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Down Goes Silent Sam

Is being loyal to your state when your state withdraws from its country traitorous? By definition, an ordinary citizen is no longer a citizen of the prior country by virtue of the actions of the political leaders of the state.

Junebug, yes. That's being a traitor to your country. It's a form of negative peer pressure.

If your friends jumped off of a bridge would you build a statue to honor them?
 
Junebug, yes. That's being a traitor to your country. It's a form of negative peer pressure.

If your friends jumped off of a bridge would you build a statue to honor them?

Probably depends on how they felt about brown people.
 
Yes these people were all traitors to their country. I didn't realize this was controversial or novel.

Yes, I'm not sure why 92 chose this battle to fight. They are, by definition, traitors. Taking up arms against their country was obviously not a decision they took lightly, and they felt they had good and sufficient reasons for it. Others disagreed. It's why they fought a war. The same goes for the other figures you list. It does speak to the federalism dynamic that so many Southern states, counties, and towns promptly erected monuments, often on government property, honoring those traitors.

As for the statues themselves, I have a great deal of sympathy for the people who want them to be respected and available for viewing. I think that's a legitimate interest, and certainly don't believe it automatically makes one bigoted or racist. However, that interest needs to be balanced against the desires of people who do see the monuments as racist and do not want to see them as part of their daily routine. That can be very difficult when the monuments are situated in front of a courthouse, on a public square, or in the middle of a quad. Moving them to a museum, cemetery, or secluded area would protect those interests while imposing only a minimal amount of difficulty on those who still want to be able to view or study them.

Unfortunately, the NC legislature, in typical fashion, made the situation worse by passing their ridiculous law. I can see why that would make communities in Durham or Chapel Hill feel disenfranchised, especially given the rampant gerrymandering. But ripping down a statue disenfranchises every other voter in the state. Those voters may be uneducated or rubes or even racist, but their vote still matters. It's one of the drawbacks of living in a democracy: people who are ahead of the times have to tolerate injustice longer than they feel they should have to, while people who are behind the times feel like they're constantly being dragged forward against their will. Nobody is always happy all of the time.

My Con Law professor used to talk about how SC Justices were "wearing each other's robes and singing each other's lines" in certain cases where they weren't ruling consistent with their principles set forth in other cases. It's been funny to watch small-government conservatives argue in at least tacit support of a state law that takes power out of the hands of counties and municipalities. Meanwhile, liberals who want the government to control everything from housing to health care argue that the government just can't be trusted with statue duty, and needs to rely on its industrious citizens to take matters into their own hands, unfettered by laws and regulations. Principle seems to take a back seat to passion in a lot of these hot-button issues.
 
Is being loyal to your state when your state withdraws from its country traitorous? By definition, an ordinary citizen is no longer a citizen of the prior country by virtue of the actions of the political leaders of the state.

Yeah it's treasonous, the states had no ability to "secede"
 
People are still all Southern pride about the confederacy? good lord Fuck the Southerners who hang on to all that phony "suthun" shit. It's the lamest cultural segment of the United States. Its so fucking phony and ridiculous, even when you separate out the racism. All that yuckity yuckin' about Southern this and that, and pride blah blah. Shut the fuck up, you are an American. pull yourself together

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/
 
But it’s not your country anymore, due, not to your actions, but to the actions of your political leaders. It would be traitorous, at that point, to your state/new country to support your old one.

It is one thing to claim that the southern political leaders who effected secession were traitors. It is another to claim that all southerners, or even all southern footsoldiers, were.

let's not act like the average southerner didn't have any choice in the matter.
https://www.ncpedia.org/union-volunteer-regiments

Four regiments of white North Carolinians served the Union during the Civil War: the 1st and 2nd North Carolina Union Volunteer Infantry in the Coastal Plain and the 2nd and 3rd North Carolina Union Mounted Infantry in the Mountains. The Union also recruited a black brigade in North Carolina, the African Brigade, which consisted of ex-slaves.

The western units, the 2nd and 3rd North Carolina Union Mounted Infantry, were organized in October 1863 and June 1864, respectively, and headquartered in Knoxville, Tenn. Enlisting soldiers for these regiments was not difficult. Unionism was strong in the Mountains, where many residents resented the slaveholding aristocracy of the eastern planters. This was especially evident in Henderson, Transylvania, Yancey, Madison, Mitchell, and Wilkes Counties. Pro-Union sentiment was so strong in Wilkes that Confederates referred to the county as the "Old United States." A Union company organized in Henderson County in 1863 later became Company F, 2nd North Carolina Mounted Union Volunteer Regiment. Early in the war "underground railroads" secretly guided southern Unionists to northern recruiting stations in Tennessee and elsewhere. These men were joined by numerous North Carolinians who had deserted the southern armies following the devastating Confederate defeats at Vicksburg and Gettysburg.

It is amusing to me that attitudes toward the Confederacy are markedly more positive in Wilkes County today than they were in 1863.
 
Grant's memoirs, chapter 16 covers this. The "confederacy" was an attempted revolution. Gotta win it, or else you get the Force Acts
 
But it’s not your country anymore, due, not to your actions, but to the actions of your political leaders. It would be traitorous, at that point, to your state/new country to support your old one.

It is one thing to claim that the southern political leaders who effected secession were traitors. It is another to claim that all southerners, or even all southern footsoldiers, were.

The Rock of Chickamauga figured it out
 
You must be aware that that view is the subject of legal and historical debate.

"of this there is more than a hint in your statement that you... have only "discoursed." No one writes like that who has a thorough insight into the subject and rightfully understands it. I for my part... have not discoursed, but have asserted and do assert, and I am unwilling to submit the matter to anyone's judgment, but advise everyone to yield assent"
 
Which of these are monuments to individuals who fought against America for the right to leave the United States?

How about the Boot Monument? I would say that's probably as close as you can get to that.

At least that one doesn't show Arnold's face or say his name anywhere on it, is a testament to his service to the country, is minimalist and on the site of the battle.

I would think if there was a memorial to Robert E Lee for his role in the Mexican American war somewhere in the southwest US it wouldn't cause much of a problem.
 
People are still all Southern pride about the confederacy? good lord Fuck the Southerners who hang on to all that phony "suthun" shit. It's the lamest cultural segment of the United States. Its so fucking phony and ridiculous, even when you separate out the racism. All that yuckity yuckin' about Southern this and that, and pride blah blah. Shut the fuck up, you are an American. pull yourself together

So fuck you. You and RJ and other people like you can stay the fuck out of the South, where you chose to attend college. There's no lack of fatass Midwesterners eager to trade in horrible weather and sausages for economic growth and a life outdoors in the South. No one will miss you here.
 
Which of these are monuments to individuals who fought against America for the right to leave the United States?

So that's your standard for whether a monument should stand? Well that Brigham Young guy had hundreds of people killed for no real reason, but goddamn he never fought against America to leave, let's build more statues of the motherfucker! I hear Ted Bundy was a damn fine patriot, where is his monument?
 
So that's your standard for whether a monument should stand? Well that Brigham Young guy had hundreds of people killed for no real reason, but goddamn he never fought against America to leave, let's build more statues of the motherfucker! I hear Ted Bundy was a damn fine patriot, where is his monument?

It's not the only standard, but it's the bare minimum standard. You're so eager to disagree with people under the guise of hating on PC that you're not reading what people are saying.
 
That's why my initial post was that if you're attempting to analogize other monuments in America to the confederate statutes then you should stop: because the other monuments you're going to point out (and then did point out), while perhaps still disgusting, aren't objectionable on the basis that they honor individuals who were traitors to our country and are still supported by a large number of southerners.
 
It's not the only standard, but it's the bare minimum standard. You're so eager to disagree with people under the guise of hating on PC that you're not reading what people are saying.

How am I hating on PC? I'm the one trying to add in the additional atrocities of our collective past such as the treatment of Native Americans and Japanese Americans; you are the one wanting to hold Confederate monuments to a higher standard.

I am reading what people are saying: all Confederate monuments should come down given what Wikipedia says they stand for, and Silent Sam in particular should have come down given the contents of a speech given when it was put up. I'm saying that Silent Sam, the particular statue itself, doesn't say anything different than plenty of other historical monuments: it is a monument honoring the lives of young people who gave up their normal lives to go fight in a war that in hindsight we don't agree with.

I agree that certain Confederate symbols should come down. But, if I'm ranking the Confederate symbols that need to come down, Silent Sam wasn't high on the list. I'd be much more concerned with the massive like 50' by 20' Confederate flags that people have put up on huge poles next to highways, like the one on 95 near Wilson or the one on 321 near Maiden. I just think these protest efforts are really misdirected at times.
 
Monuments have to be considered on a case by case basis. I think decision makers should apply two criteria to any given Confederate memorial:

1. Was it erected in the early 1900s or Civil Rights Era? If yes, there is a strong likelihood that the motive was a display of white supremacy, and the historical record (i.e. the Julian Carr speech for Silent Sam) will often provide additional evidence.
2. Is it in a prominent public place, like a courthouse or town square, such that the monument's presence implies that today's residents still approve of the motivation for erecting it and its continued symbolism?

If the answer to both is "yes", then at the very least the local population should have the right to democratically determine what happens to it. If legislators from Harnett County feel strongly about protecting monuments over the opposition of the local community in Orange County, let them provide funding to relocate it to a museum or battlefield or cemetery and they and their constituents can go fawn over it all they want.
 
Why would you erect a statue or monument where no one is likely to see it ?
 
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