I’m trying to figure out your point - are you a Tory, who believes that America shouldn’t exist as a country and thus Washington (like Lee) isn’t to be lauded by Americans? Or are you a Confederate, who thinks that America shouldn’t exist as a country and thus Lee (like Washington) should be lauded by Americans?
Unite the Right was in Charlottesville that day precisely because of that statue so his latest excuse still doesn’t fly.
One wonders if Trump would praise Bo Bergdahl if he had joined the Taliban, commanded their army, and killed 600,000 Americans.
I don’t think that you have to believe that “America shouldn’t exist as a country” in order to recognize that Washington and the rest of the revolutionaries were, in a very real sense, committing treason against Britain. The revolutionaries themselves recognized this, and understood that they would likely be hanged for treason if Britain won the revolutionary war and suppressed the movement for independence.
I’m guessing that octopus is suggesting that treason is not always judged consistently, and that how we view “traitors” often depends significantly on our subsequent historical understanding of events and our political priorities.
Of course, octopus, being a disingenuous cock of gargantuan proportions, likely only made this point to deflect from the dishonesty of Trump’s comments over Charlottesville.
This is what has always struck me about those who defend the treason of the Confederacy. We’re apparently supposed to forgive them because they really, genuinely felt that they were doing the truly correct and American thing by seceding, or something like that. Because they truly believed that seceding was the only way to preserve (their idea of) constitutional principles, we should cut them slack for acts of treason that led to a four-year war and over half a million deaths.
And yet Colin Kaepernick can’t be forgiven because he chose to kneel during a national anthem. Go figure.
There’s a controversy in my hometown right now involving the renaming of the annual fair. Which currently has the word Dixie in its name. Now, note that it didn’t always have Dixie in its name, it used to just bear the name of the city. It was renamed in 1956 on the heels of Emmett Till case.
And of course the idea of changing the name back has caused a lot of locals to whine about their “heritage”. There is a lot of discussion about it on Facebook. So I suggested that if they want to retain their connection to their heritage, they should rename it The Fair to Commemorate That One Time Our Forefathers Committed Treason and Got Over a Half Million People Killed.
It’s different from the Revolutionary War. For me. Because, today, I can look back at the causes of the American Revolution and say “we were right to fight for what we fought for”.
But that’s leads me to realize that some Southerners also look back at the Confederacy and say “we were right to fight for what we fought for”. And THAT’S what I object to.
Exactly! Let’s not forget that the “constitutional principles” they believed in and were fighting for was the the right to own people.
I’m somewhat ambivalent about the War of Independence, which wasn’t so much a revolution as a revolt by one set of the elite against the others, and in addition, America might have won what it was looking for anyway with the Reform Acts of 1832 (keeping in mind of course that the rebellion changed history so who knows what would have happend.) Was waiting 50 years worth hundreds of thousands of lives lost?
But it’s still loads more justified than the war of southern treason.
If the UK wanted to take down the George Washington Statue in Trafalgar Square, I would have no problem with it even though I have seen zero evidence that it was put there as a way to say “Fuck you” to uppity Brits to show them who the real boss was.
To the winner go the spoils. There is no Benedict Arnold Monument on the National Mall for a reason. Lee lost, get over it.
They even renamed Fort Arnold. To West Point.
"Oh Mr. Dickinson, I’m surprised at you. You should know that rebellion is always legal in the first person, such as “our rebellion.” It is only in the third person - “their rebellion” - that it is illegal.
–Dr. Benjamin Franklin, 1776
Cry, the beloved country.
He also pretty much called Democrats “gun grabbers” when addressing the NRA the other day.
True enough. And it is a dark and hateful thing to say. But to foist such accusations on someone facing a wretchedly painful set of decisions is blasphemy. And these words are not nearly strong enough.
That has been my mantra since Christmas of 2016.
Seen on Twitter today:
The dumbass does not know the term length for president. Come to think of it, his thinking it’s six years does make sense. After all, that is what the confederacy’s constitution says it is.
It’s six years to the end of his (he’s already assuming re-election is in the bag, Putin told him so) second term. He’s planning on not leaving after he’s served both terms.
Sure, it seems extreme but no one else was willing to do what needed to be done to bring down Macbeth.
The Confederates never viewed themselves as traitors, though; they viewed themselves as patriots and state citizens who were part of the Revolution, and it was the Southern state of Virginia who gave us four of the first five presidents, and who shaped the Constitution, which they believed included compromises that permitted their version of agrarian based capitalism to endure into perpetuity. Moreover, as we say in the period following the civil war, Southerners believed that in terms of their views of race itself, their brethren in the Northern states had much in common with them. White Americans might not have entirely agreed on slavery, but they were much more in alignment in terms of viewing the supremacy of the white race and that capitalism necessarily involved the exploitation of lower classes of people. Although to a lesser degree now, some of those sentiments still persist regionally and nationally.
Of course not - because the view among conservative white Americans is that black people should be grateful that they live in a society that provides access to the kind of wealth and stardom that Kaepernick has had, ignoring the fact that race is an invisible, yet profound barrier to both for the average person, and that Kaepernick is probably an exception more than the rule.