Confederate flags, tinfoil hat crowd and other nutters.

pokermind wrote:Vandalism is not protest vandalism is a crime. If your goal is to lose the hard won support of other races continue it. Desecrating the graves of the Confederate dead is as much a hate crime as painting KKK on a black church by recalling the horrors of reconstruction of a vengeful north to white southerners.

Agreed. All vandalism does is make people think the vandal is lashing out because they lack the intelligence to actually contribute to the discussion in a meaningful way.
With regards to the grave desecration, if the vandals had wanted to make a statement that would be listened to, peaceful protests, leaflets (with moral, logical and intelligent points) and TV spots are the way to go. It gets the message across without rousing the "they damaged something so they are morons who should be ignored" reflex.
The instigation of violence in pursuit of a societal/political point is one of the few things guaranteed to cause an instant resistance to the stated aim of the people using violence, regardless of how noble the cause is.

I don't mind the vandalism. In general.
But grave desecration is wrong no matter whose graves.

Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk

I'm going to say one last thing about this then drop it.

If Hitler has been buried in a marked grave and Jewish people lined up 10,000 deep to piss on it, we would not be having this same conversation about grave desecration.


Similarly, if anyone decided to erect, in any cemetery in Germany, a big freaking monument glorifying those noble Nazi soldiers who died fighting for their cause and a group of Jewish people went and did something pointed about that we would also not be having this discussion. I guaran-freaking-tee the word "thug" would not be used to describe whatever actions they decided to take, up to and including smashing it to little pieces. The more likely reaction, and we all know it, would be applause.

And rightly so.

And to anyone thinking of replying to this, when you do try to keep in mind the difference between a general war memorial and the glorification of the soldiers who fought for one specific side of said war. You will find memorials to WW2 in Germany, which would be the equivalent of a general Civil War Memorial. You will not find NAZI memorials that pretend like the Nazi soldiers were noble heroes... the equivalent of "Confederate" memorials glorifying those soldiers and their cause.

You will however find many WW2 memorials in Germany that are dedicated to ensuring people are educated in the atrocities committed by those people so that people don't forget the lesson. Big, BIG difference.

The sentence of yours that I numbered "2"
shows why the sentence I numbered "1"
is "a distinction without a difference."

The sentences I numbered "3" provide more supporting
data for the subject.

Thank you, Bright Soul.

HTM

BrightSoul wrote:

1 - [*]The Flag in question wasn't the "Confederate" Flag, it was "The Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia.

2 - The Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia was created as a potential CSA Flag.

3 - As has already been quoted in this thread, The CSA Vice President flat stated the values that Nation was founded on. The flag, while not adopted as the National flag, was adopted by General Lee for the Army of Northern Virginia. It has no 5000 year history of a different meaning, it was a symbol of a Slave Holding Hegemony from day one.

Any monument to Evil is itself a Desecration!
I agree that it is better
to protest it without touching it.

As long as some people continue to pretend
that some forms of Evil, are not Evil,
"the beat" will go on.

Evildoers ought to Repent,
and Confess and Renounce their Evil Deeds,
and then work to make Restitution.

Howard Wilkins, Pointy-Headed Liberal

pokermind wrote:And the beat goes on as 'Black lives matter' thugs desecrate more cemeteries
Poker

Howard I would almost agree with you. EXCEPT the letters most of the confederate soldiers sent home show that they didn't fight for slavery.

Does that mean they are just dupes, maybe. But what they thought they fought for and what you thought they fought for are not even closely similar. At least from when I was reading their correspondence.

I really could care less what the "statesmen" said why. It is what the soldier thought. Which really has rarely matched through out history. Which is a ground eye view not stratosphere view.



Have fun,
T2M

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:Any monument to Evil is itself a Desecration!
I agree that it is better
to protest it without touching it.

As long as some people continue to pretend
that some forms of Evil, are not Evil,
"the beat" will go on.

Evildoers ought to Repent,
and Confess and Renounce their Evil Deeds,
and then work to make Restitution.

Howard Wilkins, Pointy-Headed Liberal

Hmm, bad manners, total lack of common courtesy, desecration of the dead, riot, looting, anarchy are all justifiable to further your political agenda? I don't thinks so. I remember what my daddy once said, "Good manners cost you nothing, bad manners can get you killed," just saying. Sooner or later someone is going to get killed pulling these stunts, mark my words.

Poker

thinkstoomuch wrote:Howard I would almost agree with you. EXCEPT the letters most of the confederate soldiers sent home show that they didn't fight for slavery.

Does that mean they are just dupes, maybe. But what they thought they fought for and what you thought they fought for are not even closely similar. At least from when I was reading their correspondence.

I really could care less what the "statesmen" said why. It is what the soldier thought. Which really has rarely matched through out history. Which is a ground eye view not stratosphere view.



Have fun,
T2M

And exactly why would it matter what the soldiers doing the fighting thinks about it, when they are ordered around by their superiors who in turn are taking their cues from those "statesmen" you dismiss so easily?

Try reading letters to families from German soldiers in WWII. The vast majority there also didn´t fight for doing nasty stuff to a bunch of people they don´t even know.
And even those who did, often did not write about it openly. Just as those who opposed anything rarely did either due to censorship of such letters.

I hope you realise now how terrible your justification/excuse above really is.

There is "what they thought they fought for."
And "what they *said* that they thought they fought for."
And then there is "how you or I *interpret* what they
wrote about what they thought that they fought for."

If they wrote "customs," or "traditions," or
"self-rule(!}" then they were fighting for the only
custom, tradition, or rule-choice that might be fancied
to be under attack: Slave-holding.

There were soldiers from the South who definitely
were not fighting for slavery: half a million of them.
They could be recognized by the color of their uniforms:
blue!

HTM, just reading about a Virginian who held 452 slaves
in 1793, when he set up a schedule to Free them all.
By the time Robert Carter the Third died, twelve years
later, he had freed 260 of them, and had appointed an
agent to keep on freeing them.

thinkstoomuch wrote:Howard I would almost agree with you. EXCEPT the letters most of the confederate soldiers sent home show that they didn't fight for slavery.

Does that mean they are just dupes, maybe. But what they thought they fought for and what you thought they fought for are not even closely similar. At least from when I was reading their correspondence.

I really could care less what the "statesmen" said why. It is what the soldier thought. Which really has rarely matched through out history. Which is a ground eye view not stratosphere view.



Have fun,
T2M

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:Any monument to Evil is itself a Desecration!
I agree that it is better
to protest it without touching it.

As long as some people continue to pretend
that some forms of Evil, are not Evil,
"the beat" will go on.

Evildoers ought to Repent,
and Confess and Renounce their Evil Deeds,
and then work to make Restitution.

Howard Wilkins, Pointy-Headed Liberal

pokermind wrote:Hmm, bad manners, total lack of common courtesy, desecration of the dead, riot, looting, anarchy are all justifiable to further your political agenda? I don't thinks so. I remember what my daddy once said, "Good manners cost you nothing, bad manners can get you killed," just saying. Sooner or later someone is going to get killed pulling these stunts, mark my words.

Poker

Where the hell did you pull "riot, looting and anarchy" from in this conversation? Go play with your strawman somewhere else, nobody has said those are ok.