National Garden of American Heros

[SaturdayGT 719]

36 minutes ago, Brad_ATX said:

This statement right here is why history books and education are more important than statues.  He's a seminal figure for the Confederacy as a general and then later on as the founder of the KKK.

It's great point and I dont have any argument with that. Books and education is the way to go for sure.  I guess my point is that I believe statues and monuments are good, artistic ways to spark an interest in something, which in turn may lead you to study up and get educated on whatever person or event. 

[homersapien 11,681]

Confederate statues were erected solely to pay homage to the "lost cause".  They are as appropriate as Nazi statues would be in Germany. 

It's time to deal with the actual truth of our history instead of fooling ourselves with myths.

[I_M4_AU 8,323]

2 hours ago, Brad_ATX said:

Statues do not tell the whole story of a person and can easily wax poetic about someone while completely ignoring some less desirable aspects.

This, literally, is the reason people build statues of famous people.  It’s all about the accomplishments that made them famous, it’s not about their personality.

I would hate for you to give the eulogy at my funeral. 

You could have a Howard Zinn (Orange man bad) version right beside the accomplishments of the person.  That would serve the purpose of tearing down a famous person.

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

1 minute ago, I_M4_AU said:

This, literally, is the reason people build statues of famous people.  It’s all about the accomplishments that made them famous, it’s not about their personality.

I would hate for you to give the eulogy at my funeral. 

You could have a Howard Zinn (Orange man bad) version right beside the accomplishments of the person.  That would serve the purpose of tearing down a famous person.

It's not about tearing down a famous person.  It's about understanding history and that person's place in it, which a statue doesn't do.  Re-evaluating someone using a modern view of their "accomplishments" isn't a bad thing.  It's human progress.  Julius Caesar had a bunch of statues in his day.  Doesn't mean we look at him with complete exultation.

And I hope that my funeral, people talk about my flaws.  I'm not a perfect person and don't want folks believing anything else.  I'm pretty selfish and never wanted kids.  I like to gamble and drink bourbon.  But, I'm also devoted to my wife, care passionately about my friends and family, etc, etc.  These are all things that make me who I am and I want people to know those aspects even in my death.

[I_M4_AU 8,323]

15 minutes ago, Brad_ATX said:

It's not about tearing down a famous person.  It's about understanding history and that person's place in it, which a statue doesn't do.  Re-evaluating someone using a modern view of their "accomplishments" isn't a bad thing.  It's human progress.  Julius Caesar had a bunch of statues in his day.  Doesn't mean we look at him with complete exultation.

And I hope that my funeral, people talk about my flaws.  I'm not a perfect person and don't want folks believing anything else.  I'm pretty selfish and never wanted kids.  I like to gamble and drink bourbon.  But, I'm also devoted to my wife, care passionately about my friends and family, etc, etc.  These are all things that make me who I am and I want people to know those aspects even in my death.

You really have to separate the political from the person, especially with the National Garden of American Heroes.  I could care less about a man’s political views when discussing why the person was placed in the garden.  Jackie Robinson was a great Baseball player, but his biggest accomplishment was breaking the color barrier.  Jesse Owens was a great sprinter, but his biggest accomplishment was the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. If you want to know more about the person, read a book.

I don’t see the purpose of airing the dirty laundry in a place of reverence, he!! Your friends probable know all your faults.  You may as well go out on a high note.  I guarantee my family knows all my faults. 

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

30 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

You really have to separate the political from the person, especially with the National Garden of American Heroes.  I could care less about a man’s political views when discussing why the person was placed in the garden.  Jackie Robinson was a great Baseball player, but his biggest accomplishment was breaking the color barrier.  Jesse Owens was a great sprinter, but his biggest accomplishment was the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. If you want to know more about the person, read a book.

I don’t see the purpose of airing the dirty laundry in a place of reverence, he!! Your friends probable know all your faults.  You may as well go out on a high note.  I guarantee my family knows all my faults. 

But things like being a slave owner (Jefferson/Washington/etc) are important to understanding who those men were.  That's not a political view.  That's something that they actually did.  And I'm not saying that Washington or Jefferson shouldn't be celebrated (they both already are in D.C.).  But I am saying that if we're using this as a teaching tool, then we need to teach everything.

Either way, I still think this "garden" is an incredibly stupid idea.  I'll take a day walking around Arlington National Cemetery over this charade every time.  And that's not to mention the myriad of other free American history museums and monuments in the D.C. area alone.

[I_M4_AU 8,323]

53 minutes ago, Brad_ATX said:

But I am saying that if we're using this as a teaching tool, then we need to teach everything.

The issue would be; teaching everything from whose perspective? And who gets to decide?  A statue is to provoke thought about a person or moment in time.  If one is truly yearning for the truth, they need to do the research.  Name any topic and you can see people on this board reference different publications that have widely differing viewpoints. 

 

1 hour ago, Brad_ATX said:

I'll take a day walking around Arlington National Cemetery over this charade every time

Just curious, would you wonder around the Confederate soldiers that are buried there?  Look at their monument and wonder about why they gave their lives to their cause?

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

1 hour ago, I_M4_AU said:

The issue would be; teaching everything from whose perspective? And who gets to decide?  A statue is to provoke thought about a person or moment in time.  If one is truly yearning for the truth, they need to do the research.  Name any topic and you can see people on this board reference different publications that have widely differing viewpoints. 

Teaching facts doesn't need a perspective.  George Washington was a general, a founder of the country, and a slave holder who, in his will after his death, gave freedom to his slaves.  None of those are in dispute.

 

1 hour ago, I_M4_AU said:

Just curious, would you wonder around the Confederate soldiers that are buried there?  Look at their monument and wonder about why they gave their lives to their cause?

I've walked through many Confederate cemeteries, including Arlington.  General Albert Sydney Johnston is buried at the Texas State Cemetery downtown here in Austin.  Been there on a few occasions and his site overlooks a field of Confederate dead.

Leave people buried where they are.  Whatever.  But I don't think they need a monument on public ground either because they took up arms against the United States of America.

There's this argument that those on the pro-Confederate statue side are making that removing them somehow erases history.  I'd argue that having them does that.  The statues were erected not for historical purposes, but to venerate leaders of a failed nation while not mentioning their cause of preserving slavery.

[aubiefifty 17,487]

On 7/5/2020 at 12:46 PM, AUFAN78 said:

While I am certainly a proponent of more spending on education, the US spends more than $700 billion on education yet lags behind other industrialized countries in key measurements of academic success. Many local governments hold no one accountable for success, rather they accept failure. Hell, our own citizens accept educational failure. Imagine being a child in the inner cities fourth grade class, yet you can neither read nor write. Unacceptable, yet what has been done? More spending? Excuses? Teacher unions failing children? It's simply not working for all. Accountability at a local level has to be a factor. It must be demanded. 

All for infrastructure improvements, but our clowns in so called leadership prefer games. I'm not optimistic at this point. 

 

 

i know two perople in anniston al that cannot read or write. one is the wife of a friend who is fortyeight and another is about thirty. from what i understand they had problems keeping up and and were set aside at school until they quit. it blew my mind and still does. how does this happen? i read about three or so books a month and it used to be triple that so i just cannot understand how these cats were cast aside. i admit i have known both only three or four years so i cannot verify what happened but i am still shocked. how do these people get left behind? i believe the parents did not care much either way but my goodness.

[AUDub 11,304]

On 7/7/2020 at 10:44 AM, AUDub said:

That statue lol. 

"WHARRGARBL!"

Welp this eyesore came down today. Gonna be funny not seeing it on I65 anymore. 

[homersapien 11,681]

On 7/7/2020 at 12:14 PM, SaturdayGT said:

  I dont know anything about Nathan Bedford Forrest and the story surrounding him, but, again....I guess everybody just has a different take on things. For me, statues seem to represent figures in a historical event. Not always necessarily to glorify them. Like Columbus.....again, as a Kid when I was not completely old enough to learn the details of how horrible he was, Columbus was the guy who sailed across the Atlantic that really sparked my imagination. Sure, later on I realized Columbus was a horrible guy, but Im not going to snort, snarl and try to bite the foot off of every statue I see of him, lol.  In fact, knowing what I know.... what I think of when Columbus comes to mind, I honestly dont think much about the guy himself, but I do think alot about the feat it was to cross the Atlantic, and still Imagine what it must have been like to have been on one of those ships and the conditions they endured. 

Never heard of Fort Pillow?

https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/fort-pillow-massacre

 

 

[McLoofus 35,182]

Quote

still Imagine what it must have been like to have been on one of those ships and the conditions they endured

So this came up in response to a post about a Nathan Bedford Forrest statue, but it was about... what Christopher Columbus "endured".

Huh.