Dear editor,
Your editorial in the Aug. 13 Iola Register concerning the Confederate flag seems to indicate that either, (A) you were asleep or cutting classes during the Civil War lectures in American History, or (B) you harbor a serious prejudice about those who exercise their freedom of expression in ways contrary to your own beliefs.
Let’s examine a few facts:
Yes, the Stars and Bars was the official flag of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. But it had absolutely nothing to do with the Ku Klux Klan. The Civil War ended in 1865 and the flag become historical. The Klan didn’t come into being until later, during the Reconstruction Period. And where do you get the idea that displaying a Confederate flag says you are anti-Semitic? Judaism is thousands of years old. All through American history, Jewish people have contributed to society just as much as gentiles. Anti-Semitism is a matter of personal choice, not group inclination. The flag has nothing to do with it.
And white supremacy. You stated that displaying a Confederate flag says one believes in it. The vast majority of people think that the war was fought to free black people from slavery. The historical fact is that slavery was only a secondary issue in the war. The real issue was state’s rights. Amendment 10 of the Bill of Rights (ratified Feb. 7, 1795) states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
In the years leading up to the war, sentiment in the northern states, fanned by fiery rhetoric from fanatical abolitionists, rose strongly against slavery. This resulted in more and more restrictive laws being enacted by Congress, regardless of Amendment 10. Those laws posed a considerable financial threat to the largely agricultural south, whose major crop was labor-intensive cotton.
And that’s why they seceded from the Union; to escape what they felt was unlawful and unconstitutional treatment, and to have the right to determine their own future. The flawed notion of white supremacy is a sad legacy of those times. It has nothing directly to do with the Confederate flag.
I personally disagree with the current “politically correct” notion that there is something morally wrong or near-treasonous in respecting the Confederate flag. I also feel that it is proper for that flag to fly over Civil War Confederate cemeteries. Those dead were Americans who gave their lives in defense of a lost cause that they believed in.
Those mentally sick individuals who seek justification for their murderous rampages by blaming a long-gone historical flag, would only find something else, were history different. The same can be said for anti-Semitics and white racists.
As far as displaying the flag on some youngster’s pickup goes, did you ever watch “The Dukes of Hazard” on TV? Most boys have similar harmless feelings of independence from time to time before they outgrow them. Most of them have only a hazy idea of what the flag meant, other than it had something to do with being a rebel. They mean no real harm, they’re only exercising their own civil rights.
Cut them a little slack!
Ralph Romig,
Kincaid, Kan.
