Nikki Haley’s Revisionist History
With her eyes on her political future in a GOP dominated by Trumpism, Nikki Haley is attempting to rewrite the history of one of the most significant events of her time as Governor of South Carolina.
In the weeks after Dylann Roof murdered nine people at a historic African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina, the attention of the state and the nation turned to the state’s capital of Columbia and the Confederate battle flag that was flying on the grounds of the State Building. The flag itself had been a controversy for several years, and that controversy heated up in the wake of the Charleston murders when Roof’s racist motives and his videos and pictures that featured the Confederate flag that featured that flag and other white supremacist symbols. Eventually, after weeks of protest and national controversy, the flag came down and was placed in a museum where it belonged.
One of the many notable outstanding South Carolina politicians during this controversy was Nikki Haley, who was among the first Republicans in the state to come out in favor of removing the flag from state property. Since that event, of course, Haley went on to serve as President Trump’s first Ambassador to the United Nations before resigning at the end of last year. Since then, Haley has been on a book tour and remains an obsequious supporter of the Presidents to the point where some have speculated that she was lobbying to replace Mike Pence on the ticket in 2020.
While that seems unlikely, it seems clear that Haley has her eye on the political future, perhaps including a run for the Republican nomination for President. Given that, it isn’t surprising that Haley is seeking to pander to Trump cult members and other segments of the far-right, even if it means engaging in what amounts to revisionist history:
Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley told conservative radio host Glenn Beck on Friday that the Confederate flag represented “service, sacrifice and heritage” for people in her state before mass murderer Dylann Roof “hijacked” its meaning.
Roof murdered nine African American churchgoers during an evening Bible study in Charleston, S.C., in 2015. He was an avowed white supremacist who posed for photos with the Confederate flag.
A week after the massacre, Haley, then the governor, announced her support for removing the Confederate banner from statehouse grounds.
“I think the more important part is it should have never been there,” she said at the time. “These grounds are a place that everybody should feel a part of. What I realized now more than ever is people were driving by and felt hurt and pain. No one should feel pain.”
She also said she asked for it to come down because “I couldn’t look my children in the face and justify it staying there.”
Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants seen as a Republican rising star, was widely celebrated after taking a stand that would be unpopular with some people in her state. She later served as President Trump’s U.N. ambassador and is widely discussed in GOP circles as a potential presidential candidate.
In discussing the issue with Beck on his podcast, Haley seemed to suggest that the Confederate flag was not a symbol of hate before Roof made it so.
“Here is this guy who comes out with his manifesto holding the Confederate flag and had just hijacked everything that people thought of,” Haley said, according to a video of the interview on BlazeTV. “We don’t have hateful people in South Carolina. There’s always the small minority who are always going to be there, but people saw it as service, sacrifice and heritage. But once he did that, there was no way to overcome it.”
Haley also blamed the “national media” for “wanting to define what happened.”
“They wanted to make this about racism, they wanted to make it about gun control, they wanted to make it about the death penalty,” Haley said.
(…)
Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) said he was “insulted” and “stunned” by Haley’s comments.
He said it was “pretty obvious” why she made them.
“I read that she said Trump is doing God’s work,” he said. “I just think that she’s trying to appeal to that which Trump appeals to.”
A South Carolina state senator who represents Charleston condemned Haley’s remarks to Beck and challenged her role in getting the Confederate flag removed.
“As the Senator who represents Mother Emanuel & one of the floor leaders to remove the flag, I find these comments ignorant of history & the facts. The General Assembly removed the flag with 2/3rd votes in multi-week debate. Haley was a sideline Mon morning cheerleader at best,” Sen. Marlon Kimpson (D) tweeted.
State Rep. JA Moore (D), whose older sister was slain in the church shooting, retweeted Kimpson and added his own rebuke of Haley.
“@KimpsonForSC – as you know, my sister was tragically murdered in the Mother Emanuel AME Church tragedy. Your leadership & friendship was extremely important to myself and my family. Let’s be clear @NikkiHaley continued use of this tragedy for political reasons is disgusting,” Moore tweeted.
After this interview became public, Haley defended her comments:
Haley later took to Twitter herself, linking to a New York Times transcript of her 2015 call to have the flag taken down.
In those remarks, she said Roof had “a sick and twisted view of the flag. In no way does he reflect the people in our state who respect and, in many ways, revere it. Those South Carolinians view the flag as a symbol of respect, integrity and duty. They also see it as a memorial, a way to honor ancestors who came to the service of their state during time of conflict. That is not hate, nor is it racism.”
While not explicitly mentioning slavery, Haley added “At the same time, for many others in South Carolina, the flag is a deeply offensive symbol of a brutally oppressive past.”
In a message linking to the article, Haley said, “2015 was a painful time for our state.The pain was and is still real. Below was my call for the removal of the Confederate flag & I stand by it. I continue to be proud of the people of SC and how we turned the hate of a killer into the love for each other.”
Anne Branigin at The Root comments:
The passage of time—or a stint in the Trump administration—can surely allow you to flatten the truth to your convenience, which is exactly what Haley does here. But whether she’s a self-serving revisionist or a liar is less consequential than the effect of remarks like these.
It’s obvious why Haley might prefer to frame Roof as though he were created in a vacuum, absent any sort of lineage or cultural context. It reinforces the comical idea that a few weeks of “debate” can resolve generations’ worth of structural racism and actual, targeted violence. It supports the lie that individual acts of forgiveness could possibly stand in for accountability and atonement. Because in this paradigm, Roof is an anomaly, not a continuation.
Of course, Roof’s own words negate this. In fact, they point you down the path of where the kind of racial delusions Haley espouses can lead.
“I wish with a passion that n****** were treated terribly throughout history by Whites, that every White person had an ancestor who owned slaves, that segregation was an evil an oppressive institution, and so on. Because if it was all it true, it would make it so much easier for me to accept our current situation,” Roof wrote in his manifesto. “But it isnt true. None of it is. We are told to accept what is happening to us because of ancestors wrong doing, but it is all based on historical lies, exaggerations and myths.”
That the Confederate flag symbolizes something apart from a commitment to racialized chattel slavery is a myth. That people are unaware of its current, explicit endorsement of racial hierarchies and anti-black violence is a lie. But Haley has happily parroted these fabrications because she, like Roof, has actively chosen a gentler, sanitized version of her history. Along the way, she’s hijacked the congregants’ act of forgiveness into a patronizing rebuke of black rage, seeking atonement for a sin that she and others like her have never had the courage to name, let alone confront.
There are, of course, two problems with what Haley said here.
The first, and perhaps most egregious part of her comment, is the idea that the national media swooped into South Carolina in the wake of the tragedy in Charleston and turned a local tragedy into a story about race and the Confederate flag. This comment, as Haley herself should well know, ignores the reality of the motives behind Roof’s attack as well as the plethora of racist material he left behind when he left his home to commit his act of terrorism. The church that Roof chose, for example, was not merely chosen by accident. This church had a long history as an important part of the African-American religious community in the Palmetto State that dated back to the 19th Century and continued through the Civil Rights Era. This is why it was referred to as “Mother Emanuel” by African-Americans both inside and outside the state. Additionally, in the manifesto that Roof left behind and comments after the shooting, Roof made clear that his intention in committing the murders was to start a race war. The media didn’t invent a connection between the murders and race, or between the flag and racism. It merely reported the facts.
The second flaw in Haley’s new comments is the idea that Roof and others “hijacked” the meaning of the Confederate flag. The truth of the matter is that, in the century and a half since the Civil War, the flags of the Confederacy, whether we are talking about the actual national flag or the Northern Virginia battle flag that actually flew on the Capitol grounds in South Carolina, were used as symbols of racism and hatred and intended to send a message most importantly to African-Americans.
Many in the South and others who have an alternative view of history will claim that the Civil War was about something other than slavery, or at least not primarily about slavery, and that other issues such as tariff policy, the economy, political power in Washington, and so-called “states rights.” While all of those issues played a role in the relationship between the North and the South in the years leading up to secession and war, though, it was slavery that drove the dynamic of that relationship and it was the desire to protect the institution of slavery and extend it into new territory that led to the creation of the Confederacy. American political history from the founding until the firing of the first shots in Charleston’s Harbor in 1861 is full of that history, including the Fugitive Slave Act, the Compromise of 1820, the Missouri Compromise, the battles over Kansas between forces for and against slavery, John Brown’s raid in Harper’s Ferry, and the Election of 1860 itself. The secession of South Carolina and the states of the Deep South was not prompted by any overt act by the United States, but by the fact that Abraham Lincoln, who wasn’t even necessarily an abolitionist himself, was elected President. The fact that Lincoln could not have done much of anything to threaten slavery in the South thanks to the fact that Congress, and especially the Senate, was firmly in the control of Southern politicians, was seemingly not sufficient succor to the group of elitists and pro-slavery radicals who pushed the secession movement. What did push the movement, though, was slavery and racism.
One need only read the Secession Resolutions themselves, or the words of the man who became the Vice-President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens: (emphasis mine)
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.
The historical record is clear as to what the Confederacy was, and to display their banners in anything other than a historical context is to give implicit endorsement to those doctrines the same as if one were to file a Nazi Flag from their window.
As if the history of the Confederacy weren’t enough in and of itself to refuse the hate versus heritage argument, the history of how the flag came to be used in modern times ought to confirm it. In the aftermath of the war, the various flags of the defeated nation largely faded away. Robert E. Lee himself, who after the war became President of what is now Washington & Lee University in Virginia argued that the flag should not be displayed in public and left instructions that no such flags were to be displayed at his funeral or his grave after he died. To the extent the flag was seen, it was in the hands of the Ku Klux Klan and other terrorist organizations that existed in the South n in the years after the war, and the reasons they chose to adopt that banner were obvious to everyone.
Most importantly, it wasn’t until the Civil Rights Era that the flag we know today started appearing in public in an official capacity. South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and other states across the Old Confederacy adopted the flag by either flying it at state buildings, incorporating it into the state flag, or both as a symbol of resistance to the Federal Government’s efforts to protect the rights of African-Americans and as a symbol to intimidate African-Americans who lived in the South. These states did not start flying the Confederate flag in the 1960s and earlier because of heritage, they were flying it for the same reason that Bull Connor had his officers beating, sending attack dogs after, and using water cannons on peaceful protesters. They did this because they wanted to protect and preserve a system of racial repression and discrimination. That is what that flag stands for, nothing more and nothing less. Publicly displaying the flag(s) of the Confederacy as part of that effort was meant to send a message to African-Americans and to intimidate white southerners who might be inclined to dissent from the Jim Crow system. The meaning of the flag, therefore, was quite clear. It was never about “heritage,” “service,” or “sacrifice.” It was about intimidation and racism. That’s why Dylann Roof and other racists and white supremacists adopted those symbols as their own. The idea that they “hijacked” that meaning as Haley suggests is absurd.
The fact that Haley is engaging in this kind of historical revisionism — both of the meaning behind the flag and the racial motives the shooter had from the beginning — is not surprising. Since being named as the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Haley has fallen in line as yet another obsequious supporter of the President. In that respect, Haley, who clearly has an eye on 2024 and other potential political opportunities, is seeking to curry favor with the hard-right of President Trump’s base, many of whom continue to see the Confederacy in a positive light. The fact that she herself is a member of a minority group who is often attacked by these same people, some of whom have claimed she would be ineligible to run for President notwithstanding the fact that she was born in the United States, just makes her obvious pandering even more pathetic.
So much for Nikki Haley leading the Rethug party back to reality and she was someone we could be hopeful about.
There is a persistent belief among many that female politicians cannot be as vile, dishonest and corrupt as their male counterparts. Kudos to Nikki Haley for demonstrating that women can be every bit as despicable.
Someone send that toady a history of the KKK and slap her across the face with it. If she wants to pander to the crazies on the right, there is no reason why the rest of us should acquiesce in going along with her intellectual collapse. Either she knows what she is claiming is fake–in which case she’s a Trumpian liar–or she actually believes it–in which case she’s a clueless nitwit who should be exposed as such.
Mostly to be pedantic, but also to underline what utter BS this whole flag thing is, the flag in question was never the national flag of the Confederate States, and while based on it, was not the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia. It is technically the Confederate Second Naval Jack. If they’re going to obsess about the Lost Cause mythical history, try to at least get that right.
Haley was a Great White Hope, a supposed example of a Republican moderate. One who could work with Trump while avoiding the stink, a beacon to lead the Grand Old Party out of the wilderness after Trump goes away. Well, now she’s slipped and shown her true colors.
Haley’s behavior only serves to illustrate further my point that Republicans currently in office or harboring hopes for future office are terrified of Cult45. The pusillanimity is dreadful to witness, and I see no reason to think they’ll recover from it soon.
Donald Trump is the worst thing that’s happened to us in my lifetime.
@gVOR08: I hear it also wasn’t Frankenstein who was the monster.
Haley’s recent public statements clearly indicate an interest in running for future office. What is distressing is that she clearly is willing to cultivate a Trumpian pathway to get there.
Countdown to someone explaining how disrespecting this flag is disrespecting Middle American ™ values…
Or just the usual bad history or pedentry over whether it’s the Confederate Flag or the Confederate Battle Flag.
@Steven L. Taylor: As I said, she believes she has to do so. Most Republicans believe that their electoral hopes are doomed otherwise.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I think this is the case with a number of “moderate” Republicans. Will Hurd has expressed interest in running for President in the future. I suspect that desire is having a profound effect on how he is approaching everything related to Trump and the evidence from the investigations.
I also be he regrets not retiring two years ago.
Service? Sacrifice? Heritage?
“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. ”
https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/cornerstone-speech/
@Steven L. Taylor:
why not? Trump’s a better president than Abraham F. Lincoln in her voters’ eyes.
@Teve: And Cult45–a nickname they’ve proudly adopted, by the way–considers Trump to be the greatest president ever.
I fail to see how Roof hijacked the meaning of white supremacy while engaging in a violent act of white supremacy.
I sometimes wonder what the present quality of life would be for African-Americans if their ancestors had not been “brought here in chains.” How many would jump at the chance to emigrate to this hotbed of racist oppression? Yeah, I know. I just don’t “get it.”
@CSK:
Maybe not. If the country survives as a democracy (and that is IMHO an open question), then Trumpism may have been a good thing. As has been noted here before, Trump is not an aberration but rather the manifestation of the Republican id. He’s just saying the quiet parts out loud. And if Haley is any indication, he’s convincing others to follow the path. The GOP’s true self is laid bare.
I believe the Republicans need the plausible deniability afforded by their dog-whistling to maintain viability in national elections, as long as democracy undermining efforts like gerrymandering and voter suppression legislation are held in check (again, this remains to be seen).
@andros:
lol …
(1) If no Blacks had been brought here as slaves, who would Southern States have used as slaves on their cotton and tobacco plantations? Native Americans?
(2) How many Black people from various contries of the world have immigrated here? Over 2 million, despite having knowledge that governing Republicans have strong support of racist White nationalists.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Remember when andros’ ability to string together a coherent sentence suggested he might be a reasonable interlocutor on the political issues of the day? Ah, those were the days. The scare quotes around brought here in chains are a particularly nice touch.
@andros: I think you are posing an interesting question. For instance, I recall reading, in a bio of Robert E. Lee, how he and his brothers and sisters supported a project to emancipate black people and send to Africa – specifically to Liberia. That project never made much headway and I spent some time trying to figure out why.
The first is that emancipation through purchase was never going to be universal. There’s too much wealth to be had. The second though, is that those African-Americans now thought of the US as their home, and the place they were supposed to live. They also knew that it was hostile to them in some quarters, but it also was beautiful and held such promise. What they wanted was to realize that promise for themselves, just as white people were.
The anger of black people is something I understand to be the anger toward a lover who treats you badly. The love they still hold, in spite of everything, for America humbles me.
@andros: Three points:
First, holy shit you went to the “slavery was good for them” argument!
Second, if you are going to compare Africa today with America today to justify “rescuing” people through slavery, you have to look at the damage slavery and colonialism did to Africa, and guess what Africa would be like now without that damage, and use that as the basis of comparison. Think Wakanda. (Ok, not really Wakanda)
Third, Africa is not just a bunch of shithole countries. There is a prospering middle class in many of the countries. America is not judged by whatever filthy backwater you live in.
@mattbernius:
In Middle America, does anyone other than the most racist scumbags care about the Confedera flag? Is it popular as a symbol of heritage or whatever in Wyoming?
Here on the coast, I can only imagine that outside of the South, the fig leaf of cultural heritage has been removed, and it’s just racism or a love of Dukes of Hazard
@Scott F.: George Will uses fancy-talk too. Just because you’re smart, doesn’t mean you’re not a moron.
Well, another nail in the coffin of my poor judgement in discerning others. I officially concede that I’m just another naive dumbass. To think, I talked about endorsing her candidacy against Trump. What a dumbass.
@Jay L Gischer:
In his younger days, Lincoln was a big fan of emancipating the slaves and sending them somewhere else. It took him quite some time to believe that blacks could ever be equal to whites (you don’t have to think people are equal to not want them enslaved), or that America could ever integrate the former slaves (he might have been right about that). IIRC, meeting Frederick Douglas was a revelation to him.
So, that’s another way Lincoln was amazing — he kept growing as a person.
@andros: And here you are–absolutely no surprise–with one of the standard arguments of white supremacy. “Why, the blacks are so much better off since their ancestors were enslaved in America!”
I’d expound on the utterly shallow, racist ignorance necessary to make that statement, but really, the amount of racist garbage you’ve already posted on this site speaks for itself.
@DeD: You’re not alone. This has disappointed a lot of people. No need to flagellate yourself.
Going on Glenn Beck’s show is a pretty big tell that you’re just a grotesque hack who is willing to pander to the worst elements of the Republican base, even before talking about the confederate flag.
@andros: I know that Steven Taylor frowns upon people theorizing that commenters are actually the commenters of old, but…
Superdestroyer, is that you buddy?
@Gustopher:
I read a quote earlier this week that went: “Racism is so American that when you protest it, people think you are protesting America.”
@DeD: It’s hard to imagine that a light brown woman can be a white supremacist, or be embraced by white supremacists.
It just goes to show it’s not all about skin color, but that it’s also about values — values like hating on blacks, Mexicans, and Muslims.
Nicki Halley is probably just pandering, but Michelle Malkin fascinates me because she really believes. And she really believes that she will be accepted by white folks if she just hates hard enough.
@Jay L Gischer: Not to mention that Africans were usually captured by other Africans and brought down to the slave ports to sell to the traders. Whole villages were eliminated in this way. There was literally no “there” for even the most recent slaves to go back too.
This is the heritage that all flags of the CSA represent.
White people legally owning Black people.
This is what Nikki Haley and Andros and Dylan Roof are all supporting.
To Hell with them!
@Gustopher:
Funny thing is that among the right wing screamers, Beck in now among the moderates.
@DeD:
Sad, but true.
@Gustopher: He’s too coherent, and not angry enough, for superdestroyer.
Although, I do allow that SD and even everyone’s favorite, Jenos, could have learned to modulate.
I honestly find it weird, and more than a little sad, that anyone, once banned, would keep coming back.
@Scott F.: Yes, he has moved firmly into the “what’s the point of even trying” category rather quickly.
@Gustopher:
Yup.
But, of course, it is racist for you to point that out. Just as it, no doubt, will be for me to notethat he is continually underscoring what drives his worldview and his intense defense of Trump.
That time Doug got suckered in by a lying Media Matters tweet and turned it into an Orange Man Bad diatribe.
@DeD:
Hey, for a brief moment I actually thought she was going be some kind of future hope for righting the party. Not anymore, as she is clearly willing to capitalize on Trumpism.
@Nickel Front:
I’ll bite: what’s the lie?
@Nickel Front: Hey peanut-brain, we’re talking about Nikki Haley’s comment, not anything Doug said.
Or are you trying to claim that she didn’t say it?
@Gustopher: When they say, “I’m not a racist, I have a black/brown/colored friend!” NH and MM are the people they are speaking of.
@Nickel Front: No, do not ask, do not, don’t do it, don’t do it don’t do it DON’T….
Damn it, @Steven L. Taylor:
@DeD:
Naive? Eh, maybe, but not much. Dumbass? Dude, a dumbass is someone who, when he’s wrong, refuses to admit it. (See @andros etc…) Being wrong, admitting it, trying again until you get it right is called ‘science.’
I’ve always thought the ‘never admit, never apologize’ notion, most likely dreamed up by some screenwriter just looking for a cool-sounding line, was stupid. People interested in truth admit error. People who won’t admit error are not interested in truth.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Superdestroyer wasn’t angry, was he? I remember him as one of the most sweet and earnest white supremacists you could ever hope to meet. Racist as can be, but other than that, not a bad guy. Just, you know, really, really racist.
I thought of him as being our pet white supremacist, back when there were so few out in the open that you could sort of feel sorry for him, and want to protect him from himself.
I’m not seriously suggesting andros was him, though. I’m pretty sure Superdestroyer was a lot younger. Like 14. But I do remember Superdestroyer using this argument.
I do hope Superdestroyer has wandered through life, meeting lots of brown folks, categorizing each them as “one of the good ones” (Superdestroyer struck me as a generous person) and never putting it together, and going to his Klan meetings and when someone is raging against the black couple that moved in down the street, interrupting to say “oh, I met them, they’re really nice. I hate n-clang as much as the next guy, but Bob and Judy are really some of the good ones. Can we get angry about some of the others?”
I have a rich fantasy life.
@Michael Reynolds: I dunno, the “never admit to mistakes in public” thing is so common, I think it’s probably the default behavior in humans. You have to be trained to do something else. This training can be called “the scientific method” or it can be called “continuous improvement” (or it can be called “tai chi”, incidentally), but it’s something you have to be taught, I think.
It’s still well, well worth it. One of the things I really admire about Elon Musk (much to the dismay of @OzarkHillbilly, I imagine) is that he makes all his mistakes in public. This allows him to go much, much faster.
@Gustopher:
And then there’s Dinesh D’souza, whose near-perfect mimicking of white supremacist antics causes me to experience vertigo.
@Gustopher: I could be misremembering SD’s emotional profile, TBH. At some point the racist stuff always sounds angry to me.
@Jay L Gischer:
I’ve seen little to persuade me that life in the Sub-Sahara, during the early 1800’s, for the most part, wasn’t “brutish, nasty and short.” Slavery was commonplace there, no? So, at what point in time do you propose slave owners became aware that they were truly evil? What were their options?
@Jay L Gischer:
Or it can be called confidence. Refusing to admit error suggests a person worried that his grip on status is fragile. If you’re confident, you admit error because to refuse to do so is to a) confess weakness and signal insecurity b) to chip away at your credibility which results in an actual loss of status long-term.
I model successful generals in this. Good generals know when to retreat; only a fool would rather die defending an indefensible position.
Granted few people get this.
@andros:
When a reasonable man can reach the conclusion that an act is evil, based on available evidence, and yet persists. So, Roman slavers, perhaps not evil because no intellectual or moral framework accessible to most people was yet available to show them a different path. Western slavers, having access to both Judaism and Christianity, had reason to know they were doing evil. American slavers who continued into the 19th century – the confederacy – were unmistakably evil.
And you pimping for slavery in 2019 are clearly doing evil. But there’s never been any doubt that you were a racist POS.
Glad I could clear that up for you.
@Gustopher: “It took him quite some time to believe that blacks could ever be equal to whites”
Did he ever get to that point? From the debates with Douglas:
“on September 18, 1858, Lincoln made his position clear. “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races,” he began, going on to say that he opposed blacks having the right to vote, to serve on juries, to hold office and to intermarry with whites. What he did believe was that, like all men, blacks had the right to improve their condition in society and to enjoy the fruits of their labor. In this way they were equal to white men, and for this reason slavery was inherently unjust.”
“In the last speech of his life, delivered on April 11, 1865, he argued for limited black suffrage, saying that any black man who had served the Union during the Civil War should have the right to vote.”
https://www.history.com/news/5-things-you-may-not-know-about-lincoln-slavery-and-emancipation
@DeD: Don’t forget Bobby Jindal. A bit less openly racist (and probably less racist), but definitely cut from the same cloth.
At the risk of sounding racist myself, there is a segment of the Indian immigrant population that is just racist as fvck towards blacks and Mexicans and Muslims. Often the same folks who get upset when Indians are not grouped in with “Asians” (you know, the model immigrants that almost no one minds). And often the same ones who say that the caste system really doesn’t matter anymore back in India. I’m pretty sure it’s people who came from very privileged families in India, and who think that if they just hate hard enough, they can get that same privilege here.
Definitely not all the Indian folks who come here, or the majority, but a nasty subset — I work in software, so I meet a lot of different Indian folks. Along with the best and brightest, we are getting some truly awful people who express Middle American values.
@Michael Reynolds:
Roman slavery was also very different. There were laws, norms and expectations about the treatment of slaves that were very different than the chattal slavery practiced on the Southern plantations in the US.
Still evil, but less evil.
@Gustopher:
Indeed. Little known fact: the terms and conditions of American slavery grew more harsh over time. Manumission was outlawed in many states. The south gained the right to demand legally that decent people in the north who harbored slaves had to return them. They knew they were doing evil, and doubled-down. Then they managed to get 600,000 Americans to die in a war to defend their evil.
@andros:
The widespread knowledge and belief that slavery was wrong predates the existence of the United States, so racist slavers committing treason in 1860 get no sympathy, nor do their defenders today.
@Jay L Gischer:
Musk has chosen to engage in engineering activities. There’s an old line that doctors bury their mistakes, lawyers lock up their mistakes, and engineers put their mistakes out in public for everybody to see.
@Gustopher:
Then there was Cato the Elder, who argued it was far more cost effective to hire day laborers when needed, and let them go when not needed (during the winter months, for instance.)
There’s an interesting throwaway line in Gone with the Wind about a neighbor of the O’Haras, Wilkeses, Tarletons, etc. who was universally hated because he had manumitted his slaves. Margaret Mitchell mentions this so matter-of-factly that the attitude must have lingered well on into the 1930s–and beyond–in the south.
@David M:
If they had been left there, there wouldn’t be many of them here, would there?
@Gustopher: Maybe not. Malkin may well have merely stumbled upon a self-marketing tool that she is not completely repulsed by because the money is all that matters to her. Some people actually DO have a price.
People, liberal or conservative, racist or otherwise, have very little understanding of the history and current practice of slavery. The idea that aside from Ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt it was limited to white in black slavery in the American South so wrong it doesn’t even register on the needle. Hell, I was just listening to an episode of the Futility Closet podcast that chronicles an entire village in Ireland that was captured by Moors and sold into slavery. To this day, in many countries poor rural children are sent to the city to work for the wealthy for no more than poor food and a corner of the floor to sleep on. If they try to run the local police will be happy to recapture them and bring them back. Slavery is as natural and inevitable as murder and rape and theft and is present in every society, including here in the US (although much less common here than in some other places). Justice and fairness are human constructs and need to be fought for every minute of every day. The sorrow of the Southern states is that they were unable to raise themselves from their unenlightened culture but instead went to war to preserve it.
@MarkedMan: what is interesting about slavery in the antebellum South is that it really did boil down to a cultural thing. Slavery used to exist because of the lack of any other way of getting labor done. But by the time the South went to war, there was sufficient industry around that they could have segued over if they had really wanted to. What it really boiled down to was a culture that was so infused with “white == Master race == plantation owner” and “black == inferior == slave” that they couldn’t advance on from that mentality even when slavery became economically unnecessary.
And have you noticed that it’s always the failures who now push the Master Race stuff? Failsons who spend their days bitching on the internet about how everyone is against them, whinging constantly about how precious and fantastic their white DNA is, all the while they fail to achieve anything in life.
Get over it. You lost.
The South’s heritage is state’s rights to own slaves.
The war of Northern Aggression? Ha!
Fort Sumpter: The South chose treason.
Now it’s perpetual victimhood, as they are lazy and wanted slaves to do all the work.
When is the South going to rise again? It’s been 150 years. Sh!t or get off the toilet.
@Grumpy realist: What it really boiled down to was a culture that was so infused with “white == Master race == plantation owner” and “black == inferior == slave”
It’s interesting looking at newspaper articles in the South about slavery in the 30 or so years before the Civil War. First it was a “necessary evil” but by the 1850s it had become the natural lot of blacks and a good thing for both whites and blacks.
This “discussion” is rather like a debate over the nuking of Hiroshima with no one permitted to mention Pearl Harbor. Without slavery, there would be very few African-Americans here to complain of mistreatment. This is simply an exercise in venting.
@Lynn: As said, that “necessary evil” excuse went tits up as soon as the Industrial Revolution got underway. The South wanted to play lords and masters on the plantation with the happy darkies pickin’ cotton in the background and Miz Scarlette fainting on the sofa.
Amazing what excuses one can come up with for greed and unethical behaviour, isn’t it?
@andros: Nice to read the justification and spinning I’m reading from you. All your ancestors on both sides slaveowners, huh?
Don’t worry, there are other ways you can get over your guilty feelings. I suggest therapy.
@Jay L Gischer:
I have stated before that making the mistake in public is one thing. Admitting to it is another. The man is well capable of the former. The latter is a different matter entirely. I’m not sure why you can not acknowledge that I have stated such before, am stating such now, and will state such again. Except for the fact that you don’t want to admit that your hero is not quite so heroic as you would like to imagine him.
PS: I am wondering why you have not come to rub in my face that he was not found guilty of defamation. Perhaps it is because you realize his conduct, while not rising to that level was still indefensible.
The irony of all of this is that if the GOP wasn’t such a racist party, Indian-Americans, along with other ethnic minorities, could find a political home there…alas, the South has to have some national political party to call its own, and that party just so happens to be the Republican Party…
I’ll ask again: At what point in history should slave owners have realized that they were evil, and what were their options?
When the South was made “occupied territory,” and governance turned over to former slaves, the stage was set for extended acrimony, conflict and violence. The sanctimony is getting a little syrupy here.
@andros:
It all starts to make sense.
You are communicating from a different timeline, yes?
In the past, I have had no problem with engaging andros. This last post featuring the question about when slave owners should have realized their evil is all the reason anyone needs to ignore him.
I’m not sure what he gets out of posting here. He has said entertainment when asked this question. Maybe he loves being called racist. Maybe he is a paid troll. Maybe he thinks he is winning these discussions. Whatver his reason, he is irrelevant. And we in some way contribute to his goal, whatever that may be.
He has referenced comments at Democratic Underground and other liberal sites. This seems to be his hobby and/or job.* (this should make all of us incredulous about his alleged archaic punchcard internet setup.) It also means we should ignore him, rather than helping him climax. Let him get his rocks off alone.
*if you get paid for what you love, you never work a day in your life.
A lotttttttt of people don’t understand that. Related thing, that was one of the most important things I learned in physics, was that you can be 100%, absolutely, certain that something is right, and be completely wrong.
@Teve: …..which gets forcibly and painfully brought home to you when something turns purple and blows up.
(Oh, I’m sorry–that’s chemistry. Physics is when something turns radioactive and blows up.)
@grumpy realist: 🙂
@andros: Actually idiot… its impossible for the population of black people in this countries to be what it is today if we are to believe historical accounts of 17th or 18th century slave importation. The most commonly used numbers would be a challenge to move from Africa to America today. Only a fool (i.e. you) would believe that 18th century ship design and ~30% deaths in transit could bring enough slaves to America to translate (using generous birth rate projections) in ~50 million black citizens do. The obvious answer is that black people were already here in America. Definitely not in the numbers of who we traditionally think of as ‘Native’ but here nevertheless. Frankly I resent the Qualifier “African” because it assumes the black man is native to one continent. If that were true, how the hell did all these dark skin people get on the other continents?
You’ve made your troll engagement money today. Now shoo…
Take a totally out of context quote, tweeted by kings of fake news media matters, overreact to the headline, then twist everything that Haley said and did both then and now to fit your Republicans Are All Racist Cult Members narrative.
Got to start taking her out now tho I guess because she’ll crush any Democrat in 2025 once Trump leaves office.
@andros
I’d propose the it should be some time before now. Not seeing much evidence that the Confederate flag wavers have gotten to that point.
@Kurtz:
But it’s actually a kind of interesting question.
The slave owner was born into it, told that it was fine, and his entire way of life is dependent on believing it is fine. You want to say that he should know better, but all his life people have been working to ensure that he doesn’t.
Now, look at your clothing and electronics and ponder how much was made in sweatshops. Your food is picked and packed by people paid shit wages and exploited. And yet, the only way you can keep a remotely middle class lifestyle is to ignore all the suffering that you enable with your purchases.
Factory farms are brutal to the animals, and we all know this, but most of us eat meat.
Are we better than the slaveholders? We don’t hurt people directly, so there’s that. But the knowledge is there and we don’t act on it.
——
And this is why I don’t believe in god. If there is a god, I’m going to hell, so my disbelief is a defiant act of self preservation.
@Nickel Front:
So you are claiming that she didn’t say what she said??
How’s that out of context? Racism and treason painted as “service, sacrifice, and heritage”…really?
How is this twisting her words? To “revere” a symbol of treason and racism? How is that not hate? Not racism?
To say that others are taking her on now is ass-backwards…it is she who is doing this now so that she court Trumpists…as far as “crushing” is concerned, she is the one crushing her own chances at national politics…it may play well in certain parts of the South to defend a symbol of the Confederacy but that won’t play so well in other parts of the country, where people know the truth–the Confederacy and its flag symbolize nothing more than treason and racism…arguing anything else is the real fake news…it’s even sadder and more pathetic considering her ethnic background…if her ancestors had been in South Carolina in the time before the Civil War, they surely wouldn’t have been thought of as proper citizens and would have been linked more with the slave population…she should be ashamed of herself for what she is doing simply to make a play for Trump voters…
‘As touches upon moral judgment, is no one here willing to address the question of whether slave owners might reasonably have believed that slaves were better off here than on what was then perceived as the Dark Continent? Do African-Americans wish they had been been left there?
I have rarely seen so much intellectual dishonesty on one thread.
@andros:..slave owners might reasonably have believed that slaves were better off here than on what was then perceived as the Dark Continent?
Spare us your crap.
It’s a good bet that the American slave owners didn’t give a sh!t.
Your attempted rationalization of the legal ownership of black people by white people is despicable.
@Gustopher:
Oh, I agree that it is an interesting question, if it is asked for the right reasons. That person has not shown that he asks questions as an intellectual exercise. Do you really think he is asking questions to further an important discussion?
That is why i think it is best to ignore him. He isn’t here to understand an opposing view or crystallize his own view. He already knows what he thinks and knows he is right.
His arguments are not solid enough to make your points better either. Instead, we jerk him off every day he comes here. He doesn’t even say thank you–he criticizes our technique. Let him ejaculate on his own.
I have made this point in a thread before, but i will repeat it here:
Given the general hostility to PoMo on the Right (including RW Libertarians,) it is ironic that andros is taking this line of argumentation. He is making the claim that human nature is dependent upon cultural practices.
The appeal to objective truth a 19th Century Southerner would make, White>Black, is veneer when viewed retrospectively. The only way to justify a defense of slaveholders as not knowing better is to make the culture claim. I suppose you could just be racist, but, well…
@Mister Bluster:
Also @Gustopher
This is from one of Robert E. Lee’s personal letters:
https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Letter_from_Robert_E_Lee_to_Mary_Randolph_Custis_Lee_December_27_1856
Emphasis mine.
This argument is being made. In this thread. In 2019.
So slaves would have been better off, as would their descendants today, had they been left in Africa? What curious logic.
@andros:
Oh wow. I’ve been active on internet since 1985, before there was a World Wide Web and before it was open to the public. I’ve seen a lot of stupid shyt over the years, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more ignorant than this comment. And I have seen a number of your comments here in the recent past, so that is saying something. I cannot fathom what kind of bubble you have lived in over your lifetime… obviously a bubble of privilege… but you need help.
But, really, no skin off my back if you choose to alienate traditional Democratic voters with this sanctimonious claptrap.
@andros:
You keep repeating this in various forms as if you think it is somehow profound, or at least meaningful.
Yes, without slavery there would be a whole lot less people here of recent African descent (go back far enough, and we are all of African descent). But, what’s your point? Are you trying to say that we are the real racists for rejecting slavery and thinking it is morally wrong?
I’ll toss another little detail your way — have you ever looked at African-Americans and then at Africans and noticed the difference in skin color? That’s because white slave holders would rape their slaves, and then enslave their own children. Would you like to start explaining the positive side of rape now?
@andros:
For you to use that phrase is stunningly tone deaf.
@Gustopher:
Well, he IS a Trumpist.
@Gustopher: Considering some of the stuff that gets put out by the alt-right crowd, I’m sure andros will easily find a “rape == good for female slaves” argument to barf up here. He’s been regurgitating all the rest of their BS; why stop here?
@Gustopher: Now, look at your clothing and electronics and ponder how much was made in sweatshops. Your food is picked and packed by people paid shit wages and exploited. And yet, the only way you can keep a remotely middle class lifestyle is to ignore all the suffering that you enable with your purchases.
Slave owners wore cotton clothes. So did Abolitionists.
@grumpy realist:
Well really the only thing important to an organism is passing genes on.
A.) An organism’s only goal is to pass its genes on to offspring.
B.) Rape increases chances of passing genes on to offspring.
Then
C.) being raped fulfills the goal of an organism.
/s
@Nickel Front:
You shifted from a claim of lying to “out of context” rather quickly. And then you didn’t identify what context would have improved the direct quotations in question.
@motopilot:
Sadly, this is a common trope among some who seek to justify slavery as ultimately having been good. It is a tortured and crude consequentialist argument that pretend like a superficial assessment of right now justifies substantial moral crimes in the past.
Since the USA has a higher GDP than, say, Cameroon, surely everyone who lives in the US is better off than everyone in Cameroon. Ergo, how you got here is immaterial and justified as moral ex post facto.
After all, would modern Germany exist without its past? No, not at all. Therefore: Nazis and the Holocaust were good!
Watch how it works:
So post-war Germans would have been better off, as would their descendants today, had their been no Nazis? What curious logic.
Better yet, any German-descended Jewish Americans should thank their lucky stars
for the Final Solution, because without it, they wouldn’t be Americans today.
Because, of course, since the present is good in some measurable way, past immorality is justified! It’s magic!
However distasteful it may be to those on the cutting edge of “wokeness,” today’s descendants of slaves are obviously far better off than they would be had their ancestors been left in Africa. They wouldn’t even be here. Actually, given conditions in Africa, many would not even have been born. Sanctimoniously gasping “I can’t believe he’s going there” is no substitute for logic. And your pretensions to moral superiority are based on that rejection of logic.
@Kurtz: Well really the only thing important to an organism is passing genes on. A.) An organism’s only goal is to pass its genes on to offspring. B.) Rape increases chances of passing genes on to offspring. Then C.) being raped fulfills the goal of an organism. /s
Ignoring the sarcasm tag:
Rape doesn’t necessarily increase reproductive success. There is a trade off between how much care the male provides to the young, and how wide the male spreads its seeds. Human children require a long period of development to be successful, so that rewards long-term stability. Additionally, rape may invite a violent response, so it may cut short the spreading of the male’s seed, depending on the circumstances.
Ordinary cheating, however, tends to account for a significant number of offspring, even in an otherwise stable monogamous environment, as the social father will often provide for the biological father’s children, especially if the cheating is undetected. The advantage for the female is genetic diversity (especially important when the environment is unstable) and the opportunity to mate with a genetically stronger male. On the other hand, the male partner may provide fewer resources for a female that exhibits traits associated with unfaithfulness. **
** See Schroeder et al., Predictably Philandering Females Prompt Poor Paternal Provisioning, American Naturalist 2016.
@Zachriel:
Interesting. I think you know what my point is though 😉
@andros: If you cannot start engaging with what others are saying in the thread, rather than making deflections, I would ask you to cease participating in the threads.
It is increasingly the case that you are exhibiting not just bad faith arguments, which are at least on topic, and more just ranging into pure trolling. That is going to get you banned from the site.
Please stay on topic and engage, else desist.
@andros: However distasteful it may be to those on the cutting edge of “wokeness,” today’s descendants of slaves are obviously far better off than they would be had their ancestors been left in Africa.
Sure. Except for all the dead ones. And all the suffering. And all the broken families.
@andros: @andros:
At the point where they read the phrase, “All men are created equal, and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.
I know, and without the holocaust we wouldn’t have Israel. So it was all worth it.
You’re really a fuckin’ idiot.
@andros:
https://youtu.be/G2y8Sx4B2Sk
@Steven L. Taylor:
Whatever.
Intentionally misleading and out of context…. IOW… Lying.
It’s much easier for you to generalize and make a complex issue totally black and white (no racial tone intended) because it confirms all your biases and you get to sound woke and superior to everyone who disagrees with you.
It’s almost cult like behavior, if you will.
Interesting story here:
https://www.ajc.com/gallery/news/state-regional-govt-politics/photos-theyre-black-and-theyre-proud-confederate-f/gCWDK/
And you know EVERYONE watched the Dukes of Hazard because of its thinly veiled advocacy for a return of slavery.
@Michael Reynolds:
Funny story…. Long ago in my college days the U of Illinois paper ran a story about the after effects of slavery, and one guy interviewed said hell yes he’s better off. He said he’s much better off living here than he would be back in Africa living in the jungle with tigers.
(And yes, I’m 99% sure he said tigers and not lions.)
@Steven L. Taylor:
As usual, when replying to me, you speak in anger. The issue of the morality of slavery could not be more on-topic here. You demand that I embrace, as true, the assumptions of “progressives.” But I am a conservative, apparently the only one to visit this site. As I have repeatedly indicated, I post, not with intent to vex, but with the thought in mind that other conservatives pass through here, without commenting. Perhaps you would be more comfortable with a rule forbidding conservative views, as on Democratic Underground.
You want to have me banned, go for it. No big deal.
@Michael Reynolds:
If you read their contemporary writings it’s clear that many of the people of the Founders generation realized the evil of slavery, but they justified it, somehow as economically necessary. Some of them, like George Mason, manumitted all their slaves while they were alive and other provide for manumission after their death. Jefferson wrote several times that he recognized that slavery was a moral stain on the south and the nation and that the nation would pay a great price if it were not abolished.
It was the generations that follow the Founders in the south who not only rejected those moral objections but came to believe that slavery was an objectively good thing. This is one of the forces that led to secession and the Civil War. The slaveholders in the south truly believed they were morally correct and they had convinced the segment of the population that didn’t hold slaves that keeping the slaves under foot was the only way to prevent social chaos.
@andros:
And why is that not then an argument for slavery today if the enslaved are carried away to a society richer and more advanced than their home society? Wouldn’t they be better off enslaved here than free in their impoverished homes?
@andros:
As someone else noted in this thread, this is akin to arguing that the Jewish people are lucky that 6,000,000 of them died in the Holocaust because it led to the creation of the State of Israel.
It is stupid, it is immoral, and it is wrong. To be frank, we have no idea what would have happened in Africa if Western Europeans had not invaded, taken their land, and sent them off to slavery in the North and South America. To argue that they are beteter off because of slavery is a pathetic argument.
@Steven L. Taylor: I vote for banning him. He’s not even trying to be sensible. It’s pure assholishness at this point.
Andros wants a response. Ignore him. Ghost him. Treat him as if he doesn’t exist.
@Nickel Front:
An impressive rejoinder.
Alas, neither an identification of a lie nor an explanation of context that you think would help us understand Haley.
@CSK: in the entire history of the internet, this advice has never once worked. 🙂
You keep typing this but provide no evidence to back up your claim…I guess they didn’t teach you how to do that at the University of Illinois…
If yours is the official conservative position it is little wonder why conservatives so often seem illogical and racist with their arguments…
@Teve: Oh, I don’t know; it works for me. I almost never read an andros coment, and his relentless stupidity doesn’t bother me at all any more.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: oh I do it too. Reading JKB or Paul L or Andros is a waste of time because they’re Trumpers, which is to say they’re dumb and mean. Life’s too short.
all I was trying to say was that you’re never going to have a discussion board where trolls go away because everyone decides to stop talking to them, because that’s impossible. Human nature means there will always be somebody who wants to beat up the idiot.
@sam:
“And why is that not then an argument for slavery today if the enslaved are carried away to a society richer and more advanced than their home society? Wouldn’t they be better off enslaved here than free in their impoverished homes?”
Why are you using “they” in those sentences. Since andros believes enslaving people improves the well being of their descendants, he should be volunteering for servitude.
@Nickel Front: Yes, there are about a dozen black folks who are fans of the confederate flag. They’re basically a freak show. I’m surprised you didn’t find Diamond & Silk.
Now, this is a more interesting point — in the early 80s, the flag’s “Rebel” nature was more recognized in the dominant (white) culture, and what the flag symbolized rebelling for (slavery and racism) was mostly elided. Sure, the KKK liked it, but so did a lot of good old southern boys.
The thing that changed was that black folks finally started getting a seat at the table, and started getting listened to. The “southern pride” narrative didn’t hold up to questioning.
Historically, we know that the flag and confederate monuments became much more prevalent As Jim Crow became much more established, and this resurgence was just about racism.
You’re free to fly your racist flag if you want, but it has no place over a statehouse which represents all the people. And maybe for you it is just about your (racist) heritage and not your current racism. I doubt that, but let’s be generous.
You are free to be offensive, but you have to accept that people will think poorly of you.
Similarly, fine Indian families who move here should perhaps be cautious about decorating using the Swastika.
I think Haley’s comments were ignorant and morally reprehensible. She is trying to gain cover for white supremacists of the past by granting them the cover of a small number of people who lived with blinders on and their hands over their ears, and really didn’t see what was wrong with it.
But even then – by her formulation what does it mean for someone to drape themselves in that flag now? I saw a guy in a Confederate Flag hat at a junior hockey game in Southern Ontario last night. I have gone to a lot of hockey games in the last 50 years and I have never seen that before. Trump and his minions and wannabe minions are bringing out a level of evil that will be hard to eliminate. Yes I know Trump is the product of the last 40 years of the Republican Party but he is giving new and expanded life to the truly awful aspects of Republicans. Good luck getting that genie back in the bottle.
@Gustopher:
That AJC gallery is hardly different from the “some of my best friends are Black” argument used by racist to show they aren’t racist.
Also, if you read through the captions, you will find the people justifying their choice in different ways. Some of them are the same as a White Southerner’s argument, some are quite different from that.
Pete S. makes a good point about seeing one in Southern Ontario. The flag has made its way put of the South. Some of it may indeed be diaspora. But I suspect it has become more a cultural identifier more than a geographic artifact.
@Pete S:
Why eliminate them? Why waste good labor?
I’m sure that if President Warren enslaves the Republicans and ships them off to be worked to death in Russia, that any surviving descendants will be better off there than living in the liberal hellhole of The People’s Democratic Republic of America, and so it will all be morally just…
——
Sometimes I respond thoughtfully, sometimes I come up with things like this… More thoughtful response: I have no idea how much is serious white nationalism and how much is just triggering the libs. I also don’t know which is worse, and whether it matters.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Maybe go read everything she said?
Just a thought.
And stop following Media Matters. Anyone taking them seriously needs help.
You might also note that at least some actual news organizations have deleted their stories which were based on the MMFA and their LIE about Haley.
It’s a shame you can’t do that here.
It’s sad that you take a lie, run with it, and are unable to admit your mistake, all because of your hatred for Trump.
But you’ve latched onto “lie” vs “out of context” and can’t get out of that cycle.
Jason Campbell lied.
@Nickel Front: I’m not sure how you can say the correction is any better….
“People saw [the flag] as service, and sacrifice and heritage”
Cut and pasted straight from The Blaze.
If you don’t want to be called a racist, then don’t post racist shit. It’s pretty easy. If you are unsure whether it’s racist, go ahead, say it out loud and online, the internet will let you know post haste whether it is or not. 😉
If I were a Trump supporter and hated racism, this is the sort of thread where I’d come out swinging against the racists on my side of the fence. Crickets.
@Doug Mataconis:
I guess that follows from having to defend, and justify to yourself, the indefensible. You end up doubling down and digging your heels in. We see Trump supporters doing the same thing.
@Nickel Front: @Jax: This is a standard conservative tactic that they should be ashamed of. FOX and Limbaugh and the rest of them don’t admit to error. Reputable sources admit to error constantly. Stuff happens, mistakes are made. In this case reputable sources found their quote of Haley was not quite accurate and updated it. People like Andros trumpet this as evidence of….something. As Jax points out, the correction is inconsequential Organizations that value truth make corrections, organizations that do not make corrections do not value truth.
Do you know why science works better than religion? It’s because science can admit to being wrong.