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I fully agree the confederate flag is the universally accepted symbol of racism, bigotry, sedition and treason.

To think in this day & age while America is at war, this debate continues after America was plunged into a Civil War, in part, over the issue of bigots demanding other men remain chained to the South's cotton empire so the evil could expand & flourish. Incredible!

0h, before you even think about it with me...to the wacko 'neo-confederates'-KKK types lurking out there. Attempting to feed real conservative American viewers the worn out crap that 'neo-confederates' are conservatives, ...please do not even bother since most in the political area have heard the masked agenda rubbish. are cognizant of the lies & fully reject them. You schlubs need to get a life. The majority in this nation, this Union, whether the rebellious few like it or not, is united in a counter jihadic-terrorist war against another despicable enemy built on hate, which is attempting to terrorize the civilized world into submission to a global Islamist state. From Israel to Iraq & far beyond they are failing! (just as any hate movement will always totally fail. hint, hint.

This is from Joseph Sobran: "We forget that sympathy for secession was so strong in the North that Abraham Lincoln had to crush freedom of speech and press, with thousands of arrests, in order to suppress it. If the North had been free, the South would have won its freedom." (www.sobran.com/columns/2004/041123.shtml) I thought it an apt statement. I did poll my Confederate friends and none of them support slavery nor do any of them support hatred toward anybody (jihadists excepted). You might want to read Ann Coulter's _How to Talk to a Liberal_ Chapter 8 "The Battle Flag" and read James Webb's excellent _Born Fighting: The Scots-Irish_ . Another excellently researched book would be James E. Kiblers' _Our Father's Fields_ or Alexis de Tocqueville's clear analysis of race relations in North and South circa 1845. I think they'll help you broaden your perspective on the 1860 conflict. I'm sorry slavery ever existed in this country, just as I'm sorry children spent 12 hours in Pennsylvania coal mines (see Lewis Hine's excellent photo essay _Children At Work_ photos from the turn of the century 1900s) or that the post Lincoln government decided that the eradication of the American Plains Indians was a noble endeavor. Shall we abandon the US flag as well? I'm part Cherokee and I can tell you that flag didn't mean 'freedom' to my great-grandfathers, who rode with CSA Gen Stand Watie! And make the damn Brits pull down the Union Jack - I lost 2 sets of Catholic gggrandparents to the famine of 1848 - don't get me started on what the Union Jack means to me! Those Cherokee and Irish grandparents held no slaves, dear one, but they were fighting an empirical and increasingly despotic government. And recall the original 13th amendment (ok the 2nd original 13th - the first was against titles of nobility) put in play by a Union only Congress agreed to slavery in perpetuity. Oh and then there's the fact that the North freed no slaves prior to the 13th (the 3rd one) amendment, which meant that Sherman, Sheridan and Lincoln (and New Orleans, Maryland, etc) kept their 'personal servants' until after 1865. Hmmm...