Oh, if only I could own other people!

No one alive today was alive during the American Civil War. No one in America today owned slaves or experienced the pre-war Southern lifestyle. All were born into the reality that the southern states committed treason against the United States in order to continue the institution of slavery. So why would anyone alive today, who isn’t a hard core racist who wishes blacks were still slaves, wish that the results were different?

In North Carolina GOP voters are almost evenly divided on the outcome of the [civil] war with 35% glad for the North’s victory, 33% ruing the South’s loss, and 32% taking neither side. Democrats (55/15) and independents (57/14) have similar numbers to Georgia but due to the greater ambivalence of Republicans about the northern victory, overall less than half of Tar Heel voters (48%) are glad the Union won to 21% who wish the Confederacy had.

How screwed up do you have to be to wish that the South had won? How superficial must your thought processes be not to realize what a horrible crime against humanity that lifestyle was and what a disaster a Southern victory would have been for all Americans? How is this different from wishing the Germans had won World War II? (Yes, I think it’s an appropriate comparison and I am comfortable equating slave owners to Nazis.)