Saturday, September 3, 2011

The Lexington Mentality

Okay, folks. Don't get yourselves in a tizzy over the illustrations below. They are SYMBOLIC graphic representations of the mentality shown by the Lexington City Council in its vote to prohibit Confederate flags from flying on city-owned flagpoles.

It's obviously repressive -- but how? It is contemptuous of its own past, so that gives us a clue. There comes to mind two examples from the previous century of repressive regimes hostile to the past -- the USSR under Joseph Stalin and Afghanistan under the Taliban. (Text continues below graphic.)
Stalin was infamous for his purges not only of those who opposed him politically, but of their very memory constructed in the past, carefully cutting their images out of photos in books and slicing away written references to them.

Likely we all remember the Taliban blowing up Buddhist statues almost 2,000 years old, to the dismay of most of the world.

The city council didn't vote to blow anything up yet, so at this point, Lexington looks more like Stalinton than Lexingstan.

Bloggers hostile to Southern heritage are having a field day, attempting to evilize (or, at least in this case, stupidize) Southerners who honor that heritage because they might have been misinformed about what the city's vote was intended to do. The shrill derision aimed at opponents of the ordinance inspired me to post the following at Civil War Memory.
This decision was reactionary -- it was instigated after, and because, the SCV flew flags from city owned staffs for their Lee-Jackson commemoration. It wasn't instigated after some Girl Scout flags were displayed, or GBLT Rainbow flags were displayed. The ordinance was designed specifically to prohibit Confederate flags from flying on those staffs -- everybody else's organizational flag-flying was collateral damage -- sacrificed for the sake of sticking it to the SCV and Confederate heritage. It was the city's (and some university faculty's) middle finger in the face of the SCV.
And this is my response to a gentlemen who explained things in terms a little less offensive than what is normally aimed at me over there:
Mr. S---, I have never claimed that it was unconstitutional. In fact, I have explained this to people on Facebook groups where I post -- that the ordinance is not a First Amendment, free-expression issue. It doesn't apply to personal displays of the flag. Yet.

For some of us, however, there is a problem with it, whether you see it or not. I clearly understand that the city did this purposely to prohibit Confederate flags displays on city property. (From the photos I've seen, these are small flagpoles mounted at an angle on larger poles, apparently lampposts.) It is the city -- officials elected to represent all the people of the town -- sitting in judgment of those who honor its history, at the behest of a few instigators, the primary one being an immigrant to this country motivated by a deliberate or inadvertent misunderstanding of Lexington's history and heritage.

This is an example of the ongoing official eradication of the South's Confederate heritage accomplished in tiny increments. There are people who say that's not happening but here's an instance of it going on before our very eyes. And if the city can do this, it can ban people carrying flags on city-owned sidewalks or displaying flags on vehicles that travel city-owned streets ("Oh, no, we're not encroaching on your First Amendment rights. You can still display your flags -- just not on our poles, or on our sidewalks or on our streets....")
So, do y'all like the graphic? I'd love to see photos of these things duct taped to "city property" (flag poles? lamp posts?) all over Lexington. I'd love to see them all over Dixie's corner of cyberspace, too. You can see a larger version by clicking the image; and you can download a .pdf version by clicking the link below. (Note: Download at your own risk. The image/pdf files and my personal webspace supplied by my ISP were virus- and malware-free at the time of uploading, but who knows what happens after that....)

23 comments :

  1. Keep standing for truth Connie! Deo Vindice!

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  2. Not real sure why Tax Payer's money should go to support a symbol that rebelled from the U.S. Seems appropriate. If I disagreed, I would not want my Tax Money to go to support something. Especially since the is only reflective of the city owned polls. People can still hang the flags on their houses, cars, parade with them etc. Hardly Stalin or Taliban regimes.

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  3. It's hyperbole, Robert. My tax money goes to support all KINDS of things I don't agree with and disapprove of but I don't whine about it or start petitions to bully city governments into accommodating me. The symbol didn't rebel against the U.S. and neither did the people who originated it.

    http://youtu.be/7qfX0uXDktY

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  4. Then your vote is lost Connie. That's what you do in a Republic. If you don't like where your tax money goes, you write your congressman, get petitions, and change things. Did you not learn that in civics? The people rebelled against, the U.S., the flag was their symbol. By connection, the symbol represents rebellion. Should the flag be on Museums, Memorials, and Headstones, YES!. Should it be tax funded, even by those that disapprove, NO.

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  5. Rob, there was no rebellion. What law or constitutional article or amendment do you imagine Southern states violated?

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  6. I am pretty sure it was a rebellion. Definitely wasn't a civil war. A War for Independence maybe, but the victors, who are the ones mentioned above, stated continuously and saw this as a rebellion.

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  7. Rob, what law or constitutional article or amendment was violated?

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  8. I'm going to go with the Constitution never stating the states as sovereign. Also it is hypocritical. The Constitution is a contract of the people and not the states, as dictated by the Supreme Court. The federal government also defends territory maintenance of the union as dictated by the constitution. The people had the right to travel in the nation and engage in interstate commerce. Therefore the notion that a citizen could find themselves in a different nation due to seceding state is in conflict with the Constitution.

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  9. No, no, no, that doesn't get it. Tell me where (1) the constitution FORBIDS the states to secede or (2) grants the feds the power to forbid the states to secede. Article. Section. Paragraph.

    You said, "Therefore the notion that a citizen could find themselves in a different nation due to seceding state is in conflict with the Constitution."

    Article? Section? Paragraph?

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  10. Pretty sure that does get it. Sort of how it doesn't say that they can. So that is really a moot point. And I would reccommend you look at the Right of the Federate Government to regulate interstate commerce.

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  11. Rob, the Constitution doesn't list ANYTHING the states CAN do; only what they CAN'T do. So, you don't have the Article, Section, Paragraph backing up your claim. I DO have the Article, Section, Paragraph proving you wrong.

    How does the federal government having the right to regulate interstate commerce within the U.S. give it the right to regulate interstate commerce in other countries? Canada? Mexico? The CSA? Quick answer. It doesn't. This is a huge, hamfisted grasp at a tiny little filament of a straw....

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  12. Connie this is just sad. You don't have an article guaranteeing secession. And the right to regulate interstate commerce is and was established when the Union was whole, therefore attributing Canada and Mexico to that is pretty moot. The CSA was not a country.

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  13. There doesn't have to be an article guaranteeing the right of secession. The Constitution doesn't talk about rights in the Articles, anyway, except for one mention. Rather, the Articles use the word powers. (The Amendments use both words, powers and rights.)

    The powers of the states are not specifically listed in the Constitution because, in fact, ALL powers are reserved to the states (or the people) except:

    (1) those specifically delegated to the United States, or
    (2) those specifically prohibited to the states.

    In both cases -- the delegated and the prohibited -- the powers ARE listed. Numbered and listed.

    The Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

    The power to prohibit secession is not delegated to the United States by the Constitution any freaking where. The Articles are basically the federal government's job description. The states delegated to it only those powers necessary for it to carry out its job description. Prohibiting secession is not part of the feds' job description. Try to find it, Rob. It. Just. Ain't. There.

    The powers prohibited to the states are listed in Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution. Secession is not listed. It is therefore a power reserved to the states and the people. Here, see for yourself. These are the powers prohibited to the states:

    ----------
    Section 10 - Powers prohibited of States

    No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

    No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.


    No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

    ----------

    Secession is not listed as a power prohibited to the states.

    The seceded states did not violate Section 10 (prohibition against joining confederacies) because no state was admitted to the Confederacy while it was still in the United States. All of them, every single one, waited until after they seceded from the USA and were no longer subject to the Constitution, before being admitted to the Confederacy.

    It's not sad, Rob. What's sad is how the government plays lip service to the Constitution and then violates it, all day long, every day...

    The CSA was a country, Robert. It was created by independent states (like those that created the USA). It had a government, a Constitution, territory, a citizenry, a military, a cohesive national culture and more. It was a nation.

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  14. "I DO have the Article, Section, Paragraph proving you wrong."

    You do realize now, that everything else you wrote does not matter. lol.

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