US Politics Mega-thread - Page 8751

On September 16 2017 12:30 IgnE wrote:
What would your Jefferson plaque say?

"Here is a man whose fortune was built on the backs of slaves.

He also wrote the Declaration of Independence."

On September 16 2017 09:16 Jockmcplop wrote:


I made my point clumsily, but what I am saying is that people who see themselves as oppressed by injustice aren't necessarily going to be a position to take the legal ideas of their oppressors particularly seriously, especially when those legal ideas are demonstrably corrupt and discriminatory. The legality of this kind of protest, in the context in which we see it in a racially charged atmosphere, becomes an afterthought.
When you say these people have no clue about legality, I would offer that they do, they just don't care about legality imposed on them by a system which is actively working against them (specifically when they are in the act of protesting against that system).
Obviously there's differences here depending on the nature of the protest. Threatening people with guns isn't quite the same as throwing something at a statue.

On September 16 2017 10:02 Aquanim wrote:

No, that was my point all along. You just wildly misrepresented it to suit your agenda. Just like you wildly misrepresented that anybody's desired endgame was to have the statue covered, and the possible motivations for covering the statue in general, in the face of compelling evidence to the contrary that was presented *twice*.

I'd ask you to acknowledge the above as facts but I'm aware that you appear to be incapable and/or unwilling and I'm confident most of the rest of the thread can see it for themselves. If you can, though, that would be nice.

On September 16 2017 13:53 Wulfey_LA wrote:
This whole statue thing is a giant lib v con cognitive divide. Libs always question whether a tradition is a good thing before accepting it. Cons think everything would go better if people just listened to tradition. When a lib sees a monument, they ask what good the man on the monument did and think about whether or not they support the ideas behind the monument. When a con sees a monument, they don't think. The con knows the statute/monument stands for tradition and that is good enough. So this debate goes nowhere.

IgnE even proposing to question what a monument should stand for already takes him outside of the cognitive realm of a conservative thinker. The conservative flatly doesn't care. All the talk of facts about Jefferson's deeds, words, and writings are irrelevant. You might get some bad faith arguments from the conservative or some slippery slope arguments and certainly a pointless tuquoque fallacy. But the conservative is not judging the monument on the merits of the thing being monumented. It is about tradition.

On September 16 2017 14:08 Danglars wrote:

Well you've changed since the first post, and I'm glad. Choose whatever excuses you want. You started out searching for white supremacists among people that think Jefferson was pretty good but flawed, and now you're at something sane.

On September 16 2017 13:54 Sermokala wrote:

"He was in a day where racism and outright white supremism was not only accepted but was the societal norm. He had slaves he bought slaves he sold slaves and he didn't free his slaves apon his death."

Judging people of the past on the standards of today is okay and all but the man has an important place in history that people need to remember and learn from. The things that were acceptable back then and the progress that we've made on issues can go hand in hand with the good things that were done.

Not celebrating anything that happened more then 20-30 years ago just seems dumb. I don't know where you can draw a decent line but the amount of important people that owned slaves vs the amount of important people who didn't own slaves and didn't do other things we'd consider horrible today doesn't really leave with many positive examples of the past for people to look to.

On September 16 2017 14:10 KwarK wrote:

You say that as if it's impossible for him to have known that owning people might have been wrong. Let's say that in the future our descendants decide that factory farming is unethical etc and judge us for that. Do we not deserve that judgement? I'd rather be remembered as an asshole who thought torturing animals was worth it if it meant getting to eat beef than as some kind of idiot who didn't know that cows would rather not get eaten.

Jefferson didn't own slaves because everyone else was doing it and he didn't know that you shouldn't own people. He owned slaves because owning other people is pretty fucking sweet. He knew what he was doing.

On September 16 2017 12:21 Sermokala wrote:
I mean if the Belgium people can keep the copper statue of king Leopold up it shows a fairly simple template for what to do with historical statues. There's an obvious difference between the founding fathers and confederate generals statues and no one serious is advocating for taking down the statues of founding fathers. Just asking for a sign that says to take what he said in context beacuse in today's world he would be considered a racist doesn't really sound too bad to me.

We can all agree that Jefferson was better then Leopold.

On September 16 2017 14:24 Sermokala wrote:

I don't think its impossible for him to have known that owning people might have been wrong but its wrong to think that it was anything other then a fringe idea at the time. I think he truly believed that black people were inferior to white people as was the common thinking of the time. That didn't stop him from freeing a pair of slaves on his death that he knew were trained enough to get employment on their own. A little research into his relationship to slavery that I was doing on the side here argues that he was doing a lot during his time in government to fight slavery and to discontinue it in america. He got slave importation banned in Virginia and criminalized the international slave trade when he was president. He apparently believe in gradual emancipation training and colonizing slaves rather then freeing them wholesale. That would probably have been a lot better for the black race in america in the long term instead of the chronic socioeconomic problems that they've been in as a result of poverty and racism in america.

I mean gay rights, when do we draw the line where it was the time for everyone to wake up and say that they deserve the same rights as straight people? Does that disqualify everyone in the past as well?

On September 16 2017 14:24 Plansix wrote:
Jefferson knew about the moral issues with slavery. There were abolitionist through out the founding father. Adams and Hamilton were both against slavery. Jefferson knew, he just didn't think black people should be free.

On September 16 2017 14:28 KwarK wrote:

The correct time to wake up and realize that gay people deserve the same rights as straight people was all the time. However I accept that some people struggle with reaching their own conclusions and rely upon the moral guidance of others. So let's establish a cutoff around 30AD when some Jewish guy said that you should treat everyone with the same respect.

You don't get to paint Jefferson as one of the enlightened slaveowners. There's a word for enlightened slaveowners. Ex-slaveowners.

On September 16 2017 14:08 Sermokala wrote:

Do you just think things up in your head and say "other people should hear what I think"? I don't think your post is even directed at anyone. Its just a stream of raw thoughts that don't pretend to be anything other then logical fallacies and insults at anyone who might disagree with you. You do everything you accuse conservatives of point by point. If you don't care about the argument and you don't want to even begin to have an argument with someone you disagree with are you just here to cheer lead about how superior you are or do you genuinely think you won with this post?

Do you think there is no value in tradition or remembering historical figures in context?

Trump said it was "sad" that the "history and culture" of the United States is "being ripped apart" by the removal of Confederate statues and monuments after ripping two GOP senators earlier in the morning over their criticism of his remarks this week blaming white supremacists and counterprotesters alike for Saturday's violence.

On September 16 2017 14:36 Wulfey_LA wrote:


Did you watch any of the statue protest coverage? Do you follow the arguments on this thread? Have you ever heard President Trump speak on the statute matter? This thread is filled with libs going back and forth over details about Jefferson what should be thought about him. Then you have plenty of con posters putting up slippery slope arguments about how the founding father statues are going to be next after the CSA statues**. And leading it all you have Trump making pure tradition-only and fact-free arguments to defend the statues. My point is that these arguments talk past each other. EDIT: and I have plenty of facts here and elsewhere to support my generalizations.

Have a sample of traditions based reasoning.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/346929-trump-revives-defense-of-confederate-monuments

** To this point, some race activists are always going to go just a little too far for moderate sensibilities. It is unfortunate, but their antics won't be bringing down any Jefferson statues.

On September 16 2017 14:48 Sermokala wrote:

Nothing in my post was about Trump. You go down point by point doing everything you accuse people you disagree with. You don't even propose any points or do anything but make statements. You go through the whole post saying conservatives don't even think and that they accept things blindly. You don't even frame that there is even a discussion to be had because conservatives aren't even arguing anything. I could punch up trumps first speech about the wall with quotes from your post and it wouldn't be that out of what he said.

On September 16 2017 14:10 KwarK wrote:

You say that as if it's impossible for him to have known that owning people might have been wrong. Let's say that in the future our descendants decide that factory farming is unethical etc and judge us for that. Do we not deserve that judgement? I'd rather be remembered as an asshole who thought torturing animals was worth it if it meant getting to eat beef than as some kind of idiot who didn't know that cows would rather not get eaten.

Jefferson didn't own slaves because everyone else was doing it and he didn't know that you shouldn't own people. He owned slaves because owning other people is pretty fucking sweet. He knew what he was doing.

On September 16 2017 14:56 GreenHorizons wrote:...
Think for a moment how Jefferson's day would have been spent had he not been a wealthy, person-owning, man. He doesn't have a single accomplishment he doesn't owe to the people his family owned and they deserve their acknowledgement as much as he does or more so.