Anyone worry about RW reverence for the Civil War?

[ProfessorPlum]

I have a lot of right wing people in some branches of my family, and one thing I've noticed about them which strikes me as odd, and more and more as disturbing, is their absolute mania for the Civil War.

A lot of these folks don't seem to have any interest in other academic pursuits, but they can go on and on about Antietam and Pickett's Charge and Mathew Brady. Most of these folks are Northerners, too, but their imaginations are just completely fired up by the Civil War, as if it was the most fascinating thing ever.

Now, I enjoy history quite a lot. But the Civil War has never struck me as particularly fascinating. I like reading about the Roman Empire and that time period, and also WWII and Vietnam and of course recent history.

What creeps me out is the feeling I have that it isn't so much the whole "history" aspect of the Civil War that they like, but the thought of Americans having free license to kill each other. That they have this romantic vision of a time "when the shit goes down" and they will be able to start blasting other Americans again.

Does anyone else ever have this feeling?