Posted on 06/22/2015 4:25:24 PM PDT by iowamark
The Bible tells me to love my neighbor. I have a number of black friends and I do not know any of them who would feel comfortable coming into my house if I were flying the Confederate battle flag. So I don’t. In fact, in my life, the people I can think of who proudly fly the Confederate battle flag outside their homes are people in whose yards, let alone houses, I would not feel comfortable.
I think if a Christian is to love his neighbor, he cannot fly a flag that so many of his neighbors associate with the defense of slavery. I agree with my friend Russell Moore in that, but I disagree in that I do think there are places that the Confederate flag is appropriate. I think it is appropriate at Confederate soldiers’ cemeteries. I think it is appropriate at Confederate memorials and museums. Frankly, considering a majority of citizens in Mississippi, both black and white, voted to keep it on their state flag, I think it is appropriate there. Mississippi, unlike many Southern states, put the Confederate battle flag on their state flag shortly after the Civil War, not in protest in the 1950’s and 60’s.
Outside of those locations, I don’t think it is appropriate. You, like many of my friends and family, may think the Confederate battle flag is a symbol of heritage, not hate. But for millions of black Americans, it is a very real symbol of oppression.
I’m afraid, though, that we are about to see a run on Confederate battle flags. Someone is going to make a tidy profit.
The only people I know who grumble and dwell on the flag are busy-body academics and people who don’t live in the South who have a low opinion of the region with or without the flag. The response, in the South, has been a reinforcement that others are bigoted toward the South and that the flag really does represent heritage, not hate — a heritage a bunch of racist1, northern white liberals want to stamp out. I have more than one relative, as do most white Southerners, who has a battle flag with “Heritage Not Hate” written in proximity to it. You and I can roll our eyes at this, but it is pervasive.
And now, because a bunch of mostly white yankees are again yelling about the battle flag, we’re not going to see a flag and tradition die out. Instead, we’re going to see a bunch of twenty and thirty-something Southerners go out and buy fresh flags as a middle finger to the Northern white liberals who did not like them without the flag. The Sons of Confederate Veterans are probably getting recruiting material ready as we speak.
I have found that less and less people of my generation and younger are fixated on race or care about it. The yards in which the battle flag fly typically belong to old racists of generations rapidly dying out. But in politicizing what happened in Charleston and demanding that the Confederate Battle Flag be removed by government action, the only thing that is going to happen is a run on the flags. It’s just like with gun control. The moment a bunch of liberals start making sounds like they want to take guns, second amendment fans run out to buy new ones.
I think the people of South Carolina can decide for themselves whether or not to take down the battle flag.
I think compromising with the left on this issue is not worth it because the left is only politicizing this issue to advance their agenda. Consider the attacks by leftists on Republican politicians, including Governor Rick Perry of Texas, shortly after the Charleston attack without a word about Gov. Perry and then Attorney General Greg Abbott blocking the Sons of Confederate Veterans from getting a personalized license plate in Texas. Or consider the attack on Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) 100% from the Huffington Post that he kinda sorta maybe indirectly possibly championed a law that kinda sorta if you looked at it cross eyed gave support to the flag.
Once the flag is gone, the left will advance to the next issue then the next issue, etc. They won’t compromise. There is no compromise. There is only conversion or censorship with the left.
But I also think if you proudly fly the Confederate battle flag and call yourself a Christian, you need to ask yourself how you are being a good neighbor to the black family down the street, next door, or on the other side of town whose ancestors were enslaved under that flag and whose parents or grandparents faced down white men in the streets waving that flag as an act of rebellion against voting rights.
None of this really matters though. Because the issue is now politicized, you might as well buy stock in companies that produce the Confederate battle flag. They’re going to get a lot of orders from people who equate raising the stars and bars with raising the middle finger toward liberals up north.
1. Most Southerners, regardless of race, learn very early on that the North has all the racism of the south and none of the awareness of the issue. In fact, I’m aware of a public school teacher who, when teaching about desegregation, points out that the Kennedy family was all in favor of desegregating Southern schools, but not their own. That sort of statement is pervasive in the South.↩
well, this time the mass murderer in Charleston was sort of the one who made it an issue.
Learn your history. There wasn’t any U.S. flagged ships running slaves. While they came from the eastern Atlantic area, the majority were Portugese, Dutch, and British.
Yeah, I better hurry up and buy an Army of Northern Virginia Battle flag before they are outlawed, or maybe I should get a Stainless Banner, liberals would be so confused.
Let's have a look, shall we, at the South Carolina Declaration of Causes of Secession:
In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.
The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.
The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.
The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.
But sure, slavery was only brought into it by Northern liberals, well into the war.
“I agree with my friend Russell Moore in that”...
Stopped reading right there and now that I see that it’s the Swedish faux conservative writing this, I should have just bypassed the entire rant.
RM is to the SBC what Joel Osteen & Rick Warren are to Christianity.
The next time a drunk Mexican kills some family, are we gonna hear crys to ban the Mexican flag? Probably not ...
This issue will never be settled. I find it enlightening though that the same people praising that barbarous bastard Sherman seem to forget he later slaughtered indians.
Take down the Confederate battle flag and put the Confederate Naval Jack flag back up.
Funny thing. The Somalian National Alliance used the same flag.
Emotional Wave, Republican Cave
I saw this in Indiana and Arkansas back in March over Religious Freedom and now I see it in South Carolina with a flag taking a hit for mass murder.
God Bless Erick Erickson, Nikki Haley and so on....
I see absurd emotional symbolic and ultimately meaningless mass hysteria over last weeks mass murder in South Carolina.
America can do better than this.
I have posted that 95 percent of elected Republicans and much of the media we consider “conservative” support the GOP Establishment-Political Machine and have no principles.
God help this nation because with these kind of “leaders” to look to its going down.
MYTH - The Confederate Battle Flag is known as the “Stars & Bars”.
FACT - A common misconception. The First National Confederate Flag is correctly known as the “Stars & Bars”. The Confederate Battle Flag is known as the “Southern Cross”.
MYTH - The Confederate Battle Flag represents racism today.
FACT - The Confederate Battle Flag today finds itself in the center of much controversy and hoopla going on in several states. The cry to take this flag down is unjustified. It is very important to keep in mind that the Confederate Battle Flag was simply just that. A battle flag. It was never even a National flag, so how could it have flown over a slave nation or represented slavery or racism? This myth is continued by lack of education and ignorance. Those that villify the Confederate Battle Flag are very confused about history and have jumped upon a bandwagon with loose wheels.
MYTH - The United States Flag represented freedom.
FACT - No chance. The US flag flew over a slave nation for over 85 years! The North tolerated slavery and acknowledged it as a Division Of Labor. The North made a vast fortune on slavery and it’s commodities. It wasn’t until the South decided to leave the Union that the North objected. The North knew it could not survive without the Southern money. That is the true definition of hypocrisy.
Wrong at he early stages of slavery it was , but as time went by and years went on, then after we got our independence we were bringing them here.
Those ships sailed from MA, DE, RI, NJ, NY.
The flag was made out of the Andrews cross a symbol used by the Christian faith and then used to distinguish between two armies. It was never the official Govt flag. It was not ever used to fly over slavery.
As for the KKK using it then they also used the stars an stripes. The very fact that they are using this shooting to promote their left wing agenda is sick and twisted.]]
Also would you like to address the flags being flown out west while we killed, raped, took land, robbed and displaced the natives. Why no outrage by the media and the left which are the same over that?
“Isn’t it about time we stopped fighting on their ground? Too many people still believe that the War between the States was about slavery when in fact it was more about economic survival for the South. The slavery issue was brought in later - and by the Northern liberals at that!”
Thank you!!! The Civil War was about States Rights! There was almost a civil war in 1830’s. This battle had been brewing since the inception of our Nation.
What? The left claims white people are racists, yet they insist that thousands of white men fought to either free or enslave blacks. Either way, if whites are racist they would not care.
You are correct that it was not an initial issue. It was brought forward to make legitimate a war that was becoming very unpopular up north.
Are they going to ban the Civil War songs too?
Johnny Comes Marching Home, Dixie, Way Down upon the Swanee River, etc....
One a slaughterer always one :)
Blacks keep trying to resurrect the ghost of Confederate Past, when their own hoods are the killing grounds for most of their youth.
The MSM is shameful in their reporting as usual.
I fly one occasionally and I have a plate with the Bonnie Blue on the front of my truck. It was the flag of the Free and Independent State of Mississippi for a week or so.
You are not recognizing the initial issue, just a symptom. The initial issue from the get-go was States Rights verses a strong Federal Government.
The battle between the States and the Federal Government was the true issue. Slavery was only ONE symptom. Others included Interstate Commerce, etc.
The Civil War was not a one issue (slavery) fight.
Jihadi leftists cannot abide the CSA flag, a ban on homosexual/lesbian “marriage”, or the right to keep and bear arms. They are not for “diversity”; they demand 100% compliance with their viewpoints.
The idea that this country is a union of STATES, and the states are SOVEREIGN save for the very limited realms in which the constitution allows the federal government to operate, is anathema to leftists. To leftists, that idea must be stamped out.
Jesey boy just stay above the mason-dixon. You are not welcome down here.
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