S.C. Legislature Has Votes to Remove Confederate Flag; KKK to Rally at Statehouse

Eulogy

*There is enough support in the South Carolina legislature to remove the Confederate flag from the state Capitol grounds, according to number crunching from South Carolina’s Post and Courier.

Their poll’s finding, released Monday afternoon, found that at least 33 state senators and 82 house members, support removing the flag. That meets the two-thirds majority in both chambers required to remove the flag.

Renewed fervor to remove the flag follows the shooting rampage at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston earlier this month that left nine dead. The alleged shooter, Dylann Roof, had posted numerous photos of himself wearing or posing with Confederate flag insignia.

image: http://www.eurweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/150629_kkk_confederate_flag_ap_1160_956x519.jpg

A member of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan waves the Confederate flag during a klan rally on the steps of the Warrick County courthouse in Boonville, Ind., on Saturday, Oct. 17, 1998. (AP Photo/Evansville Press, Jonna Spelbring)

Meanwhile, the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan’s Pelham, North Carolina chapter have reserved the Statehouse Grounds in South Carolina for a rally next month, Politico reports.

James Spears, the Great Titan of the chapter, said the group would be rallying to protest “the Confederate flag being took [sic] down for all the wrong reasons.”

“It’s part of white people’s culture,” he added.

Brian Gaines, who runs the South Carolina Budget and Control Board, which oversees reservations, told Politico that the group submitted the request on June 23 and, because his office allows any group, regardless of ideology, to reserve the grounds on a first-come, first-serve basis, the KKK will be able to hold its rally.

The event is planned for July 18 from 3-5 p.m

The KKK’s Pelham chapter liberally employs the Confederate flag on its website and has changed its home page to highlight its opposition to the flag’s removal. “Say No to Cultural Genocide,” the group’s site reads, adding, “most groups out there and especially white people are to [sic] cowardly to stand up for their heritage.”

When asked for his opinion on the charges facing Roof, Spears said, “I feel sorry for the boy because of his age and I think he picked the wrong target. A better target for him would have been these gang-bangers, running around rapping, raping and stealing.”

SecretSquirrel

say no to cultural genocide! and yes to real genocide? and its pretty offensive for them to say its the "white man's culture or heritage". sure as **** wasn't mine, or any of my family's.

Bob_Luken

I think a proper counter-protest would be for the media and everyone else to avoid the Statehouse Grounds between 3:00 and 5:00. Why give these idiots any publicity? Deny them what they want. 

Bigshizza

I'd love to be there just to take their hoods off

First_Warrior

i try not to use the word "hate" to describe anything or anybody in my life. These pointy headed dudes are really testing my resolve.

The3Stogies

Like that idea Jim!  

Amos_Umwhat

It is certainly time for the Confederate flag to come off the state flags.  There is one thing that bothers me about it being there, a sore point, for me.  All my life, since I was aware of such things in the early 60's, it was there.  I'd always thought that it had always been there.  As it turns out, the flags were changed to what they are now in the 60's, protesting integration.  That was inappropriate, inconsiderate, and retrogressive. 

For me, the fight for Civil Rights began when the original Founding Fathers couldn't grasp what "all men are created equal"  meant.  That was when the whole issue should have been resolved, but the financial forces, and static forces of culture ensured that business as usual would be part of the new nation.  They felt, wrongly, (to me) that they couldn't afford it.  Too bad.  Look at all the strife that's been caused.

As anyone who's read JD's thread about vandalism knows, I support anyone's right to own or display the flag, but it is time for it to come off the state flags.  It is too divisive.

jd50ae

First_Warrior said:

i try not to use the word "hate" to describe anything or anybody in my life. These pointy headed dudes are really testing my resolve.

I have despised them for a long time, hate ain't too far off.

jd50ae

Bob_Luken said:

I think a proper counter-protest would be for the media and everyone else to avoid the Statehouse Grounds between 3:00 and 5:00. Why give these idiots any publicity? Deny them what they want. 

Your correct of course. Publicity keeps them going.

raisindot

Amos_Umwhat said:

For me, the fight for Civil Rights began when the original Founding Fathers couldn't grasp what "all men are created equal"  meant.  That was when the whole issue should have been resolved, but the financial forces, and static forces of culture ensured that business as usual would be part of the new nation.  They felt, wrongly, (to me) that they couldn't afford it.  Too bad.  Look at all the strife that's been caused.

.

That's a very provocative thesis, but I don't think history bears out that the lack of an all encompassing definition of "equality" was mainly the result of economic and financial necessity. The "static forces of culture" were far more significant here, simply because no one back then felt that anyone who wasn't white was the equal of the white man. Thomas Jefferson himself certainly didn't feel it applied to black people when he wrote the immortal phrase "that all men are created equal." Certainly John Adams and other northerners, while personally against slavery, never wrote anything that considered black people to be equal to whites. The Founding Fathers were a little more generous to Indians, believing that once they all gave up hunting, became farmers and converted to Christianity that might, at some point, earn the right to be considered citizens. Even the most strident northern abolitionists of the 19th century didn't believe that blacks were equal to whites. "Freedom" and "equality" were two very separate things.  

Racial equality just wasn't something anyone was able to even to fathom back in 1787. Two hundred years later, people like Dylann Root and the KKK still can't accept it. As a nation, we still have so far to go....  

jd50ae

I hope the KKK rally will cause the legislature to move quickly and get the vote over with. But for some reason I ain't holdin my breath. Hope I am wrong.