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... if I were black (which I'm not) I'd still have a very hard time stressing out over and/or being offended by something that happened 150+ years ago and had no effect on my life today.
Life is too short to sweat the small stuff... but ya'll just keep on being offended by flags... General Lee and President Washington.
Since you aren’t Black no one cares what you would do IF you were Black.
Running around trying to tell people what they should or shouldn’t be offended by is hilarious.
I bet you try to tell the opposite sex how they should act as well. People like you don’t even see what you are doing by fantasizing about being a other race and being above it all.
George Washington didn't revolt against Britain in the name of preserving the institution of slavery. The Confederates did. This is explicitly about the Confederate cause. And that alone. Everyone knows George Washington owned slaves. He didn't make slavery a core tenet of starting a new country. The Confederates, however, did.
but you're aware that some "BLM Activists" would remove all honor for any who owned slaves, yes? Including Washington, Jefferson, etal. That there were actions against Teddy Roosevelt's legacy.
It would be good if you either:
1. Added links and quote material to your points about the Confederacy (ie, Articles of Secession) and the DCV
2. Started a new thread doing the same.
Because what you bring up is critically important, and might help some on both sides see things more clearly. For example, not every action taken by the DCV was to bemoan the lost cause or the loss of the Confederacy.
Conversely, I'll give you a sample objection in your favor. The DCV erects a statue in the public square "honoring those who lost their lives". There's really nothing wrong with that. Now, when the inscription includes inflammatory terms, then sentiment shifts.
America is also about success. The redneck slave owners had a currency that inflated worse than anything beyond Argentina's wildest dreams, they didn't know how to earn money besides exploiting labor on gifted land where they only knew how to grow cash crops, and they got their asses kicked on top of that. Whoever thought we needed to give these people statues must have been smoking the finest meth Tennessee has to offer.
Point-taken, though I'd call that a "be careful what you're wishing for" argument. If America is "about success" and we should only put up statues to "winners" then we should also tear down the Vietnam War memorial and other monuments honoring Vietnam veterans because by that standard, they were "losers" in a war where the enemy defeated the United States, who shouldn't be honored with public statues or monuments. (Say that in a biker bar full of my fellow riders back in the 80's, many of who had veteran relatives who were POW/MIA, and they'd tar and feather you on the way out the door). We'd also have to take down the memorials for the nearly 250 Marines who were killed in the barracks bombing in Beirut back in 1983, since by same token they were "losers" in a war where the enemy defeated the USA and we were pushed out with none of our objectives achieved. Heck we'd also have to take down all memorials to native Americans, Latinos around the Mexican-American War and African-Americans too, weren't they "losers" who kept getting "beaten" by white supremacists?
Point is, success or failure in a conflict is a pretty dumb standard to base a decision on whether to put up a statue or not and will go in places you probably don't want to go. (I actually did hear some morons back in the 80's who were opposed to the Vietnam Memorial because it "reminded the US of our defeat"). The problem with the Confederate statues is more that their cause was not just, at least as far as the cause was not only the preserving but also expansion of slavery. (Alexander Stephens and many Confederate leaders had an open expressed goal, if the Confederacy stayed around, they were going to push to conquer all the way down to the southern tip of South America and make it a big slave empire). With figures like Jefferson and Washington it's more mixed. They were slaveowners and often very bloody minded against the Americans of indigenous origin, and that's probably why a lot of their statues are coming down now. But they also did great things to help democracy evolve and avoid tyranny. History's complicated and despite the bad policies and arguable human rights violations of Jefferson and Washington, on the balance they did a lot of good for this country and the world, much more than harm.
Again, go read the Articles of Secession, Alexander H. Stephens' Cornerstone Speech, and the Confederate Constitution. You will get a very good idea of what the CSA was explicitly about. The USA had slavery. The CSA got established because it wanted to make sure slavery stayed for good.
see, this article gives your argument a lot of support. However, it also points out that Secession didn't occur just to keep slavery intact. But we should be teaching this history in High School.
There are some gripes, I think the statues clearly erected by groups as intimidation could be removed, I don't know that the ones in capitol match this typology. It's in no way erasing anything though that's just a bad comparison.
I also struggle to find other countries that have statues of the losing side of a civil war. I am going to research that, my intuition is that is as rampant as it is here.
Fair point at the top, most of the Confederate statues were put up in the Jim Crow era in deliberate attempt to intimidate Blacks and others, around the 1890's and the period of the lynchings. A lot of Confederate statues in fact went up around time of the Tulsa Race massacre and other attacks around 1920 or 1921. Those were clearly meant as symbols of intimidation. On other hand the statues in capitol like you say, were maybe more for historical study purposes. Many statues of Robert E. Lee were for that reason, and to honor his service over decades in the US military. It's not a simple either or issue.
On your second point, my history minor side always comes in here but in fact, yes many nations do put up statues to the losing side in a civil war, or losers in war in general. Russia has a lot of statues and monuments to opponents of the Bolsheviks in Russian civil war. England has lots of statues to Harold Godwinson who fought William the Conqueror in 1066, which in many ways was a civil war though we often forget this--the predecessor to both Harold and William spent his youth in Normandy and he did actually make some promises to the Normans, who had already become inter-twined in English politics, so that's another case. England has statues to Charles I, who was the loser in the English Civil War against Cromwell (he got beheaded even). Britain also has statues to James II, who was the loser in the most recent war where the enemy invaded and conquered England (the Dutch ruler William). Serbia is full of statues to the soldiers and rebel leaders defeated by the Ottoman Turks, because this helped to create the nation later. Same in Greece, for those who led to Greek independence. India and Ireland are both full of statues to leaders who were slaughtered by the British. Around one-half of India was eventually British colonized but half was not, a lot of Indians say that's because the Indians fought so hard in their own war of independence (right around the US Civil War). And the Irish eventually defeated the British militarily in the Irish war of independence around 1920, but before there were many false starts and defeated leaders. Joan d'arc technically lost eventually, she got captured by the English and burned at the stake while they were invading France. But she has statues, all over the world.
Point is, around the world there statues all over for losers in wars, it's incredibly common at least as much like statues to winners. It's only in America that we seem to have a hang-up so much about statues and memorials to "winners" vs "losers". That's a dumb criteria and it's irrelevant, it's more about the justness of the cause. Like I said the USA also has statues to Vietnam War veterans, and the Marines killed in the Beirut barracks bombing in Lebanon back in 1983, which was a total military defeat for the United States. If we're against putting up statues to "losers" then we should tear down the memorials and statues there too. Clearly victory of defeat, success or failure isn't the basis for putting up statues or memorials, and that's not the issue in the Confederate memorial debate.
He was from the same state and owned way more slaves. He even took their teeth when he himself needed new ones.
Redneck loser?
You are making a very convincing argument against George Washington! All that you posted about George Washington should be taught in schools as it is part of history as you pointed out.
Leftist Marxist Democrats perpetual war on the past; the road to victory!!!
Therefore ^ we all can agree that Critical Race Theory should be taught in schools and we can preserve those statues in a museum for students to see and reinforce what they learned from CRT studies.
While I don't agree with his slave ownership. all those slaves were Martha's. He didn't go out on a slave shopping spree. He also freed them upon Martha's death in his will.
I also don't remember George Washington leading an army to fight against this country.
That actually isn't true--just being clear I agree with you on respecting George Washington and don't like the anti-GW attacks being spewed these days, but in terms of the history specifics, technically Paracord is right here. George Washington did totally much believe in slavery, and it's not true that all his slaves were Martha's. Although he did inherit a lot from the marriage, Washington also bought a lot of slaves himself both before and after the marriage. Even the Mount Vernon site itself admits that almost half of Washington's slaves were his own, not Martha's, https://www.mountvernon.org/george-w...ngton-slavery/
And there's some truth to the criticisms that Washington did some nasty things as a slaveowner that were heavily criticized even for his own time. He apparently did take the teeth from some of his slaves to use as his own, and he was often bloodthirsty in his relations with the native peoples.
But still even with that said, the other point is that Washington was torn about the slavery just like Jefferson was, and he did not embrace it full throated. He had a lot of moral qualms about it and was troubled by it, but it was difficult at the time because he was born into the system, and a lot of people's wealth in America a the time was based on their slaves. That's context, something a lot of people forget in history debates about it today. And as to the last point, Washington DID lead an army to fight against the country. At the time, the North American colonies were legally part of Britain, so in that sense, Washington was no different to Robert E. Lee. It's more a matter about what their causes were, but even for the US Civil War, there's a lot more to it than first meets the eye.
Ultimately, slavery in the US wouldn't have lasted regardless. Granted it would have gone on past 1865, but it would have ended soon after anyway just like it had been doing in other nations of the time.
I have heard that argument countless times and it never is anything but a throw-out line with no real evidence to support it. The slave states were seeking expansion and they would have expanded clear to the Pacific in southern California if they had their way. So how many more generations of slaves would it have been okay to keep in bondage while we waited for the peculiar institution to die out? If the institution of slavery had died out on its own, what do we think would have happened to the former slave population? The wealth of many families in the south was tied to their slaves, not just in the value by head (as if they were livestock) but the value of their labor. The land was useless without the labor. The plantation culture was already in serious debt and they had no way to get out of it. Slavery was a crutch and they would have found ways to drag it out for decades.
You are making a very convincing argument against George Washington! All that you posted about George Washington should be taught in schools as it is part of history as you pointed out.
lmao.. exactly.
They don’t even see their hypocrisy. That post highlights why some people are afraid of CRT. If we teach that GW didn’t have wooden teeth and instead yanked them from slaves it paints him in a much harsher light.
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