Two Naples students sent home for wearing Confederate flag T-shirts

[davidinalameda]

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-916flag,0,7571423.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines

Two high school students were sent home early from school for wearing T-shirts bearing the Confederate flag.

Todd and Andrew Sloan, students at Naples High School, were among 17 students who wore the shirts sporting the flag on Monday. Principal Gary Brown announced Friday that the school's ban on the Confederate flag would be enforced because students had argued about the flag. The ban is part of the school's student code of conduct.
<snip>

``My sons chose to support their Southern heritage,'' said their father, Todd Sloan, who picked up his sons at 10:30 a.m.


Get the future Neo-Nazis started off right!

[Colin Ex]

1. That sucks.

I empathize with the students who got fucked by their school for choosing to express their opinions (however strongly I may disagree with them).

Oi.

-C

[lightbulb]

4. What if they were swastika t-shirts?

Or how about t-shirts with images of extreme/disturbing gore or cruelty on them, such as rape, perhaps? I hear what you're saying about freedom of expression, and I'm not saying the school was right necessarily, but certain lines do need to be drawn in cases such as this.

[Robb]

5. Perhaps.

However, I don't think 17 students who head to school wearing the confederate flag on the same day are interested in anything other than intimidation.

[RapidCreek]

13. Gotta wonder what daddy would say

if 200 black kids beat the living shit out of his KKK son and company. You know...they'd just be expressing their reaction to suggestions that their enslavement is a fond memory to some.

Then again I guess you can't fault someone for being anti-american and vocally supporting terrorism.....can you???? Maybe you can....I sure can....

If it were up to me the parents of these kids would be on thier way to a dog cage at gauntanamo. Hoooha. America...love it or leave it, baby.

RC

[inthecorneroverhere]

16. sarcasm?

Ya support Gitmo?

Or, hopefully, this was sarcasm....

[RapidCreek]

17. I support it about as much as Rethuglicans support...

Independent Council Law....and I would suggest ending the wonders of Gitmo in the same fashion that they put an end to ICW. Jam it down their throats until it comes out their asses. I am fairly certain, a few enemy's of the state like Ken Lay, Dennis Kozlowski or the above mentioned, enjoying a sunny vacation in gitmo would do just that. Miss enough tee times 'cause their sitting in a dog cage with a sack over their heads sans a lawyer and the "patriots" would be screaming and crying about abrogation of their Constitutional Rights. Gitmo and it's industrial strength funnel, the Patriot Act would be put into the history books, shortly thereafter.

Just an aside....it'd be my guess that before Bush leaves office...his Rethuglican pals will experience a miraculous change of heart about the Patriot Act and rescind it. How much you wanna bet?

RC

[damnraddem]

7. Expressing of opinions is limited by schools.

Whether appropriately so depends on various factors. But hate speech is beyond the pale -- and the Confederate flag is just that.

[beanball]

12. Flags

how would you feel if a muslem student wore a shirt with a nazi flag?

[Bandit]

14. Probably should be school uniforms

When I was in school girls couldn't wear pants. things change

[arcane1]

2. Confederates hate America, "southern heritage" my eye

why else would they go to war AGAINST America, so that they could form their OWN country?

:shrug:


ps- Sloan, you dumbshit, what about the American flag that flew through the south in the pre-Civil War period? DO you renounce that flag??

:eyes:


funny, though, when I was in high school it seemed nothing was cooler than the conf flag, it was EVERYWHERE!!

[commander bunnypants]

3. I got sent home once

for wearing a shirt with a Canadian Maple Leaf. It looked to much like a pot leaf. Sheeeeesh


DDQM

[damnraddem]

8. Aah -- northern heritage.

Even more appropriate today than back then.

Was it just a tokin' suspension? ;-)

[damnraddem]

6. They can support their Southern Heritage ...

sitting on their asses at home. For the type of Southern Heritage that they support, failing to learn is more appropriate, anyway.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

9. First Amendment for everyone, please. Even those we disagree with.

I'm on a business trip through the south with an african-american co-worker and I sympathize with and share his discomfort upon seeing the 'stars and bars' of the confederacy everywhere. Some folks embrace the old rebel flag as a regional identity thing in a generic Walmart culture and some are genuine racists. Some use it as a flag of rebellion against conformity which is something I can identify with and even cheer. BUT I will always support First Amendment rights, even for expressions I revile. I wear a FUCK BUSH tee-shirt sometimes when I can't stand not to scream it out loud. It upsets some, brings thanks from others. I wouldn't want authoritarian sanctions against me for this act of rebellious expression. That would be un-American.

[chimpymustgo]

15. The school is right to ban inflammatory, treasonous sh*t.

nt

[sendero]

19. it is well established FACT....

... that students at public school do NOT have the same free speech rights as everyone else.

They are there to get an education, and any kind of clothing, piercings, or activities that are disruptive are not permitted, period.

You might find it annoying that some consider the flag an affront and therefore disruptive, but that is a different discussion.

The parents will quickly find that they have NO LEG TO STAND ON in this argument, it is not about free speech, it is about educational environment.

[maveric]

10. Southern Heritage??

Wasnt it adopted as a BATTLE FLAG for the CONFEDERACY, during the LAST 3 YEARS of the civil war?
To me it stands for treasonous terrorists that attacked the US, and condoned slavery.

[DeathvadeR]

21. o here we go with the North was so innocent bullshit.

Angels of mercy sent to help the slaves.. cough cough bullshit...

[gratuitous]

11. No problem, as long as they recognize Northern Heritage

And that is to shoot any sumbitch Rebel traitor displaying those colors. Heck, it's all just "heritage", isn't it?

(The preceding is merely a talking point addressed to the "Southern heritage" argument voiced by Mr. Sloan in the above article. Truly, your friendly neighborhood gratuitous would never shoot someone simply for displaying the confederate battle flag. He might point and laugh behind that person's back, possibly even make that forefinger-and-thumb "L" for "loser" sign on his forehead, but he would never, ever shoot someone.)

[david_vincent]

18. <muttering under my breath so my friends don't shoot me>

Where did I get the notion that states have a right to leave the union if they so choose? The crimes committed were not the legal divorces enacted by the various states that left, but the fundamental treason, by Lincoln, against the pact to which they had originally agreed, and the countless acts of violence and outrage that followed this betrayal. It seems strange, if not hypocritical, to say that what's good for Croatia and Slovenia, for the Czech Republic and Slovakia, for Belarus and Ukraine, is not good for South Carolina and Virginia. It might be stretching the point, but nonetheless worthwhile considering, to distinguish similarities between, say, Serbia and the Union. In the same vein, it could be considered ludicrous for someone to claim to support the efforts of Chechnya to break away from Russia and, at the same time, denounce the efforts of the Confederate states similarly to sunder attachments.
Lincoln should have let the Confederacy go, since that would have been the only way that the people within those states could have learned, in their own way and at their own pace, once and for all time, the impossibility of sustaining an economy on slave labor, and the wickedness of trying to do it. The Confederacy would have collapsed, and could then have been readmitted to the Union. Instead, Lincoln established a terrible precedent of contempt for the law and authority through force that has dogged American government ever since.
OK, now you can stand me up against the wall and shoot me, but I don't need no stinking blindfold!

[pschoeb]

20. The Seceding States could not choose to Secede,

As they were not democratic, seeing that many had a majority black slave population who could not vote for themselves, and would be unable to "freely" vote even if given the vote as they were held as property.

Since the Constitution prevented Bills of Attainder, and slavery was a legislative act that singled out one or more persons and imposed punishment on them, without benefit of trial. It was illegal and unconstitutional.

There is nothing in the Constitution that allows secession, and since it is a contract between ALL States, only a Constitutional Amendment could allow secession(the contracting parties had agreed on a rule for changes), or ALL States agreeing on the secession.

The Yugoslav Constitution and Constitutional Crisis are quite different from the Civil War. In the Yugoslav Crisis all Republics had seriously violated the constitution before war broke out. Before Slovenia and Croatia had proclaimed independance, Serbia refused to recognize Croatia's rotation as main President, because Croatia was going to introduce a new Constitution to be voted on that allowed secession. Slovenia and Croatia declared independance after Serbia blocked this.

Patrick Schoeb

[Skittles]

22. supporting their southern hertiage

and what a sorry heritage that is

[DemBones DemBones]

23. Yawn. Another Bash the South thread. Schools should either ban

all shirts with any symbols, graphics, or writing on them or let the kids wear anything they want.

[Wednesdays]

24. This is just a story to get the monkeys jumping in their cages

I'm surprised there aren't more people here who see this as little more than merely another anecdote to get wingnut radio to froth at the mouth.