confederate statues shouldn't be honored

Author: linate

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linate
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history.com and all the academic websites say the ciivil war was about slavery. hisotyr.com says if you asked people back then what the war was about, they'd say slavery. that means the only difference between germany erecting statues of hitler and the south raising confederates, is that one fought for genocide and the other fought for slavery. that's also why it's not like the statues of washington,... he just happened to have a slave, but he's known for a lot of other good things. if the south had other decent reasons for the war then it would be like washington- it'd be like if the usa lost the revolutionary war yet kept statues of washington. but that isn't the reality we are dealing with. people engage in revisionist thinking, and anachronistically say the war was about states' rights looking back on it, but that's not what the people or the leaders said was the reason for the war. 

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery " the greatest material interest of the world," proclaimed Mississippi in its articles of war

it should also be pointed out, that a plurality if not a majority of momuments were erected during jim crow and the civil rights movement. that means they were promoting suppresion of the black man with those monuments. it's not possible to say even the original intention of the monuments have good intentions.
even a confederate leader in his later years after the war denounced revisionist ideas that the war was about more than slavery.... (also in the following is an editorial about why we shouldn't honor confederate monuments)
"
""Whatever else I may forget," the ex-slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass said in 1894, "I shall never forget the difference between those who fought for liberty and those who fought for slavery." Douglass (who is doing an amazing job and is being recognized more and more) deplored an emerging national consensus that the Civil War had been fought over vague philosophical disagreements about federalism and states" rights, but not over the core issue of slavery. In this retelling, neither side was right or wrong, and both Confederate and Union soldiers were to be celebrated for their battlefield valor.

Douglass was right to be concerned. Southerners may have lost the Civil War, but between the 1890s and 1920s they won the first great battle over its official memory. They fought that battle in popular literature, history books and college curricula, but also on hundreds of courthouse steps and city squares, where they erected monuments to Confederate veterans and martyrs. These statues reinforced the romance of reunion.

Now, a century and a half after the Civil War, Americans are finally confronting the propriety of celebrating the lives of men who committed treason in the name of preserving slavery. That these statues even exist is unusual. When armies are defeated on their own soil"particularly when those armies fight to promote racist or genocidal policies"they usually don"t get to keep their symbols and material culture. As some commentators have noted, Germany in 1945 is a useful comparison. "Flags were torn down while defeated cities still burned, even as citizens crawling from the rubble were just realizing that the governments they represented had ended," wrote a reporter for McClatchy. Most physical relics of the Nazi regime were banished from public view. In this sense, the example of Germany"s post-war de-Nazification may offer a way forward for the United States.

Yet history tells a more complicated story. In its initial years, de-Nazification had only limited impact. It would take time, generational change and external events to make Germany what it is today"a vibrant democracy that is notably less permissive of racism, extremism and fascism than the United States. Tearing down the symbols of Nazi terror was a necessary first step"but it didn"t ensure overnight political or cultural transformation. It required a longer process of public reconciliation with history for Germans to acknowledge their shared responsibility for the legacy of Nazism.

The vast majority of Americans have long agreed that the destruction of slavery was a just outcome of the Civil War. But in continuing to honor Confederate leaders and deny their crimes, we signal that the United States has not yet fully come to terms with its collective responsibility for the dual sins of slavery and Jim Crow."

the following is a politifact article that is responding to people who claimed the war was about more than slavery as "obvious if you research it". so politfact did research it, and came to the same conclusion that it was was about slavery....
http://www.debate.org/forums/politics/topic/103590/3/#2870466

drafterman
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Forget about slavery. You want statues of your leaders and generals and flags over government buildings, don't be shit at war and lose.
ravensjt
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Not to mention that the statues themselves were erected primarily during two eras, the early 1900's (Jim Crow) and during the Civil Rights eras of the 1950's-60's (pushback from Segregation)


Alexander Stephens (future Vice President of the Confederacy):


"[Our new government's] foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man,"That slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition."


The Confederates were about slavery and superiority and anything claimed otherwise is a complete denial of history



Greyparrot
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This particular statue was commemorated by a blatant racist ....

One hundred yards from where we stand, less than ninety days perhaps after my return from Appomattox, I horse whipped a negro wench until her skirts hung in shreds because she had maligned and insulted a Southern lady, and then rushed for protection to these University buildings where was stationed a garrison of 100 Federal soldiers. I performed the pleasing duty in the immediate presence of the entire garrison.

So the outrage is justified at why this statue was allowed to remain. The only troubling thing is that the removal was done by a public mob instead of relying on the government to do the right thing. The government, run mostly by Democrats, had so much red tape that it was unable to actually execute the will of the people. That bodes really poorly for confidence in the government to actually have the authority to  take care of the public, forget about the will or the competence of the government to do it.

Another troubling thing about the removal is that the mob encouraged racist attacks on any white person who happened to stroll by the event. We don't need a revival of skin based racism in this country after it took decades to reduce the KKK to a handful of basement dwellers unwelcome at any venue. Mob justice rarely ends well.

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Remember all the "heritage not hate" signs. In the Lost Cause mentality, the role of slavery seems to be mysteriously minimized or dismissed, and instead all the focus is on honor, lost glory, and some heritage of righteous rebellion.
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So the outrage is justified at why this statue was allowed to remain. The only troubling thing is that the removal was done by a public mob instead of relying on the government to do the right thing. The government, run mostly by Democrats, had so much red tape that it was unable to actually execute the will of the people. That bodes really poorly for confidence in the government to actually have the authority to  take care of the public, forget about the will or the competence of the government to do it

Had the government being doing it's job then a "public mob" wouldn't be necessary. Statues representing 

1. Rebellion
          or
2. Treason
          or
3. Slavery 

has no place anywhere outside of a museum. 

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@ravensjt
Yeah...seems like there will be more mob violence in the future as the government continues to fail with both parties. It's clear that the Democrats in power in the government wanted the statue removed, but the government in general has become so overburdened with excessive responsibilities that today it's unable to do something so simple as remove a statue, even when the government was 100% willing to do it....yet the public wants the government to have more responsibilities and power? It's a recipe for disaster and anarchy.
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pull up the interview of Bob Woodson by Tucker Carlson if you didn't catch it already.

86 days later

linate
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according to the creator of the confederate flag...
“As a people we are fighting to maintain the Heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race.” Also: “As a national emblem, it [the Confederate flag] is significant of our higher cause, the cause of a superior race.”

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@drafterman
"Forget about slavery. You want statues of your leaders and generals and flags over government buildings, don't fight a war where you faced tremendous demographic and economic disadvantage from the onset, even if you do manage to hold on for four years and win a number of important battles against what should be a much superior force."

Fixed

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We should not erect symbolism which enforces feelings of inferiority/guilt among the southern populace. They should be able to hang their heads up high like everybody else in this fine country. If the north can honor their war dead with monuments and memorials, so should the south also.
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@Swagnarok
Japan got it right.


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Was the union justified in every state it invaded?  It did not recognize the confederacy and the armies were independant rebel forces defending their respective state.  From the union perspective the war was fought to preserve the Union.  Liberation occured first in the south.  There were uprisings in the north among the lower classes as well.  The vast majority of freedmen were never properly given the opportunity available to others with huge expanses of untapped territory.
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@Swagnarok
Correct me if I am wrong.  The gentleman's agreement can generally be framed as this.

The south concedes that it was wrong to secede, and the north respects the people of the south who fought with honor.

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The civil war is complicated.  This issue is simpler if you let it be.  There's no reason for southerners to respect racist statues.  

150 days later

n8nrgmi
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bumpppp
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@DBlaze
the opening post shows why there shouldn't be confederate statues. to keep them would be like germany keeping nazi statues. 
Alec
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@linate
If you want to eliminate statues of white supremacists, that should include Lincoln.  Snopes says he was a white supremacist.
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@Alec
And Clayton Bigsby.
Alec
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@Greyparrot
Who is he?

425 days later

n8nrgmi
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this thread is relevant right now
Greyparrot
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@n8nrgmi
Yeah...seems like there will be more mob violence in the future as the government continues to fail with both parties. It's clear that the Democrats in power in the government wanted the statue removed, but the government in general has become so overburdened with excessive responsibilities that today it's unable to do something so simple as remove a statue, even when the government was 100% willing to do it....yet the public wants the government to have more responsibilities and power? It's a recipe for disaster and anarchy.

I posted that 2 years ago haha.


oh and I also posted this 2 years ago...

Another troubling thing about the removal is that the mob encouraged racist attacks on any white person who happened to stroll by the event. We don't need a revival of skin-based racism in this country after it took decades to reduce the KKK to a handful of basement dwellers unwelcome at any venue. Mob justice rarely ends well.


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@Alec
You'll have to blow up that mountain.

8 days later

n8nrgmi
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so where's all the stupid trump supporters who wanna argue that the statues should remain cause it's about heritage? i wouldn't think the opening post here is so compelling that it's got folks convinced or changed their minds. trump supporters are immune to fact and logic. so where are you all?
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@n8nrgmi
Go read my responses.
Vader
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@drafterman
Forget about slavery. You want statues of your leaders and generals and flags over government buildings, don't be shit at war and lose
LOL
Vader
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I don't know one logical person who supports the CSA
Username
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Honestly if there's one example of non-legal protest that I support it's definitely pushing those fucking statues over. Imagine having to stand under the beautiful bronze statue of some guy who fought tooth-and-nail to continue the slavery of your ancestors. 
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MYTH The South seceded over states’ rights.
"Confederate states did claim the right to secede, but no state claimed to be seceding for that right. In fact, Confederates opposed states’ rights — that is, the right of Northern states not to support slavery.
On Dec. 24, 1860, delegates at South Carolina’s secession convention adopted a “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union.” It noted “an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery” and protested that Northern states had failed to “fulfill their constitutional obligations” by interfering with the return of fugitive slaves to bondage. Slavery, not states’ rights, birthed the Civil War.

South Carolina was further upset that New York no longer allowed “slavery transit.” In the past, if Charleston gentry wanted to spend August in the Hamptons, they could bring their cook along. No longer — and South Carolina’s delegates were outraged. In addition, they objected that New England states let black men vote and tolerated abolitionist societies. According to South Carolina, states should not have the right to let their citizens assemble and speak freely when what they said threatened slavery.

A Confederate flag is still flying on the grounds of South Carolina's state capitol, even after a white gunman was accused of killing nine black churchgoers at an AME church in Charleston, S.C. Here's a closer look at why the flag isn't at half-staff or even off the grounds completely. (Jorge Ribas/The Washington Post)
Other seceding states echoed South Carolina. “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world,” proclaimed Mississippi in its own secession declaration, passed Jan. 9, 1861. “Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of the commerce of the earth. . . . A blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.”
The South’s opposition to states’ rights is not surprising. Until the Civil War, Southern presidents and lawmakers had dominated the federal government. The people in power in Washington always oppose states’ rights. Doing so preserves their own."

117 days later

Lemming
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Personally, I think the fact that a number of their descendants and communities no longer honor monuments of ancestors and heroes to their states, shows that the extremists back then weren't 'wrong about how they feared the future might end up.

But eh, I'm from Oregon, other side of America.