Free Republic

WEST POINT, N.Y. ─ Following the decision of the South Carolina government to remove the Confederate flag from a state memorial, and the subsequent, nation-wide uproar over all things Confederate, West Point has announced that it will posthumously revoke the diplomas of all cadets who graduated from the Academy and fought for the South during the Civil War. “This sends a clear message to slave-owners and those who would fight for such a horrific cause that 150 years after most of them died we will not tolerate such atrocities on American soil,” said Lt. Col. Thomas Jackson, a spokesman for...

While radical leftists dust off their 60’s and 70’s Marxist yearbooks, dawn their holy Che Guevara t-shirts, wave the black flag of the ISIS JV team, desecrate century-old memorials with ‘Black Lives Matter’, dig up confederate soldiers in the name of progress and rewrite their politically incorrect history to remove the last traces of common sense from the American frontier, perhaps the time has come to ban the most pervasive and offensive embodiment of racism in America: the Democratic Party. Not only did Democrats constitute the beating heart and unrelenting face of human trafficking in America – streamlining commercial operations...

Hollis remembers the day the Confederate flag was hoisted over the State House to commemorate the war. The centennial kicked off on April 11, 1961, with a re-creation of the firing on Fort Sumter. The flag went up for the opening celebrations. "The flag is being flown this week at the request of Aiken Rep. John A. May," reported The State on April 12. May didn't introduce his resolution until the next legislative session. By the time the resolution passed on March 16, 1962, the flag had been flying for nearly a year. (This explains why the flag is often...

Wal-Mart corporate spokesman Brian Nick said the reason West Morgan High graduate Aaron Browder was not able to purchase his senior class ring with a generic Rebels mascot is because design features included the Confederate flag in the background and foreground. The nickname for West Morgan's athletic teams is Rebels.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” George Santayana in The Life of Reason. The Civil War was an awful time of American history. It pitted brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor, friend against friend, and state against state. Around 620,000 Americans died in the war, more than any other conflict the U.S. has been involved in. It’s something which will hopefully never happen again. Which is why those calling for the destruction of Confederate monuments are wrong. University of Vermont Emeritus Professor of Society James Loewen wants the United States to be de-Confederatized. He...

Everybody has an opinion about whether the Confederate flag is good or bad. They’re all dug in. Some are certain it’s racist and the very signature of evil. Others say it’s purely an expression of Southern pride and reverence for ancestors who fought and died a long time ago. Some of them have devoted careers and personal reputations to these propositions. A newspaper column is not going to change any minds. The Civil War is a big bagful of ironies and paradoxes, and not a recommended study for folks who like to keep things simple. It would be a particular...

With the revulsion against Confederate symbols that has resulted from shooter Dylann Roof's internet picture with the Confederate battle flag, Robert E. Lee has been put in the gunsights of social radicals. Lee was one of the two great generals of the Civil War and due in part to his good fortune in having an excellent biographer in Douglas Southall Freeman, is generally regarded as the greatest, although it should be noted that Grant won the war. Lee came from one of the oldest families in Virginia and arguably its most distinguished. His father, Light Horse Harry Lee, was a...

The Democratic Party of Virginia is currently giving away free tickets to an event featuring Hillary Clinton later tonight. Clinton is headlining the party's annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner on Friday evening. Though the event is raising money for the Virginia Democrats rather than her presidential bid, it is considered an important campaign appearance for Clinton. The dinner is Clinton's first campaign stop in Virginia, a crucial swing state. It's also one of her first stops outside of the early primary states. Tickets for the event are being sold for $30 and $125. However, on Friday afternoon, some Virginia Democrats received an...

Linky only.

National Pride is essential to the building of a people - and so is regional pride, state pride, and even being proud of our city or school. It helps to bond us and unite us. But some - especially on the left - believe that this is destructive. They believe that this divides us and creates feelings of superiority. We see this every time they attack a school or sports mascot, the Boy Scouts, and when they say America is not a great nation, only one among many. Thus their attempts to destroy the roots and symbols of pride in...

In the aftermath of the mass shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC, there are increasing and ever louder calls for the removal of all symbols, objects and persons connected to slavery or the Confederate States of America.  Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, and so all honors given him should be renamed, and all copies of the Declaration of Independence shredded.  Robert E. Lee fought for the South, so all his effigies should be melted down and his rebel flags shredded, even though the Confederacy had nothing to do with the shooting.  The Confederacy is no...

In the wake of the massacre at the Emanuel AME Church, America seems to be bent on eradicating even the hint of any symbol regarding the Confederacy, from removing the Confederate battle flag from public spaces to even deleting Civil War computer games. Serious people have proposed banning “Gone With the Wind” and sanitizing “The Dukes of Hazzard.” Others have advocated blowing up the Jefferson Memorial and other monuments to famous Southerners whether they had anything to do with the Civil War or not. However, if America is serious about expunging any hint of the Confederacy, it must even ferret...

K Edgerton, a black Confederate advocate, tells of his fondness for the South, the Confederacy, the distinction between the original Klan and another formed forty years later for totally different purposes, and the rarely told truth about Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Monument Avenue, in Richmond, Virginia, is a premier example of the Grand American Avenue city planning style. The first monument, a statue of Robert E. Lee, was erected in 1890. Between 1900 and 1925, Monument Avenue exploded with architecturally significant houses, churches and apartment buildings. A tree-lined grassy mall divides the east- and westbound sides of the street and is punctuated by statues memorializing Virginian Confederate participants of the Civil War Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart, Jefferson Davis, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, and Matthew Fontaine Maury, as well as Arthur Ashe, a Richmond native and international tennis star.

I am a 60-something Caucasian Yankee, born and raised in Michigan. My mother was British. My father was the first in his Canadian-immigrant family born in the USA. I have lived in North Carolina for almost 40 years, longer than my next door neighbors who were born and raised here. I understand a lot about the South, except for one thing: The pride in the Confederacy, its history and symbols. I do understand the reverence for General Robert E. Lee. I share it. He was a great general and a good and great man. He could have fought on but...

This week, the Jefferson Memorial was drawn into the national debate about race following the shooting deaths of nine people in a predominantly black church in South Carolina last week. It joins other public statues depicting Southern or Confederate figures, including Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, that some are arguing represent the country's racist past and should be removed. CNN anchor Ashleigh Banfield this week questioned whether the Jefferson Memorial should be taken down because Jefferson owned slaves. "There is a monument to him in the capital city of the United States. No one ever asks for that to...

The debate over the rebel flag that began anew after last week's church shootings in Charleston, S.C., has morphed into a full-blown Confederate controversy. While Stars and Bars have long been associated by many with slavery, the latest campaign to remove Confederate emblems has extended beyond the flag to statues, memorials, parks and even school mascots. Never has the debate over what symbolizes heritage and what stands for hate covered so much ground, as efforts to strip icons that have been part of the visual and cultural landscape of the South for decades are afoot at national, state and local...

<p>Gone With the Wind is Birth of a Nation with less horses. The movie, and its position among the American cinematic pantheon, has done more to further the ahistoric Lost Cause bullshit than any other single production. Because that's the fundamental problem with the Lost Cause narrative: it's not true.</p>

Former Clinton advisor Paul Begala told CNN's Chris Cuomo Tuesday morning that Hillary Clinton "absolutely" has to answer for standing by her husband when he served as governor of Arkansas and defended that state's flag's relationship to the Confederate battle flag. "Does she have to answer for her time as first lady in Arkansas with Bill standing by the Arkansas flag proudly when it, too, is said to borrow from the Confederate symbology?" Cuomo said. "Well, sure, absolutely," said Begala. "Times change. Circumstances change." Watch the video below: (VIDEO-AT-LINK)Begala added he is "really thrilled" that South Carolina appears likely to...

All three statewide-elected politicians in South Carolina have now called from the Confederate Battle Flag to be taken down. The Post and Courier reports: