The subject of the Confederate battle flag ought not to be a hot-button issue in this day and age. The Civil War concluded over a hundred and thirty years ago. The Confederacy lost, but it put up a heroic struggle. The nation should now be at peace with that tragic era of our history. Lamentably, that isn't the case, and the battle flag issue looms ever greater as time goes on. The reason is simple. Misdirected liberals and minority groups have declared war against the flag and thus made it into an issue it definitely should not be. A few white extremists feed the flames.
We repeatedly hear that the battle flag is inflammatory and offensive to African Americans. The message is that no sensitive person could like or display such a flag, so it's time for those who do to grow up and put their battle flags away forever. Now that, to me, is inflammatory! The sole reason this flag has become inflammatory to many African Americans is because the NAACP, liberal media, the bleeding heart minions of political correctness, in concert, have decree it so — and have made it so. Latter-day better-red-than-dead types echo that decree like so many obedient indentured servants. It's enough to make a person ill.
A man has to take a stand when war has been declared, whether he wants to or not, and this is war. Pridger has never been a big Confederate battle flag waiver, but he comes down solidly in defense of those who take the battle flag seriously as a proud symbol of heritage, valor, and honor. Pridger stands four-square behind the battle flag. Everybody has the right to display, fly, or burn the battle flag, (as long as the flag one burns is his own).
Liberals and African Americans like to bring up what should be the long dead issue of slavery. The battle flag never had anything to do with slavery. It was a battle flag. The war of secession only lasted about four years. On the other hand, the institution of slavery (which we inherited from our former colonial masters) had thrived under the stars and stripes since 1776 through that era, and blacks were discriminated against under it, in both the north and south, for another century. The battle flag had nothing to do with that either. Why African Americans would be offended by the battle flag, and not by the stars and stripes, is rather puzzling. One can only assume that somewhere along the line the liberals and the NAACP also decreed the stars and stripes non-offensive and non-inflammatory. (If so, Pridger gives them due credit for at least accomplishing some good.)
Pridger is a sensitive person. He finds many things in our society very offensive and inflammatory. He's offended by the bulk of T.V. programming, and the smut that Hollywood churns out. He, along with many others, was outraged at depths the music recording industry stooped to in bringing obscene gangster rap to our children. (The implication was that it was okay because rappers were only "expressing themselves" in their own unique way.) But there is no recourse against the outrages perpetrated against common decency in our society for most of us but to grin and bear it. (Real peace and harmony between the diverse peoples of this country might be possible if liberals would learn to do a little grinning and bearing themselves, and professional victim-class brokers forced to seek honest employment.) Complain too loud about gutter standards and you are "branded" a backward, narrow-minded conservative. Maybe even a Christian! Cry "foul!" and you're a bigot. Pridger is no bigot, (even one of his best friends is a WASP) but he's crying foul anyway. Pridger does discriminate. He discriminates in favor of good taste and common decency.
The war against the battle flag will certainly be counter-productive. It is already producing unforeseen consequences. Just as gun control measures did more to arm the American public than anything had ever done before, the attempt to tear down the battle flag will result in more people embracing it. When a war is declared, a war there will be — and every war needs a battle flag.
So, the Confederate battle flag is once again flying over an American battlefield. This time as an "American Battle Flag" in the war against the encroaching "tyranny of political correctness." The more misdirected liberals and minority group advocates do battle against this flag, and the heritage it stands for, the more popular the flag is certain to become. For each banner torn down to appease the politically correct, several others will go up around the nation, north and south, east and west. (This is not a black and white issue, for the vast majority of elite minions of political correctness are white, as are most of those doing battle against their form of psychological tyranny. And, believe it or not, there were many African and Native Americans who fought under the Confederate battle flag.)
Once the battle flag was retired as a symbol of the lost Southern cause, but flown by some in remembrance of those who struggled and died beneath its furls. Now it is given new life by those who would erase everything it once stood for from our national consciousness. (I recently even heard a Chicago radio talk-show host comparing the battle flag with the nazi flag! What an insult to the memory of our southern Civil War ancestors!) Thus there is a new cause and a new battle raging, and the battle flag is a national standard rather than a regional one.
It is somewhat ironic that the flag which once flew over Southern armies during their War of Session seems destined to unite much of the country, (and, unfortunately, at the same time further polarize it) as its most popular symbol of the battle against the tyranny of Political Correctness. Everything that this great nation stands for is symbolized in this flag whether liberals like it or not. To many, the Confederate battle flag stands not only for the Southern heritage, but the very core of America's root values. (Not even to mention the symbolism of St. Andrew's cross and its history.)
Those values are threatened today as never before. Unfortunately, thanks to our liberal media, and radical groups on both the right and left, it has also been made into a symbol of hate for many. Those on the left literally hate this flag and all it stands for. It stands for everything they detest about American republican institutions and American independence. Since it would be considered politically incorrect to attack the national flag itself, they fall upon the Confederate battle flag and its defenders like so many ravenous vultures. While many groups on the far right lamentably fuel liberal passions by using the flag as a symbol of white supremacy, they make up only a small, (but highly visible) minority of those who embrace the battle flag. But most white racists, neo-nazis, and skinheads also embrace Old Glory. (What can the politically correct crowd do about that?)
The battle flag, like the stars and stripes, stands first and foremost in the minds of most patriots, without need for qualification or apology, as an untarnished symbol of American pride, valor, and determination to resist tyranny (for our Civil War was a war for Southern self-determination against federal tyranny). The battle flag has the added dimension of being a symbol against the new tyranny of feel-good, touchy-feely, political correctness — a form of social engineering inherently repugnant to free peoples.
Our nation's first naval ensign depicted a rattlesnake and the words, "Don't Tread on Me!" (Maybe Patriots should be embracing that flag.) Those who believe they can tread with impunity upon Americans who hold the battle flag dear would do well to heed those words.
