The Daily Parker

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Thoughts on the Confederate battle flag

A Facebook friend complained this morning that some of her friends had changed their profile photos to the Confederate battle flag, supporting what, no one seemed to know. My response:

It's interesting. We're the only country in the developed world where it's all right for a sizable number of regional governments to put up monuments to a rebellion we put down 150 years ago at a cost of 750,000 lives. Keep in mind, these rebels expressly took up arms to defend one of the two worst atrocities ever committed by an elected government in history. In the country that committed the *worst* atrocity in history, it's a *crime* to display the symbols of the political party that perpetrated it.

Let's follow England's example and mock rebel leaders with effigies and fireworks once a year. They have Guy Fawkes; we have Nathan Bedford Forrest. Except Fawkes was delusional and totally failed in his rebellion, while Forrest knew exactly what he was doing and killed hundreds of thousands of Americans before someone stopped him from doing it. If you think about it, no organization in history is responsible for more American deaths than the so-called Confederate States of America.

I don't know why we're even having this debate. The rebels failed, and slavery with them. And yet they have persisted for another 150 years trying to claw back as much racial inequality as they can. Enough.

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