Lee Statue goes down in Charolttesvile

[JoeMorgue]

The idea that the South ever had a chance in the Civil War is as laughable as those "If only X had happened Germany would have won WWII" stories.

It was a raw numbers game. Population of 22 million to 9. 21 thousand miles of railroad to 8 thousand miles. 97% of the country's firearm production to 3%.

 

[Resume]

Morals? Totally dynamic, my man. History has clearly proven that.

Nope.

 

[kookbreaker]

I tend to disagree. I think the South had a genuine change of winning...not a military victory, but the same kind of victory that the American Rebels won in the War Of Indepdence, and the North Vietnamese won In Vietnam:If they lasted long enough and caused enough Northern casualties the majority of the North would just decide it was not worth the cost and give up. They came close at least once:In the Summer of 1864 when the two major battlefronts...Petersburg and Atlanta..turned to stalemate.after campaigns with horrendous casualties.(1864 was the bloodiest year of the war) Lincoln was in deep trouble in his reelection bid. He was running behind any Democratic challenger, and the Peace Democrats/Copperheads had taken over the party. If th Dems had won, there would have been a negotiated peace with the South winning it;s indepdence. Luckily Sherman taking Atlanta in August, and a series of other victories turned the tide of the elections.THe South was doomed after that.

Maclellan was the Democratic candidate and he wasn’t big on ending the war, just on the idea of having his army take casualties. He would have taken office in March 1865, by which time the Confederacy would have been worn down even if they somehow pulled a miracle around Atlanta. The only way the South wins is if their generals fight the war strategically form the start, but they preferred sweeping battles that would decide the war in one stroke, but ended up causing casualties they couldn’t afford. You’d have to have generals who weren’t the generals of the Confederacy.

 

[Belz...]

Spartacus come to mind....

Well there's nothing surprising in slaves being against the idea. I was talking about people who might even benefit from the institution being against it.

 

[ponderingturtle]

If southern pols today are uneasy about mobs, they have their reasons; I think I may say they've learned from their past.There's been far too much mobbery in US history, and not just Down Souf.

To a certain point, I agree with Warp12. Tearing down these statues illegally and then trying to get away with it is not the American way.

Well that is why you dress up like Native Americans, that is the way of true patriots out to destroy property for political causes. The sons of liberty taught me that.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Hence, my point that morality is fluid.

So "Slavery is bad" is not a true or false statement, just one of opinion and popularity?

 

[Warp12]

So "Slavery is bad" is not a true or false statement, just one of opinion and popularity?

In a historical sense, that is obviously true.

 

[Belz...]

So "Slavery is bad" is not a true or false statement, just one of opinion and popularity?

Well, he's not wrong. Everyone has their moral values, and they change over time. There's no objective "good".

That being said it's a distraction from the topic. It doesn't matter one whiff.

 

[Cainkane1]

If southern pols today are uneasy about mobs, they have their reasons; I think I may say they've learned from their past.There's been far too much mobbery in US history, and not just Down Souf.

To a certain point, I agree with Warp12. Tearing down these statues illegally and then trying to get away with it is not the American way. Tearing them down and then standing and taking the legal consequences is just exactly American. If southerners are ready to do that, then I say welcome back, Johnny.

Hauling away Marse Robbut in Bronze peacefully and according to law accomplishes a good purpose, but it's not nearly as much fun.

Johnny has been back for two hundred years. The Spanish American war, WW1, WW2 Korea and the Vietnam war plus Afghanistan prove that. The Southeast stands with the United States and has been for quite awhile.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Well I'd "Slavery is bad" to the list of things this board will argue about.

 

[Belz...]

Well I'd "Slavery is bad" to the list of things this board will argue about.

I don't think it's necessary. While the opinion that slavery is wrong might not be objective, it pretty much is universal here, and in modern, western society. I don't think anyone but the tryhards will ever make an attempt to justify it.

 

[bruto]

I'm not defending the South, in any way. I am glad slavery was abolished.

I'm just stating that the perception would be entirely different if they won. Probably most of the white people whining here would be owning a few slaves of their own, right now.

Not all of us. Some of our ancestors were Union all the way, and if the South had won, the North would not likely have reversed its emancipation. The fact is the North won anyway, but the South remained segregated and openly racist for far far longer than is decent, and many of the statues celebrating the Confederacy were erected by unapologetic proponents of racism driving the point home.

Apologists for Confederate nostalgia like to tout the idea that it's "heritage not hate," but they seem to make little allowance for anyone else's heritage. My heritage is on the winning side, except for the ancestors who died for the cause (of which several did). And the slaves have a heritage too, and those statues are a deliberate slap in the face of it.

The equating of hateful anti-minority prejudice here with the destruction of statues that represent hateful anti-minority prejudice is, to put it politely, surprisingly inapt, I think.

That said, I do agree that legal means are preferable to illegal, and when legal means are impossible, extra legal means should be exercised by those willing to stand for them.

 

[Belz...]

Not all of us. Some of our ancestors were Union all the way, and if the South had won, the North would not likely have reversed its emancipation. The fact is the North won anyway, but the South remained segregated and openly racist for far far longer than is decent, and many of the statues celebrating the Confederacy were erected by unapologetic proponents of racism driving the point home.

All these responses to Warp12's post there are missing a crucial word in his post that I think reveals quite a bit: "whining".

Who's whining except those who oppose the removal of these statues?

 

[mgidm86]

I don't have to imagine it; It existed for many, many centuries, at the least.

For slavery to be "not bad" I think most people at that time would have to have held that opinion, not just the few people in charge.

I wonder what percentage of people at that time (whenever) thought that slavery was good or moral? Surely not the slaves.

 

[zooterkin]

This thread is not about Nazis or the Holocaust, please keep to the topic, and avoid bickering.

Thank you.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: zooterkin

 

[catsmate]

Because States have right to tell cities what they can and cannot do with their property in your book. Gotcha.

So obviously the Federal government has the right to tell the states what to do...

 

[catsmate]

It’s also amusing how much hand-wringing is done over “mob rule” when several of these statues celebrate mob rule. New Orleans in particular but there are plenty of other examples.

And of course, when some statues were put up their sponsors couldn’t help but brag about how they beat up a black person just a few days ago. But hey, letter of the law, but only when it is the State’s laws, amiright?

Especially given the founding of the USA as a nation!

Very, very, few USAians know much about the prelude to their rebellion against Britain and the thuggish violence of Sam Adams and the "Sons of Liberty".

 

[catsmate]

That doesn't make sense -- again.
The North didn't start the war and didn't rebel against their government. There's no cause for the reverse.

And it also shows a deep lack of understanding of how insignificant the 'South' was. They were being bypassed by industrialisation (due to many factors) and were on the road to 'Banana Republic' if they'd actually managed to secede.

 

[catsmate]

I'm not defending the South, in any way. I am glad slavery was abolished.

I'm just stating that the perception would be entirely different if they won. Probably most of the white people whining here would be owning a few slaves of their own, right now.

Bollocks.
You appear to be grossly ignorant (amongst many other things) of the demographics of slave ownership. Less than four hundred thousand of the population of the fifteen slave states in the USA (rather more than eight million) owned any slaves. Overall less than 1.5% of the population of the USA owned any slaves and less than 1% of them owner more than 200 slaves.

 

[bruto]

In a historical sense, that is obviously true.

I think you enter a difficult zone here, though. If, as you contend, all morality is relative, it's hard to contend then that the morality of today is not as strong and absolute as any morality ever was. If there is no over-arching moral principle, so what? It just means that the only standard by which we can judge is the one we have now. It's a mistake I think many make when dealing with this kind of stuff. Values may not be absolute, but they're still values.