by RaeLynn Ricarte
The response by the Left to a murderous rampage committed by a sociopath is predictable —use the moment to further the gun control agenda or stir up racial disharmony to get more minority voters to the polls.
In the latest incident, the fact that a Confederate flag was shown behind Dylann Storm Roof, who shot nine innocent black members of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., became the object to stir the racial pot.
Instead of focusing on the evil done by Roof, who identified as a racist, the Left and some spineless Republicans are now intent on making sure the Confederate Flag isn’t on display anywhere except a museum.
Folks, the flag is not the problem. What should be of real concern here is the fact that mass shootings are on the rise even as violence in America has declined over the past couple of decades.
In every school shooting, and now one targeting a church congregation, the person behind the violence had a history of abnormal thinking or, in many cases, had been diagnosed with a mental illness. The number of mass killings began spiking in 1980 and public health professionals are speculating that one high level act of murder might inspire another because of the resulting publicity.
Instead of following the example of Charleston church members, who united in their grief, politicians used the tragedy to further racial divide. The discussion about the Confederate flag should center on its ties to a rebellion that almost destroyed the U.S.
Thirteen southern states seceded from the Union after declaring in 1860 that federal legislation limiting the expansion of slavery violated state sovereignity granted by the 10th Amendment.
Few southerners who fought in the war owned slaves, and many soldiers in the Union army came from slave-owning families.
The Civil War was fought to stop states from being able to withdraw from the Union whenever there was a disagreement about federal authority.
President Lincoln did not issue the Emancipation Proclamation until Jan. 1, 1863, more than one and a half years after the war started, because freeing slaves was not his first priority.
The Confederate flag should not fly today because 630,000 soldiers -— nearly 2 percent of the total population — died or were injured in that terrible and unjust cause.
The American flag is the proper symbol to represent a united nation.
by Mark Gibson
There are those who claim the Confederate battle flag, and indeed the Civil War, was more about state rights then race. Race, say some, was incidental to the greater issue of federal power.
Yet, as Ta-Nehesi Coates wrote in The Atlantic, the Confederate flag is a symbol of a culture that was not just accidentally racist — racism was baked into the very purpose of secession.
In support he quotes the 1861 “Corner Stone” speech by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens, explaining the purposes of the Confederacy:
“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; 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.
“This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”
Arguments for the display of the battle flag today focus not on race, but those who died fighting under that flag in the Civil War that began in 1861.
For example, the flag now flying on the state grounds in South Carolina no longer waves over the capitol dome itself, but nearby at the Confederate Soldiers’ Monument on the Statehouse grounds.
It is not the only controversial flag to be flown in the United States; the gay pride “rainbow” flag was at times reviled, although it is now displayed with pride by many, regardless of their sexual preference.
Flying a flag, controversial or not, is correctly viewed as an American right of free speech.
The swastika isn't illegal in the U.S., like it is in Europe, but it's offensive and immoral and we the people have largely banished it from America by popular consent.
The Confederate flag is equally offensive: That a state should fly a flag widely adopted as a symbol of racial bigotry and hatred is unsupportable and it should be removed.
Surely those veterans who died believing said flag was worth dying for could be honored in some other way.
Like the swastika, Americans should ban the Confederate flag not in the canons of law — the freedom of speech is by far the greater truth — but by popular consent.
“We the people” are one people, of many races and creeds, but united under the simple truth that all men are created equal.
We should let no flag symbolizing a contrary truth fly uncontested.
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