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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elf Witch" data-source="post: 5824451" data-attributes="member: 9037">We are just going to have agree to disagree on this Dannyalcatraz. I feel that doing it your way and allowing symbols to be corrupted is just letting the bad guys win.I think in some ways we have gone overboard on things in this country. Nobody dares type out the N word even when it is relevant like in talking about its use in Mark Twain work. We have taken a racial slur and made it all mysterious and imo given it more power by doing this. It elevates it and gives it more power. A teacher in Chicago was suspended for five days for using it in his classroom after some kids were passing around rap lyrics with the word in it. He took the opportunity to teach about how some language has been used to demean people and sometimes those people take control over the word . His Principal walked in heard him say and suspended because the word is forbidden to be said because it is hate speech. Tennessee made talking about or using any words about homosexuality illegal in public classroom.In a country where we believe in free speech this is an issue when we start penalizing people for using words even if it is not in a hate filled rant. In South Carolina back in the 40s I believe they started putting up metal signs with a Confederate flag on it and text to designate Civil War sites. This was not as a racist endeavor. The flag was used to differentiate those historical sites from the Revolutionary  war sites which I believe have the Continental flag on them. Near my Aunt's house is one it says this was the site where the union troops fired their cannons on the capital across the river. The Capital building itself which was under construction at time has several of these signs they even have places where the cannon balls hit marked. They left them and never repaired them.Standing and reading those signs brings history alive at least it does to me. In the last few years there has been a push to get rid of them because the Confederate flag is offensive to some people. The state has said that they simply don't have the funds to pay for this. Those signs were made of an expensive metal and made to withstand the elements replacing them would cost a fortune. So then if they can't be replaced the group just wants them gone. This is where I start to have an issue that to not offend people we just white wash over history because in a way that is what these people seem to want.Tomorrow is the anniversary of executive order 9066 the order that gave the US military the right to round up and detain Japaneses Americans. But I can pretty much guarantee that the majority of Americans don't even know it nor was it in their history books it was not in mine. I only learned about because of being a Trekkie and talking to George Takei whose family was sent to one. People who don't know history are doomed to repeat it</blockquote>

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