Hissyfit time at XRoads....

... over photos from the Silent Sam demonstrations in North Carolina. Some guy in a Confederate do-rag ran a belt through the grommet of his Confederate flag to attach it to his PVC pipe flagpole, and the buckle end was in a loop, and they're saying it's a ... wait for it ... A NOOSE.

Odious Andy finds another pic of what appears to be the same guy at another gathering, and he has a narrow rope tied to his flagpole near the bottom grommet and both ends of the rope hang down to the bottom of the pole. No loops, no nooses, and the rope is not attaching his flag to the pole like the belt was. If I were to speculate, given the length of the rope (which would easily run the width of a truck bed)I would guess that the rope is used to help secure the flag to a pickup truck. But it is speculation.

One thing these haters don't mention is that no other flags (and there are a lot of 'em in the photos) have similar, ah, embellishments... but you know how it is with floggers and floggerettes. To them, when it comes to anything Confederate, one guy does something, the whole heritage community -- tens of thousands of people -- are guilty of it.

UPDATE -- Odious Andy sez the "noose" belt isn't touching the flag and isn't threaded through the grommet to hold the flag to the pole. I loaded the image into my graphics editor to magnify it, and it appears he is correct; it also may be that it is attached in some way to either the clip that goes through the grommet, or to the eyebolt in the pole. It is difficult to tell because the image blurs out when the magnification increases a certain amount. There appears to be something wrapped around the belt just in front of the flag pole, however.

And then we have this from a commenter at XRoads:

Talmadge Walker    October 26, 2015 / 4:39 pm

According to a friend of mine, he did tell some woman recording the event that yes, it was supposed to represent a noose. Haven’t seen the video myself though.

Umhmm... according to a friend of his. An unnamed, unidentified friend....  Some woman, also not named or identified. Video where the fellow purportedly says the belt, or whatever it is, represents a noose has so far not appeared at XRoads.

Simpson replies to Talmadge Walker, "Interesting. Because Connie Chastain, who didn’t talk to the person, claims differently..." and he quotes this Backsass post, following up with, "Now you can believe the person himself, or you can believe Connie Chastain, Confederate heritage apologist."

I haven't seen where the person himself said that. The information comes from two -- count 'em, TWO -- unidentified persons, and is unverifiable at this point.

Besides, none of this changes the fact that apparently nobody else at the event had a "representation of a noose" on their flags, but Simpson's post nevertheless implies everyone at the event -- and all heritage advocates -- are haters and terrorists because of this one guy...