[Simeon_Strangelight]

(05-27-2017 03:35 AM)Excelsior Wrote:  

You're not telling the truth. That is the fundamental misunderstanding here. The position being promoted in service of the confederate legacy here is far from accurate. I've read this thread, and it only confirms this.

Somehow I doubt that the main issue with the Confederate states was Slavery or perpetual enforced inferiority of blacks. This kind of reasoning frankly sounds too simplistic to me. I doubt it is correct and the South consisted of a bunch of lunatics who stringed blacks 24/7 when 98.6% of them never owned a slave.

The argument simply is made: Southern States ALL BAD, every trace of them needs to be eradicated because all they did was killed and tortured black slaves and enjoyed their white supremacy.

We can differ on that. You think that the SJWs are right on that front and honestly I am sympathetic to the arguments.

Mark my words - this is not the end. They will want to come for ALL THE FOUNDERS of the States. They will want to wipe out the founders because some of them were slave holders back then. This step will be followed by others. Maybe they will destroy the White House, because a few slaves were also involved in building of it.

They want all gone of what once was - not because the elite care so much about blacks. Nah - all of this is done not out of love and tolerance, but out of their desire to destroy the old and erect their international ruthless totalitarian dictatorship. You will see it happen.

I oppose this political decision not out of some of the legitimate issues but out of the fact that I see it as a dangerous precedent of utterly painting an entire group as a ridiculous Hollywood villain of no redeeming qualities. I see it as a tool to wipe out and destroy everything of the old system - they will not only wipe out the so-called racist stuff, but they will call everyone a racist, just for being white. You don't feel like one? Fuck you - you profit from White Supremacy nonetheless even if you love blacks and have a black girlfriend. You are a racist just by the fact of being white.

And that is already taught in colleges. Mark my words - this will be pushed everywhere.

That is why I would oppose such steps. Heck - even if you wanted to relatively change the symbolism of some monuments, you could have let ivy, roses and other plants grow over some of those monuments as a sign of nature and truth triumphing over some men. There could have been other measures taken.

Either way - I care too little about the issue to be invested and I have no interest in debating this. WE can differ on it. And for the record - I am not a white supremacist Neo-Nazi and very far from it. I just have a different view.

[redbeard]

“History proves that the white man is a devil.”

-Malcolm X

I'm offended. I demand this street be changed.



No difference.

[SlickyBoy]

Whats most ironic about this discussion at this time is Memorial Day in America was created not long after the civil war to honor the dead combatants - both Union AND Confederate.

Given this, isn't it time the Federal Government stop granting their workers a day off for a holiday at least half-designed to honor dead Confederates?

[Sumanguru]

Great post, Excelsior.

Don't worry, Ex, I'm sure if the topic were, say, violent black nationalism/separatism, all these people defending the confederates as American patriots killing Americans to fight an oppressive system would feel the exact same way about radical blacks killing Americans to fight an oppressive system...right?

Quote:

The argument simply is made: Southern States ALL BAD, every trace of them needs to be eradicated because all they did was killed and tortured black slaves and enjoyed their white supremacy.

And cancer like this is why I stopped posting in the thread. No one in this thread is saying to remove mentions of the Confederacy from textbooks or historical records. If SJWs are promoting that extremism, I disagree with them. What we here *are* saying is that there shouldn't be historical monuments *honoring* a treacherous nation that almost broke the Union and killed Americans.

[Excelsior]

(05-27-2017 04:12 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  

If a person is unwilling to accept that "slavery in the south" was as genuine a cry to go to war as "democracy for the middle-east" then of course these monuments are going to be seen as divisive.

I don't understand this line of reasoning. We're talking about a nation founded upon the defense and perpetuation of slavery and rampant inequality. Are you contending that this is in any way defensible because there was a "genuine cry to go to war"? How is that defensible at all?

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That Lincoln et al didn't give a shit about black people is entirely relevant because once you accept that fact you will see that the premise for the war against the South was a fabrication used to further other unrelated agendas. It should not escape notice that the fall of the South was the beginning of the end for state's rights and the dawn of the omnipotent federal government.

No, it is not relevant for reasons mentioned above. This is the weakest argument Neo-confederates have.

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As for the argument that "it offends Blacks to drive past this every day" well that's a high bar to set, isn't it? There are blacks that are offended by the very sight of white men. Indeed, a growing number of "radicalised" blacks are perpetually offended with everything white people have built in this world, and with the existence of white people themselves. That's why white people see the removal of a historic statue on the premise that "it offends black people" and they think "what's next?"

So blacks are being too sensitive when they take offense to the confederacy and its stated mission (which was, quite clearly, to enslave them)? They're being overly sensitive when they declare they are offended by any act intended to honor people who fought for a state whose cornerstone was racial supremacy over them?

I get that there's been a lot of false outrage and BS promoted by some BLM/far left minorities in the last couple of years. I'm about as annoyed by all this talk of micro-aggressions and "safe spaces" as most of you lot here, but this concern about honoring the confederacy that many blacks have really doesn't strike me as a concern that is nearly as petty as that. It seems pretty natural for them to oppose any effort to honor something that pretty clearly argued for their inferiority and perpetual enslavement.

And hey, if you think it isn't rational for blacks (or any other minorities, really) to oppose this kind of thing, then tell me: how exactly should they feel here? How should they react to this?

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This is just another chapter in the prologue for a racial civil war in America that is going to end very badly for blacks. I'm not going to say they'll be genocided but they are going to learn the hard way that their entire way of life is built on the foundations of white society and welfare provided from printing money out of thin air and using it to buy white-produced food and foreign-produced oil.

Ah, yes. The everpresent claims of the coming "race war", where a horrifically oppressed white America rises and unites against the evil tide of brown humanity to valiantly retake their nation.

White nationalists have been going on and on about the prophetic nature of the Turner Diaries for decades. I guess it was only a matter of time before such prophecy invaded the forum. We've come full circle.

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There is a momentum about this madness and whites are starting to cotton on to it. People say "that statue is racist, and it's just a statue, so get over it", but whites correctly see another point on the flood markers that just went under the water, and brother, it's still raining.

...so the statue is not racist and must stand, then?

[Excelsior]

(05-27-2017 05:59 AM)redbeard Wrote:  

“History proves that the white man is a devil.”

-Malcolm X

I'm offended. I demand this street be changed.



No difference.

So you agree, then? It is rational to oppose monuments honoring/lionizing outright hostility like that?
Or is it the case that we need to re-name Malcolm X Blvd but continue to honor the Confederate cause?

(05-27-2017 04:41 AM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  

(05-27-2017 03:35 AM)Excelsior Wrote:  

You're not telling the truth. That is the fundamental misunderstanding here. The position being promoted in service of the confederate legacy here is far from accurate. I've read this thread, and it only confirms this.

Somehow I doubt that the main issue with the Confederate states was Slavery or perpetual enforced inferiority of blacks. This kind of reasoning frankly sounds too simplistic to me. I doubt it is correct and the South consisted of a bunch of lunatics who stringed blacks 24/7 when 98.6% of them never owned a slave.

Oh, come on. This is the confederate VICE PRESIDENT speaking:

Quote:

The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away... Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it—when the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell."

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science.

. . . look with confidence to the ultimate universal acknowledgement of the truths upon which our system rests? It is the first government ever instituted upon the principles in strict conformity to nature, and the ordination of Providence, in furnishing the materials of human society. Many governments have been founded upon the principle of the subordination and serfdom of certain classes of the same race; such were and are in violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation of nature's laws.

Robert Hardy Smith, of the confederate congress, on the reasons for Alabama's secession:

Quote:

We have dissolved the late Union chiefly because of the negro quarrel. Now, is there any man who wished to reproduce that strife among ourselves? And yet does not he, who wished the slave trade left for the action of Congress, see that he proposed to open a Pandora's box among us and to cause our political arena again to resound with this discussion. Had we left the question unsettled, we should, in my opinion, have sown broadcast the seeds of discord and death in our Constitution. I congratulate the country that the strife has been put to rest forever, and that American slavery is to stand before the world as it is, and on its own merits. We have now placed our domestic institution, and secured its rights unmistakably, in the Constitution. We have sought by no euphony to hide its name. We have called our negroes 'slaves', and we have recognized and protected them as persons and our rights to them as property.

Mississippi's Secession statement:

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Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin…

Louisiana:

Quote:

The people of the slave holding States are bound together by the same necessity and determination to preserve African slavery.

Alabama:

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Therefore it is that the election of Mr. Lincoln cannot be regarded otherwise than a solemn declaration, on the part of a great majority of the Northern people, of hostility to the South, her property and her institutions—nothing less than an open declaration of war—for the triumph of this new theory of Government destroys the property of the South, lays waste her fields, and inaugurates all the horrors of a San Domingo servile insurrection, consigning her citizens to assassinations, and. her wives and daughters to pollution and violation, to gratify the lust of half-civilized Africans.

Texas:

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...in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states....

Jefferson Davis:

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You too know, that among us, white men have an equality resulting from a presence of a lower caste, which cannot exist where white men fill the position here occupied by the servile race. The mechanic who comes among us, employing the less intellectual labor of the African, takes the position which only a master-workman occupies where all the mechanics are white, and therefore it is that our mechanics hold their position of absolute equality among us.

James Henry Hammond:

Quote:

We do not think that whites should be slaves either by law or necessity. Our slaves are black, of another and inferior race. The status in which we have placed them is an elevation. They are elevated from the condition in which God first created them, by being made our slaves. None of that race on the whole face of the globe can be compared with the slaves of the South. They are happy, content, unaspiring, and utterly incapable, from intellectual weakness, ever to give us any trouble by their aspirations.

Georgia Governor Joseph Brown:

Quote:

Among us the poor white laborer is respected as an equal. His family is treated with kindness, consideration and respect. He does not belong to the menial class. The negro is in no sense of the term his equal. He feels and knows this. He belongs to the only true aristocracy, the race of white men. He black no masters boots, and bows the knee to no one save God alone. He receives higher wages for his labor than does the laborer of any other portion of the world, and he raises up his children with the knowledge, that they belong to no inferior cast, but that the highest members of the society in which he lives, will, if their conduct is good, respect and treat them as equals.

This is all coming from the horse's mouth. How much clearer can it be?

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The argument simply is made: Southern States ALL BAD, every trace of them needs to be eradicated because all they did was killed and tortured black slaves and enjoyed their white supremacy.

Nobody is suggesting the complete eradication of all traces of the confederacy from history books or public record. They are suggesting that people not be made to support artifacts of their subjugation with their tax dollars.

Quote:

We can differ on that. You think that the SJWs are right on that front and honestly I am sympathetic to the arguments.

Mark my words - this is not the end. They will want to come for ALL THE FOUNDERS of the States. They will want to wipe out the founders because some of them were slave holders back then. This step will be followed by others. Maybe they will destroy the White House, because a few slaves were also involved in building of it.

They won't succeed because the case is simply not as strong. Confederates explicitly dedicated themselves to the promotion and perpetuation of slavery.
Thomas Jefferson, while a slaveholder, was far more nuanced and complex a character than that.

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I oppose this political decision not out of some of the legitimate issues but out of the fact that I see it as a dangerous precedent of utterly painting an entire group as a ridiculous Hollywood villain of no redeeming qualities.

From a black perspective, what are the redeeming qualities of the Confederacy?

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I see it as a tool to wipe out and destroy everything of the old system - they will not only wipe out the so-called racist stuff, but they will call everyone a racist, just for being white. You don't feel like one? Fuck you - you profit from White Supremacy nonetheless even if you love blacks and have a black girlfriend. You are a racist just by the fact of being white.

And that is already taught in colleges. Mark my words - this will be pushed everywhere.

I disagree. There is a wide gap between opposition to the confederacy and criminalization of all on the basis of "micro-aggressions". There are more than enough minorities who will not oppose efforts to undermine confederate legacy, but aren't keen to support efforts to criminalize whites for merely existing. That is just a false dichotomy, and the fact that the left has received so much pushback even from many minorities for rampant PC extremism is living proof of that.

[Leonard D Neubache]

Answer me this in simple terms.

Was the statue removed in the spirit of forwarding the shared humanity of all men?

Or was the statue removed as an expression of regional black power surpassing regional white power?

Was it an act of love or an act of war?

Why now, of all times?

"It's the right thing to do" is missing the point. The smartest and bravest thing blacks could have done at this point in history is let that shit go for a few more years. The statue didn't kill anyone yesterday or the day before, or the week before that or the year before that. Doing this now was a stupid and tone-deaf move that smacks of retribution for the butthurt of a Trump victory. It has turned what might have been a symbolic coming together of races into the equivalent of a five year old twisting his thumbs in his ears, poking his tongue out and yelling "NER NER".



Not "down with slavery".

Not "all men are equals".

"Die Whites Die".

Try to imagine the response if even one white person did this to an MLK monument, yet I don't see black community leaders racing to the scene condemning this behaviour and decrying the perpetrators as racists with no place in America.

And whites are becoming less oblivious to little details like that. Yeah, it's a shame that a lot of good blacks are getting caught up in this insanity, but just like islam, the moderates who stand by and do nothing to arrest the fanatics are going to find out the hard way that allowing maniacs to hijack your demographic politics means that you don't get to direct the outcome nor claim bystander rights when shit gets ugly.

[Excelsior]

(05-27-2017 11:17 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  

Answer me this in simple terms.

Was the statue removed in the spirit of forwarding the shared humanity of all men?

That seems to be the objective.

Quote:

Or was the statue removed as an expression of regional black power surpassing regional white power?

Blacks have been a demographic force in this region for years. If this was merely about their only just coming into enough regional power to pull this off, the removal would have occurred years ago when New Orleans had mayors talking about "chocolate cities" and the like.

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Was it an act of love or an act of war?

That depends on your perspective.

If you're a supporter of the confederacy, I fail to see how this could be anything but an act of war to you.
If you're a minority (especially a black one), then this is a much more positive act.

Quote:

Why now, of all times?

"It's the right thing to do" is missing the point. The smartest and bravest thing blacks could have done at this point in history is let that shit go for a few more years. The statue didn't kill anyone yesterday or the day before, or the week before that or the year before that. Doing this now was a stupid and tone-deaf move that smacks of retribution for the butthurt of a Trump victory.

Why not now? When precisely should the statue have been removed, and why would that time have been better? Would 2004 have been better? 2009? 2022? When?

Are you saying that you would actually support this move if it didn't coincide with post-Trump electoral Saltmining? That in a hypothetical set 7 years from now when Trump is a lame duck rounding out his second term, this removal would be totally OK with you?

Quote:



Try to imagine the response if even one white person did this to an MLK monument, yet I don't see black community leaders racing to the scene condemning this behaviour and decrying the perpetrators as racists with no place in America.

I dont co-sign that hypocrisy and I've called it out on this forum often enough, but that doesn't justify some of the pro-Confederate lines of argumentation I'm seeing here.

Quote:

And whites are becoming less oblivious to little details like that. Yeah, it's a shame that a lot of good blacks are getting caught up in this insanity, but just like islam, the moderates who stand by and do nothing to arrest the fanatics are going to find out the hard way that allowing maniacs to hijack your demographic politics means that you don't get to direct the outcome nor claim bystander rights when shit gets ugly.

If you feel, rightly or wrongly, that this is a cause worth supporting as part of a balanced response in what you view to be a larger "war", then so be it. You think an eye has been taken and you want to respond by taking an eye of your own - so be it. Go ahead and do that.

Just don't waste time covering this up with all kinds of unfounded, logically inconsistent BS like "the civil war wasn't really about slavery", "the real issue was state's rights", and "they were just defending their way of life" (as if that's cool when said way of life revolves around slavery). Don't stick your head into the sand and pretend you do not understand why minorities would completely rationally retain a position hostile to that cause (as though you would not take a similar position were you in their shoes).

There are, in my view, two kinds of neo-Confederates:

1. Racists/white supremacists who do not like minorities (especially blacks) and long for a world in which they were subjugated in a manner commensurate with the aims of the Confederacy
2. Folks who are not quite so racist, but more concerned with the message Confederate support can send to undermine an increasingly PC world.

I assume (hope) that most folks here are in camp 2, so I ask this: just acknowledge this neo-Confederate line of reasoning for what it is: a cause to adopt some of the same totally unjustifiable and irrationally hostile positions some on the far left have been promoting for years in a bid to even the score and return some of "their own medicine", so to speak. Why beat around the bush? Why pretend there is anything more to it?

[All or Nothing]

(05-27-2017 08:34 AM)Sumanguru Wrote:  

And cancer like this is why I stopped posting in the thread. No one in this thread is saying to remove mentions of the Confederacy from textbooks or historical records.

I stopped posting myself. I think at some point we have to recognize with the removal of the last three statues of the men that this is a racially divisive issue and at some point differing views become irreconcilable due to the racial differences between members contributing to the thread.

[debeguiled]

How the ruling elite see people fighting over symbols:

[Simeon_Strangelight]

(05-27-2017 11:15 AM)Excelsior Wrote:  

Quote:

We can differ on that. You think that the SJWs are right on that front and honestly I am sympathetic to the arguments.

Mark my words - this is not the end. They will want to come for ALL THE FOUNDERS of the States. They will want to wipe out the founders because some of them were slave holders back then. This step will be followed by others. Maybe they will destroy the White House, because a few slaves were also involved in building of it.

They won't succeed because the case is simply not as strong. Confederates explicitly dedicated themselves to the promotion and perpetuation of slavery.
Thomas Jefferson, while a slaveholder, was far more nuanced and complex a character than that.

This is what is happening in Yale:

Some of those black students were recently honored by Yale for "improving" race relations for throwing demented hissy-fits because a professor is white.

Here another liberal college where students occupied an entire building for days now and demand the resignation of a Jewish professor, because he refused to adhere to their demands of a "no-whites-on-campus-day". Essentially he continued classes. Also it is a thorn in their eyes that he teaches biology, which negates some gender-is-a-construct bullshit.

The propaganda and the ideology will spread. It will become more anti-White.

I am not even defending the confederacy here. I don't even care to repeat my points and drag out the black slave owners and and the white slaves that the confederacy in the later stages loved to forget.

I am just making the prediction that the sickness will spread and all this bullshit of constant repeating of that crap will not improve race relations, but make it a lot worse in the future.

Let them take the monuments. I will wait when they take away Lincoln and bomb Mount Rushmore.



I personally would not even protest the removal of those monuments and would not recommend protesting it. It would not matter and it would not have any chance of success anyway. When they come for the Jefferson Memorial, then I also expect them to succeed, because he was a racist. Everyone is a racist and all whites are automatically racist. It is like Jamaican blacks say - US blacks are so incredibly traumatized by all this slavery-racism stuff. It is practically non-existent in countries like Jamaica despite actually similar or worse roots - it is as if other powers are constantly at play here.

So of course the logical end-game will continue - probably until the globalists have completed their Brave New World and roll back this bullshit in one go and it disappears, because it is mostly top-down created.

But yeah - you can applaud it if you want. Maybe it will end with this, but likely it won't.

[Samseau]

Before jumping in, I think both Excelsior and Zelcorpian raise excellent points. However, neither have adequately refuted one another.

Zel: You forget that there was far more hostility to Blacks in the South than in the North. While it is true that most leaders across the USA thought of Blacks as lesser humans, it was not true of the people. Northern abolitionists believed that Blacks were humans who had accepted Christ and therefore did not belong as slaves. If we are to love our Neighbors as ourselves, then how can slavery be tolerated? How can Christians own Christians?

Interestingly enough, a similar thing happened in the 9th or 10th century of the Byzantine empire where some Orthodox clergy attempted to ban the practice of Christians owning Christians.

The South rejected the central premise of Christianity (Love thy Neighbor), and insisted it was their "right" to own someone.

The idea that the South was fighting for more than Slavery is misleading at best. Slavery was THE issue.

Southern leaders by far held most of the blame, who owned >96% of the slaves, who encouraged the poorer Whites to be as racist as possible. The Southern Elites, in order to protect their financial interests, both encouraged and financed the hatred and denigration of Blacks, much the same way George Soros funds the hatred and denigration of Whites today.

But it is for this reason why ultimately Zelcorpian's side of this argument is correct. The vast majority of Whites in the South were ignorant plebeians used by their masters to fight a bloody and costly war, with zero to little benefit for the ones dying for "independence." Thus it is wrong to hold a grudge against them and it is wrong to try and demean their memory.

The speech by the city's mayor ultimately belies the bankruptcy of this thinking:

(05-27-2017 12:17 AM)Excelsior Wrote:  

Read the whole speech. Saw a few typical platitudes, but plenty of truths too (the bolded bits stood out). Looked hard to find where the man lied and came up empty.

Quote:


And it immediately begs the questions, why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks; nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice, the shame … all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans. So for those self-appointed defenders of history and the monuments, they are eerily silent on what amounts to this historical malfeasance, a lie by omission. There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it.

The bolded part you claim is the most powerful part of the speech, Excelsior, is actually the weakest and contains a logical fallacy. Of course, this is the most emotionally manipulative part of the speech as well.

The question to ask is, "has there ever been an attempt to erect monuments dedicated to the remembrance and injustice of slave ships, lynchings, or slave blocks?" (Which of course there has, in the form of slavery museums, but I'm talking about in this particular square of New Orleans.)

If the Democrats were arguing on good faith, instead of racially divisive actions, they'd be arguing for the creation of such statues juxtaposed to the old Confederate Monuments instead of total removal.

Also, should at any point the Democrats erect statues dedicated to the memory of slaves, we can now know that the Democrats are hypocrites and liars, since, according to their own logic, we cannot erect the statue of one side of the slave times without representing the other.

Therefore, according to this Democrat mayor, we must construct museums dedicated to White Supremacy next to every slavery museum in America, otherwise we are committing a lie by omission and rendering historical malfeasance.

The absurdity of the Democrat position is revealed, as per usual, through their hypocrisy.

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For America and New Orleans, it has been a long, winding road, marked by great tragedy and great triumph. But we cannot be afraid of our truth. As President George W. Bush said at the dedication ceremony for the National Museum of African American History & Culture, “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.” So today I want to speak about why we chose to remove these four monuments to the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, but also how and why this process can move us towards healing and understanding of each other. So, let’s start with the facts.


The historic record is clear: The Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and P.G.T. Beauregard statues were not erected just to honor these men, but as part of the movement which became known as The Cult of the Lost Cause. This “cult” had one goal—through monuments and through other means—to rewrite history to hide the truth, which is that the Confederacy was on the wrong side of humanity. First erected over 166 years after the founding of our city and 19 years after the end of the Civil War, the monuments that we took down were meant to rebrand the history of our city and the ideals of a defeated Confederacy. It is self-evident that these men did not fight for the United States of America. They fought against it. They may have been warriors, but in this cause they were not patriots. These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy, ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement and the terror that it actually stood for.

Right, and by removing the monuments, people will be so recognizant of the terror once faced. As it is forgotten with time, it will now be destined to repeat itself.

Ignorance is the greatest Evil of mankind, and more than any other factor has lead to mass suffering.

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After the Civil War, these statues were a part of that terrorism as much as a burning cross on someone’s lawn; they were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city. Should you have further doubt about the true goals of the Confederacy, in the very weeks before the war broke out, the Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, made it clear that the Confederate cause was about maintaining slavery and white supremacy. He said in his now famous “corner-stone speech” that the Confederacy’s “cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first in the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”

Notice the Democrats of the 18th century are barely any more logical than Democrats today.

The part I underlined is a non-sequitur that uses fallacious reasoning; for even if it follows the White man is superior, it does not follow the need for the White man to dominate those inferior to him. Just because someone is stronger does not mean they must dominate others and lord over them as masters.

Lincoln said no less during the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

"God desires mercy, not sacrifice."

The common thread between fallacious Democrat politics stretching over 200 years is the reliance on logically faulty arguments to advocate for racial division and elevation of one race over another. In the the 1850's, it was to advocate for White Supremacy, and in the 2010's, it is to advocate for Black Supremacy.

Hence, you've said it yourself Excelsior, the people following Lincoln were much better than the ones following the Confederacy. Thus look at the people who follow this New Orleans mayor:



We've come full circle; as vile the reasons for having built the Confederate monument in the first place were, the reasons for its removal are equally vile masked with false proclamations of virtue and tolerance.

Instead of working to overcome a divisive past with a common understanding of the events surrounding them, the mayor takes a brute force approach that can only be understood as naked aggression. The same naked aggression that once enslaved the Blacks. Pure power play.

Quote:

[boilerplate emotionism removed]

I just hope people listen like I did when my dear friend Wynton Marsalis helped me see the truth. He asked me to think about all the people who have left New Orleans because of our exclusionary attitudes. Another friend asked me to consider these four monuments from the perspective of an African American mother or father trying to explain to their fifth-grade daughter who Robert E. Lee is and why he stands atop of our beautiful city. Can you do it? Can you look into that young girl’s eyes and convince her that Robert E. Lee is there to encourage her? Do you think she will feel inspired and hopeful by that story? Do these monuments help her see a future with limitless potential? Have you ever thought that if her potential is limited, yours and mine are too? We all know the answer to these very simple questions. When you look into this child’s eyes is the moment when the searing truth comes into focus for us. This is the moment when we know what is right and what we must do. We can’t walk away from this truth.

The imagery of the little child is as dishonest as it gets; it would be easy to explain to a little girl why the monument can remind her of how the goodness of God and power of Love can vanquish and overcome great evil.

Instead, we're supposed to believe that the child knows better than we do - children White Democrats themselves do not have many of, nor do they care of the fate of the millions born to single mothers who cannot give their child a strong chance at success.

Nearly 80% of Blacks are born to Single moms, and we're supposed to believe this statue is holding back baby Blacks - give me a break!

Quote:


And I knew that taking down the monuments was going to be tough, but you elected me to do the right thing, not the easy thing and this is what that looks like. So relocating these Confederate monuments is not about taking something away from someone else. This is not about politics. This is not about blame or retaliation. This is not a naive quest to solve all our problems at once.

This is, however, about showing the whole world that we as a city and as a people are able to acknowledge, understand, reconcile and most importantly, choose a better future for ourselves, making straight what has been crooked and making right what was wrong. Otherwise, we will continue to pay a price with discord, with division and, yes, with violence.

To literally put the Confederacy on a pedestal in our most prominent places of honor is an inaccurate recitation of our full past. It is an affront to our present, and it is a bad prescription for our future. History cannot be changed. It cannot be moved like a statue. What is done is done. The Civil War is over, and the Confederacy lost and we are better for it. Surely we are far enough removed from this dark time to acknowledge that the cause of the Confederacy was wrong.

So let's forget about this bad history by pretending it never happened! Sweep it under the rug. Like the Rotherham rape gangs. As soon as we pretend it never happened, it will all go away.

Clearly the judgement of this mayor is not just bad, but borderline dangerous; this man is naive to a fault, oblivious to the nature of violence and political struggle. It is as dumb as the people who think a "refugee" is whatever the media says it is.

History and respect is more than whatever a bunch of Democrats and judges living in New Orleans say it is. It is within their rights to remove it, but it is also within the rights of others to abhor their poor judgement and complete lack of respect for Southern Whites.

Quote:

[u]And in the second decade of the 21st century, asking African Americans—or anyone else—to drive by property that they own; occupied by reverential statues of men who fought to destroy the country and deny that person’s humanity seems perverse and absurd.[/u] Centuries-old wounds are still raw because they never healed right in the first place. Here is the essential truth: We are better together than we are apart.

This paragraph is so absurd that it reminds me of a Monty Python sketch.

We are better together, so let's separate the history of a huge group of people living in our state from the rest of us. Incredibly stupid and ignorant, or, more likely, dishonest and manipulative. How could anyone honestly believe that removing history will somehow ease the memory of a war?

Quote:

Earlier this week, as the cult of the lost cause statue of P.G.T Beauregard came down, world renowned musician Terence Blanchard stood watch, his wife Robin and their two beautiful daughters at their side. Terence went to a high school on the edge of City Park named after one of America’s greatest heroes and patriots, John F. Kennedy. But to get there he had to pass by this monument to a man who fought to deny him his humanity.

He said, “I’ve never looked at them as a source of pride … it’s always made me feel as if they were put there by people who don’t respect us. This is something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime. It’s a sign that the world is changing.” Yes, Terence, it is. And it is long overdue. Now is the time to send a new message to the next generation of New Orleanians who can follow in Terence and Robin’s remarkable footsteps.

Terrance is as brainwashed as the Whites who died for rich plantation owners to own slaves.

Quote:


Anything less would render generations of courageous struggle and soul-searching a truly lost cause. Anything less would fall short of the immortal words of our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, who with an open heart and clarity of purpose calls on us today to unite as one people when he said, “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 do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
Thank you.

As someone who has read over 100 of Lincoln's speeches, I can personally guarantee you that Lincoln would have been absolutely disgusted at the manner of removal of this statue. No debate, no dialogue with Republicans, no discussion of alternatives (such as erecting counter-opposing statues dedicated to the Blacks sold by Blacks as slaves to Whites, in order to remind us that evil occurs in all colors)... the chutzpah to quote Lincoln is just to rub salt in the wounds of the opponents of Democrats. Again, total power play.

It also makes Lincoln look guilty by association, when in reality he was the good guy of the war.

[Fortis]

What's really making me chuckle in this thread is the implication that southerners are going to rebel over these statues and monuments. Ok.

I REALLY want to use the Jordan gif but Tiger mandigo told me not to use it anymore because I throw it in every post. But I throw it in every post because a lot of things can only invite the Jordan cringe.

It's ludicrous to imply these sorts of things. Really wanna make the south rebel? Try bringing in transgender education for elementary schools or more immigrants for terror attacks, that would hit southern men where it hurts: the safety of their offspring and their future legacy, not some fucking statue. Are you kidding me?

The war fetishism in this thread is pretty funny, though.

[stugatz]

(05-27-2017 11:07 PM)Fortis Wrote:  

What's really making me chuckle in this thread is the implication that southerners are going to rebel over these statues and monuments. Ok.

I REALLY want to use the Jordan gif but Tiger mandigo told me not to use it anymore because I throw it in every post. But I throw it in every post because a lot of things can only invite the Jordan cringe.

It's ludicrous to imply these sorts of things. Really wanna make the south rebel? Try bringing in transgender education for elementary schools or more immigrants for terror attacks, that would hit southern men where it hurts: the safety of their offspring and their future legacy, not some fucking statue. Are you kidding me?

The war fetishism in this thread is pretty funny, though.

Well, I said earlier in the thread that ending the war like we did was an admission of two things: one, that we were accepting the South back as full states, not a conquered country-within-a-country, and 2, we couldn't get *too* angry at them, as plenty of Union states were pro-slavery too and abolitionists were far from the majority of Northerners.

Tearing down the statues we let them put up (alongside demonizing the Confederate flag and Southern history in general) is like saying "SIKE, we actually hate you rednecks. We're going to piss on your legacy now and you're going to sit there and like it."

I lived down South as a little boy, so I can't say this with any real certainty - but from what I remember, Civil War buffs weren't any more numerous down there than they were up North, and they aren't nearly as dedicated to this part of history now that enough time has passed. If you'd done this in, say, 1916, there would have probably been violence, as Civil War veterans were still alive in huge numbers back then...hell, that Birth of a Nation silent mostly used leftover surplus uniforms for the cast. (Even in the 1950s and 1960s it could have gotten ugly, since people who had known veterans were still around then in large numbers. The last veteran died in the early 1950s.)

Tearing down statues and smearing the Confederacy probably won't have a direct result by itself. But did you see the graffiti on the statues posted above? Quite a number of the grievance politics hustlers are seeing this as an opening, and are getting louder and more in-your-face with anti-white rhetoric.

I think that, plus continued bashing and mocking of Southern history in school curriculums, PLUS what you mentioned, Fortis - tranny/gay propaganda in elementary schools, more immigrants forced on the South - could lead to things getting ugly.

[Simeon_Strangelight]

We have to remind ourselves that the men here differing on the issue could have easily found a consensus of any sorts whether it would be counter-monuments, monuments being allowed to grow over aesthetically, additional statements at the bottom that this monument does not commemorate the Confederacy, but the men who gave their lives (99% of them never owning slaves) etc.

Sane men could have talked things over and found a compromise that should have left both parties satisfied. But this thing brings clearly to light the SJW infested madness that is being taught, all this bullshit about White Privilege and institutional racism etc.

Whatever - Samseau made good arguments and frankly Excelsior as well. I don't even dispute your statements about the evil of the Confederacy - those were oppressive politicians who seemingly forgot that some states had a mere decades before laws enacted against the crossbreeding of white and black slaves (because black slaves were more expensive and slave owners thus used this means to bolster their wealth impacting the property value of the pure black slave owners). Anyone defending those fuckers should of course re-examine his head.

Be it as it may - it is done. We will see whether this will be it, or the progressive sickness will spread.




Peace.

[Samseau]

Hey guys, these monuments were built by slaves. We need to tear them down. Maybe put them in a museum somewhere so we can forget about them.

[Leonard D Neubache]

It's of little use making comparisons, and frankly the moral relativism of who did what, when and why they did it is irrelevant at this stage.

Take another gander at this (emphasis added):

(05-27-2017 12:24 PM)Excelsior Wrote:  

...There are, in my view, two kinds of neo-Confederates:

1. Racists/white supremacists who do not like minorities (especially blacks) and long for a world in which they were subjugated in a manner commensurate with the aims of the Confederacy
2. Folks who are not quite so racist, but more concerned with the message Confederate support can send to undermine an increasingly PC world.

I assume (hope) that most folks here are in camp 2...

That's right. If you have a problem with this naked political aggression then you are by definition a neo-confederate, and as a neo-confederate you are either a full blown racist or at best "not quite so racist", but simply a malcontent.

Not that I grew up in the south or have ever been there. My only interest is as a fellow man of western civilisation witnessing a spectacular own-goal scored against an allied nation kicked by subversives pretending to be humanitarians.

I'm not interested in America falling into a strife-ridden shit show. I'm not interested in a racial civil war there either. I'm just telling it like it is.

Here's a cold, hard dose of red-pilled reality delivered to snap people out of their virtue signalling euphoria. If you're easily triggered then stop reading now.

There are people out there who have watched their property values drop to shit as blacks moved into the area. There are people who have watched their districts and cities become mismanaged cesspits under black democratic regimes. There are people who have suffered violence and robbery at the hands of blacks and possibly lost loved ones to murder at the hands of blacks. The people who have lived in fear of racially motivated violence for decades are not black. This is the reality of a disproportionately large number of non-blacks. They are not carrying the grievances of people 100 years dead. They are carry the grievances of the living. And through it all most of them have said "I'm not going to let this change me and become a hateful person".

Then they turn on the television and see a bunch of black grievance-mongers tut-tutting whites over their inanimate, racist statues that hurt black feelings when blacks walk or drive past them each day. A day later they find out that the statues were sent to a scrap yard rather than a museum as promised. A day later they read "DIE WHITES DIE" on what remains of the monument. And yet nobody of import seems to give a shit about that.

But hey, if that all seems just a liiiiitle too rich for your white ass then you can be sure that someone will call you a "neo confederate who's either completely racist or just a sort-of racist malcontent."

So put yourself in the shoes of Mr or Mrs lower class, not so privileged, white bread Southerner and ask yourself "what would I be thinking at this point?"

Heed the warning. Sniff the wind. I'm a world away. I'm not going to be harmed by any of this. But if black Americans think they can just dismiss this business by saying "get over it, racists" then they're a little more tone-deaf than I thought.

p.s. I'm not here to hurt anyone's feelings. I gain absolutely nothing out of getting into this. I should frankly know better. But against my better judgement I persist because I want to warn people about the folly of taking the status quo for granted.

This century is not going to be one of racial harmony, and "people of colour" need to make themselves aware that whites are not going to play the doormat forever.

I'm not a hater or a racist. I'm just the messenger and I deliver the message in good faith. Do not take the status quo for granted.

[Quintus Curtius]

Damn, man....

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that we got two foreigners--a Jamaican and an Australian--arguing about old statues of Confederate generals in a city neither one of them has ever lived in.

[RexImperator]

Good piece from Pat Buchanan on this:

http://buchanan.org/blog/confederates-whos-next-127112

An excerpt:

Quote:

...
When the Spanish-American War broke out, President McKinley, who as a teenage soldier had fought against “Stonewall” Jackson in the Shenandoah and been at Antietam, bloodiest single-day battle of the Civil War, removed his hat and stood for the singing of “Dixie,” as Southern volunteers and former Confederate soldiers paraded through Atlanta to fight for their united country. My grandfather was in that army.

For a century, Americans lived comfortably with the honoring, North and South, of the men who fought on both sides.

But today’s America is not the magnanimous country we grew up in.

Since the ’60s, there has arisen an ideology that holds that the Confederacy was the moral equivalent of Nazi Germany and those who fought under its battle flag should be regarded as traitors or worse.

Thus, in New Orleans, statues of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America, and General Robert E. Lee were just pulled down. And a drive is underway to take down the statue of Andrew Jackson, hero of the Battle of New Orleans and president of the United States, which stands in Jackson Square.

Why? Old Hickory was a slave owner and Indian fighter who used his presidential power to transfer the Indians of Georgia out to the Oklahoma Territory in a tragedy known as the Trail of Tears.

But if Jackson, and James K. Polk, who added the Southwest and California to the United States after the Mexican-American War, were slave owners, so, too, were four of our first five presidents.

The list includes the father of our country, George Washington, the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, and the author of our Constitution, James Madison.

Not only are the likenesses of Washington and Jefferson carved on Mount Rushmore, the two Virginians are honored with two of the most magnificent monuments and memorials in Washington, D.C.

Behind this remorseless drive to blast the greatest names from America’s past off public buildings, and to tear down their statues and monuments, is an egalitarian extremism rooted in envy and hate.

Among its core convictions is that spreading Christianity was a cover story for rapacious Europeans who, after discovering America, came in masses to dispossess and exterminate native peoples. “The white race,” wrote Susan Sontag, “is the cancer of human history.”
...

What makes you think they will stop with these statues?

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

Leonard summed everything up perfectly. ...

[Leonard D Neubache]

(05-29-2017 12:45 AM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  

Damn, man....

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that we got two foreigners--a Jamaican and an Australian--arguing about old statues of Confederate generals in a city neither one of them has ever lived in.

One. That gif nearly made me shit myself. For a second I thought I was seeing things.

Two. The very reason I'm calling this out is because it's got very little to do with the statue and very much to do with growing political radicalisation in the West.

This did not occur in some sort of historical vacuum and therefore its broader implications are quite open to be interpreted.

[Excelsior]

(05-27-2017 08:05 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

But it is for this reason why ultimately Zelcorpian's side of this argument is correct. The vast majority of Whites in the South were ignorant plebeians used by their masters to fight a bloody and costly war, with zero to little benefit for the ones dying for "independence." Thus it is wrong to hold a grudge against them and it is wrong to try and demean their memory.

The speech by the city's mayor ultimately belies the bankruptcy of this thinking:

Quote:


And it immediately begs the questions, why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks; nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice, the shame … all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans. So for those self-appointed defenders of history and the monuments, they are eerily silent on what amounts to this historical malfeasance, a lie by omission. There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it.

The bolded part you claim is the most powerful part of the speech, Excelsior, is actually the weakest and contains a logical fallacy. Of course, this is the most emotionally manipulative part of the speech as well.

The question to ask is, "has there ever been an attempt to erect monuments dedicated to the remembrance and injustice of slave ships, lynchings, or slave blocks?" (Which of course there has, in the form of slavery museums, but I'm talking about in this particular square of New Orleans.)

If the Democrats were arguing on good faith, instead of racially divisive actions, they'd be arguing for the creation of such statues juxtaposed to the old Confederate Monuments instead of total removal.

Also, should at any point the Democrats erect statues dedicated to the memory of slaves, we can now know that the Democrats are hypocrites and liars, since, according to their own logic, we cannot erect the statue of one side of the slave times without representing the other.

Therefore, according to this Democrat mayor, we must construct museums dedicated to White Supremacy next to every slavery museum in America, otherwise we are committing a lie by omission and rendering historical malfeasance.

The absurdity of the Democrat position is revealed, as per usual, through their hypocrisy.

I don't think that's quite what's being said when taken in the full context of the speech. Consider the paragraph immediately preceeding the one quoted above:

Quote:

You see, New Orleans is truly a city of many nations, a melting pot, a bubbling cauldron of many cultures. There is no other place quite like it in the world that so eloquently exemplifies the uniquely American motto: e pluribus unum: out of many we are one. But there are also other truths about our city that we must confront. New Orleans was America’s largest slave market, a port where hundreds of thousands of souls were bought, sold, and shipped up the Mississippi River to lives of forced labor, of misery, of rape, of torture. America was the place where nearly 4,000 of our fellow citizens were lynched, 540 alone in Louisiana; where the courts enshrined “separate but equal”; where Freedom riders coming to New Orleans were beaten to a bloody pulp. So when people say to me that the monuments in question are history, well, what I just described is real history as well, and it is the searing truth.

I interpreted the portion of the speech that we are talking about to be a direct response to the persons referenced in the lines I have emphasized in bold right here. These are persons who claim that the statues cannot be removed because they are "real history".

To answer your question regarding the attempt to erect slave monuments, yes, there has been such an attempt, but that's not the real question here. The question that really needs asking here is "has there ever been an attempt by those who vigorously defend confederate monuments on the grounds that they are part of "history" and important for that reason alone to protect and erect monuments dedicated to the remembrance and injustice of slave ships, lynchings, or slave blocks?"

That is what I think the mayor is getting at. He suggests that the answer is no, and he's writing off defenders on that basis. He doesn't actually think that one must erect a statue of one side without representing another. In fact, I think it's pretty clear he thinks only one side (the anti-confederate side) can and should be represented here at all. He's only making this claim because he wants to use the opposition POV to strengthen his argument.

He is trying to undermine the credibility of those who use these arguments by claiming that they cannot claim to be neutral defenders of history without defending other aspects of history that may stand contrary to the confederate side of things. He is saying that, by their logic (not his), those arguing for the presence of confederate monuments because of their history have to argue for contrary monuments as well, and their failure to do so thus renders their claims invalid.

Check the quote again and this become a little clearer: the words bolded below show the intent:

Quote:

And it immediately begs the questions, why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks; nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice, the shame … all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans. So for those self-appointed defenders of history and the monuments, they are eerily silent on what amounts to this historical malfeasance, a lie by omission.

He's talking directly to that group and making an argument from their point of view. This isn't his perspective. It's designed entirely to undermine the credibility of defenders who use the "it is part of history" argument. He is adopting their perspective, taking it to its logical conclusion, and then using the gap between said conclusion (we gotta have monuments for both sides) and the defenders' actions (arguing only for one side) to undermine their credibility.

Quote:

Quote:

For America and New Orleans, it has been a long, winding road, marked by great tragedy and great triumph. But we cannot be afraid of our truth. As President George W. Bush said at the dedication ceremony for the National Museum of African American History & Culture, “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.” So today I want to speak about why we chose to remove these four monuments to the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, but also how and why this process can move us towards healing and understanding of each other. So, let’s start with the facts.


The historic record is clear: The Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and P.G.T. Beauregard statues were not erected just to honor these men, but as part of the movement which became known as The Cult of the Lost Cause. This “cult” had one goal—through monuments and through other means—to rewrite history to hide the truth, which is that the Confederacy was on the wrong side of humanity. First erected over 166 years after the founding of our city and 19 years after the end of the Civil War, the monuments that we took down were meant to rebrand the history of our city and the ideals of a defeated Confederacy. It is self-evident that these men did not fight for the United States of America. They fought against it. They may have been warriors, but in this cause they were not patriots. These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy, ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement and the terror that it actually stood for.

Right, and by removing the monuments, people will be so recognizant of the terror once faced. As it is forgotten with time, it will now be destined to repeat itself.

Ignorance is the greatest Evil of mankind, and more than any other factor has lead to mass suffering.

His argument is that the monuments are not an accurate representation of history to begin with. Instead, they were created and put forward by a group dedicated to promoting an inaccurate vision of history (one to be visually represented by the monuments) that wasn't in line with the real thing and, thus, has no real value as a tool whose removal would create more ignorance. On the contrary, he's implying that the very presence of these monuments, by virtue of their roots in a drive to promote a vision of history alternative to the reality (and to send a message to freedmen), promote ignorance and their removal would actually enhance the fight against that ignorance.

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Quote:

After the Civil War, these statues were a part of that terrorism as much as a burning cross on someone’s lawn; they were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city. Should you have further doubt about the true goals of the Confederacy, in the very weeks before the war broke out, the Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, made it clear that the Confederate cause was about maintaining slavery and white supremacy. He said in his now famous “corner-stone speech” that the Confederacy’s “cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first in the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”

Notice the Democrats of the 18th century are barely any more logical than Democrats today.

The part I underlined is a non-sequitur that uses fallacious reasoning; for even if it follows the White man is superior, it does not follow the need for the White man to dominate those inferior to him. Just because someone is stronger does not mean they must dominate others and lord over them as masters.

Lincoln said no less during the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

"God desires mercy, not sacrifice."

The common thread between fallacious Democrat politics stretching over 200 years is the reliance on logically faulty arguments to advocate for racial division and elevation of one race over another. In the the 1850's, it was to advocate for White Supremacy, and in the 2010's, it is to advocate for Black Supremacy.

I don't think I'd agree that democrats are really dedicate to any cause resembling "black supremacy". If they are, they've done a poor job showing it.

Quote:

Hence, you've said it yourself Excelsior, the people following Lincoln were much better than the ones following the Confederacy. Thus look at the people who follow this New Orleans mayor:

I've seen those people (the far left) and their work. They are pretty lousy folks.

Then again, I've seen the folks on the other side of the aisle (the far right) and I have to say I don't find them to be much better. There are poor examples of humanity following both sides.

Quote:

We've come full circle; as vile the reasons for having built the Confederate monument in the first place were, the reasons for its removal are equally vile masked with false proclamations of virtue and tolerance.

I don't think the reasons for removal are as vile as the promotion of Confederate ideology, whose logical end game was, quite explicitly, enslavement, and whose prominence gave birth to Jim Crow, lynching, and a whole lot of other unfortunate realities of systematic legal oppression.
The reasons for removal strike me as far more benign, unless you're trying to contend (as I feel a few here might) that those in favor of removal ultimately seek to enslave whites or impose something akin to Jim Crow, lynching campaigns, etc.

Quote:

Quote:

[boilerplate emotionism removed]

I just hope people listen like I did when my dear friend Wynton Marsalis helped me see the truth. He asked me to think about all the people who have left New Orleans because of our exclusionary attitudes. Another friend asked me to consider these four monuments from the perspective of an African American mother or father trying to explain to their fifth-grade daughter who Robert E. Lee is and why he stands atop of our beautiful city. Can you do it? Can you look into that young girl’s eyes and convince her that Robert E. Lee is there to encourage her? Do you think she will feel inspired and hopeful by that story? Do these monuments help her see a future with limitless potential? Have you ever thought that if her potential is limited, yours and mine are too? We all know the answer to these very simple questions. When you look into this child’s eyes is the moment when the searing truth comes into focus for us. This is the moment when we know what is right and what we must do. We can’t walk away from this truth.

The imagery of the little child is as dishonest as it gets; it would be easy to explain to a little girl why the monument can remind her of how the goodness of God and power of Love can vanquish and overcome great evil.

How? How would you explain to a black child how a statue intended to honor a confederate general (and designed to paint him in the most favorable, unrealistically sanitized light possible) actually can serve as a reminder of the goodness of god and power of love to vanquish/overcome evil?
Please elaborate, because I'm really not seeing this.

Quote:

Instead, we're supposed to believe that the child knows better than we do - children White Democrats themselves do not have many of, nor do they care of the fate of the millions born to single mothers who cannot give their child a strong chance at success.

Nearly 80% of Blacks are born to Single moms, and we're supposed to believe this statue is holding back baby Blacks - give me a break!

I think that's a false dichotomy. One need not imply that the presence of confederate statues is the only problem in the black community to imply that said presence is unhelpful to the black community and does more harm than good from their perspective.

Quote:

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And I knew that taking down the monuments was going to be tough, but you elected me to do the right thing, not the easy thing and this is what that looks like. So relocating these Confederate monuments is not about taking something away from someone else. This is not about politics. This is not about blame or retaliation. This is not a naive quest to solve all our problems at once.

This is, however, about showing the whole world that we as a city and as a people are able to acknowledge, understand, reconcile and most importantly, choose a better future for ourselves, making straight what has been crooked and making right what was wrong. Otherwise, we will continue to pay a price with discord, with division and, yes, with violence.

To literally put the Confederacy on a pedestal in our most prominent places of honor is an inaccurate recitation of our full past. It is an affront to our present, and it is a bad prescription for our future. History cannot be changed. It cannot be moved like a statue. What is done is done. The Civil War is over, and the Confederacy lost and we are better for it. Surely we are far enough removed from this dark time to acknowledge that the cause of the Confederacy was wrong.

So let's forget about this bad history by pretending it never happened! Sweep it under the rug. Like the Rotherham rape gangs. As soon as we pretend it never happened, it will all go away.

Again, he's implying that the obfuscation of history you're talking about is forwarded by the monuments themselves, who were erected by those intending to promote a false, sanitized version of the Confederacy and who themselves serve as visual artifacts of that intent. By promoting a false history and sweeping the many evils of the confederacy under the rug so as to promote the notion that it was a more benign polity than it was, it is the monuments themselves that are furthering the bid to pretend history never happened.

Quote:

Quote:

[u]And in the second decade of the 21st century, asking African Americans—or anyone else—to drive by property that they own; occupied by reverential statues of men who fought to destroy the country and deny that person’s humanity seems perverse and absurd.[/u] Centuries-old wounds are still raw because they never healed right in the first place. Here is the essential truth: We are better together than we are apart.

This paragraph is so absurd that it reminds me of a Monty Python sketch.

We are better together, so let's separate the history of a huge group of people living in our state from the rest of us. Incredibly stupid and ignorant, or, more likely, dishonest and manipulative. How could anyone honestly believe that removing history will somehow ease the memory of a war?

Removing the statues is not, I think, a removal of history in the view of the mayor and his supporters. It is, as I've said above, a removal of an avatar of a false vision of history designed to promote a benign confederacy that never really existed.

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Earlier this week, as the cult of the lost cause statue of P.G.T Beauregard came down, world renowned musician Terence Blanchard stood watch, his wife Robin and their two beautiful daughters at their side. Terence went to a high school on the edge of City Park named after one of America’s greatest heroes and patriots, John F. Kennedy. But to get there he had to pass by this monument to a man who fought to deny him his humanity.

He said, “I’ve never looked at them as a source of pride … it’s always made me feel as if they were put there by people who don’t respect us. This is something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime. It’s a sign that the world is changing.” Yes, Terence, it is. And it is long overdue. Now is the time to send a new message to the next generation of New Orleanians who can follow in Terence and Robin’s remarkable footsteps.

Terrance is as brainwashed as the Whites who died for rich plantation owners to own slaves.

How should Terrance feel about this? What should his view be toward confederate statues erected by people who had an explicit goal of promoting a falsely benign, idealized view of the confederacy that whitewashed and undersold the many evils it did to people like him?

[Excelsior]

(05-28-2017 10:34 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  

It's of little use making comparisons, and frankly the moral relativism of who did what, when and why they did it is irrelevant at this stage.

Take another gander at this (emphasis added):

(05-27-2017 12:24 PM)Excelsior Wrote:  

...There are, in my view, two kinds of neo-Confederates:

1. Racists/white supremacists who do not like minorities (especially blacks) and long for a world in which they were subjugated in a manner commensurate with the aims of the Confederacy
2. Folks who are not quite so racist, but more concerned with the message Confederate support can send to undermine an increasingly PC world.

I assume (hope) that most folks here are in camp 2...

That's right. If you have a problem with this naked political aggression then you are by definition a neo-confederate, and as a neo-confederate you are either a full blown racist or at best "not quite so racist", but simply a malcontent.

Not that I grew up in the south or have ever been there. My only interest is as a fellow man of western civilisation witnessing a spectacular own-goal scored against an allied nation kicked by subversives pretending to be humanitarians.

In your view, would a Confederate victory (I assume the Confederacy is the allied nation here) have been the preferred outcome? If you were made Supreme Leader of the Universe tomorrow and were given the power to alter history in such a way as to produce that victory, a) would you and b) do you believe that would have been better for the USA and Western Civilization generally?

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Here's a cold, hard dose of red-pilled reality delivered to snap people out of their virtue signalling euphoria. If you're easily triggered then stop reading now.

There are people out there who have watched their property values drop to shit as blacks moved into the area. There are people who have watched their districts and cities become mismanaged cesspits under black democratic regimes. There are people who have suffered violence and robbery at the hands of blacks and possibly lost loved ones to murder at the hands of blacks. The people who have lived in fear of racially motivated violence for decades are not black. This is the reality of a disproportionately large number of non-blacks. They are not carrying the grievances of people 100 years dead. They are carry the grievances of the living. And through it all most of them have said "I'm not going to let this change me and become a hateful person".

Then they turn on the television and see a bunch of black grievance-mongers tut-tutting whites over their inanimate, racist statues that hurt black feelings when blacks walk or drive past them each day. A day later they find out that the statues were sent to a scrap yard rather than a museum as promised. A day later they read "DIE WHITES DIE" on what remains of the monument. And yet nobody of import seems to give a shit about that.

The anti-whiteness in some corners of the media has been visible and sometimes downright blatant, I agree. The logic used has often been disingenuous and devoid of reason, fairness, and empathy. I get that.

You may conclude that supporting the confederacy is a means with which to reasonably respond to this. That's fine, but the merits of that approach are no less rationally unsound than those of the opposition.

You can fight fire with fire, but it is still fire.

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But hey, if that all seems just a liiiiitle too rich for your white ass then you can be sure that someone will call you a "neo confederate who's either completely racist or just a sort-of racist malcontent."

Those are not quite my words, but I stand by what I said in my prior post.

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This century is not going to be one of racial harmony, and "people of colour" need to make themselves aware that whites are not going to play the doormat forever.

I don't foresee much in the way of racial harmony either. I don't expect whites to be content with the doormat status that some seem so intent on handing them, but "people of colour" aren't going to demure to said subservience either (and they would need to do so in order not to be in opposition to you on an issue like this and accept the monuments as they stand).

Thus, I think we're at an impasse.

This is going to be an interesting century. I hope I live to see most of it through.

[Gaston]

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Damn, man....

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that we got two foreigners--a Jamaican and an Australian--arguing about old statues of Confederate generals in a city neither one of them has ever lived in.

So what? You haven't lived in ancient times either, but that doesn's stop you from expert-lecturing others about the "classics".

[Leonard D Neubache]

Yeah, apparently I still support the confederacy.

Either Ex doesn't get it or he's being deliberately obtuse.

Let me ask you, Ex. Do you support the removal of all Vietnam War memorials or do you support the napalming of children and the massacre of My Lai?

Choose one, because any nuance or attempt to find a middle ground basically means you're only sort of supporting child massacres.

Really. How are Vietnamese Americans supposed to drive past those monuments and explain to their doe-eyed, sweet and innocent little baby girl why America is honouring the men who dropped liquid hell on their grandmother and bayoneted their grandfather?