On Removing Confederate Statues


Mike
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14 hours ago, Fether said:

Just a thought experiment, not fishing for any responses.

how would we feel as saints in the following scenarios?

1) A statue of Judas in Jerusalem, even near golgatha.

2) Bust/statue of governor Boggs in the Missouri capital building honoring his great service.

3) Statues of Thomas C. sharp, Mark Aldrich, William N. Grover, Jacob C. David and Levi Williams were erect across from Libirty Jail. Or anywhere else.

4) Statue of Waren Jeffs across the street from the SLC temple.

I know these examples aren't all equal to historical monuments of confederacy leaders or statues of famous slave owners, but to some, those statues can spark the same reaction as statues of the murderers of Joseph Smith.

 

Additional experiments:

1) A statue of Hitler... anywhere

2) Memorial to the Taliban

3) Names of terrorists that struck the US etched on a long wall.

all this is history... do we erect memorials for them? If not, should we keep the memorials for people that are known for supporting slavery or other evil things. This of course would be based in secular opinion so if you support tearing down these memorials you may also be supporting tearing down religious memorials in the future if that is the way the world goes.

Well, I understand that just yesterday UT-Austin announced it was going to take down a statue of Albert Sidney Johnston that they had on campus--the "Johnston" of "Johnston's Army".  

So, there's that . . .

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7 hours ago, Fether said:

I was intentionally making other scenarios where we as saints may feel more inclined to remove statues. The topic of confederation statues doesn't really "shake me in my boots" so, even if it was just for me, I decided to make scenarios that did shake me in my boots.

I totally got that. BUT, it's the transition that strikes me as interesting. It does not automatically follow that if we remove a confederate general/or a religiously-bigoted murderous governor we should also remove George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. IMHO, the left went there because POTUS mentioned it. Once "he who shall not be named" put it out there, it became poison to defend Washington/Jefferson. SUDDENLY they were fair game.

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5 hours ago, Blueskye2 said:

Well it's a discussion that was started by Pres. Trump, when he equivocated and asked the question, are Washington and Jesfferson next. (Further proof, in my book, that the man is an idiot and doesn't understand his office or the oath he took when sworn in.)

POTUS mentioned Jefferson and Washington by using a classic slippery slope argument. Today it's confederate generals. What's next? Founding fathers who had slaves?

So, who's the idiot? The guy who says, "Look what's coming?" or the Leftists who jumped on his suggestion and actually are now making the argument for bringing down Washington & Jefferson?

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3 minutes ago, prisonchaplain said:

POTUS mentioned Jefferson and Washington by using a classic slippery slope argument. Today it's confederate generals. What's next? Founding fathers who had slaves?

So, who's the idiot? The guy who says, "Look what's coming?" or the Leftists who jumped on his suggestion and actually are now making the argument for bringing down Washington & Jefferson?

I suspect it was more an illustration of how (some) people tend to think than of anyone being an idiot. We ought to be surprised if *nobody* had come up with it--it's not new after all. 

Edited by Mike
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2 hours ago, prisonchaplain said:

POTUS mentioned Jefferson and Washington by using a classic slippery slope argument. Today it's confederate generals. What's next? Founding fathers who had slaves?

So, who's the idiot? The guy who says, "Look what's coming?" or the Leftists who jumped on his suggestion and actually are now making the argument for bringing down Washington & Jefferson?

Both have me irritated. Each extremist end is trolling the other, but the Pres. trolling is so unpresidential, I can't stand seeing his mug or hearing his voice. Indecent too strong of a word?

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43 minutes ago, Blueskye2 said:

Both have me irritated. Each extremist end is trolling the other, but the Pres. trolling is so unpresidential, I can't stand seeing his mug or hearing his voice. Indecent too strong of a word?

I'm not sure which offensive trolling action you are referring to. The one I mentioned, where he suggests that if we allow the tearing down of Confederate statues, then they'll go after Washington and Jefferson, was not trolling. Within 24 hours his prediction came true.

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Guest MormonGator
2 hours ago, Blueskye2 said:

Both have me irritated. Each extremist end is trolling the other, but the Pres. trolling is so unpresidential, I can't stand seeing his mug or hearing his voice. Indecent too strong of a word?

Trump is a cad. If he was your (generic) son you'd be crushed. He is beloved by his groupies of course, but heck, even Gene Simmons has groupies. 

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1 hour ago, prisonchaplain said:

I'm not sure which offensive trolling action you are referring to. The one I mentioned, where he suggests that if we allow the tearing down of Confederate statues, then they'll go after Washington and Jefferson, was not trolling. Within 24 hours his prediction came true.

Our our Pres. was trolling with that statement. A troll is most satisfied when their irrational comments incite irrational responses.

Edited by Blueskye2
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1 hour ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I believe this is what Rod Dreher calls the "Law of Merited Impossibility"--the idea that a) liberals will never do a particular thing; but b) when they actually do it, we conservatives will totally have had it coming to us.

Bingo.

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9 minutes ago, Blueskye2 said:

Our our Pres. was trolling with that statement. A troll is most satisfied when their irrational comments incite irrational responses.

Trump was my 15th choice among the Republican candidates. Still, it's absurd to blame the Khmer Rouge/Red Guard behavior of race-identity-Democrats on him. They did this, and they own it. BTW, the latest is a torching of a statue of Abraham Lincoln? What'd he do??? Oh yeah--he started the Republican Party. Now, how's Trump responsible, again?  :rolleyes: 

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/17/abraham-lincoln-monument-torched-in-chicago-an-abs/

 

Edited by prisonchaplain
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10 minutes ago, prisonchaplain said:

Trump was my 15th choice among the Republican candidates. Still, it's absurd to blame the Khmer Rouge/Red Guard behavior of race-identity-Democrats on him. They did this, and they own it. BTW, the latest is a torching of a statue of Abraham Lincoln? What'd he do??? Oh yeah--he started the Republican Party. Now, how's Trump responsible, again?  :rolleyes: 

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/17/abraham-lincoln-monument-torched-in-chicago-an-abs/

 

You don't know who did this...we still have those green frogs around that revel in causing trouble...and just plain hooligans around the country that use any opportunity to cause trouble. More likely a white nationalist would target Lincoln than a bleeding heart liberal. You just don't know.

Our dear Pres. has consequences for his attitude and what he says. No, he didn't order anyone to burn statues. 

Edited by Blueskye2
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Here in Australia, we take a dim view of people who kill Australians. Speaking as an outsider, I'm surprised that some Americans erected statues to honour those Americans who killed other Americans and I'm surprised that today, there are many Americans who continue to defend such statues. I don't think the context in which the killings took place - a civil war - makes the wholesale slaughter any less bad, and those who oversaw it any less culpable. 

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8 hours ago, askandanswer said:

Here in Australia, we take a dim view of people who kill Australians. Speaking as an outsider, I'm surprised that some Americans erected statues to honour those Americans who killed other Americans and I'm surprised that today, there are many Americans who continue to defend such statues. I don't think the context in which the killings took place - a civil war - makes the wholesale slaughter any less bad, and those who oversaw it any less culpable. 

This is an understandable view from an outsider who doesn't really understand that the USA is not just one country.  It is a union of 50 independent countries bound by a common good.  The equivalent to this is like Ukraine fighting Russia.  Except that, if Ukraine would have lost that war, not a single statue can be erected of any Ukrainians because the KGB - Totalitarian that they are - would blast them all to dust.  Now, Great Britain, on the other hand, is not Totalitarian - they are pretty much Democratic, so much so that Scotland's William Wallace Monument still stands erect and proud even as they lost the war to the British.  Wallace still stand as a heroic symbol of the human desire for Freedom.

The US, on the other hand, is not Totalitarian.  At least, not yet.  They are still pretty much very much Democratic so much so that even as Virginia loses the war against the Union, their soldiers still remain revered for their heroic accomplishments, not just by Virginians, but also by the Union.  When this changes - as in, when these monuments gets turned to dust, then the US becomes more like the KGB than Great Britain.

Edited by anatess2
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P.S.

In the Philippines - we have a Lapu-lapu Monument - he won a battle against the Spaniards and killed Magellan.  Interestingly, there's also a Monument of Magellan, the Spaniard (actually Portuguese but he flew the Spanish flag on his ships), across the channel from Lapu-lapu Monument.  Now, what's even more interesting is that the Spaniards oppressed the Filipinos for over 3 centuries eventually losing the war to the Filipino Rebellion.  Yet we still have Spanish monuments.  Spain sold the Philippines to the US instead of handing the government over to the Filipino rebels.  So we have a monument of American heroes like Douglas McArthur too even as we fought the Americans in a battle for our freedom killing a lot of Filipinos.  These people are important in the history of the Philippines and has contributed to who we are today.

Edited by anatess2
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10 hours ago, askandanswer said:

Here in Australia, we take a dim view of people who kill Australians. Speaking as an outsider, I'm surprised that some Americans erected statues to honour those Americans who killed other Americans and I'm surprised that today, there are many Americans who continue to defend such statues. I don't think the context in which the killings took place - a civil war - makes the wholesale slaughter any less bad, and those who oversaw it any less culpable. 

Robert E Lee was a brilliant general, and a traitor to the US. But because we are all of the same country, the Civil war ended differently for generals that fought against the US than say, generals of Germany who were hanged.  

There remains a southern patriotism towards the Confederacy. It's been viewed as something to tolerate and/or something understandable, but times change. Not all citizens in the South have this old Confederate patriotism. I'd say it's fewer with each generation and now the sentiment is turning and the ones who are most offended and outspoken by the turn, certainly don't represent the Southern Confederate patriot who would be embarrassed at torch bearing white trash. 

Edited by Blueskye2
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12 hours ago, askandanswer said:

Here in Australia, we take a dim view of people who kill Australians. Speaking as an outsider, I'm surprised that some Americans erected statues to honour those Americans who killed other Americans and I'm surprised that today, there are many Americans who continue to defend such statues. I don't think the context in which the killings took place - a civil war - makes the wholesale slaughter any less bad, and those who oversaw it any less culpable. 

So...you would be opposed to any statues erected to honor Union soldiers as well? 

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12 hours ago, askandanswer said:

Here in Australia, we take a dim view of people who kill Australians. Speaking as an outsider, I'm surprised that some Americans erected statues to honour those Americans who killed other Americans and I'm surprised that today, there are many Americans who continue to defend such statues. I don't think the context in which the killings took place - a civil war - makes the wholesale slaughter any less bad, and those who oversaw it any less culpable. 

I have little to say in defense of the Confederate States of America. Some have claimed that the CSA's main goal was actually the idea of "state's rights", which is a poorly worded attempt to say that power resides at the state, not the federal, level. But I am convinced this is not so. The CSA was all about preserving slavery. That was the issue, and to claim otherwise is somewhere between naïve and duplicitous on the fault scale.

But it should be recognized that the United States as an entity was only a little over 70 years old at the outbreak of the US Civil War, and there was a strong sentiment (especially in the South) that the federal government was not "the boss of me". So to classify all Southerners, or even all CSA leaders, as "traitors" is reactionary and ignores the subtlety of the situation.

By all accounts, Robert E. Lee was an exceptional human being, notwithstanding being born and raised in slave territory and being married to a woman who inherited slaves (and thus being a slave owner himself). To condemn him for fighting for what he apparently believed as his fundamental principles is to overlook qualities we may wish to emulate. I have little sympathy for a statue of Jefferson Davis, but I have even less sympathy for a lawless hooligan who takes it on himself to destroy that statue. And Robert E. Lee was not Jefferson Davis.

In my middle age, I am beginning to recognize that subtlety is almost always lost in public discourse. Rather than bemoan this fact, I'm considering the idea that maybe we should just accept it and cater to it. Some people are historic Good Guys® and some are historic Bad Guys®. Whether they actually were "good" or "bad" is irrelevant; their symbolic status is all that matters. Let God decide how "good" they really were (or weren't); but for public purposes, we will exalt the Good Guys® and hang the Bad Guys® in effigy forevermore.

But, you know, I just can't really get on board with that. Too much of an ancient Roman empire mob mentality. I expect more of my fellow men, and especially of my fellow Americans. I am doomed to disappointment, but I'm not yet cynical enough to accept the meaningless Good Guys/Bad Guys paradigm suggested above.

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32 minutes ago, Vort said:

Some people are historic Good Guys® and some are historic Bad Guys®.

But, you know, I just can't really get on board with that. Too much of an ancient Roman empire mob mentality. I expect more of my fellow men, and especially of my fellow Americans. I am doomed to disappointment, but I'm not yet cynical enough to accept the meaningless Good Guys/Bad Guys paradigm suggested above.

This new-fangled tear down the statues movement has nothing to do with historic Good Guys® and Bad Guys®.  That would be naivete.  This has ALL to do with the decades-long political choice of the Democratic Party to create a permanent class of Victims® that has gotten more and more toxic especially after the election of President Trump.  Remember all those crying Democrats flying off the deep end on election night?  Yes, those.

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On 8/20/2017 at 1:32 PM, Just_A_Guy said:

I think you have to take the statues one at a time.  Who does the statue purport to commemorate?  Under what circumstances was it erected?  What kind of setting is it in?  Does the statue's presentation demonstrably contradict the reasons for which it was ostensibly placed?  

Some of the better advice I've heard. Reminds me of of the conversation between the characters Colonel Lawerence Chamberlain and Sergeant "Buster" Kilrain in the civil war book Killer Angels (and later the movie Gettysburg). They were conversing about race and judging. Among other things, Sergeant Kilrain said, "... Any man who judges by the group is a pea-wit. You take men one at a time." 

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1 hour ago, Vort said:

 ...it should be recognized that the United States as an entity was only a little over 70 years old at the outbreak of the US Civil War, and there was a strong sentiment (especially in the South) that the federal government was not "the boss of me". So to classify all Southerners, or even all CSA leaders, as "traitors" is reactionary and ignores the subtlety of the situation.

By all accounts, Robert E. Lee was an exceptional human being ...

I agree. I think it should certainly be recognized. And pondered at length. :)

 

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2 hours ago, prisonchaplain said:

So...you would be opposed to any statues erected to honor Union soldiers as well? 

Good point, and one worth thinking about. I think its a crucial difference when the killing was done at the behest of a legitimately organised, constitutional, democratically elected government. 

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