Comrade Clod
Gay Space Communist
Alternatively I gave reasons for why what you were disputing was correct.
United States Confederate Statues, symbols, and memorials debate thread
- Thread starter Battlegrinder
- Start date
Alternatively I gave reasons for why what you were disputing was correct.
Greatly depends on the Confederates and their post Civil War actions. As noted in the thread, many Confederates went on to be reunificationists and contributed to society in ways that had nothing to do with which side they were on in the War. Robert E. Lee and what he did with Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) is a prime example here, the college renamed itself and celebrates Lee not because of his actions in the Civil War, but because of how much he contributed to building up and helping that school (as well, as, let's be honest, branding... putting those two names together in Virginia has been a huge selling point up until VERY recently).
Which again goes to the case by case basis of things. I don't doubt some memorials were put up for what amount to racist reasons. I also don't doubt many memorials were put up as remembrance for those lost or to memorialize the history of the events. My interaction with such things has been decidedly more in the latter category, seeing how I'm from Virginia so the majority of civil war statuary involved is usually tied to some local battlefield ( I mentioned the Jackson Equestrian Status on Manassas National Battlefield Park) or memorializing those lost* in the war. So when people talk about pulling down monuments I tend to start thinking of graveyards and battlefields, not courthouses and parks (though those statues also exist in Virginia).
Ones that are not placed out of historical reasons or strictly to push an ideal of white supremacy (which I suspect Confederate memorials outside of the historic Confederacy** mostly are), I have little issue with taking down. When it comes to historical sites and graveyards though... I have significant issues there.
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* For instance, the City of Manassas has the "Confederate Cemetery" and statuary there which is, well, it's outright a Confederate veteran's cemetery.
** With some vagaries involving the border states and around Gettysburg, as there were likely towns in, say, Maryland where many folks DID go fight for the Confederacy, so I could understand them having a statue memorializing those lost. I would also encourage towns in the border states that had Union soldiers to put up memorial statues for them. And obviously most statuary around Gettysburg is there as part of historical events.
Terthna
Professional Lurker
No; all you did was prove his point.
Lanmandragon
Well-known member
I'd imagine he's confusing slaves fighting. With the "20 slave"(then 10) laws. Which allowed a soldier to go home if his family owned 20 (later 10)slaves.
ShadowsOfParadox
Well-known member
I like the idea of adding plaques that give more historical context and looking for onesided monuments and adding the other side.
I also agree with the "those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it" argument for keeping the monuments.
I also agree with the "those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it" argument for keeping the monuments.
D
Deleted member 1
Guest
Precisely, removing the monuments is a kind of totalitarianism of thought, a belief which you can remove the past wrongs by removing the memory of them, that you can enforce rightthink in the future by eliminating the history of a people--in short, deracination. I am completely against the removal of any of the monuments. There is one country on Earth, where spirituality and the understanding of history is strong, India, which dealt with the monuments of colonialism very simply--it left them all in place.
A great credit to the charity and wisdom of the Indian nation is in its preservation of these monuments.
Porkchopper
Active member
I think I'll echo others sentiments. Graveyard and battlefield memorials are okay. Some statue of Lee or Davies at a courthouse no thanks. They whavere personal charm or faults they may have had they were first and formost traitors to their country. So if its isnt a direct war Memorial or something that glorifies or whitewashes traitors and their treachery its fine. Everything else can go to a scrapyard or museum depending on the quality. But certainly out of public sight.
ProphetOfTruth
Active member
As someone who was raised in and spent most of his life below the Mason-Dixon line, I've never really understood nor shared the worshipful fascination many people seem to have with the Confederacy.
At the end of the day, the CSA was a secessionist movement that threatened to destroy what we know as the United States of America over, ultimately, the right to enslave their fellow human beings.
If people wanna fly the Confederate flag on their front yard or slap a decal on the back of their Chevy, so be it. But the idea that we would celebrate or commemorate on government or public property a secessionist group whose distinguishing political policies were indisputably wicked and who triggered a devastating war that racked up a heretofore unprecedented body count of American soldiers is beyond me.
Confederate paraphernalia belongs in a museum or in your yard, not on public/government property in the US.
At the end of the day, the CSA was a secessionist movement that threatened to destroy what we know as the United States of America over, ultimately, the right to enslave their fellow human beings.
If people wanna fly the Confederate flag on their front yard or slap a decal on the back of their Chevy, so be it. But the idea that we would celebrate or commemorate on government or public property a secessionist group whose distinguishing political policies were indisputably wicked and who triggered a devastating war that racked up a heretofore unprecedented body count of American soldiers is beyond me.
Confederate paraphernalia belongs in a museum or in your yard, not on public/government property in the US.
I'm of two minds on the issue. In an apolitical world I'd be in favor of burying the Lost Cause monuments of every era since the Confederacy... lost and deserved to lose... but when it's the fucking Cultural Revolution Brigade going after 'easy targets' when you know for a fact that the very next day they're going to be calling for the tearing down of the Jefferson Memorial and defacing every positive depiction of the United States they can get their hands on 'because slavery' (which is itself an excuse) well... Lee, Davis, Jackson, Forrest and rest of the Lost cause giants are all long dead as are many if not most of the Jim Crow 'Segregation Forever!' politicians... but antifa and the like? They are right there calling everyone who doesn't support their campaign of desecration Nazis/fascists even though of course the Lost Cause / KKK and related movements and groups are all decades older than that.
ProphetOfTruth
Active member
I appreciate your wariness of the slippery slope. Despite what many may tell you, it's a perfectly valid concern.
That said, all political policies exist on a spectrum. Technically speaking, one could make the argument that introducing any policy proposal on any item of consideration "could lead" to disastrous outcomes by opening the door to more extreme proposals down the road.
So while it is true that removing or destroying statues of Jefferson Davis might provide legal precedent to bad faith actors or fringe elements who wanna tear do the same to, say, George Washington, I think the fact that the CSA was an illegal secessionist movement that - as you say, lost and deserved to lose - is more than sufficient reason to get them the fuck off public/government property.
Whatever cultural fallout may come from that will have to be carefully scrutinized and managed.
There's the implicit slippery slope, where good intentions lead pave the road to hell...
But there's also the explicit slippery slope of bad faith actors using a sentiment to enact their own politics, in this case desecrating the actions of the United States in whole throughout its history just as Stalin desecrated Russia's culture and history, just as Mao's Cultural Revolution desecrated as much of China's traditional culture it could reach, and heck it's not even an exclusively leftist thing as seen with the Taliban and ISIL desecrating Afghanistan and Syria, respectively.
And for the Confederate Monument removers, the explicit slope is as present with them as it is with the Stalinists / Maoists / Taliban / ISIL, they barely started on removing Confederate monuments before switching to the Founding Fathers.
ProphetOfTruth
Active member
Eh, I'd argue it's the same slope, you're just differentiating between types of skiers.
Bad faith actors and fringe extremists abusing precedent is literally a risk of all policy proposals. It's a real risk, worthy of consideration, so I'm trying not to downplay it.
But at the end of the day, I would argue that the risk of such a thing occurring is worth removing public symbols celebrating and commemorating the memory of an illegal secessionist movement whose aim was to enslave other human beings and who incited a war that nearly destroyed the union.
Especially when there exists a majority of people who can distinguish between the likes of George Washington and Jefferson Davis.
ShadowsOfParadox
Well-known member
is there a majority that wants to get rid of the Confederate stuff though? or just a very loud minority?
for that matter, is there a majority that can distinguish anymore? there have been some disturbing results from studies looking into how many Americans can do things like, say, name the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights.
D
Deleted member 1
Guest
It is unquestionable that the removal of the monuments is a symbolic act to their subculture, essentially “counting coup” against their enemies.
ProphetOfTruth
Active member
No.
But that isn't what I claimed and would assert that the proposal's popularity is irrelevant. An idea can be both morally right and unpopular and both US and global history is replete with that fact.
Yes.
No, I don't mean that the majority of Americans can pick Washington and Davis out of a line up, but that most people can discern the political and philosophical differences between the USA's first president and the leader of the secessionist movement that tried to destroy the country the first guy helped build.
Why do people imagine that the only alternative to allowing Confederate monuments to continue to stand is to destroy and forget history entirely? The problem with Confederate monuments is not that they preserve history but that they preserve a narrative of history created by a repulsive population hostile to the fundamental spirit if the United States—destroying every confederate statue and erecting a victory column celebrating Sherman’s liberation of Georgia in Atlanta’s center would do far more to remember and honor the history of the civil war than any monument to the treasonous planter class ever could.
The civil war deserves to be remembered, and it deserves to be remembered as what it actually was—a victory of true Americans against a treasonous, barbarian state controlled by the human vermin that was the planter class, which ought to be celebrated eternally through the ages. True remembrance of history means not just fetishistic commemoration of anything that happens to be from the Civil War, but celebration of what the Civil War meant in America’s national journey—the liberation of our African-American citizens; the ejection (however sadly brief) of the tumor on the American soul that was and is the planters; and the reassertion of American national unity and strength through the crushing of America’s worst and most shameful section and its attempts to undermine the country, opening the South for the first time to the development, improvement, and civilization of its land and population by America’s better section, which has created the more prosperous, industrialized, and developed South that we see today. In putting Atlanta to flame Sherman created the foundation of the modern metropolis that stands there today, not a sickly neglected appendage of planter slave agriculture with little more use than being a market for slaves and cotton but a vibrant, wealthy city with productive people and diverse industries. Frankly, the South cannot thank him and its other saviors in the Union blue enough—a thousand monuments to the great deed that our soldiers did to the South would not be enough to remember their heroic legacy.
The civil war deserves to be remembered, and it deserves to be remembered as what it actually was—a victory of true Americans against a treasonous, barbarian state controlled by the human vermin that was the planter class, which ought to be celebrated eternally through the ages. True remembrance of history means not just fetishistic commemoration of anything that happens to be from the Civil War, but celebration of what the Civil War meant in America’s national journey—the liberation of our African-American citizens; the ejection (however sadly brief) of the tumor on the American soul that was and is the planters; and the reassertion of American national unity and strength through the crushing of America’s worst and most shameful section and its attempts to undermine the country, opening the South for the first time to the development, improvement, and civilization of its land and population by America’s better section, which has created the more prosperous, industrialized, and developed South that we see today. In putting Atlanta to flame Sherman created the foundation of the modern metropolis that stands there today, not a sickly neglected appendage of planter slave agriculture with little more use than being a market for slaves and cotton but a vibrant, wealthy city with productive people and diverse industries. Frankly, the South cannot thank him and its other saviors in the Union blue enough—a thousand monuments to the great deed that our soldiers did to the South would not be enough to remember their heroic legacy.
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Because there's never, or at least almost never, a proposal to replace them with something that still addresses history, it's pretty much always just a demand they be removed and nothing more.
And how do they do that, exactly? Like I said before, most them are just "blah blah, commemorate the death of these brave soldiers, blah blah". That dosen't really seem to be pushing any particular narrative or history.
D
Deleted member 1
Guest
The monuments are fact. They serve no cause, they block no people from success, they are silent, mute markers to the belief of a people. One can derive from them just as well "here evil people rewrote history to conceal their defeat" as well as "here is glory". The power of the human mind is that you can interpret them how you like.
Greengrass
Well-known member
Your argument defeats itself. You are simultaneously that the monuments address history (by saying that they won't be replaced with something that "still addressed history") and that they don't address any history ("dosen't really seem to be pushing any particular narrative or history.")