[The Urban Sombrero]

The first amendment is precious, as long as it supports your point of view? I regard historical monuments as a an expression of free speech.

What is a flag? It is a symbol. What is speech? It is substance.

The Confederate flag is not banned from speech, from explanation, from historical context. As a symbol, it is not erased. Your equation of a flag with speech, in terms of display on buildings associated with federal and state government (I did not refer to private buildings) does not hold in my opinion. By your reasoning, it seems to me, if the state of Alabama were to elect a Nazi sympathizer as governor, and he wanted to fly a swastika next to the state flag above the capitol, the 1st Amendment would stretch to cover that. I would dissent from that proposition.