Take it from Snee: Let the bums into the Hall of Fame

Yeah, when's the last time this was true?With the release of the Mitchell Report, everyone’s talking about steroids in baseball like it’s a brand new issue all over again. No, this isn’t Eat My Sports, but–as a lifelong sports fan (though not overly knowledgeable of individual stats)–I’m taking a stand. If professional athletes want to use steroids, HGH and whatever else sucks nads to grow muscles, go ahead.

And no, this isn’t a satire. I really mean it: I don’t care if baseball greats are caught juicing. If they break a Hall of Fame record in the process, put their name on a plaque. And while you’re putting their name up there next to old-timey heroes, don’t include an asterisk for steroid use.

OK, now that I’ve pissed off the purists, I guess I should explain myself. It’d be an awfully short TifS if I didn’t.

If you were to go all the way back to Abner Doubleday, then it is easy to see how much baseball has changed. But all of those changes made it easier to break records.

How could Lou Gehrig or Cal Ripken play so many consecutive games with broken or dislocated fingers? They couldn’t, but thanks to glove makers stitching the fingers together, they were OK. But beyond that, they also never took a sick day on a game day. Considering nutrition, medicine and fitness innovations since Lou Gehrig managed to catch Lou Gehrig’s Disease (what were the odds?), Cal’s name would have an asterisk by it at the very least.

Baseball seasons are much longer now (almost too long), which makes it easier for players to beat Hall of Fame records in less years. So not only would Barry Bonds have an asterisk by his name, but so would Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, Hank Aaron and pretty much everyone else if you set the Wayback Machine to the earliest days of the sport.

While steroids may or may not actually increase the odds of hitting a 100-mph fast ball, or even increase the power of a bat swing, it’s irrelevant to consider how much it’s changed the sport compared to when it started almost 200 years ago. It’s no more of a cheat than the advent of the breaking ball.

Also to consider: would it be cheating if they all did it? Instead of allowing a few individuals hog all the glory, imagine if batters on steroids also faced pitchers, fielders and umpires on performance-enhancing drugs. It’d be the greatest game ever played, complete with more bench-clearing brawls because of ‘roid rage.

But purists will complain that the allure of baseball is that anyone with natural ability should be able to compete. The level of natural competition is so great in the majors now that guys that were good in high school or college already stand no chance of playing professionally. Even though we aren’t in the auto industry, we all complain when an autoworker is replaced by a robot in the factory, but we also enjoy it when our cars break down less because of manufacturer error.

And then, of course, there are the health hazards of steroids. I’m not going to downplay them: your testicles will shrink, you might grow bosoms and you will have violent mood swings. So if a professional wants to risk all this, why not?

Adults volunteer for castration and breast augmentation all the time, yet we don’t consider either ruining the nation. Actually, castration is held as a boon to public safety as a treatment for sex offenders. And we all have seen how big fake boobies have kick-started and sustained many careers.

There are also plenty of chemically-unbalanced adults who revel in violent mood swings. If it weren’t for them, boxing would be a very dry sport. So what if a ball player, who might already be a jerk, decides to become a bigger jerk?

Other health hazards attributed to anabolic steroids are heart problems, cancer and increased acne. You know what else has those hazards? Everything. Red meat, complex carbohydrates, cell phones, fat, cigarettes, booze, cars, construction …. The real challenge is to name something that doesn’t cause all that.

We have yet to render all of the things that cause cancer, heart disease or acne illegal because people would revolt, even though two of those are at the top of leading causes of death. (Can acne kill? I bet there’s a case somewhere.) Hell, we tried once already with alcohol, and we still can’t get rid of the mob today.

But as with cigarettes and alcohol, we’re worried about youth emulating their heroes. If professional athletes decide to risk their reproductive lives by using steroids, then what incentive do high school and college athletes have stay clean?

Here’s one: steroids are illegal. Possessing anabolic steroids without a prescription is a felony, but where are the arrests? Despite all of our talk about cleaning up baseball and keeping offenders out of the Hall of Fame, no one has served hard time. So if baseball was really, earnestly super-serious about getting rid of steroids users, Commissioner Bud Selig would work with real criminal authorities (read: not Congress) and institute a bona fide sting operation to send drug abusers to prison.

Instead, our response is to suggest putting an asterisk by their names when they get into the Hall of Fame. And that’s why I really don’t care if grown men endanger their lives and “ruin” sports legacies: nobody is treating them like actual criminals.

Update: We can’t all be victims

The referenced article, “Take it from Snee: We can’t all be victims,” was posted on Wednesday, December 12, 2007.

It’s not my usual day, but this isn’t a full column, anyway. Remember what I was saying about people wanting to be victims just to appear right?

Francisco Nava, of Princeton University for now, has admitted to faking death threats and assault. He wanted to drum up sympathy for his conservative values. Somehow, he managed to beat the tar out of himself and make it look real.

Also listed in the article are several other instances of people doing anything it takes to look like victims:

    Nava’s confession comes amid several instances of falsified hate crimes on college campuses nationwide over the past several years, including one at the nearby College of New Jersey in 2001, when a gay student faked death threats to himself and other members of a pro-gay-rights student group.
    More recently, a freshman at George Washington University confessed last month to drawing swastikas on the door of her own dorm room. Additionally, in 2004, a visiting psychology professor at Claremont-McKenna College faked a hate crime by vandalizing her own car and spray-painting it with racist and sexist epithets, for which she was sentenced to a year in prison.

Like I said last Wednesday, we can’t all be victims. Now we have to wonder if people claiming death threats are genuine, or just trying to win an argument.

How To: Raise your kids

A child will remain quiet if you teach them to read.The SeriouslyGuys don’t have kids; we don’t want them. In fact, one of us has been expressly forbidden from breeding. (Try to guess which one. We think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.) Since this is the internet, we are the most qualified to tell you parents out there how to raise your kids.

Tools:
A firm, but fair, hand
Dr. Spock
Treats

1) Read your manual and live by it.
Whenever we’re at a mall or amusement park, it annoys us to no end that we have to see, hear and sometimes smell your kids. Raising kids can’t be so tough because we know that the manual was already written by Dr. Spock. But we also know that you aren’t using the manual because your children act irrationally.

We haven’t read Dr. Spock’s book, yet. That’s your job. But we’ve watched enough Star Trek to get the gist of his philosophies.

Your children are like the early Vulcans: volatile, slaves to the whims of their primitive emotions. The Berenstein Bears called this the Gimmes. Star Trek never showed how Vulcans raise children, and it’s probably for the best. If they have to kill each other for breeding rights, then it’s very possible that many children do not live past potty training.

If they get out of hand, calmly remind your children that you brought them into this world and you can take them back out. The needs of the many at the mall outweigh the wants of a flawed creation.

2) Don’t you spank that kid!
It’s okay to presumably eat your children and hope for better results next time you achieve pon far, but you can’t hit them.

But it’s not because hitting them is abuse. It’s because they cry when you hit them. Loudly. Nobody likes a cry-baby, especially yours.

3) Explain sex to your kid so we don’t accidentally do it for you.
You know what’s awkward? When you’re surrounded by your adult friends, talking about adult things, and you notice someone’s crotchfruit nearby. It gets worse when the kid asks you what you meant by “donkey punch” and you know they think it has something to do with Shrek.

Instead of embarrassing us, explain to your kid how he was made, and not just the high school biology parts about sperm and eggs. Approach it like you’re testifying at a trial to explain where the bad man touched you. Include all the grisly details, including how you couldn’t grab both of mommy’s pigtails because she sprained your wrist during foreplay.

Not only will this prevent awkward half-assed explanations from us, but the story may actually encourage your child to remain abstinate through college.

4) Will you spank your child already?!
Oh, sweet merciful Max Roach. If you don’t hit that kid in the next 10 seconds, we will.

5) Get a babysitter or stay home.
Leave the kid at home. There’s a reason we don’t have children, and that’s because we don’t want them. Our lives are burdened enough without listening to the crying or, even worse, laughter of America’s future. Seriously, have children ever been called The Greatest Generation? No, just old people. Hell, maybe they’ll mind your brats. After all, what have they done for us since 1945?

Take it from Snee: We can’t all be victims

Every week, I scan through the news to post on this blog, whether for daily quick jabs or for this weekly gang-rape. And for the past several weeks, I’ve noticed a trend: everyone’s a victim. Really, this isn’t just a recent trend, but something ongoing since at least I first noticed it in 1999 after Columbine. Not only is everyone a victim, but they want you to know it, and if you fail to observe that, then they’re also offended.

Whether they know someone who goes to Virginia Tech, have watched the news since September 11, 2001 or observe Christmas as a religious holiday, they demand recognition and respect. Woe be to anyone who trivializes their anguish by telling a joke, going out drinking or refusing to wish them a “Merry Christmas.”

And the funniest part is that they’re proud of their victimhood. For some reason, it is considered vindication, probably from watching too many courtroom television shows and movies:

    ATTORNEY: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, let me assure you that the defendant is the real victim here. The plaintiff wants you to believe that he is the victim, but he is, in fact, not.

The problem is that most of the people pretending to be victims are not actually victims. In order to be a victim, by definition, you must be “acted upon” (Merriam-Webster).

It’s easy to see when someone is striving to be a victim: they tell the story of where they were when it happened. It’s the worst possible conversation starter, but they cling to it, often asking “Where were you when [such and such] happened?”

    I’ll never forget that morning. I was in elementary school, first period. My assistant principal, Mr. Feely, rushed into the classroom to turn on the news. He said, “We’ve been attacked.” The news from New York and DC was devastating, especially for me, a seven-year-old. (I was in Portland, Oregon). Years later, I met someone whose grandfather served in the Portland Chamber of Commerce. If he had been alive in 2001 (he died in 1984 from liver spots), he could have been on a business trip to New York, doing commerce things in the World Trade Center.

The above is an exaggeration, but based on actual 9/11 recountings I’ve unfortunately heard. In every case, the idea is that this person had a singular experience, and if I tell a joke (like, Dude, Where’re My Towers?), then I am personally offending them.

There’s always a convoluted connection to victims that would confuse Kevin Bacon. One of my favorites was on a Facebook group dedicated to “finding” the Penn State guy wearing bloody Tech clothes: “I’m only in high school, but one of my friends is in his first year at Virginia Tech.”

That’s right: this person’s reason for tracking down and abusing a Penn State student was because of a friend that wasn’t even at the school during the shooting. Other members’ reasons probably included remembering the 2004 National Football Championship; knowing someone who lives in Virginia, West Virginia or Tennessee; and choosing orange and maroon as their wedding colors.

This ties into, of course, empathetic anger.

It’s not sympathetic anger, because the sheer number of offended victims does not equal actual victims. In the case of Tech, 32 people were killed. It is not possible for over 6,000 people (in one group alone) to be legitimately sympathetic to their memory.

But, technically, their rage isn’t empathetic, either. Empathy implies that you understand what a person is going through. The odds of this actually happening with this many people is also highly improbable. Even if you tally the victims of this mass shooting with those in Columbine, that mall and the mega-church, I seriously doubt the majority of the group had close ties with any of those victims or any other homicide in the country.

Realistically, if this many people were personally impacted by these shootings, Washington would shut down the gun industry, and universities would give every student a personal hand gun (with costs added to room and board fees).

Empathetic anger is hilarious in its impotence. Self-perceived victims make impossible rules for everyone else like, “We can’t let this happen ever again,” or “nobody is allowed to joke about this.”

There will always be gun violence, whether it’s because you weren’t there to shoot everyone who looks crazy or because your gun went off when you forgot about the round in the chamber.

And why can’t we joke about it? The real victims are dead or recovering. Is it okay if they joke about it, or should they quietly suffer through survivor’s guilt? And if everyone’s a victim, as you self-righteously claim, then aren’t we also exempt?

The worst behavior exhibited by our nation of “victims” is the perceived slight. Examples include White Man’s Burden, “there’s ‘God’ in my pledge of allegiance” and the War on Christmas.

White Man’s Burden falls under the same sense of entitlement that led to Manifest Destiny: “if everyone else is offended by things that white people do, then we’re entitled to be angry, too.” White guys, we don’t have to feel bad. We just have to make sure we don’t screw up again by enslaving, or otherwise taking advantage of, other cultures. Is that so hard? It’s a token effort, like not double-parking or not having sex with your sister.

Atheists, how often do you pledge allegiance to the flag? I’ve done no such thing since I graduated high school. Why? Because people assume I’m going to shoot everyone if I’m talking earnestly to a flag on public ground. Also, because I don’t have to recite a litany drafted by socialists (look it up) to remain loyal to my country. If you don’t believe in a religion because you’re too f–ing smart to fall for imaginary stories, then why is the word offensive? Either you suck at unbelieving, or you’re playing a “victim” for sympathy.

As for the War on Christmas: do you know how many times in my life I’ve been wished a Happy Hanukkah or Kwanza? Never. I have no real idea how many of coworkers celebrate either holiday, and that’s because they don’t feel the need to bother me with it. I don’t care if you celebrate Christmas, even though I do. Why? Because it’s time I spend with my family and friends. If a cashier doesn’t wish me a Merry Christmas on December 12th, I don’t assume it’s because they hate my religion; I assume it’s because Christmas isn’t until December 25th and silently congratulate them for having more restraint than their sales and marketing departments.

The worst part is that, if everyone is a victim, then nobody is a victim. Think about it: if everyone lived with the same amount of anguish, whether they have pancreatic cancer or lost a wife in a carjacking, or they heard a dirty joke in a men’s room or watched the news, then that leveled anguish would just be the status quo. In other words, it’d be normal life. What would separate a victim of racism from a “victim” of having to hear “God” mentioned? Nothing.

So quit pretending you’re better than the rest of us because you “give a damn.” That’s not good enough. Really, you’re using someone else’s pain to push the rest of us around, and that’s pretty sick.

Take it from Snee: Television actually getting better

When I wrote a review for Reaper a few months ago, I started with a polemic on the current line-up of horrible television. Programming appears to be divided into three categories: reality, doctors and cops. And while reality will most likely persist for the rest of my lifetime like genital warts, the other two categories are mercifully winding down.

Now that TV characters don’t jump shark tanks on motor cycles, how do I know when a series is all but over? A musical episode is a very good clue. And so is a live episode. And if it’s a live musical episode, then the series isn’t just ending, but the actors will be shot on the backlot after the broadcast.

Musical episodes are the equivalent to rock bands recording an album with a symphony orchestra: the creative period is over; now we laugh at follow-up efforts until merciful retirement. And like the occasional reunion tour, the show gets one shot at a direct-to-DVD movie. All of this will be recapped in the E! True Hollywood Story.

So why do a musical episode? If I knew what television producers were thinking, it would mean my life has descended to the bottom-feeding level of Hell where paparazzi call to upgrade your phone service. So, I can only guess why, but I’m pretty sure that, at some level, I’m right on the money.

Other than a clips episode, the musical episode is the easiest to write. Instead of using a narrative plot to speed the series to a rapid finish, the writers team up with some Broadway flunkie to create a fan service. It answers one sole question: can my favorite TV vampire sing? At the end of the episode, the overarching storyline has been left untouched, except for a dance-numbered monologue in which Dr. John Dorian figures out whether or not he’s a good doctor.

Really, that’s the problem with all musicals. The rule for “good” musicals is that the characters launch into song when the emotion of the scene can no longer be expressed with words. So instead of hitting someone like we do in the real world, they retreat into a self-directed song and dance about their feelings. In short, musicals are like emo kids: instead of responding quickly and meaningfully to a situation, they hold onto it for years, pretending to strike back with horrible rhyming poetry.

Musical episodes are indicative of a show’s imminent end because of the combined factors of its uselessness (see previous paragraphs) and that it’s an audition. Think about it: whenever an actor has been typecast, where do they look for work? Broadway, or Disney/Pixar voiceover work.

Live episodes work along the same audition theory. Because shows frequently show outtakes of flubbed lines during the credits, people believe that television work is the easiest form of acting. If you’re a stand-up comedian, you get multiple takes to perfect a punchline someone else wrote for your character with the same first name.

Speaking of which: do they give stand-up leading men the same first name because they can’t remember their cues? My guess is yes, and transcripts from the original pilots look like when Homer Simpson entered the Witness Relocation Program.

    Everybody Loves Ernie, Original Pilot Transcript (9/1/1995)
    DEBRA [Patricia Heaton]: Ernie, are you paying attention to me? I’m mad because you went golfing and your mother insulted my cooking.
    …Ernie?
    Oh, for [deleted]’s sake. Ray!
    ERNIE [Ray Romano]: What? Was that my line?
    DIRECTOR: Cut! [Deleted]! Hey, Phil [Rosenthal, writer]! Change the character’s name to Ray! This is the third [deleted]ing day of filming and we still don’t have anything for the [deleted]ing network.

There is a flipside to live episodes, though. Actors with the giggles (see: Jimmy Fallon) are exposed as hacks. The real question is whether live episodes are last ditch stunts signaling the end of a show, or if live episodes kill shows by proving that the actors are really horrible.

The good news, though, is that a lot of bad shows are embracing these motifs.

Nip/Tuck has announced a live episode, which means a lot of M*A*S*H type banter over bloodied dummies, only about ex-wives and Botox. No word on who will lose a penis, yet.

House is considering a musical episode. Which is weird, because I didn’t think there was enough room for two angry, singing doctors since Scrubs’s final season opener. Arivadarci, House. Twenty bucks says that House discovers a rare disease that causes everyone to sing, but he will have to exploit his bad leg to get everyone to agree to be treated.

The unfortunate news is that not everyone has gotten on board yet.

Law and Order can only draw so many more stories from the headlines. Seriously, where do you go with a series after an SVU episode about neo-Nazi rape? Why, to Richard Belzer singing about dead babies. Ice-T can segue into a rap about cops being targeted for gun violence. Let’s end these depressing series on a high note (ha!), for once.

If there’s one show that needs a live episode, it’s Desperate Housewives. Imagine all the pseudo MILF porn lines, but delivered without interruption. It’ll sound like the actual web sites that the show’s writers clean up for the script. It’ll also be interesting to see Teri Hatcher ignore the other cast members “accidentally” calling her Michael Jackson.

So be on the lookout for these signs that relief from the two of the big three TV categories. Other signs to look out for are very special cancer, marriage and pregnancy/baby; however, these are no longer guaranteed since many series now start with these premises. (Yet another writing device to replace actual character development.)

Take it from Snee: We gots ourselves a boycott!

Somewhere, a filmmaker is already writing a screenplay about this child speaking in a British accent, ending World War II and rescuing their parents by saving the land of the living teddy bears.

Two opposing groups, the Catholic League and the National Secular Society, are each opposed to the new Lord of the Rings …… Narnia

Harry Potter

What in Peter Parker’s emo hair is His Dark Materials? Another story about children whisked away to imaginary world to save it from evil represented in the real world, eh? British, too, again? ::sigh::

Well anyway, these two groups are against this new Golden Compass movie, which is presumably the first part of a trilogy based on the His Dark Materials books. The Catholic League says the villains are thinly-veiled stand-ins for the Church. The Secularists say the villains’ veils aren’t thin enough and want more Christians fed to armored polar bears.

Yeah, there’re armored polar bears. Not giant elephants or talking beavers or even S&M house elves. This film uses bears.

You know what? They’re both right. This film does deserve a boycott.

First: how many movies do kids need about British children saving Imaginationland?

    This story’s already been written, animated and raped by Spielberg; it’s called Peter Pan. But not one year goes by without a “brand new” story of underprivileged white kids battling witch queens and goblins. Interestingly, children cannot get any whiter than British Caucasian.Of course, most of these stories are written by parents for their children, but it’s not a profound gift if they’re using the same tired formula as two other movies in the same year. We get it, Hollywood: your experiments in breeding have succeeded and now you see the world through the magical eyes of your crotchfruit.

Second: how many more film trilogies do we need, particularly in this genre?

    There hasn’t even been a second Narnia film yet. Haven’t filmmakers learned from The Godfather and The Karate Kid that three is often too many? If it weren’t for the unexplainable demand for trilogies, we could have seen a coherent and succinct Matrix sequel.And why trilogies? Why not two-parters or quintrilogies? Or, here’s an idea: how about making a movie that tells a story without an arrogant writer believing that he or she has created yet another Tolkienesque universe. Making sequel after sequel of elaborate background and philosophical meandering does not make a work profound. Let the fanboys argue about a film’s meaning and quit trying to do the work for us.

Third: what the hell happened to atheists?

    These nuts are worse than the holy rollers nowadays. I’ve always expected some degree of evangelism in religious movies, though some lay it on thicker than others, but since when does atheism require propaganda? It’s a simple idea that everyone, even Mother Theresa, has thought of: what if there is no god?I’m not arguing either side’s position here because I don’t need to: the entire internet is already at it. Any mention of religion is met with pompous arguments regarding the foolishness of evangelical Christianity. Likewise, every mention of evolution or other so-called atheist dogma is countered with Christians screaming bible verses.

    In short, atheists are turning into everything I already dislike about organized religion. Everyone is fighting for a cause that won’t be resolved until the world ends. The crux in the argument is that every year that doesn’t end in the Rapture means that atheists are right, so even if it does happen, the atheists are correct until then. It’s Schrödinger’s Cat all over again, only we’re not arguing whether the cat is alive, but what happens to it if dead.

    And of all the groups to cast as villains, why the Catholic Church? It’s not like there’s a new Inquisition in the works. Even if the Church fired up the old confession mills, I doubt they’d be after atheists. Besides, if we really want to pigeon-hole Christianity as conspiratorially oppressing human thought, then wouldn’t evangelical Protestants make a more plausible threat? And if they’re looking for a really easy target, then why not do what every other filmmaker has done in the past and cast the villains as Nazis?

Obviously, we can’t expect anything original from movies at this point. We, the consumers, continue to gripe about remakes and formula-driven plotlines (see: this entire rant), but we aren’t doing anything about it.

Maybe we should go on strike. Forget the writers: they’re part of the problem, so I don’t think this current batch will be missed. I mean, has anyone really minded their absence over the past couple of weeks? Sure, I miss having new episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, but I hope Heroes, Lost and Grey’s Anatomy never come back.

But that’s just it: we can’t go completely on strike. We still need television and movies to get laid without talking to our dates. But we can follow through with a boycott of The Golden Compass and every other textbook genre flick and remake that Hollywood foists on us.

Postscript: I know, you’re thinking, “But Rick, Lord of the Rings wasn’t about children.” Yeah? Then what are hobbits? They’re afraid of wizards and adventure, believe they don’t matter much in the world, and will smoke and drink too much if given the chance. Plus, weren’t Frodo and Company extremely young compared to the other hobbits? Coupled with their crisp delivery of the Queen’s English, this makes even Tolkien’s creations part of the problem.

Take it from Snee: Too much thought put into the Confederate flag

As the official SeriouslyGuys southern correspondent, it is my job to keep tabs on the former Confederate States of America. It’s a daunting task because, well, there are a lot of them, and a few select ones tend to captivate the news. (I’ve actually delegated all things Floridian to Fark.)

But the other challenging aspect is that readers, and writers, above the Mason-Dixon line already have their own ideas about Bible-belt denizens. Yes, there’s a lot of evangelical Christianity down here. Yes, there is racism, but no more so than any other place in the United States, as national publications (many based in New York and Washington, DC) demonstrate whenever affirmative action, welfare, Islam or illegal immigration are discussed.

And, yes, there are a lot of Confederate flags down here, and not just on war memorials. But the person flying the Stars and Bars on their truck usually flies Old Glory on their porches as well. And the flag-bearer/wearer isn’t necessarily racist, but it’s not too surprising when that turns out to be the case.

It is because of assumptions that this cringe-inducing flag has long held a spot on the ever-growing Ban List (probably somewhere between cigarettes and porno).

Assumption 1: The Confederate flag stands for resuming slavery.

Let’s say we ban flags based on who flies it, and what happened historically wherever it flew. We could easily justify such a measure when the flag in question is found at Klan rallies and slave ships once flew it. But what would we look at when we sing the national anthem before any major sporting event?

Doing some quick math, the Stars and Bars flew over Dixie for about four years (1861-1865), during which African Americans were enslaved. However, the Stars and Stripes flew over slave auctions from 1777-1862: 85 years! This, of course, does not count the 400 years of slavery in colonial America under the British flag, but who flies the Union Jack anymore?

The basis for this assumption is good old wartime politicking.

The Civil War is explained away as the war over slavery, much like the latest Iraq War is about Al Qaeda now (as opposed to 2003’s WMDs, 2004’s Saddam Hussein’s oppressive regime, 2005’s democratization of the Middle East or 2006’s non-running colors). It’s true that slavery was abolished during the war, but not until 1862. Until the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves were still auctioned in Washington, DC and many other Union cities–all under the U.S. flag and more than a year after Sumter and the first Bull Run.

So when Lincoln needed to drum up public support for an already unpopular military adventure in the South, he courted the only people that would continue the fight: abolitionists. Hell, they had already invaded the South to free slaves before the war (see: John Brown). Whether Lincoln actually opposed slavery is immaterial: he wasn’t going to touch it until his approval rating was already in the tubes.

(Ironically, this is why President Bush believes, as stated in several interviews, that history will judge him better than the current media. We’ll see if anyone defaces a mountain for him, though.)

So, sure, we can ban the Confederate flag, but Old Glory’s gotta go, too. As do the flags of England, Spain, Portugal, France and any other former imperial power that participated in the slave trade.

And, though many a Klansman has carried the C.S.A. banner, just as many have also beared the colors of our nation. They consider their cause just as patriotic as standardizing English or fighting the metric system, and their right to assemble is guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. The real irony is that their headquarters included Detroit, Chicago, Indianapolis, Portland and Denver.

(The Klan and various offshoots also fly the swastika next to the U.S. flag, proving once again that Americans only “study” the Civil War and World War II.)

Assumption 2: The Confederate flag stands for restarting the Civil War.

I’ve often, and always from northerners, heard a reminder that the South will not, in fact, rise again. It’s a funny idea, but why would the South need to rise again?

Consider this:

  • How many presidents since the Reconstruction have not either been from a southern state or have a southern vice-president?
  • How many Dallas Cowboy fans (ugh) are there in the entire United States?
  • Why is the Mexican border considered more strategically vital to protect than the northern border we share with Canada?
  • How many bands, north or south, have played a Lynyrd Skynyrd song? Likewise, how many east coast and west coast rappers’ albums feature hip-hop stars from the Dirty South? And what part of the country do Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson hail from?

Like it or not, the South doesn’t need to rise again. Despite losing the Civil War, we determine most of the current national trends. Unfortunately, most of those aren’t terribly boast-worthy (just terrible), but “awful” and “awesome” do come from the same original meaning: awe-inspiring.

As a symbol today, the Confederate flag is as innocuous as getting a tattoo of the Irish flag or Dem Bones of piracy. It’s a celebration of history that we have no real connection to here in the US. Our Irish are just as likely to dodge British military service, and our pirates are just as likely to sail the Carribbean, as our Daughters of the Confederacy are likely to retake Gettysburg.

Of course, it has no place on government property–save memorials–but no less so than the Ten Commandments. Of the two, only one is sneaking into our courthouses.