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#4077 Aug 25 2017 at 11:57 AM Rating: Excellent
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Are we counting America as a single continent for purposes of this threat? I hear they have great steaks in Buenos Aires.
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#4078 Aug 25 2017 at 12:03 PM Rating: Good
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If you have to ask that question you lose your citizenship. There is only 1 America and everything else is *********
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#4079 Aug 25 2017 at 12:45 PM Rating: Good
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Aardvarks?
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#4080 Aug 26 2017 at 10:10 AM Rating: Good
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Uglysasquatch wrote:
If you have to ask that question you lose your citizenship. There is only 1 America and everything else is *********


I think we could get China to agree to a 1 America policy as well. Manifest Destiny, coming to a theatre near you.
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#4081 Aug 28 2017 at 7:16 AM Rating: Good
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Doesn't that mean we can kill other countries that aren't America?
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#4082 Aug 28 2017 at 10:45 AM Rating: Excellent
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New favorite protest sign.
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#4083 Aug 28 2017 at 11:08 AM Rating: Good
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I'm partial to this one.
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#4084 Aug 28 2017 at 12:12 PM Rating: Excellent
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More people need to read that one. With as many accusations that fly around the internet you'd expect to see more funny mustaches out in public, yet I'm frequently disappointed. Smiley: glare
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#4085 Aug 28 2017 at 5:27 PM Rating: Excellent
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I'm less worried about Hitler than I am about the Hitler devotees.
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#4086 Aug 28 2017 at 8:04 PM Rating: Decent
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Ok. Been too busy to read, much less post, but going to respond to this before reading more:

Jophiel wrote:
Sounds a lot like the "If you allow SSM then people will marry cats!" argument. You can probably list a lot of things Washington or Jefferson did that were non-slavery related. The sole reason Lee or Jackson has a statue is the whole "went to war against their country to preserve slavery" thing. I'd feel much more comfortable arguing the merits of a monument to Thomas Jefferson than one to Lee.


At least in the case of Jackson, that's false. They removed the plaque to him in Horton Plaza here in San Diego, in direct response to this nonsense (and presumably out of fear of it being vandalized, which is basically bowing to the "movement"). Um... He's honored around here for freaking saving the city during the Mexican American War. Nothing at all to do with Slavery, the Confederacy, etc.

Lee was a famous and popular figure before the Civil War. He opposed slavery (hated it, in fact). He just happened to be a General in Virginia and when his state chose to join the Confederacy, he continued to serve. Blaming him, or associating him with slavery is pure ignorance of the reality of the world at the time. So yes, it's not ridiculous to suggest that the same ignorance would/will bled over into other figures, completely unrelated to the Civil War itself.

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I don't believe there's any real mystery to Trump's response: He's catering to the Breitbart/Stormfront portion of his base that aligns with the "Alt-Right". He tries to make equivalencies between those advocating genocide and those standing up against genocide. He wants to blunt criticism against a portion of the vote he needs to survive by with "But, really, everyone is at fault here" statements while leaving enough plausible deniability for people to say "Well, he wasn't defending racism and Nazis, man!"


IMO, the problem is that most people can't grasp the difference between defending someone's opinion, and defending their right to express their opinion. This is a problem because it's pretty much required for the first amendment of our Constitution to actually work. That so many people think it's fine and dandy to infringe people's rights to assemble and speak because they don't agree with what they have to say is, IMO, far far far more dangerous to our civil society than the most racist and hateful thing someone might believe or want to express in the first place.

Put another way. Which is more threatening? A group of people who believe in racism, who's numbers have been steadily dwindling over the last century or so, and who are almost universally debunked and disagreed with by the rest of society when they do occasionally show up and speak, and who are barely able to gather a couple hundred people for anything they do? Or a movement that has been growing for some years now, in which unpopular or just opposition speech is routinely blocked via violent protest, and who have managed to get thousands of others to show up and join them, who in turn provide cover for their violent anto-free-speech actions under the guise of protesting against the content of someone else's speech?

We've seen this happen, not just to white nationalists, but to conservatives as well. Normal, mainstream folks are regularly being blocked from speaking at universities via rioting tactics by these antifa folks (the irony of folks who use the same tactics as the brown shirts calling themselves "anti-fascists" is yet another wonder of historical ignorance at play btw). It doesn't matter what you think of a speaker. They still have a right to speak. This group is challenging that fundamental right. And if we allow it, we lose that right ourselves. Once a group like that is so empowered, there's nothing other than fickleness to prevent them from deciding to use that power against speech that *you* agree with, and not just that which you don't.

This is the real problem at hand. And no, this is not me "defending" white nationalists. They're irrelevant. We should not allow our disagreement with them to blind us to the methodologies being used in this case. The real problem is the actions used by the counter protesters. Again, it's not about sides. It's about methods.

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Looking at the photos of the rally, I'm reminded of a time following the Dylan Roof murders when Gbaji once taught us:
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You think racists use the confederate battle flag as a symbol of their racism? Interesting. Go look up pictures of SWP tattoos or symbols. Notice something. They tend to be Swastikas, or Skulls, or other random things. Very rarely is a confederate flag or symbol involved.

Yeah, nary a Confederate flag was to be found among the Swastikas and other white nationalist symbols that night.


Seriously? Given that this was about defending a statue of a Lee, and that is Lee's Battle flag, it's presence doesn't actually tell us anything at all.

Let's imagine there was exactly zero percent of the protesters who were white nationalists, racists, whatever. What flag would people have been waving? it's your own assumptions about the association and meaning of that flag that is leading you here. OMG! That's.. ridiculous.

You could literally declare any symbol at all to be a symbol of racism and make the exact same argument. If someone uses it, in your mind, that's proof that they are racists. So just by declaring a symbol you don't like to be "a symbol of racism", you can safely justify eradicating it.

Um... Which is part of the point I was making. Which flew over your head then, and still continues to soar.

Edited, Aug 28th 2017 7:26pm by gbaji
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#4087 Aug 28 2017 at 8:58 PM Rating: Excellent
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So, okay. Keep the statues of Jackson and Lee that were put up in the wake of the Mexican War. Take down the ones that were put up after the Civil War. Sounds fair to me.

And Lee didn't "just continue to serve". He resigned his US Army commission in favor of accepting a commission in the Confederate Army. The things you deliberately misunderstand sometimes, holy hell.
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#4088 Aug 28 2017 at 10:21 PM Rating: Good
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gabji wrote:
So just by declaring a symbol you don't like to be "a symbol of racism", you can safely justify eradicating it.
Well, no.

But when someone displays a symbol advocating racism we can safely call them racist. Sorry that hurts your feelings, buddy. Smiley: frown


And before you go blah-blah-blah: The Virginia Battle Flag was carried by soldiers on behalf of a "nation" that advocated for insisted that slavery was ideal (indeed, the foundation of their "nation") and that "negroes" were worth less than white people. That's called racism.


But keep on keeping on otherwise.

I'm all for people flying that flag; it let's me know who the a-holes are without having to guess.



I'm with Samira in that if there is a monument to a Southern General for anything other than their Civil War stuff then they should stay.

There are idiots on the left, after all, just like on the right.
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#4089 Aug 28 2017 at 11:08 PM Rating: Excellent
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Samira wrote:
So, okay. Keep the statues of Jackson and Lee that were put up in the wake of the Mexican War. Take down the ones that were put up after the Civil War. Sounds fair to me.

And Lee didn't "just continue to serve". He resigned his US Army commission in favor of accepting a commission in the Confederate Army. The things you deliberately misunderstand sometimes, holy ****.


Lee wrote:
Mr. Blair, I look upon secession as anarchy. If I owned the four millions of slaves in the South I would sacrifice them all to the Union; but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native state?


I think it's important to understand his position here, he was anti-secession, and fought against the secessionist forces (eg. secessionist Texas) up until the point where his home state rebelled. Siding with his home is fairly understandable.

He was of course a racist, and that should not be celebrated, but that was fairly common, even among northerners of the era.

Should we have statues for him? Probably not. But there exists many statues of those who's major claim to fame was exemplary efficiency in the art of butchery of man in defense of a place or ideal.

Edited, Aug 29th 2017 1:16am by Timelordwho
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#4090 Aug 29 2017 at 6:16 AM Rating: Excellent
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That's fair. Lee was a complicated man, and he did not resign his commission lightly. Nevertheless, he did decide to resign his US commission and accept a place in the rebellion.

Plus, I don't hold with sacrificing slaves. Smiley: tongue
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#4091 Aug 29 2017 at 7:09 AM Rating: Excellent
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The "Stars and Bars" was too Yankee. So the 2nd and 3rd versions of the confederate flag incorporated the popular battle flag on a white background. Look up the press releases from the south at the time about these flags, the intent is extremely clear (in southern newspapers).

While true that the newspaper press releases reflect the voice of southern authority (i.e., the political leaders), and not necessarily the rank and file caught up in the conflict, it is the branding done by this leadership that creates the legacy. Lee served that authority in a capacity of power, therefore he stood with and for that message.

Lee was complicated. The Civil War was complicated. The north was not a perfect bastion of racial harmony. But the branding at the time did simplify the message for the south. If that main message had been "States have the right to set economic policy as local voice is important" we wouldn't be seeing these protests and issues today.

Lee shouldn't be forgotten, nor slavery, nor Hitler, nor the Ottoman empire (and so on). Remembering and celebrating are different things, and for some people or situations both are appropriate, others require a big asterisk to help modern and future generations get the context. Sometimes that asterisk needs to be added at a later date as we change our views.
#4092 Aug 29 2017 at 7:19 AM Rating: Excellent
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I love my family. I think that cannibalism is wrong. If my family started a cannibalism cult, I would have some choices to make.

I could just sin by omission and not mention to the police that my family has a cannibalism cult, telling myself that my devotion to my family keeps me silent though still being complicit.

I could actively mislead the police when they ask me about it. I'm implicating myself here but, you know, family and all.

At the point where I'm saying "Cannibalism is wrong but I love my family!" while shooting an ATF agent in the face during a federal raid on the cannibal cult compound, I think I've lost any moral authority or complex sympathy gained through the "But I love my family" excuse.
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#4093 Aug 29 2017 at 7:26 AM Rating: Excellent
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Gbaji wrote:
Let's imagine there was exactly zero percent of the protesters who were white nationalists, racists, whatever. What flag would people have been waving? it's your own assumptions about the association and meaning of that flag that is leading you here. OMG! That's.. ridiculous.

Wait, you think the people waving the swastika and those waving the Confederate flag were two completely disparate groups of people? Really? That's fucking adorable.

That said, if I showed up with my totally non-racist-meaning Confederate flag and some dude showed up next to me with a fucking swastika and torch, throwing Nazi salutes and screaming about a home for white children, my reaction would range from getting into some sort of altercation to going the hell home. At no point would I be thinking "Well, I mean, I AM already here and that IS one nice statue so I guess this is okay. But I'm totally not a racist though!" Maybe your own line is a bit more flexible that you give everyone else so much benefit of the doubt.

Edited, Aug 29th 2017 8:36am by Jophiel
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#4094 Aug 29 2017 at 7:34 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Let's imagine there was exactly zero percent of the protesters who were white nationalists, racists, whatever.
Your argument hinges on pretending the core issue simply doesn't exist? Man you are so painfully white.

I swear. "It wouldn't be racist if racists didn't exist!"
Timelordwho wrote:
But there exists many statues of those who's major claim to fame was exemplary efficiency in the art of butchery of man in defense of a place or ideal.
The only one I can really think of who is also a traitor to the country is to Benedict Arnold and his is abstract and doesn't actually reference him at all.

Edited, Aug 29th 2017 9:41am by lolgaxe
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#4095 Aug 29 2017 at 10:35 AM Rating: Excellent
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Jophiel wrote:
I love my family. I think that cannibalism is wrong. If my family started a cannibalism cult, I would have some choices to make.
Ketchup or mustard?

Jophiel wrote:
At the point where I'm saying "Cannibalism is wrong but I love my family!" while shooting an ATF agent in the face during a federal raid on the cannibal cult compound, I think I've lost any moral authority or complex sympathy gained through the "But I love my family" excuse.
Despite the fact cannibalism is commonly practiced and considered normal in half the country? And that lots of people do it and you'd be in the minority in the area if you went against it? That cannibalism is important to the current functioning of the economy, and a lot of people you know are going to be in financial trouble without it?

We've done a lot of horrible things in the past, and shouldn't discount that, but decisions that don't make much sense these days can make sense in a historical context. If slavery isn't seen at the time as that great a sin, then the "I love my family" excuse would be more morally relevant.

Honestly I don't care much about the statues either way, the south is ****** up in ways I can't really understand as an outsider, just had to say something about the horrible analogy. Smiley: nod

Edited, Aug 29th 2017 9:45am by someproteinguy
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#4096 Aug 29 2017 at 11:02 AM Rating: Excellent
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I couldn't get into cannibalism because my wife is Japanese so I'd be hungry again in an hour.

Edited, Aug 29th 2017 2:53pm by lolgaxe
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#4097 Aug 29 2017 at 12:09 PM Rating: Good
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someproteinguy wrote:
Despite the fact cannibalism is commonly practiced and considered normal in half the country? And that lots of people do it and you'd be in the minority in the area if you went against it?


While that is half the physical country, I am pretty sure that it was less than half the people that lived in that country, if you count the people getting eaten.

Also, just because some other person eats their neighbor doesn't make it any less morally unambiguous to me, I like to believe that I would be marching with the non-long-porkers.
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#4098 Aug 29 2017 at 12:13 PM Rating: Excellent
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someproteinguy wrote:
We've done a lot of horrible things in the past, and shouldn't discount that, but decisions that don't make much sense these days can make sense in a historical context. If slavery isn't seen at the time as that great a sin, then the "I love my family" excuse would be more morally relevant.

I was referring more to the "Oh, it would be terrible anarchy" bit than slavery. We already know of Lee's "Gee, it's a darn shame but God really wants us to beat and whip these Negroes until they're civilized" stance on the institution of slavery.

More to the point, "I had to turn traitor against the nation because of my state" is a shitty excuse full stop. Especially when it's not even "Because my state was morally right" but more like "They're not right and probably not making the right choice but, you know, Virginia Fuck Yeah!"

Edited, Aug 29th 2017 1:18pm by Jophiel
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#4099 Aug 29 2017 at 12:18 PM Rating: Excellent
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So is "I really wish I could just destroy all these slaves and put this whole thing behind us."

Imagine if it was puppies! Would Robert E. Lee still be offering up to kill those four million puppies to keep the peace, if it weren't for West Virginia? Think of the puppies!

WON'T ANYONE THINK OF THE PUPPIES!
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#4100 Aug 29 2017 at 12:44 PM Rating: Excellent
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Jophiel wrote:
More to the point, "I had to turn traitor against the nation because of my state" is a shitty excuse full stop. Especially when it's not even "Because my state was morally right" but more like "They're not right and probably not making the right choice but, you know, Virginia Fuck Yeah!"
Divided loyalties have been an issue in just about every single civil war or rebellion ever. Even if it's a "shitty excuse" we shouldn't pretend like it's an uncommon problem.
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#4101 Aug 29 2017 at 1:03 PM Rating: Excellent
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Professor stupidmonkey wrote:
Also, just because some other person eats their neighbor doesn't make it any less morally unambiguous to me, I like to believe that I would be marching with the non-long-porkers.
As someone who's consumed a variety of things in his life, I'd probably base it more on the quality of the cooking. Being open-minded and accepting of different culture's cuisines would likely be my downfall. So many things are just too delicious. Smiley: frown
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