We could debate all day what should be done with the “Big Red” flag believed to be the one that Citadel cadets flew when committing the most disastrous, inexcusable, violent act of student unrest in U.S. history.
But there’s one thing that doesn’t need any debate: South Carolina doesn’t need any more special license plates. Have you seen the latest?:
‘Big Red’ flag tag could preserve Civil War banner
The Associated Press
COLUMBIA, S.C. — The “Big Red” flag linked to South Carolina military school cadets firing on a Union ship before the Civil War could be preserved with the help of a new state license tag.
State Rep. Chip Limehouse on Wednesday introduced a bill that issues a special tag that would bear the image of the red banner with white Palmetto tree and crescent.
Limehouse said it would help the state pay for proper storage and preservation of the banner said to have flown when cadets from The Citadel fired on the Star of the West on Jan. 9, 1861 as it tried to resupply a garrison.
What’s believed to be the original flag is on loan to The Citadel from the Iowa State Historical Museum.
This business of the state of South Carolina acting as the fund-raiser for various private entities and causes got out of hand long ago. Having so many different plates has seriously undermined the purpose of a state license plate, which is quick identification for law enforcement purposes.
Let’s draw the line here.
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I’d buy one.
Brad,
“South Carolina doesn’t need any more special license plates.”
Now that the entire state has been overrun by palmetto bugs(Periplaneta americana), we should cease selling new affinity plates?
There must be an incentive somehere in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act for prevention of the overdue H1N2 epidemic.
Bring back the wren and yellow jessamine plates. Otherwise, all SC license plates should be indigo, with a white palmetto in the middle and a crescent moon in the corner. If you feel the need to customize your ride, there are plenty of bumper sticker purveyors. Cafe Press, for one.
The wren and jessamine plate was perhaps the ugliest state plate ever produced.
A “red flag” plate could also contain the phrase “I’m a cracker.”
How about if the red flag plates cost the buyer $10,000 each, and all the money went to the NAACP and the SPLC?
@Walter
Degustibus non est disputandum.
@Burl
You can say stuff like that because you’re how many thousand miles away…
Of course they’d have no problem supporting the NAACP and SPLC–they’re not *racists*–they just want to commemorate their Heritage.*
*which was enslaving black people
I can also say it because, where I live, my “kind” of people are the minority group!
Specialty license plates, at least here, are a kind of manini fundraiser for the state.
And proudly pointing out to other motorists that you’re a racist hillbilly — sorry, proud son of the Old South — seems counterproductive. Why not just put a little white hood over your JackInTheBox antennae ball?
Unless, of course, there’s also SC bills promoting the creation of, let’s say, PRAISE ALLAH! or GOD BLESS HIS HOLINESS THE POPE license plates.
Doing away with specialized plates would be a kind act. If not totally doing away with them, then have only certain state supported institutions like colleges, state parks, conservation, state museum, etc. with the extra $$ going to them.
We don’t have Jack-in-the-Box around here. Too Yankee–there may be one in Rock Hill–that outpost to the North of us…
Yes, they raise money here that way instead of a rational taxation plan. It’s a “bake sale” approach as per the old bumper sticker.
Wouldn’t it be nice, if, in a state with poor public health numbers, we decided to make supporting our parks a priority for everyone and not just the “choir”? I do suppose it is a way to get athletics fans to support the actual institution (I assume the funds go to the university’s general fund?)
Kathryn – I don’t speak lawyer.
Why is Burl so up in arms over a SC license plate? Do any of us care what Hawaii has for specialty plates?
Kathryn, you need to do a little research on this time period When did the Civil War start? What year did the Industrial Revolution begin? As a plantation owner, would you keep hundreds of slaves rather than buy a few pieces of machinery which could do the same job faster and cheaper?
What about the Northerners who owned slaves for over 100 years prior to the start of the Civil War? Can anyone tell me who worked the Washington and Jefferson plantations? I’m guessing it wasn’t the Farm Laborers Union.
@Walter
It’s not lawyer, it’s called “Latin.” Cut and paste it into your Google window.
The Industrial Revolution did not begin in a year. The Civil War ran from 1861-1865. I minored in History, and I can use Google effectively in any event. What are you getting at?
Walter,
You just got your nose tweaked. You can try, “illigiti non carborundum” as a snappy comeback.
Its a good thing she didn’t come back with “Aut disce aut discede”.
:), 🙂
Latin is a dead language, you might as well be communicating in Mayan.
What I was getting at was that even without the Civil War, slavery would have likely ended as we know it within the 1860’s or 1870’s. Slave owners realized that it was cheaper to plant, cultivate and harvest crops with a machine than humans and livestock that you had to feed and house 365 days a year. House slaves would probably have been around longer… but even 150 years later we’re still dealing with house slave ownership in nearly every part of this country.
So can you tell me who worked the large plantations in the North if not slaves owned by our founding fathers?
I guess the plantation owners were hoping slaves would hit their expiry date before they had to buy newfangled mechanical replacements.
“there is no disputing about tastes” Thanks for the hint. I thought it was “disgusting sputum”.
@ Bart
*Illegitimi* non carborundum.
Romans they go the house.
@Walter–what large plantations of the North? and besides, what is this apropro of?
The Civil War arose in large part because the South did not want to end slavery (for good economic reasons, perhaps, but they were behind the curve ethically–or is that the “prevailing winds of ethics,” again?)
There once was a lawyer named Rex
Who had diminutive organs of sex.
When charged with exposure
He said, with composure
De minimis non curat lex.
Burl, why are you so concerned about how things get done or are done in South Carolina?
Your last comment makes no sense… just another one of your “I’m going to stick my nose in SC’s slave history” rants. Question… was there slavery in Hawaii? I’m betting there was at some point in history.
Bart – I’ll take your word for it, I didn’t bother translating it.
Here’s something that I figured Burl would be more concerned with than a new SC license plate that will not impact him in the least.
“Following the ratification by Hawai`i Government Employees Association (HGEA) members of a new two-year contract, Governor Lingle announced details of a plan that calls for two furlough days per month for the next 20 months for state employees. To minimize the impact on the public, most state offices will close all or portions of their operations on two specified Fridays per month. ”
That’s right 24-day furloughs for all state employees for the next fiscal year.
Kathryn – “but they were behind the curve ethically”.
Walter – “Objection, your Honor, the question calls for speculation.”
Judge – “Sustained”
——————-
This is “apropro of” your and Burl’s implied ignorance of the fact that there were plantations and large homesteads in the North that required slave labor to work or maintain. Plantations and large homesteads didn’t end at the Mason-Dixon line. For the third time, who provided the labor for the plantations owned by, for example, the Jeffersons and the Washingtons (as well as many other wealthy families of the North)? Did they themselves use slave labor, yes or no?
——————
The only humor I found in your limerick was that it dealt with a lawyer with a little penis… kind of an oxymoron.
I like and welcome Burl’s comments.
Walter–
How many furlough days are our already over-worked DSS employees forced to have this year?
Kathryn – Hopefully several, I’m tired of my tax dollars supporting leaches who could get up and work if their handouts stopped tomorrow. I thought there was a limit on welfare benefits, but I haven’t seen any changes. This state must have twice as many DSS employees as any other state in the country.
Kathryn – Why do you keep ignoring my question? Is it because you don’t want to admit to who supplied the labor?
Does anyone even know what Walter’s asking? He keeps mentioning “plantations” above the Mason-Dixon Line, then mentions Virginians Washington and Jefferson seemingly in the same context. Does he think Washington and Jefferson were northerners? Wow. THAT would certainly turn history on its head.
Okay, to simplify and correct myself, I’ll just point to this website: http://www.slavenorth.com/
Two of my brothers were born in South Carolina, and I lived there for three years. When you’re a kid that’s a long time. Then we moved to Tennessee.
But my “folks” are from Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Ohio, with direct ancestors in the 79th New York. Two great-uncles were killed in the Civil War, including Lafayette Burlingame, laid low at Gettysburg. They didn’t have to enlist, but the folks didn’t much care for owning other human beings, you see, and thought it proper to fight for abolition. We still don’t have fond thoughts of slavery.
I sure don’t understand what he’s asking or why, and I’ve queried once already. Usually I figure when this happens, it’s that I have run into one of those men who cannot hear a female voice, but I’m typing here!
Not sure what point he’s trying to make, either. That my ancestors must have been bad people, too? Sorry, they came over after the Civil War. That Northerners were bad, too? Well, maybe so, but they really have made far greater strides in improving the lives of everyone, but especially former slaves than SC has.
So, Walter, what exactly is the question you want me to answer?
“Kathryn – “but they were behind the curve ethically”.
Walter – “Objection, your Honor, the question calls for speculation.”
Judge – “Sustained” ”
WTF? How does that call for speculation?
I have no knowledge of what the slave conditions were slightly North of the Mason Dixon line–which would mos def not include the Virginia plantations of Jefferson and Washington, and ANYONE, wherever located, who used slave labor was wrong. Some wised up sooner, hence the “ethical curve” statement, and in the ensuing 150 years have made great strides in attempting to redress both their wrongs and the wrongs of others, while Maurice STILL has pro-slavery literature in his stores. In my lifetime, black people were not allowed to drink from the same water fountains, or sit in the same doctor’s waiting room as whites, in my home town.This was not the case in the North.
How does it not call for speculation? Do you have factual proof that “they were behind the curve ethically”… or is that just your opinion.
Who cares about Maurice, he’s a self-promoting blowhard who thinks people care what he believes or has done in his past. And for the record has the worst BBQ in South Carolina.
Wow, you must be older than I thought, because those things you mentioned ended in the 1950’s.
Besides, I grew up in the upper mid-west, we did for ourselves, we didn’t buy people to work for us and “racism” was Norwegians fighting with Swedes, or Lutherans vs. Catholics.
Those “things” did NOT end in the 1950s.
Burl, please elaborate.
Okay, I’ll give you another decade and say they ended in the 60’s.
Walter, I was born in 1960, and I distinctly remember asking my mother why there was anther waiting room at the doctor’s office in Aiken. Dr. McNair.
As far as “calls for speculation”–I wasn’t asking a witness a question about facts, which is the context in which “Objection, calls for speculation” is made. I made an assertion. The assertion was that the “prevailing winds of ethics” –a phrase Herb(?) used previously on the blog, had shifted by the early 19th century and slavery was widely considered, outside the South, to be immoral. It apparently took the South a bit longer to catch on, hence the statement that they were “behind the curve.” I cannot cite opinion polls, but I do believe the court would take judicial notice of this, as it is a commonly held view.
You know, just one tag would do and charge twice as much for it.
Kathryn, I have those sad memories as well. I find it sadder still that it continues to be an issue.
Are the tags availabele yet? :)I would like to buy one.