Shad Planking: Cigars, Beer And Local Color
The 64th annual Shad Planking, hosted by the Wakefield Ruritan Club, remains an institution of Virginia Politics. Yesterday's event boasted approximately 2,000 attendees even though the historically bipartisan event had only Republican, Tea Party and Conservative candidates in attendance.
The event still possessed all the charm of years past with cigars smoke mingling with the wood smoke of the planks and shad fish, the beer flowing and folks of virtually every political stripe engaged in friendly banter.
There was one disappointing, if unsurprising, group of attendees carrying the Confederate Flag. That's not really news in and of itself but I found it fascinating one of their most proud and prominent members was a woman, and that all were staunch Ron Paul supporters.
Readers: what has been your experience with Ron Paul supporters, are they Confederacy-friendly? Was this an anomaly? Are the antiquated ideas representative of his anti-intervention, anti-war platform? or is it purely a domestic policy thing?
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Dec '11
Re: Shad Planking: Cigars, Beer And Local Color
It depends on what you mean by confederacy friendly. Most confederate loving people I know are happy and tolerant people, they just consider themselves a conquered people. So in that view its really no different than scottish nationalists wearing the kilt.
Pretty much all conquered peoples throughout history have hung on to the symbols of their pre-conquered culture. Heck read your old testament.
As far as their support for Ron Paul, it may be because his thinking acknowledges their right to exist.
Edited on April 19, 2012 at 4:14pmDec '10
Re: Shad Planking: Cigars, Beer And Local Color
Most of them that I have met are very confederacy friendly - as in the Martian Confederacy.
Jun '10
Re: Shad Planking: Cigars, Beer And Local Color
They might just be secession fans. Not necessarily slavery fans.
May '10
Re: Shad Planking: Cigars, Beer And Local Color
By "Disappointing" I take it you disapprove. Can you go further into that?
Oct '10
Re: Shad Planking: Cigars, Beer And Local Color
I think Guruforhire makes a good point. There's a black pickup I've seen down here a couple of times with a Confederate flag sticker on one side of the tailgate and an Allen West sticker on the other.
Feb '11
Re: Shad Planking: Cigars, Beer And Local Color
Same here, I'd be interested in what exactly was disappointing?
Jun '10
Re: Shad Planking: Cigars, Beer And Local Color
I know one thing that ticks off Bible-Belt Southerners is the War on Christianity. That's one of the only old-time traditions they have left to brag about. They can't even brag about their food anymore. It's "unhealthy." They're saying "leave us something!!!"
May '10
Re: Shad Planking: Cigars, Beer And Local Color
Is it fair to say that some large chunk of people who wave the Confederate flag do so to express a racist viewpoint? And that the remainder at least know that it has taken on a racist connotation?
I'm not trying to run afoul of Godwin's Law, but the swastika comes to mind. It started out as a religious symbol and ended up getting ruined through its embrace by the Nazis. If someone were to walk down the street with a swastika today, I can imagine a lot of people would be rightly disappointed, to say the least.
I'll grant that the Confederate Flag has a far more nuanced history than the swastika, and maybe it's contextual. On the flags of Mississippi and Georgia, it's one thing; carried by a guy with a white hood it's quite another?
Re: Shad Planking: Cigars, Beer And Local Color
As a Georgia girl myself, I was raised around folks who had views that represented a broad spectrum of opinions toward the Confederate flag, secession, and "Southern" heritage. I went to elementary school where new kids from other states were called 'Yankees and other horrible names just because they weren't from the South. In high school, there was a kid who refused to attend classes when we discussed Martin Luther King, Jr., or desegregation. There were African-American kids we went to elementary school with that stopped being friends with white kids once we went to high school. My high school had the Swat team come to break up a fight between a couple of boys, one white and one black, over an interracial relationship. I also watched as people ignored whatever barriers were supposed to separate us and build loving, lasting frieindships and relationships that exist today - more than 20 years after we finished high school.The reason I posed the questions was precisely to inspire a discussion. I do find the flag offensive, and I also recognize their right to carry it. I'm genuinely interested in how others view it.
Edited on April 19, 2012 at 5:25pmJun '10
Re: Shad Planking: Cigars, Beer And Local Color
Ottoman Umpire,
Maybe it's too soon for the Confederate Flag, but at some point the Viking helmet stopped being the symbol of rape and pillage. Maybe you just have to wait a thousand years.
Sep '10
Re: Shad Planking: Cigars, Beer And Local Color
Most certainly it's offensive, in my opinion, as someone who grew up in Louisiana, where in my day (the 1960s) this flag was seen only seen at KKK rallies. Any honest southerner should admit the negative association, regardless of our pain in being the only group of Americans who have been vanquished in war. But especially since the flag shown is not the stars and bars of the Confederacy but the Confederate battle flag. It should be in a museum, not used to elicit the emotions of an incoherent legacy.
Edited on April 19, 2012 at 6:12pmDec '11
Re: Shad Planking: Cigars, Beer And Local Color
I also think there is a streak of belligerent, passive-aggressive nonconformism, which also probably cross-pollinates with Paul supporters.
Dec '10
Re: Shad Planking: Cigars, Beer And Local Color
I can certainly see why black people find the Confederate flag offensive. And perhaps that's the point. Someone flying it may wish to express some solidarity with or romantic notions about historical Southern culture apart from slavery, but he also knows he's blocking himself off from civil relationships with people who don't share his mindset.
It begs the question, is the Gadsden flag performing the same function as a totem for the Tea Party?
Dec '10
Re: Shad Planking: Cigars, Beer And Local Color
Based on having been raised in the south (Florida) in the twilight stages of desegregation (my Jr. High School had been the former "colored" school), I have vague memories of some of the "rednecks" mouthing racist sentiments they were likely getting from home. There was an equal and just as repugnant strain of it from black kids, too.Now days, when I see a Confederate flag flying, I think more of the underlying question of federalism and state's rights. My recent experience with family members who are active in the Paul campaign and larger movement tells me that they look at the Confederacy as the ultimate extension of a return to a severely limited national government and a return to the states being more politically important and powerful. The US Constitution, I believe, would agree with that sentiment.
May '11
Re: Shad Planking: Cigars, Beer And Local Color
Ron Paul supporters are the reason I will never vote for Ron Paul.
May '10
Re: Shad Planking: Cigars, Beer And Local Color
That's alright. The Minnesota legislature has just refused to fund a new football stadium so maybe the Vikings can change their name when they move to Los Angeles after the next NFL season.
Sep '10
Re: Shad Planking: Cigars, Beer And Local Color
Great point, WC. I think the Gadsden flag is considered bigoted by those who reflexively dislike the Tea Party. But in this case, they're the potential bigots, given the Gadsden flag's historical association with freedom from tyranny, not the freedom to retain slavery.
Feb '11
Re: Shad Planking: Cigars, Beer And Local Color
The only bumper stickered Ron Paul supporters I know are most decidedly not confederate-flag wavers. They are kind of progressive, anti-war, homeschooling, chicken-raising, Victory-garden-growing, information technology lecturers at a local college. His is a broad coalition?
Aug '10
Re: Shad Planking: Cigars, Beer And Local Color
I agree this is probably the meaning it carries for most Ron Paul supporters.
There is a significant chunk of libertarian theory around the idea of state-level nullification as a check on oppressive centralized government, with convincing arguments that even the Founders held this view. Tom Woods presents it as Thomas Jefferson's "bulwark against tyranny", enacted by a free people through the proxy of their state governments. (Summary here, longer interview at the bottom.) South Carolina famously nullified federal power under Andrew Jackson over high tariffs.
Federalism and state's rights are a big aspect of this; secession becomes the ultimate veto against federal oppression--nullification writ large. Arguably, without the right to secede, one can not have true liberty because that eliminates the right of free association at its most fundamental level.
Jun '11
Re: Shad Planking: Cigars, Beer And Local Color
From the dimensions it looks like an Army of Northern Virginia battle flag, so at least they show some sense of place. However, I don't get Old Dominion libertarians who fetishize the Confederacy: