Hysteria American Style...

Behold my firends, the latest symbol of a divided America my friends.

What, you say I'm a century and a half too late?  Not hardly...I am serious on this.  The Confederate Flag is once again a symbol of a divided America.  Not the sense that we are once again two countries and we are fighting each other with muskets and cannon in the fields of lower Appalachia, but we are indeed fighting.

And why are we fighting?  Race.  It all started last week with a boy and a gun in a church in Charleston, South Carolina.  He killed nine people, all black people, and then ran.  That's it in a nutshell.  He was apprehended without incident and alive in North Carolina alive and without incident and behind bars he sits at this hour, charged with nine counts of murder in the first degree and a long, drawn out court case lies ahead.

But if it were only that simple.  It never is.

Since this country is by and large stupid beyond adequate description, the media and a good chunk of the drone-like American public is not directly blaming this young man for what he is accused of.

First it was racism.  That's already on the table here, and we will circle back to it in a few.  The next blame was placed on the gun, something not altogether news when mass shootings occur, but unlike the last major mass shooting less emphasis was given to the weapon this time as the gun was purchased legally and he was of legal age. 

Some question was given to the fact that he was a borderline mental patient and a drug addict who had no business possessing a gun, but for whatever reason that died quietly.

Then this picture showed up.  (note the flag):

 

Someone took a picture of the suspect holding the Confederate Battle flag.  A symbol...to some...of racism, bigotry and hate based upon the fact that it represented the slave trade and the racial division in the south.  Within days of the murder...24 hours almost to the minute as a matter of fact, calls for the removal of the flag from public buildings went out.  Major retailers stopped selling them, and the fervor associated with symbology causing tragic events rocketed the situation to critical mass, which is where it stands today.

So here we are a week later and the actor who is accused of the crime...someone who i might add wanted to start a race war in this country by carrying out his evil plan...sits in jail, almost an afterthought when it comes to the case as a whole. Social media, as you might imagine, has had a field day with this part of the story, and since it allows the village idiot the ability to opine on the subject, the usual suspects are running wild in a field feeding on the great American guilt complex.

But instead of Dylann Roof being the subject of people's understandable wrath, instead the focus is on the symbols he was projecting that were the ones at faul for the evil he did.  No matter the fact that a confession has been given allegedly by this individual, he is a supporting character to the fact that what the flag represents did the killing.

No case is an airtight slam dunk thing, but the brass tacks is that Dylann Roof killed nine people and the country wants to blame, in a general sense, the symbolic aspects of the crime.  The above picture is not the only inflammatory aspect that casts some insight into why he (allegedly) did what he did but since I don't want to glorify this asshole more than I absolitely have to so I won't post them in this blog entry.

What I will do is call your attention to the fact that the country needs to come to its senses and FAST.

Your civil liberties are being threatened.  Again.  

Here is where a lot of "what-ifs" come into play.  It is understandable that the flag be taken down to salve whatever emotions are being brought to the surface due to this tragedy.  It should not, however, be something that should be completely eliminated from history because despite what it speaks to in the country and it's checkered past.  The only way to learn from history is to be exposed to it, and just making something go away still leaves the wounds open, and it will her as well.

Discussion and proposals are being pitched to eliminate other questionably racist elements, such as the sculpture of the Confederate leaders on Stone Mountain in Georgia for example.  My question is, where does it stop?  Most of our foundign fathers owned slaves, and regardless of their treatment the hypocrisy of the first and third Presidents (Washington and Jefferson) as free men owning slaves.  It is, however not an altogether wild notion that once the Confederate flag is removed and that truism is brought to light, their images are the nest to go, and both of their faces are on Mount Rushmore, carved in stone.

At its heart it is a censorship issue, and the common mans biggest champion of civil rights is remaining silent on the whole mess.  The ACLU is quick to shut down people who object to things like burning the American flag, or stomping the flag as an act of protest because the argue it is a first amendment right to be able to do it.  That would be okay if it weren't for the fact that as of this writing the ACLU has not moved either way on this subject.  They need to, and I call on them to do their duty and at least address the situation from a legal standpoint.

My hypothesis is that the reason why they are slow to speak up, the clients who benefited from the ACLU's action over the years would not like what they would have to tell them and on that they are both slow to act on this but even more slowly is the general public looking to them for their word on the situation.