Confederate vs Nazi. A discussion.

[trof]

Miz t. is a Texan.
NOT a right winger.
I was born (early 40s) and raised in Alabama.
A lib in spite of that.

She said "It's a part of history. Why don't they just leave the damned statues or monuments or whatever alone?"

Me: "Because they represent really terrible times for a lot of people.
Think about the Nazis and what they did to Jews, gypsys, homosexuals, and mentally retarded (OK, 'challenged'?).

Are there any monuments to the Nazis because that's part of Germany's history?
No ma'am.
The U.S. Army dynamited most of them after the war.
The German government got rid of what was left.

The Confederacy tried to split the union in two, in order to maintain a 'lifestyle'.
The planters who ran things in the south bought and sold human beings.
Is being bought and sold, like so many cattle, better or worse than being herded into gas chambers?
To me it's six of one and half-a-dozen of another.
So I can understand why a lot of people want these monuments gone."

Miz t.: "Well, when you put it that way, OK.
I get it."

[Caliman73]

1. Confederate sympathizers have spent a lot of time and money spinning history.

Something they were not allowed to do in Germany.

The simple fact is that the history of the Confederacy is NOT the history of the United States. The Confederate States of America was a separate albeit illegal nation the took up arms against the United States rendering every person who fought on the side of the Confederacy a traitor or at minimum and enemy combatant. They did not "try" to split the Union in two. They split the country into 2 separate entities for the brief and bloody time before they were defeated.

This is something that we must never allow them to forget. There are no Confederate heroes, although I am sure there were acts of heroism from that side. There were likely acts of heroism by the Wehrmacht as well. The Confederate States were a treasonous rival nation which should not be celebrated in any way in American History.

[trof]

3. I guess you're right. Hadn't looked at it from that angle.

I guess they DID succeed in splitting the nation.
Not exactly in the way they originally intended, but here we are today.

Was it Faulkner who said "the past is not even the past"? or something like that.
My great grandfather was a participant in the 'War of Northern Aggression' as it was referred to.

Not so long ago, still.

[Warpy]

2. Perfect description of why the fight was picked, that and they all pined

for the old Articles of Confederation because they didn't want a strong central government to push 'em around.

I like what the Hungarians did with all the Communist era monuments in Budapest and some of the other smaller cities: they uprooted them and carted them off to land outside town to become their own memorial park. That way, people who hated that era wouldn't have to be offended by the bad art glorifying it and the ones with the maximum amount of dust on their rose colored glasses could go visit the stuff.

There were no heroes in a war fought for the right of rich men to own other human beings. There were, however, antecedents and that's one reason people cling to the statuary. Move them out to a Civil War Park out of the way and let the people who wax nostalgic over the moonlight and magnolias of a brutal era go there.

[murielm99]

4. I think most of those statues

and memorials were erected in defiance. Many members of the confederacy did not want to admit defeat, so they put up those visible reminders to stick it to the winners. They refer to "The war between the states" rather than the Civil War. This type of thinking needs to go.

If the millennial and younger generations are so much better than their seniors, let them prove it by being the first to denounce and turn their backs on those bad old times.

[Hoyt]

5. Nazi symbols, confederate symbols -- both symbols of hate and both tick me off.

[moondust]

6. The monuments, flags, and symbols

Last edited Mon Aug 14, 2017, 09:29 PM - Edit history (1)

are ugly reminders for some--never again!-- but rallying points for others who may use them to cling to and even try to revive those bad old ideas. Of course "reminders" don't need monumental treatment or flags flying.

After WWII Germany was occupied for more than 40 years by Western allies and Soviets who could effectively enforce a ban on Nazi paraphernalia as necessary and thereby prevent any public resurgence. After the Civil War I don't know if the North ever considered banning Confederate paraphernalia and symbols but even if they did it would have been difficult if not impossible to enforce a ban over such a large geographic area without the long-term occupation of Union armies.

[AlexSFCA]

7. it's irrelevant because we are witnessing

consolidation of all far right groups under alt right. Experts always beleived that once these fringe groups are out in the open, the infighting would begind and some may fall apart somewhat. This has not happened, in large part, because there are now highly intelligent people in the top levels of government involved (bannon and others) in helping to coordinate the movement. Make no mistake, alt right will grow exponentially after the successful Charlottesville event. We will have to fight by all means possible as there is no precedent of this ever happening. This is uncharted territory.

[markpkessinger]

8. Whenever someone says of monuments that "they're part of history" . . .

. . . my response is that statues and monuments are NOT, in most cases, history. They represent a particular -- and often highly sanitized -- view of history, not history itself.