The Dismantling of Confederate Remnants Continues

[Zkribbler]

The seditious Democrats were indeed traitors in 1861

You are incorrect in assuming the Civil War involved the Republican northerners vs. the Democratic southerners.

The North was run by a Party of National Unity. The South had nine parties. http://althistory.wikia.com/wiki/Li..._in_the_Confederate_States_(A_Southron_World)

and may very well attempt to secede from the union again.

Yet it was Republican Governor Rick Perry who advocated Texas seceding. It was Sarah Palin's husband who was a member of an Alaskan secessionist party. And it was Republicans who attempted to get California to secede.

 

[Tristan_C]

It must have been really tiresome to hear the yanks moralize about slavery while they wore your cotton and smoked your tobacco. At least, if a self-righteous thread like this is any indication.

 

[Cutlass]

It must have been really tiresome to hear the yanks moralize about slavery while they wore your cotton and smoked your tobacco. At least, if a self-righteous thread like this is any indication.

It wasn't about slavery to the North. The South started the war over slavery. The North fought to protect the Union.

 

[mrt144]

It must have been really tiresome to hear the yanks moralize about slavery while they wore your cotton and smoked your tobacco. At least, if a self-righteous thread like this is any indication.

Not as tiresome as the south claiming slaves were 3/5ths people for the purposes of securing electoral and political power, but please, do go on about those irascible yanks.

 

[Naskra]

Whatever the war may have been about, this thread is about confederate monuments.
I have have made the argument from simple respect for the dead.
I have made the argument from the special case of veterans.
No one has disputed these arguments.
There is also an argument from religious tolerance. To wit: For some people, these monuments are sacred ground. That alone should be reason enough to leave them be.

 

[Zkribbler]

It must have been really tiresome to hear the yanks moralize about slavery while they wore your cotton ...

One does not wear cotton; one wears cloth. The South lacked the manufacturing necessary to turn cotton into cloth. All cotton wax exported.

 

[mrt144]

Whatever the war may have been about, this thread is about confederate monuments.
I have have made the argument from simple respect for the dead.
I have made the argument from the special case of veterans.
No one has disputed these arguments.
There is also an argument from religious tolerance. To wit: For some people, these monuments are sacred ground. That alone should be reason enough to leave them be.

Not good enough for native americans, not good enough for slave trading rebels.

 

[mrt144]

How about this a compromise. Have as many confederacy monuments as you want. Alongside each one is a larger monument dedicated to the people who actually suffered under slavery.

 

[Naskra]

How about this a compromise. Have as many confederacy monuments as you want. Alongside each one is a larger monument dedicated to the people who actually suffered under slavery.

That works for me.

 

[caketastydelish]

In America, you have the right to fly the Confederate flag, but you also have the right to wipe your ass with it.

 

[EgonSpengler]

In America, you have the right to fly the Confederate flag[...].

Also an important point to make. That I'm aware of, nobody is saying people cannot "honor their dead" or celebrate their culture. But that's not what they're asking for when they ask for a monument in a public park, or a flag on license plates. Nobody told the Sons of Confederate Veterans they couldn't put a Confederate bumper sticker on their car (again, afaik), but that wasn't what they wanted, they wanted the state to produce official license plates stamped with the Confederate flag. fwiw, different circuit courts had reached different decisions about whether license plates are private speech or state speech, until the Supreme Court ruled the latter in 2015.

 

[Lexicus]

That I'm aware of, nobody is saying people cannot "honor their dead" or celebrate their culture

I kind of am though, my attitude toward this "honor our dead" crap is the same as my attitude toward anyone who wants to "honor" dead Germans who fought for Hitler...the only monument they deserve is a big statue of a Jew peeing on their corpses...similarly, I am super down to have Confederate statues as long as they're of freed slaves peeing on dead Confederate soldiers.

 

[AdrienIer]

Well for German soldiers there are military cemeteries (with monuments for the dead) on many battlefields, but AFAIK no monument in German cities.

 

[Kyriakos]

Well at least the civil war ended so that the north could carry on with even more genocides of native americans, after it fought the good fight for human rights

Ok, ok, i know this argument has been made many times before :/ TBH i think there should be real reconciliation in the US, but it won't come about by shaming and splitting, which is what is going on and intensifying. I always suppose that racists are a tiny minority. Maybe it is just wishful thinking on my part.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I kind of am though, my attitude toward this "honor our dead" crap is the same as my attitude toward anyone who wants to "honor" dead Germans who fought for Hitler...the only monument they deserve is a big statue of a Jew peeing on their corpses...similarly, I am super down to have Confederate statues as long as they're of freed slaves peeing on dead Confederate soldiers.

Sure, but a monument in a public park or a Confederate flag flying over a statehouse is different from, say, a bumper-sticker or a tee-shirt. The difference between private speech, which is protected by the 1st amendment, and state speech is important. Personally, I think a public display of a Confederate flag may constitute an implicit threat, or "fighting words" - similarly, burning a cross on private property in view of a public street shouldn't be protected, imho. It's trivia, but I think interesting to note, that Clarence Thomas voted with the liberal justices in the Supreme Court decision that upheld Texas' right to refuse to produce Confederate license plates (for those not up on American government, Justice Thomas is conservative and African-American).

 

[Lexicus]

I always suppose that racists are a tiny minority. Maybe it is just wishful thinking on my part.

You keep saying this but then

the civil war ended so that the north could carry on with even more genocides of native americans,

So what's the deal, is it just the South where the racists were the tiny minority?

 

[Kyriakos]

lol, no, i wouldn't claim that there were less racists in the south

 

[demiurgenext]

Well at least the civil war ended so that the north could carry on with even more genocides of native americans, after it fought the good fight for human rights

Ok, ok, i know this argument has been made many times before :/ TBH i think there should be real reconciliation in the US, but it won't come about by shaming and splitting, which is what is going on and intensifying. I always suppose that racists are a tiny minority. Maybe it is just wishful thinking on my part.

If you think that the Confederacy would have had a different policy, you are completely deluding yourself. Much of the expansionist wars of the 19th century were due to dreams of empire by Southern artistocrats. They supported mercenaries (known as filibusterers) to overthrow nations in latin america and the Caribbean, for the express purpose of expanding the slave markets.

The US was very racist in those days (as was almost every country in the world, see European colonialism), but of the two options, the USA was far better for more people than the CSA. Native Americans, after the massive plagues of the 16th and 17th centuries, were no longer capable of resisting expanion by either of those groups. Nor, for that matter, the Spanish in the south of the continent or the British in the north.

 

[Lexicus]

If you think that the Confederacy would have had a different policy, you are completely deluding yourself. Much of the expansionist wars of the 19th century were due to dreams of empire by Southern artistocrats. They supported mercenaries (known as filibusterers) to overthrow nations in latin america and the Caribbean, for the express purpose of expanding the slave markets.

Yeah. I already linked to a book that lays out the imperialism of the slaveholders.

 

[Traitorfish]

It must have been really tiresome to hear the yanks moralize about slavery while they wore your cotton and smoked your tobacco. At least, if a self-righteous thread like this is any indication.

The Southerners were of course at total liberty to free their slaves and forgo these Northern sermons.