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Ronald Reagan on Charlottesville
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— The Reagan Battalion (@ReaganBattalion) August 14, 2017
Thirty-some years ago, the fortieth president delivered 50 seconds of remarks from which the forty-fifth could learn something. (As best I can recall, this was an ad-lib, not part of the President’s prepared text that day. He is speaking from the heart.)
Published in General
Follow this logic: Group “A” does not like statues (or other symbols) commemorating a certain person or group. Group “B” shows up to support those statues. The two groups of [self-redacted] go to fighting. Obviously, the only solution is to remove the statues, right? Get rid of the (alleged) provocation and everyone goes home happy. Or is one group of [self-redacted] superior to the other in your mind?
This. I give no quarter to anti-Southern types of any political stripe.
Well said, though the fact that the Civil War has only been over for a scant 150 years obviously makes these wounds too fresh to easily assuage.
To be pro-southern one must be pro-confederacy?
Not necessarily. But the two are virtually inseparable these days, especially if you had ancestors who fought on the Confederate side.
You’re stealing a base here, as you did in your initial comment. Yeti didn’t say they should be removed because violence erupts. He said that if they are going to become rallying points for neo-Nazis they should probably go. You can disagree with that sentiment and I don’t feel inclined to argue with you over it, but your analogy wasn’t responding to it.
Does admiring your ancestors’ bravery require admiring the causes to which it was put?
That’s rather unfortunate as I think there are lots of admirable parts of southern culture not associated with the confederacy. That most of our founding documents stem from the minds of Virginians or the defeat of the British at Yorktown. The Alamo and Texas Independence. Some of the most admirable men in our countries history hail from the south.
If I am stealing a base then you just balked in a run.
Try this: If a statue of MLK became a rallying point for BLM and violence ensued, then SOL PDQ for the CRI. Need another TLA? Or is that AOK?
Hint: This has to do with double standards, and the avoidance of them.
If by “pro-confederacy” one means opposing tearing down confederate monuments or the harassment of Southerners for celebrating our ancestral and cultural heritage, then yes. Otherwise you are effectively seeking to destroy the culture of a majority of Southerners (and the overwhelming majority of Southern conservatives), either out of personal distaste or a misguided effort at appeasement.
Again, the original point wasn’t about violence. I understand the point you’re making. It’s not responsive to Yeti’s point, which was not dependent on violence.
What is there to admire about the Confederacy? I don’t get this whole Confederate pride thing. The Confederacy ended up making the South a terrible place for generations. The Reconstruction era South was terrible, and the failure of Reconstruction ended up making, as literature from the period suggests, the South a downright creepy place. How can anybody have pride in that?
Is a “rallying point” sans violence worse than two groups of knuckleheads fighting? I think the point Blue Yeti was making was that the violence which was certain to ensue would necessitate the removal of the statues. If I am wrong about that I would like to hear it from him. Otherwise it is just the two of us debating what he meant, which we could do all night to no good end.
Fair enough.
This has always puzzled me — last time I checked both the Nazis and the Confederacy LOST. Badly. So you’re building your movement around two failures? ?
This was indeed my point. If the monuments are going to be targets for violent protests, then they’ll either have to be secured or removed. Same goes for any other monuments, I suppose. Sad.
I think Condi Rice’s view on this is very pertinent:
One might even call the losers. Sad.
The Union did all of that by bringing war to the South. They did not have to do so. I honor those Confederate ancestors of mine who took up arms to defend their home against a hostile, foreign invader.
What movement? The Confederate monuments you disparage honor the service and sacrifice of my forefathers, as do I.
Foreign, weren’t the all part of the same country? Also weren’t they fighting to violate the basic human dignity of a large portion of the population?
So, shall we erase the Civil War from the history books because of some wackos out there? How soon we forget that Lincoln wanted Lee to command the Union troops. In WWII George Patton admitted to admiring Rommel, not because he was aligned with the Nazis, but because he was a great general for whom Patton had professional respect. So was Lee. Should the Romans nuke the colosseum where their ancestors threw the Christians to the lions? This whole episode is absolutely ridiculous, and it’s a crying out loud shame that we have left it to the wackos to make the obvious point.
The effort to remove and demolish Confederate monuments has but one purpose: to demean white Southerners and their culture.
Secession is unconstitutional. The Federal government was enforcing the law.
No, not after the eleven states if the Confederacy had chosen to secede, which they had every moral right to do. As for their reasons, some Southerners indeed wanted to preserve slavery, but not all.
But for secession, the United States would not exist. The question over whether secession was “constitutional” or “legal” is irrelevant.
No, the question over whether secession was legal or not is central to the question of whether the Federal government was violating the rights of Southerners or enforcing the law.
What is the legal mechanism for secession under the Constitution? Why did they write the institution of slavery into their constitution?
What legal right did the Thirteen Colonies have to secede from the British Empire?
ALL my people, on both sides, came to this country from Britain in the 17th century, with the exception of my great great grandmother, a Cherokee Indian. They settled in the South, and I have been proud of my heritage for my whole life. Some of our greatest writers have come from the South and some of our greatest politicians. They’ll never, ever make me ashamed of my heritage.