The ignorance and poor judgment of some South Carolina Republican lawmakers is embarrassing to all who have a factual knowledge of South Carolina history and an honest assessment of recent events. Their opportunistic, politically motivated behavior will likely be damaging to an already fragmented South Carolina Republican Party in both the short and long term.
In fairness to Governor Haley, I’m sure she is sincere in her belief. Unfortunately she is a product of South Carolina Schools that have been dumbed-down and made politically correct by the federal government. The Governor has no southern heritage. It is not her fault, her heritage is from the Indian cast system, much different from the United States.
Do you find it interesting that the battle flag became a national target immediately after the murders, as if it were a planned response like the national anti-gun uprisings and riots after each incident that can be used to advance a cause?
Before the funerals of the murder victims were planned, and police had interrogated the alleged murderer, President Obama, Senator Lindsey Graham and Governor Haley had solved the murder. They and every leftist and race-bating group in the nation had come to the same conclusion. The motivation and cause of the vicious murders was the small battle flag flying as part of the Confederate Soldier Memorial on the State House grounds. Its removal, according to their reasoning, would heal racial wounds in the country.
Their conclusion could not have been more wrong. Removal of the flag from the Confederate Soldier Memorial will set back race relations in South Carolina that were finally beginning to heal. Should South Carolina Christians of both races come together based on their shared Biblical beliefs, they would be a powerful force that scares both the leftist Democrats and the Northeast Liberal wing of the Republican Party. They will do anything to prevent that from happening. Is it not possible that the alleged murderer was motivated to divide the races not because of the flag, but to serve the purpose of the politicians and others who benefit from racial strife?
The legitimate descendants of slaves have reason to resent the abuse they and their ancestors have experienced at the hands of both major political parties. The Radical Republicans used them to abuse whites during Reconstruction. The white Democrats got revenge by imposing Jim Crow laws for a century and we know what has happened in recent years. The Government has become the new plantation.
Governor Haley and lawmakers joining her rushed to judgment to banish the flag. They conveniently forgot to recognize that Senator Clementa Carlos Pinckney , Pastor of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston and one of the murder victims, was one of the senators who voted to locate the flag permanently where it is today.
Recent polls have indicated that a majority of South Carolinians oppose taking the battle flag from the Confederate Soldier monument in Columbia. Polls also indicate that a majority of Americans do not agree with the flag opponents and see the flag as representing heritage, not hate.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans has officially refrained from talking to media and participating in any public demonstrations in respect for the victims of the Charleston murder. This organization consisting of thousands of members in more than 850 camps across the republic has an interest in the currently one-sided debate. They are nonpolitical by charter, and unaffiliated with any other organization. They are well-informed, law-abiding citizens, and they vote.
Some 120 years ago in New Orleans, Louisiana, General Stephen Dill Lee, president of the aging Confederate Veterans organization addressed the sons of those veterans:
“To you, Sons of Confederate Veterans, we submit the vindication for the cause for which we fought. To your strength will be given the defense of the Confederate soldier’s good name, the guardianship of his history, the emulation of his virtues, the perpetuation of those principles he loved and which you cherish. Remember, it is your duty to see that the true history of the South is preserved to future generations.”