Flag coming down

[sanford12]

What's unbelievable is that the confederate flags were aloud to fly at all after the defeat of the south. There is no justification for these flags to fly when we all know what they represented no matter how their supporters try to spin it. Correspondence from Jefferson Davis and the Confederate Constitution both say why the war was fought and slavery was the foremost reason.

I don't know how The Big Lebowski got into this but that's one of Jeff's best roles along with The Fabulous Baker Boy's, Tucker and The Fisher King

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by sanford12

What's unbelievable is that the confederate flags were aloud to fly at all after the defeat of the south.

The right of an individual to display the Confederate battle flag or the Hakenkreuz or the ISIL Black Standard or any other odious symbol, without governmental interference, is guaranteed under the 1st Amendment as it pertains to freedom of expression. You may not like it (I don't) but, actually, that's the point. The 1st Amendment isn't really necessary to protect self-expression that everyone approves of.

I don't know, really, whether its official use by states like South Carolina or, even more reprehensibly, by Georgia and Mississippi, where flags of the former Confederacy are incorporated into their actual state flags, is similarly protected. I suspect it might be but, to my untrained mind, the issue is less clear-cut. Perhaps Don will chime in on that point.

[d-ray657]

Originally Posted by Boreas

The right of an individual to display the Confederate battle flag or the Hakenkreuz or the ISIL Black Standard or any other odious symbol, without governmental interference, is guaranteed under the 1st Amendment as it pertains to freedom of expression. You may not like it (I don't) but, actually, that's the point. The 1st Amendment isn't really necessary to protect self-expression that everyone approves of.

I don't know, really, whether its official use by states like South Carolina or, even more reprehensibly, by Georgia and Mississippi, where flags of the former Confederacy are incorporated into their actual state flags, is similarly protected. I suspect it might be but, to my untrained mind, the issue is less clear-cut. Perhaps Don will chime in on that point.

I think the courts would view it as a political question. I doubt any efforts under take a treason prosecution against public officials responsible for displaying the flag would get very far. Frankly, I have never researched the question of federal limitations on expression by state officials. It would not be covered by the First Amendement (except to the extent that public officials were acting in their private capacity), but it would raise questions of federalism. It would seem to me that the symbols that a state chooses to display are matters "deeply rooted in local concern" (which one of the tests for determining federal preemption of state laws). While the First Amendment prohibition on the implementation of a state church has limited public religious displays, it would be a stretch to extend the Thirteenth Amendment to the extent that it prohibits state display of symbols associated with the past practice of slavery. But whether it is advisable or appropriate to do so is a political question.

Clearly, the states could not get by with a law requiring private exhibition of the confederate flag. That would be a First Amendment free speech issue.

Regards,

D-Ray

[bobabode]

Originally Posted by Boreas

The right of an individual to display the Confederate battle flag or the Hakenkreuz or the ISIL Black Standard or any other odious symbol, without governmental interference, is guaranteed under the 1st Amendment as it pertains to freedom of expression. You may not like it (I don't) but, actually, that's the point. The 1st Amendment isn't really necessary to protect self-expression that everyone approves of.

I don't know, really, whether its official use by states like South Carolina or, even more reprehensibly, by Georgia and Mississippi, where flags of the former Confederacy are incorporated into their actual state flags, is similarly protected. I suspect it might be but, to my untrained mind, the issue is less clear-cut. Perhaps Don will chime in on that point.

Ayup. I kinda like it when the knuckledragging Neanderthal idjits fly whatever flag that floats their boat. It makes 'em easy to identify.

We've got a guy in our neighborhood who flies Old Glory from his old pick up truck with a banner that says, "Custer Had It Coming" . Must be Sioux or Cheyenne, I'd like to buy that guy a beer and shoot the breeze.

[icenine]

Originally Posted by sanford12

What's unbelievable is that the confederate flags were aloud to fly at all after the defeat of the south. There is no justification for these flags to fly when we all know what they represented no matter how their supporters try to spin it. Correspondence from Jefferson Davis and the Confederate Constitution both say why the war was fought and slavery was the foremost reason.

I don't know how The Big Lebowski got into this but that's one of Jeff's best roles along with The Fabulous Baker Boy's, Tucker and The Fisher King

One must remember that although slavery was the cause of the Civil War,
many in the North were still racists. If you watch the movie Gangs Of New York with Brian DeCaprio it has a pretty graphic part where it shows whites killing black because of opposition to the Union draft (IIRC) in New York City during the war. This really happened. The opposition to slavery ran the whole gamut from those who saw it as morally evil to those who only opposed it from an economic or disengaged point of view. My impression is that in 19th Century America the William Lloyd Garrisons and John Browns were certainly in the minority.

[sanford12]

There are always racist everywhere but the fact the most escaped slaves fled north just enforces the fact that it was there that the anti slavery movement took hold and prospered. My parents are both from Tennessee and all my recent ancestry is from the south. I was stationed in Texas and lived for a short while in Louisiana. Racism is much more entrenched and tolerated even today in the south. The only person who ever threatened me and my family was from the same state as my parents and it was over my liberal anti racist views. I have no sympathy for that portion of the southern population. They are no better than terrorist's anywhere and maybe worse.

[Tom Joad]

After Roof is executed I think a great big Confederate Flag should be erected over his grave as a reminder of just what that flag stands for.

[donquixote99]

Originally Posted by Tom Joad

After Roof is executed I think a great big Confederate Flag should be erected over his grave as a reminder of just what that flag stands for.

No no no no no!

Any such use would, in the minds of the dixie cultured, just honor it and him.

Roof should be cremated (before witnesses), and his ashed flushed down the crapper.

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by donquixote99

No no no no no!

Any such use would, in the minds of the dixie cultured, just honor it and him.

Roof should be cremated (before witnesses), and his ashed flushed down the crapper.

Interred at the Charleston Slave Mart.

("Mart"...... How quaint.)

[Tom Joad]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/us...-job.html?_r=0

A little after 8 a.m. on Wednesday, on the grounds of the Alabama State Capitol, where in 1861 Jefferson Davis was sworn in as president of the Confederacy and where, more than a century later, George Wallace was snarling about segregation forever, workers quietly took down the battle flag at the Confederate memorial. Before the morning was over, they would take down three other flags of the Confederacy and even uproot the flagpoles.

By the time they had finished their work, Gov. Robert Bentley, who had ordered the removals the previous afternoon, was in a small town in the state’s northern hills to make an announcement. Google was coming to Alabama, building a $600 million data center to be powered completely by renewable energy.

“We have so many premier automobile and aerospace industries in the state, and I want this progress to continue,” the governor said in an interview. “I don’t want anything to be a distraction to my ability to recruit jobs.”

He continued, “A flag is not worth a job.”