GOP defending Confederate legacy?

[stuper1]

Ok, but be careful what you wish for. What you're wishing for is basically a Hunger Games type government, centralized thousands of miles away and not listening at all to local concerns. I hope I got my movie analogy close to correct, because truthfully I only ever sat through half of the first Hunger Games movie.

Anywho, what the Confederates fought for was self determination via their state government, which they took to be their sovereign government at that time.

Let's be real, it was about slavery. You can couch it in whatever political science legalese you like....it was about having the freedom to own and subjegate human beings

I agree, the whole "state government" thing was just a convenient better sounding BS argument that they could use to rationalize the true reason they went to war. They wanted states to have power because their state would allow them to continue to pursue their selfish dehumanizing actions. Americans have always been selfish to a fault. Things still haven't changed in this regard, even 160 years later.

Every human being is selfish. That's the constant throughout history. Do you think Americans have a monopoly on selfishness? By the way, America didn't invent slavery. It was practiced quite widely throughout the world for most of history, including in Africa. If anything, white people should be thanked for ending slavery.

Just because everyone else did it, and just because everyone else is selfish, does this make it right? Are any other countries still celebrating and enshrining the famous slavers of their grim pasts? No. So why are we?

Do you have any understanding of human nature? Are you aware that people are full of contradictions? We have statues of people that were considered honorable at the time they lived. Does that mean they were perfect?

George Washington owned slaves. Is his statue coming down next and we're renaming Washington DC to George Floyd DX and renaming the Washington Monument to whatever? If that's what they want, it doesn't really bother me, but they should be consistent at least.

While we're at it, we should be sure to destroy the Jefferson Memorial because he owned slaves and the Lincoln Memorial because he thought blacks were lesser beings than whites.

And let's be sure to just do all this as mob rule. We don't need any rule of law or due process or anything like that. In other words, let's just go back to the jungle. We don't need civilization.

When we find out something bad about Martin Luther King Jr let's be ready to take his monument down too.

[vnatale]

When we find out something bad about Martin Luther King Jr let's be ready to take his monument down too.

J Edgar Hoover already performed that task 50 or so years ago.

Vinny

[stuper1]

Seriously, you guys are brain dead if you're going to support mob rule.

If these people want the statues to come down, there's a very simple process to follow. Get a state assembly person to write a bill and get a majority of assembly people to vote for it. Boom, there, done. If you can't get enough votes, then sorry, it's not going to happen. At that point, you have a choice. Stay in Virginia or wherever, or move to a more enlightened place, like maybe Minneapolis or Chicago or Baltimore where the leftist utopia is causing manna to grow on trees.

Doing it by mob rule is not the way to do anything unless you want us to go back to the dark ages.

[flyingpylon]

Regarding soldiers on either side of the Civil War, there’s a sentiment that soldiers don’t fight for ideology, country, patriotism, medals, etc. They fight for the men standing next to them.

I wasn’t there and I don’t completely trust any particular version of the history of that time, especially not anything concocted in “modern times”. But I wonder how much thought soldiers really gave to some of the underlying issues vs just trying to keep themselves and their buddies and families back home alive.

[Mark Leavy]

Whenever the new religion out-populates the old religion, the priests from the new religion incite the masses to tear down the old idols.

Been happening for awhile.

[Xan]

The North, to the degree we can collectivize the government and people into a blob and give them collective interests, didn't care much about slavery. But the South sure did...

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/prim ... ing-states

Nary a mention of taxes or tariffs...

The word slave, in all its derivations, is listed 83 times.

Texas' detail is particularly pertinent...

"She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time."

Well, there are really two issues there. One is slavery, and the other is whether the federal government is going to respect the agreement that was made among the states that created that government.

There are only five states in that document, four of them seceding before Lincoln raised his army. The one that led the second batch, Virginia, is in the document. And it barely mentions slavery, in fact, it does so only by way of describing the states involved: "the Federal Government, having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern Slaveholding States."


Also, an interesting point: what's typically known as "the Confederate flag" was never the flag of any government. It was a battle flag, a symbol of the soldiers (who did not own slaves) in their fight. That emblem did end up getting used as an element in the flags of the national government, and in various state flags afterwards.

Globally, wherever local people are attempting to throw off oppressive foreign governments, the Confederate flag has flown. It was at the fall of the Berlin Wall, for example.

I'm not saying everything the Confederacy stood for was good. Of course it wasn't. That's true of every government and nation. But it wasn't all bad either.

Edit: It's especially sad to see NASCAR dropping it, because the whole reason NASCAR races stock cars is to outrun federal agents attempting to collect taxes on moonshine. Organizationally, it really is part of their heritage! (And has nothing to do with slavery.)

[doodle]

Seriously, you guys are brain dead if you're going to support mob rule.

If these people want the statues to come down, there's a very simple process to follow. Get a state assembly person to write a bill and get a majority of assembly people to vote for it. Boom, there, done. If you can't get enough votes, then sorry, it's not going to happen. At that point, you have a choice. Stay in Virginia or wherever, or move to a more enlightened place, like maybe Minneapolis or Chicago or Baltimore where the leftist utopia is causing manna to grow on trees.

Doing it by mob rule is not the way to do anything unless you want us to go back to the dark ages.

This shouldn't have to come down to mob rule. There should be widespread consensus that removing Confederate names and statues from public spaces is the proper thing to do given the sordid history that they represent to a large segment of our population. Slavery was equally as bad as the Nazi crimes during world war 2.....don't see many Goebbels high schools or Hitler monuments over there.

[vnatale]

Confederate soldiers fought to preserve one of the most brutal stains on American history. I really think many of you have emotionally disconnected yourselves from how reprehensible the system of slavery was that existed in this country for centuries.

IMO, it's quite the opposite. Modern Americans are entirely disconnected from understanding how important their state was to people back then. I'd wager that essentially every American alive today thinks enslaving people is quite distasteful; a much much higher amount have never even thought about whether states should be the ones to decide how they handle things that the federal government currently dictates. My ancestors fought for the North and I probably would have too, but I can understand why the Southern cause was such a tragedy.

Honestly, I think you're being a bit of a sophist trying to rile the forumites up like that. You have to like us a little bit to keep coming back here, why be insulting when you could try swaying people to your side?

All my ancestors were in Italy until at least 1900. I've only lived in the North so I have no direct Southern influence or heritage.

That said, in the South in the latter part of the 1800's, Italians were viewed by Southerners as being no better than Afro-Americans. That led to a lynch mob in New Orleans in 1892 murdering 11 Italian immigrants. In an attempt to appease the both placate Italian Americans and ease diplomatic tensions with Italy, President Harrison declared Columbus Day as a one-time national celebration.

Do we have any records of how many lynchings took place in the North and how many in the South, throughout United States history?

Was it proper states rights for George Wallace to attempt to block an Afro-American student from attending an Alabama college, a hundred years after the end of the Civil War and the freeing of the slaves?

I close with some lynching stats I find on Wikipedia:

Lynching is the practice of murder by a group of people by extrajudicial action. Lynchings in the United States first became common in the Southern United States in the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s, at which time most of the victims were white men.[2] Lynchings of blacks rose in number after the American Civil War during Reconstruction; they declined in the 1930s.[2] Most lynchings were of African-American men in the Southern United States, but women and non-blacks were also lynched, not always in the South. White lynchings of blacks also occurred in the Midwestern United States and the border states, especially during the 20th-century Great Migration of blacks out of the Southern United States. The purpose was to enforce white supremacy and intimidate blacks through racial terrorism. According to Ida B. Wells and Tuskegee University, most lynching victims were accused of murder or attempted murder. Rape or attempted rape was the second most common accusation; such accusations were often pretexts for lynching blacks who violated Jim Crow etiquette or engaged in economic competition with whites. Sociologist Arthur F. Raper investigated one hundred lynchings during the 1930s and estimated that approximately one-third of the victims were falsely accused.[3][4] On a per capita basis, lynchings were also common in California and the Old West, especially of Latinos, although they represented less than 10% of the national total. Native Americans, Asian Americans, Italian-Americans, Greek Americans, Jewish Americans, and others were also lynched.[5][6] [7] Other ethnicities, including Finnish-Americans[8] and German-Americans[9] were also lynched occasionally.

According to the Tuskegee Institute, 4,743 people were lynched between 1882 and 1968 in the United States, including 3,446 African Americans and 1,297 whites. More than 73 percent of lynchings in the post-Civil War period occurred in the Southern states.[10] According to the Equal Justice Initiative, 4,084 African-Americans were lynched between 1877 and 1950 in the South.[11]

Vinny

[vnatale]

Seriously, you guys are brain dead if you're going to support mob rule.

If these people want the statues to come down, there's a very simple process to follow. Get a state assembly person to write a bill and get a majority of assembly people to vote for it. Boom, there, done. If you can't get enough votes, then sorry, it's not going to happen. At that point, you have a choice. Stay in Virginia or wherever, or move to a more enlightened place, like maybe Minneapolis or Chicago or Baltimore where the leftist utopia is causing manna to grow on trees.

Doing it by mob rule is not the way to do anything unless you want us to go back to the dark ages.

Is it the same for when that Saddam statue was torn down? Anyone critical of that being done by a mob? Should it have been done by legally sanctioned government action?

Now that I thought more about it I just checked to see if our military had a hand in that action, and, yes, "Working together in the heart of Baghdad, US marines helped crowds of Iraqi men bring down the imposing monument on the day the city's population celebrated its liberation."

Vinny

[doodle]

Ok, but be careful what you wish for. What you're wishing for is basically a Hunger Games type government, centralized thousands of miles away and not listening at all to local concerns. I hope I got my movie analogy close to correct, because truthfully I only ever sat through half of the first Hunger Games movie.

Anywho, what the Confederates fought for was self determination via their state government, which they took to be their sovereign government at that time.

Let's be real, it was about slavery. You can couch it in whatever political science legalese you like....it was about having the freedom to own and subjegate human beings

I agree, the whole "state government" thing was just a convenient better sounding BS argument that they could use to rationalize the true reason they went to war. They wanted states to have power because their state would allow them to continue to pursue their selfish dehumanizing actions. Americans have always been selfish to a fault. Things still haven't changed in this regard, even 160 years later.

Every human being is selfish. That's the constant throughout history. Do you think Americans have a monopoly on selfishness? By the way, America didn't invent slavery. It was practiced quite widely throughout the world for most of history, including in Africa. If anything, white people should be thanked for ending slavery.

Just because everyone else did it, and just because everyone else is selfish, does this make it right? Are any other countries still celebrating and enshrining the famous slavers of their grim pasts? No. So why are we?

Do you have any understanding of human nature? Are you aware that people are full of contradictions? We have statues of people that were considered honorable at the time they lived. Does that mean they were perfect?

George Washington owned slaves. Is his statue coming down next and we're renaming Washington DC to George Floyd DX and renaming the Washington Monument to whatever? If that's what they want, it doesn't really bother me, but they should be consistent at least.

While we're at it, we should be sure to destroy the Jefferson Memorial because he owned slaves and the Lincoln Memorial because he thought blacks were lesser beings than whites.

And let's be sure to just do all this as mob rule. We don't need any rule of law or due process or anything like that. In other words, let's just go back to the jungle. We don't need civilization.

When we find out something bad about Martin Luther King Jr let's be ready to take his monument down too.

I see this differently. Washington and Jefferson were the founding fathers of our nation. They didn't start a war and secede from the nation because they wanted to preserve the institution of slavery. Like it or not the historical consensus is very clear...the seminal issue of the civil war was slavery. This states rights pertains almost singularly to that issue.

[vnatale]

Globally, wherever local people are attempting to throw off oppressive foreign governments, the Confederate flag has flown. It was at the fall of the Berlin Wall, for example.

But also to this day Neo-Nazi's in Germany use the Confederate flags because it most closely represents the ideology represented by the forever banned Nazi flag. That ideology being one race is superior to another.

Even in our country Nazi supporters link the Confederate flag to their cause.

Capture.JPG (100.16 KiB) Viewed 4507 times

Vinny

[stuper1]

Alright, enjoy your mob rule. Should be fun times for all. I'm sure we'll all be better off due to the wisdom of the mob.

When they decide that anyone who has more than $100,000 saved in a financial account needs to give 50% of their total to the mob because they need it more than you do, I'm sure you will see the wisdom of their decision and won't complain if they need to break your windows and doors in order to come inside your home and help you better understand the wisdom.

[Xan]

Globally, wherever local people are attempting to throw off oppressive foreign governments, the Confederate flag has flown. It was at the fall of the Berlin Wall, for example.

But also to this day Neo-Nazi's in Germany use the Confederate flags because it most closely represents the ideology represented by the forever banned Nazi flag. That ideology being one race is superior to another.

Even in our country Nazi supporters link the Confederate flag to their cause.

Capture.JPG


Vinny

Mmmkay, but in that picture they're also (mis)using the Stars and Stripes. And the official flag of the KKK is the Stars and Stripes. Should we can that flag?

[vnatale]

Going by memory (most recent readings) and no research...this is what I currently believe (subject to change by any countervailing facts and logic)..


1) Why the South fought the Civil War

100% Slavery

At the time cotton was one of the largest and most lucrative industries in the world. It only viable through the institution of slavery. At the time the country was still expanding and the South wanted the institution to continue to expand as the country expanded.

2) The statues

The vast majority of them were NOT erected close to 1865 when memories would have been fresh as to the exploits of those in the military. Instead, the vast majority of them were erected in the 1890's and 1920s.

Vinny

[shekels]

Going by memory (most recent readings) and no research...this is what I currently believe (subject to change by any countervailing facts and logic)..


1) Why the South fought the Civil War

100% Slavery

At the time cotton was one of the largest and most lucrative industries in the world. It only viable through the institution of slavery. At the time the country was still expanding and the South wanted the institution to continue to expand as the country expanded.

Not Exactly...
When Abraham Lincoln was elected some Southern politicians called it an act of war

Reminds me of today the minute D.J.Trump was elected.

https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_csa.asp

[doodle]

I think at the root of all of this is that many people don't want to live in a truly 'diverse' society.. I understand that. I know that a great deal of cultural diversity can create tension. But let's be scientific about this and discuss our honest beliefs about the functionality of the American melting pot rather than fighting these proxy wars over civil war statues and Confederate flags. I think a great many people on this forum probably would agree with Jared Taylor from American Renaissance's perspective on race relations namely that they don't want to live in a country where they (white men) are the racial minority or their western European culture takes a backseat or has to share the stage with other cultures.

[shekels]

I think at the root of all of this is that many people don't want to live in a truly 'diverse' society.. I understand that. I know that a great deal of cultural diversity can create tension. But let's be scientific about this and discuss our honest beliefs about the functionality of the American melting pot rather than fighting these proxy wars over civil war statues and Confederate flags. I think a great many people on this forum probably would agree with Jared Taylor from American Renaissance's perspective on race relations namely that they don't want to live in a country where they (white men) are the racial minority or their western European culture takes a backseat or has to share the stage with other cultures.

The next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department.

Thomas Sowell


When do people go to far?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UVUnUnWfHI

good video..

[vnatale]

I think at the root of all of this is that many people don't want to live in a truly 'diverse' society.. I understand that. I know that a great deal of cultural diversity can create tension. But let's be scientific about this and discuss our honest beliefs about the functionality of the American melting pot rather than fighting these proxy wars over civil war statues and Confederate flags. I think a great many people on this forum probably would agree with Jared Taylor from American Renaissance's perspective on race relations namely that they don't want to live in a country where they (white men) are the racial minority or their western European culture takes a backseat or has to share the stage with other cultures.

I'm the son of an Italian immigrant father with all grand parents also Italian immigrants. I grew up in a section of Rhode Island that was heavy first or second generation immigrant families. In our daily lives there was little to no reference to our Italian heritage. Instead, we were all brought up by parents who they themselves or whose parents had come here for the American Dream and we were brought up to be Americans. Same as the Irish kids. The Jewish kids. The Armenian kids. The Greek kids.

I only talked about Italy once with my father. I asked him if he wanted to go back to visit Italy. His response revealed his bitterness towards the company. He said, "We were poor. If I had stayed there, I would have remained poor. I would have never been able to do what I have in this country."

However, also, by that time the country was far more hospitable to Italians than it had originally been in the not that distant past.

Vinny

[pp4me]

How ironic that the Republican party of Lincoln is currently so adamant about defending the Confederate legacy....politics is strange.

The problem with being a rational creature is that one can rationalize anything...so I'm fully prepared to hear a million reasons why this makes logical sense.

Well, what do you expect from a party that was once in favor of high levels of arsenic in drinking water and throwing grandma off a cliff?

[stuper1]

I think at the root of all of this is that many people don't want to live in a truly 'diverse' society.. I understand that. I know that a great deal of cultural diversity can create tension. But let's be scientific about this and discuss our honest beliefs about the functionality of the American melting pot rather than fighting these proxy wars over civil war statues and Confederate flags. I think a great many people on this forum probably would agree with Jared Taylor from American Renaissance's perspective on race relations namely that they don't want to live in a country where they (white men) are the racial minority or their western European culture takes a backseat or has to share the stage with other cultures.

I'm going to pick a couple countries at random to make a very simple point. Let's say that a guy is born in say Spain, grows up there, and still lives there. He is Spanish through and through. He likes Spanish culture. He's never really known anything else. Then, over time a bunch of people start coming to live in Spain from say Korea. Maybe a whole bunch of them move to the town where the first guy lives. Nobody asked him if he wanted to live next to a bunch of foreigners. Is it surprising that he wouldn't like that? Does that make him a racist? Maybe he loves to go to other countries, even Korea, to experience their cultures and expand his thinking. However, when he gets home, he wants to live in Spanish culture. Is he a bigot?

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that just because people like the familiar doesn't mean that they are full of racial hatred. White people have built some wonderful societies. The fact that they are comfortable in those societies and want to maintain those societies is not surprising. When a bunch of people from another culture start moving in, and things start changing, it's not a surprise that the first people don't like it. Does that make them racists or bigots? No, it just means they like what they have built and what they are used to.

[Lonestar]

So, am I to understand that as soon as we burn all existing Confederate flags, tear down all civil war statues, rename all schools relating to civil war heroes, things will be instantly better? Apparently, we will feel better about ourselves for trying to cover up things of the past that should have never, never happened.

What is all this going to do to promote a truly diverse society and relieve systemic racism? Will it improve the educational system? Will it bring back jobs to the oppressed and poverty stricken in our country. Will it strengthen the family units to promote the presence of a father and mother to raise responsible children? Will race relations in general improve quickly? These are the issues that will change the country! How long after the past is erased will I have to wait to see an overall improvement? Maybe reparation checks are the answer.

I liked the previous post suggesting instead of tearing down the statues we place them in a museum. Does anyone really believe that museum housing these artifacts is going to be treated with respect, or spray painted with vulgarities? Besides, the way the statues are going down there will only be pieces left to put back together.

[doodle]

I think at the root of all of this is that many people don't want to live in a truly 'diverse' society.. I understand that. I know that a great deal of cultural diversity can create tension. But let's be scientific about this and discuss our honest beliefs about the functionality of the American melting pot rather than fighting these proxy wars over civil war statues and Confederate flags. I think a great many people on this forum probably would agree with Jared Taylor from American Renaissance's perspective on race relations namely that they don't want to live in a country where they (white men) are the racial minority or their western European culture takes a backseat or has to share the stage with other cultures.

I'm going to pick a couple countries at random to make a very simple point. Let's say that a guy is born in say Spain, grows up there, and still lives there. He is Spanish through and through. He likes Spanish culture. He's never really known anything else. Then, over time a bunch of people start coming to live in Spain from say Korea. Maybe a whole bunch of them move to the town where the first guy lives. Nobody asked him if he wanted to live next to a bunch of foreigners. Is it surprising that he wouldn't like that? Does that make him a racist? Maybe he loves to go to other countries, even Korea, to experience their cultures and expand his thinking. However, when he gets home, he wants to live in Spanish culture. Is he a bigot?

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that just because people like the familiar doesn't mean that they are full of racial hatred. White people have built some wonderful societies. The fact that they are comfortable in those societies and want to maintain those societies is not surprising. When a bunch of people from another culture start moving in, and things start changing, it's not a surprise that the first people don't like it. Does that make them racists or bigots? No, it just means they like what they have built and what they are used to.

Fair enough. The problem with the United States though given this particular view is that much of it was built on the backs of immigrant and slave labor. So unlike many of the racially pure countries of the world, our foundation was a nation of great diversity. Of course there were many indentured white slaves as well at one time but given the color of their skin they could at least at some future point move into a position of assimilation. So looking at the reality of where we are now, how does one deal with the fact that more than 40 million Americans have to live in a society which glorifies the legacy of past generals and war heros who were fighting to maintain a system which brutalized and raped these people of their human dignity? This is an issue that I don't think you as part of the racial majority can understand...at least not viscerally. And yes, this won't solve racial tension, but it's at least a step in the right direction.

[stuper1]

I don't think you seem to be able to understand that it's all just a distraction from the real issue. Those statues of old generals aren't hurting anybody. What is hurting black people today for the most part is just other black people.

I don't think you seem to be able to understand that it's all just a distraction from the real issue. Those statues of old generals aren't hurting anybody. What is hurting black people today for the most part is just other black people.

and liberal democratic government policy's, especially in big city's...

lonestars post below is worth considering for anyone who wants to Fahrenheit 451 our past

So, am I to understand that as soon as we burn all existing Confederate flags, tear down all civil war statues, rename all schools relating to civil war heroes, things will be instantly better? Apparently, we will feel better about ourselves for trying to cover up things of the past that should have never, never happened.

What is all this going to do to promote a truly diverse society and relieve systemic racism? Will it improve the educational system? Will it bring back jobs to the oppressed and poverty stricken in our country. Will it strengthen the family units to promote the presence of a father and mother to raise responsible children? Will race relations in general improve quickly? These are the issues that will change the country! How long after the past is erased will I have to wait to see an overall improvement? Maybe reparation checks are the answer.

from the book Fahrenheit 451

"Beatty explains that it’s normal for a fireman to go through a phase of wondering what books have to offer, and he delivers a dizzying monologue explaining how books came to be banned in the first place. According to Beatty, special-interest groups and other “minorities” objected to books that offended them. Soon, books all began to look the same, as writers tried to avoid offending anybody. This was not enough, however, and society as a whole decided to simply burn books rather than permit conflicting opinions."

[doodle]

I don't think you seem to be able to understand that it's all just a distraction from the real issue. Those statues of old generals aren't hurting anybody. What is hurting black people today for the most part is just other black people.

Agreed, but that doesn't mean it still isn't the proper thing to do. When a group of people feels marginalized by the larger dominant society then I think it causes a backlash that isn't beneficial for either group. The United States has gained a lot from our diversity, but it has also come with many challenges. The wounds of slavery and segregation and systemic racism that existed quite extensively in much of the southern United States up until the 80s are still raw. This is also impacted by an extreme amount of wealth disparity. I don't have answers, only that I acknowledge that we have a lot of work ahead of us regarding how to address these issues. To merely try to stomp this movement out will lead to even greater resentment and problems. We need to have some earnest conversations. A lot of white America seems to want no part of this diversity , how does one fold these diverse views into one unified nation?

[vnatale]

Regarding the cause of the Civil War....from the excellent book "Last Flag Down" I'm reading I found this:

Capture.JPG (70.62 KiB) Viewed 4883 times

Vinny