South Carolina Republican Vows To Introduce Bill That Would Remove Confederate Flag From State Capitol
A South Carolina Republican representative has vowed to introduce a bill in the statehouse that would remove the Confederate flag from all state properties.
Doug Brannon, a five-year vet of the South Carolina statehouse, plans on introducing the bill in December. He knows that his stance on the issue will likely cost him reelection, but believes he needed to do something after losing friend and state Rep. Clementa Pinckney in the church shooting last Wednesday.
From CBS:
Republican state Rep. Doug Brannon plans to introduce a bill to remove the flag, which he acknowledges will likely cost him re-election, reports CBS News’ Adriana Diaz.
“The switch that flipped was the death of my friend Sen. [Clementa] Pinckney… I’ve been in the House five years. I should have filed that bill five years ago. But the time is now, I can’t let my friend the senator’s death go without fundamental change in South Carolina,” Brannon said.
Brannon said he plans to introduce his bill as early as he can, which won’t be until December.
Other politicians have said they will wait until after funerals can be held for the nine victims of last week’s shooting before they weigh on whether the flag should be moved.
Other politicians have commented on the flag issue, including former presidential candidate Mitt Romney and current presidential candidate Jeb Bush. Both believe the flag shouldn’t fly on state properties.
Take down the #ConfederateFlag at the SC Capitol. To many, it is a symbol of racial hatred. Remove it now to honor #Charleston victims.
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) June 20, 2015
As a Carolina native, I’ve never felt compelled to show pride for a losing cause in a war that happened over 150 years ago. Most people I know don’t have Confederate pride either, and were always irritated by those around us who did. The only people who showed Confederate pride were usually the ones who prefaced racist thoughts with the words “My heritage,” followed by bumbling, incoherent thoughts that were historically inaccurate. Ironically, they were also the guys who showed the most American pride, unaware that they were contradicting themselves at essentially every turn.
Wiping the Confederate flag off the face of the earth isn’t the answer, but it doesn’t belong in front of state capitols. That should be something we can all agree on..
[via CBS]
Image via YouTube
Poor people didn’t fight against impossible odds so a wealthy minority could keep their slaves. It’s a little more complicated than that.
10 years ago at 11:10 amWell there was a draft of which the only way to avoid it was to buy your way out. This buy-out could only be afforded by the wealthy. So actually it was that simple in many cases. It is a little more complicated but it was in many measurable ways a war for rich men that they forced poor men to fight with a draft.
10 years ago at 11:57 amTo me the flag is a symbol of southern pride, not racism.
10 years ago at 11:10 amAmen.
10 years ago at 11:26 amThe confederacy succeeded from the U.S., thus making themselves an enemy of the U.S.
There’s no pride in that whatsoever.
10 years ago at 11:27 amHow does one succeed from the US?
10 years ago at 11:53 amIt is about more than southern pride. It was about the right to mantin slavery that was decided by the color of somebody’s skin. So….say it with me….racism.
10 years ago at 12:37 pmAnd my point still stands. It’s legislation for the sake of passing legislation, just the same as all the knee-jerk “assault weapons bans” that happen after every massacre. It will not solve the problem of mental illness in an individual that manifests itself as mass violence.
10 years ago at 11:16 amI’ve been to many Civil War reenactments and those guys know their state history and their Civil War history; ironically the actors in those productions do not flaunt the confederate flag on their vehicles, and I would assume they don’t have one publicly flying on their property. The flag itself is not the problem; it is a part of our nations history. The problem is when extremist groups take that flag and assign it values that are not historically accurate and breed hate with it as their symbol. The most prevalent places to see the Confederate flag is in trailer parks and the backwoods; where no one actually knows its history. I’m reluctant to say remove the flag just because some people find it offensive and I’m against the “I’m offended” culture that is becoming more widespread these days, but if someone can prove that the Confederate flag is the cause of these deeply rooted racist attitudes, then by all means, get rid of it.
10 years ago at 11:18 amThis is utter libera bullshit.
10 years ago at 11:18 amMitt Romney is conservative, jackass.
10 years ago at 11:32 amTechnically, he’s a center-right moderate.
10 years ago at 11:54 amIf you can’t display a bible on government land, you shouldn’t be able to fly the Confederate flag on it either.
10 years ago at 11:21 amRemind me what the Confederate flag has to do with the separation of church and state?
10 years ago at 11:34 amSymbolism. It’s all symbolism. Bibles on the courthouse lawn are symbolic that the government is okay with Christianity or prefers them. People were offended so they got removed using the separation of church and state argument.
Confederate flags can be associated with racism, for right or for wrong. And to have that symbol on government property can seem like the government is just okay with racism. Whether or not the flag symbolizes, or is associated with racism or prejudice in the south is totally a personal decision. But if you can’t at least understand why individuals are offended by it, you’re pretty ignorant.
10 years ago at 12:03 pmThen let’s get rid of the Stars and Stripes, and Lady Liberty, and all these other symbols that may offend people.
10 years ago at 12:48 pmThat’s not a over exaggeration or anything. Way to be rational.
10 years ago at 1:35 pmClark, I was just taking your idea of symbolism to its logical end point. If we ban one symbol for causing someone discomfort why not do it to all symbols that may cause someone discomfort?
10 years ago at 2:01 pmI get that. It’s going to be very hard as to where exactly to draw lines on what can stand on government property and what can’t. And that’s ultimately decided by the people we elect into office. I personally believe the only thing on government land should be the American flag and the state flag.
10 years ago at 2:33 pmWhoever taught you how to construct an argument should be dragged into the street and shot. The fact that you can’t discern the difference between the issue at hand and the government sponsorship of religion is pathetic for a college student.
10 years ago at 1:55 pmWhere did I say they were the same thing? Please show me.
10 years ago at 2:04 pmYou guys should really know what the flag stands for before you try to tear it to shreds. Especially if you aren’t from South Carolina and don’t know the first thing besides what the media is telling you about it. Let’s come after your flag and see how you like it. Eat a dick, the flag stands.
10 years ago at 11:21 amThey’re takin our jobs! Nah but on a serious note as a Carolina native the flag in my opinion symbolizes heritage but I do understand people feeling differently about it
10 years ago at 11:22 amI do think this is a culture that is becoming too easily offended. But the stars and bars represent something different. People should take some time to read South Carolina’s (for you idiots who don’t know SC led the secession) original secession document from December 24, 1860. The men who wrote it thought it was so important, they went to work on Christmas Eve to ensure its speedy passage. They used the word “slavery” 18 times. They not only defended enslaving people in South Carolina, but they forcefully condemned the federal government for allowing other states to outlaw the practice. South Carolina’s document is important because the states that followed used it as a model for their own secession documents. Some people will tell you the Civil War was about states’ rights. Okay, this is true so long as you concede it was about a state’s right to violently enslave human beings. Never, not once, did the men who drafted this document in 1860 argue, “Hey, this has nothing to do with race.” For them, white supremacy was the entire point! They didn’t try to hide it. The flag represents this secession and the pure racism it was for.
10 years ago at 11:33 amWow. Blackball this fucker.
10 years ago at 12:40 pmThe whole problem is people are attacking this symbol like it caused the massacre when in reality it was a mentally sick individual. It’s no better than people blaming guns for violence. It’s not symbols or guns that harm other humans, it’s other individuals.
10 years ago at 12:43 pmWhile slavery was a primary motive for secession, especially for the Deep South, there is more to the story than Southern racism (the North was also very racist) and a desire to maintain slavery. People forget that economic motives played a major role for both sides. Lincoln threatened “violence and bloodshed” for states that failed to pay Federal tariffs. Those tariffs hurt Southern states for the benefit of Northern industry. People also forget that Lincoln was a corporate lobbyist for the railroads and firmly believed in old Whig mercantilist economic policies. This isn’t even mentioning the cultural and religious divide between the two sections that had existed ever since the time of colonization. While ending slavery was a good outcome of the war (the only good one), it changed the nature of the Union from a voluntary arrangement in which the states were free and sovereign, into a coercive Union in which the central government rules the states like Soviet satellites. Every other civilized country on the face of the earth was able to end slavery peacefully. Why it cost hundreds of thousands of American lives and the death of the Union of the Founders to end it here is a question I leave to the reader.
10 years ago at 1:13 pmEnding slavery was the only good outcome of the war? How about the fact that the southern states are still apart of the United States? Or do you wish differently bud?
10 years ago at 2:57 pmIf the states are sovereign and free, then they ought to have a choice to secede or remain in the Union. Remember that each former colony was individually recognized as independent by King George after the War for Independence and that the United States was always referred to in the plural. Political arrangements are not holy or sacred – they are purely practical. Are the boundaries of the United States or any other country divinely ordained and meant to remain until the end of time? I don’t think so, and neither did most of the Founding generation. Why worry so much about arbitrary lines on a map? Why not worry more about freedom and self-determination? The U.S. was meant to be a voluntary Union of societies. The idea of a monolithic, indivisible state is not an American one – it comes from the French Revolution.
10 years ago at 3:57 pmCongratulations, you just said that the Civil War was partly about slavery. You’re right. Because slavery, at the time, was a states’ rights issue. The argument you just made would be the equivalent of saying “we went into WW2 to kick Tojo’s ass for Pearl Harbor.” That statement is correct, but is that WHY America went to war? No; it was concerned with the spread of fascism in Europe, the economic implications of losing Western Europe, and other things. Pearl Harbor was just the impetus to declare war, but war was inevitable. Similarly, the slavery issue was the straw that broke the camels back, but by no means was it the true cause of the war. It was a facet to a much larger problem: the loss of the right to self-determination by the State.
10 years ago at 2:29 amSomething something STATE’S RIGHTS!
10 years ago at 11:37 am