"Confederate Pride" tag in Florida?

[Coexist]

Rep. Don Brown, R-DeFuniak Springs, has filed legislation to create a new license plate featuring the Confederate battle flag.

But the controversial nature of the flag and failure to establish a plate before makes for a difficult road to approval.

The plate, featuring four Confederate-era flags as well as buttons worn by soldiers, was designed by the Florida division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The group pitched the idea last year and got nowhere. The plate would cost $25 extra and proceeds would be used for education programs and graveyard restoration.

Florida, like other Southern states, has struggled over the image of the Confederate flag and the plate will surely stir controversy. In 2001, Gov. Jeb Bush discreetly removed the flag from the Capitol. His successor, Gov. Charlie Crist, has made inroads with the African-American community that sees the flag as an enduring symbol of racism.

"A lot of people are making a big issue out of it," Brown said. "But all we're doing is giving individuals the right to choose to make a statement about their heritage." That's no different, he said, than people who want to see Martin Luther King Jr's name grace street signs. Browns says he is one of them and has sponsored a bill to rename part of Highway 90 in Walton County after the slain civil rights leader.

The $25.00 fee for the tag would go to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, although members of the Choctaw Indian Tribe would be able to get them for free(?)

Members of the SCV include Pat Buchanan, Charlie Daniels, Trent Lott, Clint Eastwood, Charlie Reese and more.

SCV members consider these license plates to be "a tremendous recruiting tool." and refer to lawmakers trying to prevent the re-issuance of these tags in Tennessee to be "Members and sycophants of the legislative Black Caucus".

These are the same people that are raising money to fly a 30 x 50 foot Confederate
Battle Flag "with proper and sufficient lighting for nighttime illumination." in my state.

I'm sorry - a lot of misguided people died, and did heroic things to save their mates in Germany. Soldiers who were misled to think they were doing what was right for their country. That doesn't mean that it is okay to fly a Nazi flag as a sign of pride.

[Donnachaidh]

1. I can see a fund for gravesite restoration -- but NOT this way

Get over it -- the South LOST the war.

Talk about a divisive mindset. :puke:

[Taverner]

2. Misguided? They were traitors

Plain and simple

Mow down their graves and put up parking lots :)

[JBoris]

3. This isn't much of a surprise to me...

... here in FL our official state song still has the word "darkie" in reference to a black person.

[NightWatcher]

4. we've had them in GA for a while now

We have a ton of weird tags as well. We are approaching Florida's numbers


note: Clemson U is in South Carolina


note: Florida is in, well, Florida and we hate them in the fall...


note: Auburn, Alabama

[aikoaiko]

10. My wife can't stand seeing gator GA tags. It drives her nuts.

[Buzz Clik]

5. This flag discussion goes all kinds of different directions.

I once told a knuckledragger that I was considering putting a Puerto Rican flag on my car, and he told me it was treasonous and literally against the law. Of course, he's wrong; he simply didn't like the symbolism. He suggested he would commit violent acts against anyone who displayed flags of other countries while on US soil.

I'd be very curious how this Neanderthal would view the new Florida license plate. Would he see the Confederate flags displayed there as in-your-face treason, or simply a statement of heritage?

(Needless to say, one doesn't even bother to discuss matters of race with a knuckledragger.)

[rurallib]

6. Puerto Rico is another country? When did that happen?

[Buzz Clik]

8. Look, we don't make those subtle distinctions for knuckledraggers.

Try to convince one of these guys that Puerto Rico isn't full of Mexicans.

[rurallib]

7. 'Spose they would have one commemorating lynching for O'Reilly?

That seems to me to be in the same vein.

[liberal1973]

9. Man these people are nothing but traitors

I'm a southerner and these people are over the top.

[Winterblues]

11. A Heritage of Treason and Torture

Unless of course one doesn't consider slavery to be torture. I am sure those same people feel water boarding is just fine and dandy as well.

[Winterblues]

12. Sort of fits modern day Republicans as well.

:shrug: They seem to think nothing of outing Covert CIA Agents or committing Torture.

[alfredo]

13. So they take pride in losing in their attempt to destroy the United States.