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What To Do About Those Confederate Flags?

Posted on 25th June 2015

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There has been a lot in the news lately (e.g. here, and here) about confederate flags. The problem is not with Dukes of Hazard style rednecks painting them on their cars or flying them at their homes. The problem is confederate flags being flown from State Capitols and other official buildings; one state, Mississippi, has the confederate flag as one panel of their state flag.

Not being American, I don't really understand why this problem exists in the first place. Why are people so proudly celebrating a group of states which fought a war with the rest of the USA, and lost; don't they understand that it is over? Are there some moral or social values that the confederate states embodied which should be preserved and celebrated? The only values that spring to my mind when thinking about the confederacy are slavery, elite-ism, and the uneven distribution of wealth.

The US government seems to be in a quandary about what they should do about these flags. What a shame that there is nowhere else in the world where they can look for a suggestion; somewhere that had something similar in recent history. Oh, hang on a minute, there is. How about Germany, and the Nazis? Not only are Nazis now frowned on by mainstream German society, but their symbol, the swastika, is illegal in Germany and Austria, as are other Nazi-associated symbols. It seems to have worked, and no-one is complaining about losing their rights. So, Mr. Obama, there is your answer: make the confederate flag illegal.