re: How long before the SEC forces people to take down their Confederate Flags

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I can understand being proud to be a Southerner for reasons totally unrelated to racism, but people who fly the Confederate flag in 2014 are not doing it for that reason.

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This is based on what? I believe the opposite is true. Most people who fly it in 2014 do for Heritage, or think its cool looking, or want the be a "rebel" or a statement against the current state of govt etc. I doubt very few say, I hate black people so I am going to fly a Confederate Flag.

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This is a myth pushed by the media. In 2011 the Pew Research Group conducted a poll for Princeton U. Only about 1/3 of Americans viewed the flag negatively. The rest where either positive or neutral.

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Well, most were neutral; about 9% I think were positive.

It is still a tainted symbol.

The Battle Flag has never been an overt sign of racism or treason - although it has been used as such by the Klan, other white supremacists and neo-Nazi groups.

There should be no heartburn with a private citizen flying such a flag, either in the traditional colors, purple and gold, etc., without additional indication that it demonstrates a racist or white supremacist intent.

After all, our ancestors bled under that banner and there is something to be said about pride.

This is yet another example of PC police gone awry.

Like the nonsense of attacking Ole Miss' symbol, Colonel Reb. Minnesota fans aren't regarded as "pro Viking", are they? I mean, the raping, pillaging and plundering the Vikings did would make a pirate blush.

Likewise for the Buccaneers. The whole point of a mascot is to be a symbol of a fierce competitor - that's all - not an endorsement of their lifestyle or criminal activity.

That's all the "Rebel" mascot is to me. That's all it should be. Ditto for "Redskins".

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That may be...but I'd bet my left nut that a venn diagram of these two examples would look pretty much like a regular circle.

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Well I'd bet my left nut that most people who support the confederate flag don't know what a Venn diagram is.

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although it has been used as such by the Klan, other white supremacists and neo-Nazi groups.

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And this is why it is a controversial symbol today.

ETA: I'm probably coming off as very anti-flag, which isn't the case at all.

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Well I'd bet my left nut that most people who support the confederate flag don't know what a Venn diagram is.

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And this is why it is a controversial symbol today.

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I'm not denying that. But those aren't the reasons being purported - they always go back to the Confederacy and slavery as the reasoning - NOT that the symbol has been co-opted.

So, why can't we play the same card the Muslims play? "The flag has been hijacked. We don't endorse the flag as a symbol of racism and white supremacy." Why doesn't that work?

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Well I'd bet my left nut that most people who support the confederate flag don't know what a Venn diagram is.

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I'll agree to that, because most people of any belief probably don't know what it is.

I still love seeing this flag flying on houses in Charleston. THE OG South Carolina Secession flag.

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That flag represented the idea of racial superiority from the beginning.

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The Stars and Bars I can agree, to a certain degree. I still take issue with the CSA solely existing (and fighting) to preserve slavery - more like "extend" or "soft landing" - as most knew slavery could not persist indefinitely.

But, the battle flag is different.

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Your ancestors bled under that flag, because they fell victim to propaganda by the powerful elite who did not want to see a profitable way of life end.

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Certainly valid from a certain perspective.

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The vast majority of enlisted southern soldiers were poor and did not own slaves.

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Also true. In fact, they had more in common with slaves than they did white northerners, certainly. Our greatest national tragedy is that we did not accept some modest "soft landing" emancipation, whereby the government offered some compensation, and freed slaves worked for a time, with ever increasing protections and emancipation over a decade or so - certainly would have been better than what happened. The resentment following Reconstruction, and residual discrimination persisted, legally, for the better part of 8 decades, and we still face after images of it today.

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The following quote is from John Townsend, cotton plantation owner.

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He did not speak for all southerners. If he speaks for all southerners, then Virginians like Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jefferson speak for all of them by describing slavery as a moral depravity - and Lee thought it was worse for whites than blacks (of course, he was only acquianted with slavery, the institution, in the gentrified, Virginia tradition - he had no idea of the horrors on cotton plantations in Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama).

In any event, we are getting fairly far afield. The symbol itself should not be oppressive to blacks - per se - after all, blacks served in that army.

One of the ultimate ironies of race relations (painted increasingly as solely white, southern oppression of blacks) - was the 50th reunion of the Battle of Gettysburg - in 1913. Because hotels were segregated (in Pennsylvania - you know, one of the yankee "liberator" states?) in the area, there was no provision made for housing the black veterans of the ANV. There had been provision made for the white yanks, black yanks and rebels. The white veterans of the ANV pooled their money to pay for (legally required to be) separate accomodations of their black veterans attending the reunion.