The Confederacy was About Slavery

How much of her epiphany do you attribute to her just knowing how the public opinion winds were shifting, and doing what a retail politician does?

"Retail politician," that's good, i'll have to remember that.

OK maybe she shouldnt have done anything with that flag, would that then satisfy your seemingly predigested notions about anyone who isnt black ? She was apparently getting more heat from "the Southern heritage" crowd than she was getting support from black leaders.

She provided the leadership to do what was right, ya wanna be snotty about it, fine.

Ya took that in kind of a personally pejorative direction, farmerman. No need for that.

I was merely responding to something that you said that I would have been called racist had I said it. SO PULEEZE,lets not try to scramble for the moral high grounds without a good rope

When did the Southern states develop their separate identity, perhaps of Dixie? And, whenever that was, was there a Northern abolitionist movement at that time? If the two do not mesh chronologically, it might be hard not to say there were necessary co-factors, like tariffs, and keeping the territories as a place where white men could find employment, as reasons that added to the slavery issue.

And, I have read an author that believed that there were powerful Southerners that envisioned a greater Confederacy that would have allowed the Confederacy to become a mini-empire of sorts. So, since 1889 (when the Union really came into being after the Revolutionary War), it would only have been 71 years of independence from Britain, and then the North would have had hostile nations above them and below them. Going back to Mother England might have been the only choice, so fighting a war to "complete surrender' (based on the Emancipation Proclamation) was really the only thing the administration could do.

There was a PBS documentary just the other week about the abolitionist movement. Apparently, many of the abolitionists were Evangelical ministers that believed that similar to instant conversion, that Evangelical Christianity promulgated, the planation owners would see the error of their ways, if they were educated. Anti-slavery tracts were written and mailed to many plantation owners. It was just waving a red flag in front of a bull, so to speak. Based on that reality, it might also be said that the Confederacy was about two totally different moralities. Slavery only being the sin du jour.

The flag is down and many more have been put up . Where did you get the idea that force would make your point of view appreciated by those you were forcing ? Did that work when you had your bloodiest war ever ? Did the south say "Oh thats what they meant...I get it now...we must change" or is there still anger in the south ?

Little Betsy Ross can sleep safe and sound tonight, there is no more evil in the world . The flag is down .

Right on, farmerman.

Nikki Haley:
"For many people in our state the flag stands for traditions that are noble. Traditions of history, of heritage and of ancestry. The hate-filled murderer who massacred our brothers and sisters in Charleston has a sick and twisted view of the flag. In no way does he reflect the people of our state who respect, and in many ways, revere it."

This is the kind of mealy-mouthed pandering that makes it difficult for me to see Haley as heroic. That battle flag was carried by forces who fought to retain the institution of American chattel slavery, and was dusted off and flown 150 years after the end of the war in direct defiance of the civil rights movement that was taking hold. It was raised in 1961 over the SC state house by people that didn't like the movement toward equal opportunity for blacks to work, vote, LIVE. The "heritage" they bleat so proudly about was full of torture, rape and murder. Dylan Root wasn't confused about what symbol he wanted to identify with.

Yes, after years of resisting it, and with the impetus of the whole world watching what the governor of the state with the nine murders by the white supremacist would do, Nikki Haley gave her nod to taking down the flag. You pat her on the back and give her all the credit you want. I think the only people who need to be heaped with praise for simply doing the right thing are either children or idiots..

When you consider the flag was put up as a protest to desegregation, there can be no doubt what it really represents.

Yep. And yet the 'argument' about what it truly represents goes on and on. There's gotta be some willful ignorance, some deluded denial and some straight up lyin' goin on.

I hear you, loud and clear. I've just finished watching Chuck Todd, Meet the Press, interviewing Governor Nikki Haley. During the interview he asked her about South Carolina voter ID laws which restricts many minorities from voting. Haley inferred just because she was glad to see the Confederate Flag come down and had asked for it to be done, that in no way effected her other state policies. She said she thought voter ID was a good thing for everyone.

Voter ID or voter registration restriction is a GOP political strategy, designed to give Republicans the edge in all public elections. Their policies are so repulsive that mainstream Americans run like the devil were after them. Make no mistake, Nikki Haley is an opportunist and is angling for a cabinet position in a GOP administration or the second spot on a GOP ticket. When she was first broached to take down the Flag she said "balderdash! There is no such thing as racism in SC after all they elected me an Indian-American woman to be governor, so what are you people talking about?"

apparently your "Im a liberal in all things" is showing. If you dont like the majority of her politics (As I do not) You should still give her some credit for standing a ground and getting the deed done.
We liberals can act a lot like the GOP , someone must have made up some rules that we buy it all even the crap part.

I'm at least a liberal. That may be too dainty a word. I'm glad that - for whatever reason - she ok'd it taken down. I don't have to like her. Now that I know more about her, I'm not surprised about her takes on things. Disappointed, especially re the i.d.b.s., but hey.

You dont have to like her , but you should admit here that the Tea Partiers are not wrong about everything. Then Liberals would do us all a favor by instead of bashing and insulting Tea Party people they instead looked for more areas where both sides could work together to make America a better place.

It will not happen though, because as often as they insist that they are the smart ones, as many times as they insist that they are the only ones working to make America a better place, where the rubber meets the road they as bad as or worst than the other side in most important things. Washington is broken and barely functioning because BOTH sides worked tirelessly of long periods of time to make it so.

I'm completely ready to admit a Teapublican is right,
in every case where he changes to a liberal position on an issue and starts agreeing with me.

There are many things they get right.
For instance, they've figured out drinking H2SO4 is bad for them.

thats honest. I think snood is posing his political worldviews in such a way that itd be impossible for a GOP to be right about anything.

Snort, I pretty much agree with him on that, but the GOP isn't a monolith, though it sure seems so.

I have two conservative cousins. We have disagreed on a lot of stuff for decades. On the other hand, P. went to help in Mississippi back in '63 and I doubt she has changed on that.

Definitely entitled to what you think. But from the way you approach my posts, it'd be hard for ME to be right about anything. And for the record, I clearly agreed that Haley did something right, I just think that what she did at the time she did it was about the least she could do, for the most political bounce.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/02/politics/confederate-flag-poll-racism-southern-pride/

I have not seen a poll from her state but I gotta figure it runs closer to 50/50. This tea party gov went on record as supporting something that a lot of her base does not support, she took a political hit for doing what you consider the least she could do. You are either stupid or you are minimizing her efforts, or both.