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Although there are two State Statutes that state it is "unlawful to deface, defile or contemptuously abuse" the Confederate flag, no charges have been brought against the "artist", the curator of the museum or the Museum’s Trustees. Compatriot Robert Hurst of Tallahassee has been spearheading action against the exhibit, and when additional information is obtained it will be published.

Now I get to my final point: our Heritage Tag. At the time of this article going to print, we have no sponsor for our tag. I guess there are no politicians in the State of Florida who wants to risk their political future by affixing their name to a Bill which would favor us. And I can not wait until next election to hear all of the excuses from our politicians as to why not one of them stood up and said "This is the right thing to do!" There is nothing more to say or report on this, other than to remember this at election time.

I know that I, for one, am miffed by the way the politicians and certain Law Enforcement agencies handle incidents that concern The Sons of Confederate Veterans and the icons of our heritage. We have elected officials in Lee County who are entertaining the proposals of some people who are anti-Southern; and then you have some elected officials who turn a blind eye and deaf ear when certain unlawful acts are committed against our Southern Heritage right in the State Capital. When a law and/or statute is blatantly violated, and it’s a law protecting a right of ours, our own State Law Enforcement turns their heads the other way. But the prize goes to our politicians: All these years we have had politicians rubbing elbows with members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans-telling us that they are Southern and believe in the same things we do and after they get our vote, we can’t find one to sponsor our Heritage Tag.

Gentleman, I believe we are at the beginning of an even greater effort by our enemies to do away with everything Confederate and everything Southern. Say I am wrong and I’ll just point to our Law Enforcement who won’t enforce the law in cases favoring us, politicians who are scared to death to have their name associated with us and pressure groups that make politicians do what they want by cowering them into a corner. If there ever was a time for the members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans to come together as one group with one thought-it is now.

Just as there are Rules of Engagement in battle, there are rules, or ways that we need to approach these problems, because what we do will also define, in the end, who we are. Our hearts and minds are on the same page concerning what is happening now, but what we do about it, and how we do it are just as varied as there are members. Sometimes you have to study the tactics of your opponent: The NAACP does get things done, and that is because they work and think as a group for a common goal. That is exactly what we have to do in this important time of our history. There is a political adage out there that goes "As long as middle class Americans have a six pack of beer and a TV-they won’t do anything about anything."

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