Ed Dueling protests spark state of emergency in Virginia.

[BobTheCoward]

Click on it.

And what is the context?

 

[Childlike Empress]

And what is the context?

The main context is the total "failure" of the police, or their decision to deliberately create chaos by not doing their job. Actually, if you watch the rest of the video from where I made it start, you will see both members of the little alt-right-whatever group and black people on the side yell at the police to DO YOUR JOB! If you turn it back and watch from the beginning you can watch the road of that group after they were kicked out from the park due to "emergency" declared. I have seen no police up until that scene.

The screenshot I selected for the misinformed lazy people who can then convince themselves that the three geared-up Nazis beat the poor old defenseless Hippie.

 

[BobTheCoward]

The main context is the total "failure" of the police, or their decision to deliberately create chaos by not doing their job. Actually, if you watch the rest of the video from where I made it start, you will see both members of the little alt-right-whatever group and black people on the side yell at the police to DO YOUR JOB! If you turn it back and watch from the beginning you can watch the road of that group after they were kicked out from the park due to "emergency" declared. I have seen no police up until that scene.

The screenshot I selected for the misinformed lazy people who can then convince themselves that the three geared-up Nazis beat the poor old defenseless Hippie.

Let's try again and start simple. Where was this?

 

[Childlike Empress]

Let's try again and start simple. Where was this?

You either care or don't. Your question is answered in the video description. The video starts at the park with the statue, after the permitted rally was cancelled and the people already in the park forced to leave due to declared "emergency".

 

[BobTheCoward]

You either care or don't. Your question is answered in the video description. The video starts at the park with the statue, after the permitted rally was cancelled and the people already in the park forced to leave due to declared "emergency".

Thank you for the context. I care about maintaining the decorum of this place.

 

[crescent]

No matter what their personal motives might have been at any given time, they were still there because they were representing the cause of the Confederacy, which was the preservation and perpetuation of negro chattel slavery, full

This is key to me. In most any war, it is common for the motivation of the individual soldiers to be very different from the motivation of the government that sends them to fight. That's normal.

But, regardless of what motivates the grunts, their actions still serve to advance the cause of the government they fight for. The southern soldiers may not all have been motivated by the fight to preserve slavery, but their fighting defended that cause anyway, and the military leadership was wholely aware of and in support of the defense of slavery.

I can support the sort of memorials that more or less say "people died, and that's sad". I can't support memorials that glorify the cause they fought for, or the political or military leadership that sent them to war.

 

[jimbob]

Arnold Schwartzenager's speech on this was appropriate.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Thank you for the context. I care about maintaining the decorum of this place.

I looked it up for you, the beating in the screenshot is taking place here, which is actually directly in front of the police hq and court building, which explains where the "cliche" cops (as opposed to militarized riot cops) suddenly come from.

 

[BobTheCoward]

I looked it up for you, the beating in the screenshot is taking place here, which is actually directly in front of the police hq and court building, which explains where the "cliche" cops (as opposed to militarized riot cops) suddenly come from.

You didn't do it for me. You did it because it is the appropriate standard here.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

This is key to me. In most any war, it is common for the motivation of the individual soldiers to be very different from the motivation of the government that sends them to fight. That's normal.

But, regardless of what motivates the grunts, their actions still serve to advance the cause of the government they fight for. The southern soldiers may not all have been motivated by the fight to preserve slavery, but their fighting defended that cause anyway, and the military leadership was wholely aware of and in support of the defense of slavery.

I can support the sort of memorials that more or less say "people died, and that's sad". I can't support memorials that glorify the cause they fought for, or the political or military leadership that sent them to war.

Can I personally judge men and women of today's armed forces for participating in the illegal invasion of Iraq and numerous war crimes or does this collective shame thing only count in certain instances?

 

[BobTheCoward]

Can I personally judge men and women of today's armed forces for participating in the illegal invasion of Iraq and numerous war crimes or does this collective shame thing only count in certain instances?

You should. I do.

 

[crescent]

Can I personally judge men and women of today's armed forces for participating in the illegal invasion of Iraq and numerous war crimes or does this collective shame thing only count in certain instances?

Their actions furthered that cause. Judge it as you will.

ETA: As I think this through, the point I mean to make is that memorials to soldiers who die fighting for a cause can made to do so without being memorials FOR that cause. Some of the Confederate memorials make that separation, some don't.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

Their actions furthered that cause. Judge it as you will.

ETA: As I think this through, the point I mean to make is that memorials to soldiers who die fighting for a cause can made to do so without being memorials FOR that cause. Some of the Confederate memorials make that separation, some don't.

That, in turn, prompts me to sharpen my perspective, as well.

Should we deny them Military Funeral Honors and look with derision on any who call for their memorialization?

 

[crescent]

That, in turn, prompts me to sharpen my perspective, as well.

Should we deny them Military Funeral Honors and look with derision on any who call for their memorialization?

We might be veering off into a hijack. I think the Gulf war was unwise but not a crime. That makes it hard for me to formulate a response, given that I don't make the same value judgement towards the Gulf war.

As for memorials, the Vietnam and Korean war memorials in D.C. are very effective at being memorials to the soldiers of those wars, without glorifying the causes those wars were fought in support of, or connotating any sort of support for either war at all. Both monuments are pretty clearly about the soldiers who suffered and died, not their leadership or cause.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

(responding to Skeptic Ginger)

I think you helped make my point.

That being that Confederate soldiers fought for a variety of reasons.

Not just one - in defense of slavery - which had been proffered.

The point I apparently made was, we can read the same words yet our brains see their meaning differently.

5 Myths about why the South seceded

Source: Sociologist James W. Loewen is the author of "Lies My Teacher Told Me" and co-editor, with Edward Sebesta, of "The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader."

It is also true that, in areas with few slaves, most white Southerners did not support secession. West Virginia seceded from Virginia to stay with the Union, and Confederate troops had to occupy parts of eastern Tennessee and northern Alabama to hold them in line.

However, two ideological factors caused most Southern whites, including those who were not slave-owners, to defend slavery. First, Americans are wondrous optimists, looking to the upper class and expecting to join it someday. In 1860, many subsistence farmers aspired to become large slave-owners. So poor white Southerners supported slavery then, just as many low-income people support the extension of George W. Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy now.

Second and more important, belief in white supremacy provided a rationale for slavery. ... Given this belief, most white Southerners - and many Northerners, too - could not envision life in black-majority states such as South Carolina and Mississippi unless blacks were in chains.

This is where my POV rests:

[In 1860] the South produced almost 75 percent of all U.S. exports. Slaves were worth more than all the manufacturing companies and railroads in the nation. No elite class in history has ever given up such an immense interest voluntarily.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

We might be veering off into a hijack. I think the Gulf war was unwise but not a crime. That makes it hard for me to formulate a response, given that I don't make the same value judgement towards the Gulf war.

It's less about the war specifically, I'm feeling around for consistency (or limits of context).

As for memorials, the Vietnam and Korean war memorials in D.C. are very effective at being memorials to the soldiers of those wars, without glorifying the causes those wars were fought in support of, or connotating any sort of support for either war at all. Both monuments are pretty clearly about the soldiers who suffered and died, not their leadership or cause.

Agreed, and great examples.

Springing back towards the topic at hand, I got curious about the legal perspective on secession. The position of the U.S. government, via court decision (Texas v. White), is that secession never happened and those acts which prompted them and all acts of legislatures and governments until their restoration to order were "absolutely null."

From the perspective of a person at the time, you were a citizen of your state. That was your birthplace, where your loyalty lay, and what honor compelled you to defend. So this overarching machine that makes sure the state governments aren't being abusive starts playing favorites with the public treasuries (railroad and canal development subsidies were vastly different north vs. south), trying to 'stuff the legislature' by fast-tracking territorial development towards favored political circles and stalling others.

Someone decent-minded from Tennessee might not like slavery, but respects the rule of law and the vote was clear (disenfranchisement acknowledged). What right does this "United States" have to compel "my state" to remain in this abusive agreement? They want to send a Union Army here to bring us to our knees? Hold my beer, where's my musket...

But that court decision came in 1869, so none of them knew of this interpretation of not being able to legally leave the union under any circumstances. In fact several founding fathers spoke of concern on this point.

James Buchanan:

The fact is that our Union rests upon public opinion, and can never be cemented by the blood of its citizens shed in civil war. If it can not live in the affections of the people, it must one day perish. Congress possesses many means of preserving it by conciliation, but the sword was not placed in their hand to preserve it by force.

Thomas Jefferson:

In your letter to Fisk, you have fairly stated the alternatives between which we are to choose : 1, licentious commerce and gambling speculations for a few, with eternal war for the many ; or, 2, restricted commerce, peace, and steady occupations for all. If any State in the Union will declare that it prefers separation with the first alternative, to a continuance in union without it, I have no hesitation in saying, 'let us separate'. I would rather the States should withdraw, which are for unlimited commerce and war, and confederate with those alone which are for peace and agriculture.

From the majority opinion of Texas v White:

The Union of the States never was a purely artificial and arbitrary relation. It began among the Colonies, and grew out of common origin, mutual sympathies, kindred principles, similar interests, and geographical relations. It was confirmed and strengthened by the necessities of war, and received definite form and character and sanction from the Articles of Confederation. By these, the Union was solemnly declared to "be perpetual." And when these Articles were found to be inadequate to the exigencies of the country, the Constitution was ordained "to form a more perfect Union." It is difficult to convey the idea of indissoluble unity more clearly than by these words. What can be indissoluble if a perpetual Union, made more perfect, is not?

There you have it, the legal basis for there being no way to secede lawfully and peacefully is a half-finished bit of what was probably about to be circular reasoning.

and another interpretation for states admitted later:

When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State. The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final. The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.

A position I find awfully hard to reason with, myself. The Constitution makes no mention of leaving, that is true. The 10th Amendment, however, makes it clear that anything they forgot to carve out for the federal government or outright prevent any government from doing is in play.

 

[Elagabalus]

Absolutely. Trump is saying that sometimes he needs to protest before the people in this country adequately learn their place and follow obediently behind him! They also need to learn to grovel and to whine his praises as they do so.

Trump has already shown repeatedly what he does to his pets (um staff) who don't heel. Don't make him yank your chain! Heel, boy, heel.

Agreed. That was an awesome typo. Says it all, really.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

Apologies if I missed it in the pages that go by while at work:

Crowds stood in line to turn themselves in for the crime of tearing down a Confederate statue

According to the Herald Sun, three activists actually turned themselves in, while about 100 others went to the jail to show support. More of these activists planned to turn themselves in as a symbolic gesture, but they were stopped from entering the building.

“It was a community all together who did that, who was responsible for that toppling of racism,” activist Lamont Lilly said in a speech to the crowd. “Very often, it does take one person to be the spark — to be the initiator like sister Bree Newsome. But it takes a movement, it takes a mass of people to support that — and keep those movements sustainable.”

While this particular instance was thwarted easily, that's the kind of sideways thinking / lateral move passive resistance I like to see.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Hannity strikes again with a fabricated CT claiming "Crowds on Demand" might have paid for protestors in Charlottesville.

He goes on to admit they had an ad for people for some event in Charolette, NC then suggests maybe it was a coincidence.

I wonder what he thought of the massive outpouring of resistance in Boston today?

 

[quadraginta]

Their actions furthered that cause. Judge it as you will.

ETA: As I think this through, the point I mean to make is that memorials to soldiers who die fighting for a cause can made to do so without being memorials FOR that cause. Some of the Confederate memorials make that separation, some don't.

And the choice of location, as well as the motive for erecting the memorial have a great deal to do with that.

By way of recent example.

A statue of a Confederate soldier ... no matter how generic ... placed in a prominent position in front of a county courthouse in an ex-Confederate state at the height of Jim Crow by an organization dedicated to preserving and cherishing the ideals of the Confederacy sends a pretty clear message.

Imagine being a black man walking past that as you go into a courtroom to be judged by a "jury of your peers", none of whom will be black. That's what Jim Crow was.