Name:   MartiniMan - Subject:   He should be banned Date:   6/24/2020 2:22:41 PM

It's a funny thing about the Confederate flag with me, a northerner.  I never saw the flag as a symbol of racism.  I saw it as a symbol of pride in the southern states and states rights against an imperial Federal government.  I understand the history and I am sure there are people that view it purely from the lens of salvery and racism and I can appreciate that view.  I've just never seen it that way and that's why I am agnostic about it.  But banning the flag does nothing to change people's hearts which is what is needed to combat racism.  But at the end of the day it will never go away altogether because of our fallen nature.  It's what I felt about the protests, even the peaceful ones.  It doesn't change anything and is an exercise in mindless virtue signaling.

However, I also am a big believer that you cannot allow history to be erased or we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.  Slavery is a part of our history and for sure the worst part.......but it is what happened, we fought a war over it and to maintain the Union and in my opinion the correct side won even though it set the concept of state's rights down the drain and we are now seeing the result of that paradigm shift.  So maybe we should let people that want to fly the Confederate flag fly it and I suspect over time you will see less and less of that.