What do I find wrong with Confederate Monuments?

[RileyCoyote]

How do cement/metal statues of past historical figures hurt anyone? Only fragile minds are hurt by history. If you want to wipe away history because it offends fragile eyes, ears, or minds you will surely forget and repeat history.

 

[JasperL]

How do cement/metal statues of past historical figures hurt anyone? Only fragile minds are hurt by history. If you want to wipe away history because it offends fragile eyes, ears, or minds you will surely forget and repeat history.

How does removing them hurt anyone? Only fragile minds are hurt by a city changing monuments.

And the "wipe away history" talking point is lame. When you erect a statue of e.g. Jefferson Davis in the public square, you are "wiping away" the history of Abraham Lincoln, or the slaves bought and sold for 200 years on the auction block, or the lynchings and the rapes and beatings, or the underground railroad, or later heroes like WWII heroes, or the Wright Brothers or Albert Einstein or John Glenn, FDR, Reagan, MLK. By choosing to honor THAT part of our history, you are by definition wiping away (using this theory) of everyone and everything else NOT honored in that spot.

 

[RileyCoyote]

How does removing them hurt anyone? Only fragile minds are hurt by a city changing monuments.

And the "wipe away history" talking point is lame. When you erect a statue of e.g. Jefferson Davis in the public square, you are "wiping away" the history of Abraham Lincoln, or the slaves bought and sold for 200 years on the auction block, or the lynchings and the rapes and beatings, or the underground railroad, or later heroes like WWII heroes, or the Wright Brothers or Albert Einstein or John Glenn, FDR, Reagan, MLK. By choosing to honor THAT part of our history, you are by definition wiping away (using this theory) of everyone and everything else NOT honored in that spot.

It isn't lame. Why take down things from history that hurt your fragile feelings. No matter how much you do that, it still does not change history. The people who came before everyone living now are responsible for their own actions in the times they lived. It has nothing to do with me or anyone else alive today. I am not guilty of anything done in the past, neither is anyone else. Get a grip.

 

[calamity]

How do cement/metal statues of past historical figures hurt anyone? Only fragile minds are hurt by history. If you want to wipe away history because it offends fragile eyes, ears, or minds you will surely forget and repeat history.

Like I said, we simply add a plaque to each monument stating "Here stands a traitorous bastard who fought against the Untied States in a failed effort to preserve slavery."

Are you good with that? It is, after all, an honest statement which ensures we do not "wipe away history because it offends fragile eyes, ears, or minds." :roll:

 

[RileyCoyote]

Like I said, we simply add a plaque to each monument stating "Here stands a traitorous bastard who fought against the Untied States in a failed effort to preserve slavery."

Are you good with that? It is, after all, an honest statement which ensures we do not "wipe away history because it offends fragile eyes, ears, or minds." :roll:

I wouldn't give a rat's ass because words, statues, past history does not hurt my feelings, or make me feel guilty.

 

[JackA]

"The Betrayal of Mankind". Really? Drama Queen much?

What a pile of euphemistic bull****.

Most of the world practiced slavery then, and the cotton gin had already been invented here, so slavery was on the way out , anyway.


The South saw the Union as tyrannical, were typically more loyal to their STATES, and tried to exercise it right to leave, which it absolutely had, as an exercise of STATES' RIGHTS, per the 10th Amendment.

They lost the war over it. End of story.


Confederate monuments are part of our history. Why fear the past?

I agree the monuments are part of our history and belong where they are but all of your reasons for keeping them are wrong. Most of the world did not still practice slavery in 1860. States did not have a right to secede under the Constitution, nor in logic. The monuments are not “memorials to treason”, however. They are markers of the greatest upheaval in the history of the nation. On that basis they need to be preserved.

 

[Tigerace117]

Boring bait. No fish are biting.

Clearly you are, given that you've spent the time and energy to post all that worthless drivel.

 

[calamity]

I wouldn't give a rat's ass because words, statues, past history does not hurt my feelings, or make me feel guilty.

Good. Then begin spreading the word.

 

[OldFatGuy]

Clearly you are, given that you've spent the time and energy to post all that worthless drivel.

Aw, poor puppi is offended and angry. :rofl

 

[jamesrage]

That's a mighty big word, and you appear to have misused it because I addressed every point you attempted to make in my response.
I can't help it that you don't like the answers.



So you ARE a white man, duly noted. You're not sure of a damn thing because there are no Indians standing behind you nodding in agreement, why don't you go ask a few?



The debate point isn't valid because there are no statues on Indian land of their oppressors, and the federal government has been negotiating settlements of these old scores. While those negotiations were not originally always in good faith, many of them are now, and revenues from Indian owned resources are theirs to keep without taxation. Tribes are not paying for the upkeep of monuments to their old oppressors, and they are welcome to full U.S. citizenship should they choose to take it.
You let me know if you find any monuments to Jackson or Johnson on tribal land, mmmkay?

Last but not least, I've stated that I don't support removal of any Confederate monuments, so your charge of hypocrisy fails.
I've simply stated that we should not have to pay for them.
You must have me confused for somebody else.

Your points are worthless.It doesn't matter if I am white, Native American or what ever. I can still point out that a statue of our founders and past presidents, and schools named after our founders and presidents would still be offensive to native Americans just as a confederate monument might be offensive to a black person. Nor does it matter if there are no statues of our founders and presidents on tribal lands. Last I checked Native Americans go off tribal lands, use American money, pay taxes and many do send their kids to schools off tribal lands.

 

[JasperL]

It isn't lame. Why take down things from history that hurt your fragile feelings.

Why must all generations be bound by the decisions of a few white supremacists 100 years ago to erect statues to dead confederate heroes?

No matter how much you do that, it still does not change history. The people who came before everyone living now are responsible for their own actions in the times they lived. It has nothing to do with me or anyone else alive today. I am not guilty of anything done in the past, neither is anyone else. Get a grip.

I agree it doesn't change history to take them down or leave them up. See the rest of my comment you ignored.

FWIW, if a community wants to keep their statue of the historical loser Jefferson Davis, that's fine with me. Their community, their choice. But if the people in Memphis no longer want to have the first Grand Klukker soiling their neighborhood park, they have the same prerogative to take that statue down as white supremacists did in putting it up. They are not bound by the decisions of others a century ago and removing that monument to NB Forrest is no more erasing history than NOT putting up a monument commemorating the underground railroad erased that history.

 

[Moderate Right]

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.

There are statues, etc around the entire world honoring dictators, tyrants, and the like, dating back many hundreds and even thousands of years. Hell, the left want to eliminate Christopher Columbus from the history books.

 

[Tigerace117]

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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Aw, is the guy who thinks slavers and traitors are heroes upset that I hate his heroes? Cry me a river bud :lamo

What a load of crap you are spewing. Yes, in fact, we do know "what happened back then." The war was fought in the 1860s not the 1060s. There are literally thousands of first hand accounts and other documentation.

Sorry bud but you aren't bright enough to "poke fun at me". Nice try though lol.

 

[Tigerace117]

Aw, poor puppi is offended and angry. :rofl

And you still can't support your claims. Too funny :lamo

 

[OldFatGuy]

And you still can't support your claims. Too funny :lamo

Go bite a brick.

 

[MrShangles]

Aw, is the guy who thinks slavers and traitors are heroes upset that I hate his heroes? Cry me a river bud :lamo

What a load of crap you are spewing. Yes, in fact, we do know "what happened back then." The war was fought in the 1860s not the 1060s. There are literally thousands of first hand accounts and other documentation.

Sorry bud but you aren't bright enough to "poke fun at me". Nice try though lol.

Been getting your panties wet cense Memorial Day weekend, now come back with some long tirade!
You do know the war wasn’t about slavery?


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[JasperL]

There are statues, etc around the entire world honoring dictators, tyrants, and the like, dating back many hundreds and even thousands of years. Hell, the left want to eliminate Christopher Columbus from the history books.

Sure, and lots of them are in museums, which is entirely appropriate. Lots of statues were lost to history, because as societies change, who they chose to honor with statues changes.

And I don't want Columbus "eliminated" from the history books, just a complete history of Columbus presented along with the noble traveler myth. It's important to also know that those who followed him literally wiped out an entire, peaceful, population in about 50 years by selling them off as slaves, butchering them, disfiguring them if they didn't meet a 'gold' quota in an area that had almost no gold, killing children for fun and sport. Women killed their own newborns versus bringing them up in the environment Columbus and his men created, many others killed themselves. So, yeah, let's learn the history, all of it.

 

[southwest88]

Independence from UK was the same as secession from the US?

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.

Against the UK? The Founding Fathers considered themselves to be Britons - that's one source of their determination to secede, when they had exhausted every other possibility (see English history to that date). After trying & trying to negotiate some other outcome, the Founding Fathers adopted rebellion, & convinced enough of their fellow citizens to join in & persevere through years of war & suffering.

Did the South have the right to leave the union? Maybe under the Articles of Confederation - one of the issues there was how weak the central government was. I've never looked @ that issue with regards to the US Constitution.

 

[southwest88]

A brief history

…

Most of the world practiced slavery then, and the cotton gin had already been invented here, so slavery was on the way out , anyway.

The South saw the Union as tyrannical, were typically more loyal to their STATES, and tried to exercise it right to leave, which it absolutely had, as an exercise of STATES' RIGHTS, per the 10th Amendment.

…

By 1833CE, UK had outlawed the slave trade in the Atlantic, & was warring upon the African states that captured & sold slaves in trade. (The effective end of the Atlantic slave trade was in 1861, with UK warships enforcing it.)

The US South negotiated out regional advantages from the Constitutional Convention - counting slaves for representation in the House of Representatives, the Slave Act, & a general political domination of the federal government (although the federal government then was only a shadow of what it is now). The South - Plantation Society (which held the vast majority of slaves) - saw a threat to its political & economic power if slavery were restricted geographically, or even just to those areas where slavery was practicable.

Plantation Society managed to convince themselves that the North would not or could not fight to force the South to remain in the Union, despite the imbalances in population, education, hospitals, industry, labor force, finance, banking, investment, transportation & communication nets, infrastructure (canals, railroads, bridges, ports, roads, foundries, telegraph) - all favoring the North. Because there was no political opposition to Plantation Society in the South, they railroaded their political economy through the legislatures they dominated - & set upon civil war with light hearts. They were severely disappointed.

 

[Tigerace117]

Go bite a brick.

Oh look, yet another insult instead of any evidence to support your claim. I guess that's the thing about getting "old and fat"; you lose the whole two brain cells you had left.

 

[Tigerace117]

Been getting your panties wet cense Memorial Day weekend, now come back with some long tirade!
You do know the war wasn’t about slavery?


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Is that what your Klan leader told you bud? The war was absolutely about slavery. Your heroes were terrified Lincoln was going to take their precious slaves away so they committed treason en masse. They were fighting for a very specific "state's right".......the "state's right" to own slaves.

 

[Felis Leo]

Actually I now live in the North, but my first 21 years as a service brat i spent in the South. I am old enough that I actually went to a segregated school. I remember a Southern friend repeating thee old saying,"save your confederate money boys the South will rise again". With Trump in office the meaning behind what was a joke is coming true, but not only in the South. The rise of White Supremacy groups all over the country reminds me of all of the KKK people I met in my early years,

I see. I imagine coming face to face with naked white supremacy and white separatism is no doubt repulsive and disconcerting. But do you believe the mere existence of these monuments incites the racism, in the way that Homer said "The blade itself incites to deeds of violence"?

 

[Felis Leo]

If I may, I care because it's disgusting to glorify terrorists and intimidate black people in the name of America.

It is disgusting to do that, ecofarm. And if a majority of citizens in the relevant Southern jurisdictions vote to disestablish those monuments for that reason or others, I think they should be allowed to. But if a majority of people wish to have them remain for whatever reason, I think they should be allowed to as well. I do not believe they should be the subject of the vandal's veto, however offensive one finds them. I simply do not believe iconoclasm destroys wicked ideas or causes.

 

[Lursa]

It is disgusting to do that, ecofarm. And if a majority of citizens in the relevant Southern jurisdictions vote to disestablish those monuments for that reason or others, I think they should be allowed to. But if a majority of people wish to have them remain for whatever reason, I think they should be allowed to as well. I do not believe they should be the subject of the vandal's veto, however offensive one finds them. I simply do not believe iconoclasm destroys wicked ideas or causes.

"Tyranny of the majority" then?

 

[Felis Leo]

"Tyranny of the majority" then?

In essence, Lursa? Yes. I live in California where I have to endure a bevy of restrictions on my right to self defense, as well as a constant raising of state taxes on every form of economic intercourse you can imagine to fund ridiculous things like a High Speed Rail that will likely bankrupt the state and be paid for by my great grandchildren. I complain about it, but I do not question the legitimacy because it is what a majority of the citizenry wanted, and pursuant to our Constitution and system of popular referenda, the people are sovereign. So what the majority says is law is law so long as it does not abolish the most basic of our Constitutionally-guaranteed rights.

In these Southern states, if a majority of people still wish to retain these monuments and shell out the tax dollars to maintain them, that is their prerogative. To my knowledge, there is no Constitutional right pursuant to either our Federal Constitution or any State Constitution to be free of feelings of discomfort and oppression by state monuments dedicated to men who would have seen some of the people who view them every day in chains.