“As fate would have it shortly after entering the adult biz in 1992 I met and shot a dancer I fell in love with, her name was Onyx and she was half black.”

My grandmother was born a southern belle. She had two versions of her favorite tales…plain talk and ladies tea talk. The 50 star US Flag was adopted while my mom was pregnant with a sibling so it played prominently in the ‘when you were born’ stories. Nana insisted territories were an extension of the northern aggression that would have you believe the civil war was about slavery. She’d insist politicians were using slavery to justify whittling away the right of states and individuals. She’d explain the compromises of affiliation and the importance of never giving away the autonomy that allowed us to negotiate those compromises.

9/11 is when I discovered the lessons we grudgingly endured as kids had taken root. The stories about compromises to end the civil war and each star added to our flag came flooding back with the what if questions. What if the states hadn’t affiliated into a united force? Would states that were territories be America? Would Hawaii be Japan? Russia decide they wanted Alaska back by force?

Is the push to remove the confederate flag and memorials to those who fought it about soothing offended feelings or erasing the states and individuals right to autonomy? I’m really wondering. Today is the third day a MO Senator (Maria Chappell Nadal) has a $1000 bounty posted on her Twitter for the employer and leisure associates of someone offending her with their hateful social media comments. (@MariaChappelN )

Regardless of the motive behind the push to take down Confederate flags and memorials the methods being employed to this end ought to scare every American.