As a non-Southerners and a non-Northerner (I was born in Cuba), I do not have a dog in this fight other than, as an American, to ensure that both Northern and Southern Americans get fair treatment.
I am well-traveled, I have lived in all four corners of the USA as a result of my U.S. Navy service, I am old enough to have experienced life in the USA since 1960 and I consider myself a well-read student of history.
So, when I arrive at an opinion, it is my own opinion and not that of any regional cheering section.
As a student of history, I know that few if any of our pre-21st Century ancestors could pass muster in this Politically Correct day and age. Even in their own age, passing muster depended on the political and social circumstances.
In my own paternal family branch, my family in Spain from the 1400’s to the early 1800’s was landed nobility which meant that we had serfs. In that era, the family was though of as the ideal of Spanish loyalty and society…Very Politically Correct.
In 21st Century Spain, such nobility is now though of as villains who oppressed the masses “by the dagger and sword”…..Very Politically Incorrect.
Except that, in my trips to my ancestral homelands in Spain, I was told that our family had a reputation of treating the serfs very well…Politically Correct.
Except that a local history book written in the 1800’s complained about my family not dealing fairly with the town-folk…Politically Incorrect.
Then, in the mid-1800’s, as a result of being a younger son in a society with primogeniture laws, my great-grandfather went to seek his fortune in Cuba and became part of Cuban society and married into a family where my great-great-grandfather owned slaves….Very Politically Incorrect.
However, that same great-great-grandfather freed his slaves, was a Founding Father of the first Cuban Republic in 1868 and the Vice-President of the First Cuban Republic that abolished slavery in Cuba…..Extremely Politically Correct.
Except that the First Cuban Republic lost the 1868 “Ten Years War”, my great-great-grandfather was killed and the entire family was branded as “traitors” by the Spanish Government….. Extremely Politically Incorrect.
Fast forward to the 1950’s and my grandfather was giving substantial monetary aid to Fidel Castro (who he had known as a schoolboy in my uncle’s high school) to overthrow the dictatorship of Batista……..Politically Correct.
Except that, after Castro was demonstrated himself to be just another tyrant, he gave monetary aid to anti-Castro groups and ended up as a “traitor” in Castro’s Gulag….Extremely Politically Incorrect in Cuba and Extremely Politically Correct in Miami.
So, as you can see, I take the throwing out of terms such as “traitor” (which is thrown out on FR Civil War threads as much as rice is thrown out at weddings) with a huge grain of salt.
There is no doubt in my mind that it was best in the long run that the South lost the Civil War. You need only imagine what the World would have been like in the 20th Century without a United States of America see what a historical disaster that would have been.
However, I take exception to Southerners bearing the brunt of 21st Century 20/20 hindsight.
Robert E. Lee, who stated that he wished he owned every slave in the South so that he could free them and avoid war was not fighting to preserve slavery. He was fighting to defend the land of his ancestors from invasion
George McClellan, who made it clear to Abraham Lincoln in his letter after the Peninsula Campaign that he did not give a rat’s @ss about the status of slaves, was fighting to preserve the Union and not to abolish slavery.
IMHO. as I stated before on this thread, I consider giant flags to be in poor taste. I equate them with used car lots.
I also stated in this thread that I oppose mixing modern politics with the military symbols of long-dead warriors and that I would prefer that the elongated Confederate Naval Jack used inappropriately by the Dixiecrats be replaced by the square Confederate Battle Flag that was used by most Confederate land regiments when the intention is supposedly to honor Confederate Army war dead.
In the early 20th Century, the wounds of the Civil War had been healed.
Now, they are being re-opened again with race-bating groups demanding that the military symbols of the South be equated with the symbols of Nazi Germany.
Since the South is now one of the most “Pro-American” region of the USA ……..(I know…I have lived in the Deep South and I now live in Anti-American Pacific Northwest Left Coast)…….. I believe that South-bashing serves no useful purpose other than to weaken America.
You're right that the South is the most patriotic part of the country. That's one reason why arguments that put down the USA to make the CSA look good rub me the wrong way.
When you get so much coming abuse coming out of San Francisco or New York or Boston, you want to feel like you can count on the rest of the country. Probably we can, but some of the stuff posted here does leave a bad taste in the mouth.
I could go on and on about the Civil War -- and often do. But for now, I'll just leave it at that.
The slaves of old had only the plantation owner to account to, today, the 'massas' we must bend-over-backwards to accomodate far exceed the mint-julip sipping tyrants who might have spent many an afternoon trying to perfect a chicken receipe using eleven secret herbs and spices.
A hundred years from now people may reflect upon the industrialness of those currently doing battle with bureaucrats and regulations and say, "Yo, I think these guys deserve the reparations".