Federal lawsuit filed to stop removal of Confederate monuments in New Orleans

[Daniel Smith]

[QUOTE=TornadoAP;49347343]I disagree with this on historical grounds, not this cultural identity bullshit which is absolutely stupid. The CSA and that general time-period was the south's worst. You should not be remembering that as a symbol of pride and culture at all.[/QUOTE]

The fact that it is the worst time period for the south means that it should be remembered as a symbol of pride and culture, it shows how much things have changed culturally in the past 150 years.

[isak]

The issue here is that a [i]huge majority[/i] of the confederate monuments being removed were established [i]fifty or more years after the end of the Civil War[/i]. They weren't monuments established to the dead - they were created to represent the "honorable lost cause" of the confederacy.

There are plenty of confederate monuments that I am perfectly fine with as historical reminders and historic places. There are many that commemorate the lives lost in the Civil War without talking about how great the ideology is. A monument dedicated specifically to Lee and the leadership and the ideology of the Confederacy isn't as positive. That said, I don't think the Lee Circle monument is necessarily a bad one.

There are several established far later, like Stone Mountain in 1915 (and not finished until the mid-1900s), that were created specifically to idolize cults of personality and support racism and oppression. The ones that explicitly exist to mourn the loss of lives are perfectly fine - even modern-day Germany leaves those monuments up.

People take issue with confederate monuments that sit there as enormous reminders of "hey this ideology is great" and not "hey people died rest in peace." Removing monuments that commemorate the "lost cause" of the confederacy is a good thing - those ideologies shouldn't be plastered in public squares and protected by the government. They should be removed and thrown in museums where the historical context is abundantly clear - monuments in public squares that talk about things like "anglo-saxon superiority," like one that was vandalized earlier this year, are totally inappropriate and should absolutely be removed.

[editline]18th December 2015[/editline]

Here's an example of a monument I find inappropriate:

[t]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/28/Jefferson_Davis_Memorial_left_marker%2C_Irwin_County%2C_GA%2C_US.jpg/800px-Jefferson_Davis_Memorial_left_marker%2C_Irwin_County%2C_GA%2C_US.jpg[/t]

Calling Davis "the revered leader of the Lost Cause" and focusing on how his "hopes for a new nation, in which each state would exercise without interference its cherished 'Constitutional rights'" was a dead but positive and honorable idea is gross. Call him a criminal and a rebel - that's what he was, not the leader of some honorable lost cause to free the states from the oppression of the North. He was a rebel who disliked that people couldn't chase their slaves across borders and continue to keep them enslaved. He was angry that people wanted to take away the institution of slavery. The states' rights narrative is historically inaccurate - it was states' rights [i]to own slaves[/i], and ignoring that important distinction [i]is whitewashing history[/i].

[Rangergxi]

[QUOTE=.Isak.;49347926]
Calling Davis "the revered leader of the Lost Cause" and focusing on how his "hopes for a new nation, in which each state would exercise without interference its cherished 'Constitutional rights'" was a dead but positive and honorable idea is gross. Call him a criminal and a rebel - that's what he was, not the leader of some honorable lost cause to free the states from the oppression of the North.[/QUOTE]

You disagree with people and believe they shouldn't be allowed to have monuments to their views?

In Canada we had some native-rebellions, obvious acts of treachery and violent opposition to our federal government but we still allow people to hold them up as heroes.

[isak]

[QUOTE=Rangergxi;49348071]You disagree with people and believe they shouldn't be allowed to have monuments to their views?

In Canada we had some native-rebellions, obvious acts of treachery and violent opposition to our federal government but we still allow people to hold them up as heroes.[/QUOTE]

I disagree with the state memorializing the people who caused the most brutal war the US has ever experienced. How is that bad? The people who died in that war, absolutely, they should be memorialized. The men who [i]caused it?[/i] Absolutely not - they shouldn't be remembered fondly by history and shouldn't have statues and state-sanctioned memorials in the name of their ideology.

If people want to hold them as heroes, great. I think they're wrong, but that's their right. What I take issue with is that the state directly or tacitly recognizes them as heroes by having these monuments on state property and protecting them. This shouldn't be done - it legitimizes the Lost Cause idea that they were in the right. They weren't in the right, and pasting the images of Davis or Lee around is a tacit method to express solidarity with the ideology of the confederacy. The state should not legitimize that ideology. From a historical perspective, great, put it in a museum - just don't put them in public places and parade them around as heroic historical characters without paying attention to the whitewashed Lost Cause revisionism that painted them as heroes rather than failed rebels.

[Omali]

[QUOTE=biodude94566;49346288]So maybe add on a plaque that's something like this?
[t]http://i.imgur.com/QPwlmLr.jpg[/t][/QUOTE]

"The people depicted were a lot less terrible than the average level of terrible that was common during this time period."

[Ganerumo]

[QUOTE=Moustacheman;49346190]Devil's advocate, everyone, including most abolitionists, where insanely racist back then.

In his famous debate with Stephen Douglas, Lincoln clearly states his belief that blacks are below and will never be equal to whites.[/QUOTE]

Except Lincoln actually did go through with his claims and freed the slaves while Lee was all talk and then pretty much tortured his slaves frequently.

Remembering past wars and events, however bad they are, is necessary for the betterment of mankind, but there is a difference between remembrance, commemoration, and denial through glorification.

Erecting a statue of a triumphant general in memory of his great deeds in a lost war, when said general was a huge hypocritical cunt and fought for a bunch of hypocritical cunts who didn't want to lose their slaves, isn't remembering history - it's actively rewriting it, trying to leave the bad parts out so that you can keep your pride intact.

Germany remembers WW2 and honorably as well as very respectfully remember the horrible things they did in that time - so did France, at least after De Gaulle left (he was very keen on taking the American approach to history and deny the whole "we helped the nazis" thing). You know what they didn't do ? Erect a statue of Hitler and pretend he was a honorable figure that fought for his nation.

It's the difference between putting a portrait of Columbus in a museum with info on who he was, and making a holiday out of his name, pretending he was a good guy.