# Are all Confederate Monuments and Memorials Offensive? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 10, 2021, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-confederate-monuments-and-memorials-offensive/946168 "2021-07-10T16:52:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-confederate-monuments-and-memorials-offensive/946168/61 "2021-07-11T16:20:30Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > They weren’t traitors, the atmosphere at Gettysburg was more like a regular group of tourists. Finally, a good reason for a “like” button. I wish more people would read history. The Civil War wasn’t a sudden reaction to the evil Lincoln being elected. More like a steam engine boiler whose safety valve finally blew. Look at what was being said in the South for the entire 19th century up to that point. Red the articles of secession issued by the states. Find what the newspapers were printing before and during the war. You’ll want to wash out your brain with acid. Nor are the kids who were drafted innocent. The Civil War was nothing like the Vietnam era. The letters and memoirs leave no doubt that the participants were as fervid as any modern day sports fanatics. They not only hated the North, they poured hatred on all blacks, slaves or not. Everything from those years is ugly and tainted, even the genuine suffering caused by the war that they refused to admit they started. Conservatives have always been far better than liberals at manipulating arguments to give themselves all the best slogans, and they never shy away from flat-out lying to erase what can’t be, sorry, whitewashed. They created the Lost Cause as part of Jim Crow and dominated academic historians to put forth an alternate past of glory. We know now a thousand times as much about the 19th century as they did a hundred years ago; no excuse is acceptable any longer. Those monuments and statues erected in the first half of the 20th century aren’t memorials to history. They’re huge honkin’ metal weapons of terrorism, IEDs frozen in place meant as warnings to the coloreds that they can go off in their faces at any moment - which they metaphorically often did. They must - **must** - be cleared away just as we clear up mine fields and unexploded bombs from other wars in other places. We do that to save lives abroad. We should do no less here at home. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-confederate-monuments-and-memorials-offensive/946168/62 "2021-07-11T19:20:19Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Not exactly “burial with honors”. It’s pretty extraordinary in wartime to even identify enemy soldiers at burial, much less give them any honors. “Buried them with as many honors _as could be managed under the circumstance,_ because once they are dead, they are no longer the enemy.” ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-confederate-monuments-and-memorials-offensive/946168/63 "2021-07-11T19:24:23Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Confederates don’t have a claim to honor for heeding the call of duty. They didn’t serve a country because the Confederacy was no country, just an illegitimate splinter faction. Back in 1860, that was not so clear. Many people considered themselves citizens of their particular states first, and Americans second. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-confederate-monuments-and-memorials-offensive/946168/64 "2021-07-11T20:00:20Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > “Buried them with as many honors _as could be managed under the circumstance,_ because once they are dead, they are no longer the enemy.” You put this in quotation marks, where are you drawing this quote from? It’s not in this thread and I don’t see it in your cite. Burying people in a mass grave doesn’t sound like “as many honors as could be managed under the circumstance”. It sounds like honors aren’t really a concern at all. YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-confederate-monuments-and-memorials-offensive/946168/65 "2021-07-11T20:05:40Z")
Yes, I am quoting myself. Post 32. > [@DrDeth](#): > > You know what the Americans did with dead Germans? Buried them with as many honors as could be managed under the circumstance, because once they are dead, they are no longer the enemy. That is what _decent humans_ do in War. The Germans did the same for Americans and British even. Yes, sometimes all that time and circumstances would allow is a mass grave- even for our own guys. But when we had time: [https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/military/article/Enemies-in-war-now-rest-together-for-an-eternity-3227635.php](https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/military/article/Enemies-in-war-now-rest-together-for-an-eternity-3227635.php) _The headstone for World War II German prisoner of war Alfred P. Kafka includes a swastika etched in an Iron Cross and bears the slogan in German, “He died far from his home for the Führer, people and fatherland.”_… _Here, the dead on both sides of World War II are united in death, enemies no more. A German unteroffizier , or NCO, Fader is buried a short walk from the grave of Air Force Reserve Lt. Col. Joseph C. Wilkins of Nebraska, a World War II veteran._ ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-confederate-monuments-and-memorials-offensive/946168/66 "2021-07-11T20:10:19Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Yes, I am quoting myself. Post 32. Gotcha. I disagree. And I think an inscription like “he died for his Fuhrer” is pretty distasteful. But regardless, that’s a tombstone, not a monument. If you want a monument dedicated to the Confederacy’s victims, honoring mostly the slaves they worked to death or murdered and the union soldiers they killed but also those Confederates who were forcibly drafted, I’d be OK with that. But a monument to Confederate soldiers as a whole is just as disgusting as putting up a monument to the 9/11 hijackers. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-confederate-monuments-and-memorials-offensive/946168/67 "2021-07-11T20:15:47Z")
Yes, it is a tombstone, not a monument. And so? > [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > Aimed a gun in the general direction of an American soldier? Sorry, you don’t _deserve_ anything more than a cold wet hole unmarked in the ground. This is what I disagreed with. if we could give Nazis a burial with a tombstone, etc, then we can give CSA dead the same. If we have the time, it is just what decent humans do in time of war. We don’t desecrate their bodies. I agree that Monuments which honor Confederate generals and such are wrong. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-confederate-monuments-and-memorials-offensive/946168/68 "2021-07-11T20:20:08Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > {…} We don’t desecrate their bodies. {…} Who suggested that? > [@DrDeth](#): > > {…} I agree that Monuments which honor Confederate generals and such are wrong. Then you agree with me. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-confederate-monuments-and-memorials-offensive/946168/69 "2021-07-11T20:27:57Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > “Buried them with as many honors _as could be managed under the circumstance,_ because once they are dead, they are no longer the enemy.” So after reading this thread you still think that’s the most awesome characterization of the situation ever? There are times when you should retract and maybe edit, rather than adding italics that weren’t in the original. You will look better when you show the ability to absorb new information. Something like, “Buried forthwith generally without disrespecting the deceased, sometimes with brief ceremony, because once they are dead, they are no longer the enemy.” If you can show that’s accurate. We’re here to fight ignorance and if you haven’t learned anything during the process, you’re probably doing it wrong. You had a good turn of phrase which I preserved. Better to emphasize that than dig yourself in deeper. ETA [RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay): The problem with using the Vietnam Memorial as an example is that it’s unusually creative and well executed. I doubt whether there are any Confederate monuments that display a tenth or a hundredth of its good taste. The other problem was pointed out by [Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase) - it’s difficult to say anything both positive and interesting about a populace that [with some exceptions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jones_County,_Mississippi#Free_State_of_Jones) enthusiastically supported a system that would be considered backwards by most of the world within a generation. Sure you can remember the dead, but singling out the Confederate dead 180 years later seems to lack proper perspective. ---
**Author:** ![Roger\_That](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roger_that/32/8505_2.png) [@Roger\_That](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roger_That)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-confederate-monuments-and-memorials-offensive/946168/70 "2021-07-11T20:29:10Z")
The goalpost-moving here is a Herculean task: “So you want the Confederate soldiers to have lain out in the streets, unburied and spat upon by passing children, picked at by vultures and dogs, nameless and dishonored forever?” “Uh, no, I said I don’t want statues or memorials honoring or praising the Confederacy, an entity that declared war on the USA.” “So you want the Confederate soldiers to…” ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-confederate-monuments-and-memorials-offensive/946168/71 "2021-07-11T20:45:27Z")
On the bright side, at least nobody here is claiming that these monuments to Jim Crow are a just a method of teaching history, presumably without the bother of picking up a book. I used to encounter that argument at this message board a fair amount. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-confederate-monuments-and-memorials-offensive/946168/72 "2021-07-11T23:03:58Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Yes, it is a tombstone, not a monument. And so? So, you’re in a thread discussing Confederate MONUMENTS. No one is arguing that we need to take down Confederate Tombstones, so your post is completely off topic, unless you think those things are equivalent. In which case, you’re entirely wrong. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-confederate-monuments-and-memorials-offensive/946168/73 "2021-07-11T23:27:38Z")
“Aimed a gun in the general direction of an American soldier? Sorry, you don’t _deserve_ anything more than a cold wet hole unmarked in the ground.” Post 13. This discussion is **not** about **statues or memorials honoring or praising the Confederacy** , it is about Monuments honoring the Confederate war dead. > [@Babale](#): > > So, you’re in a thread discussing Confederate MONUMENTS. No one is arguing that we need to take down Confederate Tombstones, so your post is completely off topic, unless you think those things are equivalent. In which case, you’re entirely wrong. Well, you do know what we are discussing , according to the OP is " > [@Ynnad](#): > > I know of one memorial to all of the soldiers who died during all of the wars who were from a particular county. The memorial is on the county court house lawn. The memorial includes soldiers from the C.S.A. While it does contain a brief platitude such as “in loving memory” or something like that, it simply lists their name, rank, unit, and date of death and maybe a few other similar details that I cannot remember. Most of them were enlisted men. So, no, we pretty much all agreed with the Op statues or monuments of CSA general and such were wrong. The question, as **Hari Seldon** so aptly put it > [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > My feeling is that a memorial to soldiers who died is not offensive. So, no we are not such much discussing Confederate Monuments _in general_, **we are talking about those that honor the war dead.** And as you see above at least one poster thinks that even Tombstones is too much. Do try to keep up. > [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > Who suggested that? You came very close. > [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > Then you agree with me. No, never. Giving the war dead a decent burial, even if they are the enemy, is the decent human thing to do. > [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Buried forthwith generally without disrespecting the deceased, sometimes with brief ceremony, because once they are dead, they are no longer the enemy.” I ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-confederate-monuments-and-memorials-offensive/946168/74 "2021-07-11T23:38:23Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > The monument doesn’t name him or depict him, but does commemorate the service he at one time gave I myself might have been a loyalist in the 1770’s. One could argue that Arnold was worse than a plain old loyalist because he betrayed his own side. Many of the revolutionaries thought that. And someone like Lee would have thought that fighting against Virginia was also betraying his side. I acknowledge that these works of art are offensive, and I do not like destroying, or hiding, offensive art. It’s not an important issue, but that’s my position. Reinforcement of Jim Crow was a big part of the push behind creating these statues, and that makes destroying them borderline acceptable to me. But I can’t buy the idea that we should hide away all art depicting traitors. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-confederate-monuments-and-memorials-offensive/946168/75 "2021-07-11T23:44:25Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > But I can’t buy the idea that we should hide away all art depicting traitors. Has anybody suggested that? ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2021, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-confederate-monuments-and-memorials-offensive/946168/76 "2021-07-12T00:22:24Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > {…} You came very close. Ah yes, burying the corpses is very much like desecrating them, I fully understand your confusion. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2021, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-confederate-monuments-and-memorials-offensive/946168/77 "2021-07-12T00:28:49Z")
_a cold wet hole unmarked in the ground._ The Nazis used bulldozers to bury the dead from the Camps. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2021, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-confederate-monuments-and-memorials-offensive/946168/78 "2021-07-12T00:36:35Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Nor are the kids who were drafted innocent. The Civil War was nothing like the Vietnam era. I’m wondering if there then was a difference in the likelihood of the family of the traitor or deserter facing retaliation. Would a southern draftee perhaps have feared that his family would have been shunned, and that his sisters wouldn’t be able to marry, were he to fail to do what most white people, in his neighborhood, saw as his duty? I’m not saying this was the case, but just asking because of your saying you know the differences. > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The letters and memoirs leave no doubt that the participants were as fervid as any modern day sports fanatics. They not only hated the North, they poured hatred on all blacks, slaves or not. Is this based on a recommended book or article we should read? If so – and maybe the research mentions this limitation – there probably was a tendency to save letters showing such enthusiasm while discarding ones incongruent with lost cause themes, or less strident. > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Conservatives have always been far better than liberals at manipulating arguments to give themselves all the best slogans . . . That gives me something to think about. [Here’s some raw material.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_slogans) It’s hard to for me to think of a stronger recent slogan than Black Lives Matter. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2021, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-confederate-monuments-and-memorials-offensive/946168/79 "2021-07-12T00:38:03Z")
> **image of dead bodies** > > [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/My\_Lai\_massacre.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/My_Lai_massacre.jpg) Sadly, they couldn’t find a bulldozer in a timely fashion to bury the civilians in Mỹ Lai. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2021, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-confederate-monuments-and-memorials-offensive/946168/80 "2021-07-12T00:43:09Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > I’m wondering if there then was a difference in the likelihood of the family of the traitor or deserter facing retaliation. Would a southern draftee perhaps have feared that his family would have been shunned, and that his sisters wouldn’t be able to marry, were he to fail to do what most white people, in his neighborhood, saw as his duty? Deserters and draft dodgers were frequently executed by the CSA Home Guard. I do not think we executed many during the Vietnam war. > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The letters and memoirs leave no doubt that the participants were as fervid as any modern day sports fanatics. They not only hated the North, they poured hatred on all blacks, slaves or not. Everything from those years is ugly and tainted, even the genuine suffering caused by the war that they refused to admit they started. Many of them, yes, in fact most, but by no means all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-confederate-monuments-and-memorials-offensive/946168.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-confederate-monuments-and-memorials-offensive/946168.md?page=5)