Deacon923
Scooter Banks
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.
Some rube putting up a flag by the interstate just says "Hey everybody! A racist asshole owns this land!". A statue of General Lee beside a courthouse implies that the government operating out of that courthouse venerates Lee and agrees with what he stood for.