Race

Well the big difference for those comparing the swatztika and the confederate flag, is the swatztika was a flag for a political party, the Nazi party, as if the Democrats or Republicans flew a flag. The confederate flag was a flag for a whole country, the Confederate States of America, at least until their surrender.

Then thank the KKK for turning it in to a symbol of hate, hence if you truly

want to fly a confederate flag for the sake of heritage, you need to fly either of the other flags, and not the Stars and Bars. The KKK turned that in to a politcal symbol, however unlike the swatstika, it did not start that way.

I'm going to go with the freedom of speech side. Flying the Mexican flag IS different, because Mexico still exists as an independent country. It's sort of like trying to claim that part of the US for that country. But it's really such a petty thing to go picking at something like that. What, are we going to ban flags of other countries in restaurants too? The Confederacy however, is dead, and hence their flag has no national power backing it, and is just a symbol.

Is it a racist symbol? To many people, yes. But that's their interpretation of it. You can ban it when you ban black people from saying the word "attractive and successful African-American" on TV, because when they do it's taken as funny or commonplace, but a white person saying it is still considered a major scandal. That's the same issue, personal interpretation. We need to grow up as a society and get past this