Before commenting on Bryanna Bevens’ concerns about the never-ending attempts to demonize the Confederate flag, I must correct her casualty figures for the Civil War. The accepted estimates, like those recorded by LSU’s Civil War Center, range between 600,000 and 700,000 deaths, or, according to one historian, about one-fourth of the nation’s youth at that time.

And I think it important that we all care about “why” the Civil War took place, if for no other reason than to honor the dead on both sides. (For those who favor the “economics” argument, a good read is Eric Foner’s “Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men“: The Republican Party before the Civil War.”

But Bryanna is right on when she says the Confederate flag is part of this nation’s history and should be seen in that light rather than a symbol that “offends” blacks and others who favor purging from our society all that which makes them uncomfortable.

A story that goes one better than hers about the black store owners in Tennessee who sold Confederate flags is the one about the late Ernest Griffin, a black American who owned a funeral home on Chicago’s South Side.

Griffin upset some blacks in 1990 when he decided to fly both the American and Confederate flags next to his business. [Vdare.com note: Jonathan Tilove reports that the flag was still raised to half staff every morning in 2002. The Griffin Funeral Home is on King Drive in Chicago.]He did this out of respect (“They were Americans”) because a part of his property rested on a portion of once was Camp Douglas, where several thousand Confederate POWs died from rampant disease and deplorable living conditions. Many of these men are buried in nearby Oak Woods Cemetery.

Like Bryanna, I also know what it feels to be looked at like I have three eyes because I say or do the “unpopular.” One Christmas I received this “Rebel Yell” neck tie from a family member and later wore it to the newspaper office in which I worked at that time.

The editor, who oozed political correctness but whose editorial skills on her best day might qualify her to handle a paper route, said with a rather contemptuous look on her face, “Mr. Gorak, do you harbor Confederate sympathies?” (This woman - to properly explain - disliked me primarily because (a) I knew incompetence when I saw it and (b) I openly despised multiculturalism, also asked me the morning after the U.S. bombed Libya whether the bombing had put me “in a good mood.” When I said straight-faced that, no, because Moammar Khadfy was still breathing, she walked into her office wearing her trademark scowl.)

Thanks for your column, Bryanna. To steal a few words from the Confederate “cover” (envelope) in my meager Civil War collection, “The (Stars and) Bars are up, and we are in the field!” (P.S. OK, OK, I haven’t been completely honest. I have another “Reb” neck tie that, according its manufacturer, was called the “Heritage of Honor” and is a “replica of the tie made originally in the United Kingdom for the British who supported the South.” And I bought it - Shhhhhhhhhh! - while visiting . . .this place, where I also picked up a small metal bust of this ”traitorous rat.”

Al Gore’s recent speech in Saudi Arabia had him apologizing for what he called abuses in the post 9/11 detention of illegal aliens with suspected ties to terrorism. He also claims that the Administration is “playing into al-Qaida’s hands “ by routinely blocking Saudi visas. Which is odd, when you consider that the this Administration, and the previous one actually played into al-Qaida’s hands by routinely granting Saudi visas.< Since I actually wrote a column calling for these so-called abuses, [Why No “Ashcroft Raids”?, October 31, 2001] I should point out to the former Vice-President that illegal immigration is illegal, and that the people he refers to as being “indiscriminately rounded up, often on minor charges of overstaying a visa or not having a green card in proper order” were criminals.

Michelle Malkin has been all over Gore, and she refers to her 2003 column [Squawking About Illegal Aliens Rights – Silence About Americans’ Lives] where she wrote

What’s more outrageous: that paperwork oversights and overloaded caseworkers led the FBI to hold this detainee for a little longer than necessary, or that hundreds of thousands of such deportation fugitives are considered by Post editorial writers and their ilk as "run-of-the-mill immigration cases" who should be left alone?

The media elite may remain stubbornly oblivious to the dire consequences of winking at violations of immigration laws. The families of the murdered Sept. 11 victims can’t afford that academic luxury.

Someone should remind the Vice-President that it’s not the illegals and visa overstayer who are detained who kill people, it’s the ones who aren’t.

The Arizona bill I blogged about earlier planned to tax wire transfers by illegals to build a much-needed fence on the Arizona border. Georgia legislators are doing the same thing to pay for illegals’ health care:

ATLANTA — Illegal immigrants wishing to wire money home to their families would have to pay an additional fee under legislation approved by the House on Tuesday.
The narrowly focused bill took up more than two hours of sometimes-emotional debate, a harbinger of what lawmakers will face in the coming weeks when they take up more comprehensive measures targeting illegal immigration.
The Republican-backed bill, which passed 106-60 and now moves to the Senate, would require anyone wishing to wire money outside of the U.S. to prove they are either an American citizen or are in this country legally. Otherwise, they would have to pay a fee of 5 percent of the amount of the wire.
The bill specifies that the money collected would be used to help cover the state’s costs for indigent health care. However, the provision is not binding because state law allows only certain transportation funding to come from a dedicated source.
Supporters said the estimated 225,000 illegal immigrants living in Georgia are costing taxpayers up to a $1 billion a year in services and are a major factor in overloading public schools and emergency rooms. [House approves wire-transfer fee for illegal aliens,By Dave Williams, Gwinnett Daily Post, February 15, 2006]