But that is only a personal and an emotional opinion, and therefore not a valid reason for the flag's removal. The battle over the Confederate battle flag atop the South Carolina capitol building since 1962 has created a war of extremes rivaling the real Civil War in which that flag flew and then was furled. We are talking here about a piece of cloth and about the awful polarization between normally peaceful and compatible people it is causing. Historians tell of how the Mongol invasion of the west was halted when a Pope carrying a cross met the invaders. Duke fans go bananas over being in symbolic Cameron Fieldhouse.
Symbols are powerful things.
But when careful observers of this new Civil War count noses on the two sides, what they are reporting is that most people are not enlisting on either side. Most people want peace, not a symbolic war. The best argument for removing the flag is not that it is a symbol of either past racism or of past heroes from the 1860's or even from 1962, but that it is a symbol of our present-day inability to get along with one another. Polarization is paralyzing public progress and preventing the creating of a civil, caring, community. The stakes are much higher now than games.