“The purge of Southern heritage continues”
There will be no purge now any more than after the Civil War. Admitting defeat, surrender, in no way can change the heart felt ideals held by free men.
Politicians that mistakenly think that they are winning are only stoking fires that won’t be soon put out. I, myself, twenty years ago, never thought of the Confederate flag in reference to slavery. It stood for a people who were willing to walk head on into enemy gunfire to defend their freedom from a tyrannical government.
The people who are doing this just aren’t smart enough to know that those who do such things will come to justice, although it be long delayed. The South surrendered but never died, and it won’t now either. These acts just make the resolve stronger, the ties more enduring, and the reasons the South had for going to war in the first place a lot clearer.
One of my ancestors fought under Washington at Trenton. Another was a PFC in the Confederate Army. Neither men owned slaves. In fact, one was adamantly opposed to slavery. The one who fought for the Confederacy never owned a slave and I don’t know of any of my ancestors who did.
To me the flag has always represented a people standing up to a tyrannical government. The first ancestor fought against the tyranny of England. The second fought against the tyranny of the U.S. federal government.