We Interrupt Grading Hell for this Important Announcement:

[omorka]

To the dude in the couple-year-old, large, black, giant-wheeled Ford pickup truck on Westpark at the Loop at 5:55 today:

Excuse me, but you are NOT allowed to have both the Stars & Stripes and the Stars & Bars displayed on your truck. Especailly not right next to each other. Hello, cognitive dissonace, anyone home? Pick one.

You are also not allowed to have a Republican bumper sticker RIGHT NEXT TO one that says "UnReconstructed." Because, yo, dumbass? That would make you either a Carpetbagger or a Scalawag. (Which, by the way, the two names on your bumper sticker are; neither one of them was born here. Not that this really matters much in the real world, but it should in the little fantasy world you seem to be living in and that they like the emotional responances of.)

Comments

[wyldraven.livejournal.com]

Cognitive dissonance indeed. As for the UnReconstructed, that stuff is just scary...

http://www.4noel.com/bruce/dixie.html

Even though unlawfully forced back into the "union" - the Confederacy is still a legimate country in it's own right.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Cognitive dissonance, indeed! But IME the kind of person who can do this is perfectly versed in Republican/neocon doublethink and therefore has no trouble at all believing (or believing in) two mutually contradictory things at the same time.

(cf. "We've got to have tighter borders to keep out all those lazy-ass welfare-bum Messkins who are taking all the jobs away from good Americans!")

(cf. also "God loves you, and you're GOING TO HELL. Sex is filthy and disgusting and awful, and you should save it for someone you love.")

[shefsatyr.livejournal.com]

Actually it's those lazy welfare bum messkins are taking jobs from americans whose jobs just got outsourced to india...

... does this mean that soon mexicans will be crossing over the border in india for the better life?

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

It's not cognitive dissonance at all.

(1) During the height of the Lost Cause myth, Confederate flags were considered just as "American" as the Stars and Stripes.

(2) The Ku Klux Klan used, and still uses, both flags.

(3) The Republican Party is, by far, the chosen party of the Ku Klux Klan and of most neo-Confederate or racist-elitist-nativist Southerners. (See also Trent Lott.)

The kindest possible thing that can be said about this person without more information is that he is proud to be American, proud to be Southern, and probably values "traditional family values" highly. This probably also means he's a racist, a misogynist, a fundamentalist, etc., but it's not necessarily so.

As for me, under the right circumstances I might fly a Confederate flag myself. I had at least two ancestors in the gray and one Jayhawker ancestor as well; all three fought bravely for what they believed was right. Indeed, if secession had come over any other issue than slavery (yes, that's almost impossible, just saying), I think the Confederacy would be honored, not denegrated, today. They entered into the most noble battle for the most immoral cause- independence and freedom to hold other men in chains.

Anyway. Yeah, I might fly the cracker flag... but I would not do so ignorantly or cavalierly, any more than I would fly the American flag so. (The Stars and Stripes has symbolized great and noble things, but it also symbolized slavery for eighty years, segregation for eighty more years, genocide during the 19th century, imperialism during the 20th century, and now terror in this century. It had noble beginnings, which is more than can be said for the CSA, but it also has more stains on its honor.)

[moontyger.livejournal.com]

I still can't get over the cognitive dissonance of both a Confederate Flag and an American Flag with "United We Stand" under it on the same vehicle...