Voice of the people for July 2
Charleston sets example
The politically correct people are attempting to hijack this country. South Carolina suffered a devastating crisis with the loss of nine Charleston people. What did the Charleston people do? They forgave the shooter.
Because there was no outrage, no riots, no burning of businesses, no destroying of property, no retaliation against the police department, those on the far left felt the need to start trouble. Take down the Confederate flag, they said, but they didn’t stop there.
They want Confederate monuments removed. Stores are removing the flag from their inventory. States are talking about removing the flag symbol from state license plates. There is even talk about removing the Jefferson Memorial.
What is next? Remove all memorials related to the Civil War? Remove any mention of Thomas Jefferson as president from the history books?
The Confederate flag to the majority represents the South. It no longer represents the fight to have slaves. Slavery died with the winning of the Civil War.
The South has become open, and tolerant. No, the South is not perfect or totally tolerant, but neither is New York, California or any other state outside of the South.
The history of this country is a part of our past. By remembering the past we, the people, will hopefully not repeat our mistakes in the future. To destroy the past is to repeat it again and again.
We should be proud of our past. We fought a hard war between bothers, between fathers and sons, and we came out unified as one nation without slavery. Racism, however, is going to take a lot longer to eradicate, and because people are but human, it may never be gone, but that doesn't mean we stop trying.
In trying to destroy the past, you are only fueling racism. Apparently there are not enough Charleston people in America to be forgiving and willing to move forward.
There is even talk about removing Old Glory from all buildings. A few people have managed to remove prayer from our schools and even from many public meetings. In addition the pledge of allegiance has also been removed from many schools. A local school here in York Country asked a student to remove the U.S. flag from his truck while on school property.
Stop the "few" from taking over. Send them to Charleston to learn forgiveness.
Janice J. Greiser
Rock Hill
This story was originally published July 1, 2015 at 5:47 PM with the headline "Voice of the people for July 2."