PC Gone Too Far

It was a Klan project. Do you know who the Venables were? Even the Wikiepedia articles tell you that the Venables owned the mountain (for a quarry), and donated one face for the project and gave the UDC a timeline for completing the project. The Venables also helped the UDC fundraise. The fundraising group was full of Klansmen many of them selected by the Venable family. According to Wikipedia, the hired sculptor/engineer was also closely associated with the Klan.When Georgia took over the project, they acquired the mountain and the partially completed carving from the Venables. It is senseless to deny the Klan involvement or to deny that the project was acquired from the Klan. The bulk of the legislature in Georgia up through the 50s consisted of segregationists. Are you really that seriously ignorant of what was going on in the South during the 1950s? The governors and senators in Georgia elected up until 1960s often won election by running on a segregationist platform. Read about Talmadge and his successors up through Lester Maddox in about 1966. In Georgia there was only one real political party (Democrats) and essentially all of the elected folks in state politics were segregationists in the 1950s. These guys are pretty famous for their reaction to Brown vs. Board of Education. The broad negative brush is well deserved.It seems that in order to discuss any issues with you, I have to begin with a fairly detailed discussion of history. That's fine, you didn't live anywhere near there, and apparently don't give a crap anyway. But your opinions about just how racist the government was in the 40s-50s have zero basis and you are not willing to look stuff up. I find the carving objectionable, but my objections to the carving don't extend to wanting it removed. However there are some folks who have expressed either a wish to blow the thing up, or to add elements to the park to 'balance' the history discussed there. Neither is going to happen because even the idea of adding to the park has been rejected by folks like the UDC and by state law, only the legislature can mess with the carving.I think the history behind the carving is fairly important as it is indicative of what this state sponsored carving is all about. It is not any kind of reminder for you at least of what went on to get the thing put up. It is instead simply a celebration of the Lost Cause faux history of the civil war. I thought Wikipedia said just the opposite. Prior to the project being acquired by the state, the carving was pretty much a laughingstock because of its poor execution. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

They were rendered them unfit as heroes based on their actions. Yet folks worshiped them anyway even for the morally repugnant things they represented.

You made some points here that impressed me. In particular your citing of the The SMCMA. I accept the quote as indication of national interest. However, I submit that your quote reveals that the actual motives of the SMCMA were as I've indicated. Small wonder given that the organization was comprised largely of the UDC, the Klan, and other folks selected by the Venable family. You don't find that to be important in determining exactly what the purpose of the carving is. I certainly to. The difference between us is that you accept as legitimate only the judgment of racists, white supremacist segregationists regarding who is a heroic thing or person to worthy of celebrating. You've found one reason or another why the opinions of others including abolitionists of the time and the victims of slavery simply don't matter. I find that to be a much stronger statement than your admission. Sorry, but my purpose here is not to express an opinion that makes things better between groups by papering over history with what I feel are lies. If anything is PC, surely what you suggest here seems to be exactly that, however noble your purpose might be. Southern heritage is exactly what it is. If some particular folk want to embrace Jefferson Davis, that certainly is not something I've imposed on them.Beyond that, this is instead a discussion between you and I and we should be free to discuss all of the facts. While I was born in New Bedford Mass, I've lived among Southerners since elementary school. I self identify as a Southerner. Most of us are big enough to understand the South's history without feeling guilty about it. Others of us do have issues with some facts in the Southern past and by and large people who fit in 'have issues' category deny the facts about the causes of the civil war, and distance themselves from slavery. I presume there is some minority that embraces separatism and racism but I certainly don't see any reason to accommodate their feelings.I don't personally find any reason to rub my brothers' noses in the dirt about the past. None of them are the least bit responsible for any bad stuff that happened in 1860 whatever. On the other hand, that stuff did happen and Jefferson Davis was directly and prominently involved, and he was involved to a degree much greater than the typical Southerner. I'm not required to get along with Jefferson Davis, nor to pretend that he's some kind of legitimate object of worship. I find this dispute to be a matter of semantics. The Klan was involved pretty much from the beginning. The Venables, at the time the project was bought out were Klan members and the project was partially finished. James Venable was the Imperial wizard of the Klan up until something like 1985. I stand by my characterization, you are welcome to yours.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

My position is that a monument to Jefferson Davis is a dubious, Lost Cause, project to begin with. The disreputable motives are confirmation. Actually that was your characterization of Southerners [1] in general. That's why I asked you why the Negroes of the time period were not to be considered Southerners. I've pointed to your characterization at least once in response to a similar accusation from you.But yeah, I do agree that the early UDC and the Klan were replete with segregationists, supremacists and racists. It is also the case that the Georgia state government was dominated by such folks in the 40s and 50s. Is either proposition something that you are denying? Did I say anything like that?If a monument were being proposed today, do you believe that the question of whether the monument accurately reflects history would be an important question to ask? I certainly do. And if the monument did not accurately reflect history and was offensive, then I'd certainly recommend that the state not get involved. Private folks can do what they will with their own property. But if the state later wants to take over a private monument using state money, then I think the questions of legitimacy should be asked again.ABE:[1] To be clear, I am referring to Jefferson Davis' contemporaries and not modern day Southeners.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I think the exclusion is important and note worthy. One of your points has been that those folks should be judged based on contemporary standards and not based on my current view of slavery. I'm suggesting that there were plenty of contemporaries both in the South and out of the South who would have felt similarly and perhaps even more strongly about Jefferson Davis than the opinion I've expressed here. But according to you, only a subset of the contemporary opinions counts. I don't accept that.Regardless of what you or Petro express about Southern moral etc. justification for slavery, the institution as practiced in the US ranks among the most reprehensible vile things one group of humans has ever done to another. Perhaps not the majority, but a substantial number of nineteenth century folks knew that; many of them from first hand experience. So I am not just applying a modern standard to 19th century folk. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

You've also made remarks explicitly dismissing the opinions of Northerners who did not own slaves, and certainly you have not made any mention of the opinions of slaves, nor responded to points I've made about them. Of course that would be true for at least some folks. Is that question even debatable? I'm not sure that is a point I've made, but I would not dispute it. All I am really saying is that when judging Davis in his historical context, I'm not much moved by the 'everybody else was doing the same thing' arguments. What else would I be discussing in response to an opinion about judging Davis in context. I personally do take Davis in context. I just don't adopt the mindset of a slave owner or a white supremacists when I do that. Hmm, so you would argue that Jefferson's slaves were in some different time or place than Jefferson? Not that I particularly buy the 'place' argument anyway, but surely it can be seen as ridiculous on its face.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

The linked to article is about the statute of Jefferson Davis that stood on the South Mall of the University of Texas up until August of last year. The statute had been in its current location since 1933.

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The statues of Davis, who led the Confederacy, and Wilson, the nation's 28th president, will be refurbished before they are placed in new settings. The Davis statue will be installed in 18 months or so in UT's Briscoe Center for American History after the center is renovated, while Wilson's will be placed at a yet-to-be-decided outdoor location on campus, according to university officials.

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I linked to this as an example of a statue moved from the Mall to a place where its full historical context can be made available. Although there were objections to the moving, the previous location did not seem to have any particular historical context other than representing whoever in 1933 decided that Davis was someone we ought to appreciate.

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Putting [the statue] in the Briscoe Center, far from whitewashing or erasing history, but puts it in the proper historical context

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I completely agree.The link below is a discussion about the move including comments from folks who objected. Their objections about possibly damaging the monument and the cost turned out to be non issues.My favorite quote:

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I think it is just absolutely offensive to move those statues based on someone being offended by those statues, David Littlefield said.

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And yet not everyone did act that way. Not even everyone in the South. Also, plenty of people either left the South or decided not to settle in the South based on the way of life there. And of course a bunch of other folks had no choice in the matter because they were property. You've explains their behavior, but to my thinking explaining, and excusing are two different things. Beyond that, only about 25% of the population owned slaves, so the odds that I would have been a slaver are not all that good. And if we are just assigning folks to the South at random, perhaps I might even have ended up as a slave rather than an owner.Instead it looks like I managed to escape living in what to all accounts is society where the worst evil imaginable was tolerated, accepted and encouraged. Glad that did not happen. I also managed 1) to escape being an African who sold slaves to Britishers on the continent of Africa (watched a bit of "Roots" today); 2) to avoid being a member of one of Al Capone's gangs, and somehow by the skin of my teeth I managed 3} to avoid being either a Nazi or a general who decided to send Japanese to internment camps during WWII. Yea for me. Those other guys who weren't so lucky still suck in my opinion and I don't think I any of them deserve to be celebrated for their actions.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I am familiar with the historical context. I find the justifications given for slavery to be inadequate particularly when compared to the impact on their slaves. I understand that folks in the time period found excuses to dismiss the impact on slaves, and I find those explanations insufficient and in many cases pretextual and motivated towards letting them do what they were of a mind to do anyway. I appreciate that the slave owners felt good about themselves and that they enjoyed financial rewards and in some cases became quite wealthy through the practice. The result for me is disgust and not sympathy. Your mileage may vary.I reject the idea that I need to come any closer to the "context" than that. I understand that a bunch of like minded people would really have liked at least the way Davis owned slaves, that is their judgment and not mine. I don't really give a #$%@! that those folks were unable to persuaded by the facts while they were flaying the flesh off of another man's back or paying him no wages for a days work.If your 'in context' means "possibly" adopting the opinions of slavers and going along with their opinions on what is right and what is wrong and not including any folk who felt differently, then you are correct. I don't do that. If that's what you do, then small wonder we disagree.ABE: I have not missed that point. I reject that your point is relevant. If I had been a slave, or white person with an ounce of humanity, who had not managed to convince himself that Africans were undeserving of humane treatment I would not have. That description applies to lots of folk of the time period. But apparently only the judgment of people with the same flawed thinking of Jefferson matter here; at least that's what you tell me. Democrats are right about everything? About more things than Republicans? To flay or not to flay is a similar matter of opinion to the choice between Democrats and Republicans? Maybe back in 1860 I might see your point. Republicans would seem to have had the superior moral position on slavery at that time. Perhaps this argument does not have the persuasive power you anticipated. Like what? Give me an example of a Southern response that you find persuasive.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Sigh. I'm not missing your point. I am rebutting the 'standard' you are applying.You are right that I don't find those any of those responses persuasive. I'm pleased to hear that you don't either. Beyond that, the contemporary abolitionists did not find them persuasive, nor did the slaves of the period. In fact, many folks who had no wish that Africans live among them at all, would have simply removed the slaves from the US. Beyond that, at least some folks acknowledged the evil that they were doing, and accepted slavery as necessary despite the evil.Presumably Davis and his fellow slavers either excused the evil they did or managed to find one or more of the given 'justifications' acceptable on some basis. But their motivations for doing so are completely suspect. My question is why in the heck I ought to weigh the opinions of those particular guys so heavily. Certainly those opinions are about the least objective ones available. Apparently not everyone in Davis time, even those in the South did that. There were abolitionists even in the South although in the deep South, African-lovers were immensely unpopular. After a couple of slave uprisings, southern abolitionists were generally viewed as traitors and vocal abolitionists were not welcome to stay around. Certainly some southern abolitionists did help slaves to escape to the North and to Canada on the underground railroad. But of course using the criteria you push, we should rule out their opinions as counting because they were not in Davis 'place and time'. Curiously, it is only the people who did accept bogus, pretexts who ended up owning slaves who you say we should measure Davis against.I reject your methodology as too biased towards accepting bogus excuses for adopting an evil institution from which they benefited in numerous ways at the expense of the humanity of other human beings. At some point perhaps you will quit suggesting that I don't understand your methodology. But if your methodology does not involve even examining those motivation, I don't trust it.ABE: Correct. And when you ignore complete and accurate information and end up doing something reprehensible, people in the future might well recognize that and feel that you should be accountable. They might decide that you were not a hero. We are not talking about sending folks to Hell or to jail, here, just about whether the statutes might be put in a museum, or whether the state should carve their likenesses into a mountain.ABE: Let's explore that. If I rob you because I want your money, there is nothing really evil about wanting money, right? Is that the kind of 'nothing to do with evil' that you mean? I don't see the separation you see.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

In short if I knew what I was talking about I would come to your conclusion. That's entirely bogus and more than a little patronizing and insulting. I'm done here.ABE:Okay. I've calmed own... My bad...I've spent some time studying civil war history. I'm fairly familiar with the Southern justifications for slavery. My familiarity does not result in my wanting to judge them on their own standards and it is ridiculous to think that only your method of examining history is valid.Perhaps I have said all that I need to say on this issue.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I'm going to deal with one issue only, here. Right. You've also stated that only white supremacists slavers are folks in Davis time and place. You've indicated that even the abolitionists and slaves of their time period were not in the same time and place. You've left nothing but judging them the way their slaving and/or sympathizing peers would judge them. You've suggested that the Southerners had a rationale, but you reject any current evaluation of that rationale and any contemporary evaluation other than that of slave owners.ABE:So what your position adds up to is exactly what I said despite you not using those words and perhaps not even using that same reasoning. But the results are indistinguishable from my description. You've simply cloaked what you are doing in language like 'judging in their time and place' and ruling out everyone who felt differently on one pretext or another.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by Admin, : Fix quote.

Does anyone honor Washington because of his support for slavery? Certainly people can, and have discussed the fact that Washington, and at least six other early presidents owned slaves during their tenure in the White House, but can Washington be said, or has he been used to represent slavery, or a way of life revolving around slavery. How did Washington feel about black POWs taken in war? Did he make any proclamations regarding them? Did Washington go to war against the United States?Now if you wanted to talk about presidents and their treatment of Native Americans or Mexicans, we might have something to talk about. I served on a submarine named after James K. Polk. What is this bloke famous for?ABE:

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On his 2003 visit to Goree Island, a former slave fort off the coast of the Senegalese capital, Dakar, George W. Bush denounced the slave trade as one of "the greatest crimes of history.

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"Small men took on the powers and airs of tyrants and masters," he said. "Some have said we should not judge their failures by the standards of a later time. Yet, in every time, there were men and women who clearly saw this sin and called it by name."

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I don't have a problem with anyone's opinion about keeping the monuments or moving them. I do have a problem with the idea that only one side in such arguments has any legitimacy. There is quite a bit of separation between the cases of Washington and Jefferson Davis or even Thomas Jefferson and Davis.

I don't want to remove the carving from Stone Mountain. I am suggesting that people who do want them moved (and not just removed) may have a legitimate complaint worth considering.