Judge Who Originally Approved Sketchy UNC 'Silent Sam' Settlement Now Voids Deal, Realizing 'Confederate' Group Had No Standing
from the maybe-shoulda-checked-earlier dept
Back in December, we wrote about the crazy situation in North Carolina, mostly unearthed by lawyer Greg Doucette, that the University of North Carolina had "settled" a lawsuit before it was even filed. The background story was crazy, and this is only the briefest of summaries. The "Silent Sam" statue was put onto the UNC campus by the "United Daughters of the Confederacy" in 1913 as part of a process that happened throughout the south many decades after the Confederacy lost the Civil War to try to put in place racist monuments and to pretend that there was some noble cause behind the war to defend enslaving people. As more and more people have recognized the racist purpose, history and intent of these monuments, many have been removed. Students at UNC toppled the Silent Sam statue a few years ago, and the University has basically just tried to avoid talking about it since, especially as racist-celebrating officials tried to legislate that such monuments to racism must stay put.
Then, the day before Thanksgiving, the Sons of Confederate Veterans (not the Daughters...) announced that it had "settled" a lawsuit with UNC, in which it would be receiving $2.5 million and the statue from the University, and would be building some sort of museum to house it off campus. But among the many oddities involved in this was that UNC had approved the settlement a few minutes before the lawsuit was filed, and then the judge in the case, Allen Baddour, had approved the settlement literally minutes after the case had been filed. It seemed pretty clearly that this was a coordinated effort to create a fictitious scaffolding on which to tell a face-saving story, rather than a legitimate use of the courts.
Indeed, as Doucette quickly turned up -- only to then face a bogus DMCA takedown notice over -- the head of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Kevin Stone, had sent around an email to his group's members, flat out admitting that the group had no standing to sue. Since then, various students have tried to intervene in the case, which the Judge rejected. However, now, at this belated date, he seems to have recognized that the Sons of Confederate Veterans (as they themselves admitted) had absolutely no standing to sue, and thus has voided the settlement.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour — who originally signed off on that settlement — ruled Wednesday that the group lacked standing to bring its lawsuit in the first place.
The judge announced his decision at a hearing in Hillsborough, N.C., as five UNC students and a faculty member, represented by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, intervened to try to stop the settlement.
Incredibly, UNC is still defending its decision to not just give this monument to racism to a group that celebrates its racist history, but to give them a huge chunk of money as well:
"The Board of Governors knew from the very beginning that this was a difficult but needed solution to meet all their goals to protect public safety of the University community, restore normality to campus, and be compliant with the Monuments Law," Rand said in a statement. "The Board of Governors will move forward with these three goals at the forefront and will go back to work to find a lasting and lawful solution to the dispute over the monument."
While it is true that North Carolina's ridiculous Monuments Law might put the University in a difficult position with regards to complying with that law -- nothing in that law says they also need to fund a group with $2.5 million to celebrate a racist legacy.
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Filed Under: greg doucette, kevin stone, sham lawsuits, silent sam, standing
Companies: sons of confederate veterans, unc
Reader Comments
The First Word
“I appreciate the bluntness.
None of this "racially charged" or "which some have called racist" or putting racist in quotation marks bullshit that's so unfortunately common in media coverage of topics like these.
We need to call racism what it is. Thanks for doing so.
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I appreciate the bluntness.
None of this "racially charged" or "which some have called racist" or putting racist in quotation marks bullshit that's so unfortunately common in media coverage of topics like these.
We need to call racism what it is. Thanks for doing so.
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Even if it wasn't racist...
It memorializes an armed rebellion against the US. Love it or leave it, rebs. Individually, that is. you can't take the land with you.
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Re: Even if it wasn't racist...
"It memorializes an armed rebellion against the US. Love it or leave it, rebs. Individually, that is. you can't take the land with you."
Armed rebellion isn't necessarily shameful. If it was you seriously need a good long chat with King George abut coming back under the British crown.
Slavery, otoh, can't be described as anything other than shameful and repulsive.
Which is why I have a hard time accepting the weaksauce cop-out of the white trash which insists there's anything worth preserving of the confederate legacy. It's like hearing a bunch of neo-nazis try to defend their creed with the lame claim that third reich uniforms were really cool.
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Re:
I wish more white people would hate themselves, and use the word racist in white guilt laden offhand ways online, every time a statue gets knocked over.
Those dumb fuckers-they NEVER notice that free speech allows even racists to speak.
Call racism what it is!
ADL racist sponsored speech (backed by billionaires like George Soros, and the WaPo's Jeff Bezos, and the Hollywood kosher nostras Haym Saban)
Yeah, Thad, NEVER EVER CALL THOSE GUYS OUT, it might make your pal Chip sound crazy.
BTW: are you also LILY WHITE?
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It doesn’t give them the right to escape criticism or social consequences for their speech, though. If a statue meant to honor and celebrate the Confederacy is torn down by people who think such statues have no place in public spaces that welcome people the Confederacy tried to keep enslaved, I’m not going to cry tears over that. Those statues belong in museums at best, landfills at worst. Let the racists whine about that if they so wish. That is, after all, their right.
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Re:
Well, I am glad that you are considering the options, for what its worth.
But its quite sad, and despicable actually, that you have not considered AI and its operators as coopting your speech:
"doesn’t give them the right to escape criticism or social consequences for their speech, though"
Worse, that you give AI rights that I myslef do not, and can not possess, Because "multi-billion dollar corprorations" stand in my way as an individual,
( I left the spelling errors in place, to demonstrate what we are up against.)
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If someone coöpts my speech and someone else has a problem with what I supposedly said, they can come find me and ask for clarification. Besides, my speech is “open source” (read: public domain). Unless my views are being misrepresented, I don’t give a fuck who uses my speech.
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Re:
Well, lookie there, you managed to post something without calling me a racist/puppie beater/antishemitisticlysmicismist/etc.
Yup, speech does have consequences, huh?
SO does the covert and overt infiltration of open discourse online by AI chatbots, and automated flag brigades.
But Ive read enough of your ADLified opinions here that I know you are just a gatekeeper at the door of speech online, and here specifically.
Like Edward Snowden said about people like you
"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say," he said.
In other words, the right to privacy, just like the right to free speech, is fundamental for all Americans."
Regardless of whose platform, we see that self elected speech censors like you, and the mechanisms of speech repression in action right here, which I gladly demonstrate.
Any scroll through your comments reveals that you have very little to say about free speech, or speech repression agents online, because you ARE that exact speech repression agent, working for free.
Like Ed said 'if you have nothing to say...'
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Feel free to say whatever you want anywhere else on the Internet. So long as some platform will have you, feel free to use it. But here, your anti-Semitic conspiracy-theory-pushing ass gets flagged on sight. Don’t like it? Door’s to your left.
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Re: Stephen Stone, Jesus for a Day
Interesting how you, Stephen T. Stone, confuse the Kosher Nostra founded (Meyer Lansky), race-baiting ADL as the chosen representatives of all of the Jews everywhere
that organization that trains the US police in apartheid state tactics, and
that organization as a race based organization by definition, the chosen representatives of all of the Jews
Why, Stone, you just hit the two most cited facts about racists everywhere, much less a Weinstein trifecta, you stupid racist little cunt.
Try not to let that same door smack you in your racist (useful idiot) face
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…fucking what
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Re: Re: rogs poor fat stupid and racists for life
“you stupid racist little cunt”
Fuck bro you just blow jhon out of the top spot for most oblivious piece of projection.
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Re: Re: Stephen Stone, Jesus for a Day
Where did Stephen say anything about any of that?
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Re: Re: Re: Stephen Stone, Jesus for a Day
"Where did Stephen say anything about any of that?"
He didn't, but unless you'd missed it in previous discourse, that particular poster likes to fill in several pages of their own speculation around every word actually posted by anyone else.
In particular any doubt of their assertion that the jewish conspiracy, spearheaded by the ADL, is running the world will be met with implications that the sceptic is an "AI chatbot" or a paid psyop operative.
At this point it's no longer relevant whether that poster is serious or just trolling.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Stephen Stone, Jesus for a Day
Their ranty hallucinations attacking ADL look a lot like projection, as in the real world ADL is instead helping the justice system bust up actual conspiracies.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Stephen Stone, Jesus for a Day
"Their ranty hallucinations attacking ADL look a lot like projection..."
To be fair I think the ADL is way out of line going after pro-palestinian organizations én másse since there is indeed a lot of very valid criticism to offer visavi how Israel has interacted with the west bank and the settlements - many of which are packed to the rafters with people of the same cloth as the radical jewish extremist who assassinated Rabin. You don't need to be an anti-semite to be critical of Israeli policy.
But that's a very far cry indeed from parroting the official neo-nazi propaganda that the ADL is a spearhead in the Global Jewish Conspiracy.
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Re: Re: Stephen Stone, Jesus for a Day
Cobbling together several racist assertions with the crusty old "jewish conspiracy" stunt, then turns around and calls other people "racist".
Screaming "thief" when you get caught with your hand stuck in the cookie jar is still such a dumb tactic the only thing it accomplishes is to make people assume you're simply trolling - because no one is dumb enough to try to push that sort of broken logic with genuine intent.
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Re: Re:
“I left the spelling errors in place, to demonstrate what we are up against”
A proper education and good taste apparently.
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Re: I heard that once, somewhere
re: social consequences for their speech
Yeah, right. This argument is used by all lynch mobs, everywhere.
Personally, I am thrilled that those statues are being torn down but I wasn't so thrilled when I got gang stalked through Los Angeles, with un-named, retired cops appearing out of nowhere, querying my views about "statues in the south."
Some of us experience speech differently than others.
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Not for nothin’, dude, but actual lynch mobs in the United States kidnapped and killed Black people for virtually no other reason beyond their being Black. Getting shittalked on Twitter is nowhere near comparable in its effect on society and the people therein.
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Re:
Gee, pasty white Stephen, please tell me more about your ADL sponsored high school curriculum.
But I grew up with people affiliated with Black Panthers, AND JDL members, and a few radical rabbis too; as well as Puerto Rican Nationalists, actual mafias, and hard core cops
SO, lets swap stories, Stephen T. Stone: I got shot and literally died the physical death one night, because some bad guy gave some teenagers a big .357 gun.
And, it all started because my best friend( yeah, in you and the ADLs vernacular, a black guy had beaten some undercover cops at pool).
Probably, not by coincidence, as we walked home that night, was the squad car pulling away around the corner as I got blasted (one in the arm, one in the femoral) was ALSO a coincidence.
Also, by coincidence, Stephen, the hospital would not let my best friend in to see me, until after the nice white detectives had tried to get me to finger another black guy for the shooting.
But honestly, by coincidence, whiny little parrot like ADL trained bitches like you make me wish bad things upon you, so you can understand stories like this.
Shall I go on about my Jewish father, or the Irish one? Maybe you, and the ADL parrot squad can form a safespace, and discuss.
But honestly, being a pasty white IT script kiddy does not an understanding make, and your stories about, maybe, installing wireless nodes on a campus, and hoping that staues fall over does not an anti-racist make.
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…fucking what
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Re: Re:
Save the crazy bro. You bet slow your pace if you’re gonna give hamiltron a run for his money when it comes to the longest lasting lying piece of shit award for the year.
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Re: Re: Re:
I save all your crazy in a bank called "look, another derailing, passive aggressive coward AC" that TD flag brigades never seem to call out for lack of substance.
And right now, its worth about 150 of your comments, not a singke one which ever addressed the subject matter of any TD post, and all of which were substanceless ad hom attacks on me.
You wouldnt last a day in the real world, AC, not a single day.
BLAM!
Just do it sissy.
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That isn’t helping you look mentally stable, champ.
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Re: Re:
None of what you just said in any way refutes Stephen’s point: the damage done by internet mobs doesn’t even compare to what has been done by actual, literal lynch mobs. The latter doesn’t exactly involve speech, anyways, so the “social consequences” thing doesn’t apply there.
The events that you described are not part of online mobbing, either, nor do they fall under the definition of lynching, either. Basically, it has FA to do with what Stephen was talking about.
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Poor, fat, stupid, and racist is no way to go through life son
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Re: Poor, fat, stupid,dog fucking AC is no way to troll, AC
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Re: Re: Poor, fat, stupid,dog fucking projectionist
It works on you bro. Day in and day out.
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re: your passive aggressive lack of substance
Blam!!!
Just DO IT AC.
And what do you have against fat people anyways, blimpy? I notice that
the anti-fat shaming heroes here at TD let you get away with that week after week without repercussions.
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Re: re: your passive aggressive lack of substance
I don’t recall anyone on Techdirt (writers or commenters) condemning fat-shaming, exactly, so calling any of us “anti-fat-shaming heroes” is a bit of a stretch. AFAICT, people have never gotten any repercussions for fat-shaming on TD.
Not that any of us have condoned it, either. I think most of us just don’t consider it enough of a reason by itself to flag it or call it out, especially when dealing with online discourse.
Also, people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. You’ve not exactly been any better about being civil, polite, inoffensive, and/or politically correct, either, so you don’t really have any business criticizing an AC for the same thing. Was it immature and not that funny? Absolutely. I don’t really consider it disruptive, particularly harmful, or beyond the pale, though.
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Re:
Its so odd, watching white people work through racial guilt, and the apology ritual, for those of us who have ALWAYS called racism what it is, wherever we see it, where we have lived it, and especially, when we named it, and then, were called racists ourselves, lol, sometimes bleeding in the fight against it.
(Hows the weather there in Arizona, Thad? I hear there was amn invasion of old, racist, blue wigged ladies there sometime in the 1960s)
Now, if Thad (and Chip) could only get onboard with calling his ADL styled handlers and propaganda masters racists, the world can move forwards without the bi-polar (US based) narrative of black versus white, and look at the written texts that enabled western-european racism at the source code of their intellectual DNA.
Nah...that seems like an uphill battle. Never mind. Too much self reflection and hyper-criticism involved in that endeavor.
Fuck the South, Fuck Robert E. Lee, Fuck Benjamin P. Judah, Fuck Stonewall Jackson (hard, in his ass), and fuck, especially people caught up in revisionism.
And especially, G_d bless these heroes of freedom:
Lee Harvey Oswald
Deborah Lippschtaddddt
Irv Rubin
Bill Cosby (once a real earner, but now, a filthy rapistblack man! Eeeew!)
Snoop Dogg (recently implicated as a a potential #massage-a vagina-ist, by political fashion and trends)
I intentionally left out Lenny Bruce, cuz', reasons.....
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As a native North Carolinian, saying the following gives me the greatest pleasure:
Fuck every single last defender of the Confederacy.
And hearing this bit of news yesterday gave me even more pleasure on top of that. May “Silent Sam” eventually be melted down and turned into a urinal for the National Museum of African American History and Culture so Black Americans can continue to piss on the legacy of the Confederacy from now until the end of time.
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This comment (above) is what should be put on a sign on all four sides of the statue.
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Re:
Mr. Stone, I think making it a urinal is bit sexists
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Re:
As another native North Carolinian, thank you for saying the words I wish to hear so much more of.
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Maybe consider that before you pay off racist losers next time
"The Board of Governors knew from the very beginning that this was a difficult but needed solution to meet all their goals to protect public safety of the University community, restore normality to campus, and be compliant with the Monuments Law,"
The first is irrelevant unless they've got something they'd like to say about what the scum they paid off said or implied about what they'd do if they didn't get their way that would involve public safety, the second they damn well should have thought of before they decided to hand over both a statue and millions to a bunch of racist losers, and as to the third? Oh there are so many options that come to mind for nearby signs that could be put up... 'Loser', 'Proud defender of slavery', 'Monument to scum', honestly, the choices are near endless since a quick reading of the disgusting law in question only seems to apply to the statue/monument/plaque, and says nothing about placing other stuff near them.
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Re: YES.
I'm still a staunch defender of the Indiana Jones camp (it belongs in a museum!) but if they're not going to move it, I'm all in favor of putting up another monument next to it.
In this case, there is a very specific monument that should be erected.
After all, what could be better poetic justice than to have Silent Sam being given an ear-cupping "well? I'm listening?" gesture from a statue of UNC student Paul Dickson?
Dickson led the fight to overturn North Carolina's "Speaker Ban Law" in the late 1960's, which prohibited speeches by 'Communists' on any North Carolina campuses. He campaigned against the law not because he supported Communism -- in fact, he strongly disagreed with it. (After all, he'd served in Vietnam with the Air Force for four years before he enrolled in UNC.)
He fought because he believed the best way to hamper support for an unsavory movement was to let people speak freely so that listeners may judge it for themselves. His efforts were crucial in getting the law overturned by federal courts in 1968.
He was quite likely on his way to a significant role in politics; he was a campaign chairman for Jim Hunt's successful run for NC Lieutenant Governor, before Hunt became the longest-tenured governor in NC history. But unfortunately, Dickson was involved in a car accident in August 1972, only 6 years after graduating, and passed away.
If the state is going to promote the argument that we must remember our history instead of censoring it, surely, it makes perfect sense to recognize the student who fought for the freedom of speech of his enemies, because their words would do more damage to their cause than any punishment could? Especially in the face of a "silent" monument to the Confederacy.
"Well? Go ahead, I'm listening. Oh, do you not have anything worth saying? Mmmhmm. Thought so."
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Here, though, lies the bullshit
The Monuments Law says that a monument "may not be removed, relocated, or altered in any way without the approval of the North Carolina Historical Commission."
But it does not specify any penalty or punishment if someone DOES relocate, remove, or alter such a monument. And specifically, the university did not make any such change.
The state may feel free to try and track down the students who took the monument down, though, and impose whatever penalty it can upon them. But UNC has not responsibility there. ... oh, and the State did prosecute the protestors. So hey, what's the problem?
The moral of the story is: When someone says "the law made me do it", check the law and case law before you believe it.
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Re: Here, though, lies the bullshit
Just change the law first, and then turn the monuments into road base.
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giggles
Just because he helped broker the deal, knew about all of the problems with standing, and had everyone rubber stamping it before the BOG ever knew about it is no reason to think he screwed up.
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Re:
No. It rather more seems the judge and the uni board are all equally racist and generally in cahoots with the Sons of Racist Asshats.
I'm guessing that someone thought they saw something coming down the pike and figured they should get out in front of it i the most half-assed manner possible. The board, on the other hand, is doubling down.
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Call it what it really is: a $2.5 million grant to Sons of Confederate Veterans for a museum.
There's no need to check the Board of Governors position on the issue, it is quite clear how they feel about the statue.
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Re:
You left of the $74,990 they paid the SCV so they could buy the statue & gain rights...
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Successive generations have added to our cultural wealth. The good the bad and the ugly, is serves as a reminder from where we have come and so has we don't forget and can learn from the mistakes and successes of our forbears.
We should not allow history to be destroyed because it is politically expedient in the current climate, rather, add to it with monuments meaningful to the current generation.
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Re:
No one is 'destroying history' by removing or relocating monuments to racist, slavery-defending scum, all they're doing is no longer venerating those people by having statues to them in the public.
By all means put paintings, statues or plaques to them in a museum, ideally right alongside pictures or other works showing what atrocities they were defending if not committing, so history can remember who they were and much more importantly what they did.
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Or we could stop putting up and celebrating monuments for racist traitors in public, especially in places where the descendants of people those traitors fought to enslave can see said momuments. Put the monuments in museums and give them proper context. Move the monuments to a private collection where racists can go celebrate the Confederacy in private. Put them all in a landfill, for all I give a fuck. But get them off public lands; they have no need to be there.
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Re:
Who is attempting to change history? Why is it that some do not want our children to learn about all the bad stuff their predecessors were involved in? Living a lie is easier? For you I suppose it is.
How is our past history wrt slavery considered to be wealth? Isn't wealth a term used to describe something of value?
College Board Caves To Conservative Pressure, Changes AP U.S. History Curriculum
https://thinkprogress.org/college-board-caves-to-conservative-pressure-changes-ap-u-s-his tory-curriculum-236d89a40bba/
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Re: Re:
BS.
This aren't "historical monuments"; they're "revisionist history" presented as monuments, many decades later.
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Re:
You know how I know you didn’t read the article?
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Re:
Public monuments on their own do not depict history; they glorify and celebrate it. Destroying or removing monuments does not destroy history. If it’s history you want, go to a museum, or a library, where you can be given context. If the Confederate statues were juxtaposed with Union statues, that’d be one thing, as it could be seen as a memorial for all the people who fought in the Civil War (much like our memorials for the Korean and Vietnam Wars), but having just the Confederate statues isn’t about preserving history in any rational sense of the phrase.
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Nobody would need face saving easures if they did the right thing in the first place.
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