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gay marriage comes to mind...

The USA as the lone superpower would not exist if the issue of states' rights had not been resolved.

I think you do have a point. I d believe the South did have a lot of legitimate gripes and had I been around then, I think the South would gain more sympathy from me. It is a complicated thing to see what was the main reason for the Civil War but I don't think slavery was the prime issue although you cannt dismiss it either. On the the other side, President Lincoln is not the villain the South made him up to be, but a man faced with hard decisions to make in tough times. Basically, it boils down to two nations (I treat the South as a separate nation for discussion), one a rapidly industrializing nation of 22 million beating up a mostly agrarian one of 9 million. Through industrial might, the bigger one won although the smaller one did fairly well until the last two years of the Civil War.

Would the world be better off had the South won the Civil War, well, it is up to alternate historians to guess. The author, Harry Turtledove had the North and South face off against each other during World War I, IIRC, the North favored the Entente (UK, France, etc) while the South favored the Alliance (Germany, Austria, etc) complete with trench warfare in what we know as the Continental United States.

Another similar view is from GURPS (General Universal Role Playing System, I'm a role playing game junky) "Alternate Earths" where the South won the Civil War and you basically had the two at odds where you had World War I and World War II happen, although they were a bit different from our wars were the North and South did have a cold war and space race. The cold war was called "The Long Drumroll" with their version of 1970's era Detente was called the "Parade Rest" with The Long Drumroll resuming in the 1980's. Other GURPS "alternete Souths" was one where both the North and South became impoverished and were on the leash of various European powers who are at odds with each other.

I think there is an alternate history written for Look or Colliers Magazine back in 1960 where you had a separate North and South where the South outlawed slavery around 1885 or so where the two sides remain guarded but somewhat friendly to the point that by World Wars I and II (assuming history takes a same or similar track) both were allies and during the Cold War with the Soviets, both were allies again. The Soviets still had Alaska since a defeated North was not able to buy Alaska so you had Canadian, U.S. and Confederate troops all manning a united front in the Yukon to deter the USSR. By 1960, there was talk or reuniting the North, the South and Texas (who became independent) into one country again.

I guess if I had to run a scenario, I think a victorious South would still have slavery for a while although I think as time goes on, machinery would have made slaves less useful, especially when you come upon the internal combustion engine and the electric motor which were to become somewhat common a generation later. Brazil made slavery illegal in 1883 or 1885 and I think this would have put some pressure on the South as the last major country to have slavery so perhaps you might have had emancipation by 1885/1895 or so, worst case, certainly by 1920. I think you might still have some Jim Crow for time to come so you might have had a massive move North by the former slaves and their descendants like we had in our history.

I do not see the Federal government as a threat, I see liberalism as the threat we face today. Conservatives are now beginning to take a stand vs a group, a mindset, that has had its way for many years, primarily on the social front...and see where that's gotten us today?

We must win the culture war...and we are. It's today's civil war.

Some ex. of issues evident in the culture war: gay marriage, broadcast decency, public referrence to God and Christianity, the War on Terror)

Well, as you put it, we need to focus on the here and now. Back then, most issues were different than today and it seems like we are rehashing 1860's issues in a 200x world. True, geograqphically, you still have the same areas then as today who are polarized over the issues then but thei ssue have changed. Today, as you pointed out, in a nutshell, it is a tug of war between the progressives and the traditionalists, many such issues that are just as powerful today as the tarriffs and (ahem) slavery was then. We are becoming two separate nations in thought, one side wants abortion, the other does not, one side wants homosexual marriage, the other does not and so on. It has broken up friends and families, remember the saying "brother against brother?" I sure don't want the progressives to win, so yeah, I consider myself a footsoldier in the Culture War although all I can really do is run off at the mouth and fingers.

So if we have a civil war or breakup in the future, it will be more complex than the 1860's Civil War because this is a war of ideas. My father told me around 1973 or so, "The United States will not exist in its present form by the time you grow up" either a break up or civil war. Well, for now, he's off although I do fear he was a generation early. I don't know where we are headed but I certainly don't want to see it happen but we must fight for our core values that we all lived by since 1776 or even before that made us a great nation. If it happens, well, the best we can do is continue to strive for those ideals and keep going. In short, we don't want to become like Europe either in setup or by the values system, we are unique but the progressives do not see that and want to bend us into their line of thinking and turning us into a "Holland on Steroids."

It's fun to play the "alternate history" game, and yes, I'm played my part on threads since I would have sympathized with the South, but as you put it, we also need to focus on what we are facing now.

Federal Government as a threat, well it CAN be if the RINOS or Democrats get control but that's for another time.

Guns of the South would make a great film...if done right.

Were there to be a hot war in today's USA, the red staters would win hands down as we are the ones armed. In the meantime, I'm all for a return to the days of tarring and feathering of well-deserving liberals...Michael Moore would certainly be a candidate.

The author, Harry Turtledove had the North and South face off against each other during World War I, IIRC, the North favored the Entente (UK, France, etc) while the South favored the Alliance (Germany, Austria, etc) complete with trench warfare in what we know as the Continental United States.

It was the other way around, the North allied with Germany and the South with Britain and France. In the Turtledove world, the U.S./German/Austrian alliance won.