I far prefer to stand by and enjoy as Hitchen dismembers the zealot du jour, but today find myself in the uncomfortable position of sharing something of the zeal assigned to the so-called "loudmouthed rednecks". Let me to break with tradition and offer a measured and hopefully rational response to these well directed Fighting Words.

Yes, the Confederate Battle Flag has indeed served as the banner of racist and violent invaders who illegally threatened, imprisoned, and even murdered peaceful American citizens. And yes, that same flag has since been adopted by a host of assorted low-lifes who plotted to dismember this United States and to return us to a repugnant, hierarchical society and themselves no doubt to the role of the landed gentry.

Is there no defense in pointing out that some who may support, even own, such a flag merely do so due to a sincere pride in the service of their ancestors? That they hold some idealized version of the honorable intentions of those who fought under that flag, and which necessitated such admittedly treasonous acts against the United States? If this is no defense, then I must confess myself to be doubly guilty, for not only do I support the right to own and fly the Battle Flag, but also and for the same reasons, the Union Jack!

Well if I'm not mistaken the controversy is about displaying the battle flag over state property, not the private ownership/display of the same. I don't think anyone is proposing a literal ban on the flag, or anything akin to what exist in say Germany (ie the complete illegality of Nazi symbol/flag display)

I don't need to tell you that you are within your rights to own/display the battle flag.

Yet while you seem to think the cause of the Confederacy was morally bankrupt (I agree), you think the soldiers who fought fought honorably. But I wonder, if your pride is in the soldiers and not the cause, than why be proud of the flag; isn't the battle flag in large part a symbol of the Confederate cause?

How can you display something proudly that represents a reprehensible cause as much as it does good men and brave soldiers?

It seems to me that you should regard the flag with at best mixed feelings, if I have read you correctly. Have I?

In any case, there must surely be a superior way to honor fighting ancestors that doesn't blur the distinction between their admirable attributes and the terrible cause they served.

These are good questions, and get at the heart of an important distinction that often goes unexpressed when we talk about the old Battle Flag. For those of us who grow up in the South, the Battle Flag doesn't arouse the same connotations as it does for the rest of you who learned the cliff notes version of the Civil War; a noble struggle to free the slaves. For many of us down here that flag raises distant memories of conversations with elders we loved and respected telling us fascinating and detailed stories of the battle in which their grandfather fought and, in so many cases, died. Or perhaps pointing to the well into which family heirlooms were flung to protect it from the invaders, and where it still rests today. For us the flag isn't a symbol of any political cause, but a symbol of familial pain and sacrifice.

I'll try and fend off the inevitable flaming by saying I certainly recognize this isn't the common interpretation, and don't feel it is more valid than one held by those with greater distance from the issue. But it isn't less valid either. This is problem with legislating interpretations of a symbol, and why I raised the issue of the Union Jack. Give the Battle Flag another 150 years or so, and perhaps we'll all have the same response to it as to the British banner on the wall of a pub today.

Sure, Wustus, it is possible that a person whose ancestors fought honorably for the South are just flying the flag to honor to them. Flying the Confederate flag is not automatic proof of the flyer's racism.

But what are they thinking?! Do they not expect a reaction?

The flag itself is a symbol of the worst sort of bigotry. Ironically, it is more of a symbol of racism and cruelty now, in the modern times, than when it represented the going concern of the Confederacy back in the early 1860s.

As a white man from California, with Irish and French ancestors from the Midwest without a speck of contact with the South, I remember defending the Confederate flag as an important symbol of Southern pride. I thought the condemnation of it was Political Correctness. I said people had to get a thicker skin.

Then I was informed that flying it was well out of favor for generations after the Civil War, and only reappeared popularly when the South was resisting Civil Rights ala the police dogs, batons and firehoses. So, it represents, specifically and intentionally, Jim Crowe, lynchings, and racist violence towards black Americans.

No thanks. Tear that shitty banner down and burn it along with the Soviet hammer and sickle, Chinese and Vietname Red Stars, and the Nazi flag. If you have one for your own personal reasons, keep it under wraps or expect a hell of a backlash.

No. The assumptions that have embedded themselves into that symbolic flag cannot be simply plucked away.

Regarding "legislating interpretations of a symbol"; well, this is an argument, and may the best argument win. There is no wish on my part to "legislate" its meaning literally or figuratively.

Yet other Americans remember the deeds and lives of their ancestors with histories, photographs (if they exist), heirlooms, art and discussion. If they include an American Flag, they do so knowing full-well that they are honoring the United States, its causes and principles as well.

You cannot say the same, so why not honor yours with everything *but* the Battle Flag? As you know, the Battle Flag has its origins as a flag of a specific war and eventually as a political flag of the Confederacy itself; this is what it symbolizes for everyone who hasn't developed a strong and personal relationship with it.

You know what that flag says to most people, even though you are able to see it differently. You must therefore expect to irritate them, so why complain when they complain?

Why, in the first place, must you display a political flag in order to acknowledge your ancestors? Especially one which has an origin that you admit is detestable.

Finally, a notable distinction between the Union Jack and the Confederate Battle Flag; The U.K. still exists, and probably will exist, and thus has the opportunity to establish a better legacy for itself and its flag.

In 150 years there will be little basis for reappraising the Battle Flag, however, because nothing will have changed (the Confederacy having long been a dead state)

You seem to be of two minds about this one pfc.

One the one hand a flag is the sum of the causes and principles of the nation for which it stands without exception. Thus, I cannot honor the Battle Flag (the symbol in question) while ignoring the less salutory principles of the Confederate cause. Fair enough. I point to the Union Jack, the banner that symbolized violent invasion, and in the case of Hessian mercenaries, blatantly racist oppression and murder of peaceful Americans not once, but twice. Truly all Americans who display the Union Jack are traitors.

Not so fast, you say. Britain, as an existing nation, can "establish a better legacy". Thus, one can choose to ignore some national causes, in this case those same behaviors that were so inexcusable under the Battle Flag, while highlighting others one finds more honorable.

Okay, you've convinced me, but you may have to settle this between yourself. Just remember, be civil, or reconstruction can be a bitch.

"flying it was well out of favor for generations after the Civil War,"

Because if you were found flying it you did so at risk of your life.

Perhaps.

My point was simply that is became even more specifically a symbol of racism once it was reintroduced during the Civil Rights Era, because then it specifically and intentionally was a symbol of defiance towards giving up Jim Crow.

At least when the Confederacy was a going concern, the flag represented the Confederacy, its aims and struggle in its entirety, not just the desire to continue slavery.

I have ancestors who fought bravely in the Waffen SS. They had nothing to do with any holocaust and that is why I proudly fly my flag over my home. Despite the U.S. having fought against my ancestor I am writing an appeal petition to the Governor of my state to honor German-Americans by flying our honorable colors over the State Capitol on Bismarck's birthday.

Would you consider signing our petition?

Spiker makes an excellent point. We should not be judgmental. Everything is good!

The culture of the slave-holding South was gentle, elegant, and aristocratic. That of the North was dynamic and forward-looking. Too bad they couldn't get along. But, on the bright side, war is glorious!

EarlyBird:

Perhaps.

My point was simply that is became even more specifically a symbol of racism once it was reintroduced during the Civil Rights Era, because then it specifically and intentionally was a symbol of defiance towards giving up Jim Crow.

At least when the Confederacy was a going concern, the flag represented the Confederacy, its aims and struggle in its entirety, not just the desire to continue slavery.

Thing is, this may have even changed.

Jim Crow was 40 years ago. There are a lot of younger people who fly it, yet have black friends, who do see it as a part of their heritage, even if their fathers flew it for the wrong reasons in the 60s that you've mentioned.

I wonder if it's morphed back into what it stood for in the 1860s; a symbol against enchroaching statism, the nanny "you can't smoke in your own house" state that tells you what to think, how to raise your kids, where and when they can pray to God, ect.

Southerners, most of them, fought because they believed that their government didn't represent them; didn't care what they thought or was actually hostile and hateful twords their beliefs.

More and more nationwide are beginning to feel that way today.

Does anyone really believe those useless old farts in the beltway give a shit about anything other than their own power?

Kids today fly it like the gang colors that they are. Bloods or crips same crap. Flash some gang signs and you get the same meaning you get from a Southern Cross flag.

The statistics reveal that not enough people participate in the democratic process to actually claim their rights are being denied. If you don't vote or lobby and still rebel then you are a traitor.