Many southerners see the Confederate defeat of 150 years ago as a defeat for a form of civilization that they admire--chivalry, graciousness, hospitality, independence and self sufficiency. These are laudable traits, but that's not what the Civil War was about. The wealthy southern landowners portrayed their cause as being that, as part of the pro-war propaganda. It was indeed about a way of life--the wealthy landowners could not see a way of maintaining themselves in the style to which they had become accustomed without slavery and the repression of the black race. When the ugly truth about what the war was really about was brought to the fore, they of course did their best to revise history, change the subject, and find new ways of getting extremely cheap labor, many of which continue to involve repressing poor blacks, and other poor people.
50 years ago at the height of the civil rights movement and the centenary of the Civil War, many of these repressions were blocked by federal action. The confederate battle flag, of which there had been only a handful during the war itself and had been called "the southern cross", had become a symbol for the Ku Klux Klan, and was re-purposed to represent resistance to the civil rights movement. And of course the good things about the southern way of life. Most southerners believed the happy lie, but southern blacks and educated others knew exactly what it really meant, and cringed when they saw it. Most of the ex-confederate capitols flew some version of it for a time, and a few incorporated it into their state flag.
There are some good southern values and history worthy of preservation. But the flag does not represent them. Revisionism and denial of the horrors of history is not a cause worthy of defense. That is what the confederate battle flag represents, and since Appomattox, always has. Those that died serving the confederacy were victims of an evil regime, just as slaves were. All deserve to be mourned, even if they were deluded during their lifetime.
There are lots of causes that seem lost but are worth fighting for. Until last week, getting the flag off of government properties seemed hopeless, but today it seems inevitable. (I worry though, that pro-gun advocates are using it as a stalking horse to stop the conversation we should be having about gun control) Theodore Roosevelt tried to get universal public health insurance for Americans, more than a century ago. It took more than a century. We don't quite have it yet, but we're a lot closer than we were 7 years ago. There are lost causes worth continuing to fight for. There are others that need to go to the ash heap of history.
I hope that someone does come up with a symbol that represents the good parts of southern values and heritage, without the burden of slavery and oppression. It's even possible it might be one of the other confederate battle flags, one that was not used by the Ku Klux Klan to incite repression of blacks.
As for the flag itself, I think we need to treat it as free speech and not be banned, but deprecated as offensive. I think we have a good prototype in religious speech: representatives of government must not display it, including public school teachers, elected officials and other public employees, and it should be kept off of state or federal property, except for museums. But several stores and flagmakers have announced that they will no longer make or sell it. I think this is a violation of free speech. I want it to go away because nobody wants to express what it says, not because the expression itself has been banned.
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