Where Should the Confederate Flag Fly?
Posted in Politics and tagged with Government, North Carolina, The South on May 2, 2008I have several serious, thought provoking things to write here, but here’s a question for you…is it a bad idea to write about such a subject on a Friday? Is it a rule for Friday posts to be casual like the attire and attitudes? Will anyone read it if I post my cure for the common cold or my recipe to end world hunger?
Well, I think I’m going to go for it. The last time I wrote a serious post was for Earth Day. I’ve let another whole holiday (May Day) pass since then without causing my readers to think. I think you all deserve better, so here goes.
Yesterday I went to get my North Carolina tag, which was a relatively smooth, painless process. I love when our government works like it should. There was just one thing that rubbed me the wrong way about the whole process. Inside the office, there were vanity plates on all the walls for sale. I was already a little on edge, as I don’t think the government should be in the business of selling things, but then I spot a plate that offended me.
They, the state government of North Carolina, were selling a plate with the Confederate flag on it.
I don’t like the Confederate flag. While I support someone’s right to use it to express free speech, I don’t agree with what it stands for. I’ve never received what I would consider a good answer from anyone as to why they find pride in it. When I look at a Confederate flag, I think about someone who takes pride in rebelling against their country and oppressing and enslaving minorities. That’s nothing to be proud of. While a Confederate flag could also express Southern pride (or “hubris” as my Civil War professor would say) and states’ rights, these are overarched with the bigotry and rebellion associated with the flag in the past. While the person flying the Confederate flag may think they are representing these better aspects of Southernism, they are really proclaiming to the world their endorsement of the bad with the good.
I don’t care if a store sells Confederate memorabilia. If people buy it, why wouldn’t they sell it? While it bugs me every time I see it, it also bugs me to see T-shirts with profanity on them. It’s just that the government has no right selling Confederate memorabilia. Period. I would question their role in selling anything whatsoever, but that’s another post.
I hope I’ve made myself very clear in this post. I’m not trying to suppress free speech. I don’t think that Confederate vanity plates should be banned. I just don’t like the idea of my state government selling them. That’s not something I want my tax dollars supporting.
So, what do you think? Am I totally off-base here? Is this just something I’ll have to live with now that I live in the South? Is there another way of looking at this that I simply don’t see? I would love to hear your honest, civil opinions on this issue, regardless of whether you agree with me or not!
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Came by way of another blogger..but HAD to comment :). I’m with you 100%. I don’t know if its my midwestern upbringing..or living in Alabama for 8 years as a kid, but I would be just as offended as you are. There are other ways to show Southern Pride, for instance a flag of YOUR OWN STATE! Ok..done ranting…but I may have to blog this myself, lol.
May 2nd, 2008 at 9:22 pm
I’d like to offer a different perspective on the matter. Not on if governments should sell these plates, but on the Confederate flag, and the “Civil War” in general.
First, the Civil War is only called that because the North won. The winners decide the name of the war. Down here in the South it was known as the “War of Northern Aggression,” and with good reason. The North attacked us first.
Wait, wait, but Southerns fired on Fort Sumter, SC. Wouldn’t that mean that you guys attacked first?
I honestly don’t care which position you take. From the South standpoint (specifically SC at this point) they had given the US soldiers time to evacuate. They seceded and became a separate and distinct nation. Therefore, the US troops were now no longer on US territory. After the stated time told to the US government, the Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter because the US troops had not left. This essentially equivocated an invasion.
Also, many say that the Civil War (a.k.a. the War of Northern Aggression) was about slavery. From the research I have done on this topic I have concluded that this is just not true. The War was about State’s Rights. Slavery was a side-issue brought in to motivate the Northerns to fight. Lincoln, while certainly not agreeing with slavery, said that his paramount object in the War of the States was neither to preserve or destroy slavery, it was simply to save the Union.
This is evidenced in the fact that the Emancipation Proclamation only freed the slaves in the States that were members of the CSA. (Which, honestly, would be about as absurd as us now declaring all slaves in Sierra Leone free. It’s another country, they have their own laws, and no authority is granted to another nation in either case to dictate another countries laws.)
If the war was about slavery and freeing the slaves than wouldn’t it make sense for Lincoln to have simultaneously freed the slaves of the North? If the War was about freeing slaves why did Lincoln promise that any state joining the Union would be able to keep their slaves?
No, the War was about State’s Rights. That’s why, after the war, many of the Southern States had to give up some of their former rights as States in order to re-join the Union. The Federal government wanted to discourage and prevent any more secessions.
This has, IMO, caused many problems today. Since the War the Federal government has consistently seized more and more of the States rights and power. This goes against how our Founding Fathers designed this great nation. There were to be checks and balances to make sure that no one (including, and especially the Federal government) from obtaining too much power.
This is what the CSA stands for to me: State’s Rights. Not slavery and bigotry – the North was infected with that disease just as much as the South. This is what the CSA is, this is what the Confederate flag stands for. This is why I will be proud to fly it ’till my dying day. Not because I agree with slavery, because I don’t. Not because I hate blacks, because I don’t (many of my good friends are African or African-American). But our Federal government has way too much power in their hands, and the States should have much more power than they do.
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Dar, thanks for your opinion. You bring up several good points that I didn’t address.
First of all, I was not really discussing what the Confederate flag stood for in the day, but rather what it stands for now. No matter how much anyone tries, it’s not possible to strip it of it’s racist connotations. When I still lived in Kansas, a middle school boy got suspended for drawing a Confederate flag on a piece of paper and handing it to a black classmate. It was considered a hate crime for good reason (though I doubt the boy was a racist, he was simply getting in trouble like many boys like to do).
I agree, the Civil War (a war between factions within a nation, which seems like an apt title to me) was not primarily about slavery. Studying the war in college was eye-opening to me. It was about the rights of the states vs. the rights of the central government. I do think that we have gone too far in centralizing the government. The government gets it’s hands in lots of things it shouldn’t. (for instance, the selling of merchandise that in the license plate store, though that was the state government, which is no less prone to sticking it’s fingers where it doesn’t belong!). We agree on that point.
Though states have greater rights and the central government ought to have less power than they do now, that doesn’t mean that states have the right to secede. We ARE one nation. That was what was decided by the Civil War. Whether states should have the right to secede or not certainly can be debated, but I happen to believe that the nation should be whole with a smaller central government than we have now.
Dar, I don’t think that everyone who flies a Confederate flag is a racist. I just think that they need a different symbol (such as their state flag) that doesn’t have the racial and rebellious issues if they are supporting states’ rights or Southern pride.
I hope you come back again, I enjoy discussing these issues!
May 2nd, 2008 at 11:50 pm
You are funny. Maybe I should put your and we could be evenly matched? :) I believe we should be blog friends. And by the way, OU is my #2… my dad is a huge fan so I grew up on Boomer Sooner. And Tech license plates? That’s worse than Texas!
May 4th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Let me confirm that I understand you correctly. I believe you are not attempting to argue the merits for either side of the Civil War or even what the Confederate Flag may represent to individuals. If I understand, your concern is that this flag, a symbol for special interests (potentially racism, etc.),is sold by a governmental agency, which should remain neutral on issues such as race, religion and gender. I have similar concerns. Tell me, does it bother you as well when state governments offer vanity tags with religious symbols such as the Christian cross?
May 4th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Because I was asked, I would like to point out that the comment I deleted above was merely a duplicate comment of the one that appeared above it, not a comment that I found offensive or whatever. I have never had to delete a comment for that reason, and assume my readers will not make that necessary.
@ Night Damsel, thanks for stopping by. Your question helps me clarify what I think in my head, too. You’re definitely right about the post not being about the Civil War or free speech directly.
To be honest, I’m bothered that the state is selling these types of plates at all. I don’t feel like the government should do what someone else would gladly do (sell this merchandise). In fact, the state is not filling in a gap, as this type of merchandise can be found in about any mall throughout the state. It’s just that the Confederate flag happened to be offensive to me. Potentially, other plates might have bothered others (though I only remember sports teams’ ones, a Harley one, and a John Deere one, there may have been something else offensive). That’s why I bothered writing about it at all. Without the Confederate flag being on the wall in a government office, the issues of selling vanity plates there would have just been another example of government overstepping their bounds. But with that plate on the wall, they had a symbol of rebellion against the US government (among other things that it does/could stand for) as well as (to many, including me) racism.
I would not have a problem with them selling religious symbols on vanity plates per se, though I’d rather them not sell anything in the office at all. I’m not against states that allow personal expressions on license plates produce ones with religious symbols on them (I believe this is a current issue in Florida). After doing a little research, I found that there has been some debate in that state recently about allowing the Confederate flag to be on the license plate as well. I’m torn on this: is it free speech or is it merely government-approved racism? I need to think about this more before coming to an opinion.
May 5th, 2008 at 6:13 am
It is a really hard topic to wrap my mind around, because the Confederate flag means different things to different people. To some it is a symbol of “the South” and not about racism. To others, it symbolizes a time of racism and segregation. It is just like how the American flag is perceived around the world. When we look at it, we feel proud. When people from other countries look at it, they may feel hatred.
May 18th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
I had never read this post. I am not a fan of the Confederate flag because of the groups that have embraced it. That flag, whether Southerners like it or not, has gained a negative conotation. So I just don’t care for it because I deplore racism and with some, that’s what this flag represesnts.
And I agree, I am not for banning it. I just won’t fly it!
Great post Ronnica!
May 18th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
@Jennifer: I’m glad that you think that way, because I’ll admit, this is an issue I’ve reconsidered (though I haven’t changed my mind), because I wonder how much my midwestern roots bias me. It makes me feel better that Southerners can come to the same conclusion…maybe I’m not as far off base as I thought. Besides, if I were promoting a cause (states’ rights), and the symbol of that cause was being used for something else as well that I didn’t agree with (racism), I’d want a new symbol!