The Confederate Flag Is a Symbol of Racism

I wish to apologize for seeming to attack my opponent's ethnicity. I explained to my opponent in comments and message that it wasn't meant to be personal. Refused to Cite My opponent had the chance to justify the evidence s/he gave in her/his first round, but refused to do so. For a second time s/he did not offer a single source for her first set of arguments. "Common Knowledge(?)" Instead, s/he stated that all of her/his arguments stemmed from "common knowledge." S/he offered a website to demonstrate that common knowledge does not need to be cited. According to my opponent's own source, however, common knowledge must be "obvious," "factual," and "easy to confirm" information. The example in the website is "'George Washington was our first [P]resident.'" Rebuttal Review The information of my opponent to which that my rebuttals referred were neither "obvious" nor "easy to confirm," and sometimes not even "factual." R1 talked about Legislature referring to the flag. It's not obvious, since I didn't know about it and it wasn't famous. It's not easy to look up. I have no idea the years, which legislatures, and a whole bunch of other information. I have no idea if it is factual. My opponent dropped my R1. R2 talked about the American flag flying during slavery and might be the only common knowledge, but I agree that this happened, and my opponent and I agree that the Union/American flags do not represent slavery in any way. R3 talked about my opponent's claim that the South freed their slaves before the North. I explained that this is not strictly true, that the North freed virtually all their slaves nearly twenty years before the South [3]. There were very slight numbers of slaves in the North in certain states who had laws that freed slaves gradually, and that was all [3]. I should also add that rather than the South freeing their slaves willingly, it was the Union that forced the South to free their slaves [3]. If the Confederacy had their way, the slaves would never have been freed, since the CSA constitution forbid writing laws that hindered slavery. Therefore, saying that in general the South freed their slaves before the North is untrue, since almost all were freed in the North many years before and the South did not autonomously free the slaves but were forced to do so by the North. This info is not obvious and probably not factual. R4 My opponent agrees that black persons' fighting for the CSA does NOT demonstrate that the CSA was good to black persons. Here, however, I found the most grievous mistake of my opponent. My opponent says that black persons in the CSA were paid more and treated better and were integrated better than in the Union army. First of all, how is that "common knowledge?" My opponent does not give a single scrap of evidence for the wages of black person in the CSA army. Even worse, I found out that my opponent was radically mistaken. I found out why troops of "colored" soldiers in the CSA were integrated: *THEY WERE STILL SLAVES* [11]. Forty percent of the entire CSA army was made up of slaves [11]. They did the vast majority of the manual labor for the CSA, and were generally not trusted to fight [11]. There were one or two examples of groups of free black persons in the CSA army, and they were part of segregated troops, in direct contrast to what my opponent claims [11]. Additionally, they were used as honor guards and never officially trusted to fight [11]. There was only one black officer in the CSA, for an extremely short period [11]. In contrast, the "colored troops" in the Union were free [12]. They were trusted to fight in their own regiments with their own officers. Eighteen black Union soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor (the highest honor) [12]. Many of the regiments became the famous Buffalo Soldiers, who continued to fight for the Union elsewhere [12]. My opponent's information was deceptive in claiming that the Southern soldiers were "integrated" and outright false in claiming that they were better treated and better paid. My opponent underhandedly or ignorantly suggested that this information is "common knowledge." Voters may want to consider this deception as worthy of marking my opponent down in both the "Sources" and "Conduct" sections. Additionally, the fact that even the black soldiers were slaves is evidence for the Confederacy being founded on slavery, so consider it in the "Arguments" section. R5: Oppression. My opponent claims in the second round that the CSA secession was caused by Northern oppression. This is contrary to her/his earlier statement that the Civil War was caused by slavery [A1]: "The rebellion states did not want anti-slavery...For that reason, the states declared a rebellion." Con is contradicting her/himself. Because of this, I now have to adjust my arguments. My opponent "justified" this claim by citing a Radical Right-Wing website obsessed with attacking liberals, and another one that is obviously Pro-CSA with no credentials. This website does not show where it gets its information, so it cannot be trusted. In contrast, I offer three sources that suggest the opposite. The Vice President of the Confederacy, and the legislatures of the Southern States claim that their succession is due to slavery, as well as the writings of a Professor of History and a trusted news cite [5, 6, 7, 8]. The CSA was founded by its own admission several times due to slavery, not tariffs, states' rights, or Northern Oppression (except for threatening slavery). My opponent does not refute these sources. R6 (new): The CSA flag does not represent the CSA? My opponent claims that the CSA flag was only from a few states (uncited), but later claims that it symbolizes CSA "unity." My opponent also admits that it was carried into battle. Therefore, it does symbolize the CSA nation. Also, in contemporary times it also refers to the CSA, which my opponent implies repeatedly; therefore, for practical purposes it does represent CSA. Please recognize that my opponent did not cite this (again). I never said the CSA flag doesn't represent slavery. The fact that it was similar to the Union flag is irrelevant: it was intentionally different, and unified the CSA troops on the battlefield. If you find that my opponent's links don't work, it is because they don't. I had to message my opponent. Contention 1: My opponent uses sketchy sources , but I have the original documents showing the Confederacy was all about slavery, including the VP (see R4, R5). Contention 2: My opponent drops that the good intentions of flag bearers don't matter. Goes to me. Contention 3: CSA is used by racist organizations like the KKK: Dropped. Therefore, a stranger has reason to think racist already. Contention 4: My opponent "disregards" my argument about the United States flag being flown before and after Civil War. Of course it is because the Union won. The national flag of the Southern states only changed during the Civil War, therefore the flag represents the CSA. Therefore, I win that symbolizes CSA. Contention 5: By this I mean that we must consider whether POC would be offended rather than whether white persons think it ok. It was not personal, so my opponents' criticism was somewhat misplaced. Because this argument flows through, we must decide if stranger has reason to be offended. Conclusion: The CSA flag has been demonstrated to be a symbol of the CSA ideals. These ideals have been demonstrated to be slavery and white supremacy with excellent sources. Therefore, the CSA flag to a stranger would be a symbol of racism in contemporary USA. Even more, the symbol was adopted by hate groups (uncontested), so there is certainly good reason for a stranger to find it to be a symbol of racism for that alone. Con had bad cites [11]http://en.wikipedia.org... [12] http://en.wikipedia.org...