Posted on 08/18/2006 9:48:38 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
The group Sons of Confederate Veterans met at Orlando's Lake Eola Park to show off their proposed personalized tag late Friday morning. They said it's simply a matter of time before the plate becomes one of the many you can purchase as a specialty license plate.
The group said the plate honors Florida's heritage by showing all five flags of the confederate army, including their battle flag. But it's a heritage some say simply represents hate.
Standing below the memorial for confederate soldiers, a small but vocal group made their point Friday. They want Floridians to learn that the Civil War wasn't only about slavery and they want a way to honor those who gave their lives in service of the confederacy 140 years after the war ended. They admit the proposed vanity plate could bring up some bad memories, but that's part of the process.
"The plate was designed as a history lesson. We teach history and there will be no more misuse of this flag for hate. We don't use it for hate," said John Walker Adams, Sons of Confederate Veterans.
The plate is still in the planning stages. But, the group said, their required survey showing that 30,000 possible people would use the plate was going well. Next comes a trip to Tallahassee, where the battle flag would get its final approval, one that local resident Sue Lang said just isn't needed.
"I think it is stirring up the pot. We have come so far with woman's rights and civil rights, it's taking a big step back," Lang said.
There is another element to the proposal. Not only does the group say they want to get people talking about Confederate heritage, but also get the money from the specialty plate fees and use that for education about their heritage.
Those things happen anyway. A potential NCAA postseason boycott of the state of Florida would have a huge impact.
As for the MLB All Star Game, which won't be taking place in Florida anytime soon. Lose the crappy "ballparks" and maybe someday, you guys can have an All-Star Game.
My feelings as well! MLK has been shoved down our throat!
BTW: vetvetdoug - there's a "keep the dream alive" place in that list.
They could name all their sporing venues after Confederate War Heros.
Robert E. Lee Field in Tampa
Florida has no state income tax. Specialty plates are one of the creative way things are financed here. There are a lot of beautiful environmental plates, which to my mind is a much better way of "saving the namatees" than taxing folk.
I had a special plate for a while, if I remember correctly it cost about $28.
whoops. namatees=manatees.
bump
How about the John Lennon "Imagine" Specialty Plate?
Yeah, that's right, but the Virginia SCV actually had to go to court to fight for equal treatment.
Resident of Florida since 1970, and I would put one on all three of my vehicles.
Just to piss off the libs if for no other reason.
In a way that's true and in a way that's not true.
For most of the Union soldiers, at least at the outset, it was about preserving the Union.
For a lot of the Confederate soldiers it was a desire to protect their home area - a desire exploited by the movers and shakers of the CSA.
But for the slave owning soft hands that ran the CSA, it was ALL about slavery and their continuing to fatten their bank account by the sweat of their human "property". Anybody who doubts that need only read the words of the Confederates themselves in their secession justifications.
Count me as pro-truth when it comes to the history of the Confederacy. Wonder when the pro-america anti-dixie folks who post here are going to realize where the phrase "band of brothers" comes from.
That has to be mighty hard on cops.
Let alone the citizen who is trying to get plate info.
Oh, the hugh manateee!!
Same crap different day! But then if it was all about slavery, then why did the North invade the South when the Southern States invoked their 9th and 10th Amendment rights? You know, the Amendments that gave States the RIGHT of secession. But then I forget myself, you Yankees wrote your Constitution in pencil for easy facilitation of change when its expedient.
Or if Lincoln's war was all about abolition then why did Lincoln himself support the Corwin Amendment just prior to the war?
Lincoln's war wasn't about abolition. It was about unilateral secession and an attack on US troops at Ft. Sumter. Now secession, that was all about the fear that the Republicans would prevent the expansion of slavery into the western territories. You just have to read the Declarations of Causes that South Carolina, Georgia, Texas and Mississippi issued to see that's true. Not to mention a hundred other southern sources.
The Corwin Amendment was an attempt to show the south that Lincoln had no intention of interfering with slavery where it already existed. But for the south, that wasn't enough. So they took their marbles (and all the federal facilities in their states) and went home.
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