Mississippi
stands alone
The people of Mississippi have just rejected a proposed new state flag -- one without the jarring Confederate battle emblem in the current banner's upper left quadrant. Mississippi stands alone in the flag wars. The vote is a gesture of defiance that may cost the state in the future. South Carolina -- where the Civil War began -- finally opted to remove the Confederate battle ensign from its state capitol dome and moved it to a historical monument elsewhere on the capitol grounds. And Georgia's Legislature earlier this year voted to reduce the prominence of the Confederate Southern Cross on its state colors. Both of these actions were taken by state legislatures. In Mississippi, state officials put the matter to a vote in a state referendum. And the old Confederacy won by a two-to-one margin. Many people object to the Confederate battle ensign (the familiar cross is not the national flag of the Confederacy) because it has been co-opted by the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and skinheads. It is no longer the flag of the Confederate soldiers who marched into Northern guns at Gettysburg or who routed the Yankees at Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville. But the voters of Mississippi chose, in the privacy of the voting booth, to thumb their noses at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Mississippi business establishment and Democratic Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, all of whom urged adoption of a new flag, one that didn't rankle the sensibilities of a large portion of Mississippi's residents. The voters succumbed to the temptation to send a message to the corporate and political establishments of their state and to Yankee outsiders: No one is going to tell them what to do. But business analysts are saying the message that is received may be different -- that Mississippi still harbors old, unproductive animosities that could make it a bad investment for a new business and new jobs. To be sure, there are plenty of decent folks in Mississippi who want what's best for all the state's people. They supported the new flag as a symbol of integrating Mississippi more fully into the national economy and culture. They vow to keep working and to try again -- as they should.
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 My Response to the Detroit News:
The Orwellian Extremists at the Detroit News are calling for the people of Mississippi to remove a symbol of the Confederacy from their state flag. Orwellian Extremists like to change symbols of the past so they can insist it never happened so they can substitute their own politically correct version. The removing of George Washington from elementary schools, or the destruction of portraits of West Point's Robert E. Lee in public places are examples of this newspeak.
Abraham Lincoln in his first inaugural address said
the following, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to
interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it
exist. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no
inclination to do so.”
So the war between the states was fought to
"free the slaves", eh? Well that's the politically correct
version of history taught in today's government schools. How did all
of the other countries in the Western Hemisphere manage to cast
off slavery, without civil wars? The War between the States was fought
because of larger economic issues and not to free the slaves. Why do
you think the "Underground Railroad" was underground in the
north?
The only difference between the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Ku
Klux Klan is the color of their armbands, they both are of the
rhetoric "We are not 'anti-them' ... we are just 'pro-us' ".
The folks in Mississippi should be congratulated for to thumbing
their noses at Orwellians everywhere.
4/22/01 |
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Thank God for Mississippi! http://dixienews.com/news040101.htm This article shows how a few people used Sunshine Laws to defeat a back door attempt by a Democrat to change the Mississippi flag. |