The United States Marine Corps announced Friday that it was prohibiting displays of the Confederate battle flag.
This long overdue order extends to items such as clothing, bumper stickers, posters and coffee mugs. It also begs the question: How is this only happening now?
The Confederate battle flag is a symbol of open insurrection against the United States of America. Logic would dictate the U.S. military wouldn’t tolerate displays of rebellion against the very country it is sworn to defend. The Union Army defeated the Confederate traitors 155 years ago.
“The Confederate battle flag has all too often been co-opted by violent extremist and racist groups whose divisive beliefs have no place in our Corps,” The Department of the Navy announced.
Well, there is all that. But there’s also this: The Confederacy seceded from the nation, formed its own government, and the ensuing war led to approximately 620,000 gruesome deaths in some of the most horrific battles in American history.
Revisionist historians have gaslighted people into believing false narratives for why the South seceded, states’ rights being the most popular lie. There are those in the South who even today still refer to the Civil War as “The War of Northern Aggression.”
So it is very important we remember the real reason the Confederacy broke away from the United States. They wanted to own millions of people. More specifically, white people wanted to have the right to continue owning four million black people in perpetuity.
The Confederate battle flag, which so many still incredulously waive with such pride, actually represents treason, insurrection and the life-and-death battle for the right to keep slaves. It is a symbol of racism and bigotry, plain and simple. It was never co-opted, as the Marine Corps statement suggests. This has always been the case.
This argument that the flag is a symbol of pride is nonsense. Pride in what, exactly? Defeat? Slavery? Treason? There is absolutely nothing to be prideful of or nostalgic about when it comes to that flag or anything it represents.
Our armed forces have taken an oath to defend the Stars and Stripes, the same flag displayed by the Union. You cannot waive a Confederate battle flag and claim to be a patriot of this country. The two are incongruous.
Southerners’ attempts to recast their ancestors’ betrayal as something gallant continues to baffle. In Germany, the descendants of Nazis are horrified by the atrocities of their grandparents. Nobody, except an extremely small number of right-wing fringe followers, views a swastika-emblazoned flag with pride. Germans see it as they should; with tremendous shame.
It’s inexplicable that so many from the South don’t feel the same, and it is long past time for Confederate symbols be sacrificed to history. No school should be named after Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson, and there shouldn’t be any statutes memorializing these men either. They fought against our nation, and their names should be as synonymous with treachery as Benedict Arnold.
If the South had its way, and the Confederacy won, our country would be split in two, and slavery might still exist. Let that idea sink in for a moment.
The Marine Corps should be commended for this order, but it is fairly shocking that it has taken until 2020 for it to happen. It’s time to get rid of all remnants of this stain on American history.
Southerners needs to get over their loss and tuck their racist flags away forever.