Ben Stein: Confederate Flag Sales Ban First Step to Tyranny

Thursday on Newsmax TV’s “The Steve Malzberg Show” author and former speechwriter for Presidents Nixon and Ford, Ben Stein, said “political correctness,” causing the banning of the Confederate flag from even being sold is how totalitarian societies begin.

While he agreed with removing the flag from public buildings, Stein said “I don’t understand why private people shouldn’t be allowed to buy it.”

“Amazon no longer sells anything with a Confederate flag—up until  just a couple days or hours ago, they did. In a kind of Orwellian twist, overnight they disappeared. They are just not there anymore. What harm is it to anyone for one individual person to have a flag as his blanket or his quilt or a throw pillow? What harm does that do?” he said. “That’s just plain crazy. This is how totalitarian dictatorships start is with tormenting people about supposedly righteous causes and the turning into, as I say, totalitarian dictatorships.”

“I’m not so much surprised with Apple because they’re always playing the politically correct game, unless there’s money on the table,” Stein continued. “Then they play the money game. But Amazon counts itself as the world’s largest bookstore, the place where you can buy anything … May I also add, they still will sell you cheerfully posters of Hitler, not condemning posters, but Nazi Party reproductions of Nazi Party portraits of Hitler in a soulful, heroic pose. They’ll also sell you portraits and posters of Stalin, Mao Zedong and Che Guevara, all mass murderers, especially Stalin and Mao. What’s going on here? They won’t sell an image of a flag under which many Americans’ ancestors fought and they will sell images of Adolf Hitler? I don’t understand it.”

“It’s scary. Where is the end of it? George Washington owned slaves—are they going to knock down the George Washington monument? Thomas Jefferson owned salves.”

“Thomas Jefferson is the author — not entirely, but in large part — of the Declaration of Independence. How can they even consider taking down his monument?”

“Are they going to change the name of Washington and Lee University? I know there’s already a movement afoot to do that. My wife went to Washington and Lee High School in Arlington. Are they going to take that down? I mean the political correctness—once it starts, it doesn’t stop.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN

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