looks like Obama has started the rewriting of our national history.... http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/04/11/martin.confederate.extremist/index.html?hpt=C2 CNN) -- Based on the hundreds of e-mails, Facebook comments and Tweets I've read in response to my denunciation of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's decision to honor Confederates for their involvement in the Civil War -- which was based on the desire to continue slavery -- the one consistent thing that supporters of the proclamation offer up as a defense is that these individuals were fighting for what they believed in and defending their homeland. In criticizing me for saying that celebrating the Confederates was akin to honoring Nazi soldiers for killing of Jews during the Holocaust, Rob Wagner said, "I am simply defending the honor and dignity of men who were given no choice other than to fight, some as young as thirteen." Sherry Callahan said that supporting the Confederacy is "our history. Not hate; it's about heritage and history." Javier Ramirez called slavery evil, but prefaced his remarks by saying that "Confederate soldiers were never seen as terrorists by [President Abraham] Lincoln or U.S. generals on the battlefield. They were accorded POW status, they were never tried for war crimes. Not once did Confederate soldiers do any damage to civilians or their property in their invasion of the north. The same is not true of Union soldiers." Realskirkland sent me a Tweet saying, "Slavery is appalling, but was not the only reason for the CW [Civil War]. Those men, while misguided on some fronts stood up for what they felt was right. They embodied that American ideal that the states have a right to govern themselves. THAT is what a confederate soldier stood for." If you take all of these comments, don't they sound eerily similar to what we hear today from Muslim extremists who have pledged their lives to defend the honor of Allah and to defeat the infidels in the West?
Slavery is appalling. But, only if you are a moron do they sound eerily similar. they were soldiers, they wore uniforms they fought on a field of battle and they did not attack civilians or civilian property.
The rationalization of killing is nothing new... "the one consistent thing that supporters of the proclamation offer up as a defense is that these individuals were fighting for what they believed in and defending their homeland." God knows it did not cross our minds to attack the towers but after the situation became unbearable and we witnessed the injustice and tyranny of the American-Israeli alliance against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, I thought about it. And the events that affected me directly were that of 1982 and the events that followed -- when America allowed the Israelis to invade Lebanon, helped by the U.S. Sixth Fleet. As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me punish the unjust the same way (and) to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women. ---Osama bin Laden---
As usual you show your lack of history and facts. BOTH sides of the Civil War attacked civilians and their property. There has NEVER been a war anywhere on this planet in which civilians and their property were not abused. The Confederates were very much terrorists and they were traitors. Tyrants and war aggressors NEVER have a problem defending their action. Any elected official advocating the honor or memorializing of the Confedaracy, or the soldiers, or the 'cause' should be ousted by moral, thinking voters in the next election.
The southern states got their ass kicked by the north, they will never accept that beat down, they aren't going to accept they were forced to give up their property (slaves) and they will always act in a manner that is consistent with their morality then, and now. Lincoln should have sent all the damn traitors to live on the Indian reservations, like the conquered people the Confederacy was... We all know damn well if the south had won the war, they would never have acted in a civilized manner toward the northern states...
Ramirez doesn't know American history. Most confederate soldiers were not terrorist, but soldiers such as Nathan Bedford Forrest certainly massacred hundreds of black Union Army and white Southern Unionists prisoners. He was a slave trader before the war and became the first Grand Wizard of the KKK after the civil war.
I have to disagree with you there. Lincoln did exactly what he should have: amnesty. There were far too many people involved in the insurrection to punish them. Also, I could not support punishing the poor, ignorant, non-slave holders for being hoodwinked, by the rich, into supporting the succession. I cannot blame the 'victim' then just as I cannot blame the ignorant, working-class (that's anybody making less than 150K per year) right-wing slob who worship & slather over the rich today. These types of people are always easily manipulated. As far as the idea of the 'south' being a separate nation . . . sometimes I wish it were so.
Abe could have easily executed the leaders of the confederacy insurgency, or at a minimum exiled them and banished them out of America. Amnesty was the worst thing to have done, and we are paying for it to this day. These southern jerks don't understand anything but a good beating, and they don't respect anyone who doesn't kick the shit out of them...
Of course we are still paying for the travesty of the second revolution in which the patriots of the 1st revolution lost the conflict. It's especially confusing to those who erroneously think the war was simply over the legality of slavery.