I’m in favor of taking down various symbols of the past, and can assure you that I’m neither a Marxist – cultural or otherwise – nor a man seeking to, uh, change history. I want the historical record to remain intact; I merely want this or that CSA statue removed from the town square, and I vote accordingly if asked.
Well, look, if you don’t have any argument about this step, then we’re in agreement. And if you’re wrong about me having a next step in the works, we’ll be in mere agreement then, too. So, like, don’t quibble now, but wait to agree or disagree with me when that day gets here; with any luck, it of course never will.
First you have to prove that any of this has to do with cultural Marxism. And you also have to prove that even if cultural Marxists would be in favor of this, that the people actually advocating it who are not cultural Marxists are incorrect in their arguments.
The issue of secession was never in any serious doubt. The only “two sides” to the question were the side that wanted to follow the very clear law, and the side that wanted to pretend that that very clear law did not exist. It’s like the people nowadays who talk about violent overthrow of the government in the name of defending “the real America”.
The US Constitution was the supreme law of the state of Virginia. If they wanted to change that, then they needed to go through the process laid out in that supreme law for changing the supreme law. You can’t change a supreme law through lesser means. That’s what “supreme” means.
"Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
Uh, yeah. So, you get that I don’t want to destroy or falsify any records, and I want to leave the books as they are while altering no dates – because it’s possible to want one statue or another scrapped without doing all that other stuff, or wanting to?
That is not Marx, but Orwell. The only way your tirade makes sense is that you do think that learning about what Lee and others really did in the past should remain white washed as the statues attempt to do.
Really, what you are doing is an attempt at keeping the ones that stopped history, the ones that falsified history and the ones that did rewrite books to keep on doing it.
No, you’re – wow, you’re just wrong about a bunch of stuff, ain’t ya?
I wouldn’t want my town to put up a statue of Lenin, and would want such a statue scrapped. I’d be fine with leaving a statue of Washington in place, though.
Toss me questions about a third and a fourth, I’ll answer you likewise. I figure each community should vote on such questions, or vote in elected officials to make such calls; that’s, y’know, getting into the nuts and bolts of High School Civics, here.
As I’ve continued to say, I don’t defend the Confederate statues. But you see, the deranged Neo-Nazi who killed an innocent girl has sparked off a Cultural Revolution; perhaps even a Cultural Civil War. Confederate Statues will not be the end. That is what I am against. Tear down every single Confederate statue. I do not give a shit about Robert E. Lee. I give a shit about the statues and monuments to George Washington, or Ben Franklin, and Theodore Roosevelt that will be torn down.
And suppose someone makes a rational argument against those other statues that other people agree with? What are we supposed to do, ignore it? Or are you saying that it’s impossible?
I obviously can’t win this argument, so I will respectfully withdraw from it. You guys win. Tear it all down. Tear down every statue, burn every photograph, burn every “problematic” book, outlaw every “problematic” movie, put forth a “privilege tax”, institute forced re-education. You win.
Sure, because you think there’s a difference between Lee and those guys. And, by a remarkable coincidence, so do I. And, from the look of things in this thread, so too do the other folks posting in this thread; because of course they do.
So what happens, if there’s a city with a statue of Lee and a statue of Washington? Well, it sounds like you’d say “I’m fine with tearing down one while leaving the other, and I can explain why by talking about the difference between them.” And I know, since I’m the guy telling you this, that I’d say “I’m fine with tearing one down while leaving the other, and I can of course explain why by talking about the difference between them.” And I’m guessing that other folks who’ve posted here could and would do much the same, because each presumably has a reason in mind.
So – what’s your hurry? If a reason is carrying the day when it comes to dethroning tributes to the CSA, then won’t a reason carry the day when it comes to nodding with approval at tributes to the USA?
My hurry is that I’m in a bad mood, and I just learned my mother has cancer tonight.
As to this argument…I have little faith in reason today. Look at the Revolutionary Era statue that was destroyed, or the Lincoln statue that was defaced. People are not operating within reason.
Yes, but not as ferociously. This topic bugs me on a good day…Today has not been a good day. I apologize for getting so hot tempered over it. Has not been a good night, and I’m not in the right frame of mind tonight to be discussing these stress-inducing issues.
If someone could delete my posts in this thread…I bow out of this discussion, and humbly apologize. I’m not in the right frame of mind to be discussing these things. Once again, I humbly apologize.
The offense is no more sudden than the sentiments of the Civil Right Movement or the Lost Cause were sudden. They had been at least simmering for a long time and have simply now erupted in, at least in our perception, more overt ways. We as humans have a bad tendency to make the now seem much more emphatic than a past we did not directly experience. This is what makes us erroneously think that current events have just suddenly happened currently.
What I don’t understand about the resistance to taking the statues down is that these statues were put up at a time in America when women couldn’t vote and when black men in the south were often prevented from exercising their right to vote, but for some reason, we are not allowed to revisit the decision to put them up. Erected in the name of white supremacy and historical revisionism, we must keep them up for all time for some reason that no one can seem to really articulate. To take them down is to step on to a slippery slope that would lead to what exactly? Racial equality? Maybe a better understanding of history?
