Not so Civil

For months now the Confederate Flag has been in the center of a lot if debates. Myself being a southerner, I don't really care about the heritage talking points that everyone keeps bringing up. To me the flag belongs in a museum and not just because a few racist morons like to wear and wave it with pride. Neither the fact that it's linked with slavery or how it was as symbol of the Jim Crow area. Nope, it's the fact that the flag comes from treason and should not be honored as something of pride. When I think about the "Civil War" and what really started it, which was taxes not slavery. The South  at the time produced a large sum of the country's exported goods, mainly cotton and tobacco. The North wanted more of a tax contribution from the southern states, but those states did not agree nor like this idea as it would take away from their profits. Keep in mind that most of the cotton and tobacco was picked and handled by slave labor, which in today's world would be the equivalent of owning framing equipment or robots. Meaning that the slaves were nothing tools to be bought and sold or just flat replaced. Only given the minimal for housing, food and clothing with no real structured compensation or freedom not even looked at as human beings. The plantation owners didn't have to worry about paying competitive wages, 401k and healthcare cost, making their labor costs lower. This meant that more money went back to them and the trade, but they felt paying more in taxes was unfair and that the northern states were being oppressive. Now when looking at it from this area, the South sounds a lot like the rich do today. The same people who go on TV and claim that paying higher taxes is more of a punishment for their financial success. This was not a rebellion about freedom from a greedy over reaching system of government, that people are romanticizing as history. It was a bunch greedy rich people not wanting to pay taxes and thought that they held enough power to force change. In many ways the Civil War would help set a blueprint for how big business can influence the government and it's many nuances for making policy today. A treasonist flag for a group of greedy money grabbing hypocrites, that only cared about themselves, not freedom. 

                                      Take the flag down and let's move forward together.