Confederate flag should be taken down in public places

I also want to say that because Pro wants to save the rebuttals for round 3, I refrained from reading her opening arguments in case I subconsciously tried to rebut it, but if I end up rebutting some of it in the following text just know that I will reiterate my rebuttals in the next round. MAJOR POINT #1: "MEANING FROM THE MIND" The Confederate flag is a piece of cloth, made from various different fabrics according to where you got it from, and as a piece of cloth it is only as good as the meaning we assign to it (unless you are using it for more practical purposes than as a flag). This means the Confederate flag could be used just as meaningfully as anything else. When I say "Meaning from the mind", I mean that the meaning read into the flag in question is the only real value that the flag really has, so the meaning of the flag is highly adaptive according to the will of the person flying it and each individual that sees it. One man could raise the Confederate flag above his house to raise awareness of Lou Gehrig's Disease, and one passing later could see it and think of the Confederacy, the small rebellious nation that made an attempt to revolutionize from America and form it's own sovereign society in 1861-1865, the next person sees it and thinks of Southern pride, and the third person drives by and is haunted by thoughts of racism. I'll address three of these points later (Obviously not the one for Lou Gehrig's Disease). So, since the flag has whatever meaning the general consensus has assigned to it, the flag means what most people think it means now, which is a symbol of Southern pride. 57% of Americans in June, 2015 think of the Confederate flag as a symbol of Southern pride, whereas 33% of Americans see it as a symbol of racism, for a link to this study, look no further than the "Sources" section below my argument. And because most Americans think of the flag as a positive rather than negative, than the flag IS positive rather than negative, and should be plastered all over Southern states; that is the result of a democratic society, if the minority, black and white, happen across the flag on public property and are offended than that is their problem, because who are we to value the opinions of one over the opinions of the other? Especially, if the opinion of one is the few, and the other is the many? MAJOR POINT #2: "THE HEART OF DIXIE" Southern culture is often simplified to iced tea, racism and rednecks duck hunting on A&E, but a closer look reveals that the culture of the South is just as complex and rich in some places as any other. Sure, southern culture has its drawbacks, like lack of education and racial unrest, but so does every other culture, the Southern people just wear their entire identity proudly on their shoulder, the good and the bad, and tell everyone else "this is who I am, and you are gonna have to deal with me", in fact, the outwardness of their identity is the majority of their actual identity. So when a Southerner thinks of the Civil war, whether they are racist or not, whether they support slavery or not, most don't think of the Confederacy as a rebel nation that institutionalized and normalized slavery, but just a rebel nation. A nation that "didn't take no crap from nobody" and weren't afraid to put boot to dirt, and that is why the flag that flies over Dixie is so important to Southerners, because it embodies everything they like about themselves and everything they like about their culture, and not what they don't like about themselves and their culture, like (for some Southerners at least) racism. Just like I said earlier, the flag has whatever meaning the people assign to it. CONCLUSION: I'd like to thank my opponent once again and turn over the metaphorical gavel to her once again. I would like to wish her good luck in the next round. SOURCES: 1. A poll from ORC International, the statistics of how people see the Confederate flag can be found of page 4, but I urge to take a look at the rest of the statistics: pretty interesting stuff. . http://i2.cdn.turner.com...