The concept of rebelling against a government that is not reflecting the will of the people is the very genesis of the United States.

I'm no expert on the American Civil War, but I've heard plenty said about it. I've heard that the freeing of the slaves wasn't a major basis for the secession of the south and the initiation of the war, and was an action taken later in the war to galvanize support for the Northern government.

Similarly, I've heard that the secession was primarily for economic reasons, that the South was generating huge revenues, albeit explicit on the backs of slave labor, and they were being heavily taxed without the benefit of that taxation being returned to those states.

I have also heard that Emancipation Proclamation wasn't at the forefront of the dispute, but the ideological split behind it was already well in motion and had manifested itself in various legal and economic positions against the South and their interests, and just had not reached the point of legislation when the secession happened.

So, I don't really know what people today fly it for. Of course it could simply be a veil for outright white supremacy or racism. But isn't there some credence to that concept-of-rebellion meaning of it? Oddly, reminiscent of Marxist theory about dissent being the nature of revolution and thus progress and thus liberty, even though the US is supposed to be the anti-Marxist government.

Heck, even the "Don't Tread on Me" flag is also sort of considered to be controversially anti-government and has a negative connotation, I believe.

There's probably a good book about this written by someone who has studied both law and history and treats the arguments like a legal advocate for all the interpretations and compares and contrasts them with historical sources.... but I can't read, so ... shrug.