# Virginia's Governor: What's the Confederacy been up to lately? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 8, 2010, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virginias-governor-whats-the-confederacy-been-up-to-lately/535409 "2010-04-08T14:52:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virginias-governor-whats-the-confederacy-been-up-to-lately/535409/241 "2010-04-10T23:03:05Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Ask any parent if thy’d rather die or have their children taken away and given to strangers. Ask them if they’d rather see their children die or be taken away to live as slaves and the answers would be quite different. Most parents would rather die than see their children die, yet most parents whose children die go on living and in time even have moments of not-unhappiness. > [@](#): > > This whole digression is off point anyway. As I keep saying, I brought up the Nazis to make a point about moral relativism…If you agree that the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews was objectively evil, then you agree that moral relativism is bullshit Unlike You With the Face you’re too intelligent and well read not to have heard of ‘fallacy of the excluded middle’. To say the Holocaust was objectively evil is to say that that _there is a point_ at which moral relativity is bullshit, not that all moral relativity is bullshit. How many fundamentalists would argue that gay sex is evil and transcends moral relativity? Then there’s cultural relativity as well. Let’s take the other of Abraham Lincoln’s “twin relics of barbarism”- Mormon polygamy. If somebody were to say “Joseph Smith was the prophet of God who revealed to him that the American Indians were descendants of Israelites and there were beautiful large cities and chariots in the Americas 3,000 years ago. For about 50 years God also instructed the truly righteous who could afford it to take plural wives, but then in 1890 he rescinded it.” You and I and pretty much everybody we know or hang with is going to, if they are in a polite and non-argumentative mood, smile and nod and say “Interesting” while thinking “Joseph Smith was little more than a sideshow huckster and not one piece of archaeological, linguistic, genetic or scientific evidence supports his absurd and largely plagiarized claims and and to the contrary every objective study of said evidence absolutely refutes his claims, and polygamy started because Smith was horny and the only way he could get his wife and his flock to accept his shagging every woman who cast a shadow on him was to clothe it in a bogus divine revelation, and it’s no coincidence that “God’s decision to rescind” the Principle came when the Federal government was arresting Mormon leaders and padlocking church property left right and center.” This is the opinion of most Americans in fact, even those who are of an evangelical stripe and thus not the least bit controversial. In Utah and Arizona there are large towns and cities where the majority of the people who choose to believe Joseph Smith was the prophet of God. Is this because all of the stupid people wound up in Utah and Arizona? No, in fact many devout Mormons are highly intelligent and well educated professionals; their ranks include some of the richest businessmen and some of the best surgeons in the world. They would also roll their eyes and make a cuckoo motion along with you if a Scientologist began telling you both about thetans and L. Ron Hubbard’s great insights and probably even tell you “L. Ron Hubbard was a 5th rate sci-fi fantasy novelist who openly bragged about how he was going to found a cult”. I see the acceptance of slavery as more connected to this kind of cognitive dissonance. To some degree moral relativity absolutely exists. Anybody who says it doesn’t is probably a member of one of the many One True Religions. To us, slavery is evil. Here we get into the Great Debate territory of “What is objectively evil?”, or "Was it as wrong for Julius Caesar and Aristotle and Alexander the Great and the pharaohs and African chieftains and Celtic queens to own slaves as it was for Jefferson Davis? Was the fact that Major Robert Anderson (Union commander who surrendered Fort Sumter) owned slaves equal to or lesser than the fact that P.G.T. Beauregard (Anderson’s former friend and artillery student and commander of the Confederate artillery bombardment) owned slaves? Were slaveowners who were good to their slaves (and they did exist) less evil than those who beat and sexually abused their slaves or is this on par with saying “Leslie Van Houten is the moral superior of Susan Atkins but both should have been electrocuted 40 years ago so who the fuck cares?” What of Sherman, who despised blacks and referred to them continually as niggers and rolled his eyes at the paperwork caused by his General Jefferson C. Davis (no relation) cutting the bridge at Ebeneezer Creek, or for that matter his taking a war of complete terrorism and destruction to a civilian population which was condemned in newspapers throughout the north and Europe (“I’d shoot every reporter in the land if I could and they’d have dispatches from hell come morning”) an equal to or lesser than evil than slavery? Or since it served a greater good- Union victory- was the damage done by his men- much of it to slaves and near all of it on the interior to civilians- alright? Then we move into things like the atomic bomb- true: more than 100,000 Japanese died within days and many times that number suffered irreversible damage/also true: it probably saved tens of thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives. To what extent does _exitus acta probat_ prove true? That murdering innocent and defenseless men, women and children solely because of their ethnicity is objectively evil (if anything is) is evidenced by the fact that even the Nazis knew it was evil; they tried like hell to cover up the evidence (hard to do when you document kills in triplicate) and while the war was still going on they lied to both the Jews and to the German people (the Jews are being taken into protective custody for now and after the war will be relocated to Madagascar", or the fact that [Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sD90XrGe6E) was filmed in German for Germans is evidence of this- they KNEW it was mass murder. Southerners did not attempt to hide slavery any more than Mormons attempted to hide polygamy (once they built Great Salt Lake City- until then it’s true they did). They- as a society (there were certainly many exceptions on the individual level) did not view it as an evil. That we do see it as an objective evil is a testament to how far we’ve come, and again we should look around and see what will we be judged for and how valid is it. All of which gets even further from the fact we can all agree on which is what the whole damned thread is about anyway: McDonnell is a douchebag in need of disposal. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virginias-governor-whats-the-confederacy-been-up-to-lately/535409/242 "2010-04-10T23:07:26Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > You are literally making an argument that “slavery wasn’t that bad” in this thread. There’s nothing to say to that besides pointing it out…what insult could I possibly come up with that’s worse? No I’m not, I’m saying slavery is not on par with the Holocaust. [On this Dopers seem to agree with me.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=559212) I will most definitely say that slavery was much worse in some places than others and obviously much better in some places than other, and that while the “happy darkies singing and dancing in the field” stereotype that held court for so long in Hollywood and novels was a gross simplification "slave owners were all evil and there was absolutely no gradations of quality of life among slaves’ and “any slaves who spoke well of their former masters after the war did so because they were ignorant and brainwashed” is just as much a gross simplification. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virginias-governor-whats-the-confederacy-been-up-to-lately/535409/243 "2010-04-10T23:09:52Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > That was my grandfather’s skull, asshole. I’ve got your dad’s and have been using it as a flyswatter, and I am unutterably offended that you would abuse my family’s memory by using Grandpa H as an ashtray. The usual threats. I wondered why Daddy kept calling me a “fat ofay bastard”. Would you like to swap? ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virginias-governor-whats-the-confederacy-been-up-to-lately/535409/244 "2010-04-10T23:58:46Z")
If it’s not risible to try to put things into perspective in a BBQ Pit thread, US slavery was concurrent with Russian serfdom, the Potato Famine, peasant famines in Egypt, China, India, etc. - my point being that back then the average person wasn’t exactly climbing Abe Maslow’s heirarchy of self-actualization pyramid hand over fist. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2010, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virginias-governor-whats-the-confederacy-been-up-to-lately/535409/245 "2010-04-11T00:09:56Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > If it’s not risible to try to put things into perspective in a BBQ Pit thread, US slavery was concurrent with Russian serfdom, the Potato Famine, peasant famines in Egypt, China, India, etc. - my point being that back then the average person wasn’t exactly climbing Abe Maslow’s heirarchy of self-actualization pyramid hand over fist. Joel Chandler Harris, author of the Uncle Remus tales (for which he’s vilified as a cultural thief by some) was the illegitimate son of a “poor white trash” girl and an Irish day laborer who left before he was born. He was actually considered _lower_ on the hierarchy of the day than the slaves, and while he couldn’t be sold his mother lived in the slave quarters and he was indentured almost as soon as he could to be an “ink monkey” (i.e. a very young printer’s apprentice) for no wages. Luckily for him his master liked him in spite of his terrible shyness and stutter so he was treated well. In addition to Uncle Remus he wrote a really compelling memoirs of the Civil War south called [On the Plantation](http://books.google.com/books?id=d2YqAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=joel+chandler+harris+on+the+plantation&source=bl&ots=QDGglMc4jj&sig=dMj1NPl3B4Zwimrzv1KKV0jh0O4&hl=en&ei=wxHBS-PZDoGdlgfE7uHaBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CA4Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false). It wasn’t tell-all by any means (it would have shamed his mother who he was very devoted to) and he even uses a pseudonym for his character, but one of the things he mentions is the reaction of the slaves he grew up around, many of whom he loved (and some of whom probably loved him- Uncle Remus was based on several actual people he knew in the quarters) when Sherman came through Putnam County (roughly 20 miles from the capitol of Georgia at Milledgeville). He knew they were content and happy to stay where they are- and was stunned when many of them not only left to follow Sherman but helped pick the place clean. (Keep in mind he was a boy and he did not own the plantation or anything else but the clothes on his back.) He mentions seeing one very old slave he knew a couple of days later lying in his wife’s lap on the road- both had gone to follow Sherman and the old man had dropped dead of exhaustion and age and excitement. His wife was cradling his head and crying “he’s dead, he’s dead, but praise God almighty he died free!” Anyway, it’s a book I’d recommend to anyone interested in the time period, and shows that the zippity doo dah singing shufflin’ ol’ stereotype who loved nothing better than white chillen played (superbly) by James Baskett was a Disney imagineering, not a Harris one. While embarrassingly racist by our standards, he was considered something of a liberal (not a flaming one, but a bit left of center) at the time, and being an illegitimate Irish Catholic you can understand why. (Literary trivia: he grew up- albeit much earlier- not 10 miles from the [plantation](http://www.andalusiafarm.org/) of central Georgia’s [other famous Irish Catholic only child writer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flannery_O%27Connor), and literally a five minute walk or less from where [a lady who would outsell them both](http://www.lib.nus.edu.sg/calendar/0105/alice%20walker.jpg) grew up.) ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2010, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virginias-governor-whats-the-confederacy-been-up-to-lately/535409/246 "2010-04-11T00:10:49Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > I wondered why Daddy kept calling me a “fat ofay bastard”. Would you like to swap? Well…this is is sort of covered with dead fly guts. And also what appear to be the chimpanzee blood. I don’t think FedEx will accept it. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2010, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virginias-governor-whats-the-confederacy-been-up-to-lately/535409/247 "2010-04-11T00:16:45Z")
Not chimp actually, it’s… well, let’s just go with chimp blood. (Cultural relativism is never more stringent than where perfectly beautiful menstruation based fertility rites are concerned.) ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2010, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virginias-governor-whats-the-confederacy-been-up-to-lately/535409/248 "2010-04-11T00:31:40Z")
I suppose I qualify as a Northerner (but not a Yankee–something y’all never did get right), but I have to say I am not fond of Sherman or his march. What he did was beyond the brutality of war and was unnecessary, since the South (if my history remains with me correctly, which is anybody’s guess) was on its knees at that point. The only Union general I can think of who is universally acclaimed was Grant. But then I am no Civil War buff, just “Jane on the street”. I’m sure there are those who will refute that, but I think I am speaking for those people who haven’t looked at Civil War stuff since HS history class. I could be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2010, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virginias-governor-whats-the-confederacy-been-up-to-lately/535409/249 "2010-04-11T03:04:03Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Ask them if they’d rather see their children die or be taken away to live as slaves and the answers would be quite different. Don’t be so sure about that. > [@](#): > > Most parents would rather die than see their children die, yet most parents whose children die go on living and in time even have moments of not-unhappiness. Including Holocaust survivors. > [@](#): > > Unlike You With the Face you’re too intelligent and well read not to have heard of ‘fallacy of the excluded middle’. To say the Holocaust was objectively evil is to say that that _there is a point_ at which moral relativity is bullshit, not that all moral relativity is bullshit. How do you locate that point? Obviously you think it lies between killing whole peoples, and simply enslaving them as property, beating them, raping them, forcing them to breed like animals and stealing their children. By what objective standard do you find the moral relativity standard compelling for the latter and not for the former? How do you feel about the modern day Sharia practice of stoning women to death, and publicly raping them before the stoning if they’re virgins? These people believe they’re doing the will of God. That’s a more authoritative justification than what the Confederates felt they had. Do the Saudies get off on the relativism loophole or not. Why or why not? If moral relatoivism is not complete bullshit from start to finish, then what defines the point where it IS bullshit? > [@](#): > > How many fundamentalists would argue that gay sex is evil and transcends moral relativity? All of them, unless they’re hypocrites. > [@](#): > > Then there’s cultural relativity as well. Let’s take the other of Abraham Lincoln’s “twin relics of barbarism”- Mormon polygamy. If somebody were to say “Joseph Smith was the prophet of God who revealed to him that the American Indians were descendants of Israelites and there were beautiful large cities and chariots in the Americas 3,000 years ago. For about 50 years God also instructed the truly righteous who could afford it to take plural wives, but then in 1890 he rescinded it.” > > You and I and pretty much everybody we know or hang with is going to, if they are in a polite and non-argumentative mood, smile and nod and say “Interesting” while thinking “Joseph Smith was little more than a sideshow huckster and not one piece of archaeological, linguistic, genetic or scientific evidence supports his absurd and largely plagiarized claims and and to the contrary every objective study of said evidence absolutely refutes his claims, and polygamy started because Smith was horny and the only way he could get his wife and his flock to accept his shagging every woman who cast a shadow on him was to clothe it in a bogus divine revelation, and it’s no coincidence that “God’s decision to rescind” the Principle came when the Federal government was arresting Mormon leaders and padlocking church property left right and center.” This is the opinion of most Americans in fact, even those who are of an evangelical stripe and thus not the least bit controversial. > > In Utah and Arizona there are large towns and cities where the majority of the people who choose to believe Joseph Smith was the prophet of God. Is this because all of the stupid people wound up in Utah and Arizona? No, in fact many devout Mormons are highly intelligent and well educated professionals; their ranks include some of the richest businessmen and some of the best surgeons in the world. They would also roll their eyes and make a cuckoo motion along with you if a Scientologist began telling you both about thetans and L. Ron Hubbard’s great insights and probably even tell you “L. Ron Hubbard was a 5th rate sci-fi fantasy novelist who openly bragged about how he was going to found a cult”. I see the acceptance of slavery as more connected to this kind of cognitive dissonance. I don’t see how Mormon polygamy belongs on a list with slavery and genocide, but to the degree that it deprived anyone else (i.e. women) of their rights, then moral relativism was no excuse. > [@](#): > > To some degree moral relativity absolutely exists. Anybody who says it doesn’t is probably a member of one of the many One True Religions. To us, slavery is evil. I disagree. I’m a moral absolutist, and I’m a stone atheist. It seems to me that it’s always religious people who are the relativists (they kind of have to be to defend their Bible). > [@](#): > > Here we get into the Great Debate territory of “What is objectively evil?” We can certainly assertain what kinds of actions deprive others of their rights or cause them to suffer. That’s an objective standard right there. That was easy. > [@](#): > > or "Was it as wrong for Julius Caesar and Aristotle and Alexander the Great and the pharaohs and African chieftains and Celtic queens to own slaves as it was for Jefferson Davis? These were much different kinds of slavery, but the answer is yes, it was always wrong. > [@](#): > > Was the fact that Major Robert Anderson (Union commander who surrendered Fort Sumter) owned slaves equal to or lesser than the fact that P.G.T. Beauregard (Anderson’s former friend and artillery student and commander of the Confederate artillery bombardment) owned slaves? Equal to why wouldn’t it be? Why would their uniforms make any difference? > [@](#): > > Were slaveowners who were good to their slaves (and they did exist) less evil than those who beat and sexually abused their slaves or is this on par with saying “Leslie Van Houten is the moral superior of Susan Atkins but both should have been electrocuted 40 years ago so who the fuck cares?” Everybody is equally evil on both counts. Van Houten is a con artist and a psychopath who does not fool me, and the concept of “treating slaves well” is an oxymoron. I’m originally from the south (not sure if you knew that) and heard this meme from countless other southerners, including my mother and openly racist grandmother, that “most slave owners were GOOD to their slaves.” I reject that outright. Just because they didn’t necessarily beat them or separate families doesn’t mean they were “good” to them. They still did not respect them as equals, or give them the option not to work, or not to be property, even when those slaves were their own children. Owning people as property, in and of itself, goes beyond the bounds of forgivable immorality. Were they AS evil as those were were physically sadistic and brutal or those who sparated families or committed rape? No, but then again, not every prison guard at Auschitz was equally sadistic either, but that’s not a distinction that matters once you are alreday a prison guard at Auschwitz. > [@](#): > > What of Sherman, who despised blacks and referred to them continually as niggers and rolled his eyes at the paperwork caused by his General Jefferson C. Davis (no relation) cutting the bridge at Ebeneezer Creek, or for that matter his taking a war of complete terrorism and destruction to a civilian population which was condemned in newspapers throughout the north and Europe (“I’d shoot every reporter in the land if I could and they’d have dispatches from hell come morning”) an equal to or lesser than evil than slavery? Sherman was one person, not an institution or cultural practice, so I don’t see how he can be a useful example in a discussion of moral relativism. I will say that relativism was an excuse neither for his racism, nor for his war crimes. [qupte]Or since it served a greater good- Union victory- was the damage done by his men- much of it to slaves and near all of it on the interior to civilians- alright? [/quote] It was not alright. > [@](#): > > Then we move into things like the atomic bomb- true: more than 100,000 Japanese died within days and many times that number suffered irreversible damage/also true: it probably saved tens of thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives. To what extent does _exitus acta probat_ prove true? You obviously haven’t seen any of my posts expressing my opinions on the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (not to mention Tokyo and Dresden). I have condemned the American attacks on civilian populations in Germany and Japan (especially dropping atomic bombs on Japan) as unjustifiable, terroristic evil. [quote] That murdering innocent and defenseless men, women and children solely because of their ethnicity is objectively evil (if anything is) is evidenced by the fact that even the Nazis knew it was evil; they tried like hell to cover up the evidence (hard to do when you document kills in triplicate) and while the war was still going on they lied to both the Jews and to the German people (the Jews are being taken into protective custody for now and after the war will be relocated to Madagascar", or the fact that [Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sD90XrGe6E) was filmed in German for Germans is evidence of this- they KNEW it was mass murder. Southerners did not attempt to hide slavery any more than Mormons attempted to hide polygamy (once they built Great Salt Lake City- until then it’s true they did). They- as a society (there were certainly many exceptions on the individual level) did not view it as an evil. That we do see it as an objective evil is a testament to how far we’ve come, and again we should look around and see what will we be judged for and how valid is it.[/.quote] I can’t buy this asa meaningful distinctipn. Sorry. I could point, for instance to genocidal campaigns committed against the American Indians. They weren’t trying to cover that up. Does that mean it was “relatively” defensible? ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2010, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virginias-governor-whats-the-confederacy-been-up-to-lately/535409/250 "2010-04-11T08:42:16Z")
> [@](#): > > **you with the face** : People often conflate the antebellum south with the Confederacy, as if there was no culture or history worth appreciating prior to the War. The south up to that point had been around for almost a century (and only if we start the clock at 1776), but it’s weird that almost all the celebrated “heroes” came out of a period of a few measly years. Your point about the antebellum South and the Confederacy is valid, but it wasn’t really the same South; it was mostly the coastal South. Atlanta was founded in the 1830s. Memphis was founded in 1819. Nashville was founded in 1779. Jackson, Mississippi was founded in 1821. But don’t forget David Crockett and Sam Houston from those earlier years! My eyes rolled to the back of my head when I heard about the Virginia governor’s proclamation. All I could think of was _Why?_ At least he didn’t use the word “celebrate.” I hope that black and white Virginians together will take full advantage of this opportunity to remind the citizens of the full story. I have lost this source for this quote, but to me it sounds more like it might have come from a Nazi than anything else that I’ve read tonight: > [@](#): > > …They deserved to die and in a horrible ways. Their cities deserved to be burned, their people deserved to be executed. I always find it strange when people seem to think that all of the good people just happen to be born on one side or in one place. All of the good people were born in the U.S. and the bad people were the Japs or the Gerries. All of the bad people are in North Vietnam or North Korea and the good people or in South Vietnam or South Korea. Confederates are good. Yanks are bad. **And every time we end up being friends with our enemy.** And we find out they are not all that different. This is the best thing I’ve seen posted tonight (along with some things from Post #8 by **Bricker** on the first page). Anyway, here it is: > [@](#): > > **BigT** : Dividing people into GOOD GUYS and BAD GUYS is really just US vs THEM thinking, and the point is that they were all US. And as alway, Sampiro, thanks for making history so fascinating. Pax ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2010, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virginias-governor-whats-the-confederacy-been-up-to-lately/535409/251 "2010-04-11T12:52:18Z")
A basket of miscellaneous comments, made slightly less lengthy by not having to repeat some items already covered by **Sampiro** or **Bricker** … > [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > People often conflate the antebellum south with the Confederacy, as if there was no culture or history worth appreciating prior to the War. The south up to that point had been around for almost a century (and only if we start the clock at 1776), but it’s weird that almost all the celebrated “heroes” came out of a period of a few measly years. No, you’ve got it backward. It’s not a feeling that there was “no culture…” _before_, it’s a feeling that the culture was–well, not ended, but irrevocably reduced. The Confederacy is conflated with the whole antebellum South because the postbellum was so clearly different. Heroes and legends do tend to be forged in dramatic times, so it’s not really unusual that many Southern heroes came from the War time. Washington and Jefferson and heroes of the (previous) war of independence are revered too. > [@Gangster\_Octopus](#): > > Honestly, is there any need to remember the sacrifices of anybody for something that happened 150 years ago? What’s the point? America is still a pretty young land. 150 years really isn’t that long. _Most_ countries have a historical self-awareness that goes back much further, and quite a number of peoples have (whatever you may think of them) held onto historical grievances for longer. > [@eleanorigby](#): > > Why not celebrate Southern history? 1607. the Melungeon, the Afro-Caribs, the Hugenots, the Spanish etc. Why JUST the Confederacy? Virginia _did_ have a whole set of events (and commemorative license plates) in 2007 to celebrate the quadricentennial of European settlement . This little proclamation isn’t much by comparison. But basically, I agree. I’d like to see all the elements of Southern heritage incorporated into the popular history, more broadly than they are now. > [@Steve\_MB](#): > > The rebel states seceded because Abraham Lincoln was elected President – and their objection was that the platform on which he had been elected was unacceptable to them, not that he had somehow stolen the election or that he had no legal authority to govern according to that platform once he was in office. The latter would be consistent with the notion that “I didn’t betray America; America betrayed me”; the former is not. Lincoln _did_ lack legal (Constitutional) authority for many of the things he did. And whether you think they’re on good ground or not, it is a fact that many Southerners expressed precisely this notion, that it was they, not the Lincoln administration or the North generally, which was the truest inheritor of the principles and legacy of the patriots of '76. > [@Sampiro](#): > > Anyway, the point is that I think on behalf of gay southerners there should be a special march for the benefit of the Governor (who for those not aware is one of the most militantly homophobic in the nation as well). And there’s even a[flag for us](http://rlv.zcache.com/battle_fag_flag_pets_dog_shirt-p15579322234514609922hfo_400.jpg). We can call it PICKETT’S PARADE! Ha! Go for it. > [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > White people and Black people might not be as physically or genetically different as men and women, but we’re distinct enough. No. The differences between so-called “races” of human beings is nothing like the difference between men and women. There _is no_ physiological test or measurement which can clearly and reliably distinguish human “races.” There are only generalizations about groups. > [@Sampiro](#): > > For those not familiar with the SCV, they used to be just a run-of-the-mill ancestral group on par with the DAR or Daughters of the Alamo or whatever in which men, most of them old, got together to clean up Confederate graveyards or stage re-enactments (a more expensive and anal version of cowboys and Indians) and once in a blue moon fund some important contribution to history: a book on an overlooked aspect of the Civil War or an archaeological dig perhaps. I even donated to them when they were raising funds to buy part of the Bull Run battlefield that was endangered. My local SCV chapter contributed to the Booker T. Washington Monument. > [@Sampiro](#): > > There was a coup some years ago when the militant Lost Cause apologists took over the group and now they’re controlled by some of the most racist and xenophobic radical rightwingers and neo-secessionists. Many lifelong members dropped out; there are several “SCV in Exile” groups where they disavow any political statements or racism. > … > What’s bad though is for those like me who enjoy researching the Civil War and don’t have any desire to romanticize it, because the SCV owns and operates some of the most important museums and historical sites. The Museum of the Confederacy (which includes the Richmond White House and _MANY_ unreproduced manuscripts and rare artifacts of extreme historical value) is their flagship, but they also control Beauvoir (Davis’s postbellum home) and other house museums in the south. I am vaguely aware of the factionalization within the SCV, but I’m not aware what those now in charge have done that constitutes racism, or for that matter is more “political” than what was done before. (Some Yankees, obviously, consider any nuanced mention of the Confederacy to be both.) I’d be interested to hear. I’m particularly curious as to what they’re doing, now, which is actually interfering with your research. > [@Sampiro](#): > > My opinion is that [Governor McDonnell] knew absofuckinglutely well from the get-go he was going to rescind his “let’s honor the Confederates” spiel once the inevitable shitstorm came (which nobody with 9 functioning neurons could not have predicted). But he didn’t rescind it. He just added [one more paragraph](http://www.governor.virginia.gov/OurCommonwealth/Proclamations/2010/ConfederateHistoryMonth.cfm) (the fourth “whereas”). And if he knew what the reaction would be, why not just mention slavery in the first version? I suppose it doesn’t really matter to me what his thinking was–I don’t like the guy under any circumstances–but I suspect his office was at least _somewhat_ startled. You don’t really think that he _calculated_ that issuing a divisive proclamation–then amending it–would advance his political career _more_ than either no proclamation at all, or a with-slavery-noted version in the first place? > [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > You can’t regard an act as heroic without taking into account the cause. Because **the cause is what defines it** as heroic! Is it? The methods used to _attain_ the cause are not relevant? > [@Mr.Moto](#): > > Most people of good will would admire these actions of Lee even if they disagreed with much else that he did. There was a time in American history (roughly, perhaps, from the Spanish-American War through the Second World, at least) when Confederate leaders were accepted as general American heroes, and few would have found anything remarkable or objectionable about honoring the memory of Lee, et. al. Look at all the _United States_ military bases named after Confederate commanders, for example. > [@YogSosoth](#): > > I judge people by their actions. > > Obama… …sent a wreath to the Confederate Memorial at Arlington, last Memorial Day, and was thanked for it by the SCV. > [@YogSosoth](#): > > Fact is, the entire Confederacy should have been tried, convicted, and executed. > … > they deserved to die and in a horrible ways. Their cities deserved to be burned, their people deserved to be executed. > … > Fuck the Confederates, they should have all been massacred after the war What was that about Nazis? > [@Sampiro](#): > > The Confederacy _didn’t_ pack Africans into ships. This was done by a multinational group of merchants and shippers long before the civil war: Spanish, Turkish, Portuguese, English, American. Yes, and the Americans who were doing it were mainly New Englanders. When the slaves who seized control of _La Amistad_ were deceived into sailing back into captivity, the trick was to sail them _north_ to Connecticut. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2010, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virginias-governor-whats-the-confederacy-been-up-to-lately/535409/252 "2010-04-11T14:10:55Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > Is it? The methods used to _attain_ the cause are not relevant? You tell me. In what real world situation could someone say an action is heroic without factoring in what drives that action. Based on what **Bricker** wrote, _anything_ can be called heroic if you conveniently overlook the motivation behind it. This is ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2010, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virginias-governor-whats-the-confederacy-been-up-to-lately/535409/253 "2010-04-11T14:18:48Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Their cities deserved to be burned, their people deserved to be executed. [etcetera] Is this really necessary? The South hasn’t been your enemy for a long time. It seems like a very Civil War mentality to continue hating your old enemies for things from decades ago. You’ve certainly got the most hate going of anyone here. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2010, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virginias-governor-whats-the-confederacy-been-up-to-lately/535409/254 "2010-04-11T14:32:21Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > You tell me. In what real world situation could someone say an action is heroic without factoring in what drives that action. I am not suggesting that motivation should not be considered. I’m disagreeing with your statement that motivation is what **makes** the action “heroic”; I’m saying that the means must _also_ be honorable. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2010, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virginias-governor-whats-the-confederacy-been-up-to-lately/535409/255 "2010-04-11T14:52:11Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > I am not suggesting that motivation should not be considered. > > I’m disagreeing with your statement that motivation is what **makes** the action “heroic”; I’m saying that the means must _also_ be honorable. This is besides the point. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2010, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virginias-governor-whats-the-confederacy-been-up-to-lately/535409/256 "2010-04-11T16:00:53Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > This is besides the point. Which point? ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2010, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virginias-governor-whats-the-confederacy-been-up-to-lately/535409/257 "2010-04-11T16:42:24Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > Which point? The assertion that **Bricker** made and I was responding to. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2010, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virginias-governor-whats-the-confederacy-been-up-to-lately/535409/258 "2010-04-11T17:53:03Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > Yes, and the Americans who were doing it were mainly New Englanders. When the slaves who seized control of _La Amistad_ were deceived into sailing back into captivity, the trick was to sail them _north_ to Connecticut. Only because the slaves ordered the Spanish pilot to sail the ship back to Africa, and he was forced to maintain a somewhat westerly course to keep the slaves from figuring out that he was making for the American coast. It would have been no different if the ship had been captured off the coast of Georgia (possibly it would have been different if they made for Florida, since it was not yet a state in 1839). ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2010, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virginias-governor-whats-the-confederacy-been-up-to-lately/535409/259 "2010-04-12T14:46:47Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > The same bullshit rationalization of “non-human” status could be applied to how the Nazis viewed Jews. It’s not a defense. If that was specifically directed at me and not a general comment on my post, I’d like to invite you to \*\*READ THE FUCKING THREAD \*\*before jumping in halfway. My comments were SPECIFICALLY about the anti-literacy laws being ESPECIALLY damning evidence against any claims that people who owned slaves in the U.S. didn’t on some level realize the evil of what they were doing. > [@elbows](#): > > The biggest difference is someone cared enough about the Jews to be able to tally the dead, when it was over. No one cared enough about the African’s to even bother trying to guess. Yes, I’m sure the difference has \*nothing \*to do with (a) the time spans involved or (b) the availability of written census records. :rolleyes: > [@spark240](#): > > No. The differences between so-called “races” of human beings is nothing like the difference between men and women. There _is no_ physiological test or measurement which can clearly and reliably distinguish human “races.” There are only generalizations about groups. Race is a social construct, I agree. (And if you search my posts on this board, you’ll see me stating such in more than one thread.) However, just because it’s a socially created distinction versus a biological one doesn’t make it any less relevant _in people’s minds_. I might also make the point that distinguishing between “male” and “female” isn’t nearly as clear-cut as you seem to think it is, either. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virginias-governor-whats-the-confederacy-been-up-to-lately/535409/260 "2010-04-13T20:00:09Z")
> [@villa](#): > > Every time I forget that, he comes back with a post like this. It’s like a public service announcement. Let me oblige you some more: The Confederates were all racist shitbags who deserved to have their cities destroyed. Anyone defending them should be sentenced to a life of slavery and abuse until they change their mind and die. I hope some far left lunatic kidnaps this governor/racist and chains him up for the rest of his life in a tiny cage and feeds him piss and shit. Happy? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virginias-governor-whats-the-confederacy-been-up-to-lately/535409.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virginias-governor-whats-the-confederacy-been-up-to-lately/535409.md?page=14)