This is a silly argument. It doesn’t matter to us that Washington, etc., betrayed the British, because our entire country is premised on the values inherent in that betrayal. That betrayal is something we value. It was an act in support of (some of) our values and our independence. That it constitutes treason against a state that we no longer belong to doesn’t matter.
The betrayal of Robert E. Lee is betrayal against us, the state we belong to, and against the values we hold.
That to a third party, they both look like acts of betrayal against someone doesn’t make them morally equivalent to us. That Washington was a traitor to the British doesn’t matter to us. Lee was a traitor to us. That’s why it doesn’t make sense for us to erect statues honoring them.
I never argued that we should have Confederate statues. I’m simply reminding those that scream treason that our nation was born of treason. And British values were fairly the same as ours. Are the supporters of California separation traitors?
Again, sticking to their racism and support of slavery is a much stronger argument imo.
I’m all in favor of treason, when that treason is committed for the purpose of goals I agree with. In fact, I don’t even consider it treason. For example, I would have been quite happy to support Germans who committed treason against the Nazi state, or French people who committed treason against the Vichy regime. I don’t define that as treason or them as traitors, because they were not betraying me, my country, or my values.
Washington is not a traitor to me, because he didn’t betray me. Lee is a traitor to me, because he betrayed me. That’s a very good reason to take down any memorials to Lee put up on my behalf with the sanction of my government, whether or not Lee had any personally objectionable traits.
When I say that the government shouldn’t be honoring traitors, that doesn’t mean just anyone who can be defined as a traitor from any random point of view. It means traitors to this government, this country, and our values.
For Washington and Lee individually, it also helps distinguish the two that Washington was an officer in the Virginia militia before becoming commander of the Continental Army. He wasn’t an officer of the British Army, though earlier he had wanted to be so and was denied this opportunity at least partially due to his Colonial heritage and circumstances. It is unclear whether Washington had to take any kind of oath specifically towards the British crown in order to serve in his capacity.
Lee was an officer in the United States Army. We know the oath that he swore and all other officers swore when they graduated West Point in the early 1800s:
The primary focus and allegiance of Washington just prior to the Revolution was to serve and defend Virginia. The primary focus and allegiance of Lee just prior to the Civil War was to serve and defend the U.S.
Maybe someday we won’t use statues in the same way we do now. I think that is one of the evolutionary forks we might come upon as we as a society question the relevance of the ones we have already put up.
Maybe we will establish collective honor with holograms or something else not yet invented.
I can’t help but think of what happens to all of them eventually anyways:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
No, it isn’t enough to say the Confederates were racist. They were, but the reason we should not have monuments to them is because of their treason. Had Robert E. Lee not committed treason, I doubt anyone would be erecting a statue of him. I’m pretty sure that’s why there are no statues of Washington or Jefferson or Franklin in the United Kingdom: they were on the other side.
I agree that the “treason!” argument is not the strongest argument against Confederate memorials. The British were ultimately willing to honor George Washington even though he committed treason against the British crown, because he committed treason on behalf of a revolution whose principles most people in the UK would probably now support. (“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”)
By contrast, Robert E. Lee et al. committed treason not on behalf of a noble cause–American independence and the principles of democratic self-government, or defeating Nazism, or resisting Soviet domination of Eastern Europe–but on behalf of the cause of perpetuating slavery and white supremacy. And of course Robert E. Lee and his fellow Confederate statesmen and generals are not being memorialized in spite of having committed treason on behalf of the cause of perpetuating slavery and white supremacy, but precisely because of their having committed treason on behalf of the cause of perpetuating slavery and white supremacy (although supporters of the “Lost Cause” mythology have long tried to deny that truth).
Discovered the Americas and got the whole European colonization thing going? I mean, sure, if he hadn’t done it, somebody else probably would have headed west and said, “Hey, there are two new continents here we can take over and settle!”, but, still, he’s the one who did it.
This is looking back and judging by the standards of our time. We think ourselves as Americans first (and for a lot of us exclusively), but before the Civil War that wasn’t necessarily true. For Lee, clearly it wasn’t. He thought of himself as a Virginian first and, through that allegiance, an American second. Either way he went he was going to be a traitor to the other side.
From a democratic perspective, the voters of Virginia clearly wanted to leave the Union. A majority of them voted for secession in a referendum. That stands in stark contrast to the election of 1860 where Lincoln got all of 1% of the vote. I’m happy that the USA stayed together, but I can recognize why Virginians (and others in the south) would fight for secession.
So what? He had to choose a side, and he chose the side that lost. AND they were a bunch of shitty people with shitty ideals and morals he chose to side with. So fuck him and the choices he made.
Well, I quoted you to point out that your flippant remark was not correct. (It’s just a factual nit-pick; you know how irresistible those are around here.)
The rest of my post was more a general weighing-in on the topic.
[QUOTE=US Army Officer’s Oath]
“I, _____, appointed a _____ in the Army of the United States, do solemnly swear, or affirm, that I will bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and that I will serve them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever, and observe and obey the orders of the President of the United States, and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the rules and articles for the government of the Armies of the United States.”
[/quote]
As an officer in the US Army, he took an oath to serve the United States, to obey the orders of the President of the US, and to follow the rules and articles for the US Army. Any traitor can ‘think of himself’ as something not a traitor, but the fact his that he betrayed the United States under its laws at the time, and violated his oath as an officer in the US Army. The notion that he wasn’t really a traitor because of ‘states rights first’ or some other theory doesn’t pass legal or ethical muster, when he levied war against the United States and forswore his oath to the United States.
No, this is complete bullshit. 0% of the slaves in Virginia voted to secede. If you want to use ‘a democratic perspective’, then none of Virginia’s votes count because they had a large slave population who wasn’t allowed to vote. If you want to say “well, really they’re a democratic republic so were following the laws at the time” then you have to acknowledge that they were breaking the law by seizing Federal property, defying legal federal instructions, and firing on federal troops. Either way, they don’t get a pass - you can’t just pick and choose to use ‘democratic principle, but blacks don’t count’ or ‘well they followed the law, except the ones they broke don’t count’.
Have they taken up arms against the government in order to separate California from the country? Are any of them doing it in support of a cause that is abhorrent to our ideals? Is any government body proposing to honor one of them with a public monument?
In other words, is there any reason I should care to determine whether they are traitors?
So, make your argument that he was a shitty person with shitty ideals instead of that he was a traitor and you will have no quibble from me.
I believe that he resigned his commission and was no longer an officer in the US army.
Again, you are using modern sensibilities to judge the past. If we are going to say that Virginia was undemocratic because slaves couldn’t vote, then the entire country was undemocratic because women couldn’t vote either. You have to judge actions in the context of their time. To Lee’s understanding, his home state democratically voted to leave.
From a democratic perspective, slave societies aren’t democratic in any but the most ridiculous sense of the word. We don’t know if the majority of the South really wanted to secede, since millions of southerners (a huge percentage) were in bondage and couldn’t make their voices known.