Hey you hate-filled nazis and white supremacists...

[lordlundar]

The truly sad part about the General Lee statue is that the ones wanting it taken down did not do their research. If perspective was the only factor for joining a side Lee would have been a Union General, and in fact was even offered a position as such which he refused because he didn't want to be involved in the conflict. He only joined the Confederacy because Union forces attacked his home state.

[Canarr]

Another interesting article on free speech.

[s_stabeler]

there's also the fact that censoring the entire idea- that is, when "that's racist" is enough to shut down the argument completely- runs the risk of allowing bigots to use the "what the man doesn't want you to know" argument to encourage people to believe their bullshit.

to say nothing of the fact that sometimes attempts to get rid of the more...structural racism- that is, where it isn't bigotry as such, but where it's closer to "I never thought of that as being racist" it can come across sometimes as "I define what's racist" or even "disagreeing with a black person is racist" (itself a racist statement on the face of it. (that, and I've seen at least once where people have claimed that "racist" is specifically for white-on-black bigotry, while black-on-white is merely "racially-motivated"- that's not really a useful distinction.)

[Canarr]

Originally Posted by s_stabeler

there's also the fact that censoring the entire idea- that is, when "that's racist" is enough to shut down the argument completely- runs the risk of allowing bigots to use the "what the man doesn't want you to know" argument to encourage people to believe their bullshit.

That's a good point, yes. This article here has a few more arguments as to why even hateful speech shouldn't be censored. The best one is #4:

4) Censoring Nazis would weaken public virtue

Basically, the argument goes that suppressing unwanted speech not only silences the individual making the speech - without actually challenging his position to maybe make him change his mind - but also that the rest of society is weakened by it. We, as society, are absolved of having to think about possible bigotry ourselves, of having to make up our own mind about right and wrong, because someone else already decided that this particular idea is wrong. Not to mention that the bigotry is still there, festering, spreading in secret.

Honestly. what would've happened if nobody had actually gone to that rally in Charlottesville? If a few thousand right-wing nut jobs had just held their walk and talk, with no one there to watch? Would people even be talking about this? Would they have gotten this kind of publicity?

IMO, the best way to combat the views these people hold would've been to hold a counterprotest somewhere at the other end of the city, with no contact between the two groups. That way, the right-wingers can't claim that they were harassed, or attacked, and the people protesting could've still shown that their message has a lot more followers. It might even have been possible to discuss the removal of the statue on its own merit.

[s_stabeler]

I actually disagree- In my experience, counter-protests- where it's "we disagree with X protesters"- rarely achieve much, if anything. (not to mention it also leaves the argument of "they're just trying to shout us down because they can't handle the truth" open.)

I do agree, though, that they should have talked about why they thought the memorial should have been removed. (it's actually itself a topic that deserves debate about to what extent racism by an individual or group of individuals should bar commemoration of said individual or group of individuals. (The statue of a confederate soldier, that statue of Rhodes that students demanded the removal of, there are undoubtedly similar cases.)- it can give off the impression- how accurate it is I don't know- that there is something of historical revisionism going on to dehumanise racists- to make their racism the only part of them that's remembered. That's never a good thing- particularly since it's one of the few good arguments racists actually have ("if they are lying about X, how can you trust they are being honest about Y?" and/or "we oppose their lies about X")

[Tanasi]

This past week some nimrod coward poured paint over a memorial to the Confederate dead that died in a local battle. The another damn-yankee started a petition to remove the memorial then later the same day another yet another nimrod started a petition to keep the memorial in place.
Now the memorial has been cleaned by volunteers the city had too much other stuff to do. This weekend we have some local and damn-yankee KKK and whatnot's coming in to protest and their counter-protesters are also coming in. The police have a plan to block off a two block area and keep the feuding factions at least 100 yards apart. No visible weapons or objects that can be used as weapons, no back-packs, no masks, etc. I think the LEOs are even going to block the area so no motor vehicles can be used as weapons.
If I had my way the people of my AO that are tired of all this BS would wait until all these yahoos are there and then we surround them and proceed to beat the snot out of whole lot and let the out-of-towners know not to come back ever and just beat the piss out the local nimrods for not being smart enough to bring this crap into our AO.

That being said the odds of the memorial being moved are slim but it goes then so should the nearby yankee memorial. For disclosure purposes there are no yankees skeletons in my closet someone in my family has fought in every war this country has been involved since before it was founded.