From (for some bizarre reason) FoxSports, written by one Clay Travis and entitled, "On the Confederate Flag."
Travis begins:
Possibly I missed something, but in this writer's entire rant I never saw an effort to explain why it's important that the Confederate flag continue to fly over the South Carolina state house, or any acknowledgment of the arguments concerning why it is problematic to do so. Instead it suggests--actually, damn near says outright--that the arguments are focused on eliminating usage of the Confederate flag, period.
That's absurd. I would imagine that in the vastness of the Internet you can find someone advocating making the flag illegal, but no one I have seen is doing that. I think it is a matter of simple decency to remove the flag from a government facility that is supposed to represent every citizen in South Carolina, 30 percent of whom are African Americans, in most cases the descendants of slaves.
I think it is a matter of simple First Amendment rights to use the flag in non-government contexts: Civil War re-enactors, private homes, automobiles like the General Lee, even KKK rallies. Aside from re-enactors and other highly contextualized uses, know that you're going to offend a lot of people and some of them may tell you they're offended, but that's their First Amendment right. To paraphrase the author, Just when I think opinion pieces on this issue can't get any dumber, someone proves me wrong.
Travis begins:
Only in modern day America could a racist psychopath kill nine people in a Southern church and the focus turn to a flag. Only in modern day America could our nation's largest retailer, Wal Mart, announce -- to substantial applause -- that it will no longer sell merchandise featuring the Confederate flag, but will continue to permit any mentally ill nut on the street to walk into its store and buy as many guns and ammunition as he can afford.
Did I miss the part of this story... where Dylann [sic] Roof stabbed nine people to death with a flag? Because every time I think we can't get dumber on social media, we get dumber.
Here's a link to the complete opinion piece.
Possibly I missed something, but in this writer's entire rant I never saw an effort to explain why it's important that the Confederate flag continue to fly over the South Carolina state house, or any acknowledgment of the arguments concerning why it is problematic to do so. Instead it suggests--actually, damn near says outright--that the arguments are focused on eliminating usage of the Confederate flag, period.
That's absurd. I would imagine that in the vastness of the Internet you can find someone advocating making the flag illegal, but no one I have seen is doing that. I think it is a matter of simple decency to remove the flag from a government facility that is supposed to represent every citizen in South Carolina, 30 percent of whom are African Americans, in most cases the descendants of slaves.
I think it is a matter of simple First Amendment rights to use the flag in non-government contexts: Civil War re-enactors, private homes, automobiles like the General Lee, even KKK rallies. Aside from re-enactors and other highly contextualized uses, know that you're going to offend a lot of people and some of them may tell you they're offended, but that's their First Amendment right. To paraphrase the author, Just when I think opinion pieces on this issue can't get any dumber, someone proves me wrong.
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Instead it suggests--actually, damn near says outright--that the arguments are focused on eliminating usage of the Confederate flag, period.
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