Fly the Flag of Treason in Defense of Slavery All You Want

On your private property.

Like the asshole displaying his racism all over Shelbyville yesterday, racing his pickup truck through parking lots with the two large confederate battle flags waving from the back.

Good for you, moron.  You're proud of being a scum-sucking racist, and we sincerely thank for you for letting the world know what you really are.

This is the best part of the take-the-flag-down movement:  racists can no longer hid their racism behind the display of the confederate battle flag and statues by governments on public property.

You want that symbol of hate, fear and stupidity displayed, you're going to have to do it on your own land, vehicle or body.  So the world can see what you really are.

Herald Editorial:

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes, rid Kentucky's Capitol of Confederate President Jefferson Davis' statue.

But don't forget that some of the Republicans calling for Davis' ouster have also fanned racially tinged hostility toward our first black president for their political ends.

Or that GOP gubernatorial nominee Matt Bevin cast his 2004 presidential vote for Constitution Party candidate Mike Peroutka, who is described by a human-rights group as an "active white supremacist."

"I have a 'Peroutka for President' T-shirt from 2004 in my drawer," Bevin told The National Review in 2013.

Despite all that, we applaud Bevin, who has four adopted black children and a black running mate, and the other Republicans for wanting to cleanse the Capitol of pro-slavery symbols.

The racist massacre in a Charleston, S.C. church was the latest in a series of shocks that has awakened many white Americans to the brutality and hatred heaped on black citizens every day.

The killer in Charleston studied white supremacist web sites and proudly flaunted the symbols of racist regimes in South Africa, Rhodesia and the American Confederacy, which was led by Davis, who insisted God wanted Africans to be abducted and enslaved.

While we haven't seen a rush toward gun control in response to the Charleston bloodshed, Republican office holders across the South are hastening to remove Confederate flags from Capitol grounds and state license plates.

Symbols matter; they convey powerful messages. But actions speak louder than symbols.

That's why, if Senate President Robert Stivers, one of the Republicans calling for removing the Davis statue, is sincere, he will remove the Kentucky Senate as an obstacle to voting rights for all Kentuckians.

The disproportionate imprisonment and disenfranchisement of blacks are the living, breathing, crippling legacy of slavery and white supremacy.

More than 180,000 Kentuckians who have completed their felony sentences are still stripped of their vote. More whites than blacks fall into this category. But denying the vote to so many black Kentuckians weakens the voice of the minority community in government and renders it powerless — just what the white supremacists want.

The League of Women Voters issued a report in 2006 that said Kentucky has the country's highest rate of disenfranchising black citizens with nearly one in four black Kentuckians ineligible to vote. This was nearly triple the national black disenfranchisement rate.

Kentucky makes it harder than all but two or three states to regain the vote.

Nine times the House has approved a constitutional amendment restoring the vote to non-violent felons who have paid their debts to society.

Nine times the Senate, under Republican control, has blocked or gutted the measure.

Republican U.S. Sen. Rand Paul and state House Republican Floor Leader Jeff Hoover, to their credit, have supported voting rights restoration. But the Republican Senate has not budged.

By all means, give the school-bus loads of children who tour the Capitol a new symbol of justice and equality in place of the old secessionist.

But a new statue will be a symbol of cynicism as long as the Republican Senate denies the vote to so many black Kentuckians.