Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you find it appropriate if Germany erected a statue of Hitler at a major battle site in Germany?

Read up on Lee.

Then read up on Hitler.

Then revisit your post.

They were both nazis. One exterminated Jews. The other exterminated blacks.

Anonymous wrote:Would you find it appropriate if Germany erected a statue of Hitler at a major battle site in Germany?

Read up on Lee.

Then read up on Hitler.

Then revisit your post.

Would you find it appropriate if Germany erected a statue of Hitler at a major battle site in Germany?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The point of a monument is to celebrate and to remember, in a positive way, historical events and figures. Unless we want to honor Lee for his role in the Civil War, why have monuments to him? We can teach the history of the Confederacy without celebrating it.

What?? Is history all about remembering only the 'good' things that happened? That's a terrible idea. If we don't remember the bad things, they'll just happen over and over. Do you feel that way about everything?

And monuments aren't just to remember positive events. They're to remember that a particular moment in history happened at that particular place.

The term that you're looking for is memorial. A memorial is an object that serves as a focus for a memory of something, usually a person or an event. For example, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial serves to remember soldiers who fought and died in the Vietnam War. But I highly doubt anyone would find the memorial to be celebratory of the Vietnam War in any way.

A monument is an object that is explicitly created to commemorate a person or an event, usually in celebration of something. The statue at Antietam celebrates Lee as a general who "fought for his home and the right of every people to self determination." How ironic. In other words, as an honorable figure who died for an honorable cause.

If people want to create a memorial that remembers the Southerners who died during the Civil War, they should do so. But there's a big difference between remembering and celebrating.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The battlefield itself should be sold off and developed. That way, no acknowledgement of it all will remain after a few generations. This is how you achieve really and lasting healing. Not by keeping it around for 150 years.

Not sure I follow. Though, you must be from Montgomery County, where developers enjoy paving over every single inch of green space.

But, how does developing the battlefield help healing?

DP

If you can no longer recognize it as a battlefield, then it's like it didn't happen. I agree. Pave it. Stick a mall there. Apartments, houses, whatever. Make it like it never happened.

Anonymous wrote:The point of a monument is to celebrate and to remember, in a positive way, historical events and figures. Unless we want to honor Lee for his role in the Civil War, why have monuments to him? We can teach the history of the Confederacy without celebrating it.

What?? Is history all about remembering only the 'good' things that happened? That's a terrible idea. If we don't remember the bad things, they'll just happen over and over. Do you feel that way about everything?

And monuments aren't just to remember positive events. They're to remember that a particular moment in history happened at that particular place.

Anonymous wrote:The point of a monument is to celebrate and to remember, in a positive way, historical events and figures. Unless we want to honor Lee for his role in the Civil War, why have monuments to him? We can teach the history of the Confederacy without celebrating it.

No.

It is not.

Particularly in a battle field.

The point of a monument is to celebrate and to remember, in a positive way, historical events and figures. Unless we want to honor Lee for his role in the Civil War, why have monuments to him? We can teach the history of the Confederacy without celebrating it.

Anonymous wrote:The battlefield itself should be sold off and developed. That way, no acknowledgement of it all will remain after a few generations. This is how you achieve really and lasting healing. Not by keeping it around for 150 years.

Not sure I follow. Though, you must be from Montgomery County, where developers enjoy paving over every single inch of green space.

But, how does developing the battlefield help healing?

A battlefield monument is a different category, I concur. While we should be able to choose what statutes we have in our public spaces, a battlefield monument is not the same as a public school, a square, a highway, it is the physical location where the history occurred. I am for the dialogue about whether to retain monuments but I would absolutely oppose removing them from battlefields.

The battlefield itself should be sold off and developed. That way, no acknowledgement of it all will remain after a few generations. This is how you achieve really and lasting healing. Not by keeping it around for 150 years.

Liberals are totalitarian and communist. They are seething when out of power. They must be stopped by any means necessary.

Especially at a battlefield, IMO. Isn't the point of the battlefield site to preserve that moment in history? How can you do that if you eliminate one side of the battle by taking down their statues? Seems misguided at best, and Taliban-like at worst.

Sorry. This is completely wrong.

We are not the taliban or isis destroying remnants of history that we do not agree with.

Leave it up and put some educational plaques around it.

Battlefield statues and statues memorializing dead (such as gravestone markers or statues recognizing the town's dead from a war or battle) are important parts of history and should remain.

From the article:
"If passed, the Robert E. Lee Statue Removal Act requires the secretary of the interior to develop a plan to remove the monument within 90 days of passage, and submit a publicly available report to Congress on the plan and timeline within 120 days."

The announcement was in conjunction with the 155th Anniversary of the Battle of Antietam.

For some reason, I feel like statues at battle sites seem less offensive. People who go there know the history, and expect to see statues from both sides. Do people think this particular one needs to be removed?

http://www.wbal.com/article/264519/3/brown-introduces-bill-to-remove-lee-statue-at-antietam