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WP: Dispelling the myth of Robert E. Lee


BRAVEONAWARPATH

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So did Lee.

Until he lost.

Kinda like Gibbs. :)

He worked for one of the most reviled owners in sports, and fully supported and enabled him. He most likely did this because he felt a strong sense of loyalty to the region and the fans.

Look, it's not a perfect analogy :) but I see a similar reverence applied to Gibbs, and a similar willingness to overlook his mistakes, or blame them on someone else. Hell, I do it. :)

Rommel was forced to commit suicide because of his opposition to Hitler.

Still, I wouldn't call him a hero. I wouldn't call Lee a hero either.

But I do understand why Rommel is given more respect than a common Nazi, and I understand why Lee is given more respect than the common Confederate. Do I think the reverence for Lee is overblown? Sure a little. But for some reason it doesn't bother me that much. Let the South have that one.

I would love to go to the playoffs twice in the next 4 years

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I'm not someone who would fancy myself a Rebel, but you could easily make the case that everything they contributed to our nation prior to seceding from the Union was important.

:secret: Prior to seceding from the Union, the Confederacy did not exist.

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No, they don't think about it like that. They romanticize the Confederacy, think it wasn't really about slavery, and assume that slavery would have just died a natural peaceful death a few years later. Of course, they are full of :pooh: on all of those things, but good luck trying to discuss it with them - anything you say will be viewed as an attack on their heritage. Their mythology is very important to them.

I think it's impossible to do what this and evidently you are trying to do. Judge a person of antiquity by modern standards and be consistant...

I mean holy cow, name me a person from history who could survive such a comparison... Sacratis, Ceasar, Alexander, Washington, Jefferson, either of the Rosevelt Boys? Nobody not Martin Luther or Martin Luther King nobody could survive such a litmus test... That doesn't make any of them less extrodinary...

I got news for you... Based on 22nd centry morals you aren't going to look all that good either.

Lee was extrodinary because he was a man who obtained great respect thoughout his life in his chosen career, and worked very hard, honorable and intelligently at that goal. Then threw it all away on a lost cause that he knew was a lost cause simple because he believed it was the honorable thing to do. Which amonst us could, would do the same given what he had to loose?

As for slavery being the underpinning reason to the war. I believe the original op ed writer is just as wrong about that as he is about Lee. Lincoln clearly did not believe the war was about slavery any more than the average southerner did. The fact that the southern leadership and average northerner did fight for or against slavery is not determinitive. The reality is people fought that war for their own reasons on both sides of the conflict. Lee's stated reasons were not slavery but state's rights. Lincolns stated reason were not slavery but preserving the uniion. How can anybody blast Lee for not fighting to end slavery and not blast Lincoln?

History and people are just more complex than the simple reflexive explainations given in this op-ed peice. Certainly he does not comprehend the complexities in the civil war. Certainly he has not even attempted to understand those complexities.

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I'm glad so many of you see this so clearly. No shades of gray, no humanity, no moral relativity.

It's the good guys vs the bad guys, and the good guys won. I felt the same way about Star Wars

I'm so glad so many can't discuss this subject without making things up that nobody has said.

Claim that Robert E. Lee does not deserve to have monuments built in his honor, and the responses are:

"Well, Washington owned slaves".

"I don't think we should completely erase the Confederacy from our history books".

"The Civil War was important to American history".

"The Confederates were American, too."

"Anybody who says that an American citizen, taking up arms against the United States, is a traitor, is ignorant."

Want to complain about no shades of gray? How about the people, when I assert that Lee does not deserve to have schools named after him, who respond by accusing me of attempting to completely remove him from our nation's history?

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:whoknows: Suicide bombers throw away their lives for an...unpopular...cause because they think its the honorable thing to do....they aren't glamorized like Lee is.

I know its an imperfect comparison, in many ways. But the phrasing you used could describe many people that aren't revered like Lee is.

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I think it's impossible to do what this and evidently you are trying to do. Judge a person of antiquity by modern standards and be consistant...

I mean holy cow, name me a person from history who could survive such a comparison... Sacratis, Ceasar, Alexander, Washington, Jefferson, either of the Rosevelt Boys? Nobody not Martin Luther or Martin Luther King nobody could survive such a litmus test... That doesn't make any of them less extrodinary...

I got news for you... Based on 22nd centry morals you aren't going to look all that good either.

Lee was extrodinary because he was a man who obtained great respect thoughout his life in his chosen career, and worked very hard, honorable and intelligently at that goal. Then threw it all away on a lost cause that he knew was a lost cause simple because he believed it was the honorable thing to do. Which amonst us could, would do the same given what he had to loose?

As for slavery being the underpinning reason to the war. I believe the original op ed writer is just as wrong about that as he is about Lee. Lincoln clearly did not believe the war was about slavery any more than the average southerner did. The fact that the southern leadership and average northerner did is not determinitive. Reality is people fought that war for their own reasons. Lee's stated reasons were not slavery but state's rights. Lincolns stated reason were not slavery but preserving the uniion. How can anybody blast Lee for not fighting to end slavery and not blast Lincoln?

History and people are just more complex than this simple binary explainations given in this op-ed peice. Certainly he does not comprehend the complexities in the civil war.

this is a great and thoughtful post

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Lee was extrodinary not because when based upon contemporary history he stands up to that, he was extrodinary because he was a man obtained great respect thoughout his life in his chosen career, and worked very hard and intelligently at that goal; then threw it all away on a lost cause that he knew was a lost cause simple because he believed it was the honorable thing to do. Which amonst us could, would do the same given what he had to loose?

I don't disagree with a single thing you've said, there.

However, I will still assert: The people honoring him, aren't honoring him because of everything he accomplished before the Confederacy. They're honoring him because of the Confederacy.

They aren't building monuments to him because he had a really great career in the Mexican-American war.

If, when Virginia seceded, Lee had resigned his commission, and sat out the war, no one would know his name, today.

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Please, explain to me the important role the Confederacy played in the history of America. (Well, other than the "attempted to destroy the nation, to protect slavery" part.)

Cornwallis was defeated in the south at yorktown virginia, and in the leadership of the revolutionary army was General Washington who was a house hold name around the world before the US Revolution. Hell without the south you never would have even had a sucessful revolution...

How many of the first ten presidents were from the south? 8 of them?

I'm not saying the north was not equally important. I'm saying the south was an equal partner in the early country just as they are today.

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I don't disagree with a single thing you've said, there.

However, I will still assert: The people honoring him, aren't honoring him because of everything he accomplished before the Confederacy. They're honoring him because of the Confederacy.

They aren't building monuments to him because he had a really great career in the Mexican-American war.

If, when Virginia seceded, Lee had resigned his commission, and sat out the war, no one would know his name, today.

We in the south don't honor Lee because he killed northern soldiers. We absolutely honor him because he sacrificed so much for his cause. For our cause. We may not even honor that cause today.. I don't. But I still honor the man, his sacrifice, and his decision.

I do not agree that Lee fought to perserve slavery. While I do acknowledge that was the underlying reason for the war. To me 3 of the 4 greatest generals of the confederacy opennly opposed slavery. Lee, Longstreet, and Stonewall Jackson. Yet all considered themselves sons of their state first in the face of a conflict and gave up everything to uphold what they considered their duty.

---------- Post added April-27th-2011 at 06:42 PM ----------

The Founding Fathers punted on the issue of slavery. They essentially said we won't even discuss it for 20 years. That was the compromise they made to keep the fragile coalition of states together.

exactly right... it was the great issue they left to the next generation to solve.

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As for slavery being the underpinning reason to the war. I believe the original op ed writer is just as wrong about that as he is about Lee.

And you would be 100%, completely, wrong.

The southern legislators who voted to secede from the Union, the people who started the war, specified, in writing, the reasons why they were doing it. And that reason was slavery, and no other.

(Well, OK. Texas said that their reason for seceding was "slavery, slavery, slavery, Mexicans and Indians, slavery, slavery, and slavery".)

Now, no, that doesn't mean that there was not a single person in the entire Confederacy who joined because his father wanted him to, or because he thought it would impress a girl, or because the pay was better, or any one of a hundred other reasons.

But those people didn't decide to start the war, either. The legislators who voted to secede did. And they put down their reasons, in writing.

I have no doubt that if you surveyed every single American soldier, during WW2, about why they were in the military, that Hitler would not have been the only reason, either.

That doesn't mean that claiming that the war wasn't about Hitler isn't laughably untrue.

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Get off it man. Manassas National Battlefield Park. Gettysburg National Military Park. Antietam National Battlefield. Stonewall Jackson's Birthplace. The Lee House at Arlington. These are all US National Park Service managed sites. Why is that? Because the Civil War is part of this countries history. You can't gloss over it. You can't ignore it. You can't pretend it never happened. Right or wrong, it galvanized the country. We survived, and are better off for it.

You castigate a group of people for holding their view, a contrary view to yours. At the same time, you do exactly what you dismiss them for doing. You think you are right in every way, and therefore the opposing POV can't possibly be right? Arrogant.

And you are too good of a poster to do that too...

I grew up in Virginia in the 1960s. I visited every one of those places multiple times (except Stonewall Jackson's birthplace). I was taught that Robert E. Lee was as close to a perfect being as this planet has produced since 33 A.D. Seriously, if you asked my elementary school classmates who the two greatest Americans of all time were, 90 percent of them would answer: Thomas Jefferson and Robert E Lee.

I was taught about the Lost Cause and I was taught that slavery was not the "real" reason for the "War Between the States." It was "states rights" and economic oppression by the North, and it was all a big musunderstanding anyway. It seemed like everything around me was named after Jeb Stuart and Stonewall Jackson and so on. I owned a Confederate Battle Flag and hung it in the back windshield of my Ford. I know exactly what I was taught in school, and how I thought about the Confederacy back then, and how everyone I knew thought the same things, and what rationalizations I made in order to feel comfortable with my heritage as a Virginian.

I know our history, MY history. I am not objecting to knowing our history. I am not suggesting that we pretend it never happened.

I am saying that the real pretending that goes on is by those who romanticize the Confederacy, and those who deify people who were major players on the wrong side of the greatest conflict in our history. I have nothing against Robert E Lee, and if you MUST name all your stuff after anyone in the Confederacy, he is probably the best choice you have. But I also believe that Lost Cause mythology is harmful to this nation, and glorifying the "gallant, noble Southern Aristocracy who only fought to protect their sacred honor" has done this country a world of harm for the past 150 years.

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Right, but the southern states still had that same identity pre-Confederacy. That's like saying that the US didn't exist in any capacity until it won the revolution. Only a semantic point.

The Confederacy contributed exactly zero to the Union, before it existed.

The Southern States did. But that's not a reason to build monuments to the Confederacy.

---------- Post added April-27th-2011 at 06:48 PM ----------

How many of the first ten presidents were from the south? 8 of them?

The statement wasn't "the south". It was "the Confederacy".

It's kind of important.

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Lee was extrodinary because he was a man who obtained great respect thoughout his life in his chosen career, and worked very hard, honorable and intelligently at that goal. Then threw it all away on a lost cause that he knew was a lost cause simple because he believed it was the honorable thing to do. Which amonst us could, would do the same given what he had to loose?

This is exactly the sort of romanticism I am talking about.

Lee fought for Honor in a doomed lost cause - Grant fought for whiskey and to Drive Old Dixie Down.

---------- Post added April-27th-2011 at 03:51 PM ----------

I don't disagree with a single thing you've said, there.

However, I will still assert: The people honoring him, aren't honoring him because of everything he accomplished before the Confederacy. They're honoring him because of the Confederacy.

They aren't building monuments to him because he had a really great career in the Mexican-American war.

If, when Virginia seceded, Lee had resigned his commission, and sat out the war, no one would know his name, today.

Ding Ding Ding!

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The Founding Fathers punted on the issue of slavery. They essentially said we won't even discuss it for 20 years. That was the compromise they made to keep the fragile coalition of states together.

Actually, I wouldn't say they punted. They explicitly authorized it. And even specified that all states would honor it.

Something which several states were regeging on, prior to the Civil War. I wasn't aware of this until recently, but IMO, the southern states had some legitimate Constitutional beefs, when they seceded. (I think they were morally wrong. But they had some valid Constitutional arguments.)

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We in the south don't honor Lee because he killed northern soldiers. We absolutely honor him because he sacrificed so much for his cause. For our cause. We may not even honor that cause today.. I don't. But I still honor the man, his sacrifice, and his decision.

I do not agree that Lee fought to perserve slavery. While I do acknowledge that was the underlying reason for the war. To me 3 of the 4 greatest generals of the confederacy opennly opposed slavery. Lee, Longstreet, and Stonewall Jackson. Yet all considered themselves sons of their state first in the face of a conflict and gave up everything to uphold what they considered their duty.

.

Ahh, that sacred Honor. Such great men, these Rebels. We shall not see their likes again.

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Get off it man. Manassas National Battlefield Park. Gettysburg National Military Park. Antietam National Battlefield. Stonewall Jackson's Birthplace. The Lee House at Arlington. These are all US National Park Service managed sites. Why is that? Because the Civil War is part of this countries history. You can't gloss over it. You can't ignore it. You can't pretend it never happened. Right or wrong, it galvanized the country. We survived, and are better off for it.

Wow. What a stirring speech.

I suggest you go post in in the thread where people are trying to claim that the Civil War never happened.

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You know if the founding fathers hadn't also been anarchist and faught against the Government we wouldn't ever speak about the Civil War because it never would have happened.

It's all George Washington's fault, blame that dirty stinking rebel!!!

;)

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As for slavery being the underpinning reason to the war. I believe the original op ed writer is just as wrong about that as he is about Lee.
I do not agree that Lee fought to perserve slavery. While I do acknowledge that was the underlying reason for the war.

Uhhh? Contradiction?

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You know if the founding fathers hadn't also been anarchist and faught against the Government we wouldn't ever speak about the Civil War because it never would have happened.

It's all George Washington's fault, blame that dirty stinking rebel!!!

;)

I graduated High School in 76. The Bicentennial. One of the things about that year was that some TV network started running a PSA every evening, sometime during their show, called "The Bicentennial Minute", where some celebrity would read some news story about what things were like, 200 years ago.

One morning, during our morning announcements, the student who read the announcements announced a Bicentennial Minute, and observed that "Remember: If it weren't for the American Revolution, we might all be speaking English, today."

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