"US Navy May Rename 2 Ships" Topic

…there are also two active Navy ships connected to the Confederacy – guided-missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville (CG-62) and oceanographic survey ship USNS Maury (T-AGS-66).

Maury, delivered in 2016, was named for Matthew Fontaine Maury. While in the U.S. Navy, Maury oversaw the Naval Observatory and was instrumental in laying the foundation of modern oceanography. Murray resigned from the U.S. Navy and served in the Confederate Navy. He spent the majority of the Civil War in Europe attempting to drum up support for the Confederacy.

Chancellorsville, commissioned in 1989, is named for the Confederate victory in 1863 by the Army of Northern Virginia led by Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson.

The Ticonderoga-class of cruisers are named for American battles – including several Civil War conflicts. Unlike USS Vicksburg (CG-69) or USS Mobile Bay (CG-53), Chancellorsville is named for a clear Confederate victory that paved the way for the Army of Northern Virginia's invasion of Pennsylvania and the Battle of Gettysburg.

The hull of the cruiser contains minié balls and shell fragments from the battle, USA Today reported in 1988. As of at least 2016, the ship's wardroom held a painting of Lee and Jackson…

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Will they be going thru all the history books with black, felt tip, permanent markers too, or will they just be burning them instead?

In either case, that should help boost the employment rate significantly if/when they do.

Will they be going thru all the history books with black, felt tip, permanent markers too, or will they just be burning them instead?

I don't follow this line of reasoning at all. This isn't going through history books with a black marker, let alone buring them. Changing the names of those ships doesn't eliminate any history--only some serious confusion.

Having ships named for Confederate traitors [Maury swore an oath to defend the Constitution and the Union, then fought against the Union] or Confederate battlefield victories makes no more sense than naming ships after Benedict Arnold or the British victory at Brandywine.

Imagine if the Japanese named their ships after Leyte Gulf and Halsey or the Soviets after White Russian generals. Or how about the 'Stalingrad' for a German Warship. No nation blacklined history when they failed to do that.

+1 McLaddie

I believe that this is an appropriate move and long overdue. Honoring the confederacy in any way is simply wrong.

The US Navy tradition of naming ships after battles includes defeats. witness Savo Island (CVE-78) which commemorated the battle of 9 August 1942, as a way to honor the Americans who fought.

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+1 to Thresher, and those who don't understand it, well, that's the problem, innit?

Acknowledging that he was a traitor during the war, by 1868, almost all former Confederates had been given a full pardon. It was controversial, but has stood since then, so technically, they were not traitors. Hence many becoming post war Congressmen, ambassadors, etc. If people at the time were OK with that, why do we think we need to undo that. What good is being served by going back 150 years? Shouldn't we direct our energy into moving forward and improving now?

+2 to Thresher. This is all very PC I'm sure, but like naming Forts after Americans of both sides in the ACW as a sign of reconciliation, so is naming ships after Americans. Those that died on either side should be remembered or Thresher's vision will become a horrible reality.

The people who actually fought them for five years saw fit to forgive them and let them go home to their families. This is nothing but cynical political theater.

B

+1 Blutarski

If the men who fought can forgive, Why can't you?

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan…

A Lincoln

Murray resigned from the U.S. Navy

How can a person who officially resigned from an organization be charged with subsequent treason against that organization?

Jim

If they want to rename ships I can think of a few aircraft carriers they should consider first. Carl Vinson anyone?

+1 to Blutarski

I have no problem with forgiving these individuals, but I do have a problem with honoring them.

How can a person who officially resigned from an organization be charged with subsequent treason against that organization?

He committed treason against the United States, not the US Navy. Prior affiliation with any service would not be the issue, actively taking up arms against the nation was.

I do not have an issue with Chancellorsville as honoring the Union fallen is valid.

As to Maury, I'm in favor of getting rid of the name. Honoring a traitor is quite different from recognizing the history. As has been said, where is the USS Benjamin Arnold?

I'm also quite fine with changing the Vinson and the Stennis.

"Benjamin?"

Ships are kind of temporary items. These two will be retired in a decade or so. Let them go, and don't use the name again.

Grelber

+1 Thresher
+1 pzivh43
+1 Blutarski

Wackmole9, 100% spot on. Too many people forget the "Malice toward none" part.

+1 McLaddie

+1 McLaddie

The people who actually fought them for five years saw fit to forgive them and let them go home to their families. This is nothing but cynical political theater.

I have no problem forgiving them, but that isn't what is at issue here.

Honoring men and their actions by erecting statues to them, men who everyone seems to agree required forgiveness for those actions, makes little sense.

If it is 'malice' to suggest they shouldn't be honored for being traitors, fighting for a government that was the antithesis of our government and values, then I think we have missed Lincoln's meaning in "Malice towards none."

Waving a Confederate flag isn't asking for forgiveness, nor do those who wave them feel what it stands for needs forgiveness. Waving the Confederate flag is also political theatre… the question is what is being stated.

What about Washington DC, should that not be renamed ?
After all George Washington was one of the largest slave owners in Old Virginia, around 317 slaves 'owned' when he died. He did free his slaves, well his wife did the freeing after he died as per his will. Still like most of the founding fathers of the US he was a slave holder all his life. So maybe Martin Luther King DC might be appropriate ?

How about George Washington Carver DC?

Although I kind of like Lootertown or "Lutterton"

About Washington's slaves:

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What about Washington DC, should that not be renamed ?
After all George Washington was one of the largest slave owners in Old Virginia, around 317 slaves 'owned' when he died. He did free his slaves, well his wife did the freeing after he died as per his will. Still like most of the founding fathers of the US he was a slave holder all his life.

What about Washington, D.C.?

Many of the founding fathers were slave owners, embarrassing to be sure, but again, not the issue. None of the men who created the United States of American then formed an opposing government, fighting against the continuation of that Union.

The 'what about?' questions and exteme smearing of the focus to cover Columbus, all slave owners of every time period and the Dukes of Hazzard simply clouds the actual issue being raised about specific actions during a four year war.

So how far does this exercise extend? What was the Indian name for the area around Boston before european settlement? Should we rename Boston because it reminds the Indians of the european invasion?

Now, how about New York? It was built over a Dutch settlement wasn't it so Dutchmen wouldn't have called it New York originally? But wait, what about before the Dutch? What did the Indian tribe that lived in the area call it? And Los Angeles, thats a Spanish name isn't it? What did the Indians call the Los Angeles area before the Spanish arrived?

We have a touch of this happening in Australia too? The challenge is that if we rename everything and pack the europeans off back to Britain and Germany, etc so that our First Nation brothers, whats left of them, can re-inhabit the land what do the European nations do when all of us arrive at the airport? And then it starts over because we know that the Saxons invaded Britain after the Romans but what did the Celtic Britons name the area around Birmingham? Shouldn't we go back to that name? And take down the statues and monuments to Alfred the Great, a Saxon and frankly anyone who wasn't a Briton since they will offend the Celtic Briton people – the Welsh and Cornish?

Where does this all end?

The real issue in my mind is that all this stuff about statues and place names and ship names, etc is a massive diversion from the real issue here. This is actually about the racist attitudes of people as manifesting in their police forces! Shouldn't we start focusing on re-training police officers in Australia and the USA with how to enforce the law without killing people all the time? Is there a level of non-lethal force that could be used? Lets start with the real and present danger first and we can worry about ship names a little way down the track when people of colour aren't dying to police bullets just because they were drunk!

Now … what colour am I going to paint the socks on the Bey of Tangiers Guard Company?? Did they change in May of 1834 or June? And will it really matter on 6mmm figures? Hmmm …. decisions, decisions?

Oh, they're being fairly open about just blipping out history when it becomes inconvenient. Half Price Books gave out a calendar which listed for each decade the most popular music, films, books and such--except that somehow "Birth of a Nation" (1915) simply didn't appear in the appropriate decade.

No, nsolomon, no one's going to focus on retraining police and more they they'll do anything to fix inner city schooling. It's so much more fun to "Racist!" at people, and it doesn't require any actual work or expense.

Now, are those Tangerines Baccus or Adler, in which case you'd better get the color right, or the slightly smaller H&R or Irregular in which case you might have a little more leeway?

Oh. And if the recent vogue for suppression and renaming has ANYTHING to do with treason, can someone explain to me why they aren't petitioning to rename the Alger Hiss Chair of Social Studies at Bard? And why Snowden and Manning are heroes to so many of the Woke?

nsolomon99 – wrong, mate. The whole schmear started with
the ancient Asians (Siberians ?) who crossed the land/ice
bridge into North America who knows how many millennia
ago.

The First Nations people in North America aren't, really.
That moniker belongs to those hardy souls who walked over
what became the Bering Strait.

But perhaps the FN people are their descendants, who can
say ?

Wonder who stamped their immigrant visas ??

So how far does this exercise extend? What was the Indian name for the area around Boston before european settlement? Should we rename Boston because it reminds the Indians of the european invasion?

Really? That is where this is going? Don't take down the statues of Jeff Davis in our nation's capitals because the exercise might extend to renaming Boston and New York?

Whenever there is a significant shift in the balance of the status quo, everyone then fears the swing of the pendulum going 'too far.' Whether 'Half Price Books' gives out a calendar without 'Birth of a Nation' on it is not even in the same ballpark as our Federal government naming their military instilations after men who fought against our Federal government.

Some day, McLaddie, read the passage in Chamberlain's The Passing of the Armies about rendering military honors to surrendering Confederates and why he did it.

The bases--they were camps, then--were named after local military men or men honored by the locals, like Hood, fifty years after the Civil War at a time when the nation needed support from all localities for the next war. And for a long lifetime, Confederate descendants and National Guard units descended from Confederate units fought for the United States with the Battle Flag appearing with us all over the world. (The Chicoms complained about it in Korea.) It may be time to rename those bases now--but I refuse to endorse the proposition until someone shows me a list of the new names. I have no interest in sending the next generation of intel analysts to Fort Chelsea Manning. (Fort Harriet Tubman I could see.)

And you notice everyone on the left is being VERY quiet about what the new names are going to be. That's never a good sign.

@McLaddie

Actually the fears you speak of demonstrate something interesting about majorities; that they also feel persecuted, even while theyre committing persecutions. I say that even in cases where the persecution is either unconscious or due to neglect or indifference.

The fear here is that by renaming a couple of bases, black people will suddenly completely displace white people in positions of authority and will start giving out orders which will in turn lead to 10% of the nations population enslaving 70% of the nation's population.

Someone was saying on another thread that civil rights legislation and anti poverty laws have been a failure. They were quick changes that didnt have long lasting improvements in the human condition they were meant to address. It could be that laws without improving attitudes cant go very far. Thus, although symbols might seem trivial and superficial, over the long term symbols change attitudes.

You will note that several on this thread and other similar ones state that symbols are both important and unimportant at the same time. How can these two thoughts co-exist? Why are old, cherished symbols important for identity, history and stability but new, updated symbols are just mindless, anarchy?

Whatever the truth, with regard to symbols, we can only accept a two way street. It cant be that symbols are sometimes important and others are worthy of derision.

You cannot have a true debate without a proper set of rules. Imagine playing a wargame where one side used Fire and Fury and the other Rally Round the Flag rules?

Some day, McLaddie, read the passage in Chamberlain's The Passing of the Armies about rendering military honors to surrendering Confederates and why he did it.

robert piepenbrink:

I have. It thought it was a magninous jesture, full in keeping with 'Malice towards none." Any number of monuments were placed on battelfields honoring the combatants of both sides. That is not the same as the Federal government erecting monuments or naming forts after them.

The bases--they were camps, then--were named after local military men or men honored by the locals, like Hood, fifty years after the Civil War at a time when the nation needed support from all localities for the next war.

That wasn't the reason or the timing for naming them, and whether locals honored them or not, if the forts and statues were placed because the nation 'needed their support', what does that tell you about the locals view of that 'support?' When you raise a statue to RE Lee to gain support for the Federal government, what does that say?

And for a long lifetime, Confederate descendants and National Guard units descended from Confederate units fought for the United States with the Battle Flag appearing with us all over the world.

And? That was a good thing?

And you notice everyone on the left is being VERY quiet about what the new names are going to be. That's never a good sign.

Really, you haven't seen lists of suggestions being bandied about? [by both 'the left' and 'the right.']
That is until Trump shut down the discussion with the military, insisting our 'fabled' military bases couldn't possibly have another name.

And? That was a good thing?

Yes, of course it was, McLaddie--unless you think the Brits having to cope with the Easter Rising in WWI and a sullen uncooperative Free State in WWII and the Russians and Soviets having to cope with Ukrainian separatists in both wars was a good thing for the Brits and Russians.

And what it tells you about the locals is that they were willing to let go of secession and slavery, without denying their ancestors the respect their valor and endurance had earned, and their own pride in that part of their heritage. Let me know when you find someone with perfect ancestors. The rest of us have to pick and choose which things to carry on.

As for timing, I stand partly corrected. Benning, Beauregard, Bragg and Lee are WWI vintage. Hood, Gordon, Pickett, Hill, Polk and Rucker are WWII. I ought to have said "two generations after the Civil War" and given myself some slack.

And no, I have not seen such lists. And I already see more news than any sane man would want to tolerate.

I do not have an issue with Chancellorsville as honoring the Union fallen is valid.

Chancellorsville is a difficult case.

If we are honoring a Confederate victory, then it seems amiss and should be renamed. The fact that portraits of Lee and Jackson are onboard (or were at one time) lends weight to this argument.

If Chancellorsville is named to honor war dead, then it seems more appropriate, as we have other vessels similarly named for US defeats. But the Navy needs to make it clear what the ship is honoring, and getting rid of anything that confuses the issue.

If commemorating a defeat is ipso facto the memorialization of our foe, then what about Pearl Harbor Day? I guess it has to go, too.

Well the way things are going we should also take out the United and just rename it The Communist States of America.

Cheers!

Well the way things are going we should also take out the United and just rename it The Communist States of America.

Really?! I can only believe is was trolling for a reaction. If that is a real belief, the way things are going no one will know what Communism, Fascism or Americanism actually means.

And what it tells you about the locals is that they were willing to let go of secession and slavery, without denying their ancestors the respect their valor and endurance had earned, and their own pride in that part of their heritage.

Hmmm. And that can only be done by erecting statues to those who fought for secession and slavery, flying the flag representing those things? Have they really 'let go'?

There are many things that that we all have done that we 'have to let go of', mistakes we are not proud of. We don't 'let go' by building monuments honoring those mistakes.

There was a great deal of bravery on both sides during the ACW. There are monuments erected to those brave soldiers on every ACW battlefield, North and South. That's where they belong.

The Southern states have a great deal to be proud of that doesn't require manufacturing pride in their ACW fight for secession and slavery or having that history honored in Federal building and military bases, particularly when that was more than 150 years ago.

MiniPigs:

Yes, I agree with what you say. Fear seems to be operative word today. Everyone is afraid and unfortunately, good decisions are rare when driven by fear. Everyone and everything appears to promise radical distruction. And fear, being the powerful emotion it is, everyone stokes it for their own purposes, from the media to the White House.

You see it in how symbols are used and misinterpreted. A player takes a knee to protest black lives lost and it is seen as disrepecting the flag and the military, though that was never the intention.

The Stars and Bars can mean something different to different people, Pride and oppression. A raised fist or brandishing a gun on the steps of the State Capital are seen as meaning different things. Protests, peaceful or not, are seen as radical looters and Antifa.

Symbols and meaning gets used and abused by political theatre until we have Doublespeak and 1984.

To quote Kurt Vonnegut, "And so it goes…"

"A player takes a knee to protest black lives lost and it is seen as disrepecting the flag and the military, though that was never the intention."

Excuse me? That was EXACTLY the intention. Kaepernick has been parading around with "police are pigs" logos and lauding Castro for years--not to mention his steadfast support of Malcolm X. The left has had to invent a new definition of racism so as not to include him. Nor can any of the kneeling athletes articulate a policy which would end the disrespect. All we get is "the US is a terrible place and we wish it were better."

We ALL want it to be better. We won't get there by showing contempt for institutions and symbols.

Hmph. And I lost interest in what the left wants to rename anything about the time the Harvey Milk was christened.

MiniPigs:

Yes, I agree with what you say. Fear seems to be operative word today. Everyone is afraid and unfortunately, good decisions are rare when driven by fear. Everyone and everything appears to promise radical distruction. And fear, being the powerful emotion it is, everyone stokes it for their own purposes, from the media to the White House.

You see it in how symbols are used and misinterpreted. A player takes a knee to protest black lives lost and it is seen as disrepecting the flag and the military, though that was never the intention.

The Stars and Bars can mean something different to different people, Pride and oppression. A raised fist or brandishing a gun on the steps of the State Capital are seen as meaning different things. Protests, peaceful or not, are seen as radical looters and Antifa.

Symbols and meaning gets used and abused by political theatre until we have Doublespeak and 1984.

To quote Kurt Vonnegut, "And so it goes…"

Forget about kneeling, the Constitution's First Amendment allows burning the flag as a means of protest. Kapernick's problem was that he was performing a publicly permissible activity in a quasi-private forum. I dont know if that was what was argued, personally, I think the outcries against him were mostly visceral knee-jerk reactions, but that was probably his biggest infraction. One might take a look at the Kapernick scene from a greater altitude and ask why a private league like the NFL is using national symbols to begin the game at all?

We use the flag in different ways and some people can and cant interpret that use in a variety of ways. For instance, I have an American flag shirt; is wearing it respectful or disrespectful?

Subjective interpretations of objective behaviors can yield interesting results. For example, when i was a kid, one of my mother's friends mentioned to her that she thought my D&D figures were signs of worshiping Satan.

Symbols are what they are. The difficult part is that there are posters on here that think that their symbols can only mean what they mean to them in their own way. It's a disease of the poorly educated, working class to cling to symbols without examining them in a form of blind faith. And there is a reason for that which includes but is not limited to fear of thinking, fear of empathy as weakness, fear of generosity because of memories of scarce resources, fear of change or admitting wrong, and, as you pointed out above, plain vanilla fear.

And again, moral relativity is a form of corruption. Throwing the Constitution and laws around for your own viewpoint of the moment when you don't understand their operation is the very heart of self serving ignorance. Chasing shiny objects around (like "looters") in a monolithic effort to ignore another's permissible point of view is going to net you revolution.

If policy conservatism is an amazing approach to life, social conservatism is a poison. Lifestyle for its practitioners aside, it's very definition relies unwittingly on a Burkean "no change whatsoever" which in turn demands zero compromise which in turn births being overthrown completely. In other words, you cant call people communist revolutionaries when you are forcing them to become that.

In any case, I see the kneeling as trivial. It's a much greater crime to make us sing the sour noted Star Spangled Banner when it could be replaced with the more lyrical America the Beautiful. But, I suppose the Star Spangled Banner, just like the ugly jerseys of the NE Patriots, has through winning tradition, become awesome.

In any case, I see the kneeling as trivial.

Yep. I was only pointing out the act meant one thing to Kapernick and something altogether different to some observers, regardless of whether he was right to do it when he did.

Symbols are what they are.

I don't agree. They are what we make them of them and they can mean a variety of things over time. The swastika was a symbol of peace for a variety of cultures [Even seen on WWI German planes] long before the Nazis appropriated it…

What I find annoying is when folks use a symbol or terms like 'The Flag', 'Constitution', 'Communism' or 'Fascism' as THE point of loyalty or rejection without knowing or caring about what it stands for…or even being able to verbalize what it means to them.

Oh, so many opportunities!

"you cant call people communist revolutionaries when you are forcing them to become that."

Of course I can, MiniPigs. It's called free speech, and you were in favor of it in the same post. You mean I can't do so JUSTLY--but justice is not what you get when you opt for mob rule and censorship. And while people may be forced to be revolutionaries--in places which do NOT have a democratic constitution and a republican form of government--no one is forced to become a totalitarian revolutionary. We're raising a bumper crop of censors, block wardens and secret police informants, and if you think they'll stop at a point convenient to you, you're delusional.

All of which is taking us far from the original point. The Navy is at least going through proper channels, though it's still a token of the times. Normally, ships being temporary, you simply don't reuse names which are politically troublesome. And I'll stand by my earlier point on that: given the behavior of our ruling elites, I think it's prudent to see what they have in mind for a new name before agreeing to it. I'm still irked at naming aircraft carriers after Presidents, and putting their images on our coins.

+100 Robert Piepenbrink.

B

I'm still irked at naming aircraft carriers after Presidents, and putting their images on our coins.

Interesting. What do you find irksome about that?

Renaming ships- bad luck that.

Do we have to rename the USS Bunker Hill? We lost that one as well. At least Americans won Chancellorsville.