I don't understand; why do people defend things such as the confederate flag

[Rev. Rye]

As a Civil War buff, here's my hypothesis:

In the years since the South lost, they knew they had to explain why they decided seceding from the Union would be a good idea, and upon retrospect, saying it was about slavery (pretty much the only reason the Southern States gave for it in the days between Sumter and Appamatox; ironically, they put themselves in the only situation where the Union could legally free their slaves short of a Constitutional amendment). So they came up with state's rights, which the South tended to be in favor of (except, ironically, for the issue of Slavery; despite the fact that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1851 and Dred Scott pretty much forced non-slavery states to be involved in it and enable it, and the less said about Bleeding Kansas, the better.) So, if they can rationalise that the war totally wasn't about slavery, then the Stars and Bars is still defensible. Add to it that, for a long time, damn near all the media dealing with the Civil War gave the South a shitton of leeway (point: try and find a film from, say, before 1960, set during the Civil War that casts a negative light on the "Lost Cause of the South." You will fail: Hollywood feared the wrath of the South so much they wouldn't dare to make such a film), it makes perfect sense that it became a symbol of a strange sort of patriotism instead of racism.

It's also worth noting that many of the people who tend to defend the Confederate Flag (ironically, the design they latched onto was, strictly speaking, never actually used during the war) tend to have ancestors who fought for the Confederacy. Unfortunately, the sort of people who think fighting over the right to keep people enslaved to keep up an economic system that would have died out anyway tend to not be ones to examine their past and present critically. If their traditions say they fought and died with great valor, then they really don't want to question it.

Also, in addition to that point, given that tradition says they fought valiantly, and even General Robert E. Lee's opponents saw the man as nothing short of gracious and fair (At least when he wasn't slaughtering Union troops because he thought defending Virginia was better than defending the United States after they unilaterally seceded), and people tend to have a hard time reconciling the good and the bad about people, especially historical figures (case in point: the one thing I hated about Hamilton was Lin-Manuel Miranda's very unsympathetic portrayal of Thomas Jefferson. Sure, he supported slavery and was kind of hypocritical about it, but from what I gather, it was common to see slavery as a necessary evil, which, by the time of John Calhoun, gave way to the view that it was simply necessary; can you seriously say you would prefer it if he was just an unapologetic slaver, Lin-Manuel?), such a transformation may be inevitable.