(OR: Do you really understand this flag?)
If the destruction of ancient monuments and works of art, by ISIS in Iraq and Syria, disturbs you, so should the destruction of the Confederate Flag. We are talking about taking down and hiding a bit of history. The flag in question was never the flag of the Confederate States. It was a flag specially designed for their troops to take on to the battle field. The purpose was to identify enemy from friend. It represented our brothers and sisters serving their duty to a government that existed 150 years ago. It was and is a battle flag, much like a Navy ensign flying from the bridge of our naval ships.
The flag flying in South Carolina, was never the flag of the Confederacy. Never, at that time, was it a flag of one of the States making up the Confederacy. The Confederacy had only two national flags. The first was called the Stars and Bars. It had a blue corner, like the American flag, with 7 stars in a circle. The rest of it was two horizontal red bars separated by a white bar in the center. In 1863 this flag was discontinued with a new design called the “Stainless Banner”, which was white with the upper inside corner showing a replica of the battle flag.
The Battle Flag never represented Slavery. It represented the troops of the Armies fighting for their view of States rights. Slavery was just one of the issues that caused the Southern States to decide the only way to protect their rights from the aggressive North was to leave the Union. Yes, the Northern States, being industrialized, had an entirely different agenda than the agricultural South. Both the north and south bear responsibility for the hatred between the two sides. The first conflict of that costly war was in South Carolina, where Confederate troops attempted to remove a U.S. Garrison at Fort Sumter. Thereafter the new American president, Abraham Lincoln, called up 75,000 troops to stop the Rebellion. The South called it a succession for State rights.
Right or wrong, the flag should not be a symbol. It is a simple battle flag. To those ignorant of history it is a symbol of Slavery. To say that, exposes a weak mind. It is not fact. Rooster loves history and wants to preserve every bit of it, good or bad. To hide it is to destroy it. To do so ranks at the top of stupidity. What is considered bad today, might not be tomorrow and so it goes. Point is to destroy history is to destroy tools of education.
If the Civil War battle flag, should symbolize anything today, it is not Slavery. It is States’ Rights. The real issue is not a memory of Slavery. It is the threat of States once again deciding it is better to be free than put up with the National agenda. In other words those who want to continue the power of United States, , cannot afford to have States departing on their whim. The issue of Slavery is as dead as the flag in reality. The issue of separation for any reason is the fear of hand wringing iconoclasts.
Back to the issue of simple history. Destroying History has unfortunately been the bane of humanity since we began to socialize. Destruction and obliteration of the enemy, and the history of its existence, has been routine. Look at what the Allies did to Europe in the Second war. Look what Hitler did to London. One can even argue the extinction of the Neantherdal by the Homo sapiens is part of the same. Today Europe destroys evidence of Hitler, and forbids anyone to talk about the Nazi regime (A form of socialism). That is wrong headed. Also it clearly is a denial of free speech. It would be better to talk about it, and to hold its monuments as evidence of wrong doing than to scorch the earth and leave nothing to use as teaching tools for the next generation that comes along.
Destruction is the tool of fools. Let us try to rise above such nonsense.
PROTEST: FLY THE BETSY ROSS FLAG. It is the one flag where all the States supported the Constitution.
Wc 712
Rooster Bradford, gives up all rights to this article and seeks no compensation for its use. 2015