Let's talk morality for a minute, since all this talk on Southern Leaders and the removal of statues and monuments, due to slavery.

How "moral" are you and how much do you really know about or think about "morality?" While I agree that "slavery" is not good, we are all frankly slave owners today - it's just less direct. Do you have expensive clothing? An Iphone? Eat imported fruits. Probably made/picked/shipped by economic slave labor in a 3rd world nation where the employees are struggling for survival. Do you buy foreign oil or gasoline, which lines the pockets of nations that support human rights violations and/or terrorism?

What is "morality" and are you a "moral" person? And to what length are YOU personally willing to correct the past?

If you live in America, you live on stolen land from an oppressed and murdered people (Native Americans). So if you want to discuss "morality" this is going to get very slippery because we are all in some way oppressing someone else by our mere existence and consumerism. EVERY American has blood on our hands if you live here on stolen land, consume goods made by poor economic slaves, consume oil based products from nations that condone human rights violations, etc.

If YOU want to be a "moral" person, then give all your belongings and land to the Native American tribes who were here first, and pack up and move to wherever your ancestors came from, and live a life of total poverty that does not "oppress" anyone.

So, let's just understand that we are all imperfect, and move forward without tearing down our nation.

It's totally unfair to judge the actions of men who lived decades or hundreds of years ago. Men had flaws, like you and I today, and made the best decisions they could for their era (a very different era).

Let's not forget:
* MLK was against gay rights, and gay marriage, so is NOW on the wrong side of history. Shall we tear him down for it?
* George Washington, the best POTUS we ever had, was a slave owner. Shall we destroy his legacy and tear him down centuries later?
* Our forefathers who signed our Constitution had flaws, were slave owners, and the Constitution wasn't perfect (referencing rights of blacks). Shall we tear it up and burn it?
* History is filled with great, important men, who had personality flaws and failures and made mistakes.

Destroying these men decades or centuries later is FAR more ruinous to our nation than leaving it alone.

The challenge with discussing morality is that people rarely agree upon the standard. That's not to say it isn't worth discussing, but I've found that it rarely goes anywhere except a fight. But I agree with you that none of us are perfect, and we ought to remember that before passing judgment. Hopefully we can all agree on that much.

I've found that the best solution is to hate everyone equally.

I don't accept the premise of your argument. Whether it's fair to judge past people is irrelevant, it's human nature. These people knew they would be judged by history. Everyone is eventually.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
"George Santayana"

Good, bad or indifferent, history is key to the advancement of any culture.

Thing is how many people were against owning slaves in the 1700's? It was the norm, no one judged you back then for owning slaves. It's like me judging you for what your first car was.

Why is everyone so silent when it comes to Japanese internment camps? Why werent germans rounded up? Ask any of these activists and you hear crickets

I care far less about judging those dead and gone than I do about trying to do what is right and correct with what we know now.
Learning from history doesn't mean the same thing as


I agree with the spirit of this. I might be wrong, but to me the spirit of it is that it is pointless to judge the past. We should LEARN from it. The past happened. Bad stuff happens in all cultures and all societies.

I do NOT agree with the mobs that tear down statues, but they think that they are right or they wouldn't do it. They apparently think that by destroying monuments that glorify or memorialize a hated culture that they will somehow help make the present better. Maybe?
Or a bunch of them are just hooligans looking for some passionate vandalism. Public statues belong to we the people. We either accept it or we police it.
I vote for policing it... If it takes armed mobs of citizens to oppose the armed mobs of historical revisionists, then I will be up fishing. It does not quite rise to armed mob on mob action to me YET.

How do you determine what lesson to take from the past? Judging the impact of an action is often something that can only be done from some point in the future. Was it good, or was it bad? The action taken is judged good or bad, and only then can we learn the appropriate lesson.
That's my opinion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internmen ... _Americans
https://www.archives.gov/research/immig ... rview.html
http://encyclopedia.densho.org/German_a ... detainees/

There is still a lot of WTF!? commentary going on about the horrific violation of human rights (the internment camps).
.Gov and many of the people were so afraid of saboteurs that they were willing to force good people who looked different or had a funny name to live behind wires... for years.
Hopefully we learned from that. I'm not sure though.

That is what society and culture does, in addition to our own innate sense of right and wrong I think.
If you or I were raised from infancy in a Georgia plantation with slaves, we would likely be appalled at the barbaric idea of freeing slaves.
You may be keying on my agreement about the spirit of what LC is saying. Of course we "judge"... But with judgement (judgment for MadPick) do we pass sentence? History already is... Facts.
We learn from history, not pass judgement upon it as some black-robed-white-wigged Honorable Judge.
Are we hanging up on the shoal of word choices as the tide comes in?

Personally, I LEARN from history, I don't Judge it. Just word choices, I think. It is my opinion that we as a society should do the same. I am one old man among 300 million of us.

Haha, maybe so.

But you currently perpetuate oppression by living on stolen land and using products which oppress others. Are you willing to correct this current injustice?

Maybe, just maybe, if we could start living today and into the future, without holding the past as our current faults and practice. Just maybe if we start acting like respectable people that respect others views, we could move on with life.

Tearing down history(statues/plaques etc) is racist and bigotry in it's finest in my opinion. Granted, there are probably a couple, or more, that doesn't quite fit for historical purpose, but to teardown our written an paved past for faults years an years an years ago.....
Tearing down a statue because it invites violence an gives bad people a reason, won't change a bad person, taint happening. All it does generate animosity and resentment for the bad people.

But, if you're going after one or more statues, tear every damn one of them down. Rename all dedicated schools, roads, parks and stadiums into some generic non gender descriptive name and while we're at it, destroy and rewrite history books. Hmmmm, sounds vaguely familiar, just can't remember what it was....

Years ago me an the wife were, still are, good friends with a family that some would say of color. They moved a few years ago back east to be with family.
She would make sun tea the way her grandmother an mom taught her, hung by a rope off the porch. They called it kkk tea an giggled an laughed at me because I was uncomfortable to say what she called it, I called it sun tea instead of what they called it.
Their relatives were slaves. Their heritage was slavery, but it didn't define them today, BUT they never forgot were they came from and their history. Both of them were damn proud of their history, an rightfully so.
She openly talked about the struggles told to her by her grandparents of her great-grandparents. She/they, weren't in any way in belief that color separated us, it was in the past and there are bad people of every color. Just don't associate with bad people and I doesn't matter what color or beliefs you have.
We did a lot together, they are good people.
Still chat on occasion, though probably not enough. Hopefully we'll take them up to house us for a few days so the wives can relax on the beach while Mr fancy pants accountant an I have some sun tea an talk about all the idiots destroying our past.

I don't care what you are, what your past is or what you believe in, if you are a bad person I just won't associate with you. Makes life so much easier.

Lawyer starts thread about morality. Lol.

I don't accept your premise, so your question is invalid. Besides, I'm part native American. Get off my lawn!!!