What’s on the Table and the Five Whys

What’s on the table is flying our state flag in place of the Confederate flag year-round and flying the Confederate flag on Confederate Memorial Day. This proposal is outstanding. Ask your state representatives, your state senators, and your gubernatorial candidates whether or not they support this proposal (The Fly Our State Flag Bill: H.3588).

If our political leaders will not support flying our state flag instead of the Confederate flag, ask them why.  And don’t just ask why once.  Ask why five times.  Get at the root cause of why the person won’t support flying our state flag in place of the Confederate flag.

Here’s one possible scenario:

Q: Political leader, will you support The Fly Our State Flag Bill?

A: No.

Q: Political leader, why won’t you support The Fly Our State Flag Bill?

A: It’s not a priority for me or for our state.

Q: All you have to do is take 5 minutes to add your name as a co-sponsor and then 5 seconds to vote for The Fly Our State Flag Bill when it comes up for a vote.  And there’s currently an NAACP tourism boycott and an NCAA post-season ban, both of which harm our state economically.  Passing this bill costs nothing, takes only 5 minutes and 5 seconds of your time, ends the boycott, ends the ban, and helps our state’s image and our state’s economy.  So, why won’t you support The Fly Our State Flag Bill?

A: The reason it’s not a priority for me or for our state is because I have other bills that I want passed, and the leadership won’t help me with my bills if I support The Fly Our State Flag Bill.

Q:  You’re saying that neither Rep. Bobby Harrell, the Speaker of the House nor Sen. Glenn McConnell, the President pro tempore of the Senate, will help you with The Fly Our State Flag Bill.  And you’re saying that if you support The Fly Our State Flag Bill, then Rep. Bobby Harrell and Sen. Glenn McConnell will make it more difficult for you to get other bills passed.  Why won’t they help you and why will they harm you?

A: Sen. Glenn McConnell, well, he’s just nuts about the Confederacy.  It’s his thing.  He loves, loves, loves dressing up in a Confederate uniform and shooting his Confederate cannon.  Everybody has a hobby, right?  Anyway, Sen. McConnell tells everyone in the General Assembly that he’ll help you, whatever you want to do, so long as you never, ever, never, ever, never, ever, ever support a bill that would take down the Confederate flag.

Q: The Fly Our State Flag Bill authorizes flying the Confederate flag on Confederate Memorial Day.  Why does Sen. Glenn McConnell have so much power that he can stop every member of the General Assembly from supporting The Fly Our State Flag Bill?

A: Sen. McConnell is from a very safe district (he runs unopposed in Charleston, which is now a blue county), and the Republicans in the State Senate have elected him to serve as President pro tempore.  The Republican State Senators,  who are practically all from safe seats, don’t see any reason to change their leadership.  They aren’t interested in changing from Sanford to Bauer, and they aren’t interested in changing from McConnell to Peeler.

Q: Why aren’t the Republican politicians in our state government interested in making any changes in our state?

A: That’s a good question.  I wish I knew why the Republican politicians in our state government were so timid and so lazy.  I suspect that they are corrupt, but I don’t know.  Maybe you should vote for a Democrat.

Thank You NAACP

Thank you, NAACP, for 100 years of activism and for carrying on the current fight against our state legislature on the Confederate flag issue.

Thank you Dr. Lonnie Randolph, Dwight James, Andrea Glover, Brenda Bines, John Matthews, and Rev. Joseph A. Darby.

Other groups should join the NAACP in standing up to our state legislature on this and other issues. Our state legislature, as run by The Red Rooster, Sen. Glenn McConnell, has too much power and not enough responsibility.

See Cindi Ross Scoppe’s recent column for her analysis of the state legislature.

“[T]he fact is that South Carolina owes its status as The Legislative State in large part to practices that are at best constitutionally suspect….”

In case you missed the news, the ACC won’t hold their baseball tournament in Myrtle Beach. Not in 2011, not in 2012, and not in 2013. Also, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) will not hold their convention here in South Carolina (h/t wolfereports).

I hope that you already know that the reason that we don’t have The Palmetto Bowl is because our state legislators would rather fly the Confederate flag than have a NCAA football bowl game.

And I hope you also know that losing out on March Madness games costs our state an estimated $50 million (and counting). Our state legislators would rather fly the Confederate flag than have a March Madness basketball game.

Some people criticize the NAACP’s boycott as being like Swiss cheese — full of holes. It’s flouted often, and in big ways. But the boycott is also honored, often, in ways big and small, and every dollar counts.

Why shouldn’t our state legislators in South Carolina seek a reasonable way to end the boycott? They changed our license plates to say travel2sc.com. There’s a major initiative “We want you to stay in Columbia” that has to contend with, as Dan Cook put it:

All of us live here and we all have a pretty multifaceted understanding of where we live, but to outsiders — well, the only three things [they might know] about South Carolina are that, number one, we have a Confederate Flag flying on our State House grounds; number two, we have a state amendment against gay marriage; and number three, our governor had an affair.

People who want to promote South Carolina have to fight against our state legislature, and our state legislature has to come up with other ways to promote tourism. But our state legislature won’t even consider any reasonable solutions to the Confederate flag issue!

Why not consider reasonable solutions like H.3588?

Some people ask, ridiculously, “What more do they want?”, claiming that, after all, the 2000 compromise, “gave the NAACP what they asked for.” Garbage. The NAACP asked for the Confederate flag to be removed from anywhere that a reasonable person might consider as (1) an indication of sovereignty of the Confederacy and/or (2) a public policy message of second-class citizenship for blacks.

The 2000 compromise put the Confederate (battle) flag on a flagpole out in front of the State House, at the most prominent place on the grounds. Not in a glass case, not in bronze, not in a less prominent place, not in a historical display (although it is next to one), and not in a historical context.

It’s flying from a flagpole!!!! Where our state flag should fly!!!!!!!

What more does the NAACP want? Well, first, the question itself is ridiculous. I mean, why is our state legislature the paternalistic organization that grants favors to different groups? That’s a crazy way to think about government!

And anyway, the group that’s getting the favor is Sen. Glenn McConnell and his Confederates. The state legislature is doing them a favor, and the NAACP is merely asking the state legislature to stop playing favorites!

So again, thank you NAACP. Keep up the good work.

Advocating for a Bill to Solve SC’s Confederate Flag Issue

I’m advocating for a bill, H-3588, that will solve the problem that was left unsolved with the so-called Confederate flag compromise of 2000. As I wrote in a recent letter to the editor, “The bill calls for the state to fly the Confederate flag on Confederate Memorial Day to honor the Confederate soldiers and to fly the state flag on all other days.”

That’s all the bill does, and that’s all that we can hope to achieve in any reasonable time frame. It’s not what I want, but it is a very good solution to today’s problem, and it can and should get passed into law.

For our state, I would prefer what I called “Decommissioning the Confederate flag.” Personally, I would prefer no flag and no flagpole and no holiday and moving the Confederate Soldier Monument somewhere — off to the side, at least. The flag and the flagpole are not needed. The holiday is actually OK, but it should be renamed Civil War Day or something. The monument itself is good, and it should be on the grounds, just not in the front. The very front of the grounds of the State House is for other things, for example a Christmas tree in December.

What I am working toward is not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, as the saying goes. Passing H-3588 would be very good for everybody. It would be very good for South Carolina and the NAACP to end the boycott and declare at least a partial victory, so we can host NCAA tournaments.

I’m so convinced that H-3588 will solve the problem that I’ve developed many arguments that support it. I’ve presented these arguments here on this blog. Some of the arguments, probably most, have been for regular people to use to try to convince flag-supporters that H-3588 would be good for them.

I’ve even argued that passing H-3588 cements the flag, the monument and the holiday together, making them more solid, not less.

After all, we have the number one flag-supporter in all the world running our state government, and that person is The Red Rooster, Sen. Glenn F. McConnell, of the SCV Secession Camp #4. I don’t think that we can get anything passed while he runs our government, and he’s in a safe district. But, I’ve got to try to get something passed, and so, what we’ve got is H-3588.

Given that McConnell runs our government, my strategy is to advocate for a solution that he cannot defeat: 1) Consistent with 2000 compromise, 2) Honors Confederate soldiers, 3) Resolves the NAACP’s concerns without agreeing with them, 4) Forces McConnell to argue that he prefers to fly the Confederate flag instead of our state flag.

Where will we be compared to other states if we do get H-3588 passed?

What does NC do? Don’t they raise the 1st Confederate flag on both Robert E. Lee’s birthday and on Confederate Memorial Day (May 10th)? If we can move from where we are to better than where NC is (only 1 day instead of 2), then that will be pretty amazing and wonderful. What does Alabama do? Don’t they have a Confederate Memorial on the grounds of their State House, and isn’t there some Confederate flag flying there year-round? Their Memorial is off to the side, though isn’t it?

It would be very good to get a Confederate flag to fly on only 1 day every year instead of 365, especially when there’s no state business going on that 1 day. I think the best flag to fly on that 1 day would be the Confederate battle flag (what’s there now) and keep May 10th as honoring the soldiers BUT NOT the “free to own slaves” cause.

Many Confederate soldiers volunteered, but many others were drafted or otherwise coerced into service, and all of the soldiers surrendered, following the orders of Robert E. Lee or other military leaders. The only problem with the 1 day only solution is what to do with the flagpole the other 364 days.

I don’t like an empty flagpole. And I don’t like having the flagpole being taken down if that means that the neo-Confederates will fly a flag on that 1 day only from atop the dome. The good things about choosing our state flag for the other 364 days are 1) we can use the “confusing about sovereignty” argument and 2) people like our state flag better than the Confederate flag.

The bad thing about choosing our state flag for the other 364 days is that our state flag was used as a Confederate flag; our state flag was the national flag of the seceded nation of SC, and it was flown often after the war to protest reconstruction. Here’s a description from a news article that quotes K. Michael Prince’s book:

In fact, the battle flag seen today throughout the South did not fly above South Carolina’s capitol during the Civil War and was not the flag that drew the ire of black S.C. legislators in the years after the war.
It was the Palmetto Flag – the one with the Palmetto tree and crescent moon – the black legislators despised. That flag didn’t officially become the state’s flag until early in 1861 during the Civil War, according to Prince.
“More than any other emblem, this flag represented the state and its citizens during that conflict,” Prince wrote. “In 1869 a resolution calling for the display of both an American and a South Carolina banner atop the State House passed the state legislature, but only over the objections of several black state senators. For them, the state flag remained a symbol of the state’s defiance against federal authority and of the treachery that had led to war.”

My opinion is that choosing the state flag for the other 364 days is the best solution and that we should just continue to point out that our state flag has a long and varied history in our state and that it has come to define all of us who work and make our homes here in South Carolina.

That’s one of the parts of this whole issue that makes South Carolina’s situation different from the state flag situations of Georgia (now resolved) and Mississippi. Our issue is about a third flag we fly — not our nation’s flag (Stars and Stripes), not our state’s flag (Palmetto), but a third flag (Confederate battle flag).

Our issue is not our state flag, and anyway, changing our state flag would be very, very difficult. After all, most, if not all, of the state flags of the southern states have ties to the Confederacy somehow. Georgia’s new flag is quite similar to the 1st Confederate, but with Georgia’s seal in the middle of the circle of stars. I’m sure that you know what Mississippi’s flag looks like and the result of a statewide vote to change it.

To close this long post, I just want to say, let’s solve this problem, now, not 20 years from now, not 50 years from now, not 100 years from now, but now. Because the boycott is not going away, the NCAA ban is not going away, and South Carolinians want the problem solved.

Let’s get H-3588 passed. Let’s fly our state flag out in front of the State House.

Legislature and NAACP Must Act So That SC Can Host NCAA Tournaments

The NCAA is not backing down, and our state is losing money. The NCAA says that South Carolina is an inhospitable environment, neither worthy nor capable of hosting tournaments.

Why does the NCAA think that about our state?

Because we cannot solve the simple issue of what flag to fly out in front of our State House. Our state legislature chooses to fly the Confederate battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia instead of our state flag.

Everyone is confused by their choice. Why does our state legislature fly the Confederate flag instead of our state flag? There is no good answer.

The NAACP postulates that the reason that our state legislature flies the Confederate flag is because our state legislature 1) wishes to pretend that SC is still part of an alive Confederacy and 2) wishes to send a political message that African-Americans are second-class citizens in SC.

These are guesses by the NAACP, and they could be true, who knows? We have to ask the state legislature why they fly the Confederate flag instead of our state flag.

So far the state legislature is not clarifying the reason why they fly the Confederate flag instead of our state flag. And so, the NAACP says, well, we’re just going to have to assume that our suppositions are in fact correct. And since we don’t agree with the apparent position of the state legislature, we’re going to do something about it.

The situation now is this: The NAACP mandates a confusing boycott based on rationale that is guesswork, and the state legislature mandates a confusing display based on rationale that is undisclosed. And the NCAA is so disturbed by this confusion and division that what they see clearly is that South Carolina is an inhospitable environment for NCAA tournaments.

The solution is for the state legislature to clarify, with words and deeds, why they fly the Confederate flag instead of our state flag. The way for them to do this is to pass H-3588.

By passing H-3588, our legislature would declare that the flag, the flagpole, the monument, and the holiday all work together for the sole purpose of honoring the Confederate soldiers. H-3588 says, with words and deeds, clearly and incontrovertibly, that the Confederate flag is the flag of the honorable Confederate soldiers. It a symbol of the brotherhood of soldiers, not of the bigotry of racism and not of the politics of any era.

Some people who support the year-round flying of the Confederate flag out in front of the State House say that the state legislature should not take any action to clarify their justification for flying the Confederate flag instead of our state flag. Sometimes such people say that taking any action will embolden the NAACP so much that suddenly the NAACP will have so much power that they can make all monuments, flags, and street names disappear forever in a history-denying hurricane of horror. That’s ridiculous.

Of course, some people someday will complain about the flag, the flagpole, the monument, and/or the holiday. Everybody complains about something. Some people don’t like Memorial Day or MLK Day or wish that President’s Day was really two holidays. Some people don’t like the African American monument or the Ben Tillman monument.

What H-3588 does is to tell the truth so clearly that no group’s complaints will have any traction. H-3588 does not grant any group’s complaints any merit. The clarity of H-3588 sends the complaints into a coma.

Look, let’s get to the bottom line. Can we in South Carolina accomplish anything? Can we?

For example, polls show that 70% of South Carolinians want the cigarette tax to be raised to curb teen smoking. Will our state legislature do what the people want? So far, the answer is no. We cannot accomplish what 70% of the people of South Carolina want.

Year after year, the state legislators refuse to clarify their reason for flying the Confederate flag instead of our state flag, and the NAACP refuses to end the boycott. Don’t both groups realize that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity?

Incapable, inhospitable, and insane. That’s what the NCAA sees when they look at South Carolina. All because we cannot solve the simple issue of what flag to fly out in front of our State House.