Confeder-ignorance

In a very fresh post on his blog, author Charles Kuffner makes an argument against the usage and even opportunity to allow drivers in Texas to have the confederate flag on their license plates. Being born and raised in New York would normally work against the author's credit in matters of the south (particularly the "old south"), but in this particular situation I believe that Kuffner's "Yankee" background allows him to provide a certain insight that many life-long Texas natives may not initially see. He contends that the confederate flag will always be a representation of a group of states that stood up against the United States in a war that resulted in the death of millions. Along with a strong sense of pride in what they thought was "right" at the time, the confederate states also carried with them a truly remarkable ignorance that they were willing to defend to the death in many cases. Although not much evidence is provided, i would be willing to say that not much is needed to make his case. Surely we can all agree that the confederate flag also stood as a great force of oppression and intimidation for many minorities during the civil war. For these reasons, it should be clear from my word choice that i more than agree with the author but that i also support his clear and concise argument. As he stated in the post, as a state of the US, Texas should make more efforts to advance towards a future where equality and opportunity reign supreme far above the tyrannies of empires past which stood for values that we as a people should no longer hold dear. We SHOULD, as Kuffner says, move only forward and never backward in matters such as this. While there is nothing wrong with learning about, appreciating, and even loving where we came from, we must never forget the lessons taught to us by wars past. Progress, no matter how intimidating, should always be an agent of change for the better and never one of oppression. As we move forward in our nations history, it is crucial that we take into account "higher law" when considering what rules that govern our people. The implications of this argument are simply that, in order to prevent offense by anyone that may be insulted by the confederate flag on the license plate of the car in front of us at a stop light, we should do away with signs of ignorance. I have never been an advocate of bumper stickers as i feel that i would rather a person get to know who i am before they decide that i am ignorant or oppressive, so to condemn the use of a more "official" way of promoting faulty and shallow values only makes sense to me. Why would you want somebody to think you hate them or are better than them simply based on the color of their skin or country of origin? We must always remember that even the founders of this country which grants us the freedom to say and do almost anything (even the things the promote hate on some occasion) were at one point "foreigners" themselves.