Censorship is against everything America stands for and is abhorrent to free speech and the free exchange of ideas.
Unless you are talking about the Confederate Flag.
Flying the Flag over a state government building is one thing. But it's not just public buildings that are the target of Confederate flag haters. For example, Wal Mart has stopped selling the flags, making an arbitrary choice that it wants nothing to do with this symbol. A Huntsville, AL flag store has seen a sharp demand for Confederate flags since the most recent controversy began. However, the manufacturer (who has been making Confederate flags for decades) said it may stop making them.
And just about every politician in the country is rushing to pull down the Stars and Bars and trample it in the mud. But, of course, they are not condoning censorship or interfering with the free exchange of ideas, no matter how currently popular or unpopular those ideas are. Never. They won't stand for any censorship--except for the Flag.
Private companies may, of course, decide what they want to sell and what they don't want to sell. But don't tell me that we are against censorship. Don't say that we leave each American with the choice about what to buy, what to wear, what to play with or what to fly. In this case, we won't. We censor the Flag.
If it's the Confederate Flag, we make an exception to our anti-censorship ideas. There are those among us who would dictate that we cannot buy a Confederate flag because they don't want the Flag to be manufactured or sold. You can't fly one on your property if you can't find one.
If you are bigoted and narrow minded and equate the Flag with racism and just don't want the Confederate Flag around, fine. Just say so. Don't give us that malarkey about the free interchange of ideas, each person making his or her own choice, and all that hogwash. That applies to things you agree with. It never applies to the Confederate Flag. It's just whistlin' Dixie.
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