The Confederate Flag, an Opiate of Racism

Dream Weaver's Allusions
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Thanks to the not so clear thinking of Mr. Roof, the not so clear thinking of our politicians is being raised up the flagpole. Many photographs showing Mr. Roof posing with the Confederate Flag posted before he executed his dastardly plan, have brought about a renewed effort to ban the display of the flag, esp. around public buildings. Businesses, have pulled merchandise off the shelf, knowing how public opinion flutters in the winds of emotionally charged reactionary hot air pumped out by some of the media.

 

It’s a symbol, people. Just like the Nazi flag is a symbol.  They represent ideologies. Unlike the symbol, it is the ideology that galvanizes a character to act. Good ideology promotes and sustains good actions. Bad ideology promotes and culminates into bad actions.

 

Where did Dylann Roof acquire his ideology? I can assure you, it does not come from gazing at one solitary object over a period of time, but is acquired piecemeal over years from many sources. Again, right ideas pieced together over time are more likely to yield right conclusions, whereas wrong ideas are destined to end in frustration.

 

What Dylann Roof did was to violate the rights of every individual in that church, and from nine of them deprived them of the very source of those rights — their lives.

 

In response, the institution crafted to uphold and protect individual rights turn their attention to a symbol of a flag — a symbol that should be used to remind us of what the world looked like when individuals deprived of those rights brought to the forefront in this country the contradiction it embodied — and the price that was paid with the lifeblood of over half a million souls for not correcting that contradiction earlier.

 

Putting my ire back in check, I have to wonder how this might have turned out differently had Dylann’s photos been of him posing with the drug Suboxone instead.

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Enjoyed your comments, dream-weaver, Txs.  Here’s my, unrelated, take.  The important issue is not the conflicting truths about feelings connected to the battle flag of the militia of N. Virginia.  The important issue is a democratically elected government of a republic (state or federal) promoting any derivative idea - that is, any idea that is not commonly held by the reasonable citizens (who surely disagree on many derivative issues) as expressed in its founding constitutional document.  When a government entity goes beyond the limits placed on it by its founding constitution, it must, logically, be acting in a manner that favors one citizen segment over another.

 

The founders in the American experiment understood this and wrote a founding document whose clear, primary purpose was the limitation of government power, which should include expression of derivative ideas in the name of the entire community.  Fly the flag for your own personal reasons on private property.  Fly a symbol that counters your interpretation of this icon on private property.  Objectivist politics says get it off property paid for by taxes because it represents a derivative concept not shared by all citizens.

 

The counter argument that laws against the initiation of force or fraud are also derivative to the basic republican principle contained in originating documents, misses the point.  A claim to a right to violate the right of others is not equivalent to the disagreement over whether a government should hold a derived symbol as representing just one idea.  The American flag represents us all without derived ideology - this is not true of the N. Virginia battle flag.

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Yes, there is a distinction between public vs private, and it should not be flown by governing bodies. I did tip my hat to it, thus raising the issue, so I would not consider it that unrelated.

 

The irritating part to me is the timing, bringing it up in the wake of a tragedy. It’s as if they can not make a principled case  for the position, rather they’ll try to piggyback on the publicity generated by Dylann Roof’s actions and maybe then it can get removed from the flagpole that way.

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A great summary of the issue, dream-weaver.

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When an event like this killing (or an airplane disappearance) take place, the reporting often follows this pattern: first there’s reporting about the facts of the event and some related, relevant facts. So, we might be told about the shooting, about white-power/hate groups, about the particular black church. There’s sometimes a degree of speculation, particularly if there aren’t enough facts to fill the news-hour: like Don Lemon speculating if a black hole caused the disappearance of an aircraft. 

 

Soon, everyone knows the facts, so reporters look wider. They report on less-related issues: like this flag. This “works” particularly well (i.e. generates viewers, and social-media buzz) if the issue divides people. Soon, someone from the less politically-correct side is bound to make some remark that can be construed as offensive. This becomes news: reporting someones remark, about something slightly related to the actual news. [The book “The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America” - by Daniel J. Boorstin explores the ways in which the news is full of such reporting. It’s a mixed book, but highly recommended on this subject.]

 

Since almost everyone is against murder, the murder itself is not going to stir controversy. The flag is different. The majority of Southerners are not racist, yet a sizable portion do not see their forefathers as evil people. However faulty the reasoning here, the point is that the flag is something that is far more controversial than the murder. This is something people can rally for or against. “Friends” might ban “friends” on Facebook for thinking that the flag is also a symbol of unquestioning patriotism, rather than racism. Walmart says they won’t sell merchandise with the flag; Apple goes completely batty and pulls a game that has the flag.

 

Humans need purpose, meaning and a sense of their own goodness. A controversy like this gives the participants meaning. Supporting a good cause give us meaning, but – using the same mechanism – righteous indignation gives us meaning too! Of course there’s nothing wrong with righteous indignation, but consider this: does the concept of “inflation” apply here (at least in analogy)? [A book, pondering this issue is: “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning” - by Chris Hedges]

 

The underlying issue that the descendants of civil-war confederates need to resolve is not the flag, but: how to view those ancestors. Vietnam soldiers got a poor reception because they lost and because the war seemed meaningless; but, at least they were trying to fight communism, not supporting slavery. The civil war is closer to Germany or Japan, fighting WW-II. Subsequent generations have to make peace with this truth: that even if their ancestors fought primarily because of patriotic feelings about their state, or because they feared the consequences of a northern invasion, in the end they fought in support of an evil cause. It’s unfortunate that so many (including many libertarians) spin the civil war as not being about slavery. These folk need to acknowledge the truth; and, with this truth, even the Confederate flag can find an appropriate place, instead of being banished altogether.

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