White supremacists and counter protesters clash in Charlottesville

[johan]

So you're honestly saying that most of those who fought for the south were absolutely against slavery, but as much as they were against slavery, they were even more against those no good rotten god damned assholes from the North who had the nerve to come to their state in an effort to end the slavery they were actually against in the first place. Is that what you're saying? Because that sure sounds like that's what you're saying.

No.  I doubt very many Confederate soldiers were against slavery at all.  I'm saying, and their own diaries state, that slavery isn't the reason very many of them fought against the invading Union soldiers.  Most Union soldiers didn't fight to abolish slavery either.  They fought to preserve the Union.  Specifically to keep the Southern states as part of the Union. 

More and more Union soldiers added abolishing slavery as one of their personal reasons the longer they fought in the war though.

My mistake. I miss interpreted what you wrote earlier to take it as meaning diaries that were written after the war rather than diaries which remained after the war which I now assume is what you meant. 

That being said, I'm still not sure your earlier point carries all that much weight in light of your statement above, i.e. you doubt very many Confederate soldiers were against slavery. 

I mean you can try to define it however you like, but like many wars, neither the North nor the South wanted to go to war. And there was ample opportunity for the war to be avoided if the South got on board with abolishing slavery. But instead the South decided screw you, we'll form our own country rather than back down on the slavery thing and what'd ya know a war broke out. So whether the diaries of the soldiers explicitly state it or not, when the citizens armed themselves and went to war, they were doing so fundamentally over slavery. 

And honestly, I think those that hold a similar perspective on it to your own are part of the root of the issues we're facing today. That whole 'symbols of the confederacy are a heritage thing, not a racism thing' is a big part of this problem. And I'm not saying that every person saying that is simply lying because they don't want to admit that they're racist. Quite the opposite actually. I'm saying that if you genuinely believe that, you're wrong. Period. If you embrace those symbols as a part of your heritage, so be it, but those symbols are most definitely racist and if you choose to embrace them you are also embracing racism whether your like it or not.

I've had this discussion with guys I genuinely believe aren't racist. And they dig their heels strong into the whole you don't get it, its part of my heritage thing. To which I reply I'm German, that's my heritage. But I don't fly a Nazi flag off the back of my pickup. And honestly, I don't feel one little bit as though anyone is stepping on my ability to express my heritage because of the fact that it would be frowned upon socially if I were to fly a nazi flag off the back of my pickup.

Even though its part of my heritage, I don't fly a nazi flag because I don't agree with what it stood for. Some of the people I know from the South really seem to struggle with understanding that.