Adam McCready shows us how one household celebrates our independence on Sycamore Street in Watertown.
Carlson, meanwhile, gets to enjoy this quaint display in Arlington:
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Comments
The southern confederates
By PeterGriffith5
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 1:42pm
The southern confederates were much more akin to the Trumpster than any Union General, including Sherman. The bombastic notion of taking up arms against our own countrymen simply because you disagree with election results is much more Trumpesque than General Sherman's march to the sea.
The Confederate rebellion was, like Trumnp, long on bluster and bluff. Like Trump, they did little planning and operated under false assumptions. Britain did not enter the war to maintain their cotton supply, they simply imported cotton from Egypt. To the Confederate surprise, the slaves brought to the front to dig earthworks, deserted to the Union side by the thousands. Also to their surprise, when most southern men were off the plantation at the front, the slaves who stayed at home worked at a much more leisurely pace.
General William T. Sherman on the other hand, was very effective in his march to the sea. Like U.S. Grant, he realized that the rebels would fight to the bitter end and the only way to defeat them was use the Union's superior resources in a war of attrition. Part of that was a matter of denying food being used to support the rebellious army.
Indeed, if one looks at Trump's career anything he's done has involved bullying people, not paying people for services and goods in his far flung grandiose schemes. He is much akin to the ridiculous rebellion that Southern leadership foisted upon the Confederate states.
Nope
By anon
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 2:24pm
Sherman knew how to run a campaign.
He also knew the difference between words and actions.
Sherman sold Chinese made
By bulgingbuick
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 3:49pm
ties too?
Stop quoting people who were there and actually knew something
By Elmer Fudd
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 12:19pm
That's the last thing most posters on this topic want introduced into the conversation.
Sorry, man
By erik g
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 11:48am
I never got around to looking for an equivalent to GreaseMonkey for Chrome. I could probably put up a JS file somewhere, and you can just bookmark it to get the same effect, but that means you're trusting someone else's code to run in your browser window, which is usually a bad idea.
I'm still fiddling with the one that makes every post by DPM show up in a speech bubble coming out of a giant rooster. I feel it gives it the appropriate gravitas.
Should I post trigger
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 12:05pm
Should I post trigger warnings for you?
Trigger warning?
By MC Slim JB
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 3:31pm
That's for helping people who have experienced some trauma, helping them avoid content that might remind them of it and distress them.
Your posts are about as distressing as the noise of one of those fat houseflies whose intermittent buzzing indicates they're about to croak: modestly annoying for about five seconds, then trivially easy to ignore.
Buddy those guys didn't
By anon
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 11:02am
Buddy those guys didn't consider themselves Americans. They were fighting to no longer be considered American by everyone else. They were traitors to the United States.
If they were not Americans
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 1:22pm
If they were not Americans how were they traitors?
Yes, Confederates were Americans
By Bob Leponge
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 11:43am
Yes, Confederates were Americans. So were Tokyo Rose, Aldrich Ames, Benedict Arnold, John Walker, Jr., and Nidal Malik Hassan
You think men who march to
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 11:49am
You think men who march to war have much of a choice?
Yes, absolutely, I do.
By Bob Leponge
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 11:54am
The leadership absolutely had a choice. And men of conscience will choose jail or death over treason.
Leadership did not fight and
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 11:59am
Leadership did not fight and die under the flag at least not in any meaningful numbers. The tens of thousands that died were not leadership.
" And men of conscience will choose jail or death over treason."
All this reflects is your lack of understanding of where loyalties lied in the time. Men were loyal to their states, not to the nation. We were much more a collection of states in those days.
Joe
By bulgingbuick
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 11:53am
McCarthy, George Wallace, Lee Atwater
Help me out here...
By Kaz
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 12:18pm
You have a different definition of secession than I do.
The entire justification for
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 12:26pm
The entire justification for the invasion of the south was the restoration of the union, that the south was still part of the US and it did not have the right to secede.
Lincoln in recognizing this saved the union when he waged the war and also saved the union when he put reunification ahead of revenge.
The arguments that seem rather prevalent today would have solely succeeded in truly ending the Union for military might alone would not have been enough to have brought us where we are today. Lincolns understanding of these realities are what truly saved the Union and made us what we are today.
It seems nobody likes Lincoln anymore.
So, then return to the point
By Kaz
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 12:32pm
It's not an invasion if the South was part of the nation still. And they're not Americans if it was an invasion.
You can't have it both ways...unless you're attempting to make some sort of rationalization for the actions of the secessionist states post hoc.
Either the South were Americans but traitors and shouldn't be celebrated or recognized except for their influence on the direction the country avoided by squelching them...or they weren't Americans and were heroes who seceded and were invaded by the Union in an attempt to usurp their control and ownership of their own destinies.
This new rationalization that exists these days that the Confederacy was simultaneously heroic rebels looking out for what's right while also being yoked to the rest of the Union is bullshit hypocrisy.
I take it you reject Lincoln
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 12:41pm
I take it you reject Lincoln's reasoning's as well as his efforts in reunification not revenge?
American men who fought under the confederate flags were largely poor men forced into service as most men are in war. Recognizing them as such is hardly inappropriate. The men who fought and died under the confederacy ultimately fought where their loyalties lied, with their states.
One can readily honor the men that died while also rejecting their leaderships cause. Apparently that is difficult for you? Prefer to condemn American men that were ultimately victims of war?
Thank God it was Lincoln at the helm of this nation when he reunified it and not someone like you. Your reasoning and prescription would have destroyed this nation.
Lincoln's reasoning is not important
By Waquiot
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 1:13pm
The flag was created to represent an area that chose to leave the United States, to no longer be "Americans." It is akin to referring to those who fell at Lexington and Concord as "British," which makes more sense since in April of 1775 there was no declaration that they were not British.
If the Confederacy was successful, they would not be considered Americans. Period.
"If the Confederacy was
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 1:28pm
"If the Confederacy was successful, they would not be considered Americans. Period."
The confederacy was not successful.
Ohhhh boy
By anon
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 12:33pm
We gots ourselves a real live Johhnnnny REB here!
Tell us again how you ain't a nutjob?
Southern states were invaded
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 12:47pm
Southern states were invaded by the north following secession. This is not exactly a point of contention...
Was the invasion justified? Totally.
What bizarre logic you utter
By Dave-from-Boston
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 1:54pm
The Confederate States of America was not recognized as independent by any other nation. It was never an independent country - it was merely a failed secession. This was confirmed by Texas v. White, which addressed the issue of the rebel Texas government selling United States bonds to fund the war effort. The Supreme Court ruled that the confederate government was illegitimate and could not authorize the sale of U.S. bonds. They confirmed that the United States constitution did not allow states to secede. For these reasons, Texas (and any other Confederate state) had never been outside the Union and any state actions taken to declare secession or implement the Ordinance of Secession were null and void.
That being the case, how does the legitimate government of the United States invade itself?
You are simply engaging in mental masturbation and have demonstrated yourself to be a pseudo-intellect.
As for the Confederate flag being some sort of historically relic honoring the South's heritage - complete bullshit. Since the rise of the KKK and other white supremacist groups, the stars and bars have become a provocative symbol intend to intimidate and repress - in particular people of color.
I lived in the south in the 50s - I learned upfront and personal what the southern view was of decendents of slaves - not a whole bunch (particularly below the surface) has changed in the ensuing years.
"It was never an independent
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 2:00pm
"It was never an independent country - it was merely a failed secession."
Please do indicate where I claim otherwise.
"Southern states were invaded
By bgl
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 2:14pm
"Southern states were invaded by the north following secession. This is not exactly a point of contention..."
The North couldn't be invading the South if the South wasn't being recognized as an independent state. Since it never was, the North by definition wasn't invading, but, simply fighting to keep the union together.
You need to try harder on the troll game man, starting to fall apart here.
Give me a better term for
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 2:23pm
Give me a better term for what happened, I do not have one. The action was justified, I did not say otherwise. In fact I have repeatedly stated I supported the reunification.
You call reasoned arguments trolling? Do not like discussion and reasonable debate?
Ah, no
By perruptor
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 5:50pm
bgt didn't call reasoned arguments trolling; they called your arguments trolling. Which they are.
LMFTFY
By adamg
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 12:49pm
The Confederate flag is the flag under which traitors lived and died - and killed more Americans than any other group of people in the history of the country.
So you reject the entire
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 12:57pm
So you reject the entire premise for the war? That secession was illegal and that the people that lived in seceded states remained Americans?
If as you state the people living in seceded states were no longer Americans all you have is a war of northern aggression (not an argument I subscribe to).
You also reject Lincolns action that SAVED the union under reunification?
If the secessionist states were no longer Americans what pray tell was the legal justification for the war?
Man the historical ignorance is astounding.
You're right: The historic ignorance is astounding
By adamg
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 1:19pm
So you should maybe go read a book or two about the Civil War. I hear there's any number you can pick from.
Enough already for the Northern invasion crap. Why did the North invade Southern states? Because they committed treason and seceded and started the War of Southern Aggression.
If you look at the articles of secession passed by the Southern states, they were not noble and American. They were written by profiteering, amoral, racist slaveowners committed to preserving "the peculiar institution," no matter the cost to their states, their fellow citizens and the hundreds of thousands of people they enslaved.
No, not all Southerners were racist slaveowners. You might recall how a big chunk of Virginia seceded from the secessionists in Richmond and gave us an entirely new state.
The fact remains, however, that Southerners were the ones who tried to pull out of the union. They are the traitors. They are the ones who were enslaving and killing people based on the color of their skin.
The Stars and Bars are not honorable. They do not represent some Great Cause. They are the symbols of genocidal, anti-democratic despots responsible for the deaths of more Americans than any other group in history. They are to be despised, the people who fly them to be pitied, at best, especially here in Massachusetts, the state that gave us Charles Sumner and the 54th Massachusetts.
If they were not Americans
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 1:30pm
If they were not Americans they could not commit treason against America.
Men who fight in war, especially in the past, do not do so largely out of some sense of honor, they fight in war because they are forced to. One does not need to argue from a position of honorableness to honor the dead.
Which are they? Americans or not Americans?
You keep talking about ignorance
By adamg
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 1:31pm
And yet you keep displaying yours. We have this document called the Constitution. Article III, section 3 actually defines treason:
So, yes, an American can commit treason against the US.
Yet if they are not Americans
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 1:38pm
Yet if they are not Americans they are not treasonous. Japan did not commit an act of treason when it bombed pearl harbor it committed an act of war.
One must accept secessionists as Americans to argue they committed treason. You in your post rejected the premise that confederates were Americans.
I have no beef with the argument that they were treasonous.
I have many beefs with the argument that they were not Americans and also treasonous. You cannot have it both ways. Non Americans cannot commit acts of treason.
We could call them war criminals if you prefer
By adamg
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 1:52pm
Regardless of whether they were American traitors or self-declared soldiers of a new nation, the fact remains they were horrible people fighting a horrible cause and flying a confederate flag is celebrating one of the deadliest periods in American history, in part because of things such as Andersonville. And I'm wondering if that's really the argument you want to make.
Americans have been sent to
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 2:00pm
Americans have been sent to unjustified wars for a very long time. What is it you say to the men forced to fight in Vietnam?
Should we tear down the wall honoring them because they fought an unjust war?
Those goalposts
By anon
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 2:23pm
They are heavy. You must be exhausted.
Hey!
By perruptor
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 4:58pm
Don't drag me into your bullshit dorm-room argument, and leave that memorial the fuck alone.
"leave that memorial the fuck
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 5:49pm
"leave that memorial the fuck alone."
I was not advocating for the removal of the memorial, I was making the point that the justification ultimately is irrelevant to honoring the men who were victims of a war.
What?
By perruptor
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 5:53pm
Now I'm a victim? Really, kid, just give it up. You're way past tiresome.
If you were forced into
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 5:57pm
If you were forced into military service against your will? Absolutely. You disagree?
I disagree
By perruptor
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 6:06pm
I disagree that your half-informed squishy arguments are worth the pixels they occupy on my monitor, yes.
I see you have not answered
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 6:08pm
I see you have not answered the question, why bother responding? You are more than welcome to ignore my squishy half thought out arguments.
Au contraire
By perruptor
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 6:10pm
I did answer one of your questions. The other one was, as you might say, not worth the bother.
The states never lawfully
By Tim
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 3:03pm
The states never lawfully seceded from the United States because they COULD NOT lawfully secede. However, within those states, large groups of rebels tried to end the power of the lawfully elected U.S. government. That is the definition of treason. The Union Army was therefore responsible for stamping out a treasonous movement within the rebellious states. This does not require invasion; merely physical occupation of the Union's own sovereign territory. By committing treason against the United States, however, the rebels (temporarily) lost their rights as Americans. It is the act of treason that renders them non-American, up until the point that President Johnson granted amnesty in May 1865.
Those who did not take up arms against the Union in the rebelling states never lost the American-ness.
"The states never lawfully
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 6:11pm
"The states never lawfully seceded from the United States because they COULD NOT lawfully secede. "
No debate here. As I have stated I agree with the argument that they were treasonous.
OK, one more angle
By anon
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 2:34pm
For the sake of argument, let's say I accept the following concepts:
1) CSA soldiers were Americans
2) CSA soldiers were simply following orders
Please explain why on the weekend which celebrates the nation of the United States of America, we're supposed to also randomly honor the dead of failed secession by flying their flag as well. Back to the Nazis, do the French fly the Nazi flag in Normandy during commemorations on Remembrance Day? I suspect not, in spite of the many, many Germans that died in France (again, this was for the good. Not defending Nazis...)
I don't get the 'me too' aspect of celebrating a failed rebellion and the people who fought for it on the our national holiday. You'd have more of a point if this was surrounding a Veteran's Day celebration but on the 4th of the July it's just pointless contrarianism at best and dog-whistle stuff at worst. There is no valid reason to celebrate the confederacy on the 4th of July.
Tl; dr = USA rules, CSA drools.
One can do more than one
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 2:41pm
One can do more than one thing in a weekend. As stated elsewhere today is the anniversary of the bloodiest of civil war battles.
Why would the french honor Germans? The confederates were Americans, the context is not the same.
The Confederacy deliberately started the war....
By Michael Kerpan
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 1:31pm
... thinking Lincoln would be a pushover. Fort Sumter's garrison was almost out of food -- and the Confederate leadership knew that the garrison would surrender when the food finally ran out. Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy's military leadership gave explicit orders instructing that Fort Sumter be attacked before such surrender could take place. The Confederacy planned a war of conquest -- aimed at both the border states and more importantly everything west of the Mississippi -- because it needed new slave territories which could serve as a market for the Deep South's slave "crop" (producing and selling slaves was more profitable at that point than selling cotton -- because much of the land there was becoming exhausted due to over-intensive cotton planting). Attempts to present the South as victims of Northern aggression are pathetic.
"Attempts to present the
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 1:36pm
"Attempts to present the South as victims of Northern aggression are pathetic."
I have done no such thing and have rejected such an argument within this thread. This is a strawman.
As I stated before the war was justified based upon the fact that they remained Americans and it was a war of reunification I SUPPORT THIS ARGUMENT.
Those that claim that the secessionists were not Americans reject the very basis for the war.
You don't understand...
By Michael Kerpan
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 3:00pm
... that displaying the symbols of _American_ traitors (and, as to military officers, deserters and oath breakers) can evoke legitimate hostility. American or not, they WANTED to destroy the USA -- and did their very best to do so. Why should their flag be honored? And can we not mourn the human costs of the victims of Confederate greed and treachery (on both sides) without honoring any sort of Confederate flags? (Battle re-enactments and the like is a separate matter).
They wanted to secede. The US
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 3:15pm
They wanted to secede. The US would have still existed, it would have just been smaller. The confederacy wanted out of the union, they did not seek to destroy the union.
Arguing they wanted to destroy it is like arguing the UK wishes to destroy the EU. Were the reasons for secession legitimate? NOPE not at all.
Why should the flag be honored? Because American men fought and died under that flag. Did they do so for a terrible cause? Yes. There have been plenty of other wars with terrible causes since the civil war, except for a time during Vietnam we did not blame the men fighting those wars.
of course free thinking people can choose to honor or not honor the flag on this historical day. I myself will choose not to, but that is just me. I will not go around assuming the intentions of those that do choose to fly it. The complete lack of mention of the historical context in this post by Adam really is a shame.
Non sequitur
By Kaz
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 3:35pm
That makes no sense. Americans have fought and died under the ISIS flag. Let me know when you plan on flying that one in their honor.
Just because someone decides to rally under a particular flag doesn't mean that flag should be honored later on in some warped sense of patriotism. If you want to honor those *people*, then honor the people, not the flag they fought for which itself is a symbol of something other than themselves (as you're so repeatedly pointing out).
So, if you think the people aren't their cause, then their flag which obviously represents that cause isn't what you should be celebrating if you're interested in paying homage to those people by your own definition of what's important. Unless you're just being hypocritical for the sake of trolling.
And the American flag was
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 4:15pm
And the American flag was fought under when we invaded Vietnam. Should we hide it away as a consequence?
Entire STATES fought under the flag. Tens of thousands of American men fought under it. The flag symbolizes what the flyer wishes it to symbolize, nothing more.
No, that flag symbolizes
By bgl
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 5:53pm
No, that flag symbolizes failed secession and treason, along with enslavement of humans, just like the the Nazi Flag stands for their ideologies, genocide, and crimes. Just because you fly the the Nazi flag and want to have your own special snowflake meaning of it doesn't change what it means and represents, or the ideas behind it, just because you want to have it have a different meaning.
American men didn't die under
By Kinopio
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 5:32pm
American men didn't die under the confederate flag. Racist traitors who got their ass kicked by Americans did. Anyone who is proud of that is ignorant and full of hate.
So you accept the
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 5:51pm
So you accept the confederates arguments that they had the right to secede? I sure do not.
If they were not Americans they were lawful in their action, if they were Americans, as Lincoln argued, they were ultimately treasonous.
No, as you seem incapable of
By bgl
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 7:55pm
No, as you seem incapable of understanding treason - they were Americans until they unlawfully attempted to secede and break the union. At this point, they cease being Americans, but rebellious traitors occupying American soul. After the Federal Government put down the traitors, they were pardoned and thus restored of their rights as Americans.
If they aren't Americans they
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 9:15pm
If they aren't Americans they aren't traitors. One cannot have it both ways.
Yes, one can
By perruptor
Sat, 07/02/2016 - 12:30pm
If one understands words like until and at this point and after. These words indicate the passage of a thing we call time, a useful concept when discussing conditions that are not immutable and unchanging. You are simplistically pretending that the rebels' condition of being Americans is immutable, and are trying to make that equivalent to historic events that, having once occurred, cannot be changed. It's as though you're arguing that Jeffrey Dahmer could not be a murdering cannibal because he was once a law-abiding grade-schooler.
"preposterous moral high
By PatsSoxBruins
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 10:58am
"preposterous moral high ground"? Ya mean like the Abolitionist (anti-slavery) movement? I guess that was just a bunch of elitist Yankee nanny-staters forcing their views on others.
Lincoln fought the war to
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 12:48pm
Lincoln fought the war to reunify the union not to abolish slavery. The south seceded to preserve slavery no doubt, but that is not what the war was fought over.
Flag of Treason
By SwirlyGrrl
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 11:35am
This is a flag of treason. It has no place being flown in the US, which has its own flag.
Why do you love terrorists so much?
One can readily honor the
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 12:39pm
One can readily honor the American men that died while also rejecting their leaderships cause.
And one can honor the American ideal
By adamg
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 12:49pm
By not flying the flag of treason.
You claim they are not
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 12:59pm
You claim they are not Americans. If they are not Americans how in the world can it be treason?
Holy cognitive dissonance batman.
They actively decided to secede.
By boo_urns
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 1:13pm
QED. PS - You're dense.
Yet the Union rejected that
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 1:25pm
Yet the Union rejected that argument when it waged war to return them to the Union. Did you forget that part? It was rather bloody.
I think two things.
By boo_urns
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 3:25pm
One, it's a distinction without a difference. Two, I still think you're dense. And for shits and giggles, it sounds like you're trying to use apologetics to excuse racism and also slavery.
"trying to use apologetics to
By DPM
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 4:12pm
"trying to use apologetics to excuse racism and also slavery."
Utter garbage. I have repeatedly stated that the reason the south seceded was atrocious.
Then,
By boo_urns
Fri, 07/01/2016 - 6:36pm
I see you pointlessly, pedantically trying to justify this person's actions while at the same time making it easy to conflate the same effect, re: apologetics.
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