Monday letters: Don’t waste money on flag; move forward

Just when I thought there would be an end to the silliness regarding the Confederate flag, we read that the commission charged with coming up with an appropriate way to display the flag cut its $5.3 million price tag by a pittance — by eliminating the funds to repair the leaky roof. What nonsense.

Who are these politicians who keep promoting the flag? It is obvious they do not know the facts as to what the war was really about, and they do not have the welfare of the entire state’s population at heart.

Homes were flooded and families displaced, roads are crumbling, and supposedly there is no money for repairs, yet there are millions to house a flag? The state of South Carolina is continually the butt of jokes. Use the $3.6 million supporters now want to spend housing the flag to repair roads and properties destroyed by the flood or to feed the homeless.

The day after we learned about the latest flag plan, an item in the Dec. 24 newspaper noted that on that date in 1865, several veterans of the Confederate Army formed a private social club in Pulaski, Tenn., that was the original version of the Ku Klux Klan. Is this really what needs to be preserved? Is this a history for which we can be proud?

This story was originally published January 11, 2016 at 4:34 AM.