Both sides of my wife's family are SOUTHERN to the core. My wife has a rebel flag sticker on her mountainbike, and patches on her packs, and some shirts. She's about as far from racist as you can get. She has old pics of relatives that fought and a real company flag from another. Yellow and ragged, proudly displayed on our living room wall. We fly the Stars and Stripes everyday it's not raining at home and in camp. Southerners have been portrayed as ignorant, toothless, dimwitted, racists for many many years. We're in western NC right now and hear side remarks from tourists about brothers marrying sisters and beastiality regularly. I guess they think southerners are deaf too. What about THOSE offenses/slurs/insults/prejudices? Family will comment once maybe about the flag being removed and say it like they just tasted something bad., but they know who and what they are. And proud to be Southern.
Good points and the best point is that All racism comes from the parents and is taught at home. I come from a double sided family that can trace its roots from the south. One side was probably monied and arrived in Virgina shortly after the Mayflower. The other side escaped from the Southern Aggression of the English Empire in Scotland. Records prove that link and they arrived as freedom loving Scots only because they fought and escaped the slavery or death planned for them by the British Empire. Who owned slaves in my family? I've Not a clue and no records have been found one way or the other and it doesn't matter to me anyway. OUR ancestors lived in a different world and I am not responsible for their success or mistakes. GGP and GP were hard working farmers and business folks, living and moving ever westward. Time of the War of Northern Aggression found them beyond any states borders in what was to become SW Mo. As suggested by an experienced ancestry researcher I looked for records to find any affiliation some time back. I never found one sir name on any Northern Roles, this suggest that all my ancestors fought as Rebels or as Militia for the South. Along with my research I did find a Pay Slip for an ancestor from the Continental Army aka as the Rebels against the British Empire. This suggest that freedom runs in my veins. All that being said one might think I would be a Red Neck Racist, after all, to hear all the Star and Bar haters out there it's just the way it works. But I was raised by a family, in a striking lily white town, that did not teach racism, I went in the service where racism made no sense and you'd be in danger if you could not trusts your shipmates. In short I respect the Stars and Bars and the people who died to protect their perceived rights of the era and the senseless aggression brought on by the Northern Bankers of that era. The slave trade was already on the way out and the killings of the war just broke down the US into segmented group. Those same northern bankers supported the Slave Trade as did the British Empire in their trilateral trade routes, ship building of Black Bird slaves ships and the Caribbean sugar cane crops to and from Africa, the US (previously the American Colonies) and England. To do away with all displays of the Stars and Bars is a mistake and I'll not destroy my flag from my ancestors.
Has anybody explained the connection between the Confederate Flag and the shooting? Did the flag drive him to do it? Did he have it wrapped around him when he opened fire? I just don't see the connection.
Now NC is doing away with the Sons of the Confederacy registration plates. All I can say is come Hell or High water I shall not remove mine for love nor money.. We all love the stars and bars mine are just bent a little different
I had ancestors who fought under and died under that flag. It is a symbol of states rights, of resisting an overbearing federal government. It is not now nor never has been about slavery. Anyone who thinks that over 100,000 of the poorest Southerners gave their lives so that the wealthiest 3% could continue to own slaves is a special kind of stupid. Truth is hate, to those who hate the truth!
Well, the battle flag then maybe the good ol' stars and stripes this will wind up being the only flag approved by TPTB ultimately...... Well after the wash out the red splatter.
I completely agree, provided we start with Washington D.C. and clean out every federal building first. Then we can make a round of every branch of government before finally talking about hanging civilian criminals.
Smoke and mirrors. I will always identify the Stars and Bars as representative of a noble attempt at escaping the dominance of a industrial north, the beginning of the military industrial take over of our Republic. The people of the South fought for freedom from this institution. We were beaten into submission.Our flag and the the war had little to do with slavery, that propaganda has been used to death.
Ran into a former Marine who hails from Kentucky. He has a Confederate flag sticker on his vehicle. I pity anyone who tells him to take it off. In other news the remaking of history continues- ‘Gone with the Wind’ should go the way of the Confederate flag | New York Post
American, Texan, And by God Southern by birth. They will not be taking down ANY of my flags unless they come over my dead ass to get to them.
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free. Ronald Reagan
Over the last few days, I've spent entirely too much time reading about this travesty. All the "news" articles, blogs, commentary and that sort of stuff, and I've come up with a gazzillion reasons for letting the stars and bars, whether the battle flag or civilian version, to stay up or come down. Ya know what? The only illegitimate reason for taking it down is conflating the flag with slavery and/or white supremacy theory. It just ain't so, and never was. Effing whiny pee pants liberals.
Not having TV anymore, only saw a blip about this on Facebook, and here, and I really don't get why people are so gung-ho about taking it down. My opinion is that if you don't like the Confederate flag, don't have one. Otherwise, mind your own stinkin' business. Someone pointed out on Facebook that the people who are anti-Confederate flag are generally the same people who like having the (Communist) flag of China/Russia displayed.
You are indeed correct in that quote by Reagan. Ronald Reagan was spot on, in this and much else that he said.