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MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

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Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#821

Post by dragonwriter »

ars wrote: post #653
Lendal wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they had innocent motives, or maybe they didn't. It's irrelevant. Attempting to normalize a symbol that for millions of people stands for brutality, terrorism and oppression, doesn't change its nature for that population of people. Now you might say that it doesn't matter how those people feel. They're not us. They have their culture and we have ours. Well, what if 10 years down the road there was a new hit sho…

> Now you might say that it doesn't matter how those people feel. They're not us. What?? How in the universe are you getting there? Talk about a strawman! The real explanation is much simpler: They didn't know the flag was racist. Because, despite attempts to rewrite history, until recently most people did not know that flag was racist. I mean, even the producer of the show, who went out of his way to hire black acto…

> They didn't know the flag was racist. Because, despite attempts to rewrite history, until recently most people did not know that flag was racist.

Everyone has always known the flag was a symbol of racism. That's why it was adopted. That's what it was deliberately revived for in the 20th century—as a symbol specifically against racial integration and civil rights—and what it was actively and consistently used as throughout the civil rights movement.

Adults when the show was produced, less than a decade and a half after the Civil Rights Act of 1965, would not generally have failed to understand the symbolism of the flag, or the naming of the car after General Lee.

It's possible that the individual producer was ignorant, but TV shows are not made by one person alone in a vacuum.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#822

Post by KozmoNau7 »

stevekemp wrote: post #751
sukilot wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an argument for banning swastikas, not banning anyone who displays a swastika. And before you say "come on, swastikas are pretty extreme", remember the moral panic we just went through when 4chan trolls convinced people that the OK hand sign was a "one-sided version ofna White Power" sign and got people fired from their jobs for making the sign.

Today there was a news story about Finland dropping the swastika from their air-force logo: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53249645

Which is something I think deserves a bit of context. It had been the Finnish air force's official insignia since 1918, so it was unrelated to the German Nazi Party, although of course that association was inevitable once they seized power.

Similarly, the stone elephant holding the gate building to the old Carlsberg grounds in Copenhagen bear huge swastikas on their sides, since they were erected in 1901:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_Tower,_Carlsberg#/med...

There are a lot of swastikas still present in old sculptures and designs with no relation to nazism.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#823

Post by acdha »

themacguffinman wrote: post #775
ars wrote: post #769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, but most people don't realize the flag is a symbol of slavery, they just think it's a symbol of the South. For example take a state flag from a rebel state (and assume the flag has not changed since the civil war). If someone flew that flag today, would you think they are implying state rebellion, or just pride in their state? It's the same with the confederate flag, to most people it's just a flag that…

A state flag can be ambiguous because it refers to a state, which is an ambiguous entity with a long and varied history. The Confederate States of America (CSA) is not an ambiguous entity. From beginning to end in its short 5 year history, it was made to fight for black slavery. It existed for no other purpose and was subsequently disbanded when slavery was abolished. Literally the only heritage the CSA created in it…

I’d even go as far as acknowledging that many people were miseducated about the history of the CSA - our local used bookstore just had a kid’s ABC book about Virginia stating that Lee was anti-slavery - but that doesn’t excuse what happens when you learn the truth. The decent reaction is to apologize and stop using it; people who don’t change are just saying they’re okay with the racism but don’t want to have any personal accountability for it.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#824

Post by timsally »

marcusverus wrote: post #806
timsally wrote: post #782

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can someone be "defending" themselves when they initiated hostilities? [1] Unilateral succession is illegal. Those flying the confederate flag were not defending themselves, they were committing treason. Our Union is an indestructible one. It was safeguarded then by the U.S. Army who will continue to safeguard it as long as America endures. It feels me with great sadness to think of the blood that was spilled, bu…

> Following the declaration of secession by South Carolina on December 20, 1860, its authorities demanded that the U.S. Army abandon its facilities in Charleston Harbor. On December 26, Major Robert Anderson of the U.S. Army surreptitiously moved his small command from the vulnerable Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island to Fort Sumter, a substantial fortress built on an island controlling the entrance of Charleston Har…

Your entire premise is built on a faulty foundation-- step 1 in your summary is an illegal act and treason. At the time of succession they were firmly aware the United States considered it as such. After the war, Texas v. White is the SCOTUS case that enshrined this position: unilateral secession is illegal.

After seceding those who were illegally occupying the land were the secessionists themselves. You cannot unilaterally seceded from the Union. Hundreds of thousands of my countrymen died in the Civil War to establish this principle; it is the law of the land and to imply otherwise is to dishonor their sacrifice.

No unilateral secession, period. That is what 350,000+ U.S. military personnel died for. If you believe it was legal for those folks to secede I suggest you renounce your U.S. citizenship and leave.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#825

Post by amanaplanacanal »

daenz wrote: post #688
ideals wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your ISP is a utility. Twitter is not. Your ISP cannot block you from hosting your own blog on your own servers. Even if your ISP did, there are places which will allow you to host whatever you want. Alex Jones is still online for example. WikiLeaks is still online. This argument is always about people complaining that they don't get to participate on the big platforms. But if there was so much demand for people shou…

>people shouting about racist loser shit This is exactly what I was talking about here[0]. You don't want a place to post freely to exist because you already have a preconceived idea of what people will say, and you are against that. This kind of attitude is hidden behind so many of the "but you can already do X, kinda" responses I've seen before in these discussions. Why not just lead by saying you don't think a gov…

I don’t have any problem with a government provided free speech platform. It would be an interesting experiment. But how are you going to get Congress to fund something that will host racists and pornographers?

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#826

Post by krapp »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #825
daenz wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>people shouting about racist loser shit This is exactly what I was talking about here[0]. You don't want a place to post freely to exist because you already have a preconceived idea of what people will say, and you are against that. This kind of attitude is hidden behind so many of the "but you can already do X, kinda" responses I've seen before in these discussions. Why not just lead by saying you don't think a gov…

I don’t have any problem with a government provided free speech platform. It would be an interesting experiment. But how are you going to get Congress to fund something that will host racists and pornographers?

The Republicans will allow the racists, and the Democrats will allow the pornographers. Done and done.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#827

Post by KozmoNau7 »

marcusverus wrote: post #806
timsally wrote: post #782

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can someone be "defending" themselves when they initiated hostilities? [1] Unilateral succession is illegal. Those flying the confederate flag were not defending themselves, they were committing treason. Our Union is an indestructible one. It was safeguarded then by the U.S. Army who will continue to safeguard it as long as America endures. It feels me with great sadness to think of the blood that was spilled, bu…

> Following the declaration of secession by South Carolina on December 20, 1860, its authorities demanded that the U.S. Army abandon its facilities in Charleston Harbor. On December 26, Major Robert Anderson of the U.S. Army surreptitiously moved his small command from the vulnerable Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island to Fort Sumter, a substantial fortress built on an island controlling the entrance of Charleston Har…

SC initiated hostilities by seceding. It is a clear attack on a nation to secede from it, something that is classified as treason.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#828

Post by KozmoNau7 »

anjc wrote: post #619
gamblor956 wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Southern pride is another way of saying "treason against the U.S." that resulted in the mass murder of hundreds of thousands so that a few people could treat other people as property. The winner gets to make the rules. The South has had 150+ years to celebrate their treason. It's more than enough time that the winners put that symbol to rest.

How can seceded states commit treason against a union that they aren't part of? > resulted in the mass murder of hundreds of thousands In other words, a war

They seceded from the union, which is an act of treason.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#829

Post by naasking »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #814
naasking wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My comment was targeted at the claim that mild censorship on privately owned platforms should be regulated in such a fashion, because their users depend on it. If this incident happened in a vacuum, I would agree. Unfortunately that isn't the case. The censorship ranges from mild to extreme these days, and now even the mild cases drive the wedge deeper. The unrest in the US is only just beginning I think. Anyway, t…

Private property is not the only thing that matters, but Congress cannot taking away a company’s free speech rights, per the constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court. You might not like it, but that is the current reality. Personally I like it. I would much rather have corporations decide which speech is allowable on their platforms than have the government decide which speech is allowable.

> but Congress cannot taking away a company’s free speech rights, per the constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court.

This is not quite correct. Corporations used to be bound by their own charter until Congress relaxed those restrictions. Congress makes the rules under which corporations can operate. The Supreme Court ruled on how the current rules should be interpreted against the Constitution, but those rules are fairly arbitrary.

In any case, I'm not even suggesting "taking away their free speech rights".

> I would much rather have corporations decide which speech is allowable on their platforms than have the government decide which speech is allowable.

This is a false dichotomy.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#830

Post by jcranmer »

henriquez wrote: post #808
jcranmer wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To completely dismiss the more prominent factors at play including states rights Question #1: Name three states rights the South supposedly aruged for. Question #2: Count how many of those rights they actually granted to their own states. For it being supposedly such a major factor in their succession, states rights are conspicuously silent in both the ordinances of succession, contemporary oratory, and in the text…

Your questions miss the point. The Confederate states wanted to be free from federal economic control. Such a freedom is not an individual liberty that would be conferred by the state upon its citizens but rather an organizational mainstay that would define the state’s relationship with the federal government. Slavery was the tipping point but the conflict goes much deeper than that.

The only federal economic control they objected to was the abolitionism movement that would rid them of slaves. At an extreme stretch, maybe you could claim objections over federal industrial policy and internal improvements, but you'll have to observe that there was zero mention of this in their ordinances of succession, they were avid supporters of this on the state level, and despite their constitutional prohibitions against it, they enacted such policies during the Civil War due to their abysmal infrastructure. And as a footnote, it is worth pointing out that a large part of the animus against internal improvements is driven by fear of the dilution of wealth in the slaveholding elite.
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