No Graduation Walk for Confederate Flag-Wavers

You must think people here are all in poverty. 6 figure incomes are common now, especially since the influx of the high technology companies. I will deposit my large paychecks and continue to enjoy the warm winters and great golfing, warm surf, and mountains that I can actually visit the year round.

If your brother hates Virginia, he must live somewhere near I-95.

I know there's money to be made, especially in the Houston, Atlanta, and Raleigh-Durham areas. However, that doesn't mean I wouldn't be miserable. I said myself it was a matter of personal preference. You may like “warm winters”, but I think that sounds God awful. Winter is my favorite season.

I can't imagine what my childhood would have been like without hockey (outside on the lake, not cooped up in an air conditioned arena you have to pay to get into), sledding, and snowball fights. You ever been ice fishing? Snowmobiling? I wouldn't dream of parting with any of that.

We have summer also, and it's not as hot and humid as yours. It's a great time to go to one our many lakes (I'll take fresh water over salt water any day) or to my family's cabin on the St. Croix. I love being out on the water. I also enjoy hiking and camping, without sweating like a dog because of the excessive heat.

In addition to all the great outdoor activities, Minneapolis and St. Paul have much to offer on its own. We're widely considered to have the best theater outside of New York City, and a lot of great places to eat also. NYC probably beats is in that department too, but we don't live like sardines surrounded by jerks and paying through the nose for everything. I will admit I've had some really good Texas BBQ, but I've found places here that are almost as good.

Like I said, it's personal preference. If you're happy down there, good for you. I'm happy here. I don't expect to change your mind. I'm just explaining why I find it better up here.

Oh, and my brother lives in Virginia Beach - not near I-95.

Believe it or not, we have many of the same things. We even have ski resorts. No ice fishing, but lots of fresh water lakes and rivers. Not as much as you. I have a sister and stepfather in MN so I know what they go through. They want to move here. We still get the few inches of snow in the winter, sometimes several feet. Typically two solid weeks of freezing weather. But overall, I will take the weather here over California or any other state. I only miss the Mexican food.

Next time you use your broadband internet connection or digital cable, thank a Southerner for the fiber optic cable you are using.

So far as I can figure out, that would be Sam DiVita of the US Army Signal Corps Labs in Fort Monmouth New Jersey or Elias Snitzer of American Optical. I thank them, but I don't think either one of them was a Southerner.

A lot of industry and r&d has moved South in recent decades, because we're one country and costs are cheaper down there, but that's hardly a reflection on the Confederacy or the Old South.

People who claim the Confederate Flag is a symbol of racism are usually the same people who were taught that the ‘Civil War’ was fought over slavery. That’s what I was taught in my California government school. Revisionist history...After seeing the PBS TV Series “The Civil War” I decided to do my own research and studying. It was a much more complicated war than we were taught in school.

I have to wonder if people aren't oversimplifying what they were taught in school. They boil it down to one simple answer and then, years later, "discover" that it's "wrong."

Sure, it's more complicated than simply saying the North was against slavery and the South was for. That kind of simplification is something good teachers warn their classes against.

But if you absolutely have to give the cause of the Civil War in one word to save your life, "slavery" wouldn't be a bad one.

Of course not all Southerners fought for slavery. And few Northerners wanted to abolish slavery in 1861. But slavery does account for the rift between the two sections, and concern over the future of slavery does explain much of the secessionist fervor that led to war.

Some people want to go on from that to say that this made the Northerners "good" and the Southerners "bad," and other people angrily rebel against such moralizing, but that's getting beyond reasons to passions.

A lot of Northerners owned slaves, and a lot of blacks in the South fought FOR the Confederacy. It was about raw materials and survivorship. When the Union blockaded the South, they forced the war. Hundreds of thousands of dead Americans later, their is still hatred because a few stupid people think the Confederate Flag means something they THINK or WANT it to mean.

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