[Colonel Kangaroo]

Three soon to graduate Minnesota students remember their southern heritage by flying Rebel flags from their trucks on the last day of school. A silly act of course, but who of us who remember what it was like to be 17 and on the last days of school can say we wouldn't have done something just as silly at such a stage of life? The Rebel flag is offensive to many of course, but I wonder how the school officials would have reacted to a corresponding offensive display from offences that are currently more PC?

[GT Vander]

One begins to wonder what the response would have been had they flown “Gay Pride” flags, or perhaps “Black Power” flags, or considering it took place in Minnesota, A USSR flag?

[HIDEK6]

Yankee rednecks?

Does their horn blow Dixie?

[Cobra64]

Jeeze. They're building mosques in MN, but are upset by a confederate flag?

Wait until the schools are filled with these guys:

[CindyDawg]

It’s only offensive to those that choose to be offended.

[C19fan]

I wonder what descendents of soldiers from the Iron Brigade would think of this. :)

[Puppage]

From the great Civil War writer, Shelby Foote:

The flag is a symbol my great grandfather fought under and in defense of. I am for flying it anywhere anybody wants to fly it. I do know perfectly well what pain it causes my black friends, but I think that pain is not necessary if they would read the confederate constitution and knew what the confederacy really stood for. This country has two grievous sins on its hands.

One of them is slavery - whether we'll ever be cured of it, I don't know. The other one is emancipation - they told 4 million people, you're free, hit the road, and they drifted back into a form of peonage that in some ways is worse than slavery. These things have got to be understood before they're condemned. They're condemned on the face of it because they take that flag to represent what those yahoos represent as - in their protest against civil rights things.

But the people who knew what that flag really stood for should have stopped those yahoos from using it as a symbol of what they stood for. But we didn't - and now you had this problem of the confederate flag being identified as sort of a roughneck thing, which it is not.

My synopsis : why should historical fact get in the way of the schools feeeeeeeeeeling?

[Jacquerie]

Hmmm, so according to the libs the burning of Old Glory is protected speech, but mere display of the Confederate Battle flag is an actionable offense. What nonsense. A decent Constitutional lawyer could make the school district’s decision very expensive.

[lesser_satan]

This is Minnesota; We were never a confederate state. The kid should be flying the American flag or nothing at all.

That said, this is a CLEAR violation of his freedom of speech, and I hope he sues the school.

[CarryingOn]

One would think that graduating seniors in Minnesota would have been politically corrected by graduation day. Sounds like three slipped through the net.

[Non-Sequitur]

Three soon to graduate Minnesota students remember their southern heritage by flying Rebel flags from their trucks on the last day of school.

I didn't know that Minne-freakin'-sota had a Southern heritage to remember? Or are they from southern Bloomington?

[BallyBill]

In this day and age of professional victims, I admire people that want to tweak the PC crowd.

A Confederate Flag in Minnesota though?

[sasportas]

A lot of difference in Minnesota and say Georgia. If they had the same attitude Minnesota does towards the confederate battle flag, they’d have to lock up 90% of the state of Georgia. You see it flying everywhere in Georgia...and South Carolina, and Alabama, and even Florida which is heavily infiltrated with northern sentiment.

[stainlessbanner]

Dixie ping

[stand watie]

i suspect the "publick screwl officials" reacted the way they did because they are:

1. FOOLS,

2. ant-southern BIGOTS &

3. PC-DUMMIES.

fwiw, there are LOTS of those PREJUDICED "useful idiots" in the north = i KNOW about that as i was stationed up there with the US Army.

free dixie,sw

[ktscarlett66]

Oh for.....cryin’ out loud!!!! I had a large patch of the Confederate flag on my jeans when I was in high school. And I WORE them to school, along with my JD#7 shirt. No, I wasn’t in a state that was considered Confederate, but it represented a lot of things I liked - southern rock (Lynyrd Skynyrd), Tennessee whiskey (Jack Daniels) and men with pick up trucks, guns in the rack and a southern accent.

[af_vet_rr]

From another article about it, the three students said:

But the students argue the punishment doesn't fit the crime. They say they show the flag as a sign of rebellion, not racism.

"The confederate army was in rebellion to the U.S. Army who were about money and power," Fredin said. "We never took it as racial or anything like that."

Obviously the students didn't pay attention during history class (or that's the state of education in that area).

I personally don't have any sympathy for them, they are 17 and 18 years old and knew exactly what they are doing, they need to stop playing dumb.

[Joe 6-pack]

"We are responsible for the 2,000-plus students that attend this school," said Rick Kaufman, of Bloomington Public Schools. "The very nature of what they did had the potential to create a very serious situation."

I'll bet more than one Senior wore a Che Guevara T-shirt on the last day of school with nary a whimper.

[wardaddy]

driving to school with confederate flags flying from their trucks.

Good yankees. Where can I send them their graduation gifts?

[Nuc1]

Silly of course?

Your support of free speech is duly noted. The Confederate battle flag represents heritage not hate and is one of the most beautiful flags ever made. I have to put up with being offended by the left almost constantly so those offended by a Confederate flags can go to straight to @ell. Seems to me the bigotry is on the other side of this issue.