I live in South Carolina and the flag caused all sorts of problems here, but the bottom line for me was that the flag had no place on the State house dome. Reconcilliation is loooooong over, and the war ended over a century ago. Nowhere else in the world would a conquored enemy, (and like it or not, once war was declared, shots fired and the south surrendered, thats what the CSA was), be allowed to still fly there flag over their state capital as if the war never happened and things were still hunky dorey. South Carolina is like the problem child of the country. We are a poor state, near last in education, near the top in murder and domestic violence, and our political process chooses to ignore those things in favor of "important issues" like legalized gambling, Video Poker, and Lt Governors and State Treasurers who think they are above the law. We started the damn Civil War, fired the first shots, seceeded from the union first, and held the secret meetings right here in Columbia to decide to leave the USA. But in the end, whether it was a clash of ideologies, or just about fucking owning slaves, we were beaten and I think its high time people around here accept that. The flag isn't on the dome anymore, but the idea that caused it to be there is still held as the status quo, though the majority of people now NO LONGER CARE, save for maybe the NAACP who is just as irellevant (sp?) now as they have been since the decline of the civil rights movement. My comments aren't meant to be racist seeing as I respect that others may have a different opinion, but I've lived in the south all my life and I'm tired of watching the parade of racist hatful bastards who giv what may actually be a legitimate cause a black eye.