Jackson Jambalaya

Newsflash to Chris (and others who use the 2001 refrendum as an excuse): Probably around 50% of the voters from that election 14 years ago are dead. Not to mention that plenty of younger Mississippians can vote now and may back a new flag.

So does that mean our vote to join the Union is no longer valid or respected because the voters are now dead?

Does that mean the vote to pass the Civil Rights Act is meaningless because most of those who voted are now dead? Just curious where you are going with it.

You have a much better argument by saying Musgrove, as usual, completely dropped the ball and botched it. The Democrats and Musgrove stuck the election on its own day when turnout would be lower. It gave voters another flag to vote for that nobody liked. Its almost as if they rigged the vote to get the outcome they got but we know they weren't smart enough to pull off that kind of caper.

Who is trying to silence who? Just try posting something that hints of anti-rebel flag and you get tarred and feathered. The flag wavers are the ones overcome by hysteria.

KF, what I'm saying is that the voter makeup now compared to 2001 is very different. A majority of MS may want to keep the flag (this is probably the case, unfortunately) but to base that off a 2001 vote is just a cop out excuse for lawmakers who don't have the balls to take a stand (i.e. Tater Tot and Feel).

If Chris McDaniel wants to keep the flag then I want to change it.

Senator McDaniel issued the following statement:

The price we --or rather, you, black people-- pay to live in a free society is to occasionally be offended by officially sanctioned symbols of the government. If we start purging all symbols that were created for the express purpose of armed rebellion in defense of slavery, where will it stop? Will we take the line, "Go Mississippi/You've got the most slaves" out of the state song? The very notion is pure tomfoolery.

Besides, how will changing the flag solve the deficit? How will it stop ISIS? If we could address more than one issue in any given decade, perhaps changing the flag would make sense. But obviously, that is impossible.

In the end, we are all a family. And the flag is like a cherished heirloom -- say, a photo of Cousin Marcus being kidnapped, beaten and repeatedly raped-- that we display on the mantel to remind us all of good old times we've had together.

I ... err, ugh, must get words out ... admit ... slavery was ... wrong. But we can all agree that the only thing worse than slavery, lynchings, church bombings, etc. is political correctness. Political correctness is about arbitrarily exercising power over other people without their consent. And that is something we should never celebrate.

Except, you know, when we do.

It's not being politically correct. It's being morally correct. Something so ironic given that McDaniel is from the one county in Mississippi that rebelled against that flag (the Free State of Jones). The harder right instead of the easier wrong might be some other case, but this is easy. “The cross and the Confederate flag cannot co-exist without one setting the other on fire,” Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, wrote in a widely noted blog post on Friday (June 19).

Dumbass at 2:54: Please educate yourself. There is no such thing as 'The Rebel Flag'. You would not know the various flags of The Confederacy if they slapped you in the face. All you know is you've drunk the liberal Kool Aid and you're offended because you were told you ought to be. Which is the same reason everybody else who claims offense does so.

Lincoln's Unnecessary War was not fought over slavery. It was a peripheral issue. Flags on both sides of the war were used for purposes of signaling and notifying troops of assembly points and which sides those groups of men traveling in dust represented. Nothing more. Hatred was not then nor now an issue. Except in the heads of people like you.

McDaddy is thrilled to have this controversy erupt. That next mandatory campaign report will most likely be late but for a different reason. It will take a while for him to convert all those donated CSA notes into recognized legal tender. Gilbert may want to look into including CSA denominations on his reporting forms to make it simpler.

Martin Luther King Jr's mother was shot dead in a church (Ebenezer Baptist) by an armed intruder. I'm not sure what flag he waved at home but he was black.

Chrissy just single handedly settled the issue by opening his trap: the battle flag as part of our state flag is now dead! And we have Crissy to blame for the whole thing. He has made the outcome inevitable. How convenient! We can have a vote, but now its over as folks will vote the opposite of Crissy in droves just because!

It's high-damned-time we banish the Holy Bible (Old and New Testament). That book is the reason almost a third of the planet resent and are offended by Christians and Jews. Time for it to be burned.

And with all the Native Americans and Japanese who have for years been put in fear by the US Flag, we need to banish that symbol too. Furl it and draw it down.

The only real flag that needs to be kept flying over America is the Homosexual-Pride Flag, especially with the soon to be announced decision by The Supremes.

50% of the people living 14 years ago are dead. What kind of whacko comes up this crap?

If you're mad about somebody taking away your Confederate battle flag, blame the Klan and the smooth brained mouth breathing booger eatin' morons in the 60s throwing rocks at little black kids. They are responsible. They took away your flag.

"I love all Mississippians, regardless of race or political affiliation." However, I do freely discriminate based on gender, age, national origin, physical handicap, and disability.

Um . . . . did I miss a plague, zombie apocalypse, or protestant rapture that wiped out 50% of the voters from fourteen years ago? No? Oh, I see you just pulled that statistic out of the air.

The 2001 referendum, and the outcome, was an embarrassment. I commend South Carolina's governor, and legislature, for having the backbone to take it upon themselves to remove the flag.

I think we should do all the things Toilet Duty said mentioned.

I really love the post here. They manage to express in clever, sarticial (spelling), and cogent ways why politicians always point at superficial issues to distract voter from the Nation killing problem of deficit spending and the coming financial crash which is right around the corner. I have counted more than 62 revolutions around the sun in my life and the storm clouds forming is what the politicians should be studying on instead of a stupid flag debate.

Deficit spending. Financial collapse. The "Squirrel!!" sound for Tea Party Pavlov Dogs. The thread is about the flag. You and William DeVain or whoever go buy some more gold, or silver, or silver and gold, or green tip 5.56. Run! Stockpile everythang!

Let's try to get a grip, and perhaps some perspective on this thing. No one is suggesting that the confederate battle flag be made illegal. Bubba and the SCV folks will always be free to continue hanging the confederate battle flags on their porches, their trucks, or even have specialized mud flaps made for their house.

The issue is whether it should be an official symbol of the State of Mississippi. A lot has changed in fourteen years. And if the flag does offend a large majority of Mississippians, or is not representative of the present and evolving nature of the State, then let's change.

The world will not end if the flag is removed.

This is turning into tea party versus mainstream all over again. One side makes a statement, the other side erupts into name calling, excuse making and profane insults. When will the flag wavers break into somebody's hospital room to make their point?

"Hatred was not then nor now an issue."

Right - all those Confederate flag waving types murdered Medgar Evers, and buried a trio of Freedom Riders, and lynched 100s - they didn't do any of that out of hatred. Couldn't have. Impossible.

Now let me stick my fingers back in my ears. Nyah Nyah Nyah, dirty liberals.

And KF: the point about the electorate being different than in 2001 harkens back to the two electorates: one that wanted a Constitutional Amendment imposing Prohibition, then another Constitutional Amendment getting rid of Prohibition. Give a new flag (not hideously ugly, like Musgrove's fiasco) a vote at the next general election. Then everybody abide my the decision, whatever it is, and shut up about it.

I love the "the war wasn't about slavery" bit. You scholars might want to educate yourselves before you spout off such foolishness. There are approximately 20 paragraphs in the Mississippi Declaration of Causes to Secede and well over half are about slavery.

"In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world."

"It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion."

"It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst."

"Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England."
"

Of the people freaking out over the thought of change, how many actually fly the Mississippi flag rather than the confederate battle flag? Anyone?

I don't think I have ever see the Mississippi flag hanging from anyone's porch. Its always the battle flag. So why do you care?

I'm just curious. When certain groups such as the Klan paraded the Stars and Bars or the State flag around, how many of you protested? Raised hell about it on Facebook or Twitter? Wrote a letter to the editor stating you didn't appreciate them bastardizing the flag you love so much? Many of you criticize Muslims for not standing up to the jihadists yet who stood up and tried to protect the flag you love so much from being desecrated by those groups, if desecration is indeed the right word?

In other words, you try to defend it against liberals and others but did you try to defend it against the opposite end of the spectrum?

Outstanding comments by McDaniel. Thanks for sharing.

When we have ANOTHER vote on the state flag and it comes out the same as it did in 2001 (which it will), what are you P.C. people gonna do then?

KF at 4:35, exactly. Originally and as part of the state's history, the flag may be (not likely but it's arguable) benign. The bastardization of it by rednecks, hate groups and racists solidified its symbolic association with the evil that has existed in our state. I had a rebel flag in my apartment when I was 19 because I was a short sighted, self involved asshole with no perspective on the civil rights struggle our in our state and the scars that left on some of our greatest people. The difference between me and Chris? I grew up.

For what it's worth, Valley Forge Flags announced it will discontinue production of Confederate flags. Amazon, eBay, Wal-Mart and Sears will prohibit sales of Confederate flags and related merchandise. The flag advocates boycott won't make a dent in their bottom-line. Mississippi can continue to cling to this backward tradition ad nauseum - it will only fall further behind in relevance. The sad part is that many of the flag advocates appear to be OK with that...

We aren't going to vote on it 5:10. This is a republic. Our legislature will. This will be fun.

Butt, meet 10 penny nail.

Look for Bryant to possibly call a special session next week. Flag issue is big deal now, but SCOTUS will likely legalize gay marriage this week. He'll want legislature to act.

3:10 thanks for pointing out the irony of McDaniel's position given his home county of Jones. As a resident of South Mississippi it amazes me that the history of Unionism in not only Jones County, but the counties of Jasper, Wayne, Greene, Perry, Smith, Clarke, Marion, etc., has been largely pushed to the side and forgotten. Likewise, there are enough Confederate memorials to ensure no one will ever forget Mississippi's role in the Civil War without insisting that the battle flag adorn a portion of the State Flag.

Sadly, I have my doubts that our legislature will ever do the right thing on this issue, but one can still hope.

Leave it to McDaniel to gouge the eye of America in the midst of a racial violence debate. He really has his finger on the pulse of the average "Free State" redneck. And he may be considering a run for Palazzo's seat? I shudder to think of the laughing stock our representation would become.

@3:02 - By far the best caricature of McDaniel. If blogs have winners you get the blue-ribbon!

You are the BEST Kingfish.

Think of JJ as a triple decker Japanese driving range with at least an hour wait just to queue in line holding your bucket of balls!

Congrats on your success King!!! You've earned it.

Winters and Musgrove fixed a rigged election to fail when the choices were the existing stars and bars or a flag that was off the wall. I wonder what an election between the Magnolia flag and the present flag would have been in 2001 or now. That said I have a tendency to go against political correctness.

Chris missed a perfect chance to begin removing the racist tag he has. He could have supported a change to help Mississippi heal a divide. Wait how foolish of me to think he would do that. All the backwoods crackers from Jones and Forrest county would drop their support.

According to census data, the voting age population of Mississippi has increased by 184,000 since 2001. The difference in the flag vote was around 102,000.

It's fair to say all 184,000 new voting age people are not registered to vote. It's fair to say if they were they would not all vote to change the flag. But still something to consider.

Was that flag flying over the hotel with Melanie????

Unless you looked on a map you don't have a clue Kingfish where Rio Linda is.

8:27: McD won Forrest County but only by about 200 votes in the runoff. And Cochran won heavily in the Hattiesburg precincts. I only say this because I am from Hattiesburg/Forrest Co and don't want my county and city to be associated with that nut.

Also, interesting that McD is pushing for term limits yet that was shot down by voters in 1999. So, he too is going against the "wishes of the people".

Boy the media did a good job this week stirring up this crap. The nation had turned their attention to Charleston and wept with them and then all of a sudden some media conglomerate started talking about the Confederate Flag. How in the hell does that hhappen?

5:25 pm
The confederate flag will still be made in China.

I voted to keep the flag and would do so again. But if the majority of MS voters want to change we should change. What I would not be OK with would be the politicians somehow thinking the voters might not vote like they want them to, so the legislature or governor will decide. The people own the state. The people should decide. And then the entire nation should respect the will of the people. Whatever it is.
Also, I don't think we should vote every year, or every five years. To me we should wait at least 20 years between votes. How nutty would it be for a state or nation to change their flag every 10 years? I do not expect us to wait 20 years, but we should.
The thing that should make us all mad is all the folks who don't live here telling us what flag to us. We don't tell Colorado they can't smoke dope. We don't tell California that God did not design guys to marry guys. After we vote whoever looses should shut up about it, and especially folks who don't live here.

Well, since some of you love the confederate flag soooooo much, the, WHY don't you get the real confederate flag then? Historical significance my butt. It's all about defiance!

"The people own the state". Great. What if there was a referendum on the topic of school integration in the 60s. Don't think that'd end well.

A new state flag isn't going to solve the problem of racism in people's hearts and minds.

9:47 "The media stirred stuff up" = "people are talking about things I don't ever want to confront and their opinions differ from mine!"

Grow up, crybaby.

If you don't like our FLAG move your sorry butt up to yankeeville. Up there you can bash away all you want.

154. Whatever boy. Y'all are the ones cryin about it. Please tell me where I am wrong in my comment. JFP is also a click away as well. You libs are weak

KF made a great point. If some of you want to cast blame, cast it on the KKK who disgraced the flag.

What makes this defense more ironic is that many of the racists who disgraced the flag as Klansmen in the 1900's were descendants of carpetbaggers who took over farms and plantations after the war in Mississippi. They quickly learned that they needed cheap labor and that keeping former slaves poor and undereducated was economically in their interest.

If you do a little research on original ownership of Mississippi plantations and find out when ownership changed , some of you would be in for quite a shock.

There were even some Mississippi widows who married Yankees to have the money to keep the farms and plantations.

And, IF your ancestors were even HERE in 1860, it is likely some of your family fought for the Union as well as the South.

And, if you think Thomas Jefferson and the Murray family made famous by Alex Hailey's roots are the only Southerners with black family members in their family tree, you've lost your minds!

Some of you racists most likely have as many black cousins as white ones!

In states where their crops were heavily dependent on slave labor, there were so many slaves, that fear of revenge was a great as well.

I don't think banning the flag will end racism. I wish it would, but to fly it on government property when it has sadly become of symbol of the KKK and no longer one of remembrance for those who died in an awful war that still haunts this country is wrong.

Banning the flag altogether is as impossible as banning the Nazi flag has been. Racists can buy sewing machines. They can try to hijack another one of the battle flags. But, we have been successful in ending the worst of the bigotry towards Jews in this country by facing that the Nazi flag is a symbol of hate and injustice.

Some of you have forgotten the KKK hated Jews and Catholics as well. And, we should do the same for every race. And, blacks have forgotten that some blacks fought with the South and died doing so.

Slavery was indeed a " peculiar institution".

I am tired of those who scream " political correctness" as an excuse to be hateful, disrespectful of others, ill mannered and endorsing criminal behaviors like vandalism or assault. You are not expressing a unpopular political philosophy as that can be done without name calling or anger or breaking laws and can be done peacefully.

If you can't defend your point of view without being rude and crude, it simply means you are either stupid and immature or have an indefensible point of view!

6:40 Cite some tangible examples of the media "stirring people up." All your previous comment demonstrates is that you'd prefer it if people wouldn't talk about things that make you uncomfortable--or weak--in your case.

Maybe the Charleston shooter will get the race war he wanted.

7:29 Verbose... you exceed your bandwidth

@640 Are you serious? Just look at the news this week. Using a tragedy to get what y'all want. But your not going to get Mississippis flag.

Frankly, I don't give a damn either way about the flag. I voted to keep it in 2001 but for no reason other than I thought the argument was silly and political.

But - the idea of 10:37 that 'the people should decide' and not the legislature (or as he includes, the Governor) is bass ackwards. Why should the people decide about a flag, but not about everything else (taxes, spending, Medicaid, highways, on, and on, and on.....)

If there is anything done about the flag, I hope the legislature and the Governor have the balls to do their job, and not run away from it as Musgrove and his packet of Democrats controlling the legislature did 15 years ago. Their "leaving it up to the people" was their way of saying "don't blame it on me" either way the final decision went.

We elect the legislature to decide these matters. If we don't like the result, we can vote them out, and we also can use the I&R process to initiate what they will not do. But to say that this --- or ANY other issue should be decided by the people is ridiculous.

Let's see if the legislature and the Governor have the balls to address, or decide not to address, this question themselves as they should. Or, are they going to be as chickenshit as Musgrove, Tuck and Ford were way back when.

Jones County did not fight nor support the CSA. Go figure.

2:22 is exactly right. That is why we are a REPUBLIC. The elected leaders need to man up, and keep this from becoming a TV AD circus.

Winter is COMING!

2:22 pm did not support or vote for the flag the first go around.

McDaniels had the best response on the flag yet compared to all the other representatives. You Fondren people hate him so much its actually hilarious. He gets under your skin doesn't he?

The clown gets under nobody's skin 9:06. He embarrasses us. #embarraressesus. Why can you Jones County traitors not deal with this joke?

941 wicker and cochran are selling us down the river up there in DC at the moment. McDaniels wouldn't be doing that. You are for Cochrans stances here lately?

Cochran sold us down the river a long time ago. Mississippi has only been fed fish, not taught how to fish.

The Confederate flag does not belong on any government property. It doesn't belong on license plates, and it certainly doesn't belong on state property. If you pledge allegiance to the U.S. flag, it is an act of hypocrisy to fly any Confederate flag. You can't say "one nation, under God, indivisible" and then fly a flag proudly commemorating the time we were divided. No matter what it means to you personally, that is the flag of a dead and defeated country that was born out of the wonderful philosophy that the federal government should respect states' rights and that philosophy's evil and inseparable twin: the states' right to own human beings.

How many Native Americans were killed underneath the U.S. flag?

Note to the representative government, we should not vote on this crowd.
I hope we can all agree the while most issues are handled by our government representatives, from time to time the people should and do vote directly.
Thinking of the best reasons for our representatives to vote or not vote in out place, I came up with this list:
1. This issue is too complex. Many government issues are much to complex for voting by the people. The state flag is not one. There are some issues that many not be obvious to everyone, but nothing that could not be simply explained by one side or the other.
2. Time is too short. Sometimes this is the case. This time it is not. There is no great rush to get this done.
3. The issue is too mundane, too unimportant to waste our time voting directly. While this issue is unimportant to many, it is very important to a great many folks.
4. The additional cost of an election. Some issues are not worth the cost of voting. In this case there is no hurry. A vote can be done in conjunction with a regularly scheduled election. The cost of voting on this would be almost nothing.
To me those are the most important things to consider when deciding if the people should vote directly. This seems to be the perfect type of issue for direct voting.
The only other thing I can think of is - you don't trust the will of the people. That is what I believe is driving most of your comments. Somehow you are smarter than the collective wisdom of all the voters in the State. We already have one smart SOB in the White House. We don't need any more.