We have previously discussed the ongoing controversy over the confederate flag as well as past cases of student speech being curtailed. This story combines those themes after Jordan Beattie, a student at Cossa Academy in Wilder, Idaho was banned from flying the confederate flag that his girlfriend had given him. He was told that the flag was interpreted to be a gang symbol.
Schools officials said that they found an image of the flag on a gang site used by the local police but the Caldwell Police Department Gang Unit told the media that it was unsure as to where the school received that information. Caldwell Police Department Captain Frank Wyant said “We don’t look at the Confederate flag as a gang symbol. We don’t encourage anybody to take it down. Those are their rights and that’s what we’re here for is to protect and uphold those rights.”
Caldwell Police Department uses information from the website http://www.idahogangs.com. which lists the Confederate flag as an identifier of possible gang ties for “Aryan” gangs though it can also be simply a confederate heritage symbol.
I fail to see the basis for the decision. This is clearly not being used as a gang symbol and anyone with a Confederate flag could be similarly barred because some group happens to sometimes incorporate the symbol. It is also a symbol used by others for cultural or historical identification.
We have previously discussed cases where students were punished for displaying the Confederate flag, including cases involving flags on cars. There is a growing presumption against student free speech, particularly when it comes to unpopular or divisive symbols. This extends in this cases and earlier cases to symbols on cars in a parking lot — outside the school building or classrooms. I find that troubling from a free speech perspective.
What do you think?
Source: Scripps Media
Annie, I don’ think Trump believes a word of what he is telling these people. He is just appealing to the xenophobic crowd. He WANTS to be president.
SWM, EXACTLY! And that’s what I love. Imagine if this clown gets enough people interested so that turnout is akin to what it was back in the 1800’s. Back then, it was high 70%, even in the 80th percentile. Now, 60% is considered good. I’m not going to say I know what 80% voter turnout will bring us. But, whatever it is has to be better than the duopoly status quo.
SWM, Trump is doing Democrats a huge favor, no one could highlight the underbelly of that ideology better than a Trump. I suggest he makes more comments about the Confederate flag. Did you hear that guy screaming “White Power!” at one of his recent rallies?
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/08/22/video_trump_supporter_yells_out_white_power_during_alabama_rally.html
I wonder if there are any freedom, rights or liberties left in America? The very binding Preamble, Constitution and Bill of Rights (original) have been nullified. The newspeak of liberal indoctrination has blinded the sheeple.
– Affirmative action is unconstitutional bias and nullification of private property rights of possession and disposition (“Fair Housing” is unfair to constitutional private property owners).
– The President, who is ineligible for the office as his father was a foreign citizen and he is not a “natural born citizen,” is sued for maneuvering the executive branch into full “overreach” mode taking the country to a constitutional “tipping point.”
– The Extreme Court unconstitutionally and cavalierly commingles the definitions of “state” and “federal” to achieve ideological goals in its second preposterous attempt to support unconstitutional Obamacare.
– Abraham Lincoln was told by Chief Justice Taney that he, Lincoln, had no authority to suspend Habeas Corpus. Similarly, Lincoln illegally confiscated “private property” and started an illegal war in the foreign country of the Confederate States which had the same natural right to secede as Scotland, West Virginia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the entire USSR.
– Lincoln’s Party’s “Reconstruction Amendments” are unconstitutional to this day; were improperly ratified without a quorum, through coercion and under duress. If Lincoln’s party had a quorum, the Confederate States successfully seceded. If the Confederate States did not secede, Lincoln did not have a quorum.
– Asking Ken Burns about the Civil War is like asking Karl Marx about ideology.
– Illegal aliens, liberals and beneficiaries of illegal “amnesty” have illegally abused the Constitution to manipulate the vote.
– In California, they fly the Mexican flag.
– And so on…
Isaac sure does love him some totalitarian dictatorship.
” If a collective or government entity decides not to allow the Stars and Bars that is democracy. ”
However, the First Amendment to the Constitution protects our right to free speech.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Flying the Confederate Flag may be offensive speech to YOU and to others, but it is protected under the Constitution.
If you don’t like it, that is your prerogative, but it is not your right to silence others because you disagree.
Even stupid speech is protected.
Trump is throwing all those goofs and their high highly paid consultants off their game.
Classic example.
I’m honored to be an “ilk” with you SWM.
SWM, I would expect someone of your intelligence to know “ilk” is not a pejorative. It’s really a very good, succinct word. As Casey Stengel would say, “You can look it up.” Or is it really a micro aggression??? That would be covered on the campus PC thread.
Nick
You’re better off being niggardly with your big small words like “ilk” with this crowd of “you peoples”.
SWM, And I LOVE IT!
Annie, I guess you are my “ilk”.
Trump is skewering every other republican candidate. He accused your Gov. Walker of wrecking Wisconsin over the weekend. We saw what he did to Rand Paul lin the debate and he is really having fun knocking Jeb Bush around. The red hat is great prop.
http://www.northwestern.edu/womenscenter/issues-information/relationship-violence/warning-signs-abusive-person.html
“Jekyll-and-Hyde personality
Explosiveness and mood swings are typical of abusers, and these behaviors are related to other traits such as hypersensitivity. This is not always a sign of mental health problems but may be a way of controlling the victim by being unpredictable.”
LOL, he calls her an “ilk”, then expects her to make nice with him. Same old, same old, some things never change.
I pray the Canadian keeps showing how ignorant he is of the US Constitution. That hole he’s digging is getting deeper by the comment.
SWM, You are a sane liberal woman, and there is a dearth here. I’m glad you’re back and hope you stick around.
I don’t see Trump being the nominee. He won’t spend his own money and there’s not many big money backers in his camp. What he is doing is skewering the status quo. I just read an interesting piece in The Daily Beast about the always interesting Owen Wilson. The actor was an Obama supporter but he is intrigued by how Trump is challenging the accepted physics of politics. Wilson likens it to actors on a movie junket pushing their film. They all say the same things and are carefully managed, just like the “normal” physics of politics. Trump is the antithesis. And, if folks think he is just striking a chord w/ “conservative” they are a fool. What I see this court jester doing is getting more people interested; people who have never given a rat’s ass about the duopoly because of its staleness. He’s changing the dynamics in an interesting way.
There would have been no Civil War if it were not for slavery. The rest was squabbling that had been going on since before 1776 and is going on still. The South split because they saw the abolishment of slavery coming, the North would no longer honor the agreements to return runaway slaves under the premise that they were property-a word found in the common Constitution. The South made a move to break up the Union and the North resisted. You can read history selectively or in its entirety. The flag represents the rights, regardless of how they are interpreted, to own people, lynch people, make yourself rich off of slavery.
If, in a democracy, the representatives of the people feel something should be and they are elected and re-elected then that is the will of the people, regardless if it is 51% or 99%. If an individual wants to wave the Stars and Bars then that is his or her right, just as it is my right to see them as idiots. If a collective or government entity decides not to allow the Stars and Bars that is democracy.
The rest is interpretive to the point of BS.
issac – battle flags have a special importance. During the Civil War, if a unit thought it’s battle flag was going to be captured, it would be shredded and the pieces distributed among the men. So, what it represents is the bravery of the men who fought under that flag and nothing more. Battle flags a decorated with the different honors that that unit has won (usually ribbons)
20 some men volunteered to take the flag into battle. As one fell the next picked up the flag. Basically, a flag-bearer was a moving target.
“Feel the Bern” LOL!
Nick S, Still think if Trump becomes the nominee there are still enough of my “ilk” out there to defeat him in the general. Latino registrations will go way up.
SWM, I predict that we will see a sweeping victory for Democrats in 2016. Trump has done us all a favor, he has highlighted the very mean, ugly underbelly of right wing ideology, like no one else could. Maybe The anti PC thing has worked in the favor of Democrats and liberals here. He’s insulted blacks with that stupid confederate flag remark and has destroyed any semblance of a Latino following. Most people with any morals sees Trump for what he is. That he can bamboozle or speak to the heart of the majority of conservatives says something, something not to be proud of.