Should Minnesota return Virginia's Confederate battle flag?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

A battalion from Minnesota defeated a battalion from Virginia at Gettysburg and took their battle flag. Virginia has been bugging us lately to return it, we keep refusing.

I vote no. Instead it should be publicly burned on the steps of the state capitol.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It's cool that some 13 years later, I can look at my horrible, mangled writing and see little that bothers me that isn't stylistic. It does concern me that I described Robert E. Lee as "anti-slavery" even though he disregarded his father-in-law's will, which manumitted his many slaves, to pay for upkeep for his sisters-in-law. Robert E. Lee, annoyed that the slaves disliked this, proceeded to sell the most "uppity" slaves after putting them in slave jail, which was a grave violation of his mother-in-law's desire to never break-up families. In short: Robert E. Lee deserved to be killed via firing squad for torture and abuse.

One reason why I've maintained strident pro-Unionism over all of these years is that I frequently encountered Confederate apologists, sympathizers and other "Lost Cause" BS as a teen, as Confederate nonsense was normalized 15 years ago. So I still have some residual sense that it's transgressive to argue against the Confederacy and that it's very important also.

Robert E. Lee revisionism is the American equivalent of the "clean Wehrmacht" myth.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It's cool that some 13 years later, I can look at my horrible, mangled writing and see little that bothers me that isn't stylistic. It does concern me that I described Robert E. Lee as "anti-slavery" even though he disregarded his father-in-law's will, which manumitted his many slaves, to pay for upkeep for his sisters-in-law. Robert E. Lee, annoyed that the slaves disliked this, proceeded to sell the most "uppity" slaves after putting them in slave jail, which was a grave violation of his mother-in-law's desire to never break-up families. In short: Robert E. Lee deserved to be killed via firing squad for torture and abuse.

One reason why I've maintained strident pro-Unionism over all of these years is that I frequently encountered Confederate apologists, sympathizers and other "Lost Cause" BS as a teen, as Confederate nonsense was normalized 15 years ago. So I still have some residual sense that it's transgressive to argue against the Confederacy and that it's very important also.

Robert E. Lee revisionism is the American equivalent of the "clean Wehrmacht" myth.

What's remarkable about it is that it was widely accepted as fact by fairly serious people even though his actual views were hidden in plain sight. Such was the commitment of the US to American Civil War revisionism!

It's even more incredible since there's not really much of an excuse for it. "Clean Wehrmacht" was widely believed until about the 90s because Germany wanted to be able to pretend that very few of its citizenry and their fathers and grandfathers at a later time weren't guilty of war crimes, it was a cope lie that eventually fell apart. Robert E. Lee was a blatant enemy of the United States. In just about any other country his equivalent would be regarded as one of the great villains of its history. And funnily enough much like the anti-Lincoln talking points that wokesters now parrot as justification to demonize him (because they can't stand the thought of anything anywhere being named after or honoring a white man), it's rooted in Lost Causer propaganda.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

FWIW I actually do find this story a bit odd, because the flag isn't kept in a museum or anything. It's in a historical archive where it's store in a very carefully controlled environment and it's possible no living person has seen the flag, a Star Tribune article about this once said that the flag is "believed" to be heavily blood stained. No known photos of it exist.

Obviously I'm still opposed to relinquishing it, but sheesh, I'm sure you could put it in special controlled conditions in a glass case at a museum at least.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I know this is an old thread, but who actually has the flag?
Is it in a museum in Minnesota?

The Minnesota Historical Society has it, in an undisclosed location. However despite my earlier post I was a bit wrong, the flag is occasional taken out for display, and there are photos of it (one was used in the meme.) The "believed to be bloodstained" wording is because it has never been tested for blood.

The sensitivity of the issue is possibly why it's not in a museum full time. The MHS keeps its exact location in the archive drawers confidential for "security purposes."