The Confederate Flag and South Carolina

Steve Chapman / Townhall Columnist

 

When I went off to college in 1972, leaving Texas for New England, I took something to remind me of home: a large Confederate flag. 

 

With my roommates' indulgence, it hung on the wall of my freshman dorm suite the entire academic year.

 

It seemed harmless at the time. I didn't intend any racial message, and I didn't feel any sympathy for racial bigotry. Although I had attended segregated public schools all my life, when my high school integrated my senior year, I co-chaired a student human relations committee to address racial conflicts.

Like a lot of people below the Mason-Dixon Line -- white people, anyway -- I saw the emblem as a token of regional pride. I didn't revere slavery and Jim Crow. But I thought there was much about the South to love.

And if the flag annoyed the Yankees a little, that was OK. They were not as noble and blameless as they pretended to be. They were not going to make me repudiate my native region.

But when I recently ran across a photo of me and a friend hanging that flag out the dorm window, I winced. The banner, the familiar red rectangle with a blue X, hadn't changed. But my understanding of what it signified had.

In 2015, anyone displaying that flag knows what it means to viewers, particularly black ones. It's an expression of hostility, not only toward black people, but to broader ideals of how the nation should come to terms with the legacy of racism.

Time Mag: Muhammad cartoons “make Muslims feel less safe”

By Robert Spencer /  Jihad Watch

 

Jordan Denari is a “Research Fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, where she works for the Bridge Initiative, a research project on Islamophobia.” She works with Nathan Lean, the gutter thug who has repeatedly posted on Twitter what he thinks is my home address and places he thinks I frequent, in a nakedly […]

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Islamic State Training Children from 100 Countries                                                                 Pamela Geller / Atlas Shrugs

Raising up the next generation of jihadis. This is going to be a long, long war — unless the West continues its policies of capitulation and submission to the point of suicide.

“Iraqi PM Abadi: Islamic State Training Children from 100 Countries,” Basnews, June 15, 2015 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

BAGHDAD – Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi says that Islamic State (IS) has been training thousands of children from about 100 countries to fight Iraqi security forces.

In a press conference on Monday, Abadi said around 40 foreign suicide bombers enter Iraq each month and he called on countries in the region to curb the flow of foreign fighters.

Suicide bombers are one of the deadliest weapons of the militants, who...

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Repealing Obamacare would boost economy, but drive deficits deeper: CBO                                                                        By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times 

Repealing Obamacare would spur the economy, adding more than half a percent to the gross domestic product at the beginning of the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office said in a new analysis Friday that still found repeal would be bad for the federal deficit.

The dual findings could both boost and hurt GOP leaders’ case as they prepare for one last major effort to repeal President Obama’s signature law before he leaves office.

Tens of millions of Americans would lose coverage they’d have under the Affordable Care Act over the next decade, but that loss would chase many of them back into the labor pool, where they would both get insurance through their jobs, and would lead to other current workers putting in more time on the job.

Combined, those would produce an economic boost equal to seven tenths of a percent from 2021 to 2025, the CBO said.

“The subsidies and tax credits for health insurance that the ACA provides to some people are phased out as their income rises — creating an implicit tax on additional earnings — and those subsidies, along with expanded eligibility for Medicaid, generally make it easier for some people to work less or to stop working without losing health insurance coverage. For other people, the act directly imposes higher taxes on labor income, thus discouraging work. Repealing the ACA would reverse those effects,” the CBO said.

It’s the second major report this week from the budget agency and its new director, Keith Hall. The first one, looking at the long-term budget outlook, said the federal fiscal picture is in bad shape and will need major help — and the sooner the better.

Wishing all my blog followers who are Fathers a very 

Happy Father's Day.