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Obama asked not to lay a wreath on the Confederate Veterans memorial.

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Posts

  • necroSYSnecroSYS Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited May 2009
    Sheep wrote: »

    Any rational person

    Pretty sure this thread proves that Pants_B is not within that particular Venn circle.

    necroSYS on
  • RoyceSraphimRoyceSraphim Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    necroSYS wrote: »
    Sheep wrote: »

    Any rational person

    Pretty sure this thread proves that Pants_B is not within that particular Venn circle.

    I can smell the rancid comeback coming down the chute.

    RoyceSraphim on
  • IncenjucarIncenjucar VChatter Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Sheep wrote: »
    Being forced to live on a company funded farm (a plantation if you will), without any personal posessions, with all of your "wages" garnished and being forced to live off of food that the company provides you with, with your only other option being to quit and you and your family die from starvation. If you were lucky enough to quit, since many companies wouldn't allow it since working for them actually incurred irreversible debt.

    Sounds alot like slavery to me.

    But, I guess since it happened in the North then it's not.
    No when it isn't slavery it isn't as bad.

    Any rational person would call that slavery.

    Slavery is a very specific thing and Indentured Servitude is a very specific thing. They have a lot in common, yes, but so does dying from having your brain ripped out and dying from having your heart ripped out. But they are not the same.

    Oddly enough, in many periods of history, being a slave was actually a lot better than being an indentured servant.

    Just not in the US.

    Incenjucar on
  • RoyceSraphimRoyceSraphim Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Incenjucar wrote: »
    Sheep wrote: »
    Being forced to live on a company funded farm (a plantation if you will), without any personal posessions, with all of your "wages" garnished and being forced to live off of food that the company provides you with, with your only other option being to quit and you and your family die from starvation. If you were lucky enough to quit, since many companies wouldn't allow it since working for them actually incurred irreversible debt.

    Sounds alot like slavery to me.

    But, I guess since it happened in the North then it's not.
    No when it isn't slavery it isn't as bad.

    Any rational person would call that slavery.

    Slavery is a very specific thing and Indentured Servitude is a very specific thing. They have a lot in common, yes, but so does dying from having your brain ripped out and dying from having your heart ripped out. But they are not the same.

    Thank you

    In the end, death is the result, just as with these social constructs, the result was inhumane suffering in all but the most outlier of cases.

    Thank you

    RoyceSraphim on
  • BloodySlothBloodySloth Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    I'm not sure if those people were able to be set free without any debts after a contractual period of time, which is what would constitute indentured service.

    BloodySloth on
  • IncenjucarIncenjucar VChatter Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    edited May 2009

    Thank you

    But in the end, death is the result, just as with these social constructs, the result was inhumane suffering in all but the most outlier of cases.

    Thank you

    Yes. This is also true if you drink the water in Mexico.

    Incenjucar on
  • RoyceSraphimRoyceSraphim Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Incenjucar wrote: »

    Thank you

    But in the end, death is the result, just as with these social constructs, the result was inhumane suffering in all but the most outlier of cases.

    Thank you

    Yes. This is also true if you drink the water in Mexico.

    I think that was in a Walker: Texas Ranger episode as well...

    RoyceSraphim on
  • JudgementJudgement Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Incenjucar wrote: »

    Thank you

    But in the end, death is the result, just as with these social constructs, the result was inhumane suffering in all but the most outlier of cases.

    Thank you

    Yes. This is also true if you drink the water in Mexico.

    I think that was in a Walker: Texas Ranger episode as well...

    Ironically, it was in an episode where a big Industrial giant was polluting the river nearby.

    But since they did it in the North it's not as bad. :P

    Judgement on
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  • Ed321Ed321 Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Just jumping in here, not an American so obviously I'm nowhere near as educated on the subject as you guys - the entire sum of my knowledge on the civil war involves the same bits and pieces of knowledge most foreigners would know and historian Robert Kagan's Dangerous Nation, which isn't even specifically about the war.

    Personally I'm with PantsB with regards to the idea of there being a moral equivalency between N and S, for example in terms of the horrendous working conditions in the North and the institution of Slavery in the North. I'm sorry Sheep but Pants makes very good points - people under that particular form of the 'truck system' had considerably more rights than slaves, the institution itself did not reinforce the belief of its parent society in the legitimacy of racial superiority, and the state itself did not revolve around it - hence there were no civil wars when it was banned (IIRC, by law). You can rightly attack it all you want, but it's not slavery. It doesn't meet the accepted definition of slavery. One cannot call the North a "Debt Bondage State" like we can the South a "Slave State".

    With regards to the Slavery and Southerners themselves, there are countless letters written by ordinary Southerners, be they grunts, civilians or actual slaveholders themselves, that express a belief in the importance of maintaining slavery in the South, and that the war is just for this reason. It wasn't the only issue at stake, but it was the primary one. And vice versa for Northerners.

    Nobody is saying the North was perfect and the South was the devil. But just as people can write approvingly, say, of aspects of the Roman Republic or Athens whilst aware of the fact that if transplanted into the modern world we would probably regard them as repulsive, I don't think the importance of Lincoln's decision to go to war and the destruction of the slave system in the South can be overstated. Personally, I find the idea of a Confederacy that had won or fought to a stalemate in the war absolutely terrifying, considering its well-documented and very real designs on South America, which were vastly more imperialist than the Union's. Imagine what the World very may have looked like just prior to WWII, with a Slaveowning Empire the dominant force in much of the Western hemisphere.

    That said, I do think the Confederate dead should be officially 'mourned', if not 'honored'. I know there's a fair bit of neo-confederate/revisionist feeling in the South, but basically rubbing their faces in the war is only going to deepen existing divisions.

    Ed321 on
  • DuffelDuffel jacobkosh Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Ed321 wrote: »
    You can rightly attack it all you want, but it's not slavery. It doesn't meet the accepted definition of slavery.

    I personally disagree with the idea that the only slavery is chattel slavery. Debt slavery is slavery for all intents and purposes; in fact, it's the most common form of slavery in the world today. A child prostitute in SE Asia may not legally be the "property" of her pimp like a chattel slave is, but they're still bound to the individual through debt and kept doing labor through coercive means.

    This is one reason that slavery still exists in the US - through the debt slavery of illegal migrant workers who are often kept in inhuman working conditions and paid almost nothing. No, their bosses may not own them like they own their cars, but the workers can't just get up and leave.

    Duffel on
  • RoyceSraphimRoyceSraphim Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Ed321, I commend thee for jumping in with a well thought out response that wasn't the stick wagging that we have seen earlier. I would like to point out that you said that people had more rights under the truck system than under slavery. Under slavery, an individual could buy their freedom but were rarely allowed to meet such conditions.

    Likewise, many colored people were allowed the right to vote in the early 20th century but were coerced or intimidated away. Just because a legal right is given, it is not guaranteed that all individuals will be able to access and make use of that right. The difference between free and "unjust" societies and their practices (as was put earlier) is sometimes broken down on whether or not people are intimidated into not using their rights.

    I do not disagree with you, but I do find that the argument of rights verses no rights is not so black and white.

    God almighty, am I like the 12th person to say that?

    RoyceSraphim on
  • BloodySlothBloodySloth Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    God almighty, am I like the 12th person to say that?

    This thread has been going in circles since we got off the Nazi train.

    BloodySloth on
  • Ed321Ed321 Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    God almighty, am I like the 12th person to say that?

    This thread has been going in circles since we got off the Nazi train.

    I could've sworn Hitler lamented the Union win and fantasized about America still being a slave-holding state, but I couldn't find the quote, so I thought better of testing the limits of Godwin's law.

    Ed321 on
  • RoyceSraphimRoyceSraphim Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    God almighty, am I like the 12th person to say that?

    This thread has been going in circles since we got off the Nazi train.

    So we started off in valor for some verses valor for all with a deep undercurrent as to why we forgive traitors that led to the jagged undersea rocks of forgive them so the country heals.

    We rode through a cloud of "SLAVERY= evil" and went in circles before the sun set and the dark cloud of "Nazi = evil = I win" comes up. We made some headway as we compared both events but no consensus was reach and we hopped of the Nazi train and now we walk along the beaches of what is slavery.

    A I depart to do some cleaning on my day off, I leave you with these words. The south was fucked up at the time and slavery was one of many issues that lead to the civil war. The slavery debate was just the biggest and flashiest of them all. We find it evil now as a country but back then we didn't so the debate concerning it is stunted as a result. Slavery was a big flashy issue that could be grandstanded on a pamplet passed out in New York City. Talk of traitors and treason blossomed at the start of the war but was toned down due to draft riots and a number of other things. At the end, we tried to put everything behind us and move on.

    Despite what you may feel about the south and their morals, legally, up to the time of secession, they were citizens of this country and once it was put down with a half million dead bodies, the enemy became American citizens again.

    Drawing the wars of other nations and regimes sounds nice but it fails to resonant with this issue bcause this was a massive civil war with people of the same generation and ethnic group fighting on both sides. The union called the CSA evil at the start and engaged in some revisionist history but after burying your neighbor and brother, you tend to want to move on.

    RoyceSraphim on
  • SheepSheep Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited May 2009
    The union called the CSA evil at the start and engaged in some revisionist history but after burying your neighbor and brother, you tend to want to move on.

    /discussion

    Sheep on
  • EvanderEvander Disappointed Father Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    God almighty, am I like the 12th person to say that?

    This thread has been going in circles since we got off the Nazi train.

    I can tell you from family experience that nothing good happens after you get on a Nazi train.

    Evander on
  • RustRust __BANNED USERS regular
    edited May 2009
    Evander wrote: »
    God almighty, am I like the 12th person to say that?

    This thread has been going in circles since we got off the Nazi train.

    I can tell you from family experience that nothing good happens after you get on a Nazi train.

    Oh my Gawwwwwd

    Rust on
  • Ed321Ed321 Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Evander wrote: »
    God almighty, am I like the 12th person to say that?

    This thread has been going in circles since we got off the Nazi train.

    I can tell you from family experience that nothing good happens after you get on a Nazi train.

    I hope you were open for that to be interepreted as black humour, or I'm going to hell.

    Ed321 on
  • JustinSane07JustinSane07 Really, stupid? Brockton__BANNED USERS regular
    edited May 2009
    Evander wrote: »
    God almighty, am I like the 12th person to say that?

    This thread has been going in circles since we got off the Nazi train.

    I can tell you from family experience that nothing good happens after you get on a Nazi train.

    Hahahahahaha

    JustinSane07 on
  • RoyceSraphimRoyceSraphim Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Ed321 wrote: »
    Evander wrote: »
    God almighty, am I like the 12th person to say that?

    This thread has been going in circles since we got off the Nazi train.

    I can tell you from family experience that nothing good happens after you get on a Nazi train.

    I hope you were open for that to be interepreted as black humour, or I'm going to hell.

    Don't worry, the road to hell is paved with the good intentions of Confederate Officers, except Lee, his intentions pave the way to heaven.

    RoyceSraphim on
  • Ed321Ed321 Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Ed321 wrote: »
    Evander wrote: »
    God almighty, am I like the 12th person to say that?

    This thread has been going in circles since we got off the Nazi train.

    I can tell you from family experience that nothing good happens after you get on a Nazi train.

    I hope you were open for that to be interepreted as black humour, or I'm going to hell.

    Don't worry, the road to hell is paved with the good intentions of Confederate Officers, except Lee, his intentions pave the way to heaven.

    That kind of topical humour is totally lost on me.

    Ed321 on
  • EvanderEvander Disappointed Father Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Ed321 wrote: »
    Evander wrote: »
    God almighty, am I like the 12th person to say that?

    This thread has been going in circles since we got off the Nazi train.

    I can tell you from family experience that nothing good happens after you get on a Nazi train.

    I hope you were open for that to be interepreted as black humour, or I'm going to hell.

    Don't worry, the road to hell is paved with the good intentions of Confederate Officers, except Lee, his intentions pave the way to Arlington National Cemetery.

    Evander on
  • Ed321Ed321 Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Evander wrote: »
    Ed321 wrote: »
    Evander wrote: »
    God almighty, am I like the 12th person to say that?

    This thread has been going in circles since we got off the Nazi train.

    I can tell you from family experience that nothing good happens after you get on a Nazi train.

    I hope you were open for that to be interepreted as black humour, or I'm going to hell.

    Don't worry, the road to hell is paved with the good intentions of Confederate Officers, except Lee, his intentions pave the way to Arlington National Cemetery.

    Nope, still no good.

    Ed321 on
  • EvanderEvander Disappointed Father Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Arlington National Cemetery is built on land that the US government seized from Lee, unofficially as punishment for the fact that he refused to lead the Union army, and led the confederate army instead. (I forget was the official stated reason was, but everyone knows the real reason.)

    Evander on
  • Ed321Ed321 Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Evander wrote: »
    Arlington National Cemetery is built on land that the US government seized from Lee, unofficially as punishment for the fact that he refused to lead the Union army, and led the confederate army instead. (I forget was the official stated reason was, but everyone knows the real reason.)

    Ohhhhh. I still don't get the Heaven joke though.

    Ed321 on
  • matt has a problemmatt has a problem Points to 'off' Points to 'on'Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Evander wrote: »
    Arlington National Cemetery is built on land that the US government seized from Lee, unofficially as punishment for the fact that he refused to lead the Union army, and led the confederate army instead. (I forget was the official stated reason was, but everyone knows the real reason.)
    The government did get sued and ordered to return it though, then purchased it back for $150k.

    matt has a problem on
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  • EvanderEvander Disappointed Father Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Evander wrote: »
    Arlington National Cemetery is built on land that the US government seized from Lee, unofficially as punishment for the fact that he refused to lead the Union army, and led the confederate army instead. (I forget was the official stated reason was, but everyone knows the real reason.)
    The government did get sued and ordered to return it though, then purchased it back for $150k.

    yeah, but that's not a fun part of the story.

    Evander on
  • tsmvengytsmvengy Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Evander wrote: »
    Evander wrote: »
    Arlington National Cemetery is built on land that the US government seized from Lee, unofficially as punishment for the fact that he refused to lead the Union army, and led the confederate army instead. (I forget was the official stated reason was, but everyone knows the real reason.)
    The government did get sued and ordered to return it though, then purchased it back for $150k.

    yeah, but that's not a fun part of the story.

    The fun part is how the government was really using Lee's plantation as a secret breeding ground for their zombie army, hence the graveyard.

    Wait, are we still in the conspiracy thread?

    tsmvengy on
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  • PantsBPantsB Fake Thomas Jefferson Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Sheep wrote: »
    PantsB wrote: »
    Nonsense

    That's called me humoring you. Things I type in jest to make fun of your position, which is apparently a position of whining about "Romanticist Revisionism of the South" while believe that the "North was some Great Force of Equality and Freedom sent down to Spur the Evil South" should not be taken seriously.
    Also when you call things slavery that aren't slavery.

    Being forced to live on a company funded farm (a plantation if you will), without any personal posessions, with all of your "wages" garnished and being forced to live off of food that the company provides you with, with your only other option being to quit and you and your family die from starvation. If you were lucky enough to quit, since many companies wouldn't allow it since working for them actually incurred irreversible debt.

    Sounds alot like slavery to me.

    But, I guess since it happened in the North then it's not.
    No when it isn't slavery it isn't as bad.

    Any rational person would call that slavery.


    First, no it still wouldn't be as bad. The North wasn't and isn't perfect but you continue to try to paint a moral equivalency. Economic freedom is important, but generally not as important as protection under the law. Your boss could still not murder you on a whim, rape your wife because he was bored or sell your kid so he could buy a new pair of boots.

    Second, what you are describing did not exist. For one it was rarely on farms, coal mines were by far the most common culprits. For another, a large majority of companies that paid in scrip were not cartoon villains twisting handlebar mustaches, but economic necessities since few mines exist where stores do. They tended to be shitty but so was all work at that time. It doesn't make it slavery
    necroSYS wrote: »
    the people above tossing out quotes from President Lincoln are not including timelines with their statements, what the President felt at the beginning changed as the war and army progressed. The feelings he held regarding the southern states would have changed after he walked from one end of the Gettysburg battle to the other without touching the ground (squish, squish, squish).

    No, that's pretty much only Pants_B, who keeps tossing out fragments from Lincoln's campaign speeches, his speech to get war funding from the Congress and his Amnesty speech.

    The only speech of Lincoln's I quoted was his Second Inaugural, where he basically said that we need to honor all of the dead and their widows and orphans in order to heal the nation.

    I am rusty on my history, was this after the war?

    He was shot before the war ended, so no. It was Lincoln's Second Inaugural from March, 1865. Probably the best speech ever given by an American.

    Lincoln was shot after Lee surrendered so while the war was technically still on it was all but over. However he was not shot before he delivered his amnesty offer in 1863 for post-war reconciliation in which those who would swear allegiance to the Union and were not above a certain rank in the Confederacy were given a pardon for their treason. The leniency of Lincoln was not pretending treason hadn't occurred, but in pardoning the foot soldiers and regular citizens who came back in the fold. I've included quotes literally from before during and as close to after as exists.


    edit
    Furthermore, this all evades the point.

    The Confederate soldiers didn't fight for the US. They fought against the US and as such should not be honored as US war dead, equal to those who fought and died for rather than against this country.

    PantsB on
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  • PantsBPantsB Fake Thomas Jefferson Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Ed321 wrote: »
    Evander wrote: »
    Arlington National Cemetery is built on land that the US government seized from Lee, unofficially as punishment for the fact that he refused to lead the Union army, and led the confederate army instead. (I forget was the official stated reason was, but everyone knows the real reason.)

    Ohhhhh. I still don't get the Heaven joke though.

    Lee is deified as a personification of all that was better in the Confederacy. He is always portrayed as completely honorable, brilliant, loyal, loved by all and classy. Those he fought against, especially Grant, are portrayed negatively, such as Grant being painted as the drunk Butcher who simply swallowed Lee up with greater numbers when he was at least as brilliant as Lee. Lee supposedly had no choice because his state seceded and its generally brushed aside that he was a slave owner who thought the black race must be kept enslaved and that they should be thankful to the burden the white race was taking on in lifting them up through enslavement.

    PantsB on
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  • SheepSheep Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited May 2009
    PantsB wrote: »

    Lee is deified as a personification of all that was better in the Confederacy. He is always portrayed as completely honorable, brilliant, loyal, loved by all and classy. Those he fought against, especially Grant, are portrayed negatively, such as Grant being painted as the drunk Butcher who simply swallowed Lee up with greater numbers when he was at least as brilliant as Lee. Lee supposedly had no choice because his state seceded and its generally brushed aside that he was a slave owner who thought the black race must be kept enslaved and that they should be thankful to the burden the white race was taking on in lifting them up through enslavement.

    You also forget that Lee was against secession, supported the Union after the war, and worked towards a smooth integration with the North. He even founded several African American schools.

    You seem to forget that he's a very popular figure in the North as well, which I suppose doesn't jive with current rhetoric.
    First, no it still wouldn't be as bad. The North wasn't and isn't perfect but you continue to try to paint a moral equivalency.

    No, I'm not. I'm simply trying to rid you of this idea that the North, in 1866, was some bastion of culture and freedom and that the Southerners should be, at best, forgotten about and completely removed from history.
    The Confederate soldiers didn't fight for the US. They fought against the US and as such should not be honored as US war dead, equal to those who fought and died for rather than against this country.

    I'm glad no one is taking you seriously.

    Sheep on
  • Eat it You Nasty Pig.Eat it You Nasty Pig. tell homeland security 'we are the bomb'Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Sheep wrote: »
    First, no it still wouldn't be as bad. The North wasn't and isn't perfect but you continue to try to paint a moral equivalency.

    No, I'm not. I'm simply trying to rid you of this idea that the North, in 1866, was some bastion of culture and freedom and that the Southerners should be, at best, forgotten about and completely removed from history.

    No one seems to have this idea, so you have succeeded!
    The Confederate soldiers didn't fight for the US. They fought against the US and as such should not be honored as US war dead, equal to those who fought and died for rather than against this country.

    I'm glad no one is taking you seriously.

    It seems like a pretty straightforward formulation to me.

    Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
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  • SheepSheep Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited May 2009
    No one seems to have this idea, so you have succeeded!

    The veritable hissy fit being thrown by many because Obama so much as acknowledged their existence is a large step in that direction.

    Sheep on
  • RoyceSraphimRoyceSraphim Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    The Confederate soldiers didn't fight for the US. They fought against the US and as such should not be honored as US war dead, equal to those who fought and died for rather than against this country.

    I'm glad no one is taking you seriously.

    It seems like a pretty straightforward formulation to me.[/QUOTE]

    Okay, We honor American soldiers that fought in American armies and died preserving our country.

    Confederates were born in America, they are American

    They joined an army, the wrong army to be sure, but an army none the less.

    They died and in their deaths, the union was made stronger, it wasn't what they were fighting for and it was not what many of them believed but they are died and many of them died in ways more painful than you can imagine.

    QED : We lay a wreath.

    edit: I thought Robert E. Lee was against slavery

    RoyceSraphim on
  • Captain CarrotCaptain Carrot Alexandria, VARegistered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Sheep wrote: »
    You seem to forget that he's a very popular figure in the North as well, which I suppose doesn't jive with current rhetoric.
    Robert E. Lee is popular in the North?

    Captain Carrot on
  • tsmvengytsmvengy Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Sheep wrote: »
    You seem to forget that he's a very popular figure in the North as well, which I suppose doesn't jive with current rhetoric.
    Robert E. Lee is popular in the North?

    I think that the idea that Lee was a clean genius and Grant was a drunk bumbling fool is held on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line.

    tsmvengy on
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  • Eat it You Nasty Pig.Eat it You Nasty Pig. tell homeland security 'we are the bomb'Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    They joined an army, the wrong army to be sure, but an army none the less.

    They died and in their deaths, the union was made stronger, it wasn't what they were fighting for and it was not what many of them believed but they are died and many of them died in ways more painful than you can imagine.

    QED : We lay a wreath.

    This is a pretty flimsy justification.

    Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
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    it was the smallest on the list but
    Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
  • RoyceSraphimRoyceSraphim Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    tsmvengy wrote: »
    Sheep wrote: »
    You seem to forget that he's a very popular figure in the North as well, which I suppose doesn't jive with current rhetoric.
    Robert E. Lee is popular in the North?

    I think that the idea that Lee was a clean genius and Grant was a drunk bumbling fool is held on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line.

    So sonsofthesouth.net put up Lee as a racist who believed slavery was wrong and that it would be purged through Christian work as in Britain rather than political diatribes.
    Dyscord wrote: »
    They joined an army, the wrong army to be sure, but an army none the less.

    They died and in their deaths, the union was made stronger, it wasn't what they were fighting for and it was not what many of them believed but they are died and many of them died in ways more painful than you can imagine.

    QED : We lay a wreath.

    This is a pretty flimsy justification.


    I agree, but from my point of view, so is your refusal to honor America citizens whose deaths were a means to an end to preserve our union. We shall soon have National and Federal Tributes to the victims of slavery, the Native Americans, and the Japanese Internment, honoring the deaths of confederate soldiers seems in line with that logic.


    I suddenly realize that I am for honoring their deaths, and that I do not support their cause, is there a diffence for any of you between that?

    RoyceSraphim on
  • SheepSheep Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited May 2009
    Sheep wrote: »
    You seem to forget that he's a very popular figure in the North as well, which I suppose doesn't jive with current rhetoric.
    Robert E. Lee is popular in the North?

    He pretty much bitchslapped every ex Confederate that got hotheaded and approached relations with the North with less than gracious demeanor.

    I would say we keep "popular" in relative terms. Where as Jefferson Davis is pretty much vilified, Lee is known for his demeanor and stature.
    This is a pretty flimsy justification.

    I didn't know much justification was needed to appreciate a dead American soldier, regardless of conflict.

    I mean, if we're gonna split hairs over the nature of the conflict, then we might as well denounce every American soldier, drafted or volunteer, that participated in a war that wasn't WWII.

    I'm not gonna tell my dad he's a dickface for serving in Vietnam. Nor my grand father for serving in Korea.

    Or all of my friends currently on tour, or back from, Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Sheep on
  • Eat it You Nasty Pig.Eat it You Nasty Pig. tell homeland security 'we are the bomb'Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    If you can't see the line to be drawn between wars (even the ones we regret) against foreign enemies with the support of the legitimately elected government and a rebellion against that same government, then we might as well stop having a conversation on the subject at all.

    That being said it gets to another point I wanted to make. In the Vietnam example, we don't celebrate the cause of the war, and we even tacitly acknowledge that it was a mistake. As I posted earlier in the thread, the Vietnam war memorial manages to "honor" the soldiers who died in Vietnam without glorifying or making excuses for the reasons they died there.

    The Confederate memorial is the exact opposite; it is every bit a glorification of the south's fight for the euphemistic "freedom" to own slaves, and is portrayed in exactly that way by the people who erected it and continue to support it. It isn't a solemn recognition of a national tragedy, it's a monument to what the creators apparently regard as a heroic lost cause. That as much as anything is what is being "honored" by laying a wreath there.

    Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
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    it was the smallest on the list but
    Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
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