The Confederacy and the Cross

Living in Florida, I see Confederate flags all the time; in places where they offer to take “Old Time” photographs, in novelty stores along any major highway, faux battle sites, on beach towels, bikinis, race cars, and goofy license plates. I have no idea if those places are run or operated by racists. Maybe its because I considered the South the losers that I considered the Confederate-promoting items as simply something to sell at a profit, like a pair of shoes, so it is kept on hand for commercial, not bigoted, reasons. But that is derived from my ignorant white-centric view of the flag.

Still, I always wondered why they wanted to actually fly the Confederate Battle flag, like the huge one near Tampa at the intersection of I-4 and I-75. The war is over, the South lost, Lee surrendered, the Confederacy no longer exists, so what is it supposed to represent? No one flies a South Vietnamese flag anymore. We don’t fly the British flag from the colonial period, and you don’t see the flag of Mussolini’s Italy on flagpoles anywhere. So why fly the flag of the defeated side from a distant war? I suspect the recent attraction to flying the flag of the Lost Cause has to do with our current president, or rather, his skin color. Nothing satisfies some people like jabbing Obama and other like-minded people in the eye with the symbol of the slavery issue in a war that split the Union for four years. The flag's supporters always say "...but the Confederate Battle flag is not about hate, it’s about heritage". Really?

 Look at all that heritage on display.                    

Neo-Nazis, skinheads, the KKK, and other White Supremacist groups also fly the United States flag because you have to broaden your appeal to the people who live in states other than former Confederate ones. But the most frequent flag used for the past half century, with virtually no complaints from white Southerners, is the Confederate Battle flag, not the actual flag of the Confederate States of America; the Battle Flag. With whom are they in a shooting match? Defenders claim that just because somebody misuses the Battle Flag doesn't mean it represents anything bad. Alright, then what part did the bigots and racists get wrong?
       I understand why there was the call to remove the Confederate Battle Flag from in front of the capitol building in Columbia, South Carolina, and from the Mississippi flag. Walmart stopped carrying anything with the flag on it and many other stores have followed suit. Naturally, this will create quite a black market for sale of the flag. But those who have demanded its removal, or fought any display of it, seem to imagine the flag’s disappearance will signal the end of racism. As the band Aerosmith sings…“Dream On”. It won’t happen because the attitude is not based on the flag. The flag is a symptom, not the cause

                    Not much has changed in the state of Texas either

Ignorant, under-educated, narrow-minded bigots will not let go of their hate, and they hate a lot. For starters: liberals, moderates, gays, democrats, Yankees, carpet-baggers, the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, long hairs, Prius owners, Jews, Catholics, Muslims, Mexican’s, Native Americans (who were here before the bigot's ancestors arrived) and, of course, blacks. You see, blacks were freed by damned Yankees after the war and the people of the former Confederacy were forced, FORCED, to live in equality, side by side with them rather than owning them like animals and keeping them penned up in shacks and barns like…well, like cows, pigs and chickens. This ain’t right. Blacks used to be property and now they’re free…To live next to us…And use the same roads, buildings, water, and food, even breathe the same air! Hell, it’s like we now have to live in harmony with free-range farm animals. Damn them fuckin’ Yankees!

      When idiots lack understanding, comprehension is often found in firepower.

 The Battle flag’s presence across the south has been a simmering issue for over 50 years but the recent impetus to remove it stems from Dylann Roof killing nine people in cold blood this past June at a Charleston, SC church. Some people claim that since Roof was shown holding the Confederate Battle flag, it had a hand in inciting his hostility toward blacks, and that makes it's all the more reason to banish it. But he is also shown in shorts, t-shirt, and sunglasses. Are these any more indicative of a racist? No. Racism is a learned response from reading racist material, and from hearing about how and why one group is superior to another. Where might that have happened?

                                  One thing leads to another

 Many won’t like this aspect of the racism rampant in this country, but it is because of the Bible…a book that, at its core, is an explanation about why one group of people is exalted over all others. The Biblical god claims the “Jews are his chosen people”. When only a select few are glorified as “God’s favorites”, a two-tiered system is automatically generated where one is considered superior while the others are inferior. This is exactly what this biblical standard has fostered.
       The bible also shames blacks because Ham (the father of Canaan and the original ‘black’ according to many bible interpreters) saw his drunken father Noah sleeping naked in a tent. How stupid is it to condemn an entire race because of a fable? The bible specifically endorses slavery in Exodus 21. Jesus never condemns the practice either, and even describes how and when slaves are to be beaten. The bible was the justification for slavery being established and maintained in the U.S. and other “Christian” countries. It was the Southerners' justification for the preservation of slavery when Northerners had abandoned the practice as the North became more industrialized. Frequently, the bible is held up as the reason for the abolitionist movement, but it was really in spite of the bible. Quakers led much of the charge and did not use scripture for their reasoning. It was because they believed human beings should not own other human beings...to hell with what the bible stated.

       But the men who wrote the Confederate constitution did not see it that way. They explicitly wrote in the document that they recognized the Christian God (since 99% of Southerners were Christian) with the phrase “invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God”. Article IV, Section 3(3) specifies holding blacks against their will in perpetuity with “the institution of negro slavery as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress.” Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens made it crystal clear that the Confederates considered the white race superior when on March 21, 1861 in a speech in Savannah, Georgia, he said “With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro. Subordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system.” Notice the mention of Canaan from the bible as justification. 
       The roots of Western slavery stem from the bible, the roots of the Confederacy stem from the bible, and the roots of racism are found in the very same book. Is it any wonder the Confederates chose a cross to be on their battle flag?

Atheists 9/11 cross lawsuit dismissed

A federal court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by the American Atheists that could have affected the 9/11 remembrance display. They had hoped to ban the steel beam cross taken from the rubble of the World Trade Center on September 13, 2001 from being put in the museum as part of the memorial to the 9/11 victims.

Christians assume it is a victory for their beliefs at the federal level, but it is not. The decision does not mean Christian symbols need to be afforded special consideration, that Christianity trumps all other religions, or that whatever Christians want should be deferred to. It’s because allowing the cross in the museum is a devastating indictment of their god. Without any evidence, Christians have decided that the cross was god’s way of showing how much he loves us even in moments of trial and tribulation, and they are desperate for acknowledgement of their religious beliefs. That is why they want the cross in the 9/11 memorial, not realizing that it shows that god, A) Didn’t know what was going to happen, B) Didn’t care what happened, or C) Doesn’t exist. (If they existed, what creator would be that ignorant, capricious or malevolent?) Some could argue that 9/11 shows the believers of Allah triumphed over the believers in Jehovah since it was Muslim extremists who successfully brought the Towers down. And what did Jehovah do? According to the Christians, he sought to console us with basically a scavenger hunt in the debris. So inclusion of the cross at the memorial symbolizes: ‘Nothing protected the people who died here. A vivid imagination doesn’t change what transpired. Only the gullible worshipers of a made up supreme being find this metal crossbar meaningful.’

As a side note, how hard is it to find crossed steel beams in high rise structures? If the building didn’t contain any crossed members and the fallen debris fused and formed a cross, that might be more interesting, but it wouldn’t prove anything. Christians so want god and Jesus to be real, anything, even a human-constructed cross beam, gives their beliefs validity.

Atheists pursued the lawsuit, correctly perceiving that Christians would assume god was giving them a sign that in the middle of tragedy, all would be okay, that death was not final, that the cross' presence in the ruins shows we’re a Christian nation, and that all need to come to Christ through the cross. See, if you're from outside of the Christian faith; you're out of luck...god only favors Christians.

If their god was real, Christians have to concede he watched over the destruction of the World Trade Centers, the strike on the Pentagon, and the deaths of around 3000 people, did nothing to prevent any of it, and then showed his love - after the fact - by arranging one of the thousands of steel crossbeams in the mountains of WTC rubble to be discovered looking vaguely like the cross Jesus was reputedly killed on. That way, all would be inspired by its presence and know god loves us. Does this strike anyone else as absolute madness?

And yet the atheists are the ones who are considered crazy and need to explain their irrational belief.