Leave Confederate Soldier Statues Alone

[WinterBorn]

I find it amusing that people think they have a say in what statues decorate a community they do not live in, do not pay taxes in, and probably rarely even visit.

 

[Constructive Anarchy]

That's dumb. You may as well argue that we should have left Saddam Hussein statues up.

An incredibly dimwitted view of history. As if the lessons of the Civil War should be forgotten. Only very stupid, shallow, unsubstantial, authoritarian types want to expunge history for the purpose of satisfying transitory contemporary rhetorical needs. In other words: You've got to be stupid.

No you don't expunge the statues, you put them in a Museum where people can learn how some people of the US got so stupid, they left it for a Slave Holding government run by whacko liberals who wanted to keep people enslaved to them. It took the Republicans of the North to put down that rebellion and stop the spread of liberalism and slavery to future states.

Another completely backwards perspective.

 

[TheOldSchool]

That's dumb. You may as well argue that we should have left Saddam Hussein statues up.

An incredibly dimwitted view of history. As if the lessons of the Civil War should be forgotten. Only very stupid, shallow, unsubstantial, authoritarian types want to expunge history for the purpose of satisfying transitory contemporary rhetorical needs. In other words: You've got to be stupid.

No you don't expunge the statues, you put them in a Museum where people can learn how some people of the US got so stupid, they left it for a Slave Holding government run by whacko liberals who wanted to keep people enslaved to them. It took the Republicans of the North to put down that rebellion and stop the spread of liberalism and slavery to future states.

They can add a section about how modern republicans now worship those whacko "liberals" and celebrate their battle flag.

 

[Pogo]

Lately, it has become fashionable in the minds of some, to go about proposing bills to removed statues and monuments of Confederate soldiers. Currently in Florida 2 bills have been introduced to do this. These are Florida SB 1360 and SCR 760.

The high horse proposers of these bills are intending to set new standards for all of us in America, about who we can honor, and who we may not. Looks like they’ve got soldiers of the old Confederacy on the don’t honor list.

This is more than stupid. It is disgraceful to DIShonor these people who wore their military uniforms, and put their lives on the line, to follow the orders they were given.

As far as what cause the Confederate soldiers fought for, I’d say that since their homelands were being attacked by outside forces (buildings burned, bridges blown up, etc.), they fought primarily a defensive war. This is more just and legitimate than the Vietnam War, in which US soil and people were not being attacked by any Vietnamese people. And do we ask for Vietnam veterans’ statues or monuments to be removed ? Last time I looked, there were more of them being installed.

I don’t think ANY veterans of any state of the current USA (including Florida), should have their statues or monuments removed. This is a disgrace, and it disgraces those who propose and support such stupid laws.

Do you live in Florida? Because how they roll is up to them, whether you like it or not. Same applies to the city of New Orleans or anywhere else.

Thing two -- removing some statue or monument is in no way the same thing as dictating "who may be honored and who may not". When Florida passes a law making it illegal to speak admiringly of Jeff Davis, you trot right back in there and let us all know.

 

[Pogo]

That's dumb. You may as well argue that we should have left Saddam Hussein statues up.

An incredibly dimwitted view of history. As if the lessons of the Civil War should be forgotten. Only very stupid, shallow, unsubstantial, authoritarian types want to expunge history for the purpose of satisfying transitory contemporary rhetorical needs. In other words: You've got to be stupid.

No you don't expunge the statues, you put them in a Museum where people can learn how some people of the US got so stupid, they left it for a Slave Holding government run by whacko liberals who wanted to keep people enslaved to them. It took the Republicans of the North to put down that rebellion and stop the spread of liberalism and slavery to future states.

-- "stop the spread of Liberalism"??

Liberalism invented this country, shortbus. That's why we don't have a Queen.

 

[WinterBorn]

Lately, it has become fashionable in the minds of some, to go about proposing bills to removed statues and monuments of Confederate soldiers. Currently in Florida 2 bills have been introduced to do this. These are Florida SB 1360 and SCR 760.

The high horse proposers of these bills are intending to set new standards for all of us in America, about who we can honor, and who we may not. Looks like they’ve got soldiers of the old Confederacy on the don’t honor list.

This is more than stupid. It is disgraceful to DIShonor these people who wore their military uniforms, and put their lives on the line, to follow the orders they were given.

As far as what cause the Confederate soldiers fought for, I’d say that since their homelands were being attacked by outside forces (buildings burned, bridges blown up, etc.), they fought primarily a defensive war. This is more just and legitimate than the Vietnam War, in which US soil and people were not being attacked by any Vietnamese people. And do we ask for Vietnam veterans’ statues or monuments to be removed ? Last time I looked, there were more of them being installed.

I don’t think ANY veterans of any state of the current USA (including Florida), should have their statues or monuments removed. This is a disgrace, and it disgraces those who propose and support such stupid laws.

Do you live in Florida? Because how they roll is up to them, whether you like it or not. Same applies to the city of New Orleans or anywhere else.

Thing two -- removing some statue or monument is in no way the same thing as dictating "who may be honored and who may not". When Florida passes a law making it illegal to speak admiringly of Jeff Davis, you trot right back in there and let us all know.

Exactly. Removing a statue does not obliterate history at all.

 

[cnm]

They did not fight just to keep slavery alive in America.

Yet they fought in support of a government based on the inferiority of the black man. That will not go away.

 

[Pogo]

Statues are just statues...there's no need to remove them I think.
It's also expensive...
Plus history can't be deleted removing statues
Thinking about real problems people have is more useful than destroying or removing statues and monuments

Statues and monuments also have costs to maintain where they are. For one thing we have what we call "pigeons"....... and nobody, not even the reactionary posters on this board, loves statues more than pigeons.

True point, you don't delete history by removing a statue or monument. You do it by going on political mesage boards and spreading mythologies like "Hitler was a leftist". And yet, those who whine about statues coming down (always someplace they don't even live) constantly make this argument, as if the history only exists as long as the statue does.

That's probably because they're so unfamiliar with what we call "history books".

 

[protectionist]

Politicians were forced to deal with the issue of slavery and its westward expansion as early as the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The States had previously maintained a shaky balance in the Senate with an equal number of representatives from both Slave and Free States. As Missouri prepared to enter the Union as a Slave State, this tentative balance threatened to come undone. Henry Clay of Kentucky temporarily solved the issue by crafting the Missouri Compromise, bringing Missouri into the Union as a Slave State and, as a balance, Maine entered as a Free State. They don't teach this is public education anymore because for the Southern White Democrats(and Northern Democrats) they hated blacks and saw them as beneath them, even when they reached the office of Congress and they were Republicans.

 

[cnm]

Second of all, the Union soldiers invaded to return the southern states to the United States.

I thought it was to protect Federal property. If the South had left that alone the casus belli would not have been so clear.

 

[WinterBorn]

The funniest part about all these people screaming about someone trying to "erase history" is that they probably didn't even know about the statues before the story came out about removing them. Now, all of the sudden, they think they have a say in the matter.

 

[protectionist]

They did not fight just to keep slavery alive in America.

Yet they fought in support of a government based on the inferiority of the black man. That will not go away.

And the Vietnam War veterans fought to kill people who never bothered us one bit. Are you OK with removing THEIR statues ?

 

[protectionist]

I'll tell you what; I'm ALL FOR erecting and maintaining statues of veterans of the United States of America.

Me too. Including FLORIDA.

 

[Pogo]

They did not fight just to keep slavery alive in America.

Yet they fought in support of a government based on the inferiority of the black man. That will not go away.

And the Vietnam War veterans fought to kill people who never bothered us one bit. Are you OK with removing THEIR statues ?

Actually I wouldn't mind seeing ALL monuments to war disappear. Regardless of which side.

War is the ultimate human failure. Seems to me the other statues we put up celebrate accomplishments, not failures. Memorializing them tends to legitimize it.

 

[WinterBorn]

They did not fight just to keep slavery alive in America.

Yet they fought in support of a government based on the inferiority of the black man. That will not go away.

And the Vietnam War veterans fought to kill people who never bothered us one bit. Are you OK with removing THEIR statues ?

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First of all, we should never have gotten involved in Vietnam at all.

Second of all, those soldiers who fought in Vietnam were fighting as a part of the US Armed forces. The confederate soldiers were not.

Third of all, the confederate soldiers were fighting to maintain the right to own other human beings. The veterans of Vietnam were fighting to prevent a nation from being taken over by outside forces.


Your analogy does not work.

 

[koshergrl]

They did not fight just to keep slavery alive in America.

Yet they fought in support of a government based on the inferiority of the black man. That will not go away.

No, they fought to defend the constitution and protect their resources. The race issue then, as now, was just an excuse that tyrants used to justify shitting all over the law.

 

[WinterBorn]

I'll tell you what; I'm ALL FOR erecting and maintaining statues of veterans of the United States of America.

Me too. Including FLORIDA.

Confederate soldiers are not veterans of the United States of America. In fact, they threw away their citizenship in the United States of America when the seceded.

 

[protectionist]

First of all, since the confederates had seceded from the Union, they were not American soldiers.

Second of all, the Union soldiers invaded to return the southern states to the United States.

And third of all, the south seceded from the union over slavery. That most didn't own slaves does not change that fact.

1. I consider any state that was part of the Confederacy to have been a part of the USA, for ALL the years from 1779 - 2017. And weren't they called the Confederate States of AMERICA ? (as in "American soldiers")

2. True.

3. I was responding to "andaronjim's statement >> "Confederate Soldiers who fought to keep slavery alive in America"

 

[WinterBorn]

They did not fight just to keep slavery alive in America.

Yet they fought in support of a government based on the inferiority of the black man. That will not go away.

No, they fought to defend the constitution and protect their resources. The race issue then, as now, was just an excuse that tyrants used to justify shitting all over the law.

I hear that same lame bullshit often enough. Look at the constitution drawn up for the confederate states. It specifically states that they seceded to preserve slavery, and would not allow any state to join the confederacy unless slavery was allowed and protected.

 

[WinterBorn]

First of all, since the confederates had seceded from the Union, they were not American soldiers.

Second of all, the Union soldiers invaded to return the southern states to the United States.

And third of all, the south seceded from the union over slavery. That most didn't own slaves does not change that fact.

1. I consider any state that was part of the Confederacy to have been a part of the USA, for ALL the years from 1779 - 2017. And weren't they called the Confederate States of AMERICA ? (as in "American soldiers")

2. True.

3. I was responding to "andaronjim's statement >> "Confederate Soldiers who fought to keep slavery alive in America"

1. What you consider is irrelevant. The confederates willfully seceded from the United States of America. They wrote their own constitution, printed their own currency and took up arms against the United States of America. Now, after the confederacy was defeated and returned to the fold, those men were US citizens. But the soldiers who fought for the confederacy were not US veterans any more than the soldiers who fought in Spain during the Spanish Civil war are US veterans. They fought under the flag of a different nation.