Reply #42: I hope you're not serious.

[American Tragedy]

I definitely agree that it shouldn't be on state flags in the South, but the symbol itself shouldn't be banned.

My opinion on people who wave the rebel flag is the same as my stated view on the KKK and the Holocaust revisionists who came to my college: I dare them to try. I am not afraid of them.

In an authentic war of ideas in which all sides can freely express themselves, those who do not have the truth on their side are quite likely to lose. We proved it in every debate with them. Certainly there remains the risk of deception and demagoguery, but that is the inevitable price of civil liberties, and the responsibility of informed citizens of the free world.

Aside from the implied threat of allowing the establishment to try to forbid undesirable beliefs and symbols, I am convinced that banishing them only validates their conspiracy theories, and enables them to present themselves as a persecuted minority. Fuck that. Bring it on.