Quote Originally Posted by sup-rbeast View Post
There were other issues..but they ALL fell under the Southern belief in an individual states right to choose for itself how to deal with those individual issues.
It was mascaraed as "states rights", but the right of the states to do what? Abolish or keep slavery. Look what happened when they were given the right to vote on it in places like Kansas and what happened? Every pro-slavery person around(from other states) would come to vote on it, and when the states got their rights...you'd get things like the Fugitive Slave Law, was that a good thing? No. The main reason for the war, the reason the states seceded were about SLAVERY. Again, I know there were other smaller reasons, but it boiled down to slavery not the other way around. I'm firmly against leaving social issues to the states really always, back them and in today's age too.

Lincoln was against slavery since he was a boy, he campaigned on keeping it out of the new states, was he racist? Yup, but hated slavery. He didn't hate the South though, he was pretty sympathetic considering, he wouldn't have been really good to us if he hadn't been shot.

When it comes down to slavery, we were wrong, the South was wrong, we lost and we're much better for it. Do you think that McDonnell just happened to leave out the part about slavery because it was insignificant? No, it's because he knows that what it boiled down to, which anyone can see...whether it be me that lives here or someone from another state, that's embarrassing to me, the whole Jackson-Lee Day thing is pretty embarrassing too. This didn't come from teachers either, pretty much the opposite is what I heard in school, which the "War of Northern Aggression" is pretty wide spread in the South. McDonnell is trying to stir shit, that's all this is and it looks very bad on us IMO.


Quote Originally Posted by Monkeyhead View Post
Just because you don't agree with homosexuality does not make you a homophobe. Just because you don't listen to rap and you own a old beat up ford with a rebel flag in the back window, does not make you a racist. You generalize and label people that you really may not even know. Don't let your own bigotry be your downfall.

To change peoples minds and heart you can't belittle them and make them feel like they are always in the wrong.
That's all true, I haven't said anything like that though, so I don't know where you're getting it. But when that "disagreeing" causes others to become second-class citizens, that's a problem and that's wrong(it's not opinion, it's wrong). And also, if you do drive down the road with it in your back window, don't complain if someone does call you a racist or something. I don't think it means your racists at all, I just think it's stupid, I see no point in it. We all have 1 flag.

When their discrimination is effecting others, then I have no sympathy for them, they're in the wrong and it's pretty clear.