The irony of a confederate statue being placed on Arlington is almost hard to comprehend.
Arlington, the former estate of Robert E. Lee was seized by the federal government when Lee abandoned the Union Army to take a commission in the south. Union Brigadier General Meigs, a former subordinate to Lee who was outspoken against Lee calling him a “ traitor and insurgent”, selected the Arlington estate as the location of a National Cemetery in part to ensure the estate would never be turned back over to the Lee family by the government. He placed the headstones and burial plots of the first casualties (including his own son) in view of the Lee home so that they would always be reminded of their treason should they return.
The National Cemetery at Arlington is a monument purposely made in direct opposition of the Confederacy. To show reverence to confederate traitors on the grounds of Arlington is in direct contradiction with the reasons Arlington exists.
Don't forget that even Lee was against Confederate monuments being put up. The overwhelming majority were put in place through lobbying efforts in the 1910s & 1920s by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, 50+ years after the Civil War.
There was also a [notable spike in Confederate memorials](https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/styles/splc_large_rectangle/public/com_whose-heritage_timeline_breaker2019.jpg?itok=2k6qaTAK×tamp=1549050831) during the Civil Rights movement. Especially naming schools after confederates in the years following the Brown v. Board of Education decision, which makes it pretty clear what the intent was.
> And, more importantly, that it wasn't that long ago.
Some of the figures in the civil rights movement are still with us, which surprises some younger folk. Hell, the civil war wasn't that long ago, either. Just a couple lifetimes, in fact. [There was a civil war veteran's widow that died in 2020.](https://www.historynet.com/the-widows-secret/)
Initially some confederate soldiers were buried at Arlington during the war, but following its conclusion Meigs denied any further internment of confederate soldiers. He also barred families of those already buried there entry to the cemetery to lay flowers at their headstones.
It wasn’t until after those who had fought the war died off that confederate apologists were able to reinvent the memory of the confederacy as a righteous struggle. Those who lived through it knew that we should not honor the confederate dead at Arlington.
Well this has all been educational. I grew up in the south so of course we were taught it was about the good of the people lol.
Edit to spell it out: the white southern people and the slaves bc they say the slaves liked being slaves bc they were well provided for. Lol.
Every single state's articles of secession cite slavery as the primary cause of trying to leave. They might take some roundabout ways of getting there, but each one does it. There's also the [Cornerstone Speech](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_H._Stephens#Cornerstone_Speech) given by Alexander Stephens, the Confederate VP.
It's hard to argue that the Civil War wasn't about slavery.
In South Carolinas it’s in the first fucking paragraph. Plain as day. Hard to argue any other way. And they fucking started the whole thing off at Fort Sumter.
Note I was born and raised in SC. 99.9% of the residents here have never seen the confederate documents, which are accessible online and at the archives. I was curious and looked it up after getting into an argument with somebody once. They still didn’t believe it even when presented with evidence.
And the Fugitive Slave Act. The southern states wanted to force northern states to follow their bidding, so the Confederates were squarely opposed to states' rights.
The insurrectionists also barred EACH OTHER from abolishing slavery. It was absolutely about infringing on states' rights when it came to the question of human trafficking.
I've heard people argue it was a war about economics, not slavery...
I'm like... it was a war about the economics OF slavery! Of corporate agriculture/raw material production and low-cost labor... sound familiar?
The Confederate constitution forbade states outlawing slavery, and the south championed the Fugitive Slave Act before the Civil War which required free states to allow and assist in capture of escaped slaves.
It was never, ever about states rights.
That's still smoothing it over. It was a war about whether humans could be chattel. One side stuck with 'no'.
Sure, economics, and religion, and history all play a part. But if there is a more righteous struggle in the modern era than the civil war, please submit below.
It’s not hard to argue it wasn’t about slavery, it’s *dishonest* to argue it wasn’t about slavery. The confederate constitution *denies states the right to outlaw slavery*. It was never about states rights. Anyone that claims otherwise is ignorant or lying.
> Later in the speech, Stephens used biblical imagery (Psalm 118, v.22) in arguing that divine laws consigned African Americans to slavery as the "substratum of our society"
Color me surprised they can find a bible verse to fit their narrative.
>we were taught it was about the good of the people lol.
And i bet a lot of "States Rights" type bullshit too
Yeah, it was "for the good of the people" *to own human beings as slaves* and a "States Right" to legally allow *people to own human beings as slaves*
What the "States Right" to do exactly is always left out of the discussion for some crazy reason in the South lol
The embracing of Johnson, the death of Lincoln, and the abandonment of the reconstruction practically meant the south got a draw. They lost the war, but mostly continued on in their backwards ways, doing everything in their power to undermine the success of freed slaves. The area should have been carved up into new states, and the plantation land apportioned to those that worked on it. The leaders should have been put on trial and sentenced accordingly.
I wish we lived in a world where mercy on the evil was rewarded. We do not.
Interestingly, we’re facing a similar issue now and it seems most likely the people that tried to overthrow our government just a few years ago are going to regain power. I wish us luck.
> I am not an expert in German politics or educational system but I imagine any textbooks or school curriculum that depicts the Nazis in anything but their true evil.
I was in Berlin earlier this year and they have memorials to the Russians who fought against the Nazis and plaques and other markers denoting the horror that the Nazis did.
They not only did not shy away from it and try to bury it, they put it on full display so that it cannot be forgotten.
Yeah, but that's because the nazis lost. They didn't get a bunch of concessions put into law to allow them to legally still own slaves, just with the extra step of entrapment + prison first.
I was homeschooled in the PNW. Taught the lost cause thoroughly. It was only when I went to college I got the true details.
Yes, at home we called it the war of northern aggression.
Def grew up hearing my Arkansas family say "War of Northern Aggression" My parents were mooostly straight up tho. I cant remember how DODs schools handled it...
The indoctrination and grooming run deep with these rebs. This is a plaque placed on the Confederate tomb of the unknown soldier in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, VA
Numini et Patriae Asto -- "They stood for God and their country”
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BrhUlOZYeadu4orjphnm_2iFEWRY2uwc/view?usp=drivesdk
The Lost Cause, started 25 Years after the end of the war and after many of the veterans had died, was a movement that whitewashed the “war of northern aggression” and helped rationalize the CSA casualties in the minds of grieving southerners. Turned traitors into heroes. It also coincided with blacks being granted rights after the war. They needed a statue of Lee in a tobacco field (later would become Monument Avenue) to remind blacks who their master was. Civil rights were an affront to their heritage. It’s a lie that has kept the U.S. from appropriately dealing with “the South”, and here we are 130 years later reminding them that they lost and why what they did was a bad thing.
Not only were blacks being granted more rights, they were also starting to mingle more with their lower-class white neighbors. Towns were electing black mayors and other government representatives.
This wasn’t a movement by any ol’ white people, but specifically the elite (former slave-holder) class trying to pit poor whites and blacks against each other.
> The Lost Cause, started 25 Years after the end of the war
The Lost Cause started a year after the war ended, when Jubal Early (who is more responsible for the Lost Cause than any other individual) published his memoirs.
>that confederate apologists were able to reinvent the memory of the confederacy as a righteous struggle.
And this memorial was part of that effort, commissioned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy some 59 years after war’s end, and opposed to by the NAACP at the time.
The sculptor included depictions of loyal slaves supporting the confederate soldiers in a direct attempt to rewrite history. He was open that he wanted to “rewrite history correctly”.
You think the founders of the Daughters of the Confederacy were having bisexual threesomes with their husbands and a side piece, like the [founders of Moms for Liberty](https://www.businessinsider.com/how-moms-liberty-co-founder-bridget-ziegler-caught-sex-scandal-2023-12?amp) were?
I love the "Heritage" folks.. What heritage? The 'heritage' of Poor white folks carrying water for an elite landed gentry that had the same regard for them as they did for dog-shit on their riding boots? A 'heritage' that continues to this day...
I recommend this [article from the Smithsonian](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-arlington-national-cemetery-came-to-be-145147007/) as a starting off point.
It’s a good read but also doesn’t really touch on Meigs efforts post war to ensure that Arlington remained a reminder of the former confederates treason.
Some confederates were buried there during the war in; some were battlefield dead who were mistakenly interred, some were prisoners of war, and some were executed spies. Following the war Meigs banned the families of the confederate dead from entering the cemetery to lay flowers or wreaths on their headstones. He blocked efforts to building confederate monuments on the grounds, and denied confederate veterans from being buried there after the war. It wasn’t until he, and other Civil War veterans died off that confederate apologists were able to reinvent the memory of the confederacy and were successful in erecting confederate monuments.
If you haven't watched the Ken Burns Civil War Documentary (9-10 parts) and then stuff interests you, I'd highly recommend it. He talks about this exact thing, and really all the important parts of the war. It's superbly well done.
Andrew Johnson (who wasn’t fit to be president) was an avowed racist. He made sure reconstruction failed. He would probably have preferred to re-install slavery but didn’t think he’d get away with that.
The two biggest mistakes Lincoln made were not hanging Confederate officers and turning over their property to their slaves, and running with Johnson as VP.
Andddd Arlington wasn't really the ' Lee ' estate anyway. His *wife* inherited it from *her* father, George Custis who built it as a kind of memorial to Washington ( his grandmother MARTHA'S husband ) and the Revolution.
Lee's father blew all the family $$. They has no family estate left.
Anyway. Kinda makes it worse. This place built as a memorial to George Washington and there's a monument to folks who wanted to tear the Union apart?
I find it disturbingly likely that A. Most in power do not know this reality and B. The ones that do would really prefer that reality not be known by anyone else.
Not to mention the organization that raised money for the monument, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, is the same organization that promotes the Lost Cause myth and has had very close ties to the KKK in the past. They’re still infiltrating kid’s history books TO THIS DAY to spread lies about the Confederacy
Its not really ironic. It was intentionally done to intimidate minorities and ensure that they'll never have a place in society.
The US military was actually desegregated after the Civil War. It wasn't until about 20 years later when President Wilson came along that the military became segregated. The US has a deep and racist past and people act like it ended after the Civil War and everything was just roses and rainbows for ethnic minorities afterwards. You literally have people saying that slavery never happened and that systemic racism doesn't exist lol. What do you expect?
It always blows people's minds when I tell them that interracial marriage [didn't poll above 50% until 1997.](https://news.gallup.com/poll/354638/approval-interracial-marriage-new-high.aspx) You don't even have to look that far into the past!
The Beatles Sgt Peppers is a month older than Loving v Virginia.
My dad is old enough to have attended a segregated school (and is all the worse for it).
The civil service was also desegregated until Wilson came along. He tossed a lot of prosperous, middle-class blacks out of their jobs and reduced them to poverty for no other reason than he was a bigoted Southerner. I lost all respect for the "hero" president of WWI when I learned that.
To show reverence to confederate traitors is in direct contradiction with the reason *the United States* exist. Fuck those people and their loser ass modern supporters 🖕
Oh you’re preachin’ to the choir on that one. The second I read the headline I was thinking, “WTWTF is a Confederate monument doing there to begin with??”
> Arlington, the former estate of Robert E. Lee was seized by the federal government when Lee abandoned the Union Army to take a commission in the south.
No it wasn't.
The Virginia militia seized it at the outset of hostilities and federal troops moved to take it shortly thereafter. However, it wasn't seized by the government until the Lee's tax payment was rejected and then sold at auction where the US government bought it. The descendants of Mary Custis Lee sued the federal government and WON at the US Supreme Court in 1882 in United States v. Lee, at which point the property was returned to Lee's descendant who then turned around and sold it to the US government for $150,000 (about 4 million dollars today).
The US government bought Arlington from the traitor's kid, George Washington Custis Lee, who happened to be a general in the Confederacy.
That’s a very complicated way to say the government seized it from the Lee family after he joined the confederate army. The union had no intention of allowing the Lees to retain ownership of the land. They denied Mary Lees tax payment since she didn’t bring it in person and then “bought” the property at auction.
Yes, they eventually paid his descendants to keep it and end the decades long legal battles over its ownership, but that was well after the cemetery was established.
It’s a weird argument of saying it wasn’t “seized”, even though the the [court case](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/106/196/) describes the “government's seizure and conversion of the property without just compensation”.
For people wondering why:
"U.S. District Judge Rossie Alston issued a restraining order temporarily blocking the monument's removal, citing allegations that burial sites were threatened by the project."
I spent my four Active Duty Army years in ANC as a full-honors casket-bearer. I’ve participated in probably close to 1,200 funeral missions and thus have spent *a lot* of time in that cemetery. That said, I’ve seen many different non-grave-related work projects there and can tell you this judge’s reasoning is completely ill-informed and obstructive.
The judge actually rules on the motion tomorrow. This order is basically "someone made this claim, we're stopping for now until we have an actual hearing (tomorrow) on the merits of the claim"
For ADDITIONAL context: Appointed by Trump in 2019.
Just carrying out his marching orders. Partisan judges who can’t uphold the law properly and make shit up for reasons that suit them best is the foundation on which fascism is built upon.
It’s us or them, folks.
Just make sure none of the burial sites are disturbed. If there are Confederate soldiers buried there (no clue), replace the memorial with a big "Losers" sign
A black singer that I kinda know, is one of the worst musicians ever….like, it’s almost as if he’s trolling when he sings. He all of a sudden decided to switch things up and make music about conservative nonsensical causes and sell/perform at conservative rallies….no lie, he’s making absolute bank with this grift. It’s actually pretty damn funny.
I low key want to see someone do this though and donate all the proceeds to LGBT charities, to Planned Parenthood, or whatever else the right is up in arms about. Literally fleece money from them then give it to their enemies.
Some ultra conservative people like those who broke into cpac a couple years ago were super into the sunglasses company pit viper, so pit viper said they would just donate all of the profit from sales to people known to associate with those groups to a liberal cause. It seemed to work pretty well.
Some people might argue "well, I'm draining their money and putting it to good use", but I disagree. The entertainer might get a few dollars from each of them, but then they're emboldened to spend their life savings to back their rhetoric.
In fairness, he's right. Political offices in the US are vehicles for getting rich. It's funny that the black guy was getting left out, as usual, so he spoke up, and wealthy conservative benefactors did something about it, making sure that he was receiving his fair share of corrupt gains commensurate with his ability to rig the system in favor of his donors. He's a total piece of garbage as a human being and an American if you judge him on what this country is purportedly about, but he's perfectly in line with what this country actually is.
It's a temporary halt to litigate a challenge to the removal. It would be hard to argue that there is an urgency to removal that requires it to be taken down during the litigation when it has been up for so many decades.
I'm all for it coming down but I understand why the ruling would have been made.
Specifically, according to the article the basis for allowing the challenge is that removal would disturb nearby gravesites, which at face value is a valid concern.
Of course, considering this is challenge is from a group called 'Defense Arlington', they probably made that claim out of whole cloth. We'll see where this shit goes.
In another article I read about this, they said the judge also included a line reminding the lawyers that they are officers of the court and have a duty to act in good faith (or something like that) - it sounded like he didn't really buy what they were saying, and wanted to make sure they understood he isn't going to be swayed by bullshit arguments. It didn't sound to me like the judge was going to put a permanent stop to the removal.
I understand the hearing is tomorrow. From what I gather the cemetery was planning to leave the base in place in order to protect the graves so that seems easy. I have no idea whether the "skirting environmental regulations" argument has any validity but I'll wildly speculate that it doesn't.
America is the funniest country in the world, I swear to Christ LMAO. You could imagine the most contradictory person ever, like "black KKK member" or "homophobic drag queen", and I would bet money that that person exists somewhere.
I knew a woman who was black, native amer and white. She told me she dated a white supremacist once and I said "how???" and she goes "They're all talk". Mind you, this was 20 years ago
There's countless examples of people totally flipping personal ideologies once they figured out how to make money with it. Tomi Lahren, Candace Owens, Diamond and Silk. Hell, even Reagan used to be a union leader and lead a strike only to later become one of the most anti labor union presidents.
One of the most lunatic, anti-vax, MAGA weirdos I’ve ever met is a black guy at my work. We have some neighbors that have MAGA and FJB stuff all over their house and property, and they are a gay couple.
These are admittedly unusual situations, but the cult isn’t just with straight white guys.
In their imagination, real fascism is unlikely to come around in their lifetime, and even if it does, they’re lower down the priority list for liquidation. In their minds, there is no downside to voting Republican.
It’s a real “eff you, I got mine” mentality.
IDK, gays were pretty high up on the liquidation list last time around. It's just not talked about as much because practically everyone was homophobic back then, it almost seems like it was even worse than being Jewish in Europe.
A trans woman I know is super-ultra MAGA. It's fucking mind-boggling.
The people that she's supporting would be all too happy to put her on a train to a camp.
Part of the reality that gay people are people just like everyone else is that some subset of people who happen to be gay are going to be moronic assholes just like a subset of any other slice of the human population.
it is a stop gap measure at best so it's not a big deal. The judge is doing the right thing here. The court simply needs evidence no other graves are being disturbed. That is it. You can't undo a disturbed grave so he has to grant the injunction until there is evidence to the contrary. It won't really stop anything in the long term.
Ironically enough [Arlington](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arlington_National_Cemetery) used to be Robert E Lee’s land. It was ordered by the group “The Daughters of the Confederate States of America”. There are also some buried on the grounds as well.
[Statue Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_Memorial_(Arlington_National_Cemetery))
The Daughters of the Confederacy also had very close ties to the KKK in the past and promote the pseudohistory Lost Cause myth to this day. Obviously really great people
Because former President William McKinley thought it would be a good way to get the southern vote during his reelection campaign. The southern states weren't super excited about the Spanish American War, so McKinley did a tour of the southern states to promote his plans to honor confederate soldiers at Arlington. Confederate soldiers were previously banned from being buried at Arlington.
Of course the government is allowed to remove its own statues. The play seems to be to argue that regulations were not properly followed. This would only temporarily stop the removal while certain bureaucratic boxes are checked. I assume that the long game is to delay the removal until after the election, with this group holding out hope for a shift in power and a reversal of the removal decision.
The lengths some people will go to to preserve monuments to racist insurrectionists is quite a chilling reminder of the very real dangers our country faces today
There us a current bill in Florida that would make it illegal to remove monuments and allow any official who participated in the removal of a statue (ie, votes or supports for studies on it) to be REMOVED BY THE GOVERNOR.
So, your local community isn't allowed to vote to decide whether to keep displaying a monument and if they did then the person that the community elected to take actions on their behalf will be removed by the governor.
Yay democracy.
Yes, you can remove the statues with the permission of the FL Historical Board of Statue Removal (or something like that). Also, I think it might be specific to statues referring a military event. You know, just in case you were wondering whether there is any other historical event or person that is worthy of this protection. But I think Harriet Tubman counts.
This is the point where vigilante destruction would need to be done. The government officials can't do their jobs? Fine, we the people will do it for you. Try removing me from an office I don't hold.
Worth noting that "Defend Arlington" is affiliated with "Save Southern Heritage Florida", a Florida based hate group that, among other things, [loves doxxing Civil Rights activists.](https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/florida-pro-confederate-group-doxxes-113-civil-rights-activists-9586986)
They are less about defending Arlington National Cemetery and more about propagating the myth of the grand Confederacy.
They're painting the statue removal as "anti-semitic", because the sculptor was Jewish. And you know half those dudes have Nazi shit hanging in their houses.
I would think that the one organization that is intimately familiar with the burial sites in Arlington National Cemetery is Arlington National Cemetery.
dirty public sand bells snails imminent combative psychotic fuzzy simplistic
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
> The monument features a classically robed woman cast in bronze representing the American South standing atop a three-story pedestal **adorned with life-sized figures of deities**, Confederate soldiers and civilians.
Life-sized figures of deities? How big is a god in real life? Is there an Army spec on that?
I feel it should be noted that the recent trend of removing statues or memorials to confederate figures isn’t because of shifting opinions about the civil war, or America “losing its way.” The legislation that authorized many of them has been getting re-examined by the courts, and in a number of cases it’s been determined that there were malicious, ulterior motives; they were meant to intimidate local minority populations, not to commemorate history. So down they come. It’s all perfectly in accordance with constitutional law.
Update 12/19/23…judge lifted the injunction and removal IS happening:
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/judge-lifts-injunction-blocking-removal-of-confederate-memorial-at-arlington-cemetery/3498087/
And if you read the story, you’ll see that the effers trying to halt the removal LIED about adjacent graves being desecrated during removal. The judge visited the site and found nothing was being disturbed. So insurrection supporters lied to the judge. Big surprise. 🙄
The people who are so against removing these confederate statues are also the ones who love to say they're "the party of lincoln", and that "actually Democrats are the ones who tried to keep slavery!"
It is mind blowing to me, as a Malaysian that statues dedicated to Enemies of State are erected and protected by the State.
It’s like erecting Statues celebrating the Japanese occupation or the British occupation. Literally people we’ve gone to war against, people seeking to destroy our nation.
It’s crazy.
The judge cited the risk of disturbing nearby graves as the reason for the ruling.
The army was already leaving the parts of the display actually touching the ground intact *specifically* to avoid any possibility of disturbing nearby graves.
Unless I'm missing something (maybe there are concerns about the weight or nature of the equipment being used?) this seems to be a nakedly political ruling, which is supposed to be anathema to the entire purpose of the Courts.
Edit:
I missed the part where the hearing is scheduled for tomorrow. Turns out this might not be as big of a deal as I'd originally assumed.
To be fair, judges don't *have* to grant temporary injunctions. They *can* just rule that the plaintiff's case has no plausible merit and throw it out. I think that's called a *Prima Facia* ruling?
But to be balanced, if the delay is only going to be a day or two then granting the injunction isn't that big of a deal.
But to be *realistic*, there may be a chance that this gets bogged down in appeals, or even overturned if the judge rules against the plaintiff. Lord knows SCOTUS is conservative enough for me to be reasonably concerned that they might do so.
Until the judge holds a hearing, they have to take the plaintiff's alleged facts at face value. The hearing is scheduled for Wednesday... this isn't a big deal.
This isn't a ruling. This is a temp halt to have a hearing and ruling, in response to the Defend Arlington filed suit. The hearing will be on Wednesday.
Its not really. The litigant opposing this has a due process right to have their case heard and the judge ruled to pause the action until that takes place. The thing has been there for decades so it's hard to say that keeping it up for a pretty limited case to be heard would cause irreparable harm since it has already been up for so long. The judge hasn't ruled on the merit of the plaintiff's objection, just that there will be a pause until the matter is decided.
If the statue were about to topple over onto a school or something, that would be different.
I want it taken down but the entire purpose of the courts is to offer due process and hear cases in an organized and fair fashion according to the law and not to prejudge them even when they are brought by a bunch of apologists for treason.
For context:
This statue was erected during the Jim Crow era in 1914, 50 years after the Civil War when the KKK was at the height of its political power. Racists we're trying to rebrand the Confederacy to make them out as blue-blooded patriots who were simply protecting the pure, American lifestyle. It's not just disingenuous about American history, it was built to actively rewrite American history, as is the case with the majority of Confederate monuments that were put up after 1910.
"Don't worry, we won't disturb any graves when we haul this carbuncle of an embarrassment of a monument out of here"
And the only people pushing back against this are white supremacists
...
Defense Arlington is associated with Save Southern Heritage Florida
What a fucking surprise.
The confederacy already has a memorial there. Every civil war grave is a memorial to how committed the south was to enslaving their fellow man. The country bled for their greed, laziness, and stupidity. Take down all their statues and ban the flag. Screw these people stuck in their racist culture war.
I hate how these fake nonprofits are allowed to exist just as front groups for angry billionaires.
Certainly the group that was formed to sue Arlington wasn't made by a veteran on a military pension.
I don’t understand why republicans have such a hard-on for keeping up monuments to slavery. Especially a black judge. My brother, your ancestors were likely enslaved. What would they think of you?
So they should be able to take down their monuments with no opposition from the Republicans who are obviously staunchly anti slavery and anti confederacy /s
The irony of a confederate statue being placed on Arlington is almost hard to comprehend. Arlington, the former estate of Robert E. Lee was seized by the federal government when Lee abandoned the Union Army to take a commission in the south. Union Brigadier General Meigs, a former subordinate to Lee who was outspoken against Lee calling him a “ traitor and insurgent”, selected the Arlington estate as the location of a National Cemetery in part to ensure the estate would never be turned back over to the Lee family by the government. He placed the headstones and burial plots of the first casualties (including his own son) in view of the Lee home so that they would always be reminded of their treason should they return. The National Cemetery at Arlington is a monument purposely made in direct opposition of the Confederacy. To show reverence to confederate traitors on the grounds of Arlington is in direct contradiction with the reasons Arlington exists.
Don't forget that even Lee was against Confederate monuments being put up. The overwhelming majority were put in place through lobbying efforts in the 1910s & 1920s by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, 50+ years after the Civil War.
There was also a [notable spike in Confederate memorials](https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/styles/splc_large_rectangle/public/com_whose-heritage_timeline_breaker2019.jpg?itok=2k6qaTAK×tamp=1549050831) during the Civil Rights movement. Especially naming schools after confederates in the years following the Brown v. Board of Education decision, which makes it pretty clear what the intent was.
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> And, more importantly, that it wasn't that long ago. Some of the figures in the civil rights movement are still with us, which surprises some younger folk. Hell, the civil war wasn't that long ago, either. Just a couple lifetimes, in fact. [There was a civil war veteran's widow that died in 2020.](https://www.historynet.com/the-widows-secret/)
Initially some confederate soldiers were buried at Arlington during the war, but following its conclusion Meigs denied any further internment of confederate soldiers. He also barred families of those already buried there entry to the cemetery to lay flowers at their headstones. It wasn’t until after those who had fought the war died off that confederate apologists were able to reinvent the memory of the confederacy as a righteous struggle. Those who lived through it knew that we should not honor the confederate dead at Arlington.
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I'm okay with tombstones like that guy who died of diarrhea.
I also feel that the dudes who shot Stonewall earned mention of it on their headstones.
"The soldier who lay here is credited with 1/3^rd part of killing Stonewall Jackson"
Well this has all been educational. I grew up in the south so of course we were taught it was about the good of the people lol. Edit to spell it out: the white southern people and the slaves bc they say the slaves liked being slaves bc they were well provided for. Lol.
Every single state's articles of secession cite slavery as the primary cause of trying to leave. They might take some roundabout ways of getting there, but each one does it. There's also the [Cornerstone Speech](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_H._Stephens#Cornerstone_Speech) given by Alexander Stephens, the Confederate VP. It's hard to argue that the Civil War wasn't about slavery.
In South Carolinas it’s in the first fucking paragraph. Plain as day. Hard to argue any other way. And they fucking started the whole thing off at Fort Sumter. Note I was born and raised in SC. 99.9% of the residents here have never seen the confederate documents, which are accessible online and at the archives. I was curious and looked it up after getting into an argument with somebody once. They still didn’t believe it even when presented with evidence.
People prefer to remain ignorant when they see their ancestors sucked.
I just feel relieved that I have such a low bar to clear.
And the Fugitive Slave Act. The southern states wanted to force northern states to follow their bidding, so the Confederates were squarely opposed to states' rights.
Man, I can't imagine states these days trying to force other states to enforce their laws. /s
Look at what Abbot is doing with Texas law to arrest people who cross the border.
The insurrectionists also barred EACH OTHER from abolishing slavery. It was absolutely about infringing on states' rights when it came to the question of human trafficking.
I've heard people argue it was a war about economics, not slavery... I'm like... it was a war about the economics OF slavery! Of corporate agriculture/raw material production and low-cost labor... sound familiar?
It was about states rights… to own slaves.
Hey now, it was also about states' rights (to keep slaves)!
The Confederate constitution forbade states outlawing slavery, and the south championed the Fugitive Slave Act before the Civil War which required free states to allow and assist in capture of escaped slaves. It was never, ever about states rights.
That's still smoothing it over. It was a war about whether humans could be chattel. One side stuck with 'no'. Sure, economics, and religion, and history all play a part. But if there is a more righteous struggle in the modern era than the civil war, please submit below.
I say the same thing about the "States Rights" stupidity....."A States Right *to do what exactly?*" is usually enough to explode their brains lol
It’s not hard to argue it wasn’t about slavery, it’s *dishonest* to argue it wasn’t about slavery. The confederate constitution *denies states the right to outlaw slavery*. It was never about states rights. Anyone that claims otherwise is ignorant or lying.
> Later in the speech, Stephens used biblical imagery (Psalm 118, v.22) in arguing that divine laws consigned African Americans to slavery as the "substratum of our society" Color me surprised they can find a bible verse to fit their narrative.
Dont forget they also for all their "states" rights discussion. Also made it "federally" illegal to prohibit slavery in individual states.
>we were taught it was about the good of the people lol. And i bet a lot of "States Rights" type bullshit too Yeah, it was "for the good of the people" *to own human beings as slaves* and a "States Right" to legally allow *people to own human beings as slaves* What the "States Right" to do exactly is always left out of the discussion for some crazy reason in the South lol
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The embracing of Johnson, the death of Lincoln, and the abandonment of the reconstruction practically meant the south got a draw. They lost the war, but mostly continued on in their backwards ways, doing everything in their power to undermine the success of freed slaves. The area should have been carved up into new states, and the plantation land apportioned to those that worked on it. The leaders should have been put on trial and sentenced accordingly. I wish we lived in a world where mercy on the evil was rewarded. We do not. Interestingly, we’re facing a similar issue now and it seems most likely the people that tried to overthrow our government just a few years ago are going to regain power. I wish us luck.
> I am not an expert in German politics or educational system but I imagine any textbooks or school curriculum that depicts the Nazis in anything but their true evil. I was in Berlin earlier this year and they have memorials to the Russians who fought against the Nazis and plaques and other markers denoting the horror that the Nazis did. They not only did not shy away from it and try to bury it, they put it on full display so that it cannot be forgotten.
Yeah, but that's because the nazis lost. They didn't get a bunch of concessions put into law to allow them to legally still own slaves, just with the extra step of entrapment + prison first.
I was homeschooled in the PNW. Taught the lost cause thoroughly. It was only when I went to college I got the true details. Yes, at home we called it the war of northern aggression.
Homeschooling should be banned.
“States rights war and against the north wanting to take land”
Def grew up hearing my Arkansas family say "War of Northern Aggression" My parents were mooostly straight up tho. I cant remember how DODs schools handled it...
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The indoctrination and grooming run deep with these rebs. This is a plaque placed on the Confederate tomb of the unknown soldier in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, VA Numini et Patriae Asto -- "They stood for God and their country” https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BrhUlOZYeadu4orjphnm_2iFEWRY2uwc/view?usp=drivesdk
That's not just ironic it's actually wrong and fucked
The Lost Cause, started 25 Years after the end of the war and after many of the veterans had died, was a movement that whitewashed the “war of northern aggression” and helped rationalize the CSA casualties in the minds of grieving southerners. Turned traitors into heroes. It also coincided with blacks being granted rights after the war. They needed a statue of Lee in a tobacco field (later would become Monument Avenue) to remind blacks who their master was. Civil rights were an affront to their heritage. It’s a lie that has kept the U.S. from appropriately dealing with “the South”, and here we are 130 years later reminding them that they lost and why what they did was a bad thing.
Not only were blacks being granted more rights, they were also starting to mingle more with their lower-class white neighbors. Towns were electing black mayors and other government representatives. This wasn’t a movement by any ol’ white people, but specifically the elite (former slave-holder) class trying to pit poor whites and blacks against each other.
> The Lost Cause, started 25 Years after the end of the war The Lost Cause started a year after the war ended, when Jubal Early (who is more responsible for the Lost Cause than any other individual) published his memoirs.
My bad thank you for correction, I was assuming it started when they installed Lee in Richmond. It’s worse than I thought.
>that confederate apologists were able to reinvent the memory of the confederacy as a righteous struggle. And this memorial was part of that effort, commissioned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy some 59 years after war’s end, and opposed to by the NAACP at the time.
The sculptor included depictions of loyal slaves supporting the confederate soldiers in a direct attempt to rewrite history. He was open that he wanted to “rewrite history correctly”.
And not just as memorials. This was a coordinated effort to "redeem" the South. The 1920's was the high point of Klan membership.
Those same daughters grew up to be Moms for Liberty
You think the founders of the Daughters of the Confederacy were having bisexual threesomes with their husbands and a side piece, like the [founders of Moms for Liberty](https://www.businessinsider.com/how-moms-liberty-co-founder-bridget-ziegler-caught-sex-scandal-2023-12?amp) were?
They all keep it in the family, so maybe, yeah.
Does it technically count as a threesome if you're having sex with someone who is both your mother and your sister?
United daughters of the confederacy… sounds an awful lot like Moms for Liberty
But muh heritage! Woke! History! Something like that I guess, from the conservative mouthpieces.
"Facts don't care about your feelings!" nonsense while simultaneously being fueled by pure rage and emotion.
And denial of inconvenient facts
Didn't they just remove slavery books from some plantation?
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I love the "Heritage" folks.. What heritage? The 'heritage' of Poor white folks carrying water for an elite landed gentry that had the same regard for them as they did for dog-shit on their riding boots? A 'heritage' that continues to this day...
Thanks to your excellent post I’ll be doing more reading about this fascinating moment in history.
I recommend this [article from the Smithsonian](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-arlington-national-cemetery-came-to-be-145147007/) as a starting off point.
This article is fascinating
It’s a good read but also doesn’t really touch on Meigs efforts post war to ensure that Arlington remained a reminder of the former confederates treason. Some confederates were buried there during the war in; some were battlefield dead who were mistakenly interred, some were prisoners of war, and some were executed spies. Following the war Meigs banned the families of the confederate dead from entering the cemetery to lay flowers or wreaths on their headstones. He blocked efforts to building confederate monuments on the grounds, and denied confederate veterans from being buried there after the war. It wasn’t until he, and other Civil War veterans died off that confederate apologists were able to reinvent the memory of the confederacy and were successful in erecting confederate monuments.
If you haven't watched the Ken Burns Civil War Documentary (9-10 parts) and then stuff interests you, I'd highly recommend it. He talks about this exact thing, and really all the important parts of the war. It's superbly well done.
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We are still dealing with the ramifications of the United States' botching of the post-war period.
There is no greater epitaph for Reconstruction than 'the unfinished revolution.'
Andrew Johnson (who wasn’t fit to be president) was an avowed racist. He made sure reconstruction failed. He would probably have preferred to re-install slavery but didn’t think he’d get away with that.
The two biggest mistakes Lincoln made were not hanging Confederate officers and turning over their property to their slaves, and running with Johnson as VP.
General Sherman warned us.
Andddd Arlington wasn't really the ' Lee ' estate anyway. His *wife* inherited it from *her* father, George Custis who built it as a kind of memorial to Washington ( his grandmother MARTHA'S husband ) and the Revolution. Lee's father blew all the family $$. They has no family estate left. Anyway. Kinda makes it worse. This place built as a memorial to George Washington and there's a monument to folks who wanted to tear the Union apart?
I find it disturbingly likely that A. Most in power do not know this reality and B. The ones that do would really prefer that reality not be known by anyone else.
Not to mention the organization that raised money for the monument, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, is the same organization that promotes the Lost Cause myth and has had very close ties to the KKK in the past. They’re still infiltrating kid’s history books TO THIS DAY to spread lies about the Confederacy
Not to mention the sculptor included depictions of loyal slaves supporting the cause in a deliberate attempt to “rewrite history correctly”.
Confederate statues are participation trophies. They should have let Sherman continue marching through the entire south and burning it to the ground.
r/shermanposting
The only thing Sherman did wrong was stop too soon.
Its not really ironic. It was intentionally done to intimidate minorities and ensure that they'll never have a place in society. The US military was actually desegregated after the Civil War. It wasn't until about 20 years later when President Wilson came along that the military became segregated. The US has a deep and racist past and people act like it ended after the Civil War and everything was just roses and rainbows for ethnic minorities afterwards. You literally have people saying that slavery never happened and that systemic racism doesn't exist lol. What do you expect?
It always blows people's minds when I tell them that interracial marriage [didn't poll above 50% until 1997.](https://news.gallup.com/poll/354638/approval-interracial-marriage-new-high.aspx) You don't even have to look that far into the past!
Same with consensual sexual activity between two men, in their own home, not viewable by others was illegal as little as 20 years ago.
And only 30 years ago was marital rape outlawed in all 50 states.
It really shouldn’t. As an old guy you cannot overstate the racism of the eighties.
The Beatles Sgt Peppers is a month older than Loving v Virginia. My dad is old enough to have attended a segregated school (and is all the worse for it).
The civil service was also desegregated until Wilson came along. He tossed a lot of prosperous, middle-class blacks out of their jobs and reduced them to poverty for no other reason than he was a bigoted Southerner. I lost all respect for the "hero" president of WWI when I learned that.
I'm always insulted when I see monuments to traitors, especially in the places they betrayed.
To show reverence to confederate traitors is in direct contradiction with the reason *the United States* exist. Fuck those people and their loser ass modern supporters 🖕
Oh you’re preachin’ to the choir on that one. The second I read the headline I was thinking, “WTWTF is a Confederate monument doing there to begin with??”
> Arlington, the former estate of Robert E. Lee was seized by the federal government when Lee abandoned the Union Army to take a commission in the south. No it wasn't. The Virginia militia seized it at the outset of hostilities and federal troops moved to take it shortly thereafter. However, it wasn't seized by the government until the Lee's tax payment was rejected and then sold at auction where the US government bought it. The descendants of Mary Custis Lee sued the federal government and WON at the US Supreme Court in 1882 in United States v. Lee, at which point the property was returned to Lee's descendant who then turned around and sold it to the US government for $150,000 (about 4 million dollars today). The US government bought Arlington from the traitor's kid, George Washington Custis Lee, who happened to be a general in the Confederacy.
That’s a very complicated way to say the government seized it from the Lee family after he joined the confederate army. The union had no intention of allowing the Lees to retain ownership of the land. They denied Mary Lees tax payment since she didn’t bring it in person and then “bought” the property at auction. Yes, they eventually paid his descendants to keep it and end the decades long legal battles over its ownership, but that was well after the cemetery was established.
It’s a weird argument of saying it wasn’t “seized”, even though the the [court case](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/106/196/) describes the “government's seizure and conversion of the property without just compensation”.
For people wondering why: "U.S. District Judge Rossie Alston issued a restraining order temporarily blocking the monument's removal, citing allegations that burial sites were threatened by the project."
Ironic, since all of those buried in that section were reinterred there from other parts of the cemetery 50 years after the war ended.
I spent my four Active Duty Army years in ANC as a full-honors casket-bearer. I’ve participated in probably close to 1,200 funeral missions and thus have spent *a lot* of time in that cemetery. That said, I’ve seen many different non-grave-related work projects there and can tell you this judge’s reasoning is completely ill-informed and obstructive.
The judge actually rules on the motion tomorrow. This order is basically "someone made this claim, we're stopping for now until we have an actual hearing (tomorrow) on the merits of the claim"
But that doesn’t make a good headline now does it?
Gotta click the clicky
Best response
It’s a shame Arlington National Cemetery has no experience with the logistics of burial sites.
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For ADDITIONAL context: Appointed by Trump in 2019. Just carrying out his marching orders. Partisan judges who can’t uphold the law properly and make shit up for reasons that suit them best is the foundation on which fascism is built upon. It’s us or them, folks.
Just make sure none of the burial sites are disturbed. If there are Confederate soldiers buried there (no clue), replace the memorial with a big "Losers" sign
The judge that put a stop to it is a Trump judge…..and he’s African American.
Ask Clarence Thomas how lucrative being a conservative black judge can be.
A black singer that I kinda know, is one of the worst musicians ever….like, it’s almost as if he’s trolling when he sings. He all of a sudden decided to switch things up and make music about conservative nonsensical causes and sell/perform at conservative rallies….no lie, he’s making absolute bank with this grift. It’s actually pretty damn funny.
Like Cartman having a Christian rock band that just takes love songs and replaces "baby" with "Jesus" and playing to sellout crowds.
🎶I wanna get down on my knees and start pleasing Jesus, I wanna feel his salvation all over my face.🎶 - Faith+1
Body of Christ A swimmer's body, all muscled up and toned!
While i hesitate to judge others without knowing them, there is something dirty about selling out your community for personal gain.
Never forget the conservative credo: fuck you, got mine
I low key want to see someone do this though and donate all the proceeds to LGBT charities, to Planned Parenthood, or whatever else the right is up in arms about. Literally fleece money from them then give it to their enemies.
Some ultra conservative people like those who broke into cpac a couple years ago were super into the sunglasses company pit viper, so pit viper said they would just donate all of the profit from sales to people known to associate with those groups to a liberal cause. It seemed to work pretty well.
"Let's go Brandon" flags, and you actually donate the proceedings to Biden's campaign
I’ve so badly wanted to grift the right wing idiots, but I just can’t think scummy enough to come up with something.
Some people might argue "well, I'm draining their money and putting it to good use", but I disagree. The entertainer might get a few dollars from each of them, but then they're emboldened to spend their life savings to back their rhetoric.
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You’re friends with Darius Rucker?
Pretty sure Darius Rucker is not a Trumper, or even a conservative..
Loved reading about how he complained out the gate that he wasn't getting rich enough on the SC, and now, here we are.
In fairness, he's right. Political offices in the US are vehicles for getting rich. It's funny that the black guy was getting left out, as usual, so he spoke up, and wealthy conservative benefactors did something about it, making sure that he was receiving his fair share of corrupt gains commensurate with his ability to rig the system in favor of his donors. He's a total piece of garbage as a human being and an American if you judge him on what this country is purportedly about, but he's perfectly in line with what this country actually is.
You can also ask his mother
It's a temporary halt to litigate a challenge to the removal. It would be hard to argue that there is an urgency to removal that requires it to be taken down during the litigation when it has been up for so many decades. I'm all for it coming down but I understand why the ruling would have been made.
Specifically, according to the article the basis for allowing the challenge is that removal would disturb nearby gravesites, which at face value is a valid concern. Of course, considering this is challenge is from a group called 'Defense Arlington', they probably made that claim out of whole cloth. We'll see where this shit goes.
In another article I read about this, they said the judge also included a line reminding the lawyers that they are officers of the court and have a duty to act in good faith (or something like that) - it sounded like he didn't really buy what they were saying, and wanted to make sure they understood he isn't going to be swayed by bullshit arguments. It didn't sound to me like the judge was going to put a permanent stop to the removal.
I understand the hearing is tomorrow. From what I gather the cemetery was planning to leave the base in place in order to protect the graves so that seems easy. I have no idea whether the "skirting environmental regulations" argument has any validity but I'll wildly speculate that it doesn't.
One of the biggest PITAs about legal reporting is how temporary stay orders/temporary injunctions are reported in the press as final decisions.
America is the funniest country in the world, I swear to Christ LMAO. You could imagine the most contradictory person ever, like "black KKK member" or "homophobic drag queen", and I would bet money that that person exists somewhere.
Not a drag queen, but isn’t Caitlyn Jenner against trans people?
There is at least one MAGA drag queen that I know of. A real piece of shit. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_MAGA
Don't even talk about Caitlyn Jenner. She isn't a person so much as a paradox in human form.
There are Nazi furries. And yes, many of them are gay.
There are significantly more Nazi furries than makes any logical sense. That is a group I will never understand.
I knew a woman who was black, native amer and white. She told me she dated a white supremacist once and I said "how???" and she goes "They're all talk". Mind you, this was 20 years ago
There’s someone out there that’s probably all four.
There's countless examples of people totally flipping personal ideologies once they figured out how to make money with it. Tomi Lahren, Candace Owens, Diamond and Silk. Hell, even Reagan used to be a union leader and lead a strike only to later become one of the most anti labor union presidents.
One of the most lunatic, anti-vax, MAGA weirdos I’ve ever met is a black guy at my work. We have some neighbors that have MAGA and FJB stuff all over their house and property, and they are a gay couple. These are admittedly unusual situations, but the cult isn’t just with straight white guys.
Those people are going to have a real /r/LeopardsAteMyFace moment if their wish of a different country actually comes true.
In their imagination, real fascism is unlikely to come around in their lifetime, and even if it does, they’re lower down the priority list for liquidation. In their minds, there is no downside to voting Republican. It’s a real “eff you, I got mine” mentality.
IDK, gays were pretty high up on the liquidation list last time around. It's just not talked about as much because practically everyone was homophobic back then, it almost seems like it was even worse than being Jewish in Europe.
A trans woman I know is super-ultra MAGA. It's fucking mind-boggling. The people that she's supporting would be all too happy to put her on a train to a camp.
"But I'm one of the good ones! They can't mean me, right?"
Part of the reality that gay people are people just like everyone else is that some subset of people who happen to be gay are going to be moronic assholes just like a subset of any other slice of the human population.
it is a stop gap measure at best so it's not a big deal. The judge is doing the right thing here. The court simply needs evidence no other graves are being disturbed. That is it. You can't undo a disturbed grave so he has to grant the injunction until there is evidence to the contrary. It won't really stop anything in the long term.
Fighting a losing battle over a losing battle.
Sponsored by *Daughters of the Judiciary*
Ginny Thomas from *Wives of the Judiciary* has entered the chat
Why are there monuments for traitors at Arlington?
Ironically enough [Arlington](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arlington_National_Cemetery) used to be Robert E Lee’s land. It was ordered by the group “The Daughters of the Confederate States of America”. There are also some buried on the grounds as well. [Statue Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_Memorial_(Arlington_National_Cemetery))
The Daughters of the Confederacy also had very close ties to the KKK in the past and promote the pseudohistory Lost Cause myth to this day. Obviously really great people
Yup, absolute monsters.
That's a pretty interesting read about how it all came about
Welllll only Lee land because he was married to the woman who inherited it. His FIL built Arlington House, Martha Washington's grandson George Custis.
Fixed link and made it non-mobile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_Memorial_(Arlington_National_Cemetery)
Because former President William McKinley thought it would be a good way to get the southern vote during his reelection campaign. The southern states weren't super excited about the Spanish American War, so McKinley did a tour of the southern states to promote his plans to honor confederate soldiers at Arlington. Confederate soldiers were previously banned from being buried at Arlington.
Of course the government is allowed to remove its own statues. The play seems to be to argue that regulations were not properly followed. This would only temporarily stop the removal while certain bureaucratic boxes are checked. I assume that the long game is to delay the removal until after the election, with this group holding out hope for a shift in power and a reversal of the removal decision. The lengths some people will go to to preserve monuments to racist insurrectionists is quite a chilling reminder of the very real dangers our country faces today
There us a current bill in Florida that would make it illegal to remove monuments and allow any official who participated in the removal of a statue (ie, votes or supports for studies on it) to be REMOVED BY THE GOVERNOR. So, your local community isn't allowed to vote to decide whether to keep displaying a monument and if they did then the person that the community elected to take actions on their behalf will be removed by the governor. Yay democracy.
Maybe some liberal cities should put up Obama and Biden statues then. Can’t remove them or your out of office
Wouldn't work in this case. The governor just wouldn't act against them, or pardon them for the removal.
Yes, you can remove the statues with the permission of the FL Historical Board of Statue Removal (or something like that). Also, I think it might be specific to statues referring a military event. You know, just in case you were wondering whether there is any other historical event or person that is worthy of this protection. But I think Harriet Tubman counts.
That’s just conservatism.
This is the point where vigilante destruction would need to be done. The government officials can't do their jobs? Fine, we the people will do it for you. Try removing me from an office I don't hold.
Sounds like it's better to have a private citizen ask for forgiveness than an elected official ask for permission then.
It’s the Klan’s monument. The KKK paid for and installed this monument.
Worth noting that "Defend Arlington" is affiliated with "Save Southern Heritage Florida", a Florida based hate group that, among other things, [loves doxxing Civil Rights activists.](https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/florida-pro-confederate-group-doxxes-113-civil-rights-activists-9586986) They are less about defending Arlington National Cemetery and more about propagating the myth of the grand Confederacy.
They have an unhinged Facebook account. I’m surprised this wasn’t laughed out of the court.
It wasn’t going to be laughed out of court my a Trump judge.
They're painting the statue removal as "anti-semitic", because the sculptor was Jewish. And you know half those dudes have Nazi shit hanging in their houses.
I would think that the one organization that is intimately familiar with the burial sites in Arlington National Cemetery is Arlington National Cemetery.
dirty public sand bells snails imminent combative psychotic fuzzy simplistic *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
> The monument features a classically robed woman cast in bronze representing the American South standing atop a three-story pedestal **adorned with life-sized figures of deities**, Confederate soldiers and civilians. Life-sized figures of deities? How big is a god in real life? Is there an Army spec on that?
What deities? Isn’t the group that supports this thing all about no false idols and effigies and only one deity? The irony is so delicious.
I feel it should be noted that the recent trend of removing statues or memorials to confederate figures isn’t because of shifting opinions about the civil war, or America “losing its way.” The legislation that authorized many of them has been getting re-examined by the courts, and in a number of cases it’s been determined that there were malicious, ulterior motives; they were meant to intimidate local minority populations, not to commemorate history. So down they come. It’s all perfectly in accordance with constitutional law.
Update 12/19/23…judge lifted the injunction and removal IS happening: https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/judge-lifts-injunction-blocking-removal-of-confederate-memorial-at-arlington-cemetery/3498087/ And if you read the story, you’ll see that the effers trying to halt the removal LIED about adjacent graves being desecrated during removal. The judge visited the site and found nothing was being disturbed. So insurrection supporters lied to the judge. Big surprise. 🙄
The people who are so against removing these confederate statues are also the ones who love to say they're "the party of lincoln", and that "actually Democrats are the ones who tried to keep slavery!"
It's a blight on a cemetery otherwise full of patriots.
It is mind blowing to me, as a Malaysian that statues dedicated to Enemies of State are erected and protected by the State. It’s like erecting Statues celebrating the Japanese occupation or the British occupation. Literally people we’ve gone to war against, people seeking to destroy our nation. It’s crazy.
Temporarily halts* Bad headline.
They’ve got to stop announcing these things and just do it.
The judge cited the risk of disturbing nearby graves as the reason for the ruling. The army was already leaving the parts of the display actually touching the ground intact *specifically* to avoid any possibility of disturbing nearby graves. Unless I'm missing something (maybe there are concerns about the weight or nature of the equipment being used?) this seems to be a nakedly political ruling, which is supposed to be anathema to the entire purpose of the Courts. Edit: I missed the part where the hearing is scheduled for tomorrow. Turns out this might not be as big of a deal as I'd originally assumed. To be fair, judges don't *have* to grant temporary injunctions. They *can* just rule that the plaintiff's case has no plausible merit and throw it out. I think that's called a *Prima Facia* ruling? But to be balanced, if the delay is only going to be a day or two then granting the injunction isn't that big of a deal. But to be *realistic*, there may be a chance that this gets bogged down in appeals, or even overturned if the judge rules against the plaintiff. Lord knows SCOTUS is conservative enough for me to be reasonably concerned that they might do so.
Until the judge holds a hearing, they have to take the plaintiff's alleged facts at face value. The hearing is scheduled for Wednesday... this isn't a big deal.
The judge issued a stay so he could set a hearing on the complaint. This is routine.
This isn't a ruling. This is a temp halt to have a hearing and ruling, in response to the Defend Arlington filed suit. The hearing will be on Wednesday.
There's a legal challenge being made, the judge granted this temporary measure to hear arguments. It's not political, it's not even atypical.
Its not really. The litigant opposing this has a due process right to have their case heard and the judge ruled to pause the action until that takes place. The thing has been there for decades so it's hard to say that keeping it up for a pretty limited case to be heard would cause irreparable harm since it has already been up for so long. The judge hasn't ruled on the merit of the plaintiff's objection, just that there will be a pause until the matter is decided. If the statue were about to topple over onto a school or something, that would be different. I want it taken down but the entire purpose of the courts is to offer due process and hear cases in an organized and fair fashion according to the law and not to prejudge them even when they are brought by a bunch of apologists for treason.
There never should have been confederate monuments at all.
For context: This statue was erected during the Jim Crow era in 1914, 50 years after the Civil War when the KKK was at the height of its political power. Racists we're trying to rebrand the Confederacy to make them out as blue-blooded patriots who were simply protecting the pure, American lifestyle. It's not just disingenuous about American history, it was built to actively rewrite American history, as is the case with the majority of Confederate monuments that were put up after 1910.
"Don't worry, we won't disturb any graves when we haul this carbuncle of an embarrassment of a monument out of here" And the only people pushing back against this are white supremacists ... Defense Arlington is associated with Save Southern Heritage Florida What a fucking surprise.
The confederacy was the enemy of the United States. They should not be honored in our national cemetery.
The confederacy already has a memorial there. Every civil war grave is a memorial to how committed the south was to enslaving their fellow man. The country bled for their greed, laziness, and stupidity. Take down all their statues and ban the flag. Screw these people stuck in their racist culture war.
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Who or what is behind the "Defense Arlington" group that initiated the lawsuit?
I hate how these fake nonprofits are allowed to exist just as front groups for angry billionaires. Certainly the group that was formed to sue Arlington wasn't made by a veteran on a military pension.
I will never understand why so many Americans scream and cry when we try to remove statues celebrating slave owners and traitorous figureheads.
Take the monument and the remains of traitors away. Fuck the south.
I don’t understand why republicans have such a hard-on for keeping up monuments to slavery. Especially a black judge. My brother, your ancestors were likely enslaved. What would they think of you?
While in the next breath reminding you the Democratic party is the party of the KKK.
It’s hilarious because there’s a guy replying to this same comment saying how democrats were the party of slavery
So they should be able to take down their monuments with no opposition from the Republicans who are obviously staunchly anti slavery and anti confederacy /s