You sound like an old school northeastern Republican, RasterMaster. You completely discard all the fine southern Republicans in office who not just supported Reagan, but made the Reagan era possible.
If you think this sort of rhetorical attack upon the populace of an entire region, the core of conservative support in this country, is going to help the cause of conservatism, fine, go right ahead and start banning symbolic speech. Yep, that’ll fix it. See how far that gets you.
Me, I’ll continue correcting misunderstandings and outright slander of my people. Very few of them owned slaves, and they fought honorably for their homeland, just as they did in the Revolution and in every war after the War Between the States.
Wrong again! My Civil War-era family all hail from Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina & Georgia. They were all UNION supporters following the tradition of the War of 1812 veterans in our family and Revolutionary War ancestors. I only attack those who support the cause of the JACKASS party.
My replies to you were not about “conservatism” or “Reagan era”, nor about where I hail from. My replies to you were about the use of the battle rag of the defeated pro-slavery DUmocrats...there were no Republicans who fought for that flag.
By the way, it wasn’t till those LIEberal DUmocrat JACKASSES moving north where you get the “northeastern republican” RINOs. As well, it wasn’t till all those “damn yankees” began moving south that the economies of those states finally turned around (after 100 years of JACKASS theft) where other conservative-minded individuals decided to be congregated.
As far as the original topic goes...a Marines’ tatoo choice doesn’t mean much to me as long as he or she is stacking up the dead enemy like cord wood. They’ve earned the right to to carve a battle rag of the defeated DUmocrat on their backs, or ink a Manson-like Nazi swastika on your forehead, or utilize Chinese or “native American” symbology. People are still free to be dumb and wrong once in awhile, but should at minimum learn about the orgins of the symbols before having them permanently affixed to their backsides.
My father always told me when you enlist you sign away much of this freedom...he has seen Army soldiers when he served in Korea who were reprimanded (for any tatoo) and disciplined for “destruction of military property”.
When I was being recruited (Marines), the rules of enlistment were generally pretty straight forward and were all explained in the open. It would appear to be a pretty dumb choice if a tatoo prevents you from otherwise serving honorably. If the military chooses to ban all tatoos I don’t have a problem with it although it may be detrimental to future recruitment efforts if they do.
I challenge anyone to name one true conservative legislator in the NE U.S. Nope, they are all down here.