It Is A Good Question.

[Minimalist]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/bill-...flag-hags/

Bill Maher: Robert E. Lee gave up Confederate symbols, so why can’t ‘redneck flag-hags’?

“If you’re a white guy, living in Texas, driving a pickup truck with a shotgun rack and a ‘Nobama’ bumper sticker, isn’t the Confederate flag license plate a little redundant?” Maher wrote on his blog. “We get it. You’re a redneck. I don’t know how we’re going to find moderate rebels in Syria when you can’t even find a moderate rebel here in America.”

In fact, the article showed, Lee opposed battlefield monuments to the Southern soldiers he had commanded during the war, and his 1870 funeral featured no Confederate flags or uniforms

Now, some 150 years later, Maher wondered why some Southern sympathizers insisted on government-sanctioned displays of Confederate symbols.

[Chad32]

Patriotic fervor is so helpful to a warmongering government.

[Cato]

I've always considered the proud display of the Confederate battle flag the same as voluntarily wearing a dunce cap.

[Jenny A]

Lee was never a Southern patriot. He was not a proponent of session. He wanted the Union to stay intact. When the South seceded he went with it because Virginia went with it. He was a Virginian first and foremost. I don't think he ever had a jingoistic patriotism for the South. In the end, I think it was the army itself he loved, and it died with the war. Lee, himself wanted forgiveness from the North. He didn't get it. Maybe he would have, had he lived longer after the war.

[abaris]

Patriotic fervor is so helpful to a warmongering government.

When the Bush warmongering machine was running hot, I always had this quote in mind:

Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country. - Hermann Goering

But flying the confederate flag as some symbol of patriotism is beyond ironic, given it's history.

[Chad32]

Where was this patriotism when the north wanted the country to change? I suppose they didn't think this would be America anymore if it changed the status quo.

[Minimalist]

I doubt the confederate battle flag ( it is not the national flag ) has anything to do with patriotism.

[downbeatplumb]

It should be renamed the southern insurgents flag.
Isn't that what rebels are called these days?

[AFTT47]

Lee was never a Southern patriot. He was not a proponent of session. He wanted the Union to stay intact. When the South seceded he went with it because Virginia went with it. He was a Virginian first and foremost.

Right or wrong, it's my country (or state, in Lee's case). I despise that line of thinking. Patriotism is fine, up to a point. When you start compromising your own principles because of it, you have ceased to be a thinking individual. You are nothing but a puppet on a string.

[The Grand Nudger]

Where was this patriotism when the north wanted the country to change? I suppose they didn't think this would be America anymore if it changed the status quo.

"The North" didn't want change...particularly not the change you're envisioning. "The North" stopped using the old terminology (but not the juiciest bits of it...), the behavior persisted (and persists.....btw). I think you're putting too much stock in the story told by the victor. It didn't even behoove "The North" for -The South- to change, so maybe that explains why, after having won an absolute victory....they did nothing to actually -change- the south...and then allowed it to continue doing what it had been doing for a century or more (in addition to continuing themselves)? They were dependent to begin with. The story of the US for a very long time was that of a textile exporter....mull it over. It's ridiculous to even speak of it this way, as I'm sure that "the South" wanted change (and particularly this one) more than "The North".....after all...."The South" was where the fucking slaves were..........and it's not as though they didn't have sympathetic southern whites with them in that regard.

@Other miscellania-
Patriotism -is- compromising your own principles for the principles of your country. If a countries principles had to be aligned in every particular to an individuals principles...firstly, that wouldn't be very "american" and secondly, we'd all be shit out of luck..and no one would be a patriot. A nation of uncompromising individuals is a nation full of fail. Speaking of jingoism, btw...I can't help but see Northern Jingoism in these discussions. Some a yall boys sound like the type that would have fired the first shots yourself....lol.

If Cletus's great great great granddaddy died under rebel colors...Imma go ahead and say he can fly em without shame. Same goes for anyone else, under a different flag. If they're flying it as a statement against "the blacks" then they're shitting on memories too. Meh, what does the loser have, besides the flag anyway?

Never been my thing, I think the one flag we have is just fine....even state flags seem kind of pointless to me. But anyone else who wants to fly them shouldn't have to defend that decision just because someone else has invested it with all of their worst suspicions and most blatant propaganda. Anyone calling out the Union Jack flying over a bar? No.....? Why not?

In my experience..take this as far as you like or leave it. That flag is just a way to advertise a shared heritage and a sense of pride in that heritage (and however misguided someone may see it as a symbol..that heritage is more than just the civil war or slavery). It encapsulates a defining moment and a crushing defeat, true...but it means more than just that to people who fly it. That's the sort of shit that people cling to. Does that heritage contain bigotry? Yes. When we see the Stars and Stripes can we say that it doesn't? Should flying -that flag- bring shame on my head?