"General Lee Statue removed?" Topic

I'm afraid your brother is dead wrong; there is no "opt out" clause in the Constitution.

As for Lincoln's handling of so-called traitors, I suggest you review the text of his Second Inaugural Address.

It mostly just says that each state was a semi-sovereign part of the whole, again most likely because the people in charge didn't want to lose power. And later states came into being because it was convenient at the time, like how europeans divied up Africa and the Middle East.

We really should reorganize into better thought out regions.

I'm quite surprised that as it is a nation of "United States" that there isn't an opt out clause for a state to leave if it's citizens decide to.

If the Confederate statues have to be removed, then I suppose those of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson will also have to go. They both owned slaves after all.

The Washington Monument in DC should be torn down immediately. It's such an eyesore.

Washington DC and State should also be renamed. MLK and Malcolm X would be good names.

What's good for the goose…..

Throughout the 1980s and part of the 19902 the English Flag (not to be confused with the Union Jack – The British Flag), was considered a symbol of right wing hate.
The focus then was to win back the flag, to reclaim it and focus on defeating by argument the people who both soiled its meaning and those who ranted about it being a racist rag.
I think that battle is now won.
The same should apply to the statues, they are not racist. Fight the battle against both the far right and the rabid left

Ostrowski, as far as I can figure it, that exactly what the SJ thugs want to do. Nothing to stop them either. I'll soon have to protect my CSA minis from them.

ehm….i want to take advantage of OG special offers and buy a lot of Colonial AZW red coats, mounted Boers ecc…..do you think i must be quick in do in so..or the STASI police of the political correct will force to remove for production those small statues?

This may all soon be moot – the option to remove these monuments to a museum and have the historical context given for them is, it seems to me, the correct thing to do. But the clock is ticking on that option – the longer this is delayed the more they will be toppled.

If they'd been allowed to fade into history there wouldn't have been such a problem – eventually they'd have been as empty of meaning as a statue of a medieval monarch. Allowing them to act as rallying points for racists and neo-Nazis was always going to be a route to their eventual removal, because what is the alternative?

I agree with 20th Maine that placing the statues in a museum with the correct historical context is a good solution (and I consider the battlefields as a museum). I don't see how anyone can be reasonably offended by that move.

One thing I didn't know about all of this is that most of these statues were mass produced cast iron shells that were purchased by local groups around the south. They weren't bespoke pieces of art so much as dollar shop cheap statues.

Twitter thread with lots more information:

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Well I'll be dammed! The things you learn on TMP!

I sense a pattern here, they can't refute arguments so go back to some defensive self-confirming paranoid delusion. Y'all are going to have go martyr yourselves somewhere else, no one's coming for your little men.

I should be amazed at grown men acting like this, but

Have fun with your persecution complexes.

Yeah, reading that thread. Just like I said, the statues were a propaganda campaign to consolidate the South. No different than Kings and Emperors stamping their image on money or spamming statues of themselves everywhere to try and gain legitimacy.

Bringing them down will let real history be told. :)

Wolfgangbrooks, ….what?!?

Nurse!

Wonder how long it will be before Fort Bragg, Fort Hood & Fort Benning are renamed? All three U.S. Army institutions and a substantial part of U.S. Army operations today.

Would that really be a loss? Hood and Bragg were both terrible generals and apparently this Benning guy who I hadn't actually heard of before was a pretty terrible person.

Old Abe Lincoln was a terrible racist. Many of his pronouncements from the time attest as such.

He must go from the DC statue and be removed from the bank notes.

At least Robert E Lee was a great general…..

It's hard to believe your slippery slope whataboutism is in good faith when Abe Lincoln is considered the greatest president of our nation, kept our country together, and freed the enslaved.

Muggins
Sorry, but we've got to be consistent. One goes, they ALL go…including Lincoln.

If Thomas Jefferson had been alive during the Civil War, would he not have been on the side of the Confederacy? He probably would have tried hard to avoid war, but once it came, which side do you think he would have been on?

Luckily, we don't have to worry about that stuff, because he didn't lead a traitorous (to America) army that was on the wrong side of history, and more importantly, his cause wasn't co-opted by vicious racists to keep a certain race subservient.

@ostrowski, no, we don't, because this isn't kindergarten and we have real logic capabilities.

Hey! Let's not single out Jefferson!

If being a slaveholder means you would have been a Confederate, 41 out of 56 signatories of the Declaration of Independence would have been on the Grey Team!

What if the South had control of the Congress before the ACW and passed laws making factory work (Slave labor) a crime. Would not the North do the same as the South to protect themselves?

"Maybe we should keep the Lee statue up but with more plaques saying stuff about how he viewed and treated slaves and free blacks, how he was responsible for one of the worst losses of life on American soil, how he propped up an ideology that continues to poison the country to this day? That this man was the definition of the banality of evil and had no redeeming qualities that weren't superficial to the extreme. Would that make you happy? Is that a solution for you guys?"

That one statement shows your complete ignorance of history.

"I'm afraid your brother is dead wrong; there is no "opt out" clause in the Constitution."

You are partially correct sir. While there wasn't an opt out clause in the Constitution, several of the initial states that ratified it, thus making it law, including Virginia, specifically reserved the right to leave the Union if they found it oppressive. Virginia did it as part of their document of ratification.

Dn Jackson- Sorry, those "exclusions" had no weight as they were one sided. The government NEVER acknowledged them as having any force of law. And, in any case, the ACW settle the matter once and for all. No less than Antonin Scalia weighed in on that.

That one statement shows your complete ignorance of history.

Actually, he's not far off the point (if well over the top).

In any case, its moot. Most (if not all) of the statues in question have more to do with promoting the Lost Cause (and segregation; one of those "Southern Heritage" values…) than honoring the military career of the man depicted.

SO… I ask you this, DN Jackson- If the statues are ONLY to honor one's military career, why is there NO statues in the South honoring one of Lee's foremost subordinates- James Longstreet? Answer me THAT one…

What if the South had control of the Congress before the ACW …

They did (read your history). That's how the Fugitive Slave Act got passed and enforced. Before the war, the South held heavy control over Congress. It wasn't until they started losing control that they threw a hissy fit and seceded.

One thing I didn't know about all of this is that most of these statues were mass produced cast iron shells that were purchased by local groups around the south. They weren't bespoke pieces of art so much as dollar shop cheap statues.

And a thriving business it was. One of my relatives owned a foundry that made a lot of money in the trade. You could get anything kind of statue you like: cavalry, infantry, artillery; private all the way to general, whatever your civic heart desired. And yes, they cheaply made and tacky. Many are gone now because they flat rusted away.

@ostrowski, no, we don't, because this isn't kindergarten and we have real logic capabilities.

+1 Muggins. Well stated…

At least Robert E Lee was a great general…..

Really? He lost, didn't he? Can't be that great…
(Just using your own simplistic logic there, sport….)

A comment posted today on Breitbart, concerning the pulled-down Confederate soldier monument in Durham County:

"Here's the deal. In the years following the Civil War, veterans from both sides got together, formed veteran's associations, held reunions, and essentially not only came to terms with each other but healed and bonded together.

They forgave each other. It is these veterans who unified the nation.

The monuments were erected by them, for them, and for us… so we all can not only remember the sacrifice and horrendous loss on both sides but also remember the reunion. Remember that we are a united country, not battling but a band of brothers once again.

Those statues are an honor to forgiveness and redemption.

That the Left seeks to vandelize, desicrate and dishonor these men, our history, our heritage is beyond a mere crime.. it is a moral affront to our civilization.

That these police stood idly by… there is no excuse, those individuals are as bad as the vermin they protect."

I agree 100%.

Jeff

As usual, Breitbart's got it wrong. SOME of the statues fall under that category. But many do not (all you have to do is read the commemoration documents to know that).

Of course, Breitbart has never been much bothered by facts… (Gets in the way of their rants, you know…)

Wrongomatic, Charlie 12.

The attack on Confederate memorials is THE rant of the moment. Nothing that is commented on by Breitbart commenters can compare with it.

I'm not a diehard Reb or a dyed-blue Yankee. Maybe I'm idealistic, but I can respect both northern and southern heroes of the war, human though they were. I understand the sentiment and truth concerning the years after the Civil War which were expressed in the comment I chose to share.

And some of you folks thought it was just about "Southern Statues"….

link

Maybe old Wolfgang Brooks can enlighten us with his profanity laced commentary once again on this subject after he gets out of the DH…

Are there any Washington, Jefferson or Samuel Adams statues in England? I honstly dont know, but would be surprised to find any.

If it is just about honoring brave enemys, how about Ho Chi Min or Giap? I have never yet seen a statue of either in the US. They where skillful opponents who fought for what they believed in.

Or if we are limited to americans who fought against the evil central government we can add McVey and the unabomber, neither of whom killed anywhere near as many Americans as Lee or Jackson did.

And for me this is not abut being PC, as I have not liked the lost cause reverence for better than 40 years, yall just catching up to me. And if you think of McVey as a stretch, remember there are statues out there of NBF out there as well.

The American Civil War was sadly fought between brothers, not with outsiders.

If Americans could reconcile with each other after the Civil War and honor their heroes at the same time, that's America's business and outsiders have no ownership. There are things to admire about Lee and Grant, Lincoln and Davis, etc., even though they were all human and had their flaws

As an American, I have no interest in telling others what they should think about their own heroes, villains, or questionable historical figures. I will leave that up to them. It is none of my business.

Although I'm appalled that some want to destroy or remove Confederate monuments, I have no wish to see these things happen to Union monuments, of which there are plenty. I truly don't.

Uh, Murphy, I don't think we have to worry about ole TR. He's not going anyplace.

The fact that BOTH sides have their nutcases is a well known fact. (Heck, we just has a bunch of uber right wackos crawl out of their basements in Charlottesville..) That there are wackos on the left who get their 15mins of glory (and then retreat back into a well deserved obscurity) is no news. The fact you can't put that in context is more about you than them…

Charlie; the fact that YOU didn't get the context of my message is more about YOU than them….

Lol, posting Breitbart quotes. That author is clearly not arguing in good faith. To wax poetic about all of that and then never recognize the clear reason most of these statues were erected, well, he's telling his readers what they want to hear.

"Here's the deal. In the years following the Civil War, veterans from both sides got together, formed veteran's associations, held reunions, and essentially not only came to terms with each other but healed and bonded together.

They forgave each other. It is these veterans who unified the nation."

And they also enacted Jim Crow laws, suppressed an entire race, burned crosses, and created the lost cause myth. Pure garbage. I have researched my Confederate ancestors and honor them but we know the reasons these cigar store statues were put up and it's not heritage.

"…these cigar store statues were put up and it's not heritage.

And JUST what exactly is wrong with cigar stores????

Lincoln Memorial Vandalized

"The Lincoln Memorial was vandalized with red spray paint early Tuesday, authorities said.

At about 4:30 a.m., graffiti was found on a column at the memorial, the National Park Service said in a statement. The graffiti was difficult to read, but appeared to say "[expletive] law," the statement said.

Additional graffiti that couldn't be read was found in silver spray paint on a Smithsonian wayfinding sign in the 1400 block of Constitution Avenue, according to the statement…"
Main page
link

Amicalement
Armand

Well said muggings.

it's weird that the left and revisionist thugs, still and more todays , wanted to associate Confederates to last a ditch to defend slavery ..while the reality could be totally different. That's a war of destruction waged by North States to destroy a society made up of values, self made success and ethical traditions …i'm almost sure that conditions of those who weere still called slaves were far better in the South than after the end of the war and up to the Sixties..i don't think that the subsequent deportation of free former slaves in urban ghettos, which in practice was a far more eadly form of enslavment, was planned by Confederate Staetes..if we also think at the Union way of waging war Vs civilians..that is in practice terrorism..i suppose the firts statues that must be removed are those of those false liberators…
the only aim of this angry vs symbols perpertuated by the left all over the world , and n this very case by ennemies of United States..is along the line of pure Marxist doctrine: supress any lateral thinking, delete any tradition, scare middle-classe (working class) as to be able , at the end, to suck/stole any resource in favour of a corrupted mondialist élite

Here we see the lost cause myth at work. "self made success"… With the help of 12 million volunteers.

muggins…sorry to contradict you ..but from comments here and out of here, clumsly countered by an avalanche of hot air from the same few, it seem that you are fully entitled to represent "the lost cause"

And they also enacted Jim Crow laws, suppressed an entire race, burned crosses, and created the lost cause myth. Pure garbage. I have researched my Confederate ancestors and honor them but we know the reasons these cigar store statues were put up and it's not heritage.

Muggins
If you can set your socio-political viewpoints aside;(which you might be hard pressed to do); then you might want to do a little more research because some of the worst KKK action never happened in the South. And as a result you can see that a lot of this crazy crap happened all over the country.

There's a statue of Washington in Trafalger Square (where Nelsons Column is)

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The difference with Washington, Jefferson etc is that although they were born into a slave owning culture they are being memorialised for their efforts to found the USA. No-one is celebrating them for owning slaves. It was common at the time, they could have argued against it, regrettably they didn't. Imagine a new nation that declared all its people equal and actually meant it, that would have been wonderful.

Lee on the other hand fought so that one man could own another. He could have chosen to see slavery as abhorrent – things had changed, Great Britain had outlawed the slave trade, the Northern states had followed suite. The tide of history was moving in the correct progressive direction. He looked at the situation and decided to defend slavery. Great general, poor moral judgement.

ITALWARS wrote:

it's weird that the left and revisionist thugs, still and more todays , wanted to associate Confederates to last a ditch to defend slavery ..while the reality could be totally different.

Odd.
My understanding is that the 'revisionist' (I won't sink to calling anyone a thug) approach is the one that is moving from an abolitionist cause to an emphasis on 'state's rights'. We can argue about the reason for this attempted change of perspective and whether it is worth the candle but it is a bit rich to suggest that revisionists are trying to drag in the slavery issue as some sort of cover.