OP: This is a great link to explain the issues: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/09/brad-paisley-and-the-politics-of-offense-and-offense-taking/279870/
"Nothing is changed by banishing the Confederate Flag out of a desire to be polite or inoffensive. The Confederate Flag should not die because black people have come to feel a certain way about their country, it should die when white people come to feel a certain way about themselves. It can't be for me. It has to be for you." |
People are, of course, free to debate whether the Confederate flag represents racism. However, it is indisputable that the Confederacy was, for its entire existence, an enemy of the United States of America. Therefore, flying its flag is akin to flying a Nazi flag or the flag of another entity that was always an enemy of the U.S.
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Southerners like to promote revisionist history, calling it the "War of Northern Aggression" when in fact it was the South who first used violence, with its attack on Fort Sumter - They love to say it wasn't about slavery but instead it was about states' rights - omitting the fact that the "right" they were arguing over was the right to keep slaves, and they love to claim that slavery was on its way out in the south anyhow when in fact what it came to blows over was a dispute over whether slavery should be allowed to be expanded into the westward territories as they got statehood. Fact is, the Confederate flag is as intractably linked to slavery as the Nazi flag is linked to the genocide of Jews during the holocaust. |
That doesn't excuse the state of Mississippi's flag. That is government, not a private display. |
I'm from the Deep South, have always been grossed out by them, and don't get the "southern pride" aspect of them. I know almost immediately I'm going to have virtually nothing in common with someone who thinks the confederate flags is worth flying. |
flag, not flags. |
+1. Everyone knows what the Confederate flag stands for. |
I am a proud descendant of confederate veterans. My father proudly displayed our confederate battle flag in Vietnam. The confederate flag fills me with pride in my region. I don't care what you have to say otherwise. |
The confederate battle flag has been proudly displayed by U.S. Service men in every major conflict since the civil war. |
Where?! Not in the armed forces! |
And not by any US service man I ever had the privilege of serving with in the US Army. You will NEVER see any Confederate Flag flying above any US base in the world. |
Not above a base of course. That's just dumb, though I believe one was flown in ww2 over a Japanese island |
Don't need to go to the deep south. We them at OBX and we see them at the Eastern Shore every time we go. |
And I see them in the redneck havens of south central PA, quite often. |
I'm a proud descendant of Scotland, and I'm happy to wear my family tartan, but I don't fly the Scottish flag at my house. |