There is no cause so noble it can’t be made ridiculous by 21st-century activism. The Confederate flag debate is fast becoming another chapter in the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Taking Offense. According to toucharcade.com, Apple has removed American Civil War games from its App Store because they show the Confederate flag. They don’t celebrate the South or encourage racism. They simply show the flag in its proper historical context. “As of the writing of this story,” writes Tasos Lazarides, “games like Ultimate General: Gettysburg and all the Hunted Cow – Civil War games are nowhere to be found.”

But if swastikas are your thing, you’re all set. As these still shots from the iPhone version of Wolfenstein 3-D reveal, Apple is still ok with games that show the Nazi symbol:

The point is not that those of us offended by Nazism should now fight to enjoy the same sanitized game environments as those who are troubled by the Confederate South. It’s that this micro-policing—indeed self-policing—of the culture does not spring from serious moral reflection but from headline-driven cowardice.

Taking a stand against the honoring or legitimizing of evil is a moral obligation. As the writers on this blog have said repeatedly, take down the Confederate flags that fly over state capitals. But erasing all representations of a particular evil is a moral offense that turns justice into self-righteous sport. What’s more, it cuts us off from dark realities that we forget at our own peril. Worst of all, the obscurantism will never stop. Once we decide we’re simply uncomfortable with historical reality, history becomes a grand project of erasure. What makes video games different from movies or books or television shows? In the end, they’ll all be smothered by the big “shush.” And the Union will have won a strange victory for freedom indeed if it prohibits all reference to its greatest blow against human bondage.