I like people pointing out how incredibly brief the Confederacy was. So choosing to highlight this particular part of history sends a very clear message. Heck the TV show Grey's Anatomy has lasted over 5 times longer than the confederacy.

If we're arguing about other wars, we don't have as many things named after Generals from WWI or WWII either. Where are are statues to people like Dick Winters?

Because the truth is, it's not about history at all. It's about sending a racial message.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I personally support keeping them, not because I stand for what they supported, but it’s an influential piece of history that is many ways unique to Virginia and a reminder of how far we’ve came.

+1. Like it or not, it is part of our history. The bad has to be recognized as well as the good.

Recognized? Acknowledged in a museum or history books.

But no need to name streets after trash.

Recognizing and celebrating are not the same thing. Why in the world would anyone celebrate the bad in our history?? Ha ha, how absurd. Recognizing the bad is having statues of slaves shackled and on bent knees, which we do have and which are not being taken down.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the same reason Germany and Italy don’t have Hitler Boulevard or Mussolini Drive.

+1000
This is everything. End of thread right there.

I want to push back a bit and say there's actually more. The premise of the OP is that these names were once OK but no longer are. These names were never OK. This is not like the town of East Hamburg, NY, deciding to rename itself "Orchard Park" during WWI. Or french fries becoming "Freedom Fries" during the first Gulf War. There was never a time when Robert E. Lee was not a polarizing figure and a symbol of hate and racism.

+100000000000

Ah, but there is the fact that Germany had the Nurenberg trials. What does U.S. do but welcome the traitors back into Congress.

There is a difference between wanting to exterminate people and treating them as property. Both dehumanizing and neither worthy of commemoration, but also not the same.

I’m not sure what you see as being a crucial difference — but you might pause and ask yourself why forced labor on the way to exterminating people and exterminating people in the process of using them as forced labor feels like an important distinction for you to make.

Because slavery, while inhumane and despicable, was not the same as murder.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the same reason Germany and Italy don’t have Hitler Boulevard or Mussolini Drive.

+1000
This is everything. End of thread right there.

I want to push back a bit and say there's actually more. The premise of the OP is that these names were once OK but no longer are. These names were never OK. This is not like the town of East Hamburg, NY, deciding to rename itself "Orchard Park" during WWI. Or french fries becoming "Freedom Fries" during the first Gulf War. There was never a time when Robert E. Lee was not a polarizing figure and a symbol of hate and racism.

+100000000000

Ah, but there is the fact that Germany had the Nurenberg trials. What does U.S. do but welcome the traitors back into Congress.

There is a difference between wanting to exterminate people and treating them as property. Both dehumanizing and neither worthy of commemoration, but also not the same.

Wow, just wow...

If I may ask, what motivates you to even try to defend the utterly indefensible racist legacy of the South like that?

Also, remember this thread is about taking down statues and street names of racist criminals that have gone down in infamy. Please tell what made you get up this morning and take the other side on that issue?

I'm all in favor of changing Confederate names on schools and streets, and removing statutes.

I don't agree that slavery is the equivalent of the Holocaust, which is what other posters invariably and quickly insist upon. Whether you like it or not there are degrees of mistreating other human beings and not respecting their basic human rights, and slavery (a widespread, but reprehensible, practice around the world) is not the same as a genocide that involved the deliberate murder of 6 million people.

So my question to you is what motivates you to compare a Robert E. Lee to a Hitler, or quite possibly to call anyone with whom you disagree a Nazi? Is your education so lacking, or your sense of moral superiority so profound, that you think you can resort to such rhetorical cheap tricks and never get questioned?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the same reason Germany and Italy don’t have Hitler Boulevard or Mussolini Drive.

+1000
This is everything. End of thread right there.

I want to push back a bit and say there's actually more. The premise of the OP is that these names were once OK but no longer are. These names were never OK. This is not like the town of East Hamburg, NY, deciding to rename itself "Orchard Park" during WWI. Or french fries becoming "Freedom Fries" during the first Gulf War. There was never a time when Robert E. Lee was not a polarizing figure and a symbol of hate and racism.

+100000000000

Ah, but there is the fact that Germany had the Nurenberg trials. What does U.S. do but welcome the traitors back into Congress.

There is a difference between wanting to exterminate people and treating them as property. Both dehumanizing and neither worthy of commemoration, but also not the same.

I’m not sure what you see as being a crucial difference — but you might pause and ask yourself why forced labor on the way to exterminating people and exterminating people in the process of using them as forced labor feels like an important distinction for you to make.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the same reason Germany and Italy don’t have Hitler Boulevard or Mussolini Drive.

+1000
This is everything. End of thread right there.

I want to push back a bit and say there's actually more. The premise of the OP is that these names were once OK but no longer are. These names were never OK. This is not like the town of East Hamburg, NY, deciding to rename itself "Orchard Park" during WWI. Or french fries becoming "Freedom Fries" during the first Gulf War. There was never a time when Robert E. Lee was not a polarizing figure and a symbol of hate and racism.

+100000000000

Ah, but there is the fact that Germany had the Nurenberg trials. What does U.S. do but welcome the traitors back into Congress.

There is a difference between wanting to exterminate people and treating them as property. Both dehumanizing and neither worthy of commemoration, but also not the same.

Two sides of the same coin.

False.

If you or your progeny were on the receiving end of either one, I doubt you would so blithely type "False."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the same reason Germany and Italy don’t have Hitler Boulevard or Mussolini Drive.

+1000
This is everything. End of thread right there.

I want to push back a bit and say there's actually more. The premise of the OP is that these names were once OK but no longer are. These names were never OK. This is not like the town of East Hamburg, NY, deciding to rename itself "Orchard Park" during WWI. Or french fries becoming "Freedom Fries" during the first Gulf War. There was never a time when Robert E. Lee was not a polarizing figure and a symbol of hate and racism.

+100000000000

Ah, but there is the fact that Germany had the Nurenberg trials. What does U.S. do but welcome the traitors back into Congress.

There is a difference between wanting to exterminate people and treating them as property. Both dehumanizing and neither worthy of commemoration, but also not the same.

It has been an incredible competition over the years - but we finally have a winner on the worst DCUM take ever!
Parsing relative evil of Slavery vs. Nazis is next level.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the same reason Germany and Italy don’t have Hitler Boulevard or Mussolini Drive.

+1000
This is everything. End of thread right there.

I want to push back a bit and say there's actually more. The premise of the OP is that these names were once OK but no longer are. These names were never OK. This is not like the town of East Hamburg, NY, deciding to rename itself "Orchard Park" during WWI. Or french fries becoming "Freedom Fries" during the first Gulf War. There was never a time when Robert E. Lee was not a polarizing figure and a symbol of hate and racism.

+100000000000

Ah, but there is the fact that Germany had the Nurenberg trials. What does U.S. do but welcome the traitors back into Congress.

There is a difference between wanting to exterminate people and treating them as property. Both dehumanizing and neither worthy of commemoration, but also not the same.

Sure, I grant that there’s a difference, but they are on the same end of the “man’s inhumanity to man” spectrum and they’re not all that far apart. But by all means, continue to defend slavery as “really not as bad as Hitler’s Final Solution.”

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the same reason Germany and Italy don’t have Hitler Boulevard or Mussolini Drive.

+1000
This is everything. End of thread right there.

I want to push back a bit and say there's actually more. The premise of the OP is that these names were once OK but no longer are. These names were never OK. This is not like the town of East Hamburg, NY, deciding to rename itself "Orchard Park" during WWI. Or french fries becoming "Freedom Fries" during the first Gulf War. There was never a time when Robert E. Lee was not a polarizing figure and a symbol of hate and racism.

+100000000000

Ah, but there is the fact that Germany had the Nurenberg trials. What does U.S. do but welcome the traitors back into Congress.

There is a difference between wanting to exterminate people and treating them as property. Both dehumanizing and neither worthy of commemoration, but also not the same.

Not really that different at all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the same reason Germany and Italy don’t have Hitler Boulevard or Mussolini Drive.

+1000
This is everything. End of thread right there.

I want to push back a bit and say there's actually more. The premise of the OP is that these names were once OK but no longer are. These names were never OK. This is not like the town of East Hamburg, NY, deciding to rename itself "Orchard Park" during WWI. Or french fries becoming "Freedom Fries" during the first Gulf War. There was never a time when Robert E. Lee was not a polarizing figure and a symbol of hate and racism.

+100000000000

Ah, but there is the fact that Germany had the Nurenberg trials. What does U.S. do but welcome the traitors back into Congress.

There is a difference between wanting to exterminate people and treating them as property. Both dehumanizing and neither worthy of commemoration, but also not the same.

Wow, just wow...

If I may ask, what motivates you to even try to defend the utterly indefensible racist legacy of the South like that?

Also, remember this thread is about taking down statues and street names of racist criminals that have gone down in infamy. Please tell what made you get up this morning and take the other side on that issue?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I personally support keeping them, not because I stand for what they supported, but it’s an influential piece of history that is many ways unique to Virginia and a reminder of how far we’ve came.

+1. Like it or not, it is part of our history. The bad has to be recognized as well as the good.

You recognize the bad by teaching it in history, writing books that offer the context and comparison to others, etc. You don't "recognize" the bad by building statutes and naming buildings in people's honor.

Honestly, how stupid are some of the people in this thread? The concept is really easy, but you don't seem to be able to grasp it in the slightest.

And just to go full Godwin's Law, we don't need to have a "Hitler Boulevard" or statutes of him to recognize that he was bad. Again, see how stupid that idea is?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I personally support keeping them, not because I stand for what they supported, but it’s an influential piece of history that is many ways unique to Virginia and a reminder of how far we’ve came.

+1. Like it or not, it is part of our history. The bad has to be recognized as well as the good.

Recognized? Acknowledged in a museum or history books.

But no need to name streets after trash.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the same reason Germany and Italy don’t have Hitler Boulevard or Mussolini Drive.

+1000
This is everything. End of thread right there.

I want to push back a bit and say there's actually more. The premise of the OP is that these names were once OK but no longer are. These names were never OK. This is not like the town of East Hamburg, NY, deciding to rename itself "Orchard Park" during WWI. Or french fries becoming "Freedom Fries" during the first Gulf War. There was never a time when Robert E. Lee was not a polarizing figure and a symbol of hate and racism.

+100000000000

Ah, but there is the fact that Germany had the Nurenberg trials. What does U.S. do but welcome the traitors back into Congress.

There is a difference between wanting to exterminate people and treating them as property. Both dehumanizing and neither worthy of commemoration, but also not the same.

Two sides of the same coin.

False.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the same reason Germany and Italy don’t have Hitler Boulevard or Mussolini Drive.

+1000
This is everything. End of thread right there.

I want to push back a bit and say there's actually more. The premise of the OP is that these names were once OK but no longer are. These names were never OK. This is not like the town of East Hamburg, NY, deciding to rename itself "Orchard Park" during WWI. Or french fries becoming "Freedom Fries" during the first Gulf War. There was never a time when Robert E. Lee was not a polarizing figure and a symbol of hate and racism.

+100000000000

Ah, but there is the fact that Germany had the Nurenberg trials. What does U.S. do but welcome the traitors back into Congress.

There is a difference between wanting to exterminate people and treating them as property. Both dehumanizing and neither worthy of commemoration, but also not the same.

Two sides of the same coin.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the same reason Germany and Italy don’t have Hitler Boulevard or Mussolini Drive.

+1000
This is everything. End of thread right there.

I want to push back a bit and say there's actually more. The premise of the OP is that these names were once OK but no longer are. These names were never OK. This is not like the town of East Hamburg, NY, deciding to rename itself "Orchard Park" during WWI. Or french fries becoming "Freedom Fries" during the first Gulf War. There was never a time when Robert E. Lee was not a polarizing figure and a symbol of hate and racism.

+100000000000

Ah, but there is the fact that Germany had the Nurenberg trials. What does U.S. do but welcome the traitors back into Congress.

There is a difference between wanting to exterminate people and treating them as property. Both dehumanizing and neither worthy of commemoration, but also not the same.