Rewriting History Where is Obama? (Baghdad, racist, revolution, treason)

[Cape Cod Todd]

I cannot believe how far the PC crowd is trying to go concerning the scrubbing of anything and everything Historical that had a touch of slavery involved with it.

I think it is misguided that the confederate flag is being seen as such an oppressive symbol to some therefore it is being abolished from the state house in SC to the roof of the General Lee.
The state Gov. has spoken and it looks like the flag will be taken down from the state house lawn. I wonder how many of those politicians that voted for its removal did so out of fear of being labelled a racist?
There is talk amongst the PC crowd to have the Jefferson memorial taken down because he owned slaves.
Even more ridiculous is the renaming of Washington DC because George W owned slaves. How many schools and roads are named after Washington in this country?

What about our currency? All those old dudes on the dollars except honest Abe of course will need to be replaced.

When will all this madness end?

I would like to hear our President come out and put an end to this cleansing of History. Would people listen to him, I don't know but as our elected leader and as a half black man his words might have some sway.
All he would need to say is "Americas past was not always pretty but we have learned from the mistakes of our forefathers and we have progressed to make a better America where all people are equal. History is the past so lets keep moving on to a brighter future". Or something like that.

Obama should stand up and set these PC people straight.

[ReachTheBeach]

The only place I have seen several of these suggestions is in blogs, opinion pieces and forum posts like this. Conservatives asking "where will it all end?" instead of discussing whether the current decision makes sense. In SC, the state government that put the flag up has decided to take it down. Obama had nothing to do with that. History is not being revised in that decision. I am not sure why this is posted as a debate. What is being asserted that you are challenging?

[phetaroi]

CapeCodTodd, I don't hear any responsible people, or even any groundswell of support for the extreme situations you are citing. So please don't get carried away.

Representative government is supposed to represent all the people of a state or nation or locality. With 30% of South Carolina's population being Black, added to the history of not only slavery, the Civil War, and the push against Civil Right in the 1960s, I would have to assume that there are an awfully lot of people in South Carolina -- including MANY White people removed from the Civil War for a century-and-a-half -- that do not feel the Confederate battle flag represents them in any way. That's the crux of why the flag needed to be removed from the state capital grounds.

That has nothing to do with the right of individuals to express their freedom of speech, which should remain untouched. It has nothing to do with whitewashing (pun intended) the history of the South...where history belongs...in history books and museums. If I ever make it back to Charleston again, I want to be able to visit the museum dedicated to the history of the Confederacy; it was very interesting, and an important part of history. Families (not wahoos with pickup trucks) ought to be able to continue to honor their relatives buries in Confederate cemeteries. Confederate, as well as Union, monuments ought to remain standing at our historic military parks. I think it reasonable to see Confederate flags (as well as American flags) at the tomb of Robert E. Lee. All but the most unreasonable Democrats and liberals and even PCers believe there is a time and place for everything (related to history).

Whether one is a Southerner, or a Northerner, a Westerner, or any other group -- they need to not just worship their history, but also to acknowledge it. This nation has done so many great things. But those great things don't excuse the bad things that have also been done. Both are a part of history. As a person who enjoys history and who lived in Virginia for much of my adult life, I can respect Robert E. Lee as being a man with great dignity and a brilliant military strategists; I don't have to ALSO respect him for the side he took in the Civil War. Understanding history is not an either/or proposition. It is not you either LOVE the South or HATE the South. History is being able to look at the South and see its strengths and weaknesses; and there were/are many of both. Real history is being able to be honest about and acknowledge the past, even when it isn't pretty.

[Unsettomati]

Originally Posted by Cape Cod Todd

I cannot believe how far the PC crowd is trying to go concerning the scrubbing of anything and everything Historical that had a touch of slavery involved with it.

I can't believe anyone is falsely claiming that anyone else is advocating that 'anything and everything Historical that had a touch of slavery involved with it' should be scrubbed.

Oh, scratch that - I can believe that that strawman is getting a good whacking.

I think it is misguided that the confederate flag is being seen as such an oppressive symbol to some therefore it is being abolished from the state house in SC to the roof of the General Lee.
The state Gov. has spoken and it looks like the flag will be taken down from the state house lawn. I wonder how many of those politicians that voted for its removal did so out of fear of being labelled a racist?
There is talk amongst the PC crowd to have the Jefferson memorial taken down because he owned slaves.
Even more ridiculous is the renaming of Washington DC because George W owned slaves. How many schools and roads are named after Washington in this country?

The issue with Davis is not that he merely owned slaves. Rather, the issue is that his crowning achievement in life was treason in the defense of slavery. The issue of slavery regarding Davis was not some character fault that mars an otherwise great man - the preservation of that institution was the basis for the lofty heights Davis achieved as President of the Confederacy. He is, essentially, celebrated on behalf of his treason-in-the-name-of-slavery.

No, I'm not going to devolve yet again into debunking the historical revisionism so popular in Southern apologia that claims slavery really had nothing to do with the Civil War, but I've obliterated such nonsense in other posts, and here is a link to one of them:
//www.city-data.com/forum/40311544-post1561.html

What about our currency? All those old dudes on the dollars except honest Abe of course will need to be replaced.

Aside from the fact that honoring men for their achievements that had nothing to do with slavery - for example, Washington: his leadership in the Revolution (which, unlike the Civil War, was not undertaken to preserve slavery) or his Presidency - you need to learn some history of you think Lincoln is the only man to grace our currency who did not own slaves. Hamilton? Franklin? You really think they were slave owners?

When will all this madness end?

I would like to hear our President come out and put an end to this cleansing of History. Would people listen to him, I don't know but as our elected leader and as a half black man his words might have some sway.
All he would need to say is "Americas past was not always pretty but we have learned from the mistakes of our forefathers and we have progressed to make a better America where all people are equal. History is the past so lets keep moving on to a brighter future". Or something like that.

Obama should stand up and set these PC people straight.

The 'madness' of the 'cleansing of history' will end when you stop spinning your Slippery Slope Fallacy tales about how the sky will surely fall, for the only place it actually exists is in the claims of those who really don't want the Confederate flag to come down but can't find a reason for this position without veering off into such baseless claims as the ones you're issuing here. Ceasing to honor the symbol of rebellion-in-the-name-of-enslavement is no more scrubbing history... ... than removing statues of Saddam Hussein from Baghdad or of Lenin from post-1991 Lithuania.

You want to write about scrubbing history? Write about this:

When school resumes this fall, 5 million students in Texas will learn from history books based on state academic guidelines that sidestep the major issues of racial segregation and oppression in America's history.

The new textbooks stem from the State Board of Education's 2010 effort to revise standards within its social studies curriculum.

The new curriculum will exclude mention of the Ku Klux Klan ‒ a white supremacist organization that has used terror tactics against African-Americans ‒ and Jim Crow laws that instituted racial segregation following the abolition of slavery in the American South, according to the Washington Post. In addition, the books will teach that the Civil War was caused by “sectionalism, states’ rights and slavery" ‒ in that particular order so as to emphasize the idea that slavery was not the main driver of war, and that, in the context of the 1860s, states' rights and slavery were not intertwined.

New history books in Texas downplay slavery's role in Civil War, omit KKK and Jim Crow laws ? RT USA

That is an example of historical revisionism.