It appears White Supremacists only expedited the removal of confederate statues. Lexington Kentucky is also speeding up the removal of their confederate statue.
(3 votes)
Baltimore Removes 4 Confederate Statues Overnight
It appears White Supremacists only expedited the removal of confederate statues. Lexington Kentucky is also speeding up the removal of their confederate statue.
Comments
(Old Spike)
He who controls the present controls the past. He who controls the past controls the future.
(Long Spike)
You can't control the past. The best you can do is change your mind upon it; what's happened in the past has happened and no amount of statue demolition is going to change that. What you're seeing here is perceptions of the past changing, or rather, being made known. For a long while we've revered Civil War traitors and men who killed Americans as heroes. Opinions of those men is shifting but it certainly doesn't change what they did or who they were...only Doc Brown and Marty can do that and they don't exist.
(Old Spike)
There were unresolved federalist and anti-federalist tensions since America's founding. Those tensions boiled over into the Civil War.
The South was fighting for state's rights. To be clear, the state's rights were to own slaves, a horrendous sin. But it was more than just slavery.
We're seeing similar tensions boil over today. Between big government liberals and small government conservatives. One wants to sanitize reality. The other just wants people to leave them alone.
I'm conflicted, I really am. Because every great person has done some terrible shit. Jackson's on the $20 bill, he murdered Indians and started the Trail of Tears. Taylor was a general in the Mexican American war, basically a land grab. Jefferson fucked slaves. I mean, everybody's done some terrible shit. Is the answer to scrub everything? What then of society will currently exist? We tear up the foundations of a country, what left is there to believe in?
The notion of a nation exists within the sphere of a shared imagination. That's what holds it all together. I worry what will happen when we tear it all up. We could create a better future, true. Conversely, we may also become a nation without identity. Without pride. And a nation without identity is susceptible to dangerous ideas.
(Long Spike)
The thing with Jackson, Jefferson, and Washington is that they are essentially called out for their sins (as is happening in your very post) AND they did other notable things for the general welfare of the U.S.A. Besides murdering Americans for the right to own people what else did most of the Confederate notables do? If that's ALL they did then I would respecfully state that there is an argument to be had on whether or not they should be glorified in such a fashion. However, you are indeed correct that the sins of Jefferson/Washington/etc. should not be ignored in talks upon this issue.
(Old Spike)
If we take the American ideals of self-determinism to it's logical conclusion, then groups of people should have the right to secede, no matter how horrendous their intentions. Texas does it every few years. So does Quebec. Hell, California is considering seceeding from the Union right now. And I argue with my friends over this every time we meet. He wants to secede, I think he's batshit crazy and wants to start another Civil War.
Now obviously, I'm glad the Union won. If it became a stalemate, the war would've been pushed into a Western land grab (another inevitable conflict) or European powers would've gotten involved and we'd be just another proxy war for them. But the superceding ideas, that people should have a right to self-govern, was the central tension point of the Civil War.
I'm simply worried that we're educating the next generation to ignore nuance. That people with malicious agendas sucker in impressionable youths into ideologies that are antagnoistic to the welfare of society. It sounds good at first. Anti-Hate, anti-bigotry, anti-sexism. To me, it's just a political power grab. And once the tactics of one side seem to be effective, the other side will adopt similar tactics as well. The Alt-right got their lessons from BLM. Antifa rose up to respond. I shudder to think that the right's response to Antifa would be. Shit, conservatives own all the guns in America. Everybody ups the tension. And boom, another Civil War.
(Long Spike)
We don't need statues of Nazis up to remember how terrible Nazis are. The same goes for Confederates, many United Americans died kicking both of their asses. It is a shame some WW2 veterans live to see them march on American streets yelling out "Heil Trump".
(Long Spike)
I have legit name dropped my Nazi-fighting grandfather's name more times in the past 3 days than I have in my entire life. Nazi-fighting is in my blood.
(sounds retarded)
The difference between Nazis and Confederates are many, they are NOT the same AT ALL. The Nazi's wanted to control/rule the world and implement mass extermination of certain groups of people. The Confederates wanted to be left alone and do their own thing within their own states. There is an element of racism but that in of itself does not make a strong argument that they are one and the same. The Southern racism was more economic in nature then the superiority and hatred of the Nazis. It would be a stretch to make the argument that the South ONLY wanted to oppress the blacks and fought to kill all blacks and rule the country.
Just becuase they lost doesnt mean they have to forget their heritage or veiw the men who fought and died with dishonor. There were white people who gathered there to stop the destruction of their history and were not "nazis".
(Old Spike)
Everyone was racist in the 1860's
(Long Spike)
Yeah, abolitionists came AFTER the Civil War. Makes sense to me.
(Old Spike)
So why do people conflate the confederate army with slavery / racism?
(Long Spike)
I dunno, it seems way out of bounds.