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Author | Topic: PC Gone Too Far | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Cat Sci writes:
I said, "We." We as a society, we as a species judge our members by the bad that they do. The good may mitigate the bad but it doesn't eliminate it. I believe that you do what you said. If you robbed a bank, you caused the casualties. If you fought for the South, you tried to perpetuate slavery. It doesn't matter whether or not you robbed the rich to help the poor. It doesn't matter whether you fought for a flag or a piece of ground. It's the real consequences of your actions that count.
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ringo Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
bluegenes writes:
I don't think anybody is suggesting that every questionable monument should be taken down. The point is that if somebody decides to take down or move a monument, for whatever reason, that decision doesn't have to be seen as an affront to history.
Perhaps we should start a thread on whether or not the Washington Monument should be taken down and stored in a museum with a huge 500' long shed.
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ringo Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Percy writes:
That's a politically correct statement.
Southerners fought just as heroically as Northerners.
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ringo Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
bluegenes writes:
Bad analogy. We're talking about a monument to soldiers who died in support of slavery. Where are the monuments to those Egyptian and Indian soldiers? Because the Pyramids and the Taj Mahal were built (by slaves) to glorify slave owners who would have had an ideology supporting slavery, should we take them down or just consider them as history? Analogous to the pyramids or the Taj Mahal - i.e. the work done by the slaves - would be cotton. Nobody is suggesting that we should destroy cotton. The pyramids and the Taj Mahal should be remembered as monuments to the slaves who built them as well as for whatever reason the slave-owners built them. If there were any monuments to the slave-drivers to commemorate their slave-driving services, nobody has seen fit to preserve them. Some things need to be remembered but not commemorated.
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ringo Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
bluegenes writes:
Huh? How did you get that from anything I said? Do you mean that supporting slavery without dying for it is much better in your mind than supporting slavery and dying for it? Supporting slavery is bad, period. If you die while doing it, so much the better.
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ringo Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
bluegenes writes:
Show us how it follows.
It follows from your comment on my analogies. bluegenes writes:
Because Louisville decided to remove it. I'm against the politically-correct "all history is equal" advocates in new York, California, etc. telling Louisville what they "should" do with their own monuments.
Why is this one in Louisville (a town named after a slavery supporting King) getting the special attention?
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ringo Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
bluegenes writes:
What distinction? The important fact is that they supported slavery. The monument happens to be to the ones who died.
You emphasised the fact that the monument was to soldiers who died for slavery, rather than merely being to people who supported slavery without dying for it. You made the distinction, so I asked you why you had made it. bluegenes writes:
Read the thread. In Message 67 I said:
Why shouldn't people outside Louisville have opinions on the doings of Louisvillians?quote:quote:No.
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ringo Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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caffeine writes:
Exactly. The decay is part of the history.
The counter argument is that putting a new facing and cap on the Great Pyramid, or rebuilding the Colosseum, could only be done by destroying the historical evidence which still survive....quote:Moving a monument or removing a monument is also history. You can't remember history by preserving every molecule exactly as it used to be.
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ringo Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Percy writes:
The South clung to slavery long after it was economically viable. The industrialization of the North was largely what won the war.
Slavery was wrong, but it was a lynchpin of the Southern economy whose removal would cause its collapse.
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ringo Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
bluegenes writes:
Ownership of slaves is not relevant. Dying for the right to own slaves is.
And most of them wouldn't actually have owned slaves, which brings us back to the sub-thread title. Washington did. bluegenes writes:
You're making my point. By Percy's logic, changing the name would be "losing history". If THEY choose to change the name or if THEY choose to move a monument, that's THEIR decision. I support their right to do it and loss of history be damned.
It's easy to change a name, so why don't they? bluegenes writes:
I have never advocated dynamiting anything. Take your strawman elsewhere.
One thing that could easily be dynamited.... bluegenes writes:
MY point is that THEIR reason is none of YOUR business.
My point is that disagreeing with the ideology of people who are commemorated in some way isn't a reason to take down monuments or change names. bluegenes writes:
Read the thread. I have made a distinction between individual monuments and collective monuments. If George wants to move great great granda's gravestone, I'm okay with that. And if the citizens of Louisville want to move a monument to all of the Confederate war dead, I'm okay with that too. It's all about who owns the monument.
We also have monuments to Charles 1st and Cromwell....
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ringo Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Percy writes:
The question is not whether or not slavery was profitable. It's whether or not the slavery supporters thought it was worthwhile. It wasn't just about cash. It was about Cavaliers, Gallantry, Knights and their Ladies Fair.
One would expect economically unviable approaches to be quickly outcompeted and to disappear on their own.
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ringo Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
ringo writes:
I'm just going by Message 11 where you said that renaming buildings is tantamount to pretending history didn't happen as it did.
Percy writes:
I'm already on record here arguing the opposite. By Percy's logic, changing the name would be "losing history".
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ringo Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Percy writes:
As I said, profitability is not an issue. People cling to a lot of things that are not economically viable. It's ridiculous to pretend that it's impossible. You may disagree that it's true but at least try to understand that it's possible.
How could the statement that "The South clung to slavery long after it was economically viable" possibly be true? Percy writes:
We have a local joke: How do you run a successful small business in Saskatchewan? Start with a big one. Just how does one do this for decade after decade while losing money? It is possible to lose money. It may not be possible to keep losing money forever.
Percy writes:
When slavery was removed, the economy didn't collapse. There was certainly a downturn caused by the horrendous cost of the war and the predation of the carpetbaggers but not by the loss of slavery. That economy recovered and thrives today without slavery.
My original point, the one you responded to in Message 228, was that slavery was "a lynchpin of the Southern economy whose removal would cause its collapse."
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ringo Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
blugenes writes:
Your bare link conveys no information.
Message 226 bluegenes writes:
The monument is to people who died for slavery. Ownership of slaves is not relevant.
Slave owners support slavery. bluegenes writes:
First, who cares about consistency? Mine was that it would be inconsistent to move the monument on ideological grounds without also changing the name of the county. Second, the grounds for moving the monument don't matter. People have a right to move their own monuments. They can move it because it blocks their view of the moon if they want to. Third, you can move a monument to storage. You can't move a county.
bluegenes writes:
Of course not. What a silly thing to say. If I support moving something, how does that suggest, in the wildest ravings of your imagination, that I support dynamiting anything?
But surely consistency demands that you would be just as supportive of the idea of dynamiting the Jefferson Davis obelisk as you are being of the idea of moving the Louisville monument? bluegenes writes:
The reasons for moving it are dependent on the owners. If it was owned by the Daughters of the Confederacy or the Ku Klux Klan we wouldn't be having this discussion. But it appears to be owned by the people of Louisville and they have decided to move it. The principles of democracy allow them to do that for whatever damn reason they please.
The thread isn't about who owns the monument, it's about the reasons given for moving it.
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ringo Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
bluegenes writes:
No, I've been defending the owners' right to have their own reasoning. And I've been saying that their reasoning is not necessarily "politically correct" at all. In fact, it is the objections to their reasoning that are politically correct.
You've been defending the reasoning given for removing the monument.... bluegenes writes:
As I've said, I don't even know what their stated grounds for moving it are or if there is any "ideology" behind it. I'm simply pointing out that moving a monument is not necessarily "politically correct". Pretending that all history is equal is politically correct.
You've been defending the ideological grounds given for moving it. bluegenes writes:
Your assumption is wrong. I'm assuming you'd support the removal of all monuments to Jefferson Davis because of the views you've expressed on the importance of support for slavery. As I've explained to you more than once, I make a distinction between people who died to promote slavery and people who "supported" slavery in less fatal ways. Since Jeff Davis didn't die for slavery, no comment that I have made in this thread applies to him. I have explained that I make a distinction between individual monuments and collective monuments. I have no objection to a stone on Hitler's grave but I do object to a monument to the SS. And even though I object, I do not presume to tell the owners of any such monument what to do with it. And even if I did tell them what I would like them to do with it, dynamite would never be involved in any way, shape or form.
bluegenes writes:
I have no objection to moving the pyramids or the Taj Mahal to storage. The money might be better spent elsewhere.
I could be wrong, of course, because you didn't seem to think much of the idea of taking down the Pyramids and the Taj Mahal. bluegenes writes:
"We've decided to move it," is the only valid reason they need.
The thread isn't about who owns the monument or about the principles of democracy, it's about the validity of the reasons given for moving the statue.
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