MalDonald has got to go.
I was convinced of it months ago, but he has really done it this time.
You can't not say bad things about Nazis and White Supremists. He tried.
He equated a bunch of Nazis and White Supremists who were carrying heavy wood torches, batons, bats, police-quality shields, and AK-47s with those who were unarmed and protesting the demonstrations.
He defended people who arrived lethally armed at the removal of a statue of a traitor who were dedicated to prevent the removal of the statue,
Let us not ignore that Robert E Lee fought in rebellion to the Government. He made a very conscious decision to rebel. That may seem admirable in an age of State Rights, but keep in mind that 40% of the Southern Generals did make that same choice.
Robert E Lee did not start the war. The Governors of the Southern States did. THe Confederate Constitution specifically stated:
Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 prohibited the Confederate government from restricting slavery in any way:
"No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."
Article IV, Section 2 also prohibited states from interfering with slavery:
"The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and
immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right
of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their
slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves
shall not be thereby impaired."
Perhaps the most menacing provision of the Confederate States
Constitution was the explicit protection Article IV, Section 3, Clause 3
offered to slavery in all future territories conquered or acquired by
the Confederacy:
"The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall
have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of
all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the
limits of the several States; and may permit them, at such times, and in
such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted
into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro
slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized
and protected by Congress and by the Territorial government; and the
inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have
the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in
any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States."
So let it not be misunderstood. The Confederate rebellion was all about maintaining slavery.
There has been some argument I've seen lately that other people have had slaves. And that African tribes captured people of other tribes to be sold into slavery.
Slavery has existed from ancient times. My own ancestors were English serfs and essentially slaves. The Romans captured losing armies and enslaved them. Asians did the same. Everyone has done that in the past.
But it was never a racial assumption of slavery based on the idea of complete inferiority until the modern age of European colonialism.
And even then, when all other civilized nations had given up the idea, realizing that all people were equally human, equally capable of thought and education, the US South held on to that idea.
And the Southern Generals held onto that idea with dedication of mind and military action. The South said Africans were incapable of thought and culture in spite of the examples of literate and erudite Africans in the North.
And Robert E Lee was their leader. He chose to fight for Southern States that declared in their Consitutions that slavery was good for Africans.
He was a traitor to his country and it is past time we acknowledge that.
There should not be one single statue commemorating him. Not one commemorating Stonewall Jackson, JEB Stuart, or any other traitorous Southern general.
Robert E Lee and every Southern General should have been hung as traitors. That might have stopped the emerging KKK in it's tracks, but that is another post.
And President MalDonald thinks the South was right!
2 comments:
He's certainly a worry, your President. The merry-go-round of staffers coming and going in the West Wing is enough to make your head spin!
Megan
Sydney, Australia
Many of the confederate statues were not put up until the early 20th century. At that point it was a time when the KKK and others were looking to enact Jim Crow laws and "keep the colored folk" down. They were not erected in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War.
The statues need to be removed, put in a museum and correctly labeled as to what they were, trying to bring back and honor a system that wanted to enslave people.
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