There are few things in life more frustrating than getting into an argument with someone who refuses to admit they’re wrong no matter what.
In such situations, the truth will sound disagreeable to them because it’s coming from you and that seems to be the case no matter how obvious the facts are.
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But no matter what concrete evidence you bring in front of them and no matter the consequences for their erroneous beliefs spreading, they’ll still be absolutely convinced that the earth is flat and that vaccines somehow cause autism.
But while those arguments can involve nightmarish levels of mental gymnastics and circular logic, one Iowa man might have managed to find an even more indefensible position.
William Stark in Des Moines, Iowa has decorated his property in a way that city officials now consider a nuisance.
As Fox32 reported , this is because he has set up an array of pallets around his property painted in faithful likenesses of Confederate and Nazi German battle flags.
For reference, the flag in the top center of this display is the Nazi flag Stark emulated.
While it’s not hard to see why displaying such flags would draw outrage from neighbors, of particular note is the fact that Stark lives next to an elementary school.
As officials from Morris Elementary School told Fox32, students can clearly see Stark’s flag-adorned pallets every time school begins and finishes, as well as from the playground.
About 60% of Morris Elementary’s student population are children of color.
As local parent Meg Viola said, “What they have posted out there is not teaching our children to be inclusive and to love everyone.”
Viola added that “It’d really be nice if they just take the stuff down,” but Stark has no plans to do so.
He countered that it’s a free country and that he’ll keep his display out as he wishes, but has also argued that neither the Confederate flag pallets nor those featuring swastikas are racist.
As he put it, “They don’t know their history, evidently. That’s the only reason I can think of that they can think anything bad about it—they don’t know their history.”
When it comes to the Confederate iconography, this isn’t the first time that users have argued they aren’t making racist statements.
However, the claim that the use of this specific Confederate battle flag commemorates Southern heritage and the fight for states’ rights tends to come off as an attempt to ignore the elephant in the room.
Namely, that this battle flag was undeniably flown to preserve an economic system that relied on labor from black slaves.
Even so, it is completely unclear as to what in history could possibly suggest that there’s nothing racist about a Nazi battle flag.
![Image credit: Reddit | [deleted]](https://static.diply.com/4hI3GIfradAnBmTqt9i8.jpg)
Even a cursory look at the history of Nazi Germany will tell you that it was governed by people who not only promoted the idea of an Aryan “master race,” but attempted one of history’s worst crimes against humanity in the name of eradicating Jewish people as a whole.
Thus, it’s incredibly hard to see how those opposing a pallet bearing the iconography of one of history’s most unabashedly racist regimes can be accused of “not knowing their history.”
h/t: Fox32
