Discussion-- Sons of Confederate Veterans

[Walker]

Discussion-- Sons of Confederate Veterans

So, I'm curious: am I the only person here who finds these guys REALLY ****ING DISTURBING? I don't like the United Daughters of the Confederacy either.

The GAR and the Sons of Union Veternans or whatever the **** they call themselves are a little creepy in their pseudoaristocratic lineage-chasing, but at least neither of them were initially racist. The GAR was actually integrated when it founded.

The Confederate groups on the other hand... they try to make like they're not racist, but really? The Third American Revolution? Talking about how they'll remember the high ideas their ancestors fought for?

Am I the only one who has a huge, pulsing, WHAT THE **** vibrating deep inside them?

I warn you that if you disagree with me I will lose all respect for you, but I will avoid slinging personal imprecations. Everyone else do the same?

Also, in case you're wondering, I just thought of this because I drove by the sign on Main Street-- one of those "[insert organization here] sponsors this highway." signs. The Sons of Confederate Vets have always been on there, and it makes me grind my teeth every time I go by.

 

[Angel]

Re: Discussion-- Sons of Confederate Veterans

Who are they?

 

[Walker]

Re: Discussion-- Sons of Confederate Veterans

Er... These guys.

The summary version: At the end of the 19th century, the US fought a Civil War. I'm... not going to go into the whole deal. The war ended, the country didn't dissolve, slavery was abolished. These guys are composed solely of men descended from Confederate veterans. The Confederacy were the guys trying to secede, the slaveholders. These days they like to argue that the war wasn't about slavery, and that their rebellion was a high-minded, principled revolt against a tyrannical government.

It wasn't. Is my opinion, and that of most of my neighbors.

 

[Sean]

Re: Discussion-- Sons of Confederate Veterans

Accept Defeat and stfu.

 

[Firis]

Re: Discussion-- Sons of Confederate Veterans

Live in the present, not the past (Says the man with an overbearing pride in his Norseman heritage)

 

[Walker]

Re: Discussion-- Sons of Confederate Veterans

First off, John, allow me to say that I didn't expect you to reply in this way at all, it is an utter shock to me that it is possible for you to have views like this, and this wasn't bait for an argument at all. And, if you believe that crock of ****, I have a nice ocean hideaway to sell you off the coast of Louisiana.

Indeed it did. In point of fact, that bit-- where the northern states weren't enforcing the human rights assrape known as the Fugitive Slave Act to the satisfaction of the South was the very first point in South Carolina's "why we're seceding" document after the bits about "why we think it's legal. Allow me to point out: slavery was an abomination. There have been worse crimes against humanity, maybe even in the US. But none so protracted or dehumanizing.

For what it's worth, the southern states started seceding in response to Lincoln's election. Yes, Lincoln was elected on a broadly antislavery platform. But he was a moderate. A free-soiler, who opposed slavery's expansion, and a proponent of gradual emancipation. Whatever he became later-- as an eventual result of the secession attempt-- at the beginning he was damn near as halfassed as you could get and still be a dedicated antislavery activist.

Speaking of human rights assrapes, yes, the south DID build their economy on the forced labor of millions of people. Yes, they DID build their political power by counting roughly four million enslaved human beings towards their number of representatives. Admittedly, it only counted for about three million, but still. And yes, their primary reason for slaveholding was because it made a few rich men very rich. But that didn't do jack **** for the poor white ****ers. Their reasoning was, in large part, "I might be a poor white ****er, but at least I'm not a black man, and maybe one day I can be a rich ****er with hundreds of slaves."

Indeed, sir. The people who wanted to and did own other human beings were being seriously oppressed by the election of a man who wanted to limit and eventually end the practice.

Indeed. They deserve to be remembered. They do NOT deserve to have the causes and effects of that war glossed over. What they fought for was not a noble cause. Two million men died because the south was afraid that black men might be free.

You can say that the primary reason for slavery was not race. It's even true. That does not make it okay. That does not make it any less racist. That does not make the war any less about slavery.

 

[Walker]

Re: Discussion-- Sons of Confederate Veterans

I should point out in my last post that "crock of ****" was actually referring to what I was saying, not your beliefs. Beyond that, I'm just going from what you typed.

A) Like I said, I'm suspicious of the other hereditary organizations, too. B) They were villians. They betrayed their country, for reasons that were... not good. They thought they were good. That's the problem.

No. They betrayed their country because the government of their state, led by rich slaveholders, feared that slaver would be ended.

You're right. Black men and women could be free. They were still pretty ****ed, but they could be more free than slaves. Some of the *******s had no respect for people's property rights, either. Can you believe it? They just completely ignored the right of those people to own them. On the other hand, white men weren't slaves. It was racially defined slavery. You could only be a slave if you had some black blood. There are whole libraries full of Americans, those ancestors of mine who loved to crow about their fine ideals of equality, ranting about how "the negro race is inferior."

Yes, the Union was racist. I'm from Maryland-- I can assure you that I am fully aware of all the **** that the states as a whole (and especially my state) pulled. But, and this is important: the Union was not fighting with an explicit goal of maintaining four million human beings in racially-defined bondage. The Confederacy was, though.

Not indifference. Shall we say, enthusiastic disagreement.

 

[TRA Rotid]

Re: Discussion-- Sons of Confederate Veterans

You would have them appear as how Nazis were portrayed in early American film,

Or pretty much in all western products to date.

 

[Walker]

Re: Discussion-- Sons of Confederate Veterans

I don't think we do, in point of fact.

What kind of man would choose to support the rich, slaveholding SOBs? I would choose the great state of Maryland and the country of which it is a part. **** the traitors trying to tear it apart.

Indeed his slaves did go to war-- for the Union. Vanishingly few fought for the Confederacy.

I won't argue that the people on both sides thought they were doing right. What I have a problem with is the way certain people-- such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans-- gloss over the bits they don't like. Denying what the war was about to glorify what their ancestors did. The war was a disgrace.

I won't argue about why individuals joined. Because, I don't know any individuals. They're dead and long since rotted. So, sure. My however-many-great-grandfather may have fought because he thought that the US would rape and pillage his family. But that doesn't alter the fact that the secessionist cause for which he fought was in no way a noble one.

My problem is with the war itself. It should not have happened. It would not have happened if the men who joined the Confederate Army had not. If it had just been the rich, slaveholding *******s alone who wanted it, the war would have fallen apart. But the poor men were just as enthusiastic about their state's right to keep their fellow men as slaves, just as enthusiastic about their "cause." Opposing the tyranny of a president who hadn't even been inaugurated yet.

And you brought in the Nazis, so I'll continue it. They were really big on doing what they were told to do, too. Won't argue their virtues or lack thereof.

 

[Tsuyu]

Re: Discussion-- Sons of Confederate Veterans

What if history was changed so that they didn't kidnap people from Africa to use as slaves, but instead had white slaves?

To argue that race wasn't an issue is nonsense.

EDIT: As for the Nazis; You have to realize that the Wehrmacht(the German army) weren't Nazis per say. Saying that every German soldier during WWII was a Nazi would be like saying that every American soldier in Iraq is a Democrat because Obama is in office.

 

[Zjuggernaut]

Re: Discussion-- Sons of Confederate Veterans

I don't know much about American history, but by the sounds of things, they're just rednecks.

 

[Sean]

Re: Discussion-- Sons of Confederate Veterans

I don't know much about American history, but by the sounds of things, they're just rednecks.

No. There are rednecks, but just because someone likes the second amendment and is patriotic about it doesn't make them a gun happy hick. Stereotypical to the ****ing maximum. British are stereotypical about Americans always say they're either gun happy hicks or fat asses, totally wrong. But Americans are stereotypical about the British when it comes to Tea and Muslims when it comes to terrorism. Learn the country and culture before judging, you don't even live here.

 

[Walker]

Re: Discussion-- Sons of Confederate Veterans

A lot of Americans fought and died for what they believed in during that war, so of all the things that it could be called, I wouldn't call it a disgrace. No one honors a veteran for the side that he fought on or for what the cause was about but because he served his country and hopefully did it well.

I disagree. The war was a disgrace. People did what they thought was right, yes, but it was still wrong. Ditto for WWII. Everyone thought they were doing what was right, including the people who were raping, pillaging, killing prisoners, and slaughtering their own civilians.

There are people who didn't like Vietnam, the Gulf war, or today's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there were people who didn't like many of our other wars, but you don't, or rather shouldn't, blame that on the soldiers. You shouldn't paint all the people fighting as dark and evil men just because you disagree with the points of the conflict that they fight in.

Again, I disagree. Those wars are fairly ambiguous. For one thing, it was American's killing foreigners. For another, the causes were nowhere near as focused. EVERY SINGLE CAUSE of the Civil War relates back to slavery. The men weren't neccesarily evil. Their cause was very much so.

So, to call the ancestor of one of these people a villain is like calling, well I guess I could say my father, my grandfathers, my uncles, my brothers and my cousins villains. No one in my lineage fought in the Civil War on either side, no one in family had even set foot in America until the '30s. But if they were in, say Texas when the Civil War started, I imagine that they would have fought for the Confederates. And if they were in Indiana (which is where I wish I was right now, good weather), I imagine they would have fought for the Union. Or do you think it was a coincidence that the majority of both armies were composed of people from their respective nations?No. First, you forget that while we now consider slavery to be a crime against humanity, this was not the view held at the time. A slave was not a person but property, making it not a civil rights issue but a property rights issue. This is what they believed. I understand that you want to see it only from your viewpoint, but you'll never understand if you don't try to see it from their perspective as well. You don't have to agree with it - I don't - but I require myself to try to understand it before saying anything on the matter.

Yes. I had ancestors (probably) who fought for the Confederacy. My dad's dad's family, I believe, has been hanging around DC for awhile, and my mom's mom's family were Virginians. They were villians. They may have done what they thought was right, but still they fought for an evil cause.

And that is oversimplifying. Sam Houston opposed seccession. John Merryman supported it (okay, Merryman doesn't compare to Houston, but I don't know of any prominent Northern traitors). Yes, the majority of the south supported seccession... because that's where slavery was. And it was not all that straight even there. Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland. Yeah, they're border states, but they didn't fall neatly along lines of what you think should have been their nation.

John. Come the **** on. Just because the white majority* thought that black men and women were nothing more than beasts does not mean they were. The fact that these people (yes, including some Union supporters) thought that people were property, IS WHY THEY QUALIFY AS EVIL. To say, oh, look at it from their perspective, it's a property rights issue, is ludicrous. People. Are. Not. Property. Even people in the late 19th century could figure that out.

Fun with Nazi analogies! The Nazis thought that Jews were plotting against them, and had sabotaged WWI. Thus, when they slaughtered three million men, women, and children, they weren't committing an atrocity, because from their perspective it was a self-defense issue.

As for wars that shouldn't have happened, well ideally none of them should have happened.A soldier does as told because that's what a soldier does. Since this is being continued, one shouldn't hate the opposing soldiers but instead the opposing leader. Unless you're a soldier... in which case you might have a distinct hatred for the enemy, they are shooting at you after all.

The south didn't start drafting men until much later in the war. Everyone who was in the Confederate Army volunteered to be there. ****, some of the first shots in the war weren't fired by soldiers-- they were fired by cadets at the Citadel, who weren't soldiers in any military. Just the sons of (mostly) rich men, enthusiastic for the cause of the slaveholders. Meaning that these men became soldiers, to fight this war, of their own volition.

*I feel the need to footnote this. White men were a majority in most of the country, but in at least one state (sorry, couldn't find the data) black men outnumbered white. So, how is this a property issue? By your own argument, people should have their first loyalty to their own state. And in areas where slaves predominated, slavery was opposed by the majority... the majority that was kept ignorant and unarmed by the minority.