Saturday, October 10, 2015

Of Phalluses and Security Blankets

by Pa Rock
Stranger in a Strange Land

The Confederate flags are springing up along the local landscape in increasing numbers, like so many roadside weeds.  The flags are testaments to some sort of warped independence from modern America.  This latest outbreak of the Stars and Bars coincides roughly with the tragic shooting at the historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina.  They fly above private homes and from the beds of pickup trucks and windows of mini-vans, often alongside the American flag (so the flag owners won't look "unpatriotic").

Last week I was in a little mom-and-pop computer store where a neat stack of folded Confederate flags were for sale on the counter.  This morning I drove to town where I encountered a pickup truck with two enormous flags - one American and one Confederate - flying from its windows.    In fact, there is seldom a day goes by that I don't see several of these despicable tributes to treason desecrating the local landscape.

I'm not completely sure what it's all about.   The flag is historically a symbol of racial subjugation, but the non-white population in and around West Plains, Missouri, is infinitesimal.   It feels more like a political thing - some sort of desperate push back against Obama, a kind of "I'll show him!"  Or an "In your face, you black Muslim!"

People out here in the woods love their guns.  They may not have a lot of money, or education, or teeth, but by God they have their guns - and they worship their guns with the same intensity as others worship cash, or clothes, or "likes" on Facebook.  And now they can lay down at night, next to their guns wrapped securely in Confederate flags, phalluses in security blankets, and know that they are safe from the evils running rampant in the rest of the world.

And next year if Obama is replaced by Hillary, they'll go to town and buy more guns, and bullets, and flags - because that's what freedom is all about!

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