The after war actions of James Longstreet was more reputable.
 

Set aside the fact (if you want) that he owned slaves and led the military effort (sometimes brilliantly) to save that evil system.

And violated his oath in order to commit treason in defense of slavery.
 

Um, yeah. So were George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

And Lincoln may have freed the slaves, but only in Confederate territory, as a military tactic. He was a white separatist, wanted them to leave and start their own country. (That's why there's a Liberia!)

The past doesn't live up to our moral standards. And I guarantee you there's something we're doing, likely something we don't really need to do, (We just find it convenient!) that the future will regard as obscene. Maybe the obvious, abortion. Maybe the fact that we bury "really sick" people instead of stacking them in freezers to be fixed up when medical technology catches up to their conduction. (We killed billions who could have been saved, they'll say, and they'll be right!)

It will be something. But the past is still the past that actually happened, not rainbow unicorn land, that magically rewrites itself whenever our standards change.

So, does that mean we tear down the statues on the Mall in Washington? The people who're tearing down Robert E. Lee statues today would say yes. The legions of ISIS would agree, that's why they're destroying all those historical sites, put there by despicable people.

We're starting down an ugly road, people; Erasing and rewriting history is a nasty business, and it's not going to stop with Robert E. Lee.
 

You are conflating racism and support for slavery. Prior to the civil rights movement, most white Americans were racist. The Republican Party opposed slavery, not racism. So if you claim that Lee was a despicable person because he was racist, you have to make the same assessment of the majority of Americans throughout history.

The "fact" that Lee owned slaves should be set aside on the grounds that it's not true.

In the Civil War, Lee was fought on the side that started the war in order to preserve slavery, which is hardly admirable. But in quoting his 1866 testimony, you elide his one reference to slavery, where he says: “I have always thought so, and have always been in favor of emancipation — gradual emancipation.”

 

Lee did nothing redeeming, unlike Washington or Jefferson. The only statutes to him should be on Civil War battlefields, which are, after all, historical sites.

BTW, Lee most certainly did own slaves through his wife.
 

Let's put Lee's "gradual emancipation" regarding slavery in perspective not only during his lifetime but the Jim Crow that followed the Civil War Amendments through the recent events in Charlottesville.

And Brett's closing:

"We're starting down an ugly road, people; Erasing and rewriting history is a nasty business, and it's not going to stop with Robert E. Lee."

indicates his lack of knowledge of history. Perhaps Brett can elucidate the meaning to him personally of that statue of Lee in Charlottesville. Of course we don't know the banner(s) of the Charlottesville protests that Brett support:s Neo-Nazis; White Supremacists; KKK; White Nationalists., MAGA, etc.
 

The personal meaning to me of that statue? I grew up in Michigan, where we're more likely to celebrate being part of the underground railroad. It's got no meaning to me at all.

But I don't go around tearing down historical monuments just because they don't mean anything to me.
 

Rommel's relative reputation is largely due to luck, in that he was sent to empty North Africa before Hitler invaded the USSR, where the Wehrmacht committed war crimes on the scale of Genghis Khan. As a Panzer commander in 1940, Rommel was responsible for lesser crimes against French and Belgian civilians, as the creation of panic and road-clogging swarms of refugees was part of the Blitzkrieg method. Finally he was tangentially involved in the July 1944 plot, though he was not central to it, and forced to commit suicide. So "less bad than most German generals" is a fair enough judgement.
 

Kenneth Almquist: read the testimony of Wesley Norris, former slave, about his and his sister's flogging on the orders of Lee, acting as executor to the estate of George Custis. Lee had the lacerated backs of the three victims washed in brine, as an additional torture. Do you want to call it something else?
https://civilwartalk.com/threads/r-e-lee-and-beaten-slaves.14363/
 

Liberia became an independent nation in 1847. Lincoln had nothing to do with it.

Tearing down statutes of despicable people is not "erasing" the past. We tore down plenty of statues in Nazi Germany (see the opening scene of Judgment at Nuremberg) and, famously, in Iraq in 2003. The erection and continued existence of a statue is evidence of what we choose to remember, to celebrate, today. Once we no longer celebrate the person or the event, the statue can be removed.

Lee doesn't need a statue to be remembered for what he was: slaveholder, oathbreaker, traitor. Books like Lee Considered can evaluate his legacy just fine. Those who want to keep his statues want to remember Lee as he was not.
 

And if the Confederates had put up statues everywhere during the Civil war, and they'd been torn down by the advancing Union forces, you might have a point. As it is, everybody involved in that war is long, long dead, and they're just erasing history.

Yes, erasing history, no different from what ISIS is doing when they destroy archeological sites.
 

Based upon Brett's history of comments at this Blog, his response to my earlier comment is disingenuous and incomplete. It seems his racial attitudes in MI before he relocated to SCar haven't changed much and it's not clear if the underground rr had a branch line in MI. But of course Lee's statue in Charlottesville has different meanings for the protesters and the counter-protesters.

Brett did not respond to this:

"Of course we don't know the banner(s) of the Charlottesville protests that Brett support:s Neo-Nazis; White Supremacists; KKK; White Nationalists., MAGA, etc."

The agendas of these protesting groups suggest their reverences for Lee's statue and what Lee stood for The counter-protesters see Lee's statue as descriptive of evil times apparently cherished by those protesting groups.

Brett's efforts to be historical are shallow.

 

Yes, Liberia was established before the Civil war, as a way of getting freed slaves out of the US, and Lincoln thought it a model for how to deal with the freedmen after the war.
 

With guilt by association arguments all the rage after Charlottesville, this question is just begging to be asked:

If we are required to condemn modern Nazis for the acts of the Third Reich, should we similarly condemn modern Democrats for the acts of the Confederacy, KKK and Jim Crow?

Just saying...
 

Basically the only way to get Shag to not regard you as a racist is to agree with him on everything. Far too high a price for such a meaningless prize.
 

It doesn't matter when they erected those statues celebrating traitors, what matters is why. If the "why" no longer applies, the statue serves no purpose. And again, that's not "erasing history", it's acknowledging a much more accurate history.
 

Um, yeah. So were George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

It is not only because he is a slave owner (thru his wife or not) that is at issue here. He turned against his oath (unlike various Southerners in the military up to and including Winfield Scott, who was a Virginian) and committed treason against his country. And, he had racist beliefs too, which some over the years wanted to paper over. This is so even if Brett wants to talk about something else.

As GM noted, he wasn't an "unsullied" Confederate or something. If we want to try to find one, James Longstreet, who after the war went as far as defend LA from a racist armed mob as head of a racially mixed militia is a better option.

And Lincoln may have freed the slaves, but only in Confederate territory, as a military tactic. He was a white separatist, wanted them to leave and start their own country. (That's why there's a Liberia!)

This isn't about Lincoln but if you want to make it about him ... Mark Field referenced Liberia. Also, as usual, it isn't just one man here -- Congress played an important role too. Third, Lincoln from early in his career spoke against slavery and how he supported basic natural rights there. Yes, like women at the time, that didn't mean full equality. And, stopping the spread to the territories, including freeing those who were brought there, was a big part of his message. Slaves were also freed in D.C. under his watch and taking the military away as part of the slave catchers during the war didn't just apply on Confederate territory.

The past doesn't live up to our moral standards.

A useful message, though it isn't really what he is saying. We can still judge those who lived in the past and not give them too much credit. The future hopefully will judge us fairly too. Replacing statues in place to glorify the past [Sandy Levinson has an interesting book on the complexities] is not akin to ISIS or something. I think there are various ways to go there myself including keeping some statues but adding content. But, again, GM thinking Lee is an evil loser is not really that either.




 

The 'erasing history' argument is silly. These aren't neutral historical markers, they're *monuments* glorifying these people. Why should we treat as heroes persons whom we recognize did horrible things? Are your standards for hero so low? What 'erases' and distorts the past is to continue to device the lie that these were heroes, covering up their awful misdeeds.

Bart's analogy fares little better. The modern Neo Nazi movement embraces the historical Nazi movement, the modern Democratic Party condemns the segregationist racist policy held by past Democrats.
 

Confederates had put up statues everywhere during the Civil war, and they'd been torn down by the advancing Union forces, you might have a point.

They put them up after the war generally to glorify it, which is a problem today given it was fought to defend slavery and treason. Mark Field's "why" matters there. Again, I think there is a way to retain some of them and provide a more complete representation of the past. Again, to address something GM is not really saying.

Lincoln did have a fantasy that colonialism of some sort would work because he didn't think freed slaves and whites would be able to live together. He at various times spoke about that and as President made rather half-hearted attempts (including one destined to fail minor effort in Latin America, as I recall). But, this doesn't erase his career long opposition to slavery, support of the natural rights of slaves and ultimately his recognition that colonialism would not work. He would not at the end answer the questions like Lee did. In his last speech, he even said that he thought some of them at least warranted the vote.

Anyway, isn't it sort of a sin to put Lincoln on the same level as Lee in any way in the South? Your SC card might be revoked.
 

"I have always thought so, and have always been in favor of emancipation — gradual emancipation.”

This comment made after his crushing defeat should be taken as self serving since in his *actions* he expressly chose to side with a cause the was explicit about its desire to preserve and promote human chattel slavery.
 

"It doesn't matter when they erected those statues celebrating traitors, what matters is why."

Of course it matters when. History is all about "when"; You put up a statue yesterday, eh, it's a statue. You put it up 2500 years ago, priceless historical artifact.

Even if you put it up to celebrate war crimes. You know, like many celebrated Greek statues from antiquity?

It's one part erasing history, and two parts Conan's "what is best in life": Grinding your foe's face in the dirt because you can.
 

The attempt to push the phrase "erasing history" seems destined to fail, considering that there must be at least 10,000 books in a Lee bibliography, many of them hagiographies.

Statues in public places are not themselves "history", except as a record of what people thought at the time they were erected. In this case, what they thought was pretty awful and they chose equally awful examples to support their views (it's not just Lee -- there are statues of various Confederates all over the South).

No, statues in public places are there to celebrate public values. The public, outside of the current White House and some losers elsewhere, no longer has those values. It's perfectly appropriate to replace the statues with others which better reflect the values of today.
 

Brett tries to mask his true colors (except in his comment photo, which may be his monument to himself to commemorate his comments at this Blog).

As to SPAM, I pose the same query to Brett:

"Of course we don't know the banner(s) of the Charlottesville protests that [SPAM] supports: Neo-Nazis; White Supremacists; KKK; White Nationalists., MAGA, etc."

I doubt if SPAM has any guilts by his associations. SPAM probably was salivating over the open-carry protesters in Charlottesville as that reflects part of SPAM's profile over the years at this Blog.

The arguments are about fairness and justice, not guilt by association. Perhaps both SPAM and Brett fear for their manhoods as anarchy-libertarians.

 

"Of course it matters when."

So when Ukranians and other former Soviet communities took down monuments dedicated to glorifying Stalin and Lenin they were just like ISIS, huh? Those statutes had stood for decades.

Mark, the 'erasing history' line is pure propaganda. Like much of propaganda it deconstructs itself. People who want to continue to glorify despicable historical figures are the ones who want to erase history, they want to erase what is now common knowledge about these figures, that they joined a morally abhorrent cause and did so at a time when many of their neighbors and colleagues similarly situated did not. Of course Charlottesville doesn't have a monument to George Thomas, William Carney, or other Virginians who served the Union. No, these are no historical markers, they were conscious and explicit efforts to laud the Confederacy with its explicit mission of preserving and promoting slavery.
 

"No, statues in public places are there to celebrate public values. The public, outside of the current White House and some losers elsewhere, no longer has those values. It's perfectly appropriate to replace the statues with others which better reflect the values of today."

And soon you'll be applying that reasoning on the Mall.
 

Maybe some future generation will. That's their prerogative.
 

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Sandy Levinson's book is "Written in Stone."

https://www.dukeupress.edu/written-in-stone

My approach would be to have many monuments, displays, museums, parks etc. that address the past including the Civil War Era, so merely taking down certain statues does not to me "erase history" much at all. I'll probably even leave a few up as signs of the racist past but add to them to give more context. One can also forsee putting some in a museum, having new monuments or displays that include pictures and other representations of the monuments to inform etc. As is, the statues are repeatedly a rather limited view of history. So, "erase" here has an asterisk.
 

I think it should be repeated, though the comment arose in the context of a controversy involving it, the original comment was not about monuments.

Sandy Levinson might want to address that specific issue given his book etc., if he still wants to blog here along with that other blog he linked in a recent comment, but GM was specifically talking about how Lee has been glorified on some fronts.
 

Queries:

What art would be left if we destroyed everything created by past societies who believed in slavery or race/gender discrimination?

What historical figures would be left if we erased from history every person who believed in slavery or race/gender discrimination?

Think about it.

This Yankee-born libertarian is hardly a supporter of Democrat slavery, terrorism and racism, but I have no problem with southerners who want to celebrate their outstanding military commanders with a statue, even if they were slavers and racists like Lee.

Context people.
 

"And soon you'll be applying that reasoning on the Mall."

Why not? Of course they should apply the same principle Gerald notes above, but why wouldn't we always want to decide to honor, or continue to honor, or not, based on a full view of what they did?

"What art would be left if we destroyed everything created by past societies who believed in slavery or race/gender discrimination?"

We're not talking about abstract art in place or museum pieces by someone who may have been racist, sexist, etc., by our standards. We're talking about monuments put on and maintained on public places by governments in order to endorse a particular historical side in a conflict where that side lost and was then and is now judged to have had a morally abhorrent goal.

"Context people."

Indeed, that's why I oppose government sponsored/maintained monuments that erase historical context, whitewashing the awful history behind these figures.

 

SPAM asserts:

"This Yankee-born libertarian ..."

lacks context based upon his performance at this Blog over the years. Those southerners whom SPAM supports became Republicans following Brown v. Bd. of Educ. (1954) and the civil rights movements, following the Republicans' Southern Strategy, such Republican Party having ceased to be the party of Lincoln long before Brown. That Southern Strategy has continued after commenced by Nixon by Republicans that followed. Query: has SPAM previously self-described as Yankee-born"? I am aware he has self-described as a libertarian, anarcho and otherwise. Does being born in America make one "Yankee-born"? I recall SPAM once described his lineage as quite diverse, including a tad of Native American. What is the context of SPAM'S self-description? Perhaps it may enhance his career as a DUI criminal defense attorney in his rural CO neighborhood? Or as a blog-troll?

By the Bybee (expletives deleted), the switch of southerners to the Republican Party occurred during SPAM's lifetime. Yet he persists in going into the past, not accepting that political parties change, including his current Republican Party.

History would still reflect the true Robert E. Lee, in much more detail than his stature. Apparently the protesters in Charlottesville in their own minds, at least, would like to see the true history of Lee erased and retain the statute which neglects that true history.

Speaking of erasing, that's what the Republican Party has tried to do by ignoring the truth of that Southern Strategy. That's the company SPAM likes as he now is in admiration of the man he accused over and over again during the 2016 campaign of being a fascist
 

Mr. W:

So you advocate destroying all art work portraying and celebrating the Greeks, Romans, and virtually a every other Western leader or personage because they believed in slavery or racial/gender discrimination? Hell, why stop there? Shakespeare needs to go because of the racism of Othello and the anti-semitism of the Merchant of Venice. Etc, etc, etc.

It is your advocated destruction of such art which seeks to whitewash these folks out of history. If you want to educate people about Robert E Lee's slave ownership and racism, put up your own monument or exhibit.
 

One way you can tell a propagandist from someone having an honest discussion is how they parrot and continue to return to their prepared lined regardless of what the people talking with them say.

Bart parrots his 11:51 comments exactly again at 2:27 even though I addressed them in between.


 

Shag:

You are ranting again. FWIW...

I am a Yankee because I was born in upstate NY and raised in NH, MA and NY. I am unsure, but I believe some of my Irish ancestors may have fought for the Union in the Civil War.

I am a ethnic mutt - Italian, Irish and German, nationalities which were overrun dozens of times in the past by other nationalities.

I am a native American, but like Elizabeth Warren, I am not part American Indian.

As for your fixation with Nixon's strategy to steal the Solid South from the Democrats, the electoral map has changed substantially since then. Nearly the entire nation outside of the blue megalopolises is now painted red. Catch up with the 21st Century.
 

Mr. W:

Since I deal in fact, my comments are not likely to change unless a correspondent like Shag changes the subject to avoid my facts.
 

There's no need to over-glorify Lincoln, who really was a problematic historical figure. He suspended habeas corpus, suppressed free speech, and definitely was a tremendous bigot who only supported the very minimum civil rights for blacks-- basically that if they were lucky enough not to live in old Dixie, they could be free and, he hoped, sent off somewhere where white Americans wouldn't have to deal with them.

However, Lincoln DOES deserve the correct amount of glory. Which is that when the choice was put to him, he did the right thing, and improved the lives of millions of black people. He fought a war to preserve the Union, and approved military tactics devised by Grant and Sherman to punish the South. And he signed the Emancipation Proclamation and supported the Thirteenth Amendment.

Those are big things. And Lincoln did them. In contrast, Robert E. Lee never did squat for black people. Neither did Thomas Jefferson, by the way, except rape one. And neither did Washington.

Lincoln was both a very small, awful man, and a giant. A huge historical contradiction.

This page, about Frederick Douglass' feelings about Lincoln, is pretty good at summing up the contradictions:

https://owlcation.com/humanities/Why-Frederick-Douglass-despised-then-loved-Abraham-Lincoln

 

You deal in propaganda. And like any propagandist you repeat your prepared comments regardless of points raised against them.

I'll repeat my answer to you which you ignored. This is not about opposing any public or artistic reference to any figure that fails to perfectly meet contemporary standards about 'discrimination racism or sexism' or whatever. It's about being against the public endorsement, the sponsoring and maintaining, of glorifications of figures who are primarily known for their attachment/commitment to causes seen today, and even in their day, as morally abhorrent, with no redeeming values.

This is not about removing monuments to anyone falling short of our contemporary standards. Lincoln falls far short of contemporary ideas about bigotry, but the left makes no move against his monuments, because he had otherwise redeeming features (along with an admirable arc of growth in from the bigotry of his day towards a more morally defensible worldview).

It is about removing monuments to people like Lee, whose primary attachment historically was to joining and defending the cause to preserve and promote human slavery. There's nothing on the other side of his legacy that balances that out. Monuments to him were and our monuments to that cause (this is why there are no similar monuments to noted Virginian military men who served the Union). There is no more defensible reason why monuments to such a man are publicly maintained than there is one that Ukranians should have maintained the statues of men like Stalin or Lenin who murdered their ancestors.


 

Mr. W:

You make a distinction without making a difference. You would remove the same art under different reasoning.
 

I make several distinctions, and even anticipating your inability/unwillingness to get them I even used a concrete analogy: the fact you don't get them is of no relevance to their importance.
 

Under your balancing of modern equities rule, art of political leaders from the classical period to Sen. Robert Byrd must be destroyed because they do not have redeeming characteristics like freeing slaves on their resumes.
 

This Yankee-born progressive has none of the ethnicities that SPAM informs us of. This Yankee-born progressive has been a NY Yankees fan since 1938. This Yankee-born progressive, a life-long resident of MA grew up understanding that none of SPAM's ethnicities, nor mine, were considered "Yankees" by those claiming to be Yankee-born. Being born, resided in certain Northern states, usually in the northeast, did not make one a Yankee in the traditional sense when I was growing up in the Boston area in the 1930s, 1940s, and on. When I became aware of MA politic in my teens, I got to understand how MA Yankees, who controlled state politics, limited the political minorities controlling Boston.

SPAM is making a bogus claim as Yankee-born. But maybe it helps his resume as a DUI criminal defense attorney in his rural mountaintop community in the Mile High State (of mind).

And notice SPAM's bias with his reference to Sen. Warren with his distinction between Native American and American Indian. SPAM does things like that because of his acrobatic colon chuckling skills. It should be kept in mind that Warren was skilled in bankruptcy law demonstrated at HLS whereas SPAM's skills legally are making plea deals for alleged drunks (and also getting his derriere handed to him again and again by Mr. W.
 

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1. Your own example is silly, Byrd is not primarily known for his Klan membership, and very much like Lincoln repudiated such views later in life.

2. More importantly, under your view the art glorifying Stalin and his USSR, Hitler and Nazi Germany, etc., should have never been removed.

Again, we are talking only about public endorsements of art via monuments. There is no morally defensible reason to continue to memorialize the cause of the preservation and promotion of slavery. That is exactly what the Lee statue is (it is of him in his Confederate uniform, there are no comparable ones of Virginians who fought for the Union), and that is primarily what it is.
 

Shag:

Sure, I am sure your arguments will convince my Southern in-laws I am not a Yankee.


 

Mr. W:

1. So your balancing test now excludes repentant Democrat racists. Anyone else we should know about?

2. Red herring. We libertarians are pretty much property rights fundamentalists. Owners of public spaces can add and remove anything they like. We are discussing your test for eliminating the artistic record of slavers and racists across time.
 

1. My balancing test was explained and I explained its application to Byrd, your 'response' is non responsive.

2. This answer is ridiculous on many levels. First, you are an authoritarian, not a libertarian. Second, even in Libertopia there will be some government owned spaces, members of the general public could not just erect or take down any monuments they wish there. Third, for the third time we are not talking about the artistic record of slavers and racists across time, we are talking about who and what causes the government should or should not erect and maintain public endorsements in the form of monuments to. Lastly, you did not answer the question: were the removal of Soviet statues in Ukraine, Poland, Georgia etc or the removal of Nazi statues in Germany wrong 'erasures of history?'
 

Mr. W:

You are setting out convoluted rules for destroying monuments like some ISIS warlord and I am the authoritarian?

Governments can be property owners and property owners are free to do what in a libertarian society?

I do not care what people do with the monuments on their property. Its none of our business.
 

So SPAM's southern in-laws converted the turncoat Yankee? Is that the real reason he left big law in FL for the rural of the Mile High State (of mine)? Well at least he isn't passing on his genes.

And SPAM is presumptuous in claiming a libertarian society. But I don't think others are as selfish as SPAM who continues with wet dreams of The Gilded Age of the late 19th century as America's best days. Perhaps selfish genes have difficulty reproducing in an interdependent world.
 

I do not care what people do with the monuments on their property. Its none of our business.
# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 7:13 PM

You obviously do care or you would not have commented on this thread. And it's quite telling that you jumped on the side with the racists.



 

Witness, when your political philosophy leads you to a place where you have no opinion on the removal of government sponsored and maintained monuments to Nazism on public land you've hit a moral low that should make one question your philosophy.
 

In contrast, Robert E. Lee never did squat for black people. Neither did Thomas Jefferson, by the way, except rape one. And neither did Washington.

Washington accepted blacks fighting in the Revolutionary War and freed his slaves in his will. And, not just members of shall we say of his biological family. He signed into law a few limits on slavery as noted by Lincoln in his Cooper Union speech.

Jefferson set forth certain basic principles that he applied in theory to black people. As a hypocrite and the average sort of person who finds away not to apply principles when it hurts their real life, he found ways around them. But, the basic principles he set forth (including even saying any felt belief blacks were inferior was an assumption, one that as a man of science he left open to be refuted) were useful. Lincoln himself was guided by them as were many more with stronger anti-slavery views and actions.


 

"Byrd is not primarily known for his Klan membership,"

LOL! Not by Democrats, anyway.
 

What Brett meant to say was, "only by hardcore conservative partisans!"

Byrd joined the KKK in the early 1940's (when in his mid-20s) and left it in 1952. That's about 10 years in a 92 year life and a 50 year career in the U.S. Senate alone. I wouldn't find these things to be numerical alone, but even by that metric it's stupid to say the man was primarily known for his Klan membership.
 

Mr. W: Witness, when your political philosophy leads you to a place where you have no opinion on the removal of government sponsored and maintained monuments to Nazism on public land you've hit a moral low that should make one question your philosophy.

I am old enough to remember when the ACLU used to defend the right of free speech for American Nazis.

Anymore it is hard to tell which is more fascist these days - progressives or Nazis.

 

Mr. W: Byrd joined the KKK in the early 1940's (when in his mid-20s) and left it in 1952. That's about 10 years in a 92 year life and a 50 year career in the U.S. Senate alone.

Remind us again what Byrd's record was on civil rights after he left the Klan.

Somehow, I suspect your live and let live attitude regarding Robert "Sheets" Byrd would not extend to The Donald if he served a decade in the Klan and then filibustered the Civil Rights Act.
 

Mr. W:

On last thing before I retire for the evening...

Where does LBJ fall in your balancing test? The man passed the CRA and VRA, but called his White House staff niggers.

It's tough being an ISIS warlord and deciding whose monuments to tear down.
 

Anymore it is hard to tell which is more fascist these days - progressives or Nazis.

# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 9:25 PM

Trust me, no one is surprised that you're too fucking stupid to tell the difference.
 

BB, you've been away too long. Welcome back. I noted your 7:56 PM comment on SPAM:

"And it's quite telling that you jumped on the side with the racists."

I question whether SPAM really had to jump. SPAM is part and parcel of the Brat and Bert two-step.
 

Bart fundamentally (willfully?) misunderstands the issue altogether with his last questions. His inside invocation of the ACLU: we're talking about *what government speech* should be or not be, there is no issue of government censorship when government speech says something different than it once did. LBJ: Bart still operates under his originally invoked straw man that this is about conformity to modern sensibilities about race and gender, I rejected this now four times but the pathetic propagandist can't help but return to his original staring point. Consider that I already gave him an example of how the idea applies with Lincoln, but from that can't get how it would apply to LBJ or Byrd! It's like showing a child how to tie his shoes and then the child being unable to work shoes with Velcro!

But this was ever about propaganda for Bart, as can be seen with him sneaking back to Brett's talking point about ISIS... Notice neither of them made any attempt to reply to the point, are the brave Poles, Ukranians, etc., who've removed Soviet monuments then akin to ISIS? What about Barts own Gulf War colleagues who famously toppled Hussein statues? Why it appears Bart himself has much similarity to ISIS under his own stupid test, though I guess that itself wouldn't be too remarkable.
 

SPAM (aka Yankee-born libertarian) claims some Native American (but not American Indian) lineage. Recall during the 2016 campaign Trump's reference to Sen. Warren as Pocahontas. If Trump had been aware that SPAM, an obscure rural CO DUI criminal defense attorney supporting the Cruz Canadacy, referred over and over to Trump as a fascist, Trump might have referred to SPAM as "Sitting Bulls**t." SPAM's efforts to "Yankee Doodle" his was through the Charlottesville events is like his navigation of the Cruz Canadacy while whistling Dixie.
 

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Mr. W:

You need to distinguish the right of a property owner to add or remove monuments and the reasons they do so. We are discussing your reasoning for doing so.

If you are not applying modern progressive standards to your balancing test, what standards are you using? Certainly not those of the times when the person lived or the monuments were raised. No matter how much tap dancing you perform, you are engaged in whitewashing history to meet the progressive standards you have adopted.
 

You really are clueless no matter how much this is explained to you. You've had over half a dozen concrete examples of how the idea works in addition to having the principle explained in detail yet you return to your initial straw man.

Of course that could also be explained by you being simply a propagandist.
 

"whitewashing history to meet the progressive standards you have adopted."

I do appreciate that Bart concedes (illustrates?) that the judgment that a locality might decide it no longer wants to glorify via monuments slavery and racism can only be understood as the application of 'progressive standards.' Obviously to Bart only a progressive could object to glorifying slavery and racism, while he and his ilk see no problem with it (there's no standard on the right that would condemn the glorification of slavery and racism). Thanks for the admission Bart!
 

Mr. W: This is not about opposing any public or artistic reference to any figure that fails to perfectly meet contemporary standards about 'discrimination racism or sexism' or whatever. It's about being against the public endorsement, the sponsoring and maintaining, of glorifications of figures who are primarily known for their attachment/commitment to causes seen today, and even in their day, as morally abhorrent, with no redeeming values.

This is not about removing monuments to anyone falling short of our contemporary standards. Lincoln falls far short of contemporary ideas about bigotry, but the left makes no move against his monuments, because he had otherwise redeeming features (along with an admirable arc of growth in from the bigotry of his day towards a more morally defensible worldview).

It is about removing monuments to people like Lee, whose primary attachment historically was to joining and defending the cause to preserve and promote human slavery. There's nothing on the other side of his legacy that balances that out.

Here is your explanation to your balancing test. You deny you are using modern progressive standards and then you use them.

Once again, if you are not using modern progressive standards, what standards are you using?

This should not be a hard question since this is your test. Unless, of course, you are simply making arbitrary decisions and there is no real test.
 

Mr. W: Obviously to Bart only a progressive could object to glorifying slavery and racism, while he and his ilk see no problem with it (there's no standard on the right that would condemn the glorification of slavery and racism). Thanks for the admission Bart!

A statue of General Robert E Lee standing alone does not glorify slavery and racism.

Modern progressive standards are to destroy art whose subject matter is a person who owned slaves, believed in slavery, discriminated against or believed in discriminating against others based on race; unless, of course, if the person was a progressive and/or Democrat.

Yes, I am content to concede this standard to progressives, as well as socialists and fascists.



 

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No matter how much tap dancing you perform, you are engaged in whitewashing history to meet the progressive standards you have adopted.
# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 9:26 AM

Blankshot, these monuments were built by racists to honor traitors who were fighting to preserve slavery. That is when the actual whitewashing took place. The "progressive standard" is actually very similar to the standard of the time the war was fought (i.e. traitors should not be honored by statues).
 

BB:

What are you afraid of?

Do you think art portraying Robert E Lee or Andy Jackson or Woodrow Wilson or Robert Byrd is going to cause people today to enslave or discriminate against others based on race?

Do you think that destroying this art is going to change history?


 

What are you afraid of?


# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 10:05 AM

I'm not afraid of anything. Neither are the people who are tearing down the monuments. In fact, that's part of the point of tearing down the monuments. The racist scum who put them up are no longer feared.

You seem to be upset that racist traitors are no longer being honored with monuments.

What are you afraid of?



 

"whitewashing" is a fitting word in this context

Lee's desire for all the blacks to leave the state -- something like that sci fi fable from years back -- is a tad curious in way. That would require whites to do their work, including in the fields.

Here are some more answers:

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/robert-e-lees-testimony-before-the-joint-committeee-on-reconstruction.114099/
 

It's very odd that someone who was a member of the U.S. military is now defending monuments to traitors. You're aware that it would have been your duty to kill General Lee if you had been in the army at that time, right?

lol

Just kidding. It's pretty obvious that you would have joined the traitors.
 

Bart copies my comments which say quite plainly:

This is not about opposing any public or artistic reference to any figure that fails to perfectly meet contemporary standards about 'discrimination racism or sexism' or whatever. It's about being against the public endorsement, the sponsoring and maintaining, of glorifications of figures who are primarily known for their attachment/commitment to causes seen today, and even in their day, as morally abhorrent, with no redeeming values.

This is not about removing monuments to anyone falling short of our contemporary standards.

And then repeats:

If you are not using modern progressive standards, what standards are you using?

Clueless. Hint, Bart, I answered that in the very part you copied.


 

"A statue of General Robert E Lee standing alone does not glorify slavery and racism. "

What are these statues glorifying? It's not military prowess or Virginia heritage, if that were the case why no statues of Thomas? It's not Lee's service as an educator, if that were the case why in his Confederate garb?

These statues were put there for one reason, to glorify the cause of the Confederacy and Lee's role in service to it. Heck, Bart, many have explicit inscriptions to that effect (so that maybe even the far and/or willfully obtuse such as yourself could not even miss it).

So the question is, what is your principle that justifies government erecting and maintaining homages to the cause of the preservation and promotion of slavery? It can't be that weak sauce nonsense you've offered about property owners should erect whatever monuments they like, because 1. you're not going to condemn those who removed statues of Stalin, Lenin, etc., and 2. these are cases of localities wanting to do just that, New Orleans, Charlottesville, etc., want to remove the statues on *their* public property.

"Modern progressive standards are to destroy art whose subject matter is a person who owned slaves, believed in slavery, discriminated against or believed in discriminating against others based on race; unless, of course, if the person was a progressive and/or Democrat."

Straw man. Only you have made this argument here, only you.

People here have defended monuments to Republicans like Lincoln or Federalists like Washington who of course fell into one of those categories. So no one is making the argument you insist we must be making. A classic tell of a propagandist is to only, and repeatedly, engage a straw man when no one is making it and everyone else has informed them of that repeatedly.
 

BB;

As I noted above, destroying art depicting everyone who engaged in or believed in slavery or racial discrimination would cover the vast majority of leaders and significant people in world history.

Yes, I have a serious objection to destroying the artistic history of the world.
 

"What are you afraid of?"

Bart is part of a movement that is currently apoplectic because some football players quietly sit during the national anthem, which freaked out about Obama not wearing a flag pin enough or ceremonially bowing to a foreign king, which goes nuts when store greeters say 'Happy Holidays' instead of Merry Christmas, yet he can't bring himself to fathom why a black person in New Orleans might not want to daily walk by a glorification of people whose main claim to fame is that they fought to preserve the enslavement of people like themselves for which he/she pays taxes to maintain.
 

"destroying art depicting everyone who engaged in or believed in slavery or racial discrimination would cover the vast majority of leaders and significant people in world history."

AND NO ONE IS ARGUING THAT HERE. Not a single person. If they are, point to it or admit you're bsing here and shut up about it.
 

Yes, I have a serious objection to destroying the artistic history of the world.
# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 10:48 AM

I seem to remember that you were pretty happy about the statues of Saddam Hussein being torn down in Iraq. Perhaps you could provide a link to a post where you objected to that?

 

BD: "A statue of General Robert E Lee standing alone does not glorify slavery and racism."

Mr. W: What are these statues glorifying?

Robert E. Lee is always portrayed in uniform, often riding into battle. Thus, such statues are celebrating Lee the military commander. No matter what you think about his acts and views on slaves and race, the man was an outstanding military commander.

One of the characteristics of reason is the ability to apply context.
 

Mr. W:

What if Lee accepted Lincoln's invitation to command the Union Army, won the war in a couple years, allowing Lincoln to free the slaves with the Civil War amendments?

Would that rehabilitate Lee sufficiently in your eyes to allow his statues to remain?
 

What if Lee accepted Lincoln's invitation to command the Union Army, won the war in a couple years, allowing Lincoln to free the slaves with the Civil War amendments?

Would that rehabilitate Lee sufficiently in your eyes to allow his statues to remain?
# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 10:57 AM

Dumbfuck, if Lee did that then there wouldn't be any monuments to him in the South.

 

The mayor of New Orleans, voted for by the people of the city, had an eloquent speech about this issue. At least, the issue of this back/forth.

http://pulsegulfcoast.com/2017/05/transcript-of-new-orleans-mayor-landrieus-address-on-confederate-monuments

This is all not quite the point of GM's main post in which a self-proclaimed conservative who works in Indiana states his belief regarding Robert E. Lee. True he was born in NJ, so is somewhat of a carpetbagger.

 

One of the characteristics of reason is the ability to apply context.
# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 10:54 AM

Says the person who remains completely oblivious to the fact that Lee was a traitor.

 

BD: "destroying art depicting everyone who engaged in or believed in slavery or racial discrimination would cover the vast majority of leaders and significant people in world history."

Mr. W: AND NO ONE IS ARGUING THAT HERE. Not a single person. If they are, point to it or admit you're bsing here and shut up about it.

Does your test for destroying have time or place limitations? Or some other limitations you have not disclosed?



 

BB's comment made me wonder about monuments of Southerners who staid loyal to the union. For instance, Tennessee has one for Farragut.

http://www.knoxnews.com/story/shopper-news/farragut/2017/06/05/farragut-monument-drops-anchor-town/361861001/

Maybe, naval heroes has less sting than someone like General George Henry Thomas.
 

"such statues are celebrating Lee the military commander"

They are celebrating his military prowess as it relates to his service of the cause of the Confederacy, otherwise why no statues to Virginian Union generals like Thomas? You know what, I've made this argument several times, you're circling back to it without ever addressing it represents bad faith. One sees why BB takes the stance toward you he does.


 

BD: One of the characteristics of reason is the ability to apply context.

bb: Says the person who remains completely oblivious to the fact that Lee was a traitor.

All of our nation's founders were traitors to England.

Should we destroy their statues out of general principle or is there an exception for traitors who win their wars or with whom we agree?
 

"Would that rehabilitate Lee sufficiently in your eyes to allow his statues to remain?"

What a stupid question. If Lee had not engaged in treason and had fought on the side that freed the slaves rather than the side that wanted to preserve slavery would I have a different opinion of him? Of course.
 

joe, Farragut is very apt, he was actually a Virginian when the war began. To my knowledge, there are no monuments to him in Virginia. This was never about recognizing military talent or Virginia heritage.
 

Mr. W: They are celebrating his military prowess as it relates to his service of the cause of the Confederacy...

So now we need to be concerned with not only with the acts and beliefs of the person being portrayed, but also the people who commissioned and presumably those who create the art?

You are going to have to write a rule book for your balancing test.
 

Should we destroy their statues out of general principle or is there an exception for traitors who win their wars or with whom we agree?
# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 11:15 AM

You can't really be this stupid. Monuments are rarely build to honor people who "we" don't agree with. That's (one of many reasons) why we don't have statues honoring Hitler's military achievements.



 

Mr. W:

So those who fight to preserve the union, but who own and whip slaves and who consider blacks to be subhuman will not have their statues destroyed?

You really do need to write a rule book for art destruction.
 

"Washington accepted blacks fighting in the Revolutionary War and freed his slaves in his will. And, not just members of shall we say of his biological family. He signed into law a few limits on slavery as noted by Lincoln in his Cooper Union speech.

Jefferson set forth certain basic principles that he applied in theory to black people. As a hypocrite and the average sort of person who finds away not to apply principles when it hurts their real life, he found ways around them. But, the basic principles he set forth (including even saying any felt belief blacks were inferior was an assumption, one that as a man of science he left open to be refuted) were useful. Lincoln himself was guided by them as were many more with stronger anti-slavery views and actions."

None of these things did diddly for black people, except maybe Washington's manumission of slaves, and that happened AFTER he got to spend his life raping him.

These are things basically trumpeted by white people who don't want to admit that their heroes were jerks. I think it's basically completely racist to say that Jefferson "helped" black people given his actual record as a slaveholder and racist. In fact, the personal conduct of the framers made what they wrote worse, because they didn't mean it for black people. They meant white people were equal and black people could go jump in a lake.

This country was founded by terrible people. The desire of white people (and basically only white people) to worship them is one of the measures of the persistence of racism.
 

"They are celebrating his military prowess as it relates to his service of the cause of the Confederacy...

So now we need to be concerned with not only with the acts and beliefs of the person being portrayed, but also the people who commissioned and presumably those who create the art?"

How do you get your response from that? While of course the motivations of the monument erectors matters (and it's bad for the defenders of these monuments btw), their choice of subject also of course can be determinative. You've still given no defensible justification for these monuments.
 

"So those who fight to preserve the union, but who own and whip slaves and who consider blacks to be subhuman will not have their statues destroyed?"

The fight to preserve the union resulting in the freeing of all slaves, including any belonging to someone like you describe. Can you not grasp balancing? Defenders of these monuments are funny, on the one hand, they insist, as a critique, that opponents must be insisting on perfection, on the other hand, when it's shown that's a silly straw man, they are befuddled.
 

In true propagandist/troll like fashion, Bart has not answered questions put to him.

Let's have no more with Bart until he does.

Bart, do you oppose when your colleagues toppled statues of Saddam Hussein? Were they 'art destroyers' akin to ISIS? How about when Iraqis themselves did the same? How about when Poles, Georgians and Ukranians removed Soviet monuments?
 

"This country was founded by terrible people. The desire of white people (and basically only white people) to worship them is one of the measures of the persistence of racism."

Let me agree and disagree with Dilan.

On the one hand, I've come to the conclusion that it is a telling fact how many self-professed 'libertarian' conservatives seem to constantly revere actual slave owners. The heroes they invoke are Cato and Jefferson, not Spartacus and John Jay. We've got a sick alignment of Founders that we revere, and that's for sure.

On the other hand, there are many Founders, many who are not widely known and celebrated but who did play key roles in our Founding, who really were on the right side of issues like slavery.

People like Bart invoke context, but that's a sick joke. They want to continue the narrowing of context that let's us celebrate Jefferson's lofty words on liberty while ignoring his actions of whipping little boy slaves and raping little girl slaves. To ignore the contributions of anti-slavery Founders.

We need a 're-alignment' of heroes where we actually ask that our heroes be, well, heroic. Heroic in terms given their times and all the sociological constraints thereof, to be sure. But heroic, speaking to our ideals, nonetheless. The relativism of many movement conservatives on this issue is, frankly, sickening. They, who cry tyranny and despotism at the merest restriction today, and speak in contemporary absolutes that would make Javier blush, whitewash the actual support of human slavery in their heroes.
 

Mr. W: "They are celebrating his military prowess as it relates to his service of the cause of the Confederacy...

BD: So now we need to be concerned with not only with the acts and beliefs of the person being portrayed, but also the people who commissioned and presumably those who create the art?"

Mr. W: How do you get your response from that?

I presumed by "they" you were referring to those who commissioned and/or created the art you wish to destroy. Were you referring to someone else?

Can you not grasp balancing?

"Balancing tests" without rules are simply a fancy term for arbitrary choices.

Bart, do you oppose when your colleagues toppled statues of Saddam Hussein?

For the umpteenth time, people or governments can do what they please with their art.

What I object to is the general totalitarian impulse to destroy in an attempt to erase history with which they disagree.

I can understand why the victims of a totalitarian regime would want to destroy portrayals of their persecutors.

Today's progressives have no persona stake in a general who died generations ago. Instead, they are destroying history with which they disagree. If progressives are going to impartially pursue this goal, they have to destroy the vast majority of human history.
 

Everybody does some combination of good and bad things. In most cases we should celebrate the good and criticize the bad. In Jefferson's case, the DoI is worth celebrating. So is the VA Statute for Religious Freedom. And other things too.

Except in unusual cases, I like to judge people by their best deeds rather than their worst. I mean, we judge Mozart on his best works, not his weaker ones and not on his personal failings. That seems right to me, except, as I said, in extreme cases.
 

National Review has a pretty good analysis of the monument issue (not endorsing everything it says, usual disclaimer)

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/450470/charlottesville-virignia-robert-e-lee-statue-remove-right-decision-confederate-monuments-museums

===

The future will think we are terrible people. We put people in tiny cages where many are raped for horrible lengths of time even for relatively minor crimes. We let lots of people suffer and even die when we can avoid it. Enough people voted for Donald Trump that he's in power now. I can go on. I think Mark Field has a better approach there, but you know, like we should talk regarding "terrible" people.

I don't "worship" (Dilan is not a big fan of religion; that word has a special taint for him) people of the past. I don't want to totally demonize either. I'm reminded of that song from the musical 1776 where the Southern representative said everyone was part of the slavery, including the North. Well, that was true up to the end of slavery too. But, I'm not going to damn them all as if that's it.

I don't think Washington and Jefferson were big friends of black people though I do think it was useful to them that Washington allowed blacks to fight in the Revolution. Early on, given his background, he wasn't a big supporter of that. But, in part given manpower needs & the wishes of certain states, he did allow it. I don't think the various limits on slavery he signed into law did nothing for them either. This doesn't make him a hero or anything, but the reality based community shouldn't make things an all or nothing affair.

As to Jefferson (or "the rapist," if Dilan likes), he put forth a certain set of basic principles that in the long run benefited black people. People like Calhoun denounced them. Slavery was a positive good for them. The idea that blacks being inferior was a scientific fact that can be rejected with new evidence is anathema. Like free speech (with Jefferson was less gung ho about when states were involved in various cases), Jefferson in various ways (unlike some Southerners) was not consistent about his ideals.

Yeah, sounds a tad too familiar.
 

"I presumed by "they" you were referring to those who commissioned and/or created the art you wish to destroy. "

1. Usually, the 'art' (glorification of slavery) is to just be moved, not destroyed. You know that, but you're a troll/propagandist.

2. I've already answered the question about the connection between the motive of the erectors/artists and subject. In usual troll/propagandist fashion, you've dodged it.

"What I object to is the general totalitarian impulse to destroy in an attempt to erase history with which they disagree."

So you condemn your US military colleagues and the Iraqi citizens who took down statues of Hussein. Bart calls Gulf War veterans ISIS!

"Today's progressives have no persona stake in a general who died generations ago. Instead, they are destroying history with which they disagree."

Idiotic. The Poles just recently decided to remove the monuments to their Soviet oppressors, do you condemn them?

And everyone has a personal stake in a ongoing public glorification of evil. That you cannot recognize evil because you are a relativist and authoritarian should not shake anyone who can.


 

What I object to is the general totalitarian impulse to destroy in an attempt to erase history with which they disagree.

# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 11:50 AM

All you need is one post where you express your objections to the U.S. military tearing down monuments to Saddam Hussein to prove that this statement isn't complete and utter bullshit.



 

"On the other hand, there are many Founders, many who are not widely known and celebrated but who did play key roles in our Founding, who really were on the right side of issues like slavery."

I agree with this. There were some very admirable people who were around at the time of this country's founding. Unfortunately, they aren't the people we worship. Instead, we trumpet the slaveholders.

And while I agree with the criticism of libertarians, I think it extends to almost all white liberals in the US. There's a whole bunch of excuse-making about people being men of their times, or just a complete minimizing of slavery like it's some small black mark on an otherwise great resume.

If you actually think about what owning slaves entailed-- the whippings, the confinement in dirt shacks, the rapes (and I tend to think that not only did all slaveholders rape their slaves, but that it was one of the fundamental reasons they loved slavery so much-- aristocratic Southern women like Mary Chesnut wrote about how all the women knew and the children of the good looking slaves all looked like their masters), etc., this isn't some little thing that people just dabbled in like we might criticize a politician now for hunting an endangered species or saying offensive things or something. If you owned slaves, you were all-in on a lifestyle that involved the complete oppression and exploitation of other humans, up to and including torture and murder, as well as the racial views that justified it.

And it was fun. It's fun to own and oppress other people. It was fun-- in the mind of an unenlightened 18th Century male-- to get to bang any woman on the plantation and for her to have no right to say no. That's why folks like Washington didn't free them until they died. They got to have their cake and eat it too.

It really is unforgivable. It means this nation was born in a state of original sin. And given that so many of our screwed up institutions were designed originally to preserve the slave power and keep it legal, it's the gift that keeps on giving.
 

"Everybody does some combination of good and bad things. In most cases we should celebrate the good and criticize the bad. In Jefferson's case, the DoI is worth celebrating. So is the VA Statute for Religious Freedom. And other things too."

And Hitler built the autobahns, Mark.

Slavery is one of the few things in human history directly comparable to the Holocaust. For you to write it off as just a "bad thing" that can be ignored when talking about the Declaration of Independence (itself a highly overrated piece of propaganda) is a pretty big case of white privilege and tone-deafness, at the very least.
 

"I don't think Washington and Jefferson were big friends of black people though I do think it was useful to them that Washington allowed blacks to fight in the Revolution."

I love how your great example of Washington doing something good for blacks was to let them get killed in a war that was of no benefit for them.

You really show your love for the black race with that argument, Joe.

And yes it's worship, in the sense of "hero worship", which isn't a religious concept.
 

Mark Field made an exception for "extreme cases." Dilan brings up Hitler.

Dilan is talking past us.
 

Wow! There were 61 comments when I left this morning for the DMV office in downtown Boston. I got back, had lunch watching a Charlier Rose rerun on Charlottesville and now I'm to the Internet. So many comments to go through.

One thing is now quite obvious: SPAM has a serious edifice problem.
 

I love how your great example of Washington doing something good for blacks was to let them get killed in a war that was of no benefit for them.

You really show your love for the black race with that argument, Joe.

Black people themselves are proud for fighting in the Revolutionary War and some of them wrote about it. They thought it was good they got the chance. But, what do black people themselves know? Love for the black race? Dilan is being a tool.

The American Revolution overall was a complex matter including in the ideas and principles promoted. This includes general principles of equality, self-government and so forth. They helped blacks in various ways, including various limits on slavery itself. There was, e.g., a great burst of emancipation in the South by those following the principles of the American Revolution. States started to end slavery in the North, in part following the ideals of the age. People actually took the rhetoric seriously. "Persons" had basic rights. In some cases, they were black.

But, yes, having the ability to fight in itself was seen as a good. Blacks enthusiastically took the opportunity, even though the racist society might make them look stupid for doing so. Military service provided opportunity and showed others they were men and part of society. Again, various writings of the era show this, including friendships between races of those who fought.
 

Mr. W:

I made my point.

Your posts are nothing now but strawmen chowing down on heaps of red herring.

Go forth and tear down statues, my friend.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/08/14/protesters-in-north-carolina-topple-confederate-statue-following-charlottesville-violence/?utm_term=.9d13b99dbf96
 

SPAM concedes the concept of a "Statue [sic] of Limitations." It should be noted that states, cities and towns are taking down these statues abiding with due process of law; it's not being done by mobs packing heat.
 

When they came for the monuments to communists, I was silent,
When the came for the monuments to Saddam Hussein, I was silent,
When the came for the monuments to traitors who fought to defend slavery, I... woah! This is getting a little close to home! I better speak up!

Bart Depalma 2017

 

If SPAM speaks up enough, perhaps those in sync with SPAM might erect a monument to SPAM on his rural mountaintop community in the Mile High State (of mind) to commemorate his efforts supporting the Charlottesville protesters citing SPAM as a Yankee-born libertarian.
 

Joe:

Your position is belied by the fact that the British outlawed slavery 30 years before we did. In terms of which side of the Revolutionary War was beneficial to black interests, there is no comparison. The British were.

Indeed, this was pretty obvious. Slaveholding was the central, non-negotiable idea behind the American republic. Slaveholders held an absolute veto and, no matter what lies Thomas Jefferson decided to tell in the Declaration of Independence about his supposed belief in equality, the equation was simple-- not only did the new republic have to allow slavery, but the slave power had to be protected with various veto points and supermajority requirements to ensure that it would never be outvoted.

Not surprising given that so many of the framers were themselves slaveholders.

So just because some black soldiers found some personal satisfaction in fighting for the cause of the revolution, doesn't mean the revolution was good for blacks. Indeed, it just makes Washington more cynical and evil-- just like Robert E. Lee was later. Lee, after all, also sought to have blacks serve in his army.

The British's action in ending slavery 30 years before we did also gives the lie to another one of your arguments-- that Thomas Jefferson's supposed "principles" served black people at some later time. Britain, without any help from Jefferson and his BS, ended slavery 30 years earlier than we did. Turns out that Jefferson's rhetoric was totally empty. Didn't help one bit.

And by the way, even now, Britain is a much better country than the United States, with better health care, and, not to put a fine point on it, better treatment of black people. Again, there's a lot you can do when your country doesn't mythologize a bunch of rapists and torturers as the heroes of its founding.

Finally, on Mark's point, you say that there's an exception for extremes. And once again, your white privilege shows. Because while 5 to 6 million Jews is apparently on the extremes, 7 million black people don't count at all. Their lives just don't matter to you. YOU feel that you are better off because of the American revolution, so screw all the black people who got harmed by these folks.

This country was founded on racism, racism was its founding principle, it is still infected by racism, and you and Mark are prime examples of the problem. As long as the white aristocrats who were fighting for their separation from the British crown won, it just doesn't matter to you that millions of blacks were tortured and raped for another 80 years.
 

I'm not sure it's worth responding to Dilan's garbage, since he knows little or nothing about, well, much of anything. But just in case others are confused,

1. It's highly unlikely that Britain would have outlawed slavery "30 years before the US" had the US remained a British colony. The reason Britain could abolish slavery in the 1830s was precisely the fact that slaveholders no longer held any political influence in England. That wouldn't have been true if it still held the US as a colony. And even as it was (a) the Brits compensated the slaveholders (the US did not); and (b) the Brits could and did depend on cotton produced by slaves until the Civil War, and actually considered recognizing the South. So much for superior British morality, and that's to say nothing of how they treated India or their other colonies as part of the "white man's burden".

2. No reasonable person would think Britain today is a better place than the US. Blacks are not treated better there, and the government has been run by conservative idiots for the past 10 years. Ironically, Dilan is guilty of exactly what he's (wrongly) objecting to in this thread: pointing to the one area in which Britain is better than the US and downplaying its weaknesses. In contrast, everyone in this thread has acknowledged the weaknesses of Jefferson et al. and nobody has tried to downplay them.

3. Nuance is lost on Dilan. He's so invested in being "purer than thou" that he'll cast any aspersions rather than consider the way politics actually works and succeeds. Thus, he condemns the DoI without recognizing the influence it had on anti-slavery activists both at the time and later. It's a seminal document for the abolition of slavery.

3. Some of the Framers were slaveholders. Some were not. It's hard to see how that's a relevant point here, but they all made compromises with slavery. They also created the system which, in Lincoln's words, put slavery in the process of eventual extinction.

4. As for your last paragraph, go fuck yourself.
 

"I am a native American, but like Elizabeth Warren, I am not part American Indian."
Unlike Elizabeth Warren, though, he is an asshole.
Seriously, isn't it time to ban Bart/Brett?
 

I'll let Mark Field handle it.

 

I don't like banning people and have personal weakness here in that I enjoy reading Mr. W. respond to BP's comments.
 

"I made my point."

You made none. You have been totally non-responsive, evading all queries back to you and simply parroting a single propaganda line that was very early on pointed out to you makes no sense. Of all the sad showings here, this may be your worse.
 

"When they came for the monuments to communists, I was silent,
When the came for the monuments to Saddam Hussein, I was silent,
When the came for the monuments to traitors who fought to defend slavery, I... woah! This is getting a little close to home! I better speak up!"

Perfect, I love it.
 

On the subject of England and slavery, Lord Mansfield's decision in the Somerset case (I think in the 1790s) was part of the "common law" in America that thwarted the fugitive slave law to a certain extent. In Dred Scott it was not extended to territories. Even in slave states there was a recognition of Somerset until Dred Scott before it got to the Supreme Court. CJ Taney was champing at the bit to get NY's Lemmon case to get rid of Somerset altogether. But the Civil War thwarted Taney, even though he remained on the Court.

Economics was strongly tied into slavery. But this post was aimed at the Charlottesville events. While Gerard focused his post on Lee, the front burner issues focus on Neo Nazis, White Supremacists, the KKK, White Nationalists, the Alt Right and the other hate groups protesting in Charlottesville. These hate groups should not go unchallenged. But we can't refight the Civil War. We still need reconciliation.