The Civil War claimed the lives of around 700,000 people. It was the bloodiest war in which this country has ever engaged, with casualties outnumbering the rest of all of America's wars combined.

The causes of that long ago conflict were several, but one that we all know concerned slavery and its peculiar status in a country that celebrated freedom. All efforts to wean the southern states away from dependence on slave labor had failed, and their fear that new states created in the western territories would become "free" states, not "slave", pushed the South's controlling elites down the road to secession and armed conflict.

Decoration Day was first officially observed in 1868, to honor all who died in the conflict, but initially the perception was the day was just another insult from the North, and so it was not adopted in much of the South for years. It was not until the 1920s that most of the country celebrated the day, and it took nearly 50 more years for the day to become the official federal holiday of Memorial Day.

And now, in 2010, on the eve of this much anticipated weekend, when our nation is engaged in two conflicts, and has lost almost 5,500 soldiers from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, with another 38,000 wounded, many of them severely, it behooves us to think again what leads us to wars, and why we still need a day to remember those we send off to die in them.

There are issues, some of them rooted deeply within the human psyche, that resist our efforts to settle our differences peacefully. Racial and ethnic divisions continue to arouse hatreds all over the world.

In the southern states, there was always a strong reluctance to use the term "Civil War." Instead for a long time it was called "The War Between the States," and then "The War for Southern Independence." More recently, a more extreme version has become popular with some southerners and particularly with some schools of historical revisionism that tend to favor the Confederacy and the southern cause; they call it "The War of Northern Aggression."

This revisionism (and the current Governor of Virginia) insists that slavery was not an issue in the war; that, instead, the South simply wanted to keep the intent of the original US Constitution and enhance states' rights and small government.

It's been strange, even eerie, to see the sudden resurrection of ideas and terms that take us back to the Civil War. In the aftermath of Rand Paul's triumph in the GOP senate primary in Kentucky, Paul created a media storm by arguing, as he had written back in 2002, that "A free society will abide unofficial, private discrimination — even when that means allowing hate-filled groups to exclude people based on the color of their skin."

Of course the roof fell in. After being eviscerated live on TV, Paul went into damage control mode. Because for elected politicians in this country (now that Jesse Helms is dead) to even hint at racism, is to invite condemnation and ridicule. Which is the way it should be, frankly.

But before the echoes of Mr. Paul's remarks had died down, they were taken up again, and where else, but on Fox News, by John Stossel.

Stossel feels that private businesses should be allowed to discriminate on whatever basis they like. He called for repeal of the public accommodations section of the Civil Rights Act. He finished an interview on the May 20 edition of Fox News' "America Live" like this: "Because private businesses ought to get to discriminate. And I won't even go to a place that's racist and I will tell everybody else not to, and I'll speak against them. But it should be their right to be racist."

We suspect that Mr. Stossel will either be told to shut up on this topic, or Mr. Murdoch, his ultimate employer, might end up sending him a pink slip very soon. But, the words are out there, and like "The War of Northern Aggression" they show that, despite all those who died defending America's true promises and ideals — democracy and freedom for all — racist apologists still exist, right here, in the land of the free.