I've heard a lot of bizarre defenses for displaying the Confederate flag, but this one by former Dukes of Hazzard star and Georgia Congressman Ben Jones has to take the cake.
Ex-Congressman: MLK Would Have Wanted Us To Have Confederate Flag License Plates:
"Dukes of Hazzard" star and former Rep. Ben Jones (D-GA) said on Monday during an appearance on MSNBC that Confederate flag license plates are part of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision for America.
Appearing on "Live with Thomas Roberts," Jones discussed a case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the constitutionality of a Texas ban on the use of Confederate flag license plates was being argued.
Jones, who played the role of Cooter on "Dukes of Hazzard," serves as the chief of heritage operations for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the group that brought the case and which has argued the Texas ban violates the First Amendment.
Jones said the choice to use the license plate was a "personal decision" and he emphasized his belief that the Supreme Court would uphold a lower court's ruling in favor of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Jones pointed out that "slavery was the national sin not the Southern sin" and noted that the Confederate flag "represents to us a very positive thing."
The show's host, Thomas Roberts, raised the argument that if the Confederate flag was a symbol of the national sin of slavery, people should unify in our condemnation of it.
"I think the more important unification would come to bury the past, to forgive each other and to do what Dr. King suggested," Jones said. "His dream was that someday on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves, the sons of former slave owners would be able to dine together at the table of brotherhood. He did not put any asterisk on that. I was in the civil rights movement, that was not an issue." Read on...
