What do I find wrong with Confederate Monuments?

[ecofarm]

Holy ****



That's all you wrote? It's like seeing Nazi Germany attempt to justify their treatment of the Jews.

Expected a little more boom?

I think 'betrayal of mankind' is a powerful and accurate description. Look what it pulled from the woodwork. Did we know that about OFG before? I didn't. I think I'm gonna keep it simple on this subject and stick with that phrase.


And I'll take your comment as a compliment of my self control.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Imagine the Native Americans who have to look our money(especially the 20 dollar bill), the statues of our founders and our holidays. I bet those things serve as reminders to commemorate the people who slaughtered their ancestors, took their lands and tried to wipe them out. We should remove all the statues commemorating our founders and remove their faces from our money and stop celebrating the 4th of July and presidents day. We should also change all the streets,cities, schools and anything else named after founders and presidents all the way up to the 1970s when our government still tried to force native Americans to integrate and tried to wipe native American culture. Because those things serve as hateful reminders to the Native Americans whose ancestors were wiped out.

Are you a native American?
If so, then you're no doubt doing your part to command restitution, including campaigns to remove Old Hickory off the $20 dollar bill, which I support, by the way. You're no doubt doing all you can to get your lands secured, which I also support, and so do the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Washington and even California.
You're of course doing whatever you can to support native American owned industries, like casinos and resorts to accrue revenues for your fellow tribe members, which I also support.

If you're not, then you're just a white man pretending to give a crap about the Indians in order to make a debate point.
Are these so called "new" Confederates doing anything to support black efforts to correct historical misdeeds?
Are there any statues of the founders sitting on tribal lands as they stand today?

PS: I said that Confederates should not be allowed to take tax money from everyone else to pay the upkeep and preservation of those monuments.
Native American tribes do not pay federal taxes, thus they are not forced to pay the upkeep on American founder monuments.

Do Native Americans pay taxes?

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Where is the Confederate monument "commemorating slavery"?

Every single monument honoring Confederate war heroes.
I don't say they have to come down, but Americans who are not Confederate sympathizers should not be forced to pay the costs of their construction, preservation or upkeep, nor the cost of the lands they sit on.

 

[maxparrish]

You missed the point of my post. There are many commemorative markers to not only honor the Southern soldiers, but many more acknowledging the Souths terrible history enslaving Africans. I believe those are much more fitting to recognize the error the Confederate soldiers died for. And yes, Lee fought for a regime hell bent on keeping slavery legel. You can claim its erasing history, BS. How about in place of Lees statues a memorial to all those Africans who died on the slave ships coming over to N America.

Unlike Germany which faces up to its past, the South still glorifies an Army which was fighting for an immoral cause. By 1860 the South was one of the few areas left in the world to allow slavery. It was well on its way out, but of course the Souths economy RELIED on slaves to prop up its economy. Often dollors over rule what is morally correct.

Rest assured, I got your point, but it seems you ignored or didn't get mine - there is no point in 2018 in refighting the 19th century as if it were the present. And when, after generations of gathering moss and bird **** in some town park, the latest generation of "tutored" invent conflict with a long dead cause over a statue - well, comparison to the Taliban is inevitable.

Robert E. Lee is not "honored" as a slave advocate, his likeness has been venerated as the greatest southern (and US) commander in history and one of the most important Virginians; there is no more reason to wipe out that park statue than it was for ISIS or the Taliban to destroy reminders of their past.

While one might have made a case to stop statues of Southern war hero's in 1868 (reconstruction), the North and South made their peace. The healing process took decades, but Southerners are greater flag waving Americans than most of their historic American enemies. Your crusade is 150 years too late.
1

 

[maxparrish]

Supporting the Confederacy and white supremacy---as these monuments do---is the exact opposite of American nationalism or patriotism.

And given that, even so, they are more patriotic and loyal than other regions. Regardless of what you think a statue says, the issue of outrage at being traitors is little contemporary relevancy.

 

[OldFatGuy]

I can recognize the examples....but not the conclusion about morality. Your convoluted way of trying to make it morally ambiguous on the issue of slavery isnt valid IMO at all.

There's the failure of understanding. I am not making morality or slavery therein anything. It was what it was, it is what it is. I don't call the shots.

 

[OldFatGuy]

Comparing unlawful immigrants to slaves is nonsense. The immigrants made a choice, and for many of them that live here there is greater opportunity for their kids if not themselves. They aren't beaten or lynched or raped with impunity by their owners, their kids aren't seized and sold from them.

And those who speak with "pity" for unlawful immigrants are in fact attempting in some way to write the wrong of their fate, which is to sometimes be exploited labor who cannot speak out for fear of deportation. Providing them a path to legalization is to improve that condition, not sustain it.

Is it so? Is one form of subjugation better or more moral than another?

The only fair path to legitimization is the end of borders. Idealistic, and it won't happen in either of our lifetimes, if ever while mankind exists.

In Africa, parts of Asia, parts of the subcontinent, SE Asia, even parts of Europe, that vision of slavery you have still exists, and it exists here in the US. Take off those blinders.

 

[OldFatGuy]

So, basically, there are still wrongs in this world so it's legitimate to celebrate other wrongs, such as slavery. Using this boneheaded logic, no one can criticize any wrong until all wrongs in this world, in this country, are eradicated. Furthermore, you're equating the conditions of someone in slavery with the undocumented.

Alternatively, you're taking a position that to criticize one wrong means to in the same breath list and acknowledge all others. Silence on those subjects means to at least accept them as inevitable, or perhaps necessary.

I have a feeling the undocumented who paints your house, goes home to a wife and kids, and whose family isn't seized, separated and sold to another painting company 1,000 miles away would disagree. His wife who isn't raped with impunity would disagree, the kids who aren't whipped bloody would recognize a fundamental difference between being a slave and arguably exploited labor. And the key to the undocumented is they made a choice - slaves had no choice, no opportunity to improve their lot, their kids doomed to the same fate as the parents, for all time.

Why do you have a need to argue that a fantasy you create, celebration and joy that was never argued by anyone else.

Slaves always have choices, run, die, subjugations. Whatever. That fine line you draw between exploited labor and the slave is nonexistent.

 

[OldFatGuy]

We all know when and why these monuments were put up, and the vast majority were erected by white supremacists to celebrate white supremacy in the post Civil War period of Jim Crow in the South. They were monuments to the continued suppression of blacks, the state-enforced second class citizenship of them in the South at that time.

There's a good argument for keeping the monuments, at least some of them, somewhere, but no one is arguing for them all to be destroyed, just not left up in the 'town square.' Put them in context, in a confederate battlefield or museum. That's how the "truth" is taught to children. Besides, every generation has the opportunity to celebrate their own heroes with monuments. Just because some white supremacists in 1919 decided to erect a monument to a confederate hero doesn't obligate all future generations to maintain that monument in a place of honor. And doing so does not as you suggest teach anyone about any "truth."

We have discussions on here all the time that are full of Lost Cause bull****. The truth isn't getting conveyed in any kind of meaningful way for a huge chunk of the population, and part of it is the continued celebration of guys like the leaders of Confederacy as fighters for a righteous cause, states' rights, freedom, and not the slavery they told us was the reason they seceded, or the century of Jim Crow that followed.

There's an excuse, white man's guilt for buying slaves from arab and african slavers. :rofl

Yes you are more moral than all others and you are the decider. :rofl

In a prime spot in Central Park, there's a statue of Christopher Columbus, discoverer of the new world, slaver, thief, soldier of fortune, murderer, and so on, noticed other than on a day dedicated to him, only by pigeons in their usual manner. He was a hero.

 

[Hawkeye10]

There's the failure of understanding. I am not making morality or slavery therein anything. It was what it was, it is what it is. I don't call the shots.

This happens all the time now and it did not before.....when someone explains reality the listeners increasing assume that the explainer agrees with what happened...with what is.

I have not figured this out exactly, how we went so wrong, but I sense that this is important.

The demand now is that you start "This was wrong but...".

 

[maxparrish]

You have to determine the use of words in the era they are being used in. You may be right about your interpretation of what Nationalism meant 100 years ago, but today the word has a whole new meaning when used in this country and you must know that. The word nationalism in this country at this time is closely related to white national groups. It is the same as the words like "states rights" were used to mean segregation in the 1960's through even today in parts of the country.

One of the difficulties in contesting contemporary issues is that I have lived and studied long enough to have engaged some of these debates in the 1960s (and did plenty of reading about those debates in the 1950s). It's not that the meaning of word's have changed, it is that too many people (especially the young) mouth superficial judgements in ignorance - judgements that change according to the latest twists in intergenerational party lines.

The recent notice of a small number of demonstrative white nationalists engendered their elevation into major national hobgoblins - melodramatized enemies and raw meat for the anti-racist cliché mongers. As such, suddenly nationalism was purely a bad thing.

Intellectual nuance or consistency is not a strong point of the street left, so the unalloyed demonization of a term that sounded like national socialism was convenient. However, it was also clearly hypocritical to those of us informed about the history of nationalism.

Nationalism was, in many (but not all) contexts, considered a good thing. Both Latin American and African Nationalism were treated as positive developments, forces for good in ending colonial rule. "Nationalism" was one of the major political developments of the 19th and 20th centuries, a subject of copious literature.

I don't expect the street left, or the MSM, to care - I expect them to manipulate the narrative through ignorance and pot-banging. But there is no doubt there is hypocrisy in supporting nationalism for me but not for thee.

 

[ecofarm]

I don't expect the street left, or the MSM, to care - I expect them to manipulate the narrative through ignorance and pot-banging. But there is no doubt there is hypocrisy in supporting nationalism for me but not for thee.

Yesterday you claimed the UN supported nationalism. That's completely full of ****. You just make crap up to glorify nationalism and then cry conspiracy when called out. You're ignorantly cheerleading nationalism.

"Those of us informed about the history of nationalism". Haha. Your garbage about the UN is pure nazi propaganda. Informed, yea, by Stormfront maybe.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Rest assured, I got your point, but it seems you ignored or didn't get mine - there is no point in 2018 in refighting the 19th century as if it were the present. And when, after generations of gathering moss and bird **** in some town park, the latest generation of "tutored" invent conflict with a long dead cause over a statue - well, comparison to the Taliban is inevitable.

Robert E. Lee is not "honored" as a slave advocate, his likeness has been venerated as the greatest southern (and US) commander in history and one of the most important Virginians; there is no more reason to wipe out that park statue than it was for ISIS or the Taliban to destroy reminders of their past.

While one might have made a case to stop statues of Southern war hero's in 1868 (reconstruction), the North and South made their peace. The healing process took decades, but Southerners are greater flag waving Americans than most of their historic American enemies. Your crusade is 150 years too late.
1

I take exception to the notion that Southerners are "greater flag waving Americans" as long as they continue to wave that "other flag" alongside it, and I take exception to the entire notion altogether as well. It's a bit of an old chestnut that has gathered more moss and bird crap than the statues.

The very fact that these people consider it honorable to hoist that traitor flag alongside the Stars and Stripes is what cancels out that notion, but they not only tell themselves that they are "great flag waving patriots", they often go to great lengths to attack, denigrate and question the patriotism of ALL OTHERS in the same breath.

This revanchist nonsense fails on all levels except in their own self aggrandized white trash circle jerks, in which they tell each other secretly that "The South will rise again", a continuing homage to their "Lost Cause".

And Robert E. Lee's ghost sits in mute protest over it all.

When surveyed, 62 percent of respondents agreed that such monuments ought to remain in place as “historical symbols.”
Okay then, but I do not feel that taxpayers should be compelled to contribute funds to their upkeep and preservation, particularly if those taxpayers are (A) not sympathizers with the traitorous Confederate Lost Cause or (B) persons of color, who are quite understandably, deeply affected by the events and politics of that very war itself.

Let the people who side with their Lost Cause pay for those monuments, or not as they so choose.

 

[JasperL]

Is it so? Is one form of subjugation better or more moral than another?

Accepting the premise that undocumented workers are being "subjugated" of course there are qualitative differences between forms of subjugation. Working for low wages but not having your kids ripped from your house and sold off 1,000 miles away is better than having them sold to the highest bidder and never seeing them again. Making a choice to be a prostitute is better than being a victim of human trafficking where the decision to not be a prostitute might get you murdered.

The only fair path to legitimization is the end of borders. Idealistic, and it won't happen in either of our lifetimes, if ever while mankind exists.

But given borders, not all choices of what to do with undocumented immigrants are morally equivalent.

In Africa, parts of Asia, parts of the subcontinent, SE Asia, even parts of Europe, that vision of slavery you have still exists, and it exists here in the US. Take off those blinders.

So what? If a wrong isn't obliterated from the earth it's not a wrong?

 

[JasperL]

Why do you have a need to argue that a fantasy you create, celebration and joy that was never argued by anyone else.

Slaves always have choices, run, die, subjugations. Whatever. That fine line you draw between exploited labor and the slave is nonexistent.

It's not even a fine line. Immigrants came here because they chose to, because the life here is better for them at their former home. It's just the most muddled thinking I've seen in a long time to claim that there is no difference.

My gosh, an illegal who comes here and has children has just given their children an amazing gift of citizenship in this country. A slave gave birth to a slave. Are you really suggesting that to a parent those are morally equivalent outcomes?

 

[JasperL]

There's an excuse, white man's guilt for buying slaves from arab and african slavers. :rofl

Yes you are more moral than all others and you are the decider. :rofl

In a prime spot in Central Park, there's a statue of Christopher Columbus, discoverer of the new world, slaver, thief, soldier of fortune, murderer, and so on, noticed other than on a day dedicated to him, only by pigeons in their usual manner. He was a hero.

That's just drivel in place of anything resembling a coherent thought.

And if you want to call Columbus a hero, that's fine, so long as we also recognize he encountered a peaceful people, the men in his command then proceeded to rape, brutally murder, and subjugate an entire island and effectively wipe a population off the face of the earth.

But he did said a ship a pretty long way one time, so "hero" it is I guess. :roll:

But back to the monuments - under what theory are future generations obligated to keep monuments in places of honor that were erected generations previously? Once up, never removed? What's this principle you're defending?

 

[marke]

It is simple, they are memorials to the people who committed treason. People say they are part of our heritage, and if that is true then you are saying that committing treason is not only okay, but we should honor the people who knowingly committed treason. And we should do this by building statues to them and putting them in our parks and along side our roads to remind us of those who committed treason. Many of the leaders of the armies of the south had sworn an oath to the United States and yet they broke that oath and committed treason. So you can go on telling yourself that those statues are part of our heritage and I will go on knowing that they are part of a history of treason against our country.

We are not building statues to them but Americans in the past did and Americans in the past did not have a problem discerning between historical figures of the past and modern policies. That was true only a few short years ago. The modern democrat in America has become entrapped into modern foolishness that equates allowing old statues to stand as somehow requiring modern support of slavery. That is nonsense.

Do they advocate destroying statues of British figures in England who fought against the US in the Revolutionary war? No, because historical figures do not define present views.

 

[Grokmaster]

That's just drivel in place of anything resembling a coherent thought.

And if you want to call Columbus a hero, that's fine, so long as we also recognize he encountered a peaceful people, the men in his command then proceeded to rape, brutally murder, and subjugate an entire island and effectively wipe a population off the face of the earth.

But he did said a ship a pretty long way one time, so "hero" it is I guess. :roll:

But back to the monuments - under what theory are future generations obligated to keep monuments in places of honor that were erected generations previously? Once up, never removed? What's this principle you're defending?

The American Indians were more brutal to each other, than the white man ever was, practicing,, among other things, CANNABALISM...before we ever got here.

This was not a "peaceful Utopia" as oyu apparently delude, before Europeans arrived.

 

[independentusa]

One of the difficulties in contesting contemporary issues is that I have lived and studied long enough to have engaged some of these debates in the 1960s (and did plenty of reading about those debates in the 1950s). It's not that the meaning of word's have changed, it is that too many people (especially the young) mouth superficial judgements in ignorance - judgements that change according to the latest twists in intergenerational party lines.

The recent notice of a small number of demonstrative white nationalists engendered their elevation into major national hobgoblins - melodramatized enemies and raw meat for the anti-racist cliché mongers. As such, suddenly nationalism was purely a bad thing.

Intellectual nuance or consistency is not a strong point of the street left, so the unalloyed demonization of a term that sounded like national socialism was convenient. However, it was also clearly hypocritical to those of us informed about the history of nationalism.

Nationalism was, in many (but not all) contexts, considered a good thing. Both Latin American and African Nationalism were treated as positive developments, forces for good in ending colonial rule. "Nationalism" was one of the major political developments of the 19th and 20th centuries, a subject of copious literature.

I don't expect the street left, or the MSM, to care - I expect them to manipulate the narrative through ignorance and pot-banging. But there is no doubt there is hypocrisy in supporting nationalism for me but not for thee.

Actually I lived in the South and had to go to a segregated school. so I know how people thought in the South at that time. And the meaning of termms change over time and I can tell you that now the word nationalism has the same meaning as states right did in the 60's.

 

[calamity]

We are not building statues to them but Americans in the past did and Americans in the past did not have a problem discerning between historical figures of the past and modern policies. That was true only a few short years ago. The modern democrat in America has become entrapped into modern foolishness that equates allowing old statues to stand as somehow requiring modern support of slavery. That is nonsense.

Do they advocate destroying statues of British figures in England who fought against the US in the Revolutionary war? No, because historical figures do not define present views.

Statues of English people in England have nothing to do with statues of rebellious slave owners in Virginia. :roll:

 

[independentusa]

The American Indians were more brutal to each other, than the white man ever was, practicing,, among other things, CANNABALISM...before we ever got here.

This was not a "peaceful Utopia" as oyu apparently delude, before Europeans arrived.

Link to the cannabalism please. The native Americans , like nations today, were territorial. They fought to retain and to expand their territories.

 

[JasperL]

The American Indians were more brutal to each other, than the white man ever was, practicing,, among other things, CANNABALISM...before we ever got here.

This was not a "peaceful Utopia" as oyu apparently delude, before Europeans arrived.

Cannabilism. Good stuff.

 

[distraff]

It is simple, they are memorials to the people who committed treason. People say they are part of our heritage, and if that is true then you are saying that committing treason is not only okay, but we should honor the people who knowingly committed treason. And we should do this by building statues to them and putting them in our parks and along side our roads to remind us of those who committed treason. Many of the leaders of the armies of the south had sworn an oath to the United States and yet they broke that oath and committed treason. So you can go on telling yourself that those statues are part of our heritage and I will go on knowing that they are part of a history of treason against our country.

Personally, I don't have much reason to have them up, so if some people understandably want them replaced with better monuments, then I am totally fine with it.

 

[apdst]

It is simple, they are memorials to the people who committed treason. People say they are part of our heritage, and if that is true then you are saying that committing treason is not only okay, but we should honor the people who knowingly committed treason. And we should do this by building statues to them and putting them in our parks and along side our roads to remind us of those who committed treason. Many of the leaders of the armies of the south had sworn an oath to the United States and yet they broke that oath and committed treason. So you can go on telling yourself that those statues are part of our heritage and I will go on knowing that they are part of a history of treason against our country.

Be honest: you hate Southerners and want to piss them off.

Tearing the monuments down is motivated by spite and is being used to prove political superiority.

 

[Tigerace117]

And given that, even so, they are more patriotic and loyal than other regions. Regardless of what you think a statue says, the issue of outrage at being traitors is little contemporary relevancy.

They are “loyal” to a fantasy; America as it was in the 1850s, or in the Jim Crow days. Celebrating treason and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans does not make you a “patriot” either.

Case in point? The Jade Helm hysteria.