Obviously the people of Anderson County have seen the error of their ancestor’s ways. In reality, the Confederate flag today to many Southern whites represents Southern culture and heritage and freedom from a strong federal government. It means less and less about the Confederate cause in the War for Southern Independence.
I think you're on to something here. The "southern heritage" that is so often relevant is that of 1950s and the battle against school integration and not the 1860s. It's no accident that the reb flag appeared on Georgia's state flag in the 1950s.
But the Confederate states have not always been against a strong federal government. They were all for federal action in the 1840s to help expand the slave empire into new territories. The southern people were not champions of small government when they overwhelmingly supported FDR, nor did their small government principles lead them to reject federal handouts such as TVA.
Which more than anything else shows the abysmal level of knowledge in this country regarding the War of Southern Rebellion.