Good point, McGrath. Here in Mississippi we voted to keep the stars and bars in a corner of the state flag, and with a considerable portion of the Black vote going towards 'keep it'.   It's a historical artifact. We have no more business banishing it from the earth than we do tearing down Beauvoir or the Illinois monument at Vicksburg.

For some people it is a symbol of racism. For many more people it is a symbol of Dixie, of a region they love, and fallen ancestors they honor. And the vote frankly was more a statement of "Don't Tread On Me" than anything else.