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Author Topic:   PC Gone Too Far
Percy
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Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(2)
Message 1 of 734 (782962)
05-01-2016 11:57 AM


Kentucky Confederate monument to be removed after 120 years, says the headline. Expecting to see another story about racist confederate symbols I instead find that there is absolutely nothing racially offensive about the monument. Here's another image:
There's no visible confederate flag, no offensive confederate symbols that could have racial connotations. It's simply a monument to Southern war dead. What's wrong with that?
Yet apparently the monument has been the 20-year target of Ricky Jones, professor of Pan-African studies at the University of Louisville. He says, "I think this statue being on the campus is somewhat akin to flying the Confederate flag over the (university's) administration building." The monument is a "towering granite and bronze eyesore glorifying the nadir of America's past."
His attitude makes no sense. The monument is an important part of our history. We can't let PC gone wild cause us to destroy the tangible memories our nations past (or in this case remove to a yet-to-be-named location, if that is truly the intention). The Civil War *did* happen, there were two sides, and Southern soldiers died as honorably as Northern soldiers. Southern soldiers deserve monuments every bit as much as Northern soldiers.
Coincidentally I'm in the middle of watching Judgment at Nuremberg. It reminds us that accidents of birth often govern in whose service we toil. I'm sure we'd all like to believe that had we lived in other places and times that we would have behaved honorably and not labored and fought in defense of slavery or of a criminal Nazi state, but the truth is that culture and environment influence belief and behavior, and we would have behaved no differently from everyone else in those circumstances. Examples of honorable and selfless behavior under such circumstances are notable by their exceptionality.
I hope the monument finds a prominent new home.
--Percy

Replies to this message:
 Message 3 by NoNukes, posted 05-01-2016 5:00 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied
 Message 4 by 14174dm, posted 05-01-2016 10:06 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied
 Message 5 by AZPaul3, posted 05-02-2016 2:09 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied
 Message 10 by Genomicus, posted 05-02-2016 10:09 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 6 of 734 (782989)
05-02-2016 7:06 AM


Honorable War Dead Should Be Memorialized
I can add only two things to what was already said in Message 1.
First, there *are* war memorials to Union soldiers in Kentucky. I chose this image because it is unambiguous:
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.
--Percy

Replies to this message:
 Message 7 by AZPaul3, posted 05-02-2016 7:45 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 8 of 734 (782995)
05-02-2016 9:52 AM
Reply to: Message 7 by AZPaul3
05-02-2016 7:45 AM


Re: Honorable War Dead Should Be Memorialized
The situations you describe are not analogous. You are for some reason are taking the position that conquered and occupied territories shouldn't be permitted to honor their war dead, denying them the right to consecrate, and you're either missing or ignoring the rather obvious point that Revolutionary War dead were no different than Southerners in rebelling against a legitimate government.
By the way, there are memorials here to British soldiers. Here's the first image found by a Google search:
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 7 by AZPaul3, posted 05-02-2016 7:45 AM AZPaul3 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 24 by AZPaul3, posted 05-02-2016 10:09 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 11 of 734 (782999)
05-02-2016 10:35 AM
Reply to: Message 10 by Genomicus
05-02-2016 10:09 AM


Genomicus writes:
On the one hand, the monument is an important part of U.S. history, and removing can be seen as tantamount to pretending history didn't happen as it did.
Yes, as is renaming our buildings.
"Honoring" the Confederate dead then becomes something like erecting memorials in honor of S.S. troopers.
This seems to be the day for poor analogies. Confederate soldiers are analogous to German soldiers, not to the SS that was responsible for carrying out the holocaust.
I think it is the latter; and believing that memorials to Confederate dead should be cherished is to ignore -- and somewhat legitimize -- the South's holocaust on Africans.
To not cherish them is to ignore that we are all victims of our time and place in history.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 10 by Genomicus, posted 05-02-2016 10:09 AM Genomicus has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 12 by Genomicus, posted 05-02-2016 10:38 AM Percy has replied
 Message 14 by NoNukes, posted 05-02-2016 11:11 AM Percy has replied
 Message 18 by 1.61803, posted 05-02-2016 1:18 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 13 of 734 (783002)
05-02-2016 11:00 AM
Reply to: Message 12 by Genomicus
05-02-2016 10:38 AM


Genomicus writes:
To not cherish them is to ignore that we are all victims of our time and place in history.
So...erect memorials to Allgemeine SS? Weren't they also victims of their time and place in history? How are the two scenarios different exactly?
How forgiving and understanding should people be? Most people hopefully believe there's nothing to forgive concerning an average German man fighting in the German army during WWII. But which soldiers to forgive? Certainly not the ones responsible for the Khatyn massacre, or any other atrocity. But a German soldier had no control over whether his unit would participate in an atrocity. How do you tell the enthusiastic participants from the reluctant ones, keeping in mind that field executions of soldiers for a raft of different charges were rampant in the German army, particularly after the 1944 attempt on Hitler's life.
Or what does a police officer or a mayor or a judge do when criminals take over his national government? Does he resign and refuse to participate, or does he stay and fight to minimize the damage? Many who chose the latter course were later charged with war crimes.
At what point do we stop trying to play God and sift human souls. All human life is sacred, and once departed from this earth we must forgive them.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by Genomicus, posted 05-02-2016 10:38 AM Genomicus has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 15 by jar, posted 05-02-2016 11:11 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 16 of 734 (783010)
05-02-2016 11:41 AM
Reply to: Message 14 by NoNukes
05-02-2016 11:11 AM


NoNukes writes:
It appears that you have gone from complaining about the loss a supposedly neutral monument in your first message to justifying the celebration of folks who have committed the worst crimes imaginable.
I think you'll have a hard time finding where I expressed that sentiment. My use of the word "cherish" was about Confederate soldiers. I was responding to Genomicus's claim that to memorialize and cherish dead Confederate soldiers was to legitimize slavery.
In case this comment is actually indirectly referencing one of my subsequent posts rather than the one you're replying to I'll add that "celebrate" and "forgive" are not synonyms.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 14 by NoNukes, posted 05-02-2016 11:11 AM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 19 by NoNukes, posted 05-02-2016 1:50 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 20 of 734 (783040)
05-02-2016 3:17 PM
Reply to: Message 18 by 1.61803
05-02-2016 1:18 PM


1.61803 writes:
Ok, but the Wehrmacht did not have clean hands and were culpable of heinous war crimes of their own. Lest we forget.
I think I covered this in part in another message, but I guess I'd ask which nation's army has never committed a heinous war crime? Switzerland, perhaps, I don't know, I guess it depends on where you draw the boundary line for heinous. Was My Lai or the bombing of Cambodia heinous? If so better tear down those Vietnam War memorials. And so on back through our history.
The time to honor the confederate war dead I believe is fading away into history.
I cannot more strongly disagree:
quote:
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
- George Santayana
We must never forget. No history should ever be allowed to fade. Historians life work is to enlarge and improve our historical knowledge, and archaeologists not only that but also to extend into pre-history what we can call historical, and of course also our knowledge of man's pre-history. Whether its Iraq or Vietnam or Korea or WWII or WWI or the Civil War or the French Revolution or the Revolutionary War or the Gallic Wars or the Peloponnesian War, they should never fade or be forgotten. Therein lie humanity's most important lessons and the truest insights into our character.
But nor should we honor them either for their cause was in the end less than honorable imo.
A cause is not the person. People are products of their time and place. People of great honor and integrity fought for the South, as well as the opposite (and the same for the North). We cannot deem their memories unworthy because of accidents of birth.
The Civil War is perhaps the worst thing in American history to ever happen to our country.
Yes, but in important ways it also defines us.
I believe the South, in a new form of rebellion, erected many many memorials to show the world they are not repentant...
Even if you're right, do you think only the repentant should be permitted to honor their dead? Should there be a repentance test? Should conquered peoples lose certain rights forever? No, of course not. As the South gradually resumed full membership in the Union they retained the right to manage their own affairs.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Grammar.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 18 by 1.61803, posted 05-02-2016 1:18 PM 1.61803 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 22 by 1.61803, posted 05-02-2016 4:17 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 21 of 734 (783043)
05-02-2016 3:30 PM
Reply to: Message 19 by NoNukes
05-02-2016 1:50 PM


Hi NoNukes,
You're making things up again. I was never "justifying the celebration of folks who have committed the worst crimes imaginable." These are fabrications or misinterpretations of your own construction. When such thoughts strike you should realize they are better left unsaid. You need an internal censor.
If it is now your thought to work at finding further evidence that that is indeed what I meant, could you just please stop now? You've done enough.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 19 by NoNukes, posted 05-02-2016 1:50 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 26 by NoNukes, posted 05-03-2016 4:19 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 23 of 734 (783047)
05-02-2016 5:47 PM
Reply to: Message 22 by 1.61803
05-02-2016 4:17 PM


1.61803 writes:
My point was the all to common thought that the Wehrmacht was somehow not culpable in the holocaust. And the answer is Yes, yes they were.
Agreed. For example, as the German army marched into Poland and the Soviet Union in June of 1941 communication with Jews in the occupied regions ceased permanently. I do get your point, but when you get into the details, which army was innocent of any atrocities? Judging this army worthy of memorials and that army not is wrong because it is, well, judging. Especially the victors need to be careful of reading morality into victory. Rightness of cause is not what wins wars. Had the South won (and it *was* a close thing) slavery would still have been wrong.
Percy writes:
We must never forget. No history should ever be allowed to fade.
Yes I agree. Bad phraseology on my part.
Well, nice of you to say, but now I'm not so sure. It occurred to me later that maybe you were more talking about the Civil War fading in our national consciousness, which the passage of time guarantees of all events.
We cannot deem their memories unworthy because of accidents of birth.
Well we can remember them without building a monument to celebrate them can we not?
There's that word "celebrate" again, which I never myself used in this thread. I know it wasn't you, but I now feel it necessary to explicitly state that we're not talking about celebrating people who have committed atrocities.
Having gotten that out of the way, I think people have the right to choose how they memorialize war dead, and going back to what I thought you might have been saying before, memorials can go a long way toward keeping the past in the national consciousness.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Typo.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 22 by 1.61803, posted 05-02-2016 4:17 PM 1.61803 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 33 by 1.61803, posted 05-03-2016 12:32 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 28 of 734 (783079)
05-03-2016 6:51 AM
Reply to: Message 26 by NoNukes
05-03-2016 4:19 AM


NoNukes writes:
If it is now your thought to work at finding further evidence that that is indeed what I meant, could you just please stop now? You've done enough.
I'll honor this as a request...
I think what you actually did was to reemphasize it in different terms. The thing you said you'd do that you then did was this:
I won't pick out any more of your words.
This one you followed. You didn't quote any more of my words as launching points for what you think are the implications of my position.
If I'm terribly woefully wrong about something, I wish you would wait until I actually say the thing before calling me out on it. People are raising issues I didn't originally mention, there's some obvious nuance, and there's a ton of detail that can be interpreted in different ways.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by NoNukes, posted 05-03-2016 4:19 AM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 46 by NoNukes, posted 05-04-2016 3:26 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 29 of 734 (783081)
05-03-2016 7:44 AM
Reply to: Message 24 by AZPaul3
05-02-2016 10:09 PM


Re: No Honor in Treason and Bigotry
AZPaul3 writes:
The situations you describe are not analogous.
I disagree. The subject was putting up memorials to treason within a nation.
That is your viewpoint as a victor. You have a right to your opinion, but you can't ignore that you're doing what victors do, equating morality with victory, and measuring people by a cause whose importance in their lives you cannot know.
A common question to Southern prisoners was what they were fighting for, and the answer was often, "Rahts - state's rahts!" Your average Southern soldier didn't own slaves and so didn't feel the potential loss of slaves as viscerally as did plantation owners and businesses. But he did understand that the federal government was trimming back state's rights, and he did share the popular Southern opinion that it was a grave threat to their way of life.
You can reinterpret this as you will. Maybe the Southern soldiers were just expressing their love of slavery in a politically acceptable way. Maybe for them "state's rights" was just a code phrase for slavery. Maybe they understood that slavery made possible their way of life (indirectly, for most of them) and that state's rights were necessary if that that way of life were to continue. Certainly many Southern soldiers shared the common Southern belief that slaves were less than fully human and needed owners.
But whatever the details we must eventually return to the fact that all people, including us with all our moralistic righteousness that our mores and judgments are the right and best ones, are products of our place and time. Depriving people of honor and memory because of accidents of birth is not something I could ever accede to.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 24 by AZPaul3, posted 05-02-2016 10:09 PM AZPaul3 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 30 by AZPaul3, posted 05-03-2016 8:30 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 31 of 734 (783086)
05-03-2016 9:14 AM
Reply to: Message 30 by AZPaul3
05-03-2016 8:30 AM


Re: No Honor in Treason and Bigotry
AZPaul3 writes:
However, times change, societies change, morality and "the common good" changes.
Yes, they do, and so we must recognize that how we feel today is not how we felt in the past, and is not how we'll feel in the future. 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.
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.
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? This is not to say you're wrong - I'm just checking whether you understood these implications when you said this.
It might help to keep separate in our minds a distinction between honoring the dead and glorifying their cause. 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.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 30 by AZPaul3, posted 05-03-2016 8:30 AM AZPaul3 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 36 by AZPaul3, posted 05-03-2016 4:05 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 38 of 734 (783200)
05-04-2016 9:02 AM
Reply to: Message 33 by 1.61803
05-03-2016 12:32 PM


1.61803 writes:
I realize we disagree...
Yes.
...and that's fine,...
I disagree that it's fine. Soldiers who die in the service of their country deserve to be remembered, honored and memorialized, including with monuments, a type of memorial.
I have no problem with the Gettysberg memorial.
The Gettysburg Battlefield Historic District is literally littered with markers, memorials and monuments, so I don't know which one you mean. Did you maybe mean the Pennsylvania State Memorial (it's a monument, by the way)? Maybe the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC?
But a bronze statue or obelisk monument "honoring" the confederates is not really the same as remembering them is it?
We don't want to turn this into a quibble over words. "Remember," "honor," "revere," "venerate," "celebrate," these are all feelings we can have for people without having them for their cause. Whatever credit you think memorials bring to soldiers, that credit does not extend to their cause. As I said before to someone, some fought for a paycheck, some for a career, some for a girl, some for honor, some for a cause, some for a mix, but whether North or South, Allies or Axis, British or American, they died fighting in the service of their county for what they believed. To restrict memorials to the victors is, as I also said before, to make the victor's mistake of equating victory with righteousness and honor. Victory is momentary, moral principles fluid, but the human soul timeless. You can't judge a soul by the time and place of his corporeal form.
I may be getting repetitive, but nothing said seems to warrant new arguments.
I also feel that if given enough offense to enough people they should probably be evaluated to be relocated not because of political correctness in placating over sensitive citizen groups, but because it is the right thing to do in polite society imo.
Claiming offense to exert political leverage is at the very core of PC.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 33 by 1.61803, posted 05-03-2016 12:32 PM 1.61803 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 41 by 1.61803, posted 05-04-2016 11:08 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 39 of 734 (783201)
05-04-2016 9:30 AM
Reply to: Message 36 by AZPaul3
05-03-2016 4:05 PM


Re: No Honor in Treason and Bigotry
AZPaul3 writes:
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.
You seem to be saying: Monuments glorifying Northern soldiers: okay. Monuments glorifying Southern soldiers: not okay.
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. Tearing down monuments *is* a very effective way of fostering a process of forgetting.
To honor them is to honor their treason,...
No, it isn't, and since we honor the Founding Fathers *and* their rebellion we are apparently not above honoring treason. The Founding Fathers felt important principles were at stake, and so did the South. We judge righteous the Founding Fathers' cause and judge heinous the South's cause, but those who sacrifice the last full measure are human souls, not causes or countries or money (the ultimately incitation of most wars).
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 36 by AZPaul3, posted 05-03-2016 4:05 PM AZPaul3 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 42 by AZPaul3, posted 05-04-2016 11:59 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 47 of 734 (783251)
05-04-2016 3:37 PM
Reply to: Message 46 by NoNukes
05-04-2016 3:26 PM


NoNukes writes:
I don't think OPs that the describe opposing positions as 'PC Gone Too Far" leave much room for entertaining any disagreement.
You're trolling again, plus your syntax is bad, and you have mismatched quotes.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by NoNukes, posted 05-04-2016 3:26 PM NoNukes has seen this message but not replied

  
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