Arlington has asked Virginia to rename Jefferson Davis Highway
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Anonymous
For now. Hope to fix that problem soon. Don't tread on ME. |
Anonymous
Perhaps because Richmond was one of the capitols of the Confederate States of America and Davis was the President? You know, kind of like D.C. celebrating it's past presidents. |
Anonymous
You realize that states are not subdivisions of the federal government, right? Quite the contrary, the states are sovereign entities that exist in their own right and which have general (as opposed to limited or enumerated) power, and the United States is a federation (i.e., why we call it "federal") with certain enumerated powers. Note that states use their sovereignty to do things like issue marriage licenses, which the federal government lacks the power to do. The European Union is also a federation. It is not just a "mechanism of commerce." While the E.U. has less powers than the U.S. does today, it certainly regulates more than commerce. |
Anonymous
I think you missed the point. People in 1860 didn't view the relationship between the states and the federal government in the same way that people do now. I am fine with judging everyone by an objective standard, but you also need to appreciate the cultural context in which people made their decisions as you make those judgements. People back in 1860 -- all people, northerners and southerners alike, felt more loyalty to their state than to the USA writ large. For me, the "slavery is an absolute moral evil" criticism is a lot stronger than the "treason" one. Empires rise and fall, and no state or political subdivision deserves absolute loyalty. Most confederates fought because they were being loyal to their state -- they viewed themselves as a new version of the revolutionaries that fought King George. Of course, on an elite level, I absolutely agree that the war was very much about slavery and rich plantation owners trying to perpetuate their immoral way of life. But the average soldier was not of that class, did not own slaves or benefit in any material way from slavery and viewed themselves as defending their homeland against an outside force. I can both appreciate their bravery and sacrifice of those men while recognizing that the war was a tragedy, slavery was immoral and that the ride side won in the end. I don't think we should be creating any new confederate monuments, but I don't feel the need to needlessly antagonize people in order to score some scorched-earth political victory. By the way, it's not clear that life for, say, coal miners and steel mill workers in the North was significantly better than that of that of slaves or sharecroppers in the South (see, e.g., Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" or, on a similar vein in another country, anything by Emile Zola). I'd rather work in a coal mine in Ohio than as a slave in a plantation in Virginia, but I wouldn't like either life. I am fine recognizing the ills of the robber barons without putting the institutions they founded in the crosshairs (e.g., Carnegie Mellon, Rockefeller University, etc...). |
Anonymous
A defunct enemy country that only existed for a very bad cause for a brief but brutal 4 years and which has now been gone for 150 years. Should we put up a monument honoring Al Baghdadi, leader of ISIS? They are an enemy state as well. |
Anonymous
Well said. The problem with tearing down Jeff Davis's name everywhere you see it isn't that Jedf Davis was a great person, it's that it sets a horrible precedent of tearing down any historical monument to someone that ever did anything that was later judged to be bad. I.e., the witch hunt to abolish Columbus day. If we encourage that sort of behavior we'll very soon be left with no monuments at all. MLK was a sexist womanizer who may have raped women... Should all of his monuments be torn down as well? You can poke holes in (or slander) any historical figure. |
Anonymous
| DC has honored, or wishes to memorialize, Malcolm X who was a separatist and a terrorist and Marion Barry, who was a crook and racist fool. |
Anonymous
| We can pick and choose the icons we have around us. I choose to get rid of confederate heros. |
Anonymous
Is Al Baghdadi the president of the CSA? Is the capitol of ISIS in Virginia? |
Anonymous
Right. And they should be free to do so. Virtually every important religious, business, political, etc... leader on earth has a mixed legacy. There are very few Ghandis and very few Hitlers in this world. For most leaders, it's fine to recognize the good, recognize the bad and try to move on and try do better ourselves. |
Anonymous
Didn't you hear, minorities and social justice warrior type figures can be out on road signs and monuments regardless of what they did. Haven't you seen all the Che Guevera posters about? We only tear down monuments featuring white, heterosexual, males. |
Anonymous
Yep. Amusingly enough, Che Guevera (born Ernesto Lynch) was a straight, white Celtic guy who happened to be born in a spanish-speaking country. But he was a leftist, so obviously he's some sort of hero despite all of his mass murders. Murder is never as bad when a socialist / communist does it. |
Anonymous
Regardless of who he is president of or where his capitol is, WHY DO WE HONOR ENEMIES? Has it still not sunk in to you that the CSA was an ENEMY OF THE UNITED STATES? |
Anonymous
The government dies not put up Che Guevara posters. You are free to make Jefferson Davis posters. |
Anonymous
If you don't like those Che Guevara posters or don't think anything should be named after Malcolm X or Marion Berry, you are free to mount your own campaign to try and stop them. That's how it works. Or, you could go on doing what you're doing, which is to just keep your fat ass in your armchair with your sixpack of beer and shake your fist at anonymous people on the internet. Good luck with that. |