Posted on 06/21/2015 2:49:11 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Ted Cruz said Saturday that the Confederate flag flying in front of their statehouse is “a question for South Carolina” to decide.
He is not alone. Marco Rubio said the same: “This is an issue that they should debate and work through and not have a bunch of outsiders going in and telling them what to do.” Scott Walker and Carly Fiorina also feel it is an issue for South Carolina alone to decide.
Funny. I seem to recall South Carolina trying to decide that issue in 1861, when on April 12 they opened fire on Fort Sumter, inaugurating the Civil War.
Also, as I recall, they lost. The flag they waved at the end was white.
That should have been an end to that affair.
By the vote of an all-white legislature, a Confederate flag was raised once again above the South Carolina statehouse in 1962. In 2000, another vote removed it, and placed a square battle flag – oddly, the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia – over a monument to Confederate dead. This is the flag that is, in the wake of the Charleston massacre, the point of contention between Democrats and Republicans.
The flag chosen was not the national colors of the Confederacy – or even of South Carolina – though it did form a component of the second (1863) and third (1865) national flag.
It may have been raised in 1962 because that year was during the Civil War Centennial. It may also have been a reactionary white racist response to the Civil Rights Movement. Opinions differ. Perhaps both accounts are true.
The point is this: there is no long, unbroken tradition of this flag flying in the vicinity of the statehouse since the Civil War.
It is not even a South Carolina flag, nor the Confederacy’s national flag. There is nothing special about it even for descendants of Confederate soldiers unless their ancestors served in the Army of northern Virginia.
In other words, it is a peculiar way of honoring South Carolina’s Civil War dead and likely one that would not have been understood by the Civil War generation.
Ted Cruz ignores all this. Cruz wants us to believe he is a reasonable man, the voice of impartiality, a claim he threw away when he claimed Democrats were using the flag as a “wedge” issue:
"I understand the passions that this debate evokes on both sides. Both those who see a history of racial oppression and a history of slavery, which is the original sin of our nation, and we fought a bloody civil war to expunge that sin.
But I also understand those who want to remember the sacrifices of their ancestors and the traditions of their states, not the racial oppression, but the historical traditions, and I think often this issue is used as a wedge to try to divide people."
NAACP President Cornell Brooks admits there are different viewpoints here, but he has a different answer: “Yes, there may be multiple sides to this debate, but clearly we all have to be on the side of those who lost their lives in a church.”
According to Cruz, however, “the last thing they need is people from outside the state coming in and dictating how they should resolve that issue.”
That’s funny. Last time – I’m talking 1861 again – South Carolina needed all kinds of help. The Confederate march, “The Bonnie Blue Flag” tells us (third and fourth verses below),
First gallant South Carolina nobly made the stand Then came Alabama and took her by the hand Next, quickly Mississippi, Georgia, and Florida All raised on high the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
Ye men of valor gather round the banner of the right Texas and fair Louisiana join us in the fight Davis, our loved President, and Stephens statesmen rare Now rally round the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
Never mind that the song’s writer, Harry McCarthy, got the order of secession wrong in the third verse. The point to be made is that South Carolina had ten other states siding with it, rather than leaving it to South Carolina to decide alone. People from outside certainly did have a say in 1861.
In response, other states, known as the Union – twenty free states and five border states – stood up to oppose the Confederacy’s defense of slavery. We all – the entire nation – helped South Carolina with its “flag” issue.
It was very much a national affair then, and it is very much a national affair now. The wedge issue then as now is racism, and the rebel flag represents that wedge.
The Army of Northern Virginia’s battle flag is not the American flag. It is the flag of traitors. Of traitors whose cause was lost a century-and-a-half ago. It has no business flying over any state capitol.
Ted Cruz is wrong when he says this is South Carolina’s affair only and there is an answer to him: The NAACP has a long-standing boycott in place due to the flag. Brooks points out that,
“One of the ways we can bring that flag down is by writing to companies, engaging companies that are thinking about doing business in South Carolina, speaking to the governor, speaking to the legislature and saying the flag has to come down.”
If we, as a Nation, can make the State of Indiana stand up and take notice, as we did in the case of their RFRA directed at gays, we can certainly have the same effect on South Carolina for flying a symbol of hatred directed at blacks.
Every two years it is the same thing here. The trolls come out of the woodwork. They rattle, confuse, agitate, obfuscate, and deceive.
Another election - another set of a-hole trolls.
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I agree, the trolls try their best to establish their bono fides (e.g., “I was one of Cruz’ early financial supporters”) but their words always betray them. They’re interested mainly in trying to make Free Republic an unpleasant place-—a mission at which they largely fail.
Good post
LOL, Reno. You haven’t given anything to Cruz and your posts show it. Stop insulting the people on FR.
AS for me, I have done my fair share for Cruz and I will continue to do so. And, it is people like you, weak minded, that drive me to give more money and time to his campaign.
If you are such a fair weather supporter, we don’t want you in the trenches. Go vote for Hillary...or better yet, Jeb needs people like you.
The irony behooves you and the other Cruz haters.
Ironic indeed complaining about Ted Cruz’s supporters on a Ted Cruz thread, but yet you and other’s are here disparaging Ted Cruz and his supporters.
I did not know that the confederate flag was a GOP symbol
It’s sad, tragic, unfortunate of what happened in S.C.
And still ? the media and the race huslers dont bat a eye at the 40+ that were murdered in Baltimore in the month of May or this past weekend up in Chicago.
Why does the flag of these liberal cities drip red ?
I will not , and neither should Ted Cruz comment on the Confederate flag of S.C. as long as the flags of these liberals cities drip red of blacks being killed everyday in these lineral cities day in and day out.
2nd Division Vet ?
Ted Cruz campaign ?
No candidate, no one should answer to the question of the Confederate Flag, that is a side issue.
What happened in S.C. sad, tragic, unfortunate.
But yet ? The media, the race huslers don’t bat a eye of what is going on every day, day in day out in our liberal cities of the murders going on daily.
The 40+ murders in Baltimore in May, to the violent weekend this past weekend in Chicago.
Thanks.
I wish Booker T had been our first black President!
May be hard for some brains to digest, but sometimes a "it should be up to the State to decide" is a perfectly legitimate answer. His actual thoughts on whether or not he supports the Confederate flag have no bearing on the issue any more than a rabid Leftist that hates guns has no useful thoughts to add - the Constitution has spoken.
Eat more fish - it might make a few more synapses connect.
9 people dead and they are focusing on a flag
MEME ALERT! MEME ALERT!
“I’ve given hundreds of dollars to Cruz.”
Wow, I’ve only seen THAT dozens of times from trolls. Get some originality.
Still, I do envy your cozy job. Must be nice to be a professional internet troll.
Actually, the confederate flag was a Southern Democrat symbol!
Professional troll? Seriously. I’m not and never have been. I previously supported Cruz, now sit back to watch the field for the moment as I don’t like what I’ve been reading and seeing. Is your best response to make unfounded accusations? Show some proof to your claim. Where am I paid? By whom? Else, I suggest you apologize and engage in meaningful discussion instead of baseless, false claims and rude responses, even if inconvenient.
The pagan politics guy?
Hrafnkell Haraldsson
A 53-year-old Heathen, author of A Heathen's Day (aheathensday.com) and Digital Gods (digital-gods.com) and founder of Mos Maiorum Foundation (www.mosmaiorum.org) dedicated to the study of Paganism as ethnic religion. He is also a contributor to PoliticusUSA (politicususa.com) and GodsOwnParty (godsownparty.com/blog).
Maybe he carries a lot of weight up in Asgard, Jotunheim, Svartalfheim and the other five worlds, but in ours, he's less than nobody.
So long as Heimdall keeps the Bifrost closed, I don't think we have to worry about Hrafnkell.
I KNOW YOU ARE BUT WHAT AM I.
Oops, sorry. It’s just that when I encounter immature comments, I am compelled to engage in a contest of immaturity. Except I don’t get paid for it.
Actions speak louder than words, and your actions are of that of hired trolls. Therefore, I am perfectly comfortable of accusing you of such and refusing to apologize.
Na na na boo boo.
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