Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for July 13, 2015

Yup. Slavery certainly was silly….

If answer ‘D. Treason’, was included, there WOULD have been more than one correct answer. Because the Stars and Bars was the symbol of an act of treason, a rebellion against the United States.

Is the German flag a symbol of Nazism?Is the Chinese flag a symbol of Maoism?etc, etc …

It’s not just racism. It’s also a refusal to admit the Civil War is over and the south lost.

I just heard a story from a coworker who’s father flew the Nazi flag for a while. He was made to take it down, too. She was proud of her father for flying the flag and didn’t see anything wrong with it.

That is incorrect. The Stars and Bars is now the flag of tolerance and unity. All of the racists and haters have abandoned it and adopted the Earth First Flag.I read it on the internet, so I know it must be true.

any flag flying in the USA other than the United States of America flag, e.g., Mexico’s flag, ISIL flag, Rainbow flag, etc

=

A. Good TimesB. Regional CharmC. Racism

Actually there is allways more than one answer, because things aren´t black and white. And people who think there is only one answer are completely devoid of a sense of reality.Also this comic ignores the obvious answer, that it was the representing flag but used for other things – I think it was the battleflag …

You don’t have to believe that displaying the Beauregard battle flag (to employ it’s seldom used proper name) on public grounds was a good idea to wince about how some people carried on about it. I personally didn’t support the displays. “Heritage” was just a later utilized smoke screen; a symbolic show of defiance to Federal mandates, particularly civil rights judgments, was the real motivation, as any serious Civil War enthusiast knows. However, the spectacle of people fearlessly attacking a straw man while ignoring the real issues which lead to the Charleston murders – the proliferation of firearms into the hands of known wackos and criminals being one – was, to me, simply a display of basic cowardliness and grandstanding. But the flag thing was safer – those NRA-types tend to argue back more forcefully than flag advocates.

I find all of this pretty stupid when consideration of everything else that is going on around the world. Just pay attention to the news but foreign and domestic. The world is headed for some bad times and this is what commands attention?SAD

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak for me.

In my experience, people who claim “southern heritage” as their reason for displaying the flag, cannot name 5 civil war battles, the principal generals involved on each side, or who won.

Back in the middle 1800s there was still a lot of allegiance to your state. Often, more than to the Federal government. A vast majority of the people in the south never owned slaves and never would. They didn’t fight for slavery; they fought for their State. My family was Yankee Unionists, as am I, but I can understand the allegiances people had back them. I don’t share them but I understand them. It caused many officers to resign their commissions to the US Army and go fight for their State. As the Federal government keeps growing in influence and reaching ever deeper into our lives, and as Congress keeps abrogating more and more functions to the Federal behemoth, and as the Executive branch and their minions keep assuming more and more control over our lives (aided and abetted by the SCOTUS), the States Rights movement becomes a distant memory for those with sufficient education to have ever heard of it. The Rebel flag seems to be more of a symbol of those bygone days (and no, I have never flown one).

What power that symbol has that it stirs up so many emotions… especially the hate.

Taking down this flag from government buildings is correct as it was never an official flag.

Removing it from all historical context is denying history an WRONG.

Denying this flags historical context is also a slap In the face to the ~20,000 BLACK troops who willingly fought for the C.S.A.

you just don’t know your history

that lead him to get radicalized.A piece of cloth drove him crazy? Amazing.Typical. Blame the tool not the user.Too many things have had their original meaning usurped by assorted groups.I wonder, since Ben Affleck’s family history includes slave ownership, will Wallyworld remove all his merchandise from their stores?

Well this little rant proves you’ll never pass the background check.

Seems to me a lot of criminal offenders wear Harley Davidson shirts or have H-D tattoos. I think it’s about time to outlaw all symbols and products of the motorcycle company. It just follows rules of logic……above all we must be politically correct and forget about freedom of speech.

Wiley’s done good by creating a comic that brings out where the readers stand.

This type of cartoon is for the editorial page. Not for something we read to make us laugh.

For the left there is never more than one (politically) correct answer.

excuse me, the real answer is none of the above

“Viva la guns. When all guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns. And I will be one of them…”

No country that i know of outlaw guns…….and in every modern country that strictly regulate access to them they are rarely used in crimes and as a result they have per capita murder rates 1/4 of ours………

The biggest irony is that the extremeism of the NRA and the GOP will likely result in a backlash that will result in far harsher anti gun laws than would have resulted through sensible compromise.

Guns aren’t the problem. It’s the unstable idiots that can get one.

Yep – another nail in the coffin of free speech – that will fix the problem for sure.

The correct answer is B

No! Flying the points down is upside down. Damn Yankees.

If ‘C’ is not obvious; somebody is missing more than just da point. Will it be another century and a half before sanity comes?

Congrats Wiley . You summed up the issue very concisely. Its racist or it isn’t…you can’t be a little bit pregnant. Whatever the flag’s history may be is irrelevant. It has become THE symbol of the Confederacy and, by extension, slavery. Period..

the answer is B. It was never for C at all as for a nope.

Golly, the wacko factor is pretty high in here.

Symbols, icons, colors often begin as positive expressions of faith or belief and are adopted or perverted by others over time.Most people don’t know, for example that the dreaded Nazi swastika was a symbol of faith and good luck for thousands of years in many cultures. It was only recently, when the Nazi Party, following Alfred Rosenberg’s theories of a master aryan race, adopted it as their standard.The average St. Patrick’s Day reveler has no idea that the three leafed green shamrock was, according to legend, used by St. Patrick to teach about the Holy Trinity. It was adopted by the Irish Volunteers as a symbol of Irish rebellion against the British ( who believed that the Irish were so much like cattle that they ate the three leafed clover ).The St. Andrew’s Cross, from which the Stars and Bars and many other banners have derived their design, has it’s history deep in medieval history. Like all banners, flags, and heraldic symbols, it has gained different interpretations by different people.I believe that given the current tensions and hatreds in the United States that this symbol of Southern rebellion be gracefully retired. It serves no purpose other than to inflame passions and divide the country.For those who still believe:: " Save your Confederate Money, Honey. The South Will Rise Again " , I say get over a war that was lost 150 years ago !

He never owned a slave. A Tennessee farm boy.

Unfortunately we can not claim that the ‘silly piece of cloth’ caused him to be radicalized. If Hitler taught us anything it’s, when an individual is a loser with no hope of improvement, they look to blame others for their problem. This boy was and is definitely a big loser projecting his problems onto someone else. The flag was just a prop.

The discourse over this issue demonstrates the depth of the divisions that have come to characterize our country. Rhetoric and exaggeration now pass for truth, and rob us of the respect and tolerance we should have for each other. Clinging to empty, man-made symbols doesn’t help.

Once again, Wiley and “Saint Peter” are wrong! It is more than one answer. This flag was the battle flag of the Civil war. First there was Bonnie Blue, but the South didn’t decide all together. Then came this flag that resembled like our current American flag, but both sides were confused and were shot at. This third one as alright, but the hate groups like the KKK abused it. I know, I’m a history buff, but I don’t know it all.Now, since Dylan Roof did this horrible crime, he waved an Confederate flag. Dylan also BURNED an American flag, but why is anybody complaining about that? It’s because the liberal media (Like Wiley here) don’t always tell the truth!\

It was a SC Democrat named Ernest “Fritz” Hollings wanted to put the stars and bars on the SC capital. The Columbia NAACP didn’t complain at the time in 1960. Then in 2000, it was moved in front of the gate toward the SC Capital. I felt like the flag should be moved in front of the gate and the Civil Memorial because I felt it would give visitors a wrong view of SC because I feel like everybody else would think of the people here as stupid rednecks (And we aren’t)

Now, since Dylan Roof did his sick work, everybody like Amazon.com, WB, etc. want to get rid of this “silly rag”. Right now, I like it because all of these people like yourselves are brainwashed in this “stupid rag.” Even the WB won’t sell “Dukes of Hazard” Merchandise just because of the stars and bars on the General Lee. No Duke character ever lynched a black person, they were the good guys and Rosco and Boss Hogg never did such a hideous act! Oh yeah, there was a sheriff that sometimes appeared on the show in which he was from another county and HE WAS BLACK! He was a tough sheriff that wore gear for a riot and I believe a motorcycle helmet. He this cop LOVED tearing down perps’ cars piece by piece! I am white, but I also am part Cherokee Indian too.

Like I said to one reader before in the past, you need take advice from a Country singer named Aaron Tippon. You need to stand for something, or YOU WILL FALL FOR ANYTHING! You’ve got to be OWN MAN not a puppet on a string. NEVER COMPROMISE WHAT’S RIGHT, AND UPHOLD YOUR FAMILY NAME, YOU’VE GOT TO STAND FOR SOMETHING OR YOU WILL FALL FOR ANYTHING. My family have always had plenty by following this advice. And remember, whatever you do, you will have to sleep with tonight!

Yes there is more than one answer. There’s always more than one answer.

Political commentary doesn’t belong in the comics but on the editorial page. Put up another and I, for one, am finished with this strip.

FYI…that’s not the stars and bars

Not funny

Actually, those “brave soldiers who didn’t even own slaves” were happy to fight for those who did, so nothing to be proud of there. And no one has mentioned that the South fought to extend slavery, as far as California. They knew the institution was at a dead end if they couldn’t extend it across the continent.

There are ALWAYS more answers! To think otherwise is part of today’s problems — “I’d rather have questions that can’t be answered then answers that can’t be questioned.” – Richard P. Feynman

D: Treason – Only represents treason to those of the North

E: Freedom – from oppression and tyranny. And yes, slave owners oppressed and tyrannized their slaves; it’s called cognitive dissonance. Even if the entire basis of the war was about slavery, it was still a group of northern states dictating the deprivation of property without just compensation from the southern states, denial of their source of income, and tyranny by the majority. The South was in the wrong because they took to violent insurrection before attempting legal means of secession (which would have been, and still is, the reverse actions by which a state joins the United States.)

@ Varnes – I’m afraid you have a very superficial and erroneous conception of the NRA. The NRA isn’t anti-government, nor is it anti-Constitutional for that matter. Nobody in the NRA “let” the S.C. killer have a gun. You are 100% wrong about nobody else but the NRA blocking gun laws. There are dozens of pro-gun organizations fighting to protect people’s 2nd Amendment rights in the U.S.; and many of them are far less cooperative and compromising than the NRA. Nobody in the NRA wants “crazy people” to have guns. And the NRA supports gun ownership and use for protection from far more than just “crazy people.” The NRA does support responsible ownership and use of guns by anyone who wants one.

Fascinating, I didn’t know they did revisionist history in Heaven . . . or is that Hell doing a false flag operation?

You know, if my ancestors were traitors, I’d be inclined to try to hide the fact………

As for the 3 day waiting period before automatically granting permission to obtain the gun, that’s absolutely necessary to get the government off their dead lazy buttocks. I wish more laws had the same required response time!

But that was not the swastika the Nazis used. They reversed it. So it stands for tyranny and mass murder. You don’t think so?

Now, this confederate flag obsession is totally absurd.

Did the flag pull the trigger? NO!

How totally stupid the lamestream media and the comics are getting …

So many miss the point about the Confederate flag and other symbols of the Confederacy. Is there any other nation on earth that allows the names of treasonous traitors who waged a civil war against the nation to be placed on buildings (public or institutional), monuments, mountainsides (Stone Mountain, GA), or streets? The leaders of the Confederacy engaged in treason and were the very definition of traitors to the United States of America. Naming buildings, streets, etc. after these traitors is an insult to every American who died to save the Union and to the nation’s African Americans whose slavery these treasonous beings sought to maintain. There is no place for their names on public property.

Answer “D” . Leave the Damn thing alone. It is a symbol, not the problem.

IT’S NOT UPSIDE DOWN! the stars point up.

This country is being run and ruined by a bunch of Paranoid Politically Correct Jerks. Go Redskins! My parents would have been jailed for child neglect.

http://www.arcamax.com/thefunnies/mallardfillmore/s-1688075

That “poor boy” was my wife’s great grandfather. He survived the war.

“Nobody but them block every and all gun registry and any kind of regulation…”.Hitler’s Nazi Germany required Jews to register their guns, then they took the guns away and tried to eradicate them from the face of the earth. Curse the NRA for not ignoring history…

Unfortunately, we have all seen how the Federal government can use delaying tactics to further their own aims. Consider just the IRS delays (ignoring the other wrong-doing) in granting NFP status to certain groups whose aims were disliked. By the way, what time period do YOU think would be appropriate? A week? A month? A year?

And the answer is B. It was about states rights, not slavery. There were northern states with slaves. Even US Grant had slaves. Read your history people.

All people with shaved heads ought to be imprisoned….they’re nothing but racist skinheads!

1. “A piece of cloth can’t inflame” , what about the flag of ISIL, and America’s CURRENT feeling about that one? The “battle flag” didn’t fly over state buildings until desegregation was on the table, and the southern states again rebelled against the United States government in the 1960’s, it WAS an act of rebellion against law. (and social justice)

2. Roof got his gun because LOCAL law enforcement screwed up and didn’t properly forward his arrest record into the system. Yes, the geographic screwup by the FBI database played a role, but it was still LOCAL aspects of the law that allows many to ’slip through the cracks", and those faults are there to accommodate the NRA “types” in Congress and their corporate constituancies.

3. Flying the “battle flag” as a regional thing may be culutural, but when it’s flown by folks outside the south, it’s rebellion, not culture. It should never have been flown over state offices, or federal: BUT- still flying it over significant Civil War sites managed by the NPS, or federal cemetaries with Confederate history, should be allowed. History should be on display, to expose errors, as well as “success”.

Interesting that any mention of the most popular of the Confederate battle flags always somehow winds up being about guns. I’m tempted to suggest it’s Freudian, but it’s more likely an indication that the Civil War never really ended, it just became an underground guerrilla conflict waged, for the better part of a century, by terrorist organizations like the KKK. Today the weapons are more legal, including various tactics for voter suppression, but the threat of violence is never far away. We need to remember that.

Last I checked, a flag couldn’t hold a gun and kill people. Only a psychopath can do that. I wish that freak would have been carrying an American flag instead…. if only to have avoided all this ignorant nonsense. I wonder what people would have done then??

Straight to my Facebook page.Just to irritate my red-neck family members.

It seems that you don’t know much about the NRA beyond what the media and the anti-gun/anti-rights crowd want you to know

Removed from page.

Well, just found out that the FBI cleared Roof to get that firearm. He passed. He should not have passed, but he did.

There are some subjects that a cartoonist should keep his bigoted, biased nose out of… this is one.

Great cartoon today, Wiley ! I think you’ve set a record for the number of posts .

I must say, that for the most part, the discussion was lively, but not snarky.

No matter what side of the coin ( or flag, in this case ) your on, thank Wiley for creating a lively debate forum ( as well as a good chuckle ).

People on a mission from god are immune to humor. Ever see a teenage kid wearing a suicide bomb vest smile?No. You haven’t.

Varnes, Rady_B, Exoticdoc2, Alabama_Al, BrockOlee, DourScotsman, Rarely28, Gaijinrabbit, Dr_Zinj, Greenearthma, dtroutman, Reppr…I read your comments and it appears that regardless of which side of the gun issue you’re on, you and SCOTUS either do not understand or have chosen to ignore the term “…shall not be infringed.” Maybe it’s time to amend the U. S. Constitution adding the caveat “…shall not be infringed UNLESS there is someone that some bureaucrat or private citizen thinks should not be allowed to bear arms, in which case the right to bear arms shall be governed by whatever law, rule, regulation or ordinance any legislative body at any level wishes to impose.”

Gotta love revisionist history. Wanna burn some books next?

Find the Music Group “Coyote Run” and get their song “The Coyote Polka”.It’s the best commentary on the confederate Rag ever written..

If a Native American found the US flag to be asymbol of hate, forced removal and theft of land , genocide and racism (and they could do so) would some of you agree it should not be flown from a government building? Just curious…

I choose B.Regional charm. Since I am not a racist and there is only one answer, that must be the only answer. Thanks, Wiley, for clearing that up.

Regardless of what the revisionists, Leftists and uneducated try to Force the current populace to believe, the Correct answer is this Flag Represents The Heritage of My Ancestors that Served with Honor and I am Proud to Hold Them in the Highest Esteem!!!

The democrat party flag flew in the southern states during slavery.Why isn’t the call out for taking that flag down?

The piece of cloth didn’t radicalize him. What he saw on the internet (people preaching hatred) radicalized him, exactly the same as ISIS is teaching hatred.

We need to find out why so many young guys around the world are so vulnerable to these hate messages on the internet…

Actually, the FBI admitted that their guy made a mistake and checked with the wrong local police force.

Their state government.

Night-Gaunt, the British almost entered the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy. If the US had not won some decisive battles, the outcome could have been very different…

“Did the flag pull the trigger? NO!”-“Start with the stupid question posed that no one asked or said or implied.”-Well, we definitely should outlaw any of the outward symbols of aberrant thinking. That way, the whackos can blend in until they pop and have a better chance of taking out more of whatever sworn enemies, TEA Party folks or blacks or Christians or whomever falls within their crazed Venn Diagram of hate.Look at the men we admire and for whom we vote. They know how to present a normal and decent face and keep their evil hidden until they have the opportunity to inflict the harm they believe is necessary to the people they find inferior.Duplicity should be mandatory, I think…

Just commenting to break the 200th mark.

I would point out that this is a controversy precisely BECAUSE there is more than one “right” answer. Symbols by their very nature are personal, and can have different meanings to different people or groups of people. For example, try asking a Bible Belt conservative Christian and a gay rights activist to explain the symbolism of a rainbow. Pretty sure you would get answers that are nothing alike. That doesn’t mean either one is “wrong”, just different situations and experiences lead to different interpretations of a symbol.

I’m not so sure Peter intends to kick him out altogether for not choosing just C. His answer doesn’t automatically make the guy a racist. Everyone’s experience is subject to the circumstances surrounding them. If the Duke boys had been real people, they probably would have had little knowledge of the exact motivations that brought back the flag’s popularity when they painted it on their car (though their choice of name is a bit more telling). Still, even someone who “innocently” gives the wrong answer would probably earn a slap upside the head for living their entire life ignorant of the flag’s entire history and symbolism, as well as the greater context of its use in the last few generations.

The Democrat party is responsible for that flag, and while I’m at it, for the KKK also. I’m getting pretty sick of all of this sanctimonious ‘racist’ this and ‘racist’ that thrown around so freely by the left. You made it, you’re responsible for it and most of us know who the racists were/are. The South locked in segragation was a south owned by the Democrat party. The ax handle weilding goveroner of Arkansas, keeping kids from school was a Democrat.

lets rewrite history, instead of facing it head on. While the flag was used by many that were against forced intergration, it really was never about slavery. Is was about forming their own country because the people in power were trying to force them to pay more for their products and sell their raw materials for a low rate. The same reason the 13 colonies declared their independance from England.

Lincoln only freed the slaves in the states that rebelled. the slaves in the north and in the terratories were not freed. Lincoln actually wanted to ship them all to Africa or South America even when most were 3rd to 8th generation Americans. read some history. you will find that blacks fought on the south’s side and some rode against the yankee carpet baggers with southern whites.

this isn’t the stars and bars. that’s a different flag. it is a silly piece of cloth. it doesn’t stand for slavery or racism. it does stand for the right of a state to secede from the union. which was treated as rebellion and crushed. The fact of secession as an experiment was crushed. the idea that it ought to be a right of the several states is still alive.

Heritage can be extremely subjective, and no one can be blamed for the unique circumstances of their upbringing. But in this day and age it is a choice to be ignorant of the full spectrum of a symbol’s history, or to know it and insist the parts of it you dislike shouldn’t matter.