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We Don’t Care What You Think
Been working since 4 am and that, combined with SJWs on Twitter, I may be a little testy. I apologize, sort of, if this offends anyone, but for those of you that want to rip down our monuments, take down flags and/or whatever other symbols in the South offend people’s sensibilities now, here’s the deal.
If you don’t live here then we don’t want your damn opinion about our monuments, etc. You’re not here, so guess what? You don’t have to look at it! Go about your day and try to forget about us honoring our war dead or people we think were heroic, if not perfect leaders. After all, in the SJW world view, Lincoln himself was racist as well, so it won’t be long before we tear down the Lincoln Memorial. We know now that history began with Obama’s election, so why even acknowledge the past has been a bit more complicated than today’s college student at Evergreen may understand.
The South is plenty conflicted already about race, poverty, the war, and how we feel about some of our collective guilt and whatnot. Now Antifa is going all Taliban on us and tearing down any monuments they feel offends their Social Justice dogma. So don’t take up for them, don’t defend their position, don’t explain how they are really right but just a little overboard on their implementation.
They are wrong and most importantly we don’t give a good G.D. what they think. They need to go back to Seattle or wherever the hell they came from (probably UNC). As far as the Nazis and Antifa protesters go, is Virginia out of rubber bullets and fire hoses or something?
I heard the story as it was passed down
About guts and glory and Rebel stands
Four generations, a whole lot has changed
Robert E. Lee
Martin Luther King
We’ve come a long way rising from the flame
Stay out the way of the southern thing
That is up to the rest of you; will you join the likes of National Review and their backers in their now open war against Southern conservatives, or will you tell them to swallow their distaste and knock it off for the sake of saving the country from progressives?
We’ve been trying to tell you those are the stakes
I’m with DocJay—whether to rearrange the public decor is a local decision, the more local the better. I would add that some respect for the democratic process would help a lot.
If you want to take down a statue or re-name a park, there are mechanisms for doing this (assuming you are a citizen of the locality and have standing). One of the many problems with SJWs isn’t just what they believe or know about this or that group or issue. It’s their insistence on forcing their views on everyone else, without even the courtesy of a real debate.
Also, they’re so freakin’ mean.
BTW: I am proud to be from Maine. Also, weirdly, I’m proud of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, even though I’m not related to him and I wasn’t even born in Maine.
If you really can’t see why we find the things I listed infuriating, then I just can’t help you.
I have two great-grandfathers who fought in the Army of the Potomac. One of them was a bugler for one of Custer’s regiments (come on you Wolverines). My Dad’s middle name was Lee. Even Northerners who were sons of Union soldiers felt great respect for Robert E. Lee. Respecting the fine qualities of people who fought for the other side appears to be a vice in the eyes of the SJW. A gay couple in NYC met with Ted Cruz and were criticized for it. It appears that far too many on the Left want to destroy us, and the culture wars are heating up in a way which may have disastrous results.
Both sides in WWI respected the fighter ace Baron von Richthofen.
After WWII, many enemies in combat came to respect and befriend each other.
I was born and raised in Illinois, yet I thank G_d for the peace established by Robert E. Lee and U.S. Grant at Appomattox in 1865.
For that and other things, I consider R.E. Lee a great American, and I detest anyone that would destroy a monument to him, especially in Virginia.
If I recall in reading about this incident, the removal of the statue of Mr. Lee was decided upon by the city council in response to a petition by residents of the town. Those who came to protest the removal of the statue were the outsiders. They came into that community to start a fight, because they could not tolerate what that community had decided.
And defense of the Confederacy is so integral to Southern conservatives? If we are in such desperate straights why don’t Southerners ditch the Confederacy for the greater good of fighting the progressives.
Why are you so anti-Semitic? (I kid, I kid)
That’s not how it works.
First they came for the KKK. I saw it was good. Then they came for the South, and I said “why not?” Then they came for Washington and Jefferson and I cried “STOP!” But it was too late.
More to the point, if you listen carefully to the lyrics, it is about New York as a big, raging party. If ever that party stops, is there any fealty for it? Not hardly.
I mean, I guess that’s a perspective on the situation though it’s incorrect. :>
Have you ever vented about an obnoxious/bossy/preachy person who just can’t seem to get out of your business and constantly tries to tell you what you should be doing despite not having any actual authority over you? Because that’s more what this is. It’s not that we truly care whether or not they like us, it’s just to a point that it’s obnoxious and it’s nice to be able to vent about it once in a while, especially here where we have some level of solidarity.
I actually almost got named Dixie!
I also believe that it is Virginia state law that all removal of monuments must be approved by the state. Unless this statue did not fall under that law, or if I am mistaken about the law in general. Maybe there was an attempt to pass such a law?
I was totally going to try making a business of selling authentic garters to Civil War reenactors, but thanks to the Left, my dreams of being a 19th century costumer are going to die before it becomes a reality.
Just like it did to making wedding accessories.
Or stoles for priests.
But does that make it the “central cause of conflict” or simply “the straw that broke the camel’s back”?
I love that name. My very best pet ever was named Dixie Lee.
It didn’t go through because Mom thought it sounded too much like a stripper name. I’m kind of bummed, but I like my name just fine.
Texas was part of the 11 Confederate States, so yes, Southern.
My sister Luann was almost named Dixie Lu.
As someone raised in the North and married to a Southerner, amen Bub! I heard today that the Lincoln Memorial was vandalized, and many others today, including here in FL. The intimidation began on campuses and the scared administrations backed off from the safe space, triggered a bad emotion, loud mouthed, whiny, complaining students who don’t want to hear an opinion or speaker different from them – now they feel emboldened, to not make their case in a respectful way, as in listen to other people’s opinions, and find a compromise. If you want a scrubbed society, go live in a communist country. I hope people that are causing vandalism are jailed and have to pay to clean it up. Even if it is agreed that something should be removed, there is a proper way to do it.
This won’t end well. It will change how history is taught, religious displays, anything that is found offensive is game for destruction.
Yeah I’ve been hearing a lot lately that “Texas isn’t a Southern state”. I’ve never known it not to be. Texas seceded. The people have an accent and partake in Southern culture. What’s not Southern about it?
Slavery was the log that smashed the camel flat.
Its combo Western and Southern.
You mean my mother?
I keed, I keed…
Secession was about slavery, the war was about secession. There is a difference. The Constitution didn’t say states weren’t allowed to leave, and the representatives of those states voted to do so. The seceded states formed a government and elected a congress and president. The Confederate soldiers were defending that decision. As a California boy (though with ancestors on both sides) it has taken me a long time to come to that understanding, because of the taint of slavery. But when you think about how many people died, I don’t see why it would be so bad for Lincoln to have just given up.
There now. Fixed it for ya! ;)
Mainly because world history would have taken a very different and horrible turn a few decades later when a divided America (likely) went to war with itself (again) and didn’t take part in a number of the advancements that the world experienced in that period.
America doesn’t become the great nation that it did unless it was unified.
… therefore the war was about slavery and the notion that Americans didn’t find compelling anymore the notion that other Americans could hold people against their will in eternal servitude.
But this is progress. I like it…
The confusion comes from the fact that the line between South and West runs through the middle of Texas. So East Texas is part of the South, but West Texas is closer to New Mexico and Arizona culturally.
Maybe more like Tom’s friend. :P
@majestyk, of course the Civil War was about slavery. Alexander Stephens said the cornerstone of the South was slavery, which is abominable.
However, for many people who fought that war, it was not that simple.
If fought purely over slavery, then why did so many slave states stay in the Union for so long after SC seceded? Why did 4 slave states remain in the Union for the entire war? How did the Emancipation Proclamation change the moral purpose of the fighting in 1863 if the purpose was clear? Why did that free slaves in only rebellious states?
Look. The South needed to lose that war because no one could disentangle slavery from federalism. But it was a very complex historical event, and if you’re from the South–a region that did not recover financially until at least the 1950s due to the rise of the Sunbelt–you grew up thinking about some of those complexities in ways that people from other parts of the country do not.
Now let me be unequivocal.
I absolutely despise racism, Nazis of any variety, and–if I’m being completely honest here–Donald Trump. (Sorry, Trump people. He’s the president. I respect that, but I really, really don’t like the dude.)
That doesn’t mean that I can’t understand why Southerners in general–NOT any subgroup of white supremacists who are horrible–get bent out of shape over this recent trend to remove all vestiges of honor from a war that destroyed so many of, yes, their people.
Could there be honor in a country that wanted to sustain slavery?
Um. Well. Yeah. Of course.
Because?
Many of the men who fought in the South were fighting for their own reasons. They didn’t see this as a conflict over slavery as much as an invasion of their home states. Nor was slavery or race viewed in the way that we view slavery or race today. People had much, much greater loyalty to their state than they did to the broader union.
So let’s imagine George Washington was alive during the Civil War.
Would he have refused to lift a sword against Virginia?
If he had done so, would that have meant everything before then was gone?
Robert E. Lee’s father was a Revolutionary War hero, and his wife had her property in VA because of her relation to Washington.
Lee provided for freed slaves like Washington had.
It’s… complicated.
Also, if you really think the Civil War was a ga-zillion years ago, you might want to look up Irene Triplett who was alive in 2014 and whose father fought for both the South and the North.
I don’t fly a Confederate flag. I never will. But I will tell you it annoys me that I got an email from my city council today saying the name of Robert E. Lee St.’s got to go.
Cause… Ya know. Hate.