How about this for a rule:

[xiphias]

If you display a Confederate flag, you're not allowed to call someone else un-American.

Comments

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

Technically, they weren't traitors to the US, because they weren't really citizens. But there were black people in the US during the civil war who owned slaves. And if they didn't why fight for a side that maintained that it was OK to own slaves?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Both sides maintained it was OK to own slaves.

[danceboy.livejournal.com]

I think that I disagree. Both sides maintained that it was legal, and that the federal government had no legal right to change that (hence the Emancipation Proclamation did not free slaves in the Union). But Lincoln was not exactly quiet about how it was not OK.