Bizarre, Media, Society

Apple Pulls All Games Featuring Confederate Flag From App Store

125px-Apple-logoConfederate_Rebel_Flag.svgGaming sites are reporting that Apple has pulled all war games featuring the confederate flag from the App Store as “offensive” and “hateful.” That decision of course wipes out historically accurate Civil War games. As a military history nut, I find the actions by Apple to be bizarre and revisionist. This was the symbol of one side in one of the world’s most famous military conflicts. When used in the context of a war game, it is obviously being used to closely mirror the symbols, uniforms, and equipment of the time.

It is astonishing that a debate over the use of this flag on state buildings has morphed into a complete ban of the appearance of this flag, even in games about the Civil War. Apple’s Tim Cook reportedly recently spoke against displaying the Confederate flag, but this is a complete ban. It is also intruding on the personal choices of consumers who are not offended by the appearance of the flag in a historical context.

Apple is quoted as stating that “we have removed apps from the App Store that use the Confederate flag in offensive or mean-spirited ways, which is in violation of our guidelines.” According to these sites, developers will have to either remove or replace the Confederate flag to be allowed on the App Store. I find that decision deeply troubling when applied to games or programs related to the Civil War.

What do you think?

71 thoughts on “Apple Pulls All Games Featuring Confederate Flag From App Store”

  1. One extreme breeds another. Flying this banner supporting slavery on government grounds is a vile and perverse attempt to justify one of the greatest crimes America has committed, regardless if everyone was doing it or not. That it happened so recently, is taking so long to stop, and cost the lives of hundreds of thousands places the flag in a category that should be shunned. The flag should be in a museum and history books. It should be remembered for what it represented in historical reality, not some myth that seems to endure in certain heads.

    If someone wishes to drape it over his or her pick up truck then so be it. Advertise who you are. However, if a company wishes to take it out of their product line, this is no different. Take your pick, free speech and rights for Bubba to get a ‘Stars and Bars’ tattoo on his forehead or not exhibiting it in a line of video games. Bubba has the right to do whatever he wants to his body and Apple has the right to make their statement. Bubba does to have to buy Apple products.

    However controversial one thinks this is it is in the proper arena. Each side retains the right to express themselves. Ask yourself which one might lead to a more accurate remembrance of history, Bubba and his ‘in your face’ rejection of reality or Apple’s attempt at taking the sugar coating off of one of the more vile ‘bannera rosas’ of history.

  2. What allowed us to make significant inroads in getting young people to not smoke cigarettes was when we made it uncool and stupid to smoke starting in the 80’s. It was a 13 year old girl I have known since she was in diapers that gave me a kick in the ass in the 80’s that helped me stop. But then the liberals took over and demonized smoking, making it bad, and making plaintiff’s attorneys even richer. That created the perfect climate to make smoking cool again, w/ young people smoking now on the uptick. Liberals love to ban stuff. Maybe we should give Prohibition another try.

  3. “The world of men is dreaming, it has gone mad in its sleep, and a snake is strangling it, but it can’t wake up.” DH Lawrence

  4. This is a great example of the PC mob mentality. Capitalize on a tragedy, and as our new and perceptive commenter, lisarnichols, asserted, imitate ISIS in erasing history.

  5. @DarrenSmith

    The small companies who sell the Confederate Flag are doing a booming business. I have never owned one because all I have is a Cat Flag, but I plan on buying a Confederate Flag now, and flying it just because I am so pissed off at the frigging hysteria! Screw Apple! I am not going to get the new IPOD I was planning to by. I may even buy a darned rebel flag bumper sticker! Here is one place that sells them in case Google tries to shut off the searches. . .

    http://www.stainlessbanners.com/flags.htm

    I think everybody is mad about this needs to buy one just to say, “Screw you!” to the darned PC crowd!

    Squeeky Frommn
    Girl Reporter

  6. This from a company that happily makes millions from products made by workers whose working conditions are so bad they kill themselves. Sanctimonious hogwash. I believe that the Confederate battle flag has no place on public property except in a museum but taking it out of depictions of the Civil War is really too much.

  7. This sounds like a business opportunity someone will capitalize. Demand for the rebel flag likely will rise in the short term.

    This is troubling on the free speech front however. It is hopefully not the start of a European system where individual free speech is trumped by peeves of the political class on the auspices of proscribing things they perceive offends the group.

  8. At last, something we all can agree on. The singularity is at hand!
    Unfortunately, for everyone posting in here, there are a thousand others applauding this memory hole. The world truly has gone mad. It’s so out of control crazy now, it drops your jaw. And I guess now that the rebel flag has been vanquished, we have to wonder what’s next. National Anthem? Founding Fathers? Black-eye peas? If the media pushes a story that bananas are symbols of hate, people will rise up to ban bananas. Expect for the nine or ten in here, but we don’t really count in the final tally.

  9. I’m waiting for someone to demand Washington, DC be renamed, the Declaration of Independence be banned because Jefferson was a slave owner, and the Constitution be censored because many of the authors were slave owners. I’m also expecting demands for Monticello and Mount Vernon to be razed, the Washington Monument be destroyed and the Jefferson Monument be bulldozed.

    How long does this insanity continue?

  10. I think a boycott of apple products is in order. This crap is really starting to piss me off.

  16. This shows that the foolishness that some call “political correctness”, which may more accurately be called groupthink in many contexts, is a human trait often appearing in large organizations. It is not unique to any particular group.

    Perhaps the worst offenders are those in media, where “news coverage” today rarely amounts to anything more than a bunch of lemmings all chasing the same cliff, oops, I mean all chasing the same “news story”.

    Critical thinking is in short supply.

  18. And we poke fun at the people who ran the Salem Witch Trials, and the peasants in France who were guillotining people left and right, and ISIS blowing up Palmyra, and the Taliban tnt’ing the Buddhas, and the Red Guard, and every lynch mob that ever formed.

    look in the mirror. Many of us, are them.

    My BFF Penelope Dreadful, posted two satirical pieces last night about taking down the American flag, and when she went to check Drudge, Farrakhan was saying the same thing. For real.

    She posted another one today, this one:

    Racist Babes On The Great White Way! (A Poem)

    https://pansiesforplato.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/babes.jpg?w=640

    https://pansiesforplato.wordpress.com/2015/06/25/racist-babes-on-the-great-white-way-a-poem/

    and before she could tweet about it, she saw where people are asking that Gone With The Wind not be distributed anymore.

    This latest mutation of hysteric crap can be traced goes back to the Trayvon Martin nonsense, IMHO.

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

  19. Political Correctness run amok. Self-censorship out of fear of financial impact is worse than bureaucratic censorship and it is killing freedom of speech. I don’t know if there is a way to counter this, but if there is, let me know and I’ll be all in.

    There are those of us out here smart enough to know the difference between a symbol vs. what it represents. I object to those who want to try and take away my ability to think for myself.

  20. As soon as we can eliminate all these racist symbols then racism will be over. Why didn’t anyone think of this before?

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