What is the goal? To win respect for the Southern image via the Confederate flag? We will always have this argument. At one point, between the 1890s and 1950s the South and its symbols had wide-spread respect for its history and heritage. Cultural and political events of the 1960s forever changed that. Constant negativity upon that heritage is used for political gain by one side or the other. The negativity is so deeply engrained into all media and information resources that countering it by intelligent argument is futile. The problem is intelligence has given way to sensationalism in the money driven media market. In other words the truth is boring to tell and the myths are much more easier to sell to a mass of people willing to believe this view over all others...to politically control the information gives power to those who use it to promote fear against a mythical Southern nationalist movement. This information control is also used to deny a proud people of their identity in this country, an identity that once politically united the South into a voting power.

A great example of this is the secessionist movement in current day Scotland. They (a large voting block of that nation) have been dreaming of their independence from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland since it formed in 1706. The Scottish flag too has been banned or attempted to be around the world due to pressures by those pro-Unionist who are against those feelings of nationalism. The Scottish feeling of independence is thousand times stronger than the American South's wish to keep its symbols. However, political powers in this country have overblown Southern pride and connected it to terms like neo and the klan in order to convince those people in believing the Confederate flag is bad, forming a like mind-set in gaining their vote or money.

I am not promoting the idea of Southern independence, far from it --that is the fear promoted politically of those wish to ban the flag-- on the contrary, it is a proven fact that when it comes to American patriotism the South, since the Civil War, has sacrificed its best and brightest in defending Old Glory more than any other section of the United States. The South saw the war of 1861 as it's way of defending the Constitution against those who wished to trample upon it to gain power over them...they, the States, did not wish independence from the idea of the United States but wished to no longer be legally within a union that no longer safely existed for them. These States engaged into the rightful act of self determination and formed for the cause of safety and well being a new union. Whether this was the best path for the goals they sought we will never know, the opposing side wished to settle the question by force and conquered and destroyed them.

Unless the people wish it the Confederate Flag should not be used as a political or government symbol, however, the individual citizen should have the right to display it at anytime. It must be stressed for the good order of the community at large- when it is displayed, it should be carefully taught and promoted to display it respectfully within the correct context.

David Upton