It's a good thing I'm not a Republican presidential candidate, because I could not possibly care less whether or not the State of South Carolina continues to fly the Confederate battle flag outside its State capitol, as our 2012 loser appears to think himself entitled to dictate to them that they should not:
Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president in 2012, called for the immediate removal of the Confederate battle flag from outside the South Carolina Statehouse, scrambling the 2016 GOP presidential contenders into staking a position on a contentious cultural issue. Some still steered clear from the sensitive debate, even after the shooting deaths of nine people in a historic African-American church in Charleston further exposed the raw emotions about the flying the flag.
Many see the Confederate flag as "a symbol of racial hatred," Romney tweeted on Saturday. "Remove it now to honor #Charleston victims."
The former Massachusetts governor joins Barack Obama and civil rights leaders in calling for the flag to come down as the nation grapples with Wednesday's murders. The man charged with the crimes, Dylann Storm Roof, held the Confederate flag in a photograph on a website and displayed the flags of defeated white-supremacist governments in Africa on his Facebook page.
This is a depressingly emblematic hallmark of our skin-deep, hyper-superficial, "symbolism over substance" age, Now certainly Governor Romney is entitled to his opinion, as are all who share it, But it's an utterly empty and, I would argue, irrelevant gesture, even more so that The One rushing to exploit Dylann Roof's atrocity to peddle his stale gun control agenda, none of which would have prevented the Charleston shootings, The Confederate battle flag fluttering outside the State capitol in Columbia didn't make Mr. Roof commit his heinous deeds, and taking it down would not have the slightest effect on their repetition, there or elsewhere.
That being said, I am not arguing for or against the fate of that flag. What I am arguing for is that that choice is for the people and elected representatives of South Carolina to make, not Mitt Romney or Barack Obama or the Black Klan. If they decide to remove it, bully for them; if they decide to leave it right where it is, more power to them. It's nobody else's business,
It's of a piece with that phrase, "as the nation grapples with Wednesday's murders," like it's some sort of obligatorily collective angst over which we're required to liquify our innards or something. With what is there to "grapple"? We know who did the shooting; we know why he did it; so try, convict, and execute the little bastard and then we can collectively mourn the fact that we can't resurrect him so that we can kill him another eight times to match the number of lives he brutally and premeditatedly took. It wouldn't bring back their families' loved ones, but it would provide the solace of true justice having been done, The truly depressing thing is how unlikely that outcome really is.
Not far behind is why Mitt Romney's tweet suddenly somehow obligates GOP presidential "hopefuls" to have a "position" on this flag business:
Romney's statement prompted most of the Republican Party's leading presidential contenders to weigh in on flying the Confederate battle flag, although few took a definitive position one way or the other. Many instead expressed personal dislike for the flag, but suggested it was up to the people of South Carolina to decide.
My reply would be simple: "I'm running for president of the United States, not president of South Carolina. That question is for South Carolinians to decide through their elected representatives, and I will vicariously support whatever decision they make." Which, not surprisingly, was essentially what Scott Walker said, while Jeb Bush brayingly boasted about having ripped down Florida's Confederate flag and burned it on the Tallahassee capitol steps himself or something,
I'm not kidding, ladies and gentlemen, Keep it up, take it down, I do...not,,,,care, What we should all care about is making sure that Dylann Roof fully and agonizingly pays for his crimes, and that the guilt for them is buried with him.
Exit question: How about using that Confederate flag as Mr. Roof's burial shroud? It'd kill two buzzards with one .45.
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