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.↩
The only thing I ask of Yankees is just don’t move down here. Stay in the Democratic Socialist States of The NE. :-)
Except for one thing:
The War of Northern Aggression was not about slavery. It was about states rights!
And, the second War of Northern Aggression will be about states rights!
I agree!
Appropriate?????????? Compelling????????
You are advocating censorship of ideas and Traditions-—because some groups are offended-—well, that is just too bad. Sorry——we even allow Billy Ayers to step on the American Flag in posters......so what the Hey??????????????? You think that doesn’t anger some vets??????
Freedom of Speech always NEEDS defending from a Fascist government which is what we have now. We have a Right to offend.
It’s not censorship. If you want to fly that flag you can have one sticking out of the top of your head for all I care. But there’s no reason to give cover to people who want to use it as the rallying point for a race war and have them be able to think that the government on some level is on their side because the same flag representing a lost rebellion is flying over the state capitol grounds.
"AnonymousJune 22, 2015 at 12:40 PM
I'm about to lose another FR account. I start to wonder that it might be because my posts are a little too rational.
"Does anyone have any ideas to help me at least attempt to subvert FR without being picked off almost immediately as a "liberal"? I mean, I know I could just type in something simple like FUJB or FUGOPe, but that seems a little trite to me.
I'm sure someone here has successfully done it for a longer period of time (eg. re_nortex); any help would be greatly appreciated!"
And:
"AnonymousJune 22, 2015 at 8:32 PM
Lol. Thanks Oz.
I tried to say that I don't fly the Confederate flag because I love the 'Murica one (though I didn't say 'Murica because that might be a little too much even for FR). Apparently that hasn't set well with a few Freepers.
I guess there's a flag that's even better than the American one, and that's the one that tells blacks that they're better as slaves."
GOPe strikes again.
Thank you.
People have rights.
States have powers given them by the people.
The Civil War began with the insistence of the free people of the Southern states that they had the authority to deprive the servile people of the Southern states of their rights,and that they and their states had the authority to compel the free people of the other states to assist them in depriving those servile people of their rights.
The term "states' rights" is an oxymoron for the unintelligent to indulge in unreason.
But you don't.
The fact is that the Southern states organized and drove the greatest federal intrusion on constitutional rights and states' autonomy that ever existed in US history - the Fugitive Slave Acts.
They were afraid that the new GOP president and legislature would restore constitutional order - so they started a preemptive war against justice.
Remove the flag and then remove books and Bibles. Then unabridged dictionaries and factual history books. I wonder if they will go after the Koran when all else is gone.
I learned a long time ago that facts are wasted on those that refuse to see anything except their own opinions. So I don’t bother anymore.
My time is far better spent doing other things. Your animosity towards the south is very plain.
Well said.
The War of Northern Aggression was not about slavery
It’s kind of hard to pitch the Civil War as Northern aggression when Southern forces fired the opening rounds...innocuous as the attack on a Federal garrison may have been, it provided the Union warmongers the very opportunity they needed...
It’s like the Japanese people today complaining about genocide through Hiroshima/Nagasaki...all the while forgetting that Pearl Harbor remains on the books as well...
Your animosity towards the south is very plain.
Animosity has nothing to do with truth...please refute, or at the very least, address the argument brought up of the Fugitive Slave Act, if you can...and then answer the question why were the Southern people, through their state governments, usurping the rights of the Northern people, again through government, by requiring the return of escaped slaves, under penalty of law...and thereby causing these non slaveholders to participate in the practice of slavery...?
Yes, it’s a complex issue, and to study it in depth requires more than throwaway posts on a forum...it requires an open mind, for one thing...
War of Northern Aggression because the North waged economic warfare against the South for many years prior to the South firing the first shot.
States rights vis a vis the Federal government dictating to the states.
War of Northern Aggression because the North waged economic warfare against the South for many years prior to the South firing the first shot.
I’ll grant that slavery was an issue, but the war was about economics — high tariffs, imposed by Yankee industrialist’s bought and paid for Congressmen and Senators, were strangling the South.
It must be tough for you to have to share a country with people who celebrate their evil ancestors. How do you manage?
Nice catch. I suspect that troll is on this thread.
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