Anti-Dixie Bigotry in Southwest Missouri

(KY3) - Riley Collier loves flying the flag in the back of his pickup -- the Confederate flag.

"Just trying to express myself; it's just like bumper stickers or anything of that nature," said Collier.

He ran into a big problem, though, when he took it on his school grounds. Collier said school officials warned him to stop flying Ole Dixie.

"They said they could view the flag from inside the building, so it was a distraction to students apparently," said Collier.

So he took it down, but continued to fly it to and from Republic High School. In response, the school suspended Collier's driving privileges for 30 days.

"It would be easier and it would pacify them, but I just don't see why I should," said Collier.

When he earned his driving privileges back, his flag came back and that led to his second driving suspension.

Collier has the support of his dad.

"To my knowledge there's nothing in any of the school handbooks that says you can't do it," said Gene Collier.

"We don't articulate every rule and regulation; no school district could do that. We don't have the manpower, time, hours, energy to do all that," said Republic School District Superintendent Vern Minor....

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THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: It's a sad reality here in Dixieland, as the shadows of Reconstruction are continually cast over our people and our heritage. The latest episode hits close to home, in a small town just outside the Springfield Missouri area. Republic High School was built just one mile north of Wilson's Creek Civil War Battlefield. A small monument erected by the Sons of Confederate Veterans sits just atop a hill north of the battlefield site.

The Battle of Wilson's Creek was a Confederate victory, wherein the first Union general, Nathaniel Lyon, was killed in action. This whole region of Missouri was Confederate territory for a time. Missouri's alignment with the Confederacy is an interesting one. General Lyon himself stated he would rather see every man, woman and child in Missouri dead and buried than concede to the requests of neutrality from a state that had just recently voted to stay within the Union. Missouri congressmen changed their pro-Union tune quickly after finding themselves on the receiving end of General Lyon's unprovoked and unwarranted attack. They voted to secede from the Union just a few months later. It is reported that General Lyon was slated by President Lincoln to become the North's supreme commander after securing the Western front. God had other plans. Lyon was killed at the Battle of Wilson's Creek. General Ulysses S. Grant was then tapped by President Lincoln as his second choice.

Exactly one-hundred and fifty years later, a young man named Riley Collier would find himself a victim of the consequences of that war just one-mile north of where the Battle of Wilson's Creek happened. To the victor go the spoils of war, and to the victor goes the ability to rewrite history. My international audience may find it difficult to understand this. What does this little town of Republic Missouri have to do with the American empire and world history? It has a lot to do with it, because you see, the whole history of the Western world is wrapped up in the American Civil War. This is because the American Civil War was the conflict in which Empire America cut its teeth on the people of Dixieland. By vanquishing them on the battlefield, the American empire was born. What once was a constitutional compact between separate but equal and sovereign states, turned into an empire that was ruled by a centralised government in Washington City (today 'Washington DC'). Prior to the Civil War, the United States was always referred to in the plural -- the United States 'are.' After the Civil War, the United States was referred to in the singular -- the United States 'is.' What was originally E pluribus unum (from many came one) turned into Multa sub una (many under one). This led to the Western Expansion and the subjection of the Native Americans, followed by the 'Yankee Imperialism' of the early 20th century, ultimately leading to our intervention into World War I, which radically changed the course of the 20th century. Many historians agree that America's intervention into World War I is the direct cause that led to World War II. The Second World War elevated America to a world-wide superpower. Maintaining that superpower status, while also attempting to create a welfare state, is the main reason for our current economic woes.

What of the people of Dixieland? What became of them? Well, we still exist, but we are oppressed. Initially, the empire in Washington banned the Dixie flag, prohibiting its display under penalty of law. As reconstruction (occupation) came to an end, Southern children were taught to salute the American flag in stiff-arm Nazi fashion (called the Bellamy Salute - see here) and recite a 'Pledge of Allegiance.' They were also instructed in songs of Northern patriotism and Yankee anthems. The symbols of Dixieland, particularly the Confederate flag, was marked as a symbol of shame and children were instructed that it 'represented slavery.' Later, racists adopted it as one of their symbols too, which they held in reverence second only to the American flag. In time however, about a hundred years after the conflict that crushed our people, the Dixie flag returned to public view, and young men and women everywhere began flying it with pride again.

You will notice I refer to the flag as the Dixie flag, rather than the Confederate flag, and the reason why is because the Confederacy no longer exists, but the flag of Dixie does! The Dixie flag we commonly know today was never an official flag of the Confederate government. Rather, it is a variation of the Confederate Naval Jack flown on just a few ships during the Civil War. A smaller square version was flown over the battlefields on land. Today however, the naval version has been adopted as the most beloved symbol of the PEOPLE OF THE SOUTH. Not a symbol of any government, not a symbol of hate or ideology; but it is a symbol of a culture and a way of life.

It is for this reason the actions of Republic High School are so particularly distressing. It demonstrates a profound ignorance on the part of the superintendant, the principle and the faculty. It also demonstrates the extremely poor history lessons that pass for 'education' in this public school. One-hundred and fifty years after the battle that defined this region of Southwest Missouri, those running the public schools, just a mile north from where it happened, seem either unable (or unwilling) to educate their students about their own heritage. They would rather instead suppress it, resorting to extreme measures, not even defined in their own rules, to crush the spirit of a young man showing nothing more than pride in who he is and where he lives. This is the legacy of Reconstruction, and it is the shadow of political correctness, wherein those who are supposed to be 'leaders' in the community cower to the fears that some ignoramus of history might possibly be 'offended.'

Where is the 'tolerance' for this young man? Had the flag been a Mexican flag, and the student Hispanic, would the school have acted so boldly? Suppose the flag were the colours of some African banner, and the student Black? Would the school then act with such bigotry? No. Of course not. Only the Dixie flag gets such treatment in America. They claim it's because the flag is used by racists. What fools! The American flag is used by more racists than the Dixie flag. It's a fact. Look it up. Shall we ban the American flag too? It was not the Dixie flag that was saluted in stiff-arm fascist style by American schoolchildren for fifty years, but the American flag! So who has more right to be offended by the school's use of the American flag outside and inside its buildings?

The only thing the Republic School District has managed to do is galvanise this young man's love for the flag of his heritage, and simultaneously raise his awareness to the intolerance and bigotry many of his adult superiors have for it. Now he knows first hand what it feels like to be the victim of political and cultural discrimination.

If his classmates care for this young man, and what he believes in, they should support him. They should organise a protest, every one of them, wherein on a certain day they all bring in Dixie flags, on their cars, their book bags, stickers and banners, waving them proudly, facing suspension courageously and accepting it, as they tell their case to the local news media. The adults in Republic, those who still might care about intellectual freedom anyway, ought to do the same. If memory serves, the City of Republic once had a fish emblem on their city seal and flag. That symbol of Christian heritage was forcibly removed by a lawsuit from the ACLU. For years after that the city left that quarter of their seal and flag blank, while the people of Republic placed fish symbols and passages of Scripture on their own private property everywhere. Citizens of Republic Missouri! Aren't you tired of people in authority taking away the symbols of your heritage!?! Do you really want a sterile community void of any recognition of who your people are and where they came from? This time it's not the big bad ACLU abusing the national establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution. This time it's just some intellectual bullies in your own school district. Are you going to let them crush the spirit of your youth!?! Do something! Show your support! You just celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Wilson's Creek for heaven's sake! It was a Confederate victory! Show the colours of your Dixie flags. Fly them in support of this young man and against intellectual tyranny in your public schools. If they are willing to so forcefully crush the spirit of this young man, what do you suppose they will do to YOUR CHILDREN when they get the opportunity!?!