OT Was Robert E. Lee really all that evil?

If it wasn't for modern American dentists we'd so be for England.

 

Everywhere.

 

Who needed slaves in the North? What huge money making crops were there that required tons of slaves?

 

Okay. So you're arguing that the Northern slave owners get a free pass despite not existing because who needs slaves in the North anyway?

 

If the south wanted to build pyramids all day every day and the north didn't, who would benefit from slavery most?

Today agriculture may not require human beings at all. If I lived in a world where slavery was a common thing and stumbled on a huge coal mine, wouldn't that seem like a good way to go at that point in time?

Today we decide it is cheaper to make stuff in China and ship it here. What is the difference? We don't want to do it ourselves or pay someone a good wage.

 

Morality and ethics are always evolving and changing, it's never been a fixed object. And who is hiding anything? Nobody has tried to hide the fact that Washington and Jefferson held slaves; it's just part of history, and frankly I don't think Lee or any other general owning slaves makes them inherently evil.

The issue isn't that the statues should come down to whitewash history, it's that these men are now as much symbols as they are historical figures; symbols of defiance against abolition. Symbols of a long and bloody history of oppression and subjugation. And right now a lot of these symbols are on public property. I'm almost 100% sure removing these statues isn't going to improve race relations, or change the day-to-day lives of a single person, and it would be purely a symbolic gesture, but it's the right thing to do. If private individuals want to display these statues/symbols then I say let them, but these statues probably shouldn't state-sanctioned memorials.

 

Hell, you people just make me Google shit that seems obvious. Wikipedia (the be all end all of knowledge) says what I'm saying. COTTON. The end.

 

Wrong again. I already said to take them down and the girl I saw interviewed said she sees that statue from everywhere in town. So, it will improve her day to day life if it is taken down.

That doesn't mean people with ropes get to tear it down themselves.

 

Ha! If Dviss was here I'd have wrote that differently. I can't ever be sure if I make the right choice.

 

Oh so true. But not their doing alone you know.

 

Wrong again? About what? I feel like we're in two different conversations right now. This is the: "Is Robert E. Lee really that Evil" thread right? I don't remember anybody bringing up people tearing them down themselves, which is a separate issue.

 

I don't think we have one.
They do in many Southern Stats though.

 

About the statue coming down not impacting someone's daily life. If there was some giant Swastika visible in Israel every day taking it down would greatly improve things.

I don't know if Robert E Lee was evil. Never met him. We see people arrested for shit all the time and they interview people and they had no idea. How would anyone today know what Lee was really like?

He could have done horrific things and not been caught. There weren't cameras and police everywhere.

 

Not what I said.

 

Hey, let's play pretend. Let's say slavery existed until WW2 and just prior we thought about releasing all the slaves.

Right before we did, boom! Pearl Harbor. So, we kept the slaves on to build ships and planes to win the war. Then we decided to release all the slaves after the war. Are we good or bad?

Assume that by keeping the slaves a few extra years we saved millions of people from being exterminated.

 

Are you suggesting you want to force states to give up everything you find offensive?