snugglestruggle
...
- Joined
- Oct 1, 2011
- Posts
- 7,373
I saw this question posed by another member in a different thread and its a good one. The short answer is you cant stamp out hate. Nothing you do can stop a person from hating except kill them. People will hate regardless if there are any statues, busts, plaques or memorials to the confederacy or the soldiers who fought for the south.
The thing is by attacking the Symbols, the ideas one group sees as their heritage you actually feed their hate. It doesn't matter what you think or feel because of the emotional investment they have, right or wrong. Tearing down Symbols will only fuel their rage and deepen their hate and desire to resist. If there was no counter protest in charlotte, nobody would have got hurt. The counter protestors (who had no permit to be there) gave the haters exactly what they wanted, a confrontation and innocent people paid the price.
The smart thing to do is to reclaim the message of the objects. Move the offending statues off government building sites like courthouses and administration buildings to a park or cemetery. Rename the schools and buildings. Statues of civil rights leaders could be placed opposing them as if in confrontation or conversation with an uplifting message of hope, peace or diversity. While doing this we must also be mindful it's part of our history and you cant erase history and we shouldn't, we should learn from it.
Many of the statues ,monuments have ample room on their base for an additional message. One such example in the case of the Robert E Lee statue could be this quote attributed to him a few years after the wars end.
"So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that Slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interest of the South. So fully am I satisfied of this that I would have cheerfully lost all that I have lost by the war, and have suffered all that I have suffered to have this object attained." Robert E. Lee
http://www.azquotes.com/author/8660-Robert_E_Lee
I could prattle on but I think my point has been made. I'll add one last thing. I think its a shameful thing to attack the dead and any memorial in a cemetery should be off limits, period. Some may not know this but Confederate soldiers are by law Veterans. Public law 85-425, specifically section 410 http://uscode.house.gov/statutes/pl/85/425.pdf
I may be misreading it but I think not. Any resident legal eagles care to chirp
in, Col. Hogan, Busybody, Eyer? This was about as thoughtful a post as I care to make for the rest of the year. Now back to Sarcasm, Tomfoolery and Porn.
The thing is by attacking the Symbols, the ideas one group sees as their heritage you actually feed their hate. It doesn't matter what you think or feel because of the emotional investment they have, right or wrong. Tearing down Symbols will only fuel their rage and deepen their hate and desire to resist. If there was no counter protest in charlotte, nobody would have got hurt. The counter protestors (who had no permit to be there) gave the haters exactly what they wanted, a confrontation and innocent people paid the price.
The smart thing to do is to reclaim the message of the objects. Move the offending statues off government building sites like courthouses and administration buildings to a park or cemetery. Rename the schools and buildings. Statues of civil rights leaders could be placed opposing them as if in confrontation or conversation with an uplifting message of hope, peace or diversity. While doing this we must also be mindful it's part of our history and you cant erase history and we shouldn't, we should learn from it.
Many of the statues ,monuments have ample room on their base for an additional message. One such example in the case of the Robert E Lee statue could be this quote attributed to him a few years after the wars end.
"So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that Slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interest of the South. So fully am I satisfied of this that I would have cheerfully lost all that I have lost by the war, and have suffered all that I have suffered to have this object attained." Robert E. Lee
http://www.azquotes.com/author/8660-Robert_E_Lee
I could prattle on but I think my point has been made. I'll add one last thing. I think its a shameful thing to attack the dead and any memorial in a cemetery should be off limits, period. Some may not know this but Confederate soldiers are by law Veterans. Public law 85-425, specifically section 410 http://uscode.house.gov/statutes/pl/85/425.pdf
I may be misreading it but I think not. Any resident legal eagles care to chirp
in, Col. Hogan, Busybody, Eyer? This was about as thoughtful a post as I care to make for the rest of the year. Now back to Sarcasm, Tomfoolery and Porn.
