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Court to review Confederate flag on license plates [SCOTUS]
AP ^ | 12/05/2014 | Mark Sherman

Posted on 12/05/2014 12:28:05 PM PST by GIdget2004

The Supreme Court is taking on a free speech case over a proposed license plate in Texas that would feature the Confederate battle flag.

The case involves the government's ability to choose among the political messages it allows drivers to display on state-issued license plates.

The justices said Friday they will review a lower court ruling in favor of the Texas Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The group is seeking a specialty plate with its logo bearing the battle flag, similar to plates issued by several other states that were part of the Confederacy.

The case will be argued in March.

A state motor vehicle board rejected the application because of concerns the Confederate flag would offend many Texans who believe the flag is a racially charged symbol of repression. But a panel of federal appeals court judges ruled that the board's decision violated the group's First Amendment rights.

Texas offers more than 350 specialty plates, the group said in its court filing. They include plates that say "Choose Life," ''God Bless Texas," ''Fight Terrorism," as well as others in support of Boy Scouts, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, blood donations, pro sports teams and colleges.

The state said in its Supreme Court appeal that the decision to reject the Sons of Confederate Veterans' license plate was not discrimination because the motor vehicle board had not approved a license plate expressing any view about the Confederacy or the battle flag.

Other federal appeals courts have come to differing conclusions on the issue, the state said.

(Excerpt) Read more at bigstory.ap.org ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events; US: Texas
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To: SkyDancer
I always see people say that ignoring the 30 previous years of the southern states concerned about losing slavery and fighting to get slave states admitted with any free state. When Lincoln was elected 7 states succeeded before his inauguration. When you cite states rights, you are ignoring the second part of the equation. States rights.....................to retain slavery.
61 posted on 12/05/2014 3:16:51 PM PST by morphing libertarian (Defund , sue, impeach. Overturn Obamacare, amnesty.)
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To: WayneS

I’m in your camp on that one. It’s bad public policy to auction off any kind of advertising or political speech space on license plates — because they are inarguably official state documents. Whatever is depicted on them is a government endorsement of that idea.

Anyone who disagrees with that should try getting a plate with a religious symbol, or the Republican elephant or Democrat donkey. You can’t. Because it’s a government endorsement of those ideas.

But the government should be forced to fly the flag of the rebellion that cost hundreds of thousands of Americans their lives, because “free speech?” How about the flag of Japan? Or Germany?

There is no room in the United States for any flag but the American.


62 posted on 12/05/2014 3:17:34 PM PST by Blue Ink
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To: bigbob

They don’t want to offend anyone. Can’t you read? /s


63 posted on 12/05/2014 3:18:16 PM PST by VerySadAmerican
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To: morphing libertarian

You’re being too short sigted It was economics. The North was the industrial power, the South agricultural. You should read up on that and come back later. As I mentioned in previous posts, this Civil War stuff has been debated here on FR for months on end. It’s wearisome and tiresome to continue with it. The South lost for whatever. The North won and the Union was preserved. The South still had control over the blacks there and ran Segregation and whatever until the 1960’s. It’s over. Done. Merry Christmas.


64 posted on 12/05/2014 3:25:15 PM PST by SkyDancer (I Was Told Nobody Is Perfect But Yet, Here I Am)
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To: WayneS

The northerners werent fighting to prevent slavery. They fought for other reasons. Most of them probably couldnt have cared less about the slavery issue. Thats a fairy tell.


65 posted on 12/05/2014 3:25:42 PM PST by Carry me back
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To: WayneS

The northerners werent fighting to prevent slavery. They fought for other reasons. Most of them probably couldnt have cared less about the slavery issue. Thats a fairy tell.


66 posted on 12/05/2014 3:26:33 PM PST by Carry me back
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To: ohioman

I may be a native Californian, but my mother is a seventh generation Tennessean. I will stack the number of Confederate vets in my family tree against yours any day. Also my knowledge of that terrible war, why it was fought, and who benefited.

In many ways, the South has never recovered. It was folly then and it’s folly now to celebrate the traitors in power who took those farmers to be slaughtered by their own people. And who in turn killed so many of their own countrymen.

To fly that flag is shameful, although legal; to try to force the government of the AMERICAN state of Texas to fly it is the height of historical ignorance — and arrogance.


67 posted on 12/05/2014 3:30:53 PM PST by Blue Ink
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To: SkyDancer

I have read plenty, you can’t say it wasn’t about slavery. The fear of losing their assets caused the south to take every action in congress to ensure more slave states. Read up and get back to me.

Don’t need your 20th century history refresher, but thanx.


68 posted on 12/05/2014 3:32:08 PM PST by morphing libertarian (Defund , sue, impeach. Overturn Obamacare, amnesty.)
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To: WayneS

The ratification of the 14th Amendment was required in order for southern states to be readmitted to the union.

“The amendment was bitterly contested, particularly by Southern states, which were forced to ratify it in order for them to regain representation in Congress.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution


69 posted on 12/05/2014 3:47:49 PM PST by sergeantdave
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

Here are images of the specialty license plates.

http://txdmv.gov/motorists/license-plates/specialty-license-plates


70 posted on 12/05/2014 3:55:16 PM PST by deport
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To: SkyDancer

“The War of Secession is over.”

The idea of secession is in America’s blood. Thomas Jefferson outlined the proper conditions to engage the concept of secession against tyranny in the Declaration of Independence.


71 posted on 12/05/2014 4:01:03 PM PST by sergeantdave
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To: servantboy777
Good grief man, do your homework.

You mean they won?????

72 posted on 12/05/2014 4:01:44 PM PST by DoodleDawg
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To: Licensed-To-Carry
That should be the War of Northern Aggression.

Yeah. And World War II should be called War of Polish Aggression.

73 posted on 12/05/2014 4:04:19 PM PST by DoodleDawg
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To: morphing libertarian

Obviously public schooled. I was home schooled and not limited by liberal texts you may have read.


74 posted on 12/05/2014 4:05:59 PM PST by SkyDancer (I Was Told Nobody Is Perfect But Yet, Here I Am)
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To: thackney

I LOVE THEM! Now I wish I lived in Texas!


75 posted on 12/05/2014 4:16:32 PM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar (I survived I-35W through Fort Worth in Rush hour!)
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To: stevem
My favorite historical American is U.S. Grant.

You're welcome to him.

If Robert E. Lee had the access to the resources which Grant had, we would all be saying "Y'all" and drinking sweet tea.

76 posted on 12/05/2014 4:32:50 PM PST by stboz
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To: Blue Ink

“The losers in war do not get to dictate the terms of their surrender.”

Exactly.The Thadeus Stevens Congress in 1866 passed the first Reconstruction Act. That allowed the military to move into the Southern states and establish military governors - dictatorships.

(BTW, I’m quite impressed by the manner that Stevens stripped President Johnson of his title as Commander-in-Chief.)

The 1866 Reconstruction Act dictated to the southern states that they must vote “yea” for the 14th amendment in order to be allowed back in the Union.


77 posted on 12/05/2014 4:41:10 PM PST by sergeantdave
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To: SkyDancer

Third mistake so far. Perhaps your homeschooling was in the south where they fought so hard to keep owning people.


78 posted on 12/05/2014 5:56:22 PM PST by morphing libertarian (Defund , sue, impeach. Overturn Obamacare, amnesty.)
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To: morphing libertarian

Yankee, born in Brooklyn, NYC and now live in Washington state. Nice try. Bye.


79 posted on 12/05/2014 6:04:20 PM PST by SkyDancer (I Was Told Nobody Is Perfect But Yet, Here I Am)
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To: SkyDancer

Unusual that someone so ignorant of the political pressure from the southern state to maintain slavery was educated in the north. Just goes to show that hit and miss can happen even in homeschooling.


80 posted on 12/05/2014 6:22:39 PM PST by morphing libertarian (Defund , sue, impeach. Overturn Obamacare, amnesty.)
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