Message Replied To ==========
Actually it isn't . . .
it is a symbol of the Army of the Northern Virginia. It is a unit flag not a country flag.==============================
Instead, they are triumphs of hyper-technicality and completely without meaningful substance. You are correct: that precise symbol was the flag of the Army of Northern Virginia (the army whose surrender is considered to be the end of the war), but that symbol was part (the canton) of at least 2 official flags of the Confederate States of America. To suggest that the Confederacy and that symbol are not inextricably interwoven is to engage in sophistry.
http://www.moc.org/collections-archives/flags-confederacy
Further, and I bury the lead here, its appropriation by segregationist political groups and segregationist terrorist groups in the 20th and 21st centuries is undeniable. It is now the flag of the Klan and numerous other dumbasses who, as Sir Charles Barkley has so eloquently opined, "#badword# up the [South] for the cool people."
The bad guys have won on this symbol. While I believe there are a few who genuinely believe that the flag symbolizes a heritage worth celebrating, I also think that most who feel strongly about it are not particularly honorable -- unless one considers the racist and bigoted views of the Jim Crow South to be honorable. I know what I think when I see it, and I am just old enough to have lived in Alabama before the Civil Rights Act.
I love the South and intend to live here until I die. But that flag as an official governmental symbol needs to go. Immediately, if not sooner.
