Shooting In South Carolina

[smh_23]

[quote]OldOgre wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Smh, even though we’ve become e-buds over the years as you’ve drifted right (from your left wing T-Nation roots) this thread exemplifies the fact that left wing lunacy is still coursing through your veins. You need another transfusion or two. I’ll even donate.[/quote]

In this case, my friend, there’s no amount of blood that could make me think night is day and day night. You’d have to put a pound of angel dust in there for me to not be able to figure this one out. Indeed I have drifted right over the years, but not into la-la land.

You have suggested I’m wrong again and again, but you’ve never – not once – made an argument in refutation of mine. You flirted with some of that “you’re not from South Carolina” piffle, but you recognized it for what it was very quickly. And, indeed, this latest exchange was occasioned by your comment on happenings in California, in which state, I believe, you do not live. It was always horseshit to suggest that someone’s argument about something smart/stupid is invalidated by his zip code – logic lives and dies on its own strength and nothing more.

So I will happily shred whatever actual argument you’d like to make in support of the contention that it is appropriate for a school owned and maintained by the public and on the public’s dime to be named after a military or political leader of an enemy nation to the United States which killed many American soldiers and which was created explicitly in order to safeguard the health and future growth of the legal ownership of black slaves. Bonne chance with that one.[/quote]

As a means to heal our nation and restore unity, the South, its citizens, leaders and military officers, were all accepted back into the union. Not a single one was tried for treason. Congress made all former Confederate soldiers US Veterans. Their rights and privileges as citizens of the US were fully and completely restored. With that, they ceased to be “enemies”. According to the US Congress, Robert E. Lee High School in Montgomery, Alabama, is named after a United States Veteran.
[/quote]

…who fought for a political conglomerate that was created – explicitly – in defense of the right to own, and proliferate the legal ownership of, black slaves. You still need to show how or why this is appropriate for commemoration with public money and on public land.

Hitler – and note, Push, that here again we are testing a maxim – was a veteran of the German military. Does this make it any less stupid for a Munich high school to take his name as its own? Same with David Berkowitz.

[DoubleDuce]

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]OldOgre wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Smh, even though we’ve become e-buds over the years as you’ve drifted right (from your left wing T-Nation roots) this thread exemplifies the fact that left wing lunacy is still coursing through your veins. You need another transfusion or two. I’ll even donate.[/quote]

In this case, my friend, there’s no amount of blood that could make me think night is day and day night. You’d have to put a pound of angel dust in there for me to not be able to figure this one out. Indeed I have drifted right over the years, but not into la-la land.

You have suggested I’m wrong again and again, but you’ve never – not once – made an argument in refutation of mine. You flirted with some of that “you’re not from South Carolina” piffle, but you recognized it for what it was very quickly. And, indeed, this latest exchange was occasioned by your comment on happenings in California, in which state, I believe, you do not live. It was always horseshit to suggest that someone’s argument about something smart/stupid is invalidated by his zip code – logic lives and dies on its own strength and nothing more.

So I will happily shred whatever actual argument you’d like to make in support of the contention that it is appropriate for a school owned and maintained by the public and on the public’s dime to be named after a military or political leader of an enemy nation to the United States which killed many American soldiers and which was created explicitly in order to safeguard the health and future growth of the legal ownership of black slaves. Bonne chance with that one.[/quote]

As a means to heal our nation and restore unity, the South, its citizens, leaders and military officers, were all accepted back into the union. Not a single one was tried for treason. Congress made all former Confederate soldiers US Veterans. Their rights and privileges as citizens of the US were fully and completely restored. With that, they ceased to be “enemies”. According to the US Congress, Robert E. Lee High School in Montgomery, Alabama, is named after a United States Veteran.
[/quote]

…who fought for a political conglomerate that was created – explicitly – in defense of the right to own, and proliferate the legal ownership of, black slaves. You still need to show how or why this is appropriate for commemoration with public money and on public land.

Hitler – and note, Push, that here again we are testing a maxim – was a veteran of the German military. Does this make it any less stupid for a Munich high school to take his name as its own? Same with David Berkowitz.
[/quote]

Meanwhile guys like Grant actually personally claimed ownership of other human beings, even after the war. Should we take him off the 50 dollar bill?

[smh_23]

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

Without agreeing or disagreeing, I would point out one thing - this was not a war against an enemy nation, and Lincoln took great pains to refuse to ever concede the Confederate was another nation (period), despite the Confederacy’s claims at being so.

I don’t make this point to score a technical point - I think it matters greatly in how we think about people associated with the Confederacy. It isn’t like naming a school after Emperor Hirohito or Santa Anna. They were rebels, but they were our rebels. So whatever the answer on naming schools and such after Confederate men, the calculus is different than it would be for an enemy nation.

People closer to the war - this who had faced the blood and mud - were much more accepting of this idea that with the war over, former Confederate were not members of an enemy nation. Sure, Radical Reconstructionists aimed to punish, but many didn’t have that view. And many military men had tremendous respect for one another.

Hell, Confederate General Joseph Johnston was a pallbearer at General Sherman’s funeral. (And refused to wear a hat out of a sign of respect for Sherman, despite the winter cold and rain, and died a month later from pneumonia.)

This is also why Lee is such a revered figure by both sides of the conflict.

I guess my point is, with the Civil War, it’s different and should be different. These were Americans - flawed ones, who committed treason - but they are ours. A blanket deletion of them from our monuments makes little sense, and it would confound many of the greatest men who fought on the winning side.

EDIT: fixed broken sentence.[/quote]

I won’t contest the point about the CSA not being an enemy nation, because I try to stay out of that debate. Like the “right to secede,” I think it’s largely meaningless, or a distinction without a difference, or a matter of simple parallax. Of course it was right, as you mentioned, for Lincoln to maintain that the CSA hadn’t ever ceased to be American, but this is a judgement of politics and tactics, not of absolute truth or falsity. My own opinion is that if enough people get together, make for themselves new political arrangements, convene an army, and begin fighting in battles against Americans, they are enemy combatants indistinguishable (in any meaningful way) from German regulars during WWII, and they belong to a correspondingly un-American nation.

But this aside, you mention that “a blanket deletion of them from our monuments makes little sense.” I agree, and I am not here to argue that all monuments and all public mention of the CSA ought to be torn down. A monument can serve many purposes – celebration, but also remembrance and even regret. I have been to many monuments in Germany: very few of them bore lapidary inscriptions about anything worth celebrating. This is right and good.

Naming a school, though – like flying a flag before a state house, this is something that cannot be extricated from the act of celebration, of specific reverence and therefore implied approbation. It is this that I simply cannot accept as an appropriate use of public money or land, whether they were always American or not.

[OldOgre]

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]OldOgre wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Smh, even though we’ve become e-buds over the years as you’ve drifted right (from your left wing T-Nation roots) this thread exemplifies the fact that left wing lunacy is still coursing through your veins. You need another transfusion or two. I’ll even donate.[/quote]

In this case, my friend, there’s no amount of blood that could make me think night is day and day night. You’d have to put a pound of angel dust in there for me to not be able to figure this one out. Indeed I have drifted right over the years, but not into la-la land.

You have suggested I’m wrong again and again, but you’ve never – not once – made an argument in refutation of mine. You flirted with some of that “you’re not from South Carolina” piffle, but you recognized it for what it was very quickly. And, indeed, this latest exchange was occasioned by your comment on happenings in California, in which state, I believe, you do not live. It was always horseshit to suggest that someone’s argument about something smart/stupid is invalidated by his zip code – logic lives and dies on its own strength and nothing more.

So I will happily shred whatever actual argument you’d like to make in support of the contention that it is appropriate for a school owned and maintained by the public and on the public’s dime to be named after a military or political leader of an enemy nation to the United States which killed many American soldiers and which was created explicitly in order to safeguard the health and future growth of the legal ownership of black slaves. Bonne chance with that one.[/quote]

As a means to heal our nation and restore unity, the South, its citizens, leaders and military officers, were all accepted back into the union. Not a single one was tried for treason. Congress made all former Confederate soldiers US Veterans. Their rights and privileges as citizens of the US were fully and completely restored. With that, they ceased to be “enemies”. According to the US Congress, Robert E. Lee High School in Montgomery, Alabama, is named after a United States Veteran.
[/quote]

…who fought for a political conglomerate that was created – explicitly – in defense of the right to own, and proliferate the legal ownership of, black slaves. You still need to show how or why this is appropriate for commemoration with public money and on public land.

Hitler – and note, Push, that here again we are testing a maxim – was a veteran of the German military. Does this make it any less stupid for a Munich high school to take his name as its own? Same with David Berkowitz.
[/quote]

I guess you have a better grasp of the social/political climate of the late 1860s than the men who were responsible for reuniting our nation. Thankfully, you are here to correct their errors.

Hitler bears ultimate responsibility for the slaughter of 6 million Jews. Berkowitz was a serial killer. Even if I believed that the war was fought over slavery, which I don’t entirely, the Confederates were fighting to preserve an institution which existed in much of the civilized world and did in fact exist in the US until 1870. The last time I checked, serial killing and genocide weren’t commonly accepted as world wide institutions. Your examples are poor.

[smh_23]

[quote]OldOgre wrote:
I guess you have a better grasp of the social/political climate of the late 1860s than the men who were responsible for reuniting our nation. Thankfully, you are here to correct their errors.[/quote]

They did something that was pragmatic and politically expedient given extremely volatile and urgent circumstances. This has nothing to do with any of that, and none of the constraints under which they were working apply to us. But good try.

[quote]
Hitler bears ultimate responsibility for the slaughter of 6 million Jews. Berkowitz was a serial killer. Even if I believed that the war was fought over slavery, which I don’t entirely[/quote]

The war was fought to preserve the union after the CSA broke away and formed…in defense of slavery. They explicitly said exactly as much, and you can find their words earlier in this thread. Please do inform me if you are privy to new and contradictory historical evidence.

the Confederates were fighting to preserve an institution which existed in much of the civilized world and did in fact exist in the US until 1870. The last time I checked, serial killing and genocide weren’t commonly accepted as world wide institutions. Your examples are poor.

The examples were, very obviously, used in order to illustrate the absurdity of the suggestion that Confederates’ being veterans bears in any way on the wisdom or folly of Confederate-named schools and parks. That was most definitely what you were suggesting here:

According to the US Congress, Robert E. Lee High School in Montgomery, Alabama, is named after a United States Veteran.

And it is most definitely absurd, as evidenced by my examples and thousands more. As for slavery’s not being comparable to the wholesale slaughter of entire peoples, both are attested in history since the early days of human civilization, both figure (under certain circumstances) into the commands and laws of many kings and many holy books (including the Old Testament of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and not in a “don’t you ever do this” kind of way, in case you’re rusty), etc. Draw a distinction if you’d like, but it changes nothing about the fact that Hitler’s having been a veteran doesn’t alter the stupidity of naming a school after Hitler, which is all I need to break the implication that veteran status overrides a historical figure’s causes and conduct.

[OldOgre]

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]OldOgre wrote:
I guess you have a better grasp of the social/political climate of the late 1860s than the men who were responsible for reuniting our nation. Thankfully, you are here to correct their errors.[/quote]

They did something that was pragmatic and politically expedient given extremely volatile and urgent circumstances. This has nothing to do with any of that, and none of the constraints under which they were working apply to us. But good try.

[quote]
Hitler bears ultimate responsibility for the slaughter of 6 million Jews. Berkowitz was a serial killer. Even if I believed that the war was fought over slavery, which I don’t entirely[/quote]

The war was fought to preserve the union after the CSA broke away and formed…in defense of slavery. They explicitly said exactly as much, and you can find their words earlier in this thread. Please do inform me if you are privy to new and contradictory historical evidence.

the Confederates were fighting to preserve an institution which existed in much of the civilized world and did in fact exist in the US until 1870. The last time I checked, serial killing and genocide weren’t commonly accepted as world wide institutions. Your examples are poor.

The examples were, very obviously, used in order to illustrate the absurdity of the suggestion that Confederates’ being veterans bears in any way on the wisdom or folly of Confederate-named schools and parks. That was most definitely what you were suggesting here:

According to the US Congress, Robert E. Lee High School in Montgomery, Alabama, is named after a United States Veteran.

And it is most definitely absurd, as evidenced by my examples and thousands more. As for slavery’s not being comparable to the wholesale slaughter of entire peoples, both are attested in history since the early days of human civilization, both figure (under certain circumstances) into the commands and laws of many kings and many holy books (including the Old Testament of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and not in a “don’t you ever do this” kind of way, in case you’re rusty), etc. Draw a distinction if you’d like, but it changes nothing about the fact that Hitler’s having been a veteran doesn’t alter the stupidity of naming a school after Hitler, which is all I need to break the implication that veteran status overrides a historical figure’s causes and conduct.[/quote]

So 150 years later we should disregard the circumstances/conditions that the confederates came back in under?

Lee was regarded as a hero in the South and was respected in the North. I don’t recall the same sentiment being felt for Hitler. Your comparisson was apples to oranges.

Is there a law that I am unaware of that covers this? Have I missed out on the amendment that guarantees freedom from being offended? If so, that would explain why schools can’t be named after confederate generals. Otherwise, it is just opinion.

[smh_23]

[quote]OldOgre wrote:
So 150 years later we should disregard the circumstances/conditions that the confederates came back in under? [/quote]

In what specific way do you think political exigencies that shaped, in the 19th century, the reconstruction of the union bear on the proposition that it is not appropriate to name a school after the political and military leaders of a country that was created (and spent all of its life) in defense of the legal ownership of black slaves? Do you think that the decision – made under urgent and volatile circumstances more than a hundred years ago – not to hang thousands of Confederates amounts to some kind of argument about public schools bearing the names of CSA leaders?

[quote]
Lee was regarded as a hero in the South and was respected in the North. I don’t recall the same sentiment being felt for Hitler. Your comparisson was apples to oranges.[/quote]

Again and for the last time, Hitler was not a comparison. I invoked him to illustrate the absurdity of your suggestion that the government’s choice to consider Confederates veterans somehow changes anything at all. If this maxim were good, it would apply equally everywhere. It doesn’t, and it isn’t good. If you’re not getting this, just take this away: It doesn’t matter at all that the government chose to consider Confederates veterans. This has nothing to do with the argument I’ve been making.

[quote]
Is there a law that I am unaware of that covers this? Have I missed out on the amendment that guarantees freedom from being offended? If so, that would explain why schools can’t be named after confederate generals. Otherwise, it is just opinion. [/quote]

This is a straw man. I have never talked about offense, and I have never said that anyone has a right not to be offended. “Let’s not do this ridiculously fucking stupid thing” is not equal to “I don’t like being offended.” You can wear CSA-battle-flag undies every single night of the week for all I care, and you can (stupidly) fly the colors in your front yard. This is a separate argument, and it is about what is appropriate to celebrate on public property. What I have said, again and again, is that it isn’t appropriate to celebrate on public property – by flying flags or by bestowing names upon schools – the leaders of a country that was created explicitly in order to defend the legal ownership of black slaves. If you want to continue arguing, you can try to explain how it is, in fact, appropriate to celebrate on public property – by flying flags or by bestowing names upon schools – the leaders of a country that was created explicitly in order to defend the legal ownership of black slaves.

[OldOgre]

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]OldOgre wrote:

…Thankfully, you are here to correct their errors…

 [/quote]

Yes, like I’ve been saying, the Fixers are ubiquitous. Can you imagine the sad(der) state of our society without them?[/quote]

Had they been around in the 1860s we would probably be French or British now.

[OldOgre]

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]OldOgre wrote:
So 150 years later we should disregard the circumstances/conditions that the confederates came back in under? [/quote]

In what specific way do you think political exigencies that shaped, in the 19th century, the reconstruction of the union bear on the proposition that it is not appropriate to name a school after the political and military leaders of a country that was created (and spent all of its life) in defense of the legal ownership of black slaves? Do you think that the decision – made under urgent and volatile circumstances more than a hundred years ago – not to hang thousands of Confederates amounts to some kind of argument about public schools bearing the names of CSA leaders?

[quote]
Lee was regarded as a hero in the South and was respected in the North. I don’t recall the same sentiment being felt for Hitler. Your comparisson was apples to oranges.[/quote]

Again and for the last time, Hitler was not a comparison. I invoked him to illustrate the absurdity of your suggestion that the government’s choice to consider Confederates veterans somehow changes anything at all. If this maxim were good, it would apply equally everywhere. It doesn’t, and it isn’t good. If you’re not getting this, just take this away: It doesn’t matter at all that the government chose to consider Confederates veterans. This has nothing to do with the argument I’ve been making.

[quote]
Is there a law that I am unaware of that covers this? Have I missed out on the amendment that guarantees freedom from being offended? If so, that would explain why schools can’t be named after confederate generals. Otherwise, it is just opinion. [/quote]

This is a straw man. I have never talked about offense, and I have never said that anyone has a right not to be offended. “Let’s not do this ridiculously fucking stupid thing” is not equal to “I don’t like being offended.” You can wear CSA-battle-flag undies every single night of the week for all I care, and you can (stupidly) fly the colors in your front yard. This is a separate argument, and it is about what is appropriate to celebrate on public property. What I have said, again and again, is that it isn’t appropriate to celebrate on public property – by flying flags or by bestowing names upon schools – the leaders of a country that was created explicitly in order to defend the legal ownership of black slaves. If you want to continue arguing, you can try to explain how it is, in fact, appropriate to celebrate on public property – by flying flags or by bestowing names upon schools – the leaders of a country that was created explicitly in order to defend the legal ownership of black slaves.[/quote]

Really? Cause you seem kind of offended. Did you throw out all of your Kid Rock CDs too?

[smh_23]

[quote]OldOgre wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]OldOgre wrote:
So 150 years later we should disregard the circumstances/conditions that the confederates came back in under? [/quote]

In what specific way do you think political exigencies that shaped, in the 19th century, the reconstruction of the union bear on the proposition that it is not appropriate to name a school after the political and military leaders of a country that was created (and spent all of its life) in defense of the legal ownership of black slaves? Do you think that the decision – made under urgent and volatile circumstances more than a hundred years ago – not to hang thousands of Confederates amounts to some kind of argument about public schools bearing the names of CSA leaders?

[quote]
Lee was regarded as a hero in the South and was respected in the North. I don’t recall the same sentiment being felt for Hitler. Your comparisson was apples to oranges.[/quote]

Again and for the last time, Hitler was not a comparison. I invoked him to illustrate the absurdity of your suggestion that the government’s choice to consider Confederates veterans somehow changes anything at all. If this maxim were good, it would apply equally everywhere. It doesn’t, and it isn’t good. If you’re not getting this, just take this away: It doesn’t matter at all that the government chose to consider Confederates veterans. This has nothing to do with the argument I’ve been making.

[quote]
Is there a law that I am unaware of that covers this? Have I missed out on the amendment that guarantees freedom from being offended? If so, that would explain why schools can’t be named after confederate generals. Otherwise, it is just opinion. [/quote]

This is a straw man. I have never talked about offense, and I have never said that anyone has a right not to be offended. “Let’s not do this ridiculously fucking stupid thing” is not equal to “I don’t like being offended.” You can wear CSA-battle-flag undies every single night of the week for all I care, and you can (stupidly) fly the colors in your front yard. This is a separate argument, and it is about what is appropriate to celebrate on public property. What I have said, again and again, is that it isn’t appropriate to celebrate on public property – by flying flags or by bestowing names upon schools – the leaders of a country that was created explicitly in order to defend the legal ownership of black slaves. If you want to continue arguing, you can try to explain how it is, in fact, appropriate to celebrate on public property – by flying flags or by bestowing names upon schools – the leaders of a country that was created explicitly in order to defend the legal ownership of black slaves.[/quote]

Really? Cause you seem kind of offended. Did you throw out all of your Kid Rock CDs too?[/quote]

You could have tried to make an argument, but – yet again – that path has gone unchosen.

Anyway, while I appreciate the intellectual effort that went into this response, I’ll have to let our exchange end here.

[OldOgre]

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]OldOgre wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]OldOgre wrote:
So 150 years later we should disregard the circumstances/conditions that the confederates came back in under? [/quote]

In what specific way do you think political exigencies that shaped, in the 19th century, the reconstruction of the union bear on the proposition that it is not appropriate to name a school after the political and military leaders of a country that was created (and spent all of its life) in defense of the legal ownership of black slaves? Do you think that the decision – made under urgent and volatile circumstances more than a hundred years ago – not to hang thousands of Confederates amounts to some kind of argument about public schools bearing the names of CSA leaders?

[quote]
Lee was regarded as a hero in the South and was respected in the North. I don’t recall the same sentiment being felt for Hitler. Your comparisson was apples to oranges.[/quote]

Again and for the last time, Hitler was not a comparison. I invoked him to illustrate the absurdity of your suggestion that the government’s choice to consider Confederates veterans somehow changes anything at all. If this maxim were good, it would apply equally everywhere. It doesn’t, and it isn’t good. If you’re not getting this, just take this away: It doesn’t matter at all that the government chose to consider Confederates veterans. This has nothing to do with the argument I’ve been making.

[quote]
Is there a law that I am unaware of that covers this? Have I missed out on the amendment that guarantees freedom from being offended? If so, that would explain why schools can’t be named after confederate generals. Otherwise, it is just opinion. [/quote]

This is a straw man. I have never talked about offense, and I have never said that anyone has a right not to be offended. “Let’s not do this ridiculously fucking stupid thing” is not equal to “I don’t like being offended.” You can wear CSA-battle-flag undies every single night of the week for all I care, and you can (stupidly) fly the colors in your front yard. This is a separate argument, and it is about what is appropriate to celebrate on public property. What I have said, again and again, is that it isn’t appropriate to celebrate on public property – by flying flags or by bestowing names upon schools – the leaders of a country that was created explicitly in order to defend the legal ownership of black slaves. If you want to continue arguing, you can try to explain how it is, in fact, appropriate to celebrate on public property – by flying flags or by bestowing names upon schools – the leaders of a country that was created explicitly in order to defend the legal ownership of black slaves.[/quote]

Really? Cause you seem kind of offended. Did you throw out all of your Kid Rock CDs too?[/quote]

You could have tried to make an argument, but – yet again – that path has gone unchosen.

Anyway, while I appreciate the intellectual effort that went into this response, I’ll have to let our exchange end here.[/quote]

Ok then. It doesn’t really matter whether or not you find it appropriate. That is irrelevant because it is perfectly
LEGAL. If a State wants to name something Nathan Bedford Forrest Hall at Robert E. Lee High School. It is perfectly legal to do so. Offensive and inappropriate are pretty much the same thing to me. So please feel free to use whichever term you wish. And yes, we are discussing this because some people have recently been told that they should find it offensive. These schools have bore these names for 50-60 years and it’s just now a problem?

Monuments, graves and such are actually protected by the same act extending veteran status to confederate soldiers, I believe. That act was passed in the 1950s, allowing plenty of time for reflection on what had been done and in a different social and political climate than what existed in the 1860s. That act was a full and final forgiveness for confederates. That is also when most of the schools bearing confederate names started appearing, including Lee Montgomery that I mentioned earlier.

If a State, town or community wants to put a name on a school that is their business. Not yours or mine. I probably don’t like it any more than you do, but it’s none of my business. And don’t play the “my tax money” card because, remember, our government forgave them of their sins and they are all US Veterans in the eyes of the law, just like Ike and Patton. I thought you liberal guys liked legalism?

[smh_23]

[quote]OldOgre wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]OldOgre wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]OldOgre wrote:
So 150 years later we should disregard the circumstances/conditions that the confederates came back in under? [/quote]

In what specific way do you think political exigencies that shaped, in the 19th century, the reconstruction of the union bear on the proposition that it is not appropriate to name a school after the political and military leaders of a country that was created (and spent all of its life) in defense of the legal ownership of black slaves? Do you think that the decision – made under urgent and volatile circumstances more than a hundred years ago – not to hang thousands of Confederates amounts to some kind of argument about public schools bearing the names of CSA leaders?

[quote]
Lee was regarded as a hero in the South and was respected in the North. I don’t recall the same sentiment being felt for Hitler. Your comparisson was apples to oranges.[/quote]

Again and for the last time, Hitler was not a comparison. I invoked him to illustrate the absurdity of your suggestion that the government’s choice to consider Confederates veterans somehow changes anything at all. If this maxim were good, it would apply equally everywhere. It doesn’t, and it isn’t good. If you’re not getting this, just take this away: It doesn’t matter at all that the government chose to consider Confederates veterans. This has nothing to do with the argument I’ve been making.

Is there a law that I am unaware of that covers this? Have I missed out on the amendment that guarantees freedom from being offended? If so, that would explain why schools can’t be named after confederate generals. Otherwise, it is just opinion. [/quote]

This is a straw man. I have never talked about offense, and I have never said that anyone has a right not to be offended. “Let’s not do this ridiculously fucking stupid thing” is not equal to “I don’t like being offended.” You can wear CSA-battle-flag undies every single night of the week for all I care, and you can (stupidly) fly the colors in your front yard. This is a separate argument, and it is about what is appropriate to celebrate on public property. What I have said, again and again, is that it isn’t appropriate to celebrate on public property – by flying flags or by bestowing names upon schools – the leaders of a country that was created explicitly in order to defend the legal ownership of black slaves. If you want to continue arguing, you can try to explain how it is, in fact, appropriate to celebrate on public property – by flying flags or by bestowing names upon schools – the leaders of a country that was created explicitly in order to defend the legal ownership of black slaves.[/quote]

Really? Cause you seem kind of offended. Did you throw out all of your Kid Rock CDs too?[/quote]

You could have tried to make an argument, but – yet again – that path has gone unchosen.

Anyway, while I appreciate the intellectual effort that went into this response, I’ll have to let our exchange end here.[/quote]

Ok then. It doesn’t really matter whether or not you find it appropriate. That is irrelevant because it is perfectly
LEGAL. If a State wants to name something Nathan Bedford Forrest Hall at Robert E. Lee High School. It is perfectly legal to do so. Offensive and inappropriate are pretty much the same thing to me. So please feel free to use whichever term you wish. And yes, we are discussing this because some people have recently been told that they should find it offensive. These schools have bore these names for 50-60 years and it’s just now a problem?

Monuments, graves and such are actually protected by the same act extending veteran status to confederate soldiers, I believe. That act was passed in the 1950s, allowing plenty of time for reflection on what had been done and in a different social and political climate than what existed in the 1860s. That act was a full and final forgiveness for confederates. That is also when most of the schools bearing confederate names started appearing, including Lee Montgomery that I mentioned earlier.

If a State, town or community wants to put a name on a school that is their business. Not yours or mine. I probably don’t like it any more than you do, but it’s none of my business. And don’t play the “my tax money” card because, remember, our government forgave them of their sins and they are all US Veterans in the eyes of the law, just like Ike and Patton. I thought you liberal guys liked legalism?

1. What is under discussion is legislation designed to make such names illegal (for public property) in the state of California. “It’s legal” is not apropos of anything in this discussion. The question is whether or not the legislation is reasonable, good, intelligent.

2. Even if 1 weren’t the case, that something is legal does not ipso facto render it immune to criticism. It is legal for you to teach your kids that the Holocaust was a hoax, or that their species has its origin in Xenu’s volcano party, or that white people are evil oppressors. These things are still wrong, and I can (and should) argue convincingly that you are an idiot if you do any of them. This is basic stuff that I shouldn’t have to be writing, but it is a sign of the weakness of your position that you are resorting to questioning the wisdom of a criticism of legal behavior. It is legal to drink toilet water, for fuck’s sake. Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t tell you you’re stupid if you do it.

3. Yet again: that political exigencies forced leniency 150 years ago has no bearing today. That the government considered them veterans is not material (remember Hitler?) Yes, these are public, taxpayer-funded schools. Yes, the names belong to leaders of a country that was created in defense of the legal ownership of black slaves. You believe that it should be allowed to happen that the former – again, taxes – celebrate the latter. You can either try, at long last, to defend this position, or you can give up.

[Sloth]

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Yes, the names belong to leaders of a country that was created in defense of the legal ownership of black slaves. [/quote]

How’s that any “worse” than a nation founded and built by slave-owners?

[angry_chicken]

“The common enemy is the white man”

“I’ve never seen a sincere white man”

“If I have a cup of coffee that is black, I weaken it by pouring cream”

“I want to be sent down south, organize them nigger soldiers… steal us some guns, and kill us some crackers”

-Malcolm X

I’d call that pretty blatantly racist. I demand that all Malcolm X Boulevards be removed from all cities. /sarcasm

YOU CAN’T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS

[smh_23]

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Yes, the names belong to leaders of a country that was created in defense of the legal ownership of black slaves. [/quote]

How’s that any “worse” than a nation founded and built by slave-owners?
[/quote]

The nation was not built only for slavery – slavery was not the central, existential factor in its making. Also and more importantly, the U.S. lasted, changed, came to mean other things (like anti-slavery, for example). The CSA spent all of its miserable existence as a country created in the fight for slavery. It was born and died in that cause, explicitly, and is thus inextricable from it. The two are very unalike.

[smh_23]

[quote]angry chicken wrote:
“The common enemy is the white man”

“I’ve never seen a sincere white man”

“If I have a cup of coffee that is black, I weaken it by pouring cream”

“I want to be sent down south, organize them nigger soldiers… steal us some guns, and kill us some crackers”

-Malcolm X

I’d call that pretty blatantly racist. I demand that all Malcolm X Boulevards be removed from all cities. /sarcasm

YOU CAN’T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS

[/quote]

Yes, because a black guy saying mean things about white people (in a time of lynchings and legal political oppression of blacks by whites) is comparable to a group of people breaking the United States so that they could be sure about their continued ability to own black slaves (and then fighting in a fantastically bloody war in resistance of the union’s reconstruction…again, because they wanted to continue to own black slaves as property).

Think, for a moment, about the utter stupidity of the foregoing. This thread has become parodic.

[smh_23]

^ In other words: if all this were simply about a bunch of white guys who said some mean (mean =/= totally unjustified) things about blacks, this conversation would not be happening. Thing is, this is about slavery and disunion and war. Your comparison is stupid and self-evidently absurd.

[DoubleDuce]

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Yes, the names belong to leaders of a country that was created in defense of the legal ownership of black slaves. [/quote]

How’s that any “worse” than a nation founded and built by slave-owners?
[/quote]

Yeah, I already went through this with him. Seems a pretty arbitrary distinction to me too.

[DoubleDuce]

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Yes, the names belong to leaders of a country that was created in defense of the legal ownership of black slaves. [/quote]

How’s that any “worse” than a nation founded and built by slave-owners?
[/quote]

The nation was not built only for slavery – slavery was not the central, existential factor in its making. Also and more importantly, the U.S. lasted, changed, came to mean other things (like anti-slavery, for example). The CSA spent all of its miserable existence as a country created in the fight for slavery. It was born and died in that cause, explicitly, and is thus inextricable from it. The two are very unalike.[/quote]

The country may have lasted but the people, soldiers, leaders and constituents did not. And yet we still name things after them.