Boy, you know, you're right about that. In retrospect, we would have been better off overall if the war hadn't happened. But, given that it had to happen, I'm at best ambivalent about whether I wish the South had succeeded in seceding, nevertheless...
At best is right.....I'm not hear to refight that war but I (we) must take a stand against the do-gooders who at times lack truth or clarity. To deny one's heritage is a sign of weakness...IMHO. If the do-gooders left us alone...why should anyone care if we wish to have a Rebel flag or whistle Dixie or hang a portrait of a Confederate in our home....I do (Forrest of course). Perhaps most troubling is while they feast and sate their need to feel good about themselves on the bones of my fallen ancestors, they completely ignore their own hypocrisy by leaving out or omitting unpleasantries of their own past. Unlike them, I will be there when the do-gooders come for our shared American heritage which they most assuredly will. Something these dunderheads refuse to acknowledge or don't care either way. Lots and lots of what we in the senstive modern world call atrocities were carried out by the US of A and under said flag....reams of victims just waiting to be tapped.