[ExI] civil war denial

[Dan TheBookMan]

On Aug 18, 2017, at 12:22 PM, Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com> wrote:
> The civil war took place within the borders of the US, and is woven into the fabric of the nation.  It's a false equivalence.  I would add that equating a monument to Lee with a Nazi symbol shows a lack of nuance regarding the history of the Civil War, and the Confederates in particular.  I doubt Grant would be in favor of tearing down every Confederate monument in sight if he were around to witness this.

Many Nazi symbols were removed in Germany itself. I fail to see why national borders matter here too.

> And trust me, even if you don't buy into any of the above, this won't end with removing Confederate monuments once the alt-left finds its next target.  

That's not a strong argument against doing something. Are these monuments symbols of oppression or not? Are they on public lands, thus creating the issue that folks who disapprove of them are forced to fund them?

> Putting aside the Daesh like monument destruction, I find it a lot more troubling that the internet is in the hands of a few virtue signalling companies with the power to silence anyone they don't care for.  I would expect their recent behaviors to end in either a SCOTUS challenge on 1st amendment grounds, or them being broken up under the Sherman antitrust act, but that could be a long time coming.

I can see problems with corporations silencing people, though there's the issue of free association. Should X be compelled to provide services to Y when such services are not an issue of life or death?

Also, again, whatever this issue of monument removal is, it seems very unlike Holocaust denial to me. These folks are pretty much taking a fairly conventional view of history and saying that monuments to Confederates and things like the Confederate flag symbolize a slave system. If they wanted to deny the Civil War, then they'd probably not want to talk about Lee, etc., but to say things like this or that battle actually didn't take place, that Virginia never broke with the Union, etc. I'm not saying they have to imitate everything the Holocaust deniers do, but so far nothing they say seems even close to denying the history here. 

And I don't think most people are going to forget this history because there's not a Lee monument in the square or a Confederate flag flying over the state house. 

That said, while I think the world has bigger problems -- war deaths, for instance -- I'm personally against all public monuments, especially those with politicians and other warmongers. In the US, it seems pernicious that when we do have a public monument, it almost always seem to focus on war or some president. That the only thing worth commemorating?

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my latest Kindle book "Sand Trap":
http://mybook.to/SandTrap
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