You could have predicted this one. Yesterday, The Virginia Flaggers voiced their opposition to the removal of the 40-foot-tall pedestal, that once served as the base for the Robert E. Lee monument on Richmond’s Monument Avenue, with a flyover and banner that read, “God Bless Robert E. Lee.”
By the looks of their Facebook page they are none too pleased with their little spectacle. I guess in times like these you embrace what victories you can muster, even if they are largely meaningless.
As I’ve suggested before, it can’t be easy being a Virginia Flagger right now. In their 10-plus years of existence they have been unable to stem the tide of Confederate flag and monument removals from public spaces. They have lost every step of the way, in Lexington, VA, where both Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson are buried. Even in small communities like Mechanicsville, they are no longer allowed to carry the Confederate flag in its annual Christmas parade. We learned just this past week that the Robert E. Lee monument in Charlottesville will be melted down by the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center and repurposed.
In the former capital of the Confederacy of Richmond, the Flaggers have met with complete failure. The monuments that once dominated the city are gone. I never thought that these monuments would fall, even after the initial wave of protests began following the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020. I can only imagine what Susan Lee and the rest of the gang have experienced.
No number of Confederate flag dedications along Virginia’s highways or flyovers in Richmond will do anything more than symbolize a Lost Cause that continues to lose in the public sphere. And this is the point that the Flaggers will never understand.
The Flaggers can continue to dedicate new Confederate flags on private property and pay people to fly their banners. That is a right they enjoy as citizens of the United States. None of this, however, will result in the return of a single monument. In fact, it is all but guaranteed that the monuments will continue to come down across the Commonwealth and beyond.
The Virginia Flaggers didn’t just lose, they never got up to bat.
Sure… you just go right on with your urban/suburban “victories”. Meanwhile us in rural Virginia will continue to celebrate & expand our symbols, regardless of how you feel about them. You’ve had it fairly easy in the areas which you’ve taken. Good luck taking the Virginia rural countryside.
You are a moron. You follow leftist doctrine. You are a low IQ person who refuses to question that which you have been told. You are the epitome of a dumb hillbilly.
Funny how that works, huh? You are exactly that which you profess to be intolerant of. Perhaps you’ll grow up one day…
Thanks for taking the time to comment, John. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Well, kevin, you have a point. Actually a valid point-except for the point that people have the right to fly Confederate flags on private property. Right now Prince Edward County is engaging in an illegal attempt to remove a large Confederate Flag from private property. They have spend over $100,000 and they are on their third court appeal to have it removed because they say it is illegal to have a flag that size in that area of the county even though they allowed it. The same people that have destroyed Confederate monuments cannot stand the fact that people have a right to fly the Confederate Flag on their own property. In fact several counties in Virginia have filed legal actions after they originally allowed the flaggers to have large Confederate Flags on private properties. The reason? Fear. They are terrified that people still fly the flag of defiance. So are you.
Of course that right comes with certain limits based on city/county ordinances, etc. I suspect that this is what you are referring to in the examples you reference. Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Henry, the real reason people are disgusted by those who wave Confederate flags is because they understand accurately what it represented. Confederate symbols don’t represent the rank and file soldiers who fought for various reasons that few know today. Confederate symbols represent the would-be Confederate States of America, which enshrined slavery in its Constitution, which attempted to break apart the United States of America, which summarily executed black U.S. Army soldiers when captured, and which put forward the very idea that the races should not ever be considered equal.
What exactly were the Confederate elites defying? They defied certain northern states that nullified Federal law by stating that escaped slaves should be treated as human beings and should not be returned to their former masters. They defied efforts to keep slavery out of the western territories. They defied calls to compromise on slavery in order to avoid countless deaths in war. And the the first states like South Carolina defied the legitimate election of Abraham Lincoln as President by declaring secession before he even took office.
With every generation, the young people learn more of the truth about the Confederacy, free of the propaganda distributed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and allied groups. And with every generation, less and less people embrace the “Lost Cause” lies about what the Civil War was about.
Confederate symbols are no longer accepted in polite company, and it’s about time. So when we cringe when we see a Confederate flag, it’s not because we fear your defiance, it’s because we’re ashamed to have visiting people see your backwardness and willful ignorance on display to the general public.