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Author Topic:   PC Gone Too Far
AZPaul3
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Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.2


(2)
Message 5 of 734 (782983)
05-02-2016 2:09 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Percy
05-01-2016 11:57 AM


It's simply a monument to Southern war dead. What's wrong with that?
Hmm. I don't know, Percy, let me think on this a second. A monument honoring those who fought and died for the cause of treason against the United States. What could possibly be wrong with that? Everything?
Southern soldiers deserve monuments every bit as much as Northern soldiers.
No. No, they don't.
PC Gone Too Far
You are right about that. The PC mistake was made 120 years ago when it was the politically popular thing to put up this monument honoring and glorifying their treason.
I hope the monument finds a prominent new home.
I hope they drop the damned thing and it shatters into dust. Its prominent new home could be the local landfill.

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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 7 of 734 (782990)
05-02-2016 7:45 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by Percy
05-02-2016 7:06 AM


Re: Honorable War Dead Should Be Memorialized
Second, if you're going to tear down Southern war memorials because the South attempted to dissolve their political bands with the North, then Revolutionary War memorials should be torn down, too.
You mean the memorials to the American revolution erected in England? They have some of those in England, but they honor the British soldiers not the colonialists. They do not seem to have any war memorials dedicated to us rebels. I wonder why.
Should we erect war memorials to the British soldiers that fell here during the War of 1812? They have those in Canada, but not here. Why?
Edited by AZPaul3, : another rub.

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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.2


(1)
Message 24 of 734 (783058)
05-02-2016 10:09 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by Percy
05-02-2016 9:52 AM


No Honor in Treason and Bigotry
The situations you describe are not analogous.
I disagree. The subject was putting up memorials to treason within a nation.
Revolutionary War dead were no different than Southerners in rebelling against a legitimate government.
Again, I disagree. The colonists perpetrated war in order to secure basic fundamental human rights for an oppressed people. The Confederacy perpetrated war in order to continue their practice of enslaving, abusing and denying basic fundamental human rights to an oppressed people. That glaring fact is all that is necessary to separate the legitimacy of the two.
...there are memorials here to British soldiers.
I wouldn't call that a war memorial, but a grave marker.
The Confederacy instigated the most horrific and damaging war upon the people of the United States that we have ever suffered in this country before or since. Their goal was to destroy the nation rather than seek any accommodation under the rule of law this nation represented. The committed treason. And all for the purpose of racial bigotry.
War Memorials dedicated to treason and bigotry have no place in a nation struggling to evolve greater freedoms for its citizens. Those memorials, not just tacitly but explicitly, seek to justify, honor, indeed, to celebrate their treason and act as placeholders to glorify the racism that begot them.
Gotta love a country that allows its most destructive enemy to raise monuments to their lost cause as well as allows an enlightened society to demand those monuments be seen for what they truly are and that they be removed.
A man, no matter how honorable in life or how brave and selfless in battle, who gives the last full measure of his life for a despicable, dishonorable cause deserves nothing more than pity.
Edited by AZPaul3, : title
Edited by AZPaul3, : spln

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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.2


(1)
Message 27 of 734 (783078)
05-03-2016 6:43 AM
Reply to: Message 25 by xongsmith
05-03-2016 12:41 AM


So is the Vietnam Memorial wall of names politically incorrect given that we were committing atrocities, killing women & children & ruining the country for shit reasons?
The Vietnam Memorial is not a war monument dedicated to those who died answering the call in a just cause defending this nation but is a warning to future generations of the depths of stupidity, depravity and dishonesty into which your government can fall.
It needs to stay right where it is for all the world to see and cry. A "black gash of shame."

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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.2


(1)
Message 30 of 734 (783082)
05-03-2016 8:30 AM
Reply to: Message 29 by Percy
05-03-2016 7:44 AM


Re: No Honor in Treason and Bigotry
Depriving people of honor and memory because of accidents of birth is not something I could ever accede to.
I can respect this.
However, times change, societies change, morality and "the common good" changes.
These Confederate monuments are extensions into our time of the reverence and pride they felt in their cause. A cause that we, today, find abhorrent.
We can no longer glorify their cause today as they did generations ago. Leave the soldiers to their graves as reminders of what happened, but the memorials justifying and glorifying why are anathema to today's society and need to be brought down.

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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 36 of 734 (783111)
05-03-2016 4:05 PM
Reply to: Message 31 by Percy
05-03-2016 9:14 AM


Re: No Honor in Treason and Bigotry
Didn't someone already post a response to this view? That it means removing many memorials, including the Vietnam Veterans Memorial off the mall in Washington DC?
Yes, xongsmith at Message 25.
And my reply at Message 27.
Even if today we find we cannot muster the same feelings of honor and respect, we must still preserve the tangible evidence of our history so it is never forgotten.
I don't think there is much concern of this nation forgetting the Civil War with of without Confederate glorifying monuments.
Some died for a paycheck, some for a career, some for a cause, many for a mix of reasons, but they died fighting in the service of their country, and for that they deserve to be honored and remembered.
Remembered, OK. Honored, no. To honor them is to honor their treason, their devastating war perpetrated upon this nation and its cause which was slavery. As I said, leave the soldiers to their graves as a remembrance, but (as 1.61803 put it in his message above) the Confederate swastikas need to come down.
Edited by AZPaul3, : correction

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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.2


(3)
Message 42 of 734 (783219)
05-04-2016 11:59 AM
Reply to: Message 39 by Percy
05-04-2016 9:30 AM


Re: No Honor in Treason and Bigotry
You seem to be saying: Monuments glorifying Northern soldiers: okay. Monuments glorifying Southern soldiers: not okay.
Yep.
To say it again, this is the victor's mistake. All who eat and march and fight and bleed and die under any flag deserve to be honored and remembered.
When the cause they ate, marched, fought, bled and died for was treason against their country so they could continue their practice of subjugating, enslaving and abusing human beings, then no, they deserve no such honors.
Tearing down monuments *is* a very effective way of fostering a process of forgetting.
Again, with or without Confederate glorifying memorabilia on our public lands, there is no chance in hell of us forgetting what happened, who started, and why there was a civil war. I find this argument absurd.
We judge righteous the Founding Fathers' cause and judge heinous the South's cause...
And with justifiable reasons steeped in the reasoning and morality of their causes. One, the cause of human freedom, the other the cause of human subjugation. The former justifies the treason that ensued, the latter does not. And, yes, by today's standards not those of 240 and 155 years ago. Our morality for the good of the human condition can, arguably, be said to have improved since then.
...but those who sacrifice the last full measure are human souls, not causes or countries or money (the ultimately incitation of most wars).
Regardless, they also bear the burden, the stigma, of the dishonorable, heinous, cause for which they fought.
We are not going to agree on this. We will just go around the horn again.
Your thread. I give you the last word.
Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.
Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.
Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.2


(1)
Message 77 of 734 (784802)
05-23-2016 3:05 PM
Reply to: Message 75 by Percy
05-23-2016 2:39 PM


Re: Tone of the memorial
Telling the truth (as we see it) and erasing the past are two different things. And if the motivation for erasing the past is offended feelings then that is the epitome of PC.
Hyperbole.
We are not erasing the past or sanitizing the past. We are (finally) recognizing that the celebrations and honors of these things are anathema in our society. Putting them up in a museum allows the future to see them and remember what happened and, more importantly, why.
Trying to stigmatize these moves as Politically Correct is actually no stain against them. Taking away the undeserved honors and acknowledging the deserved horrors is not only Politically Correct but is socially and humanely correct.

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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 79 of 734 (784808)
05-23-2016 5:28 PM
Reply to: Message 78 by caffeine
05-23-2016 3:53 PM


...but I fear that forcing people to acknowledge that their heroes were slave owners and racists may be more likely to encourage them to justify and accomodate slavery and racism in their world-view...
You are correct. But no one is, or should be, expecting people's ideas to suddenly switch gears. The hope is that future generations will not be as enamored (or as insulted) as having these things constantly in their face held up as examples to be honored. Today's bigot most probably is already a lost cause.

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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.2


(1)
Message 85 of 734 (784857)
05-24-2016 6:58 PM
Reply to: Message 82 by Percy
05-24-2016 8:09 AM


Re: Tone of the memorial
Southerners honoring war dead are anathema while Northerners doing the same are not?
We've trod this path before. Message 30 Message 42
No use doing it again.
Because some people find Southern war memorials offensive? That's PC.
So what? It's also right.
Yes, it's PC, and principle demands that we always reject the politics of feeling offended, whether or not its directed at something we don't like.
Bullshit.
Principle, and right, and conscience, and reality demands that we stop rubbing this horror in people's faces like it was a good thing!
Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.2


(3)
Message 90 of 734 (784874)
05-24-2016 11:34 PM
Reply to: Message 88 by Percy
05-24-2016 8:46 PM


Re: Tone of the memorial
If there are objective reasons for degrading the historical record then I'd love to hear them, but what I'm hearing instead is a lot of emotion...
More hyperbole. We are not "degrading" the historical record. If anything, we are asking that record to reflect the reality of the events as considerably less than the honorable treatment, the glorification of the Southern cause, these monuments and symbols so strongly and wrongly represent.
Of course there will be a lot of emotion in these instances. This is an emotional issue wrought of a very devastating human hurt. After 150 years of having that hurt rubbed into the faces of a oppressed people, on public property, sponsored by organs of government, correcting that official bias by removing the symbols of that oppression, removing our government's official sponsorship of that bias, may be emotion laden but it is also proper and about fucking time.
Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 94 of 734 (784903)
05-25-2016 1:16 PM
Reply to: Message 91 by Percy
05-25-2016 8:30 AM


Re: Tone of the memorial
If anything you're proposing we do would alter the historical record, how is that not harming it as a record of the period?
We're not harming the historical record. We're correcting the errant presentation of that record that has been at odds with the reality.
Correcting voices from the past by mingling or replacing them with our own voice cannot but do harm and will handicap enhances the ability of future generations to accurately study the past.
Corrected that for you. You're welcome.
That you're offended is obvious, but using feelings of offense as political leverage is at the core of PC.
So what? You're acting like Political Correctness always equals Wrong. It doesn't. PC can and has been used in cases that are trivial and frivolous. Correcting official government bigotry on such a massive scale is not one of those cases.
And why would you want to preserve a historical heritage that is demonstrably bogus? Neither history nor posterity benefit from the big lie. No, the Civil War was not about preserving State's Rights and defending the society of the glorious South as the post-war Confederate mindset wants to portray. It was about preserving the institution of slavery and the official government bigotry that maintained it.
Edited by AZPaul3, : correction

This message is a reply to:
 Message 91 by Percy, posted 05-25-2016 8:30 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.2


(1)
Message 98 of 734 (784915)
05-25-2016 9:03 PM
Reply to: Message 96 by New Cat's Eye
05-25-2016 4:17 PM


Re: Tone of the memorial
Are you talking about the monument in the OP?
Yes. And many others. Monuments that glorify the Confederate cause which was slavery even when the monument has the tact to not mention that fact. And monuments that glorify the Confederate State's perpetration of the most devastating and bloody war this nation has seen before or since all for the cause of bigotry.
I don't have such a problem with such monuments on private property, though I wish people were not so enamored of racism. Or in public museums where the glorification can be broken by the facts of what was done and why. But the continuing support of these racist symbols on public property by organs of state and local governments should not be acceptable to this society any longer. It is well past time for racism in all its forms to be denied official government sanction.

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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 100 of 734 (784918)
05-25-2016 9:31 PM
Reply to: Message 97 by Percy
05-25-2016 8:10 PM


Re: Tone of the memorial
What are you thinking of that is at odds with reality?
The glorification of the Confederate cause like it was something good and noble they were perpetrating. And don't even try to tell me those monuments and symbols do not celebrate and glorify the Confederate cause. That's why they were erected in the first place.
Altering historical sites and artifacts can only handicap their study.
If their study is of smoke and mirrors that seek to obfuscate the facts then you have a point.
"Official government bigotry" sounds terrible, but I don't know what you're referring to.
See Message 98
Harking back to Santayana again, arguably the offensive parts of history teach the most important lessons.
Agreed. But we don't have to continue to be purposely offensive just because our history was.

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