patrick.net

Dan8267 says

Bravery in the service of evil is not heroic.

Of course not. But American soldiers in vietnam did not believe they were serving evil. They were serving country. Much like the hundreds of thousands of confederate soldiers that died in the civil war.

You're not going to convince me or anyone that remembering confederate soldiers is glorifying slavery. For the typical soldier in a war, it's not about whatever reasons the plutocrats are fighting the war for. It's about honor, and their buddies and about following some (I will agree) unfortunate human instincts. In a way, I'm surprised that you are critical of it because of slavery. I think a better argument could be made that it glorifies that type of honor and war itself. That is an argument I could come closer to understanding, and it is the war itself that disgusts me. But it did happen. That's history. The war itself is something to be remembered.

It's not that slavery doesn't disgust me too. But it had gone on for centuries as you say and would have ended in one of the next couple decades anyway. Probably in a better way. Why did that war even need to happen ? I have my suspicions. I'm thinking that greed of people outside the south was involved.

marcus says

I don't see those statues as whitewashing history. If anything they remind us of the history. Everyone knows about slavery, that we had it, and nobody now thinks slavery is okay.

Please don't try to use logic and reason with dan...It just confuses him.

marcus says

Dan8267 says

Bravery in the service of evil is not heroic.

Of course not. But American soldiers in vietnam did not believe they were serving evil.

I was referring to the Confederate soldiers, not Vietnam.

marcus says

You're not going to convince me or anyone that remembering confederate soldiers is glorifying slavery.

No one said they should be forgotten. The removal of statues glorifying the Confederacy doe not mean we forget the Civil War happened or that the traitorous south resulted in the deaths of countless Americans. That is a straw man argument.

marcus says

It's about honor

There is no honor in fighting for evil, even if you consider the evil good. Every statement you have made could apply just as well to an ISIS fighter today. Why should I respect such fighters?

The bottom line is that the attempt to glorify the Confederacy is failing and the statues will be removed. The longer it takes and the more resistance, the worse today's American south will look, and the more painful it will be.

Dan8267 says

Now tell me that the slaves didn't have it that bad.

I didn't say that. But if you think that in 1830 southern plantations that constant torture and rape was even usually the case, I think you're wrong. But it would be an interesting thing to research. And even if it happened sometimes I'll completely agree it's an atrocity. It's just that you say American slavery was worse than Nazi atrocities. Really?

Dan8267 says

glorifying the Confederacy

What does that even mean ? Why does a statue of a famous confederate soldier "glorify the confederacy ?" I don't see it that way. That's not why I would leave the statues alone. I don't want to glorify the confederacy. I think I know my own beliefs on this.

Dan8267 says

The longer it takes and the more resistance, the worse today's American south will look, and the more painful it will be

Fortunately, most Americans disagree. Even about half of African Americans. I believe that if left alone, say a century from now when racial tensions are much much lower, probably 90% will be in favor of leaving the statues be. It's a ridiculous stretch to see honoring confederate soldiers as glorifying them or worse glorifying slavery. I find that absurd.

Dan8267 says

Glorifying the Confederacy

The problem with this country today is that people demand that their interpretation be the only interpretation. It is called narrow mindedness.

As for the OP. The statue issue a strategic loser on the national scale. Bannon's right about that. On the local scale, they would probably still be removed from most cities, because cities are much more liberal than rural areas. Look at how Kaine is phrasing the issue. He knows how to push for some progress while staying in office in a state like VA, which has people on both sides of this issue.

The bit about 'erasing history' is a lie, and that should be obvious. I've never seen monuments to Newton, Galileo, Hitler, Tesla, Columbus, Stalin, Mao, Pocohontas, etc. But I know who those people are. You don't learn history from strolling through the park. You find out who people literally put up on a pedestal. We don't need to put up 1500 monuments to slavery in city squares around the country, and we should have never put up 1500 monuments to the confederacy. Even Lee himself didn't want monuments erected, precisely because they would be divisive.

As Dan said, Germany didn't put up a bunch of Nazi statues to honor those who died fighting in WWII, and you sure as shit don't find statues of Hitler or his generals put up on pedestals around town.

marcus says

It's just that you say American slavery was worse than Nazi atrocities. Really?

This is not a useful comparison. The Holocaust was quick, but 6 million people were starved and worked to death and killed. Around the world, there were 12.5 million slaves shipped from Africa. About 2 million died at sea. Only 1/2 million made it to the US directly or indirectly. The rest went to the Caribbean and South America. But, many were born into slavery in the US.

marcus says

But if you think that in 1830 southern plantations that constant torture and rape was even usually the case

As far as how slaves were treated, they were treated better than the Jews and gays in the holocaust, who where going to be killed anyway, and whose bodies were literally used for calories and labor until they withered and failed. However, saying you didn't torture a slave constantly doesn't make it remotely OK. Slavery was an evil. Those who fought back were publicly tortured and/or killed to terrorize the rest. It was not uniquely American, but it was a huge evil in our past. People refused to recognize that for various reasons historically. One reason was probably psychological. It's hard to see yourself and your parents as evil. Some people to this day have problems recognizing some of this, and I think it is because they take things too personally.

You can argue that a tribal soldier just fighting with his neighbors wasn't evil, but you cannot argue at this point that the war was not fought to preserve an evil. The fight over slavery started before our country was born and lasted nearly a century. After slavery ended, which took a huge battle that killed 600K people, it was another century before blacks were treated remotely equally. Think about that. Slavery hurt everybody involved, except the wealthy plantation owners and their descendants. It especially was terrible for the direct victims and their descendants.

To this day, half of the whites say that blacks are poor because they are dumber, lazier, more violent, etc. No blame seems to be attributed to the fact that their parents and grandparents were given shit educations, had terrible job prospects, were unfairly jailed, could not own businesses that served the majority of Americans, and couldn't even drink from the same fountain or sit next to a white on a bus. People pass down money and also give all sorts of opportunities to their kids. It's going to take quite a few generations for the fingerprints of subjugation to disappear. The reason that people don't want to admit that blacks on average do not have equal opportunities today is the same psychological reason that they participated in or later whitewashed slavery. They just don't want to face a reality that makes them or their lineage seem evil. If it were not such an overused and insulting word, I'd call those people snowflakes.

YesYNot says

I've never seen monuments to Newton, Galileo, Hitler, Tesla, Columbus, Stalin, Mao, Pocohontas,

Well actually, I posted on the other thread. Lefties are now demanding the removal of Columbus statues

http://nbc4i.com/2017/08/18/group-calls-for-removal-of-christopher-columbus-statue-downtown/

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/10/13/pepperdine-students-call-removal-columbus-statue-say-celebration-genocide/

http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2017/08/19/demonstration-white-supremacy-christopher-columbus/583189001/

I stand corrected. I think I have probably seen the Pepperdine Columbus statue. It is somewhat ironically located on the Pacific coast, and I had no idea what it was commemorating as I drove by.

The left should learn that you can accept Columbus's accomplishments as an explorer and sailor for what they were. There are more productive ways to draw attention to the plight and pride of the American Indians. Blaming a guy who was brave enough to sail west at the time and who thought he was finding a trade route to India for every calamity that befell American Indians is stupid. I do hope those calls for action are rare and random convulsions that will die off.

The right should learn what the fuck to be proud of and why the Confederate war was fought. Anybody who lectures you about history while making excuses for the Confederacy should be laughed at. Unfortunately, the push to whitewash it is 150 yrs old and still going strong.

marcus says

Dan8267 says

There was nothing good about the Civil War, and quite frankly it's embarrassing that America is the only nation that had to fight a civil war to end slavery.

It's like everything, follow the money. The South's economy was totally dependent on slavery at the time so it's not that surprising that they fought against ending it immediately. Not defending it at all - just saying it's understandable given capitalism. Hell, if not for the technology that the industrial revolution brought us, we would all be more or less slaves - that is if we even existed. By the way, many black Americans exist today because of their ancestors lives as slaves. Not that that makes it okay. But it is more complicated than you want to make i

I see a great parallel in modern times. The globalists are using slaves in other countries to make their goods cheaply and they have great economic incentive to continue doing so. In fact, our leaders enjoy slavery so much that they brought a legal form of it to America whereby foreign code monkeys can be virtually enslaved for a time to provide cheaper labor to their owners.

When this status was threatened, the globalists have gone to war, hefting the might of their international political alliances and media corporations against the President who is contrary to their slaving interests.

All that's missing is the shooting!

I find it mildly amusing that McGee is devoting an entire thread to use poll results as evidence. After how many previous posts about how polls are useless?

Once again, McGee's view is apparent--evidence is worthless is it disagrees with him, but it's immensely valuable when it agrees with him.

Dan why don't you apologize for owning Slaves in the past already so the rest of us can move on already?

marcus says

It's just that you say American slavery was worse than Nazi atrocities. Really?

Have you even read the sources I referenced? Go back and do that.

Blurtman says

Dan8267 says

Glorifying the Confederacy

The problem with this country today is that people demand that their interpretation be the only interpretation. It is called narrow mindedness.

Again, apply the exact same standard you are proposing to ISIS or Al Qaeda. Were you even OK with a Mosque being built near the site of the Twin Towers? Would you be OK with a statue of Osama bin Laden? Hypocrisy is a sign of being wrong.

Tenpoundbass says

Dan why don't you apologize for owning Slaves in the past already so the rest of us can move on already?

Your comment clearly indicates your support of slavery and white nationalism. This is hardly a surprise.

As for me, neither I nor my ancestors owned any slaves. However, if they had, I would not be glorifying them.

YesYNot says

The bit about 'erasing history' is a lie, and that should be obvious. I've never seen monuments to Newton, Galileo, Hitler, Tesla, Columbus, Stalin, Mao, Pocohontas, etc. But I know who those people are. You don't learn history from strolling through the park. You find out who people literally put up on a pedestal.

Exactly. The sole purpose of the statues is to whitewash history.

joeyjojojunior says

mildly amusing that McGee is devoting an entire thread to use poll results as evidence

Did someone say polls?

Dan8267 says

There is no honor in fighting for evil, even if you consider the evil good. Every statement you have made could apply just as well to an ISIS fighter today. Why should I respect such fighters?

Now apply that line of reasoning to anyone that's been attacked by the US military and switch the word ISIS to AMERICAN. There are 2 sides to every story.

YesYNot says

Embarrassed? To be embarrassed, doesn't there need to be another party that is not invested in the act to witness the embarrassment? It's hard for me to put in words so maybe I need a wordsmith to help out. What I'm trying to say is if Trump is our president, the president of all US citizens, the people that feel embarrased feel so because a German or Frenchman thinks that trump is an ass? Do you really think that most people give a flying fuck about what a german or a frog think?
If you have a crazy brother in your house and he does something really stupid and the only people in the house are family, do you still feel embarrassed? Or do you only feel embarrassed when there is an outsider witnessing the act?

Nobody is even considering how this damages the ecology of pigeons.

komputodo says

Now apply that line of reasoning to anyone that's been attacked by the US military and switch the word ISIS to AMERICAN. There are 2 sides to every story.

Please make the case that slavery is good. I have not heard that side of the story. Also feel free to make the pro-Holocaust argument.

Until you can do that, I'll accept that sometimes one side is just plain evil.

Ban statues!

Since we will soon be taking down any statue that offends anybody, may as well get that out of the way.

joeyjojojunior says

I find it mildly amusing that McGee is devoting an entire thread to use poll results as evidence. After how many previous posts about how polls are useless?

Once again, McGee's view is apparent--evidence is worthless is it disagrees with him, but it's immensely valuable when it agrees with him.

Yes, remember that time when all the polls said Trump was gonna get crushed, and all the 538 number crunchers at world reknowed NYT and elsewhere said so, and Hillary won the Election?

Boy, did they learn me.

The Shy Tory effect is well known. However, this poll is not asking who you are voting for, and I've never said that ALL polls on any subject are wrong.

The point of this thread is:

Politically, the statue removal issue is a loser for Democrats. People either don't give a shit or think they should remain. Including a near plurality of Blacks and Democrats.

"Yes, remember that time when all the polls said Trump was gonna get crushed, and all the 538 number crunchers at world reknowed NYT and elsewhere said so, and Hillary won the Election?"

You mean the time when the polls said Hillary would win the popular vote by 2% and she actually won by 2.1%? Holy crap--that really showed what FAKE NEWS is, didn't it??

fyi--the 538 number crunchers had it analyzed pretty damn well. You should actually read their pre-election articles sometime.

"Politically, the statue removal issue is a loser for Democrats"

Because the polls say so, right? And you always believe polls when they say what you want, right?

joeyjojojunior says

You mean the time when the polls said Hillary would win the popular vote by 2% and she actually won by 2.1%? Holy crap--that really showed what FAKE NEWS is, didn't it??

Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight is supposed to specialize in data-based journalism, but the site reported on Tuesday morning that Clinton had a 71.4 percent chance of winning the election. The site was wrong about the outcome in major battleground states including Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, and Trump obviously won the election in addition to the individual states that were supposed to vote Clinton. Silver wasn’t the only pollster to botch the 2016 election.

Here's some more:

And even more at:
http://www.thewrap.com/every-poll-that-got-election-wrong-donald-trump/

Many try to mislead by posting updated predictions that came in AFTER the first results and exit polling numbers had arrived from several states, as evidence they weren't "That Off". But what counts in their last prediction prior to any results or even exit polls reported.

We don't choose Presidents by the Popular Vote, but by Electoral Count. Both the NYT, 538, and others like Sabato were going by their expected Electoral College count, NOT by the simple national vote.

Here was the NYT Electoral Map Prediction the day before the election, where they gave the clear advantage to Hillary:

Again, like with the StormFront new registrant decline, we see narrative defenders misleading about numbers. Decline in new registrants is a decline in new registrants. Estimating 70-85% chances of victory is an overwhelming statement that Hillary would win.

TwoScoopsMcGee says

Here's some more:

It's quite obvious that news agencies on both side deliberately lie about polls in order to influence polls. Humans, being the dumb asses they are, are more likely to agree with a position that is popular. People are instinctively band wagon jumpers.

TwoScoopsMcGee says

Decline in new registrants is a decline in new registrants

Well, you really can't argue with what you really can't argue with. I wonder if there is a word for that.

"Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight is supposed to specialize in data-based journalism, but the site reported on Tuesday morning that Clinton had a 71.4 percent chance of winning the election. The site was wrong about the outcome in major battleground states including Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, and Trump obviously won the election in addition to the individual states that were supposed to vote Clinton. Silver wasn’t the only pollster to botch the 2016 election."

He didn't botch anything. His model was spot on. Late deciders swung for Trump in several key swing states. Silver wasn't wrong.

Now--many of the MSM models were crap and didn't understand conditional probabilities. 538 had been banging the drum for weeks that the race was a LOT closer than the MSM was letting on.

And again--if you don't believe polls, then why are you starting a thread based entirely on POLL RESULTS

YesYNot says

Slavery was an evil.

I agree with almost everything in this comment, but it's irrelevant to what I've been arguing.

Although I disagree with the following.

YesYNot says

You can argue that a tribal soldier just fighting with his neighbors wasn't evil, but you cannot argue at this point that the war was not fought to preserve an evil.

Actually I can argue that by far well over 90% of confederate soldiers did not believe they were fighting to preserve an evil. Probably many were ambivalent about it, while having many questions in their minds about what freeing 4 million slaves would mean to the south and also whether the yankees had the right to tell them they must be freed right this minute ! Things are often not so simple. And If you want to read about it, you might find there was building antagonism building between the south and the north on many issues for many decades over issues other than slavery. The fact that abolitionists were generalizing in congress that southerners were all dirtbags for having their 4 million slaves was a big factor. Slavery was by far the biggest issue, but the name calling, tarrifs and ugly politics had led to a defensive kind of hate, and mistrust of the north, that was sort of a nastier version of the hate that you hear today from some right wingers regarding us politically correct democrats, with our self righteous virtue signaling.

Yes, I believe that virtually all confederates did not believe that they were fighting to preserve an evil. They had a bigger economy than the north, and even though they knew the writing was on the wall for slavery, they didn't know how to roll of of it (with 4 million slaves) and they feared the federal government might make them do it at any moment (even though Lincoln assured them that if you have slaves now you can keep your slaves) . Unfortunately, they didn't trust him and hate of Yankees prevailed. Who knows how much better slavery might have been unwound if there hadn't been the war. It would have taken a decade or two longer, but it surely would have led to a much better outcome.

zzyzzx says

Since we will soon be taking down any statue that offends anybody, may as well get that out of the way.

Would you be OK with a statue of Osama bin Laden? If not, hypocrisy.

marcus says

I agree with almost everything in this comment, but it's irrelevant to what I've been arguing.

It's very much relevant. None of the ISIS soldiers believe they are fighting for evil either.

TwoScoopsMcGee says

Here was the NYT Electoral Map Prediction the day before the election, where they gave the clear advantage to Hillary:

Now, now. The New York Times just called the election for Trump last week.

Dan8267 says

None of the ISIS soldiers believe they are fighting for evil either.

Interesting point, but you can break down the equivalence pretty easily if you think about it. I have some sympathy for uneducated and poor southerners who were fighting because the north invaded and their friends and family were fighting to defend. I have no sympathy for someone like Lee, who inherited 100 slaves, was rich, had a choice, had people in his family side with the north, and chose to fight for the south. I also have no sympathy for the military and political leaders who were making decisions about whether and how to fight.

marcus says

Actually I can argue that by far well over 90% of confederate soldiers did not believe they were fighting to preserve an evil. Probably many were ambivalent about it, while having many questions in their minds about what freeing 4 million slaves would mean to the south and also whether the yankees had the right to tell them they must be freed right this minute ! Things are often not so simple.

What? You have questioned the sacred Things That All Enlightened People Believe!

This makes you a super-evil racist, and you must be burned at the stake, like this witch:

www.youtube.com/embed/zrzMhU_4m-g

rando says

What? You have questioned the sacred Things That All Enlightened People Believe!

Actually I'm advocating the sensible position of the majority, which is that if one has some historical respect for or honors confederate soldiers or their leaders it is not in any way honoring or glorifying the practice of slavery.

There is a problem, that some people think it is. Those people need to understand that this is subjective and that a majority disagree with them, It's fair to let local people decide.

Unfortunately the arguments of those that say it glorifies slavery are adding to division over something that in my opinion should not be an issue. It feels like just more of the theater we are being provided to keep us divided from dealing with important issues.