General News South Carolina votes to take Confederate flag down

Why did it take so long for the flag to come down? Pretty sad that it took a tragedy to make people think differently about the flag and now everyone's trying to be politically correct and want it to be banned everywhere.

 

This vote has been long overdue because too many people see past the racist history of this flag, and only see what they were told as kids, that it was about "southern pride and heritage". Like a Republican House Representative who went and said she was a descendent of Jefferson Davis, but it wasn't about her or her heritage, it was about the people of South Carolina, and that flag had to come down. It's sad that it takes tragedy to make many people see the ugly truth behind something, but that's just how it goes sometimes, and it's better late than never that this happened. Seeing these votes however, I'm glad I was always on the side of taking this symbol of hatred down off the Capitol Grounds, and I believe I and my parents even signed onto a petition back in 2010 to have Governor Haley take a definitive stance on taking it down. I'm also very glad I had three American History and Government teachers (one a liberal Democrat, one a moderate, and one a conservative Republican) who all agreed and taught that that specific flag was a symbol of hate and racism, and taught the true history behind it. When it comes to the flag being banned in public, that's just absurd, because in the public domain citizens have reasonable rights to free speech, so it will not be banned. I would however really appreciate if many people got rid of their flags on their own, especially in wake of this vote that proves many people now see it as a sign of hate and oppression.

 

150 years past due...

 

Well it's about time!!!

 

Personally, I'm pretty happy about this. Like others have said before, it's really about time!

 

It is not going to solve anything, and the belief that it will is very stupid.

You can ban all of the symbols that you want to, but racism continues to become a more serious issue in this country, including in Maryland, which I remind you sided with the Union. The belief that this will do anything to resolve the problems of our time is misguided. The gesture is an empty one.

 

Yep, it seems like anything that resembles the Confederacy at all has got to be banned. It's also funny because some of the stores that banned the Confederate flag because of the shooting don't seem to have a problem selling Nazi merchandise. Since those companies stopped selling the flags, it's almost impossible to find it anywhere else online and some websites are sold out of everything. I've got no problem if people want the flag to be off government property (I actually agree with 'em too) but now it's getting way out of hand and companies are jumping on that bandwagon because of PC.

As for me, I'll proudly wave that flag around. I understand the dark history behind it and the motives that flag once carried but to me, it's a symbol of southern pride. I know the majority of people won't agree with me but that's how I see it (and no, I'm not racist).

 

To me, it is no better than the Stars and Stripes, and it is no worse. I despise symbols.

The reason that I have contempt for the entire "debate" is that one side expects me to have a romantic attachment to a "South" that never existed. There is not even a truly unified culture in the Old North State. The other side expects me to be full of "pride" over a country that routinely starts deadly wars and is generally a cause for political upset and drama throughout the world, and I blame them for much of the unnecessary violence of the War of Northern Aggression, in which many members of my family were slaughtered. The Yankee government has no more meaning to me than the Confederate government, which was every bit as much of a menace to my family as the Union were. Both governments were built on corruption, iniquity and lies.

Neither flag is fit to be disposed of by burning.

 

About time the flag came down.

 

Am I the only one who is really sick of hearing about this? .-.

 

I never really thought about the flag because I lived in the South and my family is full of proud Southerners... in school we were taught that the North lied about the war being about slavery, that they were a bunch of yellow-bellies who cheated their way to victory, and that Robert E. Lee surrendered because he didn't want to lose any more men...

This really made me think about a lot of things and yeah, this really should be in a museum rather than on public grounds.

 

WOW. They taught you that in school??? I live in the North, and we were taught that while the North didn't "make" the war about slavery until halfway a through, it was still a big thing. And when we were learning about battles, our teacher always respected the southerner's strategies and losses.

 

I think this guy gets it right:

from Clickhole:

I Used To Defend The Confederate Flag But Now I Am Taking Scuba Diving Lessons

 

Okay, you know how I said that this little gesture was not going to do what advocates of it thought it was going to do.

Alright, it's not that I care anything about that damn flag. I have wanted to deflate the tires of every truck that I have ever seen that had one, not because I thought that person was a racist...but because of everything that it actually stands for, which I hate just as much as I do racism. I am a gay liberal anti-gun garbage-recycling atheist who owns two cats, okay?

However...I know southerners of the type that have an ongoing love-affair with it. I know how boneheaded they actually are. You must not underestimate how boneheaded they are.

You have offended the sacred cow of these stupid savages, and I have to live around them, alright?

Pro-Confederate demonstrators meet with guns in hand

The flag does not represent racism, down here. It represents everything else that is wrong with the South. You just made the damn thing trendy again, just when it was on its way to peacefully dying out of its own accord. You have, in these people's minds, fired the first shot of Civil War II, and, and they are going to cry about this one just as long as they did the last one. There is nothing that a professional Southerner likes more than he does a grudge. It is like a religious experience for them.

Have fun.

 

We'll be waiting for them at the Potomac.

And like last time, they're still going to lose.

 

I believe more and more in the cause of having this flag removed from public display.

"Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition."

-Alexander Stephens, vice-president of the Confederacy (1861).

And yet people will still continue to claim that racism and slavery had nothing to do with secession and formation of the Confederacy.

Bull. Shit.

 

Yeah, the Confederate flag is all about "Southern pride and heritage" when the Ku Klux Klan shows up to protest its removal.

 

Most of these responses makes me sad. I get that you despise the Confederate flag and what it supposedly stands for (to a lot of people that would be racism) and that's great but don't just assume that's the ONLY reason for people waving that flag. That flag has a different meaning to different people, there's not just one reason for people waving it.

It all comes down to the individual and what they see in the flag, not you. Don't tell me what my flag can and can't stand for, don't impose your views on me and tell me that's the only correct way. Just because YOU see racism in it, doesn't mean that I do.