USAians: What are you doing on this loooong MLK weekend?

[Ben Kenobi]

Opposing a public holiday commemorating a certain odious public figure has absolutely nothing to do with free speech. Not one thing.

So why is it so important to Mr. Fun to expunge all record of the confederacy.

I'm sure if he was in charge, he'd pull up all the statues and monuments and try to eradicate Lee's name from history.

I would agree with you that it's important to recognise that these things happened. It's only when we acknowledge them that we can do something about it.

That's what MLK day is about no? To reveal the ugly and dirty truth?

There are good things about the South. They balance each other good and bad. It's important that we honour both and not just the bad.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


In 1864, he pushed Davis for southern conscription of black men to extend his manpower.

Davis denied him because he saw that if the south relied upon the blacks, then there was no justification for slavery. He couldn't keep them both together. Lee saw this, and so did Davis.

This is not Lee being principled and opposing slavery, it's military commonsense and desperation when faced with a manpower shortage.


Stop trying to make Robert E Lee into Frederick Douglass.

Lee had the choice to abandon and fight against his home state of Virginia,

Or for his country and his army and against the evil of slavery.


What, he only discovered the bad side of slavery after running out of white soldiers ?

[Imran Siddiqui]

In the eyes of the United States of America he has

He was legally pardoned for political reasons. That does not pardon him in the realm of what is right and what is wrong.

Which is why he campaigned during the war to free the slaves?

Cite?

And so were the men who were drafted?

Lee and Jackson volunteered. You can make excuses for forced draftees, not for those who made a choice. No drafted man led the Army of Northern Virginia either.

They even renamed George Washington College, Washington and Lee.

A southern college wanted to honor Lee? *GASP* Especially one who'd been President of the college?! Double shock!!

Though I'm not sure if you realize but until recently Washington & Lee wasn't exactly known for its acceptance of diversity (to their credit, in the last 25%, they've pushed for diversity and now 13% of the campus is non-white).

From the man who supported free speech, you sound awfully quick to deny such to others.

Free speech goes both ways, you do realize, right? Or do you just think the people who you agree with have the right to speak but no one else can tell them off?

Any honest assessment of the south has to include the best and worst parts. I think it's horrifying you would rather whitewash the parts you don't like and are offended by.

So not having a state holiday = whitewashing the parts you don't like.

Do you even read what you write?

[DinoDoc]

Can we just split the difference and save us all the tedious whining from both sides and call the day Plagiarism Appreciation Day?

[Imran Siddiqui]

So why is it so important to Mr. Fun to expunge all record of the confederacy.

I'm sure if he was in charge, he'd pull up all the statues and monuments and try to eradicate Lee's name from history.

So if we don't celebrate these horrible men, if we don't put up statutes and monuments of them, we are expunging all records of the Confederacy?!!

What are these things I see in front of me... history books?! These must be some newfangled things that Ben has yet to see.. or he's burned all of his .

Let's put up statues and monuments of Osama bin Laden so we don't expunge the record of Al Queda!!

I guess that means we were silencing the free speech of Iraqis when we pulled down all those statues of Saddam.

[molly bloom]

That's what MLK day is about no? To reveal the ugly and dirty truth?

I thought it was about celebrating the achievements of a man who worked non-violently for all Americans, regardless of ethnicity, status, creed, sex or political belief.


Unlike Robert E. Lee.

Something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee -- the cry is always the same: "We want to be free."
And another reason that I'm happy to live in this period is that we have been forced to a point where we are going to have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history, but the demands didn't force them to do it. Survival demands that we grapple with them. Men, for years now, have been talking about war and peace. But now, no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today.

And also in the human rights revolution, if something isn't done, and done in a hurry, to bring the colored peoples of the world out of their long years of poverty, their long years of hurt and neglect, the whole world is doomed. Now, I'm just happy that God has allowed me to live in this period to see what is unfolding. And I'm happy that He's allowed me to be in Memphis.

I can remember -- I can remember when Negroes were just going around as Ralph has said, so often, scratching where they didn't itch, and laughing when they were not tickled. But that day is all over. We mean business now, and we are determined to gain our rightful place in God's world.

And that's all this whole thing is about. We aren't engaged in any negative protest and in any negative arguments with anybody. We are saying that we are determined to be men. We are determined to be people. We are saying -- We are saying that we are God's children. And that we are God's children, we don't have to live like we are forced to live.

To reveal the ugly and dirty truth? Yes- in the 20th Century in the U.S.A. some people didn't like other people because of the colour of their skin, and thought that they didn't deserve the same human rights.

You know, like the Confederacy.

[molly bloom]

Next from Whitewash Central:

Hitler- he liked dogs!

Torquemada- kind to his mummy!

Mao- liked the company of young female party workers!

Nixon- encouraged the opening of new bank accounts !

et cetera, et cetera....

[Ramo]

In 1864, he pushed Davis for southern conscription of black men to extend his manpower.

You're playing fast and loose with history. Again. Lee suggested emancipating slaves who fought for the Confederacy (i.e. in preservation of slavery). Note that this was after the Emancipation Proclamation and after the war was starting to look badly for them.

[Ramo]

And why has the battle flag of the confederacy (which BTW wasn't even created until the war started) a symbol of slavery?

I should point out that the controversy is over Confederate battle flags raised over public buildings in the South in defiance of Brown v. BoE of Topeka.

[DinoDoc]

SCOTUS banned the flag from state buildings? I didn't remember that part of the Brown opinion.

[Ramo]

SCOTUS banned the flag from state buildings? I didn't remember that part of the Brown opinion.

It looks like you read a few words in my post without stopping to think about what the entire sentence means.

[Ramo]

For example:

SCOTUS banned the flag from state buildings? I didn't remember that part of the Brown opinion.

becomes

SCOTUS has a brown flag

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Ramo
It looks like you read a few words in my post without stopping to think about what the entire sentence means.

I read a grand total of 27 words from that post. A new record for me.

How could an action not prohibited by any SCOTUS decision be said to be taken in defiance of it?

Anyway, I already stated these debates are starting to grow tedious and suggested a new name for MLK Day to calm people down.

[Ramo]

Symbolism. The point is that the people who ran the South in the '50's and early '60's associated the Confederate battle flag with keeping the darkies down.

[Geronimo]

the "Lee" portion of Lee-Jackson day doesn't give me a lot of discomfort. However I really don't think any case has been made for honoring Lee with a day regardless. I'd probably refrain from comment on such a day but I'd never understand the decision to set it up in the first place.

Repentance and contrition are the route to forgiveness and acceptance certainly but they can never be the route to public distinction.

Consider Wernher Von Braun. Suppose that instead of being the father of the US space program he had simply left post-war Germany to accept tenure at a German university where he publicly expressed remorse for his actions and made clear that slave labor and genocide were bad things. If this was all he did and no German civilian space program progressed under his guidance would it make any sense for Germans to give him a holiday? It would look rather suspiciously like they were honoring the most notable thing he had accomplished...the V2.

Lee's service the in the Mexican war was simply not decisive and would compare to his civil war record in much the same way that von Brauns pre-ww2 contributions to rocketry compared to his ww2 efforts.