the random taking down of memorials and changing names of places because someone is offended?. The local high school is named Robert E Lee. There has been a healthy debate, surprisingly not along racial lines, about whether or not to change the name.I have no opinion about that situation, but I was born in Logan where the school nickname is Wildcats. That name is directly taken from the Logan County Wildcats, a confederate militia group headed by Devil Anse Hatfield. How soon will someone come out of the woodwork and say they want all those names changed and monuments removed? What if some day some group decides that our involvement in WW2 was imperialistic and wants all trace of that event removed? Crazy you say?.....well, who would have ever thought that this would happen...but it is...are we as a nation going to allow radical groups on both sides to rewrite our country's history?
When will this end?
- Thread starter Snow Sled Baby
- Start date
50 years from now, there will be no confederate monuments or statues. We will look back and say how stupid it was to erect a monument glorifying a treasonous act, just like a lot of sane people look back on history and can't believe blacks didn't have the right to vote, or couldn't drink from public water fountains, etc.
Really...you miss the events of this last weekend? Instead of talking people are being pushed into confrontation.
No I didn't miss last weekend. Seems to me people were coming out of the woodwork to denounce those ignorant bigots.
First I think ANYTHING memorializing traitors should be removed and I've always felt that way. However....It has indeed become a political wedge. Certain groups aided by the media are tying this and what happened in Charlottesville to Trump even though Trump had absolutely nothing to do with it. If Terry McAuliffe and the Charlottesville City Council were SOOOOOO concerned about this statue......why didn't they remove it a long time ago?
Where is the wedge? A few hundred Nazis do not make a wedge.
Why wasn't slavery ended long before it finally was? Why weren't weed laws relaxed before they were? Some times things take time.
Come on Coop......think. Surely you know what the real wedge is what it's all about.
Huh? I truly don't see this as a "wedge" issue. Gay marriage, abortion, etc are wedge issues.
In practical terms I don't think the statues mean much. I live and work near one such statue and until recently when people started making a big deal about it I had no idea what it even was. I don't pay attention to statues and I think fights over them are about symbolism and I wish people worried more about practical things that affect peoples lives.
But that said, on the substance of the question about whether statues glorifying Confederates should be up, the people against the statues are absolutely right. Confederates were traitors to the USA and thus should not be glorified in the USA.
If they were traitors against the USA but their opposition involved an important issue that they turned out to be right about, like if they were against slavery but the US government was in favor of keeping it, then maybe it would be different. But they were traitors against the US **AND** they were for continuing slavery. It would be hard to make a worse bad guy if you tried. Did they have a clause in their constitution permitting the kicking of puppies too?
The state of WV especially should be against any and all things Confederate. WV was born during the Civil War out of separate from the northernmost Confederate state of VA. Why would it honor anything having to do with the Confederates?
They didn't come out to discuss the issues yielding baseball bats and other weapons...they came out to be violent. Bigots yes but they like other hate groups have a right to free speech...you beat their free speech with countering free speech. Unless of course you want it to all be about violent encounters.
Wedge = Divide. I just think the "wedge" tactic has ramped up to new levels in the last 30 years.
Maybe. You're old so you'd know better than I. My point ITT is just that I don't think confederate statues is a wedge issue. No doubt some are pushing, and hoping, for it to be one, but I just don't see it.
Byrd repudiated his past for the last 50 or so years of his life. That shouldn't prevent things from being named after him. The problem I have with so many things being named after Byrd is it's indicative of pork politics where seniority gets power and then money for his state, deserved or not, and then they name stuff after him in response.
WV was created by WV breaking away from VA during the Civil War. Stonewall Jackson was a General for the Confederacy. For what reason would WV name something after him? If Stonewall Jackson got his way he wouldn't even be an American, must less a West Virginian.
Robert E Lee sold his slaves....Thomas Jefferson SLEPT with his and never freed them, but Jefferson is revered and Lee castigated.......now is that fair?.........are you going to start a campaign to get Stonewall resort to change it's name?....just because Byrd said "sorry" doesnt remove or change what he did. According to the present litmus test he is as guilty as all the rest of the "racists"
For crying out loud, STONEWALL JACKSON WAS A GENERAL FOR THE CONFEDERACY, WHICH TRIED TO BREAK AWAY FROM THE USA. Assuming you have any patriotism in you, nothing else should matter.
If the question at hand is solely about who treated black people worse then that is a separate discussion
I AM TOTALLY AWARE THAT STONEWALL JACKSON WAS A CONFEDERATE GENERAL...I took history too and I live here in the middle of all the controversy.......none the less WV has the Stonewall Resort....named for......Stonewall Jackson.....does that mean you boycott it?......what's next.....finding all of ole stonewall's living relatives and burning their houses and arresting them?...when doe this end?........when there are no staues or memorials to anything lest someone get their feelings hurt?
If the GD bass in that lake don't quit out flanking me, I might start a campaign to rename it Lake George McClellan.
No...but it could be renamed. I have always, since about the 1st grade, wondered why we honored anyone that wanted to destroy our nation. This is not something new with me.
Then how in hell did we get here if statues are not an issue? Two sides openly faced off carrying weapons that would do bodily harm. What was the purpose. One group wanted to remove a statue that the other side did not want removed. What the hell was the problem? And you made a stupid statement yesterday regarding Nazi you claimed all were. Then the other flag beside.
Back in the 40s, there was a real war defending the country. A lot of Southern boys answered the call. Now, some group is crying about the statues that were representative of the South. See the connection? Southern boys killed Nazis in WWII. These boys were of the family who fought as a Confederate. See the connection? A small contingent were carrying a flag yesterday and YOU stated that all on that side were Nazis. South to South for the US and Nazi was not descriptive of the combatants yesterday. Please do not refer to people from the South as Nazi. It and you is plain ***** wrong.
Seriously, why are a small group of people so hell bent on removing Statues of Southern military commanders, that they are willing to maim another countryman?
Let's hope the ***** hat wearing liberals boycott the place. Will make it easier for real men to get a tee time.
Treasonous losers don't get consolation Statues. How about we just let the cities where the statues reside decide like Baltimore just did?
Didn't say it was not an issue, I said I don't think it is a wedge issue. Read gooderer.
Hey now. Don't be giving them any ideas. Some of my wife's ancestors were cousins of Stonewall Jackson and they are damned proud of that fact. One of her brothers even bears a remarkable resemblance to him, beard and all. I'd really hate to have my house burned down because of it.....
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Nobody has a problem with statues of Southern military commanders as long as those Southern military commanders aren't also traitors to the US. The part of the country the military commander comes from isn't the point.
George Washington was a Southern military commander and he gets honored plenty. Well, in the US he gets honored. He doen't get honored in Britain because he was a traitor to the British, just like Stonewall Jackson was a traitor to the US. Except that Stonewall Jackson was even worse because in the 1860s the USA was one country whereas in the 1770s the American colonies were just one of many possessions Britain had all over the world.
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So, you do not know what the issue was that two sides met with bats and other weapons to defend? Issue or wedge issue is not worth the debate, but you raised a few issues that were not so cute as to not be recognizable because we didn't distinguish between wedge and plain issue being raised.
So start a campaign to have it taken down. I doubt you'll get much resistance. Even the left wing Huffington Post is strongly against it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alex-storozynski/us-honors-stalin-on-hallo_b_363141.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alex-storozynski/us-honors-stalin-on-hallo_b_363141.html
Elihu Yale was a slave trader, and founded Yale University. When are they going to change their name?
Democratic Party members formed the KKK. When is the Democratic Party going to change their name?