About four dozen people showed near the Judicial Building at the State Capitol complex in St. Paul to counter protest individuals who had planned on holding a rally in defense of the Confederate Flag on Saturday, September 5, 2015. The Confederate Flag rally organizer BC Johnson, who had intended to rally at the State Capitol said the event was relocated to Savage Community Park. He estimates 10 people showed up. (Pioneer Press: John Autey)
We have hateful loons here in Minnesota, too. A group calling itself the Minnesota 10,000 for Southern Heritage tried to organize a rally for the Confederate flag in the state capitol today. It turns out the 10,000 was a wee bit optimistic.
They applied for a permit to hold their rally, and had to estimate how many would attend: they guessed…25.
The rally was held this morning. A counter-demonstration was scheduled that brought in about 50 people, and when they heard about it, the chickenpoops waving the traitor’s flag ran away and held their rally in a park, instead.
About 10 people showed up.
I think they need to change their name to the Minnesota 10 for Southern Heritage.
The rest were on youtube leaving hateful comments.
In what kind of weird ass alternative time-line was Minnesota part of the Confederate States?
Maybe it’s supposed to be in binary? It’d still be too large, mind, but closer.
zenlike, apparently the same one the kids in this story from Illinois came from.
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/09/parents-take-kids-out-of-illinois-high-school-fearing-lockdown-over-confederate-flag-displays/
I grew up in Olmsted County, Minnesota. Besides the obvious thing we were taught to be proud of – the Mayo Clinic – we were taught about the fact that we had 1,200 soldiers who fought for the union (out of a population then if about 9,500).
Unfortunately, besides the good stuff about people in Minnesota (we were proud of our percentage of doctors and teachers in Minnesota in the 50s) there’s a contingent of sovereign citizen and militia nutcases. Even, it seems, people who support those who were traitors to our country to support the practice of buying and selling of human beings.
Zenlike, you libruls are hung up on “facts” and “truth”. It is truthiness hat counts. “Fact” would make the Confederate flag the “traitor” flag, while every Real American knows the confederacy was led by American patriots like John Wayne… and Ronald Reagan.
—
(BTW I have come up with a memnotic device for those doofuses who write to PZ and always get his name wrong. M.Y.E.R.S.= Massive (something) Emerging Robotic Sentience. -I am not certain of “Y”. Yterbium-based? Yukonian? Yawesme? )
When only 10 people show up is an ‘estimate’ really needed?
boadinum @7
Because they had to give an estimate before the event when they applied for the rally permit.
Confederates counted in 1861 and calculated they could win. Math still escapes them. They needed a “Fugitive Math Law”. Marches are good as they show the demographic reality of certain things. The next time a promoter/organizer makes predictions about turnout dare them to a bet. Say something like “I’ll bet you $1,000” you don’t get 10,000 people. Then take a seat and watch them mumble, fumble and stumble. and not take the bet.
As a Minnesotan, I am pleased that the counter protesters outnumbered the rebel flag hate group 5 to 1. I hope the choice to rally under the Christopher Columbus statue was due to shade. It’s been horribly hot and humid here the last few days The Leif Erickson statue might have been more appropriate to their cause.
Y is Yellow.
Massive Yellow Emerging Robotic Sentience
or … um better: Y-chromosomal
or:
Minnesotan You Egits Rightly Sick
or just Poopyhead.
Wha wha whaaaat?
Minnesota is practically in Canada! They should be protesting in favour of moose meat or something.
I have to wonder about the kind of person who rallies behind a flag of treason and slavery, and calls it their heritage.
I have to wonder about the kind of person who rallies behind a flag of treason and slavery, and calls it their heritage.
Living out here in rural pennsylvania, I’ve been depressed to see over a dozen confederate flags go up in the last couple months. At least a few of them had the courage to admit it’s just plain ole racism, and didn’t bother fig-leafing with the whole “pride” routine. :(
This has been an ongoing source of confusion for me, but in the context of Civil War discussions, why are some leftists generally happy to use the terms “traitor” and “treason” as pejoratives? It seems to run contrary to to well-established left-wing values: see distrusting nationalism and tribalism, admiring freethinkers and dissenters*, and so on. If the Federal Government had taken the side of the slave states, and Northern states had rebelled and seceded in protest, it’s a certainty that we would view the “traitors” as heroes. So it seems irrelevant to point out that it was the Southern states who tried to break off from the Union.
*Err… not that I think the secessionists and slave-owners were comparable to, say, conscientious objectors or freethinkers of any kind. It’s just that the question of which particular geopolitical configuration they supported isn’t really all that weighty in light of the fact that they supported owning Black people as property. It’s like taking issue with the spree killer for never paying his parking tickets. Except that, unlike unpaid parking tickets, treason can in some cases be admirable. See Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, etc.
@boadinum
I also was wondering how it is possible to only ‘estimate’ 10 people showed up. I get that they had to guess how many people might, for the permit, but that was 25. The caption clearly says the organiser ‘estimates’ 10 people showed up.
I have to assume maybe there were people in the park who may or may not have been there to cheer for the stars and bars. Either that or some of them were maybe a little brown, so there was some confusion over whether or not they were really people.
@Adam James
I’m pretty sure unpaid parking tickets can be mildly heroic. If for example the cop who gave it to you was just mad about you prosecuting his buddy for shooting an unarmed black kid. Hypothetically.
Adam James, I agree with your general point, but the Confederacy split a country and killed thousands in order to continue keeping slaves, whom they raped, tortured, and killed as they pleased. They lost the war 150 years ago. Today black folks can vote (mostly), marry, rent/own living space, and report crimes upon their persons. By now, I think it’s established that the victors were good guys. However, we were terrorists and guerrilla fighters to the Brits, and declared treasonous. Then we won, about 230+ years ago. No one’s really bitched about it seriously, nor made a good case that we were morally wrong to do so, even if the revolution was illegal. Once again, the victors write history.
The purpose is not “irrelevant.” It should be at the center of our moral calculus. The Southern states seceded to defend the institution of slavery. Discarding the rule of law to follow a higher moral obligation is admirable. Open rebellion against the state for personal gain, on the other hand, is reprehensible. This was an act of selfish moral cowardice, and should be remembered as such.
Have to agree with @Adam James #15, heinous as it was, secession seems hardly to qualify as “treason”.
If the Confederates had tried to, say, resubmit to the British Monarchy, that could have been seen as treason.
If they had abused the trust of the Northern side, that could also be treason.
But if we label “treason” a rebellion for personal, selfish gain, we end up threading on very dangerous ground.
Starting a civil war is treason. It seems logical to call it what it was and to speak of those who tried to break the country as traitors. It’s high time the pro-ignorant racist faction quit pretending that declaring war on your own country and slavery were something to be proud of.
birgerjohansson @6
Yaytheist.
To be fair 10 and 25 are within the same order of magnitude.
Doesn’t it make more sense to mock their geography? If Minnesota is Southern, it must be of Canada.
F.O. @19: of course it was treason. They were part of a constitutional union, seceded because they didn’t like an election result, and (completely unprovoked) fired the first shots that turned the secession into a war. All of this was completely treasonous by any definition.
The other question raised by Adam James, about the negative connotations of treason, is more interesting because of course all the anti-Nazi activists from Germany were technically committing treason after Hitler gained legislative power. But even so, I think it’s important to ask why someone is committing treason and what damage was done. On both counts, the Confederacy was indefensible, so its treason was reprehensible.
re 23:
*raises fist* in agreement
re 19:
IFF the South declared secession, to which the Union then replied with military attacks, to force the South to recant; you might have a point. Yet. the South attacked (bombed) the North first, and declared they did so to secede. regardless of the precise sequence of those events. the attack on fort Sumter was unprovoked, and clearly an act of treason.
Why drag the name of our noble state bird, the loon, into this?
Loons are nice. Cuckoos are nasty brood parasites. In fact, they are the avian form of Ayn Rand followers. I suggest we refer to the the regressive ugly-thinkers as cuckoos.
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Virginia sent a letter to the Union where they stated slavery to be their reason for secession. Then they fired on Fort Sumter.
— — —
Hitler gained legislative power through a massively illegal putsch after the Reichtag fire. Opposition parliamentarians were prevented from voting. After that, the Nazi government was illegal.
-Likewise, Afghanistan was named an islamic nation after some opposition parliamentarians were not allowed to vote. The current Afghanistan republic is hardly legitimate because it is forcing a religion on its population.
— — — —
Regarding the letter “Y”. If PZ likes the Old Norse pantheon, we could refer to him as “Yggdrasilian” after the tree.
Minnesota is trying to become Southern Canada? I have heard of the “Southern strategy” but this is ridicilous. The Canadian Confederacy? “The North Will Rise Again” :)
On the topic of treason, I imagine that many/most leftists (I know I am) are also federalists and generally opposed to the idea of “states’ rights”, and since abandoning the federal union is a betrayal of those ideals, treason is fairly appropriate.
Now if our heroes had been the ones breaking off, it would still be a treasonous act, but treason against an evil government would be generally considered an acceptable practice.
We also have a number of these pro-Confederate types up in Oregon; thought I’d escaped that when I moved up here, but these agricultural types tend to have Southern sympathies.
What kind of black person!
This is, honest to Spaghetti, the guy:
http://yourblackworld.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/BC-Johnson-660×330.png
http://yourblackworld.net/2015/08/25/n-are-on-the-prowl-says-black-trucker-who-flies-confederate-flag/
(He calls himself “a son of the South.”)
birgerjohansson @ 27
Want some confusion? Canada is a Confederation. Though it’s not. It was Confederated into a federal Dominion. So Canada is a Confederated Federation of Provinces.
Sure, Minnesota can join if ya want, you got the right kinda weather! No slavery though, and you gotta follow the rules. Everyone gets free health care, you gotta build a Timmy’s in every town (more than one is acceptable and encouraged), and you can badmouth the queen if you want but you gotta say you’re sorry after, eh?
With a name like BC, I kind of assumed that he was not born and raised in Minnesota. Thanks to #30 for confirming my suspicion. I wonder what happened when 9 white racist suburbanites showed up and discovered BC Johnson is black?
QFT! Minnesota had just become a state, and our Governor happened to be in Washington when the treasonous slavers fired on Fort Sumter. We also have the distinction of being the very first state to offer aid and send troops to fight them, and aren’t going to forget that nearly 75% of them died in the effort. We won at Gettysburg, and we are keeping Virginia’s treasonous flag that those soldiers captured in our history museum forever.
this is what happens when fringe group fantasy collides with stone cold reality.
the internet gives like-minded marginals a convenient echo chamber that allows members to fool themselves into thinking they represent a (silent) majority. the validation alone usually suffices until they get outraged enough over something to attempt a display of force.
hilarity usually ensues.
It’s treason, folks. So are other things that we find admirable. But motives and context matter.
In the case of the Confederacy, it’s amazingly clear. Their purpose, as stated in their founding documents and supporting writings, was abominable. The country they were part of had accommodated their adherence to slavery for years. They fired first. Every single thing they did as part of their treason was abhorrent.
Had the Churchapproved Slavery for America won their revolt, it’d still be called “treason” in USArseholierthanthouistan (or, probably, “good fecking riddance!”) but something else, “teh great victory” or something, in CSAbhorrent.
I think the term “The war of Northern aggression” is hilarious. Sure, the war got ugly for the South at the end, but what the fuck do you expect when you fire the first shot against a much stronger adversary? And then refuse to socialise the essential railroads for troop transports (which the North did but the South refused to do, for ideological reasons).
— — — —
Also, this comment tread already outnumbers the cuckoos with the flag.
“No slavery though, and you gotta follow the rules.”
Like “no buying of assault rifles and other toys for Rambo wannabes”. That’s a deal-breaker right there.
Perhaps the organizers had previous accidentally shot some of their fingers off?
Intentionally pushing back against the meme that progressives are unpatriotic, and the Confederate-fuckhead-types highly so.
I have lived in MN most of my 58 years and have only ran across a couple of confederate flags. All were on the back window of a big pickup truck. I am sure you get the picture. After all these years a few live among us. Scary!
I know it’s been said, but these people seriously need some geography lessons.
“Southern heritage”? In Minnesota? Have the Canadians done something to raise the ire of these folks? What would the “South” rising again entail? A march on Ottawa? I’m confused, but probably not half as confused as these jokers.
birgerjohansson wrote:
Nah, you can still buy them with a few minor restrictions. You have to acquire a license and pass a firearms safety test. You must store the firearm securely when it’s not being used. You may not own clips bigger than a specific capacity. You may not wave a loaded firearm around like an idiot in a populated area.
The big gun restriction in Canada is for handguns, not rifles. The proliferation of handguns in U.S. society has probably done more to normalize public gun ownership and displays than anything else. Rifles are big and scary looking, but the handguns do far more damage.
treefrogdundee wrote:
That’d be a march to the east. If they want to rise against the north, they’d have to march on Winnipeg or Thunder Bay or something. Maybe we could convince them to march all the way to Churchill…
Fine by me. The polar bears could use the protein.
Our neighbor across the street hung up a new confederate flag right in the middle of the recent controversy over it, here in that bastion of Southern solidarity, Wisconsin. We’ve never had much of anything to do with these folks, and they have now made it easy to know we should have nothing to do with them, ever.
They hung the confederate flag right under their US flag*. I guess they’re trying to say ‘Proud to be American’ and ‘We hate America and what it’s supposed to stand for’ at the same time. Just like all great Republicans, even those who don’t fly both flags.
*I’ve always been a bit leery of anyone who flies the flag. Nationalism is a modern scourge.
A-damned-men. The racism bothers me way more than the treason.
Yuhp. It’s gotten to the stage where I judge anyone who flies the Union flag or the St. George’s Cross outside of major international sporting fixtures (during I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt). And frankly, it pisses me off no end that nationalist fuckwads have so effectively dressed xenophobic jingoism up as “patriotism” that they’ve succeeded in ruining my national flag for me.
What with the myth of the Civil War being about “states rights” and the flag symbolizing “Southern pride” having been so effectively spread, an ignorant Southerner could perhaps be forgiven for buying into the lie and flying the battle flag for relatively innocent reasons.
A Yankee flying it is blatantly just a racist.
I’m happy to use the terms treason and traitor as pejoratives because of the reasons the Southern states seceded: their desire to continue owning black people, raping black people, and having slavery as the bedrock of their economy. IOW: racism.
Thumper @50:
I think you’re making an assumption about Yankee’s though. It’s not as if all ignorant Southerner’s *remain* in the South. And I doubt crossing the Mason-Dixon line magically imparts knowledge to a Southerner visiting the Northern states.
chrislawson:
tony:
These comments cleared up most of my confusion. My usual objection to the concept of treason is that it’s blind to context or motivation. But clearly that’s not the case here.