Veterans Adminstration Midwest Health Care Network director Janet Murphy put an end to the Confederate-flag flap at the Hot Springs VA this week. She overruled local director Steve DiStasio, ordered the traitor flags removed from public display, and apologized to veterans and all citizens for this offensive display on public property.
But it sounds like Sturgis's Don Balyeat is making similar offensive displays in South Dakota schools. Apparently area schools are allowing him into their classrooms to tell kids that it's o.k. to fly the flag of traitors who seceded from the Union and attacked American soldiers to uphold their racist way of life:
He travels to schools and local history groups clarifying what he considers to be misconceptions about the familiar-and-controversial Confederate battle flag.
It is much more, Balyeat contends, than a symbol of prejudice and racial division, although he admits that it has often been used as such.
"It is not a hate flag. It is a piece of history that cannot be lost," Balyeat said. "Should we hate the flag because it's carried by racist people?" [Kevin Woster, "Confederate Flags: Flying for Historical Freedom or Fomenting Hate?" Rapid City Journal, 2013.05.05]
And what does Balyeat say to his fellow Americans suffered slavery, prejudice, hate, and death under that banner?
"I can understand it, how you must feel if your ancestors suffered and it was connected to that flag," he said. "But the flag didn't do it. It was people who did it" [Woster, 2013.05.05].
Flags don't commit racism and treason; the people who fly them do.
Balyeat is talking past the issue. Sure, we should teach our kids history. Our school books should include pictures of the Confederate traitors with their flags, just as they should include pictures of Hitler and the Nazis with their swastikas rallying at Nuremberg. But we don't fly the Confederate flag or the swastika side by side with the Stars and Stripes in our classrooms and other monuments to freedom. Teachers, make sure Balyeat covers that point when he comes to your classroom.
We should teach about the Conferedate Flag and what it meant, but to glorify it by flying it with the American Flag isn't right. The link below from the Mitchell Dalily Republic has a gentleman tries to explain why the conferate flag should be left up. His stepfather had helped liberate a Nazi concentration camp and took a Nazi flag and had everybody sign it. He wants to know if he should destroy the flag.
Like Balyeat above this guy doesn't get it. That Nazi flag is a symbol of a take over and doesn't offend (maybe Nazi's) anybody.
But how would Jewish Americans feel if you took a Nazi flag anf flew it with the American Flag? They'd be offended just like African Americans are offended when they see the Conferdate Flag flown with the American Flag.
Should we teach about the Confederate Flag and the Civil War? Of course. We don't want to make the same mistakes again.
http://www.mitchellrepublic.com/event/article/id/79285/group/Opinion/
Despite Mr. Balyeat's stated purpose, I don't think he is doing much "clarifying." I read the Rapid City Journal article that Cory linked, and Mr. Balyeat didn't cite any redeeming qualities for either the confederate flags or the confederacy itself in that article. I finished reading the article as confused as when I began about why the VA should fly the 3 secessionist flags utilized by those who would dismantle the US in the name of slavery.
Besides racism, slavery and the goal of destroying the United States, what is Mr. Balyeat telling our kids that the confederate flags stand for?
I agree with you Rorschach. I read the story as well and I'm confused as to what this gentlman is doing. You can't seperate the flag from the meaning of what the South wanted. Campbell said it right. The VA is not a museum. Those flags should not be put up there.
Right on, R. Balyeat seems not to be addressing the VA issue. And Owen, the dude in that letter is also confused. He doesn't have to destroy that flag. If he wants to keep it, no problem. But he can't want to fly it in his yard, can he?
Balyeat's argument is as inane and assinine as the argument that guns don't kill people, people do. It evades the the fact that guns are instruments of murder and intimidation. The very people who think we should never allow North Korea and Iran to have nuclear weapons think it threatens their freedom if we don't allow the maliciously demented free and uninhibited access to assault rifles. The Confederate Flag is a symbol, but one under which slave holders gathered to keep blacks in bondage and to take armed action against those who opposed slavery. A flag's purpose is to symbolize a set of beliefs and attitudes. Displaying a Confederate Flag in a museum or a some context for the understanding of history is one thing; flying it next to Old Glory is an assertion of those slave-holding values and a refutation of the Union itself. It is, in effect, giving the quest for freedom equality, and justice the finger.
David, you smelled asinine inanity too, huh?
Displaying items of past evil in a museum is different from displaying them in other public settings. This winter, when I took my French students to the D-Day museum in Caen, I got all sorts of photos of Nazi artifacts from the Occupation. Amazing and instructive. When we got back, I dumped my 1000+ photos Caen, Rouen, Paris, etc. onto my computer and set them as random wallpapers. Those wallpapers display on my SmartBoard in front of the entire class, changing randomly every 30 minutes. So sometimes kids look up at my board and see the Eiffel Tower, the D-Day beaches, the Rouen Cathedral that Monet painted... and sometimes they see a Nazi poster from the Caen museum. It's a little jarring when the latter pops up... and I'm immediately inclined to remove such photos from the stream. If I'm teaching a specific history lesson and showing what happened in France during the war. But I should not be teaching verbs with a swastika casually displayed over my shoulder next to the French flag. Context matters.
Balyeat says the Confederate flag should fly in a historic setting. But the VA isn't hosting history courses or Civil War re-enactments. It's not a historic setting.
Curious: do any German war memorials include swastikas?
Do we fly union jacks alongside the stars and stripes to remember the revolutionary war?
Ah, R! A majority of Loyalists stayed in America after we rebels won. Some of them must have made some effort for the Union Jack. Some of their descendants must have served in our military and must be getting VA treatment. We should thus fly the Union Jack, right?
I do not agree with allowing anything other than the flag these men and women fought under.
Newquist putting guns and racism under the fight over the Southern Cross adds no credibility to his case and only reinforces his disdain over 2nd amendment folks and their claims. Put your money where your mouth is and get after all the other means of taking life such as the ten to fifteen thousand post 21 week abortions performed annually in our country for a start and we wouldn't be eliminating the race you advocate for here.
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The Stars and Stripes has as much blood on it as any flag in the world. That the only good Indian was a dead Indian or the slaves being freed was probably as convenient a collateral as weapons of mass destruction for Iraq or the Ayatollah for the reinforcement behind Afghanistan. Rebellions are based on more than what a country tells you.
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When the hypocrites squeal this much over the Stars and Stripes flying the world over under the constant whine of drones overhead while unleashing shock and awe, I will consider this as something other than bloviating BS.
Sometimes the incoherence in these attempts at discussion is the most striking thing to come out of them.
And, hello, Mr. Jones.
Mr. Newquist, surely there must have been someway to include immigration and health care in that post also.....