These people want the statues destroyed, period. It’s highly likely that anywhere they’re moved to, where they remain on display in some form, would be deemed unacceptable.
Yes, I recently viewed the War Museum in New Orleans, very nice.
But I’ve attended 6-8 Civil War tours. I haven’t heard of any destruction in Gettysburg. Other Civil War battlefields don’t seem to on the protestor, vandals lists. (at least to my knowledge) Guess they don’t care to go out of their main boundaries.
Well yeah… because those are actually historical sites.
Not “monuments” put up solely for the purpose of intimidation.
History is what’s relevant here.
I mean… the primary dedication for many of the referenced Confederate “monuments” was often by KKK leaders…
Borglum also referred to klansmen as a “fine lot of fellows”, so I guess the president has company in that characterization… of course that was a 100 years removed from today… and the “company” in the characterization is klansmen. https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/07/03/mount-rushmore-gutzon-borglum-klan-stone-mountain/
“In a letter to a friend in New Jersey in the early 1920s, Borglum asked, “Is it true you joined the Ku Klux Klan? I hope so. They’re a fine lot of fellows as far as I can learn and if they elect the next President, by gosh I’m going to join ‘em.””
History belongs in a museum and in history books. Especially the wrong side of history. I’m sure some Nazis were good people before they followed Hitler’s orders. History judged them by their actions and we don’t put up statues to honor them.
Yes, in a sense we only care about one side – one that fought to free the slaves, not the side that fought to keep slaves and has continued to intimidate and disenfranchise them and their descendants even after losing the war.
But this is where it gets sticky. All other examples of “losers” not being memorialize are actual losers and the side essentially ceased to exist.
But we were America, and we are America. It’s all part of “our” history. There is no wrong side.
It really says a lot that the North didnt put the screws to the South. I’m certain such re-welcoming would not happen today, and the South would have their statehood revoked and be relegate to the same standing as Puerto Rico (if that). That would be establishing winners and losers, and is something the leaders of the North intentionally chose to avoid doing.
Sure, it is a little sticky. Their armies surrendered and were “actual losers” even if no similar examples exist (I’m no history buff, so I’ll just concede this point). The symbols of the confederacy (flags, statues, etc) are constant reminders of why the South seceded and what they fought for in the war, which was mainly to preserve slavery. The symbolism should have been forbidden in the same way that Germany forbids Nazi symbolism. That was a mistake on the North’s part. So I do understand that there are complications and family ties and “good people” on both sides and all that. But I also understand that these symbols represent slavery and oppression, which is why I oppose their public display.
You do know that we already have certain decency laws in place, right? You can’t have a strip club or advertise cigarettes within a certain distance of schools and playgrounds. You won’t see pornography or profanity on publicly visible ads or on regular TV channels. There’s a long list of books that are banned either by the federal government or by some of the states. By your logic we are already being ruled by dictators. Banning (censoring) symbols of hate is no more dictatorial than censoring profanity, pornography, or books.