US retailers like Walmart, Kmart and Sears have pledged to stop selling Confederate flags and related paraphernalia, but major e-commerce platforms like Amazon and eBay have yet to pull products bearing the emblem.
A church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina that left nine black Americans dead has prompted a wave of protests over the presence of the flag, especially in the south where it is considered a symbol of southern pride for some and a potent reminder of the racism inherent in the regions history for others.
South Carolina has said it will take the red banner with a blue X and stars down from its state capitol building. Lawmakers and protesters are calling for similar measures in other states.
Amazon and eBay, though, have remained silent on the issue. Neither company responded to e-mailed questions from Quartz about whether they will join the ban.
A search for Confederate flag on Amazon yields over 30,000 resultsincluding bikinis, electronics, and home decor decorated with the flag. Theres a Confederate flag mink bedspread, antique-look flag iPhone covers, and even elaborate lampshades.
A search on eBay pulls up over 1,600 listings.
While these companies remain mum, Amazon customers have taken to the platforms question and answer sections to express their thoughts. Regarding a polyester Confederate Rebel Flag sold by Rhode Island Novelty for $5.05, shoppers recently asked:
(Amazon)
Some previous patrons of Rhode Island Noveltys Confederate flags offered helpful answers:
When blacks riot and kill whites, can we call for statues of Martin Luther King to be torn down?
no ;because that isn't what MLK stood for . Now the Confederate flag ;the flag of treason and rebellion against the United States should be removed from State Capitols. However ;we are not the Taliban or the Islamic State . We don't destroy history or heritage regradless of how unpleasant and misguided and evil it was . We should instead never forget what the true reason of the rebellion was about ....slavery .
"Now the Confederate flag ;the flag of treason and rebellion against the United States"
Didn't the South call it the War of Secession? Didn't Southern states have the 10th amendment power to secede? I see nothing treasonous about it. There are many on this forum today calling for states to secede.
"The revolutionary right of secession is based on the Declaration of Independence and the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson and John Locke, that:
whenever any form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government ..."
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Lincoln wanted to stop the states from seceding and preserve the Union. He didn't give a FF about slavery.
"Lincoln replied in an open letter to Greeley. In the letter, Lincoln emphasized his primary goal: I would save the Union. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it."
Didn't Southern states have the 10th amendment power to secede?
Yes,again.
Don't expect people with kneejerk leftist educations to aggree with anything not PC,though. It would make their heads explode.
Even a casual look on the face of it would tell anyone with 2 IQ points to rub together than anyone that enters a VOLUNTARY union also has the right to leave that union. There were conditions established to get the states to agree to enter the union,and one was that if the government violated any of those conditions they had a right to secede.
Even the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court advised Lincoln he had no legal right to prevent the south from seceding,and Linon's response was to threaten to send US Marshals to lock up the Chief Justice and the entire SC in a military prison until the "end of the emergency" if they published such a decision.