What are your thoughts on the Confederate memorials being taken down in NOLA?

Tide1986 said:

It is that simple. I've seen my own family relocate to create better opportunities. The idea that people have no mobility is a red herring.

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Bodhisattva said:

I've relocated many times for this very reason and will likely do so again in a year or so.

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rgw said:

What about people who have no capacity to live where the laws suit them? They're just left at the whims of their state. I mean, I'm not going to stake my claim to "no state rights" especially upon personal mobility. Just something to chew on...I don't think it is all so simple.

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Tidewater said:

Not saying I disagree, but I would say that subsidiarity would mean that they can take that case to those state or local authorities. I have met m,y state senator and my state delegate on several occasions to discuss state policy matters. I have never and will never discuss policy with my Representative, nor with my Senators, unless I show up with a fat check book.
If we centralize all policy decision-making at the Federal level, we are all stuck with the same national policy and there is no room for subsidiarity.

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Tide1986 said:

I've called my state rep on his cell phone and had a long conversation with him. He wanted to talk to me and took the time to do so. Refreshing.

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Tidewater said:

Yeah, try that with your US Senator...

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RammerJammer14 said:

My uncle was telling me once that he ran into a Rep or Senator, I forget which, at a function once by chance and was talking to him about random chit chat. Then my uncle asked him what he was going to do about some noncontroversial policy, and the guy immediately asked him how much he was going to donate to his campaign before he would consider doing anything about it. Needless to say, it kind of destroyed my uncle's faith in representative government...

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Bodhisattva said:

I've relocated many times for this very reason and will likely do so again in a year or so.

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Tidewater said:

Wow.
There it is.
For the record, neither my state senator nor my delegate has ever asked me for money.

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Bamabuzzard said:

I haven't seen an online article about this but it was reported on our local sports radio station this morning that an LSU student has started a petition to get rid of the LSU mascot claiming it is racist. According to the claim the confederate soldiers from Louisiana were called the "Louisiana Tigers" which the tiger ultimately ended up being the current day mascot of Louisiana State University (LSU). Several callers said no one should be surprised that the moment the monuments in New Orleans were ordered down Pandora's box was opened. Anything that can remotely be linked to the confederacy and/or deemed racist will be removed.

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CullmanTide said:

I believe Lincoln was the enemy. Does that make it ok to remove his monuments? No one mans opinion means more than another's.

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rgw said:

More modern Civil War monuments are questionable but stuff from the very generation of those who thought seem like the kind of history we shouldn't be whitewashing.

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TIDE-HSV said:

They weren't always predominantly black, were they? Here they solved the problem by closing two schools named after white guys (not Confederates) and consolidating them into one named for a black, female astronaut. (Astronauts are big around here.) The interesting thing is that the magnet school for the arts has a large talented black attendance is - Lee...

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81usaf92 said:

I think Lee started out the opposite , but I think Davis was intended to be a desegregated school from the start.

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Senator Albert Gallatin Brown said:

… In my opinion, Lincoln will be elected. … If Lincoln is elected, what then? … the southern states … ought at once to assemble in convention, and by a joint agreement, withdraw their delegations from Congress. They should assign as a reason for this, that a powerful sectional majority has, by the mere force of numbers, seized the government, with the openly avowed purpose of using its power for our destruction, and that, inasmuch as our delegation is numerically too weak to resist the force of this majority by their votes, and can consequently no longer protect our rights in Congress, we therefore withdraw them. They should declare further, that for the time being, we will obey and see faithfully executed all the laws which we have taken part in making; but that, for the reasons stated, we will decline taking any further part in the legislation of the country until we obtain new guarantees for our safety. … All should be asked that is necessary for our own domestic peace, equality and security. … Can we long submit? In my opinion we cannot. We may hug the phantom to our bosoms that a returning sense of justice will induce the northern people to forbear. Not so my friends. They will never forbear. They hate us now, and teach their children in their schools and churches to hate our children. You cannot long submit if you will. The John Brown raid, the burning in Texas, the stealthy tread of abolitionists among us, tell the tale. History is experience teaching by example. Take care that the history of San Domingo (i.e. Haiti) be not your history. There, as here, the abolitionists were not going to interfere with the rights of the master. He was only going to ameliorate the condition of the slave and to arrest the blight and mildew of slavery. The sequel was the total emancipation of the Negro race. Then became the burning of houses, the murder of men, the butchery of children, fiendish and worse than hellish outrages of women. Take care that the same scenes be not enacted here. The planters in Santo Domingo … died amid the groans and shrieks of their own families, or fled the country, lighted by the conflagration of their own dwellings. … You may imagine that when the worst comes to worst, you will take up arms and defend your right. So thought of the planters of San Domingo; … the same power that emancipated the negro stood by him and defended him after he was emancipated…. Disunion is a fearful thing, but emancipation is worse. Better leave the union in the open face of day, than be lighted from it at midnight by the incendiary’s torch.*

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Tidewater said:

Yep, The Tiger Rifle's of Major Roberdeau Wheat's 1st Special Battalion, Louisiana Volunteer Infantry (2nd Louisiana Battalion). Eventually, the whole battalion went by the name, then the brigade, then all the Louisiana troops in the Army of North Virginia. One observer said, they were “the lowest scum of the lower Mississippi...adventurous wharf rats, thieves, and outcasts...and bad characters generally.” Wheat's men were ne'er-do-wells, thieves, roughnecks, hard drinkers, whoremongers, but good in a fight. Wheat's imposing figure whipped them into shape. Once he died, the unit fell apart.
As for the 2017 controversy, some feel if they give in on a small thing, this will satisfy the ignorant or mis-informed protesters. But you cannot satisfy this beast by feeding it. You must defeat it. It only depends on where you draw the line.
The authorities should listen to the misinterpretation of the ignorant/misinformed protesters, thank them for their input, inform them that they did not name LSU "the Tigers" to celebrate racism and slavery, but that they named them Tigers because Louisiana troops in the Civil War had a reputation for toughness and hard fighting. Then they should tell the protesters to shut up and crawl back into their holes. "Your misinterpretation does not trump everyone else's free speech."

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