Charlottesville

[Rsmyth]

Many Americans are ignorant of our history. Most on this board are not. I would like to know the opinions of those on this board concerning Confederate monuments and the stars and bars as flash points for racist groups.

[Gene C]

I can't think of a different "flash point" to substitute, so yes let's get rid of all those nasty monuments and flags.
While we are at it, lets remove all those Martin Luther King street signs and other flash points for people of dissenting opinions to even things out.
Everyone should be happy and feel good then, and that will solve the problem right, since we have removed the flash points.

And lets forget about teaching and encouraging Godly principles and personal responsibility, as that will offend to many people, and let a superior all encompassing federal government of some kind fix the problem.

In a slightly different vein, anyone remember reading "A Wrinkle In Time"?

[Thomas Kearney]

The disaster in Charlottesville is unacceptable. Hasn't history taught people the consequences of bigotry and hate? Ideals the white supremacists follow are unacceptable and will NOT be tolerated. Charlottesville native Thomas Jefferson wrote that all men are created equal. How come nobody is listening to him? What about that dream MLK had? I don't think attacks like the ones in Charlottesville, Charleston, and Orlando are what he would want to read about in the newspaper. Think about Lincoln and ask yourself how he would have dealt with this. I am a friend of people of all races and backgrounds. I don't single out anyone for being African American or Transgender, I see them as a person like everyone else.

Due to the incident in Charlottesville, I want to see all Confederate statues and memorials removed because hate has no home in the Free World.

I hope I never have to deal with an attack like this as President.

Don't focus on the negatives of history. Instead, focus on those who made a positive impact.

[Susan Higginbotham]

(08-14-2017 12:22 PM)Gene C Wrote:  I can't think of a different "flash point" to substitute, so yes let's get rid of all those nasty monuments and flags.
While we are at it, lets remove all those Martin Luther King street signs and other flash points for people of dissenting opinions to even things out.
Everyone should be happy and feel good then, and that will solve the problem right, since we have removed the flash points.

And lets forget about teaching and encouraging Godly principles and personal responsibility, as that will offend to many people, and let a superior all encompassing federal government of some kind fix the problem.

In a slightly different vein, anyone remember reading "A Wrinkle In Time"?

I'm a bit confused as to why someone who rails against the "all encompassing federal government" would decry those duly elected local officials making the difficult decision about what monuments should remain on public grounds.

Personally, I have no strong feelings about these Confederate statues; if anything, I lean on the side of letting them remain. But I'm honest enough to admit I would probably have a different perspective if my ancestors had been brought here in slave ships.

[Gene C]

One of the difficulties in responding to the question posted above is like using 50 words or less for a question requiring a 500 word response.

The problem isn't the monuments being flash points, anymore than the vehicle used to run over people, or a gun to shoot people, is responsible for their injuries and death. They are both tools someone uses to vent hatred and/or cause injury to others. The removal of monuments and flags will not solve the problem, it's only a short term solution. The emotions and attitudes will move on to another symbol or object to be used to express their feelings. The problem isn't the statues or the flag. It isn't the cars or the guns. It is people who have let wrong thoughts overtake and control their thinking.

Slavery was and still is wrong. Putting up or taking down statues won't change that.
Nor will it fix the current problem some people experience with racial issues. Changes in attitude will. Part of the difficulty is SOME of the people trying to make the change (and often the most vocal) have the wrong attitude when it comes to making the changes needed.
My opinion is that the government in many ways has been well intentioned, but spent their resources on the wrong solutions.
And I have exceeded my 50 words.

[L Verge]

I may be forced off the forum for my thoughts, but here they are. While many are trying to heap the blame on President Trump, I happen to agree with his original tweet that there is hatred on many sides that needs to stop. Very few people are guiltless in this game, no matter your race.

Most of you already know my opinion of the one-sided members of the press nowadays, and I will further state that I consider them to be part of the blame for this event in particular. For a week ahead of time, the news people (at least in the DC area) were practically frothing at the mouth in anticipation of a confrontation in Charlottesville. They wanted coverage and ratings, and they got just that -- and we are listening to the event re-broadcasted over and over with nothing new and different and no attempt at quelling further violence. And, the press members deliberately collar our politicians who they know will give them the sound bytes they are looking for. In other circumstances, these forms of news media personnel would be called instigators.

And, they group everyone out there who want to keep the statue of Lee and others as "white supremacists." I guess that includes me, even though I have a multitude of African American friends and colleagues as well as friends of other ethnicities -- and I just presented a talk on Immigration, Inclusion, and the Appreciation of Diversity to a large, mixed audience and got rave reviews. My wanting to keep reminders of our country's history, trials, and triumphs does not make me a white supremacist.

Finally, I consider that some of this is race baiting, pure and simple, on the part of the press, but also on the part of our enemies (seen and unseen) who are working to bring our nation down. They have found what is perhaps our weakest point, and they will continue to hit us on it. I hear comments all the time in my area about this unseen billionaire who pays $$$/hour to anyone who will go out and protest for any and all causes that will work against us.

I have lived through segregation (in a segregated state), watched our country torn apart by real hatred in the 50s and 60s, taught in the early days of desegregation with forced busing, and the like. I truly feel that there are evil people out there trying to force us back into those times of turmoil, and they come in a variety of colors!

[Thomas Kearney]

I remember when the police brutality riots occurred in Baltimore. They almost cancelled my senior prom which was held at a hotel in the Inner Harbor and I avoided Pimlico and Orioles home games for about a month.

[J. Beckert]

I think Laurie made some fantastic points. The press can't seem to get enough of pumping "racism" into the headlines. Morgan Freeman said it best when he said the cure was to "Just stop talking about it".

White supremacists are a vile bunch and shouldn't be tolerated in this country in the 21st. Century. They are a hate group and should be treated as such.

You also made a good point, Rich - most Americans are ignorant of our history. Because of the constant promoting of it by the liberal media, the mere mention of the "Confederacy" or the sight of a Confederate flag now leave the mindless masses frothing at the mouth to condemn whatever the press tells them is racist.

This whole mess is Charlottesville started over the proposed removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee. A man who freed his own slaves a year before the Emancipation Proclamation and also made sure they were educated - which was against Federal Law. A tad better than the "Root hog or die" proposal Lincoln had, but most folks don't know that part of the story. But Lee's a villain because he wore the gray.

Working in a school now, I've quizzed several history teachers about who said "Slavery is our greatest moral evil" - Lincoln, Frederick Douglas or Lee. No one has gotten it right so far, but it was actually Lee.

When we start molding our history into what's more palatable to the weak minded masses, we're losing it entirely. And that's a shame.

[L Verge]

(08-14-2017 03:35 PM)Thomas Kearney Wrote:  I remember when the police brutality riots occurred in Baltimore. They almost cancelled my senior prom which was held at a hotel in the Inner Harbor and I avoided Pimlico and Orioles home games for about a month.

How inconvenient Thomas, but why did riots have to ensue? And who were you avoiding - the police or possible gangs/rioters?

A proper and strong democracy encourages peaceful discourse from both sides in order to bring about change. There are good people on both sides trying to do that, but the trouble-makers take over (for personal gain) and cause riots and death. Whether white, black, green, or purple, those trouble-makers are putting our country in jeopardy.

[Thomas Kearney]

I was avoiding the rioters

[L Verge]

(08-15-2017 06:54 AM)Thomas Kearney Wrote:  I was avoiding the rioters

Understood, Thomas, and very smart. And, this is the point of my posting. Good, law-abiding citizens are being held hostage by lawbreakers who really have no idea what they are "protesting" about and have no intentions of following the rules of democracy. Our early civil rights leaders must be rolling in their graves over what their efforts have turned into.

[brtmchl]

(08-15-2017 09:14 AM)brtmchl Wrote:  If These Confederate statues are "Flash Points," although now a days what isn't a hot button topic, representing slavery...then shouldn't they also represent the sacrifice and willingness to abolish slavery as well?

If these monuments and statues were British, I would say get rid of them. We broke from British Governance and created our own Nation. A young Nation. One that has made mistakes but has also become a beacon for all people regardless of their skin.

These statues are not foreign. They are American. A part of our past that we can't run from and pretend never happened. Rife with Flaws, Honor, Prejudice, Statehood, Sacrifice, Pride, Misguided beliefs backed up by law, Loyalty, Duty, etc... You look upon anything with a preconceived idea and you are sure to find it.

It's a shame this incident happened at the Lee Monument, Robert E Lee stated "There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it is a greater evil to the white than to the colored race. While my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more deeply engaged for the former."

Lee played a key role in the post-Civil War reconciliation. While a few politicians and zealots in the army wanted to wage a bloody interminable guerilla war that would have torn this country apart, General Lee would have none of that.

Many Generals such as Longstreet, did so for the good of the country. Others who perished in the Civil War, like Stonewall Jackson and Pat Cleburne, had little tolerance for racism. Even General Nathan Bedford Forrest, after forming the Klan, realized how destructive the group had become. Forrest went on to serve under General William T. Sherman, working to destroy the KKK and arrest white men who had lynched a black man.

History should be talked about. It is a constant lesson. One to be revisited in order to understand the evolution of Man and Country. I look at these statues and see many things. The most important is the reminder of how far we have come. I am speaking personally, and my views are mine alone. I am aware that everyone else has their own emotional or reasoned thoughts as to whether these monuments are offensive or not.

Mob rule has no business in society. The example in Raleigh yesterday is an example. This went beyond removing a statue. There is an unhealthy anger accompanied with violence and destruction that follows these protests groups. When we tear something down because we are offended, aren't we offending someone in turn. Possibly an ancestor who has pride in his family for making a sacrifice for his country or state, or even an ancestor of a slave who looks upon that statue and sees the History of his race and what they overcame? When we destroy a statue do we also march to a library, museum, burial space or another statue and tear down the existence of all those in Congress who appeased the South by not abolishing slavery outright through law? We should erase all History of our Nation prior to the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment.

According to David Blight, Yale University, "James K. Polk, this expansionist president, expansionist slaveholding president, now, became the sixth of the first ten American presidents who was a slaveholder. Don Fehrenbacher's book called Slaveholding Republic shows us that before the American Civil War two-thirds of all American presidents were slaveholders or deeply sympathetic with slaveholding, as in the case of James Buchanan by the late 1850s. Two-thirds of all members of the U.S. Supreme Court were slaveholders. And, so far as we know, James K. Polk was the only president in American history to actually buy and sell slaves from the Oval Office of the White House."

According to Wikipedia, "Polk is now recognized, not only as the strongest president between Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln, but also the president who made the United States a coast-to-coast nation. When historians began ranking the presidents in 1948, Polk ranked 10th in Arthur M. Schlesinger's poll. and has subsequently ranked 8th in Schlesinger's 1962 poll, 11th in the Riders-McIver Poll (1996), 11th in the most recent Siena Poll (2002), 9th in the most recent Wall Street Journal Poll (2005), and 12th in the latest C-Span Poll (2009)."

Hate is not a White thing or a Black thing. Hate is on the inside, where we are all the same color. Destroying and removing these monuments does not erase racism and hate from society.

[ELCore]

(08-14-2017 03:22 PM)L Verge Wrote:  I may be forced off the forum for my thoughts, but here they are....

I agree with you about the media.

[HerbS]

Very sad day! I am against social injustice of any kind-I agree with Laurie about the media!

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Racism is alive and well all over the U.S.-nothing new-but terrible!

[My Name Is Kate]

Wouldn't it be interesting if Obama/Clinton/Soros were responsible for not only the Antifa/BLM crowd being at the Charlottesville protest, but also the White Supremacist/KKK crowd being there, using the volatile subject of slavery and racism to try to bring down a duly-elected president?

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/...n-kessler/