WFAA: TCU student group calls for university reforms, removal of statues of Confederate founders

Regarding the tearing down of true confederate statues (e.g. Lee, Davis, Forrest, etc), there's a difference between ignoring history and celebrating it. This isn't a museum of history or anything like that, those statues exist to celebrate those men and that's not a period that should be celebrated. Those men should not be honored. Those statues are reflective of, in general, two different eras: A regrettable period where those men fought a war in order to continue to enslave humans, and then a Jim Crow era when those statues were raised to intimidate minority populations. Neither are virtuous, so they should be removed. We shouldn't pretend like it didn't exist, but we should discuss it for what it was, not lionize those men as just.

 

I was listening to Mark Levin's show while driving back from Houston yesterday. He had an excellent point about the current "left" and their aims, comparing them to the French revolutionaries. This current crop is not only ignorant of our history, they are outright contemptuous of it, viewing the Nation as a whole as irredeemable and oppressive. They argue that the whole thing must be torn down and a new Utopia ushered in.

Like the French discovered, this process is hampered by the people you have to work with. So, they merely removed them. They didn't start with people, they got rid of the calendar, weights and measures, all sorts of things were abandoned and re-made to reflect this Utopia. But some people were stubborn. Not "down with the struggle" as it were. So, they were sent to the guillotine. Tens of thousands were killed, many for no good reason at all. They called it the Reign of Terror for a reason.

Whoever this twit interviewed is, she perfectly embodies the rage and utter incoherence manifested in this new left. Santayana observed that history always repeats itself. Some other wit later observed that history doesn't repeat itself, "but it often rhymes." The nihilism demonstrated by these loons is nothing new. Their ilk has been in the forefront of many a horrible slaughter, from Revolutionary France through Cambodia, every time leaving a wash of blood behind them (if not mountains of skulls) if they gained power. They are dangerous lunatics, and should be viewed as such.

Yet, we go on our merry way. The sun is shining, the grass is green. What does a statue matter?

 

Washington Post published an article this week asking if the Jefferson Memorial, Washington Monument and Mt Rushmore should be brought down since both those men were slave owners....

 

Did you not read Froglaw's post earlier? Did you somehow miss the fact that these men lived long lives, and accomplished many things beyond the few years they fought for their States?

Naah. Give in to the mob. Tear it all down. Cleanse it with fire.

Yep. That'll make it all better. The mob will be satisfied with that.

 

I have little faith that the good Mr. Boschini would listen to anything I would have to say. I could threaten to remove my admittedly paltry annual donations, but I am certainly not the one threatening to burn his University to the ground...

 

Again, my post is not regarding the founders' statue. I said that pretty explicitly. The statues I'm talking about are the ones of Confederate "heroes", and they were not raised to celebrate Lee's time served in the Mexican-American war. What exactly did Nathan Forrest do outside of the Civil War that is worthy of honor? Because his postwar activities aren't exactly worth celebrating either.

Let's not pretend those statues are anything other than what they are, honoring the Confederacy and perpetuating the silly Lost Cause myth.

 

I'm all for taking down statutes of confederate soldiers in uniform in public spaces in front of courthouses or public squares. But leave them at the battlefields and in museums.

The TCU founders are not in uniform and renounced their former allegiance and pledged an oath to the USA.

Should car companies like Toyota, Mitsubishi, BMW, Mercedes Benz or Volkswagen group be banned? All those companies participated in the Axis war efforts that marginalized and killed millions of people.

 

Let's not pretend that this current movement is anything more than what it is: an effort to destroy the current culture and history. By selectively surrendering and allowing the mob to rampage and destroy, based on whatever reasons they gin up, you aid and abet their over all goals.

I expect to see you at the head of the mob, when they are massing to destroy the Jefferson Memorial. He owned slaves, you know...

Burn! Destroy! Cleanse it with fire!

 

Doesn’t matter. Confederates...burn it down. And yes...those companies must cease to exist because of their history and because they are committed to killing the environment. Pacify the mob for a couple of days.

 

Most of those statues were erected 100-150 years ago to celebrate confederate soldiers AT THAT TIME. Literally nobody “celebrates” them today, save a few ignorant skinheads. They stand today as bronze art relics and reminders of a sad reality in our history. I agree if somebody wants to erect a confederate hero statue in 2020, no way.

 

Any part of our culture that celebrates the confederacy deserves to be destroyed. That part of our culture, inasmuch as it still exists (it is thankfully dying), should rightly be corrected.

Simply dishonest based on previous posts. As I said before, there's a fundamental difference between statues that celebrate the confederacy, and statues that honor men men who did great things but who happen to have done regrettable things in their past. We shouldn't honor or celebrate detestable actions, that shouldn't be all that controversial.

 

100 years ago was 1920, more than 50 years AFTER the war was over. Why in the world were we celebrating men who fought for a fundamentally unjust ideology in 1920, decades after their defeat?? I mean, I know why, but that doesn't exactly make it better.

 

Read the Sally Jenkins book the Free State of Jones (or watch the Matthew McConahay movie) for another good depiction. My great-great Grandfather was from Jones County, Mississippi and fought with Newton Knight. Family lore has it that he collected both a confederate an Union pensions until his death in the 1920s.

 

Then you are standing up with the wrong people. They wish to burn it all down.

"Well, you can burn that one, and that one there, and maybe that one over there... But the rest are good guys! Yeah!" That won't fly. They're all guilty.

You are aware that the mob defaced the monument to the 54th Massachusetts, right? Desecrated the Lincoln Memorial? Defaced and or destroyed many other monuments and statues having nothing at all to do with the Confederacy, and in fact, depicting persons or groups who actively fought it? They don't care.

Burn it all.

 

Are you celebrating? I’M not celebrating anything associated with those statues. THEY celebrated these individuals. We might not like it but it was their reality. Learn from it. Why do you feel the need to erase that reality? Why are you so triggered by an old hunk of bronze. Rewrite the inscription.

 

This isn't sports. This isn't a team. It's OK to support people when they say the right thing and then criticize the same people when they say something wrong.

 

So unconcerned about what people say versus what they do.