# Defacing of monuments is apparently becoming more common.



## KnightBrolaire (Aug 26, 2017)

Some are being removed by the cities themselves and not by protestors. Personally I don't think defacing statues dedicated to dead soldiers is conducive or that the statues are racist(particularly when there were black soldiers who fought for the confederacy). Are they from a more blatantly racist time frame, yes, but so is the Iwo Jima memorial. I can't wait til someone starts claiming that or the vietnam wall memorial are racist as well. This shit is getting out of hand imo.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2...lottesville/JU4qvhS8rTExjxxHVKRs1N/story.html
https://www.facebook.com/44thNYSVI/photos/pcb.1085231261610834/1085229334944360/?type=3&theater


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## tedtan (Aug 26, 2017)

The statues are a part of our history, and they serve as a reminder of what was. And it's important for us to remember that history so we don't repeat it.

But putting them on display so prominently tends to come across as promoting what they stood for, which was slavery (specifically race based slavery).

As such, they should probably be moved to a museum or other dedicated area to preserve them as a history lesson, but without giving the impression of promoting slavery or racism.


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## KnightBrolaire (Aug 26, 2017)

tedtan said:


> The statues are a part of our history, and they serve as a reminder of what was. And it's important for us to remember that history so we don't repeat it.
> 
> But putting them on display so prominently tends to come across as promoting what they stood for, which was slavery (specifically race based slavery).
> 
> As such, they should probably be moved to a museum or other dedicated area to preserve them as a history lesson, but without giving the impression of promoting slavery or racism.


The problem is that this wasn't limited to civil war statues- they also defaced the christopher columbus monument in ohio and claimed it was a vestige of racism. I just feel like this is going to get way too out of hand and could easily escalate to an absurd level where they want to tear down Mt. Vernon or all the gravestones in Arlington since they also perpetuate racism or such.


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## BenjaminW (Aug 26, 2017)

I'm starting to question now if all the protestors wanting statues that "promote racism" really know what the definition of racism means.


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## KnightBrolaire (Aug 26, 2017)

BenjaminW said:


> I'm starting to question now if all the protestors wanting statues that "promote racism" really know what the definition of racism means.


well I would doubt it since they clearly don't understand what fascism is. They keep trying to change the connotation of fascism to just being right wing when historically it meant para-military groups that used violence to further their own political agenda/suppress other group and their opinions, along with a strong sense of nationalism/xenophobia and endorsement of totalitarianism. This is an op-ed about fascism/Trump (and how he's not really a fascist) by someone who was alive in italy during WWII: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/01/donald-trump-fascist/424449/


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## BenjaminW (Aug 26, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> well I would doubt it since they clearly don't understand what fascism is. They keep trying to change the connotation of fascism to just being right wing when historically it meant para-military groups that used violence to further their own political agenda/suppress other group and their opinions, along with a strong sense of nationalism/xenophobia and endorsement of totalitarianism. This is an op-ed about fascism/Trump (and how he's not really a fascist) by someone who was alive in italy during WWII: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/01/donald-trump-fascist/424449/


I did forget fascism in my reply. Regarding Trump being labeled a racist, I think it's dumb because like you said, the people calling him one don't understand what the definition means.


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## AngstRiddenDreams (Aug 26, 2017)

Take down Columbus statues too.


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## SD83 (Aug 26, 2017)

BenjaminW said:


> the people [...] don't understand what the definition means.


That is a bit of a general problem of the extreme left (these days ?). If you're part of the political right, they seem to think that means you are by definition a racist, if you are both right wing and a racist, it makes you a facist... and especially concerning facism, it seems no one really knows what it actually means because to everyone it means something different. 
As for the statues, I'd go with what tedtan said. But then again, and Columbus is a great example of that, there are a lot of statues all over the world for people who were heroes or such by the standards of their time, but judged by the rules and moral values of our day, they would be horrible criminals. Alexander the Great might have ordered tons of war crimes, should all his statues be taken down as well? Where to draw the line? What is a reminder of the past, and what promotes what we now came to see as false?


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## KnightBrolaire (Aug 26, 2017)

SD83 said:


> That is a bit of a general problem of the extreme left (these days ?). If you're part of the political right, they seem to think that means you are by definition a racist, if you are both right wing and a racist, it makes you a facist... and especially concerning facism, it seems no one really knows what it actually means because to everyone it means something different.
> As for the statues, I'd go with what tedtan said. But then again, and Columbus is a great example of that, there are a lot of statues all over the world for people who were heroes or such by the standards of their time, but judged by the rules and moral values of our day, they would be horrible criminals. Alexander the Great might have ordered tons of war crimes, should all his statues be taken down as well? Where to draw the line? What is a reminder of the past, and what promotes what we now came to see as false?


therein lies the problem. Robert E Lee was a general with the union and distinguished himself in the Mexican American War but because he fought for the south some liberals want to get rid of his statue. It makes no sense when the man himself freed his father in law's slave in 1862 and didn't really support slavery. I think the Christopher Columbus monument is the really telling one, because if they're willing to deface that, then what is safe? I think it's the start of a very slippery slope.


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## odibrom (Aug 26, 2017)

Every change in paradigm in History is followed by a symbol cleansing... the real question is, which is the new and the old?... Fear is then the drive of most, on both sides, fear of what is to come (on the conservationist side) and fear of the old ways mistakes (from the revolution side)...


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## BenjaminW (Aug 26, 2017)

SD83 said:


> As for the statues, I'd go with what tedtan said. But then again, and Columbus is a great example of that, there are a lot of statues all over the world for people who were heroes or such by the standards of their time, but judged by the rules and moral values of our day, they would be horrible criminals. Alexander the Great might have ordered tons of war crimes, should all his statues be taken down as well? Where to draw the line? What is a reminder of the past, and what promotes what we now came to see as false?


I'm genuinely behind you all the way. I can't wait to see people on social media or on the news calling for the removal of the Pyramids, Mount Vernon, Monticello, Confederate graves at Gettysburg, and so on. All that the extreme left has done with calling for "monuments to slavery" be removed is mimic ISIS in a way, by removing "the inferior past" from existence because it doesn't fit their ideological whim.


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## Mathemagician (Aug 26, 2017)

The majority of those "monuments" are cheap molded statues that went up in the 1920's and 1930's thanks to the resurgence at that time of the KKK and other groups that supported their goals. 

WELL after anyone could pretend that the secession attempt was anything other than treason. The same southern states that REQUIRED the 3/5ths clause.

It'd be like a group claiming to be "German patriots" putting up monuments to Hitler in the 1990's.


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## jaxadam (Aug 26, 2017)

I think we ought to load them all up with high explosives and blow them up in place, just like ISIS is doing in Syria.


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## Mathemagician (Aug 26, 2017)

Or. Or. Wait. Hear me out. 

We take a photo. And put it in a history book. With a note showing when the statue went up, and what group/groups funded it. And an explanation as to why it was removed. 

Like history books do. Teach history. 

I'm not ok pretending that confederate generals who fought to defend slavery should have their statues left up. 

They were losers who fought for a bad cause and lost. 

All I hear is "leave the participation trophy up because some people have nothing else to trace their ancestors to. Why should people feel bad that grandpa fought for the south?"

'Cause grandpas team lost. Losers don't get trophies.


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## iamaom (Aug 26, 2017)

Mathemagician said:


> The majority of those "monuments" are cheap molded statues that went up in the 1920's and 1930's thanks to the resurgence at that time of the KKK and other groups that supported their goals.


This is the main one for me. If it was a 100 year old statue hand carved out of marble I could see being mad at its destruction, but if you look up videos a lot of these "statues" crumple like aluminum foil once they hit the ground. They're tacky faux-statues. I also don't buy the heritage argument. I've seen people waving confederate flags in Michigan, the guy who drove over that woman was a native of Ohio. These states have nothing to do with "southern heritage", and if southern heritage is defending people who fought to break up the US and form a slave owning society then it is not needed in this country. People need to learn to be proud by making the future a better place, not clinging to some archaic culture that they feel some loose connection to because they feel "oppressed" by liberals.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Aug 26, 2017)

Mathemagician said:


> Or. Or. Wait. Hear me out.
> 
> We take a photo. And put it in a history book. With a note showing when the statue went up, and what group/groups funded it. And an explanation as to why it was removed.
> 
> ...


History books are written and manipulated by the victors. They're meant to brainwash and dumb people down, because that's what public schools do. They "teach" via the Pavlovian dog training method for the most part, and the only good option is Montessori as far as I am concerned. Might not be for everyone, though, and think there should be other options as well, not just the one and only option we currently have in American schools.

Anyways, I think we should have museums set up as a memorial that discusses the good, the bad, and the ugly of America's history. Open them up to schools so they can have field trips and there can be plaques that explain certain elements of whatever it is that pertains to that part of the exhibit.


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## possumkiller (Aug 27, 2017)

The problem is I just don't believe these people. They aren't sincere. They seem like a band of street thugs that care more about creating fear and destruction than they do about any of the issues they claim to represent. Everyone knows that politicians are never sincere to begin with. So what is really going on here? Is there some other shit going on behind the curtain they want to get our attention away from? Are these masked bandits just paid pawns charged with stirring fear and chaos to get the public to be alright with the government using lethal force on groups of protesters? There is just something extremely fishy to me about the whole thing.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Aug 27, 2017)

possumkiller said:


> The problem is I just don't believe these people. They aren't sincere. They seem like a band of street thugs that care more about creating fear and destruction than they do about any of the issues they claim to represent. Everyone knows that politicians are never sincere to begin with. So what is really going on here? Is there some other shit going on behind the curtain they want to get our attention away from? Are these masked bandits just paid pawns charged with stirring fear and chaos to get the public to be alright with the government using lethal force on groups of protesters? There is just something extremely fishy to me about the whole thing.


In other words, "Thou doth protest too much."

All of this chaos is to be used as pretext to JFK Trump Grassy Knoll style. But not only that, it's to justify it, whereas most people felt that JFK and RFK's assassinations were unjustified. They want a president they can murder at will, and the crowds will cheer, so that they can do so at any time they wish in the future.

As to your question regarding them being paid, I think they are. Not all of them, but the ones organizing this shit. Some are just victims of being easily lead by the nose. And it's not to get people okay with using lethal force on groups of people and/or protesters; it's to get people okay with the government openly and blatantly using lethal force against politicians, particularly presidents.


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## possumkiller (Aug 27, 2017)

Yeah I figured it was only a matter of time before Trump gets assassinated. He wasn't supposed to win to begin with. Nobody in Washington left or right wanted him in there meddling around in their game. It's the reason he won. People came out of the woodwork on election day and said they'd rather vote for fucking Mickey Mouse than another crook ass politician.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Aug 27, 2017)

possumkiller said:


> Yeah I figured it was only a matter of time before Trump gets assassinated. He wasn't supposed to win to begin with. Nobody in Washington left or right wanted him in there meddling around in their game. It's the reason he won. People came out of the woodwork on election day and said they'd rather vote for fucking Mickey Mouse than another crook ass politician.


Pretty much. We've already proven without a shadow of a doubt that the CIA can do whatever it wants, produce a bogus story with more holes than swiss cheese, and still get away with it. We're only a couple years before the CIA goes on TV and goes, "Yeah, so what? What the fuck are you peons gonna do about it?!" and the illustrious US media  covers for them.


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## KnightBrolaire (Aug 27, 2017)

woah when did the conspiracy theory page get combined with this one


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## Drew (Aug 31, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> Some are being removed by the cities themselves and not by protestors. Personally I don't think defacing statues dedicated to dead soldiers is conducive or that the statues are racist(particularly when there were black soldiers who fought for the confederacy). Are they from a more blatantly racist time frame, yes, but so is the Iwo Jima memorial. I can't wait til someone starts claiming that or the vietnam wall memorial are racist as well. This shit is getting out of hand imo.
> https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2...lottesville/JU4qvhS8rTExjxxHVKRs1N/story.html
> https://www.facebook.com/44thNYSVI/photos/pcb.1085231261610834/1085229334944360/?type=3&theater


Nitpicking, perhaps, but is it really "defacement" when the government that erected it takes it down, rather than when it's destroyed or vandalized by private citizens? 

The irony of all of this, of course, is that the Charlottesville "Unite the Right" white nationalist rally ended up being a turning point where governments started deciding in droves that the time had come to take these down, based on the sorts of people who were supporting keeping them up.


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## KnightBrolaire (Aug 31, 2017)

Drew said:


> Nitpicking, perhaps, but is it really "defacement" when the government that erected it takes it down, rather than when it's destroyed or vandalized by private citizens?
> 
> The irony of all of this, of course, is that the Charlottesville "Unite the Right" white nationalist rally ended up being a turning point where governments started deciding in droves that the time had come to take these down, based on the sorts of people who were supporting keeping them up.


no, if the government is taking it down it's not defacement. They're just removing the statues. I'm more bothered by how this shit has spread to relatively innocuous monuments like the christopher columbus one.


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## bostjan (Aug 31, 2017)

Defacing statues and monuments is older than the USA.  In the old days, if a kid wanted to fit in with a new group, he might deface a statue with the group's name or logo or whatever in order to look "cool."

Regarding Confederate statues: come on, we all know what this is about. This is the hill that people are choosing to die on. It is pretty stupid. None of the out-of-towners give two shits about the statue of Colonel So-and-so in Deepdeepsouthsmalltown, Mississippi. But if Deepdeepsouthsmalltown's town council votes to remove the statue, we all know that a swatch of Neo-nazis and KKK might show up from everywhere that is NOT that town, and protest the removal. If any of the locals point call the police over the ensuing violence, these groups will cry that their First Amendment rights were violated since they were not allowed to be disorderly in public and have fistfights in the street.


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## Drew (Aug 31, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> no, if the government is taking it down it's not defacement. They're just removing the statues. I'm more bothered by how this shit has spread to relatively innocuous monuments like the christopher columbus one.


If you want an example of an innocuous monument, maybe Columbus isn't the greatest example.  

I too get sick of how this comic dominates my facebook feed on Columbus Day, but, well, it's not wrong.  

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/columbus_day


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## KnightBrolaire (Aug 31, 2017)

Drew said:


> If you want an example of an innocuous monument, maybe Columbus isn't the greatest example.
> 
> I too get sick of how this comic dominates my facebook feed on Columbus Day, but, well, it's not wrong.
> 
> http://theoatmeal.com/comics/columbus_day


yeah I've read about columbus. The problem with demonizing him is that most of human history is bathed in blood, and while some of the things he did are revolting, attacks on his monument and others could start reaching absurd levels very quickly imo. Like I said at the beginning of the thread, I can't wait til people start defacing Mt. vernon or other historical sites like the pyramids because they're vestiges of racism/slavery. I could care less about columbus day or the actual monument. I care more about how this could easily get out of hand and people should calm down, read up on the history of these characters, denounce them on the internet, and just quit defacing stuff. Defacing monuments is not conducive towards getting people to listen to their point of view, it's the equivalent of a kid throwing a tantrum imo.


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## Randy (Aug 31, 2017)

How about no more statues of people period? Or no more statues period? I could live with either.


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## Drew (Aug 31, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> yeah I've read about columbus. The problem with demonizing him is that most of human history is bathed in blood, and while some of the things he did are revolting, attacks on his monument and others could start reaching absurd levels very quickly imo. Like I said at the beginning of the thread, I can't wait til people start defacing Mt. vernon or other historical sites like the pyramids because they're vestiges of racism/slavery. I could care less about columbus day or the actual monument. I care more about how this could easily get out of hand and people should calm down, read up on the history of these characters, denounce them on the internet, and just quit defacing stuff. Defacing monuments is not conducive towards getting people to listen to their point of view, it's the equivalent of a kid throwing a tantrum imo.


Well,

1) Again, there's a huge difference between defacing something, and taking it down.

2) A lot of pretty awful stuff has been done in the history of human civilization. Very little of that can be undone. I think what matters, then, is how we face up to that and how we grapple with that history. "What's done is done, leave the monuments up" is certainly ONE solution, but I think another totally valid one is deciding, collectively, what we choose to commemorate from our history, versus what we choose to acknowledge but not actually honor. Where that line should be drawn (no change at all, take down some monuments, take down everything that is even remotely offensive to today's standard of ethics) is the subject of some debate and likely will be for a long time to come. And, honestly, I think that's a _healthy_ thing, and is part of the process of grappling with our past. I think the case with Confederate monuments is pretty clearcut - at the end of the day, they're monuments to generals and soldiers who fought against our country. Columbus seems reasonably clearcut, as well, in that if you weight the good he did (mostly take credit for the achievements of others) with the harm he did (essentially genocide) it's not a very balanced equation. Washington, to me, seems more defensible - he was a slave-owner, but also a leading general in the Revolutionary War, our first president, and one of the founding fathers of this country. 

I mean, when push comes to shove, humans are remarkably good at making distinctions between things. Saying we need to honor traitors because Washington might one day be the next guy we want to take statues of down kind of flies in the face of that.


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## bostjan (Aug 31, 2017)

Drew said:


> I mean, when push comes to shove, humans are remarkably good at making distinctions between things.



Sometimes. .... Sometimes humans are remarkably terrible at choosing the option that makes the least amount of "WTF"s:
For example, a large amount of people in 1930's Germany devoting their lives to Hitler because, well, he shouted angry things and had a cool Charlie-Chaplain Mustache. Thanks, Hitler-followers - now Charlie-Chaplain mustaches will forever be Hitler mustaches instead - nice going.


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## KnightBrolaire (Aug 31, 2017)

Drew said:


> Well,
> 
> 1) Again, there's a huge difference between defacing something, and taking it down.
> 
> 2) A lot of pretty awful stuff has been done in the history of human civilization. Very little of that can be undone. I think what matters, then, is how we face up to that and how we grapple with that history. "What's done is done, leave the monuments up" is certainly ONE solution, but I think another totally valid one is deciding, collectively, what we choose to commemorate from our history, versus what we choose to acknowledge but not actually honor. Where that line should be drawn (no change at all, take down some monuments, take down everything that is even remotely offensive to today's standard of ethics) is the subject of some debate and likely will be for a long time to come. And, honestly, I think that's a _healthy_ thing, and is part of the process of grappling with our past. I think the case with Confederate monuments is pretty clearcut - at the end of the day, they're monuments to generals and soldiers who fought against our country. Columbus seems reasonably clearcut, as well, in that if you weight the good he did (mostly take credit for the achievements of others) with the harm he did (essentially genocide) it's not a very balanced equation. Washington, to me, seems more defensible - he was a slave-owner, but also a leading general in the Revolutionary War, our first president, and one of the founding fathers of this country. If at some point the balance shifts, hey, we can revisit it down the road... But, if your argument for why we should leave a statue commemorating traitors against the USA up is that "what if Washington is next?" then that's not really a very robust defense.



Ok fine I'll clarify what I mean by defacement. I mean the shitbags that take it upon themselves to go and break/spray paint statues/memorial because they feel that it's in any way conducive to making me listen to their argument of "HURR DURR DIS IS RACIST". I'm not from the south, I don't really care if the city wants to remove the statues themselves and if the citizens voted on it, but people destroying property isn't going to engender me to their cause against some inanimate objects/fighting racism when there's more pressing issues like the alarming number of homeless veterans/suicidal veterans/the failure of the american education system compared to the rest of the world/etc. I've dealt with racism plenty in my lifetime and it's just like bullying, it won't magically fucking disappear because some people say "let's fight racism/bullying". I think the statues should be left up like Auschwitz was after WWII, as a reminder of the painful horrible war and the horrible things that happened before and after the war. It should be a springboard for discussion and a way to teach kids about their ancestor's history that is somewhat free of family/personal biases. You keep bringing up Lee like he isn't someone to admire, when I've said multiple times, he was a war hero against Mexico, he freed his father in law's slaves in 1862, and he was a masterful tactician. I can overlook his duty to his state and its defense of slavery since he himself DID not support slavery, and actively fought for slaves to be freed upon serving with the CSA.
I'm merely going off of the logic that the people spray painting these monuments are going off and it's really only a matter of time before they start justifying their defacement of other monuments with "hur durr washington owned slaves, mt.vernon is a vestige of racism/slavery and needs to be torn down". It seems like an easy progression imo.


Randy said:


> How about no more statues of people period? Or no more statues period? I could live with either.


 I reject that idea merely due to the fact that even if I don't agree with the symbolism of a statue, I can appreciate the artistry necessary. I wouldn't want stuff like Michaelangelo, Bernini or Rodin's work removed because there's religious symbolism, just like I don't want the CSA statues removed because they're a vestige of racism/the Lost Cause.
I'm not saying that applies to all the confederate statues, just that I don't think that removing statues is the best approach. Some of the statues deserve to stand merely on artistic merit imo like these:


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## KnightBrolaire (Aug 31, 2017)

bostjan said:


> Sometimes. .... Sometimes humans are remarkably terrible at choosing the option that makes the least amount of "WTF"s:
> For example, a large amount of people in 1930's Germany devoting their lives to Hitler because, well, he shouted angry things and had a cool Charlie-Chaplain Mustache. Thanks, Hitler-followers - now Charlie-Chaplain mustaches will forever be Hitler mustaches instead - nice going.


Actually in the book After the Fall by Giles Macdonough he states that hitler never had higher than a 39-40% approval rating (and that was when he was initially elected). After he seized power his approval rating dropped quite a bit iirc. People tend to forget that charlie chaplin was en vogue then, anti-semitism was en vogue worldwide too. Hitler got to where he was by saying all the right things at the right time, while also manipulating a clause in the german constitution which allowed him to become a dictator by declaring a state of emergency/granting himself emergency powers.


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## vilk (Aug 31, 2017)

The difference is that they didn't build Auschwitz as a reaction to Jews fighting for civil rights a century after WWII


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## KnightBrolaire (Aug 31, 2017)

vilk said:


> The difference is that they didn't build Auschwitz as a reaction to Jews fighting for civil rights a century after WWII


true, but that doesn't mean the statues can't stand as a reminder of the civil war/what it really entailed. Perception/public opinion changes over time. It seems a lot more cost effective to just slap another plaque at the base of these statues describing exactly why they left it standing than paying for demolition/removal of all the statues. Plus as I said in one of my previous posts, some of them actually have artistic merit imo.


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## bostjan (Sep 1, 2017)

So then why did we need to remove the statues of Saddam after the Iraq invasion?!


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## Drew (Sep 5, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> Ok fine I'll clarify what I mean by defacement. I mean the shitbags that take it upon themselves to go and break/spray paint statues/memorial because they feel that it's in any way conducive to making me listen to their argument of "HURR DURR DIS IS RACIST". I'm not from the south, I don't really care if the city wants to remove the statues themselves and if the citizens voted on it, but people destroying property isn't going to engender me to their cause against some inanimate objects/fighting racism when there's more pressing issues like the alarming number of homeless veterans/suicidal veterans/the failure of the american education system compared to the rest of the world/etc. I've dealt with racism plenty in my lifetime and it's just like bullying, it won't magically fucking disappear because some people say "let's fight racism/bullying". I think the statues should be left up like Auschwitz was after WWII, as a reminder of the painful horrible war and the horrible things that happened before and after the war. It should be a springboard for discussion and a way to teach kids about their ancestor's history that is somewhat free of family/personal biases. You keep bringing up Lee like he isn't someone to admire, when I've said multiple times, he was a war hero against Mexico, he freed his father in law's slaves in 1862, and he was a masterful tactician. I can overlook his duty to his state and its defense of slavery since he himself DID not support slavery, and actively fought for slaves to be freed upon serving with the CSA.
> I'm merely going off of the logic that the people spray painting these monuments are going off and it's really only a matter of time before they start justifying their defacement of other monuments with "hur durr washington owned slaves, mt.vernon is a vestige of racism/slavery and needs to be torn down". It seems like an easy progression imo.



Yeah, the point you're missing is that these statues and monuments are intended to glorify the people being commemorated with the statue. Comparing it to Auschwitz is a perfect way to draw that distinction, actually - it was left standing as a monument to the dead, and as a stark reminder of the horror of what Germany had done under the Nazi party. I don't think I've ever seen anyone advocating "We should fly the Confererate flag as a memorial to everyone who lost their lives under slavery, so we can never forget the horror that was done in this country." Rather, it's the "south will rise again" types and neo-Nazis who fly it. 

You're coming at this question from the wrong angle, I think. "If we take down this statue, then why not Washington next?" And, broken record ehre, but the alt-right has been making a very conscious effort to paint this as a slippery slope question. 

I think the better question is, "does it EVER make sense to take down a statue, or should statues that were raised as monuments always be left in place, regardless of the feelings of later generations?" And I think the pretty clear answer is, yes, some statues should come down. Germany has removed all of its Nazi-era statues because of what they stood for. Fascist-era statues in Italy were taken down after the war. Here, we lost no time in tearing down statues of George III after declaring independence, and I don't see anyone complaining about our "lost history" or how we've forgotten about ever being under British rule. 

And, if you determine that it DOES make sense to take statues down in at least some cases, then while determining where exactly the line should be drawn may take some work, but I think it's not too hard to argue that it's appropriate to remove statues from public display that were raised to commemorate traitors to the Union. Which, whatever else Robert E. Lee may have been, he was a traitor fighting in open rebellion to the USA. I don't think it's appropriate for the government of this country to commemorate a man who tried to rip it apart to preserve the "peculiar institution" of slavery, and I understand where the descendents of former slaves would have a strong interest in seeing them come down. 

That said, any private citizen spraypainting or destroying a statue that the state or local government hasn't approved for removal absolutely should be charged with vandalism - part of civil disobedience is not being afraid to stand and face the music for your actions, and it IS still against the law. No arguments there. I just think that the government needs to step up and take them down.


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## bostjan (Sep 5, 2017)

Robert Lee IV said:


> My name is Robert Lee IV, I’m a descendant of Robert E. Lee, the Civil War general whose statue was at the center of violence in Charlottesville. We have made my ancestor an idol of white supremacy, racism, and hate. As a pastor, it is my moral duty to speak out against racism, America’s original sin.
> 
> Today, I call on all of us with privilege and power to answer God’s call to confront racism and white supremacy head-on. We can find inspiration in the Black Lives Matter movement, the women who marched in the Women’s March in January, and, especially, Heather Heyer, who died fighting for her beliefs in Charlottesville.



Following that statement, Rev. Robert Lee was pressured by his church to resign as pastor there.

What did he say that misrepresent's the teachings of Jesus? Was it his mention of BLM that caused his forced resignation, or is it just deep seated hatred within the church that conflicted doctrine with his statement?


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## KnightBrolaire (Sep 13, 2017)

Oh look at that, people are messing with Thomas Jefferson statues now. 
http://americanmilitarynews.com/201...urce=dvf&utm_campaign=alt&utm_medium=facebook


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## Spaced Out Ace (Sep 13, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> Oh look at that, people are messing with Thomas Jefferson statues now.
> http://americanmilitarynews.com/201...urce=dvf&utm_campaign=alt&utm_medium=facebook


Oh, for fucks sake.


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## BenjaminW (Sep 13, 2017)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Oh, for fucks sake.


I'm with you all the way. The fact that a person deeply respected like Thomas Jefferson is getting his statue covered in tarp because he's "a monument to slavery" is ridiculous. I said this before on this thread and I'll say it again. All that the radical lefties who want these statues removed are only mimicking ISIS by attempting to remove the "inferior past" from existence because it doesn't fit with their political agenda.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Sep 13, 2017)

BenjaminW said:


> I'm with you all the way. The fact that a person deeply respected like Thomas Jefferson is getting his statue covered in tarp because he's "a monument to slavery" is ridiculous. I said this before on this thread and I'll say it again. All that the radical lefties who want these statues removed are only mimicking ISIS by attempting to remove the "inferior past" from existence because it doesn't fit with their political agenda.


Careful, someone might come in and go on about LITERAL WHITE SUPREMACISTS on and on.


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## BenjaminW (Sep 14, 2017)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Careful, someone might come in and go on about LITERAL WHITE SUPREMACISTS on and on.


I am fully aware of that.


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## BenjaminW (Sep 14, 2017)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Careful, someone might come in and go on about LITERAL WHITE SUPREMACISTS on and on.


I am fully aware of that.


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## iamaom (Sep 14, 2017)

BenjaminW said:


> only mimicking ISIS by attempting to remove the "inferior past" from existence because it doesn't fit with their political agenda.


I agree there is a gray area, and every historical figure has their flaws (MLK Jr. was very anti-homosexual for instance) and we shouldn't go removing every trace of someone who we disagree with, but there's a difference between ISIS removing priceless 3 thousand year old artifacts that reveal new information about early civilizations and taking down a statue built in the 1960s to spite civil rights activists and attempt to maintain cultural dominance.

What do you think about toppling statues during a revolution, like Stalin or Sadam statues? Are those who want to enter a new era by destroying the relics of a past oppressive one destroying history? If North Korea is ever liberated will you tell ex-DPRK citizens they must leave Pyonyang alone or else they're bad people for removing monuments they disagree with?


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## Spaced Out Ace (Sep 14, 2017)

iamaom said:


> I agree there is a gray area, and every historical figure has their flaws (MLK Jr. was very anti-homosexual for instance) and we shouldn't go removing every trace of someone who we disagree with, but there's a difference between ISIS removing priceless 3 thousand year old artifacts that reveal new information about early civilizations and taking down a statue built in the 1960s to spite civil rights activists and attempt to maintain cultural dominance.
> 
> What do you think about toppling statues during a revolution, like Stalin or Sadam statues? Are those who want to enter a new era by destroying the relics of a past oppressive one destroying history? If North Korea is ever liberated will you tell ex-DPRK citizens they must leave Pyonyang alone or else they're bad people for removing monuments they disagree with?


Care to share anything supporting that claim about MLK Jr.?


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## iamaom (Sep 14, 2017)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Care to share anything supporting that claim about MLK Jr.?


https://swap.stanford.edu/201412182.../papers/vol4/580100-000-Advice_For_Living.htm

Question 3


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## Spaced Out Ace (Sep 14, 2017)

iamaom said:


> https://swap.stanford.edu/201412182.../papers/vol4/580100-000-Advice_For_Living.htm
> 
> Question 3


According to what I could find after reading that, Bayard Rustin, a gay civil rights activist who was shunned by most in the black community at the time for being homosexual, helped mold MLK into the civil rights leader he became.


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## BenjaminW (Sep 14, 2017)

iamaom said:


> I agree there is a gray area, and every historical figure has their flaws (MLK Jr. was very anti-homosexual for instance) and we shouldn't go removing every trace of someone who we disagree with, but there's a difference between ISIS removing priceless 3 thousand year old artifacts that reveal new information about early civilizations and taking down a statue built in the 1960s to spite civil rights activists and attempt to maintain cultural dominance.
> 
> What do you think about toppling statues during a revolution, like Stalin or Sadam statues? Are those who want to enter a new era by destroying the relics of a past oppressive one destroying history? If North Korea is ever liberated will you tell ex-DPRK citizens they must leave Pyonyang alone or else they're bad people for removing monuments they disagree with?


What I meant by removing an inferior past because it doesn't fit their political agenda for the comparison to ISIS was that ISIS goes out and blows up thousands of years old statues, remains of cities, etc because they want to eradicate any existence of a non-Muslim Iraq or Syria. Of course, that's different from what the radical left is doing today in a way because how they see these statues of Confederate generals as symbols of white supremacy which like I said, is different from what ISIS' motives are but still have a common goal of what I compared them for. As for how I view removing statues during revolutions, my viewpoint changes and I find it too complex and confusing to really put into words so I do apologize about not really giving you my whole viewpoint on removing statues during revolutions.


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## KnightBrolaire (Sep 14, 2017)

Can't wait to see which founding father's statue the libtards deface next.


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## AngstRiddenDreams (Sep 14, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> libtards


is this unironic


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## BenjaminW (Sep 14, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> Can't wait to see which founding father's statue the libtards deface next.


It would be a damn shame if that did happen.


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## iamaom (Sep 15, 2017)

BenjaminW said:


> That's different from what the radical left is doing today in a way because how they see these statues of Confederate generals as symbols of white supremacy which like I said, is different from what ISIS' motives are but still have a common goal of what I compared them for.


So you admit they are two completely different situations and yet you still want to compare them for some reason. I have a feeling that if these were Stalin or Hitler statues erected in the 1950s that many would reverse their opinions on trying to "preserve" history. I also don't see how taking down these statues is somehow affecting history, some of them are being put in museums and last I checked most american children don't learn history from looking at statues but in school. I haven't seen a single Christopher Columbus or Eric the Red statue but strangely I still know who they are.


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## BenjaminW (Sep 16, 2017)

iamaom said:


> So you admit they are two completely different situations and yet you still want to compare them for some reason. I have a feeling that if these were Stalin or Hitler statues erected in the 1950s that many would reverse their opinions on trying to "preserve" history. I also don't see how taking down these statues is somehow affecting history, some of them are being put in museums and last I checked most american children don't learn history from looking at statues but in school. I haven't seen a single Christopher Columbus or Eric the Red statue but strangely I still know who they are.


I don't see Stalin and Hitler statues history whatsoever. I see them as monuments to corrupt dictatorships. As far as I'm concerned, most of those Confederate statues were made because of the KKK reviving in the 20s.


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## AngstRiddenDreams (Sep 16, 2017)

Preface: I haven't read a lot of this thread 
I understand criticisms of taking down monuments. Why is it okay to attack one sides statues for actions of those people but exclude the other side? 
It's all or nothing. Take down slave owners statues (that are on government property and publicly owned) but don't limit it to just Confederate leaders. George Washington, great guy I'm sure, but he will always be in history books. I don't find the argument of slavery being a cultural norm to be a write off.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Sep 16, 2017)

Probably not the best place, but whatever. There was some "Mother of All Rallies" today, and apparently BLM showed up. The people holding the event handed the mic off to the folks representing BLM that approached the stage, and the two were very cordial. CNN wouldn't call it a "victory," but I think it is, or close enough to one, anyways. I think it's pretty fucking awesome, and I hope the mutual respect continues.


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## Drew (Sep 19, 2017)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Probably not the best place, but whatever. There was some "Mother of All Rallies" today, and apparently BLM showed up. The people holding the event handed the mic off to the folks representing BLM that approached the stage, and the two were very cordial. CNN wouldn't call it a "victory," but I think it is, or close enough to one, anyways. I think it's pretty fucking awesome, and I hope the mutual respect continues.


Hey, we don't see eye to eye on much, but I'm pro civil discourse.


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## KnightBrolaire (Oct 31, 2017)

http://nypost.com/2017/10/26/group-claims-responsibility-for-vandalizing-teddy-roosevelt/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/...lt-statue-outside-natural-history-museum.html
Yep, this shit happened. Now Teddy Roosevelt is apparently racist too.
His great grandson said this :
“I can understand some of these issues — particularly statues of people who were enemies of the US and rebelled,” Tweed said. “But I think in TR’s case, he was not rebelling against the US — he was one of our greatest presidents. If you judge him in the context of his own time, he was very progressive.

“We need to understand that it is not appropriate to apply today’s standards to the past.”


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## Drew (Oct 31, 2017)

AngstRiddenDreams said:


> Preface: I haven't read a lot of this thread
> I understand criticisms of taking down monuments. Why is it okay to attack one sides statues for actions of those people but exclude the other side?
> It's all or nothing. Take down slave owners statues (that are on government property and publicly owned) but don't limit it to just Confederate leaders. George Washington, great guy I'm sure, but he will always be in history books. I don't find the argument of slavery being a cultural norm to be a write off.


I mean, I think there's a pretty clear distinction that can be made here, namely that while they were largely pardoned after the war, the Confederate leaders were traitors and rebels fighting against the United States. 

Broken record, perhaps, but I don't see too many monuments to other countries we've fought in the US. Hitler? Mussolini? King George? We beat them all in wars, where are their monuments?


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## bostjan (Oct 31, 2017)

What if somebody built a statue of Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber) for his academic work on boundary functions? Or, more ironic yet, for his manifesto, by comparing it to the work of Thomas Paine as a revolutionary exposé on the perils of the industrial revolution.

I mean, he was American, held himself to his own principles without compromise, which could be seen as honourable, perhaps, in some way, and he was incredibly smart. He believed he was fighting for the common people... he's basically the updated version of Robert E. Lee, right?


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## KnightBrolaire (Oct 31, 2017)

bostjan said:


> What if somebody built a statue of Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber) for his academic work on boundary functions? Or, more ironic yet, for his manifesto, by comparing it to the work of Thomas Paine as a revolutionary exposé on the perils of the industrial revolution.
> 
> I mean, he was American, held himself to his own principles without compromise, which could be seen as honourable, perhaps, in some way, and he was incredibly smart. He believed he was fighting for the common people... he's basically the updated version of Robert E. Lee, right?


yeah sure, minus the fact that Lee never mailed explosives to random civilians


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## Randy (Oct 31, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> yeah sure, minus the fact that Lee never mailed explosives to random civilians



Citation needed.


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## KnightBrolaire (Oct 31, 2017)

Randy said:


> Citation needed.


I can't find any scholarly journals linking Lee to war crimes or attacking civilians, though you're more than welcome to look for some.


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## bostjan (Oct 31, 2017)

Mailing bombs =/= shooting cannons, but Killing people = killing people
The Freedom Club =/= the Confederacy, but for political purposes = for political purposes

Also, Kaczynski's targets were chosen in accordance with his (psychotic) plan to cripple the military-industrial complex. Do you think General Lee never blew anything up in order to cripple the Union's military-industrial complex.

Roll your eyes all you want, but there are some parallels here that are undeniable. Granted, there are differences as well, but how you weigh out similarities and differences is where individual interpretations come into play.

I think a lot of folks remember the Unabomber as some psychopath who murdered people by mail, but very few recall that he was a successful mathematician who did contribute to mathematical science before he lost his mind. Up to the point where he started mailing bombs, he might even have been closer to Russell Crowe's portrayal of John Nash than the actual John Nash.  Maybe if you took the DNA of John Nash, Robert E Lee, and Charles Manson and put them all in a magical blender, you'd end up with Ted Kacynski's twin.

Maybe it's a crazy comparison, but maybe it's a lot less crazy than you think.


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## Drew (Oct 31, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> yeah sure, minus the fact that Lee never mailed explosives to random civilians


No, he just ordered his men to shoot at them. WAY different.  

This whole "so and so owned slaves" is totally beside the point. People aren't objecting to statues of Robert E. Lee because he was a slaveholder. They're objecting to statues of Robert E. Lee because he was a traitor and rebel who fought against the United States, lost, and whose image was resurrected in the Civil Rights era as a sign of white supremacy and a symbol of the fight against racial inequality. It has nothing to do with his personal beliefs or whether or not he owned slaves, and everything to do with the fact he fought the US, lost, and then was co-opted as a symbol of the fight against equality.


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## KnightBrolaire (Oct 31, 2017)

Drew said:


> No, he just ordered his men to shoot at them. WAY different.
> 
> This whole "so and so owned slaves" is totally beside the point. People aren't objecting to statues of Robert E. Lee because he was a slaveholder. They're objecting to statues of Robert E. Lee because he was a traitor and rebel who fought against the United States, lost, and whose image was resurrected in the Civil Rights era as a sign of white supremacy and a symbol of the fight against racial inequality. It has nothing to do with his personal beliefs or whether or not he owned slaves, and everything to do with the fact he fought the US, lost, and then was co-opted as a symbol of the fight against equality.


since we're playing the citing game I'd like the scholarly journal you acquired that information from. When did he order his men to shoot civilians? 
As far as him being a traitor, yes, I've reiterated my personal stance on the issue time and time again, I can see past him being a traitor due to his contributions as a master tactician,etc,etc whatever else I said pages ago. Doesn't change the fact that he was a traitor, I'm merely pointing out that he did have good qualities. I guess the same could be argued for Kaczynski that he was a great mathematician in the 60s/70s.


bostjan said:


> Mailing bombs =/= shooting cannons, but Killing people = killing people
> The Freedom Club =/= the Confederacy, but for political purposes = for political purposes
> 
> Also, Kaczynski's targets were chosen in accordance with his (psychotic) plan to cripple the military-industrial complex. Do you think General Lee never blew anything up in order to cripple the Union's military-industrial complex.
> ...


As far as killing=killing the intent is was quite different. One was intentionally maiming/killing civilians (Kazcynski) while Lee afaik did not actively pursue the killing or maiming of civilians. We could sit here and have a nice little reductive argument but realistically they don't have much in common. Kaczynski blew up people with no ties to the military industrial complex (unless you're telling me a geneticist, a secretary, a grad student, university cop and some of his other victims are all tied to the MIC somehow..). Sherman was quite apt in his quote "War is Hell" and civilian deaths have been a reality since the dawn of war (though obviously the level of civilian deaths varies). Only an optimist or a fool would believe that no civilian casualties is a completely realistic goal. It's a nice thing to hope for but achieving it is extremely difficult if not nigh impossible depending upon the conflict/how long it runs.


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## Drew (Oct 31, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> since we're playing the citing game I'd like the scholarly journal you acquired that information from. When did he order his men to shoot civilians?
> As far as him being a traitor, yes, I've reiterated my personal stance on the issue time and time again, I can see past him being a traitor due to his contributions as a master tactician,etc,etc whatever else I said pages ago. Doesn't change the fact that he was a traitor, I'm merely pointing out that he did have good qualities. I guess the same could be argued for Kaczynski that he was a great mathematician in the 60s/70s.


You're confusing me with Randy.  And it's a pretty well established historical fact he ordered his men to open fire on American citizens.

Hitler was a rather decent watercolor painter, as well, I've seen some of his work. Should we see past his committing genocide because, hey, he had a good eye for light? Be serious. We as a nation don't revere enemies we defeat in battle. Stop pretending this is about anything but us not celebrating people who were traitors to the United States.


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## jaxadam (Oct 31, 2017)

https://www.creators.com/read/walter-williams/06/17/were-confederate-generals-traitors



> Let's look at some of the facts and ask: Did the South have a right to secede from the Union? If it did, we can't label Confederate generals as traitors.


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## KnightBrolaire (Oct 31, 2017)

Drew said:


> You're confusing me with Randy.  And it's a pretty well established historical fact he ordered his men to open fire on American citizens.


If it's so well established then it should be easy to show documentation of it.  I've read a little bit about the civil war and I haven't heard of any such incidents, but by all means, feel free to enlighten me.


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## KnightBrolaire (Oct 31, 2017)

jaxadam said:


> https://www.creators.com/read/walter-williams/06/17/were-confederate-generals-traitors


interesting article


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## bostjan (Oct 31, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> As far as killing=killing the intent is was quite different. One was intentionally maiming/killing civilians (Kazcynski) while Lee afaik did not actively pursue the killing or maiming of civilians. We could sit here and have a nice little reductive argument but realistically they don't have much in common. Kaczynski blew up people with no ties to the military industrial complex (unless you're telling me a geneticist, a secretary, a grad student, university cop and some of his other victims are all tied to the MIC somehow..). Sherman was quite apt in his quote "War is Hell" and civilian deaths have been a reality since the dawn of war (though obviously the level of civilian deaths varies). Only an optimist or a fool would believe that no civilian casualties is a completely realistic goal. It's a nice thing to hope for but achieving it is extremely difficult if not nigh impossible depending upon the conflict/how long it runs.



During the American Civil War, both sides actively killed civilians...quite a few of them, actually. It's been depicted widely in history book, historical films, documentaries, blah blah blah...I'm kind of surprised you'd say that a general (any general for that matter) from the 19th century didn't actively pursue killing or maiming of civilians. Scorched Earth was a widely known policy Lee enforced to starve farmers so that they would not be able to supply food to the opposing army, even if it was involuntary. Also, here's an article about Confederate soldiers attacking civilians in Vermont: http://www.businessinsider.com/confederates-attacked-as-far-north-as-vermont-in-1864-2014-5

According to Kaczynski, the universities (the cop was not the target, BTW) and air traffic were his targets, because he believed they were tied to the MIC. And actually, in a not-nearly-as-crazy way, he was right. Universities do tons of work for the military. Kaczynski was crazy, but, in his crazy mind, he was trying to stop the bad guys, not just randomly slaughter people. Lee was doing the same, he thought he was killing people in order to stop the bad guys.

I guess it's beating dead horse at this point. I was simply trying to post an amusing analogy for shock value.


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## KnightBrolaire (Oct 31, 2017)

bostjan said:


> During the American Civil War, both sides actively killed civilians...quite a few of them, actually. It's been depicted widely in history book, historical films, documentaries, blah blah blah...I'm kind of surprised you'd say that a general (any general for that matter) from the 19th century didn't actively pursue killing or maiming of civilians. Scorched Earth was a widely known policy Lee enforced to starve farmers so that they would not be able to supply food to the opposing army, even if it was involuntary. Also, here's an article about Confederate soldiers attacking civilians in Vermont: http://www.businessinsider.com/confederates-attacked-as-far-north-as-vermont-in-1864-2014-5
> 
> According to Kaczynski, the universities (the cop was not the target, BTW) and air traffic were his targets, because he believed they were tied to the MIC. And actually, in a not-nearly-as-crazy way, he was right. Universities do tons of work for the military. Kaczynski was crazy, but, in his crazy mind, he was trying to stop the bad guys, not just randomly slaughter people. Lee was doing the same, he thought he was killing people in order to stop the bad guys.
> 
> I guess it's beating dead horse at this point. I was simply trying to post an amusing analogy for shock value.


Yes, total war was a common tactic but sometimes the generals in charge (like Lee) were not complicit/did not give the command in the raping/pillaging/burning. Being at the head of the Confederate military meant he made decisions at a very broad (as in he commanded hundreds of thousands of troops later in the war) level and wasn't like "hmm today we should shoot some civilians". I would highly doubt that he put out a command mandate about how he wanted civilians shot (scorched earth is a super common policy historically speaking though). A lot of that can and was attributed to his other officers beneath his command (same as how a lot of the war crimes committed by the union weren't actively attributed to higher ups but to local commanders). This has happened time and time again where Batallion and above level officers have no fucking clue goes on at the company or platoon level unless they're directly informed or inquire. It still happens. Both sides did bad stuff (as is common in war), but some of the bad shit was worse than others. The rampage Sherman went on throughout the south, Bee Creek Massacre, Centralia Massacre, Fort Pillow battle, Lawrence Massacre and all the other horrible things that happened at Union and Confederate POW camps are the best examples of actual war crimes in the Civil War. If killing/maiming/general harm to noncombatants is the worst thing on our little sliding scale of morality, then burning some crops is comparatively tame (not the consequences of the burnt crops, but the actual act of burning them). TLDR: Lee didn't actively disapprove of common tactics at the time, though afaik didn't actively mandate their use


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## Randy (Oct 31, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> I can't find any scholarly journals linking Lee to war crimes or attacking civilians, though you're more than welcome to look for some.


----------



## Drew (Oct 31, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> If it's so well established then it should be easy to show documentation of it.  I've read a little bit about the civil war and I haven't heard of any such incidents, but by all means, feel free to enlighten me.


I have to assume you're joking, but just in case: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rober...f_Northern_Virginia_.28June_1862-June_1863.29


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## KnightBrolaire (Oct 31, 2017)

Drew said:


> I have to assume you're joking, but just in case:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rober...f_Northern_Virginia_.28June_1862-June_1863.29


there's nothing there saying he ordered his men to open fire on american citizens.


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## Drew (Nov 1, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> there's nothing there saying he ordered his men to open fire on american citizens.


Last I checked, the Union troops were American citizens.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Nov 1, 2017)

Drew said:


> Last I checked, the Union troops were American citizens.


Shooting at troops and non-armed forces civilians are kinda two different things.


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## Randy (Nov 1, 2017)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Shooting at troops and non-armed forces civilians are kinda two different things.



Maybe. What about people who were drafted?


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## Drew (Nov 1, 2017)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Shooting at troops and non-armed forces civilians are kinda two different things.


Oh, idunno. This is America. Should we really erect monuments to people who shot at American troops? 

I mean, being dead serious here, how is this even debatable? Robert E. Lee was the general who led an open revolt against the United States. If it wasn't for the fact that the Confederacy was fighting to preserve slavery, and there are an awful lot of racists and white supremacists in the south who co-opted the Confederate flag and southern generals during the Civil Rights era to protest black Americans getting the same rights as white ones, would we even be having this conversation today?


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## Spaced Out Ace (Nov 1, 2017)

Drew said:


> Oh, idunno. This is America. Should we really erect monuments to people who shot at American troops?
> 
> I mean, being dead serious here, how is this even debatable? Robert E. Lee was the general who led an open revolt against the United States. If it wasn't for the fact that the Confederacy was fighting to preserve slavery, and there are an awful lot of racists and white supremacists in the south who co-opted the Confederate flag and southern generals during the Civil Rights era to protest black Americans getting the same rights as white ones, would we even be having this conversation today?


All I said was that shooting at troops and non-armed forces civilians are two different things.


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## Drew (Nov 1, 2017)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> All I said was that shooting at troops and non-armed forces civilians are two different things.


And all _I'm_ saying is, when it comes to shooting at American citizens, we shouldn't be building statues to someone who shot at _either.
_
I don't think that's a particularly revolutionary or controversial point of view.


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## KnightBrolaire (Nov 1, 2017)

Drew said:


> Last I checked, the Union troops were American citizens.


By your logic all the union soldiers also committed war crimes since they shot american citizens that happened to be part of the confederacy. Soldiers during war time are not treated (and even back then) the same as unarmed civilians under the rules of war/geneva conventions.


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## Randy (Nov 1, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> By your logic all the union soldiers also committed war crimes since they shot american citizens that happened to be part of the confederacy.



Wasn't fighting on the side of the Confederacy a renunciation of American citizenship?



> Here’s what the statute lists as acts that might result in loss of U.S. nationality:
> 
> *Becoming a naturalized citizen of another country after age 18.*
> *Joining the military of a foreign state.* If you enter or serve in the armed forces of a foreign state and either those armed forces are engaged in hostilities against the U.S. or you serve as an officer (commissioned or non-commissioned), you may be found to have relinquished your U.S. citizenship.
> ...



https://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/SLB/HTML/SLB/0-0-0-1/0-0-0-29/0-0-0-10446.html


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## synrgy (Nov 1, 2017)

So, as usual, this is long and brain-farty. I won't be offended if everyone scrolls right past.

I used to live within walking distance of the Mt Vernon estate. On tours, they go out of their way to acknowledge and demonstrate the slave-related parts of the estate's history; they don't make any attempts to sweep it under the proverbial rug. They've been doing that since _at least_ the 80's when I was a kid taking one such tour on a school field trip.

In contrast, as found in various threads throughout these forums, there are folks who still deny (indirectly or directly) that slavery was the primary item distinguishing the Confederate Constitution from the US Constitution.

If one wants to suggest that a Confederate-sympathizer's 'right' to have a statue of a Confederate 'hero' on public land somehow outweighs a slave-descendent's 'right' to not have Confederate 'propaganda' on public land -- or vice-versa -- then one should make that case. Otherwise, what are we talking about, _really_? Public policy has always been fueled by public opinion.

As noted by others previously, assholes with half-baked ideas destructing public property is neither new, nor of any particular interest outside of extreme political circles. It's a part of our country's foundation and ongoing history, for better or worse.

I refute the position that the destruction of a Confederate statue is 'erasing history'. The study of the Civil War is an industry unto itself, including several different professions/disciplines, and representing roughly tens-of-thousands of jobs. The history will continue to exist, with or without the statues.

Historically speaking, monuments are only allowed to exist subject to public (and/or despot) opinion, and there'd be nothing preventing the construction of new monuments were public opinion ever to swing back the other way (however unlikely that may be).

In the grand scheme of World civilization, the entirety of American history is barely a blip on the radar. Comparing a 1960's statue of a Confederate officer to ruins of lost civilizations is.. Silly. We can talk 'erasing history' when/if somebody somehow destroys the National Archives at the Library of Congress, but I'm pretty confident that people a thousand-plus years from now aren't going to be crying over a few statues.

To be clear, though, I'm not advocating the destruction of these statues. I agree with the suggestion of ensuring they are viewed in full context. If given the choice, though, I'd prefer they be inside museums rather than outdoors on public property. And, why not? That's mothereffing _job creation!_


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## bostjan (Nov 1, 2017)

synrgy said:


> If one wants to suggest that a Confederate-sympathizer's 'right' to have a statue of a Confederate 'hero' on public land somehow outweighs a slave-descendent's 'right' to not have Confederate 'propaganda' on public land -- or vice-versa -- then one should make that case. Otherwise, what are we talking about, _really_? Public policy has always been fueled by public opinion.



QFT

But I think the topic got a little off track (  ). I believe that the removal of statues by due process is not really the OP's point. Some people are vandalizing statues to try to make some sort of a point.

The way I see it, vandalism of a statue only makes the point that you probably don't have much of a point... But yes, on the closely related topic of due process removal of statues of civil war people, especially those from the losing side, I believe that the local governments have every right to remove them, and I don't even think for a second that it's at all detrimental to our history as a nation to do so. If someone wants a huge Robert E Lee statue on their front lawn, then they can take that up with their subdivision...

Do you recall, a couple years ago, a satanist group wanted to display a huge statue of Bahomet, and got all sorts of shit storms started because of it? I'm surprised I haven't heard the sound of their hat thrown into this rhetorical ring on this one...


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## Randy (Nov 1, 2017)

The only thing that offends me about that statue is that it has the head of a goat instead of Nergal.


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## jaxadam (Nov 1, 2017)

Drew said:


> Last I checked, the Union troops were American citizens.



But if they lost, they would have been rebels and traitors.


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## vilk (Nov 1, 2017)

jaxadam said:


> But if they lost, they would have been rebels and traitors.


lol that's not how that works


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## synrgy (Nov 1, 2017)

'Rebel' isn't defined by who won or lost, but by who was 'the establishment' when the conflict began. The Confederates were, by definition, the 'rebels' and 'traitors' in the equation. Even if they'd won, they'd have still committed treason against the country they defeated.


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## vilk (Nov 1, 2017)

Or, for example, because the Americans won the Revolutionary War it does not somehow turn the English into rebels and traitors.


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## vilk (Nov 1, 2017)

dbl pst


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## jaxadam (Nov 1, 2017)

synrgy said:


> 'Rebel' isn't defined by who won or lost, but by who was 'the establishment' when the conflict began. The Confederates were, by definition, the 'rebels' and 'traitors' in the equation. Even if they'd won, they'd have still committed treason against the country they defeated.



Well, the South is definitely gonna rise again, so I guess we’ll find out!


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## KnightBrolaire (Nov 1, 2017)

Randy said:


> Wasn't fighting on the side of the Confederacy a renunciation of American citizenship?
> 
> 
> 
> https://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/SLB/HTML/SLB/0-0-0-1/0-0-0-29/0-0-0-10446.html


I have no idea if that particular document was in effect at that time. I can't really find any documentation to support that the average confederate citizenship was revoked, except for Lee/Davis/other higher ups after the war (both of whom had it restored later on). The lack of foreign recognition of their government or recognition as a sovereign government by the union means the whole "fighting for a foreign state/treason/renouncing citizenship" doesn't really apply to confederates (afaik). Lincoln did pass an amnesty ruling in 1863 which essentially pardoned all confederate citizens other than high up military members/political members. From what this page reads it sounds like they considered the CSA as americans in rebellion:
"During the four years of its existence under trial by war, the Confederate States of America asserted its independence and appointed dozens of diplomatic agents abroad. None were ever officially recognized by a foreign government. The United States government regarded the southern states in rebellion and so refused any formal recognition of their status.
Even before Fort Sumter, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward issued formal instructions to the American minister to Britain, Charles Francis Adams:

Make "no expressions of harshness or disrespect, or even impatience concerning the seceding States, their agents, or their people, [those States] must always continue to be, equal and honored members of this Federal Union, [their citizens] still are and always must be our kindred and countrymen."[105]
Seward instructed Adams that if the British government seemed inclined to recognize the Confederacy, or even waver in that regard, it was to receive a sharp warning, with a strong hint of war:

[if Britain is] tolerating the application of the so-called seceding States, or wavering about it, [they cannot] remain friends with the United States... if they determine to recognize [the Confederacy], [Britain] may at the same time prepare to enter into alliance with the enemies of this republic.[105]
The United States government never declared war on those "kindred and countrymen" in the Confederacy, but conducted its military efforts beginning with a presidential proclamation issued April 15, 1861.[106] It called for troops to recapture forts and suppress what Lincoln later called an "insurrection and rebellion".[107]

Mid-war parlays between the two sides occurred without formal political recognition, though the laws of war predominantly governed military relationships on both sides of uniformed conflict.[108]

On the part of the Confederacy, immediately following Fort Sumter the Confederate Congress proclaimed "... war exists between the Confederate States and the Government of the United States, and the States and Territories thereof ..." A state of war was not to formally exist between the Confederacy and those states and territories in the United States allowing slavery, although Confederate Rangers were compensated for destruction they could effect there throughout the war.[109]

Concerning the international status and nationhood of the Confederate States of America, in 1869 the United States Supreme Court in _Texas v. White_ ruled Texas' declaration of secession was legally null and void.[110] Jefferson Davis, former President of the Confederacy, and Alexander H. Stephens, its former Vice-President, both wrote postwar arguments in favor of secession's legality and the international legitimacy of the Government of the Confederate States of America, most notably Davis' _The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government_."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_of_America#A_revolution_in_disunion
"Abraham Lincoln, who never recognized the legitimacy of the Confederate States of America believed throughout the war that Confederates were Americans in rebellion. Reconciliation and the formation of Civil War memory also brought men in both blue and grey together under one umbrella in many ways.

After the war, most former Confederates quickly regained U.S. Citizenship. President Lincoln began the process in 1863 with the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction. It allowed for a full pardon to those fighting for the South with the exception of the highest Confederate political and military leaders. At the end of the war, in May 1865, President Johnson offered a similar proclamation requiring those seeking pardon to take the oath of loyalty to the United States and obey federal laws about slavery. In his proclamation Johnson listed fourteen classes of people ineligible for pardons; the number of restrictions was then reduced in an 1867 proclamation.

Full amnesty for former Confederates came on December 25, 1868 in a final proclamation from Johnson:

_Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Johnson President of the United States, by virtue of the power and authority in me vested by the Constitution and in the name of the sovereign people of the United States, do hereby proclaim and declare unconditionally and without reservation, to all and to every person who, directly or indirectly, participated in the late insurrection or rebellion a full pardon and amnesty for the offense of treason against the United States or of adhering to their enemies during the late civil war, with restoration of all rights, privileges, and immunities under the Constitution and the laws which have been made in pursuance thereof._

This proclamation gave full amnesty and the restoration of all citizenship rights to Confederate veterans. As Reconstruction continued, former Confederates largely resumed life as American citizens, with the exception of losing their property in slaves."
http://www.civildiscourse-historybl...e-confederate-veterans-united-states-veterans

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardons_for_ex-Confederates
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-pardon-of-jefferson-davis-and-the-14th-amendment


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## Drew (Nov 1, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> By your logic all the union soldiers also committed war crimes since they shot american citizens that happened to be part of the confederacy. Soldiers during war time are not treated (and even back then) the same as unarmed civilians under the rules of war/geneva conventions.


You are splitting hairs to the _utmost_ degree here, but sure, I'll bite.

By declaring their independence and rising up against the Union, on the (alleged) grounds that because the federal government was a union of the states they have voted to form, they could also vote to terminate it, the Confederacy was declaring that they were _NOT_ citizens of the United States of America, but were in fact citizens of the Confederate States of America. 

Or, in plainer English, you can't very well fight for your independence _from_ one country, without in doing so making the statement that you no longer consider yourself _part_ of that country.

This whole line of argument that the Confederate soldiers were American citizens during the revolutionary war is so idiotic and painfully revisionist that I can't believe I'm dignifying it with a response, though. If the Confederacy really considered themselves part of the United States of America, we wouldn't have had anything to fight _about. _So, again, I ask, why the_ fuck _are we even debating whether we should continue to have statues displayed in places of honor of traitors and enemies we defeated in battle?


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## Drew (Nov 1, 2017)

jaxadam said:


> But if they lost, they would have been rebels and traitors.


Technically, since the Confederacy had (to the best of my knowledge) no intent to reunite the country by taking over the North but instead merely wanted to break away, they would have been a defeated former occupying power.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Nov 1, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> By your logic all the union soldiers also committed war crimes since they shot american citizens that happened to be part of the confederacy. Soldiers during war time are not treated (and even back then) the same as unarmed civilians under the rules of war/geneva conventions.


Nah they didn't commit any war crimes cuz they won. Duh!


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## Randy (Nov 1, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> This proclamation gave full amnesty and the restoration of all citizenship rights to Confederate veterans.


 
Why would that be necessary if they were still citizens and didn't commit any crimes against the US, by your assessment?


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## Unleash The Fury (Nov 1, 2017)

If we dont want to be reminded of any "dark times" in this country then maybe we should remove all the statues of MLKJ; because those must have been some dark times back then, so lets not be reminded of it in any way shape or form.  not being a jerk, just turning the tables


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## KnightBrolaire (Nov 1, 2017)

Randy said:


> Why would that be necessary if they were still citizens and didn't commit any crimes against the US, by your assessment?


Apparently it's a big source of contention as to whether they were actually traitors (Jefferson Davis managed to not even be tried for treason and was the figurehead of the CSA). From what documentation I can find it seems that they were considered rebels, but not traitors. The fact that no foreign government would recognize the CSA and Lincoln himself considered them rebels makes me believe they were still american citizens. The amnesty deal from Lincoln pardoned most of the CSA for rebelling and then Johnson pardoned/returned citizen's rights like running for office to Confederate higher ups like Davis/Lee (other lower CSA members never had their citizenship/rights revoked).


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## vilk (Nov 2, 2017)

Unleash The Fury said:


> If we dont want to be reminded of any "dark times"


wtf are you talking about? Did you even read this thread at all? "Not wanting to be reminded of dark times" has literally nothing to do with it.


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## bostjan (Nov 2, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> Apparently it's a big source of contention as to *whether they were actually traitors* (Jefferson Davis managed to not even be tried for treason and was the figurehead of the CSA). From what documentation I can find it seems that they were considered rebels, but not traitors. The fact that no foreign government would recognize the CSA and Lincoln himself considered them rebels makes me believe they were still american citizens. The amnesty deal from Lincoln pardoned most of the CSA for rebelling and then Johnson pardoned/returned citizen's rights like running for office to Confederate higher ups like Davis/Lee (other lower CSA members never had their citizenship/rights revoked).



Traitor [noun]: a person who betrays his or her country, friends, or allies.

How is there any contention? The people in states which seceded were essentially put in the tough spot of choosing between their state and their nation. They had no choice but to betray one or the other, but how could they have betrayed neither?


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## MFB (Nov 2, 2017)

vilk said:


> wtf are you talking about? Did you even read this thread at all? "Not wanting to be reminded of dark times" has literally nothing to do with it.



Methinks its a play on "dark" meaning black people, but maybe not


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## KnightBrolaire (Nov 2, 2017)

bostjan said:


> Traitor [noun]: a person who betrays his or her country, friends, or allies.
> 
> How is there any contention? The people in states which seceded were essentially put in the tough spot of choosing between their state and their nation. They had no choice but to betray one or the other, but how could they have betrayed neither?


 they were all pardoned and very few people were even tried for treason. There's a quote from William Seward that's pretty apt: "Make no expressions of harshness or disrespect, or even impatience concerning the seceding States, *their agents, or their people, [those States] must always continue to be, equal and honored members of this Federal Union, [their citizens] still are and always must be our kindred and countrymen.*"[105] The United States government never declared war on those "kindred and countrymen" in the Confederacy, but conducted its military efforts beginning with a presidential proclamation issued April 15, 1861.[106]* It called for troops to recapture forts and suppress what Lincoln later called an "insurrection and rebellion".[107]*
I'm merely reporting what I've read. Personally I don't give a shit one way or the other whether they were rebels or traitors, the whole point of reviving this thread was that the defacing of statues is escalating. It started with confederate statues and progressed to fucking Thomas Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt statues.


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## bostjan (Nov 2, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> I'm merely reporting what I've read. Personally I don't give a shit one way or the other whether they were rebels or traitors, the whole point of reviving this thread was that the defacing of statues is escalating. It started with confederate statues and progressed to fucking Thomas Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt statues.


 I had typed out a paragraph about how we were off on a tangent spun off another tangent, anyway, but then I deleted it, because I thought that was pointing out the obvious.

The entire point in defacing these monuments is people trying to make a statement. That statement is an awful lot like shouting "Hey, look at me!" The problem is that if you don't have anything important to say once you have people's attention, you are just an asshole. But in 2017, when the average attention span for an issue in the media is about 24 hours, and there are more idiots out there than ever, most of this just compounds a new layer of noise in my everyday life. Really, I do care about statues. But on my list of priorities, not getting stabbed by a crackhead on the subway is about 100 items higher on my list of priorities during a day than doing anything to preserve statues.  If there is a statue that offends enough people, and they go through due process of the law to have the statue removed, then that's fine. If people are so offended by a statue and so distrusting of the local authorities that they end up vandalizing the statue or whatever, then they would probably be much better off just moving somewhere else anyway. If the authorities they distrust arrest them for vandalizing the statue, since there is a written law about not deliberately messing up other people's stuff, I'm on the side with the authorities, whether it's a statue of Abraham Lincoln or a statue of Snidely Whiplash, I don't care - you don't mess up other people's stuff unless you have a really good reason. Being offended on an emotional level is just not a good enough reason to go around breaking stuff.

As for whether the Confederate army was a foreign army against the acting government of the USA or an organized rebellion or whatever, I think it's silly to argue about it. The information is all out there in the open, so there's not really any wiggle room for that many different interpretations. The CSA was a rebellion against the established and acting US government. The CSA was backed by state governments who decided to support that rebellion. The Confederate government was trying to emerge as it's own independent nation, but it did not succeed at doing so.

Take an analogy: If my boss at the company for which I work decided to start his own company, but he did this completely outside of the authority of my employer, and he told me that I had to work for him, how would the law see my choice to leave my employer and work for my same boss? If I had signed a non-disclosure agreement about the inventions I made under employment for my current employer, would there be a legal problem with my boss, who would hypothetically become my new employer, selling those products? Of course it'd be a problem- it'd be a huge problem and my employer would be legally allowed to sue my boss *and* myself for everything we were worth and would probably win. The higher authority pulls rank over the lower authority. For those who thought the state was a higher authority than their nation, they were demonstrably wrong. Arguing about it is kind of dumb.


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## Randy (Nov 2, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> the whole point of reviving this thread was that the defacing of statues is escalating. It started with confederate statues and progressed to fucking Thomas Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt statues.



Still being, at best, naive and at worst, leading in your choice of subject matter and timing. 

The thread was originally made less than two weeks after the Charlottesville VA rally that was still big news, and happened over the proposed removal of a Gen. Robert E Lee statue from their park, which spun off similar actions by municipalities throughout the South. Likewise, the narrative from white supremacists who were organizing the rallies was about how it disrespected the past and was trying to erase it. Your arguments then and now might be your own but they're too analogous to one another (especially the timing) to now claim this thread is all about universal condemnation of criminally vandalizing statues and nothing else. Nice try, but no.

That said, this is a time in the country where emotions are raw on both sides and people are lashing out. Some people are ALWAYS looking to start trouble, but especially stressful and polarizing times lead to more violent and destructive tenancies across the board. There's not some giant magnet in the center of the Earth making people destroy statues, and they're not doing it just because anybody told them too; there's a complex set of things in current events and culture driving people to want to act out and, for a time, doing it by defacing statues is one of the ways they're doing it. I don't grieve it happening as the disease itself, it's a symptom. But that's not a conversation we're going to make any rational movement on because the topic is already so loaded, and even moreso when it's grouped in with LEGAL civic actions, like municipalities voting to remove statues from parks they own.


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## KnightBrolaire (Nov 2, 2017)

Randy said:


> Still being, at best, naive and at worst, leading in your choice of subject matter and timing.
> 
> The thread was originally made less than two weeks after the Charlottesville VA rally that was still big news, and happened over the proposed removal of a Gen. Robert E Lee statue from their park, which spun off similar actions by municipalities throughout the South. Likewise, the narrative from white supremacists who were organizing the rallies was about how it disrespected the past and was trying to erase it. Your arguments then and now might be your own but they're too analogous to one another (especially the timing) to now claim this thread is all about universal condemnation of criminally vandalizing statues and nothing else. Nice try, but no.
> 
> That said, this is a time in the country where emotions are raw on both sides and people are lashing out. Some people are ALWAYS looking to start trouble, but especially stressful and polarizing times lead to more violent and destructive tenancies across the board. There's not some giant magnet in the center of the Earth making people destroy statues, and they're not doing it just because anybody told them too; there's a complex set of things in current events and culture driving people to want to act out and, for a time, doing it by defacing statues is one of the ways they're doing it. I don't grieve it happening as the disease itself, it's a symptom. But that's not a conversation we're going to make any rational movement on because the topic is already so loaded, and even moreso when it's grouped in with LEGAL civic actions, like municipalities voting to remove statues from parks they own.


Look at most of my posts at the beginning of the thread and they were mostly aimed at how I didn't think vandalizing statues is conducive to getting people to listen to an opinion. I even said that I don't have a problem with cities taking them down on their own. Granted, the connotation of the statues for me is apparently not the same for the people clamoring to have them taken down/vandalizing them. To me I see a statue of a confederate general that has some artistic merit, they see vestiges of racism and something worth destroying to get their point across. I said they would escalate the vandalism and they did. Going after confederate statues is understandable from their perspective, even columbus is understandable, but going after Teddy Roosevelt is just absurd imo. All my posts about Lee were largely my opinion that he was admirable due to his tactical ideas and his service before the civil war. You're more than welcome to try and question my intentions with the thread but it was largely just due to my disgust with people vandalizing property/rioting. I have nothing but disdain for both antifa and the white supremacists, especially since one group would spit on me due to their have outdated racial/genetic views that would deem me inferior, while the other is a group of fascists running around pretending to fight fascism.


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## Drew (Nov 2, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> they were all pardoned and very few people were even tried for treason.


The very fact they even required pardons in the first place is evidence they were rebels and traitors against the United States and have no place being commemorated in places of respect in this country. 

This isn't rocket surgery, man.


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## bostjan (Nov 2, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> All my posts about Lee were largely my opinion that he was admirable due to his tactical ideas and his service before the civil war.


I mean, Hitler had served in the German military as a low level grunt prior to becoming the most notorious dictator in modern history, so...



KnightBrolaire said:


> I have nothing but disdain for both antifa and the white supremacists, especially since one group would spit on me due to their have outdated racial/genetic views that would deem me inferior, while the other is a group of fascists running around pretending to fight fascism.





Antifa is a confusing organization. They have strong ties to socialist groups and communism, yet they claim to be anarchists. The response to Antifa is also sort of interesting - Trump is the one holding up the show on their legal status as a terrorist group. I think that might surprise a lot of people, but I think that #1 they aren't high priority on Trump's radar, and #2 I think Trump's aversion to the government is deep rooted enough for him to hesitate.


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## Unleash The Fury (Nov 2, 2017)

vilk said:


> wtf are you talking about? Did you even read this thread at all? "Not wanting to be reminded of dark times" has literally nothing to do with it.



This thread is about the defacing on monuments correct? I wasnt responding to anyone in particular. Im thinking aloud. But to give people a taste of their own medicine, the people that think all white people are racist and throw the white privelage term around alot; they are the ones who want to tear down these statues.......but im sure theyre more than ok with MLK statues still standing. So id like to tear those down in spite of them and see how they would react. Tear them down under the premise of "we dont want to be reminded of dark times". They would react the same way that people in the south feel who feel strongly about their ancestors who fought for independence in the south did, when Antifa wanted to tear down the General Lee statue. Those same people who tore down that statue be upset because they see people tearing down MLK statues for what they think is a ridiculous reason..........oh so how does that feel?

Oh BTW is anyone familiar with Antifas outright violent planned nationwide protest coming up on NOV. 4th?

Yeah id google it!!!


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## KnightBrolaire (Nov 2, 2017)

bostjan said:


> I mean, Hitler had served in the German military as a low level grunt prior to becoming the most notorious dictator in modern history, so...


There's a huge difference between being a corporal who got hit with some mustard gas and being a general who still has some of his tactics studied today. There's no real relevance imo.


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## bostjan (Nov 2, 2017)

Agreed. But you said Rober E Lee


KnightBrolaire said:


> was admirable due to his tactical ideas and his service before the civil war.


not "Robert E Lee was admirable for being a general," or "Robert E Lee was admirable for not being a corporal who got hit with some mustard gas."
I think we can agree to dislike Hitler and not to admire him, yet we would agree that he had some wildly novel tactical ideas and that he also served in the military for his country. My point is that having tactical ideas is not reason for being admirable, nor is service in the military.
Being admirable is all about what you stand for. Period. You could be the biggest, strongest dude in the history of big strong dudes, and you could be the smartest dude, too, but if you use all of your abilities for evil, it makes you a villain, not a hero.
Robert E Lee was a general. What box does that check? Erich Ludendorf was a general. He out-tactic-ed the Allies in several objectives, so his tactics were at least better-than-average at the time. Is he admirable?
Robert E Lee served in the military. I suppose anyone who fulfills the requisite of being a general can also check this box off, but what does it prove?

So if we can agree (which we haven't, I guess) that being admirable is about having admirable principles and sticking to those admirable principles, then what were Lee's principles? Lee never spoke out for nor against slavery, but he did famously speak out against black people after the war, calling them categorically lazy and stupid, saying that they should not be allowed to vote and that Virginia should "get rid of them." Is that admirable? If not, to which admirable principles did Lee adhere?

I suppose one could try the argument that Lee is admirable because so many people admire him. But, the same sort of reduction causes that argument to fall apart, as many people admired Hitler, and many of the same people who still admire Hitler in 2017 also admire Lee. In fact, most people who adhere to the racist concepts that people of African ancestry are inferior to Caucasians admire Lee, and perhaps I've unfairly made the association between Lee and racism. If Lee was admirable, objectively, for any reason that can be dissociated from his racism, then I'd concede the point. But if Lee is admirable because he served in the military, because he used tactics, or because he became a general, then I must protest on the grounds I outlined above.

And as far as Lee's tactics being superior - meh, I think the evidence is clear also here that his tactics were not. He did lose the war...a little more than two months after being handed command. After first making general, he hesitated from attacking when the time was best, causing a severe loss of momentum as well as objective. His career as a general was really more bad than good, objectively speaking.

So yeah, strongly disagree with the Robert E Lee love, but I agree with the stuff you're saying about not vandalizing statues.


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## Randy (Nov 2, 2017)

FWIW, there has been a long going movement to whitewash the history of Lee and the Confederacy to turn it into "a noble group of men from a different time fighting against tyranny"

http://www.history.com/news/how-the-cult-of-robert-e-lee-was-born


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## vilk (Nov 2, 2017)

Unleash The Fury said:


> This thread is about the defacing on monuments correct? I wasnt responding to anyone in particular. Im thinking aloud. But to give people a taste of their own medicine, the people that think all white people are racist and throw the white privelage term around alot; they are the ones who want to tear down these statues.......but im sure theyre more than ok with MLK statues still standing. So id like to tear those down in spite of them and see how they would react. Tear them down under the premise of "we dont want to be reminded of dark times". They would react the same way that people in the south feel who feel strongly about their ancestors who fought for independence in the south did, when Antifa wanted to tear down the General Lee statue. Those same people who tore down that statue be upset because they see people tearing down MLK statues for what they think is a ridiculous reason..........oh so how does that feel?
> 
> Oh BTW is anyone familiar with Antifas outright violent planned nationwide protest coming up on NOV. 4th?
> 
> Yeah id google it!!!



1. White privilege is a statistical truth, irrespective of your feelings on the matter. People who say there's no such thing as white privilege are categorically the same as flat-earthers. Acknowledging the existence of recorded data =/= being ashamed of being white or "hating white people" or thinking "all whites are racist", or whatever other dumb fucking logical fallacy some ignorant hick might spout.

2. The majority of Civil War monuments that people are taking issue with were constructed during the Civil Right's movement as a method of intimidation against blacks and propagating white supremacist sentiment. It's called the Cult of the Lost Cause. Please read the link Randy just posted above. That is to say, "we don't want to be reminded of dark times" is not the reason that people are removing and defacing Lost Cause statues.

3. Though your written demeanor seems to be proud of not having a clear understanding of the discussion at hand, I think that reading through this thread would educate you and help you to not seem so... uh... let's go with 'uninformed'.


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## KnightBrolaire (Nov 2, 2017)

bostjan said:


> Agreed. But you said Rober E Lee
> 
> not "Robert E Lee was admirable for being a general," or "Robert E Lee was admirable for not being a corporal who got hit with some mustard gas."
> I think we can agree to dislike Hitler and not to admire him, yet we would agree that he had some wildly novel tactical ideas and that he also served in the military for his country. My point is that having tactical ideas is not reason for being admirable, nor is service in the military.
> ...


As I said,* I* find some of his tactics admirable, just like I do with Guderian, Rommel, Hannibal, and Scipio, etc. There's nothing wrong with learning from the enemy/villains. Hell that's how combined arms became a thing, without us emulating the german blitzkrieg and learning from german generals- modern warfare would be a very different beast. There's plenty of other examples throughout history as well, such as the romans learning from their defeat at the hands of Hannibal. Plus when it comes to battlefield tactics, not learning from your mistakes/learning how to counter the enemy is a death sentence.
As a whole, Lee's tactics were not spectacular like Rommel's or Hannibal's, I fully admit that. It doesn't mean that he doesn't have some moves worth studying. Also he wasn't officially given command of the entire CSA army until the tail end of the war (mid 1865). Gettysburg/Pickett's charge was a complete disaster and severely injured the troop strength of the CSA. The war was already going in favor of the union from gettysburg on as the union essentially won by attrition/throwing bodies at the confederates. Tactics don't mean anything if you can consistently outnumber the enemy.


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## bostjan (Nov 2, 2017)

Randy said:


> FWIW, there has been a long going movement to whitewash the history of Lee and the Confederacy to turn it into "a noble group of men from a different time fighting against tyranny"
> 
> http://www.history.com/news/how-the-cult-of-robert-e-lee-was-born




I'm sure there are tons of fringe movements out there trying to whitewash the history of all sorts of historical figures. I don't doubt for a moment that there are people actively trying to elevate Lee as a hero. I don't really want to publicly make unfair assumptions about those people's actual motives, so I'll leave it at that for now.



vilk said:


> 1. White privilege is a statistical truth, irrespective of your feelings on the matter. People who say there's no such thing as white privilege are categorically the same as flat-earthers. Acknowledging the existence of recorded data =/= being ashamed of being white or "hating white people" or thinking "all whites are racist", or whatever other dumb fucking logical fallacy some ignorant hick might spout.



I think there is some trouble with interpretations. Interpreting the short phrase "white privilege" to say that as a white person, you have it better off, is, well...let's just say "not individually and universally accurate," although obviously white people, on average, have it better off than non-whites. Then there's the interpretation of "why" this is so. I don't think there's time to beat that dead horse in this thread, but suffice it to say that there are some very wild speculations.



vilk said:


> 2. The majority of Civil War monuments that people are taking issue with were constructed during the Civil Right's movement as a method of intimidation against blacks and propagating white supremacist sentiment. It's called the Cult of the Lost Cause. Please read the link Randy just posted above. That is to say, "we don't want to be reminded of dark times" is not the reason that people are removing and defacing Lost Cause statues.



I think this is where I keep getting stuck trying to see both sides of the debate. Don't deface public property - ok. But it's never just about that, and as soon as we get to the part where Robert E Lee was some sort of superhero...I just...I just...I just can't keep my opinion bottled up anymore, because it's just so far from reality. I know it's an impossible argument to win, but it doesn't matter. Sometimes I just feel like I have to challenge things that don't make any sense to me, based off the facts as I learned them. That probably makes me an asshole on at least one level, but then, if I am wrong, I want to understand why and then move on to an opinion that is more informed...and if I'm right, then I think it's important to challenge these ideas that come from left field so others who mosey into the discussion don't see it one-sided and end up with the wrong impression.

Even here in Northern New England, there is a record high visibility of Confederate flags and Lee worship and so forth. I don't get it. I don't know what these people are all about. On the surface, it looks like people trying to emulate Duck Dynasty; drive a pickup truck, get muddy, wear camo, shoot at stuff, talk like you're being graded on how many colloquialisms you use, put up a Confederate flag, talk about how much you love Robert E Lee, etc. It's a cultural movement, just like the people who thought they were Italian when they were following the Sopranos, or the people who thought they were CSI when they were following, well, CSI. Not that the counter-culture of country music and pickup trucks and shotguns is new, but it's a thread that some people are born into and others glam onto, and it seems to be a lot of recent movement toward it in my particular geographical area.



KnightBrolaire said:


> As I said,* I* find some of his tactics admirable, just like I do with Guderian, Rommel, Hannibal, and Scipio, etc. There's nothing wrong with learning from the enemy/villains. Hell that's how combined arms became a thing, without us emulating the german blitzkrieg and learning from german generals- modern warfare would be a very different beast. There's plenty of other examples throughout history as well, such as the romans learning from their defeat at the hands of Hannibal. Plus when it comes to battlefield tactics, not learning from your mistakes/learning how to counter the enemy is a death sentence.
> As a whole, Lee's tactics were not spectacular like Rommel's or Hannibal's, I fully admit that. It doesn't mean that he doesn't have some moves worth studying. Also he wasn't officially given command of the entire CSA army until the tail end of the war (mid 1865). Gettysburg/Pickett's charge was a complete disaster and severely injured the troop strength of the CSA. The war was already going in favor of the union from gettysburg on as the union essentially won by attrition/throwing bodies at the confederates.



Okay. But is Rommel "admirable?"

I mean, there's a pretty big gap between being a fascinating person and being an admirable person, no?

Do you build statues of fascinating people or admirable people?

And Lee had options other than surrender. His advisors even told him that the war effort could be transformed into a guerrilla-style war with the CSA moving into smaller groups situated in the mountains until they could regroup and gather enough strength to make another push. After seeing how the US was defeated in Vietnam a century later, I can't say for sure how that would have turned out.

But, as far as being admirable and getting a statue erected, I don't see any statues build honouring Rommel.


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## KnightBrolaire (Nov 2, 2017)

bostjan said:


> Okay. But is Rommel "admirable?"
> 
> I mean, there's a pretty big gap between being a fascinating person and being an admirable person, no?
> 
> ...


\
I said I find Rommel's tactics admirable, not necessarily the man himself. Though if you want to go down this road, there's a reason books about Rommel have been found in the hands of officers like Colin Powell/Schwarzkopf and it's because he helped bring tank warfare into the 21st century. This discussion has gone so far off tangent.


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## bostjan (Nov 2, 2017)

Ok, let's go back a step:

1. Is Rommel "admirable?"
2. Is Lee "admirable?"
3a. Does studying someone or something mean it is admirable, or does it mean it is fascinating? 
3b. Does fascinating = admirable?
4. Do we erect statues of people based on fascination with them or based on admiration of them?


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## Drew (Nov 2, 2017)

Drew said:


> The very fact they even required pardons in the first place is evidence they were rebels and traitors against the United States and have no place being commemorated in places of respect in this country.
> 
> This isn't rocket surgery, man.


@KnightBrolaire, I'm just going to keep repeating this until I get through to you.

We as a nation should not be honoring traitors. Robert E. Lee rebelled against the United States when the South succeeded to defend slavery. Honoring him today honors the beliefs he betrayed his country and rose in rebellion for. It's as simple as that.



KnightBrolaire said:


> \
> I said I find Rommel's tactics admirable, not necessarily the man himself. Though if you want to go down this road, there's a reason books about Rommel have been found in the hands of officers like Colin Powell/Schwarzkopf and it's because he helped bring tank warfare into the 21st century. This discussion has gone so far off tangent.


No, this conversation is entirely ON tangent. The problem is you're arguing in favor of an indefensible position, which near as I can tell is the US should honor traitors, not because they're traitors, but rather because they were so _good_ at being traitors.


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## KnightBrolaire (Nov 2, 2017)

bostjan said:


> Ok, let's go back a step:
> 
> 1. Is Rommel "admirable?"
> 2. Is Lee "admirable?"
> ...


Statues are erected of whatever people pay money for (if we're talking about privately funded statues). If it's public funds then yes, obviously they have some criteria (likely public opinion) of what is a valid subject. As I've said in nearly every post I've made in this thread, these are *my opinions. * *I find Rommel and Lee's tactics admirable.* I don't claim anything more than that. You can sit there and ponder whether they were actually worthy of my admiration or whether they're worthy of having statues, which is completely outside the scope of what I've been talking about. I'm not in here to have a philosophical conversation about what entails being admirable or fascinating.


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## Drew (Nov 2, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> Statues are erected of whatever people pay money for (if we're talking about privately funded statues). If it's public funds then yes, obviously they have some criteria (likely public opinion) of what is a valid subject. As I've said in nearly every post I've made in this thread, these are *my opinions. * *I find Rommel and Lee's tactics admirable.* I don't claim anything more than that. You can sit there and ponder whether they were actually worthy of my admiration or whether they're worthy of having statues, which is completely outside the scope of what I've been talking about. I'm not in here to have a philosophical conversation about what entails being admirable or fascinating.


You, as a private individual, are free to believe whatever you want to. 

When it comes to state and local governments displaying statues of traitors in places of honor, though, and thereby endorsing the treason they committed and the rebellion they supported, that's a very different matter. 

You can privately do whatever you want. Arguing confederate statues should remain in public places of honor, however, for any of the myriad of shifting reasons you've given in this thread, is not a defensible position.


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## bostjan (Nov 2, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> I'm not in here to have a philosophical conversation about what entails being admirable or fascinating.



I suppose that's clear enough.

But if they try to erect a statue of Rommel (the Nazi general) in my town, I will personally appeal to town council to stop it, and if I fail, I will personally tear that statue down, even if I suffer legal consequences as a result. The thought of honouring a man who killed my grandfather's buddies in order to spread the power of a government responsible for attempting genocide against my grandmother and her people, is just something I can't stand.


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## Unleash The Fury (Nov 2, 2017)

vilk said:


> 1. White privilege is a statistical truth, irrespective of your feelings on the matter. People who say there's no such thing as white privilege are categorically the same as flat-earthers. Acknowledging the existence of recorded data =/= being ashamed of being white or "hating white people" or thinking "all whites are racist", or whatever other dumb fucking logical fallacy some ignorant hick might spout.
> 
> 2. The majority of Civil War monuments that people are taking issue with were constructed during the Civil Right's movement as a method of intimidation against blacks and propagating white supremacist sentiment. It's called the Cult of the Lost Cause. Please read the link Randy just posted above. That is to say, "we don't want to be reminded of dark times" is not the reason that people are removing and defacing Lost Cause statues.
> 
> 3. Though your written demeanor seems to be proud of not having a clear understanding of the discussion at hand, I think that reading through this thread would educate you and help you to not seem so... uh... let's go with 'uninformed'.



Im not sure what propagandists website you get your info from, but seeing how emotional and illogical your argument is, i know now to stear clear from you in any political debate. I somehow triggered you with rage to the point where your now lumping me together with flat earthers.......id call that an emotional outburst.

Btw, please define "ignorant hick"?


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## vilk (Nov 2, 2017)

lol do you get why what you just wrote is really, really ironic though?



Unleash The Fury said:


> Btw, please define "ignorant hick"?



In a way I kinda did...


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## Unleash The Fury (Nov 2, 2017)

vilk said:


> lol do you get why what you just wrote is really, really ironic though?
> 
> 
> 
> In a way I kinda did...


No i really dont get it. Because i am neither. But you are some special type of person to assume both things to be true about someone youve never met. I live in CT. Bwahahaha i am the furthest thing from a hick. And i read plenty of sources and material; too many to be ignorant. I base my thoughts on logic and not emotion......unlike yourself.

Its ashame because your post had potential to be funny


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## vilk (Nov 2, 2017)

You've got a knack for reading things that no one has written.


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## Unleash The Fury (Nov 2, 2017)

See now thats actually funny!


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## Spaced Out Ace (Nov 2, 2017)

>We should not honor traitors
>Americans are considered traitors against the British


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## vilk (Nov 2, 2017)

I've never been to England. Did they build a lot of Revolutionary War monuments to intimidate their black people?


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## Unleash The Fury (Nov 2, 2017)

vilk said:


> I've never been to England. Did they build a lot of Revolutionary War monuments to intimidate their black people?



I wonder what your post would say had you not read a link someone posted just hours ago from some rockefellar/rothschild/clinton/obama/soros funded fringe website called history .com 

Talk about saved by the link!


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## Drew (Nov 2, 2017)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> >We should not honor traitors
> >Americans are considered traitors against the British


Vilk beat me to it, but I don't recall a statue of George Washington prominently displayed in Trafalgar Square. 

Again, this isn't rocket science. You generally celebrate the battles you as a nation _win, _not those you _lose. _

Seriously, this is a pretty rudimentary distinction. How is this something we're still debating? Why do three or four of you keep bending over backwards to keep trying to find excuses to defend prominent public display of statues of Confederate generals?


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## Randy (Nov 2, 2017)

Unleash The Fury said:


> I wonder what your post would say had you not read a link someone posted just hours ago from some rockefellar/rothschild/clinton/obama/soros funded fringe website called history .com
> 
> Talk about saved by the link!



Tell me your preferred history website (besides stormfront)


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## Unleash The Fury (Nov 2, 2017)

Randy said:


> Tell me your preferred history website (besides stormfront)



I dont have a preferred website. I really dont. I view multiple ones that i come across when i google something, then i just call the bullshit as i see it. But i dont have a "go to" site of thats what you mean

Never heard of stormfront


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## jaxadam (Nov 2, 2017)

I’ve always said if you don’t like slavery, quit buying shit from China. In 100 years all the peckerheads walking around with iPhones are gonna see statues of Steve Jobs torn down and replaced with Jackie Chan, who rumbled for freedom in the Bronx.


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## xzacx (Nov 10, 2017)

Unleash The Fury said:


> No i really dont get it. Because i am neither. But you are some special type of person to assume both things to be true about someone youve never met. I live in CT. Bwahahaha i am the furthest thing from a hick. And i read plenty of sources and material; too many to be ignorant. I base my thoughts on logic and not emotion......unlike yourself.
> 
> Its ashame because your post had potential to be funny



Did you really make a post defending your intelligence, then go on to type "Its ashame?"


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## Drew (Nov 10, 2017)

xzacx said:


> Did you really make a post defending your intelligence, then go on to type "Its ashame?"


There's also the somewhat fragmentary sentence structure, the lack of consistent capitalization, and occasional missing punctuation, but to be fair I've mostly given up expecting decent-quality writing on the internet.


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## jaxadam (Nov 10, 2017)

Drew said:


> There's also the somewhat fragmentary sentence structure, the lack of consistent capitalization, and occasional missing punctuation, but to be fair I've mostly given up expecting decent-quality writing on the internet.


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## Unleash The Fury (Nov 10, 2017)

Typing from a cell phone is something i have little patience for. I care not to correct punctuation on a cell phone.


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## Drew (Nov 10, 2017)

jaxadam said:


>


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## Unleash The Fury (Nov 10, 2017)

xzacx said:


> Did you really make a post defending your intelligence, then go on to type "Its ashame?"


Did you just insult my intelligence because i dont give a shit about punctuation on the internet, especially when texting from a phone? This is not a resume. I simply dont care. The sad part is is you know exactly what im talking about, yet are nitpicking about periods and commas.


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## jaxadam (Nov 10, 2017)

Unleash The Fury said:


> Did you just insult my intelligence because i dont give a shit about punctuation on the internet, especially when texting from a phone? This is not a resume. I simply dont care. The sad part is is you know exactly what im talking about, yet are nitpicking about periods and commas.



* don't x 2
** is only needs to be used once
*** I'm
I actually don't care about context, the minute someone mispells somethign or use's punctiation wrawg it envalidates there hole arguement.


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## Drew (Nov 10, 2017)

Unleash The Fury said:


> Did you just insult my intelligence because i dont give a shit about punctuation on the internet, especially when texting from a phone? This is not a resume. I simply dont care. The sad part is is you know exactly what im talking about, yet are nitpicking about periods and commas.


So, I don't have any real personal problem with you, and we've gone back and forth on some recording stuff elsewhere here and in that environment you came across like a decent enough guy. So, while I know this is a little more of a heated venue, I want to start by saying that this is not a personal attack, me passing judgement, etc, or anything like that, so much as an observation that I think is worth spending some time meditating on. 

A very fundamentally human characteristic is to form snap judgments based on first impressions. You walk into a bar, you see one guy in a neatly tailored suit, carefully trimmed and combed hair, polished shoes, fancy looking watch, carefully color-coordinated tie, and sipping a neat whiskey out of a heavy tumbler guy, and next to him is a guy with moussed hair, ripped up jeans, an old and rumpled looking t-shirt, and a beat up pair of unlaced Chuck Taylors, and you're going to form some pretty immediate first impressions. Now, as it happens the guy in the suit may be broke and celebrating on the way back from an interview for a job he hopes he gets and the guy in the jeans may be loaded and just didn't feel like dressing up that day, or the guy in the suit may be a closet metalhead (often enough to count, that's me) while the guy dressed like a bum might compose classical music for a living, or any other amount of stereotypes might get violated, but the important thing is a lot of those outcomes would be considered a _surprise_ - people are often shocked when they meet me in a professional setting to find out 1) I'm a musician, who 2) listens to, at least sometimes, some pretty heavy music, and 3) plays and records instrumental shred. It's something you don't expect from a guy in a Brooks Brothers suit. And, personally speaking, I kind of enjoy confronting those stereotypes and making people second guess themselves. But, those stereotypes absolutely exist. 

So, where I'm going with that is this; on the internet, all those visual cues are gone, and the only things we have to form impressions about people we interact with on boards like this one are basic things like username, avatar, and our posts. And, if you routinely violate the rules of grammar, and post with iffy sentence structure, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation usage, then since we're operating in an environment where that's _literally all we know about each other_, then if you post with poor grammar and spelling, people are going to start with the assumption that this is because you simply don't know any better. 

Now, that's a starting point, and over time that can evolve, like anything else. But, you're shooting yourself in the foot, when you refuse to bother with communicating in a manner that displays your intelligence. Again, there's nothing that says you _have_ to put that effort in... But if you don't, then, yeah, you have to accept the reality that people are likely to start off thinking you're less intelligent than they are. 

Like I said, that's not an attack on you, a critique of your political views, etc, so much as an observation on life. People form impressions on how you present yourself, so I think how you choose to present yourself in ANY forum, internet or real world, is something worth spending some time thinking about.


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## jaxadam (Nov 10, 2017)

Drew said:


> stuff



:highfive: Well said. That's why I'm VERY careful not to discuss my political views on the internet.


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## Unleash The Fury (Nov 10, 2017)

Drew said:


> So, I don't have any real personal problem with you, and we've gone back and forth on some recording stuff elsewhere here and in that environment you came across like a decent enough guy. So, while I know this is a little more of a heated venue, I want to start by saying that this is not a personal attack, me passing judgement, etc, or anything like that, so much as an observation that I think is worth spending some time meditating on.
> 
> A very fundamentally human characteristic is to form snap judgments based on first impressions. You walk into a bar, you see one guy in a neatly tailored suit, carefully trimmed and combed hair, polished shoes, fancy looking watch, carefully color-coordinated tie, and sipping a neat whiskey out of a heavy tumbler guy, and next to him is a guy with moussed hair, ripped up jeans, an old and rumpled looking t-shirt, and a beat up pair of unlaced Chuck Taylors, and you're going to form some pretty immediate first impressions. Now, as it happens the guy in the suit may be broke and celebrating on the way back from an interview for a job he hopes he gets and the guy in the jeans may be loaded and just didn't feel like dressing up that day, or the guy in the suit may be a closet metalhead (often enough to count, that's me) while the guy dressed like a bum might compose classical music for a living, or any other amount of stereotypes might get violated, but the important thing is a lot of those outcomes would be considered a _surprise_ - people are often shocked when they meet me in a professional setting to find out 1) I'm a musician, who 2) listens to, at least sometimes, some pretty heavy music, and 3) plays and records instrumental shred. It's something you don't expect from a guy in a Brooks Brothers suit. And, personally speaking, I kind of enjoy confronting those stereotypes and making people second guess themselves. But, those stereotypes absolutely exist.
> 
> ...



Valid points. I understand them exactly. My thing is is honestly im a very sensitive person, and i take things personally when i shouldnt. I get offended easily and get all wound up and im thinking faster than i can type in my response. So i get ahead of myself. That, coupled with me being on a smart phone where typos are usually abound = recipe for looking like an uneducated person.

So i apologize!


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## Unleash The Fury (Nov 10, 2017)

Drew said:


> So, I don't have any real personal problem with you, and we've gone back and forth on some recording stuff elsewhere here and in that environment you came across like a decent enough guy. So, while I know this is a little more of a heated venue, I want to start by saying that this is not a personal attack, me passing judgement, etc, or anything like that, so much as an observation that I think is worth spending some time meditating on.
> 
> A very fundamentally human characteristic is to form snap judgments based on first impressions. You walk into a bar, you see one guy in a neatly tailored suit, carefully trimmed and combed hair, polished shoes, fancy looking watch, carefully color-coordinated tie, and sipping a neat whiskey out of a heavy tumbler guy, and next to him is a guy with moussed hair, ripped up jeans, an old and rumpled looking t-shirt, and a beat up pair of unlaced Chuck Taylors, and you're going to form some pretty immediate first impressions. Now, as it happens the guy in the suit may be broke and celebrating on the way back from an interview for a job he hopes he gets and the guy in the jeans may be loaded and just didn't feel like dressing up that day, or the guy in the suit may be a closet metalhead (often enough to count, that's me) while the guy dressed like a bum might compose classical music for a living, or any other amount of stereotypes might get violated, but the important thing is a lot of those outcomes would be considered a _surprise_ - people are often shocked when they meet me in a professional setting to find out 1) I'm a musician, who 2) listens to, at least sometimes, some pretty heavy music, and 3) plays and records instrumental shred. It's something you don't expect from a guy in a Brooks Brothers suit. And, personally speaking, I kind of enjoy confronting those stereotypes and making people second guess themselves. But, those stereotypes absolutely exist.
> 
> ...



Valid points. I understand them exactly. My thing is is honestly im a very sensitive person, and i take things personally when i shouldnt. I get offended easily and get all wound up and im thinking faster than i can type in my response. So i get ahead of myself. That, coupled with me being on a smart phone where typos are usually abound = recipe for looking like an uneducated person.

So i apologize!


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## Unleash The Fury (Nov 10, 2017)

Drew said:


> So, I don't have any real personal problem with you, and we've gone back and forth on some recording stuff elsewhere here and in that environment you came across like a decent enough guy. So, while I know this is a little more of a heated venue, I want to start by saying that this is not a personal attack, me passing judgement, etc, or anything like that, so much as an observation that I think is worth spending some time meditating on.
> 
> A very fundamentally human characteristic is to form snap judgments based on first impressions. You walk into a bar, you see one guy in a neatly tailored suit, carefully trimmed and combed hair, polished shoes, fancy looking watch, carefully color-coordinated tie, and sipping a neat whiskey out of a heavy tumbler guy, and next to him is a guy with moussed hair, ripped up jeans, an old and rumpled looking t-shirt, and a beat up pair of unlaced Chuck Taylors, and you're going to form some pretty immediate first impressions. Now, as it happens the guy in the suit may be broke and celebrating on the way back from an interview for a job he hopes he gets and the guy in the jeans may be loaded and just didn't feel like dressing up that day, or the guy in the suit may be a closet metalhead (often enough to count, that's me) while the guy dressed like a bum might compose classical music for a living, or any other amount of stereotypes might get violated, but the important thing is a lot of those outcomes would be considered a _surprise_ - people are often shocked when they meet me in a professional setting to find out 1) I'm a musician, who 2) listens to, at least sometimes, some pretty heavy music, and 3) plays and records instrumental shred. It's something you don't expect from a guy in a Brooks Brothers suit. And, personally speaking, I kind of enjoy confronting those stereotypes and making people second guess themselves. But, those stereotypes absolutely exist.
> 
> ...



Valid points. I understand them exactly. My thing is is honestly im a very sensitive person, and i take things personally when i shouldnt. I get offended easily and get all wound up and im thinking faster than i can type in my response. So i get ahead of myself. That, coupled with me being on a smart phone where typos are usually abound = recipe for looking like an uneducated person.

So i apologize!

Triple post! Im sorry about that. When i hit the post button it kept buffering so i ended up hitting it three times before i saw it post. Sorry!

Double edit: if there isnt, there should be a way to delete posts on here


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## StevenC (Nov 12, 2017)

Unleash The Fury said:


> My thing is is honestly im a very sensitive person, and i take things personally when i shouldnt. I get offended easily and get all wound up


http://sevenstring.org/threads/a-tr...atives-in-virginia.326163/page-2#post-4804140

What changed?


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## xzacx (Nov 12, 2017)

StevenC said:


> http://sevenstring.org/threads/a-tr...atives-in-virginia.326163/page-2#post-4804140
> 
> What changed?



Sounds like he has more of an identity crisis than those he's so offended by.


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## Unleash The Fury (Nov 13, 2017)

StevenC said:


> http://sevenstring.org/threads/a-tr...atives-in-virginia.326163/page-2#post-4804140
> 
> What changed?


Someones bored huh?!


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## Drew (Nov 13, 2017)

jaxadam said:


> :highfive: Well said. That's why I'm VERY careful not to discuss my political views on the internet.


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## Drew (Nov 13, 2017)

Unleash The Fury said:


> Valid points. I understand them exactly. My thing is is honestly im a very sensitive person, and i take things personally when i shouldnt. I get offended easily and get all wound up and im thinking faster than i can type in my response. So i get ahead of myself. That, coupled with me being on a smart phone where typos are usually abound = recipe for looking like an uneducated person.
> 
> So i apologize!
> 
> ...


If there's anything ELSE I've learned from life, and I'll be the first to admit it's something I still struggle with sometimes, it's that while obviously it's a balancing act and you can go too far, giving a little less of a shit about other people's opinions of me when I think they're wrong probably wouldn't kill me.  

But, right on - thanks for not taking that as an attack, and in the spirit I meant it.


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