Confederate flag removal knowledge. Thoughts?

Beyond the word play or how you want to spin the topic, my issue with this whole thing is simply this; the Confederate flag is part of our nation's history. Good, bad or indifferent it is part of who we are. Removing it is along the same lines as removing it from our history books? What is going to happen to history lessons and art work? Are we going to see the Confederate flag replaced by a black box? There are flags such as the ISIS Battle Flag and the flag of the Nazi Party that are still around and these flags bring up more hatred than the Confederate flag. I think the call for it's removal was nothing more than a knee jerk reaction to a terrible incident.

Great post, well said and articulately expressed!

Actually, the flag you have labeled as the Confederate flag (square flag with red field, blue x-cross with stars) was the Flag of The Army of Northern Virginia, which was Gen. Lee's unit. The Rebels needed a means to which identify their forces as the first flag looked too similar to the Union flag. Lee's men adopted this new flag going into the Battle of Manassas and it remained a long-term fixture of the unit, Confederacy and south ever since.

Well at the rate pepole are going there will be know reason to teach any type of history. ...it might offend some group and then it will be erased.

I would imagine most people who have participated in discussions of this ilk are aware of this fact. I am not sure how it is directly relevant to the key issues. (Namely, does the Confederate Battle Flag represent the historical ideology of the seceding states? If so, what was that ideology?) To the former question, I would say yes. To the latter question, I would examine the Southern states' respective declarations of causes for secession.

And yet people stil back up that flag,its a terrorist flag period.

Flags of traitorous losers don’t deserve to be remembered outside of educational settings. And they certainly don’t deserve to be honored.

These particular traitorous losers took arms against their countrymen; their families and their nation to assert their right to own black slaves. A right they protect in perpetuity in the Confederate a constitution.

So...*any* flags created by and for the Confederacy should be removed.

My oath of enlistment is follow

I do solemnly swear

that I will support and defend the constitution

of the United States against all enemies,

foreign or domestic;

that I will bear truth faith

and allegiance to the same;

and that I will obey the orders

of the President of the United States

and orders of the officers

appointed over me,

according to regulations

and Uniform Code of Military Justice

So help me God.

Is this not Constitutional protected speech and freedom of expression, are we swore to protect our Constitution, what next? DOD is not a social experiment.

There are several Confederate flags. Regardless of which is displayed, this is what those flags represent according to the words of the Vice President of the Confederate StatesOf America:

In what’s now known as the “Cornerstone Speech,” Stephens told a Savannah, Ga., crowd in 1861 that “our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas [as those of slavery foes]; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”
He went further: the battle over slavery “was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.”

It’s my opinion Confederate flags should only be displayed in museums and pictured in history books. They deserve no place of honor and should be considered symbols of hate. Alexander Stephens made it abundantly clear the Confederacy was established to support white supremacy and the subjugation of people of color. The same sentiments are expressed in the Articles if Secession of many of the Confederate States.