This makes flying or displaying the Confederate flag equal to flying or displaying the Nazi flag: Both are flags represent (human rights-violating) entities that took up arms against the United States in acts of war. Shameful (regardless of how jazzed your are over the childish excitement of rebellious behavior).

That those who made up the Confederate States formed and pledged allegiance to “a government hostile to the United States, and in affiliation with a hostile confederation, waging war upon the United States,” yet were still American citizens, makes them traitorous in having done so.

Q.E.D. You may now take down and burn your Stars & Bars.

Please explain how the South did not have the right at the time to secede, therefore, making the action treasonous.

This is a very important observation, and it reminds me of the release not too long ago of some of Thomas Jefferson’s private correspondance, in particular a letter he wrote to George Washington. This letter so horrified Washington that he was inspired to free the handful of slaves he owned; basically, Jefferson had realized how profitable his slaves were, not merely in terms of their productivity but in “their increase” (his words).

The divide between North and South over slavery goes back much further than the Civil War, and indeed, the profit of selling the children of one’s slaves was a very big deal in the south.

Of course, although Minnesota quite explicitly fought *against* the Confederacy, making it particularly odious and historically ignorant to fly that flag in a Minnesota parade, it cannot be said that our state had no part in the sad legacy of slavery. Visit Fort Snelling, which presently is restored and maintained to its frontier condition, and today you can visit the tiny basement dwelling where Dred Scott lived for a little while. Yes, *that* Dred Scott. Slavery was illegal here even then, but nobody protested his owners importing him and his wife and renting them out for a profit, even though they were being held on government property.

Slavery is a feature of world history going back to the first farmers. It only ended because of automation and industrialization. It’s not a moral question in that broader cultural context.

Do your commenters have any sense of economic history?