Banned sign riles heritage group

The State ^ | Jul. 16, 2006 | SAMMY FRETWELL

[aomagrat]

A Confederate heritage group says its free-speech rights were violated when a landowner removed a billboard promoting Southern history near the famed Darlington Raceway.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans plans to demonstrate at the State House next month and buy radio advertisements to complain about losing its billboard on U.S. 52, about two miles from the racetrack.

“This is the most chilling thing I’ve seen against freedom of speech,” spokesman Don Gordon said.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans bought the billboard this spring in response to remarks by a NASCAR executive about the rebel flag.

The billboard featured a Confederate flag and a checkered race flag. The message said, “Victory is Great, but Honor is Greater. Defend your Southern heritage.”

The billboard, taken down briefly in May, also listed the group’s phone number and name.

Officials of the S.C. Central Railroad, which owns the land where the billboard stood, said the message was “controversial” and needed to come down.

“It is not in our commercial interests to have billboards on our property displaying messages that might be controversial in the local community, whatever the substance of the messages,” a company spokeswoman said in a prepared statement.

“We made no judgment as to the content of the billboard, but we did understand it to be controversial and therefore asked that it be removed.”

An outdoor advertising company, hired by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, installed the sign just before Darlington’s annual Mother’s Day race. It was removed permanently June 16, according to a July 11 letter from the S.C. Sons of Confederate Veterans commander, Randall Burbage, to fellow members.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans says it is an international, nonprofit historical society. The group, which says it has 30,000 members nationally, has taken positions in defense of the Confederate flag in South Carolina.

‘NOT ... ANYTHING FAVORABLE’

In October, NASCAR’s chief executive, Brian France, told the CBS television show “60 Minutes” the Confederate flag was “not a flag that I look at with anything favorable. That’s for sure.”

As it branches away from its traditional Southern fan base, NASCAR has tried to shed its rebel-flag-waving image. The nation’s largest stock car racing organization has started diversity programs and tried to appeal to black and Hispanic fans. The Darlington Raceway, in business for more than 50 years, has served as a pillar of NASCAR.

“A member of the France family said some uncomplimentary things, so we put that billboard up to make a statement and to stimulate new members,” the confederate veterans’ Gordon said. “We really didn’t expect anything like this to occur.”

Attempts to reach NASCAR spokesman Jim Hunter were unsuccessful. However, Hunter said last spring that NASCAR did not seek to have the sign removed.

“If we find out NASCAR is involved, you can expect airplanes towing Confederate banners over every NASCAR race anywhere in this nation — forever,” Gordon said.

Mac Josey, vice president at the Darlington Raceway, said he knew nothing about the billboard and did not ask that it be removed. He said the track does not fly Confederate flags, although some fans do.

Wesley Blackwell, chairman of the Darlington County Council, said he heard about the billboard during a social gathering at the Darlington speedway in May. Blackwell said the county did not ask that the sign be removed.

‘NOT A WORD WOULD BE SAID’

The Confederate veterans group paid Palmetto Outdoor Media more than $5,000 to put up the advertisement, Gordon said. Most of the money was refunded when the sign was removed.

However, Gordon is not satisfied.

“What if it was a sign trying to bring new members to the NAACP? We all know not a word would be said,” Gordon said.

Palmetto Outdoor Media co-owner Rodney Monroe said his company’s land-lease agreement with S.C. Central Railroad has a section that called for the removal of offensive advertisements.

“We lease the property from the company and we, obviously, crossed the line as far as what was acceptable to them ... and were asked to remove the sign,” Monroe said. “We are not in the business to cause or create controversy.”

Gordon said his group had a contract with Palmetto Outdoor for the sign to stay up through part of next year.

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees every American the right to free speech. However, the sign was on private property, and the property’s owner ordered it down.

Bill Rogers, director of the S.C. Press Association, said that removal violated the principle of free speech, if nothing else. The sign did not appear to be inflammatory, he said.

“I can see why they would feel their rights are violated, that if someone doesn’t like the message, they take it down,” Rogers said.

[Tokra]

The damnyankees have already infested the thread...

Reduced to name calling. That speaks volumes.

I suppose you wouldn't mind if I constantly referred to Southerners as "damnrebels"?

[AppyPappy]

We made no judgment as to the content of the billboard, but we did understand it to be controversial

You made no judgment but you judged it to be controversial. Not exactly the brightest bulb in the basement.

[ZULU]

“This is the most chilling thing I’ve seen against freedom of speech,” spokesman Don Gordon said."

Just another one of a series of esclating selectiuve attacks on freedom of speech.

If some group had a "Black heritage" or "Hispanic Heritage" sign removed from a highway, the vipers and slimy slugs in the ACLU would be in court in the blinking of an eye. They would have even responded had somebody put a NAZI sign which was removed.

[ZULU]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

The "Great Inventor" The man who invented the concept of defeating an enemy not by destroying his army in the field, but by crushing the civilian base which produced that army,

Thanks to this genius we had the Boer War concentration camps, the atrocities of WW1 and WW2 and, even to a degree, the kind of warfare Hezbollah etc is waging in the Middle East.

An original thinker all the way - at least for modern times.

[Tokra]

You are mistaken. The losers are shown in blue on the map below.

Look again - there is plenty of red in the north and plenty of blue in the south.

What do you blue zone socialists have now besides gay pride parades and leaders such as Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy?

Ever hear of Al Gore or John Edwards? How about Nagin? or Bill Clinton?(Southerners all)

Gay pride parades?
Obviously you haven't spent much time in Atlanta (or Hotlanta - as the gay crowd calls it), have you? There are plenty of limp wristed lisping queens parading their "pride" all through the south.

Nice try.

[HighWheeler]

"The nation’s largest stock car racing organization has started diversity programs and tried to appeal to black and Hispanic fans.

-- --

Yeah, they want to have the same huge black and hispanic base that drag racing, Formula 1, short track, motorcycle, and Indy racing enjoys.

Idiots.

[norton]

I guess you missed the salient parts of the story:

"The Sons of Confederate Veterans bought the billboard this spring ... Officials of the S.C. Central Railroad, which owns the land where the billboard stood, said the message was “controversial” and needed to come down. (because) “It is not in our commercial interests to have billboards on our property displaying messages that might be controversial in the local community... (despite) An outdoor advertising company, hired by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, installed the sign just before Darlington’s annual Mother’s Day race. It was removed permanently June 16..."

There are at least a couple of contract issues (breach) as well as the judgement call the RR claims not to have made, plus outside pressure by someone not noted in the article.
You must presume that the advertising company had leased the property or contracted with the RR to use it (otherwise ANY sign would have been a violation of other rights).
So the whole thing goes back to "commericial interests" which the average passer-by would not even recognize as connected;
unless some other party went directly to the RR and threatened a boycot.

[orionblamblam]

> Union casualties were easily double southern casualties because, frankly, northerners didn't have very much fight in them.

That's right, because it was the *Southerners* who were the aggressors.

> You know you're people are naturally warrior inclined when a single army's worth of them can hold off another whole country for four years

"Warrior inclined?" Like Hamas? Hizbollah?

[orionblamblam]

> It's obvious that you want to pick a fight.

Incorrect. The fight-pickers are the ones who think that the COnfederacy and it's war to perpetuate slavery was a Really Wonderful Thing.

[sionnsar]

“We made no judgment as to the content of the billboard, but we did understand it to be controversial

Doublespeak lives.

[Zon]

If someone owns a business he/she/they ought to have the right not to serve anyone for any reason. Just as any consumer has the right not to do business with any company for any reason.

I agree with one slight yet very important modification. The right to free association includes the right to not associate. The principle stands on it's own merits/reason. There is no requirement for a secondary reason. Thus a business can chose whether to associate for no reason. All too often people rationalize a secondary reason as cause to trump the primary reason. Thereby subverting the premise. 

Example: "why do you (not you personally) not allow blacks or females or this that or some other criteria not to enter your business?" Answer: "there is no reason. It's my right to refuse access as much as it is my right to grant access." As soon as the proprietor gives a reason collectivists assume they have the right to use that reason against the proprietor to force the proprietor to do what the authoritarian collectivist demands. It's wrong, yet that is how it all too often happens. Thus the reason for my calling it a very important distinction.

[BaBaStooey]

That's irrelevant, it is a case of hindsight being 20/20.

Lee didn't feel like starting the war back up at that point, because (A) he couldn't, being as old as he was, and (B) he was a man of his word, having agreed to what he agreed to at Appomattox.

Now we have some people who feel like going against Lee's word.

[groanup]

The fight-pickers are the ones who think that the COnfederacy and it's war to perpetuate slavery was a Really Wonderful Thing.

So why did the North go to war?

[stand watie]

since the SCV OWNS the sign AND the ground it is on, it IS a FREEDOM OF SPEECH & a PRIVATE PROPERTY issue as well.

the previous owner of the property SOLD it to us.

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

memo to YOU: the war against the arrogant, ignorant LEFTISTS & REVISIONISTS in DAMNyankeeland continues, absent gunfire.

free dixie,sw

[orionblamblam]

> So why did the North go to war?

Because the South attacked the Federal troops on the Federal base at Ft. Sumter. When attacked, you either fight back, you ignore it or you roll over. Americans aren't the French, so rolling over wasn't an option. Ignoring a sizable military attack by traitors also isn't much of an option, unlike, say, a Cuban soldier taking a random pot-shot into Gitmo might be ignorable.

Had the Southerners not started their war of aggression, then the FedGuv would have had little cause to war against them... as the fact that secession had been a reality for quite some time and there had been no military attacks by the North proves. The CSA would have secceded, most likely failed as a nation, and then we'd have moved on from there in some way. Reconciling the democratic republicanism of the North with the feudal society of the South in a peaceful alternate history would have been interesting...

[Darnright]

>Sherman's March to the Sea to be a border line war crime.<

Gee, ya think? Look objectively at Sherman's tactics, and compare the modern liberal reaction (overreaction) to Abu Ghraib, or to Israel's actions in Lebanon today.

[groanup]

Good answer. Doesn't it seem strange that the only reason the South went to war was over slavery and that she went to war against a foe that was not fighting to end slavery?

[ohioman]

I don't worship the Battle Flag, though I have one and am not offended by it. I had ancestors on both sides of the War, some in the same battles, and I salute the honor and courage of those on both sides.

[TexConfederate1861]

No, quite the contrary:

"If I had foreseen the use those people designed to
make of their victory, there would have been no
surrender at Appomattox Courthouse; no sir, not
by me. Had I foreseen these results of
subjugation, I would preferred to die at
Appomattox with my brave men and my sword in
this right hand."
-Gen. Robert E. Lee, 1870, spoken to former
Gov. Stockdale of Texas