Or not, maybe? Was it okay for the Germans to get rid of Nazi monuments and memorials? If so, isn’t it okay for us to get rid of monuments and memorials that were put up in support of white supremacy?
I’m sure it would be. Sometimes tough things are worth doing. If it turns out this would break the bank, then maybe it’s not worth the cost, but maybe it wouldn’t be so costly as we might worry.
If the locals want to put the time and energy and money into it, then (a) they want to put the time and energy and money into it; and (b) from the sound of it, I guess you wouldn’t waste any time or energy or money trying to stop them, right?
My personal view is that these statutes and such should be taken down, put in museums or sold to private collectors to do with as they wish (on private property). The war fought by The South was not a good war-- its goals were not good goals. We should remember such things, but we should not celebrate them.
Having said that, our side should be careful about throwing around assertions of dubious validity. Lee owned slaves, and that was a bad, bad thing. It was a terrible thing. But let’s stick to the proven facts.
Fair enough. From reading the multiple accounts, the account of one of the men who was captured and returned to enslavement seems likeliest: Lee didn’t whip anyone himself, he just paid a constable to subject his captives to the extreme torture of the lash, when the overseer of the slaves refused to do it. After the captives, men and women, had been tortured in this manner, Lee “ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash our backs with brine, which was done.” That is, he salted the wounds.
So yeah, I agree: let’s be very precise in the ways in which he was a villain.
octopus, what little rigor that analogy has, has repeatedly been rebutted in this very thread. Do you genuinely still think it’s funny, or persuasive, or clever, or whatever you think it is?
Make the argument and I’ll consider it. The Germans took down Nazi memorials – was that wrong? They didn’t take down other historical memorials at the same time. Taking down some memorials has always been done – it’s not a new thing.
Incidentally I saw that silly argument before coming from places like NEWSMAX and even old paleo fascist and racist Pat Buchanan made that silly argument; so, not even an original slippery slope fallacy, sad!
*"Former city council member Sandra Crenshaw thinks removing the statues won’t help.
“I’m not intimidated by Robert E. Lee’s statue. I’m not intimidated by it. It doesn’t scare me,” said Crenshaw. “We don’t want America to think that all African Americans are supportive of this.”
Crenshaw, along with some Buffalo Solider historians and Sons of Confederate Veterans are coming together to help protect the Confederate markers from toppling over in Dallas.
They feel the monuments, like the Freedman’s Cemetery, tell an important story and help heal racial wounds.
“Some people think that by taking a statue down, that’s going to erase racism,” said Crenshaw. “Misguided.”"*
If I had my way I’d melt down every statue praising the Confederacy and melt them down to turn them into crosses. I’d then place them in every slave-labor camp and wherever Southerners lynched a black person.
We probably won’t have enough metal. But it’s a start.