Next to come down

[WORANCH]

Is this next ? I guess Texas is not what it used to be..







http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061228/ap_on_re_us/ut_confederate_statues

 

[Crowderfarms]

150 years from now, People will be demanding that the Viet Nam Memorial Wall should be removed.Along with Pearl Harbor and any other Memorials that have served for what our Boys faught for for what was once a Democracy... Or will there even be a Democracy in the future?

 

[memanpa]

he!! if the libs get their way we will be all be bowing and praying to allah,
too many dayum politics and a$$kissing by the civil libs so that anyone who feels offended by something they have a hayday trying to get it removed.

if you are offended by something that happened 100 yrs ago then IMHO you need to crawl in hole and stay there!
GEEEEEZE.

 

[Alice]

Well, believe it or not, I even think that taking down those statues would be disgraceful. Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee are men of history...good and honorable men of history. Attaching agendas to these statues by conservatives or liberals is assinine.

Alice

 

[chrisy]

I may not live in your Country but I feel that, if a statue was the right thing to put up, it should stay up, as long as that person was not a dictator. All these Politically correct people should be the new astronaults and sent on a mission to the far away stars. Robert. E was a great man and should be remembered as all the others should to. just my to pence worth.

 

[Ryder]

Gen. Robert E. Lee was one of the first to be inducted into the Hall of Fame for Great Americans established in 1901 by New York University. And now Texas wants to do away with the image of Lee and Davis? Something is wrong with this equation.

Gen. William T. Sherman was the first president of the school that was later to become LSU. A fact which many of us are not proud. A few months ago a Louisiana legislator and the Baton Rouge daily newspaper proposed naming an LSU building after Sherman.

Letters to the Editor were sent to and published in the newspaper. Almost all the letters opposed this plan and stated some of the horrible atrocities committed by this man.
It is my understanding that the plan has been squashed.

I suggest you Texans get to writing letters. You have something good to preserve. Don't surrender to politically correct prejudice.

 

[MillIronQH]

Please keep the comments coming. I'll mail the entire thread to the president and the regents.Z

 

[TxCoUnTrYbOy]

Of course something like that would come from UT, a very liberal school. But whether its UT or not, its history. What the libs are trying to do is filter out the things that happened that they dont want kids to know about. There are MANY things that seem to just dissappear from history books, so people dont hear every side of history, only what certain groups say is the good side.

For example, I have never seen any information about how Ulysses Grant owned slaves in a school textbook, but after I did research, I found its true. Abraham Lincoln had no intention of freeing the slaves, but he did because of public pressure. Every textbook I have ever seen says that the Civil War was a war over slavery. That is completely not true. It was a minor part, definately not the main cause. These little details are cut out, leaving a person to believe that the South was so wrong and bad.

Instances like this UT case, its probably someone who has read history textbooks that said General Lee and General Sherman were nothing but murderous racists who led the South against the saintly North. If you think I am exaggerating, read a history book used in todays public schools, that is exactly the image of anyone from the south during the Civil War that you will get.

Sorry for ranting, politics is one of those touchy subjects that I tend to get to get heated on.

 

[Proverbs 12:10]

Only one good thing about Austin...the topography!

 

[msscamp]

150 years from now, People will be demanding that the Viet Nam Memorial Wall should be removed.Along with Pearl Harbor and any other Memorials that have served for what our Boys faught for for what was once a Democracy... Or will there even be a Democracy in the future?

I doubt it will take 150 years.

 

[VanC]

Of course something like that would come from UT, a very liberal school. But whether its UT or not, its history. What the libs are trying to do is filter out the things that happened that they dont want kids to know about. There are MANY things that seem to just dissappear from history books, so people dont hear every side of history, only what certain groups say is the good side.

For example, I have never seen any information about how Ulysses Grant owned slaves in a school textbook, but after I did research, I found its true. Abraham Lincoln had no intention of freeing the slaves, but he did because of public pressure. Every textbook I have ever seen says that the Civil War was a war over slavery. That is completely not true. It was a minor part, definately not the main cause. These little details are cut out, leaving a person to believe that the South was so wrong and bad.

Instances like this UT case, its probably someone who has read history textbooks that said General Lee and General Sherman were nothing but murderous racists who led the South against the saintly North. If you think I am exaggerating, read a history book used in todays public schools, that is exactly the image of anyone from the south during the Civil War that you will get.

Sorry for ranting, politics is one of those touchy subjects that I tend to get to get heated on.

I agree with this post for the most part, but there are a couple of things I'll nitpic about.

One, Grant did not "own slaves". He owned ONE slave when he worked for his father-in-law, and that slave was freed in 1859. Grant's wife owned 4 slaves and his father-in-law owned slaves, but how many and what happened to them I don't remember.

Two, there are plenty of sources where one can find fair and more accurate accounts of the Civil War. Millions and millions of words have been written on the subject, and they're not all from one point of view. Try Shelby Foote's three volume history of the Civil War. It's painfully long and very detailed, but it's the best I've seen yet. BTW, Foote was born in Mississippi, went to the U. of North Carolina, and lived out his later years in Memphis. His account was definitely not written from a liberal northerner's point of view.

As for the war not being about slavery, I agree. It was a side issue, and not a very big one, at least at the beginning. In fact, if the same thing happened today, and slavery was not an issue, I would probably side with the South over state's rights. What a person feels is right cannot be confined within a state's boundaries, after all.

Bottom line, it was a terrible time for our country as a whole, and certainly more so for the South, IMHO. There were thousands of acts of courage and mercy, and also of cowardice and pure evil on BOTH sides. You can find accounts of most of them if you dig deep enough.

 

[Crowderfarms]

Great post Van.

But, should the heros of that time of the pain and torment this Country endured be wiped away and removed? I think not.

History has been distorted to satisfy and disatisfy the readers. Beleive it or not, I know a few Colored boys that have Rebel Flag license plates on their pick-ups.

It seems to me the most protesting about Confederate Memorials and Statues, is by Minorities, and young white students.

 

[VanC]

But, should the heros of that time of the pain and torment this Country endured be wiped away and removed? I think not.

I was in no way advocating that the statues of Lee and Davis be removed. If it were up to me, they would stay where they are, as would any Confederate flag, including those flown over state capitols. Southern whites have as much right to be proud of their heritage as anyone else, as far as I'm concerned.

We've had a similar situation up here for years with Chief Illiniwek, the symbol of the U. of Illinois. Some consider it offensive, others consider it honorable. Who's right? Probably everyone in some manner. Personally, I don't have a strong opinion either way, but I'm getting tired of a few people who claim to be "offended" being allowed to set public policy for everyone else.

 

[backhoeboogie]

There have been so many emails on this subject already. Seems it is 84% wanting them to remain and 16% wanting them removed. You can click and vote on the email links.

Wow! There is a whole lot more emotion associated with this subject than I would have thought. Some of the email is from folks who never get excited much.

 

[VanC]

There have been so many emails on this subject already. Seems it is 84% wanting them to remain and 16% wanting them removed. You can click and vote on the email links.

Wow! There is a whole lot more emotion associated with this subject than I would have thought. Some of the email is from folks who never get excited much.

Sadly, the majority doesn't always rule in these situations. Need to get rich alumni and other donors involved. If they threaten to stop donating if the statues are removed the administration will likely back down. Money talks.

 

[Arnold Ziffle]

Hey Txcountryboy -- perhaps you need to take another look at those history books (or are they now teaching some real revisionist history up at a & m ??) :lol: I rather doubt that many Southerners would contend that General William T. Sherman was a "murderous racist who led the South against the saintly North" (particularly folks from Georgia and the Carolinas) ;-)

 

[MillIronQH]

Wasn't Sherman the only Confederate general to wear a blue uniform and do his burning and pillaging from the north to the south?Z

 

[TxCoUnTrYbOy]

Hey Txcountryboy -- perhaps you need to take another look at those history books (or are they now teaching some real revisionist history up at a & m ??) :lol: I rather doubt that many Southerners would contend that General William T. Sherman was a "murderous racist who led the South against the saintly North" (particularly folks from Georgia and the Carolinas) ;-)

I meant the history books at the high school and below levels. I havent taken history at the college level yet, I am about to start in a couple weeks. About Gen. Sherman, I was trying to say that somebody probably read a book that said that. Personally I cannot ever recall even hearing that name in a history class.

 

[MillIronQH]

They never mentioned "Sherman's March to the Sea" or his scorched earth policy? Under his orders the troops he was leading thru the Carolinas and Georgia left everything they passed burned to the ground. Houses, barns, crops, all of it.Z

 

[VanC]

They never mentioned "Sherman's March to the Sea" or his scorched earth policy? Under his orders the troops he was leading thru the Carolinas and Georgia left everything they passed burned to the ground. Houses, barns, crops, all of it.Z

Sherman is also the one who coined the phrase "war is he!!". He sure made it such for a lot of folks.