Petition to Ban Confederate Flag from Walton County Courthouse

[mputnal]

If the flag had been removed before those shootings do you think the shootings would have been less likely to happen? If Walton County continues to fly the confederate flag do you think that it is possible that it will motivate additional shootings? All I am saying is the root of those shootings are probably in that young boys mental health history. There are many things that society could discover if only we ask the right questions.

 

[poppy]

If the flag had been removed before those shootings do you think the shootings would have been less likely to happen? If Walton County continues to fly the confederate flag do you think that it is possible that it will motivate additional shootings? All I am saying is the root of those shootings are probably in that young boys mental health history. There are many things that society could discover if only we ask the right questions.

Your root cause is one race believes it is superior to all other races. You keep trying to make something that is really quite simple into something complex.

 

[mputnal]

There is nothing simple about why those shootings happened unless you believe that the young boy killed those people because of the confederate flag. I would like to know your answers. Do you think that the confederate flag flying at any courthouse created that young boys problems with society?

 

[poppy]

There is nothing simple about why those shootings happened unless you believe that the young boy killed those people because of the confederate flag. I would like to know your answers. Do you think that the confederate flag flying at any courthouse created that young boys problems with society?

In believe that flag was just one of many things that helped him find justification for his actions whether it's over a courthouse on in his hands. You are trying to pin his actions to one particular place the flag is displayed and that is an impossible question to answer. It's as silly as asking if the flag were blowing north instead of south would it have made any difference or was it the flag he owned or the one his friend owned that made him kill those people. It was a combination of many things contributing to this horrific act.

 

[Teresa]

Florida is always an interesting place. Jeb Bush removed the confederate flag from the state capital in 2001...

The Confederate flag is a "racist" symbol, Jeb Bush said Monday during his first visit to South Carolina since a deadly church shooting here. Bush, a former two-term Florida governor, explained that in 2001, "I decided to do something politically incorrect" and ordered the removal of a flag that included the Confederate symbol from the Florida State Capitol grounds.
"The symbols were racist," he told workers at a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant here. "If you're trying to lean forward rather than live in the past, you want to eliminate the barriers that create disagreements."

A massive confederate flag was then erected on private property flying high over I-75..

By the time Marion Lambert arrived at the base of the massive Confederate battle flag he helped erect within view of Interstate 75, a small crowd had gathered.

Billed as the nation’s largest Confederate flag at 50 by 30 feet, the banner flies from a 139-foot-tall flag pole at the manicured Confederate Memorial Park. In the crowd was 64-year-old Greg Wilson, a first-time visitor from northern Florida who recognized Lambert and approached with his family.
Wilson, who had met Lambert at a Sons of Confederate Veterans meeting years earlier, had donated money to help create the memorial. He wore a Confederate flag ring, belt, hunting cap and a T-shirt that read “It ain't over.”
It just flies in the face of the values we hold dear. - Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.)

“I don’t know how it just happened overnight,” Wilson said of the backlash against the flag, adding that he intended to keep selling flags at local festivals as a sideline. “I'm not going to let them control me,” he said.
That’s pretty much the sentiment here at the memorial, which includes granite plaques detailing episodes and figures from the Confederacy. Lambert and the Sons of Confederate Veterans built the park after raising $150,000 six years ago.
“It's just a preservation of heritage, of what the war was really about,” said Lambert, 67, a wiry farmer, welder and native Floridian.
“Why does it resonate so strongly with us?” he said. “Because we know the history.”
Public sentiment has turned against the Confederate flag in the wake of the shooting of nine African American church members in Charleston, S.C., on June 17, and the arrest of a self-described white supremacist. Wal-Mart and other retailers have stopped selling Confederate merchandise. Public officials have called for the removal of Confederate battle flags, memorials and monuments across the country.
For Lambert, the flag still represents a proud history, an era symbolized in that moment in “Gone With the Wind” when Scarlet O’Hara defiantly grabs a handful of earth and shouts, “I'll never be hungry again!”
“It’s the emotional, guttural affinity one has, what’s coursing through your veins, the sweet hills of Alabama or Virginia: your lineage,” Lambert said.
He wishes opponents would come see the memorial before dismissing the flag as part of the shooter’s rampage.
“I’d like them to read the plaques and get a sense of what it’s all about. It’s not hate,” he said. Referring to South Carolina defendant Dylann Roof, he said, “They’re giving him ownership of the flag, and all of the politicians are getting on the bandwagon because it’s easy to do.”
It's just a preservation of heritage, of what the war was really about - Marion Lambert, Confederate flag supporter

Florida — which many consider only nominally part of the South, thanks to transplants and snowbirds — belonged to the Confederacy, but retained fewer prominent Confederate symbols than other states in the Deep South.
The battle flag was removed from the capital in 2001 by then-Gov. Jeb Bush. Hillsborough County, surrounding Tampa, removed Confederate symbols from its official seal three years later — over the objections of Lambert and his group... read more - LA Times.

 

[Teresa]

Meanwhile, I'm seeing that most locals want to keep the confederate flag at the Walton County courthouse.

Most people didn't even know it existed until a petition starting going around (see top of this forum thread). Several surveys are going around on Facebook. Most I've scanned have the large majority of people saying that the flag needs to STAY. See DeFuniak Herald/Beach Breeze Facebook page.

 

[mputnal]

I am most interested in Poppy's answer. So in your opinion you believe that the confederate flag "helped" the young boy decide that it is time to kill innocent black people along with "many other things"? Well, should we not ask about the many other things while we remove the flag? On this thread people against the flag have not mentioned many of those other things. Why is that?

 

[poppy]

I am most interested in Poppy's answer. So in your opinion you believe that the confederate flag "helped" the young boy decide that it is time to kill innocent black people along with "many other things"? Well, should we not ask about the many other things while we remove the flag? On this thread people against the flag have not mentioned many of those other things. Why is that?

Have you not read this mans manifesto or read any of the interviews with those who knew him? Catch up on the story and then get back to me.

 

[mputnal]

Done. So you believe that he killed innocent black people because of inspiration that he received from Southern heritage and the confederate flag in particular?

 

[Danny Glidewell]

Poppy, you cannot govern sane, rational people by the actions and beliefs of an evil, demented individual. Hinkley shot President Reagan because of the "influence" of Jody Foster. Should we exile her or just boycott her movies?