Statues, Monuments, and When to Take Down or Leave Up Ones Dedicated To Flawed Historical Figures

[El-ahrairah]

On 6/17/2020 at 4:17 PM, Ormond said:

I am a bit leery of the argument that those who supported the Confederacy should never be honored because they were "traitors." The "Founding Fathers" were all traitors to their government, too. The difference there is that the Founding Fathers were successful in their rebellion while the Confederates failed in theirs.

Just so. In fact, while I'd consider myself to be very much on the Northern side in terms of who I'd support in the War, speaking purely on legal terms the South seems to have a lot more justification than the Colonies did. While the Colonies were entirely under the authority of His Most Sacred Majesty, the States were previously-sovereign entities which voluntarily joined together under a Constitution which never explicitly forbade them to leave the Union. I think of the Civil War as not a civil war at all, but as an ordinary war between two foreign nations, one of which engaged in the honourable and ancient custom of justified conquest to subdue the other.

[Fragile Bird]

Good news! Donald Trump is going to sign an executive order to create a vast outdoor park for all the American heroes that people are trying to defame.

The Park will have monuments to various presidents and other historic notables like Davy Crockett, Amelia Earhart, Billy Graham, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and Harriet Tubman. Oh, and Frederick Douglass.

 

[Morpheus]

Don’t forget Antonin Scalia. A truly worthy target of vandalism.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Dick Cheney "accidentally" shooting his "friend"  must be included.

[Larry of the Lawn]

What's that line from Shogun?  There is one time rebellion is always justified: when you win.

[DireWolfSpirit]

On 7/4/2020 at 8:46 AM, Morpheus said:

Don’t forget Antonin Scalia. A truly worthy target of vandalism.

We could get Ozzy to water it for us.

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/ozzy-osbourne-alamo-urinate/

 

[Zorral]

On 7/4/2020 at 8:50 AM, El-ahrairah said:

 

Quote

I think of the Civil War as not a civil war at all, but as an ordinary war between two foreign nations, one of which engaged in the honourable and ancient custom of justified conquest to subdue the other.

 

You are entirely wrong about that.  One of those entities went to war to subjugate the other and force it into permitting, supporting and expanding slavery, against its wishes and its own states' constitutions and laws.  In the meantime that losing side outright stole all the money and other moveable property of the United States and took it for itself, including the US treasury.

And that side, of which there was NOTHING honorable, lost.  

[El-ahrairah]

19 minutes ago, Zorral said:

You are entirely wrong about that.  One of those entities went to war to subjugate the other and force it into permitting, supporting and expanding slavery, against its wishes and its own states' constitutions and laws.  In the meantime that losing side outright stole all the money and other moveable property of the United States and took it for itself, including the US treasury.

And that side, of which there was NOTHING honorable, lost.  

I think you have misunderstood me? I was talking about the North, not the South. I highly doubt the South ever seriously contemplated subjugating the North (despite the alternate history to that effect depicted in a certain amusing mockumentary).

[Ran]

15 minutes ago, El-ahrairah said:

I think you have misunderstood me? I was talking about the North, not the South. I highly doubt the South ever seriously contemplated subjugating the North (despite the alternate history to that effect depicted in a certain amusing mockumentary).

Jefferson Davis certainly had no intentions to that end, and Lee's Antietam Campaign was not aimed at all towards an eventual conquest of the North, but (at most) the annexation of Maryland and D.C., and as it was there was some resentment when he set out from Virginia because the talk up to then had been that the Confederate army was defensive in nature, not offensive.

 

[Zorral]

Again, you are wrong.  You haven't read what they wrote and said.

 

[TrueMetis]

Wasn't one of the big complaints the confederate states had was that the non-slave holding states wouldn't enforce laws to catch escaped slave and told the confederate states to fuck off when they tried to get them enforced? Since becoming an entirely separate country would make those kind of laws even harder to enforce it seems weird that they'd be like "nope, no plan at all to enforce our will on the other states."

[Darzin]

7 hours ago, Zorral said:

Again, you are wrong.  You haven't read what they wrote and said.

 

And? I'm fairly sure that @El-ahrairah 's point was that the had a pretty good legal case to do what they did in succeeding and  that the Union did a moral good in putting down their rebellion even if it was less than legal.

[Ran]

8 hours ago, TrueMetis said:

Wasn't one of the big complaints the confederate states had was that the non-slave holding states wouldn't enforce laws to catch escaped slave and told the confederate states to fuck off when they tried to get them enforced?x

It wasn't a substantial complaint. More significantly was the northern efforts in Congress to stymie the expansion of slavery into the territories, and a general sense that there was an ultimate effort to force abolition.  The abolition movement and the struggles over the return of escaped slaves was part of the cultural divide that encouraged secession, but politically it wasn't really a feature of the purpose of secession.

That said, if the CSA had won the war, there would no doubt have been a treaty with the USA that no doubt covered things like escaped slaves. And the CSA would have also been freer to control its borders more thoroughly to better resist escapes. Regardless of what Zorral thinks they have read, the CSA fought to remain independent of the United States, not to conquer it. It was a literal impossibility, given the vast manpower and industrial gaps between the two. The goal of secession was to establish the Confederate State of America, and the goal of the Civil War was to force the United States to accept its existence, in part by making it too costly to invade and in part by getting foreign powers to recognize the CSA.

It's worth noting that there were people in the CSA who did want the Confederacy to expand... but they wanted to expand south, into Mexico and Spanish-held territories in the Caribbean. 

[Ran]

Dreadul vandalism:

They're planning to replace it with a new one as the vandals left the original too damaged. 

[RhaenysBee]

I have no business in this discussion as my country never dealt with racism based slavery throughout its history and tended to be the oppressed side rather than the oppressor. Hence I have no way of fathoming the emotional impact this matter must have left on peoples and cultures it affected directly and thus understanding the weight or the extent of the issue.

I did however encounter this quote:   
“They created the world as we know it, including the ideologies we use in order to judge them.” when I was reading this phenomenal book by Yuval Noah Harari. And even though the personal pronoun refers to empires in the original context, I don’t think that falls so far from the topic of statues, so I thought it was worth sharing, if only to recommend Sapiens. 

[Corvinus85]

On 7/4/2020 at 7:50 AM, El-ahrairah said:

Just so. In fact, while I'd consider myself to be very much on the Northern side in terms of who I'd support in the War, speaking purely on legal terms the South seems to have a lot more justification than the Colonies did. While the Colonies were entirely under the authority of His Most Sacred Majesty, the States were previously-sovereign entities which voluntarily joined together under a Constitution which never explicitly forbade them to leave the Union. I think of the Civil War as not a civil war at all, but as an ordinary war between two foreign nations, one of which engaged in the honourable and ancient custom of justified conquest to subdue the other.

When a region's attempt to break away from a nation leads to war with the nation's government, that is still considered a civil war, though I suppose the definition is a bit more loose here. After all, I don't believe anyone calls the American Revolutionary War a civil war. 

But regards to the Civil War, the term most used by historians is the War of the Rebellion.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

11 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

I have no business in this discussion as my country never dealt with racism based slavery throughout its history and tended to be the oppressed side rather than the oppressor. Hence I have no way of fathoming the emotional impact this matter must have left on peoples and cultures it affected directly and thus understanding the weight or the extent of the issue.

I did however encounter this quote:   
“They created the world as we know it, including the ideologies we use in order to judge them.” when I was reading this phenomenal book by Yuval Noah Harari. And even though the personal pronoun refers to empires in the original context, I don’t think that falls so far from the topic of statues, so I thought it was worth sharing, if only to recommend Sapiens. 

It is a very interesting book.

[RhaenysBee]

4 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

It is a very interesting book.

I thought it was brilliant. The author doesn’t always remain unbiased, he’s only human too, I suppose, and some of his stronger views of societal issues do shine through certain segments of the book. But other than that, it was the best read I came across in years. Each to their own, of course. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

On 7/7/2020 at 9:47 AM, RhaenysBee said:

 

I did however encounter this quote:   
“They created the world as we know it, including the ideologies we use in order to judge them.” when I was reading this phenomenal book by Yuval Noah Harari. And even though the personal pronoun refers to empires in the original context, I don’t think that falls so far from the topic of statues, so I thought it was worth sharing, if only to recommend Sapiens. 

Not only applies to ideology but religion as well, from the secular viewpoint. It's a fantastic quote, I'm sure I'd enjoy the read.

[lysmonger]

On 7/7/2020 at 2:35 AM, Ran said:

It wasn't a substantial complaint. More significantly was the northern efforts in Congress to stymie the expansion of slavery into the territories, and a general sense that there was an ultimate effort to force abolition.  The abolition movement and the struggles over the return of escaped slaves was part of the cultural divide that encouraged secession, but politically it wasn't really a feature of the purpose of secession.

That said, if the CSA had won the war, there would no doubt have been a treaty with the USA that no doubt covered things like escaped slaves. And the CSA would have also been freer to control its borders more thoroughly to better resist escapes. Regardless of what Zorral thinks they have read, the CSA fought to remain independent of the United States, not to conquer it. It was a literal impossibility, given the vast manpower and industrial gaps between the two. The goal of secession was to establish the Confederate State of America, and the goal of the Civil War was to force the United States to accept its existence, in part by making it too costly to invade and in part by getting foreign powers to recognize the CSA.

It's worth noting that there were people in the CSA who did want the Confederacy to expand... but they wanted to expand south, into Mexico and Spanish-held territories in the Caribbean. 

I always find it funny when upper class plantation owning senators tried to annex more parts of Mexico and the countries of central America, they were always quashed by Southern Soldiers who had fought in those regions and said "hell no."