Bars None
When did it all start, you ask, this job of ours, how did it come about, where, when? Well, I'd say it really got started about a thing called the Civil War. Even though our rule book claims it was founded earlier.
Captain Beatty goes on to Guy Montag who's beginning to have a few questions about the purpose of his own job -- he's a fireman who in the media soundbite-mad world of Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451 BURNS houses and the books contained within them, who starts fires rather than puts them out -- about how the more proliferate books became the more they got boiled down to their bare essence, the more people moved the shorter their attention spans got ... this is one of my favorite books, but it's still unsettling.
And the line I quote at the beginning could just as easily be applied to a devotional regarding Our Rule Book (as Christians, that would be the Bible) or a post regarding The Decline and Fall of the Marvel Universe (Civil War was the name of a series Marvel published mid-last decade pitting their top heroes against each other and will be a basis of next year's Captain America film) or to this country -- heck, this planet -- since the turn of the century especially. But I digress.
I couldn't quite put my finger on why last week's shootings at that church in Charleston, South Carolina and their aftermath -- well, besides the fact that nine people are dead -- so unsettled me. Don't get me wrong, I have no great love or great interest or reverence for the Stars and Bars (the nickname for the Confederate flag on the line of our own Stars and Stripes, each for their distinguishing features), but this en masse removal or proposal to remove state symbols and historical emblems will not solve anything.
Flags don't kill people any more than guns do.
And appeasing a small but vocal minority by removing something that offends them ... well, we have history as our guide that never produces any lasting effects. So when I brought my kids to their grandma's before work today and came across this op-ed piece reprinted in our local newspaper, it clicked. SO I'm going to turn the rest of this post over, with all due respect, to Ben Shapiro the editor-in-chief at TruthRevolt.org. I may not agree with all he says, but I don't expect people to agree with all I say either.
But surely we can still be friends, David
Captain Beatty goes on to Guy Montag who's beginning to have a few questions about the purpose of his own job -- he's a fireman who in the media soundbite-mad world of Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451 BURNS houses and the books contained within them, who starts fires rather than puts them out -- about how the more proliferate books became the more they got boiled down to their bare essence, the more people moved the shorter their attention spans got ... this is one of my favorite books, but it's still unsettling.
And the line I quote at the beginning could just as easily be applied to a devotional regarding Our Rule Book (as Christians, that would be the Bible) or a post regarding The Decline and Fall of the Marvel Universe (Civil War was the name of a series Marvel published mid-last decade pitting their top heroes against each other and will be a basis of next year's Captain America film) or to this country -- heck, this planet -- since the turn of the century especially. But I digress.
I couldn't quite put my finger on why last week's shootings at that church in Charleston, South Carolina and their aftermath -- well, besides the fact that nine people are dead -- so unsettled me. Don't get me wrong, I have no great love or great interest or reverence for the Stars and Bars (the nickname for the Confederate flag on the line of our own Stars and Stripes, each for their distinguishing features), but this en masse removal or proposal to remove state symbols and historical emblems will not solve anything.
Flags don't kill people any more than guns do.
And appeasing a small but vocal minority by removing something that offends them ... well, we have history as our guide that never produces any lasting effects. So when I brought my kids to their grandma's before work today and came across this op-ed piece reprinted in our local newspaper, it clicked. SO I'm going to turn the rest of this post over, with all due respect, to Ben Shapiro the editor-in-chief at TruthRevolt.org. I may not agree with all he says, but I don't expect people to agree with all I say either.
But surely we can still be friends, David
Confederate Flag Controversy a Complete Misdirect
Despite these divisive tactics, Americans united. There were no racial lines to grief: Thousands of blacks and whites marched in Charleston, packed the devastated church, mourned together.
But the American left could not stand such racial unity — it threatens their cherished belief that America continues to represent racial oppression and white supremacy. And so the media and politicians on the left manufactured a racial controversy over the Confederate flag.
Now, there are plenty of excellent reasons to oppose the placement of the Confederate flag on state grounds: The Union won, as it should have; the Confederate battle flag originally represented a new nation founded on reverence for slavery, a deeply evil institution; the Confederate battle flag was utilized by Southern Democrats as a symbol of resistance to federal desegregation during the Jim Crow era. Blacks in America are absolutely right to feel offended by the flag.
By the same token, there are plenty of decent reasons for the Confederate battle flag to stay on longstanding state monuments: to remind viewers of the fact that evil and good live together in every human heart; to remind viewers of the fact that good people did sacrifice on behalf of their states' sovereignty, not merely to defend slavery (most of those who fought and died for the Confederacy did not hold slaves); as a symbol of Southern military heritage, given that the South has always been overrepresented in terms of its military service in the United States.
My own personal belief is that the flag should not be displayed on state grounds, but is perfectly appropriate for display at war memorials. A country and state willing to remove the Confederate flag do not need to do so; a country and state willing to acknowledge their legacy of slavery and racism need not discard their history or monuments acknowledging that history.
Having a national conversation about what to do with Confederate flags and war memorials raises interesting and vital issues. But that conversation has nothing to do with the shooting of black Americans in South Carolina. The left's implication that those who revere the Confederate flag are all budding Dylann Storm Roofs, or that they sympathize with Dylann Storm Roof, is nasty and unsupported by evidence.
It is, however, politically effective. The left's decision to politicize the South Carolina shootings by immediately swiveling to a longstanding racial controversy demonstrates their sick inability to allow America to move beyond racial divides. Every conservative in America called for Roof to fry. That wasn't enough for the left — the same left that defends rioters in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore and hero-worships Che Guevara and Mumia Abu Jamal. That left generated conflict because without racial conflict, it cannot survive as a viable political movement. And for the left, politics trumps American unity every time.
Ben Shapiro, 31, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, a radio host on KTTH 770 Seattle and KRLA 870 Los Angeles, editor-in-chief of TruthRevolt.org, and Senior editor-at-large of Breitbart News. He is The New York Times best-selling author of "Bullies." His latest book, "The People vs. Barack Obama: The Criminal Case Against the Obama Administration," will be released on June 10. He lives with his wife and daughter in Los Angeles. To find out more about Ben Shapiro and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website ...
COPYRIGHT 2015 CREATORS.COM
But the American left could not stand such racial unity — it threatens their cherished belief that America continues to represent racial oppression and white supremacy. And so the media and politicians on the left manufactured a racial controversy over the Confederate flag.
Now, there are plenty of excellent reasons to oppose the placement of the Confederate flag on state grounds: The Union won, as it should have; the Confederate battle flag originally represented a new nation founded on reverence for slavery, a deeply evil institution; the Confederate battle flag was utilized by Southern Democrats as a symbol of resistance to federal desegregation during the Jim Crow era. Blacks in America are absolutely right to feel offended by the flag.
By the same token, there are plenty of decent reasons for the Confederate battle flag to stay on longstanding state monuments: to remind viewers of the fact that evil and good live together in every human heart; to remind viewers of the fact that good people did sacrifice on behalf of their states' sovereignty, not merely to defend slavery (most of those who fought and died for the Confederacy did not hold slaves); as a symbol of Southern military heritage, given that the South has always been overrepresented in terms of its military service in the United States.
My own personal belief is that the flag should not be displayed on state grounds, but is perfectly appropriate for display at war memorials. A country and state willing to remove the Confederate flag do not need to do so; a country and state willing to acknowledge their legacy of slavery and racism need not discard their history or monuments acknowledging that history.
Having a national conversation about what to do with Confederate flags and war memorials raises interesting and vital issues. But that conversation has nothing to do with the shooting of black Americans in South Carolina. The left's implication that those who revere the Confederate flag are all budding Dylann Storm Roofs, or that they sympathize with Dylann Storm Roof, is nasty and unsupported by evidence.
It is, however, politically effective. The left's decision to politicize the South Carolina shootings by immediately swiveling to a longstanding racial controversy demonstrates their sick inability to allow America to move beyond racial divides. Every conservative in America called for Roof to fry. That wasn't enough for the left — the same left that defends rioters in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore and hero-worships Che Guevara and Mumia Abu Jamal. That left generated conflict because without racial conflict, it cannot survive as a viable political movement. And for the left, politics trumps American unity every time.
Ben Shapiro, 31, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, a radio host on KTTH 770 Seattle and KRLA 870 Los Angeles, editor-in-chief of TruthRevolt.org, and Senior editor-at-large of Breitbart News. He is The New York Times best-selling author of "Bullies." His latest book, "The People vs. Barack Obama: The Criminal Case Against the Obama Administration," will be released on June 10. He lives with his wife and daughter in Los Angeles. To find out more about Ben Shapiro and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website ...
COPYRIGHT 2015 CREATORS.COM
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