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Jefferson Memorial, Confederate statues enter national race debate

Oh hell. This is the kind of crazy that even Hollywood backs away from.

Let's think about this for a second. If Jefferson is such a divisive figure that we need to raze his monument then every principle this nation was founded on is equally as divisive and we should just get rid of the Constitution, dissolve the union and appoint a civil rights committee to round up and reeducate everyone who has ever done anything which is offensive to anyone else.

Are you saying that no one is thinking about that option?
 
Oh, come-on now!

Maybe we should get rid of that George Washington guy too - I heard he also was a slave oner, and had quite a few.

And those 'Founding Fathers'? Forget about it!

"Out the door with all of them"!
I said slave-owning presidents, didn't I?
 
I agree with most of what you wrote, but there was nothing "simple" about his owning slaves. It's a pretty colossal and cruel moral failure on his part.
Based on what. YOUR morals? I see you are flying the Gay Flag. I see that as a pretty colossal and cruel moral failure on your part.
 
See how it usually starts, with a mere mention...a pondering of the concept. They float the idea out there probably hoping it'll pick up steam.
Who are "they?"

One (count it, one) CNN commentator briefly questioned if anyone will reconsider the Jefferson Memorial. A second basically said "maybe" and then they moved on.

Did Ashleigh Banfield get a secret email from the Famous Corporation, telling her to slip a brief mention into a broadcast? Ridiculous. (Note: 10 points to anyone who gets the reference. ;))


I wonder when they'll want to posthumously impeach every slave-owning President and remove them from the history books.
Probably sometime around "never." Though we have already seen Texas try to purge the historical fact that the US Civil War was first and foremost about slavery, so...

That said, Jefferson is a very complex figure in American history, and we should teach and remember and discuss all the facets of his life and choices. We should not try to sweep under the rug the facts that he owned slaves, that he had 6 illegitimate children with Sally Hemings, and that his relationship to her was probably not consensual, and so forth.


Right now this is all far fetched, but I don't trust this to end with just a Confederate flag.
Uh huh. So instead of recognizing that slippery slope arguments are rarely valid, you just run with one anyway, based on the flimsiest of premises. Nice. ;)
 
I said slave-owning presidents, didn't I?
Oops.

My (attempted) rebuttal (this is a debate forum, after-all):

+++

"Some of the founding fathers became Presidents"

"I was attempting to shed illumination on the discussion, by expanding it"

"I was adding 'original thought'"

+++

Heh - O.K., fair enough - I missed that line (Presidents) when I read your OP.
 
That said, Jefferson is a very complex figure in American history, and we should teach and remember and discuss all the facets of his life and choices. We should not try to sweep under the rug the facts that he owned slaves, that he had 6 illegitimate children with Sally Hemings, and that his relationship to her was probably not consensual, and so forth.

Of course. No one disagrees with you here, in this thread. However, do you really think that children should be taught in equal measure about Jefferson's personal life and his ideas? Jefferson is the most influential political theorist in this country's history. You cannot understand American politics or history, without knowing the ideas of Jefferson and their impact.

How many teenagers these days know what Jeffersonian democracy is?

A colossal figure in every respect, the man should not be reduced to snide attacks and "He owned slaves, he was evil, let's purge his memory..." rhetoric, which is gaining ground. Children should not only be taught about the his character flaws, but also the fact that he was a polymath, president of the APS, fluent in several languages and founder of the University of Virginia, and so on.
 
You claimed, and I'll quote it again, "Ultimately, the excuse that people were just a product of their time is nonsense". That's a spectacular assertion.
Why do you think it's "spectacular"? The fact is that that many people in Jefferson's time opposed slavery on moral grounds and knew that black people were not inferior. Therefore, one cannot logically say that people who believed slavery was right were just a "product of their time" since their time included the belief that slavery was wrong.
 
Jefferson Memorial, Confederate statues enter national race debate - LA Times


See how it usually starts, with a mere mention...a pondering of the concept. They float the idea out there probably hoping it'll pick up steam. No doubt they're probably already fantasizing about bulldozers coming in. I wonder when they'll want to posthumously impeach every slave-owning President and remove them from the history books. Probably only a matter time before more crazy ideas like this get floated. Should we include every President that said the word "nigger"? How far should we go in deleting those things that offend? How about the latinos?
Should we disassemble the United States and give them back the land we allegedly took? Right now this is all far fetched, but I don't trust this to end with just a Confederate flag.

We wouldn't elect a slave owner to the presidency today! Why would we honor one from yesterday?
 
It was not a cruel system to him and amongst many of his peers, and it was not cruel to his father and his fathers before him... He was a revolutionary in much of his thinking... just not slavery...
You don't think Jefferson knew that it was cruel to allow his overseers to beat slaves? Really?
 
Bring it all down and give our founders numbers instead names. Sanitize our history and wipe out the past. Can't risk even one special little snowflake to be psychologically damaged because of the blemishes of our past.

****ing idiots.
 
You don't think Jefferson knew that it was cruel to allow his overseers to beat slaves? Really?
I honestly don't know... but I've heard justifications of slavery back then.... much like how we treat children. Children are essentially slaves to their parents. Beating used to be a common thing for discipline, not just of slaves, but for children and criminals as well. I would think he would think it was cruel to unjustly beat a slave just because you felt like it.

You have to literally have to think like you're in the 1700s
 
We wouldn't elect a slave owner to the presidency today! Why would we honor one from yesterday?

Because they didn't live today? Do you think Thomas Jefferson would have been a slave owner if he grew up in today? Absolutely not... The only reason you ARE NOT a slave owner, is because you did not grow up in upperclass 17th century America.
 
Do you really think that children should be taught in equal measure about Jefferson's personal life and his ideas?
Did I say "equal measure?" No. My point is, it should not be left out. If you visit Monticello, the tour guides should certainly not omit that he designed it, and its architectural importance -- nor should they omit that he owned slaves, and that most of the people on the plantation were slaves.


How many teenagers these days know what Jeffersonian democracy is?
How many people today understand chattel slavery, and how degrading it was? Not as many as one might think.

A tour guide at a plantation, for example, wrote an article for Vox which described reactions to discussions of slavery on the tours:
I used to lead tours at a plantation. You won


A colossal figure in every respect, the man should not be reduced to snide attacks and "He owned slaves, he was evil, let's purge his memory..." rhetoric, which is gaining ground.
I don't see any genuine movement to purge his memory. What I see is right-wingers who are freaked out about state governments and commercial entities turning their backs on the confederate battle flag (a long overdue measure), and The Dukes of Hazzard getting pulled (a bit trivial, but hardly a threat to American culture), and see slippery slopes everywhere.

And yes, I do think it is important to recognize that Jefferson both advocated for human freedom, and owned slaves. Same with Washington and other prominent politicians at that time. We should also recognize that Hamilton and Adams and others were against slavery and did not own slaves.
 
I find it ironic that so many people want to, wait for it... whitewash... our nation's history. Because, ya know, only the color white is fresh and pure.

:devil:
 
Did I say "equal measure?" No. My point is, it should not be left out. If you visit Monticello, the tour guides should certainly not omit that he designed it, and its architectural importance -- nor should they omit that he owned slaves, and that most of the people on the plantation were slaves.



How many people today understand chattel slavery, and how degrading it was? Not as many as one might think.

A tour guide at a plantation, for example, wrote an article for Vox which described reactions to discussions of slavery on the tours:
I used to lead tours at a plantation. You won



I don't see any genuine movement to purge his memory. What I see is right-wingers who are freaked out about state governments and commercial entities turning their backs on the confederate battle flag (a long overdue measure), and The Dukes of Hazzard getting pulled (a bit trivial, but hardly a threat to American culture), and see slippery slopes everywhere.

And yes, I do think it is important to recognize that Jefferson both advocated for human freedom, and owned slaves. Same with Washington and other prominent politicians at that time. We should also recognize that Hamilton and Adams and others were against slavery and did not own slaves.

Have you ever been to Monticello?
 
She might very well be stupid, but I think you might agree with her if you knew the context in which she is speaking. She was comparing the call for taking down the Confederate flag with Thomas Jefferson's statue. I don't believe she was advocating for it's removal.

While discussing the movement to eradicate the presence of the Confederate flag, a CNN host asked whether we should also bring down a monument to a president who owned slaves.

After last week’s slaughter of nine black churchgoers by a white gunman in Charleston, South Carolina, aroused debate over the Confederate flag and inspired at least six major retailers to ban its sale, CNN host Ashleigh Banfield asked co-host Don Lemon whether this means we should also take down a memorial to former President Thomas Jefferson because of his slave ownership in the 1700s and early 1800s.


"Jefferson owned slaves," Banfield said, noting that a previous guest had made a "good point" in bringing that up. "Thomas Jefferson owned slaves -- third president of the United States. And there is a monument to him in the capital city of the United States. No one ever asks for that to come down. Is it equal [to the Confederate flag]?"

CNN Host Asks If Jefferson Memorial Is Equal With Confederate Flag

Huh? I already know the context of what she said, pete. No idea why you thought you needed to restate it? Is it because I said she was colossally stupid? She is. Has been for decades.
 
Oh hell. This is the kind of crazy that even Hollywood backs away from.

Let's think about this for a second. If Jefferson is such a divisive figure that we need to raze his monument then every principle this nation was founded on is equally as divisive and we should just get rid of the Constitution, dissolve the union and appoint a civil rights committee to round up and reeducate everyone who has ever done anything which is offensive to anyone else.

That might be a little extreme. I don't think that you lump slavery in with everyday offenses.
 
Because they didn't live today? Do you think Thomas Jefferson would have been a slave owner if he grew up in today? Absolutely not... The only reason you ARE NOT a slave owner, is because you did not grow up in upperclass 17th century America.

Well really it's because I probably couldn't afford one. I guess your saying that had you grown up in early 20th century Germany that you'd have been a Nazi soldier or running a concentration camp. Do you know that there were people morally opposed to slavery as it was being practiced? ;)
 
These monuments not only demonstrate what America is supposed to stand for in contemporary times, but also a long-lasting monument to the State. In other words: Civic Religion. In this sense, you can certainly tear down statues in favor of facets you find more congenial, however, in an ever-"historically conscious" citizenry, you best be prepared to do it every 20 years and never be satisfied.

John Adams? A Hamilton memorial, perhaps? Quintessential American...came from low ranks, rose up.....and then became an aristocrat in every sense of the term (I.e. He didn't much care for poor people).

Unfortunately, this game leaves little opportunity for completely tolerable choices.
But you can frequently refashion popular figures for contemporary purposes. Gone is George Washington's closer-than-you-think monarchism, and he becomes Father of the Nation. This is way more difficult with the Confederacy, however, and any good nationalist should desire to clamp down on such rebellious sentiment.

Jefferson, though I haven't really been too sympathetic with the man, will still take his seat at the table and unless we are willing to fork over millions to regenerate our Federalist comrades, little chance for success at remaking the historical landscape.

In a rather ironic way, this broad based enterprise would become just like Jefferson's Monticello: incredibly extravagant (almost in bad taste), but never finished due to indecisiveness.
 
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Well really it's because I probably couldn't afford one. I guess your saying that had you grown up in early 20th century Germany that you'd have been a Nazi soldier or running a concentration camp. Do you know that there were people morally opposed to slavery as it was being practiced? ;)

Actually Jefferson was a strange contradiction as he was much more concerned about civil liberties and a governments adherence to the constitution than the average "founder" yet he owned slaves and was deceptive with the congress over the cost and scope of the Corp of Discovery, and thought nothing about purchasing millions of acres of land from the French without even consulting the owners and occupants of the land. Yet read his writings, so many of which are in existence due to his invented "copy machine" and you find he was a man of incredible sensitivities! :shrug:
 
I can understand wanting to remove those statues.

If the country is going to be mostly non-white in a few years, what point is there in having all these statues of dead white males looking down on you.

It just makes no sense.
 
So which one of us is the broken clock? :lol:

I was wondering how your views on Jefferson were formed? I ask because you got it completely wrong in every conceivable way...

"With five simple words in the Declaration of Independence—“all men are created equal”—Thomas Jefferson undid Aristotle’s ancient formula, which had governed human affairs until 1776: “From the hour of their birth, some men are marked out for subjection, others for rule.” In his original draft of the Declaration, in soaring, damning, fiery prose, Jefferson denounced the slave trade as an “execrable commerce ...this assemblage of horrors,” a “cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberties.” As historian John Chester Miller put it, “The inclusion of Jefferson’s strictures on slavery and the slave trade would have committed the United States to the abolition of slavery." - The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson | History | Smithsonian

He initially wanted his words to mean exactly what they said. His intention was NOT that it just be wealthy white people. Later on in life he did become less and less vocal because slavery was a reality of his time. This made him nothing more than a figure of his time and people in our time should not hold him to those standards.
 
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