Posted on 03/12/2003 9:32:49 AM PST by Phlap
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - A former city worker who was fired for refusing to remove a Confederate flag license plate from his truck is suing the city of Tampa.
In a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday, Larry A. Carpenter, 47, said his First Amendment right to free speech was violated when he was fired over the dispute.
Carpenter was ordered in January 2002 to remove the license plate or park his truck off city property. He refused to do either, was cited for insubordination and was fired from his job as a traffic maintenance specialist in the Public Works Department.
Carpenter's attorney, J. Benton Stewart II, said his client, a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, is proud of his heritage and merely wants the city to develop a written policy that is uniformly applied.
Stewart said other city workers who drive vehicles with bumper stickers bearing political slogans and offensive statements are allowed to park on city property.
Messages left with City Attorney Jim Palermo were not immediately returned. Carpenter declined to comment on the lawsuit Wednesday.
It is a totally modern deconstruction technique that unfortunately gains sympathizers. All some ONE has to do is complain about feeling threatened, the entire rest of the population must stop in concerned horror. Lets get real.
As long as "they" want to make it an issue, it will be a symbol, not of slavery and "hatred"[which says more about the user of that term than the subject of that term] but of free expression and individuality.
So....your dad was a war hero, eh? Just like you have Confederate ancestors.......right? You're so full of crap it's coming out your ears. If you want to see what my father did during the war you can check my homepage. BTW....what unit did YOU serve with? .....or were you too busy marching with MLK to bother with the military?
I still say you're a liar and a Coward.
Are you supportive of cultural relativism? Just curious.
I agree wholeheartedly.
That is why I believe that military symbols such as the Confederate Battle Flag should be vigorously defended against any political misuse by race baiters and hate mongers of either color.
A loathsome misuse of the Confederate Battle Flag can be found here: Ku Klux Klan...The flag of the South is now the flag of World Wide White unity!
The use of the Confederate Battle Flag by hate groups and racist politicians, be they white or black, is a slap in the face to the valient men who died under that banner and should be condemned as strenuously as the misuse of Old Glory by those same hate groups.
Once we allow the hate mongers to define the symbolism of our History, they win.
I guess that answers my question. Pathetic.
Wait a minute, I thought you were talking about the Confederacy, now you're describing life for blacks in the north. Or have you forgotten the Draft Riots of 1863 where blacks were hung by whites angered at fighting for the northern tyrant and his tariff war, the abolitionists hung or tarred and feathered in the north that even suggested equal rights for blacks. As for drinking fountains, I suggest you look to the 'land of lincoln' that wouldn't even allow blacks to live in the state after 1853 or Oregon that banned blacks in their constitution in 1859 among other northern states that gave made Jim Crow laws look tame.
That's some of the factual evidence not discussed in classrooms isn't it? That's some of the evidence that doesn't paint the all holy d#mn north in the best of lights isn't it? Face it, the facts are covered up to protect the myth of a man that went to war for one reason and one reason only. To gain his tariff monies he felt due to him
Voting rights? What voting rights? Many northern states refused to admit the existence of blacks let alone give them voting rights!! Perhaps you could explain why in 1860, 237654 free blacks continued to live in the Southern states or states loyal to the Confederate cause while in your all holy north only 240967 blacks lived in states loyal to the union during the war. Surely, if life was so hard down here and free blacks were treated so badly, then they all would have gone north. Of course we're not considering that in some cities (i.e. Charleston) blacks owned a large amount of property and (I know this is blaspheme to your idol) even rented out housing to whites. The facts are there in the historical record. But again, keep going on the koolaid. It's not helping, but it will help you ignore factual evidence
May God bless HK Edgerton (former NAALCP leader) and all he does for our continued fight
My dad also has four Confederate veteran great grandfathers. He and I have both attended a lot of reenactments, battlefield rides and walkovers, etc. etc. The battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia is part of that history.
Once you start excising history because somebody, somewhere, claims they are "offended", you are going to put us in the position of the editors of the Large Soviet Encyclopedia, who would periodically send out razor blades and new pages with instructions to replace articles that had come to "offend" the powers that were.
It also occurs to me that much of the agitation against the battle emblem has not been done in good faith. For example, the situation in S. Carolina. The NAACP agreed to move the flag from the capitol to a nearby Confederate monument, then after they got what they wanted they started agitating to get it off state property altogether. Next little Tommy Daschle said the flag shouldn't fly anywhere in the United States (I believe he's backed off that but that's what he said initially before he was called on it). If they get rid of the flag, they'll start on Confederate monuments and statues (as they already have in Richmond VA).
It isn't about the Confederate flag - it's about a bunch of insecure, hateful race-baiters who will not be satisfied until every vestige of that time is removed except for THEIR version of events.
The Germans lost World War One but the German Air Force, to this day, has a fighter squadron named in honor of the Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen, Jagdgeschwader 71 "Richthofen".
Hell, we in America even named a pizza after him.
But why go so far away from home to find examples? Fort Benning, Fort Bragg and Fort Hood are all named in honor of Confederate warriors.
So was the USS Stonewall Jackson (SSBN-634)
Losing a war does not dimish the respect that is due an honorable warrior.
Xenophobe signed up 2003-03-10. Could be...
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