What do I find wrong with Confederate Monuments?

[MrShangles]

Confederates should be told to purchase the plots that the statues and monuments are located on and pay for their upkeep themselves.
Instead, taxpayers, even people of color, are being forced to pay for them.
That's my objection.

If I was a person of color living in a Confederate state and I had to walk by statues commemorating people who likely helped sell my ancestors on an auction block, it would be bad enough just seeing them every day, but at least if their admirers had to pay the upkeep I could tell myself it's their own business who they celebrate.

The fact that even one penny of my hard earned money has to go to keeping them maintained and in good repair would stick in my craw.
If their admirers don't want to pay the upkeep, then the statues should be left to rust, rot and crumble with the help of nature.
No one else should be required to contribute a single penny.
In fact, refunds should be handed out for all the money taken over the last decades.

You’re saying no Northerners sold slaves, no africans,? The only people to sale slaves was the confederates?
If you have to walk by a statue you don’t like then go around another way!


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[JasperL]

It’s not Treason because both sides were fighting for what they wanted, the south lost so we are all Americans.
If I have different views then you and I support different heroes than you doesn’t give you the right to take down my hero, no-one is taking down you’re hero’s statue

That's right - having different opinions about heroes does not give one group the right to tear down memorials. But there is also no 'right' for your heroes to be honored for all time in the public square. Communities should have the prerogative to honor their own generations heroes, and that will change over time. It's a natural evolution - one's generation gives way to the next.

Let's take an actual example. White supremacists erected a statue to N.B. Forrest, a key figure in the early KKK, in Memphis. It now sits in a majority black neighborhood and for very good reasons the community doesn't exactly want to honor Forrest.

What right do YOU have to tell those people they must, for all time, keep looking at a monument to a man who does not inspire them in any way, a man who got wealthy as a slave trader who fought first to keep their ancestors enslaved then to ensure that despite their 'freedom' they would be for another century deprived of basic civil rights we now take for granted? Why don't they have the prerogative afforded white supremacists around the turn of the 20th century to erect monuments to their own heroes?

 

[JasperL]

You’re saying no Northerners sold slaves, no africans,? The only people to sale slaves was the confederates?
If you have to walk by a statue you don’t like then go around another way!

The other option if a community so desires is to remove the monument, relocate it to a museum or Confederate cemetery perhaps, and erect a monument to someone they don't have to walk around, to someone they're proud to honor in their community in 2018.

 

[JasperL]

You are free to take exception to any persons demonstrated patriotism and American flag waving for any reason - including because they eat French fries or the fly British flags in front of their local pub. However, for those of us not interested in disinterring hate of a 150 year old battle flag and turning it into a cause for a loathing of our southern people while wailing about a love of country - well, it resonates as nothing but your self-generated bigotry against the identity of the people of the south.

If you want to talk about the Confederate flag, you have to at least honestly acknowledge it's RECENT history which was the banner under which opponents of civil rights for blacks rallied in my lifetime, in the 1950s and 1960s, and that it's still, in 2018, a banner of self identified racists of all stripes.

Yes, I live in Tennessee so I'm aware that not everyone who flies the "Confederate" flag is a racist, but the problem is that flag is a banner embraced by racists and white supremacists. So if I hoist that flag outside my house, I damn well better account for that because someone driving by will have no way to judge my intentions. Flying that flag is what a white supremacist would do, so how do I indicate to my black neighbors or others driving by that I mean something else? Who knows? That's why you'll never see it on my car, my house, or on clothing or anything else I might wear outside some theoretical Civil War reenactment ceremony or something.

And the problem with the "identity" of the South - this appreciation of our shared history in this region - is that for all that I might love about the "old south," it was also an era of state sponsored white supremacy that systematically and at the end of the guns of the state stripped blacks of basic civil rights. So when people fly the flag - heritage, NOT HATE - what heritage are they really talking about? The heritage of only white people voting, holding office, going to decent schools, sitting on juries, able to rely on the justice system to punish wrongdoing? That's a real and significant part of our southern heritage. I don't choose to honor it and it's not clear how to honor what we might as white people love about that 'southern heritage' while pretending the Jim Crow era didn't happen and wasn't an integral part of that era.

What I find most curious is that others who share your view are also those who whine endlessly about the value of diversity and multi-culturalism, seeing flag waving of our former enemies flag (Mexico) in demonstrations (or on doorsteps) to be a harmless expression of diversity - harmless even when nary an American flag is in sight to such demonstrated loyalty to a current foreign power. Nor are they bothered by seeing the former flags of Great Britain, Italy, or Japan - all countries who warred against Americans before coming to terms. Ahhh, but let the southern American show their regional identity - why that is soooooo offfensivvvve, is it not?

It's offensive because of the RECENT history and current embrace of the Confederate flag as the banner of white supremacists. It's a problem when you share an affection for the Confederate flag with a guy like Dylan Roof.

Only to you...not to those who sees them as separate symbols of national and regional identity. They are no more responsible for your self-created loathing of a region than another's animosity to Great Britain, or a British citizens animosity to the American flag because Americans who were traitors in 1776. So if you choose to get emotional over centuries old history - that's on you.

Again, it's not centuries old history.

Well then, let's make all commerative monuments as only fundable through donations. After all, someone shouldn't be made to fund any public expression they object to (including parades and those expressions on government sponsored NPR).

Finally thanks for supporting a prior point I made in a previous post - a case can be made against such monuments in the aftermath of the civil war, in 1868. However, ALL those reasons are moot in 2018, so its pretty darn stupid to try and make an issue out of it.

It's almost funny how you refuse to acknowledge a history that didn't end officially until the mid 1960s, and that certainly lasted well beyond the passing of the CRA that finally extended basic civil rights to blacks in the South.

 

[Tigerace117]

BS! The voice of ignorance rings forth.

Coming from the guy who literally invented a fantasy about hundreds of GIs getting killed by German “hand grenades and pistols” after the surrender to justify atrocities committed by your relatives.....you don’t have room to talk.

Do you have any actual evidence this time, or are you just going to double down on your usual shtick of babbling nonsense in as authoritative a tone as you can and hoping no one will call you out on it?

 

[Tigerace117]

It’s not Treason because both sides were fighting for what they wanted, the south lost so we are all Americans.
If I have different views then you and I support different heroes than you doesn’t give you the right to take down my hero, no-one is taking down you’re hero’s statue


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Hate to break it to you bud but you hero worshipping traitorous thugs who murdered hundreds of thousands of American soldiers and sailors doesn’t lend your claims any validity.

Are you serious? “It’s not treason because both sides were fighting for what they wanted”

What a colossally stupid claim. A person wanting something does not give them the right to commit treason, betray their country and murder American soldiers and sailors.

 

[Tigerace117]

...and THAT is your opinion.
Which is what I accurately indicated.
No Confederate soldiers were ever charged with treason.

If you want to refight the first civil war, knock yourself out.

The next one will not be about Yankees and Rebs and will cross all state lines.
It will be a war of ideology.
Which would be even dumber than the first one.

Yankees back then could shoot and shoot well.
The liberals on this next one only know about one kind of trigger.

Funnily enough, Lost Causers today still aren’t able to accept that. If I had a dollar for every time I heard the excuse that “you Yankees just had more guys, that’s all” I’d be richer than Crassus.

The simple fact is that the North was laughably easy on the defeated south, and all it led to was terrorism and Jim Crow’s reign of tyranny.

 

[JasperL]

BS! The voice of ignorance rings forth.

No doubt there were two main reasons for most of the monuments, erected post civil war through the 1920s - 1) Lost Cause nonsense, and 2) to celebrate white supremacy. Why else would a historical nobody like Jefferson Davis, outside his role in the CSA, be one of the most 'popular' monuments in the South.

The best example of that was the Battle of Liberty Place Monument, recently taken down in New Orleans. It celebrated a violent uprising that wrested control of the city from duly elected republicans and blacks. Here's the original inscription:

[Democrats] McEnery and Penn[19] having been elected governor and lieutenant-governor by the white people, were duly installed by this overthrow of carpetbag government, ousting the usurpers, Governor Kellogg (white) and Lieutenant-Governor Antoine (colored).

United States troops took over the state government and reinstated the usurpers but the national election of November 1876 recognized white supremacy in the South and gave us our state.

 

[OldFatGuy]

But what you're telling me is your grandfather had it no better than a slave. Except he did because his choice to come here not only improved his life (he obtained safety and food presumably unavailable to him in his home country) but that of his descendants, which is at least as important to many parents as their own well being, often far more important, obviously.

But if he was a slave, you'd be a slave. That you're successful is all the evidence needed to support my point nicely. So thanks.

My grandfather was an escaped Russian serf who had been conscripted at age 12 because he could ride a horse, meaning he would be a cavalryman for the tsar for 20 years or longer. A slave. You have no idea what that meant as much as you blather and play your meaningless games.

 

[OldFatGuy]

Right, tell us again how your grandfather was no better than a slave, and also how the children born here as CITIZENS to legal or illegal immigrants are also no better than slaves born, then sold as children 1,000 miles from their families. That's one helluva compelling narrative.

You understand nothing of what you read. All you have is personification for the sake of ad hominem attacks. Worthless.

 

[OldFatGuy]

Coming from the guy who literally invented a fantasy about hundreds of GIs getting killed by German “hand grenades and pistols” after the surrender to justify atrocities committed by your relatives.....you don’t have room to talk.

Do you have any actual evidence this time, or are you just going to double down on your usual shtick of babbling nonsense in as authoritative a tone as you can and hoping no one will call you out on it?

You are leaking the same old out of both orifices as usual.

 

[OldFatGuy]

No doubt there were two main reasons for most of the monuments, erected post civil war through the 1920s - 1) Lost Cause nonsense, and 2) to celebrate white supremacy. Why else would a historical nobody like Jefferson Davis, outside his role in the CSA, be one of the most 'popular' monuments in the South.

The best example of that was the Battle of Liberty Place Monument, recently taken down in New Orleans. It celebrated a violent uprising that wrested control of the city from duly elected republicans and blacks. Here's the original inscription:

No one cares about your theories.

 

[JasperL]

My grandfather was an escaped Russian serf who had been conscripted at age 12 because he could ride a horse, meaning he would be a cavalryman for the tsar for 20 years or longer. A slave. You have no idea what that meant as much as you blather and play your meaningless games.

How does his story prove the point immigrants to the U.S. in 2018 are no better off than slaves in the pre-civil war era? He was an immigrant, and gave his descendants the gift of citizenship in this country. Slaves in this country had kids who were also slaves, and their kids were slaves, because that's how chattel slavery worked.

 

[JasperL]

You understand nothing of what you read. All you have is personification for the sake of ad hominem attacks. Worthless.

It's you who is just throwing out insults. I'm pointing out your narrative is BS and explaining why. That all you can do is throw out more insults instead of address my points is your problem not mine.

 

[JasperL]

No one cares about your theories.

I'm shocked. Insults but cannot address the point. So tell us why they went up?

 

[Tigerace117]

You are leaking the same old out of both orifices as usual.

I see you, as usual, have exactly zero proof to back up your claims and are shrieking insults in a desperate attempt to compensate.

Sorry bud, your attempts are laughably pathetic. Maybe when you learn how not to be a pathological liar people will take you seriously.

 

[OldFatGuy]

I see you, as usual, have exactly zero proof to back up your claims and are shrieking insults in a desperate attempt to compensate.

Sorry bud, your attempts are laughably pathetic. Maybe when you learn how not to be a pathological liar people will take you seriously.

Boring bait. No fish are biting.

 

[maxparrish]

... you have to at least honestly acknowledge it's RECENT history which was the banner under which opponents of civil rights for blacks rallied in my lifetime, in the 1950s and 1960s, and that it's still, in 2018, a banner of self identified racists of all stripes.

... So if I hoist that flag outside my house, I damn well better account for that because someone driving by will have no way to judge my intentions. ...how do I indicate to my black neighbors or others driving by that I mean something else?

...is that for all that I might love about the "old south," it was also an era of state sponsored white supremacy that systematically and at the end of the guns of the state stripped blacks of basic civil rights. So when people fly the flag - heritage, NOT HATE - what heritage are they really talking about?

It's offensive because of the RECENT history and current embrace of the Confederate flag as the banner of white supremacists. It's a problem when you share an affection for the Confederate flag with a guy like Dylan Roof.

The meaning of symbols is a human perception of the abstract, a subjective response. For those who use a symbol to communicate something, to some audience, there is an intended perception and purpose - for those who view it they may or may not see or feel the same perception or see the same intended purpose.

Meanings (and offense) can be intentionally taught or shared, evolve through time, and can vary in context. The battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia (the St. Andrews Cross) was a soldiers flag, not the confederate national flag - it had one meaning. It was a rallying symbol of the army whose use spread, then carrying a broader meaning, and then its motif was incorporated into various Southern states in their State flags...yet again for other meaningful purposes.

The most prevalent meaning, throughout its history, has been of one of regional southern identity - a pride in one's origins and roots. It grew into, as do most regional flags, an America flag of Americans - just as the flag California Bear Republic and the Republic of Texas became "American" a part of our American flags. It was used in various civic contexts, most of which were that of pride of identity...including its use by American soldiers in all of its wars.

Unfortunately, for the once powerful historic KKK and racial segregationists, it was also a symbol of unity to convey a political message - that pride of the south required a belief in their odious views.

So there are only two choices of contemporary meaning: there are those who want it to have a dominate white supremist meaning (which includes the so-called SJW crowd) or those who wish to keep its broad pride of place meaning...that of an ancestry held in reverence. And given those binary choices, it is not a surprise that those who wish to be their symbol of racial supremacy and those who wish to turn it into an object of anti-racist loathing have mutually complimentary agendas.

For me the choice is easy. If what was sufficiently innocuous to have been an innocent and amusing southern pride motif in, say, the 1980s Dukes of Hazzard (20 years after the civil rights movement) and is then "rediscovered" and resurrected in 2018 to be a newly profane object to spit on, I think their motives to be dishonest - in fact, I think it obvious. These more recent motives have nothing to do with the really serious racism of 75 years ago (that of segregation in education, housing, transportation, etc.), it has to do with the fact that with the major battles won, the most recent two generations have been shaped into crusading 'anti-racists' in search of moral validation - a left culture's self-ginned rage who can only find an American flag to fight over (and to bash southerners with).

I don't fly a confederate flag for two reasons: a) I am not a southerner, although I have lived in a border state and appreciated its people. b) even if I were a southerner, I live among Californians, easily one of the most brain-washed and intolerant people on the planet. There is no reason to invite a brick through my front window or vandalization of my car.

None-the-less, I am not one to allow the political agendas of either white supremist or their bedfellow anti-racist crusaders dictate my meaning, or the current reality. Nor should you.

 

[Lethargic Aptitude]

George Washington and every other Founding Father COMMITTED TREASON....and?

The South was trying to exercise its RIGHT to leave the union when it so desired.

They lost get over it.

 

[Lethargic Aptitude]

The meaning of symbols is a human perception of the abstract, a subjective response. For those who use a symbol to communicate something, to some audience, there is an intended perception and purpose - for those who view it they may or may not see or feel the same perception or see the same intended purpose.

Meanings (and offense) can be intentionally taught or shared, evolve through time, and can vary in context. The battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia (the St. Andrews Cross) was a soldiers flag, not the confederate national flag - it had one meaning. It was a rallying symbol of the army whose use spread, then carrying a broader meaning, and then its motif was incorporated into various Southern states in their State flags...yet again for other meaningful purposes.

The most prevalent meaning, throughout its history, has been of one of regional southern identity - a pride in one's origins and roots. It grew into, as do most regional flags, an America flag of Americans - just as the flag California Bear Republic and the Republic of Texas became "American" a part of our American flags. It was used in various civic contexts, most of which were that of pride of identity...including its use by American soldiers in all of its wars.

Unfortunately, for the once powerful historic KKK and racial segregationists, it was also a symbol of unity to convey a political message - that pride of the south required a belief in their odious views.

So there are only two choices of contemporary meaning: there are those who want it to have a dominate white supremist meaning (which includes the so-called SJW crowd) or those who wish to keep its broad pride of place meaning...that of an ancestry held in reverence. And given those binary choices, it is not a surprise that those who wish to be their symbol of racial supremacy and those who wish to turn it into an object of anti-racist loathing have mutually complimentary agendas.

For me the choice is easy. If what was sufficiently innocuous to have been an innocent and amusing southern pride motif in, say, the 1980s Dukes of Hazzard (20 years after the civil rights movement) and is then "rediscovered" and resurrected in 2018 to be a newly profane object to spit on, I think their motives to be dishonest - in fact, I think it obvious. These more recent motives have nothing to do with the really serious racism of 75 years ago (that of segregation in education, housing, transportation, etc.), it has to do with the fact that with the major battles won, the most recent two generations have been shaped into crusading 'anti-racists' in search of moral validation - a left culture's self-ginned rage who can only find an American flag to fight over (and to bash southerners with).

I don't fly a confederate flag for two reasons: a) I am not a southerner, although I have lived in a border state and appreciated its people. b) even if I were a southerner, I live among Californians, easily one of the most brain-washed and intolerant people on the planet. There is no reason to invite a brick through my front window or vandalization of my car.

None-the-less, I am not one to allow the political agendas of either white supremist or their bedfellow anti-racist crusaders dictate my meaning, or the current reality. Nor should you.

You rarely if ever see anyone display the Confederate Battle flag, the flag that you commonly see is the Confederate Navy Jack. The battle flag was square while the Navy Jack was rectangular it a normal flag.

 

[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.

Modern lefties still want to fight descendants of Confederates as though remembering or honoring anything about their ancestors is somehow evil. That is not right. I allow people to honor Nat Turner, for example, not because I approve of his murder but because he was a historical figure which represented a hero to some Americans, even until today. Let people honor their fallen dead. That should not be a problem.

 

[MrShangles]

Hate to break it to you bud but you hero worshipping traitorous thugs who murdered hundreds of thousands of American soldiers and sailors doesn’t lend your claims any validity.

Are you serious? “It’s not treason because both sides were fighting for what they wanted”

What a colossally stupid claim. A person wanting something does not give them the right to commit treason, betray their country and murder American soldiers and sailors.

Dude you get around on this forum and you’re always dividing and hateful, can’t we just agree some things we have different opinions on, but we are Americans.
Neither one of us lived back during that war so we don’t really know what happened, heck schools now don’t even teach history. But you seam to think you’re an expert on every subject but I’m sorry to say you’re not, but you are fun to poke at!


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[JasperL]

The most prevalent meaning, throughout its history, has been of one of regional southern identity - a pride in one's origins and roots. It grew into, as do most regional flags, an America flag of Americans - just as the flag California Bear Republic and the Republic of Texas became "American" a part of our American flags. It was used in various civic contexts, most of which were that of pride of identity...including its use by American soldiers in all of its wars.

Unfortunately, for the once powerful historic KKK and racial segregationists, it was also a symbol of unity to convey a political message - that pride of the south required a belief in their odious views.

Let's be clear here - by racial segregationists, you're referring to roughly everyone who wielded power in the South, from the mayor to governors, Senators, House members in Congress, sheriffs, judges. The odious views, as you call them, were also the law of the land, the will of a clear majority of whites throughout the South.

So there are only two choices of contemporary meaning: there are those who want it to have a dominate white supremist meaning (which includes the so-called SJW crowd) or those who wish to keep its broad pride of place meaning...that of an ancestry held in reverence. And given those binary choices, it is not a surprise that those who wish to be their symbol of racial supremacy and those who wish to turn it into an object of anti-racist loathing have mutually complimentary agendas.

Again, for me to hold my "southern" ancestry in reverence requires me to first acknowledge the white supremacy that was a core of this region from the founding through the 1960s, and 'revere' everything but that core part of this region's history. How do I do that?

For me the choice is easy. If what was sufficiently innocuous to have been an innocent and amusing southern pride motif in, say, the 1980s Dukes of Hazzard (20 years after the civil rights movement) and is then "rediscovered" and resurrected in 2018 to be a newly profane object to spit on, I think their motives to be dishonest - in fact, I think it obvious. These more recent motives....

I'll stop you there because you're calling people dishonest, while I'll assume you're merely ignorant about the history of the flag

Look at the timeline for the controversy over the SC State House confederate flag. It went up on the SC Capitol in 1962 in the middle of the civil rights struggles, and only liars pretend it wasn't to indicate solidarity for the cause of white supremacy being bitterly contested in the region. From beginning it was controversial, and from the 1990s on it rarely died as a political issue through 2015, and it took Dylan Roof to get it done. It was a subject during the presidential campaign in 2000.

GA incorporated the Confederate flag into their state flag in 1956, again to indicate solidarity with white supremacy. The fights to strip the Confederate flag lasted through 2001, and of course the backers of the flag lied about why it was incorporated into the GA flag in the first place, which is a common pattern with defenders of the Confederate flag.

I don't fly a confederate flag for two reasons: a) I am not a southerner, although I have lived in a border state and appreciated its people. b) even if I were a southerner, I live among Californians, easily one of the most brain-washed and intolerant people on the planet. There is no reason to invite a brick through my front window or vandalization of my car.

It's probably best because you either don't know the flag's history or are misrepresenting it, while calling others "brainwashed."

None-the-less, I am not one to allow the political agendas of either white supremist or their bedfellow anti-racist crusaders dictate my meaning, or the current reality. Nor should you.

I choose not to celebrate a toxic symbol, whose "meaning" I have no control over, any more than I can control the current day meaning of the swastika.

 

[independentusa]

...and THAT is your opinion.
Which is what I accurately indicated.
No Confederate soldiers were ever charged with treason.

If you want to refight the first civil war, knock yourself out.

The next one will not be about Yankees and Rebs and will cross all state lines.
It will be a war of ideology.
Which would be even dumber than the first one.

Yankees back then could shoot and shoot well.
The liberals on this next one only know about one kind of trigger.

ctually there was a law passed basically forgiving their treason so the country could heal their wounds.

 

[independentusa]

I don't support the Confederacy but secession isn't treason. They did plenty on their own to look bad, you don't need to make up lies. The Confederacy supported slavery and racism and that's all we need to form an opinion of who the 'bad guy' was in that war. They did not commit treason like they did not commit genocide or computer hacking.

Actually they did commit treason. They betrayed their country and tried to kill its leader, the meaning of treason. There were several attempts to kill Lincoln. The military leaders of the South were especially treasonous as they had been in the military and sworn oaths to uphold and defend the union and broke that oath and joined the military of the South. Their military expertise kept the war going longer and made the killing that much worse. Robert E. Lee was one of those who had sworn an oath to the union and then broke that oath.