Patterico's Pontifications

8/17/2017

Piers Morgan And The “Nazi Exception” To The First Amendment

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 9:00 am



Yesterday I took on Matthew Walther’s inane claim that the government should censor Nazis. Today I address Piers Morgan’s similar contention that the First Amendment should not be used to protect Nazis. Responding to someone who said Morgan didn’t understand the purpose of the First Amendment, Morgan replied:

Piers Morgan saying he understands the purpose of the First Amendment reminds me of Jerry Seinfeld’s response to the car rental agent who told him that she didn’t have his reserved car — but that she knows what a reservation is. Seinfeld looked at her and said: “I don’t think you do!” You say you understand the purpose of the First Amendment, Piers Morgan? I don’t think you do!

Charles C.W. Cooke has already addressed this lunacy admirably at National Review. Let me chime in with my own less polished thoughts, after first quoting Cooke:

Morgan is echoing an idea that has been advanced repeatedly in the last couple of days: To wit, that there is something particular about Nazism that makes it ineligible for protection under the Bill of Rights. This is flat-out wrong. And, more than that, it’s dangerous. Abhorrent and ugly as they invariably are, there simply is no exception to the First Amendment that exempts Nazis, white supremacists, KKK members, Soviet apologists, or anyone else who harbors disgraceful or illiberal views. As the courts have made abundantly clear, the rules are the same for ghastly little plonkers such as Richard Spencer as they are for William Shakespeare. If that weren’t true, the First Amendment would be pointless.

This is not a “controversial” statement. It is not an “interesting view.” It is not a contrarian contribution to an intractable “grey area.” It is a fact. There are a handful of limits to free speech in the United States, and all of them are exceptions of form rather than of viewpoint.

. . . .

“I believe in free speech, but” or “I just don’t think this is a free speech issue” — both popular lines at the moment — simply will not cut it as arguments. On the contrary. In reality, all that the “but” and the “I just don’t think” mean is that the speaker hopes to exempt certain people because he doesn’t like them. But one can no more get away from one’s inconsistencies by saying “it’s not a speech issue to me” than one can get away from the charge that one is unreliable on due process insisting in certain cases, “well, that’s not a due process issue to me.” This is a free speech issue. Those who wish it weren’t just trying to have it both ways — to argue bluntly for censorship, and then to pretend that they aren’t.

The point I made yesterday regarding this issue is that, if you’re going to have a principle that says the government can ban speech, you have to ask one very important question: who gets to decide what speech is banned? And the answer is going to be “government officials.” And government officials will view the question through the lens of their own world views and self-interest rather than the common good. That alone should be enough to give you pause.

Are you comfortable with giving the IRS the power to audit people based on their political viewpoint? If the answer to that question is “no,” you should feel even more uneasy about giving government the power to ban wrongthink, or to imprison people whose views they don’t like.

It’s actually distressing to me that I need to say any of this. Rejection of content-based censorship by the government should be such a basic part of every American’s education that blog posts like this are completely unnecessary. But when prominent people keep saying such a silly view, it has to be refuted.

One irony in all of this is that the Nazis themselves suppressed speech they didn’t like as a way to stamp out any possible opposition to their views. Those who have studied history might remember that the Nazis made long lists of unacceptable books. Then they raided libraries and bookstores, seized those books, and held book burnings. Yet Piers Morgan would apparently be happy to see the government burn books, as long as the books arguably support Nazi views. How could he object to such book burnings, given his recent statements? Does this not show the insanity of his position?

This goes back to my question about who decides what speech can be banned. It might sound benign to say: hey, Nazi thought is bad, so obviously it should be banned. But when the Nazis were in power, they didn’t think Nazi thought was the problem. They thought the Jews were the problem. So instead of banning books by the likes of, say, Richard Spencer, they banned books by the likes of Albert Einstein.

Oppressive regimes throughout history have always tried to control citizens’ thoughts by banning speech. Tools like Piers Morgan who advocate for content-based government censorship are actually advocating, in part, the return of totalitarianism. No matter how attractive it might sound to carve out an “exception” to the First Amendment for obviously hateful speech like pro-Nazi propaganda, such efforts are illegal, morally wrong, and should be rejected in the interest of freedom.

[Cross-posted at RedState and The Jury Talks Back.]

195 Responses to “Piers Morgan And The “Nazi Exception” To The First Amendment”

  1. the fascist democrats and their sleazy tools like pervy Mitt Romney and Meghan’s cowardly war hero daddy have been working for a long time now towards the codification of thoughtcrime

    and they’re winning

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  2. “: who gets to decide what speech is banned?”

    That question is the fulcrum. How about a benevolent dictator.

    Solomon could split a Toddler.

    Ben burn (59d409)

  3. It is comforting that many of the good people are in agreement with Patterico.

    Ben burn (59d409)

  4. President Trump’s been both brave and masterful in how he’s goaded the Democrats, their CNN Jake Tapper fake news propaganda slut media, and an astounding number of Republicans to drop their pretenses and reveal the ugly hateful fascist agenda at their core

    this was all festering away out of sight

    No more.

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  5. not to mention Walmart’s newfound lustful embrace of totalitarianism and hate

    I don’t think anyone saw that one coming.

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  6. Is too late, do you think, for Trump to tweet: “As a President from the party of Abraham Lincoln, I am gratified that the Democrats are finally moving to purge the monuments to their racist, slave-owning, Confederate past.”

    nk (dbc370)

  7. Isn’t Piers Morgan from that cold dirty little island that murdered Charlie Gard, anyway? They don’t have freedom of speech, either, over there.

    nk (dbc370)

  8. Too late for comity/bipartisanship..

    Ben burn (59d409)

  9. Arsonist afoot..

    Ben burn (59d409)

  10. Yes, yes, Piers Morgan is not an American. If we’re going to start carving exceptions to the First Amendment, we should start with foreigners who stick their noses into our internal affairs, I think. If for nothing else, because it’s none of their business and they have no say in how we run our country. Then we can look to our homegrown troublemakers.

    nk (dbc370)

  11. But what about *Hate Speech*? The left has touted *Hate Speech* and *Hate Crimes* for a decade. They must have a plan, ya think? Like I’m amused that a Nazi flag is *hate* but a communist flag isn’t. Does that not make you realize we are being herded in a one-way direction for thought?

    Last night several *Confederate Statues* (now of little historical value since they are in disrepute) we “taken down” in some cities. Now the statues are disappearing in the middle of the night how soon before it’s your neighbor who disappears? Or you?

    I also hear many *conservatives* saying what Google does or what Starbucks does is their business because they are privately owned and the Constitution only applies to the government. They are allowed to discriminate against any *non-protected* group which is the very reason why in our Republic there should be NO PROTECTED GROUPS. We are either all American and entitled to the dignity of being treated the same or we are not!

    The soon to be new flag:https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jn5nYqu8OpA/WZRKGgvLZBI/AAAAAAABkSo/ospIA5dcsEYUJXm6TOmm8CsaxcVgw5VXACLcBGAs/s1600/american_communist_flag-590×400.jpg

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca)

  12. Sounds like you lost, and want back your privileges, Reverend.

    Ben burn (59d409)

  13. SPECIAL privileges for seniority.

    Ben burn (59d409)

  14. This is a blind spot shared by many Europeans. Explicitly racist ideologies are banned in a lot of countries in Western Europe – France and Germany for sure, also likely the Benelux countries and others. People can go to jail for the equivalent of “hate speech” even without committing any other crime. When I lived over there, the few times it came up and I mentioned that Nazis could march and campaign for office in the US, people were incredulous – the idea that such a thing might be allowed had never even occurred to them.

    I don’t *think* Britain has gone there yet, but they have their own crazy illiberal laws (Catholics are forbidden from holding the throne; anyone in the royal family who marries a Catholic, or converts to Catholicism, automatically loses their place in the line of succession…so much for freedom of religion…)

    Dave (445e97)

  15. Aren’t people who try to suppress any free speech themselves Nazis?

    I thought Piers Morgan was clever enough and honest enough to understand that. He’s no Nazi, but Nazi-ish? Nazi lite?

    This topic means a great deal to me. My parents grew up in Nazi Germany. My dad and one uncle were honest enough to admit that they were full Nazi true believers. Dad’s true belief eventually got shattered by reality. My uncle Michel is still a true believer but he was SS and quite mad.

    But here’s the thing – all the rest of my family, both sides, a total of 22 aunts and uncles, including by marriage, denies that they were “real” Nazis. They just liked some of the things Hitler and his goons were proposing or doing, or that they liked all of it but “Hitler took things too far”.

    That’s Piers Morgan, and millions of others, they want just a little bit of Nazism, not taken too far, no, no, that would never do, just enough to deal with … [insert personal boogeyman here]. Good luck with that, Nazis don’t voluntarily give up power or violence and when they’ve done Morgans dirty little job, they’ll kill him.

    Fred Z (05d938)

  16. Dave: You should see how the UK polices the internet. It’s a snakepit of control freaks. The worst crime is being ‘mean’

    Ben burn (59d409)

  17. Now the statues are disappearing in the middle of the night how soon before it’s your neighbor who disappears? Or you?

    LOL!

    “First they came for Robert E. Lee. But since I had never violated my solemn oath to protect and defend the United States, and taken up arms against it to perpetuate chattel slavery, I said nothing…”

    Dave (445e97)

  18. Dear Mr. Morgan,

    If you manage to get the government the power to censor people, Imsincerely hope that your are one of the first people arrested. You gangreenous pustule.

    C. S. P. Schofield (99bd37)

  19. We are indeed fortunate in the USA that we have organizations like the ACLU that works to safeguard freedom of expression.

    Mark (2d775f)

  20. Piers Morgan. From that island once known as Great Britain? How far they have fallen.

    Andy (11847a)

  21. Yes remember when they cracked down on Katie Hopkins not so much on the Leicester cell, one member was actually on one of BBC specials

    narciso (d1f714)

  22. He was dubbed musket Morgan, because that s what he would have us be armed with if were
    lucky, he is also known for the phony abuse claims in basra.

    narciso (d1f714)

  23. Yeah, don’t truck with Katie, she called Nigel Farage a cuck after he let slip a “good Muslim” reference.

    urbanleftbehind (02d2fc)

  24. The government isn’t the only group that can censure speech. When you make the violent anarchists the victims in violent confrontations initiated by themselves you enable them to become the censors of anything they disagree with. The media, the dems, the rinos and the elite are responsible for empowering antifa and blm to conduct violence in the future.

    jim (a9b7c7)

  25. Are you comfortable with giving the IRS the power to audit people based on their political viewpoint?

    Of course I am. It’s staffed top to bottom with people who share my views.

    giving government the power to ban wrongthink, or to imprison people whose views they don’t like.

    Perfectly comfortable. The people at the top, the political ones, they’ll come and go, when right thinking folks are in then progress will be rapid, and when the wrong people are in, progress will be slow. But progress will go on the same, always in the right direction. Because the people who will actually do the enforcement, they’ll stay there, they have the full panoply of civil service protections. And they share my views and background.

    Frederick (64d4e1)

  26. Um wolf did you skip a few places

    https://mobile.twitter.com/JayCaruso/status/898237906783002624

    narciso (d1f714)

  27. When I was a boy, Liberals defended the right of Nazis to march. In Skokie, IL specifically. A very Jewish area (or so I was told) where actual Holocaust survivors lived (or so I was told) back when the only people who denied the Holocaust were complete losers who were as far removed from the Democrat party as from the Republican party (or so I was told). It was Republicans/Conservatives who opposed that kind of speech as beyond the pale, in the context of yelling-fire-in-a-theater. Looking up the case now, three SCOTUS conservatives opposed the decision in favor of the Nazi the march, none of the Liberals did.

    CFarleigh (5b282a)

  28. http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/10/trumps-trolls-are-waging-war-on-americas-civil-servants/

    Protection for civil servants, especially military, largely inattentive to the taxpayer and lack job integrity. Protections should be modified but don’t throw baby out with bathwater.

    Ben burn (59d409)

  29. oh man

    Starbucks is also endorsing the hatred and violence of antifa. They’re trying to tear America apart.

    This is such a sad day.

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  30. I don’t think the First Amendment should be used to protect Piers. Can I get a second to that?

    Oh yeah. He doesn’t believe in the Second Amendment either! Must come fromm being a subject and not a citizen!

    Mike aka Proof (0fcd8e)

  31. Definitely criticizing America’s civil servants should not by default receive First Amendment protection. America’s civil servants are of course best qualified to make the determination.

    Frederick (64d4e1)

  32. Greetings:

    Me, i was thinking:

    Strike at the neck of the kuffar
    Kuffars must feel themselves subdued
    Jews are sons of apes and pigs
    Kuffars must pay the jizya
    As many kuffar women as your right hand (non-wiping hand) can posses.

    Yeah, that Nazi stuff is a real abomination.

    11B40 (6abb5c)

  33. This call to violence editorial in the WaPo illustrates the importance of providing platforms for free speech to sophistic idiots bent on displaying a lack of intellectual acumen in a public forum. Although the spiel lacks the ‘get some muscle over here’ stupidity of the appeal by Melissa Click, which continues to damage the institution she infested there is reason to hope the WaPo ownership will come to regret the decision to provide a platform to an even greater extent than Mizzou administrators now regret having made the university a haven for pestilence.

    I continue to find it difficult to assess the differential in the relative lack of intelligence between the two sides in this matter.

    Rick Ballard (656c55)

  34. “Yeah, that Nazi stuff is a real abomination.”

    Well stated for Hates sake.

    Ben burn (59d409)

  35. More Gas for the fire. Keep it well fed.

    Ben burn (59d409)

  36. Do Muslims get to participate in free speech? (rhetorical question)

    Ben burn (59d409)

  37. i’m not a violence person IRL but i watch it on netflix a lot

    so i’m a little curious to see what all the new violence Amazon turdlord Jeffy Bezos’s washington post is calling for will look like

    we’re already doing a lot of really choice violence here in Chicago, but I’m sure there’s more we can do

    but I’m unclear what to look for

    what are the benchmarks?

    will people’s car insurance rates go up?

    are we supposed to film the violence and upload it or is this gonna be secret special wapo violence what’s supposed to be done in darkness?

    will there be gunplay involved (this is illegal here) or is this all supposed to be the smashy smashy kind?

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  38. You should see how the UK polices the internet. It’s a snakepit of control freaks. The worst crime is being ‘mean’”.

    You should see how they police reporting on crimes by Muslims.

    https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/8771-telegraph-british-cops-hide-muslim-crime

    Germany too

    https://www.jihadwatch.org/2016/07/polish-mp-germans-going-to-great-lengths-to-hide-muslim-migrant-crimes

    You can find similar stories on just about every euro nation where migrant entry rates from predom. Muslim countries is up.

    harkin (34bcc6)

  39. That is terrible Harkin.

    Should Muslims be afforded free speech rights?

    Ben burn (59d409)

  40. Big Ots..

    Ben burn (59d409)

  41. @happyfeet:will people’s car insurance rates go up?

    Well, in Germany they had that problem. They solved it by confiscated the payments to the people who had their cars torched. Don’t be a Nazi or a white supremacist or a neo-Confederate and no one will torch your car in an Antifa riot, now will they?

    Frederick (64d4e1)

  42. Free speech for me…not for thee.

    Ben burn (59d409)

  43. Clearly they had to have done something to deserve this like that Iraqi immigrant whose lino wee flambeed. On inauguration day. Its like something out of predator 2

    narciso (d1f714)

  44. There’s like 1.6 billion Muslims in the world and even a basis point of that in Jihadists is too much. The estimate is about 100,000.

    The Nazis we saw in Charlottesville probably have similar metrics. BTIM, the correlation between radicals and good people in percentage is similar.

    Is that an outrageous opinion?

    Ben burn (59d409)

  45. antifa torched an immigrant’s car (and livelihood) during the inauguration

    i bet Jeffy Bezos got a kick out of that

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  46. WHen an exception to 1st amendment rights is carved out, it carves at the very heart of the spirit of Amendmdnt in he first place. knda like freedom from unwarranted searches. if that applies to all but a narrow exception, then who controls the exceptions and when are there enough to satisfy them??

    NEOCON_1 (b34f4c)

  47. @NEOCON_1:then who controls the exceptions

    Good people who think good thoughts.

    when are there enough to satisfy them??

    When bad people are afraid to have bad thoughts, or when there aren’t any more bad people or bad thoughts.

    This isn’t hard.

    Frederick (64d4e1)

  48. @37 Ben Burn

    None dare call them fighting words.

    Pinandpuller (975b5d)

  49. @46 Ben Burn

    What about people who were raised not to hate but always felt like they were in the wrong body?

    The Klannies.

    Pinandpuller (975b5d)

  50. Ben Burn

    Is it ok to beat on Islamist protestors because we are anti-fascism?

    Pinandpuller (975b5d)

  51. “None dare call them fighting words.”

    Not unless they wish to be unmasked.

    If ERI

    Ben burn (59d409)

  52. I can’t believe people still hold bachelor auctions.

    Pinandpuller (975b5d)

  53. Mascara means mask and some people take that literally.

    Pinandpuller (975b5d)

  54. mascara makes you feel pretty after a long hard day in the navy

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  55. The Dragon is woke.

    Pinandpuller (975b5d)

  56. @16. Nazis don’t voluntarily give up power or violence and when they’ve done Morgans dirty little job, they’ll kill him.

    Yep. You got it pegged perfectly.

    Excellent post BTW, FZ.

    Had stateside family- Americans- physically attacked; businesses stoned– in both WW1 and WW2; loyalty question simply because of their German heritage- and on a more basic level, their accents. It’s not the kind of reality that lends itself easily to intellectual arguments.

    So while I completely agree w/Patterico and Cooke’s intellectual pitch on the First Amendment, my years living in the UK, roaming the Continent and a few Red points to the east, taught me to cut Europeans– and even Rooskies– a little slack when any talk of Nazis comes up– [particularly if you’re an American in a London pub BTW] for painfully obvious reasons. The scars– physical and emotional– still remain across the landscape and the pain still stings in surviving families.

    These present day Neo-Nazis, KKKers white supremeicists are merely white trash; cannon fodder Big League Nazis know and would use as a means to an end. Met and spent a week w/a genuine, real world, knew-and-broke-bread-with-Hitler-Nazi in my life. Regulars know who. His SS number: 185,068. His Nazi Party number: 5,738,692. He was infamous– and famously became an American citizen; his ‘allegiance ruled by expedience.’ He killed a lot of good, innocent people in WW2. And he helped put Americans on the moon. He was incredibly charming. He was very smart; a dapper dresser and — as the world more broadly learned from classified files revealed after his death, completely, utterly, totally amoral, willing to use anybody and anything as a means to an end. And as FZ rightly notes, he would have used a twit like a Morgan [or a Disney] in a heartbeat and when finished, disposed of him– expediently.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  57. I agree completely that under our system of laws (including, most prominently the First Amendment) the Government has no place (well, very little legitimate place/space) in banning/limiting speech. I do not forsee that likely to change within any lifetime now in existence. So, in a sense, all this is much/some ado about nothing/incredibly little.

    That said, as I understand it (which is not at all well, mind you, but enough, I think to shoot off my mouth in this forum at least) there are a number of societies whose legal system does not operate under such unabashedly liberal (non-)strictures as ours, yet serve as reasonably serviceable democracies. See, here, re: displays of Nazi insignia (etc.)

    While no doubt it might induce chills and boils on some here to even contemplate living, for example, in Canada (see, citation above, for example), I do believe that I could take that and the consequential impairment of “1st Amendment rights” with a marked degree of equanimity … yeah unto even the potential further impairment thereof, in the misted unknowable forests of the future.

    Consequently (?), on reflection, I cannot say that I agree with the original post’s conclusion that

    No matter how attractive it might sound to carve out an “exception” to the First Amendment for obviously hateful speech like pro-Nazi propaganda, such efforts are illegal, morally wrong, and should [read: “must”] be rejected in the interest of freedom.

    Q! (267694)

  58. Our system of laws are administered by PEOPLE, Q. The fly in the ointment.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  59. I think Q! should be banned and censored for his ridiculous beliefs!

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca)

  60. The New York Times had an Op-ed piece ofn the same theme to day:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/opinion/aclu-first-amendment-trump-charlottesville.html

    The A.C.L.U. Needs to Rethink Free Speech

    By K-SUE PARK

    This is by a Critical Race Studies fellow at the U.C>L>A> school of law and I don’t think this person is talking about intimidation, but just the claim taht some people have less power. This person would justify any kind of restruction on speech.

    And look what that person claims:

    …States are considering laws that forgive motorists who drive into protesters. And police arrive with tanks and full weaponry at anti-racist protests but not at white supremacist rallies….

    Just what statem, or even individual state legislatorm, wants a law allowing what James Alex Fields Jr did to Heather D. Heyer and 19 other people?

    Maybe something’s being misrepresented?

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  61. Q! freedom of speech is a basic human right.

    Even if there are cultures that function without respecting any number of basic human rights, that doesn’t change how wrong it is for a government official to decide which kinds of speech are legal and aren’t.

    In our society, styled on John Stuart Mill’s concept of liberty, any political viewpoint that is wrong should be answered with more speech, but government force, because this is the best way to 1) learn about /reinforce understanding why this thing is wrong, rather than just have a bumper sticker understanding of issue and to make sure it’s really wrong and not actually right.

    How often do we hear someone call things fascist that have nothing to do with fascism? Or believe Nazism and the KKK represent something fundamentally wrong with white people, instead of with racism in and of itself? We need free speech.

    reasonably serviceable democracies.

    Nothing is stopping anyone from moving to Germany if they prefer those laws, but America’s inviolable rights should always remain that way. It provides some stability in times of chaos. Besides, we see a whole lot of people complain about free speech these days. It’s so easy to bend the rules a few times if they can. Safe space types, Trump, the far fringes that sometimes get power these days on either side, they often really really want people to shut up, and I love that criticism of those in power is a strong tradition in our society.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  62. The charming lass that took down the statue in Durham was a maoust he killed 60 million, Stalin another favorite 20 40 million of his own people, Winston thought the latter was quite a cut up,
    And Nixon likewise about the former. Hitler’s lebenstaum couldn’t have happened without the partitioned. Of Poland, where they ended up training the oun ayxiliaries

    narciso (d1f714)

  63. If you trace the racism of the democrat party it goes through Jackson and his democrats, therefore the democrat party must be torn down.

    mg (31009b)

  64. @62

    Just what statem, or even individual state legislatorm, wants a law allowing what James Alex Fields Jr did to Heather D. Heyer and 19 other people?

    She’s referring to these laws:
    http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/backlash-gop-bills-shield-drivers-hit-protesters-49234719

    In my opinion, the laws are mostly pandering in the same way the dozens of repeal obamacare bills were.

    Davethulhu (fab944)

  65. coexist/resist/2020
    idiots.

    mg (31009b)

  66. That is what dsouza found, the drafters of the Nuremberg law saw the Indian removal act as precedent for what they wanted to do.

    narciso (d1f714)

  67. Well, now I guess we know why Piers hates private gun ownership so much. Makes it too hard for the government to take away other freedoms.

    gwjd (032bef)

  68. But Morgan did provide high comedy with his insistence that he — a foreigner with no legal training — understands American law better than American lawyers.

    gwjd (032bef)

  69. Can’t wait for rubio, mccain, cruz, wetbacks, ben burnee bro and the rest of the republican ilk try and take down “The Alamo”.

    mg (31009b)

  70. The latter group were the ones that my friend clarice investigated a part of the osi,

    narciso (d1f714)

  71. wetback used to be in Websters, sfo.

    mg (31009b)

  72. Now I know there will be a solar eclipse: I agree 100% with Dustin. Say it ain’t so.

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca)

  73. Clarice is the best read of the week, narciso.

    mg (31009b)

  74. DCSCA

    What was the nazi’s FICO score?

    Pinandpuller (975b5d)

  75. @71. The Alamo wasn’t erected as monument to traitors.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  76. Imagine if the Alamo memorial was a statue of Santa Anna

    Davethulhu (fab944)

  77. @DCSCA:The Alamo wasn’t erected as monument to traitors.

    Traitors to Mexico, they were.

    Frederick (64d4e1)

  78. DCSCA – tell the truth – did you break your foot kicking the statue of Sherman or Lee?

    mg (31009b)

  79. Hey, in Madison they just now removed a monument to Confederate POWs who died in a Union POW camp.

    Now that’s a little morally convenient, isn’t it?

    Frederick (64d4e1)

  80. “A larger, stone monument naming the deceased still stands but is planned to be taken down. Soglin said heavy machinery will be needed given its significant size.

    “We will restore an appropriate monument or plaque with the names of the deceased,” he said, but added not one that gives “reverence for the Confederate insurrection and treason against the United States.”

    …But the mayor brushed aside any idea to replace the plaque with a market explaining the burials. He said the complexities of the Civil War and how people came to join the Confederate Army may have factored into why the soldiers ultimately died in Wisconsin.”

    That and prison camp conditions, yeah.

    Frederick (64d4e1)

  81. The Alamo wasn’t erected as monument to traitors.

    DCSCA

    Have you ever seen that amazing Cenotaph outside the Alamo? It’s beautiful, and placed where one of the pyres of dead bodies was burned.

    It was created by the same man who made the statues around UT Austin that were recently removed because of sensitivity concerns or something.

    Hundreds of years from now, I hope these monuments still stand. All of them. The civil war happened, and it’s part of our history that the nation was broken in two, and there was a tremendous and tragic loss of life on both sides. A memorial to those who were killed in war is not something the winning nation should tear down, to whitewash the cost of forcing states to remain in the USA.

    If the USA really thought that war was worth fighting, it shouldn’t be ashamed that the losses are remembered. The slavery the civil war ended was 150+ years ago. You can’t fight that injustice by spray painting a statue, but people can and should address the problems in our world today. It’s a lot easier, a lot safer, to ignore them while fighting the civil war again.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  82. 71, I don’t Cubans would give 2 spits, I’d rather they give Rinaldi a sock party courtesy of the American GI Forum then mess with Texas Stonehenge.

    urbanleftbehind (582b37)

  83. The Alamo was not erected as a memorial. When I lived in San Antonio there was a large portrait of both Santa Anna and General Coz at the Alamo museum there. Besides, the Alamo should be torn down as it was defended by filthy white slave holders like David Crockett and William Barret Travis who murdered poor Mexicans to steal their land.

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca)

  84. @83 that’s TWICE today for Dustin. It’s a miracle I tell ya.

    These people are not *removing* traitors they are erasing American history. You know, the story of US! With it’s good and bad it’s all us. BTW, I hate bad winners. By honoring your enemy you honor yourself. If they aren’t worth remembering then they weren’t hard to beat. Some of the bravest and most honorable men I ever saw were my enemy.

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca)

  85. I think it is interesting. I don’t look at statues as signs of things I approve of or disagree with. I seem them as something built to remind the viewer of something in the past.

    And the Left plays a very dangerous game with this. For example, Woodrow Wilson is viewed as a progressive hero by many on the Left. Yet he was profoundly racist (for example, resegregating the Armed Forces).

    Me, I think it is better to look at the statues and think about the builders, and the time the statue represents.

    Cultural amnesia is a bad, bad thing.

    A friend of mine warns of something that seems obvious to me, but is apparently a word.

    https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/presentism

    Something to consider.

    Simon Jester (82e4e0)

  86. Somebody’s doing a good job of keeping the Confederate Mount Rushmore out of the news – for years.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Mountain#/media/File:Stone_Mountain_Carving_2.jpg

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Mountain

    The largest bas-relief sculpture in the world, the Confederate Memorial Carving depicts three Confederate leaders of the Civil War, President Jefferson Davis and Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson (and their favorite horses, “Blackjack”, “Traveller”, and “Little Sorrel”, respectively). The entire carved surface measures 1.57 acres (6,400 m2). The carving of the three men towers 400 feet (120 m) above the ground, measures 76 by 158 feet (23 by 48 m), and is recessed 42 feet (13 m) into the mountain. The deepest point of the carving is at Lee’s right elbow, which is 12 feet (3.7 m) to the mountain’s surface.

    There’s actually a coin showing this – not now, in the current series, but in 1925:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Mountain#/media/File:Stone_mountain_memorial_half_dollar_commemorative_obverse_reverse.jpg

    The coin was maybe the first one design. It was actually started before Mount Rushmore, but not completed until 1972 (work began again in 1964) by which time Jimmy Carter was Governor.

    The person who was originally supposed to complete it, abandoned the project to do Mount Rushmore instead and his work was dynamited in 1928 according to somebody who in 2005 recalled soemthing he read in a book.

    The UDC was given 12 years to complete a sizable Civil War monument. Gutzon Borglum was commissioned to do the carving. Borglum abandoned the project in 1925 (and later went on to begin Mount Rushmore). American sculptor Augustus Lukeman continued until 1928, when further work stopped for thirty years `

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Rushmore

    After securing federal funding through the enthusiastic sponsorship of “Mount Rushmore’s great political patron” U.S. Senator Peter Norbeck,[7] construction on the memorial began in 1927, and the presidents’ faces were completed between 1934 and 1939. Upon Gutzon Borglum’s death in March 1941, his son Lincoln Borglum took over as leader of the construction project. Each president was originally to be depicted from head to waist. Lack of funding forced construction to end in late October 1941.[8]

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  87. I don’t look at statues as signs of things I approve of or disagree with. I seem them as something built to remind the viewer of something in the past.

    Exactly. These days tolerance is so weak that just walking down a nice park with a statue of someone one doesn’t agree with is some kind of oppression, when it takes so much work to take that much offense to inanimate objects about our history.

    Cultural amnesia is a bad, bad thing.

    The recent hiroshima anniversary was devoid of any talk about why anyone would want to be at war with Japan in the first place, or what made the USA so desperate to win. What about Japan was so bad? There’s no memory of it. Putting aside even the concern about repeating mistakes, a lot of people actually are confused about how the world wound up the way it is.

    Through whitewashing, through dehumanizing the losers of the civil war, through deleting any reference to them or the idea that anyone who survived them loved them and felt their loss, we only create an ignorant, easily misled people.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  88. wonder if that Moroccan was a registered republican?

    mg (31009b)

  89. Simon Jester (82e4e0) — 8/17/2017 @ 4:07 pm

    Woodrow Wilson is viewed as a progressive hero by many on the Left. Yet he was profoundly racist (for example, resegregating the Armed Forces).

    Because his birthplace is given in almanacs as Virginia people think he grew up there.

    But actually he was present, in Georgia, at age 7, in 1864 when Generasl Sherman was marching through there. He was from the deep south. Of course Jimmy Carter didn’t mention this in 1976 when he said no president had been elected from the deep south, but I’m sure he knew it..

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson

    Born in Staunton, Virginia, he spent his early years in Augusta, Georgia and Columbia, South Carolina. His father was a leading Presbyterian in the Confederacy during the Civil War, and Wilson was always a devout Presbyterian and a proud Southerner.

    I don’t know that he was a proud southerner. I don’t think that seeped into common historical knowledge.

    And Princeton was notable for having a lot of students from the south. Wilson was astdent there for a time (before he went to Johns Hopkins) and later I think also a professor for a while and of course president of Princeton.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  90. agree with all that, Dustin.
    And what you wrote, Simon

    mg (31009b)

  91. 90. You’re not going to get a history of the war with Japan from the commeorations of Hiroshima but it’s impossible not to know. Other things, of course have slipped form the memory of the youngest generations.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  92. No, Franklin was actually more of a Germanophobe.

    urbanleftbehind (582b37)

  93. @79/@80.@83. =sigh=

    The Alamo was erected as a Roman Catholic mission in 1744.

    End of story.

    Now run along home, kids. Dinner’s ready.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  94. ugh

    i went ahead and just rejoined amazon prime and redid my jet.com cart over there

    it sucks but i gave it plenty of thought and no better solution came up

    i can’t support a hateful divisive walmart that supports white supremacists

    it’s just wrong

    they really crossed a line this time

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  95. As a youngster dragged to Civil War cities and sites by my late father on hot, summer weekends, I’d occasionally ask a tour guide why there ‘monuments’- generals on horses, soldiers and such– to traitors to the United States who waged war against it.

    Never got an answer– only polite silence.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  96. sigh

    mg (31009b)

  97. @79/@80.@83. =sigh=

    The Alamo was erected as a Roman Catholic mission in 1744.

    End of story.

    Now run along home, kids. Dinner’s ready.

    DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/17/2017 @ 5:04 pm

    Cringey!

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  98. DCSCA… might’ve been the wet spot on your pant leg and what appeared to be a potato in the back, you precious, precocious li’l peckerwood, you.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  99. that man belongs in cuckoos nest

    mg (31009b)

  100. I lived 280 feet above this statue of General Sheridan for 12 years. He’s the guy who first said “The only good Indian is a dead Indian”. I have since moved but it is still there at Belmont Avenue and … would you believe it … Sheridan Road in Chicago. The shame of it.

    nk (dbc370)

  101. You’d think Great Britain had enough of it’s own issues to deal with that would take precedence for a busybody Britisher.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  102. Death to jihadis! Pieces be upon them.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  103. Sheridan has been misquoted over the years. What he really said was “the only good Indian is a wood Indian”. The man had quite a collection of ’em. Some called it a fetish.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  104. Any of these statues Remingtons?

    mg (31009b)

  105. Ask and ye shall receive: Spanish police have just terminated several suspected jihadis.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  106. I have no remorse in asking for that. It’s a terrible thing.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  107. Gutzon Borglum, mg.

    nk (dbc370)

  108. One time owner Tom Yawkey of the red sox was a known racist, with his initals on the wall in morse code, tear down that wall!!!

    mg (31009b)

  109. So what do you call a thousand jihadis chained together at the bottom of the ocean?

    Hazardous waste.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  110. “Stink bait” works, as well.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  111. Yrs but Texas settlers allowed Texas and other states to join the union, with a prospect of slavery expabdion, you see how it works.

    narciso (d1f714)

  112. It’s easy to crack wise about Morgan’s knee-jerk response to Nazis and free speech issues. But his POV is also understandable– about Nazis and such. The sensitivities are deep-rooted.

    An anecdote. Back in the day, the Brits were making a movie titled ‘The Battle of Britain’— chances are many of you have seen it. Production plans included filming some aerial sequences on available clear days over central London- Buckingham Palace and so forth- in which several vintage Nazi Heinkel bombers and ME-109 fighters pursued by RAF Spitfires and Hurricanes, would be flying low and slow over the city, rat-a-tat-tatting away, spewing smoke and sounds as a film crew aboard a B-25 filmed it all. It made for quite a memorable, albeit brief, sight.

    The city papers ran some stories on the days before filming– especially for older pensioners– informing them not to be frightened or alarmed by the sights and sounds of Nazi planes again over London. Thought it was amusing to have to do that as the war was long over by then and in passing mentioned that to an elderly Briton employed in our apartment building. And that’s when I got my first, long and detailed lecture -from someone who went through it- about the Nazi Blitz. He was a young recruit in the Welsh guards at the time and detailing the horror was a sobering education. I never took the Tube again after that without thinking about the terrified people riding down those long escalators huddling deep in the Underground as bombs fell above them- often twice a day– for months, as their city was relentlessly attacked and destroyed by Nazis. You can read about this stuff and trade intellectual arguments over same, but hearing about it first hand from people who went though it– and seeing some of the lingering damage as well- stays with you. So yeah, you can disagree w/Morgan’s POV… but appreciate a Briton’s sensitivities to it when it comes to Nazis.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  113. The Mcguffin in zpectre is she organjzationo. Is bombing countries. Mexico south Africa Germany so they will join obeehausers nee data mining outfit, why is he killing everyone bond coated for. His father favored him, over his own son.

    narciso (d1f714)

  114. The “elderly Briton” who related his experiences to you lived through it, Piers Morgan did not. Morgan is donning the same victim mantle as blacks do about slavery while having never experienced it. Enough already. Nobody alive in America ever owned slaves and nobody alive in America can be held accountable for someone else who did. We don’t do corruption of blood here. This idea that every white person is eternally guilty of slavery is nonsense. Whites didn’t invent slavery but we sure did end it and that’s what people should remember. The Civil War was not a slave rebellion. It was 600,000 dead white people freeing black slaves.

    The debt is paid!

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca)

  115. Piers Morgan, from England, where educated people neither understand nor appreciate our First Amendment.
    It’s not just “Nazis” that these British Thought Police want to silence, it’s all sorts of opinions that the left dislikes.

    pst314 (39e1ed)

  116. i’m not sure what this accomplished but it’s certainly spirited and

    well, it’s very spirited

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  117. To Removers of Monuments

    Those impassive, silent guardians – will their gaze no longer shame you?
    Have they been forever banished? Are you sure?
    Can you finally stroll in comfort streets bereft of all reminders?
    Is their valor gone, as if it never were?

    Spiteful children! Did it gall you that someone so loved, respected these,
    Enough to raise their monuments on high—
    And you know you’ve never earned any respect, and never will,
    And your blog will be deleted when you die?

    “Ingrate, vandal, ignoramus,
    Meddler, coward, bully, fool”—
    Those are titles your pedestal might bear,
    Were your legacy preserved, beyond the web and your own minds –
    But I doubt it will last too long even there.

    ~Joe Long

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca)

  118. These removals and their angry ghosts could inspire a whole new season of Scioby-Doo.

    urbanleftbehind (847a06)

  119. 109.Any of these statues Remingtons?

    Now that’s a good question and likely easy enough to search/document.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  120. All this tripe doesn’t add up to actual speech

    http://g-2.space/g-2.space/distortions

    narciso (d1f714)

  121. DCSCA

    Did you ever ask an Airborne Ranger why he yelled “Geronimo”?

    Pinandpuller (975b5d)

  122. I don’t know who is buried in Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Tomb…

    But we fixin’ to find out.

    Pinandpuller (975b5d)

  123. He want ubviting for gazpacho, if you get my drift:

    https://mobile.twitter.com/Mundo_ECpe/status/898285671546318853

    narciso (d1f714)

  124. DCSCA

    Sometimes when mommy doesn’t love daddy they have to live apart.

    Except when daddy is Abe Lincoln and he calls mommy a traitor and drags her back home by her hair.

    Pinandpuller (975b5d)

  125. *got*

    nk (dbc370)

  126. That’s sounds like a setup for a Forrest Gump sequel, if you remember the opening not about who he was named after. Maybe him and his adopted son from Jenny now 40 andgrown guarding a tomb from some people named after an appetizer from the Olive Guarden and the Bureau of Land and Management.

    urbanleftbehind (847a06)

  127. I wonder how many paratroopers got killed trying to remember that redskin’s name before they pulled the ripcord.

    “Hiawatha? No. Pocahonts? No. Sitting Bull? No. Cochise? No. Crazy Horse? No. Gero … Aw, sh!t!” Plop.

    nk (dbc370)

  128. nk, were these Polish paratroopers?

    (I’m so un PC I may disappear in the night like a Lee Statue)

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca)

  129. Polish parachutes don’t have ripcords, Hoagie, they’re equipped with the latest automated technology developed from automobile airbags. They open on impact.

    nk (dbc370)

  130. I used to yell “Geronimo” when I’d bail out of the monkey bars.

    Fun fact: iSIS training camps are based on 6th grade recess.

    Pinandpuller (975b5d)

  131. Yes they always use that snippet of video, in guessing its more like the training facility in from Russia with love, complete with flange throwrrs

    narciso (d1f714)

  132. Does The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier count for Confederates?

    Pinandpuller (975b5d)

  133. Too bad they didn’t go see Gone With the wind.

    Pinandpuller (975b5d)

  134. Rename Tulane HOV Lane.

    Pinandpuller (975b5d)

  135. Pre Civil War: No Fault Divorce

    Post Civil War: Covenant Marraige

    The Constitution is a murder/suicide pact.

    Pinandpuller (975b5d)

  136. These people are not *removing* traitors they are erasing American history. You know, the story of US! With it’s good and bad it’s all us. BTW, I hate bad winners. By honoring your enemy you honor yourself. If they aren’t worth remembering then they weren’t hard to beat. Some of the bravest and most honorable men I ever saw were my enemy.

    So what’s next? Do we need statues of Osama Bin Laden in Manhattan to preserve American history and “honor ourselves” by honoring our enemy?

    Maybe statues of Tojo and Yamamoto prominently displayed near the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor? In fact, why not just melt down what’s left of the Arizona and use *that* to cast the statues! What greater honor could there be for the hundreds still buried inside?

    To be fair, the Army is guilty too. Their failure to display a statue of Benedict Arnold at West Point has practically erased the American Revolution from history!

    Lee, Jackson, Davis and the rest of their co-conspirators in treason came closer to destroying the United States than anyone before or since. If statues of the confederate leadership are OK, I can’t imagine anyone would object to the others.

    Dave (445e97)

  137. Robert E Lee was sworn in as president of Washington University on October 2nd, 1865. Isn’t it just like an institute of higher learning to hire a traitor to America?

    On that same day he applied for amnesty. It wasn’t granted until congress passed something and President Ford signed it in the 70’s.

    Lawyers, is Lee still a traitor to America legally speaking?

    Pinandpuller (975b5d)

  138. Treason is the one crime defined in the Constitution. “Giving aid and comfort to the enemy”.
    First you have to define the enemy.

    kishnevi (092167)

  139. Levying war against the United States. But what if you renounce your U.S. citizenship first?

    nk (dbc370)

  140. Pre Civil War: Common Law Marraige

    Civil War: Shotgun Wedding

    Pinandpuller (975b5d)

  141. President Ford restored REL’s citizenship.

    Pinandpuller (975b5d)

  142. Levying Workplace Violence.

    Pinandpuller (975b5d)

  143. Is it ok to keep Civil War statues and death camps for nazis on private property?

    Pinandpuller (975b5d)

  144. I, Robert Edward Lee, appointed a Second Lieutenant in the Army of the United States, do solemnly swear that I will bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and that I will serve them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever, and observe and obey the orders of the President of the United States, and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the rules and articles for the government of the Armies of the United States.

    The oath that Robert E. Lee took, and later violated.

    The oath that newly-commissioned officers take today is slightly different; it does not swear to obey the president (or anyone else), but to support and defend the constitution.

    Dave (445e97)

  145. Ben Shapiro’s been coming down on this idiot like hard rain on the Twitters. It’s good stuff.

    JP (f1742c)

  146. Dave at 154. So what did that make George Washington?

    “Treason doth never prosper, what’s the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it Treason.” — John Harrington

    nk (dbc370)

  147. 153, hmm….. wait for it……TRUMP Confederate Resorts?

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  148. Dave, you and your leftist brothers are destroying this nation every bit as much as southern secessionists.

    NJRob (7f4bec)

  149. Regardless of your views of the specifics of Trump’s comments, they have been a giant distraction from moving policy forward on things like ObamaCare repeal or tax reform.

    the corrupt cowardly McConnell “war hero” senate is on vacation

    they not moving anything forward!

    now that Mitch McConnell’s corrupt piggy wife is installed in her pension piggy cabinet job, all the filthy war hero Senate does is pretend to be in session so President Trump can’t do any recess appointments

    Daily Digest
    Senate
    Chamber Action

    The Senate met at 4:30:06 p.m. in pro forma session, and adjourned at 4:30:39 p.m. until 10 a.m., on Friday, August 18, 2017.––––––

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  150. Don’t they need a quorum, which is a majority of all Senators seated? And even if a there can be a session without a quorum, can’t any Senator compel a quorum? Is there not one Republican Senator who will call out the farce of pro forma sessions by compelling a quorum? Is there any reason to vote for a Republican for the Senate in 2018?

    nk (dbc370)

  151. I don’t know nk we are Told trump is the only who doesn’t know what he is doing re Venezuela for instance.

    narciso (656d66)

  152. Never mind. If there was a way around pro forma sessions, Harry Reid would have used it in the last term. He was a Senator who knew how to support his President.

    nk (dbc370)

  153. Is there any reason to vote for a Republican for the Senate in 2018?

    we’ll have to see how the primaries turn out i guess

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  154. nk (dbc370) — 8/18/2017 @ 8:17 am

    can’t any Senator compel a quorum? Is there not one Republican Senator who will call out the farce of pro forma sessions by compelling a quorum? Is there any reason to vote for a Republican for the Senate in 2018?

    The pro forma session anyway lasts less tahn three minutes. I think if somebody asked for a quorum (and it would be somebody from the opposite party who might want to) and after half an hour or an hour or however long they wait, there’s wasn’t, and they adjourn, there still was a session.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  155. As I said the other day

    If you do not support the right of repugnant people to make repugnant speech you do not support the right to free speech in the slightest. There is no grey here.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  156. We’ll know Trump is doomed when Happyfeet turns on him.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  157. 88. Actually the CBS Evening News carried a story about Stone Mountain Georgia last night:

    https://www.cbsnews.com/videos/will-confederate-faces-on-georgias-stone-mountain-be-removed

    That actually would make more sense than the other removals, because the site is where the second Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1915.

    But it also would look like what the Taliban did.

    There might be a way to shun it.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  158. Freedom of speech is the core, quintessential American value, a natural right and one without the foresight of Patrick Henry, who pressed against opposition for a bill of rights, might not survive against such rationalizations that disfavored social or political views need surpressing.

    If that goes, there is no country at all; and there is also no place else to go.
    It’s simply that boot stamping that face till the end of time.

    SarahW (3164f0)

  159. Dave, you’re forgetting it was brother against brother in the Civil War. What tore this country apart had to be mended. As much as Lee protested the erection of war monuments to remember leaders or valient struggle and terrible loss of the defeated –or the victors… he also got it right with the benefit he waved away – that it would be grateful to southern feelings.

    The monuments didn’t keep the wounds open, they helped salve them. In time they became a symbol or remembrance, aknowlegement, and moving forward.

    I live in Richmond. I know how those monuments were viewed. The sudden urge to extirpate all signs of the confederacy is a cleansing spirit with danger behind it; I’m convinced that half the urgency is a wish to present the appearance of toppling a regime (though its just a continued #resist conniption).

    SarahW (3164f0)

  160. we’re gonna be ok cause President Trump won’t ratify these obscene Nazi rape fantasies being propagated by the CNN Jake Tapper fake news propaganda sluts

    cowardly deranged war hero John McCain can ratify them up one side and down the other

    as well as can pervy Mitt Romney

    and so can war hero Timmah Scott and the white supremacist ceo of Walmart

    but John McCain already offered his sleazy war hero ass up as president and America lol’d

    and for pervy Mitt Romney they practically had to get a restraining order

    (bad touch bad touch)

    but now we have President Trump and he’s the milk of human kindness!

    we’re having a fabulous summer

    and there will be many more to follow, or possibly not

    the fascists are at the door and they’re eying the baby with a hungry eye

    aaaaaand scene

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  161. Monument avenue has simply been archival record of this towns past, a unique and remarkable landmark part of the air you breathed, which was “we ponder our past” and not a matter of discord. As a child I thought them quaint and ugly; although I grew up in Richmond, I wasn’t native or “Old Richmond”; my people were from unionists strongholds in Tennessee. I was mildly irritated by the droning docents who explained the great and glorious dead – (I was annoyed by their pronounced old Richmond accents, and romantic discursions) But there was no sense that anyone still wanted to depart from the Union, they were remarkably symbols of recovery and pride in remembering but moving along into the future. They didn’t hold wounds open, the past rested in its proper place. The sudden new maoist vogue for public toppling is wholly invented by people with an agenda to wake up and enhance discord.
    These statues were not symbols of anything but ties to a significant history of the trial by fire this nation went through, which fundamentally altered and pushed the states into true union. But now all of a sudden they are intolerable. I just can’t accept the immediacy of the crisis as sober, thoughtful, or even persuasive reflection on the horrors of chattel slavery or the discarding of the thought crime of improper remembrance.
    Destroying such markers by mob as opposed to general assent smack of Taliban erasure and mob hysteria, and I can’t help thinking that anti-trump hysteria colors the new fashion. It’s a way to have a little mini-revolution and coup of our shared past if not our government. I’m suspicious of the extirpation of historical monuments as tyrannical cleansing impulse. It’s NEW. Not even ten years ago, in Richmond, these statues were an object of kafiyeh wearing hipster admiration – the history rested in its proper place. PROOF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl3hbXRPOA0&feature=youtu.be&t=1m56s

    SarahW (3164f0)

  162. Dave at 154. So what did that make George Washington?

    George Washington was never an officer in the British army (not for lack of trying), and as far as I’m aware never took any oath.

    From the time he took command of the Continental Army outside Boston until the Declaration of Independence, Washington and his officers drank a toast to the health of King George at every meal.

    And finally, the colonies only declared independence after a long sting of tyrannous acts committed by a government in which they had no representation, which had occupied their towns with military forces and waged war on them for over a year.

    The confederates, on the other hand, tried to destroy the country because they lost a free and fair election.

    Dave, you and your leftist brothers are destroying this nation every bit as much as southern secessionists.

    We’ve been over this many times. I’m no leftist. You’re the one who supports a lifelong democrat who said Hillary Clinton would make a great president, and who bankrolled Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, John Kerry, Jimmy Carter, Charlie Rangel and Anthony Weiner.

    And now you’re standing up for slave-holding traitors who took up arms against the democratically elected government of this country, and the modern-day trailer trash racists who worship them.

    Dave (445e97)

  163. Happyfeets on the march; carrying a torch for Breitbart-Bastard-Bannon!

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  164. It’s NEW

    on one level it’s trolling and it’s meant for to be racially divisive

    so it’s not new on that level – CNN Jake Tapper fake news has gloried in racially-divisive trolling for many moons now

    but on another level as well this is not new either

    our fascist democrat friends have had fantastic success incubating this experiment on the campuses of fascist failmerican colleges and universities for years and years now

    (oh yes we were warned this was coming)

    and here we are

    faced with the gloppy mutant fruit of fascist gestation

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  165. Breitbart-Bastard-Bannon gone; now it’s Miller Time!

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  166. George Washington was never an officer in the British army (not for lack of trying), and as far as I’m aware never took any oath.

    He had been a colonel of the Virginia Regiment, which owed its allegiance to the Crown.

    On the other hand the Regiment had ceased to exist by the 1770s and Washington was no longer an officer.

    JP (f1742c)

  167. to be clear

    i don’t think they want to remove the monuments

    these people, they’re not that profound

    i think they want to rip the monuments out of the hands of the society, the culture they belong to, and return them broken and defiled

    the framing’s in place

    anything anyone might do to the fascists in retaliation is out of bounds

    (and proof of white nationalist sympathies)

    cause they’re just peacefully defiling statuary

    it’s a win win for fascism and a huge win win for CNN Jake Tapper fake news, based in Atlanta

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  168. Dave

    REL resigned his commission in the US Army, yes?

    Pinandpuller (975b5d)

  169. Pence: last alien hybrid standing.

    With Pence you get egg roll

    The End Times will need an Evangelist flamethrower and Pence is a cold fish. Another Rasputin is needed.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  170. whoever told you about the egg roll lied to you

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  171. Bannons departure signals Trump has absorbed the Derp-Derp State.

    Ben burn (59d409)

  172. @179 Pin, you old scoundrel! REL tendered his resignation to Gen. Scott, and requested its acceptance. Let us assume that acceptance was necessary for the effectiveness of the resignation, and further assume that proper acceptance was granted/effected, in due course.

    Still, he went on to fight against the US. Strikes me as rather traitor-y – as I’m sure it does you.

    Imagine Patton resigning his commission and turning then to fight for The Reich. Traitor or Stalwart American Patriot? (Deserving of accolades and statues, amongst other things?)

    Am I missing something of real import? Or is this particular “dispute” about angels and pinheads?

    Q! (267694)

  173. Patterico:

    How does the Google/GoDaddy/etc/ banning of the “alt right” play in California, given

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packingham_v._North_Carolina

    Kevin M (752a26)

  174. You’re late for your shift under the bridge, BenBurnt.

    Colonel Haiku (470cbb)

  175. You still read what he posts?

    Kevin M (752a26)

  176. @188 =Haiku!= Gesundheit!

    Carry a torch for Bannon and you’ll get Burned.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  177. This is part of a general trend of leftist thinking — everything is evaluated in their head, not in the reality of the world. It’s the same reason they favor socialism.

    Ronald Reagan once said, very incisively, that “Socialism only works in heaven, where they don’t need it, and in hell, where they already have it.”

    In theory, socialism sounds like a great and noble ideal. In reality, it lead to economic chaos — see Venezuela. You just have a little problem of human nature get in the way.

    (Churchill said something like that too. “Capitalism is the worst system of economics. Except for all the other ones.”)

    Same applies here. In theory, it would be nice to be able to ban Nazism and KKK-ism. But in practice, the moment you give that power to the govt., they will look to ban all kinds of ideas that are counter to their ideology as “hate speech” or whatever the legal category they come up with. You already have this on many college campuses — try giving a speech or writing an article questioning affirmative action, or whether there is a “rape culture.”

    That’s the basic problem with leftism. Everything they think works just great in the Never-Never Land that is in their head. Once you enter the real world, things are different.

    Bored Lawyer (fe5e63)

  178. Pamela Geller (who was actually the target of a terrorist attack that, to all appearances,

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/terrorism-in-garland-texas-what-the-fbi-knew-before-the-2015-attack-2/

    ….the FBI was prepared to let happen and then prosecute after the fact) and Jihad Watch have been banned by Pay Pal

    http://www.jewishpress.com/news/jewish-news/paypal-suspends-rightwing-blogger-pamela-gellers-account/2017/08/22/

    What is particularly insidious about this ongoing censorship campaign is that the censorship that is being promoted is not a censorship of ideas, but of persons

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  179. An undercover FBI agent followed terrorists Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi all the way to the scene of the attack in Garland, Texas, where he took a (bad) picture of them before they started shooting.

    One guard ducked or something and was only wounded and the other killed them.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  180. Correction: Paypal restored her account on Monday.

    Also the picture was of school security guard Bruce Joiner and police officer Greg Stevens/

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)


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