Had a barbecue with a bunch of friends, then watched a fireworks display over City Island from our pavilion in the park. It was lots of fun.
Right now I am ashamed of the country for the campaign to censor and remove the confederate flag and the lack of an appropriately outraged reaction. I don't in any way support racism or bigotry, but I absolutely detest censorship of any kind. Just because one sick a-hole murdered a bunch of people, doesn't mean those actions permit censorship of a flag that doesn't even represent those things or actions.
The ironic thing is, it's perfectly acceptable to fly a pirate flag. Pirates weren't exactly known for being nice people.
Good choice. Personally, I prefer the classic Jolly Roger style, but Blackbeard was a hell of a pirate.
You're entitled to your opinion, but you are wrong about one thing; it's not censorship. The government isn't making it illegal for you to hang the flag on your lawn. They're just deciding whether they want to hang it on their capital building. They decide all the other aesthetic aspects of their capital building (with the exception of the appearance of the United States' flag). You can not like that they're taking it down, but that doesn't make it censorship. It hasn't always been there; at a certain point in history, the state put that flag up (it was long after the end of the Civil War, actually) and now they're taking it down. Just a decision about their own building, not censorship of any kind. The federal government hasn't actually forced them to take it down. It is not being censored.
It's not being legally censored, but large group of... let's just call them "misinformed individuals..." is pressuring the government, the media, and basically anyone who will listen to completely do away with one of the most important symbols of Southern heritage.
They're not "misinformed", they just have an opinion about the flag that's different than yours. Ideally, our representative democracy of a government exists to do what the people want. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work that way. If a large group of people ask the government to do something and they do it, then that's generally a welcome change from how the system is normally run. Besides, not all the people who objected to the flag in recent weeks were civilians; plenty were politicians themselves, and some were even conservative South Carolina politicians (including the governor) who voiced personal complaints about that flag.
They've gotten it into their heads that the flag represents racism. That's not an opinion, that's a lie.
