Unlike me, Not Larry Sabato has been relentlessly posting in an attempt to sling mud at the McDonnell camp and make it stick.  His beef is with a Confederate flag at a gun show in Richmond that happened to be next to the McDonnell table.

It’s sad how low NLS will stoop to make up, spin, and inflate stories just to gain readers. I, for one, read his blog for amusement and a good laugh at how idiotic and so inherently wrong one individual can actually be.

To rebut this story, I’d like to point out the number one fact that people should realize…we live in Virginia. Less than 150 years ago, that flag was flying from the capital building and the capital of the entire Southern world was right here in our current state capital.

Second, the flag was NEXT to the McDonnell table and not associated with the McDonnell table or even brought by or put up by the McDonnell volunteers.

Third, you were at a gun show…what do you expect, Nigel Pennington III flying the Union Jack?

In case there are some unedumacated people reading this, its common fact the Civil War started out over states’ rights…in general, as did the revolutionary nearly a century before.  Slavery was placed at the forefront of the war by Lincoln to rally Union troops behind one, clear, cultural cause to fight for.

Ever since, it seems as if a stigmata has been placed on the ‘ole Stars & Bars to the point where anybody flying it these days is a racist.  Well I, for one, cannot stand idiots who think this way.  As one of NLS’ commentators noted, a person at the table where the flag was being flown was wearing a shirt that said “Heritage, Not Hate.”  People fail to understand that flag represents a long line of family history, cultural heritage, and governmental ideologies for many people across the southern United States.

While I understand the flag may be a sore subject for most people of color in today’s society, does the fact that some call the people flying it “rednecks” not make those people, in turn, just as racist as the supposed “racists” flying the flag?

I can almost guarantee you that if you were to ask “Why do you fly the Rebel flag?”, then 9 out of 10 people would respond, “I’m from the South.” and not “I hate everyone that’s not like me.”  My belief that the flag is a sign of heritage and has been mistakenly labeled as a symbol of oppression and I think that most people that fly it would agree.

I hope people that read this will actually thoughtfully think this issue through and clearly analyze the facts before coming to a decision unlike NLS who beats it down until people just get annoyed with the story and jumps to conjecture and operates on assumptions. What a joke.