Free Republic

Ringgold City Council is facing potential legal action based on its 2005 decision to remove the Confederate Battle Flag from the Ringgold Depot Civil War Memorial. The Southern Legal Resource Center notified the city Feb. 11 by letter from SLRC chief trial counsel Kirk D. Lyons that it will face legal action unless it replaces the battle flag within 10 days. According to Roger McCredie, Southern Legal Resource Center executive director, the letter puts the city on notice that its clients, the Georgia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and its local Joseph McConnell Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp...

Have you noticed there are questions liberals are seldom asked that conservatives always are, and vice versa? Democrats are very seldom grilled about their abortion views, while Republicans are required to defend them. And it would appear every four years, Republican presidential candidates are called upon to answer for that South Carolina "solidarity" flag which includes the brand of the confederacy.

The Rev. Al Sharpton released a statement Friday chastising one “John Huckabee” for saying South Carolina should be able to decide whether it wants to fly the Confederate flag. Of course he meant Mike Huckabee — the GOP candidate who on the campaign trail Thursday said outsiders should not tell South Carolina what to do when it comes to that flag. Either way, as the controversy of race settles on the Democratic side, Sharpton said Republican Huckabee is now offending the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. “In the midst of a national celebration of the life and teachings of...

In its anti-McCain ad, an announcer states: "Mitt Romney is trying, but when it comes to bashing the Confederate flag he can't hold a candle to John McCain. McCain's been doing it - calling the flag a racist symbol - for years." Both minute-long spots go on to applaud Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, saying he is more in tune with Southern values.

Some students want the school administration to ban the Confederate battle flag outright, even if its presence is mainly limited at this point to small decals, belt buckles or cell phone screens kept by a small number of students... Senior Megan Allen said she's gotten about 300 of the school's roughly 1,500 students and about 20 teachers to sign her petition calling for school officials to ban the flag on campus,

The Republican presidential candidates on Thursday moved to appeal to different types of conservative voters before the South Carolina primary, with Mike Huckabee using colorful language to declare the Confederate flag a states’ rights issue and Senator John McCain embracing a supply-side tax cut proposal. “You don’t like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag,” Mr. Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, told supporters in Myrtle Beach, according to The Associated Press. “In fact,” he said, “if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we’d...

-- And Hitting McCain A pro-Confederate Flag third-party group is running new radio ads in South Carolina praising Mike Huckabee's pro-state's-rights stance on the flag issue -- and slamming John McCain over his repeated criticism of the controversial symbol. "Mike Huckabee's stand is a breath of fresh air," say the ads, which are paid for by the Americans for the Preservation of American Culture. "Gov. Huckabee understands that all the average guy with a Confederate Flag on his pickup truck is saying is: He's proud to be a Southerner." McCain has been dogged by the flag issue in South Carolina...

The little known holiday is fine with some Tennesseans, but others don't think the government should still officially honor the Confederate Army General.

The president of the western York County NAACP chapter wants a flag that pays homage to the Confederate flag removed from in front of a downtown business...A flag that is half South Carolina state flag and half Confederate flag flying next to the U.S. flag at Exchange Publishers in downtown York.

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (CNN) – Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee criticized the Confederate flag, which happens to be hoisted on the Statehouse grounds in the early primary state of South Carolina. [snip] Both candidates are front-runners in South Carolina. Both may have to answer questions about those comments next time they hit the state. [end]

COCOA BEACH, Fla. -- Students at Cocoa Beach Jr./Sr. High School are waging a war on peace. Recently, sophomore Skylar Stains decided to hold Peace Shirt Thursdays at the school. Skylar and her friend, Lauren Lorraine, started wearing peace shirts and soon recruited more friends to wear them. Now, the "Peace Shirt Coalition" as they call themselves, has close to 30 students from all grades. "We've worn handmade peace shirts every Thursday since the first week of school, without fail," Skylar said. But what started out as a light-hearted gesture soon started to be taken out of context. Students started...

A coffee mug used by Department of Public Safety Commissioner John A. Danaher III showing the Confederate flag in a Civil War battle has angered black leaders who said it was insensitive to display a symbol of hate, particularly when the state police have been under fire for complaints of racism. The issue arose Wednesday night after the NAACP met with members of the Commission on African American Affairs to discuss how to address recent allegations of rampant racism within the state police and state Department of Correction. The African American Affairs Commission is a group of citizens appointed by...

The Confederate battle flag used to hang in the old House chamber...next to the speaker's chair with the flags of Virginia, the United States... The battle flag is also a symbol of hatred and racism...Racism and slavery now are inextricably interwoven into the battle flag's fabric...The flag also symbolizes rebellion, insurrection and even treason.

A Confederate flag, in part anyway, is an emblem of slavery and thus racism. If we have not been upset or bothered by the marketing of a racist symbol at the county-owned fairground, perhaps that tells us something about ourselves.

Nearly 150 years after the Civil War ended and approaching a decade after it was moved from the State House dome to a memorial at the intersection of Main and Gervais streets, the Confederate battle flag continues to influence the sporting life of South Carolina.

...he was stunned to see two large Confederate flags flying from trucks...emblazoned with the words "The South Shall Rise Again." I'm stunned, too, that people still think it is cool to fly this flag. Our society should bury these flags -- not flaunt them...because the Confederate flag symbolizes racial tyranny to so many... ...This flag doesn't belong on city streets, in videos or in the middle of civil discussion. It belongs in our past -- in museums and in history books -- along with the ideas it represents.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/fp/flashPollResultsState?pollId=44465

Political considerations color the divergent views of presidential candidates on whether the Confederate flag should be moved from the State House grounds. For Republicans competing in the Feb. 2, 2008, GOP primary, where white voters will hold sway, the flag is a state issue that the candidates are not eager to discuss. On the Democratic side, where half or more of the voters in the Jan. 29, 2008, primary will be black residents, candidates have no qualms about calling for the flag’s removal. “Each side is playing to its basic constituency,” said Blease Graham, a political science professor at USC....

ORANGEBURG, S.C. — Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that South Carolina should remove the Confederate flag from its Statehouse grounds, in part because the nation should unite under one banner while at war.

Clinton Objects to Confederate Flag Feb 19 4:25 PM US/Eastern By JIM DAVENPORT Associated Press Writer ORANGEBURG, S.C. (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that South Carolina should remove the Confederate flag from its Statehouse grounds, in part because the nation should unite under one banner while at war. "I think about how many South Carolinians have served in our military and who are serving today under our flag and I believe that we should have one flag that we all pay honor to, as I know that most people in South Carolina do every single...