My Two Cents About the Confederate Battle Flag - Part 2

Now that some of these people in office are coming to their senses and removing the Confederate battle flag from government buildings, I’m sensing a disturbing trend in overzealousness.  It’s become a venerable witch hunt for anyone, public or private, who displays the battle flag in any way.

In an absurd example, Apple has deleted all games from their sales library that has the Confederate flag; i.e. Civil War games.  Stores are removing any books that show the flag, as if deleting the Civil War itself from memory will solve our problems.  Even battlefields and museums are being pressured to remove the flag, even though their primary purpose is to teach history.

The fury of course comes from the bastardization of the flag by racists since the formation of the KKK and other hate groups.  They had no right to bring back the Confederate battle flag and make it theirs, but they did, and I understand why it is viewed with fear and anger.  However, consider this.

Slavery did not begin with the Confederacy.  It existed under the American flag for many years before the south seceded.  It also existed before that in the UK for many years.  Both of those countries also slaughtered indigenous people in North America, reducing their numbers in America by 96%, the largest atrocity of people per capita in history.  The UK also slaughtered people across the globe in their colonization efforts.  The Spanish killed countless Indians in South and Central America.  The Chinese murdered millions of their own people, as did the Russians, and several other nations.

So here’s the question, why aren’t their flags banned?

If you’re really going to criticize individuals for waving the Confederate flag because of slavery, then you have to criticize individuals for waving just about every flag on Earth, because no one is innocent.  Every country is guilty of something as atrocious as the Confederacy, the United States included.

So yeah, the Confederate flag has no place above government buildings, and people need to be sensitive about where and why they place it, as it has been misused by hate groups.  However, to bury it completely, even from our museums and other historical locations, is overreaching and downright hypocritical.  And if we’re not very careful, it may be turned into a symbol of freedom of speech.