PC Gone Too Far

Not really, Percy. I'm not afraid to 'mix it up' with anyone here. I am certainly not afraid of expressing or discussing an unpopular opinion. Why even make these kinds of accusations?There does not seem to be much disagreement about either the list of things that make slavery reprehensible or the justifications offered for slavery. I've watched the discussion so far, and I see nothing I object to within the discussion along those lines. Yet I do object to the conclusion that slavery was not evil or that statues of Jefferson are not rightly considered offensive in some contexts.As I've said before, much of our disagreement is about the proper weighting of things and their applicability to the topic of discussion and not about the facts and details. We may not disagree on very many facts of history. That lack of disagreement does not result in our agreeing about how to view Jefferson Davis or Nathan Bedford Forrest or any number of others.In another post you've expressed the impression that only Rrhain and I hold such opinions. I suggest that you get out more and explore the world outside of your own site. Thank you. Not "the" key question, as you expressed before.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Will you never have an objection of substance, or will you always resort to insinuating rhetorical questions?Since they largely comport with the views I've expressed in this thread, I can understand why you might question Lincoln's words that he echoed so many times, publicly and privately. I quoted Lincoln from 1854, and it's a testament to his rock-solid rational and moral foundation that they evolved so little in the years leading up to the Lincoln/Douglas debates of 1858 and the presidential campaign of 1860, not to mention the war years. He never questioned the honor and valor of Southerners. Lincoln's own words are best, these from 1864:

quote:

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"Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us therefore study the incidents in this as philosophy to learn wisdom from and none of them as wrongs to be avenged."

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--Percy

Well now you're just making a procedural motion to abandon this discussion subtopic and return to the original topic. I can't see any reason to seriously entertain this proposal. The inevitable diversion of threads into related subtopics was settled very early in the life of EvC Forum. Oh, good grief, now you're into, "Oh, yeah? Well, same to you!" Good show.Perhaps you should get on with supporting your claim that Southerners were evil instead of forcing discussion down ratholes. And a little more attention to accurately representing what people say would be nice, too.--Percy

Uh, because you're stonewalling? There you go again. My only objection is to your terminology. Assessing history in terms of good and evil is juvenile. We agree that slavery is morally wrong. Please stop saying things like I've reached "the conclusion that slavery was not evil." It is a clear and obvious misrepresentation that ignores the distinction I've brought to your attention time and again. If this were a courtroom then every time this claim began emerging from your lips I would cry, "Objection," the judge would say, "Sustained," and after several episodes the judge would say, "Mr. NoNukes, one more time and I shall find you in contempt." How would you know? Concerning the accuracy (not to mention appropriateness) of judgments of evil, you've been running away like a scared rabbit. Again, how would you know? You're spending all your time inventing reasons not to discuss. This is your reason for not considering the question, the difference between "a" and "the?" This is your level of debate? This is Clintonesque-level "what the meaning of the word 'is' is."Let me help you get started here. Begin your next post with, "I agree that it is *a* key question, not *the* question, but clearly it is one of the important questions, so let me address it now..." In case you've forgotten the question, in terms of your perspective it would be phrased, "Why did embracing and defending slavery so vehemently make antebellum Southerners evil?" Rephrase to your liking as appropriate as long as the fundamental meaning doesn't change.--Percy

The only "position" is that it's reasonable to support moving the Louisville monument without also demanding that the Washington Monument be moved. An individual tombstone that says, "Here lies George, 1845-1863," doesn't say much about why George died. A collective monument commemorates - or at least connotes - an event. The motivation behind a collective monument is much clearer.

I think I've already asked in this thread, "What's the point of remembering history if we don't judge it?" We remember the Holocaust so we can hopefully prevent it from happening again, not just so we can build concentration camps without having to reinvent the wheel. We judge it as a bad thing. So what's the point of preserving history? Is history just a theme park to you where you can see a different world populated by Mickey and Goofy? I agree with the guy in the OP. You need to explain why you don't.

Because I am not participating in a generating a list of reasons the South had for enslaving folks, and treating them as sub human? Again, I don't consider that to be a matter of dispute. Several reasons have been given in this thread, and I don't have any problems with any of them.If your insults are an attempt to goad me into some different behavior, perhaps another tactic might be employed. Yawn. Again, not probably an effective tactic. Maybe the pointless insults can cease now? Of course not. My reason for pointing out the difference was made perfectly clear, despite your lampooning of it here. We don't have a disagreement about the facts. Where we disagree is in your insistence that your approach is "the" approach. And using "the" here among other things you do and say, conveys exactly that insistence.Note that I nothing I post here stops you from listing Southern justifications for slavery by quoting any number of sources either of us can locate on the web. Why don't you do that, if you feel like I need to be shown up? Is there some reason why you need me to do that for you?You are right that the study of history does not end with the announcement that slavery was evil, but rightly goes beyond that point. I am simply insisting that it does not go with skipping over the point before continuing. I'm also insisting, as folks generally do, that even exploring the reasons fails to produce justification. Heck you even agreed with xongsmith when made exactly that point. How about if you type your posts, and I type my posts? Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I said that you "willed" as in "wanted" a different reality, which would be one from which you (along with the descendants of the slaves) are excluded, not one in which you are actively making things with your time transcending superpowers. No. It's exactly what you did when you willed the historical African slave trade to the Americas out of existence. That history of the African slaves and their descendants in the Americas prior to your birth isn't tiny, it's massive, and very influential. Your country would be a very different place without it. No one is asking you to buy that. The discussion is about taking down old monuments put up by people who are long dead, not about which new ones you and your contemporaries choose to put up. I'd certainly hope that you modern Carolinians wouldn't even want to fly confederate flags from your state buildings, let alone start the construction of a new giant obelisk to someone who owned hundreds of slaves.In the same way, my acceptance of historical Africa to America slavery doesn't mean I want you to replicate the behaviour now!Incidentally, as your anti-slavery feelings are strong, would you consider campaigning for the removal of religious texts that support the institution from places like schools, state buildings and perhaps hotels? Would you consider supporting Trump's ban on Muslim immigration on the basis that Islam allows its followers to take non-Muslims as slaves?

"Willed" here seems to mean, expressed a preference that folks had not been removed from their home country against their will, shackled to the bottom of a boat, and moved to a foreign country where they and their descendants became the property of other folks.Yeah, I would prefer that some other version of history have been reality. Your idea that the result would be a bad thing is speculation and no more real than is the dream world described by my expressed preference. I don't see the point or relevance to this discussion. Are you sure you aren't actually asking me some kind of religious question involving my soul? Where might I be if things were different? Well if I changed things, then I would not be here, so I would not be wishing things were different? Right. I'll further add that it's not about erasing history, or demanding apologies, reparations, or rewrites of history. Some do and some don't. Next week will be the first anniversary of South Carolina electing to stop flying the confederate flag from the grounds. It was not that long ago that the flag was flying from the dome on the capitol building. North Carolina flies the Confederate National Flag (not the same as the more famous flag) from the the Capitol Building once a year on Confederate Flag Day.I suspect that your hope is not a match for reality.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

NoNukes responding to bluegenes: Ah, I see, you do agree with Percy. Moving this monument to a Museum or a Confederate Cemetery, if the Kentuckians want to, is not erasing history. But just destroying it or mothballing it in a dusty museum warehouse is erasing history. Perhaps it can be put inside a little fence with a new plaque explaining how typically wrong the South was to make this monument....or maybe that would fall under "apologies".... Never forget! is the mantra we should consider.

I'm not sure we agree completely on that, but yeah, that's my position. This is something I don't necessarily agree with. Banning all statutes of Stone Wall Jackson would erase some the historical record. But that's pretty much the extreme position. A question regarding destroying or mothballing a particular statute is a question about the facts. But I would not agree that such actions "erase history". Applying erasing history to a single monument, in many cases, is just rhetoric.Generally speaking, a museum is a dandy place for those things that fit there. Things like graveyards, burial sites, and battlefields really don't belong in a museum, and of course 350 foot monoliths cannot practically be so housed."Dusty museum"? Surely that's a bit of hyperbole eh?Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

It can't happen again (but I understand that you mean similar events), and we wouldn't be changing the fact that it happened by taking down any monuments to German, Austrian, Italian etc war dead. However, I'll appreciate your attempt at consistency if you want to argue for the removal of such monuments. If you're still not attempting consistency, as you seemed to suggest in an earlier post, then you won't be making any reasoned arguments for or against anything.As for judging history, we certainly do it, but if we judge a monument, then take it down, we aren't changing yesterday's history, just making tomorrow's. If the good burghers of Louisville are concerned about slavery, they could assess the cost of moving their monument, then decide whether their concern would be better expressed by giving the money to one of the campaigns against ongoing slavery in the world, or making a futile gesture which will do nothing to change their local history of slavery at all. We don't. It just is (or was). But you mean, perhaps.... .....preserving the physical remnants of past cultures.If that's what you mean, they can interesting and fun windows into exotic cultures, yes, and can possibly help us understand ourselves. I think that future generations of Kentuckians having large visible edifices around them that speak of their state's slave history is a very good idea. He doesn't agree with you that the only valid reason that the people of Louisville need to take down the monument is that they've decided to take it down. I have. You can't change nineteenth century history by destroying physical remnants of it, but you can act politically in the present. You can't change the minds of dead people, but the living are capable of change.

NoNukes comments: except i said dusty museum WAREHOUSE, not the Museum itself. Think those cavernous basements of rows and rows of shelves, and maybe against one of the walls, piles of stuff too tall to fit on a shelf, like this case.It was also a play on "consigned to the dustbins of history".

Kinda like on Warehouse 13? Yeah, that's dusty

From the end of the Raiders of the Lost Ark: