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.↩
It seems to me that those for whom the Confederate battle flag stands for “heritage not hate” (as one fellow who flew it in Louisiana was quotes as saying when, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina he invited those helping with the relief effort, both black and white, to come down to his range for some AR-15 shooting), should make an effort to insist that it be used only in contexts where the intent to commemorate the valor of their forebearers is clear.
IMHO blacks are far too easily offended.
yes, but hardly up to liberal women level...
Please learn history. Many ships left U.S. ports to ply in slave trading, but none were U.S. flagged vessels. Saying it again, and again doesn’t make it so. The U.S. had the Navy doing interdiction patrols in the early 1800, but as the size of the Navy was small, they caught less than 100 ships. They were the only U.S. flagged ships involved in slave trading, as trading slaves was illegal.
Also, learn of the Saltire, its history, then you can get back to me on the Confederate Battle Flag.
As fer the injuns, find you a deserving tribe, and donate yer teepee to ‘em.
Ironically black on black crime rate in the South was about zero during the antebellum period.
Sorry but you and those who focus on an inanimate object have made this flag the issue. This jerk could have had a Mickey Mouse t shirt on and would you “ban” that? The KKK took this BATTLE flag as their own, compromising its meaning. The swastika was a religious symbol before the Nazis co-opted it.
Too bad people aren’t as offended by mass murder in Chicago every weekend, unregulated abortion clinics that butcher women and Christians being trooped to a seaside having their heads cut off....
To paraphrase someone we know, “All this over some stupid flag?”
I’d say oldfart is on target, but don’t let truth or facts mask your open contempt for the South.
The falsehoods are not when slavery was brought into it. The falsehoods are that the war was about slavery.
It’s easy to see as an outsider what went on there, but most people don’t seem interested to find out.
It’s a shame because that was the beginning of the end. It was the beginning of consolidated power in a central location, and the usurping of the rights of individual states.
Ah, you have hit upon a battle yet to come. Already Blacks are stomping the flag on YouTube, and many schools have said it is offensive to display it. Don't be surprised when the Left begins to demand a "new" American flag that represents the "diversity" and "immigrant contributions" and put forward a mix of African and Latin patterns and symbols. It's all coming. you heard it here first.
Why is the perspective of blacks paramount?
Maybe the Grand Union Flag, but the (admittedly very similar) Union Jack wasn’t adopted until after 1776.
It is you who refuse to accept the fact the stars and stripes has been flying over slave ships and atrocities out west to the native Americans.
Those ships were registered and sailed form those ports.
You can gloss over the fact if you like , but you saying donate a teepee to them shows me how selective your outrage is and you have bight the left wing media crap.
I know, right? Why do the blacks have so much power. White people should wake up, amiright?
The great majority of the North could of cared less about the slaves in the South, after all, they were willing to amend the Constitution to make slavery permanent and not subject to further amendments (see Corwin amendment). The war was initially a war of subjugation and morphed into “a free the slaves” war to satisfy Northern sensibilities.
Just like most liberals, there are even FReepers who are resentful (or jealous) of the south....personally, I wouldn’t live anywhere else.
Fair point. The North did not care one lick about slavery to start, at least. It may not have even been the primary motivator for the war, to start. I was just pointing out that it was pretty central to the secession decisions.
There were as late as 1860. American citizen Nathaniel Gordon on the American flagged ship Erie was stopped by the USS Mohican about 50 miles of the coast of Africa. The ship was carrying 897 future slaves. The Africans were taken to Liberia, and Gordon was brought to the United States. He was tried and executed in New York City. Some Americans ships did engage in the slave trade, but as you point out the majority were Portuguese, Dutch or British
Haven’t you heard? It’s all about being populist now. Feed the mob what they crave. Our Constitutional Republic is in tatters due in no small part to the same GOPe scum who feed from the DC trough and are now feeding red meat to the ferals in order to maintain their comfortable spots of power.
Political correctness run amok and more insanity. Blaming an inanimate object for the actions of some nut who waved a flag and fired a gun to avenge who knows what. Yeh, let’s blame a flag for the hatred in our hearts, that’s the way to resolve racism issues.
Like guns, flags don’t kill people. It’s the evil person who uses them for evil purposes. The good person uses them for good purposes. The good and evil is in the person not the objects he uses. Inanimate objects don’t force anyone to do anything without the person’s consent. Guns and flags don’t magically leap out of the shadows and commit murder or burn themselves. No it’s the insane and terminally ignorant people who are brainwashed in the lie that banning anything offensive to them is the answer to their problem.
Banning the Confederate battle flag will not stop racism, it may even have the reverse effect. Why don’t we try banning all mind-alternating drugs instead. These drugs and their misuse has been a key factor in many of the mass murderer’s background. Wouldn’t be prudent (<:) because good people who need the drugs would suffer. Fine, then why are the insane not an issue in these matters. Because they are running the asylum.
OK, give the racists minorities what they want. Ban the flag. And while we’re at it, let’s ban the playing of “Dixie” because it just wouldn’t be right without the Confederate flag. They will never be satisfied with whatever they are given. It will never be enough. They will want more and more until there is nothing left to give.
What more do they want but to destroy America. America has confessed to their past sin of slavery and repented. There is no slavery anymore except in the minds of those living in the past. And racism has always existed and will be with us to the end of time.
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