Fergit, hayell.

I can see this having big potential on the recruiting trail.

A fight is brewing in Mississippi over a proposal to issue specialty license plates honoring Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan.

Those plates would make for a terrific negative recruiting prop.

86 Comments

Filed under Political Wankery

86 responses to “Fergit, hayell.

    • Brandon

      I hope that everybody on this thread who is bashing the NFB memorial plates spoke out just as loudly to denounce any memorializing of the late Robert Byrd, the Democratic Senator from West Virginia who died last year. He also was in the Klan IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY and was in the United States Senate until last year. I am a Southerner through and through but I get the common sense of not honoring NFB with a license plate, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, that’s fine but what I really can’t stand is the pure ignorance of historical facts displayed by “purge all memory of the Confederacy crowd”, 4 freaking slave states fought for the North! How do you explain that if you think the war was all about slavery. Washington D.C. was a slave territory before and during the Civil War! Slaves could be bought and sold in Washington D.C. even after the emancipation proclamation because the EP only applied to slaves in territories which were at that time controlled by the Confederacy (i.e. slaves Lincoln had no control over anyway). It did not effect slaves in Union States or Union held territory, it freed NO SLAVES at all. It was public relations stunt to try and keep Britain and France from formally recognizing the Southern government. Read Jefferson Davis’s first inaugural address, please google it, if the whole thing was about slavery you would expect him to throw out lots of red meat about the supposed inferiority of negroes out to fire up his base for the war, he does not do it, there is no mention of the issue. The main reason most Confederate soldiers fought was because their home states were invaded by a hostile army which was fighting for the proposition that their State could not democratically choose to leave an association (the United States) that it had freely joined. The Union position was basically the same as the mafia’s “once you are in, you can’t get out”. That is completely inconsistent with the way the Union was originally sold to the States to begin with, that is why their was a fight. Their were many slaveowners who fought for the North and like it or not their were many African-Americans who sympathized with and aided the Southern war effort by choice. They did so for the same reason African Americans bravely fought for the United States in every war from the Revolutionary War to Korea, despite their treatment, because the Confederacy (like the US in wars like WWI and WWII) was their home and they were patriots. Hell we all are descended from slaves no matter what color you are, its just a matter of how far you want to go back you want to go, slavery was rampant throughout history among all peoples, numerous white Germanic and Anglo-Saxon persons were made slaves in the Roman era. The Jews were hauled off to Babylon and enslaved after first being enslaved in Egypt, one can go on and on with examples of slavery in history no one is immune.

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      • Dog in Fla

        The more apt comparison of Byrd would be with Strom Thurmond, not this guy:

        “The severest of the criticism of Forrest — subjects studiously avoided by today’s neo-Confederate activists — centers on three indisputable facts:
        •Forrest was a Memphis slave trader who acquired fabulous wealth before the war;
        •He commanded the troops who carried out an 1864 massacre of mostly black prisoners; and
        •He led violent resistance to Reconstruction as the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.”

        http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2004/winter/a-different-kind-of-hero

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        • Brandon

          Byrd and Forrest were both unquestionably in the Klan, that’s pretty apt, Byrd was in the Klan much later, and was in the Senate last year. Strom was definately a segregationist, but I have never seen any credible evidence he was in the KKK, if you’ve got some, fine. The same crowd who is indignant over NFB memorialization should also be indignant over memorialization of Byrd, let’s be consistent that’s what I’m saying.

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  1. Tronan

    How about the Ole Miss Underachievers (and proud of it)?

    “26.4 percent of 2010 Maryland high school graduates had gotten a 3 or better on at least one AP class during their high school careers, higher than New York with 24.6 percent or Virginia, Connecticut and Massachusetts, all states with a 23 percent pass rate. Mississippi had a pass rate of 4.4 percent, the lowest in the nation.”

    http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/bs-md-advanced-placement-20110209,0,1429239.story

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  2. Dog in Fla

    Muslim Brotherhood would say that the Reagan for President sticker and Sons of Confederate Vets tag are not bona fide because they’re mounted on a car made in Sweden.

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  3. Derek

    I’m all for the tag with one stipulation. The tag number itself should also send a message. Examples:
    STUPID
    IGNORANT
    INBRED
    REDNECK
    When will it finally dawn on folks that a rebellion against our democratically elected government to protect the institution of slavery wasn’t particularly noble? I think its called treason.

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    • Reptillicide

      Wow, look, another ignorant product of government education. What prestigious county school system taught you that?

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      • ZDawg

        So then you are saying the war was only about states rights Reptillicide?

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      • Derek

        I learned it from the South Carolina Declaration of Succession a document referencing slavery, the rights of slave-holding states and the hostilty of non-slaveholding states 18 times.

        From the document itself:
        “We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.
        For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.”

        Yeah any one who says the war was about slavery is a stupid product of public education. Unfortunatly, it is the peope who you presumably revere who made the point ever so clear. It was about maintaining the institution of slavery. The elected representatives of South Carolina said it, not me.

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        • Reptillicide

          Normally I resort to intelligent discourse when arguing over something so important, however given that you are trying to twist an undeniable fact, which is history, I will just call you an idiot and move on.

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        • dawgfish

          Mississippi’s document is even better:

          “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.”

          Second paragraph. States rights FTW!

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          • Reptillicide

            You know, one can google plenty of pro-slavery propaganda from Union states as well.

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            • dawgfish

              If by “propaganda,” you mean “the official, state legislature-crafted documents by which states seceded from the union” I would think you would have a hard time finding ones from northern states, because their state legislatures did not get together and craft documents about seceding because of slavery. Because they didn’t secede.

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        • Reptillicide

          And, by the way, it’s “secession,” not “succession,” dumbass. They apparently didn’t teach you to read in high school, either.

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          • Derek

            Point well made, sir. You picked out a typo and made yourself feel better. After you’ve finished patting yourself on the back come back with a fact, any fact, that disputes that the single issue that led to seccession was slavery. Yes you may say it was a “state’s rights” issue but the particular right that the state insisted upon was the right to keep and maintain slaves and for the north to be complicit in the institition of slavery by remmitting their property back if said property had been, lets say, mislaid.

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            • Reptillicide

              You have clearly learned a very biased version of history. Slavery was not a primary point of contention between the North and South. It was a convenient moral weapon for with which Abe Lincoln could level at the South and vilify them. I’m not going to sit here and try to educate you in a comments section, but if you ever care to actually become enlightened, do a little reading on the civil war, because it’s quite evident that the little section on it in your government issued textbook only covered the PC version of the war that revisionist historians wants you to know.

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              • Derek

                Read the damn documents and find a different, distinct and material point of contention. It ain’t frigging there!!! Believe me when I say that there is a whole lot out there on the internet. You can find out what Southern lawmakers were saying when they left the Union. You can read the documents they drafted. It ain’t there and it won’t come into existence just because you say it does 150 years later. Find it and print it here. Otherwise, I’m done with your fact-free insults about a biased education. Unfortunatly for you history has a well-known bias against any claim that issues beyond slavery led to the war. Any amount of research will reveal that bias. Just like pictures of Auschwitz also suggest a bias against Nazi innocence in genocide.

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                • Reptillicide

                  Well since that is clearly the only document in existence that expresses the reasons for secession, I guess I am beat. Damn, you got me.

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                • stick jackson

                  What about the CSA Constitution then? Did your segregation academy teach you that it denied states the right to abolish slavery? Because it did. Sort of an inconvenient fact, no?

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        • This argument is akin to 2nd amendment arguments where one side is saying, “the debate is over ownership of AK-47’s, and assault rifles should not be so easily obtained,” while the other side says, “No, it’s about the government impeding on my 2nd amendment rights to bear arms.”

          You see, they are both right, they are just arguing macro concepts versus micro concepts. Just live slavery vs. states’ rights. For the North, it was about “slavery,” which is an arguable point in itself, and for the Confederacy, slavery was the rallying point behind the states’ rights movement. Under the Constitution and several laws commissioned by the US Congress subsequently, the states had a right to be slave states, not to mention their right to secede. Lincoln led the way against the Constitution and the agreements that had been reached through Congress… which is akin to brokering a deal on tax cuts for the wealthy in a bipartisan Congress and then Obama ordering the IRS to collect higher taxes on the rich anyway. And, when journalists write scathing columns calling his actions unlawful, Obama can jail them (without trial) for treason until the opposition is suppressed. And we wonder why presidents think they can get away with anything…

          Slavery was wrong, but the War of Northern Aggression was not exactly borne of morality either.

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    • crapsandwich

      Great now Senator has sold his blog to AOL.

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      • In a world where boycotts are organized over states using some form of the Confederate flag, you don’t think a state-sponsored car tag honoring an early leader of the KKK would be the slightest bit controversial?

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        • crapsandwich

          Honestly with fighting for the rights of my State (SC), to fly our flag and honor our heritage, I am in no position to tell the State of Mississippi or any other state what is right or wrong, or even controversial.

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  4. NCT

    I am not completely unsympathetic to the idea of regional pride. Actually, I embrace it heartily. But there are reasons I reject, out of hand, any notion of joining the Sons of Confederate Veterans, even though I’m well qualified, family-wise (my mother’s UDC, but they’re not so – um – offensive in their activities).

    Yes, Forrest lived for a time in Mississippi, but just barely. He was a Tennessee guy — at most, a Mississippi River (Vicksburg/Memphis) guy. If anyone thinks he’s got a plausible deniability case (he’s a historic figure! it ain’t about slavery or racism!) in pushing a Forrest tag, he’s stupid at worst and idiotically naïve at best.

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    • Reptillicide

      There is a difference between embracing Southern heritage and clinging to racist culture. Those that can’t differentiate between the two are simply poorly educated fools.

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      • Derek

        There is a lot to be proud of in being Southern. However, the civil war, the institution of slavery, Jim Crow and the Klan are simply not among them. You don’t have to reinvent the image of the Nazi regime years after the fact in order to be a proud German. Neither do you have to minimize/ignore/recreate the truth about slavery and its subsequent incarnations to be a proud Southerner. We should own it. We should admit that it was wrong, in fact beyond evil, and move on. Celebrating that past and justifying that celebration by trying to convince yourself of facts that don’t exist is moving in the exact wrong direction.

        We stole people from another continent, sold them at market, raped their women, profitted from the relatively free labor enormously. When that institution was threatened roughly one million Americans died rather than simply doing the right thing and abandoning it. Once the institution was taken away, Southerners used the power of the state to enforce segregation by any and every means necesssary. Thats what happened.
        Again there are many things about the South, even the Old South, that are to be revered. Personally, one of the things I am most proud of is that I’ve never seen an African-American with my last name although my family was in the South since the mid 1700’s. This means that my family, at least my father lineage, likely never owned slaves. Perhaps it is because I know that my people were probably never invited to such an event as the barbeque at Twelve Oaks in GWTW, that I feel much less of a need to defend the wealthy slaveholding landowners of the 1800’s.

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        • “We” did not steal. “We” bought them… just like maaaaany other countries did in the late 18th-early 19th century. The institution was not isolated to a corner of the world we call The South by any stretch of the imagination.

          And, congrats on your lineage never owning slaves. Slave owners were actually in the minority by the 1850’s, but I suppose we have to get our sense of self-worth somewhere.

          Slavery was not just, nor was the treatment of African-Americans under slavery or after emancipation. But, I think you got a little melo-dramatic there, and comparing it to Nazi Germany? Really? Yeah, the American stance on internment camps during WWII was really morally sound.

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          • Derek

            Slavery was not a Southern invention to be sure. It was one of the final examples in history however.
            That slaves may heve been purchased by those who had stolen them doesn’t change a whole lot. Try buying a stolen car someday and see if you catch a break.
            The genocide of the Indians was wrong as was the internment of the Japanese. I am just as willing to point out where our nation has committed wrongs as I am about the region that I’m from. There is nothing wrong about admitting mistakes. It is in fact a very good thing to do. I think it might be in the Bible.

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            • I don’t think anyone here is lionizing slavery. I simply wanted to point out that the South should not be singled out, disparaged, and blamed for the war because of slavery. Just like politics today, it is much more complicated than that.

              Is it possible to appreciate the good things that happened in an era when such bad was happening? You seem to argue no… at least about this particular period and this particular issue. Others argue yes. I seem to think bad shit happens all the time, and we never bat an eye, so why is it so important to link the bad of this era to any of the characters, traditions, or people that came from it?

              Do I support open, racially-inflammatory actions? Uh, no. I do not. I think it is a horrible idea, and one that right-minded people would avoid for self-preservation if nothing else.

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            • Reptillicide

              I think stoning dipshits like you is somewhere in the Bible, too. I’m up for that.

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              • Derek

                Great point. You sir are a scholar. Your comments are consistently well thought out, supported by facts and, in order to make you argument stronger, you avoid stupid personal attacks. As you clearly recognize it’s about the issue, not the people debating it.

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          • NRBQ

            So, just to be clear, Realist:

            It’s okay to buy humans and work them like mules in the summer as long as you didn’t steal them yourself?

            And because we weren’t the first, then we’re less guilty?

            And decrying the fact that men were used like animals in the hot Southern sun, and their women abused at night by the “Massuhs,”
            is melodrama?

            Can you try any harder to justify slavery?

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            • The Realist

              Nice try. I was correcting a factual inaccuracy. But, feel free to completely disregard every argument I made in the entire thread in an attempt to pigeonhole me into a slavery defender. What I am defending is the idea that Southern Heritage is not inextricably linked to slavery, and it is absurd that no one can ever take pride in such heritage because of the black eye of slavery.

              And, comparing the whole issue to Nazi Germany is a bit sensationalized… hence the melodrama.

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  5. TennesseeDawg

    Next they’ll want to him to be Ole Miss’s mascot

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  6. Hogbody Spradlin

    Why O’ why, why, why Nathan Bedord Forrest? You know there are a number of Confederate figures history is quite sympathetic to. Obviously R.E. Lee, but Longstreet and Hood come to mind. Political correctness usually disgusts me, but picking Forrest is poking a stick at something or somebody.

    BTW is the Forrest Hotel still in business in downtown Rome?

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    • Hogbody Spradlin

      Bedford. Sorry, brain fart.

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      • dawgfish

        There is a Forrest High School in Jacksonville (opened in 1959, so yeah) mascot “Rebs,” obv. More known for basketball than football I think, to bring this back to a sports discussion.

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        • JaxDawg

          this was never designed to be a sports discussion despite the aloof heading. Senator, whom I respect, is a liberal and enjoys seeing what he interprets as stupid conservatives making fools of themselves.

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        • Most mascots named the “Rebels” that I can think of have changed to something generic much like the recent push against disparaging Native American mascots. I don’t have a problem with that, but I wish we could come up with more unique mascots. Nobody has claimed the Rottweiler. What about the poison dart frog? Sadly, Wonder Boys is taken.

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          • 69Dawg

            The Idea that the term Rebels is some how not PC is just proof that people are not real smart. Attention PC Mf’s the United States of America was created by a rebellion and the founding fathers were REBELS, just ask the British. This lead to the point that one persons Rebel is another persons Patriot. It also points out that the winner write the history books but the losers don’t have to like it.

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  7. JaxDawg

    Senator, I’m not sure why you would post something like this, which has little if nothing to do with college football, other than the recruiting angle. But since the article didn’t mention recruiting, I’ll assume you posted this to poke fun at Mississippians or to encite your readers. The whole Ole Miss/Colonel Reb recruiting thing is old news and we all know that Ole Miss won’t ever be all that good at football, not b/c they don’t recruit black players, it’s b/c they’re in a less-populous state without much instate talent.

    As far as the above comments from both sides – I would wager that the majority of you have spent little to no time in Mississippi and are certainly not an authority to judge the people of that state. I married into a family with a decent size farm over there and have spent a great deal of time in various parts of that state over the past 10 years – we hunt, eat well, attend football games, relax, visit friends, etc. And to be as objective as I can, please let me say that I have encountered much less racial hostility in Miss. than I have in many other places, particularly Atlanta where we lived for 12 years. The whites generally respect the blacks and the blacks generally respect the whites. I’ll decline going into why on this blog, but in short the agricultural economy in Miss depends on blacks and whites working together – without that synergy both would be in a bad spot. No, it’s not known for many great things, but ask me if I’d prefer to live in Jackson, Greenwood, Natchez, or Atlanta, I will choose Miss every time. But that’s just me.

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  8. Bulldog Joe

    Not sure what all the recruiting fuss was about.

    Nathan Bedford Forrest was only a 3-star.

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  9. waren tucker

    I did a report on Forrest in High School, he was the 1st Grand Wizard of the Klan, but all the research I did on him showed that he was never active in the Klan, and actually had it disbanded due to much violence. He also was probably the greatest cavalry officer in our nation’s history, so I don’t really see what the big deal is.

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  10. Cojones

    Were any or all of you aware that King George gave Gen Oglethorpe a blueprint for settling Georgia that prohibited the owning of slaves? He specified ownersip of land from homesteading in such a way that large families with male children could also claim the same amount of land as did the family head. He wanted the settlers to tend to large acreages based upon how much they could defend from the Indians. At that time the claim was for Georgia to extend to the Mississippi River.That was the way it was in the beginning, but many large land owners saw the Carolina plantations profiting greatly from slavery. It was not uncommon for Georgia planters to borrow or rent slaves from Carolina owners. After years of this subterfuge they began to own slaves themselves, contradicting the principles of Georgia’s colonization (ref: Dawn In the Wilderness )

    So who gives a fig? We could have a license plate that says “Settled as a nonslave state”. That ought to bring the recruits! Cheeeesse! You guys should read your arguments. And through the Yazoo Land Fraud one could say that Mississippi ( formed from what once was called Georgia) could have their license plates to read the same. They could also put an addendum: “Nathan Forrest once lived here.”.

    My preference would be “Morris Dees Lives Here”.

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    • NRBQ

      Cojones:

      Actually, I believe the first western border of Georgia was the Pacific Ocean, or at least were they thought it was, according to period maps (knowledge of western geography being mostly guess-work at the time).

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  11. Irishdawg

    Mississippi’s got nothing on West Virginia. Robert Byrd was a Klansman, and half the shit in WV is named after him.

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    • That’s what I find funniest about this debate – most of the people who profess to seeing no big deal about the tag are the same ones who nodded vigorously every time Sean and Rush took note of Sen. Byrd’s racist past.

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      • Retwely

        Damn good point.

        But wouldn’t there be a similar sized group that would roll their eyes at Sean/Rush mentioning Byrd’s past (not because they deny it but b/c they feel Sean/Rush don’t have good racial views) and simultaneously condemn this Forrest issue?

        Not saying you belong to the latter group, but I think we can admit the group you mentioned and the group I mentioned would be similar in size.

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  12. Cojones

    Further, the KKK of Forrest’s time was not racist in it’s inception. It was like a grange of farmers out to protect their families/land by intimidating the carpetbaggers who were infiltrating the South. It became racist later.

    Concerning the negative recruiting aspects, I hope no one demands that the Stone Mt carving should be covered up. Perhaps a makeup carving could be done to the right with a platoon of Northern African American soldiers with bayonets pointing toward the carving . That way it could truly be a state park.

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  13. Irishdawg

    “I hope no one demands that the Stone Mt carving should be covered up.”

    Anyone remember the UGA grad student protesting a war memorial honoring Georgia grads that died in battle? Her argument was that it didn’t represent women and minorites enough or some other equally silly nonsense. I sincerely hope she’s a severely underemployed organic coffee barista somewhere or is in Sri Lanka milking cobras for a living.

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  14. Cojones

    And I’m sure most of you know the Rebel Flag, a.k.a. the Battle Flag, is not the Confederate Flag. The original (There were six before the War was over) was a circle of 7 stars on a blue field on the upper left and 3 stripes of red/whte/red from top to bottom. It was a beautiful flag and was called “The Stars and Bars”. Tennessee, however has a different version of that name describing their players and where they can be found ( you thought I’d never get this to jib with football recruiting ,did you?).

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  15. Irishdawg

    “But wouldn’t there be a similar sized group that would roll their eyes at Sean/Rush mentioning Byrd’s past (not because they deny it but b/c they feel Sean/Rush don’t have good racial views) and simultaneously condemn this Forrest issue?”

    Absolutely. (By the way, I think the MS tag idea is asinine) The truth is that Byrd’s past would have made him unelectable if he hadn’t brought home barrels of pork spending or had been a Republican. It’s well within bounds to point out the left’s constant accusations of racism while tolerating a former Grand Dragon in their own ranks.

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    • The truth is that Byrd’s past would have made him unelectable if he hadn’t brought home barrels of pork spending or had been a Republican.

      Let’s be honest, though: if Byrd were a Republican, we likely would have never heard a peep out of Sean or Rush about his racist background.

      That’s a version of political correctness, too.

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  16. Derek

    Generals Lee and Jackson deserve any honor that has or will be bestowed. By all accounts these men served with honor, distinction and the best values of the people they represented. They did not choose the cause any more than they chose their place of birth. They simply answered the call. One must distinguish those who fight the battles from those politicians who choose the cause and send others to kill and die not for the cause itself but for the sake of their homeland. Is pat Tillman less of a hero because he thought invading Iraq was, among other things, dumb? I don’t think so.

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  17. Irishdawg

    “Let’s be honest, though: if Byrd were a Republican, we likely would have never heard a peep out of Sean or Rush about his racist background.

    That’s a version of political correctness, too.”

    That’s also an assumption based on no evidence. Neither man ever defended David Duke ( a repellent human being, by the way), did they? I’m not defending Limbaugh or Hannity, but let’s be fair. And it’s beside the point; Republicans are accused of racism if they don’t like Tyler Perry movies, yet a former Klansman was often considered an “elder statesman” of the other party.

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    • Oh good grief. David Duke was a peripheral figure whom Rush used to call a Democrat when it suited him.

      Give me a list of the bad things they had to say about Strom Thurmond and maybe I’ll listen.

      If you’re going to argue that PC is in the exclusive jurisdiction of the Left, that’s something we’ll just have to disagree about. IMO, both sides are just as bad about it.

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      • Derek

        You aren’t suggesting that Thurmond was a racist politician are you? Afterall we now know that he “loved” at least one black woman.

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  18. Scott W.

    That boy is a running fool! Um, sorry wrong Forrest.

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  19. Shane#1

    My family on my Father’s side owned no slaves. They were Highland Scots that moved to Southwest Ga after the land was purchased from the Creek Nation. The wiregrass area outside of Albany was perfect for their free range cattle. My Great Grandfather, his father, and his three brothers all enlisted in the Confederate Army and all but the old man and one brother that was killed at Fredicksburg served until the end of the war. As warlike as Highland Scots were, I don’t think they fought for four years to protect some rich guy’s property. The war was about many things, slavery being one of them. In fact, many whites in this area were opposed to slavery. I don’t think my ancestors gave a damn about slavery one way or the other, they mostly wanted to be left alone to tend their cattle. BTW, the Georgia Bulldog is an English Bulldog crossed with a birddog. They were used as catch dogs for cattle and hogs.

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    • Derek

      Unfortunately I think your point is the motivation for the revisionism, albeit unecessary in my opinion. Nobody wants to believe their forefathers died or killed to protect the institution of slavery. Thus the war must be turned into what it was not in order to protect the dignity of those who sacrificed. Again, this is unnecessary. The vast majority of those who fought for the South had no slaves. The vast majority of those who fought for the North could have cared less about the slaves. In other words, the people who actually fought did not fight in the name of slavery one or or another. They fought because they felt thay they had an obligation to their country or they were conscripted and did their duty. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, there is honor in that.
      Again, the motivations of those who actually participated in the war must be kept seperate and distinct from the rationale behind how and why it started. The people who are responsible for that are the politicians who chose their course and their cause. We shouldn’t allow those who sacrificed to have their memories stained with matters that were not of their making. Nor should we intentionally ignore the truth in order to protect their memories from the ignorant and insensitive.
      Be proud to be Southern. Be proud of your heritage and be proud of those who defended the South. Just don’t tell me that our politicians didn’t secede over the slavery issue. That is simply an undeniable fact of history.

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      • Shane#1

        There was a saying used by those that fought for both North and South.” Rich man’s war, po’ man’s fight.” My Father was quite a historian. He explained the Civil War to me this way. The hot heads on both sides took over and no one would listen to reason. Quiye a reason to put the south in povery for almost a hungtrd years and waste 600,000 lives. Whrn you consider the population of America at the time, every war since WWII has been a walk in the park.

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  20. Dboy

    I can’t read all this text. Could you guys summarize better?

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  21. anon

    Uncle Jimbo from South Park:
    “God Damn I love football.”

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  22. JaxDawg

    Damn those women from Mississippi are hot.

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