I’ve blogged before about the Confederate monuments that came down in New Orleans, but in this blog, I’m going to focus on the Confederate question in general, including the very controversial Confederate battle flag.

Unlike the leftist anarchists, I see a distinction between the monuments and base names, which mostly focus on specific people, on the one hand, and the Confederate battle flag, which honors the Confederacy.

Sadly, I think that some people have hijacked and distorted the meaning of the Confederate battle flag to mean white supremacy, which isn’t what the flag meant originally, to such an extent that it needs to go away. While I’m not a NASCAR fan (and won’t become one because I get little pleasure out of watching endless repetitions of drive fast turn left), I applaud the NASCAR decision to prohibit the Confederate battle flag on its properties and at its races.

It took real guts to do that. NASCAR is certainly going to lose some of its fans, possibly a sizable number of them. However, the flag was offensive to many. Perhaps NASCAR will gain more black fans as a result. But even if they don’t, it was the right and principled thing to do. Mississippi should have the guts to remove it from its state flag.

I might lose lose friends, even old friends, over this stance, but it’s the right stance to take. So be it.

I sing a different tune when it comes to removing the names of Confederate leaders (many of whom also served the United States) from monuments, schools, buildings and streets (collectively, referred to as the Confederate monuments issue). I see a big difference between the Confederate monuments issue and the Confederate battle flag issue.

For starters, the Confederate monuments honor a specific person, and the Confederate monuments are stationary, while the Confederate battle flag is portable and can be taken all over and waved in people’s faces who find it offensive. I’ver never seen a monument that glorifed slavery. I am very worried that if we wipe out our history, we’ll repeat the mistake of slavery. Today, human trafficking is a huge proplem and getting worse, so slavery is still here.

We need the Confederate monuments to remind us of our history. If we forget our history, we might repeat the bad behavior, which we should be ever vigilant to never allow slavery again. This is paramount.