A person waving a CSA flag is very different than tearing down a monument dedicated to men who died in a war.
Tearing down that monument does not erase history of the war, but it does erase the monument to those men. But that is the decision of local authorities if they choose to remove it.
The historical context is in a museum or similar displays. That is historical context.
It does not have the same historical context if a guy wants to wave it in a park, street corner, or home.
To make it simple, you are the only one who wants to ban something because you don't like it although it would be unconstitutional. I want to follow the Constitution.
Hatred and prejudice...represented in the flag.
You said yourself that was its history, Flash.
You're trying to say history doesn't matter while screeching that it does.
Make up your damn mind.
It's not that I don't like it, or find it tacky, it's that it is used as a tool of intimidation. That's why anyone waves it about. No one likes it because it's pretty. They like it because of what it represents, that you so succinctly put forward earlier when you said it represents slavery and white supremacy.
Look, I can't help it if you can't keep your argument straight in a thread. But just because you're frustratedIn that your argument eats itself, doesn't mean I'm the bad guy for pointing it out.
Yes, it does! And now you're saying you support erasing history.
Wow.
How? By waving that flag about and pretending it's "heritage", you erase the history of the flag.
It's that simple. That's your argument.
Unless...you're going to say the heritage is slavery and white supremacy, which would make the flag a tool of intimidation, wouldn't it?
Right...so waving it about, without that context, would erase the history. Just like you said.
So once again, you were arguing that tearing them down "erases history", then you evolved that position to say the historical context "is BS", then you evolved yet again to say that tearing them down won't erase history, it'll just hurt the feelings of those who support that shitty history...that you say doesn't matter.
You're all over the place.
It's not that I don't like it, or find it tacky, it's that it is used as a tool of intimidation. That's why anyone waves it about. No one likes it because it's pretty. They like it because of what it represents, that you so succinctly put forward earlier when you said it represents slavery and white supremacy.
Look, I can't help it if you can't keep your argument straight in a thread. But just because you're frustrated that your argument eats itself, doesn't mean I'm the bad guy for pointing it out.
Intimidation is a crime and a person can be convicted. But simply displaying that flag is not intimidation. If some kid wears a belt buckle with the CSA symbol in small, all-white, rural school, who is he trying to intimidate? Intimidation has certain required elements and I'm not aware of any case that found displaying a symbol to be intimidation.
Clarence Thomas wrote a SC case upholding burning a cross in (near?) a black family's lawn to be intimidation, but that act requires certain behavior to make it intimidation.
That Georgia couple who rode with flags on their vehicles to intimidate the black child's birthday party were guilty of making armed threats. Those actions would have been illegal without any flags.
Intimidation is a crime and a person can be convicted. But simply displaying that flag is not intimidation. If some kid wears a belt buckle with the CSA symbol in small, all-white, rural school, who is he trying to intimidate? Intimidation has certain required elements and I'm not aware of any case that found displaying a symbol to be intimidation.
Clarence Thomas wrote a SC case upholding burning a cross in (near?) a black family's lawn to be intimidation, but that act requires certain behavior to make it intimidation.
You say: tearing down monuments and statutes does not erase history
You say: displaying a Confederate flag (outside a museum) does erase history
So, tearing it down doesn't erase it but displaying it does erase it. Contorted logic.
No, you just try to make everything overly simplistic.
Historical context is one thing, claiming it can only be displayed in the context is totally wrong and if you can't understand that is it because of your everything is black or white mentality.
When I said it doesn't matter (you lost the historical context) I meant the law protects displaying those symbols regardless of whether they erase history or displayed within historical context.
claim the flag stands for slavery, but then say that history is erased outside of a museum. That must mean it no longer stands for slavery if that history is erased.