To the Editor:

I find nothing wrong with your article, “Confederates in the attic” (Aug. 29 edition, www.smokymountainnews.com/opinion) unlike certain others. It seems, however, that those who make the most noise about their rights not being respected are the very ones who come to Haywood County to tell our good elected officials and our fine people how to act and what to think. Why can’t these outsiders stay away and leave our fair county alone?

That man praying for you was wrong. He ignores the log in his eye to suppose there is a mote in yours, and in Proverbs it says, “There is a way that seems right to a man but in the end it is the way of death.” Shame on him!

As to these unenlightened and their “history lessons,” don’t they know history repeats itself? In 1865 Gen. Sherman and others thought they had sorted out the foolishness of the day but they were wrong. It evolved into the Sons of the Confederate Veterans, which is now tagged a hate group because of their words and deeds, not to mention their close associations with the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nation. It is only a matter of time until they are sorted out again.

These who don’t understand claim their beloved battle flag was stolen from them by the Klan and the Nazis, but someone should tell them the truth. Who do they think founded the Klan in the first place? It was our very own Confederate ancestors along with male descendants using the battle flag as a symbol of hatred and terror to murder and subdue any who opposed them in their bigoted views. This is why Gen. Forrest and others of good will turned their back on it then. That was not what they planned.  

I revere my ancestors and stand by them in what they did at the time of that unjust war that wrecked the world they sought to defend. My ancestors rebuilt that world with roads, bridges, schools, churches, farms, businesses, and sound government. They didn’t have the need to stand idly by flying a flag of a lost cause while the world moved forward without them. I need no one to tell me how to honor my ancestors! Those who do are of a lower class of people who need to grow up and seek wisdom.

It is unseemly to contend with fools, but those of sound mind must stand up to these petty tyrants and drive them back into the dark corner they crawled from.

Bill McEntire

Canton