PC Gone Too Far

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. 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

Hi, Paul. So, the topic isn't the cause of the Civil War, but I feel like your view on this issue is too rigid and oversimplified. There's a lot of socio-political nuance to the Civil War, and I don't think this sort of "bottom line" thinking is a fair way to treat our history. Obviously, slavery was the trigger of the war, but distilling the Civil War down to one modern moral principle and insisting that everything about the Civil War be interpreted as a symbol of that one principle is terribly unfair to people for whom it has much more personal significance.I lived my teenage years as a "Yankee" Midwesterner in Tennessee. I had a lot of bitterness about the way this topic was treated there. But, one of the phrases I heard a lot was that the Civil War was "a rich man's war, but a poor man's fight." Most Southerners' ancestors were the poor people who did the fighting, rather than the rich men who wanted to keep their slaves. They see their personal ancestors as poor farmers who answered the call to serve their country and defend their homes. The fact that the call to arms was a deliberate pretense for some rich man's cause of maintaining slavery makes it doubly tragic and difficult to accept, so they're highly susceptible to these alternate theories about the war (that's my unprofessional assessment, of course).But, isn't there still something noble about a poor man answering the call to duty, even when you consider the overarching socio-political context of the Civil War? Isn't that what this monument is memorializing? Isn't that an appropriate thing to memorialize?The removal of a monument under this pretext is basically telling Southerners that it's inappropriate to publicly remember their ancestors as anything but symbols of bigotry. I don't think that's fair to them, and I don't think it's giving due reverence to the complexities of human conflict.

Hi Percy,Memorials can indeed go a long way in keeping the past in our consciousness. I think the place where I disagree with you is the words like "honor them".The concentration camp in Auschwitz is a example of a memorial.A bronze statue of Robert E. Lee charging on horse is a example of "honoring" Robert E. Lee it is a monument.The USS Arizona memorial in Hawaii is quite different than a monument honoring the Confederate founding father Jefferson Davis.I realize we disagree and thats fine, and I also get what you mean but I still think there is a distinction between a monument and a memorial. I have no problem with the Gettysberg memorial. A place of somber remembrance of the carnage and loss of all American participants. But a bronze statue or obelisk monument "honoring" the confederates is not really the same as remembering them is it?I guess I see monuments and memorials different than perhaps you do. 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.

This news article says the removal of the monument is being subject to a legal challenge now:

quote:

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Jefferson County Circuit Judge Judith McDonald-Burkman issued [a temporary restraining order] against Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer and the metro area's government, preventing them from moving, disassembling or otherwise tampering with the monument...

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...The Sons of Confederate Veterans and Everett Corley, a Republican running for Congress, filed for the restraining order on Monday. They contended that the mayor lacks the authority to remove the monument and did not follow proper protocol.

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When I was in Germany there were a multitude of WWII memorials and monuments. But any monument that had a swastika on it was stricken of it. And the image of Hitler does not dot the cities and parks.There is a reason for that and it is not because the Germans do not want to be reminded of their history.The Germans are a proud people but they are not proud of that chapter of history.The Southerners are a proud people and they (not all) are proud of that chapter of history. Lets face it.Is there a correlation between Germany WWII and Southern US and the Civil War? And just how does the Southerners square a abject, racist and exploitative past with today's message of unity and equality; if they want to continue to memorialize and honor the symbols of that racist past.Well of course the answer is they don't see them that way. They see it as part of their heritage and history that should be preserved and guarded. It is the Politically correct liberals that want to rob them of their heroes and battle flags.
One by one those swastikas are being stricken down and they hate it.

Yes, xongsmith at Message 25.And my reply at Message 27. I don't think there is much concern of this nation forgetting the Civil War with of without Confederate glorifying monuments. 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

Possibly. Has anybody here detailed exactly who this monument is for and what it commemorates?Secondly, if it is not a grave stone or a battlefield marker, is there any particular reason why it cannot serve its purpose just about anywhere?

Yes. 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. 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? 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. Claiming offense to exert political leverage is at the very core of PC.--Percy

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. 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

Hi, NoNukes. I don't think so. I never visited the site when I lived in Kentucky, but these were the only placards I could find pictures or descriptions of online: It's not a tribute to the Confederate cause. It's not a tribute to the political and military leaders of the South who championed the cause. It's specifically a tribute to the soldiers who fought and died on their home soil.----- That leads me to the question of why it should be moved. If placement doesn't matter, I advocate inertia as the deciding factor. Any other action clearly says that placement does, in fact, matter.And, apparently, the reason why it matters is because it's politically incorrect to publicly memorialize Southerners' ancestors as anything but symbols of bigotry.

Hi Percy,I want to say that I am a veteran and lived in the south most of my life.I wrote a blank check with my life to the US Government so I can say there are few here who love their country more or understand the need to remember our vets.As I said before we do not agree and I think this is one particular subject I will not agree with you on. This is not a affront to you or your views. If it is not fine with you je suis desolie'. I always value what you have to say and learn a great deal from the forumites here. There is nothing wrong with your views other than we simply do not agree. I have been propagandized and indoctrinated as a former soldier so I wont pretend I am not bias in my views.You claim that PC has gone to far and yet you are here touting that the victors of a particular war must be sensitive to the losers and allow them to venerate,celebrate, pay tribute to them in the form of a public bust/statue/placard/obelisk irregardless of how many it may offend. That is some seriously PC crap if I ever heard it.You state that we should not parse words such as venerate, celebrate, pay tribute to vs the word " Remember " as in a memorial.I can remember Pol Pot and the atrocities of the Kymer Rouge by going to a museum But I doubt seriously you will find anyone erecting a tribute to him anywhere and there is a reason for that.I can remember and even feel remorse for the dead soldiers on both sides of the Civil War or WWII without having a huge bronze of Hitler standing in a public park. People have the right to venerate whom ever they want to but they do not have the right to publicly spit in the face of those who where victimized or take deep offense. Many see these tributes as symbols of remorseless unrepentant insults to be hurled at those who would not allow their execrable cause to come to fruition. They can venerate them in private and invite all their Southern Gentry, sons and daughters of the confederacy, KKK, neonazis, etc.. to pay homage to the vanquished leaders of their lost cause in their own private park.I personally have no problem with these confederate statues, markers, memorials. But I can see why many would. I do not see it as wrong for a dialog to relocate some of them is somehow going beyond the pale of being politically correct.

Yep. 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. 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. 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. 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.

That's what the defenders of keeping the monument will say of course. They invariably insist that there is only one legitimate side to the discussion. But you can only get to that point by ignoring what I think are legitimate complaints by those who ask to have them removed.Detractors can claim that such statutes are in fact offensive because they are celebrations of those who fought to preserve bigotry. They might note that it is particularly strange that in Kentucky, the number of confederate monuments dwarfs those of monuments union soldiers when far more Kentuckians fought for the union. They might note there is even less attention drawn to the plight of colored folks during that era. Such things might indicate that there is something else going on other than a remembrance of how someone's grandpa fought bravely.Make even the slightest effort to balance one of these displays by adding displays with historical context, and the UDC or other organization will be all over that effort with law suits and complaints. If that is not PC, it is because the term only applies to people whose positions you want to denigrate. It is obvious that the detractors are claiming that placement matters to them. It matters because in the current location the monument is in their face and they consider it to be offensive. Okay, you find that answer to be PC. My question is why does it matter to those defending the statue. Why does the placement matter to you?

From memory of poking around internet, the primary reason to move the monument now is for realigning streets in the area. Trying to find link to that story.According to Wikipedia, movements were proposed in 1920s and 1940s for road construction but were protested.If it's in the way and sits in a little island amongst pavement that people may not deal with to visit the memorial, wouldn't a place like an actual park or cemetery be more appropriate and visited anyway?

Nope. Apparently the only reasons for moving such a monument are that you are a PC, butt hurt, looking for reasons to be offended.