How Many Flags Over Texas? – Amanda S. Green

260 thoughts on “How Many Flags Over Texas? – Amanda S. Green”

1. This whole sanitation of history by removing memorials irks me. It’s not about what the person or the memorial was about, it’s now about how the history behind them is precieved. There’s no sober thought behind any of this just the impulse of emotion and feelings. Our progeny will curse us if we don’t take a stand here and now.

   1. Agreed. I’m bracing for the discussion in the Dallas city council today about removing a statue of R. E. Lee. They are talking about only one statue and will then take up the issue of all the others, all the parks and streets named for Confederate soldiers, etc., after a “study” down the road. But today’s decision will set the precedent. I don’t get why they think they can look at a single statue and then put off the decision on all the others and not expect the decision about the first to impact the rest of it.

      1. I really don’t have a problem with the Robert E. Lee statue being removed from Dallas. Lee wasn’t Texan. And his only association with Texas was his participation in the U.S. Invasion of Mexico, AKA Mexican-American War. (By the way, President Polk was leader of the Democrat Party and they were responsible for the invasion of Mexico and the “appropriation” of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, parts of Colorado and Kansas, Oklahoma, Wyoming and most of Texas from Mexico.) If that was the context for Lee’s statue being there, then it should not be removed. If the context was his being the commanding general of the Confederate Army, then there’s justification for it’s removal. These things can be complicated, but actually applying thought and research to these questions seems to be beyond the capabilities of the Antifa and white supremacists. (The historical preservationists seem to have done their thinking already.)

         1. The statue is already paid for, already there, and isn’t in the way of anything.

            Removing it would cost money.

            The obvious solution is to leave it the hell alone.

            Perhaps I should call and see what they intend to do with it after they dismount it. I could hook up the trailer and go pick it up. It’d look pretty spiffy in my front yard. Better than the plastic yard gnome the guy down the street has.

            1. If you get it, and it’s metal, be sure to wire it up properly.

            2. Yeah, that would be very cool. I wonder if one of my buddies could put the Jackson monument from Charlottesville on his trailer and bring it to my place………..

            3. Apparently the city council hasn’t voted yet. As soon as I hear anything I’ll call. I’ve already lined up a trailer and some help, and Mrs. TRX thinks it would look quite nice in the front yard.

               I rather suspect the fix is in, and some scrapper already has a buyer for the bronze, but one can only hope…

               1. The council has voted and as I type this, they are removing the statue. Note, the meeting this morning to decide what to do is in direct contradiction with the mayor’s earlier announcement that there would be a six week period in which they would study the situation. Also, of the approximately 50 people who signed up to speak at this morning’s council meeting on the topic, the vast majority were in favor of leaving the statue, at least until after the committee finished its study. But the city council decided to ignore all of that.

                  1. Evidently, they had already made up their minds and the public comment session was only a formality.

            4. Bronze, isn’t it? Metal alone would pay for it’s removal with a decent profit.

         2. Lee had also been the last commanding officer of the Federal Army in the SW territories, and instrumental in ending the Cortina War (a border scuffle involving massive trans-border cattle thieving), so he does have more of a connection to Texas than having been a junior officer in the Mexican War.

         3. What Confederate Army? Lee was commander of the Army of North Virginia. You know, just like Joseph Johnson was commander of the Army of Tennessee.

            Now, if your criteria is a Texan, I suggest John B. Hood – unless, of course, you have an issue with those who wore the gray. If that’s the case – shrug. If Texas is ashamed of it’s Confederate roots, that’s Texas’ business. But, if the gray has come to give a significant portion of Texans the vapors, you can always put up a statue of Philip Sheridan.

            Yet I find it ironic that Grant’s forces had no qualms with saluting the Army of North Virginia at Appomattox, and that in taking down a statue of Robert E. Lee, it’s taking down the statue of a man who urged reconciliation between North and South. Given we have NFL players protesting the national anthem of a government that eventually freed the slaves and used troops to force compliance with Brown vs. Board of Education, I shouldn’t be surprised at all.

            1. Lee was the first and only Commander-in-Chief of the CS Army, an office which was established in January 1865.

      2. If flying the Confederate national flag over Texas makes Texans act on white supremacist values, why doesn’t flying the Mexican flag over Texas make Texans act on criminal or sacrificing-humans-to-appease-the-spirits-which-somehow-cause-natural-phenomena values?

         My position from the beginning is that banning the Confederate Battle Flag is comparable to banning the Mexican national flag, which contains symbols of the Aztec Triple Alliance and the Mexica cult of that polity.

         If the one ban is acceptable, it is hypocritical to denounce the other ban as racist.

         I think it is hypocritical for those complaining about public display of symbols of the Confederate States of America as a cause for evil acts to denounce claims that other public acts incite Mexican cartel criminal activity.

         1. In fairness, the Mexican flag proper never flew over the Aztec Empire.

            1. But the flag is itself is a deliberate act of reference by the government that made it. If it is wrong for somebody back in the day to put up a monument that references the Confederacy, it was wrong for the 19th century Mexican government to reference the founding myth of Mexico City.

         2. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are individuals who genuinely believe that the reports of human sacrifices among the native empires were strictly made-up propaganda by the Spanish Conquistadors.

            1. There also are probably sincere Holocaust deniers.

   2. Yep.

   3. My initial reaction to the question of how many flags over Texas? On a normal day two — the flag of the U.S.A. and the Texas state flag.

      Sure, there would be other flags. A county might have a flag which would be appropriate in said county. Flags associated with military units posted in facilities in Texas. Texas has an interesting history, so at various historical sites you might have a number of other flags. But in none of these instances would the flags be over all of Texas.

      On further reading I see that the thrust of this is about the attempt by some to erase reminders of some difficult parts of our past, be it statues, names or flags. My first reaction is to fully agree that history should not be erased. Last night The Spouse asked the question, ‘If I were in Europe how might I react to seeing the flag of the Third Reich flying?’ I thought further, what if it was in my local park, put there not for any historical significance, but by neo-nazis wishing to honor the social and political philosophy and it was being maintained with my taxes?

      Fundamentally I still think history should not be erased, but that possibly not every statue or institutional name needs to be kept. Thank you, Amanda, for reporting how the Dallas school district demonstrated an intelligent manner in which to proceed. I was unaware of this instance, and it gives me hope that such issues can be handled without resort to bullying and violence. Of course this was an instance where the name was changed. Let us hope that when it is found appropriate to maintain one of these reminders people can accept the process as well.

      1. The whole point of “Six Flags Over Texas” is to play on the historical uniqueness of the state.

         how might I react to seeing the flag of the Third Reich flying?
         Not even remotely the same thing.

         1. The six flags is historical.

            Some of those statues were put up not so much because of the Civil War, but because of the second rise of the KKK and movement to enact Jim Crow laws, think the social Darwinism movement at turn of the twentieth century and Wilson.

            1. Sort of. That gets really complicated, mostly because the turn of the 20th century saw an explosion in popular interest towards the war (note that the first battlefields to receive official protected status got it in the 1890s), and the Civil War Centennial landed during the height of the Civil Rights movement.

               1. Nods. Nothing, as we can see here in this discussion, is entirely clear or simple.

            2. I have seen a photo of Jefferson Davis’ black wagon driver during his flight from Richmond at the unveiling of a marker of where they had camped. He was holding a Confederate flag.

               Somehow, I don’t think he was a member of the KKK.

               1. Probably just a victim of false consciousness, or perhaps Stockholm Syndrome.

                  As in: Helsinki, Sweden.

                  1. Why? I suggest reading Wiley’s The Life of Johnny Reb, as he does address this.

                     This gets into causes and such, and that’s a forbidden topic.I’ll only say that people are people, and people don’t neatly fit into categories.

                     1. Apparently some people cannot recognize a jest even when it strikes them between the eyes. Lighten up, Kevin. Take the Die Hard reference as a cue: May include humour.

               2. I don’t recall claiming that all monuments and memorials were erected by the KKK or during Jim Crow? So, what is your point?

                  1. That your assertion doesn’t hold up. The Jim Crow Laws were really a continuation of the Slave Codes, and existed in various forms from Reconstruction onward. As to the KKK, their only involvement in the monument business that I’m aware of was at Stone Mountain, and to understand why you have to go back to the revival after the lynching of Leo Frank. That fell through and was picked up by others. One reason it was made a Georgia State Park was to keep the KKK from holding rallies there – and the preacher who have the invocation at the unveiling was a black man involved in the Civil Rights movement.

                     If you want to understand the monuments, look for those in the South to Union dead. Then know that no one had a conniption about them because that was to someone’s father or husband or brother. And people didn’t have a conniption about monuments to Confederate soldiers and heroes for pretty much the same reason.

                     1. That assertion was, “Some of those statues were put up not so much because of the Civil War, but because of the second rise of the KKK and movement to enact Jim Crow laws.” Emphasis added.

                        Is it your contention that because not all such monuments were raised as part of the Jim Crow enactments (put into effect, for the most part, between 1890 and 1910, at least a decade after Reconstruction collapsed) that “some” does not apply? And yet it is reported that many of the statues which are engendering objections were erected in the 1920s, contemporaneous with Wilson’s endorsement of Birth of a Nation and the third rise of the Klan.

                        So surely, an assertion that some were put up because of the rise of the Klan (I doubt we need get into pettifoggery over which rise, second or third, it was) is not invalidated by your cited exception?

                        1. Then name them. There was no big secret about their initial involvement in the Stone Mountain project, which is how I knew about it. It sounds an awful lot like claims that Georgia changed it’s state flag as a result of Brown vs. Board of Education, when those still living who were in involved in it said it was because of the upcoming Civil War Centennial. All you have to do is look at the political careers of politicians like Lester Maddox to understand that there was no wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more aspect.

                           If most went up in the 1920s, as you assert, you may wish to consider it was now sixty years since the start of the Civil War, and many of those old heads were passing on. I also suspect economics had something to do with it, but both are only suspicions on my part.

                           1. Keven, obviously I have stepped on a sore spot.

                              I come from a mixed family. Let’s take Momma’s side. Momma’s Daddy was Jewish, his mother’s family came to NYC from Russia to get away from the pogroms. Momma’s Momma grew up in southern Georgia and is descended from Southern aristocracy, FFV, one General ‘Light Horse’ Henry Lee. As some of my family was active in the DAC I am sure that there are statues that were put up by ancestors of mine.

                              It is not surprising that the semi-centennial anniversary, 1911, saw the greatest number of Confederate monuments dedicated. The ones that standing in the Capitol’s National Statuary Hall Collection were placed between 1909 and 1931. (Alabama replaced the 1908 Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry statue with one of Hellen Keller in 2009.)

                           2. A very sore spot, on the day the “National” Cathedral announced it was removing the “Confederate” window to “promote healing.” I’ve heard a lot of assertions about the forbidden topic, from both sides, and I’m actually sick of it all. And every time it comes up, I’m sorely tempted to join the Sons of Confederate Veterans. One reason I haven’t is I’m not good at holding to narratives, regardless of what that narrative might be.

                              History is what it is, no more and no less. At least, that’s my unpopular take on things. Yes, there’s a matter of kinship involved. But kinship doesn’t change events. They are what they are.

                              My only insistence is accuracy. That is all.

                     2. > The Jim Crow Laws were really a
                        > continuation of the Slave Codes

                        I’d view them as a direct *result* of Reconstruction. For three quarters of a century the Fed treated the former Confederacy much like the USSR treated West Germany.

                        1. The Federal treatment of the South during Reconstruction was premised on the idea that those who rose in rebellion were not entitled to remain in unaltered governance afterward, nor could they be permitted to to deny the humanity of those freed as a consequence of that rebellion* nor could they deny the rights (via physical threat, among other tools) of those among their fellows who had supported the Union. Whatever treatment the South received was to an extant their own doing for attempting to revert to conditions ante without recognizing their uprising had changed things.

                           Which is not to say everything the North did was appropriate — History often reveals villains on all sides of a dispute.

                           *The South’s treatment of freedmen, especially those who had fought for the Union, was hardly defensible. If nothing else, their freedom was a common exercise of war’s traditional practice of seizure of assets of the losing side.

                           Moreover, I fail to see any parallel with the Soviet Union’s treatment of West Germany, which they did not occupy and did not install their puppets to govern.

      2. You cross the border into Texas some plays, and there are six national flags flying, at, I gather, state government expense. I’d note that the Spanish and French imperial regimes were not all sunshine and roses either.

         1. The six flags of Texas are assembled together in order to express the history of Texas. I have NO problem with such displays in that context AND I wrote as much. What part of historical context did you not understand?

            1. An honest straightforward defense of historical context and attack on historical revisionism would get in the way of trying to destroy the Obama Presidential Library on the grounds of his state sponsorship of White Supremacist terrorism.

               1. Barack Obama was President from 2009-2017. Richard Nixon was President from 1969-1974. Some may not take joy at having to include one or the other individual in the historical records, but if the records are to be accurate they will be included.

                  1. “if the records are to be accurate they will be included.”

                     Poppycock. You are using an inappropriately restrictive definition of “accuracy” and ignoring the more common meaning of the word, “suitable to the purpose of the state.”

                     Therefore, if the records are to suit the purpose of the State they will have to be fluid in what they present as the past, lest that undermine the agenda of the present.

                     1. There’s glory for you!

                        1. I don’t think you’re paying your words enough.

   4. What year is this, 1984, and we’re living in the book? Clearly there are those who WANT us to be.

      1. They’re using it as a how-to manual.

         Also Atlas Shrugged.

         1. 
            This cartoon says it all…

            1. Of course, the problem is that the people who are using it as a how-to guide also, in the best doublethink manner, maintain they are fighting it.

               1. Additional comment would be superfluous, I think.

                  

                  1. Whoa! What happened to the gif?

                     https://giphy.com/gifs/3o6Mb5VJqQkAGIdI0U/html5

                     1. Nope, that ain’t right!

                        

                        1. Stupid gif!

                           http://gph.is/1VrN4Bv

   5. One other thing, there was a woman who spoke to the city council and who represented one of the Islamic groups who claimed that to keep the Civil War monuments was a threat to national security. Yes, I almost wrecked the car when I heard that.

      1. … there was a woman who spoke to the city council and who represented one of the Islamic groups who claimed that to keep the Civil War monuments was a threat to national security.

         Uh? Really. A threat to nation security, you say?

         So any group claiming to be aggrieved and willing to throw an organized public hissy should be immediately appeased?

         1. — this was directed to the women who spoke to the city council in the quote and not Amanda, who in her guest blog post today demonstrates far more sense and understanding.

2. c4c

   1. c4c

3. I’ve engaged my fellow North Texans in discussions about the memorials. When delving deeply into the folks motivations for removal, the primary cause was that of slavery. I then ask them if they want to collect and destroy all the US currency that feature slave owners and rename streets, cities and states. Also if Democrats want to tear down Democrat built memorials and deny their own history, they should at least admit their own history including all the dirty linen…

   Now I don’t give a care much about the past generations in my state that built these memorials. I was raised a Texan and a US citizen, not a Southern. There’s relatives that were lynched in Gainesville, just because they didn’t want to support either side. There’s other relatives in Central Texas that had farms burned. But the memorials serve as a reminder to the epic poop storm that was the Civil War. Not that any of the agitated ilk know any history.

   Plus there wasn’t much concern about these memorials until the current forces that are trying to divide the county and cause Civil War II made it a focus. With all the other priorities facing Dallas and Texas, making this an issue of great importance, is a shame. With over 40% of the population of the state affected by a hurricane, this crud is way down the to-do list. Maybe if Soros would take some of the money that is funneled to Antifa and give it to Dallas, the citizens wouldn’t have to waste tax dollars dealing statue relocation.

   1. Chris, as a fellow North Texan, I’ve done much the same. I applaud you for taking a approach that at least encourages them to think instead of just react to the headlines. Well done, sir, well done.

      1. This hasn’t been as much of an issue yet in the flat part of the state, but I’m sure it’s coming. The demographics and history out here are a little different than the Dallas area. Having lived in North Texas and Northeast Texas for a couple of decades, though, I remember well how racially charged things could get.

         1. Agreed but that really hasn’t been the issue of late — except when protesters have been brought in from out of the area.

4. I also note that it seems to be outside agitators doing most of the demanding for removal/renaming, after the statues, and names have been in place for decades. Why the unholy stink now? (Looking at you, SPLC, most severely.)

   1. Why? That’s easy. For the money. To see this most clearly, watch “rev.” Al Sharpton in action.

   2. I find it amazing that SPLC has off-shored a good chunk of their money. What innocent “charity” does that???

      But in the big scheme of things, there’s so many associated scams going on, it’s just a drop in the bucket.

      I once had a conversation with one of the top forensic accountants in the US about the amount of taxes that were avoided thru offshoring. According to him, even on the small scale, there’s enough to kill most of the US debt and rebuild the infrastructure twice over. But we agreed that if the money were ever “captured” it would most likely be wasted…

      1. There are some flaming lefties who consider the SPLC a racket and a scam and a swindle by Morris Dees.

         1. And as someone who lived in Montgomery AL area for 30+ years and got a close up view of Dees, they’d be right.

   3. Why the unholy stink now?

      Could it be possible that those on the left who make their living leading protests of injustice are running out of more credible causes?

      1. Eiland’s Theory of Compensatory Misery in action.

         “As human society gradually solves the problems of basic survival and reduces the amount of other miseries rooted in the reality of the human condition, the fringe elements of that society feel an increasingly strong compulsion to become obsessively angry about ever more trivial causes to recapture the sense that life is a painful struggle.”

         1. It’s why I have for decades advocated the return of wolves and bears to their original habitats (e.g., the now-urban areas). So that those people can have a real struggle in life. And to weed out the progs (though it might be hard to motivate the bears and wolves to eat them after the first few hundred went out to hug them – the animals would be full).

            1. Tigers and lions would work better. They’ve a long history of often eating people, even in preference of other prey animals. Wolves and bears are less frequently man-eaters. Of course none of them breed fast enough to pose any kind of long term threat to humans.

               1. Western Massachusetts had some serious issues with deer back in the early 2000’s. The soft hearted liberals did NOT want to allow hunting and the killing of Bambi’s parents. I always felt the proper solution was a natural one, to import Siberian Tigers. It’s a win win (win) situation. We get new habitat/ protection for the endangered tigers, the deer population will also get reduced. Yes you loose some lefties (or their spawn) from time to time, but think of the increase in tourism to do safaris. There’s very little out that way anyhow :-). You could start by letting them loose near Amherst, although then they might eat a stray Umass or Smith prof, and that might classify as cruelty to animals (the tigers, not the profs…)

                  1. You could always reintroduce wolves, which were once native to the area. There’s a professor across the way in New York who ought to take a two-month hands-on colloquium in Paleolithic culture before she publishes another word on how sexist the invention of agriculture was. She probably deserves to have the company of some like-minded students, of which there are undoubtedly at least a few. Having to compete with a few honest-to-goodness real life predators without benefit of industrial civilization might either enlighten them or prove fatal. I confess that my preference for the former outcome is not as strong as it ought to be.

            2. I think you mis-state the problem. The bears and wolves won’t by any means be full. After eating a few of the progs who came out to hug them, they’ll be out looking for open sewage lines to drink from, so that they could get the awful taste out of their mouths.

         2. For instance, see “microaggressions”.

5. Obviously the solution is for that company to be renamed “Five flags”.
   The question of “do these people want to erase all history” has already been answered — the answer is yes. We see significant agitation against memorials for Washington and Jefferson, because slavery. We see articles arguing against Mount Rushmore, though pretending it’s not about those presidents, it’s about the principle of carving mountains. But that article says not a word about the Crazy Horse monument only a few dozen miles away.
   The Taliban blows up a Buddha statue, the “antifa” destroys statues in the US — the same principle of intolerant hatred is at work in both cases.

   1. Well in part they ignore Crazy Horse because they probably don’t know that many native tribes iirc both bought and captured slaves. Same as how it was practiced elsewhere legally until late in the century. And that would be the 20th century. Plus ‘the tribes were superior to white men. They were all peaceful and such’.

      Today you’re taught basically that the Declaration of Independence was a lie, slavery was only a western European thing and that if it hadn’t been for that there would be towering skyscrapers and gleaming cities across Africa while New York would be mud huts (direct conclusion of the argument that slavery built the US).

      1. Ignoring, most ferociously, where those slaves came from, and who’d enslaved them first.

         1. “But that was different…the kids were not slaves…”

            For the ones not castrated I’m doubting the kids could survive on average.

   2. Alternative: Keep the name Six Flags, but the six are all Republic of Texas flags. Let the dolts choke on it.

      1. This. A thousand times this.

      2. YES!!!!! Oh yes! But they are so afraid of offending anyone, they took all but the US flag down. How long until that one goes down too because someone is offended by it?

         1. But there’s a comparable logic in that too(!?!) — measure (always evil) slavery in unfree-person-years, and there’s a lot *more* slavery stuck to the USA flag than the CSA one (Stars and Bars, not the much later **cough!** “Stainless Banner”, right?). Mostly since the US lasted much longer, but also because some slave states (e.g. Maryland, soon to become mostly Occupied Maryland) never did secede.
            Same for racism — Cherokee removal, Japanese internment, Sand Creek massacre 1864 — all USA not CSA. So alas, not even the Star Spangled Banner is really “stainless” though it is all our own.

            Sometimes you just have to be a grownup and live in an imperfect world with real imperfect people. Like, say, every American (US or CS) who ever lived.
            Or I guess you do get Zero Flags Over Texas. (No thank you, none for me.)

            Meanwhile, more sense in this post than 99+% of what we’ve heard. Or seen.

            1. What’s really impressive, in a dark sort of way, is how much of this the Democrat Party is directly responsible for….

      3. That’ll larn ’em.

         FWIW, my family went to the Arlington Six Flags the summer it opened, and returned many times. The “Confederate Land” IIRC was presented mostly as the antebellum-Scarlett O’Hara- type fiction.
         That was in the sixties, and nobody fussed over any of it.
         Of course, the real problem now is the cultural appropriation of sombreros and French onion soup in the Mexican and French sections.

         Time to re-read “The Ayes of Texas”
         https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/644917.The_Ayes_of_Texas

         (the Six Flags company bought up many other amusement parks over the years, occasioning some bemusement by patrons unacquainted with the original, and making no sense at all, thematically speaking)

   3. They way they were licensing Warner Bro. cartoon characters years ago, they ought to rename themselves Loony Toons.

6. “Other states were carved or born – Texas grew from hide and horn.
   Other states are long and wide – Texas is a shaggy hide.”
   Berta Hart Nance “Cattle” https://blog.cowboypoetry.com/2017/02/17/cattle-by-berta-harte-nance-1883-1958/

7. Tbh I’ve been suspecting for a while that most actions taken by the culture warriors can be predicted by a simple question. “How can we humiliate our enemy?” Whether it is religion, race or history the aim is not to find a solution but to denigrate and humiliate. When people are disinterring graves, planting bombs and attacking any historical figure not of the ‘less tainted’ race this is more than just displeasure at statues that most thought nothing of until three years ago. But you can paint all swm, especially southerners as racist and as such bar them from discourse and then you can run wild with that brush.

   1. They can only humiliate you if you agree to it. You have to accept their value system for their humiliation to succeed. I don’t; they have no power to humiliate me. And if the general public sees increasing numbers of people the left attempts to humiliate rejecting the attempt and standing proud, the attempts will have decreasing ability to succeed.

      1. Only if you are not held over a barrel by job or other criteria. Have a number of people I know who got pushed of careers or hobbies because they did not kowtow properly. And even if it is merely pushing someone out of a culture, the value of pour encourager los autres is still valid. Part of why I am starting to shift back over to diving trips as opposed to any type of social gathering. Not worth anxiety that prevents me from eating for a week.

         1. And here’s a prime example of why:
            https://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2017/09/06/wait-what-the-heck-did-usa-today-do-to-members-of-trumps-golf-courses-really/

            “USA TODAY ID’ed 4,500 Trump golf-club members through social media & a website golfers use to track handicaps, then researched who they were.”

            I don’t want to hear a single word about how bad doxxing is when it’s done to Leftists.

         2. The more you refuse their attempts, less value pour encourager les autres has to them. If “les autres” see that the attempts are ineffective, the “encouragement” is at least limited, and may actually work in the opposite direction from that desired by the leftists.

            1. I am so glad to have someone who is obviously without economic worries lecturing me on how I shouldn’t worry about losing my job.

               1. So stating my opinion is lecturing you? Please. If you don’t want to do what I advise, fine by me. But lose the snark; it doesn’t become you.

                  1. So staring an opinion is snark?

      2. Unless you are one of them how could you accept their value system? It seems to change at the drop of a hat or a gust of wind.

         Even if I was mentally feeble enough to fall for their BS why would I? What would be the benefit of engaging in that much self-loathing and self-hate?

         I don’t think the ‘general public’ is as stupid as the Left (and portions of the Right) assume. They are just engaged in their lives and families instead of paying any attention to what they probably see as a whole lot of noise and bother.

         1. And as I say, refuse to be humiliated when they try. Just stand up and say, “Yeah, whatever.” Go about your business and ignore them. The more folks who do so, the less their attempts will mean.

   2. I like to go for the poison pill, the parallel that I hope is most likely to be unpalatable to my opponent/partner.

      But things like ‘tear down the Kennedy eternal flame’ may also be intended to humiliate, I’m not sure.

   3. This goes far to explain then-Attorney-General Loretta Lynch’s scolding diatribe against NC’s “bathroom bill” (“no social value” etc.), or her Administration’s implied threat to drop Federal funding from any school in the country that didn’t agree to put the (biological and anatomical) opposite sex in every locker room.
      It’s often hard to be sure of knowing intent, but it sure looks like that was part of it; if you can’t beat your enemy, hurt them, if you can’t do that, hurt their children.

      Meanwhile, to misquote JFK: Ich bin ein Deplorable!

8. > Yes, slavery is a stain on our history.

   It’s a stain shared by almost every other country. BFD. We don’t do that any more, nobody alive was ever part of it, move on.

   If they want a Cause, there are plenty of real problems with modern America that need to be addressed. But those would require actually having to understand them, and then doing something useful, rather than screeching like a pack of monkeys.

   1. Of course slavery was evil, still is in all those chitholes where it’s still practiced. And those caught and transported here certainly suffered greatly.
      But for those today with slave ancestors need to realize that however many times removed great grandparents’ sacrifice was their golden ticket to the most desirable country on Earth. Where, after all, is it that so many desperately strive to come to, legally or otherwise?
      As for reparations, fine, have a DNA test run to determine your historical origins and the US will give you free transportation there. All you have to do is surrender for all time your citizenship and any hope of reentering this country. Restoration to precisely where you would be if great granddad had been fleeter of foot.

      1. if great granddad had been fleeter of foot
         Or didn’t live so close to muslims.

         1. Or Michelle’s great great great granddaddy

      2. That’s rather close to my proposal for dealing with long-sentence criminals. Figure up the amount of money it would cost to house them for the duration of their sentence – Arkansas Department of Corrections uses the rather startling figure of $60,000 per year per inmate, roughly 3x what the average person makes – give it to them in cash, and a first-class airline ticket, revoke their US citizenship, put them on the DHS ban list, and send them off to any country that will take them.

         Sure, there’s some expense involved, but there’d be no problem with repeat offenders, either.

         1. Yup. Transportation worked for England; why not here?

            1. Somewhat lost in the discussion is that many Europeans, especially Irish and Scots, were sent to the American colonies as slaves. Their descendants’ good fortune was the lack of melanin marking them as such.

         2. Well, no repeats here, wherever “here” is.

      3. Thank God my granddaddy got on that boat. —Muhammad Ali

9. It isn’t the Confederate Battle Flag, it’s the Confederate Commemorative Flag.

   The Confederate battle flag was banned as a weapon of war during Reconstruction, and it was illegal for a private individual to own one for quite a long time. They were almost always square (there some exceptions in the Western theatre of the war, that resembled the Naval Jack more than the Commemorative).

   The Naval Jack was rectangular, but of different dimensions significantly extended along the horizontal plane from what we’re used to seeing. It also was banned for quite a long time.

   The Confederate Commemorative was commissioned by the Daughters of the Confederacy, and approved by the federal government during Reconstruction in a moment of national healing that allowed the war dead to be memorialized by those they’d let behind.

   And yes, it annoys me when they’re conflated.
   I can be a bit of a pennant about it. (ducks the flying carp)

   1. Can you give a good source for that? It could be really handy for helping someone understand. (And I never knew that.)

   2. There were a bunch of Confederate flags. Most people wouldn’t even recognize most of them.

      1. I have the impression that the same can be said of American flags. For example, I am aware of the five (soon to be six) flags of the Armed Forces, but even then, when I encounter them, it takes me a few minutes to recognize them….

10. I can’t shake the feeling that the impetus behind the removal of statues, plaques, and so on, is the sanitization of the history of the Democrat Party.

    1. That, and an Alinskyite effort to make the conservatives defenders of the indefensible — indefensible not because these commemorations of our history are unworthy but because the defense of them is usable to tar modern respect for history as defense of the sins of the past.

       1. Shall we see about making the bastards defend the guy who set race relations back decades? That Thomas (Woodrow was his MIDDLE name – recall the issue with “Joe the Plumber”? Hypocrites. Yeah, yeah, Democrat, hypocrite, repeat myself…) Wilson. Yeah, that ratfink.

          1. Yep. “Well the sides switched” – just which of Wilson’s actions even resembles current Republican or conservative policies? (N.b. he deintegrated even integrated units. Not a case of rescinding a future promise of integration as the current mil kerfuffle.

             1. But but but Nixon’s Southern Strategy!

                (I looked up the Electoral College map where Nixon won, and it’s pretty clear that to the degree Nixon lost the South, it’s because the candidate who *did* win large swaths of the South probably split the vote between him and the Democrat candidate enough that it allowed Nixon to eek out a victory in the rest of the Southern States. I haven’t been able to dredge up enough energy to hunt down actual votes to confirm this theory, though…)

       2. What RES said. Exactly.
          Along with csps’ identification of the Year Zero idea.

       3. Indeed.

11. While reading my current non-fiction book, Karl Rove’s biography of William McKinley, I found this passage relevant to the current controversy.

    Building support for his presidential run, McKinley (who had risen in the ranks from an 18-year-old buck private to a 22-year-old major) attended 1895’s Southern Exposition in Atalanta, where, seated alongside James Longstreet (R) he addressed 25,000 Civil War veterans:

    “Americans never surrendered except to other Americans,” he said. “The war has been over for 31 years. The bitterness and resentment belong to the past and its glories are the common heritage of us all.”

    “If we ever fight again, and I pray God that we may never have to ,,, we will fight on the same side and we will fight under the same flag.”

    As those who fought under those two flags, the United States flag and the flag of the Confederacy found it in their hearts to “get over it” so can we today acknowledge out imperfections and live with our tarnished shields. These are scars earned hard fought and nothing we do now can erase them. We might as well live with them and do our utmost to remember why those battles were fought … and who eventually won them.

    1. its glories are the common heritage of us all
       See, this is what the communists and fascists won’t let happen. They don’t want us to grasp the idea that fighting valiantly for your side is somehow good or noble. Only the ideology, itself, is good.

       This is what the progressives have achieved.

       1. They also don’t want it remembered that while President, McKinley crushed a communist insurrection in the Western US.
          And that he was assassinated by an anarchist in response.

12. A friend of mine married a woman who is descended from a man who was on the estate of Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson…yeah, THAT guy: a guy who fought as relentlessly in the grey of the Confederacy as in the blue of the Union (for those unaware, he commanded the Federal forces that took down John Brown at Harper’s Ferry), and who died in the Southern cause.
    Remarkably, however, Thomas, a devout Christian, never lost sight of the fact that we are all God’s creatures and equal in His eyes, and he taught this man “his letters” as they would have said…in an era when it was illegal in the Commonwealth.
    After the Civil War, my friend’s ancestor became a pastor and presently built his own church. He decorated it with stained-glass windows, one of which honored…Mr. Thomas Jackson, late of the CSA.
    Needless to say, there was considerable pushback among his congregants, to which he always gave the same answer: how can I NOT honor a man who–notwithstanding his beliefs or his loyalties–was led by his belief in the dignity of every human being to risk running afoul of the law, and in so doing made it possible to be here now?
    These things are complicated. “Big picture made up of many little pictures!” We would do well not to forget this.

    1. As I understand it (I admittedly need to do some real research on this), Lee violated the law in similar ways. He was also in favor of gradual emancipation (again, as I fuzzily recall), rather than the immediate version which ended up being a disaster, the aftereffects of which we’re still dealing with.

       Unleash a few million illiterate, low-skilled people into society and say “Here’s 40 acres, be a landowner now and prosper!” What did they think was going to happen? It wasn’t the former slaves’ fault. Jackson and many other confederates understood this. Hell, after the war, James Longstreet teamed up with police and Black militia members to fight against several thousand White League members at the Battle of Liberty place.

       Not all confederates were monsters and not all federals were noble.

       1. I have often wondered how things would have turned out had we been able to end slavery non-violently….

    2. “Another century passes across our minds and we see Virginia and Richmond the centre of a tragedy which, however agonising at the time, is now for ever illuminated by drama and romance . . . My grandfather was a Northerner . . . and you would not expect me to belie the cause for which he strove . . . Old battles are remembered not as sources of bitterness but to celebrate the martial virtues and civic fidelity of both sides in that immortal struggle.”

       – Winston S. Churchill, to the Virginia General Assembly, March 1946

    3. Exactly. This is one of the issues that concerns me with all of this brouhaha. These men and, in some cases, women did more than just serve the interests of the CSA. Before simply wiping away all forms of commemoration, shouldn’t we first determine why they were being memorialized? As with the school in Dallas, shouldn’t the institutions determine what their ties with the community might have been and if those ties extend well-beyond the CSA? If so, then they should not, NOT, be removed.

       1. “…shouldn’t we first determine why they were being memorialized?”

          Hah! As if those uneducated morons would have understood the deep psychological forces motivating them. We, the anointed ones, brimming over with enlightenment and empathy don’t need no steenkin’ facts.

       2. The goal is to ensure that only Perfect Men are memorialized, with the protesters – really, the powers behind the protests – being the ones to determine who is Perfect. He who controls the past, controls the future.

       3. This can apply to much more than statues, too. I have recently thought that whenever we pass a law or make a regulation (ha! as if any bureaucrat in the Executive unaccountable to the voters — or in some cases, even to Congress itself — should have the power to willy-nilly create regulations in the first place! but then, here we are…), that the law or regulation should have a stated purpose, and perhaps even an explanation on how the law is expected to accomplish this purpose.

          Then, when a person brought before the judge for violating a given law, the prosecutor should have to explain to the judge why punishing this particular person for breaking this particular law fulfills the purpose of this law — and if the prosecution can’t make the case that this person is guilty of *both* violating the law, and violating the *purpose* of the law, the individual should be awarded damages from the prosecutor (and this, to further cut back on prosecutors attempting to use the process to punish people).

          Oh, and we should get rid of plea bargaining. It destroys the purpose of having juries for trials.

13. Shame. I grew up going to Six Flags in Arlington.
    I guess you can’t really go home again.

    1. I did the same. Spent the summers of my high school years and a couple of college years working there. I remember when each of the flags had its own themed part of the park. I could understand removing the battle flag if that had been the one flying at the park entrance. However, it wasn’t the battle flag so why in the hell remove it, much less the other flag.

14. I grant most Confederate memorials a patina of respect owed to longevity, but if such are to be removed we ought start with the most recent. As the last living Klansman to occupy a Senate seat I propose we first eradicate every honor accorded Robert C. Byrd, every bridge, building and street bearing his name, and only then ought we address other anti-American memorials.

    1. I’ve suggested that, sotto voce, more than once.

15. Of course they want to erase history, it’s the necessary first step before rewriting it to support their current narrative. It’s both sad and funny to see the reaction of people when you tell them that Lincoln was a Republican, or that the Democratic Party were sponsors of the KKK. But once they have removed all those unfortunate facts from whatever remains of our past they can then tell the story the way they know it should be, with them the heroes and the rest of us criminally stupid and ignorant.
    And not to worry, once the latest five year plan succeeds our fine citizens won’t be forced to live on rations and forage or hot bunk in dormitories. We may even each get our own blanket thanks to a caring and protective socialist government.

    1. Don’t forget, the chocolate ration has recently been raised to 15 grams.

    2. “Of course they want to erase history, it’s the necessary first step before rewriting it to support their current narrative.”
       Always the MO of the Left. Except they are rewriting history on the fly even before erasing all the evidence of the past.
       It’s not an accident that so many schools no longer teach what we would recognize as “American History.”
       And journalists are just plain ignorant.

    3. Abraham Lincoln was a Republican? Ha! I have it on good authority that he wasn’t a Republican! He was a “National Unionist”.

       Don’t believe me? Google “party of Abraham Lincoln” and see for yourself!

       (While strictly true, it’s also false by omission: shouldn’t these results say “Republican” *and* “National Union”?)

16. A more astute person in countering these Alinskiite tactics might make public demands for the Democrat party to apologize for slavery. Demand they apologize for internment camps on American soil within living memory. Demand Roosevelt’s head be removed from the dime, and any street or edifice bearing his name be renamed.

    Make them live up to their own rules.

    Then, to the objections from those among them who might still be capable of critical thought or learning, point out that these situations aren’t quite as black and white as they seem; and that, being connoisseurs of nuance, they should be able to appreciate the complexity of all of our history.

    1. But then Hillary will write another book blaming everyone, including Bernie, for the current state of affairs and how it is all Trump’s fault for everything. In the course of which, she will remind everyone that she would have saved us from ourselves if we had only elected her.

       1. Ugh, the Save Them From Themselves pledge of the malignant narcissist. Makes my teeth itch. You know that’s exactly how she thinks. They always act with the “permission of their conscience.”

          The left constantly mistakes Trump for a narcissist, when he’s just a garden-variety egotist. As usual, they’re projecting.

          1. N.B.:

             This is Hillary’s idea of taking responsibility for losing the election
             Hillary Clinton takes sole responsibility for her stunning election loss to Donald Trump in her new tell-all, acknowledging, “It was my campaign. Those were my decisions.”

             “I go back over my own shortcomings and the mistakes we made. I take responsibility for all of them. You can blame the data, blame the message, blame anything you want — but I was the candidate,” she writes in “What Happened,” CNN reported Wednesday.

             In the book, which is scheduled to be released next Tuesday, the former secretary of state admits she misjudged the political environment and Trump’s unorthodox presidential campaign.

             “I think it’s fair to say that I didn’t realize how quickly the ground was shifting under all our feet,” she writes, CNN reported, citing an early copy of the book. “I was running a traditional presidential campaign with carefully thought-out policies and painstakingly built coalitions, while Trump was running a reality TV show that expertly and relentlessly stoked Americans’ anger and resentment.”

             But she takes time to fault James Comey — whom she refers to as a “rash FBI director” — for reopening the investigation into her email server a week before the election, and Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders for muddying the message about how Democrats could help the middle class.

             And she wonders why, after years as first lady, secretary of state, senator from New York and two-time presidential candidate, the public turned against her.

             “What makes me such a lightning rod for fury? I’m really asking. I’m at a loss,” she writes. Then she says: “I think it’s partly because I’m a woman.”

             [END EXCERPT]

             We are not worthy of her.

             1. Some people are. Granted they are worthy of syphilis too.

             2. > “I was running a traditional presidential
                > campaign with carefully thought-out policies
                > and painstakingly built coalitions,

                Tell me again how that “deplorable” comment worked out…

                If she’d just STFU she’d have surfed in on a landslide. But every time she opened her mouth she lost votes as Democrat voters realized what a nasty piece of work she was.

                The Republican party was working hard to sabotage the Trump campaign; Hillary simply did a better job of sabotaging the Democrats’ campaign. It wasn’t Republicans who put Trump in the White House, it was Democrats who leaned back and said, “WHOA! WTF, dude? Not *this* woman…”

                1. Campaigning in West Virginia on a Green energy platform; formerly a stronghold of reliable unionized coal-miner’s votes for Democrats, was a carefully thought out piece of stupidity. I understand that she did many like things.

                2. I had the impression that whenever Hillary opened his mouth and Trump kept it closed, Hillary hurt in the polls; when Trump opened his mouth and Hillary kept it closed, it was Hillary who hurt. Furthermore, it seemed to alternate, every two or three weeks, who had the open mouth, and who had the closed mouth. And I had the impression that, in the end, the person with the closed mouth on the day of the election was going to win….

                   Both candidates were bad, but I’m glad that the worst of the two had lost. (Leading up to election day, I was afraid that this wouldn’t be the case, and was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be so…)

    2. 

       1. I would add that while private entities are free to censor as they please, there’s one caveat: once they start doing so, they revoke any believable claims to objectivity and neutrality.

          Sure, Sarah and ESR can ban people and topics from their blogs — but neither Sarah nor ESR pretend to be neutral.
          Oddly enough, on both blogs, you only get banned for bad behavior — or, in the case of Forbidden Topics, because they are too cantankerous — you’re free to disagree at will, so long as you make your case and keep your name-calling to a minimum. Thus, the neutrality they have more neutrality on their blogs than some “news” organizations…

17. Words of wisdom from a man who tolerates fools not lightly, Walter E. Williams:

    Libs in a Tizzy
    Many blacks and their white liberal allies demand the removal of statues of Confederate generals and the Confederate battle flag, and they are working up steam to destroy the images of Gens. Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee and President Jefferson Davis from Stone Mountain in Georgia. Allow me to speculate as to the whys of this statue removal craze, which we might call statucide.

    To understand it, we need a review of the promises black and white liberals have been making for decades. In 1940, the black poverty rate was 87 percent. By 1960, it had fallen to 47 percent. During that interval, blacks were politically impotent. There were no anti-poverty programs or affirmative action programs. Nonetheless, this poverty reduction exceeded that in any other 20-year interval. But the black leadership argued that more was necessary. They said that broad advancement could not be made unless blacks gained political power.

    Fifty years ago, there were fewer than 1,000 black elected officials nationwide. According to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, by 2011 there were roughly 10,500 black elected officials, not to mention a black president. But what were the fruits of greater political power? The greatest black poverty, poorest education, highest crime rates and greatest family instability are in cities such as Detroit, St. Louis, Oakland, Memphis, Birmingham, Atlanta, Baltimore, Cleveland, Philadelphia and Buffalo.

    The most common characteristic of these predominantly black cities is that for decades, all of them have been run by Democratic and presumably liberal politicians. Plus, in most cases, blacks have been mayors, chiefs of police, school superintendents and principals and have dominated city councils.

    During the 1960s, black and white liberals called for more money to be spent on anti-poverty programs. …

    … The visions of black civil rights leaders and their white liberal allies didn’t quite pan out.

    Greater political power and massive anti-poverty spending produced little. The failure of political power and the failure of massive welfare spending to produce nirvana led to the expectation that if only there were a black president, everything would become better for blacks.

    I cannot think of a single black socio-economic statistic that improved during the two terms of the Barack Obama administration. …

    … So more political power hasn’t worked. Massive poverty spending hasn’t worked. Electing a black president hasn’t worked. What should black leaders and their white liberal allies now turn their attention to in order to improve the socio-economic condition for blacks?

    It appears to be nearly unanimous that attention should be turned to the removal of Confederate statues. It’s not only Confederate statue removal but Confederate names of schools and streets.

    Even the Council on American-Islamic Relations agrees. It just passed a resolution calling for the removal of all Confederate memorials, flags, street names and symbols from public spaces and property.

    By the way, does the statue of Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman qualify for removal? He once explained his reluctance to enlist former slaves, writing, “I am honest in my belief that it is not fair to our men to count negroes as equals … (but) is not a negro as good as a white man to stop a bullet?”

    It’s difficult to determine where this purging of the nation’s history should end.

    1. It’s difficult to determine where this purging of the nation’s history should end.
       Well, no, it isn’t. It should end before it even gets going.
       As to when it will end? Only when the communists and fascists have reset us to a Year Zero, or when we stand up and start putting these … people where they belong.

18. It’s all a way for the Left to recycle their favorite tool of screaming “RACIST!” at random intervals.

    Face it, they’ve over-used the “RACIST!” thing, making everything from Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches, to opposing minimum wage increase, to disliking tattoos all about race. People hear their unhinged screams of “RACIST!” and the eye-rolls start. So they needed something that pretty much everyone (other than a few loons) can agree is bad bad racist bad to point at… namely slavery. So they decided to pick on Confederate memorials, looking for a win, and looking for a way to reduce the eye-rolls when next week they declare sneezing “RACIST!” (but only if done by a white conservative).

    1. Wait, I thought the PB&J was patriarchy? It’s racist, too? Or do I misremember? Or is it only racist when it’s on white bread?
       I just can NOT keep up with this stuff…….

       1. Why can’t it be both? That humble PB&J that so many of us consumed with abandon during our formative years is at once racist (peanut butter) and sexist (woman in the kitchen and taking care of children, seriously, how much more sexism do you need than that? I bet she was even. . .barefoot!)

          It’s ok. If you can’t keep up with it you’re probably as sane and rational as is possible for a human. It takes a special kind of stupid to keep up with the Left.

       2. No, no. It’s definately “RACIST!”

          So declared because some weird foreign kid in a grade school class, I think in California somewhere, didn’t know what a PB&J was when it was used in a “you have 3 PB&J sandwiches and give your friend 2, how many do you have left?” kind of question in class and felt all “othered” and dejected because his dumb ancestors hadn’t come up with that obvious, yet delicious, bit of culinary nirvana… Likely exacerbated when one of the other “RACIST!” little F#@&s in his class (because, of course, they are all part of the PB&J “RACIST!” conspiracy just by being in that “RACIST!” class) declared that PB&J was even better if you added banana… don’t get me started about how horribly “RACIST!” adding banana is!!!

          The whole thing gets even more bizarre when one kid is declared “SUPER RACIST!” for attempting to introduce said weird foreign kid to a PB&J sandwich so that he wouldn’t feel so left out (and therefore doing irreparable harm his racial identity), while all the rest are declared “HEARTLESSLY RACIST!” when the DON’T share the wonders of PB&J, thus excluding the poor weird foreign kid from the group.

          1. I was going to point out that, if I recall correctly, PB&J sandwiches were invented by George Washington Carver, so they can’t be racist…but then I remembered that George Washington Carver is one of only 8,989,293,289,403,284,115,433 (and counting) races, ethnicities*, disabilities and orientations recognized by the Federal Government…

             * Oddly enough, there seems to be only *one* ethnicity recognized, namely “Hispanic/Latino”…everything else is just race…

    2. They’ve also overused Nazi too.

       I read an article yesterday about a UK group (National Action) that is banned, and the only “definition” was “far-right, neo-Nazi, racist”. So, I still don’t understand what the group stands for or why its banned in the UK.

       1. They’ve overused almost all those titles. Hell, now they are making up new microaggressions — and talk about idiocy. There are now invisible microaggressions that don’t even require a second person for them to occur. All that’s needed is for someone to feel “invisible” when they walk into a room. This can be because they don’t see anyone who looks like them or because no one recognizes their ethnicity, etc. In other words, if they feel overlooked, they have been microaggressed. It doesn’t matter why someone might not have looked up and said “hi” or anything else. It is all about the feels.

          1. It is all about their feels.

             FTFY.

             Because you feels don’t matter, h8er!

          2. “All that’s needed is for someone to feel “invisible” when they walk into a room.”

             Hmm… Who knew the entire world was microaggressing me?… I always thought that feeling of never belonging anywhere was part of being such an introvert (or perhaps some kind of mental illness. Meh… could go either way).

             1. This is largely a complaint of oppressed minorities, especially female ones, under the premise that if you don’t look at them you are denying their personhood and if you do look at them you are subjecting them to the Male Gaze, a fate well known to be worse than death.

                1. Hmmm… I’m a big white dude, so probably not the same thing.

                   I do kind of understand the whole “if you don’t look at them you are denying their personhood” thing though. While that isn’t my personal bag, I can see how someone who is predisposed to feelings of victimization might interpret the feeling that way.

                   For me it just feeds into my usual feeling that I don’t belong. At work, out at the bar with friends, even my own birthday party (back when I still let well meaning people throw those). I function because I apply logic. For instance, if I really DIDN’T “belong at work” they would likely call the police and have me removed (or at LEAST stop paying me LOL!).

                2. If you are not looking at me I tend to assume that you are 1) distracted, 2) looking to see where you are going, or 3) talking to someone else. If you are looking at me, all I’m concerned about is 1) do I have something on my shirtfront, 2) or in my teeth, 3) or are you staring at something polite gentlemen do not stare at without first being introduced to the owner of said staring-subject.

                   1. Alternate hypothesis: If I am looking at you that is because you happen to be in the path my eyes are pointing while I contemplate the underlying futility of human communication and whether pigs can fly it you strap jatos on them or does that also require addition of a controlled guidance system.

                      Mind, if it is I what am staring fixedly at you it is entirely possible I am trying to remember whether we’ve ever met and I need to engage my Greeting Protocols subroutine or whether you merely resemble somebody I might have once met. Given I have such a bad memory for faces/names that I sometime resort to glancing at my Drivers’ License to confirm my identity, such a scenario as described is highly possible.

                      Regardless, it behooves some folk to consider that not everything is about them.

                      1. Having seen a few JATO take-offs first hand, I can at least verify for you that YES, pretty much ANYTHING can fly if you strap JATO rockets to it (within reasonable size limits anyway). Now, since JATO rockets only provide boost for a limited amount of time, and don’t provide any form of guidance, I can provide no guarantees about length of flight or lack of crater at end of flight.

                         1. GeeBee airplanes – proof that a barn door will fly, and race, with enough thrust.

                            1. The F4 Phantom: Even a brick will fly with a big enough engine.

                            2. LOL snelson134! I was totally thinking of the F4 when I made that comment.

             2. Did someone say something?

          3. Hey, people have been ignoring me for half a century. Undergoing such microaggression must be part of that while male privilege I hear people keep yammering about.

          4. Funny thing is, when I was in elementary school, and to a lesser extent in junior high, I actually *liked* the feeling that I could be “invisible” — that I could be at places, and people would generally not realize I was there.

             I’m not sure how much of it was real, and how much it was my imagination, but while I’ll occasionally seek out the spotlight, in general, I prefer to be as far away from it as possible…

       2. The simple answer to “why was it banned in the UK” is that the UK, like the rest of the world outside the USA, does NOT have freedom of speech.

          1. Technically, they do, but like all rights in the UK is it ‘subject to the power of parliament’, which makes it useless

19. Wow. People still go to Six Flags. Who knew?

    In Georgia, I saw where they want to rename the Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge, supposedly because of his racist views. I dearly hope they rename it after Quash Dolly, because he led the British through the swamp, allowing them to capture Savannah. Savannah stayed in the British pocket for so long, George III argued Georgia shouldn’t have been included in the US. Just think: Had George III prevailed, Savannah might not have been part of the State of Georgia at all. It just seems fitting. They could even mint commemorative gold-looking coins for the ceremony – Quash Dolly is said to have gotten one for his trouble.

20. Six flags should have renamed the park.
    History is racist. Get over it.
    In a hundred years they will be tearing down the statues of our current politicians.

    1. Just put up a Trump statue somewhere… You won’t have to wait that 100 years.

       1. Let me get popcorn.

          Ground rules. . .Trump statue can’t go up in a blue city or state. . .Cameras are a must. . .Try not to kill anyone. . .Must be streamed 24/7

          I’m pretty sure we can count on plenty of Trump supporters showing up to defend and plenty of Antifa/BLM folks showing up to destroy. I think it’s just going to be a matter of who gives up 1st. (Edge might go to antifa/blm since guessing most of them don’t have real jobs or anyplace they really need to be).

       2. Oooooo.
          Put up plaster of paris statues of President Trump in every city of 100,000 or more across the U.S.
          Replace weekly.

          1. Can we put in a sweet gooey center that will explode and spew urine or other appropriately vile substances upon reaching a certain percent of structural integrity?

             That would almost be funnier since it’d put them in a position of totally destroying vs getting covered in poo and leaving some remnant. (Just for grins change the percent weekly and per statue)

             1. Just put the dye packets they use in bank bags.
                I’d be laughing my butt off at the spray dyed carrying it around for a week or so afterwards.

                1. That’s probably more humane. Can we mix in a little skunk scent? And a really loud voice recording of Trump saying pretty much anything? I swear it’s totally for science. These people are so deranged I can’t help but wanting to do some stress testing.

                   1. I like the idea of filling the statues with au de Skunk! It would make them have to decide between destroying the statue and having to smell it, or letting the statue stand.

                      1. Oh ‘captan, Mercaptan!

                      2. What’s President Trump’s favorite aftershave?

                      3. Instead of mercaptan, how about fulminate? As Niven would say, “think of it as evolution in action”.

          2. In respect of Leftist criticisms of the president, perhaps a random assortment of those statues might be filled with pressurized gas, such as methane, reflecting their assertions that he is nothing more than a stinking gas bag?

             Such statues ought, of course, be installed in areas where their toppling can be counted on to strike sparks.

21. If the current version of Do-Gooders are serious, they will also insist on removing all references to Comanches, Pawnee, Cherokee, coastal peoples of the Pacific Northwest, the Iroquois Confederation, and any other Native American group that practiced slavery. And to any follower of Islam, and possibly of Hinduism as well, since slavery was practiced on the Subcontinent (and still is in some areas as debt-peonage and other things).

    1. Oh but they are people of color so there are different rules for them, don’cha know?

       1. *folds paws, looks pious* Of course.

22. c4c

23. wildeyes: The Senate is pushing a law, that Trump will sign into law, that condemns the white supremacism behind the events in Charlottesville. In implementing this law, Trump will have to fire every Democrat in Federal service. He will also be forced to reactivate the loyalty oath, which will, for example, forbid the governor of Virginia from running for federal office.

24. O.o

25. Amanda, Sarah, please forgive the off topic, and guys, please do not reply to this. I’m not trying to hijack the comments, but to get the word out. If you have questions, please go hit me up on facebook.

    SOLAR ALERT!!

    At 09:10UTC/04:10amCDT this morning, sunspot group 2673 produced an X2.2 solar flare (X class is the strongest currently extant), with possible associated CME, which would be Earth-directed if produced. (Still looking to see if it produced one.)

    At 12:02UTC/7:02amCDT the same spot group produced an X9.3 flare, with confirmed Earth-directed CME. The high-energy photons have already ionized the upper atmosphere and have caused radio blackouts on the Sunward side (day side) of Earth.

    The Carrington event, while producing much stronger flares (est. X100), was essentially a double-barreled event, with the first CME clearing the interplanetary medium in front of it, allowing the second CME to come in much faster and more energetically.

    The first X class flare did NOT produce an Earth-directed CME., But if it had, then a similar event could have happened here. In any case, expect major geomagnetic storming sometime in the next few days. A CME will affect the entire planet, interacting with the magnetic field mostly, but to a lesser extent the atmosphere as well. There is no “average speed” for a CME; their velocities depend on numerous factors. Expect the “impact” later this week (2-3 days), with aurorae down to at least mid-latitudes. I’m in northern Alabama and I’ll be going outside at night to look.

    DO NOT PANIC. Recommend being prepared to throw your laptop in the microwave, and unplug the microwave. Some high-latitude power blackouts or brownouts could occur.

    Here is a video of the X9.3 flare, taken in several different wavelengths, by the Solar Dynamics Observatory space-based probe.

    1. Hmm. Can’t unplug the microwave (is wired in – go figure). Will power everything down, unplug, and hope for the best.

    2. Honestly, I’m more nervous about Irma than this. If it goes into the Gulf, it’s going to be worse than Ivan, and if up the Atlantic side, we’re talking about another Hugo. In both cases, if the eye stays over water, it won’t weaken as much as if it stayed over land.

       Now, we both know that we don’t see eye-to-eye on this, but I’m not going there. What I want to talk about is Faraday cages. I’m assuming your microwave suggestion is to have a Faraday cage. That said, shouldn’t there be at least one ground? Yes, I know why you said to unplug the microwave. My point is that if the idea is to have solid metal shielding, then how about large, all-metal, ammo boxes?

       I’m not being funny here. Those Army Surplus ammo boxes are handy latching storage containers, and I wouldn’t be surprised if most of us here have one or two or three somewhere about.

       For that matter, if the idea is a Faraday Cage, and it doesn’t have to be grounded, what about a box sealed in aluminum foil?

       1. Those ammo boxes have good rubber seals and can make impromptu flotation devices.

       2. No, Faraday cages don’t have to be grounded. A Faraday cage is merely a metal shell whose apertures are small enough. Substantially smaller than the wavelength of the impinging EM field, that is. For example, an all-metal airplane is a Faraday cage, whether in flight or on the ground.

       3. This is a concern for me too. I am in the process of figuring out how to back up my computer and other devices to external hard drives (I’ve recently learned that unless you physically own it, it’s not really a backup!), and I’ve been trying to figure out how to save a copy off-site.

          So far, I’m leaning towards keeping a hard drive in a safe deposit box in some sort of bank. But I’ve seen recommendations that hard drives and documents kept there should be kept in a waterproof container, and I have instinctively added “and should be EMP-proof”. I *guess* I could wrap the drives in aluminum foil, but I’d rather have something I can open and close.

          Oh, and it needs to be small enough to fit in a 5″x2″x12″ (or maybe 5″x3″x12″) box.

          When I can afford it*, I’m going to get a waterproof, EMP-proof and fireproof gun safe, bolted to a concrete floor of a concrete shed (to limit fire damage further) designed to be waterproof itself.

          (*Ha ha, get it? “When”? Yeah, I should try stand-up comedy…)

          1. I am not sure about the dimensions, but if you simply burn the data to a Dual-Layer DVD+R you won’t have to worry about EMP or water, although heat could prove problematic. I am not sure whether they would fit in a standard safe deposit drawer, however.

             A quick [searchengine] indicates you can buy five of them, with jewel cases, for about ten bucks at Walmart; more and cheaper if you don’t want jewel boxes.

             1. The goal is to have a hard drive that I could boot from in the event of an emergency. Having said that, I understand that there’s a 3-2-1 rule: at least three copies, at least two mediums, and at least one off-site location. So I’ll have to keep the DVD+R option in mind…

    3. The thing about microwave ovens is, they’re designed (and certified?) to leak only so much microwaves, which also translates into keeping out a large fraction of outside energy (and more of it, the more powerful the oven) at microwave (and most *probably* also lower) frequencies.
       So while an ammo box, foil-wrap, or other Faraday cage should help some, an oven (with case and seals intact) *will* stop some large fraction of the incoming with a tested, deliberate design; and for this purpose, a $10 junkshop dud (case/door OK) is as good as new. (Think “official” eclipse glasses, almost, vs. candle soot on a piece of glass.)

       Maybe there’s another common commercial product actually designed around good radio shielding up to microwaves, but I sure can’t think of one.

       At least a geomagnetic “EMP” like this shouldn’t have much of the nasty really high (near microwave) frequency radio energy you get from a “regular” bomb-driven, gamma flash + Compton shower EMP; but both kinds can be REALLY hard on long wires, like miles worth of power lines or local telephone lines, as plenty of historical examples show. (For more on past EMP-generating bomb tests, look up stuff like “Starfish Prime” &c.)

       Hopefully Interstellar Woman of Mystery Stephanie Osborn can have some more and better to say about this, before the (space weather) storm hits…

       1. shouldn’t any metal box without any holes be sufficient for keeping out energy, or are there other factors, such as the thickness of the metal (and type of metal, for that matter) that need to be taken into account as well?

          As I mentioned in a previous comment, I’d like to put hard drives in a safe deposit box, and I would like to protect it against both flooding and EMP. I have a funny feeling it would be tricky to put a microwave in a typical smallish safe deposit box…

26. In related news, the Dallas City Council earlier today voted to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee immediately. This would cost the city approximately $450,000 which would, according to reports, be paid from extra money in the city budget. Now, because I’ve seen what happens with Dallas budgets, I have to wonder what extra money they’re talking about. Not that the city has to open its pocketbook yet. They voted to remove the statue right away but hadn’t figured out how to do it. That gave opponents time to file for — and get — a TRO in federal district court. The court will hear arguments tomorrow afternoon.

    Now, only a week ago, Mayor Mike Rawlings said we needed to slow down and consider, without emotion ruling, what to do regarding these types of statues. Today he said “There is no question in my mind that this city will be better with this statue down.” I’m sorry, but how does the removal of a single statue make for a better city? One statue does not make a city or its reputation.

    https://www.dallasnews.com/news/dallas-city-hall/2017/09/06/robert-e-lee-statue-dallas-removed-city-council-vote

    1. Almost half a million dollars to remove the statue?

       I was figuring using a friend’s race car trailer (mine is full of scrap metal at the moment) and paying $500 or so for someone with one of the fancy rotator-boom wreckers to lift it off the pedestal and set it on the trailer.

       Hm, maybe I ought to write them a proposal, I could remove the statue for only $425,000…

       1. Obviously the City of Dallas is run by fiscal incompetents.

          1. Removing the statue will likely cost only about $4,250 — the remaining expenses are for the permits, official notices, environmental studies (e.g., endangered species analysis on local pigeon population) and approvals, union surcharges and kickbacks consulting fees to relatives of the city council.

          2. I suppose part of the reason for the high cost is that these things are done in the middle of the night.

          3. You overlook the possibility that the goal is to maintain or even raise high tax rates.

             While you should never blame malice for what can be explained by incompetence, that doesn’t mean malice is not involved. High taxes enhance politicians’ power, after all.

    2. Interesting. The news made it seem that the statue was being removed at this instant, as in they had cranes in position and ready to go. Which is typical tee-wee news for you.

    3. > One statue does not make a city or its reputation.

       Rio de Janeiro gets a lot of mileage out of their statue, though…

27. c4c because ow my eyes.

    I think the reason why the folks in the US don’t see this is because this eye-killing banner is probably because it’s likely linked to yet another vote for gay marriage being pushed through here in Australia. Which means I might have to suffer through the damn thing all the way until November.

    Interesting to note: I don’t see the thing on other blogs like Cedar’s.

    (And I don’t think the security risk is worth using another browser, like Chrome or some such. The version of browser we use is rather locked down, thanks to my rather unique computer security requirements, and I also use Debian…)

    1. I don’t see the banner, so it’s probably being plastered on just for your “benefit.” Sorry. 😦

       1. Yeah, because we are all being made to care. The ‘workaround’ we finally did was to turn one computer’s screen black and white. Obviously this is not a work around I can do for an art computer, but my eyes HURT LESS NOW. Hopefully they’ll heal.

          1. I’m reading your blog post about this right now. When I first read your comments, I thought your eyes “hurt” in an “my notions of style might never recover” sort of way. I didn’t realize the banner was *literally* hurting your eyes.

             Two or three years ago, I stopped getting migraines*. I have no idea why, but sometimes I wonder if subtle changes in monitor technologies is a factor.

             In any case, I theoretically want to see the banner because I’m curious, but I’m also afraid now, lest it has the same kind of physical effects on me! And I hope you can recover completely from your injuries.

             * or at least, I haven’t had things that were *obviously* migraines; I’ve had severe stress headaches without auras, and I’ve also had weird mental sensations I’ve wondered if they were micro-migraines, but I’ve not had a full-blown aura-and-headache-and-light-sensitivity thing for a while now…

             1. *laughing* I wouldn’t be that angry over mere bad taste. No, I was furious because it actually hurt, and I wasn’t able to look at a monitor for longer than five minutes without having the pain return en force, and there was no way we could turn it off until a workaround was coded. Normal everyday end users like myself were screwed, and they were going to keep the fucking thing up until the ballot results in November.

                You could prolly click on the picture I posted there if you really wanna see it. The effect might not work though, since part of why the damn banner hurts my eyes is because it jerks my eyes up to it repeatedly while I’m trying to focus on text not at the top of the page.

                This sort of eyestrain is why I can’t use CRT monitors any more, and if lights are flickering or strobing a certain way, even text on a printed page will strain my eyes in a similar manner.

       2. From what I’ve seen, this is actually always there, but is not always visible. If something related to gay marriage is happening in your region, it’s activated, and will be seen. As this is WordPress.com’s official stance, you are not allowed to remove it and requests to remove it will not be accommodated.

          https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/rainbow-banner-6?replies=10#post-3012709

          1. “You WILL be made to care!”
             Why do all the tech companies have to be so damned left?

             1. Well, since everyone here is unlikely to leave WordPress, and move to say, Ghost… we’re kind of stuck. It is only via logging in to WordPress, as opposed to a localized ID, that we’re made to see the banner, or via Jetpack, that it’s seen. Privately hosted WordPress software and localized ID-login does not have the banner.

                https://ghost.org/

             2. A good example of a self-hosted wordpress requiring a local log in would be Larry Correia’s site.

                My site gives the option of logging in with WordPress, or logging in using a username and password. Using the latter means you won’t see the rainbow banner, as it’s WordPress.com that is enforcing the banner as a ‘show of support’ for only a certain privileged, held as more important group of its’ userbase, over the rest.

          2. How wonderful that they think that actively annoying people is gonna turn out the vote they want.

             1. There are comments saying that thanks to this they will vote no.

                Also, a poll has the pro side worrying about the outcome as it seems there is less support than they indicated.

             2. I think that, with the news of the various bullying abuses coming out from the US, the haranguing that local folks have had to endure about SSM here, and with the news that school sex ed classes are less focused about teaching safe sex and reproductive systems, than they are about masturbating and anal sex and ‘erasing gender’, and, well, people getting simply sick of having it shoved in their faces has resulted in a less than stellar support for the whole thing.

                http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/gay-marriage/new-poll-has-support-for-same-sex-marriage-in-australia-falling/news-story/eafbaaba8663f5384d8b97d3e74cbc35#null

                Supporters of same-sex marriage — who have consistently pointed to polls for several years suggesting Australians wanted change — have been concerned in recent weeks about the number of people who will actually vote in the survey. And this poll will give them little comfort.

                The results call into question the claims made by supporters of SSM that ‘support for them is overwhelming’. I wonder how many people who say they support is actually do – or just say that to avoid being called the usual haterbigothomophobe slurs.

                What WordPress did is only ensuring that there will be people who will vote no when they didn’t care about a ‘yes’ anyway – see the first post I wrote on the matter, as an example.

                1. “people getting simply sick of having it shoved in their faces …”

                   Even people who like sticking their faces in it tend to object to having it shoved in their face.

                   1. Just wrote a post about it, because it’s great evidence of ‘gay marriage won’t affect you’ being a huge lie.

                      https://shadow.affsdiary.com/2017/09/10/blockout/

                      1. Remember how they pinky swore this wouldn’t open the door to group marriage?

                         Christians Are Now Being Asked to Accept Polyamory
                         By John Ellis
                         At every new encroachment on society’s morals made by the sexual revolution, the dissenters are often shouted down with cries of “slippery slope fallacy!” As we all know (especially bakers who desire to operate their business according to the precepts of their faith) the slippery slope is real. The latest low mark on the slippery hill of complete moral degradation is the push for Christians to accept polyamory, a lifestyle of open relationships that allow dating or marriage partners to have sex with outsiders.

                         According to a recent article at Patheos, “It’s time for the Church to talk about polyamory.”

                         [END EXCERPT]

                         They won’t stop until we’ve accepted animal husbandry.

                         1. Sooooo in other words, being made to accept Islam’s polygynous marriage?

                            The thing that most people might find strange is I think the decision to have an open marriage is a decision a married couple should have on their own. I don’t think they should be legalised simply because it doesn’t just affect the adults involved, but also children and property – say, in the case of a divorce from a group, who are the parents? How is parenthood defined here? Etc. But with the current system, it’s clear that parenthood lies with the biological ties, unless one gives up custody (see, successful step-parenting for examples.)

                            Getting the legal system involved here would make it very, very messy, even messier than current divorces and custody disputes currently are.

                         2. There is no way to ever trust the Left, and living with them peacefully is an opium dream.

                            1. You are far too pessimistic. It is quite easy to live peacefully alongside them so long as you take the simple precaution of interring them first.

                         3. If you start with the concept that one should be able to marry anyone one loves, I don’t see how you don’t end up with polygamy. Or worse.

                            1. And, again, this has never been about “marrying” – as in living with someone you love and sharing their life and doing whatever you see fit in the bedroom”.
                               This has always been about having the imprimatur of approval – specifically from all the people, through the laws of the gov’t.
                               It’s never been about legal rights (they had that with ‘civil unions’, and even before), but about having people approve of their lifestyle, and endorse it.
                               They couldn’t give a hoot in a holler about the consequences, beyond getting approval for their ‘lifestyle’.

                            2. “This has always been about having the imprimatur of approval”

                               Lawsy, ain’t that a right nice way of saying “Rubbing their noses in it and making them say it smells sweet”?

             3. Sorry for the spam of comments, but here’s the link about the sex-ed in schools thing.

                http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/school-life/marijke-rancie-claims-schools-are-wrong-to-teaching-students-about-sex-and-masturbation/news-story/71d7dc3d9bfd3908184f46aa72dd47ed

                The really awful thing is, this came up before very recently as well.

       3. https://www.sightmagazine.com.au/news/7907-christians-among-those-calling-for-wordpress-to-remove-rainbow-banner-from-hosted-sites

          The banner, which was spotted on sites over the weekend, appears at the top of sites when users are logged in. In comments sent to several WordPress users who raised the issue via the organisation’s online support service, ‘rootjosh’, described as a member of staff, said that to “show our support for marriage equality, we’re showing the rainbow bar to all our Australian visitors”. He added that it would remain in place until the survey results are released.

          “We absolutely respect your right to publish the content you choose to your site, but the navigation bar styling reflects WordPress.com’s stance as a company…” he said. “If this causes you to choose to leave WordPress.com, we’re sorry to see you go.”

          1. That’s such a polite invitation, people should take them up on it.

             1. There’s nothing wrong with the software itself – there is a big difference, however, from the WordPress.com universal login ID / gravatar server (that lets everyone log in to comment on WordPress sites everywhere without having to make new accounts for every WordPress blog, site hosting and convenient reader bar, and WordPress blog software. The WordPress.org software is free, open-source, and under a GPL2 free software license.

       4. https://en.forums.wordpress.com/rss/topic/rainbow-banner-6

    2. In Konqueror, just right-click and select “block image.” It even accepts regular expressions and wildcards.

       If you want to try a different browser you might call it with a shell script that asks for a password. It’d keep the kids firing it up unsupervised, anyway.

       1. I’ll put the suggestion to the IT guy when he’s awake. He’s been not sleeping due to Work.

          I do not think that banner is an image though, from what he said looking at the damn thing.

       2. It’s not an image. It’s a CSS thing that if you try to edit, will break your bar, forcing you to refresh the page – and reapply the rainbow. See my comments to TXRed about this being an enforced thing.

          1. If you view the page source, can you see where the css script is coming from, or the image that it’s loading?

             If you can find the source, you can put the domain name in /etc/hosts and block it.

             1. For security reasons I may not discuss technical details about the banner any further.

             2. However, my housemate has a response to the thing that had me unable to do work on our book due to the severe eyestrain the banner caused.

                https://shadow.affsdiary.com/2017/09/04/inconsideracy/#comment-726

                Regarding the banner, I can talk about how unethical it is to force it on everyone and not give anyone an out, because ‘it’s the company’s stance.’ Regarding the rest, it is probably best on private, non public, and more importantly, locked down and secure communication methods.

    3. Serendipity on the webz – saw this today.
       https://www.spectator.com.au/2017/09/whats-changed-in-britain-since-same-sex-marriage/

       Read it and weep.

28. … but it is a situation where there is no winning solution.

    Sure there is: People can stop being pathetic little..crybabies and don’t let hunks of metal and pieces of fabric offend them. It’s not that hard. You could even say it’s the key to a privileged life.

29. Somehow, I just can’t imagine Bubba and Cleetus having the following conversation:
    “They done pull’t down that statchoo of General Lee!”
    “Looks like we ain’t got no more cause to be hatin’ on them minorities!”
    “Yep, and I’s a thinkin’ that we needs to be votin’ fer Democrats again.”
    “Sure nuff. Ima also thinking mah pickup truck may be hurting the environmnt, and that we don’t be needin our guns either.”

30. Did the Commanche have a flag? They controlled most of Texas during the period of Spanish/French/Mexican claims. Those countries claimed the territory, but they controlled very little of it. And the Commanche put up a hell of a fight against the settlers from the United States.

    So anyone who complains that we stole Texas from Mexico should be informed that we were hired by Mexico to steal it from the Commanche, which we did. Then we decided to keep it for ourselves.

    1. Pretty much that. Mexico claimed it — on paper. The Comanche controlled it — absolutely.

31. Not to derail but do the North Texas Hoydens ever meet up? I’m in the metroplex area.

    1. Not so far as I know. I’m in Dallas and if you’d like to meet send me an email.

32. Amanda S. Green: There’s a different mentality in a way to a Texan, especially if you happened to be born here.”
    Chris Nelson: I” was raised a Texan and a US citizen, not a Southern.”

    I expected to see some more of that. Texans seem to be alone among the 50 states to view themselves as state citizens, Texans, first, and Americans, second. I grew up in NY and NJ. People are FROM NY and NJ, but don’t view themselves first AS New Yorkers or New Jerseyans. (Except for people from NYC who view everyone outside NYC as a different breed…) Spent 21 years in the Navy, met people from all 50 states, and when you asked where they were from, all of them from a state said “I’m from (name of state).” except those from Texas who said “I’m a Texan.” I did mention people from the 50 states. People from territories and Puerto Rico would say “I’m Guamanian” or “Puerto Rican” or whatever, identifying first with where they were from.

    While aware somewhat of Texan’s pride in Texas, that pride really came to me when my wife and I were moving from CA to SC with her 8 months pregnant. Stopped to see a great-aunt in Texas, who I had never ever met or talked with before arranging a stop to see her while travelling cross country. What I knew of her and she knew of me was what my grandmother had told us, that they told each other in LETTERS, real live letters when that was a thing. Second full day of our visit she said in complete seriousness that I should continue on to SC and buy a house and that my wife should stay there and have our first child so our child could be a Texan. If I hadn’t just returned from a 6 month deployment a week before we left CA, my wife might have taken her up on it….

    1. I know I have a certain tendency to think of myself as a Utahn, but it’s not as ingrained in my thought processes as it seems to be in Texas. I think a major contributing factor is the fact that Texas was once a country for ten years…

       Having said that, if there comes a time where Texas secedes from the Union, and it’s for a very good reason, I hope that Utah secedes too, and joins Texas. (If Texas secedes for wrong reasons, I will wash my hands of them, and wish them luck, even if I agree with the secession.)

33. Lee never criticized slavery as a crime against the slaves. He called it “a moral and political evil” because he thought it corrupted slaveowners, in a general sort of way. But he thought it was good for the slaves (“painful correction”).

    He (and his brothers) inherited slaves from his mother, sold some (and pocketed the proceeds), and used others for many years. He never urged any of the slaveowners he knew (essentially all of his Virginia friends and relations) to free slaves. He married the only child of a wealthy slaveowning planter whose property went to Lee’s children.

    He vehemently opposed any effort by third parties to abolish slavery. He may have had some vague idea that the slaves could be gradually emancipated and moved out of the country, where they wouldn’t affect white people.

    1. We get that you don”t like the man, Rich. You don’t have to keep harping on it.

    2. Sounds like Grant (Grant married a slave owner, who was from KY and thus not affected until the 13th Amendment passed after the war) and Lincoln, who wasn’t a fan of full citizenship either.

       1. This idea that slavery and racism are unique to the South annoys me.

    3. One wonders if Mr. Rostrum has ever heard of the American Colonization Society.

34. Nice civilization here. Be a shame if something happened to it. Give me a few dollars and make a few changes, and maybe nothing bad will happen to your place. You know what I mean?

35. I never knew that Six Flags amusement park’s full name was Six Flags Over Texas. That’s pretty cool.

    I have to say though, if the name of your park is Six Flags Over Texas, one would think the management would tell people to cram it when they complain about one of those flags. That would be like idiots complaining that Canada used to be a British colony. Some people need to be ignored.

    1. Mind you, only the one in Arlington was actually “Six Flags Over Texas” way back when. It was successful enough they became a big corporation and bought up bunches of other parks in the US – eventually giving all of them the name “Six Flags”.

36. Vote time:
    https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/161077-what-work-with-a-detective-as-the-main-protagonist-should-we-read-in-oct

    1. The obvious would be The Demolished Man. However, I’d recommend “TheTaking of Satcon Station” by Barney Cohen, 1982. It’s your generic flatfoot detective, except trying to solve a crime on a large space station. It came and went and sank without a trace, but I thought it was quite well done, no matter whether you were looking at it from the detective or SF genres.

    2. Caves of Steel?

37. Certain administrations, having in common a certain immunity from press criticism, have repeatedly attempted to whitewash history in the interest of furthering partisan agenda, demonstrating the view that History is only important as it serves contemporary needs.

    Playing politics with the Holocaust Museum
    What will it take to keep the United States Holocaust Museum free of political interference and manipulation?

    [SNIP]

    The museum, in conjunction with the US Institute for Peace, was set to unveil a study on Syrian war crimes on Monday. The report claims it was near-impossible for then-President Barack Obama to “take effective action to prevent atrocities.”

    In other words, the study — which relies on “computational modeling and game theory methods” — is basically a whitewash of Obama’s abandoning of his self-proclaimed “red line” against Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad.

    Oh, and the study was overseen by a former Obama intelligence and national-security official.

    [SNIP]

    Making this report even more blatantly partisan is the fact that several Obama administration officials — including Ben Rhodes, an architect of his Syria policy — are members of the museum’s board.

    In 1993, shortly after the Holocaust Museum opened, President Bill Clinton’s State Department pressured the museum to invite Croatian leader Franjo Tudjman, despite his anti-Jewish writings.

    Five years later, State similarly pushed the museum to invite PLO leader Yasser Arafat — not to educate him, but to burnish his image. When the museum’s director objected (and was overruled by White House pressure), he quit.

    The National Academy of Public Administration, at Congress’ request, later issued a report decrying the “inappropriate” politicization of the taxpayer-funded museum and calling for reforms.

    That report said the Holocaust Museum in particular “should not be used as a tool to achieve particular political purposes.” Too bad that sage advice has been forgotten.

    A museum of conscience, as this one purports to be, should never abandon it — or allow it to be hijacked.

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