The mass hysteria over the Confederate flag is incredible and quite inane. A lot of it is because of ignorance about history and, in this case, about the U.S. Civil War. This is understandable because history is always written by winners who, of course, make themselves look so awesome and noble. So, let’s take a look at the common myths that everyone “knows” to be true:

1. The North attacked the South in order to end Slavery

The truth? The North attacked the South in order to stop the secession. That’s all. The reason didn’t matter … the bottom line was, “No, you can’t go.” The South could have tried to secede for ANY reason, and the end result would have been the same. Why?

For one, the South, if treated as an independent country, was very wealthy. In fact, it had the fourth largest economy in the world at that time, and it accounted for more than 60% of America’s exports.

Second, no country likes to lose territories. They like to acquire territories. And just look at the map below. Losing the South would have been the end of the American Empire and the dream of “Manifest Destiny.”

2. War was the only way to end Slavery

Many people don’t realize that slavery was present in almost every North/Central/South American country, from Canada to Chile. European countries like England, France, Portugal, Spain and even Italy dabbled in slavery and slave trade. And how many civil wars happened in those countries to end slavery? NONE! Yeah, it’s such nonsense that a costly, destructive war was needed to end slavery. Here is a map that shows how most countries peacefully ended slavery – most before 1865 and some, like Brazil, about 20 years after the U.S.

3. The North was full of enlightened, humanitarian people 

Well, talk to the ghosts of the tens of millions of Native Americans who were slaughtered by the kind Northerners. As for blacks, yeah, certainly the North gets some credit for passing laws that theoretically gave some rights to blacks. In practice, blacks were segregated, were allowed to do only menial jobs, didn’t vote etc. Let’s just say that Lincoln wouldn’t have been too happy if his daughter brought a black dude over for dinner.

BTW, fast forward to 2015, and there are millions of African Americans who are thrown in prisons and made to work for big corporations like Walmart and Starbucks. Watch this quick video on this modern-day slavery.

4. That it was even a Civil War

Seriously, it wasn’t even a Civil War. A civil war is one where two fractions fight to take control over the same country. In this case, the South didn’t want to rule the North; the South just wanted to go its own way. If a guy beat up his girlfriend when she tried to leave him, that’s not a domestic dispute. It’s ironic how when America was founded, and it wanted to leave England, that was an awesome thing — you know, wonderful concepts such as “self determination”, “freedom”. “liberty” etc.

Bonus Fact:

The war was primarily orchestrated by the British and, to some extent, supported by the French and the Spanish who were all dreaming of reclaiming the land that they had previously “lost” to the Americans. (I say “lost” – in quotes – because none of this land belonged to any of them, to start with!). But this topic of how this war was engineered by foreign agents will require another blog or two, but you can read this article on how the British secretly built ships and manufactured hundreds of thousands of guns in England and sent it to the South. This alone extended the war by two more years and caused an additional 400,000 deaths,

So, don’t believe everything you learn in school or from the corrupt mainstream media!