It’s so simple that a first grader could grasp it.
Confederacy>Treason>No Monuments on American soil.
In an internal message to employees that the network released to media Wednesday evening, ESPN President John Skipper said: “There was never any concern — by anyone, at any level — that Robert Lee’s name would offend anyone watching the Charlottesville game. Among our Charlotte production staff there was a question as to whether — in these divisive times — Robert’s assignment might create a distraction, or even worse, expose him to social hectoring and trolling.
“Since Robert was their primary concern, they consulted with him directly. He expressed some personal trepidation about the assignment and, when offered the chance to do the Youngstown State-Pitt game instead, opted for that game — in part because he lives in Albany (N.Y.) and would be able to get home to his family on Saturday evening.”
This doesn’t sound nutty or crazy extreme to me. It’s not that big of a deal.
Don’t ask us; tell us.
You have a position on this, right? You believe there should, or shouldn’t, be statues of the guy? If you believe statues of Washington should dot the landscape, just point out why. If you believe there shouldn’t, then make that argument instead.
If you say some grand things about Washington, I’ll then say well, even though he also did some things we should speak out against – yeah, okay, he did some pretty cool stuff, and so cue the statue. By contrast, if you want to make a case for Lee getting a statue – what, exactly, will you mention? He fought to keep slavery going longer? He committed if-it-prospers-none-dare-call-it-treason, and lost?
That isn’t statue-worthy stuff that might outweigh what we should speak out against; it just is the stuff we should speak out against!
This is all fine, and doesn’t conflict with removing statues because we believe they send the wrong message today.
But status have always been moved, altered, or removed, whether for philosophical reasons or practical reasons. And they always will be. There’s nothing new about this discussion and about removing statues.
But statues of Stalin are still everywhere, and more popular than ever.
Where did you hear this?
What exactly do you mean by “removing or deleting history”? How does one remove or delete history? Who right now is advocating doing something that results in removing or deleting history? What happens when you remove or delete history in that way?
^^^ Nails it.
Not even if his are the only posts that you pay attention to in this thread.
Cite?
Nails what exactly? What exactly is the problem being identified? As our society grows and changes, doesn’t it make sense that we will feel differently about who—if anyone—and for what reasons we honor now with public monuments and portraits on money?
…no, it doesn’t.
I asked you, back on Page One, whether you believe Jefferson and Washington should lose the ‘monument’ treatment, and why. I asked you because you raised that point. For some reason, you didn’t answer then. Will you answer now?
Yeah, it totally shows how dumb that argument is. None of those are guilty of treason against the nation, so they’re not likely to be removed from anything.
Seriously, if your other figures aren’t guilty of the same crime, you’re showing that you don’t understand the argument, or wish it was about something other than your pet hero committing treason and losing. No one with half a brain cell is going to buy your slippery slope argument, and anyone who trots such a stupid argument out should feel bad for wasting other’s time.
Every man does some things that are good, some things that are evil, and some that aren’t particularly either, or are a mix of good and evil. Some do more good or evil than others, but everyone does some.
Some men do great things, and they’re the ones who get mentioned in the history books. Like all the other things we do, those great things can be good, evil, or somewhere in between.
The great things that Robert E. Lee did were all, every last one of them, evil. We should not be putting up statues celebrating great evil. I’m sure he did some good things as well, but none of those good things were great. Ironically, of the good things he did, the closest any of them came to great was… saying that we shouldn’t put up statues of him.
By contrast, the great things that Washington and Jefferson did were mostly good. They created a new nation, based on good principles, of a sort for which at the time there was little or no precedent. That deserves celebration. They also, like all men, did evil things, but those evil things are not what got them into the history books, and not why we remember them.
Columbus falls somewhere in between. He did one great thing, and that great thing wasn’t inherently good or evil itself, and led to both good and evil outcomes. But to the extent that he personally was involved in those outcomes, it was mostly the evil ones. We probably ought to take down his statues, but it’s not as clear-cut as it is for Lee, and there’s some room for debate.
What was the one great deed of Columbus?
You understand that our nation was founded on treason, right? Its enough to say the Confederates were racist.
It wasn’t founded on treason against the US. Treason against the US is pretty damn different than treason for the (fledgling) US.
We were British…not American…and did exactly what the Confederates did. They used the original Revolution as justification to revolt themselves. The treason argument is a non-starter.
We should stick to the racist argument because its morally much stronger.