Charlottesville

[stuper1]

Even the people being called "supremacists" aren't necessarily espousing supremacist views. Wanting your own country with your own people living in it doesn't necessarily imply that your people are the supreme people in the world. Just that that's the kind of country you want to live in.

But if you don't want your country to be overrun by innumerable hordes of immigrants from all over the globe, doesn't that make you a supremacist of some sort? Or does it just mean that you are sane and reasonable because you understand that culture means something and can only withstand a limited, metered amount of immigration without disintegrating?

At root, short-sighted greed seems to be the underlying problem now and back to the beginning. Who is it that wants hordes of immigrants now? I think it's big business because they know that a growing population is needed to keep the Ponzi scheme of our economy going. Who was it that brought enslaved Africans here hundreds of years ago? Greedy business owners who wanted the ultimate in cheap labor, but created huge societal problems that persist to this day and which may never be solved.

[dualstow]

I'm all for metered, smart, Canada-style immigration in the U.S. But, I don't think I have much else in common with Stormfront.
In fact, even though I was born in the States, as were 3 of my grandparents, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be welcome here.

[Xan]

I don't think the South is being demonized ... the South, especially Charlottesville, doesn't want these folks in their town either. There are some ideas in life that are just bad ideas, and racism is one. The entire country has struggled and made progress in this area of thought. Unfortunately this type of thought will continue to rear its ugly head in this world, and it needs to be confronted. Standing by and letting evil gain momentum hasn't worked out well in the past.

I'm mostly talking about using all this as an excuse to tear down any Confederate statue or memorial, which I find to be very sad. Fine, racism is a bad idea. The North was just as racist. So why tear down these statues?

[Maddy]

You can struggle to make logical connections between these things, but they simply don't exist except at the very extreme ends of the political spectrum, and I'm not sure why those elements should be concerning to us--much less preoccupying our attention. The moment this happened, the media immediately rushed to draw a presumed connection between the violence and Trump, between the violence and conservative groups, and between the violence and conservatives at large. This is just the latest distortion by the progressive left and its media spokesmen to sabotage the Trump presidency.

[Mountaineer]

My thoughts from a confessional, historical Christian perspective:
1. We are all sinners and sinners sin. We need to focus on Jesus, His forgiveness of those who have the gift of repentance, confess Jesus is Lord and believe His promises, continue to proclaim the Gospel and give the Sacraments. Denouncements likely fall on many deaf and hollow ears and fuel more bitterness.
2. The victor writes the history books.
3. One killed in Charlottesville, over 1000 killed daily via abortion.
4. Many have priorities focused on sensationalism; sensationalism sells.
5. Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.

[jhogue]

The original KKK was a guerrilla Confederate organization, founded by Nathan Bedford Forrest. The modern KKK was founded in Ohio, I think, somewhere around 1915? Its official flag is the US Stars & Stripes.

Sure, I suppose there's overlap between Nazis and white supremacists and Confederate sympathizers. But there's overlap between a lot of groups.

I should point out that not everyone who wants to keep the statues and memorials is a Confederate sympathizer: many of these were erected as symbols of reconciliation. For example, there's a Confederate memorial on Martha's Vineyard built by Union veterans. What do you do with that?

Even the people being called "supremacists" aren't necessarily espousing supremacist views. Wanting your own country with your own people living in it doesn't necessarily imply that your people are the supreme people in the world. Just that that's the kind of country you want to live in.

I should also point out that a key issue of the Late Unpleasantness was whether slavery would be allowed in the territories. The Southern position was that, as equal participants in the Union, Southern institutions should be expanded to at least some of the territories. The Northern position was that the territories should be for whites only: no black people allowed to mess things up.

It sounds like the position of the so-called "supremacists" is exactly that of the antebellum North. So the solution is to demonize the South?

I was a history professor and taught the Civil War and Reconstruction for 28 years. I have been over this ground more than a few times.

Some of your history is correct. Some of it is not.

Lincoln ran for president on the Republican platform of 1860. He opposed the expansion of African slavery into new territories that were not yet states. You are correct that some Republicans (“free soilers”) feared competition from planters with slaves and banned the importation of slaves and free blacks into Northern states. Other Republicans (“abolitionists”) opposed slavery as a moral evil and saw non-expansion in the territories as a first step toward nationwide abolition. You are not correct in your implication that there was a single “Northern position.”

Lincoln won the election in the Electoral College, but did not get a majority of votes cast (there were 4 major candidates). He also got no votes south of the Mason-Dixon line. All 11 of the states that joined the Confederacy in 1861 had legalized African slavery. No free state left the Union during the Civil War. Those are historical facts. Restating the facts is not “demonizing the South.”

[dualstow]

I'm all for metered, smart, Canada New Zealand-style immigration in the U.S. But, I don't think I have much else in common with Stormfront.
In fact, even though I was born in the States, as were 3 of my grandparents, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be welcome here.

Fixed that for you. Canada is just as nuts as the US when it comes to immigration.

What, specifically, don't you like about their methods?

[Mountaineer]

My thoughts from a confessional, historical Christian perspective:
1. We are all sinners and sinners sin. We need to focus on Jesus, His forgiveness of those who have the gift of repentance, confess Jesus is Lord and believe His promises, continue to proclaim the Gospel and give the Sacraments. Denouncements likely fall on many deaf and hollow ears and fuel more bitterness.
2. The victor writes the history books.
3. One killed in Charlottesville, over 1000 killed daily via abortion.
4. Many have priorities focused on sensationalism; sensationalism sells.
5. Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.

You have nothing to prove, I know.
Whether or not this is true, how does it further the conversation?

I apologize if stating my view upsets you oh humble knower of all that is worth knowing. It is cool with me for you to have your views.

[Maddy]

Well, well, well. It's being rumored, the alleged source being the "hard left" Southern Poverty Law Center--that Jason Kessler is a left-wing activist previously associated with Occupy. It'll be interesting to see how this unfolds.

[Mountaineer]

This is one of the more rational pieces I've come across on this whole Charlottesville mess:

Our nation is angry and teetering on the brink of a--I don't know what. If some group of extremists comes out in public, their opposite numbers are sure to follow. Both feed off the violence and enjoy the sight of normal people running about alas and alacking. I guarantee you the leaders of both the demonstrators and the counter demonstrators are pleased as punch that the poor young woman died. In their perverted minds it makes the case to their potential nut case followers.

As to the Confederate memorial statues, I cannot believe that anyone could look at a statue of Robert E Lee and think of slavery. If they are that offended by its existence then they ought to get some counseling because they're the ones with a problem. And I will absolutely guarantee you that the white supremacists don't care about those statues either or about the Confederacy. It's all show.

What is the answer to this problem? I confess I don't know but two things could move us along the way toward internal peace. 1. People need to ignore the so-called alt-right--they had a national meeting and a couple of hundred of them showed up. Our little village drew way more than that last week with a peach festival. 2. Stop playing up victimhood. Everybody wants to be a victim of something or someone. It feels so good to feel attacked and self righteous at the same time, but it is terrible for our society.

America is losing itself because we have lost our sense of community and shared future. Almost everyone seems to be infested with a disease we could call self isolationism. It's all about me, and I get to define who and what I am. I'm afraid we're nearly lost. Terry Culler

[Xan]

I'm mostly talking about using all this as an excuse to tear down any Confederate statue or memorial, which I find to be very sad. Fine, racism is a bad idea. The North was just as racist. So why tear down these statues?

Why is it sad to remove statues of traitors that defended the horrific practice of slavery that resulted in innumerable deaths, the fracturing of families, and terrible human abuse? I don't understand that reaction at all.

They were fighting for the USA to remain a union of sovereign states. The North perpetuated a revolution under the guise of "saving" the union. The all-powerful federal government, with the constituent states reduced to vassals, and which admits no limits on its own power, and against which we often rail here, is the creation of Mr Lincoln.

That all-powerful state has been carefully wrapped in the banner of anti-slavery to make it so that anybody who believes in any of the Southern principles is immediately ridiculed. Meanwhile the North had few principles besides their own enrichment: they wanted all the territories for themselves and they wanted the wealth of the rich South. Observe how fervently anti-slavery they were: they proposed the Corwin Amendment, which would have been #13, and would have permanently prevented the federal government from interfering with slavery in any slave state, as long as the South would not secede.

[Xan]

The Corwin amendment was awful, I agree. The entire nation was a racist and sadistic place in the 1800's. The North was far from perfect, but in the end, Lincoln's armies freed 4 million slaves in the South. If the South had won, would we still have slaves in the Confederacy today? General Lee did his best to keep the South "free," and to ensure the continuation of slavery. I have no respect for his legacy.

I wonder if you can picture yourself or a family member as a slave. Having children that are later sold off to another master. Your wife being raped by your master. You being beaten or killed by your master. It is a horrible stain on our country; I have zero sympathy for those who tried to perpetuate it.

It's very easy to project our morality onto people in other places, times, and circumstances. I think we cherry-pick the antebellum South as a punching bag. Most of what you describe was also the case for hundreds of years in Europe, as medieval nobles were practically the owners of the vassals on their land. Do you have "no respect" for the legacies of the European nobles? What of Washington and Jefferson?

The fact is that slavery was on its way out, worldwide. Brazil was among the last to end it, in the 1880s IIRC. Everywhere but here, the end was gradual, smooth, and largely non-disruptive. It included buy-outs of slaveholders, and education for slaves being emancipated. It came from within rather than being forced from without. It would have happened in the South too.

Are you arguing that the way that slavery ended here was the best way? We're still dealing today with the repercussions of how poorly it was handled.

Ending slavery does not require war. Conquering the other half of your country and establishing a new one requires war.

[dualstow]

It's true that Lee himself wanted to maintain the Union.
Still, if the north was "just as racist", why did desegregation take so long in the south after emancipation.

[WiseOne]

Ironically, the goals of the H1B and guest worker programs are closely related to the original goals of slavery: cheap labor, undercutting the American citizens who might have wanted these positions at competitive pay scales, who can't easily switch jobs and thus can be used and abused with impunity. Interesting that no other country has similar programs, or at least not to the scale that the U.S. does.

Also, I'm not sure it's fair to call Robert E. Lee a traitor, paragon of evil etc. By all accounts, he was a decent person who tried to remain faithful to his home state, and finally took responsibility for ending the war. My former college campus (in the border state of Maryland) featured both Union and Confederate memorial statues. I wonder what's happening there right now.

[Mountaineer]

US History - I grew up in West Virginia, a state that broke away from Virginia and the Confederacy to join the Union but had Civil War supporters on both sides during the conflict. It's been a very long time, probably long before history books began to be rewritten to judge by "today's" standards vs. the standards of the time the events took place. My remembrance of Civics class and US history classes in high school portrayed Robert E. Lee as a very honorable and somewhat conflicted man. His decision to leave the Union even after being educated at West Point and having an extensive military career was a difficult one. He chose to have more allegiance to his state, Virginia, than the federal government - a bit like choosing to place priority on and support your family moreso than the town in which you live if difficult decisions must be made. My rememberance is being taught that Lee was much more supportive of state's rights than federal rights and that was the fundamental reason he joined the Confederacy; I believe he was portrayed as a Constitutionalist, as the Constitution existed at the time, and as a student of the founding fathers and our nation's birth. I vaguely remember that Lincoln was mentioned as a great man, but that he was flawed by being more of an ends justify the means person - thus his propensity to ignore the Constitution when it his beliefs conflicted with it.

Again, my memory of high school history classes is admitedly fuzzy, but I remember being taught that Lee worked tirelessly after the Civil War to support the Reconstruction, educate Americans (now Washington and Lee University), and promote harmony. I found this information to be interesting; in an address before the Southern Historical Society in Atlanta, Georgia in 1874, Benjamin Harvey Hill described Lee in this way:
He was a foe without hate; a friend without treachery; a soldier without cruelty; a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public officer without vices; a private citizen without wrong; a neighbour without reproach; a Christian without hypocrisy, and a man without guile. He was a Caesar, without his ambition; Frederick, without his tyranny; Napoleon, without his selfishness, and Washington, without his reward.
Why anyone who understands history would want to remove his statue is puzzling. I wonder how soon there will be a popular cry to rename or tear down the Barracks at West Point that was named after Lee.

On a personal note, part of my ancestors fled Virginia during the Civil War to come to what became northern West Virginia because of the mayhem that was taking place in the area. My GGG grandmother woke one morning to find the water for her teapot and coffee had been spiked during the night with copper sulfate (blue vitriol), most likely by Union soldiers that were pillaging in the area. Luckily she saw the water and dumped it before the family consumed anything made with it.

[Mountaineer]

I guarantee you the leaders of both the demonstrators and the counter demonstrators are pleased as punch that the poor young woman died.

Grace and empathy are not qualities that seem to be valued by many today. That is what identity politics does to people, though.

For example, I would consider it repugnant to claim, without evidence, that someone who believes abortion is wrong would be "pleased as punch" by the fact that abortions are performed.

FYI, that was a quote, not something that I personally wrote. No need to correct your post though, I think most people are smart enough to recognize a quote vs. a personal opinion.

[dualstow]

Interesting post all around, Mountaineer.
(the long one, beginning "US History").

[Mountaineer]

Xan,

Your earlier post about the workers at Auschwitz seems to have applicability to what we see going on re. Charlottesville, i.e. one should be careful how one labels the players with dehumanizing terms such as Nazi, alt-right, loony lefty, Trumper, anti-Trumper, etc. (vs. objectively describing the horrific acts); we might be in the midst of something gravely evil as the post indicates and the evil might be something other than what it appears to be on the surface.

viewtopic.php?p=160054#p160084

[Mountaineer]

From Allen West, after Charlottesville and before Durham.

https://www.allenbwest.com/2017/08/13/o ... e-missing/

Some excerpts from West:

Let me begin by saying, I deplore any form of supremacist view — white, black, Hispanic, Islamic. I will be the first to openly state and embrace, a sense of American exceptionalism and supremacy that is rooted in our founding principles and values. Any and all else that is contradictory is to be condemned. What I have witnessed post the events of Saturday 12 August is the typical Rahm Emanuel mentality and political posturing: “never let a good crisis go to waste."

This all began because someone decided, as other elected officials have across the country, to cave in to partisan political pressures and seek to erase American history. History is not there for us to love or hate, but for us to learn from and seek to not repeat its mistakes.

I find it rather odd that so many are seeking to lay blame on President Trump for what happened in Charlottesville. And there are some voices out there who want to blame all white people, and all Republicans. How odd that when it was the New Black Panther Party outside a voting precinct in Philadelphia in black fatigues and with clubs, nothing was said. As a matter of fact, they weren’t even prosecuted for voter intimidation. And when it was the riots in Ferguson and Baltimore fueled by media false narratives and a presidential administration’s rhetoric, there was no blame laid on Barack Obama. It appears to me that there is a blatant hypocrisy when an individual commits a horrible crime, such as in Charleston, South Carolina, and a collective group of people are to be held accountable.

But, when there’s an Islamic terror attack people say, “we cannot rush to judgment” or “this is not indicative of all Muslims”…to wit I agree, but why not call the enemy for what it is” militant Islamic terrorism or jihadism? Why must some be browbeaten into condemning the actions of a few, yet we have others who have fully admitted their support to groups calling for a “resistance?” And where were the voices to condemn the violence in Washington DC on Inauguration Day, or even at UC-Berkeley…or the violence committed against those who support the current president or hold beliefs aligned with Constitutional conservatism?

I have an idea. If y’all want to fight, sign up in the U.S. military — if you meet the standards. There are plenty of folks who do indeed hate the United States. Channel your angst against them…not each other.

[Xan]

Hey, now. Allen West happens to be a regular poster here.



PointedStick tells a good story about living in New Mexico or whatever, but we know the real story.

[dualstow]

[dualstow]

I want that horn. I'm not even kidding.
https://goo.gl/images/ioTZ42

[Mr Vacuum]

Forgive me if I'm awestruck after everything else I've watched in the past year, but that was a great speech!

[Mr Vacuum]

You undersold that speech, but I get it, the content is what you're after and he really weaves a compelling argument for humanity and patriotism with remarkable oratory.

[Mr Vacuum]

You undersold that speech, but I get it, the content is what you're after and he really weaves a compelling argument for humanity and patriotism with remarkable oratory.

Nicely put. I think I'm often the worst spokesman for what I believe in.

Not at all. You spoke up clearly and strongly earlier in the thread. I truly thought you were intentionally letting the videos do the talking here.