a bigger threat before we shift focus on them? They are a much more real threat to terrorism in the US that Muslims. Now more than ever Islamic extremists have been focusing more on the Middle East than planning attacks on the west, especially the US. They are focusing most of their resources in the Middle East because that is where the war is. That is why you see these extremist organizations encouraging people to commit lone wolf attacks because, one: it is harder for law enforcement to detect and prevent than a larger plot, and two: organizations such as ISIS have a limited number of skilled men such as bomb makers and other skilled fighters that they can spare on planning a large scale attack that may or may not be successful, not to mention that they are probably already on a watch list and would have an extremely difficult time getting into the US. My point is we shouldn't be reactive when it comes to terrorism, we need to be proactive. We should take extremist, no matter what affiliation, seriously and come down hard on them. We shouldn't wait for another Oklahoma City Bombing, WTC Bombing, or 9/11 to take a group seriously. They have been inside our borders for a long time and I think eventually one of them will decide it is time to do something and when that time comes they will have a much easier time planning and carrying out an attack than a Islamic extremist from Syria, Iraq, or else where in the world.

Actually Riley is right. There haven't been nearly as many shootings or other violent attacks from Muslims compared to right wing extremist (which are not the same things as conservatives). The media just doesn't cover those stories as much because nobody cares. Everyone is scared of Muslims nowadays so the media is playing off that fear to get better ratings and push their agendas.

The biggest factor that pushed the South over the edge and led to the Civil War was slavery. The South thought it should be up to the states to decide if they allow slavery or not and the federal government didn't see it that way. The South relied on slavery for their economy which was much more agricultural than the North's. I am originally from the North too and I lived in Florida for 8 years. I also have one side of my family entirely from southern Virginia and Tennessee so I have lots of family members who still think that the South was actually right in the Civil War. I am also in the military, none of that changes my views on the subject though. What evidence do you have that most CSA soldiers were not racist and didn't care for slavery? If the Confederate flag is flown to respect the fallen CSA soldiers then I assume you think it is ok to fly the Nazi flag to show respect to the fallen Wehrmacht soldiers as well? I know your view isn't very radical but that is what I think is wrong with our society. It is still acceptable to fly a flag that represents racism and a dark time in our history.

While there was still racism in the North they still wanted to abolish slavery which upset the South. So if hindsight is 20/20 then why do states still fly the flag of a country that wanted to continue to keep slaves after everyone else wanted to abolish it?

It isn't necessarily gun violence on the rise, it is the media paying more attention to it now. The media focuses on stories that they think the public is interested in at the moment in order to boost their ratings. They all have an agenda to push and it applies to all news outlets, none of them are innocent. There is so much else that is going on in our country and in the world but if police brutality and shootings are trending in social media this week then that is what the media will cover.

Yes, part of the reason they wanted to keep slaves was for economic purposes but it was also out of hatred for African Americans. You can read about how they described African Americans and the crazy things they said about them. It surprises me so much that people today still deny these things. That is almost the equivalent as someone flying the Nazi Flag and saying "No it doesn't represent genocide and hatred, it represents my aryan heritage and the history of my country". You say that those states fly those flags to honor the men who fought for what they believe in. So I am assuming it is ok to fly the Nazi flag to honor all the Germans who fought what they believed in; and most German soldiers didn't even really know what they were fighting for as opposed to Confederate soldiers who knew exactly why the south wanted to secede.

The civil war was about state's rights and the thing that got the south really pissed off was the federal government wanted to abolish slavery. The south didn't like that and they thought it should be up to the states to choose whether or not they allow slaves or not. So yes, the civil war was about state's rights...state's rights to keep slaves.

I would like to see that article because I am sure it is either completely false or taking something out of context. I know at the federal law enforcement level there are plenty of people who track track violent extremist from both the left and right. Law enforcement knows that there are very dangerous extremist (not just Muslims) in our country and they do what they can to stop them but it is a very complicated situation.

True, but there is always a very vocal minority when it comes to every situation and unfortunately they usually get the most attention from the media. You can thank people like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and all the other people that said the police were "too militarized" in the wake of the protests in Ferguson and Baltimore. They wanted the police to scale back and have a "friendlier" look to them yet they turn around and complain that we do not take a tough enough stance against domestic terrorism. And this is where I sit back and think to myself "I knew I was right" because look at them now, crying how they need the police and how the legal system isn't doing enough. I agree, having the confederate flag over the state capitol and naming streets after confederate generals is pretty racist and it is wrong. I also agree that the conservatives in the government right now are very hypocritical.