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Apple Removes American Civil War Games from the App Store

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Re: Apple Removes American Civil War Games from the App Store

#101

Post by paulhauggis »

hackuser wrote: post #81
paulhauggis wrote: post #41

Political correctness has gone way too far in this country. When the Boston Bomber was on trial, there was a point made that his actions, because it was in the name of Islam, in no way reflects the actions of the entire religion or culture. Yet in South Carolina, the actions of one crazy person somehow now reflects on the entire culture and we need to remove the confederate flag. I don't see Amazon and Ebay removing…

In HN and other forums, I notice a strong correlation between the amount of prejudice in a post, and the amount of anger and ignorance in it. There is no reason to tie these issues together. There are many problems in our country; to say one shouldn't be fixed because others persist is silly (and what you describe isn't a problem, but a benefit to our country). It's also very sad that someone would casually and ignor…

"It's not Muslims or Southern white conservatives that are the problem, it's the bigoted and hateful minorities in all groups -- think what a wonderful world it would be without their anger, discrimination and violence."

An entire culture should not be blamed for the actions of one. In Islam or with the confederate flag. But when it comes to the confederate flag, we are blaming the entire culture and removing the flag.

This is my point.

"That's not true:"

Since we are comparing the entire culture of people, this includes attacks worldwide..not just in the US. Also, do we know that all of the "Homegrown Extremists" had confederate flags? It seems you are lumping all racists into this group.

Re: Apple Removes American Civil War Games from the App Store

#102

Post by Someone1234 »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #25

It isn't even historically accurate anyway because the CSA never actually used that flag. It was briefly used as the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia.

What you're saying doesn't seem historically accurate:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_of_the_Confederate_State...

Even being extremely pedantic it doesn't seem accurate, that symbol was used all over the place during the American Civil war to support the Confederated states (both as a battle flag, and as their second and within their third official flags).

Essentially when the war ended that was their primary symbol, and would be completely appropriate to be used in a war game about the American civil war.

Re: Apple Removes American Civil War Games from the App Store

#103

Post by norea-armozel »

yequalsx wrote: post #76

Here is part of Mississippi's Declaration of Secession: "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product, which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the…

Burying our head in the sand about the nature of our history won't make the racism we have today go away. If anything, it will aggravate it further as racists will find this a tool to promote their agenda.

Re: Apple Removes American Civil War Games from the App Store

#104

Post by MBCook »

This is a very Apple move.

When I saw it, I wasn't surprised. There are Civil War games where it makes total sense for the flag to show, and there are probably a few tasteless "The south will rise again" things that never should have been allowed on in the first place.

But it takes a lot of people and time to figure it out for each app on the store. And when it comes to this kind of stuff Apple doesn't like spending lots of people and time on these kind of things.

Blanket bans are so much easier to implement.

Quite disappointing, but not surprising. And they'll probably reverse parts of it within days. Or new games will slip through and people will forget about it.

Re: Apple Removes American Civil War Games from the App Store

#105

Post by __z »

melling wrote: post #27
joshuapants wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. It's one thing to stop selling actual Confederate flags, it's another to try and scrub any mention of a historical event or depiction of a certain symbol in context. Apple is certainly within their rights to do this, but I think it's silly and impulsive.

No, it's wrong to stop selling the Confederate flag too. We don't seem to value freedom of speech and expression like we should. We are basically going on modern witch hunts against people who disagree with anything that's not politically correct.

If you want a Confederate battle flag there are lots of places you can buy one. If you feel they aren't available enough to your liking you are free to make one or even start selling them yourself.

Walmart making a business decision to stop selling something that is racist has nothing to do with freedom of speech. It would also be a poor business decision to start selling ISIS flags, Nazi symbolism, those racist figurines that were once popular, a holocaust reenactment video game, KKK robes, or any other merchandise that divides their customer base. So what?

Part of freedom is the freedom to choose what you do and don't sell.

Re: Apple Removes American Civil War Games from the App Store

#107

Post by bobcostas55 »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #60
noarchy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>free speech isn't always the solution >I'm not from the states There's a cultural difference that rears its head here. Free speech in the US seems to be nearly-absolute when compared to even its northern neighbour (Canada), which has some provisions for "hate speech". Europe, from what I can see, is even more interventionist. I'm not using this post to argue for or against either perspective, but only to show that p…

Very true. I don't like the idea of being so rigid though. It seems like Americans stick to the idea of things like free speech or right to bear arms (basically constitutional ideas) without considering the fact they may not be right or times have changed. It's almost a religious zealotry as evidenced by the quick down voting of my post. NB (to everyone not noarchy): Down down vote things you disagree with - down vot…

>Down down vote things you disagree with - down vote things that don't add to the conversation.

The irony is palpable.

Re: Apple Removes American Civil War Games from the App Store

#108

Post by smanuel »

nsxwolf wrote: post #77
JohnGB wrote: post #9

So what about all WWII games that have a swastika, or any number of historical flags that are simply referencing history rather than supporting an ideal? This is plain ridiculous.

First thing I checked was Wolfenstein 3D - and it's still there. The messaging on this is really bad. You can't feign outrage at symbols of slavery without doing the same for symbols of genocide.

Well, I guess that's a very delicate subject to talk about.

In Wolfenstein 3D you can't play a nazzi shooting Americans (for example). You play the good guy shooting the bad guys.

I also don't think the problem is the flag. IMO the real problem is that in most of the games you can play on both sides. Kids can easily start identifying themselves as the side on which they play and forget the important details. Like... history.

Re: Apple Removes American Civil War Games from the App Store

#109

Post by yequalsx »

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #94
yequalsx wrote: post #76

Here is part of Mississippi's Declaration of Secession: "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product, which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the…

>The Confederate flag represents and evil institution The US flag represents slavery as well. We changed it to something more socially acceptable, but we moved it to the prisons, stocked it with racist laws, and to this day continue to profit off of forced labor. To say nothing of the slavery American countries profit off of by outsourcing. Of course, prison slavery isn't as bad. Instead of being born a slave if your…

I believe there is an important distinction between a country being founded overtly to preserve an evil institution and one founded with much better ideals but still does and has done many bad things. I don't think the U.S. flag represents slavery. There are instances where the U.S. government has conducted and endorsed slavery.

The prison system is atrocious and I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if forced labor in prison can be a good thing or if it is always a bad thing.

Re: Apple Removes American Civil War Games from the App Store

#110

Post by moron4hire »

MBCook wrote: post #104

This is a very Apple move. When I saw it, I wasn't surprised. There are Civil War games where it makes total sense for the flag to show, and there are probably a few tasteless "The south will rise again" things that never should have been allowed on in the first place. But it takes a lot of people and time to figure it out for each app on the store. And when it comes to this kind of stuff Apple doesn't like spending…

> But it takes a lot of people and time to figure it out for each app on the store.

Right, because why would they dedicate resources and effort to the biggest feature of their biggest product?

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