Shooting In South Carolina

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
441

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[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.[/quote]

Sloth asked about the nation itself, but you raise a good point. To return to what I’ve already said on this subject, it is the existential centrality of slavery to the CSA (and, therefore, to historical figures remembered/historically significant for their participation in it) that sets it apart in my view. These were not men whose most consequential contributions to American history had nothing to do with slavery – that is, these were not historical actors who, incidentally, owned slaves. They broke their country in half in order to protect and defend the institution of legal black-slave chattelhood, and they struggled against reunion at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dead Americans.

Put simply, I admit again that I cannot (and would not want to) come up with an objective, defensible, non-arbitrary set of guidelines by which to determine, in every possible case, who should and who should not be celebrated in the name of a public school. However, this doesn’t change the fact that some people obviously belong to one or the other category (in the same vein, I can’t come up with an easy and non-arbitrary set of criteria by which to precisely distinguish a small child, a child, a young adult, an adult, a middle-aged adult, and an elderly person…but this doesn’t make Malia Obama an old woman, and it doesn’t make Harper Lee an infant).

A group of men who broke our country in half in explicit defense of slavery and then fought a war against reunion are uniquely positioned as an easy, easy choice in the foregoing paragraph’s should/shouldn’t dichotomy. One can scarcely imagine a clearer-cut example of people after whom we shouldn’t be naming publicly-funded schools. Yes, I admit that there are others (though I remain convinced that most other cases are far more ambiguous) not associated with the CSA, but I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about the CSA and just how simple the decision is vis-a-vis it.

Just as a note: I’ve been fighting this out for a long time, and I won’t have a lot of time today.

442

SMH: Trivia question:

Name the last US President who was a slave-owner, and what he is most famous for.

443

I don’t think a state should, in its state flag or presentation of flags, have anything related to the Confederacy. That is obvious to me. However, attempting to scrub school names, etc. of Confederate men merely because of their association with the Confederacy, as a blanket deletion, makes no sense. It’s perfectly fine reevaluate specific individuals - but a programmatic deletion of Confederate names from schools, etc. fails appreciate where a number of these men fall in American history.

Lee is a perfect example. A career in the US military, a distinguished officer. Almost strung up in Texas when that state declared secession and demanded to know if he stop on their side (he answered he was a Virginian). He didn’t think slavery was a positive good, but rather an inherited evil for which he had no solution that didn’t put the Union in danger (a view shared by many at that time, both those who wanted to see slavery go and those who were more ambivalent). He thought secession was nothing short of anarchy. He was given the chance to command Union forces. He made the wrong choice, but his choice was based in a love and defense of his native state, which was a sentiment much more powerful and common then. He served bravely, but yielded when it was time. After the war, he helped with reconciliation of thr country.

Obviously, Lee’s role in American history was complicated, but this man isn’t, say, John Calhoun, in terms of race and slavery. I have no problem with his name being on a school.

Moreover, in fifty years time, do we have to tear down all monuments of FDR because of his Japanese internment camps in World War 2?

444

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
I don’t think a state should, in its state flag or presentation of flags, have anything related to the Confederacy. That is obvious to me. However, attempting to scrub school names, etc. of Confederate men merely because of their association with the Confederacy, as a blanket deletion, makes no sense. It’s perfectly fine reevaluate specific individuals - but a programmatic deletion of Confederate names from schools, etc. fails appreciate where a number of these men fall in American history.

Lee is a perfect example. A career in the US military, a distinguished officer. Almost strung up in Texas when that state declared secession and demanded to know if he stop on their side (he answered he was a Virginian). He didn’t think slavery was a positive good, but rather an inherited evil for which he had no solution that didn’t put the Union in danger (a view shared by many at that time, both those who wanted to see slavery go and those who were more ambivalent). He thought secession was nothing short of anarchy. He was given the chance to command Union forces. He made the wrong choice, but his choice was based in a love and defense of his native state, which was a sentiment much more powerful and common then. He served bravely, but yielded when it was time. After the war, he helped with reconciliation of thr country.

Obviously, Lee’s role in American history was complicated, but this man isn’t, say, John Calhoun, in terms of race and slavery. I have no problem with his name being on a school.

Moreover, in fifty years time, do we have to tear down all monuments of FDR because of his Japanese internment camps in World War 2? [/quote]

I would even say that being in a far more enlightened culture, FDR was maybe more morally culpable. He took a people that were free and walked human rights backwards in a society that knew better.

BUT according to SMH, the war wasn’t expressly fought for Japanese internment, so it doesn’t count.

445

Yes, these men fought for a nation that was created to protect a morally repugnant institution. However, they were allowed back into the fold after it was over. Concessions were made. Sins were forgiven. 100 years later, in the 1950s, our Congress passed a final act of forgiveness by giving all of them US veteran status. It no longer matters who or what they fought for. All was forgiven. What Push’s “fixers” want us to do is to disregard what was done 150 years ago, 50 years ago, and condemn these men all over again. Why? Because the fixers are offended. It isn’t politically correct to have a school named after these men.

446

[quote]OldOgre wrote:
Yes, these men fought for a nation that was created to protect a morally repugnant institution. However, they were allowed back into the fold after it was over. Concessions were made. Sins were forgiven. 100 years later, in the 1950s, our Congress passed a final act of forgiveness by giving all of them US veteran status. It no longer matters who or what they fought for. All was forgiven.[/quote]

Your last two sentences have absolutely nothing to do with what precedes it. Political exigencies that forced smooth reintegration does not entail that “it no longer matters who or what they fought for,” just as a murder victim’s wife’s forgiveness of her husband’s murderer does not entail that it no longer matters what the murderer did, so let’s dedicate a park to him.

You still have to show that – whatever political exigencies forced mercy on the victors (and no longer apply in the slightest) – it is appropriate for my money to fund a public school whose name celebrates a guy who fought for a country that was created in order to safeguard the future ownership of black slaves. Why is it that you seem so reluctant to do this? It’s almost like you can’t.

I don’t care whether you condemn anybody at all. I am talking about what public property should celebrate.

447

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
I don’t think a state should, in its state flag or presentation of flags, have anything related to the Confederacy. That is obvious to me. However, attempting to scrub school names, etc. of Confederate men merely because of their association with the Confederacy, as a blanket deletion, makes no sense. It’s perfectly fine reevaluate specific individuals - but a programmatic deletion of Confederate names from schools, etc. fails appreciate where a number of these men fall in American history.

Lee is a perfect example. A career in the US military, a distinguished officer. Almost strung up in Texas when that state declared secession and demanded to know if he stop on their side (he answered he was a Virginian). He didn’t think slavery was a positive good, but rather an inherited evil for which he had no solution that didn’t put the Union in danger (a view shared by many at that time, both those who wanted to see slavery go and those who were more ambivalent). He thought secession was nothing short of anarchy. He was given the chance to command Union forces. He made the wrong choice, but his choice was based in a love and defense of his native state, which was a sentiment much more powerful and common then. He served bravely, but yielded when it was time. After the war, he helped with reconciliation of thr country.

Obviously, Lee’s role in American history was complicated, but this man isn’t, say, John Calhoun, in terms of race and slavery. I have no problem with his name being on a school.
[/quote]

I don’t have much of a problem with your suggestion that a case-by-case evaluation is appropriate, though I don’t think such is necessary – and Lee is a perfect example. Yes, I understand that he was not the historical epitome of racism, though, as your word choice suggests you know, Lee the anti-slavery gentleman is a revisionist myth. Much like Jefferson, Lee said very different things about slavery at different (and anachronic) times, and the historical record suggests that he treated his own slaves as slavers did (breaking up families, ordering severe whippings), even going so far as to fight in court for an extension of their slavery.

Much more important is the part that I emboldened: “He was given the chance to command Union forces. He made the wrong choice.” This, exactly. He made the wrong choice, and he led (and [correctly and naturally] came to represent) the struggle against union, against the unitedness of the United States, which, as we all know, was fundamentally a struggle against perceived threats to the future health and proliferation of slavery. That he chose to lead the charge of bloody iniquity for complicated and human reasons makes him neither unique – it’s more often been that way than not – nor less the leader of the charge of bloody iniquity.

In short, he should be remembered, and he should be understood as human and complicated. But he should not be celebrated – not on behalf of the taxpayer. We have enough historical figures deserving of celebration that we don’t need to be reaching for generals who led armies against American boys in the name of a country created for the sake of slavery.

448

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
SMH: Trivia question:

Name the last US President who was a slave-owner, and what he is most famous for.[/quote]

Grant, whose wife inherited them? If I’m not mistaken? This was mentioned earlier, and I don’t have any problem with it if anybody wants to make an argument to the effect that Grant shouldn’t be celebrated either. That, however, is not the argument I’m making, and the fact of slave ownership is not as important to me as “owned slaves and also killed Union soldiers while trying to destroy the United States in order to safeguard the health of slavery.”

450

Dear social justice warriors

Did you know that only 12.5 Africans were brought to the new world to be slave labor, and that the holocaust only killed between 15-20 million?

Meanwhile somewhere between 50-70 million native people were killed by those evil Europeans settlers in North America and we havent taken down Mount Rushmore yet…

it’s only a matter of time

451

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
SMH: Trivia question:

Name the last US President who was a slave-owner, and what he is most famous for.[/quote]

Grant, whose wife inherited them? If I’m not mistaken? This was mentioned earlier, and I don’t have any problem with it if anybody wants to make an argument to the effect that Grant shouldn’t be celebrated either. That, however, is not the argument I’m making, and the fact of slave ownership is not as important to me as “owned slaves and also killed Union soldiers while trying to destroy the United States in order to safeguard the health of slavery.”[/quote]

I’ve already made that argument. And yes that is your statement. You are actively supporting the removal of confederate generals, while not doing so for others likes Grant. You are putting it out there that Lee is underserving of being on a school while Grant is okay on the 50 dollar bill. And without that distinction in your argument, you are advocating a whitewashing of general history. However, seeing as how youâ??ve denied wanting a whitewashing, you must be advocating the distinction between them and that people like Grant are worth celebrating. So, why should tax dollars go to celebrating Grant?

452

Smh,

I see your sentiment and understand it, and we agree to a large extent, even as we differ on where to draw lines. You have a hard line on men associated with the Confederacy. I wouldn’t draw such a distinct line because I think some Confederate men are worthy of celebration, even with their flaws. The reason is that the men themselves are to be celebrated, but not their cause. I understand you can see no separation between the two, but I do.

But to be clear, I’d be very choosy. Anyone who has read what I have written about the Civil War, etc. on this board knows I am no Confederate apologist. But I do recognize that the Civil War - as it was fought, by men on both sides - can’t be viewed in the modern reductionist view of It Was a Super Bowl of Good Guys versus Bad Guys. Truly, there are real villains in this story - members of true slavocracy, and Calhoun and Stephens come to mind - but not every military officer or soldier.

And I never suggested Lee was an anti-slavery gentleman. He was mixed on slavery - called it evil, but didn’t do much to end what he labeled evil. His family also violated the law to provide an education to some slaves. Again, his attitudes were mixed, not unusual for a Virginian patrician of the era.

453

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Smh,

I see your sentiment and understand it, and we agree to a large extent, even as we differ on where to draw lines. You have a hard line on men associated with the Confederacy. I wouldn’t draw such a distinct line because I think some Confederate men are worthy of celebration, even with their flaws. The reason is that the men themselves are to be celebrated, but not their cause. I understand you can see no separation between the two, but I do.

But to be clear, I’d be very choosy. Anyone who has read what I have written about the Civil War, etc. on this board knows I am no Confederate apologist. But I do recognize that the Civil War - as it was fought, by men on both sides - can’t be viewed in the modern reductionist view of It Was a Super Bowl of Good Guys versus Bad Guys. Truly, there are real villains in this story - members of true slavocracy, and Calhoun and Stephens come to mind - but not every military officer or soldier.

And I never suggested Lee was an anti-slavery gentleman. He was mixed on slavery - called it evil, but didn’t do much to end what he labeled evil. His family also violates these to provide an education to some slaves. Again, his attitudes were mixed, not unusual for a Virginian patrician of the era.

[/quote]

I have it on good authority that during those years, in the US, all good people were born in the North and all the bad ones in the South.

454

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
^ 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.[/quote]

No, this thread is about people claiming “victim status” over shit that never happened to them, and choosing to be offended by history. Well guess what?

HISTORY HAPPENED!

My Great Great Grandfather RODE with General Lee. Why? He didn’t own any slaves. But the North had an Army advancing towards his HOME. The home of MY ancestors that they had EVERY FUCKING RIGHT TO DEFEND. So he fought in “Thje War Of Northern Aggression” and he fought bravely and managed to live long enough to pass his genetic code down to little old me.

It was the same with MANY PEOPLE. But you northern Yankee FUCKS don’t acknowledge THAT part of it. “it’s all about SLAAAAAAVERY!”. Well guess what? NOT FOR EVERYONE, IT WASN’T! For many people it was about defending their homes and their livelihoods because an invading army made their town a fucking battleground.

What would YOU do, SMH? If an advancing army with thousands of soldiers came marching your way, seizing your resources and raping your women as they came? Would you JOIN this army out of some noble principle, or would you fight against an unwelcomed, uninvited INVADING force that came to your porch, kicked the door in and if you didn’t feed them, they’d burn your house down after they raped your wife and daughters?

Oh, you don’t want to talk about THAT side of the war, do you? That would distract you from your progressive narrative, now wouldn’t it?

My arguments are FAR from stupid, my friend. You are the one with the one trick pony of “SLAAAAVERY”. Not everyone fought for slavery. Those that fought to defend their homes, such as my great great grandfather, fought with HONOR. They fought under that flag that you seek to ban and their ancestors (ME) have EVERY FUCKING RIGHT to be proud to fly it (and I do). But we’re just scratching the surface…

African Americans are not the only people to ever be enslaved in the US. For example, the Irish were enslaved by the English and brought to America - you don’t see them up in arms and asking for reparations, do you? “I’m Irish and the British enslaved my ancestors, so I want ALL streets, schools and parks with a British name to be changed”. That’s fucking ridiculous.

Slavery happened. It was not unique to America. It was not unique to Black people.

There is like ONE African American still alive today who was allegedly a slave, and he’s 109 years old. THATS IT!

Everyone else is just playing the race / victim card and trying to curtail the First Amendment rights of other people in the name of political correctness - just like you are doing.

Flags, parks, streets and buildings are part of HISTORY. History is what it is - you can’t change it you can only learn from it. This all blew up because some asshole POSED in a picture with a fucking flag. There are probably MILLIONS of people who posed in a picture with that SAME FLAG. Did THEY kill anyone? NO! So to ban a flag is just a stupid, knee jerk, politically correct over reaction to a tragic situation.

Open your eyes. The Left is following the Progressing axiom of “never let a good crisis go to waste”. That’s IT! They saw an opening to “take” from their enemy (the WHITE MAN, the SOUTH, the RACIST CRACKER, etc…) something that they hold dear, and they won. This was only a skirmish in a much larger war - and that WAR is against YOU, and ME and ALL AMERICANS. It is a war against our freedom and you are following lock step with their jack booted thugs that would jump at the chance to “re-educate” EVERYONE who doesn’t see the world in their twisted socialist viewpoint. Bravo, SMH - I thought you were smarter than that. But you’re just another libtard drinking the koolaid.

455

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Smh,

I see your sentiment and understand it, and we agree to a large extent, even as we differ on where to draw lines. You have a hard line on men associated with the Confederacy. I wouldn’t draw such a distinct line because I think some Confederate men are worthy of celebration, even with their flaws. The reason is that the men themselves are to be celebrated, but not their cause. I understand you can see no separation between the two, but I do.

But to be clear, I’d be very choosy. Anyone who has read what I have written about the Civil War, etc. on this board knows I am no Confederate apologist. But I do recognize that the Civil War - as it was fought, by men on both sides - can’t be viewed in the modern reductionist view of It Was a Super Bowl of Good Guys versus Bad Guys. Truly, there are real villains in this story - members of true slavocracy, and Calhoun and Stephens come to mind - but not every military officer or soldier.

And I never suggested Lee was an anti-slavery gentleman. He was mixed on slavery - called it evil, but didn’t do much to end what he labeled evil. His family also violated the law to provide an education to some slaves. Again, his attitudes were mixed, not unusual for a Virginian patrician of the era.
[/quote]

A clarification: I did not mean to imply that you suggested that Lee was an anti-slavery gentleman. In fact I meant the opposite – something like, “As your words make it clear that you know.” Afterward I noticed that my wording was poor, and I edited, but I don’t know whether it took.

As for the rest, we do agree on much. I know you aren’t a Confederate apologist (though there are many hereabouts, and their pretzels are amusing if a little disconcerting), and, for my part, I haven’t ever made, or come close to making, the facile “good guys v. bad guys” argument DD suggested in his last post.

In the end, I do indeed see the separation of which you speak – it can be found in all of history’s dark periods, and it is of course not to be paved over – but I simply don’t think it overrides my objections in this case. I respect the fact that, at this point, subjectivity enters the equation.

456

We need to stop selling Volkswagen’s, they represent the holocaust and nazi’s.

We should also ban anything with cotton and/or sugar since that was the driving economic force behind slavery, thus cotton and sugar is evil and racist.

457

For the record it was a joke, but meant to illustrate a real sentiment many people really do hold. It is tribal moralism. My tribe is inherently better, the other tribe is inherently worse. I think that if you really asked people “leading up to the civil war, do you think more good people were born in the north?” there might be some interesting introspection, it is not facile. And yes, I do believe that seems to be the reason behind you drawing the lines like you do. Tribe matters regardless of individual merit. Other tribe = bad. Home team = good.

458

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
For the record it was a joke, but meant to illustrate a real sentiment many people really do hold. It is tribal moralism. My tribe is inherently better, the other tribe is inherently worse. I think that if you really asked people “leading up to the civil war, do you think more good people were born in the north?” there might be some interesting introspection, it is not facile. And yes, I do believe that seems to be the reason behind you drawing the lines like you do. Tribe matters regardless of individual merit. Other tribe = bad. Home team = good.[/quote]

You’re right about other people and their misunderstandings of history, but they have nothing to do with me. My argument hasn’t been about tribes or about any group to which I belong – neither of us has anything to do with the historical events we’re talking about. This doesn’t change the fact that certain historical figures/causes are not appropriately celebrated, today, with taxpayer property.

As for good and bad men in history, don’t fool yourself into thinking that, because the facile manichean Huffpost interpretation is ahistorical, there was no good and bad in the Civil War. Contrary to the popular revisionisms – and there are many excreted on these boards – there was indeed obvious good and evil, and it is unquestionably the case that the former tended to be HQ’ed in the north while the latter could be found everywhere but sure had a deep and obvious grasp on the souls of southern whites. It was abolitionist sentiment and legislation in the north that so terrified the secessionists. You can read the legislation, and you can read the secessionists’ explicit objections. I excerpted a bunch of it earlier in this thread.

Anyway, that is an aside. The point is…well, it’s already been made more times than I care to remember. I cannot keep up with the pace at which horrendous thinking (this does not refer to you) is sprouting in this thread, and I certainly don’t want to continue repeating myself.

459

CSA: Supported the right to abolish the bonds that bound some people to others.
-Their flaw was in not extending the right to slaves(or citizens within themselves who disagreed with leaving the USA) at the time.

USA: Supported the right of some people to bind others in perpetuity.
-Has never corrected its flaw, but it did correct the CSA’s fault for them when they attempted to exercise their right.

At best, the side fighting for the wrong principle produced improved conditions for some at the time. 600,000 men died for one principle or the other, proving that we(humans) are pretty screwed up.(Edit: Also, see AngryChicken’s post. Many-most?-in the CSA were merely defending their homes and families from an invading army. The question of slavery was one which mainly concerned the political and wealthy class.)

460

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
For the record it was a joke, but meant to illustrate a real sentiment many people really do hold. It is tribal moralism. My tribe is inherently better, the other tribe is inherently worse. I think that if you really asked people “leading up to the civil war, do you think more good people were born in the north?” there might be some interesting introspection, it is not facile. And yes, I do believe that seems to be the reason behind you drawing the lines like you do. Tribe matters regardless of individual merit. Other tribe = bad. Home team = good.[/quote]

You’re right about other people and their misunderstandings of history, but they have nothing to do with me. My argument hasn’t been about tribes or about any group to which I belong – neither of us has anything to do with the historical events we’re talking about. This doesn’t change the fact that certain historical figures/causes are not appropriately celebrated, today, with taxpayer property.

As for good and bad men in history, don’t fool yourself into thinking that, because the facile manichean Huffpost interpretation is ahistorical, there was no good and bad in the Civil War. Contrary to the popular revisionisms – and there are many excreted on these boards – there was indeed obvious good and evil, and it is unquestionably the case that the former tended to be HQ’ed in the north while the latter could be found everywhere but sure had a deep and obvious grasp on the souls of southern whites. It was abolitionist sentiment and legislation in the north that so terrified the secessionists. You can read the legislation, and you can read the secessionists’ explicit objections. I excerpted a bunch of it earlier in this thread.

Anyway, that is an aside. The point is…well, it’s already been made more times than I care to remember. I cannot keep up with the pace at which horrendous thinking (this does not refer to you) is sprouting in this thread, and I certainly don’t want to continue repeating myself.[/quote]

I haven’t argued with your “slavery is the only reason for the civil war” not because I agree, but because it’s been beat to death and I just plan don’t care to get on that merry go round again. There are, in fact, a number of critical elements to the war. Much like men, the motivations of countries are complicated. I can quote documents about the reasons for the war from Abe directly contradicting you. Why is it complicated? Because all participants are individuals with individual motivation.

I can also continue to point out the flaws in the people you are defacto arguing in favor of celebrating from the same time. Beyond generals like Grant, ole Abe had some pretty disgusting views on blacks all the way to his death. Largely that he didn’t want blacks to be part of America and died wanting them all deported. Leave him on the penny and his bust in the oval office while getting rid of Mr. Forrest who died wanting the black people to “come closer” (direct quote) to whites? Why? because they were on the bad team? Your arguments on this particular subject lack nuance.