A few more thoughts. I don’t like the Confederate battle flag and like Jonah, would take it down from prominent official places as a sheer matter of courtesy, if nothing else. But, let’s remember:
‐The Confederate army fought for an odious cause, yet it wasn’t an army of extermination like the Nazis, to which it is now being compared.
‐Confederate soldiers were Americans, and slavery was an American sin. This is something that Lincoln, a fierce opponent of slavery on principle, was always very clear about. He always said that Southerners were acting just as we would if we were in their circumstances.
‐Further to that point: The fact is that if anyone banging on about the Confederacy at the moment on Twitter were born in the 1840s in the South, outside of a few select areas, they, too, would have fought for the Confederacy. (UPDATE: It should go without saying that this isn’t true of blacks.) That should lend a measure of modesty to this debate.